2000 Edgehill, #2/2016

The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration Sc hool & University Sc hool of Nashville #2/2016

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Lea rn i n UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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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.

The editor thanks all the volunteer writers who contributed to 2000 Edgehill; archivist Jenny Winston, who suggested we look at the political writing in student newspapers; everyone who submitted photographs and class notes; Juliet Douglas, Lynne Mosby, Anna Myint, 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 does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, creed, national origin, handicap, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or transgender status in the administration of its educational, admissions, and financial aid policies, faculty and staff recruitment and hiring policies, athletics or other programs or activities administered by the school.

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The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville #2/2016

2 0 0 0 Letters to the Editor 4 Mystery Solved 4 Story Forum Arguing about Politics: from the 1948 election until 2016 6 Thank You, Mr. Robins 15 Financial Aid Basics 16 New Ways of Teaching and Learning The Difficult Conversations 20 Talking about Numbers 22 Remembering Reunion 24

Running Man Pauses 28 Commencement 2016 30 Class Notes 34 Moving Society Forward: Mark Fancher ’76 35 The Path toward Journalism: Lisa Gurevitch Cohen ’84 37

A Political Pickle

The first question I encountered when I started talking to alumni about their political involvement at PDS and USN was one I should have foreseen: how can you write an article about politics without being (or seeming) partisan?

I don’t know the answer to that question, and it’s not for me to say if I have managed to avoid even the most obvious pitfalls. Many people assume, rightly or wrongly, that USN is a “liberal” school politically. I suspect that such was not always the case. Perhaps some alumni who graduated in the 1940s will explain that corner of our history to me.

That’s an aspect of something I have long wanted to understand about this school, bound up somehow with its being less insular than other Nashville private schools from that day in 1915 when the first classes met in the basement of the Jesup Psychology Lab across Edgehill. Perhaps its comparative openness was founding director Thomas Alexander’s personal stamp on the malleable

clay of the Demonstration School. Admitting Jewish students might have been a deeply held conviction of his. It might not.

But back to politics. In this election year, of all times in recent history, the last thing we want is to contribute another partisan voice to the national rhubarb. We aim for University School to be both a refuge from the partisan divide and at the same time a place to learn the skills necessary to be a good citizen. Several alumni reminded us that among those skills is arguing with those who hold opinions contrary to yours.

Another question arose. Why were most of the voices in the political discussion here male? The story is told through student writing that appeared in school papers, mostly edited and staffed by boys, it seems. Perhaps now I will hear from some of the women. I hope so.

Finally, the more I worked on this story, the clearer it became that the subject deserved more time and space than we could give it in this magazine. That is not to excuse the article’s shortcomings, just to acknowledge them. It would please me if you write and tell me what you think of it. nn

Connie Culpepper, Editor

The 2015-2016 school year, my first as USN’s Alumni Director and Social Media Manager, has

come and gone in a blink. Meeting alumni in Nashville and all across the country has been the highlight of my year.

At our alumni gatherings in 8 cities, I was able to meet about 150 alumni from the classes of 1951-2015.

(Be sure to take a look at our map on page 42.) I loved meeting everyone and helping create “minireunions” for alumni of all ages. And the big Reunion 2016 in Nashville brought together another 200 alumni to visit the school and reminisce with friends. It’s delightful to hear stories of your times at PDS/USN, see old friendships rekindled, and learn about your lives since you left here.

Attending these out of town events allows everyone to connect with alumni of all classes. Recent graduates who are looking for internships or jobs have been able to network with some of our more established alumni. Professional networking for USN graduates is a topic the local Alumni Board and I have discussed this year, and we hope to see it evolve, not only in other cities, but locally.

With our network continuing to grow and with everyone becoming more engaged through technology, we can easily keep you more up to date and informed on events and happenings on Edgehill through social media. USN’s social media following has already grown significantly. Since last July, Facebook.com/usn.pds has increased 25%, and Instagram.com/usn_pds has nearly doubled in followings. Documenting and sharing such events as the first day of school, Grandparents’ Day, Reunion, and Graduation has been fun. Your likes, shares, and comments from this year’s posts keep the social media lively and interesting.

Whether on social media, through emails and phone calls, or in person, we love hearing from you. Please share all your life updates and news with us. Thank you to all those I’ve met, worked with, and communicated with this year. I look forward to next year’s events and having the opportunity to meet with even more of you. nn

Anna Myint ’04, Alumni Director 4

To see the daily happenings at USN, visit Facebook.com/usn.pds or Instagram.com/usn_pds.

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School and Society

When the school introduces and trains each child of society into membership within such a little community, saturating him with the spirit of service, and providing him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guarantee of a larger society which is worthy, lovely, and harmonious. (John Dewey, 1907) This column might read like a long walk on a short pier, but events of recent months inspire some willingness to risk. Consider our national electoral landscape, the partisan bitterness prevalent in what now passes for civic discourse, the baseline personal anxiety which manifests in ways unhealthy and numerous, the persistently hardened demographic divisions of daily life—and ask, “What’s a school to do?”

This issue of our alumni magazine devotes space to consideration of politics here in decades past, of active young citizens and active discussions, engaged in the issues of their day. USN, and PDS before that, faced the challenge of encouraging students to speak their minds, however nascent those thoughts might have been, without appearing institutionally to endorse any candidate or platform. Add a faculty cohort with their own heartfelt allegiances, and the degree of difficulty in striking the just right tone only grows.

But a commitment to participating in the free exchange of ideas, while bringing forward the well informed mindset, then turning thoughts into action, endures. At our best, and to quote scores of graduates, this school taught how to think and not what to think. It presented education as a process and not a product. Fast forward to a 2016 indicator to find that virtually every member of our senior class registered to vote, at a drive held on campus, in anticipation of November and beyond. Behold some reassuring cause for optimism.

In more typical times, basic participation of this type would probably stand as sufficient for any school to embrace and expect as part of its formative role. Our times, however perilous it may yet be to invoke a degree of exceptionalism, feel different.

We’re witness to growing economic and educational inequality, with intense focus on individual accomplishment and personal fulfillment—a mismatch in the face of overwhelming societal challenges. And we’re vulnerable to the criticism that, as a tuition-charging entity that spends $2 for every $1 spent by our public school neighbors, we are part of the problem.

2000 Edgehill. Even if we wanted to preserve what gets called, sometimes affectionately and sometimes in frustration, the USN bubble, the world finds a way in.

And surely we should help find a way out, a way forward.

Our fundamental responsibility to care for and to ensure the safety of our students and our school community means, in our current era, speaking directly about a commitment to civility and to respect for the beauty of each individual in our midst. It also means rejecting the polarizing, negative-sum, mean spirited rhetoric that grabs so much media attention, reaching even our youngest students in ways hard to prevent.

To return to Dewey’s progressive call (antiquated pronouns notwithstanding), the work of connecting self-direction with a worthy society is best practice work for schools, and it’s fundamental to our stated mission. So rather than wish away the toxic climate that pervades the noise of public chatter, we can find more importance than ever in connecting child and curriculum. We may be, in fact, more important than ever.

That’s not to say we should trumpet a partisan position, but instead that we think at least as much about what unites us as about what separates us issue by issue. I’m quite convinced that on the truly important stuff we stand on ample common ground, and I’m equally convinced that our world needs examples of communities united in respect for one another, celebrating the opportunity to learn from the different life stories in their midst.

Reading and writing, science and math, languages and arts are no less important than they’ve ever been, but to be fully engaged in pursuit of excellence in those areas we need to place them in the context of our times, and if you walk our halls you’ll see us stretching more and more to make that true. nn In a spirit of harmony,

Vince Durnan, Director

Rather than retreat into our corner of the educational sandbox, we choose instead to think we can do some good at and beyond

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LETTERS to the EDITOR n Julie Barnett Allan ’82 writes, “What a

fun surprise it was to see the Bye Bye Birdie poster in the latest issue of 2000 Edgehill!

It photographed very well. I hope it makes lots of those cast members smile. I also realized that I don’t remember who created it­— Heather Campbell, maybe? Ellen Schreiber? I liked the article about the eclectic assortment of clubs that USN has had over the years. I was not in the PIPE club (never quite sure what they did, if they did anything but talk) but I thought of it immediately and was pleased to see it mentioned. I didn’t know that USN had buses now!”

[We find it impossible to imagine that the PIPE Club did anything besides talk, by the way.] n Nancy Van Ness ’63 asked our help

recalling the name of her PDS music teacher.

She explained, “He composed a piece of music that we used to sing and I found a score for it recently, but it was listed ‘composer unknown.’ The song’s lyrics said the “the builder built a temple, which would never know decay” but of course, it was destroyed.

The teacher, on the other hand, built a temple that was not made of bricks and clay and that never did decay. I loved singing it and find its message very inspiring to this day.” We sent her this picture of Jerry Williams. Is he the right teacher? If you PDS/USN archives remember, please Jerry Williams email cculpepper@ usn.org.

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Mystery Solved

n One AV Club member wrote to us—the boy with his arm raised and a screw-

driver in his hand. That’s John Turnley ’73, who identified Blair Davies ’73 (in the striped shirt) as the only other senior in the photo. He remembered Milton Clark ’74, the central figure. John says, “If you look closely you can see a screwdriver that I’m ready to stab into Milton’s head.” n In addition to the memorable Milton, Mark Fancher ’76 also recalled the late

Keith Davis, behind Milton’s right shoulder, and “the young man with the hammer,” whom he could remember only as “Alan.” Mark says, “I recall the A-V club as being very important to school operations. They were the guys who stored and delivered equipment to classrooms and assemblies when movies or recordings were shown or played. I think they also operated the equipment and were called upon to troubleshoot when there were technical problems.” n Of his “good friend” Milton, Rick Korn ’74 says, “Milton did in fact turn his love

of electronics and stuff into a career” and “went on to own his own Computer services company in Louisville, KY less than 10 years after High School.”

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PDS/USN archives

Mystery Photo It was the fall of 1980 when the high school came out to the front yard to have a tug of war. No mystery there. We could name several of these students lined up and pulling on what must have been a very long rope. In our archives we have another tug of war picture that shows high school head John Mason at the front of the line—perhaps tugging in the opposite direction from these people.

The mystery is why they are doing it. We hope someone remembers. Was this a bet, a student council project, a fundraising venture? Please email cculpepper@usn.org if you have any recollection of this or if you would like to identify all the tuggers all the way back to Margaret Bean.

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What is Politics?

By Connie Culpepper, editor When I started writing a story about the ways that PDS and USN students have become involved in politics, I was thinking of national politics. Articles in old archived Paw Prints give voice to passionate student opinion on Presidential candidates, segregation, Viet Nam.

As Ben Zeppos ’05 said of his middle and high school self, “I wanted to test limits.” (Ben helps coach the debate team and teaches two history classes in our high school. He was the editor of The Edgehill Herald, as the student paper was known in his day.)

Bob Corney ’82 said much the same. Though he has managed statewide Democratic campaigns, served on the staff of Senator and Vice President Al Gore, and was Governor Phil Bredesen’s Senior Adviser and Communications Director, in high school Bob was not especially interested in politics. He was an adult before he learned that his father is a Republican.

But at USN, “You felt like you could pretty much do anything.”

That includes goofy things, like the time he and classmates Jim Oates and Ralph Reinheimer ran with Jim’s canoe down the hall, into Mrs. Davies’ math classroom, and then downstairs to launch the canoe into the pool. Also, there may have been a prank involving a rival school for boys.

