NMH Magazine Winter 2009

Northfield Mount Hermon NMH

Magazine

09 winter 20 0 9 alumni magazine , volume 11, number 2

At Obama’s

Side

Valerie Jarrett ’74 Goes to Washington

IN THIS ISSUE: Faculty Footprints, Morning Chores

f e a t u r e s

12 An Old Hometown Mentor, Still at Obama’s Side

New White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett ’74 has ties with Michelle and Barack Obama that run deeper than politics.

18 Faculty Footprints

Dick Peller exemplifies NMH faculty who are committed to excellence in the classroom and who also sink deep roots into the community.

26 Morning Chores

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Photog ra p h by C ra ig Hefn e r

After nearly 30 years, Leila Philip ’79 dusts off her milking skills at the farm.

The lower levels of the Rhodes Arts Center echo New England barns and the NMH Farm just across the road.

NMH

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d e p a r t m e n t s

2 Letters

Readers write back.

3 Leading Lines

Charlie Tierney, assistant head of school, ruminates on thinking time and the value of manual labor.

4 Campus News

The latest goings-on at NMH

31 Alumni News

Golden moments in entertainment, Alumni Council news, and more

80 Parting Words

Photograph by ©Robert Benson

Robert A. Brooks ’71 reflects on how Mount Hermon prepared him for a midlife career change.

On the cover: Valerie Jarrett ’74 and Barack Obama consider dessert choices during a lunch break at Manny’s Coffee Shop and Deli in Chicago after the election in November.

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

NMH Magazine Winter 2009 Volume 11, Number 2 Editor Sally Atwood Hamilton ’65 Class Notes Editor Betsey Dickson Copy Editor Crystal McNeill Contributor Kate Snyder Archivist Peter Weis ’78 Design Bidwell ID Design and Production Manager Lisa Worden Photo Manager/Photographer Sharon LaBella-Lindale Photographers Glenn Minshall, Mark Yates Sports photography John and Matt Risley Class Notes Designer Harry van Baaren

Letters Coming Home Editorial changes are pretty rare at NMH. Since the mid-1980s, only four editors have shaped and filled the pages of this magazine. My path to NMH led me through four universities and the editorship of three alumni magazines—at MIT, Bucknell, and the University of Florida—and I gathered many awards along the way. But this editorial chair is like no other for me. When I arrived here in October of 2008, I came home both to the town and to the school. My father, Mif Atwood ’38, knew that Northfield was the kind of town where he wanted to raise his family, and so we moved here in 1950. Later my sister, Carol Atwood-Lyon ’62, and I both spent four transforming years at the Northfield School. We were two among thousands of young people who can and do say that this place changed their lives.

It’s a privilege and an inspiration to be here now, using the skills I’ve developed over my lifetime to bring you the stories that have and continue to make this school so special. You are part of that story, and I hope you’ll be in touch with me to share your good news, your accomplishments, your perspectives, and your ideas. In the meantime, I will search out the people, the places, and the slices of life on campus that allow you to see the NMH of today and re-experience the soul we all know.

sally atwood hamilton ’65

shamilton@nmhschool.org

Chief Advancement Officer Allyson L. Goodwin ’83, P ’12 Director of Communications and Marketing Heather R. Sullivan Editorial Board John Adams, Mark Auerbach ’68, Carol Blomquist Brown ’53, Fei Chen ’09, Ross Connelly P ’09, Bob Cooley, Brooke Evans ’08, Allyson Goodwin ’83, P ’12, Susan Jarzyna P ’09, Jerry Reneau, Heather R. Sullivan, Kate Snyder, Peter Weis ’78 Northfield Mount Hermon School publishes NMH Magazine (USPS074-860) three times a year in October, February, and June.

Printed by Lane Press, Burlington, VT 05402.

Editorial Office NMH Magazine Northfield Mount Hermon School One Lamplighter Way Mount Hermon, MA 01354 413-498-3247 Fax 413-498-3021 Class Notes 413-498-3672 Fax 413-498-3164 nmhnotes@nmhschool.org Address Changes Central Records, Revell Hall Northfield Mount Hermon One Lamplighter Way Mount Hermon MA 01354 413-498-3300 addressupdates@nmhschool.org

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On “Writing Lessons” I find it amazing that when Ted Thornton lauds the traits to accept differences, to treat others such as we would wish for ourselves in return, to practice critical self-scrutiny and freedom of thought, to accept differences of religion and ethnicity, and liberation of women, he frames it as principles of classical Islamic civilization, but fails to even mention our own incredible country that actually performs all these thanks to JudeoChristian values. NMH’s founder, D. L. Moody, would remind Mr. Thornton that Jesus taught to remove the log from your own eye before attempting to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye, to throw the first stone at a sinner only if you were without sin yourself, and to remember the Good Samaritan, who helped someone in need, regardless of class or race. These are the values that not only lie at the heart of American civilization, but in the heart of each individual who chooses to follow.

carol montgomery sherick ’74 Las Cruces, NM Response to Carol Montgomery Sherick: My piece was excerpted from a sabbatical report I delivered to the faculty about a book on tolerance

in Islam I had translated from Arabic. I gave the talk while standing beneath the portrait of Moody that hangs on the wall in Grandin. The faculty thinks and speaks constantly about Moody. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always informed the teaching and learning that goes on here and always will. The fact that Islamic civilization throughout the ages has, with exceptions to be sure, also emphasized tolerance should in no sense be seen as slighting the traditions you mention.

Ted Thornton

Letter to My Son One fall long ago, while trying to convey the dignified agony of a innocent man getting crushed by stones in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, I had the great good fortune to benefit from David Rowland’s teaching and acting prowess: I recall vividly his vigorous language and enthusiastic gesticulations as he held up the rehearsal to focus on the gravity of my mere two words: “More weight.” This while aspiring actress Uma Thurman looked on.

Although nowadays my only acting comes during Powerpoint presentations, I frequently recall David’s lessons regarding the “extraordinary relationship” that exists between actors

Letters continued on page 30

by he ad of school thomas k . sturtevant by assistant charlie tierney

Leading Lines

Marinating Time In his bestseller The Botany of Desire, author Michael Pollan explains that the idea for his book germinated one May afternoon while working in his garden. He describes sowing seeds as “pleasant, desultory, not terribly challenging work; there’s plenty of space left over for thinking about other things while you’re doing it.”

All NMH students and alumni recognize what Pollan is on to.

Good work can be demanding, requiring engagement and focus in the moment. Yet good work also can provoke reflection and a healthy dose of daydreaming. I can only wonder how many essay topics have been fleshed-out or problems resolved while picking raspberries, scrubbing pots in Alumni Hall, or vacuuming carpet in Beveridge classrooms.

I have come to realize that now more than ever these periodic opportunities to reflect are important for me. Cooking, restoring an antique cape and its barns, and gardening are several of my interests that approach the goal, yet for me, whenever I handle cordwood, I simultaneously achieve the benefits of old-fashioned labor along with time to think.

Several years ago, my wife Gina capitulated to my long-waged campaign to buy a chainsaw. Her earlier arguments were logical and difficult to minimize: 1. You were raised in suburban Connecticut and have never even handled a chainsaw. 2. You really are not as handy with tools as you think you are. 3. We can buy firewood whenever we need it.

When some campus maples significantly past their prime were cut down that summer, I took up the chainsaw cause again and successfully argued: 1. Cutting, splitting, and stacking wood is excellent exercise for a fellow in his mid-40s. 2. Given the costs and problems associated with fossil fuels, heating with cordwood from campus is a “greener” alternative. 3. I would be joining the ranks of other faculty—Bill Batty ’59, David Dowdy, Richard Odman, Nick Fleck, and Gerry Davis—who collected firewood. 4. This wood is absolutely “free”!

After purchasing an 18-inch, 3.8 horsepower, German-engineered chainsaw and case, kevlar chaps, helmet with faceguard and ear protection, steel-toed

work boots, a spare chain, bar and chain oil, a fuel container, 2-cycle oil, and gas, I was ready to process my “free” firewood.

I spent five blissful and backbreaking days cutting the downed trees and hauling wood to North Farmhouse. The process resulted in nearly five cords of wood and also provided hours of valuable marinating time. In addition to thinking about important school issues, such as strategic planning and master planning, I considered the daily headlines or the stories I heard on NPR. I tinkered with concepts for a new history course and even a senior seminar based on Shakespeare. I began outlining a cookbook project that had been on the backburner and evaluated whether to start taking music lessons again after nearly 25 years.

At times, I found myself musing over the history of each tree.

Given the girth of some, I imagined that D. L. Moody passed by these maples during their youth. The holes left by metal taps from sugaring days made me wonder which ones were real producers and whether previous faculty children had savored maple syrup made from their sap. I once found myself blurting out some choice words for the person who had shored up the weak crotch in one tree with a long iron bolt that my chainsaw encountered amidst an unexpected shower of sparks.

Late this fall, another ancient maple that threatened to topple onto North Farmhouse during a heavy wind was taken down. Having appeared as manna from heaven, that maple was all mine. I donned my safety gear and grabbed my now trusty chainsaw. There was good work to be done before this new cordwood was cut, split, and stacked. And I had a lot of thinking to do, too. As I stepped off the front porch, I wondered whether Gina would agree to buy a more powerful chainsaw. I also had a lot of time to plan my case for investing in a professional hydraulic wood splitter— given all of this “free” wood that recently has come our way.

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Campus News Live, From the Top

T

he Rhodes Arts Center and the NMH Select Women’s Ensemble made their debuts on National Public Radio last fall during a live taping of From the Top, one of public radio’s most-heard programs. The show, hosted by acclaimed pianist Christopher O’Riley, airs weekly on more than 200 National Public Radio stations and reaches more than 750,000 listeners nationwide.

Celebrating the excellence of America’s best young classical musicians, From the Top’s NMH show was recorded in Raymond Hall and featured four musicians from around the United States in addition to SWE. The show aired in mid-January, and the archived recording is available at www.fromthetop.org.

The 23-member ensemble sang “Had I the Heaven’s Embroidered Cloths,” based on a poem

by W.B. Yeats with music composed by Michael Cleveland.

“SWE was the only vocal performance of the show,” says Nicole Dancel ’09. “I think the only word I could use to describe the performance is ‘beautiful.’ We had worked so hard to nail the song because we knew how important this performance was. We learned the notes as well as we could have and knew all we had to do was relax and sing. When we did, all the notes just fell into place.”

“Learning from the other musicians was great,” says Tessa Gobbo ’09. “They had such a sense of dedication and were so

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talented, but they were also just regular kids who could goof off with the best of them.”

O’Riley also interviewed performers about their music and their lives. He spoke to Dancel, Gobbo, and Eshalla Merriam ’09, who talked about singing with alumni in the Rhodes Arts Center before the floors had been laid.

SWE is conducted by Sheila Heffernon and accompanied

by Marianne Lockwood. From the Top is produced in association with WGBH Radio Boston and the New England Conservatory of Music with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

—Heather Sullivan

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Path for the Future

Gallery Browsing In its first year the new gallery on the main street of the Rhodes Arts Center has made fine art a part of daily life. Through its first six months, gallery director Phil Calabria has organized five shows, including works by the visual arts faculty, paintings by Susan Bull Riley P ’07, photographs by former faculty member David Torcoletti, and selected works from the NMH collection.

arts, build pride and success in athletics, improve faculty housing, and move to campus administrative offices and faculty still at Northfield.

