WEBB Magazine Winter 2019

WEBB

FALL/WINTER 2019 Moving Beyond the Myth of Selective College Admission Something for Everyone May Mean Nothing for You

Magazine

The college issue

Honor us.

One of the most meaningful ways

dedication of the museum to its founder, Ray Alf. Building a strong endowment alleviates annual

Christopher Michno is an arts writer

budget concerns by producing a steady and

and cultural journalist. He is the Associate Editor of Artillery, a Los Angeles-based bimonthly contemporary art magazine, and a regular contributor to KCET’s “Artbound.”

His work has appeared in numerous publications including LALA Magazine, ICON Italy and the LA Weekly, and he has worked as an editor for DoppelHouse Press, a publisher of books devoted to art, architecture, memoir and fiction.

that you can support The

Webb Schools is by making a planned gift for

As Webb prepares to celebrate its centennial anniversary, the Alf Museum also recognized a milestone this year – the 50th anniversary of the

reliable revenue stream. For the Alf Museum, this will ensure it is able to recruit and retain a world-class staff, maintain state-of-the-art facilities, and undertake groundbreaking research

Alf

Debbie Carini is a writer and development professional. She has been affiliated with The Webb Schools since 1999 as a writer for the magazine as well as various campaign and fundraising materials; she is also a successful grant writer for the schools and Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. She is a contributing humor columnist to Straus News which publishes 17 local weekly newspapers and associated websites in contiguous towns in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

scholarship and program endowment.

projects. This in turn gives Webb students the

raymond m. Alf museum of paleontology

In the magazine...

opportunity to engage in advanced coursework and field study side-by-side with world-class leaders in paleontology.

You can help us strengthen our future by including Webb in your estate plan. Planned gifts offer benefits to the donor, as well, including tax advantages and lifetime income.

For more information contact Bob Fass at bfass@webb.org or (909) 445-8252 www.webblegacy.org

Elisa Ferrari is an Argentine/American

WEBB Magazine FALL/WINTER 2019

FEATURES

2 From the Head of Schools 4 The College Issue: Beyond the Myth of Selective College Admission

documentary and portrait photographer based in Claremont, CA. She is a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Texas at Austin and is an alumni of the Eddie Adams Workshop class of XXVII and Women Photograph 2018.

16 Something for Everyone May Mean Nothing for You

Elisa’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Telegraph, Lenscratch, Sony World Photography Organization, Fotovisura, Visual-Culture, and Austin-American Statesman, among others. Her photographs have been displayed at the Los Angeles Center for Photography, Kieran Gallery

WEBB TODAY

26 Unbounded Academic Partnerships 32 The Chapel Program 38 The Visual Arts 42 The Alf Museum 46 Fall/Winter Athletics 48 Giving

and The Piedmont Center for the Arts.

Cover and back photos: Elisa Ferrari.

Cover photo of Pomona College.

NEWSNOTES

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Alumni Profiles Events & Highlights Alumni News In Memoriam Final Word

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OUR R ADICALLY TR ADITIONAL WEBB

In contrast to these examples of the long lifespans of certain educational institutions, I was also reminded, in contrast, that the average age of an S&P 500 company is now just 15 years (it has dropped by 80 percent in the past 80 years), and perhaps even more startling—76 percent of the UK FTSE 100 companies have disappeared in the last 30 years.

While corporations exist for completely different reasons, we have in common with them a core desire to thrive through the ups and downs of global cycles and have an impact beyond the here and now.

As I continued to wrap my head around this concept on my flight back home, I opened an issue of Harvard Business Review to find, “How Winning Organizations Last 100 Years” by Alex Hill, Liz Mellon and Jules Goddard.

s we

begin to plan our final push toward The Centennial in 2022, I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the idea of permanence, particularly organizational permanence. What makes some institutions stand the test of time and others simply vanish?

On a recent trip to Asia, and then to the UK, visiting schools, alumni and parents, this question was at the top of my mind. Of course, a century is a long time I thought, especially relative to California history and the history of the American West. And yet, as I soon saw on my travels, Webb is relatively young compared to schools in England that are 300 years old or more, and in China, 1,000 years old or more. In fact, many schools here in America, on the East Coast, were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In this intriguing HBR study, researchers analyzed seven organizations that had recently celebrated centennials.

The goal of their work was to find out how they had done it— the core ingredients that allowed these organizations to stand the test of time. What they found was fascinating and instructive.

Those institutions that lasted 100 years or longer seemed to rely on a powerful blend of what they labelled a “stable core” and a “disruptive edge.” A stable core was described as an institutional devotion to a set of enduring values, a clear mission, a North Star. And a disruptive edge was described as a culture of experimentation that resulted in institutional openness to change.

Indeed, in visiting schools around the country I often see these concepts at work firsthand. Some institutions are stuck in time, unable to adapt to a profoundly new and different world that quickly demands different skills and habits of mind to achieve success. In fact, when you visit some of the most venerable schools in the country you’ll see very traditional teaching methods and pedagogies—ones that were effective decades ago. On the other hand, at the same time, you will see other institutions chasing trends.

Every day there seems to be a new idea or untested theory promoted. Both of these approaches lack a counterweight.

Great schools, and as it turns out other great organizations, even corporations, find success in the balance between tradition and disruption.

WHEN I THINK ABOUT WEBB, I AM STRUCK BY HOW WE WORK TO BAL ANCE TR ADITION AND INNOVATION. We have a powerful mission that endures regardless of the times or current affairs. We value honor and moral courage, leadership and service beyond everything else, and we talk about these things daily. As example, the chapel is such a beautiful symbol of leading a life beyond ourselves, while the museum challenges us with the deepest of questions: “What are we going to do with our moment in time?”

Along with these values and traditions, we have also felt free to experiment, to look for and find new and better ways. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Webb didn’t go “coed” like so many other schools—we wanted to do better for our female students and so we created a new “coordinate” model. While I was in the UK, I visited Ann Longley, founding head of Vivian Webb School, and listened to her accounts of what it was like for the pioneers at Vivian Webb to walk into the dining hall full of boys for the first time. It was riveting. This coordinate model remains a bold and innovative decision.

A more contemporary example is our curriculum. While many schools have revamped their academic programs recently, Webb has adopted a truly visionary approach— keeping some AP courses where they make sense, and inventing our own Advanced Studies courses where we feel the national curriculum doesn’t speak to our mission. We have created a remarkable cross-disciplinary humanities program, too, with a series of ambitious, single semester courses created by our teachers. And concurrently, we’ve added to our robust arts offerings and our sciences (in such fields as neuroscience, organic chemistry, applied

physics and a four-year sequence in paleontology culminating in original research opportunities).

Looking beyond the campus and beyond this curriculum at Webb, we have developed one-of-a-kind academic partnerships with faculty at the world-class Claremont Colleges and Keck Graduate Institute. In addition, we’ve created field study opportunities at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The Broad Museum and The Huntington—to name just a few of the places that make up our extended LA classroom. Just like with our decision to create a coordinate model, we have had the vision and courage to create something truly new and radical with our curriculum.

There are many other examples of our blend of a stable core and a disruptive edge. Like other organizations that endure for the long term, we know that we will always be a work in progress. Our job of providing an optimal community for learning how to live a good life will never be done.

In closing, this issue of WEBB magazine is focused on the subject of selective college preparation and admission. As you read it, I encourage you to keep in mind that while our college list is impressive by any measure, we know it is the success of our alumni over the long term, not just the next four years, that really counts. It is my strong conviction that great schools, especially at this formative level, should inspire students to take on the values the school itself embraces. As Webb balances its timeless values with a spirit of discovery, I want each and every student who joins our community to do the same.

Taylor B. Stockdale Head of Schools

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BY THE NUMBERS

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The process of finding the right college is more often than not riddled with anxiety for both students and their families.

It is paradoxically both increasingly complex and more streamlined than ever. Technology allows students to simply add multiple colleges to the Common Application with a few clicks. And yet the convenience doesn’t reflect the intricate web of criteria that factor into applying to one college over another. Students and their families must still evaluate college profiles, plan school visits and prepare for tests, and all of this must be done while students continue to perform at the highest levels in their classes, athletics and organizations.

Further complicating the matter, students and parents sometimes share a perception that getting accepted to a highly selective school is of critical importance to a student’s future success and an indicator of their personal worth. The anxiety can be intensified even more by a hyper-competitive environment and students’ feelings of needing to live up to their own highest aspirations and a not-so-healthy desire to compare their results with those of their peers.

Photo of Claremont McKenna College by Elisa Ferrari.

oving Beyond the Myth of Selective College Admission

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Photo of recent Webb graduates now attending one of the five Claremont Colleges.

Shot on location at Scripps College.

Anthony Villalobos

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The numbers tell a story

of fierce competition for limited spots at the most selective schools. At Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford universities, the acceptance rate is solidly in single digits and has been for a number of years. And those rates have fallen significantly even within the last two to three years. At some of the other Ivy League schools, where acceptance rates were in the low double digits, they have now fallen below 10 percent.

According to Hector Martinez, Webb’s dean of college guidance, the competition for a limited number of spots at the most selective colleges and universities was not as keen 20 years ago. “Today, there are 20 schools that admit 10 percent of applicants or less. What I think is interesting is how quickly that shift happened,” Martinez observes. It was also true 20 years ago, he adds, that there weren’t any schools in that range, and just 10 years ago, only five schools were that selective.

Two decades ago, he says, everyone knew it was difficult to gain admission to those schools. “We didn’t take it for granted, but at least there was a reasonable chance that if you were a really excellent student, you might end up going to one. Your chances were between one in seven and one in five. Today, there is an anxiety about college admissions that is driven by the reality of a four in one hundred chance [at a school like Harvard, for example], and that feels very different.”

WEBB’S COLLEGE GUIDANCE FOCUS It is within this highly-charged terrain that Webb’s college guidance program defi nes its mission: to provide Webb families with a realistic strategic plan for navigating college admissions.

Martinez is a veteran of the admissions and college guidance world. He spent eight years at Pitzer College as an admissions counselor, and associate dean and director of admissions, followed by two years as the associate and co-director of college counseling at the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, before joining The Webb Schools, where he has overseen college guidance, now as dean, for the past 21 years.

Martinez’s expertise in college guidance is recognized throughout the country, and he is frequently called on for that expertise by colleges and professional associations. His colleague, Anthony Shin, the associate director of college guidance and a Webb alumnus from the Class of 1999, is now in his seventh year in the guidance office.

Shin has seen the process fi rst-hand, both from his perspective as a student, and now from the other side of the desk. Before joining the college guidance office at Webb, he worked in a number of educational environments. He taught English literature at public high school after graduating from Claremont McKenna College in 2003, and at community college level after earning a master’s in English at Claremont Graduate University in 2008.

Significantly, Martinez and Shin spend a great deal of time visiting colleges, speaking with admissions officers, learning about campus environments and academic programs, and maintaining a base of knowledge that they continually update so they can effectively advise students and parents. These efforts are complemented by regular visits with Webb alumni who are studying throughout the country at various institutions to hear about their experiences in college.

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Anthony Villalobos is in his first year at Stanford University. Though he hasn’t declared a major, he’s narrowed it down to a choice between mechanical engineering with a focus in product design or structural engineering applied to finding solutions for sustainability. Expressing creativity is also important to him, and either major, he says, will help him develop the tools to work creatively within the field of engineering and to cultivate opportunities to be inventive and artistic.

At Stanford he has found a community that is inspired about learning and teaching, and where personal connections have been abundant. “What I’ve loved about my classes is that my professors are excited to get to know me on a personal level and that they teach what they are truly passionate about. During office hours I can have a real conversation with any of them and easily get to know them beyond just what they teach in class,” Villalobos says.

But what they do teach, he says, is always incredible, and the passion they have for their subject is contagious. Villalobos finds himself caught up in their energy—even if the subject is not intrinsically interesting to him.

nthony and I also spend a lot of our time making sure The Webb Schools are known and appreciated for the excellent students we enroll to all the top colleges and universities. Part of our job is to make sure colleges know Webb as well as we know colleges,” Martinez says.

His first year has not been without its challenges, though. “I entered Stanford with the mentality that I could handle anything that was thrown at me, and that same idea was shared by a good number of my peers. However, several weeks into the quarter, I had to admit that I needed help if I was going to make it. Between practices for sports every night and admittedly too much socializing, I had less and less time to spend figuring out homework on my own,” he says. Right before midterms, he had an opportunity to talk with a few juniors, seniors and graduate students. They all said the same thing: to ask for help is not a defeat. Villalobos began signing up for free tutoring and joined study groups. He also started dropping in at professors’ office hours. “I’m thankful that I didn’t let my pride stop me any longer than it did,” he says.

Exchanges of information and relationship building with colleges also occur when admissions representatives visit Webb in the early fall. Colgate University’s vice president and dean of admission and fi nancial aid, Gary Ross, says that his on-campus meetings with the guidance office enable him to learn about and see fi rsthand new developments in Webb’s academic and co-curricular programs. He in turn discusses new developments at Colgate, thus allowing each campus to develop a nuanced picture of the other’s school.

“ Webb asked me to simply be a good person: to put others before myself, to act with compassion and empathy, and to be honest with both myself and others. To develop these behaviors takes conscious effort, but Webb provided the right environment and pillars of support to help me get there.”

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WHAT’S DRIVING SELECTIVITY? IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE NAME One might be tempted to think that falling admission rates can be accounted for by a growing population of high school graduates and a relatively fixed number of seats at schools.

But the vice president and dean for enrollment management at Lewis & Clark, Lisa Meyer, points out that the number of graduating high school seniors has been decreasing for the last few years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there’s been a downward trend of fall enrollments at degree-granting post-secondary institutions since 2010.

And it’s going to continue through 2026. Meyer observes what’s on a lot of people’s minds: students are increasingly zeroing in on the top tier of selective schools.

So what’s happened at schools that aren’t hitting the 10-percent-or-less mark? Do the numbers mean they are offering an inferior education or providing an impoverished campus life, with an atrophied co-curricular environment or anemic leadership opportunities? Not even close, Martinez says.

“Education has been perceived as a commodity in different ways than it was 20 years ago,” Meyer says. “Most often, when I talked with families then, they were focused on how their student’s college education would open opportunities for them to learn new things and think in different ways and to take classes that weren’t available in high school, like anthropology or philosophy classes.”

But she notes a change in orientation now. “In the last decade, when I speak with families, more often what I hear is how will this education provide a job, what kind of job will that be, how is a diploma the key to career, instead of what ideals will students be learning,” she says.

The result, Meyer suggests, is that education has been commodified such that families evaluate it in terms of return on investment. This in turn explains how college rankings have grown so much in popularity: they offer a quantitative measure that is perceived as analytical and wholly objective—a way to sort out the “best” path.

I LOVE YOU: FINDING A FIT For better or worse, brands have come to dominate much of our lives, from the cars that we drive to the smart phones we hold in our hands and the clothes that we wear. There is a concern that brand consciousness is being imposed on education, too. But the focus that boils down the selection of a college to a reliable “brand” that will guarantee smooth sailing upon earning a degree is a distortion of education’s goals and the process of learning. In fact, the flexibility, creativity, and capacity to think across disciplines is at the heart of a liberal arts education, and many of the admissions officers interviewed for this article spoke directly to the importance of those ideals. Associate dean and director of admissions at the University of Southern California, Kirk Brennan, bluntly calls thinking about brand a mistake.

“For most students, selecting a college is one of the first big decisions they’ll make,” he says; better to worry less about what others might say, and instead think critically about what one needs out of the college experience.

The Webb Applicant We have worked with many Webb applicants over the years and have been really delighted when they choose to enroll.

Understanding the level of rigor that students manage when they’re at a school like Webb is taken into consideration as we make our admissions decisions—because we know that Webb students will engage in our classrooms, they will be valuable contributors and will be leaders on campus.

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It’s not just about the classroom experience at Webb. It’s also about the ideals and values of the Webb community. We know that when we enroll a student who went to Webb, we’re enrolling someone who will be the kind of valuable community member that we’re looking for.

— LISA MEYER VICE PRESIDENT AND DEAN OF ENROLLMENT, LEWIS & CLARK

“... education has been commodified...”

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Lengyi Zhang

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As a sophomore at Columbia University, Lengyi Zhang is thinking broadly about education and culture. When she was at Webb, she expected to focus on the social sciences in college, perhaps majoring in anthropology or sociology. In her first year at Columbia, she took a mix of humanities and social science courses and began to reevaluate her direction. At the suggestion of a friend Zhang tried a couple of philosophy classes and found that she really liked it.

Thus far, she has read ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, and more recent European philosphers like Descartes, Kant and Hegel. This spring she will have the opportunity to read Immanuel Kant in greater depth.

Her studies have prompted reflection. “Columbia has a core curriculum in which you read a lot of Western texts in literature and philosophy. When I think back on my years in China, I think that most Chinese students don’t have the opportunity to participate in classrooms and think about those philosophical questions,” she says. “I’m not saying it’s necessary for them to do so, or that if they don’t, it’s means their education is somehow lacking or inferior. But I think it is at least a good experiment to bring this kind of education model to China.”

Over the summer, Zhang joined a group of Columbia students who did just that. “We held summer camps in China so Chinese students could have classes in the humanities, which is something they don’t usually get exposed to in school,” she says. She was also able to return to her hometown to start a similar summer camp while she taught classes at other locations.

For the future, she has a general idea of engaging in entrepreneurship in China after graduating, though she’s not sure what the focus would be. She is also considering graduate school in political economy.

“The thing that influenced me the most at Webb was probably my US history class. It helped me understand American culture better. At the same time, it helped me understand how we examine history, how we reflect on ourselves, and to actively engage with history and try to find answers to contemporary issues that can be informed by history. I think it’s a very important mindset that I employ every day at Columbia.”

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tudents need to look deeper than the raw data,” Brennan says. “They need to talk to people about their experience and [try to] understand what it would look like. It’s pretty rare that the data published on websites or analyzed by US News-styled rankings are going to tell that story clearly. It behooves a student to dig in and explore more critically what that experience looks like.”

Brennan’s cautionary note echoes some of the caveats issued

by Frank Bruni in his 2015 book on selective admissions, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. Of the many pull-backthe-curtain moments, in which Bruni interviews current and former admissions professionals to get their candid insights, perhaps one of the most succinct is Condoleeza Rice’s observation that the popular US News rankings serve only to artificially limit student’s horizons. She notes that there are many excellent schools outside of the narrow foursome of Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford. And Rice notes that her own path to success as Secretary of State wasn’t a straight line. She began studying international relations only after she accepted that she would never become a great concert pianist and chanced upon an international relations course that excited her. Bruni’s message, while penned over the summer of 2014, rings just as true today: students are best served by looking widely and considering options outside of the narrow top tier elite colleges that have become coveted emblems of success.

So how do students identify the right college for them?

Meyer likens the admissions process to a courtship. Like thinking about a marriage, or the idea of entering into a partnership, it requires a lengthy and sober process of deliberation that needs to accompany or complement the feelings of giddy anticipation, love and infatuation if the partnership is to survive and be meaningful. “It’s a multilayered, complex, amorphous proposition, as anyone who has ever been married knows. And it’s really hard to narrow it down to something where you just know is the right or the wrong choice,” she says.

