Kent Place Magazine - Winter/Spring 2025

Three alumnae share how athletics, performing arts, and wellness at KPS shaped who they are and influenced their careers.

Place

“This season was unforget table, with amazing synergy and camaraderie. I’m grateful for the support of such an incredible group of girls and coaches, who made me a better athlete and teammate.”

—SENIOR PRIYANKA

SOMAIYA

Priyanka Somaiya ’25 and her teammates secured a ninth-consecutive Union County Tournament title. See page 19 for more fall Dragon highlights.

Blueprints for Leadership and Connection

As we celebrate Kent Place’s 130th year, I’m struck by the richness of our history and the promise of our future. This milestone is an opportunity to reflect on what makes our school exceptional: a commitment to academic excellence, prioritizing the whole girl, and nurturing leadership, creativity, athletic pursuit, and physical and mental well-being.

Athletics, performing arts, and wellness are essential aspects of student life. By nurturing these areas, we support our mission to empower girls who advance the world. These experiences not only foster creativity, resilience, and teamwork but also inspire leadership and personal growth.

In this issue, you’ll read about alumnae whose leadership journeys began at Kent Place; their stories underscore how transformative a Kent Place education can be. You’ll also learn how we equip our students with the tools to participate in productive conversations — an essential skill in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the community. In an increasingly divided world, the ability to listen thoughtfully and understand different perspectives is crucial for fostering empathy, collaboration, and growth.

We’re well into the second half of the academic year, and there’s much to be proud of and much to look forward to. Thank you for being part of this remarkable community.

Yours for Kent Place,

Dr. Jennifer C. Galambos Head of School

Kent Place

EDITOR

Rachel Naggar P ’25

Director of Communications

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Paige Coviello

Associate Director of Communications

ALUMNAE EDITOR

Aimee Bousquet Singer ’88 P ’25

Advancement Communications

Manager

CONTRIBUTORS

Vicky Browne

Laura J. Cole, Writer

Andrea Dawson, Writer

Julie Gentile

Erin Peterson, Writer

Lainey Segear

Julia Soffer

Edel Thomas

Doris Troy, Copy Editor

CREATIVE DIRECTION AND DESIGN 2communiqué

COVER ARTIST

Eleanor Shakespeare (with portraits by Jessica Scranton and Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Contour RA by Getty Images)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Peter Chollick

Rebecca Nowalski

Jessica Scranton

Mark Wyville

PRINTING

Prism Color Corporation

Kent Place, the official magazine of Kent Place School, is published twice a year by the Communications Office, in partnership with the Advancement Office, for alumnae, parents, students, faculty, staff, and friends of the school.

Kent Place School

42 Norwood Avenue Summit, NJ 07901 (908) 273-0900 kentplace.org

We welcome your input: communications@kentplace.org

IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND TAKE ANY CLASS AT KENT PLACE AGAIN, WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE?

“11th-grade U.S. history with Mrs. Jacobus. We could unleash our creativity: I remember writing a rap about the early settlers and portraying the abolitionist Grimké sisters for an oral report. Her policy of fighting for points was an early lesson in self-advocacy.”

—ANDREA CARSON TANNER ’91

“Miss Sampson’s ninth-grade ancient history class. I was new at KPS and unsure of myself. I remember participating in her class and loving school because she taught with such enthusiasm.”

—JOY WEINER ’70

“ Vietnam (senior year elective) with Mrs. Jacobus. Junior year English with Dr. Cole. Phenomenal teachers, phenomenal content.”

—KEMBA DUNHAM ’90

“U.S. histor y (preferably with Mr. Peeler). During this election year, it was more important than ever to understand where our country has been to develop an informed perspective about policy. Unfortunately, where all of those facts and figures are stored has been temporarily occupied by kids’ sports schedules and attempts to learn common core math. I’d love to relearn so critical moments in our nation’s history are top-of-mind.”

—KATE (MATTERN) MCGEE ’97

“In a heartbeat, I’d take classes with Miss Eleanor Moulding. I’ve saved most of my tests and reports from her class. She was tough, smart, intimidating, and brilliant. She knew how to teach and how to help us learn. To this day, I remember her voice, her face, and her rare smile when she was proud of us.”

—CHRISTINA (MENNEN) ANDREA ’70

“Marcia Britton’s extraordinary class about Southern literature. It was the early 1970s and the world around us was tumultuous, angry, and unstable. But for an hour or so every day, Mrs. Britton took us to a deeper and more ancient place.”

—LISA KRIEGER ’73

“Photography. Learning to develop pictures taken with a 35mm camera: priceless.”

—KAREN LITTLE ’85

“Miss Wolfe’s English classes were the most memorable and challenging.”

—PHYLLIS (TILSON) PIOTROW ’50

“Chemistry and physics with Mr. Headley. His favorite comic was Peanuts and he incorporated many of its pictures in our work. He cared about us and taught in a way that we could understand. And Miss Moulding’s English class, to discuss Pride and Prejudice with more confidence than I had then.”

—MARLYN (RATH) CARSON ’69

communications@kentplace.org

COMMONS ROOM

NEWS AND VIEWS FROM KENT PLACE

Here, third-graders Maddie McCormick, Veera Badri, Lucie Samson, Maddie Rhee, Maria Hadjipateras, Christine Gan, Halle Rosefort, and Yuting An try out the Cocowave in the new Swing Grove.

A Request for Swings

Two years ago, a group of second-graders put their heads together and penned a letter to Kim Walker, Director of the Primary School. In it, they argued — persuasively — for a new set of swings to replace the playground’s worn tether ball set.

On November 15, their request became a reality.

“Their letter was a perfect example of what we teach students every day — how the power of one’s voice can effect change in the world,” says Ms. Walker.

In fact, the girls, now fourth-graders, happened to be studying

the impact of trailblazer Shirley Chisholm when construction of the beautiful new “Swing Grove" concluded. Donning eponymous T-shirts and green hard hats, the young letter writers gathered in front of their new playground before it was officially opened to all.

“My hope,” says Ms. Walker, “is that other Primary School projects come about because the children feel empowered to make our community a better place.”

To learn more about the importance of play in the Primary School, see page 9.

BRAVE & BRILLIANT

Naomi Ravenell ’26

Her freshman year — having never before picked up a club — Naomi Ravenell ’26 decided to try out for the golf team. Despite her inexperience, she made the roster and ended up having, as she puts it, “one of the most fun sports seasons ever.” Three years later, she remains a devoted member of the golf team, and that of field hockey, too. This eagerness to step into the unknown is one of Naomi’s hallmark traits.

Last year, she applied to be an EMT for her hometown. Her father is a doctor and, considering the same career path, she wanted on-the-ground experience. It was a long shot, though. Unlike most of the other applicants, she wasn’t a student in the district.

Once again, in her courage she found success. “I just went for it, and I felt so proud when I got in,” she says. When her training concludes, she’ll work 12-hour shifts one day a week.

Driving Naomi’s tenacity — not to mention the long list of school clubs and activities she’s involved in — is a passion to learn and help people in a variety of settings.

In particular, she cites her work with REBOOT (Rethinking Ethical Behavior Online for Oneself Together), an Upper School student-led organization. As co-leader of the case studies group, she develops and presents an array of ethical scenarios to Kent Place students at all grade levels, plus students in nearby schools. “Helping young people to understand and navigate their relationship with technology feels so important,” she says.

This year, Naomi was one of 12 — out of 40 applicants — selected to participate in the school’s Bioethics Project, a signature program of the Ethics Institute at Kent Place. It’s yet another commitment for the already busy junior, but as Director Karen Rezach describes her, Naomi is thoughtful and action-oriented in what she decides to pursue: “She says yes only to the things that really matter to her,” says Dr. Rezach. “It’s a testament to her understanding of herself and her willingness to grow and be challenged.”

Naomi isn’t afraid to challenge her peers, too, but she prioritizes listening over talking. “She owns the space she’s in in a very collaborative way,” says Tyhisha Henry, Assistant Director of DEIB. “Her sophomore year, she joined the DEIB Student Outreach Committee, and was recently elected co-leader by her peers. That says a lot about her character and her leadership style.”

For Naomi, it’s all about relationships. “It makes me really happy to connect with people,” she says. “In REBOOT, my DEIB work, and my EMT work, I get to connect with peers inside and outside of school, as well as people in my own community. It feels good to be able to have an impact in different ways.”

One fall Saturday, Naomi attended a Kent Place community-service event in Jersey City, where she was helping to raise money for a food pantry. Many of the visitors were Spanish-speaking, and as president of Kent Place’s Spanish Club and a longtime student of the language, she was once again in a position to connect and lend a hand. It was exactly the kind of scenario in which Naomi thrives.

“It was very gratifying to be able to communicate with those families,” she says, “and to know I was helping out and making a difference.”

ETHICAL INSIGHTS. The Ethics Institute started the academic year by hosting various Empowered Parent programs, from “Balancing Technology, Privacy, and Ethics” to “Ethics and AI.” WELLNESS IN

HARMONY. Primary School Music Director Lori Mirabal led a fabulous workshop, “Wellness for Singers,” for the Upper School Chamber Singers. Students practiced compassionate self-awareness

as they focused on the physical strength and energy required for good sounds. POSITIVE SELFIMAGE. Our Middle Schoolers celebrated National Love Your Body Day with workshops and assemblies centered on body positivity. A BOUNTIFUL TRADITION. Fourthand fifth-grade French and Spanish students held their annual World Language Harvest Day, picking tomatillos,

MORNING MEETING [continued on p. 8]

VERSE BY VERSE. Kindergartners learn poems and practice presenting them to their classmates throughout the school year.

CONFIDENT COMMUNICATORS

THE ART OF EXPRESSION

At Kent Place, we make it a priority to offer students countless opportunities to become comfortable and confident speakers. Whether in the classroom, during assemblies, or even in Morning Meetings, students are always practicing and improving their public-speaking skills. These moments not only build confidence but also prepare them for the various ways they’ll need to communicate throughout their lives. Here are a few examples of how we put this learning into action.

SPEAKING WITH GRATITUDE. Second-graders write letters to specialists that they orally present during the annual Valentine’s Day Specialist Breakfast.

VOICES OF DISCOVERY.

As part of their Cumulative Humanities Project, all juniors must deliver an oral presentation on an artifact that brings together their yearlong research.

speaks to the school community on behalf of the Primary School at Opening Convocation.

POWERFUL PRESENCE. Students in Grades 7 and 8 can take a Public Speaking elective to refine their skills.

Milly Popper ’32

Lalani ’27 received a response from poet Leila Chatti.

FORGING CONNECTION THROUGH POETRY

Lisa Cohen, Upper School English teacher, was looking for a way to create connections among students when they were learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. What resulted has become a beloved assignment in English 9: It’s called “Dear Poet.”

“Dear Poet” invites young people in Grades 5 through 12 to write letters in response to poems written and read by award-winning poets who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors. If a poet connects with a particular response, they will write the student a direct reply. Since 2021, seven Kent Place students have received responses from a poet.

Mira Lalani ’27 is the most recent. She wrote to Leila Chatti about “I Went Out to Hear.”

“Leila Chatti’s poem spoke to me,” Mira says. “It concerns how some things will never be the same as they used to be. In my response, I focused on the idea of birthdays and growing up.”

In her reply, Ms. Chatti wrote, “I smiled — a little sad, but not only — to read your reflection on birthdays. Far too much of my life I’ve spent wishing for it to go faster. I’ve felt, like you, a hunger to reach the next age — to have more freedoms, to have more control.”

“Leila taught me that each step in your life is valuable,” says Mira.

Six other students have received replies since the introduction of the assignment.

• Aadya Bharadwaj ’24, from Ellen Bass, on “Kiss”

• Makena Singer ’25, from Marcus Amaker, on “Give Yourself Some Flowers”

• Sonia Gulati ’25, from Dasha Kelly Hamilton, on “All the Lives We Are”

• Sophia Gandhi ’25, from Magdalena Gómez, on “La Biblioteca Is a Doula”

• Charlotte Grushkin ’25, from Marilyn Chin, on “Shadowless Shadow”

• Supriya Kamilla ’26, from Richard Blanco, on “Looking for the Gulf Motel”

shishito and poblano peppers, mint, basil, oregano, rosemary, and melons and presenting the bounty to the Dining Hall to enhance a meal or two. RECOGNITION CELEBRATED. Five members of the Class of 2025 have been named National Merit Commended

Scholars and four are National Merit Semifinalists (a record for KPS). STAYING SECURE, TOGETHER. All faculty and staff participate in cybersecurity awareness and training through our Technology Department. SPARKING CHANGE. Our DEIB

Student Education Committee attended the 5th-Annual Middle School Equity and Inclusion Summit, where they connected with other New Jersey Middle School students for insightful discussions and inspiring keynote speakers about making an impact

and representation. SING, LEARN, EXPLORE. Children’s author Adriana Erin Rivera joined the Primary School to read Paloma’s Song for Puerto Rico, teaching students about life on the island and the unique coquí frog through song. [continued on p. 10]

Mira

The Power of Play

It’s been said that play is children’s work, and no one agrees more than Kim Walker, Director of the Primary School. Since joining the Kent Place community, in 2022, Ms. Walker has made play a priority, first — and notably — by supporting a student-led effort to add swings to the playground (see page 4), just one element in a larger playground-renovation project.

In conjunction with Primary School teachers, she also encouraged a change to recess this school year, splitting it into two 30-minute periods. Third- through fifth-grad-

ers take recess first, before lunch; first- and second-graders have recess after lunch.

With the students no longer racing to the playground all together, vying for space and equipment, the children have a greater opportunity to experience and explore. And that’s important, says Ms. Walker. “Recess is a laboratory for school,” she says, “a chance for children to connect face to face, release some of their stress, be imaginative, and practice the social, leadership, and conflict-resolution skills we talk about in the classroom.”

In short, recess is about much more than getting the sillies out.

Ms. Walker breaks down the power of play.

Cognitive Play

“Even before our new Swing Grove opened, students were planning how to ensure that they each had a chance to swing. Navigating these natural challenges of scarcity and conflict and coming up with systems to address them spills into their academic learning."

Social Play

“Taking a deeper look at play and recess dovetails with the wellness work happening in the Middle and Upper Schools, like the phone-free initiative. Promoting social engagement and guarding our kids against anxiety and depression is a full-school effort, and in the Primary School, recess is a significant tool. Many students have packed schedules outside of school, so the playground is one of the few places where they have unstructured time with one another.”

By offering two separate playgrounds — a “natural playground,” where the Swing Grove, merry-go-round, and spinner bowls reside, and the Challenge Playground, with monkey bars and a ring course — Primary Schoolers can choose their own level of difficulty.

Collaborative Versus Independent Play

“Providing opportunities for both gives students agency and promotes decision-making,” says Ms. Walker. That’s why a long rope swing (accommodating several girls at a time) and individual swings were placed in the Swing Grove. Badminton and pickleball sets enable group play; on the challenge playground, students who prefer to can climb the bird’s nest solo.

Risky Play

“Safety is important but sometimes, especially at a girls school, it can be crippling. Risk aversion can affect students academically. If we give students the opportunity to push themselves physically, they’re more likely to be willing to push themselves in the classroom, too.”

Eliana Siclare ’33 on the Challenge Playground

BRAVE & BRILLIANT

Sonia Gulati ’25

Ever since her freshman year, when a required Introduction to Computer Science class hooked her, Sonia Gulati ’25 has made the discipline a focal point of her Upper School career. As a senior, she was even inspired to pursue an independent study in computer science.

This didn’t come as a surprise to Judith Bianco, who has taught Sonia in several Upper School computer science courses and admires the “full ownership” she takes of her learning.

It’s also no surprise that Sonia set the bar high when designing her independent study. For her project — titled “The User Experience and Web Development” — she decided not only to advance her computer programming skills, but also to attend to the lived,

human experience, an approach that reflects the very nature of Kent Place’s computer science curriculum.

“Sonia is always looking to maximize her learning experiences to seek deeper understanding and build complex skills,” says Ms. Bianco. “She really wants to understand why we code, not just how we code.”

Indeed, her yearlong project involves multiple surveys of Kent Place students, culminating in a website resource that will serve them — with any luck — well after she graduates.

“I designed my independent study as a way for me to take my programming skills to the next level and produce an outcome,” Sonia says. “I quickly understood that without taking into account who’ll be using my website, it won’t appeal to anyone.”

Considering the more complex concept of user experience — in addition to the programming aspect — reflects Sonia’s character, says Katharine MacCornack, who has been her advisor since she arrived on campus her freshman year. “She’s a very curious student. In Advisory, she’s often the first one to volunteer ideas and get the group going. She’s constantly thinking, engaging, and pursuing her interests in a way that takes courage and a willingness to make mistakes.”

From a passion for STEM to her selection of advanced courses in history, Spanish, and English, Sonia has taken full advantage of what Kent Place has to offer. Her lineup of campus activities is strong, too. For four years, she has been editor of the senior pages for Cargoes, the school yearbook — “it nurtures my creative side,” she says. Dichos, Kent Place’s international, travel-centered publication; GLAM’D Club (Girls Learning and Making a Difference); and the Varsity Lacrosse team also count her as a dedicated member.

