Fall 2019 Brooks Bulletin

Setting a Course at Brooks

A view of the Brooks campus at night.

B OARD OF TR USTEES President Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17, P’21 Andover, Mass.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 New York, N.Y.

Daniel J. Riccio P’17, P’20 Los Gatos, Calif.

Nancy C. Ferry P’21 West Newton, Mass.

Belisario A. Rosas P’15, P’21 Andover, Mass.

Vice Presidents John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 Wellesley, Mass.

Jonathan F. Gibbons ’92 Needham, Mass.

Juliane Gardner Spencer ’93 New York, N.Y.

Shawn Gorman ’84 Falmouth, Maine

Ramakrishna R. Sudireddy P’15 Andover, Mass.

Whitney Romoser Savignano ’87 Manchester, Mass.

Secretary Craig J. Ziady ’85, P’18, P’20, P’22 Winchester, Mass.

Treasurer Valentine Hollingsworth III ’72, P’17 Dover, Mass.

TR USTEES Cristina E. Antelo ’95 Washington, D.C. Peter J. Caldwell Morristown, N.J. W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y. Peter V. K. Doyle ’69 Sherborn, Mass.

Cheryl M. Duckworth P’22, P’23 Lynnfield, Mass.

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Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y. Booth D. Kyle ’89 Severna Park, Md. Zachary S. Martin P’15, P’17 Wellesley, Mass.

Brian McCabe P’18 Meredith, N.H. John R. Packard Jr. P ’18, P’21 Head of School North Andover, Mass.

Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 Chadds Ford, Pa. Alessandro F. Uzielli ’85 Beverly Hills, Calif.

Meredith M. Verdone ’81, P’19 Newton Center, Mass.

A LUMNI T R UST E E William E. Collier ’11 Chapel Hill, N.C.

H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C. Michael B. Keating ’58, P’97 Boston, Mass.

Frank A. Kissel ’69, P’96, P’99 Far Hills, N.J. Peter A. Nadosy ’64 New York, N.Y. Peter W. Nash ’51, P’81, P’89 Nantucket, Mass.

Cera B. Robbins P’85, P’90 New York, N.Y. Eleanor R. Seaman P’86, P’88, P’91, GP’18 Hobe Sound, Fla. David R. Williams III ’67 Beverly Farms, Mass.

T R UST E E S E ME R IT I William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Henry M. Buhl ’48 New York, N.Y. Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J. James G. Hellmuth P’78 Lawrence, N.Y.

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B CONTENTS BU LLE TI N • FA LL 2 0 1 9

Head of School John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21

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Director of Institutional Advancement Gage S. Dobbins P’22, P’23 Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs Nicole Mallen Jackson ’95 Associate Director of Alumni Relations Carly Churchill ’10

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Director of Admission and Financial Aid Bini W. Egertson P’12, P’15

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Director of Communications and Marketing Dan Callahan P’19, P’20, P’23 Director of Publications Rebecca A. Binder Design Aldeia www.aldeia.design

FEAT UR ES

D E PA RTM E N TS

Alumni Communications Manager Emily Williams

20 40 Years Later

02 M essage from the Head of School

Assistant Director of Communications Jennifer O’Neill

Four decades have passed since the first female students arrived at Brooks. The Bulletin spoke with some of them as they reflected on their time at the school.

03 News + Notes 43 Brooks Connections

Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Opinions expressed in the Bulletin are those of the authors and not necessarily of Brooks School.

Correspondence concerning the Bulletin should be sent to Editor Rebecca A. Binder: mail Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845 email rbinder@brooksschool.org phone (978) 725-6326 © 2019 Brooks School

28 The Language of Architecture

Charles Jencks ’57 believed in architecture as a way to do good: He defined and advocated for the rise of the Postmodern movement, designed landscapes that sought answers to life’s largest questions, and facilitated a series of non-clinical cancer care centers meant to provide beauty, comfort and warmth in challenging times. Following his death, the Bulletin celebrates his accomplishments.

36 Join the Club

Student clubs provide Brooks students with an outlet to explore their passions, their hobbies and their community. The Bulletin meets the heads of several campus clubs to learn about how their involvement in their clubs enhances their time on campus.

50 Class Notes

ON THE COVER: Members of the school’s Outdoors Club set off for an afternoon of sailing on Lake Cochichewick in fall 2019.

A MESSAGE FROM JOHN R. PACKARD JR. HEAD OF SCHOOL

Beyond the Classroom

“W hen I think about what makes a teacher great, I am drawn to much more than what they realize with students in a classroom over four meeting periods per week.”

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In our final Chapel prior to departing for Thanksgiving Break, I enjoyed the privilege of presenting the Richard F. Holmes Chair to Spanish teacher Lillian Miller.

By any measure, Señora Miller has been and continues to be a profoundly important person in the lives of her students, advisees and all who are fortunate enough to cross her path. The eruption heard well beyond the walls of Ashburn Chapel when I called her name was all the evidence one would need to appreciate the exalted stature she has earned over her 14 years on the faculty.

As I prepared remarks to share with the school for this occasion, I was drawn to thinking out loud about what constitutes great teaching at Brooks. I noted my hesitation to proclaim myself any kind of authority on the subject, but I have been immersed in what I referred to in my remarks as a “sea of extraordinary teachers” over my 30 years here. When I think about what makes a teacher great, I am drawn to much more than what they realize with students in a classroom over four meeting periods per week. The richness of a Brooks education, and the fulfillment our faculty find in their work, comes at least as much from the teaching and learning opportunities that exist beyond the rooms in our academic buildings.

These opportunities come for the many of us who coach teams at all kinds of levels throughout the year. We find them when we direct plays and work with choral and instrumental groups in the arts. They are abundant for all of us who live and work with students in our dormitories — their homes away from home. Advisors serve as critically important mentors in the lives of advisees who turn to them routinely for support and counsel as they navigate

adolescence. In sum, I would argue that great teaching occurs all over our campus, in ways we design and in ways we discover as we go. All of this works because the faculty’s inclination is to opt in to the school’s life and make ourselves available for the scores of unscripted moments that make a school year whole.

We pursue a mission seeking to provide the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives.

In no uncertain terms, we move in this direction by virtue of experiences had in academic classes taught by teachers like Lillian Miller. Yet, we also move in this direction because teachers like Lillian Miller serve as faculty advisors to groups like Alianza Latina, where she works to support and foster belonging for our Latinx and Hispanic students. In many ways, it is these communities within the community that have much to do with our realizing the school’s mission; much to do with providing a deeply meaningful educational experience.

In this edition of the Bulletin, you will have an opportunity to learn more about student clubs and the many opportunities students have on and off campus to explore passions and interests in ways that add breadth and depth to their experience at Brooks. In all cases, these clubs and opportunities are cared for and furthered by passionate teachers and students who find common denominators in their lives that draw them to one another beyond the classroom in wonderful ways.

To see it happen so routinely on our campus is deeply gratifying. How fortunate all of us are to be part of such a school.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and beginning to the New Year.

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N E WS + N OT ES World languages faculty Lillian Miller P’14, P’17, P’20 was named the Richard F. Holmes Chair in Chapel on November 21, 2019. The Holmes chair, previously held by faculty emeritus Dusty Richard, is one of six endowed faculty chairs at Brooks. Miller, who joined the Brooks faculty in 2006, “is fair and kind and completely devoted to ensuring this community continually expands to reach the full breadth of all who are members of it,” Head of School John Packard said when presenting Miller with the honor. “She is an inspiration in this regard and walks the walk every single day she is here. She is exuberant and joyful and generous beyond measure. The learning and growth of her students is a passion she wears fully and completely on her sleeve. Her students love her and admire her and care about her because she has earned that love, admiration and care by sharing the same with all of her students; by respecting them in ways they deserve; by believing in them in ways they know and feel.”

NEWS + NOTES IN THIS SECTION 04 News from Campus 10 Campus Scene 16 Athlete Spotlight 18 Athletics News

NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO M C A M P US

A Campus Conversation Brooks took steps to make discussing mental health and wellness, and the needs of our community, easier. Events included a Chapel speaker, an effort from 1st team captains and a Family Weekend event.

This fall, Director of Student Wellness Steph Holmes spearheaded an initiative at Brooks to lessen the stigma surrounding issues of mental health and wellness. Adolescence, Holmes explains, is a crucial time period for developing and maintaining social and emotional habits for well-being. Teenagers need to know how and when to reach out for help. Brooks, she continues, takes

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pride in being a community made up of people who take great care of one another. The school wants to alleviate the shame associated with giving voice to struggle, and wants to transform the act of reaching out for help into a signal of strength.

The “Stick It To Stigma” initiative is ongoing, but three specific on-campus events this fall helped introduce it to the Brooks community. First, the fall 1st team

captains hosted Kate Haslett ’13, a former captain of the women’s ice hockey team at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), at a seated dinner. Second, Chapel guest John Broderick told a rapt congregation about his family’s own battle with mental health and wellness.

Third, a Family Weekend event allowed the larger Brooks community to show its support for issues of mental health and wellness

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and its intention to continue the conversation.

A Captains’ Meeting Stick It To Stigma had its first event at a seated dinner in late September, when Haslett met with a group of fall 1st team captains.

They discussed leadership and the potential team captains have to leverage their position as role models to have a positive impact across school life and the broader Brooks community. Haslett was a threesport 1st team captain at Brooks; she went on to captain the women’s ice hockey team at UNH and is currently pursuing her doctorate in engineering while also serving as an assistant coach for the UNH program. While a player at UNH, Haslett spearheaded a successful Stick It To Stigma campaign.

Student-athletes face unique stressors related to mental health, Holmes explains. In addition to the time commitment and the pressures to perform, athletes have thrived in hypercompetitive atmospheres. When athletes are able to consider the idea that not everyone struggling is weak, she continues, they are often liberated from the destructive self-talk that prevents them from reaching out for help, whether it be for themselves or for a teammate.

A Chapel Talk The entire student and faculty body had an opportunity to hear from a resonant Chapel speaker on the topic of mental health and wellness on the Monday preceding Family Weekend at Brooks. John Broderick is the senior director of external affairs for DartmouthHitchcock Health, a health system that serves close to two million people across northern New England.

Broderick’s mission is to end the stigma around mental illness that prevents conversations on the

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topic. For Broderick, this mission is personal: He is a former New Hampshire Supreme Court justice who struggled to recognize the increasing signs of mental illness in his teenage son.

Broderick told his family’s story to the Chapel audience with inspiring and, at times, heartbreaking honesty. Broderick’s son spiraled deeper into mental illness and alcoholism; his cycle ended when he ultimately assaulted Broderick in 2002, resulting in a prison sentence. While Broderick’s son was in prison, doctors realized the extent of his clinical depression and offered him services and medication.

Broderick’s son has been released from prison and has been sober for 15 years, and Broderick revealed that he couldn’t be more proud of him. “He’s not a bad person who’s suddenly a good person,” Broderick told students. “He’s always been a good person. He's now well — and those are very different things. I know that now.”

Broderick speaks about his family’s story to help break the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Ultimately, he said following Chapel, he wants Brooksians to know that “it is okay not to be okay.

It’s just not okay to pretend — and I want students who are suffering to feel free to say, ‘I need help.’” At Brooks, students had a chance to preview and continue the themes raised by Broderick’s speech in their Self in Community classes.

A Community Event Family Weekend brought a third Stick It To Stigma event to campus.

Lime green is the color of mental health awareness; over the course of the weekend, all Brooks athletes playing in games were invited to wear lime green tape, ribbons and pre-wrap with their uniforms as a show of support for the initiative.

Left: Lime green rubber wristbands sporting the hashtags “#StickItToStigma” and “#GoBrooks” were available for fans at the 1st field hockey game over Family Weekend. Above: John Broderick, a former justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, spoke about his family’s battle with mental illness in Chapel on October 14.

The 1st field hockey team’s Friday night game under the lights against Phillips Exeter Academy was the top-billed event for Stick It To Stigma. Brooks provided fans with lime green rubber bracelets, lime green rally towels, stickers and cards with information on how to recognize and help someone who is struggling with mental wellness.

“The game felt uplifting,” Holmes reflects. “The community rallied together to make a public display of support, especially for those who might be struggling in private spaces.”

“I felt encouraged by the community buy-in around this initiative, and I hope that Brooksians feel their school is behind them,” Holmes finishes. “Community members — from student groups, alumni, teaching faculty, the athletics department, the advancement office, the communications department, the IT department and the student affairs team — came together to contribute in different ways.”

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NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO M C A M P US

A NEW ALUMNI TRUSTEE William E. Collier ’11 joins the Brooks board of trustees as the school’s newest alumni trustee. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Collier recently left his position as senior legislative assistant to Iowa Congressman Dave Loebsack to pursue his M.B.A. at the University of North Carolina (UNC). While working on Capitol Hill, Collier managed a broad policy portfolio for an active member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

At UNC, Collier plans to concentrate on marketing, work with various on-campus organizations, and explore potential career paths in marketing, brand strategy and business development.

For the last three years, Collier has been an active member of the alumni board. At Brooks, Collier played on the 1st baseball and boys 2nd soccer teams, and was a dorm prefect in Peabody House. Also, Collier was active in advancing various sustainability initiatives on campus, including the installation of energy consumption tracking in the dorms and subsequent energy use competitions that led to Brooks receiving an EPA Environmental Merit Award in 2010 for its exceptional work and commitment to the environment.

