Harvard-Westlake Life Magazine, Spring 2018

H ARVA R D-W ESTLAKE SPRING 2018 Sally Ride ’68 First American woman in space

Artwork by Anna Gong ’18

HW Legacy 4 Dr. Karl Kleinz: One of History’s Greatest Teachers Remembering the former upper school history and social studies teacher 8 Hope Boyd: Kudos to You A memorial tribute to the former English teacher and head of the middle school 12 Sally Ride ’68: Ride, Sally Ride How this self-described “gross underachiever” became the first American woman in space

HW Today 18 Good Night, Sleep Right Harvard-Westlake and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles team up to study sleep’s effect on students 22 Welcome to the Family Inside HW Sibs 26 Bright Idea Building a bridge with Bright Star Schools 30 Tiana Woolridge ’11 and Sancho Accorsi ’06: Passing It On How Harvard-Westlake financial aid helped bring their dreams to life 34 Human Interest The commitment to financial aid at Harvard-Westlake 36 Dr. Lucy Jones: Mover and Shaker Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones shakes up the field of disaster preparedness

Faculty & Staff Profiles 42 Elizabeth Gregory Riordan: Looking at the Big Picture Elizabeth Gregory Riordan reflects on her last 48 years at Westlake and Harvard-Westlake 47 Meet New Director of Admission Aaron Mieszczanski 48 Retiring Faculty & Staff In the words of their colleagues

Alumni Profiles 52 Jan King ’80: Purpose Beyond Herself From officer for the Department of Public Health to president of the HW Alumni Association 56 Aaron Guggenheim ’99: In the Line of Fire The LAFD firefighter on battling December’s Creek Fire blaze

Student Voices 25 A Love Poem for Sleep

By Hui Nan Eunice Kiang ’20 40 Loving Sportsball

By Lucas Gelfond ’19 in the Harvard-Westlake Chronicle 60 The California Fires: The Tragedy That Proved Our Strength as a Community

By Katharine Steers ’22 in the Harvard-Westlake Spectrum 67 Bath

By Emma Poveda ’20

Notes 62 Class Notes 64 Packing Some Hinges for Your Summer Trip

By Senior Advancement Officer and Director of Major Gifts Jim Pattison

Last Look 68 Formal at Westlake, early 1950s

HW LEGACY

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Photo by Utkan Kocaturk

Letter from Ed Hu

Dear Friends of Harvard-Westlake, A big part of my job is to keep alumni and parents connected to present-day Harvard-Westlake. Your relationship with Harvard-Westlake should be an organic one that grows and evolves, not just a four- or six-year experience. I like to call it “Harvard-Westlake for Life.”

Perhaps that’s a reflection of my own experience, as I’ve now been at Harvard-Westlake for 24 years in various roles as teacher, college counselor, dean, and now head of external relations. Unlike many educators, I have the distinct privilege of seeing the fruits of our collective labor at Harvard-Westlake.

I see our students grow up to become adults with productive and satisfying lives, often citing their years at Harvard-Westlake as among their most formative. Many of my days are filled with visits from graduates who return to campus to see what’s changed or with alumni around the country and the world, from New York to Beijing to Jerusalem to Silver Lake.

People often reach out to the Office of Advancement seeking advice or ways to connect with others in the Harvard-Westlake community, whether through HW Works, our online networking platform, or personal introductions. You can help us be a better resource by reaching out to us, not only when you have questions, but just to give us a simple update. I want to invite you to reach out to me or Director of Alumni Relations David Lee ’89, and let us know what you’re doing or if you’ve moved to a new city.

Whether it is sharing advice about your profession with a young college graduate or someone considering a career transition, talking with a current Harvard-Westlake student thinking about attending your college alma mater, or helping a fellow alum who is moving to your city, connecting members of the Harvard-Westlake family across generations is what makes our community stronger.

I hope you’ll continue to stay connected with us at Harvard-Westlake, as well as enjoy this latest version of HW Life.

Cheers,

Ed Hu Head of External Relations ehu@hw.com P.S. Get HW updates on Facebook @Harvard-Westlake Alumni Association, on Instagram @hwalumni, and on Twitter @HWSchool.

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HW LEGACY

Dr. Karl Kleinz

Remembering One of History’s Greatest Teachers A teacher at Harvard and then Harvard-Westlake from 1981 to 1998, Dr. Karl Kleinz passed away in February. Kleinz was beloved by countless students and colleagues; a few of them offer this tribute.

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Photo of Jonathan Bock ’89 and Karl Kleinz by Allan Sasaki, Halloween 1988

SPRING 2018

“One of my favorite authors is the great Southern writer, Flannery O’Connor.

In quite a different context, in one of her novels, a character [is described as having a] ‘stinger’ in the brain. I have always loved that image because it really describes for me what a teacher is all about. We join this profession not to teach geniuses (although I have been fortunate to have had a few) or to fill students with perishable facts. What each of us, as teachers, hopes is that an idea, an image, a word will remain with students like stingers in their brains. That one day a painting in a museum, a newspaper headline, a conversation will remind them of us. I hope that I have left some of these stingers in your brains. If I have done so, I have fulfilled my vocation as a teacher and will have served each of you wisely and well.”

KARL KLEINZ AT HIS RETIREMENT DINNER

“Although Karl has been particularly beloved by those he teaches, he had always shunned the cult of personality, the Miss Jean Brodie syndrome, the temptation for any popular teacher to cultivate a group of slavish devotees—‘ducks,’ as Karl calls them—who waddle cheerfully behind you, caring more about what you think than about what you teach, caring more about eliciting your opinions than about formulating their own. No teacher I have ever met could have had a longer or more devoted line of ducks than Karl; no teacher I have ever met has more studiously avoided it.

From time to time, I have seen Karl astonished by the work of his students.

‘Listen to this,’ he will exult to the rest of us, and then read a passage from a particularly fine essay or term paper. ‘I wish I had written that,’ he will marvel—and genuinely mean it. There is not a trace of self-congratulation in this. It is never ‘look at what my student has done’; it is always ‘look at what this student has done.’ And there we have it: For all Karl’s devotion to the ‘life of the mind,’ it is not the life of his mind that he cares about most; it is ours.”

ERIC ZWEMER, FROM A SPEECH HE GAVE AT KARL KLEINZ’S RETIREMENT DINNER dan smith ’87: I have very fond memories of Kleinz.

He taught with a passion and enthusiasm and sense of humor that not only kept our collective attention, but actually engaged us. In art history, Dr. Kleinz would literally climb atop the podium, perched precariously on one knee with the other leg extended for balance, an arm raised in gesticulation or waving a pointer across the giant projection screen, sweat dripping from his forehead and soaking the armpits of his oxford shirt. It was education unwittingly disguised as performance art.

nini halkett, upper school history and social studies teacher: What stands out about Karl was his impressive intellect. History, art, music, politics—the range and depth of his knowledge was astonishing. Karl famously had a record collection that numbered in the hundreds or maybe even thousands. For me, as a relatively young teacher at the time, he was a little intimidating because of the awesome reputation he had, but he was also funny and warm-hearted, and, of course, much beloved by his students.

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HW LEGACY

francine werner ’68, upper school history and social studies teacher: I met Karl in the process of the merger, and my first impression of him was not positive, but by Christmas of our first year actually working together, I had come to adore him. He was kind and funny and very cerebral. He used a typewriter long after the rest of us had switched to computers. Karl had a way of getting people to talk about themselves and was a great listener. I remember he would very rarely answer his phone at home, but when the Northridge earthquake hit, he called each one of us to see if we were okay.

jonathan bock ’89: What I liked most about Dr. Kleinz is that he talked to us like we were adults. For example, if a painting was violent or bawdy, he didn’t shy away from discussing it. For teenage boys longing to be taken seriously as young men, Karl Kleinz was just what the doctor ordered.

Senior year, I dressed up as Kleinz for Halloween. With the tie usually two inches above his belt, the dress shirt always in some stage of untuck, his sweet leather ankle boots with European side zippers, those iconic Cokebottle glasses—how could I resist? The reaction to my costume around campus was spectacular, especially from his fellow teachers, who, I think, appreciated the attention to detail. Thankfully, Dr. Kleinz was a man with a tremendous sense of humor. When I walked into class, his eyes scrunched up, he crossed his arms, and his whole body jiggled in grinning approval.

I remained friends with Dr. Kleinz after I graduated, and one day while home from college, he took me out to Mistral on Ventura Boulevard. Very fancy! Most students didn’t know his personal story, but he was kind enough to share it with me, including that he was a collector of fine art. At our lunch, he told me that his house had been recently broken into. Apparently, the thieves never took his art history class—because they foolishly took the $400 TV and left the $4,000,000 Chagall hanging directly above it!

larry klein, upper school interdisciplinary studies department head and history teacher: Karl Kleinz was my mentor for the two years prior to his retirement, which coincided with my first two fulltime years teaching history. Karl prized the cultivation of intellect above all else and seemed to treasure the connection he made with his students through his teaching. Karl’s most prized class session was his passionate discourse on Van Gogh, which annually

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brought tears to his eyes and those of his students.

Unknown to some, Karl was also a devoted HW baseball enthusiast.

dave waterhouse, upper school history and social studies teacher: Karl was dean of faculty when we were hiring our previous headmaster, Mr. [Tom] Hudnut, and when he found out that the faculty was not allowed input into the decision, he not only resigned as dean of faculty in protest, but also resigned as chair of the history department. Nevertheless, Mr. Hudnut chose him to head the Faculty Academic Committee, which he ran for years with a firm but caring hand. He was an enthusiastic and brilliant lecturer; yet he often got quite nervous before he spoke. He had a jolly sense of humor and was always fun to be around.

katherine holmes-chuba, upper school history and social studies teacher: Karl was a character. There was a famous myth about Karl that he never took a paycheck. He never drove—he took the bus everywhere. He grew up in Philly and lived in New York, so he was used to public transportation and had no interest in driving.

Karl hired me in 1985, when the school was still all boys. I was fresh out of grad school and looked 18, even though I was 25. The best advice he ever gave me was on day one: “Do not smile until December. The minute you lose control of your classroom, you’ll never get it back. You can become nicer over time, but you can’t go the other way. As a teacher, you’re there to instruct and be a guide, but you’re not their friend.”

He and [former upper school art teachers] Carl Wilson and John Luebtow started the AP art history course, and half the senior class took it. They were mesmerizing, creating a world that these boys hadn’t thought much about before.

A couple of years ago, Karl and I were out to dinner and [Los Angeles Mayor] Eric Garcetti [’88] walked by. Karl called out, “Mr. Mayor!” “Dr. Kleinz!” Garcetti replied, giving him a big hug. He wanted to take a selfie with Karl.

Karl inspired and probably terrified some kids. He was sort of, “School is your job, and if you’re late on something, you’re accountable. It’s a contract and you have to live up to it.” Yet he cared so much about his students. If a kid was in trouble, Karl was the first person there talking to them. He didn’t have his own children, so his students are his legacy.

SPRING 2018

From the 1987 Harvard School yearbook

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HW LEGACY

Hope Boyd Kudos to You

A tribute to the former English teacher and head of the middle school

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SPRING 2018

Hope Boyd started teaching English at Harvard in 1976 and in 1984 was named head of the middle school at Westlake.

She served in that role through the merger in 1992, when she became head of school at Wildwood. She passed away in February and is remembered here by her son and fellow faculty, staff, and former students. joy langford ’91: Mrs. Boyd always had Kudos [granola] bars in her office. She would walk around during snack time handing them out with an encouraging “Kudos to you!” She walked in a way that other people wanted to follow. Her smile just lit up the world.

She went on to help start the Independent School Alliance [formerly known as the Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs, an organization focused on the counseling and placement of underrepresented students in independent schools]. She set a path for children of color to attend institutions like Harvard-Westlake and raised money for students who might not have had money for extras like school trips. She made waves and opened the conversation about what diversity looked like.

james chapman ’81: She interacted with students on a personal level, not just as a teacher talking at students. She would occasionally make this certain face (a raised eyebrow with head tilted slightly down looking over the top of her glasses), and you would instantly know where you stood in the situation, good or bad. She would ask, “Is that what you really meant?” Tough, but in a nice way.

She had an easy smile and was one of the warmest, most caring teachers during my time at Harvard.

anaël edwards ’91: Mrs. Boyd would always attend our basketball and softball games, front row, cheering us on at our home games. On the days of our away games, she would track me down to give me pointers about focus, hitting those threes, being careful not to hurt myself taking those charges, and keeping my cool. Aside from my mom, she was my biggest fan and lucky charm.

Anytime I had issues with anything or just wanted to talk, I’d always find her for some sound advice.​ I can still hear her voice in my head telling me to keep my chin up and tuck my shirt in, as she walked away to the sound of her bangles making such a sweet symphony.

Years later, I would run into her from time to time in Ladera Heights. I was surprised she remembered not only my name, but my mom, dad, and brother’s names as well!

Approachable, down-to-earth, funny, a great cheerleader and mentor, she is one of a handful of teachers I will sorely miss and will always remember as a huge part of my formative years​.

ron alcalay ’82: In what other class could we study the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Woodstock” as an example of poetry? In addition to influencing my decision to pursue a doctorate in literature, I’m just grateful she didn’t judge the rants in my journal and always greeted me with the most sincere smile. Mrs. Boyd’s class was a place of compassion.

jerome margolis, former upper school performing arts teacher: Now there was a great lady. She was warm, caring, and devoted to searching out new ideas in education.

She had a neat sense of humor and a sly laugh.

vicki goddard ’60, former director of community service: Hope Boyd was a wonderful friend and colleague—an intelligent woman with a great sense of humor who loved her profession. She treated her students as individuals and was always encouraging and fair. She also loved basketball—especially the Lakers.

