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Also in this issue: News of Commonwealth A Friend for the Journey An Evening to Remember
Commonwealth School Magazine Winter 2018
DO THE LIBERAL ARTS STILL MATTER? A Commonwealth Conversation
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W H Y I M ADE I T Untitled
S
L E V I M AT T E O RYA N ’ 1 9
ome years ago, when I was taking a summer course at the Boston Architectural College, we took a trip to the Carpenter Center designed by Le Corbusier, and I learned that he drew his inspiration for the building from human lungs. He designed it with large windows, many common spaces and gardens, and a
public walkway through the building, and he used the shape of human lungs as the layout of the space. The concept of how the human figure interacts with the space surrounding it fascinates me. The human figure is extremely complex, made up of hundreds of parts and forms together, giving rise to infinite variations. In turn, each variation is capable of projecting emotions and reactions, and it can even tell a story. This drawing shows Eve talking with Satan. In working on it, I became obsessed with Eve’s state of mind when interacting with Satan, and how the world around her morphs in response to her. She is backed into a corner, metaphorically speaking, and alienated from her surroundings. I wanted to evoke a sense of isolation, confusion, and the unsettling feeling of inexorable change. To render her state of mind, I highlighted Eve with negative space to show her disconnection from the world around her. This disconnect conjures an ethereal image of Eve, almost as if she were on a different plane than her surroundings. Similarly, the endless lines and hatching of the landscape, in contrast with the smooth style of Eve’s body, create confusion as everything blends together around her. The ways in which the state of mind affects the way the human figure interacts with space intrigue me. To develop and push this theme forward, I continued to draw, focusing on instances we all face from time to time: when your skin crawls, when your hair stands on end, or when you get butterflies in your stomach. Such richness emerges from the interplay between the human figure and the space in which it exists, and I am intrigued by the possibilities.
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FROM THE HEADMASTER
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ur cover feature explores a tension Commonwealth has wrestled with since its founding—the division between the noble aims of the liberal arts and the more utilitarian goal of a successful professional life. When he founded Commonwealth Charles Merrill did not list among his aims elite college admission or rich career choices. He wanted a school that would turn out thoughtful, decent graduates with good understanding of themselves and their world. Last fall, I convened a conversation with three alumni/ae who work in higher education about whether the academy today allows for students to encounter questions and topics that help them grow in self-knowledge, equips them with tools to understand the world from different perspectives, and gives depth and richness to their lives— the lofty aims of a liberal education. Not surprisingly, the conversation got more complicated than that as our graduates touched on questions about the privileged status of these hopes and the importance of context—Stanford versus Simon Fraser University—in parsing the competing aims of college. This issue also profiles Sophia Meas, Commonwealth’s first full-time Director of College Counseling, brought in to help students navigate the ever more frenzied application process. We expanded this position and brought Sophia in after some discussion of our own anxiety about the growing influence that college pressure exerts on our mission and culture. But Sophia appreciates that the college process, at its best, complements our liberal aims as students are invited to reflect on the shape of their lives and the possibilities ahead. In addition, having an advisor who was herself a first-gen college student opens the door for our students to think freshly about the advantages they enjoy, including the privilege of a dedicated college counselor. The tensions are real, the issues tangled. You’ll also see in these pages news of the launch of the most ambitious capital campaign in the school’s history, The Power of a Vision, which aims to raise $12.5 million to renew and sustain Commonwealth in the decades to come. We can carry forward our commitments to Charles Merrill’s objectives only with the broad and deep support of our community. We opened this school year with a a speaker who drew for the faculty and staff a distinction between problems, which are amenable to solution and resolution, and dilemmas, which persist and can only be lived with and managed. How does an institution of learning navigate the pressures of its competitive market while holding to its deeper commitments? That’s a dilemma. Bill Wharton Headmaster
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Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Magazine
Issue 15 Winter 2018 Editor Melody Komyerov Design Jeanne Abboud Photography Tia Ann Chapman Jared Charney Daniel M. Hoffman Melody Komyerov Assistant Editor Sasha Watson ’92 Class Notes Editor Carly Renshaw Contributing Writers Catherine O'Neill Grace Grace Talusan Printing Hannaford and Dumas
CM is published twice a year by Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02116, and distributed without charge to alumni/ae, current and former parents, and other members of the Commonwealth community. Opinions expressed in CM are those of the authors and subjects, and do not necessarily represent the views of the School or its faculty and students. We welcome your comments and news at info@commschool.org. Letters and notes may be edited for style, length, clarity, and grammar. Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle.
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CONTENTS
Commonwealth School Magazine Winter 2018
Why I Made It Untitled By Levi Matteo Ryan ’19
1
Headmaster’s Letter William D. Wharton
2
News of Commonwealth
5
A Friend for the Journey By Grace Talusan
8
Commonwealth School announces The Power of a Vision: A Campaign for Commomwealth
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Do the Liberal Arts Still Matter? A Commonwealth Conversation By Catherine O’Neill Grace
15
An Evening to Remember The Power of a Vision Campaign Launch Event
22
CWSAA
26
5
8 6
27
Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Association
Class Notes
27
In Memoriam
32
On the cover: Three Commonwealth alumni/ae discuss the question: Does a liberal arts education matter? Photo by Melody Komyerov
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NEWS | Of Commonwealth
Classical
INSPIRATION
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ommonwealth musicians gave a stellar performance for the Winter Concert on December 7th. The Commonwealth Orchestra performed Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, and was joined by the chorus for a riveting performance of Bach Cantata 142, “Uns ist ein Kind geboren.” Commonwealth Chorale also performed selections by Latham, Copland, and Bach. A string quartet performed the first movement of the Borodin Second String Quartet and the audience enjoyed solo performances by Joy Ding ’19, Joe MacDonald ’21, and Xander Séguin ’19.
Farewell to Darryl
T
his year’s Winter Concert marks the final concert of longtime accompanist Darryl Hollister. Darryl has been a key component of the music faculty for over thirty years, coaching chamber music, accompanying students in performance, teaching sectional rehearsals in chorus and chorale, performing and accompanying assemblies, and playing in every style imaginable. His professionalism has been exemplary, and he has set a standard of excellence that will be difficult, if not impossible, to match. Commonwealth has been extremely fortunate to have Darryl as part of our community. He is most certainly going to be missed.
To experience the concert, watch the videos at https://vimeo.com/commonwealthschool
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RHINOCEROS RULES
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ur actors, actresses, set designers, and stage crew came together to shine in their rendition of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, directed by acting theater director Kate Ventimiglia on November 16th and 17th at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. Written in 1959, Rhinoceros tells the story of a small French village whose residents morph into rhinoceroses.
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NEWS | Of Commonwealth
Commonwealth’s New
Faces
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5
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7
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1. Caleb Colpitts, drawing, painting, and printmaking teacher. B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design in Jewelry and Metalsmithing, with a minor in Printmaking. Enjoys working in his Waltham studio when not teaching. When not working he does his best to make it home to northern New Hampshire to hike and canoe. www.calebcolpitts.com.
