Brooks Bulletin Winter 2015

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BROOKS

BULLETIN • WINTER 2015

EXPE R I E N T I A L L EA R N I N G AT B RO O KS Anatomy and Physiology students learn complicated material by building models of muscles, ligaments and tendons out of clay.

BOA RD O F T RU ST EES

Pamela W. Albright P’10, P’16 Topsfield, Mass.

Zachary S. Martin P’15, P’17 Wellesley, Mass.

Lynne A. Sawyer ’83 New York, N.Y.

President William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass.

John R. Barker ’87 Wellesley, Mass.

Timothy H. McCoy ’81, P’14, P’15, P’18 Wellesley, Mass.

Letitia Ashley Wightman Scott ’84, P’11, P’14 Manchester, Mass.

John R. Packard Jr. Head of School

Thomas E. Shirley P’07, P’10, P’13 Beverly, Mass.

Vice Presidents W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y. Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y. Secretary Charles E. Bascom ’60 Marion, Mass.

Treasurer Donald R. Peck P’11, P’14 Lexington, Mass.

David E. Berroa ’13 Lowell, Mass.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 New York, N.Y. Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17 Andover, Mass.

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

Booth D. Kyle ’89 Seattle, Wash.

The newly renovated Ashburn Chapel reopened in December.

Ginger B. Pearson ’99 Lowell, Mass.

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

Belisario A. Rosas P’15 Andover, Mass.

Whitney Romoser Savignano ’87 Manchester, Mass.

Ramakrishna R. Sudireddy P’15 Andover, Mass.

Trustees Emeriti Lucius A. D. Andrew III ’57, P’81, P’83, P’87 Seattle, Wash.

Henry M. Buhl ’48, P’82 New York, N.Y. Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J. James G. Hellmuth P’78 Lawrence, N.Y.

Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 Chadds Ford, Penn.

H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C.

Joseph F. Trustey III P’13, P’16 Wenham, Mass.

Michael B. Keating ’58, P’97 Boston, Mass.

Alessandro F. Uzielli ’85 Beverly Hills, Calif.

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 Concord, Mass.

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

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BU L L E T I N • W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

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Head of School John R. Packard Jr. Associate Head for External Affairs Jim Hamilton Director of Development Gage S. Dobbins

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Director of Alumni and Parent Events Erica Callahan

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Assistant Director of Alumni Programs Kevin Corkery Director of Admission Bini R. Egertson P’12, P’15

Director of Communications and Marketing Dan Callahan Director of Publications Rebecca A. Binder Design Lilly Pereira Alumni Communications Manager Emily Williams Assistant Director of Communications Erin Greene

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 © 2015 Brooks School

FE AT U R ES

D E PA RT M E N TS

20 Exploring the World

02 M essage from the Head of School

For almost three decades, Brooks students have used the Exchange Program to travel the world, broaden their perspectives and push their limits. We traveled with a group of exchange students and uncovered the details of their experience.

30 On a Mission

This fall, Brooks brought a group of alumni, parents, trustees and friends of the school to campus for the Brooks Summit. The day-long conference celebrated the strong foundation that Brooks rests on, and set out a plan to secure the school’s future.

03 News + Notes 18 In the Classroom 43 Brooks Connections 84 Parting Shot

38 Kicking Up Dust

Susan Hodgson spent almost thirty years breaking new ground at Brooks. On her retirement, we celebrate her tireless efforts to provide academic help to students who need it and the indelible legacy she leaves behind.

ON THE COVER: Science teacher Laura Hajdukiewicz P’15, P’17 believes that experiential learning helps her students succeed because they engage more fully with challenging subject matter.

Read more about her methods on Page 18. Photo © 2015 Zahourek Systems, Inc. and Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Not for Reproduction.

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

An Extraordinary Day

“ [ A] deeper and broader engagement is all that stands between us and addressing needs that are in our sights.”

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I awoke at a very early hour on Friday, October 17, eager for a full day of conversations with the 80 trustees, alums and parents planning to be on campus later that morning. The prospect of spending time immersed in the substance of the school’s opportunities and challenges was to blame for my restlessness.

The Summit, as we referred to the day, brought together a wide range of Brooks School’s past and present for discussions on the future of our school and ways in which we can improve it. The collective wisdom in the room was thrilling — as was the obvious care for Brooks School.

It was an extraordinary day.

In my remarks to start the day, I noted that Brooks is a great school. That is a claim we can substantiate in ways both tangible and intangible. Yet, it is also true that complacency in the midst of an increasingly competitive secondary school world will jeopardize our ability to be the school we want to be in the future. We set out that October morning to share and test a direction for Brooks we believe will both strengthen the experience of our current students and fortify the school’s long-term durability. After a full day of presentations and brainstorming, we invited feedback so that we can continue to sharpen our plan and strategy. As I move further into my seventh year as head of school, I become more convinced all the time that deeper

and broader engagement is all that stands between us and addressing needs that are in our sights. The Summit reinforced this belief.

This edition of the Bulletin will say more about all that transpired at the Summit, and in the coming months we will organize regional events that will aim to simulate what was covered and considered in October. Indeed, we have already held events of this sort in New York and Hong Kong in November, and will have more to come in 2015. Furthermore, we have begun making plans for a second Summit scheduled for fall 2015. In my October report to the board of trustees, I shared my firm belief that to know Brooks School better and more deeply is to admire it more fully. We will continue to move forward, confident that more and more will come to see our school as worthy of time, attention and support.

In the meantime, we are excited about all that is in store at Brooks during the winter, enhanced considerably this year by the reopening of the Ashburn Chapel in December after its most comprehensive renovation and expansion since its original construction in 1930. With our fourth year of Winter Term occupying much of January, there is so much happening at your school that is worthy of your pride. I do hope you will visit soon and see for yourself.

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NEWS + NOTES IN THIS SECTION 04 News from Campus 10 Campus Scene 14 Athletics 18 In the Classroom

Tim Zhao ’18 and the rest of the Brooks football program gave the school a lot to cheer for this fall. The squad used dedication, teamwork and a state-of-the-art facility to build community and win the Sean Brennan Bowl. Read more about the season on Page 14.

NEWS + NOTES

As part of her lease with Brooks, JoAnn Robichaud will provide Wilder Dining Hall with some fresh — and extremely local — produce.

Locally Grown An on-campus farm takes Brooks back to its roots

“A beginning farmer is someone who’s been farming for ten years,” JoAnn Robichaud says, bending over a tub of just-harvested Jerusalem artichokes. “After eleven years, you’re not a beginner anymore.”

“So,” she smiles, “I have a ways to go.” Robichaud’s been a farmer for four years, so she places herself firmly in the beginner camp. You wouldn’t know that, though, from listening to her explain the ins and outs of the off-the-grid organic farm that she established this year on the Brooks campus.

“This is hairy vetch,” Robichaud says, leaning down over her rows in front of a tableau of fiery autumnal trees. “It’s a legume. It’s good ground cover to protect against erosion in the winter. I’m also growing clover over here. The clover has the ability to fix nitrogen from the air, so if I grow in this same spot next year, the soil will already have some nitrogen in it.”

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The introduction of a farm to the Brooks campus is, in fact, more of a re-introduction. Prior to the founding of Brooks, the property was known as Lakeview Farm. By 1871, William A. Russell and his son, Richard Russell, had established the largest livestock barn in North Andover on the property. The Russells also owned a herd of registered Holsteins, and they raised carriage horses along the shores of Lake Cochicheweck. Brooks also hosted a victory garden in 1943.

“For about five years starting in 2008, Brooks worked to have a productive campus garden,” says Director of Environmental Stewardship Brian Palm. “We recognized the limits of that and felt that we needed to explore other options to make this a more viable and sustainable design.”

Brooks partnered with Tufts University’s New Entry Sustainable Farming Project to offer the land behind Peabody House and Russell House for lease.

“This is also linked to an effort to provide more local food options for scratch cooking in our dining hall,” Palm says. The desire to build relationships with local farmers is something that we’ve been working on for almost four years — and you can’t get more local than this!”

Robichaud, meanwhile, was a farmer looking for a farm. She had made a drastic career change when she turned 50. “I was previously a human resources trainer,” she remembers. “I used to teach people how to use computer systems when they made the switch over from paper. And,” she sighs, “I just got tired of it. I was a gardener, my husband is interested in sustainability, and I wanted to try this,” she continues, gesturing out over her land.

Robichaud enrolled in the Tufts program’s Farm Business Planning Course. By 2011, she was working a

WI NTE R 2015

JoAnn Robichaud shows off some of her harvest at her washing station.

“Carrots hardly ever come out of the ground looking like the ones in the supermarket,” she says. “I like the ones with a little personality.”

quarter-acre plot at one of the program’s incubator training farms in Dracut, Mass. Robichaud continued to scale up, working larger plots of land and gaining vital experience, before crossing paths with Brooks.

As part of her lease, Robichaud is to provide some of her harvest to Wilder Dining Hall. Robichaud also offers Brooks faculty and staff a community-supported agriculture, or CSA, plan, and contracts with local businesses to sell her harvest.

“It’s kind of neat to think that some of the food the dining hall serves will be grown right here at Brooks,” Robichaud says.

So far, Robichaud’s tried her hand at growing a number of plants, including tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, fennel, broccoli and kale.

She points at a row of bulging, forearm-thick stalks: “Brussels sprouts,” she says. “One year I had a machete, and I just gave people the entire stalk. They thought it was cool, but after four stalks my machete gave up on me and got pretty dull. Now,” she says, “I just take the sprouts off the stalk, which takes much more time.”

Robichaud’s learning as she goes. “My husband and I spend the winters reading and learning, and

trying to improve on what we did last year,” she says. “There’s so much to know even beyond just how to grow plants. There’s a lot of science: how to rotate crops; how to use cover crops to biofumigate the land; how to combat disease and pests and stay organic; and, not to mention, how to fix tools and how to keep track of the space we allocate to each plant versus its yield. When you farm, you need to be a jack of all trades. You really get a chance to apply those lessons you learned in that science classroom or that math classroom.”

The most immediate example of this jack-of-all-trades approach may be the farm’s solar power station, nestled behind the greenhouse. “My husband designed the solar power station and figured out how to build it,” Robichaud says. “The station powers our electric fence, it powers the louvers on the greenhouse — if I remembered to bring my USB cord down here, it could even charge my phone,” she laughs.

Robichaud is especially grateful to her neighbors, the Brooks faculty and staff who live in Peabody House and Russell House. “Our neighbors have been so supportive,” she says.

“People have seen me out here and brought me meals; I’ve been invited continued...

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NEWS + NOTES

in for lunch or dinner; people have brought me baked goods,” she says.

“Some of the folks have sent their sons and daughters out to help me.

I have them weed, squish Colorado potato beetles, move rock piles — all the fun stuff,” she laughs. “It’s been a dream. I’ve been very lucky.”

Robichaud’s drastic career switch to farming was an adventurous one, and, she will readily admit, a difficult one. She recounts grueling 12-hour days in the field, failed crops and a seemingly never-ending battle against the more vindictive forces of nature. But, she says quickly and assuredly, “I don’t regret the switch at all.”

“Sometimes I complain to my husband,” she says, “and he’ll ask me if I’m sure this — farming — is really what I want to do. And it is.

This is what I want to do. There are always parts of any job that you don’t like or that are difficult. But for me, the good parts of this life have really outweighed the bad.”

A Donation of Confidence Emily Garrard ’16 (left) and Felicia Cafua ’15 after donating their hair at a school meeting.

For the record, Felicia Cafua ’15 has

“When I cut it off, I was about to

great hair. It’s shorter than it used

cry because I felt so great,” Cafua

to be, though: At an early-October

says. “Everyone was cheering and

School Meeting, Cafua, along with

clapping. And after School Meeting,

Emily Garrard ’16, donated 13 inches

everyone was so happy for us.”

of hair to Children With Hair Loss, a

Last year, Cafua and Christine

nonprofit organization that provides

Shin ’15 hatched a plan to encourage

free hair replacement to children who

members of the Brooks community

have medically related hair loss.

to donate their hair to Children With

SNAP Head of School John R. Packard Jr. and Associate Head for External Affairs Jim Hamilton traveled to Seoul, Hong Kong and Bangkok to meet with Brooks alumni, parents and friends in November. They are pictured in Seoul, with (left to right): Jay Lee ’03, Will Lee ’02, Hyun Bum Lee ’99, Jae Park ’99, Jung Kim ’03, Mr. Hamilton, Crystal Lee ’08, Mr. Packard, Jenni Chi ’07, Jennifer Koh ’06, Jae Woo Kim ’07, Berm June Kim ’04, David Kim ’07, Jason Yoo ’08 and Brandon Park ’07.

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B RO O KS BU L L E TI N

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Hair Loss. This year, their plan has come to fruition. “Here at Brooks, there are so

FA LL PLAY FO CUS ES O N CO MMU NITY

many girls with long hair,” Cafua says.

“Christine and I thought we could really make a difference.”

Cafua’s hair holds special meaning for her. Her maternal grandfather died of cancer before Cafua’s mother was born, but not before expressing his wish that his daughter — Cafua’s mother — have long hair. Cafua had also honored her grandfather’s request, and kept her hair long throughout her childhood. Now, though, Cafua sees donating her hair as a testament to her grandfather.