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HW LEGACY

tina cleveland, director of bookstore operations: Hope Boyd approved my hire in 1989 at Westlake School for Girls. I was one of only a couple staff of color during that time.

I remember Hope walking by the attendance office window each morning, greeting me and all the junior and senior girls who hung out in the office. Hope taught us to smile, greet each other, be kind to each other, have patience, and be fair.

Hope was an attentive listener and led by example. She was always gracious with her time and words of wisdom. And she spoke the truth, never sugar-coating anything.

Hope didn’t give me the answers. She would look me in the eye, listen to my concerns, smile, gather her thoughts, and ask me, “Well, what do you think you should do?” She taught me to be a thinker— don’t run to the answers, but form my own opinion based on the facts. And as long as my decision was fair, she would smile. Her silence spoke as loudly as her words.

chitra kallay, former middle school english teacher: I met Hope Boyd 40 years ago when I was asked to substitute for a teacher at Harvard. I was very nervous. This was the best school in the city. It was an all-boys school. The students would probably be taller than I was. When I got to the school, the teachers were friendly, but so busy. Except Hope—she gave me a welcoming smile, sat down with me, and told me what to expect—all the details that made me comfortable. After that day, I was asked to substitute often, and Hope always made time to chat with me. We got to know each other quite well and began to go to shows and movies together. When she told me she was moving to Westlake as head of the middle school, I knew she would be splendid.

One day she called to tell me that a position had opened at Westlake—was I interested? Yes! Working with Hope was a pleasure—I followed her whenever I could and watched and learned. She knew the names of all the girls and their interests. I tried to emulate that as well. We became even better friends and started traveling together.

She was a wonderful and adventurous travel companion. We saw the pyramids and sailed down the Nile, shopped in the suks of Morocco. We went to Alaska, England, Greece, Italy…. When we were in Rio, we were out for dinner and the menu had a mystery offering. “What is it?” she asked. The waiter said, “Fried grasshoppers.” I wasn’t brave enough to try even a bite; Hope ate the whole serving!

Hope was a visionary as well. A year after Harvard and Westlake merged, she moved on to a small elementary school on the west side, Wildwood. In under 10 years, she had added a middle school and a high school—a remarkable achievement.

Most of all, Hope was my friend—someone I could talk to, discuss books with, and share laughs about this crazy world. I miss her every day.

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SPRING 2018

“The things that always stood out about my mom were her strength of character and genuine care for others. When I was a preschooler in Philadelphia, my mom took a teaching position in a program for unwed teenage mothers. She felt that these girls needed someone, and she was going to be that someone. At the time, we had very little money and lived in a rougher part of Philly, and while she could have taken a better paying position elsewhere, she followed her heart.

Taking walks with her was never a ‘point A to point B’ experience. She would literally stop and smell the roses, inspect an interesting bit of graffiti, meander down a newly discovered path, or listen to a curious sound. The world was very much a place of beauty and wonder for her.

As a ninth grader at Harvard School, I learned that I had been assigned to her English class. After my shock subsided, I sprinted to the registrar to immediately transfer out of her class. I was well aware that my mom had very high standards, and even higher ones for me. English wasn’t my best subject. Upon arriving at the registrar’s door, I found that she had already called to have the change made. Later that night at dinner, she admitted that she’d had me transferred because she ‘didn’t want to put us both through that agony.’

My mom lived her values and believed deeply in the good within people.

As the head of school at Wildwood School, she spent a great deal of time at board meetings and fundraisers. As such, she developed great relationships with CEOs of multinational firms, studio execs, actors, producers, directors, world-renowned musicians, artists, politicians, etc., but her favorite and most loved people were always the kids. Countless times, I witnessed her reject a call from an entertainment or political luminary in favor of a child that needed her time.” geoff boyd ’80, hope boyd’s son

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HW LEGACY

SALLY RIDE ’68

Ride, Sally Ride How this self-described “gross underachiever” became the first American woman in space Sally Ride ’68 has three elementary schools named after her, including one in Los Angeles. She’s the most famous figure in the LEGO Women of NASA set. She cowrote seven children’s science books and cofounded Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego, dedicated to inspiring young people in science, technology, engineering, and math. And 35 years ago, on June 18, 1983, she also became the first American woman in space. Sally’s sister, Bear Ride ’71 (“Sally was two when I came along and couldn’t say ‘Karen,’ so she called me ‘Bear,’ and it stuck”), and a couple of her classmates remember Sally reaching for the stars—and inspiring so many others to do the same. bear ride ’71, presbyterian minister: My parents bought us a telescope when Sally was probably in junior high. She was fascinated. She set it up and it was just—you know how sometimes something grabs you and you don’t know why? For her, this was it.

Sally was a really good tennis player and was on the circuit with a bunch of girls from Westlake, including Whitney Grant ’71, her doubles partner. Sally ended up getting a tennis scholarship to attend Westlake and became the captain of the team. She was a very competitive person— really easygoing and down to earth most of the time, but in a competition she would not be bested. I never beat Sally at anything—well, once I beat her at ping-pong, but the rest of our lives, she creamed me. susan okie ’68, former washington post medical reporter: I came to Westlake in ninth grade and Sally came a year later. When you were new, you were assigned a big sister to orient you, and Sally got me. We were introduced as she walked into the backyard at a class party before school started, and she flashed me that wide grin she always had. We both lived in Encino—the Valley was the low-rent district at that time—so we carpooled and became close friends almost immediately.

The “gross underachiever” line [from her page in her yearbook] may have been a label she got from a teacher—she took a perverse pride in blowing off everything except the things she was interested in. Science and math teachers adored her, but English and Spanish teachers hated her because she would just sit there and doodle and look bored. And yet she did well, even in the classes she didn’t care about. francine werner ’68, now a history teacher at the upper school: We were in honors English together. Many of our classmates remember that class fondly, but we were more practical and less philosophical, so eye rolling was our main bonding experience. susan okie ’68: In eleventh grade, we had this fantastic human physiology course taught

by Dr. Elizabeth Mommaerts. She had been on the UCLA faculty and was an incredible scientific role model. Westlake had minimal science facilities and no physics class at that point. We took chemistry in twelfth grade from Janet Mennie [now Schroeder], who was a new teacher only a few years older than we were, and Sally and a few others successfully leaned on her to teach physics too. Sally was already ambitious about going into astrophysics.

Things were changing at Westlake; the women’s movement was coming in. Gone were the days when people were expected to get married right out of college. A lot of teachers were telling girls they could do anything and be anything.

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SPRING 2018

“When she got the job, she called and said ‘Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood astronaut!’ It was thrilling.”

BEAR RIDE ’71

Photo courtesy of NASA

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HW LEGACY

francine werner ’68: Our class was pretty involved in women’s rights and a lot of other issues. The outside world was definitely a part of our senior year.

We graduated a couple of days after Bobby Kennedy was shot. The Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King—all that was going on while we were trying to graduate high school. There were 49 people in our class, all of them ready to take on a new world, including Sally. She was sharp, calm, unflappable. susan okie ’68: We started at Swarthmore [College] together, but sophomore year, she announced she was going back to California. She missed the sunshine and being able to play tennis year-round. She went to UCLA for a quarter, then Stanford, where she thrived. bear ride ’71: In 1972, the summer before she started graduate school at Stanford, Sally was teaching tennis at a tennis camp at Lake Tahoe that was partly owned

by Billie Jean King. At the end of the summer, Sally and the main pro at camp played mixed doubles against Billie Jean and one of the other pros. The match was very close, and Billie Jean told Sally she could consider going pro herself. Sally thought about it, but decided to go back to school instead. susan okie ’68: One day Sally called and said she had seen this ad in the Stanford paper saying that NASA was looking for mission specialists with scientific backgrounds, and women would be included. She’d always said she wanted to be a scientist and win the Nobel Prize, but when she saw the ad, she decided to go for it and apply. Later, she told me they asked in the interview if you’d ever had amnesia, and she and all the candidates who became astronauts gave the same answer: “I can’t remember.”

When she got the job, she called and said, “Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood astronaut!” bear ride ’71: In 1977, there was a lot of pressure on NASA to become more inclusive. Until then, there were only military guys; you had to be a fighter pilot to be an astronaut. The Soviets had already sent up two women [Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya], and with the advent of the space shuttle, there was more science involved with human space flight. It wasn’t just “let’s see if we can get up and orbit” anymore, but “what do we do once we get up there?” Sally was one of six women chosen for the incoming class of 35 astronauts in 1978.

Most of them were scientists.

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Scientists tend to be introverts, and Sally would have been happy to have been locked in a room somewhere doing research. But she learned how to work well with others and collaborate through team sports. At Westlake, she was on the tennis, basketball, and volleyball teams— and NASA was looking for team players. She had also helped design the robot arm they were going to use in space for the first time on that shuttle flight, so that may be another reason she ended up being the first woman to go up. susan okie ’68: She invited me to write a series about her training, and I stayed with her and [her husband at the time] Steve for a week. There were always Star Trek and I Love Lucy reruns on and lots of salty munchies around—Sally used to make chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips because she liked the salty dough. She got to the office at 7 a.m. to study manuals for different systems of the shuttle. She was no longer the gross underachiever—she worked her butt off, but she loved it. bear ride ’71: It was a big deal. She was on the cover of a bunch of magazines. People were by and large excited: “At last, there’s an American woman astronaut!” She felt a lot of pressure not to mess up as the first American woman in space. She got a lot of stupid questions, like if she wept when something went wrong [on the shuttle simulator]. There was one guy in the California state assembly who said that he thought she should get a oneway ticket to space and not come back.

SPRING 2018

Photo courtesy of NASA

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HW LEGACY

Sally didn’t take it seriously. She just did her job. She was almost always the only woman in her physics classes, so breaking those barriers and being the only woman was an everyday thing for her.

But overall it really was a positive reaction. It was the early ’80s, and the world was ready. I remember getting to Cocoa Beach before the launch, and there were “Ride, Sally Ride” signs and billboards everywhere. susan okie ’68: After her flight, she told me she wanted to do a book with me about the space shuttle for middle school children. She knew kids got excited about space travel, asking questions like “How do you go to the bathroom in space?” She didn’t love hanging out with kids; when she had tried babysitting [as a teen], the kids objected to the way she put the jelly on their PB&Js, and that was the end of that. But she remembered teachers inspiring her to pursue science. So she got a hotsy-totsy agent, and a lot of publishers wanted the Sally Ride story, until they realized To Space and Back [which is dedicated to Dr. Mommaerts, her Westlake science teacher] was a book for kids. bear ride ’71: I was nervous the first time Sally went up, but she told me if she wasn’t worried I didn’t need to be. She often said going into space was the most fun she ever had.

After the Challenger explosion happened, I had trouble watching launches anymore. I think it affected Sally too.

Afterward, she was deployed to DC and started going to a lot of meetings, which was not why she went into the astronaut field. She went back to Houston and was in line to go up again, but then NASA put the brakes on the program. She wrestled with whether to stay but decided to go into academics instead [becoming a professor at the University of California San Diego in 1989]. In 2001, she started Sally Ride Science [with Tam O’Shaughnessy, her life partner of 16 years at that point, as well as a few other cofounders] and began putting on science festivals for kids.

When she died, her obituary indicated that she and Tam had been together a long time. Her family and very close friends knew, but no one else did. I didn’t understand it—I came out myself in my 40s and have been a gay rights activist ever since—but with Sally there was a deep “none of your damn business” streak.

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Sally didn’t talk about her personal life to anybody. My grandmother used to call us tight-lipped Norwegians. Sally would meet people, get awards—and never say a word.

We’d only find out because her assistant Terry would call me and say, “Did you know Sally’s getting this award at the White House?” “Were you aware Sally is flying to x?”

No, she never told us anything. Truly.

She actually knew the Clintons and Al Gore pretty well.

Al Gore called her and said, “Come have dinner,” so she flew to DC and went to the vice-president’s house. She sat down, Bill and Hillary came in, and then Prince Charles took the other chair—they were setting her up with Prince Charles, who had just separated from Diana! She was horrified. Terry called to say, “Did Sally tell you about her date with Prince Charles?”

It never came naturally for her to mingle with anybody, but it was part of the job. NASA sent the astronauts out on speaking engagements after the launch, so she had to figure out how to face the crowds. Although she was an extremely private person, she was okay with the publicity because she felt that role models are important for young people—girls and young women especially. susan okie ’68: The Apollo landings were part of our childhood, and the early astronaut missions were really big news every time. We all remember where we were during the moon landing. But growing up, everybody on a rocket was a guy. Suddenly, girls knew they could do it because of Sally. bear ride ’71: When Sally died [at age 61 in 2012], one of the women astronauts sent out an email to all the others inviting them to dinner. There were three from Sally’s class in 1978 all the way up to the latest class, including some who hadn’t flown yet. The first class of women talked about a completely hostile environment—no women’s bathrooms and engineers with pocket protectors who were very skeptical of women in NASA. But women put their noses to the grindstone and slowly, they became accepted. Others talked about being in college when Sally flew and how watching her made them realize they could do it too. The youngest women were in preschool when Sally flew, so they didn’t ever experience life without the knowledge that women could be astronauts—and they knew from the beginning that that’s what they wanted to do. That’s the legacy of the first six— they paved the way for all the women to come.

SPRING 2018

“She was almost always the only woman in her physics classes, so breaking those barriers and being the only woman was an everyday thing for her.”