To establish financial sustainability the school will balance operating expenses and revenues, raise funds for capital improvements, and sell the Northfield campus and other Northfield properties.

In addition to determining the guideposts for the school, the strategic planning process included a review and revision of the NMH mission statement. The group of senior staff, alumni, students, and faculty drafted a succinct statement that is now being reviewed.

The completed strategic plan will be rolled out in the fall.

Upcoming shows include the NMH Student Art Show, March 25–April 22, and Works from the Ann Tennenbaum ’79 and Thomas Lee Collection, May 2–June 7.

Susan Bull Riley

Footprints may show us where we’ve been, but they can also show us where we’re headed. NMH’s recently adopted strategic plan will provide a pathway into the future and guide decision making at the school over the coming three to five years. The three goals of the plan— academic excellence, community, and financial sustainability—will help administrators and the Board of Trustees make decisions that strengthen the school and enhance its distinctive qualities.

“I believe in the power of this plan,” says Head of School Thomas K. Sturtevant.

“Measuring our decision-making against the priorities of the strategic plan is practical and purposeful. We will become a better school because we are clearly focused on how our choices can benefit our students.”

The plan spells out ways the school will achieve each goal. To support academic excellence, the school will clarify its academic program, create new academic facilities that facilitate interdisciplinary teaching, develop integrated curricula, and increase financial aid and faculty salaries.

To enhance the school’s sense of community, it will improve the work program, review the residential life system, strengthen advising, develop diversity programs, preserve and honor NMH’s heritage and traditions, deepen the benefits of the

Compassionate Mandala Two Buddhist monks and a musician, all exiled from Tibet, spent four days on campus in the fall as part of a US tour to increase awareness for the need for compassion in our lives. They created a sacred sand painting, or mandala, in Grandin Hall with colored sand poured carefully into an intricate circular pattern. The 2,500-year-old practice of sand painting symbolizes the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

At the end of the week, the mandala was destroyed and the sand was scattered along Shadow Lake. The monks held guided meditations, spoke to the NMH community, and attended classes. Their visit ended with a Concert for Peace.

This was the inaugural event in the new Ed and Ginny Brooks Speaker Series, sponsored by Juan Fernando Conde ’82 as a tribute to two of his former NMH religion teachers.

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FRONT-ROW SEAT: The Macro View

Hoggers Shoot for No. 1 NMH’s boys varsity basketball team is aiming high—first in the nation high. Head Coach John Carroll ’89 says he drew inspiration from the success of NMH’s singers, who maintain excellent academic records and present high-caliber performances. Back in 2002 he asked, Why not shoot for the pinnacle in basketball? After stepping up recruiting efforts through the years, the team’s record stands at 16 and 5 so far this season.

Meanwhile, one online prep basketball poll ranked the team fourth in the country. And University of Louisville recruit Mike Marra ’09 was named the top shooter by the same poll, up from fourth last year.

What is it about this crew that excites those who watch it from outside? The same stuff that gets Carroll going: “They have good character, they’re smart, and they’re really good at basketball.”

The nation’s leading colleges have not overlooked that hat trick of skills. Peter McMillan ’09 committed to Cornell University, Andrew McCarthy ’09 heads to Brown University after graduation, and Brian Fitzpatrick ’09 will attend the University of Pennsylvania. McMillan, McCarthy, and Fitzpatrick will travel to Los Angeles in May to participate in the first Academic All-American games, all-star contests among the sport’s top high school students sponsored by the Magic Johnson Foundation; Carroll will join them and coach the East Coast team.

—Catherine Snyder To read more about the team, go to www.nmh school.org/athletics/basketball/boys/index.php.

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Peter Snedecor’s AP Economics class is studying recessions. On the eve of the presidential election, the federal government approved a $700 billion rescue plan for an economy squeezed by a credit crisis born from bad bets in the mortgage lending business. At NMH, students are discussing the merits of government intervention to solve economic problems.

Snedecor describes how injections of capital, for example a government stimulus package, affect consumer spending habits. “If I came from outer space and gave you $1,000, Sam, you’d spend $900.” Sam Hoefle ’09 smiles at the idea. “He’d save 10 percent,” Snedecor tells the class.

Snedecor goes on to explain how that $1,000 investment is circulated, and then stretches the metaphor to the previous evening’s game five of the World Series in Philadelphia. “Probably 60,000 people, maybe 40,000 from out of town, had dinner in Philly last night. A whole lot of waitresses got big tips because people are happy. So a waitress goes out, she’s got this extra money, and buys a new iPod. The iPod seller has extra income. So he decides to go out and spend, as well.”

There’s a formula to describe it. 1/1-MPC=1/MPS. Looks tricky, but it’s simple: One over one minus the Marginal Propensity to Consume (how much one spends over how much one receives) equals one over the Marginal Propensity to Save.

Snedecor translates: What the formula tells us is that, “if you have a recessionary gap (unemployment) you can use this multiplier to goose up the economy.”

The students head to the board to apply the formula as Snedecor offers hypothetical numbers. They are to calculate how much of a stimulus to give citizens if full employment is 2,000, current employment is 1,600, and the Marginal Propensity to Consume is four-fifths. The students struggle to find the answer, and so Snedecor works the numbers through. As students start to catch on they follow his lead. The class agrees that in this example, if the government gives everyone $80, it will stimulate enough spending to get the economy back on track.

The discussion morphs into a political one. If getting people spending again is the goal, Snedecor says, is it better to give tax breaks to the wealthy or to the middle class and poor? “The supply-siders (including thenRepublican-presidential-candidate John McCain) say give it to the wealthy, it’ll trickle down. If I give Bill Gates $1,000 is he going to spend it?” Pause.

“Maybe. He’ll give it to his accountant and say, deal with this. But $1,000 is pocket change to Bill Gates. If I give a blue collar guy in Greenfield $1,000, he’s going to buy milk for his family; he’s got a car loan to pay.”

Looking back from post-November 4, it seems the majority of the electorate agreed.

—Catherine Snyder

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Maple Sautéed Kale September is “Locavore Month” in my home state of Vermont. People put away their Diet Pepsi and Lean Cuisine and opt for a healthier and more local diet. This year I decided to join them and spend one week eating food grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of NMH. I locked away my supply of Reese’s Cups, stopped going to Alumni Hall, and bought and prepared my own local menus, frying pans a-blazing.

Dedicating a week to consuming foods prepared outside of the dining hall was a seven-day challenge to see if I could support Massachusetts farmers. Finding these farms was not hard; the Connecticut River Valley is such a fertile area, it was easy to find the products I wanted and at reasonable prices, too. My pursuit was not to eat as a purist, so I decided to use as many as 10 ingredients that could not be produced within the surrounding towns. These included olive oil, balsamic vinegar, yeast, baking soda, and salt.

Deciding what I should eat for a week was exciting. I was my own chef, and I had free reign of teachers’ kitchens, to either screw up or make something truly wonderful. My diet included maple sautéed kale and potatoes, cheddar stuffed garlic and basil hamburgers, and whole-wheat cheese pizza with basil, caramelized onions, and melted mozzarella. The pizza lasted five days and was supplemented by salad, bread and cheese, and hard boiled eggs.

During the week I lost five pounds but even more memorable was the sense of community I felt. Friends drove me from co-ops to farms, so I could collect my goods. Teachers opened their kitchens to me, and classmates donated eggs, cheese, and kale. Students in the AP Biology class made yogurt and donated it to my cause. I was invited to pick as many raspberries, cherry tomatoes, and basil stems as I needed from the NMH Farm. These kindnesses reminded me of the basic principles behind food preparation and meals—mealtime is meant to be communal, to nourish relationships as well as minds and bodies. On my last day I made whole-wheat raspberry pancakes and invited a few good friends to dine with me.

There was no better way to end my week then to sit on couches with my close friends and fill up on maple-syrup-drenched pancakes. Although the moment seemed inconsequential at the time, looking back I realize that it was one of the greatest meals I’ve had at NMH. By cooking and sharing food with others, I was upholding the traditional values of mealtime, and I was able to spend time with my friends in a different, more personal context.

Being a Locavore for a week was not easy. Some days I had to make do with the same meal for lunch and dinner. I sacrificed social time in Alumni Hall for nutritional time in the Lower South Crossley lounge. I did take advantage of the dining hall by drinking the NMH Farm milk, eating some of the locally purchased vegetables, and indulging when NMH Farm ice cream was available for dessert. After preparing 21 meals, I looked forward to returning to Alumni Hall where the meals were planned, someone else cleaned the dishes, and the food was fresh. Currently a bag with three kale leaves sits in the dorm fridge, waiting to be cooked and eaten, but for now I think I am going to polish off the cupcake sitting next to me. The kale will have to wait.

—Anna Stevens ’09 This essay was originally written for a creative nonfiction English course taught by Meg Donnelly during the fall semester.

Winter Harvest The NMH farm offers products ranging from luscious raspberry jam to smooth maple cream—all made with the help of students.

order form Return a copy of this order form, along with a check payable to Northfield Mount Hermon School, to: Richard Odman, Farm Program Director, NMH, One Lamplighter Way, Mount Hermon, MA 01354. Please attach mailing instructions to your order. All prices include shipping. Please note: The minimum order for each mailing address is $25, due to increased shipping costs.

Name Address City State Telephone

Zip

❑ day ❑ evening

MAPLE PRODUCTS

QUANTITY

Pint syrup (Grade A)

$18.00

Quart syrup (Grade A)

$24.00

Half gallon syrup (Grade A) $33.00 Pure maple sugar candy

$3.50

One box contains two 1-oz. maple leaves

Maple cream 8-oz. jar

$9.00

FRUIT & FLOWER PRODUCTS

Raspberry jam 12-oz. jar Lavender oil blended with almond oil 1.3-oz.

Lavender soap TOTAL

$9.00 $10.00 $6.50 Winter | 09

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Good News By the end of the fall semester, many seniors had already received fat envelopes from their preferred colleges. Here’s a sampling of schools that accepted NMH seniors who applied for early consideration.

B ates B owdoin B rown C ollege of the Holy Cross C ornell D artmouth G eorgetown M IT Trinity Tufts University of Chicago University of Pennsylvania Wesleyan

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Overheard If everyone in the world consumed as much as the United States,

the world would need five planets.

—Annie Leonard, environmental activist and filmmaker at an all-school meeting

You have an opportunity to be citizen activists in a way that people couldn’t be before the Internet came along.

—John Hinderaker, lawyer, conservative activist, and public policy commentator at an all-school meeting

Win a Pie It’s not hard to peddle apple pies to NMH runners in the fall. On November 12, 405 racers lined up for the 118th running of the Beemis-Forslund Pie Race and about 110 went home with warm pies from Alumni Hall. The time to beat for a pie was 33 minutes for male students and young alums, and 38 minutes for female students and young alums. For masters, the pie-winning time was 38 minutes for men and 43 minutes for women.

