The Lawrentian - Fall 2017

Lawrentian FALL 2017

THE

125 SEASONS OF PERIWIG

The performing arts at Lawrenceville are shining brighter than ever

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12 A RECORD GIFT

20 SHAZAM!

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FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

26 On the Cover: Lawrenceville raises the curtain on 125 seasons of Periwig Illustration by Stephanie Dalton Cowan

12 RECORD GIFT LAUNCHES STRATEGIC PLAN Joe Tsai ’82 backs the plan’s aim to celebrate and reinforce the School community.

22 HE’S ON THE MONEY

New CFO Ben Hammond steers Lawrenceville toward a more sustainable future.

26 125 SEASONS OF PERIWIG

Lawrenceville raises the curtain on a performing arts dynasty.

34 COMMENCEMENT 2017

2 FROM THE HEAD MASTER 3 E DITOR’S NOTE 4 A THOUSAND WORDS No one has to stand and cheer Commencement by themselves, but you can.

6 N EWS IN BRIEF New assistant deans, The Lawrenceville Fund delivers, ‘Bowl’ed over? No!

14 GO BIG RED! A late switch to rowing made Jessica Vocaturo ’12 an NCAA champion.

16 TAKE THIS JOB AND LOVE IT Hugh Landwehr ’68 sets the stage for Guys and Dolls at KAC.

The ranks of Lawrenceville alumni swell by 224.

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TAKE THIS JOB AND LOVE IT 18 TABLE TALK Q&A with English chair Miranda Christoffersen P’14 ’18

20 ASK THE ARCHIVIST An unassuming magazine editor reluctantly created an iconic comic-book superhero.

39 TIME WAS… 76 BY THE NUMBERS erforming Arts at Lawrenceville P takes center stage.

77 STUDENT SNAP

ALUMNI 40 ALUMNI NEWS

GO BIG RED

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44 CLASS NOTES

ASK THE ARCHIVIST

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KEEP UP WITH LAWRENCEVILLE EVERY DAY! YOU CAN FOLLOW MORE THAN 25 LAWRENCEVILLE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS! GET CONNECTED TO ALL OF THEM AT LAWRENCEVILLE.ORG/PAGE/SOCIAL-MEDIA/DIRECTORY.

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FROM THE HEAD MASTER

“Lawrenceville 20/20 calls on us to build on our existing programs and to further elevate and broaden student exposure to real-world learning; to apply the in-depth, abstract learning in a classroom to roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty contexts.”

125 YEARS OF PERIWIG: AN ONGOING ACT OF CREATION

W

e’re the original ‘Makerspace,’” declared Derrick Wilder, chair of the Performing Arts Department. “The stage is a ‘maker space.’”

“Absolutely!” I respond. I am sitting with the performing arts faculty, and we are discussing a series of strategic questions they have posed. They began with a reference to Lawrenceville 20/20, our strategic plan, which has identified hands-on, experiential learning as a way to further enhance and energize our academic culture in the coming years.

As many are aware, our new strategic vision has led to planning for a significant new Makerspace and STEM center to be added to the Gruss Center of Visual Art, which would include expanded manual arts as well as digital fabrication spaces for interdisciplinary, project-based learning. Of course, hands-on learning is already embedded in the Lawrenceville experience in so many ways: from local community service in Trenton to botanical exploration in the Ecuadorean highlands; from Hutchins Scholars studying water systems on our campus to Heely Scholars studying the Allied Landing in Normandy. Lawrenceville 20/20 calls on us to build on our existing programs and to further elevate and broaden student exposure to realworld learning; to apply the in-depth, abstract learning in a classroom to roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty contexts.

“So how does this vision extend to the Performing Arts Department?” my arts colleagues recently asked me. As we discussed what we mean broadly by “experiential learning,” they began to answer their own question. “‘Real-world’ learning means authentic, ‘real-world’ consequences,” commented one colleague. “Performing before an audience is about as real as it gets. Either you slay the public, or you flop. Either they clap … or they don’t.”

This is what prompted Mr. Wilder to draw the comparison between stage and “Makerspace.” Whether instrumental, choral, theatrical, or dance, performers on a stage get immediate and real feedback every

time they engage in artistic creation – they are indeed engaged in hands-on “making” all the time, with realtime consequences if they fail. We talk about an actor “bringing to life” or “creating” a character in theatrical parlance, and indeed, historically the Catholic Church condemned actors in the Middle Ages and even in more recent times for attempting to engage in such an “act of creation,” which from its perspective was solely the domain of God. So opposed was the Church to any recognition or legitimization of the theater that it took a personal intervention on the part of Louis XIV to grant Molière a Christian burial in 17 th-century France. (Molière’s biting, anti-clerical satires may also have played some small role in their opposition.)

I am particularly struck by the timeliness of this conversation with my arts colleagues as we prepare to celebrate 125 seasons of Periwig in the coming year – a century and a quarter of commitment to theatrical art.

And yet, it is not simply a retrospective or celebration of the past – we are equally focused on current and future implications of the performing arts at Lawrenceville. As we shine a light on this longstanding tradition over the course of this year, and as we celebrate student performance ranging from big-stage musical theater to student-directed one-act plays in a black-box setting, we will also be seeing this in a very forward-looking context. The creative enterprise of putting on theater – whether acting, directing, constructing sets, choreographing moves, or performing musical accompaniment – is fundamentally experiential and therefore figures prominently in our strategic vision for the future. One hundred twenty-five years of theater at Lawrenceville: indeed, an ongoing act of creation!

Sincerely,

Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head Master

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THE LAWRENTIAN FALL 2017 VOLUME 81 | NUMBER 4

PUBLISHER Jennifer Szwalek EDITOR Sean Ramsden ART DIRECTOR Phyllis Lerner STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Paloma Torres

PROOFREADERS Rob Reinalda ’76 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 ’61 ’62 ’63 ’64 GP’06 ’08

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Branscom Stephanie Dalton Cowan Andrea Fereshteh Lisa M. Gillard Hanson Jacqueline Haun Barbara Horn Joel Kimmel Shreya Kumar ’20 Donnelly Marks Brittany Sun ’19

The Lawrentian (USPS #306-700) is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, and fall)

by The Lawrenceville School, P.O. Box 6008, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, for alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends.

Periodical postage paid at Trenton, NJ, and additional mailing offices.

The Lawrentian welcomes letters from readers.

Please send all correspondence to sramsden@ lawrenceville.org or to the above address, care of The Lawrentian Editor. Letters may be edited for publication.

The Lawrentian welcomes submissions and suggestions for magazine departments. If you have an idea for a feature story, please query first

EDITOR'S NOTE

F

or about a week in the waning days of August, the weather was particularly magnificent here in central New Jersey. Temperatures in the high seventies with low, low humidity, the kind of days when you step outside and the bright sunshine warms your face in that way that makes you glad to be alive. Perfect, really.

Naturally, I decided to ruin it all by playing nine holes of golf after work. The observation that “golf is a good walk, spoiled” is often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, but whoever said it certainly spoke to my level of skill.

I took a short stroll from my office in the basement of Pop Hall to the Golf House to check the hours, making sure I’d have access later that afternoon. As I walked past Cleve, Griswold, and Woodhull, I saw the signs of the first students moving back into their Houses to begin the new academic year: Shiny SUVs stuffed with as many of the portable comforts of home they had room to contain.

That’s when I had a thought about the almost timeless rhythms and cycles of this grand old place. Just a few days later, eager and apprehensive new members of the Class of 2021 would join their older upper-form compatriots to begin authoring the latest chapter of Lawrenceville history. Yes, the gleaming SUVs are a more recent addition to this ritual tableau, but throughout the years, no matter their mode of transportation, the arrival of new students on this campus has marked the origins of an emotional connection that, as I see in every installment of Class Notes, runs as deep as it does long.

In his 2007 memoir, Songs I Heard My Mother Sing, Charlton H. Lyons Jr. ’40 writes of the long train ride from his family’s home in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Trenton in the late summer of 1935 to begin his education at Lawrenceville. He arrived at Old Lower a day ahead of schedule, where he encountered the only other students present, a pair of brothers from Cuba. Over a number of pages, Mr. Lyons recalled the first moments of his Lawrenceville experience, which remained so clearly with him more than seventy years later. Those August afternoons were the nascent days of an association with the School that only this summer saw him retire as the secretary of his class – an active, engaged relationship spanning eighty-two years.

I can’t help but wonder who among this year’s fresh faces will still maintain an active link with their alma mater three-quarters of a century from now. That’s a rare example, I’ll grant you, but it is nevertheless emblematic of the transformative voyage on which those young students are about to embark.

All the best,

to The Lawrentian Editor.

Visit us on the web at www.lawrenceville.org. www.lawrenceville.org/alumni/the-lawrentian

POSTMASTER Please send address corrections to: The Lawrentian The Lawrenceville School P.O. Box 6008 Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 ©The Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Sean Ramsden Editor Setting the Record Straight In the summer issue of The Lawrentian, the late David B. Ralston ’47 was incorrectly identified as a member of the Class of 1949 in the Memorials section. In the same issue, Barry Rank ’61 was mistakenly identified in Class Notes. Finally, boys’ lacrosse capped its championship season with a record of 17-8, and Harrison Bardwell ’17 should have been listed among the team’s three captains. The editor apologizes for these errors.

All rights reserved.

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A THOUSAND WORDS

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STAND-UP GUY

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2017

Photograph by Paloma Torres

With so much to applaud every spring at Commencement, being tethered to one’s chair is almost too much to abide. Sometimes, you just have to rise and cheer a graduating classmate, one of 224 members of the Class of 2017 during the ceremony on the Bowl on May 28.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

MCNULTY BLASTS OFF WITH

KNOWLES IN GOAL

Genny Knowles ’18, was who started in goal for the Big Red girls’ ice hockey team last winter, was selected to play for the South Korean National Ice Hockey team.

Knowles met the head coach of the South Korean national team last year at the Yale University Ice Hockey Women’s Prospective Camp, and after an initial tryout for the team that August, attended a monthlong training session in Minnesota as the second round of tryouts.

since her academic obligations at Lawrenceville would not allow her to play full-time, Knowles decided to take a leave of absence from the School.

After a third, weeklong trial camp, Knowles received the call telling her she had made the team. However,

“Just to work hard and receive this awesome reward for it, that in itself to me is personal gain,” said Knowles, who began playing for South Korea in July and will participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

– Shreya Kumar ’20

GIRL POWER!

Erin McNulty ’19 attended the Student Enhancement in Earth and Space Science (SEES) summer internship program in July at The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Space Research. There, students worked with scientists and engineers to conduct authentic research from data received from NASA’s Earth-observing satellites as well as designing Mars habitats and lunar exploration. This nationally competitive program selects students to increase their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and math through space education.

The internship provides students the rare opportunity to spend two weeks working with professional scientists and engineers at the cutting edge of space exploration.

More than 600 applications were received for the 40 internship positions.

RESIDENTS OF THE CIRCLE AND CRESCENT HOUSES COMPETE ANNUALLY FOR THREE

PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS, AND THIS YEAR, IT WAS A CLEAN SWEEP FOR THE GIRLS. STEPHENS HOUSE CLAIMED BOTH THE ADAMS CUP, AS THE HOUSE WITH THE GREATEST COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY SERVICE, AND THE HOUSE CUP, FOR EXHIBITING THE MOST SPIRIT. KIRBY HOUSE WON THE CHIVERS CUP, PRESENTED TO THE HOUSE WITH THE HIGHEST COLLECTIVE GRADE-POINT AVERAGE.

