KnightTimes Fall 2016

FALL 2016

Women Mentoring Women Building relationships to boost confidence and business acumen

Working with CARE

T H E M A G A Z I N E O F PA C E A C A D E M Y

Homecoming & Class Reunions

+NEW

LEADERS

A POWERFUL PARTNERSHIP

Tornusciolo,

Students dazzled in Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit, the Middle School fall play. Read about it on page 21.

Caitlin Goodrich Jones ’00 DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

F ollow Pace !

facebook.com/ paceacademy

instagram.com/ paceacademy

pinterest.com/ paceacademy

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR As I began editing this edition of the KnightTimes, a theme emerged. Full disclosure: the theme wasn’t intentional, but I like the way it came together.

So, I’m officially declaring this issue a celebration of the amazing girls and women of Pace Academy. In it, we take a look at Women Mentoring Women, an Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) program in partnership with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey that exposes young women to the business world (page 42).

We also reflect on the ICGL’s partnership with international relief organization CARE and its Pathways initiative, which posits that women farmers in African nations may be the solution to combating food insecurity (page 38). We profile SALLY TINSLEY, who, for two decades, ensured a young Pace Academy survived and thrived on a day-today basis (page 54), and we applaud author ANNE CORBITT ’00 on the release of her debut novel (page 49).

This issue makes me proud to be a woman at Pace Academy and proud of our commitment—to all of our students—to strive for excellence, to create prepared, confident citizens of the world.

A fun aside: Our summer issue included a profile of former Board of Trustees Chair RUSSELL BRIDGES, JR. In the article, author Elizabeth Hetzel, Bridges’ granddaughterin-law, recalls the family’s home on Arden Road. “Expansive verandas on the back side of the house were shaded by a 100-year-old oak tree,” Hetzel writes. “It was the perfect setting to raise a family.”

In response to the piece, Pace parent CAROLINE CRAWFORD reached out to let us know that her family now occupies the Bridges’ former home. “Unfortunately, the oak had to be taken down several years ago, but I wanted you to know that the property on Arden is still in the Pace family!”

PACE CARES

When our families and staff are in need, Pace Cares.

Contact us to deliver a meal:

twitter.com/ paceacademy

404-926-3727 or pacecares@paceacademy.org

T H E MA G A Z INE OF PACE ACADEMY

CONTRIBUTORS

966 W. Paces Ferry Road NW Atlanta, Georgia 30327

JIBRIL SADIQ ’17 JIBRIL SADIQ is a senior and a member of the Knight Gallery staff, the Student Advisory Board and the robotics team. He’s taking Advanced Art Studio this year and plans to pursue art in college. In his free time, Sadiq enjoys drawing, writing and painting. Over the summer, he interned with Pace’s communications and advancement departments.

Before taking the helm of The Knightly News as 2016–2017 social media editor and co-editor-in-chief, senior ALEXIS WILKINS spent some of the summer interning with the Pace communications department. Wilkins is an executive service leader for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, an active member of the Gay Straight Alliance and a National Honor Society member. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, writing, cooking and dancing at Druid Hills Dance Center.

06 NEW LEADERSHIP Changes in the Middle School 08 ANDREW THOMAS U.S. Army All-American Bowl Selection 09 CONNOR LAMASTRA Scholastic All-American

10 AROUND PACE A look at what's happening on campus 10 GREG KELLY The new chair of the Board of Trustees 11 NEW BOARD MEMBERS 12 NEW PACE FAMILIES

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34 GLOBAL LEADERS Highlighting students who set the pace outside of school 34 SUMMER INTERNSHIPS 36 CAMP SOUTHERN GROUND BOBBY MILLS' gift 37 FACULTY PROFILE Meet JOE SANDOE

38 CARE A partnership for good

42 WOMEN MENTORING WOMEN Building confidence and business skills one young woman at a time

44 ALUMNI 44 UPDATES

15 KEEPING PACE 16 CHARLES WELLBORN '83 Profile of a Life Trustee

51 NEW ALUMNI BOARD MEMBERS

20 MIDDLE & UPPER SCHOOL THEATRE

52 HOMECOMING & REUNIONS

Summer trips, climate activities and ZEENA LATTOUF '12

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

FRED ASSAF

MICHAEL GANNON Head of Upper School JOHN ANDERSON Head of Middle School SYREETA MOSELEY Head of Lower School

CAITLIN GOODRICH JONES ’00 Director of Communications, Editor

49 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Author ANNE CORBITT '00

22 ICGL

Head of School

Communications Department

CONTENTS What you need to know

www.paceacademy.org

Division Heads

ALEXIS WILKINS ’17

06 NEWS

KnightTimes

54 A QUEEN OF THE CASTLE An intimate look at SALLY TINSLEY

RYAN VIHLEN Creative Services Manager, Graphic Designer LELA WALLACE Digital Communications Manager

Staff Writer LIZ WIEDEMANN Stewardship Manager

Contributing Photographers FRED ASSAF GEMSHOTS PHOTOGRAPHIC www.gemshots.com LAURA INMAN

Our Mission To create prepared, confident citizens of the world who honor the values and legacy of Pace Academy.

To contribute ideas for the KnightTimes, please email Caitlin Jones at caitlin.jones@paceacademy.org.

Incoming Head of Middle School Graham Anthony will continue the culture of academic excellence, creativity and fun that Head of Middle School John Anderson has created.

Dear Pace Family, We’re well into the new school year and the many traditions and activities that entails— our seniors’ spirited first-day-of-school parade up W. Paces Ferry, fall theatre productions and Friday-night football games, Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, field trips and the endless fun inherent to day-to-day life at Pace Academy.

For 12 years, Head of Middle School JOHN ANDERSON has presided over these beginning-of-the-year festivities, welcoming students and families in his gentle, thoughtful manner. Mr. Anderson will retire in June, bringing to a close a 41-year career in which he has taught the minds and touched the hearts of generations of students. We will celebrate Mr. Anderson’s innumerable contributions to our community in the coming weeks and months.

Please save April 29 for Oh, What a Knight!, the Parents Club’s Auction honoring our beloved Mr. A! In this issue, we announce that Assistant Head of Middle School for Student Life GRAHAM ANTHONY will guide the Garcia Family Middle School in its next chapter (page 6). Mr. Anthony is known for his integrity, energy, sense of humor, innate judgment, high academic standards and ability to connect with students in meaningful ways. I’m thrilled that he will lead the charge as we continue to strive for excellence in the Middle School.

ON THE COVER Upper School students LEX TREVELINO, PARKER PAYNE, EMMA ST. AMAND, ELLIE DUNCAN and THOMAS HOOVER on Kakum National Park's canopy walkway in Ghana. Read about the FOOD-focused ICGL study tour to Ghana and Malawi on page 38.

Photograph by Upper School teacher KEVIN BALLARD.

We also introduce you to Board of Trustees Chair GREG KELLY (page 10), two new Trustees (page 11) and our most recent Alumni Board members (page 51). And we look back at our Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) summer study tours (page 22) and examine ICGL initiatives such as Women Mentoring Women (page 42) and our partnership with the international relief organization CARE (page 38).

Pace Academy’s future is bright!

Sincerely,

FRED ASSAF HEAD OF SCHOOL

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

5

NEWS What you need to know

“AFTER 41 YEARS in education and much deliberation, soul searching and prayer, I have decided to retire at the end of this school year,” Head of Middle School JOHN ANDERSON wrote in an October letter to Pace Academy families. “These past 12 years at Pace have been the best of all in a career blessed with wonderful colleagues and families.”

“The Middle School is strong,” he continued. “It is not dependent on any one individual or even on a few individuals. It is a special place for kids because of our collective investment in the well-being of our children.

Teachers, Trustees, administrators and parents—we have never allowed our vision to be distracted from its child-centered focus, and I am confident that we never will.

This is why I feel I can leave with absolute optimism about our school and faith in all of you.”

Anderson’s departure marks the end of an era. When he joined the Pace administration in 2005, the Middle School had been a distinct division for just one year (previously, the student body was separated into Lower and Upper Schools) and was in need of an experienced educator who could instill in the new space a warm, inclusive culture, while elevating the student experience in academics, the arts and athletics.

“We wanted someone who truly believed in the concept of a family school, who understood the complexities of the middle-school mind, who brought joy to every endeavor and whose love for the children in his care was real,” recalls Head of School FRED ASSAF. “John has been that individual—and more.”

Under Anderson’s leadership, the Middle School has become a place where students feel free to take risks and try new things.

He’s urged them to discover their passions, to listen well and to love each other. He has been a counselor and friend to faculty and a sounding board for parents. He will be missed, and the Parents Club’s Auction on April 29 will be themed Oh, What a Knight! in Anderson’s honor.

Assistant Head of Middle School for Student Life GRAHAM ANTHONY will inherit the Middle School Anderson created—an environment Anthony has also helped craft.

Anthony began teaching sixth-grade history at Pace in 2009 and has since served as sixth-grade honor chair, eighth-grade boys dean and eighthgrade history teacher; coached football, baseball and wrestling; and guided students around the world on five Isdell Center for Global Leadership study tours.

Head of Middle School JOHN ANDERSON will The 2012 recipient of pass the baton to GRAHAM ANTHONY this summer. the Middle School’s Excellence in Teaching Award, Anthony assumed his current position in 2015. As Assistant

A New “Mr. A” to Lead the Middle School

Head, he serves as a resource to students, parents and faculty, and has implemented student advisory and Athlete of the Week programs, served as Middle School athletic director and coordinated spirit events.

Anthony brings a variety of experiences and interests to his new role. A native of Wellesley, Mass., he attended The Park School and The Roxbury Latin School, where he wrestled, played football and baseball, performed in school plays and participated in the math team—and it comes as no surprise that this future leader was valedictorian and served as class president for five consecutive years.

Atlanta became home when Anthony enrolled at Emory University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in history and was a two-time intramural wrestling champion. Following graduation, he moved to Orange Park, Fla., to teach and coach at St. John’s Country Day School. He returned to Atlanta and joined the Pace family in 2009.

A world traveler (he’s visited 10 countries!), Anthony spent the 2013–2014 school year in Ireland and came back to Pace armed with a Master of Philosophy with a concentration in early modern history from the University of Dublin’s Trinity College.

“I am humbled, honored and excited to carry the torch that John Anderson has held so brilliantly for the past 12 years,” Anthony says. “The environment, attitude and approach he has created in the Middle School is truly something special, and I feel strongly that I am taking over the reins of a program that is already decidedly in a great place.”

“In his seven years at Pace, Graham Anthony has become a beloved member of the Middle School faculty and our school community as a whole,” says Assaf. “We did not have to look far to find the individual who will lead the Garcia Family Middle School with sound judgement, respect and love, someone who is committed to developing the whole child and to our mission: To create prepared, confident citizens of the world.” n

Brubaker

Fallon

T he 20 1 5 Ye a r 20 1 6 book St a ff

Perfecting the Pacesetter Focus on Mental Wellness Counseling Team Expands Creating prepared, confident citizens of the world requires a deep understanding of students’ social-emotional health and a commitment to their growth.

As part of Pace Academy’s focus on mental wellness, two new faces joined the counseling team this fall. KACY BRUBAKER and LELE FALLON now work with Upper School guidance counselor SARA EDEN and consulting psychologist DR. MARK CRAWFORD, helping members of the Pace community navigate challenging situations and providing tools to equip students to face these challenges.

Brubaker, who holds masters degrees in divinity and mental health counseling, brings teaching, nonprofit and counseling experience to her role at Pace. She and Eden collaborate to serve Upper School students, and Brubaker also coordinates programming and supports students, faculty and families in the Lower School, a new position.

Fallon has assumed counseling duties in the Middle School. An experienced school counselor, Fallon has a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in professional counseling. She is also a certified yoga instructor. Fallon is a passionate advocate for mental and physical wellness, has participated in Mindful Schools curriculum training and served as a health coach for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

With a focus on great writing, excellent design and inclusive coverage, the Upper School yearbook program just keeps getting better.

Under the leadership of 2015–2016 co-editors-in-chief CAROLYNE EITH ’16 and CARLY SHOULBERG ’16 and faculty adviser RYAN VIHLEN, the 2016 Pacesetter garnered two prestigious awards: a silver medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and a “Superior” rating from the Georgia Scholastic Press Association, the organization’s highest distinction.

REYES, SLOAN NAMED

NATIONAL HISPANIC SCHOLARS

Aspiring Authors

The College Board’s National Hispanic Recognition Program annually honors as National Hispanic Scholars approximately 5,000 of the 250,000 Hispanic/Latino students who take the PSAT. Students who achieve the College Board’s PSAT qualifying score and have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher are invited to apply for the prestigious academic designation.

This year, seniors ENO REYES and BRIAN SLOAN were named National Hispanic Scholars.

For 10 years, Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. has solicited fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography and visual art from students in the metro Atlanta area for inclusion in 7 Years Good Luck, its high-school literary journal.

This year, works by juniors GRACE DWYER, JULIA GRAY and LUKE MOUSSA are included in the journal, which debuted at the Decatur Book Festival in September. The publication focuses on self-reflection and shattering stereotypes and misperceptions.

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

7

NEWS

ALL-STAR

ANDREW THOMAS 1

2

1) The senior members of the 2016 varsity football team; 2) Thomas with Pace coach CHRIS SLADE (second from right) and the Pace strength and conditioning team; 3) The Thomas family: Andre, Belinda, BRIANNA '20 and Andrew

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KnightTimes | Fall 2016

3

ANDREW THOMAS’S first few months of senior year were anything but typical. The offensive lineman, a member of the Knights 2015 state-championship football team, brought home a series of firsts for Pace Academy’s young football program.

In advance of the 2016 season, Thomas, along with senior TREY BLOUNT and junior JAMAREE SALYER, was among the 25 student-athletes named to Recruit Georgia’s Pre-Season All-State Class AAA team.

Thomas then became the first Knight to land on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Super 11 list of the 11 top high-school football players in the state.

Thomas completed his trifecta with an appointment to the U.S. Army All-American Bowl 2017 team, which includes 100 student-athletes from across the country.

Thomas, the first Pace representative to receive this honor, accepted his U.S. Army All-American jersey before teammates, classmates, friends and family during a special assembly. The 2017 U.S. Army AllAmerican Bowl will air on NBC Jan. 7.

NEWS

Walker with sixth-grader ADAM SCHULTZ.

Hall speaking with seniors LANDON GOLDSTEIN (left) and ROSS CEFALU (right).

WALKER LEADS MAYWE

HALL JOINS GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI BOARD

Middle and Upper School performing arts teacher JACK WALKER has been named assistant director of the Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Wind Ensemble, a group made up of 75 of “the most outstanding high school wind and percussion players from the metropolitan Atlanta area.”

