23 minute read
Through the Doors
Head of School Bryn Roberts Announces Retirement
After an extraordinary 16-year tenure as St. Paul Academy and Summit School’s Head of School, Bryn S. Roberts will retire at the end of the 2021-22 school year. Roberts’ retirement was announced to the community in April 2021 by Board of Trustees President Tim Welsh.
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Roberts, who has served as SPA’s Head of School since 2006, will be succeeded by Dr. Luis Ottley, who was announced as SPA’s next Head of School in October 2021 after an international search conducted by the nine-member Board of Trustees Head of School Search Committee.
“Each of us in the SPA community has benefited from the wise, caring, and thoughtful leadership Bryn has provided for so many years,” Welsh says. “It has been one of the great privileges of my life to work alongside such an inspiring leader.” Welsh and Board member Tim O’Brien ’77 were the co-chairs of the Board of Trustees Search Committee, which oversaw the search for Roberts’ successor. Search Committee members also included Lit Field ’75, Libby Hlavka, Anne Hooley, David Kansas ’85, Varun Kharbanda ’92, Phil McKoy, and Chip Pearson; the Board partnered with search firm Carney Sandoe & Associates (CSA) in identifying the school’s next leader.
“It has been a marvelous experience and an honor to lead SPA, and I know that this is the right time for me to step away and for the school to embrace new leadership,” Roberts says, noting that his retirement date was set several years ago and prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. His successor, Dr. Ottley, will join the SPA community over the summer of 2022 after concluding his tenure as Head of School at St. Martin’s Episcopal School, a private day school in suburban Atlanta. In his thirty-year career in independent schooling, Dr. Ottley has also served as Head of School at Marin Horizon School in Mill Valley, CA; led Middle Schools in New York and Seattle; and held multiple administrative, classroom, and coaching roles at independent schools in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Dr. Ottley holds a B.S. from Allegheny College (PA), a M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University (MD), and an Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently working towards a Master of Divinity degree from Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CA).
Roberts is looking forward to his final months at SPA and working closely with Ottley to ensure a smooth leadership transition. “Few educators and school leaders have enjoyed the opportunities and support that I have received throughout my tenure as the Head of School at SPA, for which I am deeply grateful,” says Roberts. “I hope that we will be beyond the worst of the pandemic and thus able to focus on renewing the expansive bonds of our community and envisioning the next stage of this remarkable school’s evolution.”
“Few educators and school leaders have enjoyed the opportunities and support that I have received throughout my tenure as the Head of School at SPA, for which I am deeply grateful. – Bryn Roberts, Head of School
Dr. Luis Ottley
12Twelve members of the Class of 2021 were named National Merit Semifinalists by the College Board in fall 2020. The 12 Semifinalists were Noel Abraham, Rafael Barocas, Maya Choi, Henry Hoeglund, TJ Isberg, Samuel Konstan, Maxanne Millerhaller, Michael Moran, Alek Radsan, Julia Scott, Gabriella Thompson, and Isabel Toghramadjian. The SPA Semifinalists represented 11% of the Class of 2021; nationally, less than 1% of high school seniors are named Semifinalists, based on results from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). A total of about 16,000 high school seniors from across the country were named Semifinalists in 2020-21, including 288 from Minnesota. In addition to the 12 Semifinalists, an additional 16 members of the senior class earned “Commended”
honors from the College Board: Isobel Alm, Anthony Chen, Eli Conrod-Wovcha, Eloise Duncan, Adrienne Gaylord, John Hall, Rylan Hefner, Gavin Kimmel, Elizabeth Kristal, Liv Larsen, Hannah Lorenz-Meyer, Liam Lynch, Isabel Medrano, Tobias Polley, Jennifer Ries, and Phineas Tait. Commended Students are recognized as those in the top five percent of high school seniors, based on results from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).
The 16 Commended students bring the total of seniors who were honored by National Merit to 28, which represented 25% of the Class of 2021.
