A publication for Alumni and Fr iends
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The Northwest School is an international college preparatory and boarding school for girls and boys, grades 6 - 12. Inquiries for academic year admission should be directed to Douglas Leek, Director of Admissions and Enrollment Management, douglas.leek@northwestschool.org, 206.682.7309 Inquiries for international admission should be directed to John Lloyd, International Program Coordinator, john.lloyd@northwestschool.org, 206.682.7309
Mike McGill Head of School Margie Combs, Editor Director of Communications Rose Bellini Assistant Director of Development Lauren Nelson Alumni Relations Manager Jessie Schreiber Development and Alumni Coordinator Contributing Writers Margie Combs Andrew Matson Lauren Nelson Scott Davis Contributing Photographers Diane Cassidy Stefanie Felix Jenn Ireland Andrew Matson NWS Faculty, Students, Parents Graphic Design Sarah Watson Design
Inquiries for global partnerships and programs should be directed to Dmitry Sherbakov, Director of Global Outreach and Programs, dmitry.sherbakov@northwestschool.org, 206.816.6202 The Northwest School Magazine welcomes alumni notes and photographs by alumni, parents, and friends. Please email alumni@northwestschool.org. Website: www.northwestschool.org
Table of Contents Head’s Message ................................................................................................................ 2 News and Notes ................................................................................................................
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401 E Pike: Our New Gymnasium, Theatre, Rooftop Sports Field .......... 3
New Theatre Opens with a Spanish/English Production .............................. 4
Photographs by Sophie Rosenkrantz ‘16 ........................................................ 6
Teacher Reviews Books about Evolution and Intelligent Design ............ 8
6th Grade: Multilayered Research Project ...................................................... 9
Student Artwork Selected for Exhibition ......................................................... 10
Basketball Award Winners ....................................................................... 11
El Salvador: Serving as International Election Observers ........................... 12 Winterfest ............................................................................................................................ 14 Middle School: World Court Debates ...................................................................... 1 6 Learning What it Means to be Human ............................................................... 18
David Kauffman ’95 – Practicing Human Scale Law ................................. 24
Josh Friedmann ’07 – Working in the White House .............................. 25
Erik Stegman ’00 – Fighting for Social Justice ............................................ 26
Mari Smith ’07 – Agricultural Development around the World ................ 28
Kim Stratton ’86 – Learning from Ancient Civilizations .............................. 29
Class Notes ........................................................................................................................ 30 Alumni Happenings ........................................................................................................ 35 Ultimate Program Wins Awards ................................................................................. 38
Cover photo: Students christen the new Black Box Theatre with a premier performance of La casa de los espiritus/The House of the Spirits, adapted from the novel by Isabelle Allende. Photographer: Diane Cassidy
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We are an idealistic place... Since I last wrote to you in our fall issue, our new building at 401 E. Pike opened to great excitement and acclaim. The annual alumni basketball games saw over 250 Northwest grads return to campus— a record for any event— to cheer on former classmates as they took on the boys’ and girls’ varsities. We welcomed even more spectators to Fan Night 2014 (the “homecoming” equivalent for our basketball teams) in the new Gymnasium and, for the first time, our celebratory t-shirts didn’t feature the tongue-in-cheek slogan, “Not in Our Leased Facility!” Then, just a couple of weeks later, the new Black Box Theatre filled to capacity for its inaugural production, The House of the Spirits. In fact, less than three months into our occupation of the building, I’ve already heard many people wonder aloud how we ever managed to get along without it. As for me, I’m still reveling in the joyful energy our kids bring to the new space every day. That said, education as we do it at Northwest is fundamentally about relationships: with each other and with ideas. So, while this new building is truly a gem of a space, it is, after all, just a building. If it were to vanish tomorrow this would still be the best school in Seattle: because of the quality of relationships we’ve nurtured between ourselves, because of the love of learning that thrives here and inspires us all, and because of our collective commitment to take that learning and apply it for good in a world that needs it. In other words, what we do doesn’t depend on a splendid new building. We are an idealistic place. The belief that education is important for purposes that transcend selective college entrance and career preparation—that it ought to be embraced as a vital means of improving the world—lies at the heart of our work with students at Northwest. A visitor remarked to me after attending a humanities lecture last spring, “There’s a thesis underlying the teaching around here!” Indeed. The school’s mission exhorts us to “graduate students with historical, scientific, artistic, and global perspective” in order that they will be able “to think and act with integrity” and “have a positive impact on the world.” And we seek to achieve these ends in virtually everything we do: in our stewardship of the environment and our respect for each other; through the content of our courses and the myriad extracurricular opportunities we offer; in our expectation that all seniors will participate meaningfully in the political process each fall; and in our annual trip to El Salvador where, this February, our students served as official election observers. In the following pages, you’ll read profiles of alums who embody these aims in their professional lives. Of course, they are a fraction of the hundreds of our graduates who are striving in one way or another to change our world for the better. Please continue to share your stories with us: they inspire faculty to forge on in their work with students and help those same students imagine the impact they can have on the world.
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Best wishes,
Mike McGill
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He ad of School
Best Wishes to Alan Braun 401 E Pike: Our New Gymnasium, Theatre, Rooftop Sports Field NWS’s new, multipurpose facility at 401 E Pike opened to students and faculty Jan. 6, lighting up our community. The opening was covered by national and local media, including The Seattle Times, Yahoo Sports, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, and the Daily Journal of Commerce. It is the first new building in The Northwest School’s 33-year history.
After Head of School Mike McGill addressed everyone early in the morning in the Commons, including board members and the 401 E Pike design team, students and faculty crossed Crawford Place to the new building. Students were briefed on how to safely inhabit the Gymnasium, Black Box Theatre, Dining Hall, and Rooftop Sports Field, and finally let loose (with supervision). They wasted no time shooting three-pointers, kicking penalty shots, and exploring their new space. The next day, students could be seen jogging around the gym during PE class, and later in the evening, playing a league basketball game, for the first time, at home.
After 22 years at The Northwest School, Alan Braun has accepted an exciting opportunity to become head of school at the Valley School in Seattle. He‘ll take up his new position on July 1, 2014. “We’re all thrilled for Alan—we know what a wonderful head of school he will make and, at the same time, we are all sorry to see him go,” says NWS Head of School Mike McGill. “Every aspect of our school, whether its program, people, or culture, has been positively changed by Alan’s having touched it. We’ll miss him.” Alan first started at The Northwest School as a 6th and 7th grade Humanities teacher. He arrived at NWS in 1991, fresh from Morocco, where he and his wife, Jenner Mandel, had been serving in the Peace Corps. He brought with him a master’s in education from Harvard University with a concentration in teaching, curriculum and learning environments. Within a year Alan became Middle School Director and, in 2002, he became Assistant Head of School. During his tenure, Alan’s counsel has been sought and valued by every constituency of our school. He has led the way to strengthening our international program, furthering the integration of international and domestic students, and has grown professional development to where it is now an expected part of what we do. “I’m so pleased with the years I’ve had at Northwest,” says Alan. “A lot of what I’ve tried to do is identify areas where clarity, expectation, and procedure could be put into place to strengthen programs. They were already happening but we worked together to make them sustainable. The school’s philosophy is personified in its practice—students are intellectually engaged and excited about ideas, they see across boundaries and are able to look at the world through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, and they go out and get involved. This all speaks to the education NWS provides.” To the pleasure of us all, Alan will remain in our community as a parent. His daughter, Leila ‘12, is now an English major at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. His son, Gabe ‘15, is a junior and an accomplished trombonist, as well as a valued center back on the NWS soccer team. So Alan, we send you off with heartfelt congratulations, knowing that we’ll see you on the soccer field and at parent events, where we’ll continue to savor your puns and your pies. Congratulations and bonne chance!
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New Theatre Opens with a Spanish/English Production Christening our new Black Box Theatre at 401 E Pike, the NWS Theatre Department’s production of La casa de los espíritus / The House of the Spirits took advantage of the facility’s flexible staging and seating, Feb. 6-9. The epic political drama stood out from other NWS productions as it challenged students to speak partly in Spanish and partly in English. The script was originally adapted by Myra Platt for Book-It Repertory Theatre, from the original novel by Chilean writer Isabel Allende. It was further adapted for Northwest by Theatre teacher Laura Ferri, including dialogue and narrative sections from the original Spanish novel, as well as the English translation. “A few of the actors were fluent while some had taken Spanish classes for years, and were very comfortable speaking the language,” says Laura. “For others, they’d taken French, or Chinese, but not Spanish—and those actors especially had to work with our Language faculty on pronunciation. They met during free periods at school.” Students were coached by Language teachers Daniel Sparler, David Montero, and Marina de McVittie on correct Spanish pronunciation, and with Françoise Canter on the few sections in French. Marina checked the entire script for grammar while David, Daniel, and Language teacher Michelle Kowals provided help with translation. Daniel, who is also a Humanities teacher, helped as a musical consultant as well, introducing the cast to the political-activist songs of Victor Jara, and treated students to an historical lecture about the period in which part of the play was set. Senior Selene C. and Junior Julia M. composed original music for the production, which was performed by students on piano, cello, and voice. The production also featured rebel songs of the era, which were taught by former NWS faculty Suzanne Grant. “It was hard to get sheet music of Chilean songs,” says Laura. “’El Pueblo Unido’ was important to the Allende campaign, and especially difficult to find. And the music was difficult to learn. The rhythms were different, the time signature was irregular—3/4, and then 6/2. The students really did an amazing job learning it all.” Laura says learning a new language, and incorporating music and movement, helped draw students deeper into the story. Many faculty members worked together to achieve this depth. Scott Davis, NWS Mime teacher, conducted a movement workshop with the actors, and NWS alum Sylvie Baldwin introduced them to Viewpoints: an acting technique that teaches spatial awareness and group movement in an ensemble. Actors also learned the Tango, the Cumbia and the Cueca, traditional Latin American dances, from choreographers in the community. Local dialect coach Michael Loggins taught dialects and stage combat.