The MAYWE plays advanced, college-level music and gives several concerts throughout the year.

Upper School science teacher JULIE HALL has been elected to the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s Board of Trustees, a select group charged with promoting and serving alumni and the university by creating “relevant and meaningful programs for current and future alumni to foster lifelong participation and philanthropic support.” Hall, a graduate of Georgia Tech’s physics program, will serve a three-year term.

LaMastra Named

SCHOLASTIC ALL-AMERICAN

USA Swimming annually recognizes as Scholastic All-Americans scholar-athletes who meet high academic standards and have swum a predetermined individual qualifying time.

Senior CONNOR LAMASTRA (pictured swimming the 200 Freestyle at the 2016 GHSA State Championship), along with GRACE FERRY ’16 and MADISON GRAHAM ’16 (see page 47), was among the 1,172 student-athletes nationwide named 2015–2016 USA Swimming Scholastic All-Americans.

LaMastra returns to the pool for the Knights this winter following 12th-place finishes in the 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relays at the 2016 state meet.

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

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AROUND PACE A look at what's happening at Pace

KELLYat the Helm Introducing GREG KELLY, chair of the Board of Trustees

W

ith the start of the 2016–2017 school year, Pace Academy’s Board of Trustees welcomed GREG KELLY as chair, succeeding ROBERT SHEFT. Kelly and his wife, ANNE KELLY, both from Lexington, Ky., have been active members of the Pace family since 2002.

The Kelly’s second child, HANNAH KELLY ’15, now a sophomore at Duke University, was the first of the family’s four children to attend Pace. GRANT KELLY ’12, a recent Duke grad, completed his elementary years at the Atlanta Speech School’s Wardlaw School, where he learned how to address his dyslexia before coming to Pace in Middle School.

“We chose Pace over other Atlanta schools because we wanted a top-tier school that would tailor its approach for each of our children,” Kelly says. “We thought Pace would be terrific, not just for Hannah, but for Grant, MORGAN KELLY ’16, [a freshman at the University of Southern California] and [ninth-grader] JULIA KELLY, and it has been.

The faculty and administration have done a wonderful job with each child, varying their styles and approaches based on individual learning needs.”

Kelly became a Trustee in 2011 and has served on the Board’s planning and gover-

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KnightTimes | Fall 2016

nance committees, and as an Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) Advisory Board member. Anne has worked in the Lower School front office and volunteered in the theatre, at the snack bar and the Fall Fair and anywhere else she could lend a hand.

“Greg and Anne have been extraordinary parents, involved at every turn, over their more than 10 years at Pace,” says Head of School FRED ASSAF. “As our school continues to grow in ambitious ways, we are so lucky to have Greg’s talent, dedication and vision for what it means to create confident global citizens.”

As a senior partner with McKinsey & Company, Kelly helps companies improve their performance—he says he loves having a similar opportunity to help Pace continue to strive for excellence.

Kelly’s father was a college professor and president, and his grandfather was a highschool superintendent. “Clearly, education has always been a priority for our family!” he says.

At McKinsey, Kelly leads the firm’s global consumer practice. He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke University, before receiving an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. In addition to his

THE KELLY FAMILY: Grant, Julia, Anne, Hannah, Morgan and Greg

involvement at Pace, Kelly has served on the board of the Woodruff Arts Center and actively serves on the board at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

In his new role as chair, Kelly is excited to ensure the execution of Pace’s recently completed 2016–2021 Strategic Plan. “[Trustee] LIZ PRICE, who led the development of the plan, our Board and the administration, did a wonderful job engaging the full community to create a five-year strategic plan that has full community buy-in and support. It’s exciting to see the school live its motto: To have the courage to strive for excellence,” he says.

“The school excels in so many dimensions—for example, in the quality of our faculty, the quality of our arts and athletics programs, and the quality of our curriculum—and yet these are all areas we strive to improve further in our Strategic Plan. We have an opportunity to become one of the very best schools—not just regionally, but nationally—with the progress we have made to date and the opportunities we have to improve further.” n

AROUND PACE

BOARD OF TRUSTEES WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS

JOE MATHIAS & FAMILY

CHRIS JOHNSON & FAMILY

J

C

OE MATHIAS joins the Board of Trustees this year. Mathias and his wife, CAROL MATHIAS, became part of the Pace Academy community in 2005, when their oldest son, JOSEPH MATHIAS, now a junior, entered Pre-First. Twin seventh-graders MATTHEW MATHIAS and ALEX MATHIAS joined their older brother at Pace in 2009.

A native of Annapolis, Md., Mathias earned a bachelor’s degree from Principia College and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to Atlanta in 1996, while building a business, and is now president and portfolio manager at Concourse Capital Management, LLC, a company he founded in 2009.

Since coming to Pace, Mathias has served on the Pace Fund and Athletic Advisory committees. Carol has volunteered for the Fall Fair, supported several classroom art projects, and participated in set design and decoration for Pace theatre productions.

“The more we learned about Pace, the more interested we became,” Mathias says of the school-search process. “Ultimately, the combination of the overall Pace community and the incredible educational opportunities at the school made it our first choice… We feel very fortunate that our kids attend such an amazing school. It is an honor to serve on the Board and do whatever I can to help move the mission of Pace forward for future generations of students.”

The 2016–2017 school year marks the beginning of CHRIS JOHNSON and JOE MATHIAS’s service to the Pace Academy Board of Trustees.

HRIS JOHNSON joins the Board of Trustees in his family’s third year at Pace Academy. Johnson and his wife, FARHAT KHAN, have two children at Pace—secondgrader ZAEEM JOHNSON and Pre-First student ELIZA JOHNSON. Johnson is originally from Seattle, Wash., where he attended an all-boys high school before studying at Stanford University. After college graduation, he briefly worked in real estate and then joined the McDonald’s Corporation in the Bay Area, where he and Khan met. The two moved to South Carolina, both working for the family McDonald’s business, and in 2009, they opened a franchise in Atlanta. Since choosing to call Atlanta home, Johnson and Khan have opened five restaurants in seven years.

Johnson believes Pace is the perfect fit for his family from both an educational and an interfaith perspective. From helping with the Pace Race and Fall Fair, to chaperoning field trips and attending Lower School lunches, he has been consistently ready to volunteer and become involved wherever he’s needed.

“I trust my children’s future to this institution, so I want to give my best to help in any way I can,” he says.

Having played football at Stanford, Johnson says he has been thrilled to watch Pace student-athletes excel in collegiate sports.

He has met personally with recent Pace graduates who are pursuing athletics at his alma mater, offering them some firsthand insights and guidance for their next chapters.

As for his own children, Johnson says Eliza is his athlete, and Zaeem is his scholar.

“Zaeem recently got glasses, and somebody called him a nerd,” Johnson says. “I think I liked it.” n

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

11

JILL AGAMI and other new Lower School students were greeted

by Head of Lower School SYREETA MOSELEY on orientation day.

Ryan Janki

Terri and Dan Janki

Azlyn Johnson

Julie and Jeffrey Johnson

Eliza Johnson

Farhat Khan and Chris Johnson

Ivy Keller

Mary and Michael Keller

Arya Laungani

Anjeli and Raj Laungani

Elizabeth Marvin Matthew Marvin

WELCOME TO PACE!

Kerrie and David Marvin

Camille Matthews

Edra and Kevin Matthews

Cal McCloskey

HEATHER PATRICK MCCLOSKEY ’89 and Mike McCloskey

Jack McDaid

Colleen and Chris McDaid

Hudson McDonald

Stephanie and AUSTIN MCDONALD ’97

Buckley McMullan

The following families joined the Pace family this year:

Catherine and Ted McMullan

Coleson Moseley

SYREETA MOSELEY and Craig Moseley

Julia Moss

KATIE MOSS and Brannan Moss

PRE-FIRST Jill Agami

Amy and Ronnie Agami

Oliver Anderson-Watts

JULIE FEAGIN ’94 and Ryan Feagin

Sophia Fetter

SALIMA FETTER ’94 and Matt Fetter

TRISH ANDERSON Jennifer Watts

Adrian Gavric

Lucy Barnett

Julia Lanier Groves

Evie Brunt

Alyssa Hajiani

Gabriella Buehler

Aaron Harris

Ansley Cochran

Adara Harris

Michelle and Sandeep Soni Katie Meredith and Ben Brunt Rebecca and Thomas Buehler Kim Cochran Chad Cochran

Grace and Nenad Gavric Christa and Chris Groves Shehla and Amin Hajiani Lauren and Brian Harris TARA HARRIS and Anton Harris

Erich Heilman

Jane Murphy Hunter Murphy

ANNA MURPHY and Dan Murphy

Charlie Naylor

Gina and John Naylor

Charlotte O’Bryan

Andi and Doug O’Bryan

Ryan Parrilli

Amanda and Dan Parrilli

Millie Rodbell

AMY SCHULTZ RODBELL ’93 and Philip Rodbell

Libby Rowe

Kim and Thomas Rowe

Isabella Russ

Sonja and Ricky Russ

Jennifer and Tim Curtin

CHAFFEE BRAITHWAITE HEILMAN ’95 and Dave Heilman

Ryan Sceusi

Cia Douglass

Owen Hirsh

Jacob Secor

Izzy Eisenman

Sanders Honeycutt

Anderson Silverboard

Cole Ellner

Evan Jalil

Madeline Siskin

Carson Curtin

Stephanie and Jay Douglass Jenifer and Brian Eisenman Stefanie and James Ellner

12

William Feagin

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

Evin and Josh Hirsh Paige and Charles Honeycutt Tisha Tipnis and Omar Jalil

Angira and Eric Sceusi AMY SECOR and Scott Secor Lisa and Josh Silverboard Wendy and Jonathan Siskin

AROUND PACE

Eva Skalla

Laurie and Marc Skalla

Marion Smith

Norah Smith and IAN SMITH ’90

Libby Sober

Jennifer and Richard Sober

Charlie Sokolsky

Bonni Bigler and GEORGE SOKOLSKY

Sara Elizabeth Stevens

Dabney and Chris Stevens

Sophie Strauven

Catherine and Christophe Strauven

Beckham Tsang

Nanci and Charles Tsang

Leo Wang

Molly Herndon and Tim Wang

Alexander White

HEATHER WHITE and Rod White

Seth Yehudai

MEREDITH MENDEL YEHUDAI ’97 and Tavi Yehudai

Isabelle York Kate York

Amber and Chris York

Humza Zubairi

FIRST GRADE

FIFTH GRADE

Kyla Gray

Thomas Bready

Ava Piduru

Julia Diaz

Arjun Singh

Morgan Goldstrom

SECOND GRADE

SIXTH GRADE

Jess Washburn

Fairlie Barton

Kim and Chris Gray

Mary and Cameron Bready

Erica and Sarat Piduru

Barbarella and Rene Diaz

Puja and Sid Singh

Julie and Seth Goldstrom

EMILY WASHBURN and James Washburn

Elizabeth and John Barton

Mordecai Benzo

THIRD GRADE

Rhonda Johnson

Harriet Blaha

Camille Caton

Campbell Thomas

Janie Cross

Colbie West Cullen West

William Cummings

Emily and Buddy Blaha Andrea and Lanier Thomas

Forrest and Bob Caton Jane and Joe Cross Cia and LARRY CUMMINGS ’86

Traci and Bobby West

Kendall Evans

FOURTH GRADE Harper Auchincloss

Clarez and Keith Evans

Charlie Fleming

Shea and Chad Fleming

Megan and Will Auchincloss

Carter Freudenstein

ASHLEY FREUDENSTEIN and Mack Freudenstein

Habiba Haider and Faraz Zubairi

ht, A Brig w Ne !

St a r t

Ellie Gabriel

Courtenay and Chris Gabriel

David Grice

Ashley and David Grice 

Lower School orientation was Aug. 16.

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

13

AROUND PACE

Caroline Holbrook

Meghan and Matt Holbrook

Easton Kincaid

Ann and Dave Kincaid

Niall Lehane

Gretchen and Eoin Lehane

Corey Lochan

Geeta and Donie Lochan

Davis McMillan

COURTNEY RANCK MCMILLAN ’96 and Garrison McMillan

Conner Phelan

Alice and Todd Phelan

Isabella Quintana

Bea Perez and Ken Quintana

Kate Romero

Judith and Oscar Romero

Marisa Sapre

Hallie and Yogesh Sapre

Sophie Shapiro

Kimberly and Steak Shapiro

Kabir Singh

Puja and Sid Singh

Josie Swain

MARTHA SCOTT SWAIN ’83 and Bruce Swain

Finn Szwast

Amanda and Travis Szwast

Bianca Vaneri

Maria Gomez-Soler and Gaston Vaneri

Marley Venturi

Jen Metzger and Robert Venturi

Kate Webb

Lisa and Adam Webb

Mary Amelia Weiss

Ellie Morris and Josh Weiss

Peach Wilson

Melinda and Mike Wilson

SEVENTH GRADE Madison Auchincloss

Kennedy Tate

EIGHTH GRADE

Brianna Thomas

Pearson Bates

Gina and Chip Bates

Daniel Boddie

Charmaine and David Boddie

Hugh Douglas

Simona and Hugh Douglas

Caroline Janki

Terri and Dan Janki

Sara Kirkman

Rosanne and Scott Kirkman

NINTH GRADE Ada Jane Agolli

Ogerta and Artan Agolli

Cole Ankenbrandt

Belinda and Andre Thomas

Dominique Turner

Nikki and Sean Turner

Francesca Vaneri

Maria Gomez-Soler and Gaston Vaneri

Tanner Walton

Tiffany and Rob Walton

Reign Watkins

Bernie Lawrence Watkins and Dana Watkins

Dagny Whitlock

Helen and Pete Whitlock

Mbiti Williams

Jamila and Mbiti Williams

Zoe Williams

JOANN BROWN WILLIAMS ’85 and ED WILLIAMS

Emerson Barrett

Gabe Wright

Jeannie and T. Scott Barrett

Taylor Doucet

Roxanne Payne

Cheritha and Herbert Doucet

10TH GRADE

Davis Futrell

Madeline Janki

Jincy and Preston Futrell

Rhuna Gibbs

Barbara and Darrell Gibbs

Ben Ginsberg

Nicole Felton and Paul Ginsberg

Reggie Harris

Chantel and Reginald Harris

Anna Jordan

Michelle and Matt Jordan

Kellee Kindle

Sonia and Kenneth Kindle

Jeremy Leven

Michelle and Rob Leven

John O’Brien

Jennifer and Duncan O’Brien

Jason Rosenbloum

Debra and Bobby Rosenbloum

Neil Sashti Rekha Sashti

Uma and Sunder Sashti

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

Yolanda Creecy

Kerry and David Ankenbrandt

Sharon and Grant LeRoux

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Leodegaria Pineda and Jose Tadeo

Megan and Will Auchincloss

Grant Leroux

Middle School orientation was also Aug. 16.

