Retiring Faculty
New Members, continued
Nancy Fenstemacher Lower School Faculty, 1984–2010
T
Chris McKown
an active Milton parent, and has graciously hosted Milton events in New York, including a gathering to introduce and welcome Todd. Caroline and her husband have been Milton enthusiasts for many years. Chris McKown is the co-founder of Health Dialog, a leading provider of care management, health care analytics, and decision support. The firm is a private, wholly owned subsidiary of Bupa, a global health care company. Health Dialog provides population analytics, interactive decision aids, and health care decision programs. Prior to forming Health Dialog, Chris founded and served as president of Response International Services Corporation, a property and casualty insurance company. Earlier, Chris was a principal in Booz, Allen & Hamilton’s New York City–based financial services practice. Chris and his wife, Abigail Johnson, live in Milton; their daughter, Julia, is a member of the Class of 2013. Chris has served on a number of boards, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, WGBH Educational Foundation, and Pine Street Inn. Chris earned his undergraduate degree from Penn State and his M.B.A. from Harvard University.
o understand Nancy Fenstemacher as a teacher, visit her classroom over the course of a year. A fully puffedout spiny blowfish hangs from the ceiling. At an eight-year-old’s eye level, a tank of living sea stars, hermit crabs and snails collected at Brant Rock beach burbles away. Horizontal surfaces are covered in seashells, shark jaws, coral specimens, books, balances and microscopes. A math and science display compares the morphology of ocean-dwelling fish with a dozen different geometric shapes. On another visit, her classroom—and adjacent rooms—are really the ticketing desk, waiting room, passport check, and passenger cabin of a China-bound flight. A third visit turns up a bustling costume shop and puppet factory, as students prepare their legendary Shadow Plays. Nancy’s room is an ever-evolving canvas for engaged thematic learning.
sion, and that she is unflappable. She is a quiet yet powerful presence. Twenty-six years of bright-eyed second graders have coursed through her room, and all have felt her gentle, even manner. They’ve seen her playing soccer or pitching a ball, and they’ve waited for her to release their sleds down the hill behind the Junior Building. She shapes children, and she never, ever gives up on a child. (A few years back, Nancy actually chased a student who had run away from School, all the way home.) So too has she shaped today’s Milton: as a member of the Middle School Committee, the K–8 Committee, and the Head of School Search Committee, among other responsibilities.
Nancy herself wrote, “I like to learn. I am committed to being a lifelong learner.” Nancy models this approach. She has traveled to Lowell to create a unit about inventions, and to Washington, D.C. to visit the U.S. Postal Museum to research Owney, the 19th-century mail dog and second-grade summer reading character. As the Hong Kong Chair, she was off to China to expand her own expertise and enrich our curriculum. Come August, picture Nancy in Lower Manhattan, trekking the High Line, that elevated rail bed recently turned into natural park space. She never tires of the quest, or satisfies her curiosity. One colleague describes Nancy as kind, thoughtful, diligent, and inquisitive. Another calls her wise, and supportive of all of us. Still another notes that Nancy models care and compas-
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Milton Magazine
“Learning makes life perpetually interesting,” Nancy says. We rue her departure from Milton Academy and hope we have learned from her to stay interesting ourselves. We celebrate the fact that Nancy will be here a while longer, covering Sachiyo’s maternity leave through Thanksgiving. Having a little more time with her is a gift, a sort of coda that will reprise the best of Nancy: a wonderful teacher, a great colleague, and a true friend to all. Marshall Carter K–8 Principal