Student Wins Writing Award, Gears Up for New Play Production This past February, NWS 10th grader Frank G. won a Scholastic Art & Writing Regional Gold Key award in the Humor category. His award-winning essay, titled “Childhood, And How To Cure It”, was a satire originally written for a project assigned by NWS Humanities teacher Kate Winton. Frank has already garnered several awards and honors in his writing career, including Scholastic Gold Key Frank G. ‘16 and Silver Key awards in 2012-13. He won the Gold Key in the Dramatic Script category for Talking With God, a comedy about Jesus struggling to communicate with his father. He won two Silver Keys in the same category for Another Dead Caesar and Believing Hermes. Also in 2012-13, Frank’s play, Another Dead Caesar, was produced at Seattle Public Theater. He was the 2nd place winner of Northwest Playwright’s Alliance national competition, and two-time winner of ACT Theatre’s Young Playwrights Program award for outstanding student plays. Frank’s work has also made it to the Lucille Lortelle Theatre stage in New York where it was read as part of the Stephen Sondheim’s Young Playwrights Inc. program. The most recent production that featured Frank’s writing was Maggie’s Diner, which ran May 2-4 at Seattle Public Theater. Frank’s Gold Key-winning essay sardonically outlined ways in which the American education system should be overhauled. The essay lampooned the prevalence of corporate sponsorship and one-upsmanship in America.
As Laura says: “It takes a village to create a show.”
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Sophie R.’16
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Teacher Reviews Books about Evolution and Intelligent Design “I thought it would be good to draw the attention of the biology teaching community to the essential differences between the two books.” — M a r k T e r ry
NWS Science teacher and co-founder Mark Terry published two book reviews in February’s edition of The American Biology Teacher. Mark rated The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity, by Douglas H. Erwin and James W. Valentine, with an outstanding score (five out of five frogs according to the journal’s scale). By Mark Terry contrast, Mark gave Stephen C. Meyer’s book, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, just one frog. “I thought it would be good to draw the attention of the biology teaching community to the essential differences between the two books,” says Mark, who is currently working with a group at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, DC, to draft new materials for AP Biology. Mark’s thesis about the books, both published in 2013, was that the former is a work of science, while the latter is not. Both books are about the Cambrian, a prolific period in the
fossil record from over 500 million years ago in which the oldest representatives of many diverse animal forms, now classified as phyla, are found. Mark finds Erwin and Valentine’s Cambrian Explosion to be “masterful” in reporting on the scientific studies of this seemingly abrupt episode by looking further than the fossil record. A fuller picture emerges by searching deeper for clues from preceding fossil periods, as well as utilizing evidence from comparative anatomy, developmental biology, and comparative genomics. In contrast, Darwin’s Doubt (Mark’s one-frog book) argues the Cambrian Explosion was the result of “Intelligent Design,” the action of a creative intelligence. The book claims all the mainstream science done on the Cambrian is unjustly limited by its insistence on analyzing “strictly material processes.” Mark writes that this appeal to supernatural, immaterial causes abandons “the basis of modern (since the 17th Century) science.” Mark’s goal for writing the reviews and suggesting that The American Biology Teacher run them together in the same issue was to alert the science teaching community to the value of the Erwin and Valentine volume. “When I saw that Meyers’ Darwin’s Doubt was getting a big push from Seattle’s Discovery Institute, I thought it would be worthwhile to have it reviewed alongside Erwin and Valentine’s book that had come out the same year,” says Mark. “Erwin and Valentine’s publisher, Roberts & Company, is a science house, run by scientists, and never likely to generate anything like the publicity of a HarperCollins, mass market book.” The American Biology Teacher, the journal of the National Association of Biology Teachers, is widely read by teachers nationwide, and is considered an important resource in the science education community.
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6th Graders Honored in Writing Contest Two NWS 6th graders were selected as state semi-finalists in “Letters About Literature”, a national writing contest sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Washington State Library. Those honored students—Daphne M. and Jackson C. M.—had their letters selected from 2,248 entries. The contest required them to choose a book that changed their lives, and write a
6 Graders’ Multilayered Research Project th
6th
This January, 47 NWS graders researched lesser-known mathematicians, scientists, and inventors for the 20th annual Tea Party Project—a multilayered assignment created by Science/Math teacher Erica Bergamini, which incorporates science, humanities, theatre, and our library. The project is named after its theatrical finale, a staged tea party in which students play the role of their chosen figure, dressing and conversing in small groups while their peers take notes. This year, the project involved several faculty members: Erica, 6th Grade Humanities teachers Heather Hall and Mackenzie Prentice, and Librarians Nancy Highiet and Alicia Kalan. “The 6th graders were costumed by their older peers in the Advanced Theatre class, so the students were attired as they would have been in their era,” Erica says. “Then each one described their accomplishments to the people at the table, and refreshments were served. We all enjoyed those fascinating, yet historically impossible, meetings of the minds.”
The meat of the project was research. The NWS Library currently supplies 74 biographies for students to choose from for the Tea Party Project. Reading and analyzing these texts builds foundational study skills essential for Upper School and college. “At this age, it’s crucial for students to learn to write a properly-formatted outline, take organized notes, and write a bibliography,” says Erica. “They’ll use those skills through their academic careers.” The Tea Party Project also develops students’ public speaking, peer-review and self-reflection skills (students evaluate their peers and their own research). And it encourages them to make connections between subjects while personally engaging in the subject matter.
letter to the author explaining its personal importance. Daphne wrote to Peg Kehret, author of Small Steps, and Jackson wrote to Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games. Daphne’s letter additionally won Honorable Mention, and was publicly recognized at the State Capitol building in Olympia, on May 9, 2014.
“If you ask a typical young person to quickly draw a scientist, mathematician or inventor, you ofter get an Einstein-like caricature,” Erica explains. “So I started this project as a way to introduce some scientific history and to debunk science/math stereotypes. We want our students to think, ‘Hey, that could be me!’”
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Felix D. ‘17
Student Artwork Selected for Exhibition Three NWS students were honored for excellence in ceramics at the national level, with artworks selected for the National K-12 Ceramic Exhibition in Milwaukee, WI, March 19-22. The exhibit was an annual juried competition, which took place in conjunction with the annual conference of The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). Students’ artworks were selected from thousands to appear in the exhibit of 100. Two of the three NWS pieces were results of an assignment given by NWS Ceramics teacher Randy Silver to create a ceramic version of an endangered animal. The resulting, selected pieces were Endangered Pangolin by Felix D. ‘17, and Endangered Giant Panda by Lena F. ‘17. The third piece, Futbol Mask, by Matias L.-F. ’16, was an independent project. Additional awards were announced at the exhibition: Matias won Artistic Merit, Lena was selected for Further Distinction, and Felix won Honorable Mention. These artworks were seen by 8,000 people during the exhibition and NCECA conference.
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Matias L.-F. ’16
Lena F. ‘17
Basketball Program Wins Awards Graham Brewer
The NWS 2014 basketball season drew to a successful close in February, capped by several awards for our student athletes and coaches from the Emerald City League (ECL). Orion Baker and Graham Brewer were voted Coaches of the Year for our Boys’ Varsity team. “When I learned we won, I felt the award was a reflection on our players,” says Orion. “Our players definitely had a great attitude and made an excellent effort during every game this year, and those are two things I hold them accountable for.”
More ECL honors: Both NWS Girls’ Varsity and Boys’ Varsity squads won awards for Team Sportsmanship; Seniors Jack B. and Mariah W. made the ECL First Team; and freshman Catherine C. made Second Team. It was a strong year overall, with the NWS 6th Grade Girls’ team undefeated in league play, coached by Mike Mullen, and our Varsity Girls’ and Boys’ teams making it to the Tri-District playoffs. Was our stunning new Gymnasium at 401 E Pike behind these achievements? Orion admits the facility didn’t hurt. But he says the successful year was rooted in the quality of NWS players and coaches. “I couldn’t ask to be surrounded by better people,” he says.
Orion Baker
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El Salvador: Serving as International Election Observers This reflection about our 16th annual trip to El Salvador was written by NWS Upper School Humanities Chair Scott Davis, teacher of such diverse NWS courses as Mime and Law and Society. Northwest’s 2014 school trip to El Salvador, like all of Northwest’s international trips, was a powerful compliment to our curriculum and a great example of how we work to graduate students with historical and global perspective. This year’s trip was particularly noteworthy because it coincided with El Salvador’s presidential elections, which allowed the school’s delegation of 17 students and 5 teachers to join hundreds of other international election observers in an effort to guarantee that the process was free, fair, and transparent. The student group included some from our International Program, from China and Taiwan, and their insights broadened our whole community’s view. This was my fourth time to the country with Northwest and perhaps my favorite yet.
Scott Davis
The school’s relationship with El Salvador has been an integral part of our program for nearly two decades. Paul Raymond initiated school trips to the country shortly after the 1992 Peace Accords, which ended the 12-year civil war, and delegations of Northwest students have been visiting ever since. As in past years, this year’s trip featured urban and rural components.
We spent several days in San Salvador visiting historical and cultural sites, and several days living with host families in Huisisilapa, a rural community established by former refugees of the civil war. The trip was facilitated by the SHARE Foundation, a non-profit that promotes grassroots efforts in El Salvador.
Observing Democracy The highlight of the trip was, arguably, Election Day, Sunday, Feb. 2nd. Our delegation was assigned to monitor two polling stations and we arrived at the break of dawn to assume our posts. Our task was to watch as people voted and note any procedural nonconformities. All day we observed as voters established their id entities at the voting tables, received their ballots, and voted. At the end of the day we watched as the ballots were pulled out of the ballot boxes and meticulously counted. We witnessed few abnormalities and all indications were that the voting was conducted without fraud. There’s more to a fair election than a fraud-free election day (for instance, equal access to media leading up to the vote) but, from what we observed, it does seem that El Salvador has established a fair voting system. The results of the voting we monitored were not conclusive—no single candidate received over 50% of the vote, so a run-off election was held on March 9. In the run-off, the leftwing FMLN party won by 6,600 votes out of around 3 million cast. The rightwing party wants a recount and has threatened to run a shadow government rather than concede defeat. I imagine it’s a tense time in the country now. Fortunately, other international observers were present for the run-off election and report that the voting that day was also free of fraud, which lends authority to the results and may help resolve the current dispute over the results.
