GFS Bulletin: 175th Anniversary Edition - Vol. II 2021

IN THIS ISSUE 22

Trailblazers, Part II

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More pioneering educators who laid the foundation for the future of GFS.

By Kate Stover

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Waxing Nostalgic GFS memorabilia that has us reminiscing about 31 W. Coulter Street.

By Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 Photographs by Scott B. Foley

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Tigers, Burning Bright What better way to honor more than 100 years of great GFS athletes than with a set of trading cards capturing some of their most memorable moments?

Historically Speaking Quaker values, progressive education, community outreach, continuing revelation—these concepts and more describe the spiritual and pedagogical evolution of Germantown Friends School over the past 175 years. From a list too long to count, we've highlighted ten significant milestones, moments, programs, and traditions that define the GFS experience.

Produced by Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 Photo Research by Tim Wood, GFS archivist

By Hillel J. Hoffmann Produced by Meg Cohen Ragas ’85

FRONT 1 2 3 10 13 17

In This Issue Letter from the Head News & Noteworthy Tiger Beat Supporting GFS Faculty Focus

B AC K 48 52

Class Notes Q&A

This magazine is printed on recycled paper.

O N T H E COV E R A special collector’s edition of the Bulletin celebrating 175 years of GFS and Quaker education.

Volume II 2021 |

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EDITOR

Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 CON TR IBU TOR S

Scott B. Foley, photography Hannah Caldwell Henderson ’91 Hillel J. Hoffmann Brandon Jones ’oo Tristan Kim ’13 Luke Lendler ’24 Julie Marren Micheal Perzi, Class Notes Amanda Reath ’89 Michelle Sonsino Kate Stover Joanna Volpe Tim Wood HEAD OF SCHOOL

Dana Weeks

C H I E F A DVA N C E M E N T OFFICER

Hannah Caldwell Henderson ’91 DIR ECTOR OF C O M M U N C I AT I O N S

Michelle Sonsino

SCHOOL COMMITTEE

Hilary Alger, advancement clerk Pat Bass Jordan Bastien, finance clerk Maureen Carr, religious life clerk Michael Cohen ’82 Joan Countryman ’58 Ben Cushman ’72 Marc DiNardo ’80, facilities clerk Moira Duggan, nominating & governance clerk David Feldman ’76, clerk Carmen Guerra Mimi McKenzie, assistant clerk Carol Baldwin Moody ’74 Takashi Moriuchi, treasurer Zoe Rankin ’06 Dianne Reed Jonathan E. Rhoads ’56 Matthew Stitt ’05 Anthony Stover Liz Williams, recording clerk TRUSTEES EMER ITI

Pat Rose Pat Macpherson Christopher Nicholson Samuel V. Rhoads ’82 F. Parvin Sharpless David A. West ’49

The GFS Bulletin is published twice a year for the alumni, parents, faculty, and friends of Germantown Friends School. We welcome your comments to the editor at: mragas@germantownfriends.org

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Dear Friends, There is something magical about walking into a room or eating a meal that brings you back to a particular time in your life. A smell, taste, or feeling can spark memories or moments from your past that impacted you—in small or large ways—sometimes without even realizing it.

I often hear that alumni remember the smell and quiet of the Meetinghouse, the taste of the bread baked in Daniel Rouse’s class, the joy and emotion of going on the choir trip, and the rush experienced during a varsity competition at Fields or before walking onto the stage for a performance in Loeb or Poley.

Celebrating our 175th anniversary this past year ignited these memories for many of our alumni, faculty, and friends—even with most of our celebrations and events held virtually.

I am sure the following pages—filled with stories about GFS traditions, inspiring teachers and administrators, and momentous events and experiences in our history—will take you back to special moments from your time at 31 W. Coulter Street. On the following pages, please enjoy features about breakthrough curricular and programmatic changes, trailblazing

faculty, and talented athletes who made their mark on GFS and beyond.

As we look ahead to our next milestone and those in the more distant future, I know the last two years— including our collective response to COVID-19 and the community's actions to combat racial injustice—will be a time that future alumni look back on as one that shaped their lives, their choices, and their impact on the world.

I cannot wait until we can join together again in person on campus and embrace more memories, warm feelings, and connections to our beloved GFS. Warmly,

Dana Weeks Head of School

NEWS & NOTEWORTHY

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT 31 W. COULTER STREET—AND BEYOND

Gap Year 2.0 COVID-19 wreaked havoc on high school students’ most crucial educational years. Some graduates found taking a year off provided perspective—and closure. By Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 BEFORE COVID-19 BECAME A HOUSEHOLD NAME, THE CONCEPT OF THE GAP YEAR—AN ACADEMIC YEAR TAKEN BY

a student as a “break” between secondary school and higher education— among GFS students was seldom considered, let alone realized. But the global pandemic changed all that, with from 10 to 20 percent of freshmen classes at some of the country’s top colleges and universities deferring admission for the 2020-21 academic year.

At GFS, approximately 15 percent of the class of 2020 decided to delay the start of their college careers. And while Gap Years in the past were often synonymous with “finding yourself” pursuits like organic farming or backpacking around Europe, the new wave of Gap Year participants, for the most part, set their sights on more educational, entrepreneurial, and reflective pursuits.

Deferring admission to Northwestern University was a no-brainer for Sammi Deutsch ’20. As a senior at GFS, she worked 15 hours a week as a fellow on the Biden for President campaign before joining the team full-time as a compliance analyst after graduation.

Deutsch assisted with filing Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports for the campaign, ensuring that all contributions followed FEC regulations.

She then joined the vetting team at the 59th Presidential Inaugural Committee after her work on the campaign wrapped up at the end of December

Sammi Deutsch ’20 on the campaign trail with then presidential candidate Joe Biden; poster for Brenden Dahl ’20’s new play for Philadelphia Young Playwrights (next page).

2020. Deutsch completed her Gap Year in the Middle East Research Department at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.based foreign policy think tank.

“My work on the campaign and the fact that we won the election inspired me to go to Washington, D.C., for my college education so that I could continue my political work,” says Deutsch, who applied for admission and was accepted to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service to study international politics, where she began her freshman studies this fall.

“The past year has completely changed my future,” says Deutsch.

“The life skills I’ve gained from working and living on my own are definitely a few of the positives.”

For Brenden Dahl ’20, deferring his admission to Northwestern allowed

him to pursue his interest in the theatre in ways that he might not have had the opportunity as a freshman in college. In addition to developing a new play script, he taught a summer class at GFS for Lower and Middle Schoolers called Improv-to-Script, completed an artistic internship with the South Philly-based Theatre Exile, and began working for Philadelphia Young Playwrights as their social media and communications manager; Dahl was eventually invited to serve as PYP’s Playwright-in-Residence, which culminated in a staged reading of his latest play, abSolution, last spring.

“Taking a step back has allowed me to rethink what I’d like to pursue in college and beyond and how I’d like to pursue it,” says Dahl. “I’ve gained valuable real-world experience in the theater industry, which will provide me Volume II 2021 |

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NEWS & NOTEWORTHY

with relevant context to frame my education, and I’ve developed an interest in theater education. My vision for the future has shifted from purely artistic to a more nuanced desire to create/direct a theater company with a balanced focus on new play development, devised/ immersive theater, and education.”

Deferring admission to Williams College not only proved to be the

right choice for Julian Spiro ’20, but the obvious one. Spiro sought out experiences in geographic locations where COVID-19 wasn’t such a factor—working in the New Hampshire and New York wilderness for the Appalachian Mountain Club, on a boat in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and on a farm in Kentucky, to name a few.

“I had an incredibly formative year in spite of the pandemic,” he shares.

“I had what would count as a great Gap Year any year, but one that felt especially meaningful this year.”

Even with most college campuses welcoming back all students in person this fall, there are some members of the Class of 2021 who still opted to defer the start of college. For Elena Eisenstadt ’21, that decision was based on several factors, including needing a break after a year of quarantine and stressful hybrid learning—especially since her chosen school, the University of Chicago, has a “similarly intellectual rigorous environment” to that of GFS. This fall, she traveled to Israel

to volunteer on a Kibbutz, where her responsibilities include working on a farm and harvesting in the fields while living with a group of other international volunteers. During the second half of the year, she will travel to Spain to volunteer at a hostel, helping with the cooking, reception, and general hospitality, as well as participate in a language immersion program.

“I had a few goals for my Gap Year—to practice different languages, learn new skills in unconventional ways, and surround myself with interesting and new people,” says Eisenstadt. “I found the idea of work exchanges appealing; the chance to volunteer my time and labor for free room and board in farms, hostels, or other communal environments.

“I chose to take a year off before college partially because planning it gave me something to do—a mental escape from quarantine, Zoom school, and everything else I hoped would be over by the time September 2021 rolled around.”

City Crusader MOST PEOPLE DON’T DISCOVER THEIR PROFESSIONAL CALLING UNTIL THEY’RE IN THEIR MID-’20S OR BEYOND. SOME

find their path in college. And then there’s veteran public affairs communicator and political campaigner Michael Berman ’88, president and CEO of the new Philadelphia-based firm 40 North Advocacy. He was struck full-force by a one-two punch of experiences when he was a Germantown Friends School student that left him with a clear vision of his professional future at age 16.

It began the summer after his sophomore year, when he volunteered for U.S. Rep. Robert W. Edgar’s 1986 campaign to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter. Edgar lost, but Berman was hooked. “I just fell in love with politics,” he says. “It changed my life.”

Working to help communities by supporting ethical leaders and policies was a natural extension of the

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values Berman learned at GFS. But the competitive world of ground-level politics scratched a different itch. He knew he wanted more. For his Junior Project, Berman went to DC to work for Rep. William H. Gray III, who represented the school’s—and his family’s—home district. From then on, he found a way to squeeze campaign and advocacy work into every crevice of his life. He took a Gap Year to work on the 1988 Dukakis presidential campaign and work at a Washington think tank. It continued at Penn, where he majored in urban studies.

“I worked for campaigns or did internships in DC in the summers,” Berman says. “I was very focused on a career in campaigns, and that’s what I did up through the 2000 election cycle.”

The intensity of constant campaigning was draining, and in 2000 Berman turned to his other great love—backing policy causes he

admired. While managing anti-tobacco communications campaigns, he worked closely with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter as they pushed for smoking bans. As Berman’s network of urban leaders continued to grow, so did his conviction that cities would shape the future of American policy. That belief guided his decision to join forces with Nutter and Kevin Kinross this January to create 40 North Advocacy, a national public affairs communications firm with a unique focus: expertise in working with city and county governments.

“Cities are already the future of America,” says Berman, whose daughter Charlotte is now a freshman at GFS. “They’re younger. They’re more diverse. Our belief as a firm is that if you want to affect the future America, you need to be working today in America’s cities.” –Hillel J. Hoffmann

Portrait of an Educator ON APRIL 24, JOAN CANNADY COUNTRYMAN ’58’S PORTRAIT WAS ADDED TO THE WALLS OF THE FRONT HALL OF THE MAIN BUILDING, JOINING SUCH ESTEEMED FORMER FACULTY AND

heads of school as Stanley Yarnell and Irving Poley.

Countryman, one of GFS’ first Black graduates, returned after graduation to work as a math teacher, department head, assistant head for academic planning, and director of studies over the course of 23 years. She also had a prolific career beyond GFS, serving as head of the Lincoln School in Rhode Island and as the founding head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Still active in retirement, she sits on multiple school boards, including GFS’ School Committee, and acts as an advisor for the school’s Actions for Equity anti-racist plan.

Her portrait, painted by former GFS parent Paul DuSold, represents the culmination of Countryman’s long relationship with GFS, and was made possible by several generous donors. “Adding Joan’s portrait to our collection is an important and critical celebration of her legacy, her leadership, and her impact on generations of young people, families, and colleagues here at GFS,” shared Head of School Dana Weeks at the unveiling. “It also represents her service beyond our campus toward greater educational equity and access to create a more just world.” –Tristan Kim ’13

Economic Success THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC PRESENTED A HOST OF CHANGES AND CHALLENGES FOR BUSINESSES AROUND THE WORLD,

but it did not deter the students in Aaron Preetam’s Applied Economics class from finding success in Virtual Enterprises national competitions throughout the year. Seniors Elliot

Savage, Gray Kearns, Miguel Santos, Naiya Mainigi, Sean Park, and Zach Musthaq, along with juniors Caleb Abrams and William Jiggetts, created BioVital, a simulated company that provides people “the opportunity to enhance their well-being, make health accessible, and set realistic goals

through the monitoring of hydration.”

The students ran BioVital across five teams—Business Plan, Human Resources, Marketing, Quickbooks, and Finance—and participated in trade shows at regional, national, and international levels. They began their journey last October at the 2020 National Elevator Pitch Competition and, after multiple rounds of judging over several months, the Business, HR, Marketing, and Finance teams advanced to the semifinals, held in March 2021 via video conferencing.

The HR and Finance teams made it to the championship round in April, with the Business team landing in the finals.

“Though the journey was not without hitches, I enjoyed running BioVital,” reflected CEO Park. “This is a real-life application of running a company as you go through the experience with the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders.” –T.K. ’13 Volume II 2021 |

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NEWS & NOTEWORTHY

Cooking with Confidence MARY ROSE PRIMOSCH ’17 WAS ON A SEMESTER ABROAD IN SPAIN WHEN THE WORLD TEMPORARILY SHUT DOWN DUE

to the COVID-19 pandemic—which is how she found herself back in Philadelphia, finishing out her junior year at Whittier College. Before she departed Spain, however, she applied for Whittier’s Sherman Fairchild Fellowship, a grant dedicated to enhancing education or funding a personal project in the areas of art and technology.

During her sophomore year, Primosch had noticed how students complained about the dining-hall food and reminisced about eating at home and how they missed cooking for themselves.

“I realized that a cookbook is actually something I could produce,” recalls the digital art and design major. “I’ve always loved to cook, and as my friends started moving off campus, buying their own groceries, and making their own food, an idea sort of [jelled].”

Primosch received the Fellowship in May of 2020 and devoted that summer and fall to creating The Art of Eyeballing, a guide to intuitive cooking that teaches young adults how to become comfortable “eyeballing ingredients,

substituting different foods, and eventually being able to cook meals without the help of a recipe.”

“That’s how I cook,” says Primosch, “I don’t use exact measurements.”

Featured dishes range from banana pancakes and sweet sticky tofu to spring rolls and blueberry crisp. In addition to creating and testing every recipe herself, she took all of the photographs and designed the cookbook. She spent her mornings cooking and her afternoons styling the food in her makeshift attic studio. After months of editing, refining page layouts, and back-and-forths with her project advisor at Whittier, Primosch, who credits her studio art and photography classes at GFS with influencing her design and artistic sensibility, sent the final proof to the printer last New Year’s Eve. Now in its third printing, The Art of Eyeballing has graced the kitchens of many college students and graduates who are living—and cooking—on their own for the first time. Primosch, who

graduated from Whittier last May, recently started a new job as a production artist at 160over90, but continues to populate her blog, Undefined Eats, with recipes and food tips and tricks.

“This project gave me such a sense of satisfaction,” says Primosch. “It not only further developed my skills as a designer and visual artist, but also solidified a longtime interest in combining art, food, and people.”

To purchase a copy of The Art of Eyeballing, email Mary Rose Primosch at undefined.eats@gmail.com.

Half of the proceeds of each copy sold goes to Face to Face, a human services organization dedicated to the health, well-being, and stability of the Germantown community. —Meg Cohen Ragas ’85

Baking Bread, “Dough-ing” Good connect students and families with the Germantown community. He reached out to the director of the Whosoever Gospel Mission, which provides shelter, food, education, and counseling to homeless men, women, and children, and created the Whosoever Gospel Mission Bread Project.

Rouse’s class baked a dozen loaves of bread each month for the Mission, and Rouse tied the project to his social studies curriculum, focusing on bread as one of the most basic human needs.

THE BREAD-BAKING TREND GAINED A “GFS parents really did the work,” LOT OF MOMENTUM DURING THE COVID- says Rouse, “facilitat[ing] small groups 19 PANDEMIC, BUT GFS HAS HAD QUITE of students to mix and knead the dough, a long, doughy history. Twenty years clean up the kitchen, and let the dough ago, second grade teacher Daniel rise until baking it a few hours later.”

Rouse was searching for a way to Since 1998, 2,700 loaves have been

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made and delivered to the Mission.

Last year, the world paused and so did the project—until parents stepped in and flipped the script on the process. “Everything was completed virtually,” explains Rouse.

“Parents would have families sign-up to bake loaves at home, then collect and deliver [them] to the Mission.”

While the pandemic has caused a rise in food insecurity across the country, Rouse, who retired from GFS last spring after 30+ years of teaching, felt it was important to continue to focus on the local community. “It was important to [be able to] show students where the bread was going, and how a simple task like baking can make a difference.” —Joanna Volpe

Caring for Community To keep students, faculty, and families safe during the global pandemic, GFS assembled an impressive medical advisory board to help decipher the endless sources of COVID-19 information. By Michelle Sonsino MANAGING A SCHOOL DURING A PANDEMIC IS NO EASY FEAT. IN FACT, MANY THOUGHT IT WAS CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE,

with data changing daily and new information flowing from every media outlet. With fears and unknowns impacting our students, faculty, staff, and families, there was a lot to consider—from developing guidelines and mitigation protocols to keeping students active and healthy. We count on our GFS community to care for one another every year, but this year, a group of medical advisors and staff members went above and beyond to keep us safe and informed.

Our nurses—Laurel Colvin and Rachael Hassan—were our heroes this past year, welcoming questions at all hours, managing screening and data collection, and keeping critical logs—all on top of supporting children who visited their office constantly with any symptom or concern. They were guided by Dr. Mary Pisculli, a GFS parent affectionately known to many as “Dr. Mary,” our very own Dr. Fauci. She used her expertise in infectious diseases to translate complex medical information, not only during our Wednesday night Weekly Briefings, but each and every day behind the scenes.

Our briefings also benefited from

GFS Medical Advisory Board members, former parent Dr. Ron Keren and parent Dr. Fran Nadel, at the CHOP vaccine clinic on campus last spring.

the insightful contributions of data expert (and GFS parent) Dr. Peter Groeneveld. While he served as a professor and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania by day, on Wednesday nights, he was a source of knowledge and information—sharing important COVID-19 data regarding Philadelphia neighborhoods, as well as numbers from across the country.

From the beginning of the school year, our impressive Medical Advisory Board (MAB), made up of parents and alumni, as well as friends of GFS, provided expert assessments of the

DE M Y S T I F Y I NG T H E PA N DE M IC GFS’ 2020-21 COVID-19 crusade by the numbers.

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Wednesday Night Weekly Briefings

Medical Advisory Board meetings

180

2,500

COVID-19 data slides

GFS masks distributed

320,000 Ruvna screening emails sent

1,000+

educators served during the on-campus CHOP COVID-19 vaccine clinic

facts and shared guidance on all school protocols. These 12 dedicated individuals met almost weekly to help GFS adapt classroom design, athletics protocols, lunch setup, and other crucial decisions. Members of the MAB included doctors, researchers, and medical professionals from the following hospitals and health organizations: The Family Practice and Counseling Network; Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health; Mount Sinai Health System; Abramson Cancer Center; University of Pennsylvania Health System; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Holy Redeemer Health System; Perelman School of Medicine; and HBCU Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship (ICE) at UNCF. This talented and committed group of advisors helped us safely keep our students together on campus as much as possible and put us in an educated position as we head into the 2021-22 school year. To learn more about the members of our MAB, visit www.germantownfriends.org/MAB. Volume II 2021 |

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NEWS & NOTEWORTHY

Pitching in During the Pandemic

IT’S A HOT MAY AFTERNOON, AND RACHEL MARCUS ’16 IS SUPERVISING YOUNG LEARNERS IN THE EARLY CHILD-

hood play yard. Marcus, who spent the first half of 2020 wrapping up an honors thesis for Oberlin College, is just one of more than a dozen GFS graduates who returned to campus during the 2020-21 school year to fill much-needed positions—from assisting in the Admissions Office to helping with auxiliary programming—necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marcus began as a learning guide, helping coordinate remote education for EC students. “It was a little difficult,” she admits. “You’re not babysitting and you’re not supposed to do caretaking things, so it’s [hard] to find the balance.” She eventually moved onto campus to work. “I love it,” she admits, “it’s really fun.”

