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on CHRISTIAN & ELM | Newsworthy
ST. JOHN HALL GROUNDBREAKING
Sixth Former Named Siemens Regional Finalist
On October 10, Choate Rosemary Hall broke ground on the new St. John Hall designed by world-renowned architects Pelli Clarke Pelli. The 35,000-square foot facility is proposed to achieve a LEED-Gold certification and scheduled to open in 2015. In addition to providing a teaching space for applied mathematics, the new St. John Hall will be a model for interdisciplinary education and will accommodate a wide scope of academic inquiry. Courses such as architecture and robotics will share the building with sculpture and biotechnology. New courses such as visual mathematics, engineering, and renewable biofuels will add to the variety of disciplines studied in close proximity. In addition, the new building will be home to Choate’s first i.d.Lab which will serve as a catalyst for the curriculum. Designed to support hands-on learning, the lab will also foster collaboration and creativity with opportunities for students to work in teams. Says Headmaster Curtis, “We hope students and teachers will use the i.d.Lab to think through a challenge in front of them, to create a project, or to undertake a group endeavor. In the next few years, it is our intention to create i.d. spaces across the Choate campus in classroom buildings as well as dormitories as a catalyst for learning.”
Ji Won “Cindy” Lim ’14 of Wallingford, Conn., was named a Regional Finalist in the 2013-2014 Siemens Competition in Math, Science, & Technology. The Siemens Competition, a program of the Siemens Foundation, is the nation’s leading science and mathematics research competition for high school students. The annual event, administered by the College Board, awards college scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 in individual and team categories. For the competition, Cindy and Peter Shim of the Pingry School studied a number theory problem regarding the existence of the smallest number that is not expressible as a combination of a sum, or difference between a Fibonacci number and a prime. Says Cindy, “While not necessarily of immediate practical significance, it is an example of advancement of our knowledge in an old and challenging field.” In the last five years Choate has had 5 Semifinalists, two of whom were Regional Finalists, in the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology.
Phoebe House Dedication On October 18, Choate Rosemary Hall dedicated the Headmaster’s house on Rosemary Lane, Phoebe House, in honor of Phoebe Evans Dey P ’78, ’81, ’83, and wife of former President and Principal Charles F. Dey (1973-91). The Headmaster’s new home is a gift of William ‘Ted’ Little ’49 and his wife, Frances. Other named buildings in honor of previous heads of school include St. John Hall, dedicated in 1958, in honor of Headmaster George St. John (1908-1947) and his wife Clara St. John; Seymour St. John Chapel, rededicated in 1998, in honor of Headmaster Seymour St. John ’31 (1947-1973) and Shanahan Field in honor of Headmaster Edward J. Shanahan (1991-2011). Ruutz-Rees, an administrative office building and meeting space, presently undergoing renovation, is named in honor of Caroline Ruutz-Rees, first headmistress of Rosemary Hall (1890-1938).
Faculty Chairs Awarded
Where Are They Now?
Students and faculty gathered for the School’s 124th Convocation on September 3. At the ceremony Dean of Faculty Katie Levesque announced the awarding of three faculty chairs, two of them to alumni of the School. The Independence Foundation Chair was awarded to Latin teacher Mary Liz Williamson ’94; the Lawrence M. Gelb Chair in American history was awarded to History, Philosophy, Religion, and Social Sciences Department Head Amy D. Foster; and the William G. Shute and John Ed Wilfong Chair was awarded to Third Form Boys Dean and English teacher Gordon Armour ’76.
Three cast members from the 2002 spring musical production of Chicago have found their way respectively onto the Broadway stage, the small screen, and the New York supper club scene. Rebecca Faulkenberry ’03, who played Roxie Hart in Chicago, made her Broadway debut in the role of Sherrie in Rock of Ages and then went on to play Mary Jane in Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark. Dan DiTomasso ’02, who played Billy Flynn, has been cast in The Witches of East End on Lifetime. Barrie Kreinik ’03, who played Velma Kelly, recently appeared in a cabaret show at Tom Viertel ’59’s Broadway Supper Club, 54 Below.
Pulitzer Prize Novelist visits Choate
Choate Website Wins Best School Mobile Website The newly redesigned Choate public website (www.choate.edu) was recently awarded Best School Mobile Website by the Web Marketing Association’s 2013 MobileWebAwards. The Web Marketing Association (WMA) created the MobileWebAwards Competition “to honor excellence in mobile websites and apps and showcase the best in award-winning mobile development.” The WMA is an industry organization that works to set high standards for online marketing and push for excellence in development of websites. The redesigned public website was created using responsive design. No matter what device you are using to visit the site – whether phone, desktop, tablet, etc. – the content of the site is displayed correctly.
Junot Díaz, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and fiction editor at Boston Review, visited classes on December 12. Diaz received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in 2008. A 2012 MacArthur Fellow, his recent short story collection, This Is How You Lose Her, was nominated for a National Book Award. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker magazine, which has listed him as one of the 20 top writers in the 21st century.