SEMIFINAL SATURDAY Brooksians showed up in force on Saturday, November 16, when two of the school’s teams — 1st field hockey and boys 1st soccer — each played on the road in the semifinals of the New England Championship tournament. More than 140 Brooksians piled onto busses to travel first to The Rivers School to support the field hockey team, and then to Noble and Greenough School to cheer on the boys soccer team.

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A group of Brooks students attended the Global Youth Climate Strike in Boston on September 20, 2019. Top row, from left to right: Emma Tiedelmann ’23, Saunders Haley ’22, Anna Weed ’22, Samantha Cahill ’22. Bottom row, from left to right: Emma Houlihan ’21, Naomi Wellso ’22, Elizabeth Packard ’21, Ella Dooling ’22.

Climate Strike Brooksians join a global event.

A group of Brooks students, including leaders of the school’s environmental club, “No Planet B Initiative,” joined thousands of area students in Boston for the Global Youth Climate Strike on September 20, 2019. The worldwide event demanded radical, immediate action from governments and political leaders as the world continues to confront climate change. Protests were planned in more than 4,500 locations in more than 150 countries. Organizers of the global event claim that more than four million people gathered in strike worldwide, many of them students. The Boston event included a rally with speakers and a march to the Massachusetts State House.

“Overall, it was an incredible experience,” reflects club head Emma Houlihan ’21. “This was my first time going to any type of protest, and it was really impactful to be surrounded by thousands of people with one common goal. We had the chance to hear some really passionate speeches and to talk to other students who attended the strike. The Brooks community and teachers were supportive in our decision not to attend classes that day, and I am very thankful for the help from faculty members like Mr. Waters and Mr. Federico that made it possible for us to go!”

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A promotional image from “Twelfth Night.”

Emily Choe ’20, portrayed here, played the role of Olivia.

Twelfth Night Brooksians staged a Shakespearean comedy in the Center for the Arts.

Brooks enjoyed a three-night run of “Twelfth Night,” a romantic comedy penned by William Shakespeare, in early November. The production was staged on the main stage of the Center for the Arts, and the cast and crew took advantage of the new facility’s amenities, including backstage space and a stage that allowed the actors to interpret the Shakespearean play in a new light.

Director of Theater Meghan Hill says she chose a 1920s setting because of its interesting visual and musical vibes. She says the show went well. “Having 10 students who were really interested in the process and the characters and each other was wonderful,” she says.

The plot of “Twelfth Night” follows a nobleman, Orsino, who pines for the love of Lady Olivia, who is in mourning and cannot accept a marriage proposal. Meanwhile, a woman named Viola disguises herself as a man named Cesario to work in Orsino’s home, and quickly begins to fall in love with Orsino. And, when Orsino sends Cesario to deliver messages of his love to Olivia, Olivia finds herself falling in love with Cesario, completing the love triangle. While this is sorted out, the play also introduces a bevy of comedic characters, supporting plots and even a twin brother originally thought dead in a shipwreck.

Hill says that her students showed enthusiasm from day one. “I didn’t need to talk anybody into anything,” she continues.

“They were very much willing to be present and contribute and be there for the process.”

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NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO M C A M P US

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Tell me about how your interest in technology began. I saw on the news that researchers were using robots to go into the remains of the power plant. They used robots to search for, and eventually find, the uranium that had escaped the plant’s reactors. They said that it was important for the robots to be able to do the same things that a human arm can do. I was trying to help in that process, so I made a mechanical arm. The arm simultaneously imitates human movements. If I move my arm, the robotic arm moves with my arm.

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Did you teach yourself how to make the robotic arm? I received some professional help with certain tasks, like adjusting gyroscopes and some programming, but I designed the arm and did most of the programming myself. I haven’t received any formal courses until this year at Brooks. Until now, I’ve been self-taught: I read a lot of books, and videos on YouTube have also been really helpful, especially when I was building my drone. There are a lot of great YouTubers who share their experience.

Fast 5 // Q+A When, as a seventh-grader, fifth-former Mario Yang watched scientists explore the remains of the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, he saw the ways in which technology can help people. Since then, he’s continued teaching himself how to build and program technology. The Bulletin sat down with Yang to hear about his current projects.

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Tell me more about the drone you built. The drone I built was originally intended to be a race drone. I designed it to move quickly: Its velocity can reach 90 m.p.h. Last year, I ran cross-country in the fall. [Former cross-country coach Ryan] Dobbins wanted me to shoot an aerial video of our cross-country course that we could send to other schools to help them learn the course.

I also shot a video of Ms. Perkins’s house — it was a welcome video for her holiday guests.

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What other projects are you working on? I’ve also made a scanner that turns a piece of artwork into music. It’s a physical scanner that has a data sensor on it that scans the entire picture. It turns

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the picture into pixels and analyzes the pixels’ RGB values to turn the pixels into sounds. I’ve gradually started to learn more about deep learning and artificial intelligence. I’ve tried to analyze the tone of each part of the picture and interpret the feeling, the color that represents, and correlate that to chords. It’s really complicated to turn something objective — values of color — into emotion, into music.

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How has your coursework at Brooks helped you? I’m taking AP Computer Science. I’m going to use that time to find a project to start or improve on. I’d like to go into engineering. Maybe not hard-core robotics, but I’d like to get into the application of engineering in ways that help people’s lives become better.

A CHANCE MEETING When Ted Price ’60 invited Aly Abou Eleinen ’18 to play in the 49th annual Price-Bullington Invitational Squash Tournament, Price had no idea that he had a connection with the current No. 2 player for the University of Pennsylvania.

“I did not know that Aly had graduated from Brooks, but only that he was one of the top players on the college scene,” Price shares. “It was only when I was reading his CV that I realized that not only had he been a star at Brooks in many ways, but that he was also the first Brooks player ever to grace the courts of the Price-Bullington tournament!”

Price calls the meeting “the wonderful coincidence of two Brooksians who had never met but enjoyed doing so, despite a difference in graduating classes of some nearly 60 years.”

The Price-Bullington Invitational Squash Tournament is one of the longest-running events in the country. The organizers schedule a weekend at the start of the collegiate squash season, inviting as many of the top 16 collegiate players as possible to Richmond, Va., for the tournament. Price was instrumental in founding the tournament and has been dedicated to its success over the years.

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All-Community Read This year’s All-Community Read invites the Brooks community to ponder the history of the marathon, a battle for democracy and one family’s story of immigration.

This year’s All-Community Read is “The Road to Sparta” by ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes. “The Road to Sparta” follows Karnazes’s journey as he recreates the 153-mile run from Athens, Greece, to Sparta that inspired the modern marathon and saved democracy. The book was chosen by the world languages department.

In 490 B.C., Pheidippides, an Athenian courier, ran for 36 hours straight from Athens to Sparta to request help in defending Marathon, Greece, from a Persian invasion in the Battle of Marathon. (Legend has it that Pheidippides then ran back to Athens, and then ran an additional 25 miles to the battlefield in Marathon to observe the Greek victory, before finally running back to Athens to announce the victory; he collapsed and died shortly after completing his journey.) In successfully requesting help for the battle, Pheidippides saved the development of Western civilization and inspired the birth of the marathon as we know it.

Karnazes honors Pheidippides and his own Greek heritage by recreating the first leg of this intrepid journey. Karnazes, who has made his name as an ultramarathoner (his many accomplishments include running 50 marathons in 50 days — one in each American state — and running 350 miles in 80 hours and 44 minutes), chose to forgo modern endurance nutrition and rely solely on foods available in 490 B.C., including figs, olives and cured meats.

“The Road to Sparta” allows the reader to glimpse the mindset and motivation of an extreme athlete. Chair of the World Languages Department Peter Neissa calls the choice a “win-win.” First, he is confident that the book will inspire members of the Brooks community. “We wanted to get a book that would be accessible and intriguing to students,” he says. “The idea of running 153 miles non-stop in fewer than 30 hours is simply mind-blowing, but to recreate the run that Pheidippides made famous in order to save democracy was even more intriguing.”

Second, Neissa continues, the book brings forth other themes that he hopes will resonate with the Brooks community. “What we see in the book is that, as Karnazes runs through these 153 miles, he ruminates on how his family emigrated from Greece to America and what that means to him,” Neissa says.

“Running beside some of the buildings that formed the foundation for democracy was also not lost to us in these times. The fact that the language was ancient Greek and Latin was a bonus also, as they are the basis for most romance languages.”

Brooks students and faculty will read “The Road to Sparta” over Winter Term, and will integrate the book into their subsequent curriculum and programming. Parents and alumni, as well as staff and other members of the Brooks community, are invited to read along!

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NEWS + NOTE S

C M P US S CEN EM P US NA EWS FRO M CA

Brooksians head to Chapel on a fall morning.

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NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO M C A M P US

New Faculty Faces Brooks welcomed seven new members of the faculty this summer. The group is formidable, and includes experienced veteran teachers, enthusiastic new teachers, a new department chair and educators who will make their mark on areas of campus ranging from the crew program to the main stage in the Center for the Arts. and high quality productions.

When she's not in the theater, Hill enjoys spending time with her family, giving new life to old furniture and learning about holistic healing modalities.

The school’s crop of new faculty during new faculty orientation in August. From left to right: Logan Jester, Meghan Hill, Susannah Donoho, Babette Wheelden, Jessica Schenkel, Kimberley McDowell, Peter Federico.

Susannah Donoho, English, came to Brooks after a year working at Brewster Academy as an English teacher and the director of rowing. She got her start in teaching as an upper school teaching apprentice at Berwick Academy, during which time she received her master’s in education at Lesley University. Donoho attended Colby College, majoring in sociology with a minor in creative writing. At Colby, she served as a coxswain on the women’s and men’s crew teams. She was named to the All-America team her senior year. A New Jersey and Delaware native, Donoho attended boarding school herself at St. Andrew’s School, and now she can’t imagine herself living anywhere but a boarding school campus. In her free time, she likes to read, play guitar and spend time on the water. Donoho lives on campus in Merriman Dormitory.

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Peter Federico, Arts and Science, holds a bachelor’s in biology with a concentration in field studies: natural sciences from Bates College, where he also completed coursework focused on filmmaking. He traveled to South Africa in 2018 to study ecology and conservation and is excited to infuse the classroom experience with knowledge garnered from his travels. Federico previously worked at Phillips Exeter Academy and taught a new class about biomimicry and how to build a bioplastic from scratch. As a native New Englander, Federico enjoys hiking, alpine skiing and getting out into nature. He looks forward to developing interdisciplinary studies between the sciences and the studio arts.

He lives on campus in Blake House.

Meghan Hill, Director of Theater, grew up training horses on a farm in southern

Mississippi before graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in theatre studies and dance from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. At Wheaton, Hill was recognized for excellence in acting and received a Fulbright Scholarship. Hill also received a certificate in performance studies and movement from the Moscow Art Theatre School in Moscow.

As a freelance director, actress and coach, Hill spent several years teaching communication and performance skills to young artists across America.

She then traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, for five summers, where she created and managed the performance arts portion of the Robert College Summer Program. Prior to joining Brooks, Hill served as the producing artistic director of Watertown Children's Theatre and the Mosesian Center for the Arts youth programs, where she developed educational theater programming

Originally from Tallahassee, Fla., Logan Jester, Mathematics, attended Williams College, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics. After graduating, he completed the Institute for Rowing Leadership at Community Rowing, Inc.’s one-year intensive rowing coaching education program.

Wanting to extend his passion for working with young people to the classroom, Jester then enrolled in the fellow program at Phillips Andover Academy and spent two years at the school before coming to Brooks. Jester lives on campus in the farmhouse with his wife, Kelsey.

Kimberley McDowell, Mathematics, joined the Brooks community as a mathematics teacher. Formerly of Vermont, where the Boston College and Columbia University graduate was an adjunct professor at University of Vermont, Saint Michael’s College and Champlain College, McDowell taught at South Burlington High School for 19 years. Most recently, she taught at The Hotchkiss School for a year and at Salisbury School for three years as math department chair. A mother of three, she and her husband, Mark, reside on campus in Hettinger West with their daughter, Molly ’23, and the family’s dog, Lucy.

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Jessica Schenkel, Mathematics, comes to Brooks from Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, S.C.. For nine years at Porter-Gaud, Schenkel taught a variety of math courses including Algebra I, Algebra II, Honors Algebra II/Trigonometry, Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry, and AP Calculus BC. As chair of the mathematics department at Porter-Gaud for the last three years, Schenkel oversaw the development and implementation of the school’s math curriculum. Schenkel earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the College of Charleston, where she grew up. On campus, she is a dorm parent in Hettinger East, and she enjoys being active and going on outdoor adventures with her husband and two young children.

Babette “Babs” Wheelden, Chair of the Arts Department, Director of the Robert Lehman Art Center, is a native of Wayzata, Minn. Wheelden has taught in independent schools on the East Coast for more than 25 years. Prior to arriving on campus, Wheelden spent 22 years at Kents Hill School in Maine, serving as dean of faculty and chair of the arts. At Kents Hill, Wheelden also taught AP Art History, AP Studio Arts and Environmental Photography.

She was also director of the school’s Gruss-Bard Gallery and coached varsity golf.

Wheelden began her career in education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, from which she received the Byron Smith Capstone Fellowship for graduate studies. She currently serves on the Educator Advisory Board for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Wheelden is a dorm parent in Whitney House; she and her husband have two children, and they all live on campus in Buhl House.

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HEARD IN CHAPEL

Rubbing the Nose A September Chapel talk connected a Brooks tradition to a larger purpose.