Dipping her toes into different experiences delights Sonia. “That’s what I love about Kent Place: that I’m encouraged to be a well-rounded student. I don’t have to choose just one subject or activity to focus on,” she says.

Outside of school, Sonia is passionate about her volunteer work with the Brain Train Learning Center, in Summit. When her school day ends, she meets with local students — from kindergartners to kids her own age — who have a range of learning differences, helping them with homework and study skills. “They’ve become some of my best friends,” she says. “I love seeing someone who was worried about a test report back to me that they exceeded their expectations because of our work together.”

WALKING IN THEIR SHOES. For the second year, members of the Leadership Team are shadowing faculty and staff volunteers to see firsthand their daily roles in action and gain insight into their campus lives. Last year, for example, the Assistant Head of School shadowed

the receptionist and the Director of Communications spent the day with the Head Librarian. ETHICS ON AIR. REBOOT’s podcast, Tapping In, received an honorable mention from NPR in its Student Podcast Challenge for the episode “The Scope of Human Trafficking.”

Tapping In dives into the ethics of social media through wide-ranging, in-depth conversations. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify. TURNING STORIES INTO IMPACT.

Student leaders from Ballast, Starboard, and Windward took their skills to new heights at the Columbia

Scholastic Press Association Conference. From learning interview techniques to crafting layouts, our Upper Schoolers acquired new tools to bring these publications to the next level. A MELODY OF MENTORSHIP. The Junior Pre-K had special [continued on p. 12]

INVESTING IN REAL-WORLD SKILLS

Once a popular elective for Grades 7 and 8, Money Matters is now a required trimester class for all Kent Place eighth-graders — just one example of the school’s growing emphasis on economics and financial literacy. And students are more than okay with the change. “The tangible application of every single topic we discuss makes the class exciting for them,” says Middle School math teacher Cheryl Kaplun, who designed the curriculum with Economics and Financial Literacy Coordinator Alicia Rodriguez.

“It’s a safe space for the girls to ask questions and think about how their futures will be impacted by money. They really get into it.”

Among the topics they tackle:

• How to read a paycheck

• How businesses operate

• Understanding compound interest

• The impact of trade-offs in decision-making

• The stock market and other modes of investing

• Career exploration

One of the experiences: Armed with a job and a salary, students must find an apartment and budget their monthly expenses using Google sheets. “It’s a really awesome class because we learned so much that we can apply in the real world,” says Rae Sharma ’29. “My friends and I got to imagine what it would be like to find, share, and afford an apartment together in the city — part of me was sad that it wasn’t real!”

SPRINKLING JOY, ONE KIND WORD AT A TIME.

Our Kindergartners have been diligently spreading kindness throughout campus, leaving thoughtful words and phrases everywhere. Their inspiring messages, from cheerful notes to colorful drawings, remind us all to scatter kindness like confetti. Whether on classroom doors, in hallways, or tucked into unexpected places, their efforts bring smiles and brighten everyone’s day.

Samhita Iyer ’37

Elliot Pyo ’37

Madeline Magedoff ’29 brainstorms key aspects of personal finance, such as budgeting.

Corporate Leaders of the Future

Kent Place students in Grades 8–12 took part in the 25th-annual Novartis Multicultural Teen Corporate Mentoring Program. With hundreds of students who came from all over the country, KPS students participated in a variety of activities, such as mentoring sessions, campus tours, and a panel discussion featuring alumni from the program.

Keynote speeches from Rodney Gillespie (vice president, oncology sales and marketing, Novartis), Victor Bulto (president, Novartis US), and Stephanie A. Roberts (external consultant) urged students to think critically about leadership and equity.

The highlight was a project that asked students to develop sustainable solutions to the issue of healthcare access and other inequities

across the United States. KPS participants collaborated in teams with students from other schools, forging new connections as they brainstormed. Groups presented to a judging panel of Novartis executives, and the program culminated with an awards ceremony, at which Kent Place’s Siya Sharma ’29 was recognized for her leadership.

Ananya Mehta ’27 described the program as “exciting, eventful, social, and inspiring”; Nisha Raval ’27 appreciated the career exposure it provided.

“This program was an eye-opener and changed my perspective on different career opportunities,” says Maya Hardy ’26. “I was able to learn from experts in the medical field who are passionate about uplifting high schoolers.”

Students gather at the start of the two-day program.

guests from the Upper School join them to learn about “The Communities of Instruments” during the annual Music Cozy Cub Concert Series. Students listened, played along, and got to touch the instruments. UNITING FOR A PURPOSE. After a visit from

the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Middle School came together as a division for an excellent reason: to spread some joy. Students got creative by handwriting cards, assembling gift bags, and making bracelets for children who are very ill. A SILVER SPOTLIGHT. Kent

Place magazine’s Winter 2024 feature “The Kent Place Start-up Guide” received Silver honors for Magazine Editorial Spread Series from the UCDA Awards! DESIGNING WITH PRECISION. Using the principles of minimalist art, Upper School Engineering and

the Arts students applied their design skills to create a blueprint for a functional piece that they will build. Throughout the elective course, they’ve learned to use power tools, 3D printers, and a laser cutter, in addition to hand tools.

TWO PAINTINGS, MANY DISCOVERIES

According to Carey Gates, students entering his AP Art History class in September often have in common this misconception: that the entire course will amount to memorizing dates and artists and titles of artworks.

By the time the course concludes, nine months later, they have a different outlook.

Just ask Louisa Gordon ’25 and Aila Kenne-

dy ’25, who — for an early assignment — wrote essays comparing two very different paintings: Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), and Hunters in the Snow, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–1569).

“I worked hard to voice each painting, forging parallels between them using the themes of the cycle of life and nature’s intense power,”

says Louisa. “It felt satisfying to be able to put the work of Hokusai into conversation with that of Bruegel.”

“It broadened my perspective to learn how Hokusai and Bruegel — artists from two vastly different cultures, living hundreds of years apart — were able to maintain their artistic integrity,” says Aila, “while commenting on shared themes such as the powerlessness of humans against nature.”

Pretty heady accomplishments for two seniors who never before took an art history course!

Opening students’ eyes to the impact of painting, sculpture, architecture, and artifacts on the human experience — not to mention their own lives — is a powerful lesson, says Mr. Gates, Chair of the Visual Arts Department. Even more powerful is watching the students connect the dots.

“In my bioethics class last year, we often discussed to what extent medical professionals should interfere with nature,” Louisa says. “As I examined these two paintings, those same ideas arose. I really had to grapple with the power of nature beyond human interference.”

Mr. Gates loves watching this transformation in his students: “They start class a little apprehensive and unsure, but they leave with the realization that art history is really about the common themes that endure and connect us. And more important, they leave with the confidence and capability to speak about art.”

Seniors Aila Kennedy and Louisa Gordon

Hunters in the Snow, by Peter Bruegel the Elder

Under the Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai

Middle School STEM-thusiasts Prepare for Olympiad

Constructing cars out of logs, detecting diseases, understanding our planet, becoming ecology experts, building functional bridges out of toothpicks, identifying fossils — they all happen in the Kent Place Innovation Lab, where you can find the Middle School STEM Team hard at work preparing for the Science Olympiad.

The Science Olympiad is a national, teambased competition that centers on STEM subjects, with more than 7,800 students vying for recognition annually. The competition is designed to encourage interest and excellence in science and promote teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

Coached by Wendy Hall, Middle and Upper School science teacher, and Kim Mattappallili, Middle and Upper School computer science and engineering teacher, the team comprises 18 KPS seventh- and eighth-graders — 15 competitors and three alternates. Also helping during practice is an instrumental team of support members.

“We’ve been competing in the Science Olympiad for about ten years now,” says Ms. Hall. “This year, for the first time, because of the program’s growing popularity, we had to conduct an official tryout.”

Says Sophia Ivy ’29, “I enjoy practicing for build events. We work to build some-

thing that fits the set of challenges and rules outlined in the official rulebook. I’ve been working on a helicopter build. We also work a lot on team-building.”

“I especially enjoy Disease Detectives, an event where we learn about different illnesses, their data, and how they spread,” says Eva Obalde ’29.

The team competed in the New Jersey Science Olympiad NJIT regional tournament in January. They placed third overall and succeeded in several events, including placing second in Optics, third in Fossils, and third in Scrambler, and qualified for the state tournament.

Ananya Mittal ’29, Richa Malpani ’29, and Pearl Dawadi ’30 practice Scrambler — an Olympiad event where teams design, build, and test a mechanical device.

FIVE THINGS ABOUT . . .

MATH FOR EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

At KPS, math is more than equations — it’s a journey of curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. Across all grades, students engage in mentorship, competitions, real-world applications, and flexible thinking. From Primary Schoolers exploring patterns to Upper Schoolers performing statistical analyses, math fosters growth at every level. Through leadership, collaboration, and hands-on learning, students build skills to navigate a data-driven world with confidence. Here are five ways math inspires exponential growth at KPS.

5

RESEARCH IN ADVANCED MATHEMATICS.

In this Upper School course, students take the reins as they develop mathematical models to analyze selfselected, complex, real-world situations. Advanced research methods emphasize critical thinking and collaboration as students gain experience in mathematical reasoning, proof techniques, data analysis, and the communication of mathematical ideas in written and oral formats.

4 DIALOGUES AROUND DATA. Data drives decisions in every arena. Students have opportunities to explore statistical concepts throughout the K–12 mathematics curriculum, from analyzing generative AI data to the stories that data tell in politics and healthcare. Our students learn how to interpret and respond to the constant influx of information that bombards them in this 21st-century world.

1

MENTORS FOR MORE MATH.

Within the realm of mathematics, leadership and mentorship opportunities abound. The Math Studio is a hub for collaboration. Students convene throughout the day to meet with peer tutors, attend student-run Math Club meetings, or confer with a teacher. In addition, Upper School students serve as facilitators for the Primary School’s M.A.T.H. Club. These mentors develop hands-on activities that nurture mathematical curiosity and wonder for participants in Grades 3–5. Among activities have been discovering geometry within origami,

3

FINANCIAL LITERACY & MATH INTEGRATION. Authentic learning experiences such as our annual lemonade sale (Grade 3), the tiny house capstone project (Grade 5), and the TREP$ program (Grade 6) enable students to apply their math skills to a variety of economic ventures. Middle and Upper School trimester courses such as Money Matters and Portraits of Empowerment offer students additional opportunities to investigate economics. In Upper School math coursework, students learn via a car-ownership simulation in order to better understand wants vs. needs.

take part in Math Madness, a national, team-based competition. Middle Schoolers participate in the American Mathematics Competition 8 and students in the Upper School participate in the AMC 10/12. Some of our top scorers have even moved on to the American Invitational Mathematics Examination competition. Go Dragons!

Dragons Supporting Dragons

At the start of every year, Kent Place’s seventh- and eighth-grade athletes gear up for their first practices, where they’ll meet their teammates and prepare to compete in interscholastic matches. For many, this is their initial exposure to organized team sports, where fundamentals and strategies learned in practice are tested in actual competition. With eight games on the schedule and a spot in the Middle School Athletic Conference (MSAC) tournament, a Middle School Dragon’s experience promises great exercise, growth, and a whole lot of fun.

At the same time, our Upper School athletes start their seasons. With preseason under their belts, Upper School Dragons are ready for opening day against tough opponents at the Junior Varsity and Varsity levels, with a chance of reaching (and winning!) regional and state tournaments.

Middle School athletics are designed to be exploratory — a chance for students to play a sport they’d never considered or an opportunity to improve their skills in an environment that fosters development. On the other hand, Upper School athletes hone

their skills and prepare to compete at top levels. So how do we bridge the gap between Middle School and Upper School athletics?

Three words: Dragons supporting Dragons.

Middle and Upper School Dragons support each other, in sometimes spectacular ways. For example, this September, on Sport and Spirit Day, Middle Schoolers lined Pat Conley Field and filled the bleachers of the Field House as they cheered on the Upper School Dragons. Middle Schoolers often act as ball girls during Varsity and JV Soccer games, soaking up the experience of being practically on the field.

Upper Schoolers reciprocate the support. For example, winter captains go into Middle School practices the week of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, taking the younger Dragons through drills and giving tips on play, teamwork, and resilience. In addition, Varsity Lacrosse players support Middle School clinics led by the Varsity Head Coach. Middle School athletes grow in their respective sports and feel a strong connection to the broader

Dragon community. They carry with them to the Upper School the skills they’ve acquired and the lessons learned.

An emotional moment occurs on National Letter of Intent (NLI) Signing Day. Middle School athletes are in attendance to watch in awe as the older Dragons officially commit to playing at the collegiate level.

As they make the transition to Upper School athletics, ninth-graders are paired with juniors or seniors as “accountability buddies," creating an immediate sense of belonging. These partnerships often continue beyond the field, providing friendship as well as guidance. The bonds strengthen with every interaction, and this mentorship is a hallmark of what it means to be a Dragon.

Now, as Upper Schoolers, the younger girls are ready to compete at the next level, and to become the mentors of tomorrow. And that’s Dragons supporting Dragons.

Athletic Director Vicky Browne joined Kent Place in 2022.

Taraa Arampulikan ’31, along with her classmates, cheer on the Upper School Dragons from the bleachers at Pat Conley Field.

KENT PLACE WINS BIG ON SPORT AND SPIRIT DAY. On September 28, Kent Place hosted its first-ever Sport and Spirit Day, uniting the Dragon community with games, tailgating, and other activities. The Dragons came away with two huge wins: Varsity Field Hockey defeated Point Pleasant Boro 3-1 on Pat Conley Field and Varsity Volleyball swept South Plainfield inside the Field House. The unforgettable day was made possible thanks to the Dragon Athletic Club’s parent volunteers, the Advancement Team, Kent Place studentathletes, team parents, and all who came out to take part and cheer on the Green and Gold. Go Dragons!

SETTING FOR SUCCESS: SAVERA RIGBY ’26

What’s your job as a volleyball setter?

My job is to touch every second ball and set it up as well as I can for all hitters. I need to accurately place the ball in the best possible position for them to succeed. Setters have the ability to orchestrate the offense as we decide which hitter has the best chance to put the ball away and win that point.

What does being a Dragon mean to you?

Being a Dragon means putting your community first and ensuring that you’re always there to support your teammates. I respect and care for my teammates. I’ve learned and continue to learn so much from them.

What’s something you’re proud of as a student-athlete? I’m proud of what our Volleyball team accomplished this past season. We rallied together and rose to the challenge of a competitive division, facing it with determination and the drive to succeed.

Savera, who started at KPS in sixth grade, is president of the junior class, co-president of Active Minds, a member of Girls Exploring Medical Sciences (GEMS) and Cargoes, and in the First Aid Club.

Fionna Dangler ’30, Reece Dustin ’30, and Remi Dustin ’30 tied green and gold ribbons for the Volleyball team at Sport and Spirit Day.

Meet Casey Caprio, Assistant Athletic Director

Tell us about your role in Dragon Athletics. I manage the logistics for all of our teams — from scheduling games, to coordinating tournaments, to arranging transportation, to organizing and distributing uniforms. I also oversee other operational aspects to ensure that everything runs smoothly. I work closely with our students, among them the Athletic Association student president and our Middle School Dragon Ambassadors, to plan events around athletics. I’m also the Varsity Assistant Ice Hockey Coach. Working behind the scenes with all of our teams and getting to coach gives me the best of both worlds.

What inspired you to pursue a career in athletics?

I’ve loved sports for as long as I can remember. In college, watching the 2016 Summer Olympics got me hooked on soccer. That fall, majoring in communications with a focus on sports, I began working with my school’s soccer team. Then an internship with Sky Blue FC (now Gotham FC) turned into summer jobs, and I fell in love with the behind-the-scenes logistics that make sports successful.

What does it mean to be part of the KPS Dragon community?

Being a Dragon means constantly challenging myself and others to improve, while cultivating an encouraging environment. Dragons support one another, and I see that mutual support every day among my colleagues, fellow coaches, and student-athletes.

Do you have a favorite sports moment?

I was at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France and watched as USA won the final against the Netherlands. It was incredible!

Dragons Rise, Teams Shine

Congratulations to our fall teams for an outstanding season. Here are a few noteworthy wins and other highlights.

TENNIS

• Ninth-consecutive Union County Tournament title

• Watchung Division Champions

• Keira Kapur ’26 named Union County Player of the Year

• Junior Varsity won 16 of 18 matches

FIELD HOCKEY

• Varsity won the NJISAA Prep A Tournament for the first time since 2021

• Junior Varsity reached Union County semifinal game

VOLLEYBALL

• NJSIAA North Jersey Non-Public A runners-up

MIDDLE SCHOOL

• Field Hockey earned the top seed in the Middle School Athletic Conference tournament; reached the MSAC championship game

Varsity Field Hockey hoists its NJISAA Prep A Tournament trophy.

Varsity Volleyball huddles during Senior Day match.