It also meant, Bob says, “When we did theater, we built the sets.

Even soccer had a do-it-yourself aspect.” Like Ben, he edited the school paper, and he says that its advisor, Victor Judge, let the students decide which direction the paper should take. “We were

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given a lot of freedom to do things and try things,” Bob says.

Discussions in and out of class were wide-ranging. “We tackled nuclear proliferation, capital punishment, things like our view of what was going on at school and how students could get involved.” Students were worried about losing their right to sit on the Wall across Edgehill Avenue from the school, the center of socializing during school hours—a change which did come about a few years later.

Bob was the student representative on the Board of Trustees, a role that allowed him to sit in meetings in which USN’s future was being determined. “I remember listening to intense conversations,” he says of those days when the school’s survival was at stake. all images PDS/USN archives except where noted

But conversations with alumni about their high school political activity showed that my definition was too narrow. If politics is, as the Oxford English Dictionary claims, “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power,” then high school proves to be the perfect learning laboratory for politics. High school students are “hoping to achieve power”—especially at a school where students are treated with respect and allowed some autonomy, as they have been here for a century.

Now he sees that what he learned at USN has served him well, both in his career in politics and the work he does now at VOX Global, a strategic communications firm Bob Corney: “Even soccer had a do-it-yourself aspect.” where he is a senior vice president. His USN education taught him the importance of the follow-up question. “We need to ask ‘Why is that?’”

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“Something was a little different at USN,” Bob says now. “Something that helped you open yourself up to what others are thinking.”

Developmental Challenge

Middle school head Jeff Greenfield ’84 recalls getting a call from the director’s assistant, Bobbie Grubb, one day back in 1999.

“You’d better get up here to Dr. Litterer’s* office,” she said. “A bunch of your middle school kids are here wanting to talk to her.”

“I expected to find maybe half a dozen middle schoolers outside her office,” Jeff says. “But 25 or 30 kids were there.” Seventh graders filled the office and spilled into the lobby.

It was no coincidence that the students had shown up during their physical education period. They were there to tell the school’s director that it was wrong to make them wear uniforms in p.e. This assembly was the culmination of a protest that had been growing for some time.

Ben Zeppos remembers it well. He was one of the seventh graders protesting that day. They had organized themselves for the right to go to p.e. in their normal clothes. Being forced to wear uniforms, even forced to purchase uniforms from USN, seemed deeply unfair to the seventh graders. More and more of them had begun refusing to put on their p.e. uniforms. That refusal meant they had to sit out p.e., not the cruelest punishment imaginable for some.

Ben says, “We saw our chance at a weak moment for the administration.” He reasoned that as an interim head, Dr. Litterer wouldn’t tell them no. Maybe it was Ben’s idea to go talk to her.

Jeff Greenfield doesn’t recall if the change to physical education policy was made immediately, but he now describes this student protest as “a helpful catalyst” leading to changes that needed to be made to the middle school program. “The kids brought it to our attention.” Within a year or two, p.e. classes had been moved to the end of the school day, and no one had to wear a uniform.

For Ben, “it was about the developmental challenge.” In high school, this challenge continued, as Ben found that he enjoyed arguing with people. He was on the debate team, but he also liked to argue with adults. “My arguments in high school were inspired by my desire to be iconoclastic. This was to a certain degree allowed at USN, and I wanted to test limits.”

As he looks back on some of these tests he fashioned in high school, “testing the limits of what was sayable,” he feels embarrassed about some of the things he said. But he still thinks that it was important developmentally.

Ben Zeppos, middle school protester turned high school teacher, and a photo of Ben in fifth grade during the Titanic project

In the February, 2004 Edgehill Herald, we find editorials by editor-in-chief Ben Zeppos and managing editor Zach Rodgers ’04. Zach’s essay is called “The Patriot Act: A Violation of our Constitution, a Threat to our Freedom,” and Ben’s is “Bush Wants to go to Mars, and I’ll Buy his Ticket.”

The Paw Print Speaks

Whatever it has been called, since its earliest days our high school paper has been the forum for political arguments in every sense of the word “politics.” In its pages, amidst articles about school spirit or profiles of outstanding students, you find attempts by thoughtful young people to come to terms with the most difficult issues of their day and reports on ways high school students have tried to engage with those issues. Usually (though clearly not in that 2004 Edgehill Herald) they have tried to represent different political opinions.

These student papers mirror the changes slowly making their way to Nashville. “Election Year at Peabody,” a story in the fall 1948 Volunteer by Ira Traweek ’49, describes a mock election held in the auditorium days before the nation chose Truman as President.

In “one of the most spirited programs ever performed,” students gathered in the auditorium “with placards in hand and banners waving.” The band played the national anthem. Walter Criley ’50 gave an introduction, then the “hot political speeches” began.

*Jean Litterer was USN’s interim director, serving the year after Ed Costello left for Durham Academy and before Vince Durnan began. continued on next page

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“Civility and respect prevailed in the workings of the school.” seems to offer “greater consideration for the people and the world at large.” As late as 1961, the president of the School Defense Club was writing a letter to The Paw Print’s editor warning, “If we fail to take action, there will be no chance for the present American government to endure.”

But especially while PDS was whites-only, its students kept returning to the biggest question facing their home town and their school: civil rights.

Perhaps some of those speeches bewailed Truman’s support for civil rights and integration of the armed services. Ira is silent on what was said. But he reports, surprisingly, that Dixiecrat third party candidate Strom Thurmond “carried the Junior and Senior classes with 94 electoral votes, thus winning the election. Dewey, although getting more popular votes, failed to win because he had only 21 electoral votes from the Freshman class.”

How could this happen? PDS students voting for Strom Thurmond? This same mock election is mentioned in a 1976 Pinnacle, as the student paper was briefly known. Writing about the election held at USN that year, Mignon Nixon ’77 notes that in 1948 the sophomore class held the election “under the instruction of Dr. Holden,” the history teacher. She says, “The results were never known, for an avid Truman supporter and his Republican count experts were apprehended after alleged irregularities were discovered in the procedure of the election officials.” (The 1976 election at USN was close, Mignon reports, with Jimmy Carter winning by three votes and senatorial candidate Jim Sasser by one.)

In 1952, opinion pieces in the Paw Print suggest that Communism is on students’ minds. In “I Like Ike,” Jeanne Walker Poole ’54 says, “There will be no place for any Communist in any government job. With Eisenhower, I believe we will have peace, peace of mind, and a brighter opportunity to work for a future of our own choosing.”

In “I Am For Stevenson,” Ann DePierri Davis ’53 recounts switching her allegiance from Eisenhower to Stevenson, who

In a 1956 Volunteer, a column called “A Liberal Look” by Jon Van Til ’57* says, “I want to see man move forward rapidly, ever approaching closer to his Utopia. To do this, men with generous ideas must take justified steps for progress.”* Civil rights work in 1950s Nashville by Jon’s father, Peabody College professor William Van Til, kept the family name off their suburban mailbox for fear of firebombing. Everyone at PDS must have known the politics of the Van Til family. “My peers generally shared, or at least respected, my liberal/activist views,” Jon recalls. “Civility and respect prevailed in the workings of the school.”

In a 1957 editorial in The Volunteer, Jon wrote that if PDS continued to be all-white, it and other private schools in town could become a “haven for bigots.” His junior year at Swarthmore, he wrote a piece for the college paper called “Interracial Tension in Nashville,” reporting on the lunch counter sit-ins, then returned to the story a year later to add this conclusion: “On May 10 a few Negroes were served at Nashville lunch counters at prearranged times, with adequate precautions and with protection provided. Within a few weeks Negroes were being served on the same basis as everyone else; the sit-in had proved itself a potent force for social change in Nashville.”

Yet that particular social change remained years away at Peabody Demonstration School. In December, 1963, Paw Print editor Ken Jost ’65^ put it on the front page of the paper; he called segregation “poppycock.”

In a way, Ken’s life’s work began at Peabody Demonstration School. “My interest in politics animates my career in journal-

*A note on Jon Van Til, Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University, Camden; author of 14 books on such topics as conflict resolution and non-profit work. So no, he didn’t really change his mind after he graduated from PDS and went off to Swarthmore with his “generous ideas.” He has continued to strive toward Utopia.

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ism,” he says, and it was when he came to Peabody in 1962 that his political ideas began to take shape, inspired by the presidency of John F. Kennedy. At PDS he came to believe that “segregation was a compelling issue that required federal action.”

That December 1963 Paw Print features a long article by Ken, “Operation Desegregation,” about Vanderbilt students’ attempts to desegregate the nearby Campus Paw Print editors Jon Van Til (l.) and David Nicholls Grill. It was impressive reporting for a debate on for a high school sophomore. Ken interviewed Melvin Putnam, the Viet Nam manager of the Campus Grill, and the college student who had war. The debate organized the protests. would pitch his dad In that same paper Ken also has an editorial, “The Day of the Mint Bill Williams, Julep,” arguing in favor of integrating the Demonstration School. the editor of Reading it fifty years later, he is “quite proud” of it. “We pretend Billboard and to be the intellectual leaders of this city while still espousing such a supporter of poppycock as segregation,” he wrote. Peabody was “testimony to Paw Print editors Mark Stumpf (l.) and Ken Jost with the war, against sponsor Mrs. Tyler the intolerance of the white South.”

Mr. George, Tom’s favorite teacher, who argued against U.S. involvement in Working on The Paw Print was the beginning of his career as a Viet Nam. Tom moderated. journalist, Ken says now.

A Debate

“I lost the debate badly,” Paul George says. “It was still the time when Americans, certainly Tennesseans, were very patriotically supportive of the war. Virtually everyone sided with Bill Williams.” Paul remembers, “I was just a kid. He leaned over the podium and showed everyone his press credentials.” Those credentials mattered—Bill Williams had been to Viet Nam as a reporter. (Later Bill Williams would say to Paul, “You were right.

I was brainwashed as a reporter in Viet Nam.”)

Paul George, who taught at the Dem School in the late 1960s, remembers a school where the students were “involved” and their parents were “supportive.” In his Introduction to Social Sciences class, he set aside a day for students to discuss political issues with the parents of other students. “We would have 4 or 5 groups of students talking to other kids’ parents. The parents really enjoyed hearing what kids similar to their own­—but not their own—were thinking and doing.”

However, Paul says, “The nice thing about the Dem School back then was that we really could tolerate multiple views.” Paul remembers getting along “really well with Cason Dickinson ’69 despite our political differences.”

By 1965, the year Ken Jost was graduated from PDS, it was no longer all-white, but a new issue had presented itself: Viet Nam. Soon this war became a personal issue for high school students. In 1967 a crowd gathered in the Payne Library for a public debate on the topic, pitting a popular teacher against a prominent journalist who was the father of a PDS student.

It may have been Tom Williams ’68 who came up with the idea

Julie Reichman ’70 has a similar recollection about Mr. George, crediting her “political awakenings” to “being in Paul George’s classes, being confronted with a variety of perspectives, and being challenged to think for myself.”

^Ken would grow up to be a law professor and a distinguished journalist. “I mostly cover the Supreme Court,” he says modestly. Ken is the author of Supreme Court Yearbook and Supreme Court From A to Z; he writes the blog Jost on Justice and has won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. A graduate of Harvard and of Georgetown Law School, Ken teaches media law at Georgetown.

continued on next page

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Now, at the end of a long and distinguished career, Paul George says, “Those years at PDS were my best years of teaching. No one ever told me, ‘You can’t do that.’ There were no taboos.”