School Minister Jim Chapman took to the Chapel podium on a Monday in September to talk about the universal “instinct that we all have to reach out to that thing we can’t understand, but that is our basis for being alive.”

“There’s no human culture out there that does not have a sense of that greater reservoir,” he said. He continued, explaining that this universal human constant is reflected here at Brooks through a tradition that has stood the test of time: Brooksians will rub the nose of the bust of Brooks founder Endicott Peabody that resides in the Link before heading off to a challenging class or game.

“What I’ve realized is that touching the nose is, in a goofy kind of way, a kind of prayer,” Chapman concluded. “I want to be connected to something bigger than myself. I’m asking for hope and for strength from a reservoir that’s greater than any of us.”

“ What I’ve realized is that touching the nose is, in a goofy kind of way, a kind of prayer.”

S CH O O L MINIST E R JIM CH A P MA N

A student demonstrates how to rub the nose of Endicott Peabody.

Just Rub Endicott Peabody’s Nose The following is the text of the poem that School Minister Jim Chapman composed and then recited at the September 16, 2019, Chapel service: Have a test coming up in an hour?

Are you late for your class ‘cause you dozed?

Need a burst of athletic power To defeat those Groton School foes?

Are you hoping to bloom like a flower, Or to dance with a spring in your toes?

Here’s a secret that everyone knows — Just rub Endicott Peabody’s nose.

Are you seeking the meaning of life, The purpose for which we’re created?

Do you wonder why there’s so much strife And why tragedy sometimes seem fated?

Does it feel like you’re squeezed in a vice?

Or your bubble’s been popped and deflated?

Go where everyone here at Brooks goes — Go rub Endicott Peabody’s nose.

The power of God seems so distant, So remote, we scarcely can grasp it — So we seek out some handy replacement We can touch each time we go past it.

Our ancestors struggled to find faith — They suffered and prayed and fasted; But in our time when anything goes, We rub Endicott Peabody’s nose.

Now the time may come when you learn more — And find rubbing a nose doesn’t do it, When trouble comes up and you yearn for Something greater to help you get through it.

Seek the spirit while youth is in bloom, And before life confronts you with gloom; Faith will carry you safe through life’s woes More than rubbing old Peabody’s nose.

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NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO M C A M P US

IN THE LEHMAN

A Global Perspective Two Lehman gallery exhibits help Brooksians explore the world from a broader perspective and invite interdisciplinary approaches to viewing art.

Center Babs Wheelden. “Having time with Dan and The Robert Lehman Art Center kicked off its acaSally, hearing their stories and taking in this impactdemic year slate with two exhibits, each of which was ful collection of stunning images provides rich and meant to inspire Brooksians to engage in the wider meaningful learning experiences for our students in world in a variety of ways. The first, “Environments, a tangible, interdisciplinary and purposeful way.”

Cultures and Wildlife at Risk,” showcased award-winNovember brought a second global exhibit to the ning photography of wildlife, landscapes and cultures Lehman, as the traveling exhibit “200 Women” made from around the world that are in danger of disappeara stop at Brooks. Brooks is the second school in the ing. The second, “200 Women,” showcased portraits of Unites States to host the exhibit. In this ambitious more than 40 women from around the world and also project, 200 photographed women from all over the provided video interviews of the women discussing world were asked the same five questions. The result is their answers to common questions. an extraordinary depiction of women who shape our “Environments, Cultures and Wildlife at Risk” world today, filled with insightful stories of strength, featured the work of photographers Dan Mead and hope and the full range of human emotions. More than Sally Eagle, who have documented their travels 40 portraits graced the walls of the Lehman, from through Antarctica, the Himalayas, Iceland, Namibia, notable groundbreakers like Supreme Court New Zealand and Patagonia, along with other Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to women who far-flung locales. Mead and Eagle were run local organizations and nonprofits in the year’s first visiting artists, and they Keep up with all the their homes around the world. engaged students in discussion and work exhibits at Lehman “What I found most impactful about on environmental sustainability. gallery online at www. brooksschool.org/arts/ this exhibition is that it is based on a “We are each the caretakers of the lehman-art-center project that turned into a book of individnatural world,” Mead said in a September ual stories beyond the collection of stunChapel. “We have to realize that we are ning portrait photography,” Wheelden says. stewards of our environment. We are the “Visiting art galleries is no longer primarily ones who have to balance our belief systems about observation. Providing an in-depth experiso that we give, do and care for as much as we take.” ence in addition to the aesthetic vision to our guests is Mead advocated for environmental protections and intentional.” national and state park preservation, and concluded Classes flocked to this exhibit as well, and Brooks that “nothing touches the soul more than being in the faculty found ways to use the exhibit to supplement wilderness of various continents.” their own curriculum. English department chair The artists hosted various classes in the Lehman Dean Charpentier asked students to examine the to discuss and reflect on their work across different portraits through the lens of poet Walt Whitman’s academic disciplines. They discussed the environappreciation for the value of each individual and their ment with an AP Statistics class, then photography own unique story; a human rights seminar researched composition with the Intro to 2D Art class. A photoand presented on human rights issues the women in graphy class and a third-form history class rounded the portraits are engaged in, and connected those out their agenda. issues to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; “We are fortunate at Brooks School to have not only and an acting class used the portraits, and the stories the Lehman gallery on campus but also the support of they tell, as inspiration as students began to draft programming providing access to award-winning, vistheir own scripts. iting artists,” said Director of the Robert Lehman Art

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“ [N]othing touches the soul more than being in the wilderness of various continents.”

P H OTOG RAP H ER DAN MEAD

Over Winter Term, the gallery welcomes visiting artist Laura Nichols GP’18, GP’20, GP’22, who will teach a class in ceramics and the raku form of pottery.

Painter Jim Sperber ’87 joins the gallery in February before a Brooks faculty show enters the space in early March. Henry Buhl ’48 will show an exhibit of photographs and mixed media from his collection after Spring Break, and Bill Ferris ’60 will host “Dust to Digital: Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians” in April and May 2020. The year will close with an exhibition of advanced student artists.

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Top: An image of the postcard advertising the 200 Women exhibit in the Lehman gallery. Bottom: Photographer Dan Mead (right) walks students through his Lehman exhibit.

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NEWS + NOTE S

AT HL ET E S P OT L I G H T

Sydney Robinson ’20 A Brooksian thought she had given up volleyball when she enrolled at Brooks.

But when, one year later, the school introduced its volleyball program, she embraced the challenge of leading the new program to success.

When Sydney Robinson ’20 decided to attend Brooks, she thought she was bidding her volleyball career goodbye. The tall, athletic presence had made a name for herself playing volleyball and basketball for her high school in Wallingford, Conn., and while she was sad to end her volleyball career, she was excited to take advantage of the opportunity to play basketball at Brooks.

“When I started looking around, I visited three schools, and Brooks was one of them,” Robinson says. “The vibe here was so different, and being able to come here and play sports, go to school, do things you love in a beautiful setting — it wasn’t even a question. I wanted to come here. I felt like I had to come here, and I’m so glad I did.”

Robinson quickly became a vital player for the girls 1st basketball team, and last year, an athletic window she thought had closed forever opened again: Brooks introduced its volleyball program, and Robinson was eager to rekindle her connection to the sport. “Volleyball is a really fun sport,” she says.

“When I came to Brooks, I was sad to leave volleyball.

I had a hard time with that. So when I found out that Brooks was starting a program, I was super excited!”

Last year’s team, the school’s first iteration of a volleyball team, played a 2nd team schedule while it taught many of its players, who were new

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“ The biggest lesson, I think, is to not give up. There will be hard times, and there will be mistakes that you’re going to make, and you know they’re coming. But, you need to push through that and know that everything’s going to get better if you keep working at it.” to the sport, the basic outlines of the game.

Robinson, who had previous playing experience, quickly drew the attention of head coach and world languages faculty Chelsea Clater.

Robinson, along with classmate Elizabeth DeSimone and Taylor Berberian ’19, was named captain.

“Last year, we spent a lot of time learning about the sport and working on our fundamentals,” Robinson says, reflecting on the challenges of leading a team that is new to a sport.

“I totally remember those days. Volleyball is confusing! Once you get the hang of it, it’s exciting and fun. But, it took a long time, and it was a challenge. It’s hard to get an entire group of girls together who have never played the sport and turn them into a unit of six people playing well together on the court. I’ve had to think of how to lead in a bunch of different ways.”

This year, the program fieded a 1st team and a 2nd team, and the 1st team finished 9–6. Still Robinson, wisely, understands that, although she may be a veteran volleyball player, she’s still learning how to lead the new program. “I think I’m still learning how to become a better captain. I could always do better,” she says.

“When you make a mistake in volleyball, it’s really noticeable, because the ball goes flying,” Robinson explains. “I’ve definitely had to focus on encouraging myself and my teammates to brush off mistakes. This is our first year having a 1st team and playing a 1st-team schedule, and we’re going to make mistakes. The biggest

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lesson, I think, is to not give up. There will be hard times, and there will be mistakes that you’re going to make, and you know they’re coming. But, you need to push through that and know that everything’s going to get better if you keep working at it.”

Robinson’s patient, evolving leadership style translates well to other areas of school life: She is a dorm prefect in Gardner House, a head of the Black Students Union and also serves as one of the school’s Chapel prefects. She credits the students who led her when she arrived at Brooks as her models for leadership. “Coming here as a fourth-former, I knew absolutely nobody,” Robinson says. “I was coming to a new place, and I admired the sixth-formers that year. They looked so adult to me, and I saw how they really led by example. I just wanted to follow in their footsteps.”

One of the sixth-formers Robinson admired as a new fourth-former was particularly helpful to Robinson as she formed her own style of leadership. “When I was a fourth-former, Sophia Knopp ’18 was my basketball captain,” Robinson says. “She also gave me my tour when I visited, so in a way, she got me to come here.

She was a great captain. In everything she did, on and off the court, she was always so caring toward me. I admire that, and I try to do the same thing now. I’m still working on it, and it’s been fun.”

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NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO A M P US AT HL ET I CSMNCEWS

Proud Performances

Saul Iwowo ’22 (center) fights off a Nobles player during the New England championship tournament semifinal game.

Brooks teams made their mark across the ISL and the region this fall, as team and individual performances netted wins and accolades for a job well done.

BOYS SOCCER DANCES The boys 1st soccer team fought its way through a tough early season to land a spot in the New England championship tournament semifinal. The team’s overall record was 10–4–5, including a loss in penalty kicks in the New England semifinal to end the season against Noble and Greenough School.

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Head coach Willie Waters ’02 says that he is “extremely proud of this team. We only had two sixth-formers and had graduated key players who were a part of very successful teams.” He continues: “This group never quit, even when we had some difficult results early in the season, and they got so much better as the year moved along.”

Two games stand out in Waters’s mind as showing his Brooks team’s character. First, he points to a mid-October 3–2 win over Belmont Hill School. “We were the only team to beat them in the regular season this year, and we had to come back from a deficit twice to win the game,” he says. Second, Waters reflects on the team’s quarterfinals win at Suffield Academy: “We

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played our best game of the season,” he says, “and we beat a team that thought they would beat us.”

“Many people thought we were too young to be competitive, but we competed against everyone, and opposing coaches always commented how impressed they were with how hard our kids competed,” Waters continues. “It was a complete team effort. This was their team, and they made everyone proud.”

Waters takes time to credit his two sixth-formers, Abhay Gandhi and Zach Pearce, as “instrumental” to the team’s success. He also praises sixth-form manager Joel Moya, who has become an important member of the team over his three-year tenure. “We have a lot to build on for next year, as we will return most of our team,” Waters says. “The important thing will be to realize that we can’t just pick up where we left off. We’ll need to work hard to get back to that level and also incorporate new players.

We also won’t be able to sneak up on any opponent, since people are expecting us to be pretty good.”

FOOTBALL MAKES STRIDES The 1st football team hauled in a respectable 4–4 record this fall, winning its last three games and beating Tabor Academy 19–14 in the season finale, a performance that head coach Pat Foley called “our best all-around game the whole year.”

Foley speaks well of his sixthform captains Kobe Briand, John Fritz, John Manzi and Alex Nemon. Manzi, Foley points out, led the team in rushing, tackles and touchdowns. Sixth-formers Brian Barker-Morrill, Matt Costantino, Isaac Eberly, Olu Oladitan and Fritz Wright also contributed to a leadership core that set the example for younger

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classes. Fourth-form quarterback Michael Wolfendale turned heads in his first year as a starter, throwing for five touchdowns and running for two more.

“Finishing this year with three straight wins was a great way to send this sixth-form class out, but it was also a great way to build momentum for next year’s team,” Foley says. “We’ll lose some key players to graduation, but we will also return a group that got a ton of experience this year.”

FIELD HOCKEY DEFENDS ITS TURF The 1st field hockey team built on lessons learned from last year’s championship campaign to land in the New England championship semifinal game before falling to eventual New England champion The Rivers School. Brooks built a 11-7-1 record and, head coach Tess O’Brien says, is poised to engage with next-level skills and systems of play next year. “The girls grew so much as a team and as individual athletes this year,” she says, “and we know that their skills are going to rapidly advance to that next level.”

If the team felt pressure as the defending champions, O’Brien says, they responded to that pressure “in the way they knew how to: with purpose. All of the girls were so dedicated to their personal growth in terms of success for the team. When they battled, they battled for each other rather than for themselves. They fought hard for each other and for the success of the team throughout the whole season.”

O’Brien points to three games as “defining” for the team. First, O’Brien talks about a regularseason comeback win on the road against Cushing Academy.