A BIG RED RACE

RAISES $15K FOR SCHOOL CAMP

The 15th annual Big Red Race raised about $15,000 to benefit the Lawrenceville School Camp, which provides a summer camp experience for local underserved children, this past spring. More than 100 Lawrenceville students, faculty, and staff volunteered, helping to make the event a success. After a series of children’s races, the featured 5K race saw more than 500 registered runners compete.

– Brittany Sun ’19

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THE LAWRENCEVILLE FUND DELIVERS

THE LAWRENCEVILLE FUND, THE SCHOOL’S ANNUAL GIVING CAM-

PAIGN, CONCLUDED THE 2016-17 ACADEMIC YEAR ON A VERY HIGH NOTE ON JUNE 30. A TOTAL OF 3,375 ALUMNI (35 PERCENT) AND 615 CURRENT AND PAST PARENTS CONTRIBUTED $6,227,360, THE SECOND-LARGEST TOTAL EVER FOR THE LAWRENCEVILLE FUND. LEADING THIS YEAR’S ALUMNI CAMPAIGN WERE THE 64 MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 1967 WHO GAVE $297,066 TO THE LAWRENCEVILLE FUND TO MARK THEIR 50TH REUNION AND A REMARKABLE $1,128,920 FOR THEIR CLASS REUNION GIFT.

Summer Science Olympics for Lin Bradford Lin ’18 represented the United States at the 2017 International Earth Science Olympiad in August at the Université Côte d'Azur in Nice, France. Lin was part of the eight-member Team USA, which took on squads from 29 competing countries. Lin earned his spot by being one of top eight students selected from among 32 American finalists at the U.S. Earth Science Olympiad Summer Institute earlier in the summer. Students worked with competitors from other nations in the International Team Field Investigation portion of the Olympiad to promote international cooperation through the exchange of ideas and materials on earth sciences and earth sciences education.

Bowled Over? Not for Long.

Lawrenceville’s iconic Bowl, the sunken, oblong-shaped landscape feature that provides a parklike green space between the two Lower School buildings, is undergoing a complete reconstruction.

In mid-June, crews began demolishing the marble steps and red brick wall bordering the inside of the Bowl. Within two weeks, the brick wall, which was completed during the 1931-32 academic year under the plans set forth and funded by a $15,000 gift from architect William Adams Delano, Class of 1891, was gone, and the familiar grass surface plowed into various piles of soil by heavy machinery to make way for the construction expected to last until spring 2018.

At issue for the Bowl is poor drainage, which left the grass surface soggy well after rain, often with standing water, said Pete DeVine, chief operations officer of campus operations, who is overseeing the project. DeVine added that the structural integrity of the brick wall, which had begun to lean inward, had become a safety issue for students who often sit atop the wall or gather inside its border.

The Bowl, which has for years been the site of the School’s Commencement in the spring, is expected to be completed in time for the 2018 event. DeVine said the reconstructed Bowl will be virtually indistinguishable from its predecessor.

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WELCOME, NEW FACULTY The Lawrenceville School is pleased to welcome new faculty members for the 2017-18 academic year.

“We are pleased to have found a group of extraordinarily qualified new faculty who will bring with them experiences and skills that will enrich us, offering new perspectives, new ideas, and new ways of thinking about and solving old problems,” said Chris Cunningham, dean of faculty and assistant head master. The new cohort of subject masters includes:

SCOTT BARNARD Language Department ■ Ph.D. in Classics, Rutgers University; M.A. in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies; B.A. in English, University of New Mexico

PENN TEACHING FELLOWS JOIN FACULTY Lawrenceville welcomes four new Penn Teaching Fellows to its faculty this fall. The Fellows, novice teachers who work under the direction of Lawrenceville mentors, are completing the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education’s master’s program in teaching and learning. They join Lawrenceville’s faculty for two years

JEFFREY BLEVINS English Department

ORELIA JONATHAN History Department

SUJIN SEO English Department

■ Ph.D. in English, University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in English and Russian, summa cum laude, Amherst College

■ M.S. in Education, University of Pennsylvania; B.A. in History, African-American Studies, Middle Eastern Studies Certificate, Wesleyan University

■ M.A. in English Literature, University of Virginia; B.A. with High Honors, honors major in English Literature (major) and honors minor in Biology, Swarthmore College

STEPHEN LAROCHELLE English Department

DAVID WILCOX Mathematics Department

■ B.A. in History and English Literature, cum laude, Hamilton College

■ M.A. in Applied Statistics, University of South Carolina; M.A. in International Business Studies, Spanish track, University of South Carolina; B.S. in Mathematics, minor in Business Administration, cum laude, Christian Brothers University

KAYLA CORCORAN History Department ■ M.S. in Education, University of Pennsylvania; B.A. in English, minors in Arabic and History, Georgetown University

STEPHEN LAUBACH Science Department

CHRISTINE DING Admissions Department ■ B.A. in Communications and Religious Studies, Elon University

BEN HAMMOND CFO ■ B.A. in History and Literature, magna cum laude, Harvard College; M.B.A. in Information: Systems, Strategy, and Economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Each Fellow receives a House assignment, where he or she learns about (and becomes an important part of) Lawrenceville’s dynamic residential life curriculum. In addition to their Lawrenceville duties, the Fellows are learning – and bringing back to campus – the most current research on best educational practices through their studies at Penn.

■ Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison; M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison; B.A. in Biology, Swarthmore College

KIM MCMENAMIN History Department ■ M.A. in American Studies, Columbia University; B.A. in Political Science, Columbia University

KELLY WISE Athletics Department ■ M.A.T. in Education and Sport Pedagogy, Manhattanville College; B.S. in Exercise Science and Sports Science Studies, minors in Strength and Conditioning and Coaching Science, University of Delaware

Lawrenceville’s newest Penn Teaching Fellows are:

ELBERT LIANG History Department

FORREST BROWN English Department

■ B.A., double major in Economics and Philosophy, Emory University

■ B.A. with high distinction in English Literature, B.A. in Cognitive Science, concentration in Linguistics, University of Virginia

SARAH BRYANT ’12 Science Department

JANE STRUDWICK Mathematics Department ■ B.A. in Psychological Science, minor in Mathematics and Art, University of Vermont

■ B.S. in Biology, Neuroscience Certificate Program, magna cum laude, Providence College

as teachers, as well as coaches or assistants in the School’s Community Service Program.

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SHERR WINS FIRST BROOKS AWARD Kennedy House resident Grayson Sherr ’18 was the winner of the inaugural Wesley R. Brooks ’71 H’09 P’03 ’05 House Historian award. This honor is presented to the student House Historian who best exemplifies the position.

Under the guidance of Lawrenceville Project Archivist Molly Campbell, each House Historian was charged with researching and writing about

a notable Lawrentian who had a lasting impact on his or her respective House.

The House Historian program was implemented in 2014 by recently retired Lawrenceville CFO Wes Brooks to better connect the residents of the House with their history. The goal of the program is to lead to better scholarship, foster a stronger connection to real School history, and to build House bonds across the ages. The program is supported by a gift from Lawrenceville alumnus John Stephan ’59; each participating House receives an award of $1,000 to be used at its discretion.

Working with School Archivist Jacqueline Haun, Sherr endeavored to learn more about Kennedy House

alumnus Fumitake Konoe ’34 and was immediately intrigued.

“There was an obituary in The Lawrence from a long time ago that was very handy,” Sherr said of his work in the Stephan Archives. “There were also a lot of records and photos of his time here.” He continued his research at the Mercer County Library, and what he uncovered fascinated him.

“It was so interesting to read that he served in the (Japanese) Imperial army in World War II. It’s easy to read that as anti-American, and therefore anti-Kennedian and anti-Lawrentian. But, really, it was his moral character,” said Sherr. “He was faced with pretty tough situations,

and how he was able to get through everything and remain true to himself was really what I loved about [Konoe’s story].”

Ten Lawrenceville House Historians participated this year and their projects were judged by Haun, Campbell, and History Master/ Assistant Dean of Faculty Alison Easterling P’19.

BIOBLITZERS

SPY SCORES OF SPECIES For the second consecutive year, Brandon Li ’19 scored a first-place finish in the 2017 Lawrenceville BioBlitz; he identified 248 different species of flora and fauna and a total of 516 observations. Just behind Li was Sasha Syunkova ’17, who logged with 247 species in 463 observations. Students, faculty, and staff focused on finding as many species as possible on campus. Observations were posted to iNaturalist.com and can be viewed in the drop-search under Projects under The Lawrenceville School BioBlitz. “Sasha and Brandon posted more than 100 species during the final hours,” said Science Master John L. Clark. I watched the back-andforth postings on iNaturalist and the competition was intense!”

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NEW ASSISTANT DEANS TAPPED T wo Lawrenceville histo-

tions, challenges, and rewards

ry masters, Alison East-

of being a Lawrenceville faculty

erling P’19 and Emilie

member,” Cunningham said.

Kosoff H’96 ’00 P’19, have

“During her tenure as chair, the

been promoted into two newly

history department has renewed

created assistant dean positions.

its commitment to Harkness

Easterling was appointed assis-

teaching, created depart-

tant dean of faculty, while Kosoff

ment-wide writing expectations,

will serve as assistant dean of

and a department-wide research

students. Both will continue to teach and coach after beginning

Alison Easterling

skills curriculum. An excellent, experienced teacher, Alison will

Job & Love

It

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with had a B

18

Emilie Kosoff

their new positions in July.

to focus on global, rather than

bring her energy, initiative, and

Like Easterling, she has been

Easterling will work with

just European, history – as well

care to the work of hiring and

part of several of Lawrenceville’s

Dean of Faculty Chris Cun-

as a United States history survey

supporting our faculty.”

strategic planning committees on

ningham P’14 ’18 on a range of

for Fourth Formers. She has

Kosoff served as history

sustaining excellence, ethics, and

faculty-related issues, including

designed and taught electives on

department chair from 2008-12.

the School mission statement.

recruitment and support, feed-

modern Latin American history

Her teaching assignments have

“In addition to being an ex-

back, and evaluation. She will

and women’s history, and has

included courses on U.S. History

cellent teacher, Emilie has been

also foster faculty and campus

instructed honors European

from 1600 to the present, Euro-

a trusted counselor for both

community. Kosoff will collab-

history. Outside of the class-

pean history from 1500 to the

students and faculty alike. She

orate with Dean of Students

room, Easterling was an assis-

present, America in the 1960s,

has a deep and broad under-

Blake Eldridge ’96 H’12 on a

tant housemaster in Stanley for

and Advanced Placement History,

standing of the student experi-

range of student and residential

three years and the McPherson

for which she is a national reader.

ence, academically, athletically,

issues, including the disciplinary

housemaster for six years. She’s

Kosoff is the current Crescent

and residentially,” Cunningham

system, residential curriculum,

been the assistant coach for both

level director, responsible for

said. “Thoughtful, deeply experi-

and student activities and leader-

girls’ cross country and track

overseeing Lawrenceville’s five

enced, and virtually unflappable,

ship. She will work with the

since 2005. Easterling has served

girls’ Houses on the Crescent and

Emilie will do an outstanding

faculty to support all students to

on a number of Lawrenceville

attending to social, academic, and

job as assistant dean of students

recognize their efforts and affirm

strategic planning committees,

disciplinary issues as they arise.

working with and supporting

their successes.

including academics, athletics,

She is the former housemaster

Blake, the level directors, and

A former history department

and employee benefits.

of McClellan and Davidson, and

housemasters.”

chair, Easterling teaches world

“Alison will be a great assistant

also serves as the varsity girls’

history survey for Third Formers

dean of faculty. She understands

lacrosse assistant coach and leads

– a course she helped redesign

firsthand the range of expecta-

the freshman field hockey team.

– Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

ROBOTICS CLUB CLAIMS TITLE LAWRENCEVILLE’S ROBOTICS CLUB CLAIMED THE TOP PRIZE FOR “OUTSTANDING SUBSYSTEM AND SENSOR USE” AWARD THIS SPRING AT THE 2017 N.Y./N.J. REGIONAL BOTBALL TOURNAMENT IN RAHWAY, N.J. COMPETING FOR LAWRENCEVILLE WERE NIKHIL AJJARAPU ’20, AGEEQ HASAN ’20, AKASH IYER ’19, TRISTIN KETTERER ’17, CHRISTIAN LUU ’19, CALEE SCHMIDTBERGER ’18, SIDHARTH SHARMA ’20, NEAL VASIREDDI ’18, VINETH VEERAMACHANENI ’19, AND RICKY WILLIAMS ’17.

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Job & Love

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It seems to us that for every Lawrenceville alum, there is a Lawrenceville story. Many of these are well documented, from your days on campus to your remarkable accomplishments in the time since.

But countless other narratives remain untold, and here at The Lawrentian, that just won’t do. Many stories of perseverance and triumph come about because someone thought to share them with us.

It’s simple enough for this magazine to report what’s happening at Lawrenceville, but there is a world of Lawrentians among you whose lives were transformed in some way by the School. And very often, those experiences have affected so many other lives in wonderful ways. Maybe you’ve witnessed this. Maybe it’s been you.

Maybe you should tell that story.

Reach out to us at The Lawrentian by emailing editor Sean Ramsden at sramsden@lawrenceville.org.

Don’t be shy!

KEEP IN TOUCH! The Alumni & Development Office at The Lawrenceville School wants you to stay in touch! Please make sure we have a current email and home address on file. If you’ve recently moved or changed your preferred email address, please contact alumni@lawrenceville.org with your new information.

We use email to share news, event invitations, and more, and without a current home address, you will not receive The Lawrentian. You won’t want to miss out!

Your dedicated class secretaries rely on current email addresses to reach out to you for news to report in Class Notes, too.

A current email is also the only way you’ll be able to use the Lawrenceville Alumni Network app to stay connected with classmates.

For more information on the app, visit Lawrenceville.org.

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Record Gift Launches Strategic Plan Initiatives Joe Tsai ’82 stands firmly behind the plan’s aim to celebrate and reinforce the School community.

T

he Lawrenceville School received the largest single gift in the School’s 207-year history in June. Joseph C. Tsai ’82, executive vice chairman of global e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, and his wife Clara, through the Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation, made a major gift as an endorsement of the School’s Strategic Plan: A Vision for the Future: Lawrenceville 20/20.

“We are incredibly grateful to Joe and Clara for this historic and transformational gift,” said Head Master Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21. “This offers us an opportunity to accelerate implementation of key elements of our Strategic Plan and to bring us that much closer to achieving some critically important, far-reaching initiatives.”

The Tsais have requested that the amount of their gift remain confidential. The previous largest gift given to Lawrenceville was a bequest from Henry C. Woods Jr. ’40 and his wife, Janie Woods, in 2010, of $60.2 million.

“Joe embodies lifelong character and commitment. He speaks movingly about his time

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as a student at Lawrenceville and understands the pivotal role that a school can play in a young person’s development,” Murray added. “With this gift, Joe and Clara help ensure that we will continue the work of inspiring young people to lead lives of integrity and high purpose.”

In addition to supporting long-term financial sustainability through endowment, the gift will lend important support to one of the School’s four strategic priorities identified in the plan: “Celebrate and Reinforce Community.”

Lawrenceville 20/20 envisions a new, worldclass athletic center with an exceptional new dining facility as a way to further promote and strengthen community.

The School hopes to break ground on the project within two years, and a part of the Tsai gift will support the planning and construction of the new facilities.

The site for the new complex has not yet been determined; however, Murray said having it “centrally located” on campus is a priority.

“Far more than simply meeting a pressing facilities need, this gift allows us to give every member of the community multiple reasons to convene – to forge friendships when breaking bread together, to elevate School spirit and pride when supporting our teams, and to reinforce the social fabric of the School through teamwork, healthy competition, and a sense of togetherness in all that we do.”

Former Lawrenceville Board of Trustees President Thomas L. Carter Jr. ’70 said, “In addition to reinforcing our hallowed traditions of close community and athletic excellence, this gift will contribute substantially to endowment, which will have a profound impact on current and future generations of the Lawrenceville family.”

Of the gift, Tsai said: “I am grateful for what Lawrenceville has given me 35 years ago. Now, Clara and I are thrilled to give back. We express through this gift our appreciation for what a Lawrenceville experience can do for young people, and we wholeheartedly support Steve in his strategic vision of reinforcing campus life around a strong community.”

The Tsai family has generously supported Lawrenceville over the years, with financial aid, faculty support, capital projects, and annual

giving, among other important priorities.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Tsai arrived at Lawrenceville in 1977. As a student, he was a member of the varsity lacrosse and football teams, sports editor of the w, and part of the Glee Club. He went on to graduate from Yale University and Yale Law School and practiced with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York as an associate in the firm’s Tax Group. In 1995, Joe moved to Hong Kong to begin a career in private equity investment with the Asian office of Investor AB, the Swedish industrial holding company under the stewardship of the Wallenberg family. Tsai’s career took another turn when, in 1999, he met Jack Ma and soon after joined him as one of the founding members of the China-based e-commerce company Alibaba. Today, Tsai is executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group and serves on its board of directors. He has also been a member of Lawrenceville’s Board of Trustees since 2010.

▲ Athletics were an integral part of the Lawrenceville experience for Joe Tsai ’82, who played varsity lacrosse and football as a student. He even returned to campus recently to compete in the Lawrenceville Legends alumni lacrosse game.

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GO BIG RED

A STROKE OF GENIUS

A LATE SWITCH TO ROWING MADE JESSICA VOCATURO ’12 AN NCAA CHAMPION

T

he moment the soccer ball caromed off the crown of her head, she knew. It was another concussion. Just like that, her soccer career was over. What Jessica Vocaturo ’12 didn’t know was that, two years later, she’d be an NCAA champion in a sport she’d never considered: rowing.

Vocaturo and her Bates College women’s crew teammates rowed to the 2017 NCAA Division III National Championship title in May on Mercer Lake at nearby Mercer County Park – coincidentally, the home of Lawrenceville’s crew program. Vocaturo raced in the Bobcats’ second varsity eight boat to win gold. Combined with the first varsity eight boat’s second-place finish, Bates earned enough points to win the overall championship. It was just the second NCAA title in Bates history, following another title for women’s crew in 2015.

“All I could think was Wow, this is happening.

I’m an NCAA athlete, which is something I never thought would be possible,” Vocaturo says of her opportunity to resume her athletic career, which saw her finish as a champion. “The one thing I really wanted out of college was to be an athlete, and I didn’t think I’d ever have it, and then this beautiful thing called rowing happens, and now here I am crossing a finish line in first place.”

 BY LISA M. GILLARD HANSON

Vocaturo’s athletic career was supposed to be on land, not water. She started playing soccer as a first-grader – “I was a rambunctious child, so it was fun to kick things,” she recalls, laughing. After that she moved on to recreational leagues, travel teams, showcase tournaments, and four years as a varsity starter for Big Red. As a Lawrenceville day student, she would log a full day of classes, practice until 5:30 p.m., take the forty-minute drive home, grab a quick dinner, and then drive another hour to play for a travel team. Weekends weren’t any easier.

“Soccer overshadowed everything else,” Vocaturo says. “I did not have much confidence in the classroom at all, but I had confidence everywhere else when it came to athletics.”

Injuries, however, were beginning to take their toll. Vocaturo suffered a number of sports-related concussions, including one that kept her on the bench for much of her Fifth-Form season. “I struggled a lot to recover, to perform academically and athletically,” she said.

Dissatisfied with the college offers she received, Vocaturo decided on a postgraduate year at Phillips Andover Academy.

“It was the first year I wasn’t playing travel soccer, and that was a very positive thing,” she says. “I was able to build a better profile and gain a bit of maturity – athletically and personally.”

Ultimately, Vocaturo chose Bates College and

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Photographs by Michael Branscom

even landed a starting varsity role as a freshman, but her progress was short-lived. She sustained her final concussion during a winter training session, when, attempting to head a soccer ball speeding her way, Vocaturo misjudged her angle and absorbed the impact with the very top of her head. The sickeningly familiar sensation returned right away, but this time, the cloudy effects of her injury lingered for months. Vocaturo knew another injury could cause permanent brain damage. She was devastated.

“I had no idea what else I would do. Soccer was my identity. That’s how people knew me, and it kind of overshadowed everything else that I may have been interested in or good at,” Vocaturo explains. “I’m a very stubborn person, and the fact that I could not overcome this was very hard.”

Friends persuaded her to try rowing.

“I wanted a sport that would kick my butt,” she says, “and where I couldn’t get hit in the head.”

After a summer of strenuous workouts on the ergonomic rower, Vocaturo made the Bates team as a junior. “Rowing is the pinnacle of power and finesse,” she says of the duality of the sport’s action. “It’s very different than anything I’d experienced before. There are so many things you have to stay focused on, and it takes a long time to get to a point where the actual rowing is second nature. Then, you’re just digging deeper and deeper in the race to find more power.”

Every person in the boat, Vocaturo says, must function in unison. “In soccer, you do need to be functioning like one unit, but it’s very different,” she says. “With rowing, you kind of suspend all of your control over what’s happening and give it to your teammates.”

Another key difference? “You can’t stop … period. In a soccer game, you could start going for a run and decide, ‘Ugh, I’m too tired.’ With rowing, it’s You’re tired? Too bad. Find it in yourself to keep going, because everyone else is,” she said.

Vocaturo graduated in May, just a day after winning the NCAA title, with a B.A. in politics.

She’s working in Washington, D.C., as a presales engineer for Laserfiche, a content and document management firm, but also looking for opportunities to continue enjoying her sport.

“I can’t stop rowing now,” she says. “I suppose I’ll have to learn to scull on the Potomac River.”

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TAKE THIS JOB & LOVE IT

CURTAIN CALL

FIFTY YEARS AFTER PRESIDING OVER PERIWIG, HUGH LANDWEHR ’68 SETS THE STAGE FOR ‘GUYS AND DOLLS’ AT KIRBY ARTS CENTER.

I

t’s in his voice. The rich timbre and the smooth, measured delivery of his conversation reveals Hugh Landwehr ’68 as a man of the stage.

Landwehr’s name does not appear on the marquee, however. The veteran set designer and art director’s creative work comes not in creating a character, but rather, the sets that silently command the players’ movements in ways even the director himself cannot.

“It’s not just a mood. You create a space,” explains Landwehr, whose Broadway credits span nearly forty years. “You give the actors certain places they can go and look good, and you actually keep them from going other places.”

Landwehr returned to Lawrenceville this year to join the Performing Arts Department’s celebration of 125 seasons of Periwig, the theatrical arts club that is the second-oldest such student organization at the School after The Lawrence. Lending his talents to the fall production of Guys and Dolls, which premieres October 19 in the Kirby Arts Center, takes him back to his own days on campus when he was a four-year member of Periwig, including one as its president. For Landwehr, it’s a return to the stage where he learned he could indeed make a

significant contribution to a production.

“The greatest thing about theater is that anyone has the ability to contribute to the final results. I mean anyone,” he says. “A person who is low on the totem pole can come into the prop shop and give you an idea or react in a useful way. There’s a place for that.”

Growing up in nearby Trenton, not far from where his family owned a popular restaurant with views of the Delaware River, Landwehr was always made to feel by his parents that performance was something to be embraced, even celebrated.

