Signature Magazine Fall 2019

THE ADMISSIONS MAGAZINE OF EMMA WILLARD SCHOOL FALL 2019

Laura Reyes '03 Assistant Principal, The Charter High School for Law and Social Justice in the Bronx

Aisha Fadé ’19 shares her excitement with Board of Trustees Chair Susie Hunter ’68 on the Commencement stage on June 2.

M AKIN G THEIR MARK

Rebekah Adamek ‘99

(page 22) Describe Emma in two words: Amazingly complex What’s your favorite Emma tradition?

Principal’s Playday (ha!)

What Emma teacher impacted you most, and why? All of my English teachers and art teachers impacted me: Ms. Simms, Mrs. McClellan, Ms. Leith, and Mr. McCartan.

What’s your superpower? I’m a really good listener.

Heather D. Scott ‘81

(page 30) Describe Emma in two words: Infinite gratitude What’s your favorite Emma tradition?

Revels What Emma teacher impacted you most, and why? Russell Locke impacted me the most because of the various musical genres he taught in choir, his love of music, and his ability to interpret his love of music to the younger generation at Emma.

What’s your superpower?

Generous personality

FA LL 2 019 Jenny Rao

Head of School headofschool@emmawillard.org

THE ADMISSIONS MAGAZINE OF EMMA WILLARD SCHOOL

Suzanne Romero Dewey

Head of Strategic Communications sdewey@emmawillard.org Ann Dejnozka

Head of Advancement adejnozka@emmawillard.org Melissia Mason

Assistant Director of Communications mmason@emmawillard.org Kaitlin Resler

Digital Marketing Strategist kresler@emmawillard.org Margaret Clark

Director of Alumnae Relations mclark@emmawillard.org Robin Prout

Director of Donor Relations rprout@emmawillard.org Megan Tady

Managing Editor www.word-lift.com Lilly Pereira

Designer www.aldeia.design

Please forward address changes to: Emma Willard School 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, NY 12180 518.833.1787 alumnae@emmawillard.org or emmawillard.org/alumnae

P HOTO BY LI Z LAJEUN ESS E ‘ 91

MI SSION Honoring our founder’s vision, Emma Willard School proudly fosters in each young woman a love of learning, the habits of an intellectual life, and the character, moral strength, and qualities of leadership to serve and shape her world.

Signature, the magazine of Emma Willard School is published by the Communications Office two times each year for alumnae, parents, grandparents, and friends of Emma Willard School. The mission of this magazine is to capture the school’s values and culture through accurate and objective stories about members of the Emma community, past and present, as they put Emma Willard’s mark on the world.

Emma Willard School is a nonpartisan organization. In the spirit of honoring the individuality of our community members, we encourage featured individuals to share their authentic selves. Views expressed are entirely their own.

O N T H E COV ER This “signature” is by our new Director of Alumnae Relations Margaret Clark ‘98. In the photo, Laura Reyes ’03. Photo by Matt Furman.

F E AT U R E S

14 The Picture of Persistence Photojournalist Erin Schaff ’07 is capturing iconic political images.

20 Raise Your Hand

Six alumnae educators share their motivations for teaching.

30 By All Means Possible

Emma Willard’s Black and Latinx Student Union organizes for racial equality.

D E PA R T M E N T S

02 From the Triangle

12 Faculty Voices

Commencement 2019, African history ebook authors, entrepreneur teams compete, crew team competes at Nationals, limiting screen time.

As she prepared to retire last spring, Director of Practicum Anne Mossop shared why the role was her “dream job.”

10 The Classroom Marlo Daniels’ Literature of Identity elective asks students to uncover their family history in order to learn more about themselves.

36 Click 38 Admissions 40 Signing Off Head of School Jenny Rao discusses the value of an inclusive community and strategic planning.

From the Triangle

Congratulations, Class of 2019!

“Traveling from near and far, our seniors have each found their place on our campus, and they will remain in our hearts,” noted Head of School Jenny Rao at Emma Willard School’s 205th Commencement on June 2, 2019. In what has become a cherished tradition, Ms. Rao went on to describe the characteristics for which each senior is known. She then introduced Commencement speaker Agnes Chapski ’79, a leader in the magazine advertising industry.

Ms. Chapski, who is now a trustee of the school, spoke on the 30th anniversary of serving as senior speaker at her own graduation. Following stories of her beloved surfing as a metaphor for life, she said: “We are all part of an incredible legacy, and your generation will now pave the way for the next.”

Susan Hunter ’68, chair of the Emma Willard School Board of Trustees, presented the Jameson Adkins Baxter Award to Holloway Foundation Scholar Angella Kasande. Heather Wells ’88, president of the Alumnae Association Council, presented the Clementine Miller Tangeman Award to senior class president and pickleball enthusiast Brighton Goh. This year’s senior speaker, Davis Scholar Khadija Ghanizada, captivated the gathering with her story of the shiny blue bicycle she received from her father as a young girl. Khadija came to Emma Willard two years ago from SOLA, the School of Leadership, Afghanistan, the country’s first boarding school for girls. Her grit and positive spirit have enriched the lives of the entire Emma community.

Photography by Joe Putrock and Liz Lajeunesse ’91 2

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FROM THE TR IA NGLE

“ Class of 2019, find the strength to fight for your values as I did while riding my bicycle around the crowded streets of Kabul. Remember that every human being has the capability to bike their own path in this world.”

K HA DI JA G HA NI Z A DA ’ 19

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FROM THE TR IA NGLE

7 Step Digital Cleanse ST UDENT ENT REPRENEUR ADVIS ES FA MILIES ON SCR EEN T IME Concerned by her own family’s infatuation with technology and constant screen time, Aira Agrawal ’19 decided to conduct some research to help her family set reasonable technology boundaries. Her research led her to launch her own company, Bye Bye Screen, and to publish a helpful guide, 7 Step Digital Cleanse for Families.

“Many available resources or guides on managing technology are from adults/parents, which is why Bye Bye Screen provides a fresh perspective on the issue,” Aira said. “But more simply, the platform aims to help parents understand screens from their children’s point of view.”

7 Step Digital Cleanse for Families helps readers understand why people are so drawn to screens, and it offers tips on how to craft a reasonable solution that prompts kids and parents to cut down their screen usage. Aira wanted to use entrepreneurship to empower families with awareness and education so they can make healthier choices. “The chance to actually help people has always made entrepreneurship enticing to me, and it is something I hope to continue pursuing in the future,” she said.

Pages from the ebook ABC’s for the African Experience, created by Josh Hatala’s ninth-grade African History class

KNOW YOUR ABCS History instructor Josh Hatala’s ninth-grade African History class created a book, ABC’s for the African Experience, as the result of a project they undertook on African responses to European imperialism. The book is a thoughtful rejoinder to the late 19th century British children’s book An ABC for Baby Patriots, which celebrated British imperialism, militarism, and nationalism. The students created the book using an ebook app called Book Creator.

See www.bit.ly/2OrlLvi to view the book.

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Photo courtesy of Bye Bye Screen

Rowing began at Emma Willard School in the mid-1980s. It didn’t take long before crew became a popular program. Today, the Jesters are members of the nationally recognized and highly competitive New York State Section 2 Interscholastic Rowing Association, a junior rowing division. Close to one in ten students at Emma Willard are on the crew team during the fall season, and in the spring the field narrows to a selective set of experienced rowers.

Jester crew teams have enjoyed considerable success over the years, earning medals at countless regattas, including the New York State Championship. This past spring, the tradition of bold and fierce competitiveness continued. At the end of the season in late May, the Women’s Freshman Novice 4+ was coxed by Lucy B. ’22, and rowers Elizabeth S. ’22, Zara S. ’22, Juliette S. ’21, and Nicola B. ’22 secured the state championship title to cap the season.

It was not quite over for the Junior 4+ crew team of Gabby Z. ’22, Olivia A. ’21, Julia F. ’20, Grace K. ’20, and Magdalena M. ’21, who qualified for a slot in the national championship.

Armed with backpacks full of work, and masterfully juggling their end-of-year academic commitments, the athletes drove to Ohio Junior 4+ team in celebratory mode for the Scholastic Rowing Association of America 2019 National Championship.

The girls’ first race was their opening heat. The Jesters knew they had to place in the top three crews to advance to Saturday’s semifinal, so the pressure was on. Under perfect rowing conditions—warm weather, no wind, and flat water—the young crew rose to the challenge with a solid third-place finish.

With half of the field of 24 crews eliminated in Friday’s heats, the Jesters were keenly aware they’d have to pull out all the stops to advance to the afternoon final against the “best of the best.” Rowing a spirited race, the girls rowed with determination and grit, but the competition was too strong. The Emma Willard girls crossed the line in fifth place, missing a trip to the final. Although disappointed, the girls knew they rowed their best and simply lost to stronger crews. The Jesters finished the regatta, and their stellar season, with a #11 national scholastic ranking!

Capturing the national championship will be the work for another year, and yet the experience of the national event, the fun, the honor, and upholding Emma Willard’s strong tradition of crew prowess are owned by Gabby, Olivia, Julia, Grace, and Magdalena!

