CA Magazine Spring 2008

spring 2008

The Pull of Politics CA’s Role in the Democratic Tug Of War Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi ’87 on the Election

Class Notes

Sam Malenchak ’08 Figure Accordian, Stoneware, 2007

C O N C O R D A CA D E M Y M I SS I O N Concord Academy engages its students in a community animated by a love of learning, enriched by a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, and guided by a covenant of common trust.

Students and teachers work together as a community of learners dedicated to intellectual rigor and creative endeavor. In a caring and challenging atmosphere, students discover and develop talents as scholars, artists, and athletes and are encouraged to find their voices.

The school is committed to embracing and broadening the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and talents of its people. This diversity fosters respect for others and genuine exchange of ideas.

Common trust challenges students to balance individual freedom with responsibility and service to a larger community. Such learning prepares students for lives as committed citizens.

Editor

Gail Friedman

page

David R. Gammons

spring 2008

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Managing Editor

Tara Bradley Design

Irene Chu ’76 Class Notes Editor

Ingrid von Dattan Detweiler ’61 Editorial Board

Tara Bradley Director of Communications

F E A T U R E S

Gail Friedman Associate Director of Communications

Pam Safford Associate Head for Enrollment and Planning

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A Child Soldier’s Story 2008 Hall Fellow: Ishmael Beah

Carol Shoudt Major Gifts Officer

Lucille Stott Advancement Writer, English Teacher

Meg Wilson Director of Advancement

Elizabeth “Billie” Julier Wyeth ’76 Director of Alumnae/i Programs

Editorial Interns

Alexis von Kunes Newton ’08 Christeen Savinovich ’08 Photography Interns

Henry Butman ’08 Clara Dennis ’08 Jiyoon Lee ’09

13 CA Bookshelf

by Martha Kennedy, Library Director

16 The Pull of Politics

by Gail Friedman Illustrations by Richard P. Clark PLUS:

Tell Us What You Really Think: Why Matt Taibbi ’87 Never Holds Back The Other Party: An Interview with Steve Park ’99 Adventures in Iowa with Jill Harken Hall ’61 How CA Voted by Christeen Savinovich ’08

30 The Art of Independence

Write us

Concord Academy Magazine 166 Main Street Concord, Massachusetts 01742 (978) 402-2200 magazine@concordacademy.org www.concordacademy.org

32 Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Cover illustration: Richard P. Clark

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Message from the Head of School

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Letters

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Campus News

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Alumnae/i Profiles Carl Douglas ’84 Susan Bastress ’70 Mary Ann “Maisy” Wambaugh Bennett ’44 Ingrid Walker-Descartes ’91

Keynote Speaker: David Hilliard Cofounder, Black Panther Party

by Nancy Shohet West ’84

© 2008 Concord Academy Committed to being a school enriched by a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, Concord Academy does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin in its hiring, admissions, educational and financial policies, or other school-administered programs. The school’s facilities are wheelchair accessible.

D E P A R T M E N T S

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Athletics 2007 Winter Highlights Profile: CA’s Determined Marathoners

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Arts Q&A: Maximilian Toth ’97

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Alumnae/i Association Update

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Class Notes

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In Memoriam

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Matt Chandler ‘02 Jill Harken Hall ‘61 Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Sandra Willett Jackson ‘61 Mike Firestone ‘01

message

Jiyoon Lee ’09

from the head of school

My Senior Year

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s I wrote in a special letter to each of you last winter, I have chosen to make next year my last as CA’s head of school. That makes me an ex-officio member of Concord Academy’s Class of 2009. It is a group I am proud to join, though my own designation as a “rising senior” bears little resemblance to the students’!

The thought of “rising” into my final year has a nice ring to it, and certainly reflects the momentum I feel from the last eight years at CA. During that time, I have learned the value of believing in “common trust,” I have learned lessons from senior chapels, I have learned about learning from my students, and I have learned from graduates that their CA remains with them long beyond Commencement Day. I’ve also discovered that this school stays true to itself by combining innovative thinking with respect for tradition.

That combination allows creativity to thrive along with stability. Nothing proved this more compellingly than the expansion and renovation of the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, one of the highlights of the past eight years for me. As I

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

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approached this daunting project, I knew we had to alter a hallowed space if we were to stay true to CA’s belief in close community. By working together—and listening hard to competing calls for a quiet atmosphere and squeaky pews—we managed to improve the space without changing its character. This, I discovered, is the CA way—and it helps the school feel both vital and reliably itself.

Throughout these years, I’ve been fortunate to work with a very talented administrative team and supportive board members, all of whom appreciate CA’s distinctive blend of individuality and community, informality and rigor. They have shown great creativity and energy as we’ve worked to advance many of CA’s key goals: boosting faculty compensation, creating more adult housing on campus, increasing diversity among students and adults, supporting our strong arts program, and enhancing our students’ athletic experience.

But there is still much exciting work ahead. As I approach my ninth and final year at CA, I plan to keep in mind the

good words Director of College Counseling Peter Jennings shares with juniors each spring: next year will be your best— your busiest, your most exciting, your most wide-ranging, your most satisfying.

I have no doubt this will be true for me.

Every academic year at a school feels new and fresh with possibility. I expect next year will have that and more. I look forward to welcoming almost one hundred new students from many places and backgrounds, as well as a number of new faculty and staff. I anticipate with pleasure the completion of an exciting master plan for the campus, which will include ideas for making the best use of our Main Street land and our newly acquired property at the former Arena Farms. I also look forward to meeting graduates on campus and around the globe and hearing stories about their lives and their CA. I will certainly enjoy sharing the joy of senior year with other members of the Class of 2009, knowing I can take my CA with me wherever life will lead.

I BELIEVE the small picture on the cover of

the Winter 2008 Concord Academy magazine and the larger one on page 19 do not show the Glee Club, which included every girl in the school. What is pictured is, I think, the choir of forty-five to fifty girls which Miss Loring established, in addition to Glee Club, a year or two before I graduated (1960). I’m three rows back in the center next to Beth Rice ’60. We performed sacred music for special occasions, such as the graduation chapel service. It was a wonderful experience.

Broad Jump

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tudents from two Advanced Biology classes spent a November day at the Broad Institute in Cambridge to learn firsthand how scientists use the study of the human genome to unravel medical mysteries.

Studying in both classroom and lab, students learned about the unique characteristics of two types of worms — the roundworm and the flatworm — then observed the worms under microscopes.

They discovered how to distinguish the worms’ gender, ascertain which were mutants, analyze whether the mutant traits were dominant or recessive, and understand the

And then there were those music/dance mixers.

At some we were paired up in advance by the powers-that-be and you never knew who you were going to end up with.

The large round picture on page 21 is also a real blast from the past. So many familiar faces.

Thank you.

Gail Friedman

Two things stand out most from my nine years at Concord Academy (upper and lower school).

One was Doreen Young’s art history class, and the other was the choral music. What Miss Loring accomplished was truly amazing and, I suspect, unique. I only recently gave away my music for Handel’s Messiah, the Bach B-Minor Mass, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. How many high school students get to sing all of those!?

I remember the whole school practicing whichever work Miss Loring had chosen for the whole school year. Then in the spring we would gather with the Middlesex School Glee Club and the Concord High School Glee Club, which had also been practicing the work all year, for a huge performance.

important patterns that emerge when the worms are categorized by such characteristics.

The worm study served as an introduction to genetic analysis, which, according to Megan Rokop, director of the Broad Institute’s Educational Outreach Program, starts with three basic steps: identifying a mutant, determining which gene is mutated, then exploring the function of that gene.

Lunch break presented an opportunity for the students to speak face-to-face with a scientist; groups of two to four students lunched with specialists in chemical biology, bioinformatics, genome sequencing, RNA expression, and genetic analysis. Students then spent the afternoon touring the institute — a joint effort of Harvard and MIT — and learning how it uses knowledge of the human genome to understand and treat disease.

The Broad (rhymes with mode) Institute’s founding director and a leader of the Human Genome Project, Eric Lander, is the parent of two CA students, Jessica Lander ’06 and Daniel Lander ’09.

CAMPUS NEWS

LETTERS

Editor’s Note: CA Bookshelf (Winter 2008) should have noted that the cover of Mapping the Fourth Dimension: Poems by Laura Davies Foley ’75 features a detail from a painting by Georgina Forbes ’61.

Concord Academy magazine welcomes letters to the editor. Please send correspondence to magazine@concordacademy.org or to Gail Friedman, Concord Academy, 166 Main Street, Concord, Massachusetts 01742.

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Anne Booth Hauser ’60

Enchanté

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CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

n late February, eight unfamiliar faces temporarily joined Concord Academy’s student body. The students, from Le Collège Cévenol in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France, were participating in CA’s third annual French exchange program.

The idea of a French exchange began circulating in 2004 after the headmaster of Le Collège Cévenol suggested it to then CA French teacher Sarah Ismail. Madame Ismail presented the idea to Head of School Jake Dresden, who was enthusiastic, and the program began in the following 2005–06 academic year.

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The purpose of the French students’ visit was not only to improve their English, but also to immerse themselves in American culture. This year, none of the French students had visited the States before, so their impression of the country was based almost solely on their thirteen-day experience at CA, Madame Ismail said.

Madame Ismail explained that the success of the program largely depends on “how well [the students] are received in their host school and homes.” Host families from CA were paired with students “on the basis of how they might match with the character of the French students visiting, and, if possible, with the CA student going to France.”

Just three days after the French students departed from the United States, eight CA students made their way to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon to immerse themselves in French culture and practice their language skills, just as the French students did here.

— Alexis von Kunes Newton’08

09-24-07

administrators to get a sense of the school and its needs.

After each meeting, attendees made suggestions, which ranged from desires for enhanced arts facilities, faculty housing, and a community gathering space to concerns about parking and shuttle buses.

The fall issue of Concord Academy magazine will provide updated information on the master planning process.

If you have suggestions on how Concord Academy should use its expanded campus, please send them to Nancy Howard, executive assistant to the head of school, at nancy_howard@ concordacademy.org.

10-15-07

10-21-07

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uniors were feeling bubbly at Concord Academy’s annual Winterfest, which featured games, food, contests, a raffle, a talent show, and more. The studentrun festival raised $9,700 for financial aid.

David Rost

lanning is under way for CA’s recently acquired, 11.8 parcel of land, formerly known as Arena Farms.

Throughout March, staff, faculty, parents, students, and alumnae/i met with Tom Sieniewicz and Patrick Tedesco, of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, the Cambridge, Massachusetts–based firm that has been hired to develop a master plan for the property.

Tony Brooke P’07, ’09 introduced Sieniewicz and Tedesco, explaining that the Board of Trustees’ working group, which he coheads, considered various master planners but chose Chan Krieger Sieniewicz for several reasons: The firm had planned

Sarah Ismail

CAMPUS NEWS

properties at other independent schools, seemed willing to immerse itself in CA and learn the culture, had a reputation for working well with city and town permitting processes, and would make sure the principals were involved.

Sieniewicz and Tedesco began by presenting preliminary sketches and explaining their approach to the master planning process. While athletic fields are high on the list of priorities, the planners are looking not only at the new property, but also at both campuses as a whole. Some of the sketches of the new property that Tedesco showed at the constituent meetings

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included two soccer/lacrosse fields, one baseball diamond, and six tennis courts. Moving the tennis courts off the main campus would create an opportunity to build new construction in their place, which is outside the flood plain.

Building on the site of current fields would be difficult, Tedesco explained; because they are all within the flood zone, approval could be problematic and building would be costly.

Sieniewicz and Tedesco held three major constituent meetings, one for faculty and staff; one for parents, past parents, and alumnae/i; and one for students. They had met beforehand with CA

very school changes over time, but thanks to science teacher John Pickle’s PicturePost project, we know exactly how CA changes, almost minute to minute.

Pickle and his students positioned cameras on the quad and behind the Chapel, and programmed them to shoot continually, every twenty minutes. The result: precise monitoring whose photos, Pickle said, support education in fields of meteorology, geology, field biology, ecology, and environmental science.

Before joining CA’s faculty, Pickle was principal investigator for a NASA-funded project,

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12-29-07

how much data may be gleaned from a timed series of photos of the same landscape,” he said.

If time-lapse study becomes a broader trend, it could have important applications. “We can study local changes with a few posts,” said Pickle, “but if the network grows, we will see regional and national patterns emerge, which will support our understanding of global climate change.”

You can find movies of CA’s time-lapse photos at www.smugmug.com (search Concord Academy) and PicturePost images (below) at www.picturepost.smugmug. com/Massachusetts.

02-09-08

02-29-08 Amy Albrecht

Jiyoon Lee ’09

11-30-07

now known as Digital Earth Watch. While there, he came up with the idea to use timelapse photography for environmental science. Now there are nine PicturePosts in Massachusetts and a scattering elsewhere, all providing a wide variety of environmental data.

“First is the documentation of behavior of plants with the seasons,” he explained. “If local climate patterns change, the patterns of plant timing changes.”

Pickle said that the photographs can shed light on whether plants flower earlier and on whether invasive plants are advancing, as well as allow study of erosion, flooding, air quality, and much more. “It is pretty amazing

John Pickle

CA’s Earth Watch

Informed Opinion

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A Small Iraqi Victory ather Marc Bishop, a Navy chaplain who served in Iraq, visited Concord Academy in January to share the extraordinary story of a Marine company’s mission to save an Iraqi baby. "This is not a story about war — it's a story about warriors," said Bishop.

Bishop (above) described a group of Marines who risked their own lives to save a baby

F Music to Our Ears

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lex Edelmann ’09 (above) has earned a position on double bass in the New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

named Mariam, who was born with a life-threatening birth defect and who would die without surgery she couldn't receive in Iraq.

Fighting battles on two fronts — both the Iraqi War itself and the bureaucratic war of red tape — the Marines, aided by Father Bishop, fought to get Baby Mariam safely to Boston for lifesaving surgery. The successful and sometimes clandestine effort became the Marines’ mission,

said Bishop, and gave meaning to their lives "in an environment that steals your humanity."

— Tara Bradley

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amer Mallat '08, a native of Lebanon, had an op-ed about the oil industry published in the Lebanon Daily Star in March. You can read Tamer's commentary, "Toward a U.S. Policy that Looks Beyond Arab Oil," by going to www.dailystar.com.lb and searching the author's name.

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athematics Department Head George Larivee’s efforts to build libraries in rural Nicaragua were featured in the February 7 Boston Globe. After the story appeared, Globe readers sent Larivee more than $600 to help buy books. “At about $5 a book — they’re cheap in Nicaragua — that means another 120 books for the newest library in July,” Larivee said.

You’ll find a link to the story in the news archive at www.concordacademy.org.

The Globe’s Web site, www.boston.com, also ran an interview with Larivee on an audio show called Across the Divide.

Art Durity

CAMPUS NEWS

Libraries by Larivee

Sharing A Diverse Experience

Cathy Nam ’09 attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in Boston, along with Jamie Fradkin ’10, Elizabeth Hoffman ’09, Cy Hossain ’09, Carrie Hui ’08, Justin Stedman ’09, and faculty and staff members Jennifer Cardillo, Peter Sun, Dana Fitchett, and Marie Myers. Cathy, cohead of Diversity at CA, reflected on the experience:

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y thoughts came to a halt as I walked through the doors and saw an auditorium with close to 9,000 participants in the People of Color Conference and the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC). At that moment, I knew that I had just joined a new community working toward a common goal: to promote diversity at each of our private schools.

I was getting jittery just looking around and feeling all

Planning Ahead

Poetry Honors

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hen Head of School Jake Dresden announced in January that he will retire from Concord Academy after the 2008–09 school year, CA’s Board of Trustees began plans to find his successor. The Board created a search committee —comprised of trustees, staff, faculty, alumnae/i, and parents — that is working with the Boston-based firm of Isaacson, Miller to find CA’s next head of school and to ensure a smooth transition.

Head of School Search Committee COMMITTEE COCHAIRS

Peter Blacklow ’87, Trustee Mary Malhotra ’78, p’10, Trustee CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Elizabeth Ballantine ’66, Trustee Janet Benvenuti p’09 Jennifer Cardillo, Assistant Dean of Community and Equity Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63, President, Board of Trustees John Moriarty p’02, ’05, ’07, Trustee Jamie Morris-Kliment, Modern and Classical Languages Department Head Marion Odence-Ford ’82, President, Alumnae/i Association David Rost, Dean of Students and Community Life Judi Seldin, Chief Financial Officer Jorge Solares-Parkhurst ’94, Trustee Learn about the head of school search at www.concordacademy.org/search.

