CA Magazine Spring 2013

spring 2013

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGA ZINE

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Focus: Health Care

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CA at Night

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Peter Fisher ’74

Editor Anne-Marie Dorning Associate Director of Communications

Editorial Board Karen Culbert p’15 Director of Stewardship

Design Irene Chu ’76

John Drew Academic Dean

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

Pam Safford Associate Head for Communications, Enrollment, and Planning

Office of Advancement (978) 402-2240

Hilary Wirtz Advancement Office

© 2013 Concord Academy

Class Notes Editor Karen Kerns Assistant Director of Alumnae/i Programs

Billie Julier Wyeth ’76 Director of Alumnae/i Programs

Cover photo by Tom Kates; inside front cover photo by Gabriel Cooney

Concord Academy magazine is printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink.

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Class Notes page

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From the Archives

D E P A R T M E N T S

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Message from the Head of School

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Athletics

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Campus News

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Alumnae/i Profiles

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Arts

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Alumnae/i Association Update

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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 ďŹ nancial policies, or other school-administered programs. The school’s facilities are wheelchair-accessible.

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CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

few weeks ago I had lunch with an alumna from the Class of 1940. We talked about a great many things—her love of opera and music, her early childhood in Lincoln, and her wonderful experience at Concord Academy—but what struck me most was her keen interest in hearing about CA today. She smiled broadly when I told her about the recent Music Café and the musical version of Much Ado About Nothing; she told me that she loved hearing about what students were doing, what they were like these days, and then shared with great pride that she had saved every single publication ever sent to her by CA since her graduation from the school. Such is the depth of her engagement with CA. Days later I was listening to a senior give her chapel; this quiet young woman spoke poignantly about the road trips she used to take with her father, about the two communities that meant the most to her—the one connected to the horse farm that her parents restored and ran, and the CA community that had come to feel like a second home—and the values she had learned from them all: an affinity for music, an appreciation for hard work, and a love of adventure. She displayed, in this beautifully rendered homage to her parents and the “homes” that shaped her, a depth of engagement that typifies CA students—no matter their age, no matter the era that shaped them. Adolescence is in one sense a deeply protective state of being; teenagers, who wear their nerve endings outside their skin, can either turn inward or develop intricate masking behavior in order to navigate these straits—and who can blame them? At CA, I have come to see something different: young people who display the willingness and wherewithal to take risks, to make themselves vulnerable, to express their enthusiasms—to be who they are no matter the circumstances.

This is not to say that they aren’t aware of their surroundings and the people with whom they share this school; on the contrary, they seem remarkably prescient and impressively capable of taking in the moment and behaving with restraint and compassion under even trying circumstances. (I can recall an assembly that ran long this year, one that featured an outside speaker who lost track of time a bit; but as the assembly spilled into “free time” our students politely hung in there, showing none of the restive impatience that would have accompanied the situation at most schools.) But even more than this, CA students understand that they can express their passions and not be looked at askance for doing so.

The range of their passions is as rich and varied as their personalities. For one, spoken word poetry is the

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Gabriel Cooney

from the head of s c hool

animating force; for another, computer programming is the thing; for another, mastering the jazz guitar; for this one, measuring the effects of a passive solar model on the Quad; for the next, a careful analysis of the causes of the civil war in Serbia. I think of one student standing to articulate a subtle point about the broader meaning of feminism during this year’s Davidson Lecture, and a week later belting out a Robert Palmer song in front of an adoring audience. I think of another modestly understating his role in mentoring the younger members of his team, saying, “This is what was done for me when I was new.” I think of another young woman, in her chapel and her art, expressing her appreciation and love for her family and her excitement at the doors now open to her through her time at CA. This engagement is not tied to results, to grades or awards; it is fired by passion and commitment and trust in this community. I think of one other student who captured for me the essence of this engagement in her recent chapel: “Everything was white. The sky, the field, the ball, my frozen hands and the breaths that puffed in front of me. The snow blew into my eyes and stuck to my jersey and dissolved on my skin. The parallel whites of the sky and the ground and the whistling wind cast a strange silence over the field, and I felt alone. On the soccer field in that blizzard this fall, I remembered. I remembered that it was my last game, and that I had nothing to lose. I remembered to appreciate that I could run again, even with my brace. There was no time to overanalyze, to think about what the consequences of my actions might be. I looked over at the scoreboard and we were behind, but there were twelve minutes left, and there was nothing easier than just going for it. On the white carpet field the ball rolled towards me, the snow blew in my face and my toes were numb, and I was happy.

Our students get the chance to “go for it” every single day at CA; they get the chance to try out ideas and to own them in ways that don’t feel like schoolwork so much as “what we do.” That engagement with work we love alongside people we trust is as vital today as it was over seventy years ago. It is part of what makes Concord Academy such a remarkable school.

Rick Hardy Head of School Dresden Endowed Chair

Dorothy Q. Thomas

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his year’s Davidson Lecturer took the stage sporting blue jeans, a blackstudded military-style jacket, black boots, and dangling earrings. Dorothy Q. Thomas, sister of English teacher Cammy Thomas, noted that she was lucky to have gained access to the “rock ‘n’ roll opera” that is CA. In 1998, Thomas was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and, in the same year, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights for her work in the field of women’s rights. She is also the founding director of the Women’s Division of the Human Rights Watch organization. Thomas, an ardent supporter of awareness towards the struggles surrounding gender equality, has been repeatedly lauded for her work on women’s rights. Although Thomas stood before the CA community as this year Davidson Lecturer, it was clear from the

beginning that lecturing was the last thing on her mind.

For starters, Thomas jumped out of her chair and darted for the podium. After thanking her sister for the introduction, she quickly glided closer to the audience, firing off questions. “Let me start off by asking you all a question: What is the topic of today’s assembly?” A silence of uncertainty and tension permeated the P.A.C. before a few answers popped out of the audience. “Women,” said one student. “Activism,” said another. “Human rights,” offered a third.

“For how many of you is the topic of gender equality a significant part of your life?”

Thomas inquired. Roughly 70 percent of the audience’s hands shot up. Thomas asked Sam Boswell ’13 how it played a role in his life. “I’m confused,” he said. Sam wondered if, by simply being a male, he is implicated in the issue of female oppression. Sam went on to declare

Photos by Bryan Gallagher ’14

by Isaac Levine ’14

that while we all make mistakes, perhaps mostly unaware of them, we ought to try to be aware and learn how to express this awareness for others. “But why should we even care about women’s rights? Why should anyone who is not female act on this complex issue?” asked Thomas.

The week before, the school had celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with videos, workshops, and discussions.

The words and language of those discussions seemed to linger in the P.A.C. and could be heard in the answers to Thomas’ question. Kathleen Melendy ’14 stated that talent is lost when men are preferred over women for career opportunities, and that we must try to equalize opportunity. Other responses suggested that the discussion of women is no more a discussion of human rights than those about immigration, sexuality, or race. Dr. King’s words

seemed to linger in the air: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Thomas did not state her own opinions; rather she was the catalyst of a discussion, drawing out answers from students that they did not know they had. Eventually the discussion flowed into imagining an idealistic world and students began describing a world in which there is “equal opportunity,” based on our ability rather than arbitrary, unchangeable characteristics such as race or gender or nationality. Ada Obieshi ’14 shot her hand up. “The solution is not really in eliminating our obstacles, but being more attuned to them in relation to our community,” said Ada. “Only then can we really move beyond them.” True to her word, Thomas didn’t lecture but sparked a discussion about human rights and gender equality that lingered long after she left.

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C AMPUS NEWS

DAVIDSON LECTURER:

artin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” On January 22, 2013, the CA community spent the day speaking out about things that matter as a way of honoring Dr. King’s legacy.

The day began with a screening of a TED talk given

by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, author of “The Danger of A Single Story.”

Adichie says that if we hear just a single story about a people or country the result can be painful, and even dangerous, misunderstandings. The

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pendent or public exam schools. Osborne is the current associate head of school at Beacon Academy.

But it was his time as an English teacher, as one of the first teachers in the Teach for America program, that Osborne focused on in his speech. He lived and worked in Los Angeles during the early 1990s — a time of violence and racial turmoil in that city. He talked about a student, John Smith, a musically minded young man unfortunately caught up in gangs, and about Victor, a promising middle school student fatally shot on his way to pick up his younger brother.

“It’s important for me to tell Victor’s story to others,” Osborne said. Although he has moved away from Los Angeles, Osborne said he will

always carry the experience of being an inner-city teacher in his heart. Then Osborne read from one of Martin Luther King’s letters. The letter, written from a Birmingham, Alabama, jail in 1963, reads in part “Let us all hope that the dark cloud of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our feardrenched community.”

Osborne continued, “And if that’s a prayer, I send it to those communities. I wonder if that fog still exists that existed during those riots.”

Osborne then addressed the CA students and urged them all to “have the courage to write your own script and tell your own story. Plant your stake in the ground.”

Photos by Bryan Gallagher ’14

video — which has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube — seemed to resonate with the CA audience, as students, faculty, and staff formed into nineteen groups to take advantage of an opportunity to discuss the film.

In the CA Stories Response Group, students shared their

own stories; others gathered to reflect on the election in 2012 Election — Politics and the Single Story.

A series of workshops — twenty in all — followed the discussion groups: the Culture Circle; Exploring Affirmative Action in College Admissions; Hipster Racism; and Environmental Justice were just some of the options available to students, who spent an hour engaged in passionate and candid discussion.

The breadth of discussion choices was a testament to the hard work of CA’s Community and Equity team, including Assistant Dean for Community and Equity Ayres Stiles-Hall, and team members Jennifer Cardillo, Kirsten Hoyte, Paige Gould, and Courtney Fields.

The afternoon’s activities featured a talk by CA Board of Trustee member Mervan Osborne.

Osborne spent twelve years working as an English teacher at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols before he moved on to become a founding member of Beacon Academy — a school that provides a fourteen-month preparatory program for “bright but undereducated urban students” who aspire to attend inde-

Photos by Bryan Gallagher ’14

CAMPUS NEWS

MLK Day

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

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aculty triumphed once again in the annual student-faculty Quiz comeback in 2014.

Bowl. Students have vowed a

Bryan Gallagher ’14

n a cold Thursday night in February as darkness settled over the CA campus, math teacher George Larivee walked down Main Street and up the steps into Wheeler House.

In the common room sat five students gathered around a nondescript wooden table. Even though it was late and classes had been over for hours, Larivee was there to teach, and the students were anxious to learn.

“Basically,” said Larivee, “it’s a group of five, super sharp students who completed the calculus sequence by the end of sophomore or junior year and wanted to explore math more closely for the sheer enjoyment of it. For a teacher it doesn’t get much better than this.”

The students — Will Murphy ’13, Thai Scholar George Supaniratisai ’13, Junho Won ’14, Woody Ahern ’13 and Will Noble ’13 — cracked jokes before they settled in to crack open their textbooks for two hours.

The course is called Mathematical Statistics and the text-

book clocks in at 900 pages.

Nonetheless, Larivee hopes to finish it this year. “We move at a hefty pace,” he said. On this night, Larivee kicked off the lesson with a problem: “Let’s take a look at the first example.

A survey of 500 factory works showed that 225 of them belong to a union . . . find a 95 percent conference interval for the true proportion of all factory workers in Tennessee who belong to a union.”

One student asked, “Are we going to need a t-score?”

“No,” replied Larivee. “This one is a proportion; you can do the whole thing using the standard normal distribution. We’re going to use a z-score.” And on it went as talk of “p-hat” and “rho” filled the air.

Larivee has been a teacher at Concord Academy for fifteen years. In addition to teaching, he is well known for his charitable endeavors, which include constructing libraries in Nicaragua. To this group, though, he is best known for spending his off-hours deconstructing statistics.

While each student had different reasons for signing on to the departmental study, they are united in their enthusiasm for mathematics. “No matter how many times you flip a coin, even if you flip 100 times and come up with heads, you still have a 50 percent chance of coming up tails the next time,” said senior Will Murphy. “This can really inform your understanding of world events.”

Junho, who was recently accepted to the prestigious MIT program PRIMES and is a junior, put it more simply. “I just joined because I thought it would be interesting.”

As the evening wore on, Larivee dug deeper into the material. "If you go out two standard deviations from the mean . . . what sort of p-hats will you get? What is the standard deviation of the p-hats?" said Larivee.

Will jumped in: “This is slightly biased.”

“Yes, it is,” Larivee replied.

“You’re getting it.”

The students bantered back

and forth as they continued to suggest possible equations and ways to solve the problem.

“When it comes to 9:30 p.m. and it’s time to go, they just want to stay around,” said Larivee.

This night was no different. As the minutes ticked on, no one made a move.

(Ed Note: Below, you can view the problem that the Mathematical Statistics group was working on in February. We invite you to try to solve it on your own. Send your answers to: magazine@concordacademy.org.

We will send out a small CAinspired gift to the first correct entry we receive.

