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Design Thinking at St. Andrew’s
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Head of School Robert Kosasky Designer Nancy Schwartz Editors Richard Coco Kirsten Petersen Contributors Richard Coco Lauren Cook Hope Harrison ’17 Chuck James Dr. Ian Kelleher Sung Hee Kim Madeline O’Brien ’05 Kim O’Shaughnessy Kirsten Petersen Gary Wyatt Photographers Allison Beuker Photography Rebecca Drobis Photography Kirsten Petersen Joe Phelan Mark Regan Photography Splendid Photography John Troha Photography
FEATURES
DEPARTMENTS
2016-2017 BOARD OF TRUSTEES Chair Sandy Horowitz
12 Faculty Leaders
02 Message from Robert Kosasky
Year round, St. Andrew’s faculty and staff share their expertise by authoring
Vice Chair Anthony Izzo, III Treasurer Karen Smith Secretary Alfredo Antezana Gail Atwood Susan Bies Oliver Carr Rudy Casasola David Cheung Michael DiPaula-Coyle ’98 Elizabeth Drucker Noelle Eder John Harmon Brian Harris Diane Hastings Mary Beth Kirchner Sheila Maith Martha Martin Brian Radecki David Smith James Young EX-OFFICIO Head of School Robert Kosasky Alumni Council President Erin Wright-Gandhi ‘96 Parents Association President Jennifer Freedman
new publications and presenting to packed crowds at conferences. Learn more about how St. Andrew’s faculty and staff are leaders in their fields.
14 Design Thinking
Design thinking might seem like a new idea in education. But, at its core, it draws on principles and practices that are timeless. Faculty, students
04 School News
42 Homecoming & Reunion 2017 47 Class Notes
and alumni tell us how design thinking shapes their mindset.
29 Profile: Nate Mitchell ’05 The St. Andrew’s alumnus and co-founder of Oculus talks about following
his dreams, and the importance of designing a cross-functional product — and an experience — for users of the company’s virtual reality headsets.
ON THE COVER Rafael Carvalho ‘24 peers through a student-designed bridge, constructed as part of the fifth grade bridge building project. Students work in teams to draw blueprints of their designs. Then, each group constructs a 3D version of their bridge. Photo by Mark Regan Photography. St. Andrew’s is committed to a diverse and inclusive community with respect to race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, family status, economic circumstance, age, and physical disability in its student body, faculty and staff. Pursuant to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations, St. Andrew’s does not discriminate in the administration of admission, financial aid or loan practices, educational or other school-sponsored programs and activities, or in the hiring or terms of employment of faculty and staff, except that the Chaplain shall be a member of the clergy of the Episcopal Church.
Bishop’s Representative Peter Antoci Counsel David Dekker
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A Letter from Our Head
love my bank. Its app is powerful, intuitive, and wishes me “Happy Friday” in multiple languages. My bank’s customer service staff pick up the phone 24/7, answer my questions clearly, and always ask me if they can help me with anything else before they say goodbye. On the rare occasions I visit my local branch, the tellers and managers are polite and efficient. Last year several St. Andrew’s faculty visited my bank’s design thinking center. The space was filled with small teams of designers sharing and testing ideas and prototypes. “How could we do that?”, “What else could that be used for?”, and “What if we tried this?” were frequently asked questions. Continual improvement flowed from ongoing inquiry, iteration, and empathy with the products’ eventual users. Social cognition, creativity, and technical skill are essential to success. St. Andrew’s promotes this kind of human-centered design thinking across all disciplines and on both campuses.
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Design thinking furthers our long-term commitment to service, collaborative learning, and cross-cultural understanding. It leverages and integrates our deep investment and faculty expertise in science, art, and communication, as well as our new state-of-the-art design labs on both campuses. And it prepares students for college, leadership, and a range of creative and technical fields. In the words of our recently adopted strategic plan, St. Andrew’s is committed to preparing “each student to succeed in a world that demands human-centered problem solving and the entrepreneurial creation of ‘breakthrough’ ideas, products, and services.” In this magazine you can read about how alumni and current students are responding to this kind of creative, realworld learning. Intermediate School students design board games that teach key math skills to their Lower School counterparts, learning to listen and ask clarifying questions as their cub “clients” play the prototypes and offer suggestions for improvement. Seventhgraders conceive and build artificial limbs, learning the complexity of the human body and prosthetic design. Our design thinking program blossoms in Upper School. Seniors in our capstone International Development course have leveraged our Christ Roi and Bokamoso relationships to support low-infrastructure electricity generation for Haiti and entrepreneurial farming practices that tap into local markets. Firsthand knowledge of the needs and constraints of our international partners fuels our students’ designs. This real-world learning flows through our art program as well. Recently our development staff “hired” our Advanced Portfolio Development
students to create an immersive event that would engage guests in the art and design movements of the 20th century. Our students responded by creating the setting for a “portfolio dinner.” Individually constructed placemats, place card holders, silver and glassware, and wall hangings transformed the Student Center Commons into an intimate soiree that told the story of their course and their individual talents. As one of their lucky guests, I learned more about modern art and our students’ abilities than any exam or traditional project could have taught me. Meanwhile, our student designers learned the high expectations professional designers encounter as well as the complexity and joy of multimedia composition. The motivation to solve concrete problems is a constant over time. When students understand the purpose, enjoy design autonomy, and have a direct relationship with the people they are serving, their learning and engagement rise exponentially. As you read this magazine, I’m sure you will appreciate how intensely our students are honing their questions, and how open and committed they are to devising technical and human-centered solutions to local and global challenges. Our faculty are using design thinking to give students the confidence, creativity, and real-world experience to thrive in a world of complex problems and to-bedefined opportunities.
Robert Kosasky Head of School
A LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
Robert Kosasky was honored for his 15 years of leadership at a reception in April. Pictured are Robert Kosasky, Head of School, Sandy Horowitz, Chair of the Board of Trustees, and former Board Chairs David Mayhood, Anne Wallace, John Finneran, Tim Matlack, and Carter Keithley.
Transformational Leadership St. Andrew’s accomplishments over the past 15 years have stemmed from Robert’s vision and collaborative leadership. The changes St. Andrew’s has experienced over the past 15 years have been truly transformational. The school has grown from a Grade 6-12 school to a Preschool through 12th grade school through the acquisition of the Potomac Village Campus. The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) was created and has grown to become internationally recognized in the field of Mind, Brain, and Education Science.
We’ve added an Intermediate School to the Postoak Campus. And of course, there was the construction of our beautiful and bold 43,000-square-foot Student Center. Any school would be proud of achieving just one of these accomplishments. Under Robert’s leadership, St. Andrew’s has accomplished all of this and much, much more in just 15 years. In 2002, St. Andrew’s had been on the Postoak Campus for less than 5 years. We were a school for students in grades 6-12 with grass playing fields and a small, un-airconditioned brown gymnasium behind the main building. A present-day aerial view of the Postoak Campus would show quite a different picture; our new Intermediate School, the new Student Center, beautiful turf fields and stadium seating at Brumbaugh Field.
The curricular changes are just as impressive. The school strengthened its commitment to service learning by embedding it in its curriculum and providing opportunities for student-driven service initiatives. It searched for a better way to serve students, particularly our high achievers. This focus led to a commitment to research-informed teaching and learning and to the creation of the CTTL. Because of the deep and early investment in Mind, Brain, and Education Science, St. Andrew’s has been able to form partnerships with Research Schools International, led by individual faculty at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, professors at Johns Hopkins University, and the Washington, D.C., area Teach For America. In just this past year, the CTTL has won an international award and been invited to present at SXSWedu, the largest and most prestigious education conference in the U.S. All of these accomplishments have stemmed from Robert’s vision and his strong and collaborative leadership. Robert’s love of St. Andrew’s, and his unwavering passion for advancing the mission of the school, is a true blessing that benefits each and every student at St. Andrew’s. These accomplishments were recognized when Robert was honored with the Washington Post Distinguished Educational Leadership Award in 2013. Yes, the past 15 years have been truly transformational for St. Andrew’s. And with Robert’s vision and the school’s recently completed Strategic Plan, I have no doubt that the next 15 years will be just as exciting and rewarding for our students, faculty and staff.
Sandy Horowitz Chair, Board of Trustees
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PHOTO BY RACHEL GREENBERG ‘17
Lighting and Sets One of the Stars of “Cabaret” This winter the Upper School staged a production of “Cabaret,” and while the actors took center stage, the stage itself nearly stole the show. That’s because the technical crew worked tirelessly to put together an impressive set with dynamic lighting design. In only a few weeks, the crew transformed the MacDonald Hall stage into the “Cabaret” Kit Kat Klub. Crew member 4
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Adam Tommer ’17, who also designed the lighting for the show, said the crew hoped to create a mood for the audience with the set. “It’s a bit of a controversial play about pre-Holocaust Germany. To convey a happy but somber mood at the same time would be my goal, and to bond people with the characters and giving the characters a place to work,” Tommer said. The set, painted in red and gold and featuring detailed woodwork and metalwork, included a symmetrical stairway that led to a platform for the showband. “I’ve been seeing St. Andrew’s shows for eight or nine years, and I haven’t seen the band visible in any of the shows,” Tom-
mer said. “I think it’s a really great idea [Technical Theater Director Ben] Zastrow brought to the table that the crew was excited to implement.” Head of Upper School Ginger Cobb, who has seen dozens of stage productions in her years at St. Andrew’s, agreed with Tommer. “I think it was great how they incorporated the band into the scenery and made them a more visible part of the show,” Cobb said. As with other sets, “Cabaret” had a stage extension that allowed the cast more room to perform. In previous years, Tommer said, the extension was added the week before the show, but the crew was able to build and install it nearly a month
SCHOOL NEWS
academics
Doyle ’17 Named an Extraordinary Teen
Intermediate School students designed board games to help younger students with subjects like spelling and math. The first round of playtesting took place in April.
in advance by adding hinges. “It folds up, so it stores, and it looks great,” said crew member Will Atwood. “I think it’s great having it earlier rather than later, so we have space to work.” Atwood and Tommer have each tackled set challenges with the help of design thinking and technical skills they’ve developed at St. Andrew’s. For Atwood, his design challenge was building a train car from scratch, while Tommer looked to make use of all the lights on stage. They both credit Zastrow, who joined St. Andrew’s this year, with inspiring and mentoring the crew. Zastrow said his goal was to have students design and build all aspects of the production and develop their skills so they can train fellow students. “I want our kids fully involved, and the only way to get that is to fully empower them,” Zastrow said.
IS Students Design Games to Help LS Students Learn Intermediate School students were challenged this year to create a tabletop game that would help Lower School students
improve classroom skills. The design process is marked by four phases. In the fall students learned to differentiate games from puzzles and toys by playing Sorry!, Mental Blox, Mexican Train dominoes and more. In January they traveled to the Potomac Village Campus to ask Lower School students what types of games they play and what skills they could help them improve, such as spelling and math. Students returned to the Postoak Campus and created prototypes of their games, which Lower School students tested in early April. With their feedback and ideas, Intermediate School students began to produce a second iteration of their games. They will present the final games and donate them to the Lower School.
This spring, St. Andrew’s senior Dominic Doyle was recognized for his entrepreneurship and philanthropy when he was named an Extraordinary Teen by Bethesda Magazine. Doyle, along with his cousin, Luke Kennedy, started their own clothing and apparel business, DKS, in 2010. In those intervening years, they have donated more than $17,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Wounded Warriors and more as a direct result of their sales. “We choose the charities that really speak to us,” Doyle said, noting that family and friends have benefitted from those organizations. “We think the more you grow, you still have to remember where you came from, keep your roots and always be humble.” In addition to running his business, Doyle balances time in the classroom and on the court as a co-captain of the varsity boys basketball team. He was selected to play in the Capital Classic All-Star game this past April. Doyle follows in the footsteps of alumna Stephanie Quintero ’16, who received the same honor last year.
St. Andrew’s and the CTTL Represented at SXSWedu Glenn Whitman, St. Andrew’s Dean of Studies and Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL), and Dr. Ian Kelleher, St. Andrew’s science teacher and the CTTL’s DiSPRING 2017
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academics
Greg Rosenbaum ‘06 (left), general manager and a founder of SXSWedu, poses with Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kelleher in Austin.
DID YOU KNOW? The St. Andrew’s 2016 Summer Magazine won a bronze award in the Magazines: Independent Schools category at the 2017 CASE District II Annual Conference.
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rector of Research, are co-authors of the book Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. In March, they were invited to run a workshop at SXSWedu, the largest education conference in the country. “We were privileged to represent our St. Andrew’s colleagues and the work of the CTTL at one of the most innovative educational conferences in the world,” Whitman said. Last year, nearly 14,000 people attended the event, which brings together “a community of stakeholders passionate about the future of teaching and learning.” Whitman and Kelleher’s workshop — “Are you a Neuroteacher… Yet?” — focused on professional growth and providing teachers a pathway to improve their practice based on the latest research in the interdisciplinary field of Mind, Brain, and Education Science.
Indonesian Leaders Visit with US Religion Students In October, a visiting delegation of Indonesian Muslim parochial school leaders spoke with students about studying religion in a pluralistic context. The school leaders explained the pesantren, a type of Islamic boarding school that emphasizes simplicity, diversity and the relationships between the students and the village community. Robert Blake P’21 is the former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia and attended the meeting. “The Indonesians are very proud of their moderate Islam,” Blake said. “Indonesia is a very positive example for the world.”
St. Andrew’s Honors Trustees from School’s Early Years Head of School Robert Kosasky and Former Chair Audrey Demas welcomed leaders from the school’s early years to the Postoak Campus in November. A luncheon was held to honor their service, share school news, and provide a tour of campus improvements. Kosasky unveiled a plaque in the new Student Center dedicating the CTTL Reception Area, underwritten by Demas, in their honor. Guests included (pictured above, from left) Head of School Robert Kosasky, Thomas Kingsley, Audrey Demas, Harvey Borkin, Isabelle Schuessler, Vivian Portner, Paul Carew, Esther Pinder, David Beers, Jane Battle, Alaster MacDonald, and Jerry Reed.
CTTL Student Research Fellows Present at Harvard Four CTTL student research fellows presented data from their studies in April at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Madison Gamma ’18 and Callie Radecki ’18 spoke about their research on the benefits of outdoor learning spaces, while Maggie Atwood ’18 and Joy Reeves ’18 shared preliminary data from their study of what constitutes meaningful homework. The fellows received feedback from two current Mind, Brain and Education students and graduate Brianna Wilson, now a researcher for Research Schools International, of which St. Andrew’s is a member. Radecki said she appreciated receiving advice from graduate students who are themselves conducting educational research. Gamma said suggestions for creating surveys that solicit raw, honest responses would help her as they move
Madison Gamma ‘18 and Callie Radecki ‘18 were two of the student research fellows who presented at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in April.
forward with both studies. The fellows represented this year’s cohort of 15 Finn Family Student Research Fellows, who both contribute to and conduct research for the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. Student fellows tackle a new research
question in Mind, Brain, and Education Science every year. Last year students helped debunk “neuromyths,” or misconceptions about how the brain works. This year’s study on homework was inspired by their 2016 visit to HGSE.
