2000 Edgehill, #1/2017

The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration Sc hool & University Sc hool of Nashville #1/2017

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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 Editor Anna Myint ’04 Alumni Director & Social Media Manager Juanita I. C. Traughber Communications Director Jenny Winston Archivist

On the cover The pep rally at the end of Spirit Week gives students a chance to express their opinions of USN. Photo by Kimberly Manz.

The editor thanks all the volunteer writers who contributed to 2000 Edgehill; archivist Jenny Winston, who helped in countless ways; all the alumni who shared their recollections of Dr. Holden and Dr. McCharen, especially Sandra Stone Merritt ’64 and her brother Chuck Stone ’67, who donated to our archives books from the library of their father Charles Stone ’38 that had been given him by his friend B. S. Holden; everyone who submitted photos and class notes; Juliet Douglas, Anna Myint ’04, Lorie Strong, Juanita Traughber, 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 color, creed, gender identity and expression, handicap, national origin, race, sex, sexual orientation, 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.

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.

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The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville #1/2017

2 0 0 0 Letters to the Editor Mystery Solved 6 Story Forum The Yarbrough Philosophy of Teaching 8

B.S. Holden’s Legacy 10 Knox McCharen, Gentleman and Leader 14 A new Role for 4th Graders 18 Learning with Computers 20 Learning without Computers 22

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Celebrating Literature with Puppets 24 Class Notes 28 A Full Life: Susan Yeagley ’89 33 ​ Being Funny: John Early ’06 36

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So when Thomas Alexander’s grandsons Tom and Ed Alexander gave us a copy of the speech he made when our building was dedicated on February 19, 1925, we set it aside. We had just devoted two issues of this magazine to our early history, and I imagined you shaking your heads, asking why we haven’t noticed that it’s 2017. Not 1917.

Yet when on the next page Vince Durnan mentions “our history as innovators,” he is thinking of that commitment to finding the best way of educating children and young people that animated Thomas Alexander and has continued to inspire those who came after him—not only his successors as director such as Yarbrough and McCharen, who make brief appearances in these pages, but also those teachers who put these big ideas into practice with real children. Fill in whatever names you please; B.S. Holden is the one we consider in this magazine, but in a hundred years he’s had plenty of company.

On that February day in 1925, Thomas Alexander had no need to read a speech. “I have been preparing this talk for the last ten years,” he said, beginning a tirade against the ways the school was already falling short of his vision, so few years after he left Nashville to return to Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“This is no time particularly for congratulations though we have a nice building—this is a time for very serious thought about the future. I am not worrying about the ten years past—the thing that confronts us is what we are going to do in the future.”

This declaration, repetitious though it may be, serves as our topic sentence for this magazine. While it exists to tell stories of the past, it also, like University School of Nashville, looks to the future. nn

Connie Culpepper, Editor

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lthough graduation from University School is inevitable, your relationship with USN need not end. You can find numerous ways to stay connected with your alma mater.

We host get-togethers for alumni across the country and love seeing alumni in their new home cities. In Nashville, we invite alumni to Artlectic in October and Reunion in April, with several other alumni events throughout the year. Every day our door is open to alumni who just want to stop by. And of course, we count on hearing from you when you have news of any kind.

This winter, many young alumni have been visiting us at Edgehill, telling us about how college has been and what is next for them. A few of these young adults have also mentioned looking for internships and jobs.

photo by Kimberly Manz

photo by Kimberly Manz

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eaders of this magazine may have noticed that its editorial stance includes a surprisingly strong appreciation for the founder of Peabody Demonstration School. After all, as we pointed out to you every day in 2014 and 2015, a hundred years have passed since Thomas Alexander’s vision for a new demonstration school took shape on Edgehill Avenue. In that century many an inspiring and even visionary educator has set up shop here—as some of the stories you’ve read in this magazine attest.

About half of our entire alumni population lives and works outside of Nashville—across the U.S. and in different countries. And these alumni work in a variety of fields. Remember, the Alumni and Development Office can help connect you with alumni who may work in a field you would like to learn more about. Please do not hesitate to reach out (amyint@usn.org).

Another way to stay connected to USN is with your participation in the Annual Fund. Save the date for this year’s 36-Hour Give Back Challenge on April 4 and 5. Last year the challenge brought in over 150 new gifts to the Annual Fund from 219 donors, including alumni, parents, faculty members, grandparents, and students. This year our goal is to double the participation.

Every dollar raised during the 36-Hour Give Back Challenge will be matched up to $50,000 thanks to a gift from an anonymous PDS alumnus. Each gift to the Annual Fund during this time counts toward our campaign, One School. Our Future.

If you are in Nashville this spring, join us during Reunion’s All-Alumni Party on April 20. Classes ending in 2’s and 7’s will celebrate during Reunion Weekend April 21-22. Non-reunion classes are welcome and invited to all events that weekend. We look forward to your continued visits and updates this year. nn

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

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An Educational Odyssey

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nce in a while, if stars align, one of those chances of a lifetime appears. Such has been the case with my transcontinental busman’s holiday of recent months. Imagine getting to knock on the doors of the nation’s most interesting schools, exploring the reform landscape up close—just to learn. And to help frame the right questions for us as a school community.

Then fortune smiled on us, with the availability of a reformer of national stature, Chris Barbic, founder of YES Prep in Texas, recent superintendent of Tennessee’s Achievement School District, and USN dad. He agreed to co-chair an ad hoc Board committee including two students, two local Alumni Board members, and two faculty members. We’ve been meeting together since last spring, charting an inquiry that has now brought us to more than 35 campuses from coast to coast.

Our opportunity is no small thing. The situational advantages of our current moment in Nashville and our history as innovators with a singular set of university neighbors combine to open so many doors. The reality of rising tuition and rising faster but still never enough financial aid budgets creates a different kind of urgency.

And just as real is the pressure on admissions to respond meaningfully to demand for spaces here that we simply don’t have to offer given our full enrollment. Certainly no time for complacency.

To be just a little wonky, our orientation is more Aristotelian than Platonic, which is to say that we are searching for examples of different types of school rather than trying to find a single, perfect, ideal case. In fact, there has been something to like, something to consider as relevant, some food for thought at every stop along the way.

But there’s a Hippocratic Oath dimension to our planning—first, we must be sure to do no harm. One way to invoke the wisdom of our constituents is to bring some core questions directly to students, parents, alumni, and faculty. Those prompts will offer ideas at the intersection of our educational model, our financial model, and the scale of our impact as a K-12 school. We’ll send surveys, hold meetings here on campus, and invite families to host living room meetings.

We’ve seen teaching and learning that relied mostly on technology and other settings where technology is rare, classrooms with just a few students and others with more than 40 as commonplace, models with full day off-campus (sometimes paid) internships and others with no such interruption, and per pupil annual expenditures from $7,000 to $50,000—we’ve seen a whole lot. The governance systems vary every bit as much as the curricular models.

Broad categories for sorting our voluminous notes include publiclyfunded charters, tuition-charging independent schools, universityaffiliated hybrids, and very small scale entrepreneurially sponsored alt or micro schools—mostly a West Coast phenomenon at present. Under those headings fall numerous sub-headings for comparison’s sake. And to borrow from Odysseus, when it comes to making sense of what we’ve seen and heard, our “every impulse bends to what is right.” But how will we know it when we arrive?

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

photo by Kimberly Manz

With the Centennial in the rearview mirror but the inspiration still present in abundance, our Board asked, over a year ago, what should come next. My under-construction answer was that I knew well why we do what we do at USN but I didn’t know why we don’t do what we don’t do. And Nashville, despite the frequent “it-city” references and the significant uptick in charter school startups, offers few examples outside the educational norm.

In fact, wherever we’ve gone, the first question asked of our intrepid wanderers is why we’re doing this, or more pointedly, what’s wrong with what we have now? That offers the chance to explain our sense that we’re working to capitalize on a position of historic strength.

The welcome we’ve received, from Silicon Valley to East Boston to Atlanta to Austin to Upper Manhattan and beyond, says something about University School’s potential as a leader in our profession.

Then we’ll gather what we’ve heard, search for patterns, and report to those same constituencies, starting with our Board, on whose shoulders the big choices rightfully rest. What we ask of you, loyal reader of this magazine, is to look for the invitation to participate and to respond in turn. Imagine the good we can do. And for the record, one of the best parts of this whole adventure has been coming home to see our little island with fresh eyes.

Stay tuned,

Vince Durnan, Director

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LETTERS to the EDITOR n I have just read the newest edition of

Edgehill from cover to cover and wanted to thank you for so many pieces that had meaning for me. A photo of Christine Tibbott was a bonus beyond belief. She encouraged me in art along about 1949!

And, I shall ask my sister, Betty Lentz Gray, to write you about Doc Holden, who influenced her career as a scientist.

What timing you chose for “Arguing about Politics.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has a recent publication, “Teaching the 2016 Election,” that makes clear how difficult the Trump Effect makes teaching about the presidential election this year. I thought Director Durnan’s column inspiring and reassuring.

Please consider this my private thanks to you as Editor. I cherish this issue and congratulate you on its quality.

n In reviewing the Annual Report, I came

across the article about a teacher who had attended the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon and happened to see Twelfth Night. It reminded me of our 7th Grade class at PDS which produced Twelfth Night in March, 1961.

In the attached picture you see Vanderbilt Theater’s Drama director Joe Wright discussing the play with John Norris, Jennifer

Najjar, Tom Martin, Aldis Gordon, Alice Marable, Karen Stratvert, Rachel Baker, Sam Pearsall, Hank Murray, Robin Mitchell and Rosemary Zibart.

Robin Mitchell played Sebastian, Alice Marable was cast as Viola and I was the director. Hank Murrey said, “It was simple.

Rosemary just set up a dictatorship.”

Rosemary Zibart ’67

Martha Lentz Walker (1948-’50)

Mystery Solved

n From the other side of the world—New Zealand—David Gleaves ’82 identified several of the students engaged in a tug of war in USN’s front yard one day more than thirty years ago.

As for why we were doing it (playing tug of war), I don’t really remember except that it was some kind of fun day. I’m pretty sure that we were all from the same class. I’m pretty sure that we won, too.”

Neither Jim, Heather, Julie, nor Margaret commented.

(David is a professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the department of psychology.)

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2000 EDGEHILL

PDS/USN archives

“First is Jim Oates. Behind him is me. Behind me was one of our teachers. I’m not certain the spelling, but I think it was Steve Demaree. Behind him, I cannot remember (it looks a bit like Heather Campbell, but I don’t think it is her). Behind her is [I believe] Julie Barnett. Then, I believe it is Margaret Hall, and the faces get hard to see after that. I posted the picture on Facebook, so maybe you will get some more answers too.

PDS/USN archives

PDS/USN archives

Mystery Photo By the Gray Building In this unidentified photo from who-knows-which yearbook, what appear to be middle school students strike a pose outside the old house that once stood on the corner of Edgehill and 19th Avenues. It was known as the gray building, though near the end of its life at least it was blue. It’s doubtful that its appearance in the background of this photo means anything—it’s not part of the story of these kids, whatever that might be.

Is this a club? Or just a group of friends who happened to be photographed? Who are these rather stylish-looking students?

Please tell us if you can identify any of them and if you know why they appear together in this photo.

We’d also like to hear what you remember of your classes in the gray building, from its basement all the way up to the top floor, where Mr. Ralph taught mechanical drawing.

Please email cculpepper@usn.org if you have any recollections to share or can name these students.

