The Lawrentian - Spring 2015

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Elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19, 12 th Head Master 2003-2015

Departments 2 From the Head Master 4 1,000 Words The magic of Macbeth.

F e at u r e s 24 The Legacy of elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19 Lawrenceville’s 12th Head Master.

On the Cover: Head Master Elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19.

Photo by Donnelly Marks

36 remember when at the kac Kirby Arts Center: A Lasting Impression.

6 News in Brief Community service, honors, awards, and so much more.

10 Funding the Future William Vaughan’s final gift.

12 Sports roundup Winter sports stats.

14 Go big red!

Hal Wilder says farewell.

16 On the Arts The wonders of Winterfest.

COVER TO COVER 18 Cover to Cover Binzen duo chronicles charismatic Dilworth.

20 Take This Job and Love It Fashion-forward friends.

22 ask the archivist Lawrentians with publishing prowess.

76 By the Numbers I nternational Programs.

77 Student Shot Howe ’15 provides a mind bending view.

ON THE ARTS

18 S p orts ro u n d u p

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Alumni 40 Alumni News

41 Class Notes

From the Head Master

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uring my tenure as Head Master, we’ve had the opportunity to celebrate four major milestones: the Bicentennial, the 75th anniversary of Harkness teaching, the 50th anniversary of Black students, and the 25th anniversary of coeducation. All represented significant inflection points for the School. Thus, all required courage, optimism and sustained effort. Most important, all secured Lawrenceville’s future.

It’s that forward-looking vision of my predecessors and their legacy of leadership that I’ve tried to live up to over the past 12 years by ensuring that the School is financially and structurally strong; that we’re recognized for our educational excellence so that we’re able to attract outstanding students, faculty and staff; and that we inspire and prepare this generation of Lawrentians to be responsible leaders in our interconnected global world, as well as lifelong learners, and caring and compassionate friends, spouses, parents and neighbors.

I often describe Lawrenceville as a school that embraces dichotomies. Indeed, we’re a relatively large school that feels like a much smaller community. Similarly, we have continued to celebrate longstanding traditions, even as we have become quite modern. I’ve tried to keep those and other balances in mind throughout my tenure at Lawrenceville, because I believe that it is such healthy tensions that have distinguished, and will continue to differentiate, the School for centuries to come. They’re also what make Lawrenceville such a special and happy place.

While we’ve introduced or expanded many programs since 2003 – from international travel to student research, from interdisciplinary studies to statistics and coding, from sustainability to leadership training and design thinking, from experiential learning to a thoughtful consideration of how students and, in fact, all of us best learn – we’ve also strengthened Lawrenceville’s core features, namely the House system, our collaborative Harkness approach to teaching and learning, our multicultural community, and the strong mentoring relationships between faculty and students.

I hope and expect that many of the new initiatives will continue to develop and grow, but what I’m most proud of and what I most hope endures, is the culture of caring and respect that we’ve fostered.

Last year, 15 tour guides were asked, “What one word would you use to describe Lawrenceville?” Their responses were: friendships, genuine, limitless, opportunity, spirit, challenging, encouraging, belonging, engaging, worthwhile, life-changing, unparalleled and home – three students in fact chose home as the word most emblematic of Lawrenceville. I can’t think of a better testament to the culture of Lawrenceville today than that collection of words.

As those words suggest, Lawrenceville is a genuinely warm and supportive, yet challenging place. It’s also a very spirited school. The infectious energy at House Olympics and Hill Week each fall, the packed stands at our annual Red and White basketball night and PDS hockey games, the raucous Dog Pound, the majesty of Lessons and Carols, the magic of the fall musical, the joy of the Spring Dance Concert – to cite just a few of my perennial favorites, speak strongly to how a healthy school culture fosters school spirit. I love that Lawrenceville’s unofficial fight song has become “Oh Lawrenceville is wonderful.” And, I’ll forever remember and relish the stunned look on the Hill headmaster’s face when he first heard our football team lead a

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bleachers-full of Lawrenceville students in a call-and-response rendition of that song after we had handily trounced his teams.

That culture of caring and respect and spirit of fun are what I hope are my enduring legacies to the School, because while the world will continue to change and evolve, and programs and emphasis will wax and wane, it’s the culture and values of a school and the integrity of the people associated with it that enable an institution to thrive under any circumstances.

One of my distinguished predecessors, Allan V. Heely, described the inevitability of change and thus the importance of flexibility in his 1951 book titled Why the Private School? Commenting on the evolution of private schools in this country, Head Master Heely wrote, “…the absence of continuity that these metamorphoses suggest is far less significant than the extraordinary adaptability to changing opportunities that the private school has throughout its history exhibited. Being free to serve as it thought best, it has repeatedly and flexibly responded to new conditions and entered new fields of usefulness.”

I might have been at the helm of the School over the past 12 years, but the real credit for Lawrenceville’s steady transformation and continued excellence goes to all of you – Lawrenceville’s dedicated faculty and staff, engaged students, loyal and generous alumni, supportive parents and thoughtful trustees. I’ve always believed that the best way to lead is to surround oneself with outstanding people. That’s exceedingly easy to do at Lawrenceville.

I was pleased to hear my successor Steve Murray H’55 ’65 P’16 articulate that same management philosophy at a joint discussion for parents that we held during Winter Gathering. I’m thrilled to have Steve succeed me. Having sat on a board with him for the past eight years, I respect him enormously, because I’ve experienced firsthand his deep integrity, genuine warmth, and keen intellect. I know too that Steve recognizes the importance and centrality of a healthy school culture and that he personally values responsible leadership and the culture of caring and respect that we’ve inculcated at Lawrenceville over the past 12 years. He also dislikes all things Hill … and PDS hockey.

I’m confident that Lawrenceville will continue to thrive under Steve’s leadership, because he will have the help of so many loyal Lawrentians. Thank you for your support of me and my colleagues over the past 12 years and for your support of Steve and of all things Lawrenceville for decades to come.

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Volume 79 Number 2

publisher Jennifer Szwalek art director Phyllis Lerner staff photographer Paloma torres proofreaders Rob Reinalda ’76 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 61 ’62 ’63 ’64 GP’06 ’08 contributors Michael Hanewald ’90 Lisa M. Gillard Hanson Joanna Harmonosky H’49 Jacqueline Haun Barbara Horn Mackenzie Howe ’15 Karla Johannes Selena Smith louise wright

The Lawrentian (USPS #306-700) is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, and fall) by The Lawrenceville School, P.O. Box 6008, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, for alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends.

Periodical postage paid at Trenton, NJ, and additional mailing offices.

The Lawrentian welcomes letters from readers. Please send all correspondence to jszwalek@lawrenceville.org or to the above address care of The Lawrentian Editor.

Letters may be edited for publication.

The Lawrentian welcomes submissions and suggestions for magazine departments. If you have an idea for a feature story, please query first to The Lawrentian Editor via email (jszwalek@lawrenceville.org).

Virtus Semper Viridis, Visit us on the web at www.lawrenceville.org. www.lawrenceville.org/thelawrentian Postmaster

Elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head Master The Lawrentian apologizes for accidentally omitting two of the three water polo captains listed in the fall 2014 Sports Roundup. The water polo captains are: Rob Lincoln ’15, Will McGuirk ’15 and Thomas Savage ’15.

Please send address corrections to: The Lawrentian The Lawrenceville School P.O. Box 6008 Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 ©The Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey All rights reserved.

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1000 Words

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“Double, double toil and trouble!”

Fire burned and the cauldron bubbled at the Second Form’s marvelous production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

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News

Sophia Cai ’17

Mu Gao ’17

Fine Artists Are

Golden Lawrentians brought home the gold (and silver!) at this year’s Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Competing in a pool of 3,750 submissions, Junia Xia ’15 received six Gold Keys, one

Junia Xia ’15

Wilder Judges College Choreographers This winter, Lawrenceville hosted preliminary auditions for the Rider University Emerging Choreographers Showcase. Derrick Wilder, Chair of Performing Arts and the School’s Director of Dance, served on the preliminary judges’ panel to select 20 finalists for the Showcase, which gives aspiring dancemakers a platform to develop their artistic voices, as well as an op-

Silver Key and three Honorable Mentions; Mu

portunity to present and develop an audience for their work.

Gao ’15 earned one Gold Key and one Hon-

“Rider University is proud and honored to partner with The Law-

orable Mention; and Sophia Cai ’17 won four

renceville School for this project. We appreciate the opportunity to

Silver Keys and one Honorable Mention.

work with Derrick and create an opportunity to promote new talent for dance,” said Pamela Mingle, Rider University’s associate director,

The program is sponsored by the Alliance for

major gifts.

Young Artists and Writers, which identifies teen-

Ultimately, five choreographers will be selected to perform their

agers with exceptional artistic and literary talent

work on May 2, at Rider’s Bart Luedeke Center. One will be chosen to

and brings their work to a national audience.

set his/her piece on Rider students to be performed in the following year’s repertory during Rider Dances, the University’s annual celebration of dance, which builds community, dance as entertainment, social dance, and dance as art.

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History Master Published in N.Y. Times An article by Lawrenceville History Master Erik Chaput, “The Reconstruction Wars Begin,” was published in The New York Times on Feb. 1. The piece is a part of the Times’ series “Disunion,” which “revisits and reconsiders” the Civil War era in America.

Chaput is the author of the widely and well-reviewed book, “The People’s Martyr: Thomas Wilson Dorr and His 1842 Rhode Island Rebellion,” the first scholarly biography of Dorr, as well as the most detailed account of the rebellion yet published. He also is the co-editor of “The Select Letters of Thomas Wilson Dorr.” Additionally, he is a member of the teaching faculty in the School of Continuing Education at Providence College and writes regular book reviews and commentary pieces for the Providence Journal.

Winter Gathering

MLK Day For the 12th year, Lawrentians honored the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King with a day dedicated to community service. All students, plus faculty, traveled across central New Jersey and Philadelphia to volunteer at a host of non-profit organizations. While Lawrentians enjoy community service work throughout the School year, the MLK Day of Service offers them a special opportunity to unite in recognition of a heroic American while assisting others.

Projects ranged from stocking shelves at local food banks to performing classical music for nursing home residents, but the majority of volunteer efforts were made in local daycare centers, pre- and elementary schools. Rachel Cantlay, Lawrenceville’s director of Community Service, estimates that nearly 3,000 local children were served by Lawrenceville.

What’s it really like to be a Lawrentian? The families of over 500 current students had a front-row seat at the Harkness table as they joined their Lawrentians at Winter Gathering, held Feb. 7-8. The two-day event gave parents a chance to attend Saturday classes and participate in a host of discussions pertaining to Lawrenceville life.

Among the weekend’s many highlights was a talk given by incoming Head Master Steve Murray H’55 ’65 P’16 and current Head Master Liz Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19 concerning the future of education.

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Welles Award Winners Announced Eight Lawrentians will pursue their academic passions around the globe this summer, thanks to the School’s William Welles Awards.

