Milton Magazine, Fall 2019 by Milton Academy

fa l l

2019

A Mindful Life

16 24

ta ble of contents

Features

Departments

10 Life in Bloom

From the start, running FiveFork Farms, a 38-acre flower farm in Upton, Massachusetts, has been a family affair. The Lam siblings—all graduates of Milton Academy—and their parents share their story.

16 A Million Little Things Takes On the Big Things in Life In his popular TV series A Million Little Things, DJ Nash ’90 isn’t afraid to address issues often missing from other network television dramas. His hunch that viewers were ready for stories reflecting real life has earned the show an enthusiastic band of loyal followers.

20 Taking the Mystery Out of Mindfulness Mindfulness and meditation, says Harrison Blum ’98, director of religious and spiritual life at Amherst College, are not about transcending one’s feelings but, rather, about staying present with them.

24 A Practice of Presence in a Life of Movement As she navigated her freshman semester at NYU in the aftermath of 9/11, Jennifer Taylor ’00 discovered the pleasures of yoga, a practice that has led to a career as a yoga instructor, wellness coach, and mindfulness app creator.

28 A Poet’s Journey: Jay Deshpande Embraces the Power of Language While his first love was jazz, Jay Deshpande ’02 eventually found his true passion in the challenge and adventure of the written word.

32 A Focus on Mental Health and Wellness 36 Life in the Moment Cover photo: courtesy of the Lam family

Head of School Quiet the Mind Reflect, Forgive, Love

5 Farewell Milton Magazine Editor Cathleen Everett Passes the Torch 6 Classroom A Lesson in Why the Humanities Matter 8

Across the Quad What We’re Reading

40 In Sight Photo by Michael Dwyer

44 On Centre 50 Retiring Faculty, Staff, and Trustees 58 Messages 60 Milton Mural 62 Commencement 2019 66 Reunion Weekend 71

Class Notes

76 Board of Trustees 92 Post Script Bubbles, Skunks, Cheap Jewelry

42 Faculty Perspective

Head of School Todd Bland

Design Stoltze Design

Chief Communication Officer Jennifer Anderson

Photography American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. Timothy Archibald Riley Blanks Michael Dwyer John Gillooly Julian Cassady Photography Evan Scales Maria Stenzel / Amherst College Martha Stewart Greg White

Editor Sarah Abrams Associate Editors Marisa Donelan Liz Matson

Milton Magazine is published twice a year by Milton Academy. Editorial and business offices are located at Milton Academy, where change-ofaddress notifications should be sent. As an institution committed to diversity, Milton Academy welcomes the opportunity to admit academically qualified students of any gender, race, color, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, or national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally available to its students. It does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship programs, and athletic or other School-administered activities. Printed on recycled paper.

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A Mindful Life “Forever, is composed of Nows,” wrote Emily Dickinson more than a century and a half ago—a message that resonates today more than ever. Modern life—with its overwhelming demands and distractions— makes it increasingly difficult to pause and reflect upon our lives. In this issue, Milton alumni share their stories about the power of living in the Now—of staying present to more fully assess our lives and relationships. We also feature a story about making student mental health a priority, and hear from our faculty about the importance of taking the time to listen and stay connected to ourselves.

head of school

TODD B. BLAND

Quiet the Mind Reflect, Forgive, Love I am often asked if I have a favorite building

a moment in which the world is free from

on campus. The answer is easy: the Apthorp

the noise and distraction we associate with

Memorial Chapel. I love the building’s

everyday life: “Outside, there was that

aesthetic, its beautifully unfussy neo-Gothic

predawn kind of clarity, where the momentum

style. Its facade stirs impressions of both

of living has not quite captured the day. The

church and castle; it speaks to me as a deeply

air was not filled with conversation or thought

spiritual and powerful edifice. The interior

bubbles or laughter or sidelong glances.

is exquisite in its simplicity: the stained glass

Everyone was sleeping, all of their ideas and

window, the wooden pews, and the memorial

hopes and hidden agendas entangled in the

plaques on the walls.

dream world, leaving this world clear and

One of those plaques, located on the wall to the right on the approach to the altar, features a plain wooden panel inscribed with

crisp and cold as a bottle of milk in the fridge.” In 2019, the ability to break away from that “momentum of living” requires resolve:

a name, dates, and a sailboat. The name

Sometimes, we are gifted these moments

is James Edward Bland ’58, my father, who

in late nights, early mornings, and in nature,

passed away in 1974 when I was a young

but most of the time, we must deliberately

child. The chapel is the only place where my

make space for them. In our hyper-connected

father is memorialized, and for decades I

world, these moments are increasingly rare

have visited this special place to reflect in

and precious. And yet, they provide such

the stillness and give my full attention to

important opportunities to check in not only

his memory.

with ourselves, but with others.

I believe that there are few things more

I think often of Merritt Levitan, Milton

important than finding ways every day

Class of 2013. Shortly after she graduated,

to quiet your mind, whether it’s by visiting

Merritt was bicycling across the country when

a peaceful place like a chapel, exercising,

she was tragically hit and killed by a distracted

meditating, or engaging in any number of

driver. Merritt’s legacy lives on at Milton

practices that allow us to be fully present

and in the movement her parents and

with our thoughts. My own practice includes

classmates founded in her honor: TextLess

exercising and taking the time to feel gratitude,

Live More. This campaign, which has reached

forgiveness, and hope. These moments

thousands of people nationwide, aims to

may not always produce calm and happiness

end distracted driving. At Milton, TextLess

for us. In reflection, we may ask ourselves

Live More has affected our students in

tough questions. We may confront turbulent

incredible ways: They not only pledge to drive

seemingly infinite resources in the palms of our

thoughts, feel deep emotions, and cope with

without distraction; they commit to dedicating

hands. Yet these same resources can also be

our struggles, including the grief we feel

time without their devices. To spending

a harmful distraction, producing an artificial

for the loss of loved ones. The aim should be

time outdoors, playing tennis or lawn games

connectedness that blinds us to reality and to

not to forget or ignore our troubles but to

on the Quad. To being present, for their

the people right in front of us. Taking the time

understand, to love, and to forgive ourselves

own well-being and for the strength of their

to seek quiet moments of reflection—to look

fully, absent judgment or filter.

relationships with one another.

up from our screens now and then—reminds

In his novel The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet,

The breakneck speed of technological

us of the indispensable and irreplicable power

Milton alumnus Reif Larsen ’98, who served as

advances in our society is astonishing. We can

of connecting in real time with ourselves and

our Commencement speaker in 2011, describes

work with people all over the world and hold

one another.

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fa r e w e l l

C AT H L E E N E V E R E T T

On Passing the Torch

You don’t read “Message from the Editor,” surveys tell us. Why print one now, then? I hope some observations and thank-yous are permissible at the close of 29 years at

that enabled them to be themselves, honor their

Over time, Milton’s heads of school have

beliefs, learn from mistakes, build their skills,

entrusted me and the magazine team

pursue great questions, and lead lives of meaning.

with a rare freedom to follow an artistic and

I’m indebted to so many Milton people for

journalistic vision. Their confidence in our efforts bred enormous energy and a sense of

Milton, 26 as communication director. My

their help and encouragement: Teachers who

Milton Magazine tenure ended in fitting style:

highlighted graduates of interest, students who

responsibility. That freedom, coupled with a

the Spring 2019 magazine, featuring Kay

never failed to amaze me with their honesty

stellar communication office staff (Greg White;

Herzog’s bust on the cover, was the finale of

and insight, trustees who were generous

Erin Berg, now at Roxbury Latin; Liz Matson;

my exciting career at this remarkable school.

subjects, resources, critics, and cheerleaders.

and Marisa Donelan), was perhaps the most

Readers often took the time to let us know

important gift.

Each Milton Magazine tried to connect an issue debated or discussed in the public

what we did well or needed to do better, and

mainstream with relevant alumni lives

what we might do next.

Thank you, all, for years of immensely rewarding work.

and work—and further, with the activity of students and faculty members on campus. The confluence between those two worlds explicitly demonstrates the power of Milton values over time. During these years, hundreds of graduates graciously found time to share with me their unique stories—tales of speeding across the Libyan desert in the back of a jeep during the Arab Spring; doggedly pursuing the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality; launching nonprofits to advance individual lives, developing economies, or public health; playing professional sports around the globe; directing award-winning films; advising presidents about economic or national security or defense decisions; engineering rockets for space transport; quantifying the effects of climate change on the planet and on human health; designing cities that work; acting on stages and sets throughout the world; photog raphing beauty and horror—add to them those who give solace and counsel, and the thinkers, the ardent educators and physicians, the architects and painters, philanthropists, poets, weavers, humorists, political activists, pathfinders, farmers, and adventurers of every stripe. I could always count on candor, openness, humility, and humor. Consistently, alumni pointed to choices along their various pathways

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c l a s s r o o m

The Humanities Workshop

A Lesson in Why the Humanities Matter

Lisa Baker and Alisa Braithwaite like to

a range of projects focusing on issues related

they began developing a plan and pitching

describe their ambitious new project—the

to the workshop’s first theme—economic

their idea. In the end, 22 teachers in the

Humanities Workshop—as a “reassertion.”

inequality, from how the lack of access to

language arts, English, history, theater, and

healthful foods impacts low-income commu

art departments at Boston Latin School,

department, they need no convincing about

nities to how access to mental health services

Academy of the Pacific Rim, Boston Collegiate

the importance of the humanities to a well-

affects academic performance for students

Charter School, Boston College High School,

functioning society, but with the intense

from various socioeconomic backgrounds.

and Milton Academy came on board.

As faculty members in Milton’s English

focus nationwide on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math), they

“What we’re making very literal through the Humanities Workshop,” Lisa says, “is

“As far as we know, this is one of only a few efforts at the secondary-school level

believed it was time to reassert the humanities’

that skills learned in humanities classrooms

to connect public, private, and charter schools

significance for younger generations.

can be applied to very real-world problems.”

in meaningf ul collaborations,” Lisa says.

Developed in 2017 by Lisa and Alisa and launched during the 2018–2019 school year,

As Lisa and Alisa began thinking about how best to convey this message, one of

Lisa and Alisa chose economic inequality as the project’s first topic because, they say, it’s

the project-based Humanities Workshop gave

their first steps was to talk to leaders at the

a subject that many, including Milton students,

students from a consortium of five Boston-

Humanities Action Lab, a coalition of

struggle to talk about. “We talk about race,

area public, private, and charter schools the

universities and nonprofits in 40 cities that

we talk about gender,” says Alisa. “It’s in the

opportunity to experience firsthand how the

collaborate to produce humanities projects

air, but we don’t want to talk about economic

humanities help shape and address society’s

across the country. In 2017, encouraged by the

inequality, particularly in a country where we

most critical challenges. In its first year of

organization’s success and its support for

have the ‘American Dream.’ We thought this

operation, more than 1,000 students rolled out

what the Milton teachers hoped to accomplish,

was the perfect opportunity to allow ourselves to really delve into that challenging subject. It’s timely and it exists on a local, national, and global scale.” It’s also a subject, they say, that cuts across many issues—such as health care, public transportation, and education—and across all segments of society. “Even those among the top 10 percent of earners don’t feel their own wealth,” Alisa says, “because of the extreme difference between their circumstances and those of the very wealthy.” The program was designed to allow teachers free rein in how they approached the subject. “We wanted this to be an opportunity for teachers to experiment, to change up their curriculum, and to really challenge their students in different ways,” Alisa says. “It was exciting to see the many different ways they chose to explore the topic.” Students identified a myriad of relevant issues. At Boston Latin School, they conducted interviews with Chinatown’s longtime

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Opposite page: Milton Academy students articulated their socioeconomic identities by creating masks and poems. Left: Students display the results of their efforts last spring at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. Below: Humanities Workshop creators Lisa Baker and Alisa Braithwaite. All photos by Michael Dwyer.

tenants to measure the degree to which

In May, the culmination of the schools’

Lisa says. “We all know from our own

gentrification has caused financial insecurity

efforts was on display at the Edward M.

experience that if you sit down with people to

and affected their culture, education, and

Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate

talk about their side of things, you suddenly

overall happiness. Others investigated

in Boston. At a kickoff celebration on May 19,

feel closer to understanding things from their

how access to transportation affects student

students presented their findings and were

perspective. Human narrative has always been

participation in school and after-school

on hand to answer questions. The event also

activities. At Boston College High School,

included a panel of activists, academics, writers,

students looked at how recent changes to

and civic officials, moderated by Boston Globe

federal regulations regarding legal status have

Spotlight Team editor Patricia Wen.

affected Boston’s Haitian community. And

An important component of the Humanities

at the Academy of the Pacific Rim, they shared

Workshop, say Lisa and Alisa, was giving

personal stories about the lives and challenges

students a chance to experience project-based

of their family members.

learning. “We see a lot of this type of learning

Students collected data through research and by conducting a multitude of interviews

in STEM and we see a lot of it in product development,” Alisa says, “so we wanted to

with individuals in Boston’s neighborhoods,

imagine what kind of workshop we could

academics, school administrators, medical

create for the humanities that would end with

professionals, and city- and state-level officials.

a product that an audience could encounter

They presented their findings using various

and learn from.”

platforms, including blogs, poster displays, and videos.

“We talk about race, we talk about gender. It’s in the air, but we don’t want to talk about economic inequality . . .”

Looking back over the past year, Lisa and Alisa are pleased with what the new initiative has accomplished. Teachers from

at the heart of building connections across

the five schools reported that the workshop

divides. That’s something the humanities

has engaged their students in ways that the

traffic in. Literature, learning others’

students had not been before. In the coming

languages, and looking at problems in a

academic year, Lisa and Alisa will be assessing

historical context allow us to shift how

the project’s strengths and weaknesses,

we perceive the world. These difficult societal

choosing the topic for the following school

problems are not just a series of numbers;

year, and writing grants to make the project

these are robust, complex issues that are hard

self-supporting. For 2020–2021, they hope

to untangle.”

to double the number of participating schools. “What we came up with is nothing new,”

Sarah Abrams

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acro s s t h e qua d

What We’re Reading Fall is the perfect time to sink into a great book. We asked Milton faculty and staff members to share their favorite pleasure reads. Here are their recommendations.

ian torney ’82

emily bargar

Upper School Visual Arts Chair

Upper School Math

Color: A Natural History of the Palette, by

My most-read and most-loved book came out

Victoria Finlay, is a portrait of colors and their

when I was in third grade, and I’ve reread

histories that is part travelogue, part history

Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass every

lesson, and part science seminar. Finlay shows

two years since then. It’s grown with me,

joshua emmott

the rich history behind what so many of us

teaching me about love, loyalty, and eventually

Upper School History and Social Sciences

take for granted.

shades of gray in relationships and politics

I recommend the Emperor Trilogy, by

that went right over my 8-year-old head. As

J. G. Farrell: The Siege of Krishnapur, The

an adult, I find it’s more than just a nostalgic

Singapore Grip, and Troubles. Farrell writes

revisit: this book, and the trilogy that grew

big, old-fashioned stories with great details

from it, was such a foundational part of who I

and colorful characters, which draw you into

wanted to grow into, and I make connections

the world of the British Empire as it totters

to this day about how it influenced my

on the edge of collapse. All his characters ooze

development.

an air of decay that permeates his stories.

matthew fishbein

josh kronenberg

Office of Development and Alumni Relations

Middle School English

A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, is incredible,

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken

but also incredibly devastating, because it

Kesey, both disturbed and engrossed me.

describes sexual abuse and child mistreatment

The book left me changed in terms of how I

in vivid and at times overwhelming detail. The

thought about power, sanity, and laughter.

book follows three decades in the life of four friends as they grow, fall in love, and ultimately find that they can escape a traumatic past.

jim kernohan Upper School Science My current favorites include: 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, which often makes no sense, but is so fun; Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett—the funniest book about the apocalypse you’ll ever read, and a great introduction to Gaiman and Pratchett; and The Particle at the End of the Universe, by Sean Carroll, because we all need to know more about the universe’s beginning and its end.

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laura pearle

malinda polk

matthew brandstetter

Cox Library Director

Upper School English

Upper School Performing Arts

Robertson Davies’s Deptford Trilogy is one

I love the Inspector Gamache mystery series,

Losing Earth: A Recent History, by Nathaniel

of my absolute favorites and one I’ve reread

by Louise Penny. Most of the books in this

Rich, relates the story of climate change

many times. The books (Fifth Business,

series center on the community of Three Pines

and the birth of climate-change denialism

The Manticore, and World of Wonders) can

in Quebec. I hadn’t read a series in a long time,

as well as the grip of the fossil-fuel industry

be read as solos, and in any order. Davies’s

and I have found I look forward to spending

on efforts to reduce our dependence on

ability to capture both the minutiae of daily

time with familiar characters as they face new

these fuels.

life and the bigger questions of who we are

mysteries or challenges. While each book

and what made us that way is extraordinary.

offers a stand-alone mystery, the series does

hannah pulit ’07

develop a few overarching story lines—one

Upper School English

focused on police corruption, one on the

To the Bright Edge of the World, by Eowyn

creative life of an artist, one on a pet duck, to

Ivey! In beautifully lyrical prose, Ivey conjures

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, is a favorite. This

name a few. So, begin with Still Life and

the harsh beauty of the Alaskan landscape

was her debut novel, and I can’t wait to see

enjoy them in order.

pamela pleasants Upper School Admission Office

what else she has in store. The story parallels the lives of two sisters. It starts in the late

laura rogers

in 1885 and in the present day with a narrative sweep that showcases her exquisite talent at her craft. The novel asks us to trouble the

1800s, depicting the impact of the slave trade

Business Office

lines between the real and the imaginary,

on each woman and her descendants. What

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

the civilized and the wild, the ordinary and the

was most enlightening for me was to see how

I don’t really know why this book appeals

magical. Cozy up under a blanket while reading

tribal connections influenced the slave trade

to me so much; perhaps it is its sense of being

this one, because the arctic chill comes to life.

as a means to gain land and territorial control.

alone but not truly alone.

Watching the stories intersect in the 21st century between the two lineages made it all come full circle, from whence we came to where we are.

murielle st. paul Academic Skills Center Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is a graphic novel that talks about the author’s child, teen, and adult years during the Islamic Revolution. Satrapi inspires readers by highlighting the importance of survival and maintaining self-identity during political and social upheaval. Persepolis provides enlightenment to see the bigger picture, learn from it, and grow from it.

Illustrations by Brian Azer

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a lumni featur e s

LY H - P I N G ’ 9 8 , LY H - R H E N ’ 9 9 , LY H - H S I N ’ 0 3 , G R A C E ’ 0 5 , A N D J O Y C E ’ 0 5

Life in Bloom The Lam Siblings On a cold, windy afternoon in late spring, Grace Lam ’05 crouches down to show off a patch of tulips still nestled in the ground in one of Fivefork Farms’ seven greenhouses. Grace and her brother Lyh-Hsin Lam ’03 have been up since 5 a.m., harvesting and selling their flowers at farmers’ markets around the Boston and Worcester areas. “Even if I picked something that looked like this,” she says,

of overcast days resulted in a greenhouse full of flowers

her palm cupping a tulip in full bloom, “I’m pretty sure it

refusing to bloom and a delay in the start of the spring

will last just as long, if not longer, than one picked green

season. This time, however, they were far more sanguine.

and tight. Since we don’t need to pick the flowers to ship in

says, “is that oftentimes things are way beyond your control.

colors before we harvest them. Many grocery store flowers

I used to like having all the details covered before I made

are harvested days, if not weeks, before you even see them

decisions. Something like this, though, quickly teaches you,

in the store. If you’ve experienced flowers that never open

you can have the best-laid plans—plans A, B, C, and D as

fully, it’s likely because they were picked too early in order

backup—and it can all fall apart.

to be shipped across the country or world.” This level of confidence about the flowers they spend

“It’s actually liberating, in a way, when you know that you can try your hardest, know you’ve done your best,

many hours planting and tending comes from experience.

you’ve planned and put in the time—and sometimes it still

Grace and Lyh-Hsin recall their first year in business—

doesn’t work out.

in 2012, when the spring weather was unseasonably warm. Small deviations in weather can cause big disruptions to carefully planned schedules. “It was a freak 80 degrees out,

“And that’s OK,” he says. “You know they’ll bloom eventually.” Located in Upton, Massachusetts, just over the Worcester

and thousands of tulips were just opening up in front of

County line, the farm’s 38 acres of open fields and gentle

our eyes,” Grace says, looking around the greenhouse. “We

hills produce an abundance of flowering plants from spring

were overwhelmed. I was almost in tears.” “We thought, ‘They’re open already, they’re too old, and no one is going to buy them,’” Lyh-Hsin remembers. “I think we ended up giving half of them away, which,

through fall—peonies and tulips to hyacinths, ranunculus, and dahlias. Its greenhouses extend the growing season through the winter months. For years, Grace had thought about running a vegetable

in retrospect, was a huge mistake, because those did just

farm (her senior project at Milton was operating a vegetable

as well. The flowers that were open, lo and behold, they

stand on Centre Street in front of Cox Library), but the

still lasted a week.”

reality of earning a living kept that dream tucked far back

More recently, the opposite problem arose when a string

“One big lesson that we quickly learned,” Lyh-Hsin

boxes, we allow them to mature and develop more intense

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

in her mind. After graduating from Emory University, she

Photo by Martha Stewart

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▲ The Lam family: first row, Helen; second row, left to right, Lyh-Ping, Joyce, Elsie, and Grace; third row, left to right, Daniel, Lyh-Rhen, and Lyh-Hsin. Photos by Martha Stewart and courtesy of the Lam family.

worked in New York City at the financial services firm J.P. Morgan as an international equities sales trader. Although her job offered

Lyh-Rhen ’99, Lyh-Hsin, and Joyce ’05. Gathered together recently at Fivefork Farms, the family recalled those early discus

at Citigroup in New York City. Lyh-Rhen had worked for several years at Winston Flowers in Boston and was able to persuade the others

financial stability and independence, she says,

sions. “We threw ourselves into it,” said

that an underground movement toward

she would sometimes ask herself, “Do I want

Lyh-Rhen, who now serves as director of visual

sustainable, locally grown flowers was gaining

and merchandising for Boston-based Tatte

traction and was the best direction to take.

to do this for the rest of my life?” In 2012, following the Great Recession,

Bakery. “We had a sit-down and asked, ‘In what

when J.P. Morgan conducted a round of layoffs,

way can we all pitch in and support Grace in

Grace decided the time was right to act on her

this career change?’”

dream. She returned to Massachusetts, first working at Dragonfly Farms, an organic

Grace was initially planning to farm vegetables, but one of the first pieces of family

“We liked the fact that customers were ready to embrace the concept of flowers that are grown half an hour away and that were harvested yesterday morning,” Grace recalls. “We liked that people were more cognizant

vegetable farm in Pepperell, to see “if I actually

advice was to shift the business concept

of the carbon footprint—that they seemed to

wanted to do this.” She decided she loved it.

to flowers. “I actually credit Lyh-Rhen with

value that.”

