Performing Arts Head Jay Bragan attended a workshop in Northern California in June at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, a center for the exploration, development, training and performance of actors, with a strong emphasis on physical theater. For two weeks, Jay participated in mask-making and mask performance, which he’ll incorporate into his Drama Workshop class as well as into School productions. Nancy Brzys (Dean of Faculty/Modern Language) and Corie McDermott (English/College Counseling) both served on committees for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) this past year; Nancy was on the visiting committee at Milton Academy in October, and Corie served on the visiting committee at St. Mark’s School in January. Dom Christopher Davis ‘48 was an invited clergyperson in this year’s Fourth of July Patriotic Exercises and Parade in Bristol, RI. The Bristol Fourth of July Parade, which first took place in 1785, is the oldest continuous celebration of its kind in the USA. This will be Father Chris’s fourth consecutive year being in the parade. In the spring of 2011 Suzi Duncan (Science) was elected to the ranking committee for NESSA (New England Schools Sailing Association); as such, she voted on the final rankings in New England for team racing. In the fall of 2011 Suzi was elected vice president of NESSA, a two-year position that oversees scheduling, organizing championships and overall coordination of all NESSA events. The Portsmouth Abbey School sailing team was voted by all of the teams in NESSA as the winner of the Sportsmanship Award for the 2011 season in addition to placing third at the New Englands and first at the Atlantic Coast Challenge. Derek Gittus (History) and Allie Micheletti ’05 (History/Art) received the Sidler Awards for Excellence in Teaching at Prize Day, on May 26. These awards honor a full-time senior faculty member who has exhibited sustained excellence as a teacher at Portsmouth Abbey School (Derek) and a full-time junior faculty member who displays superior potential as a classroom teacher (Allie).
Derek and his family traveled to Washington, D.C., and many of the Civil War battlefields as part of his summer sabbatical. Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Sharpsburg (Battle of Antietam), Manassas (Battle of Bull Run), Fredericksburg, Monticello, Washington D.C., and New York City were among their many stops. Roberto Guerenabarrena, head of the Modern Language Department, spent a week in early June for the ninth consecutive year as an AP Spanish Exam grader for the Educational Testing Service. For the past six years he has served as a Table Leader for the free-response section of the exam, which consists of eight readers grading the essays written by AP students. As a Table Leader, Roberto manages the readers and makes sure they grade tests fairly and according to an appropriate standard. Wallace Gundy, assistant director of admission and head houseparent in Manor House, presented at the December 2011 TABS Conference in Boston with her mother, Kim Gundy, a longtime faculty member and senior housemaster at Western Reserve Academy, about the generational differences in houseparenting. Wallace, of the millennial generation, and Kim, a baby boomer, presented a series of residential scenarios and how they have handled them given their differing ages and professional experiences. The presentation received many attendees, and Wallace called it “a great professional development opportunity.” Abbot Caedmon Holmes, Director of Spiritual Life Blake Billings ’77 and Associate Headmaster and math teacher Dan McDonough spent one week in Santiago, Chile, in November 2011 to visit with members of the Manquehue Apostolic Movement (MAM), a lay Benedictine group. This was the second year they had traveled to Chile, further strengthening the friendship between our School and the Chilean Manquehue movement, which includes several schools and apostolic programs. (See article on page four about our five Chilean Manquehue visitors, who visited Portsmouth for two months in early 2012.)
SUMMER BULLETIN 2012
Nancy Brzys
Derek Gittus
Abbot Caedmon Holmes
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