Milton Magazine, Fall of 2006

Milton Magazine

Fall 2006

College Admissions The Academy views transitioning to college as a valuable part of a Milton education, a reflective and developmentally rich process. How do students experience it?

Contents

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Features: College Admissions Front Cover: Photographic collage

by Miranda Wheeler ’08 Back Cover: Missing Piece, pastel

by Robert St. Laurence ’07

4 In Their Own Words This journey belongs to each student; hear what today’s Milton boy or girl undertakes in his or her 17th or 18th year.

Cathleen Everett

9 What We Do Milton college counselors follow a well-tested plan.

Erin Hoodlet

11 The College Essay Four examples of a defining moment from the Class of 2006 Caity Barry-Heffernan ’06 Simi Lee ’06 Leo Lester ’06 Nate Danforth ’06

14 20-20 Hindsight Four recent graduates, both of Milton and their colleges, reflect on how they handled their college application process.

Paloma Herman ’02 Darnell Nance ’02 James Ollen-Smith ’00 Alda Balthrop-Lewis ’02

17 The Tufts Plan Supplementing the Common Application through the Rainbow Project Cathleen Everett

20 Financial Aid The college gateway for most families Cathleen Everett

23 College: Worrying About Access Social and economic mobility is more than ever dependent on a college education.

Abdi Soltani ’91

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Departments 28 Commencement and Prizes, 2006 32 Herbert G. Stokinger A 100th birthday celebration and a fond farewell

38 Graduates’ Weekend, 2006

25 Faculty Perspective Committed to the work of college counseling: putting students first Rod Skinner ’72 Rachel Klein-Ash Leya Tseng Jones Terri James Solomon

43 Classroom The urchin lab is a favorite

44 Post Script Paper Cuts “Take Heed When It Hurts” Peter Alduino ’73

46 Post Script From Unruliness to Enlightenment: An Odyssey of Discovery Corinne Kernan Sévigny ’41

48 In•Sight 50 The Head of School “Who am I?” Robin Robertson

51 On Centre News and notes from the campus and beyond

62 Sports William Whitmore is Milton’s new director of athletics.

63 Class Notes

Editor Cathleen Everett Associate Editor Erin Hoodlet Photography Michael Dwyer, Milton Academy Archives, Nicki Pardo, Robert Perachio, Martha Stewart, Greg White Design Moore & Associates Milton Magazine is published twice a year

by Milton Academy. Editorial and business offices are located at Milton Academy where change-of-address notifications should be sent.

As an institution committed to diversity, Milton Academy welcomes the opportunity to admit academically qualified students of any gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally available to its students. It does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship programs, and athletic or other school-administered activities.

Printed on Recycled Paper

New Terrain:

College Admissions in 2006

M

edia of every kind have documented a certain frenzied pitch to the process of transitioning to college. From inside the familiar, traditional contours of Straus Library, Milton’s college counselors scan a changed landscape, and resolutely prescribe a process that should be value-driven, individualized, sane, and, ultimately, arrive at a happy outcome.

While counselors in the college office ground their work in firm philosophical footing, Atlantic Magazine (October 2004, in an annual series about this topic) described the environment of admissions at highly selective colleges as “chaotic.” In a series of articles, writers identify dynamics that college admission officers and high school counselors around the country, including our own at Milton, agree are making what at best is an arbitrary process more challenging to negotiate or predict.

Three key factors ignited the current situation: demographics—a steep upward trend in the number of high school seniors applying to college (numbers will peak in 2013); the Common Application—the opportunity to apply to numerous colleges with a single form; and the Internet—the ease of submitting an application, of reviewing remote colleges online, of finding “help” such as SAT training, summer programs, or essay assessment.

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The college ratings, begun by U.S. News & World Report, exacerbate the American tendency to seek and then rely upon arbitrary evaluations, regardless of their merit in helping understand what a college has to offer. Now ratings drive the process.

Colleges and universities either cannot avoid, or purposely develop, policies and practices that will enhance their standings.

Colleges that are rejecting 80 percent of their applicants still see themselves in competition with other schools for the greatest number of applications, lowest selection rate, or highest yield. Families and students say they want the “right” college, but it should also be one with the highest rating possible. Numbers of applicants to the most selective colleges have never been higher; rates of selectivity have never been lower; and the pressure students feel about getting into top-rated schools has never been greater.

The congestion of early application programs, at least in their current form, could be understood as an outcome of the ratings mania. These programs help colleges inflate both the numbers of applicants and the percent of yield: important elements in the ratings equations. Some educators argue that early decision programs do not benefit students, and all would point out that they penalize students who need financial aid by precluding students’ ability

to compare different aid packages. In an effort to curb the numbers of early applications, a handful of schools offer the singlechoice early program: students applying to those schools early cannot submit applications to any other schools.

SAT scores have long served as the common standard for comparing students’ aptitude and performance, in spite of the fact that high SAT scores routinely occur in affluent school districts, and lower scores in under-resourced school districts.

Since March 2005 students have had to contend with a new SAT, which is 45 minutes longer and includes a new writing section. Scoring of the three sections (two, formerly) is based on 2400 points, rather than 1600. Colleges do not yet have experience with this test and its predictive value.

The specific uncertainty about the new test centers on the validity of the writing section. Many colleges are still working on a 1600-point scale with Critical Reading and Math. New SATs aside, admission officers continue to build their classes relying heavily on other components: grades, level of difficulty of the course load, recommendations, essays and interviews.

Test-taking

Should students and their families want help with managing all those aspects of a student’s presentation, they have easy (and expensive) access to one of the growing number of private consultants. The number of independent college counselors has grown, as has the number of test-prep trainers. Roles of the independent counselors vary from giving individual attention to students in public high schools whose counselors serve hundreds of students at once, to giving more in-depth information about the admission process, to advising students on courses, out-of-school activities and how best to enhance an application.

College admission officers acknowledge seeing more overly packaged candidates, rather than “real” teenagers who talk about how their brains have been challenged to grow, and what they have grown into.

Reading admission files, admission officers are on the lookout for authenticity.

The financial accessibility, or inaccessibility, of college is another unsettling aspect of the admission environment. Costs of private education have risen to the extent that only a fraction of families can afford the expense; public universities have experienced a rollback of public funding and have also had to increase the burden that families bear for students to attend. Only a few institutions are fully need-blind (providing financial aid, based on a family’s need, for every student who is admitted).

Others stretch financial aid dollars as far as they can, but families with higher and higher incomes qualify for aid, and most college officials agree that low-income students, for a number of reasons, are not participating at rates high enough to socioeconomically diversify campuses. Many low-income families find the challenges of making financial aid applications a barrier right at the outset.

A parallel movement, related to the pervasive effect of college ratings, is the funneling of college resources into merit scholarships. Increasingly, merit scholarships have become part of the enrollment strategy of many schools. Merit scholarships are awarded to capable students with certain skills or interests. They can attract a talented student in a field the college wants to build, or a student who might otherwise choose a more highly rated school. While some schools give merit scholarships to families with financial need, generally “Funneling money to merit scholarship means that fewer dollars are available for students with need,” says Rod Skinner, director of college counseling at Milton. “Since test scores often correlate strongly with affluence and education, the well-to-do are the primary beneficiaries of merit scholarships (particularly and most distressingly in public universities whose mission includes access), not those who really need the financial support.”

The reality that may be left in the dust when students and their families get involved in a pressurized process is that many fine schools are thriving across the United States, with resources, fine programs, interesting students, attractive campuses and highly successful alumni.

Well-educated, confident and self-aware Milton graduates can take their love of learning, their academic competence, their creativity to any number of schools. “Every student can find a good match,” Rod emphasizes.

Our process at Milton is student-driven.

Our goal is that we further develop, through this experience, values that are already at work in Milton’s school culture, specifically: resilience, integrity, selfawareness, individuality, resourcefulness, proportion, courage, candor and a broad sense of others.

Cathleen Everett

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“I

t was a big task to take on,” said Oliver Pechenik ’06, in classic understatement. The college admission process, as Sasha Kamenetska ’06 told us, is inseparable from the senior year: the experience is one and the same. The college office views transitioning to college as a valuable part of a Milton education, a reflective and developmentally rich process.

How do students experience it? Was it a time for “personal reflection, independent reasoning and informed decision-making,” as the college office hopes?

How and when did this year’s graduates step into the much-chronicled journey? What tale do they tell about their approach, their discoveries, their effort to describe and differentiate themselves? How resilient were they? How resourceful?

Rod Skinner, director of college counseling, has written, “Our job is to guide, counsel, probe, recommend, refer, suggest, and inform. We do not decide, require, command or package.”

Despite the hovering sense that, ultimately, the “college thing” will kick in, most students are happy to wait until the annual February parents’ weekend for Class II families as the official launch. There, college counselors wisely lay out the ground rules, timelines and expectations. From that point forward, the students direct their searches.

This journey belongs to each student, and you may hear in their words what today’s wellprepared Milton boy or girl undertakes in his or her 17th or 18th year.

Part I: Making the List Luis Iraheta When I was faced by the process, I was called up short, no way around it. The folder the college office gave us was scary and intimidating. This is not something you can do in one weekend. I came here from a very close family in Houston [Luis attended KIPP Academy, a Houston charter school]. So when I started the college process I wasn’t sure I wanted the Northeast; I wanted something in Texas.

My main objective was to return home, so I applied to Rice early action. I got in, but Ms. Klein (college counselor) advised me to apply to some Northeast schools, because I might change my mind. So I applied to Columbia. Eventually I did change my mind, and I’m going to Columbia. I realized that I’ve changed a lot, and many of those changes came from being at Milton. I’m more independent. If I go back close to home, maybe I wouldn’t be as focused on doing well. Being here helped me become my own person, to feel more comfortable about myself overall.

I’ve matured. When I came here, I was attached to my family and I came because it was a good opportunity. Now I have my own set of goals, and my own destiny, and I want to accomplish something. Next year will bring another set of challenges—but Milton’s prepared me well. I hope I can deal with the obstacles that come my way.

Seohyung Kim I’ve loved science and math as long as I can remember. I do love history and English, too, but I really understand math. So my direction was clear, but so many schools had good programs. I asked myself, ‘Is

math and science really all that I want?’

How much does music mean, for instance?

I asked myself what I wanted to come out as, after college. I want to come out crying for more—not overworked or overstressed.

I found it hard to weigh options and choices. I had no sense of whether the way I thought about a place was actually a good way to make a decision. I was pretty sure I’d have to visit classes. I knew schools would all sound the same, through the Web sites and tours, so I contacted friends and they often changed my perspective. Then I tried to visit without letting the college tell me what they were about. Why shouldn’t I just sit in class and talk to a professor, rather than talk with an admission officer?

I spent the last year taking math classes at the Harvard Extension School, and I knew I didn’t want Harvard. U Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd [one of the Claremont Colleges] and MIT all have great math programs. I ruled out California; after all, I’d already made one big move, from Korea to here. Then I visited MIT, and I really liked the atmosphere.

They were, sort of ‘You’re interested in this? Then go crazy with it.’ I’m not into the Ivy League, and MIT has more indie spirit; it’s less predictable.

Taylor Esformes Rather than us being successfully introspective, it’s that the counselors know us really, really well. Ms. Jones makes you want to think and want to talk.

The first time I thought about college was the first meeting that I had to go to about it: parents’ weekend. My mom took eight pages of notes. Listening to the admission

In Their Own Words “All year long, wherever you are with adults, they need to ask you what you’re doing about college. I’d like to ask the adults in a room, ‘So, how’s your job?’”

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Luis Iraheta

Seohyung Kim

officers I was half-worried, half-skeptical.

All the essay examples were so unique that I thought, ‘There have to be the other 80 percent of the people.’ But I don’t ever worry about things: I’m sometimes too flippant, but I never worry.

The process did make me think about my future, though. I always thought I wanted to go into law or politics. I worked for Senator Leiberman last summer, and I’ll always be active in politics. But I realized that I don’t want to go into a job where either some people will hate me, no matter what, or where I’ll have to change my opinion based on polls—a job where I might have to lie.

Now I want to be a theoretical physicist and minor in chemistry. This year I took Cosmology and Modern Physics, and I haven’t felt this excited since I was about 12. This course and Mr. Kernohan turned me on. I’m going to WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) with a full scholarship, probably because of my interest in quantum physics; they’re trying to build the department. When I’m there, in 2007, I’m going to have a huge party when the particle accelerator, the large Hadron linear collider, comes online. I can’t wait.

Michelle Torski From boarding school I wanted strong academics, a place that would help me develop as a student, and through the experience I’ve learned a lot about myself. I love the people here, the diversity. Everyone is his or her own person. Everyone is important for his or her own set of skills. So colleges I would consider had to have diversity—of thought, of personality, of background.

What I did outside of class at Milton also tells a lot about what’s important to me, too: I did costuming for theatre, Christian

Taylor Esformes

Fellowship, Gender Equity, Knitting Club and I was a head of Community Service.

I go to an Orthodox Christian church in Boston every Sunday, teach Sunday school there, and work with a youth group. I really depended on the college office to help me learn about schools that might be a good match. I liked Georgetown; it’s a faithbased school in the middle of a large, diverse city with an Orthodox church nearby. So I applied to Georgetown early action, along with some other schools, and got in.

Wake Forest offered me a large scholarship for costuming and academics. I got into Duke, but I’m considering being a math major, and Duke’s return visit program presented the math team, but there were no girls on it. In the beginning of senior fall, I never would have considered Georgetown, but I approached my college list with an open mind, and in this process you sort out your values and what’s important to you.

Joya Jones I did SYA (School Year Abroad) in Rennes, France, and there I learned how to live. In the United States everything leads to competition, to college. I would be furiously writing papers, concerned about grades, and my French family showed me how to take the stress off. Just ‘do what you have time for,’ they would say. I came back senior fall and had to catch up with where everyone else was. I thought I loved Stanford and didn’t like the Ivies, but then I did a more solid assessment of schools, based on where I might want to live and what I didn’t want in a college. I ended up with a list that included four Ivies based on opportunities to do everything—I like to do a lot of things. Environment is important to me: I want serious academics, but a laid-back, relaxed atmosphere without cut-

Michelle Torski

throat competition, a place that wasn’t about trampling over others for success.

I didn’t want, and don’t like, the whole early application thing, because you change so much in senior year, even in a couple of months.

Henry White My mother and my father [separately] organized visits to about 20 schools before school started. I thought it was a miserable waste of time, but afterward I appreciated it. It gave me a wide range of schools to look at—none of which I ended up applying to; it gave me an edge on visiting— how to approach tours, interviews, what questions to ask; and it let me know what I was interested in. I determined that what I wanted was a school with a friendly, open community and some green space; and I wanted intellectual rigor. Close by or far away was not an issue. Reed describes itself as full of ‘quirky intellectuals.’ That’s how the school sells itself. I visited campus and was astounded at the feeling in my entire body that was YES.

The Game Athletes Must Play Scholar-athletes, particularly those with serious interests outside of their respective sports, or significant financial need, deal with yet another layer of confusing complexity.

Coaches can begin communicating directly with students during their junior year—by phone or email. During senior fall that communication intensifies. The student-athlete has a number of decisions to make and issues to balance: What’s the right division for my level of play? Besides athletics, what do I want out of college? How important are my other extracurricular interests? Should I risk putting all my eggs in one basket and if I get in, will the college give me the funding I need?

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Mike Fitoussi Division I is one thing; the Ivies are another, and the NESCAC schools are a third [New England Small College Athletic Conference—schools such as Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Amherst, or Tufts]. Up until junior year the coaches are interested basically in generic information—your height, your weight, your hometown. Then once direct contact is permitted, they’re really interested in getting to know you.

At the beginning of senior year they invite you to visit their school. I was interested mostly in the NESCAC schools. Coaches will say ‘I’ll give you my full support,’ and ‘It looks fine,’ but there’s no guarantee.

Your job is to get in to the school first, and then the coach will help you get the financial aid you need. I had to decide whether to use ED1 [Early Decision 1] and, if I didn’t hear soon enough about Tufts, to use ED2 [Early Decision 2] for another school. I had to apply to eight or nine other schools, because Tufts wasn’t guaranteed at all, but other schools wanted an indication of interest before they’d push for me. So I could have been in a spot where I got in somewhere just because of academics, but I wouldn’t end up being able to play hockey much at all. (Coaches have to balance a certain number of terrific players who have lower SATs, whom they really expect to play, with simply good players who have higher SATs, so that all players that are admitted hit a certain average SAT level.) It was a stressful time, with things changing day to day and communication from me, Coach Cannata [Milton’s hockey coach], and Mr. Skinner in the college office.

I came to Milton and repeated my junior year here; Milton changes your motivation.

Joya Jones 6

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Henry White

I never had any association with my former school, but at Milton, you get used to having relationships with your teachers in multiple roles. After Milton, I wanted a school with good academics and people interested in ideas, along with hockey and other sports.

Ema Blumhagen I learned to climb before I could walk. I’m physically oriented and I like physical challenges. Before I came to Milton, I had been playing ice hockey with boys for 10 years— since I was five years old. I came to play women’s hockey, to get great academics, and to open up new possibilities for my future.

The thing is, I’d be happy almost anywhere. There are good women’s ice hockey programs in so many schools; the list is too long to narrow down. So my process pretty much revolved around talking with coaches. I judged them personally, figuring out whether I could work with them (only one was too arrogant, I thought, for me to work with). The process was so much more than it seemed. I learned what the coaches were expecting me to say. I learned that I had to be assertive, decisive and honest—and that I had to commit.

Connecticut College and Holy Cross were both interested in my saying that one of them was my first choice. (And I need full financial aid to go to a private college.) So I said ‘It’s a go’ to Holy Cross before I heard from University of Vermont, because UVM was so slow and disorganized about financial aid. I’m excited about Holy Cross and next year, but I realize now how arbitrary the schools are about the admission process, and especially about financial aid.

I concluded that if I didn’t have something they wanted, I wouldn’t get anything.

Mike Fitoussi

Erin Mulvey I wanted the best academic school I could get into where my field hockey playing could help me, and where I could continue to play my cello in the orchestra. These things didn’t come together too often. I applied early to Columbia with the coach’s support, but then she withdrew her support. I had good grades, but apparently not Columbia-good grades. The coach at Trinity asked me to apply to Trinity ED2 (Early Decision 2); she said everything would work out, but I wasn’t ready to apply early.

Ultimately, I got into the honors program at Trinity, and Trinity has everything I want: honors academics, urban living, field hockey, and an orchestra where I can play cello—along with the Hartt School of Music just down the street.

Part II: The Essay Weaving a life through the eye of an essay is a challenge each senior addresses. Ruminating about the “right” topic is often the opportunity for the most rigorous introspection.

These students wrote:

Alex Heitzman

! About why I love woodworking. I needed an essay where the college admission officer would “meet me,” if he read it. It’s a narrow topic, but you can go into why you do it, your sense of design, of structure, and the pleasure of creating something on your own. My work increased in complexity and quality over time, and the pieces were all functional: from a port for my computer, to a headboard, to a cherry and ash bookshelf with mortise and tenon joints, to finally, redesigning and building my family’s mud room at home, and finishing a box

Ema Blumhagen

as a gift from my squash team to Mr. Millet. If you want a good application, you can’t be nonchalant about it; it takes time and reworking.

idea that we are all in the same place, and despite differences, we are all American.

Joya

had been with me since freshman year, and that I bequeathed to a freshman in my dorm. It shaped my personality at Milton: it was a symbol of lightheartedness and sharing my passion for music. It showed people that you could be a music aficionado without being a snob about it. The boom box made it easier for people to talk with me— they could talk about the boom box, if nothing else. I made a lot of friends based on music.

! About finding myself in a new church.

My dad is a pastor and a preacher. I grew up in a black church in Boston. Then he became pastor of an all-white church. The music was different, not as upbeat. This church was not as open; it was conservative. I was nine years old and I thought, ‘Is this really church?’ Then I started singing, and because of that my own, individual voice came out in that church. I was able to bring my spirit and my smiling. The experience showed me the leader that I could be. It was gradual and natural.

Henry

! About the effect of my oldest brother on me, and how I’ve been shaped by him. On first glance that may not necessarily appear to be the best way to sell myself, but it let me highlight traits of my own within a tribute to him, so it made for an interesting exposition of ideas.

Sasha Kamenetska

! About a book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It’s a mathematical and analytical book about Gödel, the mathematician, Escher, the artist, and Bach, the composer, and the relationships in their work. It includes the idea of strange loops—you can find a strange loop, for instance, in Bach’s Canon: at the end, the music comes back into the beginning. That loop describes my identity. I begin as an American, and consider my legacy as a daughter of immigrants, then ultimately come back to the

Erin Mulvey

Taylor

! About my boom box, the boom box that

Mike

! About the line from the song, “What does it mean to be a man?” In my old high school, you could be a jock or you could be in the chorus. They were very separate cliques and represented opposite ends of the spectrum. At Milton, you could do both (I was on varsity hockey and a member of the a cappella group the Miltones). Milton was more like a family: your family would allow you to be both an athlete and a singer.

At Milton, people were like onions: they had endless layers. I came to understand a different idea of being a man.

Michelle

! About the tensions I am feeling now— I turned 17 in December: the tensions between two sides of my life. How can I be the intellectual and activist for women’s issues that I am, and fit into Orthodox Church culture? I’ve been taught to fight for my beliefs and to speak out. In my church, not being rebellious is important.

If I were male, I would probably be considering the priesthood. I decided that I don’t need to give up my faith, or find another faith, to find a service role in my church. As a result of having more confidence in who I am, I’m sure that I can make the elements of my life co-exist: academia, religious life and home life.

Erin

Luis

! About the discipline, intensity and structure of my charter school: how the motto clicked in with my motivation and carried me through. I internalized the motto.

Oliver Pechenik

! About a novel, Gormenghast, written by Mervyn Peake, who was a visual artist. I’m going to major in math [Oliver received the

Alex Heitzman

John N. Stern Scholarship from Oberlin], but aesthetics and art are a central thing for me. The protagonist is an influential hero—not because he’s a serial killer; I’m not fond of murderers nor do I want to become one. It is because what he does is so well done. I’m very interested in the exercise of doing something very carefully.

Art is about the process of creation, and an artist is someone whom we hold accountable for every aspect of his or her actions. It is this accountability that I love.

Sasha Kamenetska

! About forgiveness. We heard Linda Biehl speak here at Milton. Her daughter Amy was killed by South Africans when she was in South Africa working against apartheid. Linda Beihl forgave her daughter’s killers. I had held onto anger about a much smaller issue for many years. She showed me how ridiculous that was, and that vengeance was a lazy man’s anger.

I needed to get past my own anger.

Oliver Pechenik 7

Milton Magazine

Jane Collins

Jane Collins

! About my hometown, Camden, Maine—what living in a small town next to the ocean means to who you are and what you value, and the impact it has had on me.

I can go far away from Maine, and I am going to Whitman College in Washington.

But I realized that my upbringing in Maine has everything to do with who I am.

Seohyung

! About my experience at math camps.

Math makes sense to me. Words don’t make as much sense to me as a one-line equation. The application I struggled most with—and I wanted to go there—was U Chicago. The essay had to be based on a quote from Susan Sontag. She said, ‘The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.’

Part III: Making the Decision Alex I never really thought about what was most important to me, and asking the question why was even more important than what.

Brown had a great computer science program, but not a great architecture program (I thought I wanted both). I could take physics, applied math, and keep up my writing. I could play squash. It’s an urban school with a vibrant community. The fact that there are no course requirements means it caters to a special kind of person.

It tells me that most people are there because they’re motivated. They have ideas about themselves. They have to make their own future. It’s very diverse.

Brown had separate revisit programs for black students. At Harvard, the students were all mixed up [racially]. The black students were student leaders, really reaching out to both black and white students. That helped me decide to go to Harvard.

to take a course in mediation and courses in martial arts. I’d like to get a job and make some money so that I could go abroad and travel to several Spanish-speaking countries before I start college.

Oliver

I learned about myself, what kind of people I’m crazy about, and what kind of things I can do without. I learned the kind of things I envision myself doing, and how to manage myself.

I may have had a better sense than others of what I wasn’t looking for, even though I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Oberlin offered me a very nice merit scholarship.

I’m required to major in either math or science. They just picked me out. Then I went to look at it to make sure I didn’t hate it. I loved it: I went to classes, met great people.

I liked it better than other schools I got into and certainly as much as the schools where I was wait-listed.

Erin It’s hard to be at Milton and stay out of ‘bumper-sticker land.’ It would be hard to go to a college people aren’t talking about.

Milton has given me so much, but especially the ability to pick myself back up, to be realistic, to have confidence and to have resilience. That will help me in the future, because admission to many things at the next level beyond college becomes even more arbitrary.

Final Words Henry Yes, I’m a different person, but not because of the college process. Rather, it was a product of the rest of my life, more like the natural trajectory of maturity and growth. I’m much more willing to commit myself to ‘extra’ things now—like acting. I finally tried it and it worked out well. I’d like a ‘gap year’ next year [a year between high school and the beginning of college]. I want

Shellonda Anderson I was choosing between Harvard and Brown: both were urban; the atmosphere at both seemed relaxed and laid-back. But 8

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Shellonda Anderson

Seohyung

Choosing a college doesn’t define you. It makes no sense to say this or that is the best. There are no real means of comparison. I talked with people at these amazing colleges, and some of them were unhappy.

A choice doesn’t guarantee anything. I have to make my own mark.

The person I am just doesn’t stop here. I have to ask myself, if I didn’t have money, or my reputation, or my college, who would I be?

Sasha Doing the essay was a learning experience: it made you look both forward and back.

You talk about yourself, what’s important, what you want for your future. Senior year forces you to become reflective. The next four years seem daunting; the decision about where to go seems like such a big one when you’re 18. Then, the minute you actually make the decision, you’re in hindsight mode, looking back at why and how some things happened. I’m very optimistic about next year; there’s no reason not to look forward to college.

Stresses, disappointments, realizations and triumphs seem routine for Class I students.

Either because of, or despite, the way they tackle their final courses and getting into college, most do develop insight and resilience that will serve them well. All of them credit the college counselors with knowing them well, and insisting that they be true to themselves.

