The Newsletter: Summer 2023

headmaster

Kerry P. Brennan

associate headmaster

Michael T. Pojman

director of external relations

Erin E. Berg

assistant headmaster for advancement

Thomas R. Guden ’96

photography

Gretchen Ertl, Marcus Miller, Mike

Pojman, Kristie Rae, Adam Richins, Evan Scales

editorial & design

Erin E. Berg, Marcus C. Miller

the newsletter

The Roxbury Latin School publishes

The Newsletter three times a year for alumni, current and former parents, and friends of the school.

contact information

The Roxbury Latin School

101 St. Theresa Avenue

West Roxbury, MA 02132 Phone: 617-325-4920

change of address?

Send updated information to julie.garvey@roxburylatin.org.

alumni news

Send notes and correspondence to alumni@roxburylatin.org.

cover

Photo by Gretchen Ertl

©2023 The Trustees of The Roxbury Latin School

Class III students taking Watercolor as their arts elective this year created abstract paintings that hung in a gallery outside Headmaster Brennan's office this spring.

From the Latin abstractus, which means “drawn away” or “diverted from,” abstract art grants the artist and the viewer freedom to explore and to assign their own meaning to a work. As Jim Ryan, RL’s Watercolor teacher, asserts, “Watercolor lends itself particularly well to the creation of abstract art, as the mixing of water and pigment can produce unexpected effects and dynamic results.”

Features

4 Dr. Sam Schaffer Will Be Roxbury Latin’s 12th Head of School Letters from Board President Ethan Berman ’79 and Sam Schaffer

18 RL Shark Tank? Students Learn the Essentials of Entrepreneurship by Erin E. Berg

28 The Boston Tea Party Was the Tipping Point

An award-winning essay by Emmanuel Nwodo ’23

30 Dr. Joshua Bennett Introduces Spoken Word Poetry as Smith Scholar by Meredith H. Reynolds

32 What is a Certamen? That is the Question. by Mike Pojman

34 Lessons Learned

Mike Pojman shares 19 life lessons by which he lives

42 Prize Day & Valete

54 Closing Exercises 8

58 Remember Our Winters | Valedictory Address by Akshay Kumar ’23

64 The Game is Rigged | Commencement Address by The Reverend Morgan S. Allen, Rector of Boston’s Trinity Church

70 The Class of 2023

This piece pictured was created by Shane Bernazzani (III) and also appeared in the spring issue of Forum.

Dr. Sam Schaffer Will Be Roxbury Latin’s 12th Head of School

On July 20, Roxbury Latin’s Board of Trustees announced the appointment of Dr. Sam Schaffer as RL’s 12th head of school, to succeed Kerry Brennan upon his retirement at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Dr. Schaffer has spent the last two decades of his career at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where he currently serves as Head of the Upper School.

Message from the Board President

Dear Roxbury Latin community,

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sam Schaffer as the next head of Roxbury Latin. Sam will begin his tenure at the start of the 2024-2025 school year upon the retirement of Kerry Brennan on June 30, 2024.

Sam is currently the Head of the Upper School at St. Albans School, an independent boys’ school in Washington, D.C. He has

spent his entire career on two related pursuits: boys’ education and academic excellence. Valedictorian, class president, and three-sport athlete of his high school class in Atlanta, Sam was a Morehead Scholar, as well as a Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina where he majored in history with a minor in Latin. He spent a year teaching and coaching at Groton before moving to St. Albans where, in only his second year, the senior class awarded him the John F. McCune Prize for teaching. After six years as a dorm parent, history teacher, advisor, and varsity football and basketball coach, Sam left St. Albans to pursue a graduate degree in history from Yale, where he wrote his dissertation on Woodrow Wilson’s generation and the South from 1884 to 1920. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010, Sam was named the Cassius Marcellus Clay Postdoctoral Associate in Yale’s Department of History and the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. From 2007 to 2011, he served as a fellow and coordinator at Yale’s McDougal Graduate Teaching Center, organizing workshops for teachers across disciplines.

Sam returned to St. Albans in 2012 as the Assistant then Associate Dean of Faculty, while also serving as Assistant Director of College Counseling, teaching history, and coaching at various levels, before becoming Head of the Upper School in 2021. As Associate Dean of Faculty, Sam worked closely with the Dean of Faculty in all faculty hiring, and developed and implemented a new and highly successful teacher evaluation program that a former teacher remarked “has now become part of the ether there and deeply embedded in the institution.” Sam was also St. Albans’s representative at the Penn Fellows Teaching program where St. Albans, like Roxbury Latin, recruits and develops young teachers. In these administrative roles, Sam has shown “a talent for seeing the potential in others” and was repeatedly referred to as a wonderful mentor who cares deeply for students “as well as for adults who care for students.”

However, as is always the case at our school, more important than his impressive resume is who Sam is as a person. On this front, our extensive interactions with Sam as well as his references could not have been stronger. Direct quotations from references included “the most trustworthy and ethical person you will ever meet,” “his integrity and authenticity come out in everything he does,” “he’s unwavering in his commitment to do right by everyone,” and “I know how much Roxbury Latin cares about character, and Sam is an A++. Nobody is more dedicated and universally respected.” Over the past three months the search committee got to know a remarkably “humble yet self-assured,” “highly empathetic,” “brilliant thinker.” We saw firsthand the joy he exuded during lunch with the boys on his visiting day at the school, and heard his thoughtful and deliberate answers to questions about a classical general education versus specialization; academic rigor and mental health; and balancing tradition and change. We met a teacher “more focused on students than any educator I know,” who attends every school event and now stands at the St. Albans circle each morning greeting each of the 325 boys of the upper school by name.

Over our countless meetings and conversations with him, it became clear to the search committee that for Sam the moral, intellectual, and physical growth of young boys from all backgrounds and walks of life is a true calling. In the words of Vance Wilson, the former head of St. Albans and former Roxbury Latin trustee, “Sam’s natural role in life is to create

loving bonds between people through mutual respect, kindness, compassion, and sincere hope for the children’s future.” Or in Sam’s own words, “my life as a teacher has been dedicated to boys from all paths and all places, and Roxbury Latin’s commitment to access and inclusion, to empathy and care, speaks deeply to me.” We can say with great confidence that in this new role, Sam will ensure that every boy at RL is known and loved.

Sam is a devoted husband and loving father. As you will read in his message below, he is very happy at St. Albans, his home for nearly 20 years. But he was sent our role description, and the more he read and learned about Roxbury Latin, who we are and what matters most to us, the more he came to realize “the role of the Head of School at Roxbury Latin is a remarkable opportunity.” An opportunity that, in the end I am pleased to report, moved him, both literally and figuratively.

I very much look forward to more formally welcoming Sam, his wife Dana, and 12-year-old daughter Ernie to our community and enabling you to get to know and love them over the months and years ahead, just as the eight members of the search committee were fortunate to have done over the past few months. They are a delightful family who will be wonderful new residents of 57 Quail Street. Until then, I can only thank you again for the time and feedback so many of you gave to the search committee and board during this process, the trust you have given us in making this most important decision and, as always, your love for Roxbury Latin. I speak for all members of the board that it is truly an honor and privilege to serve you and our great school.

— Ethan Berman ’79

Message from Sam Schaffer

Dear Members of the Roxbury Latin community,

What a wonderful thing it is to be invited to join The Roxbury Latin School. I am at once excited and humbled and honored. Excited because of the remarkable school and community that Roxbury Latin is; humbled because of the deep traditions of the school’s long history and the remarkable legacy left by Tony Jarvis and Kerry Brennan; and honored that the board of trustees

“Culture at schools comes from big things...from deeply loved traditions such as Exelauno Day and the Opening Day all-school handshake. Culture also emerges in the small places— in the spaces in between—in the ways boys speak to each other, in the daily interactions in the hallways, in the classes that are offered and taken, in the behaviors that emerge in moments both challenging and triumphant. That culture is so powerful at Roxbury Latin, and that culture has resonated with me and has drawn me to the school.”

believes that I can carry on the work and love and care of the generations of leaders and teachers and students who have come before me. I am eager to get to know you all, to earn your trust, and to join you in the pursuit of the education of our boys.

Roxbury Latin is a special school. That is something that you all know by experience, and it is something I have come to understand over the years—both through the school’s reputation and through chance encounters along the way, whether coaching against RL teams in my first year as a teacher, or working with RL faculty as a member of the Penn Fellows program, or encountering RL leaders at various boys’ school conferences.

And over the past few months through the search process, I have come to see what makes Roxbury Latin so special even more vividly. As I read more and more about RL, deeply held and oft-repeated phrases such as “every boy is known and loved” and “accomplished generalist” have resonated powerfully with me. As I spoke with faculty, I heard their passionate commitment to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum as well as to the school’s core emphasis on character development and relationships with students. As I talked to boys at lunch and asked them their favorite thing about RL, to a man they gave some version of “community.” As I chatted with parents, I listened to them praise what RL’s teachers and coaches and leaders have done for their sons. And as I spoke with alumni, I heard the reverence with which they recounted the transformative nature of their time at RL and the importance of the school’s broad access to boys and families from all walks of life. In each of these conversations, the love for the Roxbury Latin community was palpable. And it was inspiring. This is a special school.

It is also a school that aligns closely with my own values and aspirations as a teacher, a coach, a scholar, and a leader. The focus on excellence, the dedication to the growth of boys, the emphasis on the intellectual, the physical, and the moral—all those are at the core of Roxbury Latin, and all those are at the core of the person I hope to be and of the place I hope to live and work and grow. Indeed, I have had the great joy of being at a similar institution with similar values, St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., which has been my home for nearly two decades. The mentors that I have had at St. Albans, the faculty whose talent and dedication have inspired me, the

boys who have challenged and taught me, all have made me a better teacher and leader and person. I am grateful and forever indebted for their care and guidance and inspiration.

But the pull of Roxbury Latin is strong. In my time in schools, I have come to learn that at the heart of great institutions is not only a strong mission but also a healthy and aligned culture. Culture at schools comes from big things: from core values such as a dedication to a “Classical education,” from special places like the Refectory and Rousmaniere Hall, from deeply loved traditions such as Exelauno Day and the Opening Day all-school handshake. Culture also emerges in the small places—in the spaces in between—in the ways boys speak to each other, in the daily interactions in the hallways, in the classes that are offered and taken, in the behaviors that emerge in moments both challenging and triumphant. That culture is so powerful at Roxbury Latin, and that culture has resonated with me and has drawn me to the school. I am blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to both the school’s mission and its culture.

So let me close by reiterating how excited I am to join the Roxbury Latin community. I will do my best to honor and strengthen the school’s core values and traditions. To continue to make RL a place where boys can flourish, where they can be inspired to a life of the mind, where they can sharpen both their creative and analytical instincts, where they can learn and sing and play and compete and laugh together. To promote the school’s standards of academic rigor, emphasis on character development, and athletic and artistic excellence. To reach out to and communicate its values and uniqueness to the community around it. I will also strive to enhance the way in which the school carries out this mission, not only holding the core but also adapting to future conditions, responding to complexity, and embracing progress. Boys’ schools are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of the world that will face us, and none more so than Roxbury Latin. I will do my best to approach these duties with humility and thoughtfulness and care.

I am so eager to get to know all of you and look forward to doing so in the days, months, and years ahead. I am grateful for the opportunity.

— Sam //

Journalist Bret Stephens Shares Life Lessons

On February 14, famed conservative journalist Bret Stephens visited Rousmaniere Hall, engaging with students, faculty, and guests while sharing his life and work experiences. Known for his role as an op-ed columnist at The New York Times since 2017 and his previous tenure at The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Stephens is recognized as a prominent figure in conservative journalism. He discussed his background, including being raised as a Jewish-American in Mexico City, which he described as an “insider-outsider” experience that shaped his identity. Mr. Stephens spoke about his time at Middlesex School and the University of Chicago, where he faced intellectual challenges that molded his thinking. He also shared some of the ups and downs of his career, highlighting the lessons learned from past disappointments and humiliations. Mr. Stephens addressed his decision to join The New York Times, driven by his opposition to then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election. He valued the opportunity to provide a dissenting voice and emphasized the importance of understanding well in order to disagree well. Following Hall, Mr. Stephens spent a class period answering questions from students, including members of the Tripod staff. //

ADL’s Robert Trestan Addresses Global Rise in Antisemitism

On February 16, Robert Trestan, the vice president of the Western Division of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), led a Hall to shed light on the global surge in antisemitism. Mr. Trestan highlighted key issues plaguing society, including the circulation of antisemitic conspiracy theories and denial of historical atrocities.

During Hall, Mr. Trestan also discussed current prominent individuals, such as Kyrie Irving and Kanye West, whose actions have sparked controversy. Irving’s endorsement of a book promoting antisemitic tropes raised concerns leading to his suspension and public backlash. West, known for his Adidas affiliation, faced criticism for endorsing “White Lives Matter,” an extremist expression. His social media influence exacerbated hate-filled sentiments, alarming the ADL and prompting Adidas to end their partnership.

Mr. Trestan emphasized the need to confront bias, engage in dialogue, and share accurate information. With a surge in antisemitic incidents, ADL continues its vital work to foster an inclusive society for all. //

Understanding Identity and What it Means with Dr. Liza Talusan

On March 10, Dr. Liza Talusan, an educator, speaker, and writer with more than 25 years of experience, led a faculty workshop, followed by a Hall in the Smith Theater, to emphasize the importance of identity and diversity in creating inclusive and empowering communities. Dr. Talusan’s expertise in facilitating conversations about bias, privilege, and inclusion encouraged eye-opening discussions on these crucial topics.

During her presentation, Dr. Talusan emphasized three key elements for creating more inclusive communities: building knowledge, engaging in reflection, and taking action. She challenged the notion of being “identity blind” and advocated for being “identity conscious.” By acknowledging and valuing the differences that make us unique, we foster curiosity, build better relationships, and promote critical thinking.

Dr. Talusan urged students to examine their RL experiences through the lens of diversity and inclusion, encouraging them to use their new insights to move forward with a heightened understanding of how their identities shape their perspectives and interactions, and to work together to foster a more inclusive and equitable world. //

Father Kevin Staley-Joyce ’05 Reflects on Memory and Holy Week

In an inspiring Hall on April 6, Father Kevin-Staley Joyce, from the Class of 2005, and the Catholic chaplain at Boston University, delved into the significance of memory during Passover and Holy Week. Father Joyce shared personal memories, including the impact of 9/11 during his early school years, as well as his experiences in Rome, where he studied at Pontifical Gregorian University and Istituto Patristico Augustinanium, and would frequently embark on silent retreats with fellow graduate students.

Reflecting on the ancient traditions of Passover, he highlighted the importance of shared memories that define a people’s history. Father Joyce emphasized that memories are not just stories with a message but actual experiences that shape who we are.

Drawing from the teachings of Saint Augustine, he stressed the value of silence in rediscovering memories and finding gratitude in life’s journey. He urged students to contemplate their own place in the divine plan and understand the significance of events like the Exodus and the Last Supper in shaping their collective memory.

Father Joyce left students and faculty motivated to cherish their shared history and learn from the wisdom of the past. //

Bennett discuss the History and Future of Black Education

Dr. Joshua Bennett and Dr. Jarvis Givens took the Smith Theater stage on April 7 for an inspiring conversation about their respective educational journeys as Black men, and the importance of educational and cultural legacies.

Dr. Bennett, this year’s Roxbury Latin Smith Scholar, introduced Dr. Givens—Professor of African and African American Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—as an expert in 19th and 20th century African-American history and the history of education. Dr. Givens’s impressive body of work includes his acclaimed Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, and his recently published School Clothes: A Collective Memoir of Black Student Witness. Dr. Givens was also instrumental in the creation of the Black Teacher Archive, an archival initiative to preserve the political and intellectual contributions of Black educators before 1970.

Dr. Givens shared his early formation in California, where he attended a local Black parochial school that offered a culture of achievement aligned with the students’ identity and community. He emphasized the significance of his teachers in shaping his academic journey, instilling in him

a sense of self-belief and pride in his heritage. Dr. Givens also spoke passionately about the importance of maintaining relationships with his former teachers. He explained how these connections helped shape his understanding of the rich cultural and intellectual legacy of Black teaching, which often goes unrecognized in mainstream narratives about Black education.

The discussion then delved into the significance of singing Lift Every Voice and Sing, known as the Black National Anthem, during morning devotions at Dr. Bennett’s school. Dr. Givens highlighted the importance of cultural resources in shaping one’s identity and navigating the world with confidence, noting that this song’s themes of justice and collective striving hold lessons for everyone.