2. Bouchra Danielkebir ’11, dean of diversity & inclusion. B.A. Spelman College, M.A. in International Policy University of Georgia. Enjoys traveling both domestically and internationally, trying out new or local restaurants with friends, and being involved in community service initiatives that improve the social stature of girls and women. Balances out her sweet tooth by being an enthusiastic and loyal member of Orangetheory Fitness!
3. Joshua Eagle, dean of students. B.A. University of Michigan in Creative Writing and Literature/Psychology, Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. Enjoys being with his wife and three kids, running, watching college football, and spending time in Maine.
4. Alexander Ginzburg, math teacher while Anna Moss is away on sabbatical. M.A. Math, University of St. Petersburg, Russia. Teaching mathematics is a second occupation for Alex after a long career in finance. He is married to a Commonwealth alumna, Julia Ginzburg ’81.
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5. César Pérez, Spanish and history teacher. B.A. University of Havana in Journalism, M.A. University of Iowa in Spanish, M.A. Harvard in Romance Languages and Literature. Enjoys discovering new authors and learning new languages, bike riding, writing fiction, playing and watching soccer, playing with his two kids, singing along with them in the car, and correcting their Spanish grammar.
6. Kate Ventimiglia, theater director while Susan Thompson is away on sabbatical. B.S. Skidmore in Theater, M.A. in Theater Education Emerson College. When she is not working on a directing or acting project, Kate can be found in the mountains. She is an avid hiker, yogi, and naturalist. She also has a voracious appetite for learning, which she satiates by taking courses in literature and Spanish language, and by participating in a playwriting group and a mastermind book club.
7. Emma Bishop, development assistant. B.A. Saint Anselm College, Politics and Criminal Justice. Enjoys dancing, skiing, and spending time with family.
8. Sue Tibert, director of finance. CPA. BBA from UMass Amherst. Enjoys swimming, hiking, traveling and spending time with her family including her rescue animals.
9. Samantha Nieto, photography teacher. B.F.A in Photography, Arizona State University, M.F.A in Photography & Integrated Media, Lesley University. Enjoys traveling, cooking, and spending time with her family. www.samanthanieto.com CM Winter 2019 7
A friend for the Journey By Grace Talusan
Sophia Meas
accompanies
students on every
step of the college
application process
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small plush sofa takes up most of one wall in the cozy office of Sophia Meas, director of college counseling. Starting junior year, this is where students rest as they process, over several months, what can seem like the most important question of their lives so far: Where will I go to college?
Meas balances on an exercise ball as she eats a bowl of soup from the kitchen downstairs. A few students wander by the open door and she warmly assures them that they’ll talk later in the day. Clearly, she is multitasking, but she is relaxed and friendly, a generous host who focuses her complete attention on the person in front of her, even offering to run to the cafeteria to get her guest something to eat and drink. Her ability to make students feel at ease, even when discussing the fraught topic of college admissions, is her strength. Spend any time with Meas, and you’ll feel confident that everything will work out in the end. Meas asks students to reveal their hopes for their future, and, in her calm and nonjudgmental presence, they do. “I help students manage and cope with the fears, uncertainty, and stress of the college admissions process,” says Meas. The first external expert hired exclusively to counsel students for college admissions at Commonwealth, Meas mentored her first senior class through the admissions process last year. She spent a decade as a senior admissions and financial officer at Harvard College, and she brings not only deep experience and insight with selective college admissions, but a network of relationships that she continues to cultivate with admissions representatives and colleges. Meas makes sure that colleges know and appreciate Commonwealth’s students, as she points out to them “the incredible depth of this intellectually and culturally generous population.” In the spring of their junior year, students meet one-on-one with Meas for their first conversations about the application process. Then, during senior year, students meet in a weekly seminar-style course focused on topics related to college. This community foundation means that students not only share information, but also support each other, commiserating and celebrating each other’s achievements. When students are asked if the seminar and individual meetings with Meas alleviate their college admissions-related stress, Meas’ students answer with a resounding, “Yes!” Meas notes that “they’re grateful for the comprehensive support. They have so many things going on during their senior year, and it’s helpful to have a reassuring voice to remind them of how terrific they are. They’ll all have outstanding college options.”
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Joy?
A FRIEN D FO R TH E JOU R N E Y
In college applications? Only someone like Meas, whose own application process was fraught, could create a joyful process for seniors. Grace Talusan teaches writing at Tufts University and Grub Street. Her first book, The Body Papers, will be published in April 2019 and is available wherever books are sold.
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Meas is available to meet with students as frequently as they wish, and she encourages them to pursue a thoughtful process that helps them get to know themselves better as they find the best college for them. Meas asks exploratory questions and listens carefully as students talk through their dreams and goals. She feels a deep satisfaction in her role, “knowing that students will have discovered something important within themselves” by the end of the process. Once students have a list of colleges, Meas turns her attention to helping them prepare to meet with admissions representatives, fill out applications, and write personal essays. She learns about each student’s strengths and the ways each has contributed to life at Commonwealth. Through a collaborative process, Meas helps students uncover their unique characteristics and talents. They then work through all the disparate pieces of the college application process, including decisions about early applications and financial aid. “There are many tasks to complete, and I’m here to support out students every step of the way,” Meas says. “As students work their way through the process, we acknowledge their work in the hope that this adds to their sense of achievement, satisfaction, and even joy.” Joy? In college applications? Only someone like Meas, could create a joyful process for seniors. As a first-generation to college student and an immigrant, Meas did not have someone to help her when she applied to college. Her parents were survivors of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and were not able to support Meas in the ways American college-educated parents could support their children. She attended a public high school of about 2500 students in San Jose, California, had no college counselor, and first heard of the SATs a week before taking them. She describes the entire experience as “terrifying.” And yet, even though she had to navigate the admissions and financial aid process on her own, Meas was accepted to UCLA, one of the most competitive colleges in the country. This experience drives her work today, which she describes as “my recognition of how scary the process can feel and how liberating it is to have powerful information on your side.” The life lessons that Meas explores with Commonwealth students will reverberate long after high school. She says, “Everything will be okay. I will repeat this until they can hear me. All their hard work is coming to fruition.”
Commonwealth School is delighted to announce
When Charles Merrill founded Commonwealth, he sought to provide a first-rate education in the heart of Boston and to create opportunity for students from under-represented communities. This 12.5 million dollar campaign is inspired by Mr. Merrill and will ensure that Commonwealth carries forward his vision for years to come.