“One of the greatest gifts our parents gave me and my brothers and sisters was the ability not to feel ashamed to sing or to perform music,” said Landwehr, who gravitated naturally toward the theater. “It was not, I suppose, such a dramatic transition into the world of speaking lines.”

A violin student as a child, Landwehr was steered toward the stage corps by a junior high school teacher after encountering a particularly dense musical score he simply couldn’t conquer.

By the time he was immersed in Periwig, the talented artist was growing accustomed to creating scenery, and though he chuckles now at the rudimentary crudeness of those early sets, Landwehr says that the theater’s distinctly non-

judgmental esprit de corps was what really fueled his desire to create.

“No one said, Oh, that’s terrible. You’re doing it wrong. You should do it this way. There are rules here. Did you know about this?” he recalls. “There was advice given. It was a great place to have whatever work you were capable of doing accepted. Your contribution at Periwig was based on your instincts, on your feelings and on the [emotional] exposure involved in that.”

Landwehr says the lack of inhibition bred by that experience allowed him to succeed immediately in college, where he designed the set of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage for the Yale Dramatic Association as a freshman in 1968.

“I just sort of did it. It wasn’t a bad design, really,” he says. “I don’t know quite how that happens, except that I presume that whatever confidence the Periwig experience allowed me must have helped, somehow.”

Working at the Williamstown (Mass.)

Theater Festival with the famed artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos, whom he knew from Yale, Landwehr expanded from painting scenery into the more complex designing of sets. His budding theater network subsequently expanded from the Hartford Stage Company to Center Stage in Baltimore, before he designed for his first

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well beyond the ability to make a set merely attractive. The depth of historical and cultural knowledge it requires can be daunting, and is just one skill that distinguishes Landwehr, who majored in the history of art – and not theater – at Yale.

“You’ve got to become an expert in a bunch of peculiar things,” he says, pointing to various periods, art, and artifacts. “It embraces all of the information you can possibly bring to bear on the project.”

What emerges, then, is a set sometimes so rich in detail that it becomes a character in itself. But just as actors risk being accused of “chewing the scenery” while overplaying a part, Landwehr says that set designers must practice

an unquantifiable level of restraint, too.

“You try, through various means of scale, color, shape, and space, to put actors in the best possible place for their work. You try not to speak louder than they will be speaking, in a sense,” he says. “You try not to overwhelm what they have to do with a big visual statement. That’s not good design.”

Although returning to the KAC is a homecoming for Landwehr, he nevertheless believes that “theater” is as much an ethos as it is a place – and one in which he always feels its warm embrace.

“It has always felt like home to me, no matter where I am, no matter what theater I walk into,” he says. “People do not judge you, except by your ability to contribute.”

Photograph by Donnelly Marks

Broadway show, the short-lived original Taxi Tales, in 1978. Since then, he has created sets for four more shows on the Great White Way, but Landwehr says regional theater is really the soul of his commitment.

“The sense of an institutional mission makes for a better experience, at least for me. I think the rest of America thinks Broadway is where everybody aspires, and the Broadway shows are fine, but they do not make you a bundle of money, unless you’re the person designing Hamilton or Wicked,” he explains. “Frequently, the pressures, apart from money, are political. The art of it is less of a priority sometimes.”

Having to design scenery that transports the audience to a location or a place in time extends

Award-winning theatrical set designer and art director Hugh Landwehr ’68 returns to the KAC this fall to help create the set of Guys and Dolls and celebrate 125 seasons of Periwig.

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Q&A

TABLE TALK

WHAT’S HAPPENING INSIDE THE CLASSROOM AT LAWRENCEVILLE? Since joining the faculty in 1991, just four years after girls first took their place around the Harkness table at Lawrenceville, Miranda

Christoffersen P’14 ’18 has seen the School’s English literature curriculum diversified well beyond the simple addition of more female writers. Now the chair of the English Department, Christoffersen explained to The Lawrentian how students’ exposure to more varied types of fiction not only helps make them more empathetic adults, but enables them to understand themselves better.

You’re the teacher, but what have you learned over the course of your career in the classroom?

I’ve given up on a lot of things I used to think were important. I’ve learned to let go of pet ideas about literature when my devotion to that pet idea was getting in the way of my being a better teacher. I used to think that we had to stick with a passage in class until my reading of, let’s say, Act IV of Hamlet was out there. I stifled discussion for the sake of feeling every student had to walk out with what I understood about Act IV.

What changed your approach?

I guess I realized that my own reading might change over time and, more importantly, that students don’t walk out with anything enduring unless they arrive at it through their own mental exertions. Pushing my reading comes at the expense of the practice students need at forming their own readings. That practicing and intellec-

tual muscle-building now seems infinitely more important to me than any version – mine or anyone else’s – that they might download..

Were there any external influences that shaped your evolution?

Years ago, when I was in school, the model was different, and we spent a lot of good class time writing down what our teachers said. The internet has made students better at reaching out for what they want to know, pulling it toward them, so teachers are better off exploiting that curiosity than fighting against it.

Would you say that allowing students to develop their own sense of a work serves a deeper purpose for them, too?

If you get through four years of English here, and you don’t look to literature or writing as one of the ways to understand yourself and your world, I think we have dropped the ball somewhere.

Not dissimilar to that, one recently published study found that reading literary fiction improves empathy in the reader.

I was reading that story, too, and I thought, Well, duh. If that’s a surprise to people, no wonder nobody thinks it’s important to read books. And if no one reads fiction, it’s no wonder that lack of empathy is kind of a problem.

Is technology intruding too much into our lives now to be bothered reading a book?

Yeah, but there’s something else. Our power to empathize is taxed much more now than it was in previous generations, because we’re all connected now to a wider range of people and situations than we ever were before. We have a hundred interactions a day where we used to have a dozen. That makes empathy more important to develop but simultaneously harder to maintain. Our students come from all over the map and want to learn from each other.

With families and friends more spread out at the same time reading is in decline, are we seeing a decline in empathy?

Look at my grandfather’s world. Everybody he knew had been born and grew up practically on the same street. They may have known about a wider world through books, but they had certainly never lived anywhere else. Their resources for understanding the lives of the people around them were on the same scale as their need to be compassionate. They didn’t need as much imagination to understand the lives

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of the people living around them, because they all knew each other’s brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, and uncles.

Their relatability and shared experience helped create empathy among neighbors?

Yes, because you could actually feel what somebody else on your street was feeling. If there was a death in the family, or somebody had an accident or an illness, of course you made a chicken and you brought it over, because you were imagining what you would need if it were you.

Now we have to work so much harder to imagine the options and experiences of others.

And the more context you can supply – perhaps the kind you cultivate by reading fiction – the closer you become to it?

Well, yes. Reading fiction is one of the ways we can live more experiences than the time and space of a single human life could otherwise encompass. People who want to live fully should definitely read books – fiction – because in reading those imaginary circumstances, you put yourself in the position of various characters, over and over.

Has this phenomenon shaped the English curriculum in any way?

Photograph by Michael Branscom

I don’t know if this change is related to your question, but we do teach more books by women now than we once did.

Let’s go back to the idea of people reading less than they used to. Is this evident with students in your class?

I look around my Second-Form class. I make eye contact with all of them and I say, “What was the last book you read that wasn’t required for this class?” They all kind of look sheepish for a minute…”

As if they haven’t thought about reading for the sake of reading.

Then one of them says, “I read something on a plane,” and everybody looks at that person hopefully, like, OK … and …? And the student will say, “I don’t know; I didn’t finish it. It was really good, though.” It’s that bad. But realizing how little they read makes me care even more about what we’re choosing as our novels. If these are the only four novels a student is going to read all year, I want to make sure they’re all good ones.

For instance?

I do The Scarlet Letter in my novels class. The

first couple of assignments, Fourth Formers say, “Oh, for goodness sake … What is this? This is terrible.” Then, about halfway through, they tend to say, “All right, so I didn’t love it at the beginning, but I’m really glad we’re reading it,” and I think, Yes! Score!

Do you ever tire of teaching the same books?

I like to swap in fresh ones, but it’s hard to put aside some of the texts that are anchors to me.

It was very hard to let go of Great Expectations, very hard to let go of Pride and Prejudice and The Mayor of Casterbridge. I want my Fourth Formers to read these novels that have meant so much to me, even if they don’t kind of get it until they’re

in their thirties, and they’re reading it for the second time saying, “Oh, now I understand, now that I have actually grown up, actually having accumulated experiences.”

Isn’t it interesting to read a book again after many years? Your perspective is constantly being reshaped.

It’s another reason to let go of that need to download your version of Hamlet, Act IV, because they’re not going to be the same people in a few years, and you’re not, either.

It’s true. Even you are changing.

All the time, yup. Exactly.

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ASK THE ARCHIVIST

BY JACQUELINE HAUN

o t l e v r Ma

d l o h Be

A

William Lee Parker '29

An unassuming magazine editor reluctantly created an iconic comic-book superhero, coining an enduring expression in the process.

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o William Lee Parker ’29, it was a novel assignment: create a character for his employer, Fawcett Publications, to gain a foothold in the burgeoning comic-book industry. Fawcett, which had witnessed the success of other publishing houses with the colorful story-bypanel narratives, was eager to launch its own comic line. The 29-year-old Parker was an unlikely candidate for such a task, not having done any previous writing for the comics. Indeed, it wouldn’t be long before he returned to more traditional forms of writing and editing due to his own discomfort with the genre. Nonetheless, the character Parker created during that short phase of his career remains an icon of American pop culture more than three-quarters of a

century later: Captain Marvel, otherwise known as “Shazam!”

While at Lawrenceville, Bill Parker had been passionate about writing, serving on the board of The Lawrence and being active in both the Press Club and in Pipe and Quill, a club for students interested in literature. Following his graduation from Princeton in 1933, he accepted a position as a reporter for prominent daily newspaper The New York Herald Tribune. In 1937, he took his talents to Fawcett Publications, which had grown from a single title in 1919, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, to a magazine powerhouse with a circulation of over 10 million issues a month in newsstand sales of popular titles such as True Confessions, Family Circle, and their flagship publication, Mechanix Illustrated. Parker was named supervising editor for Fawcett’s line of

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movie publications, including Movie Story, which featured the plots of movies retold in prose, illustrated with promotional stills and featuring behind-the-scenes tidbits to entice readers.

The era now identified as the “Golden Age of Comic Books” began in 1938 with the introduction of Superman in Action Comics #1, published by Detective Comics (later known as DC Comics.) Between 1939 and 1941, the superhero comic genre took off as publishers introduced many characters still popular today: Batman, the Flash, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and Captain America.

Fawcett Publications wanted in on the action, and in 1939, they asked Bill Parker, then an assistant for Fawcett editorial director Ralph Daigh, to work with artist Charles Clarence “C.C.” Beck to create a superhero story that could become the basis of a new line of comics.

Parker’s first idea was to create a stable of six characters whose superpowers would be drawn from traits exhibited by figures from mythology.

He proposed that their special attributes would include Solomon’s wisdom, Hercules’ strength, Atlas’s stamina, Zeus’s power, Achilles’ courage and Mercury’s speed. When the idea of a group of heroes was overruled, Parker decided to embody all of the traits into a single superhero, whose powers could be conjured by a magical word created from the first initials of all the mythological beings’ names: SHAZAM! Initially christened Captain Thunder, Parker’s new character debuted in January 1940 in Flash Comics #1. Unfortunately, a rival publishing house put out its own new Flash Comics title that same month, so to avoid copyright conflicts, Fawcett quickly reissued the comic as Thrill Comics #1– only to have it confused with Standard Magazines’ brand new Thrilling Comics! The third time proved the charm, however, and with Flash/

Thrilling Comics now dubbed Whiz Comics, Captain Thunder was reintroduced as Captain Marvel.