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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Gift Reveals Philosophy

By Connie Culpepper, editor After their father Charles Stone ’38 died, Sandra Stone Merritt ’64 and Chuck Stone ’67 decided that the books that had been given to their father by his friend B.S. Holden, legendary PDS history teacher, should come to the PDS/USN archives. Among their gifts to us: A copy of You Have Seen Their Faces by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White (1937), which once belonged to the PDS Payne Library collection. l A 1955 Harvard senior thesis written by John Nixon ’51, “The Confederate Constitution Today.” Doc Holden’s reprint from The Georgia Review (Vol. IX, No. 4, 1955) is inscribed “For my first history professor, Dr. Holden. John T. Nixon.” (We returned it to Judge Nixon.) l Another book from the PDS library collection, Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments: comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright by E.N. Elliott (1860). l

Dr. Yarbrough’s Philosophy of Teaching

Sandra also brought in a textbook which former PDS director W.H. Yarbrough must long ago have presented to Dr. Holden: History of the United States Unit Plan by William Henry Yarbrough. A note from Dr. Yarbrough on its cover is dated September 23, 1933.

It’s a collection compiled by Dr. Yarbrough with help from his Peabody College graduate students, who each contributed units or lessons on teaching American history. Its opening statement, his “Philosophy of Teaching,” begins thus: “CHRIST. . . .As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Be ye therefore merciful, as your father also is merciful.”

Next Yarbrough quotes Plato, who advises training children “in a playful manner, and without any air of constraint” in order to “discern more readily the natural bent of their respective characters.”

Dr. Yarbrough recounts a story that Gandhi told of “the moral fall” of two of his students, placing the blame on their teacher — himself. Reasoning that “the students could realize my distress, and the depth of their fall, only if I did some penance for it,” Gandhi fasted for seven days. He cautions that such a measure works only when there is love between the teacher and the pupil, and the pupil respects the teacher.

Portrait of Dr. Yarbrough signed Max Westfield and dated 1948, a gift from Elaine Yarbrough Frazer ’37

bility for the errors of his pupils.”

Gandhi says, “There is no question about the teacher’s responsi-

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2000 EDGEHILL

It seems significant that Dr. Yarbrough put this book together in 1933, the year Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

“All teaching which produces respect for definite knowledge and for the principles which are drawn from definite knowledge contributes to social progress directly, in that it makes for clear thinking and reservation of judgment. MATHEMATICS AND LOGIC ARE AS DANGEROUS TO THE DEMAGOGUE AS A DISINFECTANT IS TO THE DISEASE GERM. The citizen trained to think mathematically may neglect politics in disgust, but he will not be misled by fulminations of the stump speaker.”

“PUPILS SHOULD SPEND THEIR TIME WITH TRUTH AND NOT WITH RUMORS, DISTORTED OPINIONS, AND UNVERIFIED REPORTS.”

PDS/USN archives

How to Judge Teachers

Here are some of the “Objectives for Teaching History” that Yarbrough lists for the benefit of his graduate students: l To help the student to develop a fair attitude as he may take into consideration both sides of questions. l To bring about sympathy and understanding among people and nations. l To give training in mental integrity and suspended judgment. l To give the student a permanent interest in public affairs. l To enable the student to interpret the present in terms of the past and to view intelligently the function and value of the existing systems.

Eight decades later, these objectives make sense to the history faculty at USN. Another on the list strikes American history teacher Pat Miletich as a mystery: “To develop intelligent rightminded citizenship.” Ms. Miletich asks, “What is ‘right-minded citizenship’ after all?”

Resisting the Demagogue

A section called “Current Events in the High School” includes these warnings, typed in all capital letters: “ONE CANNOT KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS. Therefore, one cannot discuss them in the classroom with certainty and confidence.”

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

Here is Dr. Yarbrough’s “Score Card for Rating Teachers”: l Does the teacher try to see things from the child’s viewpoint l Does the teacher encourage the students to think for themselves and to verify what they read or hear l Is the teacher familiar with the subject-matter l Does the teacher make the assignment definite and clear l Does the teacher make a definite check each day on the assignment l Does the teacher encourage the students to differ with her in matters of opinion l Are all members of the class given an equal chance during the class period l Does the teacher monopolize the time during the class period l Does the teacher give frequent reviews and drills on the essentials l Does the teacher make an effort to eliminate or minimize the non-essentials l Is the teacher a slave to the text book l Does the teacher make effective use of the collateral reading l Is the personality of the teacher such as to command respect and inspire confidence l Is the teacher willing to learn as well as teach l Does the teacher provide for individual differences l Does the teacher show the same courtesy toward the students which she expects the students to show toward her l Does the teacher try to show the students how to select the main points in the lesson or how to study l Does the teacher drive or lead

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“He Taught Us to Think”

By Connie Culpepper, editor

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ccording to his son Spence, legendary PDS history teacher B. S. Holden was forced to retire. It was 1965, and Holden had been edifying and terrifying Demontration School students since 1928.

“The officials at Peabody thought he was too old,” Spence Holden ’49 wrote to the magazine a decade ago.

“When I was a seventh grader and a new student at PDS, Dr. Holden amazed me by promoting discussion in his history classes.

It was an entirely new experience for me to be asked my opinion in a class setting,” says Betty Lentz Gray ’50. “Learning to state a point of view to a group has stood me in good stead ever since Doc Holden taught us how to do so all those many years ago.”

“I don’t know anybody who didn’t like him and respect him,” says Sandra Stone Merritt ’64.

from the 1947 Volunteer

In nearly forty years at the Dem School, Holden taught history to countless junior high and high school students. He also helped his students acquire an important skill. The 1959 Volunteer yearbook is dedicated to Dr. Holden, “who taught us to think for ourselves and then to formulate our own convictions.”

Of course, no teacher is universally liked by students. Part of being a teacher is challenging students in one way or another; conflict is inevitable. It’s hard to imagine that Holden would have restrained himself from criticizing someone who didn’t seem to be trying to learn. It’s easy to imagine that he would have used his sharp wit against some of his least engaged students. And at least twice, Holden pulled out a gun in class.

Here is how Joan Harap Gould ’51 recalls him: “I can’t ever remember seeing Dr. Holden standing up! When we came into World History class in his room on the first floor of PDS, he would be leaning back in his swivel chair with his feet propped up on the waste basket. I think he may have had the stump of a cigar or a pipe in his mouth, but how could that be?”

Anything seems possible. About those guns—he collected guns,

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cameras too, and coins, but if he pulled cameras or coins out in class, his students don’t seem to remember it sixty years later.

Here’s the tale Karen Ward Knox ’66 told back in 1995, writing for the very first PDS/USN alumni magazine. She was delivering a report on the Old West when she heard a sound coming from Dr. Holden’s desk.

2000 EDGEHILL

PDS/USN archives

Another magazine story, told ten years later, includes a similar story from Carolyn Robinson Dr. Holden in class with one of his pistols Simms ’59. “I’ll never forget the day Doc drew an ancient revolver from his desk drawer and said, ‘Hey, the Constitution says I can carry a gun, doesn’t it?’ We just about collapsed, but we got his point.”

Alumni who sat in Holden’s classroom in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s had tales to tell about this teacher. Taken together, the stories may create a picture of this complex man—but a picture that isn’t entirely in focus.

One alumnus I talked to never sat in Dr. Holden’s classroom but learned plenty from him anyway. That man, Chuck Stone ’67, along with his sister Sandra Stone Merritt ’64, discussed their father’s friendship with Dr. Holden, which began in about 1929. Charles Stone ’38 came to Peabody Demonstration School in third grade and soon thereafter began what would prove to be a lifelong friendship with his young teacher B. S. Holden. “Daddy was forever in some kind of scrapes,” says Sandra. “Dr. Holden took him under his wing. They were fast friends until Doc Holden died.”

When he first joined the faculty, Holden taught seventh grade, then “junior high.” His first high school assignment included “manual training” as well as history. Somehow he and Charles Stone forged a friendship that would come to include the Stone children. “Dr. Holden was a part of my life from the time I was born,” Sandra says.

“When I was four he gave me two little books in Spanish.”

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

As for Chuck, he says, “Where Daddy went, I went.” Often that was to Holden’s house on 17th Avenue, where Chuck soaked in the conversation between his father and his father’s former teacher or joined them in the basement for target practice, guns being one of the many interests the two men shared (photography being another).

B.S. Holden, Sports Guru

PDS/USN archives

“I glanced over to look at Dr. Holden.

I was paralyzed to see that he was handling two very large, long barreled pistols. I managed to quaver, ‘Is my paper that bad?’ He laughed, as did the rest of the class. . . .”

Chuck Stone with Barbara Hardeman in the “Most Athletic” photo, 1967 Volunteer

Though Sandra took history from Dr. Holden at PDS, Chuck never did. His friendship with Holden grew outside of school. Chuck, whose ’67 classmates voted him “Most Athletic,” remembers Dr. Holden’s coming to Little League games with his new movie camera in about 1962, filming the young baseball player and then offering advice on what Chuck should do differently. When he became a star basketball player at PDS, Dr. Holden offered him advice about that game too.

“People don’t realize how much of a sports person he was,” Chuck says.

Some people do realize that, of course. An earlier PDS basketball star, Stuart Nicholson ’45, recalls that at home games he would always see Dr. Holden standing by the door of the Cheek Gym. “The next week he was very complimentary. He came to all the games.

He had a comment or two, always in the affirmative. We didn’t have many teachers who would come to the games like that.”

For Morris Werthan ’55, Holden did more than appreciate sports.

In the mid-fifties Holden coached the tennis team, which included Steve Riven, Mac Stokes, and Ben Rowan, all class of ’56, as well as Morris.

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PDS/USN archives

Kim Massie ’47 is #38, standing next to his friend Bobby Goodman, #13

Morris Werthan ’55 is in the center

Holden walked with a pronounced limp, and the boys couldn’t imagine him playing tennis. But that’s not the kind of coach he was. “He was a philosopher, and he gave you ideas about how to play the match,” Moshe (as Morris is now known) says. “He was good at guiding you on how to think about your matches. It was really helpful.” Especially in their annual match against arch-rival MBA, Moshe’s former school. “We always did very well against MBA,” he says.

MBA, which everyone knew was harder than PDS, in the way that high school students have of knowing things.

A Man with More than One Book

Of course, most people remember Dr. Holden the teacher. John Culley ’48 finds himself still thinking about something Dr. Holden used to say. “‘Beware the man with only one book.’ That was true in the 1940’s. It is certainly true in 2017.”

When his family moved back to Nashville after “five chaotic World War II years in Texas,” Ross Hightower ’47 struggled upon entering Hillsboro High as a junior. “My mother persuaded Dr. Beauchamp to let me enter Peabody, where she and my father had graduated in 1924 [they were Margaret Crockett and Frank Hightower then]. Doc Holden took on the project of dragging me, kicking and screaming, into a gentleman’s C grade by June. I am eternally grateful for that, though it wasn’t easy, for him or me!”

Holden had a different method for making Morris Werthan a better student: trickery.

When Werthan transferred to Peabody Demonstration School in 1953 to begin his junior year, life seemed to improve dramatically. Making friends could not have been easier—everyone was so friendly. And Boo, as he was known then, felt certain that it would be just as easy to maintain the top grades he had enjoyed at

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However, Werthan failed to take B.S. Holden into account. “My study habits were not good, to say the least,” Moshe recently said.

“But I was surprised when I got my first grade in Dr. Holden’s American history class. It was a C-.”

This grade proved to be embarrassing at home. “In my family, you did not come home with a C-.”

Next the story takes a predictable turn, with a chastised Morris turning over a new academic leaf. “I worked hard, and at the end of the term, Dr. Holden gave me an A-. Which was acceptable.”

Neat as this turn of events may seem, it’s not the whole truth.