Middle and Upper School Robotics Teams Both Qualify For Minnesota State Tournaments
MS Robotics
Despite the challenges of competing virtually, both the Middle School and Upper School robotics teams qualified for their respective State Tournaments. The Middle School, which fielded three robotics teams, sent the “Don’t @ Me” team to the State Tournament in March 2021, and the Upper School’s team, the Autonomice, competed at their State Tournament at the end of May 2021. In addition to building and programming a robot, the Upper School team also participated in outreach events, interviewed practicing engineers about their career paths, and documented their design process in a portfolio.
New Leadership for Lower and Upper Schools
SPA welcomed two new divisional Principals to school this fall. Theresa Collins, a veteran of independent schooling from Chicago, is the school’s new Upper School Principal; and long-time SPA Lower School teacher and administrator Beth Nelson steps into the role of Lower School Principal. [For more on Collins, Nelson, and Middle School Principal Virginia Andres, see our cover story on page 26.–Ed.]
Theresa Collins has been immersed in independent schooling since she joined Francis W. Parker, a K-12 independent school in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, as an Upper School English teacher in 2006. Prior to that, she taught English for 13 years at Evanston Township High School, where she also served in a staff Theresa Collins development role for new teachers. She is a leader in the Progressive Education Network (PEN), and has served as the organization’s Board President and as the Director of the PEN National Institute. She holds a B.S. in Secondary English Education from Miami University (Ohio); a M.A. in Humanities from Northwestern University (IL); and a Certificate in Advanced Educational Leadership from Harvard University. In announcing Collins’ appointment to the SPA community in February 2021, Head of School Bryn Roberts noted her “deep understanding of the world of Upper School students, faculty, and the concerns and needs of the parent community.”
Beth Nelson
Beth Nelson is well known to the SPA community, having taught music and movement in the Lower School since 1998 and served as the Lower School’s Assistant Principal since 2006. Nelson completed her M.A. in music education at the University of St. Thomas and earned a B.S in music education from the University of Minnesota. A regular presenter at professional workshops throughout the country, Nelson is an adjunct faculty member in the graduate music education program at the University of St. Thomas and the Director of the Orff Schulwerk Teacher Certification program. “Beth is particularly adept at working with our students, teachers, and families as we move out of COVID and reconnect as a Lower School community,” Roberts says. “I look forward to her voice and her leadership, and I am delighted that she is our next Lower School Principal.”
Middle School Math Team Takes First Place in the Southeast Metro Junior High Math League
In the 2020-21 Junior High Math League season, SPA’s two Middle School math teams posted exceptional results. The Gold team took first place overall in their division, and the Blue team took third place. Individually, SPA students took six of the top ten spots in individual competition, including two Spartans who tied for first place:
First Place: Theo Su ’25 and Arlo Zirps ’25 (tied) Third Place: Shefali Meagher ’26 Fourth Place: Allan Wang ’26 Fifth Place: Humza Jameel ’25 Ninth Place: Trevor Hou ’26
Upper School renovation wins award for design excellence from the American Institute of Architects
SPA’s redesigned Upper School was among seven architectural projects awarded a 2020 Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects Minnesota (AIA).
The award recognized Minneapolis architecture and engineering firm HGA for its design work on two projects on the school’s Randolph Campus: the new Schilling Center for Math and Science (completed in fall 2018) and the renovation of Old Main and the Humanities Wing (completed in spring 2019). This is the second time in five years that HGA has won the award for its work with SPA; in 2017, the HGA-designed Huss Center for the Performing Arts was also honored with an AIA Honor Award.
“This is the second such award for HGA’s work with SPA–an impressive accomplishment and one that affirms, in the most important ways, their extraordinary work and vision,” says Bryn Roberts, SPA’s Head of School. Roberts notes that the many challenges of the Upper School project, especially the integration of the multiple architectural styles of the century-old Randolph Campus, makes this award “particularly gratifying for all who worked on it.”