Teaching Democracy or Being Schooled? Americans often cast ourselves as the exporters of democracy, and perhaps we can rightly claim that title, but on this trip I felt that we got schooled by the Salvadorans on what authentic democracy looks like. The democracy in El Salvador is young—twenty years young, and it felt like that: vibrant, vital, passionate. The polling stations were festive, the election workers were young and engaged; the school grounds buzzed and entire families arrived together
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Maya W. ’14 on the February 2014 trip to El Salvador
Hilary (left) working for CISPES in El Salvador
Hilary Goodfriend ’08
CISPES Representative in El Salvador Hilary Goodfriend ’08 is living in San Salvador, El Salvador, where she works to fight U.S. imperialism and accompany the Salvadoran social movement’s struggle for justice, dignity and self-determination. After graduating from New York University in 2012, Hilary was inspired by her studies of Latin America and accepted an opportunity to relocate to El Salvador— a place that had become meaningful to her during a trip with The Northwest School in 2007. to participate in the party. Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli, who served as a NWS election observer five years ago, pointed out how decrepit the US democracy feels in contrast. My image of our polling stations—when we still had them—is of cold rooms with tables staffed by senior citizens and haggard voters rushing to vote and get on to the next engagement. In El Salvador our students saw engagement unlike what we experience here.
Building on Classroom Learning The Humanities 11 curriculum surveys 20th century history and literature and by mid-year has introduced Northwest juniors to the causes and impacts of the Cold War. But the book learning comes to life for trip participants when they meet Salvadorans whose lives were directly impacted by U.S. foreign policy during that era. At the height of the armed struggle the U.S. spent more than $1 million dollars per day to support the right wing Salvadoran government and to arm and train the military for counter-insurgency. The United Nations has since determined that 80% of the war crimes and human rights violations committed during the civil war were committed by the U.S.-supported government and its functionaries. SHARE introduces our students to more activists who are forward-looking than they do victims of the war, but they ensure that our students understand the role that the U.S. played in the violence of the Cold War and they reinforce what we teach in the Raymond room and elsewhere in the school building. The actions of our own government have a lasting impact on people far and wide and, as citizens of the U.S., we have a duty to educate ourselves about those policies and to advocate for policies that are just. For many Salvadorans, the war seems long over. The younger generations are looking for creative ways to build a cohesive society and to move beyond past divisions. We met student leaders at the National University, leaders of a nascent LGBT movement, young scientists promoting sustainable agriculture, and community organizers at a parish in a barrio plagued with gang violence. We also met with NWS graduate Hilary Goodfriend who is working for an NGO advocacy group in San Salvador. We hope that by meeting impassioned young people who are working to build their own futures, our students can envision how they, too, can have a positive impact on the world.
Hilary is working as a representative of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) while also studying for a master’s degree in Communications at the University of Central America. CISPES works to confront U.S. policy toward El Salvador, using grassroots efforts to fight against interventionist policies and practices, and it supports both the Salvadoran social movement and the FMLN leftist political party in their struggles in El Salvador. “My job in El Salvador is to consult with CISPES’s allies in the social movement and political spheres to find ways that we can work together strategically to combat dangerous and damaging U.S. policies,” Hilary says. “As international solidarity activists, our role is to fight the unjust policies that our government is enacting, not impose our vision upon El Salvador.” Hilary has also helped coordinate many international delegations of people who travel to El Salvador.
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On Dec. 19, 2013, NWS students and faculty celebrated our 33rd annual Winterfest, an exciting day of science and math demonstrations and games. The event culminated weeks of hard study by all grade levels. Eleventh grade Chemistry students performed pyrotechnical feats (safely) in the upper hall; the 12th grade Physics classes launched rockets on the West Court; math games were puzzled over by 10th graders and faculty in the Commons; 9th graders shot small objects from precisely constructed catapults; and the 8th grade Bridge Contest was as suspenseful as ever, with heavy bricks balanced on carefully engineered structures built from thin strands of wood.
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Opening Arguments
Humanities teacher Julie Kim (right, foreground) introduces World Court debate teams as fellow teacher Tamara Bunnell looks on.
Middle School:
World Court Debates It is fall, 2013, and the final round of the World Court Debates at The Northwest School are about to begin. The “court room” is alive with anticipation. All 7th graders are gathered to watch three teams vie for the land of the Pacific Northwest. Battling it out are groups representing the United States, England, and the Native American cultures of the region. The year is 1810. “In 7th grade Humanities, we focus on what happens when two cultures try to occupy the same space,” says Humanities teacher Julie Kim who co-teaches the World Court Debate project with Humanities teacher Tamara Bunnell. “We want students to absorb the fact that the Pacific Northwest was not as it is today, and to see there were major forces in effect at the time that determined the outcome of events.” The World Court Debate project has been a fundamental unit of the 7th grade Humanities program for over 20 years. Students begin by choosing between five groups: those mentioned above as well as Spain and Russia, all of whom claimed portions of the Northwest at the time. In the preliminary section debates, the nation teams are whittled down to three finalists, and those three go on to the final round.
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Teacher Tamara Bunnell (seated on floor) and 7th graders watch the final debate rou nd
strategizes a rebuttal The Native American team
According to Tamara Bunnell, a key focus of the project is teaching students how to search for information and also, how to use it in an argument. “We give students a blank legal brief they must fill out, which outlines their main factual arguments,” explains Tamara who has taught at Northwest since 1994. “They have to research their team’s strengths and weaknesses as well as all the other groups’ strengths and weaknesses.”
To build their case, student take into account four categories: 1 Proximity—If war broke out in the Pacific Northwest who can get troops there? 2 Power—Who has economic and political power? Who has power but other global concerns that might limit their ability to defend the region? For example, England has a lot of power but has just lost a war with the Colonies. Does the nation have the bandwidth to control and support this region? 3 Morality—How ethical is the nation’s government? What are the nation’s laws and professed morals, and how well are they measuring up to them? For example, the U.S. professes to be a democracy but is still a slave-holding nation; and should anyone but the indigenous people of the region have a voice? 4 History of the region—Who claimed this region and when? Who has established business here? Who has settled a community versus passing through with a trading agenda? “You have to do a lot of work,” testifies 7th grader Hazel M. who participated on the Britain team this year. “When you’re researching all the countries, you have to figure out what sources are valid and how to check yours. You have
to look for the author, date of publication, and bibliography.” “We teach students that ‘19 Hazel M. Google is not the best place to start,” confirms Julie Kim. ‘We show them better resources, and we bring them primary sources— original documents and articles.” Two weeks prior to the debate, students draft an opening statement, rebuttal, and conclusion. They must know the information well enough to think on their feet and respond to the other groups’ argument. During the debate, each team gives an opening statement; then, each has five minutes to huddle and strategize rebuttals. “The rebuttal is really challenging,” testifies 7th grader Zoe T. who participated on the Native American team this year. “You don’t have the sources in front of you, and we had to draw on what the other teams told us and spin that into an argument.”
Opening Arguments United States We are a growing nation. We want to expand our territory. We have beaten England and we are the only democracy. We have several explorers, including Lewis and Clarke, who have already claimed the Northwest in 1792.
Native Americans We have the highest respect for this land. It should remain ours. We’ve been here for over thousands of years, long before you knew there was a continent here. You want to use us as slaves. We have learned to survive on this land and have never run out of food. We have nowhere else to go. This is where we should stay.
Britain We recently created the United Kingdom. We have control of Canada. Claiming this new land (in the Pacific Northwest) would open opportunities for trade. We have many discoveries. We deserve this land for prosperity.
Zoe and her teammates argued that the Native Americans held the highest moral ground and had the greatest right to claim the land. “We knew, as Native Americans, that we had been there for thousands of years and had staked out our land already,”
states Zoe. “And we stressed the fact that England and the U.S. had religious ethics and laws against taking property, and yet that’s just what they were doing.” After the rebuttal, each team has five more minutes to formulate concluding statements, and once the statements are delivered, the audience votes as to which team is most effective. This year, the Native American team won. “I’ve never done a debate before and it was exciting,” says Zoe. “I just told myself, ‘Keep calm, keep calm—focus on what you know.’” “It’s a great way for kids to get emotionally invested in history and to have a stake in it,” says Tamara. “They gain a clear idea of what the world looked like in the 1800s, an awareness of who was grappling with land rights, and who had the advantage in history.” Hazel M. agrees. “It was an interesting and effective way to learn. You get perspective on injustices back then and in today’s society,” says Hazel. “You can carry that forward into how you live your life, making sure everything you do is just.”
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Humanities teacher Daniel Sparler presents a primary source document to 11th graders
Learning What it Means to be Human On a midwinter morning at The Northwest School, 11th grade students pour into a classroom alive with rhythm and music. The beat coming over the sound system is distinctly African and, as students take their seats, Humanities teacher Daniel Sparler announces the musician’s name. “Miriam Makeba was a South African artist and civil rights activist repressed during the years of apartheid,” says Daniel. “Her music is an example of the power of artists and how repressive governments are always trying to silence their work.”
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With that, Daniel plunges students into the era of apartheid and what it felt like to have one’s voice silenced. Over the next 45 minutes, he takes students from the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela to the Soweto youth uprising and the Black Consciousness Movement to the miracle of Mandela’s release and election as president.
This is a lecture, but it doesn’t feel like one. Daniel is electrifying, moving about the room, engaging students with storytelling as he flashes images of Mandela and others on the large white board, along with pivotal documents and unflinching photos of Afrikaners’ oppression of blacks in the townships. He clicks on 1960s video clips, reawakening the sights and sounds of Mandela on trial. He passes around primary source materials, documents, letters, and magazine and newspaper articles from the time. He asks students not only for questions but also for responses. The experience is designed not only to impart information but to engage students in a conversation. “We don’t teach from a textbook so our lectures are designed to take the place of that,” says Daniel who has taught at Northwest for 22 years. He holds a degree in Spanish from the University of Arkansas and a degree in Education from Eastern Washington University. “Our lecture
Synthesizing Past and Present In the 11th grade, students take on the rigorous work of historians, analyzing events from history and applying them to current situations. Seated among the students are other Humanities teachers, piping in with their own questions and comments
is a more active and engaging way to present content, and it’s interactive—we want students to participate.”
