MAGAZINE SPRING 2015
IN THE HOUSE
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IN THE GARDEN
DAYS IN THE LIFE #PINGREESCHOOL
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PINGREE MAGAZINE
PINGREE SCHOOL
EDITOR Melody Komyerov
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS Melody Komyerov
DESIGN 2COMMUNIQUÉ PHOTOGRAPHERS David Goff Deb VanderMolen CONTRIBUTING EDITOR/WRITER Bari Walsh WRITERS Charlotte Reynders Kristen Weldon PRINTING Lane Press Pingree Magazine is published for alumni, parents and friends. We welcome your letters, story ideas, and suggestions. Please send your correspondence to: mkomyerov@pingree.org For alumni updates, email: lpolese@pingree.org
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Kristen Weldon DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT Kimberley C. Moore DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI RELATIONS Laurie Harding Polese ’84, P’13 ’16 DIRECTOR OF PINGREE FUND AND LEADERSHIP GIVING Diana Batchelder Mathey P’01, ’04, ’09, ’11 Pingree is a coeducational independent college preparatory school for grades 9-12. Dedicated to academic excellence and development of high personal standards, Pingree believes that a love of learning flourishes best in a diverse community that respects truth, curiosity, creativity, humor, and independent and imaginative thinking. Above all, Pingree strives to instill in its students integrity, decency, compassion, self-esteem and commitment to one another and to the world at large.
CONTENTS SPRING 2015 VOLUME 2
4 From the Head of School 8 In the House 18 Creating an Identity 22 Play Time 26 Hub of Energy 32 Making Good 36 Start-Up Guru 42 The Hedge Garden 48 Q&A with Carolyn Paczkowska
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LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
Maker Manifesto. Building on the principles of the Maker movement — a burgeoning educational philosophy that prizes hands-on learning, playful exploration, and creative tinkering across all disciplines — Pingree Makers seek out opportunities to participate, question, create, and puncture the status quo. We believe that innovative ideas are a function of the mind and a function of learned behaviors. Pingree Makers own their learning and assume different roles depending
“Pingree Makers seek out opportunities to participate, question, create, and puncture the status quo. ”
MAKING MATTERS One of the most persuasive measures of excellence for any school is the success of its alumni. As we reflect on the skills and habits of mind that we want our students to develop, the achievements of our alumni are a source of inspiration, because they help us to see that innovation — a quality that runs through the entire Pingree experience — is essential to success at every stage of life. In a letter I sent to families after our robotics team claimed the state championship this winter, I talked about the “Maker mindset” that prevails at Pingree. I want to share a few more thoughts on that subject now by offering a framework for what I call the Pingree
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on the project or situation. We are a community of creative and technical people who help one another to do better. Pingree Makers are open, inclusive, encouraging, and generous in spirit. We surprise and delight those who see our projects, even when they are rough-edged and messy. Pingree Makers celebrate other Makers — what they make, how they make it, and the enthusiasm and passion that drives them. Our faculty and staff inculcate the “Maker mindset” in countless ways, from commissioning a playwright and creating an entirely new approach to theater, to staging a multi-genre art collaboration, to reinventing Pingree spaces into flexible hubs of innovation and creativity. Our alumni are building and making, too. From the creative spark of a successful Internet entrepreneur to the compassionate and pragmatic solutions of a humanitarian aid worker in Liberia or an aspiring biomechanical engineer in Boston — you’ll read about how our alumni are carrying our Pingree values into the world. We are a thriving community of practice and play that is centered on participation, problem solving, and joy, with an intentional focus on doing. I hope you’ll enjoy meeting some of our Pingree Makers in the pages that follow. —Timothy M. Johnson
Pingree is that school where I can find the perfect balance between athletics and academics. My teammates and I want to make an impact in the league and in the classroom.” —Matt Gubbins ’17
My team is like a huge family. We practice hard everyday, working for one common goal —a third NESCAC title!” —Kerri Zerfoss ’16
It’s game time! Make your impact and support our student athletes with a gift to the 2014–15 Pingree Fund. www.pingree.org/giving
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The Pingree Fund closes on June 30, 2015
Sean Heffron ’17 (left) and Kyle Emery ’18 (right) of Boys Varsity Ice Hockey practice on the pond. The team finished the season by winning the 2015 Holt League Championship.
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IN THE HOUSE NEWS FROM CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY
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IN THE HOUSE
Danny Massillon ‘16 opened Martin Luther King Day events by singing ‘Lift every Voice and Sing’ by James Weldon Johnson.
IN KING’S WORDS REMEMBERING MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Pingree’s annual celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took as its theme “the power of words” — providing the community an opportunity to reflect on the eloquence of Dr. King’s words and their influence on the civil rights movement. Two guest speakers, the Reverend Clark Olsen and Rosetta Lee, described stark examples of injustice that they had encountered in their own lives and explained how they worked to use these negative experiences as a springboard to create positive change. Olsen spoke of his experiences in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, where he was answering King’s call for clergy to march for voting rights. He and two fellow clergymen were attacked, and one murdered, by white supremacists — a crime that played a pivotal role in inspiring passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and marked what Olsen recounted as “a turning point in American history.” Olsen has made it his life’s work to fight injustice and to encourage others to do the same. “I just think how terribly important it is for you, I, friends, family, neighbors, strangers, to speak up and ask questions and pay attention,” he says. “That’s the way it will happen. There is enough awareness of injustice that things are going to change.”
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Rosetta Lee — an educator, activist, and diversity trainer based in Seattle — spoke about diversity as it manifests itself in society today and then presented interactive workshops for students on topics such as identity and inclusion. She also shared the term “microaggression,” and discussed self-advocacy and the importance of working to build authentic relationships with those around us. “You are the co-authors of each other’s identity,” she told students. “Your role in this activism is living authentically in a world that doesn’t always encourage it.” Zara-Marie Spooner, Pingree’s dean of community and multicultural development, was instrumental in orchestrating the day, from the keynote speeches to the topics addressed in the workshops that took place throughout the day. These workshops gave students the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions about what they heard from Olsen and Lee, as well as to explore how issues of racism, social injustice, identity, and inclusion manifest in their day-to-day experiences. “The MLK Day workshops highlighted the diverse backgrounds and social identities present in our community,” says Spooner. “As a community, we created a space together that enabled us to affirm and celebrate the diverse backgrounds of all community members.”
SPECIAL VISITORS Writer, singer, and performer Faith Soloway visited Pingree in January to talk about her career and her experiences working on Amazon’s award-winning series Transparent — continuing a conversation at Pingree about issues of gender, identity, and diversity. Soloway, who has lived in the Boston area for many years, is a multitalented comedic actress known as an improv guru and creator of folk-rock musicals. She is most recently known for her work as a writer on Transparent, which follows a Los Angeles family whose patriarch (played by Jeffrey Tambor) is transgender. The show recently won a Golden Globe as best TV comedy series. Winning the award was a pinnacle achievement for the show, Soloway acknowledged. “We have a lot of transgender people working with us, and to watch them watch what happened, and seeing the tears, and knowing that this is more than just a win for a television show,” she said. “It was a culmination of everything.” Soloway’s appearance was timely, as students are discussing and reflecting on diversity issues at Pingree this semester. In addition to her talk, Soloway spent the day visiting classes, meeting students, and participating as part of the theatre class.
Top: Faith Soloway talking to students about her career as a writer performer and creator. Bottom: Professional dancers came to campus to lead master classes. Right: Ian Mckenzie, who dances with Lady Gaga, shows the class how it’s done. Left: Miranda Nolan ‘16 dances with Phunk Phenomenon during an All School Assembly.
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IN THE HOUSE
THE PINGREE SALON STUDENT ARTISTS GET ADVENTUROUS, SHOWING A RANGE OF STYLES AND POINTS OF VIEW
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Twice a year, Pingree reinvents itself as an adventurous art gallery featuring work from every medium, every genre, and every color palette. In a color-deprived (and snowwhite) season, this year’s Winter Student Art Show was particularly welcome, a dose of vibrant creativity just when we needed it most. More than 130 visual arts students showcased more than 700 pieces of work for the end-of-semester show. The range of styles, points of view, and skillsets created a salon -like atmosphere, visually and intellectually stimulating. Inclusivity is one of the hallmarks of the show, as every student — newly emerging artist to veteran contributor alike — is represented. Every piece is presented equally, and each is enthusiastically endorsed by the visual arts department. 2. 5.
3. 4.
1. Hannah Shafer ’15; 2. Caleb Grant ’17; 3. 3. Kajsa Kirby ’17; 4. Grace Kirby ’17; 5. Ryan Waystack ’16.
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1.