Shellonda probably spoke for most students when acknowledging the rite of passage: “It’s hard for seniors to be the same at the end of the year as they were at the beginning. You gain so much knowledge over that year. Your courses change your point of view and your perspective. You speak more with your teachers, your coaches and your dorm faculty as adults and friends. I feel much less like a child. I am optimistic; I am very excited about next year.”

Cathleen Everett

What We Do Milton College Counselors Follow a Well-Tested Plan

M

ilton students learn to think independently and express their ideas. That strategy works well at the college counseling office in Straus Library.

Milton builds its college counseling program around individualism. “We believe that the college counseling process begins and ends with the student,” states the college office Web site. “We do not expect students to proceed lockstep through this process…we expect students to take control [of it]. Our job is to guide, counsel, probe, recommend, refer, suggest, and inform.

We do not decide, require, command, or package.” When he became the director of the college office in 1985, Chuck Duncan defined the approach that Milton still uses.

Susan Case continued after Chuck’s departure, and Rod Skinner ’72 directs it today.

we were in big trouble. In my time here, we got pumped up for that day.”

Students receive their somewhat famous “college binder” during that weekend; it outlines the steps to take and, among other things, provides hints and tools for assessing goals, developing a list and getting the most out of a college visit.

The binder includes a Student Response Form designed by the college office. One of the first steps for a student is to fill out this required form. It serves counselors well, who learn of students’ strengths, weaknesses, interests and goals in their own words. “What the students don’t know,” Chuck explains, “is that if they do a good job on that questionnaire, they have

basically beaten the college process.

They’re ahead of the game. They’ve responded to short-answer questions that came directly from college applications; they’ve written an essay that came directly from the Common Application. Then all they really have to do is polish it.”

Parents answer a similar response form; it represents the parents’ chance to speak to the unique characteristics of their child.

The two response forms—combined with an academic transcript, teacher recommendations, advisor comments, and even the student’s application to Milton—provide ample information for the college office to create the student’s school report, or counselor letter, which is, as Chuck describes it, “a mosaic.”

Although some students begin their search earlier, February of the Class II year marks the official kickoff to the process, at Milton’s College Weekend. The weekend explains what to expect from the process, and highlights some of the new trends in college admissions. Students and their parents travel through three information and discussion sessions. One features a college admission officer; a second presents a panel of Class I students approaching the end of their search; and the third serves as the pulpit for Milton’s director of college counseling. The sessions provide practical information, assuage anxieties and offer a realistic picture from several vantage points. Chuck explains, “That particular day was always the most important day of the college year, because if we didn’t gain the parents’ confidence on that day

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Rather than working with a single assigned counselor, students begin by meeting with two counselors. “This process is wrought with anxiety,” Rod explains, “so we don’t want to add the additional anxiety of ‘Will I get along with this counselor?’ We allow the students to meet with any number of us; some students tend to stick with one counselor while others take the smorgasbord approach and meet with us all.” Detailed notes and twice-weekly department meetings among the counselors ensure that they are all up to speed with the students’ progress.

The goal of the first meeting—which the student attends with his or her advisor—is, as the college binder explains, “to learn as much as [possible] about a student’s past experiences, present situations and future goals.” The goal of the second meeting is to “develop an initial list of colleges for the student to investigate.” Beyond these two meetings, students are not required to visit

the college office on a regular basis, but most students take advantage of the opportunity to work with their counselor for guidance and advice.

Beyond meetings, the office Web site is a resource for everything from tips for completing financial aid forms to the link for the Common Application Web site.

Throughout the academic year, the college office sends weekly newsletters electronically to students and advisors. These include timely information such as SAT dates, school-specific application procedures, and information college admission officers visiting Milton’s campus.

Milton students spend plenty of time during the fall taking standardized tests, seeking out letters of recommendation, visiting campuses and polishing essays. The college office is on hand for any help. “The amount of work we do in the fall depends on how ready the student is,” Rod explains. “Some students come back from the summer with their final list made, ready to go. They might only need one or two meetings. Others are still not sure about what their right fit will be and have meetings with us once a week.”

The counseling does not end once the applications have been mailed. “Intensive work is often needed once decisions arrive

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in April,” Rod says. “Students might then have to make the ultimate decision, and for this we often hark back to what the student thought in the fall about what was important for him or her.”

As a recent graduate says, “The college office really knows their stuff and they get to know you so well. They know what you need from them. Not only will they help you build and refine your list, but they’ll also send you reminders about application deadlines and sending your SAT scores.

They’re an amazing resource.”

What makes the Milton process a success?

“I think it’s the openness and the availability for both the students and the parents, plus the fact that, as you well know, we have a very strong student body,” Chuck says. “But even if that wasn’t the case, the openness and the availability would still stand out. We’re not trying to hide anything; we’re very open.”

Erin Hoodlet

The College Essay: Four examples of a defining moment from the Class of 2006

On Jane Austen Caity Barry-Heffernan Yale University “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” The first time I read Pride and Prejudice, in the summer between sixth and seventh grade, the irony of its first sentence completely escaped me. Almost all the irony in it escaped me. I decided that Jane Austen, dull and uninspiring, was not for me.

I kept asking myself why her characters didn’t do anything, why they panicked over insignificant events. But this summer, as I was about to enter my junior year, Pride and Prejudice was a summer reading book.

Upon reading it, I found that I loved Pride and Prejudice, and I developed a profound respect for Jane Austen.

Jane Austen’s characters do actually do things. I didn’t catch on at first because I’m used to earthquakes and shootings making headlines, not the dishonor of a youngest daughter. I wanted someone to get shot the first time I read it; I didn’t want the young women to sit around discussing balls and lace. But the second time I read about Elizabeth, I realized that her discussions are the action, that Lydia’s disgraced departure is a relatively minor occurrence. My English teacher suggested that we diagram the book in order of its conflicts: first Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr.

Collins, then her refusal of Mr. Darcy, and last her confrontation with Lady Catherine de Bourgh. These conflicts are precisely spaced throughout the novel, increasing climactically. Jane Austen was a neat freak.

Unlike me, however, she knew how to write elegant books. I can only alphabetize other people’s books. But the fact that I didn’t notice her precision the first time around testifies to the skill with which she wrote. While everything in Pride and Prejudice is perfectly planned, nothing felt contrived. Her organization raised Jane Austen several levels in my esteem.

The second time I read it I also picked up on far more of Austen’s subtle humor. I’m bad at telling jokes. I laugh before I hit the punch line. But Austen doesn’t tell jokes.

She speaks ironically, using wordplay.

When Sir William Lucas announces Charlotte’s engagement to Mr. Collins and is met with disbelief, Austen writes, “Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment; but Sir William’s good breeding carried him through it all.” Only upon rereading did I remember that Sir William is by no means noble, a mere merchant who had somehow merited noble attention. Similarly, when Mrs. Bennet learns of Charlotte’s engagement to Mr. Collins, she complains, ranting and shrieking and generally having the vapors.

“Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet,” writes Austen. Jane Austen taught me subtlety. I don’t have to tell jokes. It’s enough to tell a braggart that his humility is refreshing.

Then there are Austen’s characters themselves. They aren’t particularly brave or daring, but the ones we admire are smart.

Elizabeth and Darcy are masters at hinting and digging at each other while appearing to be civil. Though their word battles aren’t as openly clever and full of puns as those between Petruchio and Kate in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” (another favorite of mine), they are nevertheless impressive. And more than that, 11

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we know that Darcy and Elizabeth genuinely want to do what’s right, to be good.

While they insult each other mercilessly, they are thinking of how much they care about their siblings and their friends.

Elizabeth berates Darcy for having hurt her sister; Darcy shuns Elizabeth because he fears her sister will hurt his friend Bingley. It was refreshing for me to see characters who aren’t afraid to wade into battle with nothing sharper than their minds.

Jane Austen taught me elegance. She taught me that subtlety can be wonderful, and that being organized is not bad simply because my teachers like it. I’ve since read Pride and Prejudice a third time and found even more to admire. It’s like an atom— layers and layers of sub-shells. For me, Jane Austen is a mastermind, but one who wishes only good on her minions.

On My Family Simi Lee Harvard University My grandmother was sitting in one of the hotel lobby’s soft armchairs when I came downstairs dressed in my new form-fitting coat, looking, for the first time, truly Iranian.

She was alone, but in a state of complete serenity, smiling at the whirling eddies of Farsi dialogue that her ears had sorely missed.

When she saw me, however, her smile broadened so much that it could no longer be described as anything but a glow. She clapped her hands together in delight, let her eyes drink in the sight of her granddaughter in Iranian clothes, and murmured to herself.

“Bah bah,” she whispered. “Bah bah, bah bah.”

“Mama-jun,” I said brightly, basking in her adoring gaze, “what does bah bah mean?”

My grandmother chuckled. Then, she explained in her own way, “Bah bah…it means when something is just too delightful! There is no word in English.”

Something seized me in that mosaic of a moment: at the surface, a warm affection for my grandmother and the endearing roughness of her English when it came to translations; beneath that fondness, the

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humbling realization that so much can be expressed with so little; and closely behind that feeling of wonder, a familiar burning desire to master a language.

My feelings for my grandmother were not novel—I have always felt such warmth for her.

Yet, that said, my astonishment at the magnitude of personal expression that lay in a simple idiom of twin syllables was like an unanticipated flash of lightning across an overcast sky.

Perhaps I would not have been so surprised if, leading up to a summer journey to Iran, my ears had not been ringing with concerned warnings from friends, my boss, and other acquaintances. Almost everyone I know cautioned me that daily dress in a coat or tunic, a head-covering scarf, pants, and closed-toed shoes would be oppressive and ultimately smother my personality.

But, because I had heard such warnings, I was not prepared for the realization that personal fashion style, though important, was not the sole means of personal expression and that, if anything, it was language that was impeding my desire to communicate and express myself—not the Islamic Republic’s dress code.

Family is at the core of my essence. It is my greatest support and source of happiness. However, if I wanted to know intimately the family members I had previously never met, I could not. The details they shared about themselves and their lives were in Farsi.

Music is one of my supreme passions.

Playing the piano is a significant medium through which I can broadcast my emotions, and hearing any music arouses myriad sentiments, giving life to memories and dreams. Yet, when I heard Iranian traditional music, pregnant with the pounding rhythms of the daf, I could not even express a positive reaction.

If I wanted to demonstrate my love for history and art by relating what I had seen and learned at Persepolis and Savafid Palaces, if I wanted to reveal my appetite for political dialogue and debate by discussing the budding possibility of another Iranian revolution, if I wanted to follow up on my visits to mosques with questions and answers about Islam, I could not. I did not know how to say anything.

Thus, I came to understand the power of language and, immediately afterwards, to thirst for mastery of Farsi.

All of a sudden, moments and memorable words from my Spanish and French learning experiences flashed before me.

I remembered the feelings of zealously setting goals to meet the challenges presented by learning a foreign language and of reaching those targets.

Accompanying the revived euphoria resulting from flares of linguistic fluency were exciting possibilities and dreams of the future. Would I live and teach English in another country? Would I become a translator for the United Nations? Would I become the first female President and ameliorate the world’s woes with other leaders in their own languages?

The storm settled. I met my grandmother’s eyes, smiled, and nodded to show that I understood her. Then, I took a bite of the henduneh—watermelon—from the plate before me and let the words roll off my tongue.

“Bah bah.”

On Spontaneity Leo Lester Princeton University A little African boy runs along the esplanade, his white shirt open and blowing in the wind, his feet drumming lightly on the stone walkway. A waist-high stone ledge rises to his left. On its other side, the ledge drops down about three times the height of the boy to a crowded beach that rolls gently into the ocean. In a fluid motion, the boy leaps up and plants one foot on the ledge, catapulting himself into a lopsided somersault and sailing crookedly but serenely onto the sand below. He continues on his way without so much as a glance backward at the old men laughing in the shade of the wall.

This past March, I toured with the Milton Academy jazz combos through South Africa for two weeks, and of all the powerful experiences that I gathered, “the flip” (as I call it) remains my most potent memory. Watching the boy’s euphoric smile spin upside down triggered in me a sort of fascination, the source of which I could not put my finger on; at the time, all I could see was a young boy having a blast.

We often struggle to excavate as much meaning as possible from experiences that have touched us in some way, but perhaps we lose something in this struggle. My first version of this essay, though rough, most accurately captured my appreciation for the flip. But with each draft, I found it harder and harder to convey my realizations in the right words. Rereading my previous attempts to capture this scene has emphasized to me my value of excellence; I desperately wanted to do justice to the flip by drawing as much meaning from it as possible, but with every draft, capturing the moment proved to be more and more elusive.

And as I came to understand the skill required to portray the flip and its significance, I also started to see the value of spontaneity more clearly. Ironically, in my deliberate reflections, I discovered that spontaneity also generates a type of excellence. The flip was slightly crooked, but I love it for that very reason. Thrust into the same situation as the boy, I would have labored over the process of landing the perfect flip. Had I finally landed a flip with which I was satisfied, the experience would have lost that degree of joy, of impulsive creativity. The way the boy never scouted his landing or faltered on his first attempt illustrated his lack of need for security or perfection; as a result, the flip, though flawed, symbolized to me breaking free of personal shackles and captured an instance of pure joy.

There are two ways to play an Ultimate Frisbee game: intellectually and emotionally. Some guys thrive on the adrenaline rush of a layout block. Others prefer the satisfaction of executing a carefully calculated offensive play. Reflecting on the flip has emphasized to me the value of these two approaches: the beauty of the flip hinged more on spontaneity than perfec-

tion, but my attempts to relate that beauty required a skill that can only be perfected by hard work and time. And although I come from a world that supports that careful, calculating approach, witnessing the flip has encouraged me to bring balance to my life by making room for spontaneity, those bursts of passion that season life with a dash of excitement. Therein lies the key to an inner balance.

On Metal Sculpting Nate Danforth Colorado College Sparks fly as I touch the Metal Inert Gas welder to the rusted steel to create a complete current. My vision turns green as the auto-darkening hood kicks in and I glide the contact point across the steel, creating a flowing, molten bead. The welder’s loud buzzing sound reverberates around my eardrums as if I were in a swarm of mechanical bees. The bead winds around the curve of the joint as my fingers absorb the intense, unforgiving heat through my thick leather gloves. Heat pierces my skin and I stop the weld, as I can no longer endure the pain. Flipping up the helmet with a flick of my head, I look down to inspect my work. The weld is smooth and continuous. As my hands cool and my senses acclimate to the smell of burnt leather and smoke, I continue shaping the rugged bits of metal. Piece by piece, my steel bluefish begins to take shape.

Metal sculpting is my passion. Twice a week I drive 45 minutes up Route 22 to Essex, home of Chris Williams, a metal sculptor known for his life-size replicas of animals and dragons and whose recent works in progress include installations at Kennedy International Airport and the Peabody Essex Museum. I encountered

Chris serendipitously last summer through another local artist who I worked with creating a new exhibition during my internship at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Chris graciously let me come to his shop and before I knew it, when I wasn’t at the museum, I was immersed in metal sculpting projects at his studio. He continued to be my welding mentor this summer.

When I first stepped into the musty metal studio, I was in awe of the high-tech equipment and amazing larger-than-life sculptures that cluttered Chris’s small shop.

Outlandish lobsters, fish, and dragons casually lay around like locals at a diner.

After a few visits, I learned the processes and techniques that he uses to create his brilliant sculptures, and he encouraged me to get my hands dirty with my own hunks of metal. I began to love the feel of the heat between my fingers and the smell of the thick smoke. The processes of Metal Inert Gas welders and Tungsten Inert Gas welders and plasma cutters are so chemically and physically complex that they keep the scientific side of my brain interested while fostering my keen interest in this medium.

I love the ocean, the outdoors, and the natural sciences. Through my art, I re-create images of nature in my head and make them into steel sculptures. I love to connect my love for both art and nature.

Welding metal sculptures satisfies all of my interests in art, science, and the outdoors and is the perfect way for me to combine all these passions into one. It is an amazing feeling to turn pieces of raw steel into beautifully tough sculptures that portray nature’s rugged beauty.

Nate Danforth’s sculpture, Bluefish

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20-20 Hindsight From a new vantage point, four recent graduates, both of Milton and of their colleges, reflect on how they handled their college application process.

With new wisdom they comment on what surprised them, what turned out to be important, and what they learned about learning in the four years after Milton.

“I think there is certainly work to be done in counseling students about making this decision when they’re being bombarded by the media and all the messaging that goes along with it. I think that the process—and the mistakes—can be your own.”

“I was lucky to have the experience at Milton of getting excited about learning, and I found that the good things about Milton were the good things about Brown. All these unique, amazingly curious people were around me.

Paloma Herman ’02 Brown University ’06 Education

“At Milton I had a lot of friends in Robbins house, I played sports, I did the day-boarder exchange, and so I got an idea of what it was like to be a boarder; I was on campus 14 hours a day sometimes. Once I was in the dorm at Brown though, I was able to say, ‘Oh, so THIS is what they meant about those chats at 1 a.m.!’ I finally experienced the feeling of ‘Well, I should be doing work, but I would rather sit here and get to know my hall mate from California.’ Going to a good college is excellent, but there’s more to the education than the classroom.

“My parents were were very clear about the fact that I would be the same person whether or not I got into my first choice school; they reminded me that I should not base my self-worth on someone else’s idea of whether I should be admitted to a school. I applied early to Brown during the first year that Brown made it a binding decision, and my comfort level with the process was in large part due to the support from my parents and the college office. The college office realizes that everyone needs different things from them. Rod Skinner helped to guide me but not push; he was there to help, and not to pressure or dissuade me.

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“I originally found that I was interested in psychology, namely human development, so I took a course in psychology of education, which was in the education department at Brown. I was drawn toward that department: It was smaller and more intimate, like Milton.

“Now that I have my degree in education I have five or ten things that I’d like to do, and college counseling is one. I worked in the admissions office at Brown and read The Gatekeepers [by Jacques Steinberg]. The admission process from the college side was interesting, and that’s part of why I would like to work on the high school end of things. I remember a quote on the college folder that we received during our Class II weekend that said, ‘College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.’ That’s true. I ultimately want that to be my working idea or principle.”

“My main intention and expectation of my college years was to leave with no regrets. Some people go into their college experience intent on a certain career choice or with the goal of getting a job that will make them a lot of money. My focus was much more on self-discovery.”

Darnell Nance ’02 Dartmouth College ’06 Sociology and Entrepreneurship

“One thing that surprised me, however, was that what really immersed me in my interest in school were the friends I made there. They helped me to build confidence in so many aspects of my life at Dartmouth. I learned more from the books that friends suggested, and from books I found myself, than from many of the course textbooks. I realized that I had the power to learn what I wanted to, and needed to. I had all of that in me.”

“When talking to friends from different colleges—hearing how well they were doing and how much they were enjoying it—I guess I was surprised at how everyone, including myself, overestimated how important getting into that ‘one perfect school’ is.

I realized that most people could be happy and do well at any number of colleges.”

“I was looking for a school with good academics where I could also continue to play soccer. With sports, almost any school could be a possibility, so I was really looking for a place where I found a coach I could get along with and work well with. I made the most of my college visit days. I used all of them to meet the teams, meet the coaches, really get a feel for life at the school.

“Dartmouth had a gorgeous campus in the middle of ‘Nowhere,’ New Hampshire. It was just what I was looking for: close enough to home but far enough away that I had my own space. One thing that I really loved and appreciated about Milton was the community atmosphere. If you didn’t know someone, you definitely knew of them. That was similar at Dartmouth.

“I tried different disciplines—economics, English, philosophy. I got a taste for different things. The allure of sociology grabbed me after studying theorists such as Marx, Weber, Tocqueville and Smith. Reading their works, I became imbued with the desire to start my own business, so as not to distance myself from the fruits of my own labor. A friend of mine and I plan to launch our company, Ara Sports, this fall. My passion is in entrepreneurship. Dartmouth has a great entrepreneurship program; it’s a little-known aspect of the school.

“Overall, my college career was a great one. I found a real passion for what I was studying; our soccer team won the Ivy League championship three times and we went to the NCAA tournament twice; I joined a fraternity (Alpha Delta) and made some of my best friends there. I think I succeeded in accomplishing what I set out to do.

James Ollen-Smith ’00 Brown University ’04 International Relations

“Cyrus Dugger and Martha Oatis—both Milton Class of ’98—turned me onto the AMIGOS program. I went during the summer before my Class I year. It really broadened my horizons and greatly affected my college search.

“AMIGOS involves a long preparation process—including fundraising…and training. I was in a small town in the Dominican Republic with two other volunteers. My town was poor and rural, near the border of Haiti, with no electricity and no one that spoke English. Each of us was placed with a different family. We were mainly building latrines and educating people about the importance of dental health. Our jobs were essentially to be aware of what was needed of us: We saw what people needed help with, and we did that. That experience made me more independent than I had ever been.

“Being in the Dominican Republic was my real experience ‘away.’ It helped me realize that I wanted to go to school a little closer to home. It also helped me not get too caught up in the whole frenzy of the college process. Having an experience so different from life at Milton really helped me stay grounded through the whole thing.

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“I wanted community service, an urban environment, and more work in Spanish, so Brown was where I saw myself.

The personal connection with people who go to or have gone to a school is by far the most convincing tool in the whole search. What helped me decide, ultimately, was talking with Brown grads; I really admired and identified with them.

“Looking back, I might actually have done better academically at a smaller school with small classes. At Brown the faculty didn’t reach out as much as they had at Milton. The classes were larger, and you had to take the initiative to get to know the faculty. That wasn’t my strong suit, so I didn’t develop close relationships with my professors until later in my years there.

“Being involved in intramural sports, an a cappella group, and community service rounded out my experience, but hands down, the friends I made were the best part of college.

“Most of the people I met didn’t have nearly the amount of help getting into college that I did. Many came from schools where one counselor worked with a couple hundred students. I am grateful for all the support Milton gave me, and I would reinforce for students that getting into that one school is not as critical as you think—you could be happy at lots of schools; and we get so much help and support at Milton that we should be grateful and not take that privilege for granted.”

“Making applications is not altogether a fun process, but I think you can take it on as a blessing, something that allows you the chance to think and the chance to write about yourself carefully.

It’s almost self-indulgent. You get to think long and hard about what you really want and how you want to get it.”

Alda Balthrop-Lewis ’02 Stanford University ’06 Religious Studies and Italian

“I visited Stanford and it was a beautiful, great school.

People would tell me that when you visit the place you’re meant to go, it just feels right. I felt that I could be happy there. I was very glad for that moment because I am sort of prone to making angst-filled decisions.

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“Something that I didn’t realize then is the vast difference between a university and a liberal arts college. Maintaining wide interests is more difficult at a university; if you’re an undergraduate who wants to study biology, you’ll have a difficult time finding someone with the interest in teaching you when they are alternatively training doctors. Of course this kind of thing can be overcome if you’re diligent and courageous, but I was neither. It also took me a while to get used to California. There’s a social tendency to be laid-back, or to look laid-back—I’m not sure which—and people were less prone to demonstrate intellectual interests and risk not appearing to be laid-back.

“However, all the resources that a school like Stanford provides are amazing to have at your fingertips. The department I chose, and the community I developed through that, made me really happy there. I became a religious studies major with a minor in Italian. I was always spoiled by the small class size at Milton, and that drew me into the program I chose: fewer students and more faculty. Excellent faculty. That department really catered to what I was looking for.

“Four years away teaches you a great deal—about academics, life, and yourself. We change so much, our priorities change. I’ve been thinking about the application process recently (I just applied last year for a Marshall Scholarship), and although people groan at the process, you can make anything you have to do something you want to do. Luckily, I didn’t have to work hard at enjoying the process. It’s rewarding. You get to take a real look at yourself and craft something introspective that represents you. When you think about it, that’s an awesome experience.”

The Tufts Plan: Admission process seeks evidence of leadership skills

L

ee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admission at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, tested the secondary school admission world at Milton. He was dean of admission at Milton from 2001 to 2003.

Lee takes mission statements seriously. To the extent that a school’s mission is alive in that school’s culture and priorities, the mission guides the admission decisions: Who would thrive in this environment? In turn, the students who enroll ultimately strengthen the mission. A pilot program that will be filtered into Tufts’ standard admission process aims to improve the chances of maximizing that two-way dynamic.

President Lawrence Bacow expresses Tufts’ mission as forging a community that uses intellect to make a difference in the world. “We celebrate the ideals of citizenship and activism,” Lee explains. “We want to create new leaders for a changing world. Assertiveness, flexibility, inquisitiveness, creativity, passion and leadership are qualities we seek.”

Tufts reviewed 15,291 applications last year to build a class of 1,275. Roughly 75 percent of the applicants, Lee says, are “qualified. They could perform successfully in a writing-intensive, discussion-oriented Tufts classroom.” How do admission officers find the potential “new leaders” among those applicants?

The Common Application has fueled more than 10 years of record numbers applying to Tufts and colleges like it, but the

Common Application yields fairly generic information about students. Like many schools, Tufts has added required supplemental essays to offer insight about applicants that also “reflect what we value as an institution,” says Lee. “You’d be surprised how much we’ve learned about students just through their answers to the first question (Describe the environment in which you were raised— your family, home, neighborhood or community—and how it influenced the person you are today.),” he says. “We’ve learned about dinner-table conversation, being raised by a single mom, coming out—as an adopted child—to parents and family: amazing insights and expressive writing based on seemingly innocuous life events.

‘The things I’m interested in are not part of the curriculum,’ one boy wrote.

‘Through my own exploration I learned that my heritage wasn’t boring. My love of ancestry was a launching point for understanding all kinds of differences in history, art, and literature.’ Our supplemental essays give people a chance to talk about their intellectual passion. These essays have already prompted different conversations among admission officers, but they’re not enough to get at what we’d like to know.”

Lee hopes Robert Sternberg’s work will reach further toward understanding a student’s capabilities. Formerly a professor of psychology and education at Yale, Robert Sternberg is now dean of Tufts School of Arts and Sciences. As Sam Allis, writing in the Boston Globe, summarized, “Sternberg… has made a career out of plumbing the depths of leadership, intelligence, creativity and wisdom.”