Kendall Davis ’09 hit the finish line first, and Hannah Ryan ’09 finished first among female racers. First-place among alumni runners went to Jeff Breau ’07 for men and Meghan Bathory-Peeler ’92 for women. Juan Conde ’82 won the men’s master category, and Sidney Letendre P ’09 placed first in the female master category.

There were plenty of pie racers in training this year. Forty-five tarts went to children under 12 who ran a shorter course.

Waste Not It’s no secret that NMH students eat a lot of food and now they have an idea of just how much they waste.

Amy Lai ’10 organized two WeighYour-Waste lunches at Alumni Hall this fall as part of her semester-long work job there as an Eco-Leader. She set up a bin each for solid food and liquids just outside the dish room and collected everything thrown away from the meal.

The first day NMH diners discarded 67 pounds of food and 28 pounds of liquids. They improved those numbers to 48 pounds and 20 pounds respectively when Lai called for a zero waste meal in late November.

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Lai says she hopes students will be more thoughtful about serving sizes in the future. Since food waste cannot be composted due to health-related legislation, it goes into landfills, where it releases methane gas as it breaks down.

Eco-Leader is a new work job proposed by the Task Force on Sustainability and implemented last year. Students are chosen through an application process each semester. EcoLeaders work with operational departments to help establish sustainable practices and to disseminate information about sustainability related to that department.

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NMH’s production of the musical Carousel is the first in the school’s history to involve these multiple disciplines: visual arts, theater, dance, instrumental music, and singing. The Rhodes Arts Center’s End Stage Theater houses an orchestra pit where student instrumentalists accompanied the action. Here, Maine townsfolk belt out the immortal tune “Real Nice Clambake.”

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A Case for Make Believe America loves banning things, author John Irving P ’83, P ’10 told a crowd gathered during Banned Book Week last fall. Abortions, alcoholic beverages, access to condoms…all have been restricted in America, he said. And three of Irving’s 11 novels have been challenged or banned.

The World According to Garp, Irving’s fourth and breakthrough novel, was banned from many libraries and schools because of sexual references. The Cider House Rules was banned because the protagonist is an ether-addicted doctor who performs abortions. Then he penned A Prayer for Owen Meany, which was antiwar and made fun of God, or so thought the people who hadn’t read it but heard that it mocked the birth of Jesus. “Most of the time, people banning books haven’t read the books,” he said.

Banning books may stimulate sales, but the practice can have serious consequences. In 1989, Irving’s friend, Salman Rushdie, was condemned to death in a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini

for what was called anti-Islamic writing in The Satanic Verses. Rushdie had a one-million-dollar price on his head and moved 56 times in one year.

Irving listed many of the great works of literature that have been silenced at one time or other, including three plays produced at NMH last year— The Crucible, Lord of the Flies, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the latter presumably because it involved crossdressing. Irving told a story about his grandfather “a seriously stern guy— except at the theater.”

On stage his grandfather usually played women’s roles. He portrayed a “crazy woman who bit her own hands, a bride ditched at the altar, a serial killer.”

From backstage, Irving watched “the disapproving faces…the hard-eyed faces.”

Inside he wanted to ask, “‘Don’t you get it? It’s just make-believe.’”

That’s the problem with many who ban books, Irving said. They claim, “You can’t make believe this. You can’t make believe that.”

Irving paused. “Yes you can,” he insisted. “You can make believe anything you want.”

—Catherine Snyder

Show Me the Way Drive down Route 10 these days and you’ll see a prominent new sign marking the main entrance to NMH. Located close to the road on state-owned land, the simple off-white sign with black letters is part of a new campuswide signage system that made its debut this fall. The new signs will mark entrances, provide directions, and identify buildings at the school.

Planning for the signs, which reflect the New England rural sign tradition, started shortly after the move to one campus. “There was no clear navigation system,” says Charlie Tierney, assistant head of school, “and we realized that people from off campus couldn’t find their way to athletic events, arts performances, or to the admission office.”

The comprehensive plan will go up in stages and may be embellished in the future as the school develops its visual identity plan.

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olger House, the newest building at NMH, is quickly moving from blueprints to bricks and mortar. Construction fences went up in the fall and steel girders sprouted quickly behind them. Designed to relate to the nearby original cottages that now house the Freshman Village, Bolger House also offers an expansive porch reminiscent of those at Northfield and a spectacular view across the playing fields to the hills beyond. Architect Sherif Anis ’85, who also designed the Rhodes Arts Center, says the porch was envisioned as an after-hours gathering place for students and alumni.

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Steve Cole ’68, center, talked with Linda HoffHagensick ’67 and Michael Peterson P ’08 at the Chicago campaign event.

From Cape Cod to Chicago, Philadelphia to Phoenix, Seattle to Shanghai, Head of School Thomas K. Sturtevant is celebrating Northfield Mount Hermon’s 130 years of history with alumni, parents, and friends and thanking donors in person for their confidence and generosity.

“The momentum and success of our campaign is paying off in countless ways: We have exceptional facilities, great teachers, and an extraordinary range of opportunities for students,” Sturtevant has been telling guests.

Steve Cole ’68, who attended the October gathering in Chicago shared his perspective as the parent of a current student, Andrew ’12: “NMH is instructive to one’s character and shapes one’s potential for a meaningful life. The learning begins the day you set foot on campus and stays with you the rest of your life. Andrew is extending our family’s love affair with NMH.” Cole’s father and two brothers also graduated from NMH.

To find out more about the campaign, visit campaign.nmhschool.org/news.php.

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Valerie Jarrett ’74 has been a mentor and confident to Barack and Michelle Obama for nearly two decades. She was a trusted advis0r during Obama’s primary and presidential campaigns, a co-chair of his transition team, and now she’s one of his closest advisors in the White House. In November The New York Times explored her relationship with the Obamas in this story.

AN OLD HOMETOWN

MENTOR, STILL AT OBAMA’S SIDE

By Jodi Kantor

Chicago—On a dark afternoon last week, the road to Jerusalem and Beijing momentarily veered through the office of a real estate company here.

Valerie Jarrett, the company’s chief executive, had signed her resignation letter an hour earlier, and now she was taking phone calls from potential top diplomatic appointees.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she said soothingly to a booming male voice on her cellphone. “I just wanted you to have a chance to make your case.”

If someone were to rank the long list of people who helped Barack and Michelle Obama get where they are today, Ms. Jarrett would be close to the top. Nearly two decades ago, Ms. Jarrett swept the young lawyers under her wing, introduced them to a wealthier and better-connected Chicago than their own, and eventually secured contacts and money essential to Mr. Obama’s long-shot Senate victory.

AT HIS RIGHT HAND Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett getting lunch last week in Chicago. Ms. Jarrett took Mr. Obama under her wing nearly two decades ago. >>

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Credit: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

In the crush of his presidential campaign, Ms. Jarrett could have fallen by the wayside, as old mentors often do.

But the opposite happened: Using her intimacy with the Obamas, two BlackBerrys and a cellphone, Ms. Jarrett, a real estate executive and civic leader with no national campaign experience, became an internal mediator and external diplomat who secured the trust of black leaders, forged peace with Clintonites and helped talk Mr. Obama through major decisions.

She “automatically understands your values and your vision,” Michelle Obama said in a telephone interview Friday, and is “somebody never afraid to tell you the truth.” Mrs. Obama added: “She knows the buttons, the soft spots, the history, the context.”

In January, Ms. Jarrett will go to the White House as a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, where she will be “one of the four or five people in the room with him when decisions get made,” as Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist close to Mr. Obama, put it. Ms. Jarrett, who is a co-chairwoman of Mr. Obama’s transition effort, will also serve as the White House contact for local and state officials across the nation and the point person for Mr. Obama’s effort to build a channel between his White House and ordinary Americans.

Less formally, she intends to help Mr. Obama preserve his essential self as he becomes president, even as she becomes the type of person who chats with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, mingles with Warren Buffett and is now sometimes greeted by strangers.

Washingtonians who assess the new White House crew sometimes cast Ms. Jarrett in parochial terms: she is the hometown buddy, they say, or the one who will hear out the concerns of black leaders. They note that presidential friends do not always fare well in the capital, that confidants from Arkansas and Texas have stumbled in the corridors of the West Wing.

Asked what was her biggest worry about the job, which is a major leap from anything she has undertaken before, Ms. Jarrett said she sometimes feared she did not know enough.

“I will try to do my homework,” she said.

Ms. Jarrett, 52, has often been underestimated: perhaps because she is often the only black woman at the boardroom tables where she sits, or perhaps because she can seem girlish, with a pixie haircut, singsong voice and suits that earned her a recent profile in Vogue.

A protégée of Mayor Richard M. Daly of Chicago, Ms. Jarrett served as his planning commissioner, ran a real estate company, the Habitat Company — whose management of public housing projects has come under scrutiny with Ms. Jarrett’s rise — and sits on too many boards to count.

She is an expert in urban affairs, particularly housing and transportation, in an administration expected to lavish more money and attention on cities than its predecessors.

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“ I can count on someone like Valerie to take my hand and say, You need to think about these three things…

I trust her implicitly.”

—Michelle Obama

AND AT HER RIGHT HAND Ms. Jarrett in March at Mr. Obama’s talk on race, with, from left, Eric H. Holder Jr., expected to be named attorney general; Michelle Obama; and Martin Nesbitt, the campaign treasurer. >>

And she has something no other adviser in the Obama White House ever will: ties to the president-elect and future first lady that go deeper than a political alliance. Ms. Jarrett is only a few years older than the Obamas, but her relationship with them can seem almost maternal. “I can count on someone like Valerie to take my hand and say, You need to think about these three things,” Mrs. Obama said. “Like a mom, a big sister, I trust her implicitly.”

During big speeches, Ms. Jarrett watched Mr. Obama with a gaze of such intensity that he and their other friends laugh about it. “Barack always jokes, You can’t look Valerie in the eye, she’s going to make you cry,” said Martin Nesbitt, the treasurer of the campaign.

Early Lessons on Race Ms. Jarrett plans to arrive at the White House with her list of “life lessons,” 21 aphorisms she ticks off in speeches and

Credit: Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

keeps on her computer hard drive. (“All leaders are passionate about their beliefs, even the ones you don’t like.” “Put yourself in the path of lightning.”)

The life lessons started in Shiraz, Iran, where Valerie Bowman Jarrett was born in 1956. Her parents moved there after her father, a physician, was offered less pay in Chicago than his white peers. When the Bowmans tried to teach their young daughter about race, the lessons made no sense to her: Valerie, who has light skin, would protest that the Iranians around her had darker skin, so why was she the black one?

When her family returned to Chicago via England, she showed up in public school speaking Farsi, French and English with a British accent. “It was a rude awakening,” she said. Decades later, at the dinner that started their friendship, Ms. Jarrett and Mr. Obama bonded over their far-flung childhoods and initial confusion about race. “I wasn’t burdened by a personal history of prejudice,” she said. “It’s part of why I thought Barack could win.”

Ms. Jarrett, a lawyer with degrees from Stanford and the University of Michigan, first met Mr. Obama during her successful courtship of his fiancée, Michelle Robinson, for a job at City Hall, and from that night onward, she was someone with whom the young lawyers could discuss their ambitions. “They could talk openly about desires, wishes, dreams,” said Desiree Rogers, a friend.