Dr. Bennett and Dr. Givens also addressed the history of activism at Berkeley (Dr. Givens’s alma mater), acknowledging its significance, but also recognizing the need for greater alignment with the experiences and concerns of Black and indigenous students. They shared insights into the struggles faced by Black students and highlighted the importance of preserving affirmative action to ensure greater diversity and representation in higher education. The conversation underscored the rich legacies of Black teaching and learning, and the power of culture and education to positively shape individuals and communities. //

One Love Reminds Students of the Signs of Healthy Relationships

On April 18, RL hosted Claire Giampetroni of One Love in the Smith Theater. One Love’s mission is to educate young people about healthy relationships, empowering them to recognize and avoid abusive language and action. The organization was founded in memory of Yeardley Love, who tragically lost her life to domestic violence. Yeardly’s mother, Sharon, founded One Love, which has educated more than 100 million young people through workshops and educational videos.

After Hall, Ms. Giampetroni led discussions with Class V and VI boys on healthy friendships, while older boys joined discussion groups and watched Escalation, a film about an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. After the screening, students reflected on the signs of abuse and what friends could do to intervene. They explored different perspectives and debated whether the depicted behavior on screen was truly love.

The morning concluded with group discussions on ten signs of both healthy (e.g., honesty, respect, trust) and unhealthy (e.g., manipulation, betrayal, possessiveness) relationships. //

Ammar Elawad (II) Shares Ramadan Story

On April 19, Ammar Elawad (II) took to the Smith Theater stage to share the significance of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Ammar explained that Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is a time of community, spiritual reflection, and fasting for Muslims worldwide. He described how fasting, which includes abstaining from food, water, gossip, and bad language, fosters selfdiscipline and empathy for the less fortunate.

He also explained the religious significance of Ramadan, referencing the belief that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, was revealed during this holy month. It is a time of forgiveness, mercy, and increased devotion to God. Highlighting the sense of community during Ramadan, Ammar spoke about Iftar, the meal during which Muslims break their fast together after sunset. He mentioned the special prayers, known as Taraweeh, held in mosques throughout the month, and that RL provided a prayer room for Muslim students and staff during Ramadan.

The Hall served as an opportunity for the RL community to learn from Ammar’s spiritual journey, fostering understanding and appreciation for our diverse religious traditions. //

On March 3, Roxbury Latin students and teachers gathered in Rousmaniere Hall to celebrate a tradition that is distinctly RL: Exelauno Day dates back more than 130 years, when Classics teacher Clarence Willard Gleason inaugurated a celebration of the Classics, in which Greek students would be exempted from homework. Today, the event allows for the singular annual pleasure of hearing from boys of every age and level of exposure to Latin and Greek. (It is worth noting that the day continues to be one in which Greek and Latin students are exempted from homework!) Gleason chose March 4th as a punny reference to Xenophon’s Anabasis and its use of the verb exelauno meaning “to march forth.”

During the morning’s special Hall, boys in Class VI through Class I competed in this year’s David Taggart Clark Competition in Greek and Latin Declamation—reciting the stirring words of Ovid and Caesar, performing the story of Noah’s Ark from Genesis, and bringing to life the tales of Vergil himself. The

declamations culminated in a surprise duo performance, in which Owen Butler (I) rose from the audience in reaction to the words recited by James McCurley (I) and then joined him onstage—to the audience’s delight—as they reenacted Thersites (James) questioning the motives of Agamemnon, before Odysseus (Owen) intervenes, from Homer’s Iliad. The duo’s unsanctioned performance was met with a standing ovation from students and with a good-natured disqualification from Classics Department Chair and Exelauno Hall emcee, Mrs. Morris-Kliment. (Duo performances are not allowed as part of the competition.) This year’s winners were Nick Glaeser of Class IV (Lower School Latin), Akhilsai Damera of Class II (Upper School Latin), and Caleb Ganthier of Class III (Greek).

RL extends its gratitude to this year’s Exelauno Day judges, Michael Howard, teacher of Classics at Boston Latin School; Rachel Philbrick, lecturer on Classics at Harvard; and Walter Young, teacher of Latin at Buckingham Browne & Nichols. //

2023 winners and judges: Akhilsai Damera (II), Nick Glaeser (IV), Michael Howard, Walter Young, Rachel Philbrick, Jamie Morris-Kliment, and Caleb Ganthier (III).

Use Your Voice: Ara Gershengorn Delivers 2023 Cum Laude Address

On April 20, Roxbury Latin celebrated in Hall the 12 members of Class I whose efforts and accomplishments have earned them membership in the Cum Laude Society. Each spring, the all-school Cum Laude ceremony honors the life of the mind—affirming that at the heart of a good school is scholarly engagement.

“This special event is intended principally to do two things,” began Headmaster Kerry Brennan. “The first is to recognize the most distinguished scholars of the First Class. In their efforts and in their accomplishments, they have put to good use the gifts they have been given… The second purpose of this annual ceremony is in many ways the more consequential, for it involves everyone else in this room. In honoring these 12 boys, we are honoring the life of the mind; we are honoring trying hard and doing well; we are affirming that at the heart of a good school is scholarly engagement. I admonish you to take to heart the example of the inductees… All of you boys have the capacity to strive, to grow, to change, and to know the satisfaction of ideas unearthed and potential realized.”

Delivering the morning’s Cum Laude address was Ms. Ara Gershengorn, an attorney in Harvard University’s Office of the

General Counsel, and mother of Michael Thomas ’23, one of the honored inductees.

In her work, Ms. Gershengorn advises Harvard’s senior leadership on a wide range of issues; she recently has served as lead in-house counsel managing the litigation challenging Harvard College’s consideration of race in admissions. In her address to students in Hall, she also spoke about her consequential role serving on the legal team that successfully convinced the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in 2013.

“Each of you has a unique perspective,” she urged the students in the audience. “When opportunities present themselves, when you have the chance to use your voice for something important, when there are others who are afraid to speak, step up, share your perspective, and ensure they have a chance to share theirs.”

Between lively renditions of America the Beautiful and Jerusalem, Gaudeamus Igitur and The Founder’s Song, Mr. Josh Cervas, president of RL’s Cum Laude chapter, provided a history of the organization before he awarded the twelve

inductees their certificates: “By formally recollecting our origins each year, we also reaffirm our commitment to the Society’s original and abiding motto—three Greek words inspired by the three letters of the old Alpha Delta Tau name: Alpha stands for Areté (Excellence), Delta for Diké (Justice), and Tau for Timé (Honor). These three words, with deep roots in our past and far reaching implications for our future, raise qualities of mind and character which, ideally, each member of the Society will espouse as his own values and strive to instill in others throughout his life.”

The following seniors were inducted into the Cum Laude Society this year:

Owen Butler, Carter Crowley, Ethan Dhadly, Will Grossman, Akshay Kumar, James McCurley, Alex Nahirny, Tait Oberg, Justin Shaw, Michael Thomas, Kevin Wang, and Luke Wilkinson. //

Dr. Ernesto Guerra, Will Grossman, Carter Crowley, James McCurley, Kevin Wang, Akshay Kumar, Tait Oberg, Ethan Dhadly, Luke Wilkinson, Alex Nahirny, Michael Thomas, Owen Butler, Justin Shaw, and Mr. Josh Cervas.

Western Civ Projects

May looms large on the Class IV calendar: It is now when students turn in and present their Western Civ projects, long a component of the freshman curriculum in which students research, produce, and orally defend a model or reproduction of an artifact, building, or historical scene that is linked to their study of Western Civilization.

Parameters dictate that the student must make his project with his own hands (no kits). Making use of technologies offered in the IDEA Lab is allowed, but plugging in a prefabricated design for something in a 3-D printer and presenting this as one’s project is not allowed. All work is done in school. In addition to being graded on the oral defense, each student is graded on his accuracy in representing the original, his workmanship, and the project’s degree of difficulty. Projects were on display in the front gallery during the final weeks of the school year. //

RL

Shark Tank?

Students Learn the Essentials of Entrepreneurship

by erin e . berg

This year, 43 juniors and seniors took part in a master class on what it takes to develop an idea into a viable business, with all of the planning, forecasting, and financial risk this sort of endeavor entails. The course’s teacher, board president Ethan Berman ’79, knows a thing or two about this work: Ethan founded and ran RiskMetrics Group from a startup to a NYSE publicly traded company until it was sold in 2010. In 2013 he founded i2 Learning, which he serves today as the organization’s president. i2 Learning provides project-based STEM curriculum, professional development for teachers, and logistical support for STEM educators to engage and inspire their students.

Essentials of Entrepreneurship—which Ethan designed in conjunction with Director of Studies Darian Reid, and RL’s teacher of economics Chris Brown—was intended to give students an understanding of what is required to start a new venture: turning an idea into a business; assessing market fit and cultivating customers; developing a mission and establishing values; writing a business plan, forecasting finances, and raising capital.

The course met in the evenings five times throughout the year, from October through May, with students conducting market research, collecting data, and collaborating with their business partners in the interim. The class concluded in May when each team pitched its business to a panel of experts and potential “investors” in a Shark Tank-style format. We’re grateful to the four trustees who offered their time, talent, and insights that evening: Ellen Berkman P’18, Chris Mitchell ’89 P’27’29, Kent Sahin ’91 P’21’28, and Soren Oberg P’21’23’25’27.

“As entrepreneurship has become a trendier, more talked about concept, I recognize that it’s something I had so little exposure to myself in high school and college,” says Ethan. “I thought giving boys an opportunity to experience some of that at this age—for all the hype that they read about it—would be a good thing. And, in the traditional RL way of everyone wearing multiple hats, I figured that as board president, being in a classroom with the boys would be a chance for me to get a little bit closer to the community in a meaningful, on-theground way.”

Chris Brown agrees: “I appreciated the chance to give students access to a course and content they might not otherwise get, and that they would feel passionate about right off the bat. That the course was led by Ethan, who is such an expert in the field, was a terrific alignment of circumstances.”

Several of the course’s eager students were concurrently enrolled in Chris’s Economics courses, which was a happy pairing in terms of timing and the content that boys were able to apply in class.

“I think my Economics students taking this course were positioned to see the complete picture—connecting this very exciting, slick, Shark Tank-like sales pitch moment with a realistic sense of what products cost to produce, what they cost to develop, what it costs to pay people who are really good at what they do—to make high-quality products that you believe in and want to sell and expand the production and distribution of.

“Ethan and the guests he brought in were also wonderful resources and experts on various topics, and they shed realistic light on elements of this work that are easy to idealize. Kent [Sahin] came and spoke to the boys about sales and marketing; Ethan’s sister, Eve Berman, talked about issues related to healthcare and technology; Prerna Ravi from MIT walked the boys through what’s involved in app development; and Lee Zamir from MIT came in to talk about product design. He was great at getting the kids to consider questions like: Who actually wants this? Will someone buy this? Is it that much better than what’s out there? Is it technologically plausible? Is it viable in terms of copyrights or patents that exist?”

Some of the students’ most impressive project ideas and startup pitches were for a company called Harmony AI, developed by seniors Kevin Wang and Luke Wilkinson, which used artificial intelligence to help address mental health struggles in adolescents, and Blue Shoe, developed by a group of seniors and juniors, which enlisted the type of technology that self-driving cars use, but for shoes to help the visually impaired.

focused on the idea specifically, and more on the thinking behind the idea and the execution.

“Ultimately, I hope the boys walk away with an idea of what’s possible. We’ve all heard of Tesla and Apple and Microsoft, but there are so many businesses out there—so many people who run strong, inspired companies and make a good living doing it. If you’re smart about it, if you do your homework, the hurdles are not as great as some people might say. In the end, it’s not necessarily the idea itself that makes a company successful, but the execution and the amount of work you’re willing to put into it. What is it that Thomas Edison is quoted having said—that ‘success is five percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration’? That’s really what starting a business is about—hard work.”

When it comes to planning for next year’s course, there’s plenty that Ethan, Chris, and Darian would maintain, though they also learned a lot and are already anticipating helpful tweaks. They agree that the long stretches of time between course meetings derailed momentum at times; more frequent meetings and check-ins would help the groups stay on track. Ethan also says he intends to be slightly more prescriptive next year. “These are bright, imaginative, creative, hardworking boys, but I need to remember that their experience of business is limited. Next year, I’ll begin more overtly with addressing each component of a strong business plan.” Finally, in its inaugural year the adults wanted to make this opportunity available to as many students as possible. Interest was high, and in coming years—in order to make the sessions efficient and focused—they plan to institute an application process for interested students.

“Broadly, the students’ ideas either 1) solved a problem they’d identified, or 2) provided entertainment,” says Ethan. “I’m less

“I so appreciate the time that Darian and Chris put into this,” says Ethan. “This idea was in addition to all of their regular responsibilities, yet they helped me plan, attended the evening classes, helped me keep the boys focused. While they weren’t front and center, they were crucial to the course’s success. And frankly, the flexibility of the school in being willing to try this and provide something new and exciting for boys—it’s a terrific example of Roxbury Latin at its best.” //

The Arts

Mamma Mia! Presented by Winsor and Roxbury Latin

by suzanne pogorelec , winsor class of 2024

Of all my time at Winsor, I don’t think there has been a show that has received as much anticipation and excitement as Mamma Mia! The show went up on February 24 and 25 and, given that there were no empty seats in the audience, I think it’s safe to say it was a hit. From the elaborate staging to the singing, the acting and the fantastic music, the adaptation of this famous movie was performed with passion and attention to detail. Although the show as a whole was joyous, exciting and engaging, there were several moments that were definitely my favorites.

One of these moments was the performance of Dancing Queen at the beginning of the show. The song started as a manifestation of youthful times between Donna Sheridan, played by Olivia Sarkis ’23, and her two friends Tanya and Rosie, played by Paige Whalen ’24 and Chloe Chao ’23, but finished as a number that incorporated most, if not all, of the cast. This is not to say that the beginning trio did not do a fantastic job; no, the three actors danced with energy and enthusiasm and their movements were big and broad. They used the whole ground floor of the stage and captured the audience’s attention throughout the entire song—a difficult feat, especially with a number that has so much repetition. Even so, my favorite part was seeing the cast come through the doors at the back of the theater and dance in the aisle.

Another one of my favorite moments was the adaptation of I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, which began directly after Sam Carmichael, played by Tommy Reichard ’23, proposes to Donna. The entire cast was together, dancing in pairs to the beat of the song and concluding the story portion of the show. It was a sad moment— you knew the show was nearing the end—but it was also satisfying, given that Donna ended up with Sam and the wedding between Sophie Sheridan, played by Ava Kee ’23, and Sky, played by Emmanuel Nwodo ’23 was being postponed.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with the performance of this well-known musical. The actors projected well, were dynamic, and drew in the audience throughout the entire production. Congrats to all of the cast for executing such a well-done show. //

Roxbury Latin boys included in Mamma Mia!

Cast: Michael Allen ’23, Ethan Dhadly ’23, Dennis Jin ’24, Emmanuel Nwodo ’23, Tommy Reichard ’23, Mathias Why ’23. Pit Orchestra: John Austin ’23, Theo Coben ’24, Tait Oberg ’23, Joseph Wang ’24

Photo credit: Kristie Rae Photography

The Little Prince: This Year’s Junior Play

On February 24 and 25, RL’s youngest actors and crew—from Class VI through Class IV—came together to bring this year’s Junior Play, The Little Prince, to the Smith Theater stage.

The story follows a young prince who visits various planets, addressing themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Despite its style as a children’s book, The Little Prince makes observations about life, adults, and human nature. SaintExupéry’s most successful work, The Little Prince has sold an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the bestselling books in history. The work has been translated into more than 500 languages and dialects and has been adapted to many and varied art forms and media.

Director Derek Nelson noted in the show’s program, “My first or second year at RL was the last time that, for the Junior Play, we mounted a stage adaptation of a book that the boys also read in one of their classes. That first time it was Lord of the Flies—in the Class V curriculum—and some of you may remember that the set looked more like a skateboard park than an island. Plus ça change, as the Aviator might say! Boys who take French read The Little Prince in the Class IV year, and I think it appeals to the philosopher, the poet, and the explorer in all of us. We have taken dramatic liberties with it (‘Really, Mr. Nelson—step ladders?’) because they seem appropriate, given how fanciful and lyrical the story is—and because the stars at night ‘sound like five hundred million bells.’”

From Le Petit Prince:

“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems… But all these stars are silent. You—you alone will have stars as no one else has them… In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night… You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me… You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure… It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry //

Photos by Marcus Miller

Glee Club Takes to Nashville and Memphis!

