SCHOOL, Winter 2016

school the magazine of springside chestnut hill academy

food for thought

Three Alumni Work to Preserve Our Food Safety, Accessiblity, and Culinary History | PAGE 2

choosing the long over the short road Ninth Graders on Outward Bound Learn that a Little Discomfort Can Yield Big Insights | PAGE 14

talkin’ the blues

New Fund Brings Alum’s Musical Passion to the SCH Curriculum | PAGE 17

maximizing attitude

How an Alum is Making the Most of His NFL Experience | PAGE 22

WINTER

2016

from dr. mark segar, interim head of school

WALKING BACK IN TOO MUCH OF A RUSH FROM THE VARE FIELD HOUSE THE OTHER DAY, I came to a corridor junction and nearly collided with two students walking the route perpendicular to mine. Reading as they walked, absorbed in some compelling story, they hardly noticed me bracing for impact, their books held in outstretched arms, paper and print and three dimensions, or four, if you count imagination.

Dr. Segar celebrates Groundhog Day.

It was late January, my younger brother’s birthday, actually, and for some reason my mind jumped to another winter, decades ago, when we were sitting together at home on a stormy snow day, both absorbed in books. Mine was The Once and Future King, T. H. White’s retelling of Arthurian legend. My hunch, or hope, is that during those after-blizzard snow days last month, more than a few students stranded at home filled some of their unstructured time in a similar way, entranced by a story, oblivious to others.

For all the carefully planned and organized classes, activities, athletics, and expeditions that engage today’s students, unstructured time is also essential to healthy and complete development. Children and adolescents need time to make decisions for themselves, not simply to follow directions. Individuals mature when they are asked to take increasing degrees of responsibility for directing their own learning and organizing their own time, not merely following a full schedule. Young people need time to reflect as well as to act, to dream as well as to do. In an age when we are preoccupied with connecting, and armed with tools to do so instantly and incessantly, the power of a solitary walk, some time alone to work out a saxophone solo, or a simple interval of play, such times become more precious. Teachers at SCH give careful thought to balancing times for more- and less-directed experience.

There’s a familiar phrase about “making the most”—making the most of an opportunity or making the most of the time available. This idea has merit, certainly. At the same time, most is not the same as best. Quality can matter more than quantity. And great teachers recognize that school must include sufficient opportunity for the excitement that comes from exploration and discovery, as well as the satisfaction that derives from mastery and proficiency.

These are both/and ideas, of course, not either/or. During the week of activities that led up to the celebration of Chinese New Year, one could see teenagers and teachers earnestly at play together, engaged in the Chinese game of Eagle Catches the Chickens with enthusiasm and delight. At a party and silent auction that ended the week, students were involved in many ways, from translating information to creating beautiful calligraphy banners on the spot. It was nice to see a number of parents and alumni at the event, supporting the Chinese students whose studies at SCH have taken them far from home. I know that my own daughterin-law, who comes from a community at the edge of Sichuan Province, has experienced pangs of distance this year as she navigates her first new year holiday away from home. I also know that she is resilient.

Resiliency is one of the virtues that SCH cultivates most actively, most thoughtfully. By giving students opportunities to develop and test ideas for themselves, by emphasizing the importance of good questionasking, rather than focusing only on right answers, by providing a cushion of empathy when hard moments arise, helping students to face disappointment and move on to try again; in these and other ways, the school takes seriously the kind of education that yields strong—and enduring—virtues. Effective educational experience can encompass both sorrow and joy. Its goal is more than mere happiness, an emotion that can be fleeting. It aims instead for a sense of satisfaction—in a job well done, a skill refined, a lesson learned from a mistake, an obstacle overcome, a script memorized, a friendship forged, a kindness extended.

And in the capacity to remember, as Merlin says in The Once and Future King, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something.”

contents

SCHOOL

WINTER 2016

the magazine of springside chestnut hill academy

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Mark Segar, Ed.D. Interim Head of School

Development Office 215-261-6959 Melissa Blue Brown ’87 Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Relations Lynn Burke Associate Director of The SCH Fund Nannette DiGiovanni Development Coordinator Ellen Nalle Hass ’77 Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving Patti Hommes Director of Advancement Services Jennifer James McHugh ’84 Director of Development Cindy Messerle Director of The SCH Fund

2 food for thought

Three Alumni Work to Preserve our

Food Safety, Accessiblity, and Culinary History

11 campus news

Highlights of Recent Activities on Campus

14 choosing the long over

the short road

Ninth Graders on Outward Bound Learn That a Little Discomfort Can Yield Big Insights

17 talkin’ the blues

New Fund Brings Alum’s Musical Passion

to the SCH Curriculum

18 sch standout athletes

Leslie Connor Newbold ’86 Director of Alumni and Parent Relations

Pepper Johnson Rexford ’92 Stewardship Coordinator

22 maximizing attitude: How an Alum is Making the Most of His

Sue Toomey Administrative Assistant

Communications Office Melissa Fisher Associate Director of Marketing Deidra A. Lyngard Director of Publications and Video Editor, SCHOOL Magazine Elizabeth Sanders ha Editor at Large Karen Tracy ha Director of Digital Communications To email any of the staff above, use the following convention: first initial of first name plus full last name @sch.org, e.g., John Doe is jdoe@sch.org.

Highlights of Alumni and Student Athletes

NFL Experience

24 class notes

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26 2015 gold and silver

alumni award winners SCH Honors Two Exemplary Students

27 the faces behind the

funds Donors Who Have Created Living Legacies:

Jono Frank ’69 and Sarah Heckscher ha

28 mystery photos

Send your comments, story ideas, and expressions of interest in writing an article for the magazine to Deidra Lyngard, SCHOOL editor, at dlyngard@sch.org or 215-754-1616.

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Food for Thought

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three alumni work to preserve our food safety, accessibility, and culinary history

FOOD. WE ALL NEED IT. We all dream about it and love to recount our most memorable experiences around it. But how much time do we spend thinking about where our food comes from and what happens to it on its journey from the fields to our plates?

Fortunately, there are people who spend their careers thinking about what happens to our food before we eat it. Three of these people— alumnae Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’49, Caren Ericksen Wilcox ’60, and Karen Bogert Shore ’91—are doing important work to improve our food’s safety and accessibility and to gather and preserve our rich culinary history. keeping our food safe USDA. FSIS. FDA. EPA. CDC. HACCP-PR. FSMA. These are just some of the acronyms that make up the alphabet soup of laws and agencies working to keep our food supply safe. At any point along its journey from farm to table, our food runs risks of contamination—by chemicals in the soil, bacteria or viruses, polluted water, a sick animal, or unsanitary processes, to name just a few. Fortunately, says Caren Ericksen Wilcox ’60, there are a host of public agencies as well as private sector businesses working diligently every day at every level, using very sophisticated methods, to keep our food’s journey as contamination free as possible.

Wilcox’s assurance is backed by more than 25 years of working in food security in the public and private sector, including as deputy undersecretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and executive director of the Organic Trade Association. Today, she serves as senior advisor to the USDA’s undersecretary for research, education, and economics (REE). In this capacity, she consults on programs that help coordinate work on agricultural concerns such as antimicrobial resistance, on support for education issues at landgrant universities, and with stakeholders that share the interests of REE. Two primary agencies are responsible for our food safety.

The USDA, through its enforcement arm, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), monitors our country’s meat, poultry, and egg products. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human

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Services (HHS), monitors all other food products, such as shell eggs, dairy, vegetables, nuts, and fruits. The CDC is also involved, working with state epidemiologists to identify and track outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and working with HHS and USDA on research on various human diseases related to or caused by food. Where it gets confusing, at least for the average consumer but not, Wilcox assures, for the nation’s food inspectors, is when food products are mixed. “A beef barley soup and pepperoni pizza would have FSIS oversight,” Wilcox explains, “but a cheese pizza would be only FDA.”

A Little History Over the past 110 years, our country’s food inspection practices have undergone rigorous and steady improvement. Government monitoring of food processing began in 1906 in response to the public outcry arising from Upton Sinclair’s damning depiction of the meatpacking industry in his book, The Jungle. The 1906 Meat Inspection Act, followed quickly by the Pure Food and Drug Act, were the first national laws aimed at raising food processing and labeling standards in order to protect the consumer.