Her next step was to seek the counsel

suggesting flowers,” says Joyce, Grace’s twin

They experimented that first year by

of her close-knit family: her parents, Daniel

sister, who oversees the farm’s finances and is

planting a flower garden in their parents’

and Helen Lam, and siblings Lyh-Ping ’98,

a director in the investment banking division

backyard in Randolph. Soon they began

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

“Through our work, we’re saying: ‘Enjoy beauty and a quality of life that is not only limited to people of means.’”

▼ Grace Lam prepares for the Saturday morning farmers’ market in Union Square in Somerville.

daniel lam

looking for property. They found what they

vegetables they liked in Chinatown. They

community,” Lyh-Hsin says. “They were a real

wanted in the town of Upton on land once

couldn’t drive to get there, so she would grow

example and they still are.”

farmed by the Eli Whitney family.

all these Chinese vegetables and just give

The inspiration for the farm, the siblings say, can be traced back to their parents. Their

them away.” Their father, a Cambodian refugee who fled

The parents, who still live in Randolph, continue to be active in Boston’s immigrant community. They also remain connected to

mother, who was born in southern China,

the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, came to Boston

Milton, serving as host parents to boarding

kept a garden behind their home in Randolph

in 1980, first working in a Chinatown health

students from Hong Kong. “After all of us kids,

that each sibling helped tend while growing up.

center and later as director of the Massachusetts

you’d think my parents would finally want

It taught them not only gardening skills, they

Office for Refugees and Immigrants in

some peace and quiet,” Lyh-Hsin says, “but I

say, but lessons in sharing and helping others.

Governor Michael Dukakis’s administration.

think they must enjoy all the activity.”

“The reason my mom would grow a lot of vegetables was not only because she had a lot of mouths to feed,” Grace says, “but

He also volunteered his time and advice to immigrants who were new to the Boston area. “We grew up watching our parents, who always

It was their parents’ example and the values they lived by that brought the family together seven years ago and that keeps the siblings

because of the elderly people she worked with

had a way of serving other people, whether it

involved today in the running of Fivefork

at the senior center, especially those in the

was my mom volunteering at the senior center

Farms. As Grace and Lyh-Hsin, who both work

Chinese community who could only get the

or my dad working with the immigrant

full-time at the farm, continue to refine their

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skills, the meetings have become less frequent.

agriculture) program, with 15 pickup

Still, the other siblings continue to contribute

locations throughout the Boston, Cambridge,

according to their individual expertise.

and Worcester areas. They also sell to florists,

“I don’t know if we could do this without social media,” says Lyh-Hsin, who before joining the farm full-time worked for Habitat unusual, he says, to be conferring with one or

to representing a significant segment of the

another of his siblings by text or video chat

business. “We were the first flower CSA,”

while working in the fields harvesting flowers.

Helen says proudly. “It is not the side product of a veggie farm; it’s all we do.” “The vegetable CSAs have always existed,”

branding and product marketing and who

Joyce adds, “so we thought, ‘If they can do

works full-time as director of oncology clinical

veggies, then we can do flowers.’” Today, the

development operations at bluebird bio in

program boasts a three-season membership

Cambridge, “is knowing how best to help. Even

of 650 customers.

though Joyce is in New York City, she’s taking

The popularity of the CSA program was

care of a lot of the finances, and that has been a

something of a surprise to the family, who

god-send. And Lyh-Rhen is involved in the

expected the bulk of their business to come

styling and the visual aspects. These are jobs

from selling directly to designers and florists.

that don’t require us to be here.”

Instead, more and more, they find they are

From early spring until late fall, Fivefork Farms offers flowers directly to its customers

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

Over the years, the CSA program has grown from being a small part of the enterprise

now as a family,” says Lyh-Ping, who helps with

across the Northeast.

for Humanity Greater Boston. It is not at all

“What I think is most important for us

Photo by Martha Stewart

designers, and retailers, shipping flowers

through a CSA (community-supported

selling directly to customers. “I think we tapped into a market,” Joyce says. “That’s why it’s grown so much. We’ve

seen the growth, and it is why we’re planning more CSAs in the future.” During the growing season, their flowers are also available weekly at farmers’ markets in Brookline, Somerville, and Worcester. “People come to the farmers’ market just to talk to my dad,” who from the start, Grace says, has been the enterprise’s most ardent supporter. “We are creating a community that supports sustainably grown flowers,” Daniel says, “and we provide flowers that are affordable.

15 pounds in the winter, but then lose it all come spring. You’re doing something fun and working out at the same time.” And finally, she values living a life that brings pleasure to others, helping to make their lives a little bit better. “I love going to the farmers’ markets where I bring joy to people,” she says. “The people who buy flowers say, ‘Oh, my God, I could cry. These are the most beautiful flowers.’ The flowers often rekindle a connection for them. They’ll say, ‘My

Through our work, we’re saying: ‘Enjoy beauty

grandma grew sweet peas’ or ‘I remember

and a quality of life that is not only limited to

when we picked daffodils every March or

people of means.’”

April. Thank you.’

All things considered, the Lams believe in the importance of what they are doing; it’s

“The thank-yous reinforce why we work so hard.”

what makes the long days worthwhile. “For me, with another job, you may have pockets

Sarah Abrams

full of money,” Grace says, “but with this work, where you’re pretty much bank depleted, there’s just immense satisfaction in living a life that reflects your values. I love growing things and I value my time. I don’t need to pay for a gym membership. This is my gym. I might gain

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a lumni featur e s

DJ NASH ’90

Takes on the Big Things in Life DJ Nash ’90 was working on the worst gig of his life when he got the push he needed to create the ABC drama A Million Little Things. “There was a story inside me that had to come out,” DJ says

wake-up call to me, to say to myself, ‘What are you doing?

of that period. During his lunch breaks, he would go for

Are you happy with the choices you’re making? How are

walks to clear his head and try to psych himself up for the

you going to live?’”

long afternoons of work, and one day he ran into an old friend. They made plans to have lunch the next week. The friend died by suicide before they saw each other again. “I don’t think for a second that our lunch could have

A Million Little Things follows the lives of seven close friends grappling with those questions in the aftermath of the suicide of Jon Dixon (played by Ron Livingston) in the first episode. Jon, whose idealism and zest for life sparked the origin of the group, appears happy and

saved him, but I think almost every day that we could have

successful, and his death unravels truths the rest of the

had one more conversation,” DJ says. “His death was a

friends must face. The Boston-based show, which premiered in the fall of 2018, quickly earned a devoted following—“Millionaires,” they’ve named themselves—and ABC responded by moving it into a coveted Thursday-night slot. The network also jumped at the chance to renew A Million Little Things for a second season, calling in February for 22 episodes starting in the fall of 2019—something of a rarity in an industry quick to cancel new shows after only a few episodes. The themes in the show resonate with fans who have survived suicide attempts, are mourning loved ones lost to suicide, or are living with depression or cancer, DJ says. Fans have reached out to him and the show’s actors to share their deeply personal stories, something he finds validating and encouraging. Filming on the pilot happened right around the time of the suicide deaths of designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain, which brought an unfortunate relevance to the early episodes, in which Jon dies and Rome (Romany Malco) attempts suicide before receiving

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

DJ Nash ’90, left, shares notes with Bronson Pinchot, who guest-starred on the first season of DJ’s ABC drama, A Million Little Things. Photos © American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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treatment for depression. Meanwhile, Gary (James Roday) and Maggie (Allison Miller) meet in a breast cancer support group: His cancer is in remission, while hers is back, with a devastating prognosis. Rome’s wife, Regina (Christina Moses), struggles to acknowledge her childhood sexual abuse. “Some people think this is a show about someone dying, but it’s about these friends and the changes they make because of this death,” DJ says. “They’re all stuck; they’re not living the lives they thought they’d be living.”

“What’s surprised me most about making the show is that, while I set out to tell my story, we ended up telling a lot of people’s stories.”

If the convergence of these dramatic plotlines sounds over the top, consider this: Suicide in the United States is on the rise, making it one of the top 10 causes of death for people of all age groups. Depression diagnoses are increasing, too—perhaps as people feel less stigmatized talking about their mental health. “When we were making the

pilot, if someone on the crew came up to me with a folder

The cast members take the feedback they receive from viewers to heart, DJ says. “People are so generous and

or a binder, I knew they were asking about a location or a

trusting to share their experiences, and we want to make

prop,” DJ recalls. “By the third day, I realized that if they

sure we honor that. I was talking to James Roday, and he

came up empty-handed, they were going to share a story.

said ‘If the show was canceled right now, fine. We did what

What’s surprised me most about making the show is that,

we were supposed to do.’ And I think that’s exactly right.”

while I set out to tell my story, we ended up telling a lot of people’s stories.”

Even as the show was on hiatus for the summer, fans shared their stories with DJ and the cast. Viewers applauded the portrayal of high-functioning, successful characters grappling with mental and physical illness. Erin O’Malley, a Boston radio host, tweeted at DJ, “I fought breast cancer in Boston, along with Maggie, and you were SO spot on with the battle. Thank you for being so realistic with your characters.” Another tweeted: “I love that you bring to light so many variations of real life conditions that still have unwarranted stigmas attached to them . . . . You give them a safe place with dignity.” And another: “AMLT kept me sane while I was going through chemo and radiation for breast cancer last year. Thank you for creating this show!!!” In May, A Million Little Things received a Television Academy Honors award, which recognized “seven outstanding programs that have leveraged the dynamic power of television to inspire social change.” “I don’t usually care about awards, but this is really an honor,” DJ says. “If we were going to get any award, this

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

is exactly the type of award I’d want, which is about the content of the show. It used to be that if someone died by

I’m always thinking about jazz with Mr. Sinicrope.” The show is DJ’s first to make it past its first season.

suicide or suffered from depression, there was a shame and

Prior to A Million Little Things, he created Growing Up

a stigma to it, and a tendency to want to find a specific

Fisher, a semi-autobiographical story about growing up

reason for it—a breakup or a job loss or financial problems.

with a blind father, starring Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons

I’m proud of the way we’ve shown these issues. We have a

and Jenna Elfman. His show Losing It was a half-hour

consultant on the show who is amazing. She is so committed

dramedy about living with dementia, loosely based on his

to making sure we get it right.” Milton alumni will recognize a few nods to DJ’s time

father’s life. Truth Be Told, a comedy based on his friend group, lasted for a season.

on campus. In one flashback scene, Eddie (David Giuntoli) touches the pregnant belly of his wife, Katherine (Grace Park), and greets the baby as “Milton.” (Katherine isn’t sold; they end up naming the baby Theo.) A bar in the show is called Blind Dog Whiskey, the name of a campus band when DJ attended Milton. And then there’s the elevator scene. In a pivotal flashback, Jon, Eddie, Rome, and Gary meet one another while stuck on an elevator. Their bond begins to form as they pass time before being rescued, and Jon asks Eddie, the musician of the crew, about the one person he’d most love to have dinner with. “My high school teacher Mr. Sinicrope,” Eddie replies. “I just want him to know how much he means to me.”

DJ’s road to television writing started with stand-up comedy. His first appearance on stage as a comedian happened at Milton, opening for Blind Dog Whiskey. He estimates he has performed at more than 400 colleges and universities. In 2000, he was invited to Montreal’s Just for Laughs comedy festival to perform in its New Faces DJ played jazz at Milton under the direction of longtime

showcase. There, DJ was offered a television development

music faculty member Bob Sinicrope, who emailed him after

deal; he created and starred in a pilot for CBS, Life With

the first episodes aired to say congratulations. Bob is “all

David J, based on his life as a comedian. Elliott Gould

over the show,” says DJ, who carefully considers the meter

played his father. The pilot didn’t pan out, but it set DJ on

of a scene as Bob did while students learned songs. The show

a new course.

films in Vancouver, and DJ was in Los Angeles when that episode filmed. He placed several crew members in charge of making sure “Sinicrope” was pronounced correctly. “The actors know I sometimes ride them a little hard to

T H I S PAG E

Left: Ron Livingston as Jon Dixon; above: Actors Allison Miller, James Roday, and Romany Malco in a scene from A Million Little Things O P P O S I T E PAG E Top: DJ Nash; bottom: DJ Nash, left, with the cast of A Million Little Things

“I realized I did not like acting, which was heartbreak ing,” he says. “I thought, ‘I came out to L.A. to be an actor. What now?’ But I really loved writing the pilot, so I started writing.”

stick to the words because the scripts have rhythm,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll reassess the tempo of a scene, and

Marisa Donelan

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M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

a lumni featur e s

HARRISON BLUM ’98

Taking the Mystery Out of Mindfulness If Harrison Blum ’98 is meditating near you, you might not know it. His practice of Buddhism and mindfulness meditation help him stay present with his thoughts and feelings, so any walk from one Amherst College building to another, or a quiet pause between meetings, is an opportunity for presence and deep reflection. Harrison is the director of religious and spiritual life at

enables the staff to work with students of all religious and

Amherst. He uses meditation as a way to attend to joyous

spiritual backgrounds.

and stressful feelings alike—confronting them in the moment instead of shelving them away. “It doesn’t always feel comfortable, and I think that’s a big

Harrison is soft-spoken but deliberate in his word choices. He doesn’t speak for the purpose of filling silences. He classifies himself as agnostic, and was attracted to

misconception,” Harrison says. “There’s this idea that you’re

Buddhism in part because it’s not based in a belief in a god.

not good at meditation if you don’t stop thinking and feel

He believes he is the first non-Protestant to hold his position

happy, but meditation and mindfulness are not about erasing

at Amherst.

the tape, or stopping thoughts, or effortfully changing your

“I was raised Jewish, but I was also enough of a spiritual

mood. They’re really about stopping resistance toward what

free agent that by the time I started learning more about

is happening, so stress tolerance is a by-product of this

Buddhism, it felt like a great fit, not only in terms of academic

meditation. Understanding your life is an outcome. It’s about

study, but personal practice,” he says. “There is a holistic

being present amidst—not editing—your life.” Harrison’s path toward Buddhism and practicing mindfulness, which began at Milton, has led him to work as a spiritual counselor to critically ill hospital patients, volunteer with low-income populations, and serve as a college chaplain. Tucked two blocks away from Amherst’s campus center and the nearby downtown, the Cadigan Center for Religious Life is located in an unassuming converted mid-century modern house. Its heavy brick exterior belies the airiness of Harrison’s office: with its white walls, thoughtful decor, and floor-to-ceiling windows, the calming space complements its occupant’s demeanor. As director, Harrison’s job is to oversee the center’s operations. He manages a staff trained in various religious Photos by Maria Stenzel © Amherst College

and spiritual practices, oversees programs and events,

“. . . meditation and mindfulness are not about erasing the tape, or stopping thoughts, or effortfully changing your mood. They’re really about stopping resistance toward what is happening, so stress tolerance is a by-product of this meditation. Understanding your life is an outcome.”

and counsels students. The interfaith aspect of the center

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mind, body, and heart framing with techniques to practice

emotions—the prized Western notion of grinning and

that can increase self-awareness and harmony in

bearing it—only amplifies them when they finally arise. At

relationships.”

the same time, intrusive thoughts can be paralyzing, and

At Amherst and in Harrison’s previous chaplaincy jobs at Emerson College and Northeastern University, students

mindfulness helps practitioners identify useful thoughts versus debilitating ones. The practice can also help people

are seekers, whether they come from a religious tradition

move past foregone conclusions about situations that

or not, Harrison says.

provoke fear and anxiety.

“Secular is not the opposite of religious, necessarily,” he says. “We have students who are fiercely curious about

“If we can be real with ourselves and receptive to what is true for us, that can help us be with our emotions in the

what it means to be alive; students who are thoughtful

moment and also put aside thoughts if we need to,” Harrison

about living consistently within their morals; students

says. “It helps to put thoughts in their place. We might be

who are really passionate

able to learn from them,

about identity, and equal

but sometimes thoughts

access, and protecting

are just thoughts. They

identity. Ideas about what things mean, who matters, and who is saying what matters are relevant inside and outside of faith.” Harrison emphasizes the importance of cor rectly defining “mindful ness,” a practice central to his understanding of

“It helps to put thoughts in their place. We might be able to learn from them, but sometimes thoughts are just thoughts. They don’t need to define who we are or what’s happening. We don’t need to believe all of our thoughts.”

spirituality. Pushing away

don’t need to define who we are or what’s happening. We don’t need to believe all of our thoughts.” Mindfulness, he says, is giving attention without judgment to the present moment and feeling all the “extra layers of desire or aversion that come with attention to a given

moment—being in touch with how your body feels and what kind of thoughts or emotions are happening.” His website, movingdharma.org, offers several guided meditations to help people tap into their present sensations. Harrison’s interest in Buddhism began in history classes at Milton, first in U.S. History with Mark Hilgendorf, who was “the kind of teacher who loved wrestling with big ideas.” During his senior year, Harrison established a world religions independent study with Mark, which became a class mid-year after several other students wanted to join. Buddhism intrigued Harrison, who studied it at the University of Pennsylvania and Hampshire College and spent some time in Nepal. His major was a study of American representations of Buddhism. After college, Harrison spent several years as an early education teacher and completed a master’s of education before deciding to attend Harvard Divinity School. While at Harvard, he interned with the Buddhist chaplain at MIT. His first postgraduate job was as a part-time Buddhist advisor at Northeastern, which initiated his career in college chaplaincy. Six months into that position, he also began working on an adolescent psychiatric unit, where he stayed for three years.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

While at Harvard, where Harrison earned a master’s of divinity, he began applying mindfulness and meditation

interfaith ways that don’t presume a certain theology or even a belief in God, while at the same time not excluding

across different faiths. During the summers and as part

believers,” he says. “I spent a lot of time doing overnights,

of his thesis research, he launched the Mindfulness Allies

getting paged, going to patients’ rooms for a lot of different

Project at a Cambridge community center that served

reasons. I did a lot of reading and reflecting to find a way to

low-income populations, typically people earning less than

offer prayer for believers, even if I was uncertain myself.”

$15,000 a year. The classes included meditation instruction,

During moments between seeing patients—on elevator

embodied mindfulness practices, and conversations on

rides and down long hallways—Harrison would check in

power and oppression. Attendees told him that the practice

with himself: giving attention to his footsteps and heartbeat

helped them become more attuned to their physical

and breathing while processing the sometimes heavy

needs, release fear and anxiety, and even strengthen their

emotions he carried in that job.

connections with God. From those sessions, Harrison

“It’s not about pushing out or fighting emotions but

was asked to visit a Pentecostal Christian outreach group

allowing the moment to be exactly what it was, and allowing

and train church leaders.

it to pass,” he says. “Then, by the time I got to the next

“When we talked about mindfulness, it could be framed as helping to love yourself the way Jesus loves you,” he

patient’s room, I could be fully present with them and what was happening in that new place.”

says. “I think there is great interfaith potential for the types of experiences a mindfulness practice can provide.”

Marisa Donelan

The ability to find common connection among religious traditions has served him well. As a resident chaplain for Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harrison was regularly called upon to pray with patients in criticalcare units. “In moments where I’ve been called to pray or speak from a sacred place, I’ve had experience doing that in

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a lumni featur e s

J E N N I F E R H A L L T AY L O R ’ 0 0

A Practice of Presence in a Life of Movement As a child, Jennifer Hall Taylor ’00 was never one to sit still. Looking back, she realizes that the sense of connectivity that came from physical movement may be what brought her to where she is today. A yoga practitioner and teacher, a health and wellness coach,

she finally returned to the mat, she says, it “was like a

a personal chef, and a mindfulness app creator—Jennifer

homecoming.” In 2015, she began yoga teacher training.

is all of these, and each aspect of her work incorporates

She now teaches at two studios in Austin, Texas, where

wellness and the love of movement. “I’ve always had a deep

she lives eight months of the year. She spends her summers

interest in physical movement,” she says. “I love the joy

in Maine. She also runs yoga retreats, most recently in

and freedom that can come from it.”

Iceland and the Catskills.

Jennifer describes her first yoga experience as “terrible.” During the gap year she spent between Milton and entering New York University, she was volunteering at a school

a deep interest in where food comes from and the decisions people make about it. Instead of following her initial plan

Alexandra Hynes ’00, when

to attend graduate school for a degree in gender studies,

she tried following along to a

Jennifer obtained a certificate in holistic health coaching in

yoga videotape. “It was just

2012 from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Then,

torturous,” she says. “It was

while working as the director of hospitality at Scribe Winery,

like putting your body in these

in California, she started her own health coaching business,

shapes and holding them for

working with clients one-on-one.

relaxed. It was awful.” As a freshman at NYU,

“I always had this deep desire to understand people and what makes them tick,” she says. “This is more overt mindfulness work, a way of understanding what we are

Jennifer was beginning to

worrying about and dealing with. How people approach

question whether New York

problems and milestones in their lives. When we get down

was the place for her when

to it, mindfulness is this practice of creating a sense of deep

9/11 happened. Unmoored,

intimacy with yourself, understanding the habit patterns

she turned to yoga, taking

of your own mind, and in doing so, cultivating the ability

classes twice daily. “My

to be less reactive, more compassionate, more accepting.”

analytical brain felt turned

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

and culture class, which she took for fun. The class spurred

in Costa Rica, with classmate

a long time and trying to be

Another passion that took root at NYU began in a food

Working closely with people regarding their health

off, but in a way that felt safe,”

and food, she says, does have its challenges. “People come

she says about the classes.

with emotionally charged situations around food, and

She continued her practice

some come with real health concerns. I have clients who are

throughout college, but

about to start cancer treatment, or are struggling with an

stopped for a few years

autoimmune disorder or fertility. They have been told by six

following graduation. When

different doctors what to eat in six different specific ways.”

Photos by Riley Blanks

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“The Shift does include guided meditation, but the main objective for the app was to create a tool that allows people to access a state of awareness and mindful presence through any sense of the body.”

When working with clients, she typically starts a session with deep breathing so that they can “settle into themselves.” Over time, as their relationship builds, she takes them into deeper guided meditations. Two years ago, a client asked her if she had ever thought of having an app. “I really wasn’t interested,” she says, “because I don’t like the idea of creating content for the sake of creating content. There were already good mindfulness and meditation apps out there, but my client would periodically bring it up. And finally she asked me at a moment when I was beginning to wonder, ‘Is there a way to share this information more broadly? How can I take some of the tried-and-true practices that work for my clients and get them to more people in a format that feels effective?’” Together they created a mindfulness app called The Shift. Elegant and visual, it asks the user to pick from a list of goals such as “Focus,” “Energize,” and “Heal.” Within each goal are actions to choose from, such as “Meditate,” Another challenge, she says, is how the wellness world has become more commodified, almost taking the place of fashion and beauty as an aspirational lifestyle. “There is a deep anxiety around doing it right,” Jennifer says. “People

listener through the meditations. “The Shift does include guided meditation, but the main objective for the app was to create a tool that allows people

have this immense stress and internalized narrative about

to access a state of awareness and mindful presence through

what they should be doing, and what it should look like. It

any sense of the body. The app offers guidance on how

can feed into this notion that you’re not doing enough, and

to move in a mindful way, to eat in a mindful way, and to

if only you just moved into a super chill and enlightened

incorporate a daily ritual that invites you to explore in a

place, everything would be fine.”

different way. We wanted to create an app where from the

Jennifer tries to tamp down this anxiety in all her

moment you click on the icon, you enter into an experience.”

work, helping people find a balance that’s right for them.