WEBB GUIDANCE: A UNIQUELY CUSTOMIZED PROCESS The college guidance process at Webb begins early. Martinez and Shin meet with each class twice a term to talk about college planning. Starting in January of junior year, it is tailored to meet the needs of each student as Martinez and Shin begin working closely with every junior individually.

In the fi rst meeting, “we do an extensive interview to get to know them. We ask a lot of questions about their experience at Webb, their background and family, their aspirations, and their hopes and dreams. It is also an ice-breaker to make sure students feel comfortable with the counseling staff,” Martinez says. The idea is to begin forming a nuanced understanding of the student.

Additional meetings take place over the course of the semester, both as a class, and individually, and “by the end of junior year, we know them pretty well—well enough to be able to match them up with colleges,” Martinez says. “When they go off for the summer break, they have an assignment to write a rough draft of their college essay and to visit some of the colleges we’ve discussed in our meetings in the spring and recommended that they consider.”

When students return for senior retreat, Martinez and Shin pick up the discussion again and meet individually with students to discuss what to expect over senior year. Martinez says, “It’s a chance to reflect on their summer and talk about how they have changed. We learn if there are any new developments we should know about before we help design their fi nal [college] list.”

Early in the fall semester, they work with each senior to create a customized list of colleges that match a student’s profile and interests. Once the preliminary college list is in place, the guidance staff meet a number of times with individual students and their families to talk about the process. They review the student’s profile, which reflects a broad range of measures, like academic performance, leadership, co-curricular activities, athletics and college entrance test scores and work to further refi ne the college list and plan how best to meet college goals.

Jordan E. McClure

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USC undergraduate Jordan McClure is a pre-med track, business major who is specializing in entrepreneurship and is taking a minor in occupational science and therapy. If that sounds like a lot, it is. McClure says, “I am studying multiple fields and taking on multiple subjects, and I am in love with the challenge and constant change.” It’s a love that fuels her passion “to learn about anything that interests” her while she is working on her degree and completing required courses.

One of the subjects she is interested in is African and African American history. “I take courses on slave law and the criminal justice system, courses focusing on black love and dynamics between black families and communities. I even took a course on the creation of hip-hop and all it means to my people,” she says. Her law class, “Law, Slavery, and Race,” has allowed her to learn about the evolution of laws through the periods of slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow to the present day.

Since arriving at USC, perhaps the most important thing she has learned is that she can do anything she puts her mind to. She is formulating plans to eventually run for president of the Black Student Association. Parallel to her studies, she runs her own businesses. McClure is a personal trainer and has her own training company called Bougie Bodies Fitness. “I train girls in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire and offer meal plans, group and private sessions and indoor/outdoor workouts. That keeps me pretty busy as I do that while I’m going to school,” McClure says. During the fall semester, she also landed an internship with AEG in the global outreach department, working next to the Staples Center. She says, “USC is a dream come true for me and I’ll forever be grateful to Webb for preparing me to get here.”

“Webb definitely pushed me to my limits. I will always be thankful for the academic rigor and intensity Webb provided since I was a freshman.

I used to hate it to be honest, but now that I am attending USC I often find myself calling on some of those skills to help me manage the rigor of USC academics.”

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Big vs. small How a big place breaks down into small chunks should really be the way we look at size. Size is not necessarily an indicator that it is a place where it’s easy to fall through the cracks.

At a smaller place where there are few cracks, it is harder to slip through them. There are certainly more seams to slip through in a big place, but the extent to which the community is watching for that is the real indicator of how someone can fall through cracks.

To me this is about how an institution deals with their size with respect to service to students. It’s about resources that are put towards making that experience as personal as possible.

“...we make sure their profile and the college profiles connect...”

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—Kirk Brennan DIRECTOR OF ADMISSION UNIVERSIT Y OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Admissions representatives from more than 100 colleges and universities visit Webb to conduct group information sessions with seniors from Sept. 1 through Nov. 15. Colgate’s Ross says meeting with the guidance staff prior to his session with the seniors prepares him to know something of the students he’ll be talking to. And conversely, the students are prepared. “Their questions really get to the deeper levels of what Colgate is about. They are the types of questions that require on both the student’s part and my part thoughtful conversation,” he says.

DEFINING SUCCESS Colleges are divided into three categories: likely schools, target schools and reach schools. “In the middle are the schools where the student is likely to get admitted: the student’s profile and the school’s admitted student profiles match up,” Martinez says.

“One of the benefits of schools like Webb is that we have the staff and the resources to customize the college application process so that students are maximizing their chances to be admitted to those three ranges of schools, no matter what their individual profile may be. We make sure their profile and the college profiles connect, and that there is overlap with our student and the kinds of students being admitted to the institutions on the student’s list,” Martinez says. “There’s no crystal ball, but we’re not just guessing at it, we’re basing it on real data.”

Throughout the process, the guidance staff works with families to help manage the anxiety that inevitably creeps in. “It can range from the nervousness that comes from not knowing how to answer a question on the Common App to full blown panic mode that happens when students come rushing into the office or send a panicked email in the middle of the night about not being able to submit something or not knowing how to fill something out. Usually it’s not as big of a problem as they thought it was. It’s the fi rst time they’re seeing it, and it’s the kind of anxiety that comes from the culmination of four years of hard work. And for us, on this end, we’ve seen it 100 times, and we’re able to help them get around it,” says Shin.

Jordan P. Burns

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Finding the right fit has been a somewhat circuitous route for Jordan Burns. The UC Berkeley master’s student earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Vassar College in 2016. Early on, he says, economics seemed to be a science that was focused on “improving policy and making sure that government was working for everybody.” But along the way, he began to feel that a piece of the puzzle was missing for him.

The further into his major he got, the more he sensed that the majority of his fellow students were more interested in the financial rewards associated with working for a big bank or trading on Wall Street—and “that wasn’t really why I started studying economics,” he says.

He decided that instead he wanted to do something that would have a more direct impact on society. As he considered his skill set in relation to his interests, values, and motivations, his love of physics and chemistry became the obvious choice. Through his junior and senior years, he started taking more chemistry, math and physics classes. After graduating from Vassar, he took another two years of math, physics, and materials science and engineering courses, while he was working in research labs at Berkeley.

Burns is currently completing coursework in the graduate materials science & engineering program and working on independent research that will be part of his doctoral dissertation. His research focuses on developing cobalt-free cathode materials for the batteries found in consumer electronics. “A very large portion of the world’s cobalt is mined in Democratic Republic of Congo and refined in China, and there’s a lot of political insecurity around this material,” Burns notes. He works in the lab of his research advisor, Kristin Persson, where the focus is almost exclusively on clean energy.

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The Liberal Arts: An Interdisciplinary Curriculum Those great aha moments come when you think about what you learned in your art class and what you learned in your political science class, and all of a sudden you understand those liminal spaces, the overlap between those two areas, and you go, “Oh, I get it. This is why this happens.” Those are the big discovery moments for most of us. The Liberal Arts encourages us to think in those ways, which I think is really important in school, it’s really important as you go into your career, and it’s a really important part of living life.

—Lisa Meyer VICE PRESIDENT AND DEAN OF ENROLLMENT LEWIS & CLARK

The Liberal Arts: How to Write, Read, Listen and Speak If they do their job in the classroom, when they graduate, they will have enhanced their ability to apply strong critical thinking skills to the various types of complex problems that they face in any area or profession they choose to pursue.

They’re also going to learn how to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing. It doesn’t matter if someone is a math major or if they are majoring in a discipline that they don’t associate with a whole lot of writing-related responsibilities. Our students are going to be put in a position where they have to demonstrate real competency in their ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing, no matter what academic program they choose to follow.

—Gary Ross VICE PRESIDENT AND DEAN OF ADMISSION AND FINANCIAL AID COLGATE UNIVERSIT Y

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TAYLOR STOCKDALE – HEAD OF SCHOOLS

Webb’s curriculum

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is more than just hands-on learning. It’s about students applying their knowledge, solving real problems and doing projects, so that the application of their knowledge is at the forefront of the learning process. And that is very much in synch with not only where higher education is going but also, of course, the direction of the work force that our students will be walking into.

They’re going to be asked to solve problems using critical thinking skills and their collaboration skills.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

oughly 80 percent of students on average end up at one of their top choice colleges at Webb. Top choice is defined by a number of factors. The typical student has 10 collegeson their list. Three or four of those are reaches, at least three to four are target schools, and at least another three are the most likely schools. The average student is admitted to five or six schools of those, which means 80 percent are getting into one of their top reach schools,” says Martinez.

This thread goes much further back than the new curriculum. Many of our alumni go on to create their own companies or even to spark a new industry, synthesize big data, challenge conventional wisdom or come up with a new concept. And I think that’s a different kind of learning. It’s really about application.

It’s challenging enough to educate students for a world that we understand, but it’s even more challenging to educate students for a world we can’t even envision.

Instead of focusing on memorizing content, we focus on the skills for continual learning.

But, he adds, there’s more to it than looking at just the Ivies or Ivy-like colleges. It’s important to include a range of schools. “Everyone has to identify places where they have a really good shot at getting admitted, not just the ones that are hard to get into,” he says. “Even a most likely school can deny or waitlist a top student because they’re going to second guess the student and bet that the student is unlikely to enroll.”

The complexity of the dance between applicant and institution and the variety of ways it can be interpreted underscores why their role is so critically important.

Ultimately, Martinez says, “We are here to help students strategize and to advocate for them. We work with our students to maximize their chances of being admitted to all their colleges, especially their top choices.” And it works.

“...80 percent are getting into one of their reach schools...”

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Something for everyone may mean nothing for you.

By Christopher Michno

Large universities are sometimes seen as having advantages over small colleges. Not only do they boast top-notch research facilities and world-class faculty, they usually have more majors, a club for everything, and a diverse student body—in short, they advertise endless opportunities.

But students’ experiences in college are influenced by numerous intrinsic and external factors. “It’s important to help students and families look beyond the name and prestige of the place and consider the experience they are going to have at individual institutions. It’s about what they do when they’re there, the kind of education they’ll get, and the kind of connections they’ll make during those four years,” says Anthony Shin, Webb’s associate director of college guidance.

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Emily L. Stewart

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Photo: Wyatt Albert ’17

ARTS COLLEGES

Are you the kind of student,

he asks, who is good at doing things yourself, or do you need a nudge? If you are in a class of 300 students and it’s eight in the morning, are you the type who will go, even if the professor doesn’t notice whether you’re there? Or will you sleep in? And what kind of learner are you? Do you like having close relationships with your professors?

Associate dean and director of admissions at the University of Southern California, Kirk Brennan, says that he encourages students to look past the name and think more about what is important to them when they are selecting a school.

And if students are interested in a specialized area of study, or in being immersed in a community of similarly focused people that would enhance their experience and lead to more success, they may benefit from being at a college that specializes in their chosen field, or that offers a unique community. Following are some examples of colleges that specialize: arts, business, science and engineering, and women’s colleges.

“Webb students who go on to study at arts colleges tend to be extraordinarily talented and very self-motivated,” says Webb Dean of College Guidance Hector Martinez.

After completing college, some of them head off to the art world, others go into acting or theatre, and quite a few work in design or a related business.

Parsons School of Design, one of the five colleges of The New School in New York, offers creatives a multidisciplinary approach in the creative capital of the world. Pratt Institute, also in New York, has campuses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Utica and boasts seven different schools, including three for art, architecture, and design. And the Rhode Island School of Design, which is almost literally across the street from Brown University, in Providence, R.I., is one of the most respected art schools in the world. Fun fact: It also spawned the Talking Heads.

On the opposite coast, Cal Arts in Valencia, Calif. has consistently been at the forefront of artistic production with schools for art, critical studies, dance, film/video, and music and theater. Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, with undergraduate majors in various disciplines in fine art, design, advertising, film and video, is well known for its industrial design program. Otis College of Art and Design offers a cornucopia of areas of study, including emerging fields like game and entertainment design—even toy design.

In the middle of the country, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago offers degrees in a myriad of fi ne art studio media, art history, and visual and critical studies.

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BUSINESS COLLEGES

usiness has always been a popular focus for Webb students,” says Martinez. “There are a couple of routes. Go to either a liberal arts college or a large university and study economics, which is a perfectly good way to get into business and has its merits, or go to a business school at a university or a specialty college.”

USC Marshall, NYU Stern, and the Wharton School at Penn are examples of traditional business schools at universities, and there are plenty of others to choose from. Each has its own unique character based on whether it is a public or private university and what the faculty specialize in.

And then there are the specialty colleges like Babson or Hult International, where you’re doing business 24 hours a day, Martinez says. “They do offer the diversity of other courses to sprinkle into your college experience, but there won’t be a lot of other classes that are liberal arts oriented.”

And there may be a particular focus at such a school that distinguishes it. For example, “Babson immerses you in an entrepreneurial environment, where students are going to acquire those skills and direct experience in entrepreneurship, while at other schools, it may be a much smaller part of the curriculum,” he says.

Emily Stewart’s interest in art and photography was sparked at Webb.

At the time, there were only a handful of students considering photography and art as a career. She remembers the art room as a safe haven, and was buoyed by teachers who supported her interest. “Mr. Maffris empowered me to push beyond the curriculum and practice photography on my own. I even was allowed to build my own darkroom in an old bathroom on campus,” Stewart says. It was a formative experience, and Stewart went on to The New School in New York, where she earned a dual degree. “I have a BFA in photography from Parsons School of Design and a BA in culture and media studies from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts,” she says.

Stewart is currently the manager of education and engagement programs at Aperture Foundation, a renowned non-profit photography organization based in New York. “I help create public programs that invite people into our space to experience and learn more about photography,” she says.

Her interest in art education and teaching visual literacy in the classroom also traces back to a pivotal moment at Webb—but one after she graduated. While she was in college, she returned to Webb as a summer fellow to work in a program for middle school and high school students.

One of the reasons she was hired was to teach photography classes for the program. It was a back-to-basics approach, where she taught students how to make pinhole cameras. They even set up a makeshift darkroom in the science lab. “I took the students on a field trip to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and gave them photo-based assignments,” she recalls. It was an experience that inspired her to pursue a career in art education, which she had never really considered until that summer working at Webb.

“Webb was the first place where I both succeeded and failed at organizing important events. In ASB we were responsible for Theme Week, Webb Day and International Night. While organizing these events, I quickly learned that organization and strong leadership is crucial to a successful outcome. My experiences shaped how I organize public programs at Aperture Foundation. Having the opportunity to fail and learn from those mistakes was crucial in teaching me how to improve and move forward.”

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David Albers

’16

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David Albers is burning the midnight oil in his third and final year at UCSD as an international business major with a focus on European political science, juggling a full academic load and a full-time assistant manager position at an Amazon fulfillment center—not to mention keeping an independent business venture simmering on the back burner.

There is a deeply seated streak of curiosity combined with remarkable pragmatism that drives all of it. “The reason I’m at Amazon, in terms of management, it’s very interesting to me to use data and metrics to try to understand something, especially like human error, that is innately human and very hard to quantify with data,” he says.

He had intended to major in computer science and engineering, but what made a transition to a different major obvious was the 400-person waitlist to get into the program. If he ever looked back, he gives no indication of having done so.

He’ll stay at Amazon as long as he needs to for the management experience. He’s accepted an offer through an Amazon retention program to manage a fulfillment center once he graduates, and he hopes to move up to the corporate level.

“If I enjoy that, maybe I’ll stay longer. If not, I’d like to end up starting my own business or running a company,” he says.

Meanwhile, his business is percolating. He’s working with four Caltech students on an app that promises to revolutionize buying eyewear, with multi-brand inclusion that allows consumers to virtually try on sunglasses or frames and know exactly how they will look. What if his app becomes an overnight success? “That’s definitely been a consideration. Building a company is a lot more exciting and a lot more fun, albeit demanding, than any other experience in the world, I think. If that were the case, I’d want to spend as much time as I can on building a company,” Albers says.

“When I came to Webb, there was a club fair, and I joined 30 different clubs. Obviously that’s a ridiculous thing to do because it’s impossible to dedicate yourself to 30 different clubs and organizations. What it forced me to do was to find as many things as I was interested in and then if it really meant something to me, and I was really intrigued by it, I would stick it out. What happened was that I whittled those 30 down to four. Two of those were tech related and the other two were about entrepreneurship and leadership. That told me this is where I want to go in my future, this is what my career path should be, and this is where I should be focusing my energy.”

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SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING Engineering is one of the top three projected undergraduate majors for students at Webb, according to Martinez. As is true with other types of schools, there are substantial differences between those that specialize in science and engineering.

Harvey Mudd College in Claremont offers a curriculum that makes it unique among undergraduate colleges focused on math, science and engineering. Students complete a core curriculum in all six of its disciplines (math, physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and engineering), enabling them to develop a breadth of knowledge across the sciences, mathematics, and engineering fields, before specializing in their major.

Courses in critical inquiry and writing are also part of the core for the development of strong communication skills. Director of admissions at Harvey Mudd Peter Osgood, says that students who are interested in Harvey Mudd tend to be excited about the requirements for breadth of study in the sciences, math, and engineering, and who also have an appetite for the humanities, social sciences, and the arts, which carries its own breadth of study requirements.

Engineering schools typically narrowly focus in engineering disciplines. For example, Olin College of Engineering, in Needham, Mass., offers three engineering majors. But within that narrow focus, the college’s philosophy is to broadly educate students so that they are well equipped to answer not only the how of their profession, but the larger question of why.

The Webb Schools: A Curriculum that Is College Ready Webb’s interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to prepare students to think critically and engage with the world in complex and nuanced ways.

According to Dr. Theresa Smith, Webb’s assistant head of schools, two factors undergird the schools’ innovative curriculum: a group of amazing and remarkably talented faculty that is well equipped to develop engaging, relevant and academically rigorous new course offerings, and Webb’s unique setting, positioned on the front porch of Los Angeles and in proximity to some excellent institutions of higher education—namely the Claremont Colleges. Webb’s proximity to the Claremont Colleges has fostered the development of new partnerships, further enriching the educational experience for Webb students.

One of those partnerships is with the Pomona College chemistry department, which Smith notes enables Webb’s organic chemistry students to use the Pomona chemistry lab and to participate in some of the college’s programming. And the fact that Webb faculty can develop curricula that align with their areas of expertise and their interests, results in an innovative curriculum that is responsive and vital while aligning with Webb’s core learning goals. For example, Smith says, one of the new courses created by Webb faculty, Advanced Studies Gothic and Horror Literature and Culture, ties in directly with emerging discourse in the New York Times and elsewhere on the resurgence of horror as a literature genre. “It’s an example of how we are able to develop a course that is relevant and timely, but also steeped in an intellectual humanities tradition.”