Rather than refute the need for standardized tests, Dean Sternberg simply says that they are too narrow. According to the journal Inside Higher Ed, “Sternberg rejected the notion that the SAT doesn’t add anything to the admission process. But he said that the SAT tends to have the most predictive ability for those from wealthier parts of society. By broadening the measures looked at, he said, colleges can have better predictive tools for all students.”

Dean Sternberg refers to measures he developed while at Yale. He describes them as “new assessment tools to supplement the horrid admission process,” according to the Boston Globe, which also reported that Sternberg’s assessment tools “were introduced at about 1,000 colleges and the results, to be published soon in the journal Intelligence, were bracing. These tools significantly flattened the performance differences among whites and minorities and improved the prediction of freshman performance.”

Dean Sternberg’s concept of successful intelligence, or leadership, involves three areas, Lee explains. “The first is creativity (having new or original ideas); the second is analytical skills (making good assessments of those ideas); and the third is practical skills (the ability to implement the ideas or to make things happen). The complement of all three is wisdom.”

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Rainbow Pilot: Tufts’ Optional Essay Questions Tufts is dedicated to developing leaders who will address the intellectual and social challenges of the new century.

Critical thinking, creativity, practicality and wisdom are four elements of successful leadership, and the following topics offer you an opportunity to illustrate the various elements of your leadership skills. We invite you to choose one of these optional essays and prepare an essay of 250–400 words.

Writing on his Web site, Dean Sternberg describes wisdom: “according to which a wise person is one who uses his or her successful intelligence in order to seek a common good, by balancing intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests; over the short and long terms; through the infusion of values; in order to adapt to, shape, and select environments.”

Acknowledging the synergy between Dean Sternberg’s research and Lee Coffin’s goals, the two joined forces to create a system that would more adequately reveal attributes of successful intelligence among applicants, and to include that system in the admission process.

How will it work? Tufts will launch a pilot program in the 2007 admission season, although it won’t apply to all applicants in the initial year. Tufts, like most colleges and universities, evaluates each applicant in three areas: academic achievement; extracurricular activities and talent; and personal qualities. At Tufts, admission officers use a scale of 1 to 7 to rate these attributes; a score of 1 represents outstanding achievement. The evaluation for academic achievement is the most important element and represents the “first cut.”

Applicants with scores higher than 5, approximately a quarter of the applicant pool, are out of the running. At the other end of the range, applicants in the top two ratings represent the top 20–25 percent of Tufts’ applicant pool. In the middle of these two groups sit the “3s” and “4s,” academically “qualified” candidates who constitute the broad, talented middle of Tufts’ pool. Last year, nearly 8,000 of the 15,291

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1. The late scholar James O. Freedman referred to libraries as “essential harbors on the voyage toward understanding ourselves.” What work of fiction or non-fiction would you include in your personal library?

Why? (Analytical) 2. An American adage states that “curiosity killed the cat.” If that is correct, why do we celebrate people like Galileo, Lincoln, and Gandhi, individuals who imagined long-standing problems in new ways or who defied conventional thinking to achieve great results? (Analytical & Creative) 3. History’s great events often turn on small moments. For example, what if Rosa Parks had given up her seat on that Birmingham bus? What if Pope John Paul I had not died after a month in office in 1978? What if Gore had beaten Bush in Florida and won the 2000 U.S. Presidential election? Using your knowledge of

applicants fell into this band. Lee hopes the Rainbow Project—the pilot system to assess for the successful intelligence—will help sort this qualified middle more effectively. “At a place like Tufts, where the overall acceptance rate is usually 25–28 percent,” Lee notes, “the admission process is inherently subjective. We hope the Rainbow measurements will offer additional, quantifiable indices to measure the ‘intangibles’ that populate our work.”

American or world history, choose a defining moment and imagine an alternate historical scenario if that key event had played out differently.

(Creative & Practical) 4. Create a short story using one of the following topics: a. The end of MTV b. Confessions of a Middle School Bully c. The Professor Disappeared d. The Mysterious Lab (Creative) 5. Describe a moment in which you took a risk and achieved an unexpected goal. How did you persuade others to follow your lead? What lessons do you draw from this experience? You may reflect on examples from your academic, extracurricular or athletic experiences. (Practical) 6. A high school curriculum does not always afford much intellectual freedom. Describe one of your unsatisfied intellectual passions. How might you apply this interest to serve the common good and make a difference in society? (Wisdom) 7. Using an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, illustrate an ad for a movie, design a house, make an object better, or illustrate an ad for an object. (Creative)

Students will be offered seven optional essays that have been designed to get at evidence of analytical, creative and practical skills; wisdom will also be probed. [To review the essays, see the sidebar on this page.] In addition, Lee plans other written exercises in a more traditional testing setting, some that are timed or prompted by videos. “[The students] could watch a film about a situation they might face in col-

Lee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admission at Tufts University, formerly dean of admission at Milton Academy

lege—such as going to a professor to ask for a recommendation only to realize that the professor doesn’t know you—and write a short piece about that,” according to Inside Higher Ed (July 2006). Inside Higher Ed reports that for these parts of the Rainbow Project, “Tufts will hold sessions for 150 applicants during a weekend that is part of the university’s efforts to recruit minority students.”

Using the Sternberg scale to grade the essays or the timed exercise, Tufts will introduce additional admissions evaluations. What impact will this grading have as admission officers try to make decisions? “We will admit approximately 2,000 students from this middle band of 8,000,” Lee says. Imagine, for instance, that 10 have earned a “distinguished” level of creativity. That’s a relevant additional data point. That would prompt a different

conversation. We had one essay from a person who grew up in a household and community as a member of a completely underrepresented political group. He talked about how he learned how to listen, how he went about getting things done.

He demonstrated a high level of practical ability. If, as a nation, we’re trying to foster civil political discourse between people with opposing viewpoints, why wouldn’t we admit this student?

In the interests of identifying students who will energetically fulfill the mission of the school, Tufts is trying something new.

It’s a low-risk experiment, with high potential outcomes: for the college, for students and, ultimately—if use of these assessment tools becomes widespread—for the quality of high school education.

Cathleen Everett

“Does being student body president,” Lee said to Inside Higher Ed, “really mean something, or was it just a popularity contest?…The Rainbow Project approach provides ways, in theory, to see how students respond to situations and how creative they can be in situations they haven’t been rehearsing at SAT camp for the last five summers. With a scientific basis to evaluating creativity and leadership, admissions officers are likely to put more weight on such qualities.”

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Financial Aid: The college gateway for most families

Sally Donahue ’71, Director of Financial Aid and Senior Admissions Officer at Harvard, in a discussion of perceptions, trends, realities

Aid is available: the College Board data show that “62 percent of undergraduates enrolled full-time receive grant aid from the federal or state government and/or from the institutions in which they’re enrolled.” Furthermore, Sally says that at Harvard, the average annual income of a grant recipient’s family is $90,000. The impact of increased college prices and widespread need for a finite pool of aid is greatest on families whose income is in the lowest quartile. Cost of college for these families ranges from 35 to 83 percent of family income, while that cost for families in the highest income quartile represents 12 to 19 percent of family income (see graph on opposite page).

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© The New Yorker Collection 1986 Warren Miller from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

“T

he fraction of families who can afford not to worry about the cost of college is tiny,” says Sally Donahue ’71, director of financial aid at Harvard, “and the effect on families of navigating the complex financial aid application process, as well as the admission application process, is profound.” Most families realize that the cost of attending both private and public colleges has increased annually, at a rate greater than that of inflation. According to Trends in College Pricing, an annual publication of the College Board, the average charges for four-year private colleges, including tuition, fees, room and board for 2005–2006, were $29,026. The average charges for four-year public universities and colleges were $5,491.

Making your way through detailed applications, figuring out how to manage educational costs, and getting at the differences among aid policies from one institution to another is daunting. Typically, families have heard snatches of advice from relatives and friends, as well as opinions and speculation from every corner. The generalized confusion and perceived mystery to the process has been fertile ground for indiscreet entrepreneurs. A growing number of financial planners, Sally says, have

sold their services to families, making unfounded promises. Thoroughly answering the financial questions is the best possible route to take, she says. Institutions are just doing their best to determine need equitably and to respond to genuine non-discretionary family financial circumstances.

“Harvard is in the extremely fortunate position of having the resources to meet the full demonstrated financial need of every admitted student, which makes it possible for us to admit students without regard for their need,” Sally explains.

“The way we assess that need, however, is typical of other highly selective colleges with institutional aid resources.

“Basically, we hope that families understand funding education as a major investment—an investment that requires drawing resources from at least three sources: cash (annual income), savings, and borrowing (out of future income). Our assessment of need is a measure of a family’s ability to absorb educational costs over time. Many families misunderstand and think that need is a measurement of what is left over, in cash flow, after all the other expenses of sustaining life have been subtracted. This misunderstanding often means that families are unprepared; they haven’t saved, and perhaps cannot manage monthly payments on what they would need to borrow without making major lifestyle adjustments.”

Sally is the chair of the College Board’s Financial Aid Standards and Services Committee (FASSAC). This group, which includes economists and representatives of selective colleges across the country, meets annually to review the institutional need analysis guidelines. The group’s job is to make sure the analysis reflects economic realities—in the nation and among applicant families.

“The goal is to be realistic and provide an equitable base for the decisions about aid.

It would not be equitable, for instance, to base an aid decision solely on how much a family had ‘left over’ after annual expenses, because families spend differently. The goal of ensuring that the decision-making process is as equitable as possible is what drives the number and type of questions we ask families. The more information we have, the better we can determine a family’s relative ability to absorb educational costs.

“There are basically two need analysis systems: the federal need analysis is statutory, and establishes eligibility for federal financial aid programs; and an institutional need analysis system, maintained by the College Board and used by many colleges

and universities nationwide, determines eligibility for their institutional sources of aid. Each system of need analysis, federal and institutional, allows certain basic and non-discretionary living expenses out of a family’s income, and expects those with sizable assets to contribute more than those with none. Factors such as the number of children in college and the size of a family affect the analysis significantly.

However, institutional methodology reflects contemporary economic circumstances, recognizes and encourages families’ educational savings efforts, and uses more modest income and asset assessment rates. It also offers colleges the ability to customize the formula to take additional factors into consideration, such as the cost of younger siblings’ private secondary school costs.”

Both Sally and Rod Skinner, Milton’s director of college counseling, point out that major differences exist among college and university financial aid programs across the country. Schools have different policies regarding how they determine a family’s ability to contribute, for instance.

Some schools use grants primarily, some rely more on grant-and-loan packages, some include on-campus jobs.

Full-time dependent student net tuition and fees and net cost of attendance (COA) as a percentage of family income, 1992–93 and 2003–04 Source: “Trends in College Pricing 2005” Copyright © 2005 The College Board, www.collegeboard.com. Reproduced with permission.

Universities and colleges use their financial aid dollars to achieve strategic goals.

Those goals can go from simply trying to include students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, to building certain programs, to attracting academically proficient students who may have a number of college options. Some programs are needbased, some are merit-based, and some schools offer merit scholarships to students who have qualified on a need basis.

Early Decision application programs, most counselors and admission officers now acknowledge, put students who need aid at a disadvantage. They apply hoping for a better chance at being admitted, but in so doing, give up the chance to compare aid packages as they have already committed to that school. “Families whose students apply Early Decision should be really clear ahead of time about that school’s financial aid programs,” Sally says, “and about their ability to handle whatever aid package their student is awarded.”

Harvard and many other colleges and universities have taken the position that the affordability and accessibility of a college education for low- and middle-income American families has reached crisis proportions.* In an address to the American Council on Education in February 2004, former Harvard president Larry Summers described “the manifest inadequacy of higher education’s current contribution to equality of opportunity in America.” He outlined a growing inequality in the United States: “In the same period when the median family income was going up 18 percent, the top one percent of all families saw a 200 percent increase in their income. Sharp increases in inequality and their relation to education are a serious concern.” An overriding concern is the evi-

*University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is hosting a national forum this fall on this issue entitled “The Politics of Inclusion: Higher Education at a Crossroad.” Sponsored by the Lumina, Andrew W. Mellon and Spencer Foundations and UNC at Chapel Hill, it will convene 125 federal and state policymakers, lawmakers, economists, researchers, business leaders, educators, news media and foundations who are invited to examine the roles of politics, policy, and practice in the determination of who gets to go to college and where. Sally Donahue ’71 is helping to organize the session at this symposium devoted to the discussion of outreach programs that have worked to increase access to higher education.

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dence that intergenerational mobility—the ability to move out of poverty to higher income levels, that in the past has been linked to education—may be decreasing in the United States. He and a number of other educational leaders believe that access to college education has historically made our society more just and more prosperous, and it is our most powerful option today.

President Summers notes that today, “a student from the top quartile is more than six times as likely as a student from the bottom quartile to graduate with a B.A. within five years of leaving high school. In the most selective colleges and universities, only three percent of students come from the bottom quartile and only 10 percent come from the bottom half of the income scale.…Children whose families are in the lower half of the American income distribution are underrepresented by 80 percent.”

According to Sally Donahue, children growing up in low-income households often do not have access to good secondary schools, and therefore lack the kind of college counseling and academic advising that would prepare them better for college.

Many parents do not know how financial aid programs make broad-based college opportunities available for their children.

This lack of awareness is compounded by the “sticker shock” of an education’s cost, which is often cited without mention of financial aid programs. So if a family is earning $45,000 and they see that it costs $45,000 to go to Harvard (or any other high-cost school), they often rule out that opportunity for their talented student simply because they cannot imagine that it might really only cost them a few thousand (or nothing at Harvard). Also, need-based federal financial aid programs (primarily the Pell Grant program) have not kept pace with the rising cost of education, and the recent growth of merit financial aid programs at the state and institutional level have eroded what is a limited pool of resources.

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Sally Donahue ’71, director of financial aid at Harvard University

To prepare for the financial aid initiatives the university ultimately took, Sally and her office colleagues held focus groups with students from low-income families.

Many students talked about confusing terminology, like “need-blind admission and need-based aid,” and a complex process.

Others talked about the responsibility they felt for new burdens to their families. They would rather work or borrow themselves than impose on their families the burden of meeting even a seemingly small parental contribution amount. Students acknowledged that they hadn’t believed that college, especially a highly selective college, was a possibility for them.

Harvard, Princeton and many other colleges and universities such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Amherst and the University of Virginia have each decided on their own packages of initiatives to encourage capable, talented students to enroll and attend.

Harvard’s program, HFAI (Harvard Financial Aid Initiative) includes: absolving families with incomes below $60,000 from parental contribution; recruiting more aggressively—getting the word about financial aid programs out earlier to students; and looking carefully at applications that reveal students that have “achieved a great deal despite limited resources at home or in their local schools.”

Sally finds her professional role in this high stakes field of admissions and financial aid both fascinating and gratifying.

She works simultaneously at several levels.

With colleagues at the College Board (FASSAC) she helps define and promote realistic and equitable data-gathering. With the administration at Harvard, she implements initiatives aimed at rebalancing a crucial playing field for students and their families, and more equitably diversifying the Harvard student body. As a teammate in the admission effort and director of financial aid, she feels fortunate to find, as she frequently does, students who are talented, resilient and brave. She works hard to reach out to the many families who apply for aid, as well as to educate a larger constituency about a process that should ensure equal opportunity.

Cathleen Everett

The Campaign for College Opportunity (CCO) is a nonprofit organization solely devoted to ensuring that the next generation of college-age students in California has the chance to go to college as promised by the state’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education.

The co-founders of the CCO are the California Business Roundtable, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Community College League of California.

Why is the Campaign for College Opportunity needed?

In 1960, California leaders made a commitment through the Master Plan for Higher Education to provide a place in college for every student who seeks the opportunity. That promise is now at risk. Over the next decade, it is estimated that 1.8 million students are likely to seek access to college over current capacity. Between 2000 and 2015, the number of Californians between the ages of 18 and 24 is expected to increase by more than one million. At the same time, there is no commitment or plan on the part of the state to provide adequate space and funding in our community colleges and universities for this decade growth.

Why is college access so important to California?

According to a recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley, titled “Return on Investment,” obtaining a higher education not only has “quality of life” benefits for the individual, such as having a more secure career, but it benefits the state as well. One major finding of the study is that for every new dollar California invests to get more students in and through college, it will receive a net return of three dollars. College education will also prepare California’s future workforce. Not every worker needs a college education to succeed, but according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring an associate’s degree or a postsecondary certificate are growing 60 percent faster than the job market as a whole.

Resource: www.collegecampaign.org

College: Worrying About Access Social and economic mobility is more than ever dependent on a college education

I

only recently began watching the HBO drama “The Sopranos” on DVD. Among the story lines about organized crime, I was surprised to find a significant story about the college prospects of Tony Soprano’s daughter, Meadow, and younger son, AJ. If mob bosses are worried about college, then we all must be worried.

Stories about higher education in our society focus on top-tier colleges and universities, the intense and increasing competition to get in, and the ever-rising costs of tuition at private institutions. Most Milton parents, like Tony Soprano, worry about where their children will go to college. For most American families, however, the question is whether their kids will go to college.

Whether America’s youth go to college affects their life chances significantly.

On average, a B.A. holder spends a quarter more of his life employed and has double the lifetime earnings of a person with a high school diploma, a difference of a million dollars. Conversely, gaining only a high school diploma means you are more than twice as likely to live in poverty, five times more likely to use welfare, and seven times more likely to be incarcerated. While these statistics do not dictate the life chances of any individual, increasing edu-

cation increases social mobility and leads to substantial personal benefits across broad swaths of the population, in every ethnic group.

Whether these students go to college affects taxpayers significantly.

Personal benefits quickly turn into public benefits; personal setbacks quickly turn into public costs. When people work more and earn more, they pay more in taxes.

When they depend on social services or are incarcerated, then taxpayers pay. A major study of public expenditures and benefits of higher education has found that for every dollar invested by California taxpayers in getting more students into and through college, taxpayers net a return of $3 on that investment. A 300% ROI is a good deal in any industry. Even if a state broke even on its investment, the benefits that accrue to its citizens would make this a worthwhile investment, but the benefits also accrue to state and public treasuries and taxpayers.

Whether students go to college affects the quality of our workforce and our economic competitiveness.

Occupations requiring college degrees or postsecondary education are growing faster than the workforce as a whole. This is due in part to the rapid growth of indus-

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tries that need educated workers, such as health care and information technology. It is also due to changes in occupational and educational demands within industries.

Layered onto this growth is the anticipated wave of college-educated baby boomer retirement. If the United States fails to meet growth in demand and to replace retirees with an educated workforce, our economic competitiveness will suffer.

Increasing the number of Americans pursuing and completing a college degree translates to substantial personal, public, and economic benefits. The policy debates surrounding this issue are invariably embedded in a number of more basic questions: • Should everyone go to college or have access to college?

• What is the balance between personal and public responsibility to pay for college?

• How responsive are private decisions to go to college to public policy decisions?

Americans generally agree that every person who has worked hard at school should have the opportunity to go to college. We generally reject the idea, however, that everyone needs to go to college. The critical point is that every student should finish high school with a level of proficiency that would enable them to go to college or directly into meaningful employment.

Each student should know about his or her college and financial aid options, and make an informed decision, rather than simply be moved off the college path.

The personal benefits and the public benefits of higher education are substantial.

Many families, though, are unwilling or unable to make the initial investment to pay for higher education, to lose current income for a future return that is likely but uncertain. On balance, the public needs to cover the substantial costs of education to make sure that students are able to pursue the opportunity. The public investment needs to be for public community colleges and universities, but also for financial aid that students can take with them to public or private institutions.

Finally, since the decision to attend college is up to the individual, can state and federal governments do anything to get more people into college? The answer is yes.

A number of states have made significant progress in raising college attendance and 24

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college success rates. These efforts range from early intervention in middle schools and high schools, public awareness programs, predictable tuition policies, needbased financial aid programs, to adequate support for enrollment and student services. Community colleges, given their open access design, ability to prepare people for university degrees and specific occupations, as well as their low cost to students and taxpayers, are a critical part of the solution.

In my current work at the Campaign for College Opportunity, we are tackling these questions in California. With a rapidly growing college-age population and increasing ethnic diversity, our ability to provide expanded college opportunity is critical to the state’s future success.

Unlikely allies, ranging from the California Business Roundtable to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, reflect a growing consensus about the importance of college opportunity for the economic and social well-being of our state.

Ultimately, Milton families will remain rightfully concerned about where our students will go to college. But we should be just as concerned with whether other people’s children will go to college. If we fail to expand the promise of higher education to an increasing number of Americans, we will all have a lot to worry about.

Abdi Soltani ’91

Abdi Soltani ’91, Executive Director, Campaign for College Opportunity

Faculty Perspective

Committed to the work of college counseling: Putting students first Rod Skinner ’72, Rachel Klein-Ash, Leya Tseng Jones, Terri James Solomon

issues. Part of the challenge and the juice of being a college counselor is being alert to those messages and reading them thoughtfully and wisely in a way that can be helpful to the student or to the communities of family or school. Fred Hargadon, former director of admission at Princeton, has often said that the coin of the realm in college admissions is sharing stories. Our work, then, primarily involves helping students discover their stories and then helping them tell those stories to everyone else, but it also involves listening for the stories of families, of Milton, and of the colleges where students plan to apply. It is intense, often complex, rich work.

Rod Skinner ’72 Anybody truly committed to the work of college counseling puts students squarely in the center of that work. For me, it’s a no-brainer. First, I cannot imagine working for a more dynamic, fun, energizing, deep-thinking group of students than Milton Academy students. Second, nothing is more thrilling, or satisfying, than that Eureka! Moment when pieces come together, ideas and realizations connect, and the student finds, in some or full measure, what he or she has been looking for. In those moments, the world becomes more understandable, more manageable, and we can see the student grow in confidence right before our eyes. In so many ways, the college process is not so much about finding the right colleges as it is about catalyzing the kind of intensive, clear-eyed self-examination and subsequent self-awareness that leads to the right colleges. So, the best college counseling work is light on the college and heavy on the counseling. Or, as the director of admission at Duke puts it, it’s not about the bumper sticker on the car.

Another aspect of college counseling that gets me out of bed every morning is that I believe that it is important work, a bellwether profession. College counseling puts the counselor at a highly charged nexus between a myriad of personal, social and institutional forces: student and self; stu-

Rod Skinner ’72

dent and family; student and school; student and college; school and college; to name a few. Sometimes, the interactions between these forces can flare into a flashpoint of conflict or revelation, and more often than not the counselor is called upon to help put what has happened into perspective. How a student or family or school responds to the inevitable ups-anddowns and pressures of the college process can reveal a lot about larger, fundamental

Finally, college counseling at Milton Academy has taken a particular hold on me because of the legacy left by Chuck Duncan and Susan Case, the former directors of college counseling. Chuck and Susan insisted on integrity, on telling the whole story, on holding students accountable so that students grow into freestanding individuals. They were resolute in holding external forces at bay so that students and families had the space to think and breathe freely and safely. Chuck was fond of saying that you cannot rush a three-minute egg. Our job is to ensure that the students get three minutes or however many minutes they need to grow and explore at the pace that makes sense for them. I draw a great deal of strength every day from the legacy of Chuck and Susan; it

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keeps me steady, it gives me purpose. It reminds me that a crucial part of this job is leadership and stewardship. It compels me to do what I must to preserve the values that Milton holds dear and that students need. I am honored to be carrying that legacy and blessed to be working with colleagues who share that sense of responsibility and who share the joy and humor that so often runs through every day of work.

Rachel Klein-Ash I had never heard of this private school gig called “college counseling.” In my regional public high school in Maine, I had a guidance counselor whom I barely knew: probably a missed opportunity on my part.

My parents and I limped along together through the college process, the blind leading the blind. After a horrendous go at the PSATs, they insisted I take a prep class.

I did improve, slightly. (Believe me, I can relate to those students who describe themselves as “not very good standardized testers.”) The first draft of my college essay was my last draft. I cringe when I think about all of its megablunders; I’m certain it must have been horrific.

I knew little about the college process and little about boarding schools. Only a hand-

ful of people from my hometown attended boarding schools. I knew I’d love living in a dorm at Milton, though, and have, now beginning my eighth year.

I care most about getting to know students: who they are, what they care about, what gets them out of bed in the morning, what fires them up, what makes them laugh, what inspires them. College counseling comes second to that. Being an effective, connected counselor means knowing well the students with whom I work.

I’ve visited many colleges over the past ten years and have been amazed by the passionate, smart and charismatic students and faculty that are everywhere, not just at the colleges most immediately on the Milton college lists. Hands-down, my favorite hidden gem is Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Families sometimes mistakenly equate our realistic assessment of a student’s chance of admission at a particular school with a lack of support for that student. This misunderstanding is a common part of our job. My focus is on the level of happiness and confidence a student has as he or she sets off into the world after Milton—not on the name of the school. The saying is right: College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.

Just over ten years ago, two college counselors did what four college counselors do now at Milton, though the size of the senior class is the same. What does that mean? Gaining admission to the most selective colleges has become more difficult. The explosion of college-related “products” has overwhelmed even the savviest of families. The use of email has skyrocketed. Milton and college tuitions have increased, so more seems to be riding on the “outcome” of a “Milton investment.” Perhaps all this means spending more time with and paying more attention to students and families.

Many parents and students ask me why I enjoy being a college counselor, since it seems fraught with stress and anxiety. It’s all about the students who come into my office, lay back on my couch, and use our time as an honest-to-goodness counseling session. The college process is, at times,

Rachel Klein-Ash

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Leya Tseng Jones

quite secondary to the daily lives these students are living. Helping students navigate the immensely challenging process of figuring out who they are, and how to share that in an authentic way, is thrilling to me.

What a fantastic gig.

Leya Tseng Jones After three years working in the admission office at Duke, where I got to “know” students without actually meeting many of them, I was ready to join many of my colleagues who had migrated to college counseling, where you could count on more student contact. Although I was interested in working at a boarding school, I was a counselor first at Harvard Westlake, a day school in Los Angeles. My role there included full advising (academic and social development) and college advising, as well as teaching.

