The Lawrentian - Fall 2011

Lawrentian THE

fall 2011

e m i t e taessbtelaching turns 75

Harkn

C2

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Departments 2 From the Head Master 3 Editor’s Note 4 News in Brief A supreme opportunity, an undistinguished alumnus, and an Arab Spring is explained.

8 Sports Roundup Spring sports stats.

44

12 On the Arts A Technicolor cow and Whirling Dervishes.

15 Cover to Cover Cantor fights for cadaver rights.

16 Q&A Ed Murphy on rebuilding boilers and replacing divots.

19 Classroom 2.0 Programmers got game.

20 Ask the Archivist

26

30

Features 26 C ommencement 2011 Newly former fifth formers move up and out.

A jigger of Jigger history.

22 Take This Job and Love It Noah Bernamoff thinks you need to put some (smoked) meat on your bones.

24 1,000 Words What makes Lawrentians run?

35 Go Big Red An alum’s all-too-brief return.

30 Alumni Weekend 2011 Former students relive their collective past.

36 Topping the Table What goes on around a Harkness table is well known. What’s less well known is what can be found on top of one.

44 A Return to Form

Alumni 54 Alumni News Leigh Lockwood signs off.

55 Board Bits Trustee news in a nutshell.

An Old Lower cubicle attends a reunion.

57 Class Notes

Your alumni news leader.

96 Photo Finish On the Cover: History Master John Sauerman shows off his Harkness.

F Deli men Max Levine '01 and Noah Bernamoff '01 tout their wares.

Photos by Michael Branscom.

Who are these people? Write the caption, win a prize.

9 From the Head Master

T

he feature article “Topping the Table” in this edition of The Lawrentian inspired me to look around my own office to consider what a visitor might see and surmise from my bookshelves. Like I suspect of most headmasters’ offices, my shelves are mostly filled with books. The types of books reflect on the one hand my background and interest in business, higher education, social justice, and women’s studies, and on the other hand the School’s current focus on teaching and learning, globalization, sustainability, and technology.

I also have Olla Podridas going back as far as 1917 and other Lawrenceville-related publications, such as The Lawrenceville Stories and books by Lawrenceville alumni and past Head Masters.

Photographs of six of my predecessors adorn the top shelves of my bookcases. Each photo captures that Head Master in a quintessential pose – Allan Heely H’1897 ’27 on the sun porch of Foundation House, Bruce McClellan H’57 ’60 GP’10 behind his desk, Si Bunting H’37 ’88 P’88 ’97 in the living room of Foundation House, Phil Jordan ’50 H’61 ’96 P’85 ’90 shaking a student’s hand at graduation, and Michael Cary H’47 ’03 P’01 on his bike outside Mackenzie. My favorite photo is one that was taken at the public launch of the Bicentennial Campaign in October 2007 of the then five living Head Masters and our spouses. That was the last time that we all gathered together before Bruce died in October 2008.

My bookcases are also filled with presents that I have received during my tenure at Lawrenceville – a photo montage of the Bicentennial; a replica of the torch from the Beijing Olympic games; the mini Harkness table presented to Henry Woods when he won the Masters Award; a drawing of Turkish Whirling Dervishes; a photo of the varsity girls’ crew team competing in the 2005 Henley Royal Regatta; a football from the 100th Hill-Lawrenceville game; a paper crane from a student; a water bottle from the Big Red Road Race; and pins commemorating the Swine ’09 prom, my installation, and our announcement of the Woods gift. Although none of the mementos are particularly valuable, I value and cherish all of them for the memories they invoke.

My family also has a presence in my office. There are photos of my husband and children, reminding me of how they’ve grown over the eight years we’ve been at Lawrenceville. I also still have a few projects from their earliest years in school, including the monster faces they each created in kindergarten and a “Welcome Home” poster that Lucy made me in first grade after I returned from a long trip.

Probably the most unusual collection in my office is that of my hedgehogs. Six years ago, we used Jim Collins’ “hedgehog” concept to identify our strategic advantage and directions. Since that time, I regularly receive hedgehog gifts, including stuffed animals, paper weights, figurines, and even a Christmas tree ornament. Next spring, we will launch our next strategic plan. I intend to use design thinking to guide that process. I wonder what office collection that process will spawn!

Sincerely,

Elizabeth A. Duffy H’43 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head Master

2

t h e law r e n t i an

9 From the Editor

Lawrentian THE

FALL 2 0 1 1

|

O

ver Alumni Weekend, the campus was abuzz with talk about Old Lower, the all-but-forgotten dorms that once upon a time catered to Lawrenceville’s Shell, First, and Second forms. More specifically, the campus was abuzz about the Old Lower exhibit in the Gruss Gallery.

Alums attending the wine and cheese reception that Friday night expecting to see just a few photos and trinkets from their days in those tiny cubicles were in for quite a surprise. The gallery’s rotunda housed a full-size cubicle replica containing original furnishings, light fixtures, period props, and, for that extra touch of authenticity, some judiciously placed, rodent-sized cockroaches.

There were posters on the walls, black rhinie ties dangling from towel racks, vintage suit jackets in the closet, and a contraband radio hidden under the pillow.

It was a display that prompted gasps of recognition and awe – and for good reason, for no one who saw the exhibit could possibly fail to notice the amount of effort that went into it. Led by Historical Exhibition Specialist Sarah Mezzino and built by carpenter extraordinaire Tim McElroy, this cubicle was the result of five months of work, with significant contributions along the way from every segment of the Lawrenceville community. “Community” is the operative word here; the story “A Return to Form” (page 44) chronicles the journey, from conception to completion, and demonstrates exactly how dozens of Lawrentians, both on and off campus, pitched in to recreate a significant piece of Lawrenceville history.

When you work at a School with such a long history, you’re bound to encounter a lot of it. So this issue has another story with roots in the past. Hot on the heels of last year’s bicentennial is the Harkness table’s dodranscentennial (which is the 75th anniversary, apparently). In “Topping the Table” (page 36) we commemorate that iconic table by taking a look at some of the intriguing items our masters put on top of it.

Lawrenceville is also looking forward, of course. In this issue be sure to check out the first installment of “Classroom 2.0,” the new column by Director of Information Technology Bill Freitas. The guy knows his stuff.

The Lawrentian is eager to create another magazine department, too, “The L’ville Letterbag,” featuring your feedback. So if you have an opinion about what you read in this or any other issue of The Lawrentian, drop me a note.

Your letter may be included in a future issue.

Vo l u m e 7 5 N u m b e r 3

publisher Jennifer Szwalek editor Mike Allegra art director Phyllis Lerner proofreaders Paul Mott, Jr. ’47 Rob Reinalda ’76 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 '64 GP’06 ’08 Jean Stephens H’50 '59 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06 contributors Michael Branscom Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 William Freitas Lisa M. Gillard Hanson Jacqueline Haun Barbara Horn Nash Jenkins ’11 Kelly Mangini Nancy Ruiter selena smith Paloma Torres Nicole Uliasz Zoe Vybiral-Bauske

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 correspondence to the above address care of The Lawrentian Editor. Letters may be edited for publication.

Warmest wishes, Mike Allegra Editor mallegra@lawrenceville.org

The Lawrentian welcomes submissions and suggestions for magazine departments. If you have an idea for a feature story, please query first to The Lawrentian Editor via e-mail (mallegra@lawrenceville.org).

Visit us on the web at www.lawrenceville.org. www.lawrenceville.org/thelawrentian Postmaster

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

Oops…

The spring 2011 issue’s “Ask the Archivist” column, profiling 1854 alumnus Horace

Porter, prompted some reader mail. Several wrote in to clarify that Porter was given the Medal of Honor, not the Congressional Medal of Honor, as the article stated. (Naming it the Congressional Medal of Honor is a common error.) Another alumnus, Oliver Sissman ’96, noted that there is no such thing as a Medal of Honor winner. “The Medal of Honor is received, it is never won,” he wrote. “It is not a contest.” A very good point to say the least.

The Editor regrets the errors.

All rights reserved.

FA L L

2011

3

9 News in Brief

Arab Spring Explained Renowned journalist and foreign policy expert Fareed Zakaria provided students with a fast-paced and fascinating history of the Middle East at an all-School meeting this spring.

Named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 global thinkers and described by Esquire as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation,” Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, serves as TIME’s editor-at-large, is a Washington Post columnist, and a New York Times best-selling author.

Zakaria was the guest of Lawrenceville’s annual Heely Lecture.

Named for the School’s seventh Head Master, Allan Heely, the lecture series’ goal is to bring individuals of contemporary importance to the School.

Taking the podium at the Kirby Arts Center stage, Zakaria analyzed the current protest movements in Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya, to explain that this recent discontent has a historical context. Competing forces – from the Ottoman Empire to European colonialists, to Cold War-era America and the Soviet Union – have carved up the area, often supporting repressive dictatorships. After 9/11, Americans began to realize that their support for such regimes “comes at a price. It breeds an increasingly intolerant movement toward the great guarantors that supported the ultimate source of their repression,” explained Zakaria.

“The American empire, exhausted

by Iraq, Afghanistan, and the financial crisis, isn’t going to be in the imperialism business any more,” he added.

“It has neither the capacity nor the will to support these regimes blindly.”

Given this new American attitude, Arabs have started to believe that they can begin to control their own destinies. Hence the protests.

“Middle Eastern governments were always about negotiating up with foreign powers, not negotiating down with what their own people wanted,” said Zakaria. Because of the protests, “The Arab League finally realized it would have to start listening to its own people…We are witnessing for the first time in 1,000 years the people of the Arab world taking control of their destiny fully for themselves.”

Giberson Graces Gray Lady

Inside Irwin: Lawrenceville embraces the local food movement.

Lawrenceville’s dining services found its way onto the front page of The New York Times. In the story, titled “Tater Tots? At Prep Schools, Try the Rutabaga Fries,” Director of Dining Services Gary Giberson H’11 P’10 and his company, Sustainable Fare, are referenced for not only creating dishes such as seared pork loin pizzaiola and turkey-and-ricotta piadina with arugula but also for using plate scrapings for nutrient-rich compost for the School’s organic garden.

The Times isn’t the only news outlet to discover Lawrenceville’s culinary skills; The

Huffington Post profiled Giberson in an article titled “Zero Waste Total Impact,” which

G Zakaria gets the story.

lauded

t h e law r e n t i an

Lawrenceville

chef

local food movement, and, of course, those delicious meals.

4

the

for his commitment to sustainability, the

Capstone Cultivates Conversation

G Professor Patrick Allitt talks religion.

Certain academic novelties accompany a Lawrentian’s Fifth Form year: esoteric English electives, opportunities for independent study, and the spring term’s four-class schedule. Among these much-anticipated events is the Capstone program, an interdisciplinary course that homes in on contemporary issues through an amalgamation of Harkness table courses and weekly lectures by foremost experts in the course’s field of study.

Former Head Master Si Bunting H’37 ’88 P’88 ’97 and Interdisciplinary Master John Shilts first devised the program in 1990; 21 years later, it continues to thrive. This spring, the course’s scholastic focus was religion and politics in the United States, addressing issues such as Islamophobia, Christian evangelism, and the 9/11 attacks. History masters Len Miller and Jason Robinson H’09 P’15 and English Master Blake Eldridge ’96 spearheaded the instruction of Capstone

this year. More than three dozen fifth formers enrolled in the course.

“Lawrenceville has always sold to us the merits of the Harkness system, and I saw it in spades in Capstone this spring,” said Christine Anene ’11. “Something about topical issues brings out the debater in everyone.” Anene, who now attends Columbia University, hopes to study political science, claiming Capstone “further fanned the flame” of her interests.

This spring, the weekly lectures – the hallmark of the Capstone program – did not disappoint. Five scholastic experts addressed students and masters over the two-month term. The audience met these speakers largely with praise.

True to the Lawrentian spirit, however, students met some others with points of concern – and later discussed these points around the Harkness table.

In March, Columbia University Professor of Humanities

Mark Lilla inaugurated the series in a discussion of the religious and cultural dichotomy between the United States and the rest of the world. Many Lawrentians, including Dylan Heckscher ’11, countered Lilla’s views with contrasting ones of their own. Heckscher, for example, noted that Lilla’s claim of religion’s decline did not coincide with statistics, which show an opposite trend, an increase of overall “faithfulness” worldwide.

The community received the second lecturer of the term, Emory University Professor of

the “foundations of a good society.” George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton and a member of the United States Council on Foreign Relations, is known in the scholastic community for his acerbic intellectualism. He has authored several books including Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, a polemic against abortion and stem cell research.

The term’s final speaker – and perhaps the one most enjoyed by the term’s audiences – was New York Times columnist and conservative pundit Ross Douthat. Amidst a lecture

True to the Lawrentian spirit, however, students met some others with points of concern – and later discussed these points around the Harkness table.

Theology Patrick Allitt, with a far more positive critique. He contrasted religion and spirituality in his native Britain with that of the United States by discussing the varying roles of the institution of the church in North America and Europe.

The next week, Georgetown University professor José Casanova spoke to the School community. Among the world’s preeminent experts on the “sociology of religion,” Casanova addressed the issues of secularization in the modern society.

The final two lecturers of the term brought a wave of conservative philosophy. On May 2, Princeton University professor Robert George spoke on neither religion nor politics, but

series of an aging professoriate, Douthat, the youngestever columnist for the Times, carried a cavalier, youthful charisma that buffered his sometimes-extreme ideals. He championed the institution of religion in the United States, referencing examples of the church as a political entity in many parts of the country.

Douthat’s lecture concluded the term’s lecture series and, for most of the audience, the academic experience of Lawrenceville. Almost all agreed that the forum provided by Capstone was the perfect ending – largely emblematic of a Lawrenceville education on whole.

- Nash Jenkins ’11

FA L L

2011

5

Government Students Get Courted

One of the most controversial cases to be

ante by arranging a student sit-down and Q&A

brought before the Supreme Court in recent

with the polarizing yet good-humored and gre-

memory was whether the overcrowding of Cali-

garious Scalia. This year, Robinson outdid his

fornia’s prisons could be interpreted as cruel and

earlier efforts, securing seating in the court for

unusual punishment, in violation of The Eighth

the eagerly anticipated California prison ver-

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In a con-

dict; this was followed by an hourlong meet-

tentious 5-4 decision, the Court asserted that it

ing with the mannerly Kennedy in his private

was – ordering California legislators to either re-

chambers.

lease or relocate 46,000 prisoners. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote in the case, read

Kennedy relished his time answering students’

the majority opinion and Justice Antonin Scalia

questions and posing a few of his own to test

followed with a lively and indignant dissent.

their legal knowledge. He discussed his role as

Through it all, a contingent of 30 Lawrenceville students had the best seats in the house, occupying the small Supreme Court gallery as the judicial opinions for and against the decision were read aloud. It was a piece of legal drama that few high school students ever get to witness. For the School’s Honors Government class taught by History Master (and former lawyer) Jason Robinson H’09 P’15 however, Supreme Court visits have become an annual

G Justice Anthony Kennedy.

tradition.

a justice, noting that, as an unelected official, a justice must make every effort to separate legal decisions from one’s political philosophy.