Three modes of conversation The lively lectures are presented two or three times a week for 9th, 10th and 11th graders by rotating teachers. They are one of three ways NWS students engage in Humanities learning. In addition, students break into smaller group sections to discuss the ideas and events they have just learned about in lecture. They also gather regularly with a teacher and a small number of classmates in conferences— sessions designed for close writing critiques, essay revision, and test preparation. “Our lecture, discussion, and conference modes are different configurations of the conversation,” explains Humanities teacher Sarah Porter who teaches 11th grade Humanities and advanced writing composition, and holds a master’s in English Literature from the University of Virginia. “It’s a fairly intense and involved experience, and also an intrigue for students who are testing out ideas and forming relationships. To be invited into that academic conversation is an opportunity—it’s a taste of the academic experience they will have in college.”
The narrative of humankind The Upper School Humanities program at The Northwest School is a rich and unique way of learning. Rather than separating English and History, the school integrates the two disciplines into a holistic program of history, literature, philosophy, religion, and art. “It’s unusual that we don’t hire separate English and social studies teachers,” notes Humanities Department Chair Scott Davis, who holds a law degree from the University of Washington School of Law, and teaches NWS’s senior Law and Society course. “The breadth of what we’re asked to teach, and the challenge of connecting the disciplines through content and skill, keeps us on our toes. It’s vibrant and exciting.” Continued...
“We teach our students that history is not a set of facts that happened yesterday—but an active and alive conversation they can and should join,” says Humanities teacher Daren Salter who holds a master’s in American History from San Francisco State and has taught at the university level. “In 11th grade, we ask students to develop interpretations and test those interpretations.” Two major projects challenge students in this way: the 11th Grade Research Project and, at year’s end, the 11th Grade Debates. For the research project, students choose a world figure from the latter half of the 20th Century, analyze all that has been written about this person and then, develop a fresh interpretation of the person’s legacy. Humanities teacher Daren Salter
Forming an opinion Says Daren: “The final research paper must not only show current understanding of a person’s life and legacy but also emphasize multiple perspectives.” One of Daren’s students is taking on Lyndon Baines Johnson as her subject this year. According to Daren, her challenge will be LBJ’s complicated legacy: landmark legislation on civil rights and a sweeping program for poverty, coupled with the Vietnam War and hundreds of thousands of American and Vietnamese casualties. “She will need to weigh criticism of LBJ’s foreign policy and praise for his domestic policy, and then synthesize the two and come up with her own opinion,” points out Daren. “Colleges ask for this. It’s more difficult but also more rewarding than simply writing a biography of LBJ.”
Shaping an argument The ability to express an informed opinion rests at the heart of many a successful career in law, politics, and social justice advocacy. NWS 11th graders hone this skill by participating in a formal debate on a contemporary global issue. Working in integrated teams of domestic and international students, 11th graders choose a topic that touches on issues of human rights or globalization, such as the composition of United Nation’s Security Council, the use of drones to combat terrorism, or the imposition of sanctions to discourage Iran’s nuclear weapon development.
“Students don’t know which side they’ll be on in the debate until the week before,” says 11th grade Humanities teacher Scott Davis. They have to research both sides and be prepared to step in either way. “Understanding the other side makes you better able to argue your own,” says Scott.
Finding reliable sources One of the most critical research skills NWS students learn throughout Middle and Upper School is how to find authoritative sources. They learn Google and Wikipedia are the last places to go. In collaboration with NWS librarian Nancy Highiet, 11th graders access powerful online resources such as JSTOR, a database of academic journals. “Our students discover a whole new world where accomplished historians and scholars are commenting on each other’s work and opinions,” says Scott. “By the time of the debates, students are skilled at quoting authorities. “ In addition to preparing an opening argument, rebuttal, and conclusion, students keep a debate journal, commenting and reflecting on the other debates they watch. “Over the course of two weeks they are exposed to at least 10 debates, which means they understand both sides of 10 contemporary issues around the world,” testifies Scott. When their debate moment arrives, students step up with confidence and make compelling arguments. Says Scott: “They show a depth of knowledge and global perspective that’s great to behold.”
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Learning What it Means to be Human, continued...
without teaching Islam is to shortchange it, and to teach the Roman Empire without Christianity is to isolate it,” says Calvin. “By teaching Humanities as an integrated discipline, we introduce students to the narrative of humankind.”
A shared experience As they immerse in history, literature, philosophy, religion, and art, students are benefitting from a shared learning experience. At The Northwest School, all students in grades 9, 10, and 11 study the same sequence of history and literature. Not until grade 12 do students break off and specialize with elective courses.
Humanities teacher Calvin Shaw
The Northwest School’s founders—Paul Raymond, Ellen Taussig and Mark Terry —believed that integrating the disciplines was the only way to provide students with a strong foundation of knowledge. To teach a subject in isolation was to shortchange both the subject and the student, a view echoed by NWS teachers today.
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Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli conferences with Jack T. ’15 about his writing.
“If you look at history and the different things that shape ideas—how culture has shaped art, how arts are a reflection of historical events—to teach them in isolation is a disservice,” says 9th grade Humanities teacher Calvin Shaw who holds a master’s in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of Hawaii. “Right now my students are working on the Roman and Arab empires. To teach the Arab Empire
Humanities teacher and poet Suzanne Bottelli echoes other Humanities teachers who believe this shared experience not only provides every student a strong foundation but also, a collective understanding. “There’s something about embedding a shared set of references, not for the purpose of some AP exam, but as touchstones for understanding,” says Suzanne who holds a master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa, and a master’s in English Literature from Middlebury College. “Our students share a vocabulary and intellectual dimension.” In 9th grade, all students begin by studying the rise of ancient civilizations and progress to the Renaissance in the 1600s. They study mythological archetypes from a variety of cultures and ponder questions such as what is the true nature of evil? Tenth graders tackle the history of big ideas, from the 1600s to 1900, moving from the Enlightenment to Imperialism, tackling questions like what is truth?, and who should rule? In 11th grade, all students study the 20th Century up to the present, focusing on globalization and the quest for resources (especially oil) and asking in what ways the 20th Century was the American Century? And how has the struggle for civil rights shaped the relationship between the individual and the state?
Confirms Suzanne: “We want our students to wrestle with the big questions of each age.”
History as interpretation Regardless of the grade level or era of study, the Humanities program provokes students to question what they’ve heard about historical events. From the first moment they enter the 9th grade, students learn directly from historical documents rather than a textbook. A key thing they’re taught is to note who wrote the document. “We teach our students that they have to look at the source of the historical document in their hand, and that will determine what they get out of the document,” says 9th grade Humanities teacher Priscilla Lindberg who holds a master’s in History from the University of Connecticut. “They learn quickly that most history has been written by the victors.”
Senior Year:
Action and Inquiry Seniors begin their final year at The Northwest School by jumping into a political campaign. From city council to gubernatorial to presidential races, students select a candidate, contact local campaign headquarters, and get involved. “Our students gain a lot of awareness when they work on a campaign,” testifies Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli. “They’re usually shocked by the low average attendance rate at elections—that gets them fired up.” In addition to logging 18 volunteer hours, seniors must interview the candidate or someone closely connected to the campaign, write a transcript of the interview as well as an analysis of campaign literature, and complete an evaluation of election outcomes. They also keep a journal, logging their hours, tasks, and observations. According to Suzanne, seniors often see they are invaluable to the campaign. She points to one student who recently chose a candidate running for city council.
Humanities teacher Adina Meyer discusses work with Kisanet B. ’16
To get past the victor’s point of view, students examine and analyze documents written by all sides. A good example is in 10th grade, when students study events leading up to the Civil War. One of those events is the Harper’s Ferry incident in 1859 when white abolitionist John Brown attempted to lead an armed slave revolt.
Individual impact
“We look at different people responding to that incident: how did Lincoln view it? How did Frederick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau write about it?” explains Humanities teacher Adina Meyer who has a master’s in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh. “On the one hand, some thought John Brown was a psychopath— but on the other, Frederick Douglass said John Brown was the only white man who understood how awful slavery was.“
“As we study the abolitionist movement, for example, we study Angelina Grimké, who was from one of the most powerful slave-owning families,” notes Adina. “Somehow she understood slavery was so wrong, she went to Philadelphia and became the center of the abolitionist movement. Students start to see they can make a difference; they understand their own individual impact and how it unfolds.”
According to Adina, students see the incident was not one sided. “We give students a historical perspective but also a human perspective—it ties into social justice. When students learn this way, they truly become compassionate human beings.”
One of the most compelling insights students gain from their Humanities studies is the power of the individual. In the face of horrifying events like the Holocaust, apartheid, and slavery, students see that there were people who stood up as individuals.
Continued...
“Her assignment was to evaluate the candidate’s campaign literature and she found he didn’t have enough,” says Suzanne who has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa and a master’s in English Literature from Middlebury College. “She ended up writing his campaign brochure.” In addition, students do an in-depth study of the Constitution and the political process, examining, among other things, the Bill of Rights, the President’s powers in times of war, the debate surrounding voter registration requirements, and how to make laws. They can’t proceed until they pass a mastery exam on the nuts and bolts of the Constitution.
Diving deeper Senior year is also a time to specialize. Students immerse in two courses of their own choosing: one in social studies and one in literature/creative writing. “This is the stage when our students have the skills and foundational background to join the conversation at a highly sophisticated level,” notes Suzanne. “We teach these senior courses like college seminars.” From the social studies strand, students can elect Latin American Studies, Media Studies, Reading Environments (a course on global environmentalism), Religion and Society, or Law and Society. Each of these courses begin with the campaign and Constitution projects. From the literary/creative writing strand students choose from two comparative literature courses, two writing courses, and one philosophy course. Next year, the school plans to add a new course in each strand. Humanities teacher Andy Meyer, who teaches the senior Reading Environments course, says NWS seniors experience the true pleasure of intellectual work and the gratification of making a difference. “We give them these opportunities at every grade level but we intensify them in senior year,” says Andy who holds a PhD in English from the University of Washington. “By the time they graduate, our students know the joy of inquiry, and what it is to make life better based on new knowledge.”
