The Admission Magazine of Hathaway Brown School
Summer/Fall 2015
Powerhouse Programmers The HB Robotics Team 2399, aka the Fighting Unicorns, competed in the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship in St. Louis this spring. This was the first year the team qualified for this international contest. Earlier in the season, the Fighting Unicorns won the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Tournament. This award “celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community.” Judges took notice of Team 2399’s outreach efforts. As the only all-girls FIRST Robotics team in Northeast Ohio, the Fighting Unicorns make it their responsibility to spread the word about engineering, computer science, and robotics throughout the school and the wider community. In addition to helping mentor two FIRST Lego League Teams and refereeing and judging at FIRST Lego League Tournaments, team members demonstrated their robot at the Ohio STEM Meeting at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in October and ran a workshop for Boys Hope Girls Hope of Northeast Ohio in November. They also mentored a new FRC team at Parma Constellation Schools Community High and offered them open access to HB’s equipment. In the spring, the girls assisted with an after-school robotics club for grades 4-9 and ran an afternoon workshop for the entire eighth grade.
HB
COVER PHOTO BY KEITH BERR; L ARGE PHOTO AT LEF T BY SHANNON AHLSTRAND; INSET PHOTO AT LEF T BY JOHN FORCINA
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Hathaway Brown is a dynamic and compassionate community dedicated to excellence in the education of girls. Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus: We Learn Not For School, But For Life Hathaway Brown School is a school for girls, and it’s so much more. It’s a school for scientists and writers and artists and budding entrepreneurs. It’s a training ground for athletes and dancers and musicians and actresses. It’s a place where young people are empowered to ask questions, challenge conventions, and explore opportunities. And everything we do is guided by the motto above. Since 1876, HB has given students the tools they need to confidently embrace all the possibilities that exist for them beyond our Shaker Heights campus. The faculty’s dedication to hands-on experiential learning at all levels can be observed every day in the classrooms, libraries, science labs, theatres, dance studios, and art rooms, as well as on the athletic fields. In addition to the superior academic preparation they receive, at every turn HB students are inspired to become the best people they can be. We encourage girls of all ages and boys in our Early Childhood program to take chances, stretch their minds, work together, and pick themselves up and start over when they need to. All of our students are able to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to their lives. They know how to test theories, hold authority accountable, find beauty in overlooked places, implement creative solutions, and lend a hand where it’s needed. Wherever they go from here, HB graduates bring strong character, unparalleled intelligence, unbridled enthusiasm, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge along with them.
contents Admission
Contact Us pg. 5 HB at a Glance pg. 26 Important Dates pg. 30
News from North Park pg. 6 HB Happenings
In His Words pg. 10
Ask a Blazer Q&A with Head of School Bill Christ
Teacher, Traveler, Trendsetter pg. 12 Joe Vogel’s passion for global education is contagious, and he shares it in his classroom and beyond
Art Gallery pg. 17 HB artists share their work
Object Lessons pg. 18
Hathaway Brown’s Young Writers and Artists Festival opens students’ senses to creative expression
College Destinations pg. 28
The HB Class of 2015 goes out into the world
Aspire Inspires pg. 31
HB’s academic enrichment and leadership development program makes a difference in girls’ lives
Learn more at HB.edu or call 216.320.8767 to schedule a personal tour.
As Global Scholars,
not only do our girls participate in an
inspiring, eyeopening, stimulating course of study, but they also are able to travel to such far-flung locales as Cambodia, India, Turkey, Iceland, China, Senegal, and Nicaragua.
In schools across the United States, a focus on global education is now beginning to be placed at the forefront of the most innovative institutional curricular planning. At Hathaway Brown, we’re privileged to be ahead of the curve—an outstanding global education program has been a hallmark of the Upper School experience for many years. Under the auspices of our signature Institute for 21st Century Education, the Center for Global Citizenship at HB gives students the tools they need to be globally competent, globally aware citizens of this complex, interconnected world.
HB
Real World Learning
5
contact us
It is apparent that the knowledge, skills, experiences, and opportunities that the CGC provides are of great interest and benefit to girls in grades 9-12, as the majority of our high schoolers are enrolled in the Center’s flagship Global Scholars course. Recently, the Center’s reach has been expanded so that all of our students in all divisions will have the foundation they need to acquire a sophisticated understanding of the world around them as they discover how the United States fits into the current global context. In recognition of their completion of four years of related coursework and engagement in at least one meaningful schoolsponsored international program, 90 percent of the HB Class of 2015 received Global Scholars diploma designations. In true HB fashion, we are leading the charge when it comes to graduating globally minded students who respect and understand other cultures.
Sarah Liotta Johnston
All of this enthusiasm and excitement for global education emanates from the classroom of CGC Director Joe Vogel, who also serves as the executive director of the Global Education Benchmark Group, an international organization created to facilitate collaborations and establish best practices in the field.
Director of Early Childhood & Primary School Admission 216.320.8093 kkuhn@hb.edu
Before each HB program leaves the States, participants meet at least 10 times as a group to discuss the very deliberate curriculum that shapes the experience. Not only do our girls participate in an inspiring, eye-opening, stimulating course of study, but they also are able to travel to such far-flung locales as Cambodia, India, Turkey, Iceland, China, Senegal, and Nicaragua. Each HB international program immerses girls in the country’s culture: food, politics, customs, history, and more. They return to us transformed. I invite you to come to HB and learn firsthand about our nationally recognized Global Scholars program and meet CGC Director Joe Vogel. Here, you will witness a trendsetting program that I am confident is the most sophisticated and impactful secondary school global education program in the nation. Top left: HB’s Associate Head for Enrollment Management Sarah Johnston (right) joined Joe Vogel, Director of the Center for Global Citizenship (left), in Pamplona, Spain recently. There, they reconnected with Sonia Antoñana (center), who had been an exchange student at HB during the 2011-2012 school year.
Associate Head for Enrollment Management 216.320.8104 sjohnston@hb.edu
Tina Reifsnyder
Admission Coordinator 216.320.8767 treifsnyder@hb.edu
Shelley Johns
Financial Aid & Admission Database Manager 216.320.8098 sjohns@hb.edu
early childhood/primary school Kristin Kuhn
middle school Katherine Jenne Chapman ’04 Director of Middle School Admission 216.320.8091 kchapman@hb.edu
upper school Colleen Sommerfeld
Associate Director of Upper School Admission 216.320.8103 csommerfeld@hb.edu
Uncommon Credentials In 2015, Hathaway Brown graduating senior Emily Spencer became the fifth HB student to be named a finalist in the illustrious Intel Science Talent Search. The competition, which is open to all U.S. 12th graders, was formerly called the Westinghouse and is sometimes referred to as the “Little Nobel.” The Intel STS is one of the nation’s most well-respected math and science competitions, rewarding rigorous original research conducted by high school seniors. Every year, the Intel STS names 300 semifinalists and selects 40 finalists from the semifinalist pool.
research to an esteemed panel of judges and enjoyed a gala ceremony and dinner at which she was joined by her parents and SREP Director Patricia K. Hunt. She had the additional distinction of being the only finalist in Ohio and the only girl in the state to be recognized by both the Siemens Foundation Competition and Intel STS for her work. Emily’s project “Synthesis of Photo-Healable and Thermal Shape-Memory Disulfide Polymers” was the culmination of her research at CWRU’s School of Engineering. Specifically, her work focused on chemically formulating shape-memory materials that can recall former shapes and return to them in response to certain stimuli. “In our lab, we make a polymer film, scratch it, then apply a UV light to it and it goes back to its former state before it was scratched,” she explains. This new material has numerous potential real-world applications, including in the automobile industry. It has taken many years of testing and recalibration to reach this point, as Emily and her colleagues in Dr. Stuart Rowan’s lab have worked with several types of materials, made adjustments to molecular weights, and varied the ratio balance to achieve a polymer that not only has a shape memory but also responds to stimuli.