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the energy in the room. Then the opening ceremony started, and a speaker mentioned that 3,446 students were attending the SDLC —a historic number. Writer Frank Wu came up on stage, skillfully read the energy in the room, and shared personal anecdotes. He explained how often people complain to him that we talk excessively about diversity. “We get it!” they tell Wu. “We shouldn’t be racist nor should we be homophobic! We’re all special in our own way, and we should respect one another.”

Wu recounted the response he has given too many times: “Nobody complains about having to vote every four years for a new president, because they all know that democracy is a process. We can’t just stop one day and complain that democracy takes too much of our time, and not vote for a new president. It’s the same with diversity. We need to continuously reeducate our

eter Boskey ’08 was one of two high school students to receive the Helen Creeley Award for student poets from the Creeley Committee of the Acton Memorial Library, allowing him to read his poetry at a ceremony honoring John Ashbery, who received the library’s Robert Creeley Poetry Award in March.

The Victor

selves to appreciate what we have . . . And if you’re sick and tired of talking about diversity, have you ever given a thought to those who suffer from racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination on a daily basis?”

That was the moment it hit me. I have heard from a number of people that diversity is frustrating since it’s a process and we can’t see the end result easily. It made so much more sense comparing diversity to democracy. Wu was right: nobody complained about their civic duty to vote, why should they grumble at any mention of diversity?

Slam poet Kip Fulbeck and journalist and author Maria Hinojosa also spoke with so much energy that all of the six CA students who attended the conference were excited to share similar experiences with the CA community and to welcome more diversity speakers to Concord Academy.

— Cathy Nam ’09

Applicants submitted five poems, and a dozen finalists were invited to audition.

Olivia Fantini ’10 also competed and made it to the final round of auditions. As part of the award, Concord Academy’s Josephine J. Tucker Library received $250 to buy poetry books.

Peter read his five poems at the event, including “The Victor,” below.

by Peter Boskey ’08

She wants to know his psychology, so she tries picking at his thoughts with imported chopsticks and eagle-eyes. And he complies, surrendering volumes of thought and memories, once recorded on pages of diaries.

She wants to learn his way, so she follows him from day to night, hiding in fright, because he stops his walk home to turn around. She steals his shadow, given life by the moonlight reflecting off plastic windows.

She wants to be his one, his only, who is around until the world is done; when Armageddon rips and slices at the world’s spices of life. She has won this war of, for, and about the heart that won’t part with something good.

Photos by Tim Morse

2 0 0 8 H A LL F E LLOW: I S H M A E L B EA H

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shmael Beah was eleven when fighting seized Sierra Leone. By thirteen, he had lost his immediate family—his mother, father, and two brothers—and had been drafted by army forces into a vicious civil war.

Beah shared the story of his violent past and his return to normalcy during an all-day visit April 3, part of the Hall Fellowship program, which honors former Headmistress Elizabeth B. Hall by bringing distinguished speakers to campus.

During an assembly, the former child soldier described a countryside where the birds no longer sang. A river where he could no longer swim because bodies would float by. Children who had never raised their voice to adults but who were recruited to kill them. And boys, like Beah, who were savvy enough to run only at night, when bullets were more visible.

Beah’s bestselling book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, recounts his transformation from a kid living in a tightknit community, focused on soccer and hip-hop, into a young soldier who routinely killed to survive. To Sierra Leone’s army leaders, children were especially desirable recruits—cheap and malleable.

“Children can be manipulated,” Beah explained.

His own commanders pushed rhetoric about punishing his parents’ murderers and preventing other children from losing their families.

“They fed you lots of drugs, and they fed you lots of hate and propaganda,” Beah said. He

feared for his life daily; nevertheless, those commanders became father figures and the other children like brothers. “Violence became a way to show your loyalty,” he explained.

The daily nightmare ended when Beah was taken to a UNICEF rehabilitation camp, where violent and mistrustful boys would beat up workers who were trying to help them. Even when seriously injured, the workers told the boys it wasn’t their fault. It had been a long time since anyone had believed in Beah like that, and the UNICEF staff ’s faith and calm eventually reached him.

In 1998, Beah moved to the U.S., courtesy of a woman he had met at a UN conference whom he now considers his mother. In his New York high school, he was a loner, a successful student who had no trouble ignoring taunting but found one moment particularly difficult— when he was asked for a baby picture for the yearbook. “I felt incredibly sad around that time,” he recalled.

Beah went on to graduate from Oberlin College, where his commencement brought him to tears. “It was the first time I cried in a long time,” he said. “I had something that no one would be able to take from me.” Beah warned CA students not to look at college as a status symbol, a means to a good career, or even just an education. “It’s a journey of self-discovery,” he said. “Education made me discover that there’s more to my life than what I experienced as a child.”

At Oberlin, Beah’s first assignment in a rhetoric and composition class planted the seed for A Long Way Gone. Asked to describe how he played as a child, Beah wrote not about his deadly “play” as a soldier, but about his wholesome prewar play. Curious classmates wanted to know more, and Beah realized that people might want to read about his country.

Since arriving in the U.S., he had been frustrated at how little Americans know about Sierra Leone. “Where is that?” friends would ask. That worried Beah: “If people don’t know this country at all, if they don’t know that it exists, how can they understand what is happening there?”

If they knew anything, it was a Sierra Leone characterized by civil war and madness, not his childhood Sierra Leone, where communities were caring and education was valued.

Beah wrote A Long Way Gone to shed light on his country as well as on the war. “It was important to put a human face to it,” he said. “It was important to write what war is and what it does to the human spirit.”

It was no accident that Beah discovered a strong narrative voice. He’d grown up with elders telling stories to their families every night, then, days later, asking a child to retell a story.

Kids became active listeners. “My early sense of narrative really comes from that,” Beah said.

Beah’s life as a child soldier ultimately created a passionately nonviolent and unflappable young man. “I’m always smiling because there aren’t that many things that worry me,” he said.

Still, he sleeps only about three hours of interrupted sleep nightly. But he casts his insomnia as a blessing, one that provides extra time to write and study. That upbeat outlook has helped him live with memories that sometimes jar him unexpectedly. A person walking by quickly or a loud noise sometimes sparks wartime images.

The memories are too ingrained to leave him. “I can’t forget,” he explained. “I’ve just learned to live with them and to transform them positively.”

—Gail Friedman 7

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A Child Soldier’s Story

BYNANCYSHOHETWEST’84

T H I S

I S S U E

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Carl Douglas Class of 1984

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Susan Bastress Class of 1970

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Mary Ann “Maisy” Wambaugh Bennett Class of 1944

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Ingrid Walker-Descartes Class of 1991

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Taking a Dive

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fter seeing what Carl Douglas ’84 has accomplished at the helm of Deep Sea Productions, his Swedish documentary and publishing company, one can only wonder what he might achieve were he not afraid of water.

Today he calls it a funny story, but being thrown into the water at age five spooked him well into adulthood. “After that, I was always deathly afraid of water and am still a terrible swimmer,” Douglas admitted. But in 1990 he spent three months in Australia, where some friends persuaded him to try deep-sea diving. He was hooked.

Over the next five years, Douglas learned to make his way among coral reefs and shipwrecks, becoming increasingly fascinated by the things he saw under the waters near his homeland of Sweden.

“In 1996, I got into technical diving in order to better reach the interesting wrecks that we have in the Baltic Sea. Technical diving,” he explained, “is basically diving in caves and using gas mixes other than air—notably using helium to enable deeper dives than whilst using regular air.”

For years, Douglas had been interested in photography; he studied it at Concord Academy, though remembered being “intensely annoyed at the seemingly silly assignments we were sent on—but of course there was a point.” He also studied film for the first time at CA, with no clue that he’d one day be taking his cameras underwater.

“I think the whole media experience at CA for me was an odd mix of learning discipline and at the same time encouraging me to find my own point of view,” he said.

After college, Douglas returned to Sweden for ten years of military service. He was stationed in northern Bosnia with the United Nations Protection Force during both the massacre of Srebrenica and the eventual ceasefire accords of Dayton. He then went on to found a firm dedicated to intelligence and knowledge management consulting. But the lure of diving was irresistible. While running the consulting company, he began melding his interests in the sea with photography, starting Deep Sea Productions in 1997. He left his consulting company in 2003 to focus on his new venture, which initially was devoted exclusively to underwater diving and filming, but has since branched out into non-oceanic films and books. To date, Deep Sea Productions has discovered well over one hundred wrecks in the Baltic Sea.

Jonas Dahm/Deep Sea Productions

ALUM NAE I PRO FILES

Carl Douglas Class of 1984

coproducing a TV series about a number of mysterious deep-lying wrecks around the British Isles, and we’re continuing to explore the Baltic—hard at work for the next book.”

Douglas mused on his major influences, admitting that he, like many others, was hooked on Jacques Cousteau at an early age. “He made the ocean reachable and made diving available and natural for so many people,” he said. And ten years in the military showed Douglas the value of team-building “and taught me the wonders of working together toward a common goal.”

Even when that goal is daunting, this underwater explorer remains philosophical, often recalling Henry Ford’s famous observation: “I’ve always believed in the saying, ‘Believe that you can’t, or believe that you can. Either way, you’re right.’ ”

Learn more about Deep Sea Productions at www.deepsea.se.

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Deep Sea Productions

Carl Douglas ’84. Top, underwater exploration captured by Deep Sea Productions, Douglas’s company.

In 2004, Deep Sea Productions made the find that essentially put it on the underseaexploration map—and won Douglas a citation from the King of Sweden. “In 1952, a Swedish Air Force DC-3 with eight men aboard disappeared,” Douglas said. “From the beginning it was suspected that the Soviets shot it down.

Over time, many fantastic theories were put forth and many divers and authorities tried to find the wreck. We decided in 1998 to try . . . and five years later we succeeded. When the ROV [Remotely Operated Vehicle, an underwater robot] cabled up the images from the wreck confirming that it was the right plane, I cried.”

Last year, Douglas led the diving and underwater filming of Deep Sea Productions’ largest documentary project thus far—a series on wreck diving for Swedish and Finnish national television. Douglas said he hoped to take on less work and regroup in 2008, “but no such luck!

We’re producing a documentary series about Sweden’s top track-and-field athletes; we’re

Susan Bastress Class of 1970

Middle East Envoy

Susan Bastress ’70 with her huband Peter Behringer and children Lindsay, Andrew, and Caroline

“I was accepted by all the Qatari men I worked with. I found it very easy to be taken seriously as a professional peer.”

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CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

on’t ever assume you know exactly where you’re going to end up,” Susan Bastress ’70 mused. “You have to constantly stay flexible.”

A look at what Bastress has accomplished in the past three decades underscores why that lesson is important to her. After majoring in zoology at Duke University, she worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the mid-1970s — then switched her career to law.

In 2003, as a real estate attorney at the firm Patton Boggs in Washington, DC, she helped negotiate the purchase of a new building for the Qatari Embassy in Washington. Working closely with the Qatari ambassador to the U.S. and other Qataris in DC piqued her curiosity about the culture. When His Highness the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, offered Patton Boggs the opportunity to become the first U.S. law firm in Qatar, the firm asked Bastress to go as managing partner, an opportunity she could not imagine passing up — either on her own behalf or that of the firm. She was to become the first nonQatari citizen licensed to practice law in that Middle East nation.

“My husband served in the Peace Corps back in the 1960s, so he was equally supportive,” she said, though his own career as a real estate developer prevented him from moving with her to Doha, the capital of Qatar. Her twin teenagers accompanied her and enrolled in school there; her husband and eldest daughter joined them frequently for vacations.

“Living in the Middle East was an incredible experience,” Bastress said. “My family did so much traveling while we were there: we took vacations to Thailand, Istanbul, Beirut, all through Europe.”

Qatar, roughly the size of Connecticut, is one of the U.S.’s closest allies in the Persian Gulf and sits on the third largest natural gas reserve in the world. “With a very small population sharing the enormous gas profits, Qatar is the wealthiest per capita country in the world, with a GDP approaching $70,000 per head,” Bastress explained. “And it’s 10

only going to get higher. They have a two-hundred-year supply of natural gas.”

Bastress said that Qatar is striving to be an internationally renowned, knowledge-based economy. “They are reinvesting gas profits into the country’s social infrastructure, focusing on education and health, with a goal of making educational and professional opportunities more easily accessible to students in the predominantly Islamic culture.

In Qatar especially,” she explained, “the advances made by women, including the right to vote and hold public office, are gaining global recognition and support.”

Despite what many Westerners assume, Bastress did not struggle to be accepted as a professional woman in Qatar. “I was accepted by all the Qatari men I worked with,” she said. “I found it very easy to be taken seriously as a professional peer. I made many friends and developed many new clients for the firm.”

It wasn’t the first time that Bastress had established herself professionally in a different culture. In 1986, with a two-year-old and newborn twins, she and her husband moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands to work on a real estate project. What was intended as a three-year stint turned into a full decade because their careers and children were flourishing. Bastress established a highly successful law firm with another attorney. “I look back at those years as some of the most rewarding of my career,” she said.

During her time there, she also established the Virgin Islands Mediation Service (VIMS), a court-supported association of more than forty certified mediators. Many of the cases she mediated included hurricane-related claims and personal injury cases, and she remains proud that the VIMS program is still thriving today.

In 2006, Bastress resettled at the DC office of Patton Boggs, where she headed the real estate practice group. The following year, the law firm Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe hired her to increase its real estate practice. It’s another firm trying to establish its foothold in the Middle East — so Bastress suspects a return to the rapidly emerging Gulf region might well be on the horizon. As always, she remains flexible. “Even at the age of fifty-five,” she said, “I find myself constantly retooling.”

Mary Ann “Maisy” Wambaugh Bennett Class of 1944

Singing Her Praises

Maisy (right) with choral colleague Julie Steinhilber

“Because there were many groups in the Boston area that already sang with the BSO in the winter season, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was originally intended to perform only in the summer at Tanglewood. But in fact, our first concert was in Boston in April of 1969 due to a change in programming,” she recalled.

“Leonard Bernstein conducted us in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The crowd was wild to see Bernstein, who hadn’t been to Boston in a very long time. The applause called him back to the stage eight times! I thought I had died and gone to heaven.”

That same summer, Bennett started performing at Tanglewood. Her first concert there was under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, whom Bennett had never heard of at that point. She would spend the next four decades performing with him. “Back when I started with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, there were about seventy to eighty singers and everybody was part of every choral performance, of which there were up to five per summer,” she said. “Now it’s

different; there are about 250 choral members, and you’re selected only for some programs and not others.” Bennett joined the chorus when the youngest of her four children was twelve.

“My husband was wonderful about it,” she said.

“For a weekend concert, you had to be out in the Berkshires by midweek for rehearsals. In the early days, we stayed at Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield; these days performers stay all over the area. My husband would come up for one weekend performance each summer.”

Bennett performed with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for thirty-seven years; she retired just last summer. “It was a very large commitment of time, energy, and money, but the rewards have been extraordinary in many ways,” she said. “The chorus has performed numerous times in Carnegie Hall, but also in Canada, England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1994, Seiji Ozawa led a Far East tour in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Osaka. It amazes me to think that I’ve sung not only under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, but also with over twenty other conductors, including Colin Davis, Robert Shaw, and Bernard Haitink, who took us on the chorus’s first European tour. It also seems incredible that I’ve performed with well-known soloists such as Jessye Norman, Renée Fleming, and José Van Dam.” Bennett sings now with her church choir in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She plays tennis, reads in a Shakespeare group, volunteers for a local senior citizen program, and sees her children and grandchildren as much as possible. “For many years I couldn’t imagine retiring,” she said. “I kept postponing it and postponing it. I couldn’t picture who I would be if I wasn’t singing with the Tanglewood Chorus.

“Being part of that group and all it entails has largely defined my identity for almost half my life.”

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didn’t think of myself as someone who would be singing forever,” said Mary Ann “Maisy” Wambaugh Bennett ’44. “I’ve never even had any formal voice training. I was planning to be a music teacher.”

In reality, Bennett’s career as a music teacher was short and unsatisfying, whereas her singing talents have carried her through the past six decades—from her student days at Concord Academy and Vassar to the Boston Symphony’s summer home at Tanglewood, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and the capitals of Europe and the Far East.

“Music has always been part of my life,” said Bennett, who was a piano major in college, an apprentice teaching elementary music at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, then a teacher in an after-school program in Boston’s South End, which she described as disastrous.

