The Lawrentian - Summer 2012

Lawrentian THE

Summer 2012

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l arw re tht e hlea w en tn i atni a n

Departments 2 From the Head Master 3 Editor’s Note 4 1,000 Words Lawrenceville lets the sun shine in.

6 News in Brief A fracking feud, Lawrentians wear waste, and Rash gets a leg up.

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10 Sports Roundup Winter sports stats.

14 On the Arts A new gallery space features Buechner’s art and soul.

18 Q&A Cara Hyson P’14 clears up some Middle East myths.

21 Classroom 2.0 Tablets get put to the test.

22 Ask the Archivist “Our Boys from Syria” make their mark.

26 Take This Job and Love It

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26

Kate Berglund Fernandez ’01 builds a Pakistani partnership.

80 Photo Finish

ho are these people? Write the caption, W win a prize.

Features

Alumni

Reports on the Muslim World

44 Alumni News

28 Lebanon: Where Chaos Meets Charm, by Paige Kollock ’96 32 Syria: Diversity in Damascus, by Cole Murray ’02 34 Egypt: A New Islamic Influence, by Timothy Warren ’72 38 Jordan: Gray’s Academy, by Phoebe Outerbridge

45 Board Bits Trustee news in a nutshell.

47 Class Notes

40 Saudi Arabia: The Quest for Status Quo, by David B. Ottaway ’57

On the Cover: Illustration by Stephanie Dalton Cowan.

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9 From the Head Master

L

awrenceville is truly a global boarding school. I had that epiphany last March during spring break when I traveled to Turkey with 19 students and two other faculty members. We visited Istanbul and the Aegean coast as part of the School’s international program. Thanks to the generosity of Trustee Judith Corrente H’01 P’98 ’01 and her husband, Wim Kooyker P’98 ’01, each year over 200 students, faculty, and staff travel overseas on 10-day to monthlong trips connected with a class, a co-curricular activity, or a community service project. The Turkey trip was led by Dance Master Derrick Wilder, so in addition to spending time at Robert College and visiting various ruins and historic sites, we took traditional Turkish folk dance lessons. When we returned to Lawrenceville, we shared what we had learned with the campus community by performing at the School’s annual Spring Dance Concert.

My epiphany came early on our trip when we learned of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. One of the students on our trip was from Japan, so we worked with him throughout the day to contact his family members in Tokyo, who, fortunately, were safe. The tsunami also affected another Lawrenceville trip, as I learned via an email that evening from Mike Hanewald ’90, the director of international programs, alerting me that the students and faculty on our Galapagos trip had been moved to higher ground in case the tsunami flooded the coast there. That day, there was news of further protests in the Middle East, too. We had originally planned to travel to Turkey and Egypt, but we confined our trip to Turkey after the Egyptian protests earlier that winter. Although Turkey remained calm throughout our travels, the Arab Spring uprisings were never far from our minds because another student on our trip was from Bahrain. As I’m sure most of you have experienced throughout your lives, events in faraway places become both more immediate and more complex when you have personal connections there. In that spirit, in this issue of The Lawrentian, we’ve asked Lawrenceville alumni with connections to the Middle East to share their perspectives on recent events there.

While leading a global boarding school can be a 24-7 proposition, it’s exhilarating to study, live, and travel with students from around the world. On our trip to Turkey, in addition to the students from Bahrain and Japan, we had students and faculty from Canada, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii, California, Washington D.C., Ohio, Delaware, Massachusetts, Georgia, and the tri-state area. Some students had traveled extensively; for others, this was their first extended trip overseas. We were also of many races and ethnicities, and we came from a variety of religious traditions. At times our varied backgrounds made us a conspicuous presence, but they also greatly enhanced the trip, as all of us responded to the many new sites and encounters we had each day in different ways, which made our collective experience that much richer.

That same richness, of course, can be found around Lawrenceville’s Harkness tables and in our Houses, which is what makes the School such a vibrant place to teach and learn.

Virtus Semper Viridis,

Elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head Master

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9 From the Editor

Lawrentian THE

Summer 2012

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Volume 76 Number 3

publisher Jennifer Szwalek editor Mike Allegra art director Phyllis Lerner proofreaders Paul Mott, Jr. ’47 P’76 ’85 Rob Reinalda ’76 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 ’61 ’62 ’64 GP’06 ’08 Jean Stephens H’50 ’59 ’61 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06 contributors Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 Lisa M. Gillard Hanson Jacqueline Haun Paige Kollock ’96 Kelly Mangini Cole Murray ’02 David Ottaway ‘57 Phoebe Outerbridge Selena Smith Paloma Torres Nicole Uliasz Zoe Vybiral-Bauske Tim Warren ’72 Zack Weaver ’12

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 correspondence 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 e-mail (mallegra@lawrenceville.org).

Visit us on the web at www.lawrenceville.org. www.lawrenceville.org/thelawrentian Postmaster

Please send address corrections to: The Lawrentian The Lawrenceville School P.O. Box 6008 Lawrenceville, NJ 08648

O

ver the past few years, American eyes have been focused on the Middle East with a level of intensity not seen in decades. This is understandable. The area is the home base of al Qaeda; it’s where our troops have been fighting; it’s where much of our oil comes from; and it’s where the riveting democratic movement, the Arab Spring, turned into an Arab Summer, Arab Fall, Arab Winter, and Arab Spring once again.

But all that, of course, is just one small part of the story. The Middle East is home to an impressive history and rich varied cultures that often defy fitting neatly into the cable news narrative.

So it is left up to Lawrentians to offer up a more balanced and measured account of what’s going on. And thank goodness for that. This special theme issue of The Lawrentian has six stories by or about alums who know the Muslim world about as well as any outsider can, by getting their boots on the ground and living among and interacting with the native population.

The key word in the preceding paragraph is “outsider.” Over the last few decades, The Lawrenceville School has been blessed with a large and diverse international student population, including many from the Middle East. I chose not to tap this particular resource, however. My reasoning is that a Lawrentian who was born and raised in Syria, for example, will not be surprised about what Syria or Syrians are like. Cole Murray ’02, on the other hand, who decided to move to Syria to immerse himself in the Arabic language, had just such a surprise. So, while technically, this is an issue about the Muslim World, it is also an issue about American perceptions coming into contact with reality. The results are stories that are often personal and sometimes profound.

I am grateful to David Ottaway ’57, Tim Warren ’72, Paige Kollock ’96, and Murray who contributed stories on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, respectively; as well as Kate Berglund ’01 and Lacey Gray ’02 who agreed to share their thoughts on Pakistan and Jordan.

I know there are more of you out there who can contribute to this issue’s theme. I also know there are many countries that are not covered here. So I welcome you all to write me a note and share your own thoughts and experiences. Only through such exchanges can we achieve genuine understanding.

Warmest wishes, Mike Allegra Editor mallegra@lawrenceville.org

©The Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey All rights reserved.

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9 1000 Words

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Photograph by Michael Mancuso

A Place in the

Sun

Spanning 30 acres and consisting of 24,934 panels, Lawrenceville’s newly christened 6.1 megawatt solar farm will provide approximately 90 percent of the School’s electrical needs. And, with the planting of flowers between the panels, the site will also be the home for up to 900,000 honeybees.

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TrasHionistas Hit the Runway Why throw out garbage when you can use it to look fabulous?

As part of the Lawrenceville School’s annual participation in the Green Cup Challenge, the multi-school sustainability and conservation competition between independent schools, students decided to discover the latest styles by perusing the wastebaskets.

Dozens of students showed off their wares (and wears) to a hooting, approving crowd at the Kirby Arts Center, proving once and for all that newspapers, garbage bags, duct tape, and a generous smattering of creativity can make a surprisingly impressive outfit. (Dry clean only.)

Daniels Waxes Poetic

In February, Professor Jim Daniels was welcomed to the Lawrenceville campus as the latest guest of the Merrill Poetry Seminar. During his visit he was a guest lecturer in English classes and, that evening, read from his works in the Edith Memorial Chapel.

The Thomas Stockham Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, Daniels has written several books including Trigger Man, Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry, In Line for the Exterminator, and From Milltown to Malltown (a collaboration with photographer Charlee Brodsky and writer Jane McCafferty). In 2007, he was awarded the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize for his collection Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies. He has edited or coedited four anthologies, and his poems have been

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featured in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Billy Collins’ Poetry 180 anthologies, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry series, the Pushcart Prize anthologies, and the Best American Poetry anthologies.

At Carnegie Mellon, he received the Ryan Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Teaching and Educational Service, and a Faculty Service Award from the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association.

The Merrill Poetry Seminar commemorates Pulitzer Prize-winning alumnus and poet James Merrill ’43. Former participants have included Billy Collins, Louise Glück, Robert Hass, Naomi Shihab Nye, Charles Simic, and Mark Strand.

Masters

Awarded Cunningham cultivates community

G Ed Robbins' son, Philip Robbins, Head Master Liz Duffy, and Ed Robbins.

English Master Christopher Cunningham P’14, who holds the Robert S. and Christina Seix Dow Distinguished Mas-

In February, Lawrenceville presented Edward A. Robbins H’68 ’69 ’71 ’11 and the late Thomas S. Page H’66 with the Masters Award. The annual award was created in 1996 by the Lawrenceville Alumni Association to honor distinguished former faculty. Since then, 36 masters have been honored for “remarkable and exceptional classroom teaching and mentoring.”

Page joined Lawrenceville’s English Department in 1945 and served as housemaster of Thomas from 1945 to 1948, as Form head for the First and Second forms until the mid-1960s, and as advisor to the Chapel Ushers and the Open Door Society. The author of Essentials of Grammar and Composition for the Independent School, he taught English and grammar to generations of Lawrentians. In response to the question, “Why Teach?” Tom told the editors of The Lawrentian in 1963: “What a question to ask any teacher who enjoys his work! Let’s limit the discussion to teaching at a school.

Whereas a college professor’s primary commitment is to his subject, a school teacher’s first concern is the student.” Lawrenceville students were Tom’s primary con-

cern for 29 years. He passed away in 2005. Dr. John Harmon, the director of surgical research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Page’s nephew, accepted the Masters Award on the master’s behalf.

Robbins, the longest-serving master in Lawrenceville’s history, taught Latin, Greek, and classical studies during a 48-year tenure that concluded with his retirement in June 2011. In addition to his accomplishments in the classroom, Ed served as advisor to The Lawrence, and as chairman of both the Classics Department and the Heely Lecture Series. Over nearly five decades, he helped shape the culture of the School and generations of its students.