I always liked what I had heard about Milton: that both boarding and day students were part of it, that it was accessible to the city, that students were not like cookie cutters but diverse, instead. I liked the motto, “Dare to Be True,” and thought the discipline system was an example of how the School carried out the motto.

Accountability was important, as was trusting students with information. So when

the opportunity beckoned, I came.

I have enjoyed Milton’s genuine team approach—students can meet with any counselor; we’re here to support students in any way that works for them.

At Milton, I was eager to be hooked into the students’ lives and the life of the School. Living in Centre House as a dorm parent has made that happen. I am intimately involved in the lives of teenagers, and that lends great context to the counseling work. For instance, in addition to my work in Centre House, next year I will advise the Self-Governing Association and The Asian [student magazine devoted to Asian and Asian-American culture], and teach Human Sexuality and Relationships.

Also, even though our work may seem disconnected from the classroom, we counselors have to see and understand a bigger picture of academic life, and we need to know about all aspects of the School.

The students at Milton are really interesting. My favorite meeting with them is the first when—without test scores or grades—they walk through the response form the office asks them to complete.

They’re talking about non-college issues: about themselves in a candid, open, frank and endearing way.

Working with families on a high-profile issue like college admission can be challenging; situations can be emotionally charged so that the highs are higher and the lows lower. It’s hard not always to have answers, and yet be in the position of dealing with news. For the most part, students know what’s what and have a sense of what choices are realistic for them.

I am happiest when students are comfortable enough, and supported enough, to keep the authenticity of who they are throughout the process; that’s when the process is most successful. Seeing how a process unfolds, from the beginning through an end that makes everyone happy, is also gratifying. Sometimes seeing how right the outcome was takes a full year, but it happens.

Terri James Solomon As a psychology major at Wellesley College exploring graduate school, I found that the most appealing programs were at schools of education. I returned to the Philadelphia area (where I had attended public high school) to earn an M.S.Ed. in the Psychology in Education program from the University of Pennsylvania, and also embarked on what would become a life’s passion: helping students clarify and pursue their goals.

Since then I have taught in public and private schools (including one founded by a Milton alumna), consulted with schools and community organizations, lived in residence (with the ABC program and at Wellesley College), counseled high school students about college selection, and counseled college students about career selection.

admission counseling peers piqued my interest in college counseling. College counseling has been a field that has intrigued me. I am glad to finally find it to be every bit as stimulating as I’d anticipated.

While my titles have varied, my career has revolved around teaching and counseling.

In reality, I see these roles as two sides of the same coin, because my goal in each case has been the same: to help students identify and nurture their talents. By far, the greatest reward in each position has been the opportunity to see a light turn on in students’ eyes, to witness the excitement of discovery, recognition, insight or understanding as everything comes together.

From a college counseling perspective (as I complete my first year in the profession), things come together when after months of self-reflection, college visits, carefully building a college list, and writing and rewriting essays, students find in April that they’re excited about their options.

April was truly an exhilarating month!

College counseling has required many of the skills that I’d developed in my former roles, namely strong listening skills, teaching skills, and understanding of developmental issues. It has also provided me with an opportunity to explore those skills in a new arena, something that meshes well with my love of exploring new things and environments.

I spent more than six years as a college admissions counselor at Wellesley College.

My work involved a great deal of travel; since I was the coordinator of ALANA (African American, Latina, Asian, and Native American) recruitment, that included several annual workshops with ALANA students around the country. The workshops, conducted with colleagues from four other schools, were designed to prepare talented ALANA students for the selective college admissions process. The relationships that I developed with the students, the high school counselors, and my

Terri James Solomon

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Chris Henrikson ’85 Delivers Commencement Address This year, graduating students chose Milton alumnus Chris Henrikson ’85 (right) as their commencement speaker. Chris founded Street Poets Incorporated of Los Angeles, a successful nonprofit organization dedicated to using the creative process as a force for personal transformation and social change. The origin of Chris’s foundation was his

teaching a poetry workshop in the Los Angeles County Juvenile Detention System for incarcerated boys from 14 to 18 years old; since then he has worked with at-risk youth in the juvenile detention system and social service placement facilities, helping them to discover and develop their voices as writers, artists and human beings.

Milton Academy 2006 Awards and Prizes Cum Laude Class I Nathaniel Williams Prince Anschuetz Benedict Brown Baerst Sarah Bashir Bakkar Caitlin Allegra BarryHeffernan* Michael Joshua Bechek Matthew Ross Bloom Margaret Bailey Wu Carroll Gregory Kauffmann Chase Lee Anne Filosa Jessalyn Y. Gale Laura Marie Gottesdiener Ian Hughes Halpern Katherine Yingqi Han Alexander Robert Heitzmann Luis Alonso Iraheta Jr. Sasha Kamenetska HyunJin Kim Seo Hyung Kim Simin Gharib Lee Kristin Anne Leonard Leo Alexander Lester Sarah Rosalie Magaziner Amanda Leigh McCafferty Alexander John Mercuri Harrison Fagan O’Hanley Reshmi Paul Oliver Alan Pechenik Stephanie Anne Richards Aida Sadr-Lahijany Anne Elizabeth Sando Jonathan Binswanger Snider Benjamin Jeppesen Stepner Lara Nicole Koerner Yeo * Elected to Cum Laude in 2005

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Class II Anna White LaVigne Meredith Lombard Ruhl

The Head of School Award The Head of School Award is presented each year to honor and celebrate certain members of Class I for their demonstrated spirit of self-sacrifice, community concern, leadership, integrity, fairness, kindliness, and respect for others.

Shellonda Anderson Matthew Ross Bloom Owen Jennings Caine Edward Walley Littlefield Harrison Fagan O’Hanley Rebecca Reid Sigel Megan Alyssa Smith Lara Nicole Koerner Yeo

The James S. Willis Memorial Award To the Headmonitors.

Marland Henry Hobbs Aida Sadr-Lahijany

William Bacon Lovering Award To a boy and a girl, chosen by their classmates, who have helped most by their sense of duty to perpetuate the memory of a gallant gentleman and officer.

Leo Alexander Lester Edward Walley Littlefield Jamie Elizabeth Mittelman Aida Sadr-Lahijany

Fritz Hobbs ’65, president of the Board of Trustees, with Head of School Robin Robertson

Student graduation speakers Devin Heater and Rebecca Sigel

The Louis Andrews Memorial Scholarship Award

The Science Prize

To a student in Class II who has best fulfilled his or her potential in the areas of intelligence, selfdiscipline, physical ability, concern for others and integrity.

Timothy John Walsh

The Korean War Memorial Scholarship Award Created in 1956 in memory of Frederick Sprague Barbour ’46, Thomas Amory Hubbard ’47, George Cabot Lee, Jr. ’47, and Sherrod Emerson Skinner, Jr. ’47, who gave their lives for their country and the United Nations.

Awarded to a boy or girl from a developing region to further his or her education at Milton Academy, while enriching the school by their presence.

Ivan Kozyryev (Ukraine)

The Leo Maza Award Awarded to a student or students in Classes I–IV who, in working within one of the culture or identity groups at the school, has made an outstanding contribution to the community by promoting the appreciation of that group throughout the rest of the school.

Simin Gharib Lee

The H. Adams Carter Prize Awarded to the student or students who, in their years at Milton, have shown a dedication to the pursuit of outdoor skills, demonstrated strong leadership, and reached high levels of personal achievement in one or more outdoor activities.

Elizabeth Wang Whitman

The A. Howard Abell Prize Established by Dr. and Mrs. Eric Oldberg for students deemed exceptionally proficient or talented in instrumental or vocal music or in composition.

Awarded to students who have demonstrated genuine enthusiasm, as well as outstanding scientific ability, in physics, chemistry and biology.

Lee Anne Filosa Oliver Alan Pechenik

The Wales Prize Awarded in honor of Donald Wales, who taught Class IV science for more than 36 years. It recognizes students in Class IV who have consistently demonstrated interest and excitement in science.

Daniel Nathan Charness Benjamin Jeppesen Stepner

Kelsey Michaela Creegan Nicholas Bullard Hurst Inji Jung Lee Hamilton Rodman

Harrison Otis Apthorp Music Prize

The Robert Saltonstall Medal

Awarded in recognition of helpful activity in furthering in the school an interest and joy in music.

For pre-eminence in physical efficiency and observance of the code of the true sportsman.

Leo Alexander Lester Emily Parker Pierce

Winston Marcel Tuggle

The George Sloan Oldberg Memorial Prize

Awarded by the English Department to students who display unusual talent in expository writing.

Awarded in memory of George Oldberg ’54, to members of the school who have been a unique influence in the field of music.

Desiree Ada Browne HyunJin Kim

The A. O. Smith Prize

Nicholas Sawyer von Liphart Jessica Macy Yu

The Markham and Pierpont Stackpole Prize Awarded in honor of two English teachers, father and son, to authors of unusual talent in creative writing.

Laura Marie Gottesdiener Aleeza Hannah Klarman Stephanie Anne Richards Tara Deviki Venkatraman

The Dorothy J. Sullivan Award To senior girls who have demonstrated good sportsmanship, leadership, dedication and commitment to athletics at Milton.

Through their spirit, selflessness and concern for the team, they served as an incentive and a model for others.

Amanda Victoria Brophy

The Donald Cameron Duncan Prize for Mathematics Awarded to students in Class I who have achieved excellence in the study of mathematics while demonstrating the kind of love of the subject and joy in promoting its understanding which will be the lasting legacy of Donald Duncan’s extraordinary contributions to the teaching of mathematics at Milton.

Sasha Kamenetska Seo Hyung Kim

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The Performing Arts Award Presented by the Performing Arts Department for outstanding contributions in production work, acting, speech, audiovisuals, and dance throughout his or her Milton career.

Caitlin Allegra Barry-Heffernan Devin James Heater Elisha Flagg Lee III Simin Gharib Lee Sarah Rosalie Magaziner Ivy Martinez Nathaniel Fearey Obler Benjamin Eric Pariser Anne Elizabeth Sando Michelle Amanda Torski Henry Moss White

The Kiki Rice-Gray Prize Awarded for outstanding contributions to Milton Performing Arts throughout his or her career in both performance and production.

Owen Jennings Caine

The Priscilla Bailey Award To a senior girl who has been a most valuable asset to Milton Academy athletics and to the Milton Academy Community— an athlete who has demonstrated exceptional individual skills and teamwork, as well as true sportsmanship.

Claire Hawthorne Sheldon

The Henry Warder Carey Prize To members of the First Class, who, in Public Speaking and Oral Interpretation, have shown consistent effort, thoroughness of preparation, and concern for others.

Laila Marie Ameri Sasha Kamenetska Ivy Martinez

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The Robert L. Daley Prize Created by his students of 1984 in his memory and honor, this prize in Classics is awarded to the student from Latin 4 or beyond who best exemplifies Mr. Daley’s love of languages.

Caitlin Allegra Barry-Heffernan

The Richard Lawrence Derby Memorial Award To an outstanding student of the Second Class in Mathematics, Astronomy, or Physics.

Jessica Kingsdale Korei Hershel Klein Ivan Kozyryev

The Modern Languages Prizes Awarded to those students who, in the opinion of the Department, most exhibit the qualities of academic excellence, enthusiastic participation, and support of fellow students, both in class and outside.

Margaret Bailey Wu Carroll Amanda Leigh McCafferty Anne Elizabeth Sando Nicholas Sawyer von Liphart

The Milton Academy Art Prizes

The Alfred Elliott Memorial Trophy

Awarded for imagination and technical excellence in his or her art and for independent and creative spirit of endeavor.

For self-sacrifice and devotion to the best interests of his teams, regardless of skill.

Nathaniel Perry Danforth Matthew Taylor Schoen Eric James Stutz

Ken Lin

The Gorham Palfrey Faucon Prize Established in 1911 and awarded to members of Class I for demonstrated interest and outstanding achievement in history and social science.

Benedict Brown Baerst Matthew Ross Bloom Katherine Yingqi Han Lara Nicole Koerner Yeo

The Benjamin Fosdick Harding Latin Prizes Awarded on the basis of a separate test at each prize level.

Level 5: Christopher Jung Lamont Level 4: Brook Alicia Rice Yelena Leonidovna Tsilker Level 3: Charles Codman Cabot

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Herbert G. Stokinger March 24, 1906 – May 8, 2006 Milton Academy Faculty, 1928–1971 A 100th Birthday Celebration • A Fond Farewell

“The best observation I can make at the conclusion of my long career is that I am grateful for the contributions of so many fine and dedicated young men. I was very fortunate to have intelligent players and found that coaching them was a very pleasant occupation. During my working career, I went to the office every day for 43 years looking forward to the day’s activities. I can only wish the same job satisfaction for all of you.”

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n May 8, 2006, Herbert G. “Stoky” Stokinger ’24 died at age 100. Stoky was born in Reading, Massachusetts, on March 24, 1906, but moved to Milton as a young man and lived there for the remainder of his one hundred years. A gifted and versatile athlete, he graduated from Milton High School, spent a year at Milton Academy, and received his degree from Boston College in 1928. In 1929 he was invited to return to the Academy as assistant to the athletic director, Martin Souders. Stoky, Milton Academy’s oldest graduate, was director of athletics and physical education at Milton for more than 40 years. With his wife, Esther, he was at the center of the life of the Academy well beyond his retirement in 1971.

Stoky attended sports contests, graduations, ceremonial events and graduate gatherings until last fall. He provided training and expert advice for three heads who took office after his tenure: Jerry Pieh, Ed Fredie and Robin Robertson. The Academy celebrated Stoky’s 100th birthday on April 1, 2006, and 300 of his former students and players came from around the world to acknowledge his legacy of physical fitness, good sportsmanship and character.

Decades of students recall both the importance and the pride in meeting Stoky’s expectations, of which there were many. Stoky firmly believed—and firmly communicated his beliefs—in the central importance of excellent posture, diet and proper conditioning. In his honor, graduates donated and then dedicated the Esther and Herbert G. Stokinger ’24 Fitness Center at the Academy’s bicentennial in 1998.

Stoky’s standards regarding sportsmanship and appropriate behavior were clear and immutable; he earned the respect and the devotion of students and coaches by modeling in his own demeanor what he expected of them.

Stoky’s reign did not end with his tenure. He “supervised” coaches, particularly in football and baseball, long after his retirement, and boys through classes in the late 1990s delivered Stoky many a game ball after a momentous season or individual contest. After he could no longer walk the boundaries of the football and baseball fields, he would watch each game from his well-recognized white car, sporting his Milton cap with the correct “M” inscribed. Marijke Alsbach, interim athletic director at the Academy, said she feels as if Stoky never left. “Putting the cones up so that he could park his car in view of the field was something we never stopped doing,” she said. Just before his death, Marijke was planning to go to Stoky for advice about the Academy’s sports awards this year.

Graduates gathered about him at every event to check in and share stories (although few could compete with Stoky’s memory). His photograph smiling out of magazine after magazine let alumni know that something was right with the world. Of course, the love of Stoky’s life, his wife Esther, was part and parcel of the boys’ devotion.

Active in school athletic associations in Massachusetts, New England and nationally, Stoky served on a variety of boards and received numerous honors.

Decades of summers were spent leading boys’ camps. In 1933 Stoky was one of six founders of Camp Wabun, a canoe trip camp on Lake Temagami several hundred miles north of Toronto.

Boys (and later girls) ages 10–18 were initiated into “the Wabun way,” which included packing supplies efficiently in wannigans (large wooden boxes), thence in canoes, for ever longer adventures as they grew older and more adept. They also learned the techniques for portaging canoes and supplies with tumps (long leather straps worn around the forehead). The oldest boys canoed through river rapids on a summerlong trip to Hudson’s Bay. With time out for a stint at Camp Kieve in Maine, Stoky was director of Wabun for more than 30 years and spent his last summer on Lake Temagami in 1989.

He was an active member of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church where he served on the vestry.

He served as well on Milton town committees and was an avid member of the Civil War Society.

Stoky’s birthday celebration was also his farewell, and he said to the alumni in the room: “The best observation I can make at the conclusion of my long career is that I am grateful for the contributions of so many fine and dedicated young men. I was very fortunate to have intelligent players and found that coaching them was a very pleasant occupation. During my working career, I went to the office every day for 43 years looking forward to the day’s activities. I can only wish the same job satisfaction for all of you.”

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A 100th Birthday Celebration

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In Memoriam: Herbert Stokinger If ever a man stood tall in the annals of Milton Academy, and many have, surely Herbert George Stokinger is one of them. He and his devoted wife, Esther, were strong pillars that supported the School through the decades of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. Esther’s gentle goodness was seen in her complete support of Stoky, her bountiful supply of chocolate cake for football teas, and her years of service to the Faculty Wives in those distant days when one member of a couple could win enough bread for the family. Esther taught sewing in the Girls’ School and was a devoted parent to son, Ricky, and niece, Mary Jane Caldwell, who was a virtual daughter.

Stoky and Esther loved children, and he was the first adult I knew who could say “supercallifragalisticexpyallidocious” before the days of Mary Poppins!

Stoky’s record as a coach was extraordinary, a combined total of 263 (wins), 178 (losses), 14 (ties) in football, basketball and baseball from 1929 to 1966.

But surely much more important to him and to Milton was

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his unflagging interest in sportsmanship and fair play.

Stoky told me that there were only two questions a coach could ask an official: “Did you see the play?” and “Do you know the rule?” Since an official answering in the negative is so unlikely, the coach should apparently keep quiet and go with the flow.

Over the years I knew Stoky— while the School was led by Arthur Perry, Dave Wicks, Jerry Pieh, Ed Fredie and Robin Robertson—he occasionally vigorously disagreed with their decisions, but I never knew him to show that publicly. His loyalty to the School and her standards has been utterly uncontested.

His precision and ability to manage details was also legendary. He took the time to design the official dimensions of the Milton “M” and included his architect’s drawing of that M in the school archives. I recall his pain when a baseball cap was issued with a decorative Old English “M.” Like Stoky, I came to Milton directly out of college. I had no professional qualifications beyond enthusiasm. We faculty

were all required to coach two seasons. In October 1954, Toby Smith and I coached Warren League Football. We were nearly completely ignorant. Toby used to kneel on the field on one knee, holding the ball, and proclaim, “If you can’t be a coach, you can at least look like one.” Toby felt that morale and confidence were paramount and assigned the title of “Tiger” to any of his players who did particularly well. One afternoon Stoky came down from the first team to show us how the game should be played: He took his coaching seriously and wanted us all to learn. He assigned each offensive and defensive player a number and an assignment for the upcoming play.

The ball was snapped. Chaos!

Stoky collared Bobby Norris ’60 (then in Class VI), trying to see what went wrong, and asked him, “What are you?” expecting the answer, “fullback” or “number eight.” Bobby looked up and proudly announced, “I’m a Tiger, sir.” I can’t remember Stoky’s reaction, but Toby was delighted! We never came close to Stoky’s coaching standards, but he never let on, and many of our players did eventually earn their Milton “M.”

Stoky was well known beyond Milton. He was an active member of St. Michael’s Church and of various camping associations, having served camps in Canada, Vermont and Maine.

He was active in school sports throughout New England.

Perhaps less well known was his ability as a violinist. I recall his playing with Arthur Perry and Adams Carter at a Christmas dinner in the ’50s.

Stoky joined the faculty in 1928 and retired from the faculty in 1971, but never retired from the Academy. He was a constant presence at games and at Graduates Days over the years, kept in close touch with hundreds of former players, and delighted in giving the minutest details, with clarity and unbounded enthusiasm, of athletic contests over the distant past. I am sure that every head of the School in the past 80 years received several letters from Stoky offering advice and a unique historical perspective.

He deeply cared for Milton and Milton cared for him.

Donald Duncan Milton Academy Faculty 1949–1996 March 2006

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Marijke Alsbach, interim athletic director, 2005–2006, awards Stoky the super fan T-shirt students are wearing

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Ann Carter, wife of the late Ad Carter ’36

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Phil Andrews ’53, Dave Sheehan ’53 and Lorraine Sheehan, Cecilia Andrews, Mike Robertson ’53

4 Left to right, Jack Garrity, with son Jeff Garrity ’70, along with former faculty members Chuck Duncan and John Zilliax

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Susan Sargent, David Taylor ’63, Ben Taylor ’65

6 Roger Perry ’43, Nancy Gannett, Bill Gannett ’43 and Brad Perry ’45 7

Former faculty and hockey coach Lefty Marr, Jake Wheeler ’66, Walter Horak ’66

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Dick Gamble and Smiley Ruggles, both Class of 1946

9 Camille and Sam Campbell ’43

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The Beyers: Ned ’65 and Joan with Linda and Henry (“Bill”) ’63 and a Stoky victory sign

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From the Class of 1954, Larry Altman, Ed Ofgant, and Marshall Schwarz, trustee emeritus

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Steve McCarthy ’84, Jack Reardon ’56, trustee and the birthday emcee, with Dan Pierce ’52

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Bill Burgin ’61, trustee

Jim ’52 and Ned Fitzgibbons ’40

10 Passing the baton, a word from Stoky to Bill Whitmore, Milton’s athletic director

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4 Robin Robertson, Jerry Pieh and Ed Fredie, heads of school from 1973 through the present Stoky and Margaret Osgood ’29

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9 Martin Lobkowicz ’47, Frank Millet, Hugh Marlow ’53

11 Steve Gifford ’40 12 Tom Cleveland ’45

6 Fritz Hobbs ’65 and Jim Pappas ’64

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Herbert G. Stokinger ’24 Curriculum Vitae Born March 24, 1906 Married Esther Bishop Stokinger 1930 Esther, 1905–1998 Son: Richard, 1938–1988

Education Milton High School Diploma 1923 Letters in Basketball, Baseball Milton Academy Diploma 1924 Letters in Football, Basketball, Baseball Boston College, PhB Degree 1928 Letters in Basketball, Baseball 9

Career Milton Academy Faculty 1928–29 Assistant Director Physical Education & Athletics 1929–30 Acting Director Physical Education & Athletics 1930–71 Director of Physical Education & Athletics Coaching at Milton Academy Football—26 Seasons—W 110, L 49, T 14 Basketball—15 Seasons—W 98, L 84 Baseball—7 Seasons—W 55, L 45 Overall Winning Percentage All Sports—60 % Winning Percentage Football—70 % Winning Percentage Versus Nobles—66 %

Memberships American Football Coaches Association since 1930 National Athletic Directors New England Prep School Athletic Council—Co–founder Eastern Mass Independent School League Council

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Milton Civil War Society Past President, Milton Town Club Past Warden, St. Michael’s Parish Milton Historical Society

Honors

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1965 American Football Coaches Association— Life Honorary Member 1971 Stokinger Field Dedicated 1st Recipient Talbot Baker Faculty Award 1983 Mass High School Football Coaches Assn—Hall of Fame 1985 NEPSAC—Distinguished Service Award 1998 Dedication of Herbert G. ’24 and Esther B. Stokinger Fitness Center

Boys’ Summer Camps Camp Keewaydin, Temagami, Ontario, 1929–1931 South Pond Cabins, Fitzwilliam, NH, 1935–1936 Camp Wabun, Temagami, Ontario, 1941–1950 Camp Kieve, Nobleboro, Maine, 1952–1957 Camp Wabun, President, Managing Director, Owner, 1959–1975 2H0G0S6

So Far….So Good

Milton M

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Graduates’ Weekend 2006 38

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“Dare to Be True” The 2006 honored speaker: Jack Reardon ’56

Harvard’s recent initiatives to recruit and support economically disadvantaged students.

Being involved in Harvard’s successful drive to recruit and enroll African-American students in the late 1960s meant witnessing the decrepit state of some urban high schools, and supporting individual students’ adjustment to Harvard and ultimate success, in college and thereafter.

For Jack Reardon, daring to be true has meant devoting a lifetime to educational institutions, because of the young people they serve and the differences they can make in young people’s lives.

In the past, Jack has served Harvard University as director of admissions and director of athletics; today he is executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association. Asked by Jim Fitzgibbons ’52 to share his talents with Milton as well, Jack joined the board in 1990, and continues to serve Milton with generosity, rare expertise and good humor.

Jack has become indispensable to both institutions. The scope of his experience, his intellectual and practical skills, and his brand of diplomatic activism has helped shaped many a decision at each of the schools.

After the Wharton School and several years at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Jack was considering career options.

An offer to join the office of admission at Harvard intrigued him: “I kept thinking about how my teachers at Milton had made a difference in my life and kept weighing going into business or doing something very different that would satisfy my urge to work with students.

“The combination of my teachers and the culture of the school affected me, as did my love of Harvard. I was true to myself and accepted Fred Glimp’s offer knowing that if I didn’t take it, I would probably start making just enough money in other work that I might never review the decision.”

Two role models at Milton were particularly powerful: “In the summer between the seventh and eighth grades my father died suddenly and his death changed my world.

During the next year and onward, two faculty members paid attention to me in a way that affected me forever. Frank Millet was there a lot of the time with a kind word, or an honest and not-so-kind word when necessary, but he was always there for me and I didn’t realize at the time what a difference he was making in my life. He was, and is, a special mentor. Frank was a role model who influenced the way I have lived the rest of my life.

“Stoky was a second person…I drove him nuts because I was not a good athlete and he drove me nuts because nothing ever satisfied him. But Stoky was honest with me to a fault, worried about me, and I spent a summer as a camper and then worked for him as a counselor for five summers.”

“I share these examples,” Jack said, “because being part of a great institution where it is possible to leverage resources for the growth and benefit of others provides a satisfaction like nothing else, and everything that I absorbed from my teachers and the culture of Milton helped send me this way.

“One of the most important effects of choosing the right road was meeting inspirational individuals,” Jack continued.

“I will mention one of them, Albert Hamilton Gordon, who was Harvard Class of 1923. …He challenged me beyond understanding and I am the better for it. [Al] will be 105 on July 21 [2006]; he ran his first marathon in London at age 80, ran Kidder Peabody until it was sold to GE and is one of Harvard’s all time great benefactors.”

