Viewpoint Magazine Summer/Fall 2016

VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 2 /

S T O R I E S C O N N E C T U S. S T O R I E S C H A N G E U S .

SUMMER / FALL 2016

mission OUR

VIEWPOINT SCHOOL is a welcoming, vibrant, and collaborative community that offers a challenging and enriched college preparatory education in a nurturing environment for students in Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. The School embraces students and families from diverse cultures of the world and teaches the history and wisdom of these traditions.

inside SUMMER / FALL 2016

VIEWPOINT INSPIRES a love of learning and develops those qualities which provide strength and direction for a lifetime. The School promotes among its students respect, integrity, responsibility, and optimism.

THE SCHOOL CELEBRATES its love of country by commemorating our nation’s holidays and honoring its finest traditions. Viewpoint affirms in its assemblies and programs the ethical principles inherent in all religions.

VIEWPOINT’S STUDENTS learn the importance of service to others and to the greater community with the expectation that this introduction becomes a lifelong commitment.

VIEWPOINT RECOGNIZES the uniqueness of each child and is committed to the preservation and development of that individuality.

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Stories Connect Us. Stories Change Us. VIE WPOINT ON THE WEB

Cover: Photograph by Bill Youngblood Opposite page: Photograph by Gregg Kessler This page: H.H. Landau ’22, Kate Buatti ’22

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inside

SUMMER / FALL 2016

Letter from the Head of School 11

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Dear Friends,

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and Personal Responsibility

10 In Conversation: Novelist & Director of Iowa Writers’ Workshop Lan Samantha Chang Soar – A New Novel by Viewpoint’s 11 Tracy Wymer 12 Powered Up: Cultivating Lifelong Readers in the Digital Age

14 Share Your Work: Paradise Lost Creative Project 16 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 18 Leadership Lessons from Literature: How Teaching Prepared Me for the Head’s Office 20 Are the Humanities in Decline or More Relevant than Ever?

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50 LOVE OF LEARNING 8 Citizenship, Leadership,

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IN OUR CANYON 22 First Crush – Anna Yi 24 Aspects Editorial Team 26 Download: Megan Ende 28 Parent Partnership for Diversity and Inclusivity – A Place for All of Us

30 To Protect and to Serve: Viewpoint

Parent Donald Thompson Awarded Medal of Valor

ARTS 32 FOCUS ON FINE ARTS 34 Art Teachers and their Artwork 41 The Silver Key Awards 42 Fine Arts of the Year ATHLETICS 44 Letter from the Athletic Director 46 Athletics: Spring 2016 47 Sharing Patriot Football

ADVANCING VIEWPOINT’S MISSION 48 Field of Dreams 50 Tribute to Bob Dworkoski COLLEGE COUNSELING 52 University of California: Opportunities and Changes Abound

54 Beyond Viewpoint – College Matriculation List

CELEBRATE! 56 Class of 2016 Graduates!

62 Eighth Grade Commencement DIRECTION FOR A LIFETIME 66 Alumni Profile: Dajah Massey ’10 68 Congratulations to the Class of 2012!

76 Contributors

MY FAVORITE RITUAL OF PARENTING was the bedtime story. I loved books and relished the opportunity to settle down each night beside my daughters and read – one of their favorites, or one of mine.

Sometimes, my daughter wouldn’t make it to the end of the story. Other times, the story would end the evening for us both! I still relish the opportunities to read to students, old favorites and the new books written in a burgeoning landscape of children’s literature. Across culture and time, children love stories. Stories are some of our first teachers, imparting lessons that are moral and practical in nature.

THIS ISSUE of Viewpoint’s magazine takes a deep dive into the ways that stories define our learning community for students and adults. We start in the English classroom, with a look at the appeal of the classic American novel The Great Gatsby. From there, these pages go far afield – into classrooms from Kindergarten through Upper School, into the reading habits of our distinguished faculty, and into the very purpose of studying the humanities in a digital age. We even share a gripping hero story of one of our own, parent Donald Thompson, awarded the Medal of Valor by President Obama, before delving into the stories of Viewpoint’s athletes and alumni. Stories of heroes are all around us, if we take the time to pay attention.

AT A TIME when the pace of life goes only in one speed – faster – stories slow us down, calling on us to step into another reality, and on the storyteller’s terms. In this summer’s Washington Post, reporter Jeff Guo boasted of a way he discovered to watch his favorite videos at up to two times the normal speed, so that “an entire season of Game of Thrones goes down on the bus ride from D.C. to New York.” (A film

editor quoted in his story is duly horrified at the violence done to the art form.) In today’s world, stories push us to resist the tendencies of our mass popular culture, reminding us of human connections, possibilities, and the value of time.

AS THE INTERNET THREATENS to reduce knowledge to mere “information,” close at hand as a quick search, stories remind us of different ways of knowing. What kind of knowledge is found in stories? In our search for what is good, right and true, stories can contain deeper truths. About one vignette, the autobiographer Richard Wright has written, “I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true.” The best stories transcend facts, and they can stay with us for a lifetime, continuing to impart lessons of true feeling.

WE READ that “Big Data” is transforming our lives, that we are constantly leaving trails of zeroes and ones in terabytes of raw materials for analytics. Today, our students must learn to analyze both data and stories, the quantitative and qualitative. As these pages illustrate, an understanding of stories will continue to be a critical 21st century skill, for all the ways that stories connect and change us.

HERE’S TO MANY HAPPY ENDINGS, and to enjoying the reader’s journey along the way!

Mark J. McKee, Head of School

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engagement / reflection / iteration

the seniors in Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature to reflect on the books that have most stayed with them from their English classes, and every year they cite F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

One of the ten most taught titles in high school, according to the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, Gatsby is also a book often mentioned to me by the parents of Middle and Upper Schoolers as a favorite from their own schooling.

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STORIES CONNECT US. STORIES CHANGE US.

By Nan Cohen Chair of the English Department

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remember The Great Gatsby?

Adults often tell me, “It’s so romantic!” – referring to the illusory, doomed love that Gatsby cherishes for Daisy: a powerful force in the book, to be sure.

WHY

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But I’m also struck by what people forget. We forget, for example, that it is not until the fourth of the book’s nine chapters – approximately halfway through this short novel – that we even learn about the Gatsby-Daisy connection. And – I’m trying to avoid spoiling the plot – the last two chapters have little to do with their romance. Strange, then, that a strong sense of the romantic is what so many readers retain!

As English teachers, we are always asking what literary texts we should teach, why we should teach them – and what we hope will remain with students years later. These aren’t new questions, of course; they reach back as far as literature has been taught.

Which isn’t, perhaps, as long as you might think: the study of literature hasn’t always been considered essential to a serious education. For centuries, reading for pleasure and artistic gratification was a leisure pursuit – one available, of course, only to the literate. As critic Terry Eagleton has observed, the emergence of “literature” as a category of writing in the 18th and 19th centuries had a strong ideological component. The study of literature as a subject transmitted English culture and values to the lower and middle classes, and elevated “literary” novels, essays, and certain forms of lyric poetry over “popular” forms such as romances and ballads.

As we select books for our Middle and Upper Schoolers, we keep many objectives in mind. Here are some of the goals that transcend grade levels and the needs of individual courses.

1. To take pleasure in reading. Pleasure doesn’t necessarily mean ease; it means joyful engagement. There is no experience quite like giving yourself over to a work of art. With The Great Gatsby, that means accompanying our young narrator, Nick

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Carraway, as he revisits the events of the summer he knew Jay Gatsby. Nick struggles with his puzzlement over the story he is trying to tell: “I disapproved of him from beginning to end,” he says of Gatsby, and yet the entire novel is a testament to Nick’s enduring fascination with Gatsby. As fiction writer Lan Samantha Chang [see article on page 10] said of Gatsby during her visit in May, “It’s not Nick’s story – but he is the one who is left to tell it, and he is the one who has been changed by it.” by what we read.