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g n i s i a R s e t e l h t A e l Fema ) s r e n n a B d n a ( Their Profile From winning a girls basketball banner to dominating at home on the volleyball court, St. Andrew’s female teams and athletes had a resurgent year. The strong performances began in the fall with volleyball. Playing in the upper division of the Independent School League (ISL) for the first time in school history, the Lions not only held their own, but finished with a 7-1 record on Lion’s Court. As a result, St. Andrew’s volleyball will continue to play in Division AA next season, the first time in school history a girls team has 8
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spent consecutive seasons in the ISL’s top division. The fall also saw the girls tennis team finish in second place in the regular season with a 5-2 conference record, while the girls cross country team took home the small school state title for the third straight year. In the winter, the girls basketball team took home the regular-season banner for the first time since 2010. It was the first championship on Lion’s Court and the 17th MAC and ISL banner since St. Andrew’s moved to those conferences in 1999 and 2000, respectively. They clinched the regular season title with a dramatic final-minute home win over Potomac School. Also during the winter, the swim team held its first season of competition with junior Maddie Amick participating in the Washington Metro
Interscholastic Swimming & Diving meet, finishing 17th in her event. The girls teams weren’t alone in their success. The boys soccer team made a run to the MAC Tournament finals before falling 1-0 to Flint Hill, while the boys basketball team advanced to the MAC Tournament semifinals for the third straight year.
Equestrian Team Poised for Success The St. Andrew’s equestrian team has had a long and storied history. Thanks to a current influx of younger riders, it may be on the verge of a period of sustained success.
SCHOOL NEWS
Ali Mikaele ‘18 races down the court during a girls varsity basketball game. Mikaele was a starter on the team that clinched an ISL banner earlier this year.
Middle school students make up more than half the combination JV/Varsity team. Two of those students, Tyler George ’21 and Lindsey Ward ’21, join senior Claire Robertson to round out the Varsity squad. Individual performances throughout the year helped place the Varsity team fifth overall and the JV team fourth overall in 2016-2017 Inter-School Horse Show standings. The riders have secured multiple individual champion and reserve champion titles, helping the team rise in the standings. “When one person gets champion or reserve champion, it really helps our score a lot. Every point counts toward it,” said JV rider Camille Graves ’21. “We’re a
really small group compared to other schools, and yet we can still pull out on top sometimes.” George, Graves and Ward all won champion titles at separate shows after earning perfect scores in flat classes and over fences. The secret to success, Ward said, is time and effort. “To get comfortable on the back of a horse, where you can get on any horse and be okay with it, takes a lot of time and understanding,” Ward said. “There are going to be challenges and that just makes everyone a better rider.” The team hopes to grow in ridership by exemplifying St. Andrew’s mission at horse shows. “We go into it with a positive attitude and talk to everyone there,” Ward said. “The more we’re inclusive, the more they might start looking at the school and consider us.”
Strong Start for Swim Team’s First Season Under the leadership of captain Maddie Amick ’18 and coach Will Ferriby, the school’s first-ever swim team established St. Andrew’s place in the water this past winter. The team was formed thanks to Amick’s initiative. Amick, who has been swimming since she was seven, saw an opportunity to make her sport a part of her St. Andrew’s experience and approached Athletic Director Al Hightower with her idea for a
Swim team captain Maddie Amick ‘18 helped form the first St. Andrew’s swim team this fall. Amick approached Athletic Director Al Hightower with her idea for a team last summer, and in November the newly formed co-ed team began to compete in the ISL.
athletics
Eight Alumni Give Back as Coaches Former student athletes can be spotted year-round on our fields and courts, but not just as spectators. They’re also leading our teams as coaches. Of the eight current alumni coaches, two are teachers at St. Andrew’s and three are staff members. Four are in their first year coaching at the school. In the fall, Liz (Regan) Kiingi ’87 coached middle school girls soccer and Lauren Melvin ’11 coached JV volleyball. Dannie Moore ’09 was an assistant coach for both the varsity and JV girls basketball teams this winter. In the spring, Alex McColough ’02 assisted with varsity boys lacrosse, Madeline (Wallace) O’Brien ’05 coached middle school girls lacrosse and Ashley Splaine ’06 coached varsity softball. Throughout the year, Molly (Rich) Natelli ’06 coaches our equestrian team and Yaa (Addison) Warren ’09 coaches our cross country, indoor track and outdoor track teams. team last summer. Hightower was enthusiastic about the idea, and this past November the newly-formed co-ed team began to compete in the ISL. Season highlights included strong performances in relays and time improvements with each subsequent meet. Best times included 1:58.77 by Isabel Kenna ’19 in the 100 backstroke, 39.71 by Emma Duan ’20 when she opened the 200 freestyle relay and 1.57.46 by Matthew Mardirossian ’18 in the 100 breaststroke. Going into the season, Amick’s goal was not to win a meet or even earn a personal best, but rather to see her small cohort of swimmers “congeal” as a team. She’s confident they’ve achieved that goal. “We are in their face, cheering as hard as we can, and I think that’s really important,” Amick said. “Not only does that have an impact on how they swim, but you go into your next race knowing they have your back.” SPRING 2017
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Our Students at the Center The newest building on the Postoak Campus redefines daily routine and expands St. Andrew’s presence in the wider community. From winning tournaments on Lion’s Court to innovating in the Crimsonbridge Research Center, the new Student Center has profoundly transformed the St. Andrew’s student experience. It’s been less than nine months since Head of School Robert Kosasky, alongside students, alumni, faculty, staff and trustees, cut the ceremonial ribbon — using the same scissors former Headmaster Jim Cantwell used when the Postoak Campus was dedicated in 1998. “In my 15 years, nothing has required more effort or brought me more joy than the Student Center project,” Kosasky said during the September dedication. 10
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The 43,000-square-foot building features two gymnasiums — the new Lion’s Court and the renovated Holden Court — the Fitness Center, the Dance Studio, the Student Commons, a café, the Izzo Quad, meeting and gathering space, display space for student artwork, and the Crimsonbridge Research Center, a new home for the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. “I think our school shows a very strong commitment to academics, spiritual life, the arts and athletics,” said Kevin Jones, who’s
spent a lot of time in the Student Center this year as Associate Director of Admission and Head Varsity Boys Basketball Coach. “No matter what you’re trying to do, that space really represents that.” Every month has brought something new to the Student Center. In October it hosted the largest gathering of alumni in St. Andrew’s history and in March it was the site of the 20th annual Oral History Night. In between, basketball teams won tournaments (and a banner), grandparents joined students for chapel, Bokamoso Youth
performed, and newly accepted students enjoyed a special breakfast. While the Student Center’s impact on student life is clear from these events, it’s the day-to-day experiences in the space that show the shift in school culture. “It makes a huge difference,” said Kayla Markus ’19. “I think it definitely brings together our school. It’s a meeting place where every single grade gets to hang out.” The Fitness Center is another community space, where students in all grades learn to use the equipment and where student athletes train year-round. “The culture here is truly supportive,” said JC Butz ’17. “Anyone that wants to come and work out is welcome.” The Dance Studio has hosted a variety of events, ranging from performances of the fourth-grade plays to alumni gatherings and the Parents Council of Washington Best Practices Forum. Needless to say, the Dance Studio has had a big impact on the dance program. “When we do warm-ups we have more space to move and stretch,” said Brittany Robinson ’19. “Even when I’m in my study hall, if I want to come in here I can. It shows that the school is appreciating dance more. We now have our own designated space to dance.” When the weather is nice, teachers like Andrew Seidman take their lessons outside to Izzo Quad. Rather than simply relocating his English classes, Seidman adjusts his plans for the outdoors; his students can often be found playing games outside to review concepts like rhetorical devices. “You need space. You need the outdoors to be able to do these kinesthetic activities,” Seidman said. “It’s beautiful out there, so it works out.” One of the most popular attractions of the Student Center opened later in the year — the café. Featuring treats including hot and cold beverages, granola bars, candy, corn dogs and popcorn, the café is often a student’s first stop before catching the bus or heading off to a practice. Wesley Cheung ’17, who works at the café, said the school feels more like a college campus, thanks to the café. “It raises school spirit because people stay longer and have food to eat while they watch the games,” Cheung said. “I feel like it makes the center feel more complete.”
LITTLE DIVERSIFIED ARCHITECTURAL CONSULTING / TIM BUCHMAN
THANK YOU TO THE ST. ANDREW’S COMMUNITY St. Andrew's is grateful to the more than 300 families who so generously stretched beyond their annual Lion's Fund gifts to also support the Students at the Center Campaign. As the campaign draws to a close this summer, if you wish to make a donation or pledge (payable over five years), please contact Blair Kaine at bkaine@saes.org or (240) 477-1704. Leadership level contributors will be recognized on the Student Center Wall, and a limited number of naming opportunities remain available until June 30.
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Rodney Glasgow, center, spoke at the People of Color Conference in December.
Leaders in Thought and Practice PHOTO COURTESY OF NAIS
Through speaking and writing, St. Andrew’s faculty share their expertise. St. Andrew’s is home to leaders in numerous fields: educational neuroscience, diversity, technology in the classroom, and science pedagogy, to name just a few. But their scholarship and influence extend far beyond our campuses. Year round, St. Andrew’s faculty and staff share their expertise within the pages of new publications and at conferences across the country, including the National Association of Independent Schools annual conference in Baltimore, where six St. Andrew’s leaders presented their work. Head of Middle School Rodney Glasgow is one of the founding voices of the Student Diversity Leadership Confer12
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ence (SDLC), an event which has grown from 50 students (of which he was one) in Philadelphia in 1995 to more than 1,600 students and teachers today. Each year at SDLC and the concurrent People of Color Conference (PoCC), Glasgow is tasked with setting the tone with an opening message. This past December in Atlanta, Glasgow emphasized the role of students and teachers as activists and the imperative to meet people where they are during difficult conversations. “The kids we send to the conference from here, they come back and they’re inspired not just to do diversity work, but they are in touch more with who they are as people and are not apologizing for being different or feeling different,” Glasgow said. “I think the biggest impact is that those students keep up the diversity work throughout their lives, and to feel a part of that is humbling and it’s a blessing.”
Glasgow is not the only member of our St. Andrew’s community who spoke at the conference; Director of Admission Lisa Shambaugh, along with Kim Scott of Georgetown Day School, presented on diversity and admission during PoCC. This was Shambaugh and Scott’s second time speaking on the topic, having previously presented in 2015 at the Enrollment Management Association’s national conference in Las Vegas. “It’s important to our prospective families that they know their children are going to be welcomed here for whoever they are and whatever their identity is,” Shambaugh said. She said she was inspired to see the commitment to diversity represented in the attendees of SDLC and PoCC. “It’s pretty amazing to see how independent schools have changed, much to the benefit of kids. There’s a greater likelihood that students will see themselves repre-
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sented in the faculty and administration of the schools.” she said.
From Practice to Paper
In January 2015, Glenn Whitman, Dean of Studies and the Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, was approached by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers to write a book about applying educational neuroscience research to the classroom. Whitman invited Dr. Ian Kelleher, science teacher and Head of Research for the CTTL, to be a co-author. “There’s all this brain research that suggests what teachers should do and shouldn’t do, and none of it is making it into classrooms,” Kelleher said. “We realized there is a tiny group of people who are teachers who know the research. If we were quick, we would be the first ones to write the book.” Their book, Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education, available on Amazon, was published last June. Neuroteach is an “academic book written playfully,” Kelleher said — it’s full of narra-
Biology teacher Phyllis Robinson, a Finneran Faculty Fellow, will be a facilitator in June at the AP Biology Teacher Academy in Florida. The week-long academy introduces teachers to a redesigned AP Biology curriculum.
tives of applying educational neuroscience research, illustrations to connect readers to teaching strategies, and even formative assessments teachers can use. “If a teacher or a school leader picks it up and is inspired to use one strategy with a student or a class, I will feel like we’ve been successful,” Whitman said.
Technology Trailblazers
“I want our teachers to feel like they’re out front. It’s a privilege to represent them and tell their story.” Glenn Whitman, Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning on the book he co-authored with fellow St. Andrew’s teacher Dr. Ian Kelleher.
At a technology conference in Minnesota in October, two St. Andrew’s staff members shared the success of the school’s 1-to-1 laptop program. James Masciuch, Director of Technology, and Bob Gendler, Laptop Program Coordinator, spoke at the Jamf Nation User Conference in Minneapolis about how St. Andrew’s laptops are installed with the software students need to hit the ground running on the first day of school. “Since we were able to launch the 1-to-1 so successfully, and Bob was able to streamline and speed up the imaging process so successfully, we thought we could share what we have learned,” Masciuch said. “Bob has done some really neat things leveraging the tools we have to get more than 300 laptops ready for students in just a matter of days.”
The presentation, Gendler said, gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his expertise. “It was great because this is a subject I know so well,” Gendler said. “I’ve really become an expert on the subject and our process. I think we really hit the nail on the head and gave people some direction for their 1-to-1.”
Training the Teachers
Biology teacher Phyllis Robinson has participated in the AP Biology Teacher Academy in Colorado Springs twice before, but this summer she’ll be taking the lead as a facilitator at the regional academy in Florida. “I’ve received so much as a participant,” she said. “I’m excited to be able to help others.” Robinson, along with a team of five teachers, has been preparing for the June event since September. The week-long academy introduces teachers to a redesigned AP Biology curriculum, which emphasizes the “overarching story” of biology and promotes inquiry. “We feel like we can be transformative, and to help teachers get to that place is a phenomenal goal,” Robinson said. SPRING 2017
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What is
DESIGN THINKING? If it makes our lives easier, it’s probably because of design thinking.
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emember as a child, getting that milk or juice carton in the lunchroom and struggling to get it open? It inevitably gets stuck and you end up having to pick at it just to get it open. Kids today don’t have that problem because juice cartons have evolved. They have punch holes for straws or screw-off tops to sip directly from. This change in how we consume lunchroom drinks is a perfect example of design thinking. At its core, design thinking is an empathetic, iterative, cross-disciplinary, humancentered way of problem solving in a collaborative environment. These cartons keep the drinks cold, but are a pain to open. How can we make them better for our consumers? Another example of design thinking is 14
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the problem of the lionfish. St. Andrew’s alumna Tracy Yandle ’87 has been working on this problem as an associate professor at Emory University. The lionfish is an invasive species that’s destroying indigenous species in and around reefs in the Caribbean. You start by observing the problem. Why are the lionfish thriving? Do they have any natural predators? What’s involved in catching lionfish? Who will be hurt and who will benefit from removing the lionfish from the environment? This is observing and empathizing, critical to best understanding the problem. But understanding and defining the problem in collaboration with those most affected by it is just the first step. Next, idea generation, prototyping and testing take over. How can we best catch them? Is there a better way of catching them? Who should be involved in this process? Now that you have an idea, you test your solution. You’ve successfully caught them but people don’t realize how delicious they taste. So now a new problem is presented — selling them is a challenge, to the point
where it’s not worthwhile for fishermen to catch them. So we go back to iterating and collaborating and bringing other disciplines into the fold to find a solution. This entire process is design thinking at its core: identifying and understanding a problem and the people impacted by it; collaborating, coming up with ideas and testing them; taking what you’ve learned and improving upon it. On the following pages, you’ll read about how design thinking impacts the curriculum at St. Andrew’s with closer looks at projects in each division. You’ll hear from one of the school’s leaders in design, Charles James, and some of our students on the future of design at St. Andrew’s. You’ll read about alumni, like Yandle, who have integrated design into their professional lives. And you’ll also get a glimpse at some activities geared to fostering the creative mindset so critical to design thinking. We hope you enjoy these articles. If we’ve done our job right, when you’re finished reading them, you’ll not only have answers, but many more questions.