Problem: Suppose a survey of

500 factory workers randomly selected from all over Tennessee shows that 225 of them belong to unions. Find the 95 percent confidence interval for the true proportion of all factory workers in Tennessee who belong to a union.

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CAMPUS NEWS

An Evening with Sedaris Anne Fishbein

by Charlotte Weiner ’13

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CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

n Thursday, January 17, acclaimed humorist David Sedaris visited Concord Academy to perform “Works in Progress: An Intimate Evening with David Sedaris.” After a book signing in the Student-Faculty Center, Sedaris walked on stage in the Performing Arts Center to a sold-out crowd comprising primarily of CA alumnae/i, parents, students, and members of the faculty, staff and the Board of Trustees.

Over the course of the next ninety minutes, Sedaris read from his soon-to-be-published book “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.” He began with a humorous tale centered on politics and an imagined exchange between a mother and son; he moved on to talk about the theft of his passport and computer; and then he discussed the process of writing Sedaris’ diaries.

In an interview before his reading, Sedaris said that while his stories are largely based on his own life and while his writing for the New Yorker is extensively fact-checked, he does not feel compelled to produce nonfiction work. “It used to be that the whole tradition of comedy writing was that you exaggerate in order to get laughs,” Sedaris said. “And now someone has decided, ‘No. You either have to be a journalist, or you have to call it fiction.’” Sedaris continued, “I’m not a journalist, I’ve never called myself a journalist, I don’t want to be a journalist.”

While each of the three stories centered on humorous accounts of Sedaris’ own experiences, his writing delved deeper than solely comedy to reflect upon his own character and ideas. Sedaris described a scene after his passport had been stolen while on vacation. He set out to search for it on the beach

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and down the street from his hotel, digging through trash cans and in bushes. “And just as I started searching through bushes, I realized how big the world is. You’d think I might have noticed this before, perhaps on the twenty-three hour flight from London to Hawaii.

But the size of a planet doesn’t really strike you until you start looking for something.”

During one section, Sedaris described sitting in his hotel room and writing in his diary instead of going out and exploring the city around him. “It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life I don’t have time to really live it,” Sedaris said.

“I’ve become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and instead of

looking at the magnificent Bruegel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It’s not, ‘Look what Bruegel did, he painted this masterpiece,’ but, ‘Look what I did! Went to Rotterdam, and stood in front of a Bruegel painting.’”

Science Teacher Max Hall said of Sedaris’ performance, “There are all these paradoxical, contradictory dimensions to the way he operates. And every time he tells a story, he seems to rediscover what was absurd about it.” Associate Head for Communications, Enrollment, and Planning Pam Safford added, “I just love his ability to get right at angst. His writing is excellent, and his voice is fantastic.” While he may not have known it, CA was a fitting venue

for Sedaris, according to Safford.

“He is illustrating, in his very profession, the things that I think we tend to cultivate in our own students,” Safford said.

“We attract students who tend to like to write and who enjoy that process, or come to enjoy it, for sure. Whether it is the Creative Nonfiction class, or whether it’s the chapel moments, or lots of other ways that our students are being asked to tell our story, I think it is a beautiful confluence.”

Library Director Martha Kennedy said that she believes Sedaris is popular among a significant portion of the student body, adding that the disappearance of several copies of his books is a sign of his popularity.

“Obviously he has been popular.

We always say that is the highest compliment, if a book disappears. It means somebody needed it more than we did,” Kennedy said.

In addition to reaching the student body through his books, Sedaris considered my question about advice that he wishes someone had given him as a high school student. “Oh gosh,” Sedaris looked at me, and then up to the couple waiting in line for their book to be signed.

“What piece of advice do I wish someone had given me? I would say to high school students that even if you think that you are unattractive, you’re still young, okay? And that is worth so much.” He smiled to himself. “I think back about being young, and beating yourself up because you are comparing yourself to the most popular person in school. You spend your bestlooking years putting yourself down, and then you get older and you look at a picture, and it’s like, ‘I’d give anything to look like that again!’” He chuckled to himself and uncapped his pen, reaching across the table to sign the next book.

by Isaac Levine ’14

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hen she was just eight years old, Concord Academy Englishteacher-to-be Cammy Thomas was lying in her bed with her mother, both recovering from measles. In the 1950s, their only means of recovery against the infection was to rest in bed until it passed. So, in the dim light of windows with shades pulled down, Thomas’ mother read to her from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a cautionary tale about ghost ships, sailors, and the sea.

Thomas listened to the mysterious rhythms of Coleridge’s poem, the words stirring her until recovery. “Poetry was something powerful that could enter your bones and shake things up!” she exclaims.

And thus Thomas’ love for poetry was born. Family stories about the explorations of her grandmother (who lived through the Boxer Rebellion in China, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and the 1917 Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg, and who traveled on horseback across Mongolia in animal skins and a Harvard sweater), and the silent, hidden readings of Virginia Woolf ’s To the Lighthouse in the boot closet of her old-fashioned girls’ boarding school, only made her love for narrative and stories more impassioned.

Thomas began channeling this affection for literature into her own stories. Influenced by the poetry and books of her parents and teachers, she began writing her own poetry in her adolescent years. “I’ve

done so, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes the background, ever since,” she said. Thomas’ first book of poetry, Cathedral of Wish, was published by Four Way Books in 2005, and won the First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and she has a new collection titled Our Dark Game due in late 2014. “It’s fueled by the desire to set things down, not to let them fade and be forgotten, and to make them beautiful,” she said.

Her efforts to make her past and thoughts beautiful are matched by her ongoing search for beauty in literature. In Shakespeare, Woolf, and Tennyson, the subject of her doctoral dissertation, she investigates the crevices of the written word. It is this intellectual vitality and artistic drive that brought her to CA, which, she said, “fosters an environment in which stu-

FAC ULTY PR OFILE

Beyond the Black and White

dents and faculty can explore what’s great in every discipline.”

After time at Boston University, Barnard College, Stanford summer school, and UC Berkeley, Thomas pursued teaching. In addition to writing poetry, she has taught Literature of the Infernal, Freshman English, and CA’s poetry course, among others, in which she can investigate the study and inexhaustible enjoyment of poetry and literature with students. “My favorite moments happen when I can see students catching fire,” she said. “Those are the moments that inspire me to bring my best skill to the room.”

Thomas is taking this skill forward, planning a new English course in post-war Korean, Chinese, and Japanese novels, with her colleague, Abby Laber. “Great literature opens worlds to me, worlds not just of place and time and character, but of sound, of music, of aesthetic pleasure,” she said.

Whether these new spheres of thought and aesthetics are the waves of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with her mother, the words of memory in her own poetry, or the circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno with her students, Thomas’ mission is to explore them on a deeper and more sophisticated level, bringing her students along for the ride.

When discussing Woolf, she said, “On some now forgotten day, I fell deep into Woolf ’s novel, past its mere black and white pages, to a place I did not think could be described in words.”

And that’s exactly what Thomas tries to convey to her students, the bone-rattling excitement of poetry and literature and the magic that can happen “beyond the black and white.”

Newsmakers

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1 Jonathan Smith 2 Cynthia Katz 3 David Rost 4 Kim Frederick 5 Stephanie Manzella 6 Rebecca Wrigley

Dean of Students DAVID ROST co-presented a workshop at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) National Conference. School

Traditions: Adapt, Survive, and Thrive explored how schools maintained strong school cultures while adapting long-held traditions to current community standards.

History teachers KIM FREDERICK and STEPHANIE MANZELLA each received a $5,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation for Innovations in Teaching Civics. This is the second year in a row for the honor.

REBECCA WRIGLEY, CA’s assistant controller, became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) last spring.

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An art exhibit celebrating the work of visual arts teachers JONATHAN SMITH and CYNTHIA KATZ opened at the Acton Coffee House this spring. The event was a bit of a “family” reunion because the gallery/coffee house is owned by former house parents Bill and Hanka Ray. Katz displayed color photographs from her ongoing series titled Occupied. Smith’s work included layered compositions from his recent Look of our Land.

Supawan Pui Lamsam ‘73 and Tanika Pook Panyaranchun ‘05 Zangdok Palri: The Lotus Light Palace of Guru Rinpoche.

Gatshel Publishing, 2012 As Buddism spread from Tibet to Bhutan, remote temples such as those found at Zangdok Palri appear as if carved out of the majestic mountainsides. The full grandeur of this palace is exquisitely revealed in stunning photographs from the mother-daughter team of Lamsam and Panyarachun. With the blessing of Kesang Choeden Wangchuck, Her Majesty The Royal Grand Mother of Bhutan, this first of a trio of volumes in the Zangdok Palri Series on Guru Rinpoche provides modern day readers with a sense of the history and grandness of the breathtaking landscapes that surround this sacred space.

Nicole M. Fandel (former faculty) La Maison d’Oncle Max Wayside Publishing, 2012 Noting a lack of engaging and levelappropriate stories for beginning French students, Fandel undertook the creation of a lively and fun reader for intermediate students of the language. As the story of the mysterious Uncle Max unfolds, les Cinq, or the five, pursue this elusive elder on a madcap tour of France from Paris to the Lascaux Caves. Readers will note a progression in textual complexity as they follow a trail marked by intrigue, moral dilemmas, and redemption.

Come along and refresh your French with La Maison d’Oncle Max, an enjoyable tale based on family members, friends, and former students of the author. © Gatshel Publishing. The image is courtesy Supawan Pui Lamsam ’73 and cannot be reprinted elsewhere without express permission.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

CA Bookshelf

by Library Director Martha Kennedy 8

Ed Droste ’97 Grizzly Bear: Shields Warp Records Limited 2012 Samantha Thayer Wilde ’93 I’ll Take What She Has Bantam Books, 2013 Annie feels abandoned by her best friend and further isolated when Suze, her lone stay-athome ally at the cooperative children’s center, decides to rejoin the ranks of “working moms.”

Looming in the background is the fact that down at the heels Dixbie is in danger of closing its doors for good. Annie knows Cynthia is somehow behind it, but can she figure it out in time? Filled with wonderfully eccentric characters, family secrets, and boarding school antics, Wilde has another sharp and witty take on the challenges of modern motherhood on her hands.

Look for upcoming works from the following authors in the next issue: Ruth Ozeki ’74, Caroline Kennedy ’75, Jody Heymann ’77, and Craig Surman ’90. If you have a recent title to share with us, please contact: martha_kennedy@concordacademy.org.

For nearly fifty years, Wooster Farm provided Frank W. Benson with the ideal setting for his two passions, creating art and spending time with his family. This exhibition catalog marks the sesquicentennial of Benson's birth and offers lovely renderings of his trademark plein-air paintings as well as the highly detailed etchings, lithographs, and watercolors of his later years. Soft yellows and blues bring out the seasonal tones of the coastal landscape and intimate compositions featuring his children and working members of the Maine community. In this, her third book on Benson, Bedford focuses on the long career of this early twentieth-century American Impressionist who found sustaining inspiration in Maine. Bedford, who curated the 2012 Benson exhibition at the Farnsworth Gallery in Rockland, ME, included photographs of Benson’s North Haven from the early 1900s and today, allowing image and text to fully illuminate this important aspect of the artist’s life.

Nate Borofsky ’93 Girlyman: Supernova Fine Feathered Music (BMI) 2012

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From the author of This Little Mommy Stayed Home comes the story of two childhood friends who reunite as colleagues at Dixbie, a small New England boarding school. Annie, bluntly forthright and fiercely devoted to being a stay-at-home mother, and Nora, a painfully polite and reserved teacher of English, live on campus with their respective husbands.

The once iron-clad relationship between these lifelong pals is tested, however, when the glamorous, charismatic, and well-connected Cynthia Cypress joins the faculty. Soon all are swept up and taken in by this apparent goddess of the academic set. All, that is, except for Annie. When even Nora is drawn into Cynthia’s inner circle,

Faith Andrews Bedford ’63 Impressionist Summers: Frank W. Benson’s North Haven Skira Rizzoli, 2012

Susan Adams Retires: My Extraordinary Teacher, Advisor, and Mentor

Tom Kates

by Kelsey McDermott ’13

S CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

OON AFTER arriving in Kassel, Germany, I stood nervously on the platform of the train station with my German teacher, Susan Adams, and watched my classmates leave one by one with their host families. They piled into their respective cars, sat comfortably in between their new siblings, and drove away. With growing anticipation, I dug the toe of my Converse sneaker into the pavement, leaving the white rubber a little scuffed. Susan was the only one to remain with me as I waited to see what my host family would look like. I was rather surprised and admittedly disappointed to find that my host family was not a family at all. Rather, I would be spending the coming weeks with a 75-year-old woman named Renata. She spoke no English, except for a few misused lines taken from famous American movies like Rocky and the Terminator, and her sole companion, a cat named Maximillian, would later prove to be a complete bore. As I turned to Susan to say goodbye, I trembled. Even though I would be seeing her again the next morning, I couldn’t help but feel that I had made a huge mistake in coming on this trip. I found it especially hard to leave her in this moment not only because she had acted as our translator, safely navigating the group through customs and public transportation, but because she had been my advisor, my mentor, and my second mother at CA for the past two years. “Mut haben,”

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she said to me. I took her wish for courage and repeated it over and over in my mind until Renata and I reached our home on Kunigundenstraße.