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1. Quinn Anderson ’16 2. Julia Pope ’18 3. Giraffes on a Park Bench 4. June Kelly ’16 5. Kate DePiero ’17 6.
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6. Isabella de Buy Wenniger ’16
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IN THE HOUSE
SCULPTING A SOLUTION TO HUNGER PINGREE’S EMPTY BOWLS FUNDRAISER BRINGS THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER
It was a night of good music, good food, and good company as the Pingree community came together on February 19 for the biennial Empty Bowls fundraiser, which helps fight hunger in Hamilton and surrounding towns. Led by Pingree Ceramics Teacher Liz Taft, the event was the culmination of months of hard work by students, faculty, and parent volunteers, who sculpted, glazed, and painted ceramic bowls of all shapes, colors, and designs. The bowls were used to serve up a delicious supper of soup and bread donated by local businesses; patrons paid a fee ($10–$15) and took home one of the handcrafted bowls. Proceeds went to the Acord Food Pantry, based in Hamilton and also serving Wenham, Essex, Ipswich, and Topsfield. The coffeehouse-style event featured music and entertainment by Pingree students. The bowls were intended to stand as symbols of the many empty bowls in the world. According to the Empty Bowls Project — an international grassroots organization aimed at combatting hunger — about 1 in 8 Americans struggle with food insecurity every day. The project has helped to encourage similar events in communities across the United States and beyond. Senior Riale Gilligan used the Empty Bowls iniRiale Gilligan ’15 presents one of the bowls he crafted for the Empty Bowls event.
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tiative as a way to carry out a project for his Middle Eastern literature class, which focused on outreach and public diplomacy through the lens of literature. Using dry spaghetti, Gilligan carefully etched selected words from the 13th-century poet Rumi (whose full name was Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī) into the bowls he crafted. Rumi is a central figure in Middle Eastern literary history, whose influence in the region remains strong; this project was one way that Gilligan found to make the community more aware of his work. Following the traditions of the Middle Eastern culture, Gilligan tested a variety of shades and combinations of color layers before landing on the aqua hue that best resembled the pottery during Rumi’s time, which was known for it’s simplicity and non-ornate qualities. Finally, he attached an envelope to each finished bowl, containing the remainder of the carved poem or an excerpt of a translated poem, a biography of Rumi, and a recipe for a traditional Middle Eastern dish. In addition to selling his wares at the Empty Bowls fundraiser (not surprisingly, every one of them sold!), he also donated quite a few. “It was nice to be able to combine public diplomacy with charity,” Gilligan says.
Pingree Varsity Boys basketball star, Justin Assad ’16 and Megan Foye ’17 (right) plasy on the parquet at the 2015 Prep School Basketball Showcase.
PINGREE AT THE GARDEN A NIGHT TO REMEMBER AS PINGREE ATHLETES PLAY LIKE THE PROS
For Pingree’s varsity basketball players, January 19 is a day they’re sure to remember forever — the day they took the floor at the TD Garden in Boston for the 2015 Prep School Basketball Showcase. Sixteen New England prep school teams were invited to compete in this year’s event, including Pingree’s boys and girls varsity teams. The boys’ team took on league rival Lexington Christian Academy, and the girls played Buckingham Browne & Nichols. The all-day event raised money for the Arc of Massachusetts, a charity that supports individuals and families dealing with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Playing at the TD Garden was a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity — and a full Pingree effort. Not only was our community able to raise $15,539, but parents, students, faculty, and staff were also the biggest supporters of Pingree players on the day of the tournament. They filled the stands at the Garden to support both teams, and Amelia Joyce ‘15 and Danny Massillon ’16 sang the national anthem. Athletes got the full Garden treatment, including introductions on the PA system and instant replays on the Garden’s huge video scoreboard. The games took place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and honored King’s civil rights leadership and his message of social justice and equal opportunity for all people.
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POINTS OF DEPARTURE
DOWN TO A SCIENCE DECOURCY ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
Whether circling the athletic fields in his famed white golf cart, designing a drone, or launching model rockets, physics teacher Paul DeCourcy is always finding new ways to bring joy to the Pingree community. Now, as DeCourcy plans to retire after 14 years in the Pingree Science Department, those moments of whimsy will be cherished all the more. Although he seems like a natural, DeCourcy did not always know that he wanted to be a teacher. In fact, he says, he was “so shy and retiring” as a student that he “never dreamt [he] would be going down that road.” Nevertheless, the fates aligned. While in high school, he took an exam called the Cooter Preference Test, which assessed students’ abilities and suggested a list of career options. “Believe it or not,” DeCourcy says, “‘teacher’ was one of the top [careers]” on the list. In college, he developed a strong interest in the sciences, and his path to the field of education began to solidify. He earned a B.S. in education from Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts, where he majored in biology. He then received his M.A. in teaching from Salem State University. When he decided to pursue a career in education, he found himself “thrown right into it.” Following his time at Salem State, DeCourcy participated in nearly 100 hours of postgraduate work at a variety of institutions, including Northeastern University, Boston College, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Quinnipiac University, Merrimack College, and Wesleyan University. “Why so many postgrad courses? I loved teaching, but teaching in the 70’s and 80’s was very competitive and many of us got ‘pink slips,’ myself included. So to stay in teaching meant getting certified in more science disciplines,” said DeCourcy. He is currently certified in biology, chemistry, and, of course, physics. One of his first full-time teaching experiences was as an earth science teacher for fifth- and sixth-grade students in Fitchburg. He “loved it. It just clicked.” Evidently, he had found his calling. DeCourcy worked as a science teacher in the Peabody public school system for 28 years. Following a two-year period as a physics teacher at the Manchester-Essex public high school, he learned from a colleague that a new teaching position was available in the science department of a private high school in
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South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He joined the Pingree community in 2002, at first expecting to “spend a year or two” at Pingree and then retire. Fourteen years later, it is clear that his Pingree career played out quite differently from what he had anticipated. He has taught all levels of physics including Honors, AP-I, and AP-II, which are programs that he introduced to Pingree. When asked what topics he most enjoys teaching, DeCourcy says “rotational dynamics” and “circuits,” due to the opportunities for “demos.” Ask any Pingree student who has taken a physics class from him: these in-class demonstrations are cornerstones of his workmeets-play teaching style. Interactive lessons involving toy monkeys, bicycle wheels, plastic cars, and colorful glowing orbs enliven his classroom. “Seeing is believing,” says DeCourcy — but some of these demonstrations are beyond belief. He confesses that he tends to “make things happen to objects that aren’t supposed to happen,” incorporating “sleight-of-hand” into his physics classes “just to keep [his students] guessing.” The students are what DeCourcy says he will miss most about Pingree. A highlight of his experience with students at Pingree has been the regular, post-lesson chorus of “Thanks, Mr. D, see you tomorrow!” He characterized Pingree students as “pre-motivated” and “ready to go from day one,” noting that “it’s really a teacher’s dream to be able to work with a student in that mindset.” As a teacher, he has always emphasized “self-reliance,” and he finds that, as a result, students are able to think independently and solve problems with “genius” originality. Consistently, across his 14 years at Pingree, he has observed in his students “the same curiosity” and “the same dedication to their education.” The choice to retire, DeCourcy says, was a “very, very difficult decision.” But as he quickly points out, he “won’t be too far away.” As community, we’re reassured — we’ll expect frequent guest appearances (and an occasional rocket launch).