“Intellectual Freedom and Exploration”

Much of the credit for that freedom must go to Knox McCharen, director of Peabody Demonstration School from 1951 until 1968.

Though Jon Van Til ’57 left PDS before Paul George arrived, he agrees with Mr. George’s assessment of Dr. McCharen’s role. Jon says, “Whatever the ‘giant’ teachers thought about politics, they kept it to themselves. I was always encouraged to think on my own. I think that this culture of intellectual freedom and exploration at PDS was wonderfully presided over and facilitated by Dr. McCharen.”

In May 1963, the Peabody College Board of Trustees adopted a new policy of “taking qualified students without regard to race, color, or creed.” One year later, Knox McCharen was writing to PDS families that he would put this new Peabody College policy “into operation from the Nursery School through the ninth grade at the Demonstration School in September of this year.”

In 1987, Dr. McCharen told Heber Rogers that he considered his role in the school’s integration to be his most important accomplishment. Knox McCharen died in 1988. We don’t know what he was thinking about USN in the last years of his life.

Change Comes

Nor do we know what Dr. McCharen thought when he read the editorial by Donyss Cotton ’71* in September, 1968. He had retired at the end of summer school just a month before, so it seems likely he was still reading The Paw Print.

Donyss writes, “We are living in an age of revolution in America. The Black people of this country may never be able to rise to ‘power,’ but we are well placed to create chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream.” Donyss continues, “This is my home, and I will not be driven from it. We must make America what America should be, for I cannot be free until you are free.”

And here is her conclusion: “If we are strong and do not falter, we may be able to end the racial nightmare and win a country. If we fail to stand, united, James Baldwin’s prophecy from the Bible, in a song by a slave, is inevitable: God gave Noah the rainbow sign.

No more water, the fire next time!”

It is surprising that the paper was allowed to run this editorial, which was written “at the request of the Paw Print staff.” Perhaps Paw Print editors Mary Hillman ’69 and Nancy Patton ’69 got into trouble over it. Only a few years before this, Dr. McCharen and Paw Print sponsor Mrs. Tyler had censored Ken Jost’s “Day of the Mint Julep” before relenting and allowing him to run it in the following issue.

But Dr. McCharen had retired. And it was 1968. Everything in Nashville had changed since 1963. *Donyss died in 2006. Read her obituary at usn.org/publications.

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Knox McCharen

Paul George

Donyss Cotton

On October 28, photos of Presidential candidates Nixon, Humphrey, and Dick Gregory appeared on the front page. We are told, “Several groups of reporters for the Paw Print secured press credentials and followed the major party candidates in their visits to Tennessee.” The students heard Gregory speak, reporting on his plea to increase police salaries as a way to improve relationships between police and young people.

The Paw Print devotes two full pages to reporting on speeches by the candidates, with Mary Hillman, Anne Metzger ’70, and Nancy Patton covering Humphrey. Someone went to Knoxville to see Nixon, who, by the way, won the PDS “Presidential preference primary” by one vote.

This surprising result came after an assembly featuring guests speaking on behalf of their candidates. Nixon’s Nashville campaign manager, Charles Anderson, came to PDS. Someone named William Burton appeared for George Wallace. Dick Gregory was represented by the editor of the Vanderbilt Hustler.

Paw Print reporters continued staying on top of everything about the election. After the conventions, a student talked to Gov. Buford Ellington’s press secretary, Hudley Crockett, who said the police in Chicago at the Democratic convention had been “polite, professional, and well-organized,” not the adjectives most people would have chosen.

Another student reporter talked to a delegate to the Republican convention, Ralph Mobley, father of Summer Mobley, PDS senior. Mr. Mobley said that the Republican convention was free of the “troubles facing the Democrats in Chicago” because continued on next page

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Mark Thompson in high school

This poll appeared in the school paper during the 1980 Presidential election

“Republicans never make wild promises to millions of people in order to obtain their votes, nor practice demagoguery, nor do they have to work around ideological splits or outmoded political machines.”

Cason Dickinson wrote a column on George Wallace. “Contrary to what many of the left wing political propagandists in all media have to say, Mr. Wallace is not now and never has been a racist.”

Compared to 1968’s, the 1984 election seems tame. Perhaps that’s why Tom Bailey ’85 doesn’t remember that in the 1984 mock Presidential debate, he played the role of Walter Mondale.

Tom’s classmate Marc Maier appeared as Reagan.

Lara Levinson, Elizabeth Triplett, Billy Jacobs, and Mark Thompson portrayed the editors of various newspapers, and Whit Martin moderated. Afterwards, Rosemary Scott, the teacher whose idea it was to hold the debate, told The Paper (yes, that’s what they called it), “I thought the panel asked some really difficult questions and had good follow ups. Mr. Reagan certainly appeared to be intelligent. Mr. Mondale appeared to be affable.”

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The 1984 election

The tactful Harvey Sperling said, “Our students are candid, lively, and more impressive than most politicians in this nation.”

The same issue of The Paper includes a paragraph titled “Swing to the Right”: “Conservative politics remain at USN, despite the graduation of Ross Peiser and Brad Gordon. Chris Chamberlain, a noted USN conservative, is in his senior year and he still preaches the Reagan way of life. Other right-wingers have also surfaced in Ms. Scott’s Post World War II history class. Jim

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Jackson, Peter Hodes, and Jeff Spigel have taken issue with the liberal view of a lack of equal opportunity in America. This issue alone led to a heated debate with Mark Thompson, Beth Triplett and Ivan Davis.”

The Mark Thompson ’85 of that heated debate and many others grew up to be, among other things, the host of Make It Plain, a talk show on XM Radio. He is the “first and only African American talk host on SiriusXM Progress and the only African American in the U.S. hosting a daily, national show on a progressive/liberal talk format.” In 1984 he was not only arguing in Ms. Scott’s class but also writing about the Presidential race in The Paper and working to get Jesse Jackson elected.

In 2013 Mark, who has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in Divinity, was honored at the 104th Annual NAACP Convention “for 25 years of crusading journalism and outstanding leadership in furthering the work of civil and human rights.”

His USN classmates, including those he used to argue with in Ms. Scott’s class, will not be surprised to hear that Mark has been recognized as a crusader.

USN is a Change Project

Two decades after Mark Thompson graduated and went to Georgetown (where he organized a shantytown to pressure the university to divest itself of South African property), political arguments were continuing to rage at USN. George Brandes ’03 says, “I remember arguing with students and teachers. It’s particularly difficult when confronted with a radical Republican such as I was then to stay above the fray.”

But like Ben Zeppos, George sees educational benefit in these arguments. “I can’t imagine high school without that dichotomy. It was an opportunity for everybody to hone their skills of on-yourfeet argumentation.”

George remembers being in a distinct minority at USN. His best friends Ben Lundin and Steven Venick held opposing political views. When he started the Young Republican Club his junior year, seven or eight kids did show up for the meetings. But no one else was as outspoken as he in those days. Only George wore a Bush mask and stood outside Republican Party headquarters on West End holding a “Honk for Bush” sign.

George’s father, a West Point graduate and retired Army colonel, no doubt influenced him. In eighth grade American history, the textbook devoted four pages to the Japanese internment and one paragraph to D-Day. Col. Brandes was not pleased, George recalls.

The middle school George Brandes (on the rope, right foreground) showing the determination that helped with his Change Project. Project partner Steven Venick (back row) cheers him on, with Anna Myint ’04 in the hat next to Steven, then Graham Manning and David Harper, both ’05.

“In a Republican school, I would have been a Democrat.”

“I always thought it was odd and kind of funny that in a school where diversity took such pride of place that it was only certain kinds of diversity that were privileged,” George says, noting the lack of intellectual diversity. But this lack didn’t trouble him. “I liked that not a lot of people agreed with me. In a Republican school, I would have been a Democrat.”

This conversation with George began because I wanted to know more about his eighth grade Change Project,* undertaken with Steven Venick. Their project seemed a good example of the nonpartisan political activity I was thinking about, like Ben Zeppos’ p.e. uniform strike. Steven and George wanted to change the rules of the Tennessee state legislature so that legislators could no longer smoke in their chambers and offices.

“Our idea was that everywhere else you couldn’t smoke, but the guys passing the laws outlawing smoking were still allowing it for themselves.” George and Steven were bothered by “the inequity and the public health concern, with hundreds of kids coming there every day for field trips.”

*An eighth grade tradition at USN during the long tenure of recently retired social studies teacher Gil Chilton, the Change Project required students to find something in the world of USN or beyond that needed changing and then try to bring about that change.

continued on next page

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photo by Kimberly Manz

The Politics Club at one of their lunch time meetings: front row, l. to r.: Hannah Dibble, Matthew Palmeri, Michael Becker, Madigan Wheelock, Natasha Frontera, Jessica Schreiber, Joe Noser; back row, Emaun Irani, Harry Compton, Paul Reich, Arpan Sarkar, and Adam Beasley, all class of 2016

Though the boys brought attention to this inconsistency, they couldn’t effect the change. That failure in itself was educational, George says. “We learned that it’s not enough to be right. It has to be the right time, you need luck, you have to be clever about it.

Change is a capricious business.” (The rule was changed several years later after a Tennessee nurse waged a campaign, George recalls.) Anyway, George says, “Politics is mostly about feeling, not so much about policy issues.”

How are things in 2016?

This spring an online poll conducted by The Peabody Press, as the student paper is now known, drew a response from more than half of high school students. Of those, 78% called themselves Democrats, and 41.9% of those chose Bernie Sanders.

But The Peabody Press is no 1968 Paw Print. We might be tempted to conclude from its lack of attention to national politics in this election year that the topic fails to interest high school students.

But record numbers of high school students registered to vote this year at USN. And the Politics Club met every Friday, drawing a faithful group of seniors to engage in thoughtful and informed discussion on the issues of the day as they ate lunch together.

Arpan Sarkar ’16 started the Politics Club. His idea was to make it non-partisan, after noticing that “the liberal slant turned a lot of people away” from the Young Democrats Club of previous years.

“Politics Club was my chance to have and foster passionate discussions with my peers on any important issues.”

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It worked. “Many of the students at USN are liberal, and by encouraging some of my more conservative friends and classmates to join, I made club discussions more lively and varied,” Arpan says.

“The openness helped create an environment where everyone felt comfortable discussing their views.”

The club evolved as the year went by. Arpan led each meeting, sharing video clips and leading discussion as if teaching a class. At first, the kids discussed the presidential election or what’s going on in Congress. “Later on, however, we started leaving the realm of politics and began discussing topics such as drug testing for welfare recipients, euthanasia, and the death penalty.” Club members preferred this broader focus. Arpan says, “While we made sure to keep up to date on the election cycle with new articles and various video clips, we focused more on these moral and social issues.”

Just after graduation, when I asked Arpan what he had learned from these weekly meetings, he said, “Politics Club showed me how much group discussion can change views on an issue, be it my own views or the view of my peers. I really didn’t expect so much sharing of ideas and opinions.”

But that sharing is just what we need, if politics in high school is to be what these PDS and USN alumni have suggested—a path to learning about much more than the struggle for power. nn To see digitized copies of old PDS and USN student newspapers, including many mentioned in this story, visit usnarchives.omeka.net.

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To Sir, With Love

By Siffat Hingorani ’08

I am both humbled and honored to have the opportunity to write about Head of High School Steve Robins on the occasion of his retirement after eighteen years of service to our USN community.