Caroline Hand ’25

2024–2025 Middle School Field Hockey

Learn More About: Julie Gentile, Assistant Head of School

COLLABORATIVE, STRATEGIC, AND HUMAN-FORWARD

I collaborate with members of our community to think strategically about all aspects of Kent Place. I’m a sounding board for ideas and an advocate for authenticity, supporting students in learning about themselves, their peers, and the world, and at the same time coaching and cheering our faculty as they contribute to school life.

A TEACHER AT HEART

This is my 18th year at Kent Place. I started as faculty and English Department chair, then transitioned to leadership roles. Kent Place has helped me grow while staying connected to teaching; I often work with students in the Writing Center.

CONNECTION-FILLED DAYS (AND NIGHTS)

I wake up very early to exercise and get my 14-year-old out the door, and then call a friend or family member during my short

commute. I then may attend a leadership meeting, help with recess, visit a class, and root for our athletes. In the evening, I enjoy attending Diversity and Equity Parent Group celebrations, arts performances, alumnae gatherings, and parent events.

INITIATIVES

I’m proud to have contributed to many exciting initiatives at Kent Place — from launching the Cumulative Humanities Project, to growing our STEM and Health and Wellness pro-

grams, even to helping design the Center for Innovation, from how it looks to how it functions.

FAVORITE TRADITIONS

I love the spirit of Opening Convocation, especially listening to our student speakers and singing the Alma Mater together. And the Dancing Dragons. This lesser-known tradition is when a group of Middle School faculty perform dance numbers for their students. It’s a lot of fun and joyful, for teachers as well as the kids.

NAVIGATING AI ETHICALLY

Three years ago — in January 2022 — ChatGPT exploded onto the scene. This academic year, in particular, says Karen Rezach, Director of Kent Place’s Ethics Institute, schools are clamoring for advice on how to responsibly incorporate AI into their communities.

To that end, Dr. Rezach teamed up with Director of Technology Kim Pearson — with the help of students in REBOOT (Rethinking Ethical Behavior Online for Oneself Together) — to offer guidance not only to Kent Place parents and faculty but also to a range of schools and at conferences across the country. In November 2024, they even participated in a Senate panel on the ethical implications for schools regarding deepfakes.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” says Dr. Rezach. “But with the Ethics Institute and REBOOT, we can help schools to be proactive — not reactive — in creating AI policy and considering the questions they should be asking before moving full-bore into using it. That didn’t happen when the iPhone or social media appeared, and we scrambled to put boundaries in place after the fact. Schools need to be asking these questions now.”

• What are the ethical considerations of AI regarding security, privacy, and bias?

• What are the potential benefits — and risks — of using AI in school?

• What skills do students need to navigate AI and how should we teach them?

• How do we weave AI into the curriculum, and where do we even begin?

GLOSSARY

AI. Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science.

DEEPFAKE. A realistic but fake AI-generated image, audio, video, text, or a combination.

GENERATIVE AI. An AI system that creates new content — such as text, images, and music — from existing data and patterns (example: ChatGPT).

Director of Technology Kim Pearson, Director of the Ethics Institute Karen Rezach, Ed Tech and Support Specialist Alicia Regnault, and Associate Director of the Ethics Institute Anna Conti traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss the ethical implications of deepfakes.

“As a technology director at a school for girls, empowering our students when it comes to digital literacy and self-protection online is a top priority. I’m also thrilled to be taking our message beyond Kent Place.”

—KIM PEARSON, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY

The company of Into the Woods

Wishes, Witches, and a Journey Through the Woods

The Upper School’s sold-out fall production of Into the Woods brought an enchanting mix of fairy-tale characters to life in the Hyde & Watson Theater. The cast embraced the complexity of the tale, which leavens lessons with humor.

“The retelling of classic, fun fairy tales, with deeper messages that are applicable to anyone, makes this production special,” says Evelyne Mendelsohn ’26, who starred as Cinderella.

Exploring Dance Together

For several years, as part of our Middle School Arts Celebrations, students in music, theater, and dance took the stage in one evening performance. Many of our musicians and theater students were used to performing in front of an audience, but our dancers had to wait around, keep their limbs warm, and then be ready for their five minutes under the lights. Even though the audience loved to see them move, the logistics were not always conducive to the most student-friendly experience.

This year, our Middle School dance performances are following the open class model: The goal is for spectators — students, faculty, and families — to find dance a more accessible art form. With this model, audience members are able to observe how dancers explore movement, improvisation, and expression in real time and achieve a better understanding of the creative process behind their art.

As teaching artists, we witness each dancer’s unique style and interpretation, and decided it was time for us to share this appreciation for the diversity of movement: to show our audiences that dance is not about perfection but rather about personal connection and expression. Observing dancers in a learning environment — making mistakes, receiving feedback, and improving — can be both inspiring and educational for everyone. An open dance class showcases the process of growth, persistence, and development and highlights the effort behind the artistry.

Our classes — for sixth-graders and for the seventh- and eighth-grade Dancemakers — attract a mix of dancers at various levels. Mr. McMichael often begins with a modern dance warm-up, followed by center and across-the-floor combinations. By emphasizing professionalism, anatomy, conditioning, musicality, and movement composition, his dancers learn skills that can be helpful to them in any field.

Our performances this trimester were fabulous! The sixth-grade dancers enthralled us with their version of “Viva la Vida.” The following day, we were treated to the Dancemakers’ amazing interpretation of “Together Again.”

Watching these classes as young audience members (our future dancers!) creates a sense of community that encourages students to be involved in the dance program, as either participants or supporters. An open class features a variety of dance moves that can expand their understanding and introduce them to new genres or ways of approaching movement, breaking down preconceived notions about what dance can be.

We hope these open classes will forge new ways to appreciate dance and help audiences connect with the artistic process and our Middle School dancers.

Edel Thomas, Director of Performing Arts, is in her 33rd year teaching at KPS.

Harmony Takes Flight

Neil Ginsberg, Middle and Upper School choral teacher, also happens to be a prolific composer. More than 40 of his choral arrangements have been published and performed around the world, many by children’s choirs. Here’s how he came to write a score for one of Kent Place’s very own.

SONG: “A Bright New Day,” text by Robert Bode, music by Neil Ginsberg

ORIGIN STORY: My publisher, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, asked if I would put music to Mr. Bode’s poem. As I was completing the piece, I knew it would be perfect for Kent Place’s Hummingbirds, conducted by Lori Brown Mirabal, Primary School music teacher.

COLLABORATION: I love the creative process — even more than performance — and it was wonderful to collaborate with Dr. Mirabal. Usually, I’m at a piano composing alone. This time, working with her and hearing the students rehearse, I was able to make real-time adjustments to the score. The students enjoyed having insight into the process of composition.

CLAIM TO FAME: The Hummingbirds were excited to know they were the very first to perform “A Bright New Day” — and that we may soon hear choruses of kids all over the world singing it!

Sixth-grade dancers rehearse their performance piece, "Viva la Vida."

WITH “SILENT STORM,” SENIOR COMPOSER MAKES HISTORY AT STAR 2024

What inspired you to compose a choral piece for Chamber Singers?

I’ve been surrounded by choral music for as long as I can remember. In third grade, I joined the Kent Place Hummingbirds and have been involved in choirs both in and out of school ever since. I’ve been exposed to a range of choral pieces from all over the world. Of the many pieces I sang and heard, some resonated so much that I still remember them: “Shut De Do,” in Hummingbirds;

“Flight Song,” in Middle School — I could go on and on. At STAR last year, Chamber Singers sang “By Night” as I played snare drum. The piece carried a distinct feeling and inspired me to compose a piece that made others feel a similar way.

Seeing my older sister [Alex ’23] arrange “Heavensward” for the orchestra in her junior year showed me that something like this was possible and that the first step is just to start.

What was involved to make music and lyrics come together for a premiere performance at STAR 2024?

I started with a small phrase in my head and slowly built it out from there. Having taken AP Music Theory as a sophomore, I had the foundational skills of four-part writing and harmonic structures, and leaned on that to write the piece. After I had a solid draft, I began the long process of editing. It was a lot of cutting, moving, and small tweaks before I even showed it to anyone. Once I felt it was coming along, I asked Mr. Ginsberg and Ms. Thomas for their thoughts. After taking their initial advice, it was a lot of back-and-forth drafting and revising. When it was ready, we started learning the piece in Chamber Singers.

Given that you know how the piece should sound, what was it like to rehearse with singers who were learning the parts? It was somewhat surreal. When composing the piece, my main focus was the sound of the piece as a whole while ensuring that each part was cohesive and could be sung on its own. Learning to sing the piece — learning it just as I would any other piece — I was noticing things I didn’t hear when writing it!

Charlotte has performed in many theater productions in the Middle and Upper Schools and is a member of the orchestra, Chamber Singers, and Treblemakers. She also leads the Improv Club and the Cultural Dance Club and is involved in JCS, the Chinese Club, and DEA.

A STAGE SUCCESS. Our fifthgraders captivated audiences with their production of Charlotte’s Web From the charming performances to the creative staging, they brought E. B. White’s beloved story to life with enthusiasm and teamwork, leaving everyone moved by the messages of friendship and perseverance.

Charlotte Grushkin ’25 before STAR 2024

By laura J. cole

The lessons we learn in girlhood return again and again to inform who we become. Here, three alumnae share the enduring insights gained at Kent Place that shaped — and continue to shape — them.

There is a moment — in the heat of competition, at the height of a performance, in the spark of an idea taking flight — when everything changes. In that instant, a girl realizes her potential and steps into the person she was meant to be. That moment doesn’t just shape who she is. It defines everything that comes next.

At Kent Place, these moments don’t just happen by chance — they happen by design. In academics, athletics, and the arts, we create opportunities for every girl

to discover her strengths, push her limits, and build an unshakable sense of self. Through both curricular and cocurricular offerings, we prioritize students’ mental, physical, and social well-being, making sure that each girl feels empowered to take risks, explore boldly, and grow into the leader she’s meant to be.

“Collaboration, resilience, a strong sense of self and values, and an ethical framework for decision-making — these are the cornerstones of leadership,” says Head of

School Jennifer Galambos. “They help girls develop informed positions, and give them the confidence to stand behind them.”

In celebration of these defining moments, both big and small, we share the stories of three alumnae whose experiences on the court, in the classroom, and on the stage transformed who they became — and how they're now transforming those experiences into contributions as a doctor, a mental health advocate, and an actor.

TheTeam Player

YOU COULD SAY that for Erin (McDonnell) Sundel ’11, becoming a basketball player was destiny.

As a tall girl, she had the ideal build, and through sixth grade, she attended a Catholic school where it was the only sport offered. As a result, Erin found herself in the center of the court with a single mandate: get the ball.

Indeed, for most of her life, she chased that ball, playing for Kent Place, Harvard, the University of Edinburgh, and professionally for a year as part of the Lemvig Basket team in Denmark.

In 2017, she officially hung up her sneakers, driven by a recurring ankle injury and a desire to chase another calling: helping others. Now, after earning an MD from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson, she is completing a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, with plans to pursue a fellowship in rheumatology.

Though Erin has spent almost 30 years in school, she’ll tell you that the most important life lessons came from being part of a team. The first: What makes you different is your greatest strength.

“I was taller than everyone else and was sometimes felt to feel abnormal, but because of basketball and my coaches, I felt invincible,” she says. “Even at age ten, I didn’t care if people made fun of me for my height. Being a basketball player was my identity. It gave me confidence and made me appreciate being different, even at a young age.”

While at Kent Place, she learned her second lesson: Being part of a community — and to have a community rally around you — is a great boon. As a teenager, Erin never had a “normal” summer: She was playing basketball or tennis at Kent Place, she was playing on club teams, traveling around the country, and spending the bulk of her time in practices and games. As a result, her teammates became her extended family. They surrounded her when she scored

“Throughout all of my years of competing with players from around the world, we learned how to talk to one another, struggle together, celebrate each other, and work toward a common goal.”

her 1,000th point. It happened during a game at Newark Academy, and coach Deb Malmgren, who realized the milestone was imminent, rallied fans to come to the game. They erupted in cheers when she sank the shot.

“Throughout all of my years of competing with players from around the world, we learned how to talk to one another, struggle together, celebrate each other, and work toward a common goal,” Erin says. “I think that’s getting lost in our society and contributing to a lot of the tensions and polarity we’re seeing today.”

At Harvard, Erin faced some challenges. As a first-year player on a Division I team, she didn’t get much time on the court. Instead, she carried chairs and equipment. Balancing the demands of practices with being premed often left her physically and emotionally drained.

She could have given up. She could have said it wasn’t worth the physical and mental toll. She could have chosen to sit home and sulk. Instead, Erin trained harder, put in extra reps and shots at the gym, and talked with the coaches to see what she could do to get more playing time

and help the team. She went on to receive “most improved player” her sophomore year and started for the Crimson her junior and senior years. To top it off, she was named captain of the squad her senior year, finished the year as the team’s leader in minutes played, and earned All-Ivy Honors for her strong play. During her year playing professionally in Denmark, she helped the team clinch the Danish Cup for the first time in the club’s history.

“Pushing through those freshman year setbacks helped me to realize that I could persevere in other areas of my life,” she

says. “It stretched my capacity physically, mentally, and emotionally, and built my resilience and confidence.”

Erin’s path to becoming a physician wasn’t always a clear shot. She knew from her parents — a nurse and a doctor — that working in healthcare is a big commitment. Instead of presuming that path was hers, she opted to explore other options before committing to medicine. In addition to playing professionally before stepping away from the game, she earned a master’s in public health and worked at a dermatology practice, where she discovered her passion

Best Advice

Find the one thing that pushes you. “Doing something out of your comfort zone — something that challenges you in different ways and different arenas — is paramount in building resiliency and confidence.”

Embrace being different.

“There’s a tendency for girls to want to wear the same thing, do the same thing, or talk the same way. Kent Place encourages us to embrace our differences. In particular, sports provide an avenue for girls to find what makes them different, embrace it, and take that confidence to make the world a better place — whatever that means to them.”

Join a team sport. “Even if you’re not good at it, even if you aren’t the best player, it feels empowering to be a part of a community. Find your role and own it.”

for patient-centered work and cemented her decision to practice medicine.

Even now, she says everything that enables her to excel in her role as a doctor is due to the lessons learned from team sports.

“On a team, you have to think about how and when to put others before yourself,” she says. “At Harvard, when I wasn’t playing, I still had to think: ‘How can I be helpful? Can I get water for my teammates? Carry chairs?’ That mentality, instilled by all the coaches I played for going back to Kent Place and my AAU team, the New Jersey Panthers, has shaped who I am as a doctor and a person.”

ThePower of Vulnerability

“Girls especially need environments where they feel safe to be vulnerable and share big emotions without stuffing them down and where they’re able to build resiliency to live with everyday anxiety and stress without shutting down or using them as an excuse to disengage.”

AS A GIRL, Morra Aarons-Mele ’94 wanted to grow up to be powerful.

A lover of movies and a fan of reading about the industry in such publications as Vanity Fair and Premier Magazine, she would tell everyone she wanted to be a media mogul. In 12th grade, for Elaine Schwartz’s economics class, she wrote a paper about Barry Diller’s bid to buy Universal Studios.

But as Morra grew older, a part of her she hadn’t yet learned to listen to or acknowledge suspected that her dream wouldn’t be possible. At 3, she had struggled with agoraphobia, a type of anxiety disorder that makes a person afraid to leave environments that feel safe. At 19, she experienced a severe panic attack and was diagnosed with what today is known as bipolar II major depressive and generalized anxiety disorder.

Despite these challenges, Morra went on to achieve undeniable success — working as the European marketing head for a large online travel company, the online marketing director for John Kerry’s presidential campaign, internet marketing director for the Democratic National Committee, and a vice president at Edelman, a global communications agency. She was an early political blogger, often appearing on CNN. Behind the success, however, she struggled.

“It was always this paradox of being super successful and ambitious, but also crying in the bathroom and suffering from depression and anxiety,” she says.

That struggle led Morra to quit multiple corporate jobs before leaving that world forever at age 29. Instead, she started freelancing, launched a company, and earned a master’s in public administration from Harvard. When she delivered a keynote address to 250 women at her alma mater, Brown University, Morra found her true calling: talking openly about mental health.

“It was a raw speech about trying to be a certain type of person for so many years and how hard it was — and how depressed it made me,” she says. “I was surprised Brown let me do it and I was nervous, but I got a standing ovation. It was the only

time in my life when I felt like Oprah. I was mobbed afterward by women saying, ‘Thank you. This is how we feel but no one ever talks about it.’”

In 2014, she launched her first podcast, “Hiding in the Bathroom,” which became the title of her first book, about living and working with anxiety. Four years later, she pitched the podcast “The Anxious Achiever” to Harvard Business Review, and the subject became the focus of her second book. She’s currently working on her third book, about neurodivergence and leadership.

Morra has been named a “Top 10 Voice” in mental health by LinkedIn, earned a Media Award from Mental Health America, and been shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement in Leadership Award. In addition to podcasting and writing, she consults for executives at Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and governmental agencies, and speaks about the relationship between success and mental health in keynotes and workshops. What she explains is a lesson she’s learned again and again: Mental health issues can make us feel like we’re the only ones struggling, but we’re not alone.

