Late Winter 2022: The Vermont Academy Way

The Vermont Academy Way

Winter Carnival Memories Annual Appeal Update Wildcats You Want to Know VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2 ~ LATE WINTER 2022

Dear Vermont Academy Community, I love winter. It’s my favorite season. The quiet blanket of snow, the exhilaration of exercising in the cold air, and the joy of a warm fire to lull us at the end of the day makes me feel lucky to live in such a beautiful world. To head down Long Walk in the late afternoon and see skiers and snowboarders cruising down the hill on our ’77 Snow Park under the lights — my heart fills with joy.

For others, though, this stretch from January to May can feel long. Fortunately, Vermont Academy offers students Winter Carnival as a needed break before spring.

Assistant Headmaster James P. Taylor, founder of Vermont’s Long Trail, kicked off Vermont Academy’s first Winter Carnival in 1909. Whenever we ask alumni what their favorite memories are, many don’t hesitate before saying Winter Carnival. We’ve included a celebration of this event — what it was like in the past and what it is now — in this edition. I hope it brings back wonderful memories for you.

It might feel like so much has stayed the same here at Vermont Academy, yet much has also changed. We’re using this issue to give you a look at a day in the life of some of our students. Hockey and basketball are still a big part of our winter life here up on the hill, but so are robotics and AP classes, for boarding and day students alike. I hope you enjoy learning about each of these students’ days, and perhaps reliving some of your own time here in the process.

It’s difficult to imagine that we’ve been working so hard to keep our community safe from Covid for two years now! While we haven’t been able to invite alumni to see first-hand all the wonderful things students are working on with faculty, the core values and traditions of this School stand strong.

We couldn’t have done it without the continued financial support you’ve provided during these difficult times — it is because of you that we will hold another opening ceremony for this year’s Winter Carnival and will soon send off another graduating class to amazing future success!

Warmly,

Dr. Jennifer L. Zaccara, Head of School

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Gifts that Support Students: Today and Tomorrow More than 300 alumni, parents, and friends have answered Vermont Academy’s ongoing call for support with gifts in the first half of our fiscal year.

Inspired by the school’s new strategic plan and its ongoing commitment to its mission, we have raised nearly $850,000 towards Vermont Academy’s annual giving goal of $1.3 million. This generosity is fueling student initiatives, faculty professional development, financial aid, and campus improvements.

“The generosity of alumni, parents, faculty, and friends is allowing Vermont Academy to pursue implementation of the four pillars of our new strategic plan: ingenuity, independence, community, and love of the land. These pillars, while based in VA’s historic approach to education, have been redefined to help Vermont Academy be the school that our students and our world need,” says Head of School Dr. Jennifer Zaccara.

In addition to the immediate impact that annual giving has on our current students and faculty, some donors are looking to planned giving to make an impact beyond today. Planned gifts, through a will, trust, or other estate plan, ensure that Vermont Academy’s pillars will stand strong for generations to come.

Those who have included VA in their estate plans have shared that leaving a legacy and supporting today’s students really resonates with them.

By establishing gifts now, they are able to enjoy knowing Revenue for 2020-2021 that their lifetime of hard work will benefit generations of Vermont Academy students to come. In addition to enthusiastic appreciation from VA, letting the Advancement Office know that VA is included in your estate makes you a member of Vermont Academy’s Laurence and Dorothy Leavitt Society.

Leavitt Society members are forward-thinking alumni and friends who remember VA in their wills, trusts, or other estate plans. There is no minimum gift to become a society member, and all ages are welcome.

To make an annual gift to Vermont Academy, please visit: www.vermontacademy.org/give. Our fiscal year ends on June 30, 2022. If you are considering how you can impact the lives of future Vermont Academy students through your estate plan, please contact us at (802) 869-6298 or advancement@vermontacademy.org.

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Winter Carnival Memories We reached out for your memories from Vermont Academy’s longestrunning (and possibly favorite) tradition and you delivered! Go to bit.ly/alumnigames2022 to find more ways to share your Winter Carnival Memories through this year’s Alumni Games!

“I loved Winter Carnival! My memory is simply having the best time — lots of sun, snow, cold, but just laughing hysterically the entire time. Like when Mary Munat ‘79 dragged me on a shovel through the snow during some type of race. Mary was strong!” — Diane Lowell Wilder ’79 “I have so many wonderful memories of Winter Carnival! I’ve loved being involved as a child, a student, and a teacher. It was really special to be a competitor in the 100th Winter Carnival games back in 2010. It is the most fun, exciting, and intense VA event of the year.”

