Northwest School Magazine Spring 2018 by The Northwest School

Social Justice Learning A Publication for Alumni & Friends

Spring / Summer 2018

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 Inquiries for global partnerships and programs should be directed to Dmitry Sherbakov, Director of Global Marketing and Programs. dmitry.sherbakov@northwestschool.org 206 816 6202 The Northwest School Magazine welcomes notes and photographs by alumni, parents, and friends. Please email to alumni@northwestschool.org.

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Mike McGill Head of School

Walter Long Director of Development

Margie Combs, Editor Director of Communications

Julie Lombardo Assistant Director of Development Lindsay Bailey Alumni Program Manager Maria Mazcorro Development and Volunteer Coordinator

Peter Woodburn Website and Digital Media Coordinator Contributing Writers Margie Combs Alice Shahan Peter Woodburn Lindsay Bailey Walter Long Contributing Photographers Diane Cassidy Jenn Ireland Tino Tran Peter Woodburn Barbara Chin NWS Faculty, Students, Parents, and Alumni Graphic Design Barbara Chin

Table of Contents

cover photo: Upper Hall art installation by Public Art Class students Amalia H. ’20, Lexie H. ’20, George P. ’21, and Aaron T. ’21, 2018 this page: Art piece by Isobel M. ’19, created in response to the 11th grade study of the Holocaust, 2017

Head’s Message

News and Notes

From the Archives: A Prologue to Our Story

Two Northwest Teachers Read Published Poems

Glen Sterr—Teacher, Philosopher, Outdoorsman, Sage

Tuney Embarks on a New Journey

Repurposing Our New Property

Boys’ Basketball Finishes Fifth in State Playoffs

Pesticide Awareness Through Art

Physical Science Students Engage in Design Process

Radium Girls a Huge Hit

The Virtual Orchestra Project

NWS Honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seattle Times Journalist Visits Northwest

Social Justice Learning: Awareness to Activism

Alumni Profiles

Ligaya Domingo ’95

Naomi Strand ’97

Tani Ikeda ’05

AGE UP — Sam Terry ’00

Lani Nguyen ’12

Soriya Ton ’12

Class Notes

Alumni Happenings

Bequests

Summits Off and Running—Stay Tuned!

“

We remain steadfast in our conviction that education is the means by which we will help shape a more just, equitable, and sustainable planet.

”

Mike McGill Head of School

n a farewell address of sorts this past January, Assistant Head of School Tuney Kannapell took the opportunity to reflect on her role at Northwest during these past three years, as we implemented our new schedule and a host of complementary programs. Her chief aim, she said, has been to help the community recognize that the school is constantly evolving to meet the needs of a new generation of students and respond to new challenges in society and the world—just as Northwest’s founders sought to do back in 1980. Though our founding values remain constant, the means by which we make them manifest must necessarily change. Seen in this light, Tuney argued, we are all, in our own ways, called to be founders.

This idea of creative, ongoing, collective “re-founding” has animated the Strategic Planning Task Force’s conversations about Northwest and about the planning process itself. In fact, we’ve sought to imagine ourselves in Paul, Mark, and Ellen’s shoes, but confronted with the world we see before us today, right now. We want to be bold in re-envisioning the school ahead of its 40th birthday, for the world today is fundamentally different from the one that inspired them in the late 1970s: Technologically: The computing power contained in a single smart phone would have required thousands of square feet to house back in the day. We’re still grappling with the educational implications of this phenomenon. Globally: In Thomas Friedman’s terms, our world is now flat. The degree of interconnectedness we experience every day was virtually unthinkable 40 years ago. And we didn’t have 70 international students living and studying in The House with us, either. Locally: Seattle itself is almost unrecognizable—in 1980, it was a sleepy town whose housing prices weren’t mentioned in the same breath as San Francisco’s and New York’s; there was no Microsoft, no Amazon, and no charter school movement.

Environmentally: The challenges Mark recognized and wrote about in Teaching for Survival we now understand to be existential. Racially: When we talked about diversity in independent schools—which was rare—we naively believed that access and proximity were all; we now have a more nuanced appreciation for the systemic obstacles that ensure that we will likely never be “a postracial” country, obstacles that oblige us to understand and care just as deeply about equity and inclusion now as we did then about numbers (that is, how many students of color we enrolled). And finally, in terms of our kids’ outlook: They’re no longer contemplating a one-jobfor-life model; in fact, the future of work itself is in question. The truth is that we have no idea what the world we’re preparing our students for will look like, except that we know it will be dynamic. The Task Force, reflecting on who we are and identifying our distinctive strengths, has become excited contemplating what a cutting edge, contemporary liberal arts secondary education, grounded in Northwest’s values, could or should look like. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. We begin with a firm commitment to the skills, dispositions, and habits of mind that the liberal arts help to develop and nurture, including creativity; interdisciplinary, critical, computational, and systems thinking; and collaboration. We cherish ideas and believe they’re worth debating and defending. We’re inquiry-based and experiential. We understand support of social justice, environmental sustainability, and global perspective to be integral to the school’s mission, essential if we’re to graduate students with purpose and agency, and with certain critical perspectives that enable them “to think and act with integrity, believing they have a positive impact on the world.” And we remain steadfast in our conviction that education is the means by which we will help shape a more just, equitable, and sustainable planet.

But what do these commitments mean for our practice—that is, programmatically and pedagogically? What implications do they have for our students’ experience? For faculty professional development? For our campus? Our planning process, which seeks answers to these questions, represents an opportunity to think boldly; it’s an invitation to venture outside the box—to act, as Tuney encouraged us, as Re-Founders of The Northwest School. To riff on the message of this year’s Martin Luther King Day keynote speaker, Gyasi Ross, “Let’s imagine into existence the school we want.”

This year, The Northwest School Board of Trustees embarked on a new strategic planning process, the outcome of which will be a strategic plan that will help guide its decision-making for the next five years. From the outset, the process has been inclusive, inviting, and committed to honoring the needs, hopes, and dreams of our whole school community. Through surveys, focus groups, interviews, and retreats, nearly 1,000 members of our community have contributed input to the planning process. We are very excited to be on this journey, envisioning the possibilities for the future of our school. The Board anticipates publishing the plan prior to the start of the 2018-19 school year.

From the Archive

A Prologue to Our Story by Alice Shahan Northwest School Archivist

here does the story of an institution begin? In the case of The Northwest School, we have the opportunity to reach much further back than opening day in 1980. Early in this project, I asked Ellen if Paul kept any papers from his time at other schools, hoping to discover some relevant biographical material. Among a group of records that should be appraised as out of scope for our institutional archive, I found some valuable details. Paul’s documents from 1958-1978 show us the beginnings of friendship between the founders. They also show the germination of what we now know is a thriving Northwest School, and a commitment to equity and social justice that goes back to the early sixties.

A Grounding in Social Justice Consider Paul’s tenure at The Midland School (1958-1968). From conversations with Ellen Taussig and Mark Terry, I’ve learned that apart from being chairman of the History Department, Paul was a teacher and a director of Project Open Future (POF) as well as a teacher in its predecessor, The Midland School Summer Program. In 1967, Paul recruited Mark to teach with POF. An early report describes the program’s aim to better prepare middle school students for high school, targeting populations that, “because of their economic and cultural backgrounds, might not continue in school through college, even though they had the native ability to do so.” Paul was also a community organizer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) initiative, called the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE), which took him to Waverly, VA, for the summer of 1965. Additionally, Paul was working to expand on POF’s work and establish a college preparatory boarding school at the Synod of Southern California’s La Sherpa Conference Grounds. This school was intended to be for students of diverse social, ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds in grades 9-12.

The Stories Illustrated For me, as an archivist, it feels like a win to find documentation of these activities (and many others) among Paul’s files from The Midland School. We have volumes of the school publication, Midland Mirror, to which Paul contributed essays reflecting on his work with POF and the SCOPE project and he was often pictured or mentioned in pieces written by the students. Brochures and clippings regarding POF and the SCOPE project are written in contemporary language and extensively describe the initiatives. The files also include substantial coverage of Paul’s efforts to establish La Sherpa School and, in addition, handwritten letters from Mark to Paul, expressing interest in contributing to La Sherpa School on any level.

Germinating a Curriculum Materials Paul kept from his time at the Oakwood School (1970-1975) further enrich the story. The Oakwood yearbooks show us images of Northwest’s young founders where the three first came together. These records contain Paul’s handwritten notes presenting “changes to the social studies program” that we can recognize as the Humanities program Ellen and Paul created. I was moved to discover that in Paul’s handwritten curriculum proposal he describes Mark Terry’s first class as an example of great teaching. While these records are not part of the institutional history of The Northwest School, they are clearly a prologue. To preserve them and uphold best practices, I classified them as a Special Collection housed with the NWS Archive. They will undergo the same preservation and will also be made available for research and exhibition.

News & Notes

umanities and French teacher Françoise Canter and Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli read from their published books of poems before a full audience at Elliott Bay Books on Capitol Hill on December 5, 2017. Françoise read from her recently released book of poems, Les Voix Liminales, and Suzanne shared new work as well selections from her chapbook, The Feltville Formation, published in 2015.

They were joined by a third poet, Shin Yu Pai, who is poet laureate of the City of Redmond, Washington. Each poet’s work was distinct in subject matter and form but also connected by the reading’s unifying theme: ekphrastic poetry. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a work of art. Through the poet’s imaginative reflections on elements in the painting or sculpture, the meaning of the artwork is amplified and deepened. Françoise’s poem, “San Geronimo Translates”, was inspired by a painting of Saint Jerome by Sebastian des Llanos Valdes in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, Spain. Saint Jerome was known for taking on the heavy and overwhelming task of translating the Bible. According to Francoise, des Llanos Valdes’ painting drew her in by evoking an “amazing tenderness.” “Usually, depictions of Saint Jerome have him holding the crucifix high with his hand. But In this painting, the crucifix is cradled and carried as a baby,” explains Françoise. “The humanity and hope in that gesture is a beautiful representation of translation.” Françoise translated the poems in Les Voix Liminales herself. She writes in both French and English and translates back and forth from one language to the other equally. She considers the dynamic of translation to be part of her creative process.

01 Letter from Mark to Paul,

November 1967, to the “Asst. Curator of the Southern California Insect Museum” at The Midland School

Two Northwest Teachers Read Published Poems I live my life in translation,” says Françoise, who grew up in France and moved to America 30 years ago. “It’s not a comfortable place to be, this place of two images, two presences, two ways of being, but it brings an incredible richness to my life. It is not a fight—it’s a tension that brings new ways of seeing the world.” Similarly, Suzanne Bottelli shared a poem inspired by another painting residing in Seville, Spain: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s portrait of Saint Catherine. The artwork moved Suzanne to write “Murillo’s Saint Catherine, c. 1650, Hospital de los Venerables, Sevilla”, a poem published in January 2017 in the online journal Scoundrel Time. In addition, Suzanne read a poem responding to Vermeer’s “Head of a Girl” from her unpublished full-length collection, A Visual Glossary of the Physical World. “(When writing ekphrastic poetry) you are trying to convey the experience of looking at the image—it’s not just what the image is about but what it evokes,” explains Suzanne. “Something is triggered by the image.” One of Suzanne’s poetry assignments to her students every year is to write an ekphrastic poem about a photograph. The exercise develops descriptive vocabulary skills and at the same time “cultivates a quality of paying attention.” An interesting side note: Although Suzanne and Françoise were in Seville at the same time in 2016 and spent time together there, they did not discover they were moved by paintings in different parts of the city until they read each other’s published poems.