Emily Spencer had the additional distinction of being the only finalist in Ohio and the only girl in the state to be recognized by both the Siemens Foundation Competition and Intel STS for her research in 2015. Emily Spencer, who conducted polymer research at Case Western Reserve University, and her classmate Emily Amjad ’15, who conducted cardiology research at CWRU’s School of Medicine, both were semifinalists this year. The girls were two of only five students selected in Ohio and the only private school students selected from Northeast Ohio. All program semifinalists received individual $1,000 prizes, along with $1,000 for each of their respective schools. The HB prizewinners were enrolled in the school’s signature Science Research & Engineering Program. As an Intel STS semifinalist, Emily Spencer received an additional $7,500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., where she visited the White House and met President Obama in March. She also presented her
The Intel STS has awarded the work of HB SREP students with 20 semifinalist and five finalist designations since 2000. In addition to Emily Spencer, other HB alumnae who were named Intel STS finalists during their senior year of high school are Ann Lai (2001), Erin Schikowski (2007), Lizzie Coquillette (2009), and Caitlin Mann (2009). Along with cash prizes and trips to Washington, D.C., these young researchers also won laptop computers and had minor planets named after them by the Intel STS awards committee.
After racking up an impressive 82 writing awards and 24 visual arts awards in the 35th annual regional Scholastic Art & Writing competition, HB girls brought home 10 additional high honors from the Cleveland Institute of Art’s special Scholastic exhibition ceremony in January.
Feminist Narratives
Girls from six Cleveland-area high schools joined together at Hathaway Brown School’s Worldwide Communications Center to document the stories of some of the city’s most interesting women. “Making HERStory,” a workshop conducted at HB in March by Amy Richards from the website MAKERS.com —a digital and video storytelling platform that aims to be the largest and most dynamic collection of women’s stories—showcased 10 prominent Cleveland women who spoke with students about the experiences and qualities that made them who they are. Author and activist Yvonne Pointer; graphic artist Gwen Garth, project coordinator for the City of Cleveland; community activist Barbara Anderson; SPR Therapeutics president and founder Maria Bennett; eco-friendly dry cleaning company owner Vicky Trotter; OB/GYN Dr. Karen Jaffe; Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra artistic director Jeannette Sorrell; Center for Families and Children external affairs director Elizabeth Hijar; Social Advocates for Youth counselor Laurel Greene; and business owner and teacher of entrepreneurship Sharie Renee each shared their perspectives, and the information gathered in these discussions was used to create short videos with the MAKERS.com “MAKERS Stories” mobile app. Making HERStory was presented in partnership with the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women at Case Western Reserve University, MAKERS. com, Inner Visions, and the Center for Leadership & Well-Being at HB. Program facilitator Amy Richards is the founder of the Third Wave Foundation, a national feminist, activist foundation. She is also a consulting producer on the HBO documentary “Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words,” and an adviser to “Makers,” a PBS documentary on the women’s movement in America. Prior to the event, she spoke with parents and took part in the annual fourth-grade Notable Women presentation and celebration.
Several of HB’s regional winners went on to earn national recognition in the 2015 program, and they were honored for their work at Carnegie Hall. HB’s national Scholastic honorees are: Emily Imka ’15 (Silver Medal for Painting; Silver Medal and American Voices Medal for Poetry), Lauren Kahn ’15 (Gold Medal for Jewelry), Becca Lambright ’15 (Gold Medal for Poetry; Silver Medal for Personal Essay/Memoir); Isabella Nilsson ’16 (Gold Medal for Short Story), and Nitya Thakore ’16 (Silver Medal for Personal Essay/Memoir). These students were identified by panels of creative professionals as the most talented young artists and writers in the nation. This year, 300,000 works of art and writing were submitted by students in grades 7-12, and only the top 1 percent received national ranking. Since 1923, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have recognized teenagers from across the country. By winning a Scholastic Art & Writing Award, these HB students join a legacy of celebrated authors and artists including Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Robert Redford, John Currin, and Lena Dunham. A great deal of Scholastic award-winning work was compiled in HB’s new literary journal, Retrospect. That publication, produced by the school’s Osborne Writing Center, was lauded by the National Council of Teachers of English Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines. Retrospect won the top prize in Ohio: Superior - Nominated for Highest Award. This designation was given to only one student publication in the state, and only 30 were awarded in total. Program entries were received from 366 schools across the United States and American schools abroad. You can read Retrospect online at www.hb.edu/write.
HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT For the second consecutive year, Hathaway Brown has been named a Top Workplace in Northeast Ohio by The Plain Dealer and Workplace Dynamics. Ask the faculty and staff what they like best about HB, and they might tell you about the on-site child care, yoga and fitness classes for employees, monthly chair massages offered by an HB alumna, the fabulous lunches served every day in the beautiful dining hall, or about the many professional development opportunities the school provides. You may discover how
employees are encouraged to dream big, to try new things, and to make the most of themselves as educators and as human beings. But what you’re sure to hear again and again is how much the adults in this community appreciate the intelligence, passion, and perseverance of our students and how much they enjoy being surrounded by some of the brightest, friendliest, hardest working people anywhere.
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Keys to Creativity
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HB IN DC
At the close of the school year, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) met with a group of Hathaway Brown seniors enrolled in Molly Krist’s American Government and Constitutional Law class who attended his weekly Constituent Coffee during an annual trip to Washington, D.C. “It was an honor to meet with these bright young women,” said Brown. “It is great to see students take interest in our government and the work being done in Washington to help Ohioans.”
Great Debaters Morgan Austin ’15 (left) and Isha Lele ’18 both admirably represented Hathaway Brown and the North Coast District in June at the 2015 National Speech and Debate Tournament in Dallas, Texas. These two HB debaters were among a handful of students from the Cleveland area to qualify for Nationals from the more than 100 who participate in Congressional-style debate. Competing against more than 250 of the best Congressional debaters from around the United States, both Morgan and Isha made it to the semifinals. Morgan was named Best Presiding Officer in the semis and she advanced to the final day of the competition, placing in the top 24 Congressional debaters nationwide. This is the best finish by any debater in HB’s history.
Coming Soon Hathaway Brown is committed to providing the best possible learning environment anywhere. To that end, we’re pleased to announce some exciting new construction initiatives that are now in process at the corner of Courtland and North Park. Work has begun on a new Turf Field, an IDEA Lab Makers space, and an Upper School Learning Commons. Thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, these efforts will improve and enhance our campus for students across divisions. All are expected to be completed during the first part of the 2015-2016 school year. For a sense of the full scope of these projects, we’ve created a web presence that describes each one in detail, answers a number of Frequently Asked Questions, and contains photos and videos of the work in progress. You can find all of that information at www. hb.edu/construction.