They also wanted to give people the opportunity to

“Balance is your ability to sort of nimbly interact with constantly changing situations and circumstances. And

“Listen,” “Eat.” Jennifer’s steady and calming voice leads the

access a mindful state without necessarily sitting down. “There are many misconceptions about mindfulness

approaching things that you cannot control with a less

out there,” Jennifer says. “One is that in order to be paying

reactive mind. That takes ongoing practice and it is deeply

attention, in a way that we refer to as mindfulness or

imperfect.”

meditation, you have to be sitting down with your eyes

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

closed and it has to be first thing in the morning. And it has

which comes from contemplation and mindful attention,

to be for x amount of time, and it has to feel good, or you

and being willing to try things and ‘fail’ until you find

have to feel good afterward. And none of those things are

the practices and tools that work for you. No one will ever

realistic or true.”

know you the way that you know you, so why not lean

To the contrary, Jennifer believes, everyone has the

in to that reality and cultivate a deep sense of trust in

opportunity to tap into a mindfulness practice—one that is

yourself? Bearing witness to that process in other people

available anywhere and at any time—with breathing. “It’s

is such a joy.”

personal. It’s free. It’s private. You can be in a public place, but privately you can moderate what you’re doing with your

Liz Matson

own breath to soothe your nervous system. It’s imperceptible from the outside. You have the power to slow things down and regulate yourself. It’s an amazing tool.” Between teaching, coaching, and cooking, Jennifer tries to find moments of quiet and stillness for herself, even if that means just sitting quietly for five minutes in the morning. But she also satisfies her need to move, and spends as much time outside as possible, exploring the trails, swimming holes, and climbing spots around Austin. “One of the things I love about coaching and teaching and turning people on to a mindfulness practice is that it requires me to be deeply involved in my own inquiry,” she

“One of the things I love about coaching and teaching and turning people on to a mindfulness practice is that it requires me to be deeply involved in my own inquiry.” says. “One of my yoga teachers told me that to take the seat of the teacher is to commit to the lifelong journey of being a student. I love that. Teaching asks me to stay awake to the endless opportunities to learn. I learn from my clients and students. I learn from myself being in a classroom with people, from working one-on-one with a person. There’s such richness of human experience that is communicated even without any words going back and forth.” Jennifer says she also loves empowering people to trust their own intuitions. “We all know, innately, how to care and make choices for ourselves, but circumstances and societal messages distance us from that deep knowledge. We look to an expert or to a product or to Instagram to solve the problem. I offer a myriad of tools and then sit back and let people make their own choices. There’s no one size fits all and there’s no single timeline. Inevitably, what I see is people cultivating a deeper sense of trust in themselves,

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a lumni featur e s

J AY D E S H P A N D E ’ 0 2

A Poet’s Journey Jay Deshpande ’02 Embraces the Power of Language

It’s easy to see the connections between Jay Deshpande’s first passionate pursuit as a jazz musician to his success as a contemporary poet. Neither genre is easily defined; they play with rhythm and demand a certain attention from the listener or the reader. But Jay sometimes finds the label “poet” a bit hard to wear. “I’m more comfortable to say I’m a writer, because sometimes there is some grandiosity in the idea of being a poet,”

nature, culture, and relationships while exploring love,

says Jay, who is currently a Stegner Fellow in the creative

longing, and self. He can nudge readers into uncomfortable

writing program at Stanford University. “But the word

places or bring them into a mystical space or simply an

poem comes from the Greek word techne, which means to

everyday encounter.

make something, and I like the idea that it’s a process of working with language.” At Milton, Jay was serious about jazz piano. He also

Publishing a book did make the title of poet sit better, he says. “The more my work is out in the world and I get to share it with people, the more I can finally recognize poetry,

learned to read poems with teachers such as J.C. Smith,

a longtime emotional and creative outlet for me, as the

Doug Fricke, and David Foster, who were “all just amazing

central part of my life.” With his editor’s encouragement,

influences.” When he was a Harvard undergraduate, a

he followed up his book with a chapbook titled The Rest

class on Milton alumnus T.S. Eliot fostered an interest

of the Body, which focused on love poems.

in writing poetry. Jay was still playing music, but he

“Writing a love poem in the 2010s as a straight, cis-

also realized it was not going to be his professional future.

gendered male brings its own complicated stuff. It brings

After graduating, he spent some time traveling and

me to interesting places, such as what does it mean to write

teaching English and music in places such as Cairo and

a love poem? What does it mean to write a love poem in

Paris. In 2009, he entered the MFA program at Columbia

wartime? What does it mean to write a love poem in this

University. “I had read a lot of poems at that point, but I

body and in this self? How have my love poems changed

couldn’t piece them together,” he says. “I needed that spine

over time?”

of grad school, where I found some of my own obsessions

Jay was married this past spring and says, “Living with

and tendencies as a writer. I still cherish the consistent

somebody and having a consistent partner in my life means

attention and intensity of those writing workshops.”

the love poem changes in wonderful and strange ways.”

Jay worked in magazine publishing for a few years,

debut poet by Poets & Writers. His lyrical poems reference

Publishing brought teaching opportunities, another

while also compiling a manuscript of poems. Love the

passion. Jay grew up around campuses because his parents

Stranger was published in 2015, and he was named a top

are educators. His father is a business professor at Harvard.

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His mother, Rebecca Schorin, taught English for many

modernist movement, whose Wasteland comes with notes to

language-oriented,” he says. “A lot of language play and

help students “decode” the poem. “On the other side,” Jay

a lot of punning.”

says, “I really love Billy Collins, who is charming, accessible,

In addition to teaching while at Columbia, Jay has taught

and speaks to people who don’t think they like poems.

creative writing at Rutgers University and the Fashion

There are reasons to love Billy Collins and there are reasons

Institute of Technology. He enjoys the challenges of teaching

to love T.S. Eliot. The real danger is when one thinks that

a discipline that is not always well understood.

poetry has to be one and not the other.”

“Even places like Milton can fall into the trap of teaching

He believes it’s an exciting time in the world of poetry

poems in a way where a poem is seen as a puzzle or a code

because more people have access to it. He cites Instagram

or a riddle,” he says. “Art education is always tricky, even

as one example, but acknowledges that this immediate

in the best spaces. There are too many ways it’s over-

access “bleeds something out of poems too.”

intellectualized. We’re taught that there’s a right way to read a poem and that just kills it.” He advises readers of poetry to avoid looking for the “correct answer,” because there is real value in “not getting it.” He says, “I understand where they’re coming from,

One of Jay’s first loves is T.S. Eliot, a master of the

years at Milton. “I grew up in a house that was very

“There’s a risk in poetry as an immediate experience that people will pick it up and then put it right back down,” Jay says. “Too much language and discourse in our culture is based on that immediacy, especially online. It doesn’t involve introspection over time. And the poem is meant to

because in anything I do, I want to get it and I want to get

be, in some ways, a device of time. So it can be dangerous

it right. But there are useful places in frustration, in

when the accessible poem doesn’t push its readers to stay,

mystification, and just the right amount of disorientation.”

to strain their attention, and to pull on those muscles of

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Need published in love

the stranger (YesYes Books)

After they had left the room, we set the body on its side. The door closing, we watched the pink sheen on his shoulder turn to gray. Then, with hands that had not eaten for days we pressed into him, peeling back the skin and the seen layers. We took our time. After the first few hours he was red and coarse; longer, later, he was a geography. And we began to look for the organ that had brought us here, something unseen and hidden, perhaps behind the lungs intellect, making them pay attention to sound, emotions, and sensations. But at the same time, it’s no good when

or under the turning muscle that ribbons the hip or between the genitals and the stomach—or everywhere,

poetry is just in an ivory tower and doesn’t recognize the

an intelligence to feed the rest of this dormant kingdom.

need to speak to more people.”

In the end we had to concede the body to its silence.

What keeps Jay writing, a solitary endeavor at times, is the process itself. “What I’m really hooked on are the moments when

But giving up and turning him back over we suddenly caught sight of what we wanted: that shining presence, like a tree carved in rock that flowered with his former breathing. Carried on the sound.

something has brought me to the page,” he says. “Maybe

It was here that he produced his desires, and we could see

I’m reading something and I find a felicitous phrase

as we looked closer each of them still spawning from those minor shoots:

and I’m interested in it. Or I could be washing dishes and two random words pop into my head and I want to play with them together. When I’m just focused on the language, to an extent the self and the outside world go away. Those moments of attention to language, attention to making something, are just enlivening. They’re very

a moment over a breathless woman whose face was turned away, the long road furling over hills into the Welsh distance, his body sudden with air when someone knocked him down —and children, the free moon in the eye of his one son its own private accomplishment. These he had kept inside

vivid and vibrant. Something happens for me through

himself for years, seeding all the rest, holding

creative work, and there’s something renewing in that

the greedy tumble of his being in one place, together, no wars

experience of the present.”

inside the village. We put him back where he belonged. Locking the door and walking home

Liz Matson

our hands were luminous in the crisp winter light.

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M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

a t m i l t o n

A Focus on Mental Health and Wellness Today’s teenagers are stressed out. This is not breaking news. The reasons are numerous and varied. Pressures are internal and external. Today, at Milton, faculty members, the staff, and most important, students, recognize mental health and wellness as key components to a student’s overall well-being. When new students arrive on campus, many come from environments where they stood out as a scholar, an

The destigmatization is working. During Lisa’s first year, the counseling office received 25 after-hours calls from

athlete, an artist, or a musician. Amanda Chapin, one of

students. Now, the counselors receive up to 130 after-hours

Milton’s health counselors, says that as these students find

calls a year. Rather than being a sign that kids have more

themselves with many other smart and talented students,

problems, it shows that they are more willing to reach out

they sometimes struggle to figure out where they fit in. But,

for help, she says. “The students started to see us as more

she says, “there’s room here for everybody to be talented,

of a resource, which is fabulous.”

smart, and successful.” Milton’s Health and Counseling

John Lee started as a counselor at Milton two years ago.

Center is there to help any student who might be having a

It’s his first independent school experience, and he says

hard time with the adjustment or to help older students who

that what is unique about Milton is that all students have

are facing stressors—both big and small. And overall the

free access to one-on-one counseling sessions. Some

center wants to empower students to make good decisions

of them have seen counselors before coming to Milton, he

and help them shape a safe, healthy high school experience.

says, “but it’s also not uncommon for a student to say, ‘I don’t know what this counseling is all about, but people keep

Mental Health Counseling

When Director of Counseling Lisa Morin came to Milton nine years ago, she knew she needed to expand the Upper

talking about it.’” “Sometimes students just need a space to vent, talk, and feel heard, affirmed, and validated in their experiences and

School counseling team. Today, four full-time counselors

feelings,” John says. “Other times, a student may need to

live on campus and provide 24/7 on-call coverage during

develop specific skills to better cope with time management

the school year. The counselors also wear many other

or become more aware of their weaknesses and strengths.

hats as student advisors, coaches, and teachers.

Sometimes it’s just getting them to reflect by asking them

“We work as a team to destigmatize the idea of what

questions, such as ‘Are you sure you want to play that sport

counseling is,” Lisa says. “At the beginning of each school

and do all these things, because remember last year, that

year, we attend dorm meetings and morning assemblies

was really hard?’”

to introduce ourselves and explain what we do. We talk

Counselors also work closely with faculty members,

about mental health and wellness, and the importance of

especially those who live in the dorms, to empower them to

getting counseling if you need it. We have the students

handle certain situations. If, for example, a student feels

put our numbers into their phones. Even if a student might

overwhelmed, a faculty member is shown what to do until

never need to call for themselves, they might need to call

a counselor becomes available. Counselors also work

for a friend.”

with the faculty when a student may need to miss classes.

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“Sometimes, kids need to take a break,” Lisa says. “Just like if they have a 103-degree fever, they should focus on getting better before returning to class. Well, the mind is as

to the health center and ask to meet with a counselor, so we walk down with them just to be there.” Amanda is the faculty advisor for Peer Leaders. Every

important as the body, so sometimes they should focus on

year, about 25 to 30 rising juniors apply for 10 to 12 spots.

feeling better mentally before returning to class.”

Peer leaders focus solely on freshman students, meeting in small groups weekly to introduce them to the School and

Peer Support

answer questions that freshmen might feel more comfortable

The most important recent change in mental health services

asking another student. Peer leaders tell them how to

at Milton has been an increase in student involvement.

get help for themselves or a friend, how to access the health

During the 2017–2018 school year, head monitors Kailee

center, and how to handle stress around exams and

Silver ’18 and Greg Livingston ’18 and the student Self-

projects. They also inform students about the sanctuary

Governing Association (SGA) made mental health and

policy. Although using illegal substances is, of course,

wellness their main focus as student leaders. One of

against school rules, Milton prioritizes student health and

the initiatives the SGA proposed was to institute a series

safety, so students can call for help for themselves or a

of academic days with delayed start times to address the

friend without worrying that they will incur a disciplinary

issue of sleep. Milton approved the proposal, and during

response for breaking a major school rule. Unrelated to

the 2018–2019 school year, the school rolled out three

sanctuary, students can also reach out to one another even

delayed start times of 10 a.m., with class schedules adjusted

if they are not members of ISS or Peer Leaders. They can

accordingly. Student feedback on those mornings was

call a health counselor if they are concerned about a student,

overwhelmingly positive. Some students were just happy

and the counselor will follow up with the student. “The

for extra sleep; others talked about feeling less pressure

students really care for one another and look out for one

the night before to finish homework by a certain time.

another,” John says.

Two peer counseling models—Independent Student

“In the past few years,” Amanda says, “there’s been a

Support (ISS) and Peer Leaders—have existed at Milton

real shift in the focus on health, wellness, and mindfulness.

for many years. John is the faculty advisor for ISS, a group

I’m really glad to be part of an institution that is thinking

of 20 seniors who meet weekly and are assigned either

about these important things. And it’s also wonderful

to dorms or as day student support. They are introduced

to see the ways in which the students are driving this shift

to students at the beginning of the year as a resource

as well.”

students can reach out to at any time. They also attend freshman health classes to foster relationships between

Liz Matson

underclassmen and upperclassmen. ISS hosted a Mental Health Awareness Week in the spring, with activities and programming around campus. ISS member Eva O’Marah ’19 says, “It’s really helpful to have a senior who’s been through it all to be there to support other students.” In their weekly meetings with John, ISS members learn what their role is, and how to handle certain situations, and sometimes they role-play scenarios so that they are prepared when a student reaches out. “Sometimes, an ISS member notices something about a student and then suggests that they get in touch with the health center,” Eva says. “Other times, students go to an ISS member to ask about what they should do. Sometimes, we are just supportive. It can feel uncomfortable to walk down

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M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

at milton

P H O T O S B Y J O H N G I L L O O LY

Life

in the

Moment Milton’s rigorous academic environment prepares students well for life beyond Centre Street. But between classes and extracurriculars, our students also know how to blow off steam, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Lower School. Playing, performing, creating, and questioning, Milton’s youngest students live—and learn—in the moment.

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M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

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in sight

PHOTO BY MICHAEL DW YER

f a c u l t y p e r s p e c t i v e

Lessons in Grieving Suzanne DeBuhr, a faculty member in Milton Academy’s history department and director of spiritual and community development, shares her story of loss, discovery, and solace.

In the religion of Buddhism, the first noble

I understood it, a morphine drip with regular

returned, we started to plan out the day and

truth is the truth of suffering.

doses of anti-anxiety medicine.

how we would handle visitors.

In late February 2018, Chris, the husband of

We can never fully know the internal

my friend Kate, sent me a text informing me

thoughts and feelings of another, so in that

And then Kate’s breathing changed. It became more abrupt, less frequent, and

that Kate was in the hospital with pneumonia.

moment with Kate, I couldn’t know if she was

shallow. The nurse walked in and told us it

Oh no, I thought. Just a month before, Kate

feeling pain, if she was scared, or if she even

would be soon. We needed to say good-bye.

had finished chemotherapy and radiation,

knew what was happening to her body. In that

I told Kate I loved her, that it was OK to let go,

undertaken as a “precaution” to make sure

moment, all I knew was that I wanted to have

and that I would always be part of her family.

that all the cancer the doctors had removed in

my old friend Kate back: the Kate with whom

Within minutes, Kate stopped breathing.

surgery was gone. The scan she had after the

I could commiserate with on the state of U.S.

treatment indicated that her body was clear.

politics; the Kate who was raising her girls to

The fourth noble truth is the eightfold

be strong, independent women; the Kate

path: right understanding, right

called in a panic and asked if I had seen

whose own openness allowed me to embrace

thought, right speech, right action,

the news on Facebook. No, I don’t do Facebook.

vulnerability and accept her compassion.

right livelihood, right effort, right

The third noble truth is the truth that

Ever since Kate’s death, rarely does a day

it was aggressively attacking Kate’s lungs.

suffering can cease.

go by when I don’t think of her in some way.

Kate, my friend of 33 years, whom I met in

I returned to the hospital before dusk the

Strangely, I almost feel her presence more

A week after Chris’s text, my friend Jenny

mindfulness, and right concentration.

Apparently, the doctors had misdiagnosed Kate’s pneumonia. The cancer was back, and

the summer between fourth and fifth grade

following day with another high school friend,

palpably now than I did when she was alive.

when we took flute lessons together, was

Lisa. We found Kate lying in bed, her eyes

It’s as if the physical space she occupied

dying. I made plans to get to Chicago as soon

closed, her breathing labored but steady. She

kept her presence limited, and once she was

as possible.

looked peaceful. We sat with her, holding

no longer confined by a body, she could be

her hands, one of us on either side of her. We

present across space and time.

The second noble truth is the truth that

reminisced about our collective friendship

suffering is caused by desire.

and caught up with one another. When Chris

In early March of this past academic year, almost exactly a year since Kate’s death, when

My parents, who still live in the suburbs of Chicago in the same house in which I was raised, picked me up at the airport when I arrived on a Friday afternoon. When we pulled into the driveway, I didn’t even enter the house. I just took my mom’s car and drove to the hospital. Kate was in her room, slumped over, sleeping in a chair. She woke up after a few minutes, recognized that I was there, but wasn’t able to hold a conversation. She was constantly moving—standing up and sitting

“Because when I think about what helped me to endure these losses, my answer is love. In my own movement through grief and sadness, I have come to realize that love is both a feeling and a practice.”

down, pacing, or rocking back and forth in her chair. She was attached to an IV—as

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my students and I had just finished reading the Dhammapada, a foundational Buddhist text enumerating the Buddha’s teachings, I posed the following question: Is Buddhism compatible with love? After some thought, a couple of students chimed in and reasoned that Buddhism was not compatible with love, because love is defined by desire and attachment, and Buddhism teaches us to overcome desire and cultivate detachment. According to the reasoning they provided, they were right. Buddhism would be incom patible with this kind of love. At the same time, I would argue that they were also wrong. In my view, Buddhism is compatible with love—the kind of love that is expressed through compassion and kindness. This conversation with my students got me thinking about my friend Kate and my dog, Zoey, who also died in the spring of last year. Because when I think about what helped me to endure these losses, my answer is love. In my own movement through grief and sadness, I have come to realize that love is both a feeling and a practice. Love is the practice not of holding on tight but of letting go. Love is the practice of respecting others for who they are in their fullest selves, not for whom

In a way, the eightfold path could be

we have within our reach a world that is more

we want them to be. Love is the practice of

interpreted as a path of love and compassion,

forgiving, more open, and more kind? I don’t

kindness, of holding doors and saying “thank

in which love and compassion serve as a

know, and I don’t know that we will ever have

you” and “please,” a recognition of the

mindset that encompasses all the other aspects

the opportunity to test out this hypothesis.

humanity we share with all others who live

of the path and asks us to approach each

What I do know is that the practice of love and

on this planet. In the practice of love, we

experience with an attitude of love. I wonder,

compassion, although it did not diminish the

cultivate an awareness of the interdependence

how would our relationships and our ideas

pain of losing my friend Kate and my dog, Zoey,

of our existence with the natural world

about the world change if we approached

enabled me to be present to the reality of their

and the rest of humanity, we acknowledge the

everything—people, nature, discourse—with

suffering, to abide with them as they took their

certainty and inevitability of change, and we

a loving and compassionate mindset? Would

final breaths, and to carry them with me

surrender our ability to control people, nature,

we be able to see that in loving another we

through my grief and in gratitude for the love

and circumstance.

actually develop love for ourselves? Would

we practiced together.

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o n c e n t r e Student Writers Earn Numerous Accolades Writing awards were bountiful this spring for numerous creative and

stanza, the speaker describes fleeting feelings of love and lust. The

nonfiction writing students. Of the 28 Milton students who earned

short-lived moment is compared to “the fraying of telephone poles with

45 regional scholastic writing honors in January, five were recognized

the passing of countless summers.”

at the national level. Caroline Bragg ’21 won a gold medal for flash fiction, Erika Yip ’20 won a gold medal for poetry, Sarah Hsu ’19 won a silver medal for flash fiction, and Clara Wolff ’19 won a silver medal

Malia Chung ’20 was recognized for two poems—“Digression” and “Seven Ways of Looking at Seven”—as a semifinalist for the Smith College Poetry Prize, an honorable mention for the Leonard Milberg Poetry

for poetry. Notably, Akua Owusu ’19 won a silver medal with distinction

Prize of Princeton University, and an honorable mention for the Nancy

for her writing portfolio, which consisted of nonfiction essays and

Thorpe Poetry Contest of Hollins University.

eight pieces of poetry. “One of the essays I wrote for my nonfiction class,” Akua says. “It’s

“‘Seven Ways’ is about my youngest sister, who was seven at the time,” says Malia. “There are seven parts; and each one offers a different

about my father and his immigration story of coming to America

perspective on questions she would ask me. It’s fascinating how the

from Ghana. It’s also about how I think about success and living up

younger mind works: how she tries to understand big topics like politics

to expectations. When I first started writing in my English classes,

or the passage of time. All the big and cool questions that little kids ask

it was hard to write about personal stuff, but now I’m comfortable

that you don’t expect.”

writing about stuff closer to home. You gain confidence in yourself.” Erika’s gold-medal poem was informed by her “new role as an

Evita Thadhani ’20 was also recognized by the Smith College Poetry Prize as a finalist for her poem “Life Rules.” And the poem “What My

upperclassman, inspiring me to rethink how previous years’ experiences

Mother Texts Me When I’m At School” by Hana Widerman ’19 will be

shape my identity today.” “When We Are Old Enough” is an ode both

in an upcoming issue of Washington Square Review, an award-winning

to childhood summers and to mourning the loss of innocence as one

literary journal published by New York University’s Graduate Creative

grows older. The poem depicts scenes of purity and the speaker’s growing

Writing Program. Hana’s poem “Origin Story” will be published in

attraction to the mysteries of adulthood. As it progresses to the second

Asian American Literary Review.