Though my first day abroad was nerve-racking to say the least, the experiences that I had while on the trip were some of the most transformative of my life. Renata ended up being a wonderful host mother, and our language barrier did not end up being as large as I had feared. Susan’s teaching had prepared me so well in just two years, that by the time I returned home to Boston, I found myself having a hard time transitioning back to speaking English. I would instinctively respond to almost every question in German before shaking my head apologetically and answering again in the language that my family and friends could understand. Even to this day during my advisor meetings with Susan, we often casually chat in German or ask one another “auf Deutsch” to pass the salt. Many people would argue that it is her method of instruction or her forty-one years of experience that make her such a great teacher. However, I think that Susan is the excellent teacher she is because she believes so strongly in all of her students. She believes that we can succeed in whatever challenges we may take on or situations we may find ourselves in.

Thank you, Susan, for all you have done for us.

We wish you the best of luck. Mut haben.

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cene One: a dark and stormy night, fall 1982. Parkman stands in the living

room of an on-campus apartment while Keith examines chord sheets for an original musical, Hooch! Will the musicologist and college professor direct CA’s student-faculty production? His answer: “I’ll do it.”

Scene Two: same dark and stormy night, same place, same time. Keith: “This will need a heck of a piano player.” Parkman: “I think we have one.” Larry Goldings (jazz pianist, organist, composer) has entered CA as a freshman. Keith directs the on-stage band, using the moniker that will distinguish him throughout his CA career, “Cheeky Bordello.” Keith goes on to become a member of the faculty, teach music history and theory, and direct the chorus.

Scene Three: golden light, birdsong, mid-1980’s. Keith directs a growing chorus;

Scene Six: deep winter: rock, snow, ice, late 2000’s. Keith welcomes to campus

Scene Four: More years pass, flying leaves: darkness, thunder, lightning. Keith directs

Girlyman, the “leading edge three-part harmony folk-pop” band with Nate Borofsky ‘93.

He delivers a chapel on his trip to the legendary, anarchic, countercultural, radical selfexpressionist gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert — Burning Man. Improbably, he returns to teach the following year. He plays roles in local community theater productions of 1775, City of Angels. He directs and sings in his own a cappella group, Custom Blend.

He visits New Zealand on sabbatical. He corrects AP music exams and teaches at a program in Tennessee in the summers. The flame burns strong.

Carmina Burana, the Fauré Requiem; with the Dance Company Dido and Aeneas and Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tiresias. He takes his chorus to Philadelphia, DC, New York.

His chorus sings at MLK Day events. He now teaches each group of seniors its class song and directs the music at graduation.

He composes the music for the new school song. Evenings, weekends, holidays — Keith rehearses, directs, inspires. It is possible to work as hard as Keith, but not harder.

Scene Five: increasingly intense light, gaining altitude, early 2000’s. David R. Gammons hired as new theater director. He sets A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Beatles music. Keith helps select, arrange, and direct the music. In the cast is Theo Stockman, later on Broadway in Hair and American Idiot.

Gammons also produces a revised version of Hooch!, musical direction and new arrangements by Keith. 2008: Keith once again arranges and directs the music for another original music, The Tsarina’s Harp.

Scene Seven: Everest: the Hillary Step, summit in sight, early 2013. Keith and Gammons set Much Ado About Nothing to show tunes from the 1940s and 50s. As usual Keith directs both singers and band. Keith is listed in the program as “Cheeky Bordello.” The show is sold out both nights; both performances receive standing ovations. On the final night the show is moved up an hour as a blizzard bears down on the northeast — one last dark and stormy night.

David R. Gammons

his courses on music theory and history are already legendary: Bach to the Beatles, he knows it all. He arranges and directs the music for two more original musicals: Brain Wave and The Continuing Interplanetary Adventures of Captain Doo-Wop. He directs more student-faculty musicals with faculty

members Sherman, Ness, O’Connor, Nelson, Bailey, Richardson.

Keith’s Catharsis A Drama in Seven Scenes

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by Parkman Howe

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Photos by David R. Gammons

ARTS A twist on Shakespeare’s battle of the romantic wits came to life this spring in a new musical adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Director of Theatre Programs David R. Gammons and Music Program Director Keith Daniel collaborated on this memorable production. The show featured classic Broadway show tunes and was choreographed by Performing Arts Department Head Amy Spencer.

The final performance was bittersweet as it was Keith Daniel’s last mainstage performance before retiring in June.

Photos by Tim Morse

Art Show n January, students, faculty, and staff crowded into the MAC to look at dozens of art works displayed over three separate floors. Brilliantly colored quilts, stunning sculptures, subtle drawings, and bold black-and-white photographs took center stage at the show.

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Artwork created by the following students clockwise from top left: Hadleigh Nunes ’15, Natalie Ferris ’14, Charlotte Styron ’13, Sophia Ginsburg ’16, Gabe Perez-Putnam ’14, Ishbel McCann ’14, and Gary Zheng ’14

Photos by David R. Gammons

ARTS

Music Café n Friday night, CA’s Dance Studio was transformed into a music café complete with white linens and a hint of Parisian flair. An enthusiastic audience listened to the Advanced Jazz Ensemble and the Vocal Jazz and Pop Ensemble perform standards such as “Save the Last Dance for Me.” This is the second annual music café and it is fast becoming a favorite February tradition.

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Concord Academy claimed an eighth consecutive Central Massachusetts Ski League championship this year. Six CA

Photo by John McGarry

racers were awarded individual medals for finishing in the top ten in the overall league points, including Matt Deninger ’13, Alex Aeppli ’14, and

enough to earn a ninth-place finish at NEPSACs, with Austen, Lucy, and Kai

Salem ’14 turning in the fastest times in the giant slalom race. The slalom race saw Lucy finish two exceptionally strong runs along with solid racing from Lizzie Cosway ’14 and Austen.

On the boys team, a very solid fifth-place finish at New Englands was anchored by Nick, Alex, and Matt leading the slalom results and then the same trio once again contributing to the giant slalom results.

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by Director of Financial Aid and Alpine ski coach John McGarry

Nick Manos ’14 for the boys and Lindsay Klickstein ’15, Lucy Hollister ’15, and Austen Sharpe ’14 for the girls.

The top fourteen Concord racers also participated in the NEPSAC ski championships hosted at Shawnee Peak in Maine. Under bright blue skies and perfect race day conditions, the skiers tested their skills in two slalom and two giant slalom runs against a wide diversity of New England’s best independent school ski racers from Connecticut to Vermont. The girls team skied well

ATHLETIC S

Ski Team

AT H L E T I C S W I N T E R W R A P - U P

by Matt Simon ’15

lead into the locker rooms at halftime. CA came back out in the second half with some newfound intensity, and the game once again began to swing back and forth. In the end, however, Pingree hung on for a final score of Pingree 66, Concord 55.

While the Concord players and fans were disappointed after the loss, they rallied to put in a good showing against rivals LCA in the third-place game.

Concord opened up the game with a small cushion, but LCA stayed within striking distance for most of the first half, and a quick run by the Lions right before the end of the first half

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

Photos by Kellie Smith and Dan Sanford

The girls varsity basketball team capped off its season in style with a win against Landmark. It was a fine way for seniors Regina Coyle ’13, Surabhi Rao ’13, Eleni Papadopoulos ’13, and Sophia Steinert-Evoy ’13 to finish out their CA basketball careers, as the Chameleons cruised to an easy victory. Forward Weezer Dodge ’14 put in a stellar performance for Concord, scoring 28 of the team’s 41 points. Sarah Anderson ’16 and Molly D’Arcy ’16 also were vital to the team’s victory, as they played tough defense and hit

key free throws.

The boys varsity basketball team ended its season with a third-place finish at the EIL basketball tournament. Concord took on the Pingree Highlanders in the first round of the tournament. Although Pingree had beaten CA in both of their previous encounters this season, the Concord players were excited to get another crack at their rivals. The game was tight through the entire first half, with the lead constantly shifting back and forth between the two teams. Pingree started to pull away towards the end of the first period, and took a 27–22

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saw them take a three-point lead heading into halftime.

Concord fought back to regain control of the game, running out to a double-digit lead halfway through the second frame. With just over a minute remaining and a twelve-point lead in hand, Concord head coach Ryan Kilian pulled seniors Percy Stogdon ’13, Jack Anderson ’13, and David Lander ’13, allowing them to leave the game to a spectacular ovation that marked the end of three spectacular careers.

The boys squash team had a fantastic showing at the New England Interscholastic Squash Association Championships,

CA Best in Battle

by Matt Simon ’15

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Judi Seldin P’15

A’s basketball and wrestling teams and fans traveled to Lexington, Massachusetts, to take on the Lexington Christian Academy Lions in the annual Battle of Lexington and Concord. The event pits the two schools against each other in five contests as they compete for a Colonial Red Drum.

The girls JV basketball teams opened up the day’s festivities, and the Lexington Lions jumped out to an early lead and rode it all the way to the finish, giving LCA the win and putting the Lions up 1–0 on the day.

Next up was the wrestling meet, and the Concord Academy Chameleons cruised to a relatively easy 54–27 victory. Ryan Sin ’13, Adam Sodano ’13, Charlie Colony ’13, and Zach Yudkoff ’14 all pinned their men, which, combined with three forfeits, gave CA a 42–0 lead to open the meet. LCA made a push to come back, but it was not in the cards for the Lions, and CA knotted up the day’s score at one.

Then it was time for a return to the court, where the boys JV basketball teams faced off in what turned out to be the pivotal game of the day. CA coach Adam Simon was unable to attend the game, so Athletic Director Jenny Brennan stepped in. The game was closely

Athletics Spotlight Bonnie Cao ’09

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t the Yale Women’s Squash National Championship this year, Bowdoin College senior Bonnie Cao ’09 was on a mission. “I had a very clear game plan,” she says. “I knew what I wanted to do, and I took every advantage I had.”

Cao scored a match-clinching win against Wesleyan University to capture the Walker Cup for the Bowdoin College team. It was the second key win for Cao, who, the day before, had won the final set of the final match to clinch the win necessary for Bowdoin to advance to the finals.

Not bad for a student who only began learning to play squash in her freshman year at CA. “I liked playing sports,” recalls Cao. “It was a huge part of my high school experience; I like having the support system that comes with being a part of a team.”

So much so in fact, that one sport wasn’t enough for Cao at Bowdoin, where she also took up rowing. Cao is the coxswain for the women’s college four at Bowdoin. The crew took gold at last October’s Head of the Charles Regatta, marking Bowdoin’s first-ever medal for women’s rowing.

Bowdoin College Head Squash Coach Tomas Fortson calls Cao “as hard a worker as I have ever seen . . . who never wavered in her work ethic and offered her teammates an amazing lesson in leadership.”

Cao, who expects to graduate this spring, hopes to join a cancer research lab before heading to medical school.

contested throughout the entire first half, but CA managed to hold a sixpoint lead going into halftime. With the crowd cheering them on, the CA team secured the win for Concord, 40–32. Carter Jones ’15 was a presence for the Chameleons, scoring and pulling in rebounds, and Phil Ahn ’16 was the facilitator at the point. Phil Thompson ’16 also had a strong game for the Chameleons.

Girls varsity basketball then took to the court for a chance to secure the victory for Concord. Despite CA’s best efforts, LCA posted the win, setting the stage for a winner-take-all boys varsity basketball matchup.

Concord fans packed the gym and cheered on their team with vigor, waving green and white pom-poms. The Chameleons jumped out to an early lead in the game, as the red-hot shooting of Jack Anderson ’13 put Concord in front. LCA refused to go quietly, however, and the game remained close.

But when the final whistle sounded, the score was 69–52 in favor of Concord Academy. A sea of green stormed the court following the victory. Athletic Director Jenny Brennan lifted the drum into the air for the second consecutive year. After the game, Jack, who finished the day with fifteen points, praised the crowd for helping contribute to the win. “I loved the atmosphere that the CA fans created in LCA’s home gym . . . it was awesome having so much student support,” said Jack. “It was a fun game to play and an even bigger game to win.” Guard Malin Segal ’14, who scored a gamehigh 26 points, had similar thoughts, adding, “The atmosphere of the crowd really helped us play our best . . . we hit our shots and it was great to win the drum for the second year in a row.”

