Penn Charter Magazine Fall 2010

The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Fall 2010

A River Runs Through It

Chigwell’s New Discovery Garden

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From the Head of School What are we doing at Quaker schools to help our students become more aware of the environment around us?

Eric Chivian, author of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, posed that question at a recent retreat for heads of Friends schools. Fifty or so of us had gathered for our annual meeting and identified pertinent issues to us as leaders in Friends education. Beyond the usual discussions of academics, budget and enrollment, we were engaged by Chivian’s question and all that it implies for the future of our students and our planet.

Chivian premised that many of us are not connected to nature in particularly meaningful ways and that this disconnect causes harm to the environment. He challenged us to examine the science curriculum in Quaker schools, specifically questioning what we are doing in our schools to help our students become more aware of the environment that surrounds them.

Proudly, I was able to offer that our students learn in environmental science courses and a bioethics elective, undertake water studies in science and social studies, experiment with fly fishing and orienteering, explore our own wetlands and visit our own beehive, and now have access to a new garden with raised beds, butterfly and blueberry bushes, rain-barrels, and a stream in our own Chigwell Close.

In a follow-up question, Chivian asked if we had a curricular “scope and sequence” to provide coherence between one grade and the next, from our youngest to oldest grades. My response was that Penn Charter does. Beyond the content, beyond the questions of scope and sequence, there is an elevated learning that is uniquely Quaker. In our Friends schools, there is a scope and sequence that transcends content. Specifically, beyond content, we also teach responsibility, ethics and how to question deeply. And, specifically, beyond content, we explore our obligations to each other, the world and the future as we consider the testimonies of equality, simplicity and stewardship (among others) and the concepts of justice and equity.

I am pleased that, during this school year, we will examine more closely the themes of equity and justice across grade levels and across disciplines. While we may not all agree on environmental issues and questions of sustainability, I am heartened that in Friends schools discourse occurs, often moving beyond content into the realm of ethics. This is Quaker education.

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Darryl J. Ford

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The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Darryl J. Ford Head of School

Contents

Stephanie Judson Associate Head of School Elizabeth A. Glascott Assistant Head of School Anne Marble Caramanico Clerk, Overseers John T. Rogers Hon. 1689 Chief Development Officer William A. Gallagher Jr. OPC ’91 Alumni Society President

Penn Charter is the magazine of William Penn Charter School. It is published by the Marketing Communications Office and distributed to alumni, parents and friends of the school. In addition to providing alumni updates about classmates, reunions and events, the magazine focuses on the people, the programs and the ideas that energize our school community.

6 Fall 2010

Editor Sharon Sexton

From the Head of School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Front Cover Chigwell Reinvented: A Gurgling, Chirping, Gleeful Discovery Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Assistant Editor Rebecca Luzi

Touching History: PC Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Feature Photography Michael Branscom

Fabulous, Fun Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Design Turnaround Marketing Communications

William Penn Charter School 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144 215.844.3460 www.penncharter.com

Faculty News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

18

Singing Songs of Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 PC’s Got Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Philanthropy 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Commencement 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Campus Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Penn Charter is mailed at a special third-class rate for nonprofit organizations and cannot be forwarded.

Pursuing Two Passions: Education and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Alumni Weekend 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

FPO

Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 On the cover: First graders explore PC’s new outdoor classroom.

© 2010 William Penn Charter School

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Chigwell reinvented: a gurgling, chirping, gleeful discovery garden

by Connie Langland

F

irst graders sketching flagstone pathways and two spiraling mazes. Little girls caught up in their own game of queen for the day. Students and staff all atwitter upon learning that a possum may have taken up residence.

In recent weeks, Chigwell Close — the open space nestled between the Lower School and main building — has taken on new life as an outdoor classroom and play area where students can actively explore a small plot of the natural world, or find the solitude to read a book or write an essay.

And a 90-foot stream runs through it.

“We knew we wanted an interactive water feature, and the stream is meant for kids to walk in, to float a boat, or to sit next to and reflect on whatever is on their mind,” said Steven Wade, Lower School science teacher, who with Candy McGuire, kindergarten teacher, co-clerked the committee planning of the space.

The project had the backing of Head of School Darryl J. Ford. “Lower

School teachers quickly convinced me of the value of the outside classroom to serve as a discovery garden for our students,” Ford said. “Once the water element was added to the design, my excitement rose — I fondly remember playing in the creek during my own elementary school days.”

The space will retain its historic name; the commons was named for Chigwell School, in the county of Essex, England, where William Penn studied in his youth. That school’s motto is “find a way or make a way” — a sentiment appropriate to the exploration possibilities inherent in the upgraded Chigwell Close.

Ford envisions the space “as an outdoor square — like the squares Penn designed for the city of Philadelphia — where students from across divisions will gather, exchange ideas, and benefit from the discourse which is certain to occur.”

To design the space, the school tapped Edwin Peake, owner of Edwin’s Glorious Gardens in Glenside, who created a stone-strewn stream that, at its start, pours forth across a low waterfall and then runs diagonally

across Chigwell, disappearing into a 1,500 gallon tank buried near the Lower School building. The stream is manmade, and the captured water recycles constantly through the use of an electrical pump. The stream flows within a curving border of Wissahickon mica schist, the same rock used in construction of many campus buildings.

Before the renovation, the space was defined by a few trees, and a raised-bed garden of vegetables, herbs and flowers. On occasion, one secluded spot or another had become an ersatz burial ground for small fish and hermit crabs that had expired in the kindergarten rooms, according to McGuire. The lawn, said Peake, had a rather “dilapidated” look to it.

Last spring, students and teachers labored to relocate the garden beds to the other side of Chigwell, and seedlings sprouted in classrooms in the spring grew up over the summer to create a tangle of tomato vines and vivid zinnias to admire once school opened in September. PC values the local foods movement, and the garden is a reminder of that. continued on next page

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Captured water pours across a low waterfall, runs through the man-made stream, and recycles through a buried 1,500-gallon tank.

Chigwell reinvented: a gurgling, chirping, gleeful discovery garden

Upper School students are working to raise funds for benches so older students can relax in Chigwell, too.

Peake picked plantings that would attract birds, butterflies and other insects and “that would draw yearround interest — spring, summer, fall — the whole spectrum,” he said.

Chigwell’s two expansive cherry trees still stand, providing shade in an otherwise sunny space. But the big ginko is gone except for several of its larger limbs, which now serve to edge a children’s sandbox.

The school has spent about $45,000 on the project. One feature remains to be built — a small amphitheater, including a stage, just

outside the kindergarten classrooms – at a cost of about $6,000. Upper School student government leaders currently are working to raise funds for benches so older students can relax in the space. Other goals such as solar energy to power the water system and even irrigate the entire space await future funding.

The space now offers opportunities to learn about how a local habitat can be nurtured and sustained, about storm water management, and about native birds, insects and wildlife, Peake noted.

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Urban-friendly wildlife has already arrived — a possum was discovered in a trash can and scurried behind several composters once it was rescued.

There’s at least one chipmunk making itself at home, and a squirrel was spotted nibbling on an orange rind retrieved from composting refuse.

“Water is going to attract critters, and the plantings are going to attract birds, butterflies and insects,” said Wade.

Chigwell certainly is open to all grades, but it is fast becoming a special place for the youngest set. First graders, for example, have already interviewed Peake and begun to write about and sketch the development of the space for a book they plan to publish later in the year.

And with its gurgling waterfall, chirping birds and free-form design, the space offers a distinct contrast to the hubbub of the Lower School playground.

For Lower School teachers, the new outdoor classroom offers numerous opportunities to meld the curriculum with the laboratory of the great outdoors.

Penn Charter students have long studied the environment and ecology, learning about their impact on their surroundings, and analyzing the health or pollution of nearby woods and streams. The school’s curricula are aligned with nationally recognized science standards.

Wade said the Lower School takes a “constructivist approach” to science learning.

“We do less telling of lots of facts and more hands-on learning about how to do science, modeling the scientific process,” he said.

The Lower School science curriculum focuses on the scientific thinking process. Students, including pre-kindergarteners, are encouraged to develop observational skills as well as to learn to ask questions, conduct investigations, use scientific tools and techniques, and analyze and communicate their findings.

Each grade studies multiple science themes, some of which can be examined in the Chigwell environs.

Students in kindergarten learn about tree homes (and more); first graders study pebbles, sand and silt; second graders do weather and seasons; third graders explore

schoolyard ecology; fourth graders look at scale and structure; and fifth graders construct intricate terrariums.

Students enjoy several popular field trips, and fourth graders go camping in Montgomery County.

First grade teachers Mary Schilling and Lisa Katharina Messer have taken full advantage of the new space, encouraging their students to hone interviewing, observational and notetaking skills. Their observations — they used inventive spelling but we won’t here — include these: Colin: Edwin is putting the rocks in place, and he is working in the hot sun.

Olivia: I liked playing queen with my friends.

Nate: My favorite part is when we race in the river.

Noah: I liked to race in the river with leaves.

Sharon: There was a tank. They got the water from the spigot; they have the water for the stream.

“We do less telling of lots of facts and more hands-on learning about how to do science.”

Dylan: I like the river because I like to race leaves.

Chigwell’s “river” is just about three inches deep.

For kindergarteners, the outdoor space expands opportunities for exploration, said teacher Candy McGuire, who also praised the cooperative planning of the outdoor space as a fine example of the Quaker process.

Kindergarteners learn about the five

The discovery garden quickly attracted birds, insects and young explorers, including these curious first graders.

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senses in a unit called “All About Me.” They also study the life cycle of plants and learn about the properties of water. And of course they raise funds by growing worms to be sold on Earth Day. In short, there’s been a sharp focus on learning about the natural world in kindergarten classes.

The new outdoor classroom, said McGuire, “is rich with knowledge for these children to gather.” PC

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“All this I thought thou would like to hear.”

Headmaster Richard Mott Jones

touching history: Archives at PC and Haverford College shed light on the history of Penn Charter and Quaker education in Philadelphia.

by Lea Sitton Stanley

Bruce Bumbarger’s fingers skipped lightly across the large calfskin document on the table before him.

A Haverford College conservator, he talked about the lime bath and the hair scraping that yield “a preserved skin.” He explained that ink

darkens when exposed to air, which is why the writing on this almost 300-year-old document jumped out in places.

However, nothing jumped out like the upper left-hand corner, where the words William Penn Esquire boldly introduced a legion of tinier, tightly packed lines of calligraphy. This was the school charter Penn issued in 1711, the last of his three charters and the one that governs William Penn Charter School today.

The 1701 and 1708 charters hang framed in the head of school’s office at Penn Charter, but the 1711 charter is housed in the Quaker & Special Collections of Haverford’s Magill

Library. The document headlines an extensive collection of PC records and artifacts that have been on “indefinite loan” to Haverford for four decades.

Head of School Darryl J. Ford has not seen the 1711 document. “I don’t think Earl Ball has ever seen it,” Ford said of his predecessor, who led the school for more than 30 years. “I don’t think Allan Brown has seen it,” he said of PC’s director of financial aid and part-time director of archives, who arrived more than 50 years ago to teach history.

For Ford, a history teacher and collector, the lack of access to Penn Charter’s past is a problem. And the problem is compounded by the fact that the archives and artifacts that are at Penn Charter — obviously an ever-growing assortment — are scattered.

Brown has made great strides in organizing many of the materials in a temperaturecontrolled room in the Richard B. Fisher Middle School basement, but the space, also used for miscellaneous school storage, is hardly accessible. continued on next page

Haverford College conservator Bruce Bumbarger (left) holds the 300-year-old calfskin William Penn issued in 1711, the last of Penn’s three charters and the one that governs William Penn Charter School today. The PC materials at Haverford include a seal (above) described as: “Impression of the Great Seal of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1699, in red wax. Stored in round metal box.”