A decade or so later, perhaps at a Peabody reunion, Morris happened to run into Dr. Holden. His former teacher approached him, saying, “I really put one over on you.”

“What do you mean?” Morris asked.

“I know you remember that C- I gave you,” Dr. Holden said, laughing. “Well, you didn’t really make a C-, but you were so full of yourself, I had to do something.”

As Moshe recalls now, “Dr. Holden had a very dry sense of humor.

He was funny, but we didn’t always catch it.”

He was Funny

Stuart Nicholson recalls, “Sometimes after class you would think about what he said and get tickled. He had such a keen wit.”

2000 EDGEHILL

and we had both done so, he allowed that he sometimes got it right, but that one student whom he had steered into practicing law had ended up for a long stay in Leavenworth Prison.”

Sandra Stone Merritt agrees. “His wit was sharp, and you didn’t know he was coming at you until he had you.”

A story in the school paper shows that he could take a joke too. Rosemary Ricketts Ford ’54 describes seniors delivering singing telegrams, perhaps as a fundraiser. “Some really hilarious ones were brought to the teachers. Dr. Holden and Miss “Mac” were swamped with telegrams requesting ‘A-You’re Adorable’ to be sung.” (Singing this 1949 hit by Perry Como to a teacher is a clear sign of respect and affection.)

PDS/USN archives

Stuart Nicholson became a teacher and principal in the Nashville public schools.

In the early sixties, when he was teaching history at Hillsboro High School, Stuart served on a committee studying the use of television in history classrooms. “I had no idea, so I called Dr. Holden and we had a couple of sessions. He said, now you don’t want to use television to teach history, to Dr. Holden and a friend in front of the school do what the teacher can do. Use television to do what the teacher can’t do in the classroom. Show them the Nashville waterworks on tv.”

Kim Massie ’47 recalls an incident of seventy years ago: “A whispered dispute in the back row exploded: ‘I’LL BET YOU $10!!!’

Because of his father’s friendship with B.S. Holden, Chuck Stone ’67 Bobby Goodman had lost it and gone over the edge. The ever-ready learned from him too—but he learned it on the Holdens’ back porch B.S. Holden looked up and said, ‘Any gambling transactions go or in their attic or basement, not in a Dem School classroom. Chuck through the house and I am the house—see me after class.’” had left UT and was living at home while he went to Cumberland College. His friends were away at college, and he was lonely. “I spent a lot of time with Dr. Holden.”

Students were constantly speculating about why he limped. “All my friends thought he had a wooden leg,” Sandra Merritt says.

“Anything you wanted to know, he knew. Dr. Holden was a very calming person. I knew he was a friend—not just my father’s friend, John Culley ’48 recalls, “No one had ever heard him talk about but my friend. Everything he said was informative.” the reason for [his limp]. According to PDS folklore when, rarely, someone would have the imprudence to ask, he would say only one “On any subject he could talk on my level and not talk down to me word: ‘Shiloh.’” and get across what he needed to say.”

The Mystery of Dr. Holden

John Nixon ’51 says, “Dr. Holden had polio.” He speaks with confidence, though all these years later it is impossible to say how he acquired this fact. Judge Nixon told us something else that no one else mentioned: Dr. Holden wore a robe to class.

When Nixon graduated from Harvard College in 1955, with some help from his father H.C. Nixon, he submitted a version of his senior thesis to The Georgia Review, which published it: “The Confederate Constitution Today.” He gave his high school history teacher a reprint inscribed “For my first history professor, Dr. Holden. John T. Nixon.”

A Lasting Influence

John Nixon, a federal judge, is not the only former student of Dr. Holden’s who continued to think of him after graduation. Kim Massie is another. “We exchanged a letter or two sometime after graduation. When I pointed out that he had urged my brother [author Robert K. Massie ’46] to write and me to make photographs,

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

Two people recalled being with Dr. Holden the day President Kennedy was shot. Sandra Merritt was already standing in his doorway when she heard the news. Caroline RussellMarold ’66 was in study hall, but she and her classmates ran up the stairs to Holden’s classroom as soon as they heard. “Doc waved us in and let us stay. Felt his compassion as the awful news became clear. Walter Cronkite was on and I remember him taking off his glasses to announce the death.

Cronkite held the nation in his arms that day, and Doc seemed to hold that roomful of students in the same way.”

As Sandra says, “He was wonderful and I loved to be in there.” nn After he left Peabody, Dr. Holden taught a Great Books course at Watkins Institute, as the Watkins College of Art and Design was known in the sixties. He died in 1978.

His only child Spence ’49 died in 2007.

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The Good Wishes of Every Peabody Student

By Connie Culpepper, editor

It

The Nashville Banner ran an editorial after his death in 1988 (“McCharen influence aided many”) that reveals something of Dr. McCharen’s feelings about those last students. “Conceding that the youth rebellion of the ’60s made young people ‘hard to live with,’ he expressed confidence that 90 percent of them would do just fine.”

was February, 1953—lunch time in the crowded PDS cafeteria on the top floor. Students were “fidgeting at the tables” and whispering to one another, ‘Is he coming?’ ‘How many candles did you say?’”

The 1953 yearbook was dedicated to Dr. McCharen for “his willingness to help with any school project, his big grin and soft voice, his interest in every student, his new ideas to improve PDS, his way of making a party even more fun, and especially his agreeableness and understanding.”

All images PDS/USN archives

Anne LeBeck ’54 describes the scene in the Volunteer literary magazine, junior class edition. “Dr. McCharen walked in, placid and unsuspecting. . . . They waited until he sat down and gave the word.

From the kitchen a huge white birthday cake, glowing with candles and the good wishes of every Peabody student, was brought in. From every side of the cafeteria students crowded to watch the candles blown out.” It was his fiftieth birthday.

“I hired good teachers and then got out of their way!”

Two years had passed since Knox McCharen became Demonstration School director, a role he would fill until 1968, seventeen years of changes he could not have imagined in 1951 when he first sat at the director’s desk. The class of 1968 bore little resemblance to the bobby-soxed group in the cafeteria singing “Happy Birthday” in 1953.

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It’s this faith in young people and in other people in general that may offer the key to understanding this quiet man who not only witnessed great change at the Demonstration School but also brought it about. When Heber Rogers asked Dr. McCharen at the end of his life to look back on his career as PDS director and identify his single most outstanding contribution, he replied, “My efforts at integrating the school in 1964.”

Heber, who served on the faculty led

by Dr. McCharen for nearly a decade, was preparing a speech “In appreciation of Knox McCharen” to be delivered in May, 1987 when Peabody’s annual Distinguished Service Award went to Dr. McCharen. “You would have to know this calm-mannered man to fully understand how he effected this change during a time that was very difficult for schools,” Heber wrote.

The Demonstration School desegregated well ahead of other Tennessee independent schools, and Dr. McCharen strove to make

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Anne LeBeck ’54

Mary Lee McCharen DiSpirito ’56 Janet McGinnis Noble ’63

Caroline Russell Marold ’66

Jon Van Til ’57

the process smooth. “We have worked with the student council, the P.T.A., and the teachers,” he writes in a letter to his boss, Felix Robb, the president of Peabody College, in April of 1964. “I believe that we are as nearly ready for it as we will ever be.”

Former students have similar recollections. Jon Van Til ’57 cites the “civility and respect [that] prevailed in the workings of the school” because of the leadership of Dr. McCharen (fondly referred to in our family as ‘Whispering Knox’).”

As soon as school was out in June, Knox McCharen wrote to his school’s “patrons” that PDS would “put into operation from Nursery School through the ninth grade” the college’s new “policy of taking qualified students without regard to race, color, or creed.”

Caroline Russell Marold ’67 recalls being called into Dr. McCharen’s office for cutting art class. “He lectured us for quite some time, but he was such a quiet man I barely heard what he was saying.” Caroline never cut class again, comparing the lecture from Dr. McCharen to hearing a parent express disappointment in you.

This momentous news appears buried at the end of a routine letter about enrollment for the coming school year. The letter concludes, “We appreciate the fine cooperation you have given us and solicit your support and good will in the future.”

Back to Heber Rogers in 1987, when he also asked Dr. McCharen, “What do you consider was the basis of the success of the Dem School?”

“I hired good teachers and then got out of their way!” Dr. McCharen replied.

His daughter Mary Lee McCharen Di Spirito ’56 would answer that question a bit differently, saying “the most important thing is Dad’s ability to work with people.” She notes that he knew his students, reading every report card and writing encouraging notes on them.

Janet McGinnis Noble ’63 says, “He had that special quality of being approachable while being ‘in command.’”

Dr. McCharen was too ill to attend the May, 1987 event when Heber Rogers quoted this remark. Heber added, “To know Knox McCharen is to know a true Southern gentleman from Toccapola, Mississippi. Some say of him that he is the only person that ever has mowed his lawn dressed in a white shirt and tie.”

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As for his famous way of chaperoning student dances, Caroline recalls, “He would sit up on stage in a rocking chair and then come down to break apart couples he felt were too close together.

That still makes me smile.” If the 1953 yearbook dedication about making every party “even more fun” is accurate, he must have been able to impose his standards in the gentlest way.

After Knox McCharen retired from PDS, he became the Tennessee director of the People-to-People School Ambassador Program, later serving as regional director before retiring again in 1984. His obituary notes that he “sent more than 2,000 high school students to Europe and the Orient.”

Janet McGinnis Noble ’63 and her husband Charles joined People to People as sponsors in the early seventies, “a life-changing experience” that led to their becoming friends with Dr. McCharen and his wife Marjorie.

When he died in March, 1988, his family included a poem by Janet on the back of the order of service for his funeral at Westminster Presbyterian Church. It begins, “Understanding, soft-spoken, decisive,/Short of stature, blue of eye, bald of head, and as much fun as Christmas.” nn

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photo by Kimberly Manz

These Alumni Came Home

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his year the USN faculty and staff includes a record number of alumni working both in and out of the classroom.

Twenty-one full and part-time teachers and staff members are graduates of University School—and one, Lynne Mosby ’66 in the Admissions Office, is a graduate of Peabody Demonstration School. (About 200 people teach at USN or work in its offices.)

Why have these alumni returned to Edgehill Avenue? We decided to ask them. Some have worked at USN for twenty years, some for a few months, but no matter. Their reasons for being here can be reduced to two words: teachers and students.

Middle school Spanish teacher Sibley Edwards Kelley ’91 says of her fellow USN teachers, “Everyone is incredibly generous with their ideas. I hear about places where teachers keep their best ideas locked up for themselves – everyone here is so thoughtful about how to approach students best and they are creative problem solvers.”

First grade teacher Betsy Greenbaum Hoffman ’83 finds that USN teachers are “always striving to offer their best to the students and school. This commitment is contagious.”

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By Anna Myint ’04, alumni director & social media manager

Many of the alumni credit their USN teachers with not only inspiring them when they were students but also helping them learn their craft as teachers.

“If I know anything at all about teaching, it’s thanks to” USN colleagues, said Heather Campbell Webber ’82, in her first year as a middle school science teacher after a career as an obstetrician/gynecologist. She is among half a dozen alumni who began working at University School just this year.

High school math teacher Siffat Hingorani ’08 is another alumna joining the faculty this year, becoming colleagues with those who introduced her to her subject. Siffat says of Cindy Crenshaw, head of the math department, “Ten years ago I learned calculus under her guidance, and now I am learning how to teach from her.”

Sibley Edwards Kelley makes a similar point. “Grace Melchiore’s seventh grade Spanish class was when I first encountered the subject I teach, and then being hired on as a teacher for the same subject... Well, I had better do right by her!”

