2000 Edgehill, #1/2016

The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration Sc hool & University Sc hool of Nashville #1/2016

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UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

2000 Edgehill is published by the Alumni and Development Office for the Peabody Demonstration School and University School of Nashville community.

Vincent W. Durnan, Jr. Director Anne Westfall Development Director Connie Culpepper Communications Director, Editor Anna Myint ’04 Alumni Director Jenny Winston Archivist Our Mission University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of greater Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.

On the cover: First graders hike up the trail after completing their stream study of Richland Creek.

See the story about lower school Young Naturalists on page 18.

The editor thanks the volunteer writers who contributed to 2000 Edgehill; the Alexander family (again) for sharing their history; the alumni who gave permission for letters they wrote in high school more than forty years ago to appear in print; USN archivist Jenny Winston, who realized high school clubs made a good story; Lorie Strong and Anne Westfall for proofreading and editorial suggestions.

We would love to hear from you about anything you read in 2000 Edgehill, or, for that matter, whatever you have to say about your student days here.

Email cculpepper@usn.org or write Connie Culpepper University School of Nashville 2000 Edgehill Avenue Nashville, Tennessee 37212

University School of Nashville admits qualified students of any race, color, sexual orientation, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, financial aid policies, and athletic and other school-administered programs.

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The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville #1/2016

2 0 0 0 Letters to the Editor Mystery Solved 4 Story Forum Letters from the Seventies

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What Clubs Are (and Were) For

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Breaking Classroom Boundaries Network Connects Students, Teachers

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Children, Meet Nature

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Photo courtesy of Ellen Duke Haber ’00

Where You Live 28 Class Notes 30 Young Graduates Delay College 38 One School. Our Future. 44

This magazine has ambitions. We want to tell you stories about University School of Nashville today, right now, in motion. (This issue includes three such attempts, a measly number.)

We want to tell you, or perhaps remind you, what happened here long ago. As you may have grown weary of hearing, we’ve been here for a century, rarely letting the educational grass grow under our feet. Many stories to tell.

Then we toss in Class Notes, which reveal a tiny amount of what our nearly 4,000 alumni have done recently. Who can say what inspires people to send up these little flares in the wilderness? Babies, of course, and weddings; smaller changes too. Nowadays we need no longer depend on classmates to tell us when someone has died—we have Google Alerts. (No such newfangled method can take the place of the phone calls we used to get from Ben Ernst ’36, faithful alumnus and a careful reader of the obituaries. In the earliest days of the alumni and development office, Ben helped set up what would become our archives. Until recently he came to every reunion. His experience as a POW in a

German camp inspired the first feature article in our first alumni magazine, back in 1995.)

When you finish perusing the record number of notes and photos our alumni sent in this time (thank you, Anna Myint), examine the latest map of where our alumni live. We last showed you such a map in 2008, and since then we’ve learned a few things, thanks to Lorie Strong in our office. (See page 30.)

For even in this abundant issue, Class Notes come from fewer than a hundred of the nearly 4,000 of you we have addresses for.

(Much fewer—more like 60.) Even if we count the piece about the “gap year” taken by some of our newest alumni, most of you remain a mystery to us.

It may be that this map must bear the burden for the entire magazine, with its dots of alumni telling us plenty. Look where you’ve gone. nn

Connie Culpepper, Editor

When I think of home, I think of my family, a community, a unique space, independence, and a place where my opinions matter. When I think of USN, I think of home, which is why moving back to Nashville from New York City to be your Alumni Director and Social Media Manager was an easy decision. My goal as Alumni Director is to share with all alumni how the school is staying connected to its roots during this time of growth and change in Nashville and how it continues to be the USN we all know and love.

I was born and raised in Nashville, and I’m a proud member of USN’s 13 year club. After I graduated, I continued to stay connected to the school by being a class agent. Every year I was the unofficial host of reunions when classmates were back in Nashville. Using social media outlets such as Facebook made it easy to keep in touch with everyone. The school will forever have a special place in my heart.

When traveling to cities across the country and visiting with alumni at the Alumni Events we have been hosting, I came to understand that there were certain things that everyone remembers about USN—things that should never change. Topping this list are community, the high quality of faculty and staff, and student independence. A sense that USN is everyone’s home also resonates.

I have enjoyed connecting with all the alumni here in Nashville as well as those in other cities during our Alumni Events. (You can see photos of these events on the events for alumni page at usn.org.) I look forward to meeting each one of you as we continue to travel to cities this spring. And I’m excited to see many of you at the Reunion this April. nn

Anna Myint ’04, Alumni Director To see the daily happenings at USN, visit Facebook.com/usn.pds or Instagram.com/usn_pds.

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So Now What?

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he second century began this fall for our school. With that renewal, we embraced our next generation of thinking about what’s possible for education. Meanwhile, classrooms are full, teachers are busy with the routines that give life to our programs, and the calendar is packed. And still in the air floats the question of how best to move forward, whether by incremental step or quantum leap, inspired by our history and informed by our present day circumstances.

This issue of our magazine offers windows on that question, glimpses of learning in a range of settings. What the stories have in common is a time-honored reliance on remarkable faculty and willingness to think a little outside the norm. What we do at USN is both a product of current educational orthodoxies and a reaction to those trends—my guess that it has always been so here. In that tension, in that dialectic, we find the engine for progress in our programs.

Alongside that dynamic, consider also our place at any given era relative to the educational mainstream. At times, Peabody Dem and University School pushed the envelope harder (witness our Progressive Era startup, our 1930s constructivist orientation, our desegregated 1960s, our free-thinking 1970s, our alternativefriendly 1990s). Other decades saw us looking and acting more like familiar schools locally and nationally. Even in those big pendulum swings we still reflected larger societal trends—sometimes ahead, other times trailing the zeitgeist.

That inquiry brings us to now and to the persistent challenge of seeing our work via the long view. It strikes me that by historic standards we currently occupy a safely centrist position, and for at least three important reasons. First, there’s greater consensus than ever on the topic of educational best practice, especially for our youngest learners. Second, our pop culture is great at saying we learn best from failure but terrible at accepting failure when it comes to allocating educational opportunity. And third, perhaps most practically, our graduates attend such a staggering array of colleges and universities that we’ve leaned toward creating a transcript that even a stranger to USN can understand.

As defensible as that position may be, we still need to return regularly to our ongoing purpose and affirm our direction. Last year a copy of our founder Thomas Alexander’s 1924 text Arithmetics (written with Charles Madison Sarratt) came our way through the generosity of the Alexander family. In its introduction, those

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

visionary educators shared a dozen “underlying principles,” among them: n That children should be able to solve problems dealing with life situations n That the problem material should be interesting and real n That the natural tendencies of children should be utilized n That the laws of habit formation should be employed throughout n That problem tests should contain more work than any child can finish in the allotted time in order to make provision for individual differences I’m not sure those priorities get much air time in current discussion of educational reform. Policymakers have been too busy standardizing assessments, or arguing about states’ rights with regard to those assessments, or wondering about falsified results or withheld spending as a result of those assessments. And still we need to find a way forward within that partisan climate, such that we keep as many doors open as possible for our students who, after all, will live in the world that those tests now shape.

Ours though, is the beautiful opportunity to revisit first principles, and my conversations this fall with members of our senior class indicate that Dr. Alexander’s message resonates just as much four generations later. There’s a hunger to make things, to work on complex contemporary problems, to get out in the community beyond our campus. Too frequently now formal education feels like a series of boxes to be checked and hurdles to be cleared (not to disparage the fine work of our track team).

It strikes me that the internal and external conditions for a broad consideration of our educational model may rarely have been more propitious. We’ll do so from a position of strength and humility, with much to be learned from our predecessors. What’s next for USN needs to reflect our fiscal realities, our rapidly changing city, the exponential expansion of information access, and the worrisome state of our polarized profession. And I could not be more excited to dig into that work in the company of such good people. nn So it continues,

Vince Durnan, Director

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LETTERS to the EDITOR n We continue to hear from you about the photo of the 1945 football team in Centennial Edition I. Betty Jones Cherry ’47, who says she was “one of the noisy cheerleaders that year,” could identify almost everyone. “I will list according to jersey numbers, starting at front row from left. Steve Cragon-9, George Root-14, Leonard Melton-19, (might be Joe Naron)??-27, Everett Kelly (number illegible), Jim Mark-15, Slim Kuykendall-??, ???-number 1, Joe Hibbetts-16, Bob Massie-10, Bob Goodman-13, Dennis Cooke-3, David Jones (my brother)-6, ??-20, Jordan Litsey-28 (he was brave enough to teach me to drive), ??-24 (could be [Earl] Woolwine), ??-4, Mr. Neil, Albert Ewing-21, ??-25, ??-5, Creason Clayton-18, ??-22, Bill Tankersley-11, (maybe) Stan Boyd-17, Frank Ingraham-8, Coach Bridges beside Bobby Goodman, and of course, beautiful Kim Massie in front.” We have not, as Betty feared, “had enough of the 1945 football team.” She concludes, “Those were wonderful years for all of us. In 1945 I was a sophomore, just learning the wonders of P.D.S.” n Bob Helton ’46, number 20 and easy to

find in the picture, called for a chat inspired by that same photo. In addition to the fun of being on that football team, he recalled Dr. Beauchamp’s part in getting him a scholarship to Vanderbilt. Bob also remembered being in the P.D.S. Boy Scout troop and, along with Bob Massie, becoming an Eagle Scout. “It was a wonderful school,” he said.

“I had the best education possible.”

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Mystery Solved

Our photo of the singing, dancing children remains somewhat mysterious.

Two people wrote to comment on it. n Tommy Trabue ’58 says, “I believe the young girl dancing in the plaid dress is Letitia Murray. She is the sister of Shade Murray my classmate at the Dem School. I’m not sure when the photo was taken but Shade and I were classmates in the 5th and 6th grade in about 1951 and 1952. I transferred to Peabody midyear of the fifth grade. Mrs. Book was our teacher. And I believe that Mrs. Bucklehyde was the music teacher at that time. My spelling of her name is probably incorrect. The photo could have been taken in her class room on the third floor. The small chairs make me unsure of that. However, the children could have been sitting at tables during regular class if the photo was taken in their normal class room.” n Barbara Cooper Wilkins ’67 thought she recognized one child: “the young boy sitting second from the left in the front row. That would seem to be David Allen, Class of 1963. He was older than I was but his father (Jack Allen) and mine (Kenneth Cooper) were history professors at Peabody College.”

The Centennial Celebration

n I just wanted to take a moment to say what a wonderful job you did capturing the 100th Birthday Party and Reunions in this last Edgehill magazine. Thank you so much for all the care and caring that go into each issue. But this one was really special!

Carol Norris Brown ’70

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PDS/USN archives

Mystery Photo

We know that this is a photo of the Audio-Visual Club, taken for the 1973 yearbook. But we have other questions. Whose classroom was that with the walls covered in photographs? Did this club really do anything—tinker with the machines, help teachers show their filmstrips, tote equipment from the storage closet to where it was needed? Did any of these boys, whoever they may be, end up in careers that were foreshadowed by this interest? If you can shed light on any of these questions or if you have your own recollections of the A-V Club, please email Connie Culpepper at cculpepper@usn.org or call 615-321-8011.

n I just finished reading the glorious centennial edition of 2000 Edgehill and am compelled to write. Well done! What a fabulous celebratory year, and a well-designed magazine to document it. You will not be surprised to hear how thrilled I am to see such a strong archival presence—as part of the year-long celebration and in the periodical. Looks like y’all have a new, seasoned archivist?

