Durham Academy Magazine - Winter 2019 by Durham Academy

Winter 2019

Academy Road: A Reimagined Middle School

Watch the first episode of REEL DA, featuring Preschool art and cooking teacher Elizabeth Lyle, at bit.ly/ReelDALyle.

CONNECT WITH DURHAM ACADEMY Facebook: facebook.com/DurhamAcademy Alumni on Facebook: facebook.com/DACavsAlumni Twitter: twitter.com/DurhamAcademy Alumni on Twitter: twitter.com/DurhamAcademyAl Vimeo: bit.ly/DAcavsvimeo LinkedIn: bit.ly/LinkedInDAAlumni Instagram: instagram.com/DurhamAcademy Flickr: flickr.com/DurhamAcademy View the magazine online at da.org/magazine. The Durham Academy App is available in the Apple App Store.

FEATURES 12 — CAVALIER CAPSTONES Students in ninth through 11th grade will wrap up the school year with new experiences that range from “Dancing through Durham and Beyond” to “Peru: Trekking to Machu Picchu.”

16 — DA STUDENTS, TEACHERS COMPLETE EXCHANGE WITH CHINA Seven Durham Academy students visited Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai last summer as part of DA’s first Chinese exchange trip. The trip officially establishes a relationship between DA and Beijing No. 8 High School, which sent seven students to DA two years ago.

25 — VALUES GUIDE NEW MATH PROGRAM IN THE LOWER SCHOOL The format keeps students actively involved in math lessons that take place for 60 minutes each day. Each part is short, highly engaging and provides opportunities for students to discuss and articulate the strategies they are employing to solve math problems.

DA’S BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE COMES TO LIFE

The Upper School STEM and Humanities Center is nearing completion. Construction of a completely reimagined Middle School campus begins this summer, with work continuing through 2025.

North Korean Defectors Faced Star vation, Forced Labor

44 — RAISING AWARENESS OF IMMENSE SUFFERING Over the course of 10 summers spent in South Korea, Kay Youngstrom ’19 and Diane Youngstrom ’17 learned of the starvation and forced labor that North Korean defectors faced, so the sisters helped organize speech events at which defectors from North Korea could share their stories.

On the Cover: Construction begins this summer on an arts and languages building, the first step in a plan that reimagines the Middle School campus. Rendering by Cannon Architects

Big changes are coming to the Middle School campus, but the outdoor, tree-filled aspect of the campus will remain. Photo by Michael Branscom

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CONTENTS Moral, Happy, Productive

6 — BENNY KLEIN ’20 Through Bundle Up Durham, the DA junior leads an effort to raise money and collect coats to help public school students keep warm.

14 — LIFE-CHANGING ADVENTURE Taking part in DA’s Spanish exchange program was a stretch for Helen Morgan ’15, who had never been outside the United States, but taking the risk has rewarded her richly.

Faculty Spotlight: Upper School Technical Theater Director

22 — JAKE KAVANAGH

52 ALUMNI

Doing design work for Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl halftime show and President Obama’s inaugural ball can’t compare with teaching and making an impact on students’ lives.

Kindergarten School Day to Lengthen in 2019–2020 Dream Come True: Working in the NBA

56 — NICK GALLO ’06 60 — ALUMNI SHARE PERSPECTIVES AND CAREER ADVICE WITH SENIORS Making Music in China

62 — TERENCE HSIEH ’07 It Runs in the Blood

66 — FAMILY TRADITION CONTINUES WITH CROSSCOUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIP Helping Build DA’s Campus

69 — SUSAN KNOTT EASTERLING ’00

28 — LONGER DAY = MORE INSTRUCTIONAL TIME Kindergarten day will extend to 2:30 p.m., giving additional time for literacy and math instruction and aligning better with opportunities for learning when they get to Lower School.

46 — DA COMMUNITY RALLIES TO HELP VICTIMS OF HURRICANE FLORENCE When Eastern North Carolina was devastated by flooding, students and families stepped up with food, water and much-needed supplies.

Faculty Spotlight: Kindergarten Teacher

48 — SLOAN NUERNBERGER The kindergarten teacher’s third Boston Marathon was a testament to her perseverance, as she ran 26.2 miles through heavy rains, wind gusts up to 35 miles per hour and a temperature of just 39 degrees.

Photo by Melody Guyton Butts

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Featured Contributors

Winter 2019 Vol. 46 // No. 1 EDITORIAL Kathy McPherson // Editor Sarah Jane Tart // Art Director

COMMUNICATIONS communications@da.org

Leslie King // Director of Communications Kathy McPherson // Associate Director of Communications Melody Guyton Butts // Assistant Director of Communications Sarah Jane Tart // Multimedia Specialist

Bonnie Wang Upper School Chinese Teacher Since coming to DA in 2015, Wang has helped guide the growth of the Chinese language program and has worked to introduce Chinese culture to all of the Upper School.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ben Michelman, Middle School Language Arts and Community Engagement Coordinator; Bonnie Wang, Upper School Chinese Teacher; Carolyn Ronco, Lower School Director; Kay Youngstrom ’19

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Michael Branscom; Jessie Wang; Greg Murray, Physical Education Academic Leader; Emilio Madrid-Kuser; Joi Henslee; Dominic M. Mercier; Faith Couch ’15; Jerry Reves; Brooke Borough Photography; Nancy Ray Photography; Élan Photographie Studio

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS AND ILLUSTRATORS Hannah Kohn ’23, Josh Klein ’18

PRODUCTION Theo Davis // Printer

LEADERSHIP

Carolyn Ronco Lower School Director Ronco has been working with children for more than 25 years. She believes that a child’s years in the Lower School are the perfect time to foster curiosity, engagement and a love of learning.

Michael Ulku-Steiner // Head of School Karen Rabenau // Chair, Board of Trustees Garrett Putman ’94 // President, Alumni Board

DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI AFFAIRS

development@da.org

Leslie Holdsworth // Director of Development Tim McKenna // Director of Alumni Engagement Special thanks to Cannon Architects, StoryDriven, MarathonFoto, onestopmap.com and Anne McNamara, DA Archivist

Greg Murray Physical Education Academic Leader Murray has loved photography since high school, and he sees photography as a chance to express his artistic nature. He takes great joy in telling a story with surroundings, a sense of timing and facial expressions.

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Next Up: Middle School Redesign

e came to Durham Academy — from many directions and with varied roles — because we sensed a shared commitment to excellence. That commitment manifests in our life-changing faculty; the vibrancy of our arts, sports and community service programs; and the vigor with which we help students build their best selves. As you’ll see in this magazine, we have also committed ourselves to building the best possible learning spaces for our students and teachers. Before you read more about the what and the how of our plans for the Middle School campus, I want to remind you why we’ve embarked on these ambitious projects: Our campus needs are urgent. The Middle School’s economically built structures are now 55 years old. They were planned when the Academy Road campus was home to pre-k through eighth grade, thus built for many younger learners, and were designed for the educational activities of the 1960s. We’ve made creative renovations to render those buildings adequate for our fifth- to eighth-graders since Academy Road became a dedicated Middle School campus in 2002, but limitations remain. Now we aim to solve the most pressing problems (“Hallelujah!” shout the fifth-graders, soon to be free of sitting on the floor in Taylor Hall). More importantly, we will provide the same quality of thoughtful architecture that our students in Preschool, Lower School and (with the completion of our STEM and Humanities Center) Upper School students and teachers enjoy. Our design keeps active adolescent learners at the core. Student voices were among the first we sought and heard as we envisioned our renovated Middle School. The new campus will be safer for students (i.e. fewer external entries, better sight and supervision lines, a more logical pattern for drop-off and pick-up). At the same time, it will preserve the outdoor campus we treasure — keeping people moving all day through fresh air among buildings and outdoor gathering spaces. Among the other features our students prompted us to include: a more coherent and

spacious quad, better access to the playing fields, more drinking fountains and two outdoor amphitheaters. Though we are midway through DA’s 85th school year, these projects will bring us our first campus purposely designed for early adolescents, catering to the unique needs and preferences of 10- to 14-year-olds. These projects will frame and sustain our excellence. Middle School is a crucial developmental chapter, and DA’s Middle School is a key admissions entry point. We are building state-ofthe-art facilities to help us compete for the most talented students in the Triangle and the most skilled teachers in the country. We have designed the facilities for maximum flexibility as teaching and learning paradigms continue to evolve. These projects will complete Durham Academy’s campuses at a level that matches our aspirations to remain a national-caliber independent school. We believe in the elevating power of a well-designed campus. While DA has never aimed for ostentatious facades, we have proven that thoughtful architecture can unite and elevate students and teachers. From Brumley Performing Arts Building, to the Lower School garden, to Kirby Gymnasium, to the Upper School Learning Commons, we know how well-designed spaces can activate learning and build community. As Winston Churchill put it, “we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” We cannot take our campus or our future for granted, so we are energetically building them both.

Michael Ulku-Steiner Head of School @MrUlkuSteiner

From the Blog Sept. 27, 2018

Empathy By Ben Michelman

A Mission-Driven Life

THE DURHAM ACADEMY GRADUATE Middle School language arts teacher Ben Michelman officially added a new hat to his collection this year: Middle School community engagement coordinator. In this role, Michelman works with fellow teachers to develop service learning activities that can be incorporated into academic lessons and advisory time. In infusing everyday lessons with service learning, faculty are living DA’s mission to equip students for “moral, happy, productive lives” — the framework for The Durham Academy Graduate: A Mission-Driven Life. As Michelman writes here, moral, happy and productive all apply to the seventh-grade class, which spent the early part of the school year learning about hunger in Durham and then cooking and serving a meal to 250 people at a local community kitchen. Moral, happy and productive also apply to junior Benny Klein, who has worked to collect hundreds of coats for homeless children; read his story on page 6.

Learn more about the 15 character traits that comprise The DA Graduate: A Mission-Driven Life at thedagraduate.org.

Salad on the floor, beef stew on bus seats, grease-stained shirts, torn paper flower decorations — these were some of the messes made by the seventh-grade class as they planned, shopped for, cooked and served a meal for 250 people in the community café at Urban Ministries of Durham. On the Thursday before they served the meal, seventh-graders learned about hunger as part of their advisory curriculum, “Looking Beyond Ourselves.” At lunch, students were randomly placed at tables and served meals that mirrored food accessibility statistics. Most students ate a bowl of rice. This highlighted the severe, widespread impact of hunger and the large gap between those who have access to food options and those who don’t. Next, Gin Jackson of Urban Ministries presented statistics and context about hunger in North Carolina and Durham. Toward the end of her presentation, she gave students details about their service-learning challenge: Each advisory would prepare a different portion of the meal.

To continue reading, go to bit.ly/benmichelman.

MORAL HAPPY PRODUCTIVE

When the mercury drops each winter, Benny Klein has always had a warm coat to keep out the chill. But the Durham Academy junior knows that not everyone is so lucky. “On my drive to school, I often see kids waiting for the bus [without adequate winter gear],” he said. “I am aware of it all the time, and I’m thinking, man, is there something we can do for them? And this is why we're doing what we do.” What Klein and others are doing is working to ensure that no child has to wait for the school bus wearing just a T-shirt or hoodie. Through their organization, Bundle Up Durham, their mission is to provide a coat to every child in Durham who needs one. Bundle Up Durham was born in 2015 when a neighbor of Klein’s, Dr. Shalini Ramasunder, noticed lots of children waiting for buses without outerwear on frigid mornings. After reaching out to Durham Public Schools and learning of the huge scale of the problem, she harnessed the power of social media — using the hashtag #BundleUpDurham — to collect more than 100 coats in a matter of days. Ramasunder approached the Klein brothers — Benny and older siblings David ’18 and Josh ’18 — to see if they might want to take the reins of the project, and they ran with it.

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Benny Klein ’20 Story and Photo by Melody Guyton Butts

Ramasunder has continued to raise funds and collect coats through her networks and as a parent at Duke School, and the Klein brothers have tapped into the DA community as a generous source of coat and monetary donations after launching DA’s Bundle Up Durham Club in 2016. It’s a cause that’s dear to their hearts. “We all went to elementary school at Easley. It’s a public elementary school, and it’s different than Durham Academy in terms of the need of some of the students,” Benny explained, recalling that he sometimes rode the bus with classmates who didn’t have coats to keep them warm. “We got to see the need in the community at a really young age,” Josh recalled, “but we didn’t have the skills or the opportunity to do something big about it until we heard about what Shalini was doing. Having that personal connection to Durham Public Schools, I thought that it would be something important to bring to the DA community.” The DA community has embraced Bundle Up Durham, helping the organization to collect hundreds of new and gently used coats over the past three years. Each winter, club members have set up donation bins on all three DA campuses, giving parents an easy way to put their children’s outgrown outerwear to good use. The Klein brothers have also employed some creative fundraisers to raise money to purchase new coats and winter gear. A GoFundMe campaign running throughout 2017 netted more than $2,000, and donations are being collected now via a newly launched Bundle Up Durham website. They’ve also gone offline, collecting nearly 50 coats and $500 at Duke men’s and women’s basketball games during the 2017–2018 season,

with hopes of repeating that success this season. And each winter, the club has sold T-shirts emblazoned with the Bundle Up Durham and DA basketball logos, to be worn on a Friday night of big basketball games — the setting for a grand finale to the year’s on-campus coat drive. With the shirts donated by the Moylan family, they were able to raise $1,200 through the 2017 T-shirt sale alone. Heading into the 2018–2019 winter coat drive and fundraising efforts, the Klein brothers and Bundle Up Durham have raised close to $10,000. After collecting coats, Bundle Up Durham turns them over to Melody Marshall, Durham Public Schools’ homeless liaison, who ensures that the coat donations find their way to the children who need them the most. While the majority of the funds raised are used to purchase additional coats, some are occasionally used to purchase essentials like underwear and socks for students in need. Marshall works to ensure that the school district is complying with the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act — legislation passed by Congress in 2002 that requires schools to meet the needs of homeless students and remove barriers to their attendance and success in school. The number of Durham Public Schools students who are identified as lacking a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence” has hovered between 800 and 1,000 students over the past few years, so the need is great. With older brothers David and Josh now away at college, they’ve left Bundle Up Durham in the hands of Benny, who is working to grow the organization’s reach. With the knowledge that donations to Bundle

Up Durham — as a student club under DA’s 501(c)(3) designation — are 100 percent tax-deductible, the club has set a goal of soliciting major clothing companies for coat donations. Benny also hopes to get students at other Durham schools on board by hosting their own coat drives. “I’m really proud of him,” Josh said of Benny. “He has this commitment to getting things done. David and I would have a vision for something and set a goal, and he would say, let’s do it — making sure emails are getting

sent, taking care of any little checklist item. His drive has helped the club immeasurably, and it’s been super fun to watch him grow as a leader. I think he will grow the club more than David and I could have and hopefully make it sustainable so that it’s not just a family affair when he graduates.” Benny is working with faculty advisors Leyf Peirce Starling ’99 and Julian Cochran and fellow club members to ensure that the impact of Bundle Up Durham lives on well beyond his time at DA.