New York State High School Business Model Competition

FROM THE TR IA NGLE

Crew Teams Win State, Compete at Nationals

EMMA ENTREPRENEURS SHOWCASE INNOVATIVE IDEAS Two Emma Willard School entrepreneur teams competed against 20 other teams in the New York State High School Business Model Competition at Siena College at the end of the 2018–19 school year.

Ann N. ’19, Coco N. ’19, Nika H. ’21, and Prim B. ’19 presented Amity Filter, an innovative filter alternative to face masks that is worn inside of the nose to protect users from air pollution.

The Amity Filter team placed second in the competition.

Alice D. ’21, Bianca Y. ’20, and Panthita T. ’20 presented PRiNT, a novel recycled material designed to reduce paper waste and pollution by creating printed publications from plastic materials.

In the lead up to the competition, the teams worked incredibly hard, attending workshops and mentoring sessions, and participating in two mock presentations where they received feedback to advance their business plans and products.

The final products presented were well-developed, thoroughly researched, and truly innovative, and the teams were professional and confident as they answered the judge’s questions.

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FROM THE TR IA NGLE Coaches Cheryl Solomon and Jon Mandle pose with the fall 2019 swim team

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O N T H E F I EL D

BY SUZANNE ROMERO DEWEY

Once a Coach, Always a Coach Cheryl Solomon is a competitor. She swam for Michigan State University (Division I) as a college athlete, and she began her coaching career there after she earned her masters in education and exercise physiology. She served as an assistant coach for the women’s swimming team at Michigan State and moved on to other coaching gigs in higher education, finally taking the head coaching position at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. But that was many years ago.

Today, Cheryl is the stepparent of alumna and former swim team competitor, Rachel Johnson ’06, and she is embarking upon year two as the head coach of Emma’s swimming and diving program. Cheryl chuckles a bit as she describes just how this happened.“In those early days of women’s coaching, it was hard to make a living as a coach. I knew I needed to find a career that would sustain me, and so I left Hobart William Smith for a career in sales. Only after Rachel came to Emma did I become more involved in the school, eventually becoming the head swimming coach last year!”

It took some convincing from Athletic Director Liz Parry and Dean of Students and Wellbeing Shelley Maher to entice Cheryl to take on the coaching role in the autumn of 2018. They knew about Cheryl from Rachel’s involvement as a student, but they also knew Cheryl from pickleball.

Pickleball?!

Pickleball is a fun, competitive, athletic endeavor many in the extended Emma Willard School community find time to play. Cheryl showed her competitor’s prowess over the seasons, and Liz and Shelly learned more about Cheryl’s swimming and coaching capabilities. It seemed like an obvious fit. The Jesters needed a swimming coach, and not only did Cheryl have the skills, she also believed in the mission of Emma Willard School, having seen first hand how her step-

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daughter thrived. It took some convincing, and it also took parent Jon Mandle P’18 to agree to be the assistant coach before Cheryl signed on. “I was hooked!” she said.

Shelley is enthusiastic about what Cheryl brings to the program, “I knew once Cheryl started working with the girls that she would love the work,” she said.

“She has a natural style that encourages and supports, while helping the girls push themselves as they choose.

Cheryl knows what the girls are experiencing on the team can be translated into their life experiences.”

Cheryl proudly shares that the team enjoyed a successful year. “Every athlete reached a personal best in at least one event!” And that sums up the philosophy that Cheryl has coaching at Emma Willard. Not wanting to turn any girl away from the sport, she, like many Jester coaches, see development, as well as competition, as the main goals of the experience.

“Our philosophy is to build the whole girl through these experiences,” she said. “We want them to have a good experience overall, to encourage all levels of participation, and to help girls set goals for themselves.

If someone wants to learn and she is all in, then I will work with her and help her achieve her goals.”

Cheryl also wants to further build on the sense of team camaraderie that began last year. Swimming is one of the few sports where you are a team but you compete as individuals. Cheryl and Jon have already planned how they will encourage the building of the team in order to hoist each individual.

“The world is competitive, and we are helping our students learn to respond in multiple ways to that competition, and to be confident and aware of their abilities,” Cheryl said. “Athletics is a great training ground. Swimming teaches important lessons about excelling individually and working together to achieve goals. You need self-discipline and can’t hide behind anyone else.”

Last year 21 girls from all grades and all levels of ability formed the team. Cheryl believes they will build on the program this year, and she’s especially pleased that they didn’t lose many seniors. Cheryl is surprised to be energized by this coaching experience after such a hiatus, but just like muscle memory and riding a bike, some things, good things like coaching, last a lifetime.

FROM THE TR IA NGLE

SO C IA L ME D IA

@emmawillardschool We asked, you answered. To kick off the school year, we asked the Emma Willard School community on Instagram to tell us about a faculty or staff member who was important to them.

We received many passionate replies. Here are just a few of the responses we received:

Meg McClellan— the most incredible English teacher I ever had!

Dr. Naeher is a gem.

He and his teaching made me realize my love for art history.

Emily Snyder! She taught me a love of art history (I’m starting my PhD in the fall) and a confidence in my abilities.

Madame Sanwal taught me so much about what it means to be a powerful woman.

facebook.com/emmawillardschool

Stacey Dodd, who is the reason I started calling Emma my home.

Diane McCorkle—a fiercely intelligent and passionate Latin teacher whose enthusiasm is unmatched.

Ms. Perry—an amazing coach and such a good person!

Carol Bendall, who is so very kind and intelligent and cares deeply about her students.

Mr. Levy because he finds and shares beauty in the flawed complexity of our world.

Vangie is so true to herself and puts everything into her work. We all trust and love her.

@emmawillard

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The Classroom Seeking Identity English instructor Marlo Daniels leads students on literary adventures seeking what she calls “unconventional protagonists” and in search of their own identities.

To read the full Q&A with Marlo, go to emmawillard. org/marlodaniels

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What brought you to Emma Willard? Kim Daniels. Karen Peterson. Judy Risten. Susie Rimkunas. Janice Cristiano. Sandra Miorin. Gail Grow. Joy Irish. These women are legendary, and they deserve to have their names written down. As I am sure they have done for many reading this magazine, these women exposed me to what Emma could be on it’s best day, every single day. These are the names of all of my teachers at The Children’s School.

For those who are unfamiliar with The Children’s School, the teachers there took the mission, message, and methods of Emma Willard High School and crafted curriculums built for pint-size dreamers. Small kids from 3rd Street in Troy who wanted to one day grow up and be stand-up comedians were told they could. Moreover, they were taught how to succeed. All my tool collecting started with those women.

As someone born outside the box, the teachers at The Children’s School encouraged me to roam, but they also taught me to always remember my roots, to be proud of my birth place, and to embrace what made me, me.

I remember everything—from Mrs. Peterson’s pumpkin carvings to Mrs. Grow’s fascination with Japan and her love of penguins. I became obsessed with Rockhopper penguins

E M M A W I LL AR D SC HO O L

because of her. I started to study New Zealand on my own, and I was only eight at the time. I remember falling in love with Greek mythology at the age of six in Mrs. Cristiano’s class and playing Hermes in our spring play—that’s when I started writing myths of my own. One memory leads to another. In Mrs. Irish’s third grade class, I played Paul Revere after reading Johnny Tremain and I became obsessed with the Revolutionary War. My love of learning started in Wellington Lay. The building is a mind palace of memories for me. It’s fair to say, Emma is in my bones.

What do you enjoy about the work that you do? The kids! They are hilarious. I had a group of ninth graders that typified what it means to be “an Emma student.” They devoured each text I offered them, including Macbeth, and they had me laughing all the way into June. We ran around the stage sword fighting, and we tried out a plethora of accents depending on the mood of the scene. We even did a country western version of Macbeth, which had us in stitches. We researched conspiracy theories involving the curse of Macbeth and whether or not Lady Macbeth had a child. We looked into King James’ obsession with witches. We sliced up line after line and scrutinized each part of the

text we found fascinating or caused hesitation. We even tried to incorporate lines into our daily speech.

We made a game of it. I challenged them to use the word “saucy” in 10 conversations a day. I found out later that this drove the seniors bonkers because I got two of my sophomore classes who were reading Twelfth Night to join in on the fun. It was a “saucy” time. In short, we spent weeks hunting for hidden meanings present within the language, and we did it together. That’s what I enjoy the most about my job.

We are adventurous, and I used the word “we” on purpose. The students want to love learning, so as a teacher it is up to me to serve as a guide, but also be a member of the class.

Why did you develop the popular Literature of Identity elective?

I started Literature of Identity because when I was in high school, I loved English and I loved stories.

I loved reading them and writing them. Yet, I was tired of being introduced to the same types of protagonists over and over again. Although Fitzgerald’s novel is beautifully written, Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby did nothing for me. I went in search of new heroes. During my travels, I met Achilles, Viola from Twelfth Night, all of Shakespeare’s Antonios.

I met Orlando and Woolf. I met Calliope/Cal from Jeffrey Eugenides’

THE CLA SS ROOM

PH OTO BY KAITLIN RESL ER

Marlo Daniels with her students in the senior elective Literature of Identity

Middlesex. I met Alison Bechdel. I met and fell for David Sedaris. Out venturing, I met so many others that made me feel okay to be me; however, I had to do it alone. The course initially started because I wanted to give students the ability to meet unconventional protagonists, but I did not want them to have to do it solo.