Though his role is an important one, Kennedy hastened to add that if a camera crew followed him around all day it would be about as interesting as “watching paint dry. All I do is read and type,” he said with a smile.

Lawrenceville students also had the chance to speak with Kennedy’s law clerks. In a nice bit of “small world syndrome,” the students soon

In 2009 Robinson’s charges were first given the

learned that one clerk had worked for Fourth

chance to see the high court in action as law-

Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie

yers made arguments on the minutiae of the

Wilkinson ’63, the winner of the School’s 2008

Voting Rights Act. In 2010 Robinson upped the

Aldo Leopold Award.

Zaparde Earns Top Volunteer Honors The spring issue of The Lawrentian reported

visiting the village of Paras, he observed that

that Rujul Zaparde ’12 was a finalist in the

the residents needed to walk several kilome-

2011 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

ters just to obtain clean water.

for co-founding Drinking Water for India, a non-profit organization that constructs wells in rural Indian villages. Shortly after that issue went to press, Zaparde was named one of ten students in the country to be selected

Princeton High School student Kevin Petrovic, founded the group and set about raising $1,000 for a Paras well. After eight months

for the top prize.

of bake sales and car washes, the money was

He was awarded $5,000, a gold medallion,

considerably more. Since then, Drinking Wa-

and a crystal trophy, as well as a $5,000

ter for India has accumulated 450 volunteers

Prudential Foundation grant to be given

from 23 schools and has constructed 30

to the nonprofit charitable organization of

wells in rural Indian villages.

nership with the National Association of

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

honor high school students for outstand-

Drinking Water for India was inspired by

program is the United States’ largest youth

ing service to others at the local, state, and

Zaparde’s 2007 trip to the country. While

recognition program based exclusively on

national level.

Zaparde’s choice.

6

Upon returning home, Zaparde, along with

t h e law r e n t i an

raised – as was Zaparde’s interest in doing volunteer community service. The program was created in 1995 by Prudential in partSecondary School Principals (NASSP) to

The Long

Goodbye

In a year marked with celebrations, perhaps none was as personal as the commemoration of the retirement of Classics Master Ed Robbins H’68 ’69 ’71 ’11. In May, Robbins, who joined the Lawrenceville faculty in 1963, left the School after nearly a halfcentury of Latin and Greek, The Lawrence, and dance, and an accumulation of followers and fans, students and faculty alike.

“There’s no one quite like Robbins,” said Prateek Agarwal ’11, who served as editorin-chief of the 130th editorial board of The Lawrence – Robbins’ last.

Robbins’ 48-year tenure is the longest a master has ever served in the School’s 200-year history; the administration acknowledged this achievement in spades. At the 2010 Convocation, Head Master Elizabeth Duffy H’43 set the years’ celebratory agenda by formally and warmly announcing the landmark of Robbins’ teaching career.

The School community answered her declaration – and Robbins himself, who sat in the front row – with a standing ovation.

This was hardly the last time Lawrenceville would stand and cheer for Ed Robbins.

“We always knew he was a great teacher, and of course we treated him accordingly, but this year things were a bit different. We were more appreciative, more wistful,” said Manik Bhatia ’12, who took Honors Latin in Robbins’ last-ever section of the course.

For the 14 fifth formers on the Editorial Board of The Lawrence, late-night newspaper meetings were not without tribute.

Members of the board took to surprising Robbins with an extra pie of Brooklyn

The Bad Lawrentian

“There’s no way to tell you that the best part of any day I’ve spent in the last 48 years has been in that room.” pizza from TJs on Wednesday night when he arrived in the basement office in Pop Hall. On Robbins’ last Wednesday in the office, he arrived expecting a standard night preparing for publication. He opened the door to face more than 25 smiling Lawrentians – and a catered feast spread before him.

The 130th editorial board’s final issue was an eight-page tribute to Robbins, featuring a biography (in the News section), a goodspirited parody (Features), and, of course, a medley of written salutes from Lawrentians (Opinions). “If he is a legend,” wrote Sam Barr ’07, Nicholas Bodnar ’07, and Nicholas Nehamas ’07, “he is a living one whose story needs no embellishment.”

Meanwhile, the administrators in Hogate and Mackenzie made preparations for Alumni Weekend 2011, when Robbins would deliver a master class titled appropriately “Classics with a Classic.” During Alumni Weekend, the School reported the news that the graduating Fifth Form would

Our alumni can't all be winners.

Those

reclining

on

a

beach

make Robbins an honorary member of the Class of 2011.

The end of the 2010-2011 academic year marked the end of an undeniably legendary career. For many, it was tinged with sadness. Perhaps the most telling manifestation of Robbins’ legacy is not the series of celebrations, dinners, and public displays of affection given to him throughout the year, but the ten minutes after the last class of the year in May. After Honors Latin, the last class Robbins would ever teach at Lawrenceville, he opened the door of his classroom to a mob of Lawrentians filling the hall. Some were cheering; some were crying. All were beaming.

“There’s no way to tell you that the best part of any day I’ve spent in the last 48 years has been in that room,” said Robbins, pointing to his classroom.

The crowd broke into applause.

- Nash Jenkins ’11

lain, Berger, a cold-blooded serial killer and mad blanket

bomber. Alumni can take comfort, however, in

this summer may have been surprised to

knowing that the administration was able to

find The Lawrenceville School making a

recognize a rotten apple when they saw one.

cameo appearance in the best-selling James

According to the book, Berger was expelled his

Patterson page-turner, Tick Tock. Unfortunate-

freshman year, before he could implement his

ly, the School is the alma mater of the arch vil-

plan to exterminate the Class of 1968.

FA L L

2011

7

9 Sports Roundup

By Nicole Uliasz

Boys’ Baseball Record: 5-12 Coach: Champ Atlee ’62 H’79 P’92 Captain: Eric Speidel ’12

Big Red’s first game was a come from behind 6-5 victory over The Hun School, in which Joe Clancy ’13 and Steve Bayona ’13 drove in the tying and lead runs late in the game. Unfortunately the team met with bad luck over the next ten days, dropping four straight games, before breaking the streak by shutting out rival, Hill, 10-0.

This was followed by an equally impressive win against Princeton Day School, 12-2. As quickly as the club hit its stride, however, it fell back into a pattern of losing close games. Big Red lost to Blair, 1-3; a strong Chestnut Hill, 2-5 (a game in which PG right fielder Beau Fitzpatrick launched one of the longest homeruns in recent memory, a 440-foot blast into a street behind the left field fence); and a Hill team bent on avenging its earlier loss, 1-2. In May, the club recovered its prowess at the plate once again, and the Lawrenceville bats took apart opposition pitching. Big Red demolished West Windsor Plainsboro South High School, 14-3, with Speidel, Bayona, Fitzpatrick, and left fielder Jack Willoughby ’11 each getting three hits.

Nine days later, the club edged out Episcopal Academy on its brand new field, 10-8. In that game, Speidel and Jon Hayden ’13 both had three hits and Fitzpatrick had two hits and three RBIs (in addition to two intentional walks). Speidel was both the team’s best hitter (.444) and its top pitcher, with a 3-3 record.

Boys’ Crew Coach: Ben Wright Captain: Whitney Blodgett ’11 M.A.P.L. Champions

Lawrenceville broke into fours to race Hun for the “Blades Race” trophy; Peddie for the Brown Cup; and Blair, Hun, and Peddie for the M.A.P.L. championship. Lawrenceville dominated the M.A.P.L.; the 8

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

first, second, third, and fourth varsity fours amassed a combined record of 17-2. Both the Lawrenceville first and second eights were victorious at the Mercer Sprints, racing in extremely windy, challenging conditions. The eights then went on to post wins in races against the Mercer Junior Rowing Club and Norwalk Rowing Club. A week later the crew won varsity and second varsity races in the Mid-Atlantic championships. In the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the first eight finished in the top 12 of 33 varsity eights entered, and 19-4 in side-by-side

racing. Lawrenceville second eight was 9-0 in side-by-side.

Girls’ Crew Coach: Corinne Hagen Captain: Annie Gardner ’11

The Stotesbury Cup regatta in Philadelphia was the highlight of an impressive girls’ crew season with five out of six boats advancing to the semis. The junior four + (Julia Binswanger ’12, Sophia Monaghan

’13, Megan Wall ’13, Alison Wall ’13, and Kat Comly ’12) advanced to the grand final and finished fourth out of 53 boats. After a very successful weekend at the MidAtlantic Championships, the team had three boats qualify to compete in the Youth National Championships in Oak Ridge, TN. At the race, the lightweight four + (coxswain Ji Won Kim ’12, Kit Gardner ’13, Charlotte Brace ’12, Emma Waugh ’12 and powerhouse freshman, Geena Fram ’14) made it to the finals.

Boys’ Golf Record: 10-3 Coach: Tim Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99 Captains: Turner Allison ’11 Pat Long ’11

After an uncertain start in late March, the boys’ golf team began to rack up an impressive series of wins against Blair, Hill, Episcopal, Chestnut Hill, and other opponents throughout the season. (The team was also very pleased to recover the prized Crooked Stick Trophy from Hill.) Co-captains Allison and Long led a very able group including Sam Lytle ’12, Nick Cherukuri ’12, Jordan Lerner ’13, and newcomers Felipe Gomez ’13 and Peter Warden ’11.

The Lawrenceville boys came in third behind Peddie and Hun in the M.A.P.L. and second behind Seton Hall Prep with a four-man score of 314 in the N.J.I.S.A.A. Allison won the third place medal in that competition with a round of 75 and was elected to the All-M.A.P.L. team.

Girls’ Golf Record: 7-0 Coach: Gus Hedberg H’03 P’96 ’00 Captains: Katie An ’11 Kate Donatiello ’11 Jimin Lee ’11

The girls’ varsity golf team kicked things off with an impressive performance in the first competition of the season at the Hill School Invitational (first and third place) and a scrimmage win over New Jersey powerhouse Montgomery High. Led by captains An, Donatiello, and Lee, and powered by underformers Kelly Kung ’12, Hannah Baik ’13, and Julia Yao ’13, Big Red went undefeated in single competition. At the mid-season Peddie School Invitational the Lawrenceville girls came away from the second league girls’ invitational with the best score of the day: 43.

Twice. (Both Donatiello and Kung earned F ALL

2011

9

the winning score.) Third place was picked up by Yao with a 46. In tournament play, the girls placed third at the M.A.P.L. with an accumulated top-four score of 194, (behind Blair’s 186 and Hill’s 188). Kung won the individual title and was voted No. 1 on this year’s five-player All-M.A.P.L. team. The girls placed second at N.J.I.S.A.A., behind Blair. Yao won the third place medal in the individual competition with a score of 43.

Boys’ Lacrosse Record: 18-3 llen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 ’89 P’99 Coach: A ’04 Captains: Mac Cordrey ’11 Rett Faircloth ’11 Walker Kirby ’11 N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions

Boys’ lacrosse racked up an impressive 18 wins this season, the most since the undefeated 2006 team. Highlights include wins over Brunswick, Hotchkiss, New Canaan, Hill, and Peddie (twice), as well as the team’s tenth N.J.I.S.A.A championship in a row and a convincing win over the Bullis School of Maryland in the INTERAC quarterfinals. The 2011 team was ably led by captains Cordrey, Faircloth, and Kirby.

They, along with returning players, Matt O’Conner ’12, Mark Leonhard ’12, Brendan Newman ’12, Jack Vallis ’11, and an

10

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

influx of new talent (most notably Matt Donovan ’11, Adam Fishman ’11, and Will Gilmartin ’11) blended beautifully to create yet another impressive Big Red squad. The team mantra was “Play Fast,” and play fast they did. In the team’s final effort against Haverford (the No. 1 team in the country and eventual tournament champion – finishing the season undefeated, 23-0) the boys spilled every ounce of energy they had on the field. It was a battle to remember.

Haverford eventually edged out Big Red, 13-11, but the lead changed several times, both teams battled back from deficits, and each performed at the level all coaches hope for.

Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse Record: 6-7 Coach: Lisa Ewanchyna Captains: Taylor Laub ’11 Maggie Salisbury ’11

Girls’ lacrosse faced a challenging season.

Despite the team’s record, the squad was one of the best in recent years. With a talented core of veterans, including high scorer Laub (52 goals) and defensive anchor Salisbury, Big Red was poised and ready to take on a tough schedule. Starting the season with solid wins over Mercersburg Academy and Springside School, the team had a tough time maintaining the momen-

tum and lost to Germantown, Peddie, and Hill. The girls, however, continued to plug away, led by co-captains Laub and Salisbury, as well as Perry McCarthy ’11 and Annie Murphy ’12, who dominated in goal scoring. Subsequent wins over Hun and Rancocas Valley were due in no small part to defensive efforts by Catherine Read ’11 and Samantha Krieg ’12. A number of players also took on new roles this season, including Delaina Smith ’13, who went from attack to defense, and Michaela Levine ’12, who grew into her midfield position with speed and conviction. Despite the loss of several key fifth formers due to illness or injury, the team came together in a final victory on its home turf against a tough Notre Dame squad.

Girls’ Varsity Softball Record: 6-9 Coach: J ohn Schiel Captains: Rebecca Hu ’11 Liza Keller ’12

Hit hard by injuries, this year’s varsity softball team struggled to compete with the tougher M.A.P.L. opponents and strong area teams. Perhaps the season’s most gratifying win came April 15 at The Hun School.