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Learning What it Means to be Human, continued...
I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
Romans 9:25
Humanities teacher Harumi LaDuke (left) engages students in a history learning exercise
The lens of literature As students journey through eras of history their greatest moments of understanding often come from literature. At every grade level, Humanities students read great works of literature, including novels, poems, and plays, of or about the period under study. “Literature surpasses anything history can tell you, from the Greek Tragedies to The Great Gatsby, from Harlem Renaissance poets to the oratory of Martin Luther King,” states Suzanne Bottelli. “It’s how we learn what it is to be human.”
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When studying apartheid, 11th graders read Nadine Gordimer’s collection of short stories, Jump, to get inside the mindset of the competing players on both sides, according to Daniel Sparler. “When we look at how China emerged from the Cultural Revolution, again literature serves us well with the stories of Ha Jin. He addresses those emotional contradictions of the revolution in his work.” In 9th grade, students better understand medieval society by reading Dante’s Inferno. This year, Priscilla Lindberg asked her students to come up with a list of characteristics of the medieval mind based on Dante’s work. “The list was astonishingly accurate,” says Priscilla. Among the characteristics were placing great importance on bonds of loyalty (traitors to their masters deserve the lowest depths of hell); rooting explanation of the world in religion
(God explains a lot); and looking to ancient Greeks and Romans for inspiration. “By studying Inferno, my students are able to confront the minds of medieval people directly, in a way they never would by simply learning the history of the Middle Ages,” says Priscilla. In 10th grade, students gain deeper insights into the ravages and legacy of slavery by closely reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved. In the novel, the main character kills one of her children and plans to kill more, rather than send them back into slavery.
A human perspective “Looking at history alone doesn’t allow for the power of story-telling, lyric, and human voice,” says Humanities teacher Harumi LaDuke, who believes Beloved is one of the most important books students read.
“Beloved is about escape, dehumanization, and family disintegration,” says Harumi who holds degrees in both English Literature and Music History from Dartmouth College. “It teaches students about these themes of redemption and grief—what are the psychological effects on both slave and master? How can you, how do you, reclaim yourself? Students see how reconstruction failed in so many ways and how we’re not done with this conversation. These powerful ideas are literary, historical, and human.” Harumi sees students making connections and asking questions as they see the spectrum of sides on every issue. “By studying literature and primary sources, our students are learning how to think, how to question, and, most importantly, how to act with integrity.”
Grappling with the Greats In 12th grade, many students at The Northwest School choose to spend time with the greatest minds in history. In NWS’s senior Philosophy course, taught by Humanities teacher Glen Sterr, students sit down with, among others, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Descartes and John Locke. “There aren’t a lot of high schools that teach philosophy, but I find students of this age are ready,” says Glen who has taught at Northwest for 32 years. “They’re so ripe for questioning and wrestling with ideas.” Students begin by studying the Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers and then move on to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle before jumping 700 years to St Augustine. From there, it’s on to Anselm, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Descartes, and John Locke. Students finish the course with a close reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig.
The role of rhetoric One of the intriguing things students learn is that Socrates wrote nothing, believing that philosophy was meant to be done in faceto-face dialogue with others. Any insight into his ideas comes through what others wrote about him. Plato’s Apology, for example, is the account of Socrates on trial for his ideas before 501 Athenian jurors as depicted by one of Socrates’ most ardent followers. “When we study Socrates and his reaction to the Sophists—the selfdescribed ‘wisdom experts’—we discuss the whole role of rhetoric and ask, do we recognize when we are being manipulated?” says Glen.
Philosophy teacher Glen Sterr
As a core part of the class, students are asked to express what they think on paper through writing analytical essays. One important assignment is to make a final assessment of Plato. “I tell my students, you have two jobs: one, as accurately as you can, write what Plato thought about, and two, subject that to some kind of analysis or critique. Basically, I ask, ‘Where are you on Plato?’ I make it clear it’s not always about resolution. It’s perfectly good to conclude with a question.” Students learn from Glen that their most successful work is an argument wellmade: one that is persuasive and, as he puts it, “has me re-thinking some aspect of material I know very well.”
How to respect and listen Tenth-grader Alexandra W. ’16 responds to a work of literature
At the outset, Glen talks to the students about what it means to discuss ideas and engage in dialogue in a safe setting. He coaches students to be careful with facial expressions and body language as other students express ideas. “It’s ok to think what you’re thinking but be fair enough to the other person. If you stop them in their struggle, they’ll never get there, and, often, that struggle leads to good insights that further the conversation.” Year after year, Glen sees his students walk away with confidence. “They have the know-how to reach toward challenging stuff, and to think and talk about it,” says Glen. “Most importantly, they carry the skills for civil discourse.”
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David Kauffman ’95
Practicing Human-scale Law For many homeowners, David Kauffman ’95 is a life saver. When the housing bubble burst in 2007, hundreds of thousands of people were plunged into foreclosure. Others managed to hang onto their homes only to lose a job or suffer a divorce later, and are now on the brink of losing their homes in 2014. This is where David, as staff attorney for the Northwest Justice Project, steps in. “I’m part of a special unit called the Foreclosure Prevention Unit,” explains David who is one of several civil legal aid lawyers stationed in 14 counties around Washington State. “Our focus is on home retention. We’re trying to assist people in staying in their homes and mitigating some of the consequences of the housing crises.” When a call comes into David’s office, the caller is often in distress. One of his first calls on the job was from a woman who had delayed getting help and she was only a week away from foreclosure.
David Kauffman ’95
“I reviewed the documents and notices of her case and found an error in that process,” says David. “The bank postponed the procedure one more week and I used that time to help her apply for financial restructuring.” The bank agreed to lower the interest rate and the woman’s monthly premium dropped by $300/month. Reports David, “She’s now current on the debt, her home is no longer in foreclosure, and her credit is no longer at risk.”
Saving homes and neighborhoods A modification of the mortgage loan is the Holy Grail of David’s work. In nearly all of his cases he succeeds in negotiating a reduction in the interest rate, an extension of the loan to 40 years, or forgiveness for some portion of the debt. The end result is that people keep their homes. David’s choice of law practice, civil legal aid, is funded in the state of Washington through a settlement between the state’s Attorney General and five companies holding mortgages: the Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Ally/GMAC. The settlement was driven in part by one of the most serious consequences of foreclosure: urban blight. “Empty abandoned homes quickly deteriorate into unsightly properties,” testifies David. “So the work we are doing is not just good for the homeowner but also for the neighborhood and social fabric.”
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Gratifying Work David graduated from the University of Washington Law School in 2005. From there, he spent several years working as a public defender before joining the Peace Corps and spending two years in rural Cambodia, teaching English at an underserved public high school. When he returned, he knew he wanted to use his legal expertise to help the individual. “The most gratifying work I’ve found is in what I call ‘Human-scale Law,’” says David. “It’s more satisfying to work with an individual who is not so different from me. There but for the grace, go I. Some people find themselves in circumstances beyond their control. My clients are not looking for something for free—they just want to stay in their homes.” In addition to his cases, David is helping to involve more lawyers in civil legal aid. He recently guest-lectured at Seattle University School of Law, which has a foreclosure outreach program that seeks to expose law students to this very kind of law.
Entering the ethical dimension David’s training to become an effective lawyer began long before law school. He credits the Humanities courses at The Northwest School for first developing his ability to think critically and to frame his thoughts into strong arguments. “At Northwest, we were given a problem to chew on— an issue or a question—and then cut lose to wrestle with it and determine our own solutions to that problem,” recalls David. “This is very much what I do today.” David testifies that his Northwest teachers expected a high quality of output and, at the same time, he was given the opportunity to think on his own. Says David, “I was not restrained; I was guided.” One course that stands out in David’s mind is Philosophy, taught by Humanities teacher Glen Sterr. “In Glen’s class, we grappled with how you balance competing interests and views,” remembers David. “The law is fraught with complexity and different opinions on both sides. Being an attorney has an ethical dimension— it involves a “principled combat” of sorts. I learned how to do that at Northwest.”
Josh Friedmann ’07
Working for the President of the United States Josh Friedmann ’07 is about to complete his second year serving in the White House. In June, 2012, he was hired as special assistant at the Council on Environmental Quality, the office of President Barack Obama’s top environmental advisor. The office supports the White House’s agenda on any imaginable policy issue related to energy and the environment. “On any given day, I might be working on the Administration’s efforts to conserve public lands and waters, to help communities recover from droughts or floods, or to protect future generations from the threat of climate change,” says Josh who holds a political science and environmental studies degree from Tufts University.
Implementing legislation Josh drafts background materials for senior officials, attends meetings with members of Congress, and helps to coordinate Administration events around the country. “My focus is specifically on helping the White House to work productively with the House and Senate on these issues,” explains Josh who is particularly committed to supporting the President’s Climate Action Plan. “We help our colleagues on the Hill understand the Administration’s work, and we work closely with them on environmental bills that are important to them and to the President.”
A path to public service Josh’s passions for service and environment began early in his life. He remembers being excited and motivated by both of these causes at The Northwest School, where he was a student from 6th through 12th grade. “Northwest gave me a solid foundation in both service and environment, which helped me pursue many different educational opportunities during college, and professional opportunities after I graduated,” says Josh. “I couldn’t be happier than where I am now: having the opportunity to serve the President and work on the issues I care about.”
Inspiration and experience When asked how Northwest prepared him for his current job in the White House, Josh rattles off a list of NWS courses and teachers. “Glen Sterr’s philosophy class taught me how to analyze ideas while Laura Ferri’s theater program taught me how to communicate them; and I don’t think I would be working on environmental issues if not for Herb Bergamini’s charcoal briquette climate change demonstration,” he says. In a bemused tone, Josh adds that the Outdoor Program prepared him as well: not only was it inspiring to be out in the wilderness but it was good practical experience. “If you can smile thorough a weekend of cold rain on the Olympic Coast, dealing with Congress is a cakewalk,” he laughs.