“My hair is a source of confidence for me. It helps me feel good about myself,” Cafua says. “I can’t even imagine being diagnosed with cancer and losing all my hair. I can’t imagine not having that source of confidence — especially as a little kid — while going through such a traumatic event.”

By mid-December, eight Brooks students and one Brooks faculty member had donated their hair, for a total of 120 inches of hair. “My mom loves the idea,” Cafua says. “She’s said she’s going to donate her hair, too.”

Shin and Cafua aren’t finished, though.

They’ve planned additional donation events this winter and spring. According to Cafua, many Brooks girls have been growing out their hair furiously, hoping to reach the minimum donation length before the events.

Male Brooksians are getting into the act also: sixth-former Cole Millington, who usually sports long locks, offered to shave his head in support of Shin and Cafua’s efforts. Shin and Cafua turned the offer into a fundraising opportunity for Children With Hair Loss. They raised more than $200 by selling raffle tickets.

Ecstatic raffle winner Chris Thomas ’15 received the right to shave Millington’s head at a November School Meeting.

“It’s something that’s so easy to donate,” Cafua says. “It’s just hair, but it has such a big impact. It’s wonderful that here at Brooks, we have a chance to do events like this and give back.”

WI NTE R 2015

Robert Lazar, chair of the arts department and director of theater at Brooks, was confident that the school community would rise to the occasion that this year’s fall play presented. The play, titled columbinus, examines issues of alienation, hostility and social pressure in high school, before turning to a depiction of the tragic 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

“This is a tough show,” Lazar acknowledges thoughtfully. “I don’t think we could do this play at many other schools. At Brooks, we are uniquely positioned to be able to look at tough subject matter, to address it, to name it, and to talk about it and grow from it.”

The Brooks community was able to confront the issues columbinus raises head-on, and grow stronger as a result. “One of the reasons we did this play is to bring up topics that are uncomfortable,” Lazar says. “We want our students to think about their actions and about how their actions affect others. We want to ask those questions, and we want our students to have those little sparks of insight — but we don’t want to just walk away from that. We want to follow up. How can we grow as a community? How can we grow as individuals? What can we collectively do to make sure that we address issues of meanness and of isolation? We’re able to talk about these things that are destructive and corrosive to a community, because we have a strong community here.”

Lazar also says that the cast used the material as an academic opportunity. “Our actors showed tremendous growth,” says Lazar. “They did a great job, and they took the script really seriously. We talked about why certain language was chosen and about the structure of the piece. And as we worked through the material, the cast got to the point where the actors were thinking very thoughtfully about the composition of the piece and about the impact of the lines they were saying. They learned and they grew.”

Lazar says that the theater program at Brooks is full of potential. “We need a new building,” he acknowledges. “We keep rubbing up against the limitations that the auditorium places on us. But we’re definitely growing, and we’re going in the right direction.” Lazar says he is especially hopeful for the future of the theater program at Brooks, because the students show consistent interest in the arts. “We have really cool, interesting kids here,” he says. “The vast majority of our students try theater and are willing to take that creative artistic risk, even if they came to Brooks with other interests.”

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NEWS + NOTES

Jayda Pounds ’15 outside the Robert Lehman Art Center.

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You’re originally from Minnesota. What brought you to Brooks? I had never given any thought to going to boarding school. My mother [Nekima V. Levy-Pounds ’94] went to Brooks, though, and one day, out of the blue, she asked me if I wanted to apply.

Honestly, I was hesitant to go to school so far away from my family, but I figured I’d apply; if I was supposed to go, I’d get in. When I got that Brooks acceptance letter, I was really excited, but I was also scared: I didn’t know how I’d do it without my family. But, it turns out coming to Brooks was a great decision. Everyone here is really passionate about something and really good at something, and I love that about this school.

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Fast 5 // Q+A Jayda Pounds ’15 is a campus leader at Brooks: She’s a school prefect, a dorm prefect and an art prefect; she heads up two student organizations; and, she’s come into her own as the starting goalkeeper for the girls 1st soccer team.

Throughout her time at Brooks, Pounds has worked to leave the school a better place than she found it. We asked Pounds for her thoughts on leaving home for Brooks, and on how she’s made Brooks her home.

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Your sister followed in your footsteps. She’s a fourthformer at Brooks. What’s it like having your little sister on campus? It’s fun having Kennedy here. We were in different dorms her first year at Brooks, so there was some distance. But now we’re in the same dorm, and we play soccer together on the same team. We’ve spent a lot more time together lately, which has been nice. I feel like in a way, we’ve been making up for the years I was away.

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What’s your favorite place on campus to spend time? I love visiting Mr. Grant’s office.

He’s the faculty advisor for the art association. He’s really fun to talk to, and he always brings up some great points that make me think. I also love spending time in the Robert Lehman Art Center: I’m an art prefect, so I spend a lot of time working with Ms. Graham to decide what events we should hold in the Lehman and discussing the exhibits we’re showing.

I love imagining how the art will fit on the walls. It’s peaceful and beautiful in there, and I really enjoy looking at all the art. I definitely plan on taking art classes in college.

B RO O KS BU L L E TI N

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Building Connections The Robert Lehman Art Center welcomed Rob Bramhall Architects as

“ Everyone here is really passionate about something and really good at something, and I love that about this school.”

its most recent artist-in-residence this fall. The exhibit, which shows two decades of the firm’s sketches, models and photographs, illuminates how architectural design gives form to function and creates opportunities for artistic expression.

The exhibit prominently features a model of Chace House, which Rob Bramhall Architects designed. Chace House, which opened in September 2012, is the first new residential space at Brooks since 1984. The building’s design elements encourage the relationships between students and dorm faculty that Brooks emphasizes: a large common area; outdoor seating space and a patio for gatherings; and smaller study areas. The building also focuses on environmentally friendly elements, including composting toilets, solar power and efficient heating. These measures should minimize the use of natural resources while reducing future operation costs.

The Lehman Art Center focuses on engaging the Brooks community with professional artists and increasing the community’s understanding of art. Each artist-in-residence participates in a formal show opening

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Finish this sentence: I recommend that everybody try ______________________.

I recommend that everybody try going to the National Association of Independent Schools Student Diversity Leadership Conference.

I went last year when it was in Washington, D.C. It was so awesome.

There were 1,500 kids from all over the country, from all these different boarding schools, all together in one space. Meeting so many new people and learning how they deal with issues of race and culture at their schools was inspiring.

and also works with Brooks students in studio. Amy Graham, who is the director of the Lehman Art Center and an art teacher at Brooks, saw an opportunity to expose her students to architecture. Graham’s design class spent the week leading up to the exhibit opening photographing campus buildings and creating charcoal sketches from the photographs. From

To learn more about the Lehman, please visit www. brooksschool.org/ lehman

there, the class traveled to Rob Bramhall Architects’s studio in Andover, Mass., where the students got to see professional drawings, watch a demonstration of three-dimensional modeling software, and learn more about the architecture field.

Following the architecture exhibit, the Lehman Art Center hosted an exhibit of soccer and squash shirts, which is a collaboration between Brooks soccer coach and math teacher Dusty Richards and Brooks squash coach and math department chair Doug Burbank. The Lehman Art Center will show a pottery exhibit from ShackletonThomas in late January 2015.

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What’s your favorite academic subject? History. What’s really interesting about history, though, is noticing which topics are taught and given space in textbooks, and which topics are not taught or given much space in textbooks. My mother’s a civil rights attorney, so I’ve learned to try to look at history from a bunch of different perspectives. I’ve enjoyed trying to bring those different perspectives to my classes.

WI NTE R 2015

A model of Chace House on display at the Robert Lehman Art Center.

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NEWS + NOTES

CAMPUS SC E NE

Bryan Sutherlin ’15 during a ceremony celebrating Military Appreciation Night at Brooks on October 18, 2014. Brooks football players held a fundraiser for Homes For Our Troops, an organization that builds adapted homes for injured military veterans.

N EWS + N OT ES

NEWS + NOTES

BROOKS WELCOMES NEW TRUSTEES

The board of trustees welcomed five new members this fall, each with a vested interest in the school’s future.

VALENTINE HOLLINGSWORTH III ’72, P’17 may be new to the board, but he’s no stranger to Brooks. Hollingsworth’s ties to the school run deep: His brother Arthur Hollingsworth ’81 attended Brooks, as did his uncles John Woods ’36 and Leonard Woods ’38.

Hollingsworth’s son, Henry Hollingsworth, is currently a fourth-former at Brooks.

Hollingsworth served as dorm prefect, was a member of the Phillips Brooks Society, participated in student government and took a position on the editorial staff of The Brooks Shield. He was also a decorated athlete. He played football and hockey, rowed crew, and was in the inaugural class of inductees into the Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.

His rowing career, which recently included a trip to the 2014 Henley Royal Regatta in England, is detailed on page 47.

Hollingsworth is the president and chief executive officer of Hollingsworth & Vose Company. The seventh-generation family company manufactures filtration media and battery separator materials in a dozen plants located in six different countries.

Hollingsworth previously spent two years at Lehman Brothers.

Hollingsworth matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania following his graduation from Brooks. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Penn, Hollingsworth completed his MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

In addition to his work for Brooks, Hollingsworth also sits on the board of trustees for the Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham, Mass., and the board of directors for Victaulic Company in Easton,

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Penn. In addition to Henry ’17, Hollingsworth and his wife, Carol, have two other children: Juliet, who recently graduated from Dartmouth College, and Ben, who attends Rochester Institute of Technology.

ZACHARY S. MARTIN P’15, P’17 attended Holderness School and Denison University, where he was an all-conference offensive tackle for the Big Red, president of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and a member of the University Senate. Martin’s career has its roots in education. Following his graduation from Denison in 1988, Martin took a position on the faculty of Darlington School in Rome, Ga., where he taught United States and world history, coached varsity football and took charge of a dormitory.

Martin moved to Boston for a job with Kidder, Peabody & Co., and earned his MBA from Babson College in 1996.

Martin subsequently joined the institutional equity sales team with First Albany, and then worked at J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers and Nomura Securities International, Inc. He founded the Boston office for Nomura Securities and was promoted to managing director before he retired from the global equity business in 2012.

Martin’s heavily invested in Brooks: His daughters, Isabella Martin ’15 and Emma Martin ’17, currently attend the school.

In addition, Martin has two sons: Sam, who is in the eighth grade at St. Sebastian’s School, and Henry, who is in the second grade at The Carroll School.

Martin served on the board of Holderness School for nine years as chair of the finance and audit committee.

He also currently serves as

chair of the development committee at Epiphany School in Dorchester, Mass.

DANIEL J. RICCIO P’17 is the senior vice president of hardware engineering at landmark computer giant Apple, Inc. He joined Apple’s executive team in September 2012, and he reports directly to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.

Currently, Riccio is responsible for the design, engineering and development of Apple’s hardware products. His career at Apple has followed a remarkable trajectory over the past 16 years: He rose through the ranks to lead all of Apple’s product design, including desktop product design and portables product design, before becoming vice president of the iPad division in 2010.

Riccio graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and pursued a master’s degree through a fellowship at the University of Rhode Island. In 1987, he took a position at Digital Equipment Corp. in Maynard, Mass.

His start in manufacturing engineering led to positions in engineering management and power systems design, as well as workstation and server design. Riccio was named the senior manager of mechanical engineering at Compaq, where he worked from February 1997 to June 1998, before beginning at Apple.

Riccio’s daughter, fourth-former Ariana Riccio, has taken an active role in the Brooks community: She plays soccer and tennis for Brooks and is heavily involved with several community service initiatives.

WHITNEY ROMOSER SAVIGNANO ’87 has successfully pursued a number of

discrete, wide-ranging interests throughout her career. From Brooks, Savignano matriculated at Skidmore College, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1991. Savignano worked at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston

American automotive companies. Uzielli’s team executes placements of the Ford and Lincoln brands in film, television and digital media. It also engages the entertainment industry as a marketing extension for all Ford and

from 1991 to 1993, before earning her master’s degree at Northeastern University.

From 1996 to 1999, Savignano worked as a speechwriter for Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino. Then, Savignano owned Capriola, a children’s clothing store in Beverly Farms, Mass. She currently owns Tenuta Santo Pietro, a small luxury inn and vineyard in Pienza, Italy, with her husband and Brooks classmate Nicola Savignano ’87. The couple also imports and distributes Italian olive oil and wine.

At Brooks, Savignano, true to form, took on a wide variety of challenges and roles. She played on the field hockey, squash and tennis teams, and she participated in Brooks Brothers and Sisters, dance and yearbook.

Savignano also serves on the board of the Ruggles Family Foundation, and is involved with The Women’s Fund of Essex County and with Shore Country Day School, both in Massachusetts. In her free time, Savignano enjoys skiing, playing tennis, reading, cooking and traveling the world with her husband and their children, Michela and Costas.

Lincoln vehicles.

Previously, Uzielli orchestrated and produced major-studio films, including The Proposition, which stars Kenneth Branagh. Uzielli also helped develop and produce well-known feature films while working at Destination films, including Jennifer Lopez’s The Wedding Planner.

Uzielli’s talent for business led him to ventures outside the entertainment industry as well. An avid Frank Sinatra fan, Uzielli bought La Dolce Vita, the Los Angeles restaurant known as a Rat Pack hotspot, when the restaurant was on the verge of bankruptcy. Since Uzielli took the reins in 2003, La Dolce Vita has regained its reputation as one of LA’s most sought-after tables.