The Obamas were from modest backgrounds, and Ms. Jarrett represented the sophistication and intellectual polish of Hyde Park, the Chicago neighborhood they shared.

Her mother, Barbara Bowman, is a child psychologist, and through the generations her family had consistently broken barriers: her great-grandfather was the first black graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her father the first black tenured professor in his department at the University of Chicago.

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called—but she drew them deep into her world, taking them to Sunday dinners at her parents’ house, where Hyde Park’s leading lights gathered over green beans and tomatoes from the garden. Eventually, she even invited the Obamas to vacation with her in the elite black enclaves of Martha’s Vineyard, introducing them to others in her high-achieving family, including a cousin, Ann Jordan, the wife of the Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan, to whom Ms. Jarrett has frequently turned for advice.

In her years at City Hall, Ms. Jarrett absorbed several Daley leadership precepts: tough negotiation, pragmatism and block-by-block attention to the city’s fabric. She developed a specialty in dealing with extremely angry people.

After a flood swept through the basements of downtown offices in 1992, Ms. Jarrett had the unenviable task of talking to the building owners. A few years later, as chairwoman of the Chicago Transit Authority, Ms. Jarrett had to defend service cuts before irate residents.

Her rule became, Never argue back. “She almost refuses to react,” said MarySue Barrett, a former colleague, adding that Ms. Jarrett often surprises opponents by agreeing with them and then suggesting concrete measures to help.

Ms. Jarrett, who was briefly married to a physician who died a few years after their divorce, is a single mother of a daughter, Laura, a Harvard Law student. She jokes about how hard it is for a successful black woman in her 50s to find a suitable date. For years, she has thrown herself into work, civic commitments and supporting Mr. Obama’s career. She held a book party in 1995 for the publication of his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” (Twenty people came, her mother recalled.) From then she never stopped introducing him, eventually signing on as the finance chairwoman of his Senate campaign.

“Her approach would be, I have somebody I think is really fantastic, and he’s a dear friend, and would you take the time to meet him?” said Linda Johnson Rice, the head of the publishing company that owns Ebony and Jet magazines.

A Campaign Ombudsman In July 2007, Mr. Obama gathered his top campaign advisers around Ms. Jarrett’s dining table, where the group ticked off their problems. Mrs. Clinton, then the front-runner in the Democratic primary, had far more extensive relationships with local officials and ethnic leaders across the country, and David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, did not have the time or chatty temperament to create them. “We had gone though this arid summer in which our national poll numbers were dropping,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist.

Soon the Obamas visited Ms. Jarrett on Martha’s Vineyard.

“I need all hands on deck, and that’s you,” Mr. Obama told

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Ms. Jarrett as the three sat on a deck, staring at the waves, she recalled.

“She brought a perspective that was slightly removed from the maelstrom,” Mr. Axelrod said. During the campaign’s many tricky discussions about race and strategy, Ms. Jarrett was often the only black person at the table. And while her lack of campaign experience sometimes frustrated political operatives, they dared not protest, because of her relationship with the Obamas.

Ms. Jarrett took on two roles, one internal and the other external. The Obama campaign has often been described as so harmonious that, as one blogger joked, its members e-mailed hug-o-grams to one another all day. In fact, the campaign had the usual share of conflict, but also the ability to resolve the tensions before they became public or disabling. Ms. Jarrett served as a kind of ombudsman.

“People who had an issue could raise it with somebody at the highest level in a safe way,” said Michael Strautmanis, who will be one of Ms. Jarrett’s White House deputies.

“They’re able to move on and do their job.”

To the outside world, Ms. Jarrett became an all-purpose ambassador. Before the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Jarrett tried to persuade black leaders that Mr. Obama could prevail; afterwards, she had to deal with their jitters. At one nerve-racking meeting last summer, Ms. Jarrett met in New York with black leaders, including the hip-hop moguls Sean Combs and Russell Simmons, Mr. Simmons grew so anxious that he had to leave the room, Ms. Jarrett said. They were worried that Mr. Obama was failing to fight back against attempts to stereotype him in racial terms.

“She could have told the room, You’re right, I will talk to Senator Obama,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton. Instead, Ms. Jarrett was blunt. “There are those who are going to fight the race gap, but that’s not our role,” she said, telling the leaders to channel their energy into concrete tasks like voter registration.

“Miss Reality herself,” Mr. Sharpton now calls Ms. Jarrett.

“There are unrealistic expectations of African-Americans about Barack Obama,” he said. “The one person who I think could come to the White House and say to AfricanAmericans, Now get real, is Valerie Jarrett.”

Ms. Jarrett also led the Obama campaign’s diplomatic missions to disappointed supporters of Mrs. Clinton. Like any skillful envoy, she alternated between speaking for the candidate, giving her audience assurances about how he would treat Mrs. Clinton, and refusing to speak for him, declining to make specific promises because she was not the candidate and could make no guarantees.

“What Valerie developed is the art of telling people to go to hell and making them look forward to the trip,” said Mr. Jordan, who advised his wife’s cousin throughout the campaign.

“ He knows the Senate, he knows me, and he knows what he was looking for in the White House…

I trusted him to make the decision.”

Other NMH alumni mentioned in this story are Jarrett’s mother, Barbara Taylor Bowman ’46, and her cousin, Ann Dibble Jordan ’51.

A Transition of Her Own Ms. Jarrett’s life now is a strange amalgam of Chicago and Washington: she is shutting down business at home, dining with Bush administration officials who quietly offer advice, and wondering where to live and eat and shop in the capital.

(Her personal shopper at Nordstrom in Chicago, Ms. Jarrett says, “sends the store” to her.)

In recent weeks, she has been helping Mr. Obama choose his cabinet in long meetings at his transition office, a process she likens to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Some candidates call her before and after they see the president-elect, seeking a sense of what to expect and, afterward, a clue as to how the session went.

She has not yet figured out how to accomplish her new role as emissary in the White House, somehow making sure that state and local officials, interest groups and individual citizens “have a place to go.” “You can’t just leave it to meetings and telephone calls, because the base is so broad,” she said.

Already, she trades calls with leaders across the country: Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, whom she befriended on the campaign trail; Mr. Schwarzenegger offered an update on the wildfires and an idea for an energy conference.

“The scale of it will be bracing,” Mr. Axelrod said of the requests and demands Ms. Jarrett will hear.

The potentially precarious thing about Ms. Jarrett’s role, said some Washington veterans, is that it is based on a friendship that will be transformed when Mr. Obama becomes the president and Ms. Jarrett his employee.

“The thing you have to be careful about,” said Steven A. Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist, “is moving from having a friendship with someone to working for them, in a structure where there are other people between you and the president.”

And Ms. Jarrett can no longer talk idly, cautioned Kenneth M. Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, because no one will interpret her words as her own.

When hometown friends accompany the president to the White House, they “know the president, his habits, his likes and dislikes, and when they talk, people hear the president’s voice,” Mr. Duberstein said.

But Ms. Jarrett seems to have little desire or need to stand apart from Mr. Obama. During the campaign, Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, spent hours speaking with her but barely heard her mention herself or her own views. “It was all about Barack and Michelle, Barack and Michelle,” Mr. Clyburn said.

After the election, speculation that Ms. Jarrett might seek Mr. Obama’s Senate seat coursed through Chicago. After a career of helping formidable men, she could finally “be the sun,” as Marilyn Katz, a friend, put it. But the Obamas saw her place in Washington.

“I told her,” Mrs. Obama said, “that I wanted her there, in that position, that it would give me a sense of comfort to know that he had somebody like her there by his side.”

After several long conversations with Mr. Obama, Ms. Jarrett took herself out of the running for the Senate seat.

Or, rather, Mr. Obama did: she let him make the call.

“He knows the Senate, he knows me, and he knows what he was looking for in the White House,” she said. “I trusted him to make the decision.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

From The New York Times, November 24, ©2008.

The New York Times All rights reserved. Used by permission and protection by the Copyright Laws of the United States.

The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited.

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Faculty Footprints

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By Sally Atwood Hamilton ’65

It’s just before 8 AM on a Monday and the students in Dick Peller’s AP Calculus class gather slowly in the second-floor classroom in Beveridge, some with that still stunned morning stare as they slide into their seats. They murmur in English and other languages, sip milk from 8-ounce cartons, and search for notebooks. After exchanging greetings, Peller starts the class at 8.

Dick Peller, who has taught math at NMH for 36 years and coached baseball and soccer almost continuously since 1973, is considered by colleagues, students, and alumni to be the exemplar of NMH values.

Photos by Glenn Minshall and Michael Dwyer

“How do you find the length of a curve?” he asks as he slashes X and Y axes on one section of white board and dashes an arc across the top two quadrants. The students study his drawing and talk quietly among themselves and with him, offering suggestions in the foreign language of advanced mathematics. “It’s actually really easy,” Peller whispers, leaning toward the students as if sharing a secret.

With a brief explanation of how to solve the problem, he sends them to the white boards that surround the room.

The students cluster in groups of three and four, talk through the problem, and then write their solutions on the boards. Peller watches as he sips coffee from a blue NMH coffee mug that says Class of ’96 Senior Dinner on the back.

Over the next 80 minutes, Peller has the students, who are from Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States, at the white boards and back into their seats several times. He coaxes them, asks questions, and at one point projects the high-powered TI 89 graphic calculator onto a still-clear section of white board to help them.

Peller is a master in the classroom. He knows his subject cold—he admits that after 36 years at NMH he could wake up in the middle of the night and teach calculus without thinking. He loves his discipline, and his students say his enthusiasm for math is infectious, but Peller is far more than just a classroom teacher. He’s coached baseball

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and soccer for more years than anyone can remember, lived in dorms for eight years, and been class parent, along with his late wife Mec, for the class of 1996. He’s everywhere— at sporting events, even those he does not coach, at student performances, and at school events. He’s even turned up on the school’s tractor mowing lawns during the summer.

He’s forged relationships with students in the dorms, on the athletic fields, and in the classrooms that have turned into lifelong friendships.

Throughout its history, NMH has attracted scores of faculty like Peller who devote their lives to the school, who teach students, and then decades later teach their children. These faculty members are, in a sense, an institution themselves. They’ve committed to NMH and invested in its students and in its community. Over the next five years 14 of them will reach retirement age, and that’s not counting the 16 who opted for early retirement by June 2011. These numbers reflect a turnover of about one-quarter of the faculty on top of the normal annual attrition. There’s no way to know who the next generation of Dick Pellers will be, or even if such faculty longevity will be part of any school’s future given the mobility of our society today. In the meantime, NMH invests deeply in its faculty at all stages in their careers, supporting and nurturing them, giving

Relationships are the Essence What makes a good teacher? Survey a random dozen people and chances are they’ll say the one who has the greatest knowledge in their subject area. But that does not guarantee a great teacher. According to Margaret van Baaren, director of the learning skills program whose specialty is understanding how the adolescent brain works, research shows that the single most important factor in learning is a strong connection between the student and the teacher. Peller, who has been chair of the math department for 15 years, has seen that borne out over and over in his career. “I’ve had teachers in the math department who were very good mathematicians, but they weren’t interested in kids, and they flopped.” The key, he says, is to be passionate about the subject matter and to love kids.

“If you don’t have both of them, the kids know,” he says, “and you won’t be a successful teacher.”