Theresa Smith ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOLS THE WEBB SCHOOLS

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The Webb Schools: Unbounded Days Come Alive Another of Webb’s innovative learning environments that complements the regular curriculum is Unbounded Days, a five-day immersive learning program launched every two years. Students can choose from a diverse catalog of offerings. Dr. Tracy Miller, director of studies, calls it “the realization of our wildest aspirations about experiential learning connected to our environment.” One example is a marine ecology course led by science and humanities faculty on Catalina Island. Students immerse themselves in the Island’s habitats, through scuba diving and hiking, as they learn about Catalina’s natural history through direct experience. Miller says, “That connection between being in a place and using the place as a springboard to deeper academic inquiry is central to the academic experience at Webb.”

Unbounded Days widens students’ horizons and amplifies their sense of what inquiry looks like, so they realize that learning happens not just in a textbook, or behind a desk, or in a classroom, but that opportunities for authentic learning can happen everywhere.

We hope that it broadens our students’ sense of resources, so that if in a classroom they are tasked with a research assignment, or any kind of a project, that they begin to have a more expansive sense of how they might go about answering that or where they might look for answers. I want our graduates to love learning, and I think that a Webb education in general helps them do that, and Unbounded Days is just a magnification of that rich experiential way to learn by doing. The Unbounded Days courses are really small and they’re highly collaborative, and so it gives students the opportunity to practice collaboration, problem solving, and getting to know new groups of people. There is something serendipitous that happens when you put a random group of kids together and take them off campus,” Miller says.

Tracy Miller DIRECTOR OF STUDIES THE WEBB SCHOOLS

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WOMEN’S COLLEGES According to Martinez, the Vivian Webb School sends more young women to the most prestigious women’s colleges than any other school in the western United States. On average almost 20 percent of VWS’s graduating classes have matriculated to women’s colleges for each of the past 20 years.

There are many reasons to seriously consider a women’s college. According to the Women’s College Coalition, women’s colleges are more likely to have smaller classes, more opportunities for collaboration, a strong emphasis on developing communication skills, and undergraduate research and internships.

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lot of the time there is a perception of women’s colleges that is associated with vestiges of the past. There is an idea that they are very traditional, that there are no men around at all,” says Christina Lopez, dean of admissions at Barnard College. “But at Barnard, we teach from a gender equitable perspective.”

Cross-registration between Columbia University and Barnard, which is one of the four undergraduate colleges of Columbia University, means that Barnard students take courses with other Columbia students and vice versa.

Bijan Garcia-Dehbozorgi

’08

; Three years ago, Bijan Garcia-Dehbozorgi and his uncle and fellow

Webb alumnus Pedro Garcia’ 88 developed a concept for a new beverage company: Agualucha—aguas frescas with a Luchador theme. But they weren’t interested in producing just any aguas frescas—at least, not the kind typically available at local burrito stands.

“What we’ve found is that the majority of aguas frescas are produced from powders or syrups, and a lot of fountain drinks are being called aguas frescas. So we took it upon ourselves to make it right by our culture,” he says—noting that he’s half-Mexican and also half-Persian.

“Growing up, we were inclined to work with food,” he says. “Pedro has a background in organic and Hispanic food, and investment banking.

Bringing together our experiences, we started from the ground up: what does it mean to be Mexican. What does it mean to drink aguas frescas?

How are you supposed to drink aguas frescas? What kinds of foods do you drink it with?”

Garicia-Dehbozorgi’s Agualucha is a kind of fruit-infused water, made from real fruit, like the aguas frescas he and his cousins remember drinking at home while growing up. “Sourcing the ingredients is the hardest part,” he says. They work directly with suppliers from Mexico and Africa for hibiscus, Mexico and Thailand for tamarindo, and Florida and California for citrus. “Every time we’d get a batch of ingredients, we’d make a small production run to test it: how would it turn out if we ran 10 bottles, 20 bottles, 100 bottles?”

Where does the luchador theme fit in? Garcia-Dehbozorgi’s great uncle was a wrestler in Mexico in the 1950s, who wrestled with perhaps the most famous Mexican wrestler of all: the legendary El Santo.

Agualucha sells mainly to the gourmet food and taco trucks that crisscross Los Angeles. Perhaps most importantly, at least for the street cred of the brand, Agualucha is available on Roy Choi’s truck—the chef who is credited with starting the food truck craze. But they have plans to develop a shelf-stable product and their goal is to make it available in supermarkets in 2019.

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Abhishek Mantha is an avid sci-fi fan. He’s long been inspired by the stories of Isaac Asimov, not only because they are immensely entertaining and thought-provoking, but for how the prominent writer influenced the field of robotics. Now, since becoming part of the autonomous car industry, Mantha has listened with fascination to thought leaders’ proposals because “it’s the stuff of science fiction—but it’s quickly becoming a reality.”

As an engineer with Mercedes Benz Research and Development, North America, Mantha is part of a team working to develop fully autonomous vehicles. The goal is to mimic how the human brain is able to gather realtime information and estimate where other vehicles might be in the next second or two—which is something humans are able to do “very, very quickly.”

Developing that technology, Mantha says, “has proven to be a significant challenge.” His work is to take data received from a variety of sensor inputs like cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and LiDAR, a radar-like technology that emits beams of light millions of times per second, and synthesizes it into something resembling a three-dimensional model of the various stationary and moving objects around a vehicle.

It’s an exciting project for him not only for the immediate goal of engineering a fully autonomous car, but also for the possibilities in related design advances it could open up. For example, he says, you can apply similar ways of thinking to the challenges of redesigning cities.

Autonomous vehicles make it possible to replace parking space with green space and to re-grow ecosystems.

Mantha began thinking about working in the autonomous car industry toward the end of his junior year at USC, when he began working with a USC professor on vehicle-to-vehicle communication. He now has the opportunity to work with some of the world’s foremost experts in vehicle safety, design and robotics.

“For a lot of students who are looking for a liberal arts college because they want to be part of a really strong community, that is a huge factor at a women’s college,” says Lopez. “Being in a room full of women who have made a very conscious decision to be a part of these communities, who want to be surrounded by other women who inspire them, who are going to support them and encourage them in whatever their endeavors are, creates a very close-knit community.”

Barnard’s faculty is tenured at both Barnard and Columbia, she says, and professors teach at both institutions.

Women’s colleges popular with Webb graduates include Barnard, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Scripps and Mills colleges. Mt. Holyoke and Smith are part of a five-college consortium that includes the co-ed Amherst and Hampshire colleges and UMass Amherst, which are all within a 12-mile radius and are connected by a free bus service. Scripps College is part of the Claremont Consortium, five contiguous undergraduate colleges and two graduate institutions.

The Women’s College First and foremost, people tend to forget that women’s colleges were formed as an act of resistance to higher education, which was the province of white males. Our mission of educating women was an act of resistance at the time, and still we see that as a focal point of empowering women who were excluded from the landscape of higher education. And even though many schools are co-ed now, there is this sense of strength and support and encouragement and confidence that comes from attending a women’s college. Sometimes it’s just not in the water at a lot of those schools that weren’t designed for women in the first place.

At a women’s college, all you see around you are women leading. Many of the roles at the college, administrative roles, are also led by women as well.

And so you start to see different types of women leading, with different identities, different leadership styles. The prevailing feeling is, okay, well if she can do it then I can do it. There is a sense of mentorship. There is a sense of understanding the characteristics that embody leadership rather than it just being synonymous with a title.

Christina Lopez DEAN OF ADMISSION BARNARD COLLEGE

Elena R. Scott-Kakures

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Elena Scott-Kakures has always had a deep interest in foreign aff airs, and as an undergraduate at Wellesley she took advantage of numerous international opportunities, from travel and study to fellowships and internships.

“One of my favorite parts of my Webb experience was being able to form friendships with people from around the world, from diverse backgrounds and cultures,” she says. Many of her college friends were international students, and she believes she developed her interest in cultivating those friendships as a result of her experience at Webb.

She now works for AMIDEAST, a private non-profit Washington, D.C.based organization with a mission to foster mutual understanding and strengthen ties between the peoples of the U.S. and the Middle East and North Africa region. AMIDEAST conducts development projects and administers exchange programs, and in her role there Scott-Kakures manages the Fulbright Foreign Student Program on behalf of the U.S. Department of State. And occasionally, she is able to use her Arabic language skills.

Her work involves a lot of communication with U.S. embassies, state representatives, field offices and other stakeholders, and she conducts research on U.S. graduate programs, develops budgets, issues immigration documents and monitors Fulbright grantee statuses.

Over the last two years Scott-Kakures has volunteered her time to serve as an advocate for the DC Rape Crisis Center’s Hotline.

During that time, she says, “I gained insight into the challenges that organizations like this face, and was able to attend a court hearing advocating for survivors.” Additionally, she learned about providing support for those who have experienced trauma, and more broadly about how people can impact their communities positively in a variety of ways. She says, “Sometimes just picking up the phone and providing support is what someone needs.”

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academic partnerships Webb sits at the crossroads—a wild campus nestled in the idyllic foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, yet within reach of top colleges and universities, the second largest city in the United States, and some of the most exciting companies, start-ups, arts institutions and non-profits in the world. This geography provides the ultimate opportunity for students to experience the dynamic partnerships we believe are essential for a world-class, 21st century education.

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ebb’s unique, one-of-a-kind academic partnerships equip students for college, career, and a global citizenship by offering additional unmatched learning opportunities beyond on the constraints of campus. There is even a position and person devoted to this important initiative: Suzi Linsley, PhD, director of experiential learning.

“We’re focused on relationship building, and always asking ourselves, ‘how might students benefit from this experience?’ ” she says.

A major goal of The Centennial Strategic Plan is to build relationships and support student interests in programs not available on campus. Two of Webb’s earliest partnerships were collaborations between the science department and the University of California, Riverside and Keck Graduate Institute.

Science teacher and department chair Lisa Blomberg worked to establish the connection between Webb and the Neil A. Campbell Science Learning Lab at the University of California, Riverside.

Teaming up with Susan Wessler, PhD, distinguished professor of genetics, department of botany and plant sciences at UCR, Blomberg was able to present her students with a one-day lab experience at UCR that would have taken several class periods at Webb.

“We started working with UCR about five years ago,” explains Blomberg. “We were exploring possible partnerships with local research institutions and met the principle investigator, Dr. Wessler, and the education director, Jim Burnette, PhD, of the school’s Dynamic Genome Program. One of their goals is to reach students in high school or younger to promote interest in STEM, and so it was a natural fit. Both of them are committed to teaching biology to undergraduates through authentic research experiences, a model that we want to emulate in our science program. Working with them, we have access to materials and methodologies they use in their research and in their biology courses.”

Through a parent connection, Blomberg was also able to collaborate with Daniel O’Leary, PhD, P’15, an organic chemist and the Carnegie Professor of Chemistry and chair of the chemistry department at Pomona College, which resulted in Webb students pairing up with Pomona College students to study in the professor’s upper-level spectroscopy class.

Today, there are 14 field study opportunity at local colleges, and several of these came about thanks to the collaborative efforts of Webb teachers and Webb parents.

Zachary Dodds, PhD, P ’17, ‘19, is the Leonhard-JohnsonRae Professor of Computer Science at nearby Harvey Mudd College, an undergraduate science and engineering school.

He got involved four years ago after discussing with Webb staff the difficulties of teaching computer science at the high school level. The pilot program began with a class offered at Webb. Dodds explains that Webb’s block schedule opens up opportunities for Webb students to attend lectures at Harvey Mudd and to participate in lab work at the college. And when schedules don’t overlap, Dodds drives up to Webb to present a replacement lecture.

“All of these experiences have added to how I understand computer science,” says Reddy. “I had been self-taught before taking the class, and when I was stuck on a problem, I had no idea what to do. When I was taking the class at Harvey Mudd, I had access to many people who could help me and seeing college students having the same issues that I had helped validate the difficulty of the problem.”

“Webb students are outstanding,” says Dodds. “Their experience is commensurate with the Harvey Mudd College students. It’s a good fit, neither too easy nor too hard.”

Dodds reports that of his original group of students, three are still doing computational work.

And last year, two Webb students, Teja Reddy ’20 and Kush Arya ’18, took the class and continued on for a second semester. The pair worked on independent projects over the summer one of which was to build an AI system to play an online game.

“I show their work to all my students to illustrate the possibilities of things you can do,” says Dodds.

Arya is now tutoring Webb students who are taking the class this year. He and Reddy host labs for students to help them with their homework assignments.

Director of Teaching and Learning Resources Mark Dzula, PhD, is working on an official memoranda of understanding with Honnold Mudd Library of the Claremont Colleges.

Though students have used the library’s resources in the past, the new MOU means to offer Webb students even more.

The colleges’ library collections include more than 2 million items, access to articles in more than 133,000 print and electronic periodicals, and thousands of print, manuscript, digitized and born-digital primary sources.

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“Our students benefit tremendously from using their library.

“I subscribe to postings from places such as the National

We take Advanced Studies students to perform research. The

Consortium for East Asia, which is a wonderful organization with

amount of apt resources available at the library is inspiring

whom I have attended a couple summer conferences, the USC

as well as the atmosphere the Claremont Colleges maintain,”

Korea Studies Institute, Indiana University East Asian Studies

says Dzula. “We tend to use the library when students perform

Center, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural

independent research projects. Their classroom experience

Education, Soypaper.com, LACMA, USC’s Pacific Asia Museum—

helps to prime their sensibilities, hone their research questions,

basically every clearinghouse for cultural opportunities that I can

and instill a sense of readiness to explore the large collection.”

get my hands on,” she explains. “In the past, I’ve taken classes

Dzula also made a connection for humanities teacher Michelle Gerken, introducing her to Wallace Meyer, PhD, director of the Bernard Field Station and associate professor of biology at Pomona College. Through her collaboration with Meyer, Gerken has been able to take her class to The Claremont College’s Bernard Field Station, an 86-acre habitat that is populated by coastal sage scrub, Riversidian alluvial fan scrub, live oak forest and grassland. Gerken’s students learn about native California plants, their importance to the ecosystem, fire ecology, sustainability and more.

“They’re learning plant identification and the difference between a drought tolerant and native landscape,” says Gerken. The class hopes to employ its knowledge by creating a small native garden on campus.

While neighboring colleges and universities provide access to higher education resources, the nearby cultural institutions provide invaluable encounters that enrich many different classrooms.

Wendy Maxon, PhD, teaches history at Webb and says that fieldtrips are fun, experiential and help boost understanding of subject matter.

to museums, photo exhibits at private foundations, movies, statues and to see talks from well-known cultural figures like Eddie Huang (American author, chef, restaurateur and inspiration for the television series, Fresh Off the Boat).

“Going to see a live performance speaks to shared experiences and social connection,” Silva elaborates. “It teaches problem solving and how to pay attention to detail.

It also provides storytelling, healing and a way to use a different part of our brains—it’s just really a good illustration of living a life with music.”

After live musical performances, students are encouraged to discuss their impressions and ask questions. Silva says they often have lively discussions following these events with students inquiring about theoretical details and asking, “how do they do that?”

There are so many opportunities within driving distance of Webb, that Director of Experiential Learning, Suzi Linsley has developed a database through which teachers can answer the question

Maxon elaborates further that field trips lend depth and resonance to what students study.

“what is a compelling field study for my class?” Linsley can easily

In the arts, a field trip doesn’t just help students acquire skills, it helps them appreciate the breadth of human accomplishments—from painting to sculpture to music.

the list, including several outdoor adventures.

Director of Instrumental Music Linda Silva has been taking her students to Disney Hall for the past six years.

“I wanted to make sure our students were experiencing live professional music and we happen to have the best in the country here in our backyard, so to speak: a Frank Gehry-designed building (Disney Hall) with a worldclass orchestra (diverse no less) and Gustavo Dudamel, an international conductor,” she says.

A few years ago, the students heard the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition while they were working on the same repertoire.

help them plan it. As of now, there are 70 potential outings on

Humanities teacher Greg Gerken teaches a class entitled Literature and Leadership in the Wilderness. With the

experiential educational model, Gerken can “go out and have expeditions.” His class reads Thoreau’s Walden, and Into the Wild, a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.

Just as Chris McCandless, the subject of the book, did in Into

the Wild, Gerken takes his students hiking on portions of the Pacific Crest Trail. Once, in front of a waterfall, they stopped to read selections from Desert Solitaire: A Season in the

Wilderness, an autobiographical work by Edward Abbey. And they’ve also explored works by British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. In addition to learning about literature, Gerken says the outdoor experiences help students gain expertise in camping, navigational skills, communication, leadership and building character.

Cultural field trips, scientific exploration and the exposure to new places, people and environments offer the student body an important opportunity to add measurable depth to their education.

“We have vans,” says Linsley, “and we’re not afraid to use them!”

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todaythe chapel program It is a place. It is a program.

It is a tradition.

As most people know, the Vivian Webb Chapel was built by hand—by Thompson Webb, students,

High on the Hill:

A sanctuary for all faiths and cultures, for truth and meaning

and faculty of Webb School of California. Today, it is still very much a place with a hands-on spirit.

High on a hill, yet accessible to all, it is the central hub for life together at school.

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the students of Vivian Webb School gather there; on Wednesdays and Fridays, the students of Webb School of California assemble; on Sunday, the entire boarding community comes together.

Weekday chapels feature Webb seniors and faculty and the seminal “chapel talk”; and on Sundays, before formal dinner, the boarding community congregates to hear from a special speaker.

Entering the chapel, visitors are often struck by the simple dignity of the space, which can be appreciated in quiet reflection and in the joyfulness of gathering. Its interior accommodates both familiarity—the space, filled with the liveliness of teenagers, and faculty and staff—and meaningful history—the handmade adobe bricks, carved mahogany doors (by sculptor Alec Miller) and stained-glass windows crafted by artists such as Millard Sheets and James Hubbell.

Director of Student Life Rick Duque oversees the Chapel Council, the student group (with six students from each school) that organizes and leads Webb’s nondenominational chapel programs and services. Duque believes that the chapel program enhances students’ intellectual and personal growth by helping them reinforce a moral basis for decision making.

“For 20 minutes, they walk away from their textbooks and learn about something outside of the classroom,” he explains.

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todaythe chapel program Chen said that he feels there is a “soulfulness” about the building. And in honor of the reverence the building evokes, the Chapel Council has introduced a multi-faith gobo (a stencil or template placed in front of a light source to control the shape of the emitted light) that projects the image of a dove composed of symbols from all major faiths and religions.

Sunday chapel provides an opportunity for students from

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both schools to assemble, dressed in school uniform, to hear

hether the chapel talks are delivered by peers, alumni or a special guest, the messages students hear “broaden their perspectives on life,” says Duque. “It makes us more open-minded and better listeners.”

Senior chapel talks range in subject matter, but a common thread is the opportunity to share a personal story with the community and to thank teachers and peers for their support throughout a student’s years at Webb.

The philosophy of chapel at Webb has less to do with a particular religion, than with an inspirational exploration that is part of a student’s intellectual and personal growth.

Every senior is invited to present a chapel talk; though no one is required to give one, it is considered an honor and privilege to do so.

Charlie Chen ’19 is a member of the Chapel Council. He describes the chapel as a place designated for something special and spoke of the empathy most everyone feels for the speaker.

“When I see a senior give her chapel talk, I reflect on how much personal growth she’s had—to see her speak with a generous spirit about her love of friends or family, to express gratitude—I see our mission come to fruition,” says Vivian Webb School Dean of Students Sarah Lantz.