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ten wrestlers present at the tournament, with almost every weight class represented. The competition was stiff, but both Binh Nguyen ’15 and cocaptain Aram Soukiasian ’13 were able to come away with a victory. Also representing Concord were cocaptains Ryan Sin ’13 and Charlie Colony ’13, along with Bobby McKean ’15, James Guerrero ’13, Fortune Jackson-Bartelmus ’14, Adam Sodano ’13, Zach Yudkoff ’14, and Matt Scott ’14.

Photo courtesy of Allison Beeman

which took place at Avon Old Farms in Connecticut. Two notable results included cocaptain Mark Styles ’14, who finished in fifth place, and Daniel Tsui ’15, who earned a thirdplace finish. CA finished ninth overall, ahead of schools such as St. Mark’s, Middlesex, Tabor, Kingswood-Oxford, Williston, and Trinity-Pawling School. It was a fantastic ending to a splendid season for the team.

The boys wrestling team was also represented at the New England Championships, and the Concord wrestlers did a fine job of showcasing CA’s wrestling talent. The Chameleons had

ALUM NAE I

Meg Morgan Grasselli Class of 1968

Exhibiting Passion

BYNANCYSHOHETWEST’84

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Meg Morgan Grasselli Class of 1968

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Lanita Maryland Cullinane Class of 1991

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Will Byrne Class of 2002

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Dianne Stuart Humes Class of 1950

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hen Margaret “Meg” Morgan Grasselli ’68 turned eleven years old, her parents gave her a special gift: a Picasso print.

Even as a young child, she treasured the print. “I loved the circus subject and the bold conjunction of the black ink and the white paper,” Grasselli recalled. Now that she is a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC , and one of the art world’s preeminent experts on French Old Master drawings, she recognizes its value and importance in a way she did not as a child.

At Concord Academy in the late 1960s, Grasselli took classes in studio art, but it wasn’t until her freshman year at Radcliffe that she took her first course in art history and immediately discovered a passion for it.

“To be able to study beautiful things, to immerse myself in things that I admired not only for the quality of the execution but for their touch and appearance and meaning, and to recognize the whole history of a particular work of art that connects it to a particular place and time, was enthralling to me,” Grasselli said. “And when I discovered the Old Master drawings my sophomore year, I thought they were the most wonderful things I had ever seen.”

Grasselli majored in fine arts at Radcliffe and went on to earn her PhD from Harvard. As a graduate student, she was awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship at the National Gallery, during which she was required to work on a special project. The subject she chose for the project was the eighteenth-century French master Antoine Watteau, and with the threehundredth anniversary of his birth in 1684 approaching, she proposed a comprehensive exhibition of his work. Her idea was so well-received that the show she curated would eventually travel on to the Grand Palais in Paris and Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin. Though the plan was to stay at the National Gallery for only eight months while she completed the fellowship, Grasselli took on a full-time position and has remained there for over thirty years.

Overseeing collections at one of the world’s most preeminent museums is as interesting now as it was when she began there. “When something comes up on the art market, arts auctions query me on what I think of the piece or quote something I might have written about it.

Collectors and art dealers solicit my opinions,” said Grasselli, “I’m not supposed to talk price, but I can talk about authenticity. That’s an unusual thing about the National Gallery. A lot of museums don’t like their curators to address the issue of authenticity, for legal reasons.”

This past spring, Grasselli cocurated a major exhibition called Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac and served as coauthor and coeditor for the accompanying cata-

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Photo courtesy National Gallery of Art

logue. Curating an exhibition such as this one, Grasselli said, requires putting a lot of thought into how to organize the material being displayed. Working in collaboration with colleague Andrew Robison, senior curator of Prints and Drawings, “We divided the pieces into isms,” she said. “Romanticism, Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism those became our organizing principles.” Grasselli treated CA alumnae/i to a private, guided tour of the exhibit this past April.

Like many of the National Gallery’s exhibitions, this one represented the acquisitions of a private collector, and Grasselli herself was introduced to numerous artists she hadn’t known about previously. “Within this exhibition there were great master drawings by very well-known artists like Monet, Cézanne, and Degas, but this collector also loves to bring forth masterpieces by artists not so well known. For example, I had never heard of Achille Laugé, Henry d’Estienne, or Albert Dubois-Pillet. It was a great joy for me to learn about these little-known masters.”

With that show just over, Grasselli said that for the first time in five or six years, she is “in something of a lull. I’ve curated and written the catalogs for three exhibitions in the past two years. Now I need to catch up on all I’ve let slide, like researching new acquisitions.”

Grasselli’s work is also her lifelong passion, and she is already excited about her next big exhibition, scheduled for late 2016. It will feature an eighteenth-century French artist named Hubert Robert. “He’s never had a major international monographic exhibition before and I’m really looking forward to it,” Grasselli said with a touch of understated delight.

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Lanita Maryland Cullinane Class of 1991

CA’s Top Cop

“There is so much good in even the most disadvantaged communities.”

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or some of us, a difficult day at work may involve too many meetings, an unreasonable boss, or a frustrating client.

Lanita Cullinane ’91 has slightly different workplace challenges. “I have been punched in the face. I’ve been dragged down the street. Once, I needed stitches in my arm after breaking a car window,” she ticks off. But Cullinane is philosophical about her vocational hardships. “These kinds of things go with the job.”

Cullinane is a career police officer with seventeen years of experience under her belt, during which time she’s gone from rookie street patrol to detective — one of only forty-four women in the Boston Police Department to earn that promotion. She has served in the Domestic Violence Unit, the Crimes Against Children Unit and the Human Trafficking Unit. She has also been a police academy instructor.

Currently, she is the outreach coordinator for Boston’s Bureau of Investigative Services.

Cullinane’s plan when she graduated from Concord Academy was to study advertising at Temple University in Philadelphia. But while spending the summer at home in the Roxbury section of Boston, she began to get cold feet about leaving her family, and the city that she loved.

In a last-minute decision, she enrolled at Northeastern University, just a few miles from home. At the time Northeastern didn’t have an advertising program. In fact, the only major in the course catalog that interested her was criminal justice, so she chose that instead. It led to a senior-year internship with the Boston Police Department.

“My supervisor urged me to take the police exam,” Cullinane recalled. “I told him I didn’t want to be an officer. He said to just take the exam anyway; it could be something to fall back on if need be.”

Cullinane sees a direct correlation between the highly rewarding four years she spent at Concord Academy as the beneficiary of a private scholarship and her current success. “Being at Concord Academy opened my eyes to different cultures and exposed me to so many things I would not have otherwise experienced, having been raised in the inner city,” she said.

Not only has Cullinane risen through the ranks, but she has also won numerous awards for her on-the-job community service, including one for persuading a 17-year-old sexual abuse victim to return to school and graduate. Spending her days trying to help victims of child exploitation, domestic abuse, and other forms of oppression and then going home to take care of her two children and firefighter husband can present a challenge when it comes to work-life balance, Cullinane said. She believes firmly in the importance of outlets. “I like to read and watch nonsense TV,” she said. “I also have a wonderful support system. My husband is very supportive, and I have a very strong relationship with my mother, my siblings, my grandmother, and other family members.”

As to why she stays in a job that is often dangerous, Cullinane’s answer is simple. “I have had a great time on the job!”

And despite the message many of us may have internalized from TV shows such as CSI, Cullinane said that she has also learned not to see the conviction of a criminal as the only measure of success.

“Do I want to see a conviction? Of course. And I’ve been frustrated with the outcomes of some cases. In those instances, the most important thing to me is to know that I did the best I could for the case and, just as importantly, for the victim.”

But the bottom line is that she loves the work — and its inner city Boston setting so similar to the neighborhood in which she was raised.

“The media distorts the reality of the neighborhoods that I love.

They put so much emphasis on the bad things that take place,” she said. “I wish more people would go into those neighborhoods and experience the wonderful things that also happen. There is so much good in even the most disadvantaged communities. And I’m there because I want to make life safer for all of those good people who make the community wonderful.”

Will Byrne Class of 2002

Conscientious Capitalism

had been part of this incredibly successful civic engagement effort.

We felt we could apply those same tools to the growth of the clean energy economy, and not just achieve environmental impact, but also bring new economic opportunities to communities.”

With this goal in mind, he and a small group of friends started a nonprofit called The DC Project, which eventually changed its name to Groundswell to reflect its national scope. “There are a lot of lowerincome communities in which people are really interested in accessing clean energy and energy efficiency upgrades that would save them a lot of money, but generally the price is too high and it’s too confusing to try to figure it out,” he explained.

“So Groundswell aggregates purchasing power. We pool together lots of different institutions and community members to collectively buy clean energy or energy efficiency services. Meanwhile, we use the economic leverage of these groups to lower prices and ensure the businesses supplying the energy are operating responsibly and providing community benefits. By rewarding them, we’re driving businesses to be more equitable and sustainable.”

It’s no small challenge, Byrne concedes, but it’s one in which he believes. “If people want to build their life and career around making the world a better place, the social enterprise sector offers a viable path to do good and do well,” he said. “We are engaged in contributing to an economic system that looks at the holistic, true cost, and value of things: we incorporate financial, environmental, and social perspective. This is a generational challenge — it’s up to a new wave of young leaders to build a more impact-oriented capitalism.”

Next year, Byrne will be bringing his notion of impact-oriented capitalism back to the CA campus as the 2013–14 Hall Fellow.

For more information about Groundswell, please visit their website groundswell.org or email info@groundswell.org.

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espite making Forbes Magazine’s list of “30 under 30: Social Entrepreneurs” late last year, Will Byrne ’02 admits that the concept of what he does isn’t easy to understand.

In a nutshell, the Washington, DC-based nonprofit he co-founded, Groundswell, organizes individuals and institutions to pool their collective purchasing power to acquire affordable electricity contracts and generate clean energy credits. In the past three years, Groundswell has grown from a neighborhood project to a multi-state operation, mobilizing over $8 million in clean energy investment in just two years, and abating over 5,000 tons of carbon. Its most recent purchase brought together 110 regional nonprofits to collectively purchase a $5 million contract that saved participating organizations approximately $300,000.

In addition to savings and clean energy projects, Byrne said, Groundswell’s focus is on communities’ ability to apply their consumer power for social good. This new framework for social change is what Byrne calls “civic consumption.”

“Essentially, we are making clean energy more affordable for communities,” he said. “But the bigger picture is that we’re demonstrating the revolutionary idea that communities can pool their consumer power together to shape the way the economy and businesses behave in terms of social impact.”

Byrne’s concern for social and economic equality dates back to his early childhood. His mother was a public defender in the struggling city of Lowell when he was growing up; her work made him aware of the ways that injustice can disproportionately affect less privileged members of society. His years at Concord Academy, and in particular the various ways he was encouraged to explore alternative world histories, reinforced his passion to address these problems.

After CA, Byrne attended Vassar, majoring in English and German, which led to a move to Berlin. The advances that Germany was making in clean and affordable energy opened his eyes to the possibilities that existed in that sector, and he was eager to find a way to apply the same practices back in the U.S. When he did return to the States, in 2008, it was to take on a role in then-Senator Barack Obama’s fledgling presidential campaign.

Quickly, he realized that this historic campaign had hit upon a whole new way to gather voters. “The strategy of the Obama campaign was focused not as much on persuading the existing electorate, as traditional campaigns had always done, but rather on expanding the electorate by registering new voters,” Byrne said. “We discovered we could effect massive behavior change through an approach governed by social media and civic engagement.”

When Obama won the presidency, Byrne considered accepting a job within the presidential administration, but decided along with a couple of friends to take a different route and apply the lessons they had learned to a new field of endeavor. “As organizers on the campaign, we

Dianne Stuart Humes Class of 1950

Eyewitness to History

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f Dianne Stuart Humes ’50 were to sketch a timeline of her life thus far, she might use as guideposts some of the famous people she’s met, starting back in 1947. That was the year poet T. S. Eliot came to Concord Academy as commencement speaker, and Humes, who graduated from Concord Academy in 1950, cites the moment she met him as the highlight of her Concord years.

Humes then went on to Wellesley College, where the influence of a famed alumna resonated throughout the academic and cultural life of the campus: it was Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Humes would eventually meet that famous figure when the Republic of China’s former First Lady returned for her 35th reunion.

But her brushes with fame were only just beginning, as it turned out. Humes would spend much of her adult life in the presence of world leaders and statesmen — and, she says as she reflects on nearly 80 years, “My husband and I have had a very interesting life with a lot of varied highlights.”

Humes and her husband James were married in Scotland in 1957; following the wedding, they moved together to Washington, DC, where James was a law student and Dianne Humes took a job with the State Department. “I was a floating employee, rather than being assigned to a particular department; then eventually I was assigned to the White House, where I worked in the Office of Patronage,” she recalled. “My office was on the second floor of the West Wing, which seemed to me like the most exciting place in the world to be. This was during the Eisenhower administration. My department appointed people to ambassadorships and other positions, and I remember when we appointed [Congressman Richard] Wigglesworth as Ambassador to Canada.”