Bridget Curtin ’14 was also initially hired as a learning guide, but “I actually never got to experience [that] job,” she says. “Upon being hired, I was requested to substitute [on campus] in a fourth grade classroom.” What began as a one week detour ended in a total job change: Curtin continued to substitute in classes throughout the

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Lower School all year and eventually became a general assistant, dealing with administrative work outside the classroom as well. (Curtin is continuing her work at GFS this fall.) Other alumni who returned for temporary positions during COVID are also considering staying on at 31 W. Coulter.

“The welcome I got this year was lovely,” shares Nigel Law ’16, who worked as a learning guide until transitioning to campus in February.

“I’m closing out the year feeling really grateful for the sense of community I’ve now discovered among the faculty as well as the student body.” Isabel Ortega ’19 (pictured above), who worked in the EC program, returned to college this fall, but could see herself coming back after she graduates. “GFS kind of sucks you back in so I wouldn’t rule it out,” she says.

It’s true that there is a special gravity pull that unites the GFS community beyond graduation. Marcus references the tattoo on her left arm, a minimalist rendition of the GFS Meetinghouse. It’s part of a pair, its twin inked on a fellow 2016 classmate.

“I met her on my first day at GFS,” she says with a smile, “and we’ve been best friends [ever] since.” –Tristan Kim ’13

COVID Creativity Middle School Art Teacher Heather Chu Marvill was not stymied by the challenges of remote learning caused

by COVID-19. In fact, since she wasn’t able to do some of her regular assignments during the 2020-21 school year, she created new projects for her students to work on from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Using Google Drawings, Chu Marvill’s sixth graders made digital mosaics, while her eighth graders used vector-art techniques to make oxen in celebration of the Lunar New Year. Chu Marvill found Google Drawings particularly useful for teaching her seventh-grade classes about perspective. “[Perspective] is normally a challenging skill even in person,” she says.

“The ability to make changes so easily … was a great way to start this [lesson] before moving to pencil and ruler.

I was able to see students working in real-time and add comments and share their work in the moment.”

Even as her classes transition back to campus, Chu Marvill intends to integrate some of her pandemic-inspired projects into the art curriculum. “I love the idea of continuing to develop these 21st-century art skills as well as lending to [students’] understanding of traditional art techniques.” –T.K. ’13

Hollywood Revelation Alumni working in the entertainment industry discuss Quakerism’s influence on their outlooks and careers. By Joanna Volpe

WHEN THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC SWEPT THE NATION LAST YEAR, THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WAS HIT HARD. AS

millions quarantined, movie theaters, studios, and productions shuttered. While artists, producers, filmmakers, and writers continue to face daunting challenges, they have found ways to adapt through digital performances, streaming platforms, and safety protocols to get projects back up and running.

For Alumni Week(end) 2021, a week of virtual events held last May 10-16, GFS hosted a panel, “From Page to Screen,” with several graduates who are helping to shape and redefine the entertainment industry by adhering to the Quaker principles instilled in them while students at 31 W. Coulter.

Moderated by filmmaker (and GFS film teacher) André Robert Lee ’89 (pictured above, left), the virtual discussion included (above, second-fromleft to right): Polly Auritt ’99 (head of development at Unicorn Island Productions), Reiss Clauson-Wolf ’09 (writer), Katie Low ’08 (animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios), Dan Shotz ’95 (TV/film writer and producer), and Willa Slaughter ’08 (assistant to Lorne Michaels).

When asked how the Quaker testimonies show up in their work, the panelists had an intriguing array of answers, from diversity and inclusion to storytelling and interacting with coworkers. Shotz, who has worked

on films like National Treasure and the television shows Black Sails and Jericho, discussed the ability to listen, a skill he learned during Meeting for Worship. Slaughter talked about her time working as Lorne Michaels’ assistant at Saturday Night Live.

“On SNL, it takes a lot of people to make the show happen. The idea of finding the Light within each person correlates directly to my work. Every single person has equal importance in putting the show together and everyone needs to be appreciated and treated with respect.”

Writer Clauson-Wolf approaches the testimony of integrity from a storytelling perspective: “When you’re writing characters, some of them are going to be villains. You need to be able to feel empathy towards people whom you don’t agree with and tell their story fairly. GFS teaches that from a very young age: see things from others’ perspectives.”

The panelists also acknowledged a shift in diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in their field. “At Disney, I’m proud that employees strive for authentic representation,” said animator Low. “Disney has a long way to go with job opportunities, especially behind the camera.

For the first time, our studio recently hired external directors from Iran, South America, and the Philippines.

It’s great to see that dedication to

getting new voices in the room.”

Low has worked on projects such as Frozen 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet, and volunteers with Rise Up Animation, a movement focused on increasing representation and helping diversify talent in the animation sector.

Part of the need for diversity comes from the stories themselves.

Shotz recently worked on the television series See, starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard, which he produced for Apple TV. The show’s premise involves humans who have lost their sense of sight.

“We wanted to be sensitive stepping into this world,” he explained.

“How do we cast authentically? There aren’t many actors who are blind and, too often, they don’t have casting opportunities. Blindness has been portrayed incorrectly in film for a very long time. We wanted to make this essential and have inclusion. You have this intense responsibility to represent people correctly.”

Auritt ’99 agrees with the continued need for authentic and inclusive representation in the industry. “It’s been interesting to see this huge push for diversity in Hollywood. They finally realized there’s such an underrepresented audience out there.

“The industry is catching up," Auritt reflected. “There’s still a lot of tokenism, but we’re really trying to break that.”

Volume II 2021 |

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TIGER BEAT

Roaring Back into Action After losing the 2020 spring season to COVID-19, the Tigers returned to competition stronger than ever. By Luke Lendler ’24 BASEBALL The 2021 varsity baseball season was one of improvement. In their first outing since 2019, the Tigers went 5-4 in the Friends Schools League and secured a fourth-place finish. They had a solid regular season that was punctuated by two blowout wins. The first was 18-1 over Friends Select, which featured a no-hitter, only the 25th in GFS history, from team MVP Daniel Mateffy ’23, who was also named FSL All League.

The other was a shutout win (12-0) over George School. The Tigers kept their momentum rolling into the postseason, stifling Moorestown Friends’ bats en route to a 7-2 round one FSL playoff win. Ultimately, the season came to an end in a hard-fought semifinal at the hands of eventual champions Friends’ Central. When asked about his takeaway from spring 2021, coach Randy Mower shared, “Gratitude. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be out on the field with the players, laughing, having fun, and playing ball.”

choring the defense along with Dylan Ragas ’22, while Clare Meyer ’22 (six goals), Zoe Schaedle ’22 (four goals), and Alexa Hanson ’22 (3 goals) led the team in scoring. Meyer, Ragas, Schaedle, Hanson, Annie McLaughlin ’22, and Ella Shay ’23 (pictured below) were named First Team FSL All-League, with Meyer also earning MVP. While the team will certainly miss its graduating seniors, including co-captains Ava Mosley and Sarah Beck, with a strong junior class returning, along with sophomore stand-out Shay, there’s no reason to believe this squad won’t claim the title again in 2022.

day of the spring, GFS quickly went up 2-0 against Friends’ Central through wins from first doubles pair Jacob Morse ’22 and eighth-grader Joe Helfrich and the undefeated second doubles team of Asher Smith-Frank ’22 and Alex Sanderson ’22. When Jackson Zuercher ’23 lost a tight battle at third singles and first singles player Rishi Cohen ’22 was forced to retire in the third set due to medical issues, FCS tied the score at 2-2, putting everything on the racquet of senior captain Noah Eisenstein at second singles. Eisenstein coolly finished off his opponent 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 and won the match, pushing the score to a decisive 3-2 Tigers’ victory. Cohen, Eisenstein, BOYS TENNIS Helfrich, and Morse were all named The varsity tennis team were their FSL All-League. usual selves in 2021. Meaning they were utterly dominant en route to a fourth straight FSL title. While the BOYS TRACK & FIELD road leading to the championship The 2021 season was a return to form match was paved with minimal pot- for the boys track and field program. holes, the last match was quite the After winning eight consecutive dramatic one. On what was the hottest FSL titles from 2010-2017, the Tigers

Co-captain Naiya Mainigi ’21 knew the 2021 season was going to be special.

“From the very first practice, it was easy to feel the enthusiasm for the upcoming season,” she recalled. The Tigers excelled on more than just the practice field, coming out of the gate with three straight dominant performances in the FSL against George School, Friends’ Central, and Academy of the New Church. The team continued its flying form throughout the season, going undefeated in all league competitions and ultimately hoisting the FSL championship trophy after besting Shipley 17-12. The standout goalie pair of Haven Arms ’21 and Isla Ablin ’24 combined for 12 saves, an-

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Photos by Zamani Feelings

LACROSSE

missed out on the championship over the next few years (2018-2020) before reclaiming the trophy this spring. GFS won by a large margin, scoring over 50 points more than the runner-up, George School. Among the highlights was an impressive 1-2-3 finish in the 1600-meter final, with Bobby Lynam ’21, Lucien Dalseth ’21, and William Previdi ’21 finishing first, second, and third, respectively. The boys also saw great success as a team, winning the 4x400-meter, the 4x800-meter, and the 4x100-meter relays, securing a notoriously hard sweep of all relay events. Said Head Coach Conrad Haber, “I could not be more proud of how each athlete performed when it was needed most; they all put forth amazing efforts!” The relay team of Dalseth, Lynam, Previdi, and Matthew Goldberg ’21—who were all named FSL All-League, along with Sam Butler ’22, Sean Flaynik ’21, Graham Greene ’23, and Amir Staten ’23 (pictured right)— represented GFS at the NSAF Nike Outdoor National Championships in Oregon this summer.

GIRLS TRACK & FIELD Although the girls track and field team just missed winning the FSL championship, the spring season was filled with highlights. As a team, the Tigers had a dominant regular season, sweeping all four of their meets. Individually, Zuri Abdus-Salaam ’22 was a standout, setting a GFS school record in the 100-meter at the FSL Championship; she was named FSL All-League along with teammates Silvia Giordano ’21, Margaret Harvey ’23, Anna Macdonald ’22, and Annika Marcelis ’22. Macdonald also turned in a personal best (5:01.41) in the 1600meter, securing first place and the #6 ranking in PA. Since only a few team members graduated, the Tigers are poised for another successful campaign in 2022.

CREW Despite the fact that rowers didn’t hit the river until March, a full 18 months

since they were last on the water due to the pandemic, GFS had multiple boats medal at City Championships, Mid-Atlantic Championships, and the Stotesbury Cup. At City Champs, GFS won first place in both the girls varsity double (Sophia Ortega ’21, Amelia Sanchirico ’21) as well as the girls lightweight double (Maria Ramos ’23, Norah Lee ’22). The boys lightweight double of Otis Harrison ’22 and Rich Soong ’21 picked up silver, and GFS wrapped up the weekend with a total of eight boats placing in the top three of their respective heats.

At Mid-Atlantics, Aidan Cusack ’23 brought home bronze in the boys 1x and the medal-generating duo of Ortega and Sanchirico captured bronze in the girls 2x. Ortega and Sanchirico medaled yet again the following weekend at Stotesbury Cup, capping a standout 2021 campaign with another bronze; they also represented the GFS crew program in June at the USRowing 2021 Youth Nationals in Saratoga, FL. Stotesbury saw the girls novice 4x (Becca Rasmussen ’24, Natalie Lau ’24, Maddy Ohta ’24, and Cara Appleberry ’24) capture bronze in their heat and become the first ever GFS novice boat to medal

at Stotesbury.

“I am very proud of our team,” said captain Ortega. “We have all collectively worked so hard this spring (and) I could not be happier with the outcome.”

SOFTBALL Varsity softball had a solid outing in 2021, returning to the FSL playoffs for the second consecutive season. This time, GFS was able to capture victory in their first-round playoff game, overcoming a strong offensive campaign by Westtown to claim a 9-8 victory. Stellar defensive plays by Anjelica Bolivar ’25, Bella Carbone ’22, Caroline Schure ’23, and Mei Mei Groeneveld ’23 helped secure the win for the Tigers, who had fallen to Westtown not even 24 hours earlier in the final game of the regular season. Carbone was named FSL All-League, and Schure made the roster for the 2021 Carpenter Cup, which is comprised of the best high school players in the tri-state area.

With only a couple of contributors having graduated, the team is primed to break out in 2022 and make a play for the championship.

Volume II 2021 |

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TIGER BEAT

The Greatest Team You Never Saw In an unforgettable season, the girls’ varsity basketball program redefined itself through high expectations, hard work—and team sleepovers. By Hillel J. Hoffmann GERMANTOWN FRIENDS SCHOOL GIRLS’ VARSITY BASKETBALL COACH MICHAEL LINTULAHTI REMEMBERS

exactly when he knew that the 2021 season was going to be one of the most extraordinary campaigns in the program’s history. It was 7 p.m. on January 15, a full hour after the first practice of the COVID-delayed season was supposed to end. Yet there was the team in their masks, hard at work—and laughing.

“That was the moment,” recalls Lintulahti, who took over as head coach of the program in 2016-17. “The girls were taking the time to get better, grateful to have time to be together. I had to kick them out of the gym.”

The spirit of that session set the tone. The ferociously competitive, committed, and cohesive Tigers tore through their pandemic-shortened schedule—defeating some of the Friends Schools League’s perennial powers along the way—to a 6-2 record and second place in the FSL. Their list of achievements was long: best FSL winning percentage in 14 seasons, best league finish in 12 seasons, first back-to-back winning seasons since 2007-2008, first win over Friends’ Central in seven seasons, and first win over Abington Friends in 11 seasons.

For the team’s veterans with painfully clear memories of blowout losses as underclassmen, the “revenge tour” (as the players called it) was redemptive.

“This year there was a level of joy and gratitude and passion for the game and each other that the team brought to the gym every single day,” Lintulahti shares.

The Tigers were led by an experienced trio that had been playing varsity since the eighth grade: lone senior Desiree Norwood (pictured above with the ball), a tireless guard who returned from an injury to carry

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the ball-handling load; guard Martina Kiewek ’22, a vocal leader and the team’s leading three-point shooter; and six-foot-two-inch center Clare Meyer ’22, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, who emerged as one of the league’s best frontcourt players.

They were joined by forward Cadence Kelly ’22, a strong defender and rebounder; hard-working guard Allyson Katz ’22; guard Ndaia Blakney ’23, a former reserve who was thrust into a starting role; Caroline Schure ’23, a tough, physical forward; left-handed sophomore Sydney Dixon; fearless eighth-grade guard Katie Day; and guard Caroline Putnam ’23, an important contributor who did not play this season due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The Tigers are proud of the wins and their ascent from the bottom half of the standings, but they’re just as proud of how they did it: high expectations and hard work, fueled by a spirit of togetherness.

“We set goals and we achieved [them],” says Norwood. “We were

able to do that because everyone was excited to be together. We supported [and encouraged] one another.”

“We’ve always joked about being the GFS team with the most team sleepovers,” adds Kiewek. “That social dynamic got us through everything.”

According to Athletic Director Katie Bergstrom Mark, the team’s rise under Lintulahti began with his insistence on high expectations. “Mike is wonderful at setting high standards,” she says, “but it’s never accompanied by negativity. It’s all about growth.”

The 2021 season was not without a sense of loss: the pandemic robbed the team of an opportunity to play in front of fans and compete in a championship tournament. Yet the group would rather focus on their legacy.

“When we graduate,” says Kiewek, “if we can leave behind a team that’s competitive, where everyone’s committed and passionate, then I think that will give us a bigger sense of accomplishment than anything we did on the court.”

SUPPORTING GFS

Education Connection Twenty-one Friends schools joined together to raise funds for scholarship, honoring the Quaker tenets with a collaborative giving model. By Michelle Sonsino WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORDS “TAX CREDITS,” QUAKERISM IS NOT THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND.

But a group of passionate, strategic GFS alumni, parents, and friends found a way to connect the two and raise money for scholarship. By creating The Friends Collaborative (TFC)—a Special Purpose Entity (SPE) corporation— Philadelphia-area Friends schools are working together to raise a shared pool of money to make Quaker education more accessible and affordable.

State tax credit scholarship programs have existed since the late ’90s, designed to provide incentives for companies to donate funds in exchange for a lower tax burden. The Pennsylvania Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs both enable companies to contribute to registered scholarship organizations, such as independent schools, and write off a portion of their Pennsylvania state tax. Individuals—with minimum tax liability—are also eligible to participate in EITC

when they become a member of an SPE. Today, GFS and other Friends school donors are able to contribute to scholarship by redirecting their tax burden, either through their business or as an individual.

Larger Quaker schools have benefitted from both EITC and OSTC programs over the years, but many of the smaller schools did not have the staffing capacity to pursue eligible funders. Additionally, many larger schools lacked information about these potentially valuable programs.

Recognizing that these tax credit programs could have a significant impact on Friends schools in the Philadelphia area, Jeff Markovitz ’88 (P’11) and Ralph Henninger (P’02, ’04) identified a collaborative strategy to expand the reach for the EITC and OSTC programs within Quaker schools.

In 2016, Markovitz and Henninger partnered with Dan Rosin ’88 (P ’20, ’23), Dana Sanders ’89, Joe Evans ’64, and Peter Evans ’76 to bring this vision to life by forming TFC. Participating schools—today, totaling 21—joined

Friends Collaborative visionaires (from left): Dana Sanders ’89, Dana Weeks, Joe Evans ’64, Peter Evans ’76, Jeff Markovitz ’88, Hannah Caldwell Henderson ’91, and Ralph Henninger. (Not pictured: Dan Rosin ’88.)

together with the shared belief that, big or small, Quaker schools should work in concert to create quality educational opportunities and fulfill their collective vision of educational equity.

“We must do [all] we can to help families from different backgrounds access and afford a strong education,” says Markovitz. “That is our bottom line.”

Early in the process, Markovitz reached out to GFS Head of School Dana Weeks. Weeks immediately knew that this mission-driven program spoke loudly to the collective faith of Quaker education and offered to host the first interschool meeting to develop a progressive sharing model that was beneficial to all. The model established ensures that schools receive 75 percent of what they fundraise, with 25 percent distributed between TFC partners. Some donors give to TFC without naming a homebase school, and those funds are divided equally.

“If we are truly standing behind our Quaker values and dedication to a Friends education, then it is our duty to help one another, especially our smaller peers. We are working towards greater access and affordability,” says Weeks. “We share in the belief that equity begins with access to educational opportunities.”

Since its founding in 2016, TFC has increased donations about 3000 percent, from $200,000 in 2016 to more than $6 million in the 2020-21 fiscal year. Additionally, TFC is able to distribute 100% of donated funds to scholarship immediately.

“Friends schools operate on the principles of equality and diversity.

This model clearly represents that,” says Markovitz. “We are proud of our partner schools, their leadership, donors, and of course, GFS.” Volume II 2021 |

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SUPPORTING GFS

The Power of 50

Giving Day Breaks Records!

GERMANTOWN FRIENDS SCHOOL’S THIRD ANNUAL GIVING DAY WAS A HUGE SUCCESS! THE GFS COMMUNITY

Class of 1971’s seventh-grade photo, the year the first CSP student joined the class.

IN MAY, THE CLASS OF 1971 CELEBRATED ITS 50TH REUNION OVER ZOOM WITH MORE THAN 50 CLASSMATES IN

attendance. While this event marked a very special anniversary, it also served as a reminder that 50 years have passed since the first Community Scholar graduated from GFS. In honor of this milestone, members of the class of ’71 proposed the creation of the Class of 1971 Scholarship Fund to support financial aid for students designated as scholars in GFS’ Community Scholars Program (CSP), a unique hallmark of the school for more than 55 years. The idea quickly gained traction, with Hardin Coleman ’71 and his wife Gail, Daniela Holt Voith ’71, David Weiss ’71, and Anna ’71 and Ted West ’71 making early contributions.

For Weiss, who grew up in Germantown, CSP holds special meaning.

“Our seventh grade class was the first to welcome Community Scholars, which helped change the school in a positive way,” he shared. “A GFS education provides a life-changing experience, and CSP opens up that opportunity for students from the Germantown area.”

Since the inception of the program, CSP has assisted more than 200 students, and Weiss hopes the Class of

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1971 Fund will further benefit future Community Scholars by offering access to myriad resources and creating opportunities for students in GFS’ surrounding neighborhoods, a sentiment echoed by Daniela Holt Voith ’71.