Hun scored in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a 5-4 lead, but Big Red came back with four runs in the seventh to pull out an 8-5 victory. Lawrenceville also had a very good game in the M.A.P.L. semis on May 13 against Peddie – which had won the Allentown Invitational tournament the week before. Hu returned from an injury and got three hits to help the team fight back from a 6-3 deficit with a run in the sixth and another in the seventh. Unfortunately the team’s efforts were stymied by a close play at first. Peddie, who had beaten Big Red 10-0 earlier in the season, went on to win not only the M.A.P.L. Tournament but also the N.J.I.S.A.A. Brianna Cook ’12, who led the team with a .417 batting average and seven steals, and Hu, who led the squad with 14 RBIs, were named to the AllState First Team. Janelle McDowell ’10, who led the team with 18 runs scored, and Perritt, who pitched all 15 games, earned honorable mention.

the 4 x 400 in 3:22.54. Hayes, running on his third winning Penn Relays 4 x 400 team,

ran the fastest split in 49.33. In the M.A.P.L. and the N.J.I.S.A.A., Lawrenceville ran up huge team point totals to win by wide

margins. Captains Diamantoni and Lacroix split 100-meter victories; Kyle Webster ’11 won two 110 high hurdle crowns with a pair of blistering sub-50 400s in the relay; Kerr won both intermediate hurdle races, was

second in both long jumps, and hit a fabulous 45' 3" triple jump; Islam won two victories in the 800, both in splendid sub-1:56 efforts; Hayes, capping a brilliant four-year

career at Lawrenceville, put his name up in the brightest lights, however, through a se-

ries of great performances in the two meets. highlights included a squeaker victory over Episcopal Academy, 4-3; a squeaker loss to Blair, 3-4; a lopsided win over Upper Canada College, 16-2; the team’s best showing in a decade (6-10) against the Princeton University JV team; and excellent victories over perennial powers like Moorestown High School and Peddie. Big Red earned second place in the M.A.P.L. to Blair and, the following week finished as co-champs with Blair in the N.J.I.S.A.A.

Boys’ Outdoor Track

Boys’ Tennis Record: 9-2 Coach: Dave Cantlay Captain: B illy Rooney ’11 N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions

Big Red tennis had its best season in years.

A sign of what was possible was seen early on when the team secured a 9-0 sweep over a strong Hotchkiss team. This was followed by a close third place finish (only four points away from the winner) in the warmup tournament at Kingswood-Oxford in West Hartford. Nick Schreiber ’12 earned first place honors in first singles and Rooney finished first in third singles. Dan Harris ’13 was the runner-up in second singles. Other

Record: 3-0 Coach: John Shilts

Captains: Markhus Lacroix ’11

Nick Diamantoni ’11 Chis Chuckran ’11 N.J.I.S.A.A. and M.A.P.L. Champions

Big Red ran off two early season victories over rival Notre Dame and Pennington Prep and then accomplished its third over Hill.

At these meets Lawrenceville showed depth and talent across the spectrum, winning medals everywhere. At the Penn Relays, Big Red’s 4 x 800 relay team (Robert Doll ’11, Nyall Islam ’12, Raman Rajakannan ’12, and Chuckran) finished a respectable fourth in their small school heat. Devon Batiz ’11, Diamantoni, Lamar Hayes ’11, and Lacroix won their 4 x 100 heat in 43.44. With Charlie Kerr ’12 replacing Devon, the team won

He long-jumped 23' 2" at Blair, won both 400s (in 50.01 and 51.22), and won both

200s. All together Hayes won six gold medals in the two championship meets.

Girls’ Outdoor Track Record: 5-0 Coach: Bill Schroeder Captains: Jillian Ojeda ’11 Christine Anene ’11 N.J.I.S.A.A. and M.A.P.L. Champions

It was a season that will be remembered for

injuries and weather. The season had barely begun when a strong hurdle core dissolved

as Erin Volpe ’14 crashed into the tenth

hurdle in a meet against Pennington and tore her ACL, MCL, and meniscus, ending her season. Joanna Kuang ’12, Lizzie Edokwe ’13, and Sara Schroder ’13 also

suffered injuries. Still the team managed to win meet after meet. Jillian Ojeda ’11,

Khara John ’11, Abbey Murphy ’12, and

Kate Gulbrandsen ’14 consistently chalked up big points. Through it all the team won

five dual meets with no losses, won the Hill School Relays and the M.A.P.L. and

N.J.I.S.A.A. championships. The 4 x 400 relay team of Teri Tillman ’12, KK Iwelumo ’13, Kyla Bolden ’13 and Ojeda ’11 placed second at the Penn Relays.

F ALL

2011

11

9 On The Arts The Lawrenceville School’s annual dance

Dancers Go Topsy Turkey

concert always has an international flair, but

2011’s installment marked the first time

student dancers (and their Head Master) did

some boots-on-the-ground international research.

Over spring break, Dance Master Derrick

Wilder led a group of students, Performing Arts

Master Matthew Campbell, and, yes, Liz Duffy on a trip to Turkey where they learned firsthand

the dances performed in each region of the country. On the KAC stage, a whooping crowd

12 12

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

got to see the fruits of this labor, as the 21

dancers performed the Karsilama, Meryem Duet, and Izmir Zeybek, as well as emulated Whirling Dervishes in dances that both highlighted the Turkish culture and told a story.

As in past years, the concert was all about

variety, so following this thundering opening

act, was a spectrum of 23 student-choreographed

dance performances, accompanied by the

music of Tchaikovsky, Eminem, and most everything else in between.

Proof Positive Catherine (Marina Hyson ’14) is going through a rough time. Devoted to her mathematician father, Robert (Ricardo Ayala ’12), she can only watch with helplessness as he increasingly descends into madness. Catherine shares her father’s gift for numbers, but as she watches his rapid decline and mourns his death, she can’t help but wonder if she may also share his mental instability.

This challenging and subtle work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Proof, by David Auburn, was performed this past spring on Kirby Arts Center’s black box stage. The show’s director and driving force was Augusta Powell ’11, the Performing Arts representative of the Student Council and the co-president of En Corps, Lawrenceville’s dance organization.

“She is one of our top arts students given the four-year sweep of her career here,” noted Performing Arts Department Chair Chris Cull following the enthusiastically received run. “We are extremely proud of the fact that she has executed this whole project on her own. What a way to soar outta here!”

F ALL

2011

13

Lawrenceville Has a Cow Gregory McCoy describes himself as not only a collector of all things Warhol but also a Warhol archivist. “Along with purchasing the edition pieces or the paintings,” he says, “I’ve also done my best to find the signed ephemera.” In other words, his collection, featured this past spring in Lawrenceville’s Hutchins Gallery, is unusually broad in its scope and contains more than a few eccentric finds. For example, McCoy’s collection includes what is believed to be the one and only surviving Andy Warhol-signed dinner roll.

Further evidence of the “archivist” angle can be found in the way the items were grouped. Whereas some Warhol collectors specialize in just silkscreens, say, this show included a Warhol dollar sign silkscreen, along with a vintage poster of the same image, and a signed invitation to a gallery event in which the dollar sign print was shown.

More than 40 pieces were included in the show and, when it was all packed up in April, one of the pieces, “Cow,” a 1966 screenprint on wallpaper, stayed behind, a gift from the collector to the School.

Prior to this exhibition, McCoy had no connection to The Lawrenceville School. A promotional postcard for a 2010 Lawrenceville gallery exhibition, “Out of the Sixties,” which featured a Warhol print of Grace Kelly, piqued his interest, however. He contacted the gallery’s curator, Lisa Giberson P’10, to volunteer work from his own collection, and that initial query soon grew into a solo exhibit.

“Lisa was wonderful. This show was an amazing opportunity,” McCoy asserts. “Giving the School the cow was just a way to say that I appreciate what Lawrenceville offered me.”

14

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

9 Cover to Cover

The Facts of

DEATH

U

pon his death, a dedicated stage actor wished to donate his skull to his favorite theatre. The plan, apparently, was to play “poor Yorick” in perpetuity. His wish was granted.

Another artist, this one a poet, was less successful with his final wish; he wanted his skin to be tanned like cow leather to bind a volume of his poetry. The widow was on board with this unsettling plan, but the process was stymied by an understandably grossed out funeral home.

Why was the actor’s wish honored and the poet’s denied? According to Norman Cantor ’60 it pretty much all comes down to planning; the poet didn’t do enough of it.

“It is perfectly conceivable to me that the poet, in advance, could have succeeded had he surveyed a couple of funeral homes and enlisted proper cooperation before he died.”

Dotting all those i’s and crossing all those t’s is not a common practice, however – even among those with more traditional final requests. Cantor notes that only 20 percent of the living sign advance medical directives that specify their wishes regarding life support. Only about 40 percent prepare wills. Woefully low numbers, both, but Cantor, a constitutional and bioethics lawyer and the author of the

In a new book, bioethics lawyer Norman Cantor lays out your post-mortem options.

new book After We Die: The Life and Times of the Human Cadaver, understands why.

“People understand the importance of making these arrangements but, nonetheless, prefer to focus on more life-affirming things,” he observes. “There is a strong aversion to thinking about and dealing with the subject of death and dying.”

Cantor is not immune to this aversion. “It took me a few years. Even after I drafted legal forms for people to use in advance directives, years went by before I went through the formalities of checking boxes and signing my own advance directive.”

Researching his book got him on track to getting his own affairs in order. Cantor, a professor emeritus at Rutgers University Law School, has written extensively on the legal handling of dying medical patients for nearly 40 years, but he has also maintained a curiosity about the literal fate of human remains. “I didn’t really know what happens to humans if they’re buried in a sealed container or after embalming or burned or frozen or mummified. So I went through the full range of options and tried to lay them out for people.”

Options are plentiful: burial (below and above ground), cremation, green burials, and burial at sea. You can also

be roommates with Ted William’s cryogenically frozen head. Or sign up for the plastination process to be put on display in museum exhibits such as Body Worlds.

Then there’s medical science where you can be dissected by aspiring surgeons, or unceremoniously dumped in The Body Farm, where scientists study your rate of decay to better perfect the evolving art of forensic science. Cantor goes through these options and many more with gusto, sparing no details yet miraculously sidestepping almost every “ick reflex.”

The book is a fascinating and oddly entertaining journey into death and dying. It also strongly advocates for the “quasi legal” status of corpses and their rights with regard to reproduction, organ donation, end-of-life care, asset distribution, dignified disposal, and just about anything else.

“My feeling is that people’s wishes ought to be respected in the vast majority of instances,” Cantor asserts. That means, when alive, you have to make it legal.

The next of kin, an executor, a judge, or a funeral home director can either innocently, deliberately, or, in a couple of cases, maliciously stand in the way. After all, sometimes the best way to get back at an enemy is to wait until after he dies.

F ALL

2011

15

9 EdARTS Murphy Q&A ON THE

On Greener

PASTURES

For more than 50 years, Ed Murphy P’79

has been a much-beloved fixture on the Lawrenceville campus. For the first 40 he

served on the Buildings and Grounds crew

as a mason. Moments after he retired, he was tapped to run the School’s golf house on the weekends. With a charming Irish

brogue, an easy laugh, and a generosity of spirit, Murphy generates good will wherever he goes. The assessment of English Master Ron Kane ’83, the man who recruited Murphy for the golf house,

is typical: “Ed,” Kane says, “is the closest

you’ll get to meeting a saint.” When confronted with that quote, the non-

demonstrative Murphy replied with a

dismissive wave. “Ronnie should talk to my wife. She might not agree with all of G Murphy minds the links.

You were born in Ireland. When did you move to the United States?

In 1954. I was 20.

What prompted the move?

Well, I guess I was born and bred for emigration. That’s a crude answer, but that’s the real story. In Ireland in those days, you had seven or eight kids. I happened to be born on a farm, and there was only one born to stay home. There’s only one born to get the farm. The rest go. There was no great employment in the country at that time, so almost all of my family emigrated.

16

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

that.”

The generation before me emigrated. And the generation before that emigrated, too.

This is what we’ve done since the 1830s.

Was Lawrenceville your first job in the States?

No. I worked in construction for a while around Princeton. I had two aunts and two uncles living in Princeton, so I came to Princeton. My uncle, [longtime B&G employee] Pat Coughlin, was working here.

Well, let me be specific now. Actually he was not my uncle; he was married to my aunt. Then, when she died, he married

the other aunt. So they kept it all in the family. We always called him Uncle Pat, and he was as good to me as any uncle we could ever have. He worked here for 50 years.

I was [in the U.S.] two years and three months when I got the greeting from the president of the United States; I was drafted. So I spent 16 weeks in Fort Dix and then was shipped out to Korea to Inchon.

That, fortunately for me, was in 1957, so the conflict was over. I had 16 months in Korea. Since I was a mason, I worked on

pouring concrete for the new Quonset huts and other things. Then I came back to Dix – and went back in construction again for a year, when Lawrenceville began to renovate the Circle Houses. They’re always renovating these old buildings. There’s no steel used in them like there are in the buildings today.

All the floors, first floors, are supported by brick arches. So I came here to work in the evenings, just temporarily.

When did you begin to work on campus?

1960.

And you were always employed as a mason during that period of time?

Yes. Mason, plaster, tile, boiler maker – every summer I spent in the boilers.

Boiler maker. What does that involve?

In those days we didn’t have oil. We were burning coal. And they had great big boilers. Inside they were 10’x10’ and as high as

this room. The coal went in and burned in there at high temperatures. It could get up to over 1,000 degrees and pop the bricks.

So nearly every year you have to rebuild them, repair them in different parts.

Are there particular jobs that you look at when you’re on campus and you think, “I did that. I’m really proud of that.”

The walk across The Bowl.

That was yours?

I designed it and installed it. That was the last job I did before they took the shoes off me. That was in 1999.

And then there’s Murphy’s Bridge, behind the ice rink. We had a lot of fun with that.

It seems you’ve probably had your mark in every single building here.

Yeah, but when you’re doing maintenance, you don’t get a chance to do many new

things. And if you’re around long enough, those things you do get torn down and changed around.

You once said that the School was filled with characters. Is there a character who really made an impression on you?

Ooh. Wow. I guess probably one of the most respected characters was Charlie Benner. He was in charge of the boiler house, and he was also in charge of the plumbers. He went way back. He was the first full-time plumber they ever had here.

He had a leather satchel on the bar of his bicycle, and that’s what he had his plumber’s tools in, and that’s how he would go around the campus.

We all respected Mr. Benner, because he was just a good person. Loved the School; the School was the end-all of everything.

Everything had to be right. And everybody around him had to be treated right. They say that everybody was afraid of him. I

G Ed Murphy (circled) and the rest of the Buildings and Grounds crew, 1961.

F ALL

2011

17

G Murphy in 1955.

can’t say that, but everybody sure respected him. And whatever Charlie said was law. They wouldn’t question him.

Was he an imposing presence?

No, no, no. About 5’9”. He was an old man, basically, when I got to know him.

But he was German. And being that he was German, I’m not sure he would’ve put up with much. (Laughs.) And, of course, he didn’t have to put up with much. But, he was married to a Scotch woman who could really handle him.