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touching history: “It’s not good form,” Ford said of the scattering of archives. During an interview in his office, he gestured toward a bookcase on the wall. “I have all the Class Records.” Sometimes, people call, looking to identify a student’s class year, and the head of school pulls down several yearbooks to scan names.

Calls also come to Brown, who estimates that archives take up a third of his office on the second floor of Gummere Library, and about 500 sq. ft. in the Middle School basement.

“We’re missing an opportunity to have our students work with primary resources, to touch primary documents and a history that is ours — and theirs,” said Ford, whose focus on school archives is sharpening now that the David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts is complete and new athletic fields are in place.

John F. Gummere, headmaster from 1941 to 1968, moved documents and artifacts, most of them from the school’s early history, to Haverford. The distinguished classicist was a graduate of both Penn Charter and the college, where he was a longtime member of its Board of Managers. Most likely, he persuaded Haverford to take the archives for safekeeping.

Director of Archives Allan Brown has put his organizational skills to work gathering, cataloging and storing all manner of PC documents and memorabilia.

The charters issued in 1701 and 1708 (shown here) hang framed in the head of school’s office at Penn Charter.

At the time, no one at Penn Charter was charged with guarding the archives. Individuals saved items they considered important, but the items were not always identified, or protected, or centrally located. On his path to imposing order, for example, Brown stumbled onto student records for the years 1890-1940 locked in an old safe in a basement room.

In particular, Jack Coleman, former chair of the social studies department, and Doug Uhlmann, now head of Penn Charter’s John F. Gummere Library, worked to corral bits of school history and store them for safekeeping. Others worked to find missing pieces, leaving a trail of scribbled notes next to descriptions of archives and artifacts in various materials. A booklet stored in the Middle School basement illustrates the efforts.

Friendly Beginnings: The Origins and Growth of Philadelphia’s Schools, 1683-1836, is the program for “An Exhibit Celebrating Philadelphia’s Century IV,” presented by Penn Charter in 1982. Someone apparently used the program in later years to try to account for archival items. “Where is this?” reads a note penciled in below a description of a Plexiglas model of the Fourth Street schoolhouse once occupied by Penn Charter as it appeared in 1746. “Lower School?” another asks about a student trunk or letter box, lined with newsprint dated 1768.

A photograph of the box, described as “typical of student equipment of the day,” appears in the program. The box had belonged to Samuel Mickle Fox (whose silhouette can be found in the PC archives at Haverford) and contained two tickets for lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, dated 1816 and 1819. These might have belonged to Fox’s son, surmises the description, which identifies the box as a gift to PC from Elizabeth Forbes.

Earl J. Ball, head of school from 1976 through 2007, both generated and collected scores of PC documents over the years. It was Ball who tapped Brown in September 2003 to be director of archives, if only part time. “He was the one who started the idea of doing something with the

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archives,” Brown said. “He knew one of my strengths was organization.”

Brown’s organizational skills have yielded a slender three-ring binder cataloguing holdings at Penn Charter.

The pages of lists and descriptions sketch not only the evolution of an institution but also the personal milestones of a community across decades. Among the treasures are copies of student publications from the 1880s, admissions catalogues also dating back to the 1880s, and Inter-Academic League records that go back to the league’s official start in the mid 1890s.

Behind the locked door in the Middle School basement, Brown has carved out a corner that resembles a cozy reading room. Books and other publications line shelves he has “appropriated” from the basement storage area, and assorted photographs, paintings and posters are on display. Documents and other items are tucked into boxes and file cabinets.

The boxes hold the expected — Overseers’ notes, files of headmasters Richard M. Gummere and Richard Knowles, as well as of Ball, who orchestrated PC’s transition to a coed institution. There are rolls of assorted architectural drawings and copies of various publications, including school catalogues dating back to 1885-86 and 19th century copies of The Penn Charter Magazine.

“…our students [should] work with primary resources, to touch primary documents and a history that is ours — and theirs.”

Head of School Darryl J. Ford

It is the personal items that flesh out the past: the scrapbook of Chalmers Gemmill, a 1918 graduate, and one memorializing Louis Savino (Class of 2003), who died as a 10th grader on Oct. 12, 2000. There are eight PC/GA game footballs, two basketballs from Inter-Ac championship teams – and 18 baseballs celebrating Ralph Palaia’s championships (14) over his 17-year coaching career (1949-1965) and his 100th Inter-Ac victory (May 6, 1960).

A curious collection of 3-D objects in the Haverford archive includes a squirrelgun bullet found when the school’s building at 12th Street was razed to make way for a skyscraper in the 1920s.

The campus archives largely track Penn Charter’s development from its move in 1925 to School House Lane, property received from Clementine Cope’s estate in 1903. The Penn Charter collection at Haverford is rich in pre-20th century details and documents the beginnings of education in Philadelphia, which is also the beginning of Penn Charter.

Although its location, curriculum and even its name have changed over the centuries (before 1874, it may have been known orally as “the Friends School,” “Friends Public School,” “Charter School,” “Penn’s Charter School” and “Penn Charter School”), Penn Charter has been in continuous operation since its founding in 1689 by Penn and his closest Quaker friends. The names of Quakers prominent in the development of Philadelphia and Penn Charter appear in the oldest archives. As early as 1690, there is discussion by the likes of Samuel Carpenter and Anthony Morris about the need to enlarge “said school.” Carpenter, first treasurer of the Province, and Morris, mayor of Philadelphia, became overseers in 1711.

What unfolds in the boxes at Haverford is the transition of the 1689 school — truly a collection of tiny schools, each with its own academic or subject focus, headed by solo teachers, overseen by the Monthly Meeting of Friends in Philadelphia, and organized as coed, single-sex or AfricanAmerican schools — into a single boys school with a focus on Latin and mathematics.

In 1875, as a young headmaster, Richard Mott Jones opened the newest campus of Penn Charter at 8 South 12th Street. In more than 40 years at the helm, Jones would drive the school to national prominence.

The archives at Haverford hold an 1884 letter to his father in which Jones speaks with pride about the Overseers’ response to his request for an addition to the 12th Street school: “Today I went to one of the Board to thank him and as I was going away happened to remark that I was greatly surprised at their so readily voting so large a sum. He instantly continued on next page

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touching history:

Archives housed at Penn Charter include 18 baseballs celebrating Ralph Palaia’s championships (14) over his 17-year coaching career (1949-1965) and his 100th Inter-Ac victory (May 6, 1960).

spoke up, ‘Nothing wonderful about that, Richard. We regard it as safe to put money into a solid success.’”

Jones underlined “solid success.” The proud son concludes, “All this I thought thou would like to hear.”

Jones initiated the move from 12th Street to School House Lane; nearly a half-century later, when the 12th Street property was sold and the school razed to make way for a skyscraper, someone picked up a squirrel-gun bullet at the site as a souvenir of that “solid success.” Today, the crude pellet is among a curious collection of 3-D objects in a box at Haverford that also includes: “Impression of the Great Seal of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1699, in red wax. Stored in round metal box.”

“A treasure” is what Ford calls all of this — the papers, the quirky souvenirs, the scrapbooks of individual students.

“It makes history real. It makes it pertinent and personal in a way that only we can do because we have longevity.” And he wants access for students.

Acknowledging that enabling access will take money, Ford is looking at starting with something that’s “doable within a modest budget.” He hopes to raise enough funds to offer students a course in conserving artifacts that would build toward the presentation of a large exhibit. Beyond that, the archives are bound up with his ideas about further renovations to PC’s main building, including updating Gummere Library, built in 1967-68.

And, maybe, there is potential for the homecoming of the 1711 charter. Last summer, Bruce Bumbarger was preparing to dry-clean it with eraser crumbs, humidfy it, and flatten it on the way to framing it before its 299th birthday, which is November 29, 2010. PC

124th PC/GA Day at Penn Charter Saturday, November 13, 2010

With kindergarteners hanging over the playground fence to watch and the entire Middle School cheering them on, eighth graders competed in the first Physics 500.

Fabulous, Fun

The project was introduced to the eighth graders and their families in January, on Family Visiting Day. Over the months, students worked in groups of four to brainstorm ideas, draw preliminary designs in their “race journals,” and decide on a team name, logo and slogan. In the classroom, they studied simple machines. As the project rolled on, students were assigned a “pit” space in the basement where they could construct their cars. After receiving their first distribution of cardboard, they moved on to making measurements, hypotheses and detailed sketches. And then to building the cars.

Austin Wood, a senior and science enthusiast who structured his own Senior Comprehensive Project around Physics 500, worked closely with the teachers and the students. His cardboard car — with a red body and snazzy yellow lightning bolts — was a model and an inspiration, McDonough said. PC

With classmates cheering and their own Daniel Post-Jacobs providing commentary at the mic, eighth grade science students pushed off from the starting line of the Middle School’s first Physics 500.

Would Prestige Worldwide beat Super Bad to the finish line, or careen out of control?

S

cience teachers Pat McDonough and Parveen Roberts, armed with stopwatches and clipboards, tracked each racing pair through quarter, semi and final races, dispassionately disqualifying anyone who veered from the rules. (#5: … driver’s legs must be under the hood of the car!)

When the last pair of cardboard cars rolled down the “track” outside the Graham Athletics Center on the morning of Color Day, Super Bad was declared a winner — and so was the Middle School’s new science unit.

“There was a great feeling of excitement that all their hard work was paying off,” McDonough said. “This turned out to be a fun, hands-on way to teach the principles of physics.”

Physics 500 Car Specs Fueling student discussions about their cars were the following requirements: 1. The car must be able to carry one member of the team.

2. The car must be made from cardboard and glue only (except for the axels).

3. The axels may be made from wood but not greater than 2 inches in diameter.

4. The car must have sides, a rear and a hood.

5. The driver’s head and shoulders may stick out above the car, but legs must be under the hood of the car.

6. The car’s energy source will be gravity.

7. The car must fit through the Middle School basement door.

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Faculty News Fond Farewells

The Legendary Alice Davis

“How does one honor a 38-year teaching career?”

Head of School Darryl J. Ford posed that question to current and former students, parents and colleagues who gathered in the chemistry lab for a retirement tea to honor Alice Davis.

The legendary Ms. Davis announced at the beginning of the school year that she would retire after almost four decades at Penn Charter and, as the year drew to a close, she was feted with dinners, gifts and notes of appreciation from students who recalled how she touched their lives.

At the tea, Ford announced the creation of the Alice M. Davis Scholarship Fund, begun with a gift of $100,000 from a former, and stillgrateful, student. He presented her a framed copy of the Periodic Table Printmaking Project; downstairs, individual prints for dozens of the elements in the table hung in the Special Gifts Gallery in an exhibit

honoring Davis. And Ford honored her with words.

“Alice Davis is a chemistry teacher extraordinaire,” Ford said.

He remarked on her sense of style — her weekly appointment at the hairdresser, her flair for clothing and jewelry. “Style is great, but more important is substance. Alice has brought us substance. Alice has changed lives,” Ford said. “We are forever grateful.”

Of course, Alice Davis had the last word.

“People ask me: What are you going to do? I’m going to stop people on the street, throw them into a chair and talk with them about chemistry!

“There is nothing like being a teacher,” she said. “There’s nothing like having marvelous students and watching their minds develop. It’s wonderful to hear people say nice things about you, but I’ve gotten a lot more out of this than anyone.” PC

At a celebratory tea party, Alice Davis posed with some current and former colleagues (above) and (below) students.

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During a celebration with colleagues at the head’s residence, Carol Spadaro (left) and Judi Morrow were showered with praise, and some tears.

Performing Arts Chair Deborah Kaesshaefer honored her colleagues with a song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” from Les Miserables, with accompaniment on the piano by Head of School Darryl J. Ford.

Judi Morrow and Carol Spadaro, after years together as Lower School teachers — Morrow 22 years and Spadaro 27 years — celebrated their retirement from Penn Charter in a spring full of accolades and embraces.