OPEN DIALOGUE
Hathaway Brown’s Black Cultural Awareness student group, in partnership with the school’s Center for Multicultural Affairs, hosted an important Upper School forum in May. “A Real Conversation on Race” included an outstanding group of faculty representing different disciplines, experiences, and perspectives who shared stories and engaged students in conversation around the topic of race in America. The program focused on the historical construction of race, and panelists talked about how our diverse experiences influence the lenses through which we see race and the stories of others, and discussed how everyone at HB can be advocates, allies, upstanders, and activists for all of the members of our cosmopolitan community.
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Scholarly Commendations
Kate Aris ’18 took second place at the beginner level in the 10th Chinese Bridge Speech Contest for American High School Students at The Confucius Institute at University of Massachusetts Boston. Before competing in the finals, each student must submit a three-minute speech with a script in Chinese and English. The finalists then perform their speech for a panel of judges and take questions. Kavya Ravichandran ’16 and Rebecca Weinberger ’15 (pictured left –right below) were honored at the Cleveland Technical Societies Council’s 69th Annual Scholarship and Achievement Awards. Each year this ceremony grants scholarships to the best math and science students in the Cleveland area and selects an Honor Junior for each school. Rebecca earned a scholarship sponsored by Lubrizol and Kavya was designated HB’s Honor Junior.
BRIDGE BUILDER The Princeton Prize in Race Relations was established to “recognize, support, and encourage young people in our country who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the cause of race relations.” Kacey Gill ’16 has been honored with a Certificate of Achievement from Princeton University in this annual awards program for high school students. She and Cleveland’s Princeton Prize winner Anthony Price, a student at Shaw High School, were celebrated for their work at a special ceremony on May 20. During the program, Kacey delivered a very moving acceptance speech, and she and Anthony led attendees in a discussion about race relations.
Kavya also represented HB in the regional finals of the 2015 Veale Youth Entrepreneurship Forum business plan competition. Hers was one of only 10 student-run startups in the contest that took place at LaunchHouse in Shaker Heights in the spring. Working solo or as a team, the competition requires students to create a comprehensive plan and presentation for an enterprise that could be started for less than $2,500. Startups ranged from consumer product companies, mobile applications and service businesses, to handmade jewelry and food businesses. Kavya’s business, Pro Plan, involves an organizational planning app that she developed. “Kavya did an excellent job with her business plan and presentation, and she also blended in her computer science expertise nicely,” said Kevin Purpura, Director of HB’s Center for Business & Finance.
Superlative Science Madeleine Ference ’16 (right), Nitya Thakore ’16 (left), and Aarathi Sahadevan ’16, students in Hathaway Brown’s signature Science Research & Engineering Program, traveled to Houston, Texas, in May to compete in I-SWEEEP, The International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering, and Environment) Project. This groundbreaking competition is open to high school students from around the world. It is one of the largest events of its kind, bringing together young scientists from more than 60 countries to present more than 500 projects.
These HB students received all-expensespaid trips to compete at I-SWEEEP as finalists, having advanced through HB’s 17th Annual Poster Session judging. HB is awarded spots to I-SWEEEP each year based on the quantity and excellence of the science and engineering research that comes out of the school year after year through the SREP. At I-SWEEEP, students are exposed to a five-day whirlwind of scientific, cultural, educational, and social events. The centerpiece of the competition is a full day at which each student’s research project poster is judged in person by several professional judges. At the end of this year’s competition, the HB students
each won bronze medals for their research representing the United States. The students were at I-SWEEEP to present two separate projects: Madeleine and Nitya conducted medical research in a team project through a lab at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Aarathi conducted an individual research project also at the CWRU School of Medicine.
AFTER 29 YEARS
as Head of School, Bill Christ will retire in July 2016. Here, he shares some of his thoughts about Hathaway Brown.
How would you describe the
memory?
Hathaway Brown experience?
The ceremony marking the opening of the Atrium Complex (the Jewett-Brown Academic Center) in 2001. Imagining this spectacular facility and getting it built was a collective enterprise of great creativity and courage. It’s still the most beautiful academic building in Cleveland and the whole process of developing it completely changed the trajectory of the school and our notion of HB’s place in the world. We learned that HB was a place of infinite possibility: if you could dream it you could make it happen here. That attitude infused everything; there were no limits to what we, or the girls, could accomplish. It was truly a turning point in the history of the school, and I loved the audacity of it all—it was the most ambitious thing we’d done since HB moved to Shaker Heights from Cleveland 75 years before. It kicked off an era of aspiration and innovation that has never waned, and never will. The ceremony itself was very inspiring—rich with poetry, music, and emotions. We even had a troupe of Upper School dancers costumed as fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream capering through the space and scattering baptismal dream-dust. It was a house of magic and still is!
The atmosphere is electric—everybody’s all in—doing their best for our girls and striving to make HB the most outstanding girls’ school on the planet if we’re not already there! I couldn’t imagine a more rewarding place to be. It’s a powerhouse with a loving heart.
How would you describe your
colleagues?
In a word, amazing! We’ve never had a more talented or inventive group of faculty and staff. They’ve made the school what it is today and their influence resonates for a lifetime in the lives of the girls— who well know how fortunate they are to have such smart, caring, and cool teachers who are so deeply committed to helping them grow as learners and as outstanding human beings. I’m honored to have the chance to teach amongst so many legendary educators and dear friends.
You’re the longtime male head
of an all-girls institution. What’s the most important thing people should know about girls? HB girls are incredibly imaginative, passionate, and fearless. They’re visionaries in training who are learning what it takes to get big things done in the world. Normally we think of mentors as older people who mold the young. That can work the other way, too. The girls are a glowing filament brightening and energizing this whole community. And they actually mentor those of us who have the privilege of teaching them. Their boldness and passion inspire us to elevate our game and they feed a school-wide culture of optimism and accomplishment.
How has the school changed or
evolved during your tenure?
It has been an amazing journey. Enrollment has doubled, the endowment’s risen more than ten-fold, and the quality and creativity of the student body and faculty are at a high-water mark. We have continuously reinvented the school to serve the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s girls, without ever straying from our core principal of “learning not for school, but for life.” When alumnae come back to visit, I love that they can see the school they remember, as well as a school they never could have imagined.
What should everybody know
about HB?
We’re making history every day, shaping a new and more expansive future for women. And when the possibilities expand for girls and women, life gets better for everyone, everywhere. We truly have redefined the meaning of girls’ education by developing uniquely powerful vehicles for blowing the doors off of school, and liberating the potential of every girl, helping her uncover her true gifts and discover the best version of herself.
What has HB meant to you? HB is a place that brings out the best in people—not only students, but adults as well. My mother used to tell me, after I had been basking in the HB Effect for a while, “It’s amazing what that school has done for you.” I’m the first to admit how true that is. As is the case with countless HB students, being here for me has been a lifechanging experience. This has been my second home. HB gave me the opportunity to find my own path. It gave me a deep, rewarding sense of purpose: the noble cause of girls’ and women’s education. And it taught me just about everything I know about leadership. I join the chorus of thousands of HB alumnae who sing the alma mater with great pride: “Hathaway Brown, we hail thee!”