In the second grade, Mrs. Grow had us sit down and write a letter to our grandparents and ask: What was your life like when you were eight years old? Surprisingly, our grandparents wrote us back. My grandmother, Virginia Daniels, spoke about Italy and surviving the war.

We were left mesmerized after hearing tales about her hiding in train tunnels and running from bombs that came crashing down around her. She told us about one air raid where she ran down 300 steps rigged with concertina wire. After her story,

she showed us the scars on her legs.

She told us about her arranged marriage at 15, and then her flight to America where she saw snow for the first time.

I designed this course because I wanted to replicate this journey of self-discovery for my students. I teach them to investigate the prequels to their storylines and have them venture into their pasts. I first have them make a timeline of their life starting with their birth. When they bring in the timeline, I “trick” them and say, “Okay. Now go backwards. Collect all the information you can about your roots.” They become their textbooks. They start interviewing family members and dive into identities that mean something to them. It’s a very organic class. There is some risk involved because we cannot predict what they will find, but more often than not, it is worth the risk. One year

I had four students who discovered that they all had grandparents who worked on the Manhattan Project.

What are you reading right now?

Right now I am reading Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, rereading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, and Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore.

I went on a hunt and collected my father’s stories about how he managed to survive growing up in Troy and eventually became a distinguished colon and rectal surgeon.

After collecting and crafting for years, I wrote a book called, Bottoms Up. I am currently editing the book.

This summer I reread it and got nervous that it sounded too much like The Godfather, only with scalpels. So I thought I’d check out Puzo’s epic tale over my morning coffee. Plus, I am also sick of him quoting it, so I want to be able to out-quote him.

We’re competitive!

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Faculty Voices

BY MELISSIA MASON

Anne Mossop

Living Her Dream Job At the end of the 2018–2019 school year, Director of Practicum Anne Mossop was preparing to enter retirement. As she embarked on a new life of travel and adventure, Anne paused to reflect on Practicum, the personalized independent study program that she led at Emma Willard School.

A hallmark of an Emma Willard School education, Practicum prepares students to discover and follow their passions. The program has existed since the 1970s in one form or another. What began as a basic elective format developed over time into today’s robust Practicum program.

Over her 21 years of service at Emma Willard, Anne leveraged Practicum to connect hundreds of girls with mentors to gain hands-on experience in a range of fields. Anne has described directing Practicum as her dream job. In her warm Irish lilt, she explains, “It’s an extremely interesting job because you never know what’s coming. I think you have to be able to live with chaos. Some students will come knowing they are interested in this or that. Others will ask to see the Practicum Course Catalogue, but it doesn’t work like that. I think the dream part of it is really having individual conversations with students.”

Recalling her stand-out discussions with students over the years, interests ranged from medicine to

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state government, running a small business to local history, playing squash to horseback riding. Anne shares that she’s always taken the perspective that every idea should be considered. “I don’t mind how trivial it seems, what the student wants to do. You never know where things are going to go. Medicine is one of those. [Students could] end up doing all sorts of things. Sometimes giving a warm blanket can make all the difference for a patient who’s cold. A lot of it depends on the student. A lot of it depends on the mentor.”

One appeal of Practicum is that it can confirm an interest in a field, or reveal that it’s not what the student really wants to do. Anne likes to tell a story about one student who was interested in veterinary medicine.

After working with a veterinarian, the student realized the experience was not what she had expected. “I count that as a success if a student finds it’s not what she wants,” Anne says.

There are many unexpected lessons to be learned for those who are

open to possibilities. Anne shares about a time she went with a student to check out a riflery program.

Although Anne herself didn’t particularly care for guns, she found her own horizons expanded. “The student actually was so excited. They got new rifles that had beautiful wood. The student encouraged me to hold one because they were so beautiful... I did hold a rifle, and I learned... when aiming at a target, there’s a quality of focus [learned] that will transfer to your studies.”

As other high schools are beginning to offer internshiptype curriculum, Anne feels that Practicum stands out. “As capstone and signature programs get more popular, what I feel is important about Practicum is it is available grade nine through twelve, and it’s not a capstone. It’s not quite as big a commitment. Students can explore multiple things and maybe find one they would like to do as a Signature.

Some students really use the program because they’re just excited about all that’s possible. And there’s a lot that’s possible.”

PH OTO BY AMOREENA O’ B RYON

DE PA RTME NT

Anne attributes some of her success with the Practicum program to the diversity of her own life prior to coming to Emma Willard.

“I’m good with people and I’m used to non-native speakers. I’ve worked internationally, so I’m accustomed to talking to all kinds of people. I traveled and had different experiences, so I’m fairly okay with the unpredictable.”

Anne’s ease with building relationships resulted in strong ties in the community, opening doors for Emma Willard students to fulfill their own Practicum dreams. “It’s a very personal job. It’s not enough to email out of the blue. I would do a personal contact… then we have a relationship. Once people have had Emma Willard students, they’ll nearly always take them again.”

“ Some students will come knowing they are interested in this or that. Others will ask to see the Practicum Course Catalogue, but it doesn’t work like that. I think the dream part of it is really having individual conversations with students.”

Anne Mossop reflects on her tenure and experiences with Practicum.

A N N E MOSSOP

Although Anne is retiring, she envisions a bright outlook for Practicum. “We care about the world, so through Practicum, kids get to see what the world is really like, and how they can contribute.”

As for Anne, she will return to her travels and take some lessons she learned at Emma Willard along with her. She recalls one colleague

commenting that she was “in danger of being an eternal dilettante.”

Because of her exposure to the variety of topics her Practicum students have studied, Anne has “dabbled in a lot of different things” and she looks forward to continuing to nurture her vast curiosity.

NOTE: Thank you to Matthew Slaughter for interviewing Anne.

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Current News

THE PICTURE OF PERSISTENCE Erin, a photojournalist for The New York Times, outside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. P ORT RA I T BY PAU L S I MK I N

“ I don’t know what journalism is going to look like in 10 years, but I think it’s more important than ever.

This is exactly what I want to be doing.”

E R I N SC HAFF

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Erin Schaff ’07 >> rises as one of the leading political photojournalists in the country.

STORY BY L E S L I E G A R I S T O P FA F F PHOTOS BY ERIN SCHAFF ’07

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The woman in the photograph stands at an angle, perhaps indicating she’s not concerned with the viewer or the photographer but with something outside the frame. She’s very still, but her face radiates controlled determination. Her right hand is lifted, palm out, as she prepares to swear an oath to tell the truth. It’s Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, poised to testify at the 2018 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

See more photos from the Kavanaugh hearing at erinschaff.com/ the-kavanaughconfirmation

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The image, taken by Erin Schaff ’07, appeared on the front page of The New York Times and was named one of the year’s 100 top photos by Time magazine. Schaff’s incisive visual coverage brought the Kavanaugh hearings to life for millions of people. As one of a select group of photographers permitted to cover the hearings, Schaff was seeking to convey, she says, “the emotion in the room and the intensity of the day.”

Her commitment to catching the truth of the moment is one of the things that’s helped to make Schaff a rising star in the largely male-dominated field of political photojournalism.

Schaff was a freelance photographer at the time she took the image, but was hired as a staff photographer for The New York Times in February 2019, an

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achievement she calls “my ideal job.”

Her beat: Congress, the White House, and the presidential campaign.

Marisa Schwartz Taylor, Schaff’s editor at the Times, praised her. “It’s very hard to show emotion in photography without it looking biased,” Taylor says. “Erin’s work [on the Kavanaugh hearings] captured a lot of emotion and was very accurate.”

NOTHING TO LOSE

Initially, it wasn’t photography or journalism that fascinated Schaff but politics itself, an interest galvanized by an AP government class she took at Emma Willard School in her junior year. Taught by former Assistant Head of School Eric Niles, who had himself worked as a congressional aide, the

class, she says, “led to my deep, deep love of documenting our political system—it just started this fascination that stayed with me.”

As a political science major at Kenyon College, she assumed that politics, in one form or another, would be her career. A 2011 internship in Congress convinced her otherwise. “I can’t pinpoint the exact reason,” she says, “but I left it feeling like working in the legislative branch wasn’t the direction for me.”

Suddenly, Schaff found herself waylaid from a once well-defined career path. She was still deeply intrigued by politics, but she no longer wanted to work in the field. Then, in 2012, she met her future husband, Paul Simkin.

He was a professional photojournalist, and he suggested she consider political photojournalism as a potential career.

She’d always liked photography, so it seemed like a reasonable idea, and her husband was willing to teach her the ins and outs of the craft. Where other

people might have been daunted by the prospect of breaking into a highly competitive field without formal training or experience, Schaff simply figured she had nothing to lose.

That sangfroid appears to be one of her defining characteristics. Emma Willard French Instructor Sabra Sanwal, who taught Schaff, was struck by her student’s extraordinary tenacity. “When Erin wanted something,” Sanwal recalls, “she went after it. She had an unshakable faith in herself.”

Buoyed by that faith, Schaff began assigning herself photo shoots, taking pictures at rallies, protests, and other political events in Washington, D.C., where she’d moved after graduating from college, and cold emailing the photos to the Washington Post. She didn’t expect the Post to respond but thought, she says, “What’s the worst that could happen—they don’t write back?”