“I think about kids my age or just a little bit younger sitting out in the cold when we're so fortunate here at Durham Academy,” Benny said. “This is something we have the ability to help with.”

Learn how you can support Bundle Up Durham’s efforts at bundleupdurham.da.org.

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A State Title and Runner-Up Trophy for Cross-Country The DA varsity girls cross-country team earned the squad’s first state championship in 22 years on Oct. 26, with seventh-grader Allison Hall crossing the finish line first to claim the individual title. Her 20:14 was 16 seconds ahead of ninth-grader Stella Stringer, who placed second. Sophomore Anna Catherine Wilson made it a 1–2–3 DA sweep, with a third-place finish of 20:52. “The girls were just amazing,” head coach Costen Irons said. “We knew they had a really good chance of winning going in, but had no idea they were going to do it in the fashion they did.” Junior Claire Middleton joined Hall, Stringer and Wilson on the All-State team by finishing eighth with a time 21:40. Sophomore Quinn Shanahan was the fifth DA runner to cross the finish line, as her 22:57 placed her 22nd. The Cavs finished with 36 points to hold off second-place Cary Academy by 25 and third-place Charlotte Latin School by 33. The DA boys team earned the runner-up trophy in the state meet, losing by just one point to heavily favored Providence Day, with four DA boys making the All-State squad. Senior Neil Mosca (4th — 17:43), sophomore Jay Shanahan (5th — 17:48), as well as juniors Mac Hays (10th — 18:09) and Mark Alkins (11th — 18:14) paced the Cavs. Senior Jack Anderson was the fifth DA runner, finishing in 20th place with a time of 18:45. DA’s team score of 50 trailed state champ Providence Day School’s 49 points, with the Chargers’ finishers coming in at 1, 9, 12, 13 and 14. Read more about Hall’s individual title and her family’s DA cross-country legacy on page 66.

William Hand ’23 When his family headed to the West African nation of The Gambia over the summer, eighth-grader William Hand brought along a bit of extra luggage — 37 pairs of shoes to distribute to children in need. After talking with seventh-grade history teacher Betsy Brown about what he might do to help Gambian children during his trip, he decided to organize a shoe collection. Hand distributed the shoes to children in Keneba, an inland village. In this photo, Hand is riding in a boat from one end of the country to the other on the Gambian and Bintang Bolong rivers.

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Chess on the World Stage Only the best chess players around the globe qualify to compete in the World Youth Chess Championships each year, and among them in 2018 was Durham Academy eighth-grader Arya Kumar. Despite being relatively new to the game, Kumar placed 28th in a field of 107 female players under the age of 14 at the tournament in Porto Carras, Halkidiki, Greece. Kumar — who holds DA’s alltime ratings record of 1985 — was the only North Carolinian who qualified for the 2018 World Youth Chess Championships, an 11-round tournament. As of November 2018, she was the top-ranked middle schooler, boy or girl, in all of North Carolina; No. 9 in the state in the overall kindergarten-to-grade 12 division; and No. 5 in the nation among all 13-year-old girls. Kumar went into the world championships — comprising 11 rounds — with no prior international exposure. She won six games and drew one, resulting in her placing 28th overall and tying for the second-highest number of points among the 14-member U.S. delegation of players under 14. Prior to competing in Greece, Kumar represented North Carolina in the U.S. National Girls Tournament of Champions in Madison, Wisconsin, where she tied for third place.

Betsy Brown Seventh-grade history teacher and Middle School field hockey coach Betsy Brown was inducted into the Earlham College Athletics Hall of Fame in September. Earlham describes her as “one of the premier women athletes of her era at Earlham College, excelling in lacrosse, field hockey and soccer during her time in Maroon and White.” In addition to her prowess on the field, Betsy and other female student-athletes lobbied the Earlham administration for more support for women's athletics, which led to her earning an appointment on Earlham’s Athletic Committee.

Girls Tennis: Back-to-Back State Champs Ending the season on a 19-match win streak, the DA varsity girls tennis team captured the program’s second consecutive state championship with a 5–2 victory over Charlotte Latin School on Oct. 27. “Our girls dedicated themselves to defending our title, and it was great to see their grit and determination all year long,” head coach Andy Pogach said. “This team brought it every match. We didn’t have any ‘bad days.’ All 13 of our girls performed admirably and were great teammates whether they were in the lineup or not.” Juniors Madeline Towning and Alexis Galloway started things off with an 8–1 win at first doubles. The duo is now 31–4 together as a doubles team. Senior co-captain Julia King teamed with junior Sarah Clark for an 8–3 win at third doubles. King leaves DA with a final individual record of 52–3. Latin captured the final doubles point as senior co-captain Joy Callwood and junior Renee George fell 8–6 at second doubles. Callwood and George rallied from 1–5 down to cut the Hawks’ lead to 6–7 before eventually falling. In singles play, Galloway was first off with a 6–0, 6–0 win on court 3. She ended the year 34–1 to set the school record for most wins in a season. Sarah Clark rallied from a tough first set to defeat her opponent 1–6, 6–1, 10–2 to put the Cavs one win away. Clark defeated the same Latin player in three sets earlier in the year. Junior Renee George clinched the championship, taking a 6–1, 6–1 win on court four to set off the celebration.

14 Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has recognized 14 Durham Academy seniors as semifinalists in the 64th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The DA seniors selected as semifinalists represent 13 percent of the senior class: Spencer Adler, Jack Anderson, Nathan DalvaBaird, Alexander Hoffman, Matthew Holleran Meyer, Tigey JewellAlibhai, Sarah Kim, Julia King, Emily Kohn, Lydia Rockart, Nathan Salley, Kiran Sundar, Jasper Wolf and Kay Youngstrom. Semifinalists were chosen by virtue of their performance on the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Of the 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools who took the qualifying test, approximately 16,000 students were recognized as semifinalists. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors, and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. About 90 percent of students from the semifinalist pool are expected to advance to the finalist level and will be notified of that designation in February. About half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, with notifications beginning in April and concluding in July. An estimated 7,500 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $31 million, will be offered in spring 2019.

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Durham Academy // Winter 2019

ARTWORK BY HANNAH KOHN ’23

Drawing Danger and Releasing the Creative Potential During a series of drawing explorations, Middle School art students squirted bleach onto colored paper to create a stain on the paper. “They drew into the bleach shape inspired by the idea of drawing danger and by the Surrealists, an arts movement that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind,” art teacher Fran Savarin explained. The results were uniquely scary and provided the perfect backdrop slideshow for a performance by Middle School movement students on Halloween afternoon. Eighth-grader Hannah Kohn said her drawing “originally started off as being a frog, because that’s what I thought the bleach shape looked like most. Then as I went on I just started adding more colors and it became what it is. I was very excited about the assignment because it let me be as creative as I wanted to be. I hope that when people look at the drawing, it inspires them to create a piece of their own.”

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From Science of Food to Machu Picchu, a New End to the Upper School Year Story by Kathy McPherson // Lettering by Sarah Jane Tart

The school year had barely begun, but ninth- through 11th-graders were already thinking about what they would be doing the last week of the school year. No, it wasn’t exams — final exams would be completed by then. Rather, Upper Schoolers were studying the 40-page Cavalier Capstone Catalog and deciding which of the 30 experiences interested them. The shift to May’s Cavalier Capstones marks a change from trips that used to take place at the beginning of the school year. Typically, all ninth- and 10th-graders would set out for an outdoor adventure and all 11th-graders would travel through the Southeast on the Civil Rights Tour in August. Cavalier Capstones are fourday educational or experiential programs offered by DA faculty and staff, held after commencement and Upper School final exams. Upper School humanities teacher Kelly Teagarden ’04, who serves as Cavalier Capstone coordinator, said the new program allows students to choose what they want to do and to have a smaller, more intimate

experience with students from different grades. Most Capstone experiences will be limited to 10 to 20 students, and all will be led by faculty and staff. The change does not impact rising seniors, who will continue to begin the school year with Senior Challenge, a wilderness adventure that has been a Durham Academy hallmark since 1978. Upper School Director Lanis Wilson said Senior Challenge links past graduates with future alumni. “It has been a central experience for DA 12th-graders for 40 years,” Wilson explained. “It deserves a place of prominence in our curriculum.” Cavalier Capstone experiences will take place both on — Kelly Teagarden ’04 and off campus. All are scheduled for May 28–31, with the exception of the international trips — journeys to China, Peru and India — which will extend into June. There is no cost to participate in any Capstone other than the international ones, and financial aid is available for those. “Cavalier Capstone was created to give more student choice and to give [students] smaller, more intimate

“We’re keeping the best parts of what we were doing already and providing more options for kids.”

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

experiences,” Teagarden said. “The trips at the beginning of the year were phenomenal. I think what’s so cool is Cavalier Capstone still has those. Kids are still able to go on outdoor trips, and the Civil Rights Tour is staying. Tons of kids expressed interest in that. We’re keeping the best parts of what we were doing already and providing more options for kids.” Ninth- through 11th-graders ranked their top preferred Cavalier Capstone experiences, selecting from 30 choices including “Underwater Search and Rescue: Deep Dive into Robotics,” “Careers in Athletics,” “Write Like a Writer: A Creative Writing Immersion,” “Farm to Table” and “Peru: Trekking to Machu Picchu.” Old favorites like “Civil Rights Tour Through the American South” were there, as well as soon-to-be new favorites like “Art Adventure: Boston to North Adams, Massachusetts,” “Dancing Through Durham and Beyond,” “The Science of Food,” “Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors: From Page to Stage” and “TEDxDA.” Outdoors enthusiasts likely had a hard time choosing between offerings focused on backpacking, mountain biking, rock-climbing and kayaking. Teagarden said students were asked to select four Capstones, ranking them in order of preference. “They did a preliminary sign-up, putting it on our radar what they are interested in. They spent the next week talking to their parents and family and friends and submitted a final signup by Oct. 28.” Student interest determined which of the 30 offerings will take place this spring. “We weren’t sure that all of them would run because it all depends on enrollment, but every single one got interest from at least one student in the initial sign-up,” Teagarden said. “That’s great news.” Teagarden envisions that students who have three years of Cavalier Capstone experiences “will have one on-campus experience and one off-campus, overnight experience — international trip, Boston trip or whatever. Third year, they will figure out [whether they want to stay on campus or off campus].” The response from students has been overwhelmingly positive. “I am so excited for the new Cavalier Capstone program and all of the opportunities that it offers to engage in the Durham community and across the world,” junior Katie Hunter said. “I love being able to choose a program that reflects my interests and being able to learn from teachers that share my passions.” Sophomore Henry Leasure had similar sentiments. “I believe that the Cavalier Capstone program is a great idea that will allow us as students to step outside of the classroom and learn more about topics that we are passionate about or allow us to broaden our horizons into new categories,” he explained. “The diverse options make it so that there is something for everyone, and I think that this will lead to great participation in all of the activities.”

When junior Annie Ma learned about the change from start-of-year class trips to end-of-year Capstones, she was initially a bit wary but is now looking forward to May. “I’m excited for the Cavalier Capstone program. I know each teacher put a lot of effort into crafting [the Capstone offerings],” she said. “While I was disappointed to see the original beginning-of-the-year trips go because I felt like they helped our grade bond together, I’m sure that ultimately, the Capstones will also be successful in that regard — bringing together people who might not meet otherwise.”

“ I love being able to choose a program that reflects my interests and being able to learn from teachers that share my passions.” — Katie Hunter ’20 And start-of-year grade-level bonding is still very much on the calendar. The 2018–2019 school year began with Cavalier Kickoff orientation and bonding activities, from helping build Habitat for Humanity homes, to an “Amazing Race”-inspired scavenger hunt and Eno River hikes. “The unique thing about the Cavalier Capstone program is that curiosity will drive us as students, rather than grades or some other factor experienced in a typical class,” sophomore Claire Ridley said. “All the proposals reach beyond the content of any classes offered at DA, and I'm really excited to try something new, no matter where I end up going or what I end up doing.” Junior Brandon Caveney is especially pleased that the new program offers opportunities for individualized adventures and that it resonates with the school’s mission of equipping students for moral, happy and productive lives. “As a rock climber, I am thrilled to be able to pursue this passion within an educational atmosphere,” he explained. “I believe the Cavalier Capstone program contributes significantly to the well-roundedness of Durham Academy because it develops the minds and bodies of students outside the classroom. This program certainly makes me happy, and the natural world offers a fabulous environment for productive and moral teachings.”

View the Cavalier Capstone Catalog at bit.ly/CavalierCapstone.