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PHOTO BY JAMES DOUGLAS
What’s your most vivid HB
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Joe Vogel’s passion for global education is contagious, and he shares it in his classroom and beyond by Thrity Umrigar
HB
PHOTO AT LEF T BY SHANNON AHLSTRAND; TRAVEL PHOTOS BY HB STUDENTS
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I am a citizen, not of Athens or of Greece,
but of the world. In the end,
the best way to explain Joe Vogel and what he hopes to accomplish as Director of the Center for Global Citizenship at Hathaway Brown may be to simply reference that quote from Socrates, which is stenciled on the wall of his classroom. Vogel, 42, has traveled to more than 60 nations, and is the personification of a global citizen, a man truly at home in the world. And it is this sense of ease—which is underpinned by a ferocious intellect and a roving, promiscuous curiosity—that he strives to impart to HB’s Global Scholars each year.
earn it. When he went to the tropical paradise of Belize, for instance, he skipped its famous beaches. Instead, before he left the United States, he sent a fax to the president of Belize, asking for an audience. “I have no interest in the beach and sand,” he says. “What better way to understand a country than by meeting with its president?”
The Global Scholars program is a four-year, comprehensive elective in which students investigate pressing global issues that range from economics and politics to foreign policy. In their senior year, each scholar writes an ambitious 25- to 40-page thesis in one of several capstone courses. Despite its rigor—students must take four years of a global language, pass a comprehensive geography exam, defend their capstone thesis before a committee, and participate in at least one overseas trip—the overwhelming majority of HB students will graduate with a Global Scholar diploma designation. And Joe Vogel is a large part of what attracts students to the program.
It’s all there in that one anecdote—the drive, the intellectual curiosity, the desire to learn, to know—all the sparks that he wants to ignite in the young students who flock to his Global Scholars program at HB. And there’s one other thing he tries to impart: a sense of humility. Vogel is the opposite of the Ugly American. He visits countries that are poor, dirty, and dysfunctional, with not a trace of Western superiority. Whether he is in Uzbekistan or Yemen or Laos, he is there not to teach the locals; he is there to learn from them. “It has to do with humility, an open mind and not being judgmental,” he says, the dark eyes shining with passion. “And a love for the complexity of the world.”
It was a long, circuitous route that brought Vogel to HB, but in hindsight, it seems as if he has spent his life auditioning for his current role. His father was a history buff and Vogel’s home in Akron was filled with objects from around the world, including a photograph of King Hussein of Jordan, autographed to Vogel’s dad. The wanderlust bit Vogel early, during a high school trip to Austria and Germany accompanied by his German teacher, at a time when the first cracks had already appeared in the Berlin Wall. Vogel and two other students traveled with their teacher on a nostalgic tour of the Berlin apartment where she’d lived during World War II. He was hooked. “I wanted to do this forever,” he recalls. And thus began a life of travel. He earned a degree in political science from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. And then he traveled. In 1995, he joined the Summit County Prosecutor’s Child Support Enforcement Agency as a caseworker. In his free time, he traveled. But no matter where he went, Vogel never saw himself as a tourist. When he visited a country, he wanted to understand it, to learn it, to
As it turned out, the president wasn’t available. So Vogel hung out with the Attorney General and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Belize.
Indeed, differences in cultures don’t scare him; they excite him. “For so many people, this (way of life) is so normal. And if it’s normal for them, it’s normal for me. I’ve never felt like an outsider, no matter where I’ve gone,” he says. That even includes the region in Yemen where Osama bin Laden’s family lived and where Vogel visited in 1998. “It was very tribal. And I’ve never felt more like an honored guest.” Overseas travel is an integral part of the Global Scholars program and every student has to take at least one trip abroad in order to graduate from the rigorous program. The Center for Global Citizenship offers roughly 10 travel opportunities a year, most of them to the developing world, and more than a quarter of HB’s students go abroad each year. While the country they go to may differ, as may the focus of their program—literature, the performing arts, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or development issues—what the students share is their attitude toward the countries they visit. Continued on page 15.
STAMPS OF APPROVAL
Students, parents, alumnae, partner agencies, and others have strong feelings about the benefits of the Center for Global Citizenship at Hathaway Brown. Fuller versions of the testimonials contained here and several additional endorsements of the program may be found online at www.hb.edu/global. To lead implies that someone is following. By that standard, Hathaway Brown is not only leading its students on a more globalized path through school, but it is also leading the nation on both global curriculum with its leading Global Scholar program, and on travel programs that set the standard for innovative, transformative experiences. Willy Fluharty, Director of the Nexus Center for Global Studies at Cape Henry Collegiate School, Virginia Beach, Va.
The Center for Global Citizenship at Hathaway Brown is instrumental in preparing its students for a multicultural, multidimensional world and to be effective citizens and leaders. The CGC immerses HB students in academics and practical experiences to be self-aware and well prepared for the 21st century. I am particularly impressed with the trips to India where HB students have a genuine exposure to that culture and economic system.
Thomas C. Barry, Founder, Zephyr Management and Harriet Mullin Barry ’32 India Fellowship
In a world where conflicts emerge on an everyday basis, having knowledge of how the international system functions is imperative. The Center for Global Citizenship equipped me with a foundation better than anything I could’ve imagined. The passion that I discovered for international relations through this program influenced my decision to major in International Studies with a focus in national security and foreign policy. With the guidance of the faculty in the CGC, I acquired the skills that enabled me to secure an internship with U.S. Senator Rob Portman on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation, a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Arielle Goldberg HB ’13, American University School of International Service ’17
Our family has an inherent excitement
and
curiosity
about different people, places, and
cultures.
We
chose
Hathaway Brown for high school hoping that the Center for Global Citizenship would encourage
these
interests
in our daughters and instill a sense of responsibility to participate in the global community. What we got was even better—our girls came away not with a feeling of obligation, but with a genuine eagerness to travel, to learn, and to communicate without borders.
Peter and Allison Catanzaro, Parents of Alice HB ’13, Princeton University ’17; and Isabel HB ’16
Going to Cambodia profoundly changed my life. It’s hard for me to fully express what happened to me, for I am still changing from it. The way I view the world, interact with people, and engage with my surroundings has been forever altered from the experience. Elana Scott HB ’14, Pitzer College ’18
Her classmate Madeline Shade ’16 agrees. “Each culture has good things and flaws. Looking down at a country that doesn’t have wealth but has other things of value doesn’t make sense.”
And just like that, Vogel has tied the deadly dull issue of energy security to gender politics. But he isn’t done yet. The recent earthquake in Nepal is on everybody’s mind and Vogel uses it to talk about that developing nation’s lack of hydro-electrical power. Because of this, he says, Nepal lacks manufacturing jobs and as a result, most young people have left the
But it is not enough for the Global Scholars to learn these lessons themselves. “You have to show the rest of the world what you’ve learned,” Ritter says. “You have to dispel (false) notions that people have.”
If Joe Vogel comes alive overseas—whether it be eating street food in India (he apparently has an enviably strong digestive system) or hobnobbing with the Attorney General of Belize— he is equally at home in the classroom. In fact, he is something of a force of nature in the classroom. His students tease him about the theatrical quality of his teaching performance. “He whispers for emphasis and he shouts for emphasis,” Shade says with a grin. In class, Vogel is an animated, constantly moving presence, a cross between Stephen Colbert and Jim Carrey, interspersing his stream of words with an occasional command: “Write it down,” or “Think critically.”
country to seek employment elsewhere. “Fifty percent of the workforce is out of the country,” he says. And this, he explains, looping around to where he started, is why it was the elderly who helped with the searchand-rescue efforts, because so many young men had left the country.
Today’s lesson is on energy security and a group of 18 girls—half of the usual class, since the others are off taking an exam—sit in a semicircle. Vogel starts by telling them that Charles Dunbar, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and Qatar, will be visiting the school and urging them to attend. He spends five minutes introducing Dunbar, then comes up for air. “Who should want to go? Besides everybody?” he asks, and then proceeds to discuss who should attend based on their specific interests. Then comes the kicker: 80 girls have already signed up to hear Dunbar speak.