A FOND ADIEU SWANSON ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
It’s time to bid adieu to a longtime Pingree stalwart. Barbara Swanson, connoisseur of languages, has announced her decision to retire at the end of the 2014–2015 school year, her 26th as a member of the Pingree Language Department. Swanson has taught French and Latin to high school students throughout her long career. She studied both languages in depth as an undergraduate at Colby College, where she first began to develop her goal of becoming a teacher. “I never thought I wanted to do anything else,” she says. Initially she majored in classics, but, as she considered career possibilities in education, she realized that the landscape for Latin studies had changed significantly. In the 1950s, when she was in high school, two years of Latin were a prerequisite for any student who wanted to attend college. As she proceeded in her own college studies, Swanson noticed that Latin was no longer a universal requirement in many high schools in the Northeast, so she decided to change her major to French. After graduating from Colby, Swanson accepted a position at Wells High School in Maine, where she taught Latin I and II, in addition to French. (Evidently, her dream of teaching both languages in tandem had crystallized early in her career). Later, she taught French II and IV at Hamilton-Wenham High School, marking her permanent transition to the North Shore. At Hamilton-Wenham, Swanson met her husband, a math teacher and Tufts alumnus. “We met 50 years ago this fall, so we’ve been married for 48 years,” she says. As a teacher, Swanson believes firmly in the importance of clarity and sensibility in the spoken and written word, often comparing grammar rules to math
equations. Reflecting on the inherent value of studying the meaning and mechanics of language, she poses a key question that epitomizes her teaching goals: “If you don’t use the right forms, then what have you really said?” Her departure will bring real changes to the language curriculum. The Latin class she currently teaches for juniors and seniors is scheduled to be removed from the curriculum after this year. Only a Latin Studies course, which she created about two years ago, will remain. When Swanson joined the Language Department in 1989, she knew very few members of the community, but over time she has developed close relationships with her students and colleagues — an aspect of her Pingree experience that she will miss deeply. The small class sizes and “old bedroom” setup have helped to cultivate comfortable classroom environments in which, she says, “you get to know a lot more people.” Looking back on her teaching experience as a whole, she recalls her 1989 interview at Pingree, during which the academic dean said, “kids are kids.” Swanson has often reflected on the truth in this statement. She says, “It doesn’t matter the milieu that you find them in; the similarities among them are so much greater than the differences.” Her colleagues have in many ways defined her Pingree experience. Before the installation of the new academic wing, Swanson enjoyed the company of the entire English Department, History Department, and half of the Math Department on the third floor. “There were twenty-one teachers,” she explained, “so I shared an office for a few years with Mr. [Eric] Olson and Mr. [Jay] Esty.” She fondly remembers hearing piano music emanating from the practice room at the end of the hall on Friday afternoons. (She and a few faculty members at the time jokingly called the third floor the “piano bar,” due to the music teacher’s weekly ritual). The Language Department is now the only academic department located in that part of the building, but Swanson still enjoys the rich and varied conversations that take place there, and she has grown accustomed to sharing stories. “Mr. [David] Goff comes in with the pictures of his two — it’s like his little girl is growing up before our eyes on the wall because she has changed so.” Even outside the Language Department, she has found that she has gotten “so used to people and their personalities.” Contemplating the vibrant group dynamics of the Pingree faculty, she notes that “you can talk with the biology teacher about her chickens and her eggs and talk with John the runner about all the marathons — there’s so much. I’ll miss a lot of that.” The author of these articles, Charlotte Reynders, is a senior and will be attending Princeton University.
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G N I D
IDEN TITY A CO LL ON A ABORAT IVE, M JOUR ULTI BY K NEY DISC RIST O F DIS EN W C OVER IPLINARY ELDO Y, LEA A N DING RTS PRO JECT TO N TAKE EW I S STU NSIG HTS ABO DENTS— UT H A OW W ND AUD IE E CR EATE NCES —
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Have you ever dropped in on a Pingree theater rehearsal and watched as students animatedly run lines for an upcoming performance or move swiftly and silently around the stage as they practice utilizing space? Have you listened in during a high-energy practice session in the recording studio, or visited the photography lab as a student sets up the camera up for a perfect shot? If you’ve spent any time on campus, you know that Pingree is filled with a creative energy that is almost electric. Now, teachers and students are taking that energy to the next level, with a multidisciplinary arts project that breaks new ground for innovation. SEEDS OF COLLABORATION
It all started with an offhand idea, the kind of brainstorm that the Pingree arts faculty will say are frequent and usually the way projects start. “This evolved just from conversation,” says Pingree Theater Director Arlynn Poletta. “That’s the beautiful thing about collaboration — it comes out of you getting excited about an idea and just starts to roll, and turns into this thing that you didn’t plan in advance.” By some miracle of the higher scheduling power, the first semester performing class, the digital music class, and the photography class all met during the same block. These classes incorporate a variety of grade levels and a range of interests, skills, and talents. The teachers decided to collaborate, embarking on a month-long integrated project that resulted in twelve unique identity piece “installments.” The journey to get there required the patience, teamwork, sensitivity, creative discourse, and mutual respect of all parties involved. The topic originated in Poletta’s theater lab class, surrounding an earlier project in which students had been asked to do some identity work to help connect them to characters. Building on this concept and incorporating the idea for collaboration with other classes, she challenged them to take it a step further — to embrace an identity they could explore, further and then to extend it into a character. Poletta’s one requirement was that they had to come to the table with a clear picture of the character, and what this character represented. Some
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A variety of examples from the Art Department’s identity project, where students worked collaboratively, across media, to create a character and bring it to life.
students had their idea before she finished pitching the question, while others took time to contemplate and massage their concept. Poletta points out that this was a significant shift in mentality for some of her students; although this was a performance class, there isn’t a typical curtain call for unveiling an identity. Pingree’s young artists not only embraced the challenge, but sprinted with it. Once they had their final idea for a character, students wrote a narrative to accompany this piece. Enter stage left Art Department Chair Eric Haltmeier’s digital music class, whose members took the narratives and, working collaboratively with the originators, crafted the background notes to support the story through music. Groups wrote and recorded digital music tracks, while simultaneously doing photo shoots with Photography and Mixed Media Teacher Debra VanderMolen’s photography class, rounding out the third piece in the trifecta. Each of the resulting projects, approximately 3-4 minutes in length, features a student in various settings and poses, reading his or her narrative with calculated timing and inflection, while music floats in the background to support the narrative and visual art. Once complete, they were showcased at the Winter Arts Show, in settings around the school, creating mini-theaters or performance spaces. For some students, the topic they selected was
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“I wasn’t surprised that my class took it very seriously and went to a very personal place, but I was surprised by how much it felt like college-level work. The material that they were handling was so far beyond what you would expect of high school aged kids. ” very near and dear, and marked some potentially uncomfortable or uncharted territory. Other chose to create an entirely fictitious character, perhaps with components that they identified with or that enabled them to showcase a narrative in a fun and expressive way. EMBRACING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As impressive as the end results were, the three faculty collaborators agreed it was the journey that was the most successful component. Students were challenged at every step — not only to take on topics that were potentially personal, but to collaborate on these topics. The creative process involved discourse, creative criticism, honest discussion, alterations, suggestions, and feedback. “It was insightful for students on all sides, because with every component of this work, it changed the bigger picture of things. Every piece of it changed everybody’s perspective,” says Haltmeier. From this vantage point, the material this project tackled, the dialogue and creative process students worked through, and the perspective gained was nothing shy of college-level work. The students were able to work in state-of-the-art facilities, with design tools that many universities would envy. “I wasn’t surprised that my class took it very seriously and went to a very personal place, but I was surprised by how much it felt like college-level work. The material that they were handling was so far beyond what you would expect of high school aged kids,” said Poletta. Although the project had a general direction and vision, Poletta, Haltmeier, and VanderMolen each marveled at how students immediately embraced this opportunity and made it their own. “The open-endedness of it is really what makes it a lot of fun.” says Haltmeier. “You don’t know how it is going to evolve. We are trying to trust our instincts as artists, our instincts as teachers, and to trust students and their inherent artistry. They did so much independent work with this that it reaffirms for me this idea that if you give them space to be creative, they will run with it in a big, big way. And that happened on so many levels in this project.” One of the things that emerged for Haltmeier’s digital composers was the challenge of the subject matter. Writing a piece of music to accompany a personal narrative was a very different experience for them. The typ-
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ical project would have them writing a variety of pieces to accomplish a series of goals; for these identity pieces, the notes, tempo, pace, and inflection all had to map to the narrative, which tied to the person whose story it was. “I felt like it really changed for my music students the way that they see their role as musicians and composers,” says Haltmeier. “As opposed to ‘I am just going to try and write a song now to entertain people,’ instead you are serving a very functional purpose — you want to support this piece. I think it was empowering for them to realize how their work could be elevated by collaborating with somebody else, and that the reward in that was how everyone elevated everyone.” For some, the end product was so moving or personal that it took some time to get used to the idea of presenting it, or took seeing other classmates showcase their work to enable them to harness their confidence to show theirs as well. THE POWER OF TEAM TEACHING
The framework of the project helps demonstrate the potential of team teaching, or collaborative teaching, a topic that is popping up more regularly in progressive schools throughout the country. It embraces the notion that students and faculty alike can benefit from having two or more teachers in the room during a given lesson, with teachers working alongside their pupils, at times as students themselves. Such an atmosphere can prompt more discussion on a broader range of topics, taking advantage of having several dynamic educators in one place. It also lets students see that teachers don’t always know everything. There is an element of vulnerability in this that can be valuable for students to see — that while their teachers may be experts in their field — they as individuals are still learning, asking questions, and seeking answers. For Poletta, Haltmeier, and VanderMolen, this project offered a rare chance to tap into all of that. It also validated the notion of “learning through play” — exploring, experimenting, sharing, and building. And all three faculty members said that the collaboration had helped them extend their reach as educators, which was ultimately what made the process such a success. “That is what I think is so powerful about collaborative teaching — that you can teach all of these fundamental skills
More character studies from last fall’s identity project. To view the projects online, visit pingree.org/buildingidentity
through this lens of collaboration, which is so powerful for students to see. My students are still working on all of the things that we would have worked on in class, but in a much more meaningful way,” says Poletta. One of the Arts Department’s broader aims is to help students begin to see what it is to be an artist — not just an actor, musician, technician, or photographer. “An overarching goal that evolves from this is seeing the similarities in all of these disciplines where they cross over. We are dealing with very similar ideas and concepts, just working through different mediums,” says Haltmeier. As a result of this process, Poletta says, “My class has a really clear understanding of what it is to be an artist and not just an actor.” So what’s on the horizon for this dynamic group? There are rumblings about devising a full theater piece inspired by the students, or possibly creating a silent film. No matter what the experience leads to next, it is sure to be dynamic, engaging, and innovative — just like the adventurous performers and their Pingree audience.