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Life-Changing Adventure An exchange with students from Spain proved truly life-changing for Helen Morgan ’15. Helen and her father, Frank Morgan, talked about their experience with the program and why it was so important to them. The program continued through fall 2018 with a visit from Spanish students. DA students will have opportunities to travel to Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries in the future. Q — What motivated you to volunteer to participate in DA’s Spanish exchange program? Helen Morgan: [In fall 2014] my AP Spanish teacher, Mrs. [Margarita] Throop, encouraged me to participate in the Spanish exchange program. She thought given my personality, it would be something that I would enjoy and could benefit from in terms of meeting and hosting a Spanish student, and having the opportunity to travel to Spain and experience Spanish language and culture in person. Mrs. Throop always takes the effort to get to know her students on a personal level, and I trusted her opinion and decided to try something completely new that I probably wouldn’t have done had she not encouraged me. Frank Morgan: We knew the exchange opportunity with Colegio Madre de Dios could be a chance of a lifetime to enhance Helen’s understanding of Spanish language and culture. Q — What was the experience like when you hosted your Spanish exchange student? Frank: It was spectacular. Even before the Spaniards arrived, the students got to know each other by using email, social media and WhatsApp. When the Spaniards landed at RDU, they knew who to look for. Our DA students held huge, colorful, homemade, personalized “Welcome” signs to help their Spanish exchange student find them. Helen’s exchange sister was Raquel Morago Cordero, who quickly became “Kelo.” After warm greetings (and terrific hugs!),

we joined another DA family and their exchange [student] for dinner. It was enjoyable from the very first minute, because Raquel was fun with a sense of humor that bridged any language barrier. Helen: Hosting Raquel was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I gained a second family and a friend/sister for life. It was interesting to discover our cultural differences and similarities. For example, high school sports aren’t a huge deal in Spain. While I was heading to field hockey practice every day, Raquel didn’t have anything like that at her school. It was fun to have someone new in my house, especially because I am an only child. Raquel is so vibrant and fun, and it was helpful for her to practice English with my parents and me and for me to practice Spanish with her. Q — What did you do to help introduce Raquel to DA, Durham and the U.S.? Frank: With Kelo, the experience was wonderful each and every day. DA hosted a very nice dinner with all the Spaniards, their teachers, DA students and families. The [Upper School] luau dance provided a relaxed opportunity to mix with and meet DA students. They went out to eat, visited DA students’ houses and, of course, loved shopping at Southpoint mall. We loved trying to introduce Kelo to new foods at breakfast. She was a good sport, but sometimes she would gently wag her finger and say, “no no nooooo-oh.” Helen: I loved getting the chance to be a tourist in my own city/state and seeing how excited Raquel was to see things that I sometimes take for granted like walking around UNC and Duke’s campuses or just going to the mall. Because everything is so compact in Madrid, driving to school each day and walking around the college campuses that we have nearby provided huge differences for Raquel and her friends to see. They loved seeing where

we lived and what our routines were like, especially because there was such a major contrast between Durham and Madrid. Q — What was the exchange visit to Spain like? Helen: I had never been out of the country, and I had signed up to go for the first time without my parents and stay in someone else’s home. “What have I done?” I thought to myself. But after hosting Raquel and having a good time with her, I felt more excited about traveling to Spain and couldn’t wait to meet her family. I was immediately comforted upon seeing her rush toward me with a giant welcome poster and her mom taking pictures of every pair in the group to document the special moment of reuniting once the DA students arrived in Madrid in March. Frank: Helen’s experience was terrific. She was totally immersed with Kelo and her charismatic, warm and thoughtful mom, Begoña. Begoña’s family is huge. They welcomed and included Helen as one of their own! Q — How did you stay connected with Raquel and her family after the spring exchange? Helen: Raquel and I actually became so close between our time in North Carolina and Madrid, that she came back during the summer [of 2015] to visit again for three weeks! It was so much fun to get to show her more of North Carolina, D.C. (we tried to go to all of the major museums/attractions) and Bald Head Island. Frank: [Raquel] was a welcome, fun addition to our wonderful group of beach friends, who come from six different states. We believe this experience inspired Helen to continue studying Spanish in college and to go abroad. In 2017, Helen spent a semester in Spain through Wake Forest University, where she is a communication major and Spanish minor. She studied at the University of Salamanca, where her curriculum was taught in Spanish and her host family spoke Spanish only. Helen: Ever since the exchange, I had wanted to study abroad in Spain. I spent lots of time with the two of them [Raquel and Begoña] during my semester there. One of my favorite memories was my Thanksgiving with them. I took the hour-and-a-half train from Salamanca to Madrid to find Begoña and Raquel awaiting me with big hugs and some groceries. They were so thoughtful in knowing that it was Thanksgiving in the United States and that I was away from my parents. They prepared a special meal for me and did their best to replicate Thanksgiving food. We all went around the table and said what we were thankful for and had a Spanish chicken, which was the closest thing to a turkey we could find in Madrid. I’ll never forget how special and loved I felt that day, despite being thousands of miles away from my family in North Carolina. To my surprise, it turned out to be my favorite Thanksgiving ever because I felt their kindness and generosity so deeply and felt so blessed to have met these people through Durham Academy. It truly felt like a second family, despite the fact that our native languages weren’t the same.

Q — And both families were able to meet each other? Frank: We visited Helen in October of 2017, staying in Madrid for several days. Begoña, Kelo and their huge family embraced us. They enhanced our trip, from a surprise double-decker bus tour, to family lunch gatherings, to guiding us through the subway and bus transportation, to museum tours, park walks and the ongoing search for the delicious Spanish Iberico ham! Helen: I was so excited for my parents to have the chance to see Raquel again and finally meet her mom, and to see the country and culture that I had fallen in love with. Q — What have you most enjoyed about this relationship? What have you learned? Helen: I have most enjoyed gaining a second family that I am so close to. I think about Raquel and Begoña every day and the moments I have shared with them, and the things I have learned from them. When I think about my experience studying abroad through Wake Forest, I can’t help but tie that experience to DA. Had I not done the DA exchange (something I was scared to do initially), I wouldn’t be a Spanish minor, I wouldn’t have lived some of the best and most fun moments of my life, I wouldn’t have studied abroad in Spain, and I wouldn’t know what taking a small risk could do for the overall satisfaction of my life. I never imagined that this exchange would change my life, but it has had one of the most profound impacts on me that I can remember. I have been personally inspired by both Raquel and Begoña, by their wise spirits, kind and generous hearts, and fun-loving nature. I have promised myself to never stop speaking Spanish so that I can stay connected with them, and have enjoyed learning more about the language and culture. They have helped me learn how to love with an open heart. Raquel and Begoña are people I will always stay connected with, no matter what. We love each other like a real family, and I never would have expected this to happen when signing up for a brief exchange trip. I didn’t think that this trip would ever change my life, and thought it would be a fun way to see Spain with a group of friends and meet someone from another country, but I can’t imagine my life now without Raquel and Begoña. Frank: We learned that the DA exchange experience is truly a gift that keeps on giving. What we most enjoyed about this relationship is that Raquel, Begoña and their genuinely warm family welcome and treasure Helen as their very own sister and daughter. They love her like their own, and us, too. Even though we don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English, we can communicate. We added an entire wonderful inclusive family to our own. All because of the opportunity the DA [Spanish] exchange presented.

STORY BY BONNIE WANG // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSIE WANG

In the last eight years, I have been back to China many times by myself. The 7,000-mile trip is just a number and does not tell you much about the distance. One time, it took me 29 hours to arrive home because of cancellations and delays of connecting flights. After waiting five hours at JFK and 12 hours at LAX, the distance between me and home, in my mind, became much wider. The world is just too big, and home is just too far. I feel close to home when I teach, allowing me to deal with homesickness by connecting my personal memories with my

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Exploring Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Forbidden City.

DA Students, Teachers Complete Exchange with China

professional life. This connection was strengthened by the two-week Durham Academy visit to Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai in summer 2018. For each student and chaperone in this small group of seven, it was a phenomenal experience. It was also DA’s first Chinese exchange trip. Beijing No. 8 High School is one of the most prestigious and historic schools in Beijing. It has many notable alumni, including nuclear physicist Deng Jiaxian and rocket scientist Liang Shoupan. Two years ago, seven Chinese students from Beijing No. 8 and their biology teacher visited DA and celebrated Chinese New Year with their host families. Two years later, that biology teacher became one of the host families welcoming us in Beijing. One of the many meaningful components of this trip was to complete the exchange and officially establish a relationship between DA and Beijing No. 8 High School. We found many common understandings

A visit to Pudong, one of the central business districts in Shanghai.

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during the conversation when DA chaperone Jordan Babwah and I were meeting with the head of school, Principal Wang. We exchanged presents and had a productive conversation regarding the future goals of our exchange programs. The educational philosophy of Beijing No. 8 is built upon the liberal education that values 21st century skills and the comprehensive cultivation of individuals, which to some extent aligns with our school’s mission: enabling students to live happy, moral and productive lives. During the first week in Beijing, DA students attended different classes with their host siblings before lunch and visited many tourist sites in the afternoon, including the Temple of Heaven (or, as I prefer to call it, the Temple of Sky), the Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, the Olympic Park and, of course, the Great Wall. Students experienced different levels of authentic materials that they would never have been exposed to in the Chinese language

Students experienced different levels of authentic materials that they would never have been exposed to in the Chinese language classroom. classroom. They rode sharing bikes, tasted unusual snacks, exercised at the senior community park, planned subway transportation and bargained with the vendors in the pearl market. Most of the time they challenged themselves in the discomfort zone — and that is exactly what we wanted them to feel! Progress often takes

DA students become experts at using chopsticks.

Bicycling on the City Wall in Xi’an.

place in the discomfort zone, and sometimes we do not appreciate that. Coach Babwah got a chance to observe a PE class at Beijing No. 8 and talk with the physical education teacher. “Yang Lăoshī was welcoming and enthusiastic from the second I met him,” Babwah said. “It was a pleasure observing his class, and he even let me lead a few exercises. The students were fun to work with and very respectful. Shortly after class, Yang Lăoshī invited me up to his office to have tea and introduce me to the other PE teachers. Despite a language barrier, we managed to share a few laughs and discuss physical education at our respective schools.” Students had these responses after the first day of class. “The classes were very interesting — we didn't move at all,”

junior Ryan Morgan said. “It was the teacher that came to us. I think that is much more efficient. The whole system is very different. That is my first impression so far, everything is so different.” “It seems like the students have a really high or deep level of respect for the teachers,” sophomore Pablo Ahmadi said. “Before the teachers came into the room, the students wiped off the blackboards. There were a lot of people. Everyone was paying attention. No one was on their phones. No one was allowed to have their phones in class.” Sophomore Oliviero Zanalda said, “The Monday morning thing [raising the national flag], that I have never experienced in my life, was very cool. The chemistry of the class was also very good.”

Senior Justin Cobb said even though he didn’t understand what was happening most of the time, “it was so interesting to see how it worked and how the students were wiping the blackboards before the teacher came in. In fact, the class was shorter than the one we have in the United States.” “I went to a politics class, a geography class, and, I believe, a Chinese language class, a math class,” junior Jack DeBree said. “I feel like [school] there is a lot more structured and just interesting.” From Beijing we traveled to Xi’an, which is located in the geographic center of China and was the starting point of the Old Silk Road. It has one of the longest and richest culinary histories, and is famous for varieties of wheat products. We had lunch and dinner in several

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“Instafamous” restaurants that are quite popular among young people. Altogether, we tasted five different kinds of noodles, with one of them named after the most complicated Chinese character, “biáng,” with nearly 60 strokes as in “biáng biáng miàn.” Beef and lamb are more common in Shaanxi Province because of the large Muslim population. Browsing the crowded commercial street of the Muslim Quarter let the students observe China’s diversity, which is often underrepresented in Western media. Compared to Beijing, Xi’an has a much longer history since it was the capital city for 13 ancient dynasties. Engraved in the Old City Wall is 3,000 years of peace and war. The downtown of Xi’an is not like any part of China we have traveled. Among the many reasons for visiting Xi’an is the Terracotta Army,* which had been discussed in western history classes at DA and is definitely the most striking experience, primarily due to the gigantic scale of the pits and the miraculous story behind the preservation of those excavation sites. “Learning about the terracotta warriors in school is one thing, but when you actually get to see them in person it is another, incredible experience,” Justin said. “You know that there are thousands of warriors, yet once you enter, you are instantly shocked by the vastness of the pits. It is literally impossible to see the other side of the building. When you are able to get closer to the warriors, the meticulous attention to detail becomes very apparent. Every warrior has his own expression, and no two are alike. And to think that if that farmer decided to dig his well

“ Learning about the terracotta warriors in school is one thing, but when you actually get to see them in person it is another, incredible experience.” — Justin Cobb ’19 just a few feet in the other direction, we probably would not have discovered this wonder.” The Shanghai part of this trip was short, yet impressive to the students. I am sharing this from Pablo’s journal entry: “Prior to my arrival, I had not expected too much from my short stay in Shanghai. However, within only a few days, my eyes were opened to so much more. The city struck me as a center of modernization and globalization, or a place where tourists from all over the world would be blown away by the city’s ability to alter their perception of what ‘China’ was forever. “Although I was thoroughly impressed by the colossal, world-renowned skyscrapers and peaceful alleys outside the Yu Garden, what was more eye-opening to me was the sheer balance brought about by these two drastically different monuments. One conveyed power and ingenuity, while the other, [the] historically rich gardens, showed the duality of innovation and culture which Shanghai brought about so beautifully. Despite all my efforts, no words of mine in either language can even begin to describe one percent of the pride,

inclusion and development present in 21st century Shanghai.” On the last night in Shanghai, Coach Babwah led a heart-toheart group conversation, which proved for the 101st time that this trip was blessed to have him as a chaperone. We reflected on the life-changing moments in those two weeks. There were savory memories, awkward translations, panicked mistakes and hilarious behaviors that all of us will remember and tease each other about many years later. I especially felt fortunate to come back to my home country with this wonderful group. They are bringing together my “fortune-land” and my “homeland.” The world is still too big, but I know they will continue exploring with gratitude, wonder and respect.

Left: Standing before a giant mural in Beijing’s art district. *Editor’s Note: The Terracotta Army is a collection of thousands of clay models of soldiers from the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. It was discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well.