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PDS/USN Alumni Faculty & Staff Lynne Mosby ’66, administrative assistant in admissions, 1997 Heather Campbell Webber ’82, middle school science, 2016 Betsy Greenbaum Hoffman ’83, first grade, 2008 Jeff Greenfield ’84, head of the middle school, 1998 Robin Lynn Sandler Clinard ’88, high school French, 1997 Sibley Edwards Kelly ’91, middle school Spanish, 1999 Molly Princehorn Darr ’92, second grade, 2000 Erik Mash ’93, director of operations, 2004 Sarah Batey Ice ’96, middle school math, 2005 Matthew Haber ’98, high school history, 2005 Freya Sachs ’00, high school English, head of the English department, 2004 Matt Lukach ’04, middle school social studies teacher, “looked up to” some teachers he is now pleased to call colleagues: “People like Robbie McKay, Steve Smail, George Flatau and Bill Rod come to mind,” he says, adding, that they helped him want to become a teacher. Matt calls his colleagues “some of the best people ever,” adding, “I laugh a lot at work and I think that’s really a good thing.”

Eighth grade math teacher Sarah Batey Ice ’96 credits Debbie Davies as “the reason I’m a teacher today. She taught me how to see numerical concepts in a flexible and fluid way. She somehow knew where to set the bar for me and to not help me too much. I experienced more growth under her ‘tough love’ style than I had in any previous class.”

For Sarah, it’s also the students who make USN such a rewarding place to teach. She compares them to her ’96 classmates. “Many still love wild clothes and outrageous hair. They take pride in being independent thinkers. They are an amalgamation of ethnicities, interests, and talents. They feel a close connection to their teachers, classmates, and school. These are the things I hope we can always say of our institution.”

Tobey Beaver Balzer ’02, middle school science, 2011 Matt Lukach ’04, middle school social studies, 2010 Anna Myint ’04, alumni director & social media manager, 2015 Scott Collins ’05, assistant director of admissions, 2012 Ben Zeppos ’05, high school history and debate, 2014 Eleanor Schneider ’05, lower school assistant, 2016 Siffat Hingorani ’08, high school math, 2016 Piper Jones ’08, receptionist, 2016 Caitlin Del Casino ’08, dance Mikeie Reiland ’11, high school Spanish, 2016 Ryan Del Casino ’11, lower school assistant, 2016 (Second date is the year each came to work at USN.) Sibley finds that USN students have a “commitment to being their best selves in and out of the classroom.” Science teacher Tobey Beaver Balzer ’02 appreciates students’ “cool diversity of thought.”

Such appreciation and affection for students is a defining characteristic of the USN faculty. As high school history teacher Matthew Haber ’98 says, “The best teachers here, and the ones that last, love their students as much as they love their content, and their teaching is an authentic expression of who they are.”

Despite obvious changes in students’ lives and the world they inhabit, Matthew says, “Alumni should take heart in the knowledge that the essential things that have always made USN special are still present: the students still have fun in the classroom, they still build meaningful relationships with each other and with faculty, they still do incredible work in the arts and the community, and they still overwhelmingly report that USN is a place where they feel comfortable being themselves.”

The same can be said for these alumni who have found their way back to University School of Nashville. nn

Photo previous page, front row, left to right: Piper Jones ’08, Sibley Edwards Kelley ‘91, Freya Sachs ’00, Heather Campbell Webber ’82, Lynne Mosby ’66, Matt Lukach ’04; middle row: Molly Princehorn Darr ’92, Scott Colllins ’05, Sarah Batey Ice ’96, Robin Lynn Sandler Clinard ’88, Siffat Hingorani ’08, Tobey Beaver Balzer ’02; back row: Erik Mash ’93, Jeff Greenfield ’84, Matthew Haber ’98, Betsy Greenbaum Hoffman ’83, and Mikeie Reiland ’11.

(Not pictured: Anna Myint ’04, Ben Zeppos ’05, Caitlin Del Casino ’08, Ryan Del Casino ’11, and Eleanor Schneider ’05)

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Fourth Graders Become Leaders

By Amy Woodson, head of the lower school

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ince USN is known to be a non-uniform kind of place, it might strike some as odd that we in lower school started off the year by giving fourth graders identical t-shirts.

The Monday before school opened, fourth grade students gathered in the gym, and I explained that they would become ambassadors. “Being an ambassador means that you will exemplify the best a USN student has to offer the community. Younger kids will look up to you, and teachers will count on you to help by being leaders.”

The students then went to their classrooms, where they brainstormed ways to be helpful to families arriving on campus the first day. Helping new families find their way to where they needed to be was the children’s first idea.

I wanted these shirts to remind each child of a school leader’s persona. Wearing their Fourth Grade Ambassador shirts, the children know that they have become representatives of the best iteration of a USN student. Putting on the shirt changes a child. Standing taller, the fourth graders remember to do some of the things we ask of them – don’t run inside, use quiet voices in common spaces, be kind to and look out for kids younger than yourself.

Wearing their new shirts, fourth graders greeted parents and students arriving at school for the first time. They had practiced introducing themselves and asking someone else’s name, so they were ready to guide people to various destinations for the first week. Nervous younger students seemed to grow more comfortable when they saw a fourth grader.

“I know where to go because I can just follow my fourth grader.”

“How can we do that?” I asked. The students identified places to station themselves to guide the newcomers—by the cafeteria, near the connector, in front of the library, and downstairs in the garage where students would be dropped off.

Kindergartener Elliot wondered how to get to the gym, so he asked one of the adults in the garage, “Can you help me find a fourth grader?” Elliot recalls, “I just asked for help, and they helped me, even if I didn’t know them.”

“Let’s wear nametags,” one child said, and another said, “We get to be buddies!” (Every fourth grader becomes a buddy to a kindergarten child.) When we handed out the maroon ambassador shirts, excitement filled the air.

First grader Eli also finds the fourth graders “really helpful.”

“They show people around the school,” he says. And he likes their friendliness.

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photo by Kimberly Manz

Previous page: Some of the ambassadors who volunteered to help greet and talk to guests at the Admissions Open House.

Above: Zinnia Nichols-Loller (l.) and Mei Tyson Top right: Connor Harris, Aliya Grossman, Evan Hauser, and Rhea Nachnani lead assembly, watched by Ms. Woodson Right: The transformative shirts

The fourth grade decided to help by escorting younger classes to the auditorium for weekly assembly, a journey that teaches valuable lessons. Some students were so focused on the challenges of leading the line that they forgot to think about how to get to the auditorium from their buddy classroom. Students realized they had to work together to keep the attention of the class while making progress down the hall. Kindergarteners don’t always keep up with the line or go directly from point A to point B! Second grader Andrew likes the way the older students take good care of him and the other second graders on the way to assembly.

“I know where to go because I can just follow my fourth grader.”

Fourth graders also lead these assemblies, taking turns standing in front of the whole lower school to introduce themselves, share “fun facts,” and help corral everyone who’s celebrating a birthday.

The children gain a sense of accomplishment after talking into a microphone for the first time. “This was so much fun—what else can we do to help?” asks a recent assembly leader.

Tate says being an ambassador gives him confidence. Though nervous about leading assembly, he says, “Having my friends with me and knowing what I was going to say ahead of time helped me relax.”

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photo by Kimberly Manz

Camerin says, “I like practicing to be a leader. It is important for younger kids to have role models, and I can be a good one.”

Olivia says, “I really like it when adults give me more responsibility. It makes me feel good to be helping.”

Alena likes helping younger kids. Zinnia says she always has something to look forward to and that she likes the feeling of being trusted. “It shows who we are as a person.”

Fourth graders are brainstorming new ambassador duties: designing a day of service with buddies, going on a journey, or playing games during P.E. Fourth graders served as guides at Admissions Open House, helping to tell the story of what makes this such a great place to be. What better way to give interested families a glimpse into the life of USN students? nn

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Student Laptops Prove Useful in Middle School

By Jeff Greenfield ’84, head of middle school

Five years ago the middle school reached a tipping point.

Demand for our one computer lab had reached an all-time high; teachers were wishing to use online resources to extend students’ learning but feeling stymied by students’ unequal access to computers in their home; headaches stemming from different platforms and operating systems used at home were quickly becoming another real obstacle to our use of technology with students.

At the same time, we were becoming increasingly aware of a number of new and well-reviewed online learning resources we wanted to use to enhance our students’ learning. After all, who wouldn’t rather watch a two-minute colorful, narrated video of what’s contained in a lipid cell in place of a traditional twodimensional textbook photo?

The solution for us would be a one-to-one laptop program (the name comes from each student having his own device). Many other schools were months or years into such a program, but it was easy to find schools which had chosen the device first and then considered how it might be used. We inverted the sequence, first identifying what we wanted our students to be able to do with a device, and then choosing a high-quality option that would meet our goals. We test-ran many options before landing on the MacBook Pro for grades six to eight. Teachers received their machine the spring before student machines were issued, and plenty of training followed.

From the earliest discussions we had our worries, starting with cost. How much more would a USN education cost if we included robust laptops on middle schoolers’ supply list? As it turned out, very little more: the laptop program is nearly cost-neutral for our families. Now that they no longer need to purchase weighty textbooks because nearly all learning materials are in digital form and free, the cost each year for one-third of a three-year laptop lease is barely more than the book fee once was. And, best of all, now the child has a reliable laptop for use all year, one with the ideal operating system for the type of work teachers assign, and one the school will help repair should the need arise.

Knowing well that middle schoolers tend to explore boundaries in their eagerness to be older than they really are, we anticipated proper use issues. We designed a parent and student handbook of our expectations and appropriate consequences, borrowing heavily from schools and authors with meaningful experience in this area. Before day one, we disseminated our handbook and set up multiple on-campus opportunities for parents in order to address the questions we knew they’d have: How should I supervise my child’s laptop use at home? What are the right boundaries to set?

How much screen time is too much?

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At school we quickly expanded the digital literacy thread in our curriculum, using well-researched online sources to develop what we affectionately refer to as “Digital Literacy Boot Camp,” our aggressive approach frontloading each school year with a heavy orientation on the safe use of the machines themselves and all things internet-related. To be honest, this remains one of our biggest challenges: simply put, the prefrontal cortex in the brain of a preadolescent isn’t fully developed and leads to poor decisionmaking in many cases. We’re making every effort to protect them from themselves.

We share our parents’ concern about too much screen time for the children in our care. Over the four years of our 1:1 program, we’ve become more discriminating about when the laptops get used and for what purpose. As someone who walks among the classrooms on a daily basis, I can honestly say that these devices are in use far less than half of all class time.

Has it been worth it? Yes. The list of advantages is long and far outweighs the list of worries we still have. Teachers can record themselves explaining difficult concepts, then post those videos to the class webpage so students can rewatch as needed. (Several teachers use this technique for first-time instruction—this

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“flipped classroom” model allows students to more easily engage with new material at home and use class time to access the teacher’s expertise for help.)

Teachers can curate an ideal reading list for their students from infinite online and current sources. Many classrooms have become paperless, with students digitally sharing their writing with their teacher and receiving more timely feedback.

Numerous teachers have now written their own curricula, which are easily stored and made accessible to students. Heck, one even created an app to hold his curriculum, one which is available on iTunes for educators everywhere to use, and they do.

One unexpected benefit for students has been better organization. They can download and print any handout they lose, and most, like us adults, find it far easier to manage documents and folders electronically. “Yeah, I think having a laptop has helped me keep track of things better. There are less papers to keep track of than there used to be, and finding stuff is quicker,” acknowledged one eighth grader. He also admitted, with the sly grin of a 14-year-old, that since so much is now available electronically, when he can’t find something it’s harder to say the dog ate it. nn

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Computing Without Computers

By Wilson Hubbell, high school science teacher

A

high school student places a toy car at the top of a flexible ramp and releases it, timing its race to the bottom of the track. With this information and a roll of the dice, she determines what adjustments to make to the start and finish angles of the track for the next run. But this is not a physics lesson.