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PINGREE STUDENTS GO DEEP INSIDE THE CREATIVE PROCESS TO BRING A NEW SCRIPT TO LIFE FOR THE FIRST TIME BY KRISTEN WELDON PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID GOFF
PLAY TIME
Like so many other experiences at Pingree, this one is sure to trigger an adult’s “I wish I could have done that when I was in school” auto-response. As part of a typically deep immersion into the creative process, Pingree’s Arts Department decided that rather than simply staging a play, they’d start a few steps earlier and actually commission a script, which students would then get to develop into a performance that was all their own. True to its own guiding principles — the importance of collaboration, the embrace of new ideas, and a focus on the process itself — the arts team commissioned Boston-based playwright MJ Halberstadt to write a play for and with Pingree’s performing arts class. Then students and faculty dove right in, making the script come to life as they developed it over the semester. “That was the great thing,” says technical theater teacher Jason Ries about the development of Brute, a
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play set in a zoo, where the actors are playing the animals. “We were given a script (or document in process) that we had some latitude with, more so than we might have felt okay with if we were performing a classic and the audience had a certain expectation.” The flexible process enabled them to make set-design adjustments; tweak characters based on known strengths, talents, and anxieties of student performers; and even add a character to the script. “This was a big difference from last year in terms of how much it allowed them to really create a character,” says Ries. “It gave us a chance to dive in more with the kids in terms of thinking about character, thinking about space, thinking about intent. There was a lot more integration, and we spent a lot of time with that.” By giving faculty and students the chance to plunge into something that was brand new, Brute showed
young artists what it feels like to develop a piece from scratch. It opened up doors for performers to learn how to create unique characters — characters who were truly theirs. “I think it’s incredibly valuable educationally, and it’s also fun, because they are realizing that they can make decisions, and they are given the opportunity to make decisions, and we encourage this,” Ries says. The project helped realize a larger goal of the Arts Department, which is to help students to see how all the different roles in a performance — or in the creation of any work of art — are connected and essential. “You really can’t do theater without collaboration,” says Arlynn Polletta, theater director. There are many roles and personality types involved in any production — actor, musician, technician — and no part can function separately. Says Ries, “We want it to be an active dialogue. We want them to be thinking, ‘How does my character determine bigger things?’” Having a script that isn’t carved in stone presents certain logistical challenges and requires everyone to be open to hearing feedback about what is working or not working. “This can create shifting dynamics, but it is incredibly valuable,” says Ries. “Being able to work with a new play is so exciting for kids at this age, and I think we did a good job in instilling in them an appreciation, or clarifying for them, that this is a big deal.” And exposing the students to working artists in the local area was another part of the project’s payoff, adds Polletta. “MJ was really excited about the idea of coming and working with a high school because he had never done that before,” Ries says. Working for a big ensemble and writing a piece designed to be performed by these particular people — all of that is closer to the way Shakespeare worked, or the way a resident playwright would work, so it was a new creative experience for all. Because Brute takes place at a zoo, the production team thought a lot about the set and the audience space. They wanted to make it feel as if the audience was part of the play and part of the story of this performance. They decided that the actors should be moving around the theater, creating an atmosphere that involved the audience, almost as if they were caged animals themselves. “It is all storytelling,” says Ries. “The dynamic of making them part of it, making their reactions part of it, is really interesting. Watching and being watched. And the performers really got that and were aware of the challenges of having to act behind and around the audience — and also how much power that gave the actors. The audience had to work, too. It did so much for this particular play.” “It’s all about the process,” says Polletta. “What I care about most is that we are open to new ideas.”
Scenes from the production of Brute, a new play that Pingree’s performing artists commissioned and developed.
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B HU F O
COMINGS AND GOINGS — HUMAN AND ROBOTIC — AT THE PINGREE MAKER SPACE
ENERGY The Pingree Maker Space is a hub of energy — home to as many great ideas as there are students and faculty at the school. Here are seven examples of the Maker Space in action — class projects and extracurricular activities that show how the space is generating new connections and creating new opportunities for learning.
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BY KRISTEN WELDON PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID GOFF AND MELODY KOMYEROV
The Pingree Maker Space is home to as many projects as there are ideas. It’s a flexible space that suits many large and small-scale collaborations.
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PINGREE ROBOTICS COMES ALIVE
Students meander into the room, talking and joking with one another. Backpacks get put under tables, and slowly boxes begin to emerge onto tabletops. Students pull out what to the untrained eye looks a lot like a mixture of Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, metal ramps, and countless odds and ends. And yet to them, these are all puzzle pieces, and it is just a matter of time before they clip, drill, snap, bend, and align these pieces just right, to make machines that come alive. Welcome to a day in the life of Pingree’s championship robotics team, a dedicated group of makers who meet after school from November to March. Team members spend a minimum of two hours a day, five days a week — and often much more — doing what they do best: tinkering, programming, building, and testing. Robotics is a movement that has taken off across the country, representing a technology-based extension of do-it-yourself (DIY) culture. Manifestations of that culture might include robotics, 3D printing, woodworking, arts and crafts, and electronics, among others. And after all, tinkering is how many entrepreneurial pioneers began. Steve Jobs tinkered in his garage long before he started building anything worthy of note. Pingree robotics teams have competed against other schools for the last four years, but this year they’ve enjoyed remarkable success. Fourteen students worked in teams on four robots, competing in VEX Robotics Competitions throughout the region. The game for this year’s VEX Competitions is called Skyrise, where four robots compete at a time. The game is played on a 12-square-foot field, and each robot must fit within an 18-inch cube at the start of the match. The first part of the match consists of an autonomous mode, where the robot must drive itself based on a program that team wrote for it. Then the (human) driver takes over. Points are scored by building a five-foot tower out of eight-inch pieces, and also by lifting cubes made of one-inch tubing and placing them over the posts. Throughout the season and in individual competitions, there are a variety of other ways to earn points and awards — for design and engineering, special skills, and qualities such as sportsmanship, entrepreneurship, and creativity.
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The maker space is the perfect place for the robotics team to spread out and collaborate on their bots.
In February, 50 robots from around the state — including the four Pingree bots — competed at the VEX Massachusetts Skyrise Championship, and Pingree posted its best-ever finish in a VEX competition. When the dust had settled, the team consisting of Jeremy Wiles ’15, Tim Smith ’16, and Andreas Hansen ’18 won the Massachusetts state championship, and two of the four robot teams headed for the regional competition in March, where they had a terrific showing. So good, in fact, that they were invited to compete in the world championships, to be held in Louisville in April. Faculty member Dave Medvitz is the proud leader of the robotics charge, although he says the students “do most of it on their own. They’re self-starters, and they help each other. I’m just here for guidance.” Medvitz discusses his method, which involves spreading out the teams so that they have a chance to work with a variety of people with different skill sets. For instance, he has several students who are especially skilled in programming, so rather than “stack the teams,” he spreads these individuals out to maximize the overall product, and more importantly, let groups with a range of skill sets collaborate. Up until this year, Dave’s team had been meeting in the HUB, a common area, where after each session they had to pack up their materials and store them under couches until the next day. The space they occupy now has proven to be a great place for building, collaborating, and testing. This team’s dedicated work and long hours may fly a bit under the radar at Pingree. In addition to their
two-hour daily commitment, most students put in much more time, especially when they are gearing up for a competition. Competitions take place on the weekends, which can mean leaving as early as 6:15 a.m. and not returning until evening. When teams aren’t on the field competing, they are taking apart their robot, tweaking, re-testing. No rest for the weary. Come spring, the team will graduate five seniors and hopefully bring in some new freshmen from the upcoming class. One thing is for sure: these maker minds are making quite an impact.