One of the earliest motives for bringing literature into the classroom, starting in the 18th century, was to communicate values and morals to the young [see Citizenship, Leadership and Personal Responsibility on page 8]. Although most of what we read now is more subtle and ambiguous in its influences, we still expect it to touch us deeply.

To read well is to be open to the possibility of being changed.

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2. T o understand our culture and time, and others.

Like any art, literature reflects the questions and obsessions of the time, place, and cultural context in which it was made. In Ninth Grade, our students read Homer’s Odyssey and grapple with the apparent contradiction between Odysseus’s expectation of his wife Penelope’s fidelity and his own amours with Circe and Calypso – which is so little of a contradiction to Homer that he never mentions it. Of vital importance, however, is xenia, the code of hospitality that governs many of the encounters in the poem. By drawing us to investigate and understand what each text treats as worthy of attention, literature helps to make us educated people – that is, people who approach life with the love of learning.

3. To enhance our command of the language. Reading builds vocabulary, expands our awareness of how sentence structure orchestrates tone and intensity, and gives us brilliant examples of how beautiful and precise the English language can be.

4. To practice investigating something complex, tolerating necessary ambiguity – and even to learn to enjoy these challenges. Every discipline asks us to look at something apparently simple or obviously puzzling and to inquire further. In the classroom, we inquire together, sharing our perspectives, seeking evidence to support our intuitions, waiting for our understanding to shift. As students mature and encounter more deliberately challenging works, the mysteries are more challenging, the ambiguities greater. As Rainer Maria Rilke advises in Letters to a Young Poet, we must “learn to love the questions themselves.”

One work that teaches us to embrace ambiguity is Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, a short, semi-autobiographical novel about growing up on the island of Antigua. Annie John is about the same length as The Great Gatsby; like Gatsby, it employs a firstperson narrator. Unlike Nick Carraway, however, Annie John is telling a story that belongs to her. It’s the story of her intimate closeness to the most important and powerful person in her life, her mother; of Annie’s deep sense of being rejected by her mother when she enters puberty and confronts her mother’s expectations of the kind of young woman she will grow up to be; and of Annie’s struggle for autonomy and self-determination.

The novel is often read as echoing the postcolonial predicament: Annie’s whole identity has been formed by her relationship with her mother. Independence requires rejection on both sides and poses an impossible question: I must reject you in order to become myself, but how can I reject you when you are so much of what I am?

At the end of the novel, both women are in tears as Annie leaves for a new life in England. Her mother embraces her and says in her ear: “It doesn’t matter what you do or where you go, this will always be your home and I’ll always be your mother.” To Annie’s ears, these words are said “in a voice that raked across my skin” – she feels them as one more bid from her mother for control over her life. But it’s hard – for Annie and for the

reader – to put aside the other meaning of those words: the reassurance that home is always there, waiting for you. The mother’s words are both a threat and a promise.

5. To enhance our understanding of the human experience. Like other arts, literature illuminates both the commonality and the individuality of our human lives.

Annie John’s struggle for independence, Nick Carraway’s yearning to understand the events of one summer of his life – these are both highly specific and compellingly universal.

The general themes that structure many of our Middle and Upper School English courses, such as the Seventh Grade’s focus on the individual and the community, or the Eighth grade’s theme of “Coming of Age,” help our students make compelling connections between life and art. of hearing Gatsby remembered as a love story, I’ve come to believe that we’re not misremembering. Rather, in remembering Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy to the exclusion of so much else about the novel, perhaps we’re showing how completely Fitzgerald causes us to align ourselves with Nick – who is, at the beginning of the novel, a rather stiff, awkward, snobbish young man – and to live his story along with him, so that at the end, we’re as haunted by Gatsby’s story as Nick is.

A F T E R M A N Y YE ARS

This hauntedness is as good a measure of the success of a literary work as I can think of. Our task, as readers, is not merely to apprehend the content of the story or the poem; it’s not even to develop a list of “major themes” of the work or of the “literary devices” the author uses, although people sometimes seem to imagine that this is what English teachers want. The challenge is to enter, through a combination of one’s reading skills and one’s imagination, the world which the work of literature creates.

Reading is a collaboration between the reader and the writer; to make its meaning, the work requires nothing more – and nothing less – than our full participation.

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Citizenship, Leadership & Personal Responsibility Literature and character education in the Primary and Lower Schools

By Jane Soper, Assistant Head of Primary School, and Tracy Wymer, Assistant Head of Lower School

“INTELLIGENCE PLUS CHARACTER”... it is the essence of learning for the Viewpoint student in the Primary and Lower Schools. Character education is naturally infused into all areas of the curriculum. Our Reading program, in particular, highlights citizenship, leadership, and personal responsibility as students engage in small and large group discussion, project-based collaborative learning, and individual instruction designed to meet the student at his or her level.

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Enjoy this view into our classrooms as reading lessons develop critical thinking skills and character:

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From left to right: Table 1: Kaveh Taheri ‘24, Aven Baylock ‘28, Hailey Kramar ‘27 Table 2: Eva Malek ‘24, Florence Adepoju ‘24, Sophia Hankey ‘29 Table 3: George Friberg ‘24, Jarrett Walker ‘24, Amiya Shah ‘28 Table 4: Jake Onasch ‘28, uncertain, Donovan Sands ‘29

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FIRST GRADE STUDENTS will also be reading, discussing, creating, and writing. Some will be working on phonemic awareness as they read high-interest phonics-based individual readers. Others will be engaged in leveled readers or chapter books which provide challenging sight words wrapped in delightful stories. Character education is there, most pronounced again by the stories that the students read and perform. The Little Fir Tree shows compassion, and the classic story, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, encourages loyalty, family, and honesty.

The Fourth Grade Reading teacher, Kate Iacoi, sits on the floor with her students, who have formed a circle at the front of the classroom. She holds up a picture book called The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson and asks, “Who can tell us about the fence that separates the two houses?”

A boy raises his hand. He takes a “THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION IS moment to gather his thoughts and TO TEACH ONE TO THINK INTENSIVELY then responds, “The fence is an obstacle. It represents segregation.”

AND TO THINK CRITICALLY. Another student, a girl, adds to the INTELLIGENCE PLUS CHARACTER – discussion, “The fence is supposed THAT IS THE GOAL to be something that can be broken down. The kids in the story are OF TRUE EDUCATION.” showing courage when they sit on — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the fence together.”

MRS. IACOI HOLDS UP A DIFFERENT BOOK, The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. She asks students to make connections between the two stories. Students cite the courage of Louis, the swan, who is searching for his voice. Then they tell about Karana, from Newbery Award-winning Island of the Blue Dolphins, who relies on her quiet courage and self-reliance when stranded on the island of San Nicholas for 18 years. The group discussion about courage takes on a life of its own. Students make connections to other books they have read, to movies they have seen, and to their own experiences in and out of school. One student tells about a courageous moment she experienced on the playground.

Viewpoint students are used to making such connections. They have done it from the day they entered school in Kindergarten.

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character for her this year, she might talk about the book The Little Engine that Could. She will remember the play that her class performed and the messages that came through and stayed with her: compassion, perseverance, integrity... and a bonus lesson of slowing down to take time to help out a friend.

As you step into a Reading class in the Primary School, you see students spread out all over the classroom, reading in small groups, reading one-on-one with a teacher, creating a follow-up project, or having a discussion for comprehension. If you ask a Kindergarten student what piece of literature helped to define

Second Grade students delve fully into reading chapter books, with character lessons nestled into every story. A close reading and performance of The Wizard of Oz brings to light how a combination of courage, heart, intelligence, and compassion is essential for meeting goals and living a fulfilled life.

THIRD GRADE STUDENTS develop higher-level reading skills as they explore friendship, tolerance, respect, and loyalty through classic books such as Charlotte’s Web, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, The Hundred Dresses, and Sharon Creech’s free verse novel Love That Dog. While Third and Fourth Grade literature spotlights friendship and courage, Fifth Grade explores the theme of tolerance.