And so it goes, an exhilarating, brain-polishing hour that goes from the Carter Doctrine to the OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s, to the energy investor T. Boone Pickens. Along the way, Vogel demonstrates an iron-clad mastery of his subject matter, even as that subject matter keeps growing: Fracking. Fukushima. Petrobras. Shale fields around the United States. Arcane details such as the number of new permits for oil well exploration issues by the state of Ohio in the last six months. Economics, history, geography, politics, foreign policy are all connected, as Vogel skates around the room, gesticulating, the deep voice rising and falling, asking questions, prodding for answers. And here’s the most amazing part: His students are with him every step of the way. Every question he asks, someone knows the answer. Every connection that he draws, a girl responds with a question of her own. It is as if he has created miniature Vogels in the classroom—a group of girls who are articulate, engaged, and imbued with the same restless energy and intellectual curiosity of the world in which they live.
Energy security doesn’t seem like an exciting topic, but before Vogel is done, he has made it seem like the most important subject under the sun. His genius is in his ability to connect the dots, linking not just politics and economics but also tying these to foreign policy. He begins with a deceptively simple question: “How many people across the world lack access to electricity?” A student has the right answer: Three billion people live in energy poverty. “So,” Vogel asks, “if you were a young woman living in a place that was energy poor, what would you be spending your days doing?” “Gathering firewood and water,” a student answers. “Aha,” says Vogel. “So what would that girl not be doing? She wouldn’t be in school.” A student raises her hand and recalls a “girl our age,” that she’d met during the class trip to Senegal. “She only slept four hours a day because she was gathering water and trying to go to school,” she tells the class.
In 1998, Vogel moved to Columbus to work as an assistant to Ohio Lt. Governor Maureen O’Connor. “I loved my job, but part of me felt like something was missing,” he says. He was coming to the slow realization that teaching would be a way of connecting his love for government, law, and global issues. And so, in 2000, he quit his job to earn a master’s degree in Social Studies in Global Education from The Ohio State University. His goal was to teach overseas. He was in rural Vietnam when 9/11 happened and learned about it almost 15 hours after the fact. He remembers the plane ride back to the U.S. two days later. The flight attendants on the plane were crying. They had lost friends in the attack.
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“In preparation for these trips, there is a lot of discussion about the cultural traditions of the country,” says McKenna Ritter ’16. “For instance, Senegal has varying faiths. You have to have respect for the local culture.”
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The year that followed was a hard time for the country and a hard time for him. There was a roadblock—he couldn’t get a work visa overseas without two years of teaching experience. The fruitless job search left him discouraged. Finally, he took a two-year position as a substitute teacher at Brooklyn Middle School on Cleveland’s west side.
Upper School Global Scholars visit the classroom of Kristen Wise and Emily Mount to read The Spider Weaver, A Legend of the Kente Cloth by Margaret Musgrove and Julia Cairns to the Early Childhood students. The older girls then assisted their young charges in decorating their own kente cloth squares inspired by the vibrant Ghanaian textiles described in the book.
His luck changed in 2004 when a fellow teacher, Bridgette Nadzam-Kasubick, who had recently been hired at HB, told him of another opening there. He applied and was hired as a fifthgrade teacher. By Vogel’s second year, HB’s Head of School Bill Christ was encouraging him to implement a preliminary version of what would become the Global Scholars program. They began with 50 students attending classes during their lunch break, eating their bagged lunches as they participated. Administrators expected to end the session with only five or six girls remaining. They were wrong. Only five or six dropped the class. From this small beginning, the program grew in numbers and popularity. For instance, Vogel says that out of a class of 104 freshmen in 2014, 99 girls signed up for Global Scholars. For many students, the program has been a life-altering experience. “It’s important to be an educated global citizen,” says Evie Schumann ’16. “I want to have an international component to whatever I do.”
Global Guides
Early Childhood students learn about diversity and multiculturalism from their Upper School sisters And because of her interactions with NGOs in Senegal, McKenna Ritter is now interested in studying international relations and joining the Peace Corps. Vogel still remembers his first day at the HB Middle School morning assembly. He was one of only three male teachers at the school. A lessconfident man may have been nervous to see that sea of female students and teachers. Not Vogel. He felt energized, challenged by what seemed like an opportunity to educate young minds. Today, he says he still loves teaching at a girls’ school. “It is so empowering to me to see the tangible results of what they’re doing here. We are chipping away at gender stereotypes. The girls can decide their own futures. We are giving them the skills to do anything they want to do.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of a memoir and six novels, including The Space Between Us, The World We Found, and The Story Hour. She is a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, a winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, and a finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins award. She is a professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.
Hathaway Brown’s Upper School students aren’t the only ones who reap the benefits of a multicultural, globalized curriculum. Joe Vogel, Director of HB’s Center for Global Citizenship, established a collaborative initiative in 2013 in partnership with Early Childhood Director Jane Brown and EC teacher Kristen Wise, who oversees the program. Global Scholars in grades 11 and 12 work in EC classrooms for a full semester, sharing broad international perspectives through lessons they design with faculty assistance. For HB’s youngest students, an understanding of community evolves from home and family, and widens as children actively engage with the world. Although places around the globe can be a far reach, bridges of understanding can be built by highlighting connections as well as by celebrating differences. Based in storytelling, the EC Global Scholars program provides an opportunity for US Global Scholars students to communicate their greater cultural experiences through this universal language as they enrich the lives of their young audience and deepen their own understanding.
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YOUNG MASTERS From painting and weaving to mask-making and self-portrait creation, art abounds at Hathaway Brown. Students in all divisions learn to think critically within a variety of media. These wonderful works demonstrate the many ways in which students use art to discover a sense of meaning and to express commonalities as well as their own individuality. HB art teachers work hard to foster a love of the subject, because we know that people who embrace art form the basis of a philosophical, empathic society.
Hathaway Brown’s Young Writers & Artists Festival opens students’ senses to creative expression [ BY DAVI D GI FFELS ]
[ PORT RAI TS BY JAMES D O UGLAS ]
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… white, like the pages of a gently used book, with only one small mark of imperfection, as though the reader had a speck of dirt lingering on her finger, transferred upon touch.
started with a wiffle ball.
Well, a wiffle ball and a Mr. Potato Head.
less o
ns
OK: A wiffle ball, a Mr. Potato Head, and a universe full of chaos. This turned out to be enough. Where it started was in the Senior Room, which apparently is sacred ground at Hathaway Brown. But I didn’t know this then. What I did know, after two previous visits to the Young Writers and Artists Festival, is that the library at Hathaway Brown can feel chilly on a day like this: Halloween, overcast, drizzly, rough wind clattering the branches. And when I learned that my group of 15 writers was assigned to gather in the library, and I began to lead them that way, past the regiment of cellos outside the music room, I asked the girls if they had any suggestions for a change of venue. “The Senior Room,” one offered. Can we? an underclassman asked, her furtive tone revealing the class divide that renders this section of the Upper School’s west end off limits to anyone under Grade 12. I, ignorant of the rules, declared that, yes, we could go anywhere we wanted. And so we changed course, settling into the cozy nook furnished with couches and padded armchairs. Then we began to talk about Mr. Potato Head. I had come to the school to talk about writing, to explore it, to practice it. I was one of 10 visiting writers and artists here for the third installment of this growing, changing festival, an event that has become a highlight of both Hathaway Brown’s school year and my own teaching year.