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LEARNING TO BUILD A DRONE — AND EXPLORING THE IMPLICATIONS
DRONING ON
WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEETS TEXTILES
SMART DRESSER During semester 1, technology teacher Dave Medvitz and director of technology Tammy Conrad partnered to team-teach an H block elective called Smart Clothes. This is a burgeoning area of interest among technologists across a variety of fields — where electronics merge with your everyday textiles, incorporating different digital capabilities into various items of clothing. Producing these fabrics draws on a range of skills, including sewing, circuitry, programming, and soldering. And smart these textiles are. Students crafted various articles of clothing that to the naked eye looked no different from regular garments or accessories but that included embedded circuit boards, pockets sewn in for power supply, and LED lights. This gave items like your typical hair bow the ability to respond to sound, or your necktie the power to light up. Other projects included smart watches and an LED face mask. Smart clothing is a concept that many labs and larger companies have embraced and taken to market, and more will follow. For Pingree students at the cutting edge of a new industry, there are no bounds to what they’ll make next.
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Drone Wars is an H block elective that explores both the mechanics and the ethics of drones. Part of the class will be spent building quadcopters, and part will be devoted to a discussion of the use and appropriateness of drones in international policy. So even as students are flexing their engineering muscles and learning to build these little machines, they are also learning about their implications. One recent discussion centered on the morality of drone warfare. Our visiting Danish students gave this topic particular relevance, since their perspectives added a global dimension to the conversation.
GIVING STUDENTS THE TOOLS TO COMPUTE WITH CONFIDENCE
PROGRAM GUIDE
GRAPHIC DESIGN ACROSS ALL MEDIA
MAKING IT WORK
Computer programming will give students the tools to program small robots, input/output boards similar to those used for smart clothes, and the innovative Raspberry Pi, a very low-cost, credit-cardsized computer that plugs into a monitor or TV, designed to allow people to experiment with computing and programming. The Pi — developed by a UK nonprofit to help give more kids access to the joys of computing — claims to be able to do everything a desktop computer can do, even to run Windows 10. (The class plans on putting this to the test.) The benefit to this particular piece of equipment is that it is a fully functional information kiosk that can be dedicated to a specific purpose. Rather than using larger, much more expensive laptops, students can use the Pi to run, test, program, and stream all sorts of information. This is just one of the many tools students have available to them in the maker space.
Pingree’s graphic design class balances its time between the computer lab and the robotics space. Students started in the computer lab, learning Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. They moved on to Google SketchUp, which is a free 3D modeling program that can be used in architecture, interior design, civil and mechanical engineering, film, and video game design. It gave students the ability to build objects in 3D, which then transferred over to the 3D printer. Creations included a mini coffee cup (espresso size), a candle and a candle holder, a bottle opener, and a clothespin. The challenge here was creating a rendering in Google SketchUp that was the right size and precision, and to scale. On top of that, it had to function.
Students also gained experience using the laser cutter to create objects like snowflakes. Some students are using their artwork and taking the laser cutter to the next level. Carter Rossano ’15and Eliza Steele ’15 were interested in expanding completed art projects to incorporate the laser cutter. Both had done penand-ink drawings, then scanned and engraved these onto wood. Carter wants to take yet another step and experiment with painting or staining the wood. Artistically this can feel radical, because students can try things that they couldn’t do before, like taking a standard pen-and-ink drawing and transforming it into a completely different medium. The possibilities are endless.
Even the Pingree Pegasus has a home in the maker space, among the many boundary-breaking projects under construction at any given time.
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TRAVELING AMONG THE WORLD’S NEEDIEST, AN ENGINEER AND AID WORKER BRINGS HEALTH — AND FINDS HAPPINESS
MAKING GOOD BY BARI WALSH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JULIA POPE ’18
As a humanitarian aid worker for Doctors Without Borders, Kathy MacLaughlin Dedieu has seen illness, poverty, and struggle. But she has never seen anything quite like the haunting toll taken by Ebola on the doctors, nurses, and families of West Africa, battered by the ongoing outbreak. “There is a mental part to Ebola that is really tough,” Dedieu says. “As a health care worker, what do you do when you’re afraid of the patient? What do you do to avoid it, when the way that people get it is by caring for people — a mother who’s trying to take care of her child, a son taking care of his mother, a nurse taking care of a patient. When somebody is really sick, how can you not touch them? It’s heartbreaking.” Dedieu, a 1989 graduate of Pingree and a former Pingree science teacher, is a water
and sanitation engineer for Doctors Without Borders, better known internationally by its French acronym, MSF, for Medecins Sans Frontiers. She was in Liberia early last fall, as the epidemic was raging, trying to help reopen hospitals and clinics in the capital, Monrovia, where the health care system — and anything beyond Ebola containment — had all but ceased operating. With hospitals shut, she says, there was “nowhere to deliver a baby, there were no emergency surgeries happening, there was no malaria treatment,” Dedieu says. “Malaria kills many, many more people than Ebola, but if the health clinics aren’t open, you can’t get the malaria medicine. Vaccinations went down, because nobody wanted to do anything that involved blood. Liberia was particularly hard hit by health care work-
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ers getting Ebola — they seemed to be hit even harder than in Guinea and Sierra Leone.” “I went to look to see if we could reopen some of these health centers and support them, train the workers in what Ebola is and what they should do when they see it, and give them protective equipment,” she says. Now back in Paris — her home for at least the next several years — she is apartment hunting with her husband, Laurent Dedieu, who heads logistics operations for MSF. Between field assignments, she’s researching new medical equipment that would be safer and more comfortable for health workers in outbreak zones, looking at more comfortable personal protective equipment. She has first-hand experience with how hot and unwieldy the protective garb can be; she first trained health workers in infection-control procedures more than a decade ago, when she worked in China during the SARS outbreak. But infection control involves a lot of things that engineers like her are good at — things like predictability, routine, and organization — and so she relishes the role. “When you’re taking off the suits, you need a buddy,” she says. “Someone needs to tell you exactly what to do, because you are sweaty and miserable and your head isn’t functioning right. Someone needs to say, Now you take off your apron, now you wash your hands. Everything has to be done slowly. It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s just counterintuitive, because you want to get out of the suit fast. But it’s routine, routine, routine. People who love routine are good at infection control.” That’s one of the reasons why MSF typically puts water and sanitation engineers in charge of infectioncontrol procedures, Dedieu says. “You take a mechanical and scientific approach to infection control, and then you let the caregivers be the caregivers.” With Ebola, the situation on the ground “felt a little like when AIDS first appeared. No one really understood how it was transmitted, how contagious it was. Universal precautions and infection control changed because of that, and I think you’ll have some new precautions because of Ebola, and people will become used to it. Hospitals will become more aware of how you isolate patients and how you approach things in a safer way.” She never felt worried for her own health in Liberia. “I am very cautious,” she says. “I like to practice and get things right. It’s my civil engineering training — there’s an order of doing things. I’m not reckless or fearless, but I’m also not afraid. I feel safe in the science.” Dedieu was drawn to humanitarian work early, as an undergraduate at Bucknell University studying civil engineering. She took internships that had her doing water and sanitation projects on Indian reservations in
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Minnesota and working on hazardous waste cleanup and environmental justice issues. But she went into the private sector after completing her master’s degree at MIT, working for Camp Dresser and McKee (a global environmental engineering firm now known as CDM Smith) on domestic and international assignments. “Working under Superfund — working at hazardous waste sites — that’s how I learned how to do the complete wearing of all the protective equipment, how to take a sample in a way that doesn’t contaminate anything, how to decontaminate everything. That’s where I started.” After working on an international water project that had federal funding attached, which wound up limiting her options for designing a solution to the problem she was there to address, Dedieu realized that she wanted to get closer to the ground. “I realized that I wanted to work for an organization that is really just there for the benefit of the people in need,” she says. “Full stop. No other agenda.”