Uzielli also owns the U.K. luxury brand Halcyon Days.

Halcyon Days supplies the British Royal Family households. The company holds Royal Warrants of Appointment to Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales. Halcyon Days is one of only 14 companies to hold all three Royal Warrants, and it is the only supplier of objets d’art.

Closer to home, Uzielli serves on the photography councils for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Getty Center. He also serves on the boards of the Henry Ford Museum and the Lollipop Theater Network, which brings family films to hospitals.

ALESSANDRO F. UZIELLI ’85 is a visionary in the entertainment industry.

He created — and is head of — Ford Motor Company Global Brand Entertainment. When the office opened in 2004, it was the first internal product placement outfit for any of the

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“Siberia’s Outside”

PHOTO: JOHN MCLOUGHLIN

History teacher John McLoughlin used a McVey Fellowship to ride the rails across Eurasia and bring a refreshed perspective back to Brooks.

The train station in Omsk, Russia, a city in southwestern Siberia.

“All I had when I left Beijing was a train ticket to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, a train ticket from Ulan Bator to Irkutsk, Russia, and a train ticket from Irkutsk to Moscow,” says John McLoughlin, history teacher and director of the Exchange Program. “I didn’t have any hotel reservations, and I didn’t have anything to get me from Moscow on.

That was all by design.”

Brooks awarded McLoughlin a John McVey Fellowship in Teaching, which recognizes teaching of unusual distinction and innovation, and McLoughlin used it to take an epic journey last summer: He spent 23 days traveling from Beijing, China, to London, England.

McLoughlin made stops in Beijing, Ulan Bator, Irkutsk’s Lake Baikal, Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and London. Other than a flight from Moscow to Warsaw, McLoughlin rode the rails across the entirety of Asia and Europe.

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“I had always wanted to travel across Eurasia, from one end to the other,” McLoughlin says. “I wanted to do it all by train to get a feel for the topography and a feel for the land, and really, to get a feel for the space and the scale of the trip.”

McLoughlin also wanted to make sure that he experienced what he calls “the physicality of travel.”

He purposefully took trains across the vastness of Asia and Europe because “trains are slow. You get to look around a little bit. The best part of travel takes place inside our heads. Traveling by train allows for time to shift, and it allows us to anticipate and adjust to a changing landscape. That’s something that air travel, as quick and convenient as it is, doesn’t let us do.”

McLoughlin speaks most fondly of his bunkmates on the train that made the 76-hour trek across the Siberian expanse from Irkutsk to Moscow: a group of young, boisterous Russian soldiers.

“I’m not sure I can give many details on what we talked about,” McLoughlin jokes. “It may be classified! But it was really fun, and it was a great opportunity. I was the first American guy they had met. One of them spoke just enough English to translate, and it ended up being this wonderful experience. That was just the absolute delight of it: There’s nowhere you can go, you’re stuck on this train for three days, there’s nothing else to do, and Siberia’s outside; so, you just relax and have a blast laughing and joking your way across a continent.”

McLoughlin is confident that the perspective he gained on his journey will enhance his teaching at Brooks. “In general, interest in the world and engagement with the world needs to be revitalized,” he says. “At Brooks, we talk about that in different ways: We use the language of global citizenry, and we look at our core values of empathy and engagement. Empathy and engagement are habits that need to be developed and need to be nurtured. We talk about how to promote empathy and engagement in our students — keeping an interested, engaged and growing faculty is critical to promoting those values in our students.”

Above all, McLoughlin appreciates Brooks’ role in allowing him this opportunity to travel, and, as he puts it, “to see the world in the way that I need to in order to continue to teach well.”

“The school’s been incredibly generous and supportive,” McLoughlin says, “and this was a wonderful opportunity that I used very well.”

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NEWS + NOTES

AT H L E T I CS

Setting the Standard The Brooks football team inaugurated the school’s new turf field in style this fall, posting a dominant record and winning a New England Championship bowl game.

It couldn’t have done so, however, without a strong sixth-form class, a system that nurtures youth, and a Brooks community that showed up to cheer in the stands when it mattered the most.

When Patrick Foley, head coach of the Brooks 1st football team, heard

the formidable goals his players had set for the season, he knew he had a special squad on his hands. First, the team promised, Brooks would win its home opener: the team’s first game played on the school’s new turf field, at night and under a spread of lights. Second, the team planned, it would post a winning record: a huge challenge, Foley points out, coming off a 3-5 campaign in 2013 and a 1-7 record in Pictured above: Co-captain 2012. Third, the team threw down the gauntlet: Brooks and All-ISL pick Chris would earn its way into a postseason bowl for only the Cervizzi ’15 (39) rumbles through the Westminster second time in school history.

School defense at the Sean The team rose to the challenge and accomplished all Brennan Bowl. three goals. It charged out to a huge home-field win over Thayer Academy to open the year; it posted a dominant 6-2 record over the course of the season; and, it played in — and won — the Sean Brennan Bowl. The school’s first-ever NEPSAC bowl win put the cherry on top of the campaign and solidified the team’s place in the books as, arguably, the most successful football team in Brooks history.

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The team christened its new home field quickly, scoring on each of its first three possessions in front of an energetic home crowd to open the season against Thayer. “That was a high point for me,” says Foley.

“The rest of the school was able to be there, and everyone showed so much support for our team. It’s been really fun for our kids to be able to play in front of their peers more often, and they’ve really fed off of all that energy and support.”

After the Thayer game, Brooks won three straight against Noble and Greenough School, St. George’s School and The Rivers School, before

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locking horns at home with an undefeated Governor’s Academy squad. Although Brooks ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard, falling to Govs 25-6, Director of Athletics Lori Charpentier sees the night as a win for Brooks.

“We drew a crowd of 1,000 people for that game,” says Charpentier.

“For a high school — and especially for a prep school — that’s huge.

That’s just an unbelievable crowd.”

The turf field, Charpentier explains, has gone a long way toward helping the Brooks community support its athletics teams.

Because the turf field has lights — a rare combination on the prep school circuit — Brooks has been able to schedule night games for the football, boys soccer, girls soccer and field hockey programs. The games take place at a time when few other events are scheduled on campus, which allows students, teachers, staff and other members of the Brooks community to show up, cheer and support the team.

“One of the things I love about Brooks athletics is how much the kids support each other, and having the turf with lights allows them to do that,” says Charpentier. “It’s a great opportunity. And, I think it means a lot to our athletes, the knowledge that they’re playing when their friends will be able to come out and support them.”

The teams have responded well to their new home. The 1st field hockey team posted an 11-6-1 record and a trip to the NEPSAC Championship Tournament; the girls 1st soccer team also punched a ticket to New Englands with a 9-5-3 season; and the boys 1st soccer team put together its best season since 2012.

“The field is phenomenal,” agrees Foley. “Every other coach that sees it on film or visits it comments on what a beautiful facility it is. In my opinion, this is the best home field in our league, and that gives our

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kids a lot of pride in where they get to play their home games.”

The football team, meanwhile, wasn’t done yet. Brooks fought hard for a comeback win against St. Mark’s School, and used a strong second-half effort to beat Groton School. The team fell to powerhouse Lawrence Academy to close out the regular season, but its efforts — and its 6-2 record — turned heads and earned the squad a bowl selection.

Brooks made good at home again at the Sean Brennan Bowl, beating Westminster School 31-12 for a hard-fought win, a championship trophy and a boisterous crowd that stormed the field when the final whistle blew.

“You need to understand that when this year’s sixth-formers were third- and fourth-formers, the football team won one game in two years,” Foley says. “For them to

stick it out, and have all the success they’ve had now as sixth-formers, is really special. It’s a real tribute to that class. They’re all great leaders, and they really pulled together as a group to lead the way this year.”

Foley sees good things ahead for his program. He’s watched this year’s sixth-formers grow, mature and become leaders, and he’s confident that future classes will continue that growth. “My goal is to make the football program the highlight of my kids’ experience here at Brooks,” he says. “I think that’s the goal of every teacher and every coach here: to make sure that their kids are enjoying and learning from their program. I always want my players to work hard, have a good time and be rewarded with some level of success. I hope we can continue to do what we’re doing and win a good amount of games.”

Tri-captain and All-ISL honoree Molly Reilly ’15 (7).

Playing on Their Home Turf Playing on turf has a distinct advantage for the Brooks field hockey program.

NEPSAC field hockey tournament rules now require postseason tournament games to be played on turf instead of on grass. As a result, Brooks now has the ability to host tournament games, which allows the team to play at home during critical postseason matchups. This fall, the 1st field hockey team made good on that promise: It hosted Cushing Academy in a NEPSAC Championship Tournament quarterfinal-round tilt.

Playing under the lights is an added bonus. “It’s awesome,” tri-captain forward and All-ISL selection Molly Reilly ’15 says. “It makes you feel like a professional. This is another venue for our community to come together in, and it’s an amazing feeling to look up into the stands and see so many people supporting you.”

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NEWS + NOTES

Celebrating the Freedom to Read

The FIVE most-challenged* classics are

TRI, TRI AGAIN Gardner Crary ’16 loves a challenge.

Specifically, Crary loves the challenge of running triathlons. “It seemed like it was a really tough training process, which appealed to me,” he says.

The Brooks community observed

Banned Books Week in late September. The annual nationwide event highlights the value of free and open access to information.

Banned Books Week focuses on efforts made to restrict access to books that some people believe have controversial content.

“Banned Books Week gets a lot of attention here, which I’m happy about,” says Ann Massoth, director of the Henry Luce III Library. “I think it’s important to celebrate it every year. It reminds our students how fortunate we are to have the First Amendment rights that guarantee us the freedom to read what we choose.”

Brooks students, Massoth reports, are often surprised to discover that the list of books that have been challenged as controversial includes books from their summer reading lists, or books that form the foundation of the curriculum of their English classes. On the list: Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck; The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding; 1984, by George Orwell; and Ulysses, by James Joyce. The list of challenged books also includes perennial childhood favorites — the Harry Potter series, for example.

Massoth makes clear that Banned Books Week is not an attempt to circumvent a parent’s concerns about the material their child reads. “Of course, some parents may feel that a certain book is not appropriate for their child, and personally, I respect that,” she says.

“But when we start saying that entire schools or entire towns can’t read these books, that’s a problem.”

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Crary, who ran his first, shorter, sprint distance triathlon last spring, upped the ante on himself this fall. In September, he ran the Pilgrimman Half-Iron Triathlon in Plymouth, Mass.

Half-ironman distance triathlons cover a grueling total of 70.3 miles and feature, in order, a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bicycle ride, and, finally, a 13.1-mile, half-marathon run.

Crary wasn’t worried about the running. Crary runs cross-country at Brooks; he consistently set the pace for the team this year. “I had the running down,” he claims. “But I kept on training to do a few sprint distance triathlons, and then the half. I did three sprints in the spring and then one every other week over the summer.”

Most athletes preparing for a halfironman triathlon will give themselves up to a full year to train for the formidable event. Crary, though, stuck to an intense four-month training schedule over the summer. On a typical day, Crary would start with an hour-long swim. “At the beginning of the summer, I really couldn’t swim more than 100 yards without having to grab on to the side of the pool,” he acknowledges. Then, he’d bike between 15 and 30 miles. Then, he’d go for a run.

Did we mention that, on top of his grueling training schedule, Crary held down a job this summer? “I had a job teaching windsurfing and sailing in the mornings. It’s a physical job, so I’d be tired before I even started my training for the day,” he says.

“I’d also sometimes play tennis after I was done training,” Crary tosses out casually.

Crary recalls a distinct high point, and *according to the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association

a distinct low point, from race day. “There was a point 20 miles into the bike ride

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“ I just started smiling.

I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I’m actually doing this.’”

where I just started smiling,” he says.

“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I’m actually doing this.’” The euphoria didn’t last long, though: “About a half hour later, my entire left leg cramped up and I couldn’t bike for about five minutes. So I had to try to pedal with one foot, and I remember thinking, ‘This is just awful; I don’t know why I signed up for this.’”

All’s well that ends well, though, and Crary ended well: He finished in 6:25:36, good for 62nd place overall. It’s important to note that Crary, who was 16 years old on race day, was by far the youngest racer. In fact, Crary crossed the line 10 minutes faster than the second-youngest competitor, who was 20 years old.

“I placed pretty well in my age group,” Crary jokes. “I placed first in the 19-and-under group, and I placed first in the 21-and-under group, so I won two age groups!”

“For my age, my time was good,” Crary continues. “I wanted to do more, PHOTO: © DENNIS MANSKE / KEVMOFOTO.COM

but, considering I only trained for four months, I’m happy with it.”

Crary’s officially hooked. He plans to run “a few more” triathlons this spring.

He also hopes to keep running triathlons in the future. “I’d like to keep running triathlons in college,” he says. “It’s not an NCAA sport, but even so, I’d like to stick with it.”

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Gardner Crary ’16 put in a strong performance at the Pilgrimman Half-Iron Triathlon in September.

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I N T H E C LASS RO O M

Tom Caron ’15 works with his MANIKIN model while science teacher Laura Hajdukiewicz P’15, P’17 looks on.