In another corner of the room, a different student sits down in front of a large sheet of paper. The paper has a curious drawing of a parallelogram containing 100 red dots, some clumped up in a

few places while others are spread out seemingly erratically. The student uses only a pencil and a ruler to divide the shape into 10 parts, each with exactly 10 dots. But this is not a math activity.

A third student stands at the center of the classroom grasping what appears to be a giant makeshift sieve—a chicken wire and duct tape contraption. He is pouring handfuls of beans onto the top of this device and watching them cascade down into the bottom of a box with a square base. But this is not some demonstration for geology, ecology, or archaeology.

If I were forced to label these three activities in familiar academic terms, I would call them lessons in biology (evolution by natural selection), political science (gerrymandering), and geometry (the value of pi). All three of those modules (along with several others) are part of a curriculum collection called Computational Thinking and Modeling that I helped create, along with Vanderbilt University Professor Dr. Jonathan Gilligan and several recent USN alumni. Computational thinking is an attempt to understand a complex natural system, interaction, or basic truth about the world by first stripping it down to its most basic components.

Computational modeling is essenWilson Hubbell with Nora Gilligan ‘16, now continuing her study of computer programming at NYU.

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tially a formal test of a system which has been simplified through this process.

millions of trials in a few seconds, the ability to drastically change the experimental setup at little or no cost, and the ability to do testing on simulated versions of individuals or communities where such testing in the real world would be unethical.

Probably the most distinctive aspect of this collection of modules is its emphasis on having students avoid the use of a computer for as long as possible. The students create analog versions of the model and run trials by hand.

Our hope is that, after spending considerable time with Hubbell discusses the possible implications of “evolving” the initial angle of the ramp to be steeper. (Students an analog model and used an “evolution algorithm” to adjust the starting and finishing angles of the track and tested to see which exploring its basic angle allowed the car to reach the bottom in the least amount of time.) functions, students This rule is intended to help the students gain insight into what engaging in our curriculum will then be able to easily understand they are creating. a digital version and its implications. The students will have a hands-on opportunity to more fully grasp the ways in which the Taking time to focus on unique capabilities of a the process emphasizes computational model that complexity is often can create knowledge built out of very simple that would be otherwise ideas and algorithms, undiscoverable. ones that can be easily understood even if they The implications of take a while to complete. this shift would be Our aim is to remove the far-reaching. Imagine mystery from computa population hearing ers—and not just by that a hurricane has a teaching coding and coding and more coding. Our modules are high probability of reaching land near their city, that the redisdesigned to be usable even in a classroom setting where the stutricting in their state has been found to be unconstitutional, or dents have no programming background whatsoever. that giraffes are actually four distinct species. Understanding computational modeling would allow them to accept or reject It troubles me that some of the scientific and social scientific these findings with at least a fundamental understanding of how controversies of our times—climate change, municipal districtsomeone arrived at these conclusions. nn ing, evolution, and effective health services—to name a few—are controversial primarily because their complexity requires concluWilson Hubbell is one of seven USN teachers to receive funding sions that rely heavily upon computational modeling, a not-veryfrom an Educational Leadership Grant awarded to USN by the well-understood science. This requirement has led many people Edward E. Ford Foundation. The grant will support 8 additional to form opinions along political lines without understanding how teachers over the next three years to collaborate on summer these conclusions were reached.

It troubles me that some of the scientific and social scientific controversies of our times—climate change, municipal districting, evolution, and effective health services—to name a few—are controversial primarily because their complexity requires conclusions that rely heavily upon computational modeling, a not-very-well-understood science.

Our curriculum’s goal is to inspire respect and understanding of the modern computer model and its advantages. In many ways, a computational model is similar to the oversimplified version of the scientific method we all learned in childhood. But it offers these advantages of a computational device: the ability to run

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

projects with university professors, creating a “curricular bridge” between high school and college. Jonathan Gilligan, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt University, worked with Wilson to design the curriculum described here. You can see a list of USN’s other Ford Foundation-funded projects at usn.org/publications.

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Giants of Literature These giant puppets of literary greats, created by students in Emily Holt’s High School 3-D art classes, marched in the Public Library’s International Puppet Festival and appeared at Grandparents’ Day. To discover how teenagers in Nashville came to learn this ancient puppetmaking craft, visit usn.org/publications.

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James Baldwin, Miguel de Cervantes, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou, Mark Twain, and Beatrix Potter. Emily Holt is at right; other visible puppeteers include (l. to r.) Connie Culpepper, Lynne Mosby ’66, Waverly Tibbott ’20, Randy Tibbott (granddaughter and son of Christine Tibbott), and Scott Collins ’05 Puppet details seen in the art studio This page, clockwise from top right, waiting for the International Puppet Festival parade to begin at Legislative Plaza in May; Grandparents’ Day procession; Dr. Seuss as a work in progress To see more photos of the puppets, visit usn.org/publications.

photo by Kimberly Manz

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y a ’ s t n e r D a Grandp photos by Kimberly Manz

2016

George Gershwin provided the soundtrack for Grandparents’ Day this year, with students singing and dancing to his crowd-pleasers “I Got Rhythm” and “Swanee.” USN’s giant puppets representing literary figures such as Dr. Seuss, Edgar Allan Poe, and Maya Angelou made appearances, processing into the gym to “Rhapsody in Blue.”

(See the previous pages for more photos of these puppets.)

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Previous page, top: kindergarten children Violet Sanders, Brianna Castro, and Quincy Jackson (l. to r.) turkey trot; Addie King and Jack Aaron, class of ’26; literary puppets parade into the gym carried by (front left) Natalie Sewell and Juliet Douglas, with Kymberlee Stanley (l.) and Beth Thornburg in the background (see pages 22-23 for more photos of these puppets).

This page, clockwise: Alena Ellis ’25 waltzes with her grandmother; second grade demonstrates parachute mastery; 13-Year Club in their kindergarten turkey costumes; Atticus Pflaum ’25; Mystery Turkey Amy Harkness; Eli Whelan, Bria Prince, and Eli Shuster ’28; Evie Bentley and J.P. Newman ’27.

To see more photos of Grandparents’ Day, visit usn.org/publications.

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usn.org/alumni

CLASS NOTES 1955

1963

Morris “Moshe” Werthan and his wife Libby moved back to Nashville two years ago after living in Jerusalem “for 25 wonderful years.

We have been rewarded with our first great grandchild, Ava Marie, who is absolutely beautiful and charming.”

Janet McGinnis Noble and her husband Charles celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary with a trip to the Pacific Coast, where they visited Muir Woods, “a favorite stop of ours for many years.”

1957

Barbara Avery Garrow still serves fulltime as Main Street Director for the City of Morristown, “involved in many events, grants, and other economic development activities. My husband, Pat, is retired but writing a book on ‘Galvanized Yankees’ —take a guess. We have three boys and their families, including two grandchildren, and three dogs. I am planning on attending the Women’s March on Washington in January.”

Jon Van Til delivered the keynote address to the Australia and New Zealand Third Sector Research Conference in Sydney this fall. He and Agnes arrived in Australia from Washington, where they had delivered papers at the annual conference of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. Their trip three-fourths of the way around the globe began in Indiana, where they spent the fall term at their stateside home, and concluded in Budapest, where they will spend the spring academic term.

“PDS Ladies” and Manuel Zeitlin ’72: Peggy Parker Cason, Candy Sullivan Lindsay, Dede Dury-Samford, Susan Logan ’73, Helen Norris Baker, and Paula Underwood-Winters.

Nancy Vining Van Ness is “very grateful” for her PDS education. “I was well prepared for college and have both undergraduate and graduate degrees in French. A professional dancer, I live in New York City, where I lead American Creative Dance, a small company of very avant garde modern dancers, and I dance tango.” Nancy was trained in Argentina by the late tango “maestro de maestros” Ernesto (Pupy) Castello. “My tango partner and I spent six weeks dancing in Buenos Aires in the tango salons, called ‘milongas’ there.”

1965 Charles and Janet McGinnis Noble ’63 on their 50th anniversary trip to the Pacific coast

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Jo Bernard, “a student of Kingian Nonviolence,” has written an interactive book for middle school children called Walking the Walk, My Journey to Nonviolence, “based on the 6 principles of Nonviolence according to Dr. Martin Luther King.” She has also created a program, “From Bully to Buddy,” which

she is volunteer-teaching at the Exceptional Childrens’ Foundation Kayne Eras School in Los Angeles. Presented to middle school children, “it is already making a difference in their outlook and options surrounding bullying and building commonality among their classmates.

The successes might be baby steps, but some of the individual changes already witnessed are profound.”

Ronald Scott Burton had a good visit to USN last summer while he was passing through Nashville before returning to San Antonio, traveling more than 4,000 miles. He is fully recovered from the bypass surgery that caused him to miss his PDS reunion.

James Horner and his wife Terry live in Miami, where he is a licensed Captain. He has captained several yachts thru the West Indies, Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, the East Coast of the US, Bahamas, and recently spent three months on a yacht in the South of France, Monte Carlo and Italy. For 18 days he crossed

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The captain of the SS Legacy presents a ship’s pennant to Peter Ansoff ’71 (r.)

the Atlantic Ocean to bring the yacht to Ft. Lauderdale. “As I look back I am very thankful for my Father teaching me to operate a boat on the Old Hickory Lake and the Cumberland River, the teachers at PDS and my classmates.”

1967 Richard Stelzer took an “awesome” trip to Peru, “where we trekked the Andes, hiked the legendary Inca Trail (a very daunting 6.8 miles of it), and visited magical Machu Picchu.

Otherwise spent much of the summer closer to home base (plus Santa Barbara and Coronado) in southern California, but worked in a few getaways, including a long weekend in New York to see friends and catch some plays.”

1969 Luthur Beazley has retired after 36 years of active pediatric practice. “Our 4 children are spread around the country and we have traveled a good bit to see our 5 grandchildren. Margaret and I spend a lot of time at the beach and are about to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.”

Martine Collier is now the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County, in Tampa, Florida.

1970 Martine Collier ’69

Margreete Gaye Johnston continues to

Gay Levine Eisen ’75, Transplant Olympian

In November Mark Fancher ’76 visited USN and spoke to a group of USN students and faculty in a mid-day “lunch and learn” sponsored by high school head Quinton Walker. Mark, an attorney for the Michigan ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, said “It would be my greatest pleasure in life if I could put myself out of the job.”

practice pediatric medicine in Hermitage, Tennessee. She also serves on the Metro Nashville Board of Health. Her youngest son, William Doak ’13, is a senior at Bowdoin College in Maine.

Bill Freeman was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

1971 In August Peter Ansoff retired after a career as a support contractor for the U.S. Navy specializing in acquisition logistics. (Each new Navy ship requires two or three boxcars worth of paperwork. Peter was responsible for a small corner of one of the boxcars.) He is looking forward to pursuing his research interests, including vexillology (the study of flags), maritime history, and lighter-than-air aviation history. To celebrate Peter’s retirement and their 30th wedding anniversary, he and his wife Mary took a week-long cruise on the Columbia River. When the ship’s captain heard about Peter’s interest in flags, he presented him a ship’s pennant.