Through timeless middle grade books such as The Cay, Maniac Magee, The Giver, and Stargirl, students celebrate differences and consider why it’s important to stay true to yourself.

FROM THE YOUNGEST TO THE OLDEST, our students experience a delightful reading curriculum, based on 21st century best practices for teaching reading: student-centered, collaborative, individualized, and small and whole-group learning. Strong book characters highlight citizenship, leadership, and personal responsibility in a rich diversity of literature.

Students are actively engaged in the joy of reading, making connections, and sharing experiences.

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IN CONVERSATION: Novelist & Director of Iowa Writers’ Workshop

Lan Samantha Chang

By Nan Cohen, Chair of the English Department

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fter reading Lan Samantha Chang’s 1998 collection Hunger: A Novella and Stories, students in the senior Advanced Placement English Literature classes welcomed the author to Viewpoint’s campus on May 10 and 11. Ms. Chang, a professor at the University of Iowa and Director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, spoke with students, faculty, and staff about reading, writing fiction, and leading a life centered on creative practice.

Hunger, the first of Ms. Chang’s three books, is narrated by Min, who emigrates to New York from China, marries an aspiring violinist, and raises two daughters who become the focus of their father’s ambition. Students asked Ms. Chang, whose parents came to the U.S. from China in the 1950s, how autobiographical the novella is.

“Not in the way you might think,” said Ms. Chang, who explained that she drew on her own experiences as the daughter of immigrants and as a young violinist, but that other elements of the story were imagined or drawn from other experiences. For example, the family’s Brooklyn brownstone is based on an apartment “where I was very unhappy for a year in my twenties.”

Ms. Chang also described her writing process with Hunger, including drafts in which each of the major characters served as the narrator. She finally chose the mother as the narrator at the suggestion of her own mother. “It was cool that we were able to ask her so much about her creative process rather than just the novel specifically,” said Andie Harris ’16. Students described Ms. Chang as “down to earth,” “friendly,” “funny,” and “open.”

Soar

A New Novel by Viewpoint’s Tracy Wymer

By Monica Case ’90, Associate Director of Communications

IN

July, Simon & Schuster published Soar, the most recent novel by Viewpoint’s Assistant Head of Lower School Tracy Wymer. This is his third book for middle grade readers, and it is set in Indiana, where Mr. Wymer was raised. Soar tells the story of Eddie, a Seventh Grade birder, who is grieving the death of his father. To honor his memory, Eddie hopes to win the school science fair by finding a Golden Eagle that his father, a teller of tall tales, claimed to have seen migrating past their small town.

Eddie’s fascination with birds is a reflection of Mr. Wymer’s casual interest in birding and his experience teaching the Sixth Grade Bird Unit. During his 16 years

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at Viewpoint, Mr. Wymer has been a teacher of Fourth Grade and Middle School Creative Writing and English, and is now an administrator. His time in the classroom has given him an insight into the mindset of the middle grade reader and the range of books written for this exciting, but transitional time of life, when a love of literature often begins.

Mr. Wymer studied psychology and played baseball at Indiana University, but reading and writing were his real passions. He is also the author of The Color of Bones, and his work is included in the anthology Been There, Done That: Writing Stories from Real Life.

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Powering Up: Cultivating Lifelong Readers in the Digital Age

By Sarah Davis, Director of Libraries

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HAVE BEEN READING ABOUT WHY WE READ and, more importantly, how we read in a rapidly evolving digital era – an era where our mobile devices and e-readers are ubiquitous, allowing us to read anytime and anywhere.

close, attentive, continuous reading takes a different type of focus than reading online, and researchers have found that we retain less when we read digital text than when we read words on a printed page.

Book industry professionals, librarians, and educators have and will continue to debate whether the introduction of e-books and online content impacts reading or causes a decline in the number of books in print. Yet reports show that digital sales have slowed, while print sales are holding strong.

So how can we, as educators and families, balance what researchers call “hyper reading” with deep reading? How can we cultivate lifelong readers in an era of continual distraction?

Recent studies show that students actually prefer to read in print.

Readers often yearn for the physical aspects of a new book, the desire to feel true ownership of a print copy, and the ability to easily flip pages back and forth to reread a passage. This fact was supported in a recent Fletcher Family Library survey given to our Middle and Upper School students. More than 400 Viewpoint students responded, with 78 percent of Middle School students and 63 percent of Upper School students reporting that they favor reading in print. Following that, our students reported that they would choose to read on a mobile device, an iPad, or their personal computer.

In Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, Naomi Baron, a Professor of Linguistics at American University, reports that people who read on digital devices read more overall. After all, students who read online have access to current events, blogs, fan fiction, social media, online magazines, journal articles, and increasingly, the full text of books.

DO YOU KNOW THESE MYSTERY READERS?*

Sarah Davis

Moreover, reading online offers students the ability to quickly search through text, and to find information or word definitions through hyperlinks. Yet Baron cites that when reading online, we often browse selectively – we scan, skim, and hunt for specific information. When we do attempt to read deeply online, especially on a device with Internet access, there is greater chance that we encounter “marginal distraction.”

“Reading on the prowl,” according to Baron, is nothing new, and the habit has existed since the invention of the book. However,

• Allow our children – and ourselves – time to be idle. It takes time to find a quality book, and time to immerse oneself in a deep reading cycle.

• Give your children, and your family, time to disconnect.

Fill the hours gained with trips to the public library or the bookstore, or browse through your bookshelves to revisit books you already own.

• Put a high value on fun reading and allow your children to have access to high-interest reading materials, including series, graphic novels, magazines, and non-fiction.

• Provide a balance of reading options – pair an audio book in the car with time spent reading before bedtime. Allow for light reading and dedicate time for deep reading. If your children do enjoy reading online, teach them how to download the thousands of free digital books available through our local public libraries.

• Read aloud to your children of all ages. You may discover new books when you read what your children find interesting, and they will enjoy hearing the books that you enjoyed as a child.

And lastly, we can encourage and teach our children at all grade levels to be library users and supporters. Libraries and librarians have and will continue to respond to the shift in the digital landscape by creating physical and virtual spaces that inspire curiosity, wonderment, and freedom of expression.

Who can argue with that?

*The key to the Mystery Readers is on page 76.

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SHARE YOUR WORK PARADISE LOST CREATIVE PROJECT

By Nan Cohen, Chair of the English Department

THE CLASS

THE PROCESS

English II (Tenth Grade)

PART 1: READ THE POEM

THE MOTIVATION

MILTON’S EARLY MODERN ENGLISH is comparable to Shakespeare’s, but many readers find it more challenging to read.

Milton’s unrhymed blank verse is often startlingly complex in its syntax: the first sentence of the poem spans 16 lines.

And yet from the outset the poem seizes the reader’s imagination. Milton shows us the fallen Satan’s enormous body sprawled on the burning lake of Hell, the construction of the vast and golden palace of Pandemonium (a word invented

by Milton and meaning “all the demons”), Satan’s journey out of the depths of Hell, and his first sight of the new world God has created.

John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) is a richly imagined narrative of how the fallen angel Satan escapes from Hell and plots the downfall of Adam and Eve. Although Milton bases his poem on the book of Genesis in the Bible, he draws on his own fertile imagination to expand and embellish the story and to reflect his own historical moment. Paradise Lost is itself a creative response to one of the foundation stories of Western culture.

THE PROJECT Students demonstrate their understanding of one or more of the big ideas with which Milton grapples in Paradise Lost through a creative response in any medium. Students have produced creative writing (poetry, stories, plays), visual art (drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography), performance art (music, dance, theater), and work in other media, including Legos!