“Since I loathe speechifying,” Robbins announced at the ceremony, “I almost wish that this great honor would be given to me posthumously, rather than emeritously.” He went on to regale the guests with anecdotes that illustrated how his own education had influenced his development as a teacher. “So with that background… I arrived at Lawrenceville, where I have enjoyed just about every moment of the last 48 years.”

ter Teaching Chair in Harkness Learning, has been named the Lawrenceville School's next dean of faculty. Current Dean of Faculty Kevin Mattingly P'99 '01 will continue to serve Lawrenceville as its director of teaching, learning, and educational partnerships.

Cunningham has been the School’s Third Form English curriculum coordinator, acting chair of the English Department, the chair of the Discipline Committee, and a member of many other School committees during his nine years at Lawrenceville. His role as the head coach of the girls’ varsity cross country team earned him Coach of the Year honors from the Trenton Times, Trentonian, and

Star-Ledger in 2011.

Cunningham received his A.B. in modern thought and literature, Phi Beta Kappa, from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in literature from Duke University. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Cunningham’s poetry, criticism, and reviews have appeared in many prestigious magazines and anthologies; he has completed a collection of poetry,

No Stranger but Ourself; and is working on a book of poetry titled Mr. Anderson.

Cunningham is looking forward to taking on his new role to support the efforts of Lawrenceville teachers. “I’m excited to be part of the ongoing conversations about curriculum and Harkness teaching,” he said. “Lawrenceville is not only a community where we teach and coach and housemaster and advise but also a place where faculty live their lives, raise their children, and form the friendships and relationships that sustain them. I’m eager to find new ways to support that community.”

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Tracking fracking

By Zack Weaver ‘12

to the methods involved in removing the gas. John Salemi ’13 (playing the role of a physician) cited evidence that fracking was detrimental to human health, and Michaela Levine ’12 (a groundwater hydrologist) backed up his claim, explaining that the process often results in chemicals' leaching into groundwater. Mike Allen ’13 (a Delaware River Basin Committee lobbyist) argued that fracking was detrimental to the environment because the process has unknown effects on the stability of the shale and its support of the ground above it. Nick Giacco ’13 (a wind power company executive) then pointed out that the process is particularly

Lawrenceville’s environmental science classes split into two teams. Nikolay Stambolski ’13 served as the lead lawyer to argue on behalf of fracking, and Ieva Steponaviciute ’13, argued the case against.

T

he method of drilling for natural gas known as hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) has come under intense scrutiny recently as the alleged cause of a host of environmental problems – from disturbing natural habitats to contaminating drinking water. For these reasons and more, many lawsuits have been filed against natural gas companies. These cases, however, have often been bogged down by bureaucratic proceedings and inconclusive verdicts.

To rectify this, Lawrenceville’s environmental science classes split into two teams to try the case on their own. Part theatre, part forensics match,

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part Law & Order, these mock trials were held in the Kirby Science Center lecture hall. Nikolay Stambolski ’13 served as the lead lawyer to argue on behalf of fracking, and Ieva Steponaviciute ’13, argued the case against.

First Stambolski and Steponaviciute ran through an abridged history of the issue, zeroing in on the history of fracking in Pennsylvania – recounting that rigs were introduced in the region in 2000 with nine drilling operations. Within a decade, 60 sites were in operation in the state with 1,386 wells.

The team against fracking made the case that natural gas drilling is dangerous and harmful due

dangerous as explosions fueled by uncontrolled pockets of gas often occur.

The arguments on behalf of fracking were largely economic. Charlie Gallager ’12, (a gas company executive) laid the groundwork for the case against a moratorium on drilling, arguing that the industry would create more than 111,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania and generate $987 million in revenue for the state in the form of taxes. Cris Palacios ’13 (serving as the mayor of a Pennsylvania town) provided insight into what the jobs that Gallager discussed meant for the local economy. Then, in direct contradiction of the argument made by Salemi and Levine, Jake Cooper ’12 (a geologist) explained that the fracking process was very safe and that safety records are “stellar” despite a few mishaps, which are often cited as “normal.” He then explained what the fracking process entails: boring vertically into the Earth – usually a mile or more down – turning the drill head horizontally and boring into the layer of shale containing natural gas, and then pumping fracking fluid down the well at high pressure. The fluid works its way into cracks in the shale and expands them, creating capillary-like passageways for the natural gas to travel through to reach the surface and be collected.

After closing arguments, the panel of faculty judges deliberated. Like many of the real trials that have preceded it, however, the judges were unable to declare a clear victor. Regardless, all those involved in the trial raved about the experience and believe it truly enhanced their knowledge of the topic and the surrounding controversy. Allen said, “The opportunity gave us the unique perspective of seeing this issue from both sides.”

a rash of success The winter issue of The Lawrentian featured Jim Rash ’90 – aka Dean Pelton from the cult NBC show Community and the co-screenwriter of the thensoon-to-be-released George Clooney film, The Descendants.

Now The Lawrentian is delighted to report that Rash is the Oscar-winning co-screenwriter of The Descendants. He, along with co-writers Nat Faxton and co-writer/director Alexander Payne, took home best adapted screenplay honors.

Although Payne did all of the talking during the acceptance speech, Rash generated all the post-ceremony buzz with his onstage imitation of Oscar presenter Angelina Jolie, who seemingly spent the entire evening posing awkwardly to show off her right leg. Rash, who began his acting and writing career doing improv with The Groundlings, mimicked Jolie’s body language and brought down the house.

It turned out to be a good month for Rash; almost immediately after his Oscar win, it was announced the he and Faxton had sold an as-yet-untitled action comedy script that will star Kristen Wiig (co-writer and star of the 2011 megahit Bridesmaids). And, as if that wasn’t enough good news, Rash and Faxon’s screenplay, The Way, Way Back, which has been circulating around Hollywood for years, has, at long last, been green-lighted – with the writing duo slated to direct.

G Jolie, Rash, and their legs.



Lawrenceville Remembers Bill Tredway The Lawrenceville School is saddened to report the passing of former English Master Bill Tredway H’81 ’88 ’10, who died on December 24. An English master on Lawrenceville’s Carol and W. Graham Cole, Jr. Distinguished Teaching Chair, Tredway was hired at The Lawrenceville

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“Bill’s care for and commitment to students was legendary, as was his sense of humor and passion for teaching,” said Head Master Liz Duffy H’43.

During his Lawrenceville career, Tredway served as an assistant housemaster in both Kennedy and Hamill House, and housemaster in both Davidson and Hamill. He was an avid skier and coached the sport at the School. He also coached the boys’ junior varsity soccer team.

A memorial service was held on Jan. 7 in the Edith Memorial Chapel. During the ceremony the School community mourned Tredway’s passing and celebrated the difference he made to

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generations of Lawrenceville students.

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9 Sports Roundup

By Nicole uliasz

Winter Season

STATS

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Boys’ Basketball Record: 14-13 Coach: Ron Kane ’83 hris Hudnut ’12 Captains: C Kevin Myricks ’12 Eric Speidel ’12

GIRLs’ Basketball Record: 14-6 Coach: Len Miller Captain: Terri Tillman ’12

Boys’ Fencing Record: 6-3 Coach: R ich Beischer Captains: Jeong Woo Ha ’12

Zack Weaver ’12

Girls’ Fencing Record: 3-6 Coach: Rich Beischer Captains: Savannah Kochinke ’12

Naina Sahrawat ’14 Yixia Xu ’12

Girls’ Ice Hockey Record: 17-4-1 Coach: Nicole Uliasz Captains: B rianna Cook ’12 Michaela Levine ’12 Nikki Rivera ’12

boys’ Ice Hockey Record: 6-18-3 Coach: Etienne Bilodeau Captain: Kenny Citron ’13

Boys’ Track M.A.P.L. and N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 15-0 Coach: John Shilts yall Islam ’12 Captains: N Charlie Kerr ’12 Elwood Taylor ’12

Girls’ Track M.A.P.L. and N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 14-0 Coach: Bill Schroeder Captains: K immy Golding ’12 Joanna Kuang ’12 summer 2012

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Boys’ Swimming Record: 7-4 Coach: Jim Jordan Captains: S teve Grune ’12 Brad Jokubaitis ’12

Girls’ Swimming N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 6-4 Coach: Brent Ferguson Captains: L aura Poss ’12 Susanna Tuan ’12

Boys’ Squash M.A.P.L. Champions Record: 5-4 Coach: Rob Krizek Captains: Javier Fonseca ’12

Chris Harwood ’12

Girls’ Squash M.A.P.L. Champions Record: 5-3 Coach: Narelle Krizek Captains: Eliza Becker ’12

Jenny Scherl ’13

Boys’ Wrestling Record: 18-3 Coach: Kyle Vanderhyde Captains: Jake Cooper ’12

Peter Griffith ’12 Christian Lippay ’12

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

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9 On the Arts

A Brush with

Greatness The Buechner Room, on the second floor of the Marguerite and James Hutchins Gallery, is not so much a gallery space as it is a window into an artist’s life. The walls are lined with Thomas Buechner’s ’44 P’73 landscapes, still lifes, portraits, prints, sketches, and studies. The room also contains works from other artists, whom Buechner admired or was inspired by, and whose work decorated the walls of his home and studio. Furthermore, the room has an assortment of props that were used in his paintings, including a distinctive blue and white ceramic cat that was the subject of a painting commissioned

by Former Lawrenceville Head Master Michael Cary H’47 ’03 P’01 (and which hangs just a few feet away). The room is a fitting tribute to an artist with a long and remarkable career that spanned more than 60 years.

Buechner first worked as a professional artist in his teens, designing bold election

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posters for Luis Muùoz Martin, the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico. From there he worked in the Display Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which led to his appointment as the founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass. He was the director of the Brooklyn Museum, president of Steuben Glass, and the chairman of the Corning Glass Works. He wrote a critically lauded and commercially successful biography of Norman Rockwell in 1971, helped establish the Rockwell Museum (serving as the museum’s president for 10 years), and was featured in a 1987 Rockwell documentary.

His other books are How I Paint (2000) and Seeing a Life (2007).

Buechner, however, is best known for his paintings. After taking to the easel fulltime in 1986, he has had one-man exhibitions all across the United States and in Japan and Germany, and his work has been

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displayed in museums and galleries around

ville faculty. Then a Lawrenceville trustee,

the world.