BEAR RIDE ’71

Photo courtesy of NASA

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HW TODAY

Good Night, Sleep Right Harvard-Westlake and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles team up to study sleep’s effect on students

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Artwork by Vivian Lu ’18

SPRING 2018

The demands of being a teenager can feel overwhelming at times. “Between juggling academics, athletics, and extracurriculars,” says Sarah Wilen ’19, “we are bound to have erratic sleep schedules and stress.” How do sleep, nutrition, hydration, and injury affect students’ health and well-being? Harvard-Westlake and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles aim to find out via a six-year research study involving almost half of Harvard-Westlake’s seventh grade class. The study kicked off in September and will follow the students through their graduation in 2023. the genesis of the study According to a 2015 poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 73% of adults played sports as kids, but only 25% play sports as adults. Yet “almost all the sports science research out there deals with athletes over 18,” says David Hinden, the head of Harvard-Westlake’s Institute for Scholastic Sports Science and Medicine (ISSSM).

Hinden’s interest in bringing research to Harvard-Westlake dates back to his first days as an upper school biology teacher 25 years ago. Unfortunately, he says, “it’s logistically difficult to get researchers to come to campus. Meanwhile, Children’s Hospital wants to study healthy kids. Getting access to patients isn’t a problem for them, but it’s agony trying to get healthy kids to the hospital to study.

So partnering with each other created an opportunity.”

This new study follows up on a prior research survey conducted by Harvard-Westlake and Children’s Hospital looking at risk factors in sports medicine cases. “It found that kids who slept less than eight hours a night had a 67% higher risk of injury,” reports Bianca Edison, MD, MS, a primary care sports medicine and orthopedic physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the study’s lead investigator. “We wanted to investigate that further to see what effect lack of sleep has on young developing bodies and brains and how it influences physical and mental health. What factors may influence the risk of injury? What’s the risk of being on a school team versus a club team? What about the number of sports you play? What if you involve the help of coaches and trainers?”

In addition to having students record their sleep in sleep journals, the researchers also wanted to collect objective data via special devices worn like watches that track students’ rest for a two-week period. “They’re like Fitbits, but they’re medically certified Actigraph devices instead,” says Hinden.

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The study will also examine how nutrition, hydration, and injury affect student success from an academic, athletic, and social and emotional standpoint. To measure these factors, students will fill out a series of surveys via an app, which will also push out recommendations on sleep, nutrition, and hydration in an effort to improve their habits. Finally, students will take part in a jump test to measure biomechanical movement as well as psychological testing to look at neurocognitive performance. the study’s impact “Because two-thirds of our kids play sports, sports are a great hook to get kids into science,” says Hinden.

Edison agrees. “What’s so great about our collaboration with Harvard-Westlake is our mutual focus on intellectual curiosity—including looking at ways that this study can be integrated into lessons for kids. Several teachers are looking to bring aspects of the study, including its nutrition and epidemiological components, into the classroom. In addition, some students have been involved with the study design and implementation. So it becomes not just a research study, but a way to get students excited about research and its application.”

Hinden is leading a sports science class with five students who are helping with the study. All five students have already become certified as research associates for a human subject study. Sarah Wilen ’19 is one of them. “I am grateful for the experience and hope to pursue a career in scientific research. This opportunity has helped me see that future.”

In addition, notes Hinden, there are also other ways the school is building on its relationship with Children’s, from inviting an orthopedist to visit a dance class to connecting students with hospital internships.

Finally, says Natalya Sarkisova, sports medicine research assistant at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, “The study results will be a great benefit to coaches, administrators, and parents in understanding what affects kids’ performance.”

Edison agrees. “Research fuels action. Surveying student athletes across middle and high school will teach us a lot about developing adolescents and what factors drive success in the classroom and on the field. What positive interventions could we make once we know more about the factors that affect injury, academic performance, and stress? We’re extremely excited to partner with Harvard-Westlake on this journey.”

For Wilen, the feeling is mutual. “This is an important study not only for our school and Children’s Hospital, but also for future students everywhere. We hope to use the data to improve the overall health and well-being of all students.”

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The study will also examine how nutrition, hydration, and injury affect student success from an academic, athletic, and social and emotional standpoint. To measure these factors, students will fill out a series of surveys via an app, which will also push out recommendations on sleep, nutrition, and hydration in an effort to improve their habits.

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Welcome to the Family Inside HW Sibs

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“I remember coming into seventh grade and being intimidated by the big, scary, monster-like freshmen,” says Taylor Dees ’21, who is now one of those “scary” ninth graders herself.

“It wasn’t that the ninth grade kids were doing anything to scare the seventh graders,” says Harvard-Westlake chaplain Rabbi Emily Feigenson; “just that the physical differences are pretty clear. We wanted to make the school a warmer, more inviting, more supportive place and make it feel like a smaller community.” One way to do that? Diminish the distance between the grades. And that’s why HW Sibs was created nine years ago.

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“About 60 seventh graders participated the first year, 90 the next, then 120, 140, 180….” remembers Feigenson. “Now all seventh graders participate in HW Sibs. A couple of years ago, we opened up the big sib role to eighth graders too.”

When HW Sibs first started, remembers Feigenson, “we were able to break the ice for sibs. They weren’t so much friends as friendly acquaintances. Kids said it would be better if the program went longer, and now they actually have the time to form some friendships. Before, the grades never touched; now, there’s more of a jocular openness.”

To start, each incoming seventh grader is paired with an eighth or ninth grade volunteer, who gets school service credit for participating in the HW Sibs program. Teen leaders match students based on their gender and interests, says Feigenson. “The teens thought that was an important step, that it not be a random match.”

In the spring, big sibs write a welcoming note to their little sib, so new kids get a letter and photo from their big sib before they get to school. “Just this morning I was going through a box of old stuff and came across my welcome note from my big sib,” says Dees. “I threw out all of my old books, keychains, cards, and photos, but I kept my sib note because I remembered how special I felt receiving that letter. Hopefully, my big sib note got the same reaction from my little sib. In my letter to her I wrote about how excited I was to meet her, gave her my contact information, and attached a heinous school photo of myself so she would have a friendly face [to look for] on the first day of seventh grade.”

Once school starts, sibs meet once a week during break in small groups and play games together.

Later, they participate in a field day and do a service project together. In between, they eat lunch together, watch games and/or perfomances together, get to know each other, and share their experiences at Harvard-Westlake.

“I helped both my sibs adapt to the school,” says ninth grader Lyon Chung ’21. As a big sib in eighth and ninth grades, he recalls, “I shared my tips and tricks—aspects of the school they wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. For example, I helped them anticipate the expectations of certain teachers, shared ways to better utilize their lockers, helped them find clubs, and assisted them with the locations of classes. I expect questions about class selection soon and hope to help them both choose classes that match their interests.”

As a little sib, says Dees, “I idolized my big sib and took note of every piece of advice she gave me for my upcoming years at Harvard-Westlake. I remember going to sleep the night after meeting her and trying to recall, word for word, what she had told me about the teachers, the students, and the oncampus life. As a big sib, I am now responsible for making my little sib feel as comfortable and excited as I did. We are constantly striving to make Harvard-Westlake a more inclusive community, and HW Sibs does just that!”

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STUDENT VOICES

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Un poème d’amour pour le sommeil

by Hui Nan Eunice Kiang ’20 le matin la lumière entre. Je ne l’ai pas invitée.

Je ne veux pas dire “Bonjour!” au soleil qui, tous les jours, se lève et se couche.

Je veux devenir un nuage d’orage devant lui qui ne bouge pas, comme une pierre au fond de la mer, et je ne veux pas partir de cet océan sombre.

Pourquoi quand je ferme lex yeux le réveil te tue?

J’espère que le soleil ne se lèvera pas pour que tu restes avec moi encore un moment.

A LOVE POEM FOR SLEEP

Morning Light enters. I didn’t invite him. I don’t want to say “Good morning!” to the sun who, every day, gets up and goes to bed. I want to become a thundercloud in front of it who doesn’t move, like a rock at the bottom of the sea and I don’t want to leave this dark ocean. Why when I close my eyes the alarm clock kills you? I hope that the sun won’t wake up so that you can stay with me another moment.

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Bright Idea Building a bridge with Bright Star Schools

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“Honestly, I never thought I would come to a place like Harvard-Westlake,” says Priscilla Jung, a seventh grader at Rise Kohyang Middle School in Koreatown. “I thought it was cool that Harvard-Westlake wanted to work with Bright Star students, and I’d heard that it was a good school. But what really got me interested was hearing there was going to be a class on Greek mythology.”

From January until May, Jung traveled to Harvard-Westlake’s middle school every Tuesday and Thursday to take part in the new HW Bridge program. HW Bridge brought 27 students from three Bright Star charter schools, including Rise Kohyang, to Harvard-Westlake for after-school enrichment. In addition to Greek mythology, the classes in HW Bridge’s first session included robotics and electronic music. “The courses were difficult,” says Jung, “but in a good way. And they were fun!” building the bridge “Harvard-Westlake remains one of the most respected private education institutions in the country, with a long history of providing students with excellent education and life opportunities,” says Hrag Hamalian, executive director of Bright Star Schools. “As a result of long-standing relationships between the schools’ boards and faculty, Harvard-Westlake and Bright Star wanted to take a step toward true partnership by allowing Harvard-Westlake to leverage its talent, resources, and environment to create HW Bridge. Bright Star middle school students now benefit from the exposure to topnotch facilities and programming they otherwise would not have access to. This type of exposure is critical for our students to gain the cultural literacy and academic fluidity to succeed in higher education, careers, and life.”

“It seemed like a natural fit,” says the head of Harvard-Westlake’s middle school, Jon Wimbish.

“We talk about purpose beyond ourselves, and this allows us to live that part of our mission. It’s a chance to work within education, our sphere of expertise, to give back.” Wimbish proposed the program at a Harvard-Westlake faculty meeting last spring, and reports that the “response was tremendous.”

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As Harvard-Westlake middle school English teacher Damaris Saenz, who acts as the liaison between Bright Star parents and Harvard-Westlake, puts it, “This is a way for teachers, students, and the school in general to open its doors and reach out to the community.” structuring the program When the idea of a partnership first came up, “we didn’t want to impose on Bright Star what we thought their students needed,” notes Saenz. So administrators and educators from Harvard-Westlake and Bright Star had a series of face-to-face meetings to craft the program.

“Bright Star was most interested in classes not currently offered at their own schools, like robotics and improv,” recalls Rosemary van Vlijmen, a Harvard-Westlake middle school history and social studies teacher and the HW Bridge program director. “They wanted to expose their students to something new, classes that would expand their horizons but also complement existing Bright Star programs.”

The goal, says Hamalian, was to “ensure the most unique and varied experience for students, pushing their boundaries and sparking their interests.” Classes such as improvisation and comic book writing and design did just that.

Launched in January, HW Bridge took place every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon from 4 until 6 p.m, with two 45-minute classes and dinner in between. “Providing a meal is important not just from a nourishment perspective—many of these students weren’t getting

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home until 7:30 or 8 at night—but also for the community aspect,” notes Wimbish. In addition to each other and their chaperones, Bright Star students ate with HarvardWestlake student ambassadors, who helped the students and the teachers in the classroom. measuring success “The ultimate test is the lifelong educational choices and achievements our students make as a result of this program and their exposure to different fields of study,” says Hamalian.

Meanwhile, “if students have their eyes opened to new topics and passions and have fun...if they feel safe and at home and engaged here...we know we’re doing something right,” adds Wimbish.

Early signs look promising. “When the program started, we hosted an orientation night for the Bright Star students and their parents,” says Wimbish. “I remember a dad turning to his son as they came out of the electronic music lab and saying, ‘This is amazing, you’re going to have the best time!’ You could tell he was a little jealous, like maybe he wanted a turn at the Mac himself to compose his own score. The kid said, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome!’ It was really great to have everyone feeling the energy of what was about to happen.”

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TIANA WOOLRIDGE ’11 AND SANCHO ACCORSI ’06

Passing It On

How Harvard-Westlake financial aid helped bring their dreams to life

In their own words, Tiana Woolridge ’11 and Sancho Accorsi ’06 share how they’re translating their own successes into helping others—and how Harvard-Westlake’s financial aid support helped make that possible.

Tiana Woolridge ’11 As a third-year medical student at the University of California, San Francisco, I’m in the hospital all day every day, learning on the job with patients. I’m part of a program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in which we learn more about caring for the urban underserved. A lot of uninsured, undocumented immigrants and homeless end up there. In addition to working with this patient population all day, we have classes and lectures about conditions for the homeless. We visit homeless shelters and medical respite; we see firsthand what the San Francisco Department of Public Health is doing to support this vulnerable population. I’m learning a lot, but it’s also really tiring. I work 12-plus-hour days six days a week, unpaid. But being a doctor is what I’ve wanted to do since I was six years old, so I’m really happy to be almost there.

My mom was a teacher out of college, so education was a huge focus in my family. She’s from Louisiana, so when my parents got divorced when I was little, the big question was “Why don’t you come back to Louisiana?” My mom had no family support out here and was a single parent living 1,500 miles from home.

But my mom realized there were incredible schools in LA and decided to do whatever it took to get her children the best education she could. She put everything into raising us.

When my oldest brother got into Harvard-Westlake back in 1998, my mom connected with Elizabeth Gregory [Riordan], who became almost family for us. People were so welcoming and so willing to support us. I know for a fact I wouldn’t be at UCSF, one of the best medical schools in the world, without that support early on.

It gave my brothers and me the opportunities that set us up for our futures. All three of us played Division I athletics, and my oldest brother and I went to Princeton. Our mom is the reason we excelled—and the financial aid and support she got from Harvard-Westlake is the reason she was able to push us so much.