In the early morning hours of March 18, four members of RL’s faculty and 56 members of the Glee Club boarded a plane to head to two of America’s most iconic music destinations. First the group spent three days in Nashville, Tennessee—Music City! On Saturday, they spent some time getting to know downtown Nashville before heading to the legendary Grand Ole Opry. On Sunday, RL’s singers provided music for the service at Belmont United Methodist Church; performed at and visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum; and enjoyed a private concert by the versatile artist Ajaye at Ole Red. On Monday, the group worked with two choirs at Montgomery Bell Academy and performed at the all-school assembly that kicked off MBA’s Field Day. RL’s boys and faculty visited Vanderbilt University (thanks to former trustee Bruce Evans) and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and musical exchange with our friends, the French Family Band. (Camille, Stuie, and Sonny French— along with their bassist Joe Reed—were last year’s Berman Visiting Artists in Residence, performing two concerts at RL and working with student musicians in master classes and jam sessions throughout the school day.) RL’s students and adults were also honored to meet, hear, and perform with Jimmy Fortune of the Statler Brothers. Highlights of that evening included Tait Oberg (I) and John Austin (I) trading solos with Sonny and Joe, and Glee Club singers singing My Girl with five professional musicians as their backing band!

From Nashville, the group departed for Memphis, where they spent three days performing and hearing some great music, as well as learning about the history and culture of our country, including, in particular, the struggle for Civil Rights, and the Mississippi Delta region. On Tuesday, the group visited the battlefield where Union forces held off a Confederate charge at the Battle of Franklin. They then arrived in Memphis, where they performed at the Central Atrium of Crosstown Arts and heard a tremendous jazz concert presented by the students of Stax Music Academy. On Wednesday, the group headed downstream: First stop was Helena, Arkansas, where they performed at the Helena Country Club for the local Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs. They then went on to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Tait and John once again got to jam with a pro: blues artist, Super Chikan. The day ended with a fun change of pace, as the group took in an exciting NBA game (with the hometown Grizzlies prevailing!). The trip’s concluding days began with a tour of the legendary Sun Studio, followed by time to explore Beale Street (which included some Latonics busking in the Land of the Delta Blues!), followed by a moving visit to the National Civil Rights Museum.

The weeklong trip was memorable, and included not only performing, hearing, and learning about music, but also taking in the sites, sounds, and tastes of another area of our country, rich in history and culture. Thank you to Mr. Opdycke, Mr. Pojman, Mr. Beam, and Mr. Pellegrini for chaperoning this year’s spring break Glee Club trip. //

Senior Concert Celebrates the Class of 2023

On Friday, April 21, RL’s singing and chamber groups celebrated the Class of 2023 in the annual Senior Concert. “This Class I,” said Mr. Opdycke, “has been the most numerous class in participation in Glee Club in my time at RL—40 men stand behind me with boutonnières on looking forward to the final weeks of their Roxbury Latin careers.”

The Glee Club opened with The Battle of Jericho, and offered an eclectic selection of favorites— several with accompaniment by student instrumentalists. The Junior Chorus presented three songs of its own, including The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, while the Latonics’ two-part lineup included traditional pieces and pop favorites. The highlight of the night, however, was the Glee Club performing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. The performance was the brainchild of Tait Oberg, who accompanied on electric guitar.

Class I chose Rivers and Roads by the folk band The Head and the Heart as its Senior Song. Emmanuel Nwodo sang the solo for Lift Every Voice, joined by Tommy Reichard, Ryan Frigerio, and Alexander Sanzone for the Senior Quartet. //

The Boston Tea Party Was the Tipping Point

Each year the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation honors “the life and legacy of America’s founding martyr” by awarding the Dr. Joseph Warren & Francis “Bunty” Warren & Lilly Lawrence Scholarship based on a personal essay that responds to the prompt below. Bunty Warren is a descendant of Dr. Joseph Warren, RL Class of 1755—a physician and hero of the Revolutionary War who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Charlestown in 1775. The recipient of this year’s award was Emmanuel Nwodo ’23.

In your opinion: Of all the pre-revolutionary events that transpired in and around Boston between 1760 and 1775, which do you think had the most impact on the colonists that led them to declare independence? Some examples could include the Stamp Act riots, the non-importation agreements, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the battles of Lexington and Concord, or Bunker Hill. Please explain why you believe the event you chose had such an impact on pushing the rebellion to revolution.

Several events between 1760 and 1775 such as the Stamp Act Riots, Non-importation Agreements, Boston Massacre, Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill influenced the origin of the American Revolution, but the Boston Tea Party was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The Boston Tea Party caused the Americans to move from rebellion to revolution because it had a monetary effect on not just the crown but also on the East India Company. The Boston Tea Party was the first calculated and planned colonist attack on Britain and forced the British to take action.

The Sons of Liberty was a grassroots group of activists, including Joseph Warren, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams. Although the Boston Tea Party wasn’t their first act of rebellion, the Tea Party was the most defiant and impactful. They were fighting over the Tea Act. The Tea Act of 1773 was a ruling by the British Parliament to bail out the British East India Company. The BEIC had 17 million pounds of tea going to waste. They needed help getting rid of it and saw the colonies as a source of respite. The

An award-winning essay by emmanuel nwodo ’23

Tea Act specifically gave BEIC a monopoly on tea because they didn’t have to pay taxes on it and could directly import it into the colonies. The American merchants who were importing tea still had to pay these taxes and therefore sold tea at marked-up prices. This Act angered the colonists because they were being pulled out of business for an act that only benefited the British government. This led to the Sons of Liberty and angry colonists taking charge and planning what we know as the Boston Tea Party. They dressed up as Native Americans and poured out the British tea into the Boston Harbor. The planning with the Native American disguise resembles a war tactic. This was a defining moment for colonists because many realized that they could not let the unfair tea taxation become the norm for all commodities. The colonists were not backing down and allowing the British to reap profits from them.

The British response to the Boston Tea Party invigorated more anger in the colonists, which further moved this altercation from rebellion to revolution. The British were economically stifled by the loss of the tea and also felt a social shift in the colonists. The British responded with the Coercive Acts, which were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists. There were four of them: the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act. The Boston Port Act barred any ships from docking at the

Boston Harbor. This would continue until the Massachusetts colonists paid the East India Company back. The Massachusetts Government Act took governmental voice from the colonists by making the royal appointees in power have complete control over governmental positions in the colony. This Act also prohibited more than one town meeting per year. The Administration of Justice Act let governors move trials to different colonies, in turn ruining the idea of a trial with peers. The Quartering Act gave troops priority in quarters or housing and applied to all the colonies, not just Massachusetts. All of these acts were tyrannical attacks on the freedoms of the colonists. The colonies tried to petition against these, but the Coercive Acts were not repealed, unlike other acts in the past, such as the Stamp Act. This was a clear attack on liberty and justice.

The British thought it might put fear in other colonies, but instead, it made the colonists indignant and made them want to fight back. These Intolerable Acts worked to unify the colonies. The Tea Party sparked all of these Acts and made the British act harshly, creating a martyr out of Massachusetts, and this idea gave other colonists the inklings of revolution. The Boston Tea Party was the first altercation between the British and colonists that the colonists initiated. This indicated a transition from rebellion into the beginning of a revolution, thus the Tea Party is the defining moment on the road to the American Revolution. //

Dr. Joshua Bennett Introduces Spoken Word Poetry as Smith Schol ar

by meredith h . reynolds

Anne Carson once said: “If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it.”

This year at RL, we had the distinct pleasure of welcoming Dr. Joshua Bennett as our Smith Visiting Scholar. Through his three inspiring Halls and visits to English classes across Classes I through IV, Dr. Bennett awakened us to the rhythm, energy, and power of spoken word poetry. His poems ran through the halls of the Perry Building and the aisles of the Smith Theater like a man on fire, and he inspired our boys to create work that would do the same.

Dr. Bennett—a world-famous spoken word poet—is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. He is the author of five books of poetry, literary criticism, and narrative

nonfiction. His works have been recognized with the Paterson Poetry Prize, the MLA’s William Sanders Scarborough Prize, and the National Poetry Series. He has been a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, the Massachusetts Book Award, and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Dr. Bennett has recited his original works at the Sundance Film Festival, the NAACP Awards, and at the White House for President Barack Obama.

During Dr. Bennett’s first visit to RL last November, he performed a number of his poems in Hall. It was a Tuesday at 8:30 in the morning, and Dr. Bennett had all 310 boys in the room completely alert, awake, rapt. His second and third visits featured Hall conversations between him and expert colleagues. In January, in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy, Dr. Bennett had a conversation with Dr. Brandon Terry,

Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and one of the country’s leading scholars on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Together, they illuminated for boys the breadth, depth, and power of MLK’s philosophy of love and non-violence as a means of bringing about meaningful action and change. Finally, in April, Dr. Bennett spoke with Dr. Jarvis Givens, Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, about the history of American education for Black children, and their own early educational experiences in majority-minority schools.

After each of Dr. Bennett’s Halls, he visited English classes and worked with students, delivering master classes on reading, writing, and appreciating poetry. Boys in Classes I and II created their own spoken word pieces guided by Dr. Bennett. He shared with them his own writing process, which he has described as “simply gathering stories and telling the truth.” Through a number of creative exercises, boys learned how to tell their own stories in this new and exciting literary style. Classes III and IV engaged in critical analysis of poetry with Dr. Bennett. In teaching poetry to students, Dr. Bennett takes an immersive approach. He begins by having students watch a spoken word performance, knowing that there is power in the delivery—that even more than words on a page, watching someone speak and emote aloud can make a young person feel he is being spoken to directly. Dr. Bennett has described spoken word as a conversation infused with the musical elements of sermon. “It’s important for people to encounter one another through something like spoken word,” he has said in a lecture. “There’s nothing like it in the world.”

The first time Joshua Bennett fell in love with words was in his grandmother’s hair salons in Harlem, where the many women getting their hair done would offer him a dollar for every word he could spell that was longer than two syllables. This is when he began poring over dictionaries, when he learned the words recalcitrant and myopic, when he began listening to words everywhere he went—on the bus, on the street, in church—and writing them down in the notebook his mother had purchased for him at the 99 Cents Only Store.

The first time he heard spoken word poetry was in church. He has written, in his most recent book Spoken Word: A Cultural History, that preachers were his earliest examples of poets. His own father was a deacon, and he learned through watching him

that what you say, and how you say it, means everything. On Sundays, Dr. Bennett and his mother would drive hours from their home in the South Bronx to the Baptist Worship Center in North Philadelphia to hear Dr. Millicent Hunter deliver sermons that had such tempo, emotion, and power that they got everyone out of their seats. “Truth [was] imbedded in the telling,” he wrote. “Indeed, the telling [was] another kind of truth altogether.”

In his own poetry, Dr. Bennett brings the stories of people, spaces, and objects that have been historically deemed insignificant and unworthy of attention and study to the fore. “I want to represent not just places and people that have been underrepresented in American literature, but not represented at all,” Dr. Bennett said in a lecture for the Chautauqua Institution. “We have a world. Poor people have a world, working people have a world… and it has its own aesthetics, and principles, and ethics. And we have to write those things. We have to sing them to the world.” In that spirit, Dr. Bennett analyzed two poems with Class IV: For Those Who Need a True Story by Tara Betts and Feet by Ross Gay. Both works by prominent Black poets explore the worlds they inhabit through vivid descriptions of small truths— the killing of rats in a small urban apartment, the act of trying to hide one’s ugly feet from prying eyes at a local pool.

In exposing our boys to oral poetry throughout the year, Dr. Bennett introduced them to the most ancient tradition of the western world. As he points out in Spoken Word, the Odyssey and the Iliad—texts with which RL boys are certainly familiar—were not originally written texts, but rather “elaborate performances… public recitation for crowds of everyday people.” Dr. Bennett continues: “Spoken word, in this sense, is where poetry as we know it begins. Oral performance precedes written mastery.” To Dr. Bennett, it is important that we recover that memory of oral tradition. In his brief time with RL boys this past year, he certainly succeeded in reviving that tradition within our walls.

In 2007, the late Robert Smith ’58 and his wife, Salua, established the Robert P. Smith International Fellowship so that RL could bring visiting scholars to campus each year, enhancing our curricula with their insightful perspectives on our increasingly complex world. We are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Smith for their generosity and for enabling our greater understanding of critical global issues, domestic themes and events, and influential literary art forms. //

What is a Certamen? That is the Question.

by mike pojman

Mr. Reid: “Gentlemen, here is your first question: When Paris shot Achilles, where did the arrow land?” Four trigger-happy sixies press their buzzers simultaneously.

Mr. Reid: “Andrew, you were first.” Andrew: “In his right eye.” Mr. Reid: “That’s incorrect. In his heel. Achilles’ heel.” Collective disbelief. Redfaced Andrew: “I can’t believe I missed that.” His teammates glance his way, but then refocus. Mr. Reid is about to read the next question.

Mr. Reid: “What are the names of Achilles’ parents?” Multiple buzzing.

Mr. Reid: “Andrew, you were first again.” Andrew: “Thetis and Peleus.”

Mr. Reid: “That is correct. You are redeemed.” A much-relieved Andrew high-fives his teammates.

I take my camera and move on to the next room, three teams of four sophomores each.

Mr. Randall: “Which month is dedicated to the Roman god Janus?” Hey, that’s a giveaway, I think to myself. And sure enough, every hand slaps the table. (With the limited Certamen budget, there aren’t enough buzzers to go around.)

Mr. Randall, arbiter of the first slap: “Declan, what’s the answer?” Declan: “February.” Audible groans. Mr. Randall frowns: “January.”

I move on, this time to the Refectory, where a room full of fifthies are going at it, high pitched. Ms. MorrisKliment is firmly in charge. Ms. M-K: “Identify this figure of speech: non dicam duo bella esse confecta.” The room is slapless, and for the first time, silent. Ms. M-K: “Oh, come on, guys! Praeteritio.”

And so it goes, room by room, for another 45 minutes until, finally, the Umpteenth Annual Roxbury Latin Intramural Certamen wraps up in time for boys to catch the commuter rail to the city or their carpools to the ’burbs. However, judging by the energy and enthusiasm that pervade each match-up, it could go on for another 45.

Of all the proud RL traditions, the Certamen is among the proudest, as boys of all six grades display their command of classical esoterica for no reward other than the pride of knowing—and perhaps a piece of greasy pizza. Presented with the question, Which Roman senator consistently ended speeches with the statement “Carthago delenda est?” one might be inclined to answer, “Who cares?” But the certa-men (or, more accurately, the certaboys) clearly do, and that’s a credit to their intellectual curiosity, their love of all things Roman, and, of course, their competitive nature. Given a forum for verbal sparring, Roxbury Latin boys are all-in. May it ever be so. And as long as Roxbury Latin is Roxbury Latin, it shall ever be, of that I have no doubt.

And now, at last, I have a question for you: What is the meaning of “Certamen”? Answer: It’s Latin for “Contest.” Who knew? They did, and now you do, too. //

Each year, teams of RL boys at various levels— Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced—compete in interscholastic Certamens as well, faring admirably against teams from around Boston and across the country. In this school year, RL’s Novice and Intermediate teams each earned second place at the Yale Certamen, and last summer a team of now-rising Class III boys were named National Certamen Champs at the 69th Annual National Junior Classical League Convention.

Lessons Learned

Mike Pojman, Associate Headmaster and member of the Roxbury Latin faculty since 1980, retired at the end of the 2022–2023 school year. On Monday, April 3, Mr. Pojman opened the spring term in Rousmaniere Hall by sharing with students and colleagues 19 life lessons that he has come to rely on. On the following pages are his Hall remarks, in full—lessons by which we can all live:

I want to thank Mr. Brennan for giving me the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you as I speed-walk through the final lap of my Roxbury Latin career.

I’ve titled this talk “Lessons Learned,” and I’ve been working on it for the last 43 years. Naturally, you guys think that we teachers spend all our time teaching, but, in fact, we are constantly learning, too—from the collective experiences gathered throughout our daily lives, from our colleagues and friends, and even from you. What follows is a compilation of the most important lessons that I have learned over the years, and I’m eager to share them with you now.

And by the way, there’s no need to take notes. I plan to send the list home to your parents so that they can reinforce them over and over again. So, if your mother pastes them up on your bathroom mirror, blame me, not her. Now let’s get started.

Number 1: Don’t take yourself too seriously. Get over yourself. People who look to be offended usually will be, and they set themselves up to suffer the slings and arrows of everyday life with a lot of unnecessary pain. I have a relatively high opinion of myself, but I try not to let it get the better of me. Over the years I’ve been told that I’m smart… and good looking… and athletic… and I believe my mom. But I don’t let it go to my head. I can take a good-

natured joke at my own expense, and you should be able to, too. But there’s a big difference between an affectionate jibe and a putdown, and you know the difference. For example, I like to have some fun kidding my good friend Chris Brown—I’m referring to the teacher, not the rapper— because he’s a young whippersnapper. But he takes it in stride, because he knows that it’s true. But he also knows that I regard him as one of the most talented and effective teachers I ever worked with. And of course, if I get carried away, Mr. Brown can always throw it in my face that I’m old enough to be his grandfather.