Buechner was on campus to oversee his

The creation of The Buechner Room is

one-man show in the Kirby Arts Center

the result of eight years of planning and

Gallery. After the show came down,

the byproduct of a decades-old friendship.

Fitzpatrick was responsible for delivering

Art Department Chair Allen Fitzpatrick

the art back to Buechner’s home in Corning,

’73 H’85 ’98 P’99 ’04 first met Buechner

NY. It was there that Buechner first per-

in the early 1980s when Fitzpatrick was a

suaded Fitzpatrick to join him in painting

relatively new addition to the Lawrence-

landscapes.

This would be the first of many times the two men would paint together – with jaunts that would include annual trips overseas to Germany and Italy.

The friendship was an education for Fitzpatrick. “Much of Tom’s influence was by example,” he remembers. “He was just as excited to be outside painting as he was to be in a museum looking. Since I teach painting and art history, that part of his personality was incredibly valuable to me. A lot of people are just studio artists or just art historians; he was both. I learned a lot from him.”

Fitzpatrick began to pitch the idea of a room in Buechner’s honor in the early 2000s. The two worked together during the last years of Buechner’s life to select work that would be both interesting and educational to students as the space would serve as a teaching tool for Lawrenceville’s studio and art history classes.

In the end, Buechner and his family donated more than 220 of the artist’s works to the School – far more than can be displayed at any one time. The plan, says Fitzpatrick, is to periodically rotate what is on the walls, to provide gallery visitors with a new display several times a year. Fitzpatrick, who will curate the exhibit, is delighted to memorialize Buechner in this way.

“His friendship was very meaningful to me,” he adds. “He was a generation removed, so he was a father figure in a way, but he always treated me as an equal.”

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9 Cara Hyson Q&ATHE ON ARTS

THE

arab Spring break

History Master Cara Hyson’s P’14 commitment to understanding the Middle East is, to say the very least, sincere. In addition to teaching classes on the subject, she is learning Arabic, led a spring break trip to Jordan, and published an article on post-World War I Iraq in American Diplomacy magazine. In her conversation with The Lawrentian, she discusses her background, relays a couple of Middle East myths, and explains why you should thank an Arab the next time you take tasty medicine.

You’re studying Arabic alongside Lawrenceville students.

That’s right. I teach a course on the Middle East so, of course, I’m interested.

The class is part of a three-year pilot program that was scheduled in my room when I wasn’t teaching class. When I first heard about it, I asked to sit in. Hisham Mahmoud, a professor from Princeton, teaches the class and was very welcoming. So I sit with the students, learn the language, and do the homework.

How hard is the Arabic language to learn?

The alphabet is very different. Dots play an important role. There’s one sound if you put a dot on the bottom of a letter and another sound if you put it on the top. If you put two dots on the top, it’s another sound. Three dots is another. Two dots on the bottom is something else. You also have to read and write from right to left. When you’re learning Arabic – or any language, really – there’s a couple of different levels of comprehension you have to go through.

You have to hear the word that’s being said and then translate the sound into letters.

You have to identify what the word is and how it fits in a sentence. Then, of course, there’s the grammar. In the fall we learned

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how to write sentences like, “The beautiful cats of my grandmother are in the house.”

“My cousins live in a big city, but I live in a small city.” Very, simple things that you think, “Oh, that should be easy,” but there’s so much that goes into each word and knowing the placement in the sentence and what’s modifying what. But I’m learning. I’m learning.

You used to teach a class called History of the Middle East; then you changed the name of the class to Middle East Myth and History. Why?

Because it’s silly to call a 10-week course “History of the Middle East.” There are so many countries in the Middle East, each with its own, long history. No one can do such a course justice. So I thought I would cover key points in history where the Western World and the Middle Eastern World have had misunderstandings.

I start with a discussion of the common roots of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their origins in the Middle East.

Many in the West do not realize the common heritage and beliefs that these three religions share. I then move on to the Crusades. The way the Crusades have been traditionally taught is that the West was going to reclaim the Holy Land because the

Muslims had taken it over; the Christians had to reclaim the holy sites. But Islam arrived in the Holy Land in the 700s and the Crusades didn’t start until 1095 – so for 400 years Muslims were peaceably living there without interference. So what prompted the Christians to attempt to take it back after so much time? That’s a story worth telling. And then, of course, there’s also the Arab side of the story. What was their response to this invasion?

Another example is the Ottoman Empire. Christians historically have looked at the Ottoman Empire as very aggressive, exotic, strange, and threatening. Yet if you study it, you’ll find it was an extremely tolerant empire, very different from the way it’s portrayed. For example, the empire recognized the validity of Christianity and Judaism and allowed practitioners privileges that non-monotheistic religions did not have. There was a lot of cultural blending. Yes, it was an empire. Yes, it did conquer. But that’s not the whole story.

I would assume that a course on the Middle East would promote passionate discussions.

It does, and that’s OK. I have two goals for every class: The first is for each student to be engaged; the second is for each student

G Hyson with Arabic teacher and Princeton Professor Hisham Mahmoud.

to want to learn more. If I can do those two things, I’ve done my job. Kids in my classes are always asking questions – not necessarily arguing – engaging in a lot of Q&A, really thinking about and commenting on what they’ve read, heard, or seen in the news.

Tell me a bit about your background.

Did you study the Middle East in college?

I don’t exactly know how I got interested in the Middle East. I majored in Russian language and literature at Yale. I loved it.

Actually Russia traces its cultural heritage back to the Byzantine Empire so perhaps this was a factor, but I started actively learning about the Middle East when I started teaching history.

I started teaching in 1990 at Greens Farms Academy in Westport, CT. I was teaching a world history course and a portion of the course was on the Middle East.

I had to learn about the Middle East to teach it, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know. The Middle East was also always in the news as this was about

the time of the first Gulf War. But I didn’t just want to know about the war, I wanted to understand the culture and history of the area. One thing that amazed me was the Arab world’s enormous influence on medicine.

Medicine?

Yes! The great encyclopedias of medicine were written in the Arab world and were filled with practical information that the Europeans studied when they were looking to improve their medical practices. For example, hundreds and hundreds of years

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ago there was a doctor living in Baghdad who wanted to find the best place to build a hospital. The way he determined the location was to hang meat in different corners of the city. Where the meat rotted the slowest, was where they built the hospital – which is ingenious, really. The slower the rotting, the less likely human flesh would become infected. The Arabs were also the first people to put sugar syrup into medicine so that people would actually take the medicines they were given.

They also did eye surgery. Arabs really were very, very cultured and civilized and far more advanced than Europe was at that time. The Muslim World also had a huge influence on the Renaissance. These facts fascinate me. I never learned any of this when I was growing up.

my master’s at Bard. My thesis was on Lawrence of Arabia and his vision of the Middle East after World War I. And, of course, I’m still learning since I came to Lawrenceville in 2007.

I understand you spearheaded a spring break trip to Jordan.

That’s right. It’s the first time our students had gone there over spring break.

What were circumstances behind putting this trip together?

The minute I heard about King’s Academy in 2006, I was fascinated by its mission and its goals. Jordan’s King Abdullah, who went to Deerfield Academy as a student, felt that his experience as a student in the U.S. – being around people from all over the world – allowed him to

Last year a group of teachers from King’s Academy came to Lawrenceville to learn more about boarding school life and I asked them, “Do you ever have any exchanges?” It turns out that they did. So I got in touch with the director of admissions there, and we worked out this plan for our students to come for two weeks over spring break.

Did the Lawrenceville students live on the campus?

The first week of our break fell on their week of exams. That’s not a great time to be sitting around the school, so we traveled and saw the sights that everyone says you need to see when you visit Jordan. So we toured a Crusader castle and the magnificent ruins at Petra. We had a picnic lunch in the Wadi Rum desert, where we stepped inside the cave where Lawrence of Arabia took refuge, and saw the Dead Sea, and the Jordan River. Although I am familiar as a student and teacher with this part of the Middle East, there are things that you can’t learn in a book or online.

Just to stand on the east bank of the Jordan River and to look across to see the Israeli flag flying, with guards stationed on both sides of the river, reveals so much about the complexity and challenges facing the Middle East.

How many students went?

So you were doing a self-taught crash course when you were in Connecticut.

Yes. And then I kept going when I began teaching at the Rectory School, where I met [English Master] Chris [Hyson], and then at the Canterbury School. While I worked at Canterbury, I was getting

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develop a clear understanding of different cultures. He wanted to create a boarding school like that in Jordan. So he created King’s Academy, a school that would attract students from all over the world to get a better understanding of the Middle East.

Just two. This wasn’t a classic Lawrenceville spring trip because this was also a fact-finding mission to look at the King’s Academy curriculum. King’s Academy is a global boarding school, so we wanted to learn what they were teaching students.

What are they teaching about the United States? What are they teaching about Europe? What are the textbooks they’re using?

Chris, my husband, went to Jordan, too.

He was especially interested in the English curriculum because what King’s Academy students are reading may be good for our students to read as well.

After all, part of Lawrenceville’s mission statement is to develop global citizens; you have to read the literature of other cultures and you have to study the history of those cultures if you hope to accomplish that mission.

9 Classroom 2.0

By Bill Freitas

Take 2 iPad. Motorola Xoom. iPad2. Asus Transformer. iPad 3. Acer Iconia. HP Touchpad.

Samsung Galaxy 10.1. Lenovo IdeaPad. So, what is all this – a trip down the gadget aisle at Best Buy? No, it’s the parade of different tablet devices we have been experimenting with here at Lawrenceville. Thin, light, quick to start up, and wirelessly connected, tablets should be the next killer tool for students and teachers. Millions have been sold, but we have not found the perfect one for us yet.

Over the summer and at the beginning of the school year, we put tablets into the hands of two dozen teachers to see where and how such a device would fit in to the Lawrenceville education. More extensive and formal pilots continued in the winter term. Here’s a quick rundown of what we have experienced so far.

The tablet is great for education. Because it lies flat on the Harkness table, there’s no screen propped up between master and student. But there’s something missing; most of these tablets don’t have a robust and flex-

AND CALL Me in the Morning

ible way to deal with handwriting, the preferred note-taking method of our students.

Some of the available handwriting apps are better than others, but handwriting as an input method is not “baked in” across all the different functions of the device.

Tablets also hold great promise as an ereader, a way to store that 40-pound backpack full of books in a single two-pound package. Unfortunately, the textbook publishers are lagging behind the technology.

Their full catalog is not yet available digitally, and when they are, the ebooks are often just as expensive as the paper product, but with much less functionality. Want to lend your textbook to a classmate? Can’t.