It’s clear to anyone who steps into Peller’s classroom that there’s something special happening on both fronts.

“The most important thing about Dick is he loves what he’s doing,” says his wife, Ellen Turner, director of student services. “It shows in everything he does. He gets excited about math. He loves watching kids solve problems—mathematical or other problems—watching them engage in that process.”

“ There are times when you just stop teaching

and start talking about whatever is important… so kids understand that we’re more than teachers, and we do understand what’s going on in their lives, to let them see us as whole human beings.” them ample opportunity to grow, and offering multiple ways to stay current in their disciplines. It hires new faculty with wisdom and an eye to the future and devotes tremendous energy to helping them understand and adapt to the unique environment of NMH. The future will be what NMH makes it, but there’s no doubt that a faculty committed to excellence in the classroom and with deep roots in the community is the ultimate goal. According to many, Dick Peller is a prime exemplar.

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Even students who are not in his classes seek him out. Heather Livingston ’09 frequently goes to the evening math help sessions when Peller is the teacher on duty. “I’m not a math person,” she admits, “but he really explains things so I can understand them. He’s been teaching for so long he can tell what kind of student I am and because of that he knows how to teach me.”

Marina Shinkai ’09, who asked to be in Peller’s fast-paced AP Calculus class, offers another perspective. “He cares about

everyone in that class,” she says. “He pays attention to all of us. I love that.” He encourages everyone to write about life concerns in their weekly math journal, she says, and he often writes margin notes back to them.

At NMH faculty know there’s more to being a great teacher than just academic work and that those times help promote the sense of community that is so strong—and many call unique—at the school. “There are times when you just stop teaching and start talking about whatever is important at the time,” says Peller, “whether it’s something in the news or something happening on campus so kids understand that we’re more than teachers, and we do understand what’s going on in their lives, to let them see us as whole human beings.”

Forging holistic relationships, creating a sense of family permeates life at NMH, and Peller is cited again and again by his colleagues, students, and alumni as one who leads by example. “He’s all about the kids’ experience,” says Hugh Silbaugh, dean of faculty. Shinkai couldn’t agree more. “He came to my piano concert and my singers’ concert,” she says, “and he complimented us on how well we did. He’s everywhere.”

To understand the depth of Peller’s connections is to understand his relationship to baseball. He has a passion for the game that reaches back to his earliest memory when he was two-years-old, and his father came home from work and

Decades after graduating from NMH, scores of alumni say the same. “He gives me coaching advice, personal advice, he’s helped me sort through a lot of things,” says Sean Fagan ’83, sales manager for Waltham Lime and Concrete and a soccer player for Peller. “I consider him one of my best friends.”

There’s no doubt that Peller forged strong relationships with his players says John Berg ’80, NMH trustee and CEO of Young Rubicam, San Francisco. “He had you to his house, invited you to be part of his family. It wasn’t unusual for us to take care of his kids. It helped a lot of people adjust to NMH.” Berg played soccer and baseball for Peller and contends that the nature of coaching also contributes to the strength of those relationships. “When you’re with a coach a couple of hours a day and coach is teaching and pushing and motivating you, there’s a level that relationship gets to that’s different from what happens in the classroom.” Berg identifies yet another key to Peller’s lasting connections with former students. “He makes such authentic relationships with people that both sides try to stay in touch.”

Galen Carr ’93, one of Peller’s baseball players who is a scout for the Boston Red Sox, has kept that connection alive as well and in one simple gesture epitomizes the depth of relationships that Peller engenders. It was July 25, 2003, and Carr had invited Peller to a game at Fenway Park. Carr got Peller

Dick Peller forms relationships with students that often turn into lifelong friendships. He has taught calculus every year for the last two decades but says the changing students, technology, and textbooks have kept him fresh and excited about the discipline.

told him about the Say Hey Kid—Willie Mays—the new player the Giants had brought up from the minors. Peller became a Mays fan and a huge baseball fan. “I think the whole statistics and numbers part of baseball is what drew me to math,” he confesses. His deep love of sports has provided a special avenue for connecting with students over the years.

Livingston, who plays varsity soccer and has been coached

by Peller says, “He’s always there for me. I know if I need something I can talk with him about it.”

into the park before the gates opened so he could watch batting practice. But Carr had a special surprise in mind for his coach.

“He put that around my neck,” says Peller, pointing to a laminated pass attached to a Red Sox lanyard that hangs from the latch of his office window, “and said, ‘Come with me.’” When Peller asked where they were going, Carr replied “On the field.”

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practice, and I was about nine-years-old, just standing there with my eyes wide open and being as small as I could be so no one would ask me to leave. It was the most exciting baseball experience I’d ever had.”

But sports are not the only way Peller connects with students. He and his late wife, Mec, also a math teacher and former head of the department, were class teachers for the class of 1996. He’s kept those ties vibrant as well. “We e-mail on a regular basis,” says Acadia Wallace Roessner ’96, now a senior consultant at Booze Allen Hamilton. “He forwards e-mails about people. He’s the epicenter of class news.” Roessner appreciates that Peller remembers the details in her life, such as her son’s birthday.

These strong ties in no way mean that Peller is soft or relaxes his standards. He expects students to give their best, and he consistently gives his best to them. Bill McKersie ’77, a Peller soccer player and one-time NMH admission counselor, recalls serving with Peller on the judicial committee when he was a student. “There were six faculty and six students. We had equal votes on who stayed and who was expelled,” says McKersie. “We shared a very high standard he set. He found a way to balance being a friend and being very definite about the way you operate in a community.”

outright sense that NMH encourages and supports risk-taking that results in professional growth—all contribute to increasing expertise and satisfaction among the faculty that keeps them coming back year after year.

One of the biggest draws is the chance to combine international travel with study and bring that back into the classroom.

History teacher Charlie Malcolm, now in his ninth year on the faculty, has been an exchange teacher twice, once in Australia and the other in Hong Kong last spring. He’s taken students to the Dominican Republic and to South Africa and scouted for another student trip to Brazil. While on the exchanges, he traveled to New Zealand, Western Samoa, Tasmania, Mongolia, Thailand, and to Beijing just before the Olympics last summer.

“Every day I bring those experiences into the classroom,” he says, “whether it’s talking about the closing of the textile mills in the Dominican Republic or about global warming and my experiences in China, seeing the amount of coal they burn.

The toxicity of the air is staggering.” This spring he’ll bring his first-hand experience to a course called Asia Rising.

Lorrie Byrom, another history teacher who has been on the faculty since 1973, returned last fall from a year-long sabbatical, part of which took her from Lebanon and Jordan to Indonesia and Malaysia to study the nature of Islam. She met with women in a mosque in Kuala Lumpur to explore their

AP chemistry teacher Christine Sands says NMH is the most supportive community she’s experienced as a faculty member.

Charlie Malcolm and Gardner Howe ’03 work as a team to give students feedback on their research papers at the end of the fall semester.

When he’s not teaching AP drawing or two-dimensional design, Justin Porter plays professional lacrosse and helps coach varsity football, wrestling, and lacrosse.

Opportunities for Growth So what keeps Peller and other teachers at NMH, sometimes for their entire career? The quick answer is the students, but probe only a bit and a multitude of other reasons surface— sabbaticals, international teacher exchanges, international studies, workshops and seminars, the ability to create new courses that feed professional interests, the block schedule, small classes, a collegial atmosphere, the community, the

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perspective on the West and on Christianity and to discover how Islam is practiced in a country where the faith is not at the heart of an armed conflict. This spring Byrom is teaching a world history course. “A lot of what I learned will profoundly inform how I teach that course,” she says. Byrom has led five NMH student study trips to Egypt, one to Turkey, and has taken the NMH Model UN team to Russia, The Netherlands, Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, and Hong Kong.

The international student study opportunities also provide faculty a venue for developing courses that feed their passions or to explore new bodies of work. For example, longtime English teacher Louise Schwingel created a comparative American and Australian literature course, and her husband, Dick, a history teacher, created a course on comparative methods of colonization before they took a group of students on a month-long study trip to Australia. English teacher David Dowdy gave himself a crash course in Irish literature before teaching a senior seminar that included a trip to Ireland.

But such far-flung travel and study is not the only lure for faculty at NMH. There are professional development summer grants that faculty can tap each year for things as diverse as a volleyball clinic for a new coach to group work on reading research that caused many English faculty to change the way they teach novels. For others, such as Byrom, there’s the possibility of another NMH job just around the corner, because the school supports those who want to try on different hats.

She’s been a house director, teacher, chair of the history and social science department, school dean, dean of the faculty, and now is realizing a dream of teaching a course that includes student travel to South Africa. This ability to inspire people to grow has long been an attribute of NMH. Janet Masiello, former media director who left the school to earn

they’re having with particular students and to provide tips on how to connect with them. Many faculty at NMH intuitively struck on teaching methods that van Baaren advocates because the four-times-a-week, 80-minute class periods challenge everyone to find new ways to be effective. Teachers love the extended periods, called blocks, which have been around for about 10 years. Peller is convinced they help students learn better, which is reflected generally in higher grades. Louise Schwingel says the students trust each other more quickly and loves that she can stop class and talk about grammar or whatever comes up that wasn’t in her plan for the day. Malcolm uses simulations, has students give PowerPoint presentations, and often devotes 20 minutes of class time to talking about the news from around the world. Christine Sands, who taught AP chemistry at two boarding schools before landing at NMH last year, says the scheduling gives faculty the time to do their jobs really well.

Learning to Teach Being a faculty member at NMH is both a profession and a lifestyle choice that demands full immersion in the community of the school. Faculty teach, either head dorms or have responsibilities in dorms, coach as many as three sports a year, and serve as advisors to student groups. Like Peller,

“ Everything is geared to

welcoming new faculty into the NMH family and

helping them to succeed.”

her master’s, says it was one of the things she valued about her time at NMH. “If they see a spark of interest, they’ll give you an opportunity, and it almost always works,” she says. “It’s the kind of place that molds a person’s vision of education.”

Resources available to faculty are also key to teacher satisfaction. For example, teachers tap van Baaren’s expertise regularly either informally or by inviting her into their classes to teach about the brain or study skills or to observe difficulties

they attend campus events on weekends and sometimes during the week as well. Transition for new faculty, especially for those who have never taught at a boarding school before, is challenging. “Coming to this place and understanding it and being able to work well here is a big thing to ask of people,” says Jeanne Rees, a faculty member in the math department for 30 years who has been charged this year with running the orientation program for new faculty and overseeing the

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teaching internship program. Everything is geared to welcoming new faculty into the NMH family and helping them to succeed. They get help moving into their apartments, a weeklong orientation before school starts, ongoing orientation programs several times a month through the year, and mentors for each phase of their lives at NMH. Learning to be a good teacher is no longer a case of sink or swim as it was when Peller first arrived. It’s now carefully orchestrated through observation, support programs, and, in the case of teaching interns, co-teaching classes with longtime faculty before setting out on their own. Rees, Silbaugh, department heads, and academic mentors sit in on classes for all new faculty and provide feedback. “They’re putting me on the right direction to be a successful teacher,” Justin Porter, an intern in visual arts, says of the feedback he’s received. New and old faculty alike are encouraged to visit other classes on what Silbaugh calls Learning Walks.