At the 2015 Junior Pan American Championships in Toronto on Feb. 5, Matt Branman ’16 won the Gold Medal in 19 & Under Men’s Foil. Fencers from 14 nations competed in the event. This victory cements Branman’s position as the number one ranked 19 & Under Men’s Foil Fencer in the United States for the 2014-15 season. He has been selected by the United States Fencing Association as a member of the four-person Junior National Team to fence in both the individual and team men’s foil events at the 2015 Junior World Championships to be held this spring in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Model U.N. Wins Delegation at Yale Lawrenceville’s Model United Nations Club — consisting of Emma Pinto ’17, Sophie Garrett ’16, Juliana Kim ’16, Annie Guo ’15, Anuj Krishnamurthy ’15, Amira Miyaji ’16, Akash Bagaria ’16, Tanmay Rao ’15, Fernando Guerrero ’15, Joon Choe ’15, Jason Zhang ’15, and Club President Swanee Golden ’15 — received the prize for “Outstanding Small Delegation” out of a pool of over 1,500 domestic and international students competing at Yale this winter.

Nine Lawrentians placed in the competition, and Guerrero and Garrett received “Best Delegate” awards, Choe and Miyaji received “Most Improved” awards, and Rao received an “Honorable Mention” award.

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Keerthana Annamaneni ’16

The 2015 recipients

Branman ’16 Makes U.S.F.A Junior Nat’l Team

The awards, established in memory of William Bouton Welles ’71, fund Third and Fourth Form student research projects. The amount of the award depends on the proposal submitted, but can be as much as $3,000.

Research: ▸ Violence against women in India

Taylor Betts ’16 Research: ▸ Watchmaking in Switzerland

Emma Dasgupta ’17 Research: ▸ Mapping world festivals using social media

Melanie Dominguez ’16 Research: ▸ Photography of ex-convicts

Elsie Grathwohl ’16 Research: ▸ Photography project on a dollar

Robin Grathwohl ’16 Research: ▸ Local fishing

Aditya Seshadri ’17 Research: ▸ Teaching CPR

Yvonne Yan ’16 Research: ▸ African businesspeople in China

TROD Turns Five and Keeps Growing

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uition Runs Out Day, or TROD, is the day when tuition runs out and philanthropy kicks in to cover 40 percent of the School’s annual expenses. Five years ago the Student Council, with help from the Alumni Office, began celebrating Lawrenceville’s donors on the day their dollars begin to pay the bills. This year, the students added a new layer of “cool.”

Some elements of TROD – a sea of red and black attire on campus, streamers and balloons at School Meeting, the Red Carpet Thank You Cam in Irwin and Abbott dining halls during lunch, the Thank You banner with hundreds of student signatures, the All-School Shout Out led by the School President – are standard by now, but this year’s additions were distinctly cutting edge. From a TROD rap video to a #BigRedTROD Selfie Contest on social media, students got into the TROD spirit in a big way. A rousing game of Lawrenceville Family Feud during School Meeting posed questions like “How much does it cost to run the School?” ($70 million/year); “What are the top four expenses?” (teacher salaries and financial aid at 17 percent each, employee benefits at 16 percent, physical plant at 14 percent); and “What

are the School’s three main sources of revenue?” (tuition at 60 percent, endowment income at 30 percent, The Lawrenceville Fund/Parents Fund at 10 percent). In the end, declaring a winner came down to a rocks-paper-scissors shoot-out, with the Black team taking it all.

Winners of the #BigRedTROD Selfie Contest? Student Apaar Anand ’17, with 72 “likes,” and alumna Payson Sword ’08, with 66.

Thanks to all who participated!

Vive la Différence!

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arlier this year, Lawrenceville hosted International Night followed by Community Day. These events were designed to highlight and explore students’ varied backgrounds in an effort to promote understanding and an appreciation for the diversity within our community. Food was a great way to begin, with an “Intercontinental Dinner” in Irwin Dining Hall leading the way for craft demonstrations and displays; workshops in Chinese, Indian and African dance; steel drum lessons; and an International Night Cultural Variety Show.

Community Day invited the School community to engage in dialogue around issues of race, gender and equality. In his keynote address, Lawrenceville Trustee Marcus Mabry ’85 urged students to do their part to end prejudice by seeing people as individuals, not through the lens of racial or other stereotypes. “Remember,” he said, “at some time or another each of you is an outsider.”

This focus on individual experience resonated throughout the day, as Affinity Groups gathered students and faculty participants along racial and ethnic lines, and 34 work-

shops explored a wide range of topics relating to equality and diversity: issues of sexism, racial justice, economic status and opportunity, American and multiracial identities, religious diversity, immigrant experience, journalistic bias, Asian stereotypes, and being gay at Lawrenceville.

Lawrentians came away from these backto-back events with new insights and maybe even a few new gastronomic experiences.

Most important, a door was opened to future conversations – and that’s a very good thing.

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Funding the Future

Loyal Donor’s Final Gift

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arlier this year, Head Master Liz Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19 announced that Lawrenceville had received a $5 million bequest from the estate of William “Willy” Vaughan, a loyal member of the Class of 1938. Vaughan was a member of the John Cleve Green Society, a dedicated group of donors who have designated planned gifts to the School, and he became the newest addition to a growing list of donors whose planned gifts have made a major impact.

Leading the queue is John Cleve Green, Class of 1816, whose legacy resulted in the “refounding” of the School on the British boarding model and the construction of most of the buildings on the Circle. In 2010, a bequest of more than $65 million from Henry Woods ’40 H’59 ’62 benefited multiple programs and facilities on campus, with an emphasis on faculty support and financial aid. And a planned gift of nearly $10 million from Lili Damita P’60, mother of Sean Flynn ’60, contributed nearly that much to an endowment for financial aid. In addition to many smaller legacies, the School has received nearly a dozen other planned gifts of at least $1 million in recent years, each having a significant impact of its own.

What makes Vaughan’s gift special, aside from its size, is that he put no restriction on the funds, which allows the Trustees of the School to use the entire amount in a way that best meets Lawrenceville’s needs. A portion of the gift is being directed to The Lawrenceville Fund, the School’s annual fund, with the lion’s share adding to the School’s unrestricted endowment, essentially supporting Lawrenceville in perpetuity.

“Bequests, large and small, are the lifeblood of an institution like ours,” said Jerry Muntz, the School’s Director of Planned Giving. “We are truly grateful for Mr. Vaughan’s generosity.”

The John Cleve Green Society added 16 new members last year, with alumni spread across classes from 1959 to 2003, to bring the total number of members to 414. Planned gifts range from outright bequests to a variety of charitable trusts and annuities to insurance policies and real property.

Vaughan’s classmate Bill Coleman first met his friend “Willy” in the fall of 1936, when they both played for the Hamill House football team. After graduating they attended Princeton together and became lifelong friends. As the years passed, getting together for class events and Alumni Weekend became even more important to both of them. Regardless of when or where they met, Lawrenceville, past and present, was a main topic of conversation. “We both felt that our Lawrenceville education was the foundation for our lives,” Bill said.

As Class Agent for 1938, Bill knew that Willy had increased his gifts to The Lawrenceville Fund in recent years. He did not, however, have any advance knowledge of Willy’s grand bequest. Upon reflection, Bill noted, “It is my feeling that since Willy never talked about himself or his accomplishments, he probably never acquired any accolades for his generous deeds, but this, to me, makes him an even greater person. I take great pleasure in having been his longtime friend. His gift will help to sustain the School that we both cherished.”

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Leave a Lawrenceville Legacy.

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fter retiring, former English Master and Dean of Faculty Ben Briggs H’61 wanted to make a gift to honor his colleagues, with whom he shared “the many joys and occasional sorrows of teaching English at Lawrenceville.” The result will be the creation of an endowed fund, through a charitable gift annuity, that will enable members of the English Department to pursue “subjects of intellectual interest or curiosity.”

Because the residuum of his gift annuity will not be available for immediate use by the School, Ben decided to make yearly gifts, in an amount approximating the expected annual income from the endowed fund, to help defray the cost of summer travel by members of the English faculty consistent with the purpose of the fund. Thus far, six awards have been made, enabling faculty members to pursue their interests in Iceland, Australia, Ireland, Arizona/New Mexico, North Carolina and France.

“Thanks to Dean Briggs’ generosity, I brought back from the Emerald Isle many discoveries and insights which continue to enrich the experience of my Irish Literature students around the Harkness table in Room 12 of Woods Memorial Hall.”

– Ronald Kane ’83, English Master

“Ben’s gift permitted me to visit Australian educational institutions committed to Positive Education, which equips students with the resilience needed to bounce back from the discomforts and disappointments that are a part of living and learning with other people ...”

– Pieter Kooistra, English Master on The Robert S. and Christina Seix Dow P’08 Distinguished Master Teaching Chair in Harkness Learning

to learn more about supporting Lawrenceville students and faculty through a charitable gift annuity or other planned giving vehicle, please contact Jerry Muntz at jmuntz@lawrenceville.org or (609) 620-6064, or go to www.lawrenceville.planyourlegacy.org.

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Sports Roundup

Boys’ Basketball Record: 10-15 Coach: Ron Kane ’83

Captains: G rant Newsome ’15

Sebestian Pierre-Louis ’15 Marcus Soto Esparaza ’15

Girls’ Basketball Record: 8-9

WINTER Season STATS

Coach: Antoine Hart Captains: Kennedy Guest-Pritchett ’15

By Karla Guido

Justina Mitchell ’15

Boys’ Ice Hockey Record: 8-17-2

Coach: Etienne Bilodeau Captains: Jack Burt ’15

Ryan Camp ’15 Misha Song ’15

Girls’ Ice Hockey Record: 9-9

Coach: Nicole Uliasz Captains: Sophia Lattanzio ’15

Tess Madarasz ’15 Egan Sachs-Hect ’15

Boys’ Fencing Record: 2-8

Coach: Rich Beischer Captain: Bryan Ho ’15

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Girls’ Fencing Record: 10-0

Coach: Rich Beischer Captains: Tara Fish ’15

Monica Su ’15 Adrienne Yang ’15 Claire Zau ’15

Girls’ Indoor Track M.A.P.L. Champions N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 5-0

Coach: Katie Chaput Captains: Katelyn Long ’15

Amy Orser ’15 Nephy Smith ’15

Boys’ Indoor Track M.A.P.L. Champions N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 5-0

Coach: Erik Chaput Captains: D anny Goldman ’15

Chudi Ilogu ’15 Nick John ’15 Nick Wey ’15

Boys’ Swimming N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 8-1

Coach: Jim Jordan Captain: R ob Lincoln ’15

Girls’ Swimming Record: 4-5

Coach: Bernadette Teeley Captains: M aggie Garner ’15

Shannon McKinnon ’15

Boys’ Squash M.A.P.L. Champions Record: 6-9

Coach: Mark Price Captain: C al Fullerton ’15

Girls’ Squash M.A.P.L. Champions Record: 4-6

Coach: Narelle Krizek Captains: Ester Baek ’15

Sinclair Meggitt ’15

Wrestling Record: 4-10

Coach: Johnny Clore Captain: John Davis ’15

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For the most current athletic news visit www.lawrenceville.org/athletics

Go Big Red!

positively MAKING WAVES

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hen Hal Wilder H’77 ’89 P’97 was hired as a math master in 1975, he had no intention of heading up the water polo team. History Master Herman Besselink H’88, who coached the squad, however, had different ideas.

“You should have seen his eyes light up when I walked through the door,” Wilder says, his mouth stretching into a wide, craggy grin.

“I was young. I was athletic. I had swimming experience. And, man, he put that team in my hands so fast, I found myself coaching the thing before I even knew who Besselink was.”