I first met Mr. Robins when I came to USN as a sophomore in 2005.

Like many other students, I was touched by his friendliness and genuine enthusiasm for the institution that brought us together. He wanted to make USN the best that it could be for each of us.

Within months, the start of college approached, and for me, that meant moving to a new state, far from home. But Mr. Robins was never more than an email or a phone call away. Throughout my college years, I shared stories and consulted him on decisions I had to make. And no matter how trivial they were, he always made the time.

In the three years that followed, I had the privilege of getting to know Mr. Robins through his many roles at USN—teacher, advisor, administrator, leader, and above all, well-wisher.

I remember one rainy March afternoon in my junior year when Mr. Robins politely interrupted the math class I sat in and asked me to stop by his office after class. I nervously made my way through the third floor hallway, only to find him in his office beaming with pride. He was eager to be the first to share good news with me— news of a poetry competition I had just won—and he simply could not wait until the end of the school day to do so. His excitement, akin to that of a proud parent, surpassed even my own.

Though Mr. Robins was never officially my high school advisor, he played every bit the role, especially during my senior year. He generously agreed to write recommendation letters for me and helped edit my application essays. But when deadlines approached, and I was nowhere near done, I started to worry.

Sensing my concern, Mr. Robins offered to continue working with me over the winter break, even as he traveled to California to be with his aging father. Nothing – not the holiday season, the physical distance, the lack of internet access, nor obligations toward his own family – kept Mr. Robins from supporting me.

Through phone calls and faxes, he managed to help me in every way possible.

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photo by Kimberly Manz

My college years came and went, but the interest Mr. Robins took in my well-being never changed. Even as I navigated my way through the corporate world—a world very different from his—Mr. Robins continued to be a friend and a guide, graciously sharing his wisdom every step of the way. All I had to do was ask. He was never too busy.

In the eleven years I have known Mr. Robins, his ability to always think of me, with me, and when needed even like me, has been a true blessing. At every stage of my life, he has shared his wisdom and broad perspective, but always meeting me where I was. His boundless compassion and unconditional support are precious gifts for which I will be ever grateful.

Words cannot express the full extent of my gratitude for all Mr. Robins has done. But, as author Elizabeth Gilbert has said, “Maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” nn This fall Siffat will join the high school math faculty at USN.

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Putting USN Within Reach A Discussion with Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Juliet Douglas and Financial Services Director Kyron Buckner Why is financial aid important to University School of Nashville?

Putting it simply, need-based financial aid makes it possible for us to add amazing students whose families can’t afford a USN tuition. It just makes us a better school. We know that we’re a healthier, stronger school when we bring together children of different backgrounds.

How do you decide who gets financial aid?

Is there a formula?

School and Student Services (SSS) is the financial aid branch of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). Like USN, most NAIS schools use SSS, which compares a family’s financial picture to a national pool of applicants and reports what a family ought to be able to contribute. It’s great to have a third party number cruncher. The SSS methodology—while significantly driven by annual income—includes assets, debt, salary, mortgage, educational obligations, and disposable income decisions, among other things. Each family also has an opportunity to tell its story, so we might learn of a new financial obligation to grandparents or an impending job loss or possible parental split.

And families re-apply each year, so that we can gauge whether an award should be increased or decreased.

More than a decade ago, after a two-year study of affordability and access, USN’s Board of Trustees decided that our financial aid awards had to be within 10% of a family’s need. In the past, we had so little money, and we tried to spread it around as much as possible.

We ended up lowballing awards and “gapping” families, who often ended up digging themselves such a big debt hole they couldn’t possibly climb out of it. Now when we make an award, we’re able to make it truly viable for the family to send their child here.

Folks might be interested to know that USN faculty and staff apply for financial aid just as everyone else does, rather than getting an automatic tuition break. Those children are in our first priority group to fund; next come the returning students on aid; and in the third priority group are returning families needing aid for the first time and our brand new students.

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photo by Kimberly Manz

Kyron Buckner (l.) and Juliet Douglas

How has the process of awarding financial aid changed over the last two decades?

It’s changed significantly. We’ve shifted our timeline so that each returning student’s financial aid application is read in January.

This means that when re-enrollment contracts go out, returning families also get their financial aid awards. Brand new families get their awards along with their contracts in late February. Most schools don’t share the aid award at the same time they offer a contract—the aid offer comes later. Families are able to plan and budget for the upcoming year a lot sooner. We’re really proud of the way we do this.

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Twenty Years of Growth in the Dollars Committed to Financial Aid 1995-1996 2000-2001 2005-2006

$502,091 $766,415 $1,206,053

2010-2011

$1,847,124 $2,736,925

2015-2016

We have far more demand for aid now as well as significantly more resources, thanks to the Board of Trustees’ commitment to economic diversity.

What are the biggest challenges in managing the financial aid budget?

Hands down, it’s funding everyone who qualifies. We start the process with returning students in January by pencilling in for each aid applicant an award of 100% of what the family qualifies for. Then we come back to the real world, where we have to reduce an award or perhaps put a family on a financial aid waitlist so we can stay on budget. Additionally, we’ve moved closer to need-blind admissions: we accept the students we think are a great match here, regardless of need. Then comes the hard part, having to put some new families on a financial aid waitlist.

A key priority of One School. Our Future. A Campaign for University School of Nashville is to make a USN education available to more people.

To accomplish that goal, we are committed to raising both current-use and endowed scholarship funds for financial aid.

$3.2M

We are proud that we have so far received more than $3.2 million in new commitments to financial aid.

Gifts range from $20 for the annual financial aid operating budget to $1,000,000 to establish endowed scholarships.

What would you change about financial aid at USN if you could?

We’d love to be able to meet 100% of demonstrated need for every candidate. While we are proud of how we stack up nationally with other K-12 schools, we want to be the industry leader in that area. We see some amazing students applying for lower or middle school who get put on a financial aid waitlist­—this means we’re

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$1M

not likely to see them again in our admissions pool. Each year we see 10 to 20 incredible students we’d be so lucky to have but that we can’t fund. And each year more and more people qualify for aid as tuition goes up.

Financial aid covers only tuition.

We wish we could meet the need that exists beyond the cost of tuition—trips, books, technology, sports, after-school. It all adds up. Our Lending Library for textbooks helps, but we could also use an endowed fund in support of kids who need extra academic support and an endowed trip fund that would help with the costs of the eighth grade trip to DC or high school retreats or the amazing sixth grade trip to Pisgah. It would also be tremendously equalizing to have an after-school program endowed fund. nn

For more information about supporting financial aid and endowed scholarships, please contact Anne Westfall in the development office at 615/277-7495 or awestfall@usn.org or visit our website usn.org/oneschoolourfuture.

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Looking Without and Within

By Freya Sachs ’00, head of the English Department

T

he third floor hallway is an exciting place to be: tenth graders talking in trios of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, ninth graders adapting scenes from The Taming of the Shrew, students unpacking poems, and a constant buzz of words. It remains a place of dynamic reading, writing, and thinking as we continue to grow and change in the ways we approach our work together.

What does it mean to have an English class in 2016? How do our texts reflect the range of voices and experiences in our classrooms? Why do words matter? How are our relationships with language changing? These questions ask us to explore both what we teach and how we teach it.

Our English department has spent the last two years focusing on these questions, re-exploring and re-envisioning our curriculum.

We started by thinking about what our students should know as they graduate—what are the essential skills for literacy in today’s world? What literature should every student read? How do we decide?

This year we reinvented our ninth grade curriculum, organizing the class around a set of thematic concerns: How can literature help us understand our own selves? How can it let us understand the selves and components of identity of those around us? How can writing—and a writing process—help us develop that understanding? How do we include texts from more countries? Thus we redefined English 9.

Teachers Dana Mayfield, Katie Greenebaum, and Justin Karpinos worked to put this new course into action. This fall, all writing was graded based on process, not on product. The course asked students to develop their thinking, reading, and writing with purpose and attention to improvement and process. This emphasis on process, coupled with guiding, reflective questions,

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allowed students to take risks—writing outside of the five paragraph form, focusing on a clear and original thesis, and developing their own voices. It allowed students to engage in the questions literature raised, developing personal and meaningful connections to the texts in question. Satirical rants, inquiry-based essays, creative journal responses—these are a few of the ways that writing has shaped our students’ experience of English 9.

At the same time, our ninth grade teachers have embraced the challenge of making our curriculum better reflect our students’ voices and range of experiences, choosing more international literature.

Ninth graders read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, a Nigerian novel. It allowed students to inquire about the ways that outside forces—culture, society, media, history—help shape individual identity. Students could explore central questions of literature through a lens that may, or may not, directly reflect their own; they were asked to read with empathy.

In Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, students encountered questions of transformation, complexity of character, conformity, and character change, all while puzzling through Shakespeare’s

2000 EDGEHILL

photos by Kimberly Manz

“...exposure to more voices from around the world serves as a window into ourselves and challenges us in ways revelatory and enriching...” language and puns for the first time.

Shrew asked students to write their way into the text, see how Shakespeare can really be funny, and discover subtext and possibilities at each turn. After explorLeft photo: Freya Sachs; right photo: Dana Mayfield ing questions of responsibility and power—the link between identity and power, responsibility to others, and, the benefits and risks of empowerment or lack thereof—with Fugard’s play ‘Master Harold’… and the Boys, the students turned inward. Building on the success of our memoir unit of years past, students wrote their own stories,

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sharing elements of their identity in creative, thoughtful ways.

This allowed for the emphasis on writing to come full circle, highlighting student growth—both in process and in the work they are able to create.

Teacher Dana Mayfield says, “This course pushes me as well as students to refine our understanding of literature and our world.

What I have most enjoyed about the class is how exposure to more voices from around the world serves as a window into ourselves and challenges us in ways revelatory and enriching—in our thinking, our discussions, and our writing.”

We are lucky to have a strong, engaged faculty who are curious and willing to explore; we are equally lucky to work in our classrooms with thoughtful, reflective readers, writers, and thinkers who are willing to take risks, ask difficult questions, and challenge us to engage in the world in which we all live. nn

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Roundtables Make Hard Conversations Easier

By Helen Tarleton, middle school counselor

W

alking down any hall in middle school during morning break, one would assume there is no shortage of face time. But there is more to it than meets the eye. In today’s digital world, students need more of a particular kind of face time: the kind that requires a person to be fully present and open, willing to listen without interrupting, willing to disagree respectfully, and willing to say what’s needed without hogging air time. In today’s world, children don’t have the same skills for authentic face-to-face effective communication unless they’re taught them explicitly. So we teach them.

In 2014, we began holding “Roundtables” in our advisory meetings at each grade level. A Roundtable is a meeting where students sit in a circle and learn how to approach personal, community-wide, and societal issues constructively. Roundtables provide the chance for teachers to model appropriate ways to hold a conversation on a lively topic: they give students a common language for thinking critically and acting thoughtfully and empathetically.

What distinguishes Roundtables from other discussions is structure, predictability, and intention. Predictable steps define a Roundtable conversation beginning with mindfulness, a review of common agreements about how to communicate, a chance to take the temperature of the group before starting, and opportunities for students to share in a safe, receptive environment.

Agreements include: respecting each other, keeping an open mind toward what is shared, speaking only what is true for you personally using “I” statements, being lean in your speech, and keeping whatever is shared in the Roundtable confidential.