Science teacher Kim O’Shaughnessy and Neeve Izadi ‘21 observe Maya Noboa ‘21 program a Lego Mindstorms robot to trace the human circulatory system.
DESIGNING A CURRICULUM I D E AT E .
CREATE.
Design thinking draws on timeless principles and practices. Do it correctly, and it becomes an enduring mechanism for deep learning and social entrepreneurship. Continued on page 16
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ITERATE.
BY DR. IAN KELLEHER DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, THE CTTL
esign thinking is one of the brightest new ideas in education. At its core, however, it draws on principles and practices that are timeless. Do design thinking right, as St. Andrew's has done, and it becomes an enduring mechanism for deep learning and social entrepreneurship. It is beyond a trend, beyond a fad. Take a look at the following list from Tony Wagner. Wagner, the author and Expert in Residence at Harvard’s Innovation Lab, compiled “seven survival skills for the 21st century.” Critical thinking and problem solving; Collaboration and leading by influence; Adaptability; Initiative; Effective oral and written communication; Accessing and analyzing information; Curiosity and imagination. SPRING 2017
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Chase Marino ‘28 constructs an apartment building as part of the first-grade Lego City project. Students become urban planners as they design their own city using Legos. The five-month project began with selecting, building and planning residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings, as well as public spaces within the limits of a city.
Continued from page 15 I wince at the phrase “21st century skills,” in part because of its arrogance and its ignorance. Wagner’s list is cram-packed full of traits and habits of mind that have been cornerstones of human thinking and doing for as long as there has been human thinking and doing. St. Andrew’s Design Thinking is a truly innovative program, but at its heart is this set of intellectual and personal demands that have been tried and tested and lauded throughout the ages, and which have always been at the heart of human achievement. Our leap is to take a timeless list of academic traits, make them a significant part of every grade from our 2 year olds to our 12th-graders, and work strategically to deliberately build these skills, habits, and mindsets. I want to highlight a few examples of how Design Thinking impacts the St. Andrew’s curriculum. THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVITY Every day as I walk up to the Lower School to drop off my daughter, I glance 16
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into the science classroom and notice the words posted on the wall: “think, make, improve.” At first I concentrated on the last word. It is a design thinking mantra we have developed for our youngest students to embed the idea of an iterative work process. Finding ways to include an iterative workflow in scenarios that are more typically “one and done” in schools is one way that design thinking is used across disciplines and ages at St. Andrew’s in everyday ways. For example, older students may take the classic glue-it-down-and-bedone-with-it trifold project and be given the option to create a poster electronically, with built in steps for them to get feedback and revise it. For younger students, it is a recurring playful challenge when they make something — “OK, that’s great, now what could you do to improve it?” But now I realize the first two words are the most important. Think and make. We want the youngest St. Andrew’s students to be deeply immersed in a world where thinking and making is an omnipresent and natural part of their learning. At the core of this is the deliberate planning of activities that nurture and build creativity.
Design thinking work is meant to be a struggle, but at its best it crafts projects that create significant enough emotional attachment that there is a drive to do them well and overcome the barriers.
DESIGNING A SACRED SPACE
This is a process that we never let up on all through a St. Andrew’s education. We want all our students to see themselves as creative individuals, to understand and be able to describe their personal creative process, and never be the one in a group, be it at school, college or work, who shies away and says, “I can’t do that, I’m not a creative person.” THE IMPORTANCE OF STRUGGLE One of my favorite stories from the Upper School robotics class I teach involves two students who were working on their final project, a two-week sprint to use pieces of what we had been working on all year to create a robot that needed to find and manipulate a number of balls on a tabletop course. There are just a couple of days to go. Due to some error, they start their robot and it zooms backwards off the table and smashes into many pieces on the floor. Their response is to laugh and say, “It’s OK, we can fix it, and there were a couple of things we were thinking of — it will give us a chance to do those.” That attitude is priceless. Design thinking work is meant to be a struggle, but at its best it crafts projects that create significant enough emotional attachment that there is a drive to do them well and overcome the barriers. In time, it breeds a confidence to find the funny side when disaster strikes, and calmly, thoughtfully and confidently move on to fix it. When my robotics students’ final project accidently drove off the table just two days before it was due and smashed into a great many pieces, what experiences led them look at each other, laugh, then turn to me and say, “Don’t worry, we can fix it, and it will give us the chance to add in a couple of other things we were thinking about”? THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPATHY Research tells us that emotion and cognition are intrinsically linked in the brain. Negative emotion can have a detrimental impact on learning. But we can also use positive emotion to deepen learning. Empathy, we believe, is an underused tool in teaching. Magic happens when our students connect with real people and work to find out their story. St. Andrew’s Oral
Ana-Lucia Chalmers ‘22 works to complete her artificial limb project, which she made in Life Science class. The artificial limb project is a rite of passage for seventh graders and it provides students the opportunity to solve an authentic, real-world design challenge.
History Project, now in its 20th year, is a great example of this. Our Design Thinking program is at its most powerful when students are designing for others, when they are generating solutions to real world problems that they have teased out through face-to-face conversations. Students in the Social Entrepreneurship course Skype with a doctor in the Central Plateau Region of Haiti and interview members of Bokamoso from Winterveld in South Africa. Service Learning students find, visit and interview people from non-profit organizations around the Washington, D.C., area. Upper and Middle School students talk with students in the Intermediate and Lower schools to collaborate on architectural projects or board games to teach math concepts. Each St. Andrew’s designer now has a real person who they want to do their best for. Maybe they design menu items for
If the Middle School had its own worship space, what would it look like? This was the design challenge eighthgraders took on this year as their end-ofterm Religion project. Students considered elements like structure, seating, color and light as they designed their sacred spaces. They shared their vision by creating posters or 3D models of their chapels in the school’s new D!Lab. To make this a truly human-centered design project, students interviewed teachers and fellow middle schoolers to get their opinions on what makes the ideal sacred space. The Rev. Patty Alexander said she wanted the project, now in its second iteration, to follow a design thinking process. That’s where the interviews came in, she said. “I’ve been impressed by how seriously the students have taken those interviews and listened to what their teachers and classmates have said about what’s important to this community for worship,” Alexander said, noting how students incorporated elements like natural light, calm music, and school colors based on the feedback.
people with severely restricted dietary requirements due to multiple serious medical conditions. Or a system to help someone transport soup by bicycle back to others at their homeless shelter. Or a chicken-raising project for Civol working in conjunction with an NPO on the ground in Haiti. In a culture where problem solving is a put on a pedestal as a worthy trait, we want to add a second, slightly taller pedestal for problem finding. We want every St. Andrew’s student to have the opportunity to listen to someone else’s story and think, “What can I design to help them out? All the better if it is something that they themselves cannot see or envision,” and then create this idea. Continued on page 18 SPRING 2017
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Fourth-graders visit the Lower School to share board games they created to help first-graders with study skills.
Continued from page 17 THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT One of my roles at St. Andrew’s is Head of Research for the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. As such, one of the questions that intrigues me is the poorly known research that highlights significant problems with traditional project-based learning. It is why we are deliberate in grounding design thinking in knowledge. Projects sit in the context of a course, and force students to take ideas that they have just got comfortable with and wrestle with them in an unfamiliar, novel context. My favorite simple framework for this is Martin Robinson’s Trivium 21st Century — a reimagining of the millennia-old cornerstone of western teaching that also has great modern Mind, Brain, and Education Science credentials. Stage 1: Grammar – Building knowledge. Stage 2: Dialectic – Discussion in some format based on this knowledge. Stage 3: Rhetoric – Creating in a novel context in some medium based on the knowledge and the discussion of it. The seventh-grade artificial limb project is a great example of this, and one of 18
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the Middle School rites of passage. After studying the muscular skeletal system, students need to create an artificial limb to complete some known and some unknown tasks. It builds on solid foundational knowledge, helps cement it, and, for many students, is a pivotal moment it helping them believe in themselves as makers and creators. In many schools this type of project is sent home, where parents often leap in to bail out struggling sons and daughters. We bring it into the classroom, where expert teaching makes a kind of magic occur, and we create a community of problem solvers. (You can read more about the Artificial Limb project on page 21.) WHAT IS THE END RESULT? We want St. Andrew’s students to have broad, robust academic knowledge, but to also have had experiences where they have had to use their knowledge in novel, real world situations. This helps make the knowledge more durable and flexible. Design thinking helps our students know more, and be able to do more with what they know. We want St. Andrew’s students to see beyond their academic knowledge, and know that it is one piece of something more important – knowledge in the service of others or for a greater good.
Empathy, we believe, is an underused tool in teaching. Magic happens when our students connect with real people and work to find out their story.
We also want St. Andrew’s students to value and build the timeless traits of mind that help put their knowledge to work: creativity; knowledge of their own personal voice; empathy; compassion; entrepreneurship; knowing their own strengths and weaknesses and crafting groups that augment these; taking well judged risks; and, perhaps most importantly, knowing that they are able to fail spectacularly in front of others despite their best efforts, smile, and get right back to work to make it better.
DESIGN THINKING
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l o o h c S r e w o L g n i k n i h T n g Desi BY SUNG HEE KIM FIRST GRADE TEACHER
Last spring, first-graders became urban planners as they designed their own city using Legos. As part of our study of community, they were also given the real-world problem of producing as close to zero waste as possible in Lego City. This five-month project began with selecting, building and planning residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings, as well as public spaces within the limits of a city. The Lego City/Bee Bot project crossed through disciplines of environmental studies, city planning, math and technology. From the start, first-graders made pivotal decisions and gave compelling arguments to steer the class as they identified real-world trash problems. Teams presented proposals on how to solve these problems and received peer feedback. The student-driven nature of this project gave them ownership in the deepest sense and pride in their efforts. The Legos, Bee Bot robots, and the real-world factor also made the students invest heavily in this project, making them eager to continuously revisit their work and giving them plentiful chances to reflect and adjust their thinking. The many stages of this learning process and the metacognition required to move from one stage to the next, in addition to the multiple modalities involved, lent itself particularly well to design thinking. Regular “thinking sessions” helped teams define their current repository of knowledge, formulate theories about people’s needs and motivations concerning trash, and frame new questions to test
Francisco Gali ‘28 works with first-grade teacher Sung Hee Kim to build a grocery store for the Lego City project.
their theories. Student teams tested their theories through videotaped interviews, then reformulated their knowledge to create innovative solutions to their chosen trash problem. Other creative opportunities for applying their knowledge came through transferring their learning to a new context, such as when teams turned the poster presentation of their trash problem solution into an actual robotics Bee Bot mission within Lego City. Students experimented with Bee Bots to calculate how many snap cubes a Bee Bot moves for each command and how wide a snap cube road needs to be to clear turns. Student teams problem-solved and became active knowledge makers, creating many iterations of Bee Bot code and road
The student-driven nature of this project gave them ownership in the deepest sense and pride in their efforts. Sung Hee Kim, First Grade Teacher
structures before finding the perfect design that would allow three different Bee Bot robots to execute their mission — pick up the trash through the streets of Lego City. SPRING 2017
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l o o h c S e t a i d e Inter m g n i k n i h T n g i s De BY GARY WYATT VISUAL ARTS AND SCIENCE TEACHER, INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL
The bridge building project in fifth grade has been around nearly as long as there has been an Intermediate School. The inaugural fifth-grade class first worked on the project during the 2010-2011 school year. Students would study parallel and perpendicular lines and geometric shapes in my art classes, and in Chuck James’ science class, they would work on the physical science behind building bridges. Those types of interdisciplinary projects are ones I’ve worked on for most of my time at St. Andrew’s. Biology students would make posters about different species they studied. Science students would study space travel and make 3D spacecraft models. Making cross connections is a great way to reinforce concepts. For current fifth-graders, and all Intermediate School students, art and science are integrated in one class — design. This has allowed projects, such as bridge building, to become more seamless and sophisticated. Now, when they start building their 3D models, they are amazed at how well they turn out. They create blueprints for the bridges. We talk about measurements and scale, concepts that are difficult for some to grasp. If my scale is 5 to 1, what does that mean? They do drawing as individuals. This includes researching a real bridge. Then they break into random groups and brainstorm what they have learned. What appeals most to them about different bridges? They then create thumbnails of bridges with designs of their own. Before we ever build the 3D models, we test the 20
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Elias Milam ‘24 and Emma Kee ‘24 examine the Little River Bridge that Emma’s team created to cross the Noce River in Italy. At its full size, the bridge would span 320 feet and be 200 feet tall.
structural strength of each bridge on computers. Each bridge must have a site in the real world where it will be built. Finally, they name the bridge. Each year, these finished products are displayed in Kreeger Art Gallery for our community to admire. In many ways, it shows off what’s best about design — it allows students to collaborate and iterate while bridging multiple disciplines.
Gary Wyatt is retiring at the end of the 2016-2017 school year after 36 years of teaching and coaching at St. Andrew’s. As a science and art teacher, Wyatt, who has been honored at St. Andrew’s as a Finneran Faculty Fellow, began utilizing design thinking in his classroom decades ago. Students in the Intermediate School have enjoyed integrated design classes the past five years and move to the Middle School with an exceptional cross-disciplinary foundation.
DESIGN THINKING
Alexander Walker ‘22 builds an artificial limb out of duct tape, clothes pins and a plastic container.
l o o h c S e l d d i M g n i k n i h T n Desig BY KIM O’SHAUGHNESSY HEAD OF SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
The design of an artificial limb by seventh-grade Life Science students had a very simple beginning. I wanted a handson application for the vocabulary of bones and muscles. Building a replacement for a hand was a way of bringing that vocabulary to life. As the project evolved, the following design constraints emerged. The device must: • Grasp and lift a variety of objects. • Be activated by pulling a cord or string that resemble tendons and muscles. • Spring back to the original position when the cord is released.
• Original design must be made in class. Now in its eighth year, the project has a specific timeline that scaffolds the stages and steps of the process. Students design a prototype and go through an iterative process, creating from mostly recycled materials. Each design is an original concept made in class. I teach technical drawing and each student submits scale drawings of their final device. On testing day, the device must be able to grasp, hold and move a lacrosse ball and a 3-inch diameter cup. Students also submit written instructions for the use of their device. The project taps into many areas of each student’s skills and asks them to connect various aspects during their presentation. The design and iteration of the
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device creates many unique solutions to the project each year. Design projects level the playing field of student skills. Students enjoy the opportunity to have a very different classroom environment. They come each day to experience sawing, bending, cutting and connecting materials to create their device. For many students, this is their first time using a saw, learning the difference between a flathead or Phillips screwdriver, or understanding how to install a hinge. For others, this is a chance to bring outside knowledge of materials into the classroom. Technical drawing is a skill well-placed in seventh grade, according to research on spatial awareness. Several years ago, former art teacher Hevia Paxon and I had a grant from the CTTL to create a game that helps teach the spatial awareness that is intrinsic to understanding how to read and draw technical drawings. When I adopted this project, I was hoping to add an awareness of how bones and muscles worked together. I believe it does that and offers students the opportunity to grow, develop and refine their skills in the context of an authentic, real-world design challenge.