What are some of the big changes on campus that you’ve seen since you started here?

I guess the girls are the biggest change.

And when I first came, they had housemen, and the housemen used to make the boy’s beds every morning and all that kind of stuff. The boys went to Chapel every morning with a jacket and tie on, and the bell rang for Chapel. Well, the bell doesn’t ring anymore. Nobody goes to Chapel.

And the dress changed. But that’s the way it is. You know, society changes.

And then, of course, the hair got longer.

We used to have a barber. The barber shop was over there in Pop Hall, but with everyone having the long hair, they starved him and he had to leave.

How about changes in the faculty?

In the beginning, when I started, they were a fairly aloof bunch. That’s how society was. But that changed, too. That whole

18

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

gang moved on. This place was like a monastery when I came; there were all these older, single men. Teachers came and spent their whole life here. But then younger masters came along and brought young wives with them. Young, pretty wives.

That hippie period also loosened those people up.

At around that time there was also a better chance for the not-so-well-off people to come here and then go to college. My son is an example of that.

week ’til we got that project done.

That must have been exciting for you to work here and also have your son come here.

No. The Big Guy upstairs will decide when it’s time for me to retire.

It was very exciting for me. I think Uncle Pat was even happier. It meant more to him, because he didn’t have a family. He didn’t have kids, so he had my son groomed to come here from the day he opened his eyes.

What does your son do now?

He’s a venture capitalist. That’s what he calls himself. Doing a lot of venturing, and I hope to hell he’s capitalizing.

You retired in 1999. Were you eager to retire?

Oh, yeah, it was time. I was doing a lot of traveling at that point, and work was getting in the way of that.

So what brought you back to work?

What I do now in the golf house? That’s nothing. That lets me get away from my wife and give her a little break.

How long was it between retiring and coming back to work in the golf house?

How long was the gap?

Oh, I retired supposedly on my birthday which is the 21st of January. But there was that walk that was supposed to go across the Bowl, you see. It was ready to go, but we couldn’t do it in the wintertime. So my boss, Dave Schorr, made a deal with me.

He said, “Look, take some time off. You’ll get paid. Then come back and take care of The Bowl.” So I retired officially on paper on The 21st of January, but on the 15th of April I was back to work over there. So I was working at the golf house on the weekends and working in The Bowl during the

So what do you do in the golf house?

What is your job there?

Well, I guess I’m there to check people in, take their money, and take care of whatever needs or requests they have. Like, you know, if flags are missing or there’s some damage out there, or if I get a call that somebody feels faint or whatever. Just general housekeeping, really.

Do you ever plan to retire from the golf house?

What are some of the events that happened here that you remember?

Was there a memorable graduation or a memorable celebration that you look back on?

I have to tell you this, it’s a good story.

There was this janitor down in the Arts Center. This was when my son first got accepted here. This fella knew about my son getting accepted, and he said, “Well, it’s all right for you guys, but that will never happen to my son.” And I said, “Why not?

How is your son?” And he said, “He’s all right, he’s a bright kid.” Of course, every father and every mother has the brightest kid in the world. So, anyhow, this went on for a while, and I said, “How do you know that he won’t get accepted here?” “Oh,” he said, “that’s not the way it works.” So I said, “Just go up there and get the paperwork and fill the damn things out. Find out what happens, and then you can talk.”

So I would pop in and see him every week, and every week he never got around to it, so I went over and got the bloody paperwork and delivered it to him. I had to follow him up for two or three weeks before he did fill it out. Well, his son got accepted and was here for four years as a boarder. My son was here for five years.

So what do I remember? I remember sitting next to him on them chairs out there in the sun. Two proud, old fathers the day our sons graduated.

That’s a wonderful story.

Well, sometimes you just have to stick your neck out once in a while.

9 Classroom 2.0

Getting with the Program

By Bill Freitas

G Lawrenceville students put on their game faces.

A

merica needs computer scientists.* The President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology identified computer science as “arguably unique among all fields of science and engineering in the breadth of its impact.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ current Occupational Outlook Handbook ranks network systems analysts and computer software engineers in their list of fastestgrowing occupations through 2018, with 53 percent and 34 percent projected growth, respectively. (The salaries for those positions are first and eighth on that list.)

Yet for the past several years, enrollments in computer science degree programs have declined dramatically, and the same has been true for the few computer courses at Lawrenceville. When I read report after report with titles like “Efforts to Reverse the Trend of Enrollment Decline in Computer Science Programs,” I sometimes imagine that we need a version of the World War II Rosie the Riveter poster, except it says “We can code it,” and she is grasping a mouse in

her muscular arm. Rosie the Programmer.

Lawrenceville was one of the first high schools to install its own computer, and we have a long history of having our graduates go on to work for some of the biggest and most inventive computer companies in the world. Ironically, the country’s decline in the production of computer scientists has occurred just when our students are using computers more than ever. Between the smartphone, the laptop, the iPod, and the Xbox, the average student room at Lawrenceville probably has more computing power than existed in the entire country 25 years ago. So, what can Lawrenceville do to get more of our students interested in this important field?

This year, I tried something new. Through some former colleagues, I was able to have a select group of Lawrenceville students test a new course in video game design and development. What makes this course so special is that the curricular material was developed in collaboration with and approved by the Carnegie Mellon Entertain-

ment Technology Center, one of the first schools to offer a master of entertainment technology degree. So Lawrenceville’s class MA462 – Introduction to Programming became MA462 – Introduction to Video Game Programming. What a difference those two words make. A course that usually enrolls two or three had 15 apply, and I was able to take five into the program, the maximum allowed.

In this course, traditional programming concepts were presented through hands-on building of 2D games using an integrated development environment that combined the graphical game elements with code.

The programming language used is easy to understand and builds proper scripting techniques that can easily be transferred to another mainstream programming language such as C++ or Javascript. We covered almost everything that would be found in an introductory programming class: syntax, variables, arrays, conditional statements, and looping. By the end of the term, the students programmed, debugged, play-tested, and revised several fully functioning video games.

This was a programming course only. One thing that makes the CMU program so successful is its teamwork philosophy, in which “technologists and fine artists work together in interdisciplinary teams to produce artifacts that entertain, inform, inspire, and teach.” A video game is basically an engaging story told though interactions with images. The results of this trimester proved to me that our students can handle the computer interaction aspects.

Our Visual Arts Department has students who can design and produce the images.

Our Performing Arts Department has students who can make the sound effects and music. Our English Department specializes in producing students who can create and tell good stories. In the future, this course could become just as interdisciplinary and team-focused as the one at CMU. And when we eventually sell our first game on the iTunes apps store, we will have taken the first steps towards breaking those old stereotypes about what programming and computer science are, and, hopefully, start feeding the pipeline to college CS programs to produce all the Rosie the Programmers this country needs. *Full disclosure: the author is a computer scientist and freely admits to bias in this area.

F ALL

2011

19

9

Ask the Archivist

Sundae School It’s always been about the snacks.

by Jacqueline Haun

G H ere ya go, hon: A foursome of Lawrentians satisfy their sweet tooths.

Throughout a century’s worth of different owners, location changes, financial struggles, and a major fire, the Jigger has remained the place for the students to efficiently grab a quick nibble and then get back to work (or play) without straying too far from campus.

W

hat would come to be known as the Jigger Shop started out on the southern corner of the village’s Phillips Avenue and Main Street in a large, white frame house that served as the home, office, and drug store of Dr. Edmund DeWitt. In the late 1880s, DeWitt set aside a portion of the pharmacy to serve as an ice cream counter, delegating the running of this part of the business to Alfred “Al” Bogart. According to School Historian Roland Mulford, the ice cream sundaes served in DeWitt’s drug-store came to be known as “jiggers” after Winslow Mallery of the Class of 1890 “wishing a hurried helping of ice cream

G The old Jigger. Now serving pizza.

called out, ‘Hey, Al! Gimme a couple of those – er – what do you-call-’ems? That jigger you have in your hand,’” the “jigger” being the then-new-fangled conical

G Al Bogart, the Jigger Meister.

20

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

ice cream scoop, which had only recently replaced a large spoon as the usual way to dispense ice cream. The name caught on, and a Lawrenceville legend was born.

The jiggers themselves could be extravagant in their preparation. A Scribner’s Magazine article in 1910 described them as “a tall soda-water glass half full of marshmallows. Over this [the server] poured a thick chocolate syrup. He put ice cream on top of this, an inch or two of whipped cream on top of the ice cream, gave a stir, and the ‘jigger’ was ready. The counter was lined with glass bowls filled with chopped nuts and syrup, breakfast foods, chopped bananas and syrup, chopped oranges, pineapples, etc., which, mixed in various combinations,

The name “jigger” might have remained known only to Lawrentians but for Owen Johnson of the Class of 1895, who immortalized the sundaes and their real-life server, Al.

are daily devoured by the young Laurentians [sic].”

The name “jigger” might have remained known only to Lawrentians but for Owen Johnson of the Class of 1895. He immortalized the sundaes and their real-life server, Al, in the fictional story of Hungry Smeed, who first demonstrated his unusual gastric flexibility by consuming ten double jiggers before going on to make a name for himself as a champion in pancake eating.

When an aged DeWitt sold his drug store in 1907, faith in the marketability of the venerable Jigger name inspired two local businessmen, Warren Golding and Dana Kafer, to continue the store in a new location in the Kafer Flats building, which today houses T.J.’s Pizza.

Although jiggers remained popular with students – a reputed 1,800 were sold each week in 1913 – Golding and Kafer succumbed to bankruptcy only a few years later. Frank “Pop” Bussom bought the store at auction in 1916, using funds he had borrowed from Lawrenceville School Comptroller James Brinkerhoff Dayton. (According to a 1972 Trenton Times article, Bussom had conveniently neglected to mention his plans for the borrowed monies to Dayton because Dayton was one of the other bidders at the auction.)

Bussom was more successful than his predecessors, so much so that by 1927, the Jigger Shop, now a general store as well as ice cream parlor, needed a bigger space. Bussom moved the store back across Phillips Avenue to a long, low building at 2651 Main Street, where it would remain for more than 60 years. Under a succession of owners following Bussom’s retirement in 1948, the store’s services became even broader. By the 1960s, students could book plane reservations, send and receive telegrams, place flower orders, and get help in shipping luggage – as well as order from a menu of hot dogs, hamburgers, soda, and

G Lawrentians leave their mark.

candy. Athletes arriving late for dinner could also order a standard “training meal”

of rare roast beef, a baked Idaho potato, green beans, toast, and tea.

When the last proprietor, Joe Bresner,

retired in 1972, the School, fearful that the landmark would disappear forever, inter-

vened and purchased the Jigger Shop. Dayto-day running of the store was turned over to the Princeton University Store, which modeled the shop on its other properties, adding the sale of textbooks.

On August 10, 1990, a suspected frayed plug in a refrigeration unit set the centuryold Jigger ablaze, destroying $300,000 worth of textbooks for the new school year as well as a half-million dollars of other merchandise. The store was given a temporary home in Old Lower, but it soon became clear that it could not return to the Main Street property due to the expense of reconstruction.

With the demolition of Old Lower in 1992, the Jigger found a new home on the first floor of the Irwin Dining Center and, later, in Noyes after the building was remodeled in 1999.

With the decision to close that location this past spring, the Jigger will move back to Irwin, this time under the care of Sustainable Fare, the food service company run by Director of Dining Services Gary Giberson H’11 P’10. The store will no longer sell textbooks, but it will continue to offer snacks and treats, including a new range of wholesome (but tasty) alternatives in keeping with Giberson’s commitment to nutritious eating and the desires of today’s health-conscious – but still hungry – students.

G The Jigger in 1955. Offering a little of everything.

F ALL

2011

21

9 Take This Job & Love It

Schmear

CAMPAIGN

W

hatever you do, don’t even think about wandering into Brooklyn’s Mile End Deli and asking for beef brisket with mayo. If you do, expect the owner, Noah Bernamoff ’01, to politely but firmly refuse your request. His smoked meat goes on rye with mustard. That’s it. Will Bernamoff hold the mustard? Okay, but you’ll have to pay a ten-cent fine for the privilege. And that little conciliatory nod is the extent of Bernamoff’s flexibility. If you’re looking for any more exceptions, he will gesture to the bodega across the street.

“They have Boar’s Head sandwiches.

They’ll give you mayonnaise. They’ll give you tomato. They’ll even put it on white bread for you,” he proclaims with faux enthusiasm. “Our style is not ‘choose your meat, choose your vegetable, and choose your bread.’ That’s not how we operate.”

His reasoning is simple to understand once you understand Bernamoff’s upbringing and forget everything you know about New York Jewish delicatessens. Bernamoff was born and raised in Montreal.

There, specialization is the key.

“Few delis in Montreal hold themselves out as, ‘We make everything Jewish that has ever been thought to be Jewish,’” Bernamoff says. “Instead it’s, ‘Oh, that’s the salami sandwich place.’ ‘Oh, that’s the chopped liver place.’ I’m inspired by that sort of approach, rather than have the mindset that we should have everything on hand just in case someone wants something.

“If we can’t make it the very best, then we don’t make it,” he adds.

What Mile End serves is the best.

The deli has been in business only since January 2010, yet already it has earned

22

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Noah Bernamoff knows the best way to make a sandwich.

Don’t ask questions, just eat.

You’ll feel better.

least, dubious. “I tried to talk him out of it,” he admits. “I thought he was going to screw up his life. He was going to have to work 20-hour days. And there is an incredibly high failure rate with restaurants. I thought it was a terrible idea.”

In the end, Levine backed his friend, anyway. “Noah’s passion for food is evident,” he says, by way of explanation. “When he puts his mind to something, and is passionate about it, that is something I would always bet on to come out on top.”

The gamble paid off. From the first day

Photograph by Michael Branscom

armloads of ecstatic reviews. New York Magazine went so far as to declare Mile End the best deli in New York, hands down.

What’s doubly amazing is that Bernamoff, just a few months before Mile End first opened its doors, was a second-year law school dropout with no real experience in restaurant management.

When trolling for Mile End investors in the spring of 2009, Bernamoff pitched his Jewish Montreal deli concept to his good friend and former Lawrenceville classmate, Max Levine ’01. Levine was, to say the

on, the place has been packed.

In the tradition of Montreal delis, Mile End is “the smoked meat place.” “That’s always been our strongest seller,” Bernamoff says. “It takes two weeks from start to finish to transform a raw beef brisket into a smoked meat sandwich.” And to be clear, Mile End is doing all the transforming.