When I was 13, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. Luckily I never had to get surgery, but I spent a lot of time at my orthopedic surgeon’s office crying over having to wear a brace. After a year of unsuccessful bids to get me to wear the brace, the surgeon sat me down with a picture of the spinal fusion operation where they attach two-foot metal rods down a patient’s spine to straighten it. The picture was taken in the middle of surgery and the patient’s back was cut open down to the bone. The message was basically “if you don’t wear your brace, this is what will happen.” It was a scare tactic—but I was like, “Look at that, that’s so cool!”

I specifically remember taking a human anatomy class in eleventh grade and falling in love. It was a second period class, and we’d watch surgery videos. I remember thinking to myself: “I need to do this. I have to do this. This is awesome.” You were one of the cool people if you could handle eating your breakfast while watching those videos, so I’d always do that. In addition to the videos, my classmates and I got to nerd out over dissecting cows’ hearts and eyeballs, and we just had a great time. At 24 years old, I still love the OR. 30

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It’s so incredible that you can talk to somebody, examine them on the outside, figure out what’s wrong with them on the inside, open them up, and make them better. It’s sterile, you’re putting the patient to sleep…. To me, the OR feels almost like a holy place.

After my experience with scoliosis and years of competitive athletics at Princeton and Harvard-Westlake, I came into medical school wanting to do orthopedic surgery, but I also fell in love with pediatrics. I shadowed a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital LA who spends three months every year doing surgery in Haiti.

With the hurricanes hitting the South and the Caribbean, the thought of doing medical relief work sounds awesome. But I find myself pulled in so many different directions. I’m also interested in infectious disease and disease control! Adapting technology around spinal fusion! Helping major athletes recover faster from ACL tears! Working on the government level on healthcare for underserved populations in major cities!

So far, my greatest commitment to service at UCSF has been my work with the Student National Medical Association, the student branch of the National Medical Association created to support African-American medical students. There is an SNMA chapter at every medical school in the country. Its aim is to bolster the pipeline of students who are underrepresented in medicine, get them interested in science and medicine, and guide them through medical school. I was the chapter president at UCSF and helped organize our Medical Student for a Day Conference, which gave 300 students exposure to medical school. As a young student, I got so much instruction along the way—here’s how you get into college, here’s how you get through medical school—but a lot of minority students don’t get that. So I spend most of my free time mentoring other students.

I also work with the UCSF department of admissions. I’ve been an interviewer for the admission committee and talked about my experience as an SNMA rep. I’ve worked on admission committees since seventh grade.

At Harvard-Westlake, I was a student ambassador for all five and a half years.

I can’t wait until I’m making money so I can really give back to Harvard-Westlake’s financial aid program. I try to contribute as much as I can now, but I look forward to being able to give enough to cover a child’s tuition, because that’s the generosity that got me where I am today. I want to provide that for another Tiana. That’s what would make me feel successful. I’d love to give girls and minorities interested in the sciences opportunities to go into whatever bright future might await them. It tugs on my heart not to see many black and brown faces around me in these incredible institutions of higher education, especially in the field I’m in. I want to see more people who look like me. I was so blessed to get those chances through the generosity of others.

Sancho Accorsi ’06 No one else from my middle school was going to Harvard-Westlake—I’d never even heard of it. But somehow my mom had, and she knew I would have opportunities there, so she encouraged me to apply.

When I went to tour the school, there was a mock lesson on the difference between the denotation and the connotation of a word. I’d thought the visit was going to be all fluff, but I learned something. It was exciting to see that level of commitment—even though many of the students they were talking to wouldn’t ever come to the school, teaching was going on. Harvard-Westlake became my first choice.

Financial aid was fundamental to my decision. I was considering Harvard-Westlake and another school, but the cost of either was going to be a real challenge. Fortunately, HarvardWestlake offered a tremendously generous financial aid package. It’s strange to be offered such an opportunity and the money to take advantage of it. When I found out they paid for not only my books but also my school supplies—it was above and beyond. Whenever people ask me about Harvard-Westlake, I always say it’s an extremely generous institution.

Harvard-Westlake sent a bus out to Los Feliz, close to where I lived in Pasadena. I would be the only kid on it for half the bus ride, until around Larchmont, when people would hop on 31

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and it would be packed. It’s a funny thing to be alone on a bus for that long, a funny way to start every day.

I was very shy at the time, but people were really friendly and welcoming and accepting, and by the end of year I had friends. The transition wasn’t seamless, but I never felt I was being treated any differently than any other classmate. I was pretty open about everything—I got invited to financial aid dinners, and I would tell people. My friends probably knew or could put two and two together, but they never showed that it mattered to them at all.

My dean, Ms. Adegbile, was exceptional. She’d been on Columbia’s admissions board. I had good grades and SATs, but the familiarity she had with the schools I was looking at and the good word she put in for me probably played a huge role in my getting into Brown [University].

After college, I wanted to do something meaningful, so I applied for Teach for America. I got the opportunity for an exceptional education, but most people are not going to have the alignment of stars to end up at Harvard-Westlake. I’d like to see the achievement gap close. That’s what got me into teaching: I was interested in working in underserved communities to provide an excellent education. I got in touch with the Harvard-Westlake admission office about some of the students from our school in Lincoln Heights [northeast of downtown Los Angeles] who were performing highly and might be candidates for Harvard-Westlake, and they were really interested in what we were doing. I want every kid in every community to have the opportunity for a truly good education.

My school was a young school, so I was the first on-staff special ed teacher they’d had. It was really exciting because I was given much more responsibility than I otherwise would have had. Your first year teaching, you’re close to a disaster, but by the second year, I was better, and I became kind of the go-to for kids who were acting out because they were frustrated. As they hired more special ed teachers, I got to take on the role of dean of students. It was an extremely passionate group of people, and I’ll be lucky to ever work with a team like that again.

After four years, I left to go to law school at Stanford. I had a background in education, so I anticipated using law to advance education causes I believe in.

But instead, I pretty quickly and unexpectedly became interested in criminal law. Stanford has this great program: Instead of taking classes, you join a pro bono clinic. My clinic is criminal defense, so we work with the public defender’s office on two cases. One of my clients was subjected to unlawful detention by a police officer and an unlawful seizure. We were trying to ensure that the court couldn’t consider the evidence that the police had confiscated. My other client was charged exorbitant restitution—something like $30,000 for a small car accident. We argued in court, cross-examined the police officers, all the TV stuff. It was amazing.

I’m interested in big-picture criminal justice reform. Presumably I’ll become a litigator before going into anything policy oriented. So I might work in a progressive reform-oriented prosecutor’s office or an alternative-model public defender’s office, and once I have an idea of what I’m talking about, go on to a nonprofit or into government.

I donate to Harvard-Westlake every year to show my deep appreciation for the school’s generosity. I’m not getting huge tax breaks on my donations, but I donate what a student can. As I enter into my professional career, I look forward to being able to contribute more.

What Harvard-Westlake offered me in terms of financial aid made a big difference in my being able to attend, no question, but it also made a big impact on me—to be taken so seriously that I was worth the financial package I was given as a 14-year-old. They were genuinely interested in me. It’s not a feeling a lot of kids get in such a concrete way. I am so appreciative of that.

To make a gift to Harvard-Westlake’s financial aid program, please contact Director of Advancement Eli Goldsmith at egoldsmith@hw.com or 310.288.3322.

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Human Interest The commitment to financial aid at Harvard-Westlake Financial aid is one of Harvard-Westlake’s top institutional priorities.

Here’s what financial aid looks like at HW—and why it’s so invaluable.

“Through the generosity of those who believe in our mission, we are able to make a Harvard-Westlake education accessible to the most talented and deserving students in Los Angeles, regardless of their financial status. A robust financial aid program is not only key to improving educational opportunity, but also to increasing the diversity of our student body, which enhances the quality of the Harvard-Westlake experience for everyone.”

RICK COMMONS CHARLES B. THORNTON PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF SCHOOL

WHAT DOES HARVARD-WESTLAKE DO TO SUPPORT STUDENTS ON FINANCIAL AID?

rick commons: Our financial aid goes way beyond simply tuition. That’s true at other schools as well, but I think we are reaching especially deeply for kids and families to experience as much of the privilege of this place as anyone who’s not on financial aid.

[Director of Financial Aid] Melanie [León] forms real relationships with the families here who receive financial aid.

She personally looks after their needs and concerns. Not just helping them understand the forms and providing financial aid, but checking in with the families and the students. She’s often the primary point person for that family, all the way through, for four or six years. She’s a resource for parents when they have sensitive questions about their child’s experience. That is her leadership.

And it serves Harvard-Westlake’s Visions for 2020 [a statement established in 2015 describing how the school will fulfill its mission while emphasizing its core values], which says that our commitment to inclusion will enable everyone in the community to feel an equal sense of

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belonging. That’s hard—some of our students are coming from enormous wealth, some from poverty, and some from the middle class. melanie león: Harvard-Westlake does an amazing job of supporting students via our financial aid program.

If you apply for financial aid, we waive your application and testing cost. We don’t want the cost of anything to be a barrier to applying. For each student who does get financial aid, we also provide between $3,000 and $6,000 in additional nontuition-related support. We are committed to allowing all our students who receive financial aid access to books, transportation, meals in the cafeteria, and all the programs we offer here, including Fast Start [Harvard-Westlake’s orientation program], retreats, school trips.... Got a sports tournament in Arizona? We would cover that. We help send students who receive financial aid all around the world with our performing arts groups. We help them with the cost of test prep. We know that the majority of Harvard-Westlake students get SAT or ACT prep, and we don’t want to disadvantage those who can’t get that otherwise.

We meet 100% of a family’s demonstrated need, though all families are expected to contribute at some level. Our grants range from 5% of tuition up to 99%.

HOW DO YOU GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT FINANCIAL AID?

melanie león: A lot of families don’t even consider a school like Harvard-Westlake because of the cost: “No way my child can go there because we can’t afford it.”

Some don’t understand financial aid—they think it’s more of a loan and something they’ll have to repay.

The admission office does a great job with outreach.

They’re going into charter, public, and parochial schools with more socioeconomic diversity and letting families there know we offer financial aid and walking them through the process of applying.

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[Associate Directors of Admission] Oscar [Cancio] and Janine [Jones] focus quite a bit on developing relationships with organizations and schools in those communities. We also host a financial aid workshop on campus every January for applicant families who want to learn more about our financial aid program.

“Seeing the results of the contributions made by the family and friends of Les is phenomenal. Once a year the school has a get-together for all the donors to the many scholarship funds where we meet many of the students and graduates who have benefited from financial aid. These students are out of sight—accomplished, mature, diverse, and interested in all sorts of endeavors. To hear how well they’re doing is inspiring.”

MARTY JOSEPHSON LES JOSEPHSON ’79 SCHOLAR ENDOWMENT ESTABLISHED IN 1979 BY FAMILY AND FRIENDS IN MEMORY OF LES JOSEPHSON ’79 TO SUPPORT FINANCIAL AID

WHY IS FINANCIAL AID SUCH A PRIORITY NOW?

melanie león: When Rick came on board, he took on financial aid as one of his top priorities—focusing on making Harvard-Westlake accessible to more families.

We want to be a school that represents Los Angeles, and that goal is tied to the socioeconomic diversity we can bring to the school via financial aid.

We also need to prepare our students for a different world than we grew up in. One where they have to be able to deal with differences in every aspect: socioeconomic, racial, political, gender.... If we’re not educating kids on how to live in a diverse world, we’re not doing a good job preparing our students for the real world.

and backgrounds. But we could be much more dynamic and interesting—and that’s the promise of financial aid.

Harvard-Westlake’s entire reputation is based on talent.

And our talent pool and opportunities for excellence are greater when access is greater.

Finally, you’d be hard pressed to find a student who wouldn’t say we should increase financial aid as much as possible. Regardless of their own background and political perspective, our students appreciate what financial aid does for the educational experience and feel that financial aid makes our school more interesting and a place they can be proud of. They experience the beauty of friendships from all over the city and every imaginable background and the quality of ideas and culture that that brings to class discussion and lunch table banter. They feel it. They experience it. For them it’s not theoretical.

It’s real.

“Attending the President’s Spotlight Dinner these past years, we have seen the pride on the faces of students receiving financial aid as each one is applauded for their successes and multiple acceptances into some of the finest colleges. It’s very fulfilling and rewarding to know that we’ve played a small part in their Harvard-Westlake experience.”

DEITRA ROSSON ROSSON-FRANDZEL FAMILY STUDENT ASSISTANCE FUND ESTABLISHED IN 2013 BY FORMER TRUSTEE DEITRA ROSSON AND MICHAEL ROSSON P’90 ’94 GP’18 TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE TO THE STUDENT SUPPORT PROGRAM

If you have questions about financial aid, contact Director of Financial Aid Melanie León at mleon@hw.com or 818.487.6607.

rick commons: Financial aid allows us to pursue a purpose beyond ourselves. We are an extraordinarily privileged place, financially and otherwise. Creating more educational opportunity in Los Angeles is a moral obligation.

People also appreciate that our community is so dynamic and interesting and includes so many diverse talents

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Dr. Lucy Jones: Mover and Shaker Seismologist and Kutler Center Scholar in Residence Lucy Jones shakes up the field of disaster preparedness “I took my first geology class my senior year at Brown [University],” says Lucy Jones. “I read the 900-page textbook in a week because I couldn’t put it down.” Jones went on to do earthquake research at the US Geological Survey for over 30 years and was so frequently interviewed after Southern California quakes that she became known as the Earthquake Lady. In 2016, Jones left the USGS to start her nonprofit, the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. She came to the upper school in March as the Kutler Center Scholar in Residence, which brings intellectuals to the Kutler Center to share their expertise with the Harvard-Westlake community. The following Q&A contains excerpts from her class presentations and from an interview afterward.