“This foundational core undergirds my work as an architect for educational institutions and why my work is so meaningful to me,” she shared. “Philadelphia is a large, poor city with under-resourced public schools. The Community Scholars Program helps close an enormous gap in opportunity.”

For Voith, the GFS experience—and what she has been able to do because of it—has made her a firm believer in the transformative nature of education. “I have always said that the greatest gift my parents gave me was an inspiring education, and GFS was a huge part of that educational journey.” Because her class was the first to benefit from CSP, she feels strongly that dedicating their class gift primarily to this program seems a fitting tribute— and a meaningful way to give back.

“A great education is a strong social leveler, helping people further their gifts and talents and strengthen their moral fiber.”

–Brandon Jones ’00

came together on February 12 to raise money for the Annual Fund, which directly supports current students, and this year’s event was extra special because it honored the school’s 175th anniversary. Donations to the Annual Fund give the school the flexibility not only to respond to unforeseen challenges (like a global pandemic), but also to create opportunities to enhance our students’ educational experience.

A group of current parents and alumni came forward with an anniversary challenge: for every 175 people who donated on Giving Day, a new bonus gift was unlocked. Our goal was 350 donors and we ended the campaign with 700 gifts! Overall, our generous community donated $333,994, the most donors and dollars raised since Giving Day’s launch in 2019.

Thanks to our 11 generous challengers, our parent and alumni volunteers, and our 700 donors for their support.

Some highlights include 80 new, firsttime donors; a 15% increase in donors over last year; and a record-breaking number of gifts in several classes.

Interested in getting involved in next year’s Giving Day? Please contact Annual Fund Director Amanda Reath ’89 at areath@germantownfriends.org.

Making the Arts Accessible to All LOIS HAMILTON OCCUPIED A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF GENERATIONS OF GFS FIRST GRADERS,

a steady and calming presence in the Cary Building from 1968-1988.

She started as a first-grade assistant, then became a lead teacher in 1973, and had a knack for listening that encouraged young students to explore and shine. Her husband Don, a social worker, active Germantown neighbor, and operator of the Lighthouse Arts and Music Camp (later known as Eagle Springs), died tragically in 1994 from injuries suffered in a robbery.

Members of Germantown Monthly Meeting, the Hamiltons’ spiritual moorings and common interests led them to create meaningful opportunities for young people and adults with disabilities during the course of their professional lives.

Recently, the Hamilton children— Doug ’69, Scott (honorary ’72), Todd ’74, and Dean ’80—together with their family friend Jim McGann and other trustees of the Don Hamilton Memo-

rial Trust, chose to extend the powerful legacy of Lois and Don by establishing two new scholarships: one at GFS and the other at Settlement Music School.

The newly endowed Don and Lois Hamilton Scholarship Fund for the Visual and Performing Arts at GFS will support excellence in arts education by subsidizing financial aid for students who have demonstrated an interest and commitment to the visual and performing arts. It will also further their lifelong commitment to support those who lack the resources to pursue their interests in the arts and music.

“We think this scholarship, with a program that encourages young artists and musicians, is a wonderful way to recognize my parents’ love of the arts and their strong support for the GFS community,” says Doug Hamilton. “I think they’d be honored and grateful to all the people who made this possible.”

A gathering to celebrate the life and work of Don and Lois Hamilton, who passed away in 2015, as well as

the new extensions of their legacy, is planned for this year. Please reach out to Chief Advancement Officer Hannah Caldwell Henderson at hhenderson@germantownfriends. org for more information or to find out how you can support this new fund. —Hannah Caldwell Henderson ’91

Shooting for Academic Success

FOUNDED IN THE SUMMER OF 1971 AS THE GERMANTOWN-WISTER SUMMER BASKETBALL AND READING CLINIC,

the now-named GFS Community Basketball and Enrichment Program (CBE) celebrated its 50th anniversary in July. Serving students in grades 3-9, this four-week summer program combines basketball and academics to provide a robust experience for children from Germantown and surrounding Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Utilizing a variety of campus resources, it offers an affordable and educational alternative to under-resourced recreational spaces in the city.

Now under the leadership of Boys Varsity Basketball Coach Shawn Werdt, camp enrollment averages close to 100 campers per week with nearly 90 percent calling Germantown home. While the program prides itself on being a low-cost summer option, almost 40 percent of the camp population still requires financial assistance to attend. To meet this need, the CBE Fund was established in 2020 to permanently endow support for the program and ensure its continuation.

For Werdt, employing the finest coaches and committed teachers is paramount to maximizing the impact of the program. “We can increase camp size by decreasing barriers to

enrollment, hire more coach-counselors and expand teaching resources, even provide take-home materials and books for campers,” Werdt explains.

Other top priorities include offering healthy lunch options, incorporating more technology in the classrooms, and hiring more coaches and teachers of color.

With such a storied history, the camp has touched the lives of many over the past five decades, including Tom Loder ’76, a former camper and counselor. “Going to school in Germantown made a big difference in how I see life and how I experienced it and worked to make it a little bit better,” he says. “Winston Churchill was reputed to have said, ‘You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.’ That really resonates [with me].” —Brandon Jones ’00 Volume II 2021 |

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SUPPORTING GFS

GFS Celebrates 175 Years A year-long recognition of the school’s rich legacy culminated in an evening of performance, admiration, and feel-good vibes. By Joanna Volpe IF YOU TAKE A LOOK THROUGH GFS’ DYNA MIC HISTORY, YOU WILL SEE A SERIES OF REMARKABLE PERIODS

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of growth and education. The circumstances of World War II led the school to welcome refugee children from Europe and students from United States internment camps. In 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, AL, inspired GFS to launch the Community Scholars Program. And the struggle for equal rights encouraged a faculty study group in 1985, led by Joan Countryman ’58, to examine why a lower percentage of female students took advanced math and science courses, prompting the hiring of more female faculty in those departments.

This year, GFS celebrated its “demisemiseptcentennial,” or 175th, anniversary. “I have been thinking about how our 175th year will live in our collective history,” said Dana Weeks, GFS’ 17th head of school. “More than masks and physical distancing, we will remember a time that opened our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking and doing, raised voices through collaborative campaigns for justice, and united us in our deep appreciation for the gift of education.”

Over the course of the 2020-21 school year, GFS hosted virtual discussions with special guests, including NBC Chief White House Correspondent Kristen Welker ’94 (see p. 52); the unveiling of a portrait of Countryman ’58 (see p. 5), one of the school’s first Black students and graduates, who worked at GFS for 23 years; an online Alumni Week(end)—full of videos, panel discussions, and reunions; a history series led by the school’s archivists; a music showcase; and a culminating virtual celebration and fundraiser to support scholarship.

To kick off the festivities, GFS welcomed Natalie Weathers Nixon ’87

for a Community Writers Series event in partnership with the Friends Free Library. Nixon, president of Figure 8 Thinking and author of The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work, was in conversation with Sarah Stein Greenberg ’96, executive director of the d.school at Stanford, and discussed finding and embracing creative inspiration.

In March, the school hosted a special conversation with Welker ’94, who was interviewed by GFS Director of Directed Independent Studies and English teacher Anne Gerbner. The evening was held in memory of Marilyn Frank, beloved wife of School Committee Clerk David Feldman ’76 and mother of Sarah ’06 and Michael ’10.

“I owe everything to GFS and to my parents for sending me here,” Welker shared. She answered questions covering a range of topics, including her experience as NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent and her recent role as a presidential debate moderator. The hour-long chat was attended virtually by more than 1,000 people.

A virtual Music Showcase in early May included tunes from the bluesysoul Deb Callahan Band—featuring GFS parents Deb Callahan and Allen James—as well as the sounds of the GFS orchestra, jazz, world percussion, and chamber ensembles. Lower School music teachers led a lively sing-a-long for our youngest friends, which was followed by an animated reading of Sandra Boynton ’70’s latest title, Jungle Night, accompanied by renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The culminating virtual 175th Celebration event, which raised $330,000 for scholarship, also highlighted the musical talents of our community, and featured jazz musician Alex Levin ’93, pianist Maya Keren ’18, and G. Love (Garrett Dutton ’91). Emceed by GFS parent and 6ABC anchor Nydia Han,

Top to bottom: Garret Dutton '91 (G. Love) closed the 175th Celebration; Sandra Boynton '70's latest title; author and design thinker Natalie Weathers Nixon '87.

the evening also featured special appearances by various alumni and current and former faculty members.

To wrap up the event, Grammy nominee G. Love played “Coming Home” from his second album, Coast to Coast Motel, which he wrote as a tenth grader at GFS. “To this day, I truly believe that being a part of the GFS community has influenced my life so positively,” he mused. “It has made me the best version of myself that I strive for every day.”

FACULT Y FOCUS

Parting Words The community gets sentimental as six beloved, longtime teachers say goodbye to GFS. Edited by Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 your outfits and your amazing scarves always gave me a “visual!” Your flair Thank you for showing my children will be greatly, greatly missed! –Diana (and me) how much fun and joyful math Gomez, third grade teacher can be. You have been an inspiration as a colleague. Wishing you the very In the brief years we have been acbest on your next adventure. –Heather quainted herein this institution, I Chu Marvill, art teacher have come to cherish and respect your contributions to GFS as a whole I really enjoyed math lunch on Fridays. and your leadership and institutional It was a fun thing to do. It allowed me knowledge of GFS’ history on race relato do harder math than we were doing tions. Most importantly, I will miss our in class. It was nice that you made the impromptu conversations in the halltime for that. You made math fun. I will ways and during lunch in the cafeteria.

SHARON ASKEW miss you. –Peter Fisher ’27 May your next journey be even better Sharon began her career at GFS in 1988 as a substitute teacher, soon be- I have learned so much from you over than the one you are leaving behind. coming a permanent member of the the years! You are a true mathema- –John Anagbo, history teacher math department and, eventually, its tician—able to distill truths to their head. Her teaching spanned three divi- essence and communicate them efsions, culminating in the role of Lower ficiently and with maximum impact.

School math coordinator. She helped I can’t tell you the number of times I hundreds of children develop a love have come away from a chat with you of math and inspired a lasting under- knowing that I am stronger, wiser, and standing of how concepts live through- more resilient for your insights. You out our lives. In 2018, Askew partnered have been a light and a guide to all of with third-grade teacher Diana Gomez us! –Kate Jones, Middle School math teacher to create the Mathematics in Residence program, funded by the Maguire In- There is SO much for me to thank you novation Fund for Progressive Edu- for! Thank you for being a mentor [and] cation. This two-pronged initiative taking me under your wing! Thank you was designed to provide expert math for breakfast dates, being a listening instruction for students as well as ear, encouraging me in the moments professional development for teach- I felt I had nothing left to give. Thank ers; the program earned rave reviews. you, thank you for all you have given AMY CELENTANO Askew was also one of the first me (and so many others). I love you and As the formidable—and tremendously recipients of the Faculty Leadership am so happy for you! –Natasha Labbé, funny—guardian of the citadel of Fund award, which recognized her former GFS Classics department head language learning at GFS, Amy dedication to equity and inclusion I have so enjoyed being your colleague Celentano brought the unshakeable and commitment to and work around and sometime sidekick for all of these conviction that excellence in modern social justice, in addition to her deep years! You have taught me so much language instruction is a non-negotiaconnection to her students and her about math and how kids learn it, and ble act of respect for another culture. collaborative relationships with her about so many other aspects of col- She started her career at GFS in 1985, Lower School colleagues. As André leagueship and life. Your listening ear arriving with a B.A. in French from Robert Lee showcased in his film Icons and deep questioning have helped so Vassar College and a M.A. in foreign of GFS, she was truly an inspirational many children grow, and you’ve influ- language instruction from the Univerforce at 31 W. Coulter St., sharing her enced us all with such humility. And sity of Pennsylvania (she interned at joy of learning with our community the artful way you combine colors in GFS during her master’s work), and for 33 years.

Volume II 2021 |

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FACULT Y FOCUS

became department head in 2006 upon Marion Heacock’s retirement.

Under Celentano’s stewardship, the modern language department flourished and grew; most recently, after many years of planning, it expanded into the Lower School (K-5), and Mandarin was officially introduced into the program in 2017. Celentano’s leadership at GFS extended well beyond her official purview. She clerked the Upper School Agenda Committee for eight years and the New Teacher Mentorship Committee, and was an enthusiastic leader of Critical Friends groups. As a teacher, she delighed in preparing lesson plans, and during J-Term taught courses in French Canadian film and French cooking. Over the years, her repertoire as a teacher evolved; in her final year, she added teaching French online as a result of the challenges presented by COVID-19.

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your daughter, and then you became a supportive colleague down the hall.

I will miss your warm presence on the second floor [of Main]. Sending you all best wishes as you embark on this next adventure. -Jenny Stetzer Goldberg

I struggled a bit, it was always your positivity and energy that made you such a great teacher. Best wishes on your next endeavors! -Jalil Pines ’15

Heacock, retired GFS French teacher

early days at GFS, and I have so loved working with you over the last three years. You will be sorely missed! I wish you all the best in your retirement. I know you will have so much fun! –Anne

I will miss your passion and love of life!

It was fun to watch you navigate GFS ’95, fifth grade teacher through the years as a friend, peer, It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been mother, and leader! I always apprecisomething like close to 40 years ago ated how you would make me laugh. that you began in the Modern Lan- Thank you! –Pam Lutz, PE teacher guage department and instantly adjusted to being in that sort of marginal I had the most amazing time in your and iconoclastic department that we French class my freshman year and I were then. It was a joy for me to see you cannot thank you enough for all that develop across those early years and you taught me. We were always having settle into such a competent teacher, fun, but we were also always learning mother, advisor, and all those things (even without realizing it sometimes). that define fully mature adulthood. And then of course running into you Your retirement reminds me, unfor- and Luisa on the streets of Tours and tunately, of how old I am, but for me chatting about our scarves and favorretirement has been wonderful and I ite cafes and intimidating host famiwish you a rewarding time in your still lies. I will miss you! –Ada Yeomans ’22 vibrant and exciting future. –Marion You were so welcoming to me in my

I have very happy memories of eighth and tenth grade French in your class: reading novels in French for the first time and lots of laughter and fun as we were immersed in the language.

Then I had the pleasure of teaching

I didn’t know anything about the French language before GFS, and I was absolutely terrified when I walked into your French class during my first week of freshman year. You made me feel at ease about everything, and although

ANNE GERBNER Anne Gerbner first came to GFS as a student teacher while she was a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, assisting Dick Sloane in eighth-grade English. After graduating from Penn with a BA/MS and studying drama in education at the University of Bristol,

England, she was hired by Head of School Fred Calder to teach English part-time in the Upper School for four years, then was brought on fulltime by new head John Wilkinson to lead the English Department in 1990. During her 30+-year tenure, Gerbner taught English in grades 7-12, was the backbone of the junior English program, led the department in creating a more diverse and inclusive reading list, taught an advanced writing seminar, and inspired and nurtured generations of student writers.

More recently, Gerbner led the Junior Project and Directed Independent Study programs, and developed and co-taught journalism courses, such as Narrative Journalism and Ethics & Activism. Her Essentially English and J-Term classes, including

Ross, math department head

Playwriting, Reimagining Jane Eyre, and True Crime Podcasts, were wildly popular over the years, and she was a treasured advisor to the student news magazine Earthquake for almost two decades. Recalled former student and current co-head of the English Department Alex Levin ’93 of Gerbner: “As a student, Anne made an indelible impression on me—from her I learned how playful and joyous literary analysis can be. Throughout her career, she has maintained her effervescent approach, and both students and colleagues continue to glean inspiration from her ingenious pedagogy.”

Even as a younger person, I knew how lucky I was to learn from you in your capacity as English teacher, Earth-

quake advisor, and all-around mentor.

You taught me how to be a decisive and compelling writer and helped me realize my potential as a student and person. I am certain that I would not be where I am without your guidance and friendship during my high school years. Thank you for dedicating your career to teaching. Best wishes on your retirement. You deserve the best that life has to offer. –Lucy Corlett ’16 Thank you for being a wonderful guide, mentor, and inspiration. It is because of you that I was able to become the teacher I am. You always encouraged me to pursue my interests, and as a department chair, you helped me develop the sixth-grade creative writing workshop, a dream come true. I loved being a guest in your classroom, and co-teaching True Crime Podcasts with you was so much fun. I will really miss you. I truly wish you all the best as you move on to the next chapter of your life. –June Gondi, English teacher You’ve been integral to the success of DIS, and it’s almost inconceivable how to manage without you. Please know that your sage advice and always “can do” problem-solving approach will be sorely missed. It’s been my honor and pure pleasure to be a part of your time at GFS. As a fellow “retiree,” I know you’ll enjoy those relaxing hours of reading, reading, reading, and being master of your own schedule. You’ve certainly earned it. –Marcia Volpe, ASL instructor, DIS program

I’m so grateful for my classes with you this year. You encouraged me to not only be a thoughtful writer, but also a thoughtful classmate, student, and person. When I think of you, I think of your witticisms, your beautifully bright sweaters, and your dream to attend Kafka’s Bar Mitzvah. I’ll miss you so much, and I know you’ll be doing the coolest things!! –Sadie Hammarhead ’22 It has been a joy to watch from a distance as you worked with our daughter Elena ’21. Thank you for inspiring and guiding her as she developed into the

writer, speaker, and person she has become. Your attention to detail on the page and in the hearts of emerging souls has not gone unseen. Thank you for the example you’ve set for what a truly dedicated teacher might attain in a lifetime of work. –Sharon Musher and Daniel Eisenstadt

Thank you for teaching me how to write.

You gave me the lowest grade I have ever received, for which I am endlessly grateful. You saw through my run-ons and validated my ideas, giving me the confidence to learn how to write, analyze and truly show up in conversations.

You’ll always stand out when I look back on my memories at GFS. I hope you enjoy retirement! –Eliza Farran ’14

School team. His optimism and positivity extended to his work in advisory and to his interactions with colleagues. All were uplifted by interacting with him; math colleagues noted how impossible it was to walk across campus with Lai as he was constantly stopped by colleagues and former students to say hello. Beyond his role as a math teacher, Lai demonstrated a deep care for students through his work as a seventh grade advisor and coach. He also served on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service and Assembly committees.

For nearly two decades, he was an important teacher, mentor, and friend to many at GFS. Peter Lai passed away peacefully on October 1, 2021. We will continue to celebrate his life in our next issue.

When you first began teaching me in seventh [grade], I was never really a math person. I didn’t pay attention very well in class and I never fully grasped all of the important concepts. Over the course of that year, you helped me learn how to get more enjoyment out of learning and understanding math. To this day, math has been one of the classes that comes easier to me, and that wouldn’t have been true if you hadn’t PETER LAI helped me out back in seventh grade.

Peter Lai was a fixture in the Middle Thank you, Peter. –Hugh Rigdon ’23 School math department at GFS for 18 years, one of the founding teach- I was so sad to hear that you are reers of the division. Dedicated to tiring. Who is going to run the Flying this critical age group, he inspired Car event at the Physics Olympics? hundreds of Middle School stu- I joke, but of course you are so much dents to discover the beauty and more than that to me. But I really purpose of math, making way for have appreciated your consistent, a lifelong appreciation of symbolic ongoing support of Science Night and reasoning and algebraic abstraction. the Physics Olympics in particular. I Lai’s teaching approach mirrored will also miss running into you in the Quaker values: he shared a genuine faculty workroom and hanging out with concern for each individual’s learn- you at graduation. You have been a ing journey and well-being, and held role model for me in terms of how you a steady belief in each student’s interact with students—your care and ability to master the course material. compassion. You will be deeply missed.

Peter will also be missed as a –Tracey Spinka, science teacher valued member of the larger Middle Volume II 2021 |

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FACULT Y FOCUS

You were one of my favorite teachers in Middle School. I have so many fond memories from your class. Even that time you tricked the entire class into thinking we had all failed our test is a memory I look back on with fondness and laugh. You were the only teacher that handed out candy for every test, and I found that made me want to study harder for each one knowing there was going to be a reward waiting for me. You made math fun and you will be dearly missed. –Madison Wells-McFee ’21 I just want to say thank you for always giving me the opportunity to succeed.