Though other delis have no compunction about getting their food from outside distributors, Mile End makes it all in their own commissary. They smoke the meat, make the salami, bake the bread, and even pickle their own pickles – with each creation reflecting the native tastes and fond memories of Bernamoff’s hometown.

There is one exception to this everything-is-made-from-scratch philosophy: the bagels. As most everyone knows, New Yorkers demand New York bagels, and it would take a restaurateur with more than a little chutzpah to offer up anything different. Bernamoff, however, imports his bagels from Montreal, and they are just not the same. They’re smaller, denser, chewier, contain more seeds, and are slightly sweeter than the New York variety – and if you don’t like ’em, there’s the door.

It turns out that being denied New York bagels in New York inspires more customer ire than being denied a schmear of mayo. To some it was a sacrilege.

As with everything else, however, the customers soon came around to Bernamoff’s way of thinking. They, very unNew Yorker-like, put their opinions on hold and deferred to the expert.

So swift was Mile End’s success that Levine, who, up to that point served as a silent partner and informal advisor to Bernamoff, signed on as a full-time strategic planner. He recently completed a deal to set up a second deli in Manhattan, with the Brooklyn-based commissary to supply both locations.

Down the road, Bernamoff and Levine plan to expand Mile End even further, through the creation of a packaged retail brand that will be sold in grocery stores.

Some, no doubt, will be heartened by this news. Believe it or not, a day may come when you can purchase that beloved Mile End smoked meat, take it home, triple-lock the door, and slather it in mayo. Just don’t tell Bernamoff about it; he would be so disappointed in you.

F ALL

2011

23

9 1000 Words

24

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Photograph by Michael Branscom

Raise the Money and Run The eighth annual Big Red Race brought hundreds of participants to Lawrenceville this May – to run a winding 5K around campus or, for the younger set, to skip joyously for 25 yards down the football field. The event raised more than $21,000 to benefit the School Camp and collected 800 pounds of canned goods to benefit local nonprofit agencies that fight hunger.

F ALL

2011

25

26

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

2011 FIFTH FORM PRIZES

Commencement

The Catherine Boczkowski H’80 Award Heather Hoffman

Trustees’ Cup Nathan Brody The Edward Sutliffe Brainard Prize Michael McDavid

The Robert Mammano Frezza ’88 Memorial Scholarship Amrita Rao

Valedictorian Michael Carter

The Directors’ Award Brandon Karpf

Top Scholars Prateek Agarwal Michael Carter Usman Chaudhry Erica Furgiuele Margaret Hua Abby Leibowitz Nora McDonnell Louie Nam Amrita Rao Annaliesa Routh Jonathan Willoughby

The Megna-Schonheiter Award Heather Hoffman The Phi Beta Kappa Award Abigail Leibowitz The Aurellian Honor Society Award Anne Gardner The Masters’ Prize Prateek Agarwal

The Max Maxwell H’74 ’81 Award Ana Vargas The Kathleen Wallace Award Bryn Bowen The Elizabeth Louise Gray ’90 Prize Ngozi Max-Macarthy

The John R. Thompson Jr. Prize Anne Gardner The Deans’ Award Oscar Mattsson

F ALL

2011

27

UNDERFORM AWARDS The Jeremy K. Mario ’88 Award Jake Cooper '12 Emma Waugh '12 Semans Family Merit Scholarship Christine Brittain '12 Walker Kirby '12 Teri Tillman '12 The Rutgers University Book Award Rujul Zaparde '12

28

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Wellesley Club of Central Jersey Sam Krieg '12

The Yale Club Book Award Michelle Mui '12

Dartmouth Club of Princeton Book Award Eliza Becker '12

The Brown University Alumni Book Award Program Max Matukhin '12

The Williams College Book Award Manik Bhatia '12 Harvard Club of Boston Prize Book Award Walker Kirby '12

The Reuben T. Carlson Scholarship Gustavo Berrizbeitia '13 Jennifer Han '13

The Beverly Whiting Anderson Prize Peter Beer '14 Galen Ogg '14 The Marcus D. French Memorial Prize Charlie Card-Childers '14 Isabelle Gotuaco '14 The Katherine W. Dresdner Cup Stanley House The Foresman Trophy Griswold House

CLASS OF 2011 COLLEGE MATRICULATION fourteen to:

Mount Holyoke College

Dickinson College

Duke University

Northwestern University

Drexel University

Princeton University

UNC – Chapel Hill

Harvey Mudd College

Swarthmore College

Kenyon College

Tufts University

Lewis & Clark College

Tulane University

McDaniel College

University of Notre

Occidental College

Nine to: Trinity College (CT)

Eight to: Dartmouth College Georgetown University

Seven to: Cornell University New York University University of Pennsylvania University of Saint Andrews

Six to: Brown University Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dame Vanderbilt University Williams College Yale University

Two to: Amherst College Barnard College Bowdoin College Colgate University Elon University Emory University Harvard University Middlebury College Northeastern University

Pomona College Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rice University Scripps College Southern Methodist University SUNY – Stony Brook University Susquehanna University United States Military Academy United States Naval Academy University of Colorado

Five to:

Pennsylvania State

Davidson College University of Virginia

University of Chicago

University of Edinburgh

Washington University

University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign

Four to: Columbia University Hobart & William Smith College Stanford University

University

– St. Louis Wellesley College Wesleyan University

One Each to: Babson College

Three to:

Bard College

George Washington

Boston College

University Hamilton College Johns Hopkins University Lehigh University McGill University

Boston University Case Western Reserve University College of William and

– Boulder

University of Michigan University of Pittsburgh University of Rochester University of Southern California University of Vermont Villanova University Wake Forest University Washington & Lee University

Mary Colorado College

F ALL

2011

29

AlumniWeekend 2011

Alumni

2010

Weekend

30

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

New Honorary Alumni/ae

The Class of 1956 A Bert Getz ’55 P’85

The Class of 1961 A Ginnie Chambers H’59 ’62 ’89 P’77 A Phil Jordan ’50 H’96 P’85 ’90 A Betsy Keuffel H’58 ’59 P’79 A Ed Poreda H’70 ’89 P’77 GP’07 ’08 A Phil Pratt H’63 A Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 ’64 GP’06 ’08 A Jean Stephens H’50 ’59 ’64 ’68 ’89 P’78 GP’06

The Class of 1971 A Ed Robbins H’68 ’69

The Class of 1981 A Bill Graupner ’64 P’91 ’95

The Class of 1991 A David Cantlay H’89 ’93 P’07 ’09 ’11 A Max Maxwell H’74 ’81

The Class of 1996 A James T. Adams ’65 H’82 P’93 (posthumous)

The Class of 2001 A James T. Adams ’65 H’82 P’93 (posthumous) A Judith-Ann Corrente P’98 ’01 A Nancy Thomas P’01 ’04 ’07

The Class of 2006 A Thomas Cangiano H’00 A Wilburn Williams

The Class of 2011 A Catherine Boczkowski H’80 P’89 ’91 A Gary Giberson P’10 A Edward Robbins H’68 ’69

Left page: Top: Brenda Wislar and Ben Brown ’48 at the Legends Dinner; Derrick Wilder congratulates a fifth former on his induction into the alumni association.

Above: Ed Wislar ’46 GP’09 ’10 ’14 carries his class flag in the alumni parade.

Right: Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 and a fellow alumnus. Far right: Joe Hodges ’61.

Meritorious Service Awards Presented annually by the Alumni Association of the Lawrenceville School, this award acknowledges and recognizes extraordinary volunteerism and/or service to the Lawrenceville Community. Candidates may be alumni, honorary class members, faculty and family, or School employees and family.

A Charlie Gerbron ’99 A Bill Hofmann ’61 A David Pohndorf ’61 A Barry Rank ’61 P’97 ’00 A Frank Schroeder ’61 P’93

School Names 2011 Hall of Famers

F

our sportsmen, John “James” Alcorn Rector 1906, Paul B. Mott III ’76, Peter Krawchuk III ’81, and Stephen A. Card ’96, were inducted into The Lawrenceville School’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Sprinter John Rector of the Class of 1906 was an Olympic silver medalist who so dominated his sport that he lost the 100-yard dash only twice in his entire racing career, (first as a freshman at Lawrenceville and second in the 1908 Olympics in London). He captained the Lawrenceville track team and earned three letters in the sport, but was also skilled in baseball (earning four letters) and football (earning two). He matriculated to the University of Virginia, where he captained the track team and set the school’s 100-yard dash record (9.6 seconds). He competed in the London Olympics between his sophomore and junior years at UVA. He tied the Olympic record for the 100 meters in each of his preliminary heats with a time of 10.8, but ran 10.9 in the finals, narrowly losing to Reggie Walker of South Africa who won in 10.8.

Paul Mott, while at Lawrenceville, was a three-year varsity letter winner in soccer, and an All-Prep and All-State selection. At Dartmouth, he lettered all four years and, as a senior, was team captain, the leading scorer, MVP, and earned All-New England, All-Ivy, and AllAmerican honors. He was subsequently voted into the Dartmouth’s Athletic Hall of Fame. A first-round selection in the North American Soccer League (NASL) draft, he played one outdoor and two indoor seasons with the Tampa Bay Rowdies as well as a season with the American Soccer League championship runner-up, New York United. Paul was integral in bringing the Major Soccer League (MLS) team to Dallas, serving as the team’s first senior vice president.

Subsequently, working as vice president for special projects for the MLS and

32

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

G Paul B. Mott III ’76, Stephan A. Card ’96, and Peter Krawchuk III ’81 accept Hall of Fame honors.

later as director of business development for the National Basketball Association (NBA), he became president of the NBA New Orleans Hornets. He was a day-ofgame producer at the Dallas venue for the 1994 World Cup and the 1996 Atlantic Olympic Games.

Peter Krawchuk was a post-graduate three-sport athlete at Lawrenceville in soccer, ice hockey, and baseball, leading all three teams to prep state championships. As Big Red’s baseball captain, he led the team in batting and home runs, and earned the Osborne Memorial Baseball Prize. His .560 batting average and 450-foot home run have yet to be matched by another Lawrenceville player. He was All-Mercer County in soccer and was a tri-captain of the ice hockey team, scoring 21 goals during the season.

Peter went on to earn 12 varsity letters in four sports at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Since graduation, Krawchuk has

stayed active playing baseball, squash, and hockey, and competes in marathons and triathlons.

Stephen Card earned three Major Ls in lacrosse and two in basketball for Lawrenceville. In lacrosse he was first team All-State three times and AllCounty and All-American twice. He was an All-World under-19 selection. At Duke, he earned four varsity letters, was a three-time All-American (first team in junior and senior years, and third team sophomore year), and was named AllACC in his junior and senior years. After his senior season, Card was selected to play in the North-South All-Star Game and was named one of the top 50 players in the history of the ACC. Duke earned an NCAA tournament berth in each of Card’s four years and had a four-year record of 47-16. He also finished his career as a defenseman with 103 ground balls and eight assists.

New Alumni Selectors A Charles M. “Chuck” Fleischman ’76 A Shannon Halleran McIntosh ‘93 .

Top: The Class of 1961. Above: Pierre Casimir-Lambert ’51 P’86 and a Lawrenceville Legend. Above right: James Carey ’51 at his class dinner.

Right: Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 ’61 ’64 GP’06 ’08 and Ginnie Chambers H’59 ’61 ’62 ’89 P’77 congratulate Don Ehret ’41 P’67 ’74 ’76 GP’94 ’98 ’06 ’12 on his Lawrentian medal.

F ALL

2011

33

Wellemeyer Named Distinguished Alumnus

D

ue to his extensive volunteer efforts, John C. Wellemeyer ’55 was recently honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award. Presented annually by the School’s Alumni Association, the award is given to a Lawrentian who “has contributed significantly to the welfare of Lawrenceville and who has exemplified the highest standards of the School.”

G John Wellemeyer '55

Wellemeyer came to Lawrenceville in September 1952 as a Third Form day student. He played varsity football and was a member of the Major L Club, Press Club, Science Club, and Olla Podrida. He graduated cum laude in 1955.

After Lawrenceville, he majored in chemical engineering at Yale University and worked for Cities Service Petroleum (CITGO) as a refinery engineer in East Chicago, IN. While at CITGO, he attended the University Of Chicago Graduate School of Business at night. He completed his MBA in 1963 and was elected to Beta Gamma

Sigma, the business school honor society.

He was hired by Exxon as a financial analyst but left in 1966 to join the Wall Street firm of Faulkner, Dawkins, and Sullivan as a petroleum analyst. In 1973 he was invited to join the research department of Morgan Stanley, which was being established at that time. Wellemeyer was consistently ranked as one of the top petroleum analysts

by Institutional Investor magazine. He was elected a managing director of the firm in 1980 and, in 1986, was sent to London to establish Morgan Stanley’s equity research department in Europe.

While in London, Wellemeyer met and married Louise Metcalf. The couple have identical twin sons, Douglas and James. He retired when they were born. The family moved to Princeton in 2005, at which time Wellemeyer became a Lawrenceville Alumni Trustee. He was subsequently elected a Trustee Emeritus.

Wellemeyer has been very active in fundraising for The Lawrenceville Fund. He served as a member of the Wall Street Committee, chairman of the European Steering Committee, reunion gift chairman for his 50th and 55th reunions, and a member of his class’s Fundraising Leadership Committee.

He is also a member of The Lawrenceville Fund Leadership Committee, works very closely with the Alumni Office, and has been instrumental in helping the School reach its fundraising goals.

Top: Nathan Brody ’11 pins new honorary classmate Gary Giberson H’11 P'10. Above: Karin Crooks H’66 P’04 ’05 enjoys lunch with alumni. Below: The Class of 1976.

Admirable Achievement Award Inspired by the over 40 years of exceptional service, achievement, and demonstrated affection for Lawrenceville provided

by Arthur Hailand, Jr. H’34 P’69 ’70, this award is presented by the Alumni Association to a nonalumnus. A candidate for this award must have long-term dedication to the School and have a substantial history of

G Ginnie Chambers and Alumni Association President Leigh Lockwood '65 P'97 '02.

significant volunteer efforts over many years.

A Ginnie Chambers H'59 '61 '62 '89 P'77

34

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

9 Go Big Red

The Comeback T

here must have been something truly marvelous hidden in the DNA of Josh Arcadia ’03. He spent two seasons with Big Red varsity football and, on both occasions, led the team to win decisive MAPL championships.