Caroline Schneider ‘ 21 made an artificial limb out of a caulking material, colored straws, string, a ruler and washers. SPRING 2017
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Upper School g n i k n i h T n g i s De BY LAUREN COOK HEAD OF VISUAL ARTS DEPARTMENT
As long as there has been a visual arts program at St. Andrew’s, our students have been using design thinking. Working in the realm of applied art or fine art, studio-based inquiry involves the openended investigation of form and materials, trial and error, and more. Artists must harness research, communication and collaboration skills when working independently, on interdisciplinary design teams or with clients. We’ve seen these aspects of design thinking expressed in a new project taken on by our Advanced Art and Portfolio Development class. Responding to a challenge from Ana Pabón-Naab of our school’s Advancement Office, juniors developed a theme-based dinner party that was auctioned off at our annual spring gala. Playing off artist Judy Chicago’s art installation “The Dinner Party,” students created an homage to modern art movements, developing twelve original artworks inspired by impressionism, cubism and pop art, among others. The art was reproduced on cotton twill placemats, wall screen panels, and on 3D place card holders, providing an inviting visual experience for dinner guests. Throughout the project, students negotiated between their individual aesthetic preferences and client requirements. They dealt with hard deadlines, including concept and layout approvals, final artwork submission and production. They applied math skills in dealing with technical specifications, and science skills as they worked with new materials. They drew on persuasive and descriptive writing skills throughout the project, and supported 22
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Samantha Liggins ‘18 works with teacher Lauren Cook on the details of her dinner party piece, which represents the geometric abstraction and intense, bold color of the Hard Edge Painting movement, popular in the 1950s through the mid-1970s.
each other throughout. As a teacher, it was my task to keep thinking outside the box along with my students while ensuring adequate structure for learning. This meant defining unit milestones, controlling the project pace, and not closing down on options too early at each step. I needed to create clear expectations for grading that would support informed risk-taking, be fair, and simulate real-world pressures and rewards. Indeed, I, along with faculty across our campuses, constantly apply design thinking in our practices as teachers and curriculum developers. We try to marry the rigor of design thinking with each student’s unique personal voice and interests, which is ultimately what helps make their learning personally meaningful and their work inspiring. Whether it is with this class, in our ceramics studio and D!Lab, or in our digital design and new media courses, you’ll find our classrooms filled with artists
Each of the twelve works of art was transferred to a placemat for a dinner party.
and designers driving their own learning, exploring fresh forms of expression, and finding powerful ways to deliver creative ideas and innovations to the world. See more photos of the process of creating the dinner party art on pages 36-37.
Lindy Hill ‘17 and Meehan Imam ‘19 look at the final product of a project created on the D!Lab’s laser cutter.
First Sight
BY CHARLES JAMES DIRECTOR OF THE D! LAB
St. Andrew’s Vision for Design Thinking At St. Andrew’s, creativity and imagination matter. But, at the heart of design thinking is purpose. In science, the term “first light” describes the initial rays of radiation viewed through the lens of a new telescope. Creating the technology needed to view the vast deep reaches of space requires consilience — the unification of knowledge and skill across many disciplines to solve significant challenges and questions. Design thinking is “first sight” for the curious — the first inkling of a new idea viewed by a creative mind. First sight is our intellect’s ability to unify knowledge in order to see, to create and to make real the ingeContinued on page 24
Will Cirrito ‘21 holds up a Lego Mindstorms robot, which students can program to complete various tasks. SPRING 2017
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St. Andrew’s vision
Continued from page 23
students give tangible expression to the meaning they experience. Schools should be the place where students’ creativity is combined with deep content, relevant skills and innovative finesse, and aimed at the world’s deepest and seemingly intractable human problems.
nious new ideas of our mind. Instructional unity — consilience — is the holy grail of educational practice. Design thinking is one of the practices that help create consilience by connecting thinking and learning. Just as telescopes broaden humankind’s view of our universe, design thinking allows students to explore the frontiers of knowledge in order to imagine and create the future. Wherever our deep human desire to create came from, we are defined by our species’ ability to design, craft, and innovate. The world needs innovation to progress. The “first sight” of design makes that innovation possible. DESIGN THINKING IS THE MINDSET Design thinking is a creative mindset driven by a process that solves problems regardless of scale. It is the iterative process by which humans plan, make, and evaluate new ideas. In the classroom, the process becomes a way to make thinking and learning visual — a glimpse into what a student’s mind is experiencing across disciplines. By its very nature, design thinking is a practical art matched with precise math and governed by the principles of science that allows students repeated first sights into the future. The process of design is as valuable as the product. Students learn that ideas have to be incubated through research, trial and error, feedback and critique — a repetitive process to test ideas and make improvements. Students learn to produce scale drawings from varying perspectives and work from those drawings to produce products of varying resolution so that sev-
Maria Naab ‘18 shows off a St. Andrew’s lion printed in the D!Lab’s laser cutter.
eral rounds of prototypes can quickly be produced, evaluated and further refined. Solving problems by design is the nexus of learning, feeling and making. The process encompasses the flashes of first sight that links mind, eyes, heart and hands — using the dynamism of a student’s cognitive power and empathy to solve all sorts of problems. The brain, when allowed to design and problem solve, creates coherence and consilience. And that is what schools really need. In its most meaningful application, the design thinking process is best applied to human need. We use empathy to guide research and creativity to design solutions for others. Through the design process,
CREATIVITY IS THE MAGIC Innovative finesse requires creativity — mindful characteristics that enlighten, bend, blend, and spark new ideas. In many cases — creative ideas are conceived by simply playing, doodling, and wondering. Play is the work of creativity because it generates the sheer quantity and quality of ideas necessary to make never-beforeconsidered connections. Creating is not simply about innovation. In schools, it is also about expression, bringing to life insights and first sights that might otherwise remain hidden. Creativity is a reflex born of frequent practice and exposure to new problems, approaches, discordant events and even failure. FAILURE IS THE FORGE Design thinking gives students a new identity — a new way of viewing themselves as creators. Part of that identity includes the aspiration to solve problems and the mindset to feel confident while doing so. In the design process, one constant is certain — you can’t learn without some failure. Failure and mistakes are what are so transformational about this whole process. Contrary to what education often emphasizes, failures are wonderfully liberating. Failure is a necessary component of innovation, so the way students understand failure is critically important. When we make ideas visual and tests reveal
THE DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
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DEFINE
IDEATE
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failures, we expose and extend ourselves to a moment of insight. When properly applied, uncertainty and mistakes are powerful engines of momentum. When seen as conclusions, mistakes are dead ends. Through design, students learn to push ahead in spite of their feelings — to move toward doubt and not become so fixated on instant or easy success that they miss the opportunities that mistakes offer. All progress is the revision of something that already exists punctuated with innovation. Failure is the forge by which ideas and innovation are strengthened and improved. IMAGINATION IS THE SPARK W.B Yeats once observed that “education is not the filling of a pail, rather, the lighting of a fire.” Imagination is the spark that the illuminates the mind’s first sights. Students are “wired to create.” We know that our students’ skills are exponentially increased when work is enlivened by imagination. Through evolution and experience, the brain’s neural functions have developed a fanciful and seemingly un-brain like function called imagination. Language, thought, feeling, and our sense of identity are all woven together from the interactions we have with the external “real world” as well as a rich internal world of imagination within our minds. Art, stories, music, structures, inventions and communication are birthed by something more than simple brain-bound functions. The imagination and empathy required by the design process raises an experience out of the realm of the brain’s neurons into the deeper realm of mysteries and meaning of the human mind. HUMANITY IS THE PURPOSE. Humans have a capacity to create for purpose and progress. What goes on between the ears of our students is not simply the processing of existing ideas and content, but the generation of extraordinary new solutions or first sights. The design process is not a selfish one. It gives tangible expression to the meaning students experience when they encounter new problems, enter into new situations, travel to new places and meet new friends. Imagination requires journeying into the
In Gary Wyatt’s design class, fourth-grader Piper Crawford laughs as her hair reacts to the Van de Graff generator, which transfers an electric charge to anyone touching it.
world of ideas, people, and places that are different from your own. Schools should be the place where students’ creativity and imagination are combined with deep content, relevant skills, and innovative finesse work on behalf of others. Creativity allows us to focus and target our imagination in innovative ways.
Schools should be the place where students’ creativity and imagination are combined with deep content, relevant skills, and innovative finesse work on behalf of others.
Empathy — our understanding of the circumstances of another person — provides the best motivation for applying that innovative mindset. It is clear that the design process works best when it is part of an experience one feels fully. At St. Andrew’s we feel it is our responsibility to provide the best possible instructional blend of human-centered moments of insight. INNOVATION IS THE RESULT Every generation is responsible for inventing the future for the next. Design thinking is a catalyst for that innovation. The process of design thinking is a continual partner to new worlds of ideas. Schools like St. Andrew’s create the spaces for innovation to happen. Design thinking is the intentional integration of ideas and disciplines in the pursuit of solutions to problems. Students’ creative genius can be captured, and through the process, ideas great and small can overcome all dimensions of problems. Now that we know the mindset, the purpose and the goal of design thinking, the creative magic is up to us. Let’s design.
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STUDENT PERSPECTIVE
the future of Design Thinking Harrison ’17 reflects on how creative problem solving has shaped her St. Andrew’s experience. BY HOPE HARRISON CLASS OF 2017
In June of this year, I will graduate after having spent seven years at St. Andrew’s. In that time, I have witnessed the strides this community has made in incorporating design thinking into its daily routine. At the heart of design thinking is the belief that one should approach problems thoughtfully and creatively. The ability to analyze a problem, consider multiple stances, and craft a well-informed solution is a valuable skill, and I am convinced that the prevalence of design thinking here at St. Andrew’s has positively impacted my high school experience and prepared me for both the University of Virginia, where I will study biology this fall, and life after graduation. A large part of my design thinking experience has been with the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL), where I have been a fellow for three years. Instead of being satisfied with the status quo, the CTTL encourages everyone to find areas of their lives they want to improve and utilize researchinformed methods to make changes. For instance, the CTTL is currently studying what constitutes meaningful homework. 26
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In March, Hope Harrison ‘17 was named one of 19 D!Lab interns at St. Andrew’s. Harrison has interned for three summers at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory.
When student and teacher fellows came together to address the community’s needs and formulate that specific research question, the process reflected design thinking. Taking the time to discuss, support, and refute ideas about the role of homework in our lives and the changes we wish to
make enabled us to collaborate and build a strong foundation for our research. This year, I’ve been fortunate to enjoy the incredible resources of our new makerspace, the D!Lab. Since this is the first year the D!Lab has been open, there has undoubtedly been trial and error in
STUDENT PERSPECTIVE
How Design Makes a Difference learning how to operate the machines and make products. The fact that understanding the basics of the 3D printer and laser cutter requires creativity and patience further deepens our ability to look at situations from various perspectives and be willing to try new things. Many D!Lab interns go into the space daily to work on independent projects, and I often see art teachers and their students using the machinery to transfer designs onto different surfaces. Endless applications for the D!Lab exist in areas such as art, robotics, and mathematics; I hope that the space will be further utilized for the modeling of integral rotations for calculus students, or as a way to synthesize elements for small scale construction projects, such as the seventh grade artificial limb project. The D!Lab enables us to construct whatever we desire, but more importantly, it pushes us to ponder how we can utilize technology in ways never imagined. For most students, design thinking is abundant in the classroom setting, although it may not always be obvious. At the close of the second trimester, my advanced drawing class was asked to create art with an unorthodox drawing material on an atypical art surface. I decided to draw on a leaf using a toothpick. Whether it’s experimenting with new materials for art class, competing in the physics olympics, or working on an alternative assessment, I have found myself being challenged to think outside of the box while still thinking critically. The emphasis on discovering one’s identity as both an individual and as a student pushes members of the St. Andrew’s community to bring their own distinct ideas and viewpoints to the table, and design thinking is one way in which this value is brought to life. I would argue that the foundations of design thinking at St. Andrew’s are strong, but the future looks even brighter. If the resources at our disposal continue to be used and students start to actively see themselves as design thinkers, then excitement about design thinking will permeate the school and will create a new wave of innovators.
Students experience the benefits of design thinking daily and see how it can enhance St. Andrew’s future. ANDY HARRIS ‘18
“Design is creative thinking and problem solving, by using both technology and your imagination. When you’re presented with a design challenge, you can’t necessarily say there is one right way to do it. But you also can’t say there isn’t. Certain solutions to problems will work very, very well, however there’s always possibly a better way to do something.” Harris is working on designing a turbojet engine in the D! Lab.
LILY BEUKER ‘17
“In life you’re going to face problems you won’t know how to face. You won’t always have instructions to help you get places. Having that sort of mindset, of thinking outside the box, can help you in a pinch.” Beuker has programmed robots and laser cut poster stands in her Robotics class.
ANDREW FULLERTON ‘17
“Design thinking makes you a better problem solver in general, and taking Robotics and AP Computer Programming has fostered that ability
to creatively problem solve and iterate in a thoughtful and methodical way.” Fullerton spends his Saturday mornings teaching middle schoolers how to program robots.
CLAIRE VAN STOLK ’18
“Design thinking has helped me be more innovative. I’m more creative. I think of different ways to do things. I don’t always go directly by the book to plan things out. I’m more resilient. I work with what I have and go from there.” van Stolk designed her Great Works poster board for “I, Robot” to look like a robot, fit with lights and covered with aluminum foil.
DANAN MBOZI ‘18
“In the classroom, the creative projects that can substitute a final exam, such as the 10th-grade podcast project, allow students to shape their school experience. To expand design thinking in the classroom, I would propose more choice in the curriculum.” Mbozi is studying meaningful homework as a CTTL fellow.