Brooks was losing 4–2 late in the second half, but scored three goals

W MORE ONLINE: Please visit the Brooks athletics website at www.brooksschool.org/athletics for more information on your favorite Brooks team, including schedules, game recaps and upto-date news.

in the final 14 minutes of play to scrape out a win. “They capitalized on the opportunity to leave with a fight,” O’Brien recalls. “The girls realized that they had the chance to compete with really good teams and learned that their strength was perseverance through adversity.” Second, O’Brien notes the in-season game against Rivers, in which Brooks battled Rivers to a 0-0 tie to spoil Rivers’s perfect season. “That was the most excited I’ve seen the girls be coming off a tie,” she laughs.

Third, O’Brien points to the first-round NEPSAC road game against The Williston Northampton School. Brooks was down 1–0 for most of the game, but scored in the last four minutes of regulation to send the game into overtime, then scored again quickly to win the game. O’Brien credits the team’s sixth-form leadership throughout the season: “The sixth-formers knew that there was a lot of pressure coming off of last season,” she says. “But each of them filled an important role by encouraging the team to fight to the last minute, sharing their wealth of field hockey and team-related knowledge, and boosting team morale.”

“The coolest part is that the respect for one another was tangible,” O’Brien finishes. “You could see them supporting one another through adversity and celebrating each others’ gains every day.”

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BRO OKS B ULLET I N

Forty years ago, the first female students to attend Brooks arrived on campus. The group was one of pioneers, of determined students, of women who wished to step into a community and make it their own. Forty years later, the Bulletin caught up with some of the female members of those first few coed classes to hear about their Brooks experiences, their lives since leaving the school and the lessons they carried with them.

years later ‌ IN TERV IEWS BY REBECCA A . BIN D ER

PH OTO G R A PH Y COU RTESY O F SU B JECTS A N D BRO O KS SCH O O L A RCH IV ES

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years later …

K I P A Z Z O N I D OY L E ’ 81

Go Far, Go Wide, Go Long Kip Azzoni Doyle ’81 credits her experience of being one of the members of the first coed class at Brooks with stoking her sense of courage. She speaks of the support and encouragement faculty emeriti Michael B. King and Richard Holmes gave her as she navigated the school. “Every single ounce of my journey to get to Brooks, and then also the attention that I got from teachers once I was here — I carry that with me,” she says.

Doyle says that Brooks taught her to break her own trail. She gives an example: Doyle grew up ice skating, and when the school attempted to place Doyle in a dance class for girls, she bucked authority and found herself skating with the boys ice hockey team and running stats on the bench during games.

“The school was terrific in trying to give us every opportunity,” she says, “but you had to have sharp

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Above: A photo of Kip Azzoni Doyle ’81 from the 1981 yearbook. Below: Kip Azzoni Doyle ’81 today.

elbows. In everything that we did, we had to forge our own way.”

“We made it up as we went along,” Doyle says. “There was a whole lot of self-motivation. I was born with that, but Brooks was the perfect place to let that run and forge that forward momentum.

As a result, there was this kind of method that I applied to life after: Go get it, take a bite out of it and give it your best shot.”

Since graduating from Brooks, Doyle has spread her talents far and wide, and always with an undercurrent of exploration, of trying new things, of amplifying new voices and of lending her own to those who need it. She is, among other pursuits, an inventor, a filmmaker, a freelance journalist and an entrepreneur. She says that the most important part of her work now is three companies she founded in Chicago, each of which

employs struggling military veterans: Rags of Honor, a silk screen and apparel company; Veteran Roasters Cup O’Joe, a coffee company; and RNR Brews, a craft beer brewing company. Doyle says the importance of supporting military veterans became clear following a tragedy in her own family, and she’s gone full-bore into trying to help.

“A lot of it was, again, that sense of pioneering,” Doyle says. “That’s transferred through me to my kids. My attitude with them was to ‘go far, go wide, go long,’ and I really learned that at Brooks.” She continues: “I mean, honestly, a big thank you to a school that could embrace newcomers and really roll out a future for us that I could never imagine. It really was very special to be the first there, and I never realized how much that would affect me later in my life.”

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DEIRDRE DENAPOLI DUNN ’82, P’ 11, P’ 13, P’ 15, P’ 18

A Brooks Family Deirdre DeNapoli Dunn ’82, P’11, P’13, P’15, P’18 has a family tree that has entire branches of dark green. Her brother preceded her as a Brooks student; she met her husband, Peter Dunn ’82, P’11, P’13, P’15, P’18, while they were students together on Great Pond Road; and she and Peter sent their four children — including their two daughters, Morgan ’15 and Madison ’18 — through Brooks.

Deirdre and Peter Dunn have the distinction of being the first Brooks couple to get married and send their own children to Brooks.

“I was at The Pike School at the time that Brooks was talking about going coed,” Dunn remembers.

“There were a few of us females who stayed at Pike for ninth grade so that we could start going to Brooks as fourth-formers. It was exciting to be the groundbreaking first girls there.”

Dunn remembers a school that was welcoming to its girls, but that didn’t always have systems in place to manage them. For example, she says, girls were held to a dress code that was designed

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around male-gendered clothing: “We got away with murder,” she laughs. “We really did. Some of the boys were in the blazer, shirt and tie, and for the girls it turned into anything goes except jeans.

This was the 1980s, remember, so a lot of the girls did that thing where you take a pair of jeans, split the inner seam and then put in a triangle-shaped piece of denim to make a skirt out of your jeans. We couldn’t wear jeans, but we still kind of were.”

Dunn was a day student, and she remembers fellow day students and her having an experience at school that was different from the experience her boarding peers had. “We were definitely ‘townies,’” she says. “We came, we went to school, we did sports, then we left.” She’s happy to report that the experience her day student children had — particularly her daughters — was vastly different from her own.

“The first thing I want to say is that a lot of things were still the same, like the sense of community at Brooks,” Dunn says. “The feel of

Above: A photo of Deirdre Dunn ’82, P’11, P’13, P’15, P’18 from the 1982 yearbook. Bottom left: Deirdre Dunn ’82, P’11, P’13, P’15, P’18 (center) with her daughters Madison ’18 (left) and Morgan ’15.

the school, the fact that it’s stayed the same size, that community feel — that never changed. That’s what Peter and I loved about Brooks, and that’s why we wanted our own kids to go.” She continues, now speaking about the ways in which the day student experience has become more similar to the boarding experience. “The fact that day student girls are now much more integrated is a wonderful thing,” she says. “My girls were involved in so many of the different clubs and things that weren’t as available when Brooks had just gone coed.

They would always stay for dinner, stay for study hall, go to the library — none of that happened when I was a student.”

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years later …

LEIGH PERKINS ’81, P’ 14, P’ 18

A Brooks Legacy English faculty Leigh Perkins ’81, P’14, P’18 is the daughter of two of the school’s faculty emeriti: Leonard “Skip” Perkins ’56, P’81, P’83, GP’14, GP’18 and Maureen Perkins H’81, W’56, P’81, P’83, GP’14 GP’18. She grew up on campus and spent her childhood years exploring the buildings, playing on the fields and making Brooks her home. After leaving for college and a stint as an attorney, Perkins returned home to Great Pond Road in 1998, and she’s stayed ever since.

She’s raised two children on campus, and she’s become a bedrock figure on the Brooks faculty.

“As I was growing up here, it wasn’t obvious to me that I was one of the only young female humans on this campus,” Perkins says. “In my age group, it was really only Circe Dunnell ’84 and me, and I would argue neither she nor I thought of ourselves as anything

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except faculty kids. We didn’t really gender anybody, and we were both running around being just as athletic and tree-climby as everybody else was.”

Her childhood, Perkins believes, imbued her with a unique character trait. “I feel like I grew up with what passes for white male privilege,” she says. “The way I conducted myself in the future bespoke a certain confidence, a lack of fear or concern that I think most women my age didn’t have.

I was so entirely comfortable in rooms full of men or in institutions that were built from the male perspective.”

Perkins entered Brooks as a fifth-former from Pingree School.

“The classroom was an interesting place,” she says. “All of us got to be the first girl doing something at Brooks, whether we thought about it that way or not. We were often

the only girl in our class or the only girl doing a thing. In a way, I feel like our being there freed up the boys a little. The girls came in a little more free-spirited, and we injected permission and space into whatever regimented notions of what one could do existed before we came.”

Perkins, for example, was the first female lead in the musical; the first female president of the choir; the first captain of the girls 1st soccer team; and, a point of which she is proud, the first (and last) girl to receive a Brooks diploma from Founding Headmaster Frank Ashburn, who returned to Brooks from retirement for that purpose.

Perkins believes that Mr. Ashburn was an early proponent of coeducation. “Mr. Ashburn understood that doing the best we could meant making sure our schools were an equitable reflection of our country,” she says. “And that’s a tricky thing to do under this business model. But he knew, in the early 1960s, that these schools couldn’t and shouldn’t survive if they were merely going to be mirrors of their old selves.”

Top: A photo of Leigh Perkins ’81, P’14, P’18 from the 1981 yearbook. Above: English faculty Leigh Perkins ’81, P’14, P’18 (right) with her daughter, Sam Grant ’14. Perkins and her mother, faculty emeritus Maureen Perkins, spent their careers advocating for the experience of girls at Brooks.

Grant didn’t fall far from the tree: She speaks forcefully about the school’s ongoing efforts to consider, appreciate and honor the experiences of girls at Brooks, especially girls from a variety of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

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ALICE BABCOCK PEARCE ’81

The First Diploma Alice Babcock Pearce ’81 holds a special place in Brooks history: She was the first woman to walk across the Prize Day stage and receive a Brooks diploma.

“It’s very much my claim to fame,” she says. “Whenever I meet anybody who went to Brooks, whether they’re older or younger, I tell them that I was the first girl.

They’re always impressed.” Pearce adds that the distinction landed with her only because a classmate — Kip Azzoni Doyle [Ed. Note: Doyle is profiled on page 22] — graduated with honors. In those days, honors students crossed the stage last, which freed up the first spot for Pearce.

Pearce decided to attend Brooks because, she says, she was ready for something different from New York City’s Nightingale-Bamford School. “I also fell in love with the campus when I came to visit it,” she says. “I really thought it was so bucolic and beautiful, a nice contrast to New York City, in which I had spent my entire life. I was ready to get out of New York and do something different in a more beautiful surrounding, yet be close enough to New York that it was easy enough to get home for vacations.”

Brooks checked off all the requirements Pearce wanted, and it also appealed to her adventurous nature. “I thought it would be really interesting to be a pioneer and pave the way for future women at Brooks,” Pearce says. “I thought it would be a fun adventure, rather than going to a school that was already coed. I felt that it was an honor, and I was just very excited about the opportunity.”

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Pearce says she quickly became comfortable on campus. “The ratio [of boys to girls] was quite unbalanced,” she notes, “but I always felt that everyone bent over backwards to be thoughtful and respectful, and I felt that it was successful from the get-go because of that. It was fun. You felt special.”

The small classes at Brooks also appealed to Pearce. “It was rewarding to me to feel that I could really be academically strong,” she remembers. “I really relished a lot of the teachers. Sometimes I was the only girl in my class, especially that first year, and I never felt uncomfortable speaking.

Above: Alice Babcock Pearce ’81. Below: Alice Babcock Pearce ’81 making history as she receives her Brooks diploma.

Everybody was encouraging.” She also speaks fondly of the fact that she was able to get to know a group of male peers well. “I really enjoyed getting to know a group of guys and truly be friends with them,” she says. “That was invaluable to me.

That was one of the great things.”

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years later …

G I N G E R WA L S H CO B B ’8 3

A Lifelong Lesson Ginger Walsh Cobb ’83 has dedicated her career to independent school education: to supporting students as they seek success in the classroom and on the field; to teaching and coaching in ways that develop the whole person; and to framing a school’s systems, infrastructure and resources in mission-driven ways.

Cobb is currently the head of the upper school at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Bethesda, Maryland, but she has worn many hats since she arrived on campus as an English teacher in 1987. She was head coach of the girls varsity soccer and lacrosse teams for six years before leaving St. Andrew’s to pursue her master’s degree overseas. She returned in 1998 as the director of athletics; she continued to coach until 2003. Over the course of her coaching career, Cobb brought home numerous championships and sent her athletics

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program to acclaim. As director of athletics, Cobb set up many of the school’s programs for continued success by overseeing significant improvements to the school’s athletic facilities.

In addition to her massive presence in the St. Andrew’s athletics program, Cobb has also served St. Andrew’s as service learning teacher, dean of students, assistant head of upper school and head of upper school. She also conceived of and ran the school’s first summer programs.

Cobb was inducted into the St. Andrew’s athletics hall of fame last year and was showered with praise. “She’s dedicated her life to St. Andrew’s,” former St. Andrew’s director of athletics Al Hightower said at the induction. “She believes in community, in including people, in setting high expectations… she exemplifies all the things St. Andrew’s believes in.”

To hear Cobb tell it, the roots of her love of teaching and coaching reach back to her time at Brooks.

At Brooks, Cobb says, she found a school and a faculty that were “very, very thoughtful about the transition from all-boys to coed. To me, it seemed very seamless, and it seemed like they wanted us to have lots of opportunities.”

Those opportunities were many, from the classroom to athletics.