Number 2: Avoid the Debby Downers. In other words, hang around with people who buck you up rather than drag you down. Stay away from the constant complainers, the eternal pessimists, and the cynics—the people whose lives always seem to be a glass half empty, and who go out of their way to convince you that yours is, too. Those people sap your energy. We all have days when we find it difficult to get out of bed. The last thing you need is to spend time with people who make you sorry that you did.

And here’s a corollary: If you find that you are becoming a Debby Downer, the best way to make yourself feel better is to go out of your way to make someone else feel better. Try it. It works.

Number 3: Mix it up a little. We’ve all just returned from Spring Break, renewed and energized. But how about that endless third marking period? How many of you were caught in the doldrums at some point during that threemonth grind? Here’s what to do when you find yourself stuck in a rut: Break up your routine. Switch things up a bit. Go out for a walk before sitting down to work. Study your Latin before you begin your math, instead of the other way around. Have something to look forward to every weekend. It doesn’t have to be something big, just different. Plan to go out for pizza with friends, pick up that book that you started last summer and never finished, play a couple hours of video games—no, don’t do that! If all else fails and you are still feeling low, rearrange the furniture in your room. It sounds silly, but it really works. You might also find that missing sock when you move your bed.

And here are a couple of other ways to snap out of a funk: Do a good deed out of the goodness of your heart—something simple, nothing dramatic. Help a classmate with his homework, take your mother to breakfast, hold the door for a sixie, start a conversation with a classmate that you don’t usually hang around with. Play Dungeons and Dragons with Mr. Fitzgerald. Close talk with Mr. Sugg. Invite Mr. Randall to join you in a BeReal. Do something nice for two different people every day—and preferably not against their will.

Number 4: This one should go without saying. Names matter. One of the benefits of a small community is that we know each other. We often say that Roxbury Latin is a place where every boy is known and loved—and called by his name. When you run into a teacher in the hallway, call him by his name—or her name—and I mean our real name, not the one you use behind our back. And that goes for your schoolmates, too. Greet each other by name, or by nickname, if it’s affectionate. I daresay we’ve slipped a little in that regard lately—though not you sixies, because Mrs. Carroll has trained you so well.

Number 5: Don’t be a know-it-all. The smartest person in the room is the one who makes everyone else feel like the smartest person in the room. You don’t have to be the one with all the answers. Try listening before speaking. Let someone else make the first comment, and let him finish his thought before

“I’ve titled this talk

‘Lessons Learned,’ and I’ve been working on it for the last 43 years. Naturally, you guys think that we teachers spend all our time teaching, but, in fact, we are constantly learning, too—from the collective experiences gathered throughout our daily lives, from our colleagues and friends, and even from you. What follows is a compilation of the most important lessons that I have learned over the years...”

jumping in. You may even find that he has something to say that you didn’t think of. Let me say it again: The smartest person in the room is the one who makes everyone else feel like the smartest person in the room. I’ve spent my entire career making all of you feel more intelligent than I am. That’s why I give easy chem tests.

Number 6: Follow through on a promise. How many times has someone promised to do something—forward an email to you, send an article they’ve read, share a link—and they don’t do it? We’ve all been guilty of that. Here’s a simple rule: Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. And be sure to deliver on your promises. The boys on the Glee Club tour to Nashville just had the pleasure of spending an evening jamming with the French Family Band who performed here last year. Remember rock star Sonny? When we reached out to Sonny’s mom, Camille, to see if they could possibly get together with us, she went out of her way to make it happen. Everything she promised to do, she did—and even more. She didn’t have to go to all that trouble, especially since they were preparing for their debut at the Grand Ole Opry a week later and certainly had bigger things to worry about. In the world of country music, playing at the Grand Ole Opry is making it to the top. Sonny’s mom made us a priority by following through, and I will always remember that. It is a well-known fact that people who make it to the top, always follow through.

Number 7: I have come to find that there are three types of people in the world: those who make problems, those who are undone by problems, and those who solve problems. Let’s start with those who make problems. Fortunately, we don’t have too many of those around here. And those who do cause problems, rarely do so intentionally, so let’s not worry about them. The biggest group are those who are stymied—or at the very least rattled—by problems. They don’t know where to begin. They are easily discouraged. They waste a lot of energy fretting. Years ago, before the invention of the laptop, we had a lot of computer work stations around the school, including in the Chem Lab. I remember a very smart boy who was trying to sign into his school account so that he could write a Tripod article. After some period of frustration, he said to me, “Mr. Pojman, this computer isn’t working.” “Do you have the right password?” I asked. “Yes, but I can’t enter it. The screen is blank.” “Did you try the on-switch?” I asked, with

a touch of sarcasm. “Yes, but nothing happened.” “Then it must not be plugged in,” I replied. “Plugged in?” he answered, his face as blank as the screen. “What do you mean, plugged in?” Apparently, he was not acquainted with the concept of a wall socket. I’m happy to say that that boy went to Harvard. I can say with less confidence that he actually graduated. Be a problem solver. Problem solvers get things done. Those of you who ride the T know that the system is in a bad way right now. Governor Healey has just hired a man named Phillip Eng as the general manager. He is 61 years old and coming off a highly acclaimed career as the manager of the New York transit system’s Long Island Railroad. Surely, he has no need to risk his reputation at this stage of his life by tackling problems at the MBTA which many feel are intractable. Clearly, he’s a problem solver. Problem solvers assume that every problem has a solution, and they take pleasure in finding it. Remember that, all you Bettendorf calc students.

Number 8: You probably aren’t familiar with the term “offer it up,” but those of my generation who went to Catholic school know it well. When we were feeling put upon and sorry for ourselves—for whatever reason—and we wanted a little sympathy, the nuns would tell us to “offer it up to Jesus” as a reminder of the pain he suffered on the cross. It’s an old-fashioned idea these days, but it was actually good advice. Life delivers its minor bumps and bruises. Take them in stride. Don’t give in to self-pity. I remember once as a little kid complaining to my mom that I had a stone in my shoe. I expected her to fix it, but instead she said, “Well, just walk around with it for a while. It’s not a bad thing to put up with a little discomfort.” Now that I know how to tie my own shoes, I usually remove the stone—but sometimes I don’t.

Here is one of my pet peeves: Whenever I am at a school event, and I see people putting their name tags on their left lapel, I feel compelled to correct them. Take it from an expert, boys. Your name tag goes on your right lapel. Here’s why: When you go to shake hands, you naturally turn your body to the right as you extend your hand—like this…. That means, as you rotate toward the person you are shaking hands with, your name tag will rotate with you—toward that person. As a result, it will be easier to read your name on your right lapel as it moves closer than it would be on your left when it would move farther away. It’s a subtle but

friendly gesture. Now, of course, none of this makes sense if you are left-handed. Even so, I still suggest that you put your name tag on your right lapel, because if you don’t, you will be announcing to the world that you are a lefty, which is unfortunate, as you might then discover that some people may not want to shake hands with you.

Here’s another lesson in social etiquette: Whenever you are at a sit-down meal, don’t start eating until everyone at the table has been served. It’s impolite.

And here’s one more: Despite having taught a couple thousand kids in my career, I generally remember my former students better than you might think. But let’s say you are an alum who has been out for 10 years, and I run into you at the checkout line at Whole Foods, and your hairline has receded halfway across the top of your head, and you’ve gained thirty pounds since graduation, and you’ve lost all your front teeth—and, since you didn’t introduce yourself, well, there’s a slim chance that that I won’t recognize you, or even that I won’t remember your name. It’s unlikely, but it could happen. And if that were to happen, and you haven’t introduced yourself, I will smile politely and pretend that I know who you are, while actually thinking to myself, “Who the heck is this guy”—and I probably won’t hear 90 percent of what you are saying while I try to figure it out. However, if you do

introduce yourself, the pressure will be off, and we can then have a nice conversation: “Hi, Mr. Pojman, it’s Peter DeVito. Remember me?” And because you introduced yourself, I’ll say, “Of course I remember you, Peter”—even though you are 30 pounds overweight, and you’ve lost most of your hair, and all of your teeth—and I will hang on every toothless word you have to say.

Number 12: I call this next lesson “Take the hint.” Let’s say that you are with a group of friends and you begin to tell a rather lengthy story. As far as you can tell, everyone is riveted to every detail. And then let’s say that halfway through your story, someone comes along and interrupts you: You are at Bertuccis, and a waiter named Chuck cuts you off midsentence to say that they’ve run out of rolls and chicken parm. Or you’re standing in the lunch line bragging about how you grubbed some extra points on the Honors Chem test, when Mr. Kelly distracts everyone by going after Mr. Tran for not having his shirt tucked in. Or you are in the Study Center predicting the outcome of the Final Four, when Mr. Heaton comes over and threatens to boot you for talking louder than Mr. Thomsen. It happens all the time, right? Well then let’s say that you wait patiently for the disruption to end before taking up where you left off. And finally it does. And when it does—and here’s the point—if nobody says, “And then what happened?” take the hint and don’t tell them.

And while we’re on the subject of the dress code, if you are having trouble keeping your shirt tails tucked in, pin them to your underwear. I’m talking to you, Matt Hoover…

Number 14: If you take pleasure in annoying your elders, remember that one day you will be one.

I especially hope that you will take this next one seriously. I call it, Compliment Sooner, Criticize Later—or preferably not at all. It’s an RL epidemic—being quick to find fault. Owen Butler does many wonderful things for this school, and serving as Tripod editor is probably one of the most consequential but least heralded. He and his staff work harder than you realize to produce a top-notch school newspaper. It takes hours of work. Naturally, a word or two of appreciation is always welcomed. After every edition I ask Owen, “So, what have you heard about the paper?” Now we all know that Owen never stops smiling, even when three classmates make a point of telling him—before he’s even left homeroom—that Carter Crowley’s byline had him listed as being in Class VI rather than in Class I. Picky, picky, picky. But of course, with Carter, sometimes it can be hard to tell whether he’s a senior or a sixie.

Number 16: We’ve all had times when we’ve felt overwhelmed, even boxed in. If you are in a real fix and you don’t know how to get out of it, imagine the worst-case scenario and work backward. What’s the worst thing that will happen if you get a C in math? Or a B+ instead of an Aon that history paper? Take a step back and you’ll probably conclude that getting that C, or that B+, would not be the end of the world. But the worst-case scenario rarely happens, and thinking through how you would handle it if it were to happen will make any lesser, and more likely, outcome seem like a stroll through the park.

Number 17: When you have too much to do, and you don’t know what to do, just do something. Once you’ve gotten started, you will find it easier to keep going, especially if you tackle the most onerous challenge first. Put one foot in front of the other, and before you know it, you will have covered a lot of ground.

always make time to relax. You can only grind away for so long before you start to wear down. I’m always shocked when a fifthie tells me that he worked on his English paper until 4 a.m., or when a senior says that he only got a couple hours of sleep over the last two days. When it comes to studying, there’s a point of diminishing returns, and you probably reach it by midnight at the latest. Promise yourself that you will never pull an all-nighter. Ever. You need your sleep. I need my sleep. At my age, an all-nighter is not having to get up to go to the bathroom at 1 a.m.

Number 19: Finally, just say thanks. We recently heard Eric Zhu blow us away in a Recital Hall. Naturally, you wanted to compliment him on his fine performance, so you went up to him and said, “Wow, Eric, you really rocked that Bach.” Even though he’s a perfectionist, he didn’t point out to you that he played the first note of the fifth measure of the second movement andante when it should have been pizzicato. He just said thanks, because had he said anything more than that, you would have felt that he saw you as either an undiscerning listener or an idle flatterer, and it would have made you feel bad. So, the next time that someone finds a reason to compliment you, just say, “Thanks. I appreciate that,” even if you don’t think you deserve it. When I see you around school later today, and you come up to me to say, “Hey, Mr. Pojman, that was a killer speech,” I won’t say, “Yeah, but the Gettysburg Address was better.” I’ll just say thanks.

I’ve now shared nineteen life lessons with you, and I want you to know that I practice every one of them every day. I hope that you will, too, because if you do, they will definitely make you a better person. But if for some reason you decide not to take them to heart, well, all I can say is that at least you will have a measure by which to know that you are not nearly as virtuous as I am.

But wait, before I leave the stage, I have one more. You’ve heard me say it a hundred times, and here it is again, for good measure. It’s simply this: Remember, no matter where you are or when it might be—next week, next month, next year, twenty years from now—promise me that you will never, ever, and I mean never take more than One Good Ice Cream. //

Number 18: Work hard, but don’t overdo it. Give yourself a break from time to time. No matter how busy you are,

Prize Day

On June 1, the Class of 2023 took their rightful seats at the front of Hall for the last time this school year. During the traditional and festive Prize Day Hall— which honors a range of prize-winning students and serves to wish ave atque vale to the year’s departing faculty and staff— songs such as Jerusalem and The Founder’s Song reverberated around Rousmaniere Hall. The annual Prize Day Hall is the formal conclusion of the school year for students in Class VI through Class II, during which an impressive roster of prize-winners—honored for academic, athletic, artistic, and extracurricular achievements—earn their plaudits.

As Headmaster Kerry Brennan began, “Our purpose for gathering today is to recognize discernible excellence in all areas of school life—academic and extracurricular. In singling out certain prize winners, we are intending to affirm the highest standards of schoolboy endeavor. We do this even though we know that others in your seats may be more deserving of congratulations, for they have struggled mightily, come far, taken risks, and been honorable boys.

To you goes the faculty’s admiration and congratulations.” While some of the major Class I awards were announced at the concluding Closing Exercises, this year’s prize winners are as follows (lists on following pages):

academic awards

Joseph A. Sasserno French Deturs

Eric Archerman (V), Luca Bene (IV), Omar Rahman (III), Lucas Vander Elst (II), Justin Shaw (I)

Headmaster’s Spanish Deturs

Andrew Plante (V), Oliver Colbert (IV), Brendan Reichard (III), Jack Tompros (II), Bobby Zabin (I)

Isabel M. Fowler History Prizes

Caiden Crowley (VI), Liam Walsh (IV), Zach Heaton (III), Dror Ko (II), Thomas Savage (I)

Richard M. Whitney Science Deturs

Liam Guadagno (VI), Toby Harrison (V), Raj Saha (III), Evan Zhang (II)

N. Henry Black Science Detur

Justin Shaw (I)

Donald L. Whittle Math Deturs

Lucas Dolan (VI), Casey Chiang (V), Dylan Pan (IV), Nathan Zhang (III), Akhilsai Damera (II)

Islay F. McCormick Mathematics Prize

Akshay Kumar (I)

Anna Cabot Lowell Deturs in English

Nayan Patel (VI), Flynn Hall (V), Avish Kumar (IV), Levi Harrison (III), Joseph Wang (II), Michael Thomas (I)

Trustees’ Greek Deturs

Lucas Connors (III), Ezra Liebowitz (II), Evren Uluer (I)

Anna Cabot Lowell Deturs in Latin

Joseph Raposo (VI), Casey Chiang (V), Thomas Pogorelec (IV), Alex Giordano (III), Dennis Jin (II), James McCurley (I)

extra - curricular awards

Lower School Latin Declamation Prize

Nick Glaeser (IV)

Upper School Latin Declamation Prize

Akhilsai Damera (II)

Greek Declamation Prize

Caleb Ganthier (III)

Cameron A. Rylance Music Prize

Tommy Reichard (I)

Ralph F.F. Brooks Art Prize

Bobby Zabin (I)

Joan M. Regan Service Prize

Alexander Sanzone (I)

Class of 1976 Dramatics Prize

John Austin (I)

Rehder Prize in International Relations

Ethan Dhadly (I)

Albert W. Kelsey Debate Prize

Jamie Drachman (I)

Publications Award

Owen Butler (I)

Class I Athletics

Prize Winners

Class II Book Award Winners

Holy Cross Book Prize

Evan Zhang

Dartmouth Book Award Lucas Vander Elst

Brown Book Award Ryan Lin

Harvard Book Award Akhilsai Damera

Sportsmanship Award Patrick Schultz

Scholar-Athlete Award Arjun Bose

ISL Award Aidan Gibbons

Best Athlete Award Kofi Fordjour

Valete

Prize Day is also the moment that the students, faculty, and staff recognize those adult members of the community who are leaving Roxbury Latin. Thanks to their endurance, loyalty, and commitment, very few adults move on from RL each year. We are the better for that continuity. This spring, however, we bid farewell to six members of the faculty and staff—one of whom has completed his Penn Fellowship, and four retirees. Below are the remarks delivered in their honor by Headmaster Brennan on June 1.