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Nate Mitchell ‘05 is co-founder of Oculus, a company specializing in virtual reality products. PHOTOS COURTESY OF OCULUS
ALUMNI PROFILE
Turning a Dream into a (Virtual) Reality Long before you could strap on a headset, St. Andrew’s alumnus Nate Mitchell ’05 was dreaming of virtual worlds. ate Mitchell ’05 always knew he wanted to work in video games. There was no life-changing experience, no single epiphanylike moment that made him decide he wanted the gaming industry to be his future. It was just always there. “I knew from my earliest memories that the thing I wanted to do was create games and virtual worlds,” Mitchell said. Fitting, then, that Mitchell has gone on to do exactly that as a co-founder of Oculus. The technology company specializes in virtual reality hardware and software, most notably the Rift, a cutting-edge VR headset. In
2014, Facebook acquired Oculus for more than $2 billion in cash and stocks. While it might seem like it on the surface, the journey to make a boyhood dream a reality wasn’t a simple one. Mitchell had to reorient his goals and expectations along the way while overcoming a number of hurdles. “I really struggled in college to find an internship at a game company,” Mitchell said. “The games industry is where all the best programmers in the world gravitate. The work is interesting, cutting edge, benefits are great. Just like the folks at Pixar doing high-end, cutting-edge graphics
— the same research is being done on the game side. The industry is pretty talented, pretty incredible. I was never a great programmer, sort of middle of the road. So getting an internship is something I really struggled with.” Mitchell’s break in software came after graduating from Dickinson College with a B.S. in Computer Science, and it came with the help of another St. Andrew’s graduate, Paul Iribe ’05. Paul’s cousin. Brendan Iribe, had co-founded his own middleware company, Scaleform, in 1999. Continued on page 30
The Rift, center, is one of the centerpieces of Oculus, which Nate Mitchell ‘05 co-founded. Oculus was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for more than $2 billion in cash and stocks. SPRING 2017
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DESIGN THINKING
alumni profile
Continued from page 29 “We built technology for game companies to help them build games,” Mitchell said, describing his role as a software support engineer. ‘I had the opportunity to help build UI engines and worked with hundreds if not thousands of developers in creating games.” Based in Greenbelt, Md., Scaleform grew to be the No. 1 video game user interface technology provider during Mitchell’s time there. After working there for two and a half years, Scaleform was sold and became Autodesk. Iribe left at the time but Mitchell stayed on for nearly a year before Iribe convinced him to join him in California at a company called Gaikai, where Iribe was Chief Product Officer. Mitchell was in the role of Senior Product Developer for just a few months
“Product development, even with hardware, is about delivering an experience that is magical and delightful and gives them the experience they are looking for. Taking the raw components and craftsmanship and turning it into product is what we are so passionate about.” Nate Mitchell ‘05, Co-founder of Oculus
when Sony purchased the company. While Mitchell, Iribe and a couple of other Scaleform and Gaikai alumni were considering what to do next, they met Palmer Luckey. Just 19 years old at the time, Luckey had already developed a VR headset and was looking for how to best develop software for it. Mitchell and Iribe came on board and in two weeks helped put together a Kickstarter campaign that 30
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raised $2 million. “The thing that I saw was, you put your head in this box that he had and there was a whole different world right inside,” Mitchell said. “It’s hard to explain if you haven’t experienced good VR. And this was good VR. What I saw in that first demo was the opportunity to revolutionize the way people experience games, but more than that, computing. That was a really powerful moment. It seemed like the possibilities for VR were suddenly right in front of me. As a super geek and someone who has grown up his whole life in this world, it excited me more than anything else.” Mitchell began at Oculus as Vice President of Product, overseeing both hardware and software. “I’m not the best head of hardware in the world and I’m not the best head of software in the world but I am good at guiding a team through building a project,” Mitchell said. “As the company has grown and we’ve brought in experts, I’ve been able to divest myself of responsibilities.” After 18 months of working at Oculus, everything changed when the acquisition by Facebook was announced. “When we were acquired, we were 75 people,” Mitchell said. “We went from working and managing projects of small team or creating projects yourself to managing hundreds of people.” Despite having more resources, there were still plenty of challenges for Oculus and Mitchell. “There were a lot of problems because the space was so new,” Mitchell said. “You can’t go out there and hire a VR team or a VR expert because the industry didn’t exist. So we were bringing in people with a passion and building from scratch.” The need for discovery and collaboration in a new field lent itself perfectly to design thinking. Mitchell said that design has been critical to everything happening at Oculus. “Design is fundamental to what we do,” Mitchell said. “When people think about design, they think about industrial design and one level deeper is UX (user experience). Product development, even with hardware, is about delivering an experience that is magical and delightful and gives them the experience they are looking
FROM BRIDGE TO RIFT Before Nate Mitchell co-founded Oculus, he was creating clubs at St. Andrew’s. He and Chris
Heywood ‘05 founded the Bridge Club, which, according to the
2005 yearbook, was “the only club dedicated to playing a single card game, in fact it is the only club
dedicated to any card game.” He was a member of the SGA and the Mane News staff, and also
performed in the spring musical, “Les Misérables.” He was voted
the “Biggest Procrastinator” by his
classmates, and this was his senior prediction: “Nate Mitchell grows
his hair until he passes as a double for ‘Cousin It’ in the third Addams Family movie.”
for. Taking the raw components and craftsmanship and turning it into product is what we are so passionate about. “We have visual designers, UX designers, 3D designers, industrial designers. Oculus is highly cross functional. We’re not building a hard product and we’re not building just software. It’s an integrated platform for other creators to use for their own experience. It requires an incredible amount of collaboration with other disciplines.” With recent changes taking place at Oculus (Luckey announced this spring that he was leaving the company), Mitchell now finds himself as Head of Rift, the VR headset itself. For a kid who wanted to create his own virtual worlds, it’s a dream come true.
DESIGN THINKING
alumni profile
Tracy Yandle ’87
Tracy Yandle ‘87, an associate professor at Emory University in Atlanta, has teamed up with an anthropologist and economist to design a solution to lionfish overpopulation in the US Virgin Islands (USVI).
Tracy Yandle was always interested in environmental issues, even 30 years ago as a St. Andrew’s student. But that doesn’t mean the 1987 graduate expected to spend much of her professional life dealing with the problem of the lionfish. Her path began at St. Andrew’s where she learned “the importance of hard work and how to work hard.” After St. Andrew’s she matriculated to Franklin & Marshall College where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Government. She followed that up with a master’s in Environmental Studies from Baylor University and went to work at the consulting firm SciComm as a program analyst, working with the EPA to figure out ways they could enforce regulations when they had no actual enforcement power. “There was this question of, how do you solve problems when you have no authority?” Yandle said. “That was something really interesting to me.” So interesting that Yandle decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Indiana University, where she had the opportunity to learn from Elinor Ostrom, the only
“There was this question of, how do you solve problems when you have no authority? That was something really interesting to me.” woman to win the Nobel Prize for economics. Ostrom’s work focused on the Tragedy of the Commons — an economic problem in which individuals or groups try to reap the greatest benefit from a shared resource, depleting the supply and, in effect, harming others who can no longer enjoy the benefit of the resource. Deforestation and overfishing are two prime examples of the Tragedy of the Commons which, in a way, is how Yandle ended up working to solve the problem of the lionfish. After working on market-based solutions to the Tragedy of the Commons in fisheries, she began to look at seafood markets more generally. As an associate professor
in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences, she received a grant designed to help find ways to bring Georgia seafood into the urban markets of Atlanta and Athens. After learning about the problem the lionfish posed to the reefs and marine life in the Caribbean (read more about this on page 14), it was only natural that she pursue further funding to team up with an anthropologist and economist to design a solution to the lionfish problem in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). “You need people hunting the lionfish and there isn’t enough money in conservation agencies to go and pay people to hunt them,” Yandle said. “In the USVI, most local people can’t afford to spear fish for fun. So you need to find a reason for fishermen to target them. How do you develop a market for them? Are people willing to try (eating) them and if so, what would they pay for them?” This work, of solving the problem of the lionfish as well as helping support the local USVI fishermen, crosses disciplines, requires collaboration and has gone through multiple iterations – quintessential design thinking. SPRING 2017
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DESIGN THINKING
alumni profile
Thea Klein-Mayer ’08
Above: Thea Klein-Mayer ‘08 at the National Arboretum’s Washington Youth Garden, where she volunteers in the summers. Right: Last summer at the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, children took turns milling grain on the pedal-powered mill Klein-Mayer designed.
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Thea Klein-Mayer ’08 was working as a Sustainable Agriculture Fellow with the Allegheny Mountain Institute in 2014 when she was faced with a challenge — how could she create a renewable energy alternative to a standard agricultural practice? She applied design thinking to the project, investigating existing solutions, identifying needs on the farm and surveying the community. The solution she devised was a pedal-powered grain mill, an idea she turned into reality with the help of design thinking skills she developed in college and at St. Andrew’s. “I don’t think I would have approached this the same way had I not been a part of this thinking about design and the design process,” Klein-Mayer said. Klein-Mayer, a Northwestern University graduate, spent a lot of time with Design for America, an “idea incubator,” while in college. She helped the program spread to other campuses as an author of Design for America’s process guide, a tool that offers specific examples of and best practices for human-centered design. After college, Klein-Mayer found her niche in an environmentally focused application of design — food and gardening education. “Access to healthy food is really a basic need. It needs more attention and mindfulness,” Klein-Mayer said. “Farming and gardening education both require a lot of attention to thinking about who is the end recipient of the food, and are they participating in the process?” Just this past summer, Klein-Mayer rolled her invention up to the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture’s Farm Camp, where campers took a spin at milling and made pizza dough from the flour. “It was really rewarding, seeing kids get excited about the tool, but not just because it was a cool thing, but also because they felt they could feasibly make it,” KleinMayer said.
DESIGN THINKING
alumni profile
Rehan Butt ’12 Take a look at Rehan Butt’s digital portfolio, and it’s hard not to find his brightlycolored illustrations and clean geometric logos fresh and appealing. But over the past five years, since graduating from St. Andrew’s in 2012, Butt has changed his view on design. For him, it’s morphed from look to utility — from designing something that simply looks cool to creating an experience for the user. “It’s changed from, ‘This is for myself to do and people to look at,’ to, ‘I want people to be engaged and use this thing,’” Butt said. As a graduate student studying Tangible Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University, Butt has focused his work on designing tools that could improve technology-based communication. His thesis is on conversational design, specifically processes that could break down barriers when it comes to communication between a user and technology.
“I’m a big proponent of using tools in unexpected or unintentional ways,” Butt said. “How can we design better tools, rather than better objects?” One example is Processly, a team project that has turned into a startup, Butt said. The web portfolio tool is being designed to help Top: Rehan Butt ‘12 collaborates with coworker Albert Topdjian students learn to document, on Processly, a new educational web tool. Above: Sketches of discuss and reflect on their Rehan’s ideas for a new illustration. work in the classroom. “There is this idea of learning and teaching each other,” Butt art class or observing invisible design with said. “How do we learn from each other Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kelleher, in and gain that knowledge in a more ad the early days of the Center for Transforhoc way so we can develop ourselves and mative Teaching and Learning. whatever we’re working on?” “I think it comes down to the flexibilHe said his time at St. Andrew’s laid the ity and openness of the teachers and the foundation for his work in design, whether interactions I had that allowed for my it was exploring iteration in Lauren Cook’s interest to occur and foster,” he said. SPRING 2017
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DESIGN THINKING
alumni profile
Tony Wright ’90
Tony Wright ‘90 designed this air plant holder, which was created on a 3D printer that he helped design. The plant holder is made of maple, engraved granite, and black acrylic.
Wright’s company, Glowforge, designed this desktop 3D printer which can print objects out of a variety of materials, including wood and acrylic.
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At Seattle-based startup Glowforge, founder Tony Wright ’90 goes by the title “Head of Product,” but “Head of Delightful Moments” may be more fitting. “To me, the first most important thing is to make something people are so delighted with that they share it,” Wright said. A veteran of the startup world, Wright’s latest project is a desktop 3D laser printer, designed to allow artists and amateurs alike to print designs on wood, fabric, acrylic and more. “Much of my thinking is around how I can reduce the time and clicks between users and that delightful moment,” Wright said. “So when you open up the software, if you’re a digital artist, can you take artwork and make it into another material? And if you’re not, can you personalize a download and hit print in a matter of seconds?” Wright defines design as “making something that speaks to someone else,” a process that relies more often on user expectations. But that’s not the case with Glowforge, Wright said. “We have this new thing that most humans aren’t used to,” Wright said.
“They’ve never had a device that could print objects out of wood and acrylic. What is the software piece that could make this happen? One of the biggest challenges is that we don’t have anyone’s coattails to ride.” Rather than seeing invention as a weakness, Wright and the Glowforge team are allowing the product’s newness to be a strength, recruiting a community of users who are willing to share their feedback as the software develops. “The old model used to be, you design this monolithic, beautiful thing, ship it to the world, and hope people like it,” Wright said. “The new model is constant iteration, getting to the point where you ship to a customer as early as possible, and say to one customer, ‘Here is a new feature. Can you use it and tell me what you think?’” The response to Glowforge has been historic — $27.9 million worth of sales in a 30-day period in the fall of 2015, setting a record for the largest 30-day crowdfunder in history, according to the website GeekWire. Looks like customers have responded well to this iteration.
alumni profile
DESIGN THINKING
Lions Leading Design We’ve highlighted five alumni working in design, but they aren’t the only ones practicing design thinking in their industries. Here are a few more. ANDREW CURTIS ‘89
Curtis is a principal architect for the Quebec-based architecture and landscape architecture firm RobitailleCurtis. Recent projects include designing a modern chalet situated on the steep slope of a former ski hill in Quebec and a large-scale remodel of a Center City Philadelphia townhome to include adjacent property. Andrew’s work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Architect Magazine, Interior Design Magazine, Dezeen, DesignMilk, Dwell, and many other notable print and online publications.
ANDY GOLDSTEIN ’05 Goldstein is the cofounder and CEO of Otherworld Interactive, an independent creative studio that incorporates game and film techniques to create a sense of wonder in virtual reality experiences. He has designed content for several major VR devices, including HTC Vive, Gear VR, Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard and Google Daydream, and has collaborated with Mattel, Lionsgate, Intel, Oculus, and HTC.
KIRBY JONES ‘89 Jones is the creative director at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. He leads an inspiring creative team and oversees all aspects of the exhibit design process including concept drawings, computer models, user experience design, mechanical and electrical engineering and more, and ensures an optimal visitor experience is created.
BEN STEIN ‘97 Stein is the vice president of product management at Artnet, the leading online resource for the international art market, and the destination to buy, sell, and research art online. He leads strategy and project management for the product design and software engineering departments as they develop new products and improve existing ones, including artnet News, the Price Database, Gallery Network and artnet Online Auctions.
DANA NADDAFF (WIEDENMAYER) ‘04 Naddaff is a visual merchandising manager for retailer Crate and Barrel. She leads a design team responsible for the housewares, furniture and window displays and trains the associates on visual standards and impactful merchandising for optimal sales.
CONTACT US! We love hearing what our
alumni are up to. Do you have a career in design or apply
design thinking to your work? Contact Director of Alumni
Affairs Madeline O’Brien ‘05 at
alumni@saes.org and you could be featured on our website or social media!
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A Feast for the Eyes
Twelve student artists design an immersive dining experience — from tableau to textiles.
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Left: After selecting fabric for their placemats, Advanced Art and Portfolio Development students compare their original art to the textile product. Above: In April, students and their parents sat down to dinner with place settings featuring each student’s art.
In April, parents of our Advanced Art and Portfolio Development students enjoyed a meal served on place settings created by their children. The process from tableau to textiles, and finally to table, was a unique exercise in design, requiring students to undergo multiple iterations to meet the demands of their assignment and their client. This project, inspired in part by Judy Chicago’s 1979 installation, “The Dinner Party,” challenged students to design a place setting depicting one of twelve modern art movements. After art teacher Lauren Cook introduced the assignment in December, students began to research their chosen movement and identified images to inspire their designs. Over the next five months, students met several times with their client, Ana PabónNaab, St. Andrew’s Director of Parent Relations. During each meeting, students showed Pabón-Naab their progress and sought her feedback. The two products the students would create — a placemat and a panel — needed to meet specific criteria. For example, the panel
pattern needed to flow from top to bottom through four stacked frames, while the placemat needed to express the movement even when it was covered by a plate. “My challenge with them was, while all the guests are dining, is there constantly an experience?” Pabón-Naab said. Students learned about the technical requirements of fabrication, including how to photograph and color correct their art for printing on textiles. After considering several swatch samples, the group decided to have the placemats printed onto cotton twill. Cook said through this experience, the class designed not only deliverables, but also a new curriculum unit. Their input on process and rubric will be incorporated in future iterations of the assignment, Cook said. Pabón-Naab said the experience prepared students to work with a client, on deadline, in a professional art setting. “This was not for the faint of heart,” Pabón-Naab said. “[Cook] really built this as close to reality as possible, and they took it seriously.”