Learning by Doing Anatomy and Physiology students take a hands-on approach to learning Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. This well-known saying perfectly encapsu-

lates science teacher Laura Hajdukiewicz’s Anatomy and Physiology classes, where Brooks students are rarely passive recipients of information. One day this fall, students used skeleton models to label the bones of the body. The following day, four students from the class visited Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, Mass., where they observed a shoulder replacement surgery and a lung biopsy. Students also hear firsthand from doctors about what it’s like to go to medical school.

The course has evolved rapidly in recent years, from a half-year course with 17 students four years ago to a full-year, in-depth study of the human body that now enrolls 50 students. Hajdukiewicz continues to grow the program — this year she added the Anatomy in Clay Learning System, a dynamic tool for hands-on

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learning, and created the Brooks Grand Rounds, a program that will bring doctors and other health care professionals to Brooks for discussions about entering the medical field.

L E A RN I N G W I T H C L AY

Hajdukiewicz has been teaching for 15 years, and she regularly attends conferences to get new ideas to bring into the classroom. She rarely sees something that really impresses her. Last spring, though, that changed at the National Science Teachers Association conference.

“I took a class called Anatomy in Clay, having no idea what I was walking into, and I was floored by what I saw,” she says.

What she saw were models of skeletons about two feet high onto which clay of different colors had been

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PHOTO: © 2015 ZAHOUREK SYSTEMS, INC. AND AFFILIATES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NOT FOR REPRODUCTION.

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layered to create muscles, ligaments and other body systems. The Anatomy in Clay Learning System, whose motto is “the mind cannot forget what the hands have learned,” is based on the idea that students learn best when they carry out a physical activity, rather than when they passively listen to a lecture or thumb through a textbook.

This philosophy is closely tied to Hajdukiewicz’s own approach to teaching. “I really believe that when students can put their hands on it, they’ll learn it,” she says.

Hajdukiewicz returned to Brooks from the conference committed to bringing the clay models — called MANIKIN models — to her classroom. With the support of the science department and the school administration, Hajdukiewicz secured funding from the Wise family, whose daughter Lucie Wise ’14 had thrived in her class last year.

“Lucie is a very active, experiential learner, and particularly when she can use her hands and apply learning, she becomes much more engaged than she would be just sitting and listening,” says Linden Wise, Lucie’s mother. “That’s Brooks’ mission, to provide the most meaningful education, and for Lucie that form of learning tended to be the most meaningful. A lot of things that are wonderful about Brooks came together in that class.”

Hajdukiewicz purchased enough MANIKIN models so that every pair of students in each section of her class has one, of which they take ownership for the entire year.

Students begin by labeling the bones on the skeleton. They then use the clay to build muscles onto the MANIKIN model, learning how each muscle works in the process. Each pair of students also has an iPad, provided by the science department, on which they follow an iBook Hajdukiewicz created to go along with the Anatomy in Clay system. They also use the Visible Body apps, where they can see bones, muscles and other body systems in 3-D. “It’s a much more interactive dimension,” Hajdukiewicz says. “It’s easier for them to recall information when it’s in three dimensions versus two dimensions.”

Recent tests and quizzes in Hajdukiewicz’s classes have proven that the 3-D modeling helps her students learn complicated material. Hajdukiewicz favors using practical assessments, where she asks students to show her where different body parts are located on a model. She says she made the first test more difficult than usual, but that students performed admirably.

One morning, Hajdukiewicz told each pair of students to get their MANIKIN model and four colored

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pencils. The assignment was to label bones with the pencils, using different colors for long, short, flat and irregular bones.

Molly McGoldrick ’15 says the act of actually writing on the bones of a skeleton helps her to learn the course material. “I’m learning it a lot better than if I were just reading about it in a book,” she says. Other students in the class agree. Olivia Pearson ’15 says she prefers hands-on learning activities to learning from a book or a lecture.

This is all part of why Hajdukiewicz sees this learning model as essential to her courses. “If this material is out there, why wouldn’t we be using it?” she says.

RE A L- L I F E E X P E RI E N C ES

The Anatomy in Clay system is just one aspect of Hajdukiewicz’s Anatomy and Physiology course that focuses on hands-on, practical learning. The syllabus also includes visits to local hospitals to observe surgery. Dr. Paula Muto-Gordon P’14, P’16 has a long history of providing these opportunities to Brooks students. Her father, Rudolph Muto, partnered with Brooks in the 1970s to take students into the operating room. Muto-Gordon revived the tradition about eight years ago, when she offered to take Brooks AP Biology students to observe surgeries. For Muto-Gordon, introducing students to the medical field is a no-brainer.

“I hope there’ll be someone to take care of us someday,” she says. “You get kids for whom this one exposure tips the scales for them. Kids see a surgery and realize, either, it’s for me, or they realize, no, it’s totally gross and it’s not for me. You can tell instantly.”

Muto-Gordon is also helping institute the Brooks Grand Rounds, for which local doctors will come to the school a couple of times a semester to share their experiences with students. She sees this as a way to impart practical information about applying to and succeeding in medical school to students, but also as a way for them to explore career opportunities and learn more about science-related fields.

“Even though some of the students will end up in non-science careers, they will all have positive views of science,” Muto-Gordon says. “I think that’s the most valuable thing you can do. They will all have this understanding and respect for what science is.

Very few schools can achieve that, and it’s something Brooks has been able to pull off.”

By thinking about issues in practical terms, Hajdukiewicz hopes her students will assimilate the course material quickly and easily, and that the learning process won’t feel like work. “With this approach, they’ll learn without even realizing it,” she says.

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FOR ALMOST THIRTY YEARS, Brooks has sent its students on international exchanges in order to help them discover the world and their own capabilities. The most recent class of Exchange Program participants traveled far and wide, and returned to Brooks with a new perspective, a new confidence and a new understanding of an increasingly global society. The Bulletin joined students on exchange to Peru and documented their experience. BY M ICHEL L E M O RRISSEY

Left to right: A guide helps Ellie McCoy ’15, history teacher Ashley Johnston and Olivia Pearson ’15 navigate Machu Picchu, the iconic remnant of the Inca Empire.

EXPLO RING T H E

World

T m Progra Exchange

For more on the Exchange Program and other web extras, please visit www. brooksschool.org/bulletin

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he train rocks back and forth. The landscape of farms streams by just slowly enough that we can start to make out the crops — Peruvian corn, yucca and papaya — and the farmers carrying large baskets and satchels full of their harvest.

The sides of the train are all windows, and skylights over our heads make it feel as if we’re riding in an open-air train car. We make it around a bend and begin to see the mountainous landscape, which stretches vertically from the carpet of lush green vegetation that lines the railway tracks.

We gasp at the beauty of this place. Each curve, each corner offers a view more breathtaking than the last. In awe, we stare out and then up to take it all in. We bend around another curve, and it’s even more — more green, more beautiful, with higher peaks and more scenery; and this time, we see some hikers making their way along the Inca Trail. By the time we finally get through the Sacred Valley and arrive atop Machu Picchu, it’s almost too much to believe.

This is how it is when you travel to a new place: every moment is the most amazing moment, until the next moment comes along and becomes the most amazing.

To label this feeling of wonder as sensory overload has too negative a connotation; but in a way, it is accurate. Your senses all gather information. You hear the chatter of Quechua, the indigenous language of Cusco spoken by the guides and other locals. You smell the sugarcane and roasting meats sold by street vendors around the main Plaza de Armas. You feel yourself being pushed and pulled by bands of people in colorful costumes, everyone moving as a large mass through the side streets that lead to the main arena for this year’s Inti Raymi, or Festival of the Sun. You see the striking sight of traditional Peruvian clothing: women in bowler hats and top hats that long ago became the traditional garb of this part of the country, with long, thick black braids, fastened together at the bottom, cresting down their backs.

We look around and notice tourists snapping pictures and pointing, with the same expression of “taking it all in” that we are surely wearing on our faces.

But we feel like we’re more than tourists.

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Olivia Pearson ’15 (right) receives a hands-on lesson on alpacas in Cusco, Peru.

Every year, through the Brooks School Exchange Program, a group of Brooks fifth- and sixth-form students makes the transition from visiting a place to living in it. Their itineraries extend far beyond tourist attractions and souvenir shops; they live the daily life of a teenager in Lima, or Uganda, or Hungary or another far-off locale. They stay just long enough to feel at home, to adopt the place as their second home. They reach an equilibrium of comfort and awe: comfort with host families or dorm mates, and awe at all of the new experiences they’ve had and the relationships they’ve built during their five-week stay.

“Experiencing another culture is primarily rooted in relationships,” says John McLoughlin, who is a history teacher and the director of the Exchange Program. “Our

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kids aren’t just going to see the monuments and other attractions.

Sure, visiting the Eiffel Tower, going to Machu Picchu, going on safari, those things are big fun. But the most important lessons come from the relationships they form while they are there, with friends, host families and teachers in the countries they go to. It’s the relationships that create the possibility that our kids will return to those faraway places, or that they’ll venture and explore new ones.”

The Exchange Program has been offering up such firsthand experiences to Brooks students for more than a quarter-century, growing from a loosely organized experiential adventure to a full academic program with a rigorous application procedure and a careful planning process.

choosing the right students

McLoughlin’s work on the Exchange Program is based, in large part, on his own strong belief in travel as a vital part of the meaningful education that Brooks seeks to provide its students.

The trips offer students an understanding of the broader world, McLoughlin says. The program, he insists, helps Brooks meet its larger goal of offering a transformative opportunity — a cornerstone of a meaningful educational experience.

So how does the school match the right kid with the right international location, year in and year out? Careful preparation and input from everyone involved, McLoughlin says. Students and their parents must go through a

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thoughtful application process, which includes a lengthy interview of the prospective exchange participant.

Applicants discuss three main topics during their interviews.

First, they talk about themselves and explain why they are strong candidates for the program.

Second, they present ways in which they’ve been involved with visiting international students in the past.

Third, they outline the particular reasons they want to go to their “first-choice” schools on exchange.

Among the interviewers are key faculty, administrators and

also something that would enhance the Brooks community as a whole?

“We try to emphasize that it’s not entirely about applying to go to a particular place. It’s applying to the program,” McLoughlin stresses. “We want students to be thinking bigger picture than a particular location. It’s more about extending themselves and experiencing new cultures. The students who go on exchange need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be able to extend themselves — to another people, another set of classmates, another place where everything is new.”

“ I’d take living with a family over a hotel any day. You create a bond and a close relationship with them. It’s cool that you can get to know people so far away so well, and you know you’ll always be welcomed back by them.”

— BAKER MOORE ’ 15

past participants — students who have been there, done that — who are vital to the selection process.

Exchange Program alumni from the previous year consult with McLoughlin, reviewing applications and sharing their own experiences as a guide for what the next crop of participants should expect.

In the weeklong interview process, those same program alumni ask some pretty direct questions of their classmates: What would you do if you got there and you found yourself homesick? Why should we pick you over another candidate?

What do you expect to learn or experience on exchange that would be an asset not only for yourself, but

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learning to walk the walk

You can’t get Diet Coke in Lima. You can get a unique smooth sorbet made from Peruvian lucuma fruit, chocolate tea made from cocoa leaves grown near the Andés Mountains, and ceviche so fresh that you know it’s been barely an hour from ocean to plate.

But you can’t get Diet Coke, and that was perplexing to Ellie McCoy ’15, especially when she first arrived in Lima for what would be a five-week stay.

It wasn’t really about craving a particular soft drink, though — she was homesick. “My first week,

I just wanted to get on a flight and go back,” says McCoy. But with the help of her family and some words of advice from McLoughlin, she stayed.

“At first I felt like I just couldn’t be away from home. I told my mom that, and she said, ‘Yes you can! Just because you don’t know anybody yet and you speak a different language doesn’t mean you can’t do it,’” McCoy says. “I’m so glad I stayed and gave it a chance.

It was the most important thing I could have done.” McCoy and Olivia Pearson ’15 stayed with Lima native Ariana Bonilla, who had come to Brooks earlier as part of the program.

What Peru lacked in Diet Coke, it made up for in other experiences, from travels around Lima and Cusco to the delectable dishes offered in local restaurants.

“I never try new food at home, but I tried a lot of different stuff there,” says McCoy. Again, it wasn’t just about trying new food.

“You just feel more adventurous in so many different ways when you are on exchange,” McCoy says. “You let yourself be open to a lot more than you normally do when you are in your regular routine and in a familiar setting.”

For Jayda Pounds ’15, the discomfort came from being too wrinkly.

Pounds spent several weeks last spring at Kings College Budo in Uganda. There, just as at Brooks, there is a dress code that all students must follow. But — perhaps unlike at Brooks — having a crisply ironed uniform is the social norm at the Ugandan school.

On her first day of classes, Pounds awoke early and rushed to get ready, not thinking too much about making sure her uniform was freshly pressed.

“It’s mandatory that your clothes are ironed. On the first day I walked

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H U NGA RY E XC H A N G E : N ATA L IE HA RTEL ’ 15

A Family Affair Natalie Hartel ’15 found out she had a special reason to travel on exchange to Hungary: Her maternal grandmother is from Hungary and her grandmother is the first in her family to be a United States citizen.

“I was just so thrilled and touched; my mom was just about in tears over it,” says Hartel’s mother, Lisa Alecci, who is Brooks’ Senior Advancement Officer.

Hartel was a bit nervous, and she wondered whether she would make a good connection with her host family in Szeged. As it turns out, she had nothing to worry about.