Want to annotate the pages with your own notes and drawings? Not easy. In some cases, the digital version of the textbook is just as static as the printed copy, not leveraging the power of the tablet at all. Two companies that have been doing nice things with interactive textbooks are Inkling and Push Pop Press. Currently running on iPads only, books from these publishers offer anima-

tions and videos, audio commentary, quizzes, interactive maps and charts, and links to extra material.

Lack of a physical keyboard is both a plus and a minus for the tablet. The portability is balanced against the need to use an on-screen keyboard. For longer papers and projects, people have had to use a different computer or invest in an external keyboard.

Projection has been another issue. To be really useful in the classroom, we need to be able to take the images from a tablet and send them to the classroom projector when they can be seen by all. Right now we have to jump through some tricky hoops to make this work.

On the software side, some applications are great. Because we’d moved student email to Gmail, the Android tablets were a perfect fit. This summer I stood out on the Class of 1942 fields using Google Sky and was able to pan a tablet across the heavens and see all manner of celestial objects identified. That simple app created a mesmerizing experience for my son and me.

Am I frustrated? A little. The tablet is so close to being the best educational technology tool I have ever seen. None of the current issues with tablets are insurmountable, and I expect all will be addressed as the third and fourth generations of these devices appear over the next year or so. When they do, Lawrenceville will be prepared.

Every classroom and every student room has access to the WiFi that makes these devices so powerful. Our teachers are putting the different devices through their paces now, so we will know where tablets can be applied creatively and productively.



Bill Freitas has an office in Corby that sometimes looks like the gadget aisle at Best Buy.

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9 Ask the Archivist

By Jacqueline Haun

Larries of

Arabia

Although never a rigidly sectarian school, Lawrenceville in its first century was renowned for the emphasis placed on character development and morality, particularly as modeled by the Presbyterian faith of the early Head Masters. The proximity to Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary also inspired many would-be ministers to seek their college preparatory education at the School. Consequently, the first students who came to Lawrenceville “from the Middle East” were, not surprisingly, the children of Western missionaries whose evangelical fervor had taken them to foreign lands. It would not be until World War II that non-Western students from the region would also join the Lawrentian community, and a decade or two more before Middle Eastern students began to attend more routinely.  Tabriz, Persia. Frederick Jessup served as a missionary there and was an eyewitness to the Turkish invasion of the then–Iranian capital during World War I.

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T

he first students identified as being from the Middle East were referred to by one Lawrenceville father as “Our Syrian Boys,” young men whose parents were stationed at the American Presbyterian Mission in Beirut. David Stuart Dodge Jessup of the Class of 1887; his brother, Frederick Nevins Jessup, of the Class of 1893; and the Jessups’ friend, Wilfred McIlvaine Post, also of the Class of 1893, had been born and raised in Beirut and educated

at Lawrenceville as a Fourth Form student (then the senior class) in the fall of 1886. A resident in Harmony House (at 2549 Main Street and later named Green House), Stuart was active in the Philomathean and Christian societies and also played for the School’s Tennis Club, which had been formed only the year before. Of the three Syrian boys, only Stuart ended up remaining in the United States after his education was complete, becoming a well-known pathologist in New York City following

a reputable tennis player, doing well enough in the game while in college at Princeton to be twice named the New Jersey Men’s Single Champion. Following his graduation from college in 1897, he spent three years in his home city of Beirut, teaching English at the Syrian Protestant University, before becoming a missionary in 1903 to Tabriz, Persia.

(Tabriz is now the capital of East Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran.)

The missionary station at Tabriz was a hotbed of Princetonians at the time Fred-

G Russian soldiers in Persia during World War I. Frederick Jessup reported on the condition at Tabris Mission after the Russian withdrawal.

by private tutors there until they were sent to the United States for their higher education. It is not obvious from existing records how the young men ended up at Lawrenceville, but a possible clue is that Henry Wynans Jessup, an elder Jessup sibling but a non-Lawrentian, graduated from nearby Princeton in 1886.

David Stuart Dodge Jessup started

graduation from Princeton and receiving his medical degree from Columbia University.

When Frederick Jessup and Wilfred Post entered Lawrenceville in the fall of 1892, the two roomed together in Upper House and followed in the elder Jessup’s footsteps as members of the Philomathean Society. Jessup was also

erick Jessup joined it, including among them a fellow Lawrentian, former School President William Furman Doty of the Class of 1892, who was the first American consul appointed in Persia.

Post also graduated from Princeton in 1897 and pursued medical training at Syrian Protestant College in Beirut and at Columbia Univer-

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sity before becoming a medical missionary to Caesarea (now Kayseri), Turkey.

During World War I, the two former Lawrentian roommates, Jessup and Post, were both eyewitnesses to the turmoil of the region. Jessup reported to the missionary board of the Presbyterian Church from Tabriz in March 1915 about the events of the previous winter, during which Russian troops had withdrawn from Persia as Turkish and Kurdish troops had invaded. He described at length the conditions of the Westerners and others who had sought shelter at the Tabriz Mission during the occupation.

firsthand the events of the Turkish revolution and reported on them, including the genocide of Armenians under the government of the Young Turks. Toward the end of World War I, Post returned for one year to Lawrenceville, overseeing the School’s infirmary during the 1917-1918 school year as the temporary replacement for the regular physician, Dr. Elam Knott McFee, who had enlisted in the American war effort. In a twist of fate, Post took a leave of absence from his position at the School to lead a humanitarian relief mission to Iran at the behest of Herbert Hoover, then head of the U.S. Food Administration. His voluntary service resulted in his missing the 1918

 The American colony at Beirut, Syria, before World War I.

The first students identified as from the Middle East were referred to by one Lawrenceville father as “Our Syrian Boys,” young men whose parents were stationed at the American Presbyterian Mission in Beirut.

Post, who spent much of the war directing Red Cross hospitals in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Konia (now Konya), saw

 Eskandar ("Alexander") Firouz '44

influenza pandemic’s impact on the School campus by only a few weeks. In December 1919, while Post was still in the Middle East, Frederick Jessup died of pneumonia in Tabriz, although it was unlikely that it was the result of the flu pandemic, which had reached its peak in Persia the year before.

It was not until World War II that students who were not the children of missionaries came to Lawrenceville; the first among them were brothers Eskandar (“Alexander”) Firouz ’44 and Narcy Firouz ’45. Descendants of the Quajar Iranian royal family deposed in the 1920s, they came to Lawrenceville in the winter of 1943, both having previously been educated at the Preparatory School of the American University of Beirut. The  Narcy Firouz '45

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boys had been sent to Lawrenceville at the recommendation of then-U.S. military Col. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf (the father of Gulf War hero, General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf), who at the time was posted to Iran and tasked with organizing the Iranian police after Iran was named an Allied protectorate. Coincidentally, in 1934, Schwarzkopf had purchased the same Green House which Stuart Jessup had previously resided in as a student and lived there during his tenure as head of the New Jersey State Police while directing the investigation into the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Following his graduation from Yale in 1949, Eskandar Firouz returned to Iran, where he not only created the Iranian Fish and Game Department (1967) and the Department of Environment (1971), but also authored seminal books on Iran’s natural environment, at the time pub-

lished in Persian (Iran Environment and Complete Fauna of Iran). Narcy Firouz went on to study at Cornell University, where he met his American-born wife-to-be, Louise Laylin.

Narcy and Louise Firouz returned to his native Iran in 1957, where Mrs. Firouz became instrumental in re-establishing the breeding of the Caspian Horse in the early 1970s, a feat for which she is still remembered in horse-breeding circles.

The Firouz brothers’ fortunes changed with the Iranian revolution in 1978 and the fall of the Shah the following year. As descendants of the Quajar royal family, they were both imprisoned for a short period and lost their family’s fortune. Following his release, Narcy Firouz and his wife lived quietly, raising horses on their farm in Gara Tepe Sheikh until Narcy died

 Passport issued in 1919 to Wilfred McIlvaine Post.

in 1994. Although now residing in Rockville, MD, Eksandar Firouz has remained a powerful voice for Iran’s environment, particularly with the publication of Complete Fauna of Iran in English in 2005.

Help Support the Next 75 Years by Making Your Gift Today P.O. Box 6125 Lawrenceville, New Jers ey 08648 www.lawrenceville.org/giving 609-895-2155

The Lawrenceville Fund The Lawrenceville Parents Fund

75th Anniversary of Harkness The Centerpiece of a Lawrenceville Education (id) Law.HARK.Ads 7.11.indd 2

7/21/11 4:33:04 PM

summer 2012

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9 Take This Job & Love It By phoebe outerbridge

Pakistan’s

PARTNER W

hen Kate Berglund Fernandez ’01 assumed her new post in the Office of Pakistan Affairs at the U.S. Department of State in October 2010, her career in foreign policy was on a roll. She was already a seasoned foreign service officer as this was her fifth position with the State Department. The United States was taking a new approach under Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, to create a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan. Relations between the two countries were solid, and the growth in staff from five to 20 suggested that an even stronger diplomatic relationship was yet to come.

Within three months, that relationship would hit some major speed bumps, and Fernandez’s office would become a hotbed of diplomatic activity.

“2011 was a challenging year,” she says.

Given the events and their resulting fallout, “challenging” might be an understatement. In January, U.S. diplomat Raymond Davis was incarcerated for shooting two Pakistanis who were pursuing him in the street (a third victim was killed by a car speeding in the wrong direction to aid Davis). On May 2, U.S. Marines carried out an undercover raid in Abbottabad that resulted in the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

And on Nov. 26, NATO air strikes inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border incident.

With this escalation of bilateral tension as a backdrop, Fernandez spends most of her time at the State Department distilling and fusing information from experts, embassies and intelligence reports to de-

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The United States and Pakistan haven’t been on the best of terms lately. Kate Berglund

Fernandez ’01 is ready to help mend fences.

velop her own analysis to help prepare the U.S. response for her superiors, who include her immediate boss, Special Representative Marc Grossman (who replaced Ambassador Holbrooke after his sudden death in December 2010) and, at the top of the chain of command, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I prepare our principals for discussions with their Pakistani counterparts,” she explains. “If Secretary Clinton is going to make a phone call to [Pakistan] Foreign Minister Khar, for example, I will draft her talking points.” Fernandez also does the same on an interagency level, helping her higher-ups prepare for meetings with highlevel deputies, and often helping to prepare Secretary Clinton for meetings with President Obama. “I’m trying to help develop short- and long-term strategies to move discussions with Pakistan into a more constructive place.”