“As a student steps up to the podium to present his chapel talk, you can see the gravity of it on his face. When they talk about what Webb and their family means to them, it collides in a powerful moment,” explains Webb School of California Dean of Students Ben Farrell.

“We share this experience with other seniors. Often, my classmates talk about things we’ve never talked about before—things I didn’t know about them, even after all these years together,” he says.

“We have boys opening-up and sharing their feelings,” says Duque. “They’re toning down the image of having a ‘tough persona,’ telling their peers, ‘we have problems and we can open-up and talk about those.’”

In describing the chapel as a “thoughtful, reflective, open community-based space,” Farrell says that student speakers very often express feelings that are meaningful for the whole group.

“Sometimes, when a student is speaking about something personal or deeply emotional, it is also helpful to everyone else,” he says. “In a way, it shows, that you shouldn’t ever feel alone at Webb.”

from a faculty member, school alumnus, or other inspiring speaker. There is also a musical performance to highlight school musicians. The Chapel Council helps plan for speakers from within and outside of the Webb community. Sunday chapel provides a platform for speakers to share experiences that invite and challenge students to learn more and open themselves up to new and different knowledge.

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n Veteran’s Day 2018, alumni who work with the FBI (Lauren Taflinger ’11), the NSA (Robert Downie ’72), and the United States Air Force (Kelly Dualan ’11) spoke of their service to the country and how they transitioned from Webb to their current positions.

“After Sunday chapel, we always have students who stay behind to ask questions,” explains Linda Wu ’19 a member of the Chapel Council. “Our community is trained to want to know more.”

In the past two years, the Chapel Council has also introduced the “This I Believe” program, which opens up the podium to faculty and students who aren’t seniors to share inspiring words.

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todaythe chapel program

Dr. Don Lofgren, director of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, spoke about was it was like to grow up in the Los Angeles basin during the 1950s and 1960s, touching upon topics such as the assassination of Robert Kennedy (in the Ambassador Hotel in downtown L.A.) and watching his friends go off to fight in Vietnam.

“Here’s someone they see every day on campus in the role of a museum director and science teacher and he has lived through all these things. It was like he was having a conversation with the students and they got to see him in a new perspective,” says Lantz.

“Guest speakers share such different experiences,” adds Chen, “For example, G. Gabrielle Starr shared her experience as an African-American educator and her rise to the president of Pomona College.”

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nother speaker was Dr. Steve Gerali, the founder of the non-profit café, Sanctuary Coffee. The café serves coffee, tea and treats, but it’s also an interdenominational Christian non-profit that donates its profits to select charities in Southern California.

“That’s an incredible business model and it was great for the students to hear from someone like that,” says Farrell.

When Rahmi Mowjood ’90, a member of The Webb Schools Board of Trustees, participated in the equivalent of today’s Chapel Council, the group called itself the “Faith Gang.”

“The chapel was (and is) the central hub of the school, and yet its presence could be taken in many ways. Whatever faith you ascribed yourself to, the chapel was always more about being a representation of citizenship, comradery and centering your moral compass,” he says. “It may have been built from a Christian perspective, but Thompson Webb never meant it to be an edifice for a particular religion. It was the Greek tenets that he endorsed—most importantly, doing the right thing.”

Farrell describes the chapel as a reflective, safe space, “we open it up to students when world events present a need for students to talk, vent or process.”

In many ways, the Chapel talk is also a way for seniors to start to say goodbye to Webb.

“For the students who speak, it’s a way of passing something on … a legacy. At Webb, their teachers and friends are their family, and this is often a student’s way of bringing closure to that,” says Farrell.

Chapel talks, through the telling of stories and the sharing of insights, raise the community up, and present the opportunity for students and faculty to recognize what it means to be part of a common humanity.

“We have students from all over the world at Webb,” says Wu. “Through Chapel, we learn to respect our different viewpoints. Every senior has come from a different place and to be able to share that is incredible. We wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t such a welcoming place.”

The chapel program at Webb is both stimulating and comforting. It makes students’ lives richer and their education deeper. Often, when prospective students are touring the campus, they are excited to learn about the Chapel Program.

“I’ve had 8th graders tell me, ‘it would be so great to hear from my peers, my classmates,’” says Duque. “I always think, yes, that’s what our chapel is about. We share experiences, vulnerabilities, strengths. We’re building community.”

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todaythe visual arts

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embers of the visual arts faculty are practicing artists and arts educators who regularly show their work, a tradition that reaches back to the earliest years of the school. Since the beginning, artists/ teachers in the Los Angeles basin have made their presence felt on the Webb campus, notably, the multi-talented and internationally renowned Millard Sheets, noted sculptor Alec Miller (who carved the pews in the Vivian Webb Chapel), and long-time arts educator and artist Blair Maff ris.

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Today, Webb’s visual arts curriculum includes a wide range of classes where students are encouraged to explore different mediums and methods of creative expression. At the foundation of the curriculum are skill development, creative thinking and understanding of the historical and cultural context of the arts. Webb’s commitment includes a two-year arts requirement for all students.

And, according to Director of Studies Tracy Miller, PhD, there’s no one better to teach the curriculum than educators who are also exploring their craft.

“We’ve brought in a great group of working artists and educators,” says Miller. “Their presence provides a lovely mix of pedagogy and practice.”

Jackie Leishman joined the program after teaching at several institutions, including Utah Valley University and the Claremont Colleges. She holds a BA from the University of Georgia and an MFA in photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

T WEBB STUDENTS ARE TAUGHT BY TEACHERS WHO PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH— working authors leading English classes.

from PhD scientists in the science department to

Originally trained as a photographer, Leishman also works in collage utilizing both traditional and non-traditional materials, including fragments of old projects. Her work has been exhibited in shows throughout Utah and California.

Leishman teaches two sections of Advanced Art and she also has 10 Honors Art students embedded in the two classes.

“We study the visual language of form-lines, composition, color and perspective. We investigate the importance of our materials and how different materials can and often do communicate varying ideas. We explore ideas of translation from aural language to visual language. We learn to ask great questions and then do the hard work of exploring them,” Leishman explains.

Typical activities in her classes include drawing and discussion, reading and art theory. Students are expected to keep a sketchbook filled with ideas—either written or drawn, as well as incorporating ideas and inspiration from magazines or found objects.

Leishman said that the notebooks give her a way to “figure out how students see and think a lot faster than just by seeing what they produce for an assignment.”

Michelle Munguia ’20 is a student in Leishman’s class and has been studying how to simplify a landscape using black and white paper—usually only focusing on the 2 most important lines in a landscape.

“I also work with wire, lights, charcoal and more. Apart from studying the over-simplification of a landscape, I am also fascinated by threedimensionality and movement in art,” Munguia says. “Ms. Leishman has really helped me push my work and taught me to be comfortable with having a unique artistic style and approach to art, all while showing me that a line can change a work.”

Drawing by: Emily Li ’20

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todaythe visual arts Despite the digital mien, there is an emphasis on drawing and illustration. Horejsi said students practice drawing for 15 minutes each class period, but most of the work is completed on computers with sophisticated software that working professionals typically use.

“Our students are not afraid to start exploring. They’ve been raised with computers,” she says Horejsi also appreciates the resources available to Webb student artists.

“We have licenses for the full Adobe® suite and printers that can print poster-size work,” she explained.

Most fine arts faculty members are practicing artists who instruct in their own areas of expertise as well as create their own work throughout the school year. Practicing their art while teaching it, faculty members cultivate a community of creation within the art room at Webb.

Meg Horejsi is an illustrator and graphic designer in addition to her work as a member of the fine arts faculty. Her previous experience includes teaching in the Compton Unified School District through the non-profit Teach for America program. She holds a BA from University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MA from Loyola Marymount University. She sells her work through an online store at www.meganhillustrations.com.

Horejsi helps students explore the media arts by “front-loading” the basics. By the end of the school year, each student will have developed their own project and completed several mini-projects.

Students study digital illustration and animation in the first year of the program, and virtual and augmented reality and gig design in the second year. Horejsi says that students work on minor projects to understand the basics of digital media and complete the larger project to explore their creativity.

In the digital arts, students work through complex visual problems, and ultimately, learn how to manipulate various media in a compelling and personally meaningful manner.

“Our students are learning to think sideways—figuring-out how to become comfortable jumping into a program, using independent thinking to realize a special effect,” Horejsi says. “We speak about our work as an artist would—emphasizing the message behind it in a thoughtful and meaningful way. Being able to create and analyze images is a critical skill set that’s universally applicable.” In the digital media arts, where students are learning to trouble-shoot and problem solve, there are several critical thinking skills put into play.

Willy Martinez has taken art for three years and describes making art as “my outlet for thinking and discovery.”

Although he harbors no aspirations of becoming an “artist,” Martinez says that taking art classes allows him to discover who he is as an artist and as a person.

“I think in every artist’s process and piece, a part of them is engrained in it. Art has allowed me to become more understanding of the person I am.”

All students find their way into the program through ART AB, the introductory course, which is designed to acquaint students with the processes, materials and techniques for creating works of art. According to Art AB teacher Ardina Greco, students in Art AB work in the following mediums: paper sculpture, pencil drawing, portrait painting, printing, book-binding and clay. Greco holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an EdM from Columbia University. She has worked as a curriculum developer, as a freelance educator and researcher at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and as a freelance educator at the San Diego Museum of Art.

For example, Annie Wu ’19 is inspired by her own curiosity.

She is currently working on a series where she fuses Disney princesses with a dystopian environment.

“My teacher, Ms. Leishman, helped me a lot in pushing my piece further, by creating color and body structure studies,” she explains.

“To create art work is really about how curious and intrigued you are about your work,” Leishman says. “This is quite an analogy to studying at Webb. Sometimes it’s easy to want to stop, because the process seems to take forever, or because you simply haven’t mastered the skill. But art is just about taking your time and not worrying about the end goal.

Instead, I think about the color studies and my ‘attempts’ at drawing rainy day street lights. It wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed the ride. We learned in class that sometimes art doesn’t end up the way you imagined in your head, and that is completely okay.”

In a school known for rigorous academics, Greco believes that students can also enjoy the type of rigor that creative activities provide.

Top photo:

“I often hear from my students that they love the days when they

Bottom photo and

have art. They love having the opportunity to spend time with a

opposite page photo::

material or technique, to explore it openly, slowly, without the

Patrick Donez ’21

pressures of finding a specific outcome,” says Greco. “In art, students discover possibilities and limitations on their own and the discoveries can vary from student to student. Students are given a space to be active, be mindful, take risks, to analyze, make connections, persist through problems, set personal goals, and apply and integrate knowledge.”

Colin Kidwell ’19

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todaymuseum

ALF

News from the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools

museum at webb

Contributing to Scientific Knowledge— Webb Students and Museum Staff In October 2018, five Webb seniors, four museum staff and science faculty member Tara Lepore attended the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a conference attended by over 1,400 paleontologists.

Fossil preparator Jared Heuck (left) and Yvonne Kan ’22 work on a Triceratops bone (humerus) in the museum after-school class.

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he Webb students made two poster presentations (both coauthored by Dr. Andy Farke, the museum’s Augustyn Family Curator of Paleontology) and were often mistaken for university level graduate students because no one expected to see high school students presenting research at an international paleontology conference. The study by Cathy Yan ’19 and Juliana Base ’19 was focused on the ear anatomy of Hyaenodon, an extinct dog-like animal; Yufei Liu ’19 and Olivia Vazquez ’19 presented their reconstruction of the keratinous beak in duckbilled dinosaurs; the fifth Webb student, Ben Martinez ’19, had already presented his research project at an earlier regional conference in Utah. Providing the opportunity for Webb students to make important contributions to scientific knowledge is a major aspect of the museum’s mission, and attending the SVP conference was an unforgettable educational experience.

Professional conference presentations for a secondary school student are extremely uncommon, but business as usual at The Webb Schools, where the dynamic academic program includes Advanced Studies in Paleontology (ASIP), a course where students work with museum staff on original research projects. The results have been spectacular: Webb students have co-authored 38 research papers since 2002, and a record number of students (25) are currently working on projects in ASIP, ensuring that additional research contributions will soon be forthcoming.

The roots of the museum’s research program go deep, as museum founder Dr. Raymond M. Alf published 11 research papers during his long career at Webb that spanned six decades. Alf’s museum was the lower level of the Jackson Library, where hundreds of specimens collected on peccary trips were exhibited and stored. In those early days, Webb did not offer a paleontology research class, but Alf encouraged a few students to study specimens in their free time and then enter their work in national science competitions. The results were excellent. In the Westinghouse Science Talent Search of America, Dwight Taylor ’49 finished first out of over 16,000 entrants in 1949, and in the 1950s, Patrick Muffler ’54 and David Fleischhacker ’55 were national finalists; Webb had the best record of any school west of the Mississippi in the Westinghouse competition at that time. A decade later, Dan

Dr Andy Farke, Yufei Liu ’19 and Olivia Vazquez ’19 with their poster at the SVP meeting in Albuquerque.

Fisher ’67, who specifically attended Webb because of Alf’s paleontology program, was a national awardee in the Ford Future Scientists of America competition. Muffler, Taylor and Fisher became paleontologists or geologists, as did Malcolm McKenna ’48 and David Webb ’53, who were also inspired by Dr. Alf. Of these five exceptional scientists, only Taylor formally published a research paper based on his Webb activities; in it Taylor described several new snail species from Barstow, naming one Helminthoglypta alfi in honor of Dr. Alf. The current research program for Webb students started soon after the Alf Museum achieved national accreditation in 1998, the only museum on a high school campus in the United States ever to receive that honor. The growth of the student research program was fueled by a gift in 1999 from the Mary Stuart Rogers Foundation (whose president is John Rogers ’59) that doubled the museum’s endowment, providing the financial foundation for the student research program. About a decade later, a major gift by Gretchen Augustyn and her family endowed the Augustyn Family Curator of Paleontology, solidifying the permanence of the research program. By this time, the museum had two paleontologists (Dr. Farke and Museum Director Dr. Don Lofgren) working with Webb students, and the result was a great increase in the number of papers published with student coauthors. Also, gifts by Andrea and Blake Brown ’68 funded the renovation of the fossil prep lab and established the Lofgren Research Lab, so Webb students now had state-ofthe-art facilities in which to do their work.

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Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology

todaymuseum

Current student projects are usually based on recently discovered specimens, but a few are focused on fossils found decades ago by Dr. Alf and Webb students. For example, Jayden Chiu ’20 and Ian Igleheart ’20 are analyzing circular structures evident on dozens of specimens collected in the 1950s and 1960s from the 1.2 billion-year-old Bass Formation within the Grand Canyon. These impressions are 3-5 cm in diameter and were thought by Alf to represent jellyfishlike animals. Alf’s hypothesis was not well received by the scientific community because, if correct, it would have extended the fossil record of animal life back an additional 500 million years, from 600 million to over 1 billion! However, it does appear that the fossils represent some type of algal life form, and this needs to be brought to the attention of the scientific community, now more than 60 years after the specimens were fi rst discovered.

at The Webb Schools

So why are The Webb Schools the only secondary school in the world with a renowned paleontology research program?

• Webb attracts students who are excited to partake in unusual and challenging educational opportunities, like ASIP. • Webb has its own nationally accredited paleontology museum, something very few colleges or universities can boast.

(l-r), Cecilia Li ’20, Emily Arias ’20, Andrea Phung ’20, and Jacob Weigand ’20, with the massive algal structure found on the VWS 9th Grade Peccary Trip in 2016.

Projects based on more recently collected specimens include study of:

• The Alf Museum has four full-time paleontologists whose duties include significant time working with Webb students; a fifth paleontologist, Tara Lepore, teaches science at Webb.

With a world-class museum, an accomplished staff and exceptional students, Webb has all the right stuff, and the result is a world-renowned center for paleontological research where Webb students play a large role.

• the brain endocast of a 32 million-year-old saber-toothed cat by Nathan Paik ’19;

Museum Preparation Specialist Arrives

• carnivorous dinosaur teeth from Utah by Winona Dodds ’19;

Jared Heuck became the Alf Museum’s first-ever full-time fossil preparator in the summer of 2018. Jared is originally from Southern California but studied paleontology at Montana State University (Bozeman), where he volunteered at the Museum of the Rockies (MOR) preparing fossils. During summers, Jared joined MOR crews and helped on various field projects, such as excavations at the famous Egg Mountain site where dinosaur egg nests are preserved. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Jared worked as a petroleum geologist for three years until he moved back to California to pursue a Master’s degree. Soon thereafter, Jared volunteered at the Alf Museum, preparing fossils from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (Utah). Within a few months, Jared was hired as a part-time fossil preparator while he completed his coursework and taught classes at California State University-Fullerton. Recently, a three-year grant from the David B. Jones Foundation allowed the museum to hire Jared full-time, a tenure that began in early July. That summer, Jared participated in the excavation of the Cripe Site in southern Utah. Currently, he is reorganizing and equipping the fossil preparation lab so more Webb students can be involved in the museum after-school class. In this unique afterschool activity, Jared instructs students on how to prepare the priceless specimens found on peccary trips and mentors them in various aspects of geology and paleontology.

• skull bones of a duckbilled (hadrosaur) dinosaur from Utah by Ben Chai ’19; • a rare juvenile femur (thigh bone) of a hadrosaur by Eunice Yip ’19; • 35 million-year-old snakes, lizards and mammals from Pipestone Springs, Montana, by Izzy Gerard ’19, Catherine Wu ’19, Aspen Helgeson ’20, Gabe Hong ’20, Ping Fong ’20, Jill Ji ’20 and Emily Li ’20; • a large crust-like algal structure from the Barstow Formation

by Jacob Weigand ’20, Emily Arias ’20, Cecilia Li ’20 and Andrea Phung ’20; • 40 million-year-old mammals from the Gravelly Range and Sage Creek Basin of southwest Montana by Liam Gerken ’20, Frank Hu ’20, and Jonathan Becker ’20 (J. Bibbens ’18, B. Kong ’18 and A. Tarakji ’18 also worked on this project).

More recently, the addition of two more paleontologists to the Alf Museum staff, Collections Manager & Outreach Coordinator Gabe Santos in 2015, and Fossil Preparation Specialist Jared Heuck in 2018, gave additional support to the museum’s research program. Santos developed volunteer opportunities for Webb students to curate specimens as part

Ian Igleheart ’20 (left) and Jayden Chiu ’20 with a Bass Formation specimen collected by Ray Alf and Webb students about 60 years ago. These circular impressions were thought by Alf to represent a jellyfish-like animal.

of the effort to have all the museum’s fossils properly stored and documented. Also, Farke and Santos led a concerted effort to publicize the museum’s collections so researchers worldwide know that the specimens were available for study.

In addition, the activities of Farke and Santos in professional paleontological organizations greatly increased the scientific reputation of the museum on both a national and international level. Researchers now visit Webb from all over the world to study the Alf Museum collections, which are constantly growing because of the peccary trips. Although having just arrived, Jared Heuck has already made an impact on the research program because he works daily with Webb students in the fossil preparation lab (see related story).

