Saint Ann's Times | Summer 2022

SAINT ANN’S TIMES

SUMMER 2022

2021/2022

PEERPOINTS

THE SAINT ANN’S MATHEMATICAL JOURNAL

Student Artwork from Math Art Festival (See more artwork and images on page 18!)

SUMMER 2022 A LETTER FROM VINCE_________________________________________________________ 2 INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

High School Art Festival_________________________________________________________ 4 Second Grade Puppet Parade Project_______________________________________________ 7 Exploring the Silk Road: Interdisciplinary Fourth Grade History Project____________________ 8 OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

One Book Day_______________________________________________________________ Poem in Your Pocket Day_______________________________________________________ DREAMS Production_________________________________________________________ Alumni Visitors______________________________________________________________ Gallery: High School Dance Concert______________________________________________ Gallery: Lower School Circus____________________________________________________ Gallery: Math Art Festival_______________________________________________________

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COMMUNITY EVENTS

Celebrate Saint Ann’s: Emma Straub ’98____________________________________________ 20 Photo Gallery: Puppet Parade____________________________________________________ 22 Photo Gallery: Graduation______________________________________________________ 26 CLASS OF 2022______________________________________________________________ 30 FACULTY & STAFF NEWS______________________________________________________ 34

Celebrating Many Years of Service________________________________________________ 36 Departures__________________________________________________________________ 39 Welcome New Core Administrators_______________________________________________ 40 BOARD OF TRUSTEES NEWS___________________________________________________ 42 HEAD OF SCHOOL NEWS_______________________________________________________ 43 ALUMNI

Staying in Touch______________________________________________________________ 44 Alumni Events_______________________________________________________________ 45 Alumni Mini Features__________________________________________________________ 48 IN MEMORIAM ______________________________________________________________

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Cover Artwork by: Aidan C., 11th grade

The Saint Ann’s Times is published biannually by Saint Ann’s School for alumni, parents of alumni, parents, grandparents, faculty, former faculty, and friends of the School. Questions or feedback about the magazine may be sent to the Advancement Office at communications@saintannsny.org and/or Alumni Relations at alumni@saintannsny.org.

Editorial Staff

Design

Anne Conway, Director of Communications

Heather Francovitch, Design and Website Manager

Hannah Swacker Kurnit ’97, Assoc. Director of Advancement David Smith, Director of Advancement Elena Sheppard ’05, Alumni Relations Manager Anna Verdi, Special Events Coordinator Jacob Goodhart, Special Events Assistant ©2022 Saint Ann’s School

FOND FAREWELL & THANKS Much gratitude and best wishes to our Director of Communications Anne Conway as she embarks on her next adventure.

A LETTER FROM VINCE

Mission Summer 2022 Schools do not exist in order to have mission statements, but schools without a clear expression of their purpose, direction, and raison d’etre either flounder or find themselves coming to resemble, to greater or lesser degrees, every other school whose broad institutional characteristics they share.

Even schools that begin with a distinctive impulse—like many schools that describe themselves as progressive—can find that distinguishing themselves from one another beyond their unique origin stories becomes harder with time.

Such is not our fate. While we may choose not to stake a claim to being unique, I am confident in asserting that we are unusual, rare, and distinctive in many of our guiding truths. And so when, at the start of the 2021-2022 school year, I asked a group of intrepid and thoughtful colleagues to take up the task of reviewing and revising the mission statement that has guided us for the past decade, they and I understood it to be a significant undertaking. While not quite as momentous as when John Winthrop cautioned his fellow passengers on their way to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony that “we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us,” this project had something of that solemnity within the Saint Ann’s community.

The context for this work is the once-a-decade self-study that we’ve been engaged in this past year, mandated as part of our accreditation through the New York State Association of Independent Schools. With the aim of making this an inclusive process we invited students, faculty and staff, and trustees to participate last fall in a set of workshops in which our existing mission statement was reviewed and critiqued and participants were asked to identify the traits, values, commitments and experiences that defined Saint Ann’s for them.

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Saint Ann’s exists to nurture the wonder of children. Unfettered by grades, teachers and students embark on journeys of discovery in which the arts are central.

Through an ambitious curriculum and a culture of inquiry, we question the world. We invite each other to take risks, pursue knowledge for its own sake, and celebrate growth. We seek to create a community rooted in trust and equity. Here, every subject is an art and every child is an artist.

Saint Ann’s School Mission Statement May 2022

More than 250 faculty and staff and 300 middle and high school students participated. Certain widely shared themes emerged from these conversations: our focus on students and on the centrality of the student-teacher relationship; nurturing individual voices in the context of creating community; the essential role of the arts to our vision of education, with students as active creators rather than passive consumers of knowledge or information; the coexistence of joy and an ambitious curriculum; the need to articulate and fulfill our commitments to diversity, equity and trust; and the strong sense that the word “gifted” no longer served the purpose it once did in defining the kinds of students we seek as we assemble a community of learners who can thrive at our school.

From this iterative process emerged the mission statement you see here, unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees at its May meeting. I am delighted to share it with the full Saint Ann’s community, for I believe that it eloquently distills into seventy-eight words our essence. It is descriptive—for instance, making clear our long-standing commitment to teaching without the use of formal grades.

And it is aspirational: the statement that “we seek to create a community rooted in trust and equity” is both a reflection of attributes we have long sought to embody, and a frank recognition that this work is and must be ongoing. It speaks to our resistance to orthodoxies and our desire to inculcate the habits of questioning, probing, digging—the habits of the scholar and the artist, and of the responsible citizen. We undertake journeys of discovery in which the journey, and those we are on it with, are as important as what is ultimately discovered, because that is true learning, leaving ample room for taking risks and making mistakes. When it is the journey that matters one avoids the idea that the most significant thing about what we are doing in the moment—with the fresh canvas, the blank page, the empty beaker—is at its heart preparation for some distant end. The end has never been what we conceive to be central to a Saint Ann’s education, even as we have proven that what students discover here will have meaning throughout their lives.