Holistic understanding Josh credits the way The Northwest School integrated history, social studies, and writing, which he says helped him develop a comprehensive way of understanding the past. He also credits the school for teaching him how much there is to learn from the great public figures of history. “Today, when I have some time off, I often head outdoors with a good long biography,” he says.
Josh on the South Lawn as Marine One is about to arrive
He also values learning to compress a hundred or more years of history, and many hours of engaging lectures, “into a little blue exam book.” This taught him to clearly and concisely develop his ideas and to identify important trends. Says Josh: “In government, those skills definitely come in handy.”
Josh and his sister Jessie ’10, at the White House Fourth of July staff picnic
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Erik (left) with Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, and Wendy Helgemo, Counsel for the Indian Affairs Committee
Erik Stegman ’00
Fighting for Social Justice When it comes to getting things done in Washington D.C., Erik Stegman ’00 is a force. In 2011, while serving as majority council for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Erik took the lead on developing the Stand Against Violence and Empower Native Women Act. Recently signed into law, the act gives tribal courts new jurisdiction to prosecute non-native men for domestic abuse against native women. “I grew up hearing a lot of stories about what it meant to deal with issues on the reservation,” says Erik whose great grandfather was from the Assiniboine tribe, and whose mother was born on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. When obtaining his master’s degree in American Indian Studies, and his law degree at UCLA, Erik assisted judges at the Hopi Tribal Appellate Court and saw cases of assault and domestic abuse on the reservation.
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“Most violence against native women on reservations was, and is, by non-native men,” confirms Erik who currently works at the Center for American Progress, the largest progressive think tank in Washington D.C. “With the energy boom in some regions of the country, large numbers of non-native work crews are moving to reservation areas, which are now seeing a disturbing increase in this kind of violence.”
Jurisdictional black holes Until the Empower Native Women Act was passed, prosecuting non-native men for abusing native women was next to impossible, according to Erik. Tribal courts had the authority to prosecute native men, but non-natives had to be prosecuted by U.S. attorneys.
“These U.S. attorney offices were sometimes 500 miles away,” reveals Erik. “So these cases were operating in jurisdictional black holes.” When the Violence Against Women Act came up for reauthorization in 2011, Erik saw an opportunity to improve the rights of native women. He and his colleagues worked hard to add a provision expanding jurisdiction of tribal courts over non-native offenders. “We talked to shelters and law enforcement agencies, we worked with witnesses, and we circulated drafts of the bill to a lot of tribes,” says Erik. Initially, the hard work paid off: the Senate approved the new bill with a 68 majority ‘super vote,” which was unheard of. Says Erik: “We were jumping up and down on the Senate floor.”
Persevering for justice However, when the bill hit the House floor, it died. “It just killed me that if failed,” says Erik. “It’s hard to believe we had that much of a fight.” Shortly after the bill’s defeat in the House, Erik accepted his current position as Associate Director of the Half in Ten Campaign with the Center for American Progress. There, he received a surge of support from the center’s employees and, leveraging the center’s massive communication structure, he took up the fight again. “We organized people to write blog posts and got the progressive community riled up,” says Erik. This time, it worked. In 2013, as part of the Violence Against Women Act, the 113th Congress passed the Stand Against Violence and Empower Native Women Act into law.
A record of firsts Fighting to protect native women is but one way Erik is promoting social justice. In 2011, he organized the first-ever federal gay and transgender youth summit in
Washington D.C. The summit brought together officials from Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the Department of Justice, to meet with LGBT youth from around the country. “This was a real milestone,” says Erik. “The summit was the first time many of these top officials had ever spoken to LGBT youth about their programs.” At the time of the summit, Erik was serving as policy advisor to Assistant Deputy Secretary Kevin Jennings at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. “LGBT youth are still at high risk for substance abuse and suicide,” says Erik. “Our goal was to have them talk about their experiences and to document where their most serious needs still are.”
Charting a future in law and justice Erik attended NWS in the 11th and 12th grades, transferring from public school where he had been class president and a committed student, but was unhappy. “The teachers in my public school didn’t enjoy teaching; plus, my family was really upset with how schools teach about tribal people and issues. Basically the implication was that these (native) people are dead.” According to Erik, NWS was “unbelievably different.” Teachers were passionate and the school conveyed a strong sense of community spirit. A pivotal faculty member for Erik was former Humanities teacher Kirk Bell. “He was a brilliant man and an openly gay teacher,” recalls Erik who was ready to come out and had the support of his parents. “Just sitting in class and hearing about the LGBT movement right along with the Civil Rights movement rocked my world.”
This report is available online at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-112srpt265/pdf/CRPT-112srpt265.pdf
Understanding and skill Erik values how NWS connected history with current events. As an example, he points to when the World Trade Organization riots happened in Seattle and Humanities teacher and co-founder Paul Raymond immediately gave a lecture on the WTO. “We understood what the WTO was and what the issues were right before our city erupted into protests about it,” recalls Erik.
“NWS would capture these events and give students a full understanding of not only what was going on but why.” In addition, NWS developed him into a strong writer. Says Erik: “I can’t hit that home enough; I was a good writer when I came to NWS, but I got my first paper and it was covered in red marks. It blew my mind. The level of attention I got was incredible. I’d be absolutely nowhere without it.”
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Mari Smith ’07
Supporting Agricultural Development Around the World In February, 2014, a group of 35 agricultural researchers and crop practitioners gathered for a two-day brainstorming session in Kenya. Their connection was an ancient plant that provides a vital food source for many populations around the world.
“Joyce was working on a book and I helped her write a chapter on what I learned from researching Dr. Boachie’s orthopedic hospital in Ghana.”
“Maize is a highly valued commodity and a staple crop in Kenya,” says Mari Smith ’07, program assistant for the Agricultural Development Team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “The goal of the symposium was to generate ideas for improving its growth and cultivation.”
Mari’s passion for her work gelled much earlier than her experience in Ghana. She says it began in Middle and Upper School at The Northwest School. In 6th through 12th grade Mari absorbed the school’s social justice values, which she recalls were instilled in the classroom and in programs like Environment and the Migrant Farmworkers Project.
Pulling together such symposiums is Mari’s major responsibility at the Gates Foundation. She also helps with grant-making coordination and contract management. “The purpose of our work is targeting the small-holder farmer and helping them out of poverty,” explains Mari. “If there are drought or pest problems in a particular region, how can we help the people to be more successful in those areas?”
Improving lives The symposiums involve 20 to 50 people and occur for the most part in Africa and South Asia, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Mali. “I work with program officers who have contacts in these countries,” explains Mari. Mari arrived at the Gates Foundation highly qualified for international work. In college, at Willamette University, she majored in international studies and minored in French and economics. In her junior year she took a medical anthropology class with Dr. Joyce Millen and, after graduating in 2011, Mari went with Joyce to Ghana. “Joyce had received a grant to research the diaspora from West Africa and their role in development projects in their home countries,” explains Mari, speaking over the phone from her Gates Foundation office in Seattle. While in Ghana, Mari followed Dr. Oheneba Boachie, an orthopedic surgeon based in New York who had started a foundation for orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation in Ghana. There, he established a hospital that serves mostly children who cannot afford surgery. “The focus of my research was to document Dr. Boachie’s story and record both how he created this non-profit and hospital and how he was so successful,” explains Mari.
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Gaining perspective and skills
“I took away the concept of volunteering and community involvement,” says Mari. “The idea of working for something larger than yourself.” Social justice and the quality of human lives were particularly potent themes in her Humanities courses at Northwest, according to Mari. “Paul Raymond (Humanities teacher and NWS co-founder) instilled the values of fighting for something you believe in,” confirms Mari. “His lectures about Civil Rights stand out to me as really powerful.”
Connecting to Africa In a prescient way, Mari was profoundly impacted by Jeff Blair’s senior course on global issues. “In that class, we had the opportunity to focus on Africa,” recalls Mari. “We read A Continent for the Taking, a book that followed the recent history of countries in Africa, including the Congo. I had learned in early Humanities courses about the history of colonization and decolonization, and in Jeff’s course, I saw the results of how that history has contributed to current issues, such as with the current mining complex and exploitation that is there even today.” At the same time, Mari gained communication skills from her NWS Humanities courses that would directly support her success in international development and the non-profit sector. “Communication skills are critical to being effective in my job, both written and verbal,” states Mari. “I have to know how to express myself and my mission, and I must be able to listen and understand where others are coming from.”
Mari in India, 2012
Communicating across continents According to Mari, the writing program at NWS laid the foundation for her strong writing and expression skills, which she draws from today for both communication and report writing. “At NWS, I valued the opportunity to go over my essays multiple times—to write a paper, get feedback from my peers and teachers, and then to have the opportunity to rewrite my draft. It was a little painful at times, but I learned to recognize my writing style and how to make it better.” Among the teachers Mari credits for her strong skills are Humanities teachers Suzanne Bottelli, Adina Meyer, Sarah Porter, and French teacher Francoise Canter. “We did a lot of writing in French,” recalls Mari, gratefully. “Having the opportunity to write in another language helped me tremendously for my job today. Sometimes, when I have to communicate with people from other countries, I use French; in West Africa, French is the predominant first language.”
Catalyzing change Mari’s next step is to pursue a master’s in Business Administration or Public Administration, possibly both. She has no intention of veering away from her current passion. Says Mari: “I want to learn everything I can to be effective in using private-public partnerships for catalyzing change and social impact.”
Kim Stratton ’86
Learning from Ancient Civilizations
Kim Stratton ‘86
some bigger problem, whether it’s from the Bible or somewhere else,” confirms Kim who says students are transformed with that kind of inquiry. “When I ask them what’s really going on with the polemics and evolution of ideas in the Hebrew Bible, they are so amazed by this approach,” she says. “For much of their education, they’ve read the Bible in a static way.”