“Commonwealth is a tradition, an idea, an aspiration, that transcends the building, the students, the teachers, and the opportunities provided by its extraordinary academic and social education.” —Alison Hoppin Murchison ’79, P’10
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A CAM PA IG N FOR COMMON WE A LTH
The Power of a Vision: A Campaign for Commonwealth will support three essential components of the Commonwealth experience:
The Power of Opportunity “I was taken seriously as a thinker, and I became a sophisticated one, ready to go on to college and into my life as a reader, a writer, a teacher. Which has brought me here—back here— to a Commonwealth that still welcomes young people into the life of the mind, but also to a school that is ever-renewed as it opens its doors to the world and brings it inside.” —Sasha Watson ’92, Commonwealth English Teacher
When Mr. Merrill founded Commonwealth in 1957, he sought to create a school that would reward intellectual curiosity and deep exploration. Today we continue to encourage students to push themselves, to take advantage of Commonwealth’s diverse course offerings, and to embrace the challenges they encounter. We ask them to reach beyond themselves. Through projects and international travel, students have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the larger world. The Mary P. Chatfield Cultural Scholarship, established by an alumnus whose Commonwealth trip to Italy was a transformative experience, provides funding that enables students of all backgrounds to participate in such programs. This campaign will help Commonwealth to continue to offer significant financial aid and grants through the Chatfield Cultural Scholarship, ensuring a broadening of horizons is within reach for all.
The Power of a Teacher “There was a world of beauty and wonder and my teachers were going to bring me there and initiate me as a new citizen of knowledge. For this I am forever grateful.” —Antonia Fried ’81
All students and teachers at Commonwealth learn and grow, and everyone in the community shares in the enthusiasm for the work we do together. Longtime Commonwealth English and art history teacher Judith Siporin remarked, “You learn more intensely, and more deeply and thoroughly, from having to teach somebody else than from reading books and writing papers. The teaching in itself is quite an education.” That commitment to the shared experience of deep intellectual pursuit sets Commonwealth teachers apart. Our teachers are experts in their fields and they are eager to share their passion with students. Our sabbatical program and John Hughes Grants for Faculty Development enable and encourage teachers to stay abreast of developments in their fields, pursue new avenues of inquiry, develop courses, and keep their enthusiasm fresh and alive throughout their careers. Funds raised through this campaign will help the School to offer competitive compensation and professional development opportunities for our faculty.
The Power of Place “The building made us feel at home because it is a home.” —Alison Hoppin Murchison ’79, P’10
For over sixty years, Commonwealth School has been housed in the two converted brownstones purchased by Charles Merrill in 1957. This campaign makes it possible for Commonwealth to stay in the heart of Boston by funding the recently completed, significant renovations to the School building. 151 Commonwealth Avenue offers the intimacy of a nineteenth century home and the accessibility of downtown Boston. A Commonwealth education begins at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Dartmouth Street, but it quickly reaches beyond those walls. Ninth graders explore the city’s rich and complicated history in their City of Boston class. Young historians conduct research at the Boston Public Library, just minutes away. All students undertake projects across the city and region. Most travel to Spain, France, Peru, Italy, or China to broaden their outlook through first-hand experience of foreign language, culture, and history. But our Boston home is the base from which their studies and explorations are launched.
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hen we look at our three sons, we see highly educated, intellectually curious young men who want to make a difference in the world and also have the skills to make that change happen. Mario graduated from Commonwealth in 2010, Gabe in 2012 and Julian this past June, 2018. Their respective four years at Commonwealth were instrumental in this development. We know with certainty that they would be very different today if they had not spent their most formative years at 151 Commonwealth Ave. They are in no way unique among their fellow Commonwealth classmates. We continue to hear of the amazing journeys of many of their friends and the interesting and important things they are doing now. Stories about Commonwealth graduates never cease to amaze us. So what is it about this place? Our faculty is highly skilled and the teaching of writing and research skills, analytical thinking and specific subject matter content is unsurpassed. However, this alone is not what makes Commonwealth so transformative. Just as vital to the experience is the fact that a Commonwealth education happens within the context of a set of values and ideals that binds the entire community. These emanate from our faculty, who are much more than teachers. Through their interactions with students they pass along this set of values and ideals to generation after generation of graduates. The origin comes from Charles Merrill himself: integrity, compassion, empathy, equity, and awareness of larger societal issues were essential to Mr. Merrill when he founded Commonwealth. This campaign is about maintaining that vision that Mr. Merrill had sixty years ago, a vision that was shaped by the horrors of a world war and its aftermath. By raising funds for the school building, faculty compensation and professional development, and financial aid and student scholarships, we strengthen this institution. By strengthening this great institution we are honoring Mr. Merrill’s hopes for society and the impact his vision continues to have. For our students, four years of living in this context can be life changing. Our graduates want to make a difference in the world and all are highly equipped to do so. Our sons grew immeasurably during their time at Commonwealth. They graduated with a greater sense of purpose and a greater understanding of themselves and we are very grateful for the education they received. We encourage you to join us in supporting The Power of a Vision: a Campaign for Commonwealth because we know that now, more than ever, the world needs this school. —José Alvarez & Suzanne McGilvray, P’10, ’12, ’18 Campaign Co-Chairs
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A CAM PA IG N FOR COMMON WE A LTH
I Campaign Committee José Alvarez, P’10, ’12, ’18 Co-Chair
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, Harvard Business School Suzanne McGilvray, P’10 ’12 ’18 Co-Chair Mary P. Chatfield, P’71, ’79
Teacher Emeritus, Commonwealth School Alisha Elliott ’01 Director of Development, Commonwealth School Therese Hendricks P’05, ’07
Chair, Commonwealth School Board of Trustees Shareholder, Polsinelli Rebecca Jackman Assistant Head, Commonwealth School Melody Komyerov
Director of Strategic Communications, Commonwealth School Alice Murphy P’16
Physician Carly Renshaw
Director of Annual Giving, Commonwealth School Cathryn Stein, P ’11
Nurse, The Patrick Lyndon Pilot School William Wharton P’06
Headmaster, Commonwealth School
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n his memoir The Walled Garden, The Story of a School, Charles Merrill offered a statement of his aims in founding Commonwealth, one that draws on his experience in war and in Poland, on his activism for civil rights, and on his inclination to build a community reliant not on top-down authority, but rather on a sense of shared enterprise and common purpose. “When I started Commonwealth in 1958, I set three general objectives. First, from what I had seen of postwar Vienna and Warsaw, was to give students an understanding of the culture of the past and a conviction that they should try to hand it down, with changes, to the future. Culture, like human life, is fragile, and a lot of people like to destroy things. Second, was to educate a cadre, democratically enriched through our scholarship funds, that would…take leadership functions in whatever section of society they happened to find themselves. Third, was to help raise decent, human beings, with some knowledge of themselves and the world around them, who could survive under pressure and lead happy and useful lives.” Preferring “a stimulating and realistic setting for education,” Charles chose to open his school in the city. Though the scale was modest—housed in two brownstones, it would serve a small number of students—the effort was sustained by the belief that a small number of exceptionally taught young people could do good well beyond their numbers. After thirty-three years at the school I continue to marvel at the way so much of his vision continues to inform and inspire our work: By some strange alchemy new faculty and new students make those commitments to culture, to opportunity, and to decency their own and they carry the work forward. Our ability to support the ongoing intellectual and artistic lives of our faculty keep alive their—and by extension students’—enthusiasm for the genuine pleasure of learning. Our ability to bring in and support substantial numbers of students whose families could not, without assistance, afford Commonwealth, ensures a more inclusive mix of voices and backgrounds. And in countless ways—from collaboration in the classroom to the jobs program to mounting our Hancock weekends—students learn responsibility to a larger enterprise, they learn leadership, and they learn to listen to and work with people different from themselves. The goal of The Power of a Vision is to renew and restore those commitments: to the building and to Commonwealth’s relationship to Boston, as we renovate the facility for the decades ahead; and to the students and teachers whose daily work together brings Charles’s vision to life. We hope you will join us in securing Commonwealth’s future. It is a small school with a large vision. — Bill Wharton P ’06 Headmaster
For more information, visit www.powerofavision.org
DO THE LIBERAL ARTS STILL MATTER? A Commonwealth Conversation By Catherine O’Neill Grace
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LIBE R A L ARTS
DO THE VALUES OF LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION PERSIST TODAY? Three alumni/ae in academia discuss the question.