Alex Tadeo Pineda

Jay Satisky

Shelly and Brian Satisky

Terri and Dan Janki

Sophia Lochan

Geeta and Donie Lochan

Kyle Sturdivant Madelyn Terry Willie Green

Bennett Treadway

Diana and Bryan Treadway

11TH GRADE Juston Cogbill Danielle Cogbill

Karishma Pradhan

Nootan and Anir Pradhan

Sarah Treadway

Diana and Bryan Treadway

12TH GRADE Grace Kiersznowski

Erin and Bob Kiersznowski n

NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo spoke to Keeping Pace campers on June 30.

Students explored FOOD through a study of in-town gardening.

K e e pi n g Pa c e St a f f

FACULTY

STUDENTS & ALUMNI

in raised garden beds that The Home Depot donated. Students put their homegrown produce to good use, harvesting many of the herbs and vegetables to prepare the delicious spread for the end-of-camp reception celebration.

With fun and enriching field trips like the Booth Museum of Western Art and a Braves game on the docket, perhaps it’s no surprise that camper retention is high and students are engaged.

But believe it or not, it’s Keeping Pace’s math-tutoring program that many campers identify as their favorite activity, based on end-of-camp survey responses. Unlikely as that may sound, results of one-to-one peer tutoring have revealed some valuable insights to Keeping Pace leaders over the years, as they observe positive outcomes.

Campers’ math scores improved by 98 percent from the beginning of the 2016 session to the end, and according to Downer-Assaf, that’s thanks to the individual relationships that Pace Scholars have built with their Pace student counselors.

“Pace students volunteered more than 1,600 hours with Keeping Pace this year, and most of that time was spent in a one-toone math tutoring dynamic with campers,” says Downer-Assaf. Individual relationships between counselors, campers and teachers—all but one are fulltime teachers at Pace—are the hallmark of Keeping Pace.

Downer-Assaf believes the same ingredient makes for a successful math-tutoring experience, which has become Keeping Pace’s signature program, she says.

Alex Allen Mckenzie Baker Ben Bernstein Trey Blount Catherine Brennan Tiger Brown ’13 Juston Cogbill Julie Covall ’16 Samantha Delman Richard Ellis Hannah Ferry ’15 Lizabeth Frohwein Will Funston Realus George Sienna Goren Spencer Hemmingway ’16 Maggie Inman ’15 Deon Jackson Justice Jackson Calla Kaminsky Zack Kaminsky ’16 Elizabeth Marr Jared McCall Insha Merchant Bobby Mills Samantha Moreland Ethan Much Sydney Muse Ibum Obu Jordan Payne Harrison Ray ’16 Nate Reece Jack Rubenstein Jamaree Salyer Lian Shepherd ’16 Jillian Snyder ’16 Meggie Steiger Anna Stone Mick Stone Andrew Thomas Ben Thompson Zoe Weitzner Raina Williams Tahirih Williams Kendall Willis

Lori Baker Lisa Dubovy Chinette Johnson Emily Pitts Clement Rouviere Jill Sabulis Ryann Smith Christina Snyder Grady Stevens Kelly Thames, artist in residence

K E E PING PA C E

K

EEPING PACE is doing just that— and more. In June and July, 63 students from Atlanta’s Peoplestown and Vine City/English Avenue neighborhoods participated in the academic summer program hosted at Pace Academy. Perhaps more impressive than the increased enrollment this year over 2015 is that 73 percent of 2016 participants were returning campers, or “Pace Scholars.”

“With experienced Pace Scholars making up such a large portion of this year’s students, the transition into camp at the beginning of the summer was notably smoother than in years past,” says MARTHA DOWNER-ASSAF, director of Keeping Pace.

Highlights of the six-week session included new leadership opportunities for returning Pace Scholars and an interactive study of in-town gardening—a nod to the Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s (ICGL) year of FOOD. This year, veteran high-school-aged Pace Scholars could choose to participate in a new Counselor in Training (CIT) program, whereby students partake in regular camp activities for half of the day, then perform counselor duties for the remainder of the day, in a paid position. The CIT initiative serves as a pipeline for the Leader in Training (LIT) program, new last year, in which returning students are paid a stipend while participating in leadership training with increased responsibilities.

Thanks to a new partnership with The Home Depot, Pace Scholars experimented with “farm-to-table” concepts through planting and growing vegetables and herbs

AROUND PACE

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

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Charles Wellborn (right) with former Chair of the Board Robert Sheft in 2013 at the Knights of the Roundtable Giving Society Reception.

Life Trustee Spotlight

CHARLES WELLBORN ’83 LIFE TRUSTEE CHARLES WELLBORN ’83 probably knows Pace Academy as well as anyone could.

For Wellborn, an Atlanta native, active involvement in Pace life didn’t end with his time as a student. Since graduating as a recipient of Pace’s Alumni Service Award, Wellborn has participated regularly in alumni events and served on Pace’s Alumni Board.

Following two years as Alumni Board president, a position that confers ex-officio membership in the Board of Trustees, Wellborn was asked to join the Board as an official member in 2002. Over the next nine years, Wellborn participated in several leadership decisions that would calibrate Pace’s course for years to come. One such task was to appoint a new Head of School.

A VISION FOR LEADERSHIP The major conversation that Pace’s new Head of School would inherit surrounded athletics. By 2005, Pace was anticipating the end of its boys fall soccer league, as most schools had moved towards a springonly season for the sport. Until then, girls soccer played in the spring and boys in the fall. Upper School English teacher RICKS CARSON, then head coach for Pace’s nationally ranked boys soccer team, focused on out-of-state tournament bookings to maintain worthy competition.

“Keeping soccer in the fall would’ve meant an even more regional (or even national) schedule because of a lack of quality

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KnightTimes | Fall 2016

competition, an alternative I don’t think was ever seriously considered,” says Carson.

The former schedule had accommodated Pace’s small student body well—by springtime, boy soccer players were free to play a spring sport if they desired. But with dwindling competition, Pace would have to adapt and consider ways to fill the new gap in its fall athletics offerings for boys. Perhaps the most obvious fall sport option was a loaded word at Pace Academy—football.

Until then, Pace had been unofficially billed as a “non-football school,” touted instead for its outstanding arts department and tight-knit family feel. But increasingly, school leadership recognized that a football program could bolster school spirit, unite the Lower, Middle, and Upper School communities and help retain the students who often left Pace to pursue football at other schools. The Board identified football as a strategic initiative, and then-Board Chairman MARK PIRRUNG, now a Life Trustee, set up a task force to determine how to make the foreseeable transition seamless, exciting and as Pace-like as possible.

“Charles was one of my contemporaries and one of the few alumni serving on the Pace Board at that time,” says Pirrung. “He was a great advocate for alumni and always willing to work hard for the betterment of the school. During my time on the Board, he was especially passionate about improving the sports programs at Pace and was an early and consistent advocate of adding football as a sport.”

As part of the Sports Committee, as it was called, Wellborn and the small group of its dedicated members vetted the proposed idea via individual meetings across the Pace community. For the better part of a year, the committee met with department heads, teachers and coaches almost daily, putting the strategic wheels in motion to bring football to Pace Academy.

On August 21, 2005, FRED ASSAF was officially installed as Pace’s fifth headmaster.

Noted for his incomprehensible energy and a standout from day one, Assaf wasn’t just on board with the school’s strategic vision— he was also a visionary.

“There is no one like Fred, and only he could’ve come to understand our school culture so quickly and led Pace through the past decade the way he has. He is a true visionary,” says Wellborn. He says that the Board bringing on Assaf and Assaf’s subsequent appointment of Head of Middle School JOHN ANDERSON were the two most defining decisions in making Pace what it is today.

Beginning with a Middle School team, Pace launched a football program under Assaf’s leadership, expanding with a varsity team by 2008.

THE COURAGE TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE As much as Pace has grown, Wellborn says, it’s still a small, family school—perhaps his favorite thing about it. He highlights a related quality that Pace teachers have artfully upheld through the years, and that’s the ability to support individual students’ passions and interests.

In the summer before his senior year at Pace, Wellborn had an opportunity to travel to Taiwan through a Rotary Club of Atlanta youth exchange program. In the early 1980s, long before Pace was organizing more than a dozen international trips per year through the Isdell Center for Global Leadership, the prospect was less commonplace, if not daunting for a 16-year-old high-school student. Spending nearly two months of his summer away from family and friends, in a country where Mandarin was the official spoken language, would be a far cry from his comfort zone.

To this day, Wellborn counts his time in Taipei among the transformative experiences

AROUND PACE

in his life, invaluable in its educational and personal rewards. Support from his Pace family, he says, freed him to approach the adventure with confidence and an open mind.

His daughter LUCY WELLBORN ’13, who is pursuing a double major in graphic design and advertising at The University of Georgia, encountered similar encouragement from Pace faculty, nearly 30 years later. As varsity girls soccer captain, Pacesetter staff and a National Honor Society member, Lucy, like her father, was active in many aspects of Pace life, reflective of her wide-ranging interests. When she tapped in to her love of painting in Upper School visual art teacher DONICE BLOODWORTH’S studio art class, the fact that it happened to be her senior year did not stop her.

“Lucy was obviously talented and was ideal for my advanced class. So I reached out, hoping I could give her a place not only to be happy but to prosper,” says Bloodworth.

“The most important time I spend with my students is making sure they have an outlet—every now and then, I get a few awesome artists that take it as more than just an outlet. Lucy was one of those kids who needed the Advanced Studio class as much as it [and her peers in the classroom] needed her,” Bloodworth says.

Wellborn agrees that it’s through personal relationships that Pace makes opportunities possible for students. His hope is that Pace remains the small, family school that it always has been.

In addition to his Pace involvement, Wellborn serves on the Skyland Trail Advisory Board and with the 300 Club of Atlanta.

Wellborn and his wife, RUTH WELLBORN, have two other children. Their oldest daughter, Ruth Wellborn, a graduate of Woodward Academy and The University of Alabama, is employed by Atlanta’s World 50, Inc. She has also become involved at Skyland Trail since her return to Atlanta. Charles Wellborn, Jr., also a Woodward grad, is a junior at The University of Alabama, where he is studying business in the Culverhouse College of Commerce. n

S ho wc a s i n g

PACE PRIDE Knights fans of all ages showed their Pace Academy spirit throughout Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, Sept. 23 and 24.

The festivities began with a school-wide pep rally during which the community donned red, white, and blue as a tribute to our country’s men and women in uniform. Powder-puff football games followed for Upper School students, and fans packed the stands at the Riverview Sports Complex to watch the varsity football team defeat Redan High School 45–22.

The celebration continued with the announcement of the 2016 Homecoming Court.

Seniors OLIVIA DILLON, SARI LEVEN, MIA WRIGHT, SAM HAWN, CHRIS HOWARD and MARK SOMMERVILLE represented the Class of 2017, and Dillon and Sommerville (pictured below) were crowned king and queen at the Homecoming Dance. n

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Convoc

a t io n

Ringing in the New Year Back-to-school activities packed the calendar for students, faculty, staff and parents.

Mid d l e S c hoo l ay First D

Photo by Whetstone Photography

S e n io r g R a f t in T r ip

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Uppe r S c hoo l ay First D

ade 7th Gr n in g at Ban M il l s

AROUND PACE

M id d l e l Schoo a t io n O r ie n t

ir s t Pre-F Parent in g Gather

9th Grade at Retre

ade 6th Gr p at Cam nds a l Wood L owe r S c hoo l ay First D

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AROUND PACE

Remembering Vietnam

A Piece of My Heart paints a heartbreaking picture of war UNDER the watchful eye of Upper School Theatre Director SEAN BRYAN, students brought to life the true stories of six women sent to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War in Shirley Lauro’s powerful drama A Piece of My Heart.

In the one-act play, students captured their characters’ complex emotions before, during and after their time in the combat zone, powerfully depicting the women’s “struggle to make sense of a war that irrevocably changed them and a nation that shunned them.”

SUMMER IN THE CITY

in F un !

Sun t he

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DIRECTOR of Summer Programs BETH SINGLETON and her team had their hands full this summer with more than a dozen camps for students of all ages.

Six weeklong sessions of Pace Camp, for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, packed the Pace Academy campus and explored themes such as “Under the Sea,” “Around the World” and “Medieval Knights.”

New camps like girls basketball, flag football and lacrosse boosted Summer Programs’ recreational and athletic offerings; robotics and debate were among the popular academic sessions; and a musical theatre workshop prepared aspiring thespians for life on the stage. Older campers interested in developing leadership skills took part in Exploring Leadership, a program that included outdoor activities such as ropes courses, zip lining, kayaking and camping excursions.

A collection of Pace faculty, staff and students, as well as partner organizations, ensured a safe and exciting summer break for hundreds of campers.

— with contributions from JIBRIL SADIQ ’17

AROUND PACE

Make-Believe & Misdemeanors

Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit spoofs mainstream crime dramas FANS of television dramas such as Law & Order and CSI may not wonder what those shows would look like in the world of wolves and witches—but playwright Jonathan Rand does.

In this fall’s Middle School play, Rand’s Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit, make-believe collided with true-crime drama to create serious comedy. Director PATRICK CAMPBELL and his cast worked hard to solve crimes, run license plates and make sure the Big Bad Wolf kept his paws behind bars.

PARENTS CLUB

ARTS ALLIANCE

BOOSTER CLUB

Co-Presidents Jenny & Miles Marks

Co-Presidents Stephanie Husk & Dana Ray

Co-Presidents Cindy & David Jacoby

Vice President Julie Thompson

Secretary Mary Kelly Cunningham

Vice Presidents Frances & Jim Zook

Secretary Corey Hirokawa

Treasurer Lynn Lund

Treasurer Keith Payne

Treasurer Dave MacRae

Past President Nancy Gibson

Secretary Elizabeth Richards

Fall Fair Chairs Lauren Harris & Tammi Parker

2016 –2017

Past Co-Presidents Jenny & Tom Bethel

Auction Chairs Cara Lubin, Juli Owens & Diane Saini Past President Amy Dwyer

PARENT LEADERSHIP

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ICGL A global education for every graduate

Summer study tours take students and faculty around the world in 80 days.