Moderating hysteria
Kim graduated from Barnard with a double degree in religion and literature. From there, she went on to gain a master’s from Harvard in Theological Studies and, after spending a year and a-half in Israel to learn Hebrew, she earned her PhD in History of Ancient Religions, at Columbia University.
Informed thinking
As Associate Professor of Humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, Kim Stratton ’86 spends much of her day steeped in ancient religions and cultures. Kim teaches first- and second-year college students in a program that integrates history, literature, art, and philosophy, much like NWS, and also conducts a senior seminar called ”The History of Satan.”
Learning from witches
“I teach the Hebrew Bible much of the time—how it ties into the historical development of the era,” explains Kim who has a PhD in Theological Studies from Columbia University. “We study the conquest of ancient Jerusalem by Babylonia and how that has informed Judaic, Christian, and Muslim beliefs up to today.”
“I was interested in stereotyping in general, looking more at how denigrating stereotypes are produced and replicated and transferred to other cultures over time,” says Kim.
Foundational narratives According to Kim, she is teaching her students to think critically about foundational narratives that inform society, and to read texts like the Hebrew Bible, and others, with a more informed mind. “Whenever I’m looking at a text with my students, I ask how it was written and by whom. Someone wrote this to address
Kim’s research has focused on the GrecoRoman period, specifically on gender and magic in the ancient world. Her first book, Naming the Witch: Magic Ideology and Stereotype in the Ancient World, specifically examines the stereotyping of magic and magicians.
Her book reveals how Ancient Greece associated magic with women involved in love triangles; how in Rome, old hags were accused of using magic to seduce men; and how in early Christian literature, up to the late 3rd Century, women were identified as victims of men’s magic—it was used to seduce virgins. “In each case, magic serves as a discourse for what is dangerous—what is fearful or threatening to our societal values,” points out Kim.
In every society she studied, someone had a political interest in controlling the definition of what was, and was not, acceptable. “Today, these definitions might be applied to terrorists,” explains Kim. “Anything considered deviant is attached to the person. It’s going on today.”
Kim’s latest book, Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World, which is a collection of essays from several scholars, including Kim, takes a further look at magic in the ancient world and how it can inform stereotyping today. Kim hopes to educate people to assess their current lives in a more informed way— rather than jumping on the bandwagon and saying ‘she’s a communist, or he’s a terrorist.’ “You can help mediate or moderate the hysteria around these accusations,” states Kim. “It’s about being informed, critical, and aware. It’s about being a citizen and informed voter.”
prepared me well for college,” confirms Kim. “I noticed immediately when I got to Barnard that I had very good writing skills compared to other students. I had those skills secured.” A pivotal memory for Kim was studying Marxism with Humanities teacher and NWS co-founder Paul Raymond. “We spent three lectures on Marxism and right when you were convinced it was great, Paul gave a lecture on why Marxism failed. He was the one who was so aware of social justice.” Kim credits her time at NWS for being able to think out of the box and make connections as well as see the big picture. “I was very comfortable speaking in college seminars. I was always asking the bigger questions and seeing the connections— the historical development and how this book fit into the context of larger society,” says Kim, adding, “After my time at Northwest, college was easy.”
Asking the bigger questions In many ways, Kim finds that her academic life at Carleton University mirrors what she experienced at The Northwest School. As a member of NWS’s very first 7th grade class, Kim remembers loving the arts, the integrated approach, primary sources, discussion groups, and close attention to her writing “These all
Cover art from Naming the Witch, by Kim Stratton ‘86
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Class Notes Meg Hood ’87
Paul Jennings ’83
Sean Fansler ’85
Andrew Miksys ‘87
Paul Jennings ’83
Meg Hood ’87
We moved to the LA area five years ago. Finished my Navy pilot career in 2008; now flying corporate jets. 2015 will mark 25 years of happy marriage to Deanna! Our daughter is a college-bound HS senior, son is a sophomore. Both attend a small charter school that started up a few years ago in our area. Many of the school’s growing pains remind me of the early years at NWS. We visit with Lisa Strong (also LA-based, also NWS Class of ‘83) whenever our crazy schedules mesh. She and Forrest are awesome and my kids love ‘em! I see Michelle Mueller (NWS Class of ‘83) on occasion, when travels take me to Portland. Loy Norrix (NWS Class of ‘83) is down here (LA) somewhere, but we’ve yet to reconnect.
I’ve been a NYC teacher now for eight years, 2nd - 7th grades, as a Special Ed teacher. I’m also the mother of a beautiful four-year-old daughter. I’ve lived in NYC since 1995 and, for the past five years, I’ve resided in Harlem.
Sean Fansler ’85
http://www.andrewmiksys.com/ Twitter: @andrewmiksys
I am living in Seattle’s University District with my wife Amy and our hairy mutt, Zamboni. During the summer I gillnet for salmon in Southeast Alaska and, during the winter, I paint. I belong to Gallery 110 in downtown Seattle where I had a solo show in November and participated in two group shows last year. Amy and I travel as much as we can get away with, our last trip being to Myanmar this past February.
Malory Graham ’85 I am currently teaching the Japanese martial art of aikido to adults and children at Seattle Aikikai, the dojo I founded with my husband, Jonathan Lilly.
Jeff Williams ’87
Malory Graham ’85
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Andrew Miksys ‘87 I recently published a book of my photography called DISKO. The book centers on photographs taken in village discos in Lithuania over the past ten years. Many of the discos are located in Soviet era culture houses and seemed like a perfect backdrop for a series of photographs about young people in Lithuania: a crumbling past and the uncertain future of a new generation together in one room.
Jeff Williams ’87 NWS Trustee / Alumni Council I work as the Director of Security Strategy at Dell SecureWorks where I partner with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies globally to combat cybercrime. I was recently named to the boards of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE.org) and Malcovery Security (www.malcovery.com) and the Council for Cybersecurity’s Critical Security Controls Editorial Panel (http://bit.ly/MrGn11). My son will be entering 6th grade at NWS this fall.
Brent Rice ’88
Aidan Fraser ’95
Life is great with my wife Nicole, and our two businesses, First Response Water Damage and Hill Top Cleaning, are doing well. I drove by the school the other day and it was fantastic to see the old building looking so great.
I am currently living in Oakland, CA, and very excited to be part of the team creating the new “Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey” TV series, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. My NWS science education came in handy. David St. John ’88 and Scott Darlington
Liz Mair ’96 David St. John ’88 I’ve been living in Los Angeles for the last 15 years, producing TV and having dinner and Martinis every Friday night with my best friend of over 30 years, David Holden ‘87. We met at Northwest when we were 15 years old and have been ‘besties’ ever since! I’m currently the Executive Producer of a show for VH1 called “Love & Hip Hop Hollywood.” I just got engaged to my partner of four years, Scott Darlington. We are moving back to Seattle this spring to put down roots and start a family!
Holly Morrison ’89 2013 was a big year for me—some longawaited Major Life Events in between running a farm (mainecelt.weebly.com/) and winning obscure poetry contests (anti-hunger-initiative haiku & theological limericks)! First, I’m now officially a ‘Rev.’, ordained in the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ. Second, I was hired as the pastor of Poland Community Church, UCC, in Poland, Maine. Third— thanks to the efforts of countless allies and the votes of fellow citizens—I was finally able to marry my anam chara, Sue Mack, surrounded by friends and family on our farm, on September 15th, 2013. Huzzah!
I’m currently waiting out the last bit of winter here in Washington, DC, with my husband, Mark, our newborn son, Malcolm (arrived February 15), our two cats, and my mother who relocated from Seattle last year. My small political/public affairs communications firm (Mair Strategies) is about to enter its fourth year in operation; we hope to expand again this year. Last year, our family enjoyed a great trip to Borneo where much of my remaining knowledge of primate biology (thanks, Mark Terry!) was put to use observing wild orangutans, macaques, langurs, and proboscis monkeys. Sadly, we did not see gibbons (though we heard them) or any lorises. We’re now thinking ahead to the next family trip enabling us to combine our love of far-afield travel and animals. I can be reached at liz@lizmair.com.
The Brian Reich (‘96) family
Brian Reich ‘96 I am still living on the Upper West Side in NYC with my wife, Karen Dahl, and our two kids, Henry (age 6) and Lucy (age 4). I work for myself as an information strategist and speechwriter with a bunch of different clients and some startup projects of my own. I recently launched www.HitTheBroom.com, a site focused on helping casual fans engage with curling. I continue to write and speak about how technology disrupts our society and the opportunities this creates to drive social change. Check out www.shiftandreset.com or find me on twitter (@brianreich).
Holly Morrison ’89
Liz Mair ’96
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Class Notes continued
Alexis Grigerman ‘03
Elizabeth Bruckner ’97
Alexis Grigerman (Alexis Pope) ’03
I officially moved to Nashville last year, and am working as a publicist in the music industry—living the dream! Here I am, pictured with rising star Craig Campbell at a country radio jam session. Thank you The Northwest School for assigning all those essays in 11th grade. Though I was majorly stressed at the time, all that experience comes in handy now as I write a bazillion press releases and pitches for clients this week—every week, actually!
I was married to Konstantin Grigerman in 2010. In June of 2013, I finished a master’s program at the UW in Educational Psycholology and had my baby in the same month! Sophia Helen Grigerman was born on June 5, 2013. I am currently working as a school psychologist for a school district.
Caitlin Rosen ’97
Sybil England-Markun ’04
I had the opportunity to swim around Manhattan in August 2013, which was really amazing. For starters, it turned out to be a real family affair. My brother, Josh, was one of my support kayakers, and my mom, Annie, was part of my crew on board the motorized support boat that followed me around the island. I finished in 8 hours and 41 minutes. It was a beautiful day and a great end to a long year of training. I documented my journey on a blog: http://throwmeintheoceancom/2014/03/02/ i-swam-around-manhattan-last-augustand-it-was-good/. Nick Eaton ’03
As the sports editor at seattlepi.com, the online-only continuation of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I cover all Seattle sports, including the Seahawks throughout their fantastic past two seasons. My work paid off and I was fortunate enough to travel to New York City to cover the Hawks in Super Bowl XLVIII, where they demolished the Denver Broncos for Seattle’s first Lombardi Trophy. I live in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, and still keep in close touch with many of my Northwest School classmates.