When they did, she was thrilled, even when a photo editor explained

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Erin took what became an iconic image of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford pledging to Congress to tell the truth about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault of her.

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First Lady Melania Trump in Washington, D.C.

that it wasn’t so much her photography she admired but her ability to write a good caption. “A lot of photographers can shoot, but they can’t write the descriptions to go along with their photos,” Schaff explains. Her first assignment for the Post was the funeral of former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry; other assignments followed, opening the door to opportunities with major news outlets like Reuters, United Press International, Maclean’s, Le Parisien, and eventually, The New York Times.

ARRIVING AT THE TIMES

For five years Schaff worked as a freelance photojournalist, mostly covering national politics. Assignments included photographing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during his testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the ceremony in the

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Capitol Rotunda honoring the late Senator John McCain, and a 2018 birthday party for the president hosted

by Virginia Women for Trump.

Schaff has a talent for distilling large events to their essence. To document the mood at a protest held during the Kavanaugh hearings, she photographed a single hand holding up a crudely lettered placard reading, “We won’t forget this,” against the backdrop of the Supreme Court building. At a Trump rally, she focused in on the laps of two supporters, one of them wearing a suit printed with bricks to symbolize the president’s proposed wall along the Mexican border.

Her shots of individual human subjects are equally evocative. In a photograph for a New York Times story on the wave of GOP retirements in early 2018, she framed retiring Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) between two closing elevator doors.

To illustrate Melania Trump’s visit to the National Gallery, she photographed the publicity-shy first lady in front of a Paul Cézanne portrait, her white suit and hat brilliant counterpoints to the dark painting, her face virtually disappearing under the dramatic gallery lighting.

Schaff ’s freelance clients were impressed by her ability to determine what was happening on Capitol Hill at any given time—so much so that she was the first photographer the Times brought on staff in more than 10 years, and she’s one of only two photo staffers in the Times’ Washington bureau.

“She just knew exactly where to go to catch the important moments,” Taylor says. “She was able to work like a photographer and a reporter at the same time.”

As it happens, she’s actually written a number of stories for the paper, including an article that appeared this May documenting the lives of women

“They helped me build self-confidence and trust in myself, and those are things that absolutely apply to my career in photojournalism today.”

Follow Erin’s photos at www.instagram. com/erinschaff

ERIN SCH A F F

the minor behind-the-scenes details are on Capitol Hill rather than the big political figures.”

MORE TO LEARN

With all she’s accomplished in a relatively short time, Schaff concedes she still has much to learn. “Every day, I’m just trying to make better work than I’ve already made,” she says. Asked if there’s one photograph she’s particularly proud of, she says, “I don’t really spend time looking back on what I’ve done as much as trying to do a better job next time.”

Schaff says she’s continually learning from her colleagues. “There are a lot of really incredible photographers covering politics in D.C.,” she says. “A lot of these people have been doing it 20, 30 years, and you can really keep refining what you do.”

Take a look at any Washington press event and you can see that the majority of those colleagues are male.

In fact, a 2016 World Press Photo report found that only 15 percent of photojournalists surveyed were women, and that in major news organizations, front-page lead photos are taken by women less than 25 percent of the time.

Schaff credits Emma Willard with helping her break into and succeed in a highly competitive field. “Emma Willard was a really formative place for me,” she says. “It was where I devel-

oped my voice and became a leader in student government.” She credits her teachers, house parents, and fellow students with shepherding her out of her “angsty teen phase.” “They helped me build self-confidence and trust in myself,” she says, “and those are things that absolutely apply to my career in photojournalism today.”

Having broken through the glass ceiling, she has every intention of staying around to enjoy the altitude, even in a rapidly changing journalistic environment. “I don’t know what journalism is going to look like in 10 years,” she says, “but I think it’s more important than ever. This is exactly what I want to be doing.

Leslie Garisto Pfaff is a freelance writer with a special interest in the arts.

Erin on the South Korean side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone after photographing President Trump walking into North Korea to meet with Chairman Kim Jong-un

PH OTO BY BRENDAN SM IALOWSKI

in Congress who balance work and family. While most of the stories she covers—both as a photographer and a writer—begin as specific assignments, some, including the piece on mothers in Congress, originate with Schaff.

Intrigued by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), for instance, Schaff took it upon herself to begin documenting Pelosi’s life behind the scenes. She gained unparalleled access by building trust with the speaker’s staff, assuring them that “when I’m in a space, I’m not going to be distracting from what they’re doing. I’m going to be as invisible as possible and anything I hear, I’m not going to tell anyone about—I’m just there to take pictures.” Schaff’s intent, she says, is “to see how Pelosi, the most powerful person in Congress, negotiates her power, and what that looks like.”

Schaff’s workday begins just after waking, when she scans news sources like Politico, the Washington Post, The New York Times, Fox, CNN, and Twitter to determine the big stories of the day and the most important players. She’ll head out to photograph potential newsmakers wherever she can find them, from Congressional hearings to political luncheons. She’ll touch base with her editor to discuss her assignments and stays in touch with the paper’s writers via text to determine which stories are building and which players are prominent.

Immediately after covering an event, she quickly edits her images, writes captions, and sends them to her editor.

While the populace may bemoan the chaotic state of American politics, it certainly makes for interesting journalism and fascinating photo ops.

“This is a really interesting time for Congress right now,” Schaff affirms, and she’s particularly interested in the way the institution is using its constitutional checks on the presidency.

“One thing that makes Erin great,” Taylor says, “is that she’s interested in how legislation actually happens, what

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Rebekah Adamek ‘99, a thirdgeneration educator, is the principal at Girls Prep in New York City.

Photo by Lauren Eliot

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Fall 2019

Emma Willard students have always been encouraged to engage fully and raise their voices, and dozens of alumnae, influenced by their own educational experiences, have become educators themselves. Many alumnae are blazing new paths in education, like Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’60, who was the first female president of Phillips Exeter Academy in 1987. And of course, Emma Willard School was founded by a pioneering female educator, Emma Hart Willard. To honor alumnae achievements in education, we interviewed six women who are leading classrooms, college departments, and schools to find out what makes a good educator, how teaching is changing and evolving, and what inspired them to raise their hands to guide the next generation.

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REBEKAH ADAMEK ’99

“I definitely did not think I would be a teacher, ever,” Rebekah Adamek ’99 says, laughing. In fact, she’s now a third-generation educator, joining her grandmother and father in the profession. After earning a degree in art history at the University of Wisconsin­_Madison, she applied to and accepted a post with Teach for America in New York City and she never looked back. After teaching in the classroom for nine years in the Bronx, Harlem, and London, Rebekah now serves as the principal of Girls Prep Lower East Side Elementary School, one of the only tuition-free, all-girls schools in New York.

How did your experience with Teach for America impact your approach to education? A big takeaway for me was that failure is part of the process of being human and especially an educator. You’re walking into a classroom as a 21-year-old, you’re probably not from the neighborhood you’re teaching in, and you’re feeling a lot of personal responsibility to make sure the kids do their best. As a result, you learn early on what’s within your control and what you shouldn’t be spending time on. The first year of teaching taught me to prioritize, which I still use a lot today.

Did attending Emma Willard inspire you to work at an allgirls school? Girls’ schools really do share so many qualities I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. For example, sisterhood is one of our core values at Girls Prep, and I didn’t realize how much I had missed being in a community that held this in such high regard after my time at Emma. To know that I could work in a school that, starting in kindergarten, focuses on some of the very same values I experienced as a student at Emma made it clear to me that I really wanted to work here.

What qualities make for a good educator? Growth mindset may be a little cliché to say at this point, but believing in your own growth really is so important. You’re constantly modeling things in your classroom or school as an educator, and how can you believe in your kids if you can’t believe in yourself? It’s also so important for students to know they have a champion.

And it’s super important for girls in particular to know they have someone in their corner who is advocating for them and giving them the skills to advocate for themselves.

What has your experience been as a female leader in education? I had a lot of people say to me, “Teaching is such a great profession for a woman.” And I thought, what does that even mean? This is a really hard job for anyone! I’ve actually experienced more comments about my age than my gender as a leader in education. People sometimes assume I’m younger than I am, so I explain that I started teaching right out of college, and I’ve been doing this for a long time (or longer than most think).

“ It’s super important for girls in particular to know they have someone in their corner who is advocating for them.”

Why is it important for your students to see a woman in the role of principal? They can envision themselves in this role and see the possibility for themselves. I think back to Emma,

where my school leader was a female. I never questioned whether women could do that role, and felt I could do it, too.

PRINCIPAL, GIRLS PREP, NEW YORK CITY

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Photo credit: Lauren Eliot

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What is a trend you’ve observed in education? A positive trend I see is in the emphasis on girls’ empowerment and specifically thinking about how empowering girls might look, feel, and sound different than boys in both single sex and

Rebekah says she sees positive trends in girls empowerment at her school and in the wider culture.