Surrealism by Megan Reilly ‘18
Cubism by Benny Anderson ‘18
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ARTIST ACHIEVEMENTS
St. Andrew’s Artists Bring Home Regional Awards Seven St. Andrew’s students won 10 different awards in the Scholastic Art & Writing Northeast Art Region competition. Three seniors, three juniors and a seventh grader won awards ranging from Gold Key to Honorable Mention. According to the Scholastic Art & Writing website, nearly 320,000 works of art and writing were submitted by students in 2016. Gold Key works are automatically included in national-level judging, which will take place later this spring.
STUDENT WINNERS Joy Reeves ’18 Gold Key Award, Comic Art Silver Key Award, Design Caroline Albright ’18 Gold Key, Design Above: Will Lucas ‘17, ”Frames” (Honorable Mention) Left: Ben Wang ‘17, “Monument House” (Silver Key)
Lisa Leitner ’18 Gold Key Award, Painting Ben Wang ’17 Silver Key, Architecture & Industrial Design Honorable Mention, Art Portfolio Honorable Mention, Sculpture Will Lucas ’17 Honorable Mention, Drawing & Illustration Ely Sibarium ’17 Honorable Mention, Drawing & Illustration Joseph Masters ‘22 Honorable Mention, Mixed Media
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Lisa Leitner ‘18, “Palette Knife Mountain Range” (Gold Key)
Ely Sibarium ‘17, “Pride” (Honorable Mention)
Joy Reeves ‘18, “Introvert Adventures” (Gold Key) SPRING 2017
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t c e j o r P y r o Oral Hist s r a e Y 0 2 Celebrates The Oral History project is a signature St. Andrew’s program and rite of passage for the junior class. In honor of the program’s anniversary, alumni joined the celebration this year with reflections on their experience.
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he Oral History Project began during the 1997-1998 school year and has since grown to become the largest pre-collegiate oral history project in North America, and possibly the world. The Oral History Project (OHP) celebrated its 20th anniversary this year and to honor it, we put together a short oral history of how the OHP began. Glenn Whitman came to St. Andrew’s in 1997 after teaching at St. George’s School in Spokane, Washington and Blair Academy in New Jersey. A graduate of Dickinson College, Whitman has gone on to become St. Andrew’s Dean of Studies and the Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. But through all that, he has remained a history teacher and the person responsible for the Oral History Project. Whitman: Two things really informed my decision to do it with high school students. One was as a Dickinson College freshman I had what was for me the most
authentic learning experience of my life. I did an oral history interview at the VFW Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with three Vietnam vets on the Tet Offensive. That really turned me on to history and showed me there was another way to learn history and get in touch with the past. And secondly, I really felt I was at a school where I not only could try to continue what I had done with my own students, but there was a quick interest by the Head of the History department at the time, Charlie Malcolm, to say, “Let’s think bigger on this project.” I give Charlie a lot of credit for expanding it to what was originally a project for AP students to every junior taking a history class. David Brown had already been at St. Andrew’s for nearly a decade when Whitman arrived. Brown, the current Assistant Head of School, has seen the project from the outside as a non-history teacher, and experienced it from the inside as a
parent of Ryan Brown ’16. Brown: Glenn was new and he was teaching our AP U.S. History class, and it was a discussion point. Our students had done well, traditionally, on the AP U.S. History exam and he was recommending that we take a month and do this project. Convincing colleagues and administrators of the value of the project and convincing people that students could still do well on the AP exam while also completing this project [was a challenge]. Alex Haight came to St. Andrew’s the same year as Whitman. The long-time teacher and boys soccer coach wasn’t involved with the Oral History Project in its first few years because he didn’t teach U.S. History. But that changed just a few years later. Haight: I was teaching eighth-grade and 12th-grade classes. All I remember the first year was these poster boards coming in. I’d never seen anything like it and I thought it was interesting, but it wasn’t something that I thought, “I’ve got to get in on this.” The department head at the time, Charlie Malcom, he was teaching U.S. History so he incorporated it. I didn’t start teaching U.S. History until a year or two after that. It was nerve-wracking for me [my first year doing the project] because I didn’t know if I was doing it right. Glenn by that point had done it a few times, it had started to gain momentum, started to get a reputation and I thought, “OK, am I making them do the paper right, am I having them ask the right questions? Were my projects going to be completely different than other projects?” In the end, Glenn’s great, he helped me out, worked through it with me and it probably took two or three or four years before I really grasped it and could say, “This is what I’m looking for from the context paper.” Whitman: I think the learning target for the project has always been to give the students an opportunity to collect and preserve a primary source document about some element or period or event of the past. I probably didn’t imagine we would end up hosting the largest precollegiate oral history archive or that we would exceed now in 2017 more than 1,200 collected interviews, but, certainly, the idea was can students preserve the
Ashley Webb ‘18 interviewed Bryan Terry Mitnaul about his experience with the Civil Rights movement.
Delonte Egwuatu ‘12 and other alumni returned to campus for this year’s Oral History Night and spoke about the impact the Oral History Project has made on their lives.
Stiliana Dimkova ‘05 interviewed Warren Allen Smith about the Stonewall Riots, which took place in New York City in 1969. Stiliana and Smith met in New York City at the site of the statues, which commemorate the event.
past and be empowered to preserve the past in ways most traditional history classes do not offer them in terms of an experience. Haight: I think that the most basic thing that they are doing is they are learning history from someone who is an expert. Someone who witnessed it. I don’t care what the topic is, they are going to know more about that topic then I certainly will or a textbook will. Brown: I remember when they were dedicating the WWII memorial in D.C., and a call went out for people capable of interviewing WWII veterans about
their experience and we gathered up St. Andrew’s students who had been through the OHP and asked if they could spare a Saturday to interview members of the greatest generation. That was one of those moments where I was really thinking, “Our students have been trained for this. They have experience in a high school setting conducting an oral history and that experience is going to pay off.” Whitman: I just feel that [the Oral History Project] is the perfect fit for a school that wants to provide its students with exceptional teaching and learning. That’s our mission. SPRING 2017
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n io n u e R d n a g in m o c e Hom The entire St. Andrew’s community came together Oct. 14 and Oct. 15, 2016 for Homecoming and Reunion Weekend. The day was filled with events, including the annual Walk for the Homeless and the Alumni vs. Faculty soccer game. This year we introduced many new events including the first-ever Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony, an Alumni Awards luncheon, a Design Thinking Workshop and an Alumni vs. Current Student volleyball game. We hope you can join us for Homecoming this fall — Oct. 13-14, 2017!
Above: Melissa d’Arabian ‘86, left, was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award, Erin Wright-Gandhi ‘96, right, received the Thomas Shaw Award and the Class of 1995 took home the Lion’s Pride Award (accepted by Samantha Speier ‘95 on behalf of the class). Right: Founding faculty member Joanne Beach was recognized the morning of Homecoming when the front circle was named in her honor. 42
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Save the Date: Homecoming 2017! Come back to campus and catch up with your classmates, teachers and friends at Homecoming and Reunion Weekend, including a full day of events and workshops. Friday, Oct. 13, 2017 • BBQ on the Quad
Above: More than 300 people participated in the Walk for the Homeless this year, benefitting Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington. Right: Schawyenne Beheshti ‘31 enjoyed getting his face painted.
The Alumni were victorious once again during the Alumni vs. Faculty Soccer Game.
Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017 • Homecoming Festivities & Walk for the Homeless • Design Thinking Workshop • Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony • Alumni Awards Luncheon • Alumni vs. Faculty Soccer Game • Alumni vs. Student Volleyball Game • Class Photos • Campus Tours This year we celebrate classes ending in 2 and 7. Details on class specific parties to come.
Seven former St. Andrew’s coaches and athletes were inducted into the first Athletics Hall of Fame: Steve Bellis ‘87, Tom Graves ‘83, Vania (Cooke) Flowers ‘92, Zola Solamente (Carolyn Springer) ‘90, Patrick Reed ‘87 and Alexandra (Castiello) Gandolfo ‘93. Not pictured: Gabe Hodziewich. SPRING 2017
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ALUMNI
reunions
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Alumni Weekend Classes ending in 1 and 6 celebrated their reunions on and off campus on
Oct. 15, 2016. Thank you to the Class
Reunion Chairs for their time and effort bringing their classmates together.
THE CLASS OF 1986 celebrated their 30th reunion at Brickside in Bethesda. Reunion Chairs: John Barron and Mark Otto.
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THE CLASS OF 1991 gathered at the
Washington Plaza Hotel in D.C. to celebrate
their 25th reunion. Reunion Chairs: Bronwen Craley and Stacy Smith. THE CLASS OF 1996 reunited at Town Hall in D.C. to
celebrate their 20th reunion. Reunion Chair: Paige (Speyer) Shirk. THE CLASS OF 2001 celebrated their 15th reunion at Caddies
in Bethesda. Reunion Chairs: PJ Hart and
Allie (Beyda) Kendall. THE CLASS OF 2006 gathered at the Black Squirrel in D.C. to
celebrate their 10th reunion. Reunion Chairs:
Larissa Levine and Chris Shelton. THE CLASS OF 2011 celebrated their 5th reunion at Mission in D.C. Reunion Chairs: Natasha
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Belikove, Lucas McLaughlin and Steph Orsini.
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Save the Date! CLASSES ENDING IN 2 AND 7 will celebrate their reunions on Friday,
Oct. 13, 2017 with a BBQ on the Quad,
and Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017 with a full day
of Homecoming activities, and class parties that night. If your class ends in 2 or 7 and
you’re interested in helping with this year’s reunion, please contact alumni@saes.org.
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Class of 1996 students carry on the tradition of a team building exercise during Senior Day.
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New email, phone number or address? Simply fill out the form online and submit your updated information: www.saes.org/alumni.
1983 Beth Leach’s oldest daughter, Samantha, graduated from MIT and is now completing her master’s in Environmental Engineering focusing on water. Jessica, her youngest daughter, is a junior in high school and looking at colleges. Beth started a new company called PracticeRetriever, which helps doctors connect with patients through social media and reputation management.
1984 Jeff Palmer and Leigh Crawford Palmer are living on Scott Air Force Base, just outside of St. Louis, where Jeff is still active duty in the United States Air Force. He currently serves as the head lawyer for the Air Mobility Command. They are happy to be back in the States and closer to their son, Sam, who is working in Los Angeles, and John, who is a junior at the University of Chicago.
David Daniel is still enjoying being the father of triplets, although it is a whole different game with the girls being sixteen, rather than six. Teaching three kids to drive is adding grey hair in clumps. They recently had a fun Spring Break with Frank Kannapell and his family. Charles Prettyman is a Senior Associate at Cerami & Associates, which specializes in Acoustic, AV, IT & Security Consulting. Heinrich Bofinger is a Senior Transport Economist for The World Bank. His work has him traveling to the Caribbean islands, East Africa, and most recently Brazil.
Kyle Brown ’85 with her family in front of Westminster Abbey in London.
1985
formats. She traveled with her family to Iceland this past summer.
Kyle Brown was promoted to group fitness manager of the Mamaroneck, N.Y. location of Equinox. She still teaches fitness classes throughout Westchester County as well as NYC specializing in indoor cycling, HIIT & core focused
Carlos Ortiz-Mena is starting his 16th year at Fresnillo plc, the world’s largest silver producer, as Head of Legal. The company is quoted out of London, but he is based in Mexico City. Carlos and his wife, Marcela, have three kids (Marcela, 14, Cecilia, 11 and José Carlos, 6).
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After spending the past two decades in academics in Israel, Guy Stecklov and his family (3 children, 2 cats) will be packing up the family this summer to take up a new academic position at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Janie Haynes is a realtor with Evers & Co. Real Estate, Inc. She joined the Murtagh Properties team in the Chevy Chase office.
Janie Haynes ’85 with her sons, Rhys Steuart ’14 (left), her grandmother, and Brendan Steuart (right).
Carter Clark and his wife, Laura, will be celebrating their 24th anniversary in August. They live in Columbia, SC where they are raising their two children Robert, 19, a computer science major at Clemson, and Maddie, 15. Carter is the President & CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands. SPRING 2017
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Patrick Reed ’87 with teacher Gary Wyatt at the first St. Andrew’s Athletics Hall of Fame ceremony in October 2016.
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Heather Brugger ’88 with her husband and four children.
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Katie (Horne) Yehl lives in Bethesda with her husband, Tim, and three kids. She is head of the Volvo Cars Washington, D.C. office and recently worked to locate the first US Volvo Manufacturing facility in South Carolina. Sharon Leach is a neuropsychologist in Burlington, Vt. and credits her St. Andrew’s science teachers for their inspiration. She has two children, ages 16 and 13, and enjoys the adventures of driving, college tours and band performances. Caroline Carleton is a special education teacher and has two daughters.
1987 Patrick Reed was diagnosed with a brain tumor this past fall and underwent brain surgery. He is doing well now and thanks his St. Andrew’s family for their support. Patrick has a forthcoming book ‘Running & Seeing,’ and he was one of the first inductees at the St. Andrew’s Athletics Hall of Fame ceremony in October 2016. Patrick and his wife, Jana, have been married for 18 years and they have two daughters, Lucy (11) and Anja (9). Kirsten Georges is happily living in Hoboken, N.J. and working in NYC. She 48
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In January, Greg Portner ‘91, Mark Portner ‘88, Scott Jackson ‘89, Jennifer Broderick ‘89, Alexandra Buhler Portner ‘89 and Jennifer’s husband, Marc, reunited in Northern Virginia.
and her husband, Mike, have a 10 year old daughter, Ruthie, who keeps them on their toes. Kirsten is a member of the Board of Trustees of her daughter’s school, All Saints Episcopal Day School. After a brief stint in Illinois, Kathleen (Katy) Fort and her family are back in Washington, D.C. She has set up a private practice as a psychotherapist working mostly with children and families. Her husband is an ornithologist working at USGS and their daughter, Bridget, is attending Murch Elementary School. Tara J. Prugh Evans is living in Walkersville, Md. and has been teaching at Rocky Hill Middle School for 20 years in Clarksburg, Md. Her oldest daughter is a fresh-
man at her alma mater, McDaniel College. Her other daughter is a sophomore in high school and has her learner’s permit.
1988 Heather Brugger has four children keeping her busy in four different schools with one child heading to college this year. Phoebe Cervigni Millon lives in Rome with her husband, Raffaello, and two boys Giovanni and Luca. She is an architect and a general contractor, working for a design studio in the center of Rome on both residential and commercial renovation projects. They plan to return to Washington, D.C. in 2018.
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Amy Demas lives in Los Angeles and is gearing up to launch a strategic brand building 1:1 consulting business for female entrepreneurs. She is thrilled to use her 20+ years of experience in branding and marketing for fashion, beauty and retail to help the talented women she meets launching Amy Demas ‘88 their own businesses of all kinds. More information is on her website: www. amydemas.com.