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PART 3: CREATE AND PRESENT

PART 2: SEEK INSPIRATION

PRESENTING THEIR PROJECTS to the class, students show their engagement with many of the questions and problems that obsessed Milton. One reads a short story that casts Satan as an unhappy adolescent who longs for the love of his distant, demanding father; another displays a painted, mirrored model of the clear pool in which Eve becomes mesmerized by her own reflection. Like Milton himself, they link the inherited story to the experiences and concerns of the moment in which we live.

MILTON FAMOUSLY DECLARES that his objective in Paradise Lost is to “assert Eternal Providence/And justify the ways of God to men.” He has much to grapple with! The poem explores the states of innocence and experience; the positive and negative aspects of ambition; the importance of failure, and even evil, in the world and in our lives; and the relationship of God’s goodness to human pain and suffering. At many moments, the experience of the main characters – Adam, Eve, and particularly the outcast Satan – resonates with our human experience. When Satan, longing for the Heaven he has lost, ruefully acknowledges that his ambition prevented him from enjoying Heaven when he lived there, he says, “The mind is its own place and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” Any teenager knows that it is possible to be miserable at Disneyland, or to be entirely happy on a dirty, wet, uncomfortable camping trip with one’s best friends.

Vittoria Nelli ’19

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A Midsummer Night ’s Dream

By Cherie Boss, Middle School English Teacher

From left to right: Jules Mazzolini ’22 and Henry Didden ’22, Michael Barin ’22, Alice Yurkov ’22, Russell Rickards ’22

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TIME MARCHES ON, LANG UAGE

EVOLVES. Like The Bard himself, young people are masters at creating new words and phrases. Shakespeare may have invented words such as watch-dog, luggage, quarrelsome, and hot-blooded, but no doubt he would have been impressed by the newest contributions to the English language my students adore: dab, bae, yasss, and bro. What better time, then, to introduce our youngest Middle Schoolers to the rich language of William Shakespeare? Sixth Graders exude natural curiosity and an eagerness toward learning. Year after year, I find they readily adapt to the cadence of his words and bring the play we study, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to life with their own unique interpretations of voice inflection, body movement, prop use, and dramatic staging. They clamber for the chance to take the parts of the villainous father, the powerful Amazon warrior queen, and the mischievous sprite who viciously pulls pranks on the unsuspecting wayward lover lost in the forest. What Sixth Grader wouldn’t want to bray like a donkey, to blow a slide whistle when someone falls in love, or stroke the chimes when magical creatures are on the scene? It doesn’t matter if it’s taught in the classroom, under the shady oaks of the Ecolet, or next to the basketball court on Litow Patio; the words of William Shakespeare are as relevant today as they were four hundred years ago. It ’s never too early to begin !

Cherie Boss

Mai Mishan ’22

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IF TEACHING IS TRULY THE BEST LEARNING, HERE ARE A FEW LESSONS I’VE TAUGHT – AND LEARNED:

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By Mark McKee Head of School

hen I began teaching English in independent schools, over 25 years ago, I never imagined I was preparing for a career in school leadership. At no time did I see myself as a Head of School. I loved teaching; the classroom was my domain, and I had little idea how my headmaster spent his time. While I didn’t think I possessed “leadership,” I did have curiosity – about the work of school beyond my classroom walls. How could I influence and support a positive culture?

My years as a teacher were critical to help me lead – to help me understand the needs of students, teachers, and parents and the essentials for magical, connected classrooms in ways that research and coursework could not. But the fact I taught English prepared me for leadership for an entirely different set of reasons, too. The habits of mind and forms of inquiry of the humanities are with me each day.

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STRUCTURE AND ETHICS. When I taught juniors a course in the art of the nonfiction essay, I challenged students to organize and structure their thoughts, to compose as well as to express. Studying rhetoric and ethics, we would explore complex questions from multiple viewpoints, seeing how writers would find their voice and marshal support through logical, emotional, and ethical appeals. One writer’s argument is grounded in the practicality of data, the number of lives saved or lost, while another’s opposing argument unfolds lyrically, describing the qualities of human experience. In leadership I find a similar attention to structure, in relating parts to a whole, whether the parts of an argument or the parts of an organization. Different structures, in writing and life, serve different purposes. Teaching essays, I also taught ethical reasoning, exploring the schools of thought that lead us to what is good as well as true. Each day in leadership brings dilemmas that call us to reason ethically as well as critically.

call for an appreciation of ambiguity as well as clarity of direction and purpose. Leaders are called to tell the community’s stories, and stories make meaning. From novels we learn that the way the story is told matters. One thing I like best about being the Head is the privilege to see and share the stories of our community’s values, diversity, and purpose.

THIS SUMMER, OUR LEADERSHIP TEAM AT VIEWPOINT had the opportunity to put skills like these into practice during an offsite retreat. Led by former National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) President Pat Bassett, our team delved into case studies of leadership, communication, and teambuilding, discussing and debating over vignettes from Civil War generals illustrated by the film Gettysburg and ethical dilemmas of teacher and parent behavior that challenge school life. With each case, we were talking about reason, motivation, and ethics; interpreting and unpacking complexities; and listening for the wisdom in the silence. It was no surprise that we turned to stories, from history, film, or case studies, Literature teaches the empathy to sharpen and apply our values we need to understand diverse and principles of leadership.

“

DISCUSSION AND LISTENING. English teachers spend hours marshalling class discussions, cajoling students experientially to wisdom and perspectives and motivate EVEN BEFORE I TAUGHT insight. I love the give and ENGLISH, as an undergraduate take of a good class discussion, others to give their best. at Harvard I directed plays, hearing each individual voice enjoying the challenge of and feeling the individuals taking Chekhov or Shakespeare disappear, as participants from words on page to life on stage. As a director, I was an challenge each other and form a new organism, a life form introverted leader, inspired by language, literature, and people, seeking a greater truth in an idea, a poem, a story or an and committed to a vision. When I started teaching, I saw the experience. Certainly communication skills are essential to classroom as a stage and found the leadership there, in the work leadership. Great discussions teach even more – they teach of empowering students to explore, challenge, and become listening and understanding as essential to inquiry. Listening their best. My school days are spent differently now – teaching, is more than a skill we teach; it is a moral commitment, an grading papers, and parent conferences have given way to expression of the value of respect for others that lies at the core meetings, spreadsheets, and presentations – yet this role too of servant leadership, for me and for leaders I admire. Literature resonates with directing and teaching, as we all work together to teaches the empathy we need to understand diverse perspectives become our best. and motivate others to give their best.

”

AMBIGUITY, COMPLEXITY, AND MEANING. One of the most frustrating elements of English class for some students is one of my favorites: some words, signs and symbols are ambiguous, open to multiple interpretations, even defying our attempts to impose a single, simple meaning. Our favorite stories remind us that people and society are complex, with multiple and conflicting motivations and many things happening at a time.

A symbol at the heart of a poem may be warmly affectionate or distant and cold, or, somehow, both at the same time. It’s no surprise that one of my favorite leadership texts is called Leadership Without Easy Answers. Our most challenging dilemmas

I USED TO WONDER how anyone could possibly do anything other than teach, or even how anyone could teach any subject other than English, so completely did I inhabit the worlds of 11th-century Scotland, or 19th-century London, or the mid20th-century American South. While I miss the opportunities inherent in leading a class of 15-year-olds through the narratives of Maxine Hong Kingston and Charles Dickens, Viewpoint is a complex system, too, filled with stories of talent and excellence, power and potential. For me, the journey we are on as a community is even more exciting and fulfilling. Meanwhile, I still work to promote a lifelong love of reading.

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learning LOVE OF

BEYOND

VIEWPOINT

T H E

H U M A N I T I ES

E M PAT H Y

A N D

T E AC H

I N Q U I R E

W H I C H

ES S E N T I A L

I N TO

M A K E

U S

T H E

L ES S O N S

C O R E

O F

MY S T E R I E S

H U M A N .