Wilder did have quite a bit of swimming experience – he played the sport at Brown – but he knew next to nothing about water polo. He had never even seen a water polo match, but Wilder, young and confident, shrugged that off. “We had some really good swimmers,” he said. “So I figured we’d kick butt.”

In 1975, water polo at Lawrenceville was not a varsity sport; it was a club. As a consequence the team’s playing schedule had to be made on the fly based on the availability of teams in the area. The squad played predictable high school rivals such as Hill and Mercersburg, but also universities such as Temple, Kutztown, and Monmouth. They even played a Princeton-based men’s team.

By the time the 1975 water polo season drew to a close, Wilder’s predicted butt-kicking was delivered, but not in the manner he had imagined. Big Red was the kickee.

“That was a learning experience,” Wilder says. And it was one he didn’t wish to repeat.

He began to study the game, and by year two, modest improvements could be seen.

After 40 years, Hal Wilder H’77 ’89 P’97 retires swimmingly.

A winning season wouldn’t arrive until after the summer of 1977, however, when Wilder and two of his star athletes attended the water polo Olympic training center in Colorado Springs.

“This was under the auspices of the U.S. Water Polo Association and they brought out four coaches from California, which is the Holy Land for water polo,” he says. “I learned more in that week than I had the previous two years.

“After that,” Wilder added, his smile growing, “we started beating teams that had been killing us.”

By the end of his third year of coaching, Nick Gusz, the athletic director, was impressed enough to let water polo become a varsity sport. “You earned your stripes,” he told Wilder.

Wilder has been coaching the sport every year ever since. 2014 marked his 40th anniversary pacing the pool’s edge. It also, sadly, marks his last. At the end of 2014-15 he plans to retire.

He leaves behind an impressive legacy: two Eastern High School Championships and 368 career wins for the boys’ squad.

When Lawrenceville went coeducational, his responsibilities increased. Though he didn’t coach the girls’ team – Steve Waskow ’80, one of Wilder’s former players did that – he was now charged with overseeing the entire water polo program, an organizational and bureaucratic burden that stole precious time away from coaching swimming, his true passion.

He was eager to lighten his load. So in 2009, Wilder pulled a Besselink and passed the boys’ team (and the corresponding administrative responsibilities) on to a new teacher,

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Math Master Ramon Olivier.

Wilder went on to coach the girls’ team. The change turned out to be serendipitous.

“When I was younger I would lose my temper,” he admits. “Well, I still do that. But I would lose my temper a little bit more and scream a little bit more, and act like an idiot a little bit more. When I began to coach girls, I was older and had grown up a little bit.”

In other words, he had mellowed, and his calmer coaching style was a good fit for his new circumstances.

“Coaching girls is very different from coaching boys,” he says. “The notion of ‘team’ and ‘synergy’ resonates with girls. Boys un-

derstand it, but girls understand it. These days I focus more on the chemistry of the team; with girls, chemistry makes all the difference.”

His strategy got results. After seven years of coaching girls’ water polo, his record stands at 90-43. “I don’t compare teams, but the girls team I had two years ago could have been the best team I ever coached.” He says, reflecting on the memory. That 2012 team had an 18-1 season and earned Beast of the East honors, competing against 37 teams – some from schools with 4,000 students or more.

But during good seasons or bad, Wilder has always loved coaching the sport.

“I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it so

much was that water polo isn’t a major sport,” he says. “When I look back on my own athletic career, the sport I look upon most warmly was rugby because it attracted the maverick athlete. They were the kids who weren’t doing it to get somewhere, they were doing it for the love of the game. Water polo is similar. Water polo, with very few exceptions, is not a ticket to college. I think that any water polo coach should promote the sport for the love of the game. Frankly, I think that’s the way a person should teach, too. I love water polo for its own sake, and I love math for its own sake, and I love to coach and teach people who feel the same way.”

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On the Arts

Wait Until Dark Wait Until Dark, the 1966 play later adapted for the screen as a vehicle for Audrey Hepburn, is a slow boil of a thriller. The main character, Susy Hendrix, a blind housewife, unwittingly comes in possession of a large, hidden cache of heroin and is forced to deal with the three violent criminals who come to claim it. The longer they wait for the drugs to turn up, the more inclined they are to kill.

It was a script that student director Alice Yang ’15 found irresistible.

“When [then-Performing Arts Department Chair Chris] Cull told me I would be directing the winter Black Box Show this year, he gave me a stack of plays to choose from. Most of them were comedies, but I had done comedies before, and I wanted a new challenge.”

After much deliberation, she narrowed it down to the The Glass Menagerie and Wait Until Dark, but settled on the latter play because of the uniqueness of the subject and the

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opportunity to work with a larger cast.

“I was eager to stage the fight scene at the end,” Yang notes. “I also liked the arc of the main character [played by Alex Ahlgren ’15].

She begins the play as meek and relatively helpless, but finds the strength to overcome all kinds of obstacles.”

The final production of Wait Until Dark, performed at the School’s Kirby Arts Center, was a sure-handed, confidently staged production that was unafraid of taking risks. Considering Yang’s skills, it’s surprising to learn that when she first arrived on campus nearly four years ago she had no interest in theatre whatsoever.

“It was definitely one of those things that I would not have discovered if Lawrenceville didn’t have so many opportunities to get involved.” Despite the challenges, the show, Yang’s last before graduation, was particularly meaningful.

“It was a fantastic experience,” she says.

“And I am so very grateful to Mr. Cull and the Performing Arts Department for giving me the chance to do it.”

A Wonderful Winterfest Most everyone knows “the play’s the thing.” Well, there were a whole lot of things going on at the Kirby Arts Center Black Box Stage this past winter as 19 student-produced and -directed plays greeted appreciative crowds.

• Remedial English directed by Eliot Schulte • Just One Night directed by Victor Garcia & Cianna Montera • Warren directed by Lewis Chapman • Crossing the Bar directed by Dalila Haden • Baggage Unattended directed by Kyler Fullerton • Awkward Silence directed by Maia Johngren • Duet for Bear and Dog directed by Joon Choe • The Omelet Murder Case directed by Kelly Marcus • The Actor’s Nightmare directed by Sarah Cartwright • Business Lunch at the Russian Tea Room directed by Zach Campbell • Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere directed by Brandon Medina

• Keeper directed by Inayah Bashir & Xianna Ortiz • The Processional directed by Lizzie Adeyemi & Alexis Stokes • Reservations for Two directed by Alex Ahlgren & Chandler Pearson • Drugs are Bad directed by Elizabeth Beckman • An Examination of the Whole Playwright/Actor Relationship Presented as Some Kind of Cop Show Parody directed by Lauren Schaffer • Gave Her the Eye directed by Zandra Campbell & Emily Vandenberg • A Passion Play directed by Will Portilla & Yonas Shiferaw • Two Worlds directed by Eva Blake & Anna Milliken

S P RIN G

2015

17

Cover to Cover

M

ention the name “Richardson Dilworth” to anyone who called Philadelphia home in the middle part of the last century, or has studied the modern history of this fifth-largest American city, or is enthralled by the careers of America’s most colorful political reformers, and you will no doubt be rewarded with a long list of notable accomplishments punctuated by an equally impressive list of the man’s vices and personal peccadilloes. In 1951, the same year Dilworth became the city’s first Democratic district attorney since the Gilded Age, Peter Binzen ’41 P’75 arrived in Philadelphia from northern New Jersey to take a job on the general assignment desk of the now-defunct daily Bulletin.

The transformation he witnessed in his adopted city over the next 20 years, and his admiration for the hard-nosed, patrician politician credited with revitalizing the historic Society Hill neighborhood and overhauling mass transit, has found expression in Richardson Dilworth: Last of the Bare-Knuckled Aristocrats, written with Binzen’s son Jonathan ’75.

The elder Binzen didn’t originate the label in the book’s title – it came from Thatcher Longstreth, who lost to Dilworth in the 1955 Philadelphia mayoral race – but Binzen chuckles as he recalls the behavior that led to the description. “It was a gimmick for him,” he says of Dilworth’s combative campaigning style. “I don’t think it hurt him at all, and in fact I think it helped.”

Although Dilworth’s battles and achievements were covered extensively in the local press, it was only when Dilworth was appointed president of Philadelphia’s Board of Educa-

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tion in 1965 that Binzen, who had moved to the Bulletin’s education beat some years earlier, got to know him well. “His transformation at the Board of Education was remarkable,” says Binzen. “As mayor and then as school board president, he was remarkable for attracting talented people to work for him. He always gave credit and took responsibility. Many talented people started their careers working for Dilworth.”

In 1972, convinced he was a good subject for a book, Binzen conducted six long tape-recorded interviews with Dilworth. Binzen had published Whitetown, U.S.A., subtitled “A first-hand study of how the ‘silent majority’ lives, learns, works and thinks,” with Random House two years prior and received praise for his dissection of attitudes among the urban white working class. This time, however, Random House thought the topic was too local, and the tapes languished for well over a decade. Now the Bulletin’s metropolitan editor, Binzen had other priorities.

Flash forward to the late 1980s. Binzen, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is recruited by his employer to turn the tapes into a feature for the Sunday magazine. The story appeared in 1989, and Camino Books, a Philadelphia publisher, saw its potential. Regardless, it took another 15 years for the Dilworth book to reach publication. “I was still writing columns,” says Binzen, now 92, “and I was getting older. But my son Jonathan came to the rescue.”

Jonathan Binzen, like his father, had been a PG student at Lawrenceville, and like his father, parlayed a PG year into an Ivy League

Peter Binzen ’41 P’75 takes on the “last of the bare-knuckled aristocrats,” with help from son Jonathan ’75.

Photography by Michael Branscom

A PHILADELPHIA STORY

admission — Harvard versus the elder Binzen’s Yale. Unlike his dad, whose focus was no doubt sharpened by wartime service with the 10th Mountain Division, the younger Binzen didn’t immediately gravitate to journalism. An English major who wrote mostly fiction in college, Jonathan took up carpentry and woodworking after graduation to support his writing.

“By the time I looked up, I’d been doing woodworking for a decade,” he recalls. He had also been teaching it in a job-training program for refugees, tutoring, and teaching English as a second language. “Along the way, I discovered this magazine, Fine Woodworking, the

best journal in the field.” Binzen ’75 wrote for the magazine for a year, at about the same time Peter was writing about Dilworth for the Inquirer, before leaving to pursue his own writing and woodworking projects in Malay-

sia. When he returned to the States in 1993, he also returned to the magazine, where he is now senior editor.

The collaboration with his father was not Jonathan’s first foray into long-form writing and editing. In 2005, he and a colleague published Arts & Crafts Furniture: From Classic to Contemporary. He had also edited several books, including one on contemporary poets.

But according to the younger Binzen, the father-son collaboration was a study in contrasts.

“My dad, having been a deadline journalist all his life, is really good at getting the thing written quickly and well, and I tend to be more of a fussbudget and spend a long time wangling and wrangling. He had done the writing — it was 70 percent done when I came on board as editor — (but) he was in his mid-eighties when we started working together.

When you read his old columns, they were beautifully turned out. He needed more help with this,” notes Jonathan.

“I think he started working on (the book) in about 2000, and he put a huge amount of research into it. When I came on, I read it and felt like parts were ready to go and others wanted some more research and more writing.”

The younger Binzen takes the blame for the more recent delay in publication. Working remotely from Vermont, freelancing for much of the time, and doing triple duty as the stayat-home dad of two young children, he relied heavily on Internet research and detailed notes from his dad that were often indecipherable.