The format has been remarkably successful, in large part because it takes full advantage of the creative capacity of our faculty and its commitment to discuss issues that are relevant to the lives of students. Nowhere is teachers’ rich understanding of the developmental realities of the middle years more evident. Topics for discussion vary, but in every case students are presented with a situation which asks for self-reflection and the capacity to consider another’s point of view.

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In one grade, during a time when a number of NFL football players made the news for drug and domestic violence charges, teachers chose to share and discuss a story about a player’s membership in a local book club and his unlikely friendship with the women in it. Questions were posed about why certain news stories attract more attention than others, and what it takes to get to know people from other walks of life. Students were asked to think critically about what they see and hear, rather than taking it at face value.

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“We can talk without worrying about being judged.”

Another grade-level team of advisors chose to show a cartoon entitled “The Bear That Wasn’t” in order to discuss identity.

This time, teachers asked such questions as, “How much of who we are is determined at birth?” “How much of it is something

Roundtable follow-up. One time all students viewed scenes from the historic race-related video ‘A Class Divided’ and another time saw a provocative video clip about privilege. The Roundtable format allowed teachers to craft discussions that are most meaningful for the students at their grade level: same topic with a different angle depending on the developmental readiness of students.

Differences in students’ developmental needs across grades are evident in their reactions to Roundtables. For example, fifth graders have said: “We can talk without worrying about being judged,” and “I like the circle because it helps you think about things because there are a lot of people around you.”

In contrast, seventh graders have this to say: “It’s hard to have your own opinion or disagree because you feel weird if others disagree. It’s harder because the topics are not academic: in class, there’s a right or wrong answer, but in Roundtables there are various different viewpoints. The people who have a different opinion perceive others as incorrect.”

Even more poignant is this student’s observation: “We have a kitchen to go to when we’re hungry, we have a bedroom to go to when we’re tired. We need a fight room to go to when we disagree.”

While Roundtables are not intended for solving conflict, they do provide a home for all of us to learn to talk about important things. nn T​ op photo, l​. to r.: Anders Little, Jonathan Nichols, Jordan Turner, all class of ‘22, with sixth grade English teacher Greg O’Loughlin; bottom photo, l. to r.: Ian Manz, Arnav Reddy, Mansi Pethkar, and Kursten Griffin ‘22.

photos by Kimberly Manz

we decide?” And “How does our identity change over time or due to certain conditions?”

Some of our very best Roundtables have immediately followed our division-wide Town Meeting where we introduced a topic and asked students to return to advisory for a

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T

Clockwise from top left: Josie Robins leading a Number Talk; Caleb Shaw; Luke BĂŠhague-Mentzel; Berta Crumpton

photos by Kimberly Manz

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2000 EDGEHILL

A New Math Mindset

By Josie Robins, assistant head of the lower school

M

ost of us remember practicing our times tables in math as our teachers tried to help us develop math fluency.

Some children loved these tests, eager to show off how many answers they could get in 60 seconds. Others struggled mightily, just hoping the least favorite part of their day would pass quickly.

Now, at USN, second and third graders assemble in small groups in front of a whiteboard for “Number Talks.” A teacher writes a subtraction problem on the board: 40-19, for example. After some think time, the children share their answers aloud. Then the teacher begins to ask questions. “Who wants to explain his or her thinking?” “Who can show me a different way? “How did you get your answer?” “Can you prove it?”

Annie says, “I started at 40 and counted back by one nineteen times.”

Hank says, “I knew 20 plus 20 would equal 40, and since 19 was one less than 20, the answer would be one more, or 21.”

Rita explains, “I also used addition to solve subtraction, but I started at 19. I counted up 1 to get to 20 because it is a friendly number. Then I added 10 and got to 30. Then I added 10 more and got to 40. I added 1+10+10 and got 21.”

The emphasis in a Number Talk is becoming able to articulate connections between numbers and to understand different approaches to a problem—the creativity and problem-solving skills important to learning. Rather than do a list of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division facts as fast as they can, children become involved in the process of investigating a string of related problems, presented one at a time. We want students to understand that math is not about memorization. It’s a broad, creative, visual subject, more about numbers and space, visualization, and making connections.

Having the right mindset is important. Before we began Number Talks, students watched a video of “Four Key Messages on how to Learn Math” (Youcubed.com): 1) All students can reach high lev-

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

els of math. 2) Struggle and mistakes are good for you. 3) Believe in yourself. 4) Speed is not important.

Students struggle to explain their thinking, but it is a productive struggle that, ideally, feels more worthwhile than frustrating. In a recent Number Talk, some third graders investigated the following sequence of problems: 50 x 6, 50 x 16, 500 x 16, 499 x 16. Even though many of the children could solve the problem, explaining how was hard. Ethan tried to explain why it worked to “add a zero.” He knew that if 50 x 16 was 800, then 500 x 16 was 8,000, but how to represent that?

When the final problem, “499 x16,” was put on the board, students gasped. Patrick talked about the familiar mutiplication algorithm—but he couldn’t remember all the steps, and his strategy was confusing.

Then Katie shared her strategy. “We knew from the last problem that 500 x 16 was 8,000. I visualized 16 rows with 500 in each row. Since 499 is just one less than 500, I could picture that there would be just one less in each row, or 16 less in all. So 16 less than 8,000 is 7,984.”

Number Talks help not only those who are quick to see number relationships, but also those who struggle in math. Research shows that lower achieving math students tend to rely on number facts instead of number relationships. When memorization fades or a new concept is introduced, these students have few strategies for self-checking or extending their grasps.

Number Talks help all students to develop a deep number sense through the practice of seeing and sharing multiple and varied ways to figure out an answer. Students of all levels find themselves enjoying the challenges of math and of new ways of thinking.

As one second grader says, “I like number talks because we have big talks and it makes BIG discussions about that LITTLE number.”

Another child says, “I like being challenged.”

nn

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APRIL 14.16

photos by Kimberly Manz

REUNION

Reunion 2016 brought together alumni with years ending in 1’s and 6’s, with graduates from the class of 1943 to the class of 2011 joining the celebration. It all began on Thursday, April 14 at the BMI offices on Music Row, when 80 alumni got together at our All-Alumni Party to reconnect and enjoy delicious food from Suzy Wong’s House of Yum. On Friday and Saturday, each class hosted a party, gathering in homes or restaurants. The 50th reunion of the class of ’66 brought together 23 alumni, including 10 who were 13 and 14 year club members.

On Friday and Saturday, many alumni came to campus for tours of USN and the River Campus. “Comings & Goings,” a discussion with Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Juliet Douglas and Director of College Counseling Janet Schneider, shed light on the processes of

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2000 EDGEHILL

2016

Top row, clockwise: The class of ’66; Andrea Wolf Bernstein ’02, Jennie Shepard Zagnoev ’02, Freya Sachs ’00, Suzanne Foy McNulty ’00; Class of ’01 13 Year Club members Julia Sullivan, Eric Wagner, Kim Sandler Rhodes, and Katherine Spitz Hale; bottom row: 1991’s Lars Soderkvist, Andy Straus, Jeremy Roberts, Susannah Felts, Richard Nord, and Sibley Edwards Kelley; Johnson Kuo and Rob Laird, ’86; class of ’96; Alma Jean Sawyer Colley ’53 and Christine Tibbott.

getting into USN and on choosing a college, with those in the Payne Library Room audience sharing their thoughts about USN as well.

At the luncheon on Saturday, alumni visited with each other and former teachers over lunch in the auditorium. They browsed through items pulled from the archives. Middle schoolers entertained us at lunch with songs from their award-winning production of The Lion King, Jr. A special thank you goes to all the alumni class agents who helped make Reunion 2016 a success.

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This page, clockwise: Stirling Snow and Sean Bell ’96 at the All-Alumni Party; Dan Eisenstein, Mark Van Loon, and Mary Ruth Swint Martin of ’66; the ’76 class party; the ’71 class party; Sara Berkman and Tim Creavin ’11 tour the school; opposite page, clockwise: Jackie Roth Karr, Mark Fancher, and Cynthia Goldner, ’76; ’86 at their class party; Danielle Kahane-Kaminsky and Jay Levy of ’81; Katherine Spitz Hale and Stephen Schleicher ‘01; the ’96 party; Mara Steine ’11 with her dad David Steine ’68 at the All-Alumni Party.

Visit usn.org/reunion to see more photos of Reunion.

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2000 EDGEHILL

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Tracking the Changing Globe Distinguished Alumnus Edward Masuoka ’70

At

USN’s annual Convocation, seniors, their families, and the teachers who have guided them gathered in the auditorium to hear this year’s Distinguished Alumnus, Ed Masuoka ’70.

Vince Durnan described Ed Masuoka as the man “who may know more, in terms of basic scientific fact, about what may be our greatest global challenge”—climate change. Ed is the Chief of the Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

This lab works to “produce, archive and distribute data products from NASA’s Earth observing satellites as well as developing and validating fundamental science products used to study global change.” These products, Ed explains, help people all over the world study long term changes in forest cover, ice sheets, and climate; forecast agricultural yields to identify areas of potential famine; monitor air quality and war fighting; and respond to natural disasters such as wildfires and floods.

In the early 1990s he began leading a team working on the first MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument. By 2002 they were also processing data from other satellites as well as archiving and distributing MODIS products to a global user community. “Many of the satellite images on television, in magazines, and online, particularly those of natural disasters, are from the MODIS instruments and were produced and distributed by our data systems,” Ed says.

After Mr. Masuoka showed slides about climate change and discussed the work being done, he entertained the crowd with stories of his ultra-marathon running, confessing that it helps to be able to run while asleep. The Vol State ultra marathon, 314 miles across Tennessee in July, appeared to be one of his favorites, if such a word applies. He completed that race (“a vacation without a car”) in five days.

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photo by Kimberly Manz

He also showed photos of himself competing in the Barkley Marathons. Only 14 people have ever completed the Barkley, which began in 1995. None of this could have been predicted when he was at PDS, the editor of the literary magazine.

After discussing his work, the climate, the future of the planet, and his ultra running, Ed took questions from the seniors. He talked about the necessity of risk-taking and the value of failure. nn Visit usn.org/publications to see photos of Convocation.

2000 EDGEHILL

Joining the USN Community

As

of July 1, with Steve Robins’ retirement, University School has a new head of high school. Quinton Walker has a degree in political science from Duke University, a master’s in higher education leadership from the University of Michigan, and an Ed. D. from Vanderbilt University in Education Leadership and Policy.

“Every interaction I have now affirms that. The teachers are committed, talented, and driven. To be in a community like that is a gift. That is why I knew this would be a good place for me.”

As a member of the founding faculty team for Peabody College’s Independent School Leadership Master’s Degree program, Quinton is no stranger to USN, having since 2014 served as an adjunct professor in that program just across Edgehill Avenue. At the same time he has been Director of School Programs at Atlanta’s Paideia School, a progressive day school with approximately 1,000 students.

Quinton Walker is looking forward to becoming part of the USN community. “I’m excited to get to know the people here,” he says.

“The students I met when I was here were so warm, impressive, and thoughtful. The faculty was the same—they have been gracious with their time and their thoughts on the school.”

His decision to come to University School was based on its reputation. “I had always heard that it wasn’t a school that was content

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

with what it was. It always wanted to do better. How do we think about education? How do we make it even better? How do we serve and support students? That attitude was really appealing to me. It’s a place that is restless in the best possible way.”

“Every interaction I have now affirms that. The teachers are committed, talented, and driven. To be in a community like that is a gift. That is why I knew this would be a good place for me.”