We emphasize trust as a vital companion to equity because we seek to create a culture in which we have the confidence to talk with one another, to engage rather than cancel, to hew to a model of discourse that is less about proving oneself right than about mutual growth and understanding as the means to creating a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and empowerment.

This new statement connects us to our improbable beginnings and invites us to move forward, to keep experimenting, opening our hearts and minds to that which is new, and those who are new, as much as to things long cherished. And it appropriately places our double helix—the arts entwined with a deep and rich academic curriculum—in the middle of it all. The culture of inquiry we create is a constant enticement to our students to deepen their skills, their artistry, their command of each subject that they encounter, and their understanding of each other and the world around them.

Our mission statement imposes no explicit future burden or expectation upon our students (unlike, for example, my alma mater, which enjoins its alumni to lead lives of “usefulness and reputation”).

What our graduates do with what they have learned and experienced here is rightly up to them, whatever hopes or aspirations we may harbor on their behalf, whatever difference we hope they will make in the world.

As our school looks ahead to a year of leadership transition and to the coming decade, this statement will serve us well as guide and inspiration. For we can truly say that we always have and always will exist “to nurture the wonder of children.” There are few higher callings than that.

Vince Tompkins Head of School

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INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

High School Art Festival On May 26, the Art Department held an opening reception for the High School Art Festival, a new event that expanded upon the ways in which Saint Ann’s has always shared students’ culminating creations at the end of the year. Sculptures, figure drawings, photographs, paintings, videography, and more were installed in a multidisciplinary show that spanned three spaces at school—the Bosworth lobby, the Rotunda, and the undercroft gallery. Faculty, staff, students, friends, and family were invited to come experience the incredible breadth and depth of artwork created by our high schoolers this year, and a student jazz trio provided musical accompaniment. After two years that included art without studios and restrictions on indoor gatherings, the High School Art Festival was a joyful return to form and a fitting celebration of our extraordinary high school artists.

Artwork by Luca D. B., 12th grade (shoes); Julian K., 10th grade (middle)

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Silver Gelatin Print by Anika A., 9th grade

Artwork by (clockwise from top left): Julia S. 11th grade (top left, top right); Sofia C., 11th grade; Charlotte D., 9th grade; Soleil P., 11th grade

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INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Photographs from the High School Art Festival

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Second Grade Puppet Parade Project This spring in Erica Kelley and Theo George’s second grade classroom, Theo designed and led a curriculum about artists of New York City. The class’s recent Puppet Parade project blended themes from that curriculum with their year-long study of American Sign Language. Inspired by the work of Chinese-American painter Martin Wong, each student made a “puppet” of a brick wall on which they painted hands forming ASL signs. The project was modeled on Wong’s work incorporating ASL signs in his paintings in order to communicate powerful messages. Though Wong himself was not deaf, he was interested in deaf culture and in ASL as a kind of open secret language. Together, the students’ individual puppets create a brick wall of messages in ASL that the class believes are important to send!

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INSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Exploring the Silk Road: Interdisciplinary Fourth Grade History Project

By Chris Mellon ’87, History Faculty The fourth grade history curriculum is designed to give teachers a lot of flexibility in terms of times and places to study. In the late winter and early spring our class dove into an exploration of the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that linked Asia to Europe during the first century CE. The unit was anchored by the book Between the Dragon and the Eagle by Mical Schneider, a fictional account of the journey of a bolt of blue silk from Chang’an in China to Rome. As we read the book, students kept a journal where they wrote down things to remember—what to bring, where to stop, what to avoid and the many various people and places that one might encounter in making this fascinating and perilous odyssey.

Once we were done with the book, the class decided to make two things: a map of the trip inspired by the scroll maps we had looked at in class, and our own very practical guidebook. The guidebook, crammed full of information about what to expect on the voyage and full of the students’ own research and stunning artwork, might have been enough for some. However, being the amazing fourth graders that they are, the class decided that we should also make dragons and eagles to hang in front of the scroll map. For this part of the project, we were fortunate enough to have the help of Larissa Tokmakova, Chair of the Art Department, and Jenny Marshall, one of our veteran art teachers. With their unceasingly kind, knowledgeable and creative guidance, each student was able to create either a dragon or an eagle to fly in front of the map in our classroom. The project was a truly interdisciplinary experience, with Jenny and Larissa showing the class various examples of both animals, how they were represented at the time of the first century, and how to use a variety of materials to make them come to life. As a history teacher, it was a remarkable experience for me to see my students in another setting, exhibiting the same care and precision that I saw from them in room 805 when studying history while chatting away with each other about music, art, celebrities and the latest hot gossip. When I remarked on this to Larissa and Jenny they looked at me and said that this was pretty typical for art classes. The relaxed but focused atmosphere, and the end results of the work, were testaments both to the kids’ ingenuity and to Jenny and Larissa’s skills as artists and teachers. I am already thinking about ways to work with them again next year on a variety of projects!

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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

One Book Day Immersing themselves in issues ranging from time travel to immigration law to the nature of love, upper middle school students participated in the school’s first-ever One Book Day, run jointly by the library and the upper middle school office. The day centered around The Sun is Also a Star, the awardwinning young adult novel by Nicola Yoon about a Korean-American boy and a Jamaican immigrant girl. It kicked off with a virtual visit from author Nicola Yoon and concluded with a panel discussion featuring Yoon and Saint Ann’s alum Ry Russo-Young ’99, who directed the movie version of the book. In between, students followed their passions and attended their choice of workshops created by faculty and staff from every department. These 45-minute workshops were spun off from The Sun is Also a Star—which uses thematically-rich interlinked chapters to tell the story of two teenagers in New York City who meet and fall in love on the day when one of them is to be deported. They included: “It’s Fate! Really?” an exploration of the book and how fate and destiny have been viewed throughout history (run by a classics teacher), “FLASH MOB!” in which students led by a dance teacher choreographed a piece inspired by a scene in the book, and “Dreamers in Real Life” co-chaired by a faculty member and a Saint Ann’s parent who is an immigration lawyer with the New York Legal Assistance Group. Twenty-nine workshops in total—including Hair Science, The American Dream, How to Write a Novel, and Interracial Dating—were a testament to the dedication of students and faculty to work across divisions and disciplines and delve deeply into one text together. And of course there was food: Director of Food Services Amra Tomlinson created a Korean-Jamaican fusion lunch of jerk chicken bibimbap for the occasion, which fueled our brains and souls.

