Joan Countryman and the Class of 1995 Alumnae reflect on the transition from Vespers to Lumina.
Page 2
Civics Day
Jessica Kimball-Veeder
A snapshot of the first Civics Day at Lincoln.
Page 10
Butler Avenue Bulletin School News
Highlights from the fall and winter semesters.
Page 12
LINCOLN FALL/WINTER 2025
Creative Team
Lincoln School Team
Erica Busillo Adams, Director of Advancement
Marci Mitchell, Director of Communications
Lydia Mackela, Photographer
Sophia Theriault ’16, Project Manager
Glenn Osmundson P’12, Photographer
blazar design studio, Designer
Meg Coss, Writer
Alumnae field hockey game in October 2024.
Letter from the Head
Dear Friends, One of my favorite parts of my job as head of school at Lincoln is connecting with alumnae of all ages. Hearing the stories of student life at Lincoln and learning about the paths alumnae have followed since leaving 301 Butler Avenue is inspiring and often entertaining; perhaps most importantly, it is a validation of the great tradition of educational excellence that has been part of the Lincoln experience for over 140 years.
Last summer, I had the pleasure of connecting with the son of an alumna who had known Lincoln’s first student, Margarethe “Daisy” Dwight. To me - and perhaps to some of you - Daisy Dwight has taken on almost mythical status; I live in “Dwight House,” we continue her practice of putting daisies on our diplomas at Commencement, and of course, a beautiful and very large portrait of Ms. Dwight graces the Living Room in Faxon Hall. It was amazing to me to learn stories about “Daisy in real life,” and I felt compelled to do a bit of my own researchI was a History teacher for many years, after all!
As is true for many Lincoln students who have followed her, Daisy Dwight was a
trailblazer. She was active in the woman’s suffrage movement in Rhode Island (here is a fun fact: Thomas Dorr, leader of the Dorr Rebellion that sought to expand suffrage to all men the 1840s, was Daisy’s great-uncle). I think she would have been proud of the work of LEAG - the Lincoln Environmental Action Group; in the early twentieth century, she worked to address smoke pollution in Providence that was caused by coal burning throughout the city. And Daisy was well known throughout Providence for her charitable work, perhaps most notably for serving families in need, and she was known by some as “the angel of the East Side.”
Daisy Dwight stayed close to Lincoln throughout her life, serving as a Trustee and getting to know students and faculty well. Perhaps what resonates most is this comment from a Lincoln teacher who knew Daisy in her adult life; Daisy Dwight “did not hesitate to speak up on issues with which she was concerned.”
Long before we adopted our current mission, Daisy Dwight lived it. She was an active and engaged citizen, who “fearlessly embraced” the opportunities and challenges of her day. May we continue to honor her legacy!
Onward Together,
Sophie Glenn Lau ’88 Head of School
Biographical Sketch of Margarethe Lyman Dwight, written by Barbara J. Zdravesky. Included in Part III: Mainstream Suffragists—National American Woman Suffrage Association, .
Saurin Freeman ‘89 created the first Lynx design for the orientation t-shirt.
“I spent as much of that year as I could listening,” Countryman recalls. “Listening to teachers and students, listening for what do you like, what do you not like?” By the end of December, following the conclusion of her first Vespers celebration, Countryman was asked again, “Don’t you just love Vespers?” This time she replied, “I’m glad I know what it is now and I do have some questions.”
During those early days listening to the Lincoln community, Countryman learned that Vespers, although a fond memory for many alumnae and a tradition many students revered, was not universally loved. She heard stories of students who felt excluded because the event’s Christian themes did not align with their own faith traditions. She heard stories of students who were unsure how to talk about their discomfort because the root of their unease was a beloved tradition many people in their community looked forward to. Upon
“Lumina represented the inclusivity of not only my class but other classes to come. It signaled a change in the way Lincoln did things.”
–Terza Lima-Neves, ’95
reflection, Countryman says, “That was a sign we needed to rethink what we were doing… We needed to talk about it and see what other possibilities there were.”
In the winter of 1993, the class of 1995 was in its junior year and had a reputation for being strong-willed and outspoken. “We had always been active from an equal rights perspective and very interested in celebrating diversity” recalls Elisa Hebert ’95. “We were unique by chance,” says Liv Van Dyke ’95. “And over time who was attracted to being [at Lincoln]
was a group of people committed to pushing change forward.” Terza Lima-Neves ’95 calls her class pioneers. “We stood for what we believed in and put into practice what we were taught in our classrooms.” As some students expressed their discomfort with Vespers, members of the class of ’95 expressed their desire to be a part of its evolution. “Joan Countryman was very supportive…she was future-thinking, she wasn’t stuck in ‘This is what it’s always been.’ It was a real time of change,” Van Dyke shares.