Adapting to the elder Binzen’s “concise and direct” writing style presented another challenge. “When I was at Lawrenceville,” Jonathan relates, “I had a really wonderful teacher — Jim Waugh — and I remember him famously writing on one of my papers, ‘Your prose is like the Belgian Congo’s proliferating jungle, and sometimes I need a machete to make my way through it.’ I had to try to be more spare, more pared down.”

Over the course of the project, the younger Binzen came to admire Richardson Dilworth for many of the same qualities that had attracted his father. “One common thing people who worked for him said was, ‘That was the time of my life, right there. That was it.’”

At ages 92 and 57, respectively, Peter and Jonathan Binzen might say the same thing about their collaboration.

S P RIN G

2015

19

Take this Job & Love it

The Mallard Takes Flight

S

ometimes, you just have to listen to your mother.

When Wyatt Rancourt ’15 and Griffin Spolansky ’15 met as Second Formers, they didn’t expect to be friends, let alone business partners.

“I wasn’t a fan of his,” Spolansky admitted of Rancourt, “but, on Parents’ Weekend, he held the door open for my mom and she said, ‘That is such a nice kid. You should become friends with him.’”

Mrs. Spolansky was on to something. The boys had more in common than they thought.

In particular, an entrepreneurial spirit and a frustration with their clothing options. So in August 2013 — in true Lawrenceville fashion — they started their own clothing line: The Mallard LLC. Rancourt and Spolansky are now co-owners of this primarily online business, which offers comfortable, high-quality, preppy style, men’s clothing. The entire enterprise is funded with their personal savings, a compilation of birthday gifts, and profits from Rancourt’s stock market investments. “He loves his stocks,” Spolansky joked. “It was hard for him to part with them.”

Rancourt followed, “If you aren’t going to put everything you have into something and go all of the way, it isn’t going to work. We want this to work.”

It has been a great deal of work to become successful entrepreneurs while remaining successful Lawrentians. The key? Time management. “We’ve managed to tackle everything by working together and using every minute of free time we can spare,” explained Rancourt.

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“We consider the company time similarly to homework time: There is a little over an hour a day devoted to doing what we need to do. Usually, that is sufficient, but some weeks we need to devote a little more time. It is both a great experience and a different experience juggling both Lawrenceville responsibilities and Mallard responsibilities, but it is something we both signed off on when we decided to start The Mallard.”

Though the boys won’t reveal specific information about company finances, they are “extremely happy with how we have done up to this point,” said Rancourt.

Duties are split between them: Spolansky deals with the logistics of producing, packaging, order fulfillment, and receiving the clothing. Rancourt handles advertising along with supervising the financials. He also does the design work with help from a required Lawrenceville art class, “Design,” which, up until now, he “never thought (he’d) use.”

“I complained the whole time I was in the class,” he laughed, “but it turned out to be one of the most useful courses I’ve taken here.

Now I know how to do a layout and other artistic things I never would have thought of before.”

The clothing is unique, according to Spolansky, because it is “prep wear made by prep students for prep students and adults.” They don’t sell anything they won’t wear. The entrepreneurs claim that what distinguishes The Mallard from other preppy retailers is the combined sensibilities of a Southern Gentleman (Rancourt hails from Florida) and a true New Yorker (Spolansky is a Manhattanite).

Wyatt Rancourt ’15 and Griffin Spolansky ’15 turn frustration into fashion.

According to Rancourt, Southern style has evolved in a much different way from that of New York.

“The South is much more traditional and refined, and that culture is exemplified in the style,” he said. “New York is much more modern and bold, so combining the two (the right way) makes the perfect combination.”

The line currently features higher-end t-shirts, hats, belts, and sweaters — all appropriate for what the boys call the “preppy lifestyle.” They’ve had the perfect test market — their fellow Lawrentians — to help make decisions about what will sell best to their primary audience: other young adults.

Perfecting the line has taken much longer than expected. “We thought everything would be done in three weeks,” said Spolansky. Instead, the boys spent seven months vetting materials until they got exactly what they wanted in fabric and fit. The t-shirts alone took months. “We were really particular about getting the best possible quality, so we’d go back and forth with the vendors, sending them samples, telling them to make it softer, make it thicker,” said Spolansky.

The boys have wisely tapped into the expertise of others as they’ve developed their brand — Spolansky’s family is involved in the fashion industry — but have been adamant about maintaining their independence.

“It was very important for us to do this all on our own, because the most important part is the learning experience, and we wanted that for ourselves without parental aid,” said Rancourt. “That said, the fact Griffin’s dad is in the business helped prompt the idea and has

helped us with both advice along the road and getting in touch with factories. As for my side of the family, my dad has helped with general business advice and has remained very supportive along the way.”

Marketing is done through the website, social media, and Google ads, as well as a number of college/high school reps, who are paid in clothing and coupons to promote the clothing line. Currently, most of their sales are

online at themallard.com, but the Lawrentians are working to expand their sales outlets in the real world, where the profit margin is higher.

“We are in Kevin’s in Tallahassee and Thomasville and are on Countryclubprep. com,” said Spolansky, “and we hope to be expanding this list in the upcoming months!”

As The Lawrentian went to press, Rancourt had already committed to Middlebury, and Spolansky was mulling offers from several

colleges. But preppies need not fear — The Mallard will go on!

Said Rancourt, “We both are looking into business-related majors that we hope will only enhance what we have already learned from this endeavor. We plan on not only continuing, but also expanding The Mallard in the upcoming years.”

As well as continuing to listen to their mothers.

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2015

21

Ask the Archivist

TheofHistory Alumni in Publishing

By Jacqueline Haun

Lawrentians have a way with words. It should come as no surprise that many have successfully translated their skill into careers as authors. Others, however, have combined their interest in the written word with business acumen to become renowned in the publishing world.

O

ne of the earliest publishing pioneers was Charles Scribner, who attended Lawrenceville from 1834-1837.

Leaving Lawrenceville at 16 to attend New York University, he spent only a year there before transferring to the then-College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) where he graduated in 1840. Scribner intended to study law in New York City, but poor health forced him to abandon his studies.

As a kind of fallback, he and New York merchant Isaac D. Baker decided in 1846 to form a publishing house. It was an odd career choice, as neither had experience in the publishing industry, but Scribner was convinced that the advantages of good literary judgment, solid financial backing, and the expertise of a publication-savvy assistant named Andrew Armstrong, would overcome this obstacle.

In the early part of the 19th century, most American publishers relied on churning out reprints of old British titles to keep their presses busy (and their incomes steady) year-round.

Baker and Scribner, however, decided on a dif-

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ferent approach. Instead of maintaining their own print shop, they purchased the stock of the successful New York religious publisher John S. Taylor. The popular Taylor titles provided enough sales income to allow Baker and Scribner to focus on developing new authors, especially Americans. The strategy was a profitable one; three of the first books Baker and Scribner chose to publish, all written by historian Joel T. Headley, quickly become best-sellers, with nearly 200,000 copies sold in just the first two years.

In 1850, while the publishing firm was still building its reputation, Baker died unexpectedly. Scribner continued the company under his own name and the company’s titles soon began to reflect his own personal interests and personal prejudices. For example, as a devout Presbyterian, Scribner shaped the firm’s catalog by seeking out titles by leading authors of that denomination. One of the most ambitious investments was a 25-volume Commentary on the Holy Scriptures by German scholar Johann Peter Lange, edited in English translation by Philip Schaff. Costing Scribner nearly $100,000 to produce, the series was both a critical and commercial success that made Scribner a publishing force to be reckoned with.

Throughout the 1850s, the Scribner publication empire grew, beginning with Scrib-

Harold McGraw, Jr. ’36

Curtis McGraw, Class of 1915

Donald McGraw, Class of 1917

ner’s addition of a foreign title subsidiary in 1857. He also introduced a monthly magazine, Hours at Home, in 1865, which Scribner had hoped would be “different from any other now published… handsomely illustrated, beautifully printed.” While Hours at Home may have had those qualities, the periodical was dismissed for its “fog of piety” and was not as successful as Scribner had hoped. In November 1870, Scribner had replaced Hours at Home with the first issue of the more secular Scribner’s Monthly, edited by Josiah G. Holland. Although this title would be purchased by another company and transformed into The Century Magazine, the Scribner publishing house later repeated its success with Scribner’s Magazine, which remained a prominent title until well into the 20th century.

Less than a year after the introduction of Scribner’s Monthly, the publisher’s health began to fail. A trip to Lucerne, Switzerland, was prescribed, but while in Europe, Scribner contracted typhoid fever and died. His sons, John Blair Scribner and Charles Scribner II, succeeded him in running the family publishing business, which by 1879 was renamed Charles Scribner’s Sons.

A century later the publishing house would be purchased by Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Gale. The Scribner name still remains, however, as a trade book imprint under

Simon & Schuster.

Scribner wasn’t the only Lawrentian who made a name for himself in publishing. The Bunn Library’s McGraw Reading Room is named for a family that would become titans in the industry. Brothers Curtis W. McGraw (Class of 1915) and Donald McGraw (Class of 1917) were not the founders of the publishing enterprise, but entered the family business just as it was reaching a new level of development.

In 1888 their father, James H. McGraw, got his start by purchasing a trade publication, The American Journal of Railway Appliances. One year later, he had added enough titles in both periodicals and books to create McGraw Publishing Company. In 1909, McGraw and technical and trade publisher John A. Hill agreed to combine the book divisions of their individual publishing houses and, by 1917, the two companies merged into a single entity, The McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Curtis and Donald McGraw would both join the family firm and ultimately serve successive terms as president for McGraw-Hill in the 1950s and ’60s. Their nephew, Harold McGraw Jr. ’36, would also serve as CEO of McGraw-Hill from 1975-1983 (and ultimately give the Bunn Library the room that now bears the McGraw name). Today, what was once McGraw-Hill has become two separate global empires: McGraw-Hill Education, one of the

“big three” names in global education publication, and McGraw-Hill Financial, which specializes in financial information and analysis as the parent company of Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and J.D. Power and Associates, among others, and majority owner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Not only have both Scribner and McGraw-Hill continued to provide readers with a wealth of reading selections over the years, but they are also responsible for giving many Lawrentian authors opportunities to share their own written works. Scribner authors have included Aldo Leopold L. 1905 (Game Management) Marcus Mabry ’85 (this year’s all-school read, White Bucks and Black-Eyed Peas), and Eric Rutkow ’98 (American Canopy: Trees, Forests and the Making of a Nation.) Similarly, several Lawrentians have had their work published by McGraw-Hill, including mathematician James Ward Brown ’50 (Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems and Complex Variables and Applications), sports writer Bob Ryan ’64 (Cousy on the Celtic Mystique, written with Bob Cousy), and finance author Sam Stovall ’73 (Standard & Poor’s Sector Investing: How to Buy The Right Stock in The Right Industry at The Right Time and The Seven Rules of Wall Street: Crash-Tested Investment Strategies That Beat the Market).

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2015

23

Legacy The

of

Liz Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19

EIGHT Perspectives

• •

By MICHAEL ALLEGRA AND Barbara horn photographs by Donnelly marks and Paloma Torres

The traditional way to bid farewell to the leader of any institution is to conduct a lengthy interview with the departing chief, capturing his or her reflections on a tenure nearly completed and musings on the organization’s future. The Lawrentian chose to take a different approach.