Alison Ernst, former director of USN’s Hassenfeld Library

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

n The 100th celebration was a great success; congratulations to all who helped make it happen! Class of ’54 represented by Audrey Riven Wolf, Charlotte Wolfe, and myself.

(My sister, Susan Hiller, PDS Nursery School through Grade 4 attended with me.)

Many happy memories came rushing back.

Great to see Christine Tibbott—after all these years recognized me in an instant and had a couple of very pertinent remembrances rolling right off her tongue! She is a treasure

and PDS/USN did itself proud by naming the art facility in her honor. Thoughts of the many superb teachers and of Dr. McCharen were constantly there as I wandered through the halls. Kudos to all of them.

Scott Sudduth ’54

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“Peabody Has Lived Up to Your Dreams”

By Connie Culpepper, editor

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s he lay in a nursing home bed in the fall of 1970, Thomas Alexander received a packet of letters from high school students at Peabody Demonstration School—students he had never laid eyes on. They wrote to thank him for founding the school they loved.

“Tom got a real lift from the letters as he did the messages which came last spring from the members of the first graduating class.

Tom was answering his mail until mid-summer when I had to take it over,” Mrs. Alexander writes to whoever had sent the students’ letters to her. (The note, which has no salutation, must be a first draft of a letter which was later mailed.)

all photos from PDS/USN archives

This summer Thomas Alexander’s grandson Ed Alexander sent us those letters, along with a draft of the thank you Grace Andrews Alexander wrote in response. Though her husband would remain alive for another year, he was no longer well enough to manage his own correspondence.

Bob Smotherman, PDS principal

men who wrote, Sam Caldwell and Katherine Meyer, left Peabody before graduating. Here is Sam’s letter, all of it:

“I am happy that Tom is still able to understand most of his correspondence which comes. I often read it to him several days in succession and find that he has remembered,” she says.

My name is Sam Caldwell. I am a ninth grader at Peabody Demonstration School. I would like to express my appreciation for everything you have done.

It seems that Bob Smotherman, PDS principal, told some high school students that Dr. Alexander was ill and invited them to write to him. Perhaps it was an announcement made in assembly.

The other letters open a rare window into what students thought and felt about their school in 1970, a time when a dispassionate observer would have said the school had strayed far from its founding ideals. The day when Peabody College would give up on Alexander’s experiment, deciding with no apparent regrets to close the Demonstration School, was just four years away.

Not surprisingly, most of the students ignored Mr. Smotherman’s request. But we have eight letters that teenagers wrote to a man they never met. A couple of the letters seem perfunctory, and some may just say what the writer imagined old Dr. Alexander would want to hear. But a few seem heartfelt.

Three students were beginning their senior year: Mark Artzer, new to Nashville, who had been at PDS only a couple of months; Paul LeQuire, who came in ninth grade; Martha Maggart, who had attended Peabody for two years.

Three juniors wrote. Mollie Gore (five years at PDS), Patricia Pailet (two years), and Candy Sullivan (four years). The two fresh-

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Of course, neither these students nor their teachers imagined that time was running out for their school. Who knows what Thomas Alexander thought of PDS in those days? He had visited Nashville in 1967, when Peabody College honored him (along with two teachers who had gained fame for other pursuits, folklorist “Jimmy Driftwood” and writer Jesse Stuart). But that visit was during summer vacation, so he couldn’t have seen the Dem School in action.

But perhaps someone said to him at that Breakfast, “Have you

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Alexander says in her note, “We are looking forward to the history of P.D.S. being written by the Senior Seminar.”

seen those Dem School kids?” or “Did you know PDS has turned into a hippie school?” or “Did you hear what’s going on over at the Demonstration School?”

In 1970 PDS students were protective, perhaps even defensive, of their school. Here is senior class president Paul LeQuire: The main thing I want to express to you about Peabody and its greatest difference from other high schools is its changing with the time. True, people say Peabody is too liberal and too lenient but they are only jealous of our liberties. The system is controlled by the parents and the administration working together. This is a great system in the eyes of the students.

Paul LeQuire ’70

This is my last year at Peabody and as Senior Class President I plan to make it the best, for myself and my class. We are planning a class trip out of state which I hope to pull through with help from others. I am writing you to tell you how much I have enjoyed your school. Right now it is the best school in the nation to me and I hope it will continue to grow and change under your name.

I wish I knew what Mr. Smotherman said to the students. The letters are dated (if at all) October 26 or 27. Tell Dr. Alexander about yourself, he must have said— your favorite classes, your activities. Thank him for starting this school, because where would we be if he hadn’t?

Janet Clodfelter ’70 interviewed Dr. Alexander when she was working on her chapter, “Early Years of Peabody Demonstration School.” She writes, “Dr. Alexander, sometimes called ‘The Father of Peabody Demonstration School,’ is still living today, retired in North Carolina.” His health began to fail soon after. These letters may have been his last communication with Peabody Demonstration School students.

Martha Maggart ’71

I was not aware until this time that we, the students of this school, owe so much to you. I cannot say how much this school has meant to all the students who have come here for an education, but I feel that I am including many when I say that Peabody has been the most wonderful part of my life so far. I am a senior here and athough I have only

attended the Demonstration School for two years I feel as though I have been here since kindergarten. I live in Lebanon, about 30 miles from Nashville, and I came here be-

Patricia Pailet ’72

I really do feel honored to be sitting here writing a letter to the founder of my school. I began Peabody in my freshman year (ninth grade) on my own free will. ….I am now in the eleventh grade, and I love it! I enjoy taking part in school activities—the French club, cheerleading, and I am one of the class editors of the literary magazine. My favorite subjects are French and history.

These students had never heard of Thomas Alexander before.

The previous year, the seniors in Leland Johnson’s “American Problems” class had written The Past Is Prologue: Peabody Demonstration School 1915-1970. But the book had not yet appeared in print. Grace

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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Patricia Pailet ’72

Martha Maggart ’71

Mark Artzer ’71

cause I felt that Peabody had more to offer in all aspects of education.

People often ask me if it is worth driving 60 miles a day just to attend school, especially one as small as P.D.S. They also wonder what it is like attending a school with only a basketball team that seldom wins.

I have to agree with them about the size and the seemingly scarceness of good athletes, however I find these things trivial especially when P.D.S. has so much more that one can only experience and appreciate by being here among the students.

I know very little about the history of Peabody, but can tell you of the Peabody that I know. The school is the people who come here. They are Black, White, Jew, and Gentile. They are liberal, conservative, apathetic, and involved. Above all they are kids.

They strive, fail, achieve, joke, cry, cheat, and are sometimes caught using their time for things which time should not be used for in the eyes of their elders. Here you can find the student who is offered academic scholarships from the top universities in the nation. Here you can also find the student who must settle for a less demanding future. I place myself in the middle of these two, and though at times I rise to the top, there are times when I fall aside. I guess the most important aspect of the student body is the amazing harmony here.

I have never before seen such friendly and open people. They are not afraid of what someone else may say, they do what they feel is right for them. This may account for the beauty of the complete individuality.

Our school is often described as being a “hippie” school. Well, it is hip.

You will find long hair on boys as well as girls, bell bottom blue jeans seem to dominate the attire of the students, and peace symbols dangle from almost every neck. You may cringe at the thought of such a free atmosphere, yet even though I have never met you I feel that this is the way you want Peabody to be. You helped to give many unhappy kids a place to learn not only Algebra and English, but an unlisted course called humanology.

I have tried to give you an idea of what this institution is like from a very personal point of view. There are others who I am sure would disagree with me, and I will even admit that P.D.S. does have its faults.

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Candy Sullivan ’72

Mollie Gore ’72

But I can honestly say that the advantages outweigh the faults. I wish you could come back to Peabody and see the changes (and I am sure there have been some changes). You would be most welcome and we would be honored by your presence.

I find that I must close now. I have to read Aristotle’s Poetics by this Wednesday and I am a great procrastinator. I hope that through this short letter you have in a small way visited Peabody Demonstration School.

Many people owe you a thanks which I feel you seldom receive. I want to extend mine to you at this time. Thank you Dr. Alexander for these two years that have brought more happiness than you can ever imagine. I wish that I could shake your hand.

Even someone who had been at PDS less than two months was willing to write. Did he get his wish about the winning season in basketball just a year after going “3 for 20”? By the next year Coach Parsons had disappeared, and Mr. Stitely was coaching the boys’ basketball team.

Mark Artzer ’71

This is my first year at Peabody and I’m a senior. I was really disappointed that you would not be able to see Peabody again. Actually by looking at the building this year I don’t think it has changed much from the day it was founded, all except the faculty. Peabody is completely different from any school I have ever attended. When classes are small it is really easy to get a better understanding of the material and even the people you associate with, it’s just like one great big family. Another thing you are able to do under these conditions is help others. Just recently I have been seeing a first grader who has had trouble getting along with the other kids in his class. I come down and get him out of class and we walk around campus collecting leaves or something like that. We both really enjoy the meetings, and he needs to feel that someone really cares for him. …I have been real busy with basketball after school. I really enjoy

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participating in sports. I was rather disappointed to find out that Peabody no longer has a football team. The big sport is basketball but last year’s record was only 3 for 20. This year we are hoping for a winning season.

Candy Sullivan ‘72

Peabody has made it possible for me to receive a wonderful education.

But outside and sometimes more important than education is the social aspect of a school. P.D.S. has let me meet people that I would have never been able to meet alone. Being an upper-middle class, white, doctor’s daughter and Christian, I probably would have never had much interaction with black people or people of a race different from my own. I would probably have never known much about liberals or atheists. Not all of these relationships have been to my advantage— but all have taught me how life will be in the outside world.

Thus I thank Peabody for requiring my best effort. For mixing me with those different from myself. But most of all, for being a “realistic” school. And I thank you, in turn, for some 50 years ago bringing Peabody Demonstration School to life.

Only six years had passed since the first African-American students came to Peabody Demonstration School, helping make it the “realistic” school Candy describes. In just one more year, the Dem School’s enrollment would spike with students from families who wanted to avoid court-ordered busing. Change was coming to the school that had been “recently liberalized,” as a junior girl described it.

Mollie Gore ’72

I go to Peabody Demonstration School. My name is Mollie Gore and I am a junior. I have been at Peabody for five years and want to take this opportunity to write the man that has founded our wonderful school. I have red hair and gray-green eyes. I can’t stand math and

love psychology, read a great deal, and enjoy doing flips off a mini trampoline. I think you would be very proud of the school you founded so many years ago.

Peabody is a good school. Its academic record is good but that doesn’t make a school good. Peabody has been recently liberalized; as a result many “Hippies” go here, of which I am one. Many people think that is bad and that it detracts from the school’s value. I do not think that is so. Peabody is dedicated to giving people educations without which people can do nothing and contribute nothing to the world. Peabody gives the freedom to grow and develop as an individual as well as develop your mind. The Hippies that go here are a group of sensitive people, some of them brilliant, that are trying to find truth and peace of mind in a world that is so confused and upset. Just in case you’re interested I will tell you how I became one of these despised people.

When I came to Peabody I …could see no sense in the endless sororities and fraternities that my peers were getting ready to engage in.

They made fun of me because I was different and I was very scarred by the time I got out of Junior High. Then the school became liberalized and a new kind of people appeared at Peabody. They helped me to grow instead of rejecting me further and I matured and they were kind and I had friends and I was happy for the first time since I entered school. I am still very bitter about it as you can probably tell from my letter.

We consider ourselves lucky to have Peabody to go to, we thank you for that. We search for truth and wisdom and ourselves. Peabody is the kind of school that can help us make ourselves the kind of people that the world needs.