Caren Ericksen Wilcox ’60, senior advisor to the USDA’s undersecretary for research, education, and economics.

“Eating has never been and never will be without risk, but we are managing food safety using a scientific systems approach now, and have many dedicated and diligent people working to keep us safe.”

Caren Ericksen Wilcox ’60

In the 1960s, an unlikely partnership between NASA and the food industry led to the development of an innovative protocol known as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), which is now followed by many food growers and processors in the U.S. “HACCP started as a voluntary system implemented by a few companies supplying food to NASA’s space program,” explains Wilcox. “NASA didn’t want its astronauts getting sick in space from bad food so it partnered with these companies to establish more rigorous safety processes.”

Rather than a quality-control approach that aims to catch problems at the end of the processing or production process, HACCP introduced a new science-based prevention approach in which contamination risk points in the processing or production process are identified and rigorous controls implemented to eliminate or reduce those risks to acceptable limits. This voluntary process worked so well that it has since been incorporated into our food laws.

the four food safety rules* CLEAN

SEPARATE

COOK

CHILL

Always wash your food, hands, counters, and cooking tools.

Keep raw foods to themselves.

Germs can spread from one food to another.

Foods need to get hot and stay hot. Heat kills germs.

Put food in the fridge right away.

• Wash hands in warm soapy water for at least 20 seconds. Do this before and after touching food.

• Wash your cutting boards, dishes, forks, spoons, knives, and counter tops with hot soapy water. Do this after working with each food item.

• Rinse fruits and veggies.

• Clean the lids on canned goods before opening.

• Keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs away from other foods. Do this in your shopping cart, bags, and fridge.

• Do not reuse marinades used on raw foods unless you bring them to a boil first.

• Use a special cutting board or plate for raw foods only.

• Cook to safe temperatures: - Beef, Pork, Lamb 145 °F - Fish 145 °F - Ground Beef, Pork, Lamb 160 °F - Turkey, Chicken, Duck 165 °F • Use a food thermometer to make sure that food is done. You can’t always tell by looking.

• 2-Hour Rule: Put foods in the fridge or freezer within 2 hours after cooking or buying from the store. Do this within 1 hour if it is 90 degrees or hotter outside.

• Never thaw food by simply taking it out of the fridge.

Thaw food: - In the fridge - Under cold water - In the microwave

* Courtesy of the FDA website

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• Marinate foods in the fridge.

A Cautionary Tale Even with our rigorous regulations, stringent inspection systems, and a more educated and motivated food industry, there will always be problems, acknowledges Wilcox. “Bugs mutate. You can have a great system and think that you’ve gotten a zoonotic disease like avian influenza under control, then all of a sudden it mutates. People living close to animals (often in Asia) get sick and it quickly can move around the world. Bacteria and viruses can mutate in North America, too. We are not isolated the way we were 70 years ago.” Both domestic and international imports can also be a concern, she adds, because careful monitoring of food processing can have occasional failures. ”We have to have a constant research effort going on about food safety and health to meet these challenges.”

Despite these ever-present dangers, we can be assured that the U.S. food safety system is one of the best in the world, grounded in strong science, guided by effective risk management protocols, and controlled by stringent monitoring and internal reporting procedures. “Eating has never been and never will be without risk,” says Wilcox, “but we are managing food safety using a scientific systems approach now, and have many dedicated and diligent people working to keep us safe.”

Karen Bogert Shore ’91, director of consulting at The Food Trust, a nonprofit organization working to expand healthy food access through grassroots programs and better food policies.

the food – health link Karen Bogert Shore ’91 was standing in line at a general store in Downeast Maine this summer, but her mind was not on the fun July day that lay ahead.

In the store for only a few minutes, she had already scanned the shelves and coolers and noted the lack of fresh foods and healthy groceries. “That food store is the only one for miles and the only place local residents have to shop for food in between larger trips to the distant supermarket. It’s very tough on many people to have to go that far to find healthy, affordable food, and stocking some of these items could become an important additional source of revenue for the business,” notes Shore.

With a master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins and a previous career as a senior program manager at Booz Allen Hamilton, Shore combined her management consulting expertise with her passion for food equity and now leads the consulting arm of The Food Trust, a Philadelphiabased nonprofit organization working to ensure that everyone has access to healthy foods and the information to make healthy decisions. Shore’s team advises other organizations and communities nationwide on healthy food access strategies, and helps design and launch programs and policy efforts to improve food access in low-income rural and urban areas.

According to Shore, lack of access is playing a major role in our country’s current obesity epidemic as well as the rise of diet-related health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. While these health issues are found at all socioeconomic levels, Shore emphasizes that low-income households and communities of color are disproportionately affected. “Very few of us are consuming the recommended servings of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, that is true,” says Shore, “but poverty and discrimination have combined to create significant inequity in the rates and burden of diet-related diseases. Everyone deserves access to a full and healthy life, regardless of their zip code.”

Unfortunately, eating well is out of reach for the 23.5 million people, including 6.5 million children, who live in “food deserts,” or low-income urban and

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The Food Trust helps to bring fresh produce to lowincome communities at farmers’ markets that support nutrition assistance and incentive programs.

6 Photo by Albert Yee/The Food Trust

rural communities around the U.S. that lack access to healthy, affordable foods. Shore emphasizes, “Trying to eat a healthy diet can be nearly impossible for people who don’t live near a supermarket or have reliable access to good fresh foods and clean water.”

The Rise of Food Deserts Food deserts first began in the mid-20th century when middle class white populations started moving out of cities to the suburbs. Grocery stores soon followed, leaving many inner-city communities barren of any fresh food source. A 2013 report published by PolicyLink and The Food Trust entitled Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters found that low-income zip codes have 25% fewer chain supermarkets and 1.3 times as many convenience stores as middle-income zip codes. “Some neighborhoods we work in haven’t had a supermarket for decades,” says Shore.

In addition to changing economic conditions, a key historical factor is what Shore terms “pervasive racism and discrimination against communities of color.”

Food stores in many low-income neighborhoods and communities of color offer lower-quality items, stock fewer healthy items, and charge higher or the same prices for inferior food compared to stores in higher-income or predominantly white communities. In addition, Shore notes, “Practices such as eminent domain, redlining, and environmental racism have deeply harmed many communities of color, and have cut people off from key resources, including grocery stores, and also access to healthcare and safe places to play.”

In rural areas the problem can be just as bleak. Economic challenges and shifts in agricultural practices have created food access barriers even in America’s farming communities. “It is heartbreaking, I think, to stand in the middle of a major agricultural area, with farms or rangelands as far as the eye can see, but know that many of the residents who live and work there cannot find affordable, nutritious foods because the local grocery stores have closed, the vast acreage is entirely dedicated to animal food production, or most of the edible crops are leaving the area for more affluent markets—and all too often, all of the above.”

Restoring Food Equity

“It is heartbreaking, I think, to stand in the middle of a major agricultural area, with farms or rangelands as far as the eye can see, but know that many of the residents who live and work there cannot find affordable, nutritious foods because the local grocery stores have closed, the vast acreage is entirely dedicated to animal food production, or most of the edible crops are leaving the area for more affluent markets—and all too often, all of the above.”

Karen Bogert Shore ’91

All these factors have combined to create a food crisis that has spawned a serious health crisis. In response, The Food Trust is pursuing a number of innovative strategies to bring fresh food back to underserved communities—organizing farmers’ markets, coordinating farm-to-school efforts, encouraging owners of small stores to sell fresh foods, establishing healthy food incentive strategies, and helping launch public-private financing initiatives that stimulate healthy food retail development.

In 2004, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with the involvement of The Food Trust, launched an innovative initiative to try to bolster healthy food retail in underserved communities by helping to finance the construction of new supermarkets and promote infrastructure upgrades in existing stores. Called the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, the program

The farmers’ market in West Philadelphia’s Clark Park is the city’s oldest year-round market and one of 25 operated by The Food Trust.