The lessons that I learned in your class have shaped the course of my academic career. You meant so much to me and I know you meant so much to every kid you taught. –Christian Dunbar ’22

You stand out to me as one of the most kind, gentle, and cheerful people I have known at GFS. There were so many occasions when we ran into one another in the faculty room and you would ask me how things were going.

Teaching can be very demanding and stressful, and I was always amazed that you took the time to have a meaningful conversation, express sincere interest and support, and you were so consistently positive and upbeat in every single interaction we had.

These are remarkable qualities and you have touched my life through your essence as an exemplary human being. I wish you all the best. –Mike Boorse ’89, assistant to the director of athletics

ings, we could tell that you KNEW our kids. I still have vivid memories of the Paddle to the Sea launch down at the Waterworks, and my parents still talk about it. You’ve helped us launch them as they paddle to the sea! –Kate O’Shea and Peter Yeomans

DANIEL ROUSE A calm force with a gentle soul, Daniel Rouse brought a loving presence and thoughtful teaching approach to his more than 30 years at GFS, inspiring a true lifelong love of learning among his students. His dedication to our SPICES went far beyond his role on the Quakerism committee: he taught the entire community to reflect and appreciate the beauty in the simple things, the marvelous, and in one another. Rouse’s honored bread-baking tradition encouraged students and adults to learn from doing, come together in friendship, and share with those in need.

Alumni remember his wondrous classroom and creative projects, like the wigwam constructed using methods adopted by the Lenape people many years ago. “He’s a really fun guy,” reflected Julius Jones ’31.

“Sometimes he does this thing called ‘follow the leader,’ where he walks in different directions going back to class and we follow as he goes in circles or zigzags instead of going in a straight line. He’s a great teacher.”

His colleagues hold his friendship and mentorship dear. Daniel may not occupy a classroom next year, but he has forever changed our institution.

Peter, you did so much to help Isabel and Sophia with math in Middle School. You are such an amazing teacher! Thank you for making math enjoyable for them and helping them understand the concepts. Please know that we are thinking of you. –Michelle We feel so fortunate that your spirit touched and influenced the lives of DuSold and the Ortega family two of our kids (Ada ’22 and Josiah ’26). Knowing they were under your care and tutelage was a reassurance to us every day, and at teacher meet-

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Thank you so much for being my teacher. You were the BEST teacher I have ever had. We will always miss you at GFS. I remember the first time I walked into your classroom and ever since I have always been welcome!

–Zohar Pinto ’30

Our family appreciated the nurturing environment you created for our Asher ’22 and his cohort. You should also know that you have had a lasting impact on our Thanksgiving traditions. After having the venison stew as part of your study of the Lenape people, Asher requested/demanded that this wonderful dish be added to our Thanksgiving repertoire. Every year since, we’ve eaten venison stew as part of our holiday celebration. Thank you for all, and best wishes in the next stages of your journey. –Michelle Frank and Craig Smith

Thank you so much for everything you did and gave me and so many other kids who were lucky enough to be in your class. I have so many amazing memories from second grade—from sitting on the patio to reading books as a class (I remember reading about a wolf in a book and you gave me the opportunity to tell my classmates what I’d learned about wolves—I felt very proud), building a wigwam, and, of course, Paddle to the Sea. I look back on second grade more fondly than any other year in my time at GFS. Thank you so much for everything. I’ll never forget my time in your class. –Turner Burns ’22

I remember the first time I looked into your classroom while I was interviewing at GFS. There were all of these amazing animal masks lined up, and I remember thinking that your classroom was a special place. For many years now,

I have known this to be true! The experience of being in your classroom is so rich—there are so many things to engage the eyes and minds and imaginations of the children. I have learned so much from you, and all of the kids at GFS have benefited from your advocacy. You have modeled slowing down, and appreciating and delighting in children. Your influence has been great.

You will be missed! –Diana Gomez, third grade teacher

I was determined to send my children to GFS because I knew they would have teachers like you. Except you exceeded even my expectations. I will always be grateful for the gentle and deeply thoughtful manner in which you taught Wyn ’27 and Tilda ’24 ... and their parents, too. –Abbey Stace ’88

ELI SCEARCE During her 20 years at GFS, Eli Scearce expanded the Woodshop program from a Lower School experience to a thoughtful part of the curriculum that now spans grades 3-12. Always the collaborator with classroom teachers, she identified meaningful ways to integrate woodTen Lessons Learned from working into the curriculum.

Observing Daniel Rouse: Students and graduates will long re1. Tending to the goodness and member working on the wooden bowl Light in those you interact with assignment, as Scearce guided them pollinates goodness and Light all in making unique, beautiful, usable around. products for the Empty Bowl Project.

2. Being gentle is a mindset.

“Eli kept the craft of woodshop a pow3. Noticing what's around you requires more than open eyes—it also erful and unique force in the education of our students, teaching kids the skill relies on an open posture, heart, and power in their hands—a rare exand mind. perience in our digital world,” shared 4. Leaving questions unanswered Art Department Head Megan Culp. can be a powerful teaching tool.

Scearce was an important leader 5. Chickens, bees, gardens, and young people are good for the soul. in Lower School racial justice work, a 6. Make storytelling a creative prac- leader of the LBGTQ affinity group, and co-clerk of the White Ally Group. tice with those around you.

She also served on the Middle School 7. Pick some things that make you and other people happy, like bread Quakerism Committee. She was the recipient of the GFS 1952 Grant for making, and make them a habit.

8. Ride your bike and breathe fresh travel to Oaxaca to study alebrijes, and always looked to learn more about air. people, places, and ideas—centering 9. Make things—anything. on ways to improve the world.

10. Living in accordance with your beliefs means finding concrete ways to practice them.

When I reflect on your impact at GFS, Thank you, Daniel, for your example. May the heaps of love for it is far-reaching. Not only did you you in this community accompany teach our students to create beauty with their hands and how to follow diyou and Light your retirement.

–Hannah Caldwell Henderson ’91, rections, but you also taught the adults chief advancement officer (especially me) how to have patience and be willing to let the process play out. Your passion and commitment to

DEI work touched every aspect of your life at GFS. It was a gift that cannot be replaced. I wish you much happiness and look forward to hearing about your adventures. I am thankful for being able to call you a friend. –Cheryl Bruttomesso, PE teacher

[We] cannot think GFS woodshop without you! We have two sets of wheeled horses, coinbanks, etc., to always remember your fun woodshop classes. Wow, 20 years!!! Wishing you the best for your new roads ahead!

–Thomas, Jane, Alyssa ’21, and Juliette Kang ’24

Your gentle, sage, fierce, heart-first approach to work had me regularly grateful, appreciative, and even in awe.

Thank you for helping to teach me how I want to be in community. Take good care of yourself in your next chapter!

–Sara Primo, former GFS English teacher

Although I was only a student under your guidance for a short period of time during the 2020 J-Term, your teachings will stick with me for years to come!

From chopsticks to wood-burning art, I will always remember my J-Term experience, and I wish you the best on the roads ahead! –Joanna Lin ’22 I want to thank you for being a great friend and support to me for the time we worked together at GFS. How I miss how we used to check in with each other before our day got started. I also want to thank you for your contribution to my son’s education and character. He is finally moving on from GFS and is now attending the University of Pennsylvania. Eli, thanks for being you, you are an amazing person. –Khaleel Adger, art teacher

You will be so missed. You taught so many kids to trust their hands to make beautiful objects, and your care and intention in all that you gave GFS will live on in the woodshop program. Congratulations, I’m excited to see what your next chapter brings! –Megan Culp, art department head

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TRAILBLAZERS PA R T I I

More pioneering educators who laid the foundation for the future of GFS.

By Kate Stover

In the second part of our series, we honor six more faculty and administrators who helped shape and define the GFS mission and pedagogy. From a beloved and inspiring music teacher to a career educator who co-founded the Community Scholars Program, these revolutionary leaders dedicated decades of their lives to making Germantown Friends School the intellectual nucleus and caring community it is today.

S USANNAH S. KITE (1842-1932) Susannah S. Kite was 22 when she was appointed teacher of Germantown Friends School (then referred to as the Select School) in the summer of 1864 for an annual salary of $400 ($6,500 today). Kite came to the job as an insider: she was a member of Meeting and her father William Kite was the Friends Free Library librarian.

The school had just undergone one of its many reinventions. This time, all of the non-Quaker students had been told not to reenroll as the School Committee had decided the school should be a “select” school, one that served only Quaker students. Kite’s school opened with six students in

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the three-room building. She was the only teacher.

The Select School was a great success under Kite’s guidance. A year later there were 23 Quaker students, she was named the school’s principal, a second female teacher was hired, and she received a $200 raise.

Kite continued to lead the thriving school until Alfred Cope, clerk of the School Committee, decided in 1869 that a male principal would bring the school more prominence and prestige.

(Kite later said she was told this was to keep the older boys from transferring to other high schools.) What must have made the demotion even more complicated for Kite was that it was her brother-in-law, Samuel Alsop, Jr., who was hired to replace her for $1,200, twice her salary.

“Teacher Sue,” as she was known by her students, was a beloved educator who was also thought to be quite witty. At one point, when the principal walked down the Main Building corridor outside her classroom, she said, “My, I do wish that Davis Forsythe would get rid of those squeaky shoes!” Another student reminisced that she “awoke the interest, aroused the imagination and set it free to go its own riotous way.”

Kite continued to teach at the school until 1904 and was later buried in the Meetinghouse graveyard.

IRVIN C. POLEY (1892-1974) Irvin Poley spent most of his life at Germantown Friends School.

Susannah Kite (above left) was the first appointed teacher of Germantown Friends School. Irvin Poley, above with students in the Front Hall in the 1950s, graduated from GFS in 1908 and worked as a teacher and administrator at the school for 45 years.

A member of the class of 1908, he returned after college in 1913 and remained as a teacher and administrator until 1958—45 years of caring for members of the GFS community.

Initially he was hired to be principal of the Intermediate School (grades 5-7) and bring discipline to the division.

While Poley was generally a mildmannered person, he had a strong sense of what was correct behavior, both by students and by faculty. He was pleased when students said of him, “Old Poley is alright out of school, but is too strict in class.”

Poley was a great teacher and a great teacher of teachers. Beginning in 1928, he taught a demonstration class for English teachers at Harvard University every summer for 20 years; he trained the nation’s teachers. He gained a national reputation as a progressive educator through his teaching and writing about education, and, as a result, GFS also became widely known in education circles.

Katy Hineline, who was a member of the faculty at GFS for 38 years, saw Poley teach her students when she was working at Sidwell Friends School in 1968. She knew “it was just impossible to teach them Shakespeare.” But from the moment he opened his mouth, he

had them. He asked questions that drew the students into the play and helped them see parallels to their own lives. “He was very old then, thin and hunched over, and the students loved him. It was magic,” said Hineline.

Poley was not only an expert teacher, he was also a skilled administrator. In 1939, GFS abolished the Intermediate School division, absorbing the fifth and sixth grades into the Lower School and moving seventh into Upper School. Poley was the architect of this transition and became the new head of the Upper School.

Most of the current GFS community only knows Irvin Poley as the name behind “Poley Auditorium.” What they don’t know is why his name is on that particular location. As a young man in an observant Quaker household, theater was not permitted, but Poley became smitten with the theater, regularly going to New York City to catch the latest production. He was asked by students to teach a public speaking class in the 1930s, which later evolved into an annual drama festival and then into one of the strongest high-school drama programs in the area. The auditorium is named after Poley because of this legacy.

One of Poley’s last GFS responsi-

bilities, when he was almost 80, was serving on the search committee that hired headmaster Fred Calder in 1970.

MARY BREWER (1910-1997) Mary Brewer was hired by GFS in 1942 for an annual salary of $2,100.

What she brought to the school over the next 55 years is almost immeasurable. As Henry Scattergood, principal from 1954 to 1970, said, “If Mary Brewer coached a football team, GFS would win every game.”

Brewer arrived at GFS when the music program was slowly transitioning from the simple mandolin ensembles and girls’ Glee Club of the 1920s to the more involved annual Gilbert & Sullivan productions of the 1930s. Music instruction, which had been nonexistent in the early days of the school because Quakers believed that music was not an appropriate part of religious life, was now being integrated into each division. Brewer developed this foundation, building the instrumental and choral music curriculum across the school. She was adamant that “music is not a luxury or a form of amusement.”

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classes, from the history of music in eighth grade to an Upper School interdisciplinary course with art and history teachers. Her teaching expertise earned her the attention of Yale University, which gave her an award for excellence in teaching in 1963.

Brewer once wrote that she liked being a music teacher because she liked music and because “music lacks ‘academic’ status” and therefore music teachers needed to “accomplish twice as much in half the time allotted to other subjects.” Teaching at GFS was a dream for her. Brewer treasured the “‘GFS-thing’—passionate caring about learning and people and that indefinable something which marks a GFS product.” And she loved Meeting for Worship.

The Choir was the manifestation of her love of music and teaching.

Brewer was the creator and captain of the inaugural 1956 tour, which traveled through Europe for two weeks (a feat of organization in the pre-computer era).

One of the most emotional stops was in Falaise, France, where GFS had been supporting the community’s recovery from WWII bombing destruction since the 1940s. For her work within France, she was awarded the Palmes

Academiques, the highest award given to a foreigner. Closer to home, the Choir sang with Eugene Ormandy at the Academy of Music and with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1952.

For Brewer, “performing as an equal partner with these bright and talented youngsters is a joy and delight far beyond my desserts.” For her fellow teachers, it was a revelation to see how their students flourished— “under Mary Brewer’s baton, they taught me,” stated the late history teacher Pat Reifsnyder.

Brewer retired in 1975, but her legacy endured as her students became conductors, singers, and musicians, or just continued to appreciate music. At GFS, her work lives on in the Mary Brewer Choir Room, a music endowment, and a master teachership—the perfect honor for a woman who loved teaching, loved music, and loved GFS.

HENRY S CATTERGOOD (1911-1995) When Germantown Friends School first considered Henry Scattergood for head of school, he was only 29 years old. He said he needed to gain more

experience before taking on such a complex position. But if there was anyone who was destined to be head of GFS at some point, it was Scattergood. He was a member of the Germantown Meeting, had deep roots in the Quaker community, and during WWII had served in administrative posts for the American Friends Service Committee, working with displaced refugees in Lisbon and Casablanca.

He was affable, easy to talk to, a good listener, and an articulate spokesman for the values of Quaker education.

Scattergood entered GFS as a Kindergartner in 1916 in the midst of WWI, and retired as headmaster in 1970. Before he took charge of GFS in 1954, he taught at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, and collected an undergraduate degree from Haverford College and a graduate degree from Harvard University.

Scattergood said that when he was a GFS student, “my teachers seemed more concerned with their teaching and covering of subject matter than with my learning,” and that the GFS education did not encourage students “to raise questions or range independently over a field of knowledge.”

When he later became head, he was

Mary Brewer, below, rehearsing for an upcoming Choir tour circa 1968, established the music program at GFS. Henry Scattergood, right, took a progressive approach to education. Eric Johnson, far right, with students in 1966.

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proud that GFS now met “the student where he is” and took into consideration their “interests and preferences.”

Scattergood’s legacy influenced Germantown, the Meeting, the campus, the lives of students, and the lives of staff then and now. First, and possibly most consequential, he oversaw the decision for GFS to remain in Germantown in 1957.

“The school,” he said, “was the child of the Meeting” and it would be unwise to sever that bond. It is worth noting that this head of school was also a child of the Meeting, an alumnus, and a Germantown resident—all of these factors gave weight to his involvement and influence.

While he stated that he wasn’t interested in being a “builder,” he was interested in education, and his vision of education required some new bricks and mortar. To satisfy this need, he oversaw the construction of two major buildings during his administration: the Cary Building and The Science and Mathematics Building (now called Sharpless).

Scattergood always considered himself a teacher, and while he was head of school, he continued to teach a class and knew the names of most of the students. He supported his fellow teachers by working to eliminate gender-pay discrimination.

One of Scattergood’s lesser-known legacies is the school’s open dress code. Moving from the 1950s through the 1960s, students rebuffed the constraints of blazers and dresses, pushing the envelope until the school stated that there would be “no specific rules, but sensitivity to the situation and considerateness towards other people should apply at all times”—a code that has undergone few changes in the last 60 years. Scattergood wasn’t bothered by the long hair of the ’60s; he was “concerned about what was in the student’s head, not about what was on top.”

When Scattergood retired from GFS in 1970, he took a job down the road at Penn Charter, teaching history.

By the end of his career, he had worked

at three Quaker schools and been Johnson was one of the “most peron the board of many other Quaker suasive men I have ever known” and one who was always willing to take organizations and institutions. on difficult and unglamorous tasks, like fundraising for the school and ERIC JOHNSON organizing the development office.

(1918-1994) His fundraising acumen, connections, Eric Johnson was a child of the Ger- and elegant writing style allowed GFS mantown Meeting, a 1936 graduate to strengthen and expand. In parof Germantown Friends School (his ticular, Johnson’s witty and elegant family is one of the few that can boast writing made donors, teachers, School of a five-generation relationship with Committee members, and administraGFS, starting with his grandmother, tors want to help. Behind the scenes, who graduated in 1877), a German- he and his wife, Gay, were longtime, town resident, a prolific author, an generous benefactors of the school, influential educator, and someone often anonymously. who possibly held more positions at It was Johnson, in concert with GFS than anyone else in the history Ted Wolf ’47, who made the Commuof the school. Starting as sixth grade nity Scholars Program a reality. Their teacher in 1946, by the time he retired combined social-justice visions and in 1977 he had been: principal and fundraising skills worked to change assistant principal of the Junior High; lives in the school’s neighborhood vice principal of GFS; director of de- and “to bridge the gap between black velopment; English teacher; English and white, and provide new avenues department head; history teacher; for communication, relationships and sex education teacher; eighth grade understanding.” advisor; clerk of the School Com- A lifelong Quaker, Johnson folmittee; and soccer coach. And in lowed the tenets, becoming a conthe middle of his GFS tenure, he did scientious objector in WWII and a four-year stint as headmaster of working for the American Friends Friends’ Central School.

Service Committee in Portugal, North Johnson had an impact that ex- Africa, and India, where he set up the tended far beyond the classroom and relief supply system. He repeatedly administration. He was instrumental stated that “GFS builds the builders in the hiring of Head of School Fred of a better world,” and that its stuCalder, encouraging him to come to dents left GFS with a “chronic social a school he had never heard of in a conscience.” Johnson himself was a city he had never visited. Calder said perfect example.

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DICK WADE (1948-2017) It is almost impossible to calculate the impact Dick Wade had on Germantown Friends School—he was head of school for 20 years (1993-2013), a remarkably long tenure in the independent school world.

Wade was 45 when he arrived on the GFS campus. His first task was to knit the school back together after the tumultuous years under John Wilkinson, and build on the positive momentum of Dick Goldman’s interim term.

Enrollment was still depressed, faculty were uncertain about their status, there was a budget deficit, and parents needed reassurance that the school was heading in the right direction.

Wade was the soothing, smart, and hands-on leader the school needed.

Wade was a people person. As Rita Goldman, an administrator who worked with him for many years, stated, he knew intuitively how to connect with all people, from the preschooler to the oldest alum—he knew the names of almost everyone.

This skill of connection on top of the trust he engendered allowed him to

bring the school together and build it into the powerhouse it is today.

It is hard to get to know everyone in a large school and keep your finger on the pulse. For Wade, one of his techniques was to go out to the athletic fields and lean on the fence watching a soccer match or track meet. Here he would meet up with parents, faculty, and students, chat with them, hear their concerns, and come away with a deeper understanding of the day-today experiences of his community.

While there are visible changes that illustrate the impact Wade had on the school, including seven building projects, some of the less tangible aspects are more impressive: three strategic plans that charted influential and lasting change, comprehensive gains in fundraising for the Community Scholars Program and the endowment, strengthened commitment to the community surrounding the school, creation of a new Middle School division, and a formalized commitment to school-wide diversity. During his long tenure, Wade also dealt with a violent crime wave that affected the school and implemented a strong anti-drug

code. But it might have been the 2008 recession that had the most impact on both Wade and the school during his 20 years. He was hard pressed to retain all his faculty, keep enrollment steady, maintain the trust he had built, and keep the school on an even keel.