— Brian Schilling ’11, English faculty “Reflecting on Winter Carnival conjures feelings of blissful tranquility; I experienced a joyful community of creativity, one that echoed with laughter and celebration. Further yet, there was in the ether a brotherhood that transcended the purpose of our being at VA, it was as if the carnival coalesced us around something more commonly primitive.” — Dr. Robert Watts Jr. ’73 “Back then there was just one big Day Student team. I loved broomball — we played with real brooms! Also, the big air was fun to watch and done on a jump that was hand built behind the infirmary. My best non-student memory was the pirate ship that the day student girls built back in the 2000’s. They built it around a streetlamp which became the mast — it was huge!”

— Lisa McNealus ’79, Art Department Chair

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“Although the wrestling team was always away for Winter Carnival, some of us always found a way to participate. One year, we built a massive snow castle/ fort between Jones and Alumni. While we definitely got in trouble for jumping out of the windows onto our growing pile of snow, I also remember that it was one of those moments when you could feel the sense of community at the heart of Vermont Academy. There was this real sense of purpose in completing this task for the Carnival and it was an opportunity for those who didn’t grow up with snow (or playing snow sports) to share in the fun.” — Dr. Chidozie “Chido” Alozie ’97 “50s Winter Carnivals — girls on campus for the weekend! Yippee!!! Another most memorable memory is snow jumping out of the third floor Alumni Hall dorm windows. No broken bones were ever recorded.” — George H. Welles, Jr. ’53 “It’s been over 36 years since I experienced the joy of Winter Carnival at Vermont Academy. What was true back then as it is for my sons Logan ’21 and Aidan ’25 is that Vermont Academy has core elements that guarantee to make Winter Carnival special and memorable every year. The Vermont Academy campus, snow, ski jumps, ski hill, ice hockey rink, broomball, and, yes, the occasional snowball fight. Winter Carnival does not happen or get pulled off without the faculty and staff pulling together all the events and participating in the events with all the competitive spirit as the students.” — Francis Willett ’86, P ’21, ’25 A memorable VA ‘53 Winter Carnival

“I only went to one scene sketched by Charlie Maschal ’53 event Winter Carnival my senior year for broomball — all other Winter Carnivals I was either in Europe skiing on a championship team or was at some other ski race in New England. In broomball, we were the Bananas in Pajamas TV show as our team theme. I think our team won a game.” — Mikaela Paluszek ’13 (Mikaela is now part of our faculty, so she’ll be getting the full Winter Carnival experience this year!)

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Looking to Share the Love of a Tight Community Maïka Paquin ’22 has grown up in Canada but not in a hockey family. Her father and brother play baseball. Yet hockey came to her early in life. “When I was younger, my parents put me in front of a dance studio for a photo and I started to cry,” she explains. “I saw a hockey net and pointed to it.” They let her pose in front of it and she was all smiles. Maïka started playing hockey when she was three and when she was eight she moved into the net. “My uncle is a goalie — I wanted to be like him.”

Maïka typically starts her day at a little after seven in the morning. She has breakfast with hockey teammates Emma Laroche ’23 and Meagan Spring ’22.

She brings her own almond butter to spread on her bagels since she is allergic to peanuts. The conversation is fast and fun.

Advisory often follows breakfast. She has Mr. Jerry Filler P ’21, our associate director of admissions, for an advisor. “We talk about school and life.

He always puts himself in our situation.” she says. “There’s a lot of fun conversation and he’s always cheering us up. He texts me encouragement during games and tournaments.”

On some mornings Maïka takes a prospective student on a tour. “I love to share my love of this tight community — I want people to feel how I felt during my tour. I love this campus,” she says. “I like it even more when they speak French so I can give my perspective as an international student and share how I grew up.”

Maïka takes Honors Biology 1 taught

by Ms. Mikaela Paluszek ‘13. She had just taken a test on cellular respiration and fermentation dealing with things like reducing agents and oxidizing agents and photosynthesis.

This work is giving Maïka a strong foundation for her entry into New York’s Nazareth College, where she has committed to play NCAA Division III hockey. Maïka plans to enter a pre-med program.

At lunch, Maïka dines with her breakfast teammates with the addition of Riley Walsh ’22. The day after the team won the Exeter

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Tournament they spent the entire time making jokes about how small and fragile the championship trophy was.

Maïka has an English course in the afternoons with Mr. Brian Shilling ’11.

Contemporary Short Stories tackles a different short story each class period. Most recently they had read and discussed Junot Diaz’s satirical story “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie),” which uses a narrator who speaks in second person. Maïka found the story to be intense, straightforward, and explicit.