Though Quinton loves thinking about education, it’s not his only interest. “If I weren’t in education, I would be in the restaurant business for sure.” He loves to cook and entertain. “I read cookbooks and cooking blogs every day.” nn

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Commencement 2016 “No matter the difficulty of the course or the sometimes staggering amount of material that needs to be covered in a few short months, each teacher strives to make the classroom a warm and joyous place to be. Because of this, we will feel the absence of our teachers sharply next year as we enter college.” Arpan Sarkar ’16

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

photos by Kimberly Manz

Previous page photo (which was also the Commencement program cover) by Ingrid Komisar; this page, clockwise: Emily Baker, Sean Barrett, Zoe Bauer, Fidan Baycora; first grade teacher Marty Kennedy, newest holder of the Shmerling Chair for Excellence in Teaching, bidding farewell to the seniors; seniors processing to the Magnolia Lawn for the ceremony, Braxton McKissack in the foreground; Arpan Sarkar.

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“I offer you no advice, only appreciation for

Clockwise from top left: Kara-Jade Gordon and Isabelle Greenberg; Adam Beasley, Sean Barrett, Arpan Sarkar, Tom Shaw, Noah Isenstein, Tevin Burdette, Rashad Jones, Emaun Irani, and Matthew Palmeri; Ben Liske, Molly Sullivan, and Roxanne Haines; McKenna Harrington, Emily Baker, Jessica Awh, and Mark Pierce performing “Changes.”

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2000 EDGEHILL

having shared your lives with us.” Steve Robins

photos by Kimberly Manz

Hannah Malkofsky-Berger, Maggie Young, Sue Choi, Madigan Wheelock, and Adelaide Owens; Jessica Schreiber, Elizabeth Flatt, Emaun Irani, and Tom Shaw singing “In My Life”; Maci Koplow and Natasha Frontera; Fred Crumbo, Perry Davis, and Blair Webber (holding a bust of Friedrich Schiller).

​Visit usn.org/publications to see more photos of Commencement and to find copies of the speeches.

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CLASS NOTES 1966

The Class of ’61 gathered in Cool Springs on June 18 to celebrate their 55th Reunion

1955 Moshe Werthan writes, “Libby and I moved back to Nashville about a year ago after living 25 glorious years in Jerusalem. We are finding Nashville to be just as friendly as it was when we left in 1990.”

After surgery Jim Voorhies says he had to retire “and we needed a change so we’re now in tropical Florida, Punta Gorda, on the Gulf coast. Our condo looks out on Charlotte Harbour. I’m biking and walking semi-regularly and my new goal is to outlive my brand new central air system.

Dan Eisenstein and Mary Ruth Swint Martin, both ’66, finding treasure in the I’m going to do it. I’m PDS/USN archives adding a sunset photo In April, Jackie Hyman, writing as Jacqueline [above] taken from near the condo. That tall Diamond, published her 101st novel. Her myspalm is right in front of my lanai.” tery, The Case of the Questionable Quadruplet, is the first in her new series, Safe Harbor MediKaren Ward Knox and her husband Tom wrote cal Mysteries. More info about Jackie’s books from the Queen Mary 2 on their way to Britain can be found at jacquelinediamond.com. for a month, “visiting friends and hiking in Cornwall. We’ll be based in St. Ives, where I hope to channel Va. Woolf, but without the madness.”

1957

1967

Jon Van Til is spending the fall term at his lakeside home in Indiana with his wife, Agnes. Jon and Agnes then plan to return to their Budapest home in December by way of Sydney, where Jon will keynote the Australia/ New Zealand conference on civil society and voluntary action. After that exertion, they plan to spend two weeks at their favorite Bali resort, Cili Emas.

Rosemary Zibart’s new book is Kit Coyote: A Brave Pup. It’s “intended for young children entering foster care to answer some of their questions and validate their mixed emotions. Several of my The latest book by USN classmates were Rosemary Zibart ’67 generous enough to help support the creation of this book. And I’m so grateful. I also encourage anyone with an interest in or relationship to foster care to consider obtaining the book.” For information go to www.zproductions505.com.

1964 Mike Nixon won the US 65 and over golf championship this past December at The Wigwam in Phoenix.

1968 Marilynn Tucker is “semi-retired from law” and “enjoying rural life and hiking with my four dogs.” She is hoping to travel soon, but so far has “enjoyed recent trips to Memphis to celebrate my twin sons’ graduation from The University of Memphis with Masters in Film and Video Production. My oldest son is considering a law career but also enjoys music, acting and writing.”

Elly Katz is Founder and Executive Director of Sages & Seekers, an intergenerational program used in the curriculum of high schools and colleges across the country, designed to develop empathy and diminish ageism through the simple art of conversation. Now living in Los Angeles, she recently visited NYC whereher son, Max Hirschberger, graduated from Parsons. continued on page 36

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2000 EDGEHILL

Battling the Enemies of the Oppressed

Mark Fancher ’76

M

ark Fancher discovered his calling at the University of Tennessee, where he became “swept up in campus and community activism.” He began to work for “affirmative action, the release of political prisoners, and the destruction of the apartheid system.” He decided to go to law school because “it seemed to me that the law could be a valuable weapon when working for movements.”

“The law has not been as effective a weapon as I had hoped it would be, but it has always provided a license to engage the enemies of the oppressed in battle.”

Mark is an attorney for the Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. “Poor people and people of color in Michigan have been shamefully victimized in recent years,” he says, and the Flint water crisis is not the whole story.

Detroit, the city Mark lives near with his family, has seen water shut-offs for thousands of poor families. He serves on legal teams addressing the water-related issues and challenging the constitutionality of the state’s “emergency manager law,” which allowed the governor to place all power of local government in the hands of unelected individuals. The most famous result of this law is “the Flint water system fiasco.”

“The law has not been as effective a weapon as I had hoped it would be, but it has always provided a license to engage the enemies of the oppressed in battle.”

Then there are the “police violence incidents.” He says, “The one that torments me most is the literal execution by firing squad of a 49-year-old mentally ill homeless black man named Milton Hall.”

Mark took the case to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, “determined to get some measure of justice for Mr. Hall.”

Yet another issue that concerns him is “the phenomenon of racially disproportionate suspensions of African-descended children from public schools.” Mark says, “Black students are suspended at much higher rates than white students even though the behavior of black and white students is essentially the same.” He explains, “Cultural misunderstanding, stereotypes and implicit bias

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

By Connie Culpepper, editor rather than racial malice are often the cause.” Sometimes called the “schoolto-prison pipeline,” this problem has been “a significant aspect of my work for the last eight years.”

In high school, Mark wasn’t dwelling on these issues.

“There seemed to be no need.”

Photo courtesy of the Organization of American States Though PDS was no prejudice-free paradise, Mark says that “the overwhelming, dominant culture of the school was one of tolerance and diversity, and for the most part there was an easy multicultural coexistence among those who were part of the school community.” Thus he faced a “rude awakening” at UT, where he encountered “raw bigotry.”

John Colozzi, who taught Mark American history at PDS, had warned him. “He said that I was an intelligent young man. . . [and that] ‘Life is always difficult in this country for intelligent black men.’”

But Mark Fancher is not looking for an easy life. If he had wanted that, he would never have enlisted to fight for the oppressed. Nor does he consider the possibility of defeat. “As a man of faith I always have hope,” he says. His faith lies not only in God, but also in “the human family.”

For him, the term “evolving standards of decency” applies to more than our attitudes about the death penalty. “Humanity’s general moral evolution moves ever forward. There were times in history when even well-meaning people regarded slavery, torture, child labor and conquest as not only acceptable, but morally justifiable.

As a society we won’t go back to any of that even though we have moments of panic.” nn

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Susan Corney Van Allen ’80 with her daughters Kate (center) and Phoebe Bob Rosenfeld ‘68’s educated puppy and Bob with his granddaughter Adeline

Kati Towle ’82 with her daughter Harper Lower and wife Beth Lower

lives in the Philadelphia area, where she is “working as an attorney at Comcast and taking care of our growing animal family (latest addition, a 3 year old rescued Great Dane named Maisie). Recently had lunch with Rick Ewing when he was in Philadelphia on business. It was wonderful catching up with him.”

1982

Elly Katz ’68 with her husband and her son Max Hirschberger

Bob Rosenfeld writes, “In November we added to our canine family with a Samoyed puppy. He’s now a proud graduate of obedience class. USN awaits. Then in March we welcomed our first grandchild; Adeline Clarice Rosenfeld. Becky and I are thrilled. Our son Brad and his wife Sheena live in Seattle so we get regular child care opportunities. What a year. As always there is room if anyone wishes to visit the northwest.”

1975 Janet Huddleston was recently at the Mussel Inn, her local brew pub in New Zealand. A band called Fiddle Pie was playing. Janet talked to one of the musicians from Nashville and was surprised to discover that Cornelia Overton ’09 was an alumna of USN too! Small world.

Mary Tanner Bailey ‘81 juggling as she rides on the Wishing Chair Productions float in the Nashville Public Library’s International Puppet Festival parade.

1976 Activist and professor Marisa Richmond spoke to the USN faculty about transgender issues.

The Tennessean reported in May that Mayor Barry had appointed her to the Metro Human Relations Commission, making her “not only the first transgender person in Nashville’s history to be named to a local government board or commission — but the first in the entire state, according to the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.” The paper also reported that Marisa is a former president of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

1980 Susan Corney Van Allen’s family has had a busy year. Her daughter Kate was graduated from Northeastern University and started her first professional job. Phoebe finished her sophomore year at George Washington University and is traveling through Europe. Susan

Kati Towle has no exciting news to report— and that is a wonderful thing! After a serious health crisis with her daughter, Harper Lower, last year, Kati, her wife, Beth Lower, and Harper are pleasantly enjoying their dayto-day life in Silver Spring, MD. Kati teaches art at an independent school in Alexandria, VA and loves doing her own art and traveling during the summer months. She and Margaret Hall MacLaughlin get together often to visit Washington, DC museums and chat in coffee shops.

Betsy Lukens Mikes writes, “During my first year at USN in 6th grade I often wore a shirt that said “I Love Beagles.” Lisa Halprin Fleisher ’80 (my sister’s friend) took to calling me ‘Beagle.’ Most friends over the years have known that I do love dogs. I’ve been volunteering at the Capital Area Humane Society in Columbus, Ohio for about 8 years where I attend adoption events and make school visits with adoptable dogs, but mostly, I walk dogs and give them time outside of their kennels……. anything to make their days better. I’m forever amazed at the large swath of breeds and mixed breeds that fall under canis familiaris, and humane societies see them all. Though she wouldn’t know it, I think of Marlene Foyer continued on page 38

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From USN to CNN

Lisa Gurevitch Cohen ’84

L

isa Gurevitch Cohen’s journey to being a Senior Supervising Producer for CNN International all began at USN. Before graduating in 1984, Lisa spent each of her “Winterims” working in a field related to journalism. (Winterim was a two week program between Fall and Spring semesters allowing students to take classes or do an internship and go beyond the semester’s curriculum.)

By Anna Myint ’04, alumni director After receiving her Bachelor’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, Lisa worked as a news anchor in Selma, Alabama.

This job was followed by a few years as a reporter for the ABC affiliate in Chattanooga, where she realized “reporters were a dime a dozen” and that she wanted to produce. In Chattanooga Lisa’s producer trained her and made her the 6 o’clock news weeknights and weekend coverage producer, opening the door to her joining CNN in Atlanta in 1994.