Alex Wang Serves as UN Youth Delegate Over March break, Alex Wang ’21 represented his home country of China

One important lesson he learned, he says, was that the reasons for

at the Youth Forum 2019 held by the United Nations Office on Drugs

drug abuse may vary depending on the economic circumstances of

and Crime. Alex was one of 42 youth delegates from 33 countries who

a country. “In places where there is an absence of food, some people

gathered in Vienna over three days to share their experiences and

turn to drugs. In other communities, drugs are just easily accessible.

ideas on topics such as drug-use prevention and rehabilitation.

It’s important to first encourage some countries to raise the quality of

“It was so interesting,” Alex says. “Although I’ve lived in a few

life. In countries where that’s not a problem, the work should be on

different countries, I’ve never been to an event with people from around

spreading awareness and early rehabilitation, because just focusing

the world. It was refreshing and informative to hear their ideas, and

on prevention isn’t going to work.”

then to share my ideas.” The forum was composed of workshops and discussions, culminating in the writing of a formal statement. Alex was one of two delegates chosen to read the statement at the opening of the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the organization that supervises the application of international drugcontrol treaties. “Our conclusions were that young people should be engaged in the process and that youths can play a part in communities regarding issues such as drug control,” Alex says. “Last year, the youth delegates created a guide for member states, so in our statement we encouraged members to use that guide.”

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

Ify Ofulue Excels at ISLs and New Englands Undefeated and breaking records, Amanda “Ify” Ofulue ’19 wrapped up an amazing track

Welcoming Student Guests From Shanghai Students celebrated the Lunar New Year in February in Hathaway House by making

and field season by winning the New England

dumplings, playing games, and spending time

Championships (New England Prep School

together. Joining them were nine Chinese

Track Association – Division 1) in both shot

students and their chaperone, who had all arrived

put (41' 10") and discus (129' 10"). In both

from Shanghai as part of Milton’s new China

events, she broke Milton school records, and

exchange program. The visiting students attend

she set a facility record (Loomis Chaffee) in

the No. 2 High School of East China Normal

discus. Ify was also an ISL Champion in shot

University and were staying with student host

put, setting an ISL Championship record,

families for their two-week visit.

and an ISL Champion in discus. She topped

This exchange program was organized by

it all off with second place in javelin, scoring

Shimin Zhou, a modern languages faculty member.

a total of 28 of Milton’s total 72 points, which

During their stay, the Chinese students visited

placed the girls third overall in ISLs.

Boston sites including the JFK Presidential Library,

“In my opinion, she will be remembered as

the Institute of Contemporary Art, and Faneuil

the greatest female throw athlete in Milton

Hall. They also toured the campuses of Boston

Academy’s history and in the ISL,” says Coach

College and Harvard University, had lunch at

Steve Darling. “I don’t foresee her records being

Head of School Todd Bland’s home, and spent time

broken for a very long time, maybe ever. An athlete like Ify only comes around once in a

attending classes with their student hosts.

lifetime. I’m just glad I was here to witness it.” Ify was one of three captains along with Cianna O’Flaherty ’19 and Lily Wright ’19. “She’s been a great captain,” says Steve. “She’s always the first to arrive and one of the last to leave. Having Ify on the team is similar to having another assistant coach at practice, due to her maturity and her experience competing. Ify is very easy to coach, but what I enjoy most is that she is comfortable sharing with me her own thoughts and opinions regarding her technique, and therefore we both learn from each other.” Ify is attending Brown University this fall and will compete on Brown’s track and field team.

Milton’s Developers Place in Teen Hacks Competition Along with computer science faculty member Chris Hales, Milton’s programmers attended the Teen Hacks LI Hackathon in Long Island, New York. Aaron Lockhart ’21,

In late May, nine Milton students traveled to

Sebby Park ’21, Tim Colledge ’21, and Aaron’s friend built an app called BiParse, which

Shanghai and shadowed their counterparts during

indicates whether a given article has a liberal or a conservative bias. They earned first

classes and school activities, attended a variety of

place in the competition. Sur+, built by Zack Ankner ’20 and Alex Rodriguez ’20, lets

cultural events, and explored the exciting historical

users donate a certain percentage of every payment they make to a charity of their choice.

and cultural sites around Shanghai. In the

They earned third place. Miriam Zuo ’20, Kendelle Grubbs ’20, and Shiloh Liu ’22 built

third week, students traveled to Xi’an to see the

Find Your Reps, an app that allows Americans to learn about their local representatives.

Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang and

James Perreault ’21 built CensorFlow, a parental-controls app for Google Chrome. Ben

to Beijing to visit the Great Wall and the Forbidden

Botvinick ’21 teamed up with a friend from Philadelphia to build Charity Banner, which

City. Shimin and faculty member Xiaolu Shi

allows web developers to donate income from their web traffic to charity.

accompanied the students on the trip.

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on cen t r e , con t.

The Many Milton Hats of Josh Jordan ’11 When people ask Josh Jordan ’11 how he came

beginning of the school day can be, and if I can

the sport of basketball but being together. I

to know seemingly everyone at Milton Academy,

find a way to make them laugh and be silly,

could tell them, as an alumnus, my favorite

the answer is a bit complex. Many members of the Upper School faculty were his teachers, mentors, and coaches; now

it’s the most beautiful thing. I want to get them

times at Milton were with the friends I met

off to a great start.”

in those moments. For this team, it’s led to

As a student, Josh transferred from

success on the court.” Josh is also an assistant coach for the

they’re his colleagues. He serves on the Staff

Randolph High School after meeting Milton

Committee. He coaches several Upper School

football coach Kevin MacDonald during

varsity football team, head coach for

sports teams. He spent his college summers

a summer football camp. The change was

the JV football team, and head coach for the

planting and landscaping the campus with the

challenging at times, but as Josh settled into the

freshmen boys’ tennis team. He helps out

facilities department. He’s worked in the

School, he developed some lifelong friendships

with softball when he can.

Middle School’s after-school program—a job

and had a transformative education with the

his father, a Boston schoolteacher, also held

help of strong faculty mentorship.

at one point. Josh now spends every day in

“It’s so amazing to come back and be able

During summers at Salve Regina University, where Josh received a degree in elementary education, he came back to

to soak up even more knowledge from these

campus and worked in the facilities depart

and substitute, going where he’s needed by

people who meant so much to me when I was

ment. He loved the work and the crew, so

Milton’s youngest students.

younger,” Josh says. “I feel so lucky to see

he returned for the summer after graduation,

how they work together to make this place run.”

and eventually a position opened with

Lower School classrooms as a floating teacher

“I like to joke with the kids that I have a stunt double,” he says. “I’ll pop into a classroom for

Josh’s best friends are fellow Milton alumni,

the Middle School after-school program.

a bit and then see the same kids minutes later

and he sees similar friendships developing

Substitute teaching opportunities brought

when I’m on lunch duty. I’ll ask them if they’ve

among the students he coaches. In the Upper

him over to the Lower School, where his role has continued to evolve.

seen my twin anywhere. Having this versatility,

School, Josh is the head coach of the JV boys’

I’ve been able to get to know every student from

basketball team, which finished the season in

kindergarten through fifth grade, which I love.”

a tie for first place with a 16–4 record. He

CAFE (Cultural Awareness for Everyone),

attributes their success to their dynamics as

a weekly lunchtime drop-in session where

At the start of each school day, Josh helps

In the Lower School, Josh co-teaches

students from kindergarten through Grade 2

a team and their enthusiasm for supporting

fourth- and fifth-graders explore issues

get settled in, and he understands the impor

one another on and off the court.

around different aspects of identity, such as

tance of kicking the day off right. “A lot of times,

“Most of them played together as freshmen,

ethnic and racial identities and privilege.

I’m the first person they see at school in the

and some even played together in the Middle

This year, Josh presented a session on Afro

morning. I realize how important that

School,” Josh says. “They really all love not just

hairstyles and textures, at which he shared a short film he and a friend made to highlight the significance of barber shops in black communities. He ended up sharing it across the Lower and Middle school communities. Josh wants Milton’s youngest students of color to feel perfectly at home at school, which is why you might see him in Forbes Dining Hall having lunch with a group from the Lower School and some Upper School students he knows from coaching. “There is a lot of power in that,” he says. “Having these older kids as role models feels really great. It’s not always formal, but being an alum and being able to make that space to form these relationships means a lot to me. And it’s an opportunity to build real connections across divisions, so the students can see this is a whole K–12 community.”

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Ultimate Disc Team is Flying High in Its Second Season On a quintessential spring afternoon, the ultimate disc team warms up on Headmaster’s Field. White discs shoot back and forth as the players practice passing and wait for the return discs from their opponents. In the second year of an official intramural co-ed team, the majority of team members are new players. Coaches Martin McDermott and John Lee say Milton’s program is young compared with some of the more established school programs, but the students are having fun learning the game and improving with each practice and competition. Alexander Shih ’19 is the captain and one of two seasoned returning players. “I like playing ultimate Frisbee because the whole sport is based around good sportsmanship and honesty, something called the ‘spirit of the game.’ It is the only sport I know of that is self-refereed. This is a testament to the honest and friendly people who play the game.” Developed in the late 1960s, ultimate disc is similar to soccer in having the goal of moving the disc down the field in the air, and then into the end zone to score a point. The opponent can intercept or knock it down to stop the progression. The first team to reach 15 points wins. At practices, teams work on their offensive and defensive strategies; this is the area that Milton is focused on improving. Milton competes against a couple of ISL teams and also public high schools from surrounding towns. “Most of the teams we are playing against will play us again later in the season,” Alexander says. “I am confident that we will show improvement from the beginning of the year. Everyone on the team is open to learning and working hard to become more well-versed in the strategies that we use in games. The biggest reason I enjoy playing on our team is because no matter how we are doing, everyone keeps a light attitude and we have fun. But at the same time, we are doing our best to improve.”

After a Season of Wins, Milton’s Robotics Team Takes on the World

Milton Students Sing National Anthem at Fenway Park

Capping a year filled with resounding successes—including three high

Milton’s student vocalists are accustomed to taking the

placements in a national tournament—Milton’s robotics team traveled to the

stage, but singing at the home of the Boston Red Sox may

VEX Robotics World Championship in the spring. Tony Tao ’20, Christy

be a first. On Sunday, May 19, a group of Milton Academy

Zheng ’19, Avery Miller ’20, Alexander Shih ’19, and Dima Zayaruzny ’21

singers performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a

competed in the world championship in Louisville, Kentucky, and finished

Red Sox vs. Houston Astros game at Fenway Park.

the season in 32nd place (out of 20,000 that started the year). The hectic and collaborative atmosphere at VEX tournaments—entrants have to compete in intense matches and also scout their opponents and the teams they pair with—has been easier to navigate because Milton’s team members work so well together, says Christy. “I’m super proud of what Milton Robotics has accomplished over the last four years,” she says. “Every year, we’ve made significant improvement, but I never thought we would get the opportunity to compete at worlds. I can’t wait to see how big the robotics program will become in the future.” Christy gives credit for the team’s success this year to hard work, a renovated and expanded work space that was completed last summer, and the guidance of faculty members Chris Hales and Khizar Hussain. “They’ve also sacrificed much of their free time for Robotics, because they genuinely believe in us,” she says.

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New Leadership at Lower School New Lower School Principal Frank Patti is spending this year building relationships with the faculty, students, and families who make up Milton’s kindergarten through fifth-grade community. “I think that our youngest learners can be the most curious and excited learners,” Frank says of working with lower-school students. “It’s so incredible to be part of that process with them, when they’re asking questions and they really have the entire world at their fingertips. Being a part of helping kids get those building blocks that they will need in middle school, high school, and beyond is such a privilege, and it’s also a lot of hard work. Working with this age group, you’re beginning to see the kinds of young adults they will eventually become.” Frank joins Milton after spending 15 years in New York City independent schools, beginning at the Collegiate School. Prior to arriving at Milton, he worked at the Hewitt School for seven years, where he served as the head of the lower school and dean of the faculty. “I am delighted that Frank has joined us as Lower School principal,” says Head of School Todd Bland. “He is a gifted educator with extensive experience working with the faculty to assess and imple ment innovative curricula and has a proven record of advancing institutional diversity efforts.” The move to Milton is a homecoming of sorts for Frank. He grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, and when he and his husband decided to move back to the Boston area with their daughter, he learned of the opportunity at the Lower School. Joy was palpable in the classes he visited, he says. “The moment I stepped foot on campus, and the moment I was in the Lower School classrooms, it just felt very familiar to me,” Frank says. “There are a lot of similarities with Hewitt—everything from the quality of teaching, to the passion of the teachers I met, to the small class sizes and individual attention to students. It’s a rigorous environment but a nurturing one at the same time. I immediately felt at home.” Milton’s work on diversity, equity, and inclusion also attracted Frank to the School. Hewitt has been engaged in similar work, such as educating young students about social identifiers, providing multi cultural education and activities, and working with faculty members on culturally responsive teaching. Like Milton, Hewitt is a K–12 school, and Frank has experience with the benefits and challenges such a complex environment presents. The establishment of new traditions at Hewitt, including matching seniors with kindergarten “buddies” for moments throughout the year, has proved to be a unifying force at Frank’s previous school. “At Hewitt, it had always been a goal to integrate the lower school into that K–12 experience,” he says. “Those partnerships between older and younger students can become really meaningful connections.” Frank replaces Racheal Adriko, who led the Lower School for five years. Racheal is now head of school at Metropolitan Montessori School in New York City.

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Mert Bayturk Dominates on the Mat Mert Bayturk ’19 (center) won an astounding three heavyweight wrestling championships over three weekends last spring—the Northern New England Championship, the ISL Championships, and the New England Championship. After competing in the 220-pound weight class over the past few years, Mert found his groove this year by competing against other heavyweights (285-pound weight class). Mert started wrestling the summer before his freshman year at Ya ar Dogu Spor Salonu, a wrestling club in Ankara, Turkey, where he spends the summers with his family. He says what he loves about the sport is that it’s “like a chess game, involving strength and technique.” Before his junior year, he sought outside opportunities to wrestle, establishing a connection with the Dungeon Training Center, a wellknown wrestling club in Hanover, Massachusetts. Mert says he focused on gaining weight by increasing what he ate and lifting weights to move up to the higher weight class. “My mentality about wrestling shifted,” he says. “I have a lot more willpower and desire to push myself. I’m really happy competing at this level.”

Building Tools for More-Authentic Online Conversation When Benjamin Botvinick ’21 and Zack Ankner ’20 (pictured below)

have people all around us. Seven billion of them. And yet when we’re

traveled to Montreal for McGill University’s McHacks hackathon this

browsing the web, it can be a pretty solitary experience.”

year, they knew their competition was strong. “We went in knowing we wanted to come up with something good and

At the end of the academic year, the boys won a contest at Milton called E-Venture Challenge, in which students pitched entrepreneurial projects

be really competitive, but we were going up against students from MIT,

and competed for seed money—raised by students—to develop their ideas.

Harvard, and these other great universities,” Zack says.

They plan to focus on marketing the extension to attract more users,

To their surprise, their project SurfChat, a Google extension that allows people to chat with other visitors using the same website in real time, earned them an Amazon award and offers to intern at the commerce giant. They couldn’t accept the offer, though—they’re too young. “It was funny, because before the judging even happened, we were approached about internships and had to explain that we’re still in high school,” Ben says. “The response was ‘Sure, that’s fine. You guys

and are applying for a provisional patent. SurfChat is available free on the Chrome Web Store. Ben believes it’s important to improve the depth of communication on the internet. To keep the chats authentic and trustworthy, users are required to display their real names. “I’m extremely interested in how people communicate, because one of the biggest problems that we have with technology is that with more

are seniors, right?’ And we had to explain that Zack’s a junior and I’m

technology, there’s less communication,” he says. “We spend more

a sophomore. So, a few more years.”

and more time alone by a screen, so how can we make those genuine

The goal of SurfChat is to bring the spontaneous nature of in-person communications to the digital world. Users of the extension will be able

connections? Because as much as Instagram connects people, as much as Snapchat connects you, those are solo ventures.”

to talk with other SurfChat users any time they’re on the same website— striking up a conversation the same way you might if you were standing in line at a store or reacting to a movie together with another person. Watching a movie online is a far different, more isolating experience than going to a movie theater, Zack says. “You have your own account, and you can see posts that you made, but you don’t have specific followers—it’s not like seeing only the posts from people you’re friends with,” Zack says. “It’s completely randomized, to your benefit.” “That’s what makes it unique,” Ben adds. “You don’t post to people who are reviewing your profile. It’s more about having conversations in the digital world in the same way you would talk to someone in the physical world. The reason in-person conversation happens is that we

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r e t i r i n g fa c u l t y, s t a f f, a n d t r u s t e e s Larry Pollans History and Social Sciences and Visual Arts Departments Member of the Faculty 1985–2019 unprepared to do all the things I was expected to do. It was an interesting way for me to come of age as a teacher.” And he “loved it!”—the history and the students. Says Barbara, “Larry always felt challenged. He found the intelligence and the awareness of the kids thrilling.” What Larry first thought would be “a gig to support my sculpture habit” became the thing itself: “I kept pinching myself. ‘Am I really doing this?’” It did not take long for Milton to do some pinching of its own: Did we really land such a multi-talented guy? In short time, Larry added history of the Middle East to his teaching portfolio. He also became a long-serving faculty advisor for the Milton Measure. In the 90s, Larry began archiving and restoring Milton’s art collection. It is hard to fully capture his seminal influence in shaping and preserving the visual culture of Milton. That magnificent eagle in Wigglesworth Hall? Larry. The beautifully restored plaster models of the Elgin marbles? Larry. He partnered with his longtime squash buddy, Mr. Millet, to give several important paintings much-needed face-lifts. He has taught numerous art history master classes to alums. Along the way, Larry also became our in-house curator, bringing in significant large-scale works by local artists to grace open spaces around campus and, most recently, revitalizing the Nesto Gallery. The crown jewel of Larry’s work, a beloved Milton institution wholly and distinctively his, was his art history course. Jess Bond was a In our first conversation about this encomium, Larry mused that he

student in that course, and she found it “so cool” that Larry was largely

hoped his classes felt like “interesting problem-solving labs.” As I began

self-taught. Larry’s deep research took him wherever his instincts as

to think about how to fit all of the fun and deep-running variegations of Larry Pollans into the prescribed word limits for the speech, I realized

historian and artist led him. The result was, as Lucas Wittman ’03 put it, “the first class that was just here to show us the pure pleasure of looking

that he had presented me with quite a tough problem to solve and

and learning for its own sake.” “It was such fun to sit in that darkened

that I would prove a poor student. So I apologize in advance for going

room in Straus watching slides go up,” recalls Jess. “We learned to

a smidge over.

see how a painting was shaped, how the paint worked, alongside the

Larry came to us 35 years ago, thanks to friendship and serendipity. He had just left the faculty of Bridgewater State. His oldest daughter,

historical perspective. Larry showed us the specifics and the wide arc.” Central to the memorable power of the course was the March trip to

Lily, Class of ’97, had just been admitted to Milton’s kindergarten. So

New York to prowl the galleries of Chelsea and take in the splendors

when Larry and his wife, Barbara, traveled to Joe Wheelwright’s gallery

of MOMA, the Met, and the Whitney. A typical day could range from a

opening in New York City and heard that Anne Neely, a longtime art

classic Greek sculpture to a sculpture of dried horsehide; the aim was

teacher at Milton, was interviewing candidates for a teaching position

to see how all these seemingly disparate works could somehow connect.

in the visual arts department, Larry applied the next day.

An exercise in cross-Pollans-ation, as it were.

The rest, as they say, is history. Well, actually, history, arts, art

This spring marked the 33rd iteration of the trip. In earlier years,

history, and much more. Initially hired to teach studio art, Larry found

budgets were tight and risk management did not occupy the forefront

himself part of the history department after impressive turns guest-

of everyone’s thinking. The class took the Fung Wah bus. Larry was

teaching history about Renaissance art. Soon he was teaching those

the sole chaperone, sometimes for 35 students. The students had to find

courses himself and developing a first-ever art history course. With his

their own lodging. Eventually, the present era dawned, lawyers began

usual modesty, Larry remembers those heady times as “five to six years

to feel cardiac tremors, and, in Larry’s own words, “They whipped me

of being nervous and trying to catch up,” he says. “I was pedagogically

into modern shape.”

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Larry stays in close touch with former students. What emerges from them is enormous gratitude. One wrote, “The course changed my life

The idea of Larry moving on from Milton leaves us with a heavy

forever; it launched my passion in art.” Another observed, “I remember

spirit. But as he heads off to a

how he encouraged us to look at the same piece of art from radically

wonderful life of more time with

The tributes that follow were delivered at the close of the 2018–2019 school year.

different angles. That process of accommodating different ways of seeing

Barbara, more time in New York

has translated to many aspects of my life.” At a core level, Larry’s students

City to visit kids and grandkids, more time in the studio, more time

feel, as one put it, “seen and understood, like Mr. Pollans got me.” Yvonne

with his dog, Pip, we know that, astute teacher that he is, he has

Fu ’14, a Measure editor, appreciated Larry’s cultural sensitivity and

prepared us. Susan Wheelwright admires the way Larry “lets us feel

awareness, particularly his fondness for that ancient Chinese call to civil

like contributing experts—quiet and deep and humble,” he leads

disobedience and irreverence: “The sky is high and the emperor’s away.”

us out of ourselves to ourselves. Barbara, too, speaks of this knowing

When Lily and Margot Pollans run into Milton alums, they often hear, “You’re Mr. Pollans’s daughter? I LOVED him.” Now about that sculpture habit. Somehow, even with all he had

approach: “With Larry, you learn how to see things and place them historically, so you then have this basis for reacting to new ideas on your own. You know where to put them in your own thinking.”

going at Milton, Larry sustained a second life as a practicing artist.