At first blush, this achievement might not seem particularly unusual; a lot of star Lawrenceville athletes have chalked up nothing but winning seasons. Those winning seasons, however, were almost certainly not eight years apart. Over the past ten years, Big Red football has managed only two MAPL championships. The first was in 2002 when Arcadia was a postgraduate student, and the other was in 2010 when Arcadia returned to Lawrenceville to coach.

It was always obvious that Arcadia was cut from a different cloth, however. It is common to see the older and often larger postgraduate football players placed along the defensive line; a PG quarterback on the other hand was a rare sight indeed. The reason, says Coach and Science Master Ken Mills, is because it is a position that requires “gaining the confidence and respect of the rest of the team,” an effort often only earned after serving several years on the squad. Arcadia achieved this level of trust in record time, however, and was even chosen as the team’s captain.

Right away Arcadia demonstrated a natural aptitude for the position and exhibited the grit to always try for an extra yard rather than dodge a rough tackle by skirting out of bounds. Moreover, he had an inherent likeability that rallied the team and cultivated

KID

Josh Arcadia’s brief return to the football field provides a lasting legacy.

excellent morale. “He had this way with his teammates,” Mills noted. “He treated them all with respect, and they all respected him.

But Josh also was not afraid to tell a teammate he should be working harder or doing something different.”

After 2002’s MAPL honors, Arcadia continued his football career at Fordham University before comfortably settling into a career for the investment banking firm of Barclay’s Capital. He stayed in touch with Mills on and off during this time – and followed Big Red’s declining fortunes as solid team records (including a near-MAPL tourney win) were replaced with consecutive losing seasons.

Then, one day in 2010, Arcadia sent Mills a fateful email asking if he could possibly become an assistant coach. “I’m going to have a little extra time on my hands this fall,” he wrote.

Arcadia, it turned out, was dying of cancer. The 26-year-old was no longer able to continue his responsibilities at the investment firm, because doctors had to amputate one of his arms because of the disease, but he was certain he could provide assistance on the gridiron.

As the newest member of the coaching staff, Arcadia brought with him subtle techniques to update the Big Red offensive, gleaned from his days as a player at Fordham. He also brought the same perseverance that he had always possessed as a Lawrenceville student – now made ever more apparent by the amputation. “Here he was, a guy missing an arm, throwing passes,

G Josh Arcadia rallies the team.

overcoming all obstacles, and not making any excuses for himself,” said Mills. “He was an inspiration and the players just loved him – just like they loved him back in 2002.”

Under Arcadia’s leadership, the 2010 football team ended up with a 7-2 record and another MAPL championship. A few months later, in January 2011, Arcadia passed away.

The service, held in Lawrenceville’s Edith Memorial Chapel, was attended in full by a deeply saddened and infinitely grateful Big Red squad, all of whom were committed to being more like their mentor, both on and off the field.

F ALL

2011

35

table

the

topping M By mike allegra

The conversations that occur around a Harkness table are an essential component of the Lawrenceville learning experience.

What’s found on the Harkness, however, can often reveal the ideals and pedagogical philosophies of the teacher who sits at the table’s head. In celebration of the 75th anniversary of Lawrenceville’s adoption of Harkness teaching, The Lawrentian shows how a simple centerpiece can be a window into a master’s soul.

36

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Photograph by Michael Branscom Joaquin Gonzalez shows off his Harkness, a Rosetta Stone of Lawrenceville culture.

F ALL

2011

37

6 1 M OO R MEM HALL

N

o one on campus has a more beautifully decorated classroom than English Master Deb Larson’s H’08.

Not surprisingly, her meticulous attention to detail extends to her Harkness table. There one finds a circle of manual typewriters, each containing a helpful label for proper identification: Corona Sterling, 1935; Facit 1620, 1969; Underwood Portable, 1930; Olympia SM-3 DeLuxe, 1959.

fully functional, with fresh ribbons, and

says. “On a typewriter, if you don’t like

ready for action. Her students oblige.

something, you can X it out, but it’s still

Paper has been scrolled into each one,

there. It can be considered again at a

and each sheet is filled with stream of

future time. On a typewriter, you leave a

consciousness musings that range from

creative trail.”

the frivolous to the profound.

Students took to them immediately,

Larson purchased the typewriters

enthusing about their tactile quality, the

for her Beat Literature class – so the

beauty of their mechanics, their smell,

students could get the feel of how

and the satisfying “thwack” of key strik-

scribes such as Ginsberg and Kerouac

ing paper. Although no one is planning

constructed their prose. She encourages

to give up his laptop or iPad in favor of

students in all of her English classes to

a black portable Royal anytime soon,

use them, though. Typewriters, she says,

Larson’s charges do see the merits of

It’s like a museum exhibit; each

are a window into the creative process.

such a machine; several of them, she

specimen is pristine. Unlike a museum

“When we use the computer, the record

notes with evident glee, have since pur-

exhibit, however, all the typewriters are

of our thought process is erased,” she

chased typewriters of their own.

38

t h e l a w r e38 ntian t h e l aw-

pop hall ROO M 38

S

panish

Master

Joaquin

On the first day of each term, Gon-

spend

zalez makes a point to set aside a few

all that much time think-

minutes at the beginning of class for the

ing about how to deco-

students to take it all in. What’s there is

rate his Harkness table. It

a feast for the eyes. “They’re transfixed

shows. Almost hidden among a tossed-

by it,” he says. After they complete

about, rumpled stack of old magazines

this unofficial art appreciation portion

is a small pewter statue of a bullfight-

of Spanish class, they get down to the

er on a polished wooden base, a gift

business of conjugating verbs without

from his brother. That’s pretty much all

further distraction.

there is.

Surreptitiously carving initials into

What makes Gonzalez’s table unique

Harkness tables is a student tradition

is what his students have done to deco-

that is nearly as old as the Harkness

rate it. All the other tables on campus,

table itself. Lawrenceville masters have

without exception, are new – or, at least,

a tradition, too: punishing any and all

newly refinished after a few short years

carvers they catch in the act. So make

of wear. Gonzalez’s table, on the other

no mistake, as much as Gonzalez ap-

hand, remains “as is.” He insists upon

preciates his battered and abused table,

it. His table, he explains, is a historical

he will not turn a blind eye if he spies a

document, a reflection of an earlier time.

student attempting to etch a new con-

To be more accurate, it contains lots of

tribution. “I do like the way my table

graffiti, in some cases dating back 20

looks,” he says with a smile. “But if I see

years or more.

anyone marking it up, he’s in trouble.”

Gonzalez

didn’t

G Deb Larson poses with a tool of the Beat Generation.

F ALL

2011

39

2 2 M OO R S E NOY

H

istory Master

picked up in Chinatown. These

His design, he notes, is also

John

Sauer-

pots rest on a low, black, wood-

practical. The plants he chose

man’s

H’84

en rack of his own design. For

are designed to droop rather than

Harkness ta-

Sauerman’s own sense of seren-

sprout vertically, preventing a

ble is a tribute

ity, he takes to the woodshop

student who doesn’t want to

to serenity. “I wanted something

and his classroom serves as a

be called on in class from find-

homey,” he says in his distinc-

testament to his skill; there one

ing a good hiding spot behind

tive baritone. “Study after study

finds two tall pedestals (one sup-

the foliage.

shows that when people are

porting a Greek bust, the other a

The students in his classes

comfortable, they are prone to

globe), a small pedestal for an-

appreciate the décor, says Sau-

learn more.”

other plant, and a plinth to hold

erman. The plants are not doing

So instead of an assortment of

a Parthenon horse sculpture.

too badly either; all five of those

personal knick-knacks, Sauer-

All in all, the scene creates

philodendrons have stayed alive

man’s table contains five philo-

the calm, inviting environment

since Sauerman first arranged

dendrons

that Sauerman was on the look-

them in the center of his Hark-

out for.

ness back in 1999.

artfully

cascading

over five blue and white pots he

G The shockingly brilliant Deborah McKay and crayons.

40

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

Duty

Mem Hall R OOM 19

M

ore and more of

that has gray lead,” she explains. “Or

3. Be Wildly Creative

my classes are

with blue or black ink.” McKay wants

4. Suspend Your Disbelief

becoming

like

each student notebook to be a per-

5. Tell the Radical Truth

kindergarten,”

sonal document, a sincere source of

6. Be Playful

English Master

creative expression. “I tell them ‘No

This idea seems a natural fit with

Deborah McKay H’85 ’88 P’97 says

pressure, but your notebook has to be

the McKay-created class, Avant-

with a merry laugh. The centerpiece

a work of art by the end of the term.’”

Garde Literature, but she affirms that

of her Harkness table seems to invite

So students leave their Bic pens and

the philosophy (and the crayons) also

that comparison. Piled high on a sky

Ticonderoga No. 2s in their bookbags

work well with the traditional books

blue bathmat are crayons, pens, mark-

and dig into the art pile. Each takes to

she teaches. To best understand and

ers, scissors, glue sticks, and short

heart the six commandments written

interpret any creative work of litera-

stacks of multicolored paper.

boldly on McKay’s blackboard:

ture, McKay explains, students need

“My students are not allowed to

1. Take Risks

to find and explore the creativity in

write in their notebooks with pencil

2. Be Shockingly Brilliant

themselves.

F ALL

2011

41

9 M OO R l l a Mem H

E

nglish Master Pier Kooistra’s

There’s a large, water-damaged, red silk-

Harkness table is a thought-

screen of an elephant on the wall; a small clay

fully arranged assembly of

elephant statue on a bookcase; a decorative

mementos, mostly gifts from

framed elephant print near Kooistra’s desk;

his family. The shells were

and a set of marble elephant bookends on the

from his grandparents, given to him when he

windowsill.

was a young child. The ornate, inlaid wood

Kooistra has a lifelong love of elephants,

box was given to him by his father after the

that is clear, but the animal’s presence serves

elder Kooistra returned from a 1981 trip to In-

a pedagogical purpose as well. “Remember

dia. Dwarfing the shells and other keepsakes,

the folk tale about the blind men and the ele-

however, is a gift Kooistra gave himself, a

phant?” he asks. The story, in which five blind

wooden elephant sculpture, picked up in a

men each touch a different part of an elephant

Philadelphia 10,000 Villages store.

and draw preposterously incorrect conclu-

ephant on his table when a student’s analy-

“I saw it, and it just had to be a part of my

sions as to what the unusual object might be,

sis fails to consider every detail. “What part

classroom,” he says.

turns out to be a spot-on symbol for Koois-

of the elephant,” he asks, “have we not yet

The sculpture has plenty of company.

tra’s view on reading literature.

discussed?”

42 SOFIA Casey and

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

G Pier Kooistra and the whole elephant.

“If you want to read well, reread,” he explains. “Don’t rely on your first take.” During classroom discussions (as any of his charges will attest) Kooistra often references that el-

“Lawrenceville was the foundation of my education”

Annuities and Scholarships 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 recently funded a series of charitable gift annuities that will ultimately create a named endowed scholarship fund. The annuities pay a guaranteed income to Art for his lifetime (at a rate much higher than available anywhere else).

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 reunion is the ideal time for me to help Lawrenceville move closer to that lofty goal.”

G A rt Clark '62, his daughter Courtenay Weller, and grandchildren.

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, contact Steve Cushmore, J.D. at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned Giving at 609-620-6064, or go to www.lawrenceville.org/plannedgiving.

a Return to

By Mike Allegra

Form

By Mike Allegra

44

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

[

On November 17, 2010, inspiration arrived in Sarah Mezzino’s email inbox. The subject line read “an idea:”

]

I came to Lawrenceville as an 89-pound first former in 1964 and spent two interesting years in Lower. Everyone that came through Lower shared an aspect of Lawrenceville that was unique. I think the School should set up an exhibit of a Lower School “cubicle” so that there will be a memorial to those of us who experienced boarding school in a way that was very different from what exists today.

Above: Old Lower was largely self-contained. In addition to four houses, the building had a dining hall, large common areas, and even offices for a Shell Form newspaper.

Above right: The long hall: the home field for hall hockey and other in-House pursuits.

“Radios were prohibited so books were hollowed out to put transistor radios in them. It was like being in jail; you had to conceal these things from the warden and guard.”

– Brook Williams ’63 P’90 ’93 ’95

46

The email was written by Richard Farland ’69, but it was not a direct query to Mezzino – or to anyone, really. It was an excerpt from his winter 2011 class note, and there was no expectation of a follow-up. The guy was just thinking out loud. The clip was sent to Mezzino by a Lawrenceville School staffer, three months before the winter Lawrentian would hit mailboxes. Upon receiving it, the gears in Mezzino’s head began to whir.

Mezzino arrived on campus on September 1, and

by November had already developed a reputation as a go-getter. From her first day, she seemed to be everywhere, fluttering around campus, asking questions, putting out feelers, getting the lay of the land, and generally making her presence known.

Her title was “historical exhibition specialist,” and the two-year position was brand new, paid for through a $6 million donation from Barbara and John Stephan ’59 to renovate and endow the School’s archives. The job was a near perfect fit for Mezzino; her resume reads like an Antiques Roadshow expert whose idea of a good time is fawning over the dovetail joints of a Boston highboy. Her education is steeped in anthropology, art history, fine art, and decorative arts, and, before accepting the Lawrenceville post, she had chalked up nearly a decade’s worth of experience working with historic artifacts and rare documents at Washington, DC’s Woodrow Wilson House, New

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

York’s Doyle Auction House, and elsewhere. In short, she lives for this kind of thing.

“That is a GREAT idea!” she wrote back in swift reply. “I’ll see what I can do!”

Two days later, she was in the office of Lawrenceville CFO Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 pitching her vision. The exhibit, she explained, would be an Old Lower cubicle built in to-the-inch specifications, complete with original furnishings and assorted small props to reflect the interests and habits of a First Form Lawrentian circa 1955. The cubicle, like any museum exhibit, would include text panels providing background about Old Lower to educate the uninitiated. Unlike most museum exhibits, the cubicle would be fully interactive.

Sit on the bed, if you like. Putter about. Go in the closet. Look in the drawers of the dresser. The nosy would be rewarded with more finds. Little Easter eggs were behind every corner. There’d even be a faux cockroach or ten under the bed for those who’d think to look under there.

In short, Mezzino wanted each visitor who lived through Old Lower to find a replica so authentic that it would prompt flashbacks. The plan would be to complete the exhibit in five months, by Alumni Weekend.

The pitch was passionate but, in a way, unnecessarily so. Brooks didn’t need too much convincing. He was one of the thousands of students who once made Old Lower his home.

Like most of the Lawrentians who occupied that building over the years, he had a nutty, almost inexplicable nostalgia for the place – something an outsider could never truly understand. It was an “I guess you had to be there” kind of thing.