Jack’s career did bring him contact with students and opportunities to affect lives.

From academic life, through religious life, to Harvard athletics, “[Al] made a huge difference because he wanted what was right for the university, even when large numbers of important people at Harvard didn’t want quickly to go along with him. He was true to Harvard and to himself.

For example, an admission drive to build interest in Washington State brought to Cambridge a young man who would not have considered, nor could have afforded, Harvard.

He is now a key benefactor in

“I talk about Al because individuals do make a difference to institutions, even large institutions, and if the individuals who care are true to themselves they can help the institution to be true to itself.”

Jack related the experience of 16 years as a member of Milton’s board as well.

“Throughout my time on the board the leadership of the school—both the administrative and the trustee leadership—has been challenged to be true to Milton’s motto. And that is fair enough if the school is to maintain excellence.

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Smiles from the Class of 1996

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John Reidy ’56

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Amanda Hollis, Alex Roitman, Lucy Byrd, Stephanie Turchi, Carrie Greer, Travis Kellner—All Class of 2001.

“Milton Academy is always a work in progress. Much still needs to be accomplished if we are to live up to the motto of the school—new science and arts buildings must be constructed, proper faculty compensation needs to be addressed, and while we do a lot with financial aid, we don’t have enough and as a result some great students either aren’t admitted or turn down the chance to come to Milton.

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“It is easy to sit back and be good not great,” Jack said, as a person who has modeled the example, for Harvard and for Milton, of setting and meeting the highest expectations. “I can say with confidence that the leadership of Milton is living up to the School’s motto, “Dare to Be True.” [Milton] is an exciting, vital, dynamic institution providing students with a powerful intellectual experience.”

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4 Morgan Palmer ’51 finds what he was looking for Heather Ewing ’86 and Upper School Principal Rick Hardy

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6 Phil Robertson ’56 and Frank Millet Jim Gilliat and Peter Cutler, 1956, with a longtime fan of the fiftieth class 2

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Tare Newbury ’56, Bob Hallowell ’56, Susan Newbury

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Frank Millet and Jack Reardon

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Anne Robertson and Tare Newbury ’56

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4 Steve Brotman ’86 and family Grace Chan McKibben ’86, faculty member Mark Hilgendorf, Carla (Burton) Daniels ’86, Ricardo Daniels, Derrick Cooper ’86

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6 The reunion weekend varsity baseball team

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Tom Flaherty, still the coach

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Afternoon Jazz. Samara Oster ’09, Steve Sando ’07, Desiree Browne ’06

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Laura Chase Crocker, Mitzi Marsh and Peggy Sheffield—all Class of 1956—at the Girls’ Class Lunch

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Carly Wade, history department chair, leads a lively Milton Classroom discussion

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Alice Burley ’96

4 Aidan Hardy ’06 and Sarah Ebert ’07 lead tours

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Alumni still look great in lacrosse uniforms

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Laura Chase Crocker ’56 and Judith Chute ’56 at the Class of 1956 Girls’ Lunch

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Ellie Griffin (center), faculty, with old friends

4 Perfect day for horseplay Class of 1981: Catching up

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6 Chris Garrity ’81 recognizes a classmate. Do you?

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Classroom The urchin lab is a favorite Rearing larval sea urchins together

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pare timing to those markers for their experimental versus their control urchins.

In the final portion of this lab, which lasts about three weeks, the microscopic larvae begin to grow pairs of “arms.” Occasionally, many weeks after the lab officially ends, a larva will metamorphose, totally altering its body shape and symmetry, producing a juvenile that lives on the bottom, rather than in the water column where the larvae lived.

arly in the school year, students in Honors Biology work through a favorite lab, the “urchin lab.” At the time, students don’t realize the long list of “embedded goals,” as faculty member Linde Eyster calls them, associated with this lab.

Students get to rear larval sea urchins (or some other echinoderm such as sand dollars if “ripe” urchins are not available).

“We mail order adult sea urchins, induce them to release their mature eggs and sperm, rinse the eggs, dilute the sperm, mix the gametes, and watch formation of a fertilization envelope around each zygote,” Linde explains. In order to get the full experience, students must spend many hours in the lab. The early events happen rapidly: spawning, fertilization, cleavage stages and hatching of a swimming stage all occur within about the first 24 hours.

Watching one cell cleave into two over a period of just a few minutes is especially impressive. Although typically each student sees, in real time, only a few of these early stages, all stages are detected by some students. “Students have suggested we have a sleepover in the lab so they all actually get to watch all these early changes,” says Linde. When students determine that their embryos or larvae have reached the next developmental stage, they record it on video for students who missed that stage.

The swimming ball of cells (blastula larva) then begins to develop a gut tube by a process of gastrulation. Because the larva is translucent, students can observe formation of the anus, digestion tube and the

For the experimental portion of this project, each student team selects one variable to examine. Some of the questions students have examined are:

Linde Eyster, Science Department

mouth. Once the larvae can feed, the students must provide periodic doses of onecelled photosynthetic phytoplankton.

“During class, if a student finds a particularly nice example of some stage, we project it on the television through a camera connected to the microscope. One of the biggest challenges for the student is learning to use a pipette and dissecting microscope to catch one of the tiny swimming larvae and transfer it in a small drop of water onto a depression slide for observation under a compound microscope,” says Linde. Students are required to make some drawings by hand, to increase their attention to morphology of the organisms, and later they record the stages using digital microscopes. The students record the developmental markers—how long did it take to get to stage X or stage Y—and com-

Does it matter • which species of phytoplankton I provide as food?

• whether the sea water is still or shaken?

• whether the sea water is full strength or slightly reduced?

• whether the culture dishes are tall and narrow versus short and wide?

• whether the larvae are kept in the dark for most of their lives?

“Rather than exploring a single concept we’re concurrently studying in the classroom, this lab experience grounds students in many of the topics we will consider throughout the year,” Linde explains, “from the parts of a cell through how global climate change might affect specific organisms.”

This lab experience is a foundational, hands-on learning opportunity that gives students conceptual, visual and mechanical insight into the core content of Honors Biology.

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Post Script Post Script is a department that opens windows into the lives and experiences of your fellow Milton alumni.

Graduates may author the pieces, or they may react to our interview questions. Opinions, memories, explorations, reactions to political or educational issues are all fair game. We believe you will find your Milton peers informative, provocative and entertaining. Please email us with your reactions and your ideas at cathy_everett@milton.edu.

Paper Cuts “Take Heed When It Hurts” Peter Alduino ’73

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o let me talk about paper cuts. You know how when you get a paper cut, you bleed a little bit and it hurts. What happens if you get another paper cut and it bleeds a little bit and it hurts? And then you get another paper cut and it bleeds a little bit and it hurts. And again and again and again and again and again. Soon it’s going to hurt a whole lot, and one of two things is going to happen: either you are going to be in great pain, or you are going to bleed to death. Now, why isn’t that exactly the same every single time we violate one of our closely held values. Every time we violate one of our closely held values, it’s like getting a paper cut. Now perhaps it hurts just a little bit, and you bleed just a little bit, and you say you will get over it.

But if the pattern persists and you allow yourself to continuously violate closely held values, sooner or later it hurts so much that something happens that fundamentally changes you—either because you are in such great pain, (unless you can live with that pain), or because you bleed to death. No, you don’t literally bleed to death, but you figuratively bleed from the spirit, so much so that you cease to have a conscience around that value. It disappears. You know the expression, “that is a bloodless guy” or “that person is bloodless.” What does that mean? It means the person is unfeeling. So, in our case, it means that we have lost the ability to feel, to connect spiritually and consciously with that closely held value.

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Here is an example. A few months ago I went into the Apple store at the Oakridge Mall in San Jose, California. I was going to buy a battery for my laptop, a carrying case for my iPod and a new power cord. And just as I was approaching the register, the gentleman who was helping me asked: “Are you an educator?” I hesitated, and I said, “Well, no; well, yes.” I said, “Listen, I am in private business, but my business is education,” which is what I do. And he said, “Well, do you teach at university?”

I said, “Oh yeah.” And he said, “Can I see your university ID?” And I showed him my ID from University of California, Berkeley from which I have an ID card as a visiting member of the faculty. Now that ID card had expired. I was no longer a member of the faculty; that had been two years earlier.

But I got away with bending the truth. No, knowingly misrepresenting the truth. My faculty ID card allowed me $5 off on one purchase and $8 off on another. Total was a $13 discount. So I got a $13 discount on a $260 purchase because I was willing to bend the truth about whether I was currently teaching at UC Berkeley. You might say, c’mon, so what, it’s no big deal. And maybe it isn’t a big deal, but it’s a paper cut and I felt it. I felt the hurt. I felt the hurt for having intentionally and knowingly lied for the sake of $13. Basically I was willing to compromise one of my closely held values—daring to be true—for $13.

So let me tell you what I did to try to regain a personal semblance of integrity. I went back to the store, back to the salesman, and said that I was really only a lecturer, and I was not really employed by UC Berkeley. What I did not do was just fess up and say “I just lied to you.” That was my pride kicking in. That was my lack of humility kicking in. I did not say, “I’m not really entitled to this.”

I am able to relate all of these events and thoughts so vividly because I recorded them on my iPod literally five minutes after this happened. As I re-listen to my voice, I can hear that I am in pain for having violated the value that I hold most dear—daring to be true. I hear myself shouting, “For $13, I am in pain.” Were you to hear the tone of my voice, you would know and hear that I am extremely mad at myself.

Was that worth $13?

Now, I eventually got over this. But this reminds me once again that there are some things, some guiding principles that really are not negotiable. And it hurts a whole lot more to violate them than it does to hold them with tremendous and utmost respect, and to honor them.

If my pattern were such that I had just said: “Well, that’s not such a big deal,” I would probably not think twice when I repeated the same kind of small cheating elsewhere and then elsewhere and then

elsewhere. I would probably not think much of it because in the grand scheme of things, I might think that it wouldn’t amount to anything.

But it does amount to something. In the grand scheme of things, each time I repeat the same kind of small cheating, I am cutting myself. I am bloodletting. I am bleeding to death spiritually. If I don’t love myself, or care about myself enough to hold myself to a standard that I admire, it is going to negatively affect the way that I think of myself.

If I don’t admire myself, if I don’t love myself, and if don’t care about myself, then it is also entirely probable that other people will feel and experience my personal lack of love and caring and commitment. So, if I am in a position of leadership, am I going to be somebody who is going to inspire other people, or am I going to be somebody who gives them pause? I suspect that I would be somebody who would give them pause because they would not quite be sure if I am real or credible. From my own perspective, looking inwardly, I would be sure that I am not credible if I were repeatedly unwilling or unable to hold myself to the standards of my values and guiding principles.

So what is the lesson I draw from this incident? I don’t intend for this to become a pattern. What I do intend is that this small incident once again reminds me that I and every one of us is fallible, that every one of us trips up and every one of us is prone to these small paper cuts. What I implore myself to do, and what I implore all of you to do, is to take heed when it hurts. Take heed when you cut yourself and ask: “What did I do here to contribute to this hurt?” Learn from it, grow stronger from it. Grow stronger in your resolve and your commitment to adhere to your closely held values. Grow stronger in your resolve and your commitment to model the way of being and living for which you want to be known and remembered. The result will be a strengthening of yourself that other people around you will feel and sense and admire and want to emulate.

This is how each one of us creates a stronger world, a more principled world, a more purposeful world — the kind of world we want to work in, the kind of world we want to live in, the kind of world we want our children to live in. That is

how each one of us models the behaviors we want our own children to embrace and defend. Living, behaving and acting consciously and purposefully in accordance to our closely held values is not the easiest thing to do. It is hard. But the rewards are tremendous—the rewards of feeling solid and feeling whole and feeling integrated— mind, body and spirit.

“Be the light that you want to see in this world” as Gandhi said. Behave, speak and act consciously and purposefully in accordance to your own closely held values. Be the person that your children, your colleagues, your friends, and you would choose to emulate. No paper cuts.

Peter Alduino is President and Founder of Bridge Group Communications, LLC, a San Francisco Bay Area-based consulting practice providing comprehensive leadership development seminars and executive coaching. The mission for all of his work is driven by his desire to help his clients enrich their own work lives, and create one of the best places to work, anywhere. He is guided in his work by these, his personal and professional values: dare to be true, do good work in service of the common good, treat everyone with dignity and respect, fairness, and health.

A Sequel In response to the science issue of Milton Magazine, and on a career technological invention Bob Batchelder ’53 Congratulations and thanks for your excellent coverage of Milton graduates involved in science and technology in the Spring 2006 issue of the Milton Magazine. Our country badly needs more people well versed in science as well as the humanities to continue the progress made over the centuries. As an old graduate who pursued a career in engineering, I’d like to reflect on the influence that Milton had on my life.

Those unfamiliar with the practice of science or engineering tend to imagine solitary thinkers dreaming up abstract theories or inventions—like an Einstein or an Edison. This is far from the case for most of us. Developing solutions to complex technical problems—whether discovering a drug, designing a computer circuit, or building a bridge— is generally a team effort. The ability to communicate within the team and to those outside—customers, operators, regulators—is crucial to success. In my experience, Milton excels in developing skills in both science and communication and the social context that provide an essential foundation for a satisfying and useful career in technology.

During my years at Milton, I took the usual curriculum of Latin, French, English, history, math and science.

Communication must have been important to me, as I was editor of the O&B [Orange and Blue] in my senior year. But against the advice of some on the faculty, I chose to enter MIT after graduation in 1953, intending to become a civil engineer. The summer after graduation I worked on the St. Lawrence Seaway, my closest exposure to civil engineering, then came back to MIT in the fall for a graduate degree.

Peter Alduino ’73

Two years later I’d written a program for analysis of complex structures on one of the primitive computers of the day, received a master’s certificate, and was inducted into the Army to fulfill my ROTC obligation. We were between wars at the time, the Korean conflict had ended and Vietnam was still a French Continued on next page

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A Sequel, continued

Post Script

colony, and the Russians had launched Sputnik. NASA had just been formed and the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory was transferred from the Army to NASA. I spent the next two years at JPL applying the program I’d written at MIT to the design of the first lunar and planetary spacecraft, Ranger and Mariner.

Returning to New England, I joined a company in Lexington that built the cameras for the first reconnaissance satellite. I was eventually given responsibility for systems engineering—the generalist discipline that coordinates the specialized engineering disciplines such as electronics, mechanics and optics.

From there I moved into marketing, developing new applications for the company’s technology, mostly with government agencies, both domestic and foreign. For the last 15 years, I’ve been involved with electromagnetic systems: particle accelerators, an energy storage device, and launchers for aircraft and other projectiles.

Diversity, excitement and intellectual rewards accrue to a career in technology.

Designing and building new things provides a wide variety of challenges, requires continual learning, and leads to ultimate satisfaction and pride when a product or system fulfills its intended purpose.

Milton gave me the best possible vehicle for this journey, with a solid education in language and history as well as science and math. If more Milton students use the opportunities afforded by the new science building, the traditional curriculum, and an excellent faculty to embark on technical careers, our country and the world will be the better for it.

From Unruliness to Enlightenment An Odyssey of Discovery Corinne Kernan Sévigny ’41

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y story begins in the winter of 1938–39. It had been planned since my birth that I should attend school in England; however, my grandfather, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, seeing that war was imminent advised my mother not to send her only child to England. Another school had to be found to continue my higher education, it had to be closer to home and it had to be on the safer side of the Atlantic Ocean. Good schools were very difficult to find on such short notice as most of the places were already spoken for. My parents and I visited many prospective schools prior to arriving at Milton Academy. I fell in love with the School on the spot. In those days the boarders lived in two houses, Hathaway and Goodwin; I lived in Hathaway. In the fall of 1939, with a fond farewell to my parents, I arrived at Milton to start my high school years. This was a life-changing experience for me and for Milton. I was their first foreign student.

Before going to Milton I attended the Ursuline Convent in Quebec City and had been taught by the nuns, some of whom had never even seen a streetcar, as they were a cloistered order. I was well versed in the kings of England and France and, of course, all the popes; however, I didn’t know anything about algebra or economics. Growing up in Quebec at that time

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girls were not taught much about algebra, economics or the outside world. We were, however, taught the skills needed by a lady in her home.

My first class at Milton was European history with Miss Kendall. She became one of the most influential people in my life; she gave me a sense of wanting to learn. On that first day, Miss Kendall told us that we were going to study all about European history and that it was long, complicated and not always pleasant. She expected us to write an essay about a specific period of the history of Europe and that all the information we needed could be found in the library. At that point I had no idea what an essay was, where the library was, or what to do once I found it. Miss Kendall also warned us that failure awaited anyone who did not do the work.

To survive at Milton I had to be prepared for a fast-learning process. In the first three months I became absolutely fascinated with studying, all of a sudden the whole world was open to me. I worked hard, and the desire and pleasure I discovered in learning increased 20-fold. To give you an example of how Milton encouraged individual thinking: I recall Miss Kendall blaming the Catholics for the Guy Fawkes Rebellion. That made me angry, good Catholic that I was. I went to a great deal of effort to find out exactly what happened in the Gunpowder Plot. I sent letters all over

the continent to various Catholic institutions. With all of my information I was given a two-hour period in Miss Kendall’s class to prove my point. I don’t think that I changed her mind. Miss Kendall was not one to admit defeat. Yet the very fact that I was encouraged to spend hours researching the subject speaks well of Milton. This philosophy was opposite that of the convent in Quebec. At Milton we were taught how to think and find our own answers, not what to think. What I learned in my two years at Milton would have been equivalent to a bachelor of arts degree today.

As the only Catholic at Milton, I had to walk two and a half miles alone to church every Sunday. As the only Canadian, I never questioned my country’s involvement in the war or the war efforts. The American attitude at that time was one of extreme isolationism and as a patriotic Canadian that upset me. Miss Kendall had great admiration for Charles Lindbergh’s stance of neutrality, as did many others at Milton. I was very hurt by the speeches made by Lindbergh, Taft and others. We (Canadians) were at war and the Americans were not and I thought that the sooner the Americans got involved, the better. We needed their strength. In spite of being “the odd apple on the tree,” I was allowed to knit socks for the Canadian soldiers. I knitted hundreds of pairs and have never knitted anything since. In 1938 I had a firsthand view of the gathering war clouds when my family and I sailed from Portsmouth Harbour, England, on the “Duchess of Bedford” and watched the British submarine fleet sail past us and out to sea. We also saw how fearful the British people were with the vivid memories of the horrors of 1914–1918. It was early September 1938, Chamberlain was dealing with Hitler and the Munich Accord was in the air. My French was fluent and I enjoyed a wonderful relationship with my French teacher, who introduced me to many French books that the nuns would not have encouraged me to read. I also read many English books that must have been on the “Church Index,” but luckily, I had not heard of the “Index” so I didn’t have to confess my sins. Milton not only

gave us the academic but also the dramatic. We staged many good plays, and every Thursday we went into Boston to hear the Boston Symphony concerts. This and many other aspects of Milton’s curriculum made Milton Academy light-years ahead of its time. It wasn’t all work, though. A quarter of a mile down the road was the Boy’s School. We met the boys at dances, football games and other events over the years.

Our education was well rounded. My art teacher, Miss Elizabeth Saltonstall, was a great part of my Milton experience. “Salty” taught art, theatre and stage production.

She was a good-looking woman who wore her hair up in a “bun”—the same style as Queen Mary. This style was passé de mode by that time. Nearly 30 years after my graduation, I was staying with friends in Nantucket. As I was walking down the main street in front of me I saw a tall blond woman with a “bun.” I knew immediately that the only person in the world with that hairstyle was “Salty.” I called out her name and we fell into each other’s arms. She took me to her studio where we caught up over tea. It was a lovely and unexpected afternoon. She told me that I had shown a talent for art and that I should have stayed in the United States to develop that talent instead of returning to Canada. I appreciated her comments, but I told her that it was a little late in the day to do anything about it. A full 20 years went by after my meeting with “Salty” before I returned to my art and I have been painting professionally ever since and now belong to a permanent gallery in Montreal—Galerie Cactus. Buckminster Fuller, a graduate of Milton, gave the convocation address at my graduation and I have never forgotten what he said: “Although you think you know everything now that you have graduated, you really know nothing, but what you do know is where to find what you will need in life.”

That sums up my experience. My Milton education guided my whole future. It gave me the skills to cope with the world and to find my own answers. Milton also taught me to fight for the things I believe in.

I made lifelong friendships at Milton and I am much saddened by the recent passing of two of my closest friends: Ethel Ludington Anderson and Deborah Smith Haight. A year after graduating from Milton, I joined the Canadian Women’s

Army Corps, becoming an officer. I married and raised three children and worked as my husband’s campaign manager during his long career in politics. I went from the Ursuline Convent to graduating Second Head Student and president of the extra-curricular activities at Milton. I never realized for years just what a feat this was.

Milton gave it to me. I owe so much to the School. The training I received at Milton became the basis of my life. Milton Academy taught me what I could be, what I could do and who I was.

Corinne Kerman Sévigny ’41 is the daughter of Robert and Alice Kerman. She was married for 60 years to the late Honourable Col. Pierre Sévigny P.C., O.K., a Canadian war hero, former member of Parliament and professor of business at Concordia University.

Corinne Kerman Sévigny ’41

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In•Sight

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The Head of School “Who am I?”

H

ow old were you when you started to wrestle with the question, “Who am I?” At Milton we ask Class I students contemplating college to confront that question unflinchingly.

Deciding where to pursue the next educational steps in your life, and why, requires a self-awareness and confidence that many adults still struggle to achieve. “Dare to be true,” the standard that Miltonians apply to their lives, is immensely helpful. The answer to “Who am I?” necessarily involves reflecting upon and evaluating the experiences, choices and outcomes of the last several years.

Last fall we began an intense exploration.

The Head of School’s Council launched the effort by considering what students and faculty had to say about how students develop values within the Academy environment, and how our existing programs work.

Following the Council’s fall meeting, Dean of Students Lucretia Wells convened an Affective Education Committee. The committee included an energetic and diverse group of four students and eight adults.

They took an exhaustive and thorough approach, and I’m delighted with how successful they were in a short year of work:

How do we try to build the values and skills that 18-year-olds need to complete this analysis themselves, cope with the pressures that swirl around the college process, and weather this journey well—as well as the journeys that inevitably follow.

• Reviewing Milton’s formal efforts in affective education, which include courses such as Health, Ethics, and Human Sexuality and Relationships, as well as Peer Counseling and Independent Student Support

The seniors have been immersed in the Academy’s culture, which is based on many taken-for-granted assumptions— about the worthiness of intellectual pursuits, about personal integrity, respect, responsibility, and compassion, to name a few. Milton has always valued the individual, while also sustaining a sense of community. Milton has also discussed values in the classroom as part of every subject area.

• Developing the optimal curriculum, class by class, for communicating and discussing values in a sequence most relevant to students’ lives and developmental status

Are we explicit enough, however, not only in stating these values, but consistently helping students define them and translate them to action, when life situations demand choices?

• Restructuring the ethics course to focus on specific values, like responsibility, in the context of conscious decision-making • Drafting a proposal to add an affective education course requirement for the Class II and Class I years. When they submitted the proposal to faculty for a vote, the committee had already identified a core of interested faculty members who are eager to pilot the new courses.

Ultimately, the committee explained convincingly the need for adding these two courses. In combination with the two we

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already require (Health, Class IV and Ethics, Class III), they would provide a continuous, multifaceted four-year program for students. The faculty voted in favor of the committee proposal: a graduation requirement for two, non-credit courses (Social Awareness and Senior Transition), which will meet weekly, beginning this school year.

The team leaders and teachers of the new courses met over the summer, and have already refined the pilot curriculum and talked about the best models for class discussions. One of the most exciting aspects of these courses is that the weekly meetings provide a perfect environment to take up challenging issues that occasionally emerge on campus. At Milton, when events occur that galvanize the students, we try to capitalize on the learning opportunities inherent in the situations. Doing that meaningfully when schedules are chock-full and inflexible has been difficult.

Students have called for more consistent, more thorough consideration of complicated issues. Now we have that opportunity.

The course curricula can respond to valuerelated learning opportunities as they arise in campus life.

For me, and for Principal Rick Hardy, the launch of this initiative is one of our priority goals for 2006–2007. We have now committed formally to sustained facultystudent interaction that truly helps students sort out how they are and how they wish to make their mark on the world.

Robin Robertson

OnCentre

What do you want to be when you grow up?

First graders explore careers What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a common question asked of everyone from ages five to fifty-five. First graders in Milton’s Lower School spend one month exploring their options and developing skills that will eventually help them make such a decision years down the road.

Jerrie Moffett, first-grade teacher in the Lower School, explains, “When you’re six years old, the world is open to you. You can do, and be, anything you want. This unit is really a focus on development.”

To begin, Milton parents visit the classroom to talk about their professions. First graders read about various occupations and then interview the parent visitors about their jobs. “The parents coming in to talk makes a big impression on the children,” Jerrie says. “For example, last year a former Navy pilot came in full regalia; he talked about what it’s like to be ejected from your seat when you’re under attack and how you land in the ocean unconscious, in a pool of dye to protect you from sharks. He was

our first parent speaker and, needless to say,” she laughs, “he was a hard act to follow.”

Once the students have explored options and written about what they’ve learned, they choose what profession they might want to pursue. Jerrie explains, “We have the children ask, ‘What’s special about me? What am I good at?’

I’d love to tell you the children use that information to choose their profession, but that’s not always the case. While we [as teachers] connect the two, the students often do not. What they want to be and where their strengths lie are often two separate things for them at this point.”

The unit culminates in a job fair.

First graders take on the role of a perspective employer, interviewing teachers and other students as candidates for various positions based on their strengths and interests. This encourages students to consider the qualities and skills that a job requires.

Jerrie believes that “by the end of your years at Milton, you should have a pretty good sense of what your strengths are.

Certain trends in education have

pumped everyone up, telling them they can do or be anything they want. It’s better to help someone pinpoint and play to his or her strengths, and help figure out how to compensate for weaknesses. This is just the beginning of that process. What we do in the first-grade classroom is launch the first steps in that direction.”