02 Summer Community

Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) brochure promoting the initiative that took Paul to Virginia during the summer of 1965

04 Suzanne Bottelli, reading

from her chapbook, The Feltville Formation, at Elliott Bay Books, 2017 05 Françoise Canter reads

03 Mark Terry and Ellen Taussig,

c. 1974. Photo from The Oakwood School yearbook.

from her new book of poems, Les Voix Luminales, at Elliott Bay Books, 2017.

With characteristic aplomb and eloquence, Glen announced his decision to go onto other pursuits as a true historian would—he told a story. Here, in his own words, is how he came to teach at Northwest:

fter 36 years of unwavering commitment to The Northwest School, Humanities teacher Glen Sterr has announced he will be retiring this spring. In a heartfelt letter to the community, Glen described his life at the school as “a true labor of love” and expressed that “there is no place to which I would rather have devoted my time, my energy, and my abilities for the vast majority of my working life.”

Over the years, Glen has guided faculty and enriched the lives of students through many roles. Besides teacher and academic advisor, he has served as Associate Director of the Humanities Division (in the school’s original Humanities, Arts, and Environment structure), Outdoor Program Coordinator, Secretary of the Board of Trustees, Humanities Department Chair, Dean of Academic Studies, Upper School Director, Transportation Coordinator, Safety Committee Chair, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, Board Finance Committee member, Administrative Budget Committee member, Academic Coordinating Team member, Chair of the Personnel/Compensation Committee, and Dean of Faculty,

Glen Sterr – Teacher, Philosopher, Outdoorsman, Sage

“In what now seems a somewhat brazen act, I became aware of the school while I was teaching half a continent away, and I talked (actually wrote) my way in. It was the summer of 1981, the ninth year after my wife and I had left Seattle for Graduate School at Cornell University, a brief stint at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and four years of teaching at a liberal arts college in Wisconsin. It was the ninth summer that we found ourselves returning “home” to the Seattle area which we loved and where our growing family (four young children then, and two more to follow) could spend time with both sets of grandparents. As the Stuart Range came into view once again on the I-90 pass at that rest area between Ellensburg and Cle Elum, I realized that we had to find a way to come back home. A friend at the college had just spent a year’s leave in Seattle and had mentioned to me the start up of a fascinating new school, which he had read about in the Seattle Weekly: “Looks like a very interesting place and the head of the school (Paul Raymond) looks like a drill sergeant, but comes across as an intelligent and remarkable man in the stories I read.” So, in August of that summer, before heading back for another year of teaching at the college, I found The Northwest School building. It turned out to be the very building where Seattle University and Seattle Central Community College students had gathered before embarking on a march to the federal courthouse during the nationwide student strike that followed the National Guard shootings at Kent State in May 1970.

09 09

“

I had stood on the front ramp of that building wearing the armband of a peace monitor for that march, and it was meaningful for me to enter those doors to check out a new school, which I already understood to be about activist education. I met Paul Raymond and Mark Terry in my brief visit, and Paul then took me to lunch at Charlie’s Restaurant, a favorite haunt of his and a venue that came to be known as Paul’s off-campus “office.” Because of that meeting, I returned to my college to announce that I would be moving back to Seattle at the end of that school year (1981-82). There was no job offer, and Paul was quite clear that he did not foresee any openings, given the school’s tight finances. Nonetheless, I knew that I had found the school I wanted to join.

”

Therefore, in the spring of 1982, I wrote an application letter, which broke so many of the standard guidelines for a job application. The letter was four pages long, and it had a detailed resume, a couple of articles I had written, and some course syllabi attached to it, as I wrote to convince Paul that the Northwest School needed me and what I had to offer.

Mark Terry NWS Co-founder

We moved back to Seattle in the summer of 1982—still no job offer from NWS. It was not until the break between Quints 1 and 2 that fall that Paul called me to say he needed help, even though there was no additional money, because he was trying to be head (actually director, then) of the school while teaching virtually full time, and it was not working out! That was my way in...and I have never regretted it.” Many an eye will tear up this Spring as we say goodbye to Glen and wish him well on this next life adventure. Bonne chance, Glen! We will miss you!

0 1 Glen (seated in rear), leading a raft trip in the

Yakima River Canyon, October 2013 0 2 Glen, discussing Hellenistic philosophy and

the Alexandrian vision of a Hellenized world government, 2014 0 3 Glen, relaxing with his melodica at home in

Ripon, Wisconsin, where he taught college from 1977 to 1982 0 4 Glen and his wife Helene and young family, c.

1986: (in order by height) Aaron (Class of 1992), Jason, Colin (Class of 1997), Brian, and Teana

Glen stepped quietly into our second year and emerged immediately as a source of strength and good humor and common sense—a bit like a skilled canoeist threading a larger-than-life rapids. He has modeled the school’s mission ever since. If you sense a core of integrity running through The Northwest School you can assign responsibility for a large measure of that core to Glen. He will leaves NWS better than he found it.

Tuney Embarks on a New Journey

eloved faculty member Tuney Kannapell has announced she is moving on to pursue new adventures in her personal and professional life.

Tuney arrived at Northwest 20 years ago with a master’s in Education from The University of Louisville. She joined the community first as a 7th grade science teacher and 10th grade biology teacher, then soon added to her responsibilities by teaching an 11th-12th ESL lab science course, an 8th grade math class, and coaching the cross country team. In 2001, she became Middle School Director. Tuney says she chose to come to Northwest because of “the inclusive atmosphere that was palpable,” and she saw the same kindness and support for each individual student in the classroom. “I saw teachers blowing on the small coals of interest students showed, and fanning those coals into flame,” says Tuney. “I’ve always believed there was something unusual here about making room for people to be themselves, and find themselves in the curriculum.”

Three years ago, Tuney stepped into the role of Assistant Head of School, guiding and supporting faculty through the school’s seminal shift to a block schedule, from quints to trimesters, and an expansion of the Advisory Program. Most recently, she oversaw the successful launch of the new two-week interdisciplinary Summits courses. Now that those transitions are complete, she is choosing this moment to pause and consider what she would like to do in this next phase of her life. “I plan to spend time with my mother in Kentucky, who is 94, and still hanging steady,” Tuney shared with the faculty in February, “I’ll keep learning new things and hope to boomerang back here when the opportunity arises. I can’t imagine a more inspirational, aspirational place to work and feel lucky to have been able to have so much of my professional life in this space and context. And I will still be here another six months, which I will relish.” In addition to her wise teaching and leadership, Tuney has been known for her eloquent dialogue about the purpose and mission of The Northwest School. At Open Houses and Curriculum Nights, people invariably flocked to the classroom where Tuney was stationed to hear her speak. Her recent announcement to the faculty about her future plans was no exception. She chose the opportunity to extol the virtues of teaching itself, and especially at Northwest:

“Teaching has always been one of the most honorable professions—filled with purpose. We get to actively work for a positive future. Our students learn about commitment, self-motivation, intentional health and wellness, love of a subject area, and reaching into the unknown to find oneself. We are unusual in our deep commitment to a strong liberal arts education, in our strength for giving a home to so many during their adolescence, and in bringing together a group of global citizens—students and faculty—to model how to work together.“ Perhaps Tuney is even better known for her infamous Middle School commencement addresses, a.k.a. the Kentucky Chronicles. Drawing from her childhood in Prospect, Kentucky, Tuney continually delighted graduates and parents with her tales of growing up in a large extended family and the universal lessons she learned from the rambunctious and lively Kannapell clan. In the immediate future, Tuney plans to pursue one of her dreams: a September hike, 20 miles into the remote Pasayten Wilderness in Washington State with some climbing friends.

May this and all other dreams come true, Tuney! We shall miss you!

“

01 Tuney, enjoying the evening glow in the rarely visited Valhalla

Range in the Olympic Mountain Range 02 Tuney receives a thank you hug for her years at Northwest

from Scott Davis at the 2018 ArtFest Gala. 03 Tuney, camping in the mysterious and remote

Picket Range in the North Cascades 04 Tuney in 1998, her first year teaching at Northwest.

Tuney is unique, starting with her name. She was an equally great teacher and administrator and very much still a middle school kid somewhere inside of her. She had a crystal-clear sense of fairness and rightness and ensured that they were in play at all times. She had a great sense of humor, always. We loved the excerpts from her Kentucky Chronicles at Middle School Graduation. It was an honor and a great pleasure to work with her.

”

Ellen Taussig

NWS Co-founder

n October 2017, The Northwest School announced exciting news regarding the future of the campus. The school was able to purchase three properties neighboring its immediate buildings on Capitol Hill. These properties include both land and building structures at 1422 and 1418 Bellevue (the lots between the school’s 401 E. Pike facility and the Urban Farm and Garden), and the 14-space parking lot at 1417 Bellevue (directly north of the school’s dormitory).

Repurposing Our New Property

“It’s thrilling to contemplate the programmatic and community-building opportunities this move affords the school,” says Head of School Mike McGill. “This new property gives us the opportunity to expand our teaching and learning areas while at the same time allowing for more green space and enhancing the connection between our buildings.” Over December 2017, The Northwest School took the first step toward claiming the new spaces. The building at 1418 Bellevue, which was in a state of severe disrepair due to lack of use in recent years, was demolished. In keeping with the school’s environmental sustainability values, a significant portion of the building’s material was salvaged and repurposed.

Prior to demolition, the school teamed up with the Seattle-based reclamation company Earthwise Architectural Salvage. Earthwise completed two passes through the 1418 building, salvaging many pieces of the interior. This included mid-century lighting, door hardware for 13 doors, five panel doors, heat registers, a mantel, lead glass windows, corbels, a built-in wooden bench, cornices, a tin single board sink, a fire place insert, and a decorative “moustache” at the front of the house. In the immediate future, we will build a pop-up garden on the 1418 footprint, providing another greenspace for students and faculty to enjoy. On a simultaneous front, several administrative and support faculty packed up their offices on Friday, December 15, 2017, and moved from both the Annex and the Main Building into the other piece of property at 1422 Bellevue. Formerly a law office, the 1422 building now houses Admissions, Registrar, Development, Communications, and IT, all in one facility.

0 1 The new property at

1422 Bellevue now houses many of school’s administrative offices. 0 2 Varsity player Isaiah J. ’19 forced

the first of two overtimes against Lynden Christian in the Washington State Playoffs, 2018.