You must be a truly wonderful man to have founded a school like Peabody. Well, take it from one who goes here, Peabody has lived up to your dreams. Thank you. nn

The Letter Writers

Mark Artzer ’71 is a dentist in Newport News, Virginia.

Paul LeQuire ’71 lives in Nashville and owns Paul LeQuire and Company, an art gallery and gift shop in Green Hills.

Martha Maggart Funke ’71 was graduated from Vanderbilt with a major in Art History. After living in New Orleans, Winston-Salem, and Salt Lake City, for the past 30 years she has lived in Kingsport, Tennessee. She and her husband Bob have three adult children, and Martha owns an antique store, Artiques.

Mollie Gore Wynn ’72 lives in Burns, Tennessee. For decades she has worked at TriStar Centennial Medical Center, where Dr. Samuel Dillard ’56 was the Laboratory Medical Director for many years. Mollie is now Laboratory Quality Assurance and Point of Care Coordinator.

Her husband died a few years ago, and she has a 22-year-old son.

Patricia Pailet ’72 was an honors student and cheerleader among other active roles. She graduated from Lafayette University with a B.A. in English and was working towards a post-graduate accounting degree at the University of Utah when her life was sadly cut short in 1981 at age 26.

Candy Sullivan Lindsay ’72 returned to the Nashville area 5 years ago to become Senior Director of Talent Management and Operations for Vanderbilt University and Medical Center. She and her husband Steve live in Brentwood and have 4 daughters and 4 granddaughters.

We were unable to find Sam Caldwell ’74 and Katherine Meyer ’74, neither of whom graduated from Peabody Demonstration School.

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Three Students, a Teacher, and a Place to Meet

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By Connie Culpepper, editor, and Jenny Winston, archivist

nnovation in education—that’s been USN’s purpose since 1915. It inspired Thomas Alexander to found Peabody Demonstration School.

Never have our classroom walls contained all the teaching and learning that happens here. Nor have teachers ever been in complete charge of it all.

Often students take the reins, deciding what they want and need to learn and figuring out how to acquire the knowledge. Sometimes they design an independent study—in the fall semester this year, 46 high school students explored the History of the Universe, or Portuguese language, Advanced Mathematics, or Guitar Building.

And here’s another way of learning: in high school, anyone can start a club. It takes three members, a willing teacher, and a place to meet. This year we have 47 clubs, old and new. Some of these exist to accomplish a specific goal, such as raising money to build a house for Habitat for Humanity or creating more school spirit.

Others Aim to Educate

In 1927, PDS students Walter Sharp, Dillard Jacobs, and some of their friends convinced their English teacher Miss Lucille Heath to become the sponsor of their Cinema Club. As Dillard Jacobs wrote half a century later, “The beneficial role played by the Demonstration School in all this was that of acquiescence.

Miss Heath and the Administration no doubt smoothed our way without telling us and, I am glad to say, seemed to have been favorably impressed with the results. However, the school had no dramatics teacher and so far as I can recall, Miss Heath never strayed from her role as a sponsor and chaperone when we went ‘on location.’”

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It was the students who were figuring out how to make movies.

No one, certainly not Miss Heath, could teach them this brandnew art form. Masque, their feature length film (shown at USN’s Centennial “Movie Night at the Belcourt”) was the first film made in Nashville and one of the first privately made in the country. (Read the archived 2000 Edgehill article about the Cinema Club at usn.org/publications.)

No other club at PDS and USN has been so spectacularly trailblazing as the Cinema Club nor left behind such a testament to the club’s passion. But what an array of adolescent interests— daffy, goofy, satiric, self-important, obscure, and oh so earnest— is encapsulated in a list of PDS and USN clubs compiled from leafing through old Volunteers. The Microscope Club! The Young Republicans! The Bird Club! The Creative Dance Club!

Learning in Clubs

Many a club testifies to a young person’s desire to speak another language, often French, and soak up the other country’s culture.

Others hinge on some new technology—a movie camera, yes, but also a computer, a mysterious “audio-visual” gadget, other cameras. The arts loom large, especially music. We once had a Barber Shop Sextet Club, when exactly six high school kids at USN wanted to sing that kind of music—and exactly five middle school kids formed the Barber Shop Quintet Club the same year.

Dance, drama, literature of various kinds, filling the holes in the curriculum and the adolescent soul.

Consider today’s Science Fiction Film Club, possible successor to the ’20s Cinema Club. As club sponsor and English teacher Dean Masullo says, “The Science Fiction Film Club’s staying power points to the emergence of a serious interest in Film Studies at USN in recent years. Since the club’s founding in 2010, students

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Some clubs soon wither like the grass, but others—like the Science Fiction Film Club—thrive for years or transform themselves in the course of time. The Bird Club appears only in 1937, 1940, and 1947— since then, nothing ornithological has taken flight here. The Record Club lasted from 1947 until 1954, with 30 students calling themselves members in 1950. Then it faded away. This year a sophomore tried to start a Hip-Hop Listening Club, but interest fell short, a common enough story for the trial balloons that these clubs are.

A Vanished World

have taken a number of Independent Studies in topics such as silent film, European cinema, and film history, and in the spring the high school will be offering its first Film Studies course.” Dean also mentions the club members’ regular patronage of Nashville’s independent, non-profit movie house, the Belcourt Theater.

“I think this club is important to the student body as a means of cultural exposure,” says club co-president Henry Condon. “Without it, I would not have watched half the movies we’ve shown— movies that have definitely impacted and creatively inspired me in my life.”

Some clubs are so much the product of their times that no 2016 equivalent exists.

Consider the Household Arts Club, which maintained its popularity throughout the 1940s. Archivist Jenny Winston tracked its all-girl membership through successive Volunteers.

This club had no need to fill a hole in the curriculum—these girls were taking a Home Economics class. They may have been learning new skills or improving ones they were learning at their mothers’ knees. Perhaps their mothers were less concerned with fashion than the girls were. Jenny says, “Popular activities included giving luncheons and practicing crafts such as knitting and

Top: The Bird Club in 1939 Left: Some of the members of the Feminism Club The Science Fiction Film Club’s Star Wars screening this year

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decorating holiday cookies—which their 1940s predecessors certainly would have recognized as a household art. Of course they were also watching a cooking show as they spread Nutella and sprinkles on their cookies, then ate them.

Broadening the Conversation

What if we trace the line of descent another way? We find a club that the Household Artists of seventy years ago couldn’t have imagined.

One day in the 2014 Advanced Placement English class, Ann Wheeler was shocked to hear the girls disparage feminism. It became clear to her that no one knew much about it. Ann says, “I imagine I got on a soapbox for a little while about how different the world would be for women today without feminism.”

It must have been an effective soapbox, for soon Sofia Navarre ’14 decided to start the Feminism Club to, in Ann’s words, “open the conversation for interested people and to combat misconceptions.” Two years later, it remains an active club, meeting weekly in Dr. Wheeler’s classroom and led by a group of sophomores: Talia Barton, Evelyn TeSelle, Abby Varney, and Ella Varney. sewing things to wear. At least twice, members presented fashion shows for the school, modeling the clothing they made.”

In 1942 they welcomed guest speakers: Charles Brown, a wellknown hairdresser who spoke on “the care of the hair,” and Jane Dalton, a personal shopper from department store Cain-Sloan, who spoke on “Spring styles and fashions.”

By 1950, which seems to be the club’s final year, the Volunteer offers only a perfunctory description of the club’s activities; it “entertained at several social functions and extended charity to poor families.”

Nowadays no club limits its membership to girls, and though arguably both boys and girls could use instruction in household arts, none is provided at USN, unless you count an elective food science class taught by Director of Operations Erik Mash ’93.

The Household Arts Club’s 2016 iteration might be the Culinary Club. According to its sponsor English teacher Robbie McKay, the club likes to discuss cuisine and cooking. This club meets in Mr. McKay’s room during lunch every Tuesday, often watching and talking about cooking shows—a phenomenon that would have puzzled the Household Arts club.

Students in the Culinary Club go to new restaurants, try out recipes and share the results with each other, and cook snacks for school events or bake sales. The day we visited, they were

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Talia says, “I want to build a community within USN that can engage in meaningful conversations about feminist issues.” Wideranging discussions have included the Presidential election, men in feminism, Instagram censorship, strippers, prostitution, sexism in popular music, and more. “We had the most people come for ‘Men in Feminism.’ The whole room was filled, and a lot of people were involved in the conversation.”

Several boys regularly attend the meetings, and club leaders want to make sure that many voices are heard. Abby Varney wants to work on “how to diffuse certain arguments that arise from discussion or direct a conversation in a different way to keep everyone’s opinions heard without anyone getting shut down immediately.

One of our goals as a club is to create an environment where everyone is welcome and feels comfortable to share all of the ideas.

We are still working on this, as some people don’t feel as if they are able to state their direct opinion.”

“We hope to make connections with other organizations who have similar goals as us to collaborate with them and create a network where we can all share our ideas and create an open discussion,” says Abby. Talia would like to go beyond USN, attending rallies in support of refugees or Planned Parenthood.

Finding time for such activities is always a problem for USN students. High School Dean of Student Life Justin Karpinos says, “It’s not uncommon to see students sign up for a dozen clubs, try each of them, and gradually whittle their list down to something

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a Cards Club. These boys (yes, all boys) devoted a weekly lunch period to learning new card games and tricks and generally becoming crackerjack card players. This year, putting away the cards, Ben convinced his friends to learn about cryptography, his passion. “What I most love about cryptography and math is the constant presence of patterns to be found and made; I have always had an obsession for order,” he says.

Ben is a brilliant student with many talents, including synesthesia, in his case associating colors with numbers and musical notes, and unusual mathematic and musical abilities. Another part of what makes Ben tick is his mild form of autism. His unusual mind both inspires him to start clubs and draws other students to share in his interests. When he graduates (two years early, by the way), the Cryptography Club may well disappear, like the 1946 Romani Hodierni or the Pipe Club in 1980.

The Investment Club, however, survived the 2014 graduation of its founders David Shayne and Sterling Schwartz.

One of its current leaders, Ted Noser ’18, says, “My main goal is to teach my friends and fellow students all I can about the world of investing as early as possible.”

Twenty-two people have joined the club’s virtual stock exchange game on MarketWatch, competing for a prize to be awarded at the end of the school year. The club invited USN’s Chief Financial Officer Teresa Standard to talk to the club about her role and the current financial state of the school.

Ted says, “I feel like I am teaching an informal class on investment with very limited knowledge and preparation, so I’ve learned that teaching is very difficult and requires a lot of effort.

Considering I only do this every two weeks for less than 40 minutes, I don’t know how my teachers do it day in, day out. The club has given me a new appreciation for my teachers.”

Opposite page: The Household Arts Club glumly makes biscuits in 1951; Above: the Culinary Club decorates (and eats) holiday cookies.

that’s more manageable throughout the year.” With 13 of the 47 clubs this year being brand new, there’s always a new interest to explore.

Exploring a Passion

Sometimes a club springs from the brain of one student whose interest is so compelling that others follow along. Take the Cryptography Club. Last year its founder, Ben Liske ’16, started

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Peabody Demonstration School’s first clubs appear in the 1920 Volunteer: nine of them including football, baseball, and basketball for girls and boys. The real clubs? Just Student Council, Dramatic Society, Boys’ and Girls’ Glee Club, and Volunteer staff. Most likely each of these was a teacher’s idea, and students signed up.

Not so now. Almost every lunch period, high school students gather in classrooms to figure out how to change the world, right some wrongs, open minds, and stuff their brains with more ideas. nn

Visit usnarchives.omeka.net/exhibits for an overview of clubs at USN from the 1920s through the 1980s, with plenty of archival photos.