1972 Paula Underwood-Winters and the “PDSL (PDS Ladies)” enjoy getting together. “Dede Dury Samford, Susie Schoggen Logan ’73, Peggy Parker Cason, Sharen Cone Jones, Rochelle Zelenka Diatikar, myself and recently Cheryl Sutherland.” Belinda Davis Catanach and Amy Kurland have joined them as well sometimes. Paula invites everyone to find them on Facebook and send a message. “Or if any

Andrea Barach Schine ’76 and her grandson

of our PDS crowd would like to get together and just visit, let us know and we’ll help pull something together. Recently Helen Norris Baker was in town and we had a nice visit.”

1975 Gay Levine Eisen has joined the quarter century club, “a too-elite club for transplant recipients.” It has been 25 years since Gay received a liver transplant. She continues to participate in the National Transplant Olympics, adding to her medals in badminton and table tennis, adding racquetball, and “to see how many bruises she can get while competing in basketball.”

She also competes to encourage everyone to sign up to be donors at donatelifetn.org. Married for 28 years to Steve Eisen, she is proud of her 27 year old son Jon Eisen. After twenty years as an attorney, Gay now focuses on nonprofit work “at too many places, including expungement clinics, synagogue, volunteering with Tennessee Donor Services and primarily with NeedLink Nashville, a nonprofit that helps families avoid homelessness in Nashville—a very critical need in Nashville at this time.” continued on next page

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Sarah Land White Bagby ’77 at her daughter Maria’s wedding in May

Lee Ann Harrod Merrick ’79 (r.) being awarded for her cowboy chili

1976

opera’s world premiere in Washington, D.C. in January, 2016. See roadkillopera.com or contact Stephan at roadkillopera@icloud.com.

Marisa Richmond served as the official timekeeper at the Democratic National Convention.

According to The Tennessean, “In her role as timekeeper, Richmond will be positioned on the stage and tasked with keeping speakers on schedule. Richmond said she was contacted for the position through her roles as a member of the party’s LGBT advisory board and the committee of Trans United for Hillary.”

Alex (Sascha) Lerman says his “life has taken an unexpected turn: after 20+ years devoted to the practice of clinical psychiatry, I now find myself working largely as an educator.” He’s the Director of Residency Training at Westchester Medical Center. “I really enjoy teaching­— and the moments when I feel that the training I’m helping young psychiatrists get will help others I will never meet. I enjoy keeping up with old classmates on Facebook. . . . I wish I could catch up with more of my old teachers.”

Andrea Barach Schine and her husband are excited about their first grandchild, “a beautiful baby boy, Elliot Lee, born December 2.” His mom Miriam Schine attended USN until fourth grade.

1979 Lee Ann Harrod Merrick won her neighborhood competition with her chili recipe.

Stephan Parker writes that in October the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia gave two free performances of A Roadkill Opera, the 59-minute show he wrote to the music of Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 Leonora. Stephan was delightfully surprised by Freya Margand, who stopped to say hi when she attended the

Stephan Parker ’79’s Roadkill Opera

1983 Dana Levy teaches alignment-based yoga in the Iyengar tradition in Salt Lake City. She and her family (husband Zach Smith and 13-yearold son Eli) relocated to Utah after a full, exciting fifteen years in Japan. Keeping that connection alive, Dana still runs a small yoga studio in Tokyo and returns yearly. For info about Dana’s teaching, visit danalevyyoga.com or contact her and come visit in person.

Arthur Tang ’82 (l.) with his husband Ed Rosner on their 2015 honeymoon in France

1984 In September Tony Hinson received the Washington State Bar Association’s 2016 Professionalism Award in recognition of his career of legal service to the U.S. Navy. Lieutenant Commander Hinson is in private practice with Hinson Law Firm, where his practice focuses on estate planning, tax planning, business planning and probate. For over eight years, he worked with the Internal Revenue Service as an estate tax attorney. Since 2015, Hinson has also served as an operational law attorney with the Legal Reserve unit attached to Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Lisa Gurevitch Cohen’s new series released on CNN in December is called “A Perilous Journey.” The four-part series of reports about the dire migration crisis in Central and South America and the threat of human trafficking is available for viewing on CNN.com/Freedom.

1988 In September Tim Ozgener was featured in a “Getting to Know. . .” story in Broadway

World Nashville. Tim said his love of theater and acting began “in high school at USN. They have a great theater program there and I had a wonderful teacher named Gus Gillette, who encouraged me.”

1990 In August Akiko Ichikawa was in the group show “Chez BRKLYN” in Falun, Sweden. In October she was presented a gifting performance, Rad Kanji, at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia.

1991 Joe “JT” Richardson is moving back to the U.S. after eleven years in Germany.

1992 Nick Buda was featured in a Modern Drummer “Breakfast Sessions” piece.

Josh Kirshner lives in York in the UK with his wife Shannon and their 3 ½ year-old son Jonah. “I work at the University of York in the continued on page 30

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photo by Anna Myint ’04

NABV Visits

by Anna Myint ‘04, alumni director & social media manager

W

hat is the National Alumni Board of Visitors? Seven years ago, Director Vince Durnan asked a group of accomplished alumni from around the country to make annual visits to USN to check on what’s happening here and share ideas about the school’s present and future. This year’s meeting drew the largest attendance yet, with eighteen alumni returning to campus.

The visit began on a November Sunday afternoon, when alumni enjoyed a performance of the high school musical Urinetown and a tour of the River Campus before going to Le Sel, Ben ’98 and Max ’01 Goldberg’s French restaurant near USN. Several members of the local Alumni Board and the Board of Trustees joined the visitors there.

Monday’s full agenda for the Board of Visitors included Director Vince Durnan’s discussion of his “educational safari” with the Strategic Planning Committee and Development Director

Anne Westfall’s update on One School, Our Future. A Campaign for University School of Nashville, with help from Campaign cochair Teri Doochin Kasselberg ’73. Next came a campus tour and lunch with some seniors, who described their lives as USN students. That afternoon Chief Financial Officer Teresa Standard, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Juliet Douglas, and Director of Financial Services Kyron Buckner discussed financial aid and delved into their data comparing USN to similar schools nationwide.

One purpose of the NABV is helping to keep our far-flung alumni engaged with USN, so the Board shares with alumni in their towns what they learned on their recent visit to Nashville. For those of us still here, it was great having these alumni back on campus, reconnecting with and learning about a place they know and love dearly. nn

2016-2017 National Alumni Board of Visitors Richard Bovender ’97 Nashville Carol Norris Brown ’70 Great Falls, Virginia David Brown ’83 Chicago, Illinois Jim Coddington ’70 Eastchester, New York Greg Downs ’89 Albany, California Erin Drake ’10 Brooklyn, New York Hawkins Entrekin ’06 Evanston, Illinois Julie Eskind ’02 Chicago, Illinois

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Wendell Foster ’81 Pasadena, California Zaz Harris ’85 Redwood City, California Libby Hirsh Heimark ’72 Palo Alto, California Matthew Hills ’77 Newton Centre, Massachusetts Eric Jewett ’91 Seattle, Washington Rosalyn Baxter-Jones ’72 Gilbert, Arizona Harold Jordan ’81 Atlanta, Georgia David Moreau ’97 Los Angeles, California

Lindsey Mossman ’02 New York, New York Stephen Schleicher ’01 New York, New York B.J. Stein ’02 Seattle, Washington Mark Stumpf ’65 Washington, D.C. Liz Werthan ’56 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Christina West ’94 Washington, D.C.

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Josh Kirshner ’92 with his wife Shannon and their son Jonah

environmental studies department, teaching a combination of geography, development studies and environmental politics and planning.

My research focuses on sustainable energy access in Africa, so I do lots of travel. We often visit the U.S., and Nashville, and I really enjoy connecting with friends from USN. We’ve seen Jason Gray, Harrison Gray and Nick Buda on recent visits.”

1996 In September Gabe Dixon headlined the 615 stage at Nashville’s “Live on the Green.”

1997 Roz Helderman, a “political enterprise and investigations” reporter for The Washington Post, was interviewed by Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball in September.

1998

(l. to r.): Erica Haber ’94, Kim Travis Cowle ’93, and Lisa Singer with Annette Pollack Lichter at her June, 2015 wedding.

masses in full-band formation” in performances that “included three dates supporting Wilco immediately after Eaux Claires, plus five headlining shows.”

Inc.com did a story about Ben and Max Goldberg called “How 2 Brothers are Giving Nashville a New Kind of Cool, One Burger Joint and Mini Golf Course at a Time.” The piece refers to their “mini empire of eccentric establishments,” though their phrase for their joints is “social destinations.”

1999 Heather Barksdale Scott calls 2016 “a wonderful year,” when she “celebrated the one year anniversary of the opening of Baby+Co Nashville with my incredible colleagues on August 1. Married my love, Tyler Scott, on September 3. And welcomed our daughter Mary Weaver “Neilie” Scott on October 6 surrounded by family and colleagues at Baby+Co.”

This fall William Tyler brought (according to Merge Records) “Modern Country to the

2000 Adam Hirsh is the Creative Director at the new Goza Tequila that is distributed in Georgia and Tennessee, according to a story in the Nashville Scene by Chris Chamberlain ’85.

USN alumni at the October wedding of Erin Mosow ’99 and Nathan Terry ’98: Tyler Cameron, Seth Hughes, Andy Shmerling, Alex Masulis, Dan Hodges, Nathan Terry, Chris Mayne, Brookes Daverman, Andrew Capdevilla, James Harper, and Jonathon Sharpe in front.

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Lacie Vincent Thorne lives in Hong Kong and works as a fashion stylist for advertising and magazines.

She was recently flown to Paris to style Chinese actress Luping Wang for the cover of Prestige Magazine and styled an international ad campaign for Watsons Pharmacy.

Lacie had a little boy in Hong

Heather Barksdale ’99 with her husband Tyler Scott

Kong in 2014 and is expecting her second child with husband Neil Thorne. They enjoy traveling around the APAC region.

2001 Julia Sullivan’s Chowhound.com piece called “Where Will your Oysters Come From?” appeared ahead of the opening of her new Germantown restaurant Henrietta Red. Brent Miller is Head of Automation and Controls at Chicago Flyhouse, a company that provides rigging services on a grand scale.

Brent is in charge of the “Chi-Town Rising” project, which lifts a “13,000 lb star at 3ft/sec up the side of the downtown Hyatt” in Chicago on New Year’s Eve. Brent was responsible for “the motor design, motor control enclosures & the software programming used to control the system.” He was also operating the star on New Year’s Eve. flyhouse.com/blog/ chi-town-rising-2016-hoist-system Sara Chazin moved to the Bay Area in 2014 “and started integrating myself into the musical community. Now I am a violinist in the Silicon Valley Symphony as well as the Monterey Symphony and other groups around the Bay Area. I started teaching private violin lessons in Oakland and substitute teaching at Ecole Bilingue, a bilingual French/English K-8 school in Berkeley.”

2002 Jennie Shepard Zagnoev has changed careers, becoming an affiliate broker with Zeitlin & Co. Realtors.

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Find Your Focus Susan Yeagley ’89

By Anna Myint ’04, alumni director & social media manager

“I

started acting when I was 10 or 11. I heard theater teacher Gus Gillette was doing amazing things at USN, and I begged my parents to go.”

sisters. Susan has been busy traveling and promoting Mascots, recently returning from the Toronto Film Festival.

Susan’s future acting projects include one with her husband, actor Kevin Nealon.

When she’s not acting, Susan enjoys attending open houses and is interested in anything involving home design. She also has plans to travel abroad with her husband and family.