Taylor Fitzgerald

Taylor Fitzgerald joined Roxbury Latin as a Penn Fellow two years ago. On the heels of the pandemic his arrival represented another hopeful blast of fresh air, and of relentless high energy, good cheer, affection, and unabashed comfort in being himself—a character in all the best sense. A committed teacher of “Roots and Shoots,” Western Civ, and U.S. History, he delighted in that content, but yet more so in the boys he was teaching. Despite his advanced age for a Fellow, there is much of the boy still in Mr. Fitzgerald, and though he could empathize easily with his students’ situations and idiosyncrasies, he was also able to draw the line and get down to work. A high achieving schoolboy and collegiate athlete, Mr. Fitzgerald was especially effective assisting with our programs in football, basketball, and track and field. Even when Mr. Fitzgerald was sidelined by serious surgery this past winter, he maintained his relentless positivity and concern for each of us. Now he ventures to New Hampshire to join the faculty at Derryfield School, headed by our own Andy Chappell. Our loss is Manchester’s gain, as Mr. Fitzgerald will doubtless have the same positive impact on his new students and colleagues as he has had on all of us. They will come to appreciate, as we have, his integrity, talent, friendship, and sense of fun.

Myron McLaren

From time to time, but not often enough, we acknowledge the intricate ecosystem that is required in order for our school to operate efficiently. We imagine teachers and students at the heart of the matter but fail to imagine how we could do our work were it not for an army of others who do their work. Especially in this technological age, we desperately need people who allow us to interact with the broader world— to access information, to communicate our thoughts and feelings, to organize data. Myron McLaren, for the past six years, has been someone who has helped us to do our work, to realize our goals, to operate efficiently. In his role as Network Technology Coordinator, Mr. McLaren has helped all of us to realize our potential, to honor our responsibilities. That he has done this all with interest and good cheer has made knowing him a pleasure. From the Study Center to courtside at basketball practices and games, Mr. McLaren has signaled his appreciation for all students, for their various pursuits, and has offered his energetic friendship. He leaves us to take on a position as the Assistant Director of Technology at Beaver School. He will not be far away, but we will miss his helpful style and good will.

Derek Nelson

“There are no small parts, only small actors.” The great guru of modern acting, Stanislavski, is attributed with that admonishing and encouraging revelation. A student of acting and of actors, Derek Nelson has taken to heart that sentiment over the past 11 years, in who he has been and in what he has asked his students to be. I have known Derek Nelson and called him a friend for 47 years, since he arrived on the threshold of Amherst College’s first coed dormitory, Pratt Hall—he as a freshman, and I as his dorm advisor. We went on to sing together both at Amherst and then with Boston’s most surprising male a cappella group, The Moving Violations, who in the ’80s even performed for the school in Rousmaniere Hall. You see, then, that when Mr. Nelson took my call when the drama director vacancy occurred here it seemed right and good—the closing of a circle, as it were.

Mr. Nelson always has been a caring, talented, funny man, a man of many accents (especially of the British Isles), a penchant for startling costumes and get-ups (think any number of Maru-a-Pula outfits), and as a beautifully informed, delightful conversationalist. As is true of all good teaching, he

has sustained a worthy conversation for all his time with us. In his English teaching (nearly across all six grades), in his committed advising, and especially in running our theater program, Mr. Nelson has represented the best of this business, even as he was catalytic in getting the best out of all of us. Think of the plays he directed: The King Stag, Lord of the Flies, Three Birds Alighting on a Field, The Wizard of Oz, Enron, The Christmas Truce, The Secret Garden, The Illusion, The Arabian Nights, Dogg’s Hamlet/Cahoot’s Macbeth, It Can’t Happen Here, A Few Good Men, Newsies, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, Frankenstein, Chalk is Cheap, Love and Information, and The Little Prince. In the range of these offerings, Mr. Nelson has signaled that he cares deeply about taking on ideas, controversies, anomalies, historical icons, controversial characters, reassuring characters, all in service to an inspiring philosophical vision of the power of theater—the ability to inform, to challenge, and to entertain.

Succeeding David Frank, who for 34 years ran the RL theater program in distinctive fashion, Mr. Nelson took the opportunity to

express regard for what went before, but also to make the program his own. In a school that so robustly espouses generalism, it’s not always easy to get enough of boys’ interest and focused attention for something that isn’t academics or athletics, but through his vision, organization, flexibility, talent, and patience, Mr. Nelson has done just that. And along the way he has taught scores of lucky actors what it means to bring life to characters and their important stories. Mr. Nelson has done that with creativity, cleverness, and respect. We are much the better for his impact on all of us, and I am grateful for his willingness to heed the call and to honor our common calling in this place. Now, Mr. Nelson pursues a wellearned retirement to enjoy life and especially his family. And he will miss, I am sure, those late afternoon pizza runs to Comella’s— incidentally another sign of his care, concern, and generosity.

Elaine Driscoll

“How can I help?” Can there be a more welcoming, reassuring offer than that? And such has been the clarion call of Elaine Driscoll for the past 11 years. A talented, committed,

positive, friendly force for good, Mrs. Driscoll may hold the title Assistant to the Headmaster but her work and her accomplishments have been decidedly more than that. Her dayto-day responsibilities administering the school—its schedule and calendar, its communications strains, its operations involving food and cleaning and setting up and tearing down and figuring out are plenty. But she has also provided much of the vision for imagining a better school, one that honored the dignity and possibility of each member of this community, one that remembered its past but envisioned its future. From her ubiquitous perch, she has withstood the endless stream of people seeking answers, permission, help. And she has responded with peerless professionalism, canny problem solving skills, and a human touch that belied the fact that she might have dropped everything in order to help out a boy, a colleague, a parent, a trustee, or a delivery person. In effect, she has been my co-advisor to a gaggle of boys with whom I have had the pleasure of working closely. As the Director of Community Service, Mrs. Driscoll has effectively supported programs that

speak to our mission as a school—to lead and serve. On behalf of several worthy causes, and especially Medicines for Humanity and Maru-a-Pula School, she has offered annual reminders of our obligation and our opportunity. Throughout the pandemic, Mrs. Driscoll kept this listing ship afloat, reminding me and all of us that our first commitment was to the boys and the school’s mission. Then, sometimes as fill-in nurse, sometimes as chief health officer, sometimes as associate director of buildings and grounds and food services, she led and collaborated so that all of us could know the diminished, but reasonably striving, experience that we did.

Perhaps the hardest part of her job was having to deal with me and my idiosyncrasies and imperfections. She has been an essential partner in everything I, or the Board of Trustees, or other members of the leadership team have strived to accomplish over the past eleven years. She is amazing at what she does. She

is versatile and resourceful. She is a tenacious and tireless worker. She has a glittering personality and a warm, irreverent sense of humor. She is forgiving. She is a great friend. She has loved her work and she has loved all of us.

Tobey O’Brien

When I talk about what makes Roxbury Latin distinctive, I usually lead with our student body, our demographic. I emphasize our commitment to affordability and accessibility. I explain that we make decisions on admission totally independent of financial aid that is offered in order to allow boys of all kinds to come here. Before we extend those scholarship dollars to boys—as we do now routinely not just for the regular program, but for school trips, or for laptops or counseling or many other elements of what makes the RL experience notable—we establish a tuition that is $20,000 less than our neighboring independent schools. We are affordable and accessible and committed to the idea that it is not simply the just thing to offer the opportunity of RL to a range of kids, but that it makes us, this experience together, more interesting and better because of it. How does it happen? It happens because those who can give of their treasure to Roxbury Latin do so. But that does not happen automatically. People have to explain our philosophy, our mission, and then articulate our need. Remarkably, in the spirit of the covenant that I believe exists between the school and parents, alumni, and other friends, we all do what we can— we do our best to support a cause in which we believe.

For 17 years, the chief cheerleader on behalf of our Annual Fund, and by extension the mission it helps to realize, has been Tobey O’Brien. In the years in which Mrs. O’Brien has headed the Annual Fund and served as Director of Development, the school has raised $140 million—$59 million of which has been in the Annual Fund alone. In 2007, her first as Annual Fund Director, Mrs. O’Brien and her team raised $2.2 million. Last year she led an effort that raised $4.8 million. Every other independent day school in the country is envious of our achievement.

Mrs. O’Brien is a workhorse. She inspires others to do the same. It helps greatly that she believes fervently in Roxbury Latin and is grateful for what RL meant to her two sons, JJ and Mike. But it is mainly for who she is, not just for what she has done, that we celebrate Mrs. O’Brien today. A ball of energy, a whirling dervish, a focused, committed organizer and executor of countless efforts

and events, Mrs. O’Brien has a rare, irresistible capacity for drawing others into her orbit, and whatever she does, she does with great style, with class. Somehow she has a magic touch that signals to all that their participation is essential, and she has the rare capacity to make it all fun. Even though she has endured personal setbacks over the years, one would never know it. Every day, members of Class III witness her indefatigable friendliness as she takes attendance in that homeroom; what she’s really doing is signaling that those boys are known and loved, and that there is a surrogate mom eager to help at school. In countless gestures of kindness and care, she has offered that same reassurance to all of us at one time or other. And it’s not just the chocolate chip cookies. It’s that she loves us and she shows it. Mrs. O’Brien has earned her retirement—a time for family, friends, and fun, we hope. We are delighted that she will continue to consult at RL. But mainly we want to say “thank you” and “we love you” to someone who has said both of those things over and over to so many of us, so meaningfully, for so many years.

Michael T. Pojman

Several years ago, we began using the term “generalist” to describe the school’s commitment to a broad, diverse student experience. We offered our commitment to this idea boldly, given what in the culture-at-large had been a decided tilt toward specialization, especially when it came to athletes and their sports. Our theory was that at this point of a long educational funnel, it made sense for students to sample broadly from all that has been thought and known, and to encounter different perspectives on life, living, the educational process, and the people who animate our existence. We wanted boys who felt and were liberally educated—open to established thinking and documents, eager to connect the dots and make contemporary sense of what had gone before, and to revel in the interconnectedness of things. It also mattered terrifically that in a small school, in which we offered lots of academic and non-academic choices, boys were positioned to explore and express themselves broadly. Of course, the best way to convey the heart of this philosophy would be to have adults in charge who themselves represented generalism at its best. Borrowing from military vernacular, it would then be appropriate to name Mike Pojman a five-star generalist, a brigadier generalist. He models and epitomizes the form.

Mr. Pojman arrived at RL in the summer of 1980 fresh from an introductory teaching experience at University School, an RL

partner in personnel and program for many years. Initially, Mr. Pojman taught mostly math with a dollop of IPS and chemistry. He advised both Tripod and the Yearbook from the get-go. He lived with two wet-behind-the-ear colleagues in the Rappaport House, a ramshackle twin to my current abode. The school had acquired the house from Jerry Rappaport (of Rappaport Field legend), and it fell to the unsuspecting occupants to make their nests in that space that already hosted the nests of rabbits, birds, and raccoons. It was no fun. And soon Mr. Jarvis would shut down the experiment in communal living after hearing one too many complaints of wild parties. Mr. Pojman protested, “I was just showing our friends my new microwave.”

In my own early days, Mr. Pojman quickly became a close friend. I was drawn to him thanks to his winning personality, sense of humor, and Midwest values, but, more

important, because I thought we shared a keen appreciation for the possibility of school, for the unique possibility of this school, and for the privilege and pleasure of working with RL boys. In his first year, Mr. Pojman became a sidekick for Glee Club tours, a job he continued 41 more times for various subsequent music directors.

I offer this report of Mike’s beginnings only to signal that his potential for greatness was evident even then. Soon he would be a force teaching chemistry to virtually the whole junior class, as well as an effective, offbeat teacher of a section of English 8 (in part, I guess, influenced by Mr. Pojman’s St. John’s master’s in that famous great books environment). When I think of Mr. Pojman’s academic versatility, I am reminded of the great benefit we have as teachers when we are interested in lots of things, not just our taught disciplines. In fact, I know that when Mr. Pojman was first hired by the legendary University School Headmaster Rowland McKinley, Mr. McKinley exclaimed, “I like you, Pojman; you’re not like other math teachers!”

Indeed, he wasn’t. Soon in his RL odyssey, Mr. Pojman was entrusted with more and more responsibility. Mr. Jarvis treasured his collaboration and support, and Mr. Pojman became a trusted consultant on all the buildings that emerged in the Jarvis years, including the Gordon Wing, the Smith Arts Building, the Bauer Science Center, and the Jarvis Refectory. Especially good at this, it seemed to me Mr. Pojman found a perfect setting for a combination of engineering-like smarts and aesthetic sensibility. It also didn’t hurt that he knew how school and its students worked. Fairly early in his time at RL, Mr. Pojman was entrusted with devising the schedule. With sensitivity to students and teachers, and needing to compress too much stuff into too little time, year after year he devised a worthy timetable. So, too, was he mindful of the overall calendar and a ferocious foe of snow days. The schedule changed over the years, and Mr. Pojman rolled with it. For many years, Mr. Pojman was the point person for faculty hiring, and you can imagine how his care and sensibility paid off in that role. Virtually from the start, Mr. Pojman through his amazing photography has chronicled every important moment over the past 43 years: Think the arrival of former President George Bush, the Queen’s Herald, and, let’s just say for history’s sake, the Queen herself. His willingness to fulfill that necessary function has been saintly. For nearly 40 years, he was a class dean, the shepherd of the senior class offering advice and patient leeway to a sometimesuncontrollable crowd. He served for nearly two decades as

Director of Studies. Along with that, he ran the senior projects program, urging always that those be more tilted toward service projects and helping others.

Service—his own, and that which he advocated for in others—has always been at the top of his list. I believe his own commitment to service is not unconnected to his faith and his long-established urge to practice his Catholicism in real, impactful ways. While he often organized and led various service projects—locally and farther afield—it was his ingenious founding of the Ave Atque Vale Society that will forever bear Mr. Pojman’s irreducible stamp. Patterned after a program at Mr. Pojman’s own high school, the great Jesuit St. Ignatius of Cleveland, Ave Atque offers our seniors the chance to serve as pallbearers for those who have no one else— those who die destitute and alone. For the past 10 years, senior classes have benefitted from this helpful, humbling opportunity, one that in an age of relentless gratification understandably allows for no one offering thanks. The lesson is that sometimes you do the right thing simply because it’s right and can’t expect any more in return than that satisfaction.

Of course, it’s not just what someone does but especially who he is that matters most. While first for 20 years the Assistant Headmaster and most recently the school’s first Associate Headmaster, Mr. Pojman’s title has never been what defines him or makes him great. He is great because he is good. Because he cares. Few can so pleasantly hold the line as he. Think ice cream specialties on Friday. Mr. Pojman loves you boys. He has given his sweat and blood in service to the possibility that in his teaching, leading, and advising he could have a powerful impact on the people you will become. One need only hear him in a discipline committee deliberation (of which he has seen too many) to be reminded firmly but lovingly that to be a good person is our school’s highest value. He acknowledges that people will make mistakes, that they pay a penalty, and that they are forgiven. There is no way to encapsulate all that Mr. Pojman has meant to RL over 43 years. He has been at its heart. He has been its conscience. He has been the embodiment of its mission. He has been such good company. He has been such a valued partner. For this, for his irreverent sense of humor, for his loyal friendship, for his generous pitching in in every quarter, and for the way he has modeled what it means to be a great man who is good, we salute you, Mike. I honor you and thank you. And now from all of us not the ultimate, but a temporary, ave atque vale. //

Retiring Trustees

Michael Berk

During his tenure as a trustee, Michael Berk served on several Board committees, including Development, Investment, Finance, and the Committee on Trustees. He offered his financial expertise to ensure that the school preserved its unique financial model. He and his wife, Ellen, have demonstrated a deep commitment to the fundraising efforts of the school as long-time leadership donors to the Annual Fund, as well as supporting the school’s capital fundraising efforts on two separate occasions. In addition to their personal generosity, they have asked others to follow their lead, serving as parent leadership agents and chairs of the Parents Fund. Finally, when we launched the RL@Work program, Michael was one of the first to host a group of RL juniors at his firm, TA Associates. Michael and Ellen are the parents of two

graduates, Adam ’19 and Daniel ’21. We are grateful for Michael’s business acumen, steadfast commitment, and belief in RL’s mission.

Ellen Berkman

Ellen Berkman and her husband, David, parents of Ben Bryant ’18, have been devoted supporters of Roxbury Latin, including as long-time leadership donors, parent leadership agents, and chairs of the Parents Fund. They also endowed the Benjamin F. Bryant Scholarship Fund. On the Board, Ellen’s voice was invaluable when it came to legal matters, because of her work in the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University. In addition to serving on the Conflicts Committee, she chaired the Audit and Insurance Review Committees, bringing a fresh perspective and approach to these important areas of governance. We are grateful for Ellen’s love of the school and her commitment to ensuring that RL maintains its need-blind admission policy. //

Board of Trustees

2022–2023

Front row: Derek Ho, Paul Spinale, Ellen Berkman, Marlyn McGrath, Anne McNay, Ethan Berman, Mike Giarla. Second row: Chris Mitchell, Bob O'Connor, Andy McElaney, Kent Sahin, Matt Fruhan, Jay Mitchell. Third row: Gene Lambert, Michael Berk, Soren Oberg. Missing from photo: Matt Consigli, Roberto Goizueta, Jim Hamilton, Bo Menkiti, Monica Neuman, Paul Provost, Jim Quagliaroli.