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MSON: Bursting the Boundaries of Curriculum and Classroom

By Jeff Edmonds, High School Academic Dean

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hat if there were ways for USN students and teachers to demonstrate our way of learning and teaching to other schools across the country? What if our curriculum were supplemented with courses from top independent schools in Texas, New England, California, and Minnesota? What if our students could explore different school cultures and build relationships with students who might be their college classmates in a few years? What if all this could happen in real time, face to face, as an ordinary part of the school day?

You might be surprised to find out that we are answering these questions daily in room 4237. The morning might find Mei Yen Cracraft and students speaking Chinese while sipping tea. Midday could bring the high school leadership team discussing its next innovative project. Afternoons, the classroom becomes a portal that opens out onto schools across the country through two high definition televisions, a couple of remote controlled cameras, and of course the most essential part of the experiment: a few USN teachers and learners.

It’s our third year of work with the Malone Schools Online Network (MSON), a consortium of nineteen schools nationwide that have received funding from the Malone Family Foundation in recognition of their interest in and success with educating gifted and talented students. The courses offer a blend of synchronous instruction—real-time video conferencing seminars—with asynchronous instruction—recorded lectures and exercises that students complete outside of class. The result is a virtual learning classroom of 6 to 16 students from a wide range of schools.

This fall USN students took Arabic and Bioethics, and math teacher Dr. Justin Fitzpatrick streamed Advanced Abstract Math

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Bioethics online class

“it is so refreshing to have both a completely different learning environment and an opportunity to collaborate with students from across the country” lectures out nationwide. Their experiences read like reports from the frontier of education.

For Dr. Fitz the course offers a chance for him to continue engaging with material that is beyond the typical high school curriculum. He teaches students who have exhausted the courses in their home-base high schools. As in his courses at USN, active learning is at the heart of his methods, and even though the students have never met in real life, students are “comfortable criticizing the work of other students and receiving criticism from them.”

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Student reports are just as positive. Junior Lauryn Cravens, taking Medical Bioethics along with Lindsay Hardy and Shayna Elliott, says that “it is so refreshing to have both a completely different learning environment and an opportunity to collaborate with students from across the country.” Her teacher, with a doctorate in Genetics and Plant Biology, teaches at Wilmington Friends School in Delaware. Lauryn notes that the class has allowed her to reflect on the limits of the USN experience. “Sometimes we fall victim to the ‘bubble effect’ and forget that there is a world outside of USN or Nashville, and MSON has really reminded me to stay open-minded and appreciate what new students bring to the table.”

photo by Kimberly Manz

MSON offers USN students the choice of upwards of a dozen courses each semester—The American Food System, Fundamentals of Nuclear Science, Technology and Identity, Vergil’s Aeneid, and Introduction to Organic Chemistry. But its value lies in more than these expanded choices and the chance to explore teaching and learning beyond our walls.

Everyone who knows Dr. Fitz sees that his passion is driven by student interest in learning. “When I see students joking with one another or collaborating with one another as though they were only a few feet apart, even though they are hundreds of miles away, this brings me great joy.”

Perhaps just as crucially, this program allows us to practically engage in the philosophical questions of 21st century education. The future is here: Room 4237 is a real classroom at 2000 Edgehill Avenue. Even better, this technology allows us to engage these questions in collaboration with a national community of peers, expanding our own sense of what education could be and bringing others along with us.

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As innovative as all this sounds and is, it’s quite ordinary around here. Just another instance of USN—in the founding spirit of Peabody Demonstration School—demonstrating what is possible in education. nn

2015-2016 MSON Schools

Stanford Online High School, California Chadwick School, California

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Mounds Park Academy, Minnesota Canterbury School, Indiana University school of Nashville, Tennessee St. Andrew’s Episcopal Day School, Mississippi Indian Springs School, Alabama Augusta Preparatory Day School, Georgia Trinity Preparatory School, Florida Fort Worth Country Day School, Texas

Waynflete School, Maine The Derryfield School, New Hampshire Manlius Pebble Hill School, New York Hopkins School, Connecticut Newark Academy, New Jersey Winchester Thurston School, Pennsylvania Wilmington Friends School, Delaware Severn School, Maryland Maret School, Washington DC

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photo by Martin O’Connor

Bringing Magic to the Stage

By Jim Manning, technical theater teacher

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ights come up on a scene from the middle school musical, Peter Pan, Jr. The Chief delivers his opening line, “Greetings, boy who can fly!” as the 50 actors onstage and the audience turn to where he is pointing. But no Peter Pan appears onstage.

Then everyone hears a sickening groan through the PA system.

We know it’s Peter Pan, but because his wireless microphone is coming through the speakers, no one is sure where he is. But he sounds hurt.

Tense moments always come in producing a show as big as the middle school musical. But the students and their families learn one major lesson through the experience—that everyone will be working together, and we all have each other’s backs.

Because of this, the middle school musical has become one of our school’s rare full community functions, seen by many as an opening celebration to the school year.

“What if we ran rehearsals for the musical like a camp in the summer and had the show open on the first week of school?”

Onstage, the actors calmly freeze in their spots. Backstage, the middle school tech crew starts looking for Josh Usdan, the actor playing Peter Pan. Director Bakari King flies out of his position in the orchestra pit to help find Josh. And then the crew locates him.

Josh lies flat on his back in the hallway behind the stage. He has fallen and hit his head. King asks if he can walk, and he says he thinks he can. King asks if he can go on, and he thinks he can do

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this too. King then carries him onstage and puts him on his mark.

The crowd erupts in applause and a middle school student on the first row screams, “We love you, Josh!”

This middle school musical experience has roots that go way back—roots that have helped this production grow into the massive undertaking it has become. When Robie Jackson became the middle school theater teacher, the musical had around 30 students participating. After her first year, she had a brainstorm.

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photo by Martin O’Connor

She asked USN director Vince Durnan, “What if we ran rehearsals for the musical like a camp in the summer and had the show open on the first week of school?”

Opposite page: The Lion King, Jr., August 2015 This page: Peter Pan (top), 2014; Fiddler on the Roof, 2004; Alice in Wonderland, 2010

Mr. Durnan had one question: “Would anyone come? Would students really give up two weeks of their summer right before school starts?” Jackson convinced Vince and middle school head JeffGreenfield to give it a try, and the gamble paid off—with 74 students signing up for Fiddler on the Roof, Jr.

LaBour, Melissa Flatt, and Natasha Tibbott for help with costumes, puppets, and logistics.

That is a lot of people to put onstage (and backstage) in the USN Auditorium. After the first performance, Vince Durnan said to Robie, “That was a great show, but if the Fire Marshall had walked through, I’m pretty sure it would have been shut down.” Durnan began conversations with Ingram Hall, and the second summer musical, Oliver! Jr. opened with 90 students onstage across the street on the Vanderbilt campus.

Jeff Greenfield notes that, “In addition to the actors, we now have an entire technical crew that learns its craft while helping build the set and run the lights and sound, eventually running the show themselves at Ingram Hall.”

Bakari King describes his first year at USN as a “roller coaster ride without a seatbelt.” They held auditions the first 3 days of rehearsal and never got through a full run-through of the show before they opened. When the lights went down after that first performance, King cried—the students had remembered everything. The experience taught him what needed to be done—and what needed to never happen again.

Robie Jackson envisioned the show as a chance for new middle school students to begin the school year with a whole group of friends. For an hour on that stage, everyone has to work together to make the show happen, and they all have to help each other through tense moments.

After that first year, Anita Jenson, a middle school parent at the time, approached King and offered to organize some parents to help out with this growing production. Since then, King has called on the talents of such parents as the indefatigable Roberta

As King said at the curtain call on that fateful night when Peter Pan took a tumble, “It’s not the mistake you make—it’s how you recover.” nn

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bNeatUrALw m y l s e m o C g n i Learn

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By Amy Woodson, head of lower sc

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Opposite page: Third graders ready to journey to Shelby Bottoms Park to note the signs of fall, learn about bottom land, and discover what resources this natural place offered Native Americans and others.

Lisa Preston talks with first graders about measuring the water temperature in the outdoor classroom and how it compares to the closed environment of their trout tank in the classroom.

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he lower school naturalist program is deepening and expanding its root system.

A decade ago, naturalist Cynthia Lee planted the seed in the fertile soil of the 2005 kindergarten class. That same year marked the publication of Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.

The time was right for Cynthia’s idea, and both students and teachers quickly realized that the experience would be transformative. Now the program is firmly established, enjoying perfect growing conditions.

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First graders measure the depth of the outside edge of Richland Creek.

Cynthia Lee, founder of USN’s Young Naturalist Program, explores the USN’s Wetlands on a sunny, winter day.

With Cynthia Lee’s retirement, Lisa Preston has taken the program’s reins. She aims for each grade level to make a Naturalist Journey every month, giving all lower school students a range of experiences that both build upon prior knowledge and spiral in a sequence from kindergarten through fourth grade. A student’s experience with the natural world is not only sequenced but also dynamic and experiential­—encountering plants in our outdoor classroom, mussels on the Duck River, and much more in between.

One such sequence begins on campus in the outdoor classroom as first graders begin to explore the ideal aquatic environment for

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Visit usn.org/publications to see more pictures of USN’s Young Naturalists in action.

The trout​,​grown to fingerling-size​,​are waiting to be released in the Caney Fork River.

Below: First graders observe the aquatic life they have collected from Richland Creek and wonder...is there enough food to support trout if they did live in the creek?

trout. They test water, make observations, sketch and record data in several different locations, all while tending to the needs of about 500 trout eggs. In a tank in a middle school classroom, students and their teachers explore the development of the trout from eggs to fingerlings, honing scientific skills of observation, data collection, and scientific drawing, and then generating hypotheses. Their study of stream ecology* takes the first graders to Richland Creek and finally to the release of the young fish into the Caney Fork River in November.

Near the end of the trout-raising, first graders help dissect a trout. Small groups of young scientists work with a teacher to identify the parts of the trout on a real fish. Having just experienced this event, I can tell you that the students were able to identify the various structures and organs on the fish and were fascinated with seeing a real fish flayed open.

It so happens that this year’s seventh grade class, which shares their classroom with the first grade trout researchers, is also reflecting on their experiences as first grade naturalists. Their sketches and observations from six years ago are on display by the trout tank, creating a great connection with the current first grade class.

Fourth graders focus on kayaking basics, karst topography, and tree species in their exploration of “All things Tennessee.” Their in-depth study of tree phenology—the study of the life cycle of trees—will include climbing the giants that tower over USN’s front yard as well as identifying, mapping and tagging our campus trees.

Studying karst topography—how landscapes are formed through the dissolution of various soluble rocks such as limestone— will become larger than life as students explore Mammoth Cave and geologic formations in Warner Park. Finally, kayaking skills gained in the fall outing to Long

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Fourth graders discover some creative ways of playing in the new nature play space.

Left: A Kindergartner shares a Naturalist note about seeing a red fox in his own backyard.

Right: A third grader studies and sketches the 250-year-old Bicentennial Oak on Vanderbilt’s campus.

Hunter State Park are put to the test as fourth graders paddle a section of the Duck River to study mussels and their impact on the environment.

But the lower school naturalists program isn’t just about training young scientists. On the back field next to the playground, we have just added a space for “nature play.” It’s an idea that is gaining popularity—allowing children opportunities for free play using natural items. Our nature play space features bamboo poles, river rocks, logs, and bark. At any grade’s recess, you can observe children interacting with each other as they construct their own play environment. On the day we opened the area for play, children made a see-saw out of a sturdy bark strip. Bamboo poles have become lean-to shelters, while river rocks have formed pathways and art installations. As the third graders used the space, their study of simple machines was quickly put to work with bamboo levers, and they used rock wedges to roll the heavy logs. In addition to converting a little-used space for play, we’ve given young artists and scientists a natural canvas.