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launched 88 projects statewide and became the model for a similar federal program, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which has expended $169 million in federal funds since 2009 in grants, loans, and tax incentives in support of over 200 projects in 30 states.

beware the grilling season

The work that The Food Trust and their partners are doing is having an impact, says Shore. In Philadelphia alone, there has been a significant drop in the rate of obesity in the city’s schoolchildren. From 2006-07 to 2012-13, the rate of obesity decreased by 6.3%. She credits this in part to “a comprehensive, cross-sector approach to improving healthy food access and nutrition education in schools and neighborhoods.”

For a long time, people worked to combat obesity and related health problems at the individual level, explains Shore. In recent years, however, the field has shifted to recognize the social determinants of health. The focus is now on policy, systems, and environmental approaches to promote healthy eating as a public health strategy with many new partners at the table, including the food manufacturing and grocery industries, technology firms, health insurers and hospital systems, the financial sector, housing departments, and city planners. “This is a very exciting time. We are witnessing a major revolution in the food landscape nationally. Many food manufacturers and retailers have begun to pivot toward fresher and healthier foods, including local foods in some cases. But we have a responsibility to help these much-needed changes take hold everywhere, not just in higherend retailers and wealthier communities. Ultimately, what we’re shooting for is that regardless of where people work, live, play, or attend school, everyone has access to good health and well-being.”

Photo courtesy of the Union of Concerned Sceitntists

Every year during grilling season, the USDA goes into high gear to educate consumers about the dangers associated with outdoor cooking, particularly the need to keep raw and cooked foods separate. When we cook on the grill, we carry the raw meat out on the platter, we grill it, and then we often put the cooked meat back on the same platter with the juice from the raw meat.

This is one of the typical ways food gets contaminated in the summer. Another common error is not cooking meat or poultry to the recommended temperature to ensure that any possible pathogens are killed off.

In addition to providing much-needed fresh food to communities, supermarkets and small stores alike play an important role in economic development efforts, serving as anchors to attract other businesses into a neighborhood, building a tax base, and creating and retaining jobs for local residents. They also have the potential to serve as community hubs for other important services. For example, The Food Trust has been partnering with Jefferson Hospital to deploy a program called Heart Smarts in healthy corner stores. Heart Smarts brings trained health professionals into these neighborhood markets for heart disease prevention programming, such as blood pressure screenings and heart-healthy cooking lessons.

Our current agricultural policies support subsidies encouraging the growth of commodity crops, such as corn, soybeans, and wheat, which feature prominently in the processed foods that now make up much of our American diet as well as in the the feed given to our other primary agricultural focus, animals. Consequently, our access to American-grown fresh produce has diminished.

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the great food conversation Photo credit: Joe Wheaton

In antiquity, we sought out oracles to guide us. Today, at least in matters of food and its preparation, there is another resource we can consult—the Cook’s Oracle, or, as Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’49 prefers to call her inventory of thousands of cookbooks, the “database.”

For Wheaton, the database is a window into the “great food conversation” that has been going on within different cultures, in homes both humble and grand, for over seven centuries, a conversation embodied and preserved in the craft’s primary historical archives—our cookbooks.

Compilation of the database has been Wheaton’s all-consuming passion for the past 60 years. It all began when she was working toward her doctoral degree in art history at Harvard. Unimpressed by the dining hall’s offerings, she and her roommate decided to try to cook their own dinner. Her task—to boil a potato. “It was not a success,” says Wheaton, “so the next morning I went out and bought the Joy of Cooking.” That cookbook, she says, “opened me to the exciting possibilities of what one can do with food.” It did one other thing as well. It set her on the road to becoming a pioneer in a new field of research—culinary history.

Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’49, honorary curator of the Culinary Collection at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Birth of a Database Following grad school, Wheaton moved with her husband to Europe and continued to refine her skills as a cook, particularly in French cuisine about which she later published a book, Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. She continued to collect and study historical cookbooks, finding them fascinating windows into the past. Examining them through her historian’s lens, she came to understand that they were more than just collections of quaint recipes. They were also the tools of an evolving craft— cultural artifacts reflecting the social mores, beliefs, practices, and traditions of their time. “Cookbooks,” says Wheaton, “are like beach sand. They contain an enormous amount of information, but much of it is in particles.”

To try to make sense of these particles, Wheaton began to keep handwritten notes on the books she was researching. She filled pages of notebooks with details about each recipe—the ingredients and equipment used, the cooking methods. But in reviewing her notes, she found that the information was too disjointed to make useful comparisons or gain deeper insights into different periods or cultures.

This problem was partially solved in the 1970s when she discovered McBee cards. McBee was a primitive data management system that used paper cards that could be punched with holes in different locations to designate different categories of information on that card. By pushing a rod (or knitting needle in Wheaton’s case) through a particular hole in multiple cards, she could extract all those that contained the same category of information.

A decade later, in 1982, she was able to further refine her information management when she made the leap to computers and purchased her first electronic database program—a program she still uses 44 years later.

Wheaton’s culinary database now contains information on more than 10,000 cookbooks, mostly from Europe, the British Isles, and America. The earliest dates from the 1390s. It is a researcher’s dream that can be sliced and diced any number of ways to extract both basic information (authors’ names, when and where they lived, what language they wrote in) as well as more qualitative insights. As a sample of the deeper potential of the database, Wheaton has done a trial run on three small 19th century manuscripts, creating more than 15,000 records documenting the ingredients, equipment, measurements, and techniques used in each recipe; the authors’ attitudes; and any commentary that reflects the larger world in which the cooks and eaters lived. From these three books alone, the value of the database as a cultural and historic tool

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“Cookbooks are like beach sand.

They contain an enormous amount of information, but much of it is in particles.”

Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’49

becomes clear, shedding new light on what Wheaton calls “the whole untidy historical kitchen.”

Windows into Our Past When Wheaton began her collection and study of cookbooks, there was no such field as culinary history. She toiled alone in this nascent discipline for 15 years before meeting another person who shared her unusual passion.

Within a few months of meeting, the two founded the Culinary Historians of Boston, the first food history organization in the U.S. Today, interest in culinary history and literature has grown exponentially.

Every year more than 200 people gather at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, an international conference attended by scholars from different fields, writers, chefs, and enthusiastic amateurs where Wheaton has been invited to speak numerous times. In May, she will demonstrate the database at a conference on manuscript cookbooks at New York University, and in June she will give her annual seminar at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library (which itself has a collection of nearly 20,000 cookbooks) on “Reading Historic Cookbooks.” The seminar provides instruction on how to mine cookbooks for their cultural and culinary treasure. Participants analyze cookbooks from three different centuries, considering them from different aspects, such as the ingredients, techniques, and equipment used; the characteristics and limitations of the cook’s workspace; how the food was prepared, served, and eaten; and the cookbook as a form of writing expressing the author’s attitudes and relationship to the user (e.g., an experienced housewife instructing a household servant).

What kinds of things do cookbooks tell us about our past? The earliest cookbooks were written by men, often doctors, says Wheaton, so they were more like medical treatises than recipes. In the Middle Ages it was believed the body was composed of four humors or temperaments—choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholy—which could get out of balance.

Doctors prescribed different types of food for different imbalances. If you tended toward the phlegmatic, for example, you were prescribed food to pep you up, such as ginger, spices, or peppers. If you were choleric, you might be advised to eat more cucumber or soft cheese.

The impact of the Columbian Exchange of the 15th and 16th centuries, in which plants, animals, technologies, and cultures flowed back and forth between the new and old worlds, is also reflected in the culinary literature.

The repertory of ingredients dramatically expanded, notes Wheaton.

“Potatoes, maize, chocolate, vanilla, allspice, tomatoes, turkeys, sweet and hot peppers—these all came from the new world. And lots of things were transported from the old world to the new, including cows, pigs, horses. The whole world was transformed by that Exchange.”

The database also tracks how recipes change over time. Take blancmange (“white dish”), for example, which is referenced no less than 393 times.

Once a popular medieval party food for the upper classes, it was originally prepared with milk, almonds, rice or rice flour, sugar, and some kind of fish, shellfish, or poultry. But somewhere over the last 600 years the latter ingredients have disappeared, similar to the meat in mincemeat pie. Today it’s considered a sweet dessert.

“There is so much good information in these books,” says Wheaton. “My hope is that people will be able to get far more information out of these very unusual publications. It’s a real craft history, but it was not written to be that and it has to be winkled out.”