Commonwealth students prepare for class in 4A, the music room where Mark Greif '93 once studied.
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LIB E RA L ARTS
P
icture this: A tenth-grader lounges in the empty music room on the fourth floor, contemplating Freud and Nietzsche and musing about his future. “I was reading and staring out the window at the clouds, with no particular obligations, and I had the thought, ‘Is there any way to do this for the rest of your life?’” the student recalls. Doing “this”—closely reading challenging texts, exploring ideas, opening the mind and the imagination—is at the heart of a Commonwealth education, and of values of liberal education more broadly. And Mark Greif ’93, that student in the music room, is still doing it. A cultural critic and author of Against Everything: Essays (Vintage, 2016), Greif recently left a position at The New School, where he spent ten years, and is now an Associate Professor of English at Stanford University. CM Winter 2018 17
LIBE R A L ARTS
Are the ideals of selfexamination, of broadening and deepening one’s humanity, still relevant? And how does this shift in focus change the academic life?
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The notion that education aims to preserve and adapt culture, to cultivate leaders, and to equip people to gain understanding of themselves and the world reflects a twentieth-century view of the value of liberal education. But the Association of American Colleges and Universities outlines a different vision in the twenty-first century. Today, the AACU asserts, higher education places more emphasis on acquiring the skills necessary to function in a global economy and less on the kind of person who will be shaped by the experience. Families, perhaps pressured by the exorbitant cost of college, look at education as an investment from which they expect measurable returns. The numbers of students who take courses in the humanities and the numbers of humanities majors have seen steady decline. In this environment, is the pursuit of a liberal education still possible and desirable? Are the ideals of self-examination, of broadening and deepening one’s humanity, still relevant? And how does this shift in focus change the academic life? These were among the questions that Headmaster Bill Wharton recently posed to three Commonwealth alumni/ae who have made their way into professional lives in academia. As the school year began, he convened an online conversation that stretched across generations and geography, from Boston to Hawaii to Palo Alto, to Northampton, MA, to speak with Alex Clapp ’79, Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Borjana Mikic ’87, Rosemary Bradford Hewlett 1940 Professor of Engineering at Smith College, and Greif. Wharton cited founder Charles E. Merrill’s intention for Commonwealth School to help raise “decent, human beings, with some knowledge of themselves and the world around them, who could survive under pressure and lead happy and useful lives.” Did this model serve these alumni/ae as they moved into the world from Commonwealth? Does it still shape their work and their thinking? “I feel as if my trajectory from Commonwealth to the present is weirdly unchanged,” Greif laughed. “Did I ever properly mature?” Greif’s career has encompassed teaching, writing, and editing. “It’s also included being a freelance writer, which is to say unemployed, more or less, and sitting in cafés where the coffee isn’t too expensive. All of those have been ways to do that thing I imagined in the music room.” Borjana Mikic recalled, “Commonwealth was an incredibly humbling experience. It was the first time I learned that learning can be hard and challenging and wouldn’t necessarily come easily to me. I learned to love the quest to learn, to love it the way you love cake.” After earning her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford, Mikic was on the faculty in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. She arrived at Smith College 18 years ago to help start the first engineering program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) at an all-women’s college. “The liberal arts breadth has always been very important to me,” Mikic said, pointing out that Smith offers only “one ABET-accredited degree, and that’s in engineering science, the idea being that, in a liberal arts context, specializing beyond that
LIB E RA L ARTS into mechanical, electrical, what have you, is not the right way to go. So all of our engineering students have a liberal-arts lens superimposed on their engineering lens. We focus on fundamental principles across all the disciplines.” Alex Clapp joined the conversation from Maui, where he was on leave from Simon Fraser University, a Canadian university of about 35,000 students where he had just completed six years as an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Environment. He reported that he was a bit of an intellectual nomad after Commonwealth. “I went to Yale to study linguistics, but by the time I was halfway through junior year I realized that it was not really what I wanted to do. So I went off and was a computer programmer for a year and a half when they were starting out with artificial intelligence. Then I went to UC Berkeley to do graduate work in geography, which is the field I’ve stayed in ever since.” Wharton wondered, what do these three professional academics see in their institutions? Does deep intellectual engagement still matter in a time when some students and families see education strictly as a financial investment and as preparation for a career? Greif said, “Day-to-day, I don’t worry about the liberal arts, either their value or their fate. I always tend to assume that, just in the way described by Charles Merrill in The Walled Garden, they’re the only thing which makes life worth living or valuable. You know, I say, ‘Oh, the liberal arts will take care of themselves because the sort of people who want meaning in life and who want beauty and to hear the music that has been composed and the epics that have been written for a thousand years will always seek it out.’ But, that said, there is a kind of disaster, not in the making, but already accomplished in all of the university settings I’ve taught in because the values of the university seem to be driven by the money sources. How will we please parents? How will we please students in their most anxious moments about their futures? How will we justify the truly excessive fees we charge them?” A liberal education faces a different challenge at Simon Fraser, where tuition is state-supported and much lower than in the United States, Clapp says. “A lot of SFU students are the first in their families to go to college. Vancouver is very much a Pacific Rim city and we have a lot of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, basically populations which arrived here over the last two to three generations. They are very, very much career oriented. We’re almost driven to label, brand, or package our degrees. If we can’t present it as something worth having when you go out for your job interviews, then we find it very difficult to get it past committees for approval. SFU has breadth requirements that include two courses in the humanities, but that’s one of the very few ways in which the liberal arts are actually explicitly included in the curriculum. If you major in philosophy, then you take the traditional curriculum. But if you’re not a philosophy major, just about the only thing you would come across as a student is 101 Critical Thinking.” Even so, a liberal education model still calls out to some students, Clapp said. “The best advocates for the liberal arts and the humanities tend to be the students themselves. It’s almost a cliché that a student arrives at a university with their parents saying, ‘Major in commerce. Major in business.’ Either that or
The best advocates for the liberal arts and the humanities tend to be the students themselves.