News & Notes

he Northwest School boys’ basketball team’s deepest postseason run in school history ended with a fifth place finish after falling to Zillah High School, 76-73, on Saturday, March 3. Senior Gabriel R. set a state tournament record, shooting 73 percent (11 of 15) from three-point range over the four tournament games. It was the second close finish for Northwest in two days. On Friday, March 2, the boys almost pulled the upset over No. 1 Lynden Christian in the semifinals. Junior Isaiah J. ’19 hit a buzzer beating three pointer to tie the score 56-56 and force the first of two overtimes. Lynden Christian would eventually pull away, 73-69.

Boys’ Basketball Finishes Fifth in State Playoffs Northwest is led by junior Isaiah J. ’19, who was named an ECL first-team all-league player, and the ECL most valuable player during the regular season. He is joined by second-team all-league seniors Jamie C. ’18 and Azure H. ’18. The boys finished the regular season ranked No. 6 in the state’s RPI rankings. The boys opened this season with 14 consecutive wins, including victories over larger 3A Seattle schools such as Roosevelt and Ballard. The boys finished the regular season with an 11-1 record in league play, and an 18-3 record overall.

News & Notes

pper School ceramics students have created a gallery of ceramic fruits and vegetables to raise awareness about pesticide contamination commonly found in everyday produce. The pieces are slated to hang in the school’s dining hall in Spring 2018.

“I wanted to find a way to tie ceramics to sustainability and our dining hall’s quest to create thoughtful eaters,” says Ceramics teacher Randy Silver. “Pesticides are something a lot of kids probably don’t spend time dwelling on, but it is something they should be aware of.” Each year, the non-profit Environmental Working Group looks at data from the FDA and releases “The Dirty Dozen”, a list of fruits and vegetables that are the most contaminated with residual pesticides, including strawberries, spinach, and nectarines. It also releases “The Clean Fifteen”, a list of produce that is least likely to be contaminated by pesticides. These foods include sweet corn, avocados, cabbage, and onions.

Both of Randy’s Upper School ceramics classes created the pieces by using all of the foundational sculpting techniques, including the coil, pinch-pot, solid, and hollow. The finished works represented a total of 27 fruits and vegetables. The inspiration for the project came from the Northwest School’s first ceramics teacher, Karla Lieberman. She created a piece of fruits and vegetables that was exhibited in the dining hall for several years, but was recently relocated to make room for the new food-related book library. Randy hopes to incorporate Karla’s piece in the Dirty Dozen display.

Pesticide Awareness through Art

01 A selection

of studentsculpted fruits and vegetables created to raise awareness about pesticide contamination, 2018.

Physical Science Students Engage in Design Process

Physical Science teachers Jeremy DeWitt and Sophie Daudon give students a set of parameters, which include height, length, and width restrictions, and task them with one goal: create a device that accurately launches a projectile to a target five meters away. Precision and consistency are the focuses of the project. The aim is to hit the target at least 50 percent of the time.

or the better part of a month in Trimester 2, ninth grade physical science students work with chop saws, hammers, and drills to construct group-designed catapults. The annual catapult project submerges students in the design process and provides opportunities for creative problem solving when things go awry.

0 2 Toni B. ’21 (left), and

Maleda S. ’21 collaborate to construct their catapult design. 0 3 Iliana G. ’21 (left),

Oscar M. ’21 (center), and Shea M. ’21 strive for accuracy and precision in design and construction.

0 4 Adnah H. ’21 (front left),

Sam M. ’21 (front right) shoot their catapult as Northwest students look on during the 2018 Catapult Competition.

“We want to teach students the inherent value of the design process, including learning how to fix the design through iterations of testing,” says Sophie. “This project gives students the opportunity to fail in a concrete way, experience it, process it, laugh through it, and figure out how to fix the problem.” Once the catapults are complete, the students spend a week or more in the hallways of the school, testing their machines and making adjustments based on the results. The project culminates with the annual Catapult Competition in which teams advance by consistently hitting the target. Says Sophie: “The focus isn’t on winning. It’s about embracing that spirit of process and constantly trying to improve your design.”

Radium Girls a Huge Hit 01

he Northwest School presented a sold-out five show run of Radium Girls, on Dec. 7-10, 2018.

Radium Girls tells the true story of young women who were employed to paint watch dials that soldiers could see in the dark during World War I. Laced with deadly radium dust, the paint led to gruesome illnesses and deaths of workers. The company employing the workers blamed the diseases and deaths on syphilis and poor hygiene. As a result, the women set in motion the slow wheels of change for social justice. “This play explores inequalities in gender and class, and showcases the importance of social justice,” says Play Director Ellen Graham. “All of these themes are important to our students and to the mission of the school.” The production featured 16 actors from multiple grades across the Upper School, with 11 students assisting the play production on the technical and stagecraft side.

News & Notes

T 01 Daphne M. ’20

(left) Anna H. ’20 (center), and Mackenzie W. ’19 portray women watchmakers threatened by radium poisoning during WW I.

02 Massimo A. ’18

(left) as Dr. Knef, and Ben H. ’19 (right) as Arthur Roeder

03 standing, from

left: Anna H. ’20, Daphne M. ’20, and Malia M. ’19 (as Madame Curie); seated, front: Makenzie W. ’19

04 The Northwest

School Orchestra, led by Music teacher Jo Nardillilo

he Northwest School’s Upper School Orchestra will this year connect with students from eight different countries around the world in an exciting new collaboration, the Virtual Orchestra Project (VOP). The year-long project will result in a performance featuring a video presentation of all eight schools— including one in a refugee camp outside of Mosul, Iraq—playing a tango song by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla.

Says Orchestra teacher Jo Nardolillo: “We talk a lot at Northwest about global citizenship and social justice. I wanted to explore what that means to be a global citizen in terms of orchestra.” Throughout the year, the project will build connection between the students at each school. Every month, students will send each other “video postcards” and establish a virtual pen-pal. Each school will record its performance on an iPhone (or similar device) and Jo will overlay the tracks together. That composite track will then be edited into a grand video performance featuring all of the parties involved. Jo deliberately is working to keep the playing field as level and equitable as possible in two ways. All schools will use only iPhones for the recording technology and will be working with folk music that is not from their respective countries.

The Virtual Orchestra Project

“We needed a song that was not composed for a symphony orchestra,” says Jo. “The school in Iraq does not have cellos, for example. The school in Columbia is a traditional ensemble, featuring guitars and drums. The school in Ethiopia is not an orchestra and plays traditional Ethiopian instruments. If music is really a universal language, can we adapt it to all the styles of the world and have it work?” The VOP pairs Northwest students with students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, in Washington D.C., Colegio Jorge Washington, in Cartagena, Columbia, the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, Germany, the International School Bangkok in Bangkok, Thailand, the Givatayim Conservatory in Tel Aviv, Israel, the Lelt Foundation Orchestra in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and women in a refugee camp outside of Mosul, Iraq.

Northwest Community Honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

he Northwest School community celebrated the life, work, and influence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by engaging in a variety of workshops and presentations on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018. The senior class and members of the Social Justice Squad Interest Group organized the annual school-wide event. Gyasi Ross, an author, speaker, and storyteller from the Blackfeet Nation, opened the day as the keynote speaker with an impassioned plea to the students: “We are all stronger when we work together. This is the modern day manifesto of Dr. King’s vision,” Gyasi told the students. “We should take daily inventory of who we are. Who is not speaking? Who is not at this conversation? Who doesn’t get the opportunity?” After Gyasi’s speech, students and faculty dispersed for 20 workshops, many of which were led by students. Members of the Social Justice Squad presented on systemic racism in the school system, and another workshop focused on the question: What’s negative about positive stereotypes? Other workshops included “Making Noise at the Border,” “Everyday Islamophobia,” and “Soil, Sustenance, and Social Justice.” After the workshops, students gathered in the gym to witness a performance by local hip-hop artist Nathan Nzanga.

The goal of the day was to unite the community in thoughtful conversations about civil rights in American history, with a focus on what students can do to further the legacy of Dr. King. The theme echoed what Gyasi told the community. “Everybody talks about equity but they don’t attach action to it. Without that second piece, the dream is pointless.”

News & Notes

n Dec. 12, 2017, Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large spoke to the Northwest School Journalism class, sharing his experiences as a journalist in the newsroom. He described his writing methods and how he chooses his column topics.

“Every time you write, you have to figure out what you want to accomplish,” Jerry told the students. “My goal (in my column) is to encourage people to think about some issue, particularly in a way they haven’t thought about it before.” Jerry, who has been with the Seattle Times in a variety of roles since 1981, currently writes two columns each week. He told students to make sure their content always adds a new voice to the conversation. Isa M. ’18, who expressed interest in pursuing studies in journalism or a related field, picked Jerry’s brain about the current state of journalism in the world. Jerry replied, noting that the size of the Seattle Times newsroom has dropped over 50 percent since the economic downturn of 2007. He also expressed that the proliferation of social media as a questionable source of news makes good journalism even more essential to society today.

01 Blackfeet Nation author

Gyasi Ross, speaking to students on MLK Day 02 On MLK Day, students

and faculty participated in several student-led awareness workshops on racial and social justice issues. 03 Seattle Times columnist

Jerry Large (front), and journalism student Steffi L. ’18 (back)

Seattle Times Journalist Visits Northwest

Ruby D. ’18 followed up by asking Jerry to comment on the mindset of journalists in this atmosphere of “fake news.” “It is difficult to operate as a journalist in an era when education and facts are under assault,” conceded Jerry. “It makes it even more important as a journalist to continue to push forward as objectively as possible.”

hen walking the halls of The Northwest School, it is impossible to miss the school’s commitment to racial and social justice. The words of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, and Audre Lorde greet students as they climb the north and south stairways and walk the upper hallway. The names of classrooms, Oscar Romero, Rachel Carson, MLK, and Maya Lin, honor some of the foremost social activists of our times. A Public Art class installation addresses racial experiences at the school, and another exhibit interprets and expresses the horrors of the Holocaust.

Social Justice Learning: Awareness to Activism

In Humanities classes 6-12, students are studying, reading, discussing, and writing about seminal events and ideas in the past as well as manifestations of racism and social injustice in the present. At the Upper School level, 12th graders choose from Humanities courses such as Race and Gender, Social Justice, Law and Society, Political Protest and Popular Music, and Writing in the Margins: Life, Art, and Activism in the Borderlands. “Social justice is baked in to our teaching and learning,” says Upper School Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli. “It’s not a component. With anything we are studying, we are framing or asking questions: Who benefits? What is fair? How do you come up with a solution for ongoing problems, or at least, what questions do you ask to get there?” This spring, the school added another layer of social justice learning. The new Summits Program—two-week immersive courses held in March—offered students in-depth, interdisciplinary study of the Civil Rights Movement, food justice, art activism, homelessness, and climate change. Furthermore, the school’s three trips abroad this year, to El Salvador, Cuba, and Ethiopia, were designed to help students learn the history of social justice and the current realities in these countries.