“I can’t emphasize enough how great Mariann’s family was. They couldn’t have been better to me.

They took me in like I was their own daughter,” says Hartel.

With an older daughter living in Italy at the time, Alecci took advantage of the timing and planned a European trip to visit both daughters.

“I was in Hungary for five days, and in Szeged for a full evening and full day,” says Alecci, who traveled from Italy with her older daughter Lauren. “I didn’t want to infringe on Nat’s time there.”

United for an evening, the two families went out for a traditional Hungarian meal.

“We were all sitting at this big long table, with no one speaking anything but Hungarian except for

Mariann, and her father Laslo just kept ordering more and more food,” Alecci says. “Some of the dishes were traditional dishes that I had eaten growing up, when my own grandmother used to make them, so I recognized some of the flavors.”

Hartel recalls that, at the end of the big meal, Laslo addressed the obvious questions.

“He said, ‘So, what are we going to make of this now? Will we all keep in touch?’”

His question was answered almost immediately, especially as Hartel reflected on her positive experience over the preceding several weeks in Szeged. “We said, of course we’re staying in touch!”

Hungary is a unique exchange at Brooks, as it does not have a language component. That was challenging. “I had to learn to speak a lot of Hungarian at home with my host family, but I think that benefitted me,” Hartel says. “I learned Hungarian really quickly as a result.”

For now, the two families are staying in touch via social media and care packages — the latest was a big box of Reese’s peanut butter cups Hartel sent to Szeged.

Finding a second family so far from her home in North Andover was a powerful experience for Hartel, one that has had some lasting effects. This fall, her family hosted an exchange student from

France. And, if all goes as planned, Hartel and her grandmother hope to go back to Hungary after she graduates this spring, with a stop planned in Szeged to see her old friends.

The trip back with her grandmother will be a special one for the family. Alecci says that her mother had been back to Budapest about 20 years ago, but described it as a desolate, gray city. It was just after the fall of communism, and the country was struggling.

Budapest was one of the stops for Alecci’s visit this summer, and she found the change in the city remarkable.

“My mother actually said Budapest was not beautiful, and then just 20 years later when we went, it was sparkling and unbelievable,” Alecci marveled.

During her day in Szeged, Hartel toured her mother and older sister all around the city, showing them all she had learned about her home away from home.

“I liked playing tour guide because the night before at dinner, Mariann had done so much translating. It was nice to give her a break and let me be the guide for a day,” Hartel recalls.

“It was cool because I got to live with Mariann’s family, and they said, ‘One day we’ll go to visit you and your family.’ But we were able to do it while I was still living in Hungary.

They got to meet my family and now we have that connection.”

Above: Natalie Hartel ’15 (left) and her mother, Lisa Alecci (top row, second from right) enjoying a night out with Hartel’s host family in Szeged, Hungary.

Natalie Hartel ’15 (left) and her host Mariann Ternai touring Hungary.

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25

Ellie McCoy ’15 (left) and history teacher Ashley Johnston explore a side street in Cusco, Peru.

in and one of the guys was like, ‘You look really weird,’” Pounds recalls.

She learned her lesson. “The second day I came back and he said, ‘You look much better.’”

Pounds laughs about it now that she’s back home at Brooks. She realizes that it’s just part of those awkward first few days of being the new kid from somewhere far away while you’re on exchange.

Soon enough, Pounds, like other Brooksians on exchange, found herself being taken in by her roommate, Kemi, and the young girl’s family.

“They had a Parents Weekend there, and of course my parents were back in the states, but Kemi shared her family with me,” Pounds says appreciatively. “They fed me, and we talked and had a great time.

And she let me use her phone to contact my parents. They were all so nice.”

That change from awkwardness to enjoyment is familiar to McLoughlin, who sometimes fields phone calls from worried parents or

26

anxious students in the beginning of their international experiences.

“The initial challenges are material. It’s the pillows not being comfortable, or my bathroom is different, or having to do laundry in a different way — all very material things,” McLoughlin explains.

“What we find is that, pretty quickly, students move through those things and they become not as important. What they end up focusing on are the relationships — the girls they hung out with at school or the guys they met on the soccer team.”

Baker Moore ’15 had two host families during his five weeks in

Peru this summer. Moore’s been to Europe before, and he traveled on a Brooks trip to China in 2010. But those trips were shorter, organized visits that included hotel stays and meals at restaurants.

In Peru, it was all about the regular life with his host families.

“We did all the normal stuff they would do: we visited their family members, went out to the movies, just normal life,” describes Moore. “I’d take living with a family over a hotel any day. You create a bond and a close relationship with them. It’s cool that you can get to know people so far away so well, and you know you’ll always be welcomed back by them.”

McLoughlin said the creation of those lasting relationships is due in part to the length of the exchanges, which typically last around five weeks.

“Any shorter than five weeks, and you can just grin and bear it; you don’t have to engage. Kids might start to think, ‘I’ll be home soon enough.’ But when you are living in a place for four, five, six weeks, you have to invest. You become part of the community,” he says.

That was certainly true for Naveen Rajur ’15, who went on exchange to Glenalmond College in Scotland. Rajur, a day student at Brooks, found himself living in a dorm at Glenalmond, spending round-the-clock time with a group of strangers in what started out as a strange place.

“ I spent the time there making sure I was really integrated into everything.

I only had five weeks, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t wasting time.”

— NAVE E N RAJ U R ’ 15

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FIRST P E RSON : M I C H E L L E M O RRISSEY

A Once in a Lifetime Trip “Oh, I’m so jealous, that’s been on my bucket list forever!”

This was what I had been hearing from my friends and family in the weeks leading up to my departure for Peru. It was the trip of a lifetime.

It was a unique experience.

But I was also a bit terrified.

I am not afraid of new experiences, meeting new people, or going to new places — a childhood spent being the “new kid” because of my father’s military career means that I’m always pretty comfortable meeting new people or being in new or strange surroundings and situations.

But when it comes to international travel, I guess I was a bit of a novice. I don’t guess, I know: I didn’t have a passport; the idea of figuring out how to exchange money had me desperately searching for an iPhone app that would do the math for me; and, the thought of being on a plane for that long brought up a lot of anxiety.

The anxiety eventually gave way to awe, when I saw the 360-degree views from the top of Machu Picchu, or when we were zigzagging through the traffic lanes of Lima amid traffic and driving behaviors that would leave even the most seasoned Boston driver clutching their chest.

History teacher Ashley Johnston and I traveled to Peru for two weeks last summer, under the Exchange Program’s faculty grant.

The grant allows faculty to travel to one or more of Brooks’ partner schools around the world to act as ambassadors for Brooks School, as well as take part in excursions with Brooks students, meet their host families, and see how the Brooks students fare in their international settings.

As someone who has written about the lives of Brooks students and alumni for the past six years, I knew my trip would be the chance of a lifetime to experience this unique opportunity in the lives of our student participants. And I knew I had a couple of unique

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perspectives on the trip. First, as a nervous traveler, I could empathize with any student’s feelings of being out of place, or just plain confused about everything from street signs to restaurant bills — not to mention unfamiliarity with local customs or navigating a strange city.

Second, I had written about the Exchange Program before, but with a focus on alumni reflections on their personal experiences studying abroad. Of the dozens of interviews I did for that story, each and every alum said his or her life was changed forever by the experience.

Many noted that their career paths were affected by what they learned while on exchange. Still others mentioned that it had ignited a lifelong passion for travel and learning about other cultures.

We also had the aid of not just Exchange Program Director John McLoughlin, but also a few Peruvian experts. Brooks Spanish teacher Lillian Miller P’14, P’17 was born in Lima and travels back often. In fact, Miller taught a Winter Term course about the Incan civilization, which included a visit to the country with her students. Brooks trustee Belisario Rosas P’15 is also a Peruvian native, and he runs several businesses in Peru with his wife, Leslie. He travels to the country often to visit family.

This collective expertise, combined with McLoughlin’s knowledge, meant we were more than prepared for everything we would see, beginning the minute we landed at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima on June 14.

Our first stop on our first full day was Museo Larco in Lima, which turned out to be a great primer for two weeks in Peru. We learned about ancient civilizations from our tour guide, who was not only patient with our broken Spanish, but also with all of the questions we threw at her.

Johnston found the museum tour especially fulfilling: She was planning a class on the Mayans, the Incans, and other ancient

civilizations, and the trip to Peru helped her fully embrace the subject matter she was planning on teaching her students.

“To learn so much about the country’s history in that one trip on the first day, and to have that knowledge as we went through Peru for the next two weeks, we could really see how things had evolved since ancient civilization,” Johnston says.

“And then going to Machu Picchu at the end of the trip was the icing on the cake.”

In between, we visited other historical sites like Pachacamac, an ancient ruin of pyramids that predates the Incan empire, and Pucllana Temple, which sits nestled in Miraflores, the skyline of Lima rising behind ruins that date back to 500 A.D. Johnston, who chose to be a bit more adventurous than I did, took a scenic flight over the Nazca Lines, massive designs in the Nazca Desert in the shape of birds, monkeys, spiders and lizards. While scholars say the lines were created by the Nazca people sometime between 400 and 650 A.D., it remains a mystery why and how they were created and what they mean — especially the figure that some viewers are convinced depicts an alien.

We visited the host families of our Brooks students, and got a bonus tour of the city of Lima from Baker Moore’s host father, Orlando Siu, who was happy to turn a drive home after dinner into a narrated tour of Lima.

Our days at Colegio Trener, the high school that the Brooks students attended, were perhaps the most insightful into what everyday life is like for our Peruvian counterparts. We met with several different faculty members and learned the details of their philosophical approach, as well as their curriculum in a variety of subjects.

Everyone at Trener was extremely welcoming, and gave us free reign to wander from classroom to classroom while school was in session, to see how the Brooks kids were involved in Trener classes.

Johnston notes that, even though the curriculum and structure of a Trener school year are different than at Brooks, the two schools have at least one thing in common.

“The common bond I kept sharing over and over again with teachers and administrators at Trener was that we were all working to make our schools better. We’re all trying to make both of our schools more progressive and trying to improve on what’s already working well,” she says. “The teachers and administrators there are willing to listen and be open to new ideas the way we are at Brooks. And there was a true mutual interest between us and the Trener staff to learn how each handles different issues.”

And of course, we learned to love Peruvian cuisine — it wasn’t hard to do. From the smoked meat and traditional dishes we were served by host families, to the fine-dining evening out with two of the teachers from Trener, every bite was delicious, and every sip interesting — whether it was a traditional Pisco Sour or an Inca Kola.

When I returned home, I realized I hadn’t bought many souvenirs.

One reason was that I was nervous about going through customs or having a bag that went over the weight limit, and I wanted to avoid an embarrassing airport moment.

But another, larger reason was that souvenirs almost seemed too trivial — I have my pictures and my memories to remind me of this adventure.

I’ll remember the conversations with the teachers, parents, students and countless others we met who helped me learn a few more words of Spanish besides “por favor” and “gracias.” And I can’t help but wonder if this year’s participants, who are now heading through their final year at Brooks, are starting to feel a bit of what the Exchange Program alumni feel: that this trip, more than family vacations or other school trips, might have a true and lasting effect on who they will be in the world, and where they will go.

27

Olivia Pearson ’15 (left) in class at Colegio Trener in Lima, Peru. The Brooks students were immersed in the Peruvian school.

“Being in Scotland was the first time I experienced being in a different culture,” says Rajur, who lives in Andover. Rajur said he’d traveled with his family to India before, and that being Indian-American was also something that affected his time in Scotland.

“Seeing some of the students’ reactions — they were a little bit baffled that I was American,” he says. “I think I’m more used to it because we have more of a melting pot of people at Brooks, and just in the United States in general.”

But Rajur got over his new-kid jitters pretty quickly.

“I spent the time there making sure I was really integrated into everything. I only had five weeks, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t wasting time,” he says. Rajur played on the basketball team, played a lot of music and soccer, and made a lot of friends. “That first week was the most challenging, just making your way. But I made sure I was always scoping out what I could do next.”

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For Moore, highlights of the trip come mainly from the relationships he made.

“I think by the end, obviously you aren’t technically, totally family, but you get pretty close to being that,” he says. “I remember all the little moments like spending time with Brian’s little sisters, hanging out with kids outside of school and, of course, all the interesting things about Cusco.”

For McCoy, highlights of the trip included all the great sights she saw, like Machu Picchu. But some of her best memories involved getting to talk to people from different countries — not even just the kids from Peru, but other international students she met while she was in Lima.

“To talk about different experiences and compare and contrast things we’ve done was really interesting,” she says.

One of the challenges the Brooks students faced was using their Spanish over the course of everyday life in Peru. They

sometimes found that host families and their classmates at Colegio Trener wanted to practice their English, and that the Brooksians were perfect to practice on.

The Brooks students didn’t realize how much they were actually testing their language skills. At least one student claimed she was hardly speaking Spanish at all, but one afternoon outing in Cusco proved her very wrong. They weren’t just ordering off the menus at a Cusco restaurant; they were conversing with the waiter in Spanish, asking for the chef to go light on the spices, and asking for the sauce on the side. And one night, the students navigated the very busy streets of Cusco in the dark to get back to their hotel, despite the crowds there for the Inti Raymi festival, and despite the fact that no one had a street map with them.