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Faculty Spotlight: Upper School Technical Theater Director

Jake Kavanagh Story by Kathy McPherson

Super Bowl halftime shows for Bruce Springsteen, Black Eyed Peas and The Who? Check. Inaugural ball for President Obama? Check. Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto? Check. Jake Kavanagh’s design résumé may read like a who’s who in the worlds of athletics, arts and entertainment, but the thrill of the bright lights couldn’t hold a candle to his calling to teach, and that’s what brought Kavanagh to Durham Academy in 2016. In DA’s technical theater course, he teaches “lighting, sound, set construction, learning about the structure of the theater, everything that sort of happens backstage, everything outside of what Mr. [James] Bohanek is teaching on stage in terms of acting.” He also designs and builds sets with a student crew for the Upper School fall play and spring musical each year and does lighting for Upper School dance performances and jazz-rock ensemble In The Pocket’s performances. As art director and 3D CAD (computer-aided design and drafting) designer for Bruce Rodgers’ Tribe Design company, Kavanagh worked on some of the biggest events in the industry — including tour designs for Beyoncé — and he established his own firm, JKDesigns, which does exhibit work for global companies. But his calling was teaching technical theater. Kavanagh caught the theater bug in a middle school that was connected to a performing arts high school in Sarasota, Florida. “I had seen the productions throughout middle school, so when my high school years came around I interviewed to get into the performing arts program. I knew I wasn't interested in acting, but I knew I was artistic and had a desire to check out the design program. I didn't really understand fully what that meant. “My first production was Wizard of Oz. The technical director at the time had come to the eighth-grade class and spoken to us about special effects and fog and lighting and all kinds of cool effects and stuff. And I thought, well that sounds interesting. … Ninth grade is when we did Wizard of Oz, and that was where I was hooked.” But he was also good at math and was interested in engineering. Kavanagh spent a summer as a National Science Foundation Young Engineering Scholar at Arizona State University. “I came away knowing full well that I wanted

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to study theater and not have anything to do with engineering from then on. I poured my heart into sticking with theater all the way through, ninth through 12th.” Kavanagh was awarded a full scholarship to Troy State University, but he soon realized the school’s theater program was a step back from his high school experience. “About three-quarters of the way through that freshman year at Troy State, I decided this is not for me. I bought a 30-day bus pass on Greyhound and packed up a bag and went on interviews around the country looking for a new program and new school.” That’s how he found The Theatre School at Chicago’s DePaul University. “It's a conservatory program, so all you do is theater 24/7. They select four set designers, four lighting designers, four costume designers and four stage managers and then a huge class of actors, and you focus solely on theater. There are four per class, per year, and then they cut people every year if you're not holding up. I graduated with one other person in the set program.” Kavanagh thought he would go immediately to New York or Los Angeles after graduation, or go to Yale School of Drama or New York University for his master's degree and then move to New York or LA. But while he was at DePaul, he started teaching in Northwestern University's summer theater program for high school students. “I sort of fell in love with working with that age group. It harkened back to my years in high school and how important those years were for me, guiding me in the direction that

I went. I decided that maybe my path was not to go where I thought I was going to go.” But meeting Eugene Lee, the set designer for Saturday Night Live and Broadway shows Sweeney Todd and Wicked, who came to DePaul to receive an honorary degree, made Kavanagh think maybe he wanted New York after all. “He and I hit it off and I started reaching out to him to do an internship.” Lee offered him a job, not an internship, but the catch was he needed to start the next week. Kavanagh turned it down because it was his senior year and he was involved in several theater productions in Chicago. Lee invited him “to come visit, check out the studio, see what you think and then we can talk. I knew then that I had probably already missed my chance. “We spent the week together. He gave me a tour of the studio. I spent the whole week with him [in New York] and visited, watched the taping of Saturday Night Live and watched the process from reading the scripts and going through the design process. … But it was evident to me that my priority wasn't that. My heart was not there.” Kavanagh took a part-time job teaching technical theater at an independent school in Chicago while he finished his senior year and also started freelance designing. But he had a dream of teaching at a performing arts high school, and on a visit to Florida, he heard Tampa was building a school. “I left my job in Chicago and moved down to Tampa, and we opened that school. I stayed there for a while and loved it.” He moved on to graduate school at Florida Atlantic University, but left when the set design professor he wanted to work with was no longer there. He debated whether to accept an offer for graduate school at the University of Washington or a teaching job at Northfield Mount Hermon, a boarding school in Massachusetts. Teaching won out, and he became chair of the performing arts department. Then romantic love trumped love of teaching: He met his wife, Amy, and moved to Maine with her. There were no schools nearby with theater programs, so Kavanagh worked in professional theater and got involved in exhibit design. A public television station was doing some political campaign debates and wanted him to design a podium similar to the one used at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. That’s how he connected with Bruce Rodgers, whose company, Tribe Design, had designed the podium then-presidential nominee Barack Obama had spoken from at the convention. “His website was filled with his design work for people like Madonna and Prince and Tom Petty and Tim McGraw and Fleetwood Mac and the list went on.” Kavanagh emailed Rodgers on a whim and said he’d be interested in helping with design work. “To my surprise, he wrote back,” and Kavanagh sent him samples of his work. Rodgers wanted to see larger-scale drawings, Photos courtesy of Jake Kavanagh

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so Kavanagh asked him to send him a project so that he could show him what he could do. “I didn't hear from him for couple of weeks — I thought I'd lost my opportunity. One weekend I was sort of stewing about the fact that I'd lost my chance. … I wrote an email and I said, hey, you know I'm really not interested in mowing the lawn this weekend. What if you sent me something that I could work on, and I'll show you what I can do? The next day he sent me pages and pages of scanned handwritten notes about a project he was going to be doing for the NHL. … And he said you could do some drawings of this. Send it back to me, and we'll see how it goes.” Kavanagh worked on the drawings all day and night, and the drawings went back and forth with notes from Rodgers and revisions by Kavanagh. “I worked all day the next day, and next thing I know, I was on a plane to Toronto, meeting with the curator of the National Hockey League's museum and picking memorabilia that was going to go on the displays that I had helped design for him. And then I was helping install the stuff that we had designed. At that point we are already on a roll, and I have been working with Bruce nonstop. I started doing drawings for the Super Bowl that year [2009], which was Bruce Springsteen's halftime show in Tampa. “All of this happened very fast. … Within a short time of introducing myself online to Bruce Rodgers, I was doing every single drawing for the inaugural ball. … We were hired on December 20, and the inauguration was January 20. “We went through 16 revisions of that design. … The coolest part was I have a package of drawings that Michelle and Barack Obama had requested to see specifically what the final drawings were going to be, so there's a package of drawings that are specific for the president.” Kavanagh realized he had to make a choice. “I couldn't grow my business, JKDesigns, at a certain point and balance the work with Tribe,” so he opted in favor of JKDesigns. But the yearn to teach kept tugging at him, and when the time was right, he was ready to move. “My stepson, who is now 19, was finishing middle school. We knew he was going to need to switch schools, and my daughter was young enough that we were ready to make a change. I was ready to get back to teaching. I had missed teaching all these years.” Kavanagh and his wife had been talking about moving south and decided to take a vacation to North Carolina. “On our drive down, we had a heart-to-heart, and I said, why don't we look for a home while we're down here. Let's just move.” They put down a deposit on a house, and Kavanagh was offered a theater job at Durham’s Riverside High School. “I was picking up my family very quickly.” Plus, he still had JKDesigns, and “I thought this is a lot to juggle very quickly. Maybe this is too much to do in a very short period of time.” So he turned down the job, moved and then looked for a job.

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“ These students learn that by working as a group, we're able to put together something sort of fantastic onstage.” — Jake Kavanagh “James Bohanek [DA theater director] had posted a listing looking for a designer for their musical, which was Urinetown. The reason he did that was because the person he had been hiring to do shows took the job that I passed up at Riverside High School. I walked in and met James Bohanek. I think he and I knew right away that we were a perfect fit, that we saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things. “I started working on that show, then I started designing shows and coming in and building with the kids for a few years. There was no [technical theater] class, but probably from the end of that first year, I started talking to him about the fact that I had moved here because I wanted to go back to teaching. He started putting a bug in the ear of the administration and started talking to Michael [UlkuSteiner, head of school] and saying, I think Jake would be a good fit here. … We started the [technical theater] class a couple of years ago.” Kavanagh thinks there are a lot of great things to be learned by doing technical theater. “What I've always loved about theater is the collaboration. These students learn that by working as a group, we're able to put together something sort of fantastic onstage. I think they learn a work ethic, and they learn the hard work that goes into putting on a production. … They learn a level of confidence in their ability to take raw materials and put together a set. Often, these kids are amazed at what they see as an end result after they've been building for two months. They've been building small pieces of the pie. Then they put it all together, and they realize what every bit of that pie put together created. I think that alone gives them a level of confidence in their own ability, but also gives them an understanding of what a group together can do. I think that's sort of empowering for them, which is exciting for me. “I don't care so much if they don't have any desire to do theater after they leave the class, or if after they get out of high school they have no desire to be involved in theater. That doesn't really concern me a ton. What concerns me is that they find some joy in creating. That, I think, is important. I really I love that.”

Values Guide New Math Program in the Lower School Story by Carolyn Ronco // Photo by Sarah Jane Tart

Gone are the Days of Memorizing Math Facts and Agonizing Over Timed Math Tests It has been said that when your values are clear, making decisions become easier. For several years, Lower School teachers at Durham Academy have been researching and defining our values for math education for our students. Our teachers, led by math specialist Nataki McClain, have attended national conferences, networked with math educators across the country, read professional books and journals, and visited schools that share similar values. From this work, Lower School teachers — through conversations and collaboration — have identified a math curriculum that best reflects what we believe to be optimal teaching practices for math instruction in our Lower School. These values include honoring student thinking, using social interaction for cognitive growth and offering time for active learning. In August, teachers in all 16 Lower School classrooms began using the Bridges in Mathematics curriculum published by The Math Learning Center. The results have been impressive. Teachers are reporting flexibility in student thinking; students are reporting high engagement; and parents are reporting that they can see the thoughtful and intentional building of math skills from the first few weeks of school until now. This lesson format keeps students actively involved in math lessons that take place for 60 minutes each day. Each part of the math lesson is short, highly engaging and provides opportunities for students to discuss and articulate the strategies they are employing to solve math problems. Bridges utilizes a format for learning math that most adults did not experience when they were in elementary school. Gone are the days of memorizing algorithms that were difficult to follow, and gone are timed math facts tests that were stressful and discouraging. Now, students use a variety of concrete math models such as number racks, bundles and sticks, number lines, and base 10 areas and pieces to find solutions to interesting math problems. Often the story or word problem comes first in

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the lesson, allowing students to discover a plan for solving the problem before learning an algorithm. The Bridges curriculum supports the Eight Mathematical Practice Standards identified in math education research that children are expected to achieve in a rigorous academic environment. These practices transcend grade levels — they are as relevant in a first-grade classroom as they are in a 10th-grade classroom. These practices also can be applied and exercised across disciplines: science, literacy, the arts and foreign language.

Eight Mathematical Practice Standards 1 — Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2 — Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3 — Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4 — Model with mathematics. 5 — Use appropriate tools strategically. 6 — Attend to precision. 7 — Look for and make use of structure. 8 — Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Connecting to home is also an important piece of the Bridges curriculum. Our Lower School teachers want to be sure that parents understand the important work our students are doing in the classroom and know how to support their children in their studies. Bridges provides a parent letter at the beginning of each math unit that articulates the goals and strategies for the upcoming lessons. There are many aspects to the Bridges math curriculum that our teachers love, but building a math community is one of our favorites. Learning from each other, solving problems together and respecting the thinking of our classmates teach lifelong lessons that reach far beyond the Lower School classroom.

Check out mathlearningcenter.org for more information about Bridges.

Photography by Kathy McPherson

Bridges Math Lessons Follow a Particular Structure Problems and Investigations Teachers pose a problem to the whole class, which is followed by independent thinking and a time to reconvene so students can share the strategies they used to solve the problem. This is also a time when teachers can model mathematical thinking and organized reporting. Work Places As defined by Bridges, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Work Places are engaging, developmentally appropriate math stations that offer ongoing practice with key skills. Many Work Places

are partner games, but some are independent activities or more open-ended partner work.â&#x20AC;? Work Places provide times for teachers to work with students independently or in small groups to differentiate instruction for students, whether for enrichment or for support. Assessments From given prompts, teachers require students to write an answer that demonstrates their mathematical thinking. Teachers also take qualitative notes about how students work, especially during Work Places, and make lesson changes accordingly.

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Photo by Michael Branscom

Kindergarten School Day to Lengthen in 2019–2020

Longer Day = More Instructional Time Increased time for literacy and math instruction and more time to serve the social-emotional needs of students are two of the driving factors behind Durham Academy’s decision to lengthen the kindergarten school day beginning in August 2019. While the kindergarten day will run from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the pre-kindergarten schedule will remain the same, running from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. “First and foremost, we are expanding the kindergarten school day to serve the academic and social-emotional learning needs of our students,” Preschool Director Christian Hairston-Randleman said.

“Over the past few years, our kindergarten teachers have realized the need for more than five hours per day to deliver the math and literacy foundation that students need for first grade and preserve the enrichments — PE, Spanish, music, art, cooking, science, technology, free and outside play and service-learning relationships — that our Preschool families treasure.” The additional time for literacy and math instruction will better align the Preschool with the workshop model in literacy and the Bridges math curriculum adopted this year in kindergarten through grade four,

as well as science and engineering. An additional 7.5 hours each week will also create the ability to provide built-in options for extra support for diverse learners. The wishes and work schedules of current and prospective families also contributed to the decision to lengthen the kindergarten day. In June 2018, prospective, current and past Preschool families were surveyed to better understand their preferred school schedules, their tolerance for tuition increases and their family structures. Among the findings: fewer than one-fifth of the responding

families have one full-time working parent and one parent taking primary responsibility for the children and home. More than half of the families who responded represent dual working parent households. “While parent convenience and market competitiveness are important benefits of this shift, student learning is the driving force for extending the kindergarten day,” Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner said. “Our kindergarten teachers believe our students need the additional time. Our first-grade teachers heartily endorse this move.” The move to an enhanced kindergarten program grew from research, reflection and discussion over the course of the last several years, including conversation with and input from Preschool and Lower School teachers; research and analysis of preschool options in the Triangle; the June 2018 parent survey; analysis of potential programming, staffing and tuition models based on survey responses at two administrative team retreats; and review and discussion with the DA Board of Trustees.

Implications for students The 2019–2020 daily/weekly schedule for the Preschool will be finalized in May. With 7.5 additional instructional hours per week, it is anticipated that students will spend more time with literacy, math and STEM subjects, as well as more time for guided and outdoor play. Current levels for PE, Spanish, music, art and cooking, as well as the Preschool’s interactions with Emerald Pond retirement center, are expected to be maintained. Parents and other caregivers will continue to be welcomed into the building for drop-off and pick-up.

Implications for the daily/ weekly schedule Hairston-Randleman and the Preschool faculty — in consultation with the Lower School faculty, Assistant Head of School Kristen Klein, peer schools and outside

curriculum and developmental specialists — will be working through the spring to decide how best to spend the net gains of 7.5 hours per week. Just as the first-graders have started the school year with a week of early dismissal and then transitioned to a longer day in previous years, kindergartners will follow this pattern from August 2019 forward, with their school day ending at 1 p.m. during the first week of the school year. Commencing with 2020-2021, all Lower Schoolers will follow the 8 a.m.–2:45 p.m. schedule from the start of the year.

Implications for Aftercare and Extended Day Aftercare and Extended Day leaders and teachers will work to make the policies and pricing for these programs seamless and comprehensible for families, given kindergarten’s new, longer school day. Pre-kindergarten families will still have access to Aftercare from 1–2:30 p.m. every day. All Preschool students will have access to enrichments and Extended Day programming from 2:30–5 p.m.

