CLASS NOTES
A CLOSER LOOK
Suspending Suspension Margaret Sturtevant ’12 When Margaret Sturtevant was a firstyear student at Connecticut College in fall 2012, she volunteered at a local elementary school, and students told her stories about classmates who had gotten suspended for minor infractions rather than extremely disruptive behavior. Sturtevant was puzzled. Wouldn’t taking a student away from education cause more harm than good? Over the next three years, in several of her classes, Sturtevant researched and advocated for a solution to this problem. The result was a paper titled “Suspending Suspension: An Inclusive Disciplinary Framework to Support Student Learning,” which was named Policy of the Year by The Roosevelt Institute, a national organization that engages college students in public policy issues. “I feel uncomfortable getting attention for my policy,” says Sturtevant. “This is about students — especially those who are black, Latino, LGBTQ, or have disabilities — being excluded from academic success through suspension and expulsion.” Sturtevant also worked with community members, board of education members, and school administrators to develop a proposal for the New London public schools to revise their disciplinary practices to include the practice of “restorative justice” as a way to address school suspensions and to be more supportive of student learning.
90 I NMH Magazine
writes, “I am enjoying life as a medical student in Burlington, Vt., and have fun getting together regularly with Sarah Shephard-Lupo. I will be graduating from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in May. Excited for ‘match day’ in March, when I’ll find out where I’ll be completing my four years of ob/ gyn residency training!” • Jake Sweet is living in Greenfield, Mass., with Shannon Ketcham ’09 and is working for a Jewish calligrapher in Colrain. He’s still running tabletop role-playing games, using the Internet to connect with players in different parts of the country, and thinking about returning to school sometime in the future. • Karissa Scano graduated from the police academy in Boston in June 2015 and is now working for the force! Emily Arena came to her graduation. Karissa and Emily spent a weekend in Washington, D.C., visiting Sarah Heist. Sarah is teaching fourth-grade math and working on her master’s in elementary math education and technology integration at Johns Hopkins. Meanwhile, Emily is teaching fifth grade in western Massachusetts, and Karissa has a dog named Crossley! • Sarah Anne Tanner once again hosted a raucous gathering of NMH ’08ers in the Boston area (and a few from beyond) for the eighth year running! “We had a second Thanksgiving (turkey roasted beautifully by Nikki Rossetti and carved handily by Spencer Hattendorf) and sang ‘Jerusalem’ before eating. Most of us still remember all the words, and I have to say we also sounded really good! Also in attendance: Eli Stiefel, Juliana Beecher, Brooke Evans, Jim Montague, Julia Mix Barrington, David Rome, Max Mazzone, Becky Gillig, Rachel Koh, Sebastian Friedrich Winter, and various non-NMH friends and significant others. It was a lively gathering, as usual!” • Spencer Hattendorf’s band, The Rooks, is taking the funk scene by storm. Brooke Evans has started an M.S. in food policy and applied nutrition at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition. Julia Mix Barrington passed her qualifying exam for her Ph.D. in English at Boston University and is working on her prospectus. David Rome passed the bar exam in October! Max Mazzone is still working in real estate. Juliana Beecher is living in Athens, Ohio, baking and managing at a small artisan bread company and plans to head west again this summer. Rachel Koh is heading to Copenhagen for a few months to do wind energy research. And Sarah Anne Tanner is still living in Somerville and signed up for some language classes — she’s daydreaming about moving abroad again! • I am in relatively regular touch with Rebecca Young, who is living and working in Seattle, and Lilly Richardson, who has her feet on the ground in Portland, Ore. I interrupted Renee Forcier’s studies in veterinary medicine to consult with her as I began working again on the fantasy novel we started when we were in Merrill-Keep. (I took a stab at the National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo — challenge in November.)
And in August, I went to Carla Cevasco’s (’07) wedding celebration, where I also saw Emily Thomas ’07 for the first time in many years! • I love hearing from all of you. Stay in touch!
09
Northfield Mount Hermon
Daisy Letendre daisycletendre@gmail.com • Eshalla Merriam eshallamerriam@gmail.com • Pamela Chen pamchen13@gmail.com • Fayette Phillips fayettephillips@gmail.com • Anna Stevens annagstevens@gmail.com • Galen Anderson gjande01@syr.edu
From Daisy Letendre: The class of 2009 has taken the state of North Carolina by storm. Leopoldo Toralballa, who will likely be deployed in the next year or so, is stationed an hour south of Fort Bragg, N.C. Leo and Johannes Wesselhoeft, who have remained close friends since graduating from NMH, see each other quite often, as Johannes is completing his transatlantic master’s program in political science at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Johannes will spend the upcoming year in the U.K. at University of Bath as part of this program. Allison Hartman is also enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she is halfway through completing her Ph.D. in physics. • Sawyer Connelly graduated from Colorado College in May 2015, and after spending the summer at an Atlantic salmon lodge in Norway, he moved to Missoula, Mont., to join Backcountry Hunters and Anglers as a Wyss Fellow. Pascale Guay is also living in Montana and working with Youth with a Mission — a training and sending organization for missionaries. • Elisabeth Jeff cote is living in New Hampshire and working toward her master’s in nursing. Elisabeth, Melanie Bete, Hannah Perlman, and Daisy Letendre all traveled together to Nashville, Tenn., to celebrate the Fourth of July, where they ran into Mike Marra. • Sebas Shrady recently moved to Chile, where he will be doing some sustainability work. • Caitlin Curtis is living in Australia now on a working holiday visa and plans to be in Australia and Southeast Asia for the foreseeable future.
Leopoldo Toralballa ’09 (left) and Johannes Wesselhoeft ’09 in Chapel Hill, N.C.