FROM THE EDITOR WINTER 2013 Volume 106 Number 2 PUBLISHER Tracy M. Sweet Director of Academy Communications EDITOR Sally V. Holm Director of Publications DESIGNER Ken Puleo Art Director ASSISTANT EDITORS Jill Clerkin Kristin Bair O’Keeffe CLASS NOTES DESIGNER Sally Abugov CLASS NOTES COORDINATOR Laura MacHugh CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Daniel Adler ’05; David Chase; MJ Engel ’13; Carlos Hoyt; Carmen Muñoz-Fernandez; Debby Murphy ’86; Amy Patel, MD; Nate Scott ’05; Rabbi Michael Swarttz; Frank Tipton; Paula Trespas; Chris Walter; Sarah Zobel PHOTOGRAPHERS Kezi Barry ’02, Neil Evans, John Hurley, Michael Lutch, Michael Malyszko, Debby Murphy ’86, Paul Murphy ’84, Beth O’Connor, Len Rubenstein, John Spaulding, Damian Strohmeyer, Tracy Sweet, Gil Talbot, Peter Vanderwarker ’65, Dave White © 2013 Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Andover, the magazine of Phillips Academy is published four times a year—fall, winter, spring, and summer—by the Office of Communication at Phillips Academy, 180 Main Street, Andover MA 01810-4161. Main PA phone: 978-749-4000 Changes of address and death notices: 978-749-4269 alumni-records@andover.edu Phillips Academy website: www.andover.edu Andover magazine phone: 978-749-4677 Fax: 978-749-4272 E-Mail: andovermagazine@andover.edu Periodicals postage paid at Andover MA and additional mailing offices. Postmasters: Send address changes to Phillips Academy 180 Main Street Andover MA 01810-4161 ISSN-0735-5718
The Hill, since early September, has been a-buzz with a somewhat cumbersome new phrase. Connected Learning. While the concept of employing new tools to enhance our students’ learning certainly is not new, the term and its currency arrived with our new head of school, the über-connected John Palfrey. The movement from largely didactic to more multisourced, experiential, participatory learning has been going on at Andover for some time. And now, more students and faculty are eagerly experimenting. Our cover story is an effort to define and explain the ever-expanding concept and its growing influence on Andover pedagogy. Over the years, we all have encountered connected learning and all benefited from it, whether we knew it had a name or not. A late bloomer, I remember first thinking concretely about it in the spring of 2011, watching Peter Neissa’s Spanish 520 class reach out to the Hispanic corporate world looking for information and investment opportunities for their $10 million in virtual funds. There were no texts, of course. The world—via the Web—was their hornbook. To Neissa’s astonishment, one of his groups had even gotten the CFO of a large Spanish clean energy company on the phone to amplify their research. Very connected learning, indeed. The audacious task of giving shape to this concept for the magazine was assigned to Kristin Bair O’Keeffe—a recent addition to our staff as class notes editor—who is a published novelist, writer, teacher of writing, and public speaker steeped in connected learning. Attacking her topic with characteristic enthusiasm, Kristin has successfully, I think, described, deciphered, and embraced something of an amorphous and constantly shapeshifting beast. Then came the equally daunting challenge: how to visually define this shapeshifter to make a cover? We took the problem to Maine-based artist Wade Zahares whose jaunty, abstract style and uncommon perspective we knew from his Smith Center mural, painted in 2008. Drawing on mind-mapping examples, we hammered out a tendriled nebula of learning terms, tools, technologies, and ideas emanating from our hilltop cloister. Wade brought the beast to life before our eyes. And it is here to stay. So woven into the fabric of our society is this modern communication and learning mode that we can only win by embracing it with enthusiasm and all the creativity we can muster. There is absolutely nothing to fear. It is making us smarter, wiser, faster, deeper, and more broadly knowledgeable every day. It is building community and bridging silos. It may even help Robert Putnam sleep at night. So make room, Gunga. Another beast roams the Hill and beyond. It would be good to get to know her.
—Sally V. Holm
Front cover: Maine-based artist Wade Zahares created this mind-mapping style abstraction of the concept of connected learning, our cover story. He teamed with PA Art Director Ken Puleo to add the words. Recent alumni will recognize Zahares’s style from the large mural he painted in the Smith Center when it served as “Uncommons” during the Paresky Andover | Winter 2013 Commons renovation.
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