Fernandez finds it rewarding to see her hard work represented in telephone and meeting transcripts. “I love working on this, because it’s hugely important and relevant. It is also constantly challenging.

But to be in the room with my boss, and be talking about what our strategy for Clinton should be, and then have it happen – that is pretty exciting.”

Last year’s diplomatic skirmishes between the U.S. and Pakistan have left behind significant repercussions, and there is still plenty to keep Fernandez busy. “Those events really fomented the tension in our relationship. The trust deficit is evident,” she says. “We need to get this relationship right – it’s in our vital national interest to do so.”

dez’s advisor at Stanford before he went on to become Obama’s leading Russia advisor). Her first official position with the State Department had her tackling democracy and human rights issues, taking her to Kathmandu, Nepal and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

These days she frequently travels to Pakistan to better develop Muslim engagement strategies.

While it has been a roller-coaster ride of

international diplomatic efforts, Fernandez (who, incidentally, has top-secret security clearance) thrives on the unpredictability of it all.

“This is the most exciting and rewarding job I’ve had so far in The State Department,” she attests. “I work with incredibly smart people, and I’m empowered by my leadership to strategize and help drive foreign policy.”

Photograph by Mark Finkenstaedt

Fernandez is at home in the realm of foreign policy. A political science major with a concentration in international relations, she graduated with honors from Stanford in 2005 with connections already forged in the foreign policy world, thanks to a previous internship with the State Department and professors who were very “plugged in” to Washington (including Mike McFaul, who was Fernan-

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Photograph by Mark Finkenstaedt

leb a n o n

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Where

Chaos Meets Charm Driving down the autostrade (one of the many lingering French terms the Lebanese apply regularly) that hugs the coastline, I looked out my window to see a 1980s-era Honda scooter zipping along beside me weaving through dense traffic amidst the cacophony of horns. The husband, helmetless and smoking a cigarette, was driving; his wife (also helmetless) was clutching his waist; and, clutched to her, were the couple’s two young children (no, no helmet here, either). I was apparently the only one who found a family of four huddled on a speeding, weaving scooter alarming – but that was only because I was a stranger here.

Moving to Lebanon as a journalist for NOWLebanon.com, and Voice of America, I would grow increasingly familiar with such casual disregard for traffic safety. By the time I had spent a year in the country, I was becoming a reckless driver myself. Welcome to Lebanon, a place where you must learn to expect the unexpected, and where if you can accept the chaos of a country that has learned to live without a government, then you are halfway toward embracing all that the place has to offer.

B y p a i ge k o ll o c k ’ 9 6

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For such a tiny nation (roughly two-thirds the size of Connecticut), Lebanon has been through a lot. Over the centuries, many have tried to rule this sliver of land, surrounded

by Syria, except for a short but volatile Southern border with Israel. Its natural beauty, situated along the Mediterranean Sea, with stunning mountains and beautiful cedar forests, has been a blessing and a curse for its people, who (despite being constantly at war or invaded) are disarmingly hospitable.

Once the site of ancient Phoenician cities, the land had been, at one time or another, occupied by the Persian Empire, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs via the Arab conquest, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, and after World War II, the French, until Lebanon proclaimed its independence in 1943. Though the French tenure was short (1919-1943), it had a lasting cultural impact on the country that is still visible today. My 12 years of French certainly came in handy, especially in beauty salons, where women insist on speaking the language as a way to indicate their elite status. In fact, some of the more “facially rejuvenated” dames in the affluent Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafieh, refuse to even speak Arabic, lest they appear “low class.”

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I sometimes got myself in trouble calling the Lebanese “Arabs.” “We are not Arabs, we are Phoenician!” a friend insisted. And technically, some of them really are. While doing a report about the rise of plastic surgery in Lebanon, I interviewed a doctor, who, while puffing on a cigarette, lectured me about the European heritage of the Lebanese.

It’s no wonder Lebanese have an identity crisis. The country operates in three languages – so menus, websites, official documents, street signs, and storefronts are all written in Arabic, English, and French.

There are three separate press corps and two currencies are widely used: U.S. dollars and Lebanese lira. So if I ordered a sandwich and gave the cashier $10, I could expect a mix of bills in return. (After getting ripped off a few too many times, I started carrying a calculator to restaurants.) Most significantly, the Lebanese people are incredibly diverse; there are 17 recognized sects; Shiite, Sunni, Druze, Armenians, Maronite Christians, Greek Catholic, Othodox Armenians, and even Jewish, to name a few.

To its credit, the Lebanese constitution reflects the diversity of the country’s population and distributes power among these 17 sects – or confessions, as they are more formally known – so that no one group gains too much power. The downside of this delicate balance is that it has left the government feckless, and authority runs on bribes and connections.

A lack of government investment, a weak civil society and an absence of public transportation, have severely affected infrastructure; hence the massive traffic problems. My second day in Beirut, I tried to walk in the city and found myself walking amongst the cars, as there are no sidewalks in many places. Driving in Lebanon is like playing chicken: no lanes, no police, no rules. Getting around was easily the most frustrating part of my day. I did so in shared taxis and had a few rides in cars that were missing parts of the floor, or an entire door. The drivers were always smoking – which would blow back in my face along with a potent mixture of pollution because the cars don’t have air conditioning, and it’s always too hot to close the windows. They would often take me out of the way and demand more money, or pretend they didn’t have change, or didn’t speak

English. Or they would try to marry me off to their sons. But a few times, the driver would extemporaneously recite poetry, or sing an old Lebanese lyric.

Perhaps my favorite example of the lack of infrastructure was when the electricity would go out at work. Because I worked at a website, that was the sign it was time to go home. Even when the lights stayed on, trying to send a large file through the internet, which I had to do for my job as a Voice of America TV stringer, was an exercise in patience. I spent many a night waiting until after midnight, when there is more bandwidth, so I could file my TV stories. A 50 mb file could take six hours, so I would need to set an alarm every two hours to make sure the signal hadn’t dropped, lest I have to restart. Another option was to break my file in two, or start sending it from an internet cafe, and then finish at home. Then, sometimes when it was just about uploaded, my monthly internet card would expire and I would need to sprint to the store before it closed, clutching $50 in my sweaty palm, as they would only take cash. It was always a disaster.

The electricity situation had to be the most amusing facet of my time in Lebanon. Beirut blacks out for three hours a day (some neighborhoods experience 12 hours of blackouts), every day, on a rotating schedule. I never got the schedule down, so I often woke up to find my electricity out.

That meant I had to take a freezing shower (as the water heater ran on electricity), couldn’t check email, couldn’t blow-dry my hair, and couldn’t have tea or coffee. Applying makeup was a real gamble. When the electricity was working, I would often blow it out, to the dismay of my roommate, by turning on one too many devices. We could have the air conditioner and the washer on at the same time, but not the blow-dryer, too.

Or the washer and the hot water, but not the air conditioner. “Ma fee cahraba!” (There’s no electricity!) was an Arabic expression I quickly committed to memory. Many people rely on the “subscriptions” to one of their neighborhood’s electricity generators for which they pay a small fortune. And since I moved away, the ever-industrious Lebanese have created an iPhone app that tells you when your electricity will go out.

A culture of chaos has worn on the Lebanese, but when they grow weary of

complaining, they know how to have fun.

For a people who have endured so much conflict, the Lebanese have learned to live in the moment. They have an acute appreciation for the finer things in life: fancy food, high fashion, designer handbags, luxury cars, and rocking nightclubs. Sure, there are swaths of the country in which people pray five times a day and live a more austere lifestyle, but even the most devout Lebanese would love to have an iPhone.

Despite a wide gap between rich and poor, religious and secular, Muslim and Christian, I found an extraordinarily high level of tolerance.

In Lebanon, and across the Arab world in general, every meal in someone’s home is a feast. Regardless of the host’s income level, guests are treated with the upmost hospitality. During my first trip to Lebanon in 2009, I tried to explain to the family with whom I was staying that I was a vegetarian. “Ma akoul lahim,” (“I don’t eat meat.”)

I repeated with mantra-like certainty. “But it’s delicious,” the mother replied, scooping three servings onto my plate.

Likewise, after Lebanese-American Rima Fakih won the Miss USA contest, I was asked to go her village to interview some people and to gauge what my editors were sure would be an enthusiastic reaction.

The town was what I might call “Hezbollah friendly,” so people were quite conservative, and no one – not even Miss USA’s family – wanted to go on camera, but they still invited us all in for coffee and lunch and dessert. After sipping my third coffee or so, with nothing on tape and a full stomach, I finally had to be a rude American and say, “Thanks, but we’re leaving.”

I no longer live in Lebanon, but I reflect on my time there often. I certainly don’t miss the smoky bars, the horns, or walking in traffic, but I do miss that sense of freedom and anticipation that comes with living in a place where anything can happen at any moment.



Paige Kollock ’96 is a multimedia journalist currently living in Washington D.C., where she works as a freelance producer for Bloomberg, Fox, Feature Story News, Reuters, CBS, and other outlets. She spent a year living and working in Lebanon as a writer for NOWLebanon. com, as well as a correspondent for Voice of America TV and radio.

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syria

Diversity in

Damascus Leaving my Arabic lesson on a Sunday afternoon, I was approached by an Englishman of Syrian decent named Ayman as I exited the gates of Damascus University. His flawless English; AC/DC T-shirt; and long, black hair, pulled back into a ponytail were a combination I had yet to encounter in the Syrian capital.

B y C o le M u rr a y ’ 0 2 “Excuse me, are you American?” he asked.

While I knew I stood out among Arabs, I was bit shocked that “American” was his automatic assumption. Since American tourists were not common to Syria, I was used to a guessing game; most Syrians assumed I was Russian, British, or from Scandinavia. Nonetheless, I answered his question with a suspect, yet impressed stare and an affirming nod. “Perfect! Would you come speak to my class?”

He explained to me that he was an English teacher at the University looking for an American to speak to his class about social issues in the West that are not prevalent in the Arab World. Happy to help and eager to meet more Syrians after being in the country for only a few weeks, I agreed, although with some hesitation as I was worried my Western social values might anger those in his class who were more conservative.

When I arrived at Ayman’s English class two days later, I was greeted by 30 smiling young men and women. I had prepared some notes on the American Civil Rights Movement and the separation of church and state – so I did a double take after Ayman introduced me to his class and informed ev32

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eryone – and me – that the topic of the day’s discussion would be homosexuality.