Students, parents and colleagues lavished attention on two memory books that collected recollections of the many ways in which each teacher influenced children and mentored and cared for colleagues.

In the books and in farewell speeches, the story that emerged was of two women who touched lives and helped shape the culture of Lower School and Penn Charter.

“As we walk around this campus,” Head of School Darryl J. Ford said, “we see Carol’s work everywhere in the work of her students. She has taught so many students, including my son, to love art.”

“These educators have taught well, mentored others, loved their students…”

Ford said Morrow has set an example for parents and colleagues of how to communicate with children, and she has honored individual learning styles. “Throughout her career, Judi strived to understand how each child learns, and then help them understand themselves as learners.

“These educators have taught well, mentored others, loved their students, and loved Penn Charter in countless ways, and I am grateful to them for their many contributions to our school.” PC

A Minute of Appreciation Overseers in June recorded a “Minute of Appreciation” for Allan B. Brown who, at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, completed his Among the many hats 50th year of he wears at PC, Allan dedicated Brown has served as Commencement service to Marshall.

William Penn Charter School.

Brown, currently director of both financial aid and the school archives (see story page 6), has served Penn Charter as history teacher, director of Upper School, varsity baseball coach, scorekeeper for varsity basketball and basketball coach. As director of special projects, he chaired three fullscale evaluations for Penn Charter that led to the school’s successful reaccreditation in 1983, 1993 and 2003. Brown even did a stint as chair of the music department.

“Overseers are thankful to Allan B. Brown for his valuable contributions to the Penn Charter community, for the many positive ways he has influenced his students, faculty and administrative colleagues, and for his half century of service to this old school.” PC

Score!

The Philadelphia chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame inducted Rick Mellor last spring at its annual banquet.

Mellor OPC ’69 was recognized for his athletic career at Penn Charter and the University of Pennsylvania, more than 30 years of coaching varsity baseball, and his many years of community service as a founding director of the Richie Ashburn Foundation. PC

It Takes a Team

Lower School teachers Lisa Katharina Messer and Natasha Pronga before last summer’s triathalon.

Their work to fight cancer continues: In October, Messer spoke to Pronga’s team about the importance of their contributions. The field hockey team raised money for each goal scored in October — breast cancer awareness month — and donated the funds to a breast cancer organization.

Determined, inspired and buoyed by supporters in the Penn Charter community, Lower School teachers Lisa Katharina Messer and Natasha Pronga not only competed in an Olympic-style distance triathlon last summer, with the help of a PC student, they were the top fund-raisers in the event.

Between the two, they raised just over $14,500 in the Team in Training Triathlon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

The story of that competition involves a network of Penn Charter friends and connections — and traces back to Messer’s 2007 breast cancer diagnosis. “Cancer forces you to do whatever is necessary, to stay focused on the prize of getting stronger and better,” Messer said. One positive outcome of almost three years of treatment and surgery, she said, “was learning that if I could survive cancer, I could survive anything.”

An athlete, she entered her first multisport event, a sprint triathlon, in 2008 and has continued to battle cancer one competition at a time since then. She competed in that event again later in the summer, just days after a photo shoot for the Under Armour Power in Pink breast cancer awareness program; she was selected as one of three spokeswomen for that national campaign.

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Messer and Pronga co-taught kindergarten last year and became fast friends. Pronga is also an athlete and had always wanted to compete in a triathlon. She found she was motivated by her new colleague and friend, and she was inspired by Dani Bembry, one of the students Pronga coaches on the Penn Charter varsity field hockey team. Bembry was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in November 2009 and spent many difficult months last year receiving chemotherapy treatment.

“I am challenged to motivate young women to become better field hockey players,” Pronga wrote on the Team in Training website. “More importantly, my job is to help prepare them for the challenges they will face in life: how to endure through difficult times, how to support each other as a group of young women, and how to respond when life knocks them down.

I could never have known that we would learn one our biggest lessons about strength from one of our very own [field hockey team] members, Dani Bembry.”

For her part, Bembry described Pronga as an ongoing source of strength and encouragement. “The ultimate expression of support came when she told me she was going to participate in Team in Training. As I thought about what this all meant, I realized that up until now I had always been playing for her, and now she was playing for me and others who are fighting this battle.”

When Pronga competed in the triathlon, she did so in honor of Dani Bembry. Messer said she competed because, “it felt imperative to me, as a survivor, to do something to help others battling this disease.”

The outpouring of emotion and effort even touched one of their students. Charlie Weiss, now a first grader, was inspired to compete in a children’s version of the triathlon.

Naveena Bembry, Dani’s mother and a third grade teacher in Lower School, found Charlie’s participation heartwarming.

“This whole endeavor is rooted in special relationships between colleagues, teachers and students, coach and players, as well as so many families,” she said. “We are so grateful to this community and want everyone to know how special it is!” PC

Joya Ahmad (second from left) during her time working and traveling in Bangladesh.

Singing Songs of Hope

by Joya Ahsan Ahmad, Class of 2011

Too much exploitation, not enough civil rights, too many people living below the poverty line, and not enough people trying to help them. I spent a summer living among that list of injustices, but heard no one rail against the unfairness of the world. I listened instead to communities discuss how they were going to develop their economies and pull themselves above the poverty line. I got the chance to sing songs of change and hope in the late afternoon sun with a group of talented, passionate musicians and social activists. I got the chance to see a side of my ancestors’ homeland that I had not seen on previous visits.

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My parents were born in Bangladesh, and we have returned most every summer that I can remember. But my only experience of the country had been its capital city, Dhaka, and, even within the city, just the neighborhood in which most of my family members reside. This time, I lived in a village and worked in a training center for an organization called Nijera Kori, of which my great-aunt Khushi Kabir is an administrator. Nijera Kori is an NGO (non-governmental organization) that focuses on empowering rural people with legal knowledge and community organization skills so they can create a sustainable lifestyle and break the cycle of poverty.

The week I spent in the village of Gala, Tangail, changed my life. I was able to tap into the Bangladeshi side

pc’s got talent!

PC’s Got Talent last May featured bands, ballads and bravura performances

by Penn Charter alumni and faculty at the David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts. The event — and the Community’s pre-party — benefited the Penn Charter Grace Fund, a full-access fund that helps financial aid recipients at Penn Charter afford the “extras” that are critical to participating in the full PC experience. Student emcees Timmy Bell and Zoe Smith introduced each wonderful performance: • Duet on strings, Peter Benoliel OPC ’49 and Michael Casimir OPC ’09

• Saxophonist Jonathon Hulting-Cohen OPC ’07 playing an atmospheric piece

• Mick Jagger’s “Satisfaction,” Hank Resch OPC ’71

• Gospel duet featuring Latrisha Chattin OPC ’99 and Middle School English teacher Liz Jones

• “Steam Heat” from Bob Fosse’s The Pajama Game, Alex Crozier-Jackson OPC ’07 and performing arts teacher Eva Kay Noone • Dorothy duet from Penn Charter’s smash hit The Wizard of Oz, students Joya Ahmad and Carolyn Grace • House Band, led by David Kurtz OPC ’82 • Chelsea Erdmanis OPC ’02, singing from Phantom of the Opera • Singer/Songwriter Nano Whitman OPC ’98 singing “28,” an original, award-winning song

• Head of School Darryl J. Ford and Debbie Kaesshaefer, chair of the performing art department, performing “I Dreamed a Dream.”

• Grammy-winner Ray Benson OPC ’69, singing “Route 66.”

• Alex Crozier-Jackson OPC ’07 performing a dance he choreographed.

• Jazz trio, featuring Ray Bailey OPC ’09, Terry Moore OPC ‘04 and Jeff Torchon OPC ’06.

If you were here last May 8 to see if PC’s got talent, you know that it does!

More photos at penncharter.com/news. continued from page 14

of my Bangladeshi-American status. I have always been proud of being Bangladeshi, but I also always struggled with Bangla, the language of Bangladesh. I arrived able to understand most things spoken in Bangla; because of the openness and encouragement of the staff and villagers, I departed able to explain concepts and express my feelings.

I learned a lot more than that, however, and I gained a new perspective on the world. I learned about the struggles still facing women in Bangladesh, including discrimination in the workplace. I learned about the khas lands, areas of land and bodies of water set aside by the government so people living in rural poverty can create a livelihood and improve their life situations. Nijeria Kori is particularly active in this area, teaching people that they have a right to those lands and waters and opposing industrial shrimp farmers who have illegally occupied these lands. Nijera Kori bases its community education program on discussion, and I sat in on

many of the discussion groups. I heard women’s groups discussing child brides and became familiar with heartbreak and struggle that I had only ever read about in books. The trip to Tangail changed my life because it brought the reality of the world into a much clearer focus.

Even more than the social activism, the music moved me. On my first day there, I sat in a little gazebo with staff members, and we introduced ourselves.

After the spoken introductions were finished, they told me that Khushi, my great-aunt, had informed them that I was a singer and that they wanted to hear me sing. So I sang an old spiritual called “River in Judea” for them, and they seemed to like it. But what they did next took my breath away — they gathered a harmonium and a few hand drums and sang “The Anthem for the Landless” for me, and then they taught the song to me. I wrote the lyrics in my phonetic Bangla (using Roman letters because I cannot write in Bangla script), and I keep them in my diary.

There was music everywhere — every meeting began with a song, Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

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people wandered around humming at all times, and even the birds and cows and frogs and lizards began to blend into a melody for me. I think that music is a universal language — even though they couldn’t understand the lyrics of my songs and I couldn’t understand many of theirs, the passion behind the music was always apparent.

The passion behind the music and the social activism of the people I met in Tangail, as well as the pure determination and inspirational spirit of the villagers, touched me. These are unsung heroes doing un-praised work with unselfish attitudes. They have a laundry list of injustices and inconveniences, but I never heard a complaint once. They were all, staff and villagers alike, moving forward with heads held high and hopes held higher. People have always asked me what Bangladesh is, and I have never had much to say, save for a textbook geographical description. But now, when they ask me what Bangladesh is, I will be able to tell them. PC

Teaching & Learning

Philanthrophy 101

by James Ballengee

P

enn Charter is a school with a public purpose. In so many different ways, we leverage our institution’s knowledge, networks and resources for the common good. One very recent outgrowth of the public purpose movement in independent schools has been the introduction of philanthropy into the curriculum, and Penn Charter is one of a handful of schools in the nation, and the first in our area, to offer such a course.

Last year, I worked with colleagues from the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Ga., home of the Glenn Institute for Philanthropy and Service Learning, to develop our own version of a course on giving back. Philanthrophy 101, which we introduced as an Upper School summer course, brought the principles of philanthropy to life, giving the six juniors and seniors an awareness of society’s growing needs and hopefully the understanding, desire, ability and instinct for service to others.

During the three-week session, two rising seniors and four juniors worked in a variety of nonprofits and visited groups ranging from the William Penn Foundation to

Giving

Philanthrophy 101 is a single course about giving back, but there are multiple ways that PC teachers incorporate philanthropy into their curriculum.

Just three examples: First grade helps vulnerable people in surrounding communities each year by contributing to groups such as Face to Face, the Whosoever Gospel Mission, Cradles to Crayons and Habitat for Humanity. Their Elder and Child partners participate with them, counting money and making change, packaging personal care items or delivering the items to the agencies.

Students earn the money by doing chores at home, families sometimes match the funds, and then the first graders use consensus to come up with an appropriate agency. The staffs of the nonprofits they visit always comment that first graders ask the best questions of any group they work with!

Third grade has developed a history of giving to the Germantown community. They knitted and donated blankets to Face to Face at St. Vincent’s Church. And, along with 10th grade students, they baked dozens of apple pies that transformed Thanksgiving baskets handed out at the Germantown Crisis Relief Ministry.