During this very stressful time, Wade had additional support. Although he was not a Quaker, he was very involved in the Baptist Church (his wife Cheryl was a Baptist minister) and he brought a deep spiritual faith to the job. While his Christian upbringing taught him that we must “exhaust all avenues for peace,” he served in the army in 1970 and did a two-year tour, including seven months in Vietnam leading a platoon as a signal officer.

When Wade retired, he was asked what he would miss most about GFS. His answer: “the morning hustle and bustle in the hallway outside my office.” Here was the perfect spot for this people-person to hang out—a place he could catch up with his faculty, chitchat with his students, and keep his finger on the pulse of the school he adored.

In his 20-year legacy as head of school, the affable and beloved Dick Wade, above, oversaw seven building projects and three strategic plans, strengthened the relationship between GFS and the Germantown community, fortified the Community Scholars Program and the school’s endowment, created a new Middle School, and expanded the school’s diversity initiative.

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WAXING NOSTALGIC GFS memorabilia that has us reminiscing about 31 W. Coulter Street.

By Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 | Photographs by Scott B. Foley

When we think of GFS, we are flooded with memories: the Cake Walk at Fun Day, Dee Bristol at the switchboard, eating lunch in the graveyard, repelling down the side of the Sharpless Building with Dan Shechtman, the field events at fourth-grade Greek Day, Bill Koons’ history class, Friday night basketball games in Scattergood, the Front Hall table. We all have our own version of GFS, the one we revisit over and over again in our minds—and our hearts. Although we can’t recreate every alumnus/a’s school experience, we can consider some of the memorabilia from the last 175 years that, when pieced together, highlight various elements of the GFS story. Take a “skip” down memory lane with us (remember, no running on campus…).

PUT A RING ON IT GFS signet rings were popular among students in the first half of the 20th century.

B L A Z E R DAYS Before Henry Scattergood relaxed the dress code in 1969, GFS blazers were commonly worn by female students.

SPORTY BLING For decades, varsity girls received sports pins and charms for each season they competed. In 1975, female athletes petitioned to get cloth letters like their male counterparts.

A GR ADE A BOV E Report cards from the late 1800s were leather bound and engraved with the student’s name on the cover.

A YEAR TO REMEMBER Before there was Anno, the GFS yearbook was called the Blue and White.

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S TA P L E S O F S TU D E NT L I F E Who doesn’t remember the paper lunch tickets used in the cafeteria?

(These punch cards were still lunchroom currency in the late ’00s!)

A Students’ Handbook from 1927-28 included sections on “How to Study” (“You should tackle your work with interest and self-confidence”), “School Songs” (Alma Mater and, around the holidays, Adeste Fideles), and “Chaperones for Games” (“Girls wishing to attend boys’ games should ask a teacher to accompany them”).

BEANIE, BA BY Freshman beanie from the Class of 1945.

CHOIR ON T O U R! The Choir’s 1962 European tour included 28 appearances in four countries: France, Holland, Germany (including West Berlin), and England. This record contains highlights from their repertoire.

SM A L L I N S TATU R E , L A RG E I N C O NTE NT From its debut in 1959, the GFS community adored the quirky Studies in Education, which featured articles by teachers, administrators, friends of the school, even students, on topics related to pedagogy, school culture, and student life. Known for its small size and fondly referred to as “The New Yorker of GFS publications” (for its lengthy articles), it was reimagined as The Irony of A blog in 2018.

A C R A F T Y E V E NT Launched in 1985, the top-notch GFS Craft Show was a community favorite and nationally recognized event, featuring artists from around the world and student musical performances. People still wistfully reference the show, which ended in 2014.

CALL ME, M AY B E The Germantown Friends School Directory (more commonly known as the “Blue Book” or “GFS Bible”), evolved from a simple typed listing of families’ addresses and phone numbers to a full-blown family handbook, which is now completely digital.

F ÊTI N G 50!

Fifty-year reunions are celebrated big—and commemorated with a special medallion.

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What better way to honor more than a 100 years of great GFS athletes than with a set of trading cards capturing some of their most memorable moments?

By Hillel J. Hoffmann Produced by Meg Cohen Ragas ’85

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F

or more than a century, athletic competition has been hard-wired into the Germantown Friends School experience. Joining sports teams has been a requirement for much of that time, in keeping with the school’s focus on community, cooperation, self-discipline, and other bedrock Quaker values. But what defines the history of GFS Athletics isn’t just participation. It’s winning. A lot.

From the football team’s undefeated 1921 season without surrendering a single touchdown to the 11 consecutive Friends Schools League championships won by coach Della Micah’s juggernaut lacrosse teams of the ’80s and ’90s, athletic success at GFS has become perennial.

“We’ve always expected excellence—and we enjoy it, unapologetically,” says GFS Director of Athletics Katie Bergstrom Mark.

It wasn’t always that way. For the school’s first few decades, there were no sports as we know them today. Rejected at first by the school over concerns that competition might not be “wholesome,” GFS athletes didn’t begin competing against other schools in sports until the 1900s. It wasn’t until the 1950s, about a decade after the school admitted its first Black student, that a Black athlete took the field for GFS: Marjorie Scott ’58, who captained the undefeated softball team as a senior.

In 1981, the formation of the FSL—co-created by former GFS Boys Athletic Director Carl Tannenbaum (who is currently writing a book on the history of the school’s sports) and former GFS Girls Athletic Director Bobbie Konover—sparked a golden age for the Tigers. Inspired by a generation of smart, sensitive coaches, from Pam Lutz and Tom Myran to Daryl McKeever and Rob Hewitt, Tigers teams won more than 150 FSL titles and more than a dozen state championships over the next four decades.

“History shows that our elite athletes can compete with the best of them,” says Bergstrom Mark. “They succeed because they understand themselves, they’re brave, and most of all, they’re leaders who are committed to making everyone around them better.”

To celebrate this record of excellence and leadership, we created trading cards devoted to great GFS athletes of the past century. It’s not a Hall of Fame; think of it as a celebration of memorable Tigers, teams, and moments. Never heard about wrestler Dan Signorelli ’90’s magical senior campaign or how Olivia Fiechter ’14 announced herself to the squash world as an eighth grader? Read on: Their stories, and many others, will captivate you.

Volume II 2021 |

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MICHAEL BUCKMIRE

KATE FELSEN DI PIETRO

OLIVIA FIECHTER

DANIEL SIGNORELLI

KATE FELSEN DI PIETRO

MICHAEL BUCKMIRE

Class of 1984 | Lacrosse, field hockey, basketball

Class of 2017 | Basketball, baseball

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Remembered as the girl who took her lacrosse stick everywhere and stayed for hours after practice to work on shooting, Felsen Di Pietro was one of the first dominant multisport athletes of the Friends Schools League. She led the Tigers to three FSL championships in lacrosse (the first of 12 in a row for GFS) and two in field hockey.

KILLER STAT

Her 177 career lacrosse goals for GFS established a school record that stood for decades.

NEXT STOP

Harvard University, where the All-American led the lacrosse team to an appearance in the NCAA Division I national championship game (she also played field hockey for the Crimson). She ranks fifth in career points for Harvard and earned Ivy Player of the Year her senior year.

TODAY

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

In an era when the Friends Schools League basketball scene was ruled by future NBA frontcourt players, the six-foot-one guard helped guide the Tigers back to the FSL playoffs in each of his four years on the varsity squad. During his junior and senior seasons, “Buck” led the team in points, assists, and steals and earned First Team All-FSL status both years.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

Buckmire and the Tigers shocked future NBA star De’Andre Hunter and Friends’ Central in the FSL semis in 2015, advancing to take on Mo Bamba (also an NBA lottery pick) and the Westtown juggernaut. In a packed field house at Haverford College, GFS fought valiantly—Buckmire scored 12 points in the second half—but fell. It was the team’s first appearance in the FSL finals in 18 years.

NEXT STOP

Felsen Di Pietro and her family created Feeding the Frontlines to boost New York’s restaurant industry during the pandemic and feed the city’s food-insecure population and healthcare workers.

Duke University, where Buckmire walked on to the Blue Devils basketball team. He quickly became a fan favorite and earned an athletic scholarship after his sophomore year. His improbable “and-one” in 2017 sent the Cameron Crazies into a frenzy.

DANIEL SIGNORELLI

OLIVIA FIECHTER

Class of 1990 | Wrestling, track & field

Class of 2014 | Squash, tennis

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Signorelli wrestled well his first three years, helping to lead his team to a Friends Schools League championship in 1988. But even his coach, Dan Shechtman, didn’t foresee how the lanky Signorelli would blossom in his senior season, destroying all his opponents in one of the greatest individual campaigns in the history of FSL athletics. In 1990-91, he did what no other GFS wrestler has ever done: He won a Pennsylvania Independent School Athletic Association championship in his weight class (171 pounds). Signorelli was also a track and field champion, winning the FSL javelin competition as a junior.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Fiechter had already won the first of her three agegroup national championships by the time she made the Tigers’ varsity squash team as an eighth grader, when she announced her presence by beating an Episcopal Academy senior who had never lost in her high-school career. A five-time, First-Team All-Mid Atlantic Squash Association honoree, Fiechter was also a force on the tennis court, earning First Team All-Friends Schools League honors four times.

KILLER STAT

KILLER STAT

Fiechter never lost a squash match in her varsity career at GFS, and she went undefeated in her senior tennis season.

NEXT STOP

Princeton University, where the four-time All-Ivy and AllAmerica player led the Tigers to a No. 1 national ranking.

In the 20 matches of his undefeated senior season, Signorelli pinned his opponent 19 times.

Wesleyan University, where he switched to track and field.

TODAY

After spells as a chef, an attorney, and an entrepreneur in the US, Europe, and Asia, Signorelli lives in Switzerland and runs a startup organic sun and skin-care company.

NEXT STOP

TODAY

The most successful professional athlete ever to graduate from GFS, Fiechter is ranked in the top 20 on the Professional Squash Association World Tour.

AISHA FRANKE

NICK DAHL

JOHN RAINEY

KATHERINE WIENER DUBOIS

NICK DAHL

AISHA FRANKE

Class of 2017 | Track & field, cross country

Class of 2000 | Softball, soccer, basketball

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

It’s hard to imagine a trophy cabinet as packed as Dahl’s.

Four Friends Schools League team championships, two state team championships, and four individual FSL championships in cross country. Four FSL team championships, two individual FSL championships in the 800 meter, three in the 1,600 meter, and three in the 3,200 meter—and too many record-breaking runs to list— in track. He earned All-America status four times in cross country and three times in track.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

Dahl was part of a distance medley relay team that ran the second-fastest time in Pennsylvania history at the 2016 nationals.

NEXT STOP

Yale University, where he ran track and cross country and collected more hardware. In 2019-2020, he won all but one of his races, was the Ivy League mile champion, earned All-Ivy status, and won Yale’s Jim Stack Award as track and field MVP. Dahl is now running for Duke University, taking advantage of the NCAA rule allowing an extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19.

KATHERINE WIENER DUBOIS Class of 1929 | Field hockey, basketball, tennis GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

One of the greatest field hockey players of her generation and one of the finest athletes GFS has ever produced, “Kitty” played on national hockey teams that competed against European superpowers at a time when field hockey was covered in the national media.

KILLER STAT

DuBois is the only athlete in GFS history, female or male, to win the school’s All-Around Cup for multisport excellence in three different years.

NEXT STEP

Smith College, but when the Depression hit, she returned to Philadelphia to teach English and gym and coach field hockey at GFS. DuBois later moved to Iowa and enrolled at Drake University.

LEGACY

In her late 90s, DuBois gave the GFS field hockey team a “spirited” address after watching them play during her 80th reunion. She urged the team to be more aggressive.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Franke was a dominant multisport Middle School athlete at a time when GFS didn’t offer varsity softball, a sport she played at a high club level. She helped successfully petition to reinsate softball, paving the way for generations of future players. She became the program’s first star as a ninth grader and remains the school’s greatest ever.

Franke was selected to the All-Friends Schools League First Team four times in softball and twice in soccer.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

Led by Franke, the Tigers became contenders for the FSL crown her senior year, losing a tough battle in the semis.

(She cried when she heard the Tigers finally won their first league title in 2015.)

NEXT STOP

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where Franke’s 56 stolen bases and .346 career batting average rank in the Top 10 in Minutewomen softball history.

TODAY

Franke is a lower-school STEM teacher at the McDonogh School near Baltimore.

JOHN RAINEY Class of 1963 | Baseball, basketball, soccer GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Rainey played three sports, but he dominated two of them on a scale GFS fans had seldom witnessed. In basketball, he led the team to conference championships his junior (an undefeated season) and senior years. He graduated as the first 1,000-point scorer in the school’s history and held the single-season scoring record (493 points in 1963). In baseball, he was a force on the mound and at the plate. One three-game stretch of victorious outings as a pitcher in his junior season included a nohitter, a 14-strikeout two-hitter, and a 17-strikeout gem.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

Some people know how to exit in style. In his final performance as a GFS athlete, Rainey pitched a no-hitter.

NEXT STOP

Wesleyan University.

TODAY

Rainey, now retired, lives in North Carolina after a long career in K-12 education and coaching, including stints at Germantown Academy, the Shipley School, and Harbor Day School in California.

DONALD N. WILKIE

KATHERINE BIXBY

PORTIA & TEASHA MCKOY

MANOLO SANCHEZ

KATHERINE BIXBY

DONALD N. WILKIE

Class of 2006 | Basketball, lacrosse, soccer

Class of 1954 | Wrestling, football, track & field

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

A true multisport athlete, Bixby earned First Team AllFriends Schools League status in three different sports— four times in basketball, twice in lacrosse, and once in soccer—and served as captain of each team her senior year. On the basketball court, the guard scored 1,128 points in her career as a Tiger. Only seven other GFS players, male or female, have scored more.

KILLER STAT

“Kat” may be the only player in GFS history to break both the 1,000-point barrier in basketball and the 100-point barrier in lacrosse.

NEXT STOP

Ithaca College, where she accomplished a rare double: allconference honors in two sports, basketball and lacrosse.

One of the greatest players in Bombers basketball history and a Division-III All-American, Bixby ranks fourth in career scoring and third in assists.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

The list of decorated three-sport athletes is long at GFS, as would be expected at a school that has emphasized the value of being well-rounded and encouraged exploration since its founding. But seldom has athletic excellence in three sports by a GFS student been as unexpected as it was in the case of Don Wilkie. As a wrestler, his small stature wasn’t an obstacle—he competed against other wrestlers in his own weight class, beating almost all of them. But Wilkie also broke the GFS pole vault record and was a star halfback on the school’s football team.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

As a senior, Wilkie won the 127-pound weight class at the Episcopal Academy Invitational Wrestling Tournament at the Palestra—the precursor to the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association’s annual state wrestling tournament—defeating Jim Hutchinson of EA 4-0 in the championship match.

TODAY

Bixby was appointed head women’s basketball coach at Johns Hopkins University in 2017 after turning around the Dickinson College program.

MANOLO SANCHEZ Class of 2010 | Soccer GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Sanchez was the Friends Schools League’s leading scorer his sophomore season, and his brilliant free kick in the championship game that year against two-time defending champs Shipley was the goal that won the Tigers their first league title in a decade. The midfielder’s 31 career goals in league play rank him second in FSL history.

KILLER STAT

Sanchez still holds the school record for total points in a career with 59 goals and 38 assists in all competitions.

NEXT STOP

Louisville University and then Clemson, where he led in scoring as a senior and helped guide the team to the 2014 ACC championship. In 2015, he was selected by Major League Soccer’s New York Red Bulls. He also played on the Puerto Rican national team.

TODAY

Sanchez returned to GFS in 2018 as an assistant coach for the boys varsity soccer team, and helped lead them to their first FSL championship since his sophomore year. He was appointed head coach of the girls varsity team in 2019.

PORTIA & TEASHA MCKOY Class of 2018 | Track & field, soccer GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Twins Portia and Teasha McKoy dominated an astonishingly wide swath of track and field events during their storied careers at GFS, each earning First-Team All-Friends Schools League status all four years. Both have won state championships—Portia in the 100 meters in 2018 and Teasha in the 100-meter hurdles in 2016. Both were also superb soccer players and members of the school’s only FSL championship team in 2014; Portia earned First Team All-FSL in soccer as a junior and a senior.

KILLER STAT

Together they hold 17 indoor and outdoor school records in events ranging from the 100 meters and the long jump (Portia) to the shot put and the discus (Teasha, who also holds the league record in those two events).

NEXT STOP

The twins wanted to go to different colleges, but they also wanted to be near each other. They got their wish: Portia now competes as a sprinter and a jumper for Lafayette College; Teasha is a thrower at nearby Lehigh University.

BETTY CADBURY

IRIS WILLIAMSON

JACK LENTZ

CHRIS COXE

IRIS WILLIAMSON

BETTY CADBURY

Class of 2012 | Lacrosse, soccer, basketball

Class of 1924 | Field hockey, lacrosse, basketball, tennis

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

A goal-scoring machine in two sports, Williamson earned First Team All-Friends Schools League status in both lacrosse and soccer all four years playing for GFS. As a sophomore, she was the first GFS girls soccer player to be named to the All-Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association team (she repeated as a senior).

Williamson holds the school record for most goals in lacrosse, and is second in career goals in soccer.

KILLER STAT

In the long and storied history of GFS lacrosse, Williamson is the only person to score more than 200 goals.

NEXT STOP

The University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated as the No. 9 goal scorer in the program’s history.

TODAY

In 2018, Williamson returned to the FSL as head lacrosse coach at the Shipley School. In her first season as coach, she led the Gators to the 2019 FSL title, beating defending champs GFS 15-13 in the league finals. She currently teaches English at the Brearley School in New York.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

A dominant field hockey forward, Cadbury was the only high-school student named to the All-Philadelphia team in 1923 and 1924. She was also selected to join an elite national team that crossed the Atlantic to play in international tournaments in England after her junior and senior seasons—an achievement that former GFS boys athletic director and historian Carl Tannenbaum called “the greatest honor to be bestowed on a GFS athlete up to that time.”

NEXT STEP

The Boston School of Physical Education. Cadbury continued to be selected to participate in national and international tournaments in both field hockey and lacrosse into the 1930s.

LEGACY

Cadbury returned to GFS in 1936 to serve as a physical education teacher and coach for three decades, influencing generations of students. Her field hockey players remember her gathering the team to shout “All for one and one for all!” before each match.

CHRIS COXE

JACK LENTZ

Class of 1970 | Basketball, baseball, soccer

Class of 2017 | Squash, track & field

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Was there any athletic pursuit Coxe couldn’t conquer?

One of the few two-time winners of the boys All-Around Cup, given annually to the school’s best multisport athlete until 2001, he led GFS to a Penn-Jersey Athletic Association title in baseball as a senior and a shared title in basketball as a junior. His hoops teams won 29 games in a row in his junior and senior years. On the baseball diamond, Coxe was one of the few four-year starters at shortstop in the program’s history.

KILLER STAT

Coxe was the second basketball player in GFS history to score more than 1,000 career points.

NEXT STOP

Yale University, where he was a forward on the soccer team (he began his GFS career as a goalkeeper).

TODAY

Coxe is in his fourth decade of coaching soccer, baseball, and/or basketball in the Middle and Upper Schools at GFS.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

An intense and tireless leader, Lentz rose steadily to national prominence, earning U.S. Squash’s William T. Ketcham Jr. Most Improved Award as a freshman. By the time he was a senior, he was ranked No. 6 in the nation and had earned a spot on the U.S. Junior National Team.

KILLER STAT

The U.S. Squash All-American was also a two-time, First Team All-Friends Schools League hurdler on the track team, who won individual FSL championships in the 110-meter hurdles in 2016 and in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles in 2017.

NEXT STOP

The United States Naval Academy, where Lentz played in the No. 1 position starting as a sophomore. Navy’s captain his senior year, he won the College Squash Association’s prestigious Skillman Award in 2021, given by a vote of CSA coaches to the college player “who has displayed exemplary sportsmanship and skill during his career.”

JESSE BIDDLE

SARAH WALKER

CATHERINE KELLY MULGREW

ALFRED JOHNSON

SARAH WALKER

JESSE BIDDLE

Class of 2016 | Track & field, cross country, soccer

Class of 2010 | Baseball

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Walker considered herself a soccer player first until she decided to try out for winter track as a ninth grader.

That soon changed when she qualified for the state meet in the 800 meter in only the second race of her career.