“The school and its legacy benefit from unifying events. It needs opportunities where the greater school community can get together and it cannot primarily be sports or graduations. This celebration incorporates all three schools, teachers, students, and their families—that’s the most important part. The important thing is a nurtured community.”
–Jocelyn Walters, ’97
The need and energy for change was there, and through conversations with Countryman and other members of the Lincoln community, notably former music teacher Charles Cofone, Lincoln students— led by the class of ’95—created a new tradition, an inclusive celebration born from
Lincoln’s values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. The celebration would come to be known as Lumina and it retained core elements of Vespers—the collective experience of the whole school coming together and the symbolic rite of passage of the candle-lit procession and white sweaters.
“I remember feeling extremely proud,” LimaNeves says. “There was an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment that young people could have that strong of a voice and adults would actually listen.”
The shift from Vespers to Lumina was not entirely smooth. There was some pushback, particularly that first year. But in time, Lumina took root and, much to Countryman’s delight, blossomed.
“In ’97 or ’98, we had Lumina in the morning,” Countryman recalls. “Afterward, when I came out, parents of small children walked out with me. They introduced themselves and one of them said, ‘Don’t you just love Lumina?’ It had only been a few years and the enthusiasm was there! In a way I think that says Vespers and Lumina are the same thing, just different ways of expressing who we are. Which is really a statement of what high school can be—trying to figure out who you are and what direction you want to go. The difference between Vespers and Lumina was that Lumina was something the students created that gave them space to be whatever they chose to be.” And throughout the years, Lincoln’s youngest students have continued to dream: Someday I’ll be the girl in the white sweater
The Class of 2025.
Faculty Spotlight
Block Island seashells. Pebbles, acorns, earthen clay. Beeswax crayons, ginkgo leaves. A flower made of foil. Bird nests and watercolors. A whale vertebra found on a Nantucket beach.
These are a few of the treasures and materials housed in the Studio, where Lincoln’s youngest learners are guided on their journeys of exploration — of self, nature, and creativity — by award-winning educator Giovonne Calenda , Lincoln’s Lower School & Early Childhood Faculty and Studio Art Teacher.
“I call it a place of discovery,” Calenda says of the Studio. “I remember coming here for the
first time and thinking, ’This is a place to have treasures.’”
Calenda considers herself a “companion” and calls her students her “friends.” She embraces the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, which at its heart recognizes children as citizens of the present day, each born with inherent rights and capabilities, each worthy of the opportunity to be an agent of their own learning. Before coming to Lincoln, Calenda had never heard of Reggio Emilia, but she felt she had always known it.
“I thought ’This speaks to me.’ I didn’t have a name for it, I just knew it because of the exposure and love of the world around me
that I had through my parents, in particular my mother.”
Since the age of five, Calenda has lived on her family farm on Narragansett Bay, a place where she and her siblings were afforded the time and space to use their imaginations in a wonder-filled expanse of natural beauty. She grew up around animals, when she was in college her family began to raise sheep, her mother loved to knit and she thought it would be fun to raise lambs and learn to spin her own wool.
and constraints of each material — what it offers you and what it doesn’t allow you to do as easily — you become more of the owner of your creativity. You have more agency to explore, because the material is more known to you.”
In 2006, Calenda was awarded the Dorothy W. Gifford Chair Award, a peer-nominated award given for excellence in teaching and service to Lincoln School. She titled her acceptance speech “Tapestry of My Life” and over the course of five pages, she writes poetically
“I thought ’This speaks to me.’ I didn’t have a name for it, I just knew it because of the exposure and love of the world around me that I had through my parents, in particular my mother.”
“Living with animals has been one of the greatest gifts that my parents have given my siblings and myself, we learn so much just by watching animals.”
Watching, listening, taking care. Learning a material’s affordances and constraints. Being present, taking time, remaining curious. Understanding intentionality. Respecting the power and potential in everyone and everything.
These are a few of the lessons Calenda shares with her friends in the Studio through a process of creative exploration, one which weaves together artistic expression and scientific experimentation and encourages young children to embrace their curiosity and pursue deeper understandings.
“With more exposure, the more you learn. In Italy, they call it the 100 languages, which are the many ways we express ourselves. The more you understand the affordance
about our interwoven lives, both with each other and with the world around us. She notes “the beauty of the gifts from the sea” and the “myriad colors in a wildflower garden.” She acknowledges “the sense of peace amidst the holy silence of the barn awaiting the arrival of a newborn lamb.”