Says Ann Foster, “Larry’s never heavy-handed. We always laugh

He co-founded the Boston Sculpture Gallery. The gallery expected

together, but I also always leave thinking about something bigger,

each member to mount a show every two years, and for a long time,

deeper. Larry knows what’s important and he isn’t distracted by

Larry sustained that. But it was not an easy life to balance; there were

day-to-day kerfuffles.” Kerfuffle: a delightful Larry kind of word, just

sacrifices. Finally, he had to scale back. Happily, Larry’s recent part-

the right place to end.

time role at Milton allowed him more time for his art, and his show at

At the end of that first conversation, Larry remarked, “I wanted to

the gallery this fall was “my best work,” he says. “It took me 30 years

be a useful and productive person and have fun doing it.” Mission more

but I finally got it.” Larry also teamed with Joe Wheelwright to create

than accomplished.

a foundry on the Wheelwrights’ land in Vermont. That project entailed

Thank you, Larry.

cutting an enormous kiln in half, trucking it to Vermont, and then reassembling it. Hard, time-consuming work. Susan Wheelwright

Rod Skinner ’72

remembers that Larry always found time to step out and call Barb.

Dean of College Counseling

Other things to know about Larry: • He and Bob Sinicrope grew up in the same town—Meriden, Connecticut—and both served in the Peace Corps. • Larry is one cool cat. He has been described variously as having “a loping Giacometti gait,” “physical elegance,” “a youthful mind,” “a blue-black laugh.” Fifteen years ago, a student wrote that Larry “walked with a swing beat,” a now legendary observation in the Pollans household. • Larry loves wordplay, especially puns involving names. His daughter Margot ’00 says a favorite is “True, man. Harry S. Truman.” Leave it to Larry to take the dad joke to a higher level, replete with historical reference. • Many people praise Larry’s loyalty. When the Wheelwrights moved to Dorchester, Larry came right over, pulling Lily on a sled, to make sure they were all right. After Joe died, Barb and Larry had dinner with Susan every Wednesday. Many cite all that Larry did for Bill Moore, first as support and caretaker and finally as executor. Larry never wavered in those responsibilities.

• Larry is a very good cook, always trying new things. At a new restaurant, he’ll order the most exotic item on the menu, sometimes to his regret. Larry never regrets oysters. On Thursdays you can often find him at the Ashmont Grill taking full advantage of Buck-a-Shuck Night. • He is, as the history department can tell you, a coffee fiend. Larry helped create the Coffee Club. It has clear standards: Everyone joins; a full pot must be ready before school and before recess. And not just any coffee: Flat Black or else. • Larry reads the New York Times religiously. Fellow history teacher Josh Emmott shifted his reading of the NYT to early morning to prepare for the daily visit of a fully informed Larry itching to dig into the latest news. Josh calls Larry “the intellectual center of departmental conversations,” and says, “He’s the last of a generation pushing us to see things in the larger context. I admire him for eloquently expressing views you could disagree with but need to contemplate—serious ideas. You have to take them with a certain amount of gravitas.”

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Laurel Starks History and Social Sciences Department Member of the Faculty 1986–2019 Laurel’s warm presence has been felt in every corner of our community

Source, a national organization that works to advance global and

since she arrived on campus in 1986. As her department chair noted

cultural learning in schools, when her lesson plan was published in

in her first year of teaching, Laurel was “the perfect example of a young

its sourcebook, Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History.

teacher who should be encouraged to become more involved with the

Perhaps her most profound impact on our department has been as a

life of our School.” She did, and turned out to be a perfect fit for us. It did

mentor. For more than 15 years, Laurel has supported a new generation

not take long for Laurel to find her way around our grades 7–12 history

of teachers as they honed their craft. Good mentors, ones that can

and social sciences department. For many years, she taught ancient and

inspire, guide, and promote growth, are rare, and Laurel is one of the

medieval history, economics to senior boys—not an easy task, by the

best. She has never forgotten what it means to be a new teacher at

way—and led our work in Class IV. When we formed our Middle School,

Milton, and she has worked tirelessly to help others find their bearings

Laurel helped guide our K–8 program through its transition and then

and create a life here.

was instrumental in the creation of Ancient Civilizations and Modern

In 1993, Laurel and her young family moved into Forbes House, where she served as dorm head until 2003 and earned high praise year

World History IV. Laurel has always been at the forefront of new initiatives—she

after year. One charge remembers, “Mrs. Starks goes completely out

developed interdisciplinary projects with our eighth-grade English

of her way to satisfy even the smallest needs of students. Very like a

teachers and created a World Cultures course that made social studies

mom. Always there for us.” As a former dean of students observed,

more meaningful for our Middle School students. In 2004, Laurel

Laurel “seems to have found the magical balance of being strict enough

was recognized for her work in curriculum development by Primary

that the student feels the boundaries around them, flexible enough to know that they are not just parts of a machine, and dedicated enough to have students realize that when the chips are down, somebody will take good care of them.” Laurel never really left the boarding community, even when she moved out, because she continued to do dorm duty and advise boarding and day students. Laurel has helped so many of us find our Milton family. Before my son was born, she helped me find my way to Academy Day Care, something I hadn’t even thought of yet. She arranged playdates for our children so that I could meet more Milton families, and even when she was swamped with her own work, she always knew when to check on me after a long day. As Andrea Geyling-Moore says, “Laurel has always juggled gracefully and with good humor the challenge of wearing many hats. I have seen firsthand through our many years as colleagues and friends how she was the consummate dorm head, advisor, teacher, committee member, mentor, and at the same time, a wife and mother of two amazing children. While my own child-rearing phase followed 10 years after hers, at just the right moments, she shared sage advice that was spot-on in its practicality and compassion, and for that I am forever grateful.” Laurel’s colleagues have come to depend on her, and she will be missed deeply. It is difficult for us to say good-bye to one of our best friends. Even so, we wish Laurel and Keith all the best as they enjoy their years of retirement together, traveling the globe and visiting with friends and family. Vivian WuWong History and Social Sciences Department

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Pam Rodman Upper School Registrar Member of the Staff 1996–2019 The framed poster in her office that boldly states, “Keep calm and carry on” heralds Pam Rodman’s mantra. As registrar since 2003, Pam has guided this ship that is the Milton Academy Upper School in seas both stormy and calm, standing boldly at the helm through three academic dean transitions, four principals, and five deans’ office assistants. Whether she was maintaining accurate records for grades and comments, responding to students’ and parents’ questions about courses and schedules, or ensuring that Upper School teachers were meeting appointed deadlines, Pam’s meticulousness and her ability to hold myriad details in her head at once are legendary. Her files, folders, lists, and calendars, always color-coded, allowed her to quickly access any information needed, and she helped countless students who wanted course changes and alumni in need of transcripts. Indeed, it seemed that everyone who entered her office needed something from Pam, and sometimes they asked for the impossible. Her response, in fun, might have been, “And I want a pony.” One day she got one, albeit of the plastic variety, from a department chair who appreciated her humor. Pam began her Milton Academy career in Cox Library; at the time, her children Lindsey ’01 and Colby ’03 were already well-entrenched in School life. Pam enjoyed her close work with students in the library, and she leaped at the opportunity to become the registrar. Unconstrained by convention, Pam soon proved herself in that role as a creative thinker who was open to change. She led the office into the 21st century; when she began as registrar, the School still produced transcripts one by one, on an IBM Selectric typewriter. That practice, and others, quickly changed, and now she (gasp!) uses technology to do just about everything her job requires. Although it is time to say good-bye to Pam, we know her connection to Milton will endure. We are tremendously grateful for her many years of service and for the integrity with which she performed each and every task in the registrar’s office. We hope she and Will might return for a future reunion with Lindsey or Colby, but for now, Pam’s heart lies in Dallas with her new grandson. Despite the miracles of Facetime, pictures on a screen cannot take the place of sharing in person those moments of wonder as a child takes his first steps or says his first words. We wish Pam and Will all the best as they resettle in a new state to enjoy the pleasures of family, gardening, and watching a New England blizzard from afar. We will miss you, Pam. Jackie Bonenfant Upper School Academic Dean

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Cathleen Everett Milton Magazine Editor and Former Chief Communication Officer Member of the Staff 1990–2019 those constituents never missed an opportunity to inform Cathy of our errors, their generosity knowing few bounds. Still, respectful of all perspectives—of our youngest kindergartners and of our most anxious boarding parents— Cathy had an abiding concern for those who entrusted their children to our boarding program, what she considered to be a defining element of our institution. Cathy made messages clear for all, no matter their outlook. Varied needs, perceived and real, were just one source of challenge. Rapid technological growth also demanded constant innovation and evolution. Unflappable, Cathy provided deft management of that ever-changing communications landscape. For all that changed during Cathy’s tenure, one fixture remained, a thoughtful, evocative treasure: Milton Magazine. Convinced that strong alumni connections fed the School’s soul, Cathy engaged graduates with probing questions, encouraging them to share their For decades, many knew Cathy Everett as “the voice of Milton Academy,”

work, their lives, their goals. And then the hours of editing began.

the one who, in this elevated, disembodied state, pronounced and

Every word, every phrase, every photo mattered. From compelling

proclaimed. Neither then nor now would Cathy tolerate such puffery.

cover to compelling cover, from insightful feature to insightful feature,

She wrote and spoke crisply, cleanly, and simply on the hardest days and

the magazine captured and magnified Milton, the School that Cathy

on the easiest. Ever resolute, she never wavered in the execution of this

so deeply loves.

responsibility, the most elemental sort of service. No, far more than an

Perhaps that’s what Cathy has done best: she has distilled this

institutional voice, Cathy embodied the strength of Milton Academy, her

lively, sometimes raucous place to its essence. Cathy conveyed the

firmness born of conviction and commitment. A trusted advisor to five

joyful humanity of children in a single image; she liberated our

Milton heads of school (I’m pretty sure that Cathy has a lot of stories that

defining principles from the bonds of tepid prose. At every moment,

she could tell) and an unofficial advisor to many of us, Cathy provided

Cathy seemed to call us back from loose thought and loose language.

direct, unvarnished counsel to all who sought her wisdom. Consider

Be strong, she seemed to say. Be true. Be Milton.

your audience, she might advise. Excise the adverbs, she always insisted.

And Cathy, as you look forward to the time you will now have to

Never, ever use an exclamation point like that again, she almost gasped.

spend with Jim, your three sons, all Milton graduates, and your eight

She was right on all counts.

grandchildren, we say this: Stay strong, stay true, and forevermore,

For years the leader of Milton’s communication office, Cathy shaped

stay Milton.

the way in which the world now understands Milton Academy. That task sounds simple. It’s not. Milton’s multiple constituencies often

David Ball ’88

presented competing, even contradictory, needs. As good Miltonians,

Upper School Principal

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John B. Fitzgibbons ’87 Milton Academy Board of Trustees 2007–2019 Treasurer John Fitzgibbons has long been known as the “conscience of the

generations—is really emblematic of the School. John has done a

Academy” when it comes to preserving Milton’s financial strength and

masterful job building consensus.”

stability. Over the many years of his service, we have depended on his analytical rigor and strategic focus as he tended to Milton’s future. John came to Milton in 1981 for seventh grade and began forging

John’s understanding of the complexities of managing a school goes beyond finances and number crunching. He knows Milton’s culture, our constituencies, and how decisions might affect the School’s landscape.

his path on campus. Calculus and economics featured prominently on

John gives selflessly. He has served in some of the most time-intensive

his roster, and the faculty quickly noticed his tenacity, intellect, and

leadership roles, and he considers Milton a philanthropic priority,

problem-solving skills. In 1987, his economics teacher, Laurel Starks,

making annual gifts and establishing a scholarship fund.

noted that “John sees problems in a practical manner,” and his math

John has honored a legendary Fitzgibbons family legacy. His father,

teacher, Erica Banderob, commented, “Not only is his understanding

Jim Fitzgibbons ’52, was a longtime member of Milton’s board, serving

almost flawless, but his written work is consistently outstanding in

as its president from 1982–1992. His family’s financial support for the

its clarity and thoroughness.” Charles Burdick, his English teacher,

School has been extensive and includes key funding for the Fitzgibbons

wrote that John’s “wit and enthusiasm spark a class; he offers a great

Convocation Center.

deal every time he walks through the door.” We have all witnessed and relished these attributes as John

“The Fitzgibbons family’s sense of responsibility for Milton Academy has endured for generations,” says Head of School Todd Bland. “John

generously and competently led so many key board endeavors—as

shares that responsibility, compounded by his experience as a student.

committee chair, treasurer, and team member. John chaired the Budget

His love for Milton comes from Milton’s effect on his life. Now John

Committee through the daunting challenges immediately following

has created his own legacy at Milton, marked by integrity and rigor, as

the 2008 recession. Since 2013, he has led the Investment Committee,

we sustain our strengths and plan for the decades ahead.”

which set high expectations for our management firm and portfolio managers. During the past five years, Milton’s endowment has performed in the top quartile among colleges and universities with similarly sized endowments, and for fiscal 2018, Milton’s endowment grew 9.9 percent compared with 9.1 percent for peer institutions. John has served as a vigorous member of the Building and Grounds Committee as well, witnessing more than a decade of additions and improvements to Milton’s physical assets. “John’s wry sense of humor has not changed over the years,” says fellow trustee and Milton classmate Rob Azeke ’87. “It puts people at ease and it’s an important part of his personality, because his other side is analytical. John asks the hard, probing questions that keep everyone on their toes and help them to see a different perspective. He gets results.” John listens intently and participates fully in every conversation, seeking others’ viewpoints before getting to the heart of the matter. He is flexible but decisive, unafraid to use new information to change direction—a quality respected by all those who work with him. His financial savvy as chair of the Investment Committee made him an excellent steward of our resources, and his goals for our portfolio management have resulted in strong returns for Milton’s endowment. “John took the Investment Committee to a whole new level, professionalizing our work without losing the perspective of legacy committee members who have important institutional knowledge,” says Rob. “The committee—with its smart, strong people of different

FA L L 2 019

r e t i r i n g fac u lt y, s ta f f, a n d t ru s t e e s , c o n t.

Liping Qiu P ’17 Milton Academy Board of Trustees 2016–2019 Liping Qiu first viewed Milton through the eyes of his son, Zhenfeng ’17, who was a boarding student in Wolcott House. As Zhenfeng immersed himself in life at Milton, so did Liping, becoming a staunch supporter of the School. Through trustee Yunli Lou ’87, a business partner and close friend of Liping’s, Milton learned more about his deep commitment to Milton and invited him to join the board. Described as insightful and considerate, Liping always put School priorities first as a member of the Diversity and Budget and Finance committees. “Liping has a great way about him,” says Head of School Todd Bland. “He always asks us what he can do for Milton instead of telling us what we should do. He has a genuine desire to be of service to the School, and to understand how he can do his job as a trustee to the best of his ability. He is exemplary in that quality.” Liping offers a unique perspective as a boarding parent, encouraging Milton to follow best practices in residential life. He diligently works to increase Milton’s brand recognition and philanthropic presence in China, and leads by example—making generous Milton Fund and endowment gifts. He regularly serves as a connection for prospective students and families, and even Milton staff members traveling abroad. If a member of the Milton community was lucky enough to see Liping in Beijing, he or she would be in for a treat, with guided tours of Tiananmen Square and other historic sites. “He has great hopes for Milton,” says Todd. “He pushes us to think about what we can do on a larger scale in that part of the world.” Yunli saw Liping’s dedication in action. “He has served as a great champion for Milton in China, helping bring gifted Chinese students and families to the School. Chinese students are now the largest international population on campus,” she says. “The many events Liping has hosted each year bring Milton closer to the Chinese families.” Liping shows his care for others and our School in countless ways, and is described as a gracious and caring presence in all that he does. We know that Milton will continue to benefit from his advocacy in the years to come.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

Stephen P. Lebovitz P ’10, ’12, ’14, ’17 Milton Academy Board of Trustees 2011–2019 Steve Lebovitz embraces the School that his children love with his

broad consideration. His guidance drove a careful, refined planning

expertise, his energy, and his own expression of care. Steve’s family

process for near- and long-term projects. As cochair, Steve also helped

includes four Milton alumni: Andrew ’10, Matthew ’12, Abby ’14, and

shape Milton’s land-use master plan and campus master plan, both

Julia ’17. He wasted no time focusing his interests and skills on Milton,

developed during his tenure on the committee.

getting involved as a Parents’ Fund volunteer during Andrew’s first

“His steady presence allowed us to lay the foundation for the careful

year at Milton. In 2011, as a grateful dad and insightful observer of

stewardship of our facilities and grounds,” says Todd. “He’s really led

student experience, Steve affirmed his commitment to the School and

an era of intense, more-strategic campus planning.”

was appointed to its Board of Trustees. “Steve is so proud of his children,” says Head of School Todd Bland. “All four brought their distinct personalities and interests to Milton, and each had excellent Milton experiences. The foundation of Steve’s connection to the board is authentic and family-focused.” As president and chief executive officer of CBL & Associates

Heidi Vanderbilt Brown, Milton’s chief financial and operating officer, has worked closely with Steve. “He thoughtfully reviews and asks hard questions concerning all aspects of facilities, from budget to project characteristics,” she says. Steve’s recent advocacy for the addition of an elevator to historic Ware Hall—no small or easy feat—will have a lasting effect on

Properties, the fourth-largest real estate investment trust in the United

the School community. Heidi notes that without his persistence, his

States, Steve has been ready and willing to take on the challenge

asking, “Why can’t we find a way?,” the project would not be on

of caring for a centuries-old campus. He served as a savvy cochair of

track for completion this summer.

the Building and Grounds Committee, helping to guide conversations

While Steve dedicated so much of his time to facilities manage

with both experiential and intrinsic knowledge of how the campus

ment, he never lost sight of School-wide priorities. He understands

works. He listened to committee members and stakeholders and

the importance of the campaign and lent his full support to

ensured that all perspectives came forward so that decisions reflected

building wider awareness, from hosting a campaign event to making generous annual and capital gifts. Driven by Milton’s mission to serve students, Steve is a constant, reliable advocate for Milton’s people. Another example of his advocacy in action is his creation of a fund to honor outstanding faculty members. According to Steve’s Building and Grounds Committee colleague Kimberly Vaughan ’92, the committee will miss Steve’s insightful, collaborative presence. “I have loved working with Steve,” she says. “In every discussion, his lively passion and love for Milton shines through. Steve is proud of everything Milton has to offer, and always puts the interests of the School at the forefront of any conversation.”

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m e s s a g e s

Much of the joy of fiction is that dimension of reaching out, of imagining, and creating other types of experiences. It’s an interesting question, ‘What is the imagination?’ Different writers have different answers to this. There are some who say everything comes from within

“My English was pretty bad.

you. But the imagination is from that bit

I couldn’t write a decent

within you that is capable of reaching

sentence, but my pictures

out beyond yourself. It is the greatest thing

were pretty good. In fact,

we have as human beings.”

they were paragraphs.”

Kamila Shamsie

Abelardo Morell

Novelist

Photographer

“Your education, from beginning to end, is like a collection of Legos. You’re picking up little pieces along the way, and throughout your life, you’ll figure out ways to put them together.” David Shaye, M.D. Fulbright scholar; facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

“Chief among those natural rights our founders identified is the freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the mindset on a lot of campuses is ‘You do you, as long as you agree with us on the right issues.’ This isn’t the free exchange of ideas. It’s an audition for ideological purity.” Max Nikitas ’13 University of Notre Dame Law School student

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

There were times when I didn’t believe in myself, but my community never gave up on me. Because of that, I’ve been able to get to a place in my life where I can come back to Milton Academy and be proud of what I’m telling you about my work.” Soerny Cruz ’12 Educator, Cambridge Health Alliance

“The only people who are experts on an issue in this world are the people who have lived the issue. My advice for you is to be exactly who you are. To know exactly who you are in this exact moment is enough. If you lead with who you are, you will be on the right road.” Mónica Ramírez Activist and civil rights attorney; cofounder, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance)

It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, or how you pray, or whom you pray to. But be of service. Give back. Be grateful. Be grateful that you are hearing from the last of the survivors. Who will tell the story? You will. I’m depending on you.

“I tell stories that I’ve felt shame around,

I’m making you responsible. So take me.

about being black, being queer, being a

Take my story. Live good lives, no matter

ghetto kid. These stories are specific to my

who you are, or how you are.”

life. All of our stories are hugely important,

Sylvia Ruth Gutmann

even the ones that you don’t want to tell.”

Holocaust survivor and author of A Life Rebuilt:

Lakirya “Oompa” Williams

The Remarkable Transformation of a War Orphan

Poet and hip-hop artist

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milton mur al

A C U R A T E D G A L L E R Y O F A R T S , L E T T E R S , A N D D E S I G N B Y M I LT O N A L U M N I

irene li ’08 Cookbook author / Double Awesome Chinese Food: Irresistible and Totally Achievable Recipes from Our Chinese-American Kitchen

david modigliani ’98 Documentary producer / Running with Beto Running With Beto follows Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke’s grassroots, againstall-odds campaign to unseat Texas Senator

Irene Li ’08 and her two siblings, creators of the acclaimed

Ted Cruz. In 2017, Beto was a virtual unknown.

Boston restaurant Mei Mei, have released their first cookbook,

As he trekked across all 254 Texas counties

Double Awesome Chinese Food: Irresistible and Totally Achievable

attempting to mount a new kind of campaign,

Recipes from Our Chinese-American Kitchen. Full of recipes

he quickly became a national political sensation

that marry traditional Asian ingredients with comforting

who was considering a run for president in

American classics and seasonal ingredients, Double Awesome

2020. David Modigliani ’98, a veteran docu

Chinese Food delivers the goods. The Chinese-American

mentary filmmaker known for showcasing the

siblings take the fear factor out of cooking this complex

human side of political stories, spent 12 months

cuisine, infusing it with creativity, playfulness, and ease. To

embedded with Beto, filmed more than 700

learn more go to meimeiboston.com/cookbook.

hours of footage, and captured the Democrat as he championed a new way of getting to know a candidate. Understanding that this was an everyday guy making himself vulnerable in an attempt to effect real change,

patrick radden keefe ’94 Author / Say Nothing

honed in on the stories of local Texans, and captured Beto and his family as they worked to

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of

convert long-standing conservatives in one of the most conservative states in the nation.

her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. episodes of the vicious period known as the Troubles. Patrick Radden Keefe’s book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. In uncovering and bearing witness to the awful truth of what happened to one woman, Patrick crafts a narrative that stretches to the present day, deftly weaving together a series of indelible characters whose lives were shaped by what happened to McConville with the story of a secret oral history project at Boston College that brought incendiary details about this mystery to light. Based on four years of reporting, Say Nothing is a true-crime tale that sheds new light on a terrible murder, a war story about life and death during the Troubles, a meditation on radical politics and the suffering that people will endure—and inflict—in pursuit of a political ideal, and a vivid portrait of a society unable to shake free of its own tragic past.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

so. He was inside every aspect of the campaign,

10, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, Her abduction and murder was one of the most notorious

David knew Beto’s story had the power to do

waldo forbes ’60 Author / A Tree in the Woods: Plato and the Ematomic Dilemma

sally (warburg) bliumis-dunn ’77 Author / Echolocation

The eminent American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars once

Poet Chard deNiord writes, “Sally Bliumis-

described the aim of philosophy as being to understand

Dunn ’77 leaves the reader of Echolocation in

how things hang together (abbreviated paraphrase). In this

deceptively complex verbal landscapes in which

short work, Waldo provides two independent premises

both literal and figurative language play off

to draw a line between what might someday be explained

each other with spare yet lapidary results in

(following from premises) and what can currently (and

poems that focus on such everyday subjects as

most likely) only be described, hence foundational. He

family, animals, loss, the seasons, menopause,

suggests that both his premises are self-evident, albeit

and disaster with a compassionate, distilling eye. The voice that emanates from

unconventional, with one that describes observers and

these poems is quiet but deeply resonant with generous stirrings beneath.

the other, the observed.