“We take great pride in these projects and this award,” says HGA Associate Vice President Jim Moore, “and congratulations are also due to SPA’s leadership and faculty for the exceptional vision and program that served as the unquestionable foundation for the award-winning qualities of this work.”
Established by the American Institute of Architects Minnesota in 1954, the Honor Awards recognize outstanding built projects by AIA Minnesota members, or firms that are owned by AIA Minnesota members, that practice professionally in Minnesota. Submissions were evaluated according to the AIA Framework for Design Excellence, in alignment with AIA National Architecture Awards. Achievement within the Framework for Design Excellence requires a holistic approach to design, addressing the interdependence among people, buildings, infrastructure, and the environment. In honoring the Schilling Center and Upper School renovation, the AIA judges noted HGA’s “timeless yet modern” approach, its focus on reusing and renovating existing spaces, and how the new spaces allow the school flexibility for future use.
Moore, who served as the project lead for the Upper School renovation and also worked on the Huss Center project, says that HGA’s six-year collaboration with the school has provided the firm with enormous opportunity for design innovation, particularly given the Randolph Campus’ location and footprint. “What has always struck us in our work with SPA is how sensitively the Randolph Campus sits within a very dense residential and commercial neighborhood,” Moore says. “Because everything around the campus has a small footprint, our designs needed to break the buildings’ masses down into smaller parts that allow for light and visual connection between the interiors and surrounding neighborhood.”
The Schilling Center includes almost 40,000 square feet of classroom, laboratory, and collaborative space for SPA’s science, math, engineering, computer science, and robotics programs. In its submission for the AIA award, HGA noted that the building “Afford[s] all the functionality of a sophisticated lab building…this design breaks down the typical scale and opacity of traditional lab construction, integrating SPA’s unique curriculum into an intimate neighborhood setting.” The renovation of Old Main and the Humanities Wing involved 38,000 square feet and 20 classrooms, designed around discussion, small-group work, and technology in a design that “restores and represents the original elegance” of the space, according to HGA’s submission.
“Ultimately, our ability to do excellent work stems from the excellence of our clients,” Moore says. “Strong design cannot be created in the ether. In this case, it comes from the strength of SPA’s pedagogy, curriculum, and especially the strength of the relationships between the students and their teachers. That is what makes the school successful and what has made these projects successful.”
Seventeen SPA students in grades 8-12 received recognition in the 2021 Minnesota Scholastic Art Awards (MSAA) program. Established to ensure that literary and artistic talent were recognized in schools and communities across the country, the program began as a small writing contest; today, it offers recognition in 27 diverse categories including animation, architecture, dramatic script, fashion, painting, photography, poetry, and sculpture.
This year’s 17 MSAA winners, listed below, earned 31 Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention awards. Gold Key
• Adrienne Gaylord ’21 • Katherine Goodman ’21 • Julia Macomber ’22 • Fiona Rucker ’21
Annika Brelsford ’22
Isidor Valdez ’25 Adrienne Gaylord ’21 Silver Key
• Annika Brelsford ’22 • Katherine Goodman ’21 • Ruby Hoeschen ’21 • Luka Shaker-Check ’21
Honorable Mention
• Isobel Alm ’21 • Annika Brelsford ’22 • Sarina Charpentier ’22 • Katherine Goodman ’21 • Noa Gross ’22 • Ruby Hoeschen ’21 • Serene Kalugdan ’25 • Maya Ketema ’23 • Liv Larsen ’21 • Kylie Ringness ’24 • Fiona Rucker ’21 • Luka Shaker-Check ’21 • Maxwell Spencer ’23 • Isidor Valdez ’25 • Jasmine White ’21
Katherine Goodman ’21
Jasmine White ’21
The Ensemble
Upper School fall play earns 15 Hennepin Theatre Trust Spotlight Awards
SPA’s production of Under Milk Wood, the 2020 Upper School fall play, was the recipient of 15 awards from the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Spotlight Program.
Spotlight is an awards program for high school theatrical performances. Throughout the school year, Spotlight evaluators view participating high schools’ theatrical performances and award honors to selected productions, ensembles, and individuals.