“A lot of us actually feel that way — that we’re weird or broken or something is wrong with us,” she says. “We feel like crap and still show up to work. Leaders have power and influence and status, and it’s powerful for their employees to hear them say, ‘I feel like crap sometimes, too.’ Or ‘I can’t get out of bed some days,’ or ‘I’ve cried in the bathroom.’”

Today, Morra is redefining what it means to be powerful. Vulnerability, she’s learned, is part of being a whole person. It’s a lesson that began as early as Kent Place, where her teachers modeled the kind of person she wanted to be. She credits Mrs. Schwartz with showing her what a powerful woman looks like, and Counselor Susan Cote with being ahead of her time and providing a space for girls with big feelings to talk about everything from their periods to their emotions.

“Seeing through them what a woman leader could look like profoundly shaped me,” Morra says.

Best Advice

Preach from your scars, not your wounds. “I recently did a guest lecture at the Harvard Divinity School, and I learned that’s a common saying among pastors. It means to talk about your trauma once you’re healed, rather than when you’re still feeling like a gaping, open wound, which can be challenging for an audience to absorb.”

Ask: Do you need me to listen, distract, or help? “When Daisy Auger-Domínguez, former chief people officer at Vice Media Group, was on my podcast, she offered similar advice for team members who seem ‘a little wobbly.’ It’s a way to ask someone who seems distressed what they need in that moment, rather than assuming. Sometimes we don’t want someone to solve our problem; we just need to talk it out or be distracted from it for a bit or just have someone listen.”

Practice boundary vulnerability. “It’s a term I learned from psychologist Emily Anhalt that emphasizes being vulnerable without trauma dumping. You want to be open enough that you’re human and relatable, but not so open that you’re a mess or a puddle on the floor. You may feel that way inside — that’s a part of life — but that’s not how you lead.”

The

Magnetic Creator

MARIA DIZZIA ’93 vividly remembers a lesson she learned from drama teacher Bob Pridham when she was 12 years old. She was in the seventh grade and had just started at Kent Place, arriving with a love of theater and a few minor acting roles already under her belt.

As part of an exercise in stage presence, Mr. Pridham asked half the class to stand on stage and do nothing; the other half was directed to watch them. After a while, he asked the students on stage to continue “doing nothing” but to focus on a task: counting the chairs in the auditorium.

“He taught us the power of stillness,” says Maria, who is currently rehearsing a play called What We Did Before Our Moth Days, written by Wallace Sean and directed by André Gregory. “The exercise allowed us to experience how we felt when we had something mentally engaging to do, and also to experience the difference as an audience member. We discovered that when you have a purpose while you’re on stage, even if it’s as simple as counting chairs, it gives your body a stillness, and it makes whatever you’re doing magnetic to the people who are watching you.”

Maria credits Mr. Pridham and that lesson in magnetism as leading to her first major role, the next summer. (She played Queen Jadis, the primary antagonist in C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew.) It’s a practice she’s continued to use throughout her career, which has seen her on Broadway, on the silver screen, and on TV shows ranging from Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and 13 Reasons Why to Disney+’s Agatha All Along. Since graduating from Kent Place (with the Drama Award), she has earned degrees in theater from Cornell and the University of California San Diego, been nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk Award, and performed the lead in the Academy Award–winning short film The Neighbor’s Window

For the past 10 years, she’s also been working as an acting coach, employing the same lesson for her students that Mr. Pridham introduced her to more than 30 years ago.

“The older I get, the more grateful I am for my education at Kent Place and all that Bob taught me about theater — and that I learned about leadership,” she says.

Last summer, she was directing the New York Times’ Critic’s Pick Pre-Existing Condition, a play about moving forward after a harmful relationship. It featured a small cast — only four actors and a rotation of actresses, including Edie Falco and Maria herself, in the lead role. During rehearsals and production, Maria often found herself reflecting on the leadership lessons she learned from her teachers and friends at Kent Place.

The most profound came during her senior year, when she was one of four students selected to coedit the student newspaper.

“Kent Place had never done that before,” she said. “They said they thought all four of us were interesting candidates for the job, and rather than trying to choose one, they decided to let us share it. We each had something to contribute and to learn from each other. And we did it without incident. It was such an incredible experience to have — to see how four people could lead together and learn from one another. That’s what it’s like to direct a play. You’re more of a co-creator than a CEO, for sure.”

Connecting — with yourself, with others, and with the world around you — is the main challenge of acting. It’s at the heart of making a performance dynamic and embodying the kind of freedom that drew Maria to the stage when she was only 8. It’s also the goal of living. Unsurprisingly, learning, teaching, and performing have a common throughline: discovering new ways to connect — and live — better.

“It’s wonderful to be in a room with other people and to constantly be surprised, to see people push past hard things and remember that we’re always growing,” she says. “We’re always changing. Everything is always available to us.”

“Whether it’s a comedy or a tragedy, performance is always a celebration of the human spirit. Regardless of what you want to study or do with your life, whether you’re going through a period of successes or of challenges, being able to access that spirit is the motor that gets us through each decade of our life.”

Best Advice

Follow your heart. “I wish it was smarter, but I feel like following your heart and your intuition is the most important thing. Sometimes they’ll take you somewhere that’s problematic and you have to find your way out, but it’s the only way to find yourself. And the troubles your heart gets you into are, I think, much better than the troubles your head gets you into. They’re just more useful.”

Count the chairs. “Whether counting chairs or colors in the room, the exercise is good to ground yourself in the present moment. If you’re afraid or anxious, you’re in your head. You’re somewhere in the imaginary future. When you count the chairs, you bring yourself back into the room. It takes you out of your head and roots you back into your physical body.”

to each other how we talk

(about everything)

There’s no single “right way” to have a meaningful conversation. At Kent Place, we give students tools and structures they can adapt for any situation.

BY ERIN PETERSON | ILLUSTRATION BY FIEN JORISSEN

When Assistant Head of School

Julie Gentile talks to prospective families and visitors, one of the most frequent comments she hears is how engaged — and engaging — Kent Place students are. They listen to one another attentively and exchange ideas thoughtfully. When they disagree with one another, they do so in ways that feel productive and considerate, rather than confrontational or dismissive.

Ms. Gentile is happy to accept the compliments because she knows that every faculty member, coach, and club advisor aims to hone these skills in their students day after day, year after year. “The strategies that our faculty use throughout students’ time here, in both academic coursework and cocurricular experiences, build their capacity to have authentic connections and conversations in class — and beyond,” she says. “In today’s world, that’s a distinguishing factor.”

Kent Place has created a culture that follows a set of clear conversation norms, and has employed strategies to help students develop empathy, curiosity, and self-awareness. As a result, students can express unexpected viewpoints to spark a broader discussion. They can resolve a difficult situation with a friend who has said something hurtful, and they can ask their boss at a summer job for a raise.

Whereas these skills benefit students in school, they also pay longterm dividends, says Walidah Justice, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer. “Students can use these techniques in college, with their families, and in the workplace,” she says. “They’re lifelong skills.”

use techniques to dial back the intensity

For many students, classrooms can feel like conversation pressure cookers: Teachers may call on them when they feel unprepared or uncertain; they may get flustered when speaking in front of their peers.

Teachers employ a range of techniques to help their students feel comfortable expressing their opinions and taking conversational risks.

A. WRITE DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS BEFORE SPEAKING UP. To help students prepare for a classroom conversation, sixth-grade English teacher Amanda Freiler often creates a structured framework: First, she’ll ask students to jot down their ideas about a question on the board. Next, she’ll have them turn to the student next to them and share an idea. Finally, she’ll open the floor to a classroom discussion. “By scaffolding conversations this way, students are able to get their thoughts in order and start to articulate their ideas more clearly,” says Ms. Freiler. “By the time we’ve opened it up to the entire class, students are confident and their responses are focused.”

B. MAKE IT PERSONAL. When Middle and Upper School science teacher Wendy Hall notices a spark of excitement about a topic she’s covering in class, she likes to follow that energy where it goes. When students recently read in

aim for empathy and curiosity

In student discussions where participants have opposing viewpoints, it can be easy for them to turn the back-and-forth into a competition. Ms. Justice encourages students to reframe their approach to avoid this dynamic. “An effective conversation is when I’m not only listening to receive information and have a response for you but also bridging the gap of understanding,” she says.

Many teachers employ the LARA method to help students build a sense of common ground and respect during otherwise fraught conversations. LARA, which stands for “Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add,” has proved to be an effective approach to deescalate difficult conversations, says Michelle Stevenson, who is Department Chair of Student Health, Wellness, and Physical Education.

The strategy centers on active listening techniques, such as looking at someone directly, as well as acknowledging the other person’s views by expressing a genuine connection with what the speaker said. Students then respond to the speaker’s concerns directly and respectfully, and add to the conversation by asking a question or telling a personal story. “This is not about disingenuously saying specific words or reading a script,” Ms. Stevenson says. “It’s about the heart–brain connection: You actually have to care.”

The LARA method can be used to facilitate conversations among students who might have disagreements about the direction of a group project or even about a social conflict, such as when a friend feels left out of an activity. By using the LARA method, students can lower the temperature of disagreements — and find a way forward. It’s when people feel listened to and heard, says Ms. Stevenson, that they can forge meaningful connections.

“These are techniques that can lead us to the bridge of understanding, and that’s the ultimate goal,” says Ms. Justice.

Here are just some of the ways that our students learn to have meaningful conversations at every age.

a textbook a chapter about cancer, for example, they were instantly intrigued.

“They had questions about things they’d seen on TikTok and Instagram, and students who rarely spoke up before were asking lots of questions,” Ms. Hall recalls. She jettisoned her lesson plan for the day to discuss the questions that bubbled up, among them common myths and misconceptions about the disease. “You see students become more alert when you’re talking about something that’s of interest to them,” she says. “These unpredictable conversations are also so much richer. They’re gold.”

C. CREATE A CONVERSATIONAL “FISHBOWL.” Upper School English teacher Jennifer Dwyer splits the class in two — half sit in the center of the room and half sit circled around them. The group in the center discusses a topic that Ms. Dwyer suggests; the outer ring observes the conversation.

“It’s a way for students in the center to demonstrate comprehension of a topic without the stakes of a speech or a presentation,” she says. Those on the outside are anything but passive: They evaluate the techniques their peers are using, from active listening, to question posing, to conversational dovetailing and synthesizing.

strengthen confidence to support meaningful engagement

Research suggests that when girls feel a sense of confidence, competence, and connection, they have the tools they need to thrive in school and in other aspects of their lives. Young girls often excel in all three areas; by middle school, however, girls’ confidence can begin to sag.

One way Middle School Director Neisha Payne helps strengthen a sense of confidence is in her class for sixth-graders called “Wellness, Identity, and Social Justice,” for which she assigns a project in which students investigate their own histories. “Maybe they discover that they have a relative who came to the United States during a civil war in another country and built their own business here,” says Ms. Payne. “Knowing their history can give them a feeling that they, too, can persevere and succeed. The more students know about why they are, the more confident they can be in who they are.”

And that confidence carries over into many areas of life, including the way they interact with others. “Maybe they’re willing to try a little harder in class, to try out for a role in a play, or take on a leadership role,” says Ms. Payne. “It’s all part of their ability to be successful.”

build curiosity methodically

Ms. Hall sees a natural curiosity in her youngest students, and to maintain it in adolescence and beyond, she builds curiosity prompts directly into her assignments. Here, she explains how to fuel powerful classroom discussions.

“Good questions can drive conversations deeper and engage students at a different level — it’s not just about what a teacher is delivering in a lesson.

“In homework assignments, I always ask: ‘What are two questions that this piece of writing leaves you with?’ At the beginning of the year, some students will leave that section blank or say ‘I have no questions.’ And I tell them: ‘No, your questions are the most important piece of the assignment.’

“I want them to understand that it’s one thing to read a passage and summarize it, but if you can read a passage and have a question about it, that’s a deeper level of interacting and engaging with what you’re learning.”

respect differences

In her work as Director of the Ethics Institute, Karen Rezach asks students to take a stand on very challenging issues: What’s the best way to allocate scarce medical resources? Do groups have the right to secede from the country? Should parents be able to genetically modify the embryos of their future children?

Almost everyone has a knee-jerk opinion, but Dr. Rezach’s job is to help students think more deeply about the issues.

First, she asks students to explore the values they themselves tend to prioritize. “At the core of any ethical conversation, participants must identify their own value system and come to the table with their authentic selves,” she says. By understanding their own values and the way they live out those values, they have a greater chance of understanding and appreciating the values others might hold.

Then, students try to gain a broader, more empathic view of a topic. “I want them to understand an issue from the perspective of every stakeholder,” Dr. Rezach says.

Whether students change their views or solidify them as they gather information, the point is that they’ve gone through a demanding process based on evidence and analysis, not simply gut feelings. “We don’t all have to agree,” Dr. Rezach says, “but we should understand and respect our differences.”

KEEPING PACE KEEPING PACE

CONNECTING THE KENT PLACE FAMILY

Dear Alumnae,

It’s been quite a year at Kent Place! As you know, we’re celebrating 130 years of educating girls and young women. Just as remarkable, though, we recently reached another historic milestone—120 years of the Kent Place Alumnae Association.

Our association was founded in 1904 by Principal Sarah Woodman Paul. The world then was very different from today’s: Women didn’t have the right to vote, couldn’t have a mortgage or credit card in their name, and weren’t allowed to serve in the military.

Now, women are leaders and changemakers, and the Alumnae Association has gone from a handful of members to more than 3,000 — and the number grows with every Commencement. And even though the world has changed, our values of community and sisterhood remain constant.

Last June, many of you came to our first official networking event in New York City. This event truly showcased that “Kent Place is for life” through the generations and professions represented. The friendships forged by Kent Place students are well known, but we’re now harnessing the power of our alumnae to contribute to the success of Kent Place graduates in

their professional lives. No matter when you became an alumna or where you are in your career, you have much to offer in the way of mentorship and guidance. We’ve always been a community that takes pride in building up one another, and it’s exciting to extend this more formally to the professional sphere.

Our network encompasses women from age 80-ish to the newly minted alumnae of 18. They work in a variety of professions (or are in college) and call different parts of the country (and abroad!) home. Whether you’re looking for career opportunities or moving to a new city, the Alumnae Association is here to help you build your Kent Place connections.

This year, we have exciting plans to broaden our scope: We’ll host two networking events, on the same day — one in New York City and the other in Los Angeles. I hope you’ll join us at one of them, to share your expertise or for guidance in your field (or a bit of both). Networking continues the KPS experience, and is an ongoing way to connect with our alma mater and fellow alumnae.

I believe we’ve honored the vision set out for our alumnae in 1904, and I look forward to the ways in which we can grow and meet the ever-changing needs of our community in the decades to come.

A number of events are planned for 2025, such as Alumnae Weekend on campus and Green and Gold on the Road gatherings across the country. In the meantime, you can reconnect with your alma mater in the upcoming pages through the Class Notes, which are interspersed with alumnae spotlights.

Thank you for being a part of our amazing community.

Warmly,

Beth G. Oliva ’97 Alumnae Association President

Beth Oliva ’97 with former faculty member Christine Clemens at the New York City Alumnae Gathering

Bridging Generations Through Theater

Opening night of Into the Woods at Kent Place was a special event, as the cast of the 2024 production welcomed back members of the 1993 cast and crew. There were memories and stories, connecting generations through the magic of theater.

The event highlighted the exhilarating spirit of the Kent Place theater community. It was a heartwarming reminder that productions bring us together, weaving in history, creativity, and camaraderie.

“It was so special to be back on campus and in the theater 31 years after our memorable performance with Theater Director Bob Pridham,” says Gabrielle (Costanzo) Long ’93. “I have fantastic memories of many KPS

performances (and a few anxiety dreams, too, in which I forget a lengthy monologue). Thanks for bringing us together. The cast was terrific and vibrant, and the crew produced a seamless performance. Brava to all!”

“The next-to-last production we had before graduation was Into the Woods, with our beloved Bob Pridham,” says Gabrielle Bailey ’93. “I was the assistant director as part

of my directing independent study. This fall, I returned with several of my classmates to watch this production. It was new to me to return to the place that shaped my life, with several of the people I worked so closely with, and for us to be presented to today’s students as special guests, old special guests, who had done this many years earlier. It was a joy, an honor, and a meaningful evening.”

JENNA SMITH ’21 NAMED RHODES SCHOLAR

Jenna Smith ’21 is one of 32 recipients of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, chosen from 865 applicants across the United States. Nominated by Duke University, Jenna, a senior there, is a Robertson Scholar majoring in international comparative studies with a minor in journalism and media. At the University of Oxford, Jenna will pursue an MSc in criminology and criminal justice and an MSc in comparative social policy. She says she’s passionate about advancing restorative justice in the Deep South and plans to move to the Mississippi Delta, where she’ll practice law and advocate for substantive criminal-legal reform.

“The foundation of how I show up in the classroom was shaped by my Kent Place education and the incredible community I was part of,” Jenna says. “Kent Place taught me to be confident, to ask difficult questions and engage actively, and to remember that I belong in the rooms I find myself in. My amazing teachers taught me how to use my education to think deeply and critically about the world around me. They taught me to question and to use my education to make the world around me better in whatever way I can. I never doubted that they believed in me.”