They made plans with friends after school and on the weekends; they went on outings to shop or just hang out; they participated in class discussions; and they conversed with host siblings and parents about how school went that day, or about what they were watching on television at night. They lived their regular lives, but in Spanish.

in search of better questions

Before they travel abroad, Exchange Program participants are required to take a course with McLoughlin to prepare them for the details of traveling. Topics include: how to navigate an airport, what to expect in a different country, and safety and health. But most of the class is devoted to the broader ideas of what it means to truly benefit from the Exchange Program’s international experience. Students are required to read well-known travel writer Pico Iyer’s essay Why We Travel and discuss the portions of the essay that resonate with them. They spend a

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lot of time talking about not just what they want to get out of the experience — but also learning about how to be good ambassadors while abroad, and about how they, in turn, can be good hosts to visiting international students.

“I’d never been out of the United States for that long before,” says Olivia Pearson. “Actually living with a family and becoming immersed in their life makes going on exchange a lot more meaningful than it would be if you just went on vacation and stayed in a hotel.”

Pearson says that for her, the highlight of the exchange was the trip to Cusco: “Cusco’s really different from Lima, which I think is because Cusco has preserved its cultural history as the capital of the Inca Empire,” she says. “It was interesting to see how in one country, there were different cultures and lifestyles. I also saw a lot of poverty: I was reminded of how privileged I am and how privileged a lot of people in the world are, and I was also reminded that there are a lot of people that aren’t. It makes me want to do more service in the future.”

As McLoughlin told the students who would soon be on their way to this once-in-a-lifetime experience: “Knowledge is what you learn before you go; experience is time in the exchange country; and reflection is what you’ll be asked to do while there and upon your return home.” McLoughlin says that one of the program’s main goals is to achieve that trifecta of personal growth.

“This is about students extending themselves, through language, through experience — it’s about their ability to succeed through all these new challenges,” McLoughlin says. “It’s about having to function in a completely different world, and immerse themselves in whatever that world is.”

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FLY NAIROBI KIGALI, HITCH REUNGRI, CONTACT JEAN-PIERRE,

BE ADVENTUROUS. —RICHARD HOLMES

Former faculty member Richard Holmes set up the Brooks School Exchange Program in 1986, in collaboration with two schools in Africa: Alliance High School in Kenya and Bishops Diocesan College in South Africa.

Holmes first visited Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s and quickly fell in love with the continent. He was fascinated with African culture, drawn to the breathtaking wildlife, and intrigued by the complex political landscape. In fact, after he retired from Brooks in 1991, Holmes decamped to South Africa, living outside Cape Town until his death in 2008.

“Richard believed that it was essential for everyone at Brooks — faculty and students alike — to go beyond the school into worlds that were unfamiliar,” wrote Michael McCahill, a former faculty member who compiled a history of the program. “In his own words, to escape from the ‘world of stoplights.’” Holmes had a goal for Brooks students. He wanted them to participate fully in another culture and education system: to become true residents during their exchange, and not just visitors.

The program’s early days appear to have required a taste for adventure. Alumni remember simple, relatively unstructured instructions for excursions. For example, a trip to see the mountain gorillas of Rwanda was prefaced by a simple telegram from Holmes: “Fly Nairobi Kigali, Hitch Reungri, Contact Jean-Pierre, Be Adventurous.”

Since the days of fractured telegrams leading students to trek into the mist in search of gorillas, the Exchange Program has developed into a highly structured academic program. Now, students take a class taught by history teacher and Director of the Exchange Program John McLoughlin to prepare for their trips. During the class, the students learn about how to travel, perform in-depth research on the countries they’ll be living in, and prepare for any hiccups they might encounter as part of their international journey.

Today’s Exchange Program is less of a renegade experience, but Holmes exhortation to “Be Adventurous” still carries the day. “I realized the world is an incredibly fractured place,” Narvel Mayo ’91 recalls of his experience attending Alliance High School in Kenya. “At the same time, I realized that we are very much the same. That kind of realization can only happen when you get the chance to meet someone from a place you might not know, and have those real moments with them.”

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AT

BROOKS SCHO OL WE SEEK TO

PROV IDE the Most

MEA NIN G FUL

Educational Experience OU R ST U DENTS WIL L HAVE IN T H E IR

LI VES

ON A

MISSION Sum•mit / (noun) / 1 / The highest point. / 2 / A conference of highest-level officials.

The B RO O KS SU M M I T took place on OCTOBER 17, 2014, bringing together close to 100 alumni, parents, trustees, teachers and administrators.

The PU R P OS E of the day, according to Head of School John R. Packard Jr., was to “lay out our plan for THE FU T URE OF BRO OKS and listen to feedback from people who care deeply about this school. Ultimately, we want to ensure that EVE RY T HING WE D O puts us in a better position to DELIVER ON OUR MISSION .”

BY DAN CALLAHAN

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B RO O KS SU MMIT

O CTO B E R 1 7, 2 01 4

“ I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for the generosity of other people.”

David Berroa ’13 is standing at a podium in the Frick Dining Hall. After a night of rain, the sun moves west through a blue sky and shines through the expansive windows over Berroa’s shoulder. As an alumni trustee, Berroa is speaking to the Summit audience during lunch. His is a story of hard work and self-confidence. It is also, he stresses over and over, a story of opportunity.

“Where I come from — Lowell, Mass., — hard work isn’t enough,” he says. “You can be a good kid and still never make it out of the city. I was able to come to Brooks because someone else supported me. If it wasn’t for that generosity, who knows where I’d be. Coming to Brooks made all the difference.”

Berroa’s message was a recurring theme throughout the day: thinking together about ways Brooks can have an impact on more kids in more meaningful ways.

The concept of a Summit was first suggested last fall, when Head of School John R. Packard Jr. met with Arthur Demoulas ’77. “We were talking about our hopes for the school and how to achieve our goals,” says Packard. “Arthur recommended that we invite a range of people to campus, from those who know the school well to those who maybe haven’t thought about us in a while, to show them what we’ve been doing and what we have planned for next steps. To listen to their feedback.

To engage in a dialogue so that together we might refine the roadmap that shapes our planning.”

Scheduled on the Friday of the fall trustee meetings, the day kicked off bright and early at 8:30 a.m. in the Science Forum. Attendees broke into three groups and rotated through three hour-long sessions that focused on three topics: the school’s financial foundation; the campus; and academics, residential life and faculty.

32

“I thought our session went well,” says Associate Head for Academic Affairs Lance Latham P’17. “[Dean of Faculty] John Haile, [Associate Head for Student Affairs] Andrea Heinze and I talked briefly about the state of the school in each of our areas, but we spent most of our time engaged in conversations with these alumni and parents, each of whom brought a different perspective to the room. It was helpful to bounce ideas off them and see their enthusiasm for what we are doing as a school.”

Chief Operating Officer Dean Ellerton agrees. “We had an hour with each group, and we could have easily used five hours. The attendees were attentive and asked great questions. There’s so much to think about in terms of how to address aging facilities, like the auditorium and Russell House, and making sure that we are squeezing the absolute most value out of every dollar we spend.”

The highlight of the afternoon was a tour of campus that wound its way through a completed project (Chace House), a project under construction (the Chapel) and a building in need of renovation (the auditorium).

“Both Chace House and the Chapel are home runs,” says Packard. “It felt good to show off the great work that went into both of those buildings and to talk about how they have had an impact and will continue to have an impact on the student experience.”

The day ended with dinner in the Frick Dining Hall, where alumni reacquainted themselves with former classmates and teachers. Conversations revolved around the school’s strengths and opportunities for improvement.

“It was tremendous to see the enthusiasm and support for the school,” says Trustee and Alumni Board Chair Ginger Pearson ’99. “As we discussed moving the school forward, the room was full of confidence, particularly as Mr. Packard continues to take the school to new heights. Our alumni should feel prouder than ever, as the state of the school is very strong. I left campus after the Summit feeling very proud to be a Brooksian.”

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1

“ Each [improvement] is about bringing the community together more frequently and in ways that make the educational experiences of our students more meaningful.”

3

4

2

RECE NT IMPROV EM ENTS Before launching into challenges the school must address, Head of School John R. Packard Jr. opened the Summit by describing a few recent projects that have significantly improved the Brooks campus. “Starting with Chace House, and continuing with the projects that we’re currently taking on, every new project was developed with mission in mind,” he said. “The Chapel, the turf field, Chace House, pedestrianizing Main Street: Each is about bringing the community together more frequently and in ways that make the educational experiences of our students more meaningful.”

crowds to night games. The

allows for future work that

Brooks athletic program is one

will ultimately result in a new

of the best in New England,

community space in the center

and the turf field has become

of campus.

a rallying point for the entire community — students, faculty,

4 / CHACE HOUSE Chace

alumni and parents.

House, which opened in 2012, was the first new dorm built at

3 / MAIN STREET The

Brooks since 1984. With room

first step in a comprehensive

for 22 boys and three faculty

master plan for improving the

apartments, Chace allowed the

1 / ASHBURN CHAPEL

the spring. Work on the Chapel

center of campus landscape

school to close Russell House,

Renovations to the Chapel

concluded just in time for the

was to turn Main Street into a

which is in need of renovation.

were completed in Decem-

Lessons and Carols service

pedestrian walkway. To make

Chace was built with commu-

ber, enabling the building

prior to Winter Break.

that possible, a new road was

nity in mind, and much of its

built that runs between the

design provides for intentional

to accommodate the entire school for the first time in de-

2 / TURF FIELD A synthetic

Danforth Gymnasium and the

interaction between all of its

cades. Improvements include

turf field was installed during

tennis courts and swimming

residents. The success of the

expanded seating, handicap

the summer to support fall

pools. The new road opened

building has resulted in new

access and meeting rooms on

and spring sports. The field

up the opportunity to create

thinking about the other nine

the lower level. A new patio

is illuminated by four power-

a parking lot solely for visitors

dorms on campus and what

with unobstructed views of the

ful lights, allowing teams to

to the admission office, and

can be done to make them

tennis courts on the south side

host evening games. Last fall,

a path that leads directly to

more like Chace, both in size

of the building is sure to be a

football, field hockey and boys

the admission office. Elimi-

and in use of community space.

popular place on sunny days in

and girls soccer all drew huge

nating cars from Main Street

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33

The Work

Most of the Summit was forward looking, and each presenter laid out

The ensuing conversations with alumni and parents yielded clear

1 39th Brooks is ranked

out of 40 peers in the percentage of students receiving aid.

The auditorium needs to be renovated in order to support the arts program.

The renovated Chace House sets a model for other residence halls to follow.

34

The number of students receiving financial aid is the same as a decade ago. Since he became head of school, John R. Packard Jr. has made a clear commitment to funding financial aid.

The amount of the school’s awards, nearly all of them supporting full tuition, is among the highest in New England. But even as the aid budget increased 76 percent since 2005, the number of students receiving scholarships has barely advanced, from 79 recipients to 82. Brooks is 39th out of 40 peers in the percentage of students receiving aid. / SOLUTION / Make a Brooks education affordable to more students. Students define a school. It is imperative that a Brooks education remains affordable to students who will bring a range of talents, interests and backgrounds to enrich the community. To be competitive with peers, the school must be able to offer scholarships to support one in three students, improving on its current ability to support one in five students.

2

The arts facilities, especially the auditorium, make it difficult to deliver on our mission. Arts are an essential partner in a skills-based curriculum and foster creativity across disciplines. They also factor into a student’s decision to enroll in a school. The auditorium was originally built as a barn, and as more time passes, more limitations are revealed. In its current state, the auditorium (which includes music practice spaces) is an impediment to teaching art the way that the arts faculty would like to. / SOLUTION / Replace the auditorium with a new arts center.

Of all the issues raised during the Summit, the one with the most obvious solution centered on the auditorium. Alumni who graduated from Brooks half a century ago commented that the building looks exactly the same now as it did back then — and not in a complimentary way. Several architects have submitted interesting concepts for improving the arts spaces; but it is fair to say that in the future the school will need to build a new

facility on the auditorium footprint that includes a theater, classrooms for music and visual arts, and areas for departmental collaborations.

3

The dormitories at Brooks are an impediment to a fully realized residential life program. Each dorm at Brooks is its own unique micro-community.

Yet most of the school’s residence halls are not designed to facilitate group interaction. Only a handful of the dorms have common rooms that are large enough to accommodate all of their residents.

When Chace House was built three years ago, it highlighted how important those common spaces are to having a healthy and engaged dorm. It is evident that the other dorms need to be renovated so that they can reach the high bar that Chace House set. / SOLUTION / Bring a renovated Russell House back online as a 30-student dorm. Russell House has been used as a dorm since the early days of Brooks history.

However, it was designed as a summer house for the Russell family, not BRO OKS BUL L E TI N

Ahead

a series of C HA LLE N GES that Brooks faces. and decisive solutions. as a residence for scores of high school students.

When Chace House opened, Russell House was taken offline as a dormitory. Planning is underway for ways to best utilize that picturesque location; however, in that space there should be a dorm that accommodates 30 students and includes four faculty residences.

The building will follow the Chace House blueprint, with common spaces for programming and to bring faculty and students together in more meaningful ways.

4

Create more opportunities for teachers to develop the connections with students that Brooks is known for. Every faculty member at Brooks knows that meaningful educational experiences derive in part from close relationships between teachers and students. In the classroom, in the art studio and on the playing fields, those bonds are what most alumni point to when they think back on their most treasured moments on this campus.