Thanks to Wheaton’s database, that winkling has become a lot easier.

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CAMPUSNEWS

Students’ Messages in Bottles Help to Track Ocean Currents In the fall of 2014, students in the Oceanography class prepared messages and put them in bottles to be sent out to sea as part of their unit on ocean currents. The purpose of the experiment was to use the bottles to map the motion of the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico up the east coast of the United States and then over to Europe.

One of the main objectives of the Oceanography class is to help students understand the impact of plastic waste on the ocean and how it is carried around the world by the ocean currents.

Last fall, the entire oceanography class took a field trip to Island Beach State Park to put their ideas into action by cleaning up the shoreline. There they witnessed firsthand how plastics are impacting ocean wildlife and contaminating our coastlines.

“We are hoping that a few of the 30 or so bottles that were launched will be found and the information we get from where they land and how long it took to get there can help our students learn more about ocean currents,” explains Kim Eberle-Wang, Upper School science teacher.

The bottles were released this past summer by science teacher Beta Eaton on a visit to Portland, Maine. The messages in the bottles asked the finders to communicate when and where they were found. This past December, the school heard from the first bottle finder—a family living farther north along the Maine coast. The email said, “Happy Holidays! I found your message in a bottle at a beach in South Harpswell, Maine, on 12/4/2015. The beach has no name, but is located next to Dick’s Lobster at the end of Rte. 123! My children and I are going to repackage the message you sent with one of our own and send the bottle out to sea again!” ~ Mike Haas

The Haas family children hold the SCH bottle they found along with a map of where they found it.

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CAMPUSNEWS SCH Student Helps Philadelphia’s Kids Stay Fit

Engineering: Where Students’ Ideas Fly High

Through the CEL Venture Incubator program, junior Annabel Grove has found a way to exercise her passion while giving back in an impactful way. The Venture Incubator is a unique program at SCH that offers mentoring and one-on-one guidance to students pursuing an idea for a product, service, for-profit enterprise, or, like Annabel, a nonprofit. Now in her second year of the Incubator, she is improving on her charity, PhillyPhit, which focuses on bringing nutrition and exercise to underserved schools.

What makes two 16-year-old girls eager to build a 1,250-pound airplane? A love for building things and a fascination with the way things work, according to junior Catie McDermott. How does this idea become a reality? The entrepreneurial spirit of Peter Randall, SCH Academy’s Engineering and Robotics Department chair.

Since starting PhillyPhit a year ago, Annabel has tested the market and done a pilot run at a local elementary school. She learned that there was a need for her program and wants to continue to see it grow. She has since secured and trained 20 volunteers and has plans to expand into other schools. She also is looking for a nutrition partner who could help her develop the nutrition education and provide the kids with more access to healthy foods.

“None of this would have been possible without the skills the Venture Incubator and my CEL classes have taught me. I had no idea what an economic model or business plan was beforehand.

It has been such an incredible resource.”

Annabel Grove visits with a local elementary school to teach students about the importance of exercise and eating healthy food.

At the start of every semester, Randall proposes numerous project ideas for the students in his Introduction to Engineering Design and Robotics class. For a couple of years, he has been trying to recruit students to build an airplane from an aircraft kit.

This year, juniors Catie McDermott and Noelle Goudy were up to the challenge. After an exhaustive research process that led the students to the Bede Aircraft Corporation and to securing a generous donation of a BD-4C aircraft kit from The Bede Family Foundation, this dream is finally becoming a reality.

“I wanted to take on the project because the concept was so interesting and exciting to me,” explains Goudy. “I knew I would learn a lot about aeronautical engineering, project management, teamwork, and leadership while also having fun.”

The purpose of Randall’s class is to introduce students to the engineering and scientific aspects of problem solving. Students in the course ask and solve questions that interest engineers, such as how to design complex objects in a limited timeframe with limited resources and how to formulate questions about complex technical issues in a structured way that facilitiates their solution.

This completely project-based course allows students to work on a design-and-build project of their own choosing.

“This project is beyond anything I have ever done in scale and difficulty,” says Goudy. “I will develop and strengthen my realworld engineering skills, leadership experience, and teamwork abilities as well as learn about aeronautical engineering. It is such a unique opportunity and experience to have as a 16-yearold girl. Not many people can say that they had the chance to build something this complex, no matter their age.”

The Bede Family Foundation was formed in 2015 to introduce young students to the experimental aviation community and the joys of building kit aircraft, to inspire the next generation of aviation enthusiasts, and to develop certified mechanics and aeronautical engineers. The foundation was formed after the passing of Jim Bede, former CEO and founder.

In order to begin the multi-year airplane project, McDermott and Goudy had to do extensive research

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Noelle Goudy (front row third from right) and Catie McDermott (second from right) receive the title to the plane from Jim Bede Jr. (fourth from right) and Eric Ingraham (far right), president of The Bede Family Foundation. The girls are surrounded by their engineering and robotics team classmates, teachers Peter Randall (fifth from right) and James Martin (second row, far right).

idea of building a full-sized, four-passenger airplane is beyond anything we expected. The team has not only sought out and procured the necessary kit, but they are showing up at 7 am every morning to work on it before school. It’s a total win for our students and SCH.”

to find someone who was willing to donate an airplane kit. After contacting dozens of people, they heard back from the president of The Bede Family Foundation, Eric Ingraham. In order to apply for the kit, the students were required to submit a written essay and video. The foundation has a number of organizations and schools that apply for funds, but after seeing what the girls submitted, they bumped them to number one on their list.

The engineering class and this project have stimulated the girls’ interest in pursuing engineering careers. While Goudy hopes to pursue a career in mechanical engineering, McDermott is trying to figure out a career path that will combine her multiple interests. “I wanted to be a psychiatrist for teens and children, but have started to love engineering and science because of my position on the robotics team. I want to be able to spread awareness of mental health issues and hopefully be able to pursue my love for engineering at the same time.”

According to Ingraham, “The donation of aircraft kits is our way of continuing Jim Bede’s passion for aviation. By paying it forward we hope to plant the seeds for the next generation of aviators and aeronautical engineers. Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s very nature creates the perfect environment for those seeds to grow.“ After a visit to SCH by Bede Corporation Chairman James Bede Jr. and Ingraham, Goudy and McDermott were sent the initial parts for the plane and started construction. The project will be passed on to other students after the girls graduate. Build time is expected to be at least four years. The BD-4C is an aluminum facing, 1,250-pound plane with a 26.2-foot wingspan.

“Not many people can say that they had the chance to build something this complex, no matter their age.”

“Every year we are looking for exciting new projects to get kids interested and engaged in engineering,” says Randall. “The

Noelle Goudy ’17

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CHOOSING THE LONG

Ninth Graders on Outward Bound Learn that

By Matt Norcini, Upper School Dean of Student Life

THE ENTRY INTO UPPER SCHOOL IS A TIME FULL OF OPPORTUNITY. IT’S ALSO A TIME WHEN STUDENTS ARE MOST OPEN TO NEW IDEAS, EXPERIENCES, AND FRIENDSHIPS. In September 2015, we took advantage of this malleable moment in our students’ lives to send more than 100 9th grade students into the Pennsylvania woods where they lived for five days without the comfort of beds, showers, toilets, smartphones, or other electronics. The goal? To provide a unique learning opportunity that would challenge students in new ways outside the familiarity of the classroom.

Each year, SCH Academy welcomes 20 to 30 new 9th graders in addition to those current students transitioning from our single-sex Middle Schools into the new coed environment of Upper School.

As dean of student life, one of my primary goals is to ensure their smooth and successful transition.

This past fall, we introduced a new component in our Upper School orientation—an Outward Bound experience intended to help our incoming 9th grade class bond with each other, discover new strengths, and increase their self-confidence.

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SCH has a long history with Outward Bound. Our students have been involved in its programs and summer leadership experiences for some time.

Our longstanding relationship arises from our organizations’ similar educational approach, one that “emphasizes high achievement through active learning, character development, and teamwork.”

Outward Bound’s emphasis on building a positive group culture exhibiting compassion, integrity, excellence, and inclusion mirrors the values at work in every SCH classroom and serves as an excellent complement to the school’s existing orientation, advisory, and sports programs.