THE ACADEMY ABROAD

PERU June 3–14 “Peru offers a fascinating mix of cultures, cuisines and customs,” says Upper School teacher NANCY ROBINSON. “The legacy of the Inca continues to live on in modern Peru, where there is respect for and an interest in preserving this heritage.”

Robinson, with faculty advisors HELEN SMITH and EMILY STEVENS, led nine Upper School students on a food-focused exploration of Peruvian culture, a juxtaposition of old and new.

Students visited Machu Picchu and the undulating terrace farms of the Sacred Valley; they learned about ancient stone working, experimental agriculture, salt mining and traditional weaving; they also took a cooking class and ate indigenous fruits.

From Machu Picchu, the group traveled to the Inca capital of Cusco to witness the impact of Spanish conquistadors and Catholic missionaries and the resulting fusion of cultures as it played out in the architecture, spirituality and cuisine of the city. The trip concluded in Lima, the Spanish capital, where a visit to the city’s colonial center illustrated once again how modern Peru has built upon its past.

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ICGL

NICARAGUA & COSTA RICA June 4–15

NORWAY & DENMARK June 14–23

Planes, trains, boats and bikes—the Middle School “Viking Crew,” led by faculty members TARA HARRIS, ANDY LOPUSZYNSKI and EDEN TRESIZE, utilized many modes of transportation to traverse Norway and Denmark on a 10-day food and adventure-focused study tour.

Their journey began in Oslo with bike tours that took them to the coast and to museums, forests, farms and parks. The group then hopped a train to the west-coast city of Bergen, where an international music festival, mountain biking and kayaking fjords were on the agenda.

Next up was a visit to Copenhagen and a deep dive into the New Nordic Diet, which prioritizes simple, affordable, seasonal and sustainable foods.

Students sampled local cheeses, honey, produce, and handcrafted Danish sausages before exploring Denmark’s capital city and its many sites—again, by bike.

Science and adventure were the focus of this summer’s Middle School study tour to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. On the trip, the self-proclaimed “Terrific 12” and faculty advisors EDNA-MAY HERMOSILLO, LARRY IVENS, and TY RICHARDSON explored the past ICGL themes of water and food while kicking off the Year of Climate.

Their journey began with a quick tour of Managua before the group traveled to the estuary at Padre Ramos, one of the last two major nesting beaches for the Eastern Pacific population of hawksbill turtles. There, students explored the mangroves and mountains, participated in “turtle patrols” and cleaned up trash along the beach. The use of water and electricity as well as pollution’s toll on the turtles and their environment were frequent topics of discussion.

The study tour also included time in Granada, one of Nicaragua’s political and economic hubs, where students sampled traditional fare such as fritanga and quesillos, learned to make piñatas and quajada cheese, and interacted with individuals in nearby villages.

The trip concluded with surfing lessons at Playa Hermosa and horseback riding, zip lining, and much-needed rest and relaxation in Costa Rica’s Rincón de la Vieja National Park.

Read more about our students' adventures on the ICGL Student Travel Blog at: knightlife.paceacademy.org/travel

KnightTimes | Fall 2016

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ICGL

COSTA RICA June 13–20 In the Lower School, the ICGL strives to foster awareness of global issues among students, and the second annual fifth-grade study tour seems to have accomplished that goal.

For a week, 19 students plus faculty advisors ROBBI HUDGINS, REBECCA RHODES, BARBARA SCOTT and VONDRA VRIELAND lived in an ecolodge in the Chilamate region of Costa Rica where, in partnership with World Leadership School, they participated in service work and explored food, the ICGL’s 2015–2016 global theme.

Activities included interacting with local school children, participating in an elementary school’s English festival and painting a community amphitheater.

The group also ventured into the rain forest to zip line through its dense canopy, learned about chocolate making, sampled native fruits and vegetables and visited an organic farm.

It was an eye-opening experience for the students as many had never traveled without their parents or visited a developing nation.

“I now know how it is not to have clean water from the tap and not to have air conditioning in 90-degree weather,” says sixth-grader SHEZA MERCHANT. For sixth-grader BRIAN LEE, Costa Rican culture stood in sharp contrast to life in America. “Costa Rica is such a happy country,” Lee says. “In Costa Rica they do quality over speed, but in the U.S.A., we pride speed over quality… I learned that when you have quality over speed, you take your time and do great things. When you do speed over quality, you are prone to more mistakes.”

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CAMBRIDGE July 21–30 “I want the Pace community to know that you can have the best time of your life while working for people in need at the same time.

I think that many of the world’s problems could be solved by a group of fifth-grade kids because I experienced it myself.”

— Sixth-grader OWEN ROSS

For nearly a decade, Upper School students and history department chair TIM HORNOR have crossed the pond to participate in the Society of International Business Fellows program on money and financial responsibility.

Throughout the program, held at Cambridge University and led in part by former Pace parent NICHOLAS HOFFMAN, students engaged in lectures covering topics such as the ethics of money, sustainable development and why Shakespeare matters.

In addition to their academic work, students spent time sightseeing in London, punting the River Cam and learning to play croquet.

HAITI & DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

ICGL

July 7–19 Pace’s partnership with Project Esperanza continued this summer when 17 Middle and Upper School students traveled with faculty members KATE ECKHARDT, EDNA-MAY HERMOSILLO, MARY ANN POWELL, and PETE POPE to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. For several Upper School students, the study tour marked their second ICGL trip with Project Esperanza.

The organization serves the Haitian immigrant population in the Dominican Republic city of Puerto Plata, providing education, social aid and communitydevelopment services. Pace students, paired with Haitian “buddies,” spent five days facilitating English lessons, scavenger hunts, and arts and crafts through one of Project Esperanza’s day camps.

In the afternoons, students took a bite out of the ICGL’s theme of food, visiting a cacao farm, learning to make Dominican doughnuts and spending time at the beach with their buddies. The opportunity to build relationships with other children, to practice a different language, and to experience a culture and lifestyle very different from their own had a tremendous impact on participating Pace students.

“After I come back to America, I need to remember the poverty in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and remind myself of what I have,” freshman BEN CRAWFORD wrote on the Student Travel Blog. “I also need to give back in any way to the kids in the school and the community. I need to constantly remember this trip.”

The study tour also included time in the ocean-side town of Cap-Haïtien, snorkeling in the waters off Amiga Island and exploring the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo.

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GLACIER NATIONAL PARK July 14–21 One does not have to travel beyond U.S. borders to earn citizenof-the-world status—the richness of experiences, landscapes and cultures present within our country offers myriad opportunities for a global education.

So, in July, faculty advisors GUS WHYTE and KRISTA WILHELMSEN and seven Upper School students ventured into Montana’s Glacier National Park for a wilderness adventure. Hikes—many of them more than 10 miles—took the group through pristine forest, alpine meadows and rugged mountains to some of the nation’s most beautiful vistas. Along the way, students encountered a host of wildlife and saw the effects of climate change during the National Park Service’s 100th year.

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BELIZE June 26–July 3 Spending a week with co-workers in a remote location probably doesn’t sound like fun to most people—but most people don’t work at Pace.

In June, Head of Lower School SYREETA MOSELEY, Lower School faculty members MARY BETH BONGIOVANNI, DEB COOK, LAURIE ELLIOTT, EMILY PITTS, KAREN SOMMERVILLE and DECLAN TRAQUAIR, and Middle School faculty members KELLY COLQUITT and KIRSTEN BOEHNER traveled to the Central American country of Belize in partnership with World Leadership School.

During this inaugural ICGL faculty study tour, teachers explored studentdirected learning pedagogies and the many ways in which to develop intercultural competencies in their classrooms—all while diving into climate issues in Belize’s diverse and fragile ecosystem. The group spent time in a traditional Mayan community, worked alongside teachers at St. Jude’s Roman Catholic School, explored Belize’s barrier reef system and visited the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s research station on Carrie Bow Caye.

“With a trip like this, faculty members have to ‘walk the walk,’ so to speak,” Moseley says. “Collaborating, exercising resilience and being flexible are a few of the life skills that we want our students to demonstrate, so it is essential that we as educators are placed in situations where we have to draw on these skills as well.”

In addition, faculty returned from Belize equipped with a deeper understanding of the 2016–2017 ICGL theme of CLIMATE. “They can now translate this knowledge into meaningful curriculum for our students and rely on each other as resources,” Moseley says.

This spirit of collaboration, curiosity and camaraderie is something Moseley and ICGL Director TRISH ANDERSON will continue to foster among their colleagues; Lower and Middle School faculty study tours are already in the works for the summer of 2017.

“I hope that every faculty member who desires an immersion experience will have the opportunity to participate,” Moseley says. “This is a win-win

ICGL

situation. When teachers feel valued and empowered they are then able to pay it forward to their students. I also hope that, as a result of these experiences, faculty will reflect on their teaching practices and be inspired to implement innovative ideas.

It’s critical that we continually stretch our thinking as it relates to providing a comprehensive education for our students. Complacency is not an option.” n

If you pay taxes in the state of Georgia, it’s time to pre-apply for the Georgia Private School Tax Credit program for the 2017 tax year! Applications must be received by DEC. 15, 2016.

This education credit is better than a tax deduction because it gives you a dollar-fordollar reduction in the amount you owe in Georgia taxes and supports need-based financial aid for deserving students to attend Pace Academy. You receive a tax credit on your state income taxes and a charitable deduction on your federal taxes. A win-win for both you and Pace!

Thank you to the 376 parents, alumni, grandparents and friends of Pace who contributed more than $660,000 for the 2016 tax year. Since Pace began participating in the program nine years ago, over 60 students in all divisions— Lower, Middle and Upper Schools—have benefited from these tax-credit dollars.

By participating in this program, you help make a Pace education and experience available to every qualified child.

If you are new to the program, PARTICIPATION IS EASY! Visit www.paceacademy.org/taxcredit to learn more. Submit your form electronically, or print and mail a completed form to the address provided on our website.

Deadline to Pre-Apply DEC. 15, 2016

Questions?

Contact the Office of Advancement at advancement@paceacademy.org or call 404-240-9103.

T

his summer, I joined 17 other Upper School students and faculty members JOE SANDOE, AMY SECOR and JOANNE BROWN on a life-changing trip to Madagascar, “The Red Island” off Africa’s southeastern coast. This was a science- and service-based trip, and it included adventures that required us to break out of our comfort zones.

For 16 days, our group was surrounded by a culture unlike any other, one that holds community and relationships above everything else. Every stranger we saw wanted to form some kind of relationship—through a smile or a wave, bargaining in the market or just saying, “Salama,” or hello. Going from Atlanta to a thirdworld country was an eye-opening experience, to say the least.

We were fortunate in that we encountered Madagascar with individuals who know it better than most. Mr. Sandoe’s wife, Corby, grew up in Madagascar with her older sister and their parents, who are missionaries. We spent six days on the family’s compound in the city of Tulear, using outdoor pit latrines and taking bucket baths. Every night, we sat in a circle and had miaraka, or together time. This time became an essential part of the trip because some of the things we experienced were almost overwhelming—each member of our group was exposed to poverty that deeply touched us.

From Tulear, we bused out to villages in the region of Andranovory, where we helped the community build cement bases for the village water cisterns. These made it possible for the villagers to store water near their homes, whether they carried it from a well or collected rainwater.

While in Andranovory, we also met and played with local children. Although none of us spoke the same language, we communicated by holding hands, laughing and playing monkey-in-the-middle. Forming bonds with these kids was both enlightening and heartbreaking because we knew that their only water source was a dirty blue cistern filled with unclean water. We also noticed that a lot of the children’s hair was lightening at its ends, a sign of malnutrition.

Driving away from the construction sites, the children sprinted after our bus, smiling and yelling, “Veloma,” which means goodbye. I said, “Veloma,” to one of the children, and he shook his head and said, “Next time.”

Each experience from Madagascar will rest in my memory my whole life. I truly believe this trip touched and shaped every participant in some significant way. Someday, I hope to return and meet again with those who changed my life for the better.

“To say that this trip was life changing is an understatement. The warmth and kindness of the Malagasy people touched our hearts. We were physically, emotionally and mentally challenged in ways that made us better. It was a privilege to see global citizenship and learning taking place with our students in such a beautiful and unique setting.”

— Associate Director of Middle and Upper School Admissions JOANNE BROWN

UNTIL NEXT TIME,

MADAGASCAR Senior ALEXIS WILKINS reflects on two transformative weeks with the ICGL

ICGL

Z

eena Lattouf ’12 Comes Home to the ICGL

In August, Pace Academy welcomed alumna ZEENA LATTOUF ’12 as assistant director of the Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL), a new position within the ICGL. Lattouf graduated from Emory University with bachelor’s degrees in both Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies and Arabic.

As a Pace student, she was extremely involved in the school community. She played on the tennis team, mentored ninth graders as a senior peer leader and was a longtime member of the Student Council, serving as student body president her senior year. She traveled on international study tours to China, Cambridge and Jordan—experiences that shaped her worldview and her future. “I credit Pace for the person I am today,” Lattouf says.

In her new role, Lattouf assists ICGL Director TRISH ANDERSON, while focusing on school-wide service learning and Upper School ICGL initiatives such as the Social Entrepreneurship Challenge and the Women Mentoring Women program. She’s also back in the classroom, where she and Anderson co-teach Advanced Placement Human Geography.

Lattouf’s experiences, projects and passions will surely influence her work at Pace. She recently produced Zaatari, a short documentary based on fieldwork she completed to assess the need for improved education in Jordan’s Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp, and earlier this year, she founded the Hope Education Program to connect Atlanta-area college students with refugee families.

Anderson is thrilled about Lattouf’s homecoming. “I’m excited for Zeena to work with students in many different capacities,” she says. “Her passion for education and her commitment to global citizenship are contagious. We’re fortunate she’s chosen to return to the Pace community.”

— with contributions from ALEXIS WILKINS ’17

Save the Date APRIL 29, 2017 Georgia Aquarium Pace Academy Parents Club Auction & Gala honoring

John Anderson www.paceacademy.org/auction

ICGL

Ù DISCOVERING CLIMATE THROUGH DESIGN Director of STEAM and Design DR. KIRSTEN BOEHNER’S Middle Schoolers dipped their toes into the climate waters this fall. In sixth-grade STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math), students engineered climate-themed mechanical toys and employed Lower School students as test audiences for their prototypes.

Using the feedback they received, students modified their toys, ultimately using them to animate stories about climate.

In Boehner’s Design & Climate course, eighth graders dove deeper into climate issues.

The class included an introduction to design methodologies, as well study of deforestation, extreme heat, rising sea levels, climate migration, renewables, climate debates and climate activism. It culminated in a project in which students designed their own response or intervention to a specific climate issue.