Calenda is an artist and educator, a companion and guide, and above all, she is a gift, bestowing the tapestry of her life — woven with care, beauty, patience, respect, curiosity, and joy — to each child who enters the Studio.
Alumnae & Reunion Weekend 2024
A: Lydia Barlow Faiia ’99, Stephanie Olsen Rabinowitz ’99, Merissa DelBonis Siligato ’99, Juliana Raimondi ’99, Emily Barrett ’99, Nyssa Green ’99; B: Ruth Bodell McCool ’09 P’40, Dee Doucette ’09; C: Monica Boss P’22,’23,’26, Mari Marchionte Bianco ’97 P’31, Megan Long Gerardi ’01
D: Jane Gifford Barrows ’53, Nancy Rapelye Godfray ’60 P’84, Sophie Glenn Lau ’88, Anita Richard Thompson ‘89; E: Sue Cook ’84, Julie Ronci Zito ’84 P’18, Carolyn Blackman ’84 P’21; F: Emma Keene-Reinhard ’19, Cecilia DiPrete ’19, Sophie Shekarchi ‘19, Camilla Ledezma ’19, Alison Gorriaran ’19, Elizabeth Dahlberg ’20, Eliza Staples ’19, Jacqueline Reynolds ’19; G: Elizabeth Turnbull O’Neill ’94, Kirsten Kenney ’94 P’31,’33, Molly Shabica ’94; H: Beverly Casinelli ’02, Megan Long Gerardi ’01, Natalie Stanchina ’19, Hillary London ’96, Kilah Walters-Clinton ’95, Christine Long ’05, Alexandra Gordon ’05, Ruth Bodell McCool ’09 P’40
Informed,Emboldened:Empowered, Civics Day at Lincoln School
On the morning of October 9, Lincoln’s Middle and Upper School students gathered in the Ebner, Elson, Hart Music Center to hear two accounts about the path to US citizenship told by the people who lived them, Carole Figuet and Mary Briden , both members of Lincoln’s World Language Department. It was the start of Lincoln’s first-ever school wide Civics Day, a day designed to nurture a more comprehensive understanding of civics by exploring the question: How much does one voice matter?
“Civics Day was born out of this idea to help students find optimism and hope in a time
where they can feel a little disillusioned by what they’re hearing on the news and seeing on social media, and to remind them that civics is not just one person, one office, it’s this much bigger idea of the ways people and communities come together to create positive change,” says Jessica Kimball-Veeder, Head of Lincoln’s History Department.
Over the course of the day, Lincoln hosted 14 dynamic, nonpartisan workshops for Middle and Upper School students led by community members, organizations, and Lincoln’s own faculty. Rhode Island’s former Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea P’21, ’24, ’28 delivered the
keynote speech; she told students, “Our world needs you.”
“Speaker Gorbea addressed the idea that civics is way more than who’s sitting in Congress. Civics can be volunteering to be a Little League coach and helping your community in that regard,” says Kimball-Veeder. “She helped kids understand that the most important change comes when we bring different voices together and move away from a polarized world into a bipartisan communal effort….It was the idea of one person, one action. You can find ways within your own sphere of influence, within your own community, within your own skillset to create change.”
A few of the day’s highlights include workshops from Andrea Gonzalez, Program Manager of Young Voices, who discussed how Rhode Island students use their voices to lobby legislators to change policies that impact their communities; Arturo Vargas, Chair of the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, addressed why completing the census is so critical; John Marion, Executive Director of Common Cause RI spoke about the legislative branch and the not-so-simple way a bill becomes a law; the League of Women Voters reviewed the role of poll workers and the variabilities of ballots across the state; Councilwoman Helen Anthony, Providence City Council Ward 2, discussed the inner workings of City Council and the importance of local government; Jodi-Ann Meunier of Lincoln’s Math Department, guided students through the lines of gerrymandering to demonstrate how math and maps can influence election results; Dr. Laurel Flinn of Lincoln’s History Department took students on a tour of the battleground states— what are they, what is their influence, why do presidential candidates spend so much time and money in them; Representative June Spearman, Rhode Island House of Representatives District 68, reviewed the sources, reliability, and influence of public opinion polls; Courageous RI took on propaganda and explored ways campaign
messaging is adjusted to suit the age, racial, ethnic, religious or cultural identities of a targeted audience; and, field organizer, field director, and campaign manager Margie Pullo Breese helped students create plans for civic action that can lead to positive change at the local and state level. In addition, Lower School students discussed Lincoln’s community agreements— which help students honor each other’s views with empathy and understanding —and how to put those into practice in a variety of scenarios.