 Built in 1924 and designed by noted architect William Adams Delano of the Class of 1891, Old

Lower was first known as the Alumni War Memorial Building. It was created to consolidate the shell, first, and second formers under one roof, who, at that time, were scattered around the village in long gone and forgotten tumbledown houses, with each residence holding fewer than a dozen students. The unstated but overweening goal of this new building was to create a sense of community among Lawrenceville’s youngest students.

Like the other buildings Delano later designed around campus, the Alumni War Memorial Building’s exterior was a sight to behold: a stately, Georgian style structure faced with red Holland brick and topped off with a blue slate roof. Unlike the other Delano buildings, this architectural beauty was only skin deep. The $226,000 earmarked to finance the project wasn’t enough to finish the job, and it soon became apparent that the place was never going to be seen as the crown jewel of Lawrenceville’s campus.

The financial deficiencies in construction could be seen the moment anyone stepped inside. So eager was the School to get the Alumni War Memorial Building ready for action that its first-year inhabitants were without towel racks, shelves, chairs, lockers, and showers. All of these things would arrive in due course, but not before the building had richly earned its reputation as a poorly-planned afterthought for those students

who were too young and too green to reasonably demand something more.

The Alumni War Memorial Building was too austere a name, really, for a place such as this. It was unofficially re-christened “The Incubator.”

The Incubator was two-stories tall, with each floor divided into two wings, denoting a particular “House.” Three of the houses, Davidson, Thomas, and Perry Ross, were each named after an alumnus who had fought and died in World War I. The fourth house, Cromwell, honored a major benefactor. Each wing was nearly identical, consisting of a long, straight hallway, lined on both sides with 11’ x 7’ cubicles that were separated from one another with seven-foot-high wooden walls that did not reach the ceiling.

Each cubicle (once they were completely furnished) contained a built-in closet that could be locked, a surprisingly tasteful wooden Stickley dresser and chair, and an alarmingly spare Army surplus cot. The cubes didn’t have doors, only a curtain covering an open doorway. Privacy and security were pretty much non-existent.

Such an open environment invited – almost demanded – practical jokes. They arrived in droves.

The contents of a cube were moved into a shower stall. Cubes were filled to the brim with garbage.

Items cascaded down from exposed overhead beams. Cots were tampered with to collapse when

Above left: The stately Old Lower: proof that one should never judge a book by its cover. Above: Unpacking day: the soggies came later.

“People would capture [roaches]and make them into pets and they would have Cockroach Olympics.

These Cockroach Olympics were very popular.”

– Spencer Tandy ’67

F ALL

2011

47

sat upon. And then there were the “soggies,” wads of toilet paper saturated in water, which rained down on unsuspecting residents with alarming frequency.

The ramshackle accommodations also were fertile ground for the creation of unofficial House events such as hall hockey and, for the gambling set, The Cockroach Olympics.

In short, life in Lower was many things, but never boring. Furthermore, in spite of the building’s many deficiencies, the School had achieved exactly what it had set out to do: It had created that long soughtafter sense of community in the Lower School.



There aren’t too many good places to show off an 11’ x 7’ cubicle.

The cubicle project was officially approved just before the holiday break in December, after a second meeting between Brooks and Mezzino nailed down the details. So the cube was a go, but like in real estate, location was everything.

A spot in Irwin Dining Hall, across from the Etc. Lounge, was bandied about. It was large and contained security cameras, which was a plus, but it was feared that such an off-the-beaten-trail location would not generate enough spectators to justify the time, effort, and expense of such a large project.

The Bunn Library lobby was also considered, but such a massive display would almost certainly disrupt the flow of foot traffic.

It was a matter of course that the exhibit would have to be in Lawrenceville’s Hutchins Gallery.

Shortly after her meeting with Brooks, Mezzino paid Curator Lisa Giberson P’10 a visit. The two of them pondered an available space in the upper level annex, but it was too small to provide wheelchair access.

“Take the rotunda,” Giberson said. On its face, the Hutchins Rotunda was perfect; it was large and centrally located and would allow spectators to look down on the exhibit from the gallery’s secondfloor balcony. The rotunda, however, would also complicate matters; wall space needed to be filled.

Mezzino fretted a little about what might be hung there, but Giberson couldn’t see the problem, really.

“Why don’t you get some photo enlargements of Old Lower and put them on the walls?” she suggested. This, however, was easier said than done.

Mezzino and archive assistants Zoe VybiralBauske and Maureen Kane had already scoured

48

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

the archives and were surprised to find precious little about Old Lower. From the beginning of the building’s existence, Lawrenceville recognized that The Incubator wasn’t much of a selling point (its interior wasn’t even included on the campus tour).

Photo records were sparse. What few pictures were on file had been recycled over and over to promote Lawrenceville’s recent Bicentennial Celebration.

The absence of photos provided a more significant problem than whether the walls of the rotunda were appropriately decorated; these images were needed as reference guides to make the cubicle display look as authentic as possible. In the absence of that, oral histories would need to be generated.

There was another snag. Mezzino’s initial desire to date this cubicle installation from 1955 was not as arbitrary as it first might seem. While archival photos of The Incubator were lacking, archival props were not. 1950s-era laundry boxes, felt banners, sweaters and jackets were all readily on hand. However, it was decided by Brooks – and not inaccurately – that the exhibit would generate more interest if the date of the cube was bumped up a

Top: Sarah Mezzino searches for a period piece in the Kirby Arts Center prop house. Left: Tim McElroy gets down to work in Lawrenceville's Buildings and Grounds workshop.

decade or so to the mid-1960s. In one fell swoop, the prop shortcut disappeared.

Mezzino couldn’t help but notice that the more she worked, the larger the project became. Help, however, was on the way.



In many ways, Tim McElroy is the polar opposite of Sarah Mezzino. She’s a Whirling Dervish of contagious zeal. He’s contemplative and serene, says little, and when he says it, speaks hardly a decibel or two above a whisper.

Before coming to Lawrenceville, he was a tax auditor. The job wasn’t anything he particularly relished, so it was sort of a stroke of good fortune when he was laid off and a friend got him a job on the Buildings and Grounds crew. He took to it right away. McElroy worked for a time cutting grass and hanging off the back of the School’s garbage truck before getting a position in the woodshop, apprenticing under cabinet maker Harry Speinheimer. He soon developed a well-earned reputation as skilled

“The biggest carpenter. When Speinheimer reextra curricular tired, he seamlessly moved into activity was after his mentor’s job.

McElroy was charged with lights out, when building the cubicle, and he the soggies began listened with a poker face as Mezzino laid out the news – to fly.” most of it bad. She had found – Rolf Reinalda ’67 the blueprints for Old Lower, but they revealed little. Photos of the cubes were few and far between. None of the shots she had were in color so she didn’t know what shade of brown the wood stain would’ve been on the walls. She found only one photo of the built-in closet, and no shots of its interior.

Things could improve, Mezzino noted. She recently put out a call for more photos via email, and Vybiral-Bauske agreed to solicit Old Lower photos in her popular Lawrentian “Photo Finish” column. If and when any pictures materialized from these efforts, they would be sent to McElroy right away. Mezzino also had begun conducting interviews with alumni who lived in the cubicles and with the faculty members who oversaw the goings on there. Whenever relevant insights were revealed in these interviews, she would pass them on to McElroy, too.

That said, there might be a chance that McElroy would have to make replicas of the Stickley dresser and chair, as Mezzino had found no sign of either piece in the Kirby Arts Center’s prop house.

In short, his flexibility would be greatly appreciated.

McElroy perused the photocopies of blueprints and photographs. “How realistic do you want this to be?” he asked.

“As realistic as possible.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “But you do realize it’ll cost you more.”

She did – and had budgeted her funds accordingly.

So no plywood walls. This was the real deal. At that, McElroy’s interest in the project began to grow. He was a craftsman. He wanted to do this right. Mezzino and Brooks wanted him to do it right as well.

In addition to his regular duties, McElroy would spend the next two months building the cubicle, constructing the walls, closet, trim, as well as a platform with tongue-in-groove floorboards.

Mezzino visited him several times a week with new bits of information as they came in, including exactly what the inside of that closet looked like.

F ALL

2011

49

Above: Maureen Kane hems the cubicle curtain. Above right: Students test brick color patterns.

(One shelf, one clothes rod, and brass hooks in the back – as several alumni interviewees asserted).

 “While a side of you was glad to see Old Lower torn down, a side of you realized that a part of your past was gone – except in your own memory.”

– Dren geer ’52

By February, Mezzino’s office was sort of like the Nixon White House; hardly a moment went by when a tape recorder wasn’t running. Sarah scoured class notes, contacted alumni secretaries, and was introduced to a large network of Lawrentians eager to provide recollections. She interviewed a dozen alums and five Old Lower housemasters and had extensive email correspondence with many others.

Each interview opened a door to a new, unheardof aspect of Old Lower and a new addition to the cube’s prop list: A hidden transistor radio with ear bud English Leather aftershave A poster for that god-awful Raquel Welch movie One Million Years BC Brooks Brothers shoes with tassels Brooks Brothers button down shirts Brooks Brothers sport coats Pretty much anything Brooks Brothers, apparently Mezzino and Vybiral-Bauske first searched for items in the KAC prop house. When they came up short, Performing Arts Master Matt Campbell recommended Anything But Costumes,

50

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

an enormous movie and stage prop house in Flemington, NJ. There they found the bed (its Army surplus origin was revealed in several alumni interviews) and a wall sconce. The Stickley chair, though, was nowhere to be found.

The chair was unusual. Stickley furniture was know for its simple, Mission-style designs, but the chair’s front legs as seen in archival photos were turned on a lathe, a curious representation of Stickley’s out-of-character late period. It would fall to McElroy to build a replica in the B&G workshop.

The results were spectacular and inspired hushed awe in archives.

McElroy’s response to the completed chair was more reflective. “I think I might make a set of these for my dining room,” he mused.

Mezzino needed a dresser too, but McElroy hesitated. He worked at Lawrenceville on the tail end of Old Lower’s history and remembered a School-sanctioned furniture free-for-all in the weeks and months leading up to the building’s 1992 demolition. He was sure a dresser was floating around somewhere nearby. “Put a call out to the community,” he suggested. “If you don’t get a response, then I’ll build one.”



No one seems to know exactly when, but at some point in The Incubator’s history, most likely around the late 1950s, the building’s unofficial name switched to “Lower.” It was only after 1972, after the young charges moved out to live in housing around The Bowl that the “Old” was added.

From that point on, Old Lower became a jackof-all-trades. Whenever space was needed, the building played host. At various points over the next two decades it was home to the Art Department, the Development Office, The Publications Office, and some not-so-coveted faculty housing. During the flu epidemic in the early 1980s, the cubicles that

were still standing were used as a recovery ward.

Old Lower was still used as student housing, too. From 1975-1987 and from 1990-1991, the indignity of living in Old Lower was transferred to Lawrenceville’s postgraduates, who lamented their sorry fate on the pages of The Lawrence to a largely indifferent contingent of underclassmen. At least the PG cubes had doors.

The School was changing. Girls arrived in 1986, and they were greeted with brand new housing on the Crescent. Old Lower was right next door and, in contrast, looked shabbier than ever. Besides, the library was outgrowing its old space, and Old Lower’s footprint looked like as good a place as any to build a new one.

The wrecking ball arrived in August 1992.

So irrelevant was Old Lower to the day-to-dayoperation of the School that only a single page in The Lawrentian commemorated its demise.



On a cheerful spring day in March, Technical Director and Theatre Master Jamie Cuthrell and his four charges, Amelia Frappolli ’11, Charlotte Brace ’12, Kristi Lewis-Dada ’12 and Denise Chan ’13 stood around in the bushes outside of Dawes House staring at bricks. They had a good reason for doing so.

The Old Lower museum exhibit was not

only going to show the interior of a cube but also a window and an exterior wall. That meant bricks. Because using real masonry would be time consuming, heavy, dangerous, messy, and expensive, a facsimile would need to be created.

That’s where Cuthrell and his students came in.

Cuthrell teaches Theatrical Design, an advanced class with four dedicated students. The course covers, among many other things, set painting.

McElroy, who recruited Cuthrell and his charges for the task, had one wall of the cube sent to the Kirby Arts Center. The elite team of artists set right to work.

Although the original Old Lower was long gone, the type of brick used to build it was still available for inspection. William Adams Delano used the same bricks when he later designed the Second Form houses that surround The Bowl. It was through careful inspection of those buildings that Cuthrell’s class developed, through several trials, a strikingly complicated color palette. A whitewash followed by a two-color scumble to replicate the mortar, followed by 18 different shades of layered paint for the brick, then a tightly controlled spatter, shadow lines, and a sealant to create the illusion of depth.

The preparation took a couple of weeks, the actual painting a couple of days. The results were breathtaking.

Top left: Mezzino hangs text panels onto the completed display. Top: Zoe Vybiral-Bauske finds furniture in Everything But Costumes.

Above: The hand-made chair.

(Similar chairs may now be found around Tim McElroy’s dining room table.)

F ALL

2011

51



Meanwhile, props were coming from everywhere.

The archive staff spent hours upon hours scouring eBay and Amazon and ransacking thrift stores.

Others got into the act as well. Library Director Paula Clancy P’11 ’13 bought a transistor radio in an antique store – a relic common to Old Lower cubes even though radios were not permitted. Kane helped find (and properly hemmed with a cotton liner) a vintage curtain that was the spitting image of the one seen in old photos. Spencer Tandy ’67 who had, at the time, set up shop in the School archives to research an unrelated screenplay project, contributed knowledge and an armload of period books, magazines, and an album cover.

Rolf Reinalda ’67 also provided books, but more valuable were his vintage Brooks Brothers shirts and jackets, the staples of a Lower School student’s wardrobe.

Then, out of the blue, Mezzino was contacted separately by Camille Duncan and Maxine Olson, two former infirmary night nurses who had both heard about the call for photos and provided dozens of them from the 1980s – in color – when the dorms were used as overflow for the infirmary.

On it went. As deadlines drew closer, the circle of contributors grew larger and larger.

The cubicle was still without a dresser, however.

Taking McElroy’s advice, Mezzino had sent out an email to the School community and crossed her fingers. The sole reply was from Science Master Tim Brown. “The best bet… is probably former Science Master Ted Graham, who had a reputation for scavenging,” he wrote.

“I think my daughter has one,” Graham replied after Mezzino chased down the lead. A few weeks later Kate Graham confirmed that she did indeed have the coveted dresser. The downside was that she lived in upstate New York and shipping costs proved prohibitive.