“I’ve personally found it incredibly instructive watching people who are not in my department,” says Rees. “I’m amazed at how much it made me think about how I teach math to watch someone teach world language.”

Mentors of teaching interns, who are usually one-year sabbatical replacements, have discovered that they learn as much through the mentoring process as the neophyte teachers do.

it possible to do whatever you want,” says Howe. “They try to listen to new ideas. I think that’s part of the school’s progressive direction. They actually listen to new ideas and to young people.”

Youth is very much on the mind of the faculty and administration these days. The NMH faculty is the second oldest among its peer schools. Retirements and teachers leaving to pursue graduate studies or other opportunities actually rejuvenate the faculty, but too many leaving in any given year can wreak havoc on a curriculum. Through early retirement options, the school is trying to make the huge transition that’s coming more predictable and manageable.

And it’s trying to hire strategically to increase the age-range of the faculty to avoid such significant turnover in the future and to ensure continuity.

As for whether the coming generation of teachers will have the longevity of Peller remains to be seen. Monique DeVane, former director of admission at NMH and now associate director of the Hawkin School in Ohio, believes it’s a dying model. “There’s nothing about today’s environment that would create the climate to make those choices,” she says.

Porter would agree. There are too many opportunities out there to stay put, he says. But Stern, just out of college last spring, thinks otherwise. “I’m surrounded by people who

“ Being open to

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of the alluring pieces of NMH for faculty at all stages in their career.”

“It’s pretty energizing,” says Malcolm, who is mentoring Gardner Howe ’03. “It’s forced me to be a better teacher. I don’t want to let him down.” For Meg Hodgin, having Jenny Stern as an intern has made her reexamine the content of her introductory psychology course. “Jenny has this energy and ideas about new ways of doing things that have been really fun to be part of,” Hodgin says.

Being open to new ideas is one of the alluring pieces of NMH for faculty at all stages in their career. “They make

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have lived that life and are very happy,” she offers, so it’s not out of the question for her. And Peller himself believes there are some faculty now who are willing to make that kind of commitment. “I see it and hear it in things they say. They are committed to the kids, they get a kick out of every day they work here,” he says. “I’m very heartened by that.”

It often takes years for new faculty to determine if NMH is the right fit for them, and if they do, Rees says, chances are they’ll stay a long time, perhaps even for the balance of their

career. The school’s location is a big factor in determining a match. For Peller the rural setting and the beauty of the surroundings is a perfect mix. And Rees says those who have raised families at the school will “wax eloquent about how important this community is in our lives.” For young, single faculty, the location can be a deterrent. Both Sands and Porter say that finding time to get off campus and socialize with others is difficult because of the huge time commitment required of faculty. No matter what the age group, the school’s location accentuates the need to create a strong campus community.

The Value of Community For those who commit long term to NMH, sense of community is a shared value that’s high on their list of important attributes, and it’s demonstrated in personal and professional ways. “When I was on crutches, colleagues brought me dinner,” says Sands. “That makes you appreciate that this is a community. These people are not just your colleagues.” Peller knows this, oh so well. When his first wife, Mec, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer that claimed her life in just four months in 1997, the NMH community rallied around them. “Most of those months and afterwards, meals just came to us,” he recalls. “Sometimes I didn’t know who brought them. She was taken to radiation and therapy

And always at the center are the students. The supportive sense of community was palpable to the committee of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that visited the school during the reaccreditation process in late 2007. “What really impressed us was the faculty loyalty to the institution and to the students,” says Rachel Stettler, director of the Winsor School in Boston and chair of the visiting committee. “The sense of community felt like a defining character of the school.” Graham Cole ’61, headmaster of Westminster School in Connecticut and assistant chair of the visiting committee, says it was gratifying to return to the school and to have such an affirming experience in evaluating it. “There’s a caring, devoted faculty working in the best interest of the kids,” he says. “The spirit and commitment to the place is so striking, so laudable. It was very uplifting to all of us.”

Even though lifelong faculty commitments may be a thing of the past, NMH will be in good hands if it can attract and hold faculty like Peller for significant stretches of time. “If schools were loaded up with people like Dick—his willingness to be devoted and set high standards but to be selfless at key moments—our schools would be phenomenal,” says McKersie, who is associate superintendent for academic excellence in the Office of Catholic Schools for the archdiocese of

Jenny Stern helps coach junior varsity swimmers, the girls field hockey team, and the junior varsity girls lacrosse team.

Meg Hodgin (far left) came to NMH as an admission counselor but now, in addition to teaching psychology and health, is the house director for MacKinnon.

by friends. I don’t know that I could have gotten through it without the friends and support that I had here,” he says.

“Would it happen elsewhere? I don’t know, but I do know that it happens here with regularity.”

Professionally the faculty are ever present for their colleagues. “When I hesitated to call someone my first weekend here before school started, I almost felt chastised for not having called,” says Sands. “It was reassuring that people were available for me whenever I needed it.”

Boston. Peller isn’t thinking about retiring just yet, so for now this self-professed graybeard of the faculty, who loves teaching more than ever, is also passing along the NMH culture as he knows it to new members of the family. “I feel a certain obligation to try and pass along pieces of the school and the athletic program that I think are important enough to continue to live, the history, and the way it has been.” And with his long rear view, Peller has much to share with everyone to help ensure the spirit of NMH endures.

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Morning Chores

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By Leila Philip ’79

Almost two years before Mount Hermon School for Boys opened in 1881, friends of D. L. Moody purchased the North Farm to serve as the location for the new school. The next year other friends added the South Farm to those holdings.

The farms provided most of the food for the early school and also helped contain costs. But perhaps more important, the farm provided students opportunities for manual labor, which Moody believed would develop character, compassion, and foster democratic ideals. By the late 1950s, the farm was losing money, and in 1961 the trustees decided to close it. In the late 1970s, Richard Odman, now director of the farm, and a handful of students restarted the program. Today the farm is certified as organic and is the smallest licensed dairy in Massachusetts.

June 2008. By the time we arrive, the sun has risen over Notch Mountain.

My son, just 11, jumps out of the car eager to see the school I have told him so much about. I, too, am eager to see the farm that since my graduation has grown into a thriving model for school farm programs.

Photos by Glenn Minshall

The following is an excerpt from a chapter about the farm in a forthcoming book that NMH will publish in 2009 to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the founding of the schools.

When she returned to the farm in 2008 nearly 30 years after she milked her last cow as an NMH student, Leila Philip ’79 rediscovered her skill with Carrie, a Jersey cow named after Carrie Kidder ’02, who worked on the farm. Carrie gave up about two gallons of milk in the morning milking.

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Erin Calabria ’06 spent last summer at the NMH creamery learning how to make cheese from farm director Richard Odman. Cheese and maple syrup are the farm’s biggest money makers. The farm supplies milk to the dining hall and also sells it to faculty and staff families.

Soon a young man comes out of the barn holding two small halters and lead ropes.

“Richard thought Rhys would like to help me feed the calves,” he says. I watch while they halter the two small brown calves that press against the wooden fence and lead them into the barn. Once there, they pour milk into black buckets then jump out of the way as the anxious calves rush forward to thrust their noses into the milk and drink. The calves were both born at the farm two months ago and are in the process of being weaned.

I step out of the sweet smelling barn and see Richard walking long legged and sure across the pasture toward the pasture gate where the three sorrel workhorses with blonde manes and tails stamp impatiently. A tall, bearded man, Richard Odman looks as he always did, part Amish and perfectly at home in the outdoors. When he approaches, the horses shake their long manes and nicker. Richard gives their flanks a pat and when he sees me hurries toward the barn.

“Well look who’s here,” he calls with his classic grin, his voice both wry and warm, ironic and heartfelt. “Ready to milk?”

“You bet,” I answer, excited to try. As we walk into the barn, the years since I last saw him seem to evaporate. We fall into the shared camaraderie of barn chores.

Soon I am sitting next to a Jersey cow named Carrie, the best milker of the school’s three Jersey cows. I clean her udder, remembering the rhythm of that task, and then I’m ready to try the milking. Will my hands remember? I almost call to Richard to say that I shouldn’t be doing this, it’s been so long, but I remember the ethos of work at the barn; when you are caring for animals, there isn’t time to hesitate or be squeamish. I reach down for the cow’s udder and begin. Nothing. I sit back and try again and again, squeezing the warm rubbery teat. Not a

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drop of milk. The cow stamps her foot. I stop, then start again, adjusting the pressure of my fingers, the angle of my hands.

I stop and start, stop and start. The cow stamps, louder now.

Seconds that might be minutes that have come to feel like hours go by. Then suddenly it happens. I feel my fingers squeeze and pull in a slightly downward motion and amazingly a trickle of milk appears. I breathe a deep sigh of relief. It is when I turn to get the automatic milker, which will finish the job, that I realize Richard has been standing there watching for some time.

“Here, this part’s tricky,” he says simply and we switch places.

We both grin and I remember his way of teaching through example and patience and trust.

While my son takes a turn at milking with the farm’s parttime assistant manager, Rachel, I walk down to the creamery.

Before entering the small wooden building, I carefully hose off my shoes as instructed. In the bright orderly room, stainless steel shelves are filled with gleaming, carefully washed bowls and buckets. In one corner is a pile of books that Richard hopes students will read between chores. On top is a photographic essay book on the history of child labor in New England.

The farm’s current cheese maker, Erin Calabria ’06, is already at work. While I watch, she begins cutting the curds that have started to set in the large stainless steel drum of the milk-pasteurizing machine, a process called flocculation. A ninepound cheese like the cheddar she is working requires ten gallons of milk and takes about twenty hours to complete. This evening Erin will dip the rinsed, pressed, and molded curds into a pot of bright red wax to form a thin wax skin. Then she will place the new cheese on a rack to age.

Erin maintained a 4.0 average while a student at NMH and graduated as valedictorian of her class. She also worked all four years on the farm, sugaring, weeding, harvesting crops, milking.

When I ask her what she learned at the farm she answers easily, “For me the farm was an alternate and counter balance to all of

“ It’s easy for my generation to feel confused and overwhelmed and scattered with the kind of information we have to deal with all the time now.

Work on the farm is very affirming.”

Leila Philip ’79 is associate professor of English and creative writing at the College of Holy Cross where she teaches fiction, nonfiction, and Asian American literature. She is the author of three books, including her award-winning memoir, A Family Place: A Hudson Valley Farm, Three Centuries, Five Wars, One Family. In 2007 she received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to finish her book, Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist. At NMH Leila was on the girl’s varsity cross country ski team and worked three years on the school newspaper, The Bridge.

During her senior year, she was editor-in-chief and provided exposure there for the growing farm program. Leila was among the group of students who pressed the school to restart the defunct program in the late 1970s.

The Book is Coming On November 3, 1879, the first students at the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies gathered in D. L. Moody’s home for their first classes, and a dream to help young women—and later young men—whose educational opportunities were scant or had been interrupted by the vagaries of life was realized.

It’s an oft-told tale, and over the years multiple histories of the world-famous schools have been written, but this fall after years of planning and writing, a new history will be published by the school that tells the story from an unusual perspective. The still unnamed volume will present the history as reflected through the buildings and landscape of each campus. Hundreds of archival images, photos from the school’s contemporary files, maps, and architectural drawings will accompany the 12 chapters that range from an exploration of the schools’ setting in the Connecticut River Valley to the consolidation on the Mount Hermon campus.