She writes with what John Keats has called ‘disinterestedness’—a clear-headed objectivity that combines lucid narrative with lyrical charge.”

adrienne brodeur ’83 Author / Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me On a hot August night on Cape Cod when Adrienne Brodeur ’83 was 14, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words that would set the course of both their lives for years to come: “Ben Souther just kissed me.” Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention, and from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved, impacting Adrienne’s life in profound ways, driving her into a precarious marriage of her own and then into a deep depression. Only

sebastian meyer ’98 Photojournalist / Under Every Yard of Sky

years later did she find the strength to embrace her life—

Sebastian Meyer’s book, Under Every Yard of Sky, chronicles life in Iraqi

and her mother—on her own terms.

Kurdistan and a personal story of friendship and loss. Sebastian followed

Wild Game is a memoir

the Kurds of Iraq as they rose from their bloody past to hover for a moment

about how the people close

in a state of peace before being plunged back into war. He spent six years

to us can break our hearts

traveling across the region reporting on Kurdistan’s growing prosperity.

simply because they have

Then, in 2014, ISIS kidnapped his closest friend, Kamaran Najm, a

access to them, and the lies

charismatic Kurdish photographer. Sebastian had moved to Kurdistan to

we tell in order to justify the

help Kamaran start Metrography, a photo agency that would train Iraqi

choices we make. It’s a story

photographers and represent them to the international media, and after a

of resilience, a reminder that

few years, their clients’ images appeared in National Geographic, the New

we need not be the parents

York Times, the Washington Post, and Der Spiegel. When Kamaran, more like

our parents were to us. It is

a brother to Sebastian than a friend, was kidnapped, Sebastian threw

scheduled to be released on

himself into the search. Kamaran’s disappearance was featured in a two-

October 15, 2019.

part series on NPR in June 2019.

FA L L 2 019

c o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 9

JB Pritzker ’82, Governor of Illinois Milton brings together young people who demonstrate extraordinary

And my mother—well, she was smarter than all three of them. But

potential, and it teaches you how to achieve that potential. That’s not to

in those days, women didn’t have the same opportunities as men. So she

suggest in any way that you didn’t put your blood, sweat, and tears

toiled in the background as the extraordinary silent partner who created

into every aspect of what you’ve already achieved. You’ve made amazing

the style and the cool vibe that made my father’s hotel business successful.

progress in your life already. Think of what you were like when you

When you grow up in a family of high achievers, the expectations

arrived at Milton on your first day. If you were like me, you were a little

of success are very high. Don’t get me wrong: Having high expectations

bit scared, unsure of yourself, wondering whether going to an elite

imposed upon you can be extremely motivating. But when you’re in

boarding school meant that the kids would be elitist, concerned about

high school, they tend to elicit big waves of uncertainty, too. Each of you

whether you would live up to your parents’ expectations. When I

here today knows that feeling of uncertainty, no doubt. Maybe, like me,

came to Milton, I was deeply conscious of where I came from, but I had

those expectations of success come from your family’s legacy; maybe

no idea what direction I would take—far from it.

they come from your Milton family and your classmates; or maybe from

I knew that I came from a highly successful family, and that was

within. You need to know that every one of your classmates, every person

extremely daunting. My father had graduated cum laude from Harvard,

on this stage, every parent and grandparent in the audience is uncertain.

and then he served as a crypto-analyst in the navy, and then he founded

I’m a 54-year-old governor of one of the country’s biggest, greatest states,

the fastest-growing hotel chain in America. His next older brother, my

and with all the confidence that it takes to get here, I too am worried and

uncle Bob, founded and built one of the largest manufacturing conglom

uncertain about the future.

erates in America. And his older brother had graduated high school at age 14, and then law school at age 23, and was one of the great financiers

As I thought about what I wanted to tell you all today as you sit on the precipice of the rest of your lives, it’s this: Your future success and

in business history, having been one of the earliest pioneers of

happiness will come down to how you handle the uncertainties life will

leveraged buyouts.

deliver. Let’s start with the uncertainty that comes with the inevitable

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

failures you will face. We’ve all heard that failure is a step on the road to success—that you’ve got to fail before you succeed. Sounds easy, right?

because I listened to my mother. There’s no doubt about that. When I won, I didn’t want to offer some sort of watered-down

But here’s the thing: Failing sucks. It’s hard and it’s embarrassing. I’ve

mishmash of policies that neither offend nor enlighten but merely satisfy.

tried and failed often enough to be sort of an expert on it. The first time

I wanted to live up to my mother’s image. Instead, I wanted to be taking

I ran for public office, I lost by 23 points. When I was in the private sector,

a page from the youth of our nation, and call BS on the same old playbook.

my business was in venture capital, an industry where roughly half

Unburdened by years of cynicism and setback, young people are most

the businesses you invest in never get off the ground. Failure itself is not

often at the forefront of change.

a step on the road to success. Losing one round doesn’t automatically

And that leads me to my final story. When I was a student here, the

make you a winner the next time. Instead, it’s what you learn from failure

only sanctioned on-campus student newspaper was the Milton Measure,

that will make you successful.

which would always refuse to cover any controversial issues, because the

Failure is a chance to make a choice about who you are. Will you

administration didn’t want parents or alumni to read anything salacious,

avert your mind from the pain of losing? Or will you have the humility

even if it was true. So, led by a surly upperclassman, a group of us started

and the gumption to examine your failure and address it head-on? I

a new, underground publication. We got together each week, and

learned, reflecting on my first campaign for public office, that 20 years

we figured out what radical new thing we could publish that the Milton

ago, I wasn’t ready. And in politics, passion is more important than

Measure would never publish. The headmaster tried to shut us down

ambition. I hated that I failed. But learning from it was an essential part

and threatened disciplinary action, but we were undeterred. We would

of getting where I wanted to go. So be grateful for your failures. Examine

sneak out of the dorms late at night and break into the School’s business

them. And make the most of them.

office to surreptitiously make hundreds of copies of our newspaper, and

And that brings me to my next piece of advice: Know what you don’t

then we would scurry around from dorm to dorm at one in the morning,

know, and be willing to ask for help. It gets a lot harder when you get

delivering stacks of newspapers so that kids would get them on their way

older, because people assume that you already have the answers, and

to breakfast before the dorm masters knew what had happened.

you’ll start to believe that you should. But you’ve got to spend your whole life asking questions, or you’re not going to get very far. And lucky for you, being young is the best time to practice. Now I’d like to give you one last piece of advice. It’s probably the most important one, so pay attention: Listen to your mother. I got involved

Not everything we printed was accurate, but it was all well-meaning. We believed that our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press gave us the right to publish our paper, and the student body loved it. Eventually, a legendary teacher named A. O. Smith decided to join us in our fight to make sure that the paper never went

in politics because of my mother. When I was a little kid, she took me

away. And it didn’t. Today, that newspaper is still called the Milton Paper.

knocking on doors for progressive candidates. She was an advocate for

Forty years later, I look back on my experience with the Milton Paper and

civil rights, for LGBTQ rights, for women’s rights, for economic and social

I think, This is why I still believe in the unbridled passion and idealism

justice, for societal change that was ahead of her time. She was fearless

of students and their ability to change the world.

in all the ways that matter. My mother instinctively knew what many in politics don’t know—that it’s OK to be the lone voice for change. Courage isn’t found in crowds, but in quiet moments of purposeful struggle. So when I decided to run for governor, I knew I wanted to run a campaign about economic justice, about civil rights, about criminal

Look at the way your generation is gaining respect in our nation’s democratic processes. Look at the way your generation thinks about issues like climate change, or gun violence, and then acts upon it. You are special. You will make a difference. So go forth and find success from your failures. Know what you

justice reform, and about the kitchen-table issues that families struggle

don’t know, and have the humility to ask for help, and most importantly,

with every day: How to pay for rising health care costs, how to pay

listen to your mother.

for their kids’ education, how to get a job that pays a head-of-household

Congratulations to the Class of 2019. We’re all counting on you.

wage. I ran a campaign that was rich in gender and economic diversity. I built a flat platform out of the values that my mother held so very dear

Excerpted from the Commencement address given by Governor JB Pritzker ’82

in her heart. And those values carried me to victory. I’m governor today

to the Class of 2019. JB is the 43rd governor of the state of Illinois.

FA L L 2 019

com m encem en t 2 019, con t.

College Matriculation, Class of 2019

American University 4

Fordham University 1

Amherst College 3

Franklin & Marshall College 1

Babson College 2

Georgetown University 4

Barnard College 2

George Washington University 1

Bates College 4

Georgia Institute of Technology 2

Boston College 2

Gettysburg College 1

Bowdoin College 2

Hamilton College 1

Brandeis University 1

Harvard College 10

Brown University 6

Harvey Mudd College 1

University of California, San Diego 1

Haverford College 1

Chapman University 1

College of the Holy Cross 1

University of Chicago 6

Kenyon College 2

Claremont McKenna College 1

King’s College London 1

Colby College 1

Lafayette College 1

Columbia University 2

Lehigh University 1

Connecticut College 3

Loyola University Chicago 1

Cornell University 1

University of Massachusetts,

Dartmouth College 6

Amherst 3

Davidson College 1

University of Miami 1

DePaul University 1

University of Michigan 1

Drew University 1

Middlebury College 3

Emmanuel College 1

Minerva Schools at KGI 1

Emory University 1

Morehouse College 1 New York University 9 Northeastern University 4 Northwestern University 2 Oberlin College 1 Occidental College 1 University of Oregon 1 Pace University 1 University of Pennsylvania 1 Pitzer College 1 Pomona College 2 Princeton University 4 Purdue University 1 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1 Rhode Island School of Design 1

left Lyndsey Mugford, Class of 2019 Speaker

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

right Nathaniel Jean-Baptiste, Class of 2019 Speaker

University of Rochester 1 Roger Williams University 1 Scripps College 1 University of Southern California 2 University of St Andrews 2 Syracuse University 1 Texas A&M University 1 Texas Christian University 1 Trinity College 3 Tufts University 3 Tulane University 2 Union College 1 University of Vermont 1 Villanova University 1 University of Virginia 2 Virginia Tech 1 Wake Forest University 1 Washington University in St. Louis 3 Wellesley College 1 Wesleyan University 6 Yale University 3 Accurate as of July 18, 2019

the talbot baker award On the day before Graduation, at the spring prize assembly, five faculty members were honored with the Talbot Baker Award, recognizing excellence in teaching. Created in 1968 to honor Talbot “Bake” Baker ’25, this award “provides a living memorial based on a confidence in the humanity of teachers and the quality of teaching” that Mr. Baker experienced as a student at the Academy and as a parent to Nick ’51, Toby ’53, and Ben ’57. Mark Heath (History and Social Sciences Department Faculty) Sharon Mathieu (Middle School Faculty) Lisa Morin (Director of Counseling) Patrick Owens (Math Department Faculty) Jenny Sorblom (Lower School Faculty)

FA L L 2 019

reunion weekend

by the numbers

800 nearly

guests attended Reunion to join the celebration

furthest distance traveled:

8,000 miles

with three guests traveling from Hong Kong

1959 108

the class of

had the highest donor participation at

63% was tops in milton fund giving, raising

$132,434 and led total giving, raising nearly

$612,000 66

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

class volunteers donated their time and talents to reuniting their classmates for the weekend

the class of 2014 had the highest attendance with members back on campus

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

▼ Conor French and José Ortiz, both

class of 1999, participated in Friday night’s nonprofit panel. As sophomores, they were roommates in Forbes House.

▲ Emily Roberts ’09 is pictured with

her aunt, Nancy Pattison Roberts ’69.

▲ Two members of the class of 1944

reunited during Reunion Weekend. Donald Kent of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, joined his classmate Bill Weeks, Sr. of Cohasset.

FA L L 2 019

▲ Artist Sheila Gallagher ’84, second from left,

pictured with classmates, was our featured artist in the Nesto Gallery. Gallagher’s work takes many forms, including video, flower installations, smoke paintings, and computer-aided drawing.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

◀ English Department Chair Caroline

Sabin ’86 led a Milton Classroom: Conquering Megablunders at Last. This Milton class, introduced in the 1980s, covers the most common and cumbersome grammar rules.

▶ Bunny Elliott Baker ’49 and George Baker

’49 celebrated their 70th Reunion at Milton. The event coincided with the couple’s 66th wedding anniversary, on Friday, June 14, and George’s birthday, on Saturday, June 15.

FA L L 2 019

freddy gamble ’58 has countless memories from her days at Milton: Latin classes in Mrs. Withington’s garden, the sheer terror of anticipating her Class III talk in morning assembly, watching Sputnik from the Goodwin House lawn. Following a lengthy career as director of human resources at Condé Nast Publications, Freddy now feeds her passion for nature, wildlife, and conservation efforts. She has enjoyed more than a dozen trips to the Arctic, 20 to Africa, and 650 scuba dives around the world. Looking back on her time at Milton, she’s thankful for a sound education and the people and opportunities that helped shape her values. Naming Milton in her will, Freddy has provided a new generation of students the opportunity to hold as their fundamental operating principle “Dare to be true.”

For more information on supporting Milton through a planned gift, contact: Mary Moran Perry, Director of Planned Giving 170 Centre Street, Milton, MA 02186 617-898-2376 or mary_perry@milton.edu

class notes 1937 Eleanor Gleason Bleakie

20 miles south of Fort Bragg,

visitors, I do hope to see old

celebrated her 99th birthday on

California. The town is Albion,

Milton classmates and friends.”

April 7, 2019.

150 miles north of San Francisco,

1948

We decided to turn this land

1953

from campground to a real home

Jane Cheever Carr often sees

Basil “Jack” Gavin hasn’t been to

and use the trees we had on the

Sandy Boyd Earle, Betty Hills,

Milton since the 50th reunion and

land for our lumber and paneling.

Susie Greenup ’75 , and Ann

had to miss the 70th last year. He

Further, with building skills

Higgins. She recently celebrated

writes, “A few may know that Janis

developed in Berkeley, we decided

the first birthday of her great-

and I married 66 years ago just

to attempt to do all the work

granddaughter (the child of Jane’s

before I entered the U.S. Navy,

ourselves. We are grateful for this

granddaughter Wendy Carr Ellison

after we attended college at Hobart

pioneering experience.”

’78). Jane is still involved in South

where life moves at a slower pace.

& William Smith in Geneva, New York. I spent 3+ years in the navy

Shore Conservatory and Hingham Heritage Museum, a new project

and was in Korea when our war

1949

of the Hingham Historical Society.

there ended. We chose to settle in

John Hewett retired in 2018 after

Her husband, Andy Hertig, is

the Bay Area, as I was keen to find

25 years as a trustee and officer

leading study groups in Boston

work in San Francisco and begin

of the Williamsburg Symphony

and Hingham on the Middle East

graduate school at the University

Orchestra.

and foreign policy.

Basil “Jack” Gavin ’48 currently resides in Northern California, where he and his wife transformed the land “from campground to a real home.”

of California, Berkeley. It became a hotbed for anti-Vietnam politics

Bjarne E. Ursin was unable to

Emily Jean Macaulay Smith Cain

and liberal agendas, all of which

attend Reunion, but shared that all

says, “Hello, all! I hope y’all’s news

was quite stimulating for me. My

is well: The celebration of a 50th

is as good as mine. I have moved

civilian work began as accelerator

wedding anniversary this year, six

from rural southern Ontario (near

operator at Lawrence Berkeley

children, 11 grandchildren, three

the hamlet of Jerseyville) into

National Laboratory when the

great-grandchildren, 18 years in

a brainy old-age home, Christie

HILAC was still in the process of

the military including the Korean

Gardens, in Toronto, to make

being built by laboratory person

War, 20 years in the space program,

supervising my old age easy for

nel. From operator to staff scientist,

and 15 years in advanced military

our son, who is a TV journalist

I was to specialize in the low-

weapons systems.

here. Before the move, I lived in

energy end of accelerators. I had the good fortune to travel to

a pristine 1859 “delayed Georgian” barn-framed story-and-a-half

Europe on business and still have

1951

house, designated under the

a home in the Bay Area, where we

Rebecca Knowles spent more than

Ontario Heritage Act, on an acre

brought up three children—Pete,

20 winters in Naples, Florida,

in the middle of pretty rolling

Madeleine, and Michael. LBNL

and recently moved full-time to

farmland. Now I live in a sixth-

was such a grand place to be and

Piper Shores, in Scarborough,

floor, one-bedroom apartment,

Emily Jean Macaulay Smith Cain ’53 has relocated from southern Ontario to Toronto. She enjoys the new views

to assist nuclear science for

Maine, to be near her daughter

with an excellent eastward view

more than half a lifetime. Further,

and granddaughter—both also

of the leafy Niagara Escarpment

and being closer

having a home in Berkeley was a

Rebeccas! She writes, “It was a

(over which Niagara Falls falls

to her grandchildren.

big plus, but not forever. “We were to find some acreage

terrible wrench having to give

and which defines the western end

up tennis, but my four replaced

of Lake Ontario). I am enjoying

mainly as a camping place on

joints and worsening balance

groceries delivered to the door and

vacations. With a post office and a

indicated it was time. Since

life close to three grandchildren,

country store, our little village lies

Maine is a magnet for summer

Thomas (grade 8), Margo (grade 5),

FA L L 2 019

cl a s s no t e s, con t.

and “Funz,” aka Rowan James,

Caribbean island. More

(junior kindergarten next

information can be found at

few years back, such a trip

September). “Funz” is short for

rosamondvanderlinde.com.

involved a boat to Palermo, then

“fun size,” a nickname bestowed upon him by his brother and sister.

things are being produced). A

Cagliari (Sardinia), and back to Rome, all by boat. He just saw

As I write, I can feel Miss Pundy

1955

an opera in Florence that is

shudder at the run-on sentences . . . ”

Debbie Smith Roberts writes

perfect for our era: The Basic Laws

that she regretfully will leave

of Human Stupidity (translation

Huge Marlow says that retirement

her job heading the performing

his). Philip is still obsessed with

allows for an enjoyable day, as

arts department at the Jewish

Ashtanga yoga and Filemaker

long as “official obligations” don’t

Community Center in Tenafly,

Pro. In 2015, he renounced U.S.

Connie Trowbridge ’54

interfere. He drives for Meals

New Jersey. She and her husband

citizenship for practical reasons,

has started playing the

on Wheels, chauffeurs for a local

are selling their house to move

and, in any case, has had an Italian passport since 1986.

transfer company, and is “the self-

to a retirement home, RiverMead,

string band. They play mostly

appointed, honorary, volunteer

in Peterborough, New Hampshire,

Scottish and Irish music.

waterboy” for a variety of college

just a few miles from the family

teams. He also manages to find

house in Jaffrey. The move brings

1959 Wendy Cutter Maynard is still in

recorder with an expanded

time to enjoy the company of

her closer than she has ever been

his and his wife’s grandchildren

to classmates, and she invites

northeast Ohio, still picking up

in Vermont, but finds travel to

friends to be in touch if they’re

sea glass at the lakes and quilting

southern Texas to enjoy their

in the area.

for family, friends, and various

Martha Flynn Peterson is

one on each coast: Kelly in North

widowed and keeps busy with

Carolina with two kids, Cutter

1954

family and friends, playing

(age 9) and Maddie (age 12), who

duplicate bridge, volunteering,

is following in her mother’s

Connie Trowbridge has moved

bicycling, skiing, golfing, and

footsteps; and Tina in California

to Greenfield, Massachusetts,

walking. She also travels nation

with two sons: Dylan (age 5)

near three of her children, four

ally and internationally, visiting

and Oliver (two months in May),

grandchildren, and two great-

Machu Picchu and Rapa Nui.

grandchildren and great-grandson more challenging.

charities. She has two daughters;

1956

years of MS. She had to downsize

cross-country trips now! Once

and grands can do the grueling Rosamond T. VanderLinde ’54 has authored two books, including A Piano in Every Room.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

to a small one-bedroom apartment

active in church choir and

Vcevy Strekalovsky still enjoys a

with a feisty calico cat. “Darn still

painting, she has now picked up

diversified architectural practice

here and kicking!”

playing the recorder with an

in Hingham (doctor’s orders:

expanded string band that plays

both very active. Wendy’s mother passed away a year ago after 34

grands. Her West Coast kids

“Don’t retire”) and writes that an

Grace Roosevelt retired from

primarily Scottish and Irish

advantage of being 80+ is skiing

college teaching in 2016 and loves

music. She also has a very small

for free.

having free time. Some of that

garden, mostly for bees, butterflies,

time has been devoted to ongoing

and hummingbirds.

1957

academic writing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s educational and

Rosamond T. VanderLinde is

Philip Rand has retired at home

political thought, particularly his

the author of two books: A Piano

in Rome, with lots of excursions

little-known theory of inter

in Every Room and The Land

to opera houses (especially

national relations. She also joined

of No Laws, the saga of a small

in Germany, where interesting

the board at Metropolitan College

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

1962 of New York, where she used

Pam Watson Sebastian writes

her brain. Pam and John looked

to teach, and is involved in

that her mother succumbed to

forward to a trip to South Africa

the New York branch of the

Alzheimer’s in March 2019 at the

in July, accompanying a young

Living New Deal, a California-

age of 96. Pam is retired from

women’s chorus on whose board he

based effort to commemorate

singing and delighting in granny

serves. They hope to go on another “cruise” in the western U.S. in

New Deal projects built by WPA

nanny Wednesdays with little

workers and others in the 1930s.

Bear (2 in early May) and his half-

She and Frank have lived in

sibs (10 and 11). At this writing,

the same apartment building on

she is contemplating resuming her

Manhattan’s Upper West Side

study of Italian, which she paused

their little motor home after that.

1964

for 56 years and have three

last June because of stress and

Nick Hinch rejoined United

wonderful children and eight

lack of time. At the same time, she

Airlines as an airlines 319/320 fleet

grandchildren. They spend

wishes she could resurrect her

technical instructor last summer, passing the milestone of having

summers in Brooklin, Maine, and

once-excellent French, which has

each year look forward to getting

suffered greatly because of the

been in aviation for 50 years. He

together for dinner in Ellsworth

lack of opportunities to speak it

still enjoys aviation, and writes,

with Lydia (Butler) Goetze.

and because Italian has taken over

“Fun flies when you are doing time.”