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These two snapshots are bookends of the immersive, experiential, and student-centered curriculum strand that straddles science and outdoor education. Not surprisingly, a place-based approach to education was advocated by John Dewey in 1915, the year that our school was founded. Dewey was a strong proponent of the idea that students needed to be connected to their surroundings in order for learning to be authentic, which circles us back to today’s re-imagining of the importance of these connections in a modern world.

The author who inspired this movement, Richard Louv, shares his interest in introducing children to nature through an organization called the “Children and Nature Network.” In Nashville, we’re lucky to live near so many easily accessible natural spaces.

Our students are enjoying these wild spaces—what about you and your family, wherever you live? nn *Contributions from Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Trout Unlimited make the study possible.

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Summer Fun That Changes Lives

By Kim Avington, Horizons at USN Program Director, and Sam Jackson, Horizons at USN Site Administrator

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his past summer, fifteen rising second graders and fourteen rising first graders from Carter Lawrence Magnet School spent six weeks at USN in a program called Horizons.

Horizons is a national program that offers low-income families a way to help their children battle summer learning loss. We offer top notch instruction in reading, writing, math, and science for six full weeks. The students also participate daily in swimming classes and weekly enrichment classes such as art, African drumming, coding, musical theater, sports, and dance.

A small army of USN high school students, recent USN alumni, teachers from USN, and teachers from Carter Lawrence Magnet School made it possible. Each Horizons classroom had a USN and Carter Lawrence teacher working side-by-side using projectbased teaching methods.

Every summer a new group of rising first graders will join the USN Horizons program until it reaches its capacity of kindergarten through eighth grade Horizons students. Through eight seasons of learning, USN will transform the lives of students caught in the achievement gap, giving them the tools and support to become successful and confident college-bound students.

Some of that confidence comes to the children in the USN pool. Most Horizons students enter the program unable to swim and

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afraid of the water. We’ve found that when their teachers join the children in the pool, students learn trust and build self-esteem— and those qualities carry over into the classroom. By the end of the six weeks, 14 of 29 students had beginner swimming skills.

Plenty of learning takes place beyond classroom walls. When the first graders studied sound, they toured Compass Records and recorded one of the songs they learned in class. Second graders finished their study of simple machines with a trip to Home Depot, where they had a scavenger hunt for simple machines, helped by some Home Depot employees. They visited Glen Leven Farms.

Each week students went to the Edgehill Community Garden, where they helped cultivate the garden and then distributed some of the produce in their community.

As part of our science unit about how plants grow, students learned what makes the soil healthy for plants. Investigating earthworms was part of this lesson. At first the children were alarmed to realize that they would have to see and touch live worms.

One teacher tells the story: “As the large, squirmy worms were placed on trays on the desks, most students screamed that they would NEVER touch a worm. Before long all 15 students had worms crawling between their fingers, up and down their arms, and even on their faces! A highlight of each day was seeing the tunnels the worms had made in their bin and holding the worms.

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Opposite page: A worm on its way to the compost bin; above: working in the Edgehill community garden; below: becoming comfortable in the pool.

One student felt he could tell which worm was his, exclaiming ‘That’s my worm!’ Students said they were ‘sad and happy’ when it was time to release the worms into the compost bin at the garden.”

Breakthroughs happened in class as well. A teacher tells of a child who had no concept of what subtraction meant, struggling with how to read and understand a simple problem. Working in a small group every day and learning to use the number line tool helped him.

The teacher says, “After three weeks of working on the steps needed to help him access this knowledge, he could see a subtraction equation and knew to get the number line and start at the first number and then point his finger to count down. He had the biggest smile on his face as he exclaimed ‘I get it, I get it!’”

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She adds, “It is such a meaningful moment to see that there was a concrete, applicable strategy that he could take with him. I loved how he felt so proud and capable of that accomplishment. It is that feeling of confidence that helps students feel successful and engaged.”

According to our survey of parents, 100% of parents were completely satisfied with their child’s summer at USN Horizons. One of the Carter Lawrence teachers recently told a story that shows that the students are satisfied too. “I was asking the students about their favorite seasons and why it was their favorite. Kendrick raised his hand and said, ‘Summer is my favorite season because I get to go to Horizons!’” nn Horizons at USN relies solely on philanthropic support from foundations and individuals. If you would like to learn more, email Sam Jackson at sjackson@usn.org.

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Wheels Going ‘Round

By Erik Mash ’93, Director of Operations

Let’s travel back to the early 90s.

We had no Gordon Wing, no Hassenfeld Library, no River Campus (gasp), and no buses.

As a high school student from 1989 to 1993, I traveled either by charter bus or the dreaded 15 passenger van, which was notorious for being top heavy and dangerous. USN owned three of these, and driving them required nerves of steel on the teacher’s or coach’s part. Notice I said “teacher” and “coach,” not “driver.”

For not only did we lack buses, we lacked bus drivers. As is still the case at many schools, our only drivers were the coaches and teachers with the endorsements to drive no more than 15 people.

Not exactly efficient. As a baseball player, more often than not, I found a ride to practices or games with a junior or senior. Quite a sight, six fully clad baseball players in a 1983 Honda Civic—an insuror’s nightmare. photo by Kimberly Manz

Sometime in the late 90s, USN made a bold move and purchased three small buses to replace these vans. In 1998, USNA bought our first big bus, a 54-passenger Amtran. We also hired the nowfamous Mike Turange to drive that bus, as it required a commercial license.

USN bus drivers (l. to r.): Mike Turange, Angie Moore, Begashaw Asfaw, Gina Dickson, Robert Arnold, Terrence Alphonso, Alton Pickett, Eric Smith, Amy Rivera.

As the 2000s rolled on, so did our buses. What started out as one big bus and three small ones has grown, bus by bus, to the fleet of 11 buses we have today. We run buses that range in size from 15-passenger all the way up to 84-passenger.

25,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth. We take students two miles down the road to Carter Lawrence Elementary for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and we take students 450 miles to Wake Forest University for debate tournaments. On any given day, we may transport 300 students to the River Campus for practices and games.

That first bus driver, Mike Turange, is now the Transportation Manager, overseeing nine drivers. With the development of the River Campus, demand for transportation has done nothing but grow. In 2013, by the end of April, our fleet had logged over

As Mike Turange says, “Knoxville used to be a long trip for us, now we go all over the Southeast region, as far as Florida.”

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h O USN has taken students as far as Orlando, Florida, over 700 miles away.

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USN buses logged over 52,000 miles of service in 2014-2015

We are especially proud of our morning bus routes. In 2009, in an effort to reduce traffic in and around Edgehill, we began running a morning pickup service from six locations along three bus routes. The students were able to ride the bus in to school, thus eliminating traffic and providing convenience to parents. Today, we run four different routes from Belle Meade to Inglewood and serve over 65 families.

Although our drivers are always under the speed limit, USN transportation isn’t slowing down any time soon. Funds are set aside every year to upgrade and improve our fleet. As new Morning Route opportunities arise, we will strive to serve the USN community with new pick up locations. Mike and his crew are always working to provide consistent, loving service to our kids and families. As always, the wheels on the bus go round and round.

Mike T. sums it up. “We are committed to our job, and that job is to get the kids where they need to go, and to do it safely.” nn

v v v v

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USN has 11 buses for a total seating capacity of 450 students.

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usn.org/alumni

Washington DC Top: Director Vince Durnan with Thomas Snow ’04; Camille Smith Espinoza ’97 and Ariel Neaderthal Voorhees ’01 Bottom: Silas Wuerth ’15, Julia Durnan ’11, Vince Durnan, Ann Waller Curtis ’08, Christina West ’94; Mark Levine ’84 and Daniel Landsman ’11 (photos by Anna Myint ’04)

2015 Out-of-Town Alumni Events

Washington DC: September 29 Chicago: October 20

Chicago Top: Hope Eidam ’15, Luke Kirkpatrick ’15, Whitley Cargile ’14, CFO Teresa Standard; John ’96 and Verity Rodrigues and Karen Sampson Weingart ’64 and Arne Weingart Bottom: Matt Addison ’04 and Allison McKinley; Allison Law and Andrew Swanson ’06, Marci Levy ’07, Brittany Goldfarb ’07, and Jennifer Plumridge ’08 (photos by Anna Myint ’04)

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usn.org/alumni n

We are headed to a city near you!

At the annual meeting of the National Alumni Board of Visitors in November, Carol Norris Brown ’70, Jim Coddington ’70, Harold Jordan ’81, Mark Stumpf ’65, Christina West ’94, and Liz Werthan ’56 heard reports on USN today from Vince Durnan and others, including a panel of seniors: Adam Beasley, Megan Kasselberg, Emaun Irani, and Kaitlyn Rabb.

Young Alumni Party December 18, 2015

photo by Anna Myint ’04

Network, connect, meet new friends, and reminisce about your time at 2000 Edgehill.

Join us and meet fellow Tigers living in your city.

2016 Get-Togethers Dallas: January 21 New York City: February 1 Los Angeles: February 23 San Francisco: February 25

Providence: March 30 Boston: March 31

photo by Kimber

Atlanta: March 8

ly Manz

Miami: February 29

Clockwise from top: Grant Given ’14, Naomi Rogers ’15 (front), Douglas Corzine ’15, Rachel Brandon ‘14, Brennen Carr ‘14, Bhoomika Nikam ‘14, Kenyon Carpenter ’14, Angel Jones ’14, Alexander Roaldsand ‘13, Cole Williams ’14, Marcus Maddox ’12, Gary Faulcon ’13, Bryard Huggins ’13 Middle (l. to r.): Maggie Milam ’15, George Plummer ’15, Lauren Carrero ’15; Richard Espenant with JC Swope ’15 Bottom (l. to r.): George Flatau with Gregory Shemancik ’12 and Madi Abelson ’12

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Map by Personalized Map Company www.mymaps.com

PDS/USN Alumni Across the USA Alumni by county 1,350 237 31-82 16-30 6-15 2-5 1

Where Are You?

This map shows the home states of the 3,941 PDS and USN alumni whose addresses we have. But it leaves out more than 800 of you who are lost to us.

We created this map from information we had in December, 2015. No doubt it’s already out of date. Since then someone has moved to Seattle, and someone else has left New York (or Chicago or D.C.) and returned to Nashville.

We know it.

We want to make this map truthful.

l l

3,941 PDS/USN alumni in the USA 65 alumni in 23 other countries (as of December 2015)

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Email nsewell@usn.org with your correct address and contact information and go to usn.org/publications or usn.org/alumni to see the list of lost alumni and help us find them, wherever they are. nn

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CLASS NOTES 1963 Nancy Vining Van Ness, Director of American Creative Dance Company in NYC, danced and directed choreography to accompany the December concert of the New York City Community Chorus, a 70 voice chorus directed by Jack Eppler. “As the chorus’s Choreographer in Residence, I create movement for the chorus and/or the audience. For this concert, some audience members will dance to a section of the Woods Suite, a piece created by the Composer in Residence that is inspired by Native American themes.”

1966 Charles and Katy Anderson Terry ’46 celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary in September by hiking in the Grand Tetons; they traveled to Italy in May.

1960 Nancy Estes is in her 52nd year of teaching at the college level. Her plan is to complete this school year and move back to Nashville next summer. “I thank PDS for the education that I got there and the love of learning. After getting a B.S , M.A. and an Ed.D., I went back and got two more Masters.”

1962 John Mowrey and his wife Donna made a two and a half week trip to Australia and New Zealand this year. Most of the trip was to see the fabulous sights in this part of the South Pacific.