Soon school and Friends Schools League records began to tumble with regularity as Walker, a four-time AllAmerican, became an unstoppable force on Coach Rob Hewitt’s track teams that won three FSL crowns. In 2015, she finished 3rd in the 800 meter at the Junior Nationals and 2nd at the New Balance Nationals.

KILLER STATS

Five years after graduating, Walker still holds league records in four events: the 400 meter, the 800 meter, the 1,600 meter, and the 4x400 meter relay. Her leaguerecord 800-meter run of 2:03.7 in 2015 remains the thirdfastest ever run in the state. Before heading to college, she ran a 2:05.79 in the 8oo meter to win the Caribbean Scholastic Invitational in Cuba.

NEXT STOP

Stanford University, where Walker ran the 400 and 800 meters.

ALFRED JOHNSON Class of 1979 | Basketball GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Growing up in Germantown just two blocks from campus, Johnson was a camper at GFS basketball coach David Felsen’s Summer Basketball & Reading Clinic. The first camp alumnus to attend GFS, the ebullient, five-footseven Johnson was a magician with the ball, who went on to become one of the program’s greatest point guards.

KILLER STAT

As a senior, Johnson led the Tigers to a 22-2 record, including a 16-game unbeaten streak and a PennJersey League championship. That 1978-79 team is still considered by many to be the school’s best ever.

NEXT STOP

After playing basketball at Elizabeth City State University, he returned to GFS in 1985 to succeed Felsen as the Tigers’ head coach.

TODAY

A long, successful college coaching career, with stops at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Holy Family University, Valley Forge Military College, and ECSU. He was recently named head basketball coach at Northern Vermont University.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

The fearsome, six-foot-five, left-handed ace with a 94-mph fastball recorded 140 strikeouts in his senior season, attracting as many as 20 radar gun-toting Major League scouts for each start. Biddle, a four-time, First Team All-Friends Schools League selection, led GFS to four consecutive FSL championships, capping a run of seven straight league crowns for the Tigers—still the longest title streak by any FSL baseball team.

KILLER STAT

In the final three games of his GFS career—all FSL or Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association playoff games—Biddle struck out 49 of the final 51 batters he retired.

NEXT STOP

The Philadelphia Phillies, who selected Biddle in the first round of the 2010 Major League Baseball draft just days before his graduation.

TODAY

Biddle pitches in the Atlanta Braves organization, his fifth team in the big leagues.

CATHERINE KELLY MULGREW Class of 1997 | Field hockey, lacrosse, basketball GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

A fierce three-sport athlete, Mulgrew was named to the All-Friends Schools League First Team three times in field hockey, twice in basketball, and twice in lacrosse, and won the All-Around Athletic Cup as a senior. Under coach Pam Lutz, Mulgrew helped lead the Tigers to two of the school’s 14 FSL field hockey crowns.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

In the 1996 hockey championship, the Tigers faced George School, which had eliminated them in the 1994 and 1995 semis. The game went into overtime, then penalty strokes, and finally sudden-victory strokes, when Mulgrew sent a high shot past the goal keeper to win the title.

NEXT STOP

Cornell University, where she was a starter at back for the field hockey team and a co-captain as a senior.

TODAY

Mulgrew serves as global philanthropy manager at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

JONATHAN HAYNES

CECILIA DAVIS-HAYES

JOANNA BOOTH

JAMES WRIGHT

CECILIA DAVIS-HAYES

JONATHAN HAYNES

Class of 2007 | Track & field, cross-country, soccer

Class of 1990 | Basketball

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

An early starter and a late bloomer, Davis-Hayes began running as a third grader at GFS but didn’t hit her stride as an endurance athlete until almost two decades later, when she started training for triathlons in 2015. In the two years that followed, she won the Philadelphia Triathlon, the New York City Triathlon, and the Collegiate Club National Championship—all by massive margins and all while in medical school—cementing her reputation as one of the nation’s top triathletes.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

In only her third triathalon, Olympic Age Group National Championships, Davis-Hayes won despite an awful swim.

NEXT STOP

Williams College, followed by med school at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

TODAY

A radiology resident at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, Davis-Hayes “leads an impressive—almost impossible— double life … toggling between dual roles of doctor and pro triathlete,” according to Triathlete Magazine.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

After leading the Tigers to a Friends Schools League championship in his junior year in 1989 (the last league title GFS has won in boys’ basketball), Haynes set the Philadelphia high-school hoops world ablaze in his senior year, averaging 33.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 7.1 assists per game. A city basketball legend, the six-footfour guard was named Pennsylvania High School Player of the year and a McDonald’s All-American in 1990, joining a list of honorees that includes Kobe Bryant.

KILLER STAT

Haynes scored 2,022 points in only three years as a Tiger.

No other GFS player has ever scored more than 1,500.

NEXT STOP

Temple, then Villanova (he became the Wildcats’ No. 12 career-assists leader despite playing only three seasons), before a professional run in Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Israel.

TODAY

Haynes is co-founder and coach at the Academy of Hoops, a youth-centered basketball training and player development program.

JAMES WRIGHT

JOANNA BOOTH

Class of 2018 | Crew, soccer

Class of 2015 | Tennis

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

It didn’t take long for crew, GFS’ newest sports program, to produce a world-class athlete. Wright crushed nearly all comers racing in a single in 2017 and 2018. As a junior, he won first place in the City Championships, the Mercer Lake Sprints, and the American Scholastic Rowing Association Nationals in the single scull. He repeated those three wins as a senior and added a first-place finish in the Youth National Championships and the World Indoor Rowing Championships.

NEXT STEP

Stanford University, where Wright has rowed on the varsity eight since his first year, when he was named Pacific 12 Newcomer of the Year.

WEARING THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

Wright began representing the United States in inter­ national competitions while he was still a student at GFS, participating in the World Junior Championships in Lithuania in 2017. He has raced with the junior national team in 2018 and the under-23 team in 2019. Wright also earned All-America recogntion in 2021.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Booth played varsity tennis at GFS as a freshman in 2011, as a junior in 2013, and as a senior in 2014, earning First Team All-Friends Schools League status each time.

Those happen to be the only three years that the Tigers’ girls’ tennis team has won the FSL championship since the league adopted postseason playoffs in the 2002 season. Coincidence? Unlikely. Playing first singles as a junior and a senior, Booth won the FSL individual tournament championship both years.

NEXT STOP

Amherst College, where she played on the tennis team and was president of the Black Student Union.

TODAY

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Booth returned to Philadelphia to work at the Fabric Workshop and Museum and Second State Press, a communal printmaking studio.

SOPHIA LINGUITI

FREDERICK H. GLOECKNER, JR.

JENNIFER JONES CLINKSCALES

HENRY RUGER

FREDERICK H. GLOECKNER, JR. Class of 1948 | Football, basketball, track &` field GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Football ruled GFS sports culture in the middle of the 20th century, and the school had its own archetypal, square-jawed football hero: Fred Gloeckner. The “tall, blond, perfectly coordinated” All-City back, his senior yearbook gushed, was “one of the greatest athletes in the history of the school.” That season, the Gloeckner-led Tigers toppled all of their opponents before falling 13-12 in the heartbreaking final to Germantown Academy, then a neighbor.

NEXT STEP

Princeton University, a national football powerhouse at the time. Led by Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmeier, Princeton’s 1950 team finished the season undefeated and No. 6 in the Associated Press poll.

LEGACY

After attending medical school at Temple University, Gloeckner served as a civilian doctor in Vietnam—the subject of a memoir he published in 1972. He retired in 2001 after three decades in family practice in British Columbia.

HENRY RUGER Class of 2020 | Tennis

SOPHIA LINGUITI Class of 2015 | Soccer GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

The unquestioned leader of the only GFS girls soccer team ever to win a Friends Schools League championship, Linguiti returned from a serious knee injury in 2014 to guide a Tigers team loaded with athleticism and seniors (but a bit short on technical and tactical chops). The center mid was only able to play full seasons as a freshman and a senior—earning First Team All-FSL honors both years—making her career total of 12 goals and 13 assists even more impressive.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

The Tigers made it to the FSL title game in 2011, 2012, and 2013 only to lose 1-0 to mighty Friends’ Central each time. It looked like more of the same when FCS took a 1-0 first-half lead in the rain-soaked 2014 championship rematch. But then Linguiti, a brilliant ball striker who took all the Tigers’ set pieces, scored on a free kick early in the second half. GFS scored again minutes later and cruised to victory and redemption.

NEXT STOP

Wesleyan University, where Linguiti co-captained the soccer team as a senior.

JENNIFER JONES CLINKSCALES Class of 1999 | Basketball

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

The GFS boys tennis team hadn’t been a contender for a Friends Schools League championship for a decade when Ruger made varsity as a ninth grader in 2017. He promptly took over the No. 1 spot, went 13-0 without losing a set, and launched an unprecedented run of three consecutive FSL team championships. Ruger played only two years of varsity tennis, but in that time, he cemented his reputation as the greatest boys tennis player ever at the school. At the time of his graduation, he was ranked No. 32 in the nation and No. 1 in Pennsylvania.

KILLER STAT

Undefeated. Ruger never lost a match in his two years on the GFS boys tennis team.

NEXT STOP

Columbia University, where Ruger hopes to continue his streak of team success—the Lions have won or shared six straight Ivy League titles.

GFS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

The GFS girls basketball teams at the end of the ’90s did something no other girls’ squad had done before or since: won two consecu­tive Friends Schools League titles. The leader of those teams was Clinkscales, a three-time, FirstTeam All-FSL forward, who scored 1,083 points and broke the career-assist record when she was still a junior.

MEMORABLE MOMENT

Trailing Friends’ Central by double digits at halftime in the 1999 FSL finals, Clinkscales stormed back onto the court to score 23 points—including six straight free throws in overtime—to beat the Phoenix 68-59, lock in the Tigers’ second title in a row, and cap off an undefeated league season.

NEXT STOP

Penn, where she was part of a team that went on the nation’s longest winning streak and won the Quakers’ first Ivy League women’s basketball championship.

TODAY

Clinkscales is the associate dean of student affairs at Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice.

Field of Dreams: TheVolume GFS Playing Fields II 2021 | captured on May 9, 2005, at 3:40 p.m.

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Historically Speaking Quaker values, progressive education, community outreach, continuing revelation—these concepts and more describe the spiritual and pedagocal evolution of Germantown Friends School over the past 175 years. From a list too long to count, we’ve highlighted important milestones, moments, programs, and traditions that define the GFS experience.

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Produced by Meg Cohen Ragas ’85 | Photo Research by Tim Wood, GFS archivist

ith a legacy as long and storied as ours, it’s hard to isolate 100—let alone 10—reasons why GFS is the school it is today. And yet, after months of research and conversations, interviews and more research, we came up with a curated, balanced selection of Greatests Hits that we feel truly personifies who we are as a school—and why. Who doesn’t remember singing in the chorus of a Gilbert & Sullivan production or their team’s quest for a Felsen point and, ultimately, the cup? Or seeing their first byline in The Pastorian or the Earthquake? GFS’ history is rife with innovations, small and large, that have kept it at the forefront of progressive education and a leader among independent schools, both locally and nationally. Bound by a deep sense of community and a steadfast loyalty to its Quaker roots, it has stayed true to its heritage while allowing space for growth and invention. Happy 175th, GFS! May your future be as wondrous as your past!

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1

It’s So Easy Being Green Why the Wade Science Center inspires the next generation of scientists.

BY MEG COHEN RAGAS ’85

hen the Wade Science Center opened its door in September 2009, it was the culmination of years of planning and hard work—and recognition of the growth and strength of the science program at GFS. The $9.5-million glass-and-zinc-clad building was commissioned in response to students’ heightened interest in science: In the decade before it was built, there had been a 100 percent increase in the number of Upper School students enrolled in advanced science courses, with 10 percent doubling up in science during their senior year. The four science classrooms on the top floor of the Sharpless Building wouldn’t cut it anymore; the campus needed to expand its facilities to meet student demand.

In typical GFS fashion, the school wasn’t content with building just any science center—it embraced the opportunity to make the structure itself a teaching tool, and a model for environmental stewardship. To that end, every feature is sustainable, from an accessible green roof that helps absorb water and is planted with species native to Pennsylvania, to the solar panels that, on a sunny day, help generate up to 15 percent of the building’s energy, to the two 5,000-gallon cisterns that sit in the Evans Courtyard and collect rainwater, recycling it back into the building for use as gray water. All of this information can be accessed by the lobby’s Building Dashboard, a comprehensive, interactive video monitoring system that tracks the center’s energy and resource use. Other green features include a geothermal heating and cooling system, a motion-sensor-driven lighting system, and sustainable building materials, such as polished concrete, sunflowerseed board, and recyled rubber flooring.

Designed by the Philadelphia-based firm SMP Architects, chosen for its leadership in sustainable design and its connection to GFS—founding partner Susan Maxman is the mother of six GFS graduates—the interior deliberately exposes the pipes, wires, and beams in the classroom ceilings so students can learn about the systems that power the building. “When you walk into the [center], it invites you to ask questions about how it works and that’s exactly what we were shooting for,” Biology teacher Gen Nelson, who was head of the science department at the time of construction and worked closely with the design team, said in an interview with a GFS journalism student last spring.

The new science center was a huge hit with students

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The Wade Science Center (top) is gold LEED certified; Nobel Prize-winning physicist Saul Perlmutter ’77 (above) Skyped with advanced physics students in 2011 to discuss “dark energy.”

and faculty alike, with its double-tall ceilings, oversized, light-filled labs, and numerous sustainable features. In 2011, it presented the perfect backdrop for a Skype interview between the members of an advanced physics class and Saul Perlmutter ’77, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics that year for discovering that the expansion of the universe was speeding up—not contracting, as scientists previously believed—due to a mysterious force known as “dark energy.” The students prepared for the interview by studying Perlmutter’s research, listening to some of his interviews, and watching the video of him receiving the Nobel Prize in Stockholm. (Perlmutter is the second GFS grad to receive the prestigious award; the first was Owen Chamberlain ’37, who, in 1959, also received the Nobel Prize in physics, coincidentally.)

“In my year-end course evaluations, a few of the students noted the talk with Dr. Perlmutter as a highlight,” said former physics teacher David Williamson in an interview with the Bulletin in 2012. “It was a great opportunity for them to talk with someone on the cutting edge of cosmology … I think the students left with a sense of wonder about the universe and a knowledge that there are still many areas of physics with important questions yet to be pursued.”

Twelve years later, Wade continues to engage and inspire the GFS community with its intrinsic beauty, state-of-the-art design, and commitment to sustainability.

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Broadening the Curriculum The 1930s’ Eight Year Study advocated for giving students individualized programs while still preparing them for college.

BY TIM WOOD, GFS ARCHIVIST

y the late 1920s, progressive educators had begun to worry that high school curricula at college preparatory schools had forced all students into a single mold. Schools taught classes that prepared them to check off a list of course credits and to pass admissions tests at select colleges.

In a series of studies, D.S. Learned of the Carnegie Foundation argued that this was a disservice to students, giving them the ability to master discrete subject matter, but not to synthesize knowledge into broader understanding. There was too much emphasis on language and literature at the expense of science, history, and the arts.

Partnering with the Progressive Education Association, the Carnegie Foundation formed a committee, which included GFS Principal Stanley Yarnall, to explore the possibility that a broader curriculum with more electives and individualized programs would be equally successful in preparing students for college. A group of

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jects like interior design, stage sets, and modern architecture. Geology students learned about rocks and geography, but also about how the differences in minerals and landforms affect politics, war, and the quality of drinking water.

Poley especially appreciated the individual choices the new curriculum afforded. In one of his reports, he noted: “One boy, very able in science and mathematics but almost incapable of learning French or Latin, was allowed to spend most of his time ... in the fields he was good in—astronomy, physical geography, chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics—and is now doing well in a college of excellent standing.”

The arrival of World War II slowed the implementation of many of these curricular reforms at GFS and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the school continued to explore ways to improve the education its students received. Over the years, the school saw the addition of open classrooms and vertical grade groupings in Lower School; experiential learning in Middle School; the Essentially English program, Directed Independent Study, Junior Projects, and January Term classes in Upper School; new additions to the STEM curriculum and participation in the Global Online Academy; and, during the COVID-19 era, the creation of the flexible online Colloquia program to educate students under pandemic conditions. Like the original goal of the Eight-Year Study, GFS’s curriculum does not simply prepare students to collect credits and prepare for tests of prescribed content, but instead to leave the school as well-rounded people ready for the challenges of the world.

200 colleges agreed to consider for admission students from the 30 participating schools based on a student’s school record and recommendations from the faculty, rather than on classes taken and exams passed.

GFS and the other high schools (a mix of public and private, including Baldwin, Tower Hill, and public schools in Bronxville and Tulsa) began the study in 1933. Yarnall considered himself a “conservative progressive,” so GFS’ curricular changes were not as radical as those of some of the other participating schools; he reassured the School Committee that they need not “fear that we are going off on wild tangents.” Under the supervision of then English teacher Irvin Poley ’08 (pictured above in the classroom, circa 1935), elective classes in math, historical geology, art, economics, public speaking, music, and drama were added to the course offerings. In Some material in this article is based art classes students learned the history on the history of the school written by of art, but also looked at related sub- former history teacher Bill Koons.

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A Scholarly Pursuit How two mens’ vision for more equitable education opportunities in Germantown sparked a community program that continues to enhance students’ lives.

BY TRISTAN KIM ’13

n September 15, 1963, the hate-fueled bombing of a Black church in Birmingham, AL, took the lives of four innocent girls. It had been less than a decade since GFS had admitted its first students of color, two Japanese Americans who enrolled after their release from internment camps, and the school was still searching for better means of addressing the racial inequities that continued to pervade the United States. Eric Johnson ’36, then GFS’ director of development, asked Ted Wolf ’47 if he was willing to chair a committee in charge of sending a care package to Birmingham. Wolf declined. He had another idea.

A GFS lifer, Wolf served on the School Committee from 1968-76 and again from 1995-03. He still resides in Germantown, in a house three blocks from campus, where he has lived for 63 years. As a member of the Germantown community, he felt that it was a mistake to send aid across multiple state lines when the school had the opportunity to make a tangible difference for people across the street. In plain words, Wolf told Johnson, “If we want to do something about race relations, Germantown is a very good place to start.” But realizing his vision would not be easy.

“How do you use schools to unite instead of separate groups of people?”

Wolf mused in 1963. “Private schools basically separate people.” Though GFS tuition was far lower in the ’60s (approximately $850 per year for Upper School), it was still beyond the reach of many families in the Germantown area. “[GFS] was very isolated in this neighborhood when I was here,” Wolf recalled in a recent conversation.

“If you walked away from this block,

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you were in neighborhoods that were not necessarily friendly to you.” Reducing the stratification between GFS and Germantown was the obvious first step toward fostering solidarity and community. The Community Scholars Program (CSP) became a means to facilitate this.

Wolf’s idea was to cover the cost of tuition to GFS for community children in need for six full years, from grades 7-12. “We started to contact everyone we knew who ran a foundation, who had money, who would be interested, to try to get the support,” Wolf shared.

“We quickly arranged [to fund] the first six community scholars to GFS.” He was very conscious of how the beneficiaries of this program—which would total 36 when fully operational— would be treated. To avoid alienating the scholars and their families, the identities of the students were kept anonymous, a policy that continues today. Even the name of the program was chosen very deliberately.

“We could have called this the GFS Scholarship Program. We didn’t.” It was named the Community Scholars Program because they wanted to focus on strengthening the relationship between GFS and Germantown.

In September 1965, the Germantown Courier hailed the program as, “integration, humanitarianism, love of one’s fellow man in its finest concept.”

Today, CSP still assists students and their families from Germantown, but by the mid-’80s the program was being advertised citywide, and has expanded to include other surrounding neighborhoods, such as North Philly, West Philly, and Center City, among others.

(CSP officially expanded into the Lower School in 2000.) Its continuation

Ted Wolf ’47 photographed on the GFS campus on June 23, 2021.

The original CSP announcement published in the Germantown Courier in 1965.

for more than 50 years is a testament to its efficacy, as are the careers and contributions of past scholars, two of whom are current members of the GFS School Committee. Though it is only one of many measures the school utilizes in its unending journey to foster greater community and equity, CSP has accomplished much in its tenure.