Perhaps Susan’s most important teacher at USN was Gus Gillette. “He helped parlay my dreams into a career.” When asked if acting was something she always knew she wanted to do, Susan answered, “YES! You kind of know what your heart is telling you to do. You’ve got to listen to that and follow it.”

photo by Dana Patrick Photography

Comic actress Susan Yeagley ’89 transferred from a school in Hendersonville during her sophomore year to attend USN. Soon after Susan arrived, she realized she was going to face some academic challenges. “The genius of USN is that the teachers stayed after school and helped me catch up.” All of her chemistry and math teachers would stay and help her, along with Spanish teacher Grace Melchiore and English teacher Ann Wheeler. “I feel grateful for all of them.”

“I love USN. It is a big part of my life. I loved going there.”

After graduating from USN in 1989, Susan moved to L.A., where she has lived since. She attended University of Southern California’s film school. She then joined The Groundlings, an L.A. improv and comedy group , where she continued to study and train.

Her many appearances in films and sitcoms include recurring roles in Parks and Recreation and Rules of Engagement. On Parks and Recreation, Susan was able to work with one of her role models, Amy Poehler, who proved very supportive. This past year, Susan starred in the Netflix film Mascots, enjoying what became her favorite part ever. Director Christopher Guest put her in touch with actress Parker Posey, who plays Susan’s sister, months before filming began. They spoke weekly, talking about everything, so when filming began, they felt like real

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

I asked Susan if she could offer any advice for those thinking of getting into her line of work. “Entertainment is a wonderful way of life. Get real specific in what you want to do in the business: lighting, sounds, music, graphic art, etc. Study the hell out of it and learn everything you can about it. Find the focus.”

She said, “I want to add something controversial. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people talk about ‘networking.’ Stop it. Just be good at your job. People will find you when you have honed your craft.”

In 2011, Susan and Kevin created USN’s Leaky Pen Award, which they kept going until 2015. At her twentieth USN reunion, Susan decided she wanted to honor the funny student, noting that students get awards for academics, arts, and sports, but not for being funny. The Leaky Pen Award honored a high school kid with a comedic voice. Seniors were invited to submit essays on a topic chosen by Susan and Kevin. “There were some laugh-out-loud, great essays,” said Susan. She, Kevin, and their friends read the essays, then got together and picked the winner. They presented the award by video in assembly each year, with one of their comedian friends announcing the winner to the surprised USN student.

“What I love about USN is that you can be any kind of kid and you’re celebrated for what kind of child you are. I can’t express enough how grateful I am for the school. It really teed me up for having a full and balanced life.” nn

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Zac Cypress ’02 with his bride Erin Graves at their 2015 wedding

Veterinary student Lauren Prince ’03 with a friend

The family of Sam and Samantha Nedelman Lee ’03: baby Joshua Henry and his sister Ilana Sari

Retired head of high school Steve Robins with Matt Loftus ’04

Matthew Braman ’02 spoke at a “Lunch and Learn” in the high school in November.

Leandra Rice Walker ’03 and her family

Lauren Prince is in her first year at the University of Wisconsin Veterinary School in Madison. Her father says, “A lover of all kinds of animals, she expects to specialize in large animals.”

In June LeAndra Rice Walker and her husband James welcomed a new son, Joshua, to their family. “Older siblings Naomi and Elijah are so happy to have a baby to play with!” LeAndra, a senior payroll analyst, lives with her family in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Carolyn Hecklin Hyatt ’02 with her family

2003 Last summer criminal defense attorney Ben Raybin was quoted in a Tennessean story about “big changes” in the Davidson County jail work credit policy.

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Lauren Wolchok, newly engaged to her partner Ky, is “excited to be living close to family while I finish my fellowship training in HIV primary care at Los Angeles County hospital.”

Grant Garmezy and his wife Erin launched a new series of collaborative artwork, and their piece was featured on the cover of the September/ October issue of Glass Art Magazine.

They debuted their new work at SOFA Chicago

and are happy to be represented by the Chesterfield Gallery in Manhattan.

As of September, Crystal Churchwell is the new Associate Director of Development at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.

Previously, she was in brand management at S.C. Johnson & Sons and Mars Petcare after receiving her M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University.

2004 The café founded by Emily Stewart and two other people as an offshoot of their bakery BreadHive was the subject of a piece in The New York Times. The café, which opened on Buffalo’s west side in July, is a cooperative.

Emily and her partners raised start-up capital by selling nonvoting shares to locals.

Carrie Spitz is the Middle School Learning Specialist at Battle Ground Academy.

Heydn Ericson and his bride, who were married in a civil ceremony, went to Japan over the summer to have a traditional Shinto wedding performed at the Hokkaido Shrine in Sapporo,

2000 EDGEHILL

At the Maine wedding of Mike Verrilli and Kati Solomon ’04, USN guests included (l. to r.): Thomas Snow, Taylor Loring, Mike and Kati, Graham Manning, Caitlin Dixon Kavoosifar, Haley Riebeling Zaccarelli (all guests ’04)

Natsumi and Heydn Ericson ’04 at their wedding in Japan (photo by Nate Zeitlin ’06)

Hokkaido. Heydn is in the second year of a three year program in graduate industrial design at Georgia Tech, where, he says, he is beating his USN GPA with a 4.0 in graduate school.

Anya Desai, a third year medical student at the University of California San Francisco, received a UCSF Sustainability Award for “her dedication to social justice, the environment, and health, as well as for creating a new UCSF elective and engaging the next generation of healthcare professionals.” In 2014 Anya organized an Environmental Health and Social Justice Elective.

Newlywed Dan Chazin has begun Physical Therapy School at Washington University.

After “8 years working in a long-term residential treatment facility with adolescents suffering from co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders,” Matt Loftus has made a career change, returning to Nashville to join his father’s Financial Advisory practice at Raymond James. “While the excitement of working with adolescents may be lost in my new career path, I look forward to continuing to develop influential relationships with families as I help ease their anxieties related to financial stressors.”

The Tennessean called Lauren Moskovitz’s Little Mosko’s Muncheonette and Bake Shop “a blast from the past” in its favorable review.

Haley Riebeling ’04 and her groom Eric Zaccarelli in May, 2016

This fall Samantha Mazer won the women’s division of the Los Cabos Ironman championship, completing the race in under 11 hours.

2005

Kate and Dan Chazin ’04

Popcrush.com reported on Morgxn, known to his USN classmates as Morgan Karr: “the burgeoning singer-songwriter began honing his craft as an artist between LA and NYC over the past year—all leading to this very moment: ‘Love You With The Lights On,’ his sensual debut.”

Morgan is the son of Jackie Roth Karr ’76.

David Tannenbaum and his wife Maggie welcomed their second child in October. “Her brother William is taking very well to her, which might actually be a first for the infamous Tannenbaum sibling relations. They must get that from Maggie’s side. Oh yeah, and their good looks.”

Jason Eskind has released his own whiskey brand, Cumberland Cask Tennessee Whiskey. “My family company, which has been in business since 1939, expanded into Knoxville, and we also created the Best Brands Beer Division.” The company was featured in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and in the Nashville Scene. cumberlandcask.com

Alan Perlman ’04 with his wife Lana Axelrod and their son Miles

continued on page 35

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Still Laughing John Early ’06

By Anna Myint ’04, alumni director & social media manager

W

atch out Hollywood (and New York City), John Early ’06 is planning to take over. Recently you might have seen John as Jenna Maroney’s son Jerome on 30 Rock, or in the Netflix series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, or perhaps starring on TBS’ series Search Party, or on a recent interview on CONAN. It’s been a busy year for John, as he also co-starred in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising alongside Seth Rogan, Zac Efron, and Dave Franco.

Numerous other films and projects are on the way.

When Ms. Jackson saw John’s Spartan Cheerleader performance in class, she encouraged John to perform it at Town Hall Assembly. There he was at 10 years old, dressed in costume and wig, making the entire Middle School laugh.

Another favorite USN memory was making a series of videos for Richard Espenant’s high school French class: Les Jumelles with friends and classmates Caroline Pigott and Courtney Scott. John claims that these videos “stand the test of time” and are where he “creatively peaked.” The videos, which of course are in French, follow three friends in high school. (Les jumelles means twins.)

“I really do treasure that USN gave us the space to do those videos and empowered us to be silly.” The Les Jumelles series and John’s numerous other videos can be found on his youtube page: youtube.com/bejohnce.

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After graduating from USN in 2006, John moved to New York City, where he still lives, to attend NYU, receiving a BSA in Drama. Theater at USN helped him transition effortlessly into the theater program at NYU.

photo by Kim Newmoney

John came to USN in fifth grade and immediately felt comfortable being the funny guy with his schoolmates. He remembers participating in the musicals and plays, but it’s his first performance in the USN Auditorium as a new student that stands out for him. “I loved the theater stuff I did there, but it was the creative movement class with Robie Jackson that was the best.”

Other teachers who especially influenced John at USN included Beth Interlandi, Katie Greenebaum, and Angie Hilgendorf.

“They genuinely went beyond teaching and were super supportive and treated me like an equal, which was very important to me.”

He looks up to “every funny woman,” a list which includes Lisa Kudrow, Cheri Oteri, Christine Taylor, and Lily Tomlin. “I knew I always wanted to be funny, so I started exploring more comedic types of performances after college.” He does stand-up performances one to three times a week.

John dreams of coming back to Nashville to perform in the Belcourt Theater.

The turning point of his career so far came this past year when John was chosen to be a featured comedian in Netflix’s The Characters. Each comedian was given a 30-minute show to do whatever he wanted. John treasures this experience because it gave him “a rare opportunity to have complete creative control.”

He says, “I was able to do my own thing and be treated in that capacity where I could let people know what my thing is.”

“I do more than stand up though. I write, I act, I produce, but I like to say I’m a comedian because it feels the least pretentious. I feel so squirmy when I say ‘actor.’”

Look for John in future projects: Beatrice at Dinner with Salma Hayek and The Masterpiece with Sharon Stone. nn

2000 EDGEHILL

Samantha Mazer ’04 at the Los Cabos Ironman championship

The big USN crowd at the wedding of Carrie Spitz ’04 and Dave Purser

2006 Andrew Swanson, “designer and carpenter” among other things, was featured in a Chicago Tribune story about changes in how people want to display and store their things in smaller houses and apartments.

Hawkins Entrekin’s company, Warden Capital, is opening its first Nashville self-storage facility on Dickerson Pike, according to a story in The Tennessean. The article says, “Before forming Warden Capital, Entrekin led commercial real estate and distressed debt acquisitions for RSF Partners, a private equity fund.”

Hillary Price ’06 and Jared Daiber

David Tannenbaum ’05 and his family

After their wedding last spring at ScarrittBennett, Hillary Price and her husband live in Washington, D.C. John Early did a highly amusing impression of Britney Spears on Conan this fall.

2007 A profile on AUDL.com, the website of the American Ultimate Disc League, focuses on Nick Spiva, “one of the newest additions to the DC Breeze.” He says of USN Ultimate players in his day, they “might not know what a dump set is by the time they leave high school but they love the game more than anyone else.” He adds, “I felt like our coach really built in a love for the game.”

2008 Note from Frannie Stabile ’05: “My company sometimes throws small concerts in our office for fans—we’re a ticketing company called

Songkick. Imagine my surprise when I learned that tonight’s concert would be none other than Stewart Bronaugh’s band Lionlimb! The show “sold out” (it’s free for fans as a thank you for being an early follower of bands) in minutes and everyone is buzzing about the hot new Nashville band coming in tonight in London.

They are on tour in the U.K. and I had no idea they were playing our office til the day before.”

Paige Caldwell Brown is a wedding and event planner with a design studio on

Main Street in East Nashville. paigebrowndesigns.com

2009 Marshall Moutenot is involved in a venture to conserve fresh water by helping water markets function more efficiently. He explains, “On the

Edward and Emily Strupp Linton ’07 and USN friends and relatives

continued on next page

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website (caranddriver.com) and in the January 2017 issue of the print magazine.”