Part of Outward Bound’s philosophy is that the experience, whether backpacking, canoeing, dog sledding, or rock climbing, will become a journey owned by the participant. Through the struggle of learning to lead and work together, students become more self-aware, experience personal growth, and come together as a team.

Our 9th grade’s expedition into the dense forests of the Appalachian Trail and Delaware Water Gap began with Outward Bound facilitators

OVER THE SHORT ROAD

a Little Discomfort Can Yield Big Insights

teaching basic outdoor skills, such as tarp setup, cooking, pack organization, hiking formation, and orienteering, while also modeling the behaviors necessary for success on the expedition. Days were deliberately routinized to provide structure and security for students in this new environment.

From morning breakfast and the breakdown of camp to end-of-day reflections and conversation around the fire, the Outward Bound guides created familiarity in unfamiliar surroundings by providing a knowable, repeatable structure for the students. This structure, new to and accessed by each group member equally, facilitated learning that was shared, collaborative, and met students where they were. As the expedition progressed, the facilitators stepped back, creating space— often uncomfortable space—for the students to take ownership and leadership of the experience.

Students had to work together with the tools they’d been given to complete the tasks of the day and achieve their goals. Each day ended with a campfire, where discussions and guided reflections helped students process the events of

the day, set group and individual goals, and build their identity as a team. The balance between intentional discomfort and structured reflection facilitated students’ personal growth and helped bring meaning to their experiences.

For my group, that uncomfortable space came at lunchtime on the third day of our expedition.

Wet from a morning of soaking rain and tired from miles of hiking, our group had an important decision to make: hike another five miles and potentially sleep in the rain on waterlogged ground or hike 10 miles farther to a better campsite, one closer to our destination for the following day. The choice was the students’ to make, and they decided to march on another 10 miles. The opportunity to choose their own destiny for the day, to use the knowledge and tools that they had been practicing to make a collaborative, informed decision, proved to be the moment of cohesion for the group. They had chosen the long over the short road, and it was a decision that they had made together.

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That afternoon, the rain let up on the trail and the adults drifted to the back of the group. The students led each other, kept time, managed snack breaks and pack breaks, and pushed each other harder than they ever thought they could go. Most importantly, they cared for each other.

When a student got tired, they took a break or encouraged that student to head to the front to set the pace, just as their facilitators had taught them to do. There was no arguing or fights or other things that might be expected from a weary group of adolescents. They rallied around the challenge, amazing me with their quiet, collective determination to reach the goal they had set for themselves.

Though each of the 11 expedition groups had its own moments, experiences, and stories, the class as a whole came back to campus with a common language, one that included terms like “happy bag” and “cowboy camping.” They connected with each other through tales of commiseration and the proud retelling of their group’s accomplishments.

The experience gave everyone something to talk about, and it made a difference in how the students interacted with one another.

“The experience gave everyone something to talk about, and it made a difference in how the students interacted with one another.”

Matt Norcini, Upper School Dean of Student Life

On their return to campus, many students sat together in the lunchroom or gathered at a community movie night in groups that might not have formed were it not for their Outward Bound experience. Anecdotal evidence drifted in from teachers who noted that the 9th graders seemed to be meshing more easily in classrooms and activities and that some of the inherent awkwardness between the boys and girls seemed less acute.

Now, halfway through the school year, it’s clear that this experience has had a positive impact on the 9th grade class, creating a special bond among the students that has eased their entry into Upper School. Each student has also taken something meaningful from the experience. What that “thing” is may not be clear at first or even in the next year, but will be revealed over time. Many students have already talked about accomplishing something they never thought they could do, witnessing the power of teamwork, or becoming more aware of themselves and their potential.

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I, too, learned something from the experience.

What Outward Bound taught me is to let go—let the students have their own experience, step back and enjoy the opportunity to watch their growth from the sidelines. As educators and parents, we strive to create experiences that challenge our students to stretch themselves, learn through failure, and build through collaboration. We work to help them navigate these experiences and provide them with the time and structure to reflect on them. But the learning they ultimately take from these moments, the ways in which they are changed, the new possibilities they may discover— that’s the exciting interior landscape they will traverse on their own.

Talkin’ the Blues

New Fund Brings Alum’s Musical Passion to the SCH Curriculum

Jamie Bell ’78 was one hell of a guitar man.

The blues was his passion. Much of his adult life was dedicated to studying, practicing, playing, and performing the blues, and to regaling listeners with his encyclopedic knowledge of this uniquely American genre that has influenced every major branch of American music—jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, and country.

Jamie died suddenly in May 2014, and to honor his deep passion for music, a fund has been created in his honor by friend and classmate Jamie Maguire ’78 and siblings George Bell and Sophie Ayres. Maguire, who also plays the guitar, said it was their shared interest in music that brought them together again as adults. “Through music we became close. We used to play at each other’s houses, at friends’ houses, at class reunions. Creating this fund seemed like the most appropriate way to continue his legacy and love for music and to remember him in a great way.”

The Jamie Bell ’78 Music Fund will enable interested students to deepen their appreciation of the blues through a range of experiences, including a new course on its rich history, influences, and the musical theories and techniques that underpin its various forms and derivatives. “This fund will allow us to think of musical heritage in the larger sense—a way to understand a genre that has shaped the music of the United States and the world,” says Dr. Ellen Fishman-Johnson, director of the arts and new media and the first teacher of this core class. “The blues also teaches us to learn by trying and then trying again. It’s an interactive iterative approach that I’m excited our students will now have an opportunity to experience and explore.”

The fund will also support occasional class travel to locales that boast a significant blues or jazz history and a vibrant local music scene where students can experience this music played live by professional musicians. An annual community concert celebrating blues music will also be underwritten by the fund to showcase the talents of SCH student musicians and potentially other blues artists. “Jamie loved the blues, but he also loved and appreciated all kinds of music,” says Bell, who hopes the activities supported by the fund will encourage students to think about music in a more integrated way and appreciate the common roots and interconnections among the many musical genres.

The joy Jamie took in his music is something that all three funders recall vividly and hope that the activities sponsored by the fund will help others to discover. “I hope it will inspire other young people to find the joy that music of all kinds can bring to the soul,” says Ayres. “It doesn’t really matter if you become a great player. It’s really more about the joy and following your passion.”

Jamie Bell ’78

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“This fund will allow us to think of musical heritage in the larger sense—a way to understand a genre that has shaped the music of the United States and the world.”

Dr. Ellen Fishman-Johnson Director of the Arts and New Media

SCH STANDOUT ATHLETES sch academy’s championship culture has nurtured many outstanding athletes over the years. below are profiles of some of our recent graduates and current students who are excelling in their sport and demonstrating the grit, character, and spirit of the sch athlete. More 2015-2016 div 1, II, and III athletes will be featured in the next issue of school magazine.

NATALIE BATES ’11 | LEHIGH UNIVERSITY ­– TRACK & FIELD Natalie was a standout track and field athlete at Lehigh University and won the heptathlon at the 2015 Patriot League Championships with 4,770 points to earn First Team All-League honors. She finished 6th in the heptathlon at the ECAC Championships to earn All-East distinction, was named to the Academic AllPatriot League squad as well as the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll. Natalie earned her bachelor’s degree in 2015 but decided to stay at Lehigh for an extra year to earn a second bachelor’s. She is now a member of the university’s crew team.

MAC MCLAUGHLIN ’18 | COMMITTED TO THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY – LACROSSE

GUNNAR HAYES ’16 | COMMITTED TO PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY – BASEBALL Varsity Baseball Coach Joe Ishikawa says Gunnar is the hardest worker he has ever coached; he’s a strong leader; commands the respect of his teammates; and most importantly, puts team goals ahead of his personal goals.

At the Philly Freshman Showcase in 2014, 3d Rising Lacrosse Recruiting Network had this to say about Mac: “McLaughlin emerged in recent weeks as one of the intriguing attackmen out of the Philadelphia area. Smart and hard-dodging in his takes, McLaughlin sees the field and showed excellent passing.

Operating at X or from the back corner, he showed unselfishness in looking to dish but also looked more than capable of getting himself opportunities. McLaughlin is dangerous with the ball in his stick and playing off ball. He understands how to get others involved in his game.” He finished the fall recruiting trail on a high note at the Freshman Showcase in 2014 and this is where the Air Force Academy first noticed him.