John also spent three days hunting Red Stag near Wanganui on the north island. His next hunting trip was to Idaho for mule deer in the fall. John is mostly retired but spends some time helping in their son’s subcontracting business.

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Mark Van Loon plans to attend the fiftieth reunion. He writes, “I guess 50 years is long enough, so, if I’m not drooling too badly, can remember my own name and can get my good jeans on over my Depends, I’ll be there— ready or not!”

1967 In November Rosemary Zibart’s play City Mice received a reading at The Playhouse in New Mexico as part of their Annual Playwrights’ Workshop for new work.

1971 Tom Lackey has worked as a motion picture location scout in Hollywood since 1978. “I do not know of a more creative career; I bring the writer’s words to life. I look forward to the opening, on Friday, November 20, of one of my latest projects: Secret In Their Eyes.”

1972 This summer Yarrott Benz dropped by USN to chat with Vince Durnan when he was in town to read from his memoir The Bone Bridge at Parnassus Books. He is on sabbatical from teaching in order to work on his second book.

John ’62 and Donna Mowrey

1975 Al Pailet and his son Marshall are continuing to collaborate on writing plays and musicals.

This fall their latest project, the musical Who’s Your Baghdaddy, was a big hit off-Broadway and a New York Times Critics’ Pick. On the other coast, another of their collaborations, Loch Ness, was named “Best Musical Production” in Orange County 2015.

Lee Ann Floyd Stiles has lived in Texas since 1984, mostly around Houston. She and her husband owned golf courses before their 2012 retirement. “I lost my husband to Ocular Melanoma in 2013. These days I am busy Co-chairing the Women’s Ministry at my church, working with a local charity, working part time for a lawyer, playing with my English Springer Jack Lewis (named for C.S.), watercolor painting, and looking forward to a trip to Israel with my daughter’s SMU M.Div. program in January.”

1976 Alex (Sascha) Lerman has changed careers, making his life “much more complicated + much more interesting.” Leaving his private practice in psychiatry, he has “a nearly full time job as a teacher. I find it so gratifying to be surrounded by other people, and to be asked questions that I discover I don’t know how to answer. We are working very hard

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to build a better training program—and I’m learning to get comfortable with the recognition of how much I don’t know, and the excitement that comes from bringing in people who can add value I can’t. I recognize that the idea that I am now a teacher may strike some who knew me in high school as...ironic?” He remembers his biggest influences from PDS, Mr. Gee and Augie Herman. “Mr. Gee took mercy on me when I was flunking an algebra test, and dropped the quadratic equation on a piece of paper on my desk. I think I still flunked the test (or should have)—but the kindness made an impact on me I’ve never forgotten. Augie gave me permission to skip English class as long as I used the time to write poetry instead—an interest that eventually got me into college. I felt valued by her, and it made an impact on me.”

He adds, “Mr. Gee & Augie—here’s to you!”

Jeff Ray has settled back into Texas, where he was born and went to college (UT Austin). He’s in Dallas/Ft. Worth working for the CBS 0&0.

“By job and market size this represents the pinnacle of my 30-year broadcast career. It’s never a dull day in a market reality where skill diversity equates to job security (especially for a face with wrinkles). In addition to my on-air Meteorology and general assignment reporting duties, I co-pilot our Storm Chaser vehicle during severe weather. On occasion I can be seen on CBS Evening News or CBSN covering these events out in the field or in the studio. For our Weather Department I coordinate and produce our projects and promotions, serve as the primary graphic artist and work as our web manager. I’m the primary operator of our station’s million watt radar system. My training starts soon as lead producer on a new technical innovation, an on-air graphics program that creates interactive 3-D explainers. This is the most fun I have ever had at a television station.”

1978 Jean Simmons is writing a column for The Tennessean called “Southern Musings.” You can find it on the last Sunday of the month in the Williamson County section or online. Jean calls it “a slice of life, humor column about growing up and living in the South. I would love comments or Facebook likes etc.”

Andy Martin has just published a book called Dollarlogic, which offers investment advice. You can find it on Amazon.

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1979 Lee Ann Harrod Merrick’s company Tin Wings was featured in Style Blueprint. Tin Wings offers delicious meals, catering and take-out.

Stephan Parker’s comedic A Roadkill Opera, featuring music from 1804 by Ferdinando Paer, will have its world premiere performances on January 8-9, 2016, at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, D.C. Parker gave away 100 copies of the studio recording of A Roadkill Opera at the PDS/USN Centennial celebration. Parker and music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken were featured performers at Artomatic 2015 on its opening and closing days. They spoke about A Roadkill Opera’s journey from Artomatic, the DC area’s largest free non-juried arts event, to the GRAMMYs in February 2015, based on their 2013 CD release. Though they weren’t nominated or performing, “it was encouraging to get invited.”

Stephan Parker with Vince Durnan at the Centennial celebration

1981 This fall Randy Gross and his husband Michael celebrated their daughter Lilia Claire’s first birthday. She “really loves to giggle and laugh heartily while running around playing hide and seek. Not sure if this bodes well. My third grade report card from Mrs. Pangle said ‘Randy is an excellent student, but he giggles too much in class!’ Hmm.” Randy is busy with work too. He won a project for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to design incentives for assisting in preservation and music business retention in Music Row. “Among other things, I’m working on an affordable housing strategy for Pittsburgh, a downtown development strategy for Maseru (the capital city of the Kingdom of Lesotho), and an economic development strategy for the Memphis region.

At any given moment, I’m usually working on about 15 to 20 projects worldwide, but it’s nice to have work here in Nashville so that I don’t have to travel as often away from family.”

Randy, Michael, and Lilia Claire live in the house that once belonged to Kathy Woods, USN’s former lower school head.

Doug Trapp has been getting “some exciting TV and film acting roles recently.” He guest stars on the new Netflix series, Master of None, directed by and starring Aziz Ansari. In episode 6, “which should be a favorite of everyone back home, because it’s called ‘Nashville,’”

Lilia Claire, daughter of Randy Gross ’81

he plays Roger, a ticket agent at the airport.

“Ironically, we shot at JFK and the gate was redesigned to look like Music City. Listen for my good ‘ol Nashvegas accent!” He recently finished two other projects, independent films: Blue Angel starring Stanley Tucci and The Boy Downstairs starring Zosia Mamet. “(She’s on the HBO series Girls and is the daughter of playwright David Mamet). In both of those projects, I play a doctor. I am finally able to use my glasses and high forehead to my career advantage!” Doug and his partner Billy Kimmel live in Germantown in upstate New York, “a well-needed respite from NYC. I recently came to Nashville (after going to Memphis for my 30th college reunion at Rhodes) and spent a wonderful couple of days seeing USN pals Randy Gross, Mary (Tanner) Bailey and Julie (Orth) Arnold. I couldn’t believe how Nashville is the new Brooklyn. I just want to add that USN was such an influential part of my life and career. I couldn’t imagine a better place to go to high school. It warms my heart to drive by

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1989 Greg Downs has moved to Davis, California, where he is an Associate Professor in the History Department of UC, Davis. Greg writes, “We survived our move west and then I left six days later to go to China for five days. Whew.

While I was gone, the NY Times did a piece on the effort to promote Reconstruction that I am helping organize with the National Park System.”

Lisa Gurevitch Cohen ’84

2000 Edgehill and feel the excitement that I experienced back in the early 1980s as a young artsy kid there. I’m thrilled to see how the school has continued to grow and thrive.”

1984 Jo Dee Hicks Prichard has been working for the last 10 years as the business manager for a Nashville real estate developer/investor.

“It’s been exciting to have a front row seat of Nashville’s growth into the IT City. My husband Gibson and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this year. We have a graduating Senior (USN class of 2016!) and our triplets are now 14 years old. Two years ago I was in the cast of the first ‘Listen To Your Mother’ Nashville show at TPAC telling the story of how we found out about the triplets at my 20 week ultrasound.” She will join the team to produce the next show April 30, 2016. Her story is at youtube.com/watch?v=umRhNNAeKYQ. “Having a senior at USN brings back a lot of memories of my senior year and all of my classmates: Chemistry with Maggie, Basketball games & the Pep Band, David’s Cookies, graduation, and memories that I’m not yet ready to share with my children.”

In November Mark Levine was elected to represent part of the Northern Virginia localities of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax in the Virginia StateHouse of Delegates. His term begins in January, 2016. Mark has hired Joel Davis ’81 as his Director of CommuniMark Levine cations. “If folks want

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Jo Dee Hicks Prichard ’84 with her triplets and her older son Addison, a senior at USN

to follow what I’m doing in Richmond, you can find out on Facebook.com/LevineforVirginia or on my website at MarkforDelegate.com.”

Lisa Gurevitch Cohen is a Senior Supervising Producer in the Special Projects unit at CNN International. Her recent documentary, “Every Day in Cambodia,” was awarded outstanding documentary at the Alliance for Women in Media’s 40th annual Gracie Awards Gala.

The film also won a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals, and the Asian Television Award for best documentary series. “Every Day in Cambodia” is one of several documentaries Lisa has produced for the CNN Freedom Project, a network-wide initiative aimed at covering the issue of human trafficking and modern-day slavery, and advocating for change. For more information and to watch the documentary, visit the CNN Freedom Project online at CNN.com/Freedom.

Susan Yeagley is living in Los Angeles with her husband and son, Gable (8). She is currently filming the next Christopher Guest comedy Mascots in LA. The movie will be out nationwide in theaters the summer of 2016.

Susan & actress Parker Posey play sisters who enter the world of competitive mascoting.

Susan is grateful for Gus Gillette’s fabulous drama classes & for all the USN teachers who gave her the confidence to go for it. Go Tigers!

1994 Jim Rodrigues has been in Portland, Oregon for four years, and he and his wife have a new baby girl, Maeve.

Hannah Crowell wrote with the romantic story of getting back together with her high school boyfriend Jimmy Wilson ’93, whom she met in algebra class at USN. “My dad married us

1985 Tom Bailey writes that as of mid-November, “Whole Foods has given the green light for Professor Bailey’s Spicy Pimento Cheese, Pimento Cheese Biscuits, and Pimento Cheese Gougeres. We’ll start in the Green Hills store, add Franklin soon after, and go into all the Tennessee stores early next year.” Tom being Tom then added in order to torture us, “We feel we have achieved a proactive synergy through the curated implementation of our brand awareness campaign!”

Hannah Crowell ’94 and James Wilson ’93 with Iris and Adeline

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The wedding of Chris Cowperthwaite ’95; Sarah Cowperthwaite ’96 is a bridesmaid (second from right)

of years of consulting work. She writes, “Now that I have a child of my own I find that I have a whole new in our back yard last fall and we level of gratitude to my couldn’t possibly be happier. So if parents for choosing to it wasn’t for Mr. Schwartzberg’s make sacrifices in their Algebra class… we wouldn’t have own lives to ensure that this 25 year love story. So USN is my brother and I had very dear to our hearts.” a superior education.

USN gave me a botMindy Minnen Gold lives in in Chitomless toolbox that I cago and works as an Instructional find myself reaching Technology Consultant; she designs for over and over and leads technology integraJeff Jenkins ’95 with his family, now again. It has been an tion professional development Texans invaluable gift. I hope seminars and writes curriculum to see Landon one day in maroon and blue!” for JTeach.org. “It has been so exciting to transition from teaching to teaching teachers!”