Sixth grade has developed a relationship with DePaul Catholic School, a small K-8 school serving families in Germantown. PC students visit with DePaul’s second grade students, playing games, reading books and enjoying recess together.

With 10th graders partners, PC third graders baked dozens of apple pies for Thanksgiving baskets handed out at the Germantown Crisis Relief Ministry.

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Delaware Valley Grantmakers to the Bread & Roses Community Fund. Representatives from several family foundations came to the classroom, including Megan Evans Kafer OPC ’95, a current parent and member of PC’s development staff, who spoke about the SNAVE Foundation and the history of Quaker philanthropy; and former PC parents Laura McKenna of the KIND Foundation, and Dee Hillas and Tom Pasch from the Lenfest Foundation.

The course highlighted altruism, belonging, charity, giving, helpfulness, justice, service, solidarity and other values. And the work helped students answer questions such as: Who am I in relationship to my community? In what ways can I give? How can I make a difference?

The study of philanthropy is truly interdisciplinary.

Some of the best discussions centered around short stories and literature. The students read short stories by John Reed and O’Henry, poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks and even “Meditation 17” by John Donne. Their texts were about Paul Farmer and Partners in Health in Haiti and John Wood, who started Room to Read, and students kept extensive journals. Each chose a nonprofit to assess and analyze using the organization’s 990 financial report as well as tools such as Charity Navigator and GuideStar.

The school generously provided $2,050 in lieu of teacher compensation in an effort to get this initiative started, and in the spirit of philanthropy. At the end of the course, the students granted this money to agencies of their choice, based on their own research and advice from foundation presidents and nonprofit executive directors.

They decided to give $1,500 to Greensgrow Farms, a nationally recognized urban farm built on an abandoned lot in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. The grant helped

We

Laura McKenna of the KIND Foundation was one of a dozen representatives of family foundations and nonprofit organizations who met with students.

outfit a community kitchen in which low-income parents are taught how to cook nutritious meals. The remaining $550 went to the Academy in Manayunk, a school for learning-disabled students that uses arts-based learning.

The money will purchase recreational equipment, of which the school has very little.

In teaching philanthropy at PC, are we assuming that a Bill or Melinda Gates or a Gerry Lenfest will emerge from our school? Possibly, but regardless, what we seek to teach our students should enable all of our graduates to understand the relationship between social issues and the greater society. The knowledge, skills and values they acquire here will help them take philanthropic action throughout their lives. PC James Ballengee Hon. 1689 is director of service learning at Penn Charter.

GA Percentage

PC Percentage

1930s

28%

36%

1940s

28%

38%

Last year, Penn Charter alumni came together, topping Germantown Academy in the PC-GA Alumni Giving Challenge.

We hope to repeat our success in 2010-11.

1950s

35%

37%

1960s

26%

27%

1970s

17%

19%

Are you up for the challenge?

1980s

15%

20%

1990s

14%

13%

2000s

11%

19%

Overall

17%

26%

Beat GA!

Alumni by Decade

ANNUAL FUND 2010-2011 www.penncharter.com/give

Class 2010 of 1

“Seniors, it is my hope that in your future days, months and years, you will continue to answer the call to do good and that you will continue to show kindness, that your capacity to answer the call to do good and to show kindness will continue to grow, and that your words and deeds will mirror all the good works that you have carried out during your time as students in this Penn Charter community.” — Head of School Darryl J. Ford

Commencement

2010 2

“I have learned who I am as a person and the kind of person I want to be. I have grown to see the light of God in everyone.… Penn Charter has taught me how to embrace who I am as an individual while fitting in with the group.” — Brea Hall

3

4

“To the most talented, bright and gifted group of 18-year-olds I know, you have left an indelible mark on my heart, as well as the soul of the Penn Charter community.”

— Elizabeth Thom 1. Jennifer Dobias won the Phi Beta Kappa award.

2. Commencement speakers Elizabeth Thom and Brea Hall led their classmates through two rows of appreciative teachers.

3. Head of School Darryl J. Ford with Thomas

Noonan, winner of the Penn Charter Alumni Award, and Noonan’s parents, Patricia and Michael.

4. Sotirios and Despina Thomas received the

honorary diploma for their son, Antonios S. Thomas, a member of the Class of 2010 who died of leukemia in January of his eighth grade year.

destination: college Overall, the Class of 2010 had a great year, but three things stand out as particularly noteworthy as I reflect on the past college admissions cycle. First, an impressive 93 percent of the class reported that they were attending one of their top-choice colleges. Considering the highly-competitive admissions climate that these students faced, such a high level of satisfaction with the outcome is impressive and speaks to the thoughtful approach that our families take during this very important process. Second, nearly 60 percent of the class is enrolling at the nation’s most competitive colleges according to the Barron’s Guide. My colleagues and I consider this statistic to be evidence that Penn Charter remains a nationally recognized school that colleges and Auburn University Barnard College Barry University Boston College (3) Boston University Brown University Bryn Mawr College Cabrini College Carnegie Mellon University Colgate University Columbia University Denison University Drexel University (7) Duke University (2) Franklin and Marshall College George Mason University

George Washington University (3) Hampden-Sydney College Harvard University Haverford College Hofstra University Indiana University at Bloomington James Madison University Johns Hopkins University (6) Lafayette College (3) Lawrence University Lehigh University (2) Marquette University McGill University New York University Northeastern University Northwestern University (3)

universities want to maintain a relationship with. Finally, our office was delighted that six of the 110 members of the Class of 2010 decided to do a “gap year” and defer their college enrollment plans for one year. All of these students’ colleges have given them the permission to take a year off before joining their college communities in the fall of 2011. As a result, we have recent graduates gaining tremendous life experiences, such as teaching English in South America, studying in Scotland, researching small business growth in New Zealand, circumnavigating the globe to learn about organic farming, to name a few.

Daniel Evans Director of College Counseling Pace University Pennsylvania State University Princeton University (2) Roanoke College Saint Francis University Saint Joseph’s University (3) Sarah Lawrence College Skidmore College Stanford University Syracuse University (2) Temple University (8) Trinity College Tufts University (2) United States Naval Academy University of Delaware University of Miami (2)

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University of North Carolina University of Pennsylvania (8) University of Richmond (3) University of Tampa University of the Arts University of Vermont Ursinus College Vanderbilt University (2) Villanova University (3) Washington University in St. Louis Wesleyan University (2) West Chester University Yale University Other (2)

Campus Currents

SO GREEN, WE’RE GOLDEN! savings and energy efficiency, materials and indoor environmental quality.

A performing arts center is a particularly energyintensive structure, but the Kurtz Center incorporated many “green” features, including this partial list:

• Green Roof. A 10,000-sq.-ft. green roof growing a

variety of sedum plants covers the theater roof to capture storm water, reduce the “heat island” effect, and provide a natural habitat for birds and pollinating insects. The green roof also provides additional thermal and sound insulation for the building.

• Storm Water: The storm water that is not held by the Penn Charter and the fabulous new David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts won Gold certification in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

“What a tremendous achievement,” overseer Jeff Reinhold wrote in note of congratulations to the architects, contractors and PC administrators engaged in the design and construction of the “green” building. Reinhold, a PC parent and real estate developer, was himself a key player in the project, raising funds for the new building and working closely with Voith & Mactavish Architects and E. Allen Reeves, Inc., the construction firm.

LEED certification is coveted by environmentally conscious individuals and organizations undertaking new construction projects. Certification is awarded on a system of points related to site development, water

green roof goes through a vortex-type water quality unit under the parking lot to reduce particulates in the water.

The water then flows to a 9,500-sq.-ft. infiltration bed beneath the synthetic turf field, where it is released back into the earth.

• Materials. Schist, the stone used on existing Penn

Charter buildings, and slate are local materials. Using them rather than materials transported longer distances saves fossil fuel and earns LEED points. There are many recycled products in the building; the bathroom tiles of crushed glass bottles are an obvious example, but the following were also made of recycled material: steel structure, stairs, toilet partitions, theater railings, porch railings, catwalks, carpet, bulletin boards, acoustical ceiling tiles, window frames and doors.

• Wind Power: An energy source for the Kurtz Center is among the most sustainable on the planet – wind.

WHEELS in MOTION The 2010-2011 Annual Fund appeal made the case that Penn Charter never stops moving forward.

Our facilities, curriculum and faculty are always in motion. Our Three A’s – academics, arts, athletics – are always evolving.

Gifts to the Annual Fund contribute to that forward motion, funding seven percent of Penn Charter’s operating budget.

The goal for this year’s Annual Fund is $1,125,000.

To celebrate fund-raising at Penn Charter, the Development Office is throwing the first-ever Annual FUNd Party on Nov. 11.

Featuring free food and entertainment – the Grammy-winning kings of Texas swing led by Ray Benson OPC ’69 – promises to be a swinging good time. Party details at www.penncharter.com/party. Make a gift online at www.penncharter.com/give.

PC Expands Squash Program

CELEBRATING GIRLS SPORTS A team of alumnae kicked off a celebration of 20 years of Penn Charter girls athletics last spring by establishing the Women’s Legacy Scholarship Fund and dedicating the fund to four female teachers and coaches.

At a luncheon last spring, honorees Debbie White, Cheryl Irving, Beth Glascott and Elizabeth Flemming (shown here) were celebrated for together dedicating more than 100 years to educating Penn Charter girls both in and out of the classroom.

The fund will support financial aid awards to “female student-athletes who demonstrate the qualities of leadership, persistence and dedication that are so important to these four women.”

Penn Charter Girls Sports held a field hockey clinic in the fall and plans additional mini-events throughout the year, leading up to a Celebration of Girls Varsity Sports on June 3, at 6 p.m., at the Chestnut Club in Philadelphia.

Damon Leedale-Brown, recently head coach and national program director for the Dutch squash team as well as head coach for men’s and women’s squash at Haverford College, joined the PC athletics staff this fall in a new position as director of squash. Leedale-Brown will coach the girls varsity girls team and expand the program at Penn Charter’s new Kline & Specter Squash Center.

For 16 years, Leedale-Brown has worked at an elite level with squash players and coaches. He is a Level IV professional coach with the England Squash Rackets Association. He is a certified strength and conditioning specialist with the National Strength and Conditioning Association and has researched the physiological, movement and technical demands of the sport.

“Damon is an outstanding teacher-coach who has worked with squash players from beginner to elite levels,” said PC’s Director of Athletics Paul Butler. “He will help to bring continued excellence to our school and athletic program.”

Helping to Make It

BETTER

Food on Fridays is just one of the projects that grew from last year’s school-wide theme of community. The first grade invited the entire community to bring in a can, jar or box of food and put it on any of the shelving units that can be found in the three divisions. Each Friday, Upper School students help first graders collect the food, which is then distributed to different agencies.

Other examples of communityinspired projects:

• Third grade knitted and delivered

blankets to Face to Face, the social service arm of St. Vincent’s Church in Germantown. The children held a bake

sale to raise money for needles and yarn, parents taught the students how to knit the 175 squares, and a PC grandmother knitted them together.

• The bird community that shares Penn

Charter’s campus benefited from a woodshop collaboration between second and seventh grade (see photo). With the help of a PC grandparent, students built birdhouses and feeders, nestling them in trees and near windows. “I remember when I learned how to do this,” recalled seventh grader Grace Harbison, “and I was just like them – I would get it crooked.

Now I can come back and help them make it better.”

• Upper School students held a bake sale

to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti, second graders acted as city planners and built a beautiful community that they displayed in the Lower School lobby, and third and 10th grade students borrowed a PC mom’s secret apple pie recipe to bake dozens of pies for Thanksgiving baskets distributed by the Germantown Crisis Relief Ministry.

Alumni Spotlight

Pursuing Two Passions: education and justice

by Julia Judson-Rea

William B. Carr Jr. OPC ’69 at work as a member and vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission.