2011 Levi Hummon joined country singer Kelsea Ballerini on tour this past spring.

2012 Jessica Cohen has taken a job at the University of Southern California, where she will supervise and implement a new campus-wide recycling program.

Yale golfer Sara Garmezy ’13 with USN math teacher Justin Fitzpatrick

Laura Berry, a fourth-year student at the College of the Atlantic, attended the annual United Nations international climate conference in November in Marrakech, Morocco.

This Conference of the Parties marked the first gathering of the 191 countries that signed on to last year’s historic Paris climate agreement.

USN classmates at the wedding of Florence Page ’07 and Cooper Brown: Amy McElroy, Marci Levy, Ebeth Ockerman, and Calle Nielson

Will Hardy Kochtitzky is in graduate school at the University of Maine in Orono.

west coast, land, especially when used for agriculture, has a water right associated with it.

In many states, right-holders can lease or sell their water right separately from the land. . . .

Data about the rights does not exist, so finding people to buy water from and making that transaction happen smoothly is time consuming and expensive. We are using satellites and machine learning to fill in the gaps about what we know when it comes to freshwater usage in agriculture.”

2013

Work by Nathan Schine recently appeared in the journal Nature and in Physics Today: “Synthetic Landau levels for photons.” He is in the fourth year of a Ph.D. program in physics at the University of Chicago. Nathan and his wife Rachel have “settled into a nice apartment in Hyde Park about a mile from campus. Last June, I had an article published in Nature magazine on my research into using light to study the quantum mechanics of strong magnetic fields and curved space.” Rachel and Nathan “have had the opportunity to travel quite a bit—we were in Istanbul in 2014 and road-tripped around Israel this past summer.”

Evie Kennedy was one of twelve seniors inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at Kenyon College.

Joey Capparella lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and works for Car and Driver magazine. “You can read my articles on the Car and Driver

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When Sean Clark graduates in May from Ursinus College, he will go to work for Amazon as an Area Manager. He will receive a BA in Applied Economics with minors in Management Studies and French.

This past summer Sara Garmezy, who plays golf at Yale University, was named an AllAmerican Scholar, a honor that goes to athletes who maintain at least a 3.5 GPA.

Bryard Huggins released the official music video featuring his arrangement of Donald Lawrence’s “When The Saints Go To Worship”, from his album “The Gospel Sessions.” The video was produced by Bryard and recorded and edited by Clever Records. It was filmed at College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where he is a senior.

Hannah Heitz went to Washington, D.C. with the Emory Scholars Program and met with various leaders, including U.S. Representative John Lewis.

Hannah Heitz ’13 with Congressman John Lewis

2015 Mackenzie Myers took a gap year, teaching English for three months in Swaziland in Africa, then hiking the Appalachian Trail starting in June. “Due to weather, timing, and terrain,” he started in the middle at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and hiked north to Maine. Skye Cameron joined him, and they hiked from New York to the Vermont/New Hampshire border, about 350 miles. In September, after Mackenzie reached Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus of the trail, he flew back to Harper’s Ferry and began his hike south to Georgia. He walked the entire trail, finishing his “thru-hike” at Springer Mountain in Georgia in December.

2016 Mathieu Agee is one of only two freshmen who made the A team for Mamabird Ultimate, the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Ultimate frisbee team.

“Riptide” has released its first album, Giant Slingshot. The band includes Mark Pierce ’16, lead vocals and guitar; Crawford Lyons ’16, lead guitar; Addison Prichard ‘16, drums and backup vocals; Sam Bergeson ‘18 on bass.

“Riptide had their first gig at the 7th grade tal-

2000 EDGEHILL

BIRTHS MacKenzie and Murrey Smith ’92, a daughter, Frances Lee Grant, February 3, 2016 Evan and Annette Pollack Lichter ’93, a son, Max Henry, June 3, 2016

Mackenzie Myers ’15 (r.) and Skye Cameron ’15 on Mt. Greylock in Massachusetts

Sean Barrett ’16 atop Devil’s Tower in Wyoming during his semester at the National Outdoor Leadership Academy

ent show 6 years ago…. Mark and Crawford are now freshmen at the Berklee College of Music. Addison is taking a gap year working for the Northwest Youth Corp. Sam is a junior at USN.” The album is available on Spotify, CD Baby, and iTunes. Note: Addison Prichard is the son of JoDee Hicks Prichard ’85 and the grandson of Dee Holder Hicks Bradshaw ’58.

Zac Cypress ’02 and Erin Graves, November 21, 2015

Ben Liske reports having “a unique time” at Trinity College with “some great opportunities,” including being able to participate in the Interdisciplinary Science Program, with a project which he will work on into the summer.

He is also happy with Trinity’s “group of nerds” which holds such Friday night events as “Gladiator Night,” during which “we made armor from cardboard and fought each other…with pool noodles. Fun and imaginative.”

Carrie Spitz ’04 and Dave Purser, October 22, 2016

Kati Solomon ’04 and Mike Verrilli, June 25, 2016 Haley Riebeling ’04 and Eric Zaccarelli, May 14, 2016

Kari and Chris Cowperthwaite ’95, a son, Porter William, October 4, 2016 Jay and Jennifer Oertly LeDuc ’97, a son, Remy Benjamin, July 18, 2016 Jamie and Allison Yazdian Auslander ’99, a son, Zachary Nathan, May 16, 2016 Tyler and Heather Barksdale Scott ’99, a daughter, Mary Weaver “Neilie,” October 6, 2016

Stephanie Hecklin ’04 and Jorie Soskin, November 21, 2015

Amanda Saxer ’99 and Darin Chapman, a son, Jax Jameson Chapman, November 23, 2016

Dan Chazin ’04 and Kate Tygielski, August 6, 2016

Natasha Pantelides ’01 and Satkirpal Garcia, a son, Nasir Garcia Pantelides, September 23, 2016

Tali Rosenblum ’05 and Joshua Katz, May 29, 2016

Katherine Barnes Merrill ’02 and Hilson Merrill ’02, a daughter, Katherine Louise, June 23, 2016

Kara-Jade Gordon, a freshman at Monmouth College, was selected to the Midwest Conference all-conference soccer team and recognized as “Newcomer of the Year.”

Amy Yazdian ’05 and David Pearl, July 3, 2016

WEDDINGS

Hillary Price ’06 and Jared Daiber, April 16, 2016

Arthur Tang ’82 and Ed Rosner, October 14, 2015

Andy and Jenny Richter Corts ’95, a daughter, Elizabeth Dudley, August 28, 2016

Emily Strupp ’07 and Edward Linton ’07, May 28, 2016

Ricky and Kate Viebranz Thrash ’02, a daughter, Laura Jane, November 21, 2016 Sam and Samantha Nedelman Lee ’03, a daughter, Ilana Sari, February 18, 2015, and a son, Joshua Henry, June 8, 2016

Annette Pollack ’93 and Evan Lichter, June 7, 2015

Liza Dansky ’07 and Lori Star, June 26, 2016

Adam and Carolyn Hecklin Hyatt ’03, a daughter, Lyla Kate, February 6, 2016

Erin Mosow ’98 and Nathan Terry ’99, October 8, 2016

Florence Page ’07 and Cooper Brown, October 1, 2016

James and LeAndra Rice Walker ’03, a son, Joshua, June 6, 2016

Heather Barksdale ’99 and Tyler Scott, September 3, 2016

Caitlin Del Casino ’08 and Elliott Roche ’10, December 31, 2016

Kevin and Andrea Kirshner Falik ’04, a son, Brayden Eli, August 5, 2016

Seth Yazdian ’01 and Talia Saltzberg, July 17, 2016

Grace Ann Cunningham Lukach ’03 and Matt Lukach ’04, a daughter, Josephine Grace, September 15, 2016 continued on next page

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

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Emilia, the daughter of Elisabeth Gillette Lorenc ’06

Stephen Rodriguez ’04’s son Elijah

Porter Cowperthwaite, son of Chris ’95

Josephine Lukach, whose parents are Matt ’04 and Grace Ann Cunningham Lukach ’03

Max, son of Annette Pollack Lichter ’93

Andrea Kirshner Falik ’04’s son Brayden

Louise, the daughter of Hilson and Katherine Barnes Merrill, both class of ’02

Remy, son of Jennifer Oertly LeDuc ’97

Zachary, whose mother is Allison Yazdian Auslander ’99

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2000 EDGEHILL

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usn.org/alumni IN MEMORIAM Betty Didcoct Burrill ’33 (September 19, 2015) Damaris Witherspoon Steele ’37 (September 8, 2016) Norma Goldner Neaderthal ’38 (September 12, 2016) Betty Brewton Blackburn ’41 (August 2, 2016)

Natasha Pantelides ’01’s son Nasir Garcia Pantelides

Neilie, Heather Barksdale Scott ’99’s daughter

Lib Roller ’41 (November 17, 2016) Kay Freeman White ’43 (September 14, 2016) Martha Street Gaines ’44 (October 2, 2011) Jack Norman ’44 (August 28, 2016) Sally Rives Brooks ’46 (June 15, 2016) Durand Hite ’47 (September, 2016) Mary Jim Russell Josephs ’52 (August 5, 2016)

Eliza, daughter of Jenny Richter Corts ’95

Amanda Saxer Chapman ’99’s son Jax

Brandi and Stephen Rodriguez ’04, a son, Elijah Porter, July 23, 2016

Harold Tine ’61 (August 29, 2016)

Alan Perlman ’04 and Lana Axelrod, a son, Miles Axelrod Perlman August 12, 2016

Daphne Smith ’70 (January 7, 2017)

Adam and Katie Shmerling Wayne ’05, a daughter, Abigail (Abby) Elizabeth, September 16, 2016 Maggie and David Tannenbaum ’05, a daughter, Emma Xiu, October, 2016 Olek and Elisabeth Gillette Lorenc ’06, a daughter, Emilia, June 14, 2016 Murrey Smith ’92’s daughter Frances Lee

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE

Margaret C. Whitaker Olson ’54 (June 13, 2016)

Bill Sims ’78 (October 25, 2016) Brad Smith ’79 (December 15, 2016) To read obituaries of most of these alumni and former teachers, please visit usn.org/publications.

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

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January 6, 2017

photo by Anna Myint ’04

photo by Anna Myint ’04

photo by Anna Myint ’04

In January​we welcomed ​back to campus​​ alumni from ​the classes of 2013-2016. The alumni/student band Riptide performed songs from their album Giant Slingshot. ​High ​s​chool students​​were also invited to ​the party​to​ visit​with the young alumni.

Young Alumni Party 42

2000 EDGEHILL

Create Your Vision for the Future

Such events as a milestone birthday or retirement offer not just a reason to celebrate but also to think about the values you hope to pass on to future generations. One way you can ensure that your values endure is through will planning, deciding how your assets will be distributed after your lifetime.

Create a will so you can direct the division of your property the way you choose. If Peabody Demonstration School/University School of Nashville has been important in your life, you can also include a gift to support our future.

Already have a will? Don’t set it and forget it! Review it every couple of years to ensure that it has kept pace with your life.

Go a Step Further

If supporting USN is a part of your future plans, share your intentions with loved ones. Does your family know why our work is important to you? Tell them! These conversations help ensure that your family understands your intentions. You could also inspire them to make a connection with USN. Visit usn.org/plannedgiving to learn more, and contact Anne Westfall at (615) 277-7495 or awestfall@usn.org.

We’ll help you get started with creating a plan that protects the important people and causes in your life.

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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