Jenna credits the KPS ethics programming for her leadership style. “The Rhodes emphasizes values-centered leadership, something I first developed an understanding of while working with Karen Rezach, Director of the Ethics Institute, and the Ethics Bowl Team. What I love about the ethics

education at Kent Place is that it doesn’t exist only in the abstract — through the values you put in conversation with one another in the classroom, you come to an understanding of your individual values. There’s a space where students can discover the rationale that underlies the most important decisions in the broader worlds of policy and healthcare, but also in their own lives. That education has been pivotal in how I try to lead in my communities.”

“Jenna was one of the most outstanding students of ethics: a bioethics scholar, a member of the 2018 National Champion Ethics Bowl Team, and co-captain of the team during her senior year,” says Dr. Rezach. “She was an incredible competitor because she could deliver the most insightful ethical commentary in a manner that was calm yet powerful.”

As co-president of the Duke Justice Project, Jenna and her team forged a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Division of Juvenile Justice to create a leadership-development summer camp for youth throughout the state. She has contributed to the Innocence Project; the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, in Mississippi; and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. She’s a co-instructor for a House Course on correctional systems and reentry processes and facilitates programs with Restorative Justice Durham. An accomplished journalist, she has reported for the Chicago Tribune and the 9th Street Journal

Congratulations, Jenna, on this well-deserved recognition!

The 2024 cast of Into the Woods with cast and crew from the 1993 production. In the front row: Chris Treglio, Gabrielle (Costanzo) Long ’93, Maria Dizzia ’93 and her daughter, Susanne (Santola) Mulligan ’93 P ’27 ’29, Gabrielle Bailey ’93, and Stephanie (Burlington) Daniels ’93

At the Paris Olympics with Paige (Shepperly) Nieslanik ’11

This summer, millions of viewers tuned in to watch more than 10,000 athletes compete across 32 sports at the Paris Olympics. The athletes were the main event, but behind the scenes, sports producers worked to ensure that every exciting moment was captured for fans around the world.

For Paige (Shepperly) Nieslanik ’11, senior associate producer for NBC Sports, the Paris Summer Games was her fifth Olympics; her first was back in 2014, when she was an intern at the figure skating venue in Sochi, Russia. She earned a Sports Emmy for her role as a figure skating replay producer at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In Paris, she covered the women’s gymnastics team — and the eagerly anticipated return of Simone Biles.

Beyond the Olympics, Paige has lent her talents to three Paralympic Games, five Kentucky Derbies and Preakness Stakes, and three seasons of NBC Sunday Night Football, among other premier events. Her passion for sports began during her years at Kent Place, when she competed internationally with the Skyliners Synchronized Ice Skating Team, representing the United States as national champions. Paige later earned her BA in broadcast journalism with a minor in sports management from Syracuse University, laying the foundation for her production career.

WOMEN’S TEAM FINAL:

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Gymnastics officially began on July 27, the day after the Opening Ceremonies, with two days of qualifications. On Tuesday, July 30, it was time for the Women’s Gymnastics Team Final — a pivotal day for Team USA and the beginning of Simone Biles’s extraordinary comeback. Here’s a glimpse into my day.

11:00 a.m.: Wake Up

Our schedule is intense, with shifts from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m., so mornings start late.

11:30 a.m.: Walk or Pilates

Staying focused during long hours requires taking care of myself. Sleep, exercise, and nutrition are essential for maintaining mental sharpness during live broadcasts. We have two seconds to make decisions, and don’t want to make a mistake for millions to see.

12:30 p.m.: Get Ready for the Day

1:30 p.m.: Head to Bercy Arena

A short walk to the gymnastics venue. Security checks at the television compound are rigorous —

One of the exciting things about being a producer is that my responsibility changes based on which sport I’m working on. At the Paris Olympics, my main role was as the gymnastics package producer, a challenging assignment given the simultaneous action across all apparatuses. My job during live broadcasts was to monitor the floor, ensuring that we didn’t miss any key performances. I built recap packages of moments that weren’t captured during the live coverage, providing audiences with the most comprehensive experience possible.

The entire team of 94 who worked on gymnastics for NBC. We always take a photo at the end.

THE LEAD-UP

We arrived in Paris on July 22 at 6 a.m. The excitement was palpable as we stepped off the plane. The first order of business was validating our media credentials, which also served as visas allowing us to work in France.

The week before the games, known as “Set Days,” involved setting up and testing all our technology — communications panels, monitor walls, and cameras. With a large team of freelancers joining us, we spent long hours running rehearsals and walking through processes to make sure everything would run smoothly.

like airport screenings. I always grab coffee and breakfast from the catering tent before going to the production truck.

2:00 p.m.: Production Fax

A “fax” is what we call a rehearsal. We run through key elements of the show and check all technology.

4:00 p.m.: Production Meeting

Our team, including on-air talent and researchers, gathers in a packed trailer to review the show’s “format,” a detailed plan outlining storylines and segments.

4:30 p.m.: Lunch

Our catering team keeps us well fed, offering a variety of meals, snacks, and beverages.

5:30 p.m.: In Position

We’re set up in the TV truck and the timing coordinator begins the countdown to air. The energy is frenetic, but I take a deep breath to steady my nerves.

At “one minute to air,” I exchange fist bumps with my coworkers and a chorus of “Have a good show, everyone!” echoes through the truck.

At the Closing Ceremonies setup at the Stade de France

BEYOND GYMNASTICS

After gymnastics ended, on August 5, I shifted gears to operate as head producer of Marathon Swimming on the Seine, working with a smaller team to cover this unique event. I also contributed to the Closing Ceremonies, on August 11, at the Stade de France — a fitting celebration of a remarkable month.

EXPLORING PARIS

It wasn’t all work. Spending a month in Paris gave our team time to bond and explore. We visited iconic landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and Sacré-Cœur, and I attended breakdancing and beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower. For the first time, family and friends joined me at the Games, making this Olympics even more special.

Each Olympics is unique, but in Paris? C’est magnifique!

6:00 p.m.: Live Broadcast Begins

As the Women’s Team Final airs live, I monitor multiple camera feeds on a massive monitor wall, tracking every move on the floor. My role requires listening to at least five audio feeds simultaneously — from the producer, director, on-air talent, researchers, and my tape team — and responding quickly. Early in my career, I trained for this by watching TV and listening to a podcast simultaneously while taking notes. Over time, it became second nature.

8:00 p.m.: Off-Air

The minute the event ends, we review notes and address any live broadcast mistakes. Our edit team creates additional packages for the U.S. primetime show, blending features, analysis, and behind-thescenes footage.

9:00 p.m.: Dinner

We’re so focused on our job that we’re usually unaware of the event’s outcome. The hour for dinner gives us time to digest the results as a team and appreciate the history we just witnessed.

10:00 p.m.: Segment Delivery

Segments are delivered to our headquarters, in Stamford, Connecticut, and we review them to ensure perfection before they air.

2:00 a.m.: Wrap-Up

Once everything is delivered, I head back to the hotel. I’m exhausted yet exhilarated, knowing that millions who missed the live coverage will tune in to see our hard work. It’s fun to see the reposts on social media — like an analysis package we created

spotlighting how high Simone Biles jumps during her floor routine, which went viral.

To unwind, I take a bath and read a book, helping me calm my mind after the day’s excitement.

3:00 a.m.: Sleep

Paige (left) in front of the Olympic rings

Maya Lobban ’12

Maya Lobban ’12 is a brand marketing lead at J.P. Morgan and currently serves as the chair of Kent Place’s DEIB Alum Council. She holds a BS in public relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

I didn’t realize that my interest in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging began at Kent Place until recently.

When I was a student at KPS, the concept of diversity was well known, but the ideals of equity, inclusion, and belonging were just beginning to make their way into our lexicon. I started high school at Kent

Place in 2008, and was one of seven Black students in my class of 65. I quickly realized that although I was not necessarily in a hostile environment, I did need to find my safe spaces. Those came in the form of the Black Cultural Association and the Diversity Council. It was through the Diversity Council that I was nominated to attend

the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), and I had no idea how that experience would change my life.

When I stepped off the plane in San Diego for SDLC in December 2010, I thought I was in for three days of pointless activities, empty platitudes, and other nonsense that I’d experienced at previous student workshops. I was proved very, very wrong. Whereas I, and probably many other people, had considered myself to be “diverse,” interacting with hundreds of students from independent schools across the country with different socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, and gender expressions from mine popped the bubble I’d been living in.

Over the next decade, we lived through the constant blows of the murders of numerous Black people, such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, and too many more. After all of those, George Floyd’s killing in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Within our own community, it fueled a public outcry from Black students and alumnae who did not feel safe on campus.

Kent Place took a number of steps to address the conversation, including working with alumnae to create the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Alum Council. Our goal is to connect KPS alums with the KPS community, while also ensuring that alums of underrepresented groups have robust opportunities to engage, support, and contribute their entire selves in order to create more equity for all within the Kent Place community. Now going into its fifth year of existence, I’m fortunate enough to have been selected to serve as the chair of the council for the next two years, following in the footsteps of April Bauknight ’95 and Nya Earrusso ’12.

Even though I didn’t choose to pursue DEIB as a career, I’m a firm believer that it’s an integral part of every facet of life.

Kent Place was the first place where I was able to find language around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and I’m grateful that it continues to be a part of my journey.

1942

Emily (Churchill) Wood emily_wood46@hotmail.com

1950

Liz (Dun) Colten lizcolten@aol.com

Penny (Burley) Thomas mbtedt@gmail.com

We heard from Meagen O’Brien that her mother, Mabel (Depue) O’Brien, passed away on December 18, 2023. Our condolences to her family and friends.

Phyllis (Tilson) Piotrow: In mid-2024, I helped celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Scholarship Program, established by the British government in 1954 to honor the Marshall Plan. It sent me to Oxford University for two wonderful years after Bryn Mawr and helped me

In Memoriam

Doreen (Saxton) Williams ’44 October 21, 2024

Zelle (Letts) Washburn ’47 September 15, 2024

Mabel (Depue) O’Brien ’50 December 18, 2023

Jerrie (Nickerson) Hoagland ’54 August 30, 2024

Doreen (Crawford) Dun ’55 June 18, 2024

Marjorie (Mallard) Trombly Potvin ’57 November 24, 2024

Anne (Sonnekalb) Iskrant ’60 January 6, 2025

Jeanie (Blackmar) McLerie-Keppeler ’60 June 29, 2024

Mary B. Dunn ’63 December 1, 2024

Karolyn (Vreeland) Blume ’70 July 16, 2024

Linda (Pole) Shelby ’70 November 21, 2024

Shira (Morrison) Kanter ’77 April 1. 2024

get my first U.S. job, at the Library of Congress. Otherwise, not much new for me and my family in New Hampshire except for election excitement. But even first-in-the-nationprimary New Hampshire got tired of campaigns and political TV ads that went on far too long. In the fall, I spent several weeks watching construction crews, including Nicaraguan immigrants, rebuild two houses 50 feet from mine that had burned to the ground two years ago, probably arson. Those workers moved fast, ran back and forth helping one another, walked precariously on roofs and ridgepoles, and did a great job. How could we possibly do without them?

1951

Mary-Carey (Bachmann) Churchill mcchurchill@gmail.com

1954

Marianna (Ruprecht) Mitchell mariannarmitchell@gmail.com

I’m so sorry to report that our wonderful classmate Jerrie (Nickerson) Hoagland passed away in August. She and Sam were gracious in opening their home for our reunions and she was a great asset to our class. She’ll be greatly missed.

I’m still painting, gardening, and playing pickleball, although my new court is used mainly to play ball with my dog!

Ellen (Smith) Corbett writes that she and John traveled to Ireland last May and to the Balkans in September. She’s still a devotee of croquet, mahjongg, bridge, and photography.

Jay (Hoffman) Schmitt says she’s very grateful for her loving husband, children, and grands. She’s hoping for another reunion, so we’ll work on that!

Peg (Askew) Clarke just missed the tornadoes that hit Vero Beach and surrounding towns. She was very close to Jerrie and is also close to Ginny (Teller) Vogel, who lives nearby. Her new email is paclarke73s@gmail.com.

Jo (Volkening) White sounds like she’s enjoying life in Northern California, and Ricky (Kaplon) Adams is still busy showing her award-winning dogs. Eddy (Starr) Aneinas is a best-selling author now and credits a great deal of that to her teachers at Kent Place.

Julie (Abrams) Dunbar writes, “Bill and I love our wonderful condo, surrounded by the marsh at the mouth of the Connecticut River. We have

wraparound windows so see everything: birds, boats, ducks, kayakers, sailing, the train creeping across the bridge they’re finally rebuilding. And the sunrises are astonishingly beautiful, so I tend to get up and take many pictures. Our life is quiet; family is not too close by, so they now travel to us, and we have room to accommodate the fun visits. Our very active life has changed but we’re enjoying every minute. I still do a small amount of gardening, continue with my art interests, read, and take care of Bill, who has some issues, but we’re happy and thankful to enjoy what we can.”

I hope I didn’t leave anyone out as I lost my notes, and that reminds me a little of my KP days!

1955

Kent Place received the sad news that Doreen (Crawford) Dun passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, on June 18, 2024, in her home on Ocean Point, Maine, where she had lived for decades. Our condolences to Doreen’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Dun) Colten ’50, and the rest of her family and friends.

1957

Robert Potvin wrote, “With great sadness, I inform you that my wife, Marjorie (Mallard) Trombly Potvin, passed on November 24, 2024, at home in South Yarmouth, MA.” Our condolences to Robert, her sister, Beverley (Mallard) Ginn ’54, and all her family and friends.

1959

Elizabeth (Budd) Bugliari bugliarie@gmail.com

1960

We’re sorry to share the sad news that your loyal Class Secretary, Anne (Sonnekalb) Iskrant, passed away on January 6, 2025. Our condolences to her family and friends.

Kent Place received the sad news that Jeanie (Blackmar) McLerie-Keppeler passed away on June 29, 2024. Our condolences to Jeanie’s family and friends.

1963

Louise (Hall) Grauer louise.a.grauer@gmail.com

Mary (Brewton) Dunn passed away peacefully on December 1, 2024, in Wilmington, N.C. We extend

IN REMEMBRANCE

With sadness, we have to tell you that Bill Headley, Kent Place physics and math teacher from 1965 to 1994, passed away on August 7, 2024, in Delaware. Bill was an educator for most of his life, with a passion for science and technology. He was instrumental in starting a physics program and implementing computers at Kent Place. At the time, he and his wife, Roberta, lived on campus in faculty housing. In 1973, Roberta started teaching Kindergarten at Kent Place and Bill became head of the Science Department. Bill taught at Kent Place for 29 years; Roberta, for 33. Upon his retirement, the Class of 1994 dedicated its yearbook to Bill with a heartfelt tribute filled with appreciation and gratitude. We extend our sympathy to Roberta and their children, Diana, Robert, and Jon.

our condolences to Mary’s family and friends.

1964

Gail (Giblin) Flynn gailgiblin29@gmail.com

Kudos to Demie Kurz on the publication of Letting Go. In the book, she provides a deeper understanding of the demanding work of parents, teens, and young adults, and examines the negotiations between them over control, trust, and letting go. An apt topic in our current world. Late this past summer, she ventured to France for a walking tour and had a fun visit with Wendy (Oschwald) Barbellion at Wendy’s home in Nançay. Wendy is ready to welcome her second-oldest granddaughter to France and set out for Rolle, Switzerland, to settle her in at the Institut Le Rosey.

Candy (Connor) Eardley is now a long-haul driver! Her son Marc has moved from New York City to Chicago and Candy has driven twice from New Jersey to Illinois and back with friends, kids, and cats. I need her stamina and energy!

Missy McIver’s home and area in Highlands, N.C., were hard hit when Hurricane Helene plowed through last fall. She was stuck for three days, but emerged okay and continued her get-out-the-vote work and voter registration.

Chippy (Howe) Holladay and husband Mac prepared and hunkered down in Atlanta with hurricane warnings but had no problems. They had just sold their large log cabin in the West Virginia mountains before the storms. Chippy is adjusting to new hips and knees and has finally had to give her beloved tennis racquet a rest.

Susie (Blackmar) McLerie remains in her cozy home in Astoria, Ore. She had back-to-back knee-replacement surgeries last winter and says she was blessed to have great friends help her heal. Condolences to Susie on the death of her beloved sister Jeanie last year.

Judy (Wynn) Newhouse had a summer full of visits from her boys and six grandchildren on Nantucket. She had an unexpected but fun short visit there with Jean (Muchmore) McCleary

Phyllis (Cross) Croce, in Indiana, continues to wow me with her seemingly endless artistic talent. Always something new. Her talent is barely eclipsed by the culinary skills of her hubby and master chef, Jonn. Lucky lady. She’s still the adoring mom of her pugs, which she has raised and loved for generations. She had a great reconnect with Karen (Connell) Larsen a few years ago. Their artistic endeavors drew them together, and Phyllis was saddened when Karen moved back to New Jersey.