Systems Awareness

Embodied Ethics Social justice as a critical part of education is grounded in Northwest School’s history. Co-founders Mark Terry, Ellen Taussig, and Paul Raymond cared deeply about access to education and racial justice. Paul and Mark first met while working to open educational opportunities, particular a solid path to college, for kids from the heart of the Watts Riots. Paul participated on the front lines of civil rights protests and he and Ellen developed the Humanities program with a focus on civil rights and the Holocaust. Subsequently, Mark brought environmental awareness to the forefront in his book, Teaching for Survival, and he wrote the first environmental education guidelines for Washington State secondary schools.

“I would argue it is irresponsible to have discussions about environment without social justice in tandem,” states Jenny Cooper, who co-designed the Summit course called Food Justice: Unearthing Connections Between Land Use History, Race, Class, and Environmental Science. She points out that there is a direct correlation between low-income neighborhoods and the prevalence of water and air pollution. “Due to waste-processing facilities, traffic, and pollution, the lifespan in South Seattle is eight years less than if you live in Green Lake,” cites Jenny. “The question now is how do we take the blinders off and see the multiple systems and how they intersect?” Already In their course designs, 12th grade Humanities teachers articulate how they are addressing social justice, environmental sustainability, and global citizenship. Going forward, faculty of all grades will be encouraged to address these same three areas when designing Summits. At the same time, curriculum development is supporting greater racial and social justice awareness. Grade-level teams at 9th, 10th, and 11th recently reworked Humanities curricula to embrace multiple perspectives and non-Eurocentric points of view.

Today, the school is strengthening its efforts by devoting more time and resources. This year, the school hired Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Anshu Wahi, who holds a master’s degree from Harvard University, where she specialized in social justice education, adolescence, school development, and qualitative research, and reform. Anshu has several years of experience supporting progressive school community efforts to align with current paradigms of inclusion, equity, and justice. “Teaching and learning provide constant opportunities for inquiry into why we believe what we believe, how we defend these beliefs, how these beliefs align with school values and aspirations, and how all of this is imprinted with our own identities,” says Anshu. She adds that examining and questioning the process of teaching and learning through a social justice lens is extremely rare in middle and upper schools. “At Northwest, I’ve seen many faculty and students who are willing to create the brave spaces necessary for this work to happen thoughtfully.” With Anshu’s arrival, Northwest now has a dedicated person focusing on diversity equity and inclusion, environmental stewardship, and global citizenship. Jenny Cooper is director of environmental education and stewardship, and Dmitry Sherbakov is director of global marketing and programs. All three directors are assessing strengths and challenges in their areas and supporting faculty as they refine curriculum as well as working with students, reviewing school policies and practices, and participating in administrative decisions. Furthermore, they are examining how their three areas intersect and how Northwest as a school can function within that Intersection.

0 1 Social Justice Squad member Ella H. ’19 (on ladder) helps

install an art piece titled Beams of Light, reflecting the social, racial, and environmental justice concerns of Northwest School students, South Staircase, 2018. 0 2 2018 Trip to El Salvador: back row, from left:

Humanities teacher Scott Davis, Grace P. ’19, Trinity D. ’19, Natalie T. ’19, Allegra N. ’19, Nurya T. ’19; middle row, from left: Claudia C. ’19, Ella H. ’19; front row, from left: Spanish teacher Azucena Ledezma, Ben W. ’19, Felix H. ’19, Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli 0 3 Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Anshu Wahi (right),

chats with Emmanual T. ’22 (far left), and Jingpu (Tom) X. ’19.

Social Justice

0 1 Upper School Humanities

teacher Daren Salter talks with Isaia L. ’18 (left), and Isaac R. ’18 in the Political Protest and Popular Music class. 0 2 The work of Kiowa author

M. Scott Momaday was recently incorporated into the 10th grade Humanities curriculum. 0 3 My Hands Didn’t Shake,

but Inside I Was Shaking, art piece by Sebastion J. ’18 (Title is from a quote by Civil Rights Activist James L. Farmer, Jr.)

Recognizing Resistance “We significantly modified the 10th grade curriculum,” confirms Humanities teacher Harumi LaDuke, referring to the school’s former Eurocentric approach to historical study. “Now, we begin with indigenous people—studying First Nations and what they were like before European contact. Then we look at civilizations and cultures in central/southern Africa prior to slavery.” In addition to the work of African American writer Toni Morrison, and former slave and impassioned abolitionist Frederick Douglass, 10th graders study the work of N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet, whose work won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 and spurred the Native American Renaissance. Explains Humanities teacher Daren Salter: “The focus of most of our 10th grade curriculum is resistance—we focus on ways natives resisted the European effort. We also do this with the abolitionist movement. This communicates agency (on the part of the oppressed) and also the power of people to sympathize with the victims.”

Articulating Beliefs The ability to understand issues from multiple viewpoints is heightened in the 11th grade. Students are challenged through a biographical research project to examine, summarize, and evaluate the arguments of historians whose opinions they disagree with. “Every year, there are students who change their opinions after learning more about the historical figure they researched,” testifies Humanities teacher Scott Davis, who teaches 11th grade and the 12th grade Law and Society course. In addition, 11th graders participate in formal debates centered on contemporary global issues such as immigration, human rights, international climate change policy, and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. They must fully prepare to argue what each side believes, and do not learn which side they will defend until shortly before the debate day. “I want to have robust debates in my sections, so I often play devil’s advocate,” says Scott. The process of debate, with opening arguments, rebuttals, and closing arguments, provides the students a scaffolding for tackling difficult issues and engaging in civil discourse. “The practice of being in a room together and having conversations is so important,” stresses Scott. “It’s an approach and a philosophy—it’s not just the 11th grade debates. Balance doesn’t come from a moment. It’s a way of conducting ourselves.”

23 23

A powerful way Northwest students process and respond to social justice issues is through the visual and performing arts. Upper School theatre students stage plays such as Radium Girls, (see p. 16) about working women of the 1920s poisoned from jobrelated radiation. Middle school students perform plays like Battle Cries of Freedom, an original work by theatre teacher Laura Ferri that contrasts scenes from the Civil War in 1863 with scenes about Civil Rights in 1963. In Public Art class, students create installations to support protests such as the Standing Rock uprising against the XL Keystone Pipeline. In ceramics, students raise environmental awareness by creating sculptures of endangered animals and pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables (see p. 14). In addition, this year, students in Advanced Photography researched and presented the work of contemporary artists who create socially related imagery, such as Alfredo Jaar, Carrie Mae Weems, and Christian Boltanski.

Artwork by Sebastian J.’18

The Arts: Speaking Out and Changing Minds “I think of photography as being an indicator or catalyst for social change,” says photography teacher Lyn McCracken, who is careful to allow students the freedom to come to their own conclusions. A compelling piece that emerged from Lyn’s class this year was by Sebastian J. ’18. He worked with an appropriated image from the Civil Rights Movement showing officers hosing protesters and, in the foreground, a white police officer restraining a black student in a chokehold. Through collage and red paint, Sebastian transformed the image into an even more chilling statement of oppression. “The photo lab offers a safe place for students to work out ideas—I’m just a guide,” says Lyn. “I ask students, ‘How can your imagery facilitate a conversation? That’s where change comes from.”

When her students say ‘nothing ever changes,’ Lyn shows them examples of artists who have triggered major change. For example, Jacob Riis influenced the tenement laws at the turn of the century by photographing tenement dwellings; Lewis Hine photographed child labor in 1917 and, as a result, labor laws were changed; and on a more contemporary level, Subhankar Banerjee photographed the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge ten years ago. “Senator Barbara Boxer took those images to the Senate floor when they were voting to drill in ANWAR—and they banned drilling,” explains Lyn. “I tell my students that making images has the power to change people’s minds.”

Information and Context Heightening students’ awareness about social injustice and giving them the tools to talk about it begins at Northwest in Middle School. The 6th grade year culminates with the Global Issues Action Project. Students study the uneven resources and consumption in industrialized and developing countries, and then they research and inform the community about a world issue such as hunger, access to health care, access to education, or climate change. In 7th grade, students turn their eyes closer to home— to the Pacific Northwest. “One thing we talk about is how, in our country, we sometimes seem to skip over the hard points of our history,” says 7th grade Humanities teacher Julie Kim. “In 7th grade, we pause, go back, and address those moments head on. We specifically choose key points when the rights of citizenship and agency were not provided for everyone.” Seventh graders begin by learning about the origins and legacies of indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest and how those legacies were irrevocably altered by unjust treaties brokered on behalf of the U.S. government. Students analyze primary sources—often pieces of antiquated legislation—which still have an impact on our world today. From there, they move chronologically, with a focus on the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Seeing Historic Patterns According to Julie, with the groundwork in primary sources and analysis already laid down, students are able to grapple with immigration legislation from the late 1800s and beyond. “One of our goals is for students to see the patterns and systems throughout history. This can be challenging but ultimately validating as students gain confidence in their ability to learn and question how yesterday’s ideas still affect us today.”

Shifting Perspective At the 8th grade level, students widen their social justice lens to the African continent, an area often neglected in middle school curricula. They study the distribution of people, standard of living, resources, and effects on environment. According to Humanities teacher Jeff Blair, the data and statistics that he and Julie Kim present in their 8th grade classes serve as an eye-opener for students. “The social justice issues do not have to be driven home. When we give information and context, they are just there,” says Jeff. “When our students learn, for example, that the average person in Ethiopia makes the equivalent of $1,600 per year—and that’s adjusted for cost of living— they immediately see that something’s not right.”

02 0 1 Upper School Humanities teacher Harumi LaDuke

leads a discussion during her 12th grade Writing Seminar: Identity, Joy, Justice, and Action. 0 2 Eighth graders gain a deeper perspective on

contemporary Africa by studying the work of Nigerian authors Achebe and Adichie.

Literature provides context from a different angle. Eighth graders read Things Fall Apart, a novel and seminal African text written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1958, and Purple Hibiscus, a novel written by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In addition, they watch Adichie’s renowned TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story.” “Our students see that when we hear only one story, stereotypes are reinforced,” says Jeff. “Adichie reminds us that these stereotypes, even if rooted in some truths, are incomplete and therefore dangerously limiting. This issue frames our curriculum, as we end the year with a unit that looks at the influences of media on perpetuating stereotypes.”

Social Justice

Facing Hard Truths

Building Trust and Relationship

Acknowledging realities of stereotypes, racism, and white privilege, and working to dismantle the systems that perpetuate them can be difficult. Faculty agree that it is imperative to create a class culture wherein students feel safe to talk about hard truths.

Establishing safety through communication and relationship is as important in Upper School. In the senior seminar Social Justice, teacher Harumi LaDuke starts with setting community norms. “I tell students: ‘Use “I” statements; this class is not about judging; and you do not have to speak for your entire identity group,’” says Harumi.