I stood in the front of classroom, staring at Ayman with a “you have got to be kidding me” look. Knowing that my views on the subject could offend, I quickly pondered how (and if) to explain that one of my best friends is gay and that I support the gay rights movement. After an awkward silence, I figured the best way to set the tone of the conversation was to ask the class about their own views on the subject.

What they said amazed me. In a country where it is illegal to commit a homosexual act, the students expressed a wide variety of opinions. Some spoke against gays and lesbians as being immoral, others staunchly defended homosexuals as equals, and a small percentage wished their society and legislation would change to become more accepting.

Much more relaxed after hearing such responses, I shared how homosexuality is viewed in America. For the next hour, I led the class in a healthy and productive debate.

As the class ended, I was approached by a number of students – including those whose views were far different from my own – and was pleased to hear them tell me that de-

spite differences in cultures and opinions, we could still get along and respect one another.

Before I left the class, I asked Ayman, the long-haired, rock ’n’ roll T-shirt-wearing English teacher why he couldn’t have led such a talk. He informed me that although his appearance was very uncommon among Syrians, he was an extremely pious Muslim and socially very conservative.

He smiled as he told me that he disagreed with my opinions, but was open to hearing alternative views.

My interaction with that class broke many of my preconceived notions I had about Syrians prior to my living there. I moved to Syria in the summer of 2009 from Lebanon in order to study Arabic in a country where Western languages such as English and French were far less common. I chose Syria because I desired something vastly different from the globalized city of Beirut. Simply put, I wanted something more Arab, a shock to my senses, and an immersion in the Arabic language.

On the surface, Beirut and Damascus – only 2½ hours apart by car – could not be more different. Time seemed to slow down entering the Syrian capital. Daily life moved

at a snail’s pace compared with Beirut.

The culture seemed absorbed in conservatism, as was apparent in both fashion and the interaction between the sexes. However, as I found with Ayman’s English class, there was much more to Syria than the preconceived opinions I had formed from Western media and surface level observations.

The longer I stayed in the country, the more I began to understand the diversity among Syrians. I encountered support for the Assad Regime among many older populations – but older Syrians had learned from Bashar al Assad’s father, Hafez, to be praiseful when expressing a public opinion of the government. The poor and less fortunate seemed apathetic to politics; to them progress was not measured by civil freedoms, but by having enough money to support their families. To the young, political opinion was correlated to upward mobility, typically viewed as possible only outside of Syria. The younger generation had insight to the outside world, bypassing the government blocks on Facebook and YouTube through proxy websites.

I was pleased to find such vast differences.

It gave me hope that the country would transform, becoming more outwardly ac-

cepting of universal rights while keeping the cultural values it held dear.

I spent months living among incredible people in a city full of history and touristic possibility, ready to open itself up to the Western World. The Syrian economy was changing, if slowly, by allowing foreign companies to establish roots in their country; for example, Costa Coffee, the British-headquartered coffeehouse chain, had opened multiple locations in Damascus and was well received by Syria’s upper and middle classes. Beyond this, I believed Bashar al Assad was not capable of acts of violence against his people on par with his father. (Hafez’s organized attack on the Syrian city of Hamma in 1976 to rout Sunni Islamic groups killed as many as 40,000 Syrians.) Bashar, having lived his young adult years outside of Syria, made me think he would slowly transform his nation away from Hafez’s old school Baathist cronies.

I believed that in time, Bashar and a new breed of Syrian bureaucrats would be more open to a strong diplomatic relationship with the United States.

Unfortunately, as recent events have proven, I was terribly wrong. I would love to say the current people’s movement in Syria

will overcome government opposition; however, I know that will never happen unless drastic change comes to their current approach. The prospect of organization, territory control, sufficient funding, and an agreed upon post-takeover plan is bleak in a country where the opposition’s movements are divided among a number of disparate and uncoordinated groups. Further complicating matters, many of the world’s powers are unable to determine to what degree they wish to involve themselves in the conflict.

When making predictions about Syria and other nations I have come to know in the Arab World, it is the optimist in me that is typically incorrect. Former CIA Operations Officer Robert Baer may have put it best: “If you want to sound smart on the Middle East…be a pessimist.”



Cole Murray ’02, lived in the Middle East from 2007-2010. While in the region he pursued graduate studies at the American University in Cairo, the American University of Beirut, and Damascus University. He has master’s degrees in both Islamic studies and Middle East politics. summer 2012

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Photographs by Sherif Karas

eg y p t

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A New

islamic Influence I have experienced two emergency curfews during my time in Egypt, the first in 1986 and the second during the 2011 popular uprising that toppled the Mubarak regime. The first curfew was declared when police conscripts rioted near the Pyramids, setting fire to several luxury hotels and casinos that represented wealth and excess to the poor men who had just been told they would not receive a promised raise in their miserable wage.

For several days the city of Cairo was mostly shut down and the army’s tanks appeared in the now famous Tahrir Square. As a graduate student at the American University in Cairo (AUC), whose campus was then in the square, I unexpectedly had some time off from classes. The rioting policemen were quickly put down, their fate the subject of fearful speculation in a time before the ubiquitous handheld devices that now record everything. Life in the city soon returned to normal, or as normal as it ever is in this crowded and chaotic, but lively and fascinating metropolis on the Nile.

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The more recent curfew began soon after the start of massive popular demonstrations in Tahrir Square on Jan. 25, 2011. This time I was teaching English for Business at the American University in Cairo, which had moved less than three years ago to a huge, new, state-of-the-art campus on the outskirts of the city. Classes were once again canceled, but this time they did not start up again for over two weeks. Everyone in the city was allowed to go out in the daytime but had been ordered to stay indoors from dusk to dawn. We heard gunfire in the evenings, which we later learned was mostly warning shots fired by the army to discourage looters, whose presence turned out to be more rumored than real, at least in our welloff suburb. The government had shut down the internet, but we still had our telephones, which my colleagues, friends, and I used to stay in touch and keep up on the latest developments.

The two events that led to these curfews differed in both their scale and impact. The other notable difference was that the first uprising was led by some elements of the police, whereas the second, far more popular and ultimately successful revolt, was in part aimed at the police. Both, however, were the reactions of a public frustrated by increasing poverty and declining services and angered by a corrupt, incompetent, uncaring, and sometimes brutal autocracy.

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The recent revolt was initiated mainly by young, wired, and media-savvy activists with a liberal and progressive outlook. They were soon joined by Egyptians of every age and class, whose sheer numbers led to Mubarak’s downfall, if not that of his generals who remain in power.

The Islamists were conspicuously absent from Tahrir Square until well after the departure of the hated regime. These religious parties are embodied mainly by the longestablished Muslim Brotherhood and to a lesser degree the more puritanical Salafists, a group that models its behavior and appearance on what they believe was that of the earliest followers of the prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam. They have been heavily influenced by this austere and often intolerant brand of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, a country where many Egyptians live and work and which is the source of much of the funding for the local Islamists.

Now, due to their success in the elections that have taken place in Egypt, the religious parties are poised to play a dominant role in the hoped-for, new democracy. It must be said that they have won at the polls largely because they are viewed as incorruptible and for years have been administering to the needs of the poor rural and urban masses.

Many of them are doctors, lawyers, and businessmen who provide inexpensive and even free health care and other services that

the Mubarak regime neglected or ignored.

One sign for me of this political shift was the change in the graffiti and the posters that appeared everywhere from the start of the uprising. The scrawled messages that read, “Hold your head up high, you are all Egyptians” and the pictures of young “martyrs” who died in the violence were soon followed by the more divisive slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood (“Islam is the Solution”) and campaign posters featuring their heavily bearded candidates (the few women among them were represented by a flower because their notions of female modesty ruled out showing their faces). Although the vast majority of Egyptians are Muslim, the 10 percent of the population who are Coptic Christians and the many who are wary of the role of religion in politics, not to mention the large number of foreign residents such as myself, mostly feel alienated by this outcome of the uprising; some are quite fearful of it.

My family and friends at home naturally expressed concern for me during the early days of the insurrection, but it had nothing to do with foreigners. We were not the targets of the popular anger, and neither were our governments. Egyptians continued to treat us with the friendliness and courtesy for which they are known. Some may disagree, such as the handful of foreign journalists who were roughed up in the early days of the demonstrations by the dying regime’s thugs or the staff of the Israeli and Syrian embassies and foreign NGOs who had their premises raided in more recent months, but it is still largely true that it is just not about us foreigners. This remains the case for now, in spite of the efforts of some – mainly remnants of the former regime and the generals still running the country – to blame Egypt’s current turmoil on “unseen hands,” a euphemism for foreigners.

We who work at the American University in Cairo are relieved to not be the object of the people’s rage, and the institution officially supports and promotes the Egyptian public’s yearning for democracy. Our faculty and staff are a mix of Egyptians and Americans, and many of the latter have lived in Cairo for decades. Although some of the students come from affluence, the university awards scholarships to promising students from all over the country, and many students are from middle-class families for

whom the high tuition is as much of an issue as it is for their counterparts in the States.

Still, the student population of the university is hardly a microcosm of the country – their manner of dress, their worldliness (many grew up abroad), and even their manner of speaking both Arabic and English set them apart. Our institution is avowedly secular in an officially pious country and distinctly American in its values while also respectful of Egyptian culture and tradition. We close for all the major Muslim, Christian (Western and Eastern), Egyptian, and U.S. holidays.

With the benefit of hindsight, the emergence of a more avowedly Islamic government in Egypt appears to have been inevitable. Among the outward signs of the Muslim revival that has been taking place over recent decades in the country is the veil now worn by the vast majority of women. This is for the most part not the all-covering black niqaab (although that is in much greater evidence than it was in my student days in the 1980s), but the higaab, which does not cover the face. Some AUC women wear the higaab, but most do not. One reason for this is the lack of pressure to do so on our new campus which, unlike our old location in Tahrir Square, is self-contained and isolated – too much so in the opinion of some, including foreign students who have come to study Arabic and experience the “real” Cairo. The streets of that Cairo can be a perilous place for unveiled local women who are sometimes subject to verbal and even physical harassment. There are complicated reasons for this behavior that include the now popular perception that an unveiled Muslim woman is without shame and the fact that most young Egyptian males are culturally forbidden from casual interaction with women outside their families. The Egyptians at the American University of Cairo may not all agree with the more relaxed social atmosphere of our campus, but they are mostly accepting of it and many see it as a welcome refuge from the more repressive and restrictive world outside. The public behavior of our students is still highly demure by the standards of their counterparts in the States, and a young man and woman holding hands on campus, is about as daring as it gets. Their language, however, can be far racier, and the more Americanized students often litter their speech with profanities.