Dynamic as this role was, an even more enticing opportunity arose the following year when the office of Vice President Richard Nixon invited her to join its staff. One of Humes’ favorite memories of her two-year tenure there was the 1959 Christmas party at which the vice president and his wife gave each the women on his staff an engraved silver compact. But she also recalls important policy discussions, too.

“My husband and I still remember a moment when Vice President Nixon said, ‘Someday, I’m going to travel to China.’ My husband said, 22

‘You must mean Taiwan.’ And Nixon said quite sternly, ‘I said, China!’

Already he was planning this, and this was long before he even met Henry Kissinger.”

Humes’ role in the vice president’s office was to write general messages of congratulations for events that Nixon was unable to attend. When President Kennedy’s inauguration brought an end to Nixon’s stint in office in 1961, Humes and her husband, who was by then done with law school, moved to upstate Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature representing Williamsport.

But the couple remained in touch with Nixon, and when he won the presidency in 1968, he offered James Humes a job as speechwriter, so they moved back to Washington, DC for the duration of Nixon’s time in office. Busy raising children Dianne stayed out of politics; when the couple returned to the Philadelphia area after Nixon’s resignation, she enrolled in law school herself, graduating in 1978—“quite a few years after my graduation from Wellesley!”

In recent years, the couple has lived in Colorado, where James Humes is a visiting professor at the University of Colorado. Their friendship with the Nixons has endured throughout the decades, and in 2012 they traveled to China with Nixon’s brother to commemorate the late president’s historic visit to that nation in 1972.

A highlight of last year’s trip was attending a banquet hosted by Chairman Mao’s daughter at which James Humes was asked to give a speech paying tribute to Chairman Mao, who, in the words of that speech, “had the physical courage to rise from his near deathbed to greet President Nixon over doctors’ warnings, while President Nixon had the spiritual courage to come to China over opposition at home.”

Dianne Humes hopes to return to China again; it is still a nation that captures her imagination and is part of her personal and professional history. The importance of Nixon’s first visit remains with her today.

During the first of her two recent visits, she recalls being invited to listen in on an interview with the former mayor of Shanghai and members of the Cultural Revolution. “The mayor said there were two things he had believed would never happen, but both did: a man landing on the moon and an American president coming to China,” she commented. “And then he said he thought the latter was the more unlikely.”

Pohto courtesy Brendan Shepard

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n her thirty-five years in the Advancement Office, Carol Mann Sacknoff was known and loved for her caring, her high standards, and her unfailing devotion to Concord Academy. She offered her sympathetic ear and good counsel to everyone from students to heads of school, she was a friend to many faculty and staff, and she kept in touch with legions of graduates and their parents. So it wasn’t surprising that the most fitting gift Carol received at her retirement celebration last December was her very own school ring, designating her as “an honorary alumna.”

The event packed the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, drawing current and former faculty, staff, students, parents, trustees, and administrators, including former Head of School Tom Wilcox and his wife Whitney Ransome. Emcee Don Kingman, CA’s director of operations, shared stories from his nineteen years as a colleague and friend, highlighting Carol’s wellknown perfectionism (“Could you move that table about an inch to the right?”) and her packrat habit of saving everything from the scores of public events she helped organize (“Who knows when we might want to use this feather boa again?”). Carol’s fabled ability to realize her vision prompted former parent volunteer Beverly Haas p’93, ’95, ’00 to nominate her secretary of state, so she could “keep working that magic.”

Head of School Rick Hardy called Carol an invaluable “ambassador” for the school and said that “the core of her work was her passion for CA and her love for the students who have lived, learned, and thrived here.” Tom Wilcox noted that Carol emerged as a polished professional during the early 1980s, when CA was redefining

itself as a coeducational school. Besides becoming a second mother to a number of boarders, Carol helped build “two great institutions”: the Alumnae/i Association and CA Parents.

Whitty Ransome recalled that Carol was clerk of the Head of School Search Committee when Tom was an applicant for the job. “She was easy to trust, easy to love, and she has become a friend for life.”

The most moving tributes came from alumnae/i. Mike Firestone ’01 spoke of Carol’s devotion to students, saying “I’ve stayed involved in CA because of you.” Gale Hurd ’61 made a special announcement that an endowed fund she established to provide supplemental financial aid to students would be renamed the Carol Mann Sacknoff Coffee Can Fund, honoring Carol’s connection with students (see sidebar). José Ivan Román ’98, current president of the Alumnae/i Association, also spoke from the heart: “I would have benefited from the Coffee Can Fund . . . I was one of the poorest kids at the school, and I remember that Carol was always present [for us].”

But the real showstopper of the afternoon was Carol’s “chapel talk.” She spoke of arriving at CA in 1977 from her hometown of Little York, New Jersey, never having traveled north of New York City. Shortly after moving into Phelps House, where she and her family lived with thirty-one students, she was recruited to work in the Advancement Office. She never looked back, eventually becoming one of the most seasoned travelers on behalf of the school. “It’s hard to define the essence that has kept me here, connected, dedicated, devoted to this school,” she said. “But a big reason is the good fortune to

work with wonderful colleagues. You’ve given me the opportunity to take on roles I would never have envisioned for myself.” Reflecting on the sense of possibility she always saw in CA’s students, she said, “I’m so excited by what the future holds for this school.”

It’s clear that Carol will remain part of that future, even as she enjoys well-deserved downtime at her home in Virginia with husband Eric, in the CA embossed captain’s chair presented to her by Rick Hardy. When music teacher Keith Daniel and German teacher Susan Adams honored her with a rendition of Neil Sedaka’s “Oh, Carol,” they sang, “It’s time to slow down/ Perhaps kick your feet up.” That may or may not happen, but one thing is sure: Carol will stay connected to Concord Academy. “You are my community, my family, my friendships,” she said at the close of her talk, “and friendships don’t retire.”

—Lucille Stott

Fund Renamed in Honor of Carol Sacknoff’s Dedication to CA Students The Carol Mann Sacknoff Coffee Can Fund supports supplemental financial aid at CA, covering costs beyond tuition, room, and board. Support may include a range of expenses, such as unanticipated travel costs for family emergencies, school supplies, laptops, music instrument rentals, and registration fees for standardized testing. To learn more about how you can contribute to the Carol Mann Sacknoff Coffee Can Fund and further supplemental financial aid assistance for CA students, please contact Carol Anne Beach in CA’s Advancement Office at (978) 402-2244 or cabeach@concordacademy.org.

For more thoughts from the CA community, including a personal memory by Whitty Ransome P’01, former CA special assistant and wife of former head of school Tom Wilcox, go to this link http://bit.ly/16cr2ZV

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Celebrating a Storied CA Career

Photos by Tim Morse

Framing The

O

Future

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

N APRIL 26, Hall Fellow Lecturer, Peter Fisher ’74, one of the country’s foremost authorities on monetary policy and a senior director at the investment firm BlackRock, touched on fiscal matters in his talk to the CA community. But literature was at the heart of his hour-long speech.

Fisher said he has always been fascinated by The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in particular Chapter Two, in which Tom is assigned to whitewash a fence—an arduous task that he wants to avoid. Tom eventually realizes that he can get his friends to do the job for him if he frames the job as an opportunity, instead of as a chore. In Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain wrote, “He [Tom] had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it— namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”

The necessity of reframing life’s choices is a lesson Fisher learned early on as a student struggling to overcome dyslexia.

“I was lucky to get into CA and I was lucky to get out of CA,” he said with a laugh. Fisher had difficulty reading, failed both Spanish and French in middle school, and tested poorly in math. “I think I tested in the second percentile in the standardized math test. Just to be clear, that means only 1 percent of students did worse than I did.”

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And yet, Fisher went on to run monetary operations for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In the 1960s, dyslexia was not yet well understood, and Fisher remembers the sting of leaving class and heading to the remedial reading group in elementary school. Still, he had the good fortune to benefit from the persistence of loving parents and the encouragement of his teachers who fostered his interest in history.

After graduating from Concord Academy in 1974, Fisher went to Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in History. He received his law degree from Harvard as well. Fisher took a job at the New York Federal Reserve, then embraced public service as undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury.

He most recently served as head of BlackRock’s Fixed Income Portfolio Management Group and is now a senior director at the BlackRock Investment Institute.

This seemingly linear career path was anything but, said Fisher, as his pursuit of economics was tempered by his inability to master mathematics. “I was a frustrated economist because I couldn’t do math, so I studied history instead and I tried to absorb as much as I could.” But what might have seemed like a burden turned out to be a blessing as, recently, many of the mathematical financial risk models turned out to have serious flaws. “The math side of economics is in tatters and the side of economics that focused on history and the lessons we draw from longer periods of time is increasingly important,” said Fisher.

Ever the historian, Fisher used the Netherlands tulip bubble in the early 1600s to explain the recent housing market collapse in the United States. “Everyone thought tulips were terrific and it turns out there isn’t much intrinsic value in tulips,” said Fisher. Bulb prices rose, speculators entered the market, and at its peak some tulip bulbs were being sold multiple times in a month for ever-increasing amounts.

If that sounds familiar, it should. “We did the same thing with houses, we thought they would always go up in value . . . and then they didn’t,” said Fisher.

Believing that housing prices would always go up, experts say, can be attributed to the optimistic bias we all share as human beings.

Investors and financial analysts watched the markets go up in 2004, 2005, 2006 and thought it would continue. But, as history— and tulips—have shown, it doesn’t always work out that way.

Fisher’s dyslexia has proven to be an asset in his ability to avoid the fast moving “crowdthink” of other economists. “One of my colleagues said I was lucky because my dyslexia forced me to think slowly and critically,” said Fisher. “My fast-thinking brain isn’t wired correctly and so it’s easier for me to overcome that optimistic bias and imagine everything that can go wrong.”

To expand on his explanation of the financial markets, Fisher used the framework of the board game Monopoly to explain the country’s current economic predicament and the rhythm of the financial markets.

“Every time you pass Go you get $200,” he said. “What would happen if you got $1,000?”

When there is plenty of money flowing into the economy the “game,” explained Fisher, is really exciting but if the money supply shrinks and the average consumer doesn’t get as much money for “passing Go,” then it becomes more difficult to pay for those houses and hotels.

As the economy got worse and the housing bubble burst, Fisher said, not only did the money supply shrink, but the psychology of

the market also increasingly came into play.

Fisher asked: “What if you got $400 for passing Go but kept it in your pocket because you’re so nervous about the future that you don’t want to spend it?” That’s where we stand today, he said—consumers are not very optimistic about the future because median family income has flattened over the past five years and they’re keeping their money in their pockets.

For his part, Fisher is cautiously optimistic about the U.S. economy, if only because the situation seems worse globally. “Europe is growing about zero percent. Japan is growing about 1 percent,” said Fisher, “We’re growing about 2 percent and we will get lower energy costs, so I’m actually pretty optimistic about the U.S. economy . . . because it’s worse elsewhere.”

As he wrapped up his talk, Fisher once again turned back to literature; this time to David Copperfield. The first few lines of Charles Dickens’ masterpiece begin: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

For most of the book, said Fisher, it’s not

obvious if David Copperfield will turn out to be the hero of his own life as he is swept along by the saga of his life. “There is nothing linear about David’s life and frankly most lives are like David’s,” said Fisher. “That’s why I urge you to take Tom Sawyer’s approach— there is no doubt that Tom is the hero of his own story.”

In the end, Fisher told the students, you can be David Copperfield, buffeted by events and unsure of your place in your own story, or Tom Sawyer. “Think critically, realize life is about the choices you make, and try to be Tom Sawyer, try to be the hero of your own story.”

On April 25, this year’s Hall Fellow Lecturer Peter Fisher ’74 gave a talk entitled “How Tom Sawyer Won the Nobel Prize” in the Ransome Room to current parents, alumnae/i, trustees, faculty, and administrators.

On April 26, Fisher addressed CA students and faculty and staff, in the Performing Arts Center and then attended several classes including: Advanced Economics, Profiles in Leadership, 20th Century Europe, and Ottoman Empire.

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Peter Fisher '74 attends Profiles in Leadership taught by Dean of Faculty Jenny Chandler

Focus: Health Care The Tiniest Patients In these pages you will meet, among others, a cardiologist, a neonatologist, and a pioneer in mind/body medicine.

These practitioners are on the front lines of health care history as the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act nears full implementation.

They have each made their life’s work out of a hunger for learning, a love of science, and a passion for healing.

The Tiniest Patients Karen McAlmon ’75 Researching a Cure Peter deBlank ’92 Against The Tide Alice Domar ’76 On the Front Lines Jeffrey Schneider ’91

By The Numbers Rahul Sakhuja ’94 CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

Finding Her Path Annie Kalt ’02 Primary Practice Susan Corson Day ’69

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Karen McAlmon ’75

K

AREN MCALMON ’75 checks and rechecks the vital

signs of the babies in her care. The constant monitoring of these infants is essential, as some weigh just a whisper-light 1500 grams. McAlmon is the medical director of the Special Care Nursery at Winchester Hospital, which admits more than 350 babies a year. It is a Level IIB facility caring for inborn premature infants born at thirty-two weeks and greater or infants born as young as twenty-four weeks transferred from other hospitals.