Adrienne Gaylord ’21
Rylan Hefner ’21
Gracie Tilney-Kaemmer ’21 Isobel Alm ’21
The ensemble Spotlight Awards for Under Milk Wood included:
Overall Performance: Outstanding Ensemble Performance: Outstanding Student Orchestra: Outstanding Light and Sound Crew: Outstanding
Achievement in Theatre:
Honorable Mention Overall Production: Honorable Mention Acting Performance: Honorable Mention Run Crew: Honorable Mention Overall Technical Team:
Honorable Mention
The individual Spotlight Awards for Under Milk Wood include:
Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role:
Rylan Hefner ’21 as Rev. Eli Jenkins,
Mr. Pugh, Organ Morgan, Voice,
Ensemble Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role:
Gracie Tilney-Kaemmer ’21 as Polly
Garter, Mrs. Cherry Owen, Neighbour,
Voice, Ensemble Outstanding in Technical Leadership:
Miranda Bance ’21 as Sound Designer Outstanding in Technical Leadership:
Rafi Barocas ’21 as Board Operator Honorable Mention Performance in a Leading Role:
Isobel Alm ’21 as Mrs. Ogmore-
Pritchard, Mrs. Beynon, Neighbour,
Voice, Ensemble Honorable Mention Performance in a Leading Role:
Adrienne Gaylord ’21 as Rosie Probert,
Mrs. Dai Bread Two, Neighbour,
Voice, Ensemble Evaluator Shout Out:
Maren Ostrem ’21, Gavin Kimmel ’21,
Nathan Forsberg ’21, and Grace
Krasny ’21
SPA Expands Office of Intercultural Life as Part of DEI Strategic Plan
Naomi Taylor Alexis Irish ’15 Tina Alvir-Romero
As part of the Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at SPA initiative launched in the fall of 2020, SPA has expanded its Office of Intercultural Life. Led by Dr. Naomi Taylor, the school’s Director of Intercultural Life, the office now includes Alexis Irish ’15 as a full-time Intercultural Life Program Specialist. Irish, who is a member of SPA’s Class of 2015 and a graduate of Davidson College, joined SPA in July of 2021 after several years working as a youth facilitator focused on students’ health and wellness, specifically for Black, Indigenous, youth of color. As the Intercultural Life Program Specialist, she works to create and implement programming for students in the Middle and Upper Schools.
“Our ultimate goal with all of these initiatives is to ensure that SPA is a school where every student has an equal opportunity to thrive and a community where every child, adult, and family feels a genuine and authentic sense of belonging. – Bryn Roberts, Head of School
The school has also created an Intercultural Life Faculty Fellowship Program designed to build the internal capacity of DEI coaches, experts, and mentors among K-12 faculty. The inaugural Faculty Fellow is Tina Alvir-Romero, who teaches Spanish in SPA’s Lower School. Alvir-Romero’s one-year fellowship began in June 2021 and will focus on building DEI coaching and mentoring skills through targeted professional development.
According to Head of School Bryn Roberts, additional initiatives focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion are already underway this school year. These include a task force investigating the recruitment, retention, and support of faculty of color; a K-12 curriculum mapping project that will identify and examine the ways in which the school teaches diverse viewpoints across divisions and disciplines; and a new Board of Trustee Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which will work to shape Board policies regarding DEI, and support and measure progress within the school. A comprehensive strategic plan for DEI work is underway, Roberts says, and will be shared with the entire SPA community.
“Our ultimate goal with all of these initiatives is to ensure that SPA is a school where every student has an equal opportunity to thrive and a community where every child, adult, and family feels a genuine and authentic sense of belonging,” says Roberts, who notes that students of color currently make up 38% of the K-12 student body, and 50% of students new to SPA this year are students of color. “These are significant changes but they are, in many ways, just the beginning,” Roberts says. “The stragetic plan for DEI will encompass elements of all these initiatives and will suggest additional paths that SPA will follow in the months and years to come.”