IS THE BIG ONE REALLY COMING?

The probability of a big San Andreas quake is 100%, just give us enough time. We are not stopping plate tectonics. I’d say the chances of it happening before I die are 50%, and the chances of it happening in [a current Harvard-Westlake student’s] lifetime are pretty high.

On average, a quake between a magnitude 7.5 and 8 happens on every piece of the San Andreas fault every 100 to 150 years. It’s been 160 years since the last one to the north of LA, and 340 since the last one on the Coachella segment. It’s the longest gap we’ve ever seen.

HOW BAD WILL IT BE?

Estimates are that 1,800 people would die in a San Andreas earthquake—about half from buildings collapsing and half from fires triggered by the quake. And that’s not even the worst earthquake we could have. A 7.5 on the Puente Hills Thrust, which runs from Whittier to Elysian Park and goes right under City Hall, could leave 18,000 dead. That’s the worst we have models for, but the probability of it happening is lower.

We worry about dying in an earthquake, but going bankrupt in an earthquake is much more likely. In a big earthquake, we will lose all our water coming into the LA region—all the aqueducts will break, and pipes will break. The business disruption costs are estimated to be over $250 billion—$50 billion just from the loss of water. It could be an economic collapse for LA. YOU LIVE IN PASADENA. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT MOVING AWAY?

No. I could move to the center of the country and there would be tornadoes. More people died on the East Coast from an ice storm [that started] the day of the Northridge earthquake than from the earthquake. I’m a fourth-generation Angeleno, my kids live here, and I want my grandkids to grow up here. This is my home. I’m concerned about the prospect of an economic collapse following an earthquake, but that’s why I’m doing this [work].

WHY CAN’T WE JUST PREDICT AN EARTHQUAKE?

You don’t want to predict every earthquake. We’ve never gone more than 12 hours without an earthquake in California. What you want is to predict which of the 25,000 earthquakes in California this year will be big enough to do damage. But seismologists can’t tell any difference between the start of a big or a small quake. An earthquake starts at its epicenter and ruptures down the fault. It’s like ripping a piece of paper. If it only goes a tiny distance—say, as big as this room—it’s a magnitude 2. If it goes a mile along the fault, it’s a magnitude 5. If it goes 100 miles, it’s a 7.5. What controls the magnitude isn’t how it starts, it’s how the earthquake stops. And we don’t really understand what stops it.

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HW TODAY

We are terrified by the random. We want to know when there’s a 95% chance of a big earthquake because we want to control the situation. But it doesn’t look like that’s possible.

However, we can recognize when an earthquake has begun and get that information to you via an earthquake early warning system, which could go live in LA this year.

A San Andreas quake will probably start at the Salton Sea; that could give us a minute warning before the shaking gets to LA. There’s already a test version of an earthquake earlywarning app that my husband [seismologist Egill Hauksson] has on his phone. The problem is, you don’t know an earthquake is a 7 in the first five seconds—it’s not a 7 until it’s already been rupturing for 30 seconds.

He has it set to send him an alert any time there’s a magnitude 3 quake, which happens a few times a week.

Sometimes it goes off in the middle of the night saying “No shaking expected [in your area] in 30 seconds.”

WHAT ARE THE TOP THREE THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD DO TO PREPARE FOR AN EARTHQUAKE?

First, get your house inspected by a foundation specialist.

Unless your house was built after 1997, it’s not as strong as it could be, but you’re responsible [for retrofitting it].

I’ve owned three houses in LA, and the most I’ve ever had to spend to increase the strength of the foundation is $1,500. There’s even a program run by the California Earthquake Authority called the Brace and Bolt program

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that gives you up to $3,000 back for retrofitting. Then you also get a discount on earthquake insurance.

The second thing is to make a good disaster plan with your family. That’s my sneaky one that will get you to do a bunch more stuff once you start thinking about your kids’ safety.

And finally, however much water you’re storing, get some more. The biggest issue we face is lack of water.

HOW MUCH WATER DO YOU HAVE STORED?

Not enough. We have a 55-gallon drum, and a 75-gallon water heater that we have set up so it won’t get contaminated in an earthquake.

HOW DID THE GREAT SHAKEOUT GET STARTED?

I was talking to emergency managers and land use planners who needed scenario assessments—what could we count on happening as a result of a significant earthquake? Then we were discussing how to communicate the results of the scenario at a meeting on the day of the Great American Smokeout, and I made a quip about calling [what we were working on] the Great Southern California ShakeOut. Later, I was actually in a meeting with Orange County emergency managers planning it when the Chino Hills earthquake happened.

We saw all the media coverage of people running outside during that quake, which is why we decided to make the ShakeOut a “drop, cover, hold on” drill. Social scientists told us that people do what they see others doing, so the ShakeOut is a visual that gets people ready for earthquakes. More than five million people participated in the first one in 2008—that’s a quarter of LA’s

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population. We intended to only do it once, but a month later, we were getting calls from Northern California and elsewhere in the state saying, “Let’s do it again.” Last year, 58 million people participated in drills worldwide.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE USGS?

Scientists have failed at communication. We’re so busy talking about the esoteric details of research that we don’t convey the basics anyone should be able to get: “Here’s the problem, here’s the solution.” Scientists don’t like to talk about policy, but we need to do a better job of explaining “Here are the implications of different approaches.” Then policymakers can decide what to do.

Not believing in climate change, for example, doesn’t stop it. What matters isn’t whether people believe in it, what matters is doing something about it. The Arctic is 50 degrees above normal right now. Florida will be underwater in 100 years.

Climate change is so dire, we need to motivate action.

In 2014, while I was still at the USGS, I partnered with Mayor [Eric] Garcetti [’88] and spent a year at City Hall. I had 130 public meetings with leaders from across the city talking about what a big earthquake would look like for Los Angeles. The mayor issued a report with 18 major recommendations, and 17 have gotten through.

For example, the city has made a commitment to build a more resilient water system, including using only seismic-resistant pipes. Building owners got behind us on retrofitting ordinances. It’s the biggest change in seismic safety we’ve ever seen.

At the USGS, we weren’t allowed to make policy recommendations. Scientists get terrified of getting too close to the line and end up doing science in the corner.

But we need to do science in a way that’s understood by policymakers. Nobody was doing this translation work, so I decided to form my own nonprofit.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THE DR. LUCY JONES CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND SOCIETY?

It’s all about how to get the science to society and get it used. Forty other Southern California cities—who saw that Garcetti didn’t get hurt by bold action—are also now partnering with us on seismic legislation. For example, we want to see the California economy survive, but our current building code is about life safety only, not functional recovery. Yet, for only 1 to 2% of the cost of construction, we can have a building you can use after the earthquake, as opposed to a building that won’t kill you but will be a total loss after the quake. We are working with Southern California area governments to change that.

We’re also working on building more resilient communities.

Most of our messaging about disaster preparedness goes to individuals: You’ll be on your own, so be prepared.

The implicit message is that your neighbor becomes your enemy. We’ve got people stockpiling guns in their earthquake kits. Well, treating your neighbor as your enemy can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ve seen that communities that recover from disasters have strong connections—that’s what gives you a reason to stay.

Southern California doesn’t do that very well.

How many people know their neighbors? So we’re working with community organizations, schools, and churches to help them plan ahead and connect with each other in a disaster. Let’s turn to our strengths and help each other.

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STUDENT VOICES

FROM THE HARVARD-WESTLAKE CHRONICLE

Loving Sportsball

By Lucas Gelfond ’19 One year ago I was your average sport-hater.

I had never watched a full football game other than the Super Bowl. I regularly declined invites to basketball and baseball games. I had never made a fantasy account and never planned to. My only personal sports experience consisted of an undefeated run as left fielder on my fourth grade Little League team and three days of cross-country in seventh grade before I dropped out. It goes without saying that I never used to read Big Red or the sports section of the Chronicle.

Everything changed after I covered the varsity field hockey team this fall. I was looking to move away from being a reporter on the Chronicle to focusing more on digital content when one of our current sports editors and Big Red managing editor Matthew Yam ’18 approached me about joining sports. He said that Sports was short on juniors and that I’d have lots of responsibilities in the section. After some deliberation, I signed on and was assigned a fall sport beat along with all the other juniors in the section.

Beat coverage is a simple but rigorous task: Cover everything that a team does. Cover every single game that they play, take photos, interview players, and, most importantly, write articles based on how the team is doing. Along the way, get to know the team and try to get the most interesting perspectives you can out of the players. As an amateur journalist and a sports writer with no previous experience, the task was extremely daunting.

Little did I know how much I would enjoy it.

Covering field hockey was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The team went undefeated for the first time, finishing with a 20-0 record and ending the season by winning the LAFHA title. After every game, I’d text the players to get their postgame reactions. While I can’t say I knew exactly what it was like to be on the team, I could feel the joy and passion that all of the players put into the game. I could see the bonds, camaraderie, and friendships that formed and all of the hard work that they put in. I’d hear about their intense practicing and lifting schedule one day and hear about their shutout win the next. Players would tell me about the group bonding over lunch and then tell me that those tight bonds helped them read each other and dominate games.

One year later, I can say definitively that I have a different opinion about sports.

Sports is not about throwing a ball around. Sports is not about strength or endurance. Technique is of course important, but the best part of sports is the emotion.

Sports is about relationships with your teammates and bonds that will last for a lifetime. Sports is about determination and hard work that pays off in an undefeated season. Sports is about coming together as a team to support the player out with an injury. Sports is about the impulse for every single player to run into a huddle after the time ran out in the 20th game of the field hockey season that marked the team’s title win.

While I still can’t say that I keep up with basketball, play fantasy, or watch a football game from start to finish, I can say that I see sports in a completely new way. I have a new respect. Sports teaches some things that we scarcely find elsewhere: the payoff of hard work, teamwork, discipline, and so much more. For all of you who are like me—please learn from my mistakes and maybe take your friend up on that invite to the football game sometime. Sports really are worth your time.

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FACULTY & STAFF PROFILES

LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE In June, Elizabeth Gregory Riordan will step down from her role as director of admission after working at Westlake and Harvard-Westlake since 1970. Here, she shares some of her memories of the past 48 years—and a few thoughts on what’s ahead.

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ALUMNI PROFILES

Elizabeth Gregory Riordan Elizabeth Gregory Riordan reflects on her last 48 years at Westlake and Harvard-Westlake

How did you get your first job at Harvard-Westlake?

I was an art student at UCLA, but I’d also gotten a teaching credential. In those days that’s what you did— my mother, my grandmother were teachers. It never occurred to me not to be a teacher.

The year I was graduating, I looked on the UCLA bulletin board for a job. There was an opening for an art teacher at Westlake School for Girls, so I walked over for an interview. I asked someone in the UCLA employment office where it was and she said, “Oh, it’s easy, it’s right across the street.” So I walked into Marymount, thinking it was Westlake. The office there told me to try a few blocks down. Well, it was more than a few blocks, and I was in boots and a long hippie skirt, but I’m always 20 minutes early for everything, so I still arrived for the interview on time. And they hired me—no portfolio, no resume. I’d gone to the Bishop’s School for Girls in La Jolla, a similar school to Westlake, and my headmistress wrote a wonderful letter of recommendation to Nat Reynolds, the headmaster at that time, saying I was worthy. I was 21. I got the job in March, got married [to first husband Bill Gregory] in April, and started at Westlake in September.

I’d thought it was a general art teacher job, but as it turned out, it was teaching photography, and I didn’t even own a camera. So I immediately started taking photography classes at UCLA over the summer. It was 1970, and I had some fantastic teachers at UCLA, including Llyn Foulkes, William Brice, Robert Heinecken, Ed Moses, Richard Diebenkorn, and Jerry McMillan. I became friends with Jerry, who had come out to LA from Oklahoma with Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode. Jerry and Ed Ruscha’s studios were across the courtyard from each other on Western Avenue, so whenever I went to Jerry’s studio, there would be all these amazing artists there. It was great because I was able to bring some of them to talk to my classes at Westlake.

what was it like teaching at westlake in the 1970s?

It was a different time then; you didn’t have to get approval for how you wanted to run your classes, you just did it. The administration was happy to go along; they were doing their own crazy stuff. It was a very progressive school at the time. They thought nothing of having Daniel Ellsberg coming to speak. They brought Jane Fonda to Westlake to talk to the girls about why she was opposed to Vietnam. Some of the parents pulled their kids out of school after that. Joanie Parker, our extraordinary women’s studies teacher, brought in Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem. It was a parade of the most interesting women. Women’s liberation was a hot topic, and there was a lot of talk of female empowerment—Westlake was ahead of its time in terms of how education reflected what was going on in the world around the girls.

Today it’s a more disciplined education. There’s a great deal of collaboration, and teachers often teach in teams. Back then, teachers were superstars; you took the class because of the teacher. There wasn’t necessarily a standard curriculum—it could veer off in different directions. I was very young and worked for no money, but we were given a lot of freedom to do whatever we wanted.

I was one of four new teachers in the art department, thanks to David May [II], a trustee who wanted more fine arts at Westlake and donated the money to build an art studio. I got to design the darkroom—choose the enlargers, where I wanted sinks, what kind of lenses to buy—it was very fun. how did you end up in admissions?

I didn’t plan my life at all at that age. When I got the teaching job here, I thought, I’ll do this for a while.