Cobb speaks fondly of former Brooks faculty — the Dunnells, Ray Broadhead, Nick Evangelos — who, she says, were “fabulous and very supportive.” They welcomed her into their classes and gave her a comfortable atmosphere in which to learn. Cobb also found a home

Above: Ginger Walsh Cobb ’83. Below: Ginger Walsh Cobb ’83 as a member of the Brooks girls lacrosse team in 1983.

on the field at Brooks: The school began a girls lacrosse program when she was a fourth-former, and it went on to win the ISL when she was a sixth-former. She also notes that she played on the boys hockey team. “The school was open to, if it didn’t have that opportunity for girls, making it happen,” she remembers. “David Swift was the coach, and he was excellent and made me feel so welcome.”

Cobb credits her coaches at Brooks, including former faculty Swift, Bob Morahan and Dusty Richard, as “awesome role models who made me love athletics, and working hard and being part of a team. The close atmosphere, the caring, supportive adults in my life — I wanted to give that back to my students. That striving for excellence and teamwork, really, I credit back to Brooks.”

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MAUREEN KINNEY ’82

A Life of Adventure Maureen Kinney ’82 says that her path to Brooks was an unexpected one, and that her time at the school set her up “for a life of adventure.”

Kinney grew up in a small town in Michigan as the youngest of six children. Nobody in her family, she says, went to boarding school, and going away to school wasn’t part of her family’s equation. One summer, though, that all changed: Her older brother came home from Stanford University, where he was in school, and told Kinney that she should move past the boundaries of her town and go to boarding school.

Kinney knew nothing about boarding schools, she says, and her parents were not receptive to the idea, so she took matters into her own hands. “I went to the local library and got out a little booklet on boarding schools,” she says. “I looked through it and noted the schools that looked interesting, and I applied.”

It was July, and Kinney applied to a handful of schools for admission that September, two months away. She had no SSAT scores, she says — nothing to show schools other than her transcripts. When Kinney’s father took a business trip to the East Coast, Kinney went with him, intent on visiting the schools to which she had applied (she had no interviews lined up).

After a failed attempt to visit St. George’s School (“We couldn’t even find it,” Kinney laughs. “There was no Google Maps back then, and heaven forbid we do any research ahead of time”), Kinney and her

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Above: A photo of Maureen Kinney ’82 from the 1982 yearbook. Inset: Maureen Kinney ’82.

father drove to North Andover.

“It was a Saturday night, I think.

There was a light on in a building — we didn’t know which building it was,” she says.

Serendipitously, the building was the admissions building, and the light belonged to former faculty Cliff Irons ’63, who at that time was the dean of admissions. “He let us come in, and he gave me an interview,” Kinney remembers. “He called a couple of weeks later with a spot for me. I found out only a week or two before school started. I was really, really excited when I got the call that it was going to work.”

Kinney says that Brooks felt right when she visited. “I stepped on that campus, and I was like ‘I love this school,’” she remembers.

“It was really clear that my only choice was Brooks. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Brooks, Kinney says, supported her and believed in her,

and became, she says, her family.

She became a dorm prefect and a school prefect, and tried new sports, including rowing. She matriculated to Hamilton College, where she helped start the women’s rowing program, then moved to Chicago to attend art school.

Kinney also became an instructor for Outward Bound programs.

She and her husband have three teenage daughters, with whom they recently traveled the world for a year.

Kinney credits her family with giving her a sense of independence and inner strength, and she credits Brooks with amplifying and reinforcing it. “Brooks set me up for a life of adventure,” she says.

“Just going for it, embracing the unknown. Brooks opened doors for me and opened my eyes to a life beyond the Midwest.”

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The Language of

aRc aRc hI T hIt eC t eCT uRe BY R EB ECCA A .

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A view of The Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Scotland, which Jencks designed as an exploration of the history of the universe.

This part of the garden portrays a black hole.

P H OTO : M AX A LE XA NDER/ SC IENC E P H OTO LIBRA RY

Charles Jencks ’57 changed the field of architecture. Jencks, who died in October at 80 years old, was an architectural historian who was known as the godfather of the Postmodern movement. He was also a wellknown landscape designer whose massive, head-turning installations pepper the hills and valleys of the United Kingdom. And, Jencks used his knowledge and clout for good as co-founder of Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres, a system of uplifting and comforting cancer care centers in the United Kingdom.

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“A Good Bet” Jencks was born in Baltimore in 1939. His father, Gardner Platt Jencks, was a concert pianist and modernist composer, and his mother, Ruth Pearl Jencks, was a biologist and artist. Jencks’s future as an artist and theorist seems pre-ordained: The family owned a house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, that was a beacon to forward-thinking artists of the time. According to the Financial Times, Jencks claimed that the painter Roberto Matta invented abstract expressionism in 1942 by filling one of the home’s candelabra with paint and spinning it above a canvas.

At Brooks, Jencks made his name as an intelligent, sensitive student. In a previous Bulletin profile, Jencks remembers his time on campus: “The greatest problem with Brooks was that there were no women,” he joked, “but I remember the beauty of the landscape. I remember the autumns turning a spectacular color.” [Ed. Note: see spring 2013 Brooks Bulletin, pgs.

56–57.] At Brooks, Jencks threw himself into academics and athletics. He played football, baseball and basketball, and also joined the wrestling team. More importantly, though, a few of his teachers at Brooks “sparked that intellectual thing in me.” By the time he was a sixth-former, Jencks had been named a prefect and been elected to the Cum Laude Society. He had learned to love poetry and literature. Later in life, he befriended the writer Umberto Eco, who introduced Jencks to the field of semiotics; this would greatly influence Jencks’s design work.

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PHOTO: S OU TH WA LE S EVE NI NG P OST/COU RTE SY OF MAGGI E ’S CE NTRE S

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hroughout his career, Jencks embraced the utility of architecture as a way to both reflect and support the values of the society around it. Jencks once wrote that, to be successful, an architect “must have social tasks and artistic ones that are symbolically related.” His career is an embodiment of this call. Jencks believed that architecture should free, not limit, the lives and thoughts of the people it served; he was humbled by the predictable chaos of the universe that dictates the natural world and our place in it; and he saw architecture’s power to affect human emotion and behavior, its power to help humans support and empathize with each other. He was given the Distinguished Brooksian award in 2007.

Below: Charles Jencks ’57 at the opening of a Maggie’s Centre in Wales. Right: This Maggie’s Centre was architect Zaha Hadid’s first permanent structure in the United Kingdom when it opened.

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Jencks credited Brooks with inspiring and solidifying his intellectual curiosity. Two pieces of correspondence, both located in Jencks’s alumni file, hint at his potential and at how far his career in architecture would take him.

First, a letter from Founding Headmaster Frank Ashburn.

When Jencks began the college admission process in the spring of 1956, he turned to Mr. Ashburn for a college recommendation. In typical, honest Ashburn fashion, Mr. Ashburn inserted a short note into Jencks’s file: “Jencks is a highly intelligent boy,” Mr. Ashburn wrote, “sensitive to good things and with a wider than ordinary cultural background. He is coming along nicely.” Mr. Ashburn punctuated his thoughts on Jencks some months later when, in the early days of 1957, Mr. Ashburn appended two more

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Architecture, like opera, is a hybrid art form necessarily mixing fast-changing technologies and slow-changing values. It is the perfect subject to confront the problems of modernity.”

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sentences to his recommendation: “Coming along steadily. A good bet.”

Second, a letter from Jencks to faculty emeritus Fessenden Wilder.

Jencks matriculated to Harvard University and studied for a bachelor’s degree in English literature, which he received in 1961. In the course of his undergraduate studies, Jencks wrote to Wilder. “After finishing my senior year here,” Jencks

mused, “I have plans, vague as yet, to go design school either here or at M.I.T.” Jencks ended up choosing Harvard for a second time: He received a second bachelor’s degree in architecture and a master’s degree in architecture by 1965. He moved to London on a Fulbright Scholarship and earned his doctorate in architectural history from University College London in 1970.

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The Origin of a Movement World War II demolished cities, infrastructure and governments across Europe.

When the war ended, people yearned for practicality and functionality in the structures that surrounded them as they rebuilt their lives and the buildings in which they lived and worked. The presiding Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architectural styles that had punctuated

As Mr. Ashburn predicted, Jencks was a good bet. He became one of the leading architectural theorists of his time, a prolific writer who tracked the rise and fall of the Modern and Postmodern movements in architecture. Jencks wrote more than 30 books and lectured at more than 40 universities in his career. His book “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture,” first published in 1977, published 11 editions and was translated into 10 languages. It became a bedrock text for subsequent architecture students.

columns, grand scale, intricate detail and imposing ornamentation — gave way to the Modern style, which Charles Jencks ’57 believed focused on the dogmatic function and practicality that are synonymous with urban planning: rigid geometric shapes; buildings made of glass, steel and reinforced concrete; and structures built to promote order and efficiency in their denizens (think the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York).

Beginning in the 1970s, though, as western society’s values, morals and belief structures began to diverge, come into contact with a globalizing world and become less rigid, architecture transformed also. Jencks noticed this shift and named this new movement “Postmodernism.”

Postmodernism, in a departure from Modernism, replaces rigidity, practicality and predictability with a more organic form. Postmodernism borrows from a variety of styles, and it is inspired by the body, nature and the context of the landscape in which a structure was built (think the I. M. Pei-designed Louvre Pyramid, which sits in beautiful contrast to its more traditional surroundings; the natural, majestic curves of the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and the unpredictable and almost whimsical composition of the Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

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Naming A New Era In “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture,” Jencks called out Modernist architects who, he claimed, said too little in their designs. “We must go back to a point where architects took responsibility for their rhetoric, for how their buildings communicated,” he wrote. “An architect’s primary and final role,” he continued, “is to express the meanings a culture finds significant, as well as elucidate certain ideas and feelings that haven’t previously reached expression. The jobs that too often take up his energy might be better done by engineers and sociologists, but no other profession is specifically responsible for articulating meaning and seeing that the environment is sensual, humorous, surprising and coded as readable text.”

Jencks coined the term “Postmodern,” and argued that this new era was a return to “radical eclecticism” and an embrace of pluralism and difference. He wrote that the new movement combined “opposite codes of architecture that could adequately express the contradictory requirements and tastes of a global society.” He believed the Postmodern movement would define meaning in the built environment in new ways. Jencks embraced this new Postmodern era and spent 50 years studying,

advocating for and attempting to solidify its importance.

Defining and highlighting the Postmodern movement was important to Jencks because it mirrored and helped explain the rapidly changing, expanding world.

Other artistic and scientific fields, he noted, also found themselves coming to terms with a more fluid society and a greater wealth of information. “Architecture, like opera, is a hybrid art form necessarily mixing fast-changing technologies and slow-changing values,” Jencks wrote. “It is the perfect

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P HOTOS CO URTESY OF THE L AND TRUST

western architecture to that point — the

“

When you design a garden, it raises basic questions.

What is nature, how do we fit into it, and how should we shape it where we can, both physically and visually?”

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Above: Northumberlandia, also known as the Lady of the North, at night. This Charles Jencks piece is located in northeast England at the site of an old coal mine. It is a quarter-mile long installation that is in the shape of a reclining woman. Left: An aerial view of Northumberlandia.

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Architect David Page and Jencks collaborated on the building and grounds, respectively, of this Maggie’s Centre in Inverness. The design is inspired by mitosis — the division of cells — and the evocation of life that they represent.

“Charles Jencks came to prominence as my architectural cohort was graduating from architecture school and entering the profession,” reflects Brooks trustee and noted architect W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69. “His thinking and commentary

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was especially memorable to us because he was among the earliest to articulate the idea of (and coin the term for) Postmodernism, which called for a shift away from strict post-war Modernism to a more culturally attuned form of architectural expression. Although today’s architecture still has its roots in Modernism, I’d like to think that Jencks’s insights and critiques nudged the profession — and the society we serve — towards a more inclusive, expressive and relevant basis for design.”

A Living Landscape Jencks was particularly inspired by the science of complexity, including chaos theory and catastrophe theory. These fields give order to pandemonium: They show that, as the universe moves toward complexity, higher levels of creativity and organization emerge. Jencks applied that theory to his own field, noting in his previous Bulletin profile that he liked “to hold a mirror up to our society, to our culture — to examine how cultures work.” He demonstrated his grappling with the larger organization of the universe and its inhabitants in several sweeping, profound landscape design projects located primarily in Scotland, including The Garden of Cosmic Speculation and the Crawick Multiverse. He sculpted hills and valleys to illustrate scientific ideas ranging in topic from the cosmos to subatomic physics.

The most well-known of Jencks’s landscape projects is The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, located at the family home of Jencks and his second wife, Maggie Keswick, in Dumfries, Scotland. Keswick was an expert in Chinese gardens, and she asked Jencks for help designing the home’s garden. Together, Jencks and Keswick conceived the garden as a microcosm of the entire universe. Quarks, black holes, fractals and more inspire its features: The

30-acre site consists of sculpted mounds, terraces that play with perspective and geometrically striking staircases. The central feature of the garden is The Universe Cascade, a staircase built into a hillside that draws the observer through a history of the universe. The Universe Cascade consists of 25 landings, each of which represents a critical component of the history of the universe. The piece culminates at the bottom of the hill, where the stairs proceed into a pool of dark green water that represents the universe’s mysterious beginnings.

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation is a private garden that opens its doors to the public once a year for charity. The goal of pieces like The Universe Cascade and The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Jencks told the Bulletin in his previous profile, is to communicate complicated scientific theories to the lay public. “I often work with scientists, but they may not be connected to the cultural-artistic world,” he told the magazine. “They may not want to tell the story of the universe in an amusing, arresting way.” Jencks’s website adds that The Garden of Cosmic Speculation “uses nature to celebrate nature, both intellectually and through the senses, including the sense of humor.”