For the past twenty-five years as McAlmon has been taking care of the babies at Boston Children’s Hospital and Winchester Hospital in Winchester, Massachusetts, she has seen neonatal medicine change enormously. “When I was training, there were many babies born at twenty-eight weeks who died; that wouldn’t happen today,” she says. “The chances of surviving at twentyeight weeks are greater than 90 percent. There can be longerterm consequences of this degree of prematurity, but things have improved markedly over the years.”

Often premature babies are born with immature lungs that don’t inflate well because there is not enough surfactant—a naturally occurring lipid substance—in their lungs. These days, surfactant replacement therapy is possible, as is continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which acts a bit like blowing air into a balloon, which supports babies and gives them some muchneeded time to develop their lung function. In order to go home, each infant must demonstrate the ability to keep warm, breathe regularly (without extended pauses) for five consecutive days, and feed well by mouth. For a four-pound baby this can seem like an impossible task.

Just as her field has undergone a transformation over the years, so has McAlmon herself. She came to Concord Academy on a scholarship through A Better Chance (ABC)—an organization created to offer educational opportunities to students of color. For a city girl from Brooklyn, New York, CA seemed like a very “rural place.” McAlmon embraced opportunity at every turn.

She was a head of house and business manager of the Centipede before graduating in 1975. She went to Stanford University and then on to Harvard Medical School.

McAlmon did her pediatrics internship at Boston Children’s Hospital, followed by a fellowship in neonatology in the Joint Program in Neonatology, Boston. All the while, even though neonatology seemed like a good fit, McAlmon kept struggling

“…I’ve learned over the years that you don’t just treat the baby in neonatology, but the whole family is your patient.”

immediate results and know that he has a fighting chance, you feel good.”

That’s not always the case, of course; some infants do not make it and it is at the juncture when life or death hangs in the balance that physicians are forced to make critical decisions.

“You have to realize,” says McAlmon, “once you start with heroic measures to try to save a baby’s life, you don’t always have to continue.

And it’s not a decision I make alone. I always remember it’s the parents’ baby; I consult with the family. Sometimes, in the end, there is a greater power that helps to make those decisions as well.”

For those infants who do “graduate” from the preemie unit, Winchester Hospital holds a reunion every year. On these occasions, instead of listening to the sounds of labored breathing in an incubator, McAlmon and her colleagues are able to hear laughter.

Besides thinking about individual babies,

McAlmon has spent time considering the impact of the Affordable Health Care Act on the nation’s health care system. As a former president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, she is a strong proponent of preventative health care and the Affordable Health Care Act.“I think health care is a basic right and everyone needs to have access.” In thinking about the future of health care in this country, McAlmon worries, however, about its most vulnerable citizens. “There is a lot of focus on money and reducing costs and not on thinking about children and their needs,” she says. “We need to think how we structure the management and maintenance of health rather than the management of sickness,” says McAlmon.

McAlmon is married and also has her own “babies”—two sons. Her eldest, 17, will attend Elon University in the fall; her other son 14, is about to enter high school.

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Photo courtesy Winchester Hospital

with a simple question: “How do you deal with the ethical issues of how small is too small and the larger number of babies who die compared with other areas of pediatrics? I kept asking myself. ‘Do I really want to have a career and deal with that all the time?’ ” says McAlmon.

In the end, the answer was yes. “I care about these issues and I’ve learned over the years that you don’t just treat the baby in neonatology, the whole family is your patient,” she says.

“When choosing a career, you have to think about the worst aspect of the area that you love and if you can embrace even that, then it’s the right choice.”

McAlmon was also captivated by the idea of providing care to the whole patient. “You are the primary physician for the whole patient, not just an organ,” she says. In addition, there is an immediate cause-and-effect in neonatology that has been tremendously gratifying. “When you do procedures to resuscitate a baby and see

Researching a Cure Peter deBlank ’92 3D oblique view of fiber tracts coursing through the corpus callosum of the brain.

Colors indicate individual tract directions.

I

T IS A conversation parents dread: a

Photo courtesy Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital

doctor sits them down and informs them that their child has cancer. Peter deBlank ’92 is intimately familiar with that conversation. As a pediatric neurooncologist, he has delivered that painful news many times.

“You are the first person to tell them their child has a tumor in the brain, kidney, or somewhere else . . . the family will remember that conversation for the rest of their lives,” says deBlank.

But what deBlank knows—and the parents don’t—is that the conversation is just the beginning of a journey, not the end. “We will help you through,” says deBlank.

He spends about 75 percent of his time performing clinical research, and the other 25 percent seeing patients at Cleveland, Ohio’s Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. His research is focused on what advanced neuro-

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

Peter deBlank and his wife, Robin Norris

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imaging can tell us about predicting functional outcomes after a diagnosis of a brain tumor.

“If you imagine the brain is a circuit board with some wiring, that wiring is disrupted by a tumor,” says deBlank. “What I am looking at is the correlation between the disruption and outcomes, like vision.” In other words, is there a way of predicting, based upon a brain image, whether a child will lose the ability to see or communicate?

“Right now we don’t know a lot about it,” says deBlank.

Through the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) technology, deBlank is able to map out, or trace more closely, the disruption in the brain caused by the tumor.

DeBlank took a circuitous route to the lab.

He graduated from CA in 1992 and attended Stanford University, eventually majoring in chemistry. But there was something missing. “I loved the literary criticism that Parkman Howe’s class introduced me to . . . throughout college I continued to love and develop the writing style that Parkman taught me,” says deBlank. So he ended up completing a dual degree in chemistry and English, not to mention tacking on an extra year to obtain a master’s degree in English.

Upon graduation, deBlank returned to Concord Academy to teach, after making it through an interview with science teacher Gary Hawley, his old advisor. In his first year, in keeping with his twin passions, deBlank taught chemistry; in each subsequent year, he taught English as well. With the help of a colleague, deBlank developed a course called Literature and Medicine based on Susan Sontag’s famous essay, “lllness as Metaphor.” The idea behind the course, says deBlank, was to “look at sickness, doctors, and medicine through different lenses.”

That course, along with some time volunteering in a locked residential patient ward at Somerville Hospital, convinced deBlank that, although he loved teaching, it was time to make another move—this time back to the West Coast to go to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.

“You have that conversation with the parents and you change their lives when you tell them their child has cancer …”

’92

Happily, deBlank now finds himself in a job where his twin interests, science and English, have converged.“I have done lots and lots of grant writing, so my English skills have been invaluable; I rely on my chemistry and science background in my research,” says deBlank.

“And the teaching that I have done has allowed me to deal with my young patients in a unique way; I think it has all come together nicely.”

DeBlank has just submitted two articles for review and publication based on a year’s worth of research. These days he is content to take the long view. “Research is very slow; I have multiple projects going at once so that I can harvest one after another,” says deBlank. “There is no Eureka moment.” He finds the same thing is true with his patients.

“You have that conversation with the parents and you change their lives when you tell them their child has cancer . . . but then you say you will treat them and it will take two to three years; that’s the beginning of a long process and a long relationship,” says deBlank.

“It’s a relationship that, if all goes well, will include small celebrations at the end of a long treatment schedule, or when a patient goes home from the hospital. You celebrate lots of little victories along the way.”

“From day one I have been a salmon swimming upstream.”

Against The Tide

Center for Mind/Body Health in Waltham, Massachusetts, Dr. Alice “Ali” Domar ’76 reflects on how she went from pariah to prominent professional in the field of women’s health. “For years I would present at meetings of infertility specialists, and they wouldn’t listen to me,” says Domar, “Then, in 2000, all of a sudden it was very, very different.

They all wanted to hear what I had to say.”

What changed is that Domar finally had real data to support her long-held belief that there was a connection between stress and infertility.

In 2000, she published a groundbreaking randomized controlled study that showed 55 percent of infertile women get pregnant within six months using mind/body relaxation techniques.

“It was incredible because I had been shunned for so long—now people wanted me to train them, they were flying in from all over the world,” she says.

Domar has since expanded her studies to include the impact of stress on many other areas of women’s health. “My life goal is to reduce stress in women, that’s what it boils down to,” says Domar. “Infertility is a piece of that, but the other half of my work is women and stress.”

Domar first knew she wanted to be a psychologist at the age of 13. She was volunteering as a candy striper at Concord’s Emerson Hospital when she had to have some surgery on her teeth. She was scared to death. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow . . . I know everyone in this hospital and I’m still scared. What about kids who don’t know anyone. What do they go through?’”

That was it. After she graduated from Concord Academy in 1976, one of Domar’s professors at Colby College told her about the field of

health psychology. It seemed the perfect fit for a student who didn’t really like science but was really interested in the psychological aspect of physical illness.

Although she originally planned to help children deal with the trauma of surgery, Domar switched her concentration to obstetrics and gynecology. After working through the typical medical school rotation required of her health psychology degree, she moved to Boston to work on her dissertation with Dr. Herbert Benson, widely considered the father of behavioral medicine.

It was there that she heard something that would change the direction of her life. “One of the doctors said the same part of the brain that triggers the fight-or-flight response also controls all aspects of reproduction,” says Domar. “Someone asked: Couldn’t there be a relationship between relaxation and fertility?”

Domar pulled together a research project.

Fifty women were going to be taught relaxation techniques; the other fifty would form a control group. Unfortunately, Domar couldn’t recruit any women to form the control group because they all desperately wanted babies.

She quickly abandoned her research in favor of forming a mind/body program for infertility.

It was immediately popular. Over the past 25 years, Domar has treated thousands of women and the numbers tell a dramatic story. “More than half get pregnant within six months. I don’t know how many babies that is. I do know nine are named Ali,” she says.

But the medical establishment wasn’t so enthusiastic. Domar’s ideas struck many in the fertility community as perpetuating the myth that if you “just relax you’ll get pregnant.”

Eventually, she left the program at Beth Israel to found the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health at Boston IVF. Along the way she became a best-selling author of several books, Healing Mind Healthy Woman, Self Nurture: Learning to Care for Yourself as Effectively as You Care for Everyone Else, and Be Happy Without Being Perfect.

Despite her successes, Domar hasn’t stopped poking the eye of the medical establishment.

Recently, she wrote a paper that pointed out the risks of pregnant women taking antidepressants.

“There are risks to the mother, risks to the baby—the babies walk later and sit later, and that means their brains have been impacted by the medication,” says Domar. “And you can’t argue with that.”

Just the same, many physicians and pharmaceutical companies have argued vehemently against her conclusions, claiming that she is a psychologist and not a physician and does not have the appropriate training to tackle the topic.

Domar remains undeterred. “From day one I have been a salmon swimming upstream,” she says. “I definitely got that from CA, the sense that you don’t have to blend in; we were encouraged to be individuals and taught that it’s okay to march to a different drummer.”

And that is a lesson Alice Domar has followed unfailingly.

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S

ITTING IN HER office at the Domar

Barbara Peacock

Alice Domar ’76

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On the Front Lines Jeffrey Schneider ’91

S

OMETIMES A chance encounter is all

news, but the reality is the illnesses we treat are no different than in any other emergency department,” says Schneider. Still, patient care at BMC can often be more complex because of the socioeconomic backgrounds of the population. “About 70 percent of our patients are considered underserved,” says Schneider, “They are immigrants, homeless, and the elderly, and the interplay between medicine and social dynamics is key.”

In simple terms, the treatment of a common disease like diabetes can be more complicated at BMC. “Our patients know they need to take their medications, but they may need help figuring out how to afford them when buying medication can often mean not having enough money for food,” says Schneider.

These difficult issues are exactly what intrigued Schneider about Boston Medical Center in the first place. After graduating from Concord Academy, Schneider headed to Brown University for his undergraduate degree. He went on to the University of Massachusetts for medical school and then did his residency at BMC. He never left. “This seemed like the kind of place where public health met the road,” says Schneider. “There was, and is, a longstanding commitment to providing top-notch care to people who might otherwise not have access.

The commitment to ‘Exceptional Care without Exception’ is real and palpable.”

Schneider credits CA with providing him with the tools to embrace a place like BMC. “CA taught me the importance of listening,

Photo courtesy Boston Medical Center

it takes to determine a career path.

During high school and college, Jeffrey Schneider ’91 worked as a summer camp counselor. One of the older counselors was a medical student who made a deep impression on Schneider. “I looked at him and said, “I want to be that guy when I grow up,’” says Schneider. And that was that.

Fast forward a few years, and now Schneider is an emergency department physician and also heads the residency program at Boston Medical Center (BMC). The emergency department at BMC treats about 130,000 patients a year. According to Schneider, more than half of the patients earn under $20,000 a year.

“The gunshot wounds make the 11:00 p.m.

“The gunshot wounds make the 11:00 p.m. news, but the reality is the illnesses we treat are no different than in any other emergency department.”