After 10 years, I got a little tired of it and didn’t want to teach anymore, so I told Nat Reynolds, “Thanks, but I’m going to go do something else.” He asked me, “Have you ever thought about admissions?” After a few weeks, I thought, well, okay, I’ll try it for a while. I got the job as the assistant admission director and then found out 43

FACULTY & STAFF PROFILES I was pregnant. I was also still teaching one class and acting as the counselor for the twelfth grade girls. Then Malia [Gregory ’98] came along. Once I had my daughter, I realized I had to settle down. I loved being at Westlake and raising a child. I took her to all the plays and games.

There was a big lawn, and we had all her birthday parties here. In those days I also had all summer off and two weeks at Christmas. And then within a year I became director of admission, not because of anything I did, but because [the previous director] Sally Needham was named the college counselor. I loved my colleagues, we had so much fun. You knew everybody, it was just really collegial, and the girls were great. how did you feel about the merger?

It was an interesting time. It was not something the teachers or admin were really involved in. I just knew we were going to merge with Harvard and that Tom Hudnut had been hired by the head of the Harvard board to handle the transition. Then Nat Reynolds became provost, and the admission director at Harvard, Debbie Reed, and I became codirectors before she went on to become the head of the middle school. We already knew each other from starting Harvard and Westlake’s joint summer program; the Summer Enrichment Program [SEP] still exists and is now run by [Middle School Attendance and Health Coordinator] Brenda Simon.

There were so many kids who didn’t have access to the kind of education we were both fighting for, so we wanted to open it up in the summer to underprivileged kids from schools serving a minority population. Our girls and the Harvard boys acted as tutors and mentors, and we took kids on field trips to UCLA and the beach—many had never been to a college campus or seen the ocean— and had swimming classes at the pool, since many of the kids didn’t know how to swim. We did that for a year before we even knew the schools were merging.

When I heard about the merger I was surprised but excited. I knew what great kids Harvard boys were and thought it would be fun and different. It just worked out.

I think it was hard on the kids—girls came to Westlake thinking they were coming to a girls’ school and viceversa—but everyone managed through it. Now HarvardWestlake is a much stronger school than either Harvard or Westlake were on their own. Academically, there’s no question we are a better school. As a big school with two campuses, we offer more opportunities. And I believe in coeducation; especially in today’s climate, boys and girls should grow up together and be respectful of each other’s differences and similarities, express their opinions, and understand that everyone has different opinions.

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what’s the hardest thing about being admission director?

We have to deny so many wonderful applicants. The admission director’s job is making the tough decisions. I always run into people who are incredibly talented and successful and when I tell them what I do, they’ll say, “Oh, I applied and didn’t get in!” Admission is so competitive, we have to turn away kids perfectly qualified to be here.

It’s the luck of the draw sometimes. what changes have you seen in your time here?

Everything has changed. I worked with other independent schools to start the Los Angeles Consortium of Secondary School Admission Directors. Now families don’t have to fill out different applications for different schools, we have a common teacher recommendation form, and we all mail admission decisions at the same time.

I also helped start the Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs. When it started, the group was just Westlake and Harvard, Polytechnic, Windward, and Campbell Hall. We all wanted a more diverse group of students, so we hired someone to help us look for Latino and African-American students who would be interested in applying to independent schools. The Alliance helped us all become more reflective of Los Angeles. It was very different when Westlake was a little school for girls when I got here in 1970. You could count the number of AfricanAmerican kids on your hands, and I don’t think there were any Latinos. We didn’t talk about different cultures then.

Now I look around and see a better reflection of the diverse population of Los Angeles with students from so many different ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds. what are you most proud of?

I’m proud of Harvard-Westlake’s student body—how diverse it’s become and the outreach we’ve accomplished. We draw from all over the city now. I credit a lot of that to [Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research Teacher] Rob Levin and [Director of Student Financial Affairs] Patti Snodgrass for bringing bus transportation to Harvard-Westlake. Everyone used to drive their kids here, and it was more of a neighborhood school. Now two-thirds of our kids come on the bus or carpool. Our wonderful board has increased the amount of financial aid available, so we’re able to reach out to families who could not have afforded a Harvard-Westlake education in the past.

I’m proud of having alums like Oscar [Cancio ’04], Michelle [Hung ’91], and Nancy [Jeon ’89] on the admission team. I’m also really proud to have hired

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Whitney Althouse, Michelle Hung ‘91, Melanie León, Elizabeth Gregory Riordan, David Lee ‘89, Sharon Cuseo, and John Kim in 2007

[Assistant Admission Director and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] Janine [Jones]; she was a parent and I thought she would be amazing. They are hardworking, talented, and professional, and [incoming Director of Admission] Aaron [Mieszczanski] is so lucky to get to work with them.

What’s next for you?

I want to have time to be with my husband [Dick Riordan], who has a very active life as the former mayor of LA. When I first married Dick, I thought I could do both—be Mrs. Richard Riordan and the admission director at Harvard-Westlake—but he’s involved in so many things, and I want to be a part of his life. The admission job starts at seven in the morning and goes to seven at night. There’s a time in your life when you realize you want to have a little more free time. I want to be able to get up in the morning and go for a walk, spend time in nature, travel with my husband. I would love to go to the Amalfi Coast in the fall. Every September for the last 65 years, I’ve gotten up and gone to school. I’ll still come to school, but more on my own timetable.

I’m on the board of Educational Records Bureau [a not-forprofit organization providing admission and achievement assessment as well as instructional services for pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade], which is based in New York, so I’m helping with efforts there. I’m also on the board of the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, the largest nonprofit charter school organization in Los Angeles, serving low-income students on 28 campuses. Dick is actively involved in

public and charter school education, and that’s what I hope to work on with him next year.

So I’ll have plenty to do, but I don’t want to lose touch with Harvard-Westlake. I’m honored to be a part of this dynasty.

I see Harvard-Westlake as the top school in California and now one of the top schools in the country. Tom Hudnut deserves so much credit for making it the excellent school it is today and so does Rick Commons for bringing it along in a way we couldn’t even imagine. I don’t want to cut the cord, but there’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s great.

Aaron Mieszczanski is young and dynamic, and he will make changes I have resisted. One of them, I imagine, will be doing everything on the computer. I’m a troglodyte and still cling to my paper applications. I don’t always trust the computer. But Aaron is experienced and smart, and I have every confidence that Harvard-Westlake admissions will be in excellent hands. what will you miss the most?

I have incredible gratitude for my colleagues and the parents and students. I don’t think people realize—I’ll start to cry—how affected I am by them. When I see people at the grocery store and they say, “Oh, you admitted me, and now I’m going to be applying next year with my kids,” it’s exciting and makes me happy. I know so many people in LA and wherever I go—even in Korea and China—I run into people. We have shared memories that are pretty wonderful. That’s probably what I’ll miss most, being part of people’s lives in that way.

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FACULTY & STAFF PROFILES

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Photo by Utkan Kocaturk

SPRING 2018

Meet New Director of Admission Aaron Mieszczanski For the past five years, Aaron Mieszczanski has been the director of admission and financial aid at San Francisco University High School. Before that, Mieszczanski worked in admissions at the Thacher School, a boarding school in Ojai. “I got to know Harvard-Westlake from trying to understand how to beat it. Los Angeles was one of my territories. I wanted great kids thinking about Harvard-Westlake and Thacher to come up to Ojai to consider our academics and sitting on a horse instead.”

Mieszczanski says he wasn’t looking for a new job. “I was in a great situation at San Francisco University High School and really excited to be part of that community, but Harvard-Westlake was an opportunity I couldn’t ignore. After all, the position hasn’t been open for 38 years. Harvard-Westlake is an institution that has a lot of heart, though that isn’t something it’s very well known for. I wanted to be part of a school community that doesn’t sacrifice doing right by the kids for the sake of academic rigor. I look forward to telling more of that story.”

San Francisco University High School has some similarities to Harvard-Westlake, says Mieszczanski, as does his alma mater, Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx. “The reputation of all these schools is a great academic program. Sometimes the other things they do that are intentional and thorough and great aren’t things you hear about outside of the immediate school community.”

What’s he planning to do first? “I’m eager to listen,” he says. “I’m excited to hear what makes HarvardWestlake...Harvard-Westlake. I want to hear about the experiences of students, families, alumni, faculty, and staff. I want to understand the challenges and opportunities the school faces in furthering its mission, why people are here, and what they see as strengths, weaknesses, and threats. I want to work with our entire school community to tell a clear story of who we are, what we do well, and what we aspire to be.”

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FACULTY & STAFF PROFILES

Retiring Faculty & Staff In the words of their colleagues

Luba Bek

BY FATHER JAMES YOUNG During her entire time at Harvard-Westlake, all of Luba’s actions were dictated by a simple mantra, “Do what’s best for the kids.” From her fierce support of confidentiality issues to her incredible devotion to the Peer Support program, Ms. Bek was only in it for one reason: the betterment of our student body. What more could you possibly ask for in a colleague, friend, and professional?

John Corsello

BY HARRY SALAMANDRA

John Corsello is a Harvard-Westlake renaissance man with a huge heart. Master teacher in our history/social studies and world languages departments, department head for two different disciplines, chair of our all-school accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, dean, and bearer of the school mace at commencement (signifying greatest seniority at the school). He is intelligent, compassionate, and witty.

He was awarded the Garret Hardin Early Achievement Award, the David Justin Rascoff Faculty Fellowship, and the Carolyn and Marion Hays Award, as well as selected for the Senior Tribute Award four different years. John has touched the lives of thousands of students over his 39-year tenure in such a positive way. One alum surely spoke for most of us when he said, “Mr. Corsello is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met.

He had the greatest impact on the development of my academic abilities. I will cherish the memories of his class for the rest of my life.” John Corsello is the soul of our school and we will sorely miss him.

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Nini Halkett

BY KATHERINE HOLMES-CHUBA Having had the privilege of sitting opposite Nini Halkett for the past 30 years, I got to witness firsthand her integrity, her love of history, and above all her dedication to her students and her colleagues. Nini was the anchor of the history and social studies department. Her passion for politics and international relations inspired her to bring two important new courses to the school: World Politics and AP Human Geography: International Relations. During her career, she taught everything from AP U.S. History to Seventh Grade Government, which she taught in her very early years at Harvard School.

Her knowledge and professionalism touched not only her students, but also her fellow teachers. In the words of Eric Zwemer, “What was unique about Nini was her ability to treat everyone she met equally and courteously,” a rare trait. She will be sorely missed.

Marianne Hall

BY CHERI GAULKE

Alumni are organizing a tribute to Marianne Hall called “35 Years of HeArt,” and that says it all. Marianne infuses heart in all that she does—a drawing and painting curriculum that not only scaffolds fundamental skills but nurtures students to find their individual voices, as well as community service opportunities, such as Youth Ending Hunger, that ignite students to find purpose beyond themselves. She innovated curriculum with the interdisciplinary, team-taught Drawing and Painting/History hybrid class. Marianne Hall is a master teacher whose dedication to her work has touched many in her years at Westlake and Harvard-Westlake. She is deeply proud of her students, some of whom have become accomplished artists, but all of whom have become more compassionate human beings thanks to her mentorship and kindness. We will miss her open mind and heart, her passion for all things art and humanity.

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FACULTY & STAFF PROFILES

Susan Kallok

BY SHANNON ACEDO

Susan started at Westlake School in October 1989, on the day the upcoming merger with Harvard School was announced. She became head of the middle school library some 10 years later. As a colleague put it, “Her grace and humor, whether teaching or working with students or faculty, are notable. The room could basically be on fire and she’d be unflappable—she’s got it covered. She is diplomatic yet still strong and able to direct things the way they need to go.” Through her work on the educational technology committee, Susan Kallok has been instrumental in developing the role of technology at Harvard-Westlake from the late ’80s to the present, guiding the growth of HW students as responsible citizens of today’s complex digital world.

Ted Katzoff

BY TERRY BARNUM

Coach Katzoff is part of the fabric of our institution. His longevity, loyalty, expertise, and professionalism have been a model of community and program building that everyone in our department has drawn from. Ted is an encyclopedia of knowledge and coaching advice in our weekly department meeting, and while wishing him a well-deserved rest in retirement, we will miss his presence greatly.

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Jeff Kwitny

BY LARRY WEBER From his first HW English class in 2001, Jeff Kwitny has embodied the joyful pursuit of excellence, inviting his students to meet his enthusiastic spirit and passionate curiosity.

In his two decades of teaching literature, rhetoric, and composition, they have tried, routinely reporting their gratitude for such inspirational guidance. Tireless in his pursuit of best practices, Jeff has similarly helped his colleagues to evolve the English curriculum. His creation and refinement of the senior AP language elective Imagined Societies: Utopias and Dystopias has given us one of our most sought-after courses. He continues to read and write with the purpose of broadening and deepening his own scholarship. A man of letters keen on the exploration of the history of ideas, Jeff has modeled that the best teachers continue to learn.

Father James Young

BY JORDAN CHURCH, MICHELLE BRACKEN, AND SHARON CUSEO In a crisis he’s the one you want around. He cares for the entire community with an uncommonly supportive bedside manner. He is the ultimate first responder—when the storm hits, not only does he know what to do, but he knows just where to be and what to say. He the most irreverent reverend. No topic is off limits, even when it probably should be. His candor and sense of humor are both disarming and reassuring. Just when you think he’s finally crossed that line, you realize he’s really just making himself even more accessible to those who don’t think they need a pastoral influence—oh, but they really do. Approachable Father, caring colleague, wise mentor, campus comedian— soul of the institution. Your presence will be felt for years to come.