Implications for the Preschool director role DA’s Preschool directors have long juggled the duties of full-time kindergarten teaching with their administrative responsibilities. With the expansion of the kindergarten school day, Hairston-Randleman will move to a full-time director role. This will allow her to observe in all Preschool classrooms, coach all 19 Preschool faculty members, communicate more actively with Preschool families and be more publicly present and accessible at drop-off, pick-up, parent coffees, conferences, classroom parties and other Preschool events. Hairston-Randleman will also spend five to 10 hours per week in a direct teaching role, working with individuals and small groups of students who need remediation and/ or enrichment.

Literature Suggests that Kindergartners Benefit from a Full School Day • Bring on the Full-Day Kindergarten —NAIS’ Independent School magazine bit.ly/NAISFullDay • Full-Day Kindergarten is Great for Kids, So Why Isn’t It Required? — The Hechinger Report bit.ly/GreatForKids • Full-Day Kindergarten: An Advocacy Guide — The National Education Association bit.ly/KindergartenFullDay

Like her counterparts in the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools, HairstonRandleman will continue to be responsible for the academic curriculum, faculty recruiting/supervision/ professional learning, parent communication and a host of administrative team duties.

DA’S BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE COMES TO LIFE Story by Leslie King

Four years ago, the Durham Academy Campus Plan was little more than an idea — a dream for the future grounded in a commitment to excellence as part of a strategic plan that promised to create facilities that would “enable our ambitions.” Two years ago, what started as blueprints slowly rose from the ground and became reality with the construction of a 46,000-squarefoot Upper School STEM and Humanities Center. Faculty talent and student ambitions — including a burgeoning robotics program with a competitive team that notched back-to-back world championship berths, a Science Olympiad team that regularly finishes in the top five in regional competition, a chemistry teacher whose teaching excellence earned presidential honors and a student who qualified as an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist — are now supported by a facility that creates more access and exposure for students interested in STEM-related college and career paths. When the humanities wing is completed in April, DA’s Upper School math, engineering, robotics and science classes will be housed together for the first time in history. English and history teachers will have similar interdisciplinary, collaborative proximity. All of them will connect to a two-story gathering space that promises to have as many student uses and benefits as the Upper School Learning Commons. The following pages provide a snapshot of the DA Campus Plan in action: a student lens on the STEM wing’s first few months in operation; designs for the upcoming humanities wing and what will become the double-decker building’s former footprint; and a comprehensive reimagining of the Middle School. With each phase, DA opens the doors to 21st century excellence, inspiring new generations of teachers and students.

Photo by Sarah Jane Tart

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DA Campus Plan Phases 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2

UPPER SCHOOL STEM AND HUMANITIES CENTER

DA Campus Plan Phase 1

The STEM wing is a state-of-the-art facility built for science, engineering, math and robotics that supports cutting-edge teaching and learning. It was prioritized as Phase 1 of the DA Campus Plan in order to address the urgent need for new facilities to support increasing student demand for DA’s rigorous science curricula. Nearly all of the Upper School’s 453 students are enrolled in at least one science course each year, and 15 to 20 percent of them take more than one in a given year. The new design also resolves spatial and safety challenges the school was facing due to that demand. DA’s previous science and physics facilities, whose origins date back to the early 1970s and mid 1990s, respectively, were unable to accommodate larger numbers of students without potentially compromising optimal safety standards for instruction. In addition, DA’s science facilities were not built for the kind of group work typical of modern high school science classes.

FEATURES • Subjects: algebra, anatomy, bioethics, biology, calculus, chemistry, engineering, environmental science, forensics, geometry, geosciences, physics, robotics and statistics • 5 classrooms • 8 labs • Makerspace • 7 group study rooms • 2 small greenhouse areas • Math departmental office • 4 shared science faculty offices • Security office

Photo by Melody Guyton Butts

UPPER SCHOOL STEM WING

“The STEM building is so great that I am jealous of all of the underclassmen who will be able to use the humanities building next year!” — Michiko Haynie ’19

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Photo by Michael Branscom

“ Everything is so spacious, and it’s the ideal place for collaboration. … Now, we don’t have any limitations and we can focus on learning.” — Victoria Lawton ’20

Photo by Sarah Jane Tart

Photo by Melody Guyton Butts

“ Students seem to love the new study alcoves and are often to be found working through homework or studying together during their free periods.” — Amy Craig, Upper School math teacher da.org

Rendering by Cannon Architects

DA Campus Plan Phase 2A

UPPER SCHOOL HUMANITIES WING Estimated Completion April 2019

• Flexible, collaborative learning space is added — larger classrooms mixed with smaller seminar and private work/study rooms. • Shared departmental offices promote faculty curricular collaboration. • Additional community space creates built-in opportunities for student-teacher interactions and gathering space for entire grade levels.

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FEATURES • 2-story commons with seating for approximately 90 • 5 English classrooms • 5 history classrooms • 3 group study rooms • English and history departmental offices

DA Campus Plan Phase 2B

Estimated Completion Summer 2020

• Multi-use amphitheater with adjoining pavilion for recreation, outdoor performances, dining or group gatherings. • Balances indoor/outdoor space. • Accentuates natural views of campus • Built in double-decker footprint.

“ It's going to be a unique amenity that not a lot of high schools are fortunate enough to have. The amount of activities that the amphitheater can be utilized for is original and unlike anything else on campus.” — Spencer Sapir ’18

Rendering by Cannon Architects

UPPER SCHOOL AMPHITHEATER/ PAVILION

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NEW VISION FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL CAMPUS

Rendering by Cannon Architects

In 2015, the Academy Road campus celebrated its 50th anniversary as the first home DA built from the ground up. As the school grew, students who were originally housed at Academy Road moved to Ridge Road for Upper School (1973) and for Preschool/Lower School (2002). The Academy Road campus became the Middle School, DA’s oasis for adolescence. Although the campus has been retrofitted over time to accommodate its tween-toteen population, fundamental shifts in teaching and learning over the last half-century have prompted a comprehensive reimagining of DA’s Middle School campus. Nearly two years of research and input from teachers, students and architects has produced a plan to support the best Middle School faculty and student experience possible in ways that align with DA’s commitment to excellence. The six-year, six-phase plan involves renovation and new construction to reorient and remake the entire campus, and will be staged to avoid any student displacement.

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DA Campus Plan Phases 3–6

REIMAGINING DA’S MIDDLE SCHOOL

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PERFORMANCE/EVENT CENTER

Awards banquet

Middle School assembly

Theater production Band/chorus/movement performances

Fundraising gala

Guest lecture

Chess tournament

Parents Night

Debate tournament

Closing exercises

Documentary screening

“ A new arts facility will allow our whole community to share the visual and performing arts in spaces that allow for premium backstage, onstage and audience experiences.” — Mary Norkus, Middle School fine arts academic leader

DA Campus Plan Phase 3

MIDDLE SCHOOL ARTS AND LANGUAGES BUILDING Construction Begins Summer 2019 • • • •

All student takes fine arts and language classes and will perform or gather here. Arts and languages classrooms grouped by discipline to enhance collaboration among teachers and students. Solves pressing need for flexible auditorium space with ample seating. Supports student talent and inspires artistic development with dynamic performance stage, spacious art studios and soundproofed classrooms/rehearsal areas. • Enables student/faculty collaboration on productions and eases staging of special events. • Replaces Taylor Hall and the two-story classroom building at the rear of campus.

Student Art Gallery

Painting/Ceramics Studio

Alternative Stage

Advisory/ Collaborative Space

Teaching Kitchen for Foreign Language and Catering Events Renderings by Cannon Architects

DA Campus Plan Phase 3

“ Middle School students ought to have exceptional spaces in which they can grow and thrive. Our programming should meet the unique needs of students, and our facilities should be top-notch and flexible for teachers. Families come to DA expecting academic excellence and a safe, encouraging place where children grow into caring people. Our current facilities make it challenging to provide that. The reimagining of the Middle School allows us to craft learning spaces that allow all children to reach their full potential.” — Jon Meredith, Middle School director

MOVEMENT “A new fine arts and foreign language building will provide larger classrooms and flexible spaces that will welcome the high level of experiential learning that occurs in our classes. … Group work is essential, and we need the additional space for breakout sessions.” — Mary Norkus, Middle School movement teacher

BAND • A space that accommodates a variety of band configurations. • A room that is designed specifically for the acoustic needs of band. • Private lesson and designated instrument storage spaces. • Proximity to the performance room that allows for easy transport of instruments. • In-room instrument maintenance facilities.

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CHORUS • Accommodates both grossmotor movement during group singing games and activities, as well as traditional seating for a choir. • Two interior soundproof practice rooms facilitate student sectional rehearsals during class and small ensemble/ individual rehearsals. • Higher ceiling improves acoustics.

DRAMA “ I am excited to have the square footage in the room that will allow for several small group rehearsals to occur simultaneously! The classroom will also have the ability to serve as a black box theater for smaller-scale productions, which will result in more performance opportunities.” — Ellen Brown, Middle School drama teacher

VISUAL ARTS • Large ceramics and painting spaces with abundant natural light. • Student art gallery provides a more visible display area for student work. • Gallery wall materials simplify assembly, hanging and reconfiguration of art and installations.

Renderings by Cannon Architects

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DA Campus Plan Phases 3–6

MIDDLE SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION Summer 2019–2025

• Reimagines campus with learner-focused architecture specifically for Middle School students. • Preserves open campus, maximizes natural space. • Eases navigation, creates new front door to welcome visitors into new heart of campus, creates safer traffic flow and full accessibility. • Facilitates faculty collaboration with academic subjects clustered by discipline. • Provides larger, flexible classroom space to support future programming and innovation. • Increases security with fewer exterior access points. Phase 5

Phase 3

New performing arts, fine arts and foreign language classrooms, performance/event center

Renovated for new classroom space

Phase 6

Athletics complex with new regulation-size gym connected to renovated athletics facilities

Ac ad em yR oa d

Phase 4

New 2-story academic and administrative building with classrooms, science labs, admissions, business and security offices

Rendering by Cannon Architects

New Middle School Entrance

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it y

D ri

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN TIMELINE & CONSTRUCTION PHASES

UPPER SCHOOL STEM AND HUMANITIES CENTER Completion Date: April 2019 Total Cost: $12 million

Capital Campaign Upper School STEM and Humanities Center Middle School Renovation and Expansion

Tentative Completion Date: Summer 2025 Total Estimated Cost: $33 million

2017 Phase 1 New STEM Wing 2018 Leadership Phase 1

Phase 2 New Humanities Wing & Commons New Amphitheater & Pavilion

2019

Phase 3 2020

Leadership Phase 2

New Performance/Event Center with Fine Arts & Languages Classrooms

2021

Phase 4 2022

MIDDLE SCHOOL RENOVATION AND EXPANSION

Campaign Public Phase

New 2-Story Academic Classroom Building New Main Office New Campus Entrance

2023 Phase 5 Renovated 2-Story Classroom Building 2024 Phase 6 New Regulation Gymnasium

A’s Board of Trustees has spent the last two years carefully planning for the financing and fundraising necessary to complete the Upper School STEM and Humanities Center and a new Middle School campus. The need for DA to uphold its commitment to academic excellence is clear and urgent, which is why the DA Campus Plan cannot wait. Our intent is to complete the entire plan over the span of the next six years. The timing of each phase depends on the success of our fundraising. A sound financing plan allowed us to start construction last year ahead of a campaign. The board has now begun an initial leadership phase of a campaign, and that is where we will be concentrating our efforts for the next two years. We are confident that the DA community will respond with the necessary generous support to complete our ambitious plan. There will be an opportunity for everyone in the greater DA community to participate, and that invitation is not far off. We encourage anyone who is interested in becoming engaged as a leadership donor to reach out to me or Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner. Leslie Holdsworth Director of Development leslie.holdsworth@da.org

Renovation of Existing Gym for PE / Extended Day 2025

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North Korean Defectors Faced Starvation, Forced Labor

Raising Awareness of Immense Suffering Story by Kay Youngstrom ’19

Over the 10 summers that I have spent in Seoul, South Korea, while my parents taught at Korea University, I have been exposed to the conflict and history of the Korean peninsula in a variety of ways. Visiting the Demilitarized Zone and the War Memorial of Korea have been just as poignant as being the only American passing by a demonstration protesting Otto Warmbier’s wrongful death. The summary statistics used to describe the plight of the North Korean people fall short of conveying the immense suffering. Through my work with People for Successful COrean REunification (PSCORE), over the past five summers, I heard firsthand accounts about the hardships of life in North Korea. I quickly became a friend to the defectors. Instead of hiding their true identities for fear of discrimination, they discussed their North Korean heritage while learning English. While tutoring defectors and attending numerous outreach events, I learned of the arduous and dangerous routes of

defection they endured for the hope of freedom. The emotion with which defectors recounted periods of starvation and forced labor helped me to understand the gravity of these abuses. Instead of letting the magnitude of the crisis prevent me from addressing it, I decided to raise awareness about what was happening in North Korea. My sister, Diane Youngstrom ’17 — now a student at UNC-Chapel Hill — and I helped organize multiple speech events at which defectors could share their stories and answer any lingering questions by audience members. These speech events were a place where North Koreans’ voices were heard by students from about 60 countries in an international summer program. I invited people I met in the lobby of my hotel and the members of my research lab to attend the events. These symposia were a way that I could help develop a more informed understanding with a diverse group.

When I was a ninth-grader, Diane and I co-founded a club that works with PSCORE to educate Durham Academy students about North Korea. Through club discussions and fundraising, I have fostered a conversation in my local community that addresses political and social issues in North Korea. The perspectives of my peers have challenged me to think about the situation in new ways. I was encouraged to promote human rights in North Korea on a much larger stage than tutoring, advocacy and fundraising. Along with Diane, I participated in an event at the United Nations in New York City as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in October 2018. This event included remarks by Ambassador Jonathan Cohen, deputy representative of the United States to the United Nations, as well as speeches by two North Korean defectors (Jung Gwang-il, a former political prisoner, and Roh Hoi-Chang, who served as the central party secretary of the External Construction Supervision Bureau). PSCORE has consultative status from the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and they invited us to attend as part of PSCORE's 15-member delegation in New York. In addition to the event at the United Nations, we participated in meetings with the EU Delegation, Korea Society and a meeting of American lawyers for North Korean human rights to discuss the UN resolutions about human rights issues in North Korea. I have been involved in DA’s Model United Nations since the seventh grade. I served as co-chair for the World Health Organization committee for the 2015–2016 Triangle Model United Nations Conference for Middle School Students, and I mentored the DA Middle School Model UN club. Due to my longstanding interest in Model United Nations and United Nations, it was exciting to witness global leaders come together at the United Nations Headquarters to address egregious human rights abuses.

