Greg Helgeson
Through the Doors
Lower School mini helps reduce food waste During the spring of 2010, students in the Lower School participated in a school-wide effort to reduce food waste. The effort was spearheaded by teacher Rick Magnuson ’90, who partnered with SPA parent Ellen Konstan in leading a Lower School mini-course (known as a “mini”) about food waste, sustainability, and food security. Initially, Lower School principal Cliff Clark asked the students in the mini to find out how much food waste was produced every day in the Lower School cafeteria. The students designed an experiment in which food waste from each grade was weighed each day for a week, and the results recorded. The initial results: about 200 lbs of food wasted each week—about .15 lbs. per person per day. The mini then issued a challenge to the rest of the Lower School to reduce food waste the next week, and offered simple suggestions—take less to start and eat what’s on your plate before going back for more. Every single grade reduced its waste the next week, and the experiment also spurred a pilot program for composting organic waste from the cafeteria. That program has continued this fall. While the experiment was taking shape, the mini also focused on food shortages around the world and in the Twin Cities community; the students discussed statistics about world hunger and also met with a representative from a local food bank. “It was a great mini,” Magnuson says, “and the kids were really excited about sharing what they learned with the SPA community.”
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SPA | fall 2010
Reunion Symposium examines 1969 merger of St. Paul Academy and Summit School A part of SPA’s 2010 Reunion Weekend was a special event exploring the driving forces, process, and outcomes of the 1969 merger of St. Paul Academy and the Summit School. The Merger Symposium was moderated by Head of School Bryn S. Roberts and featured a panel of speakers, each of whom played an important role in this signature event in the history of the school. Panelists included: Thomas Read, St. Paul Academy Headmaster from 1967-74, who led SPA, oversaw the merger, and then became the first Head of the merged St. Paul Academy and Summit School; David Lilly ’35, St. Paul Academy alumnus, who served on the SPA Board of Trustees pre-merger (1956-69) and then on the Board of the merged institution from 1969-1972; Jean Hart ’52, Summit School alumna, who served on the Board of the merged institution from 1971-1989; Ran Miner, former faculty member at both the pre-merger SPA and the merged institution (1962-2000) and a current Trustee; Bruce A. Lilly ’70, St. Paul Academy and Summit School alumnus and current member of the Board of Trustees who also served from 1987-2001; Ellen Seesel ’70, St. Paul Academy and Summit School alumna. According to panelist and former Head of School Thomas Read, the SPA/Summit merger was viewed as one of the most successful collaborations of the time, “none of which would have happened without the effective leadership of an able Board of Trustees, the unprecedented generosity of its patrons, the active and hands-on support of its parent body, and the willingness of faculty and students alike to tolerate a few years of temporary discomfort and confusion,” says Read, who considers the merger a significant highlight of his life and career. “The merger was not only a synergistic blending of the two schools’ best features and traditions,” says Read, “but it resulted in a new and better school – more stimulating and challenging, more humane, more accommodating, and with more emphasis on the development of the whole student.”