“I was supposed to be using all the wonderful teaching techniques that Shady Hill had given me to teach the kids circle games and folk songs,” she said. “Well, forget it! They would come bounding into the building full of excess energy and climb all over the piano while I was trying to play it. I had no control over them at all. Eventually, I was reassigned as a playground aide.”

Bennett left professional life to raise four children with her late husband Hank in the Boston suburbs. She sang with several choruses, including a local group that in the 1960s came under the leadership of a new director: “a very young John Oliver.” Oliver would soon be tapped by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) to form a chorus.

He brought along several chorus members, including Bennett.

Tony Mazzola

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Maisy (left) and friends with Seiji Ozawa, then music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Ingrid Walker-Descartes Class of 1991

The Smallest Victims

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CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

he lack of contact with actual patients was what Ingrid WalkerDescartes ’91 found most difficult about medical school.

“My days were made up of going to classes and coming home and then doing it all again the next day,” she says of her years at the University of Rochester Medical School. “Meanwhile, there was a whole community out there that I had no contact with. You go to medical school with the goal of becoming a doctor and eventually helping people, but at that point I was impatient to get started.”

So Walker-Descartes joined a volunteer program while she was in medical school and was placed in health clinics, where she would read picture books to the children waiting for appointments.

After getting to know some of the children, she asked the clinic’s pediatrician if she could begin observing appointments.

In the examining room, she learned far more about the children than she ever picked up in the waiting room. “That’s where you would hear about the ugly side of children’s lives: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse,” she said. “And what really struck me was how in the waiting room they had seemed like ordinary kids listening to stories, acting playful and mischievous. How was it that, despite all these mean and ugly things that were happening to them, they still appeared so intact?”

The situations of these unfortunate young children lodged in her brain. After graduating from medical school in 2001, she resolved to continue championing such children — but felt she needed more training. So Walker-Descartes completed a fellowship in general academic pediatrics with a focus on child maltreatment at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, while also completing a master’s in public health.

Still, her attitude toward the children has not changed since those early days of volunteering in the Rochester clinic. “Socioeconomics has nothing to do with blatant disregard for children,” she said.

“Abuse happens in all sectors of society. I’m horrified by how some adults can treat children — our most precious resources. But at the same time, I’m incredibly awed by the resilience of the children. When I hear a seven-year-old whose mother held a knife to her throat while high on crack say, ‘Well, that wasn’t really my mother doing that; something just came over her and I still love her,’ I just say, ‘Wow.’ As a mother myself, it makes me realize that, as crazy as your kids can make you, it’s just amazing how much love they still have for you.”

One child she met at the Rochester clinic has remained part of her life to this day. “Every time I was volunteering at the clinic, he came in with a stomachache. Finally the doctor said to me, ‘He tells his mother he has the worst stomachache, but then he comes in and you 12

read to him and he’s good as new!’” As she continued beyond medical school and into professional life, Walker-Descartes kept in touch with the boy, who is now sixteen. “I’m his unofficial godmother,” she said.

“He has been through so much — foster care, adoption — and while I can’t say he has blossomed into the perfect young man, he is really trying with the supports he has.”

These days, Walker-Descartes is an attending physician in general pediatrics at Maimonides Infant and Children’s Hospital near her home in Brooklyn. Because that hospital has no child abuse team, she also consults on all child abuse cases that come into the ER and has been charged with starting up a program dedicated to child victims.

In addition, she continues as adjunct faculty at Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York Methodist Hospital, where she teaches doctors in training about providing care for this special population. “I never get bored with my work,” she says. “Disgusted, yes, but that feeling only impassions me further.”

Having two young daughters and three stepdaughters of her own gives Walker-Descartes an added incentive to continue caring for society’s most neglected children. “I look at my girls and think about how I don’t know whom they’ll bring home. When you look at the statistics and realize what the chances are of somebody who’s been abused or traumatized in some way getting involved with your family, this becomes a problem no longer ‘out there’ but ‘in here,’” she said. “Maybe by tending to society’s most neglected children, in some indirect way I can improve my own children’s chances of having positive experiences in life.”

For more information on Ingrid’s efforts to build a child abuse prevention program at Maimonides Infant and Children’s Hospital, contact her at IWalker-Descartes@maimonidesmed.org.

“I never get bored with my work. Disgusted, yes, but that feeling only impassions me further.”

Ingrid Walker-Descartes ’91 with her husband Wallace and daughters Idalis and Demaris

Betrayal comes in all forms for two longtime friends. Bucknell masterfully describes the growing chaos surrounding the lives of Gwen, seemingly secure in marriage and motherhood, and Hilary, shattered by a broken engagement and the sudden dismissal from the job she loves. As the layers of their relationship are revealed, long-held jealousies emerge while mistaken identities and midlife crises abound.

Whether taken from the alternate title of Twelfth Night or not, this novel compares with Shakespeare’s in its complexity and deception.

Love certainly does drive folks to do some extraordinary things.

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Drew Gilpin Faust ’64 Knopf, 2008

Geocide: Placating Humanity’s Environmental Demons Adam Cherson ’79 iUniverse Inc., 2008

American views of death took on new dimensions during and immediately following the Civil War. More than 620,000 soldiers died during the conflict; civilian deaths are estimated at 50,000. Never before had Americans witnessed the carnage of so brutal a conflict.

Faust details the horror of death, disease, and suffering, which was exacerbated by bungled attempts at burial. Following the war, hastily buried Union soldiers were exhumed and properly interred in national cemeteries, while private citizens in the South took on the task of burying their own. Inaccurate recordkeeping left tens of thousands buried under the word “Unknown.” Faust records and conveys the devastation that befell a divided union and provides insights into how this defining moment shaped a nation.

Are you geocidal? In this primer for the average citizen, Cherson spells out how everyone is implicated in the emergence of a new geological age — a period marked by chemical and biological shifts that may result in mass extinction, or geocide.

You don’t need to be Al Gore to take educated actions that can help preserve our planet. Check out www.environment-policy.info for Cherson’s geocide updates and to learn more about political ecology.

Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Is Hijacking Mainstream Religion Sheldon Culver ’66 (coauthor) iG Publishing, 2007 Throughout the country, established churches are being approached by members of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a predatory organization backed by the religious right. Culver describes how IRD followers, with great determination and strong-arm tactics, work to divide congregations and take over church leadership. As ordained United Church of Christ ministers, Culver and coauthor John Dorhaer work with parishioners and clergy, teaching them how to stand up to these misguided meddlers.

CA Bookshelf

by Martha Kennedy, Library Director

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What You Will Katherine Bucknell ’75 Fourth Estate, 2007

The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America Robert Forbes ’76 University of North Carolina Press, 2007 For decades, a young American nation wrestled mightily over the institution of slavery. An embittered Congress spent years debating how to move new territories forward into statehood, while delicately maneuvering around the issue. The South fought for the expansion of slavery into new lands; the North and West fought against it. Deals were struck, startling alliances were formed, and, following years of debate, the Missouri Compromise of 1821 came to be. Forbes carefully unfolds the events that preceded this historic legislation and discusses the consequences of its repeal. He also takes on the complex moral, political, and economic issues that gave rise to white supremacy and racism, issues that resonate today.

Schulz and Peanuts David Michaelis ’75 HarperCollins, 2007

Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe Philip McFarland, Teacher Emeritus Grove Press, 2007

Michaelis’s insightful examination of Charles Schulz, America’s premier twentieth-century cartoonist, presents a dark and questioning creator who never seemed satisfied, despite the empire he built.

The author connects the creative and tormented mind of Schulz to his Peanuts characters—Lucy, for instance, reflects Schulz’s domineering first wife. Over two hundred strips wind throughout the text, breaking the tension. You be the judge of whether Charlie Brown’s melancholy, Lucy’s bossiness, or Snoopy’s adventurous spirit are parts of Schulz’s personality, caricatures of friends and family, or merely the creation of the artist’s mind.

McFarland examines three influential men in the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the nineteenth-century bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin — her father, her husband, and her brother. When Lyman Beecher, Harriet’s father and a leading theologian, became president of the Lane Theological Seminary, the family moved to Cincinnati, and Harriet witnessed slavery in neighboring Kentucky. She befriended a young widower, Calvin Stowe, the man she later married—and the second subject of McFarland’s exploration. The author also considers the influence of Henry Ward Beecher, the spirited brother who made his mark as the top preacher of his day. By painting a picture of these men, McFarland creates a nuanced portrait of Harriet herself.

Click!: One Novel, Ten Authors Ruth Lounsbury Ozeki ’74 (contributing author) Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007 A collection of signed photos, an old camera, and a box with secret compartments are left to the grandchildren of famous photographer George “Gee” Keane. Jason and Maggie spend their lives examining the mystery that surrounded Gee and meeting the many people captured by his lens and his heart.

Ozeki joins Nick Hornby, Gregory McGuire, Linda Sue Park, Roddy Doyle, Eoin Colfer, and others in this unique young-adult novel.

(Royalties from the book benefit Amnesty International.)

Coming soon in CA Bookshelf, works by: CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Julie Agoos ’74 Alice Domar ’76 Laura Davies Foley ’75 Isabel Fonseca ’79 Jane Fletcher Geniesse ’54 Cameron McNeil ’87 J.B. Miller ’78

✍ Send your book and music news to magazine@concordacademy.org.

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Hilary Price ’87 Cynthia Saltzman ‘67 Nina Tannenwald ’77

Mama Knows Breast: A Beginner’s Guide to Breastfeeding Andi Silverman ’87 Quirk Books, 2007 This colorfully illustrated how-to is geared toward first-time parents weighing the benefits of breastfeeding. With humor and practical advice, Silverman shares techniques that new mothers can put into practice from day one.

Answered are critical questions such as: Where do you begin?

How can you include your spouse?

How do you handle employers, store managers, and others who may be uncomfortable with public feedings? The handy resource section includes other guides and Web sites where new moms can find additional information. And the compact size enables users to read while feeding — a support group at your fingertips.

Islamic Gardens and Landscapes D. Fairchild Ruggles ’75 University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008 Ruggles explores thirteen centuries of agriculture and cultivated landscapes in this study of formal gardens of the Islamic world. Included are floor plans, manuscripts, paintings, photographs, and textiles illustrating the designs of the Islamic tradition. Improvements in irrigation techniques transformed formerly parched landscapes into lush oases, and geological settings influenced botanical selection. Featured sites range from Spain and northern Africa to the Middle East and India.

Professor Ruggles is a member of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Other recent books include Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision (coedited with Dianne Harris) and Cultural Heritage and Human Rights (coedited with Helaine Silverman).

From Islamic Gardens and Landscapes (from top): Palace of Pasha in ‘Abd al-Kari Fez, Morocco and a Mughal garden on Lake Dal in Kashmir

Big City Sessions

by George Miserlis ’81 Parody Records, 2006

Distortion by the Magnetic Fields Featuring Sam Davol ’88 and Claudia Gonson ’86 Nonesuch Records, 2008

The Music Box: Songs, Rhymes, and Games for Young Children Betsy Lund Zahniser ’71 ELZ Publishing, 2006

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Musical Notes

THE

PULL OF

by Gail Friedman

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Above, from left: Nick Deane ‘01, Mike Firestone ‘01, Sandra Willett Jackson ‘61, Jill Harken Hall ‘61, Matt Chandler ‘02, and Jeremy Tamanini ‘94

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t was 4:00 a.m. at Bill Bailey’s campus home when the phone rang. A student in his American Politics and Government class, Mike Firestone ’01, was calling from Al Gore’s headquarters in Nashville with the latest news about the historic 2000 Gore-Bush presidential race.

But Firestone wasn’t reporting only to his teacher. He was notifying all the students in his class, who were bundled into sleeping bags on Bailey’s living room floor. “As I look back on it, sometimes I think I lost my mind,” Teacher Emeritus Bailey mused. “All these boys and girls. But none paired off, and no parents expressed any skepticism.”

If they knew Bill Bailey, they realized he was a passionate devotee of the American political process, and expected the same enthusiasm from his students. He had campaigned door to door

POLITICS Illustrations

by Richard P. Clark

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for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. He’d worked on Paul Tsongas’s Senate campaign and interned with Tsongas during a sabbatical from CA in 1976. In the late sixties, he invited John Kerry—not yet a senator, but head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War—to speak at CA. So it was no surprise when Bailey announced a political sleepover in 2000. He had required his students to work on a campaign and, weeks earlier, had piled several into his car and driven them to Manchester, New Hampshire, to attend a Bill Bradley event and to canvass afterward for the candidate.

Bailey’s passion for politics—and that of other CA faculty over the years—spawned a sizable troop of CA politicos, many of whom are involved in the 2008 presidential campaign, including Firestone, who remembers the day in Manchester as

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a personal turning point. “We went door to door in the rain,” he said. “Everyone was tired and sort of cranky after hours in the cold, and I was just exhilarated. I said, ‘I’ve got to find a way to keep doing this.’ ” He did. In fact Firestone, a field director for Hillary Clinton, was behind the scenes of her noteworthy upset in the New Hampshire primary. Firestone had interned on the Gore campaign, took a semester off from college to work for John Kerry in Florida, worked as a field director for former New Hampshire Governor Jean Shaheen’s Senate race in 2002, then moved on to the Massachusetts Democratic Party and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s campaign, where he says he learned the fundamentals of grassroots organizing—skills he

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put to use in Manchester.

Firestone might have settled into a job in the Patrick administration, but he wasn’t ready to relinquish the rush of campaign work. “What I really enjoy and what motivates me is seeing how organizations are built, seeing how people can be mobilized around an idea and around a candidacy,” he said. He spent nine months organizing Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, eventually managing a staff of twenty in the region around the state’s largest city—a population block important to Clinton’s eventual win.

On a typical day, Firestone would hold Clinton signs during the morning commute (“I believe really strongly in never asking people to do things I won’t do myself ”), then, around 8:30

a.m., would arrive at the office and set up packets of information and maps for volunteers who would be canvassing door to door. “You need volunteers to drive people to polls, bring food in, make phone calls, go door to door, hold signs, help other volunteers,” he said. The pace would continue until about 9:00 p.m., when Firestone would prepare for the next day’s routine. He’d get home by 11:00 p.m. or midnight—a seven-day-a-week pace with never a day off. “Of course there’s a physical toll in the campaign,” he said. “You get up to do what you do day after day because you believe in what you’re doing.”

After the unexpected New Hampshire victory, the Clinton campaign named Firestone Tennessee’s field director, and he took the tech-

Photos courtesy of Bill Bailey

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Teacher Emeritus Bill Bailey’s political legacy at CA (clockwise from above): Bailey with Paul Tsongas; Michael Dukakis with Bailey’s class (Dukakis spoke at a CA assembly in 2000); Bill Bradley with CA students, including Mike Firestone ’01, far right

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niques he’d mastered in New Hampshire south.

Another win, and he was on a roll. As of April, Firestone had worked on the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

Nick Deane ’01, who was at Bill Bailey’s house in 2000 when Firestone called, helped his friend on Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign.

“I ended up in the Clinton campaign for Mike,” he said, but added, “I also have to say I think I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid.” Deane had taken his first stab at campaign work when Steve Grossman ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, then interned for Lieutenant Governor Chris Gabrieli, followed by a stint for Shannon O’Brien’s gubernatorial campaign, where he learned to do opposition

Jill Harken Hall ’61

Adventures in Iowa

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hen Jill Harken Hall ’61 decided to campaign for Barack Obama in Iowa, she had a hunch that her family’s roots there might help her connect with voters. “My grandfather was the town surgeon and general practitioner in Osceola, a town south of Des Moines. He opened a small community hospital and was the principal town doctor,” she said. “I wondered if people would know the Harken name.”

Hall has been a committed Obama supporter since the fall of 2006. “It’s very exciting to feel hopeful and to believe in someone

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research. “O’Brien’s campaign was understaffed and the one researcher needed help,” he said.

“He told me to pore through old news reports, read SEC records and tax filings.” Deane came to understand when a story was pressworthy, and when pitching it would be unethical. For example, he didn’t find any reason to implicate Mitt Romney in an accident in France, which killed the person in Romney’s passenger seat.

“It was vaguely damaging, but it didn’t have any beef, so we passed over it,” Deane said. Evidence of Romney’s offshore accounts, however, was considered fair game after careful consideration by research and press staff. Deane said they discussed, first of all, whether there could be backlash from the story. Did their candidate have offshore accounts too? “You have to make

who I really think can pull the country together, because God knows we’ve never been more polarized,” she said.