“ Instead of letting the magnitude of the crisis prevent me from addressing it, I decided to raise awareness about what was happening in North Korea.” — Kay Youngstrom ’19

Read about Kay Youngstrom’s tutoring work with North Korean defectors in South Korean newspaper The Dong-A Ilbo: bit.ly/KayYoungstrom.

Learn more about how you can help PSCORE — which anticipates hosting defector talks in the U.S. and selling their books about human rights abuses to raise awareness and funds — at bit.ly/PSCOREHome.

Left: Kay Youngstrom ’19 and Diane Youngstrom ’17 (second and third from right) participated in an event at the United Nations in October as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Photo courtesy of Kay Youngstrom ’19

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STORY BY KATHY MCPHERSON // PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL BRANSCOM

DA Community Rallies to Help Victims of Hurricane Florence Hurricane Florence left Eastern North Carolina reeling, and the Durham Academy community was quick to spring into action with donations of much-needed supplies. The Middle School was an official collection site for the Carolina Cavalry, a grass-roots group delivering items to areas devastated by the hurricane. Durham Academy has a direct connection to the Carolina Cavalry through Jennie Hobbs — a Middle School parent, chair of the Carolina Cavalry and a native of storm-ravaged New Bern. “We are so thankful that DA offered to be a collection site,” Hobbs said. “We are a grassroots organization developed out of a desire to live the golden rule. It’s humbling to see so many volunteering and giving.” DA students, faculty and parents volunteered with the Carolina Cavalry to organize and pack supplies, which were transported to Eastern North Carolina. The DA community also responded to a plea from alumna Nicole Tozzi Graves ’08, a fourthgrade teacher at Murrayville Elementary School in Wilmington, who saw the hurricane’s devastation firsthand. Graves collected donations for families at Murrayville

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Elementary. Some of her students lost their homes, and employees at the school were in need. “Hurricane Florence left many of the families at my school and surrounding area with nothing, including several children and their families from my own class,” Graves said via email. “Right now, I am working to gather as many supplies as I can to help out our community. My students have been through so much these past several days, and anything we can do to help will make a difference in their lives; I know this firsthand.” Graves listed the most-needed items and said “I will make sure they get into the hands of people who have been so impacted by this storm. … Fortunately, the school itself only suffered minor damage, but the effects for our students will be felt for many months to come.” Graves’ mother, Becky Rohn, a teacher at Hill Learning Center, and brother, Ryan Tozzi ’10, took donations to Wilmington immediately after the hurricane and made multiple trips in the following weeks. Eleventh-grader Sophia Smith, who has close ties to New Bern, organized a drive to help people in the flood-ravaged town that

experienced some of the earliest and most damaging effects of the storm. Smith’s mother grew up in New Bern, and her grandparents still live there. Images of flooded New Bern, a town that dates to colonial times, were some of the first glimpses of Hurricane Florence’s devastation. “I immediately wanted to do something about it,” Smith said. “… My mom reached out to people on Facebook, because she is still connected with friends from her childhood. People led her to this organization called Religious Community Services.” Smith held a schoolwide drive to benefit the organization, which provided relief in Craven, Pamlico and Jones counties, and drove the collected supplies to New Bern with her family. “New Bern is a very special place to my mom and whole family, so this means so much!”

“ It’s humbling to see so many volunteering and giving.” — Jennie Hobbs

Faculty Spotlight: Kindergarten Teacher

Sloan Nuernberger Story by Kathy McPherson

Sloan Nuernberger loved playing football and basketball with her two older brothers when she was growing up, but it wasn’t until she was the mother of three young boys that she discovered running. “I started running after my third child was born. … You can imagine with three little kids, it's pretty chaotic. I viewed it as a way to be away from the children for a short period of time, to do something for myself while also burning calories and getting fit. My husband and I would kind of tag team — we’d both be gone for 30 minutes — and I would just run for 30 minutes.” She ran for five or six years, increasing her endurance and her mileage, before signing up for any kind of race. She ran her first marathon in 2009 “totally on a whim” and finished in 3:59, a great time for a first marathon. The Durham Academy kindergarten teacher now has qualified for and run three consecutive Boston Marathons. She was among the 29,000 finishers at the Boston Marathon in April 2018, slogging 26.2 miles through heavy rains, 25to 35-miles-per-hour wind gusts, a temperature of just 39 degrees and the race’s infamous Heartbreak Hill. “It was by far the hardest race, but I think it is the one that I'm most proud, truly most proud, that I finished it, that I did it. I usually don't want to quit, even runs that are hard. I don't. If I tell myself I'm going to do a certain mileage, I don't stop unless something feels hurt. But this one I really wanted to quit, and I just didn't.” Running teaches Nuernberger a lot about life. These are lessons she shares with her students — she taught DA second-graders for a year before moving to kindergarten in 2018 — and with her sons. “It's hard sometimes. You don't want to do it sometimes, but there's so much joy in it. I tried to explain to the kindergartners what I'm doing. It's really hard for them to understand the concept of 26 miles — one mile is hard for them. For the second-graders, I felt like they kind of started to get it. I did Boston when I was [teaching] in second, and they started to ask really good questions about my training. I hope for my boys, our three kids, that they have learned you can find something you're passionate about. That is a great thing, to have this hobby that you're passionate about. They have seen me disappointed, they've seen me really happy, they've seen me just work really, really hard for something that I really wanted. I hope my

students get it, but I really hope that my boys have learned from that.” When she comes back from a race, Nuernberger’s students always ask, “Did you win?” “And even my own boys, until they learned about running, I would do a race and come in and they would say, ‘Mom, did you win?’ I tell them I'm never going to win. Even if I entered a small 5K, I could possibly be the first masters maybe, but I'm never going to win a race. That's not what this is about. It's me wanting to be a little bit better than I was the day before.” Nuernberger trains mostly by herself, and she’s never had a coach, but she loves to read about running. “I've read so many running books. I just love the sport and I love to tweak things in what I'm doing. I love that our bodies are capable of doing this. People say, how do you do it? I just work really hard at it. I wasn't a runner, and then I became a runner, and then I became a better runner because I just committed to it. It's something that brings me a lot of joy and it's a stress-reliever; it keeps me really healthy. I've seen the results of sticking with it. I'm very consistent. I rarely missed days. I don't really make excuses, I just do it. And I've seen results — to me that's just this amazing thing, that you can work harder at it and you can do that.” She sees that with her students, too. “I love being a really, really small part of each child's journey in becoming who they are. A lot of people and lot of experiences play into shaping a child. I think it's just a real gift to be a small part of that. What I like best is the relationship that I form with the students, that's really important to Photo courtesy of MarathonFoto

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

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me. Most of my time [teaching] was in first grade, so being a part of this language explosion where reading and writing start to all make sense to them is a really cool thing in first grade especially. You even see it here a little bit in kindergarten. I just loved when I taught first grade and all of those strategies that you've reinforced throughout the year all of a sudden make sense and they can start reading. To know that you've contributed in some way to that is just so rewarding.” Nuernberger always knew she wanted to work with children. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in elementary education and taught in Charlotte and Guilford County before moving to Durham. “When we came to Durham, we had already had our oldest son, Silas, and then had two more boys, Jack and Bo. We had three very young children, very close in age,” Nuernberger said. Her oldest son was not quite 4 when her youngest was born. “It made sense for me to stay home, and I was lucky enough to be able to do that.” She had been away from teaching for 13 years when she came to Durham Academy in 2016 as a second-grade teaching assistant. Almost immediately, she knew she was back where she belonged. “It was just this nice kind of realization that I stepped away from it and I came back to it, and it felt so comfortable and so right to be in the classroom.” Nuernberger wasted no time returning to her Preschool classroom after last spring’s Boston Marathon. She ran on April 16, flew home on April 17 and was back teaching on April 18. She sat on the floor with her students during morning circle time and passed her finisher’s medal around so each kindergartner could examine it and try it on. Nuernberger’s third Boston Marathon medal is a testament to her perseverance, not only for finishing this year’s grueling race but also for getting to her first Boston Marathon. She ran a 3:48 marathon in Richmond in 2012, a time that was just three minutes shy of qualifying for Boston. Then she ran Durham’s Tobacco Road Marathon with a time that qualified her to run the Boston Marathon with a minute to spare. But after terrorists’ bombs exploded at the 2013 Boston Marathon, there was such a surge of support and interest in running the race that qualifying times for the 2014 race were changed and Nuernberger now missed qualifying by 12 seconds. She kept at it and ran the Chicago Marathon in October 2014, finishing with a time that was seven minutes under Boston’s qualifying time. When registration opened in September 2015, Nuernberger signed up to run the 2016 Boston Marathon. She returned for the 2017 and 2018 races. “It took me three races of qualifying to actually make it into the race itself. Since then, I've qualified in Boston except for this year. I missed it by one minute and I'm OK with that. I made this decision before I even knew the weather. I've been running marathons, one or two a year, since 2012. I had made this decision to my family

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

and to myself that I was going to give it a break. I will do it again, but I'm going to give myself about a year to run short distance. I want to get faster at running short distance because if I get faster there, that will translate to the marathon and my marathon will be faster. I'm going to spend a year or two running 5Ks, 10Ks and halfs, trying to get my time down in those races, and then I'll go back to the marathon.”

“ I wasn't a runner, and then I became a runner, and then I became a better runner because I just committed to it.” — Sloan Nuernberger Her goal is to run a 3:30 marathon. “I've been chasing a 3:30. I've run a 3:35 in Boston, which is a hard course, so I know that I am close. On a good day, I think I could do it, so I keep training. I'm determined to get there, so I'm going to spend this time getting faster short [distances], and then I'm going to go back. I will run a 3:30 at some point — I will.” Nuernberger finished at 3:56 this year. “My husband asked me before the race, he said tell me what you think, knowing the conditions, what you think you can do? I said I think I can come in under four, and I did. I didn't look at my watch the whole time, I just kind of ran by effort instead of focusing on my pace.” She convinced herself to keep running by “doing this trick in my head where I say just get to the next mile. It was mile 14, I said just run to 15. At 15, just get 16. I just kind of break it up like that. It becomes such a mental game.” The race got even more challenging when Nuernberger reached Heartbreak Hill, just over 20 miles into the race. “I was running up Heartbreak Hill and I cut in front of this guy to get over to the side. I turned back to him and said, I'm so sorry I just need to get over here and walk. And he said no, this is Heartbreak Hill, don't you let it break you, we're running up this hill. So I ran up with him to the finish. … I looked at him and said, thank you because I would have walked in. But he said no, don't let this break you, we're running, so I ran up to the top.”

SAVE THE DATE iv .org/g a d . w ww

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MAKE A GIFT & MAKE A DIFFERENCE

40th Annual Benefit Auction Supporting Durham Academy Students and Faculty Through Parents Association Saturday, April 6, 2019 Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club 6:30 p.m. Black Tie Optional Sponsorship Opportunities Available

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Spring

Alumni Reception

Chicago Alumni Gathering

Friday, April 26, 6 p.m. Upper School Learning Commons Come see the new Upper School STEM and Humanities Center and catch up with classmates, faculty and staff on April 26 at the Spring Alumni Reception. Join us as we present the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Awards and the 2019 Faculty/Staff Legacy Award. An invitation will be sent via email in late February, so if we do not have your current email address, please send it to Director of Alumni Engagement Tim McKenna at tim.mckenna@da.org.

Left to Right: Christian Stahl ’98, Sally Preminger ’03, Josh Reed ’99 and Dillon Flynn ’09.

At Northwestern University, Chicago

Spring

Alumni Events Feb. 28, 6:30 p.m. Alumni Networking Social SAN FRANCISCO

March 1, 7 p.m. Alumni Networking Social LOS ANGELES

March 5, 8 a.m.–midnight DA Giving Day

March 7, 6 p.m. Alumni Networking Social WASHINGTON, D.C.

March 26, 5:30 p.m.

Left to Right: Head of School Michael Ulku-Steiner, Tim McKenna and Lakin Barry ’16.

College-Age Alumni Lunch in Boston

Alumni Board Meeting CONFERENCE ROOM, KIRBY GYM

April 3, 6 p.m. Alumni Networking Social ATLANTA

April 4, 6 p.m. Alumni Networking Social CHARLOTTE

April 6, 6 p.m. Durham Academy Benefit Auction THE WASHINGTON DUKE INN & GOLF CLUB

April 26, 6 p.m. Spring Alumni Reception UPPER SCHOOL LEARNING COMMONS

May 9, 7 p.m. Alumni Networking Social NEW YORK CITY

Left to Right: Director of Alumni Engagement Tim McKenna, Nijel Hunt ’17, Nicole Riepl ’18, Carter Lange ’17 and Lucy Wollman ’15.

Boston Alumni Gathering

Left to Right: (back row) Chloe Goodwin, David Lopez-Lengowski ’09, Kara Lopez-Lengowski ’14, Kristie Chan ’11, Phillipe Brener, Michael Dibbert ’99, Megan Haas ’12, (front row) Miranda Turner ’15, Spencer Kim ’15, Katie Vincent ’15 and Lauren Jacobi ’93.

In 2018, DA Held Alumni Events in 7 Different States

Chicago

Boston New York City

San Francisco

Atlanta

Winston-Salem Chapel Hill Raleigh Charlotte

Dallas Source: onestopmap.com

More than 575 alumni attended out-of-town and local events

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Alumni Spotlight

Nick Gallo ’06

Dream Come True: Working in the NBA Q — What have you been up to since graduating from Durham Academy? A — After attending Durham Academy, I enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, majoring in political science and minoring in corporate strategy. While I was at Vanderbilt, I joined on-campus groups, enjoyed the benefits of living in a growing, emerging city and continued writing about sports for our school’s newspaper, the Vanderbilt Hustler. During the summer, I completed internships with the Tennessee Titans in their media relations and website departments, and also spent time in Washington, D.C., working for a political talk show, The McLaughlin Group. In addition, I completed an independent study my senior year, working closely with a professor to write my thesis on patronage and political appointees in government, which I presented at the Midwest Political Science Association conference in Chicago in 2010. After graduating from Vanderbilt later that spring, I accepted a season-long internship with the New York Jets as a writer for the team’s website, newyorkjets.com. After a season as a reporter, there was a lockout in the NFL so my position for the next year wasn’t guaranteed. I worked as a freelance sports writer covering local high school athletics, came back to Durham for a month and then returned to the Jets in the fall of 2011 as an intern with the media relations department. Six months later, I accepted a full-time position with the Oklahoma City Thunder, where I’ve been employed for the past seven seasons. I started as a website writer, but the team has allowed me to gain new experiences and spread my wings over the years. Q — What are we doing now? A — I now currently serve as a sideline reporter for the Thunder’s regional television games on Fox Sports Oklahoma, in addition to providing written and video reporting for okcthunder.com and our various social platforms. I also work behind the camera as a producer on team documentaries and video shorts.