Rebecca Weinberger ’15 poses with a graphic representation of her painting, Logos, inspired by the artistic techniques taught by internationally renowned painter James March at HB’s 2014 Young Writers and Artists Festival.
Here was a chance to share one of my favorite lessons about nonfiction writing, one I stumbled across many years ago while doing some serious research-driven Googling on the subject of Mr. Potato Head. I found an essay by a journalist who suggested that a writer train himself to think like the old Hasbro toy. I told the young writers that morning about how I do this all the time, and that it always works. You arrive at some new place or person or thing, with the intention of writing about it. Invariably, you feel lost, disoriented, overwhelmed, or uncertain. So you imagine yourself as the unadorned Mr. Potato Head, fresh out of the box. Now: Open to a blank page. First, put on Mr. Potato Head’s eyes. Begin to record everything visual about the scene before you. Only the visual detail. And concentrate. If you see blue, don’t call it blue. Blue doesn’t mean anything. The sky is blue, and so is a new pair of jeans, and those two colors are as different as purple and green. Look for shapes and misspelled wall signs, dust in the corners and odd grain in the woodwork. Get it all down, without worrying about what it means. That will come later. Then put on Mr. Potato Head’s ears. Listen, I told them. If you weren’t thinking like Mr. Potato Head and I asked you what you hear here in the Senior Room when I stop talking, you would say, “nothing.” But now, what do you hear? “The lights,” one said. “Buzzing.” “The wind outside.” “Something squeaking.” “A bird.” Next, the hands. All the touch sensations— rough, smooth, rubbery, cool, wrinkled. Then the mouth. Even when you’re not writing about food, there can be taste. A thunderstorm has taste. So does a roofing nail.
And the nose. We don’t do enough with smell as writers. If you can bring me into the scents of your kitchen on Thanksgiving morning when your dad is grating a lemon peel and your mother is sweating celery and onions, I guarantee I’m in for at least a page of whatever comes next. That’s where we begin as writers. Not with ideas. Ideas are too hard; they deceive and elude. We begin with what the world gives us. What the world gives us first is chaos, and the way we wrestle that toward our ends is with our senses. Go now, I told them. For 30 minutes, go wherever you want, inside or outside. School was not in session that chilly Friday, and we had the run of the place.
She looked at it. She looked at it some more. It had holes, of course. Holes, she determined, “the size of chickpeas.” And “a subtle seam around the circumference.” She felt it. It was cold. And rough, yes, but rough was not exact. Writing “rough” is like writing “blue.” She felt it again. She determined that it felt like it had been “grazed over by low-grit sandpaper, leaving a matte, yet refined fluid shell interrupted only by the tiny sporadic craters.” She pushed it off the table, and listened. … when it bounces, it emulates the dull empty thud of a hammer colliding with drywall and fades into the memory of a child touching the spinning foam propellers of a dollar store personal fan.
That’s where we begin as writers. Not with ideas. Ideas are too hard; they deceive and elude. We begin with what the world gives us. What the world gives us first is chaos, and the way we wrestle that toward our ends is with our senses. Find a common object, I said. Something self-contained, and go all Mr. Potato Head on it. Off they went, and I stayed, alone in the Senior Room, and it was quiet again. Except there’s no such thing as quiet. We knew that now. Because we were writers. This is how Molly Sharpe ’16 found the wiffle ball. She and her friend Lizzie Poulos ’15 had wandered into the dim empty classroom of history teacher Kevin Purpura and began looking. Lizzie found a teardropshaped paperweight with swirls of blue inside. Molly found the white plastic ball full of holes, an everyday and uncomplicated object. “I didn’t know it would be there,” she told me later. “It was random. It seemed so simple. But I’ve never read about a wiffle ball before. So I kind of wanted to challenge myself.”
She wrote and wrote, filling her notebook with detail after detail, half-formed metaphors, stretches of imagination. The time was up too soon for her, but the girls were making their way back to the Senior Room and Molly did too. There, back together, they all began to share their findings. McKenna Ritter ’16 had explored a coat rack. Sue Roy ’15 found far more humanity than one might expect in a trash can. Kacey Gill ’16 had begun with a guitar case but was headed somewhere completely different. Continued on page 23.
HB
PHOTOS BY JAMES DOUGLAS; FESTIVAL LOGO ART BY BRADY FURLICH '15
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Please join us for the fourth annual
OCTOBER 29-31, 2015
Featuring authors Alexandra Fuller, Sarah Kay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jamaal May, David Giffels, and more. The festival is open to girls in grades 9-12 throughout Northeast Ohio. The program consists of lectures and hands-on immersive workshops in fiction and creative nonfiction writing, poetry, painting, songwriting, and photography. Additionally, renowned children’s author Andrea Davis Pinkney will be sharing her perspective with Primary School students on October 28. Visit www.hb.edu/write or contact Scott Parsons, Director of HB’s Osborne Writing Center, at 216.320.8796 ext. 7211 or sparsons@hb.edu to learn more.
visual arts portion of the Hathaway Brown Young Writers and Artists Festival is a perfect complement to the writing workshops in that students in both are encouraged to find their voices, and express themselves in ways that the traditional school arts curriculum cannot easily accommodate. During the festival, the campus is alive with sparkling creative energy. It is a moment in the school year during which HB students can feel what it’s like to be a working artist, clear their minds of all other tasks, and express themselves with an intensity and depth only this festival can provide. Inaugurated in 2012 with a comics workshop taught by Derf Backderf, the arts component of the festival has expanded to include a variety of artists. The 2014 workshops featured the return of Derf, as well as the addition of a painting workshop by internationally acclaimed artist James March, who creates stunning abstract geometric paintings that are shown across the country and throughout Europe. Students in both of these sessions produced work based on the style and methods of each artist, and the results are superb. “I had a great experience with the workshop,” March says. “The students were very motivated self-starters. I was amazed how they all just dove in using my painting techniques. Each had her own vision, and in the end, each made some truly remarkable art.”
PERSPECTIVE
Derf agrees. “It’s always a blast for me to teach comics to HB girls,” he says. “I’ve never encountered a more enthusiastic and receptive group of young writers and artists.” Allowing high school students the opportunity to work under the tutelage of established artists is both a rare and exciting event. Because of the intensity of the tasks at hand and the extended periods of time the students had in which to work, the creative energy during these sessions was palpable; the art studios were alive with energy and purpose. The HB Young Writers and Artists Festival gives students an avenue to create art in ways that could never occur during the regular school day.
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Jamie Morse is Hathaway Brown’s Visual Arts Department Chair.
New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Fuller is the “patron saint” of HB’s Young Writers and Artists Festival. Always a popular and inspirational instructor, she has been a pillar of the event since its inauguration in 2012. In 2014, she taught a session called “Mindfulness & Writing,” during which she asked students to meditate for an entire day before crafting one significant sentence.