SPA student-journalists and publications win national awards, including a Pacemaker Award for Iris: Art + Lit
In spring 2021, the Journalism Educators of America and the National Student Press Association held their annual National High School Journalism Spring Convention. The challenges of publication during a pandemic did not keep SPA’s student journalists and publications from earning multiple national accolades during the event. Most notably, Iris: Art + Lit, SPA’s arts magazine, won a NSPA Pacemaker Award, one of only eight art and literature magazines nationally to be so honored. This is the second year Iris has won a Pacemaker Award, which is known as “the Pulitzer Prize” of student journalism. Iris was also the recipient of two “Best in Show” Awards: a first-place award in Magazine Design for Maya Coates Cush ’23 (photography), Bev O’Malley ’23 (poetry) and Maren Ostrem ’21 (page design); and a second-place overall Best in Show award in the Literary Arts Magazine category.
Additional awards included a Superior Award for photojournalist and political commentator Nikolas Liepins ’21 for his photo story covering reaction in the Twin Cities in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the Derek Chauvin trial. Liepins’ award was part of the National Student Media Contest program, in which students from across the country and internationally compete individually for awards in categories including photo, broadcast, graphic design, literary magazine, design, and writing. Liepins was one of only 38 students honored with the “Superior” ranking, the highest award, out of 438 entries. Ibid Associate Editor in Chief Leona Barocas ’23 earned an Honorable Mention Award in the National Student Media Contest program in the Yearbook Copy/Caption: Student Life category, and the digital RubicOnline was awarded a third-place overall Best in Show award in the Small School Website category.
SPA faculty member Kathryn Campbell, who directs the Upper School’s student publication program, notes that the virtual format of the convention allowed more students to participate in the JEA/NSPA event. “It’s rare to have an entire staff travel to a national convention, so the virtual convention has been such a good opportunity for Ibid and The Rubicon print/online staff members to watch sessions together in class and discuss their take-aways on reporting, editorial leadership, and journalism ethics,” says Campbell, who is “thrilled with how our student journalists embraced the virtual experience and placed in contests,” she adds. “They have made this unconventional learning process their own and continue to report with passionate curiosity and high ethical standards.”
Original Research by SPA Student-scientists Win International and
The Journal of Emerging Investigators, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, has published the original research of Mina Mandic ’21. Mandic, who graduated from SPA in the spring of 2021 and is now a first-year student at Swarthmore College, conducted her research in the Upper School’s Advanced Science Research course during the 20192020 school year. Mandic’s research project, entitled Exploring the Wonders of the Early Universe: Green Pea Galaxies and Luminous Flux, is a study of the light emitted by “Green Pea”
galaxies—entities that may provide clues to the conditions of the earliest galaxies in the universe. She pursued her project as part of the Upper School’s Advanced Science Research (ASR) course, which is SPA’s most advanced course for student-scientists. Mandic’s project earned multiple honors in the state, national, and international science fair competition process in 2020. She won one of five finalist spots for Minnesota students at ISEF, the International Science and Engineering Fair, as well as a major award at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. Upper School science faculty and department chair Karissa Baker taught the ASR course during Mandic’s junior year and worked with her on her project; Baker notes that Mandic was first inspired to study cosmology after taking SPA’s Space Science elective with Dr. Steve Heilig her sophomore year. “Dr. Heilig’s class inspired Mina to dig into cosmological research in the ASR course, and to connect with Dr. Claudia Scarlata [a cosmologist at the University of Minnesota] to act as a mentor for her research, says Baker. “Mina was remarkably independent in her project,”Mina Mandic ’21 Baker adds, “and I was very impressed with how she took feedback, especially during the competition process in the spring of 2020. She was continually improving how she communicated her work to both experts in the field and the general public.”
Four Student-scientists Compete in International Competition
At this year’s 2021 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), four SPA student-scientists–Jack Hlavka ’22, Naci Konar-Steenberg ’22, and the team of Levi Mellin ’21 and Nikolas Liepins ’21–were among the top student-scientists from high schools around the world to present their original research and compete for awards in twenty-one disciplinary categories in science and engineering.