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Clockwise from top left: Exploring Hair Science; Zoom panel Discussion; Mapping/Collage Workshop; Students attending American Dream Workshop run by Head of School Vince Tompkins; Food Service Director Amra Tomlinson created a JamaicanKorean fusion lunch for One Book Day; Creating a flash mob with dance teacher Kate Hamilton

Poem in Your Pocket Day On a brisk but sunny morning, the preschool celebrated national Poem in Your Pocket Day outside on the playground. There were beautiful handmade pockets, poems, and even bongos to accompany families and kids reading and celebrating poetry together. And of course, there was a lot of love and a whole lot of cake!

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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

DREAMS Production A collaborative creation between a cast and crew of forty high school students, with Theater faculty Laura Barnett ’81 and Diane Exavier, DREAMS featured original writing and music, puppetry, graphic and costume design. Staged outdoors at the Preschool Playground, DREAMS was an immersive theater production that celebrated collaboration in all forms. The audience was invited to follow the actors through the dreamscape!

“In a sense all dreams foretell events, but some more clearly than others.”

—Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Alumni Visitors We love visitors, and this winter and spring a number of alumni returned to speak with current students about their work. Adriel Saporta ’07 spoke at a High School Friday Meeting about her job in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Students enjoyed her talk so much that our Women in STEM group invited Adriel back for a Q&A along with fellow alum in STEM Alessandra Gotbaum ’07, Co-Founder and COO of digital fitness company Ergatta. Jeremy Ney ’10 Zoomed in to a Friday meeting to discuss his work on inequality in the United States, in which he uses data visualization to highlight America’s regional divides, including disparities in access to the internet, life expectancy, and reliable access to food. The student-led group BLISS (Black Luminaries Inspiring Safe Spaces) invited Ilana Harris-Babou ’09, whose work was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, to come speak about her career as an artist. Finally, in honor of Earth Day, Alex Boghosian ’07 a glaciologist and oceanography and climate scientist spoke to the high school about her research in Greenland and Antarctica investigating the role that rivers play in ice-shelf stability using satellite images, aerial images, and ice-penetrating radar. As a graduate student, Alex discovered the first observed estuary on an ice shelf, which can be seen in Google Earth.

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High School Dance Concert

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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Lower School Circus Art Faculty Stephanie Sassoon and Teja Clayman worked with two first grade classes to create a circus tent made up of sculptures, fabric, and drawings. It was on the fourth floor of the Farber Building. Students can pull a chair over and just sit with the circus.

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OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Math Art Festival

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COMMUNITY EVENTS

Celebrate Saint Ann’s: Emma Straub ’98 | June 16 Our final Celebrate Saint Ann’s event of the school year featured novelist Emma Straub ’98 in conversation with Lauren Mechling ’95. Emma and Lauren discussed Emma’s most recent novel, This Time Tomorrow, published in May. In the book, the main character wakes up to find herself back in 1996 in her sixteen-year old body, and viewing her father from a new perspective. Written during early Covid in 2020, it is Emma’s most personal novel to date. A Saint Ann’s parent, Emma is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels and a short story collection. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn. Lauren, who is also a Saint Ann’s parent, has written several books for young readers. Her journalism regularly appears in Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Emma Straub ’98 and Lauren Mechling ’95

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Artwork by Juno W., 11th grade

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PUPPET PARADE 2022

After a two-year hiatus the Saint Ann's Puppet Parade returned in full force.

We celebrated puppetry teacher Ronnie Asbell, who originally envisioned and created the parade, and has been a staple of the Saint Ann's community since 1984. Ronnie retired this year.

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PUPPET PARADE 2022

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Graduation: Celebrating the Class of 2022 For the first time since 2019, we were able to celebrate graduation back in St. Ann’s Church on June 9 with friends and family present. In a ceremony that was a return to “normal” in almost every way, there was one particularly Saint Ann’s twist that met the moment: the graduates customized puppets to stand in for a handful of classmates who had to miss the ceremony due to Covid diagnoses. It was a fitting culmination for a class that had to navigate a high school experience full of unprecedented disruptions and innovations. Congratulations and best of luck to the Class of 2022!

Photos courtesy of Todd France 26

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CLASS OF 2022 Members of the Class of 2022 were invited to attend the following colleges: American University..........................2

Hobart & William Smith..................1

American University in Paris.............1

Ithaca College....................................1

Tulane University..............................2

Amherst College................................6

Johns Hopkins University..................1

University of Aberdeen (UK).............1

Bard College......................................8

Johns Hopkins, Peabody Conservatory..................................1

University of California, Berkeley.....1

Kenyon College...............................10

University of California, Irvine.........1

Barnard College.................................2 Bates College.....................................1 Beloit College....................................1 Bennington College...........................3 Boston College..................................2 Boston University..............................3 Bowdoin College...............................3 Brandeis University............................3 Brown University...............................5 Bryn Mawr College...........................1 Carleton College................................2 Carnegie Mellon University...............1 Clark University................................2 Colby College....................................1 Colgate University.............................2 College of the Atlantic.......................1 College of Wooster............................1 Colorado College...............................3 Colorado State University..................1 Columbia University.........................1 Connecticut College..........................3 Cornell University.............................3 CUNY, Brooklyn College.................1 CUNY, City College of New York....1 CUNY, Hunter College.....................1 CUNY, Queens College....................1 Drew University................................1 Drexel University...............................2 Duke University................................2 Emerson College................................3 Emory University..............................6 Eunge Lang, The New School...........1 Fordham University...........................1 George Washington University..........3 Georgetown University......................1 Gettysburg College............................1 Goucher College................................1 Grinnell College................................3 Hamilton College..............................2 Hampshire College............................2 Harvard University............................4 Haverford College.............................4