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By The Numbers Rahul Sakhuja ’94

T

HREE, FOUR , and five are important numbers to remember when telling the story of Dr. Rahul Sakhuja ’94.

Three, because he earned three graduate degrees: a joint MD and master’s degree in public policy from Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a master of science in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health. He also earned a triple major in psychology, biology, and public policy at Swarthmore College. Four because, as a cardiologist, Sakhuja has made the four chambers of the heart in all their intricacies his life’s work. And finally five, because he is board-certified in five specialties including: internal medicine, general cardiology, interventional cardiology, vascular medicine, and endovascular medicine.

As an interventional cardiologist, Sakhuja’s day job involves a mix of both diagnostic and procedural medicine. He likens himself to a plumber as he explains some of the newer techniques he performs such as endovascular aortic aneurysm therapy and TAVR (see sidebar). “Using minimally invasive techniques, we can now open blood vessels throughout the body—to treat heart attacks, prevent strokes, and help people walk,” says Sakhuja.

These kinds of procedures used to be the domain of cardiac surgeons and often involved cracking open the chest cavity—a highly invasive procedure that resulted in weeks of recuperation time. Sakhuja is one of a small number of physicians across the country credentialed to sew valves onto stents and snake them into position intravenously, avoiding the large surgeries and resulting in fewer costs to the patient both physically and financially. “Previously, some of these patients were too high risk for surgery . . . now we can provide options,” he says.

Sakhuja recently moved from Boston to Kingsport, Tennessee, where he serves as the medical director of the structural heart program at the Wellmont CVA Heart Institute. Although outside of the bigger cities, Sakhuja is right where he feels he needs to be to make the greatest impact. “The extremely high rates of heart disease down in this part of the country are complicated by high obesity, diabetes, and smoking rates,” says Sakhuja, “It was

What is TAVR? Invented by renowned French cardiologist Dr. Alain Cribier, transcatheter aortic valve replacement involves replacing a faulty heart valve with a synthetic one made out of bovine pericardium encased in metal. The valve is inserted near the heart via a large IV and without major surgery. Dr. Sakhuja is one of a handful of American cardiologists who trained with Dr. Cribier to perform this procedure.

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the importance of diversity, and the importance of speaking up and asking questions,” says Schneider.

Not a bad takeaway for a student who fought his parents tooth-and-nail when they suggested CA might be a good fit. Schneider was admitted as a freshman but got “cold feet” and actually waited to enter the school as a sophomore. Eventually he came to believe that going to CA was “the best decision they ever helped me make,” says Schneider.

Although he is not one of those kids who, as he puts it, “grew up with a stethoscope in his ear,” medicine, particularly emergency medicine, always seemed like a good fit.

“I like being the first one to see people,” he says. “I like the challenge of trying to figure out what’s wrong. I like the pressure of having to develop quick and intimate relationships with people to get them to trust me.”

Schneider is also in charge of the residency program at BMC, the oldest emergency medicine training program in the city. He heads up the management, monitoring, and training of forty-eight residents. Despite the flood of paperwork, Schneider enjoys the mentoring role.

Each year, a new crop of residents find themselves immersed in the busiest emergency department in New England. The frantic pace is constant, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “Some patients come here at 4:00 a.m. so they don’t have to miss a day of work because they won’t get paid if they don’t go in,” says Schneider.

That’s a problem the 2006 Massachusetts health care insurance reform law was designed, in part, to fix. The law—which provides access to affordable health care for more than 95 percent of previously uninsured residents— was structured to drive down the number of people heading to an emergency room to seek primary health care. Judging by the numbers at BMC, the law hasn’t necessarily worked as planned. “Our volume has continued to rise,” says Schneider.

In addition, the cost of providing care continues to go up for most hospitals, but the reimbursement rates from federal and state programs like Medicare and Medicaid continue to be reduced. “Getting reimbursed is more and more challenging . . . and payment reform is lagging behind because it’s a very complicated topic,” says Schneider.

Despite these seemingly intractable problems, Schneider has never regretted his decision to stay at BMC. “I am constantly struck by how fortunate I am,” says Schneider. “Things can be taken away in the blink of an eye, and throughout my day I am often forced to realize just how truly fragile life is.”

degree in the first place; an idea that was influenced by his years at CA and then later by his professors at Swarthmore. “It’s really exciting to have a public policy degree at this time. Health care reform will be the defining public policy in our lifetime,” says Sakhuja, who believes the way forward is to deliver care in an affordable manner using a population-based perspective.

Rather than looking at people as individuals with health care needs, the idea is to focus on individuals as members of groups with shared health care needs. This approach maintains that individuals will benefit from the guidelines developed for the groups in which they belong.

“Currently the system is very fragmented,” Sakhuja says. “The goal is to do away with the fragmentation.”

Sakhuja grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and followed in the footsteps of his older

brother, Rohit Sakhuja ’90. He studied under “inspired teachers who I remember vividly and to whom I credit my interest in going to graduate school,” Sakhuja says. He played varsity soccer, squash and tennis, and saxophone in the jazz ensemble. Most importantly, at CA he realized that he would thrive in a small environment, and chose Swarthmore for his undergraduate studies where, he says, CA’s academic rigor gave him a strong foundation to perform well. Sakhuja says CA also taught him to think “bigger than myself.”

Perhaps that’s why after he traveled to Tennessee for some training, Sakhuja decided to move down to the Volunteer State. “I want to continue to make an impact . . . my future is rooted in the service role that Concord Academy instilled,” he says.

’94 Photo courtesy Wellmont CVA

a rare opportunity to bring this new skill set to an area that has not previously had access to this kind of treatment.” His patients hail from northeast Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and even parts of Kentucky and North Carolina, with some driving four hours to get care.

As the country gets closer to fully implementing the Affordable Health Care Act, access to treatment has been on Sakhuja’s mind a lot as his medical team has been wrestling with ways in which they can “improve the type of care we deliver but also how we deliver it in a way that helps the patients and is sustainable within our health care model . . . There are incredible ways to improve survival and quality of life, but they also drive costs.”

The interplay of health care policy and delivering care to patients is exactly why Sakhuja decided to pursue a public policy

“…Health care reform will be the defining public policy in our lifetime.”

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

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Finding Her Path Annie Kalt ’02

F

“I think over the years I have developed more of an appreciation for how my years at CA shaped me intellectually.”

tion and hope that comes with working for a truly socially transformative organization such as Partners In Health.

After returning from Rwanda, Kalt decided to go to medical school—a career path she has not predicted as a self-described “social science person.” However, she had one small problem: during her entire four years at Stanford she had taken only basic biology, without the laboratory work required by medical schools. So it was off to the Harvard University Extension School to immerse herself in an intensive 15-month program to complete all her pre-med courses.

Kalt was determined to finish in a matter of months, not years. And she did. “It wasn’t too bad,” she says.

But Kalt still hadn’t unpacked her bags for good.

In 2010, she was named a Marshall Scholar.

During the two-year graduate scholarship program, Kalt studied a range of topics all touching on health policy, including planning, financing, health economics, public health in developing countries, and ethics. She received an MS in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, returning to her more humanistic roots, an MA from the Philosophy department at University College London. “It was a fascinating couple of years,” says Kalt.

The two years she spent in London allowed Kalt to analyze another health care system up close, this time the National Health Service in Britain. “The UK does a relatively great job with access, and the idea of medical rationing in the NHS is much more culturally and politically accepted . . . in the United States, we do have a very dynamic health care system, where there are strong incentives for research and excellent care for those who can pay. But this leads to massive access problems,” says Kalt. “The level of specialization we have in the United States is an advantage but there are huge—and I would say unacceptable—equity costs.”

Within weeks of coming back to Boston, Kalt started medical school. At 29, Kalt is a bit older than many of her classmates, but she recognizes that this brings benefits, too. As a more mature student with work experience and graduate training, she has found she has advantages in accessing research opportunities and developing mentorships. And life has not stalled in the meantime. She will be married in June, and she looks forward to juggling starting a family amidst a busy medical career.

Kalt adds, “I think over the years I have developed more of an appreciation for how my years at CA shaped me intellectually,” she says.

Perhaps now she can unpack her bags for good.

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

OR THE PAST ten years, Annie Kalt ’02 has had a hard time sitting still.

She has packed her bags and set out to live in Rwanda, Zambia, Brazil, London, and California pursuing her passion, only now finding her path has led her back to Boston.

After graduating from Concord Academy, Kalt attended Stanford University and thought she would study social sciences. She had always considered herself a “history and English” sort of student, and loved to write. While in her first year, however, Kalt’s social justice interests led her towards work on global and domestic health inequalities. She shifted her major to human biology—a program that allowed her to design an area of concentration in global health policy, combining public health, history, international relations, and political science. In addition to academics, Stanford also offers students rich access to meaningful volunteer work and a network of students and faculty dedicated to service and advocacy. With that kind of support and encouragement, it didn’t take long for Kalt to pack her bags.

In the summer of her junior year, Kalt found herself in Zambia at the Mwange Refugee Camp. She was there to work on a women’s health project for FORGE—a U.S.-based nonprofit that helps develop the skills of refugees before they return to their post-conflict communities. Kalt also participated in the Women’s Health Empowerment Project, which, through a series of workshops, provided women and younger girls with concrete information on pressing problems such as gender-based violence and reproductive health care.

After Zambia it was on to Rwanda, where Kalt worked as program director for FACE AIDS—a non-profit working in grassroots AIDS education and community health efforts.

As she spent time in Zambia and Rwanda, Kalt’s interest in and understanding of global health inequalities deepened and grew more informed, she says. “I loved the proximity I had to the community in Mwange, and the sense I had of working through relationships. But I had so little ability to influence real improvements in health care in the camp. The resources were just so limited.” In Rwanda, she found the inspira-

’02 33

Primary Practice Susan Corson Day ’69

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’69

UCK EGGS . A simple class experi-

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

ment involving duck eggs at Concord Academy back in the late sixties captivated Dr. Susan Corson Day ’69 and changed her life. “Concord was this women’s-only place that was focused on not being a finishing school,” says Day. “I learned there that I really liked science, biology, and botany, and the faculty was very supportive of women thinking scientifically.” At the time, the women in her life did not actively pursue careers. “I was thinking I was going to grow up and follow a traditional, albeit well-educated, place in the home,” she says.

Instead, Day got caught in one of the first wave of women professionals in the seventies.

She attended Stanford University, then graduated from Harvard University with a biology degree. She earned her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

At a time when most of her physician colleagues were opting for highly specialized fields, Day set her sights on general internal medicine. “I liked the idea of primary care because you get the 10,000-foot view of the whole person in the context of their family and community,” says Day. This generalist focus also led her to earn a master’s in Public Health from Harvard University.

After completing a general internal medicine fellowship, Day ran the primary care residency program at UPenn, then joined the staff of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).

She did all this while maintaining a small practice. As vice president of the ABIM, she was involved in setting the standards for what it means to be a “board-certified” internist. “The ABIM decides what a physician needs to know to be a good doctor,” says Day. “We had to figure out how to evaluate knowledge, ethical behavior, professionalism, and physical exam skills using a combination of direct observation and secure examinations.”

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“The great thing about the Affordable Care Act is that millions of people will be getting insurance, but who is going to provide the care? You won’t improve outcomes until you improve access to care.”

Eventually, though, Day realized she wanted to spend more time with patients and teaching. After a stint in a private practice in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, she returned to the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where she continues to work in an academic practice, seeing her own patients and teaching ambulatory care to the internal medicine residents.

Now a professor of Clinical Medicine and director of Ambulatory Quality and Practice Improvement, her personal passion and academic focus are on improving how primary care is delivered.

Day describes the ideal practice of the future as a “medical home.” The concept of a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) began in 2007, when primary care organizations responded to patient frustration with an increasingly fragmented health care system.

The key characteristics of PCMH are care that is patient-centered, comprehensive, team-based, coordinated, accessible, and focused on quality and safety.

The concept was developed in part because of the paradox in the American health care system. The United States offers highly technical

and highly advanced medical care but on many scales—such as infant mortality—the system underperforms the rest of the world. In part, says Day, this is because “patients across the life spectrum have trouble navigating the health care system, and are desperately seeking an advocate to help guide their care.”

At a medical home practice, a patient is surrounded by a team of providers who are responsible for a patient’s complete health care needs, including prevention and wellness, acute and chronic care. A care coordinator organizes all aspects of care across a broad spectrum including hospital visits, laboratory tests, and community services.

In addition to improving patient care, this model is also designed to create a more positive working environment and less burnout for physicians and nurse practitioners, an issue of some concern as the Affordable Health Care Act comes closer to full implementation. According to Day, at this point there aren’t enough primary care doctors to go around. “The great thing about the Affordable Care Act is that millions of people will be getting insurance, but who is going to provide the care?” asks Day. “You won’t improve outcomes until you improve access to care.”