CLEAR SKIES AHEAD Kicking off the ICGL’s Year of CLIMATE

The Pace Academy community has launched its yearlong study of CLIMATE, the Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s (ICGL) annual theme. From agroforestry and photography to virtual camping and visiting scholars, here’s how we’ve warmed up to the Year of CLIMATE.

Û PREPARING FOR THE YEAR OF CLIMATE

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Middle School faculty jumped into the Year of Climate during back-toschool pre-planning sessions. Their goal was twofold: To foster better understanding of climate issues, and to begin to collaborate with local organizations in an effort to plan on-campus, age-appropriate, climatecentered activities.

Coordinated by Director of Middle School Global Leadership EDNAMAY HERMOSILLO, the day began with a visit from Shaun Martin, senior director of climate change adaptation at the World Wildlife Fund. Following Martin’s presentation, faculty split into groups to visit Trees Atlanta, the DeKalb County’s Renewable Fuels Facility and Georgia Tech’s Urban Climate Lab, home to the Atlanta Heat Study.

ICGL

ß INTRODUCING THE KNIGHTS OF THE GREEN TABLE

“I pledge to be clever about climate, to reduce, reuse and recycle, and to help others understand the meaning of going green.”

Are you willing to take the pledge? Commit to CLIMATE and receive this Knights of the Green Table car decal, available in the Lower School Office.

“I pledge to be clever about climate, to reduce, reuse and recycle, and to help others understand the meaning of going green,” Lower School students vowed in a special September assembly.

By taking the pledge, penned by fifth-grader CARLY CANNON, students joined the Knights of the Green Table, an organization formed in response to a written call-to-action from the Lower School faculty Environmental Action Committee: “The problem is that when we look around our great school, we are not sure if there is proof, real proof, of people caring for their environment. We feel that if we were serious about making sure our actions are positively impacting the environment then there would be more proof of our actions, our commitment, here on campus…We need you to organize yourselves so that you can launch a student team that any student can join—any student who is serious about taking positive action to nurture, protect and celebrate the environment.”

Students answered the call. Using sketch noting and employing Design Thinking practices, fifth graders collaborated to lay the foundation for their group. They mapped out their objectives, crafted a slogan, “If you’re a Knight, you make it right,” and brainstormed tasks. A green landscape sculpture in front of the Randall House, a Knight made of recyclables, new food-and-trash combo containers, a Climate Run to raise awareness and a solar panel design challenge are just a few of the items on their list of potential projects.

Two guiding questions will frame students’ decisions and conversations as they collaborate on projects: “How do our actions, our choices and decisions impact the environment here on campus?” and “What is at stake?”

“We believe in students as critical resources: students as the people power,” the Environmental Action Committee wrote. “[We] will support your efforts and help you achieve your goals.”

Û LET’S ALL GO TO THE MOVIES!

Û EDUCATION & AGROFORESTRY

Û A CLIMATE CAMPOUT

The Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR) strives to “implement education programs and agroforestry methods in Central America in order to protect water sources, prevent mudslides, reduce erosion, prevent lung disease and provide more nutritious crops, while protecting the Earth”—no small task!

AIR founder Dr. Anne Hallum visited the Middle School to discuss with students how AIR works to accomplish its goals. Already, the organization has planted more than 4.2 million trees, trained 3,000 families in sustainable farming, built 800+ efficient stoves, created a sustainability curriculum used in hundreds of schools and helped launch dozens of micro-businesses.

Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night tells the story of a family camping trip and all the sights, sounds and scenery such an experience entails.

To bring the story to life, second graders took part in a “virtual campout,” complete with a crackling campfire (on the ActiveBoard), campfire songs, homemade tents and books to read by flashlight. But no campout is complete without s’mores! To heat their treats, students learned to harness the power of the sun and made solar cookers that melted their marshmallows.

Not all Pace faculty members are experts on climate issues, but in the spirit of striving for excellence and with the ICGL’s help, many are taking steps toward proficiency. To that end, the ICGL launched a happy-hour film series for faculty and staff in all divisions.

At the inaugural get-together in September, attendees enjoyed Indian-inspired food and drink before watching Climate Refugees, a 2010 award-winning Sundance film focused on the effects of overpopulation, scarce resources and changing climate on human civilization.

Movie nights will continue throughout the ICGL’s Year of Climate.

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ICGL

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ICGL

THE ICGL in Picture s During the 2015–2016 school year, Middle School students and faculty made memories around the world on ICGL study tours and captured many with phones and cameras. To add to the ICGL photo archive and encourage future memory making, the Middle School sponsored a photo contest this fall. A committee of faculty members voted to determine their favorites of the photos submitted.

Freshman VIRGINIA HOBBS emerged victorious in the student category, while TY RICHARDSON took home the faculty prize.

Winners received Amazon gift cards, and contest entries were displayed in the Middle School rotunda. Hobbs' award-winning image is shown left; Richardson's photo is below.

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GLOBAL LEADERS

LESSONS FOR LIFE

Through springtime and summer internships, Upper School students explored business, politics and nonprofits.

Here’s what our global leaders learned.

LANDON GOLDSTEIN ’17

HARRISON LEWIS ’18

WIDEANGLE

GRIDQUIRE LABS

(One-on-one management and meeting software)

(Location-intelligent mobile advertising)

“I always thought startups quickly became huge companies, but I realized that it takes extremely hard work to gain traction in the tech community. It involves hours and hours of prospecting clients, making phone calls, emailing and so much more. Creating a successful tech company is not an easy task; [you have to] give it everything you’ve got.”

“Performing market research and running sensitivity analyses, I learned how important it is to be friendly and make prospective clients laugh while trying to make a sale.”

TONYIA JOHNSON ’17 MORRIS, MANNING & MARTIN LLP (International, full-service law firm) “I was given a fictional case based on a real-life issue: free speech in the classroom setting. In two weeks, I had to research, study case laws, create an arguable case, and present it in front of an opponent and more than 25 lawyers.

The biggest lesson I took from this experience is the importance of preparation. When preparing for anything in life, considering both the pros and cons enables you to have a plan, and in turn, succeed in almost any situation.”

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ETHAN MUCH ’18 TESTGRID (Mobile application testing for Apple devices) “This truly unbelievable experience revealed the importance of networking to me. I learned just how beneficial it is to create connections with other people and companies, creating opportunities for a potential deal or even a job. My experience also taught me that all you need to do in order to be treated like an adult… is to work harder than everyone else. It is up to you to make that work happen.”

WILL TRIMBLE ’17 WIDEANGLE (One-on-one management and meeting software) “I got a much better sense of how the business world actually works; I saw how hard it was to seriously expand a startup. The Atlanta Tech Village [where WideAngle is housed] is a really relaxed place to work, but getting done what needs to get done definitely isn’t all fun and games. I really improved my writing and email skills as well.”

MIA WRIGHT ’17 NATIONAL CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS (Exploring the fundamental rights of all human beings) “I learned that not everything is always black and white, and that leaders have to make hard decisions in times of crisis. I also learned that the best way to begin solving any problem is starting a conversation where both sides can learn.”

SLOAN WYATT ’18 GEORGIA HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS (Democrats in action) “[Before this internship,] I hadn’t given much thought to my political passions or interests. This experience truly opened my eyes and has affected my college search. My boss constantly let me know that it was okay if I was unsure about what I was doing because that meant there was room to learn and grow. I would love to one day work on Capitol Hill or in political communications.”

GLOBAL LEADERS

TEAM BUILDING Through Service SWIMMING

TO CURE CANCER

To kick off the 2016 season, the varsity football team and coaches spent a day on Atlanta’s Westside, where they helped faculty and staff at Hollis Innovation Academy prepare for the school year.

The new STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) school serves grades Pre-K through five. The team filled backpacks with school supplies for students and moved boxes, books and furniture.

In September, a small but mighty group of Pace Academy swimmers took to the waters of Lake Lanier in support of the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University’s Winship Cancer Center.

Eighth-graders ISABEL BATTISTA and AMALIE LITTLE and senior MITCHELL ZWECKER participated in the event, Swim Across America, which includes a one-mile, open-water swim. Although unable to swim due to injury, junior SOPHIE FERRY served on the Swim Across America Junior Advisory Board and assisted in the team building and fundraising prior to the event.

Not only did Pace participants create awareness of important health issues, raise money and swim, they also met 11 current and former U.S. Olympic swimmers.

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GLOBAL LEADERS

Finding

Common Ground Above: With his father (BOB MILLS) standing by, Bobby hands his donation to Zac Brown, GRAMMY Award-winning musician and Camp Southern Ground founder.

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EACH YEAR, Pace Academy recognizes with the Cara Isdell Service Award two Upper School students committed to making the world a better place. Recipients receive a prize, half of which is to be donated to the service organization of the winners’ choice.

Inspired by his experiences on Pace’s 2016 Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) study tour to Vietnam in partnership with Habitat for Humanity International, junior BOBBY MILLS, a 2016 Cara Isdell Service Award recipient, donated half of his prize to Habitat, specifically to Pace’s 2017 ICGL build in Chile.

Mills decided to donate his personal portion as well, and Camp Southern Ground in Peachtree City, Ga., was the fortunate recipient. The camp is dedicated to serving all children, but places a special emphasis on those with neuro-developmental disorders.

“Camp Southern Ground appeals to me because it provides a judgment-free environment for kids like me who have learning disabilities,” Mills says. “I think this is especially important in a world where developmental deficits are seen as a negative instead of a gift.”

GLOBAL LEADERS

F a c u lt y S p ot light

JOE SANDOE When reflecting on global leadership, Upper School science teacher and Assistant Dean of Students JOE SANDOE thinks of a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” It’s a lesson Sandoe, now in his third year at Pace Academy, understands deeply.

In the spring of 2014, Sandoe interviewed with former science department chair JONATHAN DAY for a teaching and coaching position. In the meeting, Sandoe shared that his wife, Corby, grew up in Madagascar, where her parents still serve as missionaries, and in Kenya, where she and her sister attended high school. She moved to the United States to enroll at Dickinson College, where the couple met, and Sandoe’s life since has included frequent trips to Africa and other far-flung locales.

Day suggested that, were Sandoe to accept the position at Pace, he might lead an Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) study tour to Corby’s childhood home. Initially, Sandoe couldn’t foresee taking students to the third-world country. “Then, I heard that [Pace students had] climbed Kilimanjaro and hiked up glaciers in Patagonia, and I thought, ‘Maybe they could do this,’” he says.

After two years of planning, this past summer, Sandoe traveled with 18 Upper School students to Madagascar on a service and science-focused study tour (see story page 28).

The trip was not his inaugural ICGL experience. Sandoe’s first year at Pace, then-Upper School ICGL Director TOMMY HATTORI called on a Sunday night. “He said, ‘What are you doing Thursday? Want to go to Romania?’”

Sandoe recalls. “I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and within a week, I was in Romania [with Pace students].”

Romania marked Sandoe’s introduction to Pace’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity International; the following year, he led another ICGL Habitat trip to Vietnam; he’ll travel with a Pace group to Chile in March.

Sandoe’s whatever-it-takes, teamplayer mentality makes him an asset not only to the ICGL but within the greater Pace community as well. In addition to his duties as assistant dean of students, he coaches football and girls basketball, teaches four sections of chemistry, and serves as an advisor to the Social Entrepreneurship Challenge and PASS,

ag Mad

asca

r

a student non-use group.

In all of these roles, Sandoe incorporates themes of global leadership, always taking advantage of teachable moments. During his first year at Pace, he presented to his class information about Dihydrogen Monoxide (more commonly known as water), ultimately convincing students to ban the “dangerous chemical” from society. It was an example, Sandoe says, of the power of “bad science,” and the lesson integrated that year’s ICGL global theme.

“Whatever the [ICGL] theme, I try to present ideas that explore the theme through the chemistry concepts I teach,” he says. Exercises like this also force students to think critically, to broaden their perspectives, and that, Sandoe says, is his goal.

“The best thing [about ICGL trips] is to see students’ growth from when we leave the Atlanta airport to when we land back in Atlanta,” he says. “When you’re in another country, you have to be very adaptable, and I want students to understand and push beyond a narrow view of things.”

It’s something he’s experienced firsthand. “[Travel] has forced me to think about the way I do things,” says the self-proclaimed structured, Type-A individual. “My experiences have helped me become more flexible and understand that there many correct ways to accomplish goals.”

— with contributions from ALEXIS WILKINS ’17

Viet

nam

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“It’s important to remember that there are people in this world who don’t have easy access to the things we take for granted—like food, clean water, electricity and education. But I’ve learned that, in a way, everything is somehow connected, and that events halfway around the world can still affect us.”

— LEX TREVELINO ’17

“If a student travels to another part of the world, he begins to see it through different eyes. This leads to global awareness. I believe there’s a huge difference between hearing about poverty somewhere and actually seeing, feeling and smelling it. Exposure leads to improvement.”

— THOMAS HOOVER ’17

CARE PARTNERSHIP

CROSSING CONTINENTS, BUILDING BRIDGES Our Isdell Global Leaders’ Year of FOOD concludes in Ghana and Malawi

“I had a hunger,” says senior THOMAS HOOVER, “A hunger to learn, to innovate, to travel and to connect with others in order to serve. That’s why I was interested in the [Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s] theme of FOOD.” Hoover was one of four 2015–2016 Isdell Global Leaders (IGLs), Pace Academy Upper School students selected to spend the school year investigating global food issues through in-depth research, an independent-study course and immersive travel experiences.

The IGL initiative is part of Pace’s Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL), a results-oriented program that strives to build effective global leadership capabilities among all students and faculty. Each year, the ICGL facilitates exploration of an annual global theme—something that impacts individuals around the world—and examines it from all angles and at all ages. The hope is that students then apply that same critical thinking to other issues, thereby developing leadership abilities, global mindsets and cultural appreciation—in short, that they become citizens of the world.

To that end, during the 2015–2016 school year, Hoover, classmates ANNIE NOTTINGHAM and LEX TREVELINO, EMMA ST. AMAND ’16, and faculty advisors TRISH ANDERSON, KEVIN BALLARD and JULIE HALL traveled on three markedly different study tours to better understand the multifarious, interconnected business of food.

The IGLs’ travels took them first to California’s Salinas Valley, where they studied

large-scale agriculture in “the Salad Bowl of the World.” Then it was off to 2015 ICGL Visiting Scholar Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and to South Paw Farm, a 65-acre operation in Freedom, Maine, owned by MEG LIEBMAN MITCHELL ’05.

The group’s adventures concluded this past July in Ghana and Malawi, where IGLs collaborated with international relief organization CARE to examine smallholder farming, sustainable agriculture and the complex role of food in developing nations.