I’m adjusting to my new digs with daughter Kate in the Pacific Northwest. But I do miss being a stone’s throw from the ocean and my daily seasonal swims. No snowstorms out here, but the occasional ice storm brings everything to a screeching halt. One blessing is no humidity in the summer!

Please remember that Meyra Green set up our KPS ’64 Facebook page — a fun way to stay connected. Cheers to all and stay well.

1965

Dr. Janet B. W. Williams

jbwwny@gmail.com

Thanks to all who answered. I loved our group Zoom and hope we can do it again soon.

I’m now happily retired and living in a Floating Home in Seattle. I’m recovering from a stroke a year and a half ago and can now drive, which is a great luxury. I walk as much as I can, and am deep into PT, yoga, and Pilates. I often travel to Southern California to visit two of my sons and now visit my third son, who stayed in Rhode Island. He adopted and will breed a mini-cow — very sweet thing. I’m still dabbling in work-related projects.

Candace Cushing: First, sending positive energy to Janet for continuing healing. This is followed by a thank-you for 59 years of shepherding us into responding with our news (59 years. Huh, how’d that happen?). Although Oregon is not a weekend junket, I’m loving being “Candy-Gram,” so three-hour time changes and six-hour flights are a minor disruption. College counseling continues to hold my professional attention, and as a member of the Stamford Garden Club, I’m loving photography and flower arranging. Blessings are always being counted. Wishing the same for you all.

Deborah Kooperstein: I’m enjoying retirement from the court. I keep my hand in the law as of counsel to a firm. We spent time at our place in Maine this summer. I continue on the board of directors of Bridgehampton Community House and Hamptons Doc Fest, a documentary-film festival founded 17 years ago by my spouse, Jacqui, that ran December 5–11, 2024, in Sag Harbor. We’re traveling quite a bit; next trip is a cruise on the Danube.

Marjorie (Lange) Sportes: I remember reading, in a Keeping Pace of long ago, the exhortation of a 1950s class secretary trying to persuade reluctant alumnae to write in to the school magazine “even if you have nothing but gloom to report.” I loved this formulation and found it very funny at the time, but I guess it describes my case now. My sister Rosemary died last March. She was 84. I can’t remember if any of you knew her but she was loving and sweet and kind and liked to laugh. Her goal in

Demie Kurz ’64 on Letting Go: Parenting Teens and Young Adults in a Time of Uncertainty, published by Oxford University Press in October 2024: “I wrote this book to provide more understanding of what parenting is really like. While parenting is one of the most important tasks of any society, popular narratives fail to reflect the challenges of raising children, teens, and young adults. Some parents, particularly mothers, who do the majority of the work of parenting, are viewed as too involved in their children’s lives, as helicopter parents micromanaging their children and teens; others are viewed as not involved enough. Often parents are blamed when their children aren’t viewed as successful. In this book I provide a deeper understanding of the demanding work of parenting teens and young adults. Adolescence is widely viewed as the most difficult stage of parenting. Yet despite its importance, we have a limited grasp of what it actually takes to guide teens through adolescence and on to young adulthood. Based on over a hundred interviews with an economically and racially diverse group of mothers and some fathers, in this book I examine the negotiations between parents and their teens and young adults over control, trust, and letting go and demonstrate the dilemmas contemporary parents face day to day.” Demie is a research affiliate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

life was to make other people happy. I shall miss her forever.

Joan Drake: Life has been busy. I gave up skiing after 50 years of never being hurt and started looking for warmer grounds. I searched around thinking I would move to Sarasota but decided on Hilton Head. I moved here several months ago from Basalt and am getting used to everything new. Another adventure in my life. Lots of new friends, tennis, pickleball, and golf, which I need to improve on. Enjoying warmer weather but missing Colorado and my friends there. Hope you’re all well and having fun.

1966

Linda “Lindy” (Burns) Jones finallylbj@gmail.com

1968

Barbara Wiss barbarawiss@gmail.com

We’re well into our second 50, with most of us turning 75 in 2025. May this year be filled with family and friends, love, laughter, and always good health. The year 2024 has been one of changes for many of us.

Kathy (Van Cleve) Kuhns made the stunning announcement that she and husband John would be homeless beginning in December, having just sold their house in Greenwich. Happily, they quickly resolved their housing crisis and Kathy, John, and their dog, Stormy, will be settling in South Caro-

lina. Before departing, Kathy and John were able to spend a weekend with son Dylan while he was stateside.

Susan (Albaugh) Albach and I had fun reminiscing about our days carpooling to KPS and talking about a myriad of current events, such as the challenges of managing homes in need of repairs and new appliances. Susan is retired and living on Nantucket.

Linda Schmidt says “Life is lifey,” but that she is serene and has been enjoying living in Florida for the past 28 years. Having lost her husband and business partner 17½ years ago, Linda went to work for a local credit union and retired two years ago. She is now involved in helping women in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and, through her church, working alongside women in crisis. Linda has four children and nine grandchildren. She enclosed a picture with three of her grandchildren, all of whom have inherited her beautiful smile.

Lynne (Tompkins) Ward welcomed her dog Remy to her family in September. Remy, who was rescued from Texas, has adapted well to life in Connecticut, is tolerated by the kitties, and even accompanies the family on adventures. Lynne works in special education at a middle school in Norwalk. She mentioned a visit with Martha (O’Neill) Lindeman in Florida last April and would love to connect with other KPS friends. Lynne and Herb will be celebrating 45 years of marriage next May. Congratulations!

Addie (Bernheim) Firtel emphasized the positives of 2024, which for her was a roller-coaster year with hurdles. Addie, you’ve always exemplified the brave and brilliant KPS student. Addie writes that Daniel and his family were returning to San Diego, taking over Addie’s beach house, and will be welcoming a new baby in March. Always busy, Addie has taken up tennis, is still quilting, and is immersed in the adoption of senior dogs.

Laura (Griffith) McDermott and husband Rick say they’re feeling very lucky. Not only will they be welcoming a grandbaby to the family, but they’ve also welcomed son JR and his wife, Allison, who have relocated to Vero Beach. Congratulations to daughter Lauren and son-in-law Billie on their Valentine’s Day baby. Good fortune again smiled on the McDermott family as a massive tornado that swept through Vero Beach just missed their home.

Mary (Ragsdale) Saalfield writes, “Happy 75th birthday to my fellow classmates! Where has the time gone? Always love hearing from you all. John and I spend our time between Charleston, S.C., and Hendersonville, N.C. We just returned from our son’s wedding in Jackson Hole, Wyo., which was so much fun. Our six grandchildren and Lab keep us busy and young at heart. Although John is still working part time, we have time to enjoy volunteering and traveling. Sending good health and love to all.”

Cathy (Stickney) Steck writes, “October 21 marked the arrival of Scarlett ‘Lettie’ Grace Steck, my first grandchild! I’m heading off shortly to son Will’s home in Denver and can’t wait to hold her. (Some of you may remember him as the baby who crashed our 25th reunion!) Daughter Emily is in London, soon to become a citizen and give birth to her latest creation, a short film titled Herbs, now in postproduction and headed for the 2025 festival circuit. I’m in New York City full time, working at the tedious task of downsizing, along with enjoying all the city has to offer. Should anyone need a dose of the Big Apple, my door is always open.”

Gail Shearer and I (Barbie Wiss) went to a performance of Pride and Prejudice. It was such fun. I was amazed to see so many in Regency dresses, complete with bonnets, fans, and gloves. Gail, who shares a December birthday with Jane Austen,

has been reading her 1967 copy of the book. I hope to get a copy out of the library, as my high school version was lost in one of my moves or perhaps in a frenzy of decluttering. Lynne (Tompkins) Ward noted a sudden flashback on seeing my post of Miss Moulding waving her finger and quizzing us about foreshadowing. So many memories.

1969

Gay (Garth) Legg gaylegg@gmail.com

Mary Robinson: All is well here. Our older daughter, Sarah, is in her third year of medical school in a special curriculum at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, that prepares students to serve for Doctors Without Borders. She is loving it, and her mom tries not to worry too much about the daily news from the Middle East. Our younger daughter is in San Francisco, working for Amazon. She completed her MBA at Dartmouth this past spring. She likes the city a lot. Sending blessings to you all.

1970

Harty (Platt) du Pont hartleydupont@aol.com

Lisa Schmucki lisaschmucki@gmail.com

Kent Place received the sad news that Karolyn (Vreeland) Blume passed away peacefully at her home in Allentown, Pa., on July 16, 2024. Karolyn was a trailblazer and prominent member of the Allentown legal community for more than 45 years. Condolences to Karolyn’s family and friends.

After a long illness, Linda (Pole) Shelby passed away peacefully on November 21, 2024, surrounded by her family. A devoted mother, avid quilter, and loving owner of a succession of German shepherds, she’ll be sorely missed. Condolences to Linda’s family and her many friends.

Lisa Schmucki: I can’t believe we’re celebrating our 55th reunion this spring. Our class does a great job of keeping in touch, and I’m looking forward to getting together again as a group. I’m so proud of the work that Kent Place does to support young women, especially with the Ethics Institute. My company, edWeb.net, has had the pleasure of hosting online presentations with KPS staff and

students on the impact of artificial intelligence. I want to help spread their great work and insights on AI to other educators and schools.

Harty (Platt) du Pont: I’m a finalist for the second time in as many years in an international poetry contest. Now my goal is to create a chapbook (small book) of my poetry, which is often requested when submitting work to a contest. I continue as chair of the 1754 Society for the School of the Arts at Columbia University. I’ve

also established the Hartley du Pont Fellowship Fund for the School of the Arts as well as a prize in the name of my parents. I also serve as the alumni representative on the Honorary Degree Committee and chair of the Arts. Along with eight professors and the university president, we determine the awards to be given at graduation. I’ve seen Hallie, Lynn, and Lis recently, and will always cherish those long relationships. I love hearing about the accomplishments of all my classmates.

JOIN US TO CELEBRATE YOU!

ALUMNAE WEEKEND

Friday and Saturday, April 25–26, 2025

C H E E R S TO THE YEARS!

All alumnae are invited to campus for the festivities and to celebrate the milestone reunion classes ending in 0 and 5. We hope you’ll join us to connect with classmates and other alumnae — and experience what Kent Place life is like today.

If you’re part of a reunion class ending in 0 or 5, please consider joining the Reunion Committee to help make your class’s weekend special and meaningful.

To view the schedule of events, visit kentplace.org/alumnae-weekend.

Welcoming the New Year Together

Year-end is a wonderful time to celebrate the strong bonds within the Kent Place community. Our annual events provide meaningful opportunities to connect, both on campus and beyond. We’re especially grateful for the 50 members of the KPS community who joined us at the Penn Club in New York City and the more than 200 alumnae who returned to campus to enjoy our 101st STAR performance!

STAR

1. Corey McConnell, Kristen Herburger ’95, Megan (McConnell) Brozowski ’95 P ’26, Stephanie (Sayia) Walsh ’95 P ’25, Hilary Sayia ’04, and Katie (Herbst) Machir ’95 P ’28

2. 2022 classmates Charlotte Prunty, Alexandra Sinins, Pilar Torres, Grace Martin, Annabel Prunty, and CC Wolf

3. 1981 classmates Ghislaine (Tritz) Mahoney, Liz (Spiotta) Kravtiz, and June Boyle

4. (Back) Francesca Wan ’22, Shefali Kamilla ’21, Natasha Wan ’21, Gillian Gogliormella ’19, and Kiana McQuade ’19; (seated) Sophia Famular ’21 and Eliza Lox ’21

5. Meyra Green ’64, Diann Gropp-Roth ’84 P ’21, Lee Horner, and Jean (Birdsall) Ball ’61

6. Keertana Talla ’19 and 2021 classmates Sarah Brandstaedter, Kayla Drum, Isabella Diaz, Ellie Michalchuk, Tanmayee Talla, and Beka Zambrano

7. Lots of smiles and hugs arriving back on campus: 2024 classmates Gabrielle Liberman and Logan Corrales

8. 2022 classmates Francesca Wan, Hannah Asirvatham, Emma Yang, Katie Coyne, Leah Paul, and Selina Liu

9. Alumnae joined students to sing “O Holy Night” during the performance.

NEW YORK CITY HOLIDAY GATHERING

10. Kathy (Tuttle) Shepperly ’79 P ’11 and Paige (Shepperly) Nieslanik ’11 with former faculty member Chris Clemens (seated)

11. 2014 classmates Katie Hammond, Emily Jeffries, Amanda Kim, Sydney Giordano, Caroline Rosen, and Isabella Smith

12. Maddie Wasser ’06, Michele Sandidge ’06, Jachele Vélez ’07, Alex Krupp ’06, and Courtney Cannon ’06

13. Maggie Russell ’19, Sarah Johnson ’19, Erin Cronin ’18, Gabby Alpert ’19, Catherine Torres ’19, and Nikki Patel ’19

14.Caitlin Cote ’99, Katie (Rocker) Rayer ’99, and Lauren (Davidson) Sachs ’98

15. Julia (Sullivan) Rotondo ’12 and Anna Kantha ’01

12.

13.

14.

Christina (Mennen) Andrea: We’ve secured the naming rights of the Children’s Health Hospital here in Plano for the atrium and main entrance to our amazing pediatric care center in North Texas. The announcement was recently made that the atrium will now be named “The Andrea-Mennen Family Foundation Atrium.” We were able to do this for Children’s due to the gift we gave them of $5 million, the largest gift in Collin County history, thanks to the generosity of my family business and the words that were always instilled in me by my grandfather, father, and mother, “Unto whom much is given, much is expected.”

Betzi (Ulrich) Powers: John and I continue to enjoy traveling the world, and this past year we saw a lot of the United States. Our national parks are amazing! Valerie McEntee came to Pittsburgh for a visit, and we experienced “the Whiskey Rebellion” in the area. I’m looking forward to our 55th reunion in 2025!

Joy Weiner: Life continues happily in Manhattan and upstate New York, in Columbia County. In the city, I get to enjoy theater and ballet. In the summer, it’s swimming, Tanglewood for concerts, and Jacob’s Pillow for dance. This past October, Beth Sullebarger visited me in Manhattan for a whirlwind weekend of one Broadway show, one film, three museums, a fundraiser, and several meals. We had a blast!

Emmy (Perina) Katz: This has been a year of travel for Bruce and me. We’re usually on a hiking trip in April. However, this year we took a road trip from our home in northern New Hampshire south to Jekyll Island, Ga. We were prepared to sleep in our truck, tent, or treat ourselves to a hotel/motel if needed. We traveled through three seasons: early spring, spring, and summer. Along the way, we hiked the highest mountain in three states, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The southern beaches were beautiful. In early July, we took a break from our vegetable gardens (we have several) to go to Yokosuka, Japan. Our son Ethan is a Navy lieutenant and works on the base. We had only two weeks to explore and Ethan had every day planned for us. We even made time to hike Mount Fuji. Japan is lovely, but very crowded. We recently returned from a tour of central Europe. It was a two-week trip starting in Kra-

kow, Poland, through Slovakia and Budapest. We spent two nights in Bratislava, Slovakia, and took a day trip into Vienna. Prague was our final destination. My father’s grandparents with their families emigrated from Prague in the 1880s. In December, we traveled to Portugal for ten days on a bus tour, a first for us.

1971

Jamie Gifford-Modick jamie.giffordmodick@gmail.com

After sending an email request for Class Notes, a phenomenal number of you responded: 25 from a possible 38. For those who would like to be a part of this correspondence, please send me your email and I’ll add you. Some of what was written was quite raw and open and doesn’t necessarily “pass” for notes of vacations, travels, volunteer and/or other activities, grandchildren, etc. I saw it as a very positive, ongoing, cohesive discussion.

Can’t believe that Liz Parker is still working (but it seems that so are a few others) in the newspaper business. She and Mark have four kids, one KPS grad and three Pingry grads. They visited South Africa last summer. How can she still be playing sports after two new knees, two new hips, and rotator cuff surgery?

Mimi daSilva continues seeing people part time at her psychotherapy practice despite her two new knees, shoulder replacement, and two back surgeries. These ladies are bionic!

Linda (Gordon) Mancini, a horse owner and investor, is also an active horse show judge around the country, despite continual back problems. “Hanging in as best I can,” she says. Such stamina can only come from our KPS years! Mimi’s daughter is a freshman at Bryn Mawr and twin sons are seniors in college. She and her wife are empty-nesters but their home in Bradley Beach, N.J., is only five blocks from the ocean.

Gail (Campbell) McBride says she misses the East Coast after 45 years in California: four seasons, rain, a warm ocean. The Pacific is cold, but try the North Sea, an hour away from me and plenty of rain in Germany. Trade with you, Gail! (The North Sea does warm up in summer.)

Michéle Ory writes, while enjoying the warm Atlantic in Gran Canaria, that she can give a grand tour of Liège, Belgium.

Kathy (Rohn) Le Dain spends most of September in France, first in Reims for a family reunion of her husband’s and then they head to Normandy and especially the beaches of La Baule, in Brittany. Their daughters live in Rochester, N.Y., and L.A.