Providing students with an extraordinary education, which includes access to a broad range of experiences, is the fundamental priority of Milton Academy. Because tuition covers only 72 percent of the cost of educating a Milton student, your generosity—including Milton Fund gifts—is what makes the breadth of our educational program possible. In this final year of the most ambitious fundraising campaign in School history, make a gift to ensure a transformative experience for the next generation of Milton students.

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cl a s s no t e s, con t.

1965 H. Nichols Clark celebrated his

was recently honored for his work with The Eric Carle Museum.

David White just sold a book

50th reunion at Harvard with a

in May 2019 by the Geothermal

proposal on the air war in World

number of Milton classmates; it

Technologies Office of the U.S.

War II to Random House. The

would have been his father’s 100th

Department of Energy titled

Whites planned to go to the beach

reunion (just as they were 50 years

GeoVision: Harnessing the Heat

in North Carolina this summer.

apart at Milton). He was elected

Beneath Our Feet. She also wrote

an honorary member of Phi Beta

a piece for ARMA Letters, Issue 26,

Kappa, and shares that the only

Winter 2019, (published by the

1970

American Rock Mechanics

Peter H. Cloutier writes with an

“PB” acronyms he knew were PBJ

H. Nichols Clark ’65

in 2015, and a report released

and PBR. He was deeply honored

Association), titled “A Rant About

to be recognized for his work

Carbonates.” It has been a great

“Like too many people, I have had

with The Eric Carle Museum—so

ride; yet one needs to check out

to fight the cancer challenge due

he has taken a page out of Eric’s

before passing one’s “sell by” date,

to a tumor at the base of my tongue.

update on his cancer treatment:

playbook: When he talks of his

so she is happily ready to join the

I am lucky to live in Switzerland,

success, he turns to an old German

BOFFINS: boring old farts funda-

where health insurance is manda-

expression, “The dumbest peasant

mentally incapable of new science.

tory for all residents regardless

grows the biggest potatoes.”

Credit goes to Mark Zoback

of any pre-existing conditions.

at Stanford for that acronym.

Having faith and the absence of concern about paying for care

1968

is, I think, vital to regaining good

Kate Hadley Baker is on the glide

1969

path to retirement (seriously

George Hilton retired from his

was the ready availability near

now). The most recent technical

psychiatric practice of 34 years and

my home of very modern and

publications she had a very small

is still happily married to Karen;

sophisticated radiation equipment.

hand in co-authoring have been in

they were married 47 years ago in

My third lucky break: I had the

health. My second lucky break

what she would call gray literature:

the Apthorp Chapel at Milton. They

help of what is called in French a

the Cementing chapter of the

look forward to visits with their

‘Coupeur de feu,’ literally a ‘Cutter

IADC Drilling Manual, 12th edition,

three sons and five grandchildren,

of fire.’ Coupeurs de feu are people

published by the International

who live in St. Paul, Minnesota;

who feel that they have a gift

Association of Drilling Contractors

Hanover, New Hampshire; and

for helping others fight burn and

Brattleboro, Vermont. They keep

radiation pain by thought alone.

busy with friends, a couple of

As much as it seems far-fetched, I

book groups, volunteering giving

can attest to its effectiveness. My

medical rides, and travel.

fourth lucky break was having a loving wife, who, despite working

David White ’69 sold a book proposal on the air war in World War II to Random House.

Lee Pierce enjoys retired life

full time, took extraordinarily

on Cape Cod with her loyal

good care of me during the bad

four-legged friend. Her daughter,

periods of my treatment. So far,

Emily Bliss Cudhea-Pierce,

a year later, the cancer has not

graduated from Charleston College

returned and I’m knocking on

and is working in Minneapolis.

wood as I write this.

◀ Pictured left to right: Lea

very best wishes to any fellow

Trumbull, Margaret Trumbull Nash

Miltonian who is struggling with

’71, their sister Robin, and friends

cancer or other serious disease

“Please allow me to send my

at Lea’s home in Pietrasanta, Italy.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

and my hope that he or she has

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

travelogue for Altitudes magazine, Tish went on to Prague, Montenegro, and Italy, with plans to meet Margaret (Trumbull) Nash in May. As editor in chief of

Altitudes Business Jet Magazine, Sylvie is happy to report that she was inspired to call her own freelance editorial company Milton Presse. She lives with Luc, her longtime companion and former chef, in Fayence, in the back hills of Provence near Cannes. ▶ Pictured: Margaret Trumbull Nash and Tish O’Connor, in

Locarno, Switzerland.

excellent health insurance from a

Tish and her late husband, Dana,

1974

provider that acts honorably.”

resided. This time, they visited

Jeffrey Hurst shares that the

Seillans, Grasse, and Saint-Tropez.

past few years have been

▲ Ted Hays submitted a photo

Invited to the opening of Chef

fun: Two of their three children

from last fall’s Milton-Nobles 38th

Alain Ducasse’s La Cucina

were married, they welcomed a

Annual Alumni Soccer Match.

restaurant, at the legendary Hotel

granddaughter with another

The result was a tie. Begun in 1981

Byblos, they feasted on tasty finger

grandchild due in July, sold their

by Harry Blackman, Nobles ’71,

food, danced the night away at the

home in Milton, moved into a

and Ted, the record for the series

famed Les Caves du Roy, visited

small place in Boston, and slowed

is: Milton 15, Nobles 14, Ties 7, and

Musée de l’Annonciade, a gem

work to allow for some more free

cancellations 2 (snow cover and

of a museum, and lunched in

time, which is spent on the ocean.

hurricane).

Pampelonne at the newly launched

He was sorry to miss Reunion

Byblos Beach the following day.

this year but looks forward

1971

Given an assignment to write a

to attending future gatherings.

▶ Tish O’Connor and Sylvie Peron shared a few laughs this spring reminiscing about previous visits together, when Tish joined Sylvie for Easter in the South of France. They have stayed in touch over the years and nurtured a long friendship, which started developing when Tish first lived in France, in the late ’70s. In the fall of 2015 they enjoyed a memorable drive to Big Sur from Santa Barbara where

FA L L 2 019

boa r d of trustee s Robert Azeke ’87

Franklin W. Hobbs IV ’65, P ’98

John D. McEvoy ’82, P ’19, ’20, ’25

Erick Tseng ’97

New York, New York

Emeritus

Milton, Massachusetts

San Francisco, California

New York, New York Bradley M. Bloom P ’06, ’08

Wendy C. Nicholson ’86

Kimberly Steimle Vaughan ’92

Emeritus

Harold W. Janeway ’54,

Vice President

Boston, Massachusetts

Wellesley, Massachusetts

P ’79, ’81, ’87, G ’12, ’14

New York, New York

Charles A. Cheever ’86

Webster, New Hampshire

Caterina Papoulias-Sakellaris

Claire D. Hughes Johnson ’90

Milton, Massachusetts

Luis M. Viceira P ’16, ’19

Emeritus

Belmont, Massachusetts

P ’17, ’19

Concord, Massachusetts

Dorothy Altman Weber ’60, P ’04

Douglas Crocker II ’58

Treasurer

Delray Beach, Florida

Menlo Park, California

H. Marshall Schwarz ’54, P ’84 Emeritus

Edward E. Wendell Jr. ’58,

Jason Dillow ’97

Peter Kagan ’86

Lakeville, Connecticut

P ’94, ’98, ’01

New York, New York

Boston, Massachusetts

Milton, Massachusetts Gabe Sunshine P ’22, ’24

Elisabeth B. Donohue ’83

Elizabeth B. Katz ’04

President

Boston, Massachusetts William A. Knowlton P ’23

James M. Fitzgibbons ’52,

Shanghai, China

P ’87, ’90, ’93 Stuart I. Mathews P ’13, ’17

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Vice President and Secretary Waban, Massachusetts

Wädenswil, Switzerland

Jersey City, New Jersey

Hong Kong Kevin K. Yip ’83, P ’16 Hong Kong

Emeritus

Eleanor Haller-Jorden ’75, P ’09

Ronnell L. Wilson ’93 Patrick Tsang ’90

Yunli Lou ’87

Boston, Massachusetts

Lincoln, Massachusetts

Boston, Massachusetts

Chicago, Illinois

Sylvia P. Westphal P ’18, ’21, ’25, ’27

Dune D. Thorne ’94

New York, New York Randall C. Dunn ’83

Boston, Massachusetts

unpredictable, rewarding; that teachers never stop learning; that learning keeps you young and active. My eternal thanks to them for all they taught me then and throughout my career.” ▲ Cassandra Perry matriculated

Muller Kunhardt ’48, whom

into a Ph.D. program in church

many of you knew from her

1976

history shortly after her 60th

frequent visits to sporting and

When Stephen Winthrop was

birthday. In May 2019, she

theater events, passed away in

diagnosed with ALS in 2013,

completed coursework and is

October. Her sharp wit remained

he decided he would give it

scheduled to sit for comps in

a blessing until the end, and

everything he had, and for five

July 2019. Studying at one of

she was surrounded by family

years, as his health and strength

the country’s most conservative

those last few days. “Don’t ask,

declined, he did just that. He

Christian schools has been

tell” was her credo when it came

died late last December, leaving

to raising five kids and mentoring

behind family, friends, ALS

“challenging,” she says. Cassandra’s interest is in Tertullian and the

nine grandkids. She stayed true,

patients, and a medical community

ways in which identity shaped his

announcing the day she would

deeply grateful for his unbounded

pneumatology. She is specifically

leave this earth; and sure enough

courage and generous heart.

interested in highlighting African

she did. She also wanted people

influences on the religion. She says

to know that her last days were a

the study of Patristics “also gives

beautiful and amazing experience.

for nonprofits, Stephen used his

me an excuse to travel.” Cassandra

She faced death head-on, fearless

considerable talents to advocate

recently attended conferences

and full of joy and love, just as

for greater ALS research—giving generously financially and of his

in politics and as a consultant

in Finland and Italy and was

she lived her life. Both their moms led full and happy lives and

time as a volunteer in numerous

to the 18th International

were powerful women, setting a

ALS research studies. In all, he

Conference on Patristics Studies

great example for all their kids,

raised more than $5 million for

held at Oxford this summer. When

grandkids, and great-grandkids.

ALS research and participated

not studying or attending academic

Ending the year on an uplift,

in more than 20 studies. With the

conferences, Cassandra spends

their second grandchild arrived

support of his many friends,

her time running a nonprofit in the

in November 2018, bringing

Stephen established the Winthrop

South Bronx, serving as associate

new life and joy to their family.

Family Scholar Fund, which supports ALS research from basic

in seminary, and—for fun and to

Will Speers retired in June after 40

celebrate birthdays—jumping

years of teaching at St. Andrew’s.

out of airplanes.

1975

40 years of teaching.

Drawing upon his many years

especially excited to be a delegate

pastor at her church, teaching

Will Speers ’75 retired in June after

lab level to clinical trials. A tireless advocate for those

So much of what sent him into

suffering from the disease,

teaching happened to him at

he was the first ALS patient ever

Milton—especially with Chips

to become chair of the national

Withington, Frank Millet, A. O.

board of the ALS Association. In

Tom Kunhardt shared that 2018

Smith, Kay Herzog, Bob Sinicrope,

a Boston Globe obituary appearing

offered mixed blessings. His

Ellie Griffin, and Chuck Duncan

soon after his death, he is quoted

wife’s mom passed in May after

having a profound and lasting

at a Walk to Defeat ALS in 2015

five years suffering from

impact on him. “They showed me

commenting about life with ALS:

Alzheimer’s. His mom, Anita S.

that the life of a teacher is full,

Scott Johnston ’78 released a novel in August.

“I try to set ALS aside and find joy

FA L L 2 019

cl a s s no t e s, con t.

in every corner of my life whenever

graduated from college, I was

and education they had at Milton,

I can . . . . I have accepted ALS, but

promoted to full professor at

and the joys of living. Linda lives

I’m not resigned to it. In fact, I’m

Wellesley College, and I was also

in Lafayette, Indiana (home to

fighting it like hell.” ▼ Pictured left to right: Paul

appointed director of Wellesley’s

Purdue University), and San Diego.

Newhouse Center for the

Amy is in Boston.

Humanities. Milton nurtured a

Levinson ’76, Rob (Cuac) Macomber

love of literature in me (thank you,

’76, Stephen Winthrop ’76, and

Kay Herzog!) and I’ve been having

1980

John (Jock) Toulmin ’76 at an ALS

a great time inviting contemporary

Mory Creighton lives in

fiction writers such as Minjin

Manchester, Massachusetts, and

walk in Beverly, MA in 2017.

Lee and Valeria Luiselli. Last but

is busy running a growing laser

not least, I got a divorce and

products company (Pinpoint Laser

sold my house. Whew! Looking

Systems), which he founded in the

forward to our next reunion.”

1990s, and enjoying the challenges and interesting customers. His

1978

twin boys just graduated from college (Cornell and UVM) and

Scott Johnston released a novel

are moving out into the working

in August called Campusland

world—how time flies! He’s

(St. Martin’s Press), a satirical

happily married and enjoying

skewing of the modern university

friends and neighbors in their

and its politically correct culture.

small coastal town and busy with volunteer efforts on town

1979

committees and projects. He sees

Meg Dennison and her husband,

in a book club that they are both

Tim Peek, are living in Santa Cruz,

members of—rereading some of

Steve Arnason about once a month

1977

California, teaching leaders

the classics they read at Milton. He

and teams conscious leadership

periodically drives through the

Paul Robinson attended an

skills and enjoying the ocean, the

Milton campus when heading to

international software-

redwoods, and pinot noir. She’d

meetings on the South Shore and

engineering conference in May,

love to connect with classmates

reflects back on the great times he

where he presented two papers.

in the Bay Area and can be reached

had being a student years ago.

at meg@megdennison.com. Steel Swift is pleased to announce

the birth of his first grandson,

▶ Linda Thomas and Amy

Frederick Steel Gabourie, in

Macdonald had a great time in

April. He is also pleased to report

May catching up on 40 years of

the adoption of the nickname

life, surrounded by moving boxes

“Buzzy” as his grandparent name.

at the Thomas family home in

Freddy lives close by in Bedford,

Westport, Massachusetts, which

New York.

was being prepped for movers

Eve Zimmerman has gone through

Amy and Linda discussed the

a number of positive changes

shared experience of being cancer

in the past year: “Both my girls

survivors, the awesome classmates

and sale. Among other topics,

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

1983 Adrienne “Rennie” Brodeur is

since her daughter is a serious

be Operation Sophia—a European

moving back to Massachusetts

player. Louise Zonis lives with

Union Naval Force Mediterranean

(after living in New York City for

her husband and two children in

humanitarian operation designed

decades). She has a new book,

San Francisco and is a producer

to prevent the loss of migrant

a memoir, coming out in October,

and account manager for digital

life and combat human trafficking

Wild Game. More information can

marketing. Jen White lives in Mill

in the Mediterranean. John is the

be found at adriennebrodeur.com.

Valley, California, where she and

first member of NHHC to receive a

Rennie looks forward to recon

her husband, Robert, are raising

Fulbright U.S. Scholar fellowship.

necting with old friends.

their 13-year-old son Charlie, who is an avid baseball player.

“As part of the program, I will participate in conferences attended by heads of foreign navies and

1984

have the opportunity to meet many

Lucie Greer shares that her mother,

prominent figures in academic,

Margaret Jewett Greer, Milton

military, and political institutions,”

trustee emerita, passed away

John says. “It’s a fantastic opportu

March 9, 2019 (see page 84). After

nity, not just for me but for NHHC

living in California since college,

and the navy as a whole.”

Meg Dennison ’79

is living in Santa Cruz, California with her husband

Lucie is relocating to Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she grew

Dan Tangherlini lives with his

up. Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

wife, Theresa, a pediatric nurse

remains her summer base.

practitioner, at their home

enjoying the ocean, the redwoods, and pinot noir.

on Capitol Hill in Washington, ▲ Pictured left to right: Mary

D.C. Their youngest daughter,

Markis, Louise Zonis, and

Francesca, just finished her

Jennifer White, at the bat mitzvah

freshman year at Reed College,

celebration for Louise’s daughter

and their oldest, Cassandra, is

Bridget Fox, in San Francisco.

graduating from the University of California, Santa Cruz. While they

◀ John Sherwood received a

are far from home, Dan is able to

Fulbright grant (U.S. Scholar

see them during his frequent trips

program) for 2019–2020. A

to California through his work

historian with the Naval History

as chief financial officer for the

and Heritage Command (NHHC)

Emerson Collective in Palo Alto.

since 1997, John has written

Dan looks forward to crossing

1985

six books in military and naval

paths with any classmates, at any

history. His current work focuses

time, on either coast!

Mary Markis is a VP of Residential

on humanitarian and disaster ▶ Daniel Thompson is still a

Lending at Gold Coast Bank, a

relief operations, and his Fulbright

boutique private bank in Chicago.

project will contribute to his

professor and assistant chair

Her 17-year-old daughter Katie

body of work on the topic. For the

of the music production

is going into her senior year of

award, he will travel to Europe

and engineering department

high school, and Mary is hoping

to interview European Union and

at Berklee College of Music, in

she goes to college in New

NATO naval officers and policy

Boston. Over the past five years

England so that she can come

makers involved with migration-

he’s had the good fortune of doing

back home. Mary spends her free

related humanitarian operations.

recording sessions at the iconic

time as a travel volleyball mom

A centerpiece of his research will

Abbey Road Studios (The Beatles’

FA L L 2 019

cl a s s no t e s, con t.

studio) in London, Peter Gabriel’s

presented at, and helped to

Nat Damon, Ann Diederich, Hadley Davis, and Morrell Marean.

Real World Studios in Box,

organize, a panel discussion about

Wiltshire, and Studio Abdala in

the state of the press here and

Havana, Cuba, among others.

abroad. He’s interested to hear

The second edition of his book

from Miltonians with thoughts

1990

Understanding Audio came out

on this—contact Mark at info@

Josh Carpman is an empty-nester

last fall from Berklee Press /Hal

iheartfreedomofthepress.com.

Leonard. His daughter Anaïs ’11 graduated from Columbia

Liesel Euler ’89 received the first award for part-time faculty teaching/ service at Rio Hondo College.

a year after his home was recon structed after Hurricane Harvey. The twins, Joe and Brian, are

University and is pursuing her

1989

Ph.D. in clinical psychology

Liesel Euler has been teaching

but will be sophomores at Texas

at UNC Chapel Hill; his son,

theater at Rio Hondo College

A&M University in the fall.

Gavril, will be a senior this fall in

since 2010. This spring, the Arts

computer science at Rensselaer;

& Cultural Programs division

and he and his wife, Beth, adopted

created an award for part-time

three girls this past year, sisters

faculty teaching/service. They

Madi, Avi, and Makalyn (8, 11,

gave this first one to Liesel, who

and 12, respectively). He also was

also serves as a company member

happy to win a Latin Grammy

and membership director for

for engineering.

currently home for the summer

Son of Semele Ensemble, a small theater company in Los Angeles.

1987

Maura O’Dea Wygmans loves

▼ Alethia Jones was named

living in Vermont, where she

the director of the Open Society

enjoys skiing all winter and

Fellowship Program, working

boating and biking all summer

to support individuals searching

with her husband, Justin, and

for innovative solutions to

their three boys, Jasper, Will, and

society’s challenges.

Casey. They run a design/build

1992

construction company: Classic

▲ Jenna Stapleton hosted an event

Home, a family affair. She writes

at her home in Denver for her

that it would be great to hear

Ready to Work Program. She is

from classmates who visit the

the executive director of Boulder

Green Mountain State.

Bridge House. Pictured: Jenna

from classmates who visit the

Robert Rosenthal is starting

Ames McDevitt ’93 .

Green Mountain State.

his fourth year as an English

Maura O’Dea Wygmans ’89 loves living in Vermont and would be happy to hear

Bertocchi Stapleton with Isabel

and history teacher at a French– Lebanese school in Dubai and wishes he could have made it to

1988

Reunion.

Mark Friedman launched a

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

website as a passion project:

▶ Class of 1989 reunion dinner

iheartfreedomofthepress.com.

in Los Angeles. From left to right:

In recognition of World Press

Liesel Euler, Ina Jacobs, Jill

Freedom Day, he recently

Bernheimer, Tristana Webster,

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

1998 Allison Keel lives in Wellesley,

Harrison Blum moved with his

Massachusetts, is married to Pete

wife, Amorn, to Northampton,

Keel, and has three kids, ages 5, 8,

Massachusetts, and began

and 9. She works as a radiologist,

working as director of religious

specializing in breast imaging

and spiritual life at Amherst

at Newton Wellesley Hospital.

College (see page 20). They’re loving life in western Mass!

1997

▲ Jhoanna Aberia Belfer is a

▶ Annie (Fishman) Davis

Parker Everett published his first

and Gabrielle Jacquet met

book, Urban Transformations:

up for dinner recently in

From Liberalism to Corporatism in

Cambridge—celebrating 25

Greater Berlin, 1871–1933, with

years of friendship!

the University of Toronto Press.

bookstore entrepreneur who hosts pop-up events and a monthly book club in Long Beach, California, where she lives with her husband, classmate Philip Belfer. She hopes to open a brick-and-mortar space for her store, Bel Canto Books, in the coming year. Above, Jhoanna at a recent pop-up event in Long Beach.

1994 ▶ In March of this year, Amanda Cox Frantzen and Willa Leus

completed the 42 Km Engadin Ski Marathon together in Switzerland. Emily Sussman is a licensed

clinical social worker and the mother of Griffin, 7, and Valerie, 5. In January 2019, she opened an

Parker Everett ’97

outpatient addictions treatment

published his first book,

center, Freedom Recovery Group,

Urban Transformations:

in South Bend, Indiana.

From Liberalism to Corporatism in Greater

2001

Berlin, 1871–1933.

◀ Eliza Cutrell ’s growing family

includes Janie, born March 29. They are all doing great. The older two are Charlie, 6, and Benny, 4.

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2002 Kelly Frey was recently promoted

to member at Mintz Levin in Boston. Kelly focuses his practice on real estate litigation and government regulatory matters.

2003 Taylor Jacobson launched

Focusmate, the world’s first remote coworking community, featured in the New York Times,

Peter Kozodoy writes that after

on BBC News, and on NPR.

growing his marketing agency

team. Eight Milton classmates

to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-

celebrated their wedding with

growing companies in America,

them. Left to right (all ’06): Ross

co-captains of the Milton swim

he launched a new tech company

Bloom, Lee Anne Filosa, Francesca

this year, Stradeso, which is a

Izzo, Lyman Bullard, James Fee,

marketplace for creative content.