AP Calculus with Mr. Russ Mayhew is on Maika’s schedule for the afternoon. “This class is never boring — and there’s the prize bucket!” she exclaims. Each class starts with a warm-up problem and anyone who gets it right gets a point in the prize bucket spreadsheet. Once someone gets five points in the spreadsheet, it’s “Prize Bucket Day.” The spreadsheet assigns numbers to each student depending on how many points they have in the spreadsheet, and then Mr. Mayhew uses a random number generator to choose a winner, making another lesson in math fun.

Hockey practice starts at 4:15 PM in the Michael Choukas Skating Rink. After stretching out, the team hits the ice for two hours followed by a yoga session and review of the video of the last game. The team is led by Mr. John Ettore, VA’s new director of enrollment management and a seasoned hockey coach.

“Coach Ettore does so much for us,” Maïka explains. “When he gives game pucks, he gives the most meaningful comments.” Maïka earned a game puck for her exceptional goaltending during VA’s Exeter Championship run.

“I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to coach Maïka in her senior year,” says Ettore. “Maïka is an excellent goalie, but more importantly, she is a very diligent and determined student in the classroom, a role model on campus, a great teammate, and excellent leader on our hockey team. Maika exemplifies the type of student-athlete we want as part of our community, and the type of hockey player we want representing Vermont Academy.”

The team usually has a late dinner in Shep and then heads to study hall.

Maïka manages her homework time very well so she can often fit in a show on Netflix or attend a different team’s evening home game.

While Maïka misses her friends back home or seeing her brother play basketball, her Vermont Academy teammates and friends make her look forward to coming back to campus after each break.

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Competition Robots, Cross Country, and a Capstone Fill Out Andrew Gould’s Day Andrew Gould ’22 drives himself to campus each day from Springfield, Vermont. As he drives, he considers not only the energy he’s using but the energy the car is creating — in the form of heat — that goes to waste. This is just one reason that he’s decided to take on a Capstone Project in his senior year. He’s exploring different fuel sources and better ways to power vehicles.

Andrew starts his drive shortly after seven. After pulling onto campus, he either heads into his first class or sets off to Proctor Hall/ The Center for Learning to do classwork. Some days his first class is Advanced Robotics with Mr. Joe Echanis ’79 P ’08, ’11, ’18. The class is building a competition robot for the FIRST Tech Challenge. This competition helps students learn to think like engineers. Teams design, build, and code robots powered by Android technology for competition against other teams. “I’m working on a mechanism to pick up game pieces,” Andrew explains. “One game piece resembles a wiffle ball and one resembles a cube. They are different sizes, so the challenge is to pick up both of them with the same device.”

Mornings also feature Honors World Literature with Ms. Whitney Barrett.

The class is currently working on creative writing assignments focused on magical realism, which means the stories have an element of something that is magical yet placed in a familiar world. “My story involves someone who has a doppelganger,” explains Andrew. “One of the characters is surprised by the other but tries to navigate through a world where this kind of thing is normal.”

Andrew then heads off to AP U.S. Government and Politics with Humanities Department Chair Dr. Greg Martin. The class expands the understanding of U.S. government and politics through analysis of data and text-based sources focused on topics like constitutionalism, liberty and order, civic participation in a representative democracy, competing policy-making interests, and methods of political analysis. “We’re currently working on landmark Supreme Court cases,” says Andrew. “We’re focused on what kinds of questions were asked at the time and what subsequently changed in the country.”

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Andrew usually sits with the same group of friends at lunch. These students also often gather at The Center for Learning during free time to work together.

After lunch there’s AP Statistics with Mr. Russ Mayhew. The class is currently focused on geometric and binomial distributions. “What’s interesting is that it’s a math class but it involves a lot more logic that you then apply the math to,” Andrew explains. “Basketball free throws are an example we use. Say someone is a forty percent shooter and we give them twenty tries: What’s the probability that they’ll get fifty percent or ten of their shots in?” The class uses the basketball court to play this scenario out.

Andrew’s last class is an independent study focused on his Capstone Project. Capstones are being overseen by Mr. Jeremy Kurzyniec, our new Latin instructor who is currently working on his dissertation at Yale. Having a block assigned to a Capstone ensures each student has the time to work on their project.

Andrew is using his Capstone to explore the problems with the current combustion engine. “I want to see if there’s a better way to power a vehicle using the heat generated in a combustion process,” he explains. “With combustion, energy is expelled through heat and that heat isn’t really being used for anything. How can we put that heat to work?” Andrew’s Capstone also explores alternative energy sources for combustion engines. One thing he’s looking into is the viability of birch oil, which has led some on campus to describe his project as the development of a wood-burning car.

This past fall Andrew was a leader on the cross country team. The team is coached by Mr. Peter Ahlfeld, the director of The Center for Learning, and this year he awarded Andrew the Angus Black Award. This award is presented to the member of the cross country squad who through enthusiasm, diligence, self-sacrifice and team spirit has made the most outstanding contribution to the success of the cross country team.