W

e asked eight members of the Lawrenceville

tener,” “great business mind,” “strategic thinker” and “mentor”

community who have worked with Head Mas-

popped up repeatedly. Several times we heard ship analogies, fol-

ter Elizabeth A. “Liz” Duffy H’43 ’55 ’79 P’19

lowed by “captain” and “skipper;” we heard about the respect ac-

in various capacities during her 12-year run at the School to share

corded her by other school heads; and we heard “the right leader

their impressions of Liz — her accomplishments, her leadership

at the right time.” We even heard about her remarkable ability to

style, and her challenges. From the former Board president who

retain her sense of humor in the face of adversity.

brought her to the attention of the search committee, to the cur-

The picture, then, is far more personal than an interview with

rent School Chaplain who knew Liz when she was a Princeton

the subject herself, which would no doubt focus on the facts of

undergrad, to the young faculty member who has been co-teach-

her service, and far truer, free of the self-effacement that often

ing with her since 2013, what emerged was a picture of an incred-

accompanies self-reflection. We think the oral essays presented

ibly hard-working, visionary CEO who leaves Lawrenceville as

here provide a much richer view of Liz Duffy the person and, as

strong academically, financially and in spirit as it has ever been.

a result, express a genuine appreciation for all she has done for

Words and phrases like “brilliant,” “consensus,” “good lis-

Lawrenceville since she arrived in 2003.

LeitaHamill H’65 ’88 ’99 P’96 ’99

Retired English Master and Former Vice President, Board of Trustees

• Applications are at an all-time high, so the input is superb, and with 50 percent of our graduates accepted at the top 20 schools in the country, our output is impressive as well.

• Our teams keep winning every Mid-Atlantic Prep League Director’s Cup (for overall excellence) since inception.

She’s not only been great leading Lawrenceville, and bringing us up to date, but also so respected by the other Eight Schools’ heads and trustees, which I saw in the four years I was an officer of the Board.

An expert on organizational theory came up with an idea he dubbed the “hedgehog,” which is finding what is unique about your institution. For 25 years I had sat on the faculty and we had wrung our hands about not knowing who we really were. It was Liz’s first year and she took this hedgehog theory, worked with

T

he three words that come to my mind when I think of Liz are not what you would expect — brilliant, tireless, strategic — but these, Second to None. This is a phrase Bruce McClellan used to employ to describe Lawrenceville at a time when that was in truth wishful thinking. But not only has Liz made Lawrenceville today truly Second to None, but she herself is a head of school Second to None.

These are what Seth Waugh (’76,) who was president of the Board when I was vice president, called the “fun facts” of her 12 years: • She’s raised over $350 million.

• The endowment has more than doubled during her tenure, and at the same time we have effectively retired half the debt.

• The annual reserve against our aging facilities has gone from roughly $250,000 to $2 million.

• All of this financial growth has happened through not one but two financial crises, one of them the worst since the Great Depression.

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“

The three words that come to my mind when I think of Liz are not what you would expect — brilliant, tireless, strategic — but these, SECOND TO NONE … not only has Liz made Lawrenceville today truly Second to None, but she herself is a head of school Second to None.

”

the faculty, and what emerged was the realization that our hedgehog is that we’re not big and we’re not small, we’re something in-between

forgiving people I have ever met. She sees the larger picture and can rise above almost anything to, as Seth said in a tribute, “do the right thing … every time.” She controls her personal impulses for the greater good with incredible grace. And she is able to work such long hours under such intense pressures because of her belief in the School: She truly loves Lawrenceville.

Willard

“Googan” Bunn III

’62 P’93 ’01 ’03 ’07 Former President, Board of Trustees

Photograph by Ron Gould

and that is our uniqueness. It’s what allows us to have a huge curriculum and extracurricular programs, but at the same time be small and nurturing enough to have Harkness and House and close individual relationships with kids. It was such a smart analysis and I was struck by how quickly she got the overview of the institution. I think it’s reflective of how her mind works, on a cosmic level.

Many of Liz’s ideas, initiatives she’s implemented, are now taught as educational best practices. For Liz, they were original thinking, for example her vision for the “third leg of the stool.” Liz initiated the deliberate training of responsible leadership and expressed it as a third primary aspect of what makes us who we are, together with House and Harkness. I wish she were going to be here to see that one through, but my hope is that others understand it well enough to develop that program fully as part of her legacy.

On the subject of Liz personally, her work ethic is legendary. Seth and I had to get her to agree not to send emails before five a.m., or after six p.m. We gave her a sabbatical — although we had to press her to make it a real sabbatical instead of just more work — because we wanted her to rest up for another long run as leader of the School. When you have lunch with her, she’s always ticking off a full agenda of topics that need strategic thinking, but she works from no notes. She doesn’t wear a watch, and one time she experimented with trying to do without a calendar — the idea was to try to keep it all in her head.

Liz is also one of the funniest people I have ever met. Her humor specializes in the absurd, and she takes particular delight in telling a story and then capping it with the punchline, “You can’t make this stuff up.” Her wit is quick, lightning quick, just like the rest of her brain’s workings, and she has reduced me to guffaws on a multitude of occasions. She’s so capable of seeing the irony in a situation, the overview of what’s going on around her, and just how absurd life can be. She could always see the humor in a difficult situation, when other people wouldn’t. For example, when the national Special Olympics were held on all the campuses in our area this past summer, Lawrenceville was completely open to them.

But the only event they chose to run on our campus was flag football. And Liz … well, it was just typical of her to see the utter humor in that.

One more thing – she’s also one of the most

W

hen Michael Cary (H’47 ’03 P’01) told me in September of ’02 that he was stepping down as Head Master at the end of the coming academic year, he said, “Whatever you do, please don’t hire another teacher. This is a business here at Lawrenceville and we need someone who can run it.” It was just a year after the horrors of 9/11, and the School’s investment portfolio was still in shock. We wanted a Head Master with full credentials, but the emphasis was on finding somebody who had a business background and could run an enterprise. Needs change, and executive ability was of primary importance.

Liz’s candidacy was the result of a nudge from John Gutman, Lawrenceville class of ’79, saying to his wife here in Chicago, “I think you ought to apply for that job.” The first endorsement came from Bill Bowen, former president of Princeton and at the time president of The Mellon Foundation.

He wrote and said, “I know Liz Duffy well.

She’s a remarkable woman and could make a wonderful Head Master for the School. I recognize it would be a bold choice, but it would be a brilliant one.” So I approached Tommy Carter (’70 P’01 ’05), who was chairman of the search committee, and asked, given Bill Bowen’s recommendation, if we could interview Liz. When she came to meet with us at Glenn Hutchins’ (’73) office, she knew as much about the School as we did. She put on a very impressive performance.

After the interview, I turned to Ron Rolfe (’63) and said, “Our work is over.” She knocked the cover off the ball against solid candidates with boarding school experience.

She’s a school person, but of a different sort.

She had a broad base of knowledge of the education industry overall, a broad grasp of education in a large sense, and she had run an organization, the Ball Foundation in Chicago. Her background – hands-on running an institution – was both appealing to us and relevant. At the end of January, the search committee took its recommendation to the Board and the Board voted in Liz as the next Head Master.

We were mindful that she was a young, female Head Master, quite aware that this was different from the normal pattern for boarding schools and certainly very different for Lawrenceville. We knew Lawrenceville was a conservative school. It was slow to adopt coeducation relative to many of its peers, so

“

Both then and now, I was impressed by her ability to think strategically. She wasn’t just worried about next year. She was worried about the year after and the year after that. And that’s been the hallmark of her tenure.

”

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selecting a young woman and the first female after 192 years, yes, we anticipated some resistance. I received a few calls from people I might have expected to hear from, and some I didn’t expect to hear from. I simply told them, “Different times call for different kinds of leadership.”

Both then and now, I was impressed by Liz’s ability to think strategically. She wasn’t just worried about next year. She was worried about the year after and the year after that.

And that’s been the hallmark of her tenure.

She’s led significant initiatives, with a very robust commitment to sustainability, a commitment to science and international travel, real strategic thinking about what’s the right direction to take the School, as opposed to just worrying about what we’re going to do next year. She is always thinking ahead. We hired her because we thought she would be able to lead us through the financial side of the equation, and she did lead the School through not one, but two financial crises. She faced and addressed the deferred maintenance problem. What I didn’t know was how able she would prove to be as both a manager and a strategic thinker. That’s hard to judge in advance.

When I think about how effective she is as a manager, I have to stress how superb her appointments were for the various deanships and how the faculty is loaded with talented people. Her broad-based knowledge of education must have been impressive to her peers as well, the other boarding school Head Masters, who elected her to run their organization. I think she will be perceived as someone who thought ahead of almost everybody in the field — regarding sustainability, and I’m thinking now of solar panels, regarding teaching and learning, the science initiatives, and international programs. Particularly in the face of what happened in Paris this winter, could there be a more pressing concern than global education? I just love that Lawrenceville is in the forefront of all these issues.

Liz has worked with four Board presidents, including myself, Ray Viault (’63 P’96), Seth Waugh, and now Tommy Carter, through 12 years, and 12 years is a long run at the school level. Any way you look at it, 12 years is a good run, all the more since she richly rewarded all the faith we placed in her.

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WESBrooks ’71 H’09 P’03 ’05

Chief Financial and Operating Officer

“

Liz’s leadership ability is really impressive. She’s an innate problem-solver who can bring remarkable intelligence and experience to bear on a situation.

”

P

rior to my interview with Lawrenceville in 2006 for the CFO position, I did an analysis of our peer schools and realized that we were in relatively tough financial shape. Early on, Liz advised me to think of Lawrenceville as a 200-year-old startup in that there won’t be enough people to do all the work and there won’t be enough money to do all the things we want to accomplish. She said, we’re going to be making hard decisions. We have a talented group and we will share the tasks as needed to get the job done. That has turned out to be the case, and it has flexed and tested us throughout.

As I understand it, the worst time financially was when Liz was hired in 2003, and I believe she was hired primarily because her work with education foundations had trained her to be a “school doctor” in essence. She was adept at quickly summing up the problems and getting on with fixing them. Our endowment was down 35 percent from 2001 due to the tech wreck, and this meant a smaller flow of income into the School’s budget. Liz was immediately saddled with cutting the budget un-

der a 10-point action plan designed to return the School to financial health. So a number of steps were taken in ’03 and ’04 to bring the School back from the edge. When I got here in ’06, the School was actually doing better and was stabilized. Many of the excess costs had been taken out and the School was on a more even keel, and we were planning a campaign, which was one of the 10 steps to get us to a solid position.

With the economy booming, donations were flowing in nicely, the campaign was in the works, and the School looked like it was poised for the turnaround to continue. Then something happened that was pivotal – in 2007 our steam lines began to fail. We looked at the School’s reserves and there was virtually no funding available for extensive plant repairs. The Board gave us a $25 million commitment from the endowment, which at that time was about 10 percent of the total. We started looking at all the other infrastructure needs and adopted a more deliberate approach to managing our plant, a program that continues. Ultimately, we were able to avoid taking a big endowment draw thanks to the $66 million we received from the estate of Henry Woods.

Liz’s leadership ability is really impressive.

She’s an innate problem-solver who can bring remarkable intelligence and experience to bear on a situation. When the financial crisis hit in late 2008, she was again the right person at the right time. Adopting the expression, “Let’s not waste the crisis,” she gave us the fortitude to make hard decisions.