Christina Fish Fee, Aidan Hardy,

His first book, Honest to Greatness,

Laila Ameri, Jamie Mittelman,

comes out in February, showing

and Sasha Kamenetska .

how organizations can use honesty as a strategic tool for innovation. He lives in southern

2007

Connecticut with his wife,

▲ Frank Smith (center) is now a

Jenna, who works at Bridgewater

TV and film writer in Los Angeles,

Associates.

but he and his boyfriend, Matt

2006

of Episode 5 of the reality show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo

▼ Christina Fish Fee and James M.

on Netflix. Marie Kondo is known

Hartman, were also the stars

Fee celebrated their wedding in

for her best-selling book, The

New York City on March 30, 2019.

Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,

Christina and James met on the

and Frank and Matt’s lives

first day of their Class IV year at

were indeed changed by her

orientation and went on to be

organizational brilliance!

2004 ▲ Peter Colombo married

Sydney Roth on April 6, 2019, at a small ceremony in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Photos in class notes marginalia by: yhelfman, HonestTraveller, ajma_pl, Nastco, AlinaMD, dpruter, Michael Burrell, and Eric_Urquhart (all iStock) and Randy Duchaine/ Alamy Stock Photo (Eric Carle Museum sign).

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

northern Georgia. He will be transitioning from activeduty army to the reserves, pursuing a dual MBA–masters program at Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins.

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

2008 ▲ Madeleine Hobbs married

▼ Massimo Soriano and Katie St.

Dylan Williams ’10, Mary Lopez,

Andrew Alspaugh in September

George reunited in Zurich in May

her husband Charlie Motzer, Alex

2018 in Nonquitt, Massachusetts.

2019. These former captains of

Desaulniers ’07, and Ruth Weld ’10.

Two of Maddy’s closest friends

the Milton Academy sailing team

from Milton Academy were

reunited in Switzerland, where

bridesmaids in the wedding:

Massimo recently completed his

Maggie Bouscaren and Alyson

master’s of international affairs

Cole Morrissette finished a B.A.

Friedensohn. Maddy and Andrew

and governance from University

(Class of 2017) and M.A. (Class

moved to San Francisco from

of St. Gallen. Go, Mustangs!

of 2018) at Wesleyan University

2013

Peter Kozodoy ’04

published his first book, Honest to Greatness, which comes out in February.

last year with neuroscience and

Austin, Texas, in the fall of 2018.

Did you recently celebrate

Pictured (second from left) Alyson

biology as majors and his master’s

Friedensohn, (third from left)

degree in neurophysiology. Cole

an important milestone?

Maggie Bouscaren, (fourth from

is now at Columbia University

Get married or expand

left) Maddy Hobbs.

College of Physicians & Surgeons

your family? Change

for medical school in NYC and

careers or take a life-

Madeleine Murray is the

loving it!

changing trip? Did you earn a new degree or

illustrator of a new young adult

2015

complete an exciting

series is for readers who love horseback riding and equestrian

Nick DiGiovanni participated as a

with your classmates

sport. Book #1 was released in

contestant on season 10 of the Fox

with a Class Note. Email

May 2019, and books #2 and #3

cooking competition MasterChef.

alumni@milton.edu.

series called Show Strides. The

project? Share the news

are in the works. Her fast digital sketches are featured regularly on a new television network: The Plaid Horse Network. Search for her drawing-process videos

2010

on the The Plaid Horse Network’s

▶ Mary Lopez was married in

Art and Photography channel.

February in Charleston, South

When she’s not illustrating,

Carolina. She was fortunate to

Madeleine is supporting herself

have several Milton alums join for

with painting. To see her paintings,

the special day. Pictured: Ryan

visit mmurrayart.com.

McDaniel ’10, Emily Perkins ’10,

FA L L 2 019

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Remembering Margaret Greer ’47, 1929–2019 Margaret Jewett Greer, loyal Milton alumna,

Beyond Milton’s campus, Margaret and her family

parent and grandparent, and trustee emerita,

hosted events for alumni and parents in Washington, D.C.,

died on March 19, 2019. She was 89.

providing opportunities for Miltonians to gather, converse,

A graduate of the class of 1947, Margaret

and create and sustain friendships. Those who knew

served on the Milton Academy Board of

Margaret speak of her honest and conscientious manner,

Trustees from 1975 until she became a trustee

her intellect, her devotion to family, and her enthusiasm

emerita in 1987. Her generosity and sensibilities

for the people and pastimes she enjoyed.

leave a lasting legacy at the School. Beautiful

As a Milton student, Margaret lived in Hathaway House

facades were far less interesting to her than a

and was active in the Glee Club, dramatics, and badminton.

properly installed heating and cooling system.

After Milton, Margaret went on to Wellesley College, where

In fact, during one Reunion weekend, she was

she studied political science, graduating in 1951.

found walking the perimeter of the newly constructed athletic center to see if the storm

In addition to her husband, William H. Greer Jr., Margaret leaves four daughters: Milton alumnae Sara G.

drainage system was working properly. Her

Dent ’77 and Lucie C. Greer ’84, Mary Greer and Margaret

hands-on approach and appreciation for the

Carr; sons-in-law Magruder Dent and Milton alumnus

less glamorous side of School operations reflected who

Samuel B. Carr ’73; and seven grandchildren, including

she was as a person and as a trustee: modest, unassuming,

Milton alumnae Alexandra Carr ’09, Isabelle H. Carr ’13,

warm, generous, and grateful.

and Rosamond J. Carr ’14.

In Memoriam Alumni, faculty,

Class of 1937

Class of 1947

Class of 1954

Class of 1976

and staff who passed

Eleanor Gleason Bleakie

Lewis E. Braverman, M.D.

Lindsey H. Durant

Stephen V. Winthrop

Class of 1955

Class of 1978

Llewellyn Howland III

Michael Patrick Aulson

Class of 1959

Class of 1982

Wendy Brewer Paddock

Matthew Hallowell

away between January 1, 2019 and July 30, 2019, or were not previously

Margaret Jewett Greer

Class of 1938 Amabel Eshleman Kilby

Class of 1948

Barrows

Winthrop A. Baylies

listed in Milton

Class of 1943

Class of 1949

Magazine. To notify

Pamela Cottier Forcey

Oakes Ames

Class of 1944

Class of 1950

Thomas Crane Wales

W. David Malcolm, Jr.

Alumni Relations

Class of 1945

Class of 1951

Office at alumni@

Joy Carter Luke

Lois Kinnicut Lockwood

us of a death, please contact the Development and

milton.edu or 617-898-2447.

Mary Jane Wakefield

Class of 1946 Russell Bourne

Class of 1952

Henry Rice Guild, Jr.

Peter Stone Elliott

George S. Mumford, Ph.D.

Clare Harwood Nunes

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

Class of 1961 Joseph B. Hull

Christina Chute Thys

Sarah Thompson Soule

Class of 1960

Class of 1966

Huntington Class of 1991 Sophia A. Cardenas Class of 2001 Jonathan C. S . Leong

Anne Fiske Long

Faculty and staff

Peter V. Roberts

Bartley Bonfield

Class of 1975 Michael R. Hanley

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

Nourse, Jr. Michael P. Chatsko Mary Roman

◀ CLASS OF 1944 Donald Kent and Bill Weeks, Sr.

▼ CLASS OF 1949

front row: Jack Robinson, George Baker, Bunny Baker, Adele Gilmore Simonds, Madeline Gregory, Peter Runton, Linda Squires back row: Peggy Wood, Cynthia Lasserre, June Nordblom Robinson, Bill Thorndike, Bayard Henry, John Hewett

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▲ CLASS OF 1954

front row: Nathan Talbot, Bill Hartmann, Christopher Bingham, Larry Altman, Craig Haines, Ross Sherbrooke middle row: John Deknatel, George Smith, Jim Perkins, Tom Gregg, Lindsey Durant back row: David Greenway, Dick Beckwith, David Ehrlich, Harold Janeway

◀ CLASS OF 1959

front row: David Wheatland, Gay Lehman, Sissel Falck-Jorgensen, Mary Procter, Penny Potter Blevins, Wendy Maynard second row: Susan Wheatland, Barbara Long, Bonnie Akins, Christina Jackson, Lydia Goetze, Tom Claflin third row: Chris Lehman, Sandy Greene, Steven Jones, Tim Williams, Margot Churchill, Fred Churchill back row: Dave Brown, Marcia Schoeller, Phil Kinnicutt, Nick Bancroft, John Coburn

▶ CLASS OF 1964 Nick Hinch, Peter Holmes, Frannie Sykes Moyer, George Hilton, Reed Pavan

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

â&#x2013;˛ CLASS OF 1969

front row: Marguerite Pile, Melinda WhiteBronson, Roger MacDonald, Molly Eberle Quinby, Janice Peters, Sarah Geer second row: Wells Pile, Christine Mussells, Emily Fuller Hawkins, Nancy Pattison Roberts, Ruth Wiggins Appleyard, Eleanor King, Taddy Dickersin, Betsy Auchincloss, David White, Lisa Lloyd Hobson third row: Peggy Albers, Emily Andrews, Heidi Fitz, Stephen Epstein, Margy Pierpoint, Margaret White, Janet Olson fourth row: Eliza Kimball, David Fitz, Catherine Felton, Laura Robinson Roberts, Wendy Wornham, Steve Newman, William Perkins back row: Glenn Spear, Sam Harrington, Alex Felton, Shaw Warren, Denise Main, Elliott Main

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▶ C L A S S O F 1 9 74

front row: Sam Dennis, Cassandra Perry, Sarah Lincoln Trafildo, Felicity Myers, Israel Sanchez, Matt Peckham, Deborah Williams Albury middle row: David Moir, Mary Carton Gregory, Jesse Abbott, Richard Hawkins, Susan O’Hara Riley, Deirdre DempseyRush, Jay Brooks, Annette Buchanan Booze back row: Dan Gregory, Nick Nichols, John Moot, John Griffin

◀ CLASS OF 1979

front row: Peter Nawrocki, Bryan Austin, Amy MacDonald, David Rabkin, Sasha Nyary, Heidi Marie Wurzel, Andrea Swann Burton, Giulia Norton middle row: Barry Hynes, Bill Weeks, Gene Reilly, Tedd Saunders, Todd Saunders, Beth Zonis, Deirdre Sullivan Menchaca, Gilly Rogers Sisson, Kristin Kylander Adams back row: Glenn Allen, Phil Higonnet, Russ Haddleton, David Ajemian, Edith DeVegvar Rowland, Paula Goodrich, Richard Fitzpatrick

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

◀ CLASS OF 1984

front row: Ligia Brickus, Michael Weisberg, Christine DeVegvar Parson, Hope Nye Yeager, Lisa Jes, Patrice Dolan Morse, Sue Mahanor and, in resplendent blue beard, John Bisbee second row: Erik Singer, Sheila Gallagher, Theodore Spencer, Rhea Zervas Brubaker, Charles Truax, Sally Wright Waxman, Kim Doulos, Sam Hobbs, Elise Feldman, Jennifer Ebisemiju Madar third row: Xander Shapiro, David Salwen, Tracy Shupp, Flynn Monks, Melissa Glen, Andy Marshall, Sid Whelan, Frank Quinn back row: Bill Appleton, Susan Evans Bohan, Mary Kaufman (non-graduate, spouse of Seth Kaufman), Seth Kaufman, Barak Rosenbloom, Mark Denneen, Desmond Curran, Tim Driver, Lisa Driver, Neil Godfrey, Chris Morrow

▶ CLASS OF 1989

first row: Anil Thomas, Grace McNamee Decker, Josh Everdell, Mark Paresky, Martin Zinny, Jen Drohan, Jill Valle, Meredith Talbot second row: Greg Quinn, Adam Berrey, Matt Kane, Chris Arnold, Nancy Johnson Holtschlag, Peter Robinson, Anna Weymouth third row: Jake Upton, Jon Travers, George Papageorge, Brian Martin back row: Mark Driver, Jonathan Bracken, Jay Sullivan, Liesel Euler, Perry Cabot, Kate Stookey, Eben Mears

◀ CLASS OF 1994

front row: Mary Lisio, Jesse Robinson, Samantha Drohan, Sarah McClean, Kwaku Asare, Laura Newmark, Elisabeth Blair, Theresa Conduah, Sadio Desmond, Julie Barnes, Susannah Bancroft, Jeffrey Kurson, Joshua Nash, Andrew Topkins, Ashley Fouts, Nedim Sahin second row: Jessica Manchester Lubitz, Evan Hughes, Heidi Wiemeyer Felago, Gabriel Heafitz, Hilton Marcus, Jennifer Pfuhl, Caroline Kmack, Vera Garibaldi, Liddy Wendell, Douglas Sigourney, Lynn Rasic Harrison, Ethan Sigman, Devon White Angelini third row: Leslie Garrett, Allison Keel, Emily Groom, Sarah Schechter, Kathryn Dunton Middleton, Erica Silverstein, Kathryn McCarthy Maguire, Andrew Bonney, Noah Freeman, Charlie Everett, Ken Natori, Hillary Lombard back row: Anna Rosefsky Saavedra, Jeffrey Smith, Benjamin Fawcett, Mollie Nelson Webster, Alexandra Johnes, Elizabeth Perkins Wilder, Dan Sarles, Todd Morton, Ian Zilla, Bradley Mitchell

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◀ CLASS OF 1999

front row: Quentin Weld, Blake Seff, Danny Schlozman, Joanna Ostrem, Brooke Harris, Simone St. John, Beth Ford Dunne second row: Seth Korman, Rob Higgins, Sarah White, Rachel Reichard Kalin, Kristin Donelan, Caroline Churchill Page, Otis Berkin, Kelly Sullivan Menice, Leanne McManama, Kara Sweeney Egan third row: Mike O’Neil, Morgan Gray, Jamie Perkins, Beth Pierson, Tatiana Lingos-Webb, Kevin Bennett fourth row: Nick Gauchat, Chris Chao, Julia Cavan, Conor French, Andy Houston, Ben Leslie back row: Matt Ford, José Ortiz, Mac Dougherty, Greg Schwanbeck, Kiran Singh, Justin Walsh, Terrence Burek

▶ CLASS OF 2004

front row: Peter Colombo, Catherine Weiss, Corey Bergen-Caras, Elspeth Macmillan, Emily Ebert, Lindsey Dashiell, Jeff Marr, Andrew Smith middle row: Haley Kingsland, Amanda Duncan, John Donahue back row: Sam Wheeler, George Gregory, Josh Krieger, Rob Hawkins, Justin McIntosh, Jonathan Kaplan

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

milton.edu

/MiltonAcademy1798

@Milton_Academy @miltonacademy

◀ CLASS OF 2009

front row: Sam Rosen, Sarah Diamond, Wyatt Cmar second row: Hillary McNamara, Abe Freidin, Nikki Pantazopolous, Mike Baldino, Abby Bok, Eliza Dryer, Sarah Konowitz, Bikrum Chahal, Chloe Cole, Caroline Palmer, Samantha Barkowski, Lyndsey Starks, Niyati Desai third row: Suzanne Gallo, Ben Mansour, Sarah Loucks, Julia Solomon, Jenna Brickley, Sam Pearce, George Haydock, Brian Mason, Chris Fan, Will Hutchings, Dan Kim, Genevieve Chow, Kim Chang, Inji Jung, Kelsey Jost-Creegan, Sophia Rabb, Caroline Lester fourth row: Emily Roberts, Cate Littlefield, Samantha Schuffenecker, Satori Shimizu, Loreen Watts, Holly Mawn back row: Mohammed Alkhafaji, Doulgon Tse, Molly MacDonald Purcell, Angela Baglione, Sam Arras, Will Trepagnier, Oscar Hernandez, Samir Ghosh, Tom Tysowsky, Ben NaddaffHafrey, Charlie Cabot, Dan In, Jacob Jolis

▶ CLASS OF 2014

front row: Kevin Lee, Justin Kennedy, Gerard Denoeux, Jason Yoo, Lindsey Jay, Geoffrey Owens, Elana Golub, Jade Beguelin, Titi Odedele, Ellie Minot Salima Sarsenova, Alexandrea Meyer, Derek Low, Nadya Yeh, Stephanie Gavell, Morgan Hung, Selina Cheah, Debbie Lee, Francesca Ely-Spence second row: Neil Chandra, Varun Singh, Maddie Warwick, Corey Schwaitzberg, Alex Lee, Nate Lundie, Sarah Muse, Kat Fearey, Amy Kerr, Shira Golub, Abby Lebovitz, Morgan O’Connell, Jack Urquhart, Drew Blake, Daphne Chow, Jaspar Liang, Louisa Moore, Isabel Chun, Rachael Allen, Eliza White, Garielle Sinclair, Jennifer Lara third row: Chris Sutton, Daniel Berman, Charlie Blasberg, Jack Karle, Alex Mann, Drew Jacobs, Jack Cahill, Kendall Hall, Emily Bland, Maura Noone, Claire Russell, Maggie Bland, Ohio Ehimiaghe, Austin Johnson, Tiffany Guan, Mykayla Sandler, Claire Hernon back row: Nathan Stanfield, Chandler Quintin, Scott Pedersen, Anthony Scurto, Matt Morin, Chris Karlson, Michael Davis, Rubye Peyser, Alastair Bastian, Alec Brennan, Luke MacDonald, DJ Gopie, Liam White, Mike Cronin, Chris McDonough, Sean Sylva, Zachary Hoffman, Anna Lachenauer, Caitlin Greene

FA L L 2 019

post script

JACK KRUSE ’73

Bubbles, Skunks, Cheap Jewelry

Notes From an English Teacher

Bubbles

dangerous bubbles of targeted news, of

1. Bubbles of Impermanence

“personalization algorithms,” of NASCAR

We like flowers as metaphors for transient

voters, of the coastal elite. Too many bubbles,

beauty, but their blossoms take so long

I say. No wonder people are turning to other

to disappear—wilting, discoloring, molting—

metaphors to describe insular self-affirmation:

that it’s never a surprise. For a miracle that

shields, silos, walls, filters, echo-chambers.

disappears in a flash, nothing beats the bubble.

And then they combine them: shield-walls,

Poets and artists love it as a memento mori

echo-silos, or filter-bubbles. I like echo-silo,

device (along with the skull and the hourglass—

because it makes sense (especially if you’ve

to remind us that life is short), economists love it

ever tried singing in a silo, which is amazing),

word is skunked—and to go with nauseated or

(dot-com bubble, housing bubble), and Germans

but filter-bubble? Makes no sense at all.

nauseating, whichever she means.

Skunked Words

skunked for meaning too many things to mean

So maybe bubble is due for early retirement,

use it to describe their pipe dreams, just sudsy illusions (wie eine Seifenblase zerplatzen). 2. Bubbles of Judgment

Words change their meaning over time, and

anything at all. And while we’re downsizing,

most linguists, according to Bryan A. Garner,

can we lose deer in the headlights? Not everyone drives at night in deer country,

Flannery O’Connor fans will remember Julian,

are descriptivists, chronicling those changes

the loathsome college graduate in “Everything

without judging them. They’ll tell you that

and not all deer even do the deer-in-theheadlights face. The metaphor is as unhelpful

that Rises Must Converge,” an aversive racist

we use media and data now as singular nouns

who despises his mother. Julian withdraws into

and that it’s been fine for years to start a

as jet black or puke green. Jewelers used to

a “mental bubble” from which he can judge

sentence with Hopefully or But. At war with

set a lot of jet stone (black lignite) in rings and

others—with perfect clarity, he imagines—

them are the prescriptivists, a handful of

necklaces, but not anymore. And not everyone

but is safe from their “general idiocy.” My

purists who try to preserve standards in the

is an Exorcist survivor, still haunted by Linda

students often respond to the story with their

language; they don’t want imply and infer

Blair’s extraordinary spew—so better to go

own versions of Julian’s bubble world—the

ever to mean the same thing.

with whatever green you have in mind: pea?

enlightened sanctimony, the judgment—and the

Meanwhile, there are words in transition—

army? fluorescent? Same with the roadside

best essays that week consider how easy it is

and in dispute. The purists will stigmatize

deer: shocked? paralyzed? dumbfounded? Say

to get there. One day we’re open-minded, the

the new use, and the linguistic liberals will

what you mean.

next we’re closed for business, surrounded by

find the old meaning odd. Words in this

idiots. This bubble of intellectual superiority is

category, Garner says, are skunked, and it’s

In 1971, I signed up for Mrs. Herzog’s class in British literature across Centre Street at

a good one to watch out for because it can’t last.

better not to use them at all. Here are some

the Girls’ School. Her classes were brilliant,

(If you’re the protagonist of an O’Connor story,

of his: chauvinism, enormity, fulsome.

along with the girls, and she always made the

it will burst on the last page.)

Here are some of mine: disinterested, presently,

poems and plays seem like old friends. Here are

inflammable, nauseous, raptor, feminist, radical,

two John Donne poems she read to us: “Love’s

3. Bubbles of Protection

conservative, environmental, artful, prophylactic,

Alchemy,” which has a good memento mori

The bubbles out there these days feel less

mansplaining, begs (as in begs the question). I like

bubble in the second stanza, and “A Jet Ring

fragile—and there are lots of them. Apparently,

these words, but they’re usually not worth the

Sent,” in which a lover rejects a cheap black ring.

the Bubble of Trust keeps you from hooking

little sermon on what they mean. We English

up with your roommate’s ex-boyfriend. My

teachers are supposed to be slightly behind the

Jack Kruse has been teaching English at the

students describe family as a bubble, the

wave, slowing things down if we can, but at

Mountain School Program of Milton Academy

school as a bubble, even New York City as a

some point, we have to give it up. A student can

since 1984. Please send any thoughts about

bubble—worlds that are somehow precious

tell me her roommate is nauseous, and I’ll skip

filter-bubbles, skunked words, or nausea to

and exclusive. Commentators describe the

the joke, but if I see it in an essay, I’ll tell her the

jack.kruse@mountainschool.org.

M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E

“Critical thinking and the recognizing of cultural imperatives, historical and contemporary, remain at the center of teaching at Milton. New media facilitates communication between students and teachers, but nothing can replace the idea that material is selected, mostly by the teacher, questions are posed, by both teacher and student, and discussions ensue. In my 35 years at Milton, we have restlessly tossed and turned in the search for best processes. We still believe in the Harkness table, but not so exclusively. We continue to puzzle about the pairing of projects with developing teens. We have challenged ourselves to see more deeply into how we teach, how students receive ideas, and how much is too much. Milton encourages this continuous questioning to ensure that teachers do their best work in service to learning. Keeping our class sizes small allows a deeper sense of trust between teacher and student, and professional development opportunities allow us to grow in our craft.” Larry Pollans History and art faculty member, retired in 2019

Dare is a campaign about people: our faculty, our students, and the power of their experiences together. Learn more about how you can support Milton today and for decades to come. Milton.edu/campaign • 617-898-2447

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