NMH Archives

the academic work that I was doing. It was time to use a different part of my brain and my being. At the farm you are forced to use your body and to engage with the natural world. It may not be academic, but it’s certainly educational.”

I ask her whether she thinks that what she learned on the farm will be relevant given that she has no plans to become a farmer or a professional cheese maker. She thinks for a moment, looking at me with a keen, thoughtful expression, then answers firmly. “Working here isn’t just an antidote to modern life.

Certainly it is that but it’s more. I think it’s good for our sanity to see something sequential, to see the actual process of something like making cheese or cider, or harvesting lavender, to see the whole process, from milking the cow to making the cheese.”

She pauses, checks the temperature of the curds, then continues.

“It’s easy for my generation to feel confused and overwhelmed and scattered with the kind of information we have to deal with all the time now. Work on the farm is very affirming.”

Suddenly Richard sticks his head in, asks her how the work is going but doesn’t inspect what she has done. When he leaves I’m surprised to learn that Erin is just learning to make cheese. She comments on that as well.

“I’ve learned so much from Richard. He is such a unique and incredible person. He has to be in order to work with so many different students and with so many different kinds of work, from cidering, to milking, to making cheese, to working with the cows or the horses. His knowledge seems kind of infinite, but he is so patient, and he is not at all condescending. That helped me learn more quickly. I’ve been thinking about that and taking note of it because I might want to teach someday.”

All too soon it is time to leave. I find myself lingering, wanting to take in one more time the calm beauty of the small farm around me and the hills stretching up beyond. As school archivist Peter Weis ’78 has said so perfectly, “We used to be a farm with a school program. Now we’re a school with a farm program.” But, here at the Northfield Mount Hermon farm in 2008 it is clear that farm and school have also always overlapped, each reflecting Moody’s original vision and his instinct that some of our most important learning as human beings comes from the intersection of intellectual and physical hands-on work.

Seven alumni authors and Head of School Tom Sturtevant are contributing chapters that explore the forces that shaped the physical campuses. Their work draws deeply from the NMH archives, from histories of the times, and also from the formal architectural inventories commissioned by the school. Bonnie Parsons of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s preservation program spent two years researching the 90 buildings on the campuses and documenting them according to Massachusetts Historic Commission standards. Her work is available through multiple public sources in Massachusetts and from the NMH archives.

This book is one effort of the History Projects team, a group of alumni and staff who came together shortly after the trustees voted to close the Northfield campus.

Initially the team planned to capture the history of the architecture and landscape of only the Northfield campus before it transitioned to a new use, but the effort quickly expanded to encompass Mount Hermon as well.

Prepublication sales will begin in May.

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Letters continued from page 2

and audience and use those lessons to inject some entertainment value in these often all-too-ordinary presentations.

bruce mendelsohn ’86 Auburn, MA

A Leading Example I was thrilled to receive the latest issue but sad to read that Mary Seymour, who has faithfully helmed the magazine, is leaving for greener (and definitely warmer) pastures. I wish her the best. As a fellow budding writer for another prep school’s magazine, I have followed each issue with enthusiasm and gratefulness for the eye-opening pieces that bring to life the NMH experience. Each story brings to mind the unique faces of my own NMH experience—among many, the late-night shrieks down the Hibbard hallway and the teachers who gently steered me to ponder not just my education and progress, but about others.

experience religion, though not mine, and liberalism in the same setting. This was a real relief for me. My teachers, particularly in English and Miss McCann in history, allowed me to set my own hoops higher.

And I was able to realize that I was even smarter than I had dreamed of being. I felt for the first time that women were capable of being honorable persons.

And admittedly I caused much angst among Northfield staff. As something of a social trial blazer and a lesbian then, I find myself continuing to take on this role as I move through life. For almost 40 years I have been a lesbian activist, defender

of abused children, later a professional psychiatric social worker, librarian, and writer. On the side I have advocated for the rights of the disabled. I have had disabled friends and relatives, and then became disabled myself.

Thank you for the beautiful card and for the tears you brought to my eyes.

judy miller ’69 Metairie, LA If you missed the electronic holiday card the school sent to alumni, you can still view it at www.nmhschool.org/ videos/2008holidaycard/index.php

kim loke ’03 Silver Spring, MD

Holiday Greeting Thank you for the beautiful holiday e-mail. Although I only spent one year at Northfield, and rightly moved on to graduate on time with my high school class, I remember fondly the days I spent there.

Northfield provided my first opportunity to escape my very conservative father and

June 27–August 1, 2009

NMH Summer Session 2009 For Students Entering Grades 7–12 One Lamplighter Way Mount Hermon, MA 01354 summer_school@nmhschool.org www.nmhschool.org

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We had a deluge of mail regarding the 1953 archives photograph that ran on page 37 of the Fall 08 issue. Suzanne Buckson Crowder ’54 is the student at the easel and Rachel Peckham Elder ’53 and Doug Jones are looking on.

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Newsmakers In Short

Shepherding Undying Love to the Silver Screen

Jasper Hoitsma ’01, Colin Mahoney ’03, and Jacob Goldstein ’03 played on the Boston Ironsides team that finished second in the 2008 national Ultimate Players Association Club Championship Tournament. Ted Munter ’83 coached the team.

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hat happens when a teenage girl moves to a new town and falls in love with a cute vampire? Books fly off the shelves.

Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series of young adult books chronicles the story of Isabella and Edward, alive and undead, respectively. The series has been a monster hit, and after the movie was signed by Los Angeles-based Summit Entertainment, Gillian Bohrer ’95 took on the role of production executive for the company.

She helped hire a director and screenwriter, helped cast the movie, and worked with Meyers to keep the screen version true to the page.

The film debuted November 21, 2008, and grossed $69.6 million in its opening weekend. It has earned more than $181 million domestically to date. Meanwhile, Bohrer has signed on to be the director of production for the next film in the

Jesse Barrett Mills ’02 won the best short film category at the Northampton Independent Film Festival for El Bracero about the plight of migrant workers in this country.

series, New Moon, which is expected to be released this November.

Bohrer, who graduated from Yale University and the University of Southern California’s Peter Stark Production Program, credits her NMH experience with helping her keep a level head during potentially overwhelming times. “I had wonderful teachers at NMH who prepared me to deal with an intense work environment and who taught me diligence in pursuit of one’s passions,” she says.

—Catherine Snyder

Ana Slavin ’08 and Nick Anderson ’08 won a Global Action Award for their virtual campaign, Dollars for Darfur, which was recognized as one of the three top high school programs established to fight global poverty.

Jennifer Goodman ’98 has been named deputy director of scheduling and events for First Lady Michelle Obama.

Hannah Cabell ’95 made her Broadway debut as Margaret Moore in A Man for All Seasons in October.

A Golden Moment Laura Linney ’82 added a Golden Globe to her collection of acting awards in January for her portrayal of Abigail Adams on HBO’s miniseries John Adams. She was named best actress in a miniseries or movie made for television for her performance.

“With words, but also with eloquent gestures and glances, Ms. Linney delicately evokes Abigail’s humor, loyalty and fierce intelligence,” noted the New York Times when the series debuted last March. Linney, a three-time Oscar nominee, won her third Emmy and also a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as Abigail.

Earlier this year, she visited the Bravo television show, Inside the Actors Studio. You can view clips of that interview at www.bravotv.com.

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Alumni Council News The Diversity Committee of the Alumni Council is starting an ambitious effort to identify as many alumni of underrepresented groups as possible and to provide events and ways for them to connect with each other and with the school.

The biggest challenge the group faces initially is simply finding the alumni, says Lloyd E. Mitchell ’57, chair of the 12-member committee. Graduates must, by law, volunteer the information about themselves first, and then the Alumni Association can broadcast events and avenues of reconnecting that are geared to them.

Mitchell admits that many alumni who are members of ethnic, religious, racial, or sexual orientation minorities often have conflicting feelings about advertising their differences. “We are not, after all, trying to be the same; we are trying to be an equal participant” he says. And, he notes, the school has always strongly supported diversity and has consistently treated individual differences as resources to help create a better society—an approach that students of all backgrounds find very valuable.

But one way NMH measures its success as an institution is the degree to which alumni remain involved with the school after graduation, by participating in alumni-sponsored events, returning to campus for events, or making financial contributions to the school. Underrepresented groups, by definition, are those whose level of participation in these activities is below average. However, because 80 percent of the entire alumni body has yet to identify its category, the school cannot determine the extent of underrepresentation.

Mitchell’s group hopes to clarify this picture, to gather information on underlying issues, and to discover ways NMH can improve the on-campus experience for future students of underrepresented groups.

All alumni interested in diversity at and after NMH are welcome tojoin the NMH Diversity Committee Group on Facebook— simply e-mail Lloyd.Mitchell.nmh@gmail.com to receive an invitation.

Lloyd E. Mitchell ’57 This year the Diversity Committee partnered with NMH-DC and co-sponsored a hockey night in Washington, DC, will support the Alumni of Color Reunion on campus in late March, will host an event celebrating a new Smithsonian exhibition, “Picturing the Promise: The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington,” and hold a dinner on April 25 at one of the legendary Harlem restaurants (Miss Maude’s or Miss Mamie’s) owned by Norma Jean Darden ’57. In the fall the group plans to have a Mountain Day gathering in the DC area. Additional arts- and sports-oriented events are in the works.

Members of the committee include: Metta Dael ’93, Norma Jean Darden ’57, Courtney Small Francis ’83, Amina Gauthier ’95, Mickey Gill ’82, Andrew Huggett ’97, Fred Jones ’03, Teresa N. Le ’07, Marggie Slichter ’84, Barbara Thomas ’88, and Steve Woods ’97.

Tours for Alumni, Family, Parents, and Friends Mark these dates and make your plans now.

CRUISE ROUND THE HORN February 28–March 14, 2010 You are invited to share a South American adventure of fascinating extremes, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires to the astonishing fjords of southern Chile, from the Straits of Magellan to storied Cape Horn. Experience the comfortable temperatures of March below the equator while cloaked in the luxury of Celebrity Infinity, one of the finest cruise ships afloat.

WALK THE STUNNING OLYMPIC PENINSULA September 12–17, 2010 From your first hike in Olympic National Park to your encounter with harbor seals along the Olympic Peninsula coastline, be dazzled by the dramatic scenery of northwest Washington State. Hike in a towering rain forest, walk the ridges of the high country, ferry to the San Juan Islands to ramble and whale watch. Take easy to moderate hikes each day accompanied by an experienced guide and nature specialist.

For more information or to be put on the mailing list for NMH Travellers, contact the Office of Alumni and Parent Programs, NMH, One Lamplighter Way, Mount Hermon, MA 01354.

Phone 413-498-3600 Fax

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Giving News Loyal to the Core Carol Blomquist Brown ’53 is the textbook definition of a loyal alumna: she is a class secretary (16 years and counting), class gift chair, longtime Moody Society member, and recipient of an alumni citation. She and her late husband, Alexander Brown, also established a charitable remainder unitrust that will result in a nearly $1 million gift to NMH when the trust terminates.