The first person Harken met in Iowa was a police officer on the rural stretch between Osceola and Council Bluffs. He found her driving a bit rushed—and being Dr. Harken’s granddaughter didn’t help. “He kept spitting into this Mountain Dew bottle. I kept wondering, what kind of illness does he have?” Hall said, later realizing that he was gnawing on a wad of chewing tobacco.

At first, canvassing door-to-door in Osceola wasn’t much more fun. Harken had made herself a button with her name on it, hoping to spark some recognition. “I was going door to door, which I have to admit was just abysmally tedious,” she said. “A lot of people weren’t home; it was cold and icy and just kind of boring.”

Near the end of the day, an elderly couple invited Hall in. They told Hall that her grandfather, Dr. Conreid Rex Harken, was their doctor. “They were sitting across from each other in their recliners in their living room,” Hall remembered. “The husband was a registered Republican. The wife was eighty-two and had never caucused, but was thinking of doing it for the first time, and she supported Obama.” Hall offered to pick her up, and (why stop there?) asked if she could put a banner in her yard, which was en route to a caucus site. The husband grumbled a bit but relented after Hall said she would remove the banner when she brought his wife back home after the caucus.

sure it’s not going to come back and bite you,” Deane said.

Sarah Liebowitz ’99, who covered Clinton’s campaign for the Concord (NH) Monitor, knows what it’s like to get tips like that. “If it seems interesting you certainly poke around, but sometimes you poke around and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.” She said candidates’ media liaisons were among her greatest challenges as a young reporter. “You have to be confident enough to deal with the competing press people,” she said. “You’re going to have press people on both sides trying to spin you.”

In 2004, Deane went on to volunteer for Howard Dean, then took a break from college to work for John Kerry’s campaign (at one point alongside Firestone in an Orlando office). When

The next morning, the day before the caucuses, Hall went to coffee (they don’t say “for coffee” in Osceola), a morning ritual for many residents. It seemed that everyone at the diner knew Dr. Harken. She met her grandfather’s paper boy and several of his patients, including one who told a vivid story about his sister getting her arm caught in a washing machine’s wringer and the expert skin graft and surgery that Dr. Harken performed.

Hall had hoped to connect with someone at her family’s farm, too, but no one had been around when she stopped by. Finally, on her third try, she spotted a man on a tractor, who told her he’d always wanted to meet a descendant of Dr. Harken. If that weren’t exciting enough, the farmer was anxious to discuss Obama. “I wish the wife could meet you,” he told Hall, who promptly offered to pick him up for the caucus in the morning and spend some time beforehand visiting with his wife.

“When I got there the next day at 6:45 a.m., he wasn’t there and she expressed some hesitation. I don’t think they’d ever caucused before,” Hall said. But Hall persuaded both of them to go, only later learning that the husband was a registered Republican and had to change his registration on the spot. “They weren’t terribly effervescent people,” said Hall. “They seemed to have had a good time.

I can’t say they’ll be lifelong Democrats.”

After the caucuses, she took home the farming couple and the eighty-two-year-old woman. Hall kept her word and offered to take the Obama sign out of her yard. “I’d kind of like to keep it,” the woman told her.

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Kerry lost, Deane followed Firestone to the Patrick campaign, which he called “my first big exposure to field work, recruiting volunteers, organizing rallies, organizing local elected officials.” Those skills came in handy in New Hampshire, where Clinton’s success and the accompanying adrenaline counteracted any disillusionment he had felt after the Kerry loss.

“Cynics weed themselves out,” Deane reflected.

“The people who stick with campaigns are pragmatic idealists.” He says working on a campaign actually reaffirms that people are good. “There are a whole bunch of people who care. They show up. They hold signs in the rain and snow,” he said. “You have to admire the fact that there are still people who care that much about the American political process.”

The Insider Sandra Willett Jackson ’61, a major volunteer in the Hillary Clinton campaign, says an intrinsic belief in that process has driven her to fight for various political causes and candidates over the years. “It’s a longterm commitment that’s based principally on my belief in the democratic system,” she said.

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Jackson—a member of Clinton’s Women’s Leadership Committee and Finance Committee, a leader in Wellesley Women for Hillary, and a longtime friend and associate of the candidate— postponed a February interview because of a conference call that included Clinton herself and Campaign Manager Maggie Williams. The discussion focused on how field staff was preparing for primaries in Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.

In a typical week, Jackson participated in two conference calls for the campaign: one for the Women’s Leadership Committee and one for the Finance Committee. When she was not conferencing on policy issues, Jackson was helping to recruit supporters, spreading information, traveling to primary states, and organizing others to do so. Jackson organized a 2007 Washington rally that attracted thousands to DC’s convention center; cohosted a fundraiser for leaders of the minority community, attended by Hillary and Bill, which raised $300,000; and coorganized and hosted a Women’s Summit in New York, which “brought women together from all different states on issues of the economy, health care, international trade, employment, education, the big issues.” She recently

“Hillary is extraordinarily CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

qualified and open and able to learn quickly, and is just incomparable in her outreach to others and in her global credibility.”

—Sandra Willett Jackson ’61

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Sandra Willett Jackson ’61 and Mary Paul “Pixie” Loomis ’66 at a Hillary Clinton rally in Pennsylvania

cohosted a reception for Hillary and Chelsea, and campaigned (with Mary Paul “Pixie” Loomis ’66) in Pennsylvania, in anticipation of that state’s primary. She has consulted on strategy, and also held Clinton signs in freezing weather in Youngstown, Ohio.

An inveterate networker, Jackson developed her own mailing lists, compiled of friends, Wellesley colleagues, Washington contacts, and others. “I pass on my concerns and questions and reasons for supporting Hillary Clinton, and I forward talking points for the campaign. I’m a go-between, but I’m also a translator of all these long policy papers.”

Jackson met the Clintons in 1988, but first worked closely with Hillary as president of Vital Voices, an organization that nurtures female leaders around the world; Clinton was a founding cochair. Jackson worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign until she went to Hungary as Peace Corps director, returning to volunteer on foreign policy issues with the 1996 Clinton campaign. In 1998, she earned a presidential appointment to the State Department. Jackson says she is loyal to Hillary “because I know her as an individual and I respect her highly as a leader.

She’s extraordinarily qualified and open and able to learn quickly, and is just incomparable in her outreach to others and in her global credibility.”

Changing Their Minds Some CA alumnae/i once felt that way about Hillary, but over time switched allegiances to Barack Obama. Jeremy Tamanini ’94 was a junior fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in New York. But he found himself veering toward Obama as the primary season progressed, primarily because he suspected that race-tinged comments, references to Obama’s drug use as a teen, and questions about whether

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“A lot of kids in my generation haven’t registered to vote because they don’t feel like their beliefs, their idealism, can be brought to fruition through politics. Students really want to bring about change. In Obama, there’s a real belief that we can express those ideals.”

—Tyler Stone ’05

said. “They do it through Relay for Life, or by joining an environmental group. Students really want to bring about change, but they’re not doing it through politics.”

He believes his candidate is changing that.

“In Obama, there’s a real belief that we can express those ideals,” he said.

Several other CA alumnae/i rhapsodized about Obama and why his candidacy moved them to volunteer. Perhaps the most noteworthy is Caroline Kennedy ’75, who turned heads with her op-ed in the New York Times supporting Obama. “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them,” she wrote. “But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president—not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”

Another CA graduate, Matt Chandler ’02, played a role in Obama’s wins in Colorado and Wyoming, handling press and communications for those primaries, and in mid-April was the fulltime communications director for Obama’s Montana campaign.

After interning at a “rinky-dink” newspaper in Colorado and becoming disillusioned at a

PR firm, Chandler found a job at a political consulting firm in Denver, where colleagues drew him into the Obama campaign. During a March 2007 rally, Chandler and a friend ended up being Obama’s “body men” for the day, keeping him on schedule and attending to his needs.

“He left me with a very strong impression,” said Chandler, who opted to leave the consulting firm to become a media liaison for Obama. He has guided celebrities such as Forest Whitaker and Kerry Washington through campaign stops, making sure they got on camera and stayed on message.

A few days before Super Tuesday, Chandler was sleep-deprived but animated. “We were hanging out last night until 2:30 a.m., answering emails and making sure our precinct captains had all the information they needed,” he said, then went on feverishly to describe a twelve-year-old precinct captain in Boulder and the hundreds of high school students making phone calls and knocking on doors.

He stopped to breathe. “I was supposed to do this for a week,” Chandler mused. He is caught up in the pace, which he finds both exhilarating and challenging. “There’s an endless 21

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he was Muslim seemed too deliberate to be coincidental. “A candidate can’t necessarily control a comment here and there,” he said. “But there came a point when it was not clear what was and wasn’t tolerated.”

Tamanini began his Obama support by making phone calls in New York, then got involved in Washington, DC, where he’s attending graduate school at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He canvassed in DC and Ohio, and helped register independents in Pennsylvania.

While the media has played up the policy similarities between Obama and Clinton, Tamanini says he strongly prefers Obama’s positions on health care and foreign policy. He also fears that Clinton won’t be a stark enough departure from the Bush administration. “She brings the legacy of what we’re in now,” he said, “but a Democratic version of it, with a lot of the baggage and the partisanship.”

Tyler Stone ’05 changed allegiances too, but even more dramatically. Remembered by classmates as the student body president at CA and the leader of the student Republican Club, Stone said he started leaning away from the Republican Party even before he went to college.

“It’s something I’d been wrestling with for a while,” he said. “My own political position was evolving.”

The “sheer incompetence” in Iraq “really jarred some of the assumptions I had about the Bush administration, which I’d previously strongly supported,” he explained. And he was impressed with Obama’s 2004 address at the Democratic National Convention; his messages of unity resonated with a student “who has grown up in an era of George W. Bush, which is defined by partisan fighting.”

At Davidson College, Stone cofounded Students for Barack Obama; he stayed involved when he transferred to Georgetown, helping to organize a trip last fall that attracted about three hundred students to an Obama rally in downtown Washington. As a student leader for Obama, Stone’s biggest challenge hasn’t been Clinton or McCain supporters. “It’s been mostly with students who were previously apathetic, convincing them that the idealism that they hold can be put to good use by supporting Barack Obama.”

To Stone, young people do want to fight for change, but haven’t felt empowered to do it through the political system. “A lot of kids in my generation haven’t registered to vote because they don’t feel like their beliefs, their idealism, can be brought to fruition through politics,” he

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amount of work to be done and you never feel that you are finished,” he said. “People are so driven; people are so excited and so passionate.”

Lynn Adler ’61, another Obama supporter, voted for Bill Clinton and said she recognizes Hillary’s intellect and accomplishment. “But I have witnessed many women political leaders in the world, and I have no illusions that gender alone will lead to fair and just decision-making,” said Adler, who has made endless phone calls to persuade independents and others to vote for Obama in state primaries. “Furthermore, I really see Barack as a world citizen, someone who transcends a specific race and culture”—a point that resonates with Adler, whose children are of Vietnamese and Mexican heritage.

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After Adler graduated from college, she worked in the civil rights movement, an experience that led her to value Obama’s experience as a community organizer in Chicago. She also appreciates his detachment from traditional party movers. “I find him a refreshing change from the established and connected Democratic political elite, which does include the Clintons,” she said.

Political Aspirations Several CA alumnae/i have been intimately involved with politics, but are not working on the current presidential campaign. Mike Rodman ’91, who hopes to run for office some day, may have one of CA’s gutsiest stories of political tenacity.

Determined to volunteer when the 1992 Democratic National Convention was in New York, Rodman ended up delivering newspapers to delegates’ hotels and running errands. But he didn’t land a coveted pass to attend the convention and became frustrated watching the event on TV. So he headed to hotels where the media were based and asked around for an extra press

“I really see Barack as a world citizen, someone who transcends a specific race and culture.”

—Lynn Adler ’61

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

CA graduates behind Obama: From top, Jeremy Tamanini ’94; Tyler Stone ’05, far right, with the candidate and young supporters; and Matt Chandler ’02 with Obama

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pass. His political cold-calling paid off when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave him one, on the condition that he write for them if they asked him to (which they never did). For four days, Rodman volunteered by day and reveled in the convention action by night.

But his doggedness didn’t end there. When he returned to Washington University in St. Louis, he entered a local office for the ClintonGore campaign looking to help out. When asked if he had any communications experience, he replied: “I went to the convention with a press pass.” Next thing he knew he was working eighty hours a week for the local communications director, “going to classes as best I could, but my priority was definitely the campaign.” That communications director in St. Louis eventually worked for Tipper Gore in the White House and brought Rodman along as a White House intern. “I was doing speeches, press releases, press advisories,” he said.

After graduation, Rodman headed to Boston College for law school. He was there five weeks and had been elected class representative when he decided law wasn’t right for him. “It was

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embarrassing,” he said. (Concerned that people would think he quit because a big paper was due, he did the paper anyway.) Rodman ended up at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1997, a much better fit, but first did freelance Web design, worked for a state representative, and taught computer classes at CA. After Harvard, he worked for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), learning the nuts and bolts of how the House worked and writing speeches for the House Administration Committee on subjects ranging from the Taliban to the importance of the soap box derby to Americana. But the House Administration Committee also oversaw contested elections, and Rodman became an observer in New Jersey and Minnesota during recounts of Congressional races. That year, he was a guest speaker in Bill Bailey’s American

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Government and Politics class at CA. Missing Boston and becoming cynical about the political machinations he saw, Rodman returned north and worked in communications at Harvard, first at the law school, and currently at the school of education. “Some people say, ‘You’ve given up on the whole political thing.’ To me, my work is another part of my education,” he said. “I’ve really been immersed in legal and education policy. I’m learning so much: No Child Left Behind, education access, the achievement gap. These are all such important policy issues.”

He hopes one day to return to politics—as a candidate. “I still have a lot to learn,” he said.

“I want to make sure I could do it right and do it well. I don’t want to run simply because I’ve always wanted to.”

CA friend and campaign pro Alec Evans ’97 has told Rodman he’s ready to help when the time comes. It’s possible that no other CA graduate understands the grueling pace and personal risks of campaign work better than Evans, who was known as the righthand man to Adrian Fenty when Fenty was running for mayor of Washington, DC—until he was unceremoniously booted by his impulsive boss.

Now Evans is running Nick Leibham’s campaign for the 50th Congressional district in California, hoping to ride a Democratic wave of change against a Republican incumbent. “Out of 435 Congressional seats, there are probably twenty that are really in play throughout the country, and this is one of them,” he said.

Since his first political job for a DC City Council member, when he worked his way up

The Other Party

Steve Park ’99

His first job was with the Maryland Republican Party when he was in college, then he worked for the 2000 Bush campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Before returning home to South Korea in 2005, he was campaign manager for Jack McMullen’s unsuccessful Senate bid in Vermont.

Now a political and business consultant in South Korea, Park works closely with the government and frequently represents Korean interests in Washington.

At CA, he was a minority voice among a mostly liberal student body. He recently answered questions for Concord Academy magazine.

What was the focus of your work for the Republican National Committee?

Serving as a liaison between the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the RNC, my work focused on building close networks and operational unity between each

state’s U.S. senatorial campaigns and the overall Republican apparatus in Washington, DC. The RNC as well as the NRSC and NRCC [National Republican Congressional Committee] are instrumental in providing media, fundraising, and research support to each candidate’s campaign. It is also the first body that screens potential candidates hoping to pick up support from the central Republican Party.

I also worked in the research wing of the Republican Party, which deals with both opposition and vulnerability research. Opposition research entails checking the opposing candidate’s life, background, voting record, speeches, and other relevant information that could be used to point out flaws in the opposition’s arguments.

Vulnerability research is a preventive defense research that looks into the weakest spots of one’s own campaign and candidate.

The idea here is to preempt or deflect any potential attacks that the opposition may throw at one’s own campaign. So, in a broader sense, campaign research allows

a campaign to stay true to Sun Tzu’s maxim: “Know thy enemy and know thyself, find naught in fear for one hundred battles.”

Who are some of the candidates on whom you did opposition research?

Obviously when I managed Jack McMullen’s Senate campaign in 2004, I had people doing opposition research on Sen. Patrick Leahy, as he was our opponent at the time.

When I was working for the Republican Party, I worked with a team of researchers, so almost every major Senate candidate’s (both Republican and Democrat) research file was on my desk at some point or another. We definitely looked very closely at tossup states: in 2002 we researched Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, and Florida; in 2004 we worked on Florida, South Dakota, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Were you involved in any campaigns besides Jack McMullen’s?

One of the first campaigns that I got involved in was during my years 23

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Concord Academy magazine searched for active Republicans among the school’s alumnae/i.