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Knox College.....................................1 Lafayette College...............................1 Lehigh University..............................1 Lewis & Clark College......................1 Loyola Marymount University..........1 Macalester College.............................4 Massachusetts College of Art.............1 McGill University (CAN).................1 Middlebury College...........................3 New York University.........................1 Northwestern University...................1 Oberlin College...............................16 Oberlin Conservatory of Music.........1 Occidental College............................2 Otis College of Art and Design.........1 Pace University..................................1

Tufts University.................................3

University of California, Davis..........1 University of California, Los Angeles.....................................2 University of California, San Diego.......................................2 University of California, Santa Barbara.................................5 University of California, Santa Cruz......................................3 University of Chicago........................3 University of Colorado, Boulder........4 University of Denver..........................1 University of Edinburgh (UK)..........1 University of Florida..........................1 University of Illinois, Urbana............1 University of Iowa..............................1 University of Manchester (UK).........1

Pacific Northwest College of Art.......1

University of Massachusetts, Amherst..........................................5

Penn State University.........................1

University of Michigan......................5

Pitzer College.....................................1 Pomona College.................................2

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.....................................4

Princeton University..........................4

University of Puget Sound.................2

Reed College......................................6

University of Redlands......................1

Rice University..................................1

University of Richmond....................1

Sarah Lawrence College.....................5

University of Rochester......................1

Savannah College of Art & Design...1

University of San Francisco...............1

School of the Art Institute of Chicago......................................1

University of Southern California.....5

School of Visual Arts.........................1

University of Toronto (CAN)............2

Scripps College..................................2

University of Vermont.......................9

Skidmore College..............................5

University of Virginia........................3

Smith College....................................1

University of Wisconsin, Madison.....2

Spelman College................................1

Vassar College..................................12

St. Olaf College.................................1 Stanford University............................1

Washington University in St. Louis.........................................1

SUNY, Binghamton University.........3

Wellesley College...............................3

SUNY, New Paltz..............................3

Wesleyan University........................11

University of St Andrews (UK).........4

SUNY, Purchase College...................1

Whitman College..............................1

SUNY, Stony Brook University.........1

Whittier College................................1

Swarthmore College..........................1

Williams College...............................3

Temple University..............................3

Yale University...................................6

Trinity College, Dublin (IRL)...........1

The Class of 2022 will matriculate at the following colleges: Amherst College.......................................................................4 Bennington College.................................................................1 Boston University.....................................................................1 Bowdoin College......................................................................2 Brown University.....................................................................4 Carnegie Mellon University......................................................1 Colby College..........................................................................1 Colorado College.....................................................................2 Columbia University................................................................1 Cornell University....................................................................1 Duke University.......................................................................1 Emerson College......................................................................1 Emory University.....................................................................1 Georgetown University.............................................................1 Hamilton College.....................................................................1 Harvard University...................................................................3 Kenyon College........................................................................1 Middlebury College.................................................................2 New York University................................................................1 Northwestern University..........................................................1 Oberlin College........................................................................4 Oberlin College & Oberlin Conservatory of Music..................1 Otis College of Art & Design...................................................1 Pitzer College...........................................................................1 Princeton University.................................................................3 Rice University.........................................................................1 Sarah Lawrence College............................................................1 Scripps College.........................................................................1 Smith College...........................................................................1 Stanford University..................................................................1 Swarthmore College.................................................................1 Tufts University........................................................................2 Tulane University.....................................................................1 University of California, Los Angeles........................................2 University of California, San Diego..........................................1 University of California, Santa Barbara.....................................2 University of Chicago...............................................................3 University of Michigan.............................................................2 University of Southern California.............................................1 University of St Andrews (UK).................................................1 Vassar College..........................................................................8 Washington University in St. Louis..........................................1

Artwork by Abigail W., 12th grade

Wellesley College......................................................................2 Wesleyan University.................................................................6 Williams College......................................................................1 Yale University.........................................................................5

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Artwork by Tommy C., 10th grade

diamond wharf crystal sea watching boats rushing history gorgeous night sunlit cove happiness like time waiting and watching —Sadie O., 5th Grade

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For two years, Saint Ann’s has been focused on supporting students, families, faculty, and staff through a global crisis. We are proud of this commitment, and grateful to those who have helped keep our community whole with their philanthropic support.

Contributions to the 2021-22 Saint Ann’s Annual Fund—from alumni, parents, faculty, staff, grandparents and parents of alumni—allowed us to offer the most financial aid to incoming families in our school’s history, to provide a generous bonus to faculty and staff, and to ensure that every program remained accessible to all students. This demonstration of partnership through philanthropy benefited every student in countless ways.

We are grateful. THANK YOU.

Three cheers for the team of 23 volunteers who helped support the 2021-22 Annual Fund effort!

Make a Gift

www.saintannsny.org/annual-fund

For questions about giving to Saint Ann’s or becoming involved as a volunteer, contact: David Smith Director of Advancement 718.522.1660 Ext.225 dsmith@saintannsny.org

Hannah Swacker Kurnit ’97 Associate Director of Advancement 718.522.1660 Ext.345 hkurnit@saintannsny.org

FACULTY NEWS

Current Faculty Golnar Adili

Howard Garrett

Sam Aronson

Yejing Gu

Golnar, a member of the Art Department, had two solo exhibitions in New York City; one at the CUE Foundation and the other at The Center For Book Arts.