ARE THE HUMANITIES IN DECLINE OR

MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER?

By Mark McKee Head of School

t the Aspen Ideas Festival this summer, the President of Harvard University, Drew Faust, grabbed headlines with a statistic – when she took office in 2007, 25% of Harvard undergraduates majored in the humanities; now, nine years later, the figure is 14%.

Leon Wieseltier, the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an editor at The Atlantic. Together they explored the question – in a world that prizes science, quantification, computing, and business, why major in the arts, literature, and the humanities?

Nationally, the number is even lower: only six percent of college students major in the humanities, compared with 11% at the end of World War II and a high of 17% in the 1960’s. What followed was an enlightening discussion of the value of studying the humanities in the 21st century, as she talked with her friend

I listened with interest: I am both a student who started in biochemistry, only to take a degree in Classical Greek and English Literature, and a future-minded educator dedicated to giving our students the best preparation for the uncertainties ahead in a time of accelerating change.

A

WHY

ONE CHIEF STRAND OF THINKING about the relevance of the humanities comes back to their usefulness. The creativity and communications skills of artists or English majors are highly desirable in the 21st-century workplace, we hear, useful in fields from law to business to medicine. Everyone needs to write well these days; the ability to speak in public or give a compelling presentation is as vital as ever; and we all want a doctor who can empathize and communicate (think famed physician and poet William Carlos Williams). Even computer David Kalt, Tech Entrepreneur science needs English majors: in this summer’s Wall Street Journal, tech entrepreneur and business expert David Kalt wrote about the essential critical thinking and leadership skills he sees in the college graduates with degrees in the liberal arts whom he hires to write code – he calls them “by far the sharpest, best-performing software developers and technology leaders.” I wanted to clip this out of the virtual paper and send it back in time to my parents.

WHY

Drew Faust, President of Harvard University with Leon Wieseltier, the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an editor at The Atlantic

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The Humanities Are Useful

EL SE?

The Humanities Are More Than Useful

FAUST AND WIESELTIER SUGGESTED the deeper reasons lie beyond the humanities’ usefulness in getting a job, going to the very purpose of education and its role in society. Faust noted, “We educate for a lifetime, for the fifth or tenth job” – and in Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade, we are keenly aware of the foundation we are laying for years to come. Skills are important, but even more important are attitudes and habits – including the Love of Learning from Viewpoint’s mission.

“The purpose of the humanities,” Wieseltier noted, “is to cultivate the individual, to cultivate the citizen,” for intrinsic values and for the future of our democracy. Too often we render the value of things in numbers, and here Faust quoted Einstein: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” In a world they described as “waging a war on time,” with all of us endlessly

attached to our devices, there is value in an art history course Faust described which asks students to spend three hours looking at a single painting. The humanities teach essential lessons of empathy and inquire into the core mysteries which make us human.

BEYOND

COLLEGE

Purpose and the Future of Work

LOOKING BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY, the humanities play an essential role in the future of work. One data set initially looked bleak for English majors: in a recent study of starting and mid-career salaries by college major, nine of the top ten were Engineering majors. (The tenth was Physician Assistant Studies.)

Here my parents might have sent me this clipping – somehow, I had heard this before. However, the company who authored the study, Payscale, emphasized the need for communication skills, especially among engineers, stating that the most competitive are those with “both in-demand technical skills and a core liberal arts foundation.” Even the 21st-century workplace is not just about marketable skills, as I learned when I met Lori Goler at a recent conference. Lori is the Vice President for People at Facebook, the first Fortune 500 company founded and led by a Millenial, and she wrote in Lori Goler, Vice President for People at Facebook Harvard Business Review about what Millenials want: “a sense of fulfillment or meaning, allow them to be authentic and play to their strengths, offer opportunities for learning and growth, and empower them to take initiative.” The workplace Lori describes, the one she is creating at the ultimate social media company, resonates with Viewpoint’s core values and is deeply connected with the humanities.

THE FUTURE OF WORK, it seems, even in a world of robotics,

genomics, and engineered intelligence, lies also in meaning, empathy, and communication – in other words, it calls us to stay in touch with what it means to be human, knowledge the humanities have taught for millennia.

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IN EACH ISSUE WE ASK A TEACHER to write about his or her academic first crush, the moment or experiences that motivated him or her to become an educator.

faculty / students / parents / creativity / grow th

first

CRUSH ANNA YI / MIDDLE AND UPPER SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER Anna Yi grew up in Walnut, California in the San Gabriel Valley before earning a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After receiving a master’s degree in English Education from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, she joined the Viewpoint faculty in 2006. She currently teaches English in the Middle and Upper Schools.

TO BE EXACT, I had three teacher crushes. Three heroes, three champions to credit.

“ Mr. Root

dispelled boundaries with how a teacher should teach, and how could anyone not want to imitate him?

”

MR. RICHARD ROOT, my Eleventh Grade English teacher was my first. He was quite the popular teacher, and he taught in a way that induced students to consider converting to literary fanaticism. He made ‘novel-and-poetry-worship’ look cool. Very cool. On one occasion, while studying Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” he even transported my class to a jazz club. Mr. Root was routinely reading the poem aloud, and as soon as he reached a certain line he belted out improvised jazz tunes using the lines as lyrics.

My class followed suit. At that moment, we probably didn’t understand what Shelley meant with his “King of Kings,” but we didn’t care. We were harmonizing words. We were snapping our fingers. We were learning rhythm. We were having fun. Mr. Root dispelled boundaries with how a teacher should teach, and how could anyone not want to imitate him?

IF MR. ROOT WASN’T IMPETUS ENOUGH to launch a teaching career, meet Professor Lisa Rodensky. I enrolled in her Modern British Lit course junior year of college.

Although my concentration was in British Literature, I didn’t quite relish the book we were reading which was a less well-known Joseph Conrad novel, The Secret Agent. Let’s just say my aversion to this book didn’t last long. Professor Rodensky took the driest of novels (apologies to Conrad)

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and breathed life into it. Something about the way she verbalized her theories on the characters and the way she exuded humor while doing it, I was in love. She knew how to take an intricate moment and unpack it – as we English teachers like to say, but she wasn’t pedantic – gosh, no.

She knew how to straddle a range of tones from the calm to the passionate. She just knew. I still remember the moment when I determined, Okay, that’s it. I need to be like her. I guarantee you, I wasn’t the only student in that creaky, humid room in Massachusetts wanting to be the next Professor Rodensky.

AFTER COLLEGE I stumbled upon a memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which has been my go-to teacher’s manual ever since. Written by a former professor Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita is an account of her days holding secret classes in her home when Iran was in political upheaval.

It is a lyrical piece that tells of her struggles in her fight for preserving literature as well as of her musings behind her love of Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jane Austen. It’s a challenge to not get infected by how she teaches her ‘home-schooled’ students to see the necessity of literature. To me, she was a rock star, and she was my last teacher crush before I came to Viewpoint. A teacher who can impress upon her students to be more conscientious about the people in this world is automatically a champion in my book. I will never forget how Nafisi taught how literature is a “sensual experience of another world. If you don’t enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won’t be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart . . . This is how you read a novel; you inhale the experience. So start breathing.” So, I started teaching.

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THE ASPECTS EDITORIAL TEAM

Aspects​is Viewpoint’s Upper School literary and fine arts magazine. Published each spring, Aspects is produced by a small editorial collective, which is assisted by a larger group of student staffers, with one or two English teachers serving as advisors. The art and English teachers offer student work for consideration, but students also submit their own work produced both in and out of class. All submissions are reviewed without student names. While there is always more accepted work than can fit into the final 60-page publication, the editors strive to ensure that the most students possible are represented and that the magazine reflects the full range of student creativity at Viewpoint.