Jencks mused on the fundamental connection humans have with the natural world in a book he wrote about The Garden of Cosmic Speculation. “When you design a garden,” he wrote, “it raises basic questions. What is nature, how do we fit into it, and how should we shape it where we can, both physically and visually?” He argued that “Serious garden art” — Japanese Zen gardens, Persian paradise gardens, traditional English and French gardens — are, on some level, “analogies of the cosmos as then understood.”

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation welcomed a neighbor,

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PHOTO: NICK TURNER /COU RTE SY OF MAGG IE ’S CE NTRE S

subject to confront the problems of modernity, and thus the nascent movement helped lead worldwide shifts in the other arts and sciences.

Every field soon adopted a pluralist approach, and, in a globalised world, defined its particular version of the new philosophy under such rubrics as ‘postmodern dance’ and ‘complexity science.’ Not since the modern world view was adopted centuries ago has such a seismic shift occurred, and it continues to fluctuate in fortune along with its parent, modernity.”

Jencks’s Crawick Multiverse, in 2015. Crawick Multiverse, located at the site of a sprawling old coal mine, is another piece of landscape art that seeks to illustrate broad theories about the universe. The 55-acre installation depicts the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. The piece portrays theoretical physics and theories on the origins of the universe through Jencks’s trademark geometric shapes, pools, paths and concentric circles. Jencks described the Crawick Multiverse in the reunion notes section of the summer 2017 Bulletin. “The theme is ‘Cosmic Collisions,’ and I am hard at work on installations of Colliding Galaxies — the greatest birthing events in the universe,” he wrote.

He encouraged Brooksians to visit the site, concluding “A good time is guaranteed as long as it doesn’t rain, which is not much of a guarantee in the western part of Britain … but it’s also great fun in a Scottish mist.”

Architecture of Hope Jencks’s second wife, Maggie Keswick, inspired his landscape architecture. She also inspired a pursuit of his that serves a concrete, greater good. When Keswick was diagnosed with cancer in 1993, the couple began rounds of treatment, consultation and research. As they spent significant amounts of time in hospitals, the couple noticed the grim, neutral, uncomfortable surroundings they often found themselves in and resolved to do better.

The couple set off on a mission to build a series of non-clinical support centers for cancer patients that radiated warmth and comfort, and that escaped the institutional atmosphere of hospitals and clinics. The idea was simple: to create facilities where patients could be surrounded with beauty, community and calm as they fought the disease.

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As people walk into a centre after a diagnosis or enervating treatment, often disoriented and lacking in self-confidence, they enter another world which acknowledges their importance and a basic condition that may become prevalent: living with cancer and not losing hope.”

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Keswick died in 1995, but the idea for the care centers — called Maggie’s Centres — lived on. The first center was built in Edinburgh; today, almost two dozen centers are located across the United Kingdom and abroad, with 10 more in development. Jencks used his influence in his field and arranged for each of the centers to be designed by a well-known architect. Centers have been designed

by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Murphy and other boldface names.

Many of the centers have won design awards, and the project was dubbed the “architecture of hope” in a book authored

by Jencks. In 2016, the centers received almost 220,000 visits from people with cancer and their family and friends.

Speaking to the BBC in 2015, Jencks praised Britain’s National Health Service’s ability to provide medical care, but highlighted “all the other things — like where you

get a loan, how you face your boss if you have cancer, where you buy a wig, how you look good and feel better. Our role is all the secondary things.”

The centers are small in size, but they host a large mission: they offer a space that is welcoming, life-affirming and beautiful, as well as committed to the importance of art. They provide free practical, emotional and social support to cancer patients and their loved ones. They are dedicated to helping people with cancer help themselves, to helping care providers do more and to the power of architecture itself. “As people walk into a centre after a diagnosis or enervating treatment, often disoriented and lacking in self-confidence,” Jencks wrote, “they enter another world which acknowledges their importance and a basic condition that may become prevalent: living with cancer and not losing hope.”

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JOIN THE CLUB

Brooks students are vibrant, inquisitive and have a wide variety of interests. The school’s slate of clubs and organizations reflects that breadth of talent and activity. At Brooks, students can join clubs that already exist or start their own. The Bulletin sat down with the heads of some of the school’s clubs to find out what niche their club fills and why their club is important to life at the school.

BISHOP’S BELLS

Bishop’s Bells works hard for its annual moment of glory. The school’s student bell choir retreats to Ashburn Chapel for rehearsal every Monday night following seated dinner. The group of approximately one dozen students comes from a variety of musical backgrounds — many have never played a musical instrument before — and they all look forward to their one big moment in the spotlight.

“Every year, everybody knows what we’re going to play,” club head Anoosha Barua ’20 explains. “We perform one song at Lessons and

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Carols in December — ‘Carol of the Bells’ — and we do the same song every year. It’s a tradition.”

“It’s the same song, but it sounds different every year,” interjects club head Taylor Charpentier ’20. “This year, actually — and I’m not just

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saying this for the magazine — we sound the best we’ve ever sounded since I’ve been here.”

As a third-former, Charpentier was encouraged to join Bishop’s Bells by a sixth-former who spoke effusively of the club. “I loved it and kept

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coming back,” Charpentier says. Barua concurs. “Once people start, they tend to stay,” she says. “We have a good time, and, especially if you don’t play another instrument, it’s fun. It’s also fun to have something to do at Lessons and Carols.”

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Each performer holds two bells, and each bell is a different note.

(Charpentier, for example, says she has B6 and C6; Barua has D and E.) The months of rehearsal are tailored to one goal: to memorize, and then play, “Carol of the Bells.”

“We work until the day of Lessons and Carols,” Charpentier says.

“One of the most challenging things is memorizing the order,” Barua says, “since we don’t have our music up there with us.”

Barua and Charpentier enjoy being part of the Bishop’s Bells tradition at Brooks, which stretches back decades. “The tradition of Bishop’s Bells makes it a more valuable experience, I think,” Barua says.

“It’s not a club that we started ourselves; we know that other Brooks

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students have done this in the past, and for many years.”

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Sixth-formers Anoosha Barua (left) and Taylor Charpentier, who lead the Bishop’s Bells choir this year.

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INVESTMENT CLUB 38

The Investment Club is one of the school’s fastest-growing clubs. Its heads — sixthformers Finn Carey, Herbert Liu and Henry Warzecha — attribute this to the student body’s interest in working in finance.

“I was surprised by how many kids here are really genuinely interested in learning about the financial markets,” says Warzecha, citing the 30 or so Brooksians who regularly attend club meetings. “It’s exciting for us.”

The main purpose of the club, the heads explain, is to educate students on the financial markets and encourage students to research stocks and pitch them

“I think it’s good to get kids exposed to the business world at an early age. A lot of kids at Brooks want to go into business in the future.”

to the group. Thanks to generous donors, the club maintains a pool of money to invest, and Warzecha says the prospect of working with real money attracts members.

“I think it’s good to get kids exposed to the business world at an early age,” he says. “A lot of kids at Brooks want to go into business in the future.”

The heads of the Investment Club.

From left to right: sixth-formers Herbert Liu, Finn Carey and Henry Warzecha.

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“In this club, we’re able to focus on everyone,” Dance Club head Amma Boamah-Appiah ’21 says, as she pauses in the black box theater in the Center for the Arts one night after rehearsal. “Our group is small — we hope it expands, but right now, it’s intimate — and that means that everyone is able to choose what music we dance to and what we do with it.”

Dance Club feels organic, she says, and she notes that club members, who may not know each other well outside of Dance Club, quickly bond as they learn and practice moves with and from each other. “You get into a relationship

DANCE CLUB “You don’t feel shy here, though: if you don’t understand a step, it’s very easy to ask someone.”

with each other here,” she says.

“Some of our members really love dance, and some of our members haven’t danced much. You don’t feel shy here, though: if you don’t understand a step, it’s very easy to ask someone.”

The student-run nature of the club gives performances “a sense of authenticity,” Boamah-Appiah says. “It gives some pop to different cultures, it gives some excitement, and our audience is always fascinated with the way people come together with their rhythm, their rhyme and the way they flow together. Dance Club is for people who learn as individuals, but then they become so proud of the group as a whole when they see the end result.”

Amma BoamahAppiah ’21 in the black box theater in the Center for the Arts, where Dance Club meets.

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AFFINITY GROUPS Affinity groups at Brooks are clubs that are more than just clubs to their membership. These groups — Black Student Union (BSU), Asian American Association (Triple A), Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA), Alianza Latina and Women’s Incorporated (WINC) — provide a safe space, a support system and a home away from home for Brooks students.

The student heads of the school’s affinity groups. From left to right: Elizabeth Packard ’21, Daniela Reyes ’20, Nicole Sun ’20, Hongru Chen ’22, Taylor Denson ’20, Sydney Robinson ’20, Shea Baker ’21, Emily Choe ’20, Janelle Umana-Limon ’20, Sydney Correa ’21.

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“The GSA gave me a space in which I felt like I was supported and not alone, and it’s the first place at Brooks where I felt that I belonged.”

“Triple A gives international students and students of international heritage a home away from home. We miss home, and Triple A gives us opportunities to speak our language, eat our food and celebrate our holidays.”

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“Alianza Latina is a way for people of Latin origin to come together at Brooks. It’s a place for all of us to find our voice.

It’s a great way to show what’s important to us and to define our common values.”

“The BSU provides a safe space for black students to come and feel as though they’re at home. There are differences between Brooks and home, no matter how far away you live, and that’s one of the things we keep for everybody.”

“At WINC, we want girls at Brooks to feel as if they have a support system and people they can go to if they want to talk about something or bounce ideas off of someone. There’s opportunity for girls to create close relationships with each other.”

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CODING CLUB

Fifth-formers Emma Fleischman and Nikki LaPierre started Coding Club this year in the hopes that they could “create a space for creativity,” according to Fleischman.

“We want to get people at Brooks who are interested in coding together so that we can talk to each other if we have a problem, or show each other something we made that we think is cool.”

Fleischman and LaPierre connected as third-formers: Fleischman had coding experience, and LaPierre’s growing interest in coding led her to seek Fleischman out for advice and guidance. They’re currently both taking AP Computer Science, and they welcome coders of all levels into Coding Club. “Right now, we’re trying to find a project that we can all collaborate on and work on together,” LaPierre says. “We’re trying to form a creative network.”

Fleischman and LaPierre both enjoy the challenge of learning to code. “It’s not like anything else,” Fleischman says, “because it’s this cool creative thinking with algorithms that you don’t really see in a lot of other areas of school.”

LaPierre, meanwhile, compares coding to learning a new language.

“We want to open coding up to people and show that it can be fun,” Fleischman concludes. “There are different aspects to it that I think every person can relate to and enjoy.”

Emma Fleischman ’21 (left) and Nikki LaPierre ’21.

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“[Coding’s] not like anything else because it’s this cool creative thinking with algorithms that you don’t really see in a lot of other areas of school.”

B R O O K S CONNEC T IO NS

BROOKS CONNECTIONS IN THIS SECTION 44 Alumni News 50 Class Notes 85 In Memoriam

Faculty emeritus Jack McVey P’77, P’79, P’81, P’85 (right) passed away in September. His 39-year career on the Brooks faculty reached generations of Brooks students. A tribute is on page 54 of this issue.

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BROOKS CONNECT I O N S

A LUM N I N EWS

A Dedication to Dedication Brooksians gathered on the shores of Lake Cochichewick to honor tradition and look into the future of the school’s crew program.

Left: Peter Cross ’63, P’07 speaks at the dedication ceremony of three new boats. The “Ox,” named after longtime crew coach and faculty emeritus Ox Kingsbury, is visible. Above: Three boats were welcomed into the Brooks fleet in October. From left to right: Ox, Anneen and Sally.

In October, Brooksians paused to christen three new boats into the Brooks fleet. Two new doubles joined the fold: “Ox,” named after faculty emeritus and program founder Ox Kingsbury; and “Sally,” named after former faculty Sally Morris, who led the program for many years in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition School Minister Jim Chapman donated a single scull, “Anneen,” in honor of his partner and wife.

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The Ox and Sally are Hudsons, rigged this fall as double sculls but convertible to pairs in the spring.

Brooks purchased them this summer from Boston University with funds generously donated by a handful of alumni. The Anneen is a single scull built in France by the manufacturer Julienne in the 1980s, lovingly restored by Chapman before he donated it to the school.

During the ceremony, Director of Rowing Tote Smith pointed out the immediate usefulness of the boats: Brooks girls Ashley Picard ’20 and Lydia Barker ’21, and Brooks boys Luke Desmaison ’22 and Adam Jac ’22, would row the doubles in the Head of the Charles Regatta one week following the dedication.

“What these sculls represent in our program far exceeds their sleek lines,” Smith said to the crowd.

“They are the beginning of our belief that to create lifelong rowers, we would do well to teach every Brooks rower to scull.”

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Young Leaders Two Brooksians step up as sophomore captains for their collegiate teams.

Pat Freiermuth ’18 and his classmate Andrew Stevens both left Brooks to play collegiate sports: Freiermuth under the bright lights of the Pennsylvania State University football program, and Stevens for the Columbia University men’s soccer team.

Coming off head-turning rookie campaigns, they’ve each been named a team captain for their sophomore seasons, an honor not typically granted to someone with only one year of experience under their belt.