W

illiam B. Carr Jr. OPC ’69 began working as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia in 1981, expecting to fulfill a three-year commitment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and then return to a large law firm. He ended up retiring from the Justice Department 24 years later. He found the job so interesting and rewarding — the investigations, trials, appellate advocacy, serving and protecting the public — that, he said, “I realized for the first time I never associated my paycheck with what I did all day. I just loved it.” Except for one thing. “I didn’t love sentencing proceedings. I felt sort of schizophrenic about them. I found it incredibly unpleasant to stand in court asking a judge to imprison someone — and frustrated if the judge imposed a lighter sentence than I was seeking.”

Carr also realized that a defendant’s sentence was highly

dependent upon one factor: which judge was the case was assigned to?

“Of approximately 20 trial judges, four would routinely impose significant periods of incarceration in cases in which four others would regularly put the defendant on probation. Those extremes seemed unfair to both the defendants and the public.”

In the mid-1980s Congress sought to remedy that very imbalance, passing legislation creating the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC), which was charged with the task of establishing sentencing guidelines binding upon federal judges in criminal cases throughout the country.

The primary goals of the legislation and commission were to create a sentencing structure that would result in fair sentences, proportionate to the defendant’s culpability (including prior criminal history and the severity of the

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Page 22

new federal offense), while reducing unwarranted sentencing disparity due to individual judges applying their own sense of justice in each case. Whenever Congress passes a new criminal statute it falls upon the USSC to promulgate guidelines covering that offense. The commission is also responsible for researching, documenting and considering trends in crime, sentencing and recidivism, utilizing a staff of about 100 employees at its offices in Washington, D.C. Each year the USSC issues amendments to the guidelines to reflect its current research and responsibilities.

When this new sentencing scheme went into effect in 1987, every U.S. Attorney’s Office had to designate someone to become the sentencing guidelines expert, responsible for training fellow prosecutors — and others in the legal community — in its nature and complexities. Carr was assigned that task in the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s Office, earning the nickname of the local “guidelines guru.”

Following his retirement from that office, Carr taught a criminal sentencing course at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del. In 2008, upon the recommendation of then-Senator Arlen Specter, President George W. Bush nominated Carr to be a member and vice chair of the USSC. In December of that year, following confirmation by the U.S Senate, he assumed his position as one of the seven members of the commission. He enjoyed the privilege of a swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court conducted by Chief Justice John Roberts. The USSC is currently concentrating on alternatives to incarceration, reentry programs to integrate inmates back into society, and the efficacy and fairness of current penalties for many crimes.

Carr has experienced a shift in federal sentencing policy from the days in which each individual judge could do as he or she pleased, to the binding guidelines system, to the current situation in which judges enjoy more discretion once again. In 2005 the Supreme Court decided — by a 5 to 4 vote — that the Constitution requires that the sentencing guidelines must be advisory rather than mandatory. Judges now have much more leeway in choosing and imposing sentences. The guidelines remain a significant consideration in determining a sentence but may be overridden by a judge’s consideration of the facts of a specific case. It is also far more difficult to reverse a sentence on appeal. Carr notes: “In many ways this makes our job more challenging, as our guidelines must not only be clear but also persuasive.”

I

n June of 2009, Carr stepped down as Penn Charter’s clerk of Overseers after serving in that position for six years, permitting him to devote the time needed to his Sentencing Commission duties. He remains an active overseer, a position he has occupied for more than half of his life, having joined the school’s governing board 30 years ago at the age of 28. Carr entered Penn Charter in second grade and graduated in 1969. In May of 2009, as he was concluding his tenure as clerk, Carr addressed an end-of-year dinner for overseers, faculty and staff. “It didn’t take long for me to make friends for life. It would be impossible for me to overstate how big an impact this school has had on my values and priorities. I’ve gotten much more out of this school than it has ever gotten out of me.” (Carr then noted that he expected that last sentence to be recited immediately back to him by the school’s development office.)

At that dinner, Head of School Darryl J. Ford recognized Carr for his involvement in important discussions at Penn Charter, including decisions leading to coeducation and socially responsible investment policies for the school’s endowment. Ford thanked Carr for his vision, leadership and commitment to an ever-improving Penn Charter. He cited a 40-year old

At his swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court, Carr posed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and his daughter Adele.

“I have had the remarkable good fortune to find myself in policysetting roles for two of the institutions that have meant the most to me: the William Penn Charter School and this country’s criminal justice system.” story in the Philadelphia Inquirer quoting Carr, then a PC senior, as looking forward to the day when there would be girls and more black students at Penn Charter, a theme he repeated in his graduation speech at commencement in 1969. “His commitment to changing PC was evident then as it is now,” Ford said.

Carr sums it up: “I have had the remarkable good fortune to find myself in policy-setting roles for two

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of the institutions that have meant the most to me: the William Penn Charter School and this country’s criminal justice system. I loved being in the courtroom engaged in the criminal justice system at the ‘retail’ level, and am privileged to participate in setting national policy at the ‘wholesale’ level.

I treasure my 11 years as a student at Penn Charter. It didn’t take me long to recognize the impact PC had on me, as I became a Quaker and formally joined a Friends Meeting while at Swarthmore College.

“I have cherished every moment of being an overseer, and have been constantly impressed with and humbled by the dedication and talent of my fellow overseers, as well as the administration, teachers, coaches and staff at PC. My major regret at having returned to full-time work is that I no longer have the flexibility to participate in the Elder and Child program, pairing adults with first graders in monthly education and service activities. My term on the commission expires in October of 2011… so in a couple of years I may be able to return to the first grade as an even-older elder.

“Any contributions I have been able to make to my alma mater and profession are unmistakably the result of my Penn Charter education and experience, for which I am profoundly grateful.” PC

Alumni

News

2010 Edward W. Fischer OPC ’60 traveled the furthest in miles, about 3,565 miles from his home in Sussex, England. Lewis S. Somers 3rd OPC ’44 traveled the furthest in calendar years, just four days shy of his 84th birthday. Warren Miller Jr. OPC ’65 wore the most spirited trousers, and Robert Picardo OPC ’71, William Barker OPC ’71 and Scott Ziegler OPC ’72 took the longest curtain call.

And five exceptional faculty — Alice Davis, William Goulding, Cheryl Irving, Albert Linton and Joseph Perrott, all members of the

Honorary Class of 1969 — received accolades for their gifts as teachers and role models.

Alumni Weekend 2010 began with a Friday afternoon tea celebrating Alice Davis and ended two days later with breakfasts and brunches and promises to meet again soon.

The time in between was filled with shared stories — and laughs — and a recurring theme: a deep appreciation for the Penn Charter friendships, teachers and traditions that touched the lives of the men and women who came back to visit this old school.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

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Alumni Award of Merit Robert Picardo OPC ’71 “To a graduate of the William Penn Charter School whose character and outstanding achievement have reflected lasting credit upon this old school.”

In memory of the intellect, spirit and generosity of their classmate, members of the Class of 1985 made a 25th reunion gift of more than $42,000 to the Kenneth A. Gerber OPC ’85 Scholarship Fund. Rob Salkowitz OPC ’85, shown here with Kenny Gerber’s sister Molly and mother, Suzi, presented the gift on behalf of the class.

Cydney Irving OPC ’93, the first African-American female to graduate from PC and John Charles Harmon OPC ’60, the school’s first African-American graduate.

Family, friends and former students gathered in the Meeting Room to remember Bert Linton Hon 1689, sharing stories about an extraordinary man whom they recalled with the utmost respect.

Alvin A. Swenson III OPC ’60 said he had never been more proud of his class, which “dug deep to try to do some real good,” amassing a 50th reunion scholarship gift of $43,000.

Outgoing Alumni Society President Andrew J. Kramer OPC ’81 (left) accepts his PC captain’s chair and officially welcomes new president William A. Gallagher Jr. OPC ’91.

Warren Miller’s OPC 1965 pants turned heads.

Robert Picardo has enjoyed a rich and varied acting career, performing on stage and screen. He caught the acting bug at Penn Charter and pursued it at Yale University, where he landed a leading role in Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. He reprised his role in the European premiere of that Actor Robert Picardo and his work. He graduated magna wife, Linda. cum laude from Yale with a BA in drama at age 20. While continuing to act, he enrolled at Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York. He appeared in David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Primary English Class with Diane Keaton. In 1977, he made his Broadway debut in the hit comedy Gemini with Danny Aiello, and in 1978 he played the coveted role of Jack Lemmon’s son in Bernard Slade’s Tribute, which he later re-created in the Los Angeles production. Other West Coast theater productions included Beyond Therapy, Geniuses, The Normal Heart (for which he won a Drama-Logue Award), The Waiting Room, Lend Me a Tenor and A Class Act. On television, Picardo earned an Emmy nomination for his role as Mr. Cutlip on The Wonder Years and the Founders Award from Viewers for Quality Television for his combined work on The Wonder Years and his starring role as Dr. Richard on the acclaimed Vietnam-era drama China Beach. In 1995, he premiered as the soon-to-be-beloved holographic doctor on Star Trek Voyager (two episodes of which he also directed).

He has guest starred on countless other television series, including Taxi, St. Elsewhere, LA Law, Home Improvement, The Outer Limits, Ally McBeal, Frasier, Crossing Jordan, Stargate SG-1, Cold Case, The Closer, Smallville, Pushing Daisies and Chuck. This season, he starred as Commander Woolsey in Stargate Atlantis, a role he will reprise in the upcoming television movie. Picardo has appeared in more than two dozen films, including The Howling, Star 80, Legend, Innerspace, Star Trek First Contact, Small Soldiers, and the upcoming animated IMAX film Quantum Quest, and starred in the horror feature Sensored.

Picardo resides in California with his wife, Linda, and two daughters. PC

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 25

Joseph S. Perrott Hon. 1689 Field

Honorary Class of 1689 “Given to a member of the Penn Charter community who has shown extraordinary commitment to the school by demonstrating pride and excellence in the performance of their duties and by consistently providing encouragement and support to the student body.”

Joseph S. Perrott Hon. 1689 led the lacrosse program at Penn Charter for three decades, and in May the school recognized his contribution by officially naming the new synthetic turf field in his honor.

Sporting dark sunglasses on a scorching hot day, Perrott sat in a director’s chair before a gathering of former colleagues, players and parents as first one and then another speaker recalled the championships and big games, and mostly how Coach Perrott lit the fire that motivated them to perform their very best.

Cheryl Irving Hon. 1689

Joe Perrott (center) with Robert Marquess OPC ’73; Chris Teare, former English teacher and lacrosse coach; Hank Resch OPC ’71; and Head of School Darryl J. Ford.

Cheryl Irving Hon. 1689, describing herself as “so deeply honored, and so humbly grateful” was also charmed by the introduction she received from former student Scott Yorko OPC ’04.

William Goulding Hon. 1689 Penn Charter lacrosse loyalists turned out to honor Perrott and play on the new field named for the former PC English teacher and lacrosse coach.

BOX and COX

revisited Head of School Darryl J. Ford shared some of the wisdom and good humor of his friend and former teaching colleague, William Goulding Hon. 1689.

Alice Davis celebration on page 12.

Visit www.penncharter.com/alumni to view more photos of Alumni Weekend 2010.

With former teacher Ted Shakespeare directing, Bob Picardo OPC ’71, Bill Barker OPC ’71 and Scott Ziegler OPC ’72 returned to Penn Charter to reprise their roles in a PC favorite, Box and Cox. The last time they performed the 19th century farce, they took their bows on the stage in the Meeting Room. This time, they offered the first alumni performance in the Ball Theater, the fabulous new venue in the David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 26

Class Notes 1689

Class of 1940

Class Agent Jane F. Evans jevans@penncharter.com

70th Reunion

1926

Paul Mecray Jr. OPC ’26 See death notices.