SAM MCDOWELL ’16 | COMMITTED TO BOWDOIN COLLEGE – SOCCER It is very rare to see an athlete have an immediate impact in varsity competition from the moment he steps on the field in his freshman year. Sam McDowell is one of those very rare athletes. Sam has been a key member of the soccer team for four years. In his freshman and sophomore seasons, Sam received First Team All-Inter-Ac, and in his junior year, Second Team All-Inter-Ac.

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BRENNA COLL ’11 | DELAWARE VALLEY

UNIVERSITY – BASKETBALL AND SOCCER Brenna had an excellent basketball career at Delaware Valley University and was the first player in the program’s history to score 1,424 points and grab 773 rebounds. She was a two-year captain, a Mid-Atlantic Conference Senior All Star, and an All-Freedom Conference 2nd Team member. She completed her basketball career in the spring of 2015, and then became DVU’s soccer goalkeeper this past fall, starting all 18 games with a .77 save percentage and 144 saves overall. At Springside, Coll was a stellar soccer goalkeeper and basketball player, scoring1,050 points in her high school career.

KITTY MORRISSEY ’13 | DUKE UNIVERSITY – LACROSSE Kitty is a member of the Duke University lacrosse team, which made it to the NCAA finals versus Maryland last year. She appeared in seven contests, scoring two goals against Davidson College. Kitty was a U.S. Lacrosse All-America Honorable Mention selection as a senior at Springside, and was selected as First Team All-Inter-Ac as a junior and senior. She was a two-time member of team PASLA for the National Tournament, and concluded her high school career with 69 goals, 18 assists, 30 draw controls, and 43 ground balls.

TIM MENNINGER ’13 | CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY – BASEBALL Tim was a four-year varsity starter on the SCH baseball team. As a freshman at Cal Tech, he won the John C. Peterson Newcomer Award, made All-Academic SCIAC (Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference), and was nominated as team captain. He led the team in at-bats, hits, doubles, total bases, and slugging percentage; tied for 1st in triples; and finished 2nd in batting average, fewest strikeouts, and on-base percentage.

MATT GIEGERICH ’15 | DARTMOUTH COLLEGE – MEN’S SQUASH JENNIFER SAGER ’12 | TRINITY COLLEGE – CREW

Jennifer rowed the No. 1 seat for the Trinity College NCAA National Champion varsity eight crew last year as well as for their first varsity eight to win a bronze at the ECAC National Invitational Regatta. While at Springside, Jen was captain and MVP, winning gold in the 1X as a senior, a silver medal in the 4X, and a bronze as a sophomore in the 4X at Scholastic Nationals. She went on to win a gold medal in the lightweight eights at the Canadian Henley, a silver medal in the 1X at the US U-23 time trials, and a bronze in the 4X while representing Vesper Boat Club at the Club National Championships in 2012.

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At SCH, Matt was the team MVP in both his junior and senior years. He earned First Team All-MASA and First Team All-Inter-Ac honors.

During his senior year, Matt finished 3rd in the U.S. Junior National Championship in the BU19 division and was honored as the male winner of the DeRoy Sportsmanship Award. This year as a freshman at Dartmouth, he won the decisive point in a 13-11 victory against Harvard that boosted the 11th-ranked Big Green to a 5-4 victory over the three-time defending Ivy League champion and second-ranked Crimson.

It is the first time that Dartmouth beat Harvard since the 1945-46 season.

JEFF LARENTOWICZ ’01 | LOS ANGELES GALAXY – MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

The L.A. Galaxy recently signed free agent midfielder Jeff Larentowicz ’01. The veteran joined L.A. after 11 seasons in Major League Soccer with the New England Revolution, Colorado Rapids, and Chicago Fire, winning an MLS Cup in 2010. “Jeff is an experienced and proven midfielder in our league,” according to L.A. Galaxy head coach and general manager Bruce Arena. “He gives our team another veteran presence on the field and in the locker room. Larentowicz, 32, has made over 300 MLS regular season appearances, scoring 37 goals and adding 18 assists from the midfield position. Throughout his 11-year MLS career, he has captured an MLS Cup (2010) in addition to winning a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup (2007), three MLS Eastern Conference titles (2006, 2007, 2008), and an MLS Western Conference title (2010). Additionally, he has led his team to the MLS Cup Playoffs in seven years of his career, making 19 postseason appearances. Larentowicz was recruited from Brown University by the New England Revolution in the fourth round of the 2005 MLS Supplemental Draft.

RYAN TORIE ’16 | COMMITTED TO UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, CHAPEL HILL – SWIMMING Ryan, who currently holds the 50-yard freestyle pool records at both Germantown Academy and Penn Charter, is a two-time USA Swimming Scholastic All-American, which requires that candidates maintain a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

MADISON SALTZMAN ’16 | COMMITTED TO ECKERD COLLEGE – SOFTBALL SAMIRA BAIRD ’16 | COMMITTED TO THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY – SQUASH Samira Baird is a four-year varsity squash player and current squad captain. She took 3rd at the 2015 U17 U.S. Jr. Silver Squash Championships and was a member of the 2015 All-MASA Second Team. She was named to the Second Team All-Inter-Ac for three years in a row and was elected team MVP last year.

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Maddie Saltzman is a five-year starter on the varsity softball team as a standout pitcher with 63 strikeouts in 64 innings last year, while leading the team with 19 hits and a .543 batting average. She was recognized as a First Team All-Inter-Ac selection in both 2014 and 2015, and has represented SCH on the All-Inter-Ac Carpenter Cup team for the past two years, leading them to a best-ever semifinal finish.

GILLY LANE ’04 | UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA – ASSISTANT COACH FOR PENN’S MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SQUASH Gilly had an impressive college career at Penn, earning All-America, All-Ivy, and team MVP all four years, as well as serving as captain as a junior and senior. He was also the first Penn player to receive the College Squash Association’s (CSA) Skillman Award, given to a player who exemplifies leadership, sportsmanship, and achievement over his career. Gilly rejoined the Penn squash programs as an assistant coach in July 2013 for both the men’s and women’s teams. Last year he helped guide the Penn women’s squash team to a perfect 7-0 in the Ivy League, claiming the program’s third Ivy League championship. The Quakers went on to finish the season 14-3 overall, and 4th in the country after the CSA Howe Cup. Also assisting the men’s team, Gilly helped Penn finish the season with a 9-8 overall record and a 3-4 Ivy League record. The Quakers reached the CSA Potter Cup for the first time since 2008-09 and finished 7th in the country.

BROOKLYNN BROADWATER ’16 | COMMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE – TRACK AND FIELD Senior track star Brooklynn Broadwater is an elite sprinter. In 2015 she was the PA State Indoor Champion in the 200 meters and the 400 meters, as well as part of the 1st place 4x400 meter relay. She took gold at the 2015 Penn Relays in the 400 meter hurdles, and was invited to represent the U.S. at the Caribbean Scholastic Invitational last June where she placed 2nd in the 400 hurdles. This meet was a joint international developmental track and field meet and cultural exchange, giving American high school athletes international exposure. The athletes were selected based on their potential to represent the U.S. in the future. Brooklynn was also recognized by the PTFCA as the Female Athlete of the Year in 2015. She has been a two-time indoor team MVP, a three-time outdoor team MVP, and a three-year First Team All-Inter-Ac selection.

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REMI FILIPPINI ’16 | COMMITTED TO COLGATE UNIVERSITY – FIELD HOCKEY Remi Filippini was a three-year starter, two-time field hockey captain, leading the team in assists her junior year. She was also a Coaches’ Award winner during her career at SCH. Remi is a member of the Mystx Field Hockey Club, and won gold medals with her team in the Disney and Limelight Festivals in 2014. She was also a three-year starter on SCH’s lacrosse team, where unfortunately she suffered a dual season-ending injury last spring. Despite not being able to play field hockey as a senior, Remi consistently demonstrated commitment to her teammates by attending every practice and every game.

She acted as an assistant coach, helping her teammates on the sidelines and in huddles, and boosting them up during challenging games. An outstanding athlete and leader, Remi continues to work tirelessly to get physically ready to play field hockey in college next year.