“People [need to] see GFS not as a kind of sheltered place [or] a protective place for potential scholars, but as a community-support place,” says Wolf, “as a school that [is] not satisfied with leaving things alone, letting them stay the way they are, but which is absolutely focused on what needs to be done to make it better.”

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Raise Your Voice A brief history of student newspapers and magazines.

BY KATE STOVER

FS students have always had a lot to say; they are thinkers, writers, activists, and artists.

Thoughts about politics, fashion, sports, culture, personal relationships, and school management are par for the course. For more than 124 years, GFS students have had various platforms to share this voice: student newspapers.

The first newspaper, The Pastorian, was a booklet “issued by the Students of Germantown Friends School” in 1897. Students wrote that they named it after the renowned local resident, Francis Pastorius, because it would “link us with the past history of Germantown.” It had a staff of nine and a female editor. The first 72-page issue came with photographs (printed from glass negatives), poems, articles about curriculum and campus improvements, student illustrations, advertisements, comprehensive athletics coverage, and updates about faculty, staff, and alumni (marriages, travel plans, and new jobs). Everything was student-produced.

The Pastorian was the student voice all the way until 1963. Printed several times each year, the newspaper continued to talk directly to students and alumni, sharing fiction from all divisions and featuring editorials and letters that tackled the important issues of the day (including calling out the school for being segregated in 1947, the importance of global politics during World War II, and a 1950s Pro vs. Con debate about a draft). Athletics coverage continued to be important, as were book reviews and the “Exchanges,” a sharing back-and-forth of school newspapers with local and national high schools, such as Germantown Academy, Dalton, Choate Rosemary Hall, Penn Charter, and Friends’

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Central; these publications were available to GFS students and pored over by members of the Pastorian staff for format and content ideas.

As The Pastorian changed over the decades, it became less of a newspaper and more of a literary magazine.

The Spring 1963 issue contained only literary content, from third-grade contributors through seniors.

GFS Upper School students would need to wait nine years for another newspaper, Earthquake, to come on the scene. The first editors wanted the paper to be “provocative, but not necessarily controversial.” The inaugural issue came out in November of 1972—all of the front page articles were about politics. Inside, readers found more politics, including a presidential poll, along with a chess game, movie reviews, and ads, such as one for peasant clothing and velveteen blazers. Subsequent issues had more opinions, one with Pro vs. Con abortion stances and another stating the importance of the Black Students Union at GFS. Over the course of 49 years, the Earthquake staff has become more focused on journalism; it is supported by teachers who advise them on how to write articles, the importance of research, how to conduct interviews, and how to respect the power of their own voice. Because it is a student newspaper, the editors steer Earthquake’s content to what matters most to them and their audience, whether it be social justice issues or the quality of GFS bathrooms. Eager to tap into a wider audience, like many newspapers, Earthquake added an online presence in 2012. In recent years, the publication has evolved into a news magazine, and has repeatedly won Crown awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for

overall excellence in both writing and design.

The Earthquake wasn’t always the only Upper School student voice, however. Two short-run newspapers brought a more focused lens. The Black Students Union Newsletter in the mid-’70s printed a “Black Student Directory” with names and addresses, featured poetry from Black artists and profiles of Black Americans, voiced the personal experiences of Black GFS students, and reviewed local events. Unity, mostly produced by tenth graders in the 1990s, had a progressive voice and a vibrant black-and-white magazine layout

The Earthquake (above) as it looked when it was launched in 1972 and in its news-magazine format today. The inaugural issue of The Pastorian as well as student-drawn section headings (opposite).

style. In one issue, specific homophobic, racist, and misogynistic phrases spoken by GFS students were called out and named.

Middle Schoolers have been as eager to share their voice as Upper School students— one of their first publications, GifFieS, debuted in 1943.

Carefully typed into boxes on legalsized paper, this eighth-grade newspaper ran for about seven years, and featured teacher interviews, lost and found lists, local movie times, sports schedules and updates, book reviews, Lower School activities, puzzles, and interviews with new students. Some issues were eight pages long, chockfull of news and events.

Several other Middle School newspapers had short runs of only a few years. The Tiger Times popped up briefly in 1991, featuring romance advice, book reviews, and interviews with teachers. Next came Middle Ground, which ran from 1996-1997; the student staff wanted this paper to be “professional enough to be taken seriously and loose enough so that Middle School students would like it.” It had a more sophisticated layout and serious content—it tackled hazing incidents and featured a long article about the murder of the rapper Notorius B.I.G. Rounding out the content were photos,

puzzles, reviews, polls, and sports updates. Stuck in the Middle (1997), Impact (1998), and The Middle School Newspaper (1999-2000) all contained reviews, political commentary, and critiques of student life, with the latter featuring an editorial questioning if GFS’ relationship to Germantown was strong enough.

It was The Bridge, though, that had one of the longest runs as a Middle School newspaper. Launched in 2001, it was created by students in grades 6-8 and was published until 2009. It addressed neighborhood violence against students, reviewed cafeteria food, interviewed teachers, covered an assembly about eating disorders, offered stress management support, and asked whether dance chaperones were necessary.

Other columns featured tech support and fashion dos and don’ts. The Bridge covered Middle School students’ issues, leavened with lighter entertainment.

The Corner brought a new approach to the Middle School newspaper scene when it was launched in 2010—it was available only online.

This digital format was particularly intriguing to the staff, who stated in the paper that “The Corner is entirely student run—students choose article topics that interest them, and then

do all the writing, editing, proofreading, photography, and original drawings to compose each issue of the paper. Student editors produce and assemble the newspaper online, using a customized WordPress blog format.” Faculty advisors guide students on how to develop their voices and use them to incite change. In true Middle School fashion, The Corner spans a wide range of topics, from where the good pencil sharpeners are in the Sharpless Building and Bernie Sanders and socialism, to the importance of Meeting for Worship, the differences between vegetarians and vegans, and how to survive the awkwardness of having braces.

From the 1897 Pastorian to the most recent 2021 “Nostalgia” issue of Earthquake, the student voice is alive and well at GFS. While format and content will change over time, these publications provide a much-needed platform for students to investigate their world, represent their communities, and share their opinions.

This article is based on student newspapers found in the GFS Archives; it would be great to fill out this important collection. If you have issues to donate, please contact GFS Archivist Tim Wood at twood@germantownfriends.org.

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Keeping Classics Current The study of Latin and Greek at GFS has long been a celebrated mainstay of the school’s curriculum, culminating in the annual department-wide Classics Day.

BY JULIE MARREN, CLASSICS DEPARTMENT HEAD A Classics Day performance of The Trojan Women in 1957 (left). Students dressed for Classics Day festivities in 2019 (opposite).

hen I was applying for a job teaching Latin in Philadelphia a couple of decades ago, I got a good feel for the programs in the area. Some were Quaker and some had Classics, but only Germantown Friends School had both. If you wanted Quaker as well as a full Greek and Latin program, it was the only game in town.

Through the creative thinking and hard work of past and present faculty members, the Classics Department at GFS has offered students throughout the years both a challenging curriculum and a place to belong—a sense that they are learning a significant amount each year within a community that helps sustain them in their work. We truly value digging deeply into words, looking at ancient texts, and thinking about why the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea had such a profound impact on the founding principles of our own country. Students get a lot of satisfaction from working with complex language and feel that they make huge strides each year. But along the way, we also give our students many

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opportunities to come together to collaborate and learn as a community.

In part, this community building happens because most of our classes meet in rooms quite close in proximity to one another. As students wait outside to enter their Greek 1 classroom, for example, they can overhear students in perhaps Latin 2, or after an upper-level class has left the room, younger students might see terms and forms on the board from the previous class and start pondering when they, too, will learn these things.

I remember teaching in Alumni my first year and was surprised to see former Classics teacher Florence Mini wander in to get a book. She later told me how important it was for the department that we keep our doors open literally and figuratively, that we can hear each other and feel welcome tiptoeing in. We have sometimes stopped mid-class to invite a colleague to give their take on something. Once [former Classics Department Head] Natasha Labbé was observing my Anatomy of Language class remotely, and I asked her to teach us a few phrases in her native Haitian Creole. She was (of

course!) gracious, and the students came away with a broader sense of how many languages are at play in our school community.

Balancing out the serious study of language and literature with opportunities for experiential learning has long been at the heart of our program.

For the 1931 Virgil Pageant, the whole school came together at Wistar Brown Field to celebrate Virgil’s 2000th birthday. Produced by English teacher Henry Domincovich, the three-hour performance included a script written by two senior girls, a Trojan Horse built by sophomore boys, and seventhgrade girls dancing as Italian peasants, as well as a cast of hundreds. All of the local newspapers covered the event, with the Philadelphia Inquirer’s front-page headline declaring, “Virgil Relives in School Pageant—450 Pupils Take Part.” Students who have come through the Lower School build on what they learned from their fourthgrade immersive Greek curriculum and their Greek Day experience. And Classics Day, which has been a central event in the lives of Latin and Greek students at GFS since it was established in the mid-1980s, has always been a great opportunity for us to learn from one another. (Classics Day was preceded by the Dionysia, which was started in 1963 as a way to enrich the tenth-grade study of Greece.)

The department has worked diligently to give students at every level the chance to participate in some part of the Classics Day program.

That way, students can readily see what they might do in subsequent

years, how their roles build upon the classes above and below them.

Latin 1a provides the birds that fly so that Latin 1b, acting as augurs, can take the auspices and see if the day is

fas or “right” for our undertakings. (It’s always fas!) Students in Latin 2 make shields with decorations that fit the theme chosen by Latin 5. The Greek students solemnize the day by giving

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a prayer and acting out the ritual of sacrificing a bull. Latin 3 history contributes their speeches while Latin 3 literature offers poems and songs. The Latin 4 movie allows for creative expression and digging into mythology and literature, while Latin 5 creates the Triumph, originally a military parade (repurposed for more Quakerly ends), which announces the theme for the annual event. A guest lecturer and a pot-luck Mediterranean Feast round out the day.

By the time our Classics students graduate, they are confidently reading Latin or Greek and are unlikely to be intimidated by any text they see.

They long remember the connections they made with not just the languages, but with this powerfully interwoven group of people—and the unique experiences that united them.

Pull Up a Chair

Celebrating a treasured Middle School art tradition.

BY KATE STOVER

hat is now known as “The Chair Project” began as an eighth-grade art assignment to teach students to recognize positive and negative space. Introduced in 2000 by former GFS art teacher Bob Reinhardt, this hallowed Middle School tradition has gradually transitioned into a treasured capstone project that offers students the opportunity to create a chair illustrating their artistic voice. Every eighth-grade student completes this artwork—and many begin thinking about their concept years earlier.

Initially, each student spends about two weeks learning how to draw a chair from a variety of angles. It is always the same brown, bentwood chair, placed on the table in the art room.

The Middle School art teachers want students to learn how to draw perspective, even though, as art teacher Debra Hoffman notes, “it’s hard to do.”

The Chair Project is assigned in

Photos courtesy of Robert Reinhardt

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eighth grade because the students already have basic art skills, are comfortable experimenting, and can be responsible for working on their own.

According to Art Department Head Megan Culp, the art teachers have found that the project is a beautiful pedagogical balance of formal training and conceptual art expression, where skill and voice are woven together.

Some students focus on creating a 3-D chair using ceramics, metal, origami, wood, even chocolate. Others work with computers, inserting a chair into Minecraft or coding a computer to physically draw a chair onto paper with a pen. Quite a few incorporate food (imagine a chair made entirely of Peeps!)—which have been known to cause mouse issues in the art room.

For GFS eighth graders, the spring Chair Project is a culmination of their Middle School years, a rite of passage, a sign that it is time to make the creative leap to Upper School.

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The Value of Independence A signature program at GFS has been a game-changer for juniors for five decades.

BY MEG COHEN RAGAS ’85

or more than 50 years, the Germantown Friends School Junior Project program has been a jewel in the crown of the Upper School. Students begin brainstorming ideas years in advance, hoping to land an internship in a field they’re considering pursuing in college (or as a career), or in an area they’re passionate or simply curious about. Originally launched as the Senior Project in the spring of 1970, the program’s primary goal was “the acquisition and practice of mature, selfdetermined judgments about the uses of time, intellectual energy and the accurate definition of priorities… Timely organization of projects and orderly development and execution of plans are essential parts of this experience, and responsibility for these objectives must fall primarily upon the student,” as was stated in a memo from the Senior Project Committee to twelfth graders and their parents.

These objectives still remain true for today’s program, although projects were moved from senior spring to junior winter during the 1977-78 school year—administrators felt students would take their projects more seriously as eleventh graders than as graduating seniors, after they’d already been accepted to college—and participation in the four-week program became a requirement for graduation rather than an elective.

“As a teacher of juniors for many years, I have seen firsthand just how important the Junior Project is in the lives of our students,” former English teacher Anne Gerbner, who ran the program from 2010-17, said in an interview with the Bulletin in 2011. “Students are given the freedom and the faculty support to shape their own education and design a real-world project at a crucial time in their lives. Afterwards, they return to school transformed and matured. It is by far one of the best parts of a GFS education.”

Although juniors work closely with faculty advisors for up to six months as they identify and shape their internships, their projects are self-directed and executed. And Junior Projects come in all shapes and sizes, from more traditional internships, such as working in a law office, architecture firm, or restaurant, to more creative endeavors—working in the documentary film division at HBO, writing a novella or screenplay, or composing a sonata

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Noah Kulak ’15 did his project with portrait artist Paul DuSold in his Mt. Airy studio (top). Imani Ross ’15 interned at VentilationX production studio, owned by GFS alumnus Alex Favin ’07 (above).

for the piano. Students have assisted in Philadelphia’s top medical labs, in some cases conducting their own research. They have pursued projects with a social justice bent, such as traveling to New Orleans to help rebuild houses for Hurricane Katrina victims or to the povertystricken countryside of the Dominican Republic to assist with community outreach. Even during the pandemic year (2020-21), juniors found ways to create meaningful experiences under less-than-ideal conditions. What all of these projects have in common is the level of commitment and devotion demonstrated by the students doing them.

“Our juniors get an entire month to cultivate a passion outside the classroom,” says Junior Project Director Andrew Westerhaus. “The variety of projects they develop on their own and then get to experience is staggering.”

While the GFS curriculum is known for experiential learning, Junior Projects take the concept a big step further by allowing students to be computer programmers, photographers, marketing trainees, marine biologists, journalists—anything they can imagine—for a month during their eleventh-grade year. And the effect that these experiences have had on GFS alumni is life-altering. In a survey conducted a decade ago, 35 percent of alumni who responded reported that they were working in careers directly related to (or heavily influenced by) what they did for their Junior Projects.

Coincidence? Hardly. Just another powerful example of how the ethos of GFS stays with graduates long after they’ve passed back through the Open Door.

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The Fight for the Felsen Cup Demystifying the more than 30-year athletic rivalry between GFS and Friends’ Central.

BY TRISTAN KIM ’13

ach year, Germantown Friends School and Friends’ Central School compete across three seasons of varsity sports, with the goal of besting one another in overall wins. The school with the most victories takes home the David M. Felsen Cup, a fitting name for a trophy awarded for fierce competition—dedicated to a man who had a powerful impact on both Friends institutions. “David was always thinking about basketball and how to make sure GFS came out on top,” wrote Carl Tannebaum, retired GFS coach and educator, in a piece for the school’s Irony of A blog in 2019. “When the team played in the Smith Gym, he often used a 1-3-1 zone that forced opponents to shoot from underneath the running track.” However, the Felsen Cup is more than a symbol of competition; it is both a grand tradition and a tribute to a legacy that began more than five decades ago.

Felsen began working at GFS in 1966 in the Classics department. In his 22-year career at the school, he not only taught Latin and Greek, but coached boys’ varsity basketball, ninth-grade baseball, and, in the late

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’70s, became the school’s dean of students. In 1971, Felsen founded and ran GFS’ Summer Basketball and Reading Clinic (now known as the Community Basketball and Enrichment Camp), which celebrated its 50th anniversary last summer (see page 15). In 1988, Felsen left GFS to become the head of school at Friends’ Central, where he remained until retiring in 2011.

Felsen’s impact on GFS can still be felt decades after his departure.

When he left for FCS, Tannenbaum, alongside longtime PE teacher and field hockey coach Pam Lutz, wanted to honor his many contributions to the school. Inspired by the Hood Trophy and the Patterson Cup, two inter-school competitions between Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges and Westtown and the George School, respectively, they pitched the idea of the David M. Felsen Cup. Both FCS and Felsen himself agreed to the idea, and a tradition was born.

Neither school would claim the first Felsen Cup, tying the score across the athletic seasons of the 1989-90 school year. The seed of rivalry had only just been planted, though. In the 32 years since, there has never been

GFS Head of School Dick Wade, Avery Williamson ’09, and Dan Feingold ’09 with the Felsen Cup in 2009; Friends Central Head of School David Felsen, left, and Wade at a lacrosse game (below).

another tie between GFS and FCS. “Felsen Cup points are an important motivator for athletes,” explains Tannenbaum. “Some years ago there was a piece in the FCS student paper bemoaning the fact that they hadn’t won the cup in quite a number of years.”

FCS certainly found their motivation, however, having retained the cup since GFS last won it in 2013-14.

The current all-time standings: GFS with 15 wins, FCS with 14, and the single tie. Unfortunately, the COVID19 pandemic interrupted the Tigers’ most recent chances to reclaim the cup. The past two years of competition only included a single season each of official games within the Friends Schools League (fall of 2019, spring of 2021). It is still being debated whether these seasons will factor into awarding the cup; the current consensus appears to be leaning toward not counting them. If last year’s spring season was considered, GFS would have reclaimed the cup.

The 2021-22 school year will hopefully see a reinstatement of the timehonored Felsen Cup tradition.

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The Heart of Campus

In 1909, a third story was added to the 1881 addition, and a two-story passageway between Main and the Primary building was built above the arcade.

The evolution of GFS’ Main Building.

BY TIMOTHY WOOD, SCHOOL ARCHIVIST

hen Germantown Friends School opened in 1845, it was in a house on Haines Street. After the Meeting decided to close it down in 1849 (because the boys often misbehaved in Meeting for Worship, among other reasons), it would be nine years before the Meeting reopened the school at the current Coulter Street location in 1858.

An existing building was converted for school use, but by 1869, GFS had grown, and a new schoolhouse was built nearby. That building still exists somewhere in the bones of what we now call Main. In practical Quaker fashion, this original building has been added to, bumped up, and refashioned as the needs of the school have changed over the decades. It still remains the centerpiece—the heart—of the campus.

Here’s a look at how the exterior of the building has evolved since its first occupancy in 1869.

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In 1915, a third floor was added to both of the Primary buildings (left), and the third-floor passageway was expanded, creating the arch we have today.

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GFS in 1920. Principal Stanley Yarnall believed that the school needed to grow in both number of students and facilities, but it took him several years to convince the School Committee and the Meeting.

Photos courtesy of the GFS Archives. Photo of the Main Building (2018) by Scott B. Foley.

This is the oldest known photo of the school, taken circa 1869.

The newly constructed school building is in the foreground.

Behind it is the original schoolhouse on the site, which continued to be used by the primary grades.

A two-story addition was added to the rear of the building in 1881, and in 1897, a new two-story building was constructed to replace the original Primary building. The two were connected by an arcade.

The last major addition to Main was built entirely during the summer of 1925, bringing new classrooms, a basement lunchroom, a new assembly room, and the now-familiar Front Hall. Smith Gym was also built that summer, making campus a busy construction site.

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How Well Do You Really Know Your School?

Fun, weird, and wacky trivia about GFS.

BY TIM WOOD, SCHOOL ARCHIVIST

Graveyards, Live and Dead

Building on Tradition The Germantown Meeting’s graveyards were here first, and the school grew around them. Generations of students Beginning in 1933, Middle have played, studied, chatted, and eaten lunch among and Upper school students built a stone building with a the headstones. forge, then learned to work with iron; it stood until it was V.I.P.s removed to make room for The COVID-19 pandemic the Cary Building in 1960. has forced most campus In 1984, former PE teacher visits to be virtual, but GFS and wrestling coach Dan has long had distinguished Schectman led his class visitors who augment the in building a log cabin on school’s program. Students campus, behind Smith Gym. have enjoyed presentaThe building tradition contions by Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Mary McLeod Bethune, Robert Coles, and tinues today at GFS with the Ryan Howard, to name a few. This is the guest book page woodshop program, the new from November 1945 when the Von Trapp Family Singers engineering lab in Wade, and the new Makerspace visited campus and performed for the students. in Sharpless.