Jin Mook Choi ’03
Elizabeth Bruckner (’97) and Craig Campbell
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Nick Eaton ’03
Jin Mook Choi ’03 After graduating from my master’s degree program at Carnegie Mellon University, I joined BlackRock Asset Management as an analyst in New York City, in 2011. In the same year, I met my wife in New York and got married in early 2013! Recently, I was promoted to Associate and I’m looking forward to another wonderful year!
Sybil England-Markun ’04 In 2013, I completed nearly three years of service in the Peace Corps as a Sustainable Agriculture & Community Development worker in Paraguay, where, among other things, I learned to speak the native language of Guarani fluently. That experience is what helped me land my current job in a remote region in the rural outback of Western Australia. I work with the Miriwoong Aboriginal community at the Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language & Culture Center, supporting the efforts to document and revitalize their critically endangered native language—which has only 11 fluent speakers left—through coordinating immersion-based language camps for local children, and publishing Miriwoong learning materials. Considering that I wrote my NWS senior thesis on the urgency of preserving endangered languages, under the guidance of the great Daniel Sparler, I feel I’ve come full circle! So far. I very much enjoy living ‘down under’, especially having the opportunity to witness in real life the cane toads of Mark Terry’s frightening video in 10th grade biology!
Ariel Krasik-Geiger ’04
Kate Rozen-Gagnon ’06
I am a current graduate student at the University of Washington. I will be graduating with a master’s in Mechanical Engineering this June. In July, I will be marrying my college sweetheart, Kendall Peterson.
I lived in New York for four years, attending Barnard College at Columbia University. I started working in labs at this time, and became interested in biology (which ended up being my major). Following my college graduation, I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, and I had the amazing opportunity to live in Singapore for a year, studying infectious disease. I am currently in the final year of my PhD in Virology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, and just published my first-author paper. I am planning to move back to the U.S. in the fall to continue working in infectious disease research.
Samantha Stratton ’04 After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2008, with a BFA in Film & Television, I moved to Los Angeles and worked in the writers’ room on several TV shows, including: “Lie to Me”, “The Chicago Code”, “Fairly Legal” and “Last Resort.” I just finished my first year as a staff writer on “Star-Crossed”, a TV show on the CW Network, writing one episode and co-writing the penultimate episode of Season One. Recently, I sold a pilot script to ABC Family that I am currently rewriting for the network. This past February, my boyfriend and I traveled around South America, finally putting my many years of Spanish classes at NWS to good use. And here’s an awkward photo of me in New Orleans on the set of my first episode of “Star-Crossed!”
Jessica Smith ’05 After graduating in 2005 from NWS, I studied Anthropology and French at Willamette University. Following that, I worked in the nonprofit sector in Seattle for a couple of years, including fundraising for United Way of King County. I am now in my last semester of law school at Columbia University and, next year, will be working at the law firm WilmerHale, in NYC, on international arbitration. I eventually hope to work on reproductive health rights, which I have been involved in both domestically and in Kenya. In my free time, I love concert-going and good eats, and traveling whenever I can!
Ariel Krasik-Geiger ’04
Amy Silbergeld ’06 I published my first novel, Rainn, in January of 2014. The book is a postmodern auto-collaboration with writer Matthew Landis and artist Jonas Wessel, and was released by Freke Räihä Förlag, a Swedish publishing house. Rosie Breese of Sabotage Reviews hailed the novel’s protagonist “a heroine for the Facebook age,” and wrote that “The miraculous is here, hidden within the writhing body of this tale, in its puddle-muddy paws and its nameless dangly bits.” The book is available for purchase on Amazon and the Barnes and Noble website. I am currently the Media and Communications Director at Lambent Services, a personal assistant staffing boutique in Manhattan.
Samantha Stratton ’04
Jessica Smith ’05
Kate Rozen-Gagnon ’06
Amy Silbergeld ’06
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Class Notes continued
Hannah Miranda Miller ’08
Hannah Miranda Miller ’08
Trey Cranney ’12
I graduated from Barnard College in 2012 with a B.A. in Russian Regional Studies, and was a Harriman Institute Undergraduate Fellow and editor of The Birch, a national Slavic publication. Following graduation, I worked as projects coordinator at national hunger relief and literacy non-profit Family-to-Family. Since August 2013, I’ve been living in Odessa, Ukraine, where I’m serving as a JDC Entwine Global Jewish Service Corps Fellow, working to build creative partnerships and encourage Jewish renewal in the vibrant local community, from working with seniors to encouraging teenagers to reflect on their Jewish identity through the lens of photography.
I am currently a sophomore at Gonzaga University, studying Marketing and Economics in the School of Business Administration. I recently started my own painting franchise in Queen Anne through a College Pro Painters internship, and am excited to apply skills learned in the classroom to the real world. I look forward to working for, and even hiring members of, the Northwest School community.
Emma McLean-Riggs ’10
Emma McLean-Riggs ’10
Trey Cranney ’12
Adam Stambor ’13
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I am living in Portland with my amazing girlfriend and finishing my senior year at Reed College. I spend my time hiking with my dog, running, and reading (mostly for class, but sometimes for fun!). This year, I am working on my senior thesis, which is focused on Multnomah County Family Abuse Protection Act hearings and working part-time at two domestic violence shelters in Portland. I’m excited to graduate from Reed in May 2014, and start law school (location TBD) in the fall.
Adam Stambor ’13 After graduating last June, I worked as a construction day laborer, a soccer referee, a busboy at a popular waterfront restaurant, and a data enterer at a real estate appraisal company, earning money for six months of gap-year travel. While working, I also organized job shadows to learn about work in a variety of fields ranging from pediatric neuro-oncology to car restoration. In the coming months, I will be visiting Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina before attending Haverford College in August. I have chronicled my experiences on a blog: sportoholic4.wordpress.com.
Alumni Happenings
Alums enjoying a pick-up game of soccer on the new Rooftop Sports Field at the Open Haus for Alumni.
Our first-ever home game at the Open Haus for Alumni.
Dinner in the new dining room at the Open Haus for Alumni.
Photo booth fun at the Open Haus for Alumni.
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Alumni Happenings Alumni Sightings NWS Faculty Lecture Series Thank you to the more than 40 alumni who attended our 2013–2014 Faculty Lecture Series. Held in the Raymond Classroom (humanities lecture room), this speaker series gives alums the chance to come back to school for lessons from their favorite teachers—ones that were never covered during their days in the Haus. On December 5, 2013, Jeff Blair shared experiences from his recent travels to Africa, where he spent four months teaching in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as reflections on his past travels to South Africa. On February 8, Daniel Sparler gave a fascinating lecture about the 1973 Chilean coup d’état. After the lecture, alums headed to our brand new theatre for the Upper School Play Production of La casa de los epíritus/ The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende.
Teachers, coaches, and alums take advantage of a sunny day to play some soccer on the Rooftop Sports Field.
We will be hosting lectures in the 2014-2015 school year, so please make sure we have your up-to-date contact information. We’d love you to join us for these meaningful events.
An Open Haus for Alumni
Alums at a holiday happy-hour gathering. Back row, left to right: Philip Benjamin ‘05, Adam Miller ‘05, and Payton Lunsford‘ 05. Front row, left to right: Jesslyn Howard (Phil’s GF), Blake Allen ‘05, and Ruth Franz ‘03
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Congratulations to a NWS alumni couple who got married on Feb 21, 2014 in Seoul, Korea. They are Jessy Seo ‘02 and Kyoung-Hoon Shin ’98. They weren’t dating back in school; they actually met later on at an alumni event. Kyoung-Hoon asked another NWS alum for Jessy’s phone number— and that’s how their love story started!
In January, 2014, more than 250 alums celebrated the opening of our new building at 401 E Pike, making it the most wellattended alumni event in the school’s history. Alums had the opportunity to explore every level of the building; they enjoyed dinner in the brand new dining room, cheered on alumni basketball teams in the gym, checked out the spectacular rooftop view and created memories in the photo booth in the theatre. Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to create such an exciting event. If you missed the Open Haus, don’t worry—you’ll be able to tour the new building at the 2014 All Alumni & Faculty Reunion on June 7!
Mission Statement The Northwest School offers
Upcoming Events
a faculty who engage each student in sequential,
2014 All Alumni and Faculty Reunion
cross-disciplinary study in the Humanities, Sciences,
Saturday, June 7, 2014 3:00–7:00 pm
and the Arts.
Reconnect with your NWS community! Join us for a reception in the Main Hall, featuring hors d’oeuvres, beer, wine, and soft drinks. You’ll have the chance to sample desserts in the new dining room and to create memories in the photo booth. Don’t forget to sneak up to the rooftop to take in the stunning view of Capitol Hill. Significant others, families, and children are encouraged to attend. More information will be mailed soon.
We are a diverse community of people who challenge each other to learn in a healthy, creative, and collaborative atmosphere of respect for ourselves, NWS Class of ’88 Botany class with Bob Biessel. Photo courtesy of David St. John ’88.
others, and the environment.
Class Reunions
We graduate students with
This summer, 2014, we invite the classes of 2004, 1994, and 1984, to celebrate their 10th, 20th and 30th reunions. Class reps are busy working to plan meaningful celebrations. More information is coming soon.
historical, scientific, artistic,
On June 6th, 2014, the classes of 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984 will be invited back to NWS for a special Founders’ Dinner. For more information, please email: alumni@northwestschool.org.
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and global perspective, enabling them to think and act with integrity, believing they have a positive
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impact on the world.
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Ultimate Program Wins Awards This March, the NWS Boys’ Ultimate program won five awards from USA Ultimate, the national governing body for the sport of Ultimate in the United States. The awards came after the team’s third consecutive undefeated season, and fifth consecutive state championship win. Those awards were: A Coach A 1st
Team All-State: (Seniors) Sam L., Alex O., and (Junior) Sam C.
A 2nd
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of the Year: Alex Wells and Reid Koss
Team All-State: (Junior) Xander C.-T.
Congratulations to our coaching faculty and student athletes!