Members of Aspects editorial team from left to right: Sarina Marlin ’17, Angela Kinstler ’17, Joceline Lvovich-Balanko ’17, Branton Choi ’17, Alyssa Gengos ’16, Miriam Henerson ’17, Isabel Wynne ’17, Chase Hirt ’18, Ella Diab ’18, Cole Gengos ’19.

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Sculpture on floor by Jacquelyn Farrow ’14

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MEGAN

THE GOOD OL’ DAYS I have always been surrounded by teachers. My mother was a Second Grade teacher. Both of my grandparents were teachers. My grandfather was a high school track coach and a school principal. In the summertime, they ran a family camp in the San Jose mountains filled with everything from archery to singing around a campfire. That was my mother’s job. She made the campfire shows and led the singing. Idyllic, right? My other set of grandparents had eight children.

I suppose having that many children qualified them as teachers, too! I married a college professor whose brother and sister-in-law were teachers. In spite of that, it never occurred to me until later in life to become a teacher. I taught the new members at Malibu Presbyterian Church where I was an Elder. I taught senior citizens at OPICA. I was even approached to teach on-line option traders in the crazy, frantic days of the stock market boom. In my best day of stock and options trading, I made $10,000 in one day! That was a fun day. But I have to say, I get more goosebumps when I’m working with a student who suddenly has an academic breakthrough. Those days are amazing! In the Lower School, it is all about confidence, and I love helping students find their confidence.

at Disneyland looks just like the real Matterhorn near Zermatt, Switzerland? It’s an amazing sight! One day, while hiking miles away from people or houses, we kept hearing a “cuckoo clock” out in the wilderness. We were thrilled to learn about the real cuckoo bird that lives in the forests throughout Switzerland.

Other favorite hiking spots have been Ireland, the Lake Tahoe area (where my dad lives), Yosemite, Point Reyes, Mendocino, Crestline, Santa Barbara, and of course the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains.

“MY FIRST CHOICE IN READING IS ALWAYS A BOOK THAT ONE OF MY STUDENTS MIGHT BE READING.”

DOWN TIME My husband and I love to walk and hike. One favorite place to hike is the Swiss Alps. Did you know that the Matterhorn

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READING

If it’s too hot outside to hike, I relish the opportunity to do some reading. I have both a literal stack and a virtual stack of books on my nightstand. My first choice in reading is always a book that one of my students might be reading. I’m currently reading Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald. I just finished reading Wild Wings and One White Dolphin by Gill Lewis. The best way to capture the interest of students is to be ready to suggest a book that will speak to them and to their interests. Sometimes you only get one shot to entice a reluctant reader! To add to my basket of “teaching tricks,” I’m currently reading The Unstoppable Writing Teacher by Colleen M. Cruz, and I’m also rereading Launching the Writing Workshop by Lucy Calkins. I just started reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Americanah. We watched Ms. Adichie receive the Barnard Medal of Distinction at our daughter Rachel’s graduation from Barnard College at Columbia University in May. I love the challenge of conquering a 625-page literary mountain!

LOAD MEGAN

ENDE

ENDE IS THE FOURTH GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHER. She is the child of a teacher, who was the child of teachers. She even went on to marry a teacher. She was a Psychology major at UCLA who had a heart for working with the elderly. She started by working at OPICA (Older Persons Information Counseling Associates), and then she went on to became a research coordinator in a drug study for Alzheimer’s disease. But it wasn’t until after having her own daughter Rachel ’14, a lifer at Viewpoint School, that she returned to school to pursue her education studies. She attended California Lutheran University and never looked back! She spent her first eight years at Viewpoint teaching Third Grade. She is currently loving the opportunity to work with Fourth Graders on their writing skills as she embarks on her eleventh year at Viewpoint School.

DOWN

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“What PPDI has meant for me in the past and now is... to help. When I contacted one of the co-chairs a few years back to help with the typhoon victims in the Philippines, the Committee and the community responded.

I have been an active member of PPDI ever since.”

—Mike Aragon (Secretary/Primary & Lower School Representative)

“It has been invigorating to witness the growth of such an important committee.

I continue to serve with PPDI to help foster an inclusive and vibrant community for all of our children. Yet, as a singlemother of two children, one of whom is an African-American young man here at Viewpoint, I also feel a responsibility to actively engage in his environment, and to stay present on his journey.”

—Shelley Robertson White (Co-Chair)

Caption to come.

Parent Partnership for Diversity & Inclusivity: A Place for All of Us

By Shelley Robertson White, Co-Chair

DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH. Viewpoint strives to embrace this strength as it educates and provides community for our children with its focus on “the individual child” – fueled by the belief that we’re all better off when we clutch the benefits which diversity provides. To facilitate this goal, Viewpoint’s Parent Partnership for Diversity and Inclusivity (PPDI) offers opportunities to learn more about each other; to confront our own racism and biases; and to expand our reality to include a variety of perspectives. It is a place all can come to, and leave enlightened.

AS STATED on Viewpoint’s website,

From left to right: Shelley Robertson White, Peggy Chen, Mike Aragon, Cachi Baier

“ Our children are lucky to live in the dynamic and challenging 21st century which offers plentiful cultural interactions. As a PPDI member, I feel obligated to help promote learning and understanding of all cultures in our community for the benefit of us all.”

— Peggy Chen (Co-Chair)

“My first attraction to PPDI was to reconnect my family to our Cuban roots and culture through the Hispanic Cultures Food Tasting. Today, I am involved because we have come so far as a school and community, yet have a long way to go. I believe awareness is curative! Coming to our monthly meetings has made me a more tolerant and aware individual in school and at large.”

—Cachi Baier (VSSA Representative)

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“ The parent piece for inclusion is so important because it models the way for our students. Parents are the ultimate role models. Every word, movement, and action has an effect.

These messages, whether implicit or explicit, are the foundation with which the next generation will make all their decisions. Our kids may roll their eyes at us, but our messaging around equity, voice, and collaboration is what will mold and evolve how they move through the future.”

—Dana Gonzalez (Diversity Coordinator for Middle & Upper School)

The School and its students benefit tremendously from the dynamic parent leadership of Parent Partnership for Diversity and Inclusivity (PPDI) of the VSSA. This organization recognizes, celebrates, and supports the cultural diversity of Viewpoint School, and strives to develop an understanding and appreciation of different cultures. The Committee sponsors activities designed to enrich our educational programs, enhance cultural awareness, foster ethnic diversity, and advocate for the successful recruitment and retention of historically underrepresented students.

FORMERLY KNOWN AS The Multicultural Committee, the name was changed to PPDI in early 2016 to reflect the broader range of participation (including parents, faculty, students, administration, and employees) and more specific scope (diversity and inclusivity) in which the committee had been engaged.

OUR MONTHLY MEETINGS (including the lunchtime panels called “Chat & Chews”) are forums for the important conversation about diversity at Viewpoint, promoting the opportunity to engage and to ask questions. And for those families who are underrepresented within the community,

PPDI SCHEDULE 2016-2017 September 30, 5:30 p.m.: International Potluck October 20, 11:30 a.m. : Chat & Chew with the

College Counseling Office

November 16, 8:30 a.m. : Meeting (Athletics) January 26: Chinese Culture Food Tasting and Celebration of Chinese New Year

Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/ViewpointPPDI/

PPDI serves to provide support, knowledge, and a voice which is always heard. Why do we continue to discuss diversity? Is my child included and valued here? Does diversity suggest lower standards? Does the School truly care about my family’s experience? How do we see all students thrive? These are just some of the many questions which are welcomed in order to foster a vibrant and empathetic community where all students are prepared, beyond academics, to succeed in the real world.

IN 2015-16, Viewpoint’s inaugural African and AfricanAmerican, Asian and Pan-Asian, and Latino and Hispanic Affinity Group Luncheons were the result of the continued efforts of PPDI in its quest to acknowledge and provide community for our families. The Chat & Chew was the first time we were joined by diverse members of the faculty (during their lunch) with a panel to discuss their experiences and student interactions.