Joseph McCurley is enjoying life in Oslo, NorHer husband Neal works for a pharmaceutical way with his wife Katrine and two kids, Markus company, and they spend their time off doing (7) and Kaya (4). “basketball player transport.” She says, “My oldest son is 12 years old, taller than me (5’5” Jeff Jenkins writes that “13 amazing years of and growing!) and playing on 2 travel basketfun in the sun has come to an end; the Jenkins ball teams. My younger son, 9 years old, is also family (Chrissy, Jeff, Avery & Beau) has left LA playing travel basketball, so our weekends are for the amazing city of Austin, Texas. After 8 one long basketball tournament. Who knew atyears in marketing at Taco Bell/Yum brands, tending all those USN basketball games back in I was beyond thrilled to be offered the opthe day would come in so handy?” portunity to head up Global Digital Strategy & Marketing for Whole Foods. It’s an amazing chance to help transform the way the nation At Chris Cowperthwaite’s June wedding in eats and impact so many lives in a hugely posiRaleigh, North Carolina, Nathan Steele ’95 tive way while at the same time moving closer was a groomsman and Sarah Cowperthwaite to family in Texas & Florida. If you’re ever in ’96 was a bridesmaid. Chris recently earned Austin please look us up.” his Accreditation in Public Relations.

Camille Smith Espinoza ’97

Mindy Minnen Gold ’94 and her basketball-playing sons

1995

Rachel Westfield Hoppes and her husband Brian have moved back to Nashville after living and working in Nice, France, settling in here with two dogs and their baby boy Landon. Rachel is working for her husband’s firm, Elevation Search Solutions, after a couple

1997 When Srijaya Reddy married Neil Adler, it took two weddings (and a henna party) in two days. Present at the wedding were Sri’s longtime friends Rachel Miller, Anna Erickson, Brooke Weitz, Jennie Wolff ’95, and her sister

Jonathan Boddie ’97 during the six months he spent playing music in Korea

Simone Crow and her big sister Madeline, daughters of Katie Schmid ’97

and maid of honor Sujana Reddy ’95. Srijaya and Neil said their vows at Acme Feed and Seed, ending with the Jewish tradition of breaking the glass. “The following day, Neil rode down a blocked-off (just for the big day) downtown Broadway for his baraat on a white horse surrounded by their dancing guests and live music.

The couple then celebrated their second wedding with a traditional Hindu ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame surrounded by a few hundred of their closest friends and family. A beautiful celebration and reunion.” continued on next page

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The sons of Lauren Martinez Riley ’02

Cate Dundon ’01 Laura Lea and Max Goldberg ’01

around the world, and I had the opportunity to climb the highest mountain in South Korea, Mt. Hallasan. Jeju island is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I will never forget my stay there.”

1999 Sam Smith played drums for Ben Folds at this year’s finale of “Live on the Green,” a huge music festival on the public square in Nashville.

2000 2015 proved a momentous year for Leeman Tarpley Kessler when his wife accepted a job as priest and chaplain at Kenyon College in Ohio where The wedding of Andrea Wolf ’02 and Hunter Bearnstein drew a crowd of USN guests they both graduated in 2004.

It wasn’t easy leaving Canada after living there for about a decade, but they Lucas Middlebrook recently represented a are both excited by this new stage of their professional MMA fighter in front of the Nelife and to have their daughter Amanda grow vada State Athletic Commission that received up in such an idyllic spot. Leeman continues to a lot of press coverage, with Lucas’ defense of perform as HP Lovecraft on his web-series Ask Nick Diaz called “aggressive yet measured.”

Lovecraft as well as at various conventions and film festivals around North America.

Jonathan Boddie is back from six months in Jeju, South Korea, where he was “playing guitar Rachel Levy Howell and her family have and singing with American group Gino and moved back to Nashville after ten years in Tightnoise at The Shilla Hotel. During my stay Austin. “We miss Austin a lot but are rediscovthere, I met so many wonderful people from all

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Kate Viebranz ’02 with her groom Ricky Thrash and with her mom, USN college counselor Cristin Viebranz

ering the city a little at a time and have enjoyed reconnecting with old USN friends.” Their children, baby Willa Imogen and three year old Quentin, “keep life busy and exciting.”

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Heydn Ericson ’04 at his wedding

Andrew Hewlett ’04 getting married in October

Gina Kuhn ’04 at one of her weddings

Nicole Southwell ’04

Zach Wexler ’05

2001 Max and Ben ’98 Goldberg have opened another restaurant, a French one this time: Le Sel. It’s just down the street from USN in the Adelicia. Their company Strategic Hospitality also includes these successful Nashville restaurants in its stable: The Catbird Seat, Pinewood Social, Paradise Park Trailer Resort, Aerial events space, Merchants Restaurant, The Patterson House and The Band Box (in the new Sounds stadium).

When Cate Dundon was married in Nashville in September, Christy Bearden Feldman attended the wedding with her husband Jake, and their wedding planner was Ellen Duke Haber ’00. Jeff Dundon ’05, Emma Dundon (Class of 2018) and Erin Dundon (Class of 2021) were all members of the wedding party.

photo by Abigail Bobo Photography

2003 Ben Raybin has filed a motion in federal court seeking more than $2 million in fees from the state of Tennessee for the same-sex marriage suit that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lauren Wolchok is “excited to be finishing up family medicine residency at UCSF in June and looking forward to figuring out where my next steps take me. My parents still love living in LA, and mom [former USN science teacher Sandy Wolchok] is busy teaching biology—she sends her warmest regards to all her former students and colleagues.”

An alumni-filled photo at the wedding of Jamie Kever and Patrick Starnes, both class of 2004

continued on next page

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Pallavi Biswas ’05 with classmates and friends at her wedding Rigby (l.), the dog of Eleanor Schneider ’05 and Russell Ries ’02, on a visit with his humans this fall to Madison, Wisconsin, where he was hosted

by Hank, who belongs to Jane Brittingham ’08, a graduate student in Demography at the University of Wisconsin

2004 Honorary USNer Lauren Moskovitz lives in Nashville and has opened up her own glutenfree bakery, Little Mosko’s Bake Shop. On her website Lauren says, “Due to popular demand for old fashioned sweets, we are bringing back some of Nashville’s most treasured bites from the original Mosko’s and the Muncheonette, remixed and baked to perfection.”

In October Sam Mazer competed in her sixth Ironman Championship, her second time to compete in the Kona Ironman Championship in Hawaii. She is a member of the Timex team.

Becky Saloman has started a Ph.D. program in Nursing at UNC Chapel Hill, where she plans to focus on psychosocial interventions for depressive symptoms.

Heydn Ericson was married a year ago in Austin, Texas. “We did a quick and easy marriage at the county clerk’s office and had a nice dinner with family afterwards.” Now they live in Atlanta, where Heydn is working toward a master’s degree in industrial design at Georgia Tech. “It’s A LOT of work, but it also comes very naturally to me. I love that, for the first time in 17+ years of schooling, my homework every night is to draw and build things. I expect to graduate in 2018.”

Gina Kuhn and her new German husband live in Berlin, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Polish history and Gabriel is training to become a lawyer. USN people who came to her Nashville wedding included cousins Laura ’07, Bobby ’10, and Ben Kuhn ’15 and Gina’s brother

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Joel Soltman ’05

David ’11. Dr. Lavine and Mrs. Eisenstein were also there.

Judy Scoville is in her eighth year of teaching at the Linden Waldorf School. “I have a mixed-age Kindergarten class and hope to live up to the standards my Kindergarten teacher Ms. McCullough set. When I graduated from USN she sent me a framed picture of us and a personal note reminiscing about all of my Kindergarten interests and talents.”

2005 Margaret Brittingham has joined the Peace Corps and is stationed in Peru. She lives in Paca, an Andean village of 900 near the town of Jauja, elevation 3,400 meters or more than 11,000 feet. Her role is counseling teens and young people. Follow her blog at maggieb87.weebly.com/blog.

Tessa Lamballe ’06

Joel Soltman recently married Carly Lochala, his classmate at Brown. They were married in Portland, Maine and now live in New Hampshire.

We know of three ’05 alumnae who plan to wed in 2016: Allison Duke in February, Tali Rosenblum in May, and Amy Yazdian in July.

Look for pictures in the next 2000 Edgehill.

2006 In August Alison Douglas received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. She has moved to New York City to work as a Research Scientist at a medical device start-up. “It’s been a long time coming!”

2008 Last year Dani Wald got married and started medical school at Rutgers, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Polly Shepard ’07

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Calle Nielson ’07 and Sara Garmezy ’13 at Vanderbilt’s Mason Rudolph Golf Championship. Calle is an assistant golf coach at the University of Virginia, and Sara is on the golf team at Yale.

Miranda Merrick ’08, daughter of Lee Ann Harrod Merrick ’79

Class of 2008’s Mariel Snetman and Sam Linton, with a throng of USN alumni

Class of ’07 friends Douglas Schatz, Omer Ikizler, Ari Schiftan, Drew Berger, and Edward Gottfried enjoying Labor Day weekend in Vermont.

2009 Alex Spieth is in NYC working as an actor on a production called the “1599 Project,” which follows Shakespearian plays of that year.

“Additionally, I am filming the first season of my webseries [Blank] My Life which I write and star in (which can be found atihaveablanknamedmylife.com). Thanks to the USN Community, and all my love!” (Visit Irondale.org to learn more about the 1599 Project.)

2010 In September Levi Hummon played to a soldout audience at the Ryman Auditorium with Dwight Yoakam.

Dani Wald ’08 with classmates Leah Cobean and Jill Berkman

William Green recently published in The Guardian (jointly with a staff reporter) a news story revealing that the IRS was in possession of controversial cell phone surveillance equipment. See: theguardian.com/world/2015/ oct/26/stingray-surveillance-technology-irscellphone-tower. The story prompted investigation in both the House and Senate. See: usatoday.com/story news/2015/11/03/irsuse-stingray-devices-track-cell-phones-sparkssenate-inquiry/75047712/

2011 Julian ’08 and Ben Kurland have started a company, BillFixers, which (according to The Tennessean) “empowers consumers against the corporate mazes of call agents and recordings, allowing them to cut their cable and Internet bills and avoid the health hazards of a customer service line.” They are the sons of Peter Kurland ’75. continued on page 40

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Gap Year Opportunities Beckon Young Alumni By Anna Myint ’04, Alumni Director

A

t lunch one day last summer, I ran into Max Benegas ’14.

Max said he was about to start his freshman year at Harvard after taking a gap year and that others from his class had just completed one as well.

After a spring semester interning with Congressman Jim Cooper in Washington, D.C. (along with his classmates David Shayne and Case Nieboer), Max traveled in Europe with David and Reid Dickerson ’14. In a month of travel they visited six countries.

“What’s a Gap Year?” I asked.

Like Max, John Spence ’14 wanted a break from academics. Seeing himself named “most likely to be found in the library” in his senior yearbook made him realize that he suffered from an “unbalanced emphasis on school.” Thus, he says, “I decided that my next step towards becoming a young man that I could be proud of was not Williams. Instead I flew to South America.”

After some investigation, I learned that close to 10% of recent graduates from USN have decided to defer matriculation a year to participate in this so called gap year. What were recent alumni doing with this extra year of spare time? I wanted to know more.

According to The American Gap Association, “a gap year is an experiential semester or year ‘on,’ typically taken between high school and college in order to deepen practical, professional, and personal awareness.” Still wanting to know more, I wrote to the 2014 and 2015 graduates who I had heard were taking gap years. I received some interesting answers.

Max Benegas ’14 wanted “diversified experiences,” including study, work, and travel. He also wanted a break from school. He began with three months of travel through China with eleven other students and three instructors, making their way from Beijing to Kunming, stopping at cities and villages along the way.

With three homestays and daily Mandarin and Chinese culture classes, Max says, “I got to connect with China and its people in ways I couldn’t have imagined.”