1937

Class Agent Edmond H. (Ted) Heisler

Harry Z. Miller OPC ’37 See death notices.

1943

Class Agent Sevill (Bud) Schofield Jr.

A Look Back at

1941

Arthur H. Napier Jr. OPC ’37 See death notices.

John M. Adams OPC ’43 See death notices.

1938

William B. Turner OPC ’38 See death notices.

Philip F. Coleman OPC ’43 See death notices.

1939

Class Agent Robert C. McAdoo

1940

Robert J. Rossheim OPC ’43 See death notices.

Class Agent Robert J. Harbison III rharbo@aol.com

1942

Class Agent John M. Donahue jmdpin@aol.com

1944

George J. Hauptfuhrer Jr. writes, “I am saddened to report the passing of my wife, Barbara, on April 7, 2009. We were planning on celebrating our 59th wedding anniversary that summer.”

1945

Class Agent H. Leonard Brown

1947

Class Agent Harry A. Yutzler Jr. hjyutz@comcast.net

The OPC Spirit publishes online, bringing the latest in alumni news and events right to your e-mail inbox.

If you’re not receiving THE OPC SPIRIT, e-mail Megan Evans Kafer OPC ‘95 at mkafer@penncharter.com.!

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 27

Class Notes I wanted Tony’s approval to mention this and he replied, ‘I don’t see a problem in mentioning my insanity in the alumni notes. Like you, Bruce, part of my heart is buried somewhere on that PC campus.’

It’s really gratifying to note there are so many insane ones among our class alumni. Meanwhile, I’ll be one of the first ones to return to see the Caimi improvements. Thanks, Tony!”

Class of 1945 65th Reunion

1950

Class Agent William J. Wall william.j.wallsr@wachoviasec.com

George F. Engle OPC ’50 See death notices.

Lawrence D. Edson Jr. OPC ’47 See death notices.

Richard Lester, film director, received a tribute award from the Almeria en corto film festival in Spain in August 2010. Richard directed the Beatles’ Help and A Hard Day’s Night. He has donated his archive, which includes letters, scripts, notes, photographs and early drafts of scripts for the two Beatles films, to the British Film Institute. Richard’s other work includes The Three Musketeers and Superman II.

1948

Class Agent John G. C. Fuller

Richard D. Young OPC ’48 See death notices.

1949

Class Agent Bruce R. Barstow brbarstow@aol.com

Charles H. DeSoi OPC ’49 See death notices.

Bruce R. Barstow writes, “I should mention that William M. Welch and Robert H. Smith usually attend our class luncheons, organized by Peter A. Benoliel. Normally, there are 10-12 guys who show up. It’s very worthwhile, and I encourage all Philadelphia-area alumni to make it.”

“This summer, Darryl Ford, head of school, and Jack Rogers, chief development officer, joined Patsy and Thomas B. MacCabe and myself and Diantha at our place in New Hampshire for a light lunch on the water. I would like to tell you that Darryl proved he is a small-boat helmsman until he ran my Sea Pro aground in the Piscataqua River. (My fault – not his!) Anyway, he and Jack were on their way to Camp Tecumsah to look in on several attending undergrads.

“I heard from Peter J. Meehan recently, who recalled his riding around in the family’s 1934 Packard, which was badly in need of repairs but with no parts available just after the war. The muffler had a big hole in it, which leaked carbon monoxide into the passenger area. Thomas A. Crompton was with him on a particularly cold day with the windows up. Next thing Pete noticed was Tom slumped on his seat, apparently dead from the carbon monoxide and Pete responsible. What Pete didn’t know was that Tom could take a nap at will.

“I’ve saved the best news ’til last! One of the most enjoyable renewed contacts I’ve had in this job is that with Anthony A. Caimi. We have communicated a great deal, as he has asked about the whereabouts of one or the other classmates of ’49. (You might remember that while Tony spent most of his time in the Class of 1949, he also spent a short time in the Class of 1950). It seems J. F. Gummere wanted Tony to help Richard H. Flood in helping William J. Wall run to daylight.”

“I remember Tony as having a great sense of humor, always upbeat, a tough competitor and a good guy with a nice touch of humility. His correspondence indicates he hasn’t lost any of his charms. Jack Rogers called to mention that Tony had just given the school a very large gift. Tony and the school have agreed to spend the money on a new wireless digital scoreboard, resurfacing on the track and new sod for the football field.”

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 28

Whitman (Pete) Cross writes, “I have just completed my 11th year part-time as a personal trainer and fitness specialist at the Atlantic Coast Athletic Club in Charlottesville, Va. (“I knew I would return here in retirement when I left the University of Virginia as a grad student!”) This has been a major change in my focus after years of teaching the earth sciences (11 at PC) and running geology and aviation museums (which involves all ages and has been the most rewarding job of my life). When not working, I enjoy photography, and my wife, Joy, is a watercolor artist. Visiting grandchildren is high on our priority list. Last year, I ended 30 years of leading occasional natural history tours through Iceland. If any PC alumni are traveling near Charlottesville or are around Hilton Head, S.C., in February each year, consider dropping by to spend some time together. My e-mail is wc900@comcast.net.

1951

Class Agent David N. Weinman ombudinc@aol.com

A. Cope Garrett OPC ’51 (left) and Harry Garrett OPC ’55. Harry writes, “Mt. Washington, Mass., presents the Blues Brothers in OPC attire!”

1952

Class of 1950

Class Agents George C. (Skip) Corson Jr. gccesq@aol.com F. Bruce Waechter fbw413@aol.com

60th Reunion

1953

Class Agents William H. Bux mbuxc@aol.com Richard L. Geyer dickgey@aol.com

C. Andrew Schaufler OPC ’53 See death notices.

John D. Walp OPC ’53 See death notices.

1954

Class Agent Alfred F. Bracher III fbracher@aol.com

1955

Class Agent Charles (Chuck) Clayton Jr. cclayt@comcast.net

A Look Back at

1951

The Class of 1954 held its first mini-reunion the weekend of Feb. 26, 2010, in Florida at the Ponte Vedra Country Club, organized by Susie and Malcolm A. Buckey. Cocktails and dinner were hosted at the homes of Deborah and Donald L. Goetz, Marjorie and Richard A. Killian, and Karen and Peter A. Massaniso. Out-oftowners included Carol and Alfred F. Bracher, Nan and William G. Hamilton, and Nancy and Evan W. Michener.

Everyone had fun and wished that more classmates could attend.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 29

Class Notes 1959

Class of 1955

Class Agent Rush B. Smith smithrushb@aol.com

55th Reunion

1960

Class Agent James M. Arrison III arrison@attglobal.net

Stevens E. Brooks OPC ’60 See death notices.

1956

Tony Duffy OPC ’60 and his son, Brian Duffy OPC ’85, celebrated their 50th and 25th Penn Charter class reunions, respectively.

Class Agent Bernard E. Berlinger Jr. bberlinger@asidrives.com

1957

Class Agents G. Allan Dash allandash3@comcast.net James V. Masella Jr. vesperent@aol.com

James G. Masland, who lives in Cross Junction, Va., and his brother William S. Masland OPC ’51, who lives in Tuscon, Ariz., enjoyed a mini-reunion at PC. Jim writes, “On Color Day, I traveled up from Baltimore to meet brother Bill at the Chestnut Hill Hotel, where he and his wife, Nancy, were staying. Bill started in 1938 and I began in 1944, so when we drove down to PC it brought back many memories, like Bill biking down Lincoln Drive to school in the morning, with virtually no cars and no traffic lights. At the school, Jack Rogers walked us over to the new performing arts center. I took lots of photos, but no picture or words can describe this magnificent facility. The main performance hall seats 650 and is rich in wood and appointments. The center includes a green room, several practice rooms, recording studios, workshop and storage area for props and more. I spoke with the choirmaster, who was enraptured by the facility and its view of the main building and steeple. After our walk-through, we joined other alumni for lunch outside the Timmons House, where Bill had an unexpected chance to see one of his classmates. It was a wonderful visit for both of us!”

G. Allan Dash writes, “A stage manager once told playwright Moss Hart that the effect of his new opus on an opening night audience was “like spraying ether.” The Class of ’57’s recent attempt to organize a between-reunions get-together suffered a similar fate, but three of us fought off the vapors and enjoyed the mini-est of reunions.

James G. Masland (left) drove up from Virginia and stayed with me (right) and Gigi at our home on Cape Cod before ferrying to lovely Martha’s Vineyard and freeloading lunch at the summer house of Fran and Benedict (Ned) Saurino (center). We thought about making the event a bit more formal, but our tuxes don’t fit anymore.

Alvin A. Swenson OPC ’60 and his son, Alvin A. Swenson OPC ’85, celebrated their 50th and 25th Penn Charter class reunions, respectively.

1958

1961

Class Agents John E. F. Corson jefcorson@aol.com Robert D. Morrow Jr. djm112@aol.com

Class Agents Richard P. Hamilton Jr. rick1480@aol.com J. Freedley Hunsicker Jr. hunsicjf@dbr.com

W. Selden Gates Jr. OPC ’61 See death notices.

Louis P Mattis OPC ’58 See death notices.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 30

Class of 1960 50th Reunion

A Look Back at

1961

1962

1965

Class Agents Louis F. Burke lburke@lfblaw.com Kevin McKinney pmckin5750@rogers.com Ronald O. Prickitt ron@netilla.com

Class Agent Jonathon P. (Buck) DeLong b.delong@charter.net

1966

John Grew-Sheridan writes, “500 Cabinets, which I juried, has been published by Lark Books of Asheville, N.C. My late wife, Carolyn Grew-Sheridan, and I were juried into the two previous collections: 500 Tables and 500 Chairs.”

Martin J. Harrity was honored at the Sanibel Island baseball fields for spearheading the T-ball league and for his 20 years of service. Marty is also the owner of Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grill and served as Sanibel’s mayor for a term.

1968

Class Agents Bruce C. Gill bcoopergil@aol.com Richard E. Stanley dickandlea@aol.com

1964

Class Agent John S. Morrow jsmopc64@hargray.com

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Class Agent Martin J. (Marty) Harrity mharrity@aol.com

Page 31

Class Notes Class of 1965

A Look Back at

45th Reunion

1971

1969

Class Agent Thomas C. Robinson Jr. thomascrobinson@comcast.net

1970

Class Agents Robert N. Reeves Jr. robreeves@eareeves.com Charles L. Mitchell dhammalawyer@yahoo.com

1972

1974

Class Agent J. Peter Davis pdavis@rittenhousehotel.com

Class Agent Bruce K. Balderston bruce.balderston@pncbank.com

Frederick W. Dohrmann has been coaching women’s softball for 30 years at Widener University.

He writes, “I have Elizabeth L. Carpino OPC ’09 playing for me. She is 5-0 as a pitcher! I recently saw John W. Burkhart OPC ’72, who came out to see us at Arcadia University. I am always interested and happy to do what I can for PC.”

1973

Class Agent Robert J. Marquess rjmproteus@aol.com

Thomas F. Daubert writes, “I wish I could have attended the reunion – it would be great to see folks. But sorry, too swamped with work here, mostly marijuana policy reform issues these days. I managed the campaign to make medical marijuana legal in 2004; in 2007 I founded Patients & Families United as a vehicle for political action on behalf of pain patients and marijuana patients; and today I also am managing partner of Montana Cannabis, one of my state’s largest producers of high-quality legal cannabis and cannabis-based products.”

Class of 1970 40th Reunion

Warren J. Wilson married Sara Hall Wilson in 1981. They have two children; Warren Jr. is a junior at Villanova School of Business, and Brielle is a sophomore at Monmouth University. Warren and Sara have founded several snack food business ventures together. Their current product line, Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps, is in supermarket deli departments nationwide.