THIS SCHOOL YEAR will find PPDI connecting with the College Counseling Office, the Athletics Department, and Admission Office with programs designed to inform, discuss, support, and assist. Additionally, one of our major goals is to more fully include our Primary and Lower School families to engage in the conversation, and to increase our young students’ appreciation of all their fellow classmates.

We are also discussing a community-wide event to bring home some of the societal issues all of our children are seeing and experiencing in their daily lives. And PPDI will continue to enjoy serving our student body and community with monthly lunchtime cultural delicacies to celebrate our multicultural environment.

WE HOPE THAT ALL OF VIEWPOINT’S PARENTS will join us for these fun and thought-provoking events, which will be publicized throughout the year.

February 6: Black Cultures Food Tasting February 15, 8:30 a.m.: Meeting (Nat’l Assn. of Independent Schools Conference Student Update)

March 20, 8:30 a.m.: Meeting March 21: Persian Culture Food Tasting April 20: European Cultures Food Tasting April 25, 11:30 a.m.: Chat & Chew on PS/US May 30, 8:30 a.m.: Thank you Breakfast (Wrap-up)

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“The men and women who run toward danger remind us with your courage and humility what the highest form of citizenship looks like. . . In your proud example of public service, you remind us that loving our country means loving one another.”

– President Barack Obama

To Protect and to Serve: Viewpoint Parent Donald Thompson Awarded Medal of Valor

By Jill Shaw, Director of Strategic Communications

DONALD THOMPSON, parent of Danielle ’18 and 26-year Los Angeles Police Department officer and a member of the bomb squad, was awarded a Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor by President Barack Obama on May 16, 2016. The Medal of Valor, the highest national award for valor by a public safety officer, is awarded annually to officers who have exhibited exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life.

Officer Thompson was on his way to work on Christmas Day in 2013, traveling southbound on the 405 freeway, when he saw a northbound car crash into the center divider. He pulled over his vehicle, climbed across two K-rails (temporary concrete freeway dividers), forced open the door to the car, and, using the car door as a shield from the flames, miraculously unbuckled the man’s seat belt and then pulled the 200-pound driver out of the burning car. During the rescue, Thompson sustained first- and seconddegree burns to his body.

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When asked about how it felt to receive the Medal of Valor, Thompson said, “The experience itself had a lot of meaning to me. My father, who died three months ago, was born in the Deep South almost 100 years ago, so he experienced Jim Crow laws and segregation…but yet he went into the military, even before World War II started. And he became a successful sailor…he was one of very few black submariners.”

Donald Thompson and President Barack Obama

“AFTER MY INCIDENT, my father would always tell me, ‘you’re a hero. You’re my hero because of what you’ve lived through.’ On this trip to Washington, D.C., I thought about my father, because my father was my hero. I only wish that he could have lived that one monthand-a-half longer for him to see (President Obama) give his only son the highest award. That would have been so special for him, and that’s the only thing I think of when it comes to that trip.”

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arts

canvases / brushes / paints / clay / glazes / cameras

By Monica Case ’90, Associate Director of Communications

“A line is a dot that went for a walk.”

For photography teacher Charlie Sitzer, this charming quote from artist and educator Paul Klee (1879-1940) resonated immediately. His response upon hearing it was, “In art nothing is what it seems to be. If you look at a dot it can evolve into even more of an idea. Klee saw the line as a dot repeating itself in a journey.”

C

reative thinking, self-expression, and problem solving are just some of the benefits of an education in fine art – and recognition of the value of studying art is not new. As an art teacher in the early 20th century, Paul Klee shared this perspective with his students at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. For Klee, best known for his simple figures and fantastic and childlike, yet meditative works, the visual arts were a way of understanding himself and the world. He famously wrote in 1920, “Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the hidden visible.”

In the spirit of “making visible,” Viewpoint’s art teachers, who are all artists themselves, teach the elements and principles of design – line, color, pattern, and texture – through a wide variety of media at an age-appropriate pace beginning in Kindergarten. Like learning a language, the children begin with the basic components of visual expression and through the years their vocabulary and sophistication grow.

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By the time they are in Middle and Upper School, the students can choose to work in ceramics, painting and drawing, sculpture, and photography with teachers who are working in those media themselves. The classes range from introductory courses to creating Advanced Placement portfolios. All the while, the teachers view each visual exercise, project, and class as a journey, meant to give the students the visual skills and language to express themselves and their ideas.

For each of Viewpoint’s seven fine art teachers, their work as artists informs their teaching, and their work with the students helps to feed their art. This interconnectedness between the teachers, the students, their work, and each other creates a community of artists and a home for creativity and expression to thrive.

The following pages are an introduction to Viewpoint’s fine art teachers and their work.

Blake Ferris ’21, Middle School Ceramic Piece of the Year

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arts WENDY MAR

Primary Art Teacher and Middle School Ceramics Teacher

For the children in Primary School, art class begins with Wendy Mar’s warm and welcoming smile. Armed with a B.A. in Illustration from California State University Northridge, she began her career at Viewpoint 22 years ago. Since then thousands of students have benefitted from her creativity and encouragement “to do their best, and to remember that it is practice that is most important.” Mrs. Mar’s own work includes drawing, painting, print making, and ceramics, as well as creating designs for stained glass.

She said, “I am motivated by my fellow teachers to experiment with different media, and I find inspiration in the moments spent with my family.”

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JENNIFER KIRCHMANN

Middle and Upper School Sculpture Teacher, Chair of the Art Department

As an art student at UCLA, Jennifer Kirchmann experimented with video, installation, and performance art. Like these other art forms, sculpture is also experiential – it requires the viewers to appreciate the artwork in stages as they work their way around the pieces. This interactive aspect of sculpture continues to intrigue Mrs. Kirchmann. She views this as an invitation to participate in her vision and an opportunity for her to connect and communicate with her audience. For her, teaching is also about connecting and communicating, and for the past 21 years she has encouraged her students at Viewpoint to experiment with their own visual language using the materials at hand. Mrs. Kirchmann loves that making sculpture is accessible – no fancy materials are required. A sculptor can work in paper clips or plastic wrap. It is her pleasure to help her students see that a found object has the potential to be anything in the hands of an artist.

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arts NELL YATES

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CHARLIE SITZER

Middle and Upper School Ceramics Teacher

Middle and Upper School Photography Teacher

Nell Yates’ enduring love of ceramics began in Middle School, and continued as she earned her M.A. in Art Education at Lewis and Clark in Oregon.

For her, the joy is in the process and she encourages her students to “surrender to it,” and to not fear failure, which is inherent in working with clay. At home in Ventura, she has her wheel and 100 pounds of clay set up in her garden among the vegetables and wild flowers. To Mrs. Yates, aesthetics and functionality go hand-in-hand, and her pleasure is to make delicious food from the ingredients in her garden and to serve it in her beautiful hand-made ware.

Even after 30 years in the classroom, Charlie Sitzer continually asks himself, “Is this assignment fresh and exciting? Would I want to explore this?” An example of his constant questioning is the introduction of the microphotography of insects to his advanced students this fall. Mr. Sitzer, who has a B.F.A. in Studio Art from SUNY Buffalo and an M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, first showed his artwork in New York in the 1980s. His work has since evolved from “the nature of form to the nature of people,” and his current project is about how people’s day jobs affect the passion projects they pursue after work.

As he says, “It is human nature to explore,” and Mr. Sitzer is capturing that exploration in a non-traditional way.

By using a 4x5 camera and instant film, which is then boiled, peeled off, and placed in four sections on sheets of cotton fiber, he creates precise, yet ethereal images that draw in the viewer and invite further questions.

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arts DONNA HICKS

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V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

AMY RIPPEE

Middle School Art Teacher

Upper School Drawing, Painting, and Design Teacher

As a figurative painter, Donna Hicks is a careful observer of people around her.