The children then create tools of their chosen trade—a doctor’s stethoscope, or a clown’s nose— and write instruction manuals about how to do their job, explaining what instruments they’ll use and what they need to know to do their job well.

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A Journey Toward Self: Affective Education in the Middle School What do I value? What are my goals? How would I address this challenge? Seventh and eighth grade students in Nicci Hill’s Life Skills class formally address these and other questions during the school year. Nicci is Milton’s Middle School counselor and manages the Middle School life skills curriculum.

As they do with their academic classes, students meet during a scheduled period with approximately 12 of their classmates.

Rather than learning math or writing skills, however, they open up about themselves and discuss topics such as values, emotions, dealing with peer pressure, and their sense of self.

“We talk a lot about adolescent development and goals,” Nicci explains. “I try to help [the students] find their identity, figure out what their interests are, and understand how their thoughts and behavior affect their relationships with themselves, and with their parents, peers and teachers.

The peer connection is very important; it feels very different having an adult ask, ‘Did you get that done?’ than it does having a friend say ‘Hey, how did that go?’”

Curriculum units run the gamut from conflict resolution to sexuality, from dealing with stress to Internet safety. Some topics fall under either the seventh or eighth grade program, but many overlap. “One thing I’m trying to do is create more of a flow between seventh- and eighthgrade,” Nicci says. “Students can then build on skills they already have rather than experience every class as an introduction.

In the long term it will be more beneficial to the successful integration of the information. If they’re being exposed to the issues repeatedly—modified in some ways to have it match their own development—the ideas will come to them more intuitively as they get older.”

A typical class begins with Nicci checking in with the students as a group. “Sometimes it’s a really quick ‘Yup, everything’s great’ and sometimes students will express stresses or talk about things that are going really well.”

After checking in, Nicci presents a lesson, perhaps Affirmations or Leadership. Finally, the students may engage in a related activity or trivia game. “I like to be interactive,” Nicci says. “However, some activities are quieter and

more thoughtful. For instance, when we addressed peer pressure, [the students] wanted to talk about what types of pressure they feel: How does it manifest for them? How do they handle it? Are they satisfied with the way they handle it?

“One interesting activity we did last year was on values. I gave the students a list of about 30 things to rate as values—enough food on the table, a good education—and they had to rank these by level of importance, but they had to do it as a group. Reflecting on that was interesting for them, to say, ‘I didn’t realize I was the only one who saw this as a value,’ and ‘How do I handle it when I’m the only who values something that others around me don’t?’”

Nicci’s goals in these sessions are threefold: “I want the students to develop a clear sense of their own values, whether they’re personal or from their family, from religious background, or from society or culture. Second, it’s important that [the students] develop a sense of empathy; it helps teenagers to understand themselves in a greater context.

It increases their compassion for the experience—and behavior—

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of others and ideally for themselves. Finally, I want them to have the ability to identify and communicate their emotions.

When they’re placed in a situation that challenges them, I want them to know who they are in that moment and to articulate their emotions, wants and needs effectively.”

Are adolescents receptive to discussing these topics openly?

“The students were actually fairly resistant at first,” Nicci explains.

“Some trust building needed to happen at the beginning of the year, and I had to be very specific about my expectations. I would ask for their feedback, which was helpful and—in their true adolescent way—full of candor. They would often remind me that these classes are different from academic classes, and in many ways they need them to be.”

Suzanne DeBuhr Milton’s Interfaith Chaplain Last fall and winter, a diligent student-faculty committee worked with Dean of Students Lucretia Wells to define the interfaith chaplain’s role at Milton.

They then led the search to “bring a multitalented person to the campus, ready to be completely involved in the life of the School,” according to student members of the committee. The new chaplain ensures the role of spirituality and reflection for students, as well as supports dialogue and action in the areas of ethics and values. Having met and talked with all the groups involved with community life, from house heads to classroom faculty to student activity groups, Suzanne DeBuhr joined the Academy this August. Suzanne is a graduate of Harvard’s Divinity School and recipient of the Billings Preaching Prize. She combines a pastoral presence

Suzanne was most recently on the faculty of Episcopal School in Dallas, Texas; she was a member of the religion department, served as an interim chaplain and coached lacrosse. She also served on the Diversity Task Force, Curriculum Task Force, and the Discipline and Attendance Committee.

with the ability to articulate publicly the spiritual dimensions and approaches to the issues that confront adolescents as they come to grips with who they are and who they want to be.

Suzanne was teaching religion courses for grades 5–12 with a focus on comparative religions, world religions and ethics. She also taught a course called Multicultural America. Her deep interest in the study and teaching of religions, extensive diversity training and strong public speaking contributed to the committee’s confidence that she will help Milton continue to embrace diversity. Suzanne has been known to speak her mind and address issues head-on, generating respect among her col-

leagues. She has combined scholarship with humanity in her work through her own faith and study of world religions and cultures.

Suzanne is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Olaf College in Minnesota where she studied religion and philosophy with a concentration in Asian Studies.

Following college, she earned Master’s in Divinity at Harvard.

Through Harvard’s program she served as a teaching assistant at Milton during the 1999–2000 school year.

Students and faculty welcomed Suzanne to Milton this fall. The search committee was chaired

by Lukie Wells, and included Sally Dey, Chris Hales, Mark Hilgendorf, Louise Mundinger, and Rod Skinner from the faculty, and students Amanda Rothschild, Sam Ratner and Kenzie Bok.

College Matriculation: Class of 2006 Brown Harvard U. Penn Wesleyan Yale Columbia Tufts Boston College Boston University Cornell Georgetown Trinity Vanderbilt Amherst Bard Bowdoin Middlebury Oberlin

11 9 9 7 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3

2 each: Babson, Barnard, Bates, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, George Washington, Hamilton,

Hampshire, Holy Cross, Kenyon, Lewis and Clark, MIT, NYU, Occidental, Princeton, U. Rochester, U. Wisconsin, Union, Wellesley, WPI 1 each: AA of Dramatic Arts, Bentley, Brandeis, Colby, Colorado College, Dartmouth, Dickinson, Emory, Hobart, Ithaca, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Macalester, Mt. Holyoke, Northwestern, Oberlin Conservatory, Oxford College of Emory, Parsons School of Design, Pomona, Providence, Reed, Rice, Roger Williams, RPI, Santa Clara, Skidmore, St. Andrew’s, Tulane, U. Kentucky, U. Miami, U. Michigan, U. Vermont, UCAL/San Diego, Vassar, Warren Wilson, Wheaton, Whitman Accurate as of July 10, 2006 53

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Alumni Authors Recently Published Works A Taxonomy of Barnacles Galt Niederhoffer ’93 In her debut novel, Galt Niederhoffer takes an over-thetop, madcap look at two distinctly different Upper East Side families. Harry and Charlie are family pets. The Finches and the Barnacles are our main characters. And so it begins.

Dr. and Mrs. Finch have raised twin boys, Billy and Blaine, in their apartment across the hall from the Barnacle family, which consists of dad, Barry; stepmom, Bunny; ex-wife, Bella; and daughters: Bell, Bridget, Beth, Belinda, Beryl and Benita. Into this mix, add Trot, Bridget’s on again-off again boyfriend; Latrell, Bella’s recently (post-divorce) adopted son; and a third and very vibrant character, the city of New York itself. From the Barnacles’ Wonderland-like apartment (it seems all sorts of interesting adventures can happen here), to Yankee Stadium to Central Park, where Shakespeare himself would agree, “The game’s afoot...,” Niederhoffer has her characters swooning, swimming

or sighting aspects of the city— and of themselves—that leave us breathless.

The narrative weaves together a number of threads, including potential marriages between the Finch boys and eldest Barnacle girls; a contest created by Barry Barnacle in which his daughters are expected to compete for his entire fortune; an underlying and ongoing discussion of the nature-versus-nurture debate; and the always unexpected, sometimes tragic, and ever comedic way family defines who we are.

Nicole Krause, co-author of the bestselling The Nanny Diaries, describes Galt’s novel as “rich in poignant detail. Niederhoffer paints a fascinating portrait of six sisters engaged in the merciless age-old fist-fight, struggling to love and best each other in turn.” A Booklist review calls it “a delightfully clever and romantic screwball comedy...Niederhoffer pays sparkling homage to fairy tales, King Lear, Austen, and Nora Ephron in this charming and sly spoofing of the concept of survival of the fittest and the nature-versus-nurture debate.”

Kimberly Kubik

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A Left-Hand Turn Around the World Dave Wolman ’92 David Wolman ’92 has taken action on his long obsession with left-handedness. “Noticing all things southpaw is just part of my programming,” he says at the start of his book, A Left-Hand Turn Around the World. A leftie, a journalist and a collector, Dave had accumulated an extensive file of articles about left-handed tendencies. He decided to seek answers for himself. Dave, whose writing has appeared in New Scientist, Discover and Wired, directed his journalist’s investigative and writing skills for a full year toward “chasing the meaning of all things southpaw,” as his book title explains. According to Middlebury Magazine, Dave’s book “conveys a strong scientific approach that will allow the layman to better understand the causes and differences between lefties and righties.”

The book moves between explanations of genetics and the latest research lab findings and tales of

his visits to a palmist in Quebec and a graphologist in Virginia, mixing well-researched science with engaging, related outtakes.

The central scientific update for readers may be that “stronghandedness” and “mixed-handedness” are the more accurate and informative descriptions of human hand tendencies, than our limited focus on the division between righties and lefties.

Amazon’s review finds that Wolman’s Fulbright fellowshipwinning reporting is always clear and entertaining—he has a fine knack for presenting complex theories in direct, dryly amusing language.

Many of his readers, who are often lefties with abiding questions themselves, find the book informative and enjoyable. As one reviewer summarizes, “Wolman is a fine and engaging writer, with the quirky humor and keen eye for irony that I would expect from an enlightened lefty,” one reports.

Jungle Rules: A Novel of Viet Nam Gaz Crittenden ’61 “Alive. Fingers, hands, arms, trunk, testicles, legs, feet, toes: All present and accounted for. He opens his eyes. A faint gray light is glowing in the eastern sky.

Another day in the Nam.” The opening line of Gaz Crittenden’s painstakingly realistic novel immediately draws its reader into the daily life of one American soldier in Vietnam— a life that, for all its surreality, becomes remarkably familiar.

Gaz tells the story of Andy Cullen, a young man from middle-class, upstate New York, as he joins his fellow soldiers in 1960s Vietnam. Reminiscent of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Gaz’s book successfully captures both the grit and emotion of the war as only firsthand experience can; Gaz served with the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam in the mid-sixties.

One reviewer on Gaz’s Web site says of Jungle Rules, “Without preaching or explaining, this book simply takes the reader there, unlike anything I have ever read about any war. It’s called a novel, but it reads as

truth—almost a personal journal. Nothing is spared.

Crittenden made me care about these men and their condition, and wonder how they lived it. If you care about what happens to young men thrust into the face of violent death…and the splitsecond survival choices they are forced to make and pay for for the rest of their lives, buy this book—then pass it to a friend.”

On his site, Gaz himself shares, “Perhaps Jungle Rules can help us better understand the burning of enemy combatants’ bodies in Afghanistan. Perhaps it can help us better understand ourselves.

In America we idealize our military and expect them to live up to the highest moral standards.

Here in our World of automobiles and houses with hot and cold running water and televisions and computers and air conditioners, where we all live under a rational set of rules, such standards are easy to impose. In the Jungle, the rules are different.”

Gaz is a published writer, lawyer and entrepreneur. He is a graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School and now lives on the ocean in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.

Holding Back the Sea Chris Hallowell ’64 As Chris Hallowell ’64 explains in the new introduction to his book Holding Back the Sea, the devastating effects of a Katrinacaliber hurricane were predicted long before she attacked the shores of southern Louisiana just over one year ago. Chris’s book introduces its reader to the people whose lives were to be greatly affected when the “Big One” finally came ashore. In it, we meet crawfishermen and alligator hunters, shrimpers and fur trappers—men and women who, as Chris explains, “made their precarious livelihood and complained often that the wetlands were sinking and fragmenting beneath their feet and camps.”

He discovered that environmental changes were affecting not only the landscape of southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, but in turn the lives and cultures of those living there.

As the subtitle—The Struggle on the Gulf Coast to Save America—suggests, Chris claims that devastating consequences

for Louisiana and its neighboring land are devastating consequences for us all. For its inhabitants, “the wetlands…[are] their bed and their home, and the entire country’s bounty, not as a park but as a working arena of life.” Chris conveys this truth through the intimate and revealing portrait he paints of these people, their work, and their struggles.

John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide, says of Holding Back the Sea, “This is a book about changing ways of life in both the narrowest and largest sense—how individuals have to adjust, and how society has to adjust. It is well written and no polemic, yet it also shows how, if man makes no adjustments, geological forces will simply wipe away part of the geography of North America— and man with it.”

Chris is a professor of English and journalism at Baruch College, City University of New York, and is the author of several other books including People of the Bayou. His special interest is in cultural science and environmental journalism.

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Alumni Authors, continued Love from London Emily Franklin ’90 Emily Franklin’s third installment of her Principles of Love series—Love from London—finds Hadley Hall heroine, Love Bukowski, navigating the streets, accents and lifestyle of her school year abroad at the London Academy of Drama and Music.

Love is your typical teenager, learning about herself, relationships, priorities, and life as she goes. She leaves her Massachusetts boarding school, Hadley Hall, to immerse herself in the native British culture of her best friend, Arabella Piece. Upon arriving in London, Love finds that quirkiness and dysfunction take on a whole new meaning in the Piece household. Trying to maintain normalcy at Bracker’s Common, being hosted by Arabella’s former rock-icon mom and Sam Shepardesque playwright dad, proves difficult, especially when she falls for artistic and off-limits older brother, Asher.

Emily writes about teens in a way that is accessible to teens, but that an older reader can also appreciate and enjoy. Timely references to such pop-culture staples as American Idol, Kiehl’s lotions and Jimmy Choo sandals keep the book fresh and current.

Nearly any young woman can relate to Love’s internal struggles, which range from the banal—am I using the right fork?!—to the complex—what do I really want to do with my life?

Emily’s characters are unique, alive, and in Love’s case, endearing. Love is an Everygirl, but Emily successfully creates her with depth and humor, making her special.

The Principles of Love stories build on one another, so it’s helpful to read the series in order.

However, each book does stand alone as an entertaining, pageturning read. Other teen fiction novels by Emily include Liner Notes, and books one and two in the Principles of Love series entitled The Principles of Love and Piece, Love and Happiness.

White Ghost Girls Alice Greenway ’81 Alice Greenway’s ’81 first novel, White Ghost Girls, transports readers to 1967 Hong Kong as seen through the eyes of two young American sisters, Frankie and Kate. The girls navigate adolescence—and the turbulent times of the Maoist revolution and Vietnam war—while living in China with a physically absent father, an emotionally absent mother, and Ah Bing, their Chinese amah. Narrated by reserved and cautious younger sister Kate, the novel maintains a fine balance between contrasting worlds: the dangerous and chaotic political environment of Maoist China and the delicate but intense love between two sisters trying to find themselves and protect each other.

The fire of these two worlds collide one afternoon when the sisters wander away from Ah Bing and find themselves in a maze of alleys and shopkeepers’ stalls in the village marketplace. There Frankie—defiant and wild—

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directly encounters the danger of being a rebellious gwaimui— white ghost girl. Kate spends the rest of her days wondering how she might have saved her sister and why her sister refuses to be saved.

Through her characters—which include the city of Hong Kong itself—Alice exquisitely captures the complexities of life and kinship. Like the cover of the book, the language Alice uses depicts a watercolor existence of a world that is smeared with dark tragedy, reinforcing the inescapable duality of love and violence, lust and hate. A Booklist starred review says of the book, “This is a novel about memory and loss, and, most of all, yearning. Greenway is a remarkable young writer who vividly evokes Hong Kong’s sights, smells, and sounds...in poetic, finely detailed prose. What’s more, she seems to have remembered every single charged emotion from adolescence and filters them all through the sisters’ fierce, complex relationship. A heartbreakingly beautiful debut.”

The Emperor’s Children Claire Messud ‘83 As the Milton Magazine goes to press, literary critics across the country and around the world— in print, broadcast and online— have greeted The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud ’83 with universal exuberance and praise. A 21st-century comedy of manners, the book spins out from the struggles of three 30year-olds, fast friends from their Brown University days, to realize careers and lives of authenticity and import, in the days and months leading to September 11, 2001.

Danielle Minkoff, a producer of documentaries about less-thancompelling subject matter; Marina Thwaite, a would-be author, unable to fulfill the promise of her book proposal about the relationship of children’s clothing to our culture and ourselves; and Julius Clarke, an edgy cultural critic for the Village Voice, unwilling to curb his taste for personal pleasure to achieve maturity, personal or professional: “These three embody the different methods by which American privilege is accrued and idly sustained,” says Meghan O’Rourke in The New York Times Book Review. Engaged in what Ms. O’Rourke calls a “labyrinthine and deftly orchestrated plot,” Claire’s characters intersect and drive the action to reveal hypocrisy, paradox, and surprise.

With “a literary intelligence far surpassing most other writers of her generation,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Claire has won rare consensus among myriad reviewers. All agree that The Emperor’s Children is not only an impressive work of significant social relevance, but also an excellent read: “Riveting,” “absorbingly intelligent,” “a great achievement,” state the The Atlantic Monthly, The Christian Science Monitor, and The

Economist, respectively. The Emperor’s Children, a sheer delight to read, is the well-drawn testimony of a generation and a defining moment in a new century.

“The Emperor’s Children is, on its surface, a stingingly observant novel about the facades of the chattering class—with its loves, ambitions and petty betrayals,” Meghan O’Rourke writes—“but it is also, more profoundly, about a wholesale collision of values: those of the truth-telling but hypocritical Murray Thwaite, who epitomizes earnest 1960s liberalism, and the Machiavellian Seeley, who represents postmodernism and its assumption that truth is fungible.”

Claire’s work has drawn literary accolades in the past: Her first novel, When the World Was Steady, and her book of novellas, The Hunters, were finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award. The Village Voice selected her novel The Last Life as Editor’s Choice; Publishers Weekly named it Best Book of the Year. All three books were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Claire was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Fellowship, and is the current recipient of the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

A Doorless Knocking into Night Lexi Rudnitsky ’91 Lexi Rudnitsky’s untimely and tragic death just over a year ago—and three months after the birth of her son—haunts the release of A Doorless Knocking into Night, her collected poems published this June by Mid-List Press. The book’s cover notes her death, as does the book’s publicity. Even the collection’s introducer, Richard Howard, apologizes for indulging in “quoting [her lines] so obsessively”: “My warrant for so doing is that there will be no more.”

Embarking on the task of reviewing Lexi’s collection, I found myself reluctant to proceed. She and I are contemporaries. I teach writing in a place where she wrote. A mother of two young children, I live with the profound vulnerability that comes with being so responsible for the lives of others, the quiet and constant fear of leaving children motherless. Her story’s heartbreak felt too close to home, and I worried that it would obscure her poetry for me. I was wrong.

This collection is teeming with life: its body, its playfulness, its vibrancy. Her narrators have sex, cook food, take lovers of various ages, in various places across the world. As the poems record life’s interactions, they, too, see its pain: bodies wreck each other.

Many of her poems are written in traditional form (a sestina, a villanelle, sonnets), and I find myself amazed that the form intensifies rather than restrains the subject matter; the recurring sounds and rhythms up the ante: there is more to risk when all five senses are turned on. In reading these poems, I can’t but help think of their author, as her

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Alumni Authors, continued classmates lovingly described her in the Fall 2005 Milton Magazine: “Lexi was often late, desperately flagging down the bus, only to come barreling on, a whirl of long hair, a tie-dyed T-shirt, a teafilled travel mug and that leather bomber jacket that she stole from her father. By the time we hit the highway. Lexi would either have us caught up in laughter or a raucous debate with the boys in the back.” Her own spirit inhabits these poems.

Instead of overshadowing her work, my knowledge of her death is the ever-present backdrop to her poems’ vibrancy: their ironic layer, their inevitable context, their ultimate wisdom. I experience the collection as if it is a shared secret, a persistent reminder: Here is the physical evidence, but we all know there is more to say. When the New Yorker published “The Deepest Remains” just after her death, the stunning, penultimate poem of this collection, Lexi’s own name and life’s dates printed at the end appeared uncannily as the poem’s final lines—its afterword—re-weighting the poem’s repeated line “(This is not an obituary.).” On one level, her death reminds us, everything written is an obituary.

The collection’s title is the final line of its first poem, “Malaria.”

Repeatedly, the language of this poem infects itself so that each line disorients the one preceding it, creating a sense of feverish delirium, of fragmented memory: “Friends no longer friends / insisted they had survived”; a mother is in a hospital bed, smiling, but perhaps the image is a dream; “all my pasts are sanguine,” but the narrator has averted death and has come “here.”

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“This is a different decadence,” the second stanza begins, locating the poem in a tenuous present. Here, this mosquito-infested room with its “splintered board” bed seems a safe haven from the destruction and disease of the outside, but if there is no door, if this space is “doorless,” then protection is a fiction and a “doorless knocking into night” seems a desperate and futile act; perhaps this is moral decay manifested in a physical world—an infected world that has done away with the boundaries that harbor an inside from an outside.

But on the other hand, this is a “different decadence”—an indulgence without material luxury.

Looking harder, I wonder if this final image suggests possibility, even hope: Here, knocking occurs despite the absence of a physical door. Here, knocking continues “into night” (beyond the physical boundaries of the day, perhaps into figurative “death”). The action persists, despite the odds, even if the terrain is disorienting and diseased—or deadening. I can’t help but consider that “Malaria” is metaphor for the creative mind, at work to reveal a familiar world in unfamiliar terms. Here, a “doorless knocking” is new sound, not absent sound, and its disembodiment seems strangely revelatory, even apocalyptic.

If the line “A doorless knocking into night” echoes Dylan Thomas’ villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night,” a poem which charges men to rage against death, then there is resistance in Lexi’s choice of this title for her collection. “To us,” her friends write, “Lexi was a friend of firsts—our first radical, environmentalist, feminist, poet—the first to be unabashedly and unapologetically herself.”

Her poetry in this volume, as in “Malaria,” records the riotous world of the living body and, simultaneously, defines its own rebellion: to refuse, even in the face of death, silence.

Lisa Baker English Department

Malaria In Guatemala I remembered the dead.

Friends no longer friends insisted they had survived.

My mother smiled from her hospital bed.

Those were light-skinned dreams, where all my pasts were sanguine: the wine did not stain, the driver swerved in time, we all understood the reasons I came here.

This is a different decadence.

Mosquitoes gather by puddles on the dirt floor. Rain warps the splintered board I sleep on.

Outside: explosions or thunder, murder or disease.

A doorless knocking into night.

Retiring from the board of trustees J. Tomilson Hill ’66 Milton Academy Board of Trustees 1998–2006 Tapped for his thoughts in 1995 as we announced the capital campaign, The Challenge to Lead, Tom Hill cited Milton’s environment that, he said, “emphasized each person’s individuality and unique qualities.

Milton let us operate within very wide boundaries, trusting that we would, over time, live up to the high expectations that we had set for ourselves.” Tom joined the board in 1998 and set his sights on the highest expectations for that all-important School environment.

“Tom Hill makes excellent use of his study time,” the faculty said in the ‘60s. “He does his best to produce more than what is expected…He is willing to probe beyond the reasons to the implications of a subject.” As co-chair of the Student Life Committee, working with Jide Zeitlin on a study of student life, Tom asked the questions, compiled the evidence and made the case that triggered lasting change, and ultimately resulted in our vastly enhanced campus life today.

Tom was—and is—organized, determined and articulate. He made the case, straight from his neat notes on a pad of yellow legal paper. The board and the administration followed through.

From activity-packed weekends, to even-handed discipline, to the Schwarz Student Center with its welcoming gathering places, Milton’s newly balanced enrollment of boarding and day students looks and feels like the boarding and day school Tom had in mind.

While it’s fair to say that Tom will be remembered as the official steward of student life, he is an experienced trustee of many institutions and is aware of all the parts that move an institution forward. He worked on Milton’s behalf as a valued member of many other board committees: Campaign Steering Committee, Enrollment, External Relations, Investment, Trustee Committee. Tom may have played a less visible role since the days when student life was under the spotlight, but he has always been an encouraging voice, generous advisor and donor. His contributions to Milton’s strength and excellence, with particular attention to Milton’s character and tradition, have been outstanding, and we are grateful.

John S. Reidy ’56 Milton Academy Board of Trustees 1998–2006 “He goes at practically everything with intensity,” said Mr. Arthur Perry of John Reidy in 1956; in this case, we on the board have found Mr. Perry as accurate as he has so often been in the past. John has focused his particular intensity on Milton over the last eight years. As a loyal and tenacious advocate of the classroom, John has participated enthusiastically in the Academic Life Committee of the board. He has been undaunted in pursuing answers to myriad questions about developments on the academic front. We’ve witnessed what Mr. Perry called “an accurate and retentive mind” in John’s comprehensive briefings of the board about the life of the mind at Milton.

John’s philanthropy has been both loyal and strategic; he initiated a fund to provide financial aid for—using his term—“day scholars,” keenly aware that Milton’s rich intellectual and

extracurricular environment depends upon our including diverse and talented students in the life of the School.

Over the years, John has been a loyal classmate and organizer.

He came on board at the peak effort of the last comprehensive capital campaign, The Challenge to Lead. He has generously participated in and hosted Milton events—both in reunion and non-reunion years—that keep alumni close to the School both as friends and as potential supporters.

John’s interests on the board were wide. He was an advocate for the Lower School, and during his tenure he turned his attention and his questions to proceedings in the external relations, enrollment, buildings and grounds, and budget committees. We have been grateful that the “driving ambition” as his teachers noted during the ’50s was mobilized on Milton’s behalf over these past eight years and we will miss his lively presence.

New Trustee Catherine Gordan Catherine (Kitty) Gordan joins the Milton Academy Board of Trustees bringing with her great fervor for the school and an invaluable vantage point as assistant head of school at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City.