During the crises, we had to balance fixing the School’s finances with protecting a really important program — financial aid. Through many frank conversations, Liz would point out that the School’s finances were on a good track and that financial aid was vital for the School.

Behind closed doors, Liz and I have debated, but as long as she feels you are doing the job right, she’ll do everything in her power to support you. On the other hand, if she perceives

you’re not on the same wavelength as she is, she’s both courageous and artful at persuading people that they need to change their approach.

She’s very smart and very clear-minded, and as the captain of our ship, she knows the charts better than anybody. She’s a very able skipper; I’d say an exceptionally able skipper.

There’s a story we laugh about now. Liz’s budget rigor extended to the menu at the faculty and staff holiday parties in 2003 and 2008, when things were at their worst financially and we were looking for any savings we could find.

In those years, shrimp cocktail was nowhere to be seen. I nicknamed it the “shrimp index.”

When there’s shrimp, it means the School’s in good shape, and when there’s no shrimp, things are looking tough. I’m happy to report that she leaves us with the shrimp index at an all-time high!

SAMWashington ’81 P’14 ’17

Director of Multicultural Affairs and Senior Associate Dean of Admission

W

hen Liz came on board she sent an email to each member of the faculty and said she’d like to meet

with us individually after July 1, when she officially took over. I met with her literally on her second or third day. At the time my job was just associate dean of admission. One of the first questions she asked me was: What do you do here as the associate dean of admission? So I said, are you asking me what I do, or what do I get paid to do? I talked to her about all the different roles I had with regard to diversity, and eventually Liz created the position I have now. She saw the big picture as far as diversity goes. I get wrapped up in the day-to-day of making things happen, but she’s a visionary.

I work with all the different groups. I work with parents, I work with alums, I work with the Dean of Faculty on recruitment to make sure we have a diverse faculty population.

We’ve always done a great job of bringing a diverse set of students to the campus, and now the challenge is to utilize the diversity we have here. I think our most significant achievement has been bringing voices to the table and giving a wider group of people a place. This is everybody’s school. We all need to have input.

Liz came into a male-dominated culture that had only been coed for 15 years before she

“

Liz has been a personal mentor in a lot of different ways.

I’m a better person for working for Liz.

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arrived. So right away I connected with her.

She was not an outsider, but definitely not part of the establishment. Coming here as a student that’s how I felt, and having the role I took on as an adult that’s how I felt. We saw things from a similar perspective, and Liz has been a personal mentor in a lot of different ways. I’m a better person for working for Liz. Five or six years ago, Liz began to address the content of the curriculum. I joke with people all the time that I’ve lived on this campus for parts of each of the last five decades. I’ve watched this campus evolve and change in all sorts of ways. It’s a very different place right now in most ways. But the one thing that is almost the same is our curriculum. We need a curriculum that’s preparing kids for the world they are entering after Lawrenceville. We’re teaching kids who are going into a global community, and Liz has really pushed the School in that area. We’ve looked at what we need to be doing 10, 15, 20 years from now and how we get started on that. We’ve made some progress; the conversations have begun.

I hope they will continue.

Of course, you have to find a balance. We have a 205-year history that has to be acknowledged and honored. We also have a different set of students here today to be educated and prepared. And sometimes those two things are not aligned. When I came here as a student in 1977 I think mine was the second class that didn’t have to go to Chapel. As a school you have to evolve as the world changes. You can’t stand still and remain world-class. Every time you make a change, somebody will say, hey wait, you can’t change that, that’s my school you’re changing. I try to tell alumni, we’re not changing your school — we’re changing their school. That’s the challenge we face every day going forward.

Liz isn’t running a school 30, 40, 50 years ago, although she’s running a school that has alumni who were here 30, 40, 50 years ago.

She has had to balance and, again, honor tradition and legacy, but at the same time you have to move forward. I’ll give you an analogy. Liz is the tugboat that has to move this big luxury liner. It’s in dock and it only has to be moved a little bit. We’re not trying to change it into a speedboat or anything else, but her job is to pull this luxury liner. You’re not going to pull it far today, but just inch by inch by inch by inch, until you slowly get it where it needs to be. That’s what her job has been here, and in my eyes, she’s done a great job.

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SUE ANNE Steffey Morrow

H’12 School Chaplain and Religion Master

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The third Vespers (in Liz’s honor) is dedicated to our School community, the kind of respect and the tone that is her legacy: A school community where the expectation is that people will respect each other deeply, will come to know each other in our differences, will respect each other not in spite of our differences but because of our differences, and then maybe look more deeply still and find the common ground.

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iz and I first met in 1985, when I was Associate Dean in the Office of Religious Life at Princeton and advisor to the Student Volunteers Council (SVC). She was a member of the SVC Board her sophomore, junior and senior years, and after graduation, became the SVC’s first paid administrator. When Liz joined SVC, we had about 90 students who went out weekly to nine different projects in Mercer County. When she left, we had about 900 students going out weekly. Just like at Lawrenceville, she found great people who wanted to work with and for her. The Student Volunteers Council did everything by consensus, and that’s the way Liz operates.

The growth was the result of her hard work, her vision, her grit, her tenacity, and her commitment to the common good.

I came to Lawrenceville at the same time as Liz. When Dean Catherine Boczkowski (H’80 ’11 P’89 ’91) offered me the position, Liz and I both were delighted to be working together again. I hold Liz in the highest regard as

Head Master, and I think of her as a colleague, companion and friend. She has this capacity to implement a vision — she finds the people who are passionate and who are effective and she brings them together. She builds a team, builds the vision, and she really cares about and supports the people who are sharing the work.

Right from the start, we shared the vision that Lawrenceville could become a truly multi-faith school. We both believe that if each of the religious traditions has a visible place in our school, then students from any tradition will feel welcome here. She showed her support early on, hosting Chapel dinners in Foundation House, coming to the Hindu Holi and Diwali celebrations, the Muslim Eid observances, and the Jewish Passover seders.

We have a Hallelujah service that comes out of the African-American church tradition that she attends regularly. She always reads at Lessons and Carols.

Liz wants student leadership to be one of her legacies — she talks about Harkness, House, and now leadership — the cultivation of student leadership. But for me, just as important, and maybe more important, is the kind of diversity we have in our community, the value of having students from as close as Trenton and as far away as Moldova or Nigeria. When I first started teaching World Religions, and we would talk about religions represented around

MattCampbell Performing Arts Master

I the table, it was mostly Christian, maybe a few Jewish students, maybe here and there a Hindu student. You go around the table now and the variety is stunning. It creates a conversation during Harkness discussions that is unmatched.

Caring deeply about the diversity in our community, the global reach of our curriculum and our academic life, I would say that’s the real legacy. We’ve designed three Vesper services in honor of Liz. The first one in the fall focused on everything she has done to enhance the physical beauty of our school. The one in

February, which featured student musicians, was about what she’s done to strengthen the academic life. The third Vespers is dedicated to our School community, the kind of respect and the tone that is her legacy: A school community where the expectation is that people will respect each other deeply, will come to know each other in our differences, will respect each other not in spite of our differences but because of our differences, and then maybe look more deeply still and find the common ground.

n the spring of 2011, I had the pleasure of joining Head Master Duffy, and Director of Dance Derrick Wilder (and now also Performing Arts Chair), and a courageous group of 18 Lawrenceville students on a trip to Turkey, studying regional dance styles and exploring Turkish culture. It was a fabulous experience and was where I first got to know Liz. When I was asked later if I would be interested in tag-teaming with Liz on a course, “Design for Social Change,” I was immediately intrigued. I do have a design background, and I value collaborative experiences, so it sounded like a great pairing. That’s where I thrive most as a teacher, in a collaborative

“

One of her greatest strengths is her willingness to share in all aspects of any undertaking, from ideas to implementation.

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setting, and I thought an opportunity to work with Liz would be a wonderful experience.

The first term we taught together was last year in the fall, and we’ve co-taught two more sections since. When I think back to our first meeting, I had my own understanding of the design thinking process and ideas for the course. Liz was welcoming and engaging, and she brought her rich expertise not only from creating and teaching the course before, but also from her business background and years as Head Master. She brings a lot of ideas to the table, and although I think that I too am creative, Liz finds connections between patterns and brings inspirations that aren’t my first goto.

Just this past term we were thinking about different areas students could focus on for a particular assignment, and right off the bat she had three really good ideas we hadn’t tried before. She’s like that. I think of Liz as an “ideas person,” and with each idea there is follow-through attached. Her ideas are doable, measurable, and smart. She is exactly the kind of teacher you want in a course that is both ideas-oriented and process-oriented.

In class we build in flexible lab times, when the students consider a lot of divergent information and tap their creativity. It’s a form of controlled chaos, and Liz revels in it. Teaching the design class with Liz has been inspiring, effective, and fun, as has been observing her take the concepts we’re teaching and utilize them in practice.

I will admit that initially I was a little intimidated about teaching with the Head Master.

But from our first meetings back in the spring of 2013, I knew I would be fine. One of her greatest strengths is her willingness to share in all aspects of any undertaking, from ideas to implementation. Working with Liz has been a dynamic collaborative experience, and from our times in the classroom to our moment on the Kirby Arts Center stage to present what we learned in Turkey, I feel very fortunate.

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J. “Allen” Fitzpatrick

’73 H’85 ’89 P’99 ’04 Chair, Visual Arts Department

I

remember when Liz came for her interview and first arrived as a young mother with John and their two kids. We engaged here and there early on, but my first memorable meetings with Liz were three years into her tenure when I became a department chair for the second time. She attended our department chairs meetings, which was different — I’d been a chair earlier and the Head Master never attended – and she really impressed me with a couple of things: Number one, her memory was incredible. As a group we’d try to remember what we had talked about three months before, and Liz would remind us exactly. I was also extremely impressed with the way she managed. She knew how to set the agenda, she knew how to summarize at the end of a meeting, and she knew how to set the table going forward.

Later, I served with Liz on a couple of committees. I served on the budget committee during the retrenchment in 2008, when Liz had to cut the budget hard. It was very challenging process and clearly painful for every-

body, but it was a healthy activity in that it was handled with integrity and was necessary for the long-term health of the School. She was sensitive to the pain it might cause, but at the same time strong enough to do what had to be done. I think her handling of the financial crisis was very skillful and we came out of it in excellent shape.

She was hired for her administrative and financial acumen, and she’s had to make tough decisions. In that vein she has demonstrated a great deal of strength. She’s strong in her convictions and she’s strong in terms of what she can endure. Her capacity for hard work is truly admirable. The School has grown increasingly complex since I returned to teach in 1979 — that’s the nature of running a school today — and I think Liz has structured the senior staff so we aren’t overwhelmed by that complexity.

As a leader Liz seeks counsel, she reaches out to others for their thoughts and expertise, she gets a sense of where things are, and then she is decisive.

Liz is also a good listener, and as she does so she digests quickly, she takes her time to allow for a breadth of discussion, and then she is timely in taking action. And I mean that in multiple ways. She must receive over 1,000 emails each week, and of all the people on campus I send emails to, Liz by far is the most timely in responding. She has thousands of constituents, yet she is always accessible. I’ve always felt I could walk into her office at any time. If she’s working, she’ll stop what she’s doing. I think that’s pretty rare — she’s definitely special in that regard.

