News and Events

Welcome

Jennifer Stewart Elizabeth (Lizzy) Youngling

RECENT APPOINTMENTS IN THE COMMUNICATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNAE RELATIONS OFFICES

JENNIFER STEWART is Brearley’s new Director of Communications. Jennifer, who started in July, comes to us most recently from Mount Sinai, where since 2011 she had served as chief of staff and director of marketing and communications for the Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine.

ELIZABETH (LIZZY) YOUNGLING assumed the position of Alum Relations Manager in September. Lizzy began her Brearley tenure as a development associate in 2019. Congratulations, Jennifer and Lizzy! One of the world’s preeminent modern choreographers and dancers, Lucinda Childs visited Brearley virtually for the Dance Assembly on October 12, 2021. Sharing slides and videos, Ms. Childs discussed Dance, her critically acclaimed piece from 1979 that her eponymous dance company was gearing up to perform at the Joyce Theater on October 19–24. The event was made possible by Kyle Gerry, a Brearley math teacher and member of Ms. Childs’s dance troupe who introduced Ms. Childs as the assembly speaker.

Dance Assembly Welcomes LUCINDA CHILDS ‘58

Not the first time Ms. Childs has “returned” to Brearley, in 2014 she was featured in the Bulletin’s Brearley in the Arts issue, which highlighted her phenomenal and clearly unstoppable career, now in its sixth decade.

Morning Meet-ups

This fall, Head of School Jane Fried, administrative leaders and Parents’ Association officers hosted a series of gatherings for new parents on the Promenade.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS BY ALUMNAE Please send covers of your new books to classnotes@brearley.org.

1

8

4 2

3 5 6

WHAT’S ON YOUR DESK?

TOM MARCH, ENGLISH TEACHER

1. There are many, many words to live by. These, from Yves St. Laurent, are a few of them. 2. Aromatherapy—Hermès, Eau d’orange verte. 3. The best place for power cords, headphones and chargers? A repurposed gift box. 4. You can never have enough James Baldwin and Virginia Woolf. 5. Sadly, this box from À la Mère de Famille contains only paper clips, not chocolate. 6. I do love this tea from Mariage Frères, but I admit that the simple elegance of the container is half the reason I buy it. Design matters. 7. This Pride flag is a souvenir from one of the June Pride editions of Poetry/Cabaret, my “variety salon.” 8. Reading glasses—these are ever-increasingly necessary.

HONORS ABOUND

Over the summer, two national awards were bestowed upon Brearley. The first came from the University & College Designers Association, which tapped Brearley with an Award of Excellence for the Special Edition Winter 2020 Bulletin cover—our fifth nod from UCDA in seven years. The other, from Engineering News-Record, distinguishes our new schoolhouse at 590 East 83rd Street as best K–XII education project in the New York region.

Top and above: Ms. Olsen’s 4th-grade class converses with Class IX’s Mira Schubert (left) and Anaya Tsai.

• Is it fun being an Upper School student? • Do you get to go around school by yourself or do you have to go with a partner? • Do you feel more mature? • Do you have a schedule? • Is homework fun? • What subjects do you have in US that you don’t have in LS? • Do you still do addition? • Do you learn how to write your name in cursive? • In science, do you do dangerous experiments and get to use the hood/position cabinet? • How do you learn reading in Class XII when you already know how to read? • What is the 610 building like? Is it kind of scary to switch buildings when you’re starting Class V? • Do you have lockers and desks? • What do you wear to school in MS and US? • Where do you eat lunch? • Do you have the same mascot?

These are just some of the questions Classes K–IV asked members of the Upper School, whom they invited to their virtual assembly on November 3 to speak about life at Brearley beyond Lower School. Kindergarten was paired with Class XII, Class I with Class XI; Class II with Class X, and Classes III and IV with Class IX.

Frances Riker Davis

2021 AWARD WINNERS

Nancy Krieger ‘76 and Krysia Bereday Burnham ‘78 are the newest recipients of the Frances Riker Davis Award, which recognizes Brearley alumnae for achievements and service dedicated to the public good.

Nancy is a world-renowned epidemiologist whose work has frequently been motivated and defined by the glaring fact that inequities in risk of health-harming exposures, in rates of illness and death, and in lack of access to appropriate care are driven by social injustice, including structural racism, and that social justice is vital to advance health equity. Based in the Boston area, Nancy is known as the People’s Epidemiologist. Since 1995, she has been a professor of social epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she also serves as the director of the school’s interdisciplinary concentration on women, gender, and health. Nancy’s counsel and opinions are often sought by a range of professionals, including the media, and especially so amid the pandemic.

Krysia is a hospice chaplain. After an 11-year stint living overseas, Krysia and her family settled in Newton, Massachusetts, where she was inspired to take courses at the Andover Newton Theological Seminary, and soon enrolled in a full-time program in the field. A member of the First Church in Cambridge Congregational, UCC since 2006, where she was ordained in 2016, Krysia serves as one of the parish’s community ministers. Krysia is a chaplain at the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston, where she created a virtual grief support group targeting the complex losses sustained in the community during Covid-19. During the ongoing pandemic, both Nancy and Krysia have been rising to meet the unrelenting needs of those grappling with disease, illness, grief and death. The negative and widespread forces of Covid have spotlighted the critical and compassionate work executed by them and the powerful ways in which they have taken on the fallout from a global crisis.

UP CLOSE WITH BREARLEY’S HEAD OF SCHOOL AND NEW BOARD PRESIDENT In December Jane Fried and Modupe Akinola ’92 began holding “School Update” conversations with the school community. Starting with young alumnae and older alumnae, respectively, they discussed institutional priorities like diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism work, the continued response to and navigation of Covid-19, the Computational Thinking initiative and 610 renovations, and then opened the screen to a Q&A. Be on the lookout for more Up Close events throughout the year.

YOUNG ALUM SOCIAL GATHERING Attendees from Classes 2007 to 2021 enjoyed a convivial evening at Freehold Brooklyn on November 23.

THE RESCUE The Brearley Parents’ Association and the Arts Committee of the Brearley Alumnae Association co-hosted a virtual screening of this new film, directed by Brearley parents and Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ’96 and Jimmy Chin and executive produced by Carolyn Bernstein ’86, executive vice president, National Geographic Documentary Films & Scripted Content, on November 19. The 350 viewers, which included alumnae, faculty and staff, were also treated to a live talk with Chai.

THOUGHTS OF A COLORED MAN Curtain up! On December 9 alumnae took in a performance of this new play on Broadway. The event was co-hosted by the Miller Society and the Arts Committee of the Alumnae Board.

The Elder Committee Wants Your Ideas!

The newly formed Elder Committee encourages the sharing of insights, ideas and resources on how to weather the challenges and joys of aging. While our focus is on older alumnae— those who graduated 40 or more years ago—we hope to engage anyone concerned about issues and critical decisions faced later in life, whether legal, medical, economic, emotional or spiritual. On January 31, a panel discussion entitled “Pearls of Wisdom” introduced topics to gauge interest. We will also sponsor a reunion weekend event this spring. The co-chairs invite you to share anything on your mind!

Juanita Dugdale ‘70 Gwendolyn Fortson Waring, Esq. ‘75 jbdugdale@gmail.com gsteelef@aol.com