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

It’s a dream come true for Nick Gallo ’06 — he has a job that revolves around sports and has given him the chance to visit Istanbul, Manchester, Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City, along with NBA cities all over the U.S. with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Gallo is a sideline reporter for the Thunder’s regional television games on Fox Sports Oklahoma; provides written and video reporting for okcthunder.com and the team’s various social platforms; and works behind the camera as a producer.

Q — Why do you do what you do? A — It’s been an absolute dream come true to be working in the NBA, to have my job revolve completely around sports and get to travel all over the world with the team. I work all 82 games and have had the chance to visit Istanbul, Manchester, Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City along with the other NBA cities. I could never have imagined being able to do this for a living while playing baseball for Coach Regnerus or basketball at the CavDome. I don’t know what’s quite next for me career-wise, but I plan to keep doing what I can to hold onto this opportunity and advance it further. My sister, Natalie Gallo [DA class of 2013], moved out to Oklahoma City a couple years after I arrived, and it’s been great to have her close by as we both grow in our careers and lives. I met my wife, Maddie Schrunk, here in Oklahoma. We got married in September of 2017 and adopted a border collie named Heidi. We love walking to restaurants and other places in our neighborhood in Oklahoma City, and always enjoy traveling, particularly to see family and friends all over the country. Q — What DA experiences influenced you or helped you get where you are today? A — The experience I gained from Durham Academy was incredibly valuable. DA established the idea of “showing, not telling” to me as a writer. I learned how to learn and to think critically. The friendships I made, the teachers I had and the challenges I faced all helped shape me into a person who hopefully approaches my profession with humility, my colleagues with respect and my family with care. I can’t be more thankful for the doors that were opened to me because I was a Cavalier.

Photo courtesy of Nick Gallo

Homecoming 2018 Alumni had a blast reconnecting over barbecue and beer on campus Friday, and classes ending in 3s and 8s gathered for a reunion party Saturday evening at Watts Grocery. Jenny Glasson Hubert â&#x20AC;&#x2122;75. Photo by Kathy McPherson

Class of 1988 with Director of Athletics Steve Engebretsen. Photo by Greg Murray

The Class of 2013 drew a large crowd in its fifth reunion. Photo by Greg Murray

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Class of 2008 — Peter Larson, Nick Drago and Sam Berchuck. Photo by Greg Murray

Leslie Ogden ’08 and Teresa Engebretsen, Middle School French teacher. Photo by Greg Murray

Class of 1998 — Costen Irons, Preschool-Lower School PE teacher; Katie Ryan Amick Kantz; Betsy Fox; Molly Shaw; Alison Sexton Salvatori and Adam Lang. Photo by Sarah Jane Tart

Class of 1986 — (back row) Jonathan Avery, Joe Taylor, Lisa Tulchin, (front row) Alan Ellis and Barbara Bossen. Photo by Sarah Jane Tart

Save the Date

Homecoming 2019 Oct. 4–5 Reunion party for classes ending in 4s and 9s

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Alumni Share Perspectives and Career Advice with Seniors Story and Photo by Melody Guyton Butts

Since Kyle Mumma ’09 graduated from Durham Academy, his career has run the gamut — from operations with Duke basketball and football, to the nonprofit and business consulting worlds. Through those experiences, he’s become something of an early-career expert, and he’s parlaying that knowledge into his newest endeavor: launching a start-up company that aims to help college athletes translate their experience on the field into the workplace. Mumma offered some of that advice to DA seniors at the inaugural Career Day on Nov. 7. In a keynote address, he told students that his start-up, NextPlay, is built on a foundation of four values that have been informed by his career experiences: innovation, resilience,

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

authenticity and connection — “surrounding yourself with people who make you better every day.” For DA Alumni Board President Garrett Putman ’94, “connection” is what Career Day was all about. “We want our seniors — and fellow graduates — to understand that the Durham Academy community is an outstanding resource to use for career networking,” he said. “Whether it’s a senior who has questions about a specific professional field of interest, a college student looking for a summer internship or a young professional who is looking to make a career transition, DA alumni are ready, willing and able to help.” Over the last few years, the Alumni Board has made it a priority to offer additional networking opportunities, like its Alumni After-Hours event, and Career Day is an opportunity for alumni to connect with current students and “share our perspectives on what makes for an interesting, engaging and purpose-led career,” Putman explained. Mumma and Putman were joined by seven fellow alumni on discussion panels to give seniors a glimpse into their professional lives and offer career advice. The reaction from seniors, like Yaakov Huba, was positive. He was

admittedly skeptical initially, given that he and his classmates are now focused on the next immediate chapter of their lives, college, rather than the careers to follow, but “it proved very helpful to seeing the paths that people take and the importance of skills such as collaboration and finding passion. “The speakers were engaging and encouraged us to ask questions, in turn giving us opportunities for outreach and connection with Durham Academy alumni,” he continued. “The diversity of the careers presented to us was an extremely helpful take on the career market and showed us the possibilities that a Durham Academy education can give us.” For fellow senior Dianne Kim, Career Day fell at the perfect time. “This is a stressful time for me, not only because it's that time of year for college apps, but also because I'm applying to colleges not even knowing what I want to do in the future,” she explained. “I think Career Day was just what I needed: talking to people who went through the same process that I'm going through currently and assuring me that it's okay to feel this uncertain. I have now met new mentors that I can look up to and ask questions about right here in Durham.”

Grant Fowler ’08, Co-Founder and Software Engineer, Fugitive Labs

Kendall Bradley ’07, Resident Physician with Duke Orthopedic Surgery

“I think it’s important to note that a lot of what you guys [might think is] I go to college, and I have to decide now what I major in, and that determines my career. And that’s not the case. Three of the guys I work with, none of them studied computer science in college. They all kinda learned on the side or picked it up on their own. Your degree matters to a certain extent, but it doesn’t determine what you do. The real world is a lot more nuanced than that. There are a thousand different ways you can go.”

“With orthopedics, you get to fix a very specific problem, and you get to see your patients get better. … In medicine, you get to see the impact that you make on patients and really help people. There’s a really small room for error and the training is really long, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything else.”

Kelly Smoke ’00, has Worked as a High School Teacher, in Pharmaceutical Sales and in Politics “Always have in mind how you’re going to serve your community. Shirley Chisholm said, ‘Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.’ … Sometimes you might not have as much fulfillment in your work as you think you’d ought to have, but it allows us on the weekends and on the evenings to donate or volunteer our time. If you can marry those ideas — who you want to be, what you want to do and what service you want to render to the community — you will be a more whole and more content person.”

Garrett Putman ’94, Principal Marketing Consultant at SAS and Independent Marketing Consultant “The people sitting next to you are going to continually inspire and amaze you as you move forward. … Just in my class alone — I had 64 kids in my class — one guy is on Broadway right now, one guy is a doctor who chases Ebola and treats patients all around the world, one girl is writing a book on happiness and what it means to be a happy individual. It’s just amazing that a class that small can have so many diverse interests. Continue to stay in touch with the people sitting next to you. You can lean on them, you can get ideas from them, you can get inspired by them.”

Seth Jernigan ’96, President of Real Estate Associates “I started in the forestry program at N.C. State because I’m a big outdoorsman and love to be outside, and I thought that’s what I wanted to do for a living. I spent one semester doing forestry, and I decided pretty quickly that I don’t want to work in the woods. … I wanted to ideally find a career that would still allow me to do my passion and have the flexibility and means to do it, but also find something for work that I enjoy. For me, the real estate business, I enjoy it and am passionate about it. But I also have other passions, and I’ve been able to strike that balance.”

Virginia Reves Hall ’91, Fifth-Grade History Teacher and JV Cross-Country Coach at Durham Academy “You shouldn’t feel like you have to go straight to grad school after college. Sometimes that’s the right path, but if you can get out in the real world and try something out for a while, you have way more perspective. I had a year at another school under my belt when I started teaching at DA and went to get my master’s. The things the professors were telling me made so much more sense because I had that year of teaching in my own classroom.”

Kyle Mumma ’09, Founder and CEO of NextPlay “You are always going to want to try new things and have new experiences. You’d be surprised how something you learned in an old job helps you to do that. Oftentimes, it’s not the line of code that you learn to write that makes you successful in your next job. It’s learning how to work with people or learning how to show up the right way to the office or learning how to be flexible in a challenging situation. Those are the things that are going to make you successful at anything you do, whether it’s software or marketing or consulting or whatever.”

Susan Knott Easterling ’00, Principal Engineer at Gardner & McDaniel “Engineering is something that helps you think critically, and it builds on the foundation you already have at Durham Academy. A lot of people I know didn’t actually continue engineering, but it set them up for success. … Engineering is one of those degrees that you can do a lot of things with — you can get a master’s in engineering or an M.B.A., and you can work in a small business or with a big corporation.”

Mark Anderson ’81, Partner and Trial Lawyer at McGuireWoods “I think, smartly, I took my first job without knowing how much it would pay because it was with people I respected and people who were doing interesting things. When I got there, I unabashedly latched on to people I respected the most. When my first mentor was going to court, I would volunteer to pick him up at his house, take him to court, take notes for him and then write letters to follow up to the clients after he left for the day. I got to work in the morning and made the coffee. … I learned a lot and got to work with really interesting people, and that has continued.”

Alumni Spotlight

Terence Hsieh ’07

Making Music in China Q — What have you been up to since graduating from Durham Academy? A — After I graduated from DA, I attended Oberlin College and Conservatory, where I studied in the double degree program, majoring in East Asian studies with a concentration on Chinese language, and completed honors coursework and jazz trombone performance in the conservatory. During my time studying Chinese, I had the chance to go to Beijing to study abroad, where I met many of the local jazz musicians and formed friendships with them — and I ended up moving there after I graduated. When I arrived, I worked as an intern and then an editor at The World of Chinese, a bilingual Chinese culture magazine. After I left The World of Chinese, I became a full-time musician, teaching parttime at the International School of Beijing as the director of the jazz program there. I also founded the Blue Note Beijing Jazz Orchestra, the house big band at Blue Note Beijing, and acted as music director and house arranger, leading the band on several notable shows with some of my musical heroes, including Mark Turner and Jaleel Shaw, two amazing saxophonists, and Conrad Herwig, one of my heroes on trombone. In 2014, I released my debut jazz album, Multiplicity, featuring some great friends from Oberlin who came to China with me in 2012. It also featured my teacher, Robin Eubanks, and Miguel Zenon, a saxophone hero of mine. Q — What are you doing now? A — I’m now focusing more on pop music. I play keyboards and trombone and trumpet with Chinese pop music singers on their recordings and tours, arranging and performing in their backing bands, as well as in the backing bands on TV shows like The Voice of China. I also lead an instrumental pop music cover band called The Spice Cabinet that plays my funky jazz arrangements of Top 40 tunes. We’ve just recorded an album and are negotiating the release of our new single. I continue to teach at the International School of Beijing and play small shows around town with my quartet and with other visiting friends and musicians who end up in Beijing.

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Moving to China after graduating from college, 2007 Durham Academy graduate Terence Hsieh’s life is immersed in music — from directing the jazz program at the International School of Beijing and releasing his debut jazz album, to leading a pop cover band and playing keyboards, trombone and trumpet with some of China’s biggest pop singers.

Q — Why do you do what you do? A — Music was always a huge part of my life — although when I was in school, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to do professionally. I realized, sometime in my first year in Beijing, that I couldn’t do the 9-to-5 desk job, and I had so much going on in my head that I had to practice, play and get out and do things with the music that was in my ears. I didn’t really have any particular clue as to how to do that, but I knew that whatever my life was going to be, it had to involve music and my jazz music background and training, somehow. Q — What DA experiences influenced you or helped you get where you are today? A — Languages are by and far my favorite things to study, and music, I find, is just like another language. In my senior year at DA, I was taking both Spanish with Ms. [Margarita] Throop and AP Latin with Ms. [Edith] Keene. To this day, I still can remember some of the poems we memorized in the works of Catullus and Vergil. Learning how to grapple with a foreign language in which concepts and feelings may be entirely different was a skill that I learned in the classroom with all of my Spanish and Latin courses. Mr. [Patrick] Obregon, Ms. [Liliana] Simón, Ms. Throop, Ms. Keene all showed me that by understanding a linguistic paradigm properly, you can really get to the emotional core of what someone is trying to say, instead of just the words that we assume are carried over in the translation. My English classes with Eric Teagarden and Jordan Adair also taught me how to understand my assumptions about the world and how to escape from them. Questioning the fundamentals of my identity and maybe even my own reality became a huge part of my search as an artist and composer in later years: “How do I deliver an emotion that I feel, when hearing a certain sound, or a repeated motive, to an audience?” That’s a very tricky question.

Photo courtesy of Terence Hsieh

Q — What are your interests away from work?

Q — What’s on the horizon for you?

A — Honestly, because I live a freelancer’s life, work-life balance becomes difficult, especially when I travel so much, but also because I really love what I do: I compose music for a living! How could anyone see that as “work?” In my spare time, I suppose, I’ve taken up mid-long distance running, which would probably surprise Coach [Dennis] Cullen, and cooking is a close second. And as much as I hate to admit, I’ve become a coffee junkie, so I spend a lot of time searching for the perfect cappuccino. Beyond that, I try to catch up on sleep when I’m not on tour and to balance my life a little more when work isn’t raining down on me.

A — I’m always grinding new music out for new artists, so I have several artists I’m working with to put out new music. I serve as the horn director in the band for Karen Mok, one of the bigger pop singers in Greater China, which has been a huge honor, and that tour continues through December 2019.

Learn more about Hsieh at www.terryhsieh.com.

da.org

Photo by Emilio Madrid-Kuser

UNC Press recently published The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle by Malinda Maynor Lowery ’91. In the book, she chronicles the history of the Lumbee tribe while weaving in memories of her own Lumbee ancestors. Lowery, also the author of Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South, is a history professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and director of the Center for the Study of the American South.