I have never seen Liz lose her cool or raise her barometer too high, but I am certain at times it probably was up there. Her composure in the face of a tempest in a teapot with House football was truly remarkable. I fully understand the complexity of the alumni response to House footbal — we all cherish House football as a tradition, but the alumni reaction was extremely discomforting to me as an alum and

“

I’m pleased with what Liz has chosen as her next chapter.

I think for her to be involved with international schools and to be right down the road, it’s a real nice segue.

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Liz Duffy H’43 ’55 ‘79 P’19 and John Gutman ‘79 P’19 with their children, Lucy ’19 (age 14), and Teddy (age 12).

long-time House football coach because so much of it was out of line and misdirected. I knew it was disturbing for Liz, we all knew that, but she never let on. She forged ahead and did her job with impressive integrity.

I am really pleased with what Liz has chosen as her next chapter. I think for her to be involved with international schools and be right down the road is a real nice segue. Liz likes to learn. I think that’s why she came to chairs meetings; I think that’s why she’s teaching a design class. I have watched Liz learn different aspects of the School as she wended her way through. I’d have to say that her greatest achievements are financial aid – she’s been extremely committed to pushing that agenda forward; diversity, in making us an extremely diverse and interesting place to teach; and international travel, which is very important for the world we live in today.

Liz has done great work for Lawrenceville; it has been an honor to work with her and to have her trust in me as a colleague. It is good to know she will be a short distance away and we might see her often – perhaps we will even find her in our classrooms on Parents’ Weekend. That would be a fitting symbol of her growth over these past 12 years, since she and John first arrived with Lucy and Teddy in tow.

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CHRISCunningham P’14 ’18

Dean of Faculty

wo of the things Liz did when she arrived here in 2003 were, first, to talk to every member of the faculty, to invite their perspective on the School and to solicit their advice; and, second, to lead the faculty as a whole in the process of articulating what we were most passionate about and believed was unique and best about Lawrenceville. The answers we provided — House, Harkness, athletic and co-curricular opportunities, diversity and multiculturalism, faculty learning and growth — ultimately became the backbone for the first Strategic Directions plan. In short, Liz began her tenure not by telling us her hopes and visions for Lawrenceville, but by asking Lawrenceville what it hoped and envisioned for itself.

The inventory of programs, initiatives, and bricks-and-mortar transformations we’ve seen over the last 12 years, this period of profound institutional growth and renewal, is in many ways the end result of that plan and those faculty conversations. These accomplishments will touch and improve the lives of students and faculty for literally decades to come.

We have the Carter House, the Joshua Miner Ropes Course, the Al-Rashid Health and Wellness Center, the Stephan Archives, the Solar Farm, the Big Red Farm, and the Getz Sports Complex. We have individuated Crescent Houses, a re-sounded Chapel organ, a renovated Woods Mem Hall, and a reinvigorated and fully modernized Pop Hall. And we will soon have a repurposed Bath House, a new Kirby Math Building, and still further on the horizon, a reimagined Abbott Dining Hall.

We have widely lauded programs in sustainability, interdisciplinary studies, and teaching and learning, and a curriculum that balances foundational experiences in all disciplines with opportunities to pursue intellectual passions. We have greater financial aid resources, allowing us to admit more of the students we want to admit. We have more diverse student and faculty bodies — and a more diverse Board — so the School is more reflective of a globalizing United States, making Lawrenceville a truly American boarding school.

We have sent hundreds of students all over the world for life-changing travel and learning experiences. We have Corrente faculty travel grants, Penn teaching fellows, endowed support for faculty professional development, Hutchins and Heely and Rising Scholars, more competitive faculty salaries, 12 new faculty teaching chairs, and a renewed commitment

to and endowed support for regular faculty sabbaticals. Not to mention new steam pipes, a successful capital campaign, a more than doubled endowment, and financial health and stability.

But what I really want to focus on is not what Liz did, but rather how she did it, on Liz as a leader.

She has introduced us to the Hedgehog concept, polarity maps, the design thinking process, the colored hats exercise, circle/square/triangles prompts, and SWOT surveys — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Just this past week in our Senior Staff meeting, we met the three “Ws” — I wish, I wonder, I worry.

Anyone who has been here for the last 12 years has at some point participated in these exercises and others like them. If Liz is going to run a meeting, the odds are good that a lot of perfectly innocent Post-It notes will die. But what all these things have in common is an approach, a

“

Liz has been a kind of Harkness leader — a Harkness Head Master if you will… She created the opportunities over and over again for us to think creatively and critically and concretely, to articulate our values and aspirations so that we could become the School we want to be.

”

leadership stance that invites participation, that encourages the airing and elaboration of multiple points of view — and facilitates discussion and exchange and collaboration.

A Harkness teacher isn’t great because she has great ideas, but because he creates opportunities for students to have great ideas. In this sense, Liz has been a kind of Harkness leader — a Harkness Head Master if you will. As teachers, we understand that the essence of our job isn’t to change students — not to fix them or re-make them in some image we have of them — but rather to help them look outside and inside themselves to discover and then realize — make real — who they want to be.

In the same way, looking back on Liz’s tenure, her greatest accomplishment is not any individual building or program – ok, the money thing was pretty good – but rather that she created the opportunities over and over again for us to think creatively and critically and concretely, to articulate our values and aspirations so that we could become the School we want to be.

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Remember when

at the KAC

By Lisa gillard hanson

Before the Allan P. Kirby Arts Center (KAC) officially opened in 1963, all the campus was “a stage.” Plays took place in the Woods Memorial

Hall Auditorium (now the Heely Room), the John A. Dixon Library Rotunda, the old Field House — anywhere thespians could find a space.

Clearly, the arts needed a home and, through the generosity of Allan P. Kirby (Class of 1913) H’63 P’38 GP’70 ’77 ’80 ’83 ’06 ’11 ’12 and the F.M. Kirby Foundation, an outstanding one was conceived and created for both the performing and visual arts.

The building, according to the wife of former Head Master Bruce McClellan, Mary Elizabeth McClellan H’50 ’52 ’57 ’59 ’79, is “very proudly sited at the end of The Bowl.”

It was “wonderful,” she remarked for Lawrenceville to have such an important building dedicated to the arts. “It opened up so many opportunities for the drama department,” she said.

Award-winning artists, scientists, historians, researchers, writers, entrepreneurs, politicians and community servants have all shared their wisdom with Lawrentians in the KAC. Former History Master Ed Robbins H’68 ’69 ’71 ’11, who for many years, scheduled many of the speakers who came to the School, said his goal was to book people who would “challenge the students. I never wanted to give them talks by people they knew. That’s not education.” Guest speakers and performers have ranged from the first female Supreme Court Justice (Sandra Day O’Connor) and the first democratically elected President of Poland (Lech Walesa) to comedian Jon Stewart and singer/songwriter 36

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Jimmy Buffett P’10. Though many guests have been great, Lawrenceville was proud in 1972 to host “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali. Allen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 ’89 P’99 ’04, chair of the Visual Arts Department, recalled: “Everyone in the audience was pretty much spellbound.

Someone asked him if he would show us how he could ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.’ He asked us, ‘Who is the baddest boy in your school?’ Everyone started chanting, ‘Swanezy! Swanezy!’ for Scott Swanezy ’73.

Ali called him up on to the stage. Scott, with an open fist, started shadowboxing with Ali. Ali feined and deked, then all of a sudden he threw a series of six open fist punches. He never hit Swanezy, and we were all blown away.

It was like watching a cobra. The place went nuts.”

All of the luminaries, of course, haven’t been outsiders. The former President of Honduras, Ricardo Maduro ’63, HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal ’63 P’94 ’07 (Saudi Arabia’s

chief of intelligence for more than 25 years and past Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States), and pop star Huey Lewis ’67 (to name just a few) all made the move from the audience to the stage to share their experiences with current students.

The KAC was, and remains, a state-of-theart performance space — but Lawrentians haven’t hesitated to push that space to its limits. According to History Master John Sauerman H’84: “For the School’s 175th anniversary, (former Head Master) Bruce (McClellan) decided we were going to have this magic show for the students. One of the features was this special act where a lion would be made to disappear… I don’t know how the magician did it, but the lion did, in fact, disappear.”

Nearly every Lawrentian has a memory of some magical KAC moment — and here are some they shared:

.

.

Former Chief Operating Officer, Squarespace

DreamWorks Animation, Senior Development Executive

Jesse F. Hertzberg ’90

“Where to begin? The bounty of life lessons given to me by Penny Reed and Jim Olson serve me well to this day, starting with the centrality of empathy and compassion in finding happiness. Inside KAC I learned to confront my fears and perform in front of others, I learned to write plays and admit childhood damage that was holding me back, I learned what failure felt like in losing elections and how to grow stronger from it, I discovered my leadership and creativity in directing others, and I learned about falling in love. It was my second home on campus and no single story can do that justice.”

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Chris Kuser ’86

“I think my fondest memory of the Kirby Arts Center is performing ‘The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends’ with my classmate Jim Gross ’86 and the rest of the company in the spring 1986 production of ‘Oklahoma!’ With the end of our time at Lawrenceville then in sight, it seems to me that our song became about more than just its purpose in the story or even the fun of doing a production number well. At that point in our lives, it became a celebration of friendship generally and of the specific friendships we had built over five years at Lawrenceville. We really knocked ’em out with that number, and I think it’s because the audience could tell that this was more than just a song for us. It was a statement about everything we’d come believe in, and be for each other, at Lawrenceville.”

A.J. Ernst ’06 Dean of Culture, Young Scholars Charter School “I performed a promotion for an upcoming Dance Concert with four friends at Community Meeting. The Dance Concert was not as popular when I was a student. We were nervous not as many people would attend. Four guys and I secretly rehearsed in the KAC for a couple of weeks and did a surprise performance at Community Meeting. Truthfully, it was just a moment that was euphoric. Fortunately someone caught a video of it... although it doesn’t do justice to the feeling that morning.

That building was like a second home with (Colette) Burns, Chris Cull and the late Mrs. (Jean) Stephens. It is in that building and through those experiences that I am the person I am today. I started Lawrenceville a shy, introvert and left it with enough confidence to perform at the college level. Most importantly, I use that skill set every day as a teacher and dean of a charter school in Philadelphia.”

.

Nick Fenton ’13

University of Virginia ’17 “As Student Body President, I always tried to look at Friday School Meetings as the one time during the busy Lawrenceville week when our entire community could come together under one roof. My memories of the KAC are filled with this concept of community. Lawrenceville’s diversity is its greatest strength, but that diversity is only meaningful when Lawrenceville is united. I always felt that every Friday, by reflecting and being together as a large group, our community was making an effort to strengthen relationships.”

Cast of “Oklahoma!,” 1987

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Caroline Reese ’09 Performing Artist

“One of my first public performances ever was at School meeting in the KAC. I was in a band called Wovoka with Lawrentians Lizzie Quinlan ’09 and Bridgid Ruf ’10. Lizzie played the harp, I played acoustic guitar, and Bridgid played the viola. Bea Clark ’10 and Mary Ruf ’09 joined us on violin, and Isabelle Clark ’10 joined us on the cello — and we performed Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida.’ It was one of the first times I felt like maybe I SHOULD pursue music. Here I am seven years later at it full time, and my band and Lizzie Quinlan’s band have an upcoming show together in Washington, D.C.!”