Stevens, a strong, physical midfielder, earned second-team All-Ivy honors last year on the back of 13 starts. He’s also been a consistent presence for the Lions this year as Columbia seeks an Ivy League title after finishing second the last two years.

Freiermuth, meanwhile, a classic tight end, has made his name at Penn State, as he did at Brooks, on his trademark grit and power. He scored eight touchdowns for the Nittany Lions in 2018, and, at press, had followed that up with seven touchdowns this year.

“Brooks prepared me to take on such a huge role,” Freiermuth says. “Knowing that I’m a captain for this team and this program is such a great honor, and I’m really appreciative of the support the team and the coaching staff have shown me in voting me in as a captain. Coach [Pat] Foley, Coach [John] McVeigh and Willie Waters ’02, among many others at Brooks, have shaped me into becoming the leader I am today, and I can’t express how thankful I am to have them and many other people from Brooks in my life.”

Stevens also expressed appreciation for the ways in which the school taught him to lead. “I owe so much to Brooks and its community,” he says. “My experiences at Brooks helped me grow as a person with the support of so many amazing people.

What I learned in the classroom, on the soccer field and within the community at Brooks has served me well in my college career thus far. I often find myself referring back to valuable lessons I learned at Brooks when making decisions today. In transitioning to college, my experiences on and off the field at Brooks gave me a strong foundation to continue to try to be the best version of myself for my team and university. I will forever be grateful for Brooks and its people.”

C ALL FOR ALU MN I AWARD N OMI N ATI ONS We’re already planning for Alumni Weekend, which will take place May 8–9, 2020. A highlight of the weekend is the awarding of three alumni awards: the Distinguished Brooksian award, the Alumni Shield award and the Alumni Bowl award.

Descriptions of each award follow.

If you’d like to nominate a member of a Brooks alumni class year ending in 5 or 0 for either the Alumni Shield or the Distinguished Brooksian awards, please contact Associate Director of Alumni Relations Carly Churchill ’10 at cchurchill@brooksschool.org or (978) 725-6286 by February 1, 2020.

THE DISTINGUISHED BROOKSIAN award honors a member of the Brooks community whose life and contributions to society exemplify the nobility of character and usefulness to humanity embodied in the spirit of the school.

THE ALUMNI SHIELD award recognizes an alumna or alumnus who graduated from Brooks less than 25 years ago who has made significant contributions in the field of his or her endeavor.

THE ALUMNI BOWL is awarded to that member of the alumni community who has tirelessly and loyally supported the school through their thoughtful and exemplary service and dedication as a volunteer. We do not accept nominations for the Alumni Bowl.

Save the Date!

Our fifth annual Giving Day FALL ALUMNI GATHERINGS Brooks hosted gatherings for its alumni this fall that took advantage of its spectacular New England locale. Brooksians gathered at storied Fenway Park in Boston to watch the hometown Red Sox take on the San Francisco Giants on September 17. Two weekends later, a group met up at Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts, for a morning of apple picking, hayrides, cider donuts and good company. For the latest on Brooks alumni events happening in your area, please visit www.brooksschool.org/alumni/events.

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is scheduled for February 11, 2020. On Giving Day, we ask Brooks alumni to give in support of the Brooks Fund.

Watch for more information, and get ready to give.

Go Brooks!

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Nicole Zohdi ’12 (background) with her line of Ignite protein bars.

BROOKS WORKS Have you recently published a book? Has your album just dropped? Tell us about it. We want to hear about your creative successes, and we want to highlight your work in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin.

To have your work considered for inclusion in a future installment of Brooks Works, please send a review copy to:

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Igniting Sales The Brooks School Store has a new product — or had, anyway, until it sold out. Brooksian Nicole Zohdi ’12 made a splash on campus when her line of Ignite protein bars hit the shelves. Student Services staffer Dawn Morrison reports that the three flavors of Ignite bars — caramel coconut chia, peanut butter hemp, and salted chocolate — sold briskly when they were introduced this fall.

Ignite bars are, according to their creator, “designed to pull away from the conventional high-sugar snack bars that overwhelm the modern American diet and fail to deliver the nutrition our bodies need.” The bars are high in protein and low in sugar, and they supply busy Brooksians with a power-packed snack as they move through their day on campus.

BRAIN REACTION

The label for Brain Reaction, an IPA brewed by Southbound Brewing Company, was designed by Caleb Williamson ’03.

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Caleb Williamson ’03 was president of the Art Association while he was at Brooks. “I drew every day at Brooks,” he says, “but I didn’t know it would turn into this career that it has!” The artist recently designed the label for a beer can.

His art adorns the can for “Brain Reaction,” a juicy, hazy IPA brewed by Southbound Brewing Company in Savannah, Ga. Williamson reports that the brewery commissioned his design, and has since requested three more labels; all, he says, will be “Grateful Dead-inspired.”

Until now, Williamson has worked as an artist in the music scene focusing on limited-edition concert posters and apparel. His clients have included the bands The String Cheese Incident, Disco Biscuits, Aqueous and Umphrey’s McGee, among others.

Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845

The magazine does not purchase the materials listed in Brooks Works. The materials we receive will be donated to the Luce Library or another appropriate outlet. The Bulletin reserves the right to reject works that, in the judgment of the editorial staff, do not promote the mission or values of Brooks School or the Bulletin.

BRIEFLY NOTED Aaron Baumgarten ’12, who is currently pursuing a graduate degree in aerospace engineering from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed with associate professor of mechanical engineering Ken Kamrin a mathematical model that predicts the weird behavior of a nonNewtonian fluid widely known to the preschool set as “oobleck.”

Oobleck, for those unfamiliar, is a mixture of cornstarch and water.

Like other non-Newtonian fluids such as Silly Putty and quicksand, it’s pressure-dependent: A quick tap on the surface of liquid oobleck will feel hard because the cornstarch particles are forced together; but a hand dipped slowly into the liquid mixture will meet no resistance because the cornstarch particles are pushed to the side.

Baumgarten’s model accurately simulates how oobleck turns from a liquid to a solid and back again.

This model, MIT explains, can be useful in predicting how similar substances might behave in military and industrial applications.

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Athletics Hall of Fame Induction Four Brooksians were inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame during Alumni Homecoming in November.

Liz Bruno ’08, Peter Crowley ’08, Bill Turner ’65 and longtime Brooks athletic director Bill McEvoy Sr. were inducted into the Brooks Athletics Hall of Fame this fall in a well-attended Ashburn Chapel ceremony.

Head of School John Packard opened the ceremony before turning the podium over to Director of Athletics Bobbie Crump-Burbank, who presented the inductees to the audience.

PETER CROWLEY ’08

• Played soccer and basketball, and rowed crew at Brooks.

• Won the Athletic Prize.

• Soccer: a formidable goalkeeper who led his team to the New England championship game as a sixth-former.

• Crew: team captain; still holds the Brooks 2K erg time record of 6:12.5.

• Four-year starter for Babson College men’s soccer team; anchored squad that went 28-0-4 in conference play, won four regular season championships and three conference championships; advanced to the NCAA championship tournament all four years; holds Babson’s all-time career wins record; was named to the All-America team as a senior and made multiple All-Conference and All-New England teams.

BILL MCEVOY SR. P’81, P’83, P’89 (posthumous)

• Served the school’s athletic program for more than 24 years between 1963 and 1991 as athletic director, assistant athletic director and coach of basketball and other sports.

• Numerous alumni credit McEvoy with having a dramatic, positive effect on their development as athletes, students and people.

• Contributions to the town of North Andover are widely known and appreciated.

• Conceived of the Brooks School Athletics Hall of Fame; fitting that he is inducted into it.

• His legacy is one of attention to detail, care for members of his community, and unwavering support of those he worked with and mentored.

BILL TURNER ’65

• Played soccer and ice hockey, and rowed crew at Brooks.

• Soccer: a key member of the team; in 1964, scored 10 of the team’s final 14 goals; also known as a savvy playmaker and passer.

• Hockey: two-time captain; a prolific goal scorer and twoway player.

• Crew: stroked the first boat as a sixth-former; that boat won the B Flight finals at Quinsigamond.

• Played hockey at the University of Pennsylvania; a starting center, goal scorer and contributor on both ends; while in attendance, Penn became a Division I program and joined the Ivy League in hockey, challenges that he led his team through.

LIZ BRUNO ’08

• Played soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse at Brooks and received 12 1st team letters.

• Won the Athletic Prize and the Frank D. Ashburn Athletic Award.

• Soccer: Two-time All-ISL honoree; team won ISL championship as a sixth-former.

• Lacrosse: Two-time captain and three-time All-ISL honoree; honorable mention All-American; two-time ISL champions.

• Led Trinity College women’s lacrosse team to two NESCAC championships and the national championship; fourtime All-American; as a senior, was named the NESCAC player of the year and the Division III midfielder of the year, as well as the NCAA championship tournament’s most outstanding player.

FAL L 20Packard 19 47 Head of School John (left) with this year’s inductees into the Athletics Hall of Fame, continuing from left to right: Peter Crowley ’08, Jeannine McEvoy P’81, P’83, P’89, Bill Turner ’65, Liz Bruno ’08.

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NEW YORK

REGIONAL RECEPTION

An enthusiastic group of Brooksians, including faculty, alumni and parents, met at Doyle in New York City in October. The group sampled hors d’oeuvres, heard from Head of School John Packard and reconnected in a beautiful space.

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01 Christophe Desmaison P’22 (left) and Jen Griffin P’22 enjoy the New York reception. 02 From left to right: Margaret Pennoyer, Katherine Mullaney ’11, Ali Palacios ’11, Catie Walczak ’10. 03 Julia Caffrey ’10 (left) and Margaret Klein ’10 represent the class of 2010 at the New York reception. 04 History faculty Alex Konovalchik P’14, P’17 (left) catches up with Tom Caron ’15 (center) and Cole Goodman ’15 (right).

05 From left to right: Samantha Grant ’14, Admission Administrative Assistant Sheila Konovalchik P’14, P’17 and English faculty Leigh Perkins ’81, P’14, P’18 take in the sights at Doyle. 06 From left to right: Cheryl Griffin P’09, Amber Coleman ’09, and Adonious Coleman P’09. 07 Burt Flickinger ’71 (left) with Catherine Flickinger. 08 Alex Carey ’86, P’19, P’20, P’23 welcomes the group to the event on behalf of the host committee. 09 Jared Day ’17 (left) catches up with Associate Head for Academic Affairs Lance Latham P’17. 10 Suzanne Egertson ’15 (left) and Anna Worcester ’14. 11 From left to right: Mathematics faculty Kihak Nam ’99, Associate Director of Admission Alex Skinner ’08 and Brian Kang ’19 chat during the New York reception. 12 From left to right: Wendy Arriz P’21, Chris Arriz P’21 and Ashley Bernhard P’15. 13 Head of School John Packard P’18, P’21 addresses the crowd at Doyle, an art auction house in New York. 14 Jackie Murphy ’14 (left) and Sarah Murphy ’15 enjoy time together at the New York reception. 15 From left to right: Ani Bilazarian ’13, Ara Bilazarian ’11, Allie Barry ’13.

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FACULTY EME R IT US JACK M CV E Y P ’ 7 7, P ’ 7 9, P ’81, P ’85

A Lasting Presence Faculty emeritus Jack McVey, who spent 39 years on the Brooks faculty, influenced his students with his knowledge, his patience and his care.

John Matthew McVey P’77, P’79, P’81, P’85, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and formerly of North Andover, died on September 7, 2019 at Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport. He was the beloved husband of 60 years to Jean C. (Milner) McVey, and he was 90 years old.

Born in Andover, Massachusetts, on November 2, 1928, he was one of three sons of the late Edward and Katherine (Sweeney) McVey. After high school he enlisted in the United States Navy, proudly serving from June 13, 1946, until his honorable discharge on June 16, 1948. Not quite four years later, McVey enlisted in the United States Army during the Korean War, serving from April 14, 1952, until October 6, 1953, honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant.

After his military service, McVey went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Queens University in Ontario, Canada. This led to a 39-year career on the Brooks faculty. McVey arrived at Brooks in 1958 and stayed until 1997. His reach spanned generations of Brooks students. He taught primarily in the history department, but his expertise extended into other departments as well. Throughout his years at Brooks, McVey influenced countless students, giving them the confidence that they needed to face the challenges and rewards of higher education. His four sons also benefited from the same guidance and advice that he shared with his students, instilling in them the desire to thrive. His impact on the school was profound; he was designated faculty emeritus at the time of his retirement.

In addition to his wife, Jean, of Newburyport, McVey also leaves behind his four sons: Sean M. McVey ’77 and wife, Patricia, of Newington, Connecticut; Christian D. McVey ’79 of North Andover; C. Peter McVey ’81 and wife, Judy, of Wakefield, Massachusetts; and Cameron T. McVey ’85 and wife, L.J., of Steamboat Springs, Colorado; his four grandchildren, who never failed to amaze him: Kelly Lockard and husband, Brady, of Boston; Jessica Staropoli and husband, Michael, of Georgetown, Massachusetts; Jillian McVey of Boston; and Timothy McVey of San Diego; and several nieces and a nephew, extended family and dear friends. McVey was predeceased by his two brothers, Edward McVey and Paul McVey, and their respective spouses, Ruth and Ann. He will always be remembered for his sincere dedication as a husband, father, grandfather, son, brother, uncle and friend, as well as an educator, not only of his students, but of everyone in his life, and above all else, for his gift of inspiration.