“We try from day one to make the classroom a safe space,” explains Julie Kim. “We give 7th graders ground rules, including how to be present and conduct themselves with civility. We talk about stereotypes, implicit bias, systemic racism, and we give them vocabulary to talk about these concepts.” “We tell our students: ‘Don’t pick apart people, pick apart ideas,’” emphasizes fellow Humanities teacher Tamara Bunnell. “This helps kids feel free to speak.” One of the most important ground rules emphasized by Julie and Tamara is “Do not feel guilty about history – it is not your moral failing.” Instead, they help students understand the context of history and their role in addressing it. According to Tamara, it is equally imperative to help students feel hopeful and empowered. “We try to look at youth movements and how they’ve changed history. In Trimester 3, we examine court cases involving young students who fought for justice and prevailed. We focus on understanding the duties of citizenship—how do you use your voice for good?”

In Harumi’s course, students begin with the analytical and then move to the personal. Like all Northwest seniors, they analyze the U.S. Constitution, examining how much of the language is “dedicated to upholding slavery,” and then they look at the modern-day election cycle, discussing how the campaign issues directly affect students’ families. Throughout the term, students explore their racial identity development through writing and revising an autobiography. “I want students to leave my class forming a positive racial identity,” says Harumi. “We talk about how we can honor those different elements of ourselves.”

0 3 Seventh-grade

Humanities teacher Julie Kim (center) speaks with Isamu S. ’23 (left) and Ben A. ’23.

Social Justice

Becoming Activists As much as Northwest students are developing awareness through reading and study, they are finding the inspiration and courage to act by meeting and conversing with activist writers, artists, and role models. Recently, the school hosted Moina Shaiq, the founder of the grassroots Meet a Muslim program. Moina spoke with 8th and 9th grade students, explaining why she felt compelled to actively start conversations and answer questions about her experiences as a Muslim.

Identity and Unity Identity work is the beginning step to understanding ourselves—our marginalization or our privilege, according to Humanities teacher Mary Anne Henderson. In her senior seminar Writing in the Margins, students focus on writing as a tool to deepen their self-awareness. Says Mary Anne, “We write to learn more about ourselves.” Mary Anne’s students study the work of queer Chicana feminist and scholar Gloria Anzaldúa. Her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, is a deep exploration of what it is like to grow up on the borders of multiple places and identities, including physical, psychological, and social. Anzaldúa begins by describing her experience growing up on the US/Mexico border in Texas as someone seen as neither wholly Mexican nor wholly American. She then 03 expands to explore the other borders she lives between, such as man and woman, or queer and straight. 02

Explains Mary Anne: “The end goal of Anzaldúa’s process of conocimiento (coming to awareness) is to take action and join with other people from different backgrounds and unify.”

0 1 Moina Shaiq, founder of Meet a Muslim,

speaks to Northwest students. 0 2 In the work of author Gloria Anzaldúa,

students study what it means to grow up on the borders of multiple places and identities. 0 3 From left: Gabriella S.’22, Naomi F. ’22,

and Kyle P. ’22, take part in the Teen Protest March shortly after the 2017 Presidential Election.

DEI Director Anshu Wahi attended Moina’s session with students. “My favorite moment is when a student raised her hand and asked, ‘What can I do?’” recounts Anshu. “Students saw that Moina is one voice—and that now they can use their voices. It does not have to rest only on the shoulders of the marginalized.” Northwest students are learning how to have critical conversations and to affect change by using the forums, voices, and power they do have. “We didn’t ask to be inheritors of history, but we are,” says Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli. “That’s not a course or thing to check off. It’s a habit of mind, a critical capacity. You are conversant, and aware, and you carry that perspective.”

Indalo M. ’19, member of Black Student Union (BSU) and Social Justice Squad (SJS)

Student Interest Groups provide time and space for Northwest students to gather, organize, and act on issues of importance. Here are insights from four students who are highly involved this year.

Amalia H. ’20, member of Environmental Interest Group (EIG) and Social Justice Squad (SJS) I have always been passionate about social justice—my parents are as well. Social justice is the norm here (at Northwest). We talk about it in Humanities and in Community Meeting. Everyone really cares about all of these issues. As part of MLK Day, I led a workshop on segregation in Seattle Public Schools (SPS). I know public school and I presented ways we could change segregation in SPS. I also helped with the mural project where we wrote about issues we cared about on triangular pieces of paper (and created a geometric design on one school wall, see p. 20). During the Obama years, we took a lot of things for granted—things like equity. Now these things are really being tested. We have to fight for them. As for the future, we can never really give up hope. Those of us who are not really affected by these issues have to step in. Understanding how we as young people are really privileged, how we get to talk about these issues. We are the next generation. We will have more people who care about equity and will want to change stuff in the future.

Black Student Union is a safe place where we say, ‘Hey, you can be here and be yourself.’ It mostly attracts students of color but we’ve had consistent white student allies. We focus on different issues at our school and news events that highlight these issues, such as micro-aggressions towards students of color. Our role in these interest groups is to highlight, ask, and participate. It’s up to us to listen and tell. The work is never done—it’s ongoing. It’s important to see the work that is being done, but also important to say we are lacking in some areas. We formed the Social Justice Squad last year because we were interested in enacting social justice and practicing it in our school. We planned the MLK Day workshops, microaggression workshops, and installed a mural on the south stairs that expressed what we believe (see p. 20).

Burgin U. ’18, member of Environmental Interest Group (EIG) and a leader in the design and construction of Northwest’s Urban Farm and Garden Right after Trump was elected, I went on the Teen Protest March—it was the most powerful thing to say ‘we teens don’t agree.’ I also went to the environmental march last year and the last two women’s marches. Our school wants us to do things like that. Twice a week, about 30 of us gather to organize and activate around environmental sustainability. This year, during Black History Month, EIG members researched and posted quotes from people of color who are environmental scientists and activists. Urban spaces are super important to me. I love the city, and love time outside. Social justice ties into the placement of parks: Where we choose to place parks in the city shows how the city has developed racially. Since I’ve been involved in EIG we’ve changed our habits at home. We have rules for how long to take showers, we’re mindful of buying something made of plastic, and my sister (Jena U.’21) and I both stopped eating meat. We’re always aware of what we’re using.

Students Taking Action Mira C-L. ’18, member of Environmental Interest Group (EIG) and active in Seattle Climate Action Network I went on the Women’s March this year and the Black Lives Matter marches. And I went to the (Sea-Tac) airport for a rally against the immigration ban last December (2017). This year, I focused my efforts on anticonsumerism. I organized a massive clothing swap to encourage people to reuse clothing (rather than keep buying more). We had ten tables piled with clothes in the Commons, and a lot of people came by. We’re donating the remains to Goodwill. I also arranged a showing of the film The Truest Cost. It talks about effects of the fast fashion industry, led by stores like Forever 21. They depend on cheap labor and the factories contribute to environmental pollution and consumerism. I don’t shop there anymore. The education I’ve gotten (from EIG) and the conversations with people have really inspired me. I plan to do more social justice work in college. It’s very important for young people to be involved. We are the next generation. We need to go beyond understanding the problem—we need to do something about it.

hen it comes to workforce equity and justice, Ligaya Domingo is a powerful advocate. As education director for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199NW, she oversees all training and educational development of the union’s members and staff. She also helps to create workforce opportunities within the healthcare industry, and currently, she is leading the union’s program on racial justice. “We are the only union in the country committed to becoming an anti-racist organization,” says Ligaya, whose office is in downtown Seattle. “We are a union that believes strongly in social justice. Our work is not just about bread and butter. We are looking closely at how we create power structures for our leaders.”

Ligaya Domingo ’95

Union Organizer, Education Director, SEIU Healthcare 1199 NW

Changing Power Structures Ligaya has been closely involved in making sure union leaders reflect the larger demographic. In the healthcare industry, for example, a high percentage of employees who work in hospitals and clinics are Asian Pacific Islanders (API). When Ligaya saw that none were members of SEIU Healthcare’s board, she got to work. “At Swedish (Hospital, in Seattle), where the Environmental Service workers (cleaners) are predominantly API as well as nurses and others, we recruited a number of them to be leaders in our union.” Ligaya, who holds a master’s in Teaching from Seattle University and both a master’s and PhD in Education from UC Berkley, is a passionate and engaged leader. She is vice president of the Asian Pacific Islander (API) SEIU Caucus, as well as a national executive board member of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). She sits on two boards in Washington State for labor education: the Harry Bridges Labor Center for University of Washington, and the Labor Education Research Center at South College.

02 0 1 Ligaya, with her husband

Colin Anderson and their children, son Mahal (left) and daughter Malaya 0 2 Ligaya (fourth row back, just

left of center), at the Asia Pacific Islander Leadership Summit, 2017

0 3 Ligaya, at Swanson Berry Farm

in Santa Cruz California, 2017. In 1998, Swanton Berry Farm was the first organic farm to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO.

Alumni Profiles

A Labor Hero Ligaya’s commitments to union organizing and social justice run strongly through her veins and heart. Her parents were cannery workers and labor leaders, and both worked tirelessly to create better working conditions for Filipino cannery workers in Alaska. Part of their efforts went toward democratizing a union that was mired in corruption and upholding a racist structure. Simultaneously, they were working in support of people in the Philippines, against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. In 1981, when Ligaya was only four years old, her father was assassinated. Silme Domingo was shot at union headquarters in Pioneer Square and later died of his injuries. Thirty-seven years later, Ligaya fights back tears when she talks about these events. “Ferdinand Marcos paid the union’s president to have my father murdered,” explains Ligaya. Her father’s case went to trial and the accused were found guilty, but then they appealed. “My family settled out of court,” she says. “We needed to move on.”

A Safe Haven When her father’s murder case was first going to trial, Ligaya arrived at The Northwest School. “Northwest was a safe haven for me,” she testifies, referring to both academic learning and the supportive community. “The critical analysis within the Humanities was a really important foundation for me in terms of my thinking. The discussion and debate with my peers really laid the groundwork,” says Ligaya. “I was exposed to different ways of thinking about change and if I thought something was wrong I was taught to get engaged and problem solve.”

It’s Okay to Question In her senior year at Northwest, Ligaya took the opportunity to write a thesis. The paper she composed, with Humanities teacher Paul Raymond as her advisor, was a significant turning point in her life.

She also credits having to work voluntarily for a political campaign as a significant experience that prepared “It was then that I started to explore, in an academic her for her future work. “I worked on the Ron Sims for sense, the history of my family and what happened with U.S. Congress Campaign,” recalls Ligaya. “Feeling that my father,” says Ligaya. “As a young woman, it was so responsibility and connection to politics was something I important for me to know it was okay to question and to later drew on when I went to work on political campaigns.” imagine ways things could be different.”

Naomi Strand ’97

Attorney, Co-founder & Executive Director, Northwest Community Legal Advocates 01

magine a world where all people, regardless of income, education, or citizenship status, have access to quality legal counsel. This vision drove Naomi Strand ’97 to first apply to Seattle University School of Law, and eventually, to co-found Northwest Community Legal Advocates (NWCLA) in 2016.