Celebrating The Class of 2023

Closing Exercises

On June 3, the 378th year of The Roxbury Latin School culminated with Closing Exercises and the graduation of the Class of 2023. The traditional and intimate ceremony—which includes the seniors, their families, the faculty, and trustees— took place in Rousmaniere Hall. Immediately after the ceremony, under cloudy skies, the 52 newest alumni of The Roxbury Latin School celebrated on the Senior Grass with classmates, family members, and members of the faculty. The light drizzle of the morning did nothing to dampen spirits.

Beginning with opening remarks from Headmaster Kerry Brennan—which acknowledged the challenges and triumphs of this particular group of boys, and also noted their many, worthy accomplishments—the ceremony included the singing of America The Beautiful, Commemoration Hymn, and The Founder’s Song, as well as a performance of Ave Verum Corpus sung by The Latonics, featuring eight of the day’s graduates. The ringing of the school bell, chiming 3-7-8, officially concluded the school year.

The elegant and powerful commencement address was delivered by The Reverend Morgan Allen, rector of Boston’s venerable Trinity Church, and father of graduating senior Michael Allen. Reverend Allen shared with the graduating seniors three beautifully drawn and important lessons—about what they’ve been given, and what they might choose to do with those gifts—through the 1864 essay titled “The Generous Gambler,” by Parisian poet Charles Baudelaire. (Read Reverend Allen’s complete remarks on page 64.)

Following the ceremony’s addresses, Headmaster Brennan and President of the Board of Trustees Ethan Berman ’79 awarded diplomas to the 52 newest alumni of The Roxbury Latin School.

Class valedictorian, elected by his classmates, was Akshay Kumar, whose speech expounded upon the personal meaning and relevance of poet Anne Bradstreet’s line, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.” Akshay’s address drew a standing ovation from his classmates. (Read Akshay’s full remarks on page 58.)

Three major Class I prizes were also awarded during the Closing Exercises:

The Richard A. Berenberg Prize, for generosity of spirit and concern for others, was presented to Owen Butler and Emmanuel Nwodo.

The Class of 1913 Award, for significant contributions to the life of the school, was presented to Justin Shaw.

The William Coe Collar Award, for achievements and contributions to the school that are deemed by the faculty as most deserving of recognition, was presented to Akshay Kumar. //

Remember Our

Good morning classmates, teachers, trustees, families, and friends. It is a distinct honor and privilege to be speaking in front of you all on this very special day, and I thank you for this opportunity.

Today really is a special day. Soon, we, the 52 boys of the Class of 2023, will receive our diplomas, the culmination of four, five, or six years of our hardest work. We are happy, proud, and maybe even a little relieved to have made it to this beautiful day. But the significance of today, the significance of those diplomas, lies far beyond simply having “made it.”

The poet Anne Bradstreet once wrote, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.” That bubbling amalgam of emotions we are feeling on this most promising of spring days is a direct consequence of the countless winters we have weathered at Roxbury Latin, winters that have played such a big role in shaping who we are today.

Academically, our winters looked like a flurry of quizzes and tests; a mountain of Latin translations; or that night we were still assembling bio posters at 1:30 a.m., and graduation seemed to be nothing more than

a fever dream. Extracurricularly, we faced days that would start with Spanish Club before school and end, long after sunset, with rehearsal or games in lands as far away as St. George’s. Even the harbingers of our winters were quite intimidating: Just ask any cross country runner that has seen the look on Mr. Heaton’s face as he devises a hill workout on his whiteboard.

This is a day of celebration and joy, so I will stop my list here, but I think, especially with the benefit of hindsight, that these experiences were the most formative parts of our Roxbury Latin careers. At some point, maybe after the first couple of storms, we got a good sense of the fulfillment that comes from staring down and wrestling with adversity. To be sure, some snowstorms buried us, but then we worked harder, studied longer, and tried different approaches in pursuit of that hard-to-attain but oh-so-sweet feeling. The satisfaction and pride we are teeming with today— that we probably felt at smaller scales after an exam or a particularly demanding practice—came only from giving genuinely and completely of ourselves. In everything RL asked us to do, it stretched, tested, and grew our propensity to dedicate ourselves to whatever task was at hand. In doing so, it gave us an important

Valedictory address delivered by Akshay Kumar, who was selected by his classmates to speak on their behalf at Closing Exercises 2023.

Our Winters

safety net: There is something quite comforting in knowing that, barring all else, we will have our well-developed work ethic and our own tried-and-tested strategies to deal with the worst of blizzards.

More significantly, somewhere along the way, we realized that the barrage of assignments, the late nights studying, and the toughest sports games would be better fared alongside companions. In our dreariest winter days, we encountered little gestures of generosity from classmates: a helping hand, a sympathetic ear, maybe even a valiant stab at comedy to brighten our day. These pockets of support and silliness were our attempts to make the best of the difficult, draining situations we were wont to experience at RL, and they meshed 52 individuals into the unique band of brothers we are today. I say unique because I doubt there is another band that has a member named “imperialism Mike” or one who conducts push-up contests in the middle of an AP exam.

The winters we faced together, and the well of class-wide support every single one of us was able to draw from, saved us from a predicament that might otherwise have befallen a group with so many talented people: We never got so lost in our own pursuits that we forgot how to take pride in each other. If you witnessed our standing ovation after Owen and James delivered an Exelauno Day performance for the ages; listened to the awed silence in Hall when Justin and Eli played Brahms; or looked at the grins plastered on our faces when Tait played guitar, you would get a sense of the joy we took in seeing our classmates do what they do best.

In a few months, we will face new winters in schools scattered across the country: we will meet hundreds of new people; we will live in new places; we will take dozens of new classes; and perhaps we will meet English teachers who, God forbid, loathe adverbs even more than Mr. Cervas. Needless to say, the journeys ahead of us will be hard, but if we remember our winters at RL—the lessons and the friendships they sowed—then I know we will tread our paths with humility, diligence, and the sweet hope that, as Aeneas told his weary crew, forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit: perhaps someday it will please us to remember even these trials.

I want to use whatever time I have left to recognize the Roxbury Latin community—the motley crew that has shaped the past few years of our lives and lent RL a special place in each of our

hearts. When we consider what defines RL, we probably think about the academic rigor; age-old traditions like Exelauno Day or Founder’s Day; and, of course, Mr. Brennan’s mustache. But really, more than anything else, it is the dynamic of the people— our intimacy, our levity, and our interdependence—that makes me believe, beyond all doubt, that what we have done at this school is meaningful and will endure.

First, I will talk about my classmates, the 52 members of the Class of 2023. They say variety is the spice of life, and if that’s true, then our class must register something like 150,000 on the Scoville spiciness scale. For reference, hallucinations can occur at around 200,000 Scoville units, which, by the way, is what Owen feels when he eats one of Chef J’s buffalo chicken tenders. Seriously, though, I am lucky to have been surrounded by a group with such a broad range of personalities and interests. I daresay there is not a single corner of school life in which the Class of 2023 has not made its distinctive mark.

Not many people can bend the soccer ball like Adam, hit a baseball like Antonio, run around a track as gracefully as Kofi, or sneeze as loudly as Michael Allen. Many of you parents have been serenaded by the eight seniors in Latonics or the 40 of us in Glee Club. We’ve acted in musicals and plays, including a thoroughly entertaining one just last week directed by John Austin. Carter delivered an award-winning speech at the World’s debate competition, and while we are on the topic of public speaking, who could forget Will Matthews’s spirited attempt to convince our Boston tour guide that he was the newest recruit of the Harvard men’s volleyball team? I probably could have filled these ten minutes with such examples, and I was tempted to, but that wouldn’t be a complete representation of who we are.

This speech would be lacking if I did not mention the strength and gusto with which we sang The Founder’s Song at our last Senior Concert; the time and energy we put into organizing the best May Day possible after two COVID-impacted years; or the goodwill and patience with which we assembled a school cookout. We took on our time at RL with spirit and love, resilience and good humor. The moments I’ll remember most will be those in which you all exemplified those virtues, and your example has made me a better person in a thousand little ways.

However, if our body of work is impressive and this shower of congratulations well-deserved, it is only because of the faculty, or as Mr. Brennan once put it, the “connective tissue” that has bound, supported, and nurtured us for so long. Our teachers are men and women of the world. In lessons and lectures alike, they textured their vast knowledge with lived experiences. Mr. Pojman taught us all about intermolecular forces and LEO GER, and he gave us some killer chemistry pick-up lines along the way. Mr. Brown infused lively discussions about supply, demand, and externalities with a robust understanding of tax evasion. Mr. Bettendorf sharpened our minds with his mathematical brilliance and his endless supply of hot, but unfailingly didactic takes.

I know we students like to complain about how much is expected of ourselves at RL, but our burden pales in comparison to the effort and the sheer amount of time our teachers dedicate to preparing us for life. How lucky are we to have attended a school that people like Mr. Randall, Mr. Brennan, Mr. Pojman, and Mr. Sugg deem worthy of their lives’ labor, a school to which they have devoted their careers? I know we haven’t always been the easiest group to work with—just ask Mr. Sokol about his BC Calc class—but we are the better for our teachers’ love and attention in more ways than we could express. For serving as our guides, mentors, coaches, and advisors, for being our confidants, our friends, our cheerleaders, and the best role models any student could want—one last time, thank you.

I would also like to thank our families, not just for your cheers at games and concerts or your generosity at school functions, but for dragging us out of bed when all we wanted in the world was to sleep just 30 more minutes. Thank you for keeping up with us even at the busiest of times, and for helping us, in your patented, unassuming way, through the highs and especially the lows of being a student. There is no one better at lightening our moods or checking our egos than you. The 52 brothers, sons, and grandsons graduating today will never be able to thank you enough for your role in this journey, but we will be forever grateful for your love and your sacrifices.

Over the last several weeks, graduating has been something of an ethereal idea for me. Even now, it’s hard to believe that today we walked into Rousmaniere as students for the last time. Tomorrow we will wake up and, for the first time in four-to-six years, be forever free of a schoolboy’s RL commitments; the thought is somewhat disorienting and unnerving. But maybe that’s a good thing, because it suggests that this place where we are known and loved will never leave us—how could it, with all the lessons, bonds, and fun moments it fostered? My only hope is that the memory of those great things remains as clear as it is today. Classmates, of all the wonderful things Roxbury Latin gave me, the greatest is you. It has been a pleasure and the highest honor to have been a part of this Class of 2023, and even though this is far from good-bye, I will miss you dearly. Thank you. //

The Game is

The commencement address delivered by The Reverend Morgan S. Al len, Rector of Boston’s Trinity Church, and father of a Roxbury Latin graduate.

I want to thank Mr. Brennan for his invitation to speak with you on this glad occasion. Along with your boys, my son, Michael Allen, completes his course of study today, almost exactly four years after our family moved from Austin, Texas, to Boston. Upon our arrival, we were welcomed into this community with uncommon warmth, and then... well, none of us could have imagined what the next years would bring.

Six months into this cohort’s Class IV, freshman year, the pandemic arrived with a speed and force still hard to believe, even as we all lived through it together. The choral concert on Sunday evening, March 8, 2020—this room teeming with song and Spring Break spirit—would remain suspended in a haunting happiness. For by that following Friday, Boston would become a ghost town, and these students would not return to campus until the next academic year.

We need not belabor the memories of those challenges, yet neither should we ignore them. Gentlemen, those days, their peculiar demands, and your perseverance through them, had their share in shaping you; along with the last three graduating classes and the two more to come, your paths through RL were beset with unusual difficulties. With appreciation, though, realize that you were not alone in any of those struggles. Your teachers and this administration met those days with astonishing grace. Offer them your thanks.

Today I bring three ideas for you to take into your new adventures, and the first is from Charles Baudelaire. A nineteenth-century Parisian, poet, critic, and essayist, the academy credits Baudelaire with coining the term “modernity” to describe his cultural epoch. Fond of fine clothes, prostitutes, and liquor, his writing often explores the paradoxes of progress and regress, in his city and in his soul. This morning we consider his 1864 essay, “The Generous Gambler,” and I invite everyone to listen closely and identify the antagonist before he reveals himself.

The poet begins:

Yesterday on the crowded boulevard, I felt myself jostled by a mysterious Being whom I have always longed to know, and although I had never seen him before, I recognized him at once. He must have felt a similar desire in regard to me, for as he passed he gave me a knowing wink, which I was quick to obey. I followed him closely and soon, still at his heels, [we] descended into a magnificent subterranean dwelling of a fabulous luxury beyond anything the upper habitations of Paris could boast...

Here were strange faces... marked with the sign of fatal beauty, and... by the time my host and

Alright, Graduates, let’s get going.

Rigged

I were seated, we were already firm friends. We ate; we drank immoderately... we smoked several cigars... we talked of the universe, of its creation and of its final destruction; [and] of the big idea of the century, that is, the idea of progress and perfectability...

[And, you know,] He did not complain of the bad reputation he [suffers] in every corner of the world[, admitting] that the only time he had ever trembled for his power was the day when a preacher had exclaimed from his pulpit: “My beloved... never forget when you hear people boast of our [enlightenment], that one of the devil’s best ruses is to persuade you that he does not exist! i

Graduates, there it is, the first takeaway: Never forget that one of the devil’s best ruses is to persuade you that he does not exist.

Now, be clear: I have neither interest nor belief in a cherrytinted fellow with horns and a tail, who lurks in whiskey bottles and heavy-metal records, and I am confident that neither did Baudelaire. Rather, the poet introduces us to the seductions of

our own world, personified in this character of refined taste. In his “subterranean” realm, guests need not await an assignment of punishment, for they elect their own: in a hell of their making, they (and we) choose ease before integrity, judgment before generosity, and greed before the greater good.

As in Baudelaire’s nineteenth-century Paris, so we twenty-first century denizens too often subscribe to the same “big idea” of our enlightenment as a foregone accomplishment, and we forgive ourselves responsibility for the world’s welfare. Too often we act as though we need not trouble ourselves with the world’s trifling inequities, for—in due time, in due season—all such complications shall be resolved. Kind souls (you know the sort), why, they are at work on that important project even now! Soon injustice will be recalled only as the burden of a different time, a different people, a different place... yet, if we measure our integrity as the distance between what we believe and how we behave, we widen that gap when we set material enrichment as our only or operative telos. We injure ourselves and those we love when we labor for our advancement alone. Our integrity—personally and corporately— fractures when we overlook or dismiss those who differ from us.

The poet continues:

Even after several hours, it seemed to me that I was no more drunk than he, [however, gambling] had interrupted... our frequent libations, and... with nonchalance and heroic heedlessness, I had played and lost my soul in a binding pact. The soul is a thing so impalpable... and sometimes so in the way, that I felt [little] emotion over its loss...

And this famous character... said to me: ‘As I want you to take away an agreeable remembrance of me, I—I, Satan himself—am going to prove to you... that I can sometimes be a good devil... [And so] To compensate you for the irremediable loss of your soul, I shall give you the same stake you would have won if chance had been with you. [Therefore,] Never shall you formulate a wish that I will not help you to realize; you shall dominate your [fellow men]; flattery shall be yours, and even adoration; silver, gold, diamonds...’ ii

A brief recap: our narrator meets an amiable stranger who invites him back to his place for a drink. As it turns out (an unfortunate turn, admittedly), the stranger is Satan, and “his place” is hell. Then our friend, drunk on excesses, gambles with the devil and loses his soul in a bet.

[Graduates, a friendly word of warning for those of you who, in this BetMGM-on-our-phone age, have decided you enjoy Texas Hold’em: if you find yourself at a sharks’ card table, and you can’t figure out who the guppy is, the guppy is you.]

Related, because the devil is cunning and (regrettably) our friend is feeble, Baudelaire’s allegory reveals that the game has been rigged from the start; the devil had won the wager before it ever began! See, the stakes of either side assured The Beguiler of the narrator’s soul, for our friend’s desires and ambitions were themselves his loss: by wanting what the world wanted—ease before integrity, judgment before generosity, greed before the greater good—the narrator had conceded that truest and dearest mark of himself long before he shook to the devil’s deal.

news is this: the game is rigged the game is rigged. That is, the powerful and the powerless, the haves and the have-nots: thumbs are on the scale, boys, and the American Dream has been fixed like the 1919 World Series. Indeed, the world is making fools of most, charming us into believing we desire what shackles us to its vicious gears.

So that’s the bad news... and it’s pretty bad! Yet, for you, there is good news that accompanies it, and the good news is this: the game is rigged in your favor the game is rigged in your favor. Now, that does not mean you won’t have to work for your successes or put forth your highest and best effort to achieve the goals you set for yourself. Rather, understand that what you will have accomplished by graduating from this institution will set you in a position of incredible privilege and precious few limitations.