Memorial donations may be made to Brooks School (c/o John McVey Fellowship in Teaching), 1160 Great Pond Road, North Andover, MA 01845.

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MEMORIES It is summer. My father is sitting in the backyard of the white house down near the lake where our family lived from the 1970s into the 1990s.

He is ponderously balanced in a slouchy garden chair hunched over yet another book. My father was always reading. Always. During dinner time conversations — setup and prodded along in much the same way he ran his classroom — he would often interject, “Have you read the book? I’ve read the book.” I’m tempted to say he read all the books. That’s impossible, of course, but if anyone could pull it off it was he.

His study was in the front of the house. That’s where he worked his magic. Countless times I’d come downstairs to see the study door closed. My mother would say in a theatrical whisper, “He’s with a student.” My father spent countless hours advising, cajoling, picking at, urging on, talking turkey with and otherwise guiding, motivating and advising Brooks students. Once I asked him why he never became a college professor. He certainly had the academic chops to do so. He shook his head slightly side to side and said, “Nah, high school is where you can really shape them up. Really make an impact.”

One time a stranger came to the door. Mid-thirties or so. Ancient to my 12-year-old eyes. “He’s not here,” I responded to the man’s inquiry. He was crestfallen. A moment before, there had been a playful light in his eyes. Now his brow furrowed and darkened. He backed off the slate steps, pointed a finger at me and said with an uncommon sincerity, “Your father changed my life. Changed my life. I just wanted to thank him.”

My father changed many lives, mine included. Thank you, Jack.

Thank you, Mr. McVey.

—Cameron T. McVey ’85

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“ The thing that probably impacted me the most was the sixth-form class with Jack McVey that got me interested in politics, which eventually led me to law school.”

RICHARD E. GARDINER ’69

Faculty emeritus Jack McVey P’77, P’79, P’81, P’85, who taught at Brooks for 39 years.

“Jack McVey was a superb, imaginative teacher and mentor to many boys who needed support and otherwise might have gone under the radar … Modest to a fault, he had a helpful influence on younger teachers such as myself when we first arrived. He had passion in everything he undertook in and out of the classroom, including coaching.”

FORMER FACULTY ROB WALKER ’53, H’66, P’94, GP’18

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“ At Brooks, I learned how to write, due to the tireless efforts of Jack McVey and the Dunnell brothers.”

PETER GUYER ’80

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D IN BOTSFOR D B L A N K E N S H IP ’03

A Unifying Experience Din Botsford Blankenship ’03 is a kind of explorer: She left her Southern roots to study at Brooks; she traveled and worked abroad; she shifted her career path to match her interests. An architect by training, she’s now hard at work producing a documentary film about an Atlanta suburb that hosts

Din Botsford Blankenship ’03 is up for adventure. She grew up in Birmingham, Ala., before leaving for Brooks, and she remembers the culture shock that her move from the Deep South to New England brought. She played on the girls 2nd ice hockey team, for example: “I’m from Alabama,” she laughs, “so that was entertaining.” Blankenship also sang for the Brooks gospel choir, played for the girls 1st lacrosse team, served as a dorm prefect and even found time to travel abroad to South Africa through the school’s Exchange Program.

Blankenship’s drive to take on new experiences continued after she matriculated at the University of Virginia (UVA), where she studied architecture, and at the University of Michigan, where she received her master’s degree in architecture. “I loved the academic side of architecture,” she says.

“I loved studying architecture.

In school, I was able to access a creative part of my brain that, in practice, is much more technical.

After having worked in firms for a number of years, I was really hoping to engage more with people on a day-to-day basis and also use the creative part of my brain a little more regularly.”

Blankenship’s Exchange trip to South Africa loomed large in her mind. She also thought about

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work she had done in Uganda while studying architecture at UVA, during which she lived and worked in camps for internally displaced people while helping design transitional shelters for residents. Both these experiences, she says, opened her eyes to people who lived differently from her, and also made her less fearful of entering unfamiliar situations. The world, she says, felt a little more familiar.

So, when Blankenship was approached by Erin Bernhardt, an old college friend, she jumped.

Berndhardt was producing the documentary “Clarkston: Mother of Exiles,” and Blankenship eagerly signed on to a producer role as Bernhardt’s partner. The documentary, which also boasts fellow UVA graduate and renowned journalist Katie Couric as executive producer, explores the town of Clarkston, Ga., an Atlanta suburb that is recognized as the most diverse square mile in America. Clarkston, Blankenship says, attracts more than 1,500 refugees a year; people who hail from a massive breadth of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds live within its confines. The film follows four subjects, including a Kurdish refugee who is now a doctor, an elderly Somalian who has built a new life , and a high school valedictorian who was forced to leave her country of birth when she was 16.

Blankenship says that her role as producer allows her to use her natural skill at managing logistics — planning shoots, preparing the team and ensuring that permissions to film are in place — while also using her creative talents to help edit hundreds of hours of film to create a story arc.

“Clarkston is special,” Blankenship says. “You hear a lot about its diversity, but it isn’t only a community of people who are different from one another. It’s a place where people from opposing sides of a conflict have both resettled.

It’s a place where people who may have been enemies in their home countries are now living peacefully alongside one another.”

“At the global level, we’re experiencing a larger number of displaced people in the world than ever before,” she continues. “As a developed nation, I think we have an obligation to figure out what our role is in their displacement and how we can help provide them with a new home. By showing this film, we’re hoping that stereotypes people have, and even the fears people might have, might be eased when you get to know these individuals.

As one of the subjects of the film says, it’s hard to hate somebody that you know.”

This theme follows the fourth subject of the film: Chris, a former

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PHOTO: PAIGE GRADISHAR FOR CLARKSTON FILM

the most diverse square mile in America.

white supremacist working to fight the hate-filled ideology he once endorsed. “Introducing Chris allowed us to start asking a bigger question: Where do I belong in America in 2019?” Blankenship says. “Even Chris, a white Christian male, questioned whether he belongs, and I think that feeling of not belonging anywhere is what led him to a really dark place. I think the film is able to speak to that a little bit, and be a space that is unifying, a space around which we can talk about some hard questions and ultimately feel unified.”

As part of the film’s reach, Blankenship also works on the project’s impact and education campaign, which equips viewers with resources and support that

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can help them continue the film’s work. Blankenship is also proud of the film’s efforts to include members of the Clarkston community in the film’s production. The film’s production team worked with the workforce development program in the county in which Clarkston is located to set up a training program. The program allows young people from Clarkston to work in paid internships as production assistants on the shoots.

Blankenship reports that a number of these program participants have gone on to find work in Atlanta’s booming film industry. The film also hosted another Brooksian: Clara Brown ’14, who interned on the project and learned after arriving on site that Blankenship

also attended Brooks (“We’re both Gardner girls,” Blankenship enthuses).

The film is scheduled to be released in spring 2020, and Blankenship welcomes any Brooksians who wish to learn more about the film and how they can support it to contact her directly at dinblankenship@gmail.com.

“This has been a really welcoming and wonderful transition, because I feel like I’m doing what I’m good at on a more regular basis, which is obviously fulfilling,” she says.

“The content of this film is something I’ve cared about for a really long time. It’s exciting to be able to share stories with people in a way that is accessible. It’s been a really exciting, really fun journey.”

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RACH AEL BUR K E ’ 10

The Strength of Community An up-and-coming comedian reflects on her rapid rise through the industry and the ways in which Brooks allowed her to explore comedy and community.

Rachael Burke ’10 took her first improvisational comedy class in fourth grade. Comedy, she says, is what she’s always known she wanted to do. “My family is very humorous,” she says, “and I grew up just constantly dressing up in funny outfits, having spontaneous dance parties and putting on shows for my family. I love improving the quality of life of others and making them feel as if their guard is down, and that they’re safe and can escape whatever they’re experiencing. I also love comedy for my own reasons: I love being on stage and the feeling of performing.”

Burke’s career in comedy has moved well beyond spontaneous

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dance parties in her childhood living room. The New York-based comedian spent more than five years working at “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where her team of four earned two Emmy Awards for social and interactive media, and where she was also a contributing writer. Burke moved on to found the comedy troupe “Kids These Days,” which has performed to sold-out audiences, earned rave reviews at major comedy festivals, and recently appeared on several episodes of the NBC comedy competition show “Bring the Funny.”

Burke found a mountain of support for her budding interest

in comedy at Brooks. She speaks lovingly of English faculty Leigh Perkins ’81, who inspired Burke to found an improvisational comedy troupe in her third-form year at Brooks. “She was a big mentor for me,” Burke says. “She inspired me to make something happen immediately, and she encouraged me to start the group. We performed in the black box theater and at School Meeting. It was a blast! I knew it was something I wanted to do. I have never felt more free on stage than I felt when I was at Brooks doing improv.”

Burke also credits other Brooks faculty with giving her the space to find her passions, including former faculty Alex Costello, Matt Grant, Shaunielle McDonald ’94 and Sue Hodgson, as well as current faculty Maylo Keller and even mathematics faculty Doug Burbank who, Burke says, allowed her to doodle in math class (“he understood that’s how my brain works, and that’s what I needed to be able to do to be interested in learning.”). “I think teachers deserve to be thanked,” she says, “because they help people, and I think that sometimes they don’t even know how much of an impact they’ve had on so many people.”

Burke also reflects on the strong community that she enjoyed at Brooks and its impact on her willingness to try new things. “I think I was lucky to have a class that was really just stacked with wonderful, supportive people,” she says. “I had amazing friends who were very

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loyal and supportive and believed in me. The Brooks community helped foster them to be so confident in themselves and me.”

After Brooks, Burke decamped to Trinity College, where the next step in her career presented itself. She remembers watching an episode of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” in which he announced a dance contest. Burke sent a video of herself and her roommate dancing a dance Burke had made up at Brooks, and she won. Burke was able to appear on the show to teach Fallon the dance.

Once she had more work experience, she returned to Fallon’s set as an intern — with a commute between Hartford, Conn., and New York that tested her dedication to her craft.

“When I was interning, I commuted from Trinity,” Burke explains. “I worked in New York on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I took five classes at Trinity. I took the bus; I would leave campus at 4:30 in the morning, get to New York by 9 a.m., work until 7:30 p.m., and then take the bus back to Trinity. I’d get back around 11 p.m., go to sleep, and then wake up and go to class. It’s crazy. It was so crazy. If traffic happened, I’d sometimes be on the bus for four hours. Literally nuts.”

Burke’s pull toward comedy was well-founded, though. She ended up working for Jimmy Fallon through April 2019. Over the course of her

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“ I have never felt more free on stage than I felt when I was at Brooks doing improv.”

—RACH A E L B U RK E ’ 10

time there, Burke ran social media for the show, work for which her team earned two Emmy Awards, and also worked as a contributing writer for desk segments, guest sketches, guest games and monologues. She is deservedly proud of the fact that she got her first Emmy nomination before she graduated from college.

More recently, Burke founded the improv troupe “Kids These Days,” which collects a group of, Burke says, “the funniest people I know who are also the kindest comedians that I had experienced in my six-plus years of doing comedy in New York.” The group has found resounding success, selling out every single show it’s ever done in New York and on tour in eight different states, as well as attracting crowds at major comedy festivals and landing a shot on the NBC comedy competition show “Bring the Funny.”

“I think we put on a really special type of show,” Burke says.

“Everyone in the group has a different sense of humor and comes from different comedic and personal backgrounds. As a result, we make sure each sketch is accessible to

everyone, and that the audience understands and appreciates it.

We also really care about each other, and really, I think that’s what attracts people to our shows: They can see how much we enjoy each other’s company on stage.”

“There’s a feeling you get — it’s near euphoria — when you’re on stage with your close friends and you just feel like you’re doing exactly what you love with the people you love doing it with,” Burke concludes. “It’s a very comforting feeling. Doing comedy alone can be very lonely, but doing it together with people who have the same intention with their comedy is incredibly empowering.”

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PARTING SHOT

The northern entrance of Luce Library at Brooks.

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Dedication John DeSimone ’87, P’20 holds a unique place in the ranks of loyal Brooks donors in that he has made a gift to Brooks School every year since he graduated 33 years ago.

When he was a young graduate, John’s parents instilled in him the importance of showing appreciation to those who have supported you. From caring faculty mentors to a strong academic foundation to financial aid, John’s first donation was the first step in a decades-long hope to pay it forward so that other students could benefit from the Brooks experience.

Today, John and his wife, Audrey, are the parents of Elizabeth, a member of the Brooks class of 2020. Seeing the school through the eyes of a new generation, John and Audrey now consider their Brooks Fund gift an opportunity to express their appreciation to the current teachers, coaches and staff. They have already talked with Elizabeth about the importance of philanthropy, and she is excited to make her first donation this spring. The DeSimone family’s annual gift is a moment of connection — a time in which they can stop and say thank you to the school for all it has meant to their family.

Consider joining John, Audrey and Elizabeth in supporting the Brooks Fund this year. Every gift makes an impact. Thank you!

Giving Day, a oneday event to benefit the Brooks Fund, will take place on February 11, 2020.

Please save the date! #WeAreBrooksSchool

B RO O KS SCHOOL BROOKS FUND

Three easy ways to give: Credit Card — Check — Stock. Visit www.brooksschool.org to make your gift.

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U P CO M I N G EVEN TS April 9 Kippy Liddle Day May 8–9 Alumni Weekend May 24 Lawn Ceremony May 25 Prize Day

Please visit brooksschool.org/alumni/events for up-to-date listings and information on our alumni events.

Whitney House during the first snowfall at Brooks.