Tyler Stone ’05, once head of the school’s Republican Club, seemed a good prospect, but turned out to be an Obama supporter. The hunt continues for supporters of John McCain (if you’re working for McCain, please let us know at magazine@concordacademy.org).

Steve Park ’99, however, worked for the Republican Party and remains a staunch supporter.

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from receptionist to chief of staff, Evans has loved politics. And he especially loves working with the press. “I don’t find a lot difficult dealing with the press; that’s really, really my favorite part of politics. Working on getting a message out there and framing stories is really what I love to do.”

His close ties with the press were apparent after the Fenty firing. A columnist for Washington’s City Paper, an alternative weekly, described Evans’s eighteen-hour workdays over the fifteen-month period before Fenty was elected. “Evans seemed an unlikely contender to be thrown on the trash heap for failing to meet Fenty’s all-work-and-no-play demands. He comes across as smart, cocky, and nearly as tireless as the boss. Evans’ swagger was a key aspect of the Fenty brand. He had every reason to

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believe he would be the public face of a youthful Fenty administration that is already turning heads in the newsrooms of national publications. . . . Evans’ biggest mistake, say Fenty insiders, was taking a bit of a breather in recent weeks.”

Evans says he’s now back on good terms with the mayor, and shrugs off his dismissal as par for the political course. “I’ve only been doing this for six or seven years now. You find pretty quickly that this is a little more common than you would think,” he said of his abrupt dismissal.

Meg Ansara ’97 also has seen a dark side of politics, but in a much different way. She worked for Sen. Paul Wellstone and dealt with the press after the 2002 plane crash that killed him. “Having a candidate that I really believed in die with his wife, with his daughter, with

aides that I knew, was really profound,” she said, calling it “her most definitive political experience.”

Democrats had hoped that Wellstone’s reelection might maintain a majority in the Senate. “To lose all that was really devastating,” Ansara said. “I was depressed for a while; I think we all were, especially after the memorial service.” But focusing on Wellstone’s ethos “reaffirmed my feeling that positive change could happen through the political arena.” She recognized the value of community organizing and the need for functional democracy. But she also saw the limits of campaigning. “Win or lose on Election Day, your whole organization kind of falls apart,” she said.

In 2004 she worked for the Democratic National Committee, training staff in battle-

The Other Party (continued from page 23 )

at CA; I volunteered for Governor Bill Weld’s Senate bid against John Kerry in 1996. In college, as president of the Johns Hopkins College Republicans, I worked on the 2000 Bush campaign, serving as the regional coordinator in Maryland, serving National Committeewoman Ellen Sauerbrey (former U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission and a current assistant secretary of state nominee). In 2002, I was vice chairman of the Maryland Youth for Governor Bob Ehrlich, which was the youth campaign organization of the gubernatorial campaign.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

What are some of the main things you learned about American politics from these campaigns?

The first lesson I took to heart was that there is a difference between politics and governance, or I should say elections and governance.

One can be a great campaigner, but a horrible statesman once elected, and vice versa. Thus there is a great difference between campaign-craft and state-craft, but many candidates don’t perceive that, which often costs them the 24

election. Classic examples would include Bill Clinton’s success against George H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore.

So in a way, might makes right during campaigns, but right makes might in policy.

Which current American politicians inspire you?

George W. Bush. I admire him for his principles, straightforwardness, and absolute confidence in his vision. Michael Steele (the first African American Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland) was a consensus-builder who could reach across aisles without compromising his principles. John McCain inspires me for his service to the nation, steadfastness to his beliefs, and independent thinking.

You’ve said you returned to Korea in 2005 to improve SeoulWashington political relations.

How does one go about doing that?

Interstate relations can be improved on many levels, but it always begins with helping leaders to meet face to face, followed by finding common ground on pivotal issues such as

the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and U.S.-Korea Defensive Alliance. I work closely with Washington think tanks, interest groups, and lobbying firms that share interest in the two nations. Through and with such organizations, we approach U.S. government officials to improve relations. I also rely on my network in the Republican Party when needs arise to contact the Bush administration. On another note, I felt a need to improve U.S.-Korea relations around early 2000 as Washington and Seoul began to speak separately on North Korean issues. There were great differences in how the two nations viewed and approached North Korea, and those differences were weakening the U.S.-Korea alliance.

So I wanted to do something about it to change that, as well as to build new relationships that would strengthen the two countries’ ties in the post-9 /11 paradigm.

How has your work focused on improving the U.S.-Korea alliance?

The most direct and transparent contribution that I made to improve the relationship between the

Republic of Korea [ROK] and the United States was my vote to elect a new president this past December. Aside from that, I worked closely with organizations in Washington and Seoul, including but not limited to the Korean War Veterans Association and the New Right Network, to underscore the importance of the U.S.-ROK alliance through media campaigns. With President Lee Myung-bak in office, the two nations are already warming up to each other.

While at CA, you were in a minority as a Republican. What was that like?

For one thing, my experience at CA really helped me in the political arena because I was able to understand the philosophy and background that liberals and Democrats came from. CA also permitted me to really hone my arguments and rationale, as I needed to be able to defend my political beliefs on a daily basis against other members of the community. I really came to enjoy those late-night discussions. In an ironic sense, being in the political minority at CA made me a better conservative.

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Photos courtesy of Jim Parker

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How CA Voted

100%

by Christeen Savinovich ’08 Spurred by curiosity and an effort to spread awareness about the presidential candidates, the multicultural student group MOSAIC organized a mock election in February.

Of 424 students and faculty, 261— or 61.5 percent of the community— voted. Barack Obama was the winner (though few would have predicted by how much).

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CA’s mock Republican Convention, 1964.

Top: Faculty coordinator Jim Parker at left, convention chair Drewdie Gilpin ’64, center.

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73% Obama

15% Clinton

7.2% McCain

2.2% 1.5% Romney Huckabee

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eacher Emeritus Bill Bailey says that campus activism at CA has mirrored the national climate over the years.

“In the seventies, the kids were incredibly active,” said Bailey, who taught at CA for thirty-five years.

He recalled a “teach-in” on Vietnam organized by an Asian studies teacher and a speech by George Wald, a prominent MIT scientist who was one of the first professors to speak against the war. “[Former Headmaster] David Aloian deserves significant credit for getting kids interested in politics,” said Bailey, noting that Aloian invited not only Wald to speak, but also Chester Atkins, the first Democrat since the 1860s to win a Congressional seat representing the ConcordActon area. The headmaster also hosted a reception at CA for Father Robert Drinan, an outspoken priest who was running for Congress — which Bailey remembers as a “wonderful” but controversial move.

Bailey says campus activism waned in the eighties, but it did not disappear. Mike Rodman ’91 remembers letterwriting campaigns to free Nelson Mandela, as well as environmental efforts. “Nick

[Evans] and I started the Young Democrats Club,” said Rodman; the club organized students to volunteer for Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign.

CA students were politically active in earlier years too. In 1964, History Department Head Jim Parker immersed students in the study of presidential politics by organizing a mock Republican convention (LBJ was already the Democratic nominee). Virtually everyone on campus participated.

Parker said his history students did the organizing, and students and faculty signed up to be delegates from different states, eventually nominating Nelson Rockefeller. “I remember they were very enthusiastic,” Parker said of the delegates. “They were very anxious to twist people’s arms, lightly, to get them to vote for their candidate.”

There were speeches, debates, and votes—all the features of a real convention—and a chair who would go on to assume other leadership roles. “Drewdie Gilpin was our convention chair,” remembered Parker, who was invited to Gilpin Faust’s inauguration as Harvard’s president last year. “She ran the show.”

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ground states on how to build volunteer networks and organize field operations. But she’s now taking a different path to political involvement—as national organizing director and interim state director for the Massachusetts chapter of Stand for Children, an advocacy group that focuses much of its efforts on public school reform.

Ansara considers herself pragmatic and strategic, and like other CA alumnae/i who are involved in the political system, she is driven by a basic belief in the value of that system. “I’m not naïve. I realize decisions are based on what gets people reelected,” she said, “but I do think there’s potential for change. I’d rather be in there trying to make it happen.”

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Tell Us What You Really Think Photo courtesy of Matt Taibbi ’87

Why Matt Taibbi ’87 Never Holds Back

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

No one would call Matt Taibbi’s political reporting conventional. During the 2004 presidential campaign, he met John Kerry while wearing a gorilla suit. He went undercover to volunteer in President Bush’s Orlando campaign office. And he thinks nothing of disparaging his colleagues in the press corps.

As political correspondent for Rolling Stone, Taibbi revels in irreverence. His writing is usually controversial, often offensive, always insightful, and never boring. He spoke with Concord Academy magazine via email in early April.

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“ I think we should spend most of our time following the money and comparatively little time following the candidates on the trail.

around!” Except this year, it wasn’t the Republicans gaining ground but another Democrat, Barack Obama. But they’re incapable of not demonizing their opponents. You should hear the hostile tone of some of these Hillary events, the sneering remarks about Obama’s “hope” and “pretty talk,” the anger they direct at their opponent. You’d think that Obama was Satan himself or something. It’s nuts.

What we do now basically amounts to free

You wrote in early 2007 that you knew Barack Obama would be a presidential nominee after hearing his 2004 convention speech. What derailed him in Texas and Ohio?

He wasn’t exactly derailed in Texas. If you include the caucus results, I think the delegate count ended up going 65 –61 Hillary, which isn’t bad considering that he was down twenty points in the polls with a few weeks to go before the vote. In Ohio, I think the thing with the NAFTA negotiations with Canada hurt him, but there are other factors. I saw Hillary give a speech in Youngstown to a roaring crowd that hooted and hollered and hissed every time Obama’s name was mentioned. The speech was at a high school that had balked at a plan to merge with a mostly black school in the same district. Now I hate it when Hillary blames her losses on sexism, so I’m not going to say racism derails Obama when he loses. But it’s at least a small factor. I think he does best in states that have a lot of black voters and a lot of white intellectuals.

He fares poorest in states with large disaffected middle/working-class white majorities. Hillary’s campaign is consciously aimed at the sort of Nixonian “Silent Majority” voter, the struggling white guy pining for simpler times. Ohio is chock full of those kinds of voters, particularly in the south. Also, Cleveland and Cincinnati didn’t turn out for Obama as much as he probably would have hoped.

Predict the outcome in November, with one sentence explaining why.

I now think it’s going to be McCain. I think the Democrats are suffering from overexposure, and it will hurt them in November.

You refer to stump speech fatigue in a recent story about McCain. Roughly how many stump speeches have you heard?

How do you keep your writing fresh amid so much repetition?

I’ve probably heard a thousand. In 2004 I had a system — I memorized [Howard] Dean’s stump clichés and assigned each of them numbers. So instead of copying down the texts of his speeches, I would just write 8-4-3-7-26-2-9 etc. It saved a lot of time.

Tell us about the biggest gaffe you’ve heard on the campaign trail?

Honestly my favorite campaign gaffe wasn’t something I witnessed personally— I just missed it actually. It was when John Kerry ordered a cheese steak in Philly with Swiss cheese. I mean, to ask for real cheese at all and not [Cheez] Whiz is bad enough, but Swiss? That guy was doomed from the start.

It’s pretty clear from your writing that you can’t stand Hillary Clinton. Did anything on the campaign trail make you like her (or hate her less)?

Well, the Clinton people have a way about them that’s sort of off-putting. There’s this sense of entitlement that hovers over their whole operation. They have this attitude— and this bleeds through into Hillary’s speeches — that the presidency belongs to them and other pretenders to the throne are not legitimate, dirty somehow, evil for even trying. Whenever you ask their people difficult questions, they roll their eyes at you, like they can’t believe they have to waste their time on such nonsense when (insert evil opponent/political adversary here) is gaining ground every minute! Their attitude is, “Hey, keep your eyes on the ball; there are enemies all

What are the main differences between covering the 2004 and 2008 elections, aside from the fact that you haven’t (yet) followed a candidate in a gorilla suit this time?

I think there’s a big difference in the way the press is behaving. In 2004 they were all still afraid of the Republicans and were constantly hounding the candidates they thought were “too liberal.” I heard that question over and over again: “Aren’t you too liberal to be president?”

Now that the war has gone in the tank and Bush’s numbers are down, their behavior is just the opposite. They swoon openly for the HillaryObama show and batter the Republicans for being bores and clowns. It’s really revolting.

You disparaged the press in a Rolling Stone story called “Merchants of Trivia.” How would you change the way the press corps covers presidential campaigns?

I think we should spend most of our time following the money and comparatively little time following the candidates on the trail. What we do now basically amounts to free advertising for the campaigns. I think the TV stations and the campaigns have a symbiotic relationship — the networks give you this credulous, hagiographic view of the candidates, and the candidates in return spend mountains of money on TV advertising.

It’s in the interests of both to keep a positive relationship. Meanwhile, the candidates suck up hundreds of millions in campaign contributions that will almost all be given back in favors after the election. I mean, one in four bundlers [those who raise a certain amount, usually $100,000, for a campaign] gets federal appointments. And we pretend the government isn’t for sale? That’s what we should focus on, the money and the favors.

Describe a political story that you look back on and cringe.

I’m not thrilled with a piece I wrote about Iraq.

I think I was duped by the army. They embed you with these nice kids who you end up gen-

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advertising for the campaigns.”

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“ As a reporter, you sometimes have to invite people to say things you know are going to look stupid when stuffed into some larger and unfriendly argument you’re making. And I don’t feel good about that.”

uinely making friends with, and then when you come back you don’t want to say anything bad about their mission. A piece I wrote about my embedded experience was colored badly by this dynamic, and I think I left people with the impression that I wasn’t against the war. I may also have been seduced by the romance of the whole war environment, which is a pretty gross thing for a sheltered prep school kid to let happen.

When Boris Yeltsin died, your column was titled “Death of a Drunk.” You’ve called Ann Coulter “skanky” and much worse.

Do you ever hold back? When?

I think Boris Yeltsin and Ann Coulter are both military targets. I will say that, unfortunately, my career has sort of evolved into a direction where people are now always hiring me to carve someone up. As a result, there’s a lot more of this attack-dog stuff than I would like. Believe me, I’ve spent a lot of unhappy late-night hours wondering what it says about a) me and b) my profession that no one wants to hire me when I’m being nice. I’m not sure I even want to know the answer to those questions.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Have you ever, even for a moment, gotten introspective and thought you might have crossed the line? When?

Let’s put it this way — I don’t worry about crossing the line when it comes to people like Ann Coulter and Boris Yeltsin. What I will say here is that I seldom regret attacking public figures. I do regret it when I have to quote someone in a reported piece who is going to be hurt by his own quote. As a reporter, you sometimes have to invite people to say things you know are going to look stupid when stuffed into some larger and unfriendly argument you’re making.

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And I don’t feel good about that. I also feel queasy about doing undercover stuff that takes advantage of the credulousness of the real people I end up writing about. But that’s part of the job. You can’t have too much of a conscience in this business. Writing is always sort of cruel.

When I’m wrong, there are always plenty of people who write to me and let me know.

Do you think (or fear) there’s an age when you won’t be able to get away with the irreverence? In other words, does one outgrow irreverence?

That’s a fair question, and I’ve thought about that before. I don’t think so. I think it’s different for someone like me than it is for, say, a standup comic. If you’re a comic and you’re fifty and you’re still ranting about people who don’t make up their mind fast enough in line at McDonald’s, that’s kind of sad. But a political columnist always has something outrageous to write about no matter how old he gets. I mean, H.L. Mencken and Ambrose Bierce didn’t have to change their acts as they got older. The world is going to be just as absurd and corrupt twenty years from now as it is now, if not worse. The only difference maybe is the kind of language I’ll use. When it becomes sad for me to drop F-bombs all the time — and it probably already is— someone will let me know.

How do you strike a balance between political analysis and entertainment?

I think you need elements of both. Politics is a dull topic, and in order to get people to read about it you have to make it colorful. The trick is in reducing something complex into terms that people can grasp, and to make them feel like they’re engaged in the subject by personalizing the people involved, making them recognizable

villains, etc. Spy magazine got people interested in New York politics by creating a set group of characters that everyone could identify — from the “short-fingered vulgarian“ Donald Trump to the “churlish dwarf billionaire” Ron Lauder. You don’t do that, no one cares.

When did your writing become so much fun? Some earlier pieces seem less flipmouthed.

Well, I’m not sure about that. Before I was at Rolling Stone, I spent seven years writing really crazy stuff in Russia. I’ve actually toned down a lot.

How do you get in the right mindset when you have to write a long piece?