Maximizing Attitude: How an Alum

F

or a professional football player, Ibraheim Campbell ’10 moves through the world quietly. He describes himself as an observer, someone who likes to listen, learn, and make the most of every opportunity to improve himself.

Campbell, a first-year recruit with the Cleveland Browns (Strong Safety, No. 30), began his relationship with football at the age of 10, following in the footsteps of Rashad ’08, the next oldest of his 10 siblings (eight brothers and two sisters) and also a CHA alum and member of the Blue Devils football team.

But unlike Rashad, Ibraheim pursued his passion for the game beyond high school and college. “I knew the moment I stepped onto Northwestern’s campus that I wanted to go to the NFL. And I knew, in order to do that, I had to be the best college player that I could be, so that’s where I put my focus.” Unlike many young NFL-bound college players, Campbell completed all four years of college, earning a degree in economics with a business minor. And while he hopes to have a long career playing professional football, his future plans are also likely to include some form of business venture as well as some coaching.

Campbell recalls his pre-draft experience as intense. “During Senior Bowl and Combine, you’re getting as closely evaluated as you ever will be in your life for a pretty extensive period of time.

Guys are trying to find any flaw they can. Looking back on it, it was nerve-wracking, but at the same time it was a privilege just to have their eyes on me.”

When asked how the game has changed for him since high school, Campbell says, “At the end of the day, the NFL is a business. As much as you want to say it’s the same game [that you played in high school], it’s a little bit different. But the accountability you feel while you’re on the field will never change. You have an obligation to be sure you’re prepared, to make sure your team can trust you while you’re out on the field, and it’s that much more important in the NFL because you know there’s going to be a lot of people watching and you don’t want to be the guy that costs the team the game.“ Campbell’s primary role on the Browns is Special Teams— kickoff, punt, punt return. Special Teams is traditionally the preserve of the younger players until they can move into positions on offense or defense. Having started all four years at Northwestern, Campbell says his Special Teams college experience was minimal, so he’s enjoying this new role and being able to increase his versatility as a team member. “The big thing in the NFL is the more you can do, the better off you’ll be and the more valuable you’ll be to the team.”

While he’s waiting for an opportunity to move into a regular position, Campbell’s putting in the hours doing research, studying the films, and playing as competitive a game as he can. “The best advice I ever received is to stay ready and always prepare as if you’re a starter. You can be thrown into

a starting role suddenly if someone is injured, so you have to make sure you’re at the top of your game when you step into that role.”

The other good piece of advice Campbell received concerns the more intangible aspects of the game. “Someone once told me talent is what gets you to the NFL, character is what keeps you there. Once you’re in the NFL, you have a lot of money, a lot of free time. It really tests your values, tests who you are.”

For Campbell, his family has been his moral touchstone. “My parents have always set a great example for me. I just fall back on what I know, what I’ve seen my whole life.” Older brother Rashad has also been an inspiration for Campbell. “He works hard, he’s humble, he does all the extra things—dots his i’s and crosses his t’s. It’s definitely because of him that I’m the type of worker and player that I am.”

Campbell also picks up lessons from the more experienced players on the team. “I try to observe and take different things from each of them,” he says. “There’s so much knowledge that they’re willing to share and that they exhibit in their everyday practices—the way they approach the film room and studying for games, their leadership qualities. It’s impressive and something that I want to learn from as much as I can while I’m around them.”

Campbell says part of his habit of making the most of every opportunity comes from his time at CHA. “I started in 9th grade and realized then that there was a tremendous amount of resources available to me­—coaches, teachers, other students.

I think the ability to network and learn from people was something I picked up here and have tried to apply to the rest of my life. Maximizing my surroundings and the opportunities afforded to me—that started here at CHA.” Campbell also acknowledges the influence of his coaches, particularly Rick Knox and Aaron Sistrunk.

When not on the field, Campbell spends a good part of his time trying to stay rested and fit and preparing for the next game.

“We’ll study films of previous games, our practices from that week, the team we’ll be playing next, and the new schemes that will go into that week’s game plan. Our defense has an extensive playbook and they’ll pick and choose which plays to bring into the game based on the team we’ll be playing.”

On bye weeks, Campbell often heads to Philadelphia to be with his family. “I just love being with them,” he says. “There’s no replacement. Most of my brothers are still local. We just hang around, play cards, talk memories.”

Asked if professional football is all that he expected, Campbell reflects, “You kind of blow it up going into it—the idea of playing with the best players in the world—but at the end of the day it’s the same game I’ve been playing since I was 10 years old. You have to have the confidence that you belong where you are and you’ll do fine. Just put in the work and good things will happen.”

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Makes the Most of His NFL Experience “I think the ability to network and learn from people was something I picked up here and tried to apply to the rest of my life. Maximizing my surroundings and the opportunities afforded to you—that started here at CHA.” Ibraheim Campbell ’10

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C L A S S NOTE S NEWS FROM OUR ALUMNI NEAR AND FAR

1970s

Photo credit: Squash Media

1977

This past October at the U.S. Squash Open, Rich Sheppard was honored with the 2015 Robert W. Callahan Sportsmanship Award. The award announcement provided further background: “One of the best right-wallers of the past generation, Sheppard won three national open doubles titles (1987, 1988,1991), two 40+ (2001, 2002), and two 50+ (2012, 2013). He also won the 2002 national mixed 40+ with his wife, Sandy Worthington.

Sheppard is an avid tourna-

ment player, continuing to play in and win top amateur events like the Gold Racquets and the William White, often facing men who weren’t born when he first played in the tournament.

“One of the few veteran athletes who competes at the highest level in both singles and doubles, Sheppard has also won national singles titles in master’s divisions: the 45+ in 2005 and the 55+ in 2014. Off the court, Sheppard is a very active leader. For the past dozen seasons, he has been the head coach for the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy girls team, mentoring hundreds of young women. (A five-sport varsity athlete at CHA in the Class of 1977, Sheppard was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2003.) A stalwart at Philadelphia Cricket Club, Rich is famously a high-energy player who always has a grin on his face before, during, and after his matches. In 1996 he was awarded the Philadelphia

SRA’s Acuff/Kingsley Sportsmanship Award.”

1980s 1983

Miles Smith and Karin Gornick were married on August 22, 2015, in Occidental, CA, at Ocean Song Farm, just up the hill from Bodega Bay in Sonoma County.

1986 Jennifer Lee, UC Irvine professsor of sociology, recently received wide attention for her new book, The Asian American Achievement Paradox, which “debunks the idea that there is something intrinsic about Asian culture, traits, or values that produces exceptional educational outcomes.” An article from the UCI website provides more detail: “Jennifer Lee has had a busy year.

Chances are, you’ve seen her work on CNN, read about her in The Washington Post, The Economist, or The New York Times, or heard her on NPR. Her new book hit shelves in July amidst a flurry of national news stories about the exceptional

Jennifer Lee

Photo credit: UC Irvine

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1987

In December, William D. James was named U.S. Transfer Pricing Advisor of the Year by Finance Monthly. This is given to individuals who have excelled in their particular areas of expertise in the past year. Will, a Transfer Pricing Partner of BKD, LLP in St. Louis, is the leader of BKD’s transfer pricing practice, working primarily with large international accounting firms. He currently serves as the global chairman of Praxity, an alliance of global independent accountancy, tax, and business consulting firms.

1999 Kate Sanders and TJ Henry were married on October 3, 2015, in New Orleans, LA, where they live. Classmates (below, second from left) Siobhan McGreal, Laura Kurtz Buckalew, and Sarah Stevenson were bridesmaids.

Joffie C. Pittman III was recently sworn in as a judge with the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. Helping to celebrate his installation was classmate Gene Lindemann.

A message from newly elected Judge Pittman, also an SCH Academy trustee, said: “I would like to send my deepest gratitude and thank you to the entire SCH community for its support in my successful campaign for a seat on the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. This is not only a victory for me but the entire SCH family! My 12 years as a student at CHA have played a key role in shaping my character as both an individual and an attorney. I promise to continue to uphold the principles and values of SCH that I learned as a student as I ascend to the bench. Again, I thank you and wish all of you well!” Joffie was sworn in on January 28, 2016.