Caroline Reese ’09, third from left

Monica Yunus ’95

Soprano and Co-Founder, Sing for Hope “When Lawrenceville instituted the prefect system, and I became a prefect, I had to speak at the KAC. It was a different kind of stage experience for me. Singing in front of an audience had its own kind of nerves, but none that came close to this. This time, I was speaking in front of not just my Fifth Form peers, but the entire school. It was terrifying and exciting all at the same time.”

Chris Cull James Cleary ’08

James Cleary ’08

Professional Ballet Dancer “Dance Director Derrick Wilder (now Chair of Performing Arts) showed me a video of Carlos Acosta’s performing the male solo from the ballet ‘Don Quixote’ and asked me if I wanted to do that for a career. I remember saying yes and deciding to take a huge risk and follow an alternative path versus the path of the Goldman Sachs financial analyst.

I remember my first time going out on the KAC stage as a dancer and I knew that I had found what I wanted to do with my life. I remembered it years later when I took my first bows at the Joyce Theatre in New York City, The Rimsky Korsakov in St. Petersburg and the Smith Center in Las Vegas, and my thoughts returned, once again to the marble lobby, to the warmth of the upholstery on the weathered couch in Mrs. (Jean) Stephen’s office, and to the smell of scripts handed out in the lounge during Periwig preseason. Most importantly, I continue to remember the sweat pouring off my face during free periods spent in the dance studio practicing pirouettes and double tours, doubled over in content and elated exhaustion, knowing that I had discovered the most adamant cornerstone of both who and what I was.”

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Lawrenceville Director of Theatre, (Former) Performing Arts Chair “The year before Liz Duffy was inducted as Head Master, the students put on a David Mamet production, ‘Duck Variations.’ To celebrate the actual induction, we put on an 80-minute show, including a production of ‘Induction Variations.’ It was a lot of sophomoric, Triangle-Club stuff, but a lot of fun.”

Allen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 ’89 P’99 ’04

Chair, Lawrenceville Visual Arts Department “I recall teaching my first Parents’ Weekend (as a faculty member) here in 1979. I distinctly remember the nervous sweat running down my back. My classroom, in the KAC, was also the office of my department chair, Jack Garver. His guidance and help were pretty critical. Having that kind of transparency in my early career was awesome. I don’t think I would have asked for it at the time, but I ended up liking and appreciating it a great deal.”

Lawrenceville Loses a Star

I Colette Burns

Performing Arts Office Manager “My office in the KAC is sort of the go-to place for anyone with a problem! Everything from complaining about classes, to being upset because maybe their director was a little rough on them, to ‘My mom didn’t call me today.’ Sometimes, they just need a hug. They don’t want to talk about something; they just want to know someone is there.

They celebrate, too. When they get into their colleges or have a good rehearsal or get excited about a show. It makes me feel really good. It’s nice to be a part of it all. When they come back to campus to visit, they make sure they come back to see me.”

Rob McClellan H’65 P’10

Director of the Pennington School Fund “It was a big deal to go to the Periwig plays — just like the real thing!

To this day I remember Broadway show tunes because of this. Some memorable shows include ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ ‘Where’s Charlie?’ ‘Oklahoma!’ ‘We Bombed in New Haven,’ ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun,’ and of course ‘South Pacific.’

From time to time regular movies would be shown in KAC because the Field House was busy. How about that? Movies in a theater! Used to love watching from the balcony.”

The building has changed over the years but, James Cleary noted, KAC remains “the heartbeat and the embodiment of what the Lawrenceville School actually stands for. It is a home within a home: a place in which we can create and shape our passion, our dedication and our discipline as we continue to grow and discover who we are.”

Allen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 ’89 P’99 ’04

t was with great sadness that the School community learned of the death on Feb. 12 of a true Lawrenceville star: Jean Roper Samuels Stephens H’50 ’59 ’61 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06.

She was born in Princeton on May 15, 1934.

The daughter of Norvell Brockman Samuels and Laura Roper Samuels, Jean married Wade Carroll Stephens ’50 H’68 P’78 GP’06 in 1954. She is survived by Standing is Peggy, Jean’s daughter-in-law, & David Betsy Stephens Ellsworth her son. Seated next to Jean is her daughter Betsy.

(Scott), Carol Underwood Stephens (John Havran), David Brockman Stephens ’78 P’06 (Peggy); and four grandchildren, Wade Stephens ’06, Carter Stephens, John Ellsworth, and William Ellsworth.

Jean graduated from Miss Fine’s School in 1952; she also attended Colby-Sawyer College. She was a member of many clubs and organizations including The Nassau Club, the English Speaking Union, the Colonial Dames, the First Families of Virginia, and the Actors’ Equity. She served as an election-board worker in Lawrence Township for several decades. She belonged to Trinity Church in Princeton, where she had been head of the Altar Guild and volunteered in numerous other capacities.

Jean, who came to Lawrenceville in 1957 as a young faculty bride, was the heart of the School’s Performing Arts program for more than five decades.

Jean moved into Hamill House in 1959 when Wade was appointed Housemaster, and spent 10 years as “Housemother” and theatrical mentor to a string of Hamill boys as she raised her own children. When celebrating her 50th anniversary at Lawrenceville, Jean recalled, “Even now, Hamill is always well represented in Periwig. Come to think of it, so is Stephens.”

(Stephens is the Crescent House named for Wade when coeducation came to Lawrenceville in 1987.)

“Wade joined the faculty as classics master straight out of graduate school and immediately was made chair of the department,” Jean said. “Later, he taught in virtually every department, was chair of Foreign Languages, and then was appointed Dean of Studies, with responsibility for the entire academic side of the School.”

So how did Jean, with myriad other responsibilities, become synonymous with an all-male drama program? “I’ve always had the acting bug,” Jean said. “And it really wasn’t all-male.We used to audition girls from local schools and we’d get the cream of the crop.”

The lights at the Kirby Arts Center seemed to shine brightest, however, when Jean was on stage. She participated in 78 Periwig performances, including two memorable turns as “Nurse Ratchet” in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” She also starred twice as “Sarah Brown” in “Guys and Dolls.”

Jean was just as active behind the scenes as she was in the limelight. She was a drama master from 1985 until her death. Jean was also a makeup advisor and costume consultant but her specialty, she said, was voice and diction. Jean taught public speaking, Shakespeare, and other related courses before becoming the official advisor to Periwig.

Jean was always a cheerleader for the importance of theatrical studies at Lawrenceville “I’ve seen a lot of change in Lawrenceville over the years, most of it for the better,” she said, “and the growth of the drama program has been wonderful. Without it, many students wouldn’t have the opportunity to develop the skills and confidence it provides. These are skills they can take into a variety of roles as they progress through life.”

For those wishing to honor Jean’s memory, gifts may be made to The Lawrenceville Performing Arts Camp (which she co-founded), The Lawrenceville School, Box 6125, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648.

S P RIN G

2015

39

Dear Lawrentians,

The Alumni Association Executive Committee

President

Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91 First Vice President

Ian Rice ’95 Second Vice President

David B. Stephens ’78 P’06 Executive Committee

Scott A. Belair ’65 P’08 ’09 Catherine E. Bramhall ’88 Biff Cahill Jr. ’68 P’09 Bruce Hager ’72 Charlie C. Keller ’95 J. Gregg Miller ’62 Brendan T. O’Reilly ’83 P’16 Anastacia Gordon ’07 Emily Starkey ’03 Alumni Trustees

Hyman J. Brody ’75 P’07 ’08 ’11 Joseph B. Frumkin ’76 P’11 Leigh Lockwood ’65 P’97 ’02 Kathleen W. McMahon ’92 selectors

George Arnett ’79 P’16 Meghan Hall Donaldson ’90 Elizabeth M. Gough ’03 Heather Elliott Hoover ’91 John C. Hover II ’61 P’91 Paul T. Sweeney ’82 faculty liaison

Timothy C. Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99

40

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

By the time you read this letter, it will be spring, and I will have served nearly a full year as your Alumni Association president. I have enjoyed the first few months of my term, and it has been a pleasure to represent our School and ensure a robust and connected alumni community. We are off to a great start tackling the goals we set for the term of my presidency, the highlights of which are outlined below. I hope that you will take a few moments to read them, and, of course, to email me, or one of the other officers, with any thoughts or suggestions.

Our regional clubs continue to be an invaluable connector for our 15,000 alumni worldwide. I would like to continue to engage club presidents and regional volunteers, and to establish a Club Chair Newsletter, to continue a sense of community among members of the regional clubs and club chairs outside of club events. It will also remain a priority to increase event opportunities in hard-to-reach locations.

It is crucial to keep the lines of communication open between prospective legacy families and the Admission Office at Lawrenceville. To that end, the Admissions Committee of the Alumni Association Executive Committee (AAEC) will continue to work with the Admission Office to send letters to legacy applicants and their families regarding the admission process and to help recruit alumni interviewers.

Class achievement is a cornerstone of our overall alumni activities. The Class Achievement Committee of the AAEC will continue to strategize ways to engage alumni in School activities, from submitting news items for class notes to making a gift to The Lawrenceville Fund. We hope to re-launch “Decade Dinners” to provide an opportunity for alumni from various eras to come together and learn about new developments at our School.

The Student Relations Committee of the AAEC has revived a historic Lawrenceville student group this fall, the Open Door Society. For those unfamiliar, the Open Door Society is a group of student leaders who serve as ambassadors for Lawrenceville. The Open Door students have been a friendly presence at various alumni functions so far this year, including the Aldo Leopold Award ceremony and a Legends Luncheon. We look forward to continuing to work with the students and allowing opportunities for our alumni to connect with them.

We created two ad hoc committees of the AAEC for the 2014-15 year that have two key tasks: to review the bylaws of the Alumni Association, making revisions as necessary, and to take ownership of completing a revised third edition of The Lawrenceville Lexicon, our encyclopedia of all things Lawrenceville.

Of course, these tasks will not take away from the most important objectives of the Alumni Association – to bring the Lawrenceville community and our alumni all around the world together through tradition, participation, special events, and Harkness-style conversations about Lawrenceville’s future. If you have not been to campus recently, I strongly encourage you to visit. Campus looks better than ever, and our students bring new ideas and enthusiasm that make the School come alive.

Please feel free to reach out to me with any thoughts or suggestions you might have about Lawrenceville or the Alumni Association. Go, Big Red! Sincerely, Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91 President, Alumni Association jstaikos@gmail.com

56

By the Numbers

International Programs EDITION

Figures represent 2010-2015

Number of faculty

Peru 12 vacCines

Country requiring the most

Most frequently traveled destinations

3

Number of

30

states

countries

visited

visited

Number of

880 Number of

immunizations

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

202

Number of professional for faculty involved in the program (conferences and

Amount of financial assistance provided to our student travelers

trainings)

20

The combined number of trips traveled by: Michael Hanewald ‘90 Cara Hyson P’14 ‘16,

*This number doesn’t include costs associated with vaccines and other necessary travel items for students on financial assistance.

$ 8.1

Million

student

international

travelers

travel program endowment

76

student programs

development days

*$804,452

Mexico 9 times China 7 times

vaccinations and

who have traveled on

Louise Wright

 winners of the “most frequent flyer” award

Student Shot

by Mackenzie Howe ’15

SPRING

2015

C3

Lawrentian THE

usps no. 306-700 the Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648 Parents of alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us at vavanisko@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!