1971

Class Agent Marc A. Golden harvardceo@aol.com

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 32

David C. Hahn writes, “A recital of my compositions called ’What Is the Word’ took place on April 23, 2010, in Seattle. The event was sponsored in part by the Mayor of Seattle’s Office of the Arts and Cultural Affairs and Vox Novus, a composer collective. The concert featured a number of premieres, including: ’What Is the Word,’ a seven-part madrigal setting the poetry of Samuel Beckett for 16-voice choir; ’Songs From Ariel,’ settings of three poems by Sylvia Plath for women’s voices; ’Tautologies,’ for flute and electronics, and ’Journey to Love,’ for solo guitar.

“My four-movement piece for violin and guitar, ’W Is for Weasel,’ has been published by Clear Note Publications. You can hear examples of it (and see its crazy cover art) if you visit this Web page: http:// www.clearnote.net/WIsForWeasel.html.”

Class of 1980 30th Reunion

David S. Jonas, adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and general counsel of the National Nuclear Security Administration within the U.S. Department of Energy, co-wrote with Thomas Saunders an article titled “The Object and Purpose of a Treaty: Three Interpretive Methods,” published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Benjamin H. Linton III has been keeping busy as a lawyer, as a real estate agent for Long & Foster Real Estate in Blue Bell, and as a crew leader for 2010 U.S. Census. His daughter, Audrey, is 17 and enjoying life working at Camp Arrowhead in Rehoboth, Del. He would enjoy hearing from his classmates.

1975

Class Agent James S. Still jstill@boenningib.com

1976

Brent Sherwood writes, “My first book has been published. It’s called Out of This World: The New Field of Space Architecture and contains 30 illustrated chapters by 26 authors from around the world. The publisher is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.”

Paul C. Mancini writes, “In February I was elected to the Suburban Aquatic League Hall of Fame for my years of service to the league and to youth swimming.”

1979

1977

Class Agent Reid S. Perper rsperper@yahoo.com

Class Agents Sterling H. Johnson III ag96cu4@aol.com Paul C. Mancini paul@mancini.com David H. Neff dn@neffassociates.com

John B. Kelly wrote in June, “I am proud to see my son graduate next week, the third Kelly to become an OPC. John B. (Jack) Kelly OPC ’45, J. B. Kelly OPC ’78 and now Nick Kelly OPC ’10.

Bryan W. Cotter OPC ’79 See death notices.

1980

Class Agents John B. Caras john.caras@cingular.com Charles J. (Chip) Goodman chip_goodman@cable.comcast.com

David N. Wilcots is an environmental geologist in Philadelphia. He also volunteers in the dinosaur lab at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Class Agent Andrew J. Kramer akramer@kanepugh.com

A Look Back at

Class Agent John D. Lemonick lemonij@nationwide.com

1978

1981

Page 33

1981

Class Notes Class of 1985 25th Reunion

1982

Class Agent James L. Walker Jr. jimwalks@yahoo.com

1983

Timothy J. Cerino writes, “It was a pleasure to attend the retirement tea for Mrs. Alice Davis on April 30, 2010. Great to see Alice, some old classmates and many of my old teachers. My wife, son and I live in New York where I am a managing director of BNP Paribas. We come to Philadelphia fairly often to visit friends and family.

Aaron J. Greberman received the Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre Teacher of the Year award for the Philadelphia School District. (See page 35.)

Thomas D. Kramer ran the Paris Marathon in Paris, France; the Ironman Eagleman in Cambridge, Md.; Ironman USA in Lake Placid, N.Y.; and Ironman Timberman in Gilford, N.H. in a period of only 120 days in an effort to create awareness for Be the Match Foundation, which aims to grow the Be the Match registry of bone marrow donors.

Visit racingtoregister.com.

1986

1984

Class Agent P. Timothy Phelps chambertim@hotmail.com

1985

David A. Healy is currently working with the corporate real estate firm of Jones Lang LaSalle as a senior vice president in their Philadelphia office. He has been residing for the last seven years in Glen Mills with his wife, Robin, and two children. He is looking forward to seeing everyone next year at his class’s 25th reunion.

Class Agent Robert T. Myers rob.myers@barclayswealth.com

Class Agents Matthew M. Killinger killingm@uphs.upenn.edu Thomas D. Kramer tkramer@jcrosspartners.com

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 34

1987

Class Agents David Felderman felderman.david@gmail.com David B. Gleit leyladavid@yahoo.com Adam M. Koppel akoppel@baincapital.com

1988

Class Agents H. Bruce Hanson hbhanson@duanemorris.com Gregory D. Palkon greg@palkonlaw.com

1989

Class Agent Kenneth (Casey) Murray playnikez@yahoo.com Joseph L. Wyszynski returned from Iraq in April.

He is happy to be back with his family and looks forward to starting a graduate program in English literature at the University of South Carolina.

1990

Class of 1990

Class Agent James D. Phillips jphillips@penncharter.com

20th Reunion

1991

Class Agent Leo J. Wyszynski ljwyszynski@aol.com

1992

Class Agent Anna V. Davis vanleer@hotmail.com

Michael L. Nunnally OPC ’92 See death notices.

Aaron Greberman OPC ’85

Aaron Greberman toured the Grand Canyon with his wife, Laurel, last summer.

Aaron Greberman OPC ’85 has found his calling. Greberman, named Philadelphia School District’s Teacher of the Year in June, is now in his 13th year of teaching. “I look at teaching as serious business,” said Greberman, who concurrently received the Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre Award for Distinguished Teaching.

“Each student has unlimited potential. I look at teaching as tapping into that potential.”

A business and technology teacher at Bodine High School for International Affairs, a magnet school in Northern Liberties, Greberman enjoys the diversity of his school, which has black, white, Latino and Asian students. He assigns freshman a PowerPoint presentation about themselves, including their culture and interests. “Not only do they get to talk about themselves,” he said, “but they educate each other. Diversity plays a key role in our school of international affairs.”

by Rebecca Luzi

A natural techie, Greberman uses technology as an important tool in the classroom, as he and his students research, together, heavy topics such as the BP oil spill, or the global recession and how to get the U.S. economy back on track. “I’m not the kind of teacher who claims to know everything,” he said. “I’m more like a guide on a path to learning.”

Tenth graders analyze blogs, both moderated and unmoderated, developing critical thinking skills as they learn to differentiate between fact and opinion. They study MIT’s student blogs on the admissions page (www.mitadmissions.org). “MIT took a chance in allowing students to post blogs,” Greberman said, impressed. And he’s pleased that his own students are encouraged by them.

Greberman brings his teaching skills to athletics, too. As a coach for boys varsity tennis and girls varsity volleyball, he said, “I’m not so interested in wins and losses. It’s about building a team and working in a team.” That’s not to say that his players aren’t competitive.

“We may not be the tallest team,” he said, “but we play smart. We seem to be able to succeed on different levels.”

Greberman is also excited by the community service projects that his students do. “Sometimes they’re working in soup kitchens,” he said, “sometimes they’re compiling paperback books for prisoners or

building floats for the Puerto Rican Day Parade.” Each year, the two students who perform the most community service travel to Mali, Africa, for two weeks to help build a school, as part of Bodine’s partnership with nonprofit organization Build On. For students, outfitted with digital cameras and a camcorder, “it’s a wonderful opportunity to explore the country and themselves.”

When the students return, they present their experiences in an assembly.

“Everybody benefits,” Greberman said, “and it inspires other students.”

At Penn Charter, Greberman performed service at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. “I remember listening to the stories of elderly patients,” he said. “It was like listening to a history book. It showed me value in our senior citizens, which as a teenager I didn’t always have.”

Ninety-nine to 100 percent of Bodine’s graduates go on to college, Greberman said, despite the high percentage of students from low-income households. He believes students will perform to his expectations. “I try to keep the bar as high as possible to allow them to show what they know,” he said. “Every student has a voice, every student should be heard.” PC

“I’m not the kind of teacher who claims to know everything.

I’m more like a guide on a path to learning.”

Fall 2010

The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 35

Class Notes A Look Back at

1991

1996

1993

Class Agent Alyson M. Goodner alygoods@yahoo.com

Class Agents Andrea B. Koplove andreakoplove@yahoo.com Victor S. (Tory) Olshansky vsolshansky@earthlink.net

Kirsten M. Henri is the food editor of Philadelphia magazine.

1994

Class Agent Virginia M. Brown vyinger@thehill.org

1998

Class Agent Jennifer R. Gallagher gallagherj@unionleague.org

Class Agents Jeff Bender jb2424@columbia.edu Patrick A. Sasse psasse@hotmail.com

1995

Class Agents Andrew Rentschler andrew.rentschler@jhu.edu Stephanie Teaford Walters walters-stephanie@aramark.com

1999

Class Agent Mark D. Hecker mhecker616@gmail.com Margaux Pelegrin margaux.pelegrin@gmail.com

Class of 1995 15th Reunion

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

1997

Page 36

Class of 2000 10th Reunion

2000

Class Agent Adam K. Sperling adsperling@gmail.com

William Pawlowsky married Alexandra Blaser on Oct. 9, 2010. Will and Ali met while undergraduates at George Washington University.

Fellow classmates Christopher Lins, Hadji A. Maloumian and Michael Swift were among Will’s groomsmen. Will and Ali reside in New York City, where Will works as an investment banking associate at Oppenheimer & Co. and Ali works as a media buyer for ZenithOptimedia.

A Look Back at

Michael F. Toll OPC ’00 See death notices.

2001

Gerald M. Sasse married Jillian Erb on May 30, 2010, in Reisterstown, Md. They met in college at Shenandoah University in 2004. Jillian works as an office manager for Aspire in Fort Washington, and Gerry works for Comcast Business Services in Plymouth Meeting.

Lauren B. Wechsler just graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a master’s degree in public policy.

2001

Class Agents William A. McKinney williammckinney@gmail.com Jessica A. Stein stein.jessica@gmail.com Peter A. Groverman was the keynote speaker at Penn Charter’s Louis Savino Upper School Day of Service on Oct. 8. Peter, a Villanova University law student, spoke about the humanitarian missions to, first, New Orleans, and then Haiti that he helped organize, as well as the role that social media played.

2002

Class Agent Katherine A. Butler butlerka@gmail.com

Jacquelyn Hatch graduated from Alpert Medical School at Brown University. She is moving to Cleveland, Ohio, to begin a pediatric residency at Case Western’s Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 37

Emily Sternfeld has been living in Washington, D.C., pursuing her MBA with a concentration in strategic management and public policy at George Washington University. She spent the month of May in India with a few classmates, working on a consulting project that involved helping an Indian auto manufacturer develop its strategy for entering the U.S. market. She was also able to travel with friends throughout the country.

Class Notes 2003

Class Agents Jessica A. Kolansky jekolansky@davidson.edu Anthony E. McDevitt mcdevitt44@gmail.com Natalie L. Hogan just graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and is working for the school in their Office of Student Life.

2004

Class Agents Katherine A. Entwisle kentwisl@gmail.com Jerome B. Wright jbw2@sas.upenn.edu

LaTisha V. Moody graduated summa cum laude from North Carolina A&T State University in 2009.

She has begun her first year at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh, N.C.

2006

Class Agents Joey Fugelo insaniac83@aol.com Sarah Roberts sar777@aol.com Katherine Siegmann ksiegmann@gmail.com

2005

Class Agents Christopher W. Garrison cwg008@bucknell.edu Maureen Ryan mmr54@georgetown.edu

Regina Schickling OPC ’06 See death notices.

Rachel Dowling graduated from Stanford University in June and headed to Oxford University

Stormie Romero OPC ’08 By the time Penn Charter magazine hits mailboxes, Stormie Romero OPC ’08 will be entrenched in a community somewhere in India. A junior at Skidmore College, Romero will spend a year studying with the International Honors Program, which is affiliated with World Learning and SIT Study Abroad.