After nearly a decade as the first coordinator of our Interdisciplinary Studies program, Sam will step down from that role but continue as a fulltime teacher in Math and English.

Chris Caccamise

Chris is the new Chair of the Computer Science Department. Since joining Saint Ann’s in 2019, Chris has strengthened and expanded our curriculum, deepened the connections and synergy between our Technology staff and our academic offerings, and helped us to expand a Digital Fluency program to educate our students and help them build productive and creative lives while navigating our increasingly digitally connected world.

Hannah Celli

Earlier this year, sculptures by After School teacher Hannah were included in a three-person show “Magic Mountain” at Jack Hanley Gallery.

She also had a solo exhibition ‘Organ Player’ at Duplex NYC.

Annie Cooperstone

After School and Substitute Teacher Annie has a short story included in Issue 30 of New Ohio Review.

Diane Exavier

Bernarda’s Daughters, a play by playwriting teacher Diane, is now available to download and listen to on Audible. Additionally, Diane’s book The Math of Saint Felix returned to the Small Press Distribution Top 20 Best Seller List and is available at Greenlight Bookstores or online.

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After six years as Executive Assistant to the Head of School and his tenure as a teacher in the Kindergarten, Howard will be transitioning to a part-time role as Board Liaison next year.

Yejing, a member of the Classics and Asian Languages Department, will be the new Chinese Language Coordinator.

Julia Izumi

Julia, who teaches playwriting, had a production of her play miku, and the gods run this summer at ArtsWest in Seattle. Over the summer, Julia was Associate Director for Aya Ogawa and their show The Nosebleed, which will play at Lincoln Center in the LCT3 space.

Jesse Kohn

Jesse will step down from his administrative roles and return to teaching full-time in the History Department.

Shalewa Mackall

Shalewa is the new Interdisciplinary Studies Coordinator. A long-time member of the Theater Department, Shalewa has also taught through the Interdisciplinary Studies program since 2015, offering a variety of courses that have embodied the program’s commitment to tackling multifaceted subjects in a rigorous and nuanced way.

Eva Melas

Eva, a retiring member of the Art Department, participated in an exhibition called “Artists Draw Their Studios” at Marymount Manhattan College. She is also co-curating a show called “Whether, Weather,” that will take place in the fall, at Create, Greene County Council for the Arts in Catskill, New York.

Ryan Milov-Córdoba

Ryan, a Classics teacher and Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, CUNY, was named a 2022 Fulbright Fellow. Ryan will be on leave from Saint Ann’s for the 2022–23 school year while he travels to Morocco to study and document how young people are preserving and changing a centuriesold oral storytelling tradition. He is one of seven students in the U.S. to receive the grant to study in Morocco. Ryan’s graduate work was supported through Saint Ann’s Educational Assistance Program, which provides funding for continuing studies for faculty and staff. You can read more about Ryan’s plans here: https://www. gc.cuny.edu/news/fulbright-fellow-exploresfuture-moroccan-storytelling

Carlo Mirabella-Davis

Theater teacher Carlo directed the third episode of season three of M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller Servant on Apple TV+.

Jascha Narveson

Computer teacher Jascha released an album coming on NYC experimental label Carrier Records.

Nancy Reardon

Katie Scheele

Music teacher Katie played the oboe with the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Player’s production of The Pirates of Penzance at Hunter College. In May, she also played oboe with musical guest Father John Misty on Jimmy Fallon. She also recently subbed in the Broadway show Company.

Marty Skoble

Poetry teacher Marty had a poem featured in the March issue of Hanging Loose magazine issue 112. Marty also has three poems Mentor, an anthology of poems for students from the Global Poetry Consortium.

Greg Smith

Greg, a teacher in the Art Department and Science Department, presented his show “Absent World Double” at the Susan Inglett Gallery this spring.

Asiya Wadud

Poetry teacher Asiya had a new poem in the March issue of POETRY. She also recently read some new poems for Etel Adnan at the Guggenheim Museum in honor of the closing of “Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure.”

Theater teacher Nancy directed Poet On the Rocks, a new play off-Broadway at the New York Theater Festival.

Amanda Robiolio

Amanda will be our new Dean of the Tenth Grade. Amanda has been teaching middle and high school students (which she will continue to do) since joining the History Department in the fall of 2019. Before coming to Saint Ann’s, Amanda taught history at The Hotchkiss School, where she also served as a dorm parent.

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FACULTY NEWS

Celebrating Many Years of Service This year we are celebrating the extraordinary contributions of a number of colleagues who are retiring or departing from Saint Ann’s after more than three decades of service. All have shaped our school in the most profound ways and each has touched the lives of thousands of our graduates and current students. Each in his or her own way carried our school from its fledgling years, through changes large and small, centering in their work, as we do as a school, the celebration of our students. We are deeply grateful.

Ronnie Asbell One can hardly think of puppetry at Saint Ann’s and not think of Ronnie, especially on that brilliant blue day at the beginning of May when our students pour out of each building, puppets in hand, taking over our corner of Brooklyn Heights for the annual Puppet Parade. There may as well be a sign on the door of her puppetry studio: “magic happens here,” for from it emerge space aliens, acrobats, creatures of every kind. As a colleague and collaborator Ronnie has been an integral part of the Theater Department since 1984, an artist and a teacher in equal measure.

Ruth Chapman Ruth’s classes hum with insight and excitement, both controlled and with a healthy dose of anarchy. No one who has had Ruth as a teacher reads a text, or thinks about the world, the same way they did before they had this lucky encounter, for there, to quote William Carlos Williams, “the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken.” Ruth joined Saint Ann’s in 1976, and served as chair of the English Department for thirty-five years. She shaped the department and its curriculum in profound ways; “mentor” comes nowhere close to capturing what Ruth has been in the lives of her colleagues in the English Department and across the school.

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Yuming Guo There was nothing in our founding, nothing explicit in our mission, that foreordained the existence at Saint Ann’s of one of the finest Chinese language programs to be found in any K-12 school in the United States.