1990 Gregory Farrand was ordained as an Episcopal Priest in December 2016 by the Right Reverend Anne Copple-Hodges, Bishop of North Carolina. Greg, his wife Beth, and three sons live in Greensboro, N.C. where he serves as an Associate Rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. The company Tony Wright founded, Glowforge.com, had the largest 30day crowdfunding in history ($27.9M). They’re building a desktop laser cutter/ engraver, powered by cloud software and are on track to ship devices starting this summer. Last year, Tony and his wife took their nephew hiking on the Nakasendo Trail in Japan. They live on an “urban farm” with their dog, Pim, four chickens, and 50,000 bees just 10 minutes from downtown Seattle and a short walk to Alki beach. Read more about Tony and his company on page 34.
Follow Us on Social Media! We share school updates, alumni news and more. Don’t miss out on events as they happen.
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Jennifer R. McZier ’92 recently reunited with Ralph Van Inwagen, former St. Andrew’s history teacher.
Megan Harris Boucher lives and works in Aspen, Colorado and recently took a new job with the Snowmass Village Police Department after 8 years with the District Attorney’s Office in Aspen. Her 13 year old daughter is a “musical theatre geek” and her husband is a private chef. They plan to travel to Kona, Hawaii over Thanksgiving this year. Jessica Karp lives in State College, Penn. with her partner, Marica, where they recently bought a house.
1991 Stacy Smith and her family, children Taylor (9) and Riley (4), are loving life in Prince George’s County. She recently took her 10th grade class from Edmund Burke School to the Holocaust Museum and was given a personal tour through the “Some of Them Were Neighbors” exhibit by former teacher Warren Marcus.
1992 Jennifer R. McZier was one of 10 students who participated in the “10 of 10” initiative to build an endowment for the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College. She serves on the Spelman College Museum on Fine Art’s art advisory council, which is the only museum in the nation emphasizing art by women of the African diaspora. In 2016, she became a charter member of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of
class notes
Welcome Larissa, Our New Alumni Council President! Thank you to Erin Wright-Gandhi ’96 who served diligently as the Alumni Council President for the 2016-17 school year. Erin has served as a member of the Board of Trustees since 2008 and was also the recipient of the 2016 Thomas Shaw Award honoring her service Erin Wrightto St. Andrew’s. Gandhi ‘96 St. Andrew’s is pleased to welcome Larissa Levine ’06 as incoming 20172018 Alumni Council President. Along with experience honed at The Advisory Board Larissa (a management conLevine ‘06 sulting firm), Larissa brings a commitment to the school mission and an ambitious vision for the growth of the alumni program. She served on the Alumni Council Vice President this year, as well as the Strategic Planning Advisory Committee, and will become an Ex-Officio member of the Board of Trustees.
2016-2017 Alumni Council Catherine Callaway ’88 Jennifer McZier ’92 Alex George ’95 Sam Speier ’95 Chanele Clark ’96 Erin Wright-Gandhi ’96 Tom Taylor ’00 Alisa Kaswell ’05 Lane Brenner ’05 Madeline O’Brien ’05 Larissa Levine ’06 Hannah Davis ’08 Dannie Moore ’09 Alex Facciobene ’10
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African American History and Culture. She recently reunited with Ralph Van Inwagen, former St. Andrew’s history teacher.
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1993 James King is living in Annapolis with his wife, Katie, and 3 year old son, Cooper. He is the owner and CEO of MidStates Management Group, which owns 13 restaurants in the Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware region. His brands include The Blackwall Hitch Restaurant in Alexandria, Va., Annapolis, and Rehoboth Beach, Del., The Greene Turtle and Roy Rogers. Last year he co-founded Bluewater Strategies, which is a political consulting and business strategy firm based in Annapolis. King and his family enjoy spending their free time at their mountain property in West Virginia. Dan Evans recently moved across the country to Seattle to take a faculty position in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington, where he splits his time doing clinical work with patients, teaching medical residents, and doing research related to integrating psychology into primary care settings.
Lisa McKay ’94 with her husband and two sons, Dominic and Alex.
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Coburn Dukehart moved to Madison, Wis., in April with her husband, Brad, and two daughters, Quinn, 5, and River, 2, after many decades as a Washington, D.C. resident. The family is still settling into their new home, but love living two blocks from a lake and tooling around the country in their 2002 VW Westfalia Eurovan. Jenn Smith Lejano and her wife, Elsie, welcomed a baby girl, Parker Danielle, on October 9. Jenn also launched a new consulting firm, Fresh Eyes Digital, to help progressive nonprofit organizations with their digital fundraising and marketing programs.
1994 Lisa McKay is living in Port Vila, Vanuatu with her husband, Michael, who is the Country Director for World Vision Vanuatu. They are still doing a lot of work to 50
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Ben Stein ’97 got married in November in Miami. James King ’93 with his wife, Katie, and son, Cooper.
help Vanuatu recover from the devastation caused by the category five cyclone, Pam, in 2015. They have two boys, Dominic (5) and Alex (3), who enjoy living there as kids of the tropics — camping, swimming, and eating coconuts after school. Lisa is working as a consultant psychologist for aid agencies and running the long distance relationship website www.modernlovelongdistance.com.
1996 Nick Nadel greatly enjoyed speaking to St. Andrew’s students about his work as a writer and producer for TV and Web during this past alumni weekend. Nick shared his experiences writing for places like TruTV, IFC, AMC, HBO, The Onion and more. He is currently working for the Sundance TV network and writing for the 2017 Writers Guild of America Awards hosted by Lewis Black. He is a proud member of the WGA, East and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with his fiancee, Danielle
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Buntley, a first grade teacher, and their puppy, Charlie.
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Carrie Bill and her husband, Alan, live in Houston, Texas. They have a daughter, Anna, and are expecting their second daughter this summer. They also have a rambunctious young lab named Charley. Carrie works from home for a Washington, D.C.-based firm practicing health care law.
1997 Ben Stein got married in November in South Beach, Miami to his wife, Nicole. He started a podcast called Purpose Up, to help inspire action on purpose (www. purposeup.com). He is currently working as Head of Product at artnet.com.
1998 Katherine (Haifley) DeAnna and her family recently moved back to the Washington, D.C. area and welcomed their second son, Alexander John DeAnna, on November 29. His brother, James (3), is learning to ride his pony in Potomac.
1999 Michael Stevens and his wife welcomed their second child, Ava Michelle Stevens, into the world this past year.
2000 Paul Galvin married Samantha Karr in July 2015 in Denver, where they now reside. Paul’s brother John Galvin ’02 served as his best man. Paul is working as legal counsel for Anthem, and lives right down the street from fellow alumni, Andrew ’00 and Ashley Carey ’01. Tom Taylor is still living in Minneapolis where he serves as the Upper School Director at Breck School, a Pre-K-12 Episcopal school. Tom, his wife, Sara, and their children, Linus (6) and Elsie (2), enjoy the many lakes, sledding, and walking the dog.
Sarah Melby ‘00 married Jochem Zijp in March. Fellow St. Andrew’s alums who attended her wedding are Ed Joseph ‘00, Chris Keithley ‘00, Sherine Arif ‘00 and Christie Hartmann ‘00.
Libby Barringer finished her Ph.D. in Political Science this past June at UCLA, where she is currently working as a lecturer. She teaches courses in political theory and the history of political thought. Her brother, JP Barringer, owns and runs a web design and development company (Barrel Strength Design) with her husband, Ben.
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Laura Barringer got engaged this past summer and has continued to show her art in Washington, D.C. She regularly shows work with the Vale Arts Group in Reston, Va. This past spring her paintings were featured in a cover story in Elan Magazine (http://www.valearts.com/). Sarah Melby recently became the Private Dining Sales Manager for Neighborhood Restaurant Group. She is responsible for selling private dining spaces at their 18 properties in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In March, she married Jochem Zijp, a local sommelier and mixologist.
2001 Justin Huvelle and his wife, Anastasia, welcomed their first child, Charles “Charlie” Wyatt Huvelle, on July 23, 2016. Justin
Paul Galvin ‘00 married Samantha Karr in July 2015 in Denver.
and his family currently live in Bethesda. PJ Hart and his wife, Jaime, celebrated the first birthday of their son, Teddy, this past fall. PJ and Jaime live in Old Town Alexandria and are always looking to meet up with fellow St. A’s alums in the area. SPRING 2017
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01
Justin Huvelle ‘01 and his wife, Anastasia, welcomed Charles “Charlie” Wyatt Huvelle in July 2016.
01
PJ Hart ‘01 and his wife, Jaime, celebrated the first birthday of their son, Teddy, this past fall.
02
Emily Williams ‘02 and her husband, Craig, welcomed their second baby boy, Henry Clark Williams, to their family in October. Henry joins big brother, Gavin.
2002 Nicole Zarafonetis ‘02 and her husband, Olivier, welcomed a baby boy, Theodore Louis Parreau, in September.
02
Kate Ballou ‘02, owner of Hendricks Interiors, did the interior design for The Avery Hotel, a boutique hotel in Georgetown. 52
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Kate Ballou, owner of Hendricks Interiors, did the interior design for The Avery Hotel, a boutique hotel in Georgetown. The hotel opened in June 2016 and is rated #1 on TripAdvisor for hotels in Washington, D.C. Jeff Gross and his two business partners started Brick Lane (bricklaneDC.com) in 2010. They are a full-service real estate company, focused in real estate development. Brick Lane and their construction affiliate arm, Revite Construction, have delivered and are under development on more than 350,000-square-feet of apartment and mixed-use projects in Washington, D.C. They recently earned significant press for their Helicopter Factory project (thehelicopterfactory.com), which launches later this month. On October 24, Emily Williams and her husband welcomed their second baby boy, Henry Clark Williams, to their family. Henry joins big brother, Gavin. Emily and her husband, Craig, recently started their own company, the Williams Family Baking Company. They specialize in small batch baked goods made with high quality ingredients. Craig is a professional
pastry chef and Emily pitches in with the number crunching, customer service and sales. They are currently focusing on catering and wholesale business but eventually hope to open a brick and mortar location within the next few years. Their website is: www.williamsfamilybaking.com. Paul Massey graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 2014. He is currently completing his residency in dermatology at The University of Texas at Austin, and will be applying for a surgical fellowship later this year. Paul also holds a degree in Political Science and Hispanic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He became a corps member for Teach For America after receiving his undergraduate degree and credits Mr. Whitman and Ms. Diaz among many others for their teaching guidance. Paul currently resides in Austin, Texas. John Galvin married Alyssa Copple in August in Devil’s Lake Park in Wisconsin. John is currently a research coordinator at BoulderBio. He and his wife live in Longmont, Col. Nicole Zarafonetis and her husband, Olivier, welcomed a baby boy, Theodore Louis Parreau, in September.
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John Galvin ‘02 married Alyssa Copple in August in Devil’s Lake Park in Wisconsin.
2003 Marian Goddard Carpenter is a College Counselor and English Teacher at The Siena School. Marian and her husband are building a house in Falls Church, Va. and are excited to move soon. Her son, George, will be 2 years old in July. After spending nearly a decade in Los Angeles, Sarah Stanley is thrilled to be back in the Washington, D.C. area. Her time out West was spent working on public relations programs for brands like McDonald’s, TreePeople, Ronald McDonald House Charities and Uncle Ben’s, but it was her passion for sustainability that drew her to a position with the US Green Building Council in D.C. Ben Gadbaw is a service design lead at WeWork living in Denver. Jules Barringer recently moved back to Washington, D.C. from New York. She runs a garden design business with her fiancé, David, called Ramble Gardens (www.ramblegardens.com).
2004 Claire Levenson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 with a master’s of Science in Nursing. As a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, she will be moving back to Washington, D.C. to
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04
Marian Goddard Carpenter ‘03 will celebrate her son’s 2nd birthday in July.
Peter Shand ‘04 got engaged to Hailey Mellott on Christmas morning in December 2016.
work at MedStar’s Urgent Care practice, called PromptCare. You can see her for illnesses, cuts, sprains, etc. Her practice locations are Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill, and Chevy Chase. Prior to Penn, she went to John Hopkins for an accelerated Nursing degree and completed a fellowship in patient care, quality, and safety. After school, she stayed in Baltimore and worked at University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center as a Surgical Intensive Care Unit Nurse. While a nurse, she also joined a start up consulting firm called Evolent Health in Washington, D.C. They work with hospital systems and physician practices to help them achieve the goals laid out by the Affordable Care Act. Their firm went public on the NYSE in 2015 and she is still involved in consulting work for them. Peter Shand got engaged to Hailey Mellott on Christmas morning in December 2016.
04
Claire Levenson ‘04 graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 with a Masters in Science in Nursing. She will be working in Washington, D.C. as a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner.
04
This year Sarah Rosner celebrated ten years of making performance work with the A.O. Movement Collective. She’s been keeping busy freelancing as an arts business consultant, and recently founded queer/feminist collective AORTA films. More at www.theAOMC.org or www.AORTAfilms.com. After living and working in San Francisco for the last eight years, Dylan Connelly and his wife are in the midst of taking
Dylan Connelly ‘04 and his wife are in the midst of taking a year off to travel the country. SPRING 2017
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05 Sara (Gordon) McCord ‘04 and her husband, William, welcomed Aviva Ann in May 2016.
David Sanders ‘05 and his wife, Jana, welcomed a son, Henry Albin Sanders, in July 2016.
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Gillian Kline ‘05 married Scott Reiman on May 14, 2016 in Georgetown. She was surrounded by St. Andrew’s friends. Laila Salimi, Madeline (Wallace) O’Brien, and Cara Skubel were bridesmaids and Emily (Taylor) Young served as Matron of Honor.
Megan Gagnier-Warren ‘05 and her husband, Justin, welcomed a daughter, Madison, in February 2016.
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a year off to travel the country. They’ve sold most of their stuff and are living in a 220-square-foot travel trailer. They started a blog to document the trip: www.partylikeits1995.com.
Mass. with their Westie, Kaya. Sarah is the Director of Alumni Relations at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Mass. and Nick teaches 8th Grade English at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Mass.
After two years traveling back and forth between Paris and Baltimore, Juliana Converse completed her Master’s of Fine Arts from New York University in Fiction in May 2016. She moved into a 19th century mansion in Baltimore City where she works as a freelance copywriter for an arts organization and continues writing fiction.
David Sanders and his wife, Jana, welcomed a son, Henry Albin Sanders, on July 30, 2016, in Regensburg, Germany. He weighed 8.5 pounds and arrived on David’s 30th birthday. The family of three is spending the year in Oxford, England, and their doors are open to visitors!
Sara (Gordon) McCord and her husband, William, welcomed a baby girl, Aviva Ann, on May 31, 2016. Some of Aviva’s favorite things include Dr. Seuss books, apples, sunshine, and singing along to Taylor Swift. She’s the second child for the couple, who have a Memorial Fund for their son, Moses, at Children’s National in Washington, D.C.