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LIBE R A L ARTS
prepare to become a doctor. Then the students get there and realize, I can’t do the accounting, it bores me to tears. Or you know, I don’t have it in me to do organic chemistry. I just hate the stuff. They go to what they like, and they find a way to present it to their parents as something that they can do well and should do. They’re the ones who end up in literature or English. Not just economics, not just communication, but the old-line social sciences and humanities.” “That’s what you’d hope would happen,” said Wharton, “that these kids might say, ‘Okay, this may be useful, but I hope I can find something that’s going to give my life a little bit more meaning.’” Mikic said that one of her challenges as an advisor is to combat the focus on career that many students bring with them to college today. She tries, she said, to “help unpack all these preconceived notions. It means giving them permission to try on other hats and to be curious. One of my biggest jobs is creating spaces in and beyond the classroom, where students can remember what it’s like to be curious in the way you were when you were a kindergartner.” She added, “How do you get students to understand and appreciate the value of studying the liberal arts deeply and broadly? Institutionally, we value it. But, as Mark mentioned, with the colossal amount of money it takes to go to a place like Smith or Stanford, students and their parents are concerned about how employable they’ll be when they come out the other end. “We are probably close to 40 percent of majors in STEM fields now, and about 25 percent are in the humanities and 25 percent in the social sciences. There are many different lenses one can take on this problem. The shift in enrollments is influencing how we think about shaping the faculty. Where do you put your teaching power in a liberal arts college? Should we simply be following the trends of what student enrollment is showing us? Or, as a liberal arts institution, is there some percentage that you should always maintain? Should you not have more than a third of your majors in STEM fields? Should you actively shape that? That’s not a resolved question.”
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LIB E RA L ARTS Mikic also struggles with questions about equity and access to a liberal education today. “Where does privilege come into all of this?” she asked. “Is this notion, which I believe in, of the liberal arts and the humanities helping you to live a richer life really accessible to everybody? Have our systems and our educational institutions bifurcated in such a way that there’s a subpopulation allowed the privilege of that type of education, versus those who face the day-to-day concerns of having to put food on the table? I don’t have an answer, but I’m acutely aware of that push and pull.” That concern resonated with Mark Greif. “In a way,” he said, “the decline or the denigration of the liberal arts and universities seems to go with the abandonment or squeezing of the middle class. One thing that really struck me when Stanford showed us its demographics for the incoming class was that this is a university education that serves the top 10 percent. And seeks to serve, let’s say, the bottom 10 percent. So a place like Stanford is largely educating children of privilege, and then in order to justify doing so, spending enormous resources to go and find talented, rare, meritocratic kids among the genuinely poor and underprivileged. The whole premise of a liberal arts education is that it can be part of a middle-class world in which people make enough money before college to live and enough money after college to live. One need not either be a kind of gross super-rich person, nor fear falling into poverty.” Wharton recalled, “I had this notion that I wanted to go to college because I thought it was going to make me in some sense a more interesting person and deepen me. American philosopher Martha Nussbaum talks about the examined life and the notion that education liberates the mind from the bondage of habit and custom, producing people who can function with sensitivity and alertness as citizens of the world. There was also a notion of a very important civic function, that the growth of the imagination and the understanding of history was going to be critical to the kind of democracy that we had. Maybe we’re getting payback now.” Of this moment in the academy and the country, Greif said, “I’m thrilled that my daughter Simone accidentally was born in Canada, and so has dual citizenship even though neither of her parents have Canadian citizenship. I imagine for college I might well want to take her to the border and gently push her across and say, ‘Go and be free in a social democracy where you can get affordable education, top quality education.’ Yes, what I want for America and for Simone is a much richer social democracy, but I don’t see it coming. I say to myself, Well, I need to equip her with the ability to write well and to read meaningful things and to love nature and perhaps survival skills. You know, wilderness orienteering for the coming apocalypse. So, that’s where I’m at.”
Education liberates the mind from the bondage of habit and custom, producing people who can function with sensitivity and alertness as citizens of the world.
Catherine O’Neill Grace, a graduate of Middlebury College, is grateful for the liberal arts education that made her a writer. She is the author of co-author of some two dozen nonfiction books, including Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children with Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D., and Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.
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AN EVENING TO REMEMBER
C o m m o n w e a lt h S c h o o l l a u n c h e s C a p i t a l C a m p a i g n
O
n Saturday, November 10, over 150 people gathered together as we announced the public launch of The Power of a Vision: A Campaign for Commonwealth. Our most ambitious campaign to date, The Power of a Vision will fund essential updates to our School’s location in Boston, financial aid and student support, and competitive faculty compensation and professional development. Our campaign co-chairs, alum parents José Alvarez and Suzanne McGilvray, P’10, ’12, ’18, announced that we had raised $8 million toward our $12.5 million goal. The opening program at First Church featured remarks and beautiful music from the Commonwealth Chorale with soloist Dina Pfeffer ’22, Joe MacDonald ’21 on violin, and Joy Ding ’19 on violin and Alexander Séguin ’19 on guitar. Following the program, guests walked to Commonwealth to participate in fourteen master classes taught by current and former Commonwealth teachers. Everyone became Commonwealth students for the day, and left the event both enthused and inspired.
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Top left: Mary P. Chatfield P'71, '79, trustee and Barbara Post '71; Top right: Shari Loessberg P'21; Bottom Left: Kate Bluestein P'90; Bottom Right: Oliver and Mia Merrill and Alice Murphy P’16, trustee.
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This page: Top Left: Therese Hendricks P'05, '07, board chair and Julia Hewitt Holloway '81, trustee; Top Right: Tobie Atlas P'01; Bottom Left: Bill Wharton; Bottom Right: Melissa Glenn Haber '87, P'15, '19 Opposite page: Top Left: Martin Wattenberg P'19; Middle Left: Joe MacDonald '21; Middle Right: Kyla Toomey; Bottom: Robin Orwant P'21
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A N E VE NING TO R E ME MBE R
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CWSAA
Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Association
Alumni/ae Events Join us for Commonwealth alumni/ae events. Tuesday, January 29: Philadelphia, PA Wednesday, March 6: Washington, DC Thursday, March 7: New York City
Laura Pedrosa ’10, CWSAA President
Join President Laura Pedrosa ’10 on the Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Association Board.
A
ll Commonwealth alumni/ae are members of the Commonwealth School Alumni/ae Association (CWSAA). The association’s Board meets four times per year and includes alumni/ae from a wide range of class years and backgrounds. The Board works with Commonwealth leadership to engage the full alumni/ae body, plan events, and coordinate fundraising initiatives. If you are interested in getting involved, email Director of Annual Giving and Alumni/ae Relations Carly Renshaw at crenshaw@commschool.org.