Her own large-scale narrative paintings, which often include emotionally evocative self-portraits and portraits of her family members, capture a particular moment; and reflect this meticulous attention to detail. She finds this essential to storytelling and encourages her Middle School art students to be observant in their art making and stresses, ”if you can see it, then you have a better chance at drawing it.” After earning a B.A. in Art and an M.A. in Studio Art from California State University Northridge, Ms. Hicks began teaching in 2010. For her, working as both a teacher and as an artist is an opportunity for constant learning, and always striving to be better. For her students, seeking constant improvement can also be frustrating, but Ms. Hicks tells them, “If you are feeling frustrated, then you are on the right track to become an artist.”

Amy Rippee grew up in Southern California and her greatest pleasure is to paint and hike outdoors with friends. While working en plein air with watercolor or oil paint presents certain challenges – including unwelcome wind, shifting light, and insects – she finds the local beauty restorative and endlessly inspiring.

Ms. Rippee has shared this passion with Viewpoint’s students for the past 12 years in her Painting, Drawing, Two-Dimensional Design, and Printmaking courses. She encourages her students to submit their work in juried competitions, and like them, she regularly shows her work in local art shows.

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arts JOSH LANGLEY

Lower School Art Teacher

Teaching Lower School Art is Josh Langley’s dream job. He studied Studio Art at California State University Northridge, where he trained in a range of media, and in his position at Viewpoint he can share his love of painting, drawing, and print making with the students in Grades Three through Five. He finds working with the children in this age group inspiring – they are enthusiastic, open, and capable – and he enjoys discovering what they are interested in and connecting that to the lessons he teaches in class. The students often devote five or six hours to each piece over successive classes. With each project, Mr. Langley aims to impress upon them that art is a learned skill and that they should not fear the practice. He tries to embrace this philosophy in his own artwork, which includes painting, drawing, and digital media.

THE

SILVER KEY

By Monica Case ’90 Associate Director of Communications

Viewpoint Students Honored with Three National & 53 Regional Awards in 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Competition

ESTABLISHED IN 1923, The Scholastic Art & Writing competition is the most prestigious recognition program in writing and the visual arts for students in Seventh through Twelfth Grades in the United States. Young artists and writers are granted over $1,000,000 in scholarships and prizes. Nationally, more than 320,000 works of art and writing were submitted for review in 2016. Past winners include Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Avedon, and Andy Warhol.

CONGRATULATIONS TO VIEWPOINT’S THREE National Silver Key winners. All Regional Gold award winners from each category advance to the national level for final judging, with the results announced in March. For the last 15 years, Viewpoint’s art students have gone on to receive Gold and Silver awards at the national level.

V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

NATIONAL SILVER KEY Sarah Eicher ’17, Drawing James Smathers ’18, Photography Sabrina Urban ’18, Photography

REGIONAL GOLD KEY

IT WAS ANOTHER OUTSTANDING YEAR in the Fine Arts and English programs at Viewpoint. Our students won three National and 53 Regional awards in The 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards from the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

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VIEWPOINT IS PROUD OF OUR 2016 SCHOLASTIC AWARD WINNERS

Sarah Ashdown ’16, Writing – Science Fiction/Fantasy Sarah Eicher ’17, Painting/Drawing James Smathers ’18, Photography Alex Thompson ’17, Sculpture Sabrina Urban ’18, Photography

REGIONAL SILVER KEY Sarah Ashdown ’16, Writing (3) Zoe Beckman ’17, Writing – Personal Essay Alyson Edelstein ’17, Photography Sarah Eicher ’17, Sculpture Simone Flournoy ’18, Writing – Flash Fiction Carson Gilford ’19, Photography Rachel Jacobson ’17, Photography (2) Madeline Stutz ’16, Ceramics Samantha Salo ’16, Photography Ryan Singsank ’18, Photography Sabrina Urban ’18, Photography Eric Wang ’18, Photography (2) Reno Williams ’16, Ceramics

REGIONAL HONORABLE MENTIONS Sarah Ashdown ’16, Writing (5) Jake Bubman ’17, Photography (3) Jennifer Cullen ’17, Writing – Short Story Kathy Cutler ’16, Sculpture Mike Fang ’18, Writing – Short Story Ty Frost ’17, Photography Iayn Gates ’18, Painting/Drawing Alyssa Gengos ’16, Painting/Drawing Catherine Grey ’16, Photography (4) Cherry He ’20, Painting/Drawing (2) Miriam Henerson ’17, Writing – Short Story Maddy Hillyard ’17, Sculpture Alyssa Hinojosa ’16, Ceramics Julie Kushell ’19, Photography Callie Kutasi ’16, Writing – Poetry Tedi Lewis ’17, Sculpture Joceline Lvovich ’17, Photography Cassie Mar ’17, Photography Kristupas (Kris) Marinicev ’17, Ceramics Samantha Salo ’16, Ceramics AJ Urban ’20, Writing – Flash Fiction

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arts MIDDLE SCHOOL CERAMIC PIECE

FINE ARTS AWARDS OF THE

YEAR

Blake Ferris ’21

EACH SPRING VIEWPOINT’S FINE ART STUDENTS display their work on campus in the Malcolm Family Art Gallery. The faculty chose a Picture of the Year for each of the School’s divisions, and Ceramic Piece of the Year, Sculpture of the Year, and Photograph of the Year in the Middle and Upper Schools.

UPPER SCHOOL CERAMIC PIECE

Tyler Barron ’17

MIDDLE SCHOOL BARBARA EXUM PICTURE OF THE YEAR

PRIMARY SCHOOL BARBARA EXUM PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Kendall Ferguson ’21

Anniston Aragon ’26

LOWER SCHOOL BARBARA EXUM PICTURE OF THE YEAR

UPPER SCHOOL PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Alexa Jeong ’25

Sarah Eicher ’17

UPPER SCHOOL SCULPTURE

Gaby Privitelli ’16

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V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

MIDDLE SCHOOL SCULPTURE

MIDDLE SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPH

UPPER SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPH

Katherine Lin ’20

Gabi Dolinski ’21

Alex Toberoff ’19 S U M M E R /FALL

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athletics

practice / games / competitions

The Track and Field Team continued to build upon its successes from 2014-15. The Girls finished 2nd place at the Gold Coast League Finals. Maddie Jacobs ’17 was the 2016 GCL Champion in the 100 meter. Maddie qualified and finished her season at the CIF Southern Section Prelims meet. The Girls 4x400 meter relay was also a GCL Champion – team members included Caitlin Hogan ’16, Alyssa Hinojosa ’16, Maddie Jacobs ’17, and Hannah Martin ’17. On the Boys Team, the 4x100 meter relay team placed 3rd at the Gold Coast League Finals and qualified for CIF Southern Section Prelims. Team members included – Duane Martin Jr. ’17, Errol Ashby ’17, Dante Nepa ’16, and Spencer Hylen ’17. Dante Nepa ’16 set an impressive 2 second personal Brandon Garber ’16 record in the 400m at Gold Coast League Finals, placing 3rd and qualifying individually for CIF Southern Section Prelims.

Emily Garber ’18

Gianni Uba ’16

Sophie Boock ’19

From the Athletic Director

By Patrick Moyal

V

IEWPOINT’S SWIM TEAMS continued their streak of excellence with both the Boys and the Girls Teams winning Gold Coast League Championships. The Boys made it 12 consecutive titles, while the Girls won their tenth in a row. Co-Head Coaches Eliot Saki and Greg Bisheff saw some fabulous performances from the Boys CIF Finalists Thomas Finello ’18, Vincent Finello ’18, Jake Jepson ’17,

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V I E W P O I N T

The Varsity Boys Tennis Program had another successful season in terms of really embracing the “grind” aspect of competitive athletics and playing at the highest level in Southern California. Despite missing several key starters throughout the season due to illness and injury, the boys collectively rallied to finish second in the very competitive Gold Coast League