Photo by Joi Henslee

Malinda Maynor Lowery ’91

Ward Horton ’94 Anthony Roth Costanzo ’00, a star of both traditional opera and new music, received a 2019 Grammy nomination for his debut album, ARC, in the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album category. As he told Wall Street Journal Magazine, NPR and numerous other media outlets this fall, he’s on a quest to reimagine opera for a younger audience — or, as The New York Times put it, he “exists to transform opera.” To build on ARC, Costanzo, a countertenor, is producing Glass Handel, an interdisciplinary performance combining the power of choreography, live artwork, videos, high fashion and the music of Handel and Philip Glass. View a music video from ARC at bit.ly/ARCVideo,, and listen to the full album at bit.ly/ARCAlbum.

I VOTED Josh Klein ’18 If you voted in Durham this fall, you’ll have received one of these sharp “I Voted” stickers designed by Josh Klein ’18, now a student at Georgetown University. His Durham flag-inspired design bested 29 others in a Durham County Board of Elections sticker contest.

Anthony Roth Costanzo ’00

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Photo by Dominic M. Mercier

Illustration by Josh Klein ’18

Ward Horton ’94 made his Broadway debut with the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song in November. He played Ed, a closeted teacher with whom the protagonist (played by Michael Urie) has a rocky relationship. In a “Critic’s Pick” review, The New York Times described Horton as “pitch perfect as an almost-straight man.” Horton also appeared in the OffBroadway run of Torch Song in 2017. He has had success on the small and big screens, including in the CBS medical drama Pure Genius and in the horror films Annabelle and Midnighters.

Anna Young ’12 Anna Young ’12, a doctoral student at Harvard University, co-authored a study on the toxicity of nail polish that shows even “non-toxic” polish may contain harmful chemicals. As she noted in the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, current laws don’t require that beauty products be FDAapproved, and brands that claim to have safe formulations may be substituting some toxic chemicals with alternatives that are just as dangerous. “It’s sort of like playing a game of chemical Whac-A-Mole, where one toxic chemical is removed and you end up chasing down the next potentially harmful chemical substituted in,” Young told Time magazine. Read more in Time magazine: bit.ly/AnnaYoung.

No. 1 from the series Care Free Black Girls, 2017 Photo by Faith Couch ’15

Faith Couch ’15 Photographs by Faith Couch ’15, a senior at Maryland Institute College of Art, are among those featured in the Nasher Museum of Art’s “Across County Lines: Contemporary Photography from the Piedmont” exhibition, running through Feb. 10. Also among the 39 photographers represented in the exhibition is DA Upper School photography teacher Harrison Haynes, who describes Couch as “gearing up to take the art world by storm.”

Mike Wilkins ’77 Mike Wilkins ’77 received his third NBA championship ring as a minority owner of the Golden State Warriors in October. Wilkins — who is also a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers — is a wearer of many hats; he's a co-founder of Kingsford Capital Management (one of the best-regarded short-only firms with $250 million in assets) and has also been a screenwriter, author and artist. One of his pieces — “Preamble,” a collection of license plates spelling out the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution — is displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the permanent collection.

da.org

It Runs in the Blood

Family Tradition Continues with Cross-Country Championship Story by Melody Guyton Butts

The first to sprint across the finish line at the waterlogged 2018 state cross-country meet, Allison Hall ’24 set the stage for the Durham Academy girls team to win the squad’s first title in 22 years. And for longtime observers of DA cross-country, her performance brought to mind a pair of impressive state meet performances 30 years ago — when Hall’s father and mother placed first and seventh, respectively.

“ After I won, I thought about my dad winning, and then everyone told me it was 30 years after.” — Allison Hall ’24 “After I won, I thought about my dad winning, and then everyone told me it was 30 years after,” she said with a smile. “My parents met running, as well, and now I like to run, which is really cool.” Conrad Hall ’89 and Virginia Reves Hall ’91 actually met on DA’s first-ever swim team, as Virginia recalls, but it was while running cross-country that they began dating. Conrad — a five-time state individual event champion and a two-time Durham City-County Meet champion — helped lead DA to four state championships in both cross-country and track.

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

He now teaches history and coaches the varsity cross-country and track teams at Cary Academy. And Virginia — who placed second in the state in the 800 meter run and was a member of the 4 x 400 meter relay teams that won the state championship three years in a row — helped lead the girls team to two state cross-country championships. She now teaches fifth-grade history at DA and coaches the JV cross-country teams. Their siblings — Miles Hall ’91, Christy Reves ’92 and Betsy Reves Sidebottom ’94 — each had success on the DA cross-county course and track in their own right, and Conrad and Virginia have made physical activity a priority by running marathons, competing in triathlons and playing tennis. Allison and her younger sister, Catherine ’26, have undoubtedly inherited some speedy, athletic genes. But perhaps more importantly, the Halls treat opportunities to engage in physical activity as opportunities to connect with one another, family and friends. “We are a family that is committed to being active, staying fit and making it a social thing,” Virginia said. “In terms of how running is important for our family, it’s something we do together, for special occasions,” like the Peachtree Road Race 10K in Atlanta each July 4, the Race the Landing 5K in Charleston, S.C., each New Year’s Day and the DA Turkey Trot 5K around Thanksgiving each year. Until recently, seventh-grader Allison saw running as a just-for-fun activity, as she played soccer competitively. But over the summer, she decided to shift her focus to running and began training in earnest, often running alongside her father. For Conrad, experiencing the thrill of witnessing his daughter’s state title victory while coaching his Cary Academy runners was simultaneously “very exciting and fun” and “a little bit weird and different.”

Virginia Reves Hall ’91, Allison Hall ’24 and Conrad Hall ’89 braved the elements at the NCISAA country county meet in Hendersonville. Photo by Jerry Reves

“I knew she could have a great race, but I had no idea she would be able to win,” he said. “As the race went on and she kept hanging in there, it gradually became evident that she was having a special day and might have an amazing race. It wasn’t until she actually crossed the finish line that we started taking in what she had just done.” Dennis Cullen, who coached DA’s cross-country and track teams for 39 years and continues to help with the program, described the 2018 meet’s course conditions — d riving rain overhead and inches of mud underfoot — as “the worst I’ve ever seen in a state meet.” But for Allison — whom her mother caught running and high-fiving with her father in gusting winds and rain as the remnants of Hurricane Michael approached in October — they offered an opportunity to exercise her grit. “Those conditions, I like them,” Allison said, “because even though they’re hard for me, they’re hard for everyone, so you really have to persevere.” Now, 30 years since that fateful 1988 cross-country season, her parents can’t help but reflect on all that has happened since.

“This is something that I would have never anticipated, that Conrad and I would both end up being teachers and coaches — and me at DA and Allison running for DA,” Virginia said. “If you told me that when I was 15 and starting to date Conrad, I’d have been pretty surprised.” For Conrad, the impact of the DA cross-country program on his life is difficult to quantify. “It’s a big part of my career and calling now as I coach CA runners and help them grow as athletes and people. My DA running career is a long time ago now, and my focus is on my coaching at present, but those days on the DA team with Coach Cullen were extremely formative and positive for me,” he recalled. “For Virginia and me, who we are as people, our careers and callings, and our 20year marriage and family is all tied to those years on DA cross-country with Coach Cullen and our DA cross country teammates. And now Allison is in the DA program and having a great experience. Amazing, really!”

da.org

Alumni Spotlight

Susan Knott Easterling ’00

Helping Build DA’s Campus

As a structural engineer, Susan Easterling ’00 experiences the satisfaction of contributing to a vision becoming reality, and she’s proud to have been a part of buildings all around the Bull City — including Durham Academy’s own STEM and Humanities Center. As president of one of the few woman-owned engineering businesses in the Triangle, she strives to balance work with being mom to her two young children — and to live each day to its fullest.

Q — What have you been up to since graduating from Durham Academy?

Another aspect I enjoy is getting to drive around town and see our work complete and “open for business.” Good building design transforms how people interact and how a city “feels.” Not only have I had the opportunity to work on building projects at DA (including the one you see going up now!), but also at our local college campuses, hospitals and cool spots like GRUB, Mothers & Sons and County Fare. So, I’m a structural engineer because every day my job keeps me learning, is exciting and relevant to our daily life experiences.

A — After graduating from DA, I attended N.C. State University and received a B.S. degree in civil engineering in 2004. I then moved to Charlotte to begin my career with AREVA Inc., an international developer of nuclear power technology. With my position there, I had the opportunity to travel extensively, experiencing new places and culture. Also while working for this company, I met my future husband, Bill Easterling. We were married in 2006. The following year, we had the opportunity to leave our corporate jobs in Charlotte and return to Durham to begin anew. This time, as part of engineering firm Gardner & McDaniel, I began to specialize in the structural engineering design of buildings. Bill and I embarked on this new adventure together and with a leap of faith in the future of the Bull City. Since that decision, our design work has followed with the transformation of Durham as we know it today. In 2014, I became president and majority owner of the business, and our company is one of the few woman-owned engineering businesses in the Triangle. Since that adventure began 11 years ago, we have welcomed Owen (7) and Charlotte (4) into our family, who both keep us busy. Q — What are you doing now? A — Quite honestly, working during the days, sometime nights, and trying to keep up with my kids. It’s a daily challenge to maintain a balance of life’s many demands, and at my core I strive to do it all — and live each day to its fullest. Q — Why do you do what you do? A — Within my first week of work at Gardner & McDaniel, I felt instant satisfaction in contributing to a vision becoming reality. It takes a team of people — from owners, designers, builders and subcontractors — to make a building project successful. Each stakeholder views the project from a different perspective, which creates many opportunities to learn.

Q — What DA experiences influenced you or helped you get where you are today? A — There are too many facets of my experience at DA that shaped me into the person I am today to mention here, but I can highlight two. Foremost, my DA education built a foundation to help me become a critical thinker and face the engineering challenges found in my daily work. Immediately at N.C. State, I was ready to face the difficult courses required to learn the principles of engineering. Secondly, the social experience at DA helped me create lasting friendships (some beginning in kindergarten!) and navigate through challenging situations with a clear perspective and goals for the future. Q — What are your interests away from work? A — Right now, I am trying to spend quality time with my family, especially investing in our kids lives. I’ve heard it so many times and try to remind myself of the phrase, “The days may be long, but the years are short!” If I’m not doing something with my family and friends, you can find me spending time on the tennis court, volunteering at church or with the Junior League of Durham and Orange Counties. Q — What’s on the horizon for you? A — I’m excited to be in the early years of my next adventure — that of a DA parent! I’m blessed to be a part of the continued growth of our region and look forward to many great ideas coming to reality in our hometown.

Photo by Kathy McPherson

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Alumni, Faculty and Staff Babies 1 — Courtland, son of David Hutchings ’05 2 — John Henry and Greta, children of Rebecca Shores, Upper School English teacher 3 — Logan, son of Kyle Lewis, controller, Office of Business Services, and varsity volleyball coach 4 — Simone Elyse Simmons, daughter of JacQuetta Foushee ’03

5 — Julia and Connor, children of Brienne Letourneau '03 and Richard Bailey '02 6 — Riley, daughter of Jennifer Klaver, third grade teacher 7 — Anna, daughter of Christine Lee, administrative assistant, Office of Enrollment Management 8 — Avery and Carter, children of Catherine Clark Everson ’02

2 4

5 6

Durham Academy // Winter 2019

Alumni & Staff Weddings

1 — A shley Dickinson and Peter Moon ’04, Sept. 2, 2018, Santa Barbara, California 2 — Luca Tomasi ’09 and Rachel Dunn ’09, May 5, 2018, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 3 — Brantley Tart and Sarah Delk, multimedia specialist, Communications, June 2, 2018, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 4 — Jack Stimple and Mariel Murray ’11, Aug. 11, 2018, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Photos by (1) Brooke Borough Photography, (2) Nancy Ray Photography, (3) Nancy Ray Photography and (4) Élan Photographie Studio

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In Memoriam Christopher Park Ross ’72 died May 14, 2018, in Durham. A graduate of Duke University, he received master's degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill and Old Dominion University, and taught at Norfolk Academy, Hampton Roads Academy and Vance-Granville Community College. He was an avid collector of books, and many of his books were donated to Durham Academy. He is survived by a brother, David Lee Ross ’70 of Durham, and a sister, Marion Ross Godfrey ’64 of Beaverton, Oregon.

Martha Erwin Uzzle ’51 died May 26, 2018, in Durham. She attended Duke University and devoted her life to helping others, having served as president of the Junior League of Durham, chair of the Debutante Ball Society and being counted among the six founders of Caring House. Her encyclopedic knowledge of Hope Valley was a great resource for researchers working on Hope Valley's National Register nomination, and she delighted in having the neighborhood listed by the National Register of Historic Places. She is survived by a son, Dan Uzzle III.

Harry Gooder died May 31, 2018, in Chapel Hill. He served on the Durham Academy Board of Trustees and was chair of the board in 1972–1973. He received his Ph.D. at Leeds University, England, and was a professor of microbiology and immunology at UNC-Chapel Hill, serving as chairman of the faculty 1988–1991. He received the Jefferson Award in 1994 and was a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is survived by his wife, Sally Couch Vilas; and children Caroline M. Gooder ’76, Catherine Vilas Stanford, Mary Coker Vilas ’74 and John Couch Vilas. Artwork courtesy of the DA Archives

Amelia Archer Farrior Thompson died June 5, 2018, in Burlington at the age of 99. A graduate of Peace College and Winthrop College, she taught school for 33 years, teaching kindergarten at Durham Academy for 24 years and serving as director of the Preschool for the last 10 years of her career. She served on the organizing committee of Women in Action for the Prevention of Violence in Durham. In 1989, she was presented the Governor's Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. A member of First Presbyterian Church in both Durham and Burlington, she served as a deacon at the age of 90. She is survived by a son, James F. Thompson ’70 of Durham, and a daughter, Mary Thompson Skinner ’72 of Arapahoe.

Daniel Whitlock Banner died July 24, 2018, in Mason, Ohio. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, he taught math at Durham Academy from 1983 to 2000, coached baseball and served as coordinator of community service when Durham Academy began hosting the Special Olympics Spring Games. He later worked with social services for 14 years. He is survived by his wife, Mary Holmes Banner of Wilmington, Ohio; a son, James Banner ’01 of Orlando, Florida; and a daughter, Elisabeth Banner ’07 of Greensboro.

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Durham Academy Magazine - Winter 2019

Articles inside

Values Guide New Math Program in the Lower School

Cavalier Capstones: From Science of Food to Machu Picchu, a New End to the Upper School Year

DA Students, Teachers Complete Exchange with China

Raising Awareness of Immense Suffering

Moral, Happy, Productive: Benny Klein '20