Henry James offers one of my favorite quotes on writing: “We work in the dark— we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” But I don’t necessarily agree with the madness part. I’m more interested in the task. Writing is process. Each of the young writers had a subject now, a small thing. And each of the writers now had pages of detail to work with. The basic pattern of writing, for me, is to begin in the dark, and to find a small, clear thing, and to write that small thing upward toward meaning. So that’s what I sent them off to do next: Take the notes and craft them into an essay that strives to find some meaning from this object. Another favorite lesson: Write the small thing big and the big thing small. They scattered again, off to find quiet corners to write. I went in search of Mr. Parsons. That’s Scott Parsons, director of the Osborne Writing Center and the founder of the Young Writers and Artists Festival. He’s the one who invited me here and the one, I soon discovered, who deals with a lot more than the poetry of young minds. At this moment, he was dealing with a tardy delivery of a very large Chipotle order, which is to say he
was about to be confronted by the very real terror of a hundred hungry teenagers (not to mention 10 hungry visiting writers and artists).
and Karin Bergquist, came from Cincinnati. Acclaimed comics artist Derf came from just around the corner. He lives in Shaker Heights.
Parsons began teaching at Hathaway Brown in 2011. I first met him while he was in his previous position, an English teacher at Maplewood Career Center in Portage County, a much different environment where he nonetheless had been inspiring young people to write and to appreciate art and literature. He inspired me as well, with his passion for teaching and art, and his commitment to changing perceptions of vocational school education in relation to creative pursuits.
Renowned author Alexandra Fuller, the “patron saint” of the festival, came from her home in Wyoming for her third visit to the festival. She challenged her students to meditate for a whole day, not writing until the very end—a single sentence. (Each time I sent my own group of girls down the hallways in search of wiffle balls and quiet places to write, I felt a little guilty, as if I was violating Alexandra’s intense concentration.)
He arrived at HB to direct the writing program with three main goals: 1. Build community 2. Make safe creative spaces 3. Foster authentic voices The writing festival, he told me recently, “was the main thing I wanted to do when I started here.” The festival has grown from 60 participants and four visiting workshop leaders in 2012 to 87 participants and five workshop leaders in 2013, to 109 participants and 10 workshop leaders in 2014. The most recent festival included daylong sessions focused on fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, playwriting, songwriting, painting and comics, led by visiting artists from near and far.
“Everyone who does it one year does it the next year,” Parsons says. “Now it’s the centerpiece of the whole year.” The festival, and its effects, have transformed his notion of teaching and many of these students’ notions of writing. After the 2013 festival, for instance, a young woman described how the experience affected her work. “She told me, ‘At the beginning of the year, in class, you kept talking about not writing for a teacher, but writing for a real audience. It wasn’t until I did the workshop that I truly understood what that meant,’” he said. Another told Parsons it was the most important thing she’d done all year. “It’s not about thinking you’re talented,” she said. “It’s about being you and knowing that’s enough.”
Poet Jamaal May came from Detroit. Over The Rhine, an Americana band led by husband-and-wife duo Linford Detweiler
The festival has grown from 60 participants and four visiting workshop leaders in 2012 to 87 participants and five workshop leaders in 2013, to 109 participants and 10 workshop leaders in 2014. The most recent festival included daylong sessions focused on fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, playwriting, songwriting, painting and comics, led by visiting artists from near and far.
HB
LEFT PHOTOS BY JASON MILLER; BOT TOM RIGHT PHOTO BY JAMES DOUGLAS
Now here is where the writer begins, I told them. The world gives us chaos. But it also offers us detail, and has graced us with both the senses to determine those details and the whimsy to wonder about them. We only need one little hook to get us going.
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I’ve done this before with groups of writers, and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the results, but I am. Every time. I am surprised, and rewarded, and I learn again one of the truest lessons of writing: if you give yourself over to that chaos, and you work through the process, you will discover something you didn’t know you already knew. You will find the surprise— the delight—of your own insight. Each of these young writers had found meaning, some large, some small.
The results are remarkable, and not just anecdotal. In 2013, more than 90 HB students entered the region’s Scholastic Art and Writing Awards contest. Twenty-one of them won Gold Keys, qualifying them for national judging, and 60 percent of the regional awards went to Hathaway Brown girls.
Molly’s turn came, and she read. In that unremarkable white sphere, she found metaphor after metaphor, ways of playing with language that gave an understated beauty and grace to, well, yes—a wiffle ball.
“And there’s a hundred-percent correlation between festival participants and the competition,” Parsons says.
“It’s someone who’s a risk-taker,” he answered. “Someone who feels and thinks and is alive. Someone who is a seeker and a questioner. Someone who strives toward beauty.”
I left him to handle the Chipotle affair and returned to the Senior Room. The girls were coming back with their essays. We had enough time for an open reading of their work, and they began, one by one, to share aloud their writing.
I asked Molly, a junior who has now participated in two festivals, the same question. “I think that anyone can be a writer whether they believe so or not. You don’t have to have an immense vocabulary or use insane metaphors to show people what you are feeling. Simply writing to get the words out of your head or to create something that you are proud of is what defines you as a writer. A writer is someone who writes simply because they love to write, not because they have to.” And so she accepted the challenge offered by the wiffle ball. A risk of sorts. A challenge to think, and to seek, and to question. A challenge toward language and beauty. The ball lays at rest until someone saunters by, each footstep shifting the carpet thrown over hardwood floors, giving motion to the ball once again. As it glides across the tight, roughly bound synthetic fabric, it composes the faint lull of a movie reel until it runs out of film.
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About the Author (pictured, right) David Giffels’ most recent books are The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt and All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Parade, The Wall Street Journal, on Esquire.com, ESPN’s Grantland, and in many other publications. He is an assistant professor of English at The University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.
TOP LEFT, BOT TOM RIGHT PHOTOS BY JASON MILLER; TOP RIGHT, BOT TOM LEFT PHOTOS BY JAMES DOUGLAS
He and I chatted briefly in the Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room, where he had been trying to get a little writing of his own done in the quiet hours of the morning. But now, as will happen in a school, a collective energy—a new kind of chaos—was brewing. Call it lunchtime.
Her meditation on the object offered its own small, humble and yet satisfying answer to a question I posed to Scott Parsons: What is a writer?
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Hathaway Brown is an independent day
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school that enrolls girls in preschool through 12th grade and boys and girls in
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Early Childhood. It is the oldest collegepreparatory girls’ school in Ohio, originally established as the Brooks School for Ladies, an adjunct to the prestigious Brooks Military Academy in downtown Cleveland. It was founded by five intrepid young women who implored the headmaster at Brooks to allow them to take afternoon classes. The school’s name was changed to Hathaway Brown 10 years later and moved to its permanent Shaker Heights location in 1927. Established: 1876 Motto: Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus: We Learn Not For School, But For Life Colors: Brown and Gold Head of School: Bill Christ (1987-present) OHSAA Division: II Girls in EC-12 Boys and Girls in Early Childhood Co-ed Infant & Toddler Center 850 Students 8:1 Student-Teacher Ratio Four Divisions: Early Childhood (ages 2 ½ to 5); Primary School (K-4); Middle School (5-8); Upper School (9-12) Tuition ranges from $4,000-$27,000 per year
Tuition We look for talented students of strong character regardless of a family’s ability to pay tuition. For commonly asked questions and detailed information about HB’s financial aid program and eligibility guidelines, visit www.hb.edu/admission. Students are admitted to Hathaway Brown and awarded financial aid on the basis of personal and academic performance and promise, and are included in all school activities and programs, without discrimination on grounds of race, color, religion, or national or ethnic origin. For 2015-16, HB has committed $4 million to the need-based financial aid program. Students in grades K-12 are eligible to apply for these funds and approximately 32 percent receive financial assistance. Hathaway Brown School does not offer athletic scholarships. All awards are based on a family’s demonstrated need as determined by School and Student Services, a subsidiary of the National Association of Independent Schools. Merit scholarships also are available for ninth-graders.