Our teachers strive for those connections. The Brooks faculty has a reputation for its attentiveness WI NTE R 2015

and care, which is a significant reason why many teachers chose to come to Brooks in the first place. Putting teachers in the best possible position to excel needs to be one of the school’s highest priorities. / SOLUTION / Compensation in this respect is not limited to just salary. Because the typical boarding school day often extends from 7:00 a.m. to midnight, one of the most valued forms of compensation is time.

A larger budget would allow the school to hire more teachers and distribute the workload across more people. Faculty support would also include professional development opportunities, equipping teachers with the tools they’ll need in an evolving 21st-century education.

5

Brooks is too dependent on tuition to cover operating costs. Roughly $18 million of the school’s $26 million budget comes from tuition. This is a precarious income source.

Constant tuition increases to offset future expenses would seriously jeopardize Brooks’ educational mission. At $75 million,

the endowment provides only $3 million to support operations. Last year, the school ranked 26th in net endowment per student among 40 peer schools.

Without substantial growth in the endowment, Brooks will be at a disadvantage when competing for students and faculty. / SOLUTION / Significantly increase the endowment. There’s nothing more important to Brooks’ stability and sustainability than endowment. It’s the life blood of a school. It gives the school the capacity to act. A carefully invested endowment takes strain off the operating budget and generates reliable annual income. A robust endowment will enable Brooks to compete with older peer schools that have had more time to grow their endowments.

The Brooks faculty has a reputation for its attentiveness and care, which is a significant reason why many teachers chose to come to Brooks in the first place.

ISL BOARDING SCHOOLS TOTAL ENDOWMENTS St. Paul’s School

$552,000,000

Groton School

$352,000,000

Milton Academy

$257,000,000

St. George’s School

$138,000,000

Middlesex School

$135,000,000

St. Mark’s School

$135,000,000

Brooks School

$75,000,000

Governor’s Academy

$72,000,000

Lawrence Academy

$22,000,000

Brooks needs to grow its endowment in order to compete with its peer schools for students and faculty.

2013–2014 REVENUE

■ Tuition–69%

■ Brooks Fund–8% / CONCLUSION / ■ Endowment–12% The enthusiastic response to ■ Summer Camp–8% ■ Other–3% the Summit made it clear that parents, alumni, trustees and friends of the school are eager to be involved in planning and shaping the future of Brooks. There are plans underway to host another Summit-like event in the spring of 2015. If you would like to participate, please contact Associate Head for External Affairs Jim Hamilton or Director of Development Gage Dobbins at (978) 725-6300 x3212.

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Summit Snapshots 01 Trustee Donald R. Peck P’11, P’14. 02 (foreground, left to right) Trustee Booth D. Kyle ’89 and Chris Picotte ’88.

03 Susan Barry P’13, P’16, P’18 (left) and Trustee Isabella Speakman Timon ’92. 04 Associate Head for Academic Affairs Lance Latham P’17 leads a discussion on the academic program in the Robert Lehman Art Center. 05 Trustee W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 (left) and Bob Hall ’68, P’03. 06 Head of School John R. Packard Jr. (right) leads a tour of the newly renovated Ashburn Chapel. 07 (left to right) Trustee Belisario A. Rosas P’15, Marianne Fleischman ’87 and Karl Arakelian ’83, P’18. 08 Trustee Daniel J. Riccio P’17. 09 Academic Dean Brick Moltz (left) and Trustee David E. Berroa ’13.

10 Cristina Antelo ’95 (foreground). 11 Head of School John R. Packard Jr. (foreground) addresses the Summit attendees. 12 Diana Merriam P’08, P’11 (left) and Hermayne Gordon P’13. 13 (left to right) Trustee Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17, Prescott Stewart and Trustee Anthony H. Everets ’93. 14 Trustee Emeritus Henry M. Buhl ’48, P’82 (left) and Trustee William N. Booth ’67, P’05. 15 (left to right) Arthur S. Demoulas ’77, Admission Office Administrative Assistant Sheila Konovalchik P’14, P’17, history teacher Alexander Konovalchik P’14, P’17 and Carmine Martignetti P’08.

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Susan Hodgson, who retired last spring, offered guidance and support to countless numbers of Brooks students.

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BY MEGAN TADY

Susan Hodgson, who retired from three decades of teaching at Brooks last spring, leaves behind a legacy: a space dedicated to helping Brooks students flourish academically, and a bevy of students who, thanks to her work and advocacy, gained confidence, skills and a foothold in the challenging Brooks curriculum.

Kicking Up Dust r ks Mamarks.

Red Red Rachel Feingold ’14 couldn’t believe how many red marks covered her college essay.

She had written the first draft over the summer before sending it to her advisor, Susan Hodgson, and Hodgson hadn’t been dainty with the red pen. Hodgson badgered Feingold about the tone of her essay: Hodgson couldn’t hear Feingold’s voice, and worried that Feingold’s essay didn’t represent who she was. Hodgson reviewed Feingold’s essay a good 20 times, tirelessly punting it back to her for additional edits.

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“I felt defeated at first,” Feingold admits. “But I know she is so smart, and I knew I needed to follow her advice. She’s such a good writer and has probably looked at billions of papers in her lifetime.”

Probably.

Finally, Feingold nailed it, writing a stirring essay on the impact her summer internship at Massachusetts General Hospital had on her life. It worked: this fall, she matriculated at the University of Virginia.

Just how did Hodgson keep Feingold from giving up? And not just Feingold, but the legions of other students who came through her English classroom, who shyly asked for her help, who tried to dodge her in the hallway?

“She just knows how to talk to kids really well,” Feingold says.

“She’s mastered the art of persuading people to follow her.”

And follow her, they did. For the past 32 years, Hodgson guided hundreds of students through the Brooks curriculum, and through the transformative Brooks experience. As an English teacher, resident learning specialist, advisor, academic dean and soccer coach she helped students understand what they were struggling to grasp. Tricky math equations, sprawling thesis statements, corner kicks, procrastination, Latin— she tackled it all, side by side with every student who rapped on her door (and many who didn’t, whom she tracked down regardless).

Hodgson ended her career at Brooks as director of the Learning Center, a resource that she conceived of and advocated for tirelessly. With her retirement, she left an enduring legacy at Brooks: a new Learning Center and a reminder that there’s no shame in asking for help.

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Susan Hodgson in 1987.

From Chemistry Lab to Learning Center Hodgson is funny, bold and wickedly smart. Over the course of her career at Brooks, she sized up each kid as quickly as she noted changes in the curriculum. She adored her students in an unsentimental fashion, fought gallantly for the rights of every type of learner, and utterly detested computers. She called them the “evil boxes,” and she made her students drop their phones off in “day care” at the beginning of each class.

“I tell them to put the damn evil box in day care,” she says. “We say, ‘Goodnight moon,’ to the little boxes. They can pick them up on the way out.”

Her style was frenzied and informal, and she’d bolt down the

hallway to hunt down a student who was on her mind.

“She’s chaotic,” says Moira Goodman, a math teacher and co-director of the Learning Center, who worked alongside Hodgson for years. “She kicks up the dust and creates a swirl around her.”

Hodgson began kicking up dust in 1982 when she arrived at Brooks, shortly after the school started admitting girls.

Hodgson was the only female English teacher at the time.

“It was very male,” she says.

Brooks gave Hodgson both the freedom and the daunting task of carving out her own niche. One thing was clear: Some students needed extra help, and Hodgson would be the one to give it.

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“There was the challenge of trying to become legitimate at Brooks,” she says. “Nobody knew what I was supposed to be doing.”

Hodgson forged ahead, crafting the school’s commitment to support all types of learners, from students seeking drop-in help with a paper or a class they found difficult to students with specific learning disabilities. She offered academic counseling, time management help and writing support, and her job quickly became her passion.

She worked for decades without a formal meeting space for students, and her office was often relegated to the far corners, or even the attic, of various buildings on campus. In recent years, Hodgson had set up shop in an outdated chemistry lab, complete with a gas hood, Bunsen burners and chemical shower. The only private area was behind a foldable partition that she propped up in a corner.

“There had never been a name for her room,” Goodman says.

“Students would say, ‘Oh, I’m going to go to Mrs. Hodgson to get help. I’m going to find Mrs. Hodgson to get help.’ At points, she didn’t even have her own classroom. She would do her work out of a closet if she needed to.”

Hodgson’s efforts did not go unnoticed, and she was rewarded with the renovation of that chemistry lab into the Learning Center, composed of three private rooms off a main study space, flanked by a small computer center.

“It’s glorious,” Hodgson says.

“We wanted to create a comfortable, bright space in the middle of the school where kids can drop in easily and see it as a central part of their day. I think we’ve accomplished that. It’s home for some kids.”

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“You Have to be Useful” Erasmo Nunez ’05 was struggling in math. It was his first year at Brooks, and the transition from his public school in Lawrence, Mass., had been difficult. As a boarder, he was also living away from home for the first time.

“Brooks is a very challenging school,” Nunez recalls. “At times, it was a little bit scary. I was being challenged extremely hard for the first time in awhile.”

A teacher suggested he visit Mrs. Hodgson. “She’s a funny lady,” he recounts. “We hit it off right off the bat.”

Under Hodgson’s tutelage, things began to click for Nunez. Math became just a little easier. “She’s great at making you understand things,” he remembers. “She’ll formulate it in a way that you’ll get it.”

But that’s not all. Hodgson had

“You have to be useful to them,” she insists. “You have to be welcoming. And you have to get to know them really quickly.”

Her other tactic: “Knowing the curriculum cold.” She knew it all: languages, history, math, physics.

“There wasn’t anyone better to help a student succeed in a particular classroom, because she knew everything,” Goodman says. “She can teach kids any of those subject areas. She is unique in that regard.”

Nunez noticed this particular strength, too. After his grades improved, he told his friends to go see Mrs. Hodgson. “There would be four of us in her room, and she’d jump from table to table: math, history, Spanish. She would just turn on the math skills, and then turn on the Spanish skills, minute by minute.”

“ There wasn’t anyone better to help

a student succeed in a particular classroom, because she knew everything.

She can teach kids any of those subject areas. She is unique in that regard.”

- Moira Goodman

a deeper impact on Nunez than the ability to solve a math problem.

“She gave me confidence,” he says.

“Whenever you were struggling in a course, she was there. She believed in you.”

Earning the trust and respect of teenagers is no small feat, and over the years Hodgson honed her approach.

Mark Shovan, who has taught English at Brooks for 43 years, penned a tribute to Hodgson as she retired. He, too, recounted her skills.

“Usually, Susan has flown about from charge to charge like a bird without legs: seldom taking a break from one kid to the next,” he wrote. “She is tireless. She is

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Before the Learning Center was constructed, Susan Hodgson set up shop in various unused corners of campus.

dedicated. She has always been thoughtful and measured in the execution of her craft and in her gentle treatment of both us and our students.”

Hodgson brushes off the accolades: “I’ve been in high school for 32 years. If I don’t know the curriculum by now, I’m pretty pathetic.”

Search and Rescue For Hodgson, reaching struggling kids was like a search and rescue mission. She imagined kids sitting at the bottom of a mountain, gazing up at the daunting ascent. Her task was to find them and give them the support to make the climb.

“She’s been known to sprint down the hallways to catch students before they go into class,” Goodman says. “Her way of getting to kids is to just find them. She’ll run around looking up a student’s schedule, and she’ll find them in the moment of passing in the hallway from one class to another.”

And, Hodgson never gives up on a student. “They know that I stick to them like glue,” Hodgson says proudly. “I watch. I care. Whatever they do, I’ll know about. No matter what they do or say, I will stick with them. I chase them around.”

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Her face-to-face approach, according to Goodman, has been extremely effective. “Kids can’t escape,” she explains. “They can’t say, ‘Oh, I didn’t see your email.’”

my computer. That is it. I need to be outdoors.’”

A newly built house on the base of Mount Greylock in the Berkshires was calling for her.

She plans to garden, to hike and to take care of “very young kids and very old parents.”

The theme for the year in Hodgson’s English class had been “personal journey.” On the last day of her last class, Hodgson handed out small neon squares of origami paper to her students. She asked the class to write on the paper their goals for next year, and then fold the squares into small boats.

The class walked to Lake Cochichewick. It was a gray day, and when the students set the boats afloat, the neon paper glowed and bobbed in the water.

Hodgson had launched her own boat, too, but she hadn’t written her personal goals on the paper.

“ They know that I stick to them like

glue. I watch. I care. Whatever they do, I’ll know about. No matter what they do or say, I will stick with them.”

- Susan Hodgson

Goodman credits Hodgson for championing the idea that the school can support all types of learners. “I’ve learned to have a belief in all students that they can improve — to not give up on anybody,” Goodman says. “Susan doesn’t give up on any students.”

Neon and Beautiful Perhaps it was the “evil box” itself that prompted Hodgson’s retirement. “I woke up one morning and looked out the window and said, ‘I’m not going to die on

Instead, she had written her hopes for her class, and perhaps all the students who would pass through Brooks in the future.

“It was my very last class and it was a little hard to process,” she admits. “I don’t know how I’ll remember it. This year was particularly neon and beautiful.”

And the other 31 years? They were their own version of beautiful.

“I’ve loved every minute of it,” she says. “I think it’s just time to do something else.”