While pandemic learning at other schools slowed and standards lowered, not so at RL. The tempo here remained brisk. The expectations here remained high. And while you may have gritted your teeth during those hard days (and maybe even your parents with you) the delta between your formation, your capacities, and the rest of the universe’s? Oh, brothers, be certain: it broadened.

See, not everyone could do what you have done, and far fewer have the opportunity to try. Can you lose it all? Of course. But understand that as you sit right now, the game is rigged, and it’s rigged in your favor.

The poet concludes:

If I had not been afraid of embarrassing [Satan] before [his] vast assembly [in Hell], I would willingly have fallen on my knees at the feet of this generous gambler, to thank him for his unheard-of munificence... [However,] after I [finally left the devil], little by little, doubt crept back into my breast; I no longer dared to believe in such prodigious good fortune, and when I went to bed that night, idiotically saying my prayers out of habit and half asleep, I murmured: ‘Oh God! Lord, my God! Make the devil keep his promise!’ iii

And, Graduates, this leads to the second takeaway, which is a good news/bad news bit. I’ll start with the bad news, and the bad

Our companion now completes his failure to recognize his powers and to measure his losses. Though he consents to play a rigged game, its unfairness can only be achieved with his

complicity. At any point, all our friend need do to overcome his danger—to reclaim his soul, to renew the world!—is to refuse the wager. If only he will leave the table, he will realize greater rewards for himself and for others, yet he has not the eyes to see either his peril or his possibilities. Failing to recognize so much as the contradiction of praying to God for the devil’s integrity, he condemns himself to suffer a life of never quite there—an emptiness not chosen in one fell swoop, of course, but an unending unfulfillment elected “little by little.”

So Graduates, the third and most important takeaway is this: you can change the game—you can change the game. You can decline the worldly table and its stakes. Recognizing your opportunities and influence, you can labor against the world’s most vulgar and dangerous momentums. You can live with integrity and labor generously for the greater good.

Soon you will arrive on a new campus and, having stacked yourselves against one another for four or five or six years, it will take a minute for you to reconcile that not everyone graduated Roxbury Latin. And in that moment, a subterranean realm of a fabulous luxury will yawn before you: silver and gold, adoration and domination. I urge you to meet that occasion with humility. Instead of only leaning into what RL has prepared you to do, summon all that Roxbury Latin—in its best moments and yours— has fashioned you to be:

Having been known and loved here, seek to know and to love your new peers—see them, as you want to be seen.

When the crowds—whether in your freshman dorm or, in time, your first office—begin to move in a direction that brings pause to your breast, call upon your integrity and do not give other people permission to determine how you are going to behave.

If you believe the world should be more honorable, then you be more honorable.

When others move with unthinking haste, take time; let their hurry be a warning, and have a second thought.

“Rather than bit-by-bit accepting the world’s brokenness—or, far worse, benefiting from it—day-by-day take your thumb off the scale and use your privilege for the world’s good, rather than your own ease. Leverage your status and your position [which—oh, by the way— have absolute value only in that subterranean realm] and play your chips for truth and for justice; for reconciliation and for peace; for love and for mercy.”

When you feel a flash of unkind judgment about someone, do not action or traffic it; extend the benefit of the doubt.

Make good decisions and be kind. Choose a life of service, rather than sensation.

When shadows creep close, remember that you are not alone—never alone—your community within these walls and well beyond them remain at the ready to support you.

And pick up the dadgum telephone when your parents call!

Rather than bit-by-bit accepting the world’s brokenness—or, far worse, benefiting from it—day-by-day take your thumb off the scale and use your privilege for the world’s good, rather than your own ease. Leverage your status and your position [which—oh, by the way—have absolute value only in that subterranean realm] and play your chips for truth and for justice; for reconciliation and for peace; for love and for mercy.

For be clear: the cost of your luxuries attained without grappling seriously with the cruelties of this world will not be the sacrifices of time and talent that your academic or professional

successes will have required... the cost will be your very soul.

In the words of my Trinity Church predecessor, Phillips Brooks: “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks!” iv

Graduates, now that you have been blessed, go and become a blessing. Believe in yourselves, as we believe in you, for that stirring in your souls, and for the sake of the world.

Be good. //

i Baudelaire, Charles. “The Generous Gambler.” Paris Spleen, translated by Louise Varèse, New Directions, 1970, pp. 60-61. I love this story, and I have used it as an illustration several times over the years, most recently during a lecture series on Stephen King. That lecture referenced Mick Jagger’s suggestion that Baudelaire’s essay inspired the Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil.”

ii Ibid, 61-62. The italics in the several quotations are mine. With the bracketed words and phrases, I lightly adjusted the essay for understanding in the context of this speech.

iii Ibid, 63.

iv As quoted by President John F. Kennedy at the 1963 National Prayer Breakfast.

The Class of 2023

First Row: Eli Mamuya, Nick Frumkin, Bobby Zabin, Akshay Kumar, Carter Crowley, Justin Shaw, Tyler Duarte, Headmaster Brennan, Antonio Morales, Harry Lonergan, Patrick Schultz, Brandon Clark, Teddy Lee, Aidan Gibbons. Second Row: Tait Oberg, Mathias Why, Owen Butler, Kevin Wang, Kofi Fordjour, Michael Allen, John Austin, Arjun Bose, Tommy Reichard, Will Grossman, Luke Wilkinson, Eddy Pan, Nick Martin, Krystian Reese.

Third Row: James McCurley, Marc Quintanar, Will Anderson, Thomas Connolly, Alex Nahirny, Will Hutter, Emmanuel Nwodo, Ryan Frigerio, Evren Uluer, Nahum Workalemahu, Matt Hoover, Jamie Drachman, David Sullivan. Fourth Row: Thomas Savage, Matt O'Connor, Alexander Sanzone, TK Ghapontsang, Rian Finn, David Albrechtskirchinger, Ethan Dhadly, Michael Thomas, Harry Brennan, Adam Kuechler, Will Matthews, Riley Stanton.

Class of 2023 Matriculation

Berkshire School (1)

Boston College (3)

Bowdoin College (1)

Brandeis University (1)

Brown University (4)

Colby College (2)

College of the Holy Cross (3)

Cornell University (2)

Dartmouth College (3)

Davidson College (1)

Emory University (1)

Georgetown University (4)

Harvard College (9)

New York University (1)

Northwestern University (1)

Oberlin College (1)

Olin College of Engineering (1)

Princeton University (2)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1)

Salve Regina University (1)

Tufts University (3)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1)

University of Pennsylvania (2)

Wake Forest University (2)

Yale University (1)

Accurate as of June 21, 2023

c lass i varsity athletic awards

Soccer

Adam Kuechler

Lacrosse

Riley Stanton

Hockey

Will Matthews

Tennis

Akshay Kumar

Football

TK Ghapontsang

Basketball

Harry Brennan

Track & Field

Kofi Fordjour

Cross Country

Kofi Fordjour

Wrestling

Thomas Savage

Baseball

Antonio Morales

Varsity Tennis Wins ISL Title and Finishes Second in New England

Based on the team’s league success during the regular season, they were invited to play in the 2023 New England Class B Tournament, which took place over May 20 and 21. (Since 2011, Roxbury Latin has won this tournament three times—in 2013, 2019, and 2022—and was a finalist four other times.) Only the best eight schools in New England in their division are invited to compete. RL, seeded number one going into the tournament, was supposed to host the first two rounds of the top half of the draw on Saturday, May 20. However, due to bad weather, RL was only able to play its first round match at home, against Milton Academy in the morning, which RL won 4-0 just before the heavy rain began.

On May 19, Roxbury Latin’s Varsity Tennis team won its final regular season match against St. Mark’s School, to finish undefeated in the Independent School League (15-0), securing its eighth ISL title since 2011. (Accounting for two years without competition due to COVID, RL Tennis has been crowned ISL Champions eight of the last 11 competitive seasons.) Performing memorably this season in their respective positions were Cole Oberg (III) at #1 singles, Eric Diop (II) at #2 singles, Captain Akshay Kumar (I) at #3 singles, Jiho Lee (II) at #4 singles, Daniel Stepanyan (III) at #5 singles, and Tanner Oberg (V) at #6 singles. Each athlete lost only one ISL match out of 15. The final three members of this championship team, instrumental to the collective success, were Eric Zhu (III), Captain Tait Oberg (I), and team manager Justin Yamaguchi (II). With six players returning next year—including five in the starting singles line up—the future of RL tennis looks bright.

Roxbury Latin met a familiar ISL foe in the semifinal of the tournament: a Belmont Hill squad who beat Westminster in the first round. Once again, RL won the doubles point, and wins from Cole Oberg, Eric Diop, and Jiho Lee pushed the team over the top. The final was played at Groton on May 21 against Hoosac. Unfortunately, RL lost four close matches in singles (#2, #3, #5, #6), despite a valiant effort.

“I want to thank two seniors who will be greatly missed next year,” said Head Coach Ousmane Diop. “Akshay Kumar and Tait Oberg, who were captains, epitomize for me why I love teaching and coaching at RL. These two wonderful young men truly believe in our generalist philosophy, and they gave their all to their RL experience, in and out of the classroom. As a result, they have truly enriched our lives in so many ways. We say in our school literature that ‘We care, most of all, what kind of person a boy is,’ and that we want our boys to become men of character. Akshay and Tait embody all that we value and cherish most at RL.” //

Spring Athletic Accolades, and Boston Globe Scholarship Honors for Kofi Fordjour

In addition to Varsity Tennis’s ISL Championship and second place finish in New England, RL’s Varsity Baseball, Lacrosse, and Track and Field teams also had remarkable spring seasons this year, with noteworthy team-wide and individual accomplishments.

Varsity Baseball finished the season with an 11-4 record in Independent School League competition (12-5 overall), winning their last seven games in a row. The team finished a respectable third place in the ISL this year, and is losing five long-tenured seniors: Owen Butler, Harry Lonergan,

Will Matthews, Antonio Morales (who will play at Wake Forest), and Patrick Schultz (who will play at Brandeis). Baseball had a great team performance in their season finale with a 12-0 win over St. Mark’s—facing a pitcher heading to Notre Dame and tagging him for five runs in the first inning!

Varsity Lacrosse finished the season with a winning record of 11-7. The team concluded its season by winning the ISL Consolation tournament, winning their first game against Brooks (17-3), winning their second game against BB&N

(10-7), and finally beating Groton in the consolation championship (9-7), and Hayden Cody (II) was named tournament MVP. On the season, Matt Bastardi (II) led the ISL in assists with 48. The team also had five different players with 20 or more goals this season: Taylor Cotton (III) (28), Jake Popeo (II) (25), Johnny Price (III) (23), Tommy Weber (IV) (23), and Matt Bastardi (20). The team loses five seniors this year: Thomas Connolly, Aidan Gibbons, Will Anderson (who will play at Tufts), Riley Stanton (who will play at Holy Cross), and David Sullivan (who will play at Dartmouth). The team’s success earned Head Coach Mike Higgins ISL Coach of the Year honors.

This year’s Track and Field team had an excellent season, with lots of team and individual highlights. The team finished fifth place overall in the ISL, and in four events at the ISL Championship meet (discus, 110m hurdles, and 100m) all RL entrants set lifetime bests! Michael Thomas (I) and Marc Quintanar (I) both sent the discus over 105 feet. Alejandro Rincon (II) and Ryan Lin (II) showed the power of great teamwork in the 110m hurdles, finishing side-by-side in identical times of 16.74. Bruno Kim (III) and Tyler Duarte (I) both blazed to sub-12 performances in the 100m dash, Bruno for the first time at 11.76 and Tyler in a new lifetime PR of 11.78. Although he was RL’s lone entrant in the high jump, Matt Hoover (I) lept to a new PR of 5'4", making it four events in which all RL entrants set their lifetime bests.

At the ISL Championships, only the top six athletes or relay teams score in each event. With 13 ISL teams all putting their best athletes on the line, it is extremely difficult to score. All the more congratulations, then, go to RL’s three athletes who improved upon their unseeded times/distances and broke into the scoring: Ryan Miller (III) made the most of his opportunity as RL’s lone “wild card” (third) entrant in an event, setting a lifetime PR of 10'6" in the pole vault, catapulting into fifth place. Ezra Klauber (III) set a 14-second lifetime PR in the 3000m to nab fifth, while Alejandro Rincon’s (II) 110m hurdle time was good for sixth place.

and a combined field/track athlete at the Championships. These awards mark outstanding performances in what are already outstanding competitive fields. Roxbury Latin’s Kofi Fordjour (I) was named the ISL’s 2023 Most Outstanding Track Athlete. Kofi single-handedly scored 28 of RL’s points, winning both the 1500m (4:10) and 3000m (9:24), and taking second in the 800m (1:58). Only a handful of RL distance runners have ever attempted this “iron man triple” at the ISL Championships, and Kofi’s finishing places put him at the top of that list. “The warm round of applause Kofi received from all the ISL athletes at the end of the meet is indicative of the respect he holds across the league,” said Coach Erin Dromgoole.

Track and Field’s final week included a gritty team performance that resulted in a third place finish at the New England Championships. There Kofi Fordjour (I) continued his track dominance, winning the 1500m and 3000m for the second week in a row at a Championship meet. Ethan Dhadly (I) concluded his career in dramatic fashion by catapulting himself into second place in the triple jump on his final attempt down the runway. Carter Crowley (I) adeptly managed three different events (and multiple shoe changes), scoring in both javelin and 300m hurdles. Michael Thomas (I) had the best meet of his career, launching the shot put 40'8"—a monstrous 2.5 foot PR! Carter, Michael, and Adam Kuechler (I) (400m) all rose out of the unseeded ranks to score in their events—a huge boost to RL’s team score! Adam later had Thomas Savage (I) to thank as a fellow member of the 4x400m team; Thomas’s blazing lead-off leg of that relay positioned RL perfectly to score. Thankfully, pole vault wrapped up before the real downpours began, and it was RL’s highestscoring event of the day. All three RL vaulters set personal bests: Tommy Reichard (I) (12'1"), Alejandro Rincon (II) (11'6"), and Ryan Miller (III) (11'0").

This season marks the 11th year in a row (pandemic years excluded) that RL Track and Field has enjoyed a winning record—a testament to the boys’ hard work and to their willingness to preserve a team culture that starts not with wins and losses, but with loving each other. //

Each year, the ISL coaches award Outstanding Performer plaques to the best field event athlete, track event athlete,

Baseball

ISL All-League

Antonio Morales (I), James Henshon (II), Tom Pender (III) (Morales named ISL Golden Glove award winner)

Honorable Mention All-League

James Gibbons (IV), Patrick Schultz (I), Matt Taglieri (III)

All-NEPSAC

Antonio Morales (I), Tom Pender (III)

Lacrosse

ISL Coach of the Year

Mike Higgins

Academic All-American Matt Bastardi (II)

ISL All-League

Johnny Price (III), David Sullivan (I)

Honorable Mention All-League

Hayden Cody (II), Riley Stanton (I), John Thomas (II), Taylor Cotton (III)

All-NEPSAC

Riley Stanton (I), John Thomas (II), David Sullivan (I)

Honorable Mention All-NEPSAC

Hayden Cody (II), Matt Bastardi (II), Johnny Price (III)

Tennis

Cole Oberg (III) – ISL All-League, Boston Globe AllScholastic, and ISL MVP

ISL All-League

Eric Diop (II), Akshay Kumar (I)

Track and Field

Kofi Fordjour (I) – All-NEPSAC, ISL All-League, Boston Globe Foundation/Phelps Scholar-Athlete Recipient, Boston Globe All-Scholastic, and ISL Most Outstanding Track Performer

All-NEPSAC

Adam Kuechler (I) (400m), Kofi Fordjour (I) (800m, 1500m, 3000m), Levi Harrison (III) (1500m), Ezra Klauber (III) (3000m), Ryan Lin (II) (110m hurdles), Carter Crowley (I) (javelin, 300m hurdles), Arjun

Bose (I) (4x400m), Benji Macharia (III) (4x400m), Thomas Savage (I) (4x400m), Tommy Reichard (I) (pole vault), Alejandro Rincon (II) (pole vault), Ryan

Miller (III) (pole vault), Ethan Dhadly (I) (long jump, triple jump), Michael Thomas (I) (shot put)