“I saw a huge need that wasn’t being met: low-cost family law,” says Naomi, who started the Washington state non-profit in Seattle with her partner J. Engels. The organization provides low-cost legal services for family law, immigration, disability law, trusts and estates, and mediation services. “I believe everyone should have access to the law, and also an understanding of the legal system and their rights.”

Affordable Legal Service Most clients who come to Naomi’s firm are those who do not qualify for free legal assistance and are unable to afford standard legal services. Often, they are caught in complex legal cases involving family crises. Expensive legal fees, plus the complexity of the legal system, compound their stress. “Families who are going through trauma have enough on their plates,” says Naomi, who works closely with clients to develop goals and self-advocacy strategies. “They don’t need to be worrying about the cost of a lawyer or trying to sort through the legal system.” Naomi and her colleagues recognize that legal representation is but one of many services necessary for the families they serve. Her firm seeks a holistic approach to addressing each person’s life and goals for resolution.

Advocating for Detainees and Immigrant Families Some of the most critical services NWCLA’s attorneys are providing today are for immigrants. The firm handles issues regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), legal permanent residence, family-based petitions, naturalization, navigating public benefits and Immigration, and helping immigrant victims of crime. “This work is really all emergency,” reveals Naomi. “There is no middle ground.” Naomi also devotes significant volunteer hours to supporting people in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. She coordinates visits to those detained inside and helps to organize finances.

The Tool of Law Undaunted by the crises-oriented nature of her job, Naomi loves doing the work and having the knowledge and skills to do it. “The law is a tool—a really great tool, and I love helping people, figuring out what to do,” she says. Naomi received her B.A. at Oberlin College, where she double-majored in English and Religion, and minored in Women’s Studies. Initially, law was not her aspiration, but then she got a job as a paralegal and started volunteering with the ACLU, doing voting rights and election protection work during the 2014 election.

Alumni Profiles

On the Picket Lines “I realized to be effective in this kind of work it would be powerful to have a law degree,” says Naomi. “Literally, on the night of the 2014 election results, I decided to go to law school.” In her application, Naomi wrote about how religion and law are in many ways the same: “Both are about different kinds of structures, and people use both law and religion to navigate through difficult events and to better understand their circumstances,” she explains. Initially, Naomi focused primarily on Social Security, working with people who were seeking help with the public benefits system. She was an extern at Seattle Community Law Center (SCLC) during law school, and later, was hired by SCLC for their Disabled Homeless Advocacy Project, where she worked as a benefits attorney. After leaving SCLC, she also worked as a benefits attorney at Solid Ground.

Naomi comes from a family of activists and claims to have been on the picket lines in diapers. She has two mothers— one a nurse and the other a teacher, both involved in their unions. Naomi transferred to NWS from public school in the 10th grade, and after she had been at the school a few weeks, she remembers thinking, “Whoa, they are not kidding around here—I have to do a lot of work!” Specifically, she recalls chemistry class with Renee Fredrikson as “being incredibly hard, but also fun,” and remembers (Humanities teacher) Daniel Sparler as “just knowing everything.” She and her friends would say, ‘Let’s see if we can stump him.”

Foundation for Expression Naomi points to the “hallway guitars” as one of her favorite elements of Northwest, crediting the school with being “both rigorous and also fun and playful.” Above all, she identifies her Humanities experience as the most valuable thing she carried with her into her profession. “I learned how to write, period,” says Naomi, who names Humanities teacher Suzanne Bottelli as a pivotal influence. “At Northwest, I got my foundation in how to express myself through writing, and I took that into college and the law.”

0 1 Naomi Strand ’97 0 2 Naomi, volunteering at the Gender

Justice League’s name and gender marker change clinic in January 2017. She provided free legal services to transgender and gender non-conforming people seeking to change their name or gender marker on their ID or immigrationrelated documents.

ilmmaker Tani Ikeda ’05 devoted most of 2017 to executive producing and directing a documentary TV series in collaboration with the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors. That series, Resist, will be premiering later this year. Prior to that project, she directed both the pilot and final episodes of the Emmy award-winning TV series Wonder Women. Both of these projects reflect Tani’s passion for exposing injustice and breaking down stereotypes.

“My favorite part of filmmaking is to be able to listen through my camera lens,” says Tani, who, in 2010, was named one of the 25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World by the Utne Reader, and in 2018, was selected as a Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Fellow. “Film is such a powerful medium to convey important messages.” Tani, who holds a B.A. from the University of Southern California in Cinematic Arts and Film Production, creates narratives, documentaries, music videos, and commercial films. Her documentary work, A Vigilant Love, following Muslim American organizers after the Muslim Ban, was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Empowering Girls

Tani Ikeda ’05

Award-winning Director and Filmmaker/ Looking through a Feminist Lens

In addition to shooting and directing her own films, Tani is committed to training young women to empower themselves through media. In 2008, at the age of 21, she co-founded imMEDIAte Justice, a free, hands-on film production and media literacy training program for highschool girls in Los Angeles. Along with NWS alumnae Laney Rupp ’05, and colleague Sylvia Raskin, Tani set out to address pervasive negative portrayals of women in mainstream media. “We dared to ask: What would happen if women told the truth about their lives?” reveals Tani. To date, imMEDIAte Justice has worked with over 1,000 youth and piloted programs across the U.S. and in Uganda, India, and China. Girls receive mentorship from film industry professionals, and gain on-set experience learning to write, direct, and film their own stories through a feminist lens. Says Tani, “If you want to see more women behind the camera win at the Oscars, start by investing in girls.”

Alumni Profiles

Documenting Strong Women

Thinking Critically

Currently, Tani is writing a feature script called Sealskin Woman that was accepted into the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Lab. The story is about a young girl who goes to live with her grandparents in Japan after her mother dies. She discovers that the people who are supposed to protect her, can’t, and she must rely on her own magic to save herself.

As a filmmaker, the ability to think critically is an essential and valuable tool—a tool that Tani says she developed while a student at Northwest.

“My experience of writing Sealskin Woman has taken me back to where I began. The story is anchored in my childhood, and explores the magical thinking of characters trying to comprehend loss.” This is Tani’s first feature-length script, influenced by her experience directing a documentary about 80-year-old Ama Divers in Toba, Japan. “These women are the bread winners for their families, diving and holding their breath for up to three minutes as they hunt for abalone and shellfish,” explains Tani. “Japan is a very patriarchal culture so it was amazing to find a Japanese Matriarch in this coastal village that had been passing down the tradition from mother to daughter for generations.” To shoot the documentary, Tani first got certified to scuba dive. When she began shooting, the typhoon season had begun, and she found herself facing a stormy, treacherous sea. The Ama divers, meanwhile, were unfazed. “They tied a little rope around my waist to keep me tethered. I had on an air tank, goggles, flippers, and meanwhile, these 80-year-old divers were going deeper than me and they were practically naked,” marvels Tani. “I came away with so much respect for these women.”

“Even early on, as a student, I was learning to think for myself. In Humanities, we brought in newspaper articles and discussed the underlying messages we were being fed in the news and teachers asked us to form our own opinions,” recalls Tani. “Deconstructing the messages within the media and creating my own meaning is something I will use for the rest of my life.”

Taking a Stand Tani was grateful to have learned from Paul Raymond while he was still alive. She valued how he made history come alive by talking about his own personal evolution. “Paul talked about what it was like being a poor, conservative, young, Midwestern white solder in the Korean War, fighting alongside Black soldiers who he would later support during the Civil Rights movement, despite his family members’ bewilderment,” remembers Tani. “After he got arrested and his sister asked him, ‘Why do you have to cause such a mess?’ Paul said, ‘When I see injustice, I have to stand.’” Another guiding piece Tani took from Northwest was her senior thesis. She wrote about how Asian American women were negatively affected by the media. “Whenever I’m creating work, that thesis is in many ways my compass to bring me back to why I’m making films,” confirms Tani. “I want to write scripts about complex, whole, Asian American women.”

01 Tani, on set in 2015,

directing a music video for J-pop star Crystal Kay 02 Tani (left), training

young participants in the ImMEDIAte Justice summer camp program, Beijing, 2012

AGE UP

Empowering Youth of Color The sport of ultimate Frisbee offers kids a way to have fun, get some healthy exercise, and practice ethical sportsmanship. However, in South Seattle, the sport has proven to be a much more powerful and life changing experience. A program called All Girl 02 Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP), which combines ultimate with social justice work around racism, sexism, identity, family history, gender, and sexuality, is empowering girls of color from low-income families to strengthen identity and step into leadership roles. “Our focus was to build up a network of support around these girls who have all experienced what it’s like for low-income people of color to grow up in South Seattle,” says Sam Terry ’00, middle school ultimate coach and youth worker.

Eight years ago, in 2010, Sam co-founded AGE UP along with Leah Fury (Northwest alumna who left after 10th grade to enter the UW’s gifted students program), and colleagues Lisa Niemann and Hana Kawai. Among the first to sign up for the pilot program were Soriya Ton ’12 and Lani Nguyen ’12. They were joined by 30 other girls, most from South Seattle public schools. At the time, both Lani and Soriya were sophomores at Northwest, and had known Sam since playing ultimate at Asa Mercer Middle School in Seattle’s Southend.

01 Lani Nguyen ’12

(front) and Soriya Ton ’12, at a pick-up ultimate tournament, December 2015

“AGE UP was really fun. We always started by cooking and eating together, followed by workshops on things we were experiencing but not ever talking about,” says Lani, who is now serving as a member of AGE UP’s board. “Things like racism, body perception, and social media. We were experiencing these things but didn’t have the terminology to talk about them. Then we went outside, rain or shine, and played ultimate, coached by a lot of different coaches from around the neighborhood. It was a safe space of community and really empowering.” At the time AGE UP was launched, a good number of Southend girls were playing ultimate in middle school but quitting in high school. In many cases, an ultimate program did not yet exist in high school, or if one did, it did not have adequate support. In addition, girls were coming out of middle school discouraged from playing on co-ed teams. On the field, some had experienced not being passed to by boys.

A Space to Grow “It is so important for female youth of color to have spaces like (AGE UP),” testifies Lani. “Not having males in that space gave us greater opportunity to speak our minds and take leadership roles. It allowed us to live all of this potential we have.” Lani has a B.S. in Nursing from Seattle University. While completing her senior practicum/clinic rotation at University of Washington Medical Center, she was offered a job position. Now, she is practicing in orthopedics and, recently, she became certified in chemotherapy. Still, she finds time to stay involved with AGE UP, since she remembers how important it was to her and her fellow players. “We experienced it together, cried a lot, and received comfort from our peers. Then we would go out and have fun running around and playing a game we all enjoyed. It felt really good.”