Raymond Alf Biography Available Soon Dr. Raymond Alf, perhaps the greatest educator in the history of The Webb Schools, was incredibly dedicated to teaching and coaching and lived on campus for nearly 70 years. Alf’s life was vibrant and unbounded.

He was born in China to missionary parents, and then became a nationally ranked collegiate sprinter, a renowned paleontologist who won a multitude of teaching awards, an inspirational motivator to generations of Webb students, and a man who founded the only paleontology museum on the planet that involves high school students in all aspects of its operations. To tell his story and honor his legacy, Museum Director Don Lofgren and former Museum Assistant Jennifer Liu ’05 (recently appointed as director of parent relations and special events for The Webb Schools) worked for two years (with Eric B. Williams, Alf Family Archivist) to complete, Moment of Time, the Life of Raymond Alf and the History of the Peccary Society. The book is a defi nitive treatment of Alf’s life and the history of the museum that bears his name. It has 15 chapters, 352 pages and over 200 photos, and a copy is available to anyone who donates $100 or more to the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. The book should be in print about the time you read this.

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todayathletics

Fall / Winter Athletics Success The fall season was one of Webb’s strongest in years. It closed out with three league championships: WSC cross country (5th consecutive), VWS cross country (4th consecutive) and VWS volleyball (the first in Vivian Webb history). Webb also posted a strong 7-3 record in WSC football, finishing third in league play. VWS golf ended the season with a second place in the league.

As we make our way deep into the winter season, we find VWS soccer undefeated and threatening to get into the CIF record books for the most goals scored / fewest allowed. All other teams are currently in the hunt for post-season qualification.

VWS FALL AWARDS CROSS COUNTRY: Runner of the Year: Lily Miller ’21/ All League 1st Team: Anne Lofgren ’19, Alice Hou ’20, Scout Zischke ’22, Amelie Cook ’20 / All League 2nd Team: Carol Kang ’21, Mary Davis ’19.

TENNIS: All League 1st Team: Emily Schoffman ’19, Jenna Zhao ’20, Jenna Hawkes ’21.

VOLLEYBALL: Player of the Year: Chiara Filart ’21, All

League 1st Team: Lydia Toy ’20, Savanna Cespedes ’22, Michelle Munguia ’20 / All League 2nd Team: Brigid Corbin ’19, Malika Neogi ’20/ All League Honorable Mention: Emily Arias ’20.

GOLF: All League Honorable Mention: Ashley Munguia ’21, Yvonne Kan ’22.

WSC FALL AWARDS CROSS COUNTRY: All League 1st Team: Frank

Hu ’20, Michael Martinez ’21, Dean Woelfle ’21, JD O’Donnell ’20, Orion Lavin-Marz ’20, Luke Raus ’20, Nick Theobald ’22 / All League 2nd Team: Jonathan Maschler ’21.

FOOTBALL: Player of the Year: Nick Johnson ’19, All

League 1st Team: Chris Haliburton ’20, Simon Dawson ’19, JJ Cunningham ’19, Matt Martinez ’19 / All League 2nd Team: Indiana Viramontes ’21, Chris Nance ’21, Willie Martinez ’19, Alex Cardenas ’20 / All League Honorable Mention: Ryan Bridges ’20.

WATER POLO: League MVP: Eddie Moreira ’19 / All

League 1st Team: Max Fargo ’21, Robert Torrance ’19 / All League 2nd Team: Kevin Kang ’19, Malachi Cassel ’20 / All League Honorable Mention: Nathan Paik ’19, Gabriel Hong ’20.

WINTER 2019 SEASON: VWS: Water Polo, Basketball, Soccer / WSC: Basketball, Soccer, Wrestling and VWS/WSC Triathlon.

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todaygiving

D

Head’s Reception for Leadership Donors

D ONOR P ROF IL E

oug Myles

Doug Myles served as a trustee of The Webb Schools for seven years, 1986-1993, and then as a trustee of The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology for 24 years, 1994-2018, retiring on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Upon his retirement from board service, Doug and his wife Ann made a gift that will forever change the Alf Museum.

In addition to a generous $100,000 cash gift to the museum endowment, Doug and Ann established the Myles Family Museum Fund. They did so with a testamentary gift designation from Doug’s Individual Retirement Account (IRA). The future value of that gift will be over one-third of the museum’s $3 million endowment goal.

He identified that IRA funds inherited by heirs are subject to personal income tax, but if given to charity directly they avoid all such taxation. He and Ann have made one of the largest ever gifts to the museum and will have a permanent place in securing its future.

This endowed gift will not only alleviate annual budget concerns by producing a steady and reliable revenue stream—it will ensure the museum is able to recruit and retain a world-class staff, maintain state-

Members of our Head’s Circle, Leadership Society, Pacesetter’s Club and the T&V Society truly embrace The Webb Schools and our mission.

Their continued support is vital to our success and provides resources to the schools that otherwise would not be available. Their generous donations make a tremendous impact on our everyday operations.

We are indebted to all our donors who help make Webb a truly special place. Thank you for supporting The Webb Schools.

of-the-art facilities and underwrite groundbreaking student research.

Their son David Myles ’80 is a current trustee of the schools and their son-in-law Page Thibodeaux is a current trustee of the museum. The mark this family has made on the Webb community is indelible.

Join us as we Webb 24/7 for Giving Day On April 25-26, from noon to noon, The Webb Schools will be celebrating our second annual Giving Day. Last year alumni, parents and friends from all over the world came together for 24 hours to support our students and faculty. We hope you will join us again by making a gift and showing us how you Webb 24/7.

Receive your copy of the Raymond Alf biography!

Relive your memories or learn about the incredible life of Ray Alf for the fi rst time.

Moment of Time, the Life of Raymond Alf & the History of the Peccary Society, written by Dr. Don Lofgren and Jenn Liu ’05, includes fi rst-person interviews with alumni and Ray’s family members, as well as primary source material and rarely seen photos of Ray, the museum and The Webb Schools campus through the ages.

Donors who make a gift of $100 or more designated to the Alf Museum will receive a copy of the biography.

Give today at webb.org/giving or contact Angie Pfeiffer, director of The Webb Fund, at giving@webb.org or (909) 482-5288.

Report of Schools Highlights of the 2017-18 year are featured in The Report of Schools, which is available online or in print.

In this edition, you will read about Webb’s many distinctive programs that our donors made possible last year and will continue in the months and years ahead. Gifts last year supported a wide variety of priorities: The Webb Fund, endowment including fi nancial aid, faculty support and annual campus improvement, and capital projects.

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However, there are occasional exceptions. For example, our “Death

by Natural Causes” exhibit includes a Civil War-era dress dyed using Scheele’s Green, a poisonous green pigment derived from arsenic. I helped select this piece from the Texas Civil War Museum.

THE WEBB SCHOOLS

Generally, I work with the curators through inventory of their collections, prepping selected specimens, cataloguing and accessioning and much more. I work most closely with David Temple, our associate curator of paleontology.

a half minutes with

Kathleen Terris ’06

O

ne of America’s most popular museums is the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS), whose many exhibits range from astronomy and Texas wildlife to dinosaurs.

Visitors curious about the process of preparing specimens for the museum’s vast collection can now stop by the Morian Hall of Paleontology, which has a window into the new prep lab, managed by Kathleen Terris ’06.

We talked with her about her role and her international journey.

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How has your role at HMNS evolved?

I interned with the curator of anthropology while an undergrad and after completing my graduate studies.

I provided research for the major expansion of the Egypt Hall; processed collections of donated Amazonian and Asian artifacts; and learned proper collections handling and storage methods. In 2015, I became an inventory technician, expanding on the skills I learned as a collections intern.

q&a What does your position as prep lab manager entail?

I work with all kinds of specimens and artifacts in various capacities, including proper object handling and storage methods; processing collections for accession and cataloguing; and preparing specimens for display.

Not all of the museum’s finds go on display. Most are kept in storage because there’s just no way to display them all.

I also oversee day-to-day operations for the lab; coordinate special events involving the paleo lab and hall; and assist with fossil restoration and imaging specimens for study.

Does imaging of specimens involve special techniques beyond ordinary photography?

Absolutely! One of the primary techniques uses fluorescence. The different UV wavelengths expose repair work and artistic liberties that are not visible to the naked eye. This can show a specimen to have been repaired beyond what was claimed, or even to be fake.

Are you involved with selecting which specimens to exhibit?

I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in a few exhibits, but this doesn’t happen often. Exhibits are typically created by the curators, who narrate the story and select the specimens and artifacts that best tell that story.

HMNS has always had a prep lab of sorts, but our lab just opened on Labor Day weekend, so I’ve been involved with getting things up and running. I’m also working with the volunteer department to staff the lab with preparators and interns. We’re implementing a training program for new preparators so they can learn the tools and techniques.

You have a master of science degree in forensic anthropology from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in England. What led you to choose that discipline?

I originally studied international business, but wasn’t as passionate about it as I thought I should have been. I have

always been captivated by other cultures and loved every anthropology and archaeology course I took.

I knew I wanted to pursue a graduate degree and wanted to study in the U.K. Forensic anthropology just fit for me. I had excelled in my physical anthropology courses, so I knew the UCLan program would just be a continuation of that.

There are different things you can do with a degree in forensic anthropology, including teaching, lab work, and criminal investigation. If anything, I saw myself working in a lab doing analysis on remains. My master’s dissertation involved studying the fracture patterns inflicted on long bones by a hunting rifle, using pig carcasses shot by a professional marksman. This was an experience from start to finish!

“ Through the Alf Museum, I also got to experience firsthand the role museums play in education and research.”

You’ve spent a lot of time outside the U.S. Are you originally from Houston?

Houston has been my family’s home base since 1988, but I spent most of my childhood overseas, due to my parents being in the oil and gas industry. We lived in Saudi Arabia, England, and Italy, plus a few years in California.

I went to middle school in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which required completing high school at a boarding school. Webb was brought to my attention by my brother, Kevin ’09, who was always interested in paleontology.

My heritage is Irish and I have dual citizenship. While in college, I spent a summer at the National University of Ireland, Galway, studying archaeology and anthropology. I often travel to Ireland to visit family and friends, so it was a meaningful experience to study there.

Did you get involved with peccary trips while you were at Webb?

I went on a few trips while at Webb, first with my freshman paleontology class and then during senior year. Kevin and I went on the 2012 trip right before I started my master’s program; it was fun to share that experience with my brother.

I did a paleo dig last October at the HMNS dig site in north Texas. It’s a Permian site, where it is common to find Dimetrodon and Diplocaulus. In fact, the majority of preparation done in our lab is on specimens collected on trips like that.

After completing my master’s degree, I also did several bioarchaeology/forensic anthropology digs, including a medieval black plague mass grave in England and exhumations in Cyprus.

Are there any specific lessons you learned at Webb that still directly serve you today?

Webb taught me the value of independent research and thinking outside the box, skills I was able to further develop and which ultimately led to me working with HMNS. Through the Alf Museum, I also got to experience firsthand the role museums play in education and research.

I hope to continue learning different aspects of running a museum. I’m excited to see what the future holds!

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Amar Lalvani ’92

is making Standard Hotels “a platform for creativity.”

“I challenge the team all the time: ‘What can we do that nobody’s ever done before?’”

h e first thing you notice about the Standard Hotels logo is that it’s upside down. CEO Amar Lalvani ’92 will tell you that’s wholly intentional. The Standard’s mission is to upend the hidebound hotel business and become “the nextgeneration hospitality company.”

Amar came to the hospitality business in a somewhat roundabout way. In 1997, a year after graduating from Wharton, he joined Starwood Capital, which had recently begun acquiring hotels. This buying spree was initially just another investment in undervalued properties, but founder Barry Sternlicht sensed that it could become something more.

That fall, Starwood negotiated a $13.3 billion merger with ITT Sheraton. “We went from a private equity company investing in real estate to the biggest hotel company in the world in a year,” Amar recalls.

School. He returned to Starwood in 2004, expanding the company’s W Hotels luxury brand in Europe and the Middle East and then on a global basis.

In 2011, André Balazs, who established the first Standard hotel in West Hollywood in 1999, invited Amar to help him build The Standard into a global brand. Two years later, with Balazs’ blessing, Amar spun off Standard International as a separate company and became its CEO. The Standard was conceived as a different kind of hotel, emphasizing hip modernity over conformist luxury.

Under Amar’s leadership, Standard Hotels has continued that iconoclastic approach. “I challenge the team all the time: ‘What can we do that nobody’s ever done before?’” he says.

As Sternlicht considered the next steps for his new 650-hotel global empire, he tapped Amar to become his executive assistant. “I was alongside him,” Amar says. “I got to understand the worlds of hotels, brands and management. It was a wonderful opportunity.”

In some areas, The Standard has found innovative alternatives to traditional hotel practices. For example, guests can now select their own check-in and checkout times. A more elaborate effort is a new guests-only app, which reinvents the hotel lobby as a virtual space where guests can pseudonymously meet and interact.

After a two-year stint representing Starwood in Thailand, Amar left to earn his MBA from Harvard Business

Other innovations have no industry precedent. After the 2016 election, The Standard launched Ring Your

Rep, which placed phone booths in hotel lobbies and a speed-dial button on room phones to connect guests with the congressional switchboard in Washington, D.C. “We wanted to find ways for the younger generation to have a voice,” Amar says. “I think about 15,000 calls have been made to Congress from our properties.”

While many hotels focus on business travelers, Amar wants Standard properties to be community hubs, attracting locals looking for exciting “stay-cations” or unique venues for culture and entertainment. Different locations offer distinct experiences, from Manhattan sophistication at The Standard, East Village, to “listening to music and drinking a beer under the stars” while staying in a vintage trailer at El Cosmico, one of the boutique properties of Texas-based Bunkhouse, in which Standard Hotels now holds a majority interest.

Amar’s career has not focused solely on hospitality; he also sits on the boards of Empellón Restaurant Group, exercise bike maker Peloton Interactive and art print seller Twyla. Nevertheless, he finds the hotel business uniquely rewarding.

“In another life, I might have been an artist, but business was part of the realm of things that were acceptable to my family,” he says. “There was a frustrated artist component to me.

Hospitality brought together things I really liked — art, architecture, food, drink, entertainment — within the business world and all the things I’d studied.”

Promoting creativity is the heart of the Standard brand. “I love inspiring and providing a platform for people who are super creative, whether they’re architects, interior decorators, chefs or graphic designers,” he explains.

“I use all my training to allow those artists to bring their creations to life and do things that are interesting and unexpected for our guests.”

Amar, who lives in New York with his two daughters and their dog, credits Webb for the love of learning that has enabled him to bring together these disparate elements. “I really didn’t start with a plan,” he says. “When I left Webb, I wanted to build something, to do interesting things, and to meet interesting people. Those things have come to fruition.”

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EVENTS & HIGHLIGHTS Reunions, regional events, and more! Alumni, parents, and friends reconnect. Find more event photos at webb.org

AFFILIATES BENEFIT

Parents, faculty and friends enjoyed an evening of entertainment, good food and auction items in support of Webb.

The event raised over $260,000 in support of new technologies, learning spaces, and opportunities for students and teachers to engage with the world.

PARENTS WEEKEND

More than 350 parents came for the weekend activities, October 4-6, representing eight countries and nine states. Highlights included a reception hosted by the Affiliates of Webb, classroom visits and information sessions on financial aid, spring/summer travel opportunities, breakfast with advisory groups, and panels for freshman/sophomore and junior/senior parents.

YOUNG ALUMNI EVENTS

Young alumni in the DC area gathered for a holiday mixer with Hector Martinez and Laura Wensley at Firefly near Dupont Circle (above).

Over 40 alumni in New York attended the annual Webb15 professional networking holiday mixer at CASK Bar + Kitchen. Many thanks to our industry mentors Kurt Zischke ’74, David Loo ’79, Deval Dvivedi ’00, Nkonye Okuh ’02, Jeff Cripe ’08 and Carly Paris ’10 (right).

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EVENTS & HIGHLIGHTS

ALUMNI WEEKEND

More than 250 alumni, faculty and friends returned to campus on October 12-13, with alumni traveling from five countries and 22 states. A weekend highlight was the Class of 1953’s 65th reunion!

26TH ANNUAL PECCARY SOCIETY DINNER

For the golden anniversary of the dedication to its founder, Ray Alf, the museum celebrated the retirement of long-time trustee Doug Myles. Guests were inspired by the research efforts of the student peccary scholars, the peccary trip to Peru, and the work of Dr. Don Lofgren and Jenn Liu ’05 on the Alf biography. The Alf Award for Excellence in Paleontological Research and Education was presented to Dr. Greg Wilson for his exceptional endeavors in paleontological research and the education of K-12 teachers through the Discoveries in Geosciences Field School.

The event also set a new record, with more than $186,000 raised in sponsorships.

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SPRING/SUMMER 2018

NEW YORK

BEIJING

More than 40 alumni and friends gathered at the National Arts Club in April for a reception hosted by trustee David Loo ’79 and his wife Valerie.

Alumni represented five decades of Webb.

Webb received a warm welcome from alumni, parents and friends at a dinner hosted by Marcus and Shirley Tsoi P ’19 at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Taylor Stockdale welcomed incoming students and their families, Hector Martinez spoke about college guidance and Dutch Barhydt discussed the lifelong association that students develop with the schools.

PHILADELPHIA

LONDON, ENGLAND

Alumni and friends joined Bob Fass in Philadelphia for a fun evening at Parc Restaurant.

Trustee Janel Henriksen Hastings ’87 and Glen Hastings hosted Webb’s first U.K. reception at their home in London with Taylor and Anne Stockdale, Dutch Barhydt and Hector Martinez.

HONG KONG Taylor and Anne Stockdale, Dutch Barhydt and Hector Martinez enjoyed an evening with alumni, and current and incoming families at the Hong Kong Bankers Club, hosted by Tony Chiu and Cheri Yim P ’20 and Leslie and Eva Fong P ’20.

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SPRING/SUMMER 2018

SEATTLE

PORTLAND, OREGON

Alumni and friends joined Bob Fass and Jordan Taylor ’02, Alumni Council Representative for a mixer at Frolik Kitchen + Cocktails.

In May Larry Price ’61, Chip Greening ’62 and David Ditz ’72 hosted a reception at the Multnomah Athletic Club for alumni and friends.

PERU

SUMMER MIXER FOR ALUMNI IN LOS ANGELES

Twenty-five alumni, museum trustees and staff embarked on an international peccary trip to Peru. Most notably, a new species of dolphin was discovered through the efforts of the Webb team.

Over 70 alumni and friends gathered for the annual summer mixer at Amanda David ’02’s restaurant Great Maple in Pasadena. Many thanks to L.A. Regional Representative Kathy Fredrich ’02 for organizing the event.

SHANGHAI Shi An Liu and Ping Xu P ’13 hosted parents and alumni at the Fenyang Garden Hotel along with Taylor and Anne Stockdale, Hector Martinez and Dutch Barhydt.

BARSTOW, CALIF.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

More than 80 alumni and friends ventured out to Barstow for the annual Alumni Peccary Trip on May 4-6. Highlights included a hike into the Badlands for fossil hunting and dinner around the campfire.