For more ocean views, North Truro, Mass., where Kathy Cook and her partner of 30 years built a new house, doesn’t sound bad either. “There have been many projects and gardening, bird watching, golf, pickleball, sunsets, windy days, and a few Cosmos along the way,” she writes. “We also spent five weeks at my family home on Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York, a place I really love. This year I’ve reconnected more with old friends and flames from high school and college.” Thanksgiving, they’ll go back to their home in Westport, Conn.

Liz Joralemon has certainly been around! She has settled down in southern Vermont but over the years lived in New Jersey, California, and North Carolina. Her career choices were also quite varied and interesting: veterinary tech, catering and gourmet foods, bookkeeping and office administration, and elementary school admin. That’s on top of raising two children, now married, one living in New York City and the other in Boston. She visits with Margaret (Kelly) Tew, who lives in Maine, regularly. She also stays in contact with Kay Dougherty and Kim Morrison. Liz volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and a food bank, and works part time at a dog-training center. As if that weren’t enough, she also competes with her yellow Lab in agility, rally, and scent work.

Kay (Slichter) Dougherty will soon be north of Kathy Cook, leaving western Massachusetts after 25 years, and building a house in Arundel, Maine. “My best-everything husband died in 2018,” she writes. That’s hard; new starts aren’t easy. She does a lot of work with shelter dogs and native-plant propagation.

Connie Murphy will soon have Kay as a fairly close neighbor, as she lives in Newfields, N.H. She was managing the voter checklist, verifying that all votes were counted by hand, on November 5. Thank you, Connie, and especially because she is slowly recovering from a July COVID infection.

“I’m learning a new way of living that’s very quiet and solitary. I continue to deepen my skills and practice keeping healing circles for

friends in the area and my skills in holding grief circles at healing circles global.org. I love my work.”

Janet (Mauriello) Simon is on the Cancer Council for the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center in Morristown and says she loves “spreading the message of hope to all cancer patients.” She and Peter, married for 47 years, have four children and four grandkids, who all live in the Morristown area. I’m positive there are some fellow KPS grandparents who would enjoy such a privilege!

Jan (Yeaw) Carhart is one of them. She and her husband are moving to Atlanta to be closer to their son and three grandchildren. They went on a major trip to Africa, exploring Botswana and ending in eastern South Africa in the southern portion of the Kalahari Desert.

Barbara (Weiger) Lepke-Sims, who has lived in the Denver area since 1976, writes, “Music has been with me my entire life, either as a full-time professional harpist or music educator, and now a therapeutic musician in hospitals. I’ve enjoyed mentoring students through teaching them harp.”

Deborah Besch says, “My husband and I are still living in Austin. We’d like to leave Texas for somewhere less hot but haven’t managed it yet. In September, we went on a cruise around the British Isles with Evie (Edwards) Fenn and her husband. It was so much fun!”

Patty (Brundage) Copley has been living in New York City and is involved in the contemporary art business. She started in 1976 and worked for 20 years at the Leo Castelli Gallery. After that, she worked at VART, Art Dealers Associates, produced the Art Show, and now has a business with her sister, Susan Brundage ’67, called Brundage Art Advisors, which, she says, “focuses on art collectors and artists for estate planning of their collections and/or their estates.” (Want to come to my house? We’re the proud owners of a Bob Dylan–signed print; saw it at a Bath gallery and couldn’t resist.) Patty’s husband, Billy Copley, is an artist. They have two children, and although they have no grandchildren, they do have grandpups.

Blake (Rimbault) Zoephel writes, “The main idea I took with me when I graduated from KPS was that I could do anything I wanted for a career.” She became an artist, painting and selling her work and teaching painting and

THEN & NOW: KENT PLACE UNIFORM

Step into our archives and you’ll find all different types of school uniforms throughout the decades, such as in the picture from 1972 (top). For a while, the Kent Place uniform had been retired, but in the fall of 2010, a “Uniform with Choice” was adopted in Kindergarten through Grade 8. The uniform, seen today in the picture at the bottom, provides consistency, yet still allows students to showcase creativity and individuality by way of a variety of colors and styles. The Parents’ Association runs a Uniform Exchange, a free service provided to all families, who are welcome to take gently worn uniform clothing.

Do you remember your uniform? We’d love to hear about it; please email communications@kentplace.org.

drawing. Barb and Jan have been very supportive, as her daughter, in addition to having an autoimmune disease, is being treated for cancer. Pause, deep breath, and strength, from us all.

Susan (Wallace) Goetzman has been living in Tampa since 1993 and is retired after a 37-year career in commercial banking. Reading, physical fitness, home projects, traveling, three kids, and two grands, “now the highlight of my life,” she writes, keep her busy.

That’s the exact reason why Heath (Holland) Faraci has lived in Charlotte for the last year — much closer to at least one daughter, Gretchen, with her two kids. Her other daughter, Caitlin, lives in Chicago with 3-year-old twins. One interesting coincidence: Her college roommate’s daughter, her godchild, is a KPS grad.

Susan Cory writes, “The summer of 2024 saw two births: my first grandbaby, Mae Caldwell Smith, and the seventh book in my mystery series, The Crying Crocodile. My son and daughter-in-law live near Philadelphia, so we’ve gone down for visits. Mae is the sweetest baby. This grandmother gig is fun! I’m also enjoying my retirement from 40 years running an architecture firm, although switching to writing mysteries keeps me busy.”

Pam (Baker) Harding became a grandmother for the second time. Bowie is the new member in daughter Tory’s family.

Ann (Holloway) Stone is on regular Zoom calls with her son Will, Deborah, and grandchildren, Liam and Mary. They live in Medford, Ore., and book cruises as Will is a transportation broker. “Truck drivers commission him to manage loading huge crates and other industrial equipment from A to B,” she writes.

Kathy Brown sees Stacey Miller regularly when she comes to New York for the New York City Ballet season and then when Kathy goes up north to the Shaw Festival, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. After that, she gets to play “winter grandma” to six grandnieces and grandnephews, who live in Bernardsville and Mountainside, while their grandparents head to Florida. That leaves Kathy filling in at lacrosse, basketball, baseball, and football games, dance recitals, swimming lessons, and babysitting. “I’ve learned a lot,” she writes, “particularly from the conversations we have while they’re captive in the backseat!” For sure, Kathy thought retirement

from the world of accounting and finance at AT&T in Basking Ridge would mean just that, retirement, but what a fun, enriching new job!

Stacey Miller also had a 20-year career with AT&T but moved to Rochester, N.Y., with Brad. A 1979 drive through India and Nepal with some Spanish friends and a purchase of a few hats/skullcaps turned into a large collection of ethnic headwear. Her collection has been on tour since 2019 in 16 museums. Stacey has been looking into creating a “Museum of World Cultures” with the support of a university, museum, or other organization.

Jeanne (Pettit) Ferris writes, “By the time these notes are published, the election will be behind us (I hope), so I won’t comment on it now (I’m writing on November 3). My big news is that after 63 years of wearing glasses or contact lenses, I’m going through cataract surgery, which my eye doctor says should enable me to spend most, if not all, of my time “bare eyed,” and need just over-the-counter drugstore glasses the rest of the time (my nearsightedness and astigmatism have required very expensive glasses to correct).

Last time we heard from Robin (Cavallaro) Webber, she and Paul had offered their house, which was undergoing a lot of work, for a historical tour. Here’s the update: “For six months,” she writes, “Paul and I broke our backs, had regularly scheduled panics, and, in my case, suffered occasional meltdowns. As it turns out, it was hugely successful. To my surprise, it was even fun!” I had my own meltdown. In the United States, the popular vote didn’t go to the candidate of my choice, and the next day the German Coalition with the Greens broke down. I hope and pray that the prognoses will prove wrong for both countries, for Europe, for world peace. Only as an adult do I realize how very fortunate we were at KPS to receive an education that enabled us to differentiate, look past the rhetoric, and make choices for the betterment of everyone — no exclusions.

1974

Cathy Slichter cathy.slichter@gmail.com

1975

Patti Neale-Schulz pattischulz1919@gmail.com

Green and Gold on the Road

We have so much fun reconnecting with our alumnae all over the world. Thank you to all who came out for our most recent events. Upcoming spring and summer events can be found on our website and social media pages. Contact Lainey Segear, Senior Director of Community Engagement, at (908) 273-0900, ext. 335, or segearl@kentplace.org, if you would like to host a gathering.

1. Nantucket: Hosted by Elaine and Cary Schwartz

2. Spring Lake, N.J.: Hosted by Maria (Fekete) ’98 and Jordan Brugg P ’28 ’30

3. Bay Head, N.J.: Hosted by Christine (Chambers) ’84 and Michael Gilfillan P ’19

4. Washington, D.C.: Hosted by Anne Savage ’88

5. Chicago: Hosted by Kate (Casale) MacNally ’00

1977

Kent Place received the sad news that Shira (Morrison) Kanter passed away on April 1, 2024. Our condolences to Shira’s family and friends.

1978

Patricia (Friedman) Marcus  balibliss@yahoo.com

1979

Peg (Houghton) Kennedy maggie9194@gmail.com

I’m excited to be our new Class Secretary! Please don’t hesitate to send me updates at any time and I’ll hold on to them for our column.

I’m living in Annapolis and loving it. I have two kids and two stepkids and they’re all out of the house. My husband, Peter, and I just got home from a trip to Istanbul and I highly recommend it. Cleanest city I’ve ever visited, friendly people, and lots of cats. I hope all of you are doing well.

Katherine (Tuttle) Shepperly: Our family enjoyed a wonderful summer, with Paige ’11 marrying Jake Nieslanik in Colorado and then a whirlwind trip to the Paris Olympics. Spencer and Natalie are getting married on New Year’s Eve. A big year for our family!

1980

Melinda Blanchard: I just finished my 12th production on the Historic Palace Theater stage, in Cape Charles, Va. Who would have thought 46 years ago that I’d be doing this? My, how things change.

Sarah McFarland Taylor ’86 is the recipient of the 2023 IRIS Book Award for her second book, Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue. The award, conferred by the Center for Religion and the Human at Indiana University, was for outstanding work offering new insights into the meaning of being human in relation to science, religion, and nature. The prize ceremony, which took place in fall 2024, was hosted by the University of California Santa Barbara.

1981

Kathryn (McDaniel) Nenning kathryn@nenning.com

1984

Jennifer Thomas meezertee@gmail.com

1985

Karen Little: Trust all enjoyed the beautiful “Indian summer” and celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with family both near and far. As we gather not just thoughts of news to share but delicious tidbits of “gossip” from daily encounters or observations while traveling to and fro. Methinks Mrs. Farber would enjoy the choice of Into the Woods as Kent Place’s 2024 fall production, putting a new spin on the Crop Walk, also an autumn activity in our days.

1986

Susan Gibson nibbles.inc@gmail.com

Greetings from Boulder, where the only new thing for me is that I finally got COVID, and it wasn’t fun. Hard to imagine how terrible it was for folks before the vaccine. I did get to see Molly (Bingham) Esserman in July when she came to Colorado for a wedding, and it was so much fun! She’s been getting around — sent a photo with Beth Tracey and Julia (Verdesca) Lucivero having lunch in New Jersey. And I was thrilled to see the photo from Kathy Prendergast when she ran into our beloved history teacher Sherry Wang and her husband, Dr. Wang, at a fundraiser in 2022. They looked healthy and regal.

Kathy writes, “In more recent news, Anne (Rickert) Lipford was in D.C. at the end of August to drop off her son Rocque for his sophomore year at Georgetown, her alma mater, and we got together for dinner and had a great visit. In late September/ early October, Lauren (Kares) Harrison was in D.C. competing at the Capital Challenge Horse Show in nearby Upper Marlboro, Md., and we had a wonderful catchup. She’s amazing!

1987

Ginny (Boyer) Losito glosito@me.com

1988

Melissa (McCarthy) Madden melissamccarthy@me.com

Jennifer (Kopf) West: Never been busier, with phone forensics at Murfreesboro PD.

1989

Vanessa E. King squamlake@gmail.com

Dequiandra (Howard) Fradkin: The fun of this being a multiyear post is because I’m also the parent of alumnae. Nadia ’16 has been serving in the Peace Corp since 2022 and in June I had a chance to take a daughter-trip to visit her in Senegal. Asha ’14, Amanda, my godmother, Cynthia, and I took two weeks to travel with her and meet her host family. We visited Morocco, Cape Verde (Asha was our translator, having taught in Brazil as a Fulbright Scholar), and a couple of cities in Senegal (Nadia was translator, having learned to speak Wolof in the time she was there). Beautiful experience and fun all around, in spite of flight delays and temporarily lost luggage.

Melanie (Edwards) Furr: I recently celebrated 10 years as education director at Birds Georgia (formerly Georgia Audubon), and this year my “life list” topped 1,000 species. I love teaching people about birds and helping to create better stewards of our planet. Now that our children (Elise and Ethan) are college graduates with biology degrees, my husband, Mark, and I are enjoying an empty nest.

Suzanne (Lopez) Prisco: I had a wonderful time connecting with other KPS alumnae at a dinner in Chicago in October. There were many generations represented, but Laura (Peron) Miller and I were the only two who graduated the same year. We also realized that six of the nine women there had my mom, Pauline Lopez, as their math teacher.

1990

Maren (Eisenstat) Vitali mevitali@comcast.net

1991

Andrea (Carson) Tanner acarsontanner@gmail.com

Now that our 50th birthdays have come and gone, we can begin the countdown to our 35th reunion. See you in spring 2026!

In addition to serving as a substitute teacher in kindergarten, first, and second grade for our local public schools, I started a job reviewing

applications as a seasonal reader for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s great to be back in the world of undergraduate admissions!

Julie Goodliffe: I’m enjoying life as a university administrator, which is consequential but not hard to do. I drive kids around on the weekend and watch true-crime shows. My oldest and I listened to seven hours of true-crime podcasts when I drove him to Denison, where he’s a junior. I also have a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old. They get along well; that’s the thing I’m most proud of, that my sons love and support one another.

Bayne Gibby: I’m currently busy on your TV at commercial breaks trying to sell you insurance with a famous lizard. I’ve been filming a movie that will be out in theaters in July 2025. I’d tell you more, but I signed an NDA that put a gripping fear in me that outweighs my desire to brag about it. Will shout it out when I can!

Sally Herships: The year started off well. I got to visit my old roommate in Paris, which was wonderful. Some other highlights: covering the India vs. Pakistan Cricket World Cup for NPR and interviewing my stepson for a high school sports story. Normally we reporters don’t get to talk to family or friends, so that was extra cool. I’ve been working on a project on tax evasion so have spent much of my time combing through documents. Looking forward to the next KPS New York City event.

Michelle Zeiler: I moved to Bloomington and started law school at Indiana University. Lauren (Shaftel) Williams has been a wonderful inspiration and source of support. I love being back in school and learning new, surprising things every day. I appreciate my KPS education so much; at least I already know the rules of American grammar for my legal research and writing class. I’m also going up to Indianapolis pretty frequently to see Pacers games. Hope everyone is doing well.

Allison (Fitzpatrick) Weir: Doug and I had a great excuse to go back to London this summer to see the Mets play the Phillies. Although we didn’t see the game they won, the team’s fortunes changed after that and we enjoyed watching them in the postseason. I’m still working hybrid, going back and forth between New York City and Spring Lake, N.J. The benefit is that this year I was able to attend the KP

ETHICS AT WORK

In November, Sonia Parmar ’20 visited campus to meet with students participating in the Bioethics Project, a signature program of the Ethics Institute at Kent Place. This program selects students to conduct in-depth scholarly research and present on contemporary bioethical topics.

Sonia, a former Bioethics student and a member of the 2018 Ethics Bowl Championship Team, gave insights from her role as a clinical research coordinator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. She highlighted some ways in which ethics play a vital role in her work and offered guidance on how students can integrate ethical thinking into their college experiences and, ultimately, their careers.

“The Ethics Institute at Kent Place taught me to ask the hard questions — a foundation that has proved invaluable through college and beyond,” says Sonia. “In my work, those once seemingly abstract ethical discussions have become my blueprint for navigating challenging dayto-day decisions, from designing inclusive protocols for doctors and staff to ensuring true informed consent for patients. I told students that ethical thinking isn’t about finding perfect answers; it’s about developing the confidence to pause, reflect, and carry ethical principles into the messy reality of practice. These skills matter in every career path.”

gathering in Spring Lake, where I got to see Andrea Carson’s parents. Let’s hope we can get Andrea and more of the Class of 1991 there next year.

1992

Tanai (Sanders) White: I’m so humbled and excited to share that I’ve been elected the next pastor of the Antioch Baptist Church in Upper Marlboro, M.d.

1993

Courtney (Mead) Nagle courtney.a.mead@gmail.com

Hello, Class of 1993! Hope everyone is having a great year. Looking forward to hearing what’s new with everyone. For me, after 10 amazing years living close to family and working at Verizon, my husband and I decided to head back to the state we love, Massachusetts. I’m now working in internal communications at Bose and loving it. It’s also been great reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

Kamilah (Ross) Heartwell: I’m still a principal. Two of my kids are grown and the last is a high school

senior. My daughter was married last year and recently celebrated her first wedding anniversary. I’m about to get remarried, after 15–20 years, and my grandmother is turning 95.