His original story appeared in Whiz Comics #2, with homeless teenager Billy Batson being led by a mysterious stranger to an ancient wizard.

The sorcerer tells Billy he has been chosen as the successor to the mystical powers he has become too old to wield after fighting evil for three-thousand years. All young Billy needs to do is say the wizard’s name – Shazam! – and he is transformed into superhero Captain Marvel.

That Captain Marvel bore a strong resemblance to actor Fred MacMurray was no accident; artist C.C. Beck confessed to having modeled the character’s look on the popular actor.

Captain Marvel was an instant hit and by 1944 was selling 14 million copies a year, outstripping even Superman. In 1941, Captain Marvel’s popularity saw him become the first superhero to have his adventures adapted to film in the Republic Pictures serial, The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Fawcett further expanded the “Marvel” franchise to include numerous spinoff characters, including Captain Marvel Jr. and his sister, Mary Marvel.

The copyright issues that dogged the initial release of Captain Marvel may have foretold what was to come, however. Detective Comics (now DC) sued Fawcett in 1941 for copyright infringement, claiming that Captain Marvel was based on their Superman character. The case finally went to trial in 1948, and although Captain Marvel was found to be a copyright infringement on Superman, the presiding judge nevertheless ruled in Fawcett’s favor, finding that DC (then known as National Comics) had “abandoned” its copyright of Superman through lax copyright practices.

When National Comics appealed the decision in 1952, the higher court judge ordered the case to be retried. Rather than continue what had already been more than a decade of legal proceedings, and faced with declining sales of the Marvel series in the post-World War II years, Fawcett settled out of court, agreeing to cease publication of its Marvel titles and pay National Comics $400,000 in damages. By the following year, Captain Marvel and its related titles had ceased publication.

Parker missed both the heyday and the decline of his superhero creation. A weekend National Guardsman from 1938 through 1940, Parker

had accepted a full-time commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army in October 1940, only a few months after Captain Marvel had debuted.

During World War II, Parker rose to the rank of major while fighting in the Philippines. After the war, he returned to Fawcett Publications but eschewed the comics division, instead opting to edit Mechanix Illustrated for several years. His only connection with Captain Marvel during that period was to testify in the lengthy copyright trial about his role in the creation of the character at Fawcett’s request.

When Parker died in 1963, he probably thought of Captain Marvel as a character whose time had come and gone. It was not until 1972, nearly a decade after Above left: Bill Parker ’29 his death, that DC conceived the idea that Comics – forbidden young Billy Batson could from using the name summon Captain Marvel “Captain Marvel” by uttering an acronym as part of the 1953 formed by the first letters settlement with of six mythological figures’ Fawcett – rebooted the franchise under the names – Solomon, Hercuname “Shazam!” and a les, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, new generation of fans and Mercury – to become discovered the power “Shazam.” of the magic phrase.

Forty years later, the Above right: In Bill Parkcharacter has appeared er’s storyline, teenager in numerous comic Billy Batson was chosen by book series, graphic an ancient sorcerer to innovels, films, television herit his mystical powers, programs, and video transforming the boy into games. With the superhero Captain Marvel possibility of a feature film from DC and New whenever he invokes the Line Cinema under wizard’s name – Shazam! discussion, the end of Parker’s superhero

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He’s on the NEW CFO AND BOARD SECRETARY BEN HAMMOND IS STEERING LAWRENCEVILLE TOWARD A MORE SUSTAINABLE FINANCIAL FUTURE. By SEAN RAMSDEN • Photography: MICHAEL BRANSCOM

A

competitive sailor during his undergraduate days at Harvard, Ben Hammond still feels quite comfortable commanding the open waters when he’s at the helm. But more recently, as the new chief financial officer at Lawrenceville, Hammond has taken the tiller of an entirely new vessel, navigating the School’s fiscal future as it embarks upon the new Strategic Plan: A Vision for the Future: Lawrenceville 20/20. What he sees in the forecast is, in so many ways, a sailor’s delight.

“I spent a lot of time talking with [Head Master] Steve Murray and the search committee during the search process, and I thought it was one of the best strategic plans I’ve ever read,” Hammond says. “I loved the way things are described, and I love the re-articulation of the mission statement. For me, that really resonates.”

Hammond may be new to Lawrenceville, but he’s no stranger to the independent boarding school experience. For him, it began as a toddler on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, a dormitory faculty member, lived with his young family.

“We moved there when I was 3, so I’ve eaten my fair share of institutional food,” he says.

Among the students who lived in his father’s dorm at Exeter was Murray himself, who studied French literature with Hammond’s father.

“We met each other when I was 10 and he was maybe 18,” Hammond says, grinning at the longago recollection.

Renewing their acquaintance now in an entirely different context held plenty of appeal to Hammond, who appreciates that Lawrenceville 20/20 places such an emphasis on strengthening the future through an enhanced financial foundation.

“All four pillars [of the strategic plan] resonate in different ways, and it obviously was great to see financial sustainability be a key element,” he explains. “It’s not the reason we do this work, but it’s an essential condition to being successful with the other three.”

Among the many factors that have Hammond eager to get to work is the leadership team Murray has assembled, one he believes has the School well-positioned to buttress all of those pillars.

“Having someone like [chief operations officer] Pete DeVine bring deep expertise in master planning and construction projects is critical,” he explains. “Given the work we need to do to implement the master plan, with the [proposed] field house and dining center, having someone with his skillset and experience is vital.

He’s also a fabulous partner and colleague.”

Even at a time when Lawrenceville will benefit from a record gift from Joseph C. Tsai ’82, executive vice chairman of global e-commerce company Alibaba Group, and his wife Clara, through the Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation, Hammond says alumni giving will also play a huge part in making Lawrenceville 20/20 come alive, and again his confidence is soaring.

“I feel very good about working with Mary Kate Barnes [H’59 ’77 P’11 ’13 ’19, director of advancement and assistant head master], with her incredible expertise and experience, and her huge devotion to Lawrenceville, who is so great at connecting the aspirations of the strategic plan to alumni and their philanthropic priorities,” he says. “I’m really impressed with the team that Steve has built around him.”

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Assistant Head Masters Named BARNES

CUNNINGHAM

THE APPOINTMENTS OF AND ROUND OUT MURRAY’S GOALS OF TOP OFFICIALS IN FOUR AREAS OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION.

Head Master Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21 announced the appointment of Mary Kate Barnes H’59 ’77 P’11 ’13 ’19 and Chris Cunningham P’14 ’18 as assistant head masters in June. Barnes currently serves the School as director of advancement, and Cunningham is Lawrenceville’s dean of faculty. Both will continue in their current roles with these new titles.

In a letter to the School community, Murray wrote that “The appointments have been made in anticipation of the organizational capacity required to implement key elements of Lawrenceville 20/20 [the School’s strategic plan adopted in 2016] and also in the context of ongoing development and enhancement of the organizational structure within my senior staff.”

Murray added that the promotions of Barnes and Cunningham complete his goal of creating a ranking administrator, or chief officer, in four major areas of school administration. In addition to Barnes’ oversight of advancement and Cunningham’s purview over academics, Lawrenceville also tapped Ben Hammond this spring to administrate finance and Pete DeVine in July 2016 to oversee operations.

Barnes came to Lawrenceville as a capital gifts officer in August 1991. When the Leadership Campaign concluded in 1997, she was promoted to director of alumni and development. Under her direction, the Alumni and Development team has raised more than $700 million for projects including endowment funds and capital projects. Her team also oversees The Lawrenceville Fund, Lawrenceville’s annual giving program, which brings in $6 million each year to support the operating budget. In addition to her work at Lawrenceville, Barnes is vice chair of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation Board of Trustees.

“Mary Kate is the best in the business, as her professional association CASE recently affirmed by bestowing on her the prestigious Robert Bell Crow Memorial Award for excellence in advancement,” Murray said. “Over the course of her successful tenure, she has shown herself to be a tremendously effective fundraiser, developed an unparalleled network of relationships at the Board level and throughout the alumni body, and she is driven by a deep love of the institution, which is apparent to all of us who work with her. She will be the architect of our next capital campaign in support of Lawrenceville 20/20.”

Cunningham was appointed Lawrenceville’s dean of faculty in 2012 and has been an English master since he joined the School in 2003. Before becoming dean, Cunningham had served in a range of capacities, including acting chair of the English Department, chair of the Discipline Committee, and housemaster of McPherson.

His efforts as head coach of the girls’ varsity cross country team earned Cunningham Coach of the Year awards from The Times of Trenton, The Trentonian, and The Star-Ledger in 2011. Under his leadership as dean of faculty, the School has expanded its commitment to Harkness teaching and learning, faculty evaluation and feedback, and hiring a diverse, triple-threat faculty body.

Cunningham also spearheaded the process that led to the School’s reaccreditation in 2015.

“Chris has already made a tremendous impact as our dean of faculty, where his scholarship, grasp of pedagogy, and commitment to equitable hiring practices and compensation have already been apparent,” Murray said. “Over the course of the past year he has demonstrated highly effective leadership as chair of both the Mission Writing and the Pace/Quality of Life Committees, and he will be playing a key role as we launch a task force to tackle our strategic initiative on professional growth and evaluation.”

– Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

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Though Hammond feels a renewed sense of energy coursing through the School, he also realizes that a number of economic realities simply must be addressed for Lawrenceville to forge ahead with strength.

“Even as we’re harnessing all this excitement, we also need to build up the foundations of the School. We’re in a position where we are competing with the very wealthiest institutions,” he says. “Thanks to the generosity of generations of Lawrentians, we are an incredibly wellresourced school on any dimension … except when you look at us relative to our toughest competitors and realize they have endowments that are two-and-a-half times ours. This has enabled them to invest more in financial aid and to hold down the pace of tuition growth over the past decade. So while I’m optimistic about all the work we’re going to do, we’re going to have to be thoughtful about it, have real discipline and focus, and make some hard choices.”

Continuing to hone a productive and mutually beneficial relationship with the Lawrence Township community beyond the School’s gates is also important to Hammond, who successfully negotiated that role during his previous stops at Wellesley College and Mount Holyoke College, where he served as vice president for finance and administration and treasurer.

“In my experience, it’s a really important area.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time working toward shared goals and objectives, and also to build understanding and partnership, and it has been incredibly important for both ‘town and gown’” he says. “We’re not always going to see eye to eye on everything, but I want there to be strong bridges, mutual respect, and trust, so we’ll help each other out and collaborate where it makes sense. I’m very committed to that, to being a good neighbor.”

Hammond has also been a neighbor to Lawrenceville, having spent nine years just up the road at Princeton University, most recently as executive director of finance and administrative services for the facilities division until 2011. As he was beginning to eye his next move in 2010,

Hammond actually considered a return to the world of independent schools as a CFO, and in order to gain some useful insight, turned to thenLawrenceville CFO Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 to glean some firsthand perspective about such a role.

“I reached out and introduced myself to him, and he was fantastically helpful, really generous with his time,” Hammond says of their introduction. “He walked me through what his journey had been like and the things he was dealing with, and made it sound fascinating.”

Hammond says that now, seven years later, Brooks has been equally magnanimous in helping him make the transition into Brooks’ former role.

“He’s been incredibly generous and thoughtful about it. He’s given me space, but also encouraged me to ask questions, but also to bring my own perspective and experience to bear,” Hammond says. “He’s really taken the time to plan and construct a seamless transition, which

has been a gift to both the School and to me.”