SAVE THE DATE Mark your calendars for the 2019 Commonwealth Reunions! 1960s Reunion
Sign up to be a Project Mentor
D
o you remember how valuable your Project Week and Senior Project experiences were at Commonwealth? Are you interested in providing that experience for current students? Sign up to be a project mentor. Ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders all complete a Project Week in January–February and twelfth graders all complete a Senior Project in March. Projects allow students to explore a topic or field of interest in more depth. Projects vary widely from shadowing a doctor to learning about environmental conservation to creating a piece of original visual or performance art. Want more information? Contact Carly Renshaw at crenshaw@commschool.org
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Saturday, June 8, 2019
1980s Reunion Saturday, June 15, 2019
10th Reunion Class of 2009 Saturday, June 8, 2019
5th Reunion Class of 2014 Saturday, June 8, 2019 Formal invitation with more details to follow. If you have any questions, contact Carly Renshaw at crenshaw@commschool.org.
We hope to see you there!
CLASS NOTES 1963 Peter LeSourd Barkley: “I left Cambridge last year after 53 years in the same place and bought a Colonial house in Western Massachusetts. It was something I’d always wanted to do in a second life of sorts, and at 74 it was now or forget it. I also considered Vermont or Quebec but that would have terminated concert life with Harvard choruses and Odyssey Opera that I’m still very active with. Otherwise I’ve worked on the house, continue early morning walks, and write poetry that may be published in a bit. My Godson, Colin (25), is doing fine. My partner Ken came at the end of September. As I write, I have fond memories of Mr. Merrill and a course he gave me solo in Medieval History. It set the course for my life in historic research and land use. I shall always miss him dearly.”
1965 Paula Rhodes: “I am in my fifth year of being an adjunct professor at Northeastern University. I teach ‘Research and Writing for Grad School’ to students for whom English is not their primary language. The class prepares them for the TOEFL test, which measures their
Steven Bloomstein ’66 planting a jackfruit in Venezuela.
English language fluency. I feel happy and relaxed and look forward to a short vacation. I turned 70 this year and unless I look in the mirror, I do not really believe it. I hope to continue teaching for five more years to stave off dementia. As for my mind: Use it or lose it. Best to all of my old friends who read this.”
Peter Laursen: “I retired from Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine last year. Still living on Martha’s Vineyard since 1976. Married; 3 children in their 30’s. Emily the youngest married with 2 children lives in Arlington; we visit weekly or so. The two boys are living on MV. I continue with photography, two recent trips to Cuba, etc.”
1966
Paula Rhodes ’65 and her students at Northeastern University.
Steven Bloomstein: “I am still in Venezuela, and still directing the Turimiquire Foundation under difficult crisis circumstances. The provided photo shows me planting a Jackfruit, a tropical fruit tree from India. Fruit and other tree plantings are an important part of our rural development program. Tree culture avoids the heavy erosion characteristic of campesino slash-and-burn agriculture and offers food and environmentally sound habitat for humans and other denizens of the tropics. It is lovely to still be in touch with any number of my Commonwealth classmates and friends, some of whom support our work here!”
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1967 Bess Cutler: “I have been living in Kittery, Maine, for the last 20 years after moving out of NYC. I closed my gallery and am now painting full-time. My husband, Herbert Swartz, father of Cynthia Swartz ’80 and Emily Silva ’82, died on April 2, 2018, leaving me totally bereft. It is a really difficult time. I am grateful to have my artwork and 4 cats to keep me going. You can see my work on Instagram at @besscutler.”
Bess Cutler’s (1967) studio with two paintings in progress.
George P. Zoulalian: “I recently started my fifth season of JP Jubilee, a chorus of seniors from Jamaica Plain, MA, and surrounding neighborhoods. We have a professional voice and choral director and perform two or three times each season. We sing classical, popular, and sing-along pieces—my favorite being ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo.’ I’m trying to get them to add ‘The Spacious Firmament’ to our program repertoire. If you see any flyers or emails regarding The JP Jubilee please check us out! I would also like to say—thank you, Commonwealth.” Joe Spivack: “I’m continuing to enjoy retirement. I’ve made a number of small ‘angel’ investments in startup tech companies and I’ve started acting as a mentor to startup founders in accelerator programs. I’ve been travelling both alone and with my wife, Lynn Appelbaum, when she’s not teaching Public Relations at The City College of New York. Our trips have included Israel, Argentina, Spain, and a Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona to Venice via France, Italy, Montenegro and Croatia. We loved the Adriatic! In August we went on a day-hike in the Alps in Chamonix and Zermatt with the Appalachian Mountain Club. I’ve been doing volunteer trail building on the Appalachian Trail with a group known as the Long Distance Trail Crew. I’ve been section-hiking the Long Path, a hiking trail from Manhattan to the Catskills and beyond (358 official miles). I may finish it one day. The family is doing well. Lynn, as noted, is still teaching and playing piano. Shosha, our eldest daughter, lives in central New Jersey and is studying for the Praxis teacher exam. She hopes to become a public-school teacher. Elana, her younger
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sister, was in Spain teaching English to middle-schoolers and preschoolers and is now looking for a publishing or writing job. It was great to celebrate my 70th birthday in October!”
Daniel Pipes’ father, Richard Pipes, passed away in May 2018 at age 94. He and Daniel’s mother were long-time friends of Charles and Mary Merrill, going back to the 1950s. After 50 years, Daniel is happily back in touch with Steven Bloomstein ’66. Daniel’s youngest daughter began NYU this semester.
Charles S. Finch III: “At my age (70), family news is mostly it. As of this fall, my wife and I have 10 grandchildren. You can’t have too many, I always say. My son, Kemit ’01, is the father of one of those children, a son, and is he happy.” Katherine (Katy) Butler’s second nonfiction book, The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life will be published by Scribner (Simon and Schuster) in January 2019. She lives in Northern California and will be coming to Boston on her book tour, where she hopes to see some fellow Commonwealth alums. Katy speaks widely to medical schools and community groups about how to get the best from our currently dysfunctional medical system and how to reform medicine’s approach to the end of life. Paul Gifford: “Last October, I ‘unretired.’ I am now the Senior Estimator on the Oceanwide Center project in San Francisco. This is a big project—one 54-story concrete tower andone 62-story steel tower—in the heart of downtown San Francisco. My role on the job has been in constant flux since I started. The size, scale, and complexity both of the project and of dealing with the client has been quite amazing. There is something new to learn every day. Other than that, Carla and I are still happily married and enjoying our two dogs. Our grandchildren are now 10 and more fun than ever. We wish they lived closer by.”
Daniel Pipes ’67 in Abu Dhabi.
1969 David Lipset’s daughter, Sophia, started at Brandeis last year. He hopes to come to the Boston area soon to visit her.