Brown’s loyalty is deeply connected to friendships she made 60 years ago— relationships that endure despite the vicissitudes age and decades bring. “My closest friends are still Northfield friends,” she says. “This year, when I’ve been sick, really sick—eight surgeries and kidney failure—

the words of encouragement from my classmates have been heartwarming. I can’t imagine this kind of care coming from any other institution.”

Brown, who runs an antiques business, the Dog and Pony Show, out of a former stable on her property in Walpole, New Hampshire, stays in close touch with members of the class of ’53—both Hermonites and Northfielders. “We’re a particularly close group; there’s almost the sense of family among us. That kind of experience is something to be fostered.”

Given that she didn’t finish her senior year (thanks to an ill-planned exodus from campus that took her no further than Highland Avenue), Brown’s dedication to NMH is particularly noteworthy.

Although Brown graduated from Bryn Mawr and did graduate studies there, she feels far more connected to NMH. “We wanted the money to go to places that we admired and that we felt had contributed

to expanding and improving our lives,” she says of the unitrust, which gives 40 percent of its remainder to NMH and 10 percent to Bryn Mawr.

Brown has no personal agenda for how the money should be used—she wants NMH to put it toward its most pressing needs. A strong believer in the school’s ability to carry out its mission, she supports its move to one campus in 2005. “I feel strongly that they did the right thing; I get very upset when people start criticizing that decision.”

Giving to NMH is Brown’s way of keeping everything she cherishes about the school—friendship, learning, indelible memories—alive for future generations. For her, it’s an obvious and practical choice. “There’s this misperception that it’s not about the money, that somehow NMH is above that. Well, that’s just not true.”

—Mary Seymour

A celebration of music marked the dedication of Raymond Hall in the Rhodes Arts Center in October. Alumni and friends gathered in the 225-seat concert hall to hear performances by students and faculty, including a composition, “In Praise of Singing,” composed by Sheila Heffernon for the occasion. Sheila Raymond Hazan ’60, daughter of Al and Virginia Raymond, offered her reflections during the program.

Nearly 200 donors raised the funds to name the hall in memory of Al Raymond, who taught and directed choral music at the schools for 30 years, and his wife, Virginia, who taught voice and Latin. During those years virtually every student at Northfield and Mount Hermon came under Al Raymond’s respectful and compassionate tutelage, either through the large class choirs or smaller more selective choral groups. For many alumni, singing under Raymond’s direction became their defining experience at the schools.

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Raymond Hall Dedicated

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From the Archives The NMH archives have a new home on the lower level of Schauffler Library. In mid-December the first items were moved to Mount Hermon from the Northfield campus, including the founding documents of the schools, the mace, and the school spades. These simple spades, adorned with ribbons from decades of graduating classes, were associated with different traditions on each campus.

At Northfield the Class of 1888 first used the spade to plant an oak tree in front of East Hall. The springtime ceremony evolved into Tree Day, one of Northfield’s long-standing traditions, that included a pageant, a May Pole dance, the planting of a tree by the junior class— with the ceremonial spade—and

good-natured singing between the junior and senior classes. The Northfield spade, passed from seniors to juniors each spring, came to symbolize the deep roots students formed with the school. At Mount Hermon the Class of 1889 presented the first spade to the juniors as a symbol of the work program and the satisfaction of manual labor well done. Early students did literally dig at Mount Hermon, building the athletic fields and helping with construction on many of the first buildings. This spade also passed from seniors to juniors year after year. The Class of 2004 presented the NMH spade (left) to Richard Mueller ’62, then head of the school. Although the Northfield spade (right) and the Mount Hermon spade (center) are clearly very old, they cannot be verified as the original spades, but they continue to make an annual appearance at NMH. Today the graduating class hands down all three spades to a representative junior at commencement.

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years ago Miss McCabe, an instructor from the Arthur Murray School of Dancing in New York City, gave dancing lessons to students in the gymnasium at Northfield. She taught sophomores some of the fundamentals of good ballroom dancing, and then she helped juniors and seniors from both Mount Hermon and Northfield improve their dance steps and dancing positions. The Hermon Orchestra furnished the music. From today’s vantage point, these lessons seem benign, but they signaled a significant shift at the schools. During the first 50 years of their existence, “couples dancing” was considered scandalous. When the Board of Trustees voted in 1925 to permit girls to have social dances in their residence halls, even without boys, a storm of protest followed that ultimately resulted in the resignation of 13 teachers and made the pages of the New York Times. Elliott Speer, headmaster at Mount Hermon from 1932 to 1934, and Mira Wilson principal at Northfield from 1929 to 1952, where behind this introduction of the scandalous.

They also added zest to the social calendar and strengthened the community between the schools.

Seeking alumni from years ending in 4 and 9!

We want you at Reunion 2009, June 4–7 Mark your calendar and plan to arrive on Thursday, June 4.

Registration forms were mailed in early March. If you’re a returning reveler, you know what fun is in store. If you’ve never been back for reunion, you’ll be glad you came.

Alumni seminars New England sunset dinner Hymn Sing Star-gazing with NMH faculty Parade of classes Alumni Convocation

Mec Peller Memorial Run Class dinners Bring ’Em Home Cabaret Dancing to the Prescription Golfing, hiking, biking, yoga Alumni worship service

For more information, contact 413-498-3138 or reunion@nmhschool.org.

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Parting Words A Belated Thank You

by Rober t A . Brooks ’7 1

I have just received my copy of the Fall 2008 NMH Magazine and noted with sadness the passing of Peyton Pitney who coached me in tennis and tried, unsuccessfully, to guide me through an advanced calculus class during my senior year at Mount Hermon.

This unhappy news has unleashed a wave of memories of the men and women who were responsible for my high school education and has given me the impetus to write what amounts to a very belated thank you note.

I have, in fact, been thinking a lot about Mount Hermon for a few years now after deciding to abandon the professional status and material security of being a senior partner in one of New England’s largest law firms to open an organic restaurant on a 27-acre farm I own with my wife in the northeast corner of Connecticut. Family, friends, and colleagues were shocked by the move, but I suspect it doesn’t look nearly so radical when viewed from the perspective of an NMH education.

What, exactly, is the connection between a decision I made when I was in my early fifties and my years at Mount Hermon?

Or, stated differently, how can I possibly blame Mount Hermon for such madness?

In the first place, there is the obvious link between spending four years living in one of the most beautiful rural settings on earth and attending a school with close ties to the land and wanting, at some point in one’s life, to reconnect to the land as well. After living in cities for most of my adult life, I am now fortunate to make my home in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner surrounded by stonewalls, open pastures, winding roads, and pristine lakes and rivers, where the similarities to Mount Hermon are not merely physical. Like W. B. Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” both are places where “peace comes dropping slow.”

You can feel it in “the deep heart’s core.”

My experience with the work program undoubtedly played into my midlife career change as well. More particularly, the job I was assigned my sophomore year—getting up at 5:30 am on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to scramble hundreds of eggs for the entire school—introduced me to life in a large commercial kitchen which, despite some run-ins with the always intimidating Mr. McGann, I discovered I liked a lot.

None of us students had anything in common with the adults who worked in the kitchen, but there was a no-nonsense, rollup-your-sleeves camaraderie to the place and the respect that came from a job well done.

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NMH Magazine

There is no question that my decision was most directly influenced by what I learned from my teachers, and, like all great teachers, they taught more by example than from a book. From the old guard—Judson Stent and the Baxters—I was taught to set high standards and strive to meet them. Hal McCann demanded that I take responsibility for my actions. Rudy Weber introduced me to joie de vivre as well as the cuisine of his native Switzerland, and Al Raymond and Joe Elliott gave me the gift of music. Glenn Vandervliet’s boundless and insatiable intellectual curiosity was infectious, and Jack Baldwin and Bert Clough instilled a love of the written word. Walt Congdon was a model of personal integrity. Richard Kellom and Art Kiendl were pillars of strength and stability in tumultuous times.

Above all else, the Mount Hermon community taught each of us who was privileged to be part of it that our education was a gift and that we had an obligation to give something back to our communities in return. We received not only the intellectual tools to succeed but a moral compass as well, and I have turned to this compass for direction in connection with every important decision I have ever made.

I still feel very close to the person I became at Mount Hermon. Cynics will no doubt argue that deciding at an age when most people are thinking about retirement to take the plunge into the unbelievably demanding and unpredictable world of restaurants is proof positive that I never grew up, and they may be right. But I rather like the idea that I may still have the heart of an 18-year-old beating inside this middle-aged body of mine, and for that I am eternally grateful.

In 2006, Bob and his wife, Kara, opened Still River Cafe in Eastford, Connecticut. Still River has received considerable critical acclaim in 2008 from the New York Times, Boston Magazine, Yankee Magazine, and was included in Zagat’s America’s Top Restaurants.

You can read about the restaurant at www.stillrivercafe.com.

Name First last ’75

gave me the tools to Giving “NMH succeed. It also taught me Back that life is about balance and “ Audrey always made working fun. She had a lot of respect for kids and treated them as adults.”

diversity, not about uniform, absolutist views.”

Photograph by nmdphotography Photog raph

by Harr y Stuar t Cahill

Heather McEvoy Keane ’81 As a student, Heather McEvoy Keane ’81 gave her English teacher, Audrey Sheats, a handheld eggbeater as a thank-you gift. Heather had spent long afternoons baking cookies in Sheats’ kitchen, which became her home away from home. “Audrey was a real anchor,” says Heather. “She felt like my second mom.”

More than two decades later, Heather has another gift for her teacher: She and her husband, Robert Keane, have pledged $500,000 to establish an endowment fund in honor of Sheats, who retired in 2004. The first scholarships will be awarded in 2009, to the delight of Sheats, whom Heather has consulted every step of the way.

“It’s been in my mind to do this ever since I left NMH, “ says Heather. “Audrey made a huge difference in my life. She encouraged me to go to Harvard; she trained me well for an academic career—but it was the cookies I remember best.”

Indeed. After Harvard, Heather worked for the cookie giant, Mrs. Fields, then opened a bakery in Northfield Mount Hermon School Paris. Her business thrived for 14 years, until she sold it and returned stateside with her husband in 2000. Now she bakes cookies in her kitchen with her 12-year-old daughter, re-creating the homey environment that made such a difference to her at NMH.

Giving Back

Audrey Sheats was able to return to campus last fall to attend a luncheon to celebrate the scholarship in her name. She died soon after on January 9, 2009.

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Calendar Family Days

Commencement Exercises

Parents and grandparents are invited to campus to take part in all aspects of NMH life.

Reunion Weekend ’09

friday–saturday, april 17–18

115th Annual Sacred Concert sunday, may 10, 2:30 pm auditorium, northfield

Singers and instrumentalists from the NMH community of alumni, parents, and friends are welcome to participate.

sunday, may 24, 11:00 am thorndike field

june 4–7

For years ending in 4 and 9.

For more information about activities, call the reunion office at 413-498-3138 or e-mail reunion@nmhschool.org.

For more information about alumni and parent events, contact the advancement office at 413-498-3600 or e-mail events@ nmhschool.org. Find updates and other school information through the NMH website: www.nmhschool.org. To reach the main switchboard, call 413-498-3000.