Unlike at the national universities and

nearly every large public institution in Egypt, there is no mosque at the American University of Cairo. Over the years, some have argued that there should be one to accommodate the daily prayers of the majority of AUCians who are Muslim, but the administration has been steadfast in not making this concession, mainly because of its commitment to secularism and diversity.

Some areas are designated for prayer, however, and last year a group of my students wrote an excellent proposal on how to improve the quality of these niches; I show it to my current students as a model of how to write a proposal. When AUC first moved to the new campus, a self-appointed student muezzin regularly gave the call to prayer from the height of one of the buildings. Not everyone was comfortable with this, but no one stopped him and he had a quite pleasant voice. I haven’t heard him in the past year and assume he graduated.

As the country moves beyond the first anniversary of the uprising, I hope that the entrenched military forces, the Islamists flush with electoral success, the more leftleaning youth who keep demonstrating in Tahrir Square, and the silent majority that Egyptians call “the party of the couch,” can somehow accommodate each other in the turbulent new Egypt. They face daunting political and economic challenges, the latter

made worse by the retreat of foreign tourists and investors. But I have great faith in two of the outstanding qualities of the Egyptian people: their keen sense of humor, famous throughout the Arab world, and their fundamentally easygoing nature and basic toleration of differences. This last has been in part learned from living in their multitudes along the narrow ribbon of the Nile at the meeting place of three continents and many civilizations. In the past, I would have added the quality of their infinite patience, but that is finally at an end. Whenever I or one of my fellow expatriates in Egypt makes a prediction about the future based on our presumed knowledge of the country and its people, we are cautioned by an American friend who has lived here longer than any of us: “Yes, the Egyptians are that way…until they are not!”

 Timothy Warren ’72 obtained a BA in Theater Arts from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He first went to Egypt in 1982 where he studied Arabic and obtained an M.A. in applied linguistics from the American University in Cairo in 1987. He has taught English as a Foreign Language in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan. He currently teaches in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo.

summer 2012

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jordan

Gray’s

Academy The freshly whitewashed walls of the desert compound were a stark contrast from the historic walls of her Providence, Rhode Island alma mater, but Lacey Gray ’02 would call this home for the next few years. This would be the beginning of her immersion into Jordanian life, and her first post-college job.

B y p h o ebe o u terbr i d ge

The newly constructed King’s Academy compound, founded by His Majesty King Abdullah (a Deerfield Academy graduate) and located near the capital of Amman, was about to set a new precedent in the Middle East as a boarding school for Arabs with an unmistakably American flair. As such, the school was looking for young graduates from top independent schools in the U.S. who could translate their experiences to a Middle Eastern counterpart. In mid-2006, having just graduated from Brown University, Gray seized the opportunity.

Given she was living at a Western-style boarding school in the Middle East, she expected some incongruous experiences – but on one occasion when she heard gunfire from her dorm room, she was shocked.

While she never discovered the cause, Gray learned over time that this was one of the many cultural idiosyncrasies of Jordan.

“Guns are part of the culture there. When

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they have parties they shoot into the air; it’s not always military-related,” she explains, though she did notice the local (and former U.S.) military presence by way of armed soldiers and the occasional defunct U.S. tank atop a trailer rolling by on the highway.

While her stint at King’s Academy was occasionally adrenaline-filled, Gray was far from hiding under her covers.

As one of 10 King’s Academy “founding fellows,” Gray helped craft the public image of the fledgling school. “Working with the school’s director of communications, I wrote a lot of the material that went up on the web, helped with brochures and application materials, and did PR work,” she explains.

Westward-looking in many ways, with its palm trees and cuisine that often parallels the Mediterranean’s, Gray also experienced some cultural rules that subtly manifested in her day-to-day routine: “Even when we jogged on campus in a group wearing pants,

the groundskeepers of the school would stare at us,” she notes.

“That was one point of contention between Arab and American employees there,” she recalls. “We felt that if we were fully clothed and jogging on a semi-private campus that it wasn’t inappropriate, but many Arabs thought we shouldn’t do it at all. Conventions in the Middle East simply are not always obvious to an outsider; there was a lot to learn and it took time to learn it.”

Cultural discrepancies aside, living on the King’s Academy compound was like living in a bubble to Gray, especially since the first year there were no students yet, only employees – including the fellows who were from colleges and boarding schools in the Northeast. “My coworkers were not all Jordanian; most were educated in the U.S. or were themselves foreigners,” she explains.

So she chose to venture out and live on her own in Amman the following year,

renting a one-bedroom apartment she saw advertised in a grocery store. Living 30 minutes outside the sheltered boarding school compound brought Gray closer to the culture and particularly the people of Jordan, who were incidentally often not Jordanian. “Half the population of Jordan is Palestinian, due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fact that Kuwait kicked out Palestinian immigrants.”

Aside from the Palestinians (who could be Muslim or Christian), and ethnic Jordanians (Muslim, Christian, or Bedouin), there were also Circassians (ethnically Russian Muslims). Her boab (the equivalent of an apartment superintendent), who became a friend, was Egyptian. “The country embodies many of the complexities of the Middle East on socio-economic, demographic, cultural, and religious levels,” she says.

Gray also moved to Amman to improve her Arabic. She had studied the language

at Brown and was exposed to it at King’s School. “A lot of the meetings were in Arabic. I also had the task of translating our marketing materials into Arabic,” she notes.

“However, the office was mostly bilingual and most Arabs there speak English.”

Gray formed some close relationships with Jordanians, particularly Dima, with whom she rode the shuttle bus to King’s Academy, and Amjad, her taxi driver. “Amjad would take me to the store, to my riding lesson, and other places. He had seven kids, which was typical in Jordan, but had financial problems. Gas prices are so high that it is hard to make a profit.”

Running out of gas was commonplace.

She recalls one trip where her taxi ran out of gas in the middle of a tunnel (on a road with no shoulder). The cab driver simply got out of the car and abandoned it – and her.

Being an independent American female in Jordan, Gray had to learn about other

customs, like not going out with wet hair, and not waiting alone for the bus. While there were no specific laws about women, like in Saudi Arabia, Gray says it was more about respecting the norm. “One night we went out to watch the World Cup in Madaba,” she recalls. “When we walked into the bar – packed with all men – the room went completely silent, except for the noise from the flat screen TV.” Experiences like these, disconcerting as they may have been, were precisely what drew Gray to come to the Middle East in the first place. “I really wanted to experience living there,” she says. “It was not as much about my career at all.” Still, Gray says the experience helped crystallize her professional goals. Her current job at National Geographic, where she collaborates with globally minded people, “feels like home.”

summer 2012

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Photograph by Mark Finkenstaedt

saudi arabia

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The

QUEST for Status Quo Since the onset of the so-called “Arab Spring” in January 2011, I have visited Saudi Arabia twice in an attempt to gauge how the pro-democracy uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world are affecting the ruling royal al-Saud family, which fiercely opposes any move toward democracy.

I have been reporting periodically on the kingdom for the Washington Post and various other publications since 1976, but March 2011 was the first time I went there as hundreds of thousands of people were demonstrating for democratic reforms including the removal of leaders in two of its neighbors, Bahrain and Yemen. The democratic wave was lapping at the kingdom’s borders.

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If there is a country whose stability is absolutely vital to the Obama administration right now, it is Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is the only oil producer with the capacity to make up the loss of Iran’s exports that Europe and the United States have set out to embargo, pressuring Tehran into halting its nuclear weapons program. In a military showdown with Iran, the world will depend on Saudi oil, and Iran may act to prevent it from leaving the Persian Gulf.

No wonder, then, that Middle East analysts have their eyes glued on the kingdom, measuring its political health as well as that of its aging royal rulers. King Abdullah is 87 and has had numerous operations on his back. The crown prince, Nayef bin Abdulaziz, is in his late-70s and suffers from various illnesses. Who comes next is subject to endless speculation as Saudi watchers note which senior prince is being elevated to which position.

The Saudi kingdom has never been an easy assignment for reporters. In five decades of writing about the Arab world, I have found Saudi Arabia the most difficult country to assess. The House of Saud keeps to itself and wards off all outside attempts to understand its inner workings and decisionmaking process. The saying goes: “Those who talk don’t know, and those who know, don’t talk.”

I first started visiting the kingdom more regularly in the early 1980s when I was The Washington Post bureau chief in Cairo. A visit was always an ordeal. It took a month or more to procure a visa that seldom was good for more than a week. Arranging interviews with even non-royal officials, not to mention a princely one, was agony. A reporter had to submit written interview requests that included all questions to be asked and then spend days badgering Ministry of Information officials to follow up.

The ministry itself we fondly dubbed “The Ministry of Denials” because its main activity seemed to be denying any news embarrassing to the kingdom.

I discovered that the worst mistake a visiting reporter could make was to ask for an interview with the king. If you did that, no official would say a word until he had spoken. Once, four other American reporters and I submitted a collective request to interview King Fahd. After a week without any reply – even a “no” – we all left the country

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empty-handed and furious.

In recent years, the kingdom has become much better at dealing with foreign reporters and has even allowed American media outlets like the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal to open bureaus there.

One former Washington Post female reporter has just finished a three-year residence there writing for various U.S. and Arab publications without ever obtaining official Saudi permission. That would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

It takes a lot of patience, persistence, and time to understand this tradition-bound kingdom, which allows no political parties and has no elected national parliament and

little civil society; it also refuses to allow women to drive a car or mix with men in public unless they are close relatives.

After many visits, however, I have gained a few insights. One is that the king, while absolute in theory, is far from all-powerful.

He spends a lot of time seeking consensus among the half-dozen senior-most princes, who are all his brothers or half-brothers.

Governing the kingdom is very much a family affair.

In foreign policy, there are many decision-makers, too. The foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal (a graduate of the Hun School and Princeton), does not have responsibility for all areas. The defense and interior ministers are in charge of some key countries like Yemen and Bahrain. For many years, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was the

keystone to the entire U.S.-Saudi relationship.

Today, the Saudi prince who speaks most often about the kingdom’s foreign policy holds no position whatsoever in the government. He is Prince Turki al-Faisal ’63 P’94 ’07, a graduate of Lawrenceville, who served for many years as chief of Saudi intelligence before becoming first ambassador to the United Kingdom and then to the United States. He is a first-class intellect, extremely articulate in English, and surprisingly witty.