2005 David Gottesman ‘05 and his wife, Patti, welcomed son Henry Benjamin in March. 54
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Sarah (Smith) Wilkins married Nicholas French Wilkins on October 22, 2016, at the Annisquam Yacht Club in Gloucester, Mass. Sarah and Nick reside in Concord,
Gillian Kline married Scott Reiman May 14, 2016 in Georgetown. She was surrounded by St. Andrew’s friends. Emily (Taylor) Young served as Matron of Honor and Madeline (Wallace) O’Brien, Laila Salimi and Cara Skubel were bridesmaids. Robbie Janowitz is happy to share the news of his engagement to Elissa Davidowitz in December 2016. They are planning a December 2017 wedding in Beacon, N.Y. Alisa Kaswell is currently in her last semester of business school at NYU Stern. Last summer she interned at Mars Chocolate, where she will be returning when she graduates.
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Chris Domone and his partner, Kes, and got engaged in 2016. Mike Brook and his wife, Mary, welcomed Ruby McKenzie Brook on October 22. He recently became the port captain at TradeWinds Towing in their New Orleans office. He manages a fleet of seven oceangoing tugboats which operate all over the US, Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Megan Gagnier-Warren and her husband, Justin, welcomed a daughter, Madison, in February 2016. They moved back in June from Australia to Milwaukee where Megan currently works in the Neuro ICU at St. Luke’s Medical Center. Chelsea Whittaker is the Director of HR for a non-profit, GrowNYC, that does environmental work in New York City. Chelsea and her fiancé bought a house in Orange County, N.Y. and are building a recording studio in the home, which will be up and running in early 2017. They are looking forward to marrying in 2017. Jasleen Singh is an attorney by trade, dancer still by heart, and now COO of The Crimson Bride, an online marketplace for South Asian Brides to connect with the right wedding professionals. She followed her entrepreneur spirit and her husband to San Francisco last year, after they were married in August 2016. David Gottesman and his wife, Patti, moved back to Maryland from New York this fall, and welcomed Henry Benjamin Gottesman to the world on March 17.
2006 Amy Bachman is getting married Saturday June 17, 2017 to her fiancé, Brandon Zerante, in Charlottesville, Va. Fellow classmates Abby Olson ’06 and Abbey Wallace ’08 will be bridesmaids and her sister, Tracey Bachman ’04, will be her Maid of Honor. Nick Parry is pursuing a dual-degree MBA and Healthcare Management at Duke University.
Sarah (Smith) Wilkins ‘05 married Nicholas French Wilkins on October 22, 2016.
2007 Hilary Eisenberg, Esq. works for KPMG, LLP in the tax division. She is working in the Economic and Valuations Services practice group, where her focus is on transfer pricing. She was recently selected to help teach the training classes for new hires and interns. Hilary and her fiancé, Cory Waldron, are getting married in November 2017. Nora Goddard got engaged in June 2016 and began a new position as Director of Admission at The Advent School in Boston. As the admission season wraps up, she will be re-focusing on wedding planning and training for the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Vermont. She and her fiancé will be married in October 2017 in Vermont. Caroline Downing is living in Glover Park with her boyfriend, Kendall. She celebrated her third year with Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C., an IP firm in Washington, D.C. She relaunched her style and lifestyle blog and received an invite to New York Fashion Week in February. Last April, she served as the Maid of Honor in Casey Petz Splittorf’s wedding along with bridesmaid Grekan Simpson.
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Chris Domone ‘05 and his partner, Kes, and got engaged in 2016.
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Amy Bachman ‘06 will marry her fiancé, Brandon Zerante, in June 2017. SPRING 2017
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Stephen Lanpher ‘07 and his wife, Lacey, with Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who was the guest of honor at the Marine Corps birthday ball aboard the USS MIDWAY.
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Casey Petz Splittorf ‘07, middle, got married in April 2016. Caroline Downing served as Maid of Honor and Grekan Simpson was a bridesmaid.
07 Kate Goldbaum ‘07 married John Crain on June 18, 2016. They married near Austin, Tx.
07 Viveka Jahn ‘07 married Alex Hartman in September 2016 in York, Maine. 56
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Class of 2007 alumnae Margaret Rose Hart, Sarah Asterbadi, Julia Greco, Becca Becker, Alex Azzara and Jasmine Niernberger.
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In the past year, Stephen Lanpher returned from a cold weather deployment to Norway. He and his wife, Lacey, moved to Camp Pendleton, California where he currently serves with the 1st Marine Division. Viveka Jahn married Alex Hartman, a fellow Washington, D.C. native, on September 3, 2016 at Trinity Church in York, Maine. A reception was held at the York Golf & Tennis Club and an after party was held at her family’s barn. They honeymooned in Greece. Fellow St. Andrew’s bridesmaids included Alex Azzara, Charlotte Jahn ’09, Johanna McManus, Kate Banks, Mattie Greenwood and Julia (Shinberg) Rosen. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Kelsey Freeman is a lobbyist for Nestlé and leads the company’s sustainability and supply chain policies team. She is getting married to Drew Saelens on June 17. The two bought a home in Virginia, where they live with their dog, Puck. Kate Goldbaum married John Crain, whom she met at Kenyon College, on June 18, 2016. They married near Austin, Texas, where they currently reside. Kate Banks and Mattie Greenwood served as bridesmaids. They pair honeymooned in Italy. Joe Peterson and his wife, Tiffany, moved from Manhattan to the Boerum Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently training for the NYC Marathon and they foster dogs for an animal shelter in Brooklyn. For the past three years, Alex Azzara has been working at Birchbox, the NYC-based makeup subscription and e-commerce business. She has stayed close to many of her St. Andrew’s friends.
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Class of 2010 alumnus Kevin Wyatt (center) was married in September 2016 in Birmingham, Ala. Serving as groomsmen were St. Andrew’s alumni, Phil Doerr, Alex Facciobene, Elliott Silverman and Jimmy Peterson (not pictured).
in June. She lives in Park City, Utah and spends her free time skiing, fly fishing, and enjoying all that Utah has to offer. After graduating with her Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, Bryn Whitely has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia. Under the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Bryn teaches a senior level course that discusses engineers and ethics.
2009 Elana Taub is completing her first year of law school at the University of Maryland. She was offered a competitive summer clerkship position with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. LeRoy Howard II is applying to business school with plans of starting his two-year MBA in fall 2017.
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2010
Abbey Wallace graduated with a Master’s Degree in International Education Management from MIIS in May and started as the International Student Life Coordinator at the American International School of Utah in Salt Lake City
Kevin Wyatt married Margaret Russell on September 24, 2016 in Birmingham, Ala. Phil Doerr, Alex Facciobene, Jimmy Peterson and Elliott Silverman served as groomsmen. Fellow classmates in attendance included Steve Webster,
Mark Small, John Gill, Noah Platt, and Tom Belikove. Jonah Orr is in his second year at Duke University School of Medicine, and enjoying his clinical rotations. Alaina Carr is currently in a Clinical Health Psychology Ph.D program at CU Denver. Her work involves conducting innovative research to improve the experience and outcomes of patients and caregivers across the continuum of cancer care.
2011 Caroline Huskey has been living in San Francisco spending her weekends outdoors training for triathlons, playing soccer, and skiing in Tahoe. Since graduating from Wake Forest University, she has traveled extensively to Spain, Japan, Peru, China, Turkey, Belize, and more while working at Google’s HQ in Mountain View, Calif. Amy Sharfman will be receiving a master’s degree in communications from Stevenson University in May. She works part time as an event planner at Take Shape For Life, a subsidiary of Medifast, Inc. and part time as a Graduate Assistant at Stevenson University. She is currently living in Baltimore with her boyfriend and SPRING 2017
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the Program Associate in the Asia division of Search for Common Ground, a global peacebuilding and conflict transformation non-governmental organization that works in 50 countries around the world. She has been accepted to Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she will begin her graduate studies in fall 2018. Abigail Stephenson graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2016 with a Major in Music and a Minor in Chemistry. She is currently studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow perusing her Master’s of Arts in Musical Theatre. She will be performing for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the production of “Into the Woods” by Stephen Sondheim.
Janice Freeman ‘12 works as the Program Associate in the Asia division of Search for Common Ground, a global peacebuilding and conflict transformation non-governmental organization.
newly adopted puppy, Kari. Krissia Rivera Perla will be starting medical school in August 2017. Timothy Gregg is working as a Web Developer for Earth Day Network, whose web presence he is optimizing in preparation for EDN’s coproduction of the March for Science this Earth Day on the National Mall. He still loves playing golf, particularly at Burning Tree, where he gets to caddy from time to time. He reflects fondly on his time at SAES and gives thanks for all his teachers, advisors, coaches, and friends. Natasha Belikove recently became a digital coordinator at Friends at Work, a music management company, in Venice, Calif. She helps organize the social media postings for their clients, who include John Legend, Ciara, Alicia Keys, and Lindsey Stirling. She also works with the non-profit, Native Americans in Philanthropy, as a digital consultant. After graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology with a BFA in New Media Design, David Utt moved to New York City to further his studies and efforts achieving an MFA in Design and 58
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Technology at Parsons The New School. He has pursued work as a freelance User Experience Designer working for various organizations around the nation. He hopes to continue to explore design solutions in digital mediums and physical products and services implementing artificial intelligence and various solutions for both individuals and organizations in need.
2012 Sam Wallace will be spending the next 27 months, from February 2017 to May 2019, in Zambia as a Peace Corps volunteer. During this time he will be a member of the Rural Aquaculture Promotion (RAP) program, where he will be helping raise tilapia and assisting in different community projects. Zoe Atchinson currently lives in Boston and is working as a Business Development Manager for PaymentWorks. Janice Freeman graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a double degree in International Business and Marketing and Phi Beta Kappa honors in May. She now works as
2013 Emma Davey is a Biological Sciences major and Psychology minor at Wellesley College. She continues to compete nationally for the Wellesley Archery Team and will be starting veterinary school in the fall. Grace Chupka will graduate from James Madison University in May 2017. She will start her first full-time position as an analyst for Deloitte in the fall. She will also be biking from Prague to Vienna during the summer. Billy Petito is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music with a double major in Music Education and Jazz Guitar Performance as well as a minor in Audio Music Engineering at the Rochester Contemporary School of Music. He holds teaching positions at the Eastman Community Music School and the Rochester Contemporary School of Music. In 2015 and 2016 Billy served as a member of the faculty at Miclen Laipang’s Southeast Asia Music Festival, where he taught guitar and music theory and, in 2016, returned to also serve as the composer in residence. Billy also works as a performing musician, composer, arranger, and music producer. He regularly plays guitar, bass guitar, and keyboard throughout the upstate New York/Ontario regions and performs in a multitude of different ensembles including rock bands and pit orchestras. In addition, he has created
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William Duvall ‘14 traveled throughout Thailand last year before starting the spring semester at the International College of Management in Sydney, Australia.
and recorded guitar tracks for brand-name advertisements, including commercials for Lincoln Continental, Toyota, Microsoft, and Amazon. As a composer and producer, Billy has written music and provided sound design for commercials, video games, short films, and animations, for which he has received several awards including the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Honor’s Show Award and Faculty Award. Billy hopes to continue to teach both in the Rochester school system and in community music programs, while also pursuing a career in music performance, composition, and production.
2014 Brian Bies is a junior at Georgetown University in the McDonough School of Business, double majoring in marketing and management with a minor in theater. He is an Entrepreneurship Fellow and a Student Coordinator for Georgetown ESCAPE, the premier overnight retreat program for first year students. Brian dances (Rangila, Indian Dance Showcase),
is a mentor for the BUILD pre-orientation program, a captain for the Peer Ambassadors in the Business School, and a member/mentor in the Philodemic Society. He has become a TA for Launching the Venture (Entrepreneurship Fellows Class), for serial entrepreneur Eric Koester. He is taking a course called “Global Business Experience,” where he is preparing consulting recommendations in a small team for an Argentinian bodega (winery), which he will present in Argentina this spring. In April, he published a book, “Indie Gaming: Finding Entrepreneurial Success in Video Games.” William Duvall and Danny Terman are spending their spring semester at the International College of Management in Sydney, Australia where William will study hospitality management and Danny will study marketing. Prior to the start of their semester, William traveled throughout Thailand. Kristin Butler is double majoring in Marine Affairs (marine science, policy and law) and Ecosystem Science and Policy (environmental science, policy and law) at the University of Miami. She is the vice chair of the environmental branch of student government, co-president of an environmental service club, a peer leader for marine science students, an inducted member of the marine science honors society, a naturalist at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center, and she interns with a local non-profit Miami Waterkeeper. Last summer she traveled to Vietnam and South China and studied water resource management: law, policy, and science. Ethan Lockshin is a communications major with a focus in media and society at Regis University. He expects to graduate in 2018. This summer he will be a Customer Success Intern at SendGrid and will be competing in Go Code Colorado for the second time. He will be traveling with the T.R.O.N. Regis Cyber Club to compete in the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, where he serves as teams project manager. Interested in technology, sales and business, he plans to stay in Denver upon graduation. Lastly, he is trying to get over 25 ski days in this winter.
class notes
in memoriam
Wendy Nicholson Bailey Class of 1987 Bailey, a devoted mother, sister, and daughter passed away in August 2016 after bravely battling breast cancer for more than three years. Wendy served loyally on the St. Andrew’s Board of Trustees from 2000 to 2006 playing a key role in the Alumni Program by founding the first Alumni Advisory Board which grew into the St. Andrew’s Alumni Association.
Joel Lipscomb Former Trustee Lipscomb passed away on Wednesday, February 1, 2017. Joel, father of Mark ’02, served on the Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2005. Joel was an avid supporter of the technology and athletics programs at St. Andrew’s.
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MIDNIGHT IN
MA R RA K E C H 2017
FU ND- A - SCHOL A R
The St. Andrew’s community gathered on Saturday, March 18 in the Student Center for the 2017 Funda-Scholar Gala. Led by Co-Chairs Sara Jane Harris and Holly Cirrito, the event drew record attendance of 320 guests who dined, danced, and celebrated. Alumnae Krissia Rivera ’11 and Dannie Moore ’09 offered moving testimonials about the transformative effect of their St. Andrew’s scholarships on their lives, and the many ways that they try to give back. The crowd responded by giving generously; the event sailed past its fundraising goals and netted around $280,000 for the financial aid program. We extend thanks to our co-chairs as well as to Carol Mudd (Chair of Silent and LIVE!), Jennifer Freedman (Chair of Marketing), Mimi McLearn (Chair of Corporate Sponsorships), Ana Naab (Chair of Decorations), and to the entire auction committee of more than 50 parent, faculty, and staff volunteers. We can’t wait to see what next year’s gala brings!
GA L A
The Fund-a-Scholar Gala was held in the new Student Center for the first time. The event had record attendance with more than 300 guests.
Attendees Kenwyn and Andrew Kindfuller P’20
Above: 2017 Fund-a-Scholar Gala co-chairs Holly Cirrito P’21 and Sara Jane Harris P’18. Right: After dinner, guests took to the dance floor.
More than 10 items were available to bid on during the live auction, including getaways, concerts and tickets to Superbowl LII in Minneapolis.
PHOTO BY ERIC BICKEL
What Does the Lion’s Fund Mean to You? The Lion's Fund makes an immediate impact on every facet of life at St. Andrew's. From the classrooms, to athletic facilities, to academic programs and financial aid, a gift to St. Andrew's is an opportunity to significantly contribute to the quality of the school. It is the single most important gift you can make to St. Andrew's each year.
Learn how you can participate and make a gift by visiting saes.org/lionsfund. SPRING 2017
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