ISEF is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition; for the last two years, the ISEF competition has been held virtually due to the pandemic. The four students developed their original research as part of SPA’s Advanced Science Research seminar, and earned a spot at the ISEF finals through their exceptional performances at regional and state science fairs.
At this year’s ISEF awards ceremony, also held virtually, Jack Hlavka’s project, Treatment of Simulated Acid Mine Drainage with Desulfovibrio Desulfuricans, was awarded a thirdplace Grand Award in the Environmental Engineering category. The ISEF judging team includes university faculty and scientists, industrial engineers and scientists, representatives of private and federal research centers and agencies, medical researchers, and post-doctoral fellows. Hlavka’s award carried a prize of $1000 and put him among the top high school scientists in the world.
Jack Hlavka ’22 Naci KonarSteenberg ’22
National Accolades
Anthony Chen ’21 Named a Top Scholar in Nation’s Most Prestigious High School Science Competition
In January 2021, SPA senior Anthony Chen ’21 was named a Top 300 Scholar and Semifinalist in the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search competition. Chen was the only student from Minnesota to be named a Semifinalist.
Previously sponsored by Intel, the Regeneron STS is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school students. The 300 Scholars were selected from 1760 research applications from 611 high schools across 45 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and 10 countries. Scholars are chosen based on their exceptional research skills, commitment to academics, innovative thinking, and promise as scientists.
Chen’s research paper, entitled The Effects of Short Term Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation on Diatom Photosynthetic Productivity, is a biological study of the effects of 5G cellular network frequencies of the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum of phytoplankton, with an eye towards understanding the potentially harmful effects of 5G cellular technology. Chen pursued his research as part of SPA’s Advanced Science Research seminar in the fall of 2019; in February of 2020, the project also advanced to the finals of the International Science and Engineering Fair as part of the 2020 Twin Cities Regional Science Fair (pictured above).
Chen chose to pursue his topic not long after the introduction of 5G wireless technology and the “unparalleled bandwidths” it promised. “I couldn’t help but wonder how such new technologies might affect us, both in terms of negative health effects and environmental consequences,” Chen says. He realized that virtually no research had been done on the intersection of new, extremely high frequency electromagnetic radiation which make up 5G and the biosphere. “I began to design my own research, focused on addressing this gap in our understanding,” he says, eventually with the help of US Science faculty member Karissa Baker, who teaches the Advanced Science Research seminar. “I’ve always loved the sciences,” Chen says, “and the freedom and creativity of research made every failure a learning experience.”
Baker was thrilled when Chen approached her about joining the ASR class to pursue research he had already begun on his own. “Anthony approached me midway through his sophomore year to tell me about a research project that he was working on at home,” Baker recalls. “I asked him to join my research class, and he jumped right into the experience.” Chen continued his ASR project in Baker’s class in his junior
Anthony Chen ’21
year, where he took the research “to the next level,” Baker says. “True to form, Anthony designed a project where he would need to construct his own apparatus. He built his own Faraday cages, which required some significant research to determine the appropriate materials and fabrication techniques. He dug into primary literature to choose the most appropriate diatoms to test, and to figure out his equipment set-up to measure dissolved oxygen levels. He achieved all of this independently, checking in as necessary to discuss access to equipment and to discuss his methods. Anthony is an excellent scientist and mathematician,” Baker says. “He is a remarkably independent, self-driven and collaborative problem-solver, and I am very pleased–but not at all surprised–that his work has been honored in the Regeneron competition.”
“I was overjoyed to be recognized,” Chen says of his Regeneron award. “In many ways this award validated all my trials and tribulations, and invigorated me to keep striving and dreaming big for the future. I also believe this recognition is a testament to SPA’s nurturing community of wonderful teachers and motivated students,” he adds. “My success would not have been possible without the influences of every person along the way, and for that I am truly grateful.”