Tales From Below Ground The Alumni Building, formerly a private club, has a bowling alley in the basement (and used to have a basketball court on the second floor). Students, faculty, and parents have all enjoyed using the alley; alas, it is no longer functioning. …and Above When Kindergarten West was built in 1935, playground space was at a premium on campus, so a new play space was erected—on the roof.

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Senior Pranks Joseph Pennell and John Cope of the class of 1876 perpetrated what was likely the first class prank when they painted a caricature of a School Committee member they disliked on the front of the Meetinghouse. In more recent years, senior pranks have been more playful in nature, such as in 1993, when seniors put a “For Sale” sign in front of Main and filled the front hall with kiddie pools, or in 1986, when the graduating class dismantled and rebuilt a car in the Front Hall.

Information Test

Snowball Licenses

Beginning in 1911, GFS students looked forward to an annual (unannounced) Information Test. The test, usually more than 100 questions, quizzed students on history, current events, literature, science, math, and pretty much anything else.

Stanley Yarnall noted that the test helped students “discover in a practical way that education and life are one and the same.” The test was administered for more than 40 years.

Generations of GFS students earned their “snowball license” in Lower School, often granted by Betty Cary.

As early as 1934, though, the Student Handbook had rules concerning “snowballing”: “[It] is prohibited to primary children and is allowed to intermediate and high school pupils only in the soccer space parallel to Mr. Burgess’s windows…” To this day, students look forward to securing their licenses from the very first snowfall.

Parking Problems Today’s staff and students know the challenges of finding a parking space in the morning, but this is nothing new.

GFSers jockeyed for parking on what is now the Commons as early as the 1920s, and in the 1950s, there was even a student-led parking committee to direct traffic and optimize parking space on campus each morning.

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I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General The GFS Gilbert & Sullivan tradition was the backbone of the theatre department.

BY KATE STOVER

rom the first production of Trial by Jury in 1932, GFS has been enamored of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operettas. The cast was directed by Margaret Eaton Shane (Class of 1918), their music teacher, and Irvin Poley (Class of 1908), who taught public speaking and was a theater maven (and later became head of the Upper School). The students practiced all winter for several performances in the spring—they even took the production on the road, performing for guests at a large Quaker rooming house in Atlantic City.

The students had so much fun that they did H.M.S. Pinafore in 1933, The Pirates of Penzance in 1934, Ruddigore in 1935, and The Mikado in 1936.

A tradition was born. By the 1940s, Gilbert & Sullivan operettas were a mainstay of the students’ social world; after the 1943 H.M.S. Pinafore production, editors of the student newspaper The Pastorian wrote that “romance fairly bloomed under the magic spell of Gilbert & Sullivan.”

Why were these operettas so popular at GFS? Lucy Bell Sellers, who taught drama at GFS for 12 years as well as directed innumerable ninthgrade G&S operettas, thinks that the key is their simplicity—and that a large number of students can be easily cast.

The bonus, she notes, was that each show has clever lyrics and lovely arias.

However, a big musical production with 80 people is not easy to pull off and needs a control team. Sellers joined forces with music teachers Al Clayton and Judy Mallery ’52. When

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one was teaching songs or stage directions to the cast, the other two worked to minimize the chaos. The end result, according to Sellers, was a production that might not be polished, but was certainly lively!

The importance of a large production, particularly for the ninth grade (when as much as a third of the class might be new students), is that everyone is involved in a unifying project, either on stage or behind-the-scenes.

Following a successful H.M.S. Pinafore, students in 1943 agreed that “stage, make-up, and scenery crews … made the operetta really a school thing, not merely a performance by those musically minded; how nice to have something in which everyone may participate!” they were quoted as saying in The Pastorian.

In 1935, after only the second Gilbert & Sullivan GFS production, students told The Pastorian: “let us hope that Gilbert and Sullivan will never die at G.F.S.” Their wish came true. Gilbert & Sullivan operettas continued to be a mainstay at GFS:

between 1980 and 2009, ninth graders performed one of the theatrical duo’s productions 11 times. And during the faculty and staff production of The Pirates of Penzance (2009), then-Head of School Dick Wade and the late Betty Cary, as Queen Victoria, brought down the house when they took the stage.

Gilbert & Sullivan operettas were the bedrock of the ninth-grade musical, laying the foundation for the rich collaboration between the music and theatre departments that continues today.

Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, 1938 (top); Dick Wade and Betty Cary stole the show in the faculty-student production of Pirates of Penzance, 2009 (middle); the class of 1991’s ninth-grade performance of The Mikado, 1988 (above).

Volume II 2021 |

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CLASS NOTES

CLASS NOTES Want to stay connected? We encourage you to visit the GFS website at germantownfriends.org/alumni to share your stories and submit Class Notes.

FOLLOW US! GFSchool

germantownfriends

Germantown Friends School

1945

MARGERY BUEHLER ENGLISH shares, “Gave up driving, which was a hard decision. A few grandchildren were in the area, but sadly have moved away. Depend on my great neighbors to drive me places. Not quite as much energy as I had 10 years ago!!”

1947

JOAN TODD ROBINETTE writes, “I am proud to have graduated from Germantown Friends, as did my mother, KATHERINE COOPER TODD ’13, and my son, EDWARD PHELPS ROBINETTE ’73. It was a wonderful school and I am glad to know it remains just as great today.”

1948

On May 19, 2019, SETH TANNENBAUM ’04 and Sidwell Friends School alumna Phoebe Jones were married at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, PA. Many of the guests in attendance were Quaker school graduates or had ties to GFS (pictured from left): Carl Tannenbaum, BEN JACKAL, GABE TORRES, JORDAN HOLTZMANCONSTON, Caroline Goodbody, Vivien Schweitzer, SETH, Phoebe, BETSY DATNER ’81, Ben Gray, Natalie Jones, HEATHER TANNENBAUM ’07, Marissa Jones, Serena Jones, MARIE BUNDY GOLSON ’77, and KATE ZIPIN ’05.

CLASS NOTES IN THE BULLETIN: It is sometimes necessary to edit notes to reduce the length so that we can accommodate as many entries as possible. We hope we have retained the essence of your news while also providing space to include messages from your classmates. Please contact us at 215-941-2340 or alumni@ germantownfriends.org if you have questions or want more information.

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JERRY MARTINDALE reports, “After a career as a mathematics professor at UMass Amherst, I have retired back to Philadelphia.

Still taking classical piano lessons and playing bridge. Had to give up tennis at 90 years old. Celebrated our granddaughter IMOGEN LAW ’21’s graduation from GFS this year. She will start at Temple this fall. NIGEL LAW ’16, our grandson, graduated from Oberlin.”

1949

NANCY MAY COPPLE shares, “Great-grandchildren frequently adding to family tree. Three great grandsons—August and September (2020), another in May (2021). One great great-grandson and one greatgranddaughter already here.”

1950

MARGARET WHITALL RHOADS writes, “Thinking about the school in these COVID times. It must be hard for everyone.”

1951

DON MALCOLM shares, “Can hardly believe it has been 70 years since graduation! Warmest best wishes to all—it was great.”

JULIANNE MCCLINTOCK writes, “GFS ‘opened the door’ to my education. At 80, having lived a full life, I value it even more.”

ERIC THOMPSON reports, “We [Class of 1959] are celebrating our 80th birthdays this year. Many of us meet monthly on Zoom to share our joys and sorrows. I am fortunate to BOB ISRAEL reports, “At 85, still have a supportive wife. Our future working full-time as a professor, plans are to move to a retirement OBGYN, Keck School of Medicine community in Vermont—near our of USC, and still remembering GFS, two sons and their families.”

Dave Mallery, and Irvin Poley, who directed me as Antony my senior year in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra!!”

BARBARA BROOMELL PARRY shares, “It was sad to not have our 60th reunion in May 2020. I hope everyone is managing during the MEREDITH MARTINDALE ongoing pandemic. Congratulations FRAPIER writes, “We are a diverse to KRISTEN WELKER ’94 for her cultural family of nine members: terrific job controlling the final USA, Great Britain, France, and presidential debate!”

Spain. Myself and husband, two daughters, and five grandsons.

KAYE BARBER VOSBURGH Family reunions particularly writes, “I’m teaching Ikebana difficult due to COVID-19.”

(Japanese flower arranging) on Zoom. It is great to visit with students and see them learning.”

1953

1960

1954

1958

LOUIS WOLF reports, “I owe so much to my 14 years at GFS! I first realized my joy of learning in my historical geology seventh-grade class with Howard Platt, and then in my English class with David Mallery. Later I became conscious about civil and human rights with Ed Gordon and Henry Scattergood.

GFS set me on my life’s path as a journalist to investigate the crimes and human costs of CIA operations across the globe.”

1959

IN M E MO R I AM

1944

JAMES G. CARSON March 21, 2021 HARRIETTE MCLEAN KIRK December 22, 2020 PAUL E. MACHT January 7, 2021

1946

KATHARINE SUTRO DOUGHERTY June 2, 2021

1947

VIRGINIA MAUGER BROWN January 11, 2021 WILLIAM D. WIXOM November 26, 2020

1948

WALTER L. RUBEL March 26, 2021

1961

RICHARD LUTMAN shares, “My collection of short stories Creek Bait was one of five finalists in the 2020 American Book Fest: Best Books.”

1963

NANCY OMAN HUSS writes, “I am at Meadowood Senior Living and ELLIE SCATTERGOOD LASH enjoying life. I [turned] 80 in June, reports, “I love getting GFS news enjoyed lunch with my classmates.” and am so happy to read about the many ways in which this CYNTHIA BOUNDS LUCAS remarkable school has managed to shares, “Sheltering in place and teach, grow, and learn throughout not sick yet. Grateful for our view the pandemic—it is a tribute to good of Ballyhac Cove to the Gulf of leadership, Quaker values, and to Maine, and for our unpaved lanes [the] vibrant spirit of all who lead, to walk on.” teach, and learn at GFS.”

1949

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS September 24, 2020 HENRIETTA HEALY MARTINDALE February 25, 2021

1950

MARIANNE "NANCY" SHIPLEY RHOADS August 3, 2021

1951

D. MUNN STEELMAN September 8, 2020 Volume II 2021 |

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CLASS NOTES

IN M EMO R I AM

1964

AMY COHN shares, “I have tracked down some classmates for Zoom calls. If others want to join, please track me down!”

1952

JANET KAHLENBERG BRACE March 5, 2021 ALICE STEELE SEMKE December 25, 2020

1954

DAVID W. CARNWATH January 11, 2021 ELIZABETH MARVIN CECIL December 4, 2020

1958

MARTHA S. EBERBACH April 20, 2021

1959

BARBARA MEYER ROBINSON February 3, 2021 RICHARD H. TABER May 24, 2021

1960

RICHARD M. SLOANE March 6, 2021

1966

THOMAS B. SCATTERGOOD March 6, 2021

BEN CUSHMAN writes, “Having spent the pandemic year+ hunkered down in Sonoma, I’m starting to return part-time to Manhattan and other travels. Zoom has been a lifesaver, but not equal to in-person time with friends and the organizations where I WENDY WEINTRAUB LEVIN volunteer, which include the School writes, “I am a very happy mother Committee at GFS. I’ve been very and grandmother. I stopped working full time in February 2020.” lucky amidst so much loss and suffering, and continue to find reasons for hope and optimism despite my alarm over the outlook for our social, economic, political CARLA CHILDS writes, “I am and environmental futures.” enjoying cutting back on my obligations and taking time to relax DAVID LODER reports, “Have with family and friends. Our two enjoyed staying in close contact granddaughters light up our lives. with SALLY WILLIAMS, JOHN I also am happy to be connecting STINE, JENNY BINZEN with GFS Middle Schoolers through CARDOSO, CLAIRE EDWARDS the theatre department.”

KEARNEY, DAVID WEISS ’71, and others as I work to get on the other side of my Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis.”

BETSY POST FALCONI shares, “I am happy to start reconnecting with the outside world after a year of hibernation. We were kept very busy BRUCE YAGER shares, “I have for four months in 2020 when our enjoyed pandemic days filled younger daughter and family moved with gardening, grandsons in from Decatur, GA. They needed Caspian and James, my own child care so they could teach online. children and our chickens! I have Glad we had the time together! recently reconnected with GFS Aside from that, we hunkered down friends—THADDEUS GOVAN and waited to get vaccinated—relief! and MARGO LUKENS—and look Now my oldest granddaughter is forward to talking to more.” looking at colleges—yikes!”

1965

1966

1968

1973

1971

SARAH GEROULD reports, “I co-chair Trees Medford, support the arts, paint in oils, garden, renovate old houses, kayak, garden, hike, ski...”

SABINA HOWELL writes, “I have been auditing classes at the University of Washington [and] performing in a community choir.

We just moved to our forever home in Edmonds, WA.”

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1972

LESTER MAYER reports, “Life slowed down this year. I am thankful for a lifetime of friends and the Internet. Still looking for that app that gives good hugs.”

1976

PETER EVANS writes, “Despite COVID, I’ve managed to travel Route 1 in support of a photography, songwriting, and storytelling project I started in 2018, “Route 1 Views.” My latest trip was with brother WALLY EVANS ’66 to Pinehurst, NC.” MICHAEL KLEINER is Business and Sports Editor of the twice-amonth print and online newspaper, The Norwegian American, the oldest and only Norwegian newspaper in the United States (since 1889), based in Seattle.

1977 ELLEN BARISH shares, “I just published my second book, [the] memoir Seven Springs, in which a good bit of the action takes place at two GFS reunions!

Perhaps this is of interest to other GFS alums? Feel free to email me at Blum.enteract@rcn.com for more info!”

GRAHAM ROBB reports, “While I no longer work full-time as a lawyer, I keep busy officiating high school and club soccer, basketball, and fast-pitch softball games, working as a tour guide for Philly Bike Tours, and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and other groups.”

1979

NADYA ZUBAR DAY writes, “Frank and I just bought a sweet little house in Chestnut Hill near the Tedyuscung statue and several GFS families’ homes. Feels great!”

1982

ROB WICKMAN shares, “In May of 2020, I graduated from USC’s Marshall School of Business with a Master of Management in Library and Information Science (MMLIS).

In August [of that year], I was named director of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law Library.”

1987

and received 35 autographed copies of his book, which I delivered to a commander at Edison-Fareira HS in North Philadelphia shortly before Veterans Day.”

1989

JENNIFER CULBERT writes, “After seven years teaching Pre-K, I have now spent more than a decade teaching Kindergarten. Learning to read was challenging for me, so I am thrilled that I can help instill a love of literature [in] beginning readers!”

1993

LISA HOLLETT reports, “I just bought my first house, which, given that we’re now staying home all the time, has been a great change of scenery and has provided lots of little projects to keep me busy when the Zoom calls and grammatical edits get to be too much.”

1995

JULIA LANE MOELLER shares that she opened a veterinary practice in Plymouth Meeting, PA, in November of 2020. “Running The Village Vets is a lot of work, but is very rewarding ... I live in Lafayette Hill, PA, with my husband of 12 years, Tim, and two kids, Zachary (10) and Jade (7). We have two dogs, Maximus and Smushie, two leopard geckos, Hamilton and Rudolph, and two hermit crabs, Hulk and Froggie.”

2003

HANNAH EWING writes, “In SYDNEY COFFIN reports, “I took 2020, I earned tenure at Rollins a much-needed sabbatical after two College in Florida, where I teach ancient and medieval history decades teaching in Philadelphia public schools, and studied creative (and sometimes moonlight as writing in Paris, where I visited with a classicist, teaching Ancient Greek!).” classmate JOANNA KUO, and also got a few phone calls around 3:45 a.m. from PETE SAND, whose father had written a book devoted to the 64 students/alumni from my LAURA ZIPIN had her first school who were killed during the crossword puzzle published in the Vietnam conflict. Upon my return, I Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston was pleased to meet with Mr. Sand Globe, and other papers.

IN M E MO R I AM

1969

DAVID H. KING June 26, 2021

1973

L. BRANDON KRALL June 28, 2021

1985

BETH BIRD March 28, 2021

2004

LEE FOREST BLACK February 14, 2021

2006

DANA E. KAPLAN-ANGLE April 23, 2021

FORMER FACULTY JOHN EMERSON January 20, 2021 PETER LAI October 1, 2021 EDWARD SIMON January 17, 2021 BABO STERN July 31, 2021 KEAY WAGNER June 16, 2021

2007

Volume II 2021 |

51

Q&A

Kristen Welker ’94: The Debate of a Lifetime The third presidential debate held on October 22, 2020, was won not by thenPresident Donald Trump nor by current President Joe Biden, but by NBC Chief White House Correspondent Kristen Welker ’94. Welker was asked to moderate the final debate between the two presidential candidates, and, according to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, she was “the clear winner” and was “owed congratulations by the country.” On March 23, 2021, English teacher Anne Gerbner, who retired in June, interviewed Welker over Zoom in front of an audience of more than 1,000 as part of the school’s 175-anniversary celebration. What follows are excerpts from that interview, where Gerbner and Welker discussed the current state of journalism, Welker’s GFS roots, and the debate that changed everything. —Tristan Kim ’13

could do a better job in general of supporting young women and women of color, not just journalists but in every walk of life, as they are entering the workforce. My big concern is that I think that we just don’t have the support systems in place, and we let people fall through the cracks.

HOW DID YOU PREP FOR THE DEBATE?

When I was in college, everyone said, “It’s a dying field, you’re never going to have a career.” I am in the camp of being an eternal optimist about journalism ... I think it’s about pursuing your passion, sticking with it, and I think that’s how it becomes sustainable. I don’t think it’s dying; I think it’s evolving.

What I wanted to do with the debate was ask questions on behalf of the American people. I reached [out to] people from all across the country— democrats, republicans, independents, undecided voters—and asked them what they wanted from the debate. What were the questions that were at the top of their minds?

And that’s really what guided me.

DID YOU HAVE NIGHTMARES HAVING SEEN THE FIRST DEBATE?

Even before the first debate, when I first got the assignment … I had trouble sleeping. I realized I had to address that, and part of addressing that was getting an incredible [NBC] team together … I also started meditating. I think one of the great gifts of Meeting for Worship is the ability to center yourself, to quiet yourself, to think about the bigger picture, the bigger moment, the bigger presence in your life, and what are the important things. That was a gift that I took with me onto the debate stage.

WHAT IS YOUR BEST ADVICE FOR DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE IN LESS-THAN-IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES?

WHAT ARE WAYS THAT YOUNG JOURNALISTS CAN GO INTO JOURNALISM AS A SUSTAINABLE CAREER?

IS THERE ANYTHING SPECIFIC THAT SHAPED YOU AS A JOURNALIST AT GFS?

I do have to say [Anne’s] English class.

I would turn in these papers that were way too long, and we would try to edit them down, and that’s much like my daily process of writing scripts. I turn them into my editors and they say, “Okay, we have to cut this in half.”

Being able to be on the debate team was one of the most incredible parts of my education … that’s so much of what we do here in the White House and that’s so much of what you do as a journalist: get to the bottom of an argument.

I think it’s a very good question, particularly for students who are going to be going off to college and going out into the workforce; there are always going to be difficult people … At GFS, we had the most wonderful debates and discus- WHAT IS ONE THING YOU MISS ABOUT sions … I learned how to listen and how PHILADELPHIA? to appreciate different perspectives and Philadelphia is home, and there really different points of view. I think that’s is no place like home. one of the best ways you can deal with someone who might seem difficult, to WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST ACCOMrespect them enough to listen to and PLISHMENT SO FAR? try to understand what they’re saying. The debate. That’s for sure.

ARE THERE ANY PARTICULAR ISSUES OR CHALLENGES THAT WOMEN JOURNALISTS, ESPECIALLY WOMEN OF COLOR, ARE FACING?

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WHAT IS YOUR LIFE ADVICE FOR US?

Don’t be afraid to pursue your passion and face your fears. If you are doing something that makes you a little I think there’s always a sense that nervous, it just means that you care there could be more women of color about it, that it’s something you really who are journalists. I think that we want to do.

GFS

G E R MA N TOW N FRIENDS SCHOOL

31 West Coulter Street Philadelphia, PA 19144 TEL: 215.951.2300 www.germantownfriends.org