“Students had the opportunity to meet a lot of different community members and see that there are a lot of people doing a lot of cool things in Rhode Island related to civics. It’s not just highprofile officials, it’s also all these people who are on the ground, doing grassroots work, helping their communities, helping get people involved,” says Kimball-Veeder. “That was the motivation behind Civics Day, and to make sure our kids feel informed—that they know how the system works and how they can utilize the system to create the change they want to see.”
In her letter featured in GreenScene, Head of School Sophie Glenn Lau ’88 summarized the day best. She wrote, “It was a day filled with inspiration, engagement, and the realization that each of us has the power to shape the future—starting right here at Lincoln School.”
Lower, Middle and Upper School students participated in a mock election to determine Rhode Island Favorites. The Rhode Island Department of State brought in actual voting machines, which students used to cast actual ballots and then eagerly await the results. And the winners?
Favorite RI Person: Roger Williams
Favorite RI Drink: Del’s Lemonade
Favorite RI Beach: Narragansett
Favorite RI Event: WaterFire
Butler Avenue Bulletin
ATHLETICS
Congratulations and great work to all of our student-athletes who participated in fall sports—field hockey, tennis, soccer, and cross country and in winter sports—basketball, squash, and swimming! A BIG congratulations to Sarah B. ’26 on becoming the fourth basketball player in Lincoln history to score 1,000 points! Sarah B. ‘26 (left) and Reign W. ‘26 (right) are the junior captains pictured above.
To stay up-to-date with our student-athletes, follow @golincolnlynx on Instagram. At the time of this writing, the Basketball Team won the Division III Championship! Next up, the State Tournament!
COMMUNITY
We kicked off this year’s Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books & Authors with a talk by award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson. She shared beautiful insights from her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming On Saturday, educators, librarians, and attendees enjoyed an exciting day of meeting authors and illustrators and making connections through a shared love for books and reading.
The day concluded with a final presentation by Chris Van Allsburg, interviewed by Cathryn Mercier, followed by a moving tribute to both Chris and his wife, Lisa (pictured above), for founding this treasured event. Their vision and dedication have created something truly special that expands far beyond the red doors.
SPEAKERS
Early this fall, Lincoln had the honor of hosting a very special event featuring Denise Young, former Worldwide Chief of Human Resources at Apple and acclaimed author of When We Are Seen, in collaboration with Curiosity & Co. Young shared her journey of learning the importance of being seen, how to see others, and forming authentic connections. The talk was moderated by Brown University Africana Studies graduate student, Melaine Ferdinand-King (pictured above on the right).
TALENT
There is no shortage of talent at Lincoln! We had the pleasure of experiencing the spectacular performance of this year’s Upper School fall play, Emily Brontë: Teenage Ghost Hunter. Additionally, the eighth grade put on a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious performance of Mary Poppins Jr.
The all-school Winter Concert was filled with sweet harmonies and lively rock beats. Every year, the student musicians and student performers impress us with their talent and dedication to the arts.
Advancing the Joy
This year, our alumnae community came together for gatherings across the country and even around the globe, celebrating the bonds that connect generations of graduates and showcasing the far-reaching impact of Lincoln. Whether reconnecting over shared traditions or forging new friendships, these events highlighted the enduring spirit of our alumnae network.
In November, members of the class of 1964 gathered at Gail Auslander Ginnetty ’64’s home to reconnect and celebrate their 60th reunion!
From the bottom left - Susan Bray Reynolds ’64, Florence (Nita) Sheehan McDonald ’64, Gail Auslander Ginnetty ’64, Susan Joslin Leader ’64 Row 2 from the left - Martha Reid Brown ’64, Judith (Judy) Greenberg Kleinberg ’64, Noelle Gorab Vitt ’64 Back Row from the left - Mary Cook Millard ’64 P’86,’88 GP’20,’20,’22, Margaret Perry Clossey ’64, Linda MacArthur ’64
While on a trip to London, Head of School, Sophie Glenn Lau ’88 connected with fellow alumnae Maggie McNamara ’13, Beth Varadian ’96, and Ruta Ziukaite ’10. The Lincoln alumnae network truly spans the globe!
Laura Fogarty ’89 shared this awesome photo taken in the Giraffe Manor in Nairobi after a two week safari in three locations in Kenya.
From left to right: Samantha Rockwell ’19, Laura Fogarty ’89, Sophie Rockwell ’22, Catherine Hibbitt ’85 P’19,’22, and Karen Hibbitt ’88.
Mari Marchionte Bianco ’97 hosted a holiday gathering at her Providence home.