She connected with MSF in the early 2000s, while in Hong Kong on another project, and she was recruited to join soon after. Her field assignments have since included stints in Bangladesh (2009), Ethiopia (2007), Guinea-Bissau (2005), Liberia (2004-05), and Southern Sudan (2003-04). Southern Sudan was a particularly memorable assignment, she says. She headed a team charged with drilling wells that would supply health care clinics with water. At a time when people in the war-ravaged region
you go to work! They’ll still look more put together, because they wash those clothes every night, they iron those clothes every night. They look awesome, and you just look like a sweaty mess. They are stronger, smarter, and have an innate intelligence and a connection to things that we’ve lost.” It was during a period between field assignments when she and her husband decided to slow things down and reconnect with family. They bought a house in Gloucester, and she spent several happy years
“ I come out of it thinking not that the world is a miserable place, but that the world is filled with extraordinarily kind and generous people.” were “dying of thirst, to say nothing of hunger,” Dedieu trained local people in how to safely drill, build, and repair the wells. “ In 9 months, we drilled 12 wells. I lived in a popup tent the whole time. I’d get a bucket for showers. There was no electricity, just a high-frequency radio. The plane would come every 12 days to drop off food, unless it was raining.” On one occasion, she and her team had to expand a dirt airstrip, because they were bringing in a pickup truck and a drilling rig. “Nobody in all those villages had seen a car in 11 years,” she says. “During the war, all the roads were mined, so people just started to go into the bush and make villages in the bush. “It was such a humbling time,” she adds, with a dash of the self-deprecating humor that is her trademark. “Here I am, arriving with my graduate degree and my consulting experience, and I had absolutely no idea how to drill wells in Southern Sudan. I just watched and learned and figured it out and tried to help them get the supplies they needed.” When commended for her self-sufficiency, Dedieu quickly begs to differ. “I am not self-sufficient. I know that I depend on a lot of other people,” she says. “I could never survive without my coworkers in the field.” To illustrate the point, she likes to tell a story about how the MSF experience changes a person. When you first start out, she says, “You pack this huge bag, because you’re like, ‘My God, I’m going to be there for three months, I need all this stuff.’ No. If you bring a backpack with two pairs of pants and four shirts, you’re going to have one pair of pants and three shirts more than anybody that you’re working with in the field. And the truth is, they’re still going to look better than you when
(2011–2014) back at Pingree, following in the footsteps of her brother, English teacher and Sophomore Class Dean James MacLaughlin ’84. During that stint, she founded and led Pingree’s Service Learning and Civic Engagement program. Does she gain perspective when weighing the contrasts between home on the North Shore and work in the field? Dedieu isn’t prone to philosophizing. “I compartmentalize quite well,” she says. “And I think really successful humanitarian aid workers do that. When I‘m home, I’m home. I’m all in. I’m getting my mani-pedis, having my lobster, going to my barbecues — I’m just home. And then when I’m in the field, I’m in the field. I’m really 100 percent there.” The culture shock does sometimes hit, she says. “You come back from the field, and everybody’s healthy, and all the babies are fat, and there are 50 cereals to choose from, and you have this moment of, ‘Why do I get to live like this, and so many other people don’t get to live like this?’ But I don’t stay there very long, mentally. I appreciate it, I’m aware of it, but I don’t swim in it.” It’s what helps her go back and keep doing the work, even when the work is hard, and even when the progress is slow. Even after the toughest assignments, she says, “I come out of it thinking not that the world is a miserable place, but that the world is filled with extraordinarily kind and generous people, who work so hard, and they’ll give you their last drop of water every time.” “People everywhere are the same,” she continues. “They just want good for their family. They’re interested in who you are, they’re happy to chat and learn a little about you. Everybody is the same everywhere. The generosity is extraordinary.”
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LANGLEY STEINERT HAS A TRACK RECORD THAT ANY ENTREPRENEUR WOULD ENVY — AND HE’S SHARING SOME TIPS OF THE TRADE (AND SECRETS OF HIS SUCCESS) WITH HIS ALMA MATER
INTERVIEW AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MELODY KOMYEROV
Start-Up Guru Langley Steinert ’81 is the founder and CEO of CarGurus, an online research and shopping site that is changing the way people buy cars. He cofounded and was previously the chairman of TripAdvisor, which has become an essential online travel information and booking site. He also served as vice president of marketing and business development at Viaweb, an internet commerce tools company that was sold to Yahoo! Inc. Previously, he held management roles at Papyrus, Lotus Development Corp., and JetForm Corp. He earned an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and a BA from Georgetown University. He is one of three sons of the beloved and recently retired Pingree faculty member Ailsa Steinert (who was also his Russian literature teacher). In a recent conversation that ranged widely over his management philosophy and career trajectory, Steinert shared thoughts about the nature of entrepreneurship and the qualities of a successful business leader. We excerpt that conversation here. 34
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Langley Steinert ’81, at the Cambridge headquarters of CarGurus, which offers consumers an entire-
Pingree SPRING 2015 35 ly new way to shop for cars.
{THE IMPORTANCE OF FLEXIBILITY}
Not everything you start instantly turns into magic. In both cases, TripAdvisor and CarGurus, what we started out with was horrible, completely wrong. The reason why both companies have done well, I would argue, is that we have been flexible in how we approach the market and what we are trying to deliver to consumers. With TripAdvisor, the original idea was to create a search engine that would index all the articles out there on the web about Paris. So literally we spent two and a half years developing the search engine, and suffice it to say, it was a complete disaster. We almost ran out of money, and the idea of adding user reviews was kind of an afterthought. We said, gee, let’s try this, and that’s when the site took off. Same thing with CarGurus. The original idea was to create another TripAdvisors for cars, and people would write user reviews and get involved in forums and have discussion forums about cars. That didn’t really work out that well either. We had to reinvent the company about two years into it, where we focus more on shopping, helping people get great deals as they shop. I think one of the keys to entrepreneurship is being really flexible about how you define your product and how you approach your customers. The number one thing you need to think about when you start your company is not becoming so rigid in your product or customer approach that you are inflexible about changing a product that’s not working. {START SMALL AND GROW}
Don’t raise a ton of money. Raise enough money to prove that it works, then when it works, raise more. {CONDUCTOR OF CHAOS}
My kids always ask me, “What do you do when you go to work?” It’s hard to say these days! In the first year or two, you’re really about the product, and you are about working with the developers to find the product. Later, you become what I call the conductor of chaos. You are trying to make sure things don’t go off the tracks. I do a little bit of everything, a little bit of product, a little bit of sales, a lot of HR stuff. Probably my biggest role at the moment is making sure that I’ve created a culture where people feel valued and enjoy coming to work. {HEAD CHEERLEADER}
We’re not a manufacturing firm; we don’t produce widgets or razor blades. Our biggest asset is our people, and they are really talented people, and they could work anywhere they wanted. So we need to make sure we do more than just give them a paycheck. We need to make
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“ If the reason you’re going into entrepreneurship is because you read about Instagram and Facebook and you want to make a lot of money — don’t, because you’ll fail.” sure this is a place where they really feel invested and excited to come to work. The biggest part of my job is to make sure everyone’s happy. I’m the head cheerleader. {THERE IS A FREE LUNCH}
We have 110 employees, and twice a month, I take five randomly chosen employees to lunch — everyone from the lowest to highest engineers. We go to lunch and I say, “I’m not going to talk, I’m going to listen. You tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what needs to change.” I don’t make any promises that I’ll implement any of it. Usually out of those lunches, I get one pretty good idea of how to change the culture, a new feature we should put in the product — but I do think it makes people feel empowered. They feel they have a voice or a vote on how the company should be run. {WE HATE MEETINGS}
We hate meetings in this company. So typically, I’ll have one meeting a week with my entire management team. Everyone has to come with a onepager on what they are working on, what they did last week, and their goals for this week. We talk about that stuff and then we’re done, and I don’t have another meeting for the entire week. If I’m working on something, I’ll go grab someone, and we’ll talk — we have adhoc meetings. {DRIVEN BY DATA}
One of my least favorite ways to start a sentence is ‘I think,’ or ‘I believe.’ I really don’t care what you think or believe — tell me what you can prove. When we make decisions, it’s all about what data can you bring that proves or disproves your hypothesis. We go where the data tells us to go — there are no sacred cows. We are quick to kill things that don’t work. We are always willing to test most anything, but if the data comes back and it says it’s not worthy, we’ll kill it and we’ll move on.