I wait until the very last minute to start and then let panic carry me to the finish.

You’re sometimes compared to Hunter Thompson. Have you explicitly tried to be like him? Is there someone else to whom you’d rather be compared?

No, not at all. I didn’t get into Thompson until pretty late in life. My heroes were people like Gogol, Saki, Evelyn Waugh, Bulgakov, Stendahl, a lot of comic novelists. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. Definitely not a journalist.

Now that I am one, I think the guy I’m trying to be like is Mencken. I think I can be happy in that sort of role, which, incidentally, doesn’t approach what Thompson was. Thompson was a genuine literary phenomenon. His books read like great fiction. Mencken was basically a columnist and a witty observer of current events. He was somebody you read for a laugh before you went to work. His writing wasn’t nearly as ambitious as Hunter’s. Neither is mine, not by a long shot.

How much influence has your father, a TV news journalist, had on your career?

My father was a huge influence on me, but I never wanted to be a journalist. In fact, just the opposite. However, because I grew up around it, it was something I knew, so that was why I did it for money after college. It was the only skill I had.

What papers, sites, etc. do you read every day? How much time do you spend watching conservative talk shows, and do you throw things at the TV while doing so?

I read a lot of weird stuff. I have a subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine, for instance. I don’t watch much political TV for that

Are you as cynical as your writing?

I disagree that my writing is cynical. I would say just the opposite, that most of the other writing out there is cynical. I write from the point of view of someone who tries to continue to be outraged by things that the rest of the press has accepted because that’s the way things are and always have been. For instance, this week I’m writing about an earmark Hillary Clinton got for Lockheed to build Marine One, the presidential helicopter. The company gave her thousands in donations and free flights on company jets, and in return they got $11 billion to build helicopters for the president to fly around in — helicopters that will cost 400 million bucks apiece, or more than the refitted 747s the Pentagon uses for Air Force One. 400 million bucks for a single helicopter? And we’re paying for it? That’s an outrage, right? So why isn’t anyone else actually pissed off when they write about these things?

Because they take the attitude that this is just the way politics is; everyone else is calm about it, so why should they be hysterical? They don’t see Tom Brokaw blowing his top about things, so why should they?

Well, they should, that’s the whole point.

So when I rip these people, it’s not because I’m a cynic and I think the whole world is hopelessly corrupt. I rip them because things don’t have to be this way, which makes it all the more outrageous that they are. The anger in my articles comes from disappointed idealism, and that is where I’m trying to connect with my readers, many of whom feel the same way. [Ambrose] Bierce said that a cynic was a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they should be. You try to see both, and the distance between the two is where you get your outrage.

Do you consider yourself patriotic?

It depends on what you mean by patriotic. I think America is amazing. Having lived in places like Russia, where so few things work, I’m continually amazed by how energetic and efficient and innovative our country is. But I also think our society is extraordinarily violent and xenophobic, and that freaks me out sometimes. I look at the pictures of the thousands of deformed kids in South Vietnam who got that way from Agent Orange poisoning, and I wonder about a country that doesn’t even think about what it did over there and why. I mean, we killed two million

O F

P O L I T I C S

people in Indochina. We’re on our way to another huge number in Iraq. On the other hand, most Americans are very nice, well-meaning people. Even the people I met in Iraq were nice, even when they were occupying a country and blundering all over the place, wrecking stuff and wantonly shooting things. So when you take the whole picture as a whole it’s very confusing.

It’s even more confusing to me now that this society has chosen to pay me a lot of money to listen to me complain about it every week.

Matt Taibbi’s latest book is Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire (Grove Press).

“ When I rip these people, it’s not because I’m a cynic and I think the whole world is hopelessly corrupt. I rip them because things don’t have to be this way, which makes it all the more outrageous that they are.”

Andrew Brusso

very reason: it drives me nuts. For many years I had a fantasy about chainsawing Bill O’Reilly in half.

P U L L

Matt Taibbi, donning Bush paraphernalia for the 2006 publication of Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season

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T H E

A Reason to Congregate

Inspiration in the Everyday

expand their education by creating

For Eugene Ha ’08, architecture provides a tangible way to improve people’s lives. His redesign of the Stu-Fac’s patio was an exploration of how public spaces can contain private spaces —“translucent but opaque at the same time.”

Eugene settled on the patio for his independent study in architecture because he thought the space could be much more inviting and useful. Before he got started, he studied famous places where people tend to linger, such as St. Peter’s Square in Rome, focusing on how the buildings interact, how open space mixes with shelter, and what kind of tension the structures and lines create.

On the Stu-Fac patio, Eugene removed the French doors leading from the dining hall to the patio, curved the wall, removed shrubbery and stairs, and created what Eugene called “a smaller but better use of space.” In his design, a “café-sque” extension of the dining hall is accessible via a spiral staircase. Vertical poles create private spaces within the public space, and a bris soleil blocks sunlight from certain angles, protecting parts of the patio from heat.

Eugene, who was advised by visual arts teacher Chris Rowe, said he hoped to create a design that would “provide the CA community with a reason to congregate.”

The inspiration for Peter Boskey’s fiber arts project started in Drawing 2, when he was sketching insects. Peter ’08 was so intrigued by the bugs’ wing construction that he researched butterfly and moth wings in his spare time.

That research resulted in several designs for his fashion-focused independent study: dresses based on the luna moth and the monarch butterfly, a vest based on a ladybug, and a skirt inspired by a praying mantis.

For all but the skirt, Peter dyed his own fabric; for the butterfly-based dress, his most challenging work, he also painted the fabric.

Originally, Peter intended to piece together about fifty separate fabric pieces, building a sort of butterfly mosaic. A reality check scaled back that plan, and his design became more fluid.

In the end, Peter found beauty in the intricacies of something deceptively simple. “For me, it was taking something as everyday as an insect and making outfits,” said Peter, who was advised by fiber arts teacher Antoinette Winters.

“It proved to me that you can have inspiration from anything.”

independent studies. On these pages are works from the fall 2007 visual arts independent studies — which ranged from ceramics and photography to fashion and architecture. These and other pieces were on exhibit during Concord Academy’s fall semester student art show in January.

ART OF IN Peter Boskey ’08

THE

Portraits by Jiyoon Lee ’09

Each semester, students choose to

Stu-Fac patio possibilities, imagined by Eugene Ha ’08

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Above: A butterfly-based creation by Peter Boskey ’08 Left: A ladybug-inspired vest

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Form and Function

The Surface and Beneath

Digital Antiques

Sierra Starr ’08 explored the intersection between form and function, eventually realizing that function sometimes impeded her art.

Inspired by certain people who don’t listen, Sierra sculpted a giant pile of ears (below), originally thinking it would be a vase.

“When I got away from function, the piece had more impact,” she said. In contrast, adding function — a teapot— to a reclining nude “added a whole new dimension” to the Titian-inspired work.

Sierra, who was advised by ceramics teacher Kate Oggel, has worked on a pottery wheel since she was nine. By the time her independent study was completed, she realized what she had really learned from the experience: “Halfway through the semester, my focus shifted from producing beautiful work to learning about myself as an artist.”

Matt Goldenberg ’08 combined historical research about covered jars with a personal artistic vision. The result: a carefully crafted canopic jar in the shape of a jackal; ginger jars decorated with Chinese words (meaning curiosity, ambition, wonder, and eternity); and a soup tureen inspired by a children’s book.

In general, form comes easily to Matt, including the sometimes difficult relationship between a jar’s body and its lid. For his study, he found himself focusing most on surface decorations— the hieroglyphics on the canopic jars, the Chinese characters, the raised vegetables on the soup tureen.

Matt, who was advised by ceramics teacher Kate Oggel, knew he was hooked on pottery in Ceramics 1. “Once we got to the wheel, I never left the studio,” he said. Matt is also intensely interested in origami and sees parallels between the art forms: “Out of a square piece of paper, you can make something.

Out of a ball of clay, you can make something.”

For Matt, the power of pottery is heady.

“I like having that direct effect from my hands,” he said.

Are the photographs of Clara Dennis ’08 really as old as they seem? Yes, and no. For her examination of an antique photo process known as kallitype, Clara found vintage photos and digitally imposed them onto photos she shot of an old farmhouse — the Henry David Thoreau birthplace in Concord. “I raided antique shops and bought old family portraits,” she said. “I basically found characters.”

Under the guidance of Visual Arts Department Head Cynthia Katz, Clara scanned negatives and old photos and, using PhotoShop, cut out her characters for the scene — then seamlessly melded old with new.

To Clara, who first studied kallitype during a summer course, a digital negative could rest comfortably alongside the nineteenth-century kallitype process, which allows control of contrast and densities. She explained: “I was approaching an old technology with a modern viewpoint.”

DEPENDENCE A commentary on poor listeners,

by Sierra Starr ’08

Ceramics photos by Kate Oggel

Clara Dennis ’08 combined modern and vintage photo techniques.

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Ginger jars by Matt Goldenberg ’08

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

K E Y N O T E

S P E A K E R:

David Hilliard Cofounder, Black Panther Party CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

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DAV I D H I LLI A R D walked off the pages of history and onto the

stage in the Performing Arts Center during Concord Academy’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, bringing his unique perspective on the turbulent sixties, an era when growing discontent with social inequities and racism erupted in America’s cities.

Hilliard, sixty-five and the only living founder of the Black Panther Party, described the role of his party in his keynote address, defining the movement he helped lead and explaining how he would like it remembered.

“David Hilliard brought to our students an intimate, firsthand account of a time in the 1960s when political engagement had seized the United States with unmatched passion, danger, and urgency,” said Jennifer Cardillo, Concord Academy’s assistant dean of Community and Equity. “His role as founding member and chief of staff of the Black Panther Party made him a crucial player in one of this country’s most dramatic fights against inequity. His perspective allowed CA students a vivid glimpse of that struggle and helped them understand its bequests to today’s social movements.”

During his address, Hilliard focused on the Black Panthers’ social programs, describing how the group provided food to the needy and

Participants in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day workshop called “Culture for Sale,” led by history teacher Peter Sun, used the hour to watch and discuss a documentary produced by University of California, Berkeley students. Yellow Apparel: When a Coolie Becomes Cool focused on diversity issues pertaining to Asian dress, both

traditional and commercialized.

Before watching the film, Sun posed a question: “How would you feel if you saw someone walking on the street wearing an item of clothing meaningful to your culture?”

I was surprised to find that a number of Asian interviewees in the film answered this question with anger. One

by Alexis von Kunes Newton ’08

South Asian woman argued that until an American girl can empathize with the unjust pain and embarrassment that often accompanies the presence of a bindi on a girl’s forehead, she should not wear one.

At the end of the film, I understood the distinction between an Asian woman

wearing a bindi for what it signifies culturally and an American woman wearing a bindi as a superficial decoration. I left that workshop with an understanding of that woman’s anger, and realized her message was one central to diversity: we must attempt to achieve empathy before we can be truly diverse.

Tara Bradley

The Chameleons performing for the elderly; workshops exploring Korean games and hip-hop messages

advocated for affordable housing and universal health care. He said the party, at its peak, had chapters in forty-seven states, and he called “oppression the single common denominator” among its members.

Hilliard described the Black Panthers’ early stages as a “self-defense movement,” fighting against social injustice, and he repeatedly stressed that the party was more than its iconic image of tough, armed men in black leather jackets carrying guns. The Black Panthers, who took advantage of a California law that permitted the carrying of unconcealed weapons, understood the law well, particularly leader Huey Newton, who attended law school. “Every time Huey walked out, he had a law book under his arm and stated the law,” Hilliard said. Some photos show him with a law book in one hand and a gun in the other.

In a question-and-answer session, a student asked Hilliard whether the group actually broke any laws. “We were very young, adventuresome, and unafraid,” he answered. “We made a lot of mistakes and we broke some laws.” He then explained that the Black Panthers were willing to go to court and saw the courts “as a classroom.” While Hilliard acknowledged that crimes were committed—he served time, as did Panther leaders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton—he also accused the FBI of frame-ups and “trumped-up” charges.

In light of this characterization, another student asked why the group was still portrayed as so militant. “Why are we projected as this organization without a single virtue?” Hilliard shot back. If he were to start the movement again, he said, he would “rethink walking around with all those guns,” partly because it gave the state justification for targeting the group. In fact, the FBI had labeled the Black Panthers the “most dangerous and violence-prone of all extremist groups.” During the movement, twenty-seven members of the Black Panther Party died; forty-seven, said Hilliard, are still in prison.

Hilliard also spoke about his youth, how he would buy beer for his father while still in grade school and steal sips, becoming an addict by age twenty. Hilliard beat his addiction, but Panther leaders Huey Newton (whom Hilliard met when he was eleven) and Eldridge Cleaver both lost their lives to drugs, he said.

After Hilliard’s speech, students attended workshops—many of them student-led—that tackled subjects including stereotypes, child exploitation, and equity in the presidential campaign. Many performed community service in Dr. King’s honor, working at soup kitchens, shelters, and elder-care facilties; some tutored students from Esperanza Academy in Lawrence, a school with which CA is forging an ongoing relationship.

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Photos by Amy Albrecht

E L A S R O F E R U CULT

da A. Teja

Actor Steven Tejada (below) performed an excerpt from his one-man comedy/drama, Boogie Down Journeys, during a January assembly. Aptly coinciding with the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Tejada’s work drew on his personal experiences in the South Bronx and its contrast with his experiences at prep school and in other privileged arenas.

The Colors of Community Service

by Fannie Watkinson ’08

O

ur car struggled to gain speed as we limped along behind a yellow school bus, winding through the back roads of Carlisle, past plastic replicas of reindeer and houses with quaint snow-covered arches. After I-495 we entered Lawrence, a mill town peeking through years of grime, and fell behind another bus. A girl in tight jeans and a black jacket ran onto the bus.

We waited as the bus made no movement forward, then saw the girl run off again a second later. She was a mother, younger than I am, retrieving an item for her child.

Once we arrived at the brand-new Lawrence Capernaum Place shelter, affiliated with Lazarus House Ministries, we prepared to paint a mural in the nursery, working alongside sixth-graders from Esperanza Academy, the School of Hope, also in Lawrence. We were on a service trip in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Within minutes, CA and Esperanza students paired up and clad themselves in green, yellow, orange, red, or blue XL shirts. I met Liz, my painting partner, a bright-eyed girl with Portuguese pride and enthusiasm for any task. As the day wound on, I found myself

stopping momentarily, my yellow paint brush hanging in mid-air, and watching color spread itself across three walls in the mural, designed and drawn by Duncan Sherwood Forbes ’08.

On two of the walls were squares of color, which merged into a big rainbow swirl on the middle wall. We alternated between painting, decorating mugs for the adults living in the shelter, and sharing games. For some of us, hand claps were tough to recall, but after years of practice, they seemed ingrained in muscle memory.

After all the Esperanza Academy students left, I stood in a spotless room with beige walls and a couple stray tables. Where were the noise, the energy, and all the bright colors?

I walked into the adjacent room and looked at the newly painted walls, shelves piled back up with children’s toys and games. There we all were on the wall: a rainbow of color and handprints weaving across the room.

It’s funny to leave a place on which you have made your imprint after just one day. I wondered what my buddy Liz was doing and whether she was as tired as I was. I still had paint on my hands and clothes, and I didn’t want it to wash out.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

In the days following the Martin Luther King Jr. Day programming, some history classes discussed Hilliard’s speech. In one class, students commented that the group needed militancy to attract attention to its cause. While several students criticized Hilliard for downplaying the party’s violence, one said she considered Hilliard’s positive approach “totally necessary” because her impression of the Black Panthers was so completely negative. “For me to move that even a little bit, he needed to be that positive,” she said.

In his keynote and his workshop, Hilliard encouraged today’s youth to start movements to change society. But he also discussed how the media’s influence makes that more challenging. Instead of watching MTV, he said, youth in his day watched protestors marching on TV. “I wanted to be Malcolm X. I didn’t want to be a basketball player,” he said. “Our heroes were different.”

Now the head of the Huey Newton Foundation, Hilliard has mellowed somewhat with age. “We coined the phrase that you can’t trust anybody over thirty. That was our phrase,” he said. “Of course I take that back now.”

David Hilliard in a small workshop following his keynote address

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AT H L E T I C S Kathy Angell

Ski champ Drew Kelly ’08

WINTER HIGHLIGHTS

The girls alpine ski team also finished second in the CMSL, with Alexandra Urban ’10, the team’s top individual finisher, taking fourth place. Kyra Morris ’11 finished in eighth place, with Dana Leonard ’08 just behind her in ninth. Together the boys and girls finished second

in the combined team title — the second consecutive second-place finish for the team.