That sort of bonhomie now lends a welcoming atmosphere to Hammond, wife Kate Holdsworth Hammond – herself a New Jersey native and former Princeton administrator – and daughters Emily, 13, and 10-year-old Maggie. After so long in higher education, he is appreciative of the smaller, more family-oriented community at Lawrenceville, where he is looking forward to advising and doing duty in a House, and perhaps eventually even teaching a course.

He also sees a chance for his family to absorb some of the things he savored most about his own childhood experience.

“My wife is incredibly excited, as am I, about the opportunity for our girls to grow up on campus,” Hammond says. “There is a chance for them to have … not the same experience as their dad had, but … I firmly believe that one of the best places in the world to grow up is on a campus like Lawrenceville’s. It’s had a profound impact on my life.”

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Take a

BOW!

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AFTER 125 SEASONS, PERIWIG HAS BECOME THE CORE OF A VIBRANT PERFORMING ARTS DEPARTMENT

By SEAN RAMSDEN • Photography: PALOMA TORRES

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PILLARS OF PURPOSE The evolution of Periwig into a comprehensive performing-arts program at Lawrenceville is a reason in and of itself to celebrate this year’s historic milestone season, but the array of music, theater, and dance offerings also brings to life two of the pillars championed by the new Lawrenceville 20/20 strategic plan. The hands-on, experiential learning available to students through the Performing Arts Department champions the plan’s directive to ENERGIZE ACADEMIC CULTURE, while the campus-wide esprit de corps that surrounds such fun, participatory annual highlights as the Spring Dance

H

Concert helps to CELEBRATE AND REINFORCE THE COMMUNITY, another tenet of the strategic plan.

istorical documentation can be illusive. Seminal artifacts are rarely preserved, allowing uncertain tales to harden into histories. We value the practice of preservation for posterity, but the thing is, it’s hard to know when something is the start of something big.

How many fans in attendance the day Babe Ruth hit his first home run realized the larger-than-life slugger would transcend the world of sports? No one has so much as a clue where that baseball is today, because it seemed inconsequential at the time. When John Lennon and Paul McCartney began playing music together as teenagers in 1957, could anyone have conceived that the pair would soon form the core of the most important rock ‘n’ roll band in history? What would a recording of their first few notes be worth?

So it is that even as we celebrate 125 seasons of Periwig at The Lawrenceville School, our nicely framed picture of the past remains a little fuzzy around the edges. No less an authority than the late James E. Blake ’43, the longtime editor of The Lawrentian and adviser to Periwig, conceded that “record-keeping has not been one of Periwig’s strong points” in his 1992 history to commemorate the centennial of the School’s oldest existing club.

“Careless record-keeping and research have muddled the club’s history for most of its one hundred years,” Blake wrote. “Periwig’s programs in 1940, for example, referred to it as the club’s fiftieth year, and tabulations of its productions have ignored [an] 1892 minstrel show and insisted on the 1894 effort titled As You Like it – Up to Date as the first.”

It’s not even clear how faithful that production was to Shakespeare’s original work, though Blake called it a “knock-about farce that had little or nothing to do” with the Bard. We can absolutely certify that As You Like it – Up to Date featured a Fifth Former named Lewis Perry, Class of 1894, who would become the 32-year principal at Phillips Exeter Academy and was integral in bringing the Harkness method to Lawrenceville.

Where the certified truth around Perry becomes unclear, however, is whether the very name of the dramatic association he co-founded – Periwig – is indeed a tribute to Perry, who returned to the School as a faculty member in 1899. While some texts draw a straight line to Perry’s surname, others insist the moniker is simply derived from the anglicized version of the French perruque, the type of wig popular among men in the 17th and 18th centuries that was often powdered and drawn with a ribbon toward the back.

Whatever the case, the spirit of yesteryear’s Periwig today fuels a

vibrant and comprehensive Performing Arts Department at the School, with musical and dramatic theater, dance, and vocal and instrumental music constituting a program that is enviable by any independent-school standard.

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he earliest reference to any dramatic performance found in the School’s Stephan Archives is a program for the unfortunately conceived “Amateur Minstrel Entertainment,” presented by The Lawrenceville Dramatic Club, on March 18, 1885. Similar to the earliest spotty days of Circle

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Periwig today fuels a vibrant and comprehensive Performing Arts Department at the School, with musical and dramatic theater, dance, and vocal and instrumental music constituting a program that is enviable by any independent-school standard.

House Football, however, documentation of those initial years is sparse, as both organizations began with fits and starts. Blake also noted an 1890 performance by an outfit tabbed “The Hamill House Harmonious Hodge-Podge Hullabaloo or Chestnut Club Chaste and Comical Calicocachinnating Combination,” but the group’s productions do not seem to have been undertaken with any greater seriousness than their approach to nomenclature.

The February 1892 production of another minstrel-themed show – a shadow of a bygone era that was nevertheless a popular style of revue at the time – by the School-wide Dramatic Association is regarded as the progenitor of today’s Periwig. That name itself first appears in record in the June 21, 1898, edition of The Lawrence, announcing the reorganization of “the Above Left: Dramatic Club” into “the Periwig Club.”

After arriving at The years since have seen Periwig Lawrenceville in 1959, productions performed in a variety of Peter Candler H’67 ’76 venues, some grander than others. In its “brought professional earliest days, The Old Barn, Lawrenceville’s original gymnasium, built on the current experience, scholarship, site of Irwin Dining Hall, played host to energy, and boundless such shows as The Taming of the Shrew and enthusiasm” to Periwig The Importance of Being Earnest, before the according to James humble structure was relocated to the E. Blake ’43. Candler rear of campus. In its place, the 1902 “Old served as theater director Gym” – so called since the construction before retiring in 1986. of the current Lavino Field House in 1950 – also provided a home to a good many Left: What a Drag: productions before Periwig moved to the Long before girls were auditorium inside Memorial Hall, the site of enrolled at Lawrencevthe current Heely Room. ille, boys typically had to The first off-campus production occurred in March 1902 with the presentation of play women’s roles, such Midnight Mistake or Death for Gold at the as in 1934’s Once in a Naval Reserve Hall in nearby Trenton, Lifetime. which, Blake notes, cost 25 cents for general admission, or another dime for reserved

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seating. Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, the Princeton High School auditorium, and The Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria hotels in New York also saw their stages graced by Periwig, but no location was as far-flung or exotic as the New Colonial Opera House in Hamilton, Bermuda.

After so many years and countless performances, Periwig cultivated a lustrous tradition, but it was one forged by hard work and dedication to showmanship. In his centennial history, Blake recalls a performance of The Green Goddess at McCarter Theatre, during which part of the set collapsed and fell mere moments before the curtain was to rise.

“The stagehands and some of us with small parts braced it up from behind during the entire first scene,” he wrote, noting that the players were spurred on by director Ed Herrick, who demanded that, “No matter what, the Periwig curtain goes up on time!”

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Over 125 seasons, thousands of Lawrentians have lent their talents to the Periwig stage over the years, and for some, it served as a springboard to bigger things. Former Lawrenceville trustee Peter Dow ’50 got his start playing a tutu-clad ballerina long before coeducation came to the School in Caviar to the General. Bert Getz ’55 P’85 GP’18 ’20 was a vice president of Periwig before becoming president of the Board of Trustees.

The 1960 production of Take Your Pick featured former Disney CEO Michael Eisner ’60, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Markham ’60, Philip DeGuere ’60, who later became the creator of the hit CBS television series Simon and Simon, and Sean Flynn ’60, son of actor Errol Flynn P’60 who later became one of the more notable combat soldiers to go missing in action during the Vietnam War. Some have parlayed their stage experience into high-profile positions

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Over 125 seasons, thousands of Lawrentians have lent their talents to the Periwig stage over the years, and for

125 SEASONS

some, it served as a springboard to

OF PERIWIG SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

bigger things.

A GUYS AND DOLLS October 19 or 20 – 7:30 p.m.

This perfect musical comedy is a classic love story of how opposites attract and true love conquers all. See you on the red carpet!

A PARADE OF STARS October 19 or 20 We are calling on all past performers and production crew members to take one more bow on stage at the KAC. Come relive your fondest Periwig experiences with the help of the Performing Arts staff!

A HAVANA SOCIAL CLUB October 19 or 20, 2017 – 10 p.m.

After the curtain comes down on Guys and Dolls, the lights go up on Havana Social Club at the Clark Music Center!

A SPRING DANCE CONCERT 2018 April 27 or 28, 2018 – 8 p.m.

Inspiring young choreographers and dancers take the stage in a whirlwind variety of performances featuring everyone from the novice to the experienced.

A CLUB SDC April 28, 2018 – 10 p.m.

Feet can’t stop tapping? Have the desire to move like you mean it? Well, dance your way on over to “Club SDC” where the beat is thumping and music is pumping.

A ALUMNI CONCERT May 5, 2018 – 3 to 4:15 pm For the first time in many years, Lawrenceville is pleased to present an Alumni Concert – your chance to showcase your musical talents at Lawrenceville one more time!

within the arts, including Cotter Smith ’68, an acclaimed stage actor and alumnus of the Actors Studio; Hugh Cregg ’67, who still fronts the legendary rock ‘n’ roll outfit Huey Lewis and the News; actor and comedian Jim Rash '90, who also won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Descendants; actor Charles Robinson ’50, whose long film and television career included an eight-year run on the NBC comedy Night Court; media executive Garth Ancier ’75, one of only two people to have programmed three of the five American broadcast television networks; Bo Welch ’70, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his set design in the feature film Edward Scissorhands; and theatrical set designer Hugh Landwehr ’68, who returned to the Kirby Arts Center this year to create the set for the Periwig production of Guys and Dolls [see page 16 to learn more].

Left: Though Lawrenceville students reap the benefits of a comprehensive Performing Arts Department, dramatic and musical productions still form the core of the stage experience.

Below: Dance students are able to learn from Performing Arts chair Derrick Wilder, a former member of the Princeton Ballet who has helped turn the Spring Dance Concert into an annual highlight.

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ince 1963, Periwig has called the Kirby Arts Center home, a dedicated theater and rehearsal space that provides a fine showcase for the burgeoning performing arts program at Lawrenceville that has become so much more than a club built around dramatic theater.

“We’re not just Periwig anymore.

Periwig has given birth to the Allegro Club, Music Encore, dance and everything in between,” says Derrick Wilder, chair of the Performing Arts Department. Wilder came to Lawrenceville a dozen years ago as director of dance, a position he retains today, and his arrival coincided with the unification of the theretofore separate dance and music programs.

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“The year that I came on board, in 2005, was the first year that music, dance, and theater all fell under one umbrella: performing arts,” says Wilder, whose first task was to bolster the dance program, which was, at the time, just a small club. “There were probably, like, eight people.

But even in that first year, it swelled into a significant number, and we expanded into the Clark Music Center once we started doing ballet, jazz, and modern.”

The centerpiece of dance on campus now is the Spring Dance Concert, an annual highlight of the campus calendar Wilder leveraged to grow his dance classes by sheer force of will.

“Dance is no longer taboo for boys, but it was in the beginning. In my boys’ class, there would be three students. Or two,” he explains. “In my second year, I decided that the only way I was going to get boys in this program was if I used the Spring Dance program as a vehicle to make it viable.”

An assistant housemaster in Upper, Wilder actively recruited FifthForm boys for the concert, leaving them little recourse for refusal.

“I went through and said, ‘You, you, you, you, and you’ – I picked 16 boys, and I said, ‘You’re in my dance, my Spring Dance Concert.’ There’s no other answer; the answer’s yes. So we did a ballet, a dance around them, and it has become this thing now.”

Students benefit from faculty who, like Wilder, are masters of their craft and eager to share their considerable talents. Matthew Campbell, performing arts master; Christopher Cull P’20, director of theater; Jamie Cuthrell, drama master and the Kirby Arts Center’s technical director; Robert Palmer, director of music, and Keith Roeckle, director of instrumental studies, bring a diverse set of skills to the department that offers students the opportunity to learn skills across the disciplines.