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ALUMNI PROFILES

DR. JAN KING ’80

Purpose

Beyond Herself

From officer for the Department of Public Health to president of the HW Alumni Association

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SPRING 2018

After serving three years, Dr. Jan King will be stepping down from her role as alumni association president at the end of the school year. Dr. King is also an internist and area health officer in charge of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Public Health. She has led the way to expand programmatic offerings for Harvard-Westlake alumni and encourage connections across generations of HW alums.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO MEDICINE?

My sister [Robin King ’75] laughs and says she remembers the exact moment I was inspired to work in public health. Apparently, at age 13, I was transfixed one night watching a PBS special on a Peace Corps volunteer working in a small village in Ghana to improve water quality and prevent disease.

Ever since, it has been my goal to improve public health. I have worked overseas in Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Cuba, Costa Rica, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Medicine runs deep in my family, so genetics might also have played a role. My paternal grandfather was a pharmacist in the 1920s—a highly unusual achievement for an African-American man living in the South in his time. My father was a surgeon and my mother is a nurse. My parents had four children, and three of us are physicians. So I’ve been around medicine my entire life!

WHAT DOES YOUR PUBLIC HEALTH WORK INVOLVE?

I have a staff of 110 public health physicians, nurses, and investigators who are focused on protecting Los Angeles County residents against infectious disease threats. For example, one Sunday afternoon three years ago, I was told that an airline passenger might be transmitting the Ebola virus to a planeload of people. I was asked to report to LAX within the hour, arrived through the back entrance, and was escorted by police to a plane fully packed with passengers. Next, I had to determine if the passenger in question had Ebola. If so, I would have had to make a decision regarding containment of the virus by potentially quarantining all passengers and crew—that is, legally preventing them from leaving the plane. Luckily, I was able to clear the plane to unload the passengers.

Another example: In 2009, one of my public health nurses was interviewing an LA resident who worked at a deli and was diagnosed with hepatitis A. We legally removed him from work and had to find everyone who had been exposed to him during his infectious period and then immunize them.

All employees who had handled food and individuals who had eaten at the restaurant during a twoweek period were contacted and vaccinated. Sometimes, my public health investigators have to flash their badges, which look similar to police badges, to get people to comply.

The work of the Department of Public Health is largely invisible because the public does not see the heavy lifting that we perform to keep the community safe through disease prevention and outbreak control activities. If an outbreak does not occur, the public does not realize that there was actually a potential for illness and death. If an outbreak does occur, people do not understand that the outbreak would almost certainly have been larger without the Public Health Department working to control the spread of disease. Ours is a job well done when you do not hear about an outbreak.

My office also works with other local officials, community-based organizations, and faith-based organizations to combat other, noninfectious diseases and ensure that all residents have equal opportunity for positive health outcomes.

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ALUMNI PROFILES

Jan King’s 1980 yearbook photo

“Westlake was always a loving, warm, and safe environment where we were free to be ourselves.”

HOW WERE YOU INVOLVED IN STARTING THE HW AFRICAN AMERICAN ALUMNI NETWORK?

I realized that many African American alumni were not reconnecting to the school network. During one of the annual Harvard-Westlake phonathons, I told [Director of Advancement] Eli Goldsmith that I would love to assist in connecting some African American alumni by having an event at my house. He put me in touch with Keren Johnson [’02], who had a greater vision to create the HW African American Alumni Network. With the assistance of the Office of Alumni Relations, we recruited 12 alumni to help plan and organize HWAAAN and now have over 400 HW alums in this network.

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SPRING 2018

WHAT WAS WESTLAKE LIKE WHEN YOU WENT TO SCHOOL? HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FOR YOUR DAUGHTER [AMAYA WASHINGTON ’21] WHO ATTENDS HW NOW?

Westlake was always a loving, warm, and safe environment where we were free to be ourselves without concern for anything else. I think the all-girl environment and the uniforms helped with that! My favorite memories are of the lower lawn, May Day, ring ceremony in our white full-length dresses, sitting in the hallways of the old building gossiping, dancing in the great hall, Cedar Lake retreats, and trips to Yosemite. I felt so supported by all my teachers!

Although the Westlake campus looks completely different now, Harvard-Westlake is still a very supportive environment. I am continually impressed with how passionate and knowledgeable my daughter’s teachers are. The primary difference between my time at Westlake and my daughter’s is that the world has changed! The level of excellence that is demanded so early in a student’s life today is substantially different. Most people of my generation did not have to perform at a very high level until college or graduate school. Harvard-Westlake is doing an amazing job ensuring that students are not just academically competitive but also socially conscious. I love the new mission statement and its balanced perspective on life and learning.

WHAT IS IT LIKE BEING PRESIDENT OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION?

It is an honor! I am working with a group of 24 talented and dedicated alumni to support the administration and provide networking opportunities for alumni. As president, you work closely with the HW administration and thus feel even more connected to the school, students, parents, and other alumni. I get a wave of nostalgia at the senior breakfast, welcoming the graduating class to the alumni association and then participating in the graduation procession!

I also provide an update to the trustees twice a year. I have seen firsthand the intense work, vision, and reflection the trustees invest to maintain and elevate Harvard-Westlake fiscally and academically. I am passionate about strengthening the alumni association and providing new opportunities for alumni and alumni board members.

HOW HAS THE MENU OF ALUMNI EVENTS AND PROGRAMS CHANGED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS?

The breadth and depth of alumni events has expanded with multiple affinity groups offering numerous opportunities for alumni to connect to Harvard-Westlake, including the HarvardWestlake African American Alumni Network, the Harvard-Westlake Korean American Alumni Network, the Harvard-Westlake LGBTQ Network, Harvard-Westlake Alumni with Young Kids, the Harvard-Westlake Real Estate Network, the Harvard-Westlake Arts & Entertainment Network, Harvard-Westlake Alumni in Finance, the Harvard-Westlake Business & Entrepreneurship Network, and the Harvard-Westlake Alumni Community Council. Every alum should have an access point.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO OTHER ALUMNI ON HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF BEING AN HW ALUM?

I think the most powerful vehicle for alumni participation and benefits is HW Works, administered

by Zaakirah Daniels ’10. HW Works gives alumni the resources to mentor and provide internships and other contact opportunities to students and other alums. It also provides alumni with a network of professionals who can assist in advancing their careers.

Harvard-Westlake is a tremendous resource for current students and alumni. We are very lucky to be part of the HW community for life!

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ALUMNI PROFILES

AARON GUGGENHEIM ’99

In the Line of Fire

The LAFD firefighter on battling December’s Creek Fire blaze Aaron Guggenheim ’99 has been a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department for nearly a dozen years. When wildfires broke out across Southern California in December, he helped combat the Creek Fire, which affected Sylmar and surrounding areas. Here, he shares the inside story on what it’s like to be an LA firefighter.

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Photo of Creek Fire by Mike Meadows for the LAFD

SPRING 2018

can you describe your average workday?

I was hired as an entry-level firefighter and recently promoted to the rank of captain after 11 years as a firefighter paramedic. We work 24-hour shifts, and in that time, my fire engine (Engine 105 in Woodland Hills) will go out on an average of 10 calls. As the captain, my job is to make sure the three other people on my fire engine are taken care of and prepared mentally and physically.

We exercise and do drills every day, like a football team running plays. Our department motto is “train as if your life depends on it, because it does.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, when we arrive at an incident everyone knows what to do and goes to work. But if it’s a tricky or complex situation, it’s up to me as the commander of the fire engine and the safety officer to provide direction.

Over 85% of our calls are medical, not fires, and the majority of those calls are ultimately not life-threatening emergencies. We provide medical treatment, transport people to the hospital, and do our best to provide whatever service is needed. With the current healthcare climate, many people are using 911 for primary and urgent care complaints. Although the 911 system was not designed for this, it has become part of our job, and we are adapting and innovating to meet the needs of the community.

We get calls about plenty of other things too: a cat stuck behind a bathroom vanity, a broken water pipe, a smoke detector beeping because of a dead battery, chirping inside a wall that the caller thought was a bird but that ended up being crickets…. Sometimes people just don’t know who else to call. We are the catchall, so we figure it out. Community service is our job, and we enjoy problem-solving. what was december 5 like?

We knew it was coming. December 4 was a high-hazard day with really high winds and dry fuels—a perfect combination for what we call “extreme fire behavior.”

Our brush fire season used to be roughly May to October or November, but now it’s year-round. The rain last year was great, but once it stopped, all the light grasses that had started growing died off. On that day, the probability of ignition, based on relative humidity, wind, and the temperature, was extremely high. This means that a spark from any source—wind knocking down power lines, a truck dragging a chain on the road, even a reflection off a tin can—is all it takes to start an aggressive, unpredictable fire.

The Thomas Fire happened earlier that night. We sent a couple of strike teams—10 engines—up there to help, but the conditions were so extreme that it was burning everything in its path. It was devastating.

Then around 3:30 that morning, the Creek Fire broke out.

Right away, my engine company got sent to Pacoima.

We were hearing a lot of traffic on the radio, so we knew it was already a significant wind-driven brush fire. Our first assignment was to evacuate a mobile home park in the Lopez Canyon area. We got on our loudspeakers and pounded on doors to make sure everyone had left. At the same time, we were asking residents to tell us which neighbors would need our help to evacuate—who’s in a wheelchair, who’s elderly and needs a walker. The fire was right there on the hill about 40 yards away, so we had to get everyone out quickly. It was still dark and the air was already filled with smoke, making things pretty chaotic.

There were a few people who were hesitant to leave, but we had the sheriff’s deputies back us up and encourage them to get out of there. During a mandatory evacuation, we don’t arrest anyone, but we let them know the gravity of the situation: If you stay here, there’s a good chance your house will burn down and you will die. Some people will say, “I’ve lived here 50 years, fire’s been through here before, I have a fire hose and sprinklers, and I don’t want to leave.” If they have preparations in place, we’ll help them make a plan, but we’re not staying if it is unsafe for us to do so.

We were supposed to have gotten off that morning at 6:30 AM, but the incident was still expanding and we, along with hundreds of other firefighters, were actively engaged. Next, we got deployed to Little Tujunga to do structure defense in an area where houses are mixed in with brush. We could see the fire heading our way and figured we had about 30 minutes until it arrived. We were assigned to defend two houses, so we prepped them by clearing brush and anything combustible from the perimeter. It was 9 AM or so at this point, but when a fire comes through, it can be full blackout, so we turned on all the lights in the houses and made sure the doors were unlocked so we could retreat inside and survive there until conditions improved if we had to.

Based on a call for immediate need, we were redirected to the Sunland area. The fire had moved down the hill and jumped over the 210 from the radiant heat and wind-driven embers. Anytime a fire jumps highways, it’s significant. We were evacuating people from houses that were minutes away from fire impact, and putting out embers as they landed next to the houses, all while horses were running everywhere in the streets.

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ALUMNI PROFILES

“I love what I do. It’s more than just fighting fires. You make an impact on the community and gain tremendous life skills. Our job is to help people.”

We decided to cut the lock on a horse corral next to one of the houses to try to get the horses out, but they got scared and wouldn’t budge. We hit them a little with the hose because we didn’t want them to die in there. The corral burned down, but we successfully freed the horses before the fire arrived, and the house ultimately survived.

We were deployed to several areas for the rest of the afternoon and early evening, prepping houses and putting out hot spots as they popped up. We had to improvise using limited information and resources; at one point I was alone using a resident’s garden hose to put out embers around one house while my crew was at the house next door with a fire hose.

That night, we all started feeling nauseous. None of us had really eaten anything other than maybe a Clif Bar since the night before, and we later learned that there were tires burning down the hill below us. One of my crew members got sick, so we went to get a fresh crew member and eat dinner around 8 PM. During the crew swap, there was an extra captain who was looking to be placed on an engine—and my wife (Monica Paz ’99) was seven months pregnant, sick, and taking care of a toddler—so he offered to take my spot too, and I headed home. At that point, the bulk of the active fire was outside of the city, though it took several more days to mop up all the hot spots.

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how did you end up going from harvard-westlake to firefighting?

I was always a hands-on, outdoors kind of guy.

Harvard-Westlake was definitely challenging for me, since I was easily distracted and there were so many things I wanted to do outside that weren’t reading and studying! Although it took me a while to figure out how to be a good student, I ultimately did well in school. In retrospect, although Harvard-Westlake was a tough experience, it helped me to develop discipline, organizational skills, and multitasking abilities that have contributed to my success along the way.

I had wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember, but while I was in college at the University of Colorado, my interest shifted toward prehospital care and rescue. As an avid outdoorsman, I always appreciated the challenge of solving problems with limited resources in the out-of-hospital setting. So I went to paramedic school at UCLA and was hired as a Los Angeles Fire Department firefighter a year later. It’s an amazing job— fun, exciting, you get to work outside a lot, and there’s always something new. I went on to become a paramedic instructor and earned a master’s degree in public health from UCLA, which has helped me further my career within the fire department.

I love what I do. It’s more than just fighting fires. You make an impact on the community and gain tremendous life skills. Our job is to help people.

Photos of Creek Fire (above right and above) by Greg Doyle for the LAFD

SPRING 2018

Photo of the Creek Fire by Mike Meadows for the LAFD

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STUDENT VOICES

FROM THE HARVARD-WESTLAKE SPECTRUM

The California Fires: The tragedy that proved our strength as a community

BY KATHARINE STEERS ’22

While some residents were more affected than others, [December’s Southern] California fires left us all rattled. Residents within the fire zones evacuated their homes, with no guarantee that their house would still be standing upon their return. As first responders drove up and down streets urging residents to leave, news stations recommended that evacuees take photographs of their valuables. Residents outside of the immediate fire zones were also affected by the heavy winds, blowing smoke and ash for miles. The bad air quality led to canceled school and work days throughout the Los Angeles basin. For several days with no end in sight, the sky was orange and the air thick with ash. The fires claimed the lives of 66 animals and two people.