Susanne (Santola) Mulligan: As I write, we’re a couple of weeks away from the KPS Upper School production of Into the Woods, which I’m sure many of you remember Mr. Pridham directing when we were in high school. I played Jack’s mom and several others from our class were in the play as well. I invited a few classmates/castmates to join me, and I’m thrilled to be having a mini-reunion with Maria Dizzia, Gabrielle (Costanzo) Long, Stephanie (Burlington) Daniels, and Jack himself! So excited to see everyone and celebrate Kent Place and Mr. Pridham. (See page 41.)

Gabrielle (Costanzo) Long: So excited to reunite with classmates on campus to see Into the Woods 31 years after we staged it! Thank you, Susanne Mulligan and family, for the inside KPS information, and Stephanie Daniels, Marisa Treglio, and Maria Dizzia for joining in on the fun. I have the fondest memories

Also in November, Alyssa Hwang ’16, a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and a featured alumna in the Winter/Spring 2024 issue of Kent Place magazine, spoke at an assembly hosted by REBOOT (Rethinking Ethical Behavior Online for Oneself Together). This student-led initiative, developed in partnership with the Ethics Institute, empowers students to take control of their digital lives. Alyssa discussed her groundbreaking work with artificial intelligence and how ethical considerations have shaped her approach to innovation and problem-solving. Then in December, Reagan McRae ’17, another former Bioethics scholar, returned to the KPS campus to talk about her experiences as a research assistant at Duke Law School’s Wilson Center for Science and Justice. During her time at KPS, she conducted research on the ethical challenges posed by 3D printing of human organs for transplantation. At Duke, she continues to explore questions regarding the perception of death and the ethical implications of advancing technologies in medicine, particularly for individuals unable to advocate for themselves. Currently, Reagan is developing and evaluating rubrics for North Carolina’s driver lab policies and procedures.

of many rehearsals and performances in the early ’90s with so many schoolmates and Mr. Pridham.

Suzy Spressert: In June, I had the wonderful opportunity to enjoy a ladies night out on the town with Amy (Rosoff) Sampson. We had an awesome meal in Boston’s Seaport and then sang along with Sarah McLachlan’s FTE 30th-anniversary tour. For Veterans Day, Amy and I took the boys to Tree Top Adventures to conquer the high ropes. It’s so much fun that Julian and Roy are becoming friends, too. Julian spent an epic eighth birthday at Disney, thanks to his grandparents. We were thrilled that he wanted to spend his actual birthday day at Epcot touring through all the “countries.” Now that we have passports, I’m excited to travel and discover places outside of the United States.

Kris Juncker: Heather Dawson was recently featured on the Organize Me! radio show “Restore Order with Naeemah.” Although my secret to staying organized — Heather — is out of the bag, please do check out her professional-organizer skills on YouTube.

1994

Christina (Dughi) Tonzola ctonzola@gmail.com

Shannon (Barry) O’Grady: Greetings from northeastern Pennsylvania. I finished my third year as theater director at Salisbury High School, in Allentown, with successful productions of HAYFEVER 1965 (I adapted the Noel Coward classic) and The Spitfire Grill. The latter was nominated for Best Overall Production of a Musical at the Freddy Awards in Easton, making it the first time in history for the school to receive such an honor. Among highlights of last summer was spending time with my KPS classmate Laura (Greenberg) Savarese, her fiancé, my husband, and our kids.

1996

Rachel Platt  racheldplatt@gmail.com

Amy (Zucker) Kohen amykohen@gmail.com

1997

Kate (Mattern) McGee katematternmcgee@gmail.com

Marriages

Paige Shepperly ’11 to Jake Nieslanik

July 6, 2024

Drew Silverman ’12 to Aidan Fennessy July 13, 2024

Sarah Chin ’15 to Natalie Sadlak May 20, 2024

Sara Ramaswamy ’15 to Brendan Paul May 25, 2024

Births

Samantha (Jones) Kane ’09 a daughter, Lilly Elizabeth Kane October 9, 2024

Daniela Quintanilla ’10 a son, Jason Reynolds September 13, 2024

Kristin (Osborn) Cahill: I live with my husband, Mark, and kids, Charlie and Natalie, in Wilton, Conn. I’m the Global CEO of GCI Health, a health-communications agency headquartered in New York. When not working, I’m cheering on my kids as they play soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse all over the place.

Tara (Kullman) Millman: I now have two kids in middle school and we’re in full teenager mode. Travis is very into acting and excited to be part of many shows around Summit, and Sebastian is obsessed with his 3D printer. We celebrated Sebastian’s bar mitzvah this year and it was so much fun. I’m still working at Brizo FoodMetrics with Audrey (Pukash) Bilsborrow, and she’s the best part of working there. I still play pickleball and love it. I’m still helping organize people’s homes when I can and stay busy as much as possible. I talk to some of you sometimes and am always ready for a KPS sister hang. You know where to find me. Anywhere!

1998

KC (Anthony) Artemenko kcartemenko@gmail.com

1999

Iris Blasi iris.blasi@gmail.com

Cynthia Keenan cindy.keenan@gmail.com

2000

Christine Ryan ceryan@gmail.com

Meghan (Valerio) Kaminski: Over the summer, I was lucky enough to spend a (child-free!) weekend in Asheville, N.C., with Melissa (Chang) Volkert, Erinn (Johnson) Costantino, Julianna Muir, Rebecca (Sizelove) Strong, Katie (Del Guercio) Walmsley, Michelle (Mohr) Nash, and Jennifer (La Rosa) Peterson. We had a great time at the Biltmore Estate and enjoyed the shopping, breweries, and restaurants.

Corbin Schrader: One of the joys of the past few years has been reuniting with Jihan Quail during professional conferences. It’s always a highlight to cross paths during long and busy days.

2001

Kimberly (Frye) Alula kfrye05@gmail.com

Sara Pickett-Tucker saralizpickett@gmail.com

2002

Erin Sauchelli  e.sauchelli@gmail.com

2003

Gina Ferraioli ginaferraioli@gmail.com

2004

Laura Kleinbaum lkkleinbaum@gmail.com

2005

Cara Manket cara.manket@gmail.com

Margarita (Ortega) Ferguson: Lori Ferguson and I were married in 2019. I have twin daughters, Anabella Rose Ferguson and Maribella Lorraine Ferguson, born March 4, 2022.

2006

Lydia Deutsch lydia.deutsch@gmail.com

Kent Place thanks Danielle Auriemma for her many years of serving as Class Secretary. She’s done a fantastic job staying in touch with all of you and acting as a liaison with the KPS community. Thank you, Danielle, for your dedicated commitment to your

alma mater. Your involvement and support have been invaluable!

2007

Nida Abdulla nida.11.abdulla@gmail.com

Caitlin Black cblack@fandm.edu

Sara Santos sarajosantos@gmail.com

2008

Allison Oberlander oberlander.allison@gmail.com

2009

Courtney (Alpaugh) Simmons courtney.simmons513@gmail.com

Allison Goldberg afg813@gmail.com

Samantha (Jones) Kane: We’re so excited to announce that we welcomed our second child, Lilly Elizabeth Kane, in October. Her older brother, Emmett (2), is very happy with the new addition.

2010

Carly Uhlman carly.uhlman@gmail.com

Daniela Quintanilla: I’m a principal at Blue Owl Capital, where I lead strategy for the institutional business. In September, my husband, David, and I welcomed our first child, Jason.

2011

Lizzy Miggins lizzymiggins@gmail.com

Malina Welman malinawelman@gmail.com

Emily Hilton: I graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a PhD in clinical psychology and began a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric psychology at the Mayo Clinic in the fall. I look forward to joining Jayne (Pasternak) Dessonville and Jaya Robillard in Minnesota!

2012

Victoria Criscione  victoriaacriscione@gmail.com

Drew (Silverman) Fennessy: Aidan and I were married at my parents’ home in Maine in July. Our revelers included KPS’s very own Olivia Wolff, Carter (Flegal) Townsend ’88, and Pamela (Dickson) Salisbury ’75

2014

Bela Parekh: If anyone is ever in Philadelphia, please reach out. I’ll be there for the next four years for my residency program in ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital/Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and would love to catch up with a fellow alum.

2015

Sarah Pavlak: I stood beside Sara (Ramaswamy) Paul as she got married. During the ceremony, they read a passage from “Omnia Sol,” which was a song we sang together in Chamber Singers.

Sarah Chin: On May 20, 2024, I married Natalie Sadlak at the Boston Public Library. On our first date, way back in 2015, we bonded over our experiences of going to nonsectarian, historically all-girls schools, so it seemed fitting to share the news here! We recently moved to Chicago, where Natalie started an OB/GYN residency. From nine to five, I’m a political consultant; from five to nine, I’m working on my first book.

CLASS NOTES DETAILS

• Notes will be collected via Google Form. You’ll receive a link to this form from your Class Secretary or, if your class doesn’t have a secretary, directly from the school.

• Digital photos should be a high-resolution JPEG image (1M or larger) with a caption. We request that photos include alumnae (with the exception of newborn photos).

• Editorial staff will edit, format, and select all content based on space constraints and will work to incorporate as many notes and photos as possible.

MOMENTS

1. 1964 classmates Demie Kurz and Wendy (Oschwald) Barbellion at Wendy’s home in Nançay, France

2. 1964 classmates Karen (Connell) Larsen and Phyllis (Cross) Croce

3. Joan Drake ’65 on Halloween several years ago

4. Joan Drake ’65 and friend on DPS skis, her nephew’s company at the time

5. Kathy (Van Cleve) Kuhns ’68 with John and the boys in Coronado

6. Lynne (Tompkins) Ward ’68 with her daughters, granddaughter, and dog, Remy

7. Lynne (Tompkins) Ward ’68 at the wedding of her daughter Lindsey in September 2023

8. Linda Schmidt ’68 with three of her grandchildren

9. Addie (Bernheim) Firtel ’68 with granddaughters Sky and Rory

10. Scarlett “Lettie” Grace Steck, granddaughter of Cathy (Stickney) Steck ’68

11. 1970 classmates Betzi (Ulrich) Powers and Valerie McEntee

12. 1970 classmates Beth Sullebarger and Joy Weiner in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

13. Announcement of the Andrea-Mennen Family Foundation Atrium in the Children’s Medical Center Plano

14. Emmy (Perina) Katz ’70 standing on the Charles Bridge in Prague

15. 1971 classmates Deborah Besch and Evie (Edwards) Fenn and their husbands in Queensferry, Scotland

16. Jamie Gifford-Modick ’71 with Emily and Marlene in Poros, Greece

17. Jamie Gifford-Modick ’71 with husband Klaus in Greece

18. John and Heath (Holland) Faraci ’71 with granddaughter Lulu

19. Family of Heath (Holland) Faraci ’71 with daughters, their husbands, and children

20. Linda (Gordon) Mancini ’71

21. Kathy (Rohn) Le Dain ’71 and her husband on a trip to Normandy

22. Jeanne (Pettit) Ferris ’71 with her daughter and son-in-law at the D.C. Women’s March on November 2

23. Susan Cory ’71 with her first grandbaby, Mae Caldwell Smith

24. The seventh book in the mystery series written by Susan Cory ’71

25. Barbara Lepke-Sims ’71 in Cabo with sister Lucy Weiger ’69 and their families

26. Susan (Weissglass) Morgan ’73 came to New York City from Richmond and met classmate Francine Lynch at MoMA.

27. Melinda Blanchard ’80 on a video shoot for the final scene of Calendar Girls

17. 18.

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28. 1986 classmates Susan Gibson and Molly (Bingham) Esserman in Boulder in July 2024

29. 1986 classmates Beth Tracey, Julia (Verdesca) Lucivero, and Molly (Bingham) Esserman in New Jersey in November 2024

30. Sherry Wang, Kathy Prendergast ’86, and Dr. Wang in New Jersey in 2022

31. 1986 classmates Mary Madigan and Sarah McFarland Taylor in Santa Fe in August 2024

32. Jennifer (Kopf) West ’88 and Mike on a cruise to Iceland with their daughter Heather, who lives in France

33. Melanie (Edwards) Furr ’89 and husband Mark birding in La Jolla, Calif.

34. 1989 classmates Laura (Peron) Miller and Suzanne (Lopez) Prisco at a Kent Place alumnae dinner in Chicago

35. Dequiandra (Howard) Fradkin ’89 on a two-week trip with daughters Asha ’14, Nadia ’16, Amanda, and her godmother, Cynthia, through Senegal, Morocco, and Cape Verde

36. Julie Goodliffe ’91 with Jesse (14), Max (9), and Evan (20) after fleeing from an Escape Room

37. Andrea Carson Tanner ’91 with her family in Alaska

38. 1991 classmates Allison (Fitzpatrick) Weir and Melissa (Phillips) DeVries catching up in New York City

39. Heather Dawson ’93 on an Organize Me! radio podcast

40. Teagan O’Grady, Sophie Savarese, Brody Savarese, Riggins O’Grady, and Harry Savarese, the children of 1993 classmates Shannon (Barry) O’Grady and Laura (Greenberg) Savarese

41. 2000 classmates Melissa (Chang) Volkert, Erinn (Johnson) Costantino, Julianna Muir, Rebecca (Sizelove) Strong, Katie (Del Guercio) Walmsley, Michelle (Mohr) Nash, Meghan (Valerio) Kaminski, and Jennifer (La Rosa) Peterson enjoying a girls weekend at the Biltmore Estate, in Asheville, N.C.

42. 2000 classmates Jihan Quail and Corbin Schrader at ASU+GSV Summit in April 2024

43. Lilly Elizabeth Kane, newborn daughter of Samantha (Jones) Kane ’09

44. 2015 classmates Sara (Ramaswamy) Paul and Sarah Pavlak at Sara’s wedding

45. Kathy (Tuttle) Shepperley ’79 and family at the wedding of daughter Paige ’11 to Jake Nieslanik

46. 2010 classmates Liz O’Connor and Daniela Quintanilla celebrating the engagement of Claire Marsden and Matt Miller in July

47. The wedding of Sarah Chin ’15 (left) and Natalie Sadlak

48. Drew (Silverman) Fennessy ’12 with her bridesmaids, including classmate Olivia Wolff

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15 MINUTES WITH . . .

LOLA POSSICK ’23

Lola is a freshman at the University of Notre Dame, where she’s a neuroscience major and a member of the fencing team. She took a gap year after graduating from Kent Place to train in fencing for the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, and was selected as an alternate athlete/training partner for the Games.

When did you realize you wanted to pursue fencing at such a high level? I started fencing at 7 years old after watching my older brother, Owen, at a local fencing club and wanting to try it. I had no idea it would become such a big part of my life, but when I found role models, many of whom were Olympians, I wanted to be like them. Competing at the Olympics as part of the fencing team had been my dream for more than a decade.

What was an important impact of the Paris Olympics? The entire experience was incredible, but one standout moment was my first meal in the U.S. training facility. Sitting in that cafeteria surrounded by such accomplished athletes, all of whom had undergone the same rigorous journey to reach Paris, filled me with pride.

How do you balance the demands of academic life with those of athletics? It took a few weeks to adjust, especially as a neuroscience major, but I’ve been able to dedicate myself to both academics and athletics by prioritizing time management and study habits. The transition back to school after a gap year was challenging, but the academic foundations at Kent Place prepared me for the intense workload.

What does a typical day of training look like for you? My day starts with a 6:20 a.m. wake-up followed by a 7:00–8:00 team lift. Then I grab a protein shake from our athletics refuel station and head to the dining hall before classes. As part of the team, all classes must be over by 3:15 p.m. so I can attend practice from 4:00 to 6:30. It’s a mix of conditioning, footwork, drills, and open fencing, and afterward I use recovery equipment such as a cold tub and compression boots.

What motivates you to keep pushing yourself? Since I was young, my biggest motivation has been my curiosity to see just how far I can go. I stay focused on my next goal, whether it’s big or small. This desire to reach the next level has kept me determined through challenging practices, grueling weeks, and tough seasons.

What’s an important lesson you learned at KPS? I learned not to feel embarrassed about asking for help. At KPS, I reached out to my teachers for support, especially when I missed school for competitions. Now, at Notre Dame, I feel confident asking questions after class and regularly attend office hours to review material. This habit has deepened my understanding of the content and helped me build relationships with my professors. I’m grateful to KPS for teaching me the importance of seeking support.

Kent Place School

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Please forward any address changes to the Kent Place School Advancement Office updateinfo@kentplace.org

“EDUCATING THE WHOLE GIRL IS ALLOWING US TO ENCOUNTER DIFFERENT KINDS OF PERFORMANCE — ATHLETIC, CREATIVE, ACADEMIC — SO WE CAN FIND THE TOOLS WE NEED, BOTH TO ENABLE OURSELVES TO DO THE BEST IN A PARTICULAR MOMENT AND TO BE RESILIENT WHEN THAT MOMENT DOESN’T GO WELL.

The foundations we build in our school years echo throughout our lives. On page 26, three Kent Place alumnae reflect on the timeless lessons they carried forward — lessons that continue to guide and inspire them today.

—MARIA DIZZIA ’93