{FINDING THE MOTIVATION}
What motivates me is helping consumers make better choices—running into a consumer and having them tell me how much they love the product. And I tend to be curious about data. I have 40 or 50 reports that tell me all different statistics on how the company is run, and I’m just curious. I’ll always be developing my own hypotheses around what I think is going to happen. Every morning is little bit like Christmas in the sense that I get to see data that tells me whether it worked or didn’t work. I guess it’s like running a math experiment or a science experiment, where you have a hypothesis. And in my case, I’ve got 13.5 million customers that we can test things against. I like the fact that there’s never a dull moment in my life. I feel blessed in the sense that I love coming to work, I love the people I work with, I love the problems I work with. {TRANSPARENCY FOR CONSUMERS}
The one thing I can take away from TripAdvisor or CarGurus is that people find great value in transparency. The internet is empowering because it provides this
great medium for people to get more information on very important purchases — be it buying a house, which is perhaps the most important purchase you ever make in your life, or a car which is probably the second, or even a vacation to Europe, which in the spectrum of your yearly life is a big investment. {TRANSPARENCY FOR MERCHANTS}
The internet is an amazing platform to provide transparency for consumers, but if you flip it on its head, for the merchants, it becomes an amazing platform for them to tell everyone they are doing a good job. I think that at first blush, some of the merchants — a hotel merchant or, in this case, an automotive dealer — thought of the rise of the internet as something threatening. They didn’t want people writing about their hotels or whether their services were priced correctly. But the more enlightened merchants began to embrace it and use it to their advantage. When I go to a hotel now, 7 out of 10 of them will hand me a card and say, ‘If you had a good experience, would you be willing to go to TripAdvisor and write a good review?’ They are empowering their customers to use a platform that at first blush, they wished would go away. In the case of CarGurus, a lot of good dealers will ask their consumers to write reviews on CarGurus, which ends up benefitting the dealer. {THE SECRET TO SUCCESS — AND HAPPINESS}
Do it because you love it. Do it because you’re passionate about it. No matter what it is that you do in life, you need to do it because you love it. If the reason you’re going into entrepreneurship is because you read about Instagram and Facebook and you want to make a lot of money — don’t, because you’ll fail. If you don’t have the passion for what you’re doing, you’ll never be any good. Whether you’re a photographer, or a ballet dancer, or poet, or whatever, you have to pursue what is in your heart, not necessarily what’s in your best economic interest. I made that mistake myself coming out of college. I thought, I’ll go to Wall Street, because that’s what everyone else is doing. And I hated it. Every day I woke up and I hated my job. The reason I do this is because I love it. One of the greatest rushes is when you tell people you work at TripAdvisor or at CarGurus, and you see this look in their eyes, and they say, ‘That’s the coolest site, I love that site.’ It’s really rewarding to actually meet the consumers who use your products and to see how much it’s helped them. That beats the heck out of working on Wall Street and just moving a bunch of money around.
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FROM PREP@PINGREE TO THE PH.D. FREDY LOAIZA ’07, FROM THE FIRST P@P COHORT, REFLECTS ON HIS PATH TOWARD CONFIDENCE STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY MELODY KOMYEROV
“A few successes can change your confidence,” says Johnfredy (JF) Loaiza, one of 14 members of the very first class of Prep@Pingree. In his case, those early successes have blossomed into a multitude of unexpected opportunities. After completing his bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University in mechanical engineering, he’s now pursuing a PhD in biomedical engineering at Boston University and planning for a career in the medical technology. Loaiza grew up in Lawrence as the youngest of three children, accustomed to seeing his parents work hard every day. He attended Community Day Charter Public School and entered the Prep@Pingree program during the summer between seventh and eighth grades. The best experience he had in the program, he recalls, was taking a math placement test. “It gave me the confidence that I really could succeed and I had a talent worth developing.” He was accepted into Pingree, and although he was nervous and shy — and dealing with culture shock as he navigated a socioeconomic landscape far different than the one he had encountered in his old school — he soon found a niche. “What made me more comfortable was the arts program,” he says, recalling his experience singing a capella under the tutelage of former Art Department Chair and Choir Director Monica Brile. “That helped me socialize with other students and increase my confidence that I was in the right place.” “I remember JF as just so amazingly determined, and his work ethic was just outstanding,” says Brile, who now lives in Arlington, Virginia. “He had goals, and he was willing to do whatever he needed to achieve his dreams. He really wanted to make the most out of his Pingree experience and college experience. He is fully invested in life, wanting to be the best person he can be
“I never imagined myself being here, I’m taking it step by step.”
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and to share that with others.” When he completes his Ph.D., Loaiza wants to work for a medical device company. “The process of developing surgical tools is so exciting to me,” he says. “My goal is to work for a company with high standards, to develop products that will help people and make a positive impact.” After coming so far, Loaiza is focusing on the opportunities ahead. “I feel like people have been placed in my path that have been my advocates, that have pushed me, that have given me opportunities,” he says. “I never imagined myself being here. I’m taking it step by step.”
Prep @ Pingree
Our Milestones
Thanks to the generosity and vision of supporters who have invested in the nearly completed “Power of 10” arm of the Pingree campaign for arts, athletics, and access, the Prep@Pingree program has reached new levels of success and stability. Among our milestones: The program is formally named for current Pingree School overseer and past Pingree School trustee Malcolm Coates. Without his bold leadership, Prep@Pingree would not exist.
Prep@Pingree is now running as a 12-month program, led by Paul Mayo.
The program provides summer employment for current Pingree School students and Prep@Pingree alumni who attend Lawrence and Lynn High Schools.
For the first time, the program receives financial support and governance from Prep@Pingree alumni.
The program is currently enrolling students for the five-week summer session, running June 27 - July 31.
75 middle school students are enrolled, from Lawrence, Lynn, and other nearby communities. A handful of students pay tuition to attend.
Prep@Pingree counsels to other K-12 schools, colleges, foundations, and programs around the country through workshops, phone, and email communication, and visits with other boards of trustees and key stakeholders in educational communities.
The program trains young teachers, who learn alongside master teachers from independent and public schools.
2014–2015 Academic Year Prep@Pingree Events • • • • •
Public Speaking, Writing, and Financial Literacy Workshops Independent Boarding School and College Tours Civil Rights Education and Travel Experiences Through the American South and Ellis Island Check-ins with Prep@Pingree Alumni at Their High Schools and Colleges Prep@Pingree Alumni Reunions and Networking Events
Invest in Prep@Pingree today. Contact Executive Director Steve Filosa sfilosa@pingree.org 978 468 4415 x265
Apply for the summer session. Contact Program Director Paul Mayo pmayo@pingree.org 978 468 4415 x205
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Notice anyone you know? Visit Pingree’s Facebook page to tag yourself or any friends that are in the photo. 40 
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THE HEDGE GARDEN NEWS FROM OUR ALUMNI COMMUNITY
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FROM THE HEDGE THE HEDGE GARDEN GARDEN
ALUMNI PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING EVENT THURSDAY, MAY 28, 6:30 P.M. HOSTED BY JEFF AVALLON ’02 IDEAPAINT, 40 BROAD STREET, BOSTON, MA 02109
Featured Speaker: Charlie Storey ’77 President, Harpoon Brewery Pingree’s Alumni Leadership Board is proud to present the 2015 Alumni Professional Networking Event. Join Boston area alumni for an evening of inspiration, conversation, and business networking. Beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres. Invitations and online registration will be emailed in April.
Keep in touch! Share your email address with us. Join our “Pingree School Alumni” groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and follow @pingreealumni on Twitter and Instagram.
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Charles Storey ’77 is president of Boston-based Harpoon Brewery, a local craft-beer pioneer known for the annual festivals it throws at its waterfront headquarters. Storey joined Harpoon in 1996 and served for many years as its senior vice president of marketing. Last October, Storey was named president and he continues to oversee marketing, retail, and festival initiatives, as well as managing the brewery’s distribution arm and assisting Harpoon’s co-founder and CEO, Daniel Kenary, with strategy and business development. Storey is a 1982 graduate of Harvard College, and he received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989. A native of Essex and the father of two Armide and Charlie, Storey currently lives in the home he grew up in with his wife, Mimi.
FROM THE HEDGE GARDEN
ALL SCHOOL ASSEMBLY PLEASE JOIN US
ELEANOR DORSEY ’66 LECTURE RENEWING THE COMMONS: AN ECOLOGICAL JOURNEY THROUGH TIME ON THE NORTH SHORE THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015, ASSEMBLY 10:00 A.M. RECEPTION IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING IN THE UPPER ART GALLERY
This presentation will share a "deep time" exploration of the North Shore bioregion—the physical and ecological setting for Pingree students' lives and educations. Stories of continents, glaciers, animals, people, and social and ecological change will help to reveal the extraordinary natural character and cultural history of the North Shore. We will then discuss how the land can be understood as a Commons, and how the old stories of this place show how Pingree students can help to steward and regenerate the Commons of the natural world in this bioregion and beyond.
Connor Stedman (son of Eleanor M. Dorsey ’66) is an environmental planner and educator based in the Hudson Valley of New York. He holds an M.S. in natural resources from the University of Vermont and has spent the past decade teaching natural history and ecological design across North America."