From 2000 until 2010, Lisa worked as the Supervising Producer and a Senior Supervising Producer in the CNN Newsroom, where she covered live breaking news. One of her most memorable days in the newsroom was September 11, 2001. “I’ll never forget the images I saw that day in the unedited footage.”

Photo provided by CNN

As a ninth grader, Lisa was determined to work as a DJ at Nashville’s popular rock radio station, WKDF. She was disappointed to find that she was assigned to the newsroom on her first day of Winterim. However, she soon saw the opportunity in her disappointment. She worked with the Governor, developing an interest in what was happening in the world.

“Ever since then, I was hooked. I read the newspaper every day, cover to cover. I just loved the news,” Lisa said in a recent interview. During Lisa’s junior year Winterim, she joined the News Channel 5 team. And as a senior, Lisa worked at The Tennessean during her Winterim. Along with these Winterims, Lisa also worked on the USN yearbook and newspaper, cultivating her love for news and writing.

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

In October 2010, Lisa was asked to join CNN International in a new anti-slavery initiative. Her job would be to oversee special projects. The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern Day Slavery first aired in March 2011, and since then has shared over 400 stories of all types of human trafficking from all around the world.

Although The Freedom Project was “created and launched as an awareness raising effort,” it quickly became a vessel to help bring change. The Freedom Project has helped put pressure on governments about such issues as bonded labor in India, forcing the governments to acknowledge the problems and begin to work on fixing them. “I’ve seen a lot of change in our time,” says Lisa.

“The sad thing is that we found out very quickly that there are more stories than we’ll ever be able to tell.” What started as a oneyear project has become multiple years of bringing awareness.

Each month CNN airs one full week of programming (six shows, one hour each) dedicated to The Freedom Project.

Other special projects Lisa has worked on include the recent 2020 Visionaries, a technology series focused on visionaries and innovators that will shape our world’s future, which aired on CNN in February and March, 2016.

Lisa thanked her former teachers at USN: Connie Culpepper, Janet Schneider, and Victor Judge, who all encouraged her interest in journalism. She has fond memories of her Winterim opportunities. “Winterim was very important to me because it was what set me on the path toward my career in journalism.” nn

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1989 Gideon Yu’s company EVA Automation, which he started in 2014, has recently bought Bowers & Wilkins, a British maker of audio gear, notably speakers.

1993 Annelise Werme is a massage therapist and is “loving it. InAmanda and Garrett Westlake ’99 with Griffin credibly, I somehow Bridesmaids at the October 2015 wedding of Srijaya Reddy ’97 and Neil Adler was nominated and included Sujana Reddy ’95, maid of honor, and Rachel Miller Yasser ’97 won first place in the 2015 Ruthies Awards Musician Gabe Dixon appeared this spring on Yancey often as she and her son volunteer at (a people’s choice Last Call with Carson Daly. nbc.com/last-callthe Nashville Humane Association. Wish we awards for Rutherford & Cannon Counties) for with-carson- daly/video/gabe-dixon/3034689 could walk the dogs together!”

Favorite Massage Therapist!” She says she is busy “working 2 jobs, continuing my training to soon also be registered in Thai Yoga Massage, Steven Davis has won two “Annies” for his David Eshaghpour is now Associate Dean for and doing lots of swing dancing to stay sane.” work on the animated series Bob’s Burgers. He Advancement at the University of Southern Cali- In March Annelise opened her new massage won “Outstanding Achievement for Writing in fornia Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. studio on the historic downtown square in Muran Animated TV/Broadcast Production for his freesboro, Serendipity Massage & Wellness. work on “The Hauntening” episode.

1996

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Wynne Stallings has created SoulSpring Counseling Inc. after more than three years in private practice. “I am having a lot of fun building, designing, and creating a practice that seeks to reach the depths of the hearts of those who enter my doors, help those hearts break free from the bondage of pain and spring forth into the life they were created to live. (Thus the name, SoulSpring).” Wynne is a Qualified Supervisor for state interns and also provides “consultation to families of addicts who are seeking guidance on how to live while in relationship with an addict. I can provide this consultation over the internet and can reach families anywhere in the world who are struggling.” She is working toward certification in Psychodrama, “a creative movement therapy that combines what i would call improv and therapy. It’s a way for clients to work out their issues in vivo and is very powerful. Gus Gillette would approve!”

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For more than 13 years, Tobie Smith has worked as a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham, representing children involved in juvenile-delinquency and child-welfare proceedings. “Since 2014 I have also served as co-director of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center, which covers a seven-state region stretching from Louisiana to North Carolina.

In March, as the legal representative of three adopted children, I was one of the prevailing parties in the United States Supreme Court case V.L. v. E.L., in which the Court held that Alabama courts were required to give legal recognition to a same-sex partner’s adoption from another state. I live in Birmingham with my wife of nearly 14 years, Katie, and our 10and 6-year-old daughters, Maren and Margot.

I can be reached at tobiesmith@yahoo.com.”

Leah Neaderthal has launched a new business helping other small business owners succeed. Growthworks Solutions works with small teams and solo business owners on tech infrastructure and business development, to help them run their businesses smoothly and make more money. “When I’m not hanging out with Ariel Neaderthal Voorhees ’01 and my niece Edie, of course!” Leah can be reached at growthworkssolutions.com.

A recent story in The Tennessean featured Erin Mosow’s return to Nashville to join her father in running the family business, Charpier’s Bakery.

Erin is described as “a Culinary Institute of America graduate who interned under chef Dan Barber at Blue Hill in Tarrytown, N.Y.” Charpier’s is a wholesale bakery that supplies 175 Nashville restaurants with bread.

2000 EDGEHILL

2001 In February Chris Chamberlain ’85 reported in the Nashville Scene that Julia Sullivan was the chef at Steadfast Commons, a new restaurant downtown, on the first floor of the Encore condominiums.

Robert Andrews ’03 (second from right) with his team

1999 Jamie Sussman Maresca, MA, MT-BC is back in Nashville with her husband Mike and daughters Abbie and Ella. She recently started her own business, Birth, Babies, and Bach, providing Sound Birthing services that use music to prepare expectant mothers for a calm, peaceful, and positive birth experience.

In October Behin Barahimi and her husband Brett Inglis had their second son, Kayvon. Behin writes that Kayvon “was welcomed with open arms by his big brother Kian.”

In May an article in The Tennessean looked forward to the opening of Julia Sullivan’s new restaurant, Henrietta Red (named for her grandparents), which “will take shape in 4,500 square feet of fresh new space on the corner of Fourth Avenue North and Madison Street in Germantown.” The restaurant will open in late fall or early winter. “Sullivan teamed up with hospitality professional [Allie] Poindexter, whom she met in New York and later persuaded to make the move to Nashville, along with former University School first-grade classmate Max Goldberg, whose Strategic Hospitality serves a partnership role as well. While going through the grind of getting ready, Sullivan helped launch the kitchens of Pinewood Social, Dozen Bakery, Steadfast Coffee and others, making her the busiest chef you’ve never heard of, until now.”

Sarah Yazdian ’04 and Todd Rubin

2002 In March Julia McKenzie Johnson and her husband welcomed their second son, Mac. Big brother Wells is proud. continued on next page

Garret Westlake writes, “After eight years at Arizona State University, most recently leading the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, we are moving to Richmond, Virginia this summer. I will be an associate professor and executive director of the da Vinci Center for Innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University. Moving across the country and starting a new job wasn’t enough excitement, so we are also excited to welcome our second child in August.”

2000 Leeman Tarpley Kessler’s 2015 was one of major changes. He and his wife Rachel and daughter Amanda moved from Toronto to Ohio as Rachel started her new job as priest and chaplain at Kenyon College, where both she and Leeman went to undergrad. Leeman continues filming his popular web-series Ask Lovecraft and performing at festivals and conventions across the country.

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

Back Row: Matt Dixon ’97, Haley Riebeling Zaccarrelli ’04, Kati Solomon ’04, Julia Bell ’04, Caitlin Dixon Kavoosifar ’04, Anna Myint ’04, Taylor Loring ’04, Kyle Blackburn ’04 Front: Cameron Kavoosifar, Liam Dixon ’28, Carrie Spitz ’04, Gabe Dixon ’96

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Alex Loosen ’04 and his friend Sophia Russi visiting from Germany and meeting Margaret Brittingham ’05 and Charlie Brittingham ’04 at the wedding of Alex’s stepsister in Peru, where Margaret is stationed in the Peace Corps

Charlie Gilbert ‘06 (center) with fellow drummers from the Global Education Center in the International Puppet Festival parade

2003 Robert Andrews has a new project—working on a TV show called Expose UX in Dallas “where startups demo their products and receive feedback from user experience experts.

It’s essentially ‘shark tank for design.’ Ian Woodward-Smith ’00 was on one of our episodes earlier this year for a company he is involved with called ScoreBird.” Watch Ian’s episode at: youtube.com/watch?v=knu5yq52O1k.

Robert has launched a kickstarter program for Expose UX.

At the wedding of Erin Shmerling ’06, USN bridesmaids included her cousins Katie Shmerling Wayne ’05 and Mollie Shmerling Perry ’03 as well as those pictured here with Erin: classmates Tessa Lamballe Stewart, Molly Cunningham Snow, Isabel Ross, and Carly Compass Horn.

2004 Dan Chazin and Craig Stewart ’05 signed contracts and now play on the Nashville Night Watch Professional Ultimate frisbee team. Dan writes, “Been about 12 years since we were last teammates at USN but it is super fun to be playing together again.” (See the schedule at nashvillenightwatch.com.) Dan is planning to get married this August and then move to St. Louis to attend the Washington University Physical Therapy program.

Anna West ’07 with her husband Zack Barnes

Rosie Siman Yakob and her husband have “celebrated our 3 year nomad-iversary running Genius Steals as an itinerant strategy & innovation consultancy completely from the road/runway. Woo hoo!”

Allison Duke ’05 and Paul Budslick. Grace Ann Cunningham Lukach ’03 was Allison’s wedding planner. Bridesmaids include Katie Goldstein ’05, Ellen Duke Haber ’00, Rachel Bubis ’05, and Amanda Pargh ’05

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Becca West is back in Nashville, working in research at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. “With help from several current USN students (Drew Dibble ’18 and Jackson Joffe ’18 are leading the USN initiative), I am growing the non-profit I started in Chile called LETS Play which uses soccer to teach English.”

Jess Jowers Burkey ’07 & Kaile Barnes O’Morrissey ’05, both married to Army officers, ran into each other at the Military Ball at Ft. Stewart, Georgia

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Ross Welch ’12 and Jameice Holmes ’13 at the end of successful seasons at Birminingham Southern

Alex Garmezy ’06, Sarah Garmezy ’13, and Jared Stillman ’08 at a Predators game

The first Broadway curtain call by Henry Gottfried ’09

Cate Adams is a Production Executive in the Feature Department group at Warner Brothers Pictures. “Essentially we will work on a film from soup to nuts, reading the scripts, teaming with producers to hire a director, put together the budget, etc. Once a film is in production we watch daily footage and give notes through post production and edits. Most recently I worked on the film Nice Guys.”

2006

Karen Ward Knox ’66 with two former 6th grade English students she met in England earlier this summer: Yashwina Canter ’14 (top) and Anna Sriram. Karen bumped into Anna in the British Museum in front of the Elgin Marbles. Anna is appearing in a play, The Spoils, at the Trafalgar Theatre. She is the sister of Nikhil Sriram ’05.