The girls basketball team finished with six wins in the league, including two wins each over Newton Country Day School and Beaver Country Day School. The team, led by EIL All-Leaguer Mary Matthews ’08, finished seventh in the league and second in the Pool B EIL tournament. Mary’s notable season included a 22-point effort against Newton, including five 3-point shots. The team returns a core group for next season, including Julia Dyer ’10, an EIL honorable

mention, and the team’s secondleading scorer, Olivia Pimm ’10.

The boys basketball team finished 6 –13 overall and 5 –9 in the league, in a season so competitive that six of nine EIL teams earned bids to the NEPSAC tournament. CA’s team was led by EIL All-Leaguer Eric Benvenuti ’09, who averaged 19 points per game. The team will graduate five players this year, including Mathis Bauchner ’08, Aidan Hanlon ’08, Joe Byrne ’08, Kevin Ting ’08, and Isaiah Sommers ’08. Isaiah gave the team one of its season highlights, netting six 3-point shots and a 23-point total

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The boys alpine ski team finished in second place in the Central Mass Ski League (CMSL), with Drew Kelly ’08, the boys individual champion, finishing only nine points shy of a perfect season. Captain Russell Cohen ’09 finished third in the league, while Stephen Sarno ’11 finished fifth.

The girls squash team won the EIL regular-season title this season, and its number-one player, Fannie Watkinson ’08, was named the EIL MVP. Fannie was undefeated in the league during the regular season and had only one loss overall. Hannah Kaemmer ’09 also finished with an undefeated league record and one loss on the season, and made the EIL All-League team. At the end-ofseason New England (NEIGSA) tournament, Fannie and Hannah both finished third in their respective fights. The team finished seventh overall.

AT H L E T I C S

against Pomfret. Josh ReedDiawuoh ’09 received an EIL honorable mention.

The boys squash team posted an overall 4–6 record and finished the season with a 5–2 win over Portsmouth Abbey, avenging an earlier loss. The team participated in the NEISA tournament in the B Division, where Jack Moldave ’11 stood out with an eighth-place finish.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

The boys wrestling team finished second in the Eastern Independent League (EIL) regular-season standings and second at the EIL tournament, where seven wrestlers made it to the final match in their weight classes.

Two wrestlers went undefeated during the season: Scott Bloom ’08 (152) and David Hook ’08 (285); Scott was named the EIL MVP while David made the EIL All-League team. Walter Lehner ’08 — who received an EIL honorable mention — finished with one loss, wrestling up a weight class at 140. Scott, David, and Walter also finished in first place at the EIL tournament in their respective classes. In addition, Cy Hossain ’09 (103), Dylan Awalt-Conley ’10 (130), Patrick D’Arcy ’08 (189), and Daniel Lee ’08 (215) finished second in their weight classes; Cy earned an EIL honorable mention. Scott, David, Cy, Walter, and Dylan qualified for the New England meet, where Scott and David earned medals. Scott, seeded seventh, finished fourth, while David, who was seeded

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C A’ S D E T E R M I N E D M A R AT H O N E R S LESS THAN 1 PERCENT of Americans complete

a marathon.

But at CA, more than ten percent of the faculty and staff— at least eighteen runners — have completed a 26.2-mile trek. Several have finished two or three — and one has made it through eleven. If that weren’t impressive enough, eleven CAers have run the Boston Marathon, one of running’s most prestigious events.

Director of Athletics Carol Anne Beach, a three-time marathoner herself, can’t quite explain why so many CA people push their limits. “My guess would be because CA folks tend to be very disciplined and goal-oriented,” she said.

That would be an understatement, especially when it comes to CA’s girls’ cross-country coach Karina Johnson, mathematics teacher Mark Engerman, and boys cross-country coach Jonathan Waldron, who ran the eleven races.

Engerman has run a total of nine marathons, including his best time in Sacramento in 1991: 2:38. He ran his fourth Boston Marathon this year, and credits an excess of natural energy for his stamina. “I go stir-crazy unless I am physically active. I also love pushing my body hard on runs,” he said.

Johnson ran the Shamrock Marathon in

Virginia Beach in March, hoping for a 2:47 finish, which would have qualified her for the Olympic marathon trials. Alas, she finished in 2:57, which she blames on fifteen miles of strong winds. She ran the 2007 New York Marathon in 2:56.

Johnson attributes her interest in the sport to her father, who has run for forty-seven years.

She admits the journey to her Olympic dream is not easy. “A great deal of time, pain, dedication, and sacrifice goes into training,” she said, “and the road to victory is a long one. Which simply makes the destination sweeter.”

Waldron also hoped to qualify for the Olympic trials, but wasn’t fast enough when he tried in 1992 (despite a 2:30 marathon). Now Waldron is dedicated to shorter races; he has been national champion in the one-mile, which he currently flies through in 4:16.

Several CA marathoners run to fund a favorite cause. Academic Dean John Drew ran the Boston Marathon in 2004 for the Dana-Farber team, promoting cancer research; he also ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 1985 and 1986.

Director of Athletics Carol Anne Beach (Flying Pig Marathon 2006, Boston Marathon 2007 and 2008) ran her first marathon with her brother Rick to mark his fifteenth year being cancer-free.

Photos by Dan Sanford

tenth, pinned the second seed in a huge upset and finished sixth.

Walter and Cy both finished in the top eight, while the team overall finished seventeenth, the highestplacing EIL team.

“The last two marathons I have run in honor of Rick but also as a tribute to my dad,” she explained. “My dad was incredibly positive and remarkably courageous — and his life was cut short by cancer — but I feel like he powers me through the challenges of marathon training.”

Though running Boston is a thrill for Beach, “raising funds for cancer research is what it’s all about for me.” She raised more than $20,000 this year for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, encouraged by the $19,000 she raised in 2007— far exceeding her initial goal of $6,500.

While every CA marathoner has a story, some are more unusual than others. Academic

Dean Drew led a blind runner through the second half of the Washington’s Birthday Marathon in Maryland in 1990. In a 5K sponsored by the National Association of Science Teachers, Drew earned a little-known running accolade: “fastest science teacher.” In perhaps the gutsiest chapter of CA running lore, an appropriately confident Ben Stumpf ’88, CA’s director of academic technology, took on his first Boston Marathon without any training, except for the intense soccer he regularly played. He completed it without incident, though his second marathon, he cautioned, was “much less exciting and more painful.”

— Gail Friedman

Carol Anne Beach Director of Athletics

Flying Pig 2006; Boston 2007, 2008

Tara Bradley Director of Communications

Boston 1989

Jenny Brennan Assistant Director of Athletics

Marine Corps 2004; Greater Hartford 2005

Gianna Drew Nurse

Marine Corps 1986

John Drew Academic Dean

Marine Corps 1985, 1986; Boston 2004

Mark Engerman Mathematics Teacher

Boston 1988, 1995, 1996, 2008; New York 1990; California Int’l (Sacramento) 1991; Cape Cod 1994; Vermont City 2000; Bay State 2007

Parkman Howe English Teacher

Boston Peace 1988

Peter Jennings Director of College Counseling

Portland, OR 1996; Chicago 1998

Karina Johnson Girls Cross-Country Coach

Boston 2006; New York 2007; Shamrock 2008

Kate Leonard Girls Lacrosse Coach

Keybank, VT 2006; Boston 2008

John McGarry Director of Financial Aid

Boston 1992, 1993, 1995

Tim Seston Mathematics Teacher

Cape Cod 2003

Jonathan Smith Visual Arts Teacher

New York 1986

Hilde Steffey Science Teacher

Boston 2006

Sandy Stott Dean of Faculty

Maine Coast 1980

Ben Stumpf ’88 Boston 1999, 2001 Director of Academic Technology

CA’s marathoners — seated, for a change

Jonathan Waldron Boys Cross-Country Coach

BostonFest 1983; Boston 1984, 1991, 1994, 2001; Hyannis 1991; Huntsville (AL) 1991; Cape Cod 1992, 1993, 2000, 2007

Eliza Wall Director of Annual Giving

Boston 2001, 2003

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The girls volleyball team finished the season 8 –10 and, for the first time, qualified for a second-year-ina-row appearance in the Eastern Independent League tournament, finishing at 1–1. Sarah Thornton ’09 finished the season with 96 kills, 42 aces, and 21 blocks and was voted to the EIL All-League team. Also contributing to CA’s success was Samantha Mankin ’10, who stepped in for last year’s All-League setter Kristian Shaw ’07 and, in her first year as a starter, set a single-season school record for assists. Sarah Oliveira ’09 and Frances Bothfeld ’08 both received EIL honorable mentions.

David R. Gammons

A RT S Studio Day

T

he CA community took a break from its usual schedule in late February to visit area artist studios, engage with the artists, view their work, and learn about the creative process.

Studio Day allowed students to learn about the real lives of working artists —including some of their own teachers. They met with painters,

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Snapshot: Boston’s South End We ventured to Boston’s South End to visit the studios of fashion designer Alfred Fiandaca and visual artists Heidi Whitman ’67 and Lisa Houck.

Within just one and a half hours, my group was able to see the intricate details of Fiandaca’s garments, Whitman’s unique paintings and drawings, and Houck’s watercolors, ceramics, and mosaics — and to hear the unique stories of the three, all 38

sculptors, photographers, documentary filmmakers, clothing and jewelry designers, animators, printmakers, letter press artists, a violinmaker — and more.

Said visual arts teacher Jessica Straus, who planned the day with Visual Arts Department Head Cynthia Katz: “It’s a great opportunity for kids to get a taste of a workplace that’s anything but the cubicle.”

of whom offered insights and suggestions to aspiring artists.

Whitman had an interesting way of combining realistic and imagined elements into her paintings and drawings. She also told the group about the importance of an artist studying more than just art, because the ideas we gain from what we learn in school can be true inspiration for our artwork.

Houck, who showed the group both finished works and works in progress, assured the group that, despite the “starving

Henry Butman ’08

The Beaux’ Strategem

artist” stereotype, artists can pursue their passion and still be successful. She explained that she has more commissioned jobs than she can finish.

Studio Day gave CA students the chance to visit artists practicing different art forms with different histories and views on their work; it has surely left many students with much to think about as they pursue their own artistic interests.

— Alexis von Kunes Newton ’08 Artist Deborah Davidson on Studio Day

David R. Gammons

Clara Dennis ’08

Jiyoon Lee ’09

CA’s freshmen fractured fairy tales in entirely new ways during FroshProject 7.

Upperclassmen wrote and directed the thirteen skits.

At right, from top, the cast and crews of Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Pea, and Sleeping Beauty.

On Broadway

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Wired he Concord Free Public Library featured the wire sculptures of Duncan Sherwood-Forbes ’08 in a March exhibit. Above, “I’ll Be Out in a Minute.”

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Jiyoon Lee ’09

he first production of the Future Stars of Broadway Club hit the stage in February, when the club’s originator, Katie Astrauskas ’09, produced Lucky Stiff, under the guidance of music teacher and club advisor Keith Daniel. Directed by Chessy Normile ’09 and Anneliese Cooper ’09, Lucky Stiff followed the life of Harry Witherspoon, who was promised a $6 million inheritance if he took his uncle’s dead body to Monte Carlo.

Besides Katie, the murder-mystery featured Elisabeth Beckwitt ’11, Talene Bilazarian ’10, Oliver Bruce ’11, Matt Clarkson ’11, Meghan Leathers ’09, Edmund Metzold ’11, Will Notini ’09 (a coproducer), Therese Ronco ’11, and Isabel Walsh ’10.

Lamb Chops, Film Chops

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Photographer Martin Berinstein on Studio Day

face. Antoinette Winters, who teaches fiber arts and drawing at CA, also opened her studio to the community for Studio Day. Winters displayed works she made by drawing pieces of plumbing on small paint chips and assembling the chips into larger pieces. Her

powerful yet simple lines showed students a side of Winters that isn’t often apparent when she’s teaching at Concord Academy.

— Christeen Savinovich ’08

ucas Frank ’08 and Harvey Burrell ’09 took the wacky temperament of a Roald Dahl story and turned it into Lamb to the Slaughter, a film recently selected for screening at the 2008 YouthFilm Festival, sponsored by the Northampton (MA) Arts Council.

Lamb to the Slaughter, an assignment for Lucas and Harvey’s Film 3 class, was based on Dahl’s story of the same name, a tale of a woman who murders her husband with a leg of lamb then feeds the evidence to an investigator.

Both Lucas and Harvey attended the YouthFilm Festival and introduced their work there. You can watch Lamb to the Slaughter at www.concord academy.org/lamb.

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Snapshot: Waltham Mills One artist at Waltham Mills, Anne Lambert, made sculptures out of old, used materials, giving new meaning to the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Her witty work included large, hard-shelled suitcases with old men’s dress shoes attached at the bottom, giving spectators the sense of the suitcase moving itself. Another work featured an old, tattered globe on a gurney, being carried away with the caption, “Rush to Intensive Care.”

“The assemblages make use of discarded objects that speak to me of the beauty of age and the potential that is latent in everything for survival,” Lambert explained.

Among the artists at Waltham Mills — sculptors, painters, printmakers, and designers — was a familiar

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ola Glatzel ’08 had acted in three plays at CA, stage managed a play, was taking Theater 3, and last summer apprenticed in a Provincetown (MA) theatre.

But before she was approved for a departmental study in theatre, she had never explored playwriting.

Throughout the summer before her senior year, Nola compiled notes and ideas for an original play. She had been reading a lot of plays about brothers and found the topic “endearing.” Influenced by a summer theology program,

The art world has taken notice of artist Maximilian Toth ’97, and not just because his mammoth pieces (stretching as much as fifty feet) are impossible to ignore.

The New York Times credited Toth’s “febrile hand and a good sense for off-center narrative.”

The New York Sun called an early show “an alluring debut.”

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Max had a lot more to say than space allows. See the entire interview at www.concordacademy.org/toth.

Q&A Maximilian Toth ’97 40

logue in the middle of directing. However, together she and the cast worked through the challenges and “became a very tight-knit group.”

Throughout the process, Nola said that Gleeson offered directing advice and helped her stay organized. When the night of the performance finally arrived, Nola felt both excited and nervous. Nervous, she explained, because it was completely her own creation, and if anything went wrong, she

would have no one to blame but herself. The nerves, however, were unfounded, and she felt “really proud of the finished product.”

In the end, the cast’s investment in their roles helped Nola shape the performance into exactly what she wanted. “I could tell that the actors had really internalized the characters I had created,” she said, “and that inspired me when I was directing.”

— Alexis von Kunes Newton ’08

Photos by David R. Gammons

ARTS Give the Lie

which piqued her curiosity about “how different people see God and think of God,” she settled on the story of two brothers who struggle with faith, family, and friendship.

Nola wrote Give the Lie over the month of August, but revisions extended far longer.

The play went through several drafts, the first edited by her mother, the second by theatre teacher and faculty advisor Megan Gleeson, and the others by Nola.

The departmental study required not only that Nola write the play, but that she cast, direct, and produce it as well. In early October, Nola cast Daniel Lander ’09, Chessy Normile ’09, Will Notini ’09, Thomas Rafferty ’10, and Natalia Winkelman ’11, but only later realized what good chemistry the group had.

That helped during rehearsals, when she would realize, upon hearing her dialogue acted out, that certain parts did not seem realistic. Nola believes this affected her actors, as she would frequently make changes to intonations or dia-

The cast of Give the Lie

Was there a big break that put your career on track?

I had the good fortune of being part of an exemplary class from an already prestigious graduate program. In fact, we were ranked as one of the finest graduate painting classes in the country.

My acceptance to the Yale School of Art was probably my single biggest break. I’ve watched the admissions process and though talent is a factor, in art most things are subjective and there are many worthy applicants who don’t make it, for whatever reasons. I applied twice before I was accepted.

Do you intend your art as social commentary?

At some point I believe that all art has some social commentary tethered to it. You are making an

object that is going to be put into public viewing. And once something goes public, especially labeled “this is art,” people make assumptions and judgments and then find a way to relate to that object. When a piece of art is made, it usually carries some intended social associations, and often one finds new associations once it is let loose into the world.

[My work] usually centers on young men, or more specifically, young, white suburban men, engaging in the world around them. And I find that I am most interested in those stories that are retold when groups of friends get together. All the stories that I work with are either biographic or autobiographic. But many of these stories do more than make us laugh; they are the times that we messed up because we were

Can you explain this in context of a specific work?