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B RO O KS CONNECTIONS

BROOKS CONNECTIONS IN THIS SECTION 44 Alumni News

Can you name these Brooksians on their way to class? Email Rebecca Binder, editor, with your guess: rbinder@brooksschool.org.

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B RO O KS CONNECTIONS

Back to Boarding School Two young alumni returned to boarding school life this fall — this time as teachers.

“ Regardless of what was happening that day, once we stepped into Señora Miller’s class, everybody’s spirit was lifted. I try to carry that quality with me into my classroom every day.”

PH OTO : JE NN IFER FIE RECK

ALBERT NASCIMENTO ’10

<< Albert Nascimento ’10 (left) in the classroom at Salisbury School.

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Carly Churchill ’10 and Albert Nascimento ’10 each graduated from college last spring (the University of Pennsylvania and Middlebury College, respectively) and immediately knew what they wanted to do next.

Churchill is teaching geometry and biology at The Forman School in Litchfield, Conn. After picking up a bevy of athletic awards — including All-America lacrosse honors — at Brooks, Churchill will stay in the game at Forman, coaching lacrosse, basketball and soccer. Nascimento, meanwhile, has set up camp at Salisbury School in Salisbury, Conn., where he teaches English and coaches basketball.

Although they’re new to the head of the classroom, both Nascimento and Churchill already feel at home in their new careers. Nascimento points out that, similar to Brooks, time spent out of the classroom and in the dorms allows for a more personal relationship between faculty and students at Salisbury.

“My favorite aspect of boarding school life while I was at Brooks is still my favorite today,” Nascimento says. “It’s that connection between faculty and students. Boarding schools provide a great sense of community, which is crucial in order for the students to succeed. This is the time that they need someone to communicate their feelings with, and to surround themselves with positive role models.”

Churchill also enjoys living in the dorms with her students. She realized quickly how easily sound carries from floor to floor: Although at times it’s a bit noisy in the dorms, Churchill often finds herself fondly remembering her own moments of uncontrollable laughter with friends in the Brooks dorms.

The transition hasn’t gone without its hiccups. Both Churchill and Nascimento admit that they’ve been mistaken for students on more than one occasion this fall. And, Churchill adds, “I’m realizing that I’m somewhat of a softy. It takes some work for me to be a disciplinarian. But,” she counters, “I’m learning!”

“Part of my desire to give back to students is fueled by the generosity that helped me become who I am today,” Churchill says. “Financial aid

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Introducing 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 PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE FOR M AN SC H OOL

inclusion in a future installment of Brooks

Carly Churchill ’10 works with a student at The Forman School.

made it possible for me to attend Brooks. I’ve always felt strongly about the availability of financial aid, because it was so crucial to exposing me to opportunity.

Brooks helped me to become a stronger person.”

While at Brooks, both Churchill and Nascimento were recipients of the A. John Hettinger III ’51 Scholarship.

The fund, which was established in 1962 by A. J. Hettinger Jr. in honor of his aforementioned son, is one of the largest at Brooks that provides financial aid to students who demonstrate financial need and academic promise. With a market value of roughly $14 million, the scholarship’s operating draw of approximately $610,000 underwrites the tuition of about a dozen students annually.

“I’m grateful to have received financial aid during my time at Brooks, because I know that without the generosity of those financial aid providers, my Brooks experience would not have been possible,” says Nascimento.

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“I hope to one day be in a similar position, helping those who are striving to follow their dreams.”

Nascimento and Churchill both agree that their familiarity with the expectations that a boarding school places on its students and faculty has helped them.

In fact, Nascimento says, the Brooks faculty — especially John McVeigh and Lillian Miller P’14, P’17 — inspired him to return to boarding school life.

“Mr. McVeigh was the first Brooks faculty member I met,” Nascimento remembers, “and we formed a strong bond. He constantly reminded me what it meant to be a model citizen and a good role model for the new students.”

Nascimento also cites Miller’s contagious energy and constant enthusiasm. “Regardless of what was happening that day,” he says, “once we stepped into Señora Miller’s class, everybody’s spirit was lifted. I try to carry that quality with me into my classroom every day.”

Works, please send a review copy to: Editor, Brooks Bulletin

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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.

TRIVIA ANSWER // SPRING 2014

Henry Camp ’74, P’17 correctly identified the three guys goofing around in last issue’s trivia picture as (from bottom to top) Bobby Bedrosian ’73, Al Sinsheimer ’73 and Tim Platt ’73, P’01. Thanks to everyone who wrote in. Be sure to check out this issue’s trivia photo on page 43.

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B RO O KS CONNECTIONS

Rowing Brothers Arthur Hollingsworth ’81 and his older brother, Valentine Hollingsworth ’72, P’17, agreed to be civil during their first race as competitors at the 2014 Henley Royal Regatta held in Henley-onThames, England. It was hard to be too serious, after all, while donning historical uniforms for the centennial celebration re-enactment of the 1914 Grand Challenge Cup. “We’re now old farts, so we moved slower. I felt more tired crossing the finish,” Arthur admits with a laugh. “But it was a very thrilling experience.”

In 1914, Harvard University’s junior varsity crew bested the Union Boat Club of Boston for the Grand Challenge Cup. Notably, the Crimson was the first American crew to win the Cup, just months before the onset of World War I. All eight members of the Harvard crew not only survived the war, but, amazingly, they reunited to row the race again 50 years later, in 1964. To mark the centennial, regatta organizers asked Harvard’s 1985 national champion crew to row. Arthur captained the 1985 team, and he eagerly accepted the invitation. Val, meanwhile, enthusiastically took up his oar to row the 1 ¼ mile course as a member of Boston’s Union Boat Club.

The brothers commenced their competitive rowing careers on Lake Cochichewick. Arthur loved his crew experience at Brooks — the camaraderie, the coaching staff, the team traditions — though, he admits, he could have done without the long runs after practice.

“And we only sank one boat,” Arthur jokes, referencing a shell that his team ran aground.

Both brothers went on to captain their college teams — Arthur at Harvard and Val at the University of Pennsylvania. Val and a college teammate made it to the finals of the 1976 Olympic Trials in a pair.

And while the sport is dramatically more competitive in college — there were two Olympic medalists in Arthur’s Harvard boat — the discipline and preparation they

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Val Hollingsworth ’72, P’17 (nearest boat, second from left) and his Union Boat Club teammates competed against Arthur Hollingsworth ’81 (furthest boat, fourth from left) and his Harvard University teammates during the re-enactment of the famed 1914 Grand Challenge Cup at the 2014 Henley Royal Regatta.

each received at Brooks served them well during the competitive transition.

While Arthur doesn’t get much time on the water anymore, he does continue to row on a concept-two rowing machine. Val, who was one of the first alumni to be inducted into the Brooks School Athletics Hall of Fame, still rows occasionally with the Union Boat Club.

And, although he had a great time during this recent trip to Henley, Val can’t help but reminisce about his first trip to Henley in 1971 as part of a Brooks eight-oar crew.

“Some alums will remember those days of wooden oars and boats and woolen rowing trou with leather patches on the seats,” Val says. “We did not do especially well at Henley that year, but we learned a lot.

The following year, our Brooks first boat, which also included John Brock ’73, Peter Coffin ’72, Bill Gardiner ’72 and Tim Platt ’73, P’01, was undefeated, set the Brooks course record and won at Quinsigamond. All of us went on to row in college at Harvard, Yale, Trinity and Penn. Brooks was a great place for Arthur and me, and many others, to start our rowing careers.” << Arthur Hollingsworth ’81 (left) and Val Hollingsworth ’72, P’17 (right) don blazers resembling those worn by members of their 1914 rowing clubs: Harvard University and the Union Boat Club, respectively.

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Governor’s Arts Awards Winner Tim Prentice ’49 Tim Prentice ’49 received one of three 2014 Governor’s Arts Awards from Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy in June. The award recognizes excellence and lifetime achievement in the arts. Prentice, a kinetic sculptor, is one of only 140 Connecticut residents who have received the award since its inception in 1978.

Tim Prentice ’49

Prentice obtained his undergraduate and master’s degrees in architecture from Yale University. He went on to run an architectural firm with his business partner, Lo-Yi Chan, before establishing his kinetic sculpture studio in West Cornwall, Conn., in 1975. His small team of artisans creates substantial public art pieces and commercial installations around the world, including in Japan, South Korea, Northern Ireland, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Cameroon.

Prentice credits time spent outside the high school classroom for expanding his interest in art. Though there wasn’t an art department when he was a student, Prentice remembers that Brooks parent and faculty emerita Alicia Waterston P’56 would take interested students to various local galleries.

Named a Distinguished Brooksian in 2005, Prentice donated a four-piece mobile to hang in the atrium of the Science Center shortly after its grand opening in 2008.

To check out more of Prentice’s work, go to his website, www.timprentice.com, or pick up a copy of his book, Drawing on the Air: The Kinetic Sculpture of Tim

Carpet, by Tim Prentice ’49.

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Prentice (Easton Studio Press, 2012).

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Alumni Sports Briefs Margaret Klein ’10 finished her lacrosse career at Washington and Lee University in style last spring. The senior attacker led the Generals in points with 51 goals and nine assists, and also posted 22 ground balls, 20 draw controls and 11 caused turnovers. Klein led the team to a 17-3 overall record, tying the program mark for wins in a season. The Generals won their 15th Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship, and made their 14th appearance in the NCAA Championship Tournament. Klein ranks fourth all-time for the Generals in career goals and eighth all-time in career points. She was named the ODAC Player of the Year and was an ODAC All-Tournament Team selection. Klein also PHOTO: PETE EMERSON/ WASHINGTON A ND LEE UNIV ERSITY

picked up First Team VaSID All-State College Division Women’s Lacrosse, First Team AllODAC, First Team All-Chesapeake Region and Third Team All-America honors.

Margaret Klein ’10 (left).

Andrés Burbank-Crump ’11 capped off a dominant soccer career at Williams College this fall. The senior co-captain defender shouldered the Ephs to an 8-6-2 (6-3-1 conference) record. Williams grabbed the third-place seed in the NESCAC Championship Tournament before falling to Bowdoin College in an upset during the quarterfinal round. During BurbankCrump’s tenure, Williams cruised to the semifinals of the NCAA Championship Tournament twice. Meanwhile, across the NESCAC, Greg Conrad ’13 picked up conference Player of the Year and third-team All-America honors. The Middlebury College forward tied for a NESCACbest 22 points with eight goals and six assists.

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REMEMBERING LEWIS DABNEY ’39 A longtime supporter of Brooks, Lewis Dabney ’39 died on August 29, 2014, at his summer home in South Dartmouth, Mass.

Dabney remained spry and humorous throughout his life, a constant contributor of colorful stories and hilarious commentaries.

Dabney was a dedicated volunteer for Brooks. Over the years, he served as an Alumni Board member, an Athletics Hall of Fame committee member, class chair, reunion chair, phonathon volunteer and class correspondent. In addition, he made financial donations to the school for more than 30 consecutive years.

In 2009, Dabney received the Alumni Bowl Award, which recognizes dedicated and thoughtful service to the school.

“As Lew would say, whenever the class of 1939 needed a kick in the pants, he was the one to do it,” Head of School John R. Packard Jr. said when he presented Dabney with the award. “A class letter, a call for class notes, or a call for funds: He is the ‘go to’ person for 1939. In addition to his many years of steadfast service to Brooks, it is Lew’s irreverence and sense of humor that have kept his classmates informed, entertained, connected and supportive — all in the name of Brooks.”

Dabney entered Brooks as a second-former, as his parents and former Headmaster Frank D. Ashburn felt he should skip the first form. Late in life, Dabney would warmly recall the hours Ashburn practiced his mean screwball with the baseball team. Dabney also maintained a fondness for former biolTop: Lew Dabney ’39 during his days on the Brooks baseball team. ogy teacher Oscar Root, who taught him Below: Dabney in 2008. how to band birds.

Dabney served his country as a fighter pilot in World War II, for which he received numerous accolades, including the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After graduating from Trinity College, Dabney worked in several diverse fields, from the FBI to magazine publishing. His personal passions ranged from sailing to Dixieland jazz to the prevention of handgun violence.

Dabney is survived by his wife, Teedy, his sister, two daughters and five stepchildren, two grandchildren and 12 step-grandchildren, and by several cousins, nieces and nephews, including step-nephew Todd Crocker ’65.

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PARTING SHOT

“ While sitting at the counter of an ice cream parlor, I saw this girl and her older brother walk in.

She was fascinated by the gumball machine. This shot always reminds me of that moment and of the power of childhood innocence.”

HANNAH LATHAM ’17 I take AP Photography here at Brooks. We work on independent projects, which I enjoy because I get to work on my own interests. Photography’s something I definitely want to pursue later in life.

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Who delivers the Brooks Fund? You. When you choose to support the Brooks Fund, you ensure that Brooks will continue to provide the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives. You support: • the renovation and updating of campus buildings and facilities that will allow our students to fully engage in their Brooks educations • financial aid that allows us to attract and retain an ambitious, well-rounded student body • a faculty that is unmatched in its talent, its sense of community and its dedication to our students

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW for our year-end festivities on campus.

Alumni Weekend will take place May 15–May 17. Prize Day Weekend will take place May 24–May 25. We hope you return to campus to join us as we celebrate our students, our alumni and our school.