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His quest “to become a better guy rather than a better student” took him to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where he lived with a host family and taught English in the high school. “As difficult as it was trying to insert myself into someone else’s family and as absolutely brutal as it was teaching almost five hundred kids a week, the combination of the two has proven to be simultaneously one of the most foundational and beautiful experiences of my life.”

In August he declared that he no longer regretted all that time in the library in high school. “Now I’m ready to reenter the academic world and take my next step towards adulthood at Williams with a determination and drive that I didn’t achieve during high school.”

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Elizabeth Dossett ’14 also went to South America in search of the “real world.” In Cochabamba, Bolivia, she planned to “learn Spanish, be a volunteer, and immerse myself in the community and culture of the city.”

She found herself teaching conversation classes at the Universidad Mayor de San Simon to Bolivian students learning English.

She led group discussions “examining every topic we found interesting—from the effect international corporations have on indigenous populations to guessing the meaning of one student’s dream.”

Next, as the sole volunteer at Asociación Amistad, an orphanage, she lived on the property alongside the children. “I held a class on telling time (most of the older kids had never learned), a bi-weekly arts and creativity hour, and ‘office-hours’ where the kids came to do homework.”

Elizabeth describes her year in Bolivia as her “first real opportunity to step back from an academically focused environment and get a look at the world from the eyes of someone experiencing it rather than someone being shepherded through what sometimes seems like an educational ‘race to nowhere.’ She says, “My time in Bolivia ignited my desire to learn as much as possible in college about the fields that truly interest me; I can’t wait to seize what Boston has to offer.” nn Opposite page: Max Benegas ’14 on the border of China and Mongolia This page, top: Elizabeth Dossett ’14 at a daycare center in Bolivia; 2014 graduates David Shayne, Reid Dickerson, and Max Benegas in Prague

Class of 2015 Gap Year Plans

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Douglas Corzine ’15: interning for Congressman Jim Cooper in Washington, D.C., inspired by Max, Case, and David.

Mackenzie Myers ’15: National Outdoor Leadership School in the Pacific Northwest for three months, working as a ski instructor, and in second semester, traveling to Swaziland, where he will live with a family, teach English in a local primary school, and use the French learned at USN.

Jessie Baskauf ’15: learning Arabic in Marrakech, Morocco, thanks to the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Scholarships awarded by the U.S. State Department to high school students for an intensive study of a language that is not commonly taught in American schools. Jessie will take language classes and live with a host family. “For me, learning a language goes beyond understanding how to conjugate verbs and construct sentences; the bigger gain is in the cross-cultural communication and interaction: the relationships you build, the stories you hear, and the ideas and ways of thinking that it opens you up to.”

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usn.org/alumni n which is a classical Indian dance form, along with other traditional forms on stage.”

2015 Jessie Baskauf has been awarded a National Security Language Initiative for Youth scholarship, one of only 620 competitively selected students from across the United States who will receive a scholarship through the program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Jessie is studying Arabic in Morocco this academic year.

WEDDINGS Hannah Crowell ’94 and James Wilson ’93 October 13​,​ 2014 photo by Bosley Jarrett

A Diwali dance at Vanderbilt by Ria Jagasia ’14

Chris Cowperthwaite ’95 and Kari Neville, June 6, 2015

Class of ’94’s Sneha Channabasappa Oakley’s baby Leela

Camille Smith ’97 and Alex Espinoza, August 29, 2015 Srijaya Reddy ’97 and Neil Adler, October 9 and 10, 2015 Cate Dundon ’01 and Sarah Pham, September 5, 2015 Max Goldberg ’01 and Laura Lea Bryant, September 19, 2015 Brianna Porter ’15 at the University of Memphis

Kate Viebranz ’02 and Ricky Thrash, May 30, 2015 Mara Steine is living in Tel Aviv until March, interning with the Israeli Olympic committee.

2013 Sean Clark writes, “Life at Ursinus College is great. My major (Applied Economics) and minors (French, Management Studies) are exciting and challenging. I’m serving in student government this year and am VP of the class of 2017 as well as serving on the Executive Board of the entire student government.” In the summer of 2016 he will intern with Amazon Operations in a leadership development program.

2014 In a New York Times article this fall offering advice from college students to incoming freshmen, Vanderbilt student Ria Jagasia was quoted. She participated in Vanderbilt’s Diwali showcase in November, “showcasing Kathak,

Andrea Wolf ’02 and Hunter Bearnstein, October 17, 2015

Maeve Rodriguez, daughter of Jim ’94

Heydn Ericson ’04 and Natsumi Sakai, October 3, 2014 Jamie Kever ’04 and Patrick Starnes ’04, May 19, 2015 Nicole Southwell ’04 and Alexandra Kruse, July 25, 2015 Sarah Yazdian ’04 and Todd Rubin, September 6, 2015 Gina Kuhn ’04 and Gabriel Deutscher, October 10, 2015 in Nashville; July 17, 2015 in Regensburg, Germany Skye Lawrence Martin, son of Brooke Weitz ’97

continued on page 43

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2000 EDGEHILL

Rachel Levy Howell ’00’s daughter Willa Imogen

Joseph, son of Kim Sandler Rhodes ’01

Hannah Benneyworth Gardner ’04’s daughter Hazel

George Russell Martin, son of Katie Ries ’00

Stephen Schleicher ’01’s daughter Lucia

Foster William Ockerman, son of John ’04

Benjamin Bray, son of Emily Brooks Bray ’01

Class of ’02’s Lindsey Kever Magner’s baby Caleb

Nicholas Greer, son of Scott ’05

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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Share Your PDS and USN Memories

By Jenny Winston, archivist

D

id you know that you can contribute to our digital archives right from your home? Your memories are essential to the telling of our collective story.

If you have a photo or a story to share, please go to usnarchives.omeka.net/contribution where you can upload an image or simply type in a memory from your time here. We all know history is best told by the people who lived it, and we’d love to capture your stories. And of course, we continue to gratefully accept donations of memorabilia for safe keeping in our collection here on the third floor of the library.

Contact Jenny Winston at jwinston@usn.org to make arrangements.

One more request: Are you a PDS/USN alumnus and a writer? If so, let us know! The library wants to be sure we have your work in our collection, and we’d like to put a copy on display on our beautiful alumni Author Wall in the library lobby.

This poster came to the archives as a gift from Julie Barnett Allan ’82, and the letter jacket (modeled by Anna Myint ’04) is from Maureen Carr Applebaum ’64.

Do you have anything like this in your attic?

Email jwinston@usn.org.

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usn.org/alumni

Andrew Hewlett ’04 and Jonathan O’Neill, October 17, 2015 Mick Utley ’05 and Erin McAnally, May 16, 2015 Pallavi Biswas ’05 and Vipul Kumar, July 25, 2015 Joel Soltman ’05 and Carly Lochala, September 6, 2015 Zach Wexler ’05 and Perry Del Favero, October 3, 2015 Tessa Lamballe ’06 and David Stewart, September 26, 2015 Polly Shepard ’07 and David Rolfwarg, July 4, 2015 Anna West ’07 and Zack Barnes, October 10, 2015 Dani Wald ’08 and Joshua Spielman, May 25, 2014 Miranda Merrick ’08 and Tim Buell, April 9, 2015 Mariel Snetman ’08 and Sam Linton ’08, September 12, 2015 Christina Weisner and Matyas Kohazi, October 24, 2015, Budapest

BIRTHS Lee and Sneha Channabasappa Oakley ’94, a daughter, Leela Channabasappa, August 28, 2015 Collette and Jim Rodrigues ’94, a daughter, Maeve Barbour, November 10, 2015 Brian and Rachel Westfield Hoppes ’95, a son, Landon Blair, January 13, 2015 Katie Schmid ’97 and Brian Crow, a daughter, Simone Anita Crow, July 16, 2015 Brooke Weitz ’97 and Frank Martin, a son, Skye Lawrence Martin, August 3, 2015 Patrick and Rachel Levy Howell ’00, a daughter, Willa Imogen, February 22, 2015

Ben Ernst ’36 Eddie Belle Leavell Newport ’36 (died in 2012) Robert McAdams ’37 Betsy Hurd Bourner ’38 Charles Stone ’38 Sarah Hunter Hicks Green ’40 Bill Barton ’41 Frances Sain Kristofferson ’41 Jessie Stumb Burton ’44 Phila Rawlings Hach ’44 Martha Keith Butler ’46 Elliott “Yot” Williams ’46 Sara Ann Floyd Brandon ’47 Betty Jane Chism Tillman ’47 (died in 2013)

Tom and Kim Sandler Rhodes ’01, a son, Joseph Jeffrey, April 27, 2015

Robert Ewing Harwell Jr. ‘53

Michael and Emily Brooks Bray ’01, a son, Benjamin Arthur, August 21, 2015

Mary Anne Robinson Fowler ’47 Billie Medearis Irvin ’54 Gayle Elam Smith ’55 Jenny Kingsley Rowan ’59 Bill Colson ’60

Magda and Stephen Schleicher ’01, a daughter, Lucia Cristina, September 5, 2015

Marshall Karr ’70

Michael and Lauren Martinez Riley ’02, a son, Walter James, August 26, 2015

Andy Pate ’75

Leah and BJ Stein ’02, a daughter, Isabel Linden, November 11, 2015 Kate and John Ockerman ’04, a son, Foster William, July 30, 2015 Ryan and Hannah Benneyworth Gardner ’04, a daughter, Hazel Dorothy, June 25, 2015

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

Mary Starnes DeMoss ’35

Katie Ries ’00 and Stephen Martin, a son, George Russell Martin, October 18, 2015

Sheldon and Lindsey Kever Magner ’02, a son, Caleb Cahill, October 21, 2015

’04’s Anna Myint, Lauren Bidez, and Clare McKenzie at exchange student Christina Weisner’s wedding in Budapest

IN MEMORIAM

Aly and Scott Greer ’05, a son, Nicholas Turner, October 1, 2015

Robert Masuoka ’73 Marci Krantz Glisczinski ’80 Jason Roberts ’88 Jay Rosenblum ’91 Daniel Rochester ’09 Former teacher and coach Bob Moser Former teacher Gene Sizemore To read obituaries of most of these alumni and former teachers, please visit usn.org/publications.

Please email cculpepper@usn.org or call Connie Culpepper at 615-321-8011 to share your thoughts on anything in this magazine.

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B

efore the campaign began, discussion of USN’sFeatured strategic aims Objectives helped identify four philanthropic priorities Progress Toward and set the total amount needed at $28,000,000. We are proud of the progress we have already made toward meeting each of these goals, and we look forward to completing the work still ahead of us.

Endowment Facilities

64%

Goal: $10 million

40%

Goal: $8 million

Academic Innovation Annual Fund

Goal: $3 million

90% 92%

Goal: $7 million

Progress Toward Campaign Goals

Our Progress

Reaching our goal

$21,699,956 in commitments as of January 1, 2016

To learn more about the campaign visit usn.org/oneschoolourfuture.

46

Progress Toward Featured Objectives

2000 EDGEHILL

Together, USN students, teachers, alumni, and families create a community, united by their love of the school. A shared commitment to what is best for each individual child remains a defining characteristic here.

We count on you every year for financial support, contributing to the priorities of the School. Every gift to the Annual Fund counts toward One School. Our Future. A Campaign for University School of Nashville.

Please give today at usn.org/giving or mail a check to 2000 Edgehill Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.

If you have any questions, email Sam Jackson, Annual Fund Director, at sjackson@usn.org or call him at 615/277-7496.

MAKE PLANS TO JOIN US FOR APRIL 15-16, 2016 usn.org/reunion for more information

1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, and all gold circle classes