In “We Are This and That Is Other,“ a group of young men wrestles a bull. The image is from a summer vacation with my family to a small town in the south of France, St. Hilaire. Once each summer, they staged their version of the running of the bulls. They would line the street with BFI trash bins and flatbeds, and the whole town would seek refuge. A group of five or six of us would hide between the bins until the young bulls passed and we could run into the fray. The first bull that someone grabbed was the one the rest of us threw ourselves into the task of pulling until it came to a stop. The small town would cheer and we would let it go, and whoever was holding the tail would then ski down the dung-smeared cobblestones until he lost balance or dove to safety. It was exhilarating.

In the painting, I wanted the action to be the entire composition.

Though the crowd plays a part, it’s those first moments of uncertainty of where to position your hands and who goes where. In that moment it is possible to see children becoming men, you can see society being created, you see man as part of nature as well as in dominion over nature. There is something beautiful and compelling about young men being able to pull this brutal power to a halt for no more of a reason than celebration and gamesmanship.

“The Quiet Americans”

What could I learn about you that would help me understand your art?

My earliest memory in life is being on Bourbon Street drawing with chalk near Big Daddy’s Strip Club, when I was barely able to walk.

The club has a pair of plastic legs with a pink garter, and black high heels that swing in and out of two holes over the door. I wondered how the woman, whom I believed to be real, got up there, and what it must be like in the mysterious cavernous room, with a woman swinging thirty feet above the crowd, and how thrilling it must be to swing that high.

Please discuss some of your major influences.

I have had passionate art teachers since Mr. Negrin in the fifth grade in the Carlisle public schools. Then I was fortunate enough to attend Concord Academy; for inspiration, I had Jonathan [Smith], Jessica [Straus], and Chris [Rowe] in the arts, but also Gary Hawley, Sandy Stott, and Stephen Teichgraeber.

English, reading, and movies have always been major influences on how I learn to work with stories.

My streak of good luck with teachers continued through Trinity and the College of Art and Design and into Yale’s graduate art school.

My family has been a major influence on me. They have always welcomed nearly complete strangers so warmly into our house that I have a tangled web of extended family of no blood relation at all that spans from an amazing artist from Gulfport, Mississippi, named Tazewell Morton, who designed one of the flags on the moon, to a mining crew from Scotland, who wrote a collective recommendation for CA, to my father’s football cohort in Arizona, who surgically changed his name to Stephanie.

To a kid she was just a tall blond with big hands. My mother’s love for an odd person’s story, or maybe for each person’s unique story, was a wonderful treat for a child to wake up to each morning. These strangers would show up seemingly from nowhere and stay a couple of days or a couple of months, leaving behind their influences.

“We Are This and That Is Other”

How much time does it take to conceptualize a piece, versus to actually draw it?

There are times I have a painting that I think about every day for months before the idea finally sees light. Then the most thoroughly realized is manifested. I stretch raw canvas to the wall, prime it, and begin to work. The actual artmaking takes about a month, depending on the size and amount of detail involved. On average, they stand eight to ten feet tall and range from seven to fifteen feet wide. I completed a painting recently that appeared in a show at the Dallas Contemporary Center and at a Minneapolis gallery that is twelve feet by fifty feet. It took a month just to prime and prepare the surface. I have been more willing to work smaller since its completion.

Your works are dark and dramatic. Do you sometimes intend to shock (case in point: “Witnesses Awaiting Judgment in a Great Vomit of Blood”)?

Yes and no. I never want to shock viewers so that they end up not being able to enter the work. Part of the reason that I work on the scale that I do is so that the image

encompasses the viewer. One can then get lost in the line or the surface, parts of the painting, and as it floats together the narrative becomes a whole. The stories I am drawn to are usually physical in nature. Specifically “Witnesses”— the title is taken from a Cormac McCarthy novel. And the image is a scene from a personal experience at Mardi Gras, where, amidst a drunken, half-dressed crowd bartering flesh for beads and enjoying every moment, I had my first experience watching someone get shot and killed. Although the contrast between ecstasy and death seems like it should be strong, in my mind I can’t separate the violent act from the sea of people around it. It almost fits and makes sense. I mean this without moral judgment of any kind. Visually and even reasonably the whole scene fits. This physicality always surrounds us, but I think we often shock ourselves in these instances when we really become aware of it. Just as the painting shocks after you have already, I hope, found some beauty in it. I believe that beauty exists in the moments that would normally be peripheral or abject, and I am trying to show that.

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still unfamiliar, we were still figuring things out.

A

Marion Odence-Ford ’82 and Maureen Mulligan ’80

ALUMNAE I ASSOCIATION UPDATE

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

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s I sit to write this final note as president of Concord Academy’s Alumnae/i Association, I am reminded of the goals we set when I took office two years ago: to get more alumnae/i connected to the school and to achieve greater diversity on the Alumnae/i Council. The hard work of the many alumnae/i volunteers and CA’s Advancement Office has helped us to achieve these goals.

Beginning last summer, we held a number of gatherings, from Nantucket, where alumnae/i gathered at the home of Ann and Graham Gund p’08, to London, where Stephanie McCormickGoodhardt ’80, p’08, ’12 opened her home to guests, who met with Head of School Jake Dresden. Other alumnae/i heard alumnus and trustee David Michaelis ’75 speak about his acclaimed biography of Peanuts creator Charles Shulz at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

Still others traveled to Carmel Valley, California, to tour the Cima Collina vineyard and taste wines with host and former trustee Dick Lumpkin.

In Seattle, Cyndie Phelps ’64 hosted a luncheon for alumnae/i and Jake, who also attended a CA dinner in downtown Portland. In Pasadena, California, alumnae/i toured the Pacific Asia Museum and shared their knowledge of the West Coast with twenty-eight Concord Academy juniors, who were on CA’s college trip over spring vacation.

More than seventy-five recent CA alumnae/i gathered at Jillian’s in Boston, just before the New Year, for the annual Concord Academy Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC) event.

In Brunswick, Maine, and Providence, Rhode Island, Concord Academy held gatherings for alumnae/i attending college. More recently, CA graduates gathered at the University of Maryland Observatory in College Park to hear trustee and noted planetary scientist Lucy McFadden ’70 speak of her recent trip to Antarctica, where she hunted for meteorites. Looking forward, Unsoo Kim ’84 has agreed to organize a gathering of alumnae/i in Seoul and, on September 22, Concord Academy alumnae/i will cheer on the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Regarding the Council’s diversity goals, you may know that Concord Academy has launched a new initiative to promote community and equity throughout every facet of the school.

Students and faculty have attended Community and Equity meetings and assemblies, which encouraged exploration of identity and values, media and gender roles, and personal stories. I was fortunate to serve on the Board of Trustees’ Community and Equity subcommittee, which

confronted issues of socioeconomic, religious, gender, ethnic, sexual orientation, and various other differences and inequities in our community. The Community and Equity team took an important step into the broader CA community by engaging alumnae/i at the spring Alumnae/i Council meeting. Moving forward, the Council will continue to incorporate the mission and goals of the Community and Equity initiative.

As I near the end of my term as president of the Alumnae/i Association, I am pleased to report that we have had the strongest year ever of Annual Giving. Maureen Mulligan ’80, who has spearheaded Alumnae/i Giving and has been instrumental in many Alumnae/i Council projects for the past two years, will take over as president of the Alumnae/i Association. Katrina Pugh ’83 will succeed Maureen as vice president and chair of Alumnae/i Giving. Dan Towvim ’91, as vice president and chair of Outreach, has actively sought better ways to connect our alumnae/i with our school; he will remain in the position for another year. Vicky Huber ’75, p’07, ’09 will become vice president and chair of Nominating, replacing Madeleine Blanz-Mayo ’86, who has worked hard to recruit Council members and has directed her energy toward numerous projects.

I encourage each of you to come back to Concord Academy for a visit, to attend an Alumnae/i Council meeting and, when the feeling is right, to join our Council and see what a difference you can make to our school. In closing, I would like to thank Maureen, Dan, and Madeleine for their leadership, friendship, direction, and guidance. I’d also like to thank Billie Julier Wyeth ’76, Director of Alumnae/i Programs, for her continued support, love of the school, and for keeping us all on track.

Although I am leaving my work with the Alumnae/i Association, I look forward to my continued involvement with our school and to seeing you back at Concord Academy or at the next alumnae/i event.

Marion Odence-Ford ’82 President, Alumnae/i Association

Network with other CA graduates on the Chameleon Connection—

www.concordalum.org.

IN MEMORIAM

Louise S. Bandler, mother of Deborah Bandler Bellman ’69 Pete F. Boardman, brother of Elizabeth B. Boardman ’59 Dorothea Cherrington Bingham ’55 John Clark, husband of Sharon Lloyd Clark, father of Courtney E. Clark ’99 and Geoffrey Clark ’06 Deborah Robertson Clinch ’53 Mary F. Crowe, mother of Mary Crowe Crisman ’76, Lisa Crowe Uthgenannt ’78, Marc R. Crowe ’80, and Kristen Crowe Stevens ’82 Edward Henry Cumpston IV, husband of Catherine Maguire Cumpston ’42 Jean L. Davidson, mother of Cynthia D. Gorey ’82 Alan Ashley Day, son of Ann Bemis Day ’48 Elizabeth Evarts de Rham, mother of Jerry de Rham ’75 and mother-in-law of Amy Wang de Rham ’75 Olcott H. Deming, father of Rosamond Deming ’65 Marshall J. Derby, father of Rebecca A. Derby ’84 and Sarah B. Derby ’87, and uncle of Laura Drachman Troncoso ’79, Jessica Drachman Blaustein ’81, and Abigail E. Cohen ’01 Mary St. John Douglas, mother of Katherine Douglas Torrey ’65 William D. Eberle, grandfather of Benjamin Q. Eberle ’99, Daniel T. Eberle ’99, and Katherine W. Eberle ’04 Janet Harrington, grandmother of Tully B. Foote ’02 and Tudor F. Foote ’05 Leo Hebert, grandfather of Katherine McNally ’08 Morton Hooper, husband of Elizabeth Eames Hooper ’46 Peter W. Jackson, father of Elizabeth D. Jackson ’93 Geraldine Swope Johnson, stepgrandmother of Alexandra A. Brokalakis ’00 Frank W. Jones, Jr., father of Jeanne R. Jones ’71, Robin M. Jones ’73, and Kristin A. Jones ’75, and grandfather of Michaela J. Slavid ’07 Elsie F. Kent, mother of Alexandra L. Kent ’74 Elizabeth S. Lowell, grandmother of Isabel S. Lowell ’98 and Alexander Lowell ’01 Howard M. Metzenbaum, grandfather of Leora M. Kelman ’05 Molly Koch Nudell ’64 Alice Loring Pickman ’36, mother of Daisy Pickman Welch ’63 Elizabeth Ann Pickman, mother of Susan Pickman Sargent ’64, Stephanie Pickman Monahan ’70, and Elizabeth Pickman-Flanagan ’73 CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Elizabeth Miller Poutasse ’38, sister of the late Katrina Miller Tadema-Wielandt ’34 Faith Trumbull Reed ’47, sister of the late Mary Trumbull Locke ’35 and Joan Trumbull Wright ’40 Ruth C. Rosenfeld, mother of Jan E. Rosenfeld ’73 and Amy B. Rosenfeld ’84 Leila Sears ’37, sister of Elisabeth Sears ’39, aunt of Leslie Sears Stahl ’59, and cousin of Nancy Ela Caisse ’58 Mary Elizabeth Shugrue, daughter of Page Hurley Shugrue ’65 and granddaughter of the late Donald J. Hurley, former trustee Eleanor Park Skinner ’33, mother of Sandra Skinner Fabian ’64 Charles Stevenson, Sr., father of Frances Kellogg Stevenson ’63 William O. Travers, father of Kathryn Travers Bittner ’65

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Courtesy of Megan Harlow ’04

Investing in Values Pauline Lord ’68 Believes in CA’s Power to Teach for Good

“I feel good giving to CA because the school embodies so many of the things I believe in.” pursue their individuality and flourish. I found so much acceptance and emotional safety at the school, and I loved the fact that the arts continue to thrive at CA. It was inspirational.”

Megan’s enrollment gave Lord a chance to reengage yet again. “It was the best!” she said of her daughter’s experience. “How wonderful to see Megan in that milieu after having rediscovered it myself as a trustee.” Megan, currently a student at Amherst College, speaks of being exposed to a wide variety of learning experiences at CA, including three years with the Dance Company.

A high point, she said, was her senior chapel, which she delivered on her birthday. “One thing you don’t realize until you leave CA is the amazing group of individuals who are there,” she said.

“I’m not sure I’ll find that many interesting people in one place ever again.”

One of the ways Lord has chosen to express her appreciation for her and Megan’s time at Concord Academy is to include the school in her will. “I realized that a gift to CA would address many of my values all at once,” said Lord. “CA is teaching students to care for community, education, citizenship, and the environment. And it’s also doing great things to address students’ health and welfare, which is so important at that age. I feel good giving to CA because the school embodies so many of the things I believe in.”

For information on how you can make a difference, contact Meg Wilson, Director of Advancement, at meg_wilson@concordacademy.org or (978) 402-2240.

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I

n 2001, Pauline Lord ’68 became a farmer.

After a successful career as a psychotherapist in California’s Bay Area and a later incarnation as a community activist, Lord was ready for more hands-on work. A devoted environmentalist, who had spent years advocating for greener foothills near her home, Lord realized she had a rare opportunity to take her passion for the land to a new level. Her husband, David Harlow, had recently retired from his longtime position with the U.S. Geological Survey; their daughter, Megan Harlow ’04, was about to enroll as a sophomore boarder at Concord Academy—and Lord’s mother owned a 100-acre organic farm in East Lyme, Connecticut.

“David was enthusiastic about the move, so I decided this was my chance to go cultivate my own garden,” said Lord.

Aside from growing potatoes in their tiny garden in Menlo Park, Lord and Harlow knew nothing about growing food, but they were able to get a good start at White Gate Farm. “We had great help, but we also ended up learning a lot from our mistakes!” said Lord. Seven years later, she speaks with joy of filling greenhouses with lettuces in winter and ordering seeds for spring planting. “It’s so much fun,” she said of her current life close to the land.

Lord recalls her years at CA as filled with intellectual growth—and a few growing pains.

“Phil McFarland taught me to write, and Janet Eisendrath was a constant inspiration,” she said. “I boarded from my freshman year on and made great friendships in the CA community, but sometimes we got a little restless and unruly.”

Returning to CA in 1994 for a six-year tenure on the Board of Trustees, Lord found Concord Academy to be “a fantastic place for students to

Pauline Lord ’68 and her daughter Megan Harlow ’04 during a March 2008 trip to Mexico

Non-Profit U.S. Postage PAID Hanover, NH Permit No. 8 Concord Academy 166 Main Street Concord, MA 01742

Jaye R. Phillips

Address service requested

Upcoming Special Events May 30

Commencement Speaker: Dean of Faculty Sandy Stott Chapel Lawn, 10:00 a.m.

June 13–15

Reunion Weekend Register at www.concordalum.org.

June 13

Art and Author Exhibit and Opening Reception Ransome Room, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

June 14

Reunion Weekend Memorial Service Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 9:30 a.m.

June 15

Reunion Weekend Pancake Breakfast Sponsored by the Concord Academy Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC) Stu-Fac, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Dancing-On-View: The ICA Variations, July 26–27

August 24

Workshop begins July 6.

Southern Maine Reception Hosted by Sarah Russell ’87 Cumberland, Maine

July 10

July 8, 22, and 29

Tere O’Connor Dance: Rammed Earth Performing Arts Center, 8:00 p.m. $25, $10 for students

Show Down Cabaret dinners with David Parker & The Bang Group Rialto, 1 Bennett St., Cambridge, MA $150

Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy

First day of classes July 17

Alumnae/i at Fenway Park Red Sox vs. Indians

Eiko & Koma and Margaret Leng Tan: Mourning Performing Arts Center, 8:00 p.m. $25, $10 for students

October 10 –11

July 26

Parents’ Weekend 86 October 18

Choreographers’ Project Showcase Performing Arts Center, 8:00 p.m. $25, $10 for students

Alumnae/i Council Meeting Ransome Room, 9:30 a.m. to noon

Visit

September 22

July 26 –27

Dancing-On-View: The ICA Variations An installation by Sara Rudner, Summer Stages Dance artist-in-residence Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, noon to 4:00 p.m. Free with museum admission.

www.summerstagesdance.org for more information.

Dan Sanford

September 2