Then came March and, with it, Lawrenceville’s Staff Recognition Day – where School staffers take the morning off to enroll in Lawrenceville classes that range in scope from economics to trout fishing.

Archivist Jacqi Haun, as in past years, taught a course about Lawenceville’s history. Haun’s class was popular so the Bunn Library AV room was packed, mostly with guys from Buildings and Grounds. At one point in her talk, Haun paused on a PowerPoint slide of a young man unpacking his bags in Old Lower and delivered an unscripted aside. She noted that an Old Lower cubicle was going to go on display at the end of April and that some props – like a dresser – were still needed.

Maintenance man Frank Ochanas was in Haun’s

52

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

class, and it was the first time he had heard the plea. He, like many of the people in B&G, didn’t have a School email account. The following week he delivered his dresser to McElroy. Aside from a couple of superficial scuff marks – nothing a little sandpaper and stain couldn’t fix – it was pristine.

Mezzino promised Ochanas it would be returned to him after the show in like-new condition. But Ochanas didn’t need it back. It’s a donation, he said.

 The final weeks before Alumni Weekend were a blur. McElroy stained the oak walls of the cube.

Audio gathered from the taped alumni interviews was edited and looped (a task, in part, taken up by Project Archivist Casey Babcock), to be played over an amplifier in the gallery. Photos were enlarged to hang on the gallery walls. Museum text panels were written and printed to describe the storied history of Old Lower and the definition of a soggy.

The exhibit took 45 hours to set up. On the Thursday before Alumni Weekend, School Trustees, hearing word of the cubicle, cycled in and out of

the gallery when on breaks from their committee meetings. To those who lived in Old Lower, like former Trustee President Ray Viault ’63 P’96, the gut response to the not-yet-fully assembled exhibit was the same: an awed pause, then a wide smile, followed by an insatiable desire to explore.

“Oh, this is it, all right,” Viault enthused as he took it all in. “Where’s the laundry box?” And before anyone could tell him, he found it on the top shelf of the closet, right where it was supposed to be. “They wouldn’t do any laundry that we could not fit in that box,” he told fellow Trustee Jeremy Mario ’88, who knew Old Lower only as the place the School sent you when you got the flu, “so there were some interesting odors.”

And so it went for the rest of the weekend. Alumni filled the gallery, read the panels, and – for those who had been part of the Old Lower experience – held court and shared stories. Many of these men were interviewed as a part of a student film project, spearheaded by Jason Hwang ’11 and overseen by Art Master Gil Domb.* Lawrenceville students were also there en masse, leaving both with a newfound appreciation of their current living accommodations and a nagging desire to revive the tradition of the soggy.

Alums hunted for roaches (there were 12 in all), discovered a girlie pinup hidden behind a poster of Steve McQueen (a then-common way to conceal photographic contraband), and noticed that every drawer of that wonderful dresser was filled to bursting with vintage clothing. It was everything that Mezzino promised back in November – and then some.

In fact, only one criticism about the exhibit was repeated during the weekend: “This place,” one Old Lower veteran asserted, “is too damn clean.”

That complaint will have to fall on deaf ears, however. Unlike the old Old Lower cubicles, this one will remain in good condition and placed in storage – to be exhumed whenever alumni congregate and wish to fondly recall that smelly, dirty, noisy, Spartan cubicle shantytown that was once their home. Apparently it was wonderful. I guess you had to be there. *See Hwang's video at www.youtube.com/LawrencevilleVideo.

Above: Period props finish off the cube. (And in a true case of the devil being in the details, a period pinup was hidden behind Steve McQueen.)

Left: The cubicle reproduction featured a full closet, an authentic dresser, a dozen roaches, and a lavish 77-square-foot living space.

F ALL

2011

53

9 Alumni News Dear Lawrentians, Given the recent fate of leaders who remain in office beyond their welcome, I will change the topic of this letter from “Leigh Lockwood, President for Life” to “Then and Now, Preconceptions Analyzed at the End of My Three Year Term.”

Then: Three years is a long time.

Now: What, already?

Then: Prepare to receive complaints…

Now: In three years I remember exactly two important complaints about which

The Alumni Association Executive Committee

the conversation turned into a healthy, two-way exchange.

Then: If you think you are doing this job for recognition, you are misguided.

Now: I can’t think of a single event at which I have not heard, “Thanks for the work

2011/2012

you do for the Alumni Association.”

President

Then: Do Affinity Groups really work?

Michael T. Wojciechowicz ’78 P’06 ’10 ’12

Now: Affinity Groups are an essential additional channel for connection between

Vice President

alumni and Lawrenceville.

Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91 Vice President

Then: The Alumni Office does a couple dozen events a year.

Now: Not even close. The Alumni Office executes almost 100 events per year.

Ian Rice ’95 Executive Committee

Then: How did I ever get into this, and how do I do my job?

John C. Hover III ’61 P’91

Now: With sensitive and strategic guidance from the entire Alumni Office, my job

Mark M. Larsen ’72 P’01 ’04 ’06

is actually pretty easy.

John C. Walsh ’99 Catherine Bramhall ’88

Then: Alumni relations is all about shaking hands.

Charlie Keller ’95

Now: Successful alumni relations requires planning, vision, creativity, risk-taking,

Dallas Heterhington ’80 P’12

foresight, and a commitment to change – in other words, everything that goes on

Scott Belair ’65 P’08 ’09 Dave Stephens ’78 P’06 Cahill Zoeller ’00

in Hogate.

Lessons Learned: Building on the work of 51 prior presidents, your healthy and

Alumni Trustees

dynamic Alumni Association is well prepared to enter Lawrenceville’s third centu-

Peter Schweinfurth ’79 P’15

ry. Of course we can’t do it without you, so pick up the phone and call a classmate,

David J. Ballard ’74 Greg W. Hausler ’81 Hyman J. Brody ’75 P’07 ’08 ’11

write your class note, attend events, volunteer, and, yes, I will finally say it even though it is not part of our mission, make a donation.

selectors

Special thanks to my Executive Committee and everyone at Hogate who stead-

Gregory A. Williamson ’78 P’09

fastly supported our efforts. It has been my honor to serve Lawrenceville and you.

Peter C. Rubincam ’88 Frederick Cammerzell III ’68

In closing I commend to you our new officers, three great Lawrentians, to whom I

Victoria Y. Wei ’89

hope you will dedicate the same level of support you have given me: President Tim

Charles M. Fleischman ’76 Shannon Halleran McIntosh ’93

Wojciechowicz ’78 P’06 ’10 ’12, First Vice President Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91, and Second Vice President Ian Rice ’95.

faculty liaison

Timothy C. Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99

Leigh W. Lockwood ’65 P'97 '02 Former President, Alumni Association 215-340-1941 leigh@leighlockwood.com

54

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

9 Board Bits

L

awrenceville’s Board of Trustees returned to campus on April 28 and 29 for their third and final meeting of the school year. The mood was festive as Alumni Weekend greets the close of the spring meetings each year. Fifth formers share in the mood because the arrival of the Board marks the beginning of their graduation celebration when they join an emotional dinner with trustees to be welcomed into the Alumni Association by Board President Seth Waugh ’76 and other alumni leaders.

Opening the meetings on Thursday morning were the Property and Sustainability committees. Of particular note was the proposal from the Sustainability Committee to adopt an organic approach to our lawn and turf management. Having halted chemical treatments roughly five years ago, we have learned that no treatment at all brings more biodiversity than we want! Meanwhile, the Property Committee previewed the coming calendar of heavy construction. This summer alone saw the fourth of six phases of steam line replacement, the building of our archives facility in Bunn Library, facelifts for McClellan and Stanley Houses, and the beginning of Pop Hall’s two-year renovation. As disruptive as these projects were, the results will be both enduring and highly valuable to the School.

The Academic & Faculty Affairs Committee reviewed our professional development programs; the Student Affairs Committee discussed discipline and planned for the 25th anniversary of coeducation in 2012-2013; the Admissions & Financial Aid Committee focused on financial aid; and the Campaign Committee reviewed final Campaign numbers. Campaign Committee Co-Chair Tom Carter ’70 P’01 ’05 distributed a card with key “takeaways” from the Campaign: $218.5 million raised in five-and-a-half years during an economic recession; the largest gift in the School’s history; $105 million raised for endowment; $176 million cash in hand as of May 1, 2011; 885 percent return on investment net of the Woods gift; 8,600 donors, 341 volunteers, 34 staff members, and one tireless Head Master.

Also meeting were the Finance, Audit, and Investment committees. Finance approved the proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2012; Audit reviewed Form 990 filing requirements; and Investment reviewed our portfolio performance, rebalanced our investments, and continued to put Campaign funding to work. All of the committees were presented with the good news that our endowment now exceeds $330 million for the first time, thanks to the successful Campaign and prudent investment.

Friday brought a second round of meetings, as committees focused on globalization, diversity, and technology. Then the Board gathered for two meetings as a group. The committee of the whole covered a series of topics, but the highlights were the reflections of this year’s very thoughtful and successful Student Council and a student-led Big Red tribute to departing and retiring trustees: Melanie Clark P’02 ’05 ’07 ’10, Glenn Hutchins ’73, Katie Michaels McDowell ’92, David Ottaway ’57 P’86 ’91, and Ray Viault ’63 P’96.

The Board meeting reconvened after lunch when proposals were voted upon, farewells were offered, and the slate of incoming trustees was approved. The meeting concluded on time at 3:30 p.m., and Alumni Weekend kicked off on a beautiful spring afternoon.

Wes Brooks ’71 P’03 ’05 Chief Financial & Operating Officer

F ALL

2011

55

Upcoming Harkness Events A November 12, 2011: Lawrenceville

A April 19, 2012: Washington, DC

Hill Weekend: Back to Class/Harkness Teaching

The Poetry of James Merrill ’43

Lawrenceville Masters

Christopher Cunningham, Ph.D. P’14 A April 2012: Los Angeles

A January 26, 2012: Philadelphia

The Poetry of James Merrill ’43

The Poetry of James Merrill ’43

Christopher Cunningham, Ph.D. P’14

Christopher Cunningham, Ph.D. P’14 A February 8, 2012: New York

Lawrenceville Black Alumni Association Harkness Discussion Wilburn Williams, Ph.D. H’06

A May 4-5, 2012: Lawrenceville

Alumni Weekend: Celebrating 75 Years of Harkness Teaching A June 8-10, 2012: Lawrenceville

Harkness Weekend A February 2012: Atlanta

Head Master Liz Duffy H’43 & Lawrenceville Masters

The Poetry of James Merrill ’43 Christopher Cunningham, Ph.D. P’14 A March 1, 2012: New York Ulysses S. Grant's Lawrenceville Biographers:

Bunting and Porter

Josiah “Si” Bunting III H’37 ’88 P’88 ’97

Dates subject to change.

Please contact the Lawrenceville Alumni Office or check out The Lawrenceville School website for more information about these and other Harkness events.

Help Support the Next 75 Years by Making Your Gift Today P.O. Box 6125 Lawrenceville, New Jers ey 08648 www.lawrenceville.org/giving 609-895-2155

The Lawrenceville Fund The Lawrenceville Parents Fund

75th Anniversary of Harkness The Centerpiece of a Lawrenceville Education (id) Law.HARK.Ads 7.11.indd 2

56

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

7/21/11 4:33:04 PM

FINISH

by Zoe Vybiral-Bauske

photo by

Photo

Lawrenceville’s archive is home to a wealth of historical information. Unfortunately, it is also home to hundreds of mysterious photos. If you can provide any insight for the images below, please send the archivist an e-mail at ZVybiralBauske@lawrenceville.org. First responders will be credited in a future issue of The Lawrentian and will receive some nifty Lawrenceville swag.

1

3

96

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

2

4

5

1. Who could forget the original Tron?

Hopefully no one has forgotten the names of the boys playing the games in this photo. We’d also love to know where they lost all of their quarters.

2. This picture clearly shows a hot air balloon on the ground in the middle of the Bowl. What is unclear is what a

Photo

FINDINGS

Our special Old Lower edition of “Photo Finish” in the winter 2011 issue has yielded definitive results!

hot air balloon would be doing there.

If anyone remembers seeing this, we’d love to hear about it! There are several photos of this event in the archives, but none of them includes any dates or other useful details.

Boys Unpacking Congratulations to Tappen Swoper ’52 for his swift reply! (He was our very first respondent to this series of photos, spotting himself on the right hand side.) According to Swoper (and the 1949 issue of The Lawrentian, to which he directed our attention), this photo was taken on the first day of school in the fall of 1948, in Cromwell House. He doesn’t remember the fellow on the left, however. Any ideas?

3. There is truly nothing like a snow

Boy Decorating Cube Yet another sharp-eyed Lawrentian spotted himself in this photo. Maurice A. Ferré ’53 is the young man hanging decorations in his cubicle in Perry Ross.

The photo was taken in 1949, the year that Ferré was the Perry Ross House president.

day at Lawrenceville for fun (and photo opportunities). In fact, the archives collection contains an entire overstuffed folder of snow pictures.

We’re not sure who is in this snowdrift, or how he (or she?) came to be there. Any ideas?

4. The phrase “good clean fun” may not totally apply here, but whatever is going on in this photo appears to be a

Boy Making Bed Sadly, no one was able to hazard a guess about the identity of the boys in this photo, or of the year that it was taken. Remember that an epiphany can never come too late! If anyone has an idea about this (or any) photo from a previous issue, we would always love to hear it.

blast. Can anyone identify these boys?

Is this a school-sanctioned event or simply a case of goofing around?

5. The consensus is that these ducks are part of a traditional Lawrenceville event, but no one we asked can provide more detail. Care to take a “quack” at this mystery?

(Do forgive me.)

In an example of belated discovery, the influx of photo donations following the publication of the above Old Lower images allowed us to identify this former Mystery Building, first printed in the Annual Report, as Old Lower itself. We are grateful to former Lawrenceville infirmary nurses Camille Duncan and Maxine Olson for providing us with photos of the building’s exterior, allowing us to confirm what many alumni already knew. Tim Doyle, L’69 H’79 P’99, was the first to make a correct guess back in December.

Congratulations to Swoper, Ferré, and Doyle; the three of you may now begin eagerly checking your mailboxes for a much-coveted piece of Lawrentiana. We also want to express our gratitude to the entire Lawrenceville community for the outpouring of information about Old Lower in connection to the recent historical exhibition. (See the story on page 44.) We couldn’t have done it without you.

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 e-mail us at vvanisko@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!