Kitty graduated from Harvard University and received her master’s in education from Tufts University. With more than 30 years’ experience working in independent schools, she looks forward to her role on the board,

focusing mainly on academic and student life at Milton. Kitty is the mother of John D. Gordan IV ’96 and has been a member of the Head of School’s Council.

“Milton is a special institution, one that I admire greatly, both as a parent and as an educator,” Kitty says. “I am proud to be joining the board, and I look forward to contributing my perspective borne out of many years of experience in independent school education.”

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Retiring Faculty

Retiring Faculty

Claire Valle Lower School, Physical Education, 1983; 1985–2005

Tony Domizio Milton Academy Faculty, 1973–2006

Picturing Claire doing anything other than leading a gaggle of children to and from the gym, or standing on a field on a sparkling day, whistle in hand amidst children involved in a game, is hard.

In 1983 Claire Valle replaced a teacher on leave; in 1985 she began her two-decade stint with the Lower School faculty. Claire’s specialty is physical education, but her home was the full Lower School community.

Claire taught at various grade levels and with several teaching partners over the years. Each

appreciated her thoughtfulness, organization and thoroughness.

Her plans are carefully thought out and reflect a deep knowledge of and belief in developmental physical education. Her students gain independence not only by what they do in class, but by following established routines and systems to organize their sneakers and equipment. Claire ordered our equipment, consulted on playground structures, and set the standard for how a specialist carefully evaluates more than 200 children twice each year.

Consider Claire Valle at 7:00 a.m. on the rink, the open-air rink prior to today’s Athletic Center. Consider Claire stringing doughnuts or filling water balloons for the annual field day she created. Or consider Claire teaching dances from around the world and launching the triannual dance festival.

Claire is the consummate community member. She invented the Tuesday-morning specialist meetings for sharing wisdom and perspectives about teaching, classes and individual children.

Each day she patroled the dismissal routines.

Claire is indomitable. Perhaps that is because of her work ethic, her respect for colleagues, or her joy in spending time with children. Calculations show that Claire has walked nearly halfway around the equator transporting children to and from the gym.

Outside of School, her full life is shared with Jack and her two children, Milton Academy graduates, Jill and Peter.

Claire is unassuming about her excellence as a teacher and a colleague, but all are impressed with her work. In 1993 Claire earned Milton’s Talbot Baker Award, in 1995 she became an American Master Teacher for Children’s Physical Education, and in 2004 she enjoyed the dedication of the Lower School yearbook. These awards, while significant, can not fully express our profound appreciation of and gratitude for her professional and personal contributions to the Lower School.

Annette Raphel

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Passionate about science and teaching, committed to thinking critically, fascinated with technology, and engaged in the lives of children, Tony Domizio has been our colleague in the science department for 32 years. With his trademark suspenders, a pocket protector and the latest technological gadget, an impish grin and a predisposition for heated discussions, Tony holds a permanent place in the memories of innumerable Milton graduates.

During his tenure, Tony served as chair of the science department, dean in the Middle School, Klingenstein fellow, holder of the Pratt Teaching Chair, and chair of the faculty committee.

As one of his department colleagues has written, “Tony’s driving concern has always been the well-being of Milton students as well as their learning environment. He has understood for decades that students learn science best by doing science and consequently all of his science courses have included plenty of ‘doing’ science. He knows students learn best when they are interested in a topic and his classroom is decorated with containers of fish, insects, plants and snails—to stimulate questions that ultimately lead to learning about the science of life. He was always available as a generous resource for his department members, drawing on many years of experience, demonstrating abstract but core concepts to students who may not yet have developed abstract thinking skills. Tony is a skilled, articulate, patient and enthusiastic teacher.

With good humor and appropriate prodding, he has moved hundreds of students to complete their own science experiments.

He has offered good advice about teaching and assessment to countless colleagues as well.”

Retiring Faculty

Nan Lee Milton Academy Faculty, 1982–2006

Tony Domizio

An innovator at heart, Tony worked with colleagues from the science and math departments to develop an experiment integrating science and mathematics in the Middle School. They wrote joint math and science exams that involved surreal propositions only a middle schooler would love. This project involved the faculty reaching mutual agreement about common goals in math and science, figuring out how to create interesting experiments and jointly assessing the skills and progress of their shared students.

Tony’s life has always involved spirited discussions about the impact of grades on learning and achievement, about high expectations for institutions, about collegiality and accountability. He’s a critical and creative thinker on the move.

Next year, Tony and his wife, Lin, can live in the same city, and while it is not yet time to put away the test tubes and beakers, it is a good time to capture that opportunity. We will miss Tony’s yeasty invitations for provocative conversations but will embrace his legacy—creating a rigorous and compelling science learning environment that exploits students’ interest in the world and takes advantage of the latest research.

On the Milton Academy faculty, excellence comes in many forms.

There are teachers who inspire with flamboyant personality, teachers who model great conceptual reach, and teachers who demand the most scrupulous attention to detail.

From the moment that Nan Lee came to us 24 years ago, her special excellence has been in helping students develop their most reflective, most contemplative selves. Agreeing with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, she has gently but insistently encouraged them to ask the hard questions about human experience. Her talent for such probing has naturally drawn her to kids on the brink of adulthood, and she has done heroic service in junior and senior courses such as Philosophy & Literature and Man & the Natural World—courses in which a journal entry might be as important as a critical essay and a half hour alone in the woods might yield insights to rival those produced by the most heated discussion. We should also remember, however, that Nan has brilliantly served a very different clientele: Middle Schoolers. To use words like

“reflective” and “contemplative” in the same sentence as the phrase “eighth-grade boy” may seem preposterous, but Nan showed repeatedly that even the most hormone-bedeviled wretch can be induced to think.

Temperamentally serious herself, she understood Middle School humor and knew how to ride it where she wanted a class to go.

As a colleague, Nan was ever ready to share ideas, compare approaches, refine the status quo. She was particularly generous with new members of the department, often nurturing them, guiding them among the pitfalls of the first year or two at Milton, and enabling them to find themselves as teachers. Just the other day, despite the packing left to do, she spent two hours with the young woman we have hired to replace her; and Nicole left with a smile on her face and an optimistic vision of the road ahead.

Nan’s years in Hathaway House, which she headed with her husband, Joe, were similarly rich for those under her care. With an empathic sense of what it means to be away from home, Nan and Joe created a home for the girls in their dormitory. They worried

like parents, enjoyed like parents, watched like parents, and strove like parents. Trips to the hospital, discipline cases, academic or emotional rough water were often teachable moments and always compassionate ones. To assume loving responsibility for so many is to insert a siphon deep into one’s own psychic energy reserves, and Nan may sometimes have wondered whether June would come before her tank was dry. But the parting rituals she devised sent off generations of Hathaway girls with the feeling that they belonged to a permanent and precious sisterhood.

Nan was not the kind of teacher or dorm head who minds her own store but takes no interest in the neighborhood. She wanted for the School as an institution what she wanted for her students and her boarders—that it never stop trying to become its best self. She bent her efforts especially toward widening Milton’s embrace. As a founding member of the Cultural Diversity Committee in the early 1980s, she reminded us, with that same gentle insistence, that we would benefit both from becoming more various and from attending carefully to how a more various community would work. The coat of many colors that is today’s Milton was sewn by many hands, but we owe Nan our thanks for helping us understand what a beautiful pattern it could be.

Nan and Joe will soon be moving into their home on Southern Harbor in North Haven, Maine.

It is a quiet place of stones and woods and water—a perfect place for living the life she has modeled for us here. We wish them the deepest joy in it.

Annette Raphel Cathleen Everett

David Smith Chair English Department

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Sports William Whitmore “If we stop striving to be the best we can be, then we won’t reach our potential.”

“W

hat intrigued me about Milton were the conversations I had with the search committee about excellence. They let me know that Milton was committed to the best athletics program possible, along with academics and arts. I’m excited to be part of a world-class institution with faculty and staff truly committed to providing the best overall education and experience to students.”

Bill Whitmore arrived at Milton in August 2006 eager to begin as director of athletics and physical education. Bill came to Milton from Concord, New Hampshire, where he was the director of athletics, physical education and intramurals for the Concord School District. Bill was responsible for the development, coordination, supervision and evaluation of the athletic and physical education programs in 10 schools and managed the activities of some 80 coaches. Well-respected by his fellow athletic directors, Bill developed many of the policies that guide athletic programs throughout the state of New Hampshire. You may have encountered Bill as one of 161 coaches interviewed and featured in the book Coach

by Steve McKee (1994).

coach comes from being passionate, hardworking, professional and respectful to others. “One of the themes I try to implement and instill in a coaching staff is getting better: being better today than we were yesterday, being better tomorrow than we were today. If we stop striving to be the best we can be, then we won’t reach our potential.”

Bill Whitmore, Milton’s director of athletics and physical education

Prior to his work in the Concord district, Bill served for 12 years as a Division 1 basketball coach at the University of Vermont and St. Bonaventure University. Bill knows well the art and skill of coaching. He has extensive experience in developing vertical programs within sports—programs that develop players as they move through the levels of play. He has published a four-volume text entitled Championship Drills for Basketball.

Bill describes his coaching style as organized, structured and demanding, and believes that his success as a

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When Milton’s search committee visited Bill’s home district, Concord, students, faculty, coaches and administrators spoke eloquently and without exception about Bill’s impact on programs, facilities and people during his 17 years in the district. As one person noted, “My father was the athletic director before Bill and I was an experienced coach. When Bill arrived, the shoes he had to fill were big ones and I didn’t think I could learn anything from him. Five years later I realized I loved the guy and was running all his drills!” Words used to describe him were fair, consistent, disciplined and caring. He likes to win, but he is most proud of the many sportsmanship banners that hang in the Concord High School gym.

Buoyed by some key words of wisdom last April from Stoky, Milton’s legendary athletic director, welcomed by students and faculty, and decked out in plenty of orange and blue, Bill sets out on his first Milton sports season this fall.

Class Notes 1937

1946

Rebeckah DuBois Glazebrook reports that she spends her winters in Osprey, Florida, and her summers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She uses a wheelchair to get around, but otherwise is in good health.

Katherine Little Heigham reports that she and her husband, James Heigham ’47, have a grandson at Harvard, and she exclaims, “Shades of days past, since I grew up under the eaves of Adams House!” She and Jim had an interesting trip to Russia last summer, which included traveling up the Volga by boat with various landings, including a wonderful stop at Leningrad with the viewing of the Hermitage and some fantastic art.

1940 Mary H. Smith is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Berkshire Choral Festival, of which she was the founding executive director in 1982. This five-week summer program offers opportunities for amateur choral singers to perform with outstanding conductors, orchestras and professional soloists.

1941 Corinne Kernan Sevigny enjoyed seeing classmates over Graduates’ Weekend in June!

1942 Ingersall Cunningham married Joanna Inches on April 24, 2004. A longtime friend of Sheila Cunningham (deceased) and family friend for some 60 years, Joanna is a flower arranger and a horticulture and daffodil judge, so she keeps their condominium filled year-round with beautiful flowers. Ingersall enjoys volunteering in DanaFarber Cancer Institute’s infusion rooms, where wonderful friendships have bloomed over the last six years.

Class of 1941; row 1 (left to right): Arthur Dubois, Robin Dubois, Roberston Ward, Priscilla Weld, Mary Bunker, Corinne Sevigny

Richard Morgan leads a sedentary, uneventful life—in sharp contrast to his former professional activities. He keeps healthy with moderate consumption of food and wine.

1947 Sherry Houston and his wife, Mary, are moving from California to Colorado to be closer to both daughters and both grandchildren, aged three and one. Sherry reports, “We hate to leave the ideal climate of Southern California, but that is a measure of the lure.” Driving from California to Colorado five times in 2005 was a good reason to relocate. They will be in the Vail Resort area and will have room for visits from friends and classmates.

Class of 1946; row 1 (left to right): Reed Anthony, Katharine Little Heigham, Edie Lauderdale, Henry Guild; row 2 (left to right): George Whitney, Martha Farrar, Gerry Livingston, Anne Beede Jencks

Milton, and is following in the footsteps of his father, Douglas Ranlet Lamont ’73.

anticipating several classmates for what all expect will be a wonderful trip!

Steven Sharp reports from Seattle that he retired in July 2004 at the age of 73. He shares that in ham/amateur radio speak, “73” means, “See you later…”

In July, Betsy Brown Bower will celebrate her 75th birthday with her children and grandchildren in Maui and Kauai.

1943

Donald White says, “We are blessed with continuing good health, growing numbers of grandchildren and relative good peace of mind!” Though they are slowing down, they still enjoy adventuresome world travel.

Ellen Fuller Forbes reports: “Still vertical! Have marbles, will play!”

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1944

Lansing Lamont continues as president of the American Trust for the British Library, which suits his anglophilic-bibliophilic tastes. He is delighted that his grandson Christopher Jung Lamont ’07 is a student at

Several members of the Class of 1949 are looking forward to a trip to Switzerland hosted by Coleman Norris this fall.

Coleman and Jack Robinson are

Sylvia Hurd McDonald is still riding horses, but wishes they would respect her age (80) and slow down a bit!

Michael Henderson is the author of See You After the Duration, which depicts his days at Milton Academy and the hospitality of his American hosts when his parents sent him and his brothers to the United States in order to escape the dangers of the Nazi bombing and possible invasion in World War II. 63

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esting trip to the Colorado River delta area at the head of the Sea of Cortez and explored the Mexican fishing villages on the shore. She looks forward to her next trip: whale watching and exploration of the remote parts of the Baja Peninsula.

1954

Class of 1951; row 1 (left to right): Naneen Rhinelander, Margaret Redding, Fay Frenning, Joey Dubois; row 2 (left to right): Morgan Palmer, Walter Cabot, Bexie Faxon Knowles, Ebbie Dane, Alvin Crowell, William Field, Andy Ward, Addison Closson

Francis Shea’s grandson Danny is a freshman at The Gunnery School in Washington, Connecticut. His granddaughter is a sophomore at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He asserts that his replacements are well on their way to taking charge.

1951 Lumina Verney Greenway reports that her return to New England has been interesting.

She is teaching and practicing Reiki as well as serving on the Nelson Conservation Commission. The house she bought has multiple gardens, which keep her busy much of the year. She is now closer to her two daughters and grandchildren, which is a joy. Her latest cause is opposition to the worldwide privatization of water, “our most precious resource.”

1952 John Eliot, professor emeritus from the University of Maryland, has completed all requirements for a Master’s of Theological Studies at Washington Theological Union and received his degree in May. Tim Gates recalls that while traveling through Elyria, Ohio, in late July, he and his wife had the pleasure of a mini-reunion with 64

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Bill Crowell ’55 at the Lorain County Historical Society, thanks to a casual conversation with Bill’s brother-in-law, the museum’s director. Back in Massachusetts, there was a large pre-fiftyfifth reunion of the Class of 1952 in Cambridge in early June. Tim also relays the good news that “perennial fundraiser” Dave McElwain has moved into the Cape Ann, Massachusetts, neighborhood.

Julie Pinkerton Pettit’s only daughter, Susan Pettit Gleason, died January 11, 2006, at her home in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is survived by her husband, Edward Gleason, of Cohasset, Massachusetts, and her three older brothers: Charles, Emmett and Lindsay. A writer, musician and poet, her creativity, sense of humor and beauty inside and out will be missed.

Julie lives in Falmouth and would love to hear from classmates at 508-540-8928.

After more than 40 years away, Louisa Perkins Porter and her husband, Henry, have returned to the Boston area to a house in Manchester where they can see the sea.

1953 Elinor Lamont Hallowell continues to enjoy eco-tours “south of the border.” She had a very inter-

C. S. Heard is in New York practicing law. He enjoyed a marvelous three-day reunion with Milton classmates and Harvard roommates John Ames and John Fell Stevenson last April in Charleston, South Carolina. He reports, “These two oldest of friends have only gotten better with age!”

1955 Edward Francis, Mike Whitney, Parker Damon and Howard Foster joined Paul Robinson at the Milton-Tabor wrestling meet in January at Milton. Milton’s wrestling team had been undefeated up until a few weeks earlier. Unfortunately, the men’s presence didn’t help Milton prevail against Tabor that day.

1956 Marian Lapsley Schwarz has made a major life change and is now operating a small, but hopefully growing, organic farm in Somers, New York. In addition to vegetables and cut flowers, raspberries and garlic will be their principal cash crops.

Marian says, “It is challenging, and once again I am on the low end of a learning curve—this time it’s soil science. I am happy and well.”

1957 Henry Rogerson and his wife are still traveling about the country in their motor home. They are based in Polk City, Florida, where they spend their winters in their house among other likeminded folk in an active adult, age 55-plus gated community.

1958 The Baha’i faith still comes in as Lisa Hartmann Blake’s number one interest. She is happy with

her pottery business and gets frequent calls to be “Ama” (her grandma name) as her children live close by.

Elizabeth Farnham Blair’s big news is that she and her husband, Grosvenor, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in November. She says, “We remember our wedding day and five scared kids standing with us at the altar. Our families have come together and our three daughters are all sisters and talk almost every day on their cell phones.” Most important, their four grandchildren invite them to share in their many activities.

John Schwarz reports from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he has lived with his wife, Valentina A. Ovsyannikova, since 1993.

He and Valentina started a processing business in Russia that collects and processes organic berries from Russian forests and 11 collective farms that come under the organic umbrella.

If you buy organic cranberries and/or juice, especially from Trader Joe’s, there is a 90 percent chance of tasting their raw material. John’s son, Philip, and daughter, Sasha, with her two children, Monica (16) and David (14), will visit Russia this summer.

1959 Jennie May Bland has five children and 10 grandchildren ranging from age 15 to one month.

She is busy as a school governor and magistrate and as chairman of the Holford Heritage Trust.

Her husband is chairman of British Telecom and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford on Avon. In her free time, Jennie keeps busy breeding flat racing horses. Her children also keep busy: William (41) is a computer program designer, Georgia (40) is a successful writer of children’s books, Tara (38) is a nurse and a painter in Ireland, Jamie (37) is a publisher and Booker Prize winner and Archie (22) recently finished up at Cambridge and is coming to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship.

Class of 1956; front row (left to right): Margaret Sheffield, Anne Robertson, Sue Newbury, Jean McCawley, Mary Crocker Strang, Sally Bowles, Alan MacKay, Helen MacKay, Jane Van Landingham, Lucy Wendell-Thorpe, Judith Chute, Roberta Hayes, Rupert Hitzig, Frank Millet, Robin Robertson, Ruth Baker Ursul, Ernesto Macaya, Margo Johnson, Laura Chase Crocker, Helen Twombly Watkins, Carleton Francis; second row (left to right): Donald Duncan, Hanna Higgins Bartlett, Vicky Murphy, Lynn Crocker, Jim Bartlett, Sally Cutler, Peter Cutler, Betsy Emerson, Anne Crockett Stever, Ellen Thorndike Brawley, Posy Faulkner, Jane Ansin, Ann Hallowell, Bob Cabot, Duncan Chapman, Diana Roberts, Read Albright, Peter Wetherbee, Jane Strekalovsky; third row (left to right): Paul Cifrino, Betsy Borden Carlson, Norm Marsh, Marian Lapsley Schwarz, Sally Watson (Gilliatt), Jim Gilliatt, Janet Whelan (Martin), Ted Robbins, Leonard Ansin, Marjorie Hartzell, Bob Hallowell, Bob Bray, Josh Lane, Joanne Albright, Vcevy Strekalovsky; top row (left to right): Bob Carlson, Karen Sturges, Mitzi Graves Marsh, Hale Sturges, Phil Robertson, Dan Stebbins, Peter Lawrence, Roger Martin, Dick Chute, Tare Newbury, Drew Hartzell, Tom Hoppin, John Bassett, Christina Wolfe, Betsy Hall, Christopher Owen, Jack Reardon, Jane Reardon, John Reidy

Joe Bradley retired from 25 years in teaching and administration in special education. He is working part-time as a videographer and editor at a local public access television station. He continues ministries in Haiti.

13 days on a land tour-cruise.

They traveled by bus, riverboat and small plane to see the incredible views and vast wilderness.

Lydia Butler Goetze retired from teaching at Andover in June 2005 and is happy to be living in Southwest Harbor, Maine, devoted full time to photography. She does digital fine art prints (mostly landscapes) and hopes to expand her teaching in that area.

Elise Forbes Tripp and her husband, Gordon, have lived in western Massachusetts for years and love the politics, the country and the college activities. They have two granddaughters who are marvels.

Wendy Cutter Maynard and her husband, Marv, live along Lake Erie in Ohio. Wendy volunteers at the local county history center where she introduces second through fifth graders to pioneer life in the 1830’s. In her spare time, she is an avid quilter and is also trying to become computer literate. Marv is doing well with multiple sclerosis; he has plateaued and maintains his mobility and sense of humor.

Their daughter Kelly is married and lives in Baltimore. Their other daughter, Tina, lives in the Bay Area in California with her boyfriend. Last July, Wendy and Marv traveled to Alaska spending

KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published Dollars and Sense: Lessons from Good Cost-Effective Small Schools in September 2005 (reviewed in the Spring 2006 issue of Milton Magazine), for which Barbara K. Lawrence was the lead researcher and writer. Barbara is trying to start a small-schools center in Boston and she and Bob are living in Hamilton, Massachusetts, a few blocks from her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Lily.

1960

1962 Dionis “Cosy” Spitzer Griffin has empty-nest syndrome. One of her twin girls is getting married in June. The other is pursuing a master’s in art therapy in Chicago, motivated in part by her younger brother, who is mentally ill. Cosy states, “I am determined not to be shy in talking about my

son’s mental illness.” Her youngest son graduated from high school this spring and is going on to The Savannah College of Art and Design. Cosy keeps busy doing some editing, teaching piano, learning Spanish and Jinshin Jyutsu (a Japanese massage) and trying to stave off old age!

1961

Class of 1961; row 1 (left to right): George Cushing, Steven White, Charles Howland, Gorham Brigham; row 2 (left to right): Dan Bergfeld, Peter Talbot, David Lewiston, Nathaniel Barbour, Paul Harrison, John Cooper, Peter Wilder, Bill McKenna 65

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Class of 1966; row 1 (left to right): Ted Southworth, Harry Norweb, Ngaio Jamieson, Elly Lindsay, Nancy Haydock, Chuck Hunnewell; row 2 (left to right): Guild Tucker, Debby Black Drain, Cathy Cinelli Henriquez, Holly Gardiner Burnes, Cathy Ives Cornell, Peter Roberts

Lee Dennison Roussel is still at USAID, but has switched positions and is now focusing on economics, fiscal policy and financial markets. Her husband, Andrew, teaches French. Her daughters are well; Cecilia graduated from Bard College in May 2005 and teaches in Philadelphia.

Stephanie graduated from Westover School in Connecticut in June. At 91 and 84, her parents are energetic. Both are still playing tennis and doing volunteer work with the same organizations they have been committed to for decades.

Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital had to hire a full-time paid professional to replace her mother when she resigned from her volunteer job there last month! In Milton news, Ginty Snyder, former Lower School teacher and Lee’s mother’s first cousin, is successfully recuperating from a broken hip.

1963 John and Jane (’65) Bihldorff divide their time between managing Janie’s family farm in Canton, Massachusetts, and enjoying their coastal retreat in Wilmington, North Carolina, which John designed and built.

John has retired from hospital administration and their lives are filled with family (including Janie’s mom), friends, volunteer-

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ing and learning how to be senior citizens. Their son David ’97 is about to leave Soundtrack Film and Television in New York to begin an MBA program at Boston University while their other son, Nathan ’92, thrives at Nintendo of America in Seattle.

Daughter Jennifer, her husband, Tim, and all-consuming grandchildren live nearby in Canton.

1964 Ed Schwartz married Lynne Fuente on September 4 on Cape Cod. Peter Pavan is making a good recovery from triple cardiac bypass surgery on December 14, 2005. This summer his daughter began a two-year postdoc in organic chemistry at Harvard.

His son continues his second postdoc in nuclear physics at Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory.

Peter remains chairman of the University of South Florida’s Department of Ophthalmology.

Sylvie Peron ’71 and Mary Penniman Moran ’71 had their own small reunion in late June in Aix-en-Provence, France.

not be able to attend but she was in France at that time. She is working as a teacher, teaching French to adults.

1970 Rosamond Seidel enjoys teaching third graders, in spite of the growing pressures resulting from policies generated in the name of “No Child Left Behind.”

Rosamond and her husband, Keith Beardslee, revel in their quiet life in the woods of New Hampshire. Both kids, Will and Katherine, are in college and soon to graduate.

1971 Sylvie Peron is editor in chief of a glossy quarterly dedicated to business aviation, Boeing Business Jets, Gulfstreams and the like. It is fun and gets her to travel to the States at least once a year for the National Business Aviation Association Convention. Her partner, Luc Blanchard, is an editor for the same publishing group, writing for Yachts magazine, available on newsstands in the States. They both live in Grasse, France, in the hills around Cannes, where they work. Some ten years after

1966 Anne Haydock still practices pediatrics nearly full-time.

She has two children at the University of Vermont. Besides gardening, cross-country skiing and hiking, she sings with a women’s chorus in Brattleboro.

Marian Gram Laughlin thanks Ellie Lindsay for calling about the reunion. Marian was sorry to

Class of 1976; row 1 (left to right): Julia Simonds, Joanne Montouris Nikitas, Max Nikitas, Serene Charles, Drew Kristofik, Martha Logan, Nick Nikitas; row 2 (left to right): Jeffrey Piazza, Sarah Whitley Ferguson, P. Reid, Molly Lee, Elisha Lee

From left, Laura Spence-Ash ’77, Phil Kinnicutt ’59, and Kay Maslin Fullerton ’77 enjoyed a reunion in Hawaii.

mending her olive grove in Fayence, the results are amazing.

Her next project will be venturing into black truffle production.

Meanwhile, she and Mary Penniman Moran enjoyed their own small reunion in late June in Aix-en-Provence, France. Both send warm wishes to their classmates and hope to see them all at the party for the next reunion in 2011.