Their collective expertise also dovetails each fall in order to create the season’s annual musical production.

“We all come together in the fall, when everybody’s involved in the musical in some way,” says Colette Burns, the department’s office manager for the past thirty years. Chris directs the [academic] course, Derrick is the choreographer, Jamie and Matt do the set, and Jamie does costumes, Keith is the director of music in the pit, Robert coaches the vocal singers, and I do all the other business behind the scenes here, so it’s nice.”

Throughout the 2017-18 academic year, the Performing Arts Department will celebrate 125 seasons of Periwig with a full program of events, beginning with the 1950 music comedy Guys and Dolls on October 19 ad 20. This will be the fourth time the show, an audience favorite that won a Tony Award for Best Musical during its 1,200-performance run on Broadway, will be performed at Lawrenceville.

Wilder says the selection of Guys and Dolls for this year’s fall musical was not intentionally symbolic, but he notes that it does hold a serendipitous historical twist.

“It just so happens that it was the first Broadway musical that the club performed, in 1962,” he explains, noting that from 1939 to 1961, Periwig’s spring musicals were all original productions, written jointly by faculty

and students.

On both nights, the curtain call will be highlighted by a Parade of Stars, during which past performers and production crew members return to take one more bow on stage at the Kirby Arts Center.

In May, performers of years past will have one more chance to shine during Alumni Weekend in the Alumni Concert, when any of Lawrenceville’s Above: Rich course countless singers, instrumentalists, composers, offerings in music and songwriters are invited to perform allow students to selections of their choice. explore its fundamental Even as Lawrentians of yesteryear will have language, its place in the occasion play an active role in the year’s history and culture, celebration of Periwig’s landmark anniversary, and, of course, receive Wilder sees an opportunity to showcase his hands-on experience entire department for all to see. To him, it’s in composition and as much a celebration of an evolution, the journey from Periwig to Performing Arts production.

“I think it’s perfectly acceptable to have an anniversary celebration and say, “but it’s not just about this. Look at everything we do here,” Wilder says, “because there are probably a lot of people who don’t realize how expansive the Performing Arts operation is here now.”

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O

ver the course of its 125 seasons, Periwig and the students who are its lifeblood have benefited from the many talented faculty members and advisers who have dedicated themselves to making sure that the show not only goes on, but that the young performers bring the house down every night, too. Still, one person stands alone for sheer longevity and devotion to the students of Periwig, giving nearly sixty years of her

life to the program: Jean Stephens H’50 ’59 ’61 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06.

“She was in two or three plays a year when I was growing up,” says Betsy Stephens Ellsworth H’70,

Jean’s daughter who lived with her parents in Hamill House, where her father, Wade C. Stephens ’50

ALL HER WORLD WAS A

H’68 P’78 GP’06, was housemaster. “We never ate dinner as a family because Mom was always over at Kirby Arts Center.”

Jean Stephens began working with drama students as an acting and elocution coach almost from the time the Stephens family took

STAGE

up residence in Hamill in 1957. She had honed her own acting chops in Ogunquit, Maine, and with the Lake Placid (N.Y.) Community Theatre

Whether as a voice

Players, and she sought to remain active in the arts after arriving at Lawrenceville. Jean quickly

coach or an actor,

befriended Peter Candler H’67’76, director of the theater, and James E. Blake ’43, who served

Jean Stephens’

as an adviser to Periwig and, before long, had claimed her place at the School.

“You have this all-male, hyper-male boarding

time with Periwig

school, and then you’ve got this young woman who shows up and just doesn’t leave for what,

spanned nearly

fifty-seven years?” Ellsworth says. “It really was her home. When Dad died [in 1988], she moved

half its history.

off campus but she really carved out a place there. She spent every waking moment at KAC.” Whether actually portraying parts on the Periwig stage, or making sure students were getting the most of their own vocal abilities, it was a role Stephens would play almost until her death in 2015. In some instances, her involvement with Periwig became a family affair.

“Her involvement ranged from being in the shows to being a diction coach for students,” says David Stephens ’78, who shared the stage

Above: An adviser to Periwig for nearly sixty years, Jean Stephens H’50 ’59 ’61 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06 also answered the call to play important parts in its stage productions, such as in The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1980.

with his mother in the 1976 production The Devil’s Disciple.

“I was typecast as her idiot son,” he says, chuckling at the recollection, adding that sometimes, Jean Stephens’ stage direction accompanied them back to Hamill House. Sure a benefit to an eager young performer, no?

“At the time, I didn’t consider it bonus direction,” David Stephens said of his mother’s reminders to enunciate. “But she was at every rehearsal and at all the performances, just deeply involved in it. She had an office in KAC, and she was going in every day up until the fall of the [school] year that she passed away.”

Jean Stephens’ desire to be around the stage and the performers who brought it to life were easy to understand, Ellsworth says.

“She just loved to act; she was theatrical in every moment of her being of life,” Ellsworth says. ‘She’d sit and talk with my husband, Scott, and suddenly she’d have an Oklahoman accent. Two minutes later, she would shift to her British accent or her North Carolina accent. You know, she was … I mean, for her, life really was a stage. And she lived that way.”

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COMMENCEMENT 2017

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FIFTH FORM PRIZES Valedictorian Cathy Wu Edward Sutliffe Brainard Prize Injil Muhammad Trustees’ Cup Panos Vandris The James E. Blake Prize Dorothy Waskow The Peter Candler Periwig Award Panos Vandris The Addison H. Gery Jr. Jazz Prize Ricky Williams

The Aurelian Honor Society Award Ghael Fobes

The Phi Beta Kappa Award Michael Zhao

The Visual Art Department Faculty Award Elizabeth Gracey

The Masters’ Prize Alison Huang

Interfaith Initiative Award Scott Newman

The Chinese Language Prize Uttam Rao

Poetry Out Loud Competition Emily Li

Performing Arts Department Prize Vivian Mayr

Free Enterprise Award Julia Nguyen

R. Jack Garver Visual Art Department Prize Jack Hardie John R. Rose Jr. Prize Cindy Jin James Sipple Award for Religious Studies Alex Domb Emily Galvin The Ross A. Harrison Math Prize Claudia Beller Anna Vinitsky The Howard Hill Mathematics Award Aadil Bhore

The Matthew Dominy Prize Tristan Ketterer

The Wendell Hertig Taylor Prize Julia Chung

The Henry C. Woods Jr. Critical Writing Award Maia Johngren

The Paul L. Marrow Award Panos Vandris

The English Department Prize for Achievement in Creative Writing Julia Chung

The Nick Gusz Best Male Athlete Award Isaiah Wingfield

The Benjamin H. Trask Classics Prize Wynne Emma The Frederick P. King Prize Emma Dasgupta The John P. Phelps Jr. Prize Cathy Wu The John W. Gartner Prize Anna Vinitsky Scott Newman The Owen C. Smith Poetry Prize Amulya Tadimety The Chinese Language Prize A.J. Ryan The Independence Foundation Prize Panos Vandris The Richard H. Robinson Prize Ghael Fobes The Colin Sullivan Award Panos Vandris The William Mayhew Dickey ’64 Prize Sophia Cai

The Melissa Magee Speidel Best Female Athlete Award Reilly Fletcher Tommy Sullivan Award Jessica Haviland The Adam and Mackellar Violich Award Injil Muhammad Ariel Claxton

The Religious Life Award Brian Li

Performing Arts Department Prize/Leadership Eliza Koren Performing Arts Department Prize/Directing Maia Johngren The Music Department Prize/Instrumental Chibueze Ihuoma The Music Department Prize/Vocal Chibueze Ihuoma The English Department Prize for General Excellence Maia Johngren The Lawther O. Smith Computer Science Prize Shrey Chowdhary The Benjamin F. Howell Jr. Science Prize Fund Chisom Ilogu The Thomas F. Sharp Interdisciplinary Award Alexandria Winchester The Religion & Philosophy Department Prize Dan Chivers

The Sterling Morton Prize Hannah Hwa The Herman Hollerith Prize Wilhelm Michaelsen The John T. O’Neil III Mathematics Team Award Aadil Bhore The Lever F. Stewart Prize Vivian Mayr Also Leopold Ecology Prize Emily VandenBerg The Henry and Janie Woods Prize for Research Science Panos Vandris Parents at Lawrenceville Community Service Award Panos Vandris The Class of 1995 Journalism Award Michael Zhao The Megna-Schonheiter Award Carlin Fernandez

The Kathleen Wallace Award Mike MacLean

The Aldo Leopold Society Samuel Cabot

The Director’s Award Patrick Taylor The Boczkowski Award Shahin Damji The Deans’ Award Katherine Hillman The Elizabeth Louise Gray Prize Ricky Williams Andrew T. Goodyear Class of 1983 Award Pravika Joshi The Max Maxwell Award Chisom Ilogu John H. Thompson Prize Emily Walther

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Walker W. Stevenson Jr. Award Cathy Wu

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UNDERFORM AWARDS The Reuben T. and Charlotte Boykin Carlson Scholarship Stephanie Yoon ’19 David Zhu ’19 The John H. Imbrie Humanities/Cultural Studies Prize Anika Bagaria ’20 The John H. Imbrie Humanities/English Prize Ashley Duraiswamy Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Niblock Award Bradford Lin ’18 The Lawrence L. Hlavacek Bowl Justin Wong ’18 Madeline Vore ’18

The Richard C. Smith Physics Prize Kevin Shao ’19 The English Department Prize/Third Form Yukki Qiu ’19 The English Department Prize/Fourth Form Charles Christoffersen ’18 The Eglin Society Pins Harini Srinivasan ’18 Isabel Karohl ’18 Ornsby Thompson ’18 Amber Nguyen ’18 Bobby Vogel ’18 Bailey McKeon ’18 Sharona GentleRamirez ’17 Alex Liu ’18

The Peter W. Dart Prize Alex Small ’18

Dartmouth Club of Princeton Award Alan Lin ’18

The Eisenhower Leadership Award Elizabeth Gracey ’18

The Yale Book Club Award Bradford Lin ’18

The Semans Family Merit Scholarship Elizabeth Gracey ’18 Brianna Thompson ’18 Alex Yang ’18

The Harvard Club of Boston Prize Book Award Elias Salander ’18 Justin Wong ’18

The Beverly Whiting Anderson Prize Oona Pierre ’20 Chris Conyers ’20

The Brown University Alumni Book Award Program Isabel Karohl ’18

The Marcus D. French Memorial Prize Jax Floyd ’20 Grace Faircloth ’20

The Rutgers University Book Award Tiffany Thomas ’18

The History Department Prize Kevin Xiao ’19 Stephanie Yoon ’19 The Visual Art Department Prize Katherine Xiong ’19 The Lawther O. Smith Computer Science Prize Matt Haumann ’18

Wellesley Club of Central Jersey Grace Blaxill ’18 The Williams College Book Award Priya Kumar ’18 The Katherine W. Dresdner Cup Carter House The Foresman Trophy Woodhull House

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COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY Class of 2017 MATRICULATION The following is an alphabetical list of the colleges and universities in which graduates of the Class of 2017 have enrolled. Many of these institutions have enrolled multiple members of the class, but in order to support and align with the prevailing best practices in the college-counseling profession, The Lawrentian has elected to publish this list without associated metrics.