The trip marked the ICGL’s first study tour with CARE and proved to be a valuable and infinitely positive learning experience for both parties.

“Food is a fundamental, basic human right,” says Andie Bobb, executive director of CARE’s Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. “It’s the building block for all that CARE does. We can’t talk to a family about allowing girls to go to school if the family is malnourished and starving. We can’t change deep-rooted social norms until we deal with very basic things.”

That’s why CARE partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch Pathways, a program that strives to tackle food insecurity in six of the world’s poorest countries—Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Malawi, Mali and Tanzania—through smallholder agriculture, farms of an acre or less that rely on family labor.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “four-

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CARE PARTNERSHIP

fifths of the developing world’s food is a product of small-sized farms, [and these farms] are also home to the majority of people living in absolute poverty, and half of the world’s undernourished people.”

CARE believes that the smallholderfarming sector represents great opportunity, particularly for women who, in many African countries, provide 60 to 80 percent of agricultural labor but own less than two percent of the world’s land, leading to huge gaps in production. “By simply ensuring that female farmers have access to the same resources as their male counterparts, the number of undernourished people globally could be reduced by 100 to 150 million—12 to 17 percent of all undernourished people on the planet,” CARE reports.

Pathways initiatives vary from country to country but typically include improving women’s access to finance and incomegenerating opportunities; building women farmers’ skills related to business management, civic participation and literacy; promoting diverse and sustainable agricultural practices; and developing more inclusive high-value markets in sectors currently dominated by men.

A learning grant funds Pathways, giving CARE freedom to tweak its initiatives based on data and experience. “We have the ability to course correct with this program, to test and try new things,” Bobb says.

“That’s not the case with many grants, so at the end of this effort, the amount of data we’ll have will be incredible. We’ll have so much more knowledge in so many different environments.”

Access to CARE’s data and expertise played a significant role in the ICGL’s decision to join forces with Pathways for the final study tour of the IGL experience.

“Obviously, CARE is the most important food-development NGO in Atlanta, but the fact that, with Pathways, they’re learning as they go, using local people who have capital in their communities to run projects and seeing measurable results made this partnership appealing,” Anderson says.

In planning the study tour, Anderson, Bobb and Director of Advancement HEATHER WHITE, a former CARE staffer, first eliminated countries in conflict. “We had to travel

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to places that were safe for young visitors,” Bobb says. “It’s been more than 10 years since CARE has tailored a trip for young people, so we had to think about it differently. Ghana and Malawi are on opposite sides of the continent, and they’re very different.

We wanted to challenge the stereotype of Africa as a homogeneous continent.”

So, with their destinations determined— and with two additional travelers, seniors ELLIE DUNCAN and PARKER PAYNE—off they went.

The IGLs’ journey began in Ghana’s capital of Accra. “It was our first encounter with the massive urbanization happening in Northwestern African countries,” says Anderson.

“People are flocking to the cities. Driving anywhere quickly is impossible given the sheer number of vehicles, the sprawl of roadside street vendors and the pedestrian traffic. Gridlock was not uncommon.”

From there, the group traveled north to Ghana’s Garu-Tempane district, a stark contrast to the bustling city. “We were immersed in truly rural conditions,” Anderson says. “There wasn’t much infrastructure there; the population is very dispersed, and the drought conditions made ‘getting by’ even harder for some people.”

“The opportunity to travel to very remote villages, where people go years without seeing white people, was very humbling,” Hoover recalls. “People were curious about why we were there and, I would say, glad to know that people in America were interested enough to travel to visit them and learn about how they were dealing with their conditions. They were incredible hosts. I was amazed at how welcomed and accepted we all were, even though they had never met us.”

In both Ghana and Malawi, IGLs saw Pathways’ work in action; women grew soybeans and nuts to feed their villages and sold whatever was left to buy seeds for the next season. “It was as close to subsistence farming as you could get, but they’d started growing these cash crops three years ago and were already making enough profit to buy school uniforms in order to be able to send their kids to school,” Anderson says.

The group labored with the farmers they met—a central tenant of CARE’s philoso-

phy. “We believe in the unshakable dignity of all people, so we work alongside [the people we serve]” Bobb says. “All of us went into this trip with a very universal commitment to making sure it didn’t feel like development tourism.”

That’s a concept students quickly grasped. “The kids understood that the projects we saw were working—that social change is possible—because the community had embraced the agricultural model that they had tested and vetted with the CARE Ghana leaders,” Anderson says. “Students got to see how strategic and effective development work can be accomplished—not through the imposition of new, often Western ideas from the outside, but through the grassroots empowerment of local leaders and local communities.”

Cultural exchanges continued during the IGLs’ time in Malawi. Two local families volunteered to take students shopping for a meal and to guide them in the preparation process. CARE provided financial support so as not to unfairly burden these families.

Amid the chaos of the marketplace, the group bartered for fresh tomatoes, rice, potatoes, onions, salt, beef and a live chicken, before returning to the families’ homes to pound grain, slice vegetables, fetch water from a well and slaughter the chicken.

“It was incredible to see [the family’s] techniques for doing everyday tasks that we usually have machines do for us—like getting a fire started while the wind is blowing,” Trevelino recalls. “Our stovetops turn on with just a flip of a switch.”

Three hours later, students enjoyed the fruits of their labor with their hosts. “It was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life,” Hoover recalls.

“Prior to the trip, we [at CARE] discussed how to present information and experiences in ways kids could absorb,” Bobb says. “We quickly dropped that stress once we were on the ground. We realized that there was no reason to change the way we talk about the world. These kids were willing to sit with uncomfortable and harsh realities. They met challenging information with impressive maturity. They wanted to learn and understand, even if it was hard and the answers were simply starting points. That’s not true of

CARE PARTNERSHIP

many of our adult travelers. It surprised us in the best possible way.”

That, says Anderson, is the ICGL’s goal—to ensure that students critically engage, that they ask questions and make connections, that the world becomes more understandable, even as some of the questions about our shared future become more complex.

“When we started the year, our IGLs had this vague sense of how food is grown or where food comes from,” Anderson recalls.

“We went from observing big agriculture in California, to organic farming in Virginia and Maine to smallholder farms in Africa—and we now understand that, despite the radical difference in food-production quantities, everyone is working with the same raw materials. Seeds, soil, water and climate are key, and the way in which those elements come together can make or break a farm, a region or a country. Our IGLs are also able to think about the systems in place to deliver food to people and understand the complexities of food supply, distribution and consumption. They’ve grappled with everything from nutrition to the cultural significance we attribute to food. It’s been amazing to see their growth.”

But the power of IGL experience extends far beyond knowledge of food; it shapes futures.

“Yes, I learned about the history of farming, world hunger and poverty, but I also learned how to work more effectively within a group, how to perform in-depth research, conduct a productive field study, and manage my time and schoolwork,” says Nottingham. “I became more confident. I was treated like an adult, and I was encouraged to really ponder more sophisticated and mature issues. I’m now considering studying anthropology in college… and I feel as if I’m a more observant, active global citizen.”

“Where you’re born dictates everything. Life is a birth lottery, but that doesn’t mean you’re smarter than other individuals. It means you have incredible opportunities to do something for those who were not born with the same opportunities. We learned that young people are ready and willing to engage in global issues. They were far more prepared than I ever imagined.”

— ANDIE BOBB, CARE

SOURCES: CARE, www.care.org Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, www.fao.org International Food Policy Research Institute, www.ifpri.org

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WOMEN MENTORING WOMEN

women mentoring women Pace’s partnership with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey leverages the power of relationships to build confidence— and business acumen—one young woman at a time.

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U

pper School math teacher KEITH NEWMAN is a numbers guy, so even before he began teaching Advanced Placement economics in 2013, he noticed that far more boys than girls enrolled in the course.

“I had five girls in the class my first year and two the second, and I thought, what’s going on?” Newman recalls. “[Federal Reserve Chair] Janet Yellen is one of the most powerful people in the country. Why aren’t we producing women to follow in her footsteps?”

Pace Academy parent ANAND DUTTA had observed a similar trend at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, the investment bank where he serves as chief market and liquidity risk officer.

“I work in an industry that’s dominated by men,” Dutta says. “The women we hire are brilliant, but they’re not getting the message that they belong in the business world at a young enough age.”

Unfortunately, it’s an all-too-common situation. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that while women in the U.S. hold 52

percent of professional-level jobs, control 80 percent of consumer spending and earn 60 percent of all master’s degrees, they represent only 14.6 percent of executive officers and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. You don’t have to be a mathematician or economist to understand that those numbers just don’t add up.

So, Newman, Dutta and Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) Director TRISH ANDERSON decided to do something about it. Their conversation happened to coincide with the launch of the ICGL, and their initiative fit perfectly within one of the program’s five focus areas: Business & Social Entrepreneurship.

In the spring of 2015, young women from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey spent an evening getting to know young women in Pace’s Upper School over pizza, and Women Mentoring Women was born.

Finance analyst Miriam Eapen was among the group of professionals that made the initial visit to Pace. A graduate of the University of Richmond with a degree in finance

WOMEN MENTORING WOMEN

and leadership studies, Eapen found that “the right conversations with experienced people” had influenced her career path, one that makes her “happy and well-rounded while providing a challenge”; she liked the idea of being on the other side of those conversations.

Eapen, Dutta, and their colleagues put together a series of evening sessions focused on personal development, college and interview prep, refining technical and analytical skills and financial responsibility. “The goal was to create an environment where women could cultivate confidence and develop talents needed to succeed in high school, college and beyond,” Eapen says.

Now, Women Mentoring Women meets every three weeks—five times per semester—and includes a growing number of both Pace students and young professionals. The program’s leadership team also has expanded; ZEENA LATTOUF ’12, assistant director of the ICGL, serves in an advisory capacity and works with Newman to coordinate logistics for Pace, while Eapen leads SunTrust Robinson Humphrey’s efforts.

Each meeting centers on a different topic, such as developing an executive presence, personal budgeting or business basics. After each topic is introduced, students break into small groups with their mentors to discuss.

The setting is intimate—two or three students, mostly juniors and seniors, per mentor—and allows relationships to form quickly. Mentors often share their personal contact information with their mentees and offer to grab coffee or serve as a sounding board throughout the collegesearch process.

“These young professionals really want to create mentor relationships,” Newman says.

“They’re all in their 20s, some recently out of college. A lot of them went to colleges that our girls are interested in attending.

They identify with each other.”

Following discussion, the group reconvenes to summarize what they’ve learned.

Then, it’s often back to work for the mentors. “Taking time out of their workday is a tremendous sacrifice,” Newman says.

“And seeing that dedication is incredibly impressive to our students; they take these meetings seriously.”

The semester concludes with a “mocktail hour,” to which mentors invite their SunTrust Robinson Humphrey colleagues and mentees put their networking skills to the test.

Women Mentoring Women has already been an eye-opening experience for the Pace students involved. “I’ve met young women in the business world who’ve given me a better view of how ‘the real world’ actually works,” says junior HANNAH SCHRAGER, who leads this year’s student group along with junior ELIZABETH MARR and senior CARSON MYERS. “I’ve loved going to talk to [our mentors], not just about business, but about life in general.

Marr offers similar feedback: “After talking with these women and my fellow students, I realized that business was something I really enjoyed and wanted to learn more about,” Marr says. “If I hadn’t gone to that first meeting, I never would have discovered what I’m now looking for in college, so really, it changed my future.”

But Marr’s not the only one with her sights set on the corner office. “I got emails a couple months ago from STEPHANIE NOVELLAS ’16 and NATALIE NOVELLAS ’16,” Dutta says. “They’re both at Southern Methodist University and had participated in [Women Mentoring Women]. They hadn’t contemplated doing anything with business before the program, but they wanted to let us know that they’d both registered for business courses. That’s amazing to me, that our program had changed their attitudes.”

Attitudes at Pace will no doubt continue to shift as a result of the discussions and

connections established through Women Mentoring Women, and Dutta insists that the program benefits SunTrust Robinson Humphreys employees as well.

“We often try to put our more junior associates into situations that require them to teach or take on leadership roles,” he says.

“A first-year analyst just out of college may not be entirely confident in her position. This is a way to train our young professionals to get out there, to ensure that learning never stops and to give back to the community.”

Eapen relishes the connections she’s established as a result of the program and has enjoyed watching the young women she’s mentored make decisions about their futures. “Getting updates about what colleges they visited, where they applied and where each of them ended up made [my colleagues and I] feel like we were reliving our senior years,” she says.

“While we would love if every mentee decide to major in business, we know that may be a stretch, so we design sessions for everyone to walk away having learned something new, no matter what their interests are… Most importantly, we want these women to know that life is still fun after you graduate high school and college. You can have a job that excites you, live in a city you want to live in, pursue whatever your passions may be and still hang out with your friends, no matter how much older, more mature and smarter you get.”

That message seems to be sinking in.

Just ask the 12 young women enrolled in AP economics this year. n

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ALUMNI

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? ALUMNI UPDATES

i n m Alu

DAVID IBSEN ’95 recently accepted the role of director of development and annual giving at Cannon School, an independent K–12 school located north of Charlotte, N.C. STEPHEN JOHNSTON ’95 is founder and chief technology officer at Launch Media Network, “a leading global media and marketing network for the video game industry [that] stands at the intersection of gamers, the brands focused on gamers, the content gamers seek and all commerce involving games and their interests.”

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ALUMNI

Originally established as Guild Launch in 2006, Launch Media Network relocated from Virginia to Atlanta’s Tech Village in 2015 and recently moved to a larger space in Sandy Springs.

“Our goal was to get embedded [in] and connected to the Atlanta tech scene,” Stephen told the Reporter Newspapers. “We saw the explosion of technology here.”

TAHIRA DOSANI ’00 is managing director of Accion Venture Lab, a seed-stage impact investing initiative focused on financial inclusion. Venture Lab provides capital and support to early stage startups that leverage innovation to increase access to and quality of financial services for underserved consumers and businesses globally.

In addition to driving the strategy and growth of Venture Lab, supporting investment decisions, and leading portfolio management and governance, Tahira works with the fund’s portfolio companies to provide strategic and operational expertise that accelerates their growth trajectories and enables stronger performance.

Tahira previously led strategic projects at LeapFrog Investments, a specialist emerging market profit-with-purpose private equity fund focused on financial services. Prior to that, she worked as director of strategy at the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Based in Dubai, she drove strategic initiatives for portfolio companies and led new investments in telecoms, technology, and infrastructure in South and Central Asia and the Middle East. She also worked in Kabul at Roshan, Afghanistan’s leading telecommunications operator, where she was lead of corporate strategy and launched the country’s first mobile money platform.