Youth Running the Show A defining element of AGE UP is its youth leadership program. So many of the program’s first-year participants wanted to return the following year that the co-founders created a “returners” program. Anyone returning could come on a different night and work on running the program. Responsibilities included cooking food, arranging meeting times, or facilitating workshops. Now, youth are in leadership roles at all levels of the organization, including AGE UP’s Board of Directors. Says Sam, “If AGE UP is going to be real and relevant, young people have to be involved in running it. The program provides girls an opportunity to learn about social justice in a space that is deep, and hard, and also really joyful. There’s room for all of it.”

0 2 Sam Terry ’00 (right front), with former Southend

Ultimate Board Member Frank Nam (center front) and SUP Co-president Michelle Yee (behind Frank), with a group of AGE UP youth at a City of Seattle participatory budgeting meeting

Alumni Profiles

Strengthening Identity Soriya Ton was one of those early AGE UP leaders. According to her, she always had a passion for working with children. She recently obtained her teaching certificate and is now substitute teaching as she seeks a fulltime position. For the past four years, she has been coaching girls’ varsity ultimate at Cleveland High School in Seattle’s Southend. “I want to be a classroom teacher and incorporate social justice into my teaching,” says Soriya, who holds a B.A. in American Ethnic Studies with a concentration on Asian American Studies, and a master’s in Teaching for Elementary, both from the University of Washington. She plans to work primarily in low-income neighborhood schools. “I know how important it is for these kids to see a person of color as a teacher—to see a person of color in that role.”

Supporting Gender Equity 03

Sam and Soriya (and a 6th grader who jumped in at the last moment), at Asa Mercer Middle School, where Soriya was subbing as a classroom teacher, March 2018

Each year, more and more girls have signed up for AGE UP and, at this point, 250 girls have participated. In 2013, it expanded to include a separate boys’ program. “If you are going to work on the causes of sexism, you have to work with boys,” says Sam, matter-of-factly. “Personally for me, getting to sit around with 14-to-18year-olds and talk about masculinity and what that feels like has been really cool. It has deepened our thinking about how we do this work.”

Sam majored in Biology at Bowdoin College and minored in Latin American Studies. After graduating from college, he joined AmeriCorps and began working at Asa Mercer Middle School in a violence prevention program. In his first year there, he was working with the counseling department in a peer mediation program, training students in conflict resolution. That is also when he started coaching ultimate. From the beginning, he strove to connect low-income students of color with resources.

Disrupting Hierarchy In 2013, AGE UP became non-profit under the organizational name Southend Ultimate Program (SUP), and needed to form a board. To make sure the board would reflect the community and be able to serve the organization well, Lani and Sam worked together for over a year, seeking input from youth in the program as well as area leaders and organizations. Among the defining elements to emerge was a board co-president position, held by one adult and one youth. “Our board looks and functions very differently than what you typically see,” confirms Sam. “Our primary concern is who needs to be in the room to support this work? That means the pace is different and the cultural norms are different.” Steered by the board, SUP acts as an umbrella organization for AGE UP as well as ultimate programs in public schools throughout the Southend. After creating the board, Lani stepped into the first co-president position along with then high-schooler Michelle Yee. Together, Lani and Michelle ran the board for two years, setting a precedent for adult-youth leadership.

Developing Relationships Like SUP, AGE UP is rooted in the local community. Workshop guests come from many area organizations such as API CHAYA, a group that works with domestic violence prevention, and Asian Counseling Referral Service (ACRS). “It’s a relationship-based program, building connections with mentors and peers,” says Sam, who points out that most people working in AGE UP have grown up inside the program. Ninety percent of people participating in AGE UP know someone else in the program from their neighborhood school. “AGE UP is about building connections to support young people of color working towards collective healing to resist oppression,” says Sam. “I don’t believe there is any replacement for community in helping people navigate the world.” Editor’s Note: Khalif El-Salaam ’12 and Jesse Bolton ’12 were middle school teammates of Lani and Soriya’s at Asa Mercer. Both have been pivotal in growing Southend Ultimate and they have volunteered to help with the AGE UP boys’ program as well as run the summer ultimate camps held each year by AGE UP.

Class Notes Emily Rieman ’81 & Spring Sutter ’83 [01] Emily and Spring returned to Nairobi in November, 2017, to do the second “I’ll Tell You My Story” workshop with teenaged refugee girls there. The participants were complex and amazing and did powerful work. The compilation of personal audio photo essays and a short film can be seen at www.illtellyoumystory.com. Please take a look! Emily, Spring, and their Kenyan partner, Zippy, will be hosting a cocktail hour later this year in Seattle to share their experience, to fundraise, and to connect their hometown with the wonderful people they work with in Africa. They hope to see lots of their fellow Northwest School community. They will be announcing the event soon!

Karen Jones (formerly Schroeder) ’82 After joining a tiny startup named Redfin a decade ago—as one of the company’s 10 most-tenured employees—I got to accompany the CEO to NYC this summer to be at NASDAQ when he pressed the button that put us on the map as a publicly traded company. I am so proud to have played a role in growing a local company from its infancy to a dominate national brand in techsupported real estate brokerage services. Being there when the confetti came down was a dazzling experience. In daily life, I love my job of celebrating each and every time I make it easy for a Seattle homeowner to list and sell their home. I am honored to provide straight forward real estate advice to anyone in my community and that includes NWS alums. I credit much of my pioneering spirit to my experience at NWS, where I attended the very first year the school opened. That year was a lot like my first year at Redfin, where it was up to just a few of us to come together to create something amazing, where nothing had existed before. NWS absolutely gave me the launch I needed to be the person I am now.

Shirin Etessam ’84[02]

Patrick Dench ’96

Jake Shears ’96 [05]

Just went to my first NWS reunion in many, many years. Happy and healthy in San Francisco Bay Area. I have two amazing kids, own an creative/marketing agency, and travel considerably. Hoping to visit NWS in August when I’ll be in Seattle for a wedding (not mine :)).

I’m still living in Wisconsin with my wife and two sons. Darian was born in 2012, and Carter in 2014. Both have started playing hockey and Darian is picking up the guitar. In the winter, we spend most weekends travelling for the hockey team that I coach, or at the rink for their practices. In the summer, we’re hauling Carter to Darian’s soccer and (soon) lacrosse practices.

Jake (known as Jason Sellards while at NWS) made his Broadway debut this January as Charlie Price in Kinky Boots. The lead singer of Scissor Sisters will be starring in the production at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre through April 1. In photo, from left: Ligaya Domingo ’95, Jake Shears ’96 and Katy Spencer ’95 Written by NWS

Josh Miller ’96 [04]

David Bestock ’97 [06]

Josh, who’s currently Assistant Professor of Anthropocene and Quaternary Science at the University of Cincinnati, was in Seattle this fall for The Geological Society of America’s annual meeting, where he was speaking about his work on Mastodons. Josh stopped by campus while in town to learn about the latest Northwest happenings and catch up with faculty over lunch from the amazing NWS kitchen. Written by NWS

David was on the team that won the men’s division inaugural USA Goaltimate national championships this March! Off the field, David is executive director of the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association, integrating Art, Nature, and Neighborhood in West Seattle. www.dnda.org Written by NWS

Dmitra Smith ’87 [03] I’m serving as the vice chair of the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights and the program manager for the Junior Commission on Human Rights, made up of high school students ages 14-18. Working on issues like homelessness, human trafficking, and racism in schools is an honor and energizes me to be creative about using what I have in the time available. I try to teach my students to be a stone in the road of progress, that all social justice actions matter, and that all great movements started with an idea that someone dared to share with their community.

Zena Chew ’92 Zena is currently working as RN Care Manager at Harborview Medical Center. Hobbies include: baking treats to share, stencil printing on second-hand t-shirts, looking at photos of animals on Instagram, and going to the easiest of dance classes!

Noelle Royer ’95 I finally cut the corporate cord and made the jump to full-time scuba diving. I now live in Khao Lak, Thailand, six months of the year and teach people to dive and guide. I’m pleased to be able to share the underwater world with so many people.

Brian Reich ’96 I signed on as communications director for the United Bid (UnitedBid2026.com), a joint effort by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America. I’m writing the Bid Book, due to FIFA on March 16th, and shaping the message and strategy for the global campaign effort leading up to the final vote by FIFA members on June 13th.

Emily Metcalf ’97 [07] Hi all! I have been living in the San Jaun Islands on Lopez and just completed my first book, Glass Slippers: A Journey of Mental Illness. It is available at local bookshops and Barnes & Noble. I have been with my partner Steve for 20 years, and have spent that time studying art, painting, working with children, and savoring the nature of Washington State. I have also been dealing with a severe mental illness, which I see as a gift and I outline this in Glass Slippers. I hope to make the world a more connected place through discussing this very important issue.

Class Notes

06 07

Class Notes

Hyunoh “Sean” Kim ’99 [08]

Aaron Loux ’05

After serving in the U.S. as a Korean diplomat, I now live in Tehran as head of economic affairs at the South Korean Embassy in Islamic Republic of Iran. As many interesting events unfold here, it reminds me of my international relations class during my senior year with the late Paul Raymond. Sometimes I wish I were able to speak to him for his insights into many world affairs.

Aaron was in Seattle this February performing with the Mark Morris Dance Group in Pepperland at The Moore. The work, developed by choreographer Mark Morris, paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Written by NWS

Dr. John Orcutt ’99 [04, p.37]

I have been very busy, which I love! I have been married almost eight years, and our daughter, Beth, will be five in May. I enjoy working in her classroom, and I serve on the school board as the Health and Safety Chairperson. I also serve on the Council (board of directors) at my church, where my title is CoDirector of Fellowship. At least once a week, I volunteer at a local goat rescue, where my work includes basic medical treatments, cleaning, and bottle feeding baby goats!

John stopped by NWS this fall while he was in town for The Geological Society of America’s annual meeting to catch up with faculty over lunch. John is currently lecturer of biology at Gonzaga University. Written by NWS

Ethan Sorrelgreen ’99 I am currently the chief product officer (CPO) at CARMERA, building a real-time, street-level intelligence platform to create living maps that power fully autonomous vehicles. I am a member of the executive team and opened CARMERA’s Seattle office. Before working at CARMERA, I was an engineering manager at Apple and Amazon, and built both of their v1 Maps Applications.

Elizabeth Lorayne ’02 [09]

Elizabeth has a new book out! The Historical Heroines Coloring Book: Pioneering Women in Science from the 18th and 19th Centuries was featured on Publishers Weekly and won an award for best activity book in the educational, history, and science section. Written by NWS

James DeMuth ’04 [10] James is the chief technology officer and co-founder at Seurat Technology, a 3D metal printing technology company that recently released its first news release. The company recently secured funding to accelerate the commercialization of Seurat’s breakthrough metal additive manufacturing technology, which will enable them to bring to market an industrial metal printer with unparalleled speed and resolution. Learn more at www.seuratech.com Submitted by mom Jodie DeMuth.