1970 Ellen Elias-Bursać reports that her spring 2018 teaching Fulbright was amazing. She taught two translation-studies courses at Zagreb University. Laverne Berry’s film, Capturing the Flag, about voter suppression in North Carolina appeared at the Margaret Mead film festival at the Museum of Natural History and is being screened to encourage voter registration. http://www.capturingtheflag.com.
1973 Lise Fried: “Rose and I took a 40th anniversary trip to Hawaii and northern California in April 2018. We fell in love with the redwoods area of northern California and hope to go back next summer. It’s on the ocean, always has temperatures between 50 and 70, and has no snow. The area does have a tsunami risk, though. So, we’ll see about that area as a retirement possibility.”
Migrant by Julia Shepley ’74.
1974 Julia Shepley had a solo exhibition, Linger & Shift, this fall at the Trustman Art Gallery in Boston. The exhibition featured artwork and poems resulting from conversations over the past year between Julia and poet Audrey Henderson. Audrey’s poems and Julia’s dimensional drawings, prints, and sculpture were interspersed as a conversation between media throughout the gallery. Julia will have another solo exhibition of her sculptural work at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, May 8-June 9. For more information, visit bostonsculptors.com.
Kate Gilbert: “After the fastest two years of my life I graduated from the full time program at Boston University with my Master’s degree in Social Work. I spent last year doing coursework, sweating out my exams, and working 30 hours a week seeing patients for clinical therapy at a local hospital. Exactly forty years after graduating Commonwealth I have finally found my true calling. I’m studying now for my first license and looking for my first job. I hope to continue giving clinical therapy to immigrants, refugees, and people on our version of Medicaid. My goal is to get my independent license and provide an anthropological approach to family and child therapy for a traumatized immigrant population.” Anne McCabe: “I hope all my classmates are well. I recently finished working on the HBO show Succession. I also edited Can You Ever Forgive Me, which premiered in October, starring Melissa McCarthy as a real life literary forger. I started working on a Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks movie in September. I have three older teenagers. One began college this fall. I was sad to hear the news of Charles Merrill passing. He was very encouraging to me at a difficult time in my life. It is no surprise to read that he helped so many people along the way. My condolences to his family and community.” Elisabeth Swan: "I published a book, which I'm proud of, but I'm overweight, which plagues me. I love what I do for a living, which rocks, but I do too much of it which is overwhelming. I have a podcast, which is exciting, but everyone has a podcast, so that's a drag. I love that I make enough money to buy any shoes I want, but back issues mean I can't wear heels anymore, which sucks. My workouts are on the decline, but my 85-yearold mom comes to the gym with me most days and what could bring more joy than that? Life is good."
Alexandra Berthet Fox: “I continue to enjoy private practice in Chicago as a Psychotherapist. I often think of my Commonwealth years with great fondness. Mrs. Chatfield and Mr. Merrill continue to inspire me to this day as I collaborate with my clients to find their inner voice, their needs, and wants. Through metaphors I help them express and explore their perceptions of themselves and life’s challenges.”
1981 Jane Cutter: “As they say I’m living the dream. By day, I am a humble yet capable daycare substitute teacher. In my ‘free time,’ I am a leader in the socialist movement: writing and editing; training others; developing curricula; and doing local organizing. Our beloved dog, Pierre the poodle, died in March 2018 and has left a bit of a hole in our lives. We continue to live in a ‘55+ manufactured home community’ in SeaTac, Washington, the true home of the $15 minimum wage. My husband, Andy Freeman, was recruited to work on the Alexa team at Amazon, and we celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary in August. Our daughter, Rachel, is growing in her career as a line cook. I am five years post cancer treatment with no recurrence, which feels good. I saw Ann Mackey at our 40th Shady Hill reunion in June. I am looking forward to the next Seattle Commonwealth Alumni/ae gathering.”
1986 Ivan Kreilkamp’s book, Minor Creatures: Persons, Animals, and the Victorian Novel, was published by the University of Chicago Press in October, 2018. He recommends the book both for British-fiction-lovers and pet-lovers!
1978 Carl Bauer: “I just began my 13th year as a professor of geography and water policy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. My two kids have grown up in Tucson and are now in high school. My wife, Brooke, went to law school here—a long way from New England. I am still in touch with some Commonwealth classmates. Almost every fall I hike in the Sierra Nevada in California with Mark Potter and Sam Homans. We started this ritual in the 1980’s when we all lived in the Bay Area. Best wishes to all!”
1980
1988
Elisabeth Swan ’78
Sara Maxwell (previously William Maxwell): “I performed a gender transition in 2015, and now go by Sara. I am starting my last year of a PhD program in geography at the University of North Carolina. My daughter, Samara, is eight years old. She just received her green belt in Tae Kwon Do; she breaks the board every time.”
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Jen Bluestein’s (1990) baby, Finn Richard Bluestein, held by former Commonwealth English teacher and grandmother Mary Kate Bluestein.
1990 Jen Bluestein: “We had a baby! Finn Richard Bluestein (pictured above) was born August 27, 2018. Tom and I are utterly delighted by him, and totally exhausted. My mom (former Commonwealth English teacher Mary Kate Bluestein) is as great at being a grandmother as she is at teaching Hamlet. Having her here for a long visit made all the difference. I’ll be on leave from my job at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the next year and am excited to have this time with Finn.”
2002
2005
In July 2018, Vera Broekhuysen began serving as spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El of Haverhill, MA (where she’s served as Cantor for the past two years)—a transition both humbling and exciting! In her spare time (and on the job), she protests and advocates for immigrant rights. Vera’s husband, Mike Lis ’04, still gets to play with really excellent toys at Viridis3D, and is dipping his toes into local politics for community service and enjoyment. Vera and Mike report that their boys continue to challenge and delight them.
Dewey Cyr: “Big changes! My husband, Will, and I moved back to Somerville from rural Vermont. I started a job as an oncology nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Leah Maxwell Fatherley-Cyr was born at exactly midnight on Thanksgiving night, November 22nd. I miss being able to cross country ski from our front door, but being back in the city is its own kind of breath of fresh air.”
2003 After two great years at Georgetown University, Rachel Philbrick moved to New York City to take a position in the Department of Classics at Fordham University.
2004
Josh Haselkorn and his wife, Allison, are gearing up to celebrate the first birthday of their daughter, Rosalind. They live in the suburbs of Washington, DC.
2006 Katie (Reed) Bruno had a baby daughter, Zoe, on April 16, (pictured below). Katie and her husband, Mike, are very happy and excited.
Constance Smith married Alex Rosen on September 2, 2018. The weekend celebration took place in Mendocino county, CA. It is north of San Francisco—where they’ve both lived and worked for the past decade since graduating from Wesleyan University in 2008. Commonwealth alums Cara Bayles ’03 and Daniel Meyer ’04 (also Wesleyan alums ’07 and ’08) were in attendance.