Alumni and friends joined Taylor Stockdale and Dutch Barhydt for a fun evening at The Potomac Boat Club hosted by trustee Wendin Smith ‘89.

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FALL/WINTER 2018

ALUMNI DINNER IN HONG KONG

ALUMNI DINNER IN TAIWAN

Alumni Council Regional Representative Keating Leung ’98 hosted an alumni dinner with Taylor Stockdale and Dutch Barhydt.

Alumni Council Regional Representative Jimmy Hsieh ’89 organized a dinner in Taipei for Dutch Barhydt and alumni.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

DENVER, COLORADO

Many thanks to Rajan Bhatt ’90 for organizing a fun mixer at the Living Room in Gainey Village. Alumni Council Regional Representatives Preston Clarke ’98 and Ben Davis ’11 welcomed alumni from the classes of 1963-2013.

Alumni and friends joined Dr. Don Lofgren at Lola Coastal Mexican in Denver, Colo. Classes of 1963-2004 were present to enjoy the empanadas, guacamole and Webb memories.

SILICON VALLEY

BALTIMORE

Alumni Council Regional Representative Sameer Dholakia ’91 hosted a gathering at the SendGrid Office in Redwood City.

Alumni and friends in the Baltimore area joined trustee Julia Marciari-Alexander ’85 and Alumni Council Regional Representative David Ivey-Soto ’82 for a fun event at B & O Brasserie at the Hotel Monaco.

HOLIDAY PARTY IN LOS ANGELES

SAN FRANCISCO

Close to 80 alumni, parents and friends attended the holiday gathering at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles. Many thanks to our event sponsors, R.J. and Laura Romero P ’12, ’15, ’20, for hosting Webb’s community in such a gorgeous venue.

More than 40 alumni, parents and friends joined Taylor Stockdale for a holiday reception at the Olympic Club hosted by Webb trustee Michael Chang ’92 and Alicia Chang. Dr. Don Lofgren and Dutch Barhydt were there to commemorate the holidays with San Francisco Webbies and several Alumni Council members.

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F

Young Alumni Rising Star

ive Alumni Honored During Alumni Weekend 2018

Colborn Distinguished Service

Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award During his time as a trustee, and as a co-chair for the upcoming Centennial campaign, Blake Brown ’68’s support has reached every corner of campus. Whether supporting renovations to the science lab, the museum’s research and prep labs, the Hall of Life, new faculty housing, Hooper Student Center and the schools’ recent land acquisition, Blake’s generosity and leadership has been extraordinary.

He has remained close to his classmates and served the Class of 1968 as a reunion chair. For 30 years, Blake was president of John Tillman Company, which manufactures and supplies protective clothing for welders and other industrial workers, producing everything from welding gloves to knee pads and rod holders. He retired from the company at the end of 2016.

Sandra Lee Rebish ‘88 is a world-renowned dermatologist, practicing and treating patients at her practice in Upland, Calif., and running her own skincare line, SLMD Skincare.

Sandra is also an internationally recognized social media influencer, known to her fans as Dr. Pimple Popper. Her videos have exceeded 2 billion streams with a digital reach of 10 million viewers around the world, educating fans about skin care and dermatology. Her influence has continued to grow through her TLC series Dr. Pimple Popper, an educational website called “The Pretty Pimple,” and a new game and book released this year. Sandra has maintained close ties to Webb and her classmates despite her busy work schedule. She hosted students for shadow days, spoke at Dies Mulieres, served on the Alumni Council, and presented at Webb’s annual Sophomore Career Evening multiple times, always happy to share her dermatology and social media experience with students.

While serving in every judicial role assigned to him during his tenure as a Superior Court judge, John A. “Jack” Sutro ‘53 always found time for Webb. He was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1976 to 1984 and 1998 to 2009. He also served as a class agent, co-chaired both his 50th and 60th reunions, and is a member of the Hastings Society. Jack graduated from Stanford University and later earned a LLB from Harvard.

He was appointed to the Superior Court in 1993 and has served in numerous capacities including, criminal, civil, family law, probate and juvenile. During his time as a judge in Marin County, he was elected as presiding judge twice, and served as a member of Marin Court’s Appellate Division.

Not surprisingly, Jack continues to give back, dedicating significant amounts of his time to pro bono legal work and to guiding and mentoring others in the legal profession.

When invited to participate at the highest volunteer levels at Webb, both as a trustee and as chair of Webb’s “Building Character” campaign, Jim Drasdo ‘63 went “all in,” a spirit that paid many dividends for Webb. His interest in Webb’s ability to attract and retain excellent teachers, led him to establish the Les and Barbara Perry Faculty Enrichment Fund in 1995, and each year since, the Perry Awards have been presented to deserving faculty members who embody the legacies of Barbara and Les Perry. Jim was also responsible for funding Webb’s original digital infrastructure, and when it needed updating 15 years later, again made a generous commitment that allowed Webb to rewire the campus with over eight miles of fiber. Jim has been a proponent of Webb’s proximity and connection to the Claremont Colleges, ensuring that the Schools seek meaningful opportunities with our academic neighbors.

Gabe Romero ’08 studied geology at Pomona College after discovering his love for Paleontology at the Raymond M. Alf Museum. He went on to earn an MBA from the Claremont Graduate School while working in Webb’s Alumni Office as an advancement fellow and serving as a US Army platoon leader for the 163rd Ordnance Company. His honorable, generous spirit shows in his current role as a captain in the United States Army, specializing as an aeromedical evacuation officer. Gabe completed an eight-month deployment in northern Afghanistan with the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade and currently flies the UH-60L Blackhawk helicopter on MEDEVAC missions in Alaska.

To watch the awards ceremony, go to the youtube link at http://bit.ly/webbawards18.

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1938 Caleb “Cal” Murphy celebrated his 80th reunion from Sequim, Wash. this year. He is 98 years-old and is also celebrating 72 years of marriage. 1 1

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1947 Charles Ericksen and David Ivey-Soto ’82 enjoyed a visit this summer.

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1953 Members of the Class of ’53 returned to campus for the 65th reunion during Alumni Weekend.

Highlights included a private dinner at the Webb House on Friday night and Jack Sutro receiving the Colborn Distinguished Service award. A big thank you to Cleve Baker, Benny Benjamin, Scott Evans and Jack for chairing the reunion. To watch the awards ceremony, go to the youtube link at bit. ly/webbawards18. Jack’s remarks begin at 25:48.

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1955 Ward Jones visited campus in September to donate a Meade Model 290 telescope to the science department. 5

1959 In April Jim Hall and Dan Ketchum visited with Museum Director Don Lofgren to recount a story for the Ray Alf biography.

During freshman year, Jim and Dan were among the students who carried a 53 pound slab of stone up 4,000 feet of elevation from the Grand Canyon because Ray Alf wanted to preserve the fossil footprints contained in the stone. 6 1960 Brien Benson and Fritz Mulhauser had lunch in Washington, D.C. with Alumni Director Laura Wensley. They reminisced about Webb days, Ray Alf and peccary trips, and had lots of questions about today’s curriculum and campus life. 7 Bill Ripley and his wife Erin went on the summer peccary trip to Peru. 8 1961 Dick Dunham hosted lunch at his home in New York. L-R: Larry Price, John Bradley Springer, Jim Niss, Roger Millar and Dick. 9 1962 John Pettingell caught up with Don Lofgren over lunch in Castle Rock, Colo. John and Don shared stories of Ray Alf and friends over the years and John also shared the news that his daughter was recently married in Fort Collins. 10

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1963 We enjoyed having the Class of ’63 back at Webb celebrating their 55th reunion. Many thanks to those who attended: Geoff Adams, Erik Beavers, Chuck Bell, Tom Butterworth, Rick Clarke, Jim Drasdo, Jonathan Golden, Robert Johnston, Bob Mixon, Sam Nigh, Bruce Parks, John Rice, Laney Thornton, Bob Warford and Ralph Young.

A big thanks to Dale Boller for his tremendous efforts in organizing the reunion.

Weekend highlights included a Thursday night dinner on the Webb House patio and Friday lunch with the 1963 scholarship recipients. During the Alumni Awards ceremony on Saturday, Jim received the Colborn Distinguished Service award. 11 12 Dale Boller and his wife Susan visited with Rick Clarke, his wife Suzy and son Preston ’98 on a recent trip to Scottsdale, Ariz. The group caught up on reunion and other Webb news over cocktails at the Clarke home. 13 1964 Peter Koster and Tom Hunsucker reunited in Los Angeles this summer.

They visited the Los Angeles County Art Museum and enjoyed dinner in Pasadena.

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1966 Bruce Hamilton made his second appearance at Mendocino Folklore Camp this summer. His thoughtful and energetic work has made him one of the country’s most popular English dance leaders. He also served two terms as president of the Country Dance and Song Society. 15 We enjoyed seeing Chip Martin at the alumni gathering in London this summer. 16 1967 A big thanks to Peter Huisking for visiting the museum to review photographs for the up coming Ray Alf biography.

He brought his 3-year-old granddaughter, Ellery. 17 During the 2018 WSC commencement ceremony, Kim McCloud was recognized as a life trustee of Webb. 18 1968 Class of 1968 celebrated its 50th reunion during Alumni Weekend.

Highlights included a Thursday night private dinner in the Webb house, Friday at the peccary dinner and a behind-thescenes museum tour with Don Lofgren. On Saturday, during the Alumni Awards ceremony, Blake Brown was recognized with the Alumni Outstanding Achievement award. Many thanks to those who attended. L-R back row: Neil Campbell, Richard Kron, Michael Lonergan, Hugh Pitcher, Chris Jobe, Tom Smith, George Wu, Pete Sawyers. Front row: Peter Stern, John Hibbard, Blake and Al Davies. 19 20

1972 Napa neighbors for over 40 years, Tom Ruge and John Tuteur ’59 ran into each other for the first time this summer. Here they are proudly showing their Webb spirit. 21 1974 Kurt Zischke and his wife Tori are proud Webb parents! Their daughter Scout is a VWS freshman boarder. 22 1976 In April 2018, Michael Heller was named Photographer of the Year by the New York Press Association at its annual Better Newspaper Contest.

This is the third time since 2011 that he has been honored with this award. 23 Longstanding friends Pete Sanders and Will DeShazo reconnected at Pete’s brother-in-law’s popular Washington, D.C. restaurant, Ivy City Smokehouse last July. Pete also saw Bill Ripley ’60 and his wife Erin in late March when they were in Memphis for a trip that included a Mississippi steam/paddle boat cruise to New Orleans.

“The photo is in front of Hyde Chapel at Memphis University School where I am serving as headmaster.

Bill was my college counselor and Spanish teacher at Webb.” 24 25

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1978 Bill Hempel (formerly Elliott) brought his wife Flavia and three children to campus this summer. They were visiting from France and passing through Claremont on their way to Las Vegas, followed

by Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Moab and then Denver. 26 Geoff Sturr and Brad Justus returned to Webb in October to celebrate their 40th reunion. The pair are seen here enjoying the Alumni chapel service on the surprise rainy day. 27 1979 Paul Goodfellow and David Loo reconnected at the Webb reception in New York last April. Paul lives in Connecticut and is a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. David, who is still managing director at Hudson Realty Capital LLC, continues to serve on the Webb board. 28 1980 In October classmates gathered to fondly remember Marty Dworsky. L-R: Drew Hubbell, Rob Seltzer and family, Dave Kerr ’81 and Howard Warner. Not pictured: Chris Knight, Steve Guilford and Steven Gannes. 29

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1981 John Duden and his wife Tracey are the proud grandparents of their first grandchild, Peyton. 30

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1983 Class of ’83 celeberated its 35th reunion at Alumni Weekend. Many thanks to those who came: George Ahn, Kelly Atkinson, Michael Brinkman, Wally Jablow, Brent McManigal, Cameron Noble, John Powell, Richard Pumerantz, Ed Ratinoff, Chris Riggio, Martin Roa, Hiro Sasaki, Steve Scandura, Hany Tawadrous, David Urban and Eric Wong. The weekend started with a Friday night mixer at Last Name Brewery in Upland.

On Saturday, the class held a discussion sharing experiences and stories of life since Webb. A big thanks to the reunion committee: John, Ed and and Chris, as well as Derek Deskey and Michael McDermott, who sadly could not be there.

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Michael McDermott and his wife Amanda Bi are the proud parents of a VWS graduate. Allegra is a freshman at Babson College.

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1984 It was nice to see Christine Carr and her daughter Sydney on campus in August. 34 Jeff Luhnow was the graduation speaker at the 2018 WSC commencement ceremony. Classmates and friends from other classes attended a lunch gathering at the Webb house. L-R: Jeff Cannon, Jeff, Stephanie Riggio ’85, Coleen Martinez ’86, Ed Ratinoff ’83 and Harry Oei. You can watch Jeff’s speech on youtube.com/ thewebbschools. 35 36 1986 Charles Chen is a board certified internal medicine physician with Beaver Medical Group based in Redlands, Calif.

He has practiced at the Yucaipa Valley location for almost 19 years, serving as the department chair of Internal Medicine for 15 years. In 2017 he was elected to the board of directors for EPIC Management, Inc., a medical management service organization, and recently, he was named senior medical director of Beaver Medical Group where he will lead and manage a group of 200 physicians and 50 advanced practice clinicians. “Our medical group is going through a growth phase and expansion, and we are hiring new physicians and advanced practice clinicians. I welcome any interested Webbies to come check us out and say hello.”

Charles also saw classmate William Tseng at a medical conference. 37

On April 21, surrounded by friends and family from several states (including a delegation of more than a dozen from the Great State of Texas), Jan Mitchell married Paul Colaceci on the beautiful white sands of Panama City Beach, Fla. Jan and Paul moved back to her hometown in 2016 to live, work and jet ski as often as possible. She continues to write grants for school districts, operates three Airbnb rentals, and (in her spare time) was named 2017 Realtor Rookie of the Year for her area.

Tom Monroe and his wife Michelle are proud Webb parents. Elena graduated in June and is now a freshman at Colgate University. Their younger daughter Nichola joined Vivian Webb this fall as a member of the Class of 2022! 38 1987 Melissa Barnes Dholakia was the commencement speaker at the VWS graduation ceremony. You can watch Melissa’s speech on youtube. com/thewebbschools. 39 Michael Kwon enjoyed seeing Darren Liang and Paul Lai for dinner in Shanghai. 40 John Scalzi’s science fiction novel Old Man’s War is on its way to becoming a Netflix original film. The novel is currently in development and John is excited to see the book turned into a movie.

On November 6, Dana (Zipser) Schallheim ’94 was elected to the Anne Arundel County Public Schools Board of Education, representing District 5 in Maryland. The historic election represented the county’s transition to an entirely elected school board.

Dana, whose daughter Rory is a student in the district, has over 30 years of experience volunteering and 22 years of advocacy. “I’m thrilled, I am overwhelmed and happy,” Dana says. “I can’t wait to start serving the students of Anne Arundel County public schools.” Among Dana’s priorities are restoring teacher wages that were frozen, solving chronic bullying and racism, decreasing class sizes and redirecting budgets back to school needs.

Megan Tracy Benson ’96 attended the swearing-in ceremony. “I was able to drive over to Annapolis before work to watch the ceremony and cheer her on, along with lots of other well-wishers. It was a lovely ceremony and I was proud to be her ‘oldest’ friend there.”

After 21 years at Keesal, Young & Logan, Sarah Tong Sangmeister has formed a new law firm, Peacock Piper Tong + Voss, in Long Beach, Calif. They will operate as trial and corporate attorneys providing services to clients primarily in the maritime, marine terminal, construction and engineering, energy, insurance, and financial services industries.

1988 Many thanks to reunion committee members Sandra Lee Rebish, Lionel Yang, Eugene Whitlock and Alicia Ahn for coordinating a great weekend for the Class of 88’s 30th reunion. Sandra hosted a fabulous party at her home to kick off the celebration, and friends from the classes of 1984 to 1990 also joined the festivities. Classmates came in from as far away as Taiwan (Kay Lin) and England (Nick Willott)! Congratulations to Sandra who received the Alumni Outstanding Achievement award during Saturday’s awards ceremony.

To watch the ceremony, go to bit.ly/webbawards18. Sandra’s remarks begin at 15.08. 41 42

Claudia Hackethal and Deven Desai ’89 got married this summer in San Diego, Calif. with many Webbies in attendance.

L-R back row: Kevin Trude ’89, Rachel Kaufman, Veronica Hackethal ’90, Brett Kennedy ’92, Isabel Gerard ’19, Connor Walker ’19, Karen Greene Robinson, Norm Carnick ’86, Kevin Stampfl ’87, Alex Demetriades ’86, Khamen Pappoe ’91, Peter Emblad ’86, John Scalzi ’87, Clay Pierce ’86, Rich Garcia ’87, Kurt Moser ’85.

Front row: Jenny Fan ’89, Charles Keagle ’86, Hope Demetriades ’87, Claudia, Deven, Risa Waite ’89, Naren Desai ’92 and Uptal Patel ’89. 43

1989 Sari Gruber has joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University as an artist lecturer in voice, in addition to her position at Point Park University, where she has served on the musical theater vocal faculty since 2010. She loves teaching and has students in leading roles on Broadway, in national tours and opera companies.

She continues to perform and celebrates her 25th year as a professional opera and concert singer in 2019.

Upcoming engagements include the role of Musetta in La bohème with the Pittsburgh Opera and the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Savannah Symphony. 44 Tommy Oei and his wife Dawn Flock are the proud parents of a WSC graduate!

Alex is now a freshman at USC. Daughter Deanna is a VWS junior. 45

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1990 Karthik Raj Dayalan married Laura Elizabeth Tuck on June 30, 2018 at the Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, Calif.

Naveen Jeereddi ’92 and Dhananjay Patwardhan ’93 were among his groomsmen. Fellow class of ’90 Webbies in attendance included Rajan Bhatt, Jason Cunningham and Jim Spiros Lazarus. Raj is currently managing director in the Corporate Finance Department of Rothschild & Co., specializing in technology M&A. 46

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Christine French enjoyed seeing Adriana LaCorte Maher ’89 when she visited the San Diego Zoo Safari Park this summer. Adriana has been an educator and guide there for over 20 years. 47

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It was fight night at the Shrine Auditorium last April for David Kahm, Jay Nam, Terry Han, Ken Toshima and Kevin Hsu (not pictured). 48

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Cucamonga Valley Medical Group was honored as the 2018 Spirit of the Entrepreneur Award winner in the Health Care Entrepreneur category.

Rahmi Mowjood and Kyle Smart ’92 accepted the award as part of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship’s black tie gala at the Riverside Convention Center. 49 Greg Shear and his son Jacob visited campus in April. Highlights of their visit included a stop at the chapel and a behindthe-scenes tour of the Alf Museum. 50 1992 Jennifer Gatewood Wong, Naveen Jeereddi and family members made the trek to Barstow in May for the annual Alumni Peccary trip. 51 Jason Melson Ross is the 2018 recipient of the Unity Award, presented by the Bar Association of San Francisco and Minority Bar Coalition for the work he is doing on behalf of the California Association of Black Lawyers. 52 1993 The Class of 1993 returned to campus in force for their 25th reunion. Many thanks to reunion chairs Ed Lin and Mike Wanderman for hosting the Friday night class party and for their tireless efforts in wrangling the class together! Phil Neuhaus even came in from Switzerland to join the fun!