WHAT STUDENT TEACHING TAUGHT ME

BY ZOE SUMNER ’13 Zoe Sumner, a ninth-grade English teacher at Achievement First Brooklyn High School, embarked on her first year of teaching. Below, she shares three lessons she carried with her into the classroom after her role as a student teacher. Zoe earned a B.A. in English and a teaching certification in English/Language Arts from Stony Brook University in 2017. She is pursuing a graduate degree in sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

1: TEACHING IS MY PASSION I know it sounds crazy. How could a student teacher not know that teaching was her passion? (Insert rolling eyes.) I just thought teaching was something I was good at. All my life I had been a teacher. But realizing that I was on my tenth tab on Google Chrome still trying to perfect a lesson, I finally knew that teaching was my passion.

coeducational settings. We have dress-down days at Girls Prep, and students will wear shirts that say things like, “Super Scientist.” I don’t remember choices like that existing even 10 years ago. We live in a time when people are acknowledging that we have to invest in our girls—and that has become much more the norm. That’s not just because we’re an all-girls school, but because of the culture surrounding us now.

How did Emma Willard impact your professional life? I went to public schools before Emma, and I’d never had a significant amount of one-on-one time with my teachers until then. In junior year, I had a teacher at Emma named Ms. McCarthy— she goes by Mrs. McClellan now—and she gave us a lot of oneon-one time for feedback in addition to exposure to amazing literature, and she had office hours! I learned so much that year about how to be a good writer, and it really showed me how personalized and powerful an educational experience could be.

We try to do that at our school as well, providing kids with consistent, individualized feedback so they can improve and have closer relationships with the adults around them.

2: SPEAK LIFE TO YOUR STUDENTS It is not easy being a student when you are constantly bombarded with criticism. It is very easy for students to lose their confidence. Though there is a time and a place for criticism, teachers should focus on speaking life to their fears, discomforts, and confusion. This should not only be included in your daily conversations, but also within feedback on papers and exams. Students need to know that when they are confused or stuck, giving up is not an option and that you believe in them.

3: EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY As a teacher, you will notice patterns in your classroom. You will know who usually comes in late and who “really” has to go to the bathroom. However, that information should be a guide, and not used to limit your students’ behavior. I had been so stuck on my students’ previous behavior from the first few weeks of class, that I did not even realize their behavior had changed.

My students had started to respect me and listen, but I was too clouded to realize. Instead of holding on to the grievances of previous days, teachers should keep note, but walk in each day ready for behaviors to change and improve.

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LAURA REYES ’03

Laura Reyes ’03 was deep into her law studies at SUNY Binghamton when a former middle school teacher suggested she would have a powerful presence in the classroom— particularly for children of color searching for role models who looked like them and understood their experiences. When she was hired by Teach for America to teach special education in the Bronx in New York City for two years, she was still waffling about the profession—but her very first class changed her. “I thought, ‘If I go into law, am I going to have the same impact?’” After teaching at KIPP Academy, Laura is now the assistant principal of STEM and Student Services at The Charter High School for Law and Social Justice in the Bronx.

It was while she herself attended KIPP that she found Emma Willard School through the Oliver Foundation, which guides inner-city students to boarding schools.

What qualities make for a good educator? You have to be self-aware and make sure you’re taking care of yourself. In my first class, I would stay up really late to complete my lessons.

One day, I was frustrated and said to my class, “You guys, I stay up really late trying to get all these thoughtful lessons done for you—and you’re not letting me teach.” And a student said, “Well, Ms., maybe if you slept more you wouldn’t be so cranky.” That was the best thing he could’ve said to me! It made me realize I was taking my frustration out on my kids because I hadn’t been sleeping. Now, if I don’t finish my work by 11:00 p.m., I’m going to have to figure it out the next day,

Photo credit: Matt Furman

because sleep is really important for me to be the best teacher possible.

What are some of the recent trends you’ve observed in education? There’s always a new term in education everyone wants to talk about. One year it was “backward design”, the next year it was “differentiation.” This year, it’s “culturally responsive pedagogy.” And it’s hard for educators to get a really good grasp on how to do things well if every year we switch focus. Although, it is positive that educators are thinking seriously about culturally responsive curriculums and how to make learning relevant for all students.

How are you responding to the concerns your students might have about new immigrations policies? November 9, 2016 (the day after the presidential election), was probably the hardest day of my teaching career. I was teaching at Washington Heights, where many of my students had family members that were not documented. Keeping them calm while being really upset myself was difficult. The best thing that educators can do is provide a safe space in their schools and a strong support system so kids know it’s always okay to go to school.

What has your experience been as a female leader in education? As a woman, you feel that you have to always be aware of how you communicate. If you’re passionate about something, you can be told you’re emotional. If you’re straightforward, you can be told you’re aggressive. I’ve had that experience, but I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to allow anyone who tries to sell this narrative about me to perpetuate that stereotype. Ultimately, if I’m just trying to get you to provide for our students and you feel like I’m being aggressive, we can talk about it. But let’s just be clear, it’s about the kids.

Why is it important for your students to see a woman in a leadership role? A lot of women fall victim to the imposter syndrome, asking, “Am I good enough?” Or, our emails are littered with smiley faces and, “Okay, great!” because we have to be aware of how we’re being perceived. But we need to let young girls know that when you’re in leadership, you need to be yourself and you can’t worry about gender stereotypes.

I’ve always tried to make sure that my girls, in my classroom in particular, that their voices are heard. So I am really cognizant of the female-to-male ratio speaking in my class, especially because I teach math. I have taught girls that they are just as good at math as society says men are.

How did Emma Willard impact your professional life? Emma gave me more confidence in myself. In college, I was walking to the quad one day and someone came up to me and asked if I was a senior. I was like, “No, are you kidding?” And she said, “You’re just walking around with so much confidence.”

At Emma, I learned you have to introduce yourself to the teachers, to your professors. Even if you’re in a huge lecture hall, you need to introduce yourself. I was never afraid to speak out in a lecture hall of 300. That has to be an Emma thing.

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL, THE CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE BRONX 24

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Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’60 earned a B.A. from Barnard College, and has an M.A. and a Ph.D in English from Columbia University. She was an assistant professor at Princeton University and worked for a number of foundations, most notably as special assistant to the president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who was our own Bill Dietel (Principal Emeritus). She also served on the Emma Willard School Board of Trustees, succeeding Linda Remington Dietel ’48 as chair; the endowment grew three-fold during her service as chair. Today she spends her time as an artist and painter, but for a decade (1987–1997) she served as the first female principal of Phillips Exeter Academy. Kendra admits that she wasn’t looking to be the “first” of anything. From her point of view, she was simply the 12th principal at Exeter. Kendra believes her years at Emma Willard inspired and helped shape her ambitions and thinking as an educator.

How did Emma Willard impact your professional life?

I was very much influenced by my time at Emma Willard.

Unlike many of my classmates, I loved my time at the school from the first moment to the last. The emphasis on our responsibility to make the most of our education, the expectation that we would do good, maybe great, things was everpresent. As I remember it, there was little acknowledgement that we might have to overcome barriers because we were women. Two things stand out for me. First, I regarded our headmistresses, Miss Wellington and Miss Lay, with a mixture of admiration and awe. It was very clear to me that these were women of substance who believed in what they were doing and believed in us. I remember looking out the rear-view window as I left Emma for the last time with my parents and thinking that I’d like to come back and be headmistress!

Second was the moment when Mrs. Wilmot, my English teacher in the 10th grade, looked me in the eye one day after class and said, “You know, Kenny,”—that was what I was called at the time—“You should be an English teacher.” She didn’t say much more. It made an enormous impression on me then. I’m sure I thought, “She has confidence in me that I could do this.

And I should do this.” That was very powerful.

Did Mrs. Wilmot send you down the right path? Yes, I think she did, but the path led in some unexpected directions. I took a big step when I earned a Ph.D in English from Columbia, which was a difficult place to be during the ferment of the late sixties. I was pregnant twice during my years there and not really seen as a serious professional. I was fortunate to get a job at Princeton, which I did on my own. I enjoyed teaching and liked my students and colleagues. Princeton had just begun to admit women and to hire women. As one of the first young women on the faculty I was given unusual opportunities and assignments, a view of the workings of the university that interested me. I was getting an education in academic administration and nonprofit leadership. At the same time I was learning about boards and board leadership from my Emma Willard experience. It turned out that both strands of experience were preparing me for my role at Exeter.

What would you say about your Exeter experience now?

I would say that being the first woman to hold such a position was, to me, perhaps an interesting fact, but not one that seemed very relevant to who I was and what I experienced in the role. For one thing I was surrounded by people who believed in me, chief among them my husband Patrick. At Exeter I learned how difficult and slow, but ultimately rewarding and important, it is to bring about change, to both lead and cooperate in helping an institution evolve. I learned that a good deal of leadership in a boarding school involves managing the crises, small and large, that are part of life in such a community. I grew from those experiences and enjoyed working with others, particularly students, to navigate through the ups and downs. And I loved the good times!

Do you have concerns about some of the current trends in education? I think that the emphasis on admission to the college or university of one’s choice—or one’s parents’ choice—constrains both schools and students. Ideally, the point of a good secondary education is what happens in those four critical years of a young person’s growth. College admission should be seen as the by-product, not the purpose of secondary education. It is not a future result but present possibilities and opportunities for discovery that should guide students’ choices and teachers’ creativity. It is a particular shame when students are reluctant to take academic or intellectual risks, thereby narrowing their learning and their opportunities for self-discovery. Educators might consider that while we spend more and more time, and programmatic effort, casting students as moral and ethical works-in-progress, we may be paying less attention these days to their intellectual development. What should we be teaching in our classrooms, how should we be teaching, and to what end?