2000s 2001

2006

Chelsey Roebuck, CHA alum and cofounder of Emerging Leaders in Technology and Engineering (ELiTE), was featured in Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 in Education list for 2016.Through its schoolbased programs, summer camps, and e-learning platforms, ELiTE empowers black men and boys to pursue STEM coursework at the secondary and collegiate levels.

2010s Soccer midfielder Jeff Larentowicz, a member of CHA’s Athletic Hall of Fame, signed in January with the L.A. Galaxy after 11 seasons’ play in the major leagues with the New England Revolution, Colorado Rapids, and Chicago Fire. In 2010, Larentowicz and his Rapids teammates won the MLS Cup. (See SCH Standout Athletes on page 20 for more details.)

Kate Sanders’ Wedding

1990s 1994 Matt Paul has been appointed SCH varsity girls basketball head coach.

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2015 For the first time in nearly 70 years, the Dartmouth men’s squash team defeated Harvard. SCH alumnus and Dartmouth freshman Matthew Giegerich won the decisive point with a 13-11 victory. (See SCH Standout Athletes on page 19 for more details.)

Photo credit: Wiljax Weddings

academic outcomes of Asian Americans. In August, the whirlwind continued when she became one of 12 new members elected to the Sociological Research Association, an honor recognizing the most successful researchers in the field. She was also voted chair-elect of the American Sociological Association’s section on International Migration and appointed deputy editor of the association’s flagship journal, the American Sociological Review. ‘The past few months have been a dizzying whirlwind, but as busy as it has been, I appreciate every single opportunity I’ve had to reach a broader audience with my work in order to help debunk myths about immigration, culture, and achievement,’ says Lee.”

Alumni Happy hour in Center City at fellow alum Norris Jordan’s ’80 Happy Rooster restaurant on November 20, 2015. Photo on left, l to r: Karon Hicks ’10, Leah Silverman ‘10, John McAllister ’10, Brittany Koch ’10. Photo on right, l to r: Jack Maine ’11, Penn Steel ’08, Thomas Greenwood ‘01.

GOLD AND SILVER ALUMNI AWARD WINNERS Winners of the 2015 Alumni Gold and Silver Awards: Peter Davis ’15 (Gold) and Jack Allison ’16 (Silver). The Alumni Awards, given each year at graduation, honor those alumni who have lost their lives fighting for their country and are presented to those students who, in the judgment of the Alumni Association, after consultation with faculty and students, best exemplify the characteristics of leadership, academic standing, character, and service to the school.

peter davis

jack allison

’15

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’16

the faces behind the funds SCH is blessed to have over 122 special funds created by or in honor of programs, alumni, administrators, parents, and other family members. These funds support a wide range of learning activities and growth experiences that help enrich our students’ and faculty’s lives and serve as a daily manifestation of the power of giving. (To learn more about these funds and how you can add to them, please email Pepper Rexford ’92 at prexford@sch.org.)

Sarah Heckscher ha

Jonathan “Jono” Frank ’69

Former Faculty

Alumnus, Former Parent Jono Frank thinks a lot about where the jobs will be in the future. When he graduated from CHA, career paths and educational opportunities were pretty well defined. Today, these standard pathways have morphed into a crazy matrix with multiple offshoots. Jono believes that “each individual is the CEO of their own lives and it is our job to give them some tools.” In support of his alma mater and its students who will be working at jobs that have yet to be created, Jono has chosen to establish a $100,000 scholarship.

Prior to Sarah Heckscher’s arrival at Springside School in 1969, college counseling was masterminded solely by Headmistress Eleanor Potter and her predecessors. It was a simple affair—limited to top colleges, many of them single sex. With Sarah came the title director of guidance and a fulltime focus on the girls, their passions, and finding the best fit at a variety of colleges and universities across the country.

For 35 years, Sarah Heckscher shepherded and launched hundreds of Springside seniors to their futures with her thoughtful and careful college guidance. Many colleges and universities were going coed and more and more options were available to Springside graduates. She opened those doors, establishing relationships at a multitude of colleges, and she encouraged the girls and their families to see them firsthand and be secure in their choices. Additionally, she was determined that before the girls graduated, they had confidence in themselves, the ability to lead, and were able to take on challenges in a broader world.

Through his ongoing mentorship in the school’s robotics program and this scholarship, he hopes to expose students to a variety of real-life skills and to help them learn to make critical decisions. The courses within our nationally recognized Department of Engineering and Robotics are designed to challenge students to think outside their comfort zones and to solve difficult, real-world problems. Most of the coursework is project and inquiry based. Whether students go into robotics/ engineering or not, they learn the value and skills of resilience, teamwork, and problem solving. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, they get a chance to envision where their passions and skill sets can best be applied in the real world.

Sarah’s focus on opportunities and direction was cutting edge in the 1970s and many other college preparatory schools followed her lead. In fact, Sarah’s vision is echoed in Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s current curriculum where, through passion- and project-based learning, we hope to steer students toward bold and confident futures.

Jono admits that he is not a technical guy but doesn’t feel like it prevents him from being a good mentor. He is all about leveraging teamwork and advises students that ideas should be hashed out, vetted, listed, and prioritized. He also believes that all people’s voices need to be heard and valued. If this occurs, the team produces more ideas and better end results.

In celebration of Sarah’s legacy and successful 35-year career as director of guidance at Springside, The Sarah Heckscher Scholarship was created in her honor in 2005 by friends and family. Her work was dedicated to helping students understand their own gifts and ambitions and make carefully considered choices for their future. This merit-based scholarship is offered to a new Middle or Upper School girl who demonstrates extraordinary talent or passion in academics, the visual or performing arts, science, athletics, or community service.

Ever the futurist, Jono envisions the creation of a standard protocol/game plan, with parent support, that will help SCH students map out and pursue their passions and juggle their responsibilities. Ultimately, he foresees a virtual career night to educate students about the changing job market and where they might see themselves within it.

With his support, SCH students should graduate with real-world experience, an understanding of the importance of teamwork, the ability to identify their specific skill sets, and a newfound confidence in themselves. It comes as no surprise that Jono was the co-recipient of the 2012 SCH Alumnus of the Year Award. The school and its students count themselves lucky to be top priorities in his personal game plan. ,

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DO YOU KNOW THEM?

BE THE FIRST TO SUBMIT YOUR ANSWER AND WIN AN ALUMNA/ALUMNUS GIFT! Here’s what we need to know: Who’s in it? What are they doing? When did it happen? Send your responses to Deidra Lyngard, SCHOOL editor, at dlyngard@sch.org or call 215-754-1616 and we’ll publish your reminiscences in our next issue.

From Rob Bauer ’99: “That’s me on the left, wearing the striped sweater and standing next to Gerald Mills ’99. Don’t know where this is or what we’re doing, but given the lack of dress code, it must be a class trip. We went canoeing in the Pine Barrens somewhere around that age, so that’s a possibility. (In fact Gerald and I shared a canoe.) Wild guess that we’re in 7th grade, so 1993 or somewhere thereabouts.”

From Gretchen M. Schaefer Jackson ’55: “I think the photo was taken of a play the Class of ’55 was performing. The girls kneeling are Nata Zvegintzov, left, and Emily Churchman Starr, right. The bowing person on the right is Carol Morgan Southall and on the left... could it be me? I am fuzzy about the play’s title but obviously it has to do with China. I think we were acting out the scene depicted on the willowware plate.”

And from Suzanne “Suzy” Kurtz Klorig ’66: “In 3rd grade (still at the Lower School on Willow Grove) our class did a version of the ‘Willow Plate.’ Can remember nothing of it, other than, by virtue of having the longest hair in the class, I got to play the Chinese grandmother.”

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NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID LANGHORNE, PA PERMIT NO. 118

the magazine of springside chestnut hill academy

UPCOMING EVENTS April 9, 2016 Viva Las SCH: Parents Association Fundraiser May 5, 2016, 7:30 pm Paul Assaiante, Coach, Trinity College Men’s Squash Team, Speaks on Resiliency May 6 & 7, 2016 Reunion Weekend June 4, 2016 Alumni Lacrosse Game June 14, 2016 First SCH Commencement

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