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Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong is serving her second term as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. In May she welcomed Jason Brooks ’99 and his students from The Episcopal School of Los Angeles into her courtroom to share a first-hand glimpse of court proceedings. 54

Highlights from a few of our alumni athletes in college

Wilson Parnell ’13, a member of Chapman University’s men’s water polo team, was named to the 2017-18 SCIAC All-Academic Team, which recognizes studentathletes who achieved a GPA of 3.40 or higher.

Midfielder and co-captain of the UC Irvine men’s soccer team Daniel Crisostomo ’15 had a stellar senior year.

He helped lead the Anteaters to a regular season championship, their first title since 2013 and was named Big West Conference Midfielder of The Year.

The team lost to Stanford in the second round of NCAA playoff action. Daniel is a sociology major with a minor in education. A

1994 Bikram Ahluwalia and his family visited campus in November. 55 Amanda Gresham and her mother Barbara Hammerman are preparing to send participants from their nonprofit, United

by Music North America, to perform at the Special Olympics. 56

In her freshman year at Middlebury College, Emily Chu ’17 was recognized as an All-Conference Team Athlete for her achievements with the women’s club water polo team and New England Division 2nd Team for the Women’s Collegiate Club All-Conference. B

1997 Lisa Shonnard Sipprell and her husband, Jeffrey, welcomed a baby boy, Jackson, on Sept. 2, 2018.

He joins big sister Madeleine. 57 A

1998 1998ers from around the world made their way to Webb in October for the 20th reunion—some who came back to campus for the first time since graduation!

Friends shared laughter and memories on campus and at parties in the surrounding area. Many thanks to reunion committee members Preston Clarke, Niti Gupta, James Larkin and Keating Leung. 58

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As a wide-receiver for the Pomona-Pitzer football team, Nick Jung ’17 earned SCIAC All Academic Team honors for the 2017-18 season. He had three receptions for 116 yards and one touchdown before injuries took him out for the season. Nick is majoring in Economics. C Chandler Luebbers ’17 is an attacker on the Occidental College women’s water polo team. She is majoring in politics with a minor in geology. D Elyse Morris ’17 is a sophomore on the softball team at St. John’s University. She started 11 games in her first season and has six RBIs and 12 runs to her credit, with a batting average of .406. E Dylan Wensley ’17 is a forward for the Occidental College women’s soccer team. She started eight of 16 games this season and helped the team to its first-ever SCIAC championship. The Oxy Tigers competed in the first round of NCAA playoffs in Abilene, Texas, but lost 0-1 to 18th ranked Trinity University. F

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Jordan Fuelling ’17 has transferred to Chapman University where, she’s a member of the women’s volleyball team in the position of DS and libero in limited duty. The Panthers had their best season in the team’s history, finishing at 19-8 and placing third in the SCIAC regular season standings. Jordan is a public health major.

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Spencer Easley ’18 is a wide receiver and member of the special teams unit for the football team at Cornell College in Iowa. The team finished the season with a respectable 5-5 record. Spencer is a two-sport athlete and is now on the wrestling team in the 157-pound weight class. He is majoring in political science and enjoyed seeing Patrick Kidwell ’17 and Dillon Kim ’17 at Lake Forest College. G Ryan Place ’18 is a linebacker on the football team at the University of Redlands. He took a medical redshirt and spent the past season adjusting to the college level. Ryan enjoyed his first semester of college and plans to declare business management as his major. H

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Skyler Rivera ’18 is the coxswain for the women’s rowing team at Syracuse University, competing at the division one level. She is studying broadcast journalism through the S.I. Newhouse School of Communication and acclimating to the cold weather. I

For more information, search the website for “Alumni Athletes in College.”

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1999 Sandia Chang and her husband James Knappett have earned a second Michelin star at their restaurant Kitchen Table. Sandia and James are also the owners of Bubbledogs UK in London.

Kitchen Table, which earned its first Michelin star in 2014, is a 20-seat restaurant tucked away at the back of Bubbledogs.

Sandia is both general manager and sommelier, personally selecting the wine list to accompany James’ dishes. The dining experience encourages full interaction with the chefs and showcases a daily menu of meticulously sourced and foraged British ingredients.

While Arthur Chang was in London as part of the EMBA program with Columbia University and London Business School, he ran into Sandia. “I made a reservation without knowing much of the chef, just recommendations. A few days later I googled the place and the description read owned by Chef James Knappett and his wife Sandia Chang. The name is so unique that I guessed it was Sandia. Sure enough: owner, sommelier, host.

Awesome meal.” 59 60

Congratulations to Sonal Sura Girgis and her husband, Nader, who welcomed a baby boy, Kai, on August 28, 2018. 61 2000 Karen Chui is in London, England, working at Facebook where she’s the manager of partner and ecosystem development, creative platforms. She enjoyed catching up with Dean of College Guidance Hector Martinez this summer. 62 2002 Congratulations to Kathy Fredrich and her husband, Chris, on the birth of their baby boy, Owen Samuel, on Oct. 17, 2018. 63 Alexander Gordon got married to Sarah Johnson on November 3, 2018.

Several Webbies were at the wedding: Eric Bourne ’03, Melissa Drachand, Ryan Fitzmorris, Jonathon Forney, Daniel Suhr, Marc Wiener and Richard Yao ’03.

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Eleanor Pettus married Mark Schneider in July 2017 in Chicago, Ill. Webbies in attendance included her brothers Erle Pettus ’04 and Walter Pettus ’05 and bridesmaid Rebecca Wang ’01. The couple welcomed daughter Josephine on September 18, 2018. The family resides in Indianapolis, but is moving to Oak Park, Ill. early in 2019.

2003 Victor Ma has left investment banking, returned to the Bay Area, and now works for his family’s school Chengdu Meishi International School, a private K-12 school in China. 65

Seventeen members of the Class of 2003 celebrated the 15th reunion during Alumni Weekend. Friday kicked off with a fun gathering at the Whisper House, then on Saturday everyone enjoyed the campus events. The weekend concluded with an all-alumni dinner and dance in Price Dining Hall. A huge thank-you to reunion chairs Lauren Epp, Christina Kon, Griffin Miller, Daniel Smith, Julia Villasenor and Richard Yao. 66 67 2004 Alan Hau hopes to make a positive impact on the LGBTI community in Hong Kong with his new business. Wooven sells luxury bed linens used by hotels and resorts at a direct-to-consumer price, with 50 percent of the profits helping to fund mental health resources for the LGBTI community in Hong Kong and parts of Asia. Alan works with organizations focused on public education and training counselors in affirming therapy, including Amnesty International and Blessed Ministry Community Church. 68 Congratulations to Michelle Lo and her husband, Timothy, on the birth of their son, William, on Aug. 24, 2018. 69 2005 Brittan Berry was recognized on Crain’s Cleveland Business Forty under 40 list for her outstanding work with university hospitals. Her focus on human-centered design reshaped the emergency department journey for patients, resulting in higher staff morale and improved patient satisfaction scores. She recently began a new position as director at FullStory, a startup that is devoted to making the web more user-friendly. 70

ALUMNI PROFILE On November 1, Jennifer “Jenn” Liu ’05 became the new director of parent relations and special events at Webb. In this position, Jenn oversees Webb’s parent relations program, which serves more than 750 current parents worldwide and an active volunteer network through the Affiliates parent organization. Additionally, she is managing major institutional events such as Orientation, Parents Weekend, Alumni Weekend and Commencement, as well as regional events both domestic and abroad. Jenn has been serving as the assistant to the director of the Alf Museum since 2016.

Previously Jenn taught at the Yew Chung International School of Beijing and was a marketing manager at Acoustmax International, which conducts business in Taiwan and China. She holds a bachelors of arts degree in early childhood education and American heritages from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education.

Jenn is delighted to be joining Webb for this new opportunity.

“I look forward to serving our Webb community in this role and to making real and lasting contributions towards its continued growth. As The Centennial approaches, I feel this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

Kristen Priddy and Lily Chen ’04 enjoying the beautiful ocean view on vacation in Santorini, Greece. 71 Kenny Tsai has been working on Will & Grace (NBC), Amazing Stories (Apple), and four other dramas and comedies in 2018. He was promoted to director, current programming at Universal Television earlier this year.

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2006 In July 2017, Mark Torres, PhD, became an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He studies the processes that control the amounts of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere with the goal of understanding our planet’s habitability and informing novel engineering solutions to environmental issues.

2007 Congratulations to Deboki Chakravarti for earning her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Boston University.

She’s now in New York working as a multimedia intern at Scientific American, creating videos about science. 74

Eric Eng and Kyle Shin attended the Silicon Valley alumni event. Eric is the founder and college admissions consultant at IvyCollegeAdmit and Kyle is a UI developer at Doctor on Demand. 75

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Ryan Harbison visited campus this summer with his daughter Francesca Faith, born Oct. 17, 2017.

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William Hu was in town for Boris Yang ’05s wedding.

He lives in Rhode Island and is the co-owner of Ken’s Ramen in Providence. Follow @kensramen on Instagram or if you’re in the area stop by the restaurant and say hello. 77 Joshua Lau is the co-founder and product development lead at SiNode Systems, a venture commercializing silicon anode technology for high energy and high power Li-ion batteries.

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Riley Lewis married Emma Lord in June at Scripps College. There were lots of Webbies there, including Miles Rosedale ’69, and four Webbies in the bridal party.

Summer Swee-Singh played the ceremony music. 78 2008 Over 30 members of the spirited Class of 2008 returned to campus to celebrate the 10th reunion.

They enjoyed catching up at Last Name Brewing on Friday night and reminisced about their time as students on campus on Saturday.

They enthusiastically cheered for classmate Gabe Romero as he received the Young Alumni Rising Star Award and danced the night away in Price Dining Hall. A big thanks to reunion chairs Lexus Beaman, Janel Hill, Gabe and Lisa Valera! 79

Lexus Beaman is now the assistant director of donor relations and stewardship at Loyola University in Chicago. A big thanks to Lexus who served Webb’s advancement office since August 2014, fi rst as the advancement fellow before being promoted to assistant director of stewardship & donor relations.

Christina Duron is the recipient of the 2018 Jean E. Miller Excellence in Teaching Award. Christina, who joined Webb’s faculty in 2013, was recognized during the VWS commencement ceremony in June. In addition to teaching, she is getting her PhD at Claremont Graduate University. 80 Bijan Garcia-Dehbozorgi has a new business venture with Agua Lucha beverages.

We enjoyed the flavored drinks at Alumni Weekend.

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Congratulations to Alexandra Schuck and her husband, Niklas, on the birth of their son, Niklas Edwin Binder, on Sept. 18, 2018.

Sasha Wijeyeratne has been named executive director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. Previously, she was organizing director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, working to build the power of LGBTQ API communities and envisioning a world where all queer and trans people can thrive. 82 2009 Johanna Sambyal married Luke McCormack in a lovely wedding in the lush English countryside. It was a magical event and Luke and Johanna are excited to begin their lives together in London. 83

Nick Skenderian is the director of program development at Trauma Resource Institute (TRI) in Claremont, Calif. He has a Master’s in global health (with an emphasis in global mental health) from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. During his time there, he also worked at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe, within both Mental Health and Health Governance programs. Nick was recently named a change maker by TRVST, an organization focused on fostering collective action for social good, for his work in bringing TRI’s Community Resiliency Model to countries including Mexico, England, Northern Ireland, Turkey, Germany, and throughout the United States.

2010 Katherine Kilmer graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law with a JD and MA and recently passed the California Bar exam! She is currently working as an associate at Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP. 84 2011 Between completing her master’s degree in counseling at Cal State Fullerton, enrolling to pursue her PhD at the University of Northern Colorado and getting married in June, Summer Yoast has been busy!

Currently she is loving the snow with her dog Mousse and husband Zachary in Colorado.

2012 Amara Berry is the founder of The Sparkle Project, an innovative STEM education program that introduces elementary students to college level STEM topics. She recently sold the intellectual property to IntraCity Geeks, a Rhode Island STEM non-profit and will fi nish her bachelor’s degree in theoretical physics at Brown University. 85 Luke Lee is a researcher and lab technician at Cal State Northridge. He cheered on his former WSC teammate Daniel Crisostomo ’15 when the UC Irvine men’s team competed against the Matadors this fall. 86 Seraphina Oney has returned to Webb as a member of the science faculty teaching Evolutionary Biology for freshmen and Integrated Physics and Chemistry for sophomores. She is also the dorm head for North Hutchison. 87

2013 The Class of 2013 celebrated their 5th reunion during Alumni Weekend. A big thanks to the reunion committee of Mallory Thompson, Michelle Huber, Chloe Soltis and Davis Tsui. 88 89 In May 2018, Lauren Shue graduated from Northeastern University with a dual MSA/MBA degree. She is now working as an assurance asociate for PwC in Boston, Mass. 90 Chloe Soltis is attending Harvard Graduate School of Design where she is studying landscape architecture.

2014 Erik Chu spoke at Parents Weekend on a panel for junior and senior parents, sharing his alumni experience that includes a Webb@Work internship at Capital Group, regional events he’s attended, and networking opportunities through the Webb network. 91

2015 During a 10-week summer internship with Warner Bros., Taylor Leonard had the opportunity to work with the Learning and Organization Development team, whose focus is on the design and delivery of enterprise wide learning initiatives. 92 Karina Martin recently fi nished her study abroad at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. She is now working as a Human Resource intern at Anaheim University while she completes her undergraduate degree program, majoring in psychology with a minor in anthropology at UC Irvine.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: DEBATE TEAM MEMORIES When we re-established debate in 2008, it was completely student run—Elena Scott-Kakures ’11 and I organized car pools, designed curriculum and even raised funds for league dues. Within our first three years, we won more than four best speaker awards and countless team and school awards. It has been amazing to watch this program grow and evolve over the past decade under the leadership of Jess Fisher to become a true part of the school’s academic and social culture. Lee Harris was the team’s first coach. He generously volunteered his time to help us practice. He was lost to us in 2018, and we remain indebted to him for the mentorship and love he showed us. And for the generosity and kindness he taught us. — Dakota Santana-Grace ’11

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ummer Fun for Alumni at Webb

FACULTY & STAFF Congratulations to Diana Baruni on her new position as academic dean at The Cambridge School of Weston.

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It was nice to see Lucia Dick on campus for Alumni Weekend. She joined her daughter Laurel ’93, who was celebrating her 25th reunion. Pictured with Webb trustee Wendin Smith ’89 and Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ’93. 95 Former faculty Greg Lawson and Blair Maffris enjoyed catching up with their former students during Alumni Weekend. Here they are having lunch in Price Dining Hall with the Class of ’93. 96

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It was nice to see John Heyes at the alumni event in Silicon Valley hosted by Sameer Dholakia ’91 at SendGrid. John taught English at Webb from 1972 to 1999. 97 Scott Mattoon is the CEO at Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass. He has been with the school since 2014 and previously served as the associate head of school, general studies. His wife, Dawn, who was also on the Webb faculty, is a senior vice president at Quanterix, a biotech in Lexington, Mass. The couple met, coached cross country together, dated, got engaged and got married in their time at Webb! 98

Les Misérables Returns

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Some 10 years after Webb’s first production of Les Misérables, members of the original cast returned to campus in May to watch the spring musical and cheer on the 2018 cast and crew.

Alumni included Amber Lee ’09 pictured with Rachel Kho ’19 (playing the part of Fantine); Nathan Turczan ’09 pictured with Drew Hersch ’19, son of Geoff Hersch ’89 (playing the part of the innkeeper) Dakota Santana Grace ’11, Charlotte Harris ’12 , Seraphina Oney ’12 , Brendan Ramos ’12 , Alex Scola ’13, Mallory Thompson ’13, Vicky Alejandro ’14 and Rena Patel ’15.

Fine arts department chair Stefanie Plumley, who has been at Webb since 2006, was thrilled with this year’s performance and deeply touched by the alumni presence.

Second and third generation Webbies enjoyed the campus during Summer Programs last July. Alumni whose family members attended include Jim McCloud ’80 E from Chile, Joseph Poon ’88 F from Hong Kong, Kurt Zischke ’74 from New York, Jason Blackwell ’91 G from San Francisco, Dahlia Gonzalez ’17 H from Upland, Eric Ratinoff ’84 from Sacramento, and John Hamilton ‘84 I from Los Angeles.

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Highlights of Webb@Work 2018 • Luke Lee ’12 (Georgetown University) was a lab tech and researcher with Dr. Jonathan Kelber ’93 in the Oncogene Lab at Cal State Northridge. A

Thank you to our young alumni who helped with our summer program.

Pictured: Kevin Zhu ’16 (USC), Tristan Duque ’14 (University of Puget Sound), Emily Chu ’17 (Middlebury College), Kristina Oney ’14 (Wellesley College), Jonas Gerken ’17 (Tufts University), Kienan Dixon ’14 (Dickinson College) J If you are interested in the summer program, visit webb.org/summer.

• Lauren West ’14 (Trinity University) did a series of shadow days with Dr. Rahmi Mowjood ’90 at Cucamonga Valley Medical Group in Upland, Calif.

• Justin Parker ’15 (Loyola Marymount University) and Darren Hsu ’17 (University of Southern California) completed a three-month internship with Kunal Shah ’97, president and CEO of PBS Engineers, Inc. in Glendora, Calif. B

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• Hailey Arteaga ’16 (Seton Hall University) and Michelle Zhang ’16 (Babson College) interned with Dr. Bob Connolly ’89 of Connolly Counseling & Assessment at his practice in Claremont. C • Dylan Wensley ’17 (Occidental College) did a shadow day with Webb parent Annika Corbin, owner of I Like Pie located in Claremont Village and a month-long internship with Marcus Parades P ’11 of LPL Financial. D Check out the 2019 Jobs Board or learn how to be an internship host at bit.ly/WebbatWork or contact Advancement Fellow Michael Simonelli at (909) 482-5230 or alumni@webb.org.

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In Memoriam Jean E. Miller passed away on May 22, 2018 at the age of 90 years old. She was VWS headmistress from 1984 to 1987 and established the school’s residential program, with 34 boarders joining in September 1985.

During her time as head, VWS enrollment grew to 136 students in 1987, 58 of whom were boarders—an impressive number given that in 1981 just 34 VWS students enrolled.

Her legacy is celebrated through The Jean E. Miller Excellence in Teaching Award at The Webb Schools (established in 1987 by the Affiliates) and The Jean E. Miller Young Playwrights Competition at the Dorset Theatre Festival. Jean was also a member of the Thompson & Vivian Webb Society. Her bequest will support financial aid for Vivian Webb students.