KENDRA STEARNS O’DONNELL ’60

PRINCIPAL EMERITA, PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY

Any last thoughts for students today? I would encourage young people to see themselves as works-in-progress. I’d say, resist the pressure to declare your identity early on, to subscribe to some fixed accounting of your strengths and weaknesses. That kind of thinking is an obstacle to education: the Latin educere means to lead out, enriching the mind and enlarging the imagination.

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SARAH MCCARTHEY ’73

Sarah McCarthey ‘73 discovered her passion for education at an early age, but her ambitions went beyond a single classroom. To create the change she wanted to see, she realized she would need to become a teacher of teachers. After nearly a decade as an elementary school instructor, she turned her focus to instructional research and helping other educators bring transformative writing assignments to their students. In addition to serving as the department head and professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she is also a cofounder and president of the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation, alongside her fellow educator and husband, Mark Dressman. Their foundation supports teachers in developing innovative curricula and provides scholarships for new educators as they move from study to practice. For Sarah, training the next generation of teachers is about more than just assessment and lesson plans—it’s where social change truly begins. Sarah was also a member of the Emma Willard School Board of Trustees from 2011–2019.

What initially drew you to the education profession? When I came to Emma Willard, I noticed a big difference from the Catholic school I had attended from kindergarten through eighth grade. My grade-school experience was characterized by a lot of drill and practice and memorizing answers. At Emma Willard, there was much more emphasis on inquiry, discussion, writing, and reflection. That opened up a whole new world to me, and I started thinking about what it would mean to have those kinds of opportunities in K_8 schools. And that is how I got to thinking about becoming a teacher.

Was there a specific teacher who influenced you? Jean Mickey was a particularly important teacher for me at Emma Willard. She supported my independent project where I studied six classrooms during my senior year. She said, “I want you to get your PhD and make all the changes you’ve proposed in this project.” I had no clue what a PhD was, but she put that into my head when I was 17.

What qualities make for a good educator? We often say, “Oh, you have to have a passion for children.” And yes, that’s important, but it is also helpful for people to be concerned with making change in our society. Educators should have the disposition to want to make those kinds of changes. Also, a willingness to reflect on yourself and your experiences is really important. Educators should bring in their own experiences and perspectives, but they need to be reflective about what that means, in terms of the environment in which they grew up, how that shaped their perspectives, and how they’ll use that experience for the benefit of their students.

Why did you decide to focus your efforts on boosting writing as part of literacy? I became interested in pursuing writing as part of the larger picture of literacy because there’s a lot more emphasis on teaching children to read than there is on teach-

PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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ing children to write. It’s important not to just expect that if kids enjoy reading that they’re automatically going to become good writers. I focus on the teaching of writing, what writing looks like in classrooms in terms of doing research. And I also work with the University of Illinois Writing Project, which I codirect, to get other teachers interested in their own writing and facilitating children and youth writing.

What are some of the recent trends you’ve observed in education? Increased accountability—and with that, an increased emphasis on testing. Many of the results of that are teaching to the test, and that undermines a lot of the desire for learning that we want for both our teachers and our students. With so much focus on accountability and testing, we forget the needs of the individual child. But we’re also seeing some innovative professional development that pushes against a prescribed curriculum, focuses on the children, and explores how teachers can go beyond just what is in the textbook.

What has your experience been as a female leader in education? In higher education, I would say the glass ceiling is still at the level of provost and presidents; there are not enough women occupying those offices. There’s still the idea that early childhood and elementary education is for women, and so our programs at the early childhood and elementary level are dominated by women. I would like to see more men come into early childhood and elementary education.

How did Emma Willard impact your professional life? In tenth grade, we had a required writing class that was very open-ended in terms of what you could write about, but we always had to write and were encouraged to share. That established my interest in writing, not only as a way to express oneself, but to be able to communicate with other people and to devise arguments. Another quality of the curriculum at Emma Willard that stayed with me was the opportunity for choices.

It was not a prescribed curriculum; we had choices about what courses to take—especially within the humanities. That really stuck with me in terms of how important choice is, beginning with very young children.

“ I became interested in pursuing writing as part of the larger picture of literacy because there’s a lot more emphasis on teaching children to read than there is on teaching children to write.”

Photo credit: Alyssa Schukar

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EVE SORUM ’94

How would students in the West African country of Burkina Faso find common ground with English writers like T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf? English professor Eve Sorum ‘94 was determined to find out. Having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014, she set out to test her theories of pedagogy and literary criticism in the lecture halls of University of Ouagadougou—with her husband and two young children in tow. In so doing, Eve both confirmed and challenged her approach to the humanities as a discipline, and brought the lessons she learned back to her classroom at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Eve, who earned her PhD from the University of Michigan, is also the author of Modernist Empathy: Geography, Elegy, and the Uncanny (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

How did your experience teaching in the Fulbright Program impact you as a teacher? Part of the takeaway was how hungry the students in Burkina Faso were for different styles of learning and teaching, as well as different texts. I was so surprised that one of the Plato excerpts I used was among the most engaging to them. Even as we’re sitting in Ouagadougou with red dust everywhere in the auditorium, and the power is barely on during the hot season, they were making connections to their current situation through Plato. It was incredibly affirming, in terms of why we teach the humanities.

Did your family’s time there impact you personally?

I definitely observed my privilege as a white westerner, and the differences in income and available resources are

clear. But the two most common phrases we’d hear in Burkina are, roughly translated, “it’ll be okay” and “not a problem.”

Coming from a high-strung, go-go-go world in Boston, it was sobering, and something we really learned from.

You particularly focused on World War I era literature in your studies. Why so? Modernist literature comes from such a fascinating period with so much experimentation. How do we represent the psychological experience of individuals?

How do we deal with death and mourning as we’re moving to a post-Victorian, less socially ritualistic way of dealing with trauma? World War I is when some of these questions coalesce, and so many writers turn to it as a defining moment.

What are some of the recent trends you’ve observed in education? It feels like the country’s been undergoing a gradual devaluing of the humanities, which has consequences, I believe, for social mobility and is a social justice issue as well. For example, in elite institutions, it’s taken for granted that you should study a wide range of subjects within the liberal arts, but that isn’t always so in state universities. This is also true in K_12 public education, where the common core decreases the emphasis on imaginative literature, and increases the emphasis on nonfiction and other writing that is seen as serving an instrumental purpose. That limits the possibility for students to develop different modes of expression, which are key to intellectual, emotional, and social flexibility throughout life.

As an educator, do you have key objectives that guide your instruction? Truthfully, my main goal is psychological. I want my students to leave my class feeling like they know less than when they came in, in the sense that they have learned the complexity of the world, the complexity of texts, and the complexity of ideas. The most important thing for a student to realize is that things unravel as soon as you begin to parse them. It leaves you feeling not as certain in the world, but it’s truthful, and goes beyond just skills-based learning.

What has your experience been as a female leader in education? I had a really good role model in my mother. She was a professor, a dean, and then a vice president at Union College. So I saw a woman in a leadership role and it felt natural. I’m far from having assumed those particular roles yet in my career, but I can see why my mother did. I believe it’s important to say yes when you’re able to, because it’s not just your own career trajectory that you should be thinking about, but the needs of the students or the institution. However, in academia, there’s always more work to be done. You’re expected to constantly be writing, researching, publishing.

So, I’m also learning to say to myself, “Okay, on the weekends, I’m just focusing on my family.” For me, that has been really central to feeling like I can be a good parent and be a completely committed academic.

Photo credit: Jack Elliott

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND ENGLISH UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON

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How did Emma Willard impact your professional life? Being at a girls’ school was so influential. In my first week at a coed college, I was sitting in a philosophy class and realized that when the professor asked a question, no women were raising their hands, and I thought, “Ah, this is what I heard about at Emma ... and it’s not good!” So, I decided to raise my hand in every class, even if I didn’t know the right answer, so I could start doing the work of bringing female voices out there.

RETIRED TEACHER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, EDUCATION CONSULTANT

Beverly, at Emma Willard Commencement in 2011, when she presented the Alumnae Award as a member of the Alumnae Association Council.

What teaching post has been the most fulfilling? The Title IX program I created and directed in Washington, DC, was the most complex, stressful, and gratifying job of my career. We had 500 people in the program. It was a multi-tiered, multiage program that was successful for a number of years.

Nathaniel who was taking final exams. He was studying on the computer the entire time. I didn’t know whether he was really studying or not, though every time I walked by, there was German on the screen, so I guess he was! It must be equally hard for the teachers to tell.

What qualities make for a good educator? Compassion for the student is most important. I hearken back to the years I worked in a hospital as a trauma research coordinator. The number one medical tenant is, “Do no harm.” I’ve likewise seen with all students that if you get a bad teacher, it can be harmful. A good teacher can open the door to learning and encourage it as a lifelong experience. If you experience joy yourself and share that with children, they’ll do the same thing for you. Curiosity is another quality that makes for a good educator. If you’re looking at a caterpillar, a tree, or a shell on the seashore and listen to what your students say, you can use that conversation as a springboard for a very joyous experience.