Outsiders parse closely Prince Turki’s frequent pronouncements on everything from the Arab Spring to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the kingdom’s own nuclear intentions.

The problem is no one knows whether he is speaking only for himself or reflecting the views of Foreign Minister Prince Saud, who happens to be his brother.

For all its opacity, the kingdom manages to get its message out. If you listen closely to royal speeches and look out for changes in the public mood, you can get a pretty good idea of what’s on the mind of the ruling al-Sauds and their increasingly restless subjects.

The IT revolution has helped a lot, too.

Until a decade ago, the government had pretty much in hand the shaping of news about the kingdom. Today, there is a multitude of news sources it can no longer stifle. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs have become common features of the information landscape, as have dozens of Arab satellite television stations, like the provocative Al-Jazeera just next door in Qatar.

Altogether, the art of divining Saudi tea leafs has become a lot easier. Take, for instance, my March visit. King Abdullah had just returned from undergoing back surgery in New York City, and the government had organized a weeks-long nationwide reception of appreciation for him. There were huge posters of the king sprawled across buildings all over Jidda and Riyadh, while the media was singing his praises.

This king is indeed truly popular and may well go down in history as one of the kingdom’s best. But the government was using the welcome-home celebration as well to rally Saudis around the monarchy and quash a nascent pro-democracy movement that had called for a “Day of Rage” on March 11. All means were employed to

stop it. The powerful religious establishment proclaimed public protests haram, religiously forbidden. The state-controlled media warned of severe consequences, echoing security officials who had promised the immediate arrest of anyone who showed up. Over 17,000 Saudis had signed up to attend the “Day of Rage” on a special Facebook page. When the fateful day arrived, however, only one protester showed up in Riyadh. The government proclaimed victory and breathed an audible sigh of relief.

So what could outside reporters deduce from this unprecedented test of will? Clearly the al-Saud family intended to eradicate the first green shoots of the Arab Spring the moment they sprouted on the kingdom’s landscape. In this, it succeeded completely.

But the House of Saud also revealed that it was extremely nervous and uncertain of the public reaction to this open challenge to its authority; if not 17,000 Saudis, then maybe a few thousand might show up to vent their rage, enough to trigger a pro-democracy campaign. The al-Saud family was taking no chances.

The other evidence of its nervousness was the speed with which it opened its bulging coffers of oil money. Starting on the day of the king’s return, the government rolled out plans to spend $130 billion to create tens of thousands of jobs and 500,000 housing units to pacify unemployed university graduates likely to take to the streets. It started handing out monthly payments to the jobless and even gave 47,000 Saudis studying in the United States on government scholarships an extra month’s stipend. And Saudi women were finally promised their first voting rights starting with the next municipal elections in four years.

My conclusion was that despite no “Day of Rage,” the ruling al-Saud family had been profoundly moved and more than a little shaken by the Arab Spring. A reporter might be impressed by what didn’t happen, but even more impressive was what the al-Saud did to assure that outcome.



David Ottaway ’57 is currently a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He worked 35 years for the Washington Post as a foreign and national security correspondent and in its investigative unit.

summer 2012

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9 Alumni News EVENTS

F Lawrenceville alumnae gather in New York for the Fifth Annual Crescent Coast-toCoast Toast on Oct. 20.

The Alumni Association Executive Committee 2011/2012

President

Michael T. Wojciechowicz ’78 P’06 ’10 ’12

 Lawrentians in LA gather to Toast to the Fifth Annual Crescent Coast-to-Coast Toast.

Vice President

Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91 Vice President

Ian Rice ’95 Executive Committee

John C. Hover III ’61 P’91

F Lawrenceville alumni tee off at the Hong Kong golf outing on December 16.

Mark M. Larsen ’72 P’01 ’04 ’06 John C. Walsh ’99 Catherine Bramhall ’88 Charlie Keller ’95 Dallas Hetherington ’80 P’12 Scott Belair ’65 P’08 ’09 Dave Stephens ’78 P’06 A. Cahill Zoeller ’00 Alumni Trustees

Peter Schweinfurth ’79 P’15 David J. Ballard ’74 Greg W. Hausler ’81 Hyman J. Brody ’75 P’07 ’08 ’11 selectors

Gregory A. Williamson ’78 P’09 Peter C. Rubincam ’88 Frederick Cammerzell III ’68 Victoria Y. Wei ’89 Charles M. Fleischman ’76 Shannon Halleran McIntosh ’93 faculty liaison

Timothy C. Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99

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 Trustee Darrell Fitzgerald ’68 and Former Trustee Katie Michaels McDowell ’92 pose with fellow Lawrentians at the Atlanta Harkness Event on February 16.

9 Board Bits

T

his past January, the Board of Trustees and several members of the School administration convened at The Island School in Eleuthera, Bahamas, for the winter Board meetings. Having never been to The Island School as a group, the Board’s rendezvous with its “offspring” was a long time coming. Lawrenceville helped launch The Island School in the spring of 1999 when four teachers and 20 adventurous Lawrenceville students headed to Eleuthera for a pilot program during the spring term. The goal, aside from having a unique educational experience, was for participants to connect with the place – to learn from the land and the sea and the people – and to live simply as a tight-knit community in which the members relied on each other for success, knowledge, and fun.

In the Board’s short time there, we achieved similar connections. By experiencing the systems and philosophies embraced by The Island School, we had an opportunity to reconnect with our commitment to sustainability at Lawrenceville. Using a new framework for tracking and measuring our progress, STARS (Sustainability Tracking and Recording System), a living document that takes a comprehensive look at an institution’s sustainability across a wide range of factors, we discussed and plotted ways to advance our sustainability efforts for the short and long term. Finally, and perhaps most important, the Board was inspired by its and the School’s own history of decision-making that led to the successful Island School experiment 13 years ago.

Now, our job upon returning is to build on the School’s already substantial progress in the field of sustainability, with committees established to focus on education, operations, and planning which correlate to the STARS framework and consider how else Lawrenceville can lead as it did with the founding of The Island School.

Although our agenda in Eleuthera was dominated by sustainability, the Board conducted other business that was required at that time of the year. Notably, we reviewed the School’s financial forecast for the next year and agreed on a set of “budget cornerstones” that the School’s finance team will build into a comprehensive budget proposal for the Board at its May meeting. We also reviewed the likely Board retirements for this year and discussed potential nominees, and we held preliminary conversations about the School’s inter-campaign fundraising priorities and the next strategic planning process, which we will launch at the spring meeting. Finally, the group was briefed on the significant construction program to replace aging infrastructure. (This will be our fifth of six summers needed to install new steam heat and fresh water distribution lines throughout the campus, added to what will be a second “big dig” to install new storm water drainage lines from the Main Gate to the Pond.) Meanwhile, we were happy to report that the renovation of Pop Hall got under way in December and will continue to completion in June 2013.

Wes Brooks '71 P'03 '05 Chief Financial & Operating Officer

summer 2012

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Bequests - Paying it Forward G Bob '66 and Carole White

“It would be impossible to ever ‘repay’ Lawrenceville,” notes Bob White ’66. “The students, teachers, classes, coaches, facilities, and extracurricular activities opened my eyes to a breadth of things that were possible and available. I would likely never have been aware of them otherwise. It was like getting a four-year head start on everyone. Lawrenceville focuses on attracting students with poten-

tial and then exposes them to an enormous realm of possibilities.

Plus I have lifelong friends from Lawrenceville. What a wonderful gift to give a 14-year-old – and how very difficult it is to repay.”

Yet Bob does so by including a substantial bequest to the School in his estate plan. “It’s my way of helping Lawrenceville continue to provide the same life-changing experience to others.”

For more information on leaving a bequest to Lawrenceville or for other planned giving opportunities, or if you’ve included Lawrenceville in your will but not yet informed the School, contact Steve Cushmore, J.D. at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned Giving at 609-620-6064, or go to www.lawrenceville.org/plannedgiving.

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Photo

FINISH

Lawrenceville’s archive is home to a wealth of historical information. Unfortunately, it is also home to hundreds of mysterious photos. If you can provide any insight for the images below, please send an email to mallegra@lawrenceville.org. First responders will be credited in a future issue of The Lawrentian and will receive some nifty Lawrenceville swag.

by Zoe Vybiral-Bauske

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1. Looks like these are exactly the type of girls Cyndi Lauper had in mind! We’d love to know the names of the ladies in this photo, as well as the year it was taken.

2. The first thing we thought

Photo

FINDINGS

Congratulations to the Lawrenceville community on its amazing response to the winter issue’s “Photo Finish!”

Apparently you all need more of a challenge for future columns. While responses were numerous, there are a few individuals who deserve to be singled out.

when we saw this picture was, “Nice acrobatics!” Then we asked ourselves, “Is that a Members Only jacket?” If you can identify the inverted student, or any part of his wardrobe, we’d love to hear it!

Chris Martin ’90 recognized the folks in this photo as Christian Bullitt ’91 and Jeff Walker ’89 in Perwig’s 1989 production of Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced. Martin was stage manager for the show. His ID of Bullitt was soon confirmed when Bullitt himself contacted us, remembering, “I believe I had three lines in the play yet had to stand as depicted for almost an entire act. It was not quite, but almost, the pinnacle of my acting career, which fell far short of my high school ambitions.”

3. This croquet player couldn’t look more dapper in his blazer and boater. Can anyone remember this particular game or the name of the player?

4. The tags on these boys' shirts indicate their last names. We

James Olson, a former Lawrenceville drama master, remembered this photo as the faculty players production of Born Yesterday – as it was he who directed the show. Spanish Master Thomas Sharp and Drama Master Penelope Reed are the actors pictured.

know that much. But why are the boys wearing them? What is the occasion?

Anna Shkolnikov ’95 recalls this rafting trip as part of a 1993 Summer Oregon Trail trip. Economics Master Regan Kerney H’49 ’95 ’03 led this intrepid journey down Snake River with a group of students, including 1995 grads Theodore Daunno, Dave Baruch, Dorsey Stone, Christian Simmonds, Gavin McDowell, and Kate Moore.

Robin Wood ’94 was the first responder to supply the name and year of this 1993 Periwig production. The show was The

Miracle Worker and Robin identified herself as, “standing in the front with my tie in my mouth hamming it up next to Katie Hoffman ’94.”

Congratulations to Martin, Olson, Shkolnikov, and Wood. You may now begin to check your mailboxes for a delightful piece of Lawrentiana!

summer 2012

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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 e-mail us at vvanisko@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!