1994 Katie (Reed) Bruno’s (2006) baby
Caroline Marotta is still living in Lincoln and working in Somerville. She has three kids (pictured right).
daughter, Zoe.
In July 2018, Olivia Harris was named Executive Director of Philadelphia-based Speak About It, a non-profit organization that uses performance to empower high school and college students to make healthy sexual choices. The organization, which was founded in 2010, performs in cities throughout the United States and internationally. Olivia is thrilled to take on this new role.
1997 Sarah Kolitz is excited to report the arrival of baby Rachel, who is small and adorable and extremely determined.
2001 Adam Lewis: “My wife, Natasha Sokol, and I moved to Providence, RI, in June for her Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown. Shortly after moving, I saw a familiar face in flaming banana recipient William Collis ’03 who happens to live two doors down from our new home.”
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Caroline Marotta’s (1994) three children.
Irene Miriam Kaplow is enjoying her postdoc in the Computational Biology Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She had a great time catching up with Commonwealth classmates at Masha Shpolberg’s wedding last August.
Luca Antonucci ’10. I spend my days at work dusting and hunting bugs in various historic houses around the Boston area. Beyond that, I’m still folk dancing, finishing my master’s degree, and doing way too much embroidery.”
2010 Gabrielle Dinkin moved to Singapore to take a new job at Google and explore Asia.
2013
From left to right: Masha Shpolberg ’06, Wesley Morgan ’06, Irene Kaplow ’06, Madeleine Laupheimer ’06, and David Held (Irene’s husband).
Masha Shpolberg married Joshua Glick at the Commander’s Mansion in Watertown, MA, on August 12, 2018. Josh and Masha met as graduate students in the Film & Media Studies program at Yale. Irene Kaplow and Madeleine Laupheimer were on hand to remind the newlywed couple of “Commonwealth values” in an eloquent and moving toast, while Wesley Morgan simply made the party happen. Josh is an English Professor at Hendrix College in Arkansas. In his first year there, another faculty couple invited Josh and Masha to dinner. It turned out that both hostess and guest were from Boston. “Where did you go to high school?” the hostess asked. “Oh, a small, artsy, private school in Boston. You’ve probably never heard of it,” Masha replied. The hostess furrowed her brow: “Did you go to... Commonwealth?” And so, two “Commonwealthians” reunited in Little Rock, Arkansas. Masha and Josh wrote, “all of our thanks to Beth Levi ’80 for her warm welcome!”
2007 Danielle Boyda: “I am about to begin my second year living and working in Northern Togo, where I run a community health worker and health systems strengthening
program for the NGO Integrate Health. It’s very different from my life in Botswana, where the organization I helped to start (Young 1ove) is growing month by month and now taking on the country’s poor education outcomes. Both NGOs are fantastic and I encourage you all to check them out! I am enjoying the sense of purpose and accomplishment my work with women and children in Togo brings me, as well as improving my French. My love for kitchen cleaning has notably abated— it’s just not the same without a crew of commies! I would love to connect with other Commonwealth alumni in Africa; otherwise, it’s always a pleasure to reconnect with classmates when I’m in the US.”
Etenish Abebe graduated from Wesleyan University in 2017 and is currently working as a Paralegal at City Year, only a few blocks from Commonwealth. She is interested in pursuing the legal field in the near future and would love to connect with alumni/ae who are practicing attorneys or current law school students.
2014 Isabelle Lorion reports that she has changed paths entirely from international relations. She is now pursuing a Master’s in Evolution of Language and Cognition at the University of Edinburgh.
2017 After overlapping for a year at Commonwealth dance, Katherine Mateos and Lydia Symchych ’14 (pictured below) were reunited at Carleton College and got to dance together again!
2009 After five eventful years of living in Europe (Paris and then Athens), Alex Strecker is returning to the United States to pursue a PhD in Visual Studies at Duke University. He writes: “If there are any Commonwealth alums bouncing around the Research Triangle, please feel free to reach out!” Kate Potter: “Upon the suggestion of Hannah Goodwillie ’12, I spent Thursday evenings in July with the Brookline Chamber Singers, under the capable direction of
Katherine Mateos ’17 and Lydia Symchych ’14 at Lydia’s last Carleton College dance performance.
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IN MEMORIAM Stephen A. Walsh ’95 Stephen A. Walsh ’95 (1976-2018) on October 17 in Gotha, Germany. All who knew Stephen as a student will remember his energy, enthusiasm, and intelligence. He was a skilled writer who loved playing with words and possessed a flair for performance. From his organization of a marathon reading of Joyce’s Ulysses one Hancock to his dramatic speech at graduation, delivered in top hat and cape, Stephen enlivened life at the school. In that speech he urged his classmates to acknowledge the limits of their learning: “Regardless of our intelligence or education, our sabres shall turn to rust, ourselves and our neighbors into dust, and as much as we may like to think otherwise, we still don’t know the meaning of life.”
Nancy Pettengill Hardy ’64 Nancy Pettengill Hardy ‘64 (1946-2018) from Hadley, Massachusetts, died tragically near her winter home in late November in Negril, Jamaica. Family and classmates remember her as an adventuresome woman and independent spirit who lived life on her own terms. The Commonwealth community mourns her loss.
64+36+z Progress
$4,500,000 36%
$8,000,000 64%
Campaign Goal 12,500,000
n Raised to Date n Remaining to Goal
Thanks to the generosity of our community, we have raised over $8,000,000 from more than 150 alumni/ae, parents, and friends. We invite you to join your peers in supporting this important effort. To learn more and to support The Power of a Vision: a Campaign for Commonwealth, contact the Development Office at 617-266-7525.
Connect With Commonwealth! @commonwealthalumniae commonwealthschool commonwealthschool commonwealthschool Have you moved recently? Changed your email address? Started a new job or graduate program? Update your information at commschool.org/update.
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The COMMONWEALTH FUND “We contribute to The Commonwealth Fund every year because the education we received had a lasting impact on us.”
Sonya Del Tredici ’94 and Benjamin Kennedy ’94
“The Fund supports what we care about most deeply—sustaining our small Commonwealth community and ensuring that students from all backgrounds have access to the stimulating environment that played such a crucial role in our own development. We encourage you to join us by supporting The Commonwealth Fund.”
To make a gift to The Commonwealth Fund, visit commschool.org/makeagift or send a check made out to Commonwealth School in the enclosed envelope.
For more information, contact: Carly Renshaw Director of Annual Giving and Alumni/ae relations crenshaw@commschool.org 781-960-3073
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Commonwealth School 151 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02116 www.commschool.org
Commonwealth's co-ed soccer team competed against BU Academy this fall. Clockwise from left to right: Arthur Gonçalves ’20, Siddharth Simon ’19 and Xander Séguin '19, Anay Mehta '19, and Emma Wickline '19 and Thomas Fomin '22.
NonProfit Org. U.S. Postage Paid N. Reading, MA Permit #211