SAVE THE DATE
COLLEGE AGE ALUMNI BRUNCH & COFFEE HOUSE REUNION 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
ENTERTAINMENT, COFFEE, BREAKFAST OUR NEW TRADITION BEGINS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015 10:00 AM - 12 NOON PINGREE SCHOOL COMMONS
The Commons dining area will be undergoing an exciting renovation this summer. Come back to campus and tour all of our new spaces while you visit with friends, faculty, coaches, staff and Pingree students. Please email Sam Taylor ’08 staylor@pingree.org, if you would like to participate in the Coffee House.
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FROM THE HEDGE GARDEN
CLASS NOTES CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Class Notes are published in the Fall Magazine. You can submit your class notes at anytime. Visit the alumni webpage and fill out the convenient online form “Class Notes.” Have you had a mini-reunion with your Pingree friends and classmates? Have you recently been engaged,
married or added a new addition to your family? Have you published or illustrated a book? Tell us about your travels, adventures, artistic and academic accomplishments. Anything goes! We all love to read about our fellow alumni and see your smiling faces. Thank you for your submissions!
Keep in touch! Share your email address with us. Join our “Pingree School Alumni” groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and follow @pingreealumni on Twitter and Instagram.
Fill out the online form at pingree.org/classnotes.
COMMUNITY REUNIONS FALL 2016 REUNION
Classes ending in 1’s, 2’s, 6’s, and 7’s will be celebrating milestone reunions together.
50th: 1966 & 1967 45th: 1971 & 1972 40th: 1976 & 1977 35th: 1981 & 1982 30th: 1986 & 1987 25th: 1991 & 1992 20th: 1996 & 1997 15th: 2001 & 2002 10th: 2006 & 2007 5th: 2011 & 2012
We will post the date as soon as it is set Whether it’s been 15 months or 50 years since you graduated, your Pingree family is waiting for you. Community reunions celebrate two milestone class years during the same weekend. The result is a more exciting reunion for all involved. All alumni have friends from the years before and after their own, and combining two classes encourages alumni who were in the same sport, theater troupe, classroom, advisory group, or club to get together and reconnect over common experiences.
For more info on Community Reunions, visit
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www.pingree.org
PI N GREE PA R E NT S A S S O C I AT I ON PR ESEN TS FROM THE HEDGE GARDEN
Sample plentiful tastings from more than 25 of the North Shore’s finest restaurants and caterers. Enjoy the opportunity to bid on a wide variety of items in our live and silent auctions. • Live Auction • Silent Auction • Open Bar • Live Music
• Pre-Party for Alumni in Athletics Center Meeting Room
A Culinary Event and Auction to Benefit Pingree School
SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2015 Tastes from.... 5 Corners Kitchen, American BBQ, Becky’s Gourmet, Black Cow Restaurant, Bonne Bouche Catering, Cakes for Occasions, CK Pearl, Coastal Green Grocer, David’s World Famous, Davio’s, En Fuego, Gourmet Delights Catering, Grassy Roots, Kim’s Pure Pastry, Off the Vine Catering, Pink Tree Sweets, Prince Restaurant, Relish Catering and Events, Salt, Salvatore’s, Senor Sangria, The Topsfield Bakeshop, Timothy S. Hopkins Catering, Woodman’s / Essex Room and more.
Tickets available at pingree.org/taste Pingree SPRING 2015 45
THE HEDGE GARDEN
WINTER FUN SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2014
Pingree’s H. Alden Johnson, Jr. Rink and new spacious athletics center was filled with alumni, family and friends this past December. We hosted our traditional Open Skate and Men’s Alumni Hockey game. New additions this year: Women’s Alumnae Hockey, Men’s Basketball, and Open Family Gym. Santa Claus made a special trip from the North Pole to South Hamilton, entertaining young and old. Thanks to all our alumni who joined us for this memorable holiday celebration.
Carla Hollett ’99 and Rob Winthrop ’99 enjoy skating with their young son.
Kevin Greelish P’ 97, ’99 skates with his granddaughter.
Bill Hewson ’79 and his family.
Front row: L-R: Emma Phippen ’11, Kaitlyn O’Connell ’11, Shelby DiFiore ’12, Jill Witwicki ’14, Kristina Caradonna ’14 Back row: L-R: Andrea Caradonna ’18, Isabelle Hoffman ’16, Jenna Ellis ’15, Meaghan Souza ’11, Sarah Carpenter ’97, Chase Goodwin ’11, Whitney Wykoff Schumer ’76, Cece Purcell ’17, Jenny Schumer ’15 and Jake Schumer.
Jim Trudeau P’13
Front row: L-R: Ryan Montecalvo ’95, Robie MacLaughlin ’91, Brian Adam ’07, Bobby Adam ’11, Evan Franklin ’90, Jim Brady ’90, Daron Greelish ’99 and Nate Soter. Back row: L-R: Kyle Lange ’10, Paul Knight ’00, Sean Morgan ’98, Nick Hoffman ’14, Rob Houston ’99, Billy Austin ’10, Sam Mathey ’04, Rob Lemelin ’01, Kevin St. Pierre ’11, Ben Zenfagna ’01, Scott Halecki ’93, Charles Halecki, Brendan Greelish ’97, Dan Prawdzik ’12.
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Reese Fulmer ’14, Patrick Williamson ’10, Nick Mosakowski ’07, Allen Williamson ’09, Santa, Connor Cash ’11, Cody Addison ’10, Lucas Reeve ’13, Justin Assad ’16, Kyle Lentini ’14 and Kyle Jamerson ’11.
Reese Fulmer ’14 with Santa.
Tara Kelly Sartori’s ’98 little ones pose with Santa.
Cody Addison ’10 goes for the layup!
Gretchen Knight ’01 and Paul Knight ’00
Santa with his helpful elves, Megan Foye ’17,
with their daughters.
Gabby Assad ’17 and Cassidy Assad ’16.
PINGREE ALUMS TO WATCH CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Who are the Pingree alums we need to know about? Who’s making an impact on the world as a leader, a creative force, or a mentor and community builder? Share the news from your Pingree network!
We invite all Pingree community members - alums, parents, and friends to keep us up to date on what Pingree alumni are doing. Our alumni are all over the world, and we look forward to sharing your stories with our extended Pingree community!
Fill out the online form at pingree.org/alumstories. Pingree SPRING 2015 47
Q&A CAROLYN PACZKOWSKA
AT HOME CAROLYN PACZKOWSKA FINDS HER PLACE
Beloved history teacher Carolyn Paczkowska is now in her 24th year at Pingree. In a recent conversation, we found her just as inspired — and inspiring — as ever. What do you love about Pingree?
The kids are fabulous. We have a lot of freedom to teach what we want to teach, how we want to teach it. It has always been a place where you can be really innovative, but it is that intangible thing of those relationships with the kids . . . in talking to friends at other places, I don’t think there are a lot of schools where you can have that. What is different here?
I remember walking in here for the first time and it struck me how comfortable it was. It felt like a home, and I think it still does. Despite all the building and additions we’ve done, there is something very genuine about the culture here and about the feeling you get when you walk through the door. A lot of it just comes from those small conversations you have with kids. The more students know about you, the better they can relate to you, and the better you can teach. What are some of your hobbies?
I have a pottery wheel, I knit, I cook. I am at the point where I can improvise — I can look around the kitchen and open the fridge and make a really good meal fairly quickly without too much work. It is my creative outlet. My other new passion is the anglo-concertina — I am learning to play the accordion. It has been my bizarre obsession my whole life, so my husband got one for me this past Christmas. I know one and a half songs now, and I think my family is going to ask me to move out. It’s been 24 years. What’s your secret?
“I remember walking in here for the first time and it struck me how comfortable it was. It felt like a home…”
I really can’t believe it has been 24 years — which I guess is a really good thing. I love teaching, and I love history. I can’t imagine a better job, where I get to think about history and ways to make it meaningful and interesting, and I get to work with kids who are far more interesting than most adults I know. I don’t know that I have a secret, but it still feels fresh, and it is still invigorating.
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Visit our site to learn more about our campaign, view our alumni video, and make a gift.
“This is a campaign about people, about participation and about community. We are at a stage in this campaign where your participation means everything. We need everyone on that participation wall because this is a community project that is propelling our school to a place that we didn’t imagine five years ago.” – Dr. Tim Johnson
proudlypingree.org The Campaign for Arts, Athletics and Access closes on December 31, 2015
Pingree School 537 Highland Street, South Hamilton, MA 01982-1399 www.pingree.org