On December 5, I woke up to my phone buzzing with news stories and texts from friends and family inquiring about my safety. Fortunately, I was indeed safe. Yet when I looked out my window, the sky was raining ash. Had the fires really grown to be that bad? The surreal realization that the fires were serious hit me.

The mythical California earthquake, I was ready for. A fire burning down my city, I was not. The series of fires caught the eyes of those nationwide. Non-California residents’ commiseration was heartfelt, sincere, and dearly appreciated. However, it was truly up to Californians to navigate our way through the state of emergency and persevere alongside diligent firefighters.

Undeniably, the worry that the fires would rage on and demolish all of California was tucked away in the back of many people’s minds. Nonetheless, most did all they could to lend a helping hand to those in need of aid. Furthermore, organization volunteers worked around the clock with the objective of aiding firefighters and victims. The Humane Society of Ventura County took in and cared for an abundance of animals that had escaped. L.A. Kitchen, among other eateries, provided meals and water for people affected. Individuals participated by donating money to such organizations.

Throughout this chaotic time, it would have been easy for less affected people to turn a blind eye and to resume the common mindset of “This isn’t happening to me so it doesn’t disturb me.” Los Angeles is a sheltered place. Unlike other major cities, such as New York or London, where walking is the main source of transportation, the majority of Californians drive cars everywhere. Within our cars, we live in a bubble in which we have no obligation to care about things if they are not happening to us.

However, the fires put our competence and resolve as a community to the test. We spent our days donating necessities to charities and opening up our homes to shelter those who had been displaced. By simply deciding not to turn our backs on those in need, we proved how strong we are together.

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Artwork by Ella Price ’20

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NOTES

Class Notes Class Notes is a regular feature in the semiannual HW Life magazine. Notes are submitted by alumni, and each magazine includes submissions received in the previous six months.

If a decade/class year is not included in the notes, this means alumni from those years did not submit any updates. If you have news you’d like to share with the alumni community, you can submit it via our website, http://alumni.hw.com, in the password-protected Alumni section. If you need help with your username or password, please contact Hannah Platt ’08 at hplatt@hw.com.

HARVARD CLASS NOTES

WESTLAKE CLASS NOTES

1970s

1950s

TREY SCOTT ’74 writes “I just launched WatchPitch in the Apple Store—a Tinder for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and investors to create quantum leaps in efficiencies for deal flow and decision-making. I have an office in Asheville, North Carolina, and Western Europe.”

JOAN AGAJANIAN QUINN ’53 writes, “In 2017, I was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of my community service contributions and accomplishments as an arts advocate, curator, and journalist.

In addition to acting as the West Coast editor of Interview magazine, I interviewed over a thousand guests on my public television show, the Joan Quinn Profiles, and continue working on the Beverly Hills View. I was the longest sitting member appointed to the California Arts Council and served in Beverly Hills on two separate commissions, arts and architectural. My service for the last two decades on the executive boards of the Armenian International Women’s Association and the Armenian Museum of America continues.

When my husband Jack passed away last year, we had been married for 55 years. We have two daughters, Amanda and Jennifer, and two granddaughters, Paloma and Georgia.”

1980s TRAVIS WAYNE WINSOR ’84 writes, “I just celebrated 21 years with The Raymond Group, a commercial wall and ceiling contractor with offices throughout California and Nevada and with operations nationwide, where I serve as CEO. 2017 was a robust year, but more importantly Raymond’s California operations worked continuously for one year with over one million field hours with no OSHA recordable safety incidents. Very proud of our team’s accomplishments!”

In Memoriam LEONIS MALBURG ’47 FREDERIC MARTIN ’49 HUGH BATEMAN ’50 WILLIAM PLUNKETT ’57 CHARLES CRAIL ’52 MICHAEL WILLARD ’64

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1960s ELEANOR HILL EDWARDS ’60 “During the past three and a half years, I have been the guardian of 11 teenage refugees arriving alone, without parents, from Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Morocco. In Sweden, where I have lived since 1979, the guardian’s job is to see that housing, schooling, health care, and the asylum application process are all provided in ways that fill the demands of UN, EU, and Swedish laws concerning child refugees. Three of the boys have been turned down, a fourth disappeared before his application could be processed, and the other seven have been given permanent residency permits. They all share a background of poverty and family problems, but each one has his own individual life story. The ones who remain in Sweden intend to become mechanics, technicians, health care workers, and psychologists. Possibly the most difficult task they face is having to take full responsibility for creating a new life. The concept of choosing a goal for yourself and then doing all the work required to achieve that goal is not easy to grasp when you have grown up in a corrupt, patriarchal, and chaotic culture.”

SPRING 2018

1980s

1997

2007

PATTI BANK FINKELSTEIN ’81 writes, “After many years of advancement training as an alumna and parent volunteer for Harvard-Westlake Annual Giving, I am now director of major gifts for Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, while continuing to be an active member of the HW Alumni Board and remaining in touch with many Westlake friends.”

BRIAN GUM writes, “My wife Hannah and I welcomed our first child, Ethan Gum, to the family in October 2017.”

ISAMU MCGREGOR WRITES, “At age 27, I have established myself as a pianist, keyboardist, musical director, and arranger, touring internationally with a diverse group of artists including Richard Bona, Colbie Caillat, Virgil Donati, and Sadao Watanabe. My second album, Resonance, was released in May 2017 through LA-based Ghost Note Records.”

KAREN BENDER ’84 writes, “After 20 years of serving in the pulpit, I became the Skirball director of spiritual life and campus rabbi at the LA Jewish Home three years ago. Best gig I’ve ever had!!! I love working with seniors!”

In Memoriam BEVERLY BAXTER ADAMS ’46 PHYLLIS HUTCHINSON MONTROSE ’47 MARGARET WATKIN DOLLINGER ’53 CAROLINE REIGLE WILLIAMS ’54 CHRISTINE KEITH EASTON ’66 LESLIE FOLDVARY DE ALONSO ’70

HARVARD-WESTLAKE CLASS NOTES

1993 LAURIE OSTRIDGE CONDON writes, “Thrilled to announce I married Melvin Niemeyer in April 2017 in Kohler, Wisconsin. We are living with our three girls in Hinsdale, Illinois. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming reunion.”

1994 BEN HARRIS writes, “My family and the families of other HarvardWestlake alumni joined together on March 11, 2018, on the campus of UCLA for a special cause—the Power of Tower 5K Walk, honoring the life of Cindy Harris. My wife Cindy lost her six-year battle with breast cancer on March 1, 2017.

Cindy was only 40 and the mother of our two young daughters, Ashley and Emma, when she passed.”

SHEILA NAZARIAN MOBIN writes, “Moved into a new plastic surgery office this year in Beverly Hills.

Started an e-commerce skin care site, www.theskinspot.com.

Announced the first biannual Nazarian Institute conference, where we teach about marketing and patient experience in the medical space. It’s been a huge year of growth!”

2001 JESSICA RICHMAN writes, “I currently live in San Francisco and work for the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, the Australian government’s trade, investment, and education promotion agency.”

2003

JOHN LUDDEN writes, “We moved to Tampa and are having our third kid—a girl!”

2004

HARPREET BHATIA WRITES, “Just became the proud parent of a son, Aman, born December 17, 2017. Completing chief residency in medicine at Cornell New York-Presbyterian and starting fellowship in cardiology at UCSD in July 2018.”

2006

DEREK STAAHL writes, “I continue to report and anchor for some of Arizona’s top-rated news programs on the CBS affiliate in Phoenix and its sister station, 3TV.”

NICOLAS PATONAI writes, “I am wrapping up my final year as a resident of anesthesia at the University of Kansas Hospital. My wife Mary and I will be moving to Chicago this coming summer as I begin my practice and she goes to business school.”

2011 CONOR ELIOT writes, “Living and working in Shanghai since 2015.

Working for a start-up, LocalPanda. com. Check it out if you want some interesting fun tours while in China.”

2012 AUSTIN HOPP writes, “I graduated from Cornell in 2016 with a degree in financial engineering and went on to get a master’s at Columbia in 2017. I am currently working for Ernst & Young consulting in New York City and enjoying life!”

HW alumni: if you have Westlake, Harvard, or Harvard-Westlake memorabilia you would like to donate to the Harvard-Westlake archives, please contact our archivist, Eric Yin, at eyin@hw.com. Right now we are specifically looking for a 1941 Harvard yearbook; we would also love old photos, video or film, uniforms, class rings, pins, T-shirts, letter jackets, programs, and/or anything else from your school years. Thank you!

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NOTES

Packing Some Hinges for Your Summer Trip

By Jim Pattison

Thirty summers ago, 14 teenage boys and I set off from Boston for a crosscountry trip to Los Angeles. We spent 35 days together (840 hours‌but who was counting?). We flew airplanes in Milwaukee, rode horseback on the open range in Wyoming, climbed into the O’Hare control tower in Chicago, watched late-night government weapons testing in Utah, went whitewater rafting, and visited rodeos, baseball games, and theme parks. It was a great time, full of memories and lessons for us all.

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At the start of the trip, with all of us stuffed into the van, I seized upon the opportunity to purchase a trailer for our gear. The one I bought had supposedly just made a cross-country trek and cost only $95.

On departure day, we crammed all of our belongings into the trailer and soon arrived at our first stop: Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We then set off for our next leg of the trip.

Seven blown trailer tires later, we limped into Toronto, but then conveniently forgot about it as we explored the city for a few days. As we set off on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), en route to Chicago, I could see white puffs of smoke coming from the trailer tire well in the rearview mirror. Whether it was because I pulled over onto the shoulder or just very fortunate timing, the left tire on the trailer then sheared off from the axle and went bouncing down the road.

It was tempting to turn back, but an opportunity for persistence and resourcefulness had presented itself. With everyone pitching in, we soon got a road-worthy U-Haul trailer that performed beautifully for the remainder of the trip. The boys and I learned that just because a challenge arose didn’t mean we had to throw in the towel.

Each time we set out into the world, it’s imperative that we take along a few items Rick Steves forgot to add to his packing list. These items are so important that the Romans used to refer to them as the hinges on which their everyday lives swung. They were called the cardinal virtues (“carda” is Latin for hinge) of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. Today we refer to them as good decision making, conviction, self-control, and facing reality.

Good decision making means knowing what is worth doing and what is required. It’s a point guard coming down the basketball court and sizing up the defense. It’s figuring out where to go to college and completing all the necessary steps to get there. It’s knowing when to ask for help from a teacher and determining what homework needs to be done first each night. It’s what’s needed to properly evaluate any situation.

Having strength of conviction is not only knowing what is right and good to do, but pursuing it despite obstacles, choosing the hard right versus the easy wrong. It means being an upstander rather than a bystander, having the courage to be counted and having the wherewithal to work hard to make something happen. It can mean saying yes and committing to a cause, interest, or ideal; it can also mean saying no when necessary.

Whether nailing a goal in a soccer shootout, performing a difficult solo in a play, or participating in an academic Olympiad, performing under pressure relies on repetition, the seemingly endless practices and training that give a person the ability and self-control to deliver when needed. Temperance is too often pigeonholed into an association with alcohol and drugs; it also means watching our temper, our tongue, our greed, and our instinct to go overboard. It is in all the small things, such as being punctual and polite, watching our posture, sticking to our commitments, even closing a door properly, and overcoming our sometimes inordinate desire for ease and comfort that can sink into laziness.

Justice means realizing the truth of a matter, recognizing what is real. It involves not only telling the truth but also facing the truth. This virtue translates into treating people with the respect they are owed, putting ourselves in their shoes. Graduation is a time of great justice: the opportunity to recognize all the hard work a student does, and that of the parents, friends, family members, and teachers who help draw forth the good in us all.

Thirty summers ago, the boys and I packed our bags for our cross-country trip. The experience we had and the lessons we learned certainly wouldn’t fit in the U-Haul trailer. As you pack your bags and head off this summer, save some space in your luggage for the hinges that will make your travels smoother.

If you’d like to make a gift to Harvard-Westlake, please contact Senior Advancement Officer and Director of Major Gifts Jim Pattison at 818-487-5741 or jpattison@hw.com.

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STUDENT VOICES

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SPRING 2018

by Emma Poveda ’20

i lay still enveloped in the milky water the faucet muttering beside me miniature motions launch waves of percussion that sputter over the thick porcelain rim my fingertips wander through the surface leaving patterns of marble trailing behind; swirling the bubbles subsided.

i have never felt more like myself, exulting in my own silence, writing my own prayers

there are many things that a bath won’t cure, but i don’t know any of them.

Artwork by Olivia Baer ’20

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Last Look

FORMAL AT WESTLAKE, EARLY 1950s “Social life at Westlake began freshman year and included two annual formal exchange dances held in the Great Hall with male prep schools like Harvard, Cate, or Webb. These dances required us to fill out a dance card in advance indicating our class and height and listing the names of selected classmates. We all wanted to be paired with boys taller than we were, so we would add two to three inches to our own height. When a song ended, we scurried around to find the next classmate on our card, introduce her to our date, and exchange partners to ensure that we would meet as many boys as possible. I should add that Westlake girls did not wear any makeup at school. As soon as the final bell rang, we ran to the restroom to put on lipstick, jumped in cars, and went to the drive-in for hamburgers and shakes or over the hill to Harvard School.”

Louisa Wallace Jacobs ’54

Artwork by Anna Gong ’18

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