Check out our beginning website: languagethroughsports.org

John Early co-stars in the film Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. Earlier this spring, a piece about John in The New York Times said, “Fans of streaming comedies may recognize him from his scene-stealing turn as Logan on last year’s Netflix series ‘Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp’ or his episode of the sketch anthology ‘Netflix Presents: The Characters,’ released last month. Since 2013, he’s also been hosting the long-running variety series ‘Showgasm,’ at Ars Nova, the Off Broadway theater dedicated to emerging artists.”

2007 In February USA Ultimate announced that Nicky Spiva would be among the 24 athletes who will represent the United States this summer on the mixed national team at the 2016 WFDF World Ultimate and Guts Championships (WUGC) in London.

A “Google Doodle” created by Will Knowles ’11, a Google engineer

As reported on Politico, TJ Ducklo has joined the Bloomberg Media communications team as communications director for Bloomberg Politics working closely with co-managing editors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. He has previously been a spokesperson for the MPAA, Viacom, and DC’s 2024 Olympic Bid. For the last couple of years, Nick Carter has been working on a film, Immemorial, “about cultural memory and the natural world in North and South America.” You can see the trailer at indiegogo.com/projects/1633606.

continued on page 44

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1 Staying Connected D

“Learning comes in all shapes and sizes. Instruction–math formulas, sentence structure, music scales, etc.

–these are the basic building blocks.

But learning how to learn, and more specifically how “I” learn, makes learning exciting and prepares us for everything encountered in life.

PDS/USN was instrumental in giving me this key.”

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Mark Van Loon ‘66, Hamilton, MT Retired cinematographer

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PDS/USN Alumni Cities

Nashville New York City Washington, DC Atlanta Los Angeles Boston Chicago San Francisco Dallas Philadelphia

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Miami Memphis Knoxville Houston St. Louis Baltimore Seattle Portland, OR Denver Tampa

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“The school demanded academic excellence and rigor, but at the same time encouraged and celebrated quirky, kooky creativity. When I think about it I smile.”

Mark Fancher ’76, Ypsilanti, MI Attorney, Michigan ACLU

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The USN pennants mark the cities where we held alumni events this past academic year: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Next year Vince Durnan and Anna Myint will return to many of these cities, and they’ll also visit some of the others where our alumni live. On this page you’ll find a list of the 20 cities with the most alumni of PDS and USN. “If you live in one of those places, we’d love to help you connect with other alumni. If you don’t, we’d still love to help you connect. Mark Fancher ’76 may be our only alumnus in the Detroit area, but he stays in touch and comes to Reunion. So does Mark Van Loon ’66 from Hamilton, Montana.

Would you like to host or help plan an event in your city next year?

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Email Alumni Director Anna Myint at amyint@usn.org.

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“USN’s Winterim set me on the path toward my career in journalism.”

Lisa Gurevitch Cohen ’84, Atlanta, GA Senior Supervising Producer at CNN International

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us 2015/2016 PDS/USN alumni event cities

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usn.org/alumni n of philosophy in theoretical linguistics, havingbeen chosen from among 4,000 applicants.

Jesse Shofner of the University of Oregon has been named 2016 College Women’s Player of the Year in Ultimate Frisbee by Ultiworld.

2012

Aaron Rosen ’12 graduating from the University of Arizona

2008 Bill Fixers, the company started by Ben ’11 and Julian Kurland, was featured on the NBC national news. In January, when the story appeared, the brothers had helped 1,200 clients save about $300,000 and they had seven negotiators working for them.

2009 This spring, Henry Gottfried was cast as a “swing” in Broadway’s new hit musical Waitress. He covers six roles in the show, taking over a role if someone cannot perform—this includes being the understudy for the lead.

He has now performed that lead role 3 times.

Henry has made his Broadway debut!

2010 Emily Fish has just received her M. Ed. and will be an Associate Teacher at Valor Collegiate Academy, a charter school in Nashville, when school starts this year.

2011 Maddy Booth is among the 35 “of the most academically brilliant and socially committed young people in the US selected for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship at the University of Cambridge.” She will work towards a master’s

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Ben Lippolis, a student at Northeastern University, is on a coalition of six universities unveiling a model this June for billionaire Elon Musk’s transportation system brainchild, the hyperloop. (The Northeastern team leader called the hyperloop potentially the most groundbreaking transportation innovation since the airplane.) As reported in the Northeastern paper, the team, OpenLoop, is among those competing for a $50,000 grant in the Hyperloop Pod Competition, hosted by Musk’s company.

Libby Culclasure DeBell ’02’s son Graham

In May Aaron Rosen was graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Information Science, Social and Behavioral Studies, with a concentration in E-Society. He will be moving to Chicago in August and is looking to connect with USN alumni in the area.

Caroline Graham was graduated from Grinnell College this May and has “received a Fulbright study/research grant to go to Mexico next year and study the effects of seaweed inundations on coral reef ecosystems on the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Harben McCord, son of Julia McKenzie Johnson ’02

2013 Bryard Huggins has released an album, The Gospel Sessions, recorded in Cincinnati at Corbett Studio. It features Bryard’s own acoustic arrangements of popular gospel tunes and hymns. The Gospel Sessions is available on iTunes. Visit bryardhuggins.com for more information.

2014 Jesse Bennett was part of Vanderbilt University’s “Accessibility Map-a-Thon” this spring, an event described in The Nashville Scene as collecting data on the accessibility of the campus for people with disabilities.

Isabel, daughter of BJ Stein ’02, whose November 2015 birth was announced in the last magazine

2000 EDGEHILL

Amanda McElroy Middendorf ’05’s daughter Mary Grace

Carson and Cora, children of Joe Starnes ’01

Cora, daughter of Rebecca McElroy Robuck ’03

The daughter of Langhorne King Coleman ’00, Eleanor Jane

Mira, the daughter of Shalini Vallabhaneni ’06

Beth Petrey Finch ’02’s daughter Nora

Tejas, son of Hitesh Dayal ’01

Shaya, son of James and Behnaz Barahimi Sulkowski, both ’01

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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all images PDS/USN archives

Dr. McCharen

A Request for PDS Alumni Working on this magazine has piqued my curiosity about

some men I never knew. If you graduated from Peabody Demonstration School before 1969, you knew them, and odds are you remember them well: Knox McCharen and “Doc” Holden.

Twenty years of editing this alumni magazine has been ample opportunity for me to hear stories about both of them, as both made indelible impressions on students. Both their names have appeared many times in these pages. But I would like to consider them both more fully, with your help.

It was Sandra Stone Merritt ’64 who called Doc Holden to mind when she donated several books from her father’s library which had been given him by Holden. (Her father, who died recently, was Charles Stone ’38.) More on that story in the next magazine.

As for Dr. McCharen, his name kept coming up in research for the story about political involvement that appears in this magazine.

Will you email me if you have recollections of either Dr. McCharen or Doc Holden? We can arrange to have a chat or you can just email me what you want to say. cculpepper@usn.org Doc Holden

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usn.org/alumni

WEDDINGS

BIRTHS

Zac Cypress ’02 and Erin Graves November 21, 2015

Brett Inglis and Behin Barahimi ’99, a son Kayvon Colin Inglis, October 9, 2015

Sarah Yazdian ’04 and Todd Rubin September 6, 2015

Andrew and Langhorne King Coleman ’00 a daughter, Eleanor Jane, January 30, 2016

Stephanie Hecklin ’04 and Jorie Soskin November 21, 2015

Jessie and Joe Starnes ’01, a son, Carson Joseph, and a daughter, Cora Rose November 18, 2015

Caitlin Dixon ’04 and Cameron Kavoosifar April 30, 2016 Haley Riebeling ’04 and Eric Zaccarelli May 14, 2016 Allison Duke ’05 and Paul Budslick February 13, 2016 Erin Shmerling ’06 and Alex Brock January 17, 2016 Anna West ’07 and Zack Barnes October 10, 2015

James and Behnaz Barahimi Sulkowski ’01 a son, Shaya, January 4, 2015

IN MEMORIAM Elizabeth Langston (Betty Bryan) Morel J. Andrew Brown ’31 (died in 2006) Jane Hayes (Rawlings) Roller Sights ’37 Sarah Katherine Rives (Sally) Brooks ’46 Anne Hines Weir ’46

Hitesh Dayal ’01 and Rupal Pujara, a son Tejas Hitesh Dayal, January 10, 2016

June Stephens Bond ’48

Stan and Beth Petrey Finch ’02, a daughter Nora Vivian, July 23, 2015

Olaf Grobel ’52

Denny and Libby Culclasure DeBell ’02 a son, Graham William, February 10, 2016

Jeanne Walker Poole ’54

Geddes and Julia McKenzie Johnson ’02 a son, Harben McCord, March 1, 2016

James Wright ’54

John and Rebecca McElroy Robuck ’03 a daughter, Cora Virginia, December 31, 2015 David and Amanda McElroy Middendorf ’05 a daughter, Mary Grace, February 11, 2016 Shalini Vallabhaneni ’06 and Joshua Porte a daughter, Mira Anjali Porte, August 21, 2015

Katherine Swift Conte ’59 Bobby Chilton ’64 Myrna Foster ’80 Wes Taylor ’08 To read obituaries of most of these alumni and former teachers, please visit usn.org/publications.

Lacrosse alumni after some friendly competition at the River Campus (l. to r.): coach Josh Scouten, Walter Blackman ’07, Zac Cypress ’02, coach Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pargh, Elliott Roche ’10, John Haitas ’01, Jon Leeper ’15, Hop Mathews ’15, George Plummer ’15, coach Andrew Flood, and former coach Jeff Goold

Please email cculpepper@usn.org to share your thoughts on anything in this magazine.

USN teachers enjoying a bowling outing at Pinewood Social, one of the Goldberg brothers’ joints (Ben ’98 and Max ’01)

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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Campaign Update June 2016

We are happy to report that we are well on our way to achieving the goals we set for One School. Our Future. A Campaign for University School of Nashville.

Campaign goal: $28,000,000 Gift Level $1,000,000+ u $750,000 u $500,000 u $250,000 u $100,000 u $50,000 u $25,000 u

Gifts needed

Gifts committed

5u 5u 7u 16 u 38 u 60 u 85 u

3 2 6 11 33 38 60

$6,746,306

raised in support of the Annual Fund, with immediate-use dollars making learning opportunities available at USN every day.

3

gift commitments of $1 million or more to USN

The Centennial Building Project added 7,720 square feet of new space and 42,214 square feet of renovated, restored space.

More than

$22.5 million

raised toward our campaign goal of $28 million

$3,290,220 in new commitments to financial aid for deserving students

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new endowment funds supporting USN’s people, programs, and facilities

To learn more about supporting USN’s educational priorities, please contact Anne Westfall in the development office at 615/277-7495 or awestfall@usn.org or visit usn.org/oneschoolourfuture

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2000 EDGEHILL

On behalf of our students and the entire USN community

$1,350,000 1,800+ raised for the Annual Fund, surpassing our goal

1,054 students and 190 faculty and staff are supported by your gifts

donors to the 2015-2016 Annual Fund Thank you to our more than 100 alumni and parent volunteers. We couldn’t have done it without you

For more information, contact Annual Fund Director Sam Jackson at sjackson@usn.org.

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university school of nashville

MAKE PLANS TO JOIN US FOR

Reunion 2017 April 20-22, 2017

1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and all gold circle classes for more information usn.org/reunion