Tahira began her career as a management consultant with Bain & Company in Boston.

She has also worked at the Bridgespan Group and on various education and health impact initiatives in Pakistan, Tanzania, Kenya and Egypt. Tahira holds an MBA from INSEAD and bachelor’s degrees in international relations, computer science and education from Brown University.

CATHERINE WOODLING ’00 was named to Georgia Trend magazine’s 2016 40 Under 40 list, which includes “the state’s best and

1) David Ibsen; 2) Tahira Dosani; 3) One of Olivia Levine Arnold's images from @foodistagirl; 4) Catherine Woodling; 5) Mary Logan Barmeyer Bikoff; 6) Beth Huddleston

brightest in business, government, nonprofits, science, healthcare and education.”

Catherine is director of communications and marketing for the East Lake Foundation, an organization that “has turned one of the nation’s most violent public housing projects into a national model for community redevelopment—promoting its mission to break the cycle of poverty.” She also serves as president of her Reynoldstown neighborhood association and as vice chair of the City of Atlanta’s Neighborhood Planning Unit.

MARY LOGAN BARMEYER BIKOFF ’01 is the lifestyle editor of Atlanta magazine and editor-in-chief of Atlanta Magazine Style Book. She covers style, local and luxury retail and travel.

Most recently, she worked on cover packages for the September and October 2016 issues of Atlanta magazine, which included a fashion feature on The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira and a roundup of Georgia backroad adventures, respectively.

She also writes long-form features, including last year’s story on the “Queen of Gator,” a fourth-generation alligator tanner in middle Georgia

who supplies leather to luxury houses like Ralph Lauren and Prada.

Bikoff lives in an Inman Park bungalow with her husband, David, and their Australian shepherd.

BETH HUDDLESTON ’01 has been named general manager of Uber Dallas/ Fort Worth. Her appointment represents the first change in leadership since Uber entered to the Dallas/Fort Worth region in September 2012. Prior to her arrival at Uber, Beth worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Co. She is a graduate of Emory University and received her MBA from Harvard Business School.

OLIVIA LEVINE ARNOLD ’04 launched a foodie blog (@foodistagirl on Instagram) in June 2015 when she and her husband, Billy, moved to Atlanta from New York City. Olivia worked for Marc Jacobs Perfume in New York and had just finished an Instagram campaign that piqued her curiosity about how people create and cultivate blogs. So, she decided to dedicate one to exploring Atlanta.

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ALUMNI "Working alongside some of the most patient, dedicated and unconditionally loving people I have ever encountered, it amazed me how quickly complete strangers, both adults and children, become home. It is an [international] family… we left a piece of our hearts and were given a piece in return."

— KATIE NELSON ’15

Olivia worked long hours in New York and now puts in just as much time as senior manager of trade marketing at Newell Brands, so she dines out most nights. “I’m too tired to cook for myself, which makes for the perfect subject matter for a blog!” she says.

Olivia loves exploring new restaurants and food experiences, so her Instagram content focuses on the food she eats, usually posted in the moment.

“All pictures are taken with my iPhone, and nothing is retouched outside of the typical Instagram editing tools,” she reports.

“It’s a fun hobby that has led me to try out a lot of new food and restaurants and to meet a lot of interesting fellow bloggers.

Atlanta has such an evolving food scene, so it’s really fun to explore all of the new places that crop up constantly!”

Olivia invites all of her Pace friends to follow her food journey!

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MICHAEL GOLD ’08 recently moved to New York City, where he works in production and editing at Resonant Pictures, a production company and boutique agency in Brooklyn. He is currently in post-production on In a Sentimental Mood, a film he wrote and directed.

Travel Agent Central, the travel trade’s most frequented website, has named CALLY PIRRUNG ’08 to its 2016 “30Under30,” a list of top travel agents who represent “the next generation of agents who will discover new places to go and new ways to connect with travelers.”

These young professionals “exist in a 24/7 world of nonstop information and communicate with each other, with other industry professionals and with clients through multiple platforms,” the company says. “They sell travel in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.”

Cally, a graduate of the University of Virginia, is a luxury travel consultant at Jet Set World Travel in Chicago. Jet Set World Travel President Julia Douglas credits Cally’s success to her “insatiable curiosity, unique sense of fun, and careful attention to detail,” combined with “extensive destination experience” and an ability to create a “world-class itinerary.” At 26, Cally has already checked 51 countries off her bucket list.

MORGAN BREWTON-JOHNSON ’14, a junior at Princeton University, spent the summer interning with New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Department of Community and Population Health. There, she worked on a team focused on New York State’s DSRIP program, which reinvested $8 billion of state funding to incentivize the development and implementation of population and prevention-based health programs in order to ultimately reduce preventable hospital use among the Medicaid population by 25 percent over five years. “[New York-Presbyterian] was at the head of a network of 85 community organizations, and my team worked to create partnerships and programs across the network that would help the Medicaid population receive care in primary care and community-based settings in order to prevent expensive hospitalizations,” Morgan writes. “I loved working with

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the people on my team and gained a lot of insight into both the healthcare industry and the business side of the hospital—it was an incredible experience.”

Following her time in New York, Morgan returned to Atlanta for a brief internship with Bain & Company, where she learned the basics of Bain’s approach to consulting and worked with a team on a case in Palm Beach, Fla. Over the summer, KATIE NELSON ’15 participated in a three-week internship with the Amani Children’s Foundation in Kenya.

The organization serves children orphaned

by HIV and poverty by sponsoring “New Life Homes” for children 18 and younger.

Through infant, toddler and family homes, New Life successfully matches children with families in Kenya and abroad, with an adoption rate of 95 percent for children between the ages of 1 and 3.

Katie’s internship program brought together students, professionals, and administrators with orphaned and abandoned children, fostering strong relationships and creating a trans-Atlantic family. “The program focuses on many of the legal aspects of adopting a child in Kenya, and interns work to aid the homes in any way administrators see fit, whether that be organizing documents, updating website content or helping out with the children,” Katie writes.

“Every day, children are abandoned in the busy streets of Nairobi and beyond, and policies are kept strict in an effort to combat child trafficking across borders. Since fall of 2014, Kenya has been closed off to international adoption, reopening its doors to prospective global families for the first time earlier this year—unfortunately, we found that the trickledown could take years to process.”

Katie spent much of her time working with staff to organize and put together adoption files, compiling psychosocial and cognitive development reports based on day-to-day interactions, and photographing the children so that future families may catch a glimpse of the personalities they are bringing into their homes.

A sophomore at Duke University, Katie was the first Duke undergrad to be accepted to the program. She blogged about her experiences at www.languageofserendipity.com.

1) Katie Nelson; 2) Morgan BrewtonJohnson (bottom row, second from right) with friends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan; 3) Cally Pirrung; 4) Madison Graham (left) and Grace Ferry; 5) Schaefer/Ayres; 6) Rogers/Gallart; 7) Richard/Smith

The National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association has named GRACE FERRY ’16 and MADISON GRAHAM ’16 Swimming All-Americans. Grace received All-American honors in the 200 and 500 Freestyle events, Madison in the 200 IM and 100 Backstroke.

USA Swimming also named both Grace and Madison Scholastic All-Americans for the 2015–2016 season.

Following record-breaking senior seasons for the Pace Knights, Grace now swims for the University of Pennsylvania, and Madison joined the University of Tennessee Knoxville Vols.

MARRIAGES ADAIR ROGERS ’02 married Joaquim Vilella Gallart on June 4, 2016. The wedding took place on Spain’s Costa Brava at the Hotel La Gavina, located in the town of S’agaro, where Joaquim’s family owns a beach house.

The wedding party included TERRY BROWN ’02, JESSICA TURNER ’02, LUCY INMAN ’02, KATIE HOLDERNESS ’02, AMANDA ROGERS INMAN ’00, REID ROGERS ’07 and MARY HIPP ’06.

The couple met in San Francisco, Calif.,

and now lives in Los Angeles, where Adair is in sales and brand development for Equinox.

Joaquim manages data analytics at ESRI. CAMERON RICHARD-SMITH ’05 married Jacob Richard-Smith on July 2, 2016, at Atlanta’s King Plow Arts Center. MARISA LEVI STAINES ’05, AMANDA SIEGEL ’05, BROOKE BEASLEY SHEKHAR ’04, TREY HOWARD ’04, LARA GOODRICH EZOR ’06 and ZACHARY EZOR ’06 were in attendance.

The couple recently moved from New York City to Atlanta, where Cameron is in Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business’s MBA program, concentrating on technology commercialization and product management. Jacob works for Triptyk Studios as an associate producer and project coordinator for film, television and theatre.

LUCY SCHAEFER ’08 married Drake Ayres, a Westminster graduate, on April 30, 2016, at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church. A reception at the Cherokee Town Club followed.

Lucy’s sisters, COURTNEY SCHAEFER ’07 and CAROLYN SCHAEFER ’11, served as maids of honor. The wedding party included

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CALLY PIRRUNG ’08, SAMANTHA MOVSOVITZ GELMAN ’08, MCCREA O’HAIRE ’08, KATE HEYER ’08, JACK SAVARESE ’09 and JOE SAVARESE ’07. SARAH NALLE ’08, NICK RHODES ’08, SAM BIRDSONG ’08, CHASE BROWN ’08, CAMERON KENNELLY ’08, SCOTT JOSPIN ’08, FENWAY MERLINO ’08, HAMILTON REYNOLDS ’08, PEARSON MATHEWS ’07 and LAUREN KRAVITZ ’07 attended.

The couple honeymooned in Tahiti and lives in Newport Beach, Calif., where Lucy, a graduate of Southern Methodist University, is an account manager for Insight Global.

Stephen attended the University of Georgia and is an associate at Sabal Financial.

BIRTHS Meghan and EJ GRUBER ’03 welcomed Harrison John on June 1, 2016. Harrison was 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 20.25 inches long. “Harrison is known as ‘little EJ’ to our friends and family,” Meghan writes. “Not only did he get his daddy’s good looks and sweet smile, but he inherited that fun-loving, mischievous spirit, too.”

EJ works as a product manager for Allstate Insurance, and Meghan is a risk analyst for Enterprise.

BLYTHE O’BRIEN HOGAN ’03 and her husband, Will, welcomed William “Henry” on Aug. 3, 2016. Henry was 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 20.5 inches. Blythe is an insurance broker and director of the fine art practice for private clients at Aon. Will works at Tailfin marketing.

NATHAN PRITTIE ’05 and his wife, Rachel Sedlack, welcomed a daughter, Lyla Grace Sedlack-Prittie on June 2. She was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 21 inches long. Nathan is a brewer at Three Taverns Brewery in Decatur, Ga., and the family lives in Atlanta’s Grant Park neighborhood.

1) Harrison John Gruber; 2) Lyla Grace Sedlack-Prittie with mother and father; 3) William "Henry" Hogan

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Got something to share? email alumni@paceacademy.org IN MEMORIAM RHETT BLACK ’88 passed away on July 15, 2016, in Smyrna, Ga. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to Pet Rescue or the Humane Society.

JEFF ELLINGTON ’88 passed away on Aug. 30, 2016, in Atlanta. After graduating from Pace, Jeff received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and his master’s from Wake Forest University.

BETH ROSE BOYLSTON ’01 passed away on Oct. 3, 2016. Beth is survived by her parents, CAROL and LYNN ROSE; her sister, ELLEN ROSE ’02; her husband, Andrew Boylston; and her son, Brice.

“Beth led an exuberant and artful life, expressing love for others in everything she did,” her family wrote. “[She was] a dedicated wife and mother… and a gifted artist, excelling in the art curriculum at Pace, where she received both art and service awards.

Beth is best remembered by her huge heart.

Her love flowed freely to friends, family and animals. No one will ever forget her feistiness and her long, red, flowing hair. Her greatest joy was mothering her two-yearold son, Brice. Her passion for his care and welfare was extraordinary. Beth’s energy, artfulness and unconditional love will be deeply missed. She was, indeed, a blessing to all who knew her.”

Beth attended Arizona State University and created her own signature brand of fine art, Roseybme Designs.

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Pace provided me with the foundation and confidence to move toward my dream of writing,” says ANNE CORBITT ’00, who released her first novel, Rules for Lying, on Sept. 1.

Corbitt majored in creative writing at Elon University and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of Mississippi. She moved back to Atlanta in 2008 and currently teaches writing at Kennesaw State University.

The year before her return to Atlanta, Corbitt heard a news story about an individual who had lied about an assault accusation. “I remember thinking, ‘What if they got away with it? How might the repercussions of such a lie wear on them over the years?’ So I started there,” says Corbitt.

One of her characters, Grace, tells a lie 20 years before the novel’s opening. The rest of Corbitt’s cast of characters were inspired by other stories Corbitt had heard, as well as her own ideas and questions about “the ambiguity of so many lies we tell.”

Three of the five main characters in Rules for Lying are teenagers; however, the novel is marketed toward adults. “Perhaps due to the large impact Pace had on my life, I have long been interested in those formative high-school years,” says Corbitt. She knew that she did not want to place the story at Pace, however, she admits to imagining Boyd Gym and its old locker rooms when describing those spaces in Rules for Lying. Corbitt set the Rules for Lying at the public Fulton High School located in a fictional town she imagines somewhere northeast of Marietta, Ga. Corbitt discovered that the writing process is long, to say the least; she worked on Rules for Lying for eight years.

“We can only learn to write a novel by writing a novel,” she says. “Study provides the tools, but I had to learn a lot on the job.”

During her time at Pace, Corbitt was involved in basketball, theatre, photography and Knight Gallery, the Upper School literary magazine. She credits longtime Upper School English teacher RICKS CARSON for teaching her the highs and lows of writing. “He instilled in me the belief that writing is a vocation,” she says. “So when I went to college and graduate school, I entered workshops and literature classes with a worker’s spirit, all while I never forgot his joy for words or how unbelievably lucky I was to study and write them.”

Corbitt declared that she has “far too many” favorite teachers to choose just one, but she mentions HELEN SMITH, FRANCE DORMAN, MARSHA DURLIN, GEORGE MENGERT, RICK BERMAN, BECKY WHEELER and MIKE GANNON as some who continue to inspire her to this day.

Corbitt considers herself lucky to call Pace her bedrock in which to grow as the person and writer she is today. “Who knows what additional struggles I would have faced if not for this strong foundation,” says Corbitt. “High school can be a difficult time. You learn so much about algebra, chemistry and ancient history, while you’re also learning who you are as a person, a student and a friend. I cannot imagine a better setting in which to field these questions than Pace.”