“Andrew is an impressive runner along with being a strong leader to the team,” says Ahlfeld. “His dedication, ability, and humor will be missed.”

Andrew’s schedule is a busy one, and at the end of some days he stays for dinner so he can continue to work with friends before driving back home.

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Taking Shots Not Available Elsewhere Vermont Academy’s small hilltop campus looks nothing like the urban and suburban schools Andre Mills ’24 played basketball at in Eastern Massachusetts. His coach for his former AAU team knew Vermont Academy’s Head Prep Basketball Coach John Zall and the two encouraged him to apply.

“No one was here when I first visited,” Andre says. “It was pretty empty. I trusted my coaches, and the people here make the school. I actually like being in a small community.”

Andre wakes up at 7 AM and heads directly to Shep for breakfast. He often eats his pancakes, sausages, and bacon by himself. “I’m just getting it done,” he says. On some mornings he then heads off to his 8 AM Algebra 2 class with Ms. Hayley Maher in Fuller Hall. He finds the class to be fun and he really enjoys his classmates.

At 9:05 AM he needs to be in Alumni Hall for The Individual in Society with Mr. Brian Schilling ’11. This is the first of many trips up and down Long Walk that Andre will make throughout the day. This course focuses on how individuals function within the context of family and in society at large.

Students work on analytical writing, grammar, reading skills, poetry, public speaking, and classroom leadership skills. The class is currently reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Andre likes how the class is getting him to expand his vocabulary.

When that class ends he needs to race down Long Walk to make it to Physics 2 in Fuller with Ms. Talia Dell Angelo. “This is the first time I’ve taken physics,” Andre explains. “I find the more I communicate with Ms. Dell Angelo, the better I’ve been doing.” The class has been working on learning the moment of inertia through hands-on activities. Students are designing tests to identify factors that impact the speed of items as they roll down a ramp.

After Physics, Andre has an early, fast lunch in Shep with teammates. If he has time before his next class, he runs to Williams Gym to shoot around.

At 12:15 PM he’s back in Fuller for Modern Comparative Cultures with Mr. Brian Allen ’14. This class examines the process of nationbuilding in the modern world by engaging in an in-depth study of eight regions of the world. They’re currently studying the struggles that characterized the post-colonial world with explorations of revolutions in Russia, China, and Cuba. They had just finished a timely study of Ukraine

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and the effects of civil war and persistent pollution.

At 1:05 PM he’s back in Alumni Hall for Spanish 3 with Mr. Bill Kearney. “He’s very enthusiastic,” Andre says. “He tries to create fun, open discussions in Spanish.

We recently had a debate on what’s better — staying online or offline. I was on the side of social media benefitting you.”

It’s easy for Andre to tell people how social media has helped him. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if I wasn’t on Instagram Live,” he explains. “I wouldn’t be on the AAU team that I’m on [The Rivals, which is the elite basketball program in New England]. The coach saw me on Instagram and reached out.”

After Spanish 3, Andre heads back to Williams Gym for practice. He’s excited by the opportunity to play for Coach Zall, who has experience coaching at colleges and in the NBA. “Coach Zall is different from any coach I’ve ever had, in a good way” Andre says. “He’s willing to grow with his players. He trusts me on the court a lot, especially as a sophomore. I can’t see other sophomores taking the shots I take.” Coach Zall is also Andre’s dorm parent in Alumni Hall. “Half of our team is on our floor.”

“Andre is extremely focused on getting better,” says Coach Zall. “He accepts feedback and wants to reach his ultimate potential. The strides he has made since he arrived on campus are astounding and he continues to get better every day. Off the court, he dove headfirst into our community. He has made friends with people from all corners of campus and is quick to try new things.”

After practice Andre has dinner with his teammates. Then they head off to the gym to shoot some more before returning to their rooms for study hall. Andre uses that quiet time to finish homework, ice his body, relax, and clear his mind.

And he’s thinking ahead to an upcoming game against Bradford Christian Academy. A lot of his AAU teammates attend that school and the team is coached by his AAU coach. Will Andre be holding anything back at that game? “Not one bit at all.”

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If you don’t receive emails from Vermont Academy, please update your contact information at vermontacademy.org/alumni/send-us-an-update or email alumni@vermontacademy.org.

Registration details will be shared via email in March and online at vermontacademy.org/reunion.

June 3–5, 2022

Mark your calendar now to gather with fellow Vermont Academy alumni from all class years to celebrate a very special Reunion, our first to be held in-person since 2019!

Save the Date for Reunion!

P.O. Box 500 Saxtons River VT 05154

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