How did Emma Willard impact your professional life? My love of libraries came from that time; I fell in love with the Emma Willard library in Slocum. It was a quiet, safe, and wonderful place to study. We were taught how to do research, how to write papers, and how to appreciate quiet spaces.

My favorite libraries are Boston Public Library, Yale Sterling Memorial Library, and the Library of Congress, which the DC Emmies will visit this September.

What did you most value about your early education?

Emma Willard’s correlated curriculum was innovative and intensive. We took 11 courses in one week, including history, English, art, religion, drama, and music. The courses were all correlated to the same time period. For example, as freshmen we studied drama, music, history, and literature of the ancients, so we were immersed in that era. The correlated curriculum was a great introduction to our college Western Civilization courses because we had lived it for four years.

What are some of the recent trends you’ve observed in education? The digital era has changed things enormously. I was up in New Hampshire with [my 16-year-old grandson]

Who are the educational leaders who inspire you? I have had the privilege of sharing the stage with Maya Angelou and, on several occasions, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Both women share an overarching commitment to teach and establish a legacy of learning.

What wisdom helped you personally or professionally? I had a wonderful riding teacher who taught me how to care for and train horses. I learned many other life lessons such as taking responsibility. You never say, “The horse bucked me off.” It’s you that fell off, it’s the rider’s fault. Another lesson learned was how to treat the horse gently. The skills I acquired about nurturing and teaching horses have been helpful in raising my own children. Lastly, I learned to be fair in competition.

Preparation is key. Doing your homework and gathering information allows you to compete and succeed.

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BEVERLY BURKE GUNTHER ’60

Beverly Burke Gunther ‘60 has enjoyed a “wonderfully rich teaching experience,” with students as young as five to adults.

Her career in education began as a head teacher for a prekindergarten all-boys class in Pine Orchard, CT, in 1968. The following decade, she continued her career in education by creating and directing a Title IX federally funded program in Washington, DC. The grant funded training for innercity adults and Lorton Reformatory inmates to be teaching assistants. As a university instructor, she led undergraduate and graduate students in this training program. The program was recognized by the Washington Star-News and commended by the White House. The last 18 years of her career were spent in medical education as a trauma research coordinator at the largest hospital in Washington. Her role was to assist medical students, residents, and staff physicians in preparing poster exhibits, writing papers, and giving presentations. In 2000, she suffered a stroke and retired from formalized teaching but has continued to enjoy learning, writing, and teaching. Her 10 grandchildren are her special students who learn about democracy and U.S. history by visiting historic sites. In all of her roles, Beverly’s core values of compassion and curiosity have guided her in service to others.

Beverly takes her 5-year-old students on a field trip to a local bank during her first teaching post at Pine Orchard School in 1968.

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S N A E M L L A Y B Members of Emma Willard’s Black and

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POSSIBLE!

STORY BY DANIELLE SANZONE PHOTOS BY A M O R E E N A O ’ B RYO N

d against racism.

y an Latinx Student Union fight for equalit

Oluchi A. ’21 and Sofia C. ’20 emmawillard.org

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IT WAS A BRIGHT, SUNNY DAY IN MAY OUTSIDE OF KELLAS LITTLE DINING HALL, AND THE STUDENT MEMBERS OF EMMA WILLARD SCHOOL’S BLACK AND LATINX STUDENT UNION (BLSU) WERE HAVING A CELEBRATORY DANCE PARTY TO MARK THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. TWENTY ENERGETIC STUDENTS TOOK TURNS CHEERING EACH OTHER ON WHILE JOYFULLY EXPRESSING THEMSELVES THROUGH DANCE AND SONG. BLSU co-head Aisha Fadé ’19 addressed the group one last time as she prepared to graduate, feigning wiping away tears. “Keep being the phenomenal woke people you are,” she said.

The dancing was a departure from the club’s usual weekly meeting format, where the girls tackle serious issues head-on about race and social and racial justice: police shootings of unarmed youth of color; the change in the SAT to include an adversity score; increasing white nationalism in the U.S.; and microaggressions the students may encounter with peers, among others. Anyone is welcome to attend the meetings.

“Our mission is to not only raise awareness of social justice issues pertaining to these minority groups, but also to find ways to bring these discussions to Emma Willard,” Aisha said in an email. “We work endlessly to speak up on what it means to highlight diversity, be inclusive, and how to be an effective ally.”

Last year, members voted to change the name of the group from

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its previous moniker, the Black and Hispanic Awareness (BHA) club, to BLSU in an effort to be even more inclusive and welcoming. “It’s more powerful than an ‘awareness’ club,” says Carolina Fernandes Cardoso ’19, co-head of BLSU with Aisha.

Club advisor Judy Price says BLSU helps students process and make sense of the world around them through the lens of the Black and Latinx experience. “It’s a great space for students to come in and say, ‘Can you believe what just happened here?’ When students come to our meetings, they know we’re all on the same page trying to fight for equality and against racism.”

BLSU in Action To do just that—fight for equality and raise awareness on issues of racism and social justice—BLSU leads a number of initiatives on campus. Every Friday, BLSU members deliver a Weekly Woke address to the entire student body during Morning Reports, communicating racial injustices on the national level and offering calls

to action that girls can join on the local level. Weekly Woke topics have touched on intersectional feminism, appropriate and politically correct terms for different minority groups, and underappreciated figures of Black/Latinx history.

“Since we understand that not everyone can make it to our meetings and that our assemblies happen sparsely throughout the year, Weekly Woke is a way for us to spread a larger message in a shorter

A Word about Community Diversity from Head of School Jenny Rao

amount of time and reach a wider audience,” Aisha said in an email.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day and during Black History Month and National Hispanic Heritage Month, BLSU leads diversity programming for the school. The group also sells merchandise, especially T-shirts that are popular among the students, which feature social and racial justicerelated quotes. Recent favorites include James Baldwin’s quote:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

“I see BLSU as one of the strongest and most vibrant student clubs on campus,” says Shelley Maher, dean of students and wellbeing at Emma. She said the room where BLSU meets is sometimes overflowing with students interested in participating in the conversation each Thursday.

“BLSU’s programs help us all gain

We opened the academic year of 2019–2020 with full enrollment at 356 students representing 20 different states and 36 different countries. We are truly a global community. The diversity among our student body makes me proud, and it is one of the aspects of our community that attracted me most to Emma Willard.

Diversity creates the conditions to develop the habits of an intellectual life, a pillar of our school’s mission. When students are exposed to various perspectives, they can learn to think critically, challenge assumptions, and consider unexplored alternatives seeking solutions to modern problems.

Diversity, however, is only the first step in creating a community. Creating inclusion is what ultimately makes a community safe and welcoming. At Emma Willard, we are taking decisive steps to develop a deeper sense of inclusion in our community. We are working toward having the diversity of our faculty better reflect the diversity of our student body; we are strengthening our proactive support of students who might feel marginalized by our community; and we are dedicating space on our website focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, to name a few of our initiatives.

In addition, two of our faculty members, for the second year, are helping to lead and coordinate the efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion: Equity and Inclusion Coordinator Erica Tryon and International Student Coordinator Preston Sundin. To serve our global and diverse community with excellence and prepare our students for a rich and vigorous intellectual life, we must continuously build a community that is inclusive and open to a wide and diverse range of perspectives and experiences.

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“ Nothing will change unless more insight. They most definitely act as a resource for the Emma community.”

One of the highlights of each year is BLSU’s Apollo Talent Show, where students sing, dance, read poetry, and share other talents in an annual tribute to the famous Apollo Theater, which showcased many black performers when other theaters remained whites-only venues. The students’ acts are both applauded and playfully booed.

“We’re multidimensional,” Sofia Castillo-Merced ’20 says, who earned the torch as BLSU co-head next year. “We join BLSU because we are who we are, and we are proud. From the moment I arrived at Emma as a freshman, issues on diversity within the community have always been a

prevalent conversation that bubbled amongst the student body.”

Sofia also says she joined BLSU to help her respond to deeply impactful events happening on a national level, and to herself and her peers.

Just as professional athletes are taking a knee during the national anthem—a protest to bring attention to police brutality—Sofia recounted how a BLSU member was yelled at when she took a knee while attending a basketball game (not at Emma). “These issues can happen to anyone, not just adults,” Sofia says.

TRUE TRAILBLAZER: ANNE SPENCER THURMAN ’50 It was six years before the monumental Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that Emma Willard accepted its first black student, Anne Spencer Thurman. She was the daughter of noted theologian and author, Howard Thurman, who helped establish the first interracially pastored, intercultural church in the United States.

Anne began classes on Mount Ida in 1948 and graduated in 1950. She graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and went on to earn her law degree. A journalist who was active in politics, Anne, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 67, was the regional director of the Black Women’s Employment Program of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and later was assistant vice president and affirmative action director for the Bank of California.

She worked with her mother on mapping out the African American Freedom Trail in Boston, which noted where Crispus Attucks, a black man, was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre in 1770, and where William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first anti-slavery speech. In her later years, she helped to promote her father’s legacy by establishing the Howard Thurman Library and publishing an anthology of his writing, titled, For the Inward Journey.