Spring Varsity Teams

Varsity Lacrosse — First Row: Reid Spence, Noah Abdur Rahim, Jacob Strojny, Michael DiLallo, Matt Bastardi, Sean Patrick DiLallo, Jake Novak, Mateo Werner, Ryan Malloy, Brendan St. Peter, Robby O'Shaughnessy, Taylor Cotton, Finn Leary; Second Row: Chris Brown (Coach), Ben O'Keeffe (Manager), Mark Mattaliano, Mark McGuire, Vincent Jaeger, Evan Zhang, Hayden Cody, Jake Popeo, Angus Leary, Riley Stanton (Captain), David Sullivan (Captain), Thomas Connolly, Will Anderson, Michael Strojny, Johnny Price, John Thomas, Tommy Weber, Aidan Gibbons, Camden Carr (Manager), Mike Higgins (Head Coach)

Varsity Baseball — First row: Thomas Pender, Matt Taglieri, Owen Butler, Patrick Schultz (Captain), Will Matthews (Captain), Antonio Morales (Captain), Harry Lonergan, James Henshon, Justin Loo, Aidan D'Alessandro; Second Row: Dave Cataruzolo (Head Coach), Dror Ko, Caleb Meredith, Ryan Conneely, Braden Place, Liam Russell, Hunter Stevens, James Gibbons, Sam Seaton, Matt Golden, Ben McVane, Bryce Ketchen, Shawn Heide (Coach)

Varsity Tennis — Justin Yamaguchi (Manager), Akshay Kumar (Captain), Eric Zhu, Eric Diop, Daniel Stepanyan, Cole Oberg, Tait Oberg (Captain), Tanner Oberg, Jiho Lee, Ousmane Diop (Coach)

Varsity Track and Field — First row: Austin Reid, Darian Estrada, Fin Reichard, Grayson Lee, Nick Glaeser, Max Kesselheim, Liam Walsh, Lincoln Hyatt, Drew Anderson, Calvin Reid, Lucas Connors, Miles Baumal-Bardy, Jamie Morris-Kliment (Coach); Second row: Akhilsai Damera, Alejandro Rincon, Ryan Lin, Edgar Torres, Benji Macharia, Zach Heaton, Ezra Klauber, Levi Harrison, Alex Giordano, Ryan Miller, Bruno Kim, Joshua Hua, Isaac Frehywot, Brendan Reichard, Aiden Theodore, Paul Wilkinson, Dominic Landry, Jack Tompros, Hunter Lane, Dennis Jin; Third row: Taylor Fitzgerald (Coach), Erin Dromgoole (Head Coach), Alec Bleday (Coach), Mark Anderson, Dovany Estimphile, Tommy Reichard, Bobby Zabin, John Austin, Nick Martin, Marc Quintanar, Alex Nahirny, Emmanuel Nwodo, Kofi Fordjour (Captain), Arjun Bose (Captain), Carter Crowley (Captain), Tyler Duarte, Will Hutter, Ethan Dhadly, Adam Kuechler, Thomas Savage, Mathias Why, Jamie Drachman, Justin Shaw, Matt Hoover, Matt O’Connor, Michael Thomas, Arturo Solís (Coach), Chris Heaton (Coach); Missing: Michael Allen, Luke Wilkinson, Robbie Sun-Friedman

A Joyful, Sunny Reunion and Spring Family Day

In Hall, Headmaster Kerry Brennan addressed the alumni, faculty, and students gathered: “Bill Collatos, Class of 1972 and a trustee of the school for nearly 30 years, acknowledges the impact Roxbury Latin had on the man he became by honoring a teacher and coach who was instrumental in his development, in order that subsequent teacher-coaches—and, in this case, directors of admission—might have a similar impact on students yet to come. What a marvelous instrument for signaling a regard for the circle of life that is schools: one cohort paving the way for the next, teachers inspiring and shaping the next generation to be good and to do good.” The event also celebrated Bill Collatos’s commitment to the school over decades—and his generosity of time, talent, and treasure—with the unveiling of a portrait commissioned in his honor. The evening concluded with the 25th Reunion Family BBQ, celebrating members of the Class of 1998.

Thank you to the hundreds of alumni and families who gathered on Roxbury Latin’s campus this spring to celebrate Reunion and Spring Family Day. Festivities began on Friday, May 5, with an alumni luncheon and Class I panel, followed by a Hall honoring former trustee Bill Collatos ’72, and celebrating his generous gift: naming the William E. Chauncey Director of Admission Chair, after his former teacher and baseball coach, and RL’s longtime and beloved admission director, and assistant headmaster.

On Saturday morning, alumni from across decades returned to the RL playing fields for an alumni softball game and alumni tennis matches (which included members of RL’s current tennis teams, as well). Alumni, students, families, and faculty flocked to enjoy a BBQ lunch under the arches of the IAF and cheered on members of our Varsity Baseball, Lacrosse, and Tennis teams as they swept victories in contests through the afternoon. Varsity Lacrosse beat Rivers (14-13); Varsity Baseball defeated Brooks (3-1); and Varsity Tennis was victorious over Brooks, as well (7-0). Off campus, RL’s Track and Field team won three of four match-ups to Milton Academy, BB&N, and Lawrence Academy, falling short only to Belmont Hill in the day’s meet. Finally, on Saturday evening, in the Gordon Fieldhouse, nearly 300 guests celebrated a Reunion which honored, in particular, classes ending in 3 and 8. There guests enjoyed good food, drink, and fellowship into the evening. //

Exelauno Day Pub Night

March 2: Trillium Brewery, Boston Seaport

Spring Alumni Luncheon

April 14: Boston College Club, featuring speakers Dan Rea ’05 and Jim Skeffington P’27, representing the Worcester Red Sox organization.

class notes

1964

Steve Hahn updates us from England: “We love our house in Peterborough and the frequent visits of our four grandchildren (and their parents), but we spent most of the winter in our new flat in Brentford (West London) on the other side of the Thames from where Tim grew up. Hard to believe, but our 60th is around the corner!”

1967

Ronald Greenwald recently enjoyed a long trip to the tropics, spending 13 weeks in the Caribbean.

1972

Jim Wolper retired as a professor of mathematics at Idaho State University and relocated to the Portland (Oregon) area, where he is devoting his time to writing. He recently completed the first draft of his first novel. Jim has a long-standing interest in Tai Chi, and one of his Tai Chi classmates is Marie Schram, who taught at Roxbury Latin in 2010-2011.

1983

Trustee Paul Provost was featured in the Princeton Alumni Weekly this spring for his work as CEO of Art Bridges Foundation which, as he says, “inhabits a space in between a museum and a foundation.” Art Bridges acquires works of art that it loans to 220 museums and provides funding for education about that art. Paul joined the foundation after spending 15 years at Christie’s, ultimately as Deputy Chairman. Paul says, “I’m living proof that you can be an art history major and have gainful employment! I’ve been so grateful to work with such accomplished colleagues at each stage of my career.”

1985

1 Four members of the class of 1985— Trustee Bob O’Connor, Peter Martin, Director of Admission Matt McDonald, and Jim Sullivan—caught up at graduation in June. Peter and Jim are both fathers of Class of 2023 graduates.

1986

2 David Ruddy says that one of the bright spots from the global pandemic was the establishment of a weekly video conference call with fellow Roxbury Latin Class of 1986 alumni: Mark Rubenstein, Mike Kearns, Andy Molinsky, and Dave Crossman (with guest appearances from Mark Hinkle, Steve Cohen, and Chris Payne). “We pass the time discussing current events, reminiscing about our time at the One True School, and making new memories through yearly gatherings.” Pictured, from a recent trip to Boca Raton, Florida, are Mike Kearns, Dave Ruddy, Mark Rubenstein, Dave Crossman, and Steve Rochlin.

1990

Liam Craig understudied Polonius and The Gravedigger in Hamlet at the Delacorte with the New York Public Theatre alongside Director Kenny Leon this summer, achieving a dream of 25 years since finishing NYU’s Graduate Acting program in 1998.

2001

3 This spring, Sidik Fofana received the prestigious Whiting Award in Fiction for his critically-acclaimed debut novel Stories From the Tenants Downstairs. One of the most celebrated awards for young writers in the U.S., the Whiting Award is given to ten emerging creative writers each year. Since 1985, the Whiting Foundation has recognized rising artists with an award of $50,000, based on their early accomplishments and “the promise of great work to come.”

2002

Peter Emmet is launching a new school: “RL was so foundational to my own education, and so impactful in the way I have looked at what a school could be and the kind of community it could create. I’m happy to now give from what I have been given!” The school is called the Gwinnett Global School in Suwannee, Georgia, serving students in grades PK-8. “If you know of others with whom I could share this, or who might be interested in what we’re doing, I would be grateful for any thoughts or connections you might have!”

2004

4 On April 24, Sam Jacobs was named Editor-in-Chief of TIME Magazine. Sam served as a leader of the publication’s editorial team for a decade, and he is the youngest editor to lead TIME since co-founder Henry Luce nearly a century ago.

2010

Kyle Kadlick and his wife, Colby, welcomed a baby boy, Wesley David, on June 12. Wesley weighed in at a healthy seven pounds, twelve ounces.

6 Alex Pellegrini and his wife, Kaitlyn, were married in a small, family ceremony at his in-laws’ home in Wilton, Connecticut on June 17—a significant day for all RL alumni, as it is the Bunker Hill Day! Alex’s brother, Dom Pellegrini ’04, was his best man. Alex and Kaitlyn also welcomed their first child, Lou Alexander, on July 22.

2014

7 Christian Hasiotis received his White Coat from Tufts Dental School, marking his transition into clinical work. The ceremony was held on March 4 at the Copley Marriott.

Isaac Krier graduated from Fordham University School of Law in May. He is beginning a clerkship for a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

8 Nine members of the Class of 2014 got together at their five-year Harvard reunion: Robert Shaw, Charlie Hyman, Zach Gardner, Alessandro Ferzoco, Hansy Piou, Lev Mamuya, Jimmy Joyce, and Andrew Zhang (missing from photo: Ben Zheng).

2019

9 Brendan Gibbons and Milan Rosen both celebrated their graduations from Georgetown University in May.

singles, Brendan went 17-9 in singles play (10-6 in dual matches), including a 6-1 record in Liberty League play. He faced five NCAA singles qualifiers, picking up three wins. In doubles play, Brendan (teamed with first-year player Nika Mori) went 9-7, including a 5-2 record in Liberty League play. The duo was ranked fifth in the NCAA Region II doubles rankings.

10 Trey Sullivan was inducted into the Alpha Iota chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society this spring, as part of Harvard’s “Junior 24.” Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society, recognizing students who demonstrate academic depth and breadth in the liberal arts and sciences.

11 Eric Zaks played his solo Senior Recital in Distler Hall at Tufts University on May 7, performing “the most challenging program [he] had ever put together,” consisting of the Kodály Sonata for Solo Cello, Bloch Prayer, Brahms Cello Sonata in E minor, and Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango. He is grateful to those members of the RL community who were in attendance to support his final collegiate performance.

2020

professional engagement with legislation, as I joined a research project tracing policy in Congress.

Alongside Professors Andrew Ballard and Jim Curry, I work to analyze past bills in Congress to isolate bipartisan efforts as a variable, and to incorporate that variable into an algorithm that measures legislation on its own. This semester I worked as a legislative intern in the office of Elizabeth Warren, and this summer I’m participating in the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program with the Department of State. I’ll spend ten weeks working at an office in D.C. before being stationed at an embassy abroad during the summer of 2024.” (Pictured with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).

alumni tennis

13 During Reunion Weekend in May, former RL tennis players turned out to test their skills against current RL students. Pictured in front are Dylan Zhou ’18, Peter Martin ’85, Dan Gonzalez ’06, Alex Jacobs ’08. Back row, pictured with Dr. Peter Hyde and members of the Varsity Tennis team, are Harris Foulkes ’18 and Art Lusty ’88. //

errata

Skidmore

College

senior Brendan Jimenez was selected Liberty League Men’s Tennis Player of the Year at Skidmore College this spring. Brendan was the top-ranked singles player in NCAA Region II, selected to the NCAA Division III singles championship. Playing the entire campaign at first

Chris Zhu, along with his co-founder Gavin Uberti, were featured in a Wall Street Journal exclusive in May for raising $5.36M in seed funding for their startup Etched, which has designed a more-specialized, less power-intensive chip for running generative AI models.

2021

12 Edozie Umunna writes “Last summer marked the start of my

In the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of the Newsletter, the following alumni class years were listed incorrectly: John Connors is Class of 1951; Phil Ferrara is Class of 1961; Larry Murphy is Class of 1966. //

Drew Martin, Class of 1998, is the Executive Director of the KIPP School in Camden, New Jersey. The KIPP Charter Public Schools are a non-profit network of college-preparatory schools educating Pre-K through Grade 12 students.

To support Camden’s KIPP School and the ongoing good work of their classmate Drew, several members of the Class of 1998—including Dan Botwinik, Matt Grabler, Steve Hely, Will Holt, Nick Lawler, and Gavin Murphy—spearheaded fundraising efforts over the last several years, which culminated this winter in the naming of the school’s cafeteria as The Jarvis Refectory, after the grads’ beloved RL headmaster, Tony Jarvis.

“While KIPP is not directly affiliated with RL, and may be seen as competition for donation dollars, we don’t see it that way,” says Matt Grabler. “In fact, the philosophies about service and morality taught at RL have been passed down to the students at KIPP, creating a direct link between the communities and a common belief that ‘from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected.’

“KIPP has helped students from an underserved community grow into important contributors to society. There is

no outcome that speaks to the virtues of RL more than that. Drew’s contributions to this effort have been truly remarkable. We, Drew’s classmates, want to shine a spotlight on the important work being done at KIPP, led by an RL-grad-done-good, and provide an example to the RL community about the lessons learned at the ‘One True School’ being put into practice.”

KIPP representative Jenn Shetsen wrote to these Class of 1998 alumni, “We know that Camden’s kids have incredible potential (like all kids), but unfortunately Camden’s district schools have failed them for far too long. Thanks to your support every year, we’ve been able to offer a better choice to thousands of children and families, right in their neighborhoods. Our schools stand out in our neighborhoods as beacons of optimism and joy.

KIPP has led the investment of nearly $500 million in our communities and revitalized many of our neighborhoods through building improvements and safety. While buildings don’t teach students directly, they do show our kids how much we value their education by creating the state-of-the-art facilities that they deserve. In recognition of your generosity, we’ll be dedicating our KIPP High School Cafeteria to Roxbury Latin’s Class of 1998, in the naming of The Jarvis Refectory. //

“From Those To Whom Much Has Been Given, Much Will Be Expected” Class of 1998, Celebrating their 25th Reunion, Support KIPP’s J arvis Refectory

As part of their 25th Reunion fundraising effort, 64 percent of the Class of 1998 together contributed more than $112K to Roxbury Latin’s Annual Fund this year toward student scholarships, supporting three specific members of the RL community. In acknowledging that generosity, Tom Guden ’96, Assistant Headmaster for Advancement, wrote, “Having previously served as Director of Admission at RL, I know firsthand the impact that scholarship donations have on the formation of our student body. Scholarship support allows us to admit boys without taking into account their families’ ability to pay the tuition. [This allows us to] meet the financial need of all accepted boys and ensure that they receive the necessary aid for their tuition and all aspects of our program.” //

“While KIPP is not directly affiliated with RL, and may be seen as competition for donation dollars, we don’t see it that way...In fact, the philosophies about service and morality taught at RL have been passed down to the students at KIPP, creating a direct link between the communities and a common belief that ‘from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected.”

A WEEKEND FOR ALL ALUMNI, ESPECIALLY THOSE CLASSES CELEBRATING ANNIVERSARY YEARS, WITH CLASS YEARS ENDING IN 4 OR 9.

Another New Record for the Annual Fund

As the 2022–2023 Annual Fund closed on May 31, Annual Fund donations totaled $4,831,034, setting another record.

Annual Fund Chairman Kent Sahin, Alumni Leadership Giving Committee Co-Chairs Jay Mitchell and Andy McElaney, along with Parent Fund Co-Chairs Krista and Ian Lane and Vice Co-Chairs John Reichard and Eileen Scanlon did an outstanding job leading a team of dedicated volunteers. As a result, parent participation was 99 percent this year. Parents raised $1,758,269. Our alumni volunteers also worked diligently to ensure that the 2022–2023 Annual Fund was a banner year for them—alumni raised a record $1,971,011, with a record 56 percent participation.

None of this would be possible without the energetic, persistent leadership of Tobey O’Brien, our Director of Development and leader of the Annual Fund. The continued level of commitment to Roxbury Latin demonstrated through the Annual Fund is both a ringing affirmation of the difference the school makes in boys’ lives and a testimonial to the tireless devotion of the men and women who served as volunteers.

We extend our deepest gratitude to all those who invested in Roxbury Latin, allowing us to preserve the school’s unique financial model. On behalf of the boys—your beneficiaries—we thank you for your continued support. There is no better way to honor the boys and their teachers, today and always. Roxbury Latin is the school that it is because of you. //

The Roxbury Latin School

101 St. Theresa Avenue

West Roxbury, MA 02132-3496

www.roxburylatin.org

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