1975 Henry Heyburn and his wife, Alicia, are keeping busy. They bicycled across Montana in June while Henry (2) and Caroline (4) stayed with their grandparents, an arrangement which worked out for everyone.

Martha Smith McManamy and her husband, John, are so pleased that their oldest, Evan, will be entering Milton this year in Class IV. Martha comments that on their trips back to campus through the admissions process, they have been so impressed, and that Milton seems to stand up very well to its competitors. Martha only wishes she could slip into some of the classes and activities herself!

1976 Jocelyn Miller has three parttime library jobs, working for a community college, a public library and a regional library consortium.

1977 Aloha Milties! In August 2005, Laura Spence-Ash got together with two Milton alumni who live in Hawaii, Kay Maslin Fullerton and Phil Kinnicutt ’59, while on vacation with her family.

1978 David Mushatt and his wife Mary Anne survived Hurricane Katrina and moved back into their home in New Orleans a few days before Christmas. Although their neighborhood flooded, they were very fortunate that the water did not get inside their house. David has been asked to take over as Chief of Infectious Diseases at Tulane, which will keep him busy as he and Mary Anne try to rebuild their lives.

He adds, “my wife and our two boys, John and Jacob, are the joys of my life.”

A painting by Sam Minot ’80, an artist living in Bucksport, Maine.

Julie Lamont and her husband, Phil Price, are busy restoring watersheds, creeks and wildlife in Berkeley, California. They are happy to be traveling, doing lots of camping, kayaking, hiking, bird-watching and more.

1981 Rob Davis is in New York City with his wife, son Andrew and daughter Julie.

In June 2005, Stephan Fopeano and his wife, Shannon, traveled

to Jiangxi, China to meet their new daughter, Olivia Li Fopeano (born July 6, 2004). At home she was welcomed by big brothers Nick (7) and Alec (4). Stephan lives in Los Angeles, where he is the principal of Meliorist Technology, a media and entertainment consulting company.

Matthew Moore has moved to South Florida and is changing careers. He is in his first year of law school.

1980 Betsy Garside started as a vice president for communications and membership at The Wilderness Society, a national land-conservation nonprofit. On September 10, 2005, she married Stephen Warren. Several Milties were in attendance. She reports, “The weather? Perfect.”

Carolyn Donohue Grant lives in Chicago where her boys Sean (9) and Duncan (5) are growing up fast, reports Lisa Donohue ’83.

Class of 1981; row 1 (left to right): Robert Junkin, Fiona McEnany, Becky Roak McEnany, L. McEnany, Lisa Marr, Erin Lescinsky, Emily Hardon Altman, Elizabeth Dakin, Jessica Lindley, Mark Niles, John S. Cameron, Carly Ward; row 2 (left to right): Luke Panarese, Ned Jeffries, Derek Nelson, Brian Hicks, Alison Games, Ann Greenleaf, Christopher Garrity, Elizabeth Ward; row 3 (left to right): Cam Burns, Swing Robertson, Sierra Bright, Kenneth Goldberg, Olivier Bustin, Matthew Moore, William Janeway, Kathryn Johnson, John Sullivan 67

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Class of 1986; row 1 (left to right): Grace Chan McKibben, Katherine F. Laing, Brooke (Coldiron) Penders, Olivia (Rugo) Free, Whitney (Shugrue) Hermann, Kathryn (Moran) Collins, Ruta Brickus and Baby Romas, Stephen Bordonaro— Samantha, Matthew, Shin Hirose; row 2 (left to right): Mariana Chilton, Susan Carter, Farah Pandith, Christopher Perry, Vanessa (Rugo) Robinson, Michael Gitlitz, John Marshall, Karen Euler, Stephen Brotman, Todd Chayet; row 3 (left to right): James Pringle, Barry Korn, Robert Ball, Derrick Cooper, Lewis Gilman, Graydon Clouse, Heather Ewing, Wendy Millet, Matthew Griffin

1982 Ryo Hirose recently went on vacation to Los Cabos with Isabelle Hunnewell Stafford and her family for relaxation. In family news, Ryo continues to work as a liver, kidney and pancreas transplant surgeon at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and is now associate director of the surgical residency program. He is busy raising Kentaro (8) and Kyoko (7). Ryo also reports that Keiko Hirose ’85 is at the Cleveland Clinic and is a successful pediatric ENT surgeon. Shin Hirose ’86 finished his general surgery residency at UCSF and is at Columbia Presbyterian doing a pediatric surgery fellowship. Kenzo Hirose ’91 finished his general surgery residency at UCSF and is doing a liver fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. The Hirose family headed off to Brown this spring for Momoko Hirose’s ’02 graduation. Ryo reports, “she is thinking of going to med school— surprise, surprise.”

Phil Robertson reports that he is living happily in Bangkok, Thailand, with his wife and fiveyear-old daughter and works as a consultant on human rights, labor and migration issues for United Nations agencies, inter68

Milton Magazine

national trade union organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGO). He is also the country chair of the Democrats Abroad chapter in Thailand. He welcomes Milton Academy visitors. While in the United States last year, he saw classmates J. B. Pritzker, Fred Bisbee, Jim Ward, and Karl Austen. He considers himself incredibly lucky to have Fran McLean as a brother-in-law and saw Fran and Nan’s (Anne “Nan” Robinson McLean ’83) new home in Rockville, Maryland.

Phil also catches up with Jonathan “Jones” Walsh, who is a longtime English teacher in Sapporo, Japan.

Isabelle Hunnewell Stafford writes, “Hello Milton friends!”

She reports that life in Tamworth, New Hampshire, is busy but good. Between juggling two jobs and running after her two children, Thomas (7) and Georgia (5), she is quite challenged on a daily basis. Isabelle checks her email periodically and would love to hear from people, exclaiming, “For example, has anyone successfully made it through their mid-life crisis?”

Tom Waters is a policy analyst researching and advocating for low-income housing and supporting tenant organizing at the

Class of 1991; row 1 (left to right): Katharine Brooks Leness, Kaci Carr Foster, Hannah Miller Lerman, Linda Harrison Biederman, Shelly (Pitman) Suzuki, Courtney Monnich (Meredith), Ben Monnich, Luke Monnich, Spencer Hoffman (Celia); row 2 (left to right): Adriana McGrath, Jessica Semerjian Lopez, Aaron Goldberg, John Corey, Adam Stein, Sarah Millet (Scarlett); row 3 (left to right): Denielle Bertarelli, Robert Purcell, Fipp Avlon, Andreas Lazar, Michael Douglas, Matt Pottinger, Jeff Courey, Henrik Brun

Community Service Society of New York. He lives in northwest Bronx with Hilary Callahan and five-year-old Daniel Watahan.

1983 Claire Messud’s new novel, The Emperor’s Children, was released this fall by Knopf. She and her family—husband James Wood and their children Livia (5) and Lucian (2)—moved to the Boston area in 2003 and love being here.

Cynthia Powell returned from the Peace Corps in Niger and is setting up a freelance writing/ editing business focusing on international development issues. She gives her best to all and can’t wait for the 25th!

1984 Sarah Hoit and her husband, Scott Bevins, live in Hingham with their two children, Samantha (3) and Wesley (4).

Sarah is an investment advisor with ThomasPartners in Wellesley. Recently, Sarah and Scott had a wonderful time reconnecting with Patrice Dolan Morse and her husband, Carter.

Lisa Donohue ’83 passed along the news that Asher Lipman is a proud father of a baby girl, Charlotte Manya.

1985 James Forbes lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with his wife, Alison, and their two girls, Alden (5) and Willow (2). He enjoys seeing John Siegfried and his family occasionally since they moved to Amesbury, Massachusetts. He finds parenting challenging and mostly a lot of fun—“especially since they’re out of diapers now!”

1986 Ely Todd Chayet currently works in Los Angeles, California, at Thelen, Rein and Priest, LLP. He resides in Calabasas, California, with his wife, Kathleen, and children, Aaron, Tara and Sarah.

Grace Chan McKibben is vice president in human resources at LaSalle Bank, leading a change management initiative. After almost three years as Deputy Director for Administration at the Illinois Department of Employment Security, she has gained quite a few insights on effecting change in large, complex organizations. Her children, Jessica (12), Jacob (10), Vanessa (7) and Vincent (4), are growing too fast and Grace comments,

civil rights plantiffs’ attorneys.

She lives in Brooklyn down the street from Megan Stephan.

Brad Critchell lives in New York City, where he is an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston.

Nicholas DuBois, wife Heidi and daughter Willa (3) live in New York, where Nicholas is in private practice in cardiology at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Brendan Everett and his wife, Anna Rutherford, had their first child, Amelia Rutherford Everett, on March 5, 2005.

Willa Golden Jackson was born on April 10, 2005, in Los Angeles— daughter of Dana Jackson ’90 and Sarah Bynum ’90.

“I can’t believe I have two children in double-digit ages already!”

Kathleen Lapey Weiss and her family moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, last summer where her husband is stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky (home of the 101st Airborne Division). He just left for a six-month deployment in Afghanistan. Kathleen is keeping busy with her three boys—Allen (2-) and twins Duncan and Austin (16 months) and is semi-retired from her previous job as a clinical psychologist. She is looking forward to seeing classmates at reunion!

1987 Melinda Jeffry Davies is working as a full-time mom with two girls, Morgan (5) and Erin (3).

Her “spare” time is spent volunteering at Sudbury Cooperative, their preschool. She previously was treasurer and took over as president in June.

After five years, Rupa Mitra left the practice of corporate law and is now working in trial chambers as an associate legal officer at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The Tribunal is in Tanzania, and Rupa encourages those thinking about going on safari to get in touch!

Isabel Ames McDevitt ’93 is pictured with her daughter, Sophie Alexandra McDevitt, born September 12, 2005.

1988 Ellen Dunne lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she runs a graphic and Web design business. She keeps up with many of her Milton classmates including Ia Andrews, Hilary Holt and Chris Warren.

1989 Nicole (Camiel) Neustein was recently married to Rick Neustein, a native Floridian.

The couple are living in Aventura, Florida, and recently had a baby girl named Isabella Marialena on March 8.

Shannon McGlame Pinson and her husband, Mark, are happy to announce the birth of their son, Tyler Bray Pinson, on January 4.

Kate Brooks Leness and her husband, Tony, are thrilled to announce the birth of their son, George Harfield Leness, who arrived on April 5, 2006, joining big sister Lucy.

1993 Dana Critchell received her M.D. from Columbia in May. She is a resident at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia.

After eight years in New York City, Isabel Ames McDevitt, her husband, Ed, and daughter, Sophie, moved to Boulder, Colorado, in February. Isabel had worked as the Director of Business Development for The Doe Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to providing employment and housing for homeless individuals. In Boulder, Isabel is acting as Ed’s business manager as he leaves the world of Wall Street to

pursue a career as an elite Ironman triathlete. Sophie Alexandra McDevitt was born September 12, 2005, and is a delight.

1994 Victoria Davis started work on her master’s at Oxford last summer. She is wrapping up her seventh year as an educator and is taking next year to volunteer in Sudan. She continues to spend time with Jason Bolton ’95.

Nick Howe and his wife, Catherine Newman Howe, celebrated the birth of their daughter, Josephine, in late March.

They report that she is fat and happy and that they are over the moon. Nick is doing his doctorate in cultural geography at University of Califonia Los Angeles and Catherine is doing hers in art history at University of California Santa Barbara. They live in the city of Ventura, where they surf, hike and garden. Longlost friends can reach Nick at nhowe@ucla.edu.

1995 Ali Stumm Pogorelec happily reports that she and her husband, Jason, had a beautiful baby girl, Suzanne, on October 13, 2005. She arrived two weeks early and weighed in at six pounds, 10 ounces and is doing well. She actually made quite a production of her arrival, keeping Ali in the hospital for the last

1990 Dave Bergan and his wife, Braden, welcomed their first child this spring: Phoebe Susan Bergan, born April 12. And lucky Phoebe, one of her first visitors was Sarah Burley!

Dana Jackson and Sarah Shunlien Bynum share the news of their daughter’s birth. Willa Golden Jackson was born on April 10, 2005, in Los Angeles.

1991 Debi Cornwall is an attorney with the New York City law firm of Cochran, Newfeld and Sheck,

Nat Kreamer ’95 is serving on active duty with the United States Navy for a year in Iraq and Afghanistan. This picture was taken in Kuwait as Nat prepared to leave for Camp Victory, Baghdad.

Ali Stumm Pogorelec ’95 and her husband, Jason, happily report the birth of their daughter, Suzanne, on October 13, 2005.

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Episcopal Church in Kirtland Hills, Ohio. Frances is a master’s degree candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. Patrick is the vice president for strategic planning at the Pawtucket Insurance Company, a property and casualty insurance company in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Frances and Patrick plan to live in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Frances is the daughter of Julia S. and Charles P. Bolton ’60.

Patrick is the son of Elsie and Patrick R. Wilmerding of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Frances B. Bolton ’96 married Patrick S. Wilmerding of Boston on June 10 at St. Hubert’s Episcopal Church in Kirtland Hills, Ohio.

seven weeks of the pregnancy.

On the plus side, it gave her a chance to catch up with Chrissie Curley Skiadas and Whit Growdon ’94, who are both residents at Brigham!

Colby Anne Hunter Previte is enjoying her second year in her OB/GYN residency at the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY).

Her husband is doing his residency in anesthesia (also at the U of R), so they don’t see too much of each other these days.

But, they love Rochester and are thinking about starting a family in the coming year.

1996 Phillip Dickinson is at University of Virginia’s Darden Business School and enjoyed a summer internship in New York City.

Barbara Ladd Targum married Elliot Targum on September 5, 2004, in Dark Harbor, Maine.

The couple was thrilled to have a number of Milton alumni and faculty in attendance. Barbara and Elliot live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Frances B. Bolton married Patrick S. Wilmerding of Boston on June 10 at St. Hubert’s

Other Milton graduates who attended the wedding were family members Jason D. Bolton ’95, John B. Bolton ’67, Kenyon C. Bolton, III ’61, Philip P. Bolton ’63, Thomas C. Bolton ’60, William B. Bolton ’66 and his wife, Katherine H. Bolton ’78.

Also attending were other members of the Class of 1960: Bancroft Littlefield, Jr., William Minot, Charles E. Pierce, Jr., and Sheldon B. Sturges.

1997 Alex Bain has just moved back to Boston from San Francisco, where he was an Operations Manager for Apple Computer.

Alex made the move with his girlfriend, and will be attending Harvard Business School in

September. He reports that since he has returned to the area, Alex has run into many Milton folks, including Scott Golding, who has one year left at University of Connecticut Law School and is getting married soon, and Will Hutchinson, who just graduated from Georgetown Law and who, Alex reports, is growing quite a mustache.

Jamie Scott comments that this has been an amazing year. On July 9, 2005, she and Jay Haverty were married on Cape Cod. Other Miltonites at the wedding included: Sarah Kenney, Eve Manz, Sara Shaughnessy, Josh Olken, Tony Panza and Erick Tseng. This past June, Jamie graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and she and Jay have moved back to New York City.

On January 15, 2006, Mike Silverstein married Kim Rogoff in La Jolla, California. Milton graduates in attendance included bridesmaid Erica Silverstein ’94 and groomsmen Josh Olken and Tony Panza. Sarah Kenney and Ben Hurwitz also attended. Kim and Mike live in Los Angeles, where she works at University of Southern California Hillel and he works at Anonymous Content, a talent management company in Hollywood. Mike would love to hear from Milton friends and get in touch with anyone who is traveling to Southern California. His email is Mikesilv1@aol.com.

After graduating with an MBA from Stanford Business School in June 2006, Erick Tseng embarked on a world tour, visiting Australia, New Zealand, Croatia and Alaska. Upon his return, he began his new job as product manager at Google in Mountain View, California.

1999

Class of 1996; row 1 (left to right): Raj Mitra, Brina Milikowsky, Moriah Musto, Laura De Girolami, Alice Burley, Mike Rodrigues, Haven Ley, Hillary Drohan Flynn, Lauren Mann, Kimberly McManama O’Brien, Eliza Bentley; row 2 (left to right): Eric Hudson, Alexandra Greene, Liz Gregory Martin, Dave Panitz, Peter Huoppi, Sander Cohan, Brian Tobin, Peter Schnell; row 3 (left to right): Jon Alschuler, Mike Connolly, Barbara (Ladd) Targum, Chris Bonacci, Brian White, Aubin Dupree, David Dildine, Jess Robinson, Alexa Gilpin 70

Milton Magazine

Stephen Elliott is currently across Puget Sound from Seattle in Bremerton, Washington, serving aboard the USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730), a ballistic missile nuclear submarine. He’ll be there until at least the winter of 2008–2009, so he encourages any Miltonians out in Seattle to contact him.

Barbara Ladd Targum ’96 and Elliot Targum were married September 5, 2004, bringing together Milton alumni and faculty. Front row (left to right): Sarah Chamberlin ’96, Jessica Robinson ’96, Elliot Targum (groom), Barbara Ladd Targum ’96, Philip Ladd ’69, Carolyn Damp (faculty). Back row (left to right): Eric Hudson ’96, Alexa Gilpin ’96, Sarah Aldrich ’95, Henry Ladd ’00, Bob Gilpin (former faculty), Weezie Gilpin (faculty), Alixe Utgoff ’69, Dudley Ladd ’62, Molly Merrill Ladd ’92, Haven Ladd ’92.

Katherine Sims ’00 and Joshua White were married on August 27, 2005, at their home in Westfield, Vermont. In attendance and pictured above are Jen Taylor ’00, Bree McKenney ’00, groom Josh White, bride Katherine Sims ’00, Vera Gerrity ’00, Kate O’Neill ’00, Louisa Phinney ’00, and Maggie Turner ’00.

Also present were Molly Epstein ’00 and Josh Cohen ’00.

Andrew Houston is teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Before moving to Vietnam, he was working in Chicago for an international education company. He’s looking forward to returning to Chicago in the spring and enrolling at the University of Chicago for a master’s program in the fall.

ran into Dave Jenkins, who was headed to work in South Africa for one to three years. Joanna has been living in Paris since 2003 and recently had dinner with Leigh Pascavage (who is also now living in Paris) and Lily Brown, who was there for a visit.

onships in London, Ontario.

David played on the newly formed team Finland (due to his Finnish heritage), and their team finished better than expected, in 9th place out of 21 teams.

2000

Patrick Wales-Dinan and Hernan Ortiz climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya during the fall of 2005.

Brandon Wall matriculated this fall to Stanford University’s PhD

program in Economics. During the summer he biked 4,000 miles across the country (from Connecticut to Oregon) for the Habitat Bicycle Challenge in order to raise money and awareness for Habitat for Humanity.

In Logan airport on their way to Paris to visit Joanna Ostrem for Thanksgiving 2005, Kristin Ostrem, Kara Sweeney, Sarah White and Leanne McManama

David Huoppi recently competed in the World Lacrosse Champi-

Class of 2001; row 1 (left to right): Willis Bruckermann, Amin Kirdar, Daniel Sibor, Lucy Byrd, Amelia Modigliani, Amanda Hollis, Amanda Harrington, Frances Weld, Brooke Wood, Elyse Nieves, Caroline Browne, Caroline Davis, Alexander Roitman; row 2 (left to right): Alexandra Sastre, Patrick Wales- Dinan, Hernán Ortiz, Daniel Sheyner, Eric Shin, Peter S. Cohen, Nick Rosenthal, Stephanie Turchi, Rachel Hytken, Callie Mansfield, Tomica Burke; row 3 (left to right): Sarah Walcott, Karen Blumenthal, Molly Friedensohn, Eliza Talbot, Jason Simon, Gates Sanford, Hayden Jaques, Margaret Kerr, Simon Mikolayczyk, Molly Greenberg, Carrie Greer, Travis Kellner; row 4 (left to right): Dana McLoughlin, Jahmila Joseph, Michael Kennedy, Keely Macmillan, James Bisbee, Audrey Tse, Timothy Churchill, Nathan Bliss, Emile Ernandez, Michael Nguyen, Hannah Flint, Alexander Weiss, Peter Fishman, Sian Evans, Luke Selby, Chukwuka Nwabuzor

2001

Elyse Nieves ’01 and her family welcomed Cameron James Mahatha on October 6, 2005. Elyse reports, “Cam is a lovable future Milton Mustang!”

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2002 Charlie Bisbee spent the spring semester of his junior year studying in Stockholm, Sweden.

Darnell Nance is in the process of starting his own business.

He and his business partner have a patent on the idea and hope to have the business running shortly.

2003 After continuing her political work with both the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus and a successful state senate campaign this past summer, Rebecca

Wilsker has elected to take a semester away from school to work on a midterm election campaign this fall. Afterwards, she plans to return to school at the University of Pennsylvania to graduate with her class in the spring of 2007.

Friends

2004

Deaths

Jonathan Brestoff, currently a student at Skidmore College, won a 2006 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for two years of undergraduate support.

1924 1928 1929 1930 1933 1934

Kathryn Wise is playing varsity tennis at Rhodes College, where she is doing well academically, thanks to Milton!

Milton Academy Board of Trustees, 2006 Julia W. Bennett ’79 Norwell, Massachusetts

Lisa A. Jones ’84 Newton, Massachusetts

Bradley Bloom Wellesley, Massachusetts

George A. Kellner Vice President New York, New York

William T. Burgin ’61 Dover, Massachusetts James M. Fitzgibbons ’52 Emeritus Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

F. Warren McFarlan ’55 Belmont, Massachusetts Carol Smith Miller Boston, Massachusetts

Austan D. Goolsbee ’87 Chicago, Illinois

Tracy Pun Palandjian ’89 Belmont, Massachusetts

Catherine Gordan New York, New York

Richard C. Perry ’73 New York, New York

Victoria Hall Graham ’81 New York, New York

John P. Reardon ’56 Vice President Cohasset, Massachusetts

Margaret Jewett Greer ’47 Emerita Chevy Chase, Maryland Antonia Monroe Grumbach ’61 Secretary New York, New York Franklin W. Hobbs IV ’65 President New York, New York Ogden M. Hunnewell ’70 Vice President Brookline, Massachusetts Harold W. Janeway ’54 Emeritus Webster, New Hampshire

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Upon the eve of his retirement, Jim Hejduk (faculty 1974–1986) brought the Belmont Hill B-Flats to sing at Milton’s May 14th chapel service in Apthorp Chapel.

Herbert G. Stokinger Eleanora Sargent David Howland Richard Walcott Lawrence Mills Anne Gallagher Putnam Louise Bush Chapman 1935 Roswell Brayton 1936 Elliot Forbes Letitia Howe

1938 Suzanne Smith Frantz 1939 Margaret Earle Peter J.Duncan Pitney 1940 Francis Moulton 1941 Verner Z. Reed III Robert G. Stone 1942 George Warren 1946 Anthony L. “Tim” Shepard Peggy Aldis Westphal 1947 Jerry Flaschner 1948 Frederic Toppan 1952 Mary Jane Greeley 1954 Francis C. Welch 1955 James D. Hayward 1956 Caroline McMullan Burke Nancy DuBois Wright 1960 Katherine Potter Taylor 1964 Charles H. Buck III 1968 Jane Mason Crittenden

Keep Milton on Your Dance Card Milton held a special place in your heart during your years as a student. By making a bequest to the School, you can help ensure that the dance goes on for many generations to come.

You can make a bequest to Milton in a variety of ways, such as including the School in your will, or by naming us as a beneficiary of your retirement plan. For information on how to make a bequest, please call Suzie Greenup ’75 in the Development Office at 617-8982376 or email her at suzie_greenup@milton.edu.

Kevin Reilly Jr. ’73 Baton Rouge, Louisiana Robin Robertson Milton, Massachusetts H. Marshall Schwarz ’54 Emeritus New York, New York Karan Sheldon ’74 Blue Hills Falls, Maine Frederick G. Sykes ’65 Rye, New York Jide J. Zeitlin ’81 Treasurer New York, New York

Class of 1910 Dance Card June 17, 1910

Who is choosing Milton these days?

“Dr. Robertson, I present to you the incoming students for the fall of 2006.”

—Dean of Admission Paul Rebuck

• Over 1,000 boys and girls completed the application process at Milton last year.

• Members of the Admission Committee read each of their folders three or four times to select a class of 145 new students, Classes IV through II. • Our typical accept rate is 29 percent.

• The median SSAT score for students we admit is in the 90th percentile.

• New boarding students in 2006 number 93 and new day students number 52; they join 40 Milton students rising up from our Middle School for a total of 185.

• New students come from 19 states, and 14 countries: places as geographically and culturally diverse as New England and the Pacific Northwest, Sweden, India, and Kazakhstan. As a

whole, the student body represents 28 states from New England to the Pacific Northwest and 22 countries including Kenya, Switzerland, and Singapore.

• Among new students, 40 percent are students of color.

• At least 19 languages are spoken in students’ homes, including Polish, Arabic, Mandarin, French and Japanese.

• Forty percent come to Milton from public schools, and 25 percent are related to a Milton graduate or have a Milton sibling.

• Students are from large cities like Chicago, New York and Shanghai, as well as small places like Ipswich, Massachusetts; Oswego, New York; and Brattleboro, Vermont. Their hometowns stretch around the globe from Irving, Texas to

Ketchum, Idaho—Mumbai, India to St. Ann’s, Jamaica to Mattapan, Massachusetts. They hail from Concord, Massachusetts as well as Concord, New Hampshire; from Brooklyn, New York and Brookline, Massachusetts; from Montreal, Reno and Singapore.

• Parents of these students include: a police officer, a neurosurgeon, an elementary school teacher, a scientist, and a major in the US Army, along with a high school principal, an artist, an accountant, a novelist and a translator at the United Nations.

• Students’ interests include: song writing, fencing, scuba diving, knitting, juggling, yoga, surfing, Irish step dancing, fashion design, fly fishing, baking and improv (theatre). They are football players who dance, dancers who sail, and sailors who write poetry.

“Celebrate your diversity of thought, creed, ethnicity and style as you get to know one another. Your backgrounds and interests are rich, varied and intriguing, and that’s one of the defining qualities of this wonderful school.”

—Dean Rebuck, September 6, 2006

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