1949 Marc G. Stragier, passed away on April 12, 2018. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Peg, his brother Noel ’53, four children, five grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Marc was a dedicated athlete who played varsity football, baseball, basketball, track, and enjoyed Webb’s biweekly skiing expeditions. Marc served as chairman of the Honor Committee and student body president, winning “respect from all,” according to El Espejo. Marc attended Pomona College and then earned a Master’s of civil engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. He served four years in the U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps and later became the public works director in San Pablo, Calif. Eventually, Marc formed Government Innovators, Inc., which pioneered the design and production of the Rapid Rail automated refuse collection system. He became known as the “Father of Mechanized Refuse Collection” for his work, and his products for mechanized collection have been adopted throughout the United States and in other countries.

1950 Cabell B. Finch died on March 3, 2018. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Mary Tod Finch, and their two children. At Webb, Cab participated in the chess and rifle clubs, dramatics and horseback riding. He also took a special interest in mineralogy, guitar and languages, particularly Spanish. Cab graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso, with a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in metallurgical engineering. He then served during the Korean War in the U.S. Air Force acting as a Russian translator in West Germany. After a graduate fellowship at Yale University from which he earned an M.S. in metallurgy, Cab accepted a research staff position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he stayed until his retirement.

A celebration of life shooting and Spanish.” Avery earned a B.A. in Spanish at Colorado College, then taught marksmanship in the Army for two years as a lieutenant. Following his military service, he earned a bachelor’s of foreign trade from the American Institute of Foreign Trade before moving to Spain for five years as an auditor for Marathon International Oil. He spent the final 23 years of his career with B.F. Goodrich in product distribution. Upon retirement in 1989, he and Dot moved to Florida. Webb is forever grateful for Avery’s lifetime of generosity which has supported enhanced technology in the library, new classroom technology, and the Barbara Mott McCarthy Aquatic Center.

1953 Hugh B. Martin, III passed away on April 12, 2018. He is survived by his three children and his brother Jerome ’64. At Webb, Hugh was the dark room assistant for El Espejo, a member of the football team and Drama Club, and a member of the California Scholarship Federation. He also became a life-long Peccary man. Hugh earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Pomona College, where he was a smallcollege All-American in football, and a graduate degree in engineering from UCLA. Hugh then served in the Navy as a physicist until he moved to the commercial sector. He remained involved in Webb throughout his life, serving on the Board of Advisors for the Alf Museum well into the 1980s. Former headmaster Craig Weber characterized him as “one of the few guys who was both one of Les’s boys and one of Ray’s boys.”

University of Southern California and the Western State University College of Law in Fullerton. He spent seven years as a an officer in the US Navy, serving three separate tours in Vietnam. During his final tour, Skip was in charge of “training Marines for psychological warfare.” He rounded out his service with 22 years in the Naval Reserves. Skip was a pioneer in California’s Community Association industry and one of the authors of the Davis-Stirling Act, the body of California Civil Code statutes which govern common interest developments. For 16 years he served as the vice-chair of the Professional Standards Committee of the California Association of Community Managers, and he was the principle author of the organization’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice. He served on the boards of the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA as well as the San Diego Crew Classic Foundation. In 2006 Skip joined The Webb Schools’ Board of Trustees and served faithfully for 11 years. In June 2017, in recognition of his loyal service and many contributions, the Board voted him in as a Life Trustee. In 1990, Skip, together with his brother Robert and father Wayne A. Hanson, established the Bertha M. Lynch Principes Scholarship in memory of the Hanson’s maternal grandmother.

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photographer for El Espejo and participated in K-WEB. His undeniable “touch of Golden” stretched from Peccary trips to the Drama club.

After Webb, Greg attended the University of Southern California, earning both a B.S. and doctorate dental degree. He managed a general dentistry office in Rancho Cucamonga until developing an interest in Forensic Dentistry in 1980. His affiliations with law enforcement led him to the position of chief forensic dentist for San Bernardino and Riverside counties. He received commendations for his assistance in the identification of victims of the World Trade Center attacks, as well as the Meritorious Service Medal from the San Bernardino County Sheriff, and multiple commendations from the California Attorney General for his help in implementing the Missing Unidentified Persons Identification program at the Department of Justice. Privately, Greg was an avid outdoorsman, fisherman, waterfowler, dog lover and trainer and friend to all.

1972 James F. Gucciardo died on June 25, 2018. He displayed a gift for telecommunications. Together with Bob Heintz ’74, he built a new temporary fire alarm system at Webb and later designed and installed a centralized system with a direct line to the Claremont Fire Department. Jim majored in electronics and communication engineering at Cal Poly Pomona and then worked for International Telephone & Telegraph. He eventually started his own firm, Systems 1000, which counted the Los Angeles Dodgers among its clients. He later was a real estate investor and worked with his church in Newport Beach, Europe and the Middle East, at one time calling Koya, As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq his home.

Leon M. Costanten died on April 27, 2018. He is survived by his wife Denise. Leon participated in the junior rifle club, camera club, choir, tennis, basketball and track. He was also a Peccary man, and enjoyed the wood shop and chess in his free time. He earned his B.A. in economics from the University of San Francisco, then served in the Army and retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel after a full military career. Leon then worked at First Choice Building Inspection Services.

In 2004 he was selected to be a director of the American Society of Home Inspectors, having previously founded the Mt. Baker chapter and served as president of the Western Washington and Mt. Baker chapters.

Samuel Zemurray III passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah on Oct. 6, 2018. He is survived by his wife Patricia and brother Gaston.

At Webb, Sam was liked and respected by all. He lettered in varsity football, played basketball and was a member of the track team. He was also an avid Peccary man, class vice president and a part of the senior committee. Sam attended Tulane University and following graduation his interest in shipping took him to Savannah, Georgia, where his childhood love of farming quickly resurfaced and he established himself as a leader within the Effingham County community by purchasing historic Honey Ridge Plantation and restoring the 310-acre property. He developed one of the most prestigious Polled Hereford cattle operations in the state, pioneered the use of invitro fertilization in calving operations and was named to the Georgia Hereford Hall of Fame in 2016. In 1981 Sam joined the Alf Museum Board of Trustees serving for six years. We are forever grateful for his generous gifts to Webb and the Alf Museum.

1958

1963

1989

Larry H. Ware died on May 21, 2018. He is survived by his wife Barbara and daughter Julie. During senior year, Larry lettered in both football and baseball, ensuring his place in Block W. After Webb, Larry attended Mt. San Antonio College, before following in his father’s footsteps and joining the Los Angeles County Fire Department, where he worked until retirement. He went on to sell real estate in California before moving to Twin Falls, Idaho, to care for his parents.

The Class of ’63 was sad to lose Richard Gleason just weeks before the 55th reunion. Dick was an academic powerhouse who earned C.S.F. grades and entrance to Harvard. In sports he won five B letters and varsity letters in tennis and soccer. He joined the Creative Writing Club and, most importantly the Art Club where his illustration and painting skills excelled. After Webb, Dick graduated from Harvard with a degree in history, spent four years in the Navy, then moved to the upper west side of Manhattan and became an artist specializing in oil paintingsportraits, landscapes and still life.

Kirsten Kennelly Cone passed away on the morning of Dec. 16, 2018 after a recurrence of cancer, which she had battled several years earlier.

She is survived by her husband David and their three children, as well as her brother, Scott Kennelly ’88, and parents Brian and Fiona Kennelly. At Webb, Kirsten was an avid horsewoman and all around athlete, participating in the VWS track, cross country and varsity soccer teams. She also participated in the Peccary trips, and performed in two plays, Pippin, and Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as the chamber and jazz singers. At commencement, she was presented the Drama Award, and Faculty Recognition for Academic Improvement, as well as recognized for distinguished service to the school as an Admissions tour guide. She earned a B.A. in psychology from UC Davis, and a teaching credential from UC Irvine. She taught elementary school in Irvine and Capistrano.

1956

1952

1959

Avery McCarthy passed away Aug. 25, 2018. He is survived by his wife, Dot, four children and many grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. At Webb, Avery participated in the rifle and radio clubs, ran varsity track, and earned the praise of Thompson as having, “done very sincere, conscientious work here.” Avery himself recalled that his time at Webb began “two lifetime pleasures -

Wayne “Skip” Hanson passed away on June 28, 2018 in La Jolla, Calif.

He is survived by his wife Sharon, their daughter Cecily, and niece Katrina Hanson Johnson ’90. He was predeceased by his brother, Capt. Robert Hanson ’62. At Webb, Skip played soccer, baseball and tennis, and he was active on El Espejo’s photography team, winning the Photography Award as a senior. After Webb, Skip attended the

1967 Dr. Gregory S. Golden passed away on August 21, 2018. He is survived by his soulmate Kerry and daughters Emily ’97 and Erica ’01. At Webb, Greg enjoyed both drama and skeet club, and excelled in varsity soccer, baseball, and track and field, earning membership in Block W. He was a

1981 Russell G. Latimer died on July 12, 2018. At Webb, Russ was a member of the Chamber Singers, Glee Club, drama productions and yearbook staff. He attended the Brooks Institute, where he earned a B.A. in motion picture production. He began his career as a graphic designer before opening his own multimedia business, Eye of Multimedia, specializing in action photography and video production. We always enjoyed seeing him on campus for his reunions.

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But just because our short-term memory has slipped, don’t think that we don’t remember our Webb days clearly.

We remember them well and are inclined to attach perhaps undeserved significance to events which happened “back in the day.”

For example: In 1959, 40 years before Napster and the presumed beginning of the music sharing revolution, I bought a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder. It did two things: record and play back about 45 minutes of music. It had a knob, a lever, and a 40-page instruction book. Now I have an iPhone. It does hundreds of things, any one of which would have been considered a miracle back in my day, but what amazes me is—no knob, no lever and no instruction book!

How on earth is anyone supposed to use this thing?

The Final Word

By Jim Drasdo ’63

Remarks made at Alumni Weekend 2018

Well, it starts with imagination and willingness to try things with no assurance they will work. It requires collaboration, preferably with someone younger. If one gets stuck, you can research, even go to the website. But mostly, it requires getting started and learning new tricks as one goes along.

I think they call this experiential learning. It strikes me that this whole process is a metaphor for how education has changed since my day at Webb. Less instruction. More imagination, more experimentation, collaboration and experiential learning.

If experiential learning is indeed where education is

Tonight when the festivities are over and you are on your way home, you may see a number of gray-haired men meandering about the Webb campus. These are my people. We’re not lost, and we aren’t homeless, we are trying to remember where we parked our cars.

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headed, I think it bodes very well for Webb. It’s always been part of our DNA; isn’t that what a Peccary Trip is all about? But first let me address the elephant in the room – geography.

Most boarding schools were built in the Arcadian model of locating the school in a semi-remote, bucolic location free from the distractions of the city and the real world so the boys and their teachers (or masters) could devote their full attention to the very serious business of memorizing Latin verbs and Roman emperors. Webb was like that, too. I had an uncle who went to Webb in the 1930’s and he described how the air in the spring was perfumed with the scent of orange blossoms. I don’t think many of us here today had similar experiences.

Of all the Western boarding schools, Webb was uniquely and adversely affected by the growth and encroachment of Los Angeles. Orange groves gave way to suburbs and our air was fouled by the westerly winds, which trapped the city’s exhaust against our beautiful mountains. It’s rather miraculous that Webb survived the period from the midsixties through the nineties.

control) progress and prosperity happen fastest where ideas are having sex with one another. What he meant was that ideas beget ideas and when you put a bunch of high-energy idea generators in close proximity with one another, you create energy—Steve Jobs called this a force field; I prefer to call it buzz. But if I were locating a school today, this is where I would want to locate it.

But in the early 1990’s the air began to clear. It was

Let’s look to the real world for confirming evidence.

also the time Susan Nelson and Taylor came to Webb.

Take computers; they used to be in the basement of the corporate headquarters, then they went to a server farm and now they are headed for the cloud. But the real action isn’t just in the cloud, it’s on what’s called the INTELLIGENT EDGE, where latency is non-existent (a necessity for selfdriving cars) and ideas of new and better ways of doing things are everywhere.

They brought new energy to the school, but I think the improvement in the air had more to do with catalytic converters and the oxygenates that got added to our gasoline. Today the air is much, much better than it was in my day. And the great news is that it is almost certain to getting much better because electric cars are coming.

And downtown Los Angeles has become much more interesting and accessible. Los Angeles has always been a city of great imagination—it gave us Howard Hughes and the aerospace industry, and movies, was the epicenter of science fiction, and gave birth to Disneyland and even Tinder, but downtown Los Angeles was always a dreary place. Not anymore.

Maybe it’s because of the improved air quality, but for whatever reason, Downtown LA has become a very hip and interesting place. With less than an hour Metro ride, a Webb student can go to the Frank Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall and watch Gustavo Dudamel conduct the LA Philharmonic and then use his phone to locate Kogi, the food truck run by Roy Choi, and feast on a couple of Korean BBQ tacos and be back at Webb in time for dinner. That would be an afternoon well spent! Being near downtown LA has become a huge advantage instead of a yawn.

And we are on the doorstep of the Claremont Colleges, one of the world’s great academic communities. And now we are taking advantage of it. Imagine being able to take computer science at Harvey Mudd or go to Pomona College labs for Chemistry classes. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Matt Ridley is a well-known British journalist and author, and he wrote that (don’t worry Taylor, I’ve got this under

And where are Millennials choosing to live? In places like Brooklyn, Oakland, Venice Beach near Los Angeles, and Pioneer Square in Seattle. These are all adjacent to a worldclass city, near a university and edgy.

What are corporations doing? General Electric, which invented the suburban corporate campus in rural Connecticut, is giving it up and moving to Boston so they can be edgy and attract Millennials. Weyerhaeuser, which has the most beautiful corporate campus I’ve ever seen, it looks like a national park; it’s giving it up and moving to Pioneer Square, an edgy neighborhood in Seattle. Suburbia is out, the Edge is in.

Napoleon said that geography is destiny. I think he was right, and that after more than 50 years of geographic headwinds, Webb is now uniquely well positioned. The Intelligent Edge is where we have always been.

I take great joy in Webb’s current success because Webb is a big part of who I am, just as all you are a big part of who she is. And she has a very significant birthday coming up. Wendy and I hope that you will join us in making The Centennial Campaign our shared success. And I know that with geography turned to her advantage and a greatly expanded endowment, Webb’s next 100 years can be astounding. * These remarks we given by Jim Drasdo ’63 on receiving the Colborn Distinguished Service Award at Alumni Weekend 2018.

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T HE WEBB SCHOOL S webb.org

ADMINISTRATION

CREDITS

Taylor B. Stockdale Head of Schools

Executive Editor Joe Woodward

Theresa A. Smith, PhD Assistant Head of Schools

Contributors Bob Fass, Debbie Carini, Andrew Farke, Danielle Gordon, Don Lofgren, Christopher Michno, Laura Wensley

Dutch Barhydt Director of Institutional Advancement

Design Shari Fournier-Oleary

Jamila Everett, PhD Director of Admission & Financial Aid Donald L. Lofgren, PhD Director, Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology Hector Martinez Director of College Guidance

Janet K. Peddy Director of Finance, Planning & Operations Joe Woodward Director of Strategic Communications

Sanjiv P. Dholakia ’87, Chairman David Loo ’79, Vice Chair Christina Mercer McGinley, PhD ’84, Vice Chair, Secretary R. Larry Ashton ’70, Chairman, Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology Board, ex officio Blake H. Brown ’68 Michael M. Chang ’92 Deval R. Dvivedi ’00 Jenna Z. Gambaro ’95 Janel Henriksen Hastings, PhD ’87 John F. Holliday ’84 Naveen Jeereddi ’92 Julia Marciari-Alexander, PhD ’85 Roger J. Millar ’61 Rahmi Mowjood, DO ’90 David C. Myles, PhD ’80 Mickey E. Novak ’70 Janet K. Peddy, Director of Finance, Planning and Operations, Chief Financial Officer & Secretary, ex officio R.J. Romero Wendin D. Smith, PhD ’89 Taylor Stockdale, Head of Schools, President & Chief Executive Officer, ex officio Lara Tiedens, PhD Denis Yip

LIFE TRUSTEES

Jim Drasdo ’63 Hugh H. Evans Jr. ’49 Anne Gould Earl (Bud) Hoover II ’52 Murray H. Hutchinson Pak Fu King, Honorary Trustee Ming Chung Liu, Honorary Trustee Claire H. McCloud Kimball (Kim) McCloud ’67 Susan A. Nelson Paul M. Reitler ’54 Yafei Yuan, Honorary Trustee

Photography Lisa Blomberg, Phil Channing, Elisa Ferrari, Don Lofgren, Wendy Maxon, Nancy Newman, Geoff Owers, Scott Nichols Printing Dual Graphics

Tracy Miller, PhD Director of Studies

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2018-19

VOLUME 22, NUMBER 1

ALF MUSEUM BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2018-19

R. Larry Ashton ’70, Chairman Gretchen J. Augustyn Terry W. Baganz William Baldwin Richard H. Clark Sanjiv P. Dholakia ’87, Chairman, The Webb Schools, ex officio Daniel (Dan) Gluckstein, MD Jack (Jay) Greening Ronald (Ron) P. Hagander ’66 James E. Hall, PhD ’59 F. Gard Jameson, PhD ’71 Sherwood C. Kingsley ’58 Carl W. R. Lachman ’86 Donald L. Lofgren, PhD, Museum Director, President, ex officio John (Dick) R. Lynas ’55 David P. Mirkin, MD ’66 L.J. Patrick Muffler, PhD ’54 Michelle Plyley Mary W. Rose, PhD Charles Steinmann, MD Taylor Stockdale, Head of Schools, ex officio Page W. Thibodeaux Monica Atiyeh Whitaker ’96 Lance C. Williams ’97 Tammy Zipser

LIFE MEMBERS

Anne G. Earhart Douglas F. Myles Michael O. Woodburne, PhD

Nondiscrimination Policy The Webb Schools admit students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the schools. The Webb Schools do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law in administration of their educational policies, tuition assistance, athletic, and other schooladministered programs, or any other basis in law.

Memberships The Association of Boarding Schools; National Association of Independent Schools; California Association of Independent Schools; Western Boarding Schools Association; Western Association of Schools and Colleges; National Coalition of Girls’ Schools; Independent Curiculum Group; College Entrance Examination Board; Educational Records Bureau; Association of Independent School Admission Professionals; National Association of College Admission Counselors; Council for the Advancement and Support of Education; and the Cum Laude Society.

Publication Information WEBB magazine is the official publication of The Webb Schools.

Postmaster: Send address changes to: The Webb Schools 1175 W. Baseline Road Claremont, CA 91711 PH (909) 626-3587 FAX (909) 621-4582 EMAIL: alumni@webb.org webb.org THE MISSION of The Webb Schools is to provide an exemplary learning community that nurtures and inspires boys and girls to become men and women who: Think boldly, mindfully and creatively, Act with honor and moral courage, • Lead with distinction, • Serve with a generous spirit.

• •

1175 West Baseline Road Claremont, CA 91711

Photo of recent Webb graduates now attending one of the five Claremont Colleges. Shot on location at Scripps College.

Seated: Associate Director Anthony Shin and Dean of College Guidance Hector Martinez.

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