Families from 80 Northeast Ohio communities 34 percent students of color 100 percent of graduates attend four-year colleges Endowment of $53.5 million 16-acre campus with aquatics center, turf field, invention lab, visual performing arts spaces, and working television studio Financial aid awarded to 32 percent of students Home of the innovative Institute for 21st Century Education Partnerships with nearly 100 Greater Cleveland organizations One-to-one technology program Extensive transportation options
Infant & Toddler Center (6 weeks - 36 months) $3,000 to $14,000 Early Childhood (ages 2½ – 5) $4,500 (2 days per week) to $10,600 (5 days per week & Extended Day) Primary School (grades K – 4) $18,500 to $20,800 Middle School (grades 5 – 8) $22,200 to $24,000
Merit scholarships available at the high-school level Hathaway Brown is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools, the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, the Ohio Association of Independent Schools, the Cleveland Council of Independent Schools, and is a founding member of the World Education Alliance.
Upper School (grades 9 – 12) $26,100 to $27,400 For specific tuition and fee costs, please contact the Office of Admission at 216.320.8767.
Way to go, Class of 2015!
Beginning in our Infant
& Toddler Center and continuing all the way through senior year, Hathaway Brown students are nurtured, supported, and challenged to reach their maximum potential. A recent column in The Atlantic points out that
young scholars do not suddenly become successful just because they’ve gained admission to a top-tier college: “… the truer thing is that their lives have already been shaped decisively by the sum of their own past decisions—the habits developed, the friends made, and the challenges overcome.”
Baldwin Wallace University Barnard College Bates College Boston University Bryn Mawr College Bucknell University
The HB Class of 2015 was offered more than
Howard University (2)
The Ohio State University (6)
The University of Iowa Kenyon College Lehigh University (2)
Tulane University University of Utah Vanderbilt University
London School of Economics (UK)
Case Western Reserve University (3)
Loyola University Chicago
Wagner College
Macalester College
Wake Forest University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Washington University in St. Louis
Miami University, Oxford (6)
Wesleyan University
Chapman University Clark University Colgate University (2)
100% of the HB Class of 2015 will now be off to continue their studies at some of the best colleges and universities in the world, and 80% of those students were accepted to their top-choice schools, or one of their top choices, if they ranked them by group. We couldn’t be prouder of our girls.
University of St. Andrews (UK)
Carleton College
Colby College
in merit and other college scholarships, including full tuition packages.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
University of Colorado, Boulder (2)
University of Miami
Cornell University (4)
University of Michigan (3)
Dartmouth College (2)
New York University
Denison University
Northwestern University
DePaul University
University of Pennsylvania (5)
Eastern Michigan University
Rhodes College
Elon University
University of Richmond
Emory University (3)
University of Rochester
Franklin University Switzerland
Saint Louis University
George Washington University Georgetown University (2) Hamilton College (2)
Skidmore College University of Southern California (2)
University of Vermont
Williams College (2) The College of Wooster Worcester Polytechnic Institute Yale University (3)
In total, 18 HB seniors received
24 OFFERS to attend Ivy League schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale.
Benita Y. Pearson ’81, U.S. federal judge for the Northern District of Ohio, and keynote speaker for HB’s 139th Commencement Exercises, June 5, 2015
QUOTABLE
HB
LEFT PHOTOS BY SHANNON AHLSTRAND; RIGHT PHOTOS BY KEVIN REEVES
Eschew timidity. Act. Until you act, you will never know what you can achieve.
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admission calendar october
december
january
Middle & Upper School Open House
ISEE Testing
Infant & Toddler Sneak Peek
Thursday, October 22, 2015 5-7 p.m.
Saturday, December 5, 2015 8 a.m.-12 p.m.
Thursday, January 14, 2016 9 a.m.
for parents of prospective students grades 5-12
Middle School Parent Preview
grades 5-12
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
for parents of prospective students grades 5-8
Current Eighth Grade Parent Preview
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 8:30-10 a.m.
november Infant & Toddler, Early Childhood, and Kindergarten Open House
for prospective Infant &Toddler-Kindergarten families Saturday, November 7, 2015 10-11:30 a.m.
Middle School Parent Preview
Tuesday, December 8, 2015 8:15-9:30 a.m.
Infant & Toddler Center Sneak Peek for prospective Infant & Toddler Center families Wednesday, December 9, 2015 5:30 p.m. Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Application Deadline for Early Decision Round grades 4-12
Friday, December 11, 2015
for parents of prospective students grades 5-8
ISEE Testing
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Saturday, December 12, 2015 8 a.m.-12 p.m.
Thursday, November 12, 2015 8:30-10 a.m.
Upper School Parent Preview
grades 5-12
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
for parents of prospective students grades 9-12
Imagine High School
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
prospective Grade 9 students
Friday, November 13, 2015 8:30-10 a.m.
ISEE Testing
for current students in Grade 8 and Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
CCIS Admission & Financial Aid Early Decision Date for prospective students with completed admission files grades 4-12
Friday, January 15, 2016
Accepted Middle School Parent Coffee for accepted students and their parents grades 5-8 Wednesday, January 20, 2016 8:30-10 a.m. Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Accepted Upper School Student Dinner for accepted students and their parents grades 9-12 Thursday, January 21, 2016 6-8 p.m.
Atrium, Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 & Family Dining Hall
Infant & Toddler, Early Childhood, and Kindergarten Open House for prospective Infant & Toddler Center, Early Childhood, and Kindergarten families
Saturday, January 23, 2016 10-11:30 a.m.
9:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Kindergarten Visitation Day
The Ahuja Auditorium, Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 8:30-10 a.m.
grades 5-12
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room,
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
& Family Dining Hall
Saturday, November 14, 2015 8 a.m.-12 p.m.
for prospective Infant & Toddler Center families
for prospective Kindergarten families
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Choosing an All-Girls Kindergarten
Middle School Parent Preview
Kindergarten students
Thursday, January 28, 2016 8:30-10 a.m.
for current and prospective parents of rising
Wednesday, November 18, 2015 8:30 a.m. Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Primary Visitation Day
for parents of prospective students grades 5-8 Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Kindergarten Screenings
for current Pre-Kindergarten students and prospective
for parents of prospective students grades 1-4
Kindergarten students
Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room
Kindergarten Classrooms
Friday, November 20, 2015 8:30-10:30 a.m.
Friday, January 29, 2016 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
CCIS Early Decision Round Reply Date grades 4-12
Friday, January 29, 2016
Aspire...Inspires! HB
Held every Summer since 2002, Hathaway Brown’s Aspire Program has been a place “where girls learn to lead and people are inspired to teach” through a tuition-free six-week academic program. Aspire taps the leadership of girls from under-resourced schools in the Cleveland area, helping them expand their educational opportunities. To learn more, please visit www.hb.edu/aspire.
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PHOTOS BY SHANNON AHLSTRAND
Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage
19600 North Park Boulevard Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122
PAID
Cleveland, Ohio Permit #3439
The best way to get to know Hathaway Brown is to come see us. Call 216.320.8767 today to schedule a personal tour. We’d love to show you around. Extensive additional information about HB, including overviews of all our signature customized academic programs, may be found at www.hb.edu. Navigate to the Admission tab for details about interviews, student visits, applications, screenings, and financial aid. Be sure also to find us through our social media channels.
PHOTO BY SHANNON AHLSTRAND
learn more.