In an interview on her last day at home before she embarked on what will ultimately be a global adventure spanning nine months and four countries, Romero was remarkably relaxed. “I don’t know the format of the work or the classes,” she said. “I haven’t done it yet! I imagine, based on conversations I’ve had with alumni of the program, that every day [students] will be given the opportunity to go to a site to actually see the concepts we’ve been studying. We will work with and learn from different NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] or sites where problems are evident. We study how different global structures have helped or

in the fall to pursue an MS in international comparative education. In May, she participated in the Relay, a 200-mile relay along the West Coast, with 11 friends.

Steven Levinson was named twice allCentennial Conference, twice CoSIDA Academic All-District, twice Centennial Conference Honor Roll, twice Centennial Conference Director’s Team, and once CoSIDA Academic All-American.

He writes, “The Johns Hopkins Blue Jays were the most successful team in Centennial Conference history, reaching the quarterfinals of the NCAA playoffs before losing to Wesley (Del.) 12-0.

I credit my academic and athletic success in college to the studious and diligent study skills developed at PC and the enthusiastic and supportive coaching of Brian W. McClosky OPC ’82. I am currently studying in Philadelphia for the GREs and LSATs before developing my Portuguese and Spanish language skills with employment in Brazil.”

Michael Weick graduated from McDaniel College and has accepted an internship at Kings College as football coach overseeing the team’s linebacker corps.

by Julia Judson-Rea

hindered and how local people and smaller NGOs are going in and helping.”

After a three-week orientation program in Washington, D.C., Romero and the IHP students and faculty will travel through India for two months, then stay in Tanzania for six weeks, New Zealand for seven weeks and Mexico for nine. The coursework will explore globalization, particularly ways in which an increasingly globalized world can affect – positively and negatively – communities, the environment and citizens. While academically based, courses are not held in a classroom setting. “We take classes,” Romero said, “but they are more focused on getting students into the field and doing case work and case/field studies. The program is about getting students involved in neighborhoods and communities we are traveling to. The faculty follow us to countries they might specialize in, or will teach us the cases or the issues that are apparent in the community we’re in.”

While at PC, Romero participated in a program called Where There Be Dragons, which took her to Cambodia for language training, homestays, volunteer internships and tourism. “The name is a play on old, old maps that had dragons and other creatures

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Page 38

painted on them to indicate the scary, the unknown,” she said. “We traveled around and did homestays and worked with NGOs and hospitals and did a one-week stint with an artist to do traditional painting. That was so amazing! We went to factories and saw how people were living. I planted rice, rode elephants, went on mountain treks…”

“As a little kid, I always wanted to be in the Peace Corps, and as I’ve become older and taken more classes that are involved in this area and I get more involved in the studies, it’s really the only thing I can foresee myself doing. I want to graduate with some kind of degree and knowledge that can prepare me to go abroad. Ideally, I will find a local community and see what kind of help I can do there. I will immerse myself there. Maybe I’ll end up working for NGOs abroad.”

“I know I will make different contacts on the trip, and I hope I will solidify them and have them for the future. In Mexico I’ll be working on local, organic, sustainable farms.

I’m really interested in farms and sustainable agriculture. I’m hoping things like that will pan out for the future.” PC

2007

Class Agents Billy Goldman weg211@lehigh.edu Audra Hugo audro.hugo@gmail.com Anne McKenna anniemck515@comcast.net Eric Muller ebm28@drexel.edu

Marshall Roslyn OPC ’98

2008

Class Agents Katie Corelli kcorelli@stanford.edu Ryan Goldman ryg@sas.upenn.edu Kyle Maurer kmaurer3@jhu.edu Sierra Tishgart s-tishgart@u.northwestern.edu

2009

Class Agents Alexandra M. Glassman amg296@cornell.edu Curtiss R. Jones Jr. crj213@lehigh.edu Laura A. Kurash chargefan5@comcast.net Sam H. Lerner sam.lerner@richmond.edu

Noah J. Lebowitz-Lockard won first place in the 2010 Thayer Prize Exam, Dartmouth College’s mathematics competition for first year students.

2010

Class Agents Megan C. Delaney megan.c.delaney@gmail.com Cormac J. Ferrick mac.ferrick@gmail.com Casey T. Maher ctm214@lehigh.edu Kellie C. Ragg kragg@princeton.edu

MARRIAGES 1989 Christopher B. Curtis to Jeannette Chobot on July 31, 2010.

1997 Allison MacCullough to Kyle O’Neill on Oct. 9, 2010.

2002 Gerald M. Sasse to Jillian Erb on May 30, 2010.

William Pawlowsky to Alexandra Blaser on Oct. 9, 2010.

Marshall Roslyn contributes to the EdReformer blog (www.edreformer.com) on international education and technology innovation in education reform.

A Princeton graduate with a bachelor’s in international and public policy, Marshall Roslyn got his first taste of international education and nonprofits while working for Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst in New York.

He volunteered for Room to Read, a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving literacy in developing countries. “I’d spent a lot of time in rural China,” he said, “and felt I really understood how poor some people are in certain countries and what limited access people have to educational opportunities … Working with [Room to Read] and being involved in their growth was formative.”

He had studied in China during and right after college, and before returning to China to earn an MBA from Tsinghua University, Roslyn was introduced to Revolution Learning, a venture capital firm focused on global education. At RL, Roslyn’s paths and passions converged.

“It was the combination of a background in finance, international experience, an interest in education and the belief in the power of education to change people’s lives,” Roslyn said, that made him an excellent fit for the company, and vice versa. Roslyn is currently a principal at Revolution Learning.

Revolution Learning, “is the only early-stage venture capital fund focused exclusively on learning and education,” Roslyn explained. In existence for two years, “it is a small team of actively engaged partners and principals that have been focused on education issues for a lot of their careers. I believe we have a

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Page 39

by Julia Judson-Rea

real vision for what is happening and what is starting to happen” in the education sector. The fund invests in start-up companies both in the U.S. and overseas.

Roslyn has his eye on three critical trends in education. “The first is a digital shift,” he said. “We also see everything trending toward more individualized, tailored learning experiences. We expect there will be more consumption of learning and education through online means, digital textbooks, more interactive learning.”

The third shift Revolution Learning sees is global. “As more and more people have access to the Internet, online educational and learning tools,” Roslyn explained, “there is an increasingly large market potential for people all around the world to be learning. There is a tremendous desire, particularly from people in developing countries, for kids and their parents to get plugged into the global economy.

These families know that education is the key to doing that.

“The investments we make are around those shifts,” he said.

One of RL’s investments, Edmodo (www.edmodo.com), is the largest and fastest-growing social learning platform. For teachers and students in kindergarten through 12th grade, it is a safe and secure social media platform. Designed for classrooms, students and teachers can share documents, websites and ideas for all types of devices. “Edmodo is in classrooms all over the world,” Roslyn said.

Another investment, Bridge International, based in Kenya, provides increased access to primary education for underserved populations, Roslyn said. Bridge International uses a “school-in-a-box” franchise model that “allows operators to run schools on a profitable basis, yet still below the cost of public schools in Kenya. It is highquality education at a low cost” both for the operator and for the families who send their children. “Organizational models are important,” Roslyn said, “because in order to bring the best people, the best teachers, we need to provide the proper incentives. In instances like Bridge, sustainable forprofit innovation has the power to transform people’s lives.” PC

Class Notes BIRTHS

1995 Jordan Luke, to Shannon and David M. Beitchman, on June 13, 2010.

1950 George F. Engle, on Dec. 8, 2009.

Sonia Eleanor, to Ilana H. Eisenstein and Thomas H. Scott, on July 13, 2010.

1953 C. Andrew Schaufler, on Aug. 6, 2010.

Naomi Elizabeth, to Joseph and Christine Manley Herdman, on Sept. 3, 2010.

1996 Wyatt James, to Jason and Katy Krupnick Friedland, on July 31, 2010.

1983 Jaden Davis-Michael, to Tamika and John D. Smith, on Aug. 28, 2010.

(See photo above.)

1991 Max, to Jennifer and Carlton A. Ruley on Sept. 14, 2010.

1998 Eloise Ingersoll, to Christian and Alice Affleck Bullit, on June 9, 2010.

1999 Makenna Rose, to Chris and Jennifer Albright Myers, on Jan. 14, 2010.

Quinn Michael, to Keith C. and Emily Manning Cappo, on Oct. 4, 2009.

Nicholas Matthew, to Emily and Christopher T. Glowacki, on Oct. 20, 2009.

1937 Harry Z. Miller, on May 11, 2010.

1994 Macaela Ember, to Laura and Garret C. Ball, on Aug. 26, 2010.

Arthur H. Napier Jr., on Oct. 2, 2010. 1938 William B. Turner, on Sept. 16, 2010.

1943 John M. Adams, on Dec. 11, 2009.

Philip F. Coleman, on Oct. 28, 2009.

Robert J. Rossheim, on July 12, 2010 1947 Lawrence D. Edson Jr., on Dec. 14, 2007.

1948 Richard D. Young, on July 17, 2010.

1949 Charles H. DeSoi, on Nov. 27, 2009.

Adam Gordon, to Deborah H. Gordon and Ben Goodrich on Feb. 19, 2010. (See photo above.)

Fall 2010 The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

1960 Stevens E. Brooks, on June 3, 2010.

1961 W. Selden Gates Jr., on Sept. 16, 2010.

1979 Bryan W. Cotter, on July 16, 2010.

1992 Michael L. Nunnally, on May 25, 2010.

2000 Michael F. Toll, on June 17, 2010.

2006 Regina Schickling, in July 2010.

Lauren and David Felderman OPC ’87, had a son, Ari, on Oct. 12, 2009.

1926 Paul Mecray Jr., on Sept. 6, 2010.

Natalie Josephine, to Thomas and Mary Vizza Beck on Aug. 31, 2010.

1958 Louis P. Mattis, on July 14, 2010.

Correction

DEATHS

1993 Carolyn Grace Jie, to Philip and Anne Dodson Chen on Feb. 27, 2010. (See photo above.)

John D. Walp, on July 22, 2010.

Page 40

Class of ’41

Class of ’51

Class of ’46

Class of ’55

Class of ’61

Class of ’66

Class of ’76

MAY 6-7,

2011

Class of ’81

Class of ’71

Class of ’86

Class of ’01

Class of ’91

Class of ’96

You don’t want to miss it!

Return to Penn Charter … Reconnect with old friends … Join the celebration

Alumni Weekend 2011

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Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID

Philadelphia, PA Permit No. 6118

3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144

Penn Charter archives at Haverford College include a red wax seal of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1699. See story on page 6.

Save the Date November 11

Annual FUNd Party, 6:30 p.m., Annual FUNd Party Tent and Kurtz Center

November 13 PC/GA @ PC

November 27

Class of 2005 Five-Year Reunion, 7 p.m. • Jack’s Firehouse, Philadelphia

January 4

Y oung Alumni Holiday Hoop-la (OPC ’06 through ’10), 3:45 p.m.

Girls Varsity Basketball vs. Episcopal Academy, Graham Athletics Center Reception, Richard B. Fisher Middle School

February 3

Alumni Society Downtown Reception • National Liberty Museum Leon Caldwell OPC ’87 and Michael McKenna OPC ’02

March 11

Penn Charter Community Auction, 6:30 p.m. • Please Touch Museum

May 6 & May 7

A lumni Reunion Weekend Class Reunions: ’41, ’46, ’51, ’56, ’61, ’66, ’71, ’76, ’81, ’86, ’91, ’96, ’01

May 9

Bert Linton Alumni/Parent Golf Outing, 11 a.m. • Philadelphia Cricket Club

May 27

Color Day, 1 p.m.

June 3

2 0-Year Celebration of Girls Varsity Sports, 6 p.m. • Chestnut Club, Philadelphia

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