Rules for Lying is available through local independent booksellers, like Charis Books in Little Five Points, and online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

SPOTLIGHT ON

ANNE CORBITT ’00

— by ALEXIS WILKINS ’17

Calling Alumni…

Are you a leader in your community or profession?

Would an insider’s glance into Pace’s present and future interest you?

Looking for a new, meaningful way to reconnect with Pace?

The Office of Alumni Relations is now accepting applications for Leadership Pace 2017!

P R O G R A M D AT E S M A R C H 1 9 – 2 0, 2 0 1 7 A P P L I C AT I O N D E A D L I N E D E C E M B E R 9, 2 0 1 6 Visit www.paceacademy.org/Page/Alumni/ Leadership-Pace for application guidelines, or email courtney.harris@paceacademy.org to learn more about the program.

“[Leadership Pace 2016] was about sharing ideas and leveraging expertise, all in an effort to support the students and advance the Pace community in big ways.”

— MARK JOHNSON ’94 Leadership Pace participant

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Alumni Out & About

Alumni Entrepreneurs Share Their Stories As part of the Office of Alumni Relations’ Lunch & Learn series, alumni entrepreneurs CHAD RALSTON ’04 of American Spirit Whiskey, CHAFFEE BRAITHWAITE HEILMAN ’95 of Baby Braithwaite and BOB GRIGSBY ’88 of Blue Sky Works LLC spoke to Upper School students on Sept. 14. The trio shared with students the stories of their respective professional journeys and offered advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Visiting Author Series The Pace Alumni Association and the Woodruff Library have joined forces to launch the Woodruff Library Visiting Author Series.

The inaugural event in the series took place Oct. 16 and featured Pace parent and #1 New York Times bestselling author EMILY GIFFIN. Parents, alumni, faculty and staff were invited to attend, and Giffin discussed her latest novel, First Comes Love.

Stay tuned for details regarding future visiting author events.

Generations of Pace Knights On Aug. 2, alumni who are also current Pace parents gathered for dinner in the Arthur M. Blank Upper School’s Seaman Family Student Commons to celebrate the new school year.

More than 60 current Pace parents attended the event, where Head of School FRED ASSAF discussed the future of the school and announced upcoming Alumni Association events. This year, 69 alumni children are enrolled at Pace.

NEED AN OLD YEARBOOK? Was yours lost, damaged or destroyed?

We can send you another copy!

Contact Pacesetter adviser RYAN VIHLEN for availability. ryan.vihlen@paceacademy.org

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ARNOLD, JOHNSON JOIN ALUMNI BOARD

by ALEXIS WILKINS ’17

2016–2017 ALUMNI BOARD MEMBERS Charley Brickley ’88, President Andrew Alexander ’04 Olivia Levine Arnold ’04 Beth Allgood Blalock ’96 Julianna Rue Cagle ’03 Bryan Chitwood ’93 Tripp Foley ’99 Jenn Festa Giordano ’94 Carter Inglis ’89 Cindy Gay Jacoby ’83 Mark Johnson ‘94 Trey Pope ’86 Evans Rainer ’04 Matt Stone ’99 Andrew Teegarden ’99 Frank Woodling ’05

OLIVIA LEVINE

MARK

“The work ethic that Pace instills is something that has benefitted me throughout my entire life, particularly in my career,” says OLIVIA LEVINE ARNOLD ’04. Arnold works at Newell Brands, where she is senior manager of trade marketing, specifically for Prismacolor Colored Pencils and adult coloring products.

She attended Harvard University following her tenure at Pace Academy. “At times, Pace was more challenging than college,” she says. “Pace prepared me very well for the academic rigor that I encountered there.”

In high school, Arnold was a member of the track team and brought home a statechampionship medal as part of the 4 x 400 relay. She enjoyed studying photography under visual art teacher FRANCE DORMAN and came to love Upper School history teacher HELEN SMITH through participation in the Model United Nations program. Smith now tops Arnold’s list of all-time favorite teachers. “Her quirkiness makes learning very digestible,” she says.

Arnold’s most memorable Pace moment took place in a seventh-grade history class when teacher BJ HAYES, discussing the defeat of the Spanish Armada, stood on a stool and chanted, “1588 is a date that’s really great!” She shares the anecdote when describing her Pace experience and the passion her teaches brought to their classrooms.

As a member of the Alumni Board, Arnold looks forward to reconnecting with other alumni and encouraging her friends to become more involved in the Pace community.

“Pace was an integral part of shaping me into the person that I have become,” says MARK JOHNSON ’94. “Many of the values, beliefs and friendships that I have today were born at Pace.”

As a student, Johnson was involved in a variety of activities ranging from basketball, Habitat for Humanity, photography and computer programming—“not nearly the same types of computers or technical programming that exists today,” he says.

“As with most alumni… [Pace] exposed me to environments and situations that set the foundation for an insatiable curiosity, problem-solving skills and decision-making processes that I still use today,” he says.

Johnson compares choosing a favorite teacher to choosing a favorite child, but he lists MARSHA DURLIN, BJ HAYES and CHRIS WHEATLEY as Pace faculty who made an impact on his life. As for his favorite Pace tradition? Hands down, it’s Spirit Week, Johnson says.

After Pace, Johnson attended the University of Notre Dame, where he met his wife, Carrie. Since then, he has worked with brands such as Coca-Cola, LEGO and Target, and launched a residential construction company. Three years ago, Johnson moved back to Atlanta with Carrie and their two children, Ellis, 5, and Lela, 3.

“Joining the Alumni Board provides an opportunity for me to strengthen my connection with the current and former Pace community and support its continued evolution,” he says.

ARNOLD ’04

JOHNSON ’94

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CLASS OF 1986 LARRY CUMMINGS, PARKER GABRIELSEN CUNNINGHAM, QUILL HEALEY, TOM HOOVER, NANCY WRAY IZLAR, ELIZABETH SIKES MCRAE, JAY MYERS, CALLA MCCALLEY NOYES, MATT ORNSTEIN, ANNA GASTON PATTON, CHRIS PAYNE, TREY POPE, JACK TODD and JUSTIN WIEDEMAN gathered their classmates at SUSAN WEBSTER PARKER’S home to celebrate the Class of 1986’s 30th reunion.

1986

CLASS OF 1996

1996

HOMECOMING & Reunion Weekend Knights fans of all ages showed their Pace Academy spirit during Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, Sept. 23 and 24.

The festivities kicked off with a family friendly tailgate at Pace’s Riverview Sports Complex, where alumni and their families enjoyed dinner from Low Country BBQ before watching the varsity football team defeat Redan High School 45–22.

The next morning, alumni gathered for a playground party, brunch and tours of the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School. Saturday evening, the Classes of 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001* celebrated reunions. *The Classes of 1976, 2006 and 2011 will celebrate reunions over the Thanksgiving holiday.

CLASS OF 2001 Members of the Class of 2001 gathered at Verde Taqueria to celebrate their 15th reunion, which was organized by LAUREN PAULLIN GODFREY and COOPER PETTWAY.

2001

1996

Buckhead’s Garland House played host to the Class of 1996’s 20-year reunion. BETH ALLGOOD BLALOCK, CHRIS HARDWICK, MAGGIE ISLER KILLGORE, MARY ELIZABETH RUSHING LOTT, COURTNEY RANCK MCMILLAN, JULIE NEWMAN and SARAH-ELIZABETH LANGFORD REED planned the evening.

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1991

SAVE THE DATE for the 4th annual Alumni Knight Cap! CLASS OF 1991 The Class of 1991 had quite a crowd at its 25th reunion, which took place at Ormsby’s in Atlanta’s Westside neighborhood. SHEP MALLORY GALLAGHER organized the event.

1991

1981

1981

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2017 7 p.m.–12 a.m.

Chastain Horse Park Benefiting need-based student financial aid, The Pace Alumni Fund’s dedicated cause, the evening will include a bourbon tasting and delicious fare from Avenue Catering Concepts.

If you are interested in contributing or want to learn more about the event, please email alumni@paceacademy.org.

Have you liked or joined us yet?

CLASS OF 1981 LEIGH DRAUGHON WALSH and TIM WALSH opened their home for the Class of 1981’s 35th reunion.

JULIE HORNSTEIN APPEL helped plan the event.

www.facebook.com/paceacademy alumniassociation 1981

www.linkedin.com/paceacademy alumniassociation

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Headmaster GEORGE KIRKPATRICK, Tinsley and her typewriter worked tirelessly at the business of school, helping the fledgling institution find its way.

Saluting

Sally Tinsley A BELOVED QUEEN OF THE CASTLE

F

or parents and students, the start of a new academic year brings back-to-school shopping and earlier bedtimes, but for many school employees, August’s activities mark the end of months of preparation—work that begins long before the previous school year ends.

Since Pace Academy’s founding in 1958, the school’s iconic Castle, now Kirkpatrick Hall, has served as the hub of summertime activity. There, faculty and staff collect calendar dates and plan events; they piece together student and teacher schedules, order textbooks and supplies, reconcile

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budgets, pay bills and update records; they oversee campus upgrades, put in place new policies and communicate with families to ensure a smooth start.

In the end, those million tiny tasks make the true magic of the first day of school possible, and each year Pace’s doors open to welcome students once again.

For two decades, SALLY TINSLEY was at the center of pre-school preparations; she controlled the Castle from behind the scenes. As secretary to Pace’s first headmaster, FRANK KALEY, and then to Upper School Principal BOB CHAMBERS and

To tell Sally Tinsley’s Pace story, one must start in 1943 at a Middle Tennessee State University dance, where she met MEL TINSLEY, a young cadet with the 48th Tank Battalion.

“He waited until the last song to ask me to dance,” Sally recalls. “It was a jitterbug number. He broke in and said he didn’t jitterbug. We danced anyway, and I gave him my phone number. We had our first date the next night.”

Less than a year later, Sally and Mel married; he landed in Marseilles two months after their wedding, and Sally’s first letter to France included news that she was expecting. Mel fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was there soon after U.S. forces liberated Dachau concentration camp in 1945. He met his daughter, NENA TINSLEY ALLEN, when she was six months old.

After World War II, the Tinsleys settled in Lexington, Ky., where Mel earned a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering at the University of Kentucky. There they welcomed a second daughter, LAURA TINSLEY MCFAYDEN ’67. A job at Lockheed Martin brought the family to Atlanta in 1958, and in 1960, Laura enrolled at a new school named Pace Academy.

The Tinsleys came to know Frank Kaley through the admissions process, and when Laura was accepted to Pace, Sally asked Kaley if she might work at the school to pay Laura’s tuition. Kaley, in need of additional administrative assistance, gratefully accepted the offer, and Sally set up shop at a makeshift table in the Castle kitchen.

“At that time, the school was just the Castle, surrounded by the most magnificent terraced gardens,” McFayden remembers.

The building, once a private home, lent itself to an immediate feeling of closeness between members of the Pace community and an all-hands-on-deck mentality among faculty and staff. Regardless of titles or responsibilities, everyone did whatever was necessary to keep the young school afloat— Tinsley in particular.

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“Sally’s job was so many things because the school was so small at that time—about 300 students,” says Bob Chambers. “And we had to do everything by hand. There was no email or Internet.”

Tinsley typed forms, letters and flyers; she organized report cards, served as registrar, coordinated mailings, assembled the calendar and handbook, scheduled club meetings and student transportation, assisted with admissions and oversaw end-of-the-year awards. She reviewed resumes, comforted crying students, pacified angry parents and even tracked down faculty delinquent in submitting year-end grades.

“It’s easier to try to identify what Sally didn’t do than all that she did,” Chambers says. “She was very conscientious and focused on doing good work. She played a very important role.”

That role also included time in the classroom. Tinsley taught typing, a required course for all seniors. In the early years, her class took place in the Castle’s sweltering attic, but she persevered, instructing students who sat at manual typewriters with blank keys. Future classes were held in different locations throughout the Castle, and Tinsley earned a reputation as a sharp, no-nonsense instructor. She took her position of authority seriously, even punishing McFayden with detention for tardiness on one occasion.

“My mother was always fair,” McFayden remembers. “I am very proud to say that she was a great teacher. Everyone loved her.”

The feeling was mutual. “I enjoyed each of my students,” Tinsley says. “It was so meaningful to see them grow and learn through the years. I enjoyed every minute I was at Pace Academy.”

As a result of a keen sense of order and attention to detail, Tinsley’s role grew over the years, and she was promoted to executive secretary under George Kirkpatrick, Pace’s second headmaster. She mastered the mimeograph and the electric typewriter, and proudly kept up with other emerging technologies.

While Tinsley’s myriad administrative skills certainly contributed to her success, Chambers says it was her deep understanding of Pace’s mission that made her irreplaceable.

“We thought of Pace as a community, as a family, and Sally was an integral part of that family,” Chambers says. “She always operated in the spirit that we were there to help these children. That also meant saying no sometimes. She recognized how to help students find their way, how to foster determination and keep them on track. Because she so believed in the mission of the school, she was extremely valuable in helping everyone achieve it.”

Nena Allen grew up surrounded by Pace Academy. It was her mother’s workplace and her sister’s alma mater, and she came to know members of the school community during the many year-end bonfires and other events her parents hosted at their home.

So when Allen began looking for a school for her young son, VINCE ALLEN ’87, Pace seemed like the perfect fit. Vince enrolled in the first grade, and Nena Allen officially joined the Pace family in 1992 when she began teaching visual art in the Upper School. She left Pace in 2008—nearly 50 years after her mother and sister’s arrival— and retired from St. Martin’s Episcopal School in 2015.

Tinsley retired in 1981 and for years after fielded calls from Pace employees. “They would say, ‘Mrs. Tinsley, where’s the…?’ and ask about a file or something else they couldn’t find,” she says. “I was always glad to help.”

In their retirement, the Tinsleys traveled the world, visiting China and India, skiing and sailing their own boat to exotic destinations. They remained in touch with their Pace friends and often welcomed Chambers and his wife, NELL CHAMBERS, to their second home in Florida.

“Sally and Mel are among the most interesting people that I have known,” Chambers says. “They were so energetic and involved in so many fascinating projects. They are very special friends.”

Mel Tinsley passed away in 2013. Sally, now 91, still lives in the home where Pace faculty parties often lasted long into the night. She continues to manage two family businesses: United Ventures Property Management and Dresden Drive Mini Storage.

“I balance all my checkbooks,” she says.

And just as in Pace’s early days, she does it all by hand.

1) Tinsley and colleagues in 1965; 2) A festive scene from Tinsley's retirement party; 3) Tinsley at work in the summer of 1980

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KnightTimes | Fall 2016

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