Babson College Bates College

Rutgers University – New Brunswick

Bentley University

Southern Methodist University

Boston College

St. Lawrence University

Boston University

Stanford University

Bowdoin College

Syracuse University

Brown University

Taft School

Bucknell University Carnegie Mellon University

The George Washington University

Case Western Reserve University

The University of Arizona

Claremont McKenna College

The University of Edinburgh

Colby College Colgate University

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

College of the Holy Cross

The University of Texas at Austin

College of William and Mary

Trinity College

Columbia University

Tufts University

Cornell University

Tulane University

Dartmouth College

Union College (New York)

Davidson College

United States Naval Academy

DePaul University

University of California, Berkeley

Dickinson College Duke University

University of California, Los Angeles

Fordham University

University of Chicago

Franklin & Marshall College

University of Delaware

Georgetown University Gettysburg College

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hamilton College (New York)

University of Miami

Harvard University

University of Michigan

Haverford College

University of Notre Dame

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

University of Pennsylvania

Indiana University, Bloomington

University of Richmond

Ithaca College

University of Rochester

Johns Hopkins University

University of San Diego

Lafayette College

University of Southern California

Lehigh University

University of St Andrews

Manhattan College

University of Vermont

Marist College

University of Virginia

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Vanderbilt University

McGill University

Wake Forest University

Middlebury College

Washington and Lee University

Montana State University

Washington University in St. Louis

New York University

Wayne State University

Northeastern University

Wellesley College

Northwestern University

Wesley College

Occidental College

Wesleyan University

Pomona College

Westminster School

Princeton University

Williams College

Providence College

Yale University

University of Pittsburgh

Villanova University

Purdue University

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Leave a Lawrenceville Legacy Art Clark ’62 spent six years at Lawrenceville, entering seventh grade in the fall of 1956 – the last year that Lawrenceville had a Shell Form.

“Lawrenceville was the foundation of my education,” says Art. “Wesleyan was just icing on the cake.”

An astute investor, Art has funded a series of charitable gift annuities over the past few years that will ultimately create an endowed scholarship fund. The annuities pay a guaranteed income to Art for his lifetime. The income is only partially taxable, and he received an up-front charitable income tax deduction for a portion of each gift.

“Lawrenceville and I both aspire for the School to be need-blind in admissions. The celebration of my 50th and 55th reunions was the ideal time for me to help Lawrenceville move closer to that lofty goal, and I have made a down payment on my 60th reunion with my most recent annuity.”

John Cleve Green Society For more information on leaving a bequest to Lawrenceville or for other planned giving opportunities, or if you’ve included Lawrenceville in your will but not yet informed the School, please contact Jerry Muntz at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned Giving at 609-620-6064 or jmuntz@lawrenceville.org, or go to www.lawrenceville.planyourlegacy.org.

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TIME WAS...

Torn str aight

from the

pages of The Lawr entian's p ast

75 Years Ago in ‘The Lawrentian’ Fall 1942 War-time innovations War Courses have been established in most of the departments. The skill in planning them has been applauded by outside observers. Their value will be better known at year’s end. A Work Program, described in detail in these pages, has cemented the School community in a common effort, besides getting much work done and bringing about economics that any institution welcomes these days. The body-building plan for every boy, regardless of his athletic talents or the lack of them, is in itself a further preparation for the paths that may lie ahead.

w-

– From the “Echoes of the Campus” news roundup

50 Years Ago in The Lawrentian Fall 1967: Hippies …

The hippies are certainly very much in the news these days, but the usual hippie stigmata – beads, or dirty bare feet, or whatever – have not yet invaded those bastions of conservatism, the boarding school campuses. The one manifestation of the hippie culture that has showed up is the emphasis on love, and just before the Hill weekend, the cheerleaders published a whole new set of cheers which stressed that “We must love Hill.” Most of the cheers featured the word “love” prominently. Someone was heard to mutter that he hoped the football team wasn’t paying any attention.

create parville as the

– From the “Echoes of the Campus” news roundup

25 Years Ago in The Lawrentian Summer/Fall 1992

Lawrenceville Medal Awarded to Robert F. Goheen ’36 “I was surprised they were interested in a young squirt like me.” So said Robert Goheen in reference to being appointed president of Princeton University in 1957 at the age of 37.

Mr. Goheen also told us that he was surprised at being asked to be the United States ambassador to India in 1977. He may have even been surprised to have been chosen as this year’s recipient of the Lawrenceville Medal, but no one familiar with his remarkable career would have been.

– From the “Around the Campus” news roundup. Goheen, who was born in India, served as ambassador until 1980.

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ALUMNI NEWS F L awrenceville faculty and staff visited Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, China.

 Allen Fitzpatrick ’73

G Allen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 ’89

H’85 ’89 P’99 ’04

P’99 ’04, Helena Cunningham

and Martin Matsui ’76

P’14 ’18, Greg Carter, Liz

P’12 ’14 ’17 enjoyed a

McCall, and Doug Piper

moment at the Hong

enjoyed a dinner hosted by

Kong dinner.

Stephen Wong ’85.

G Goodwin Gaw ’87 P’21 and Yama Gaw P’21 hosted a dinner cruise for Lawrenceville alumni, faculty, and staff this summer.

40 T H E L A W R E N T I A N

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F M artin Matsui ’76 P’12 ’14 ’17 and Christine Van P’12 ’14 ’17 hosted a dinner for Lawrenceville faculty and staff this summer.

G Four decades of Lawrentians were represented at the Kansas

 Lawrenceville Trustee Joon Mo

City Alumni and Parent reception

Kwon P’15 ’19

on May 9 at Bar Rosso at the

spoke to a group

Hotel Sorella. From left, Jeremy

of Lawrenceville

Brown, Jan Marsh, Larry Marsh

alumni in Hong

’63, Ryann Galloway Tacha ’03,

Kong in November

Kaci Brown ’95, Tiffany Simpson

2016.

’96, Becky Loboda, Drew Loboda ’81, and Eric Tucker ’74.

G Martin Matsui ’76 P’12 ’14 ’17, Matthias Matsui ’17, Matthew Lazarus ’17, Christine Van P’12 ’14 ’17, Andrew Kapell ’17, and Kit Bynum ’17 shared some Big Red camaraderie in Hong Kong.

G The Shanghai skyline created a colorful backdrop for Lawrenceville visitors at an event hosted by Yvonne Chan ’98 in June.

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ALUMNI NEWS

THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

2017 / 2018 PRESIDENT Ian S. Rice ’95

FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Charlie C. Keller ’95

SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Heather Elliott Hoover ’91 P’20

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Porter Braswell ’07 Vincent J. “Biff” Cahill, Jr. ’68 P’09 Frederick “Fritz” E. Cammerzell ’68 P’18 Morgan Dever ’06 Kevin Huang ’05 Neil Mehta ’02 Greg G. Melconian ’87 Brockett Muir III ’80

ALUMNI TRUSTEES Leigh Lockwood ’65 P’97 ’02 Heather Woods Rodbell ’91 Jonathan G. Weiss ’75 Tim Wojciechowicz ’78 P’06 ’10 ’12

SELECTORS Patricia Gadsden Hill ’01 Mark Larsen ’72 Martha “Perry” Nelson ’96 John C. Walsh ’99 Bruce L. Hager ’72 Brendan T. O’Reilly ’83 P’16

FACULTY LIAISON Timothy C. Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99

FROM THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT

A

s a proud member of the Class of 1995 and a longtime volunteer, I am honored to begin my term as president of the Alumni Association and excited for the chance to reconnect with the Lawrenceville community in a meaningful way over the coming years. I’d like to thank Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91 and recognize her tireless service as your president for the last three years. We could not have asked for one better. I’d also like to thank Charlie Keller ’95 and Heather Elliott Hoover ’91 P’20 for joining me as officers; they are both seasoned Alumni Association volunteers who bleed red and black.

As we start our term, we find the School in terrific shape. Lawrenceville managed through the global financial crisis while investing in faculty, programming, and the physical plant, and it emerged as strong as ever. Applications continue to increase each year, and our campus remains the first choice for the vast majority of admitted students. Our 13th head master, Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21, is now in his third year, and has been embraced by the School’s many constituencies (students, faculty, parents, alums, et al.) The annual giving campaign through June raised its second-largest total ever, with 35 percent of alumni participating. In July, Lawrenceville announced the largest gift in its 207-year history, thanks to the Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation. Current students enjoy a fully networked campus, expanded athletic options and a dance program, a well-equipped Makerspace, computerscience courses ranging from web design to app development to machine learning, and a solar array large enough to power the entire campus.

Of course, the campus is the heart of the School, housing more than a thousand students and faculty, but there are nearly ten times as many living alums, now spread far and wide around the globe. Hogate Hall and the Alumni Association have worked hard to ensure that alumni have nearly the same level of connectivity in the real world that the students have on campus. There are now thirty-two regional Lawrenceville clubs around the world hosting local events to bring people together in person, and there are five affinity groups to date. The Alumni Community phone app (available for free via the App Store or Google Play) combines our own alumni database with LinkedIn to connect you with your fellow Lawrentians wherever you go; you can literally push a button and see which Lawrentians live in that area, along with their contact information. I encourage you to download it if you haven’t already – you will be impressed with how easy it is to use.

The Alumni Association’s official role is “to advance the interests and to promote the welfare of The Lawrenceville School and its alumni and to foster close relations among them.”

I hope that the association will help our nearly 10,000 former students stay connected to Lawrenceville and will serve as a sounding board for the alumni body. Please feel free to reach out to Charlie, Heather, or me if we can be of service.

With very best regards, Ian Rice ’95 President, Alumni Association ianrice@gmail.com

42 T H E L A W R E N T I A N

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Stay connected with the

Lawrenceville

Alumni NetworkAPP The Lawrenceville Alumni Network app combines the scope of our alumni database and the power of LinkedIn to connect you with your fellow Lawrentians wherever you – and they – may be. Search by name, class year, profession, company, college, location, and more.

For download instructions, go to www.lawrenceville.org and click "Connect and Network" on the alumni tab, or simply scan the QR code below.

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BY THE NUMBERS

125

From its humble and sometimes shadowy origins more than 125 seasons ago,

Lawrenceville’s Periwig

founded as a student-run dramatic-the-

SEASONS OF PERIWIG

ater organization – has blossomed into a comprehensive performing arts program that is now an integral part of the School’s curriculum.

18

17

original members of the club,

by the Performing Arts

including Lewis Perry, Class of

Department.

Number of students who were

For-credit courses offered

1894, who is often regarded as Periwig’s namesake.

Club –

3,000

Approximate number of costumes in storage in the Kirby Arts Center.

1

Repurposed wedding dress worn by Emily Li ’17 in the 2015 production of The

Mystery of Edwin Drood.

The dress was first worn

by Performing Arts office manager Colette Burns at her

7

wedding in 1985.

Full-time faculty members in the Performing Arts Department.

248

80

Number of shows that have

Yards of fabric used to create

been presented by Periwig.

costumes for Oklahoma! in 2013.

865

Seating capacity of the Allan P. Kirby Arts Center (KAC), which hosted its first Periwig production, Teahouse of the August Moon, in 1963. The main stage converts to a 140-seat black box theater for student-directed productions.

20

Typical number of pizzas needed for a cast and crew “feed” during the week of a show, in addition to subs, pastas, and salads.

The year the Lawrenceville Dramatic Association, the progenitor of today’s Periwig, was founded.

Dolls, this year’s fall musical,

1898

has been performed on the

“Periwig” appears in reference

4

Number of times Guys and

Periwig stage. The first was in 1962.

5_30 SUMMER LAWR 2017 9_5 .indd 46

1892

The first year that the name to the club.

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STUDENT SNAP: DIVYA PRIYAKUMAR KUMAR'17 '18

er

g,

e

nce

SPRING

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2017

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Lawrentian THE

usps no. 306-700 the Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648 Parents of alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us at vavanisko@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!

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