In the future, that care might be offered by a nurse practitioner instead of a physician. In addition, health care providers and patients will need to work together to make hard decisions about the cost of care. It’s not rationing, says Day, but understanding that in order to control the cost of health care, “not everybody with back pain needs an MRI, and not every mole requires a consult with a dermatologist.”

While there are still unanswered questions, Day and her colleagues believe medical homes and medical neighborhoods are the first step to addressing the impending health care crunch.

“It is an exciting and challenging time with many changes ahead,” says Day.

“It was very comforting to know that even people from an older generation faced the same problems and struggles that I have faced. The alum that I spoke to also assured me that even though the workload is hard to handle, in the end, everything pays off. I am very appreciative of how much the school is doing for me as well as the teachers teaching me.”

— Sayem Talukdar ’16

O

n a Sunday afternoon this past January, twenty-five CA students of color climbed onto a bus to head into Jillian’s, near Fenway Park in Boston, where area alumnae/i of color from CA were waiting. During the bus trip, faculty members told the students about the alumnae/i they would meet: a neonatologist, a graduate school admissions officer, an undergraduate at Tufts, and a lawyer, among others. The students were encouraged to introduce themselves, reach out, and ask questions.

Over the course of a few hours the two groups bowled, played pool, and watched the New England Patriots while devouring mac and cheese bites, egg rolls, and other tasty morsels. They swapped stories and shared experiences, finding out how much they had in common and, in some cases, how things have changed.

The Alumnae/i Community and Equity Committee has worked together with the Community and Equity office on campus for the past four years, bringing students and alumnae/i of color together, helping them to connect with each other.

“One of the greatest feelings about meeting alumnae/i from your school is an enormous sense of pride. While chatting with one of the older women, a now-successful doctor, I realized that even though her generation at Concord Academy was a different one, our experiences were very similar. I was hit with the sudden realization of the opportunities CA offered, and I was eager to take advantage. After a great conversation, we consistently keep in touch, and it’s nice to know that I’ve made a new friend, maybe someone who will be able to help me in the future. I hope to attend another alumnae/i event in the future, if only to meet new people and hear even more post-CA adventures!”

— Lina Janah ’14

Katie McNally ‘08 and Chris McNally ‘11 left the mark of a CA ring on a table while visiting an ice-themed restaurant in Canada.

Thanks to Alex McClennen Dohan ‘85 for sharing this great photo of her ring (right), next to her grandmother’s, Louise Herman McClennen ‘35 (left). #mycastory

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C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

Lindsay Kolowich ’09 and four of her classmates took this photo while reuniting at Main Street Cafe this fall in Concord, Massachusetts.

Alex Mclennen Dohan ’85

Are you wearing your CA ring?

Take a photo of you and your ring and share where you are on Instagram or Twitter and post with the tag #MyCAStory. So far we have seen the Chameleon on ice, an original ring from the Class of 1935, and a story about alumnae/i introducing themselves after noticing their matching CA rings at a Mardi Gras parade.

You can also email your photo to carly_nartowicz@concordacademy.org

Leanne McNally P’08, ’11

THE ADVENTURES OF CA RINGS Lindsay Kolowich ’09

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C O N N E C T I N G: CA Students and Alumnae/i of Color

★ Boston Eastern Standard

Recent Alumnae/i Events

★ San Francisco Presidio Golf Club

★ 80s Event Cambridge Boat Club

★ Washington, DC Poste Moderne Brasserie

★ New York City Club Metropolitan at Metropolitan Tower

Upcoming Alumnae/i Events June 14–16

August 9

Reunion Weekend

Cocktail reception with Head of School Rick Hardy Nantucket, MA

June 15

Memorial Service Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 9:00 a.m.

Joan Shaw Herman Distinguished Service Award Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 10:45 p.m.

Upcoming Special School Events May 31

August 27

Young Alumnae/i night at Fenway Park Red Sox vs. Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 p.m.

Fenway Park

Commencement Chapel Lawn, 10:00 a.m.

August 31

Orientation for new students

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

Celebration of Teaching: Honoring the Retirements of Susan Adams and Keith Daniel Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 5:00 p.m.

For more details and to register for events, please call Karen Kerns at (978) 402-2248 or see concordacademy.org/alumnaei/events

October 26

Fall Alumnae/i Association Meeting with Head of School Rick Hardy Ransome Room, 9:30 a.m. to noon Homecoming Moriarty Athletic Campus

July 25

Cocktail reception with Head of School Rick Hardy Chatham, MA

Watch for upcoming alumnae/i events in your area at concordacademy.org

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September 3

Convocation First day of classes October 10

Class Socials for Parents October 11–12

Parents’ Weekend Check for more events and updated information at concordacademy.org/calendars.

“C

Alumnae/i Association Steering Committee 2012–13

LASSMATES and other Concord Academy alumnae/i often

ask me about what the Alumnae/i Association actually does. The word Association offers a somewhat passive image; however, alumnae/i volunteers are active and involved in a variety of roles that add value for the entire school community of students, faculty, and alumnae/i. For example, the Alumnae/i Community and Equity Committee recently sponsored a fantastic event for alumnae/i and students, featured on page 35. In another area, alumnae/i admissions interviewers trained with admissions staff and then interviewed prospective students on Saturdays throughout the fall and winter months. If these students are accepted, alumnae/i are among the first voices to welcome them to this community! Rewarding opportunities exist for so many of us to continue our relationship with CA. I’d love to hear how you would like to get involved.” (joseivanroman@gmail.com)

José Ivan Román ‘98 President Vicky Huber ‘75, P’07, ‘09, ‘13 Vice President, Chair, Nominating Kate Rea Schmitt ‘62, P’88 Vice President, Chair, Alumnae/i Annual Fund Jamie Klickstein ‘86, P’15 Vice President, Chair, Outreach & Alumnae/i Admissions Interviewers Lauren Bruck Simon ‘85 Secretary Sam Boswell ‘13 Senior Class Representative Lucy Boyle ‘66 Chair, Local Alumnae/i Committee Carolyn Smith Davies ‘55 Chair, Local Alumnae/i Committee Liz Delaney ‘13 Senior Class Representative Michael Firestone ‘01 Vice-Chair, Alumnae/i Annual Fund Anne Lawson ‘80 Chair, Joan Shaw Herman Committee Marian Lindberg ‘72 Vice-Chair, Alumnae/i Annual Fund

José Ivan Román ’98 President, Concord Academy Alumnae/i Association

Karen McAlmon ‘75 Chair, Alumnae/i Community & Equity Committee Claire Moriarty ‘05 Chair, CA Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC)

Alumnae/i Admissions Committee 2012–13

Jamie Klickstein ’86, p’15, Chair Abigail Cohen ’01 Marion Odence-Ford ’80 Sarah Green ’00 Annie Lawson ’80 Laura McConaghy ’01 Alison Muyskens ’78 Jared Pimm ’07 Jonathan Schechner ’98

Spotlight on Alumnae/i Admissions Interviews

“I really enjoyed interviewing applicants for CA this fall; the kids and parents were all smart, interesting, and open just the way I remember them from my days at Concord. It was great to spend a Saturday connecting with such talented, bright students and answering their questions about a place that, frankly, changed my life. As an alum, it feels good to know that while the students may change every year, CA’s values — common trust, enthusiasm, a love of learning — stick around.”

— Sarah Green ’00, Alumna Admissions Interviewer

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C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

ALUMNAE I ASSOCIATION UPDATE

Tyler Stone ‘05 Chair, CA Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC)

From the Archives During a recent search through CA’s archives, Library Director Martha Kennedy came across a pamphlet written in the manner of a pseudo-Socratic dialogue

by David Aloian, headmaster of Concord Academy from 1963 to 1971. Enjoy.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

About Learning: A New Headmaster States His View 82

If you have some CA artifacts or memorabilia to share, please contact Library Director Martha Kennedy at library@concordacademy.org 83

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

In celebration of Concord Academy’s 90th anniversary and as we approach its centennial, this ongoing column will feature items housed in the school’s archives.

These photos show students from the ’50s, ’70s, and ’80s.

How many can you identify? Send your answers to magazine@concordacademy.org

IN

M EM O RI AM

John Abrams ’95, brother of Cleo Abrams ’91 Jane Peck Alexander ’41, aunt of Sabrina Peck ’66 Leslie Bowen, father of Stephanie Bowen ’03 Louise Garfield Browne ’36, mother of Louise Browne Soleau ’71 Marilyn Buckley, mother of Deirdre Buckley Clark ’82 Paul Cahill, father of of Adrienne Cahill ’07 Jean Paul Carlhian, father of Isabelle A. Carlhian ’72 and Sophie V. Carlhian ’79 Morton Charnley, husband of Sarah Bowen Charnley ’44 Elizabeth Pope Compton, mother of Lisa Compton Bellocchio ’71 Steven Curcuru, father of Shane Curcuru ’85 Harriette Dorsen, mother of Jennifer Dorsen ’85 David Ford, father of Warren Ford ’82 Miriam P. Hall-Wunderlich ’57, sister of Sarah Brooks ’67, cousin of Eleanor Putnam ’59 and cousin of Joan Kimball ’66 John Handy Jr., father of Amy Handy ’65 Kenneth Howes Jr., father of Frances Howes Valiente ’64 Madeleine Howes, sister of Frances Howes Valiente ’64 John Johansen, husband of Ati Gropius Johansen ’44 Corinne Benson Johnson ’46, sister of Ann Benson Reece ’59 and cousin of Faith Andrews Bedford ’63 Rev. Ivan Kaufman, father of Helen Kaufman Minkes ’85 Bertrum Kellem, father of Jeffrey Kellem ’88 Stella Brown Kenly, mother of Susan Angevin ’72 Abigail King ’33 Charles Leighton, father of Julia Leighton ’77 and Anne Leighton ’79 Anthony Lewis, father of David Lewis ’76 Helen Whiting Livingston ’41, mother of Martha Livingston ’78 Jean Dunbar Maryborn ’52 Julie Turner McNulty ’41, cousin of Barbara Mechem Smith ’38 Louise Moore Nelson, mother of Beverly Nelson Elder ’67 Ann Burger Noonan ’49 Rodger Nordblom, widower of the late Mary Crocker Nordblom ’47, father of Anne Nordblom Dodge ’68, Carolyn Nordblom Los ’70, and Lee Nordblom ’77, uncle of Tia Cross ’67 and grandfather of Thomas Cote ’04 Ruth Dickson Orcult ’38 Ruth Talbot Plimpton, mother of Anne Plimpton ’67 and grandmother of Cynthia Smith ’84 Maura Martin Roberts, mother of Caragh McLaughlin ’88 Robert Shaw, father of Gillian Shaw Kellogg ’59 and Susan Shaw Winthrop ’62 CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2013

Andrew Sides, husband of Anna Borden Sides ’44 and brother-in-law of Ethel Borden Wood ’47 Charles Silva, grandfather of Nora Silva ’15 Stephen Simon, grandfather of Matt Simon ’15 Philip Swaebe, father of David Swaebe ’82 Mary Hendry Teirlynck, grandmother of Olivia Linville ’11 Brig. Gen. Benton C. Tolley, husband of Joanne Dodd Tolley ’41 Dan Tucker, husband of Edith McMillan Tucker ’55, and brother-in-law of Ellen McMillan Aman ’49 and the late Caroline McMillan ’47 Geoffrey Tyler, husband of Frances Stevenson Tyler ’63 Robert Zildjian, grandfather of Alexa Zildjian ’15

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Concord Academy’s Faculty and Staff 90 Percent for the 90th Year

V

ISUAL ARTS teacher Chris Rowe and science and math teacher

“Giving to the Annual Fund is my way of ensuring

Amy Kumpel volunteered to lead the 2012–13 faculty and staff Annual Fund giving effort with a bold goal: Celebrate CA’s 90th anniversary year with a 90 percent participation rate in just three weeks.

that a community that has embraced and sustained me for over two decades can, in turn, be sustained, not only for today but for the

The response was tremendous. Over 96 percent of faculty and staff gave back to CA through the Annual Fund. This inspiring show of support—from the community that lives, works, and teaches here every day—is a testament to the continuing strength of Concord Academy.

decades to come.”

When you make a gift to Concord Academy’s Annual Fund before June 30, you join faculty and staff in their demonstrated commitment to students, encouraging talent, creativity, and a lifelong love of learning. Thank you.

Alene Zeitouni ’13

— Chris Rowe

“CA is my community, my neighborhood, and my home.

Every day I feel lucky to teach in such an amazing place, and giving to the Annual Fund is my way of saying ‘thank you’ to CA.” — Amy Kumpel

Please make your Annual Fund gift today online: concordacademy.org/give mail: Concord Academy Annual Fund, 166 Main Street, Concord, MA 01742

call: (978) 402-2240

Non-Profit U.S. Postage PAID Hanover, NH Permit No. 8

Concord Academy 166 Main Street Concord, MA 01742

Address service requested