Guo Lao Shi’s arrival at Saint Ann’s in 1985 was the moment that assured it, and over the ensuing decades students flocked to her classes, knowing they would find meticulous practice and skill building that would open a life-transforming window onto Chinese culture and history. Guo Lao Shi’s students fell in love with the language and found in their teacher an exacting but loving (and fun-loving) guide, one who took enormous and obvious pride in her students. Yuming nurtured the careers of her fellow teachers and embodied, as much as any one individual can, the full art and craft of teaching languages at Saint Ann’s.

Eva Melas A mainstay of our Art Department since 1992, Eva has, with simple materials and complex appreciation for their inner lives, helped her many, many students sharpen their powers of observation and perception.

One of her colleagues rightly described her as “a genuine master of the studio with such an inspired and seemingly endless repertory of exciting and challenging projects.” The drawings, painting, and sculptures that each year grace the front window of the Ritchey Art Room—many the product of Eva’s classes—declare as surely as any manifesto that art is central at Saint Ann’s, just as Eva has made it central in the experience of her students.

Bob Swacker A historian whose breadth of knowledge and interest spans the globe and encompasses millenia, Bob’s mastery of his subject and his abiding love of history has inspired his students for half a century. Bob came to Saint Ann’s in 1970 to teach second grade, before joining the History Department in 1975. A raconteur, world traveler, walker in (and published chronicler of ) New York City, scholar, beloved teacher and colleague, Bob has been both a vigorous embodiment of our core values and a sharp-eyed critic of whatever he thought needed to change or rang hollow in our pronouncements and practices.

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FACULTY NEWS

Vivian Swain Vivian has been a fixture of the Romance Languages Department since 1980, where as Spanish teacher and for many years Spanish Language Coordinator she nurtured the linguistic skills of hundreds of students and was a treasured colleague. Vivian’s commitment to rigorous learning never deflected her from her deeper commitment to her students not just as learners but as fellow travelers on the camino.

In moments of joy and of sorrow, Vivian has been at the heart of what matters at Saint Ann’s. Her grace, fortitude, and generosity of spirit have knit us together and formed the fabric of our school in indelible ways.

Terry Thomas Regardless of who we are—student, teacher, staff member, alum, parent—we encounter many different people on our way into the Bosworth Building, but there is only one person who encounters everyone. Since 1989, Terry has been the literal embodiment of safety and security at Saint Ann’s. He knows the name and role of everyone in the school; his recall of students long graduated is so vivid that it seems the long stretch of time that tests memory does not exist for him. Terry’s warm greetings and his physical presence at the front desk, his calm in a crisis, his high standards for everyone he has hired over two decades, are simply unparalleled and inimitable. Terry will be with us through the end of calendar year 2022, but it is only fitting to include this tribute to him here.

Toni Yagoda Toni’s mastery of the art of teaching, her calm and reassuring presence, and her deep affection for her students and confidence that they could meet her high expectations have defined her classroom since she arrived at Saint Ann’s in 1972 and soon began teaching English (and for many years Language Structures). For so many division heads and grade deans over many decades, Toni’s “read” of a student was invaluable. As a colleague of hers wrote some years ago, “In the best way, Toni contains her classes—they feel held by her.”

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We would also like to thank a number of colleagues who are moving on to their next chapters after more than fifteen years of service at Saint Ann’s.

We wish them all the best in their next endeavors.

Anne Conway Director of Communications

Nicole Hovey Athletic Trainer

Rob Goldberg History Teacher

Dexter Keiler Kitchen Assistant

Suzanne Sullivan Preschool Head Teacher

This year we are also saying thank you and best of luck to several additional colleagues who are departing from Saint Ann’s.

Anna Maria Baeza Music Teacher

Dan Lerman Science Teacher

Josh Barocas ’08 Lower School Learning Specialist

Liz Lord Middle School Assistant

Giancarlo Barriocanal ’05 Lower School Associate Teacher

Yuval Ortiz-Quiroga Director of Diversity and Institutional Equity

Lauren Bridges ’08 Preschool Head Teacher

Ajani Otieno-Rudek Lower School Associate Teacher

Milo Carney ’06 Preschool Associate Teacher

Wilma Pan Chinese Teacher

Hannah Costel Lower School Associate Teacher

Max Posner Playwriting Teacher

Sarah Fortini Manager of Human Resources

Daniel Radoff Science Teacher

Erika Gonzalez Human Resources Associate

Virtue Sankoh Lower School Psychologist

Sarah Harrison Lower School Associate Teacher

Asher Townsend ’10 Lower School Associate Teacher

Iman James Health Teacher & High School Equity Coordinator

Joachim Woitun Music Teacher

Selah Johnson History Teacher

THANK YOU

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FACULTY NEWS

Welcome New Core Administrators Sherrish Holloman

Director of Diversity and Institutional Equity Sherrish is our new Director of Diversity and Institutional Equity.

She most recently served as the Senior Equity, Diversity, and Leadership Advisor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she received her doctorate in education in 2009. She has over twenty-five years of experience in education that began as an English teacher in Greensboro, NC. Sherrish has worked with schools and districts in the U.S. and internationally to conceive, develop and implement programs to engage and equip teachers, administrators and school leaders in making schools more diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities. Her experience includes work on curriculum development, leadership coaching, professional development, teacher retention, and many other aspects of teaching and learning. In addition to Sherrish’s professional expertise she brings a wealth of personal attributes and leadership qualities that will support our ongoing work with students, faculty, staff, parents and alumni to create a more diverse and equitable school in the coming years, including thoughtfulness, empathy, authenticity, open-mindedness, and broad life experience.

Layne Kaminsky

Director of Campus Facilities and Capital Projects Layne is our new Director of Campus Facilities and Capital Projects who joined Saint Ann’s in April. Layne most recently worked as Vice President of Buildings & Grounds, Operations and Administration at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. After earning a degree from the University of Maryland at College Park, Layne began her career in operations and project management with ABM Industries at the Museum before joining as an in-house employee and playing an integral part in managing the Museum’s capital program and ongoing facilities maintenance and operations.