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Oluchi Amadife ’21, who will join Sofia in leading BLSU next year, says she’s been particularly incensed by the issue of police brutality. “It keeps happening over and over,” she says. “Nothing will change unless we speak out against issues of discrimination that are evident in our society and take action to resolve them.”

Evolution of a Club Emma Willard students formed the first iteration of the BLSU in the 1960s; they named the club The Civil Rights Group. As stated in the group’s description in the Gargoyle: “The barrier between whites and Negroes today is perhaps due to lack of communication between the two races. As the result of a very ‘hot’ summer, we plan to center our attention on the ‘Negro in the ghetto’ as well as on the ‘Crisis in Leadership.’

By using all means possible: books, speakers, active participation in the community, and open discussion within the group itself, we hope to break down the barrier of inexposure and replace it with a clearer understanding of the races.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, students founded the Black Students of Emma Willard, Casa Hispanica, and AFRO-AM. Heather D. Scott ’81 was active in Black Students of Emma Willard during her three years on Mount Ida and served as president of the organization.

“I joined the Black Students of Emma Willard because I wanted to be involved in cultural diversity education within the Emma community. I needed to associate with people who looked like me, and it was a good way to make new

we do something.” friends,” Heather says. “The group helped me to navigate all aspects of boarding school life, whether they were academic or social.” Now a Florida resident, Heather is the regional communications duty officer with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. She’s been a public safety professional for 31 years.

She recalled weekly meetings where students discussed issues that remain prevalent today. “There are still racial and cultural issues that separate human beings in this world,” she says. “As long as we are identified positively or negatively by the color of our skin or by our financial needs, then having a Black Student Union is a much-needed anchor in a community in which we, Blacks, are the minority. Life at Emma Willard can at times shield you or protect you from racial disparities, but sooner or later the real-world ugliness invades our Emma lives.”

Munachimso “Muna” Amadife ’15, who was co-head of the club when it was still known as BHA, has watched the group evolve since she graduated.

She’s proud of the students, including her sister, Oluchi, who voted to change the club’s name, which she says also reflects the difference between the terms “Hispanic” and “Latina” (“Hispanic” refers to a lineage from Spain, while “Latina” refers to Latin America). “The name change honors that growth in the conversation,” Muna says.

Muna recalls that BHA was a safe space to have conversations with her peers about the impact of microaggressions, some of which included how people might mispronounce her name or confuse her with other Emma students of color. The club also helped Muna

expand her own notions about diversity. “I’ve learned that even though we might be the same race or color, we’re all unique people,” she says. “There is that diversity within the diversity.” Now a medical student at the CUNY School of Medicine in New York City, Muna will embark on a career in the medical profession.

“I aim to ensure that my voice and skills are taken as seriously as those of my white counterparts, and that there is a sense of equity and fairness in my workplace,” she says.

Looking Ahead Sofia says BLSU members are increasingly reaching out to alumnae of color for support and advice.

“They faced a myriad of issues like we’ve all faced, and they went on to succeed. As a student, it’s nice to hear that,” Sofia says.

As the club members plan for programming for the current school year, they say they’re also interested in engaging with other high schools in New York State. “I hope we can connect Emma students with those who come from different

backgrounds as a way to open minds and strengthen students’ awareness of their privilege,” Sofia says. “This school has changed my life for the better, and I want to leave it better than how I entered it. I believe in my community, and I hope to share this passion with others.”

BLSU members also emphasized the importance of engaging with white allies in the fight for racial justice and equality. Though it’s no longer in the name, awareness— along with education—still plays a key role.

“This is an important space for Black and Latinx people,” said Erica Tryon, Emma’s equity and inclusion coordinator. “We can talk about shared identity and shared experiences.”

Surveying the group at the endof-year dance party, Aisha said, “I’m super excited to see how the group continues to leave its mark on campus.”

Danielle Sanzone works in the Interactive Media department at a local PBS affiliate in Troy, NY. A journalist and writer for more than 10 years, her work has been featured in publications including Bloomberg News and the New York Daily News.

Aisha F. '19 and Carolina F. '19 show BLSU Support.

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Click Department Students and fans cheer on the Varsity Volleyball team's save during a close game.

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DE PA RTME NT

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Admissions

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How to Apply

Applying to a new school can be overwhelming. The admissions team at Emma is here to help make the application process as easy as possible. The Emma application process includes the following: APPLICATION This can be completed online at www.emmawillard.org/admissions.

The application includes: ❑ Application Form ❑ Essay ❑ Parent Statement ❑ Application Fee TRANSCRIPTS Should be completed by a school official and contain a minimum of two years of credits as well as the first semester or trimester of the current academic year.

RECOMMENDATIONS ❑ English Teacher ❑ Math Teacher ❑ Teacher of Choice

TESTING While we look at much more than test scores when selecting our future Emma Girls, standardized tests help us learn more about each girl’s academic background. More information on the tests we use in our admissions process can be found at www.emmawillard.org/ admissions.

INTERVIEW Please contact the admissions office at 518.833.1320 or admissions@emma willard.org to schedule your interview.

IMPORTANT DATES Application deadline: February 1 Financial aid application deadline: February 1 Admissions decision: March 10 Enrollment contract and deposit due: April 10 emmawillard.org

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Signing Off HEAD OF SCHOOL, JENNY RAO

Planning for Our Future The Class of 2019 took leave of us on a perfect June day, confident in their future. Crossing the stage to receive their diplomas, they were pleased, proud, and positively marked by their Emma Willard experience. On days like these, there are constant reminders of the importance of our mission. Our goal is to advance a vision of purposeful courage and informed action, developing girls that will serve and shape the world.

This issue of Signature highlights how our alumnae are making a meaningful impact. Whether raising their voices to be heard, recording pivotal moments in history, or teaching others, our alumnae stand up, speak out, and make a difference!

We opened 2019–2020 with enrollment of 356 students representing 20 states and 36 countries. We are truly a global community. This year we’ll add new flags from Myanmar, Grand Cayman, and Turks and Caicos. The diversity among our student body makes me proud. Diversity in any community matters, but I believe it matters most in an educational institution. Exposed to a variety of perspectives, students learn to think critically, challenge assumptions, and explore solutions to real problems. Diversity creates the conditions to develop the habits of an intellectual life, a pillar of our school’s mission. Yet, diversity is only one step in creating a community where students feel safe and welcome. At Emma Willard School, we are taking decisive action to develop a deeper sense of inclusion. To serve our community with excellence and prepare our students for a rich and vigorous intellectual life, we continuously open ourselves to a multitude of perspectives.

As we encourage our diverse student body to build their intellectual habits, we also reflect on our own institutional practices. Every 10 years, the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) requires a self-evaluation based on standards for educational programming, operations, resources, communication, and mission. Once that report is complete, a visiting team of educators conducts an on-site evaluation of our school. We completed this intensive evaluation at the end of last school year. The NYSAIS team granted our accreditation for another 10 years, affirming that we are living our mission in every aspect. The accreditation process provided an opportunity to take stock of our strengths and evaluate opportunities to evolve Emma Willard School into an ever better and stronger version of itself.

Since July 2017, Emma Willard School has been engaged in community-wide reflection on a vision and strategic plan for the future. Analysis of our market position, paired with insights from our accreditation, allowed us to engage in

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conversations about the school’s strengths and challenges.

Building on this excellent work, we are ready to embark on a strategic planning process to clarify our vision, strategic direction, and priorities that will guide us into the future.

This is not to be a comprehensive review of everyday operations; rather, it is an opportunity for us to examine questions related to mission, purpose, and educational opportunities within a changing landscape. We approach this new endeavor with momentum from the successful outcomes of the aforementioned processes.

To guide this work in a way that is inclusive, transparent, and efficient, I have convened a Strategic Planning Committee comprised of faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees. They are working to ensure that the strategic planning process is well communicated, that input from all Emma Willard stakeholders has been solicited, and that representatives from each group have been engaged. The committee is assisting the Board of Trustees and me in framing a set of strategic directions that represent the input of all Emma Willard constituents. In addition, we have hired Cambridge Hill Partners, a consulting group specializing in strategic planning and organizational change in the nonprofit and education sectors, to guide our strategic planning process.

This autumn, our students participated in a student strategic planning workshop. Our girls are as brave and outspoken now as they were when Emma Hart Willard opened the doors more than 200 years ago. Their voices are invaluable as we work to define our future. Following the student workshop, we hosted a strategic planning retreat with faculty, administration, and the Board of Trustees. Thought leaders were invited to provide external perspectives and discuss trends, challenges, and opportunities to inform our direction.

I am certain that the wisdom and commitment in our community that this inclusive process has leveraged will result in a strategic plan that will launch our school with strength and clarity of conviction into its third century.

As I begin my third year as Head of Emma Willard School, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve this extraordinary institution. At this moment in history when the vigorous leadership of women is urgently needed, I accept my front-row seat in the forum of girls’ education with humility and pride. Our school is strong across all measures and our obligation is to leverage these fortuitous circumstances for our current and future students, our alumnae, and our school. I am honored and pleased to be on this journey with you.

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