Carol Gilderoy (formerly Wolf) ’06 [11]

Alden Keefe Sampson ’09 Alden and Co-founder Marshall Moutenot were named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy 2018 list. Their company, Upstream Tech, cleans up data from satellites and applies advanced machine learning to power decision-making dashboards that help organizations manage freshwater resources more effectively. Upstream is now powering decision making at organizations like The Nature Conservancy, The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and The Freshwater Trust. Written by NWS

Stasha Moreno ’10 [12] I have been living and working in Tacoma, WA, helping to build up our community here through coworking spaces. I work at two coworking spaces, SURGETacoma, where I have been since coming back to the area after graduating Bard College in 2015; and in 2017, I helped found Union Club Tacoma, a coworking office space with coworking art studio space offered as well. We are hosting our first Third Thursday (like First Thursday) event in February. I also have founded a vintage clothing business, named Travel Together Vintage.

Julia Snyder ’10 [13] Julia and fellow alumna Lani Nguyen ’12 played on the team that won the women’s division inaugural USA Goaltimate national championships in March! Written by NWS

George Felton ’11 I have been studying for my master’s degree in Entrepreneurship from the Foster School of Business at UW since June of 2017. I have been learning a lot and making incredible connections! I am still involved with SSASF, as a board member. Lastly, I am starting SauceBox, the Birchbox for Hot Sauce. Get in touch if you love hot sauce and want to participate!

Liz Webber-Bruya ’11 [04, p.37] Liz is currently working as staff geologist at Environmental Partners, Inc. in the Seattle area. While she was in the area for The Geological Society of America’s annual meeting, she visited NWS and caught up with us over lunch. Written by NWS

Lani Nguyen ’12 [13] Lani joined fellow alumna Julia Snyder ’10 on the team that won the women’s division inaugural USA Goaltimate national championships this March! Written by NWS

Josefina Alanis-Mora ’15 I went to Washington, D.C., with my mother, Maru Mora, on the week of Jan 30th to attend the State of the Union at the invitation of Senator Maria Cantwell. We attended it in protest of Trump’s regime and rhetoric, as well as his regime’s attack on my undocumented mother (for putting her in deportation proceedings).

Tibebu “Tibs” Proctor ’17 [14] My education and running at UW has been going well. Even though I needed a lot of support from my family, especially the first quarter, I think both my coaches and teachers from The Northwest School prepared me well. After my college cross country season, I was invited to qualify for the USA team to compete at PanAM. I was able to qualify with a 2nd place finish and represent the USA in El Salvador. I placed 12th at the PanAm and met some of the top runners in the world.

Jordan Smith ’17 [15] Continuing the tradition of a private institution dedicated to the public good. Just 12 weeks after starting my college career, I had the opportunity to study abroad for two weeks in Belize. While there, I had the opportunity to meet with local leaders, in both the public and private sector, and saw how leadership can make a difference when striving for sustainability. I also spent a day at a local school, teaching the student council how they can become effective leaders in their own community. If one skill has stuck with me from Northwest thus far, it is the ability to engage in critical conversations that can create change. I encourage the reader to “walk a day in someone else’s shoes” and, from that experience, go change the world. I miss you NWS!

Alumni Happenings

Alumni Happy Hour & Holiday on the Hill A great group of alumni and faculty members met up on Sunday, December 3, 2017, for the annual Alumni Happy Hour & Holiday on the Hill event! We gathered at Little Oddfellows and enjoyed snacks (courtesy of the amazing crew there) before joining current Northwest families for the larger Holiday on the Hill event at Elliott Bay Book Company. Altogether, 144 books were purchased for donation to The Northwest School library, and a portion of the sales from that evening will fund library purchases made throughout the year.

Alumni Basketball Game We wrapped up 2017 with some basketball! Alumni, family, and faculty members turned out to cheer on the players in both our Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Alumni Game and our Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Alumni & Friends Game. Three cheers to our players for playing some amazing basketball, and to our spectators for their incredible energy on the sidelines.

The Northwest School Alumni

nwsalumni

Alumni Regional Events Head of School Mike McGill has been busy traveling around the country and visiting with Northwest alumni this winter! Suzanne Bottelli joined him for an alumni happy hour in San Francisco, and Ellen Taussig joined Mike for an alumni gathering in New York before Mike’s alumni gathering tour wrapped up in Portland. A big thank you to everyone who came out to catch up with each other and with the school! 06

01 from left: Paul Fields ’05, Adam Miller ’05,

Gabe Moseley ’05, Brendan Whyte ’04, and Lynda (Turet) Lopez ’01 at Holiday on the Hill Alumni Happy Hour 02 John Curry ’11 (left), chatting with

NWS Co-founder Ellen Taussig at Elliott Bay Books 03 Men’s Alumni Basketball Game 04 Women’s Alumni & Friends Basketball Game 05 Gathering in New York: back row (left to

right): Ken Silverman ’98, alumi guest, Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn ’98; middle row (left to right): Yukata Ishida ’08, Joel Putnam ’04, Co-founder Ellen Taussig, Claire Yang ’17, Natsuki Yoshino ’17, Aaron Loux ’05; front row (left to right): Head of School Mike McGill, Jessica Smith ’05 06 Gathering in San Francisco: (from left)

Mike McGill, Alea Christiansen ’10, Bailey Willis ’10, Finley Baba ’10, Chris Trinh ’12, Suzanne Bottelli, Tao Large ’10, and Tao’s girlfriend, Stephanie

It’s nearly that time of year again! All Northwest alumni are invited back to The House on Saturday, June 23, 2018, for the annual Alumni Reunion. All classes are invited to join us for a variety of fun events on campus, catching up with friends and faculty members, and enjoying some great food. The event is open to all, though we’ll be celebrating milestone years for class years ending in 3 and 8: ’83, ’88, ’93, ’98, ’03, ’08, and ’13. For more details, visit northwestschool.org/our-community/ alumni/alumni-events or reach out to Lindsay Bailey at alumni@northwestschool.org or 206-816-6266.

Development

To leave the “ world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

01 Isaiah J. ’19 (background center),

with his grandmother, Judy Boston, on Grandparents & Special Friends Day, 2018. 02 Siobhan A. ’22 attends class

with family friend Lori Gard on Grandparents & Special Friends Day, 2018.

Bequests by Walter Long Director of Development

pon entering The House, it is clear that those who came before us made an investment in our school. The curriculum, the smartboards, our dedicated faculty, our new building at 401 E. Pike, and the deep values of the school all exist because of the planning and generosity of others. What legacy will we leave for those who attend Northwest in the future?

We all want to know that our life mattered and that we made a difference. Philanthropy is one powerful tool for putting our mark on the future and a bequest is the simplest way to leverage your resources and make a philanthropic impact. A charitable bequest could be the most important gift you ever make — and one of the easiest.

Bequests are gifts you make from your will or personal trust. They can be gifts of cash, stock, real estate, or other assets. Bequests allow you to support your community without affecting your current lifestyle; and if your situation changes, bequests are revocable during your lifetime. Putting a charitable gift in your will does not require a lot of time or money. Bequests of any size can have an impact far greater and more lasting than you might expect. Those who include a charitable bequest in their estate plans become immortalized to the organizations and the community they support. What is the best kind of gift to set up with a bequest? This depends on you, and your goals. Broad charitable purpose funds, or unrestricted bequests, are for people who want to ensure that resources are available to address the school’s most pressing and current needs. After all, the future holds unimagined opportunities and unexpected challenges. If this appeals to you, you will want to establish an unrestricted fund or give to the school’s unrestricted budget. You may be passionate about a specific area of The Northwest School that reflects your values or the interests of a faculty member, alumna/alumnus, or student. You might want to invest in our efforts to grow diversity, equity, and inclusion at Northwest, or you may feel that our global programs should have a permanently endowment fund. You may have a passion for our work in environmental sustainability and want to create a fund to support this key value in perpetuity. You can also name one or more of your favorite organizations to receive funds from your bequest, allowing your legacy to support The Northwest School and other important nonprofits.

With a bequest, you can give to your heirs and still give to your community. How you choose to do this depends on your individual circumstances. Some people specify a percentage of their estate (say, 5% or 10% of the estate value) to support Northwest. Some donors specify a certain dollar amount. In addition, some leave a valuable asset like a painting, a property, or stock. Regardless of how you structure your bequest and what you leave to Northwest, know that we will rigorously carry out your intentions. You can make an unrestricted gift that offers Northwest the flexibility to use your funding where it is needed most. The Development Office would also be delighted to help you create a bequest for a purpose close to your heart. Here are are several options to consider:

Summits Off and Running!

orthwest students of all ages took part in an exciting new learning adventure this spring. From March 12-23, each student participated in one handson interdisciplinary course that lasted the entire two weeks. Called Summits, these courses are designed to engage students in creative and meaningful learning experiences rooted in the schools values. We’ll be publishing an in-depth story in our Fall 2018 magazine. Stay tuned!

Specific Bequest

0 3 The Duwamish:

A specific bequest directs a dollar amount or particular assets such as securities, real estate, or tangible personal property (works of art or rare books) to Northwest. The Development Office can help you determine whether Northwest would be able to accept your gifts of real estate or tangible personal property.

The Lifeblood of Seattle Summit: Students float the mouth of the Duwamish River. 0 4 Food: Chemistry, Cooking, and Community

Summit: Maleda S. ’21 (left), Michael L. ’22 (right) compare the weight of corn kernels before and after they have been popped.

Residuary Bequest Through a residuary bequest, Northwest receives all or a percentage of the remainder of the estate after specific amounts bequeathed to other beneficiaries have been distributed and estate-related expenses have been paid.

Testamentary Trust A testamentary charitable remainder trust is created through a will and can provide income for a family member or friend. Northwest receives the remainder after a specified number of years or after the trust beneficiary dies. Alternatively, by providing payments first to Northwest for a number of years, a testamentary lead trust can be used to pass assets to heirs with significant tax advantages to the estate. Please contact the Development Office for more details on testamentary trusts.

0 5 Tiny Houses Summit: Jaedyn F. ’20

(front), Emily Lane M. ’21 (behind), Iliana G. ’21 (back) construct the floor of a Tiny House for a homeless family.

0 6 Mexican Folk Art Summit:

Seth H. ’23 and Ceramics teacher Randy Silver create Oaxacaninspired clay candle holders.

Summit Fast Facts: • The Summits Program is open to students, grades 6-12. • Students participate in the Summit of their choice, selecting from 25-30 different courses. • Summits meet every day, all day, for two solid weeks, March 12-23, 2018. • Summits run simultaneously with international trips abroad. • Summit themes include global citizenship, environmental responsibility, social justice, curricular exploration, and community passions.

Your bequest will generate resources for the future and your legacy will inspire others. A legacy is not only what you leave to the world, a legacy is also what you give to the world. 06

• Summits offer authentic learning with real-world applications, connecting students with outside activists, experts, and community organizations in Seattle and across the nation.

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage

1415 Summit Avenue Seattle, WA 98122

Seattle, Wa. Permit No. 10921

www.northwestschool.org

Left: Looking Back at History, art piece by Cooper M.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;19, 2018, (in response to the Holocaust)

Printed on process chlorine free, 10% post-consumer recycled paper.