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Ants Ants. No one cares about ants.

They run around all day just to get stepped on.

A giant stepping on a building.

A building falling on a human.

A human stepping on an ant.

All the same.

The tension.

The fear.

The helplessness.

Accepting that your whole life has led up to a giant.

A building.

A foot.

—Coco L., 5th Grade

Artwork by (from top to bottom): LouLou C-G., 1st grade; Liam H., 1st grade; Iris F., 1st grade

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES NEWS

Welcome New Trustees (2022) Jared Della Valle Jared is the parent of two current Saint Ann’s students. He is the founder and CEO of Alloy Development and has worked as an architect and real estate professional in New York City for over twenty-five years. Jared also serves as Vice Chair of the Van Alen Institute, a nonprofit that helps create equitable cities through inclusive design, and sits on the boards of the Architecture League of New York, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and the MetroTech BID. A member of the U.S. Green Building Council, Jared has taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University, Washington University, Parsons School of Constructed Environments and Lehigh University.

Jared holds a B.A. from Lehigh University and Master’s degrees in both Architecture and Construction Management from Washington University in St. Louis.

Fiona MacIntosh ’15

young alumni trustee

Fiona currently works at Google as a Software Engineer focusing on natural language processing for the Google Assistant. After graduating from Saint Ann’s, Fiona attended Princeton University where she received her B.S.E. in Computer Science and minored in Linguistics and Statistics/Machine Learning. Prior to her current role, Fiona worked at YouTube and on Google Search.

Kit Tollerson ’04 Kit attended Saint Ann’s from preschool through twelfth grade. He is currently a Partner at TNTP, a non-profit dedicated to ending educational inequity and creating pathways for socio-economic mobility. Kit began his career teaching in New Orleans through Teach for America, and was Founding Principal of an elementary school in the California Bay Area. Kit earned an undergraduate degree in public policy from Princeton University and an M.A. in school leadership from Columbia University. Kit also serves on Manhattan Community Board 4, which represents Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.

Information about our full Board of Trustees is available on our website.

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Departures Peter Davidson ’77 Peter joined the Saint Ann’s Board in 1990 and over his decades of service has helped to guide the school through many significant decisions and transitions. He served as a trustee alongside three heads of school and over the years on nearly every board committee. As long-time chair of the Board’s Physical Facilities Committee Peter helped Saint Ann’s to acquire and maintain the space it needed as the school grew and expanded, and he rolled up his sleeves to ensure the school had the resources it needed to support its priorities, especially when the school embarked on the Campaign for Saint Ann’s in 2012. As an alumnus of Saint Ann’s, a parent of three graduates, and the husband of a former teacher, Peter’s connections to Saint Ann’s are deep and multifaceted, and his service as a trustee has always reflected his fierce devotion to the school and to its mission. Peter made many important contributions to crucial board deliberations over his three decades of board service, and they always centered on the enduring values of the school and the pursuit of its mission.

The Board wishes to acknowledge and thank Peter for his steadfast work on behalf of Saint Ann’s School

HEAD OF SCHOOL SEARCH UPDATE

In June, families, faculty, staff, and high school students were updated with the latest news regarding the Head of School search.

The email is reprinted below. Visit the head of school search page on our website for more info www.saintannsny.org/about/headschool-search.

June 2022 Following several months of conversations with community members and the publication of the position description, the committee began accepting applications, which will continue through early July. The committee will then spend July and August selecting six to eight semifinalists to interview, before inviting two to four finalists to visit campus in the second half of September. This timing may need to shift based on interested and qualified candidates who may be required to give notice to their current institutions before September. Following the fall campus visits, the committee will review the community’s feedback and make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees in late fall. The search committee plans to continue the discovery and listening process over the summer. Community members who have input to share are encouraged to reach out to search@saintannsny.org or directly to anyone on the search committee over the course of the summer.

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STAYING IN TOUCH

Staying in Touch with Saint Ann’s School Dear Alumni, This spring had a feeling of rejuvenation as we welcomed back so many of our traditions and cumulative events. From the Puppet Parade to an in-person Alumni Day to musical concerts and plays and performances, the smiles and joy filled each event, room and hallway. We are grateful to everyone who tested and stayed home when sick so that so many of these moments could take place safely. If you missed our latest Alumni Newsletter, you can find it on our website in the alumni section. Looking ahead, we are planning to hold Alumni Day on May 6, 2023—this will celebrate the milestone years of classes ending in 3s and 8s.

This year we had some amazing alumni visitors speak to students. We hope you will continue to connect with the school in various ways. If you are interested in becoming more engaged with Saint Ann’s there are many ways you can stay connected: • Attend Alumni Day—Save the Date! Saturday, May 6, 2023 (Classes ending in 3s and 8s).

• Stay in touch by sharing your news and updating your contact information (email us at alumni@saintannsny.org) • Write a mini feature for the Saint Ann’s Times—these are blurbs about what you are up to in the world.

• Want to give a reading? Speak to a class? We love visitors!

• Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram (@saintannsschool)!

• Use the Growing Shelf on Goodreads (www.goodreads.com/saintanns).

• Check out the Happenings page on our website www.saintannsny.org.

• Give a gift! Alumni donations to the Annual Fund are a chance to make contributions in honor or memory of a classmate, a teacher, or anyone who impacted your education.

As alumni you have the opportunity to be part of our network of caretakers, utilizing your voice and influence to hold us to the values that define what our school is meant to be. We are so fortunate to have you in this community.

There are a few changes here in the Advancement Office. I will now be working as the Associate Director of Advancement and Elena ‘Lenny’ Sheppard ’05 will take over working with our Alumni community as the Alumni Relations Manager. As always, we will both be available to speak with alums.

It has been such a pleasure to engage our alumni community.

Wishing you a happy and healthy summer,

Hannah Swacker Kurnit ’97 Associate Director of Advancement 718.522.1660 ext. 345 hkurnit@saintannsny.org 44

hello parents of graduates, If you continue to receive your graduate's mail at your family home, but would like to redirect it to their new address—please email us their new mailing address to alumni@saintannsny.org. Thanks!

ALUMNI EVENTS

Alumni Day & Virtual Reunions At this year’s Alumni Day we celebrated the classes ending in 2s and 7s. We also honored long-time departing or retiring faculty members including Bob Swacker, Toni Yagoda, Ruth Chapman, Vivian Swain, Ronnie Asbell, Yuming Guo, Mike Roam, Terry Thomas, and Eva Melas. Virtual reunions were hosted on May 19. We were thrilled to see so many familiar faces in person and online this spring!

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ALUMNI MINI FEATURES

Aeon J. Skoble ’81 I’ve been a philosophy professor for thirty-four years now, the last twenty-one at Bridgewater State University, and I’m happy to announce that I was recently awarded the university’s first-ever endowed chair, the Bartlett Chair in Free Speech and Expression. It was also fun reconnecting with some fellow Saint Ann’s alums in Spring 2021 in a Zoom reunion; hope to do that again soon.

Rachel Libeskind ’07 I moved to Berlin in December 2020, delayed by Covid, unexpectedly pregnant with my second child, and very ready for a break from America, New York, and a life choice that was in my own control (and not the collateral damage of the pandemic). Shortly after arriving, I was serendipitously awarded an artist fellowship for Jewish artists living in Berlin. The fellowship—LABA (Laboratory for Jewish Culture)—was one I had applied to, and was rejected from, in New York a few years prior. It consisted of twelve weeks of secular, apolitical study of ancient Jewish text with a scholar, followed by another twelve weeks of production of an artwork which was exhibited in a group show with the other seven fellows. Having grown up in Berlin from ages 0-14, I knew the city as a Jewish child—full of haunting and shades of historical tyrannies—but had not yet excavated the meaning of being Jewish (and raising Jewish children in such a place) as an adult. The experience was indelibly meaningful, learning with and from Jewish artists from Brazil, Russia, Israel, California, and France—the myriad ways in which Jewish identity is sticky, complex, and elusive. After the fellowship completed, I was offered the job to be the creative director of LABA Berlin for the next few cycles, a job which I enthusiastically took and now am occupied with. I never thought returning to my heimat (Google it) would prove to be as fortuitous and profound as it has been, so far.

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ALUMNI MINI FEATURES

Omri Gal ’15 Four years ago, while studying at Swarthmore College, I received a grant to launch a social impact project. I ended up starting an after school program, Design FC, which works with youth in Chester, Pennsylvania to encourage creative thinking, self expression, and autobiographical storytelling through the design of sports jerseys and apparel. Over these past four years, the program has grown in ways I could have never anticipated. Our students’ work has inspired people from around the world, and we’ve collaborated with EA Sports, FIFA, Major League Soccer, and recently received a grant from Kevin Durant’s Charitable Foundation.

Earlier this year, Design FC became its own non-profit organization, and we’re continuing to build out our programming in Chester and beyond. Our goal is to provide students with access to art and design education, while also building a global platform for youth to showcase their work and tell their stories.

I also now own and run a restaurant in Brooklyn (Bricolage) with my family. Long story short, we took over in the middle of the pandemic, with no prior restaurant experience, and are still going two years later.

Artwork by Charlie R., 11th grade

Keep in touch and share your news with us at alumni@saintannsny.org.

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IN MEMORIAM ALUMNI

Peter Archer ’72 We learned that Peter Archer ’72 passed away in Connecticut. His obituary can be found online in ctpost and pressreader.

FORMER FACULTY AND STAFF

Anita Halverson

By Leif Halverson ’87

Anita passed away on May 10, 2022. She worked on and off at Saint Ann’s as a college counselor, sometimes language teacher, and administrative assistant in the 1970s and 1980s (she took a time out in the mid-1980s to open a Swedish restaurant in Brooklyn). An amazing woman and mother, full of life, Anita loved languages and loved to travel. She met her husband, my father Jim Halverson, in Paris in the early 1960s and they were together ever since. Anita spoke Swedish, English, German, French, and Spanish. She got her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Brooklyn College later in life because she loved to learn and wanted to have a college education. She loved her family and friends deeply, and that love will be missed, but will always be with us all.

Following her retirement, Anita moved to Ossining, New York where she volunteered at and helped manage events to raise money for the Ossining Food Pantry. It was an important place for her with a mission that meant a lot to her. Donations in Anita’s memory may be made to the Ossining Food Pantry; please specify that the donation is in memory of Anita Halverson.

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A fish like any other Swims its way through the rock And through the years To the surface.

Scales and spines found In the field where the ocean lies buried by the eons.

A fish like any other, All it did was eat, sleep, Have a few just-as-regular kids And die, Its imprint quickly filled As its body sinks into the seafloor, Disappearing into the hourglass.

And yet this fish now sits beside statues of emperors and gods, When the most it’s given us, The world, Is conversations How it ate, slept, raised its kids, Before it died.

Such care given to Cracked casts of bones, When all the fish did Was live.

–Eitan F., 12th Grade

Artwork by: Brad M., 10th grade 51

Artwork by: Sofia C., 11th grade

Blueberries shyly huddled up into its small blue cocoon top enclosed like tiny flower petals rolling, rolling on the wooden table down the steep table leg onto clean white floor with all the other fallen fruits or swinging slightly in a late summer breeze on the big brambley blueberry bush —Valis S., 5th Grade

129 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

NON PROFIT U.S. Postage PAID Nashua, NH Permit No. 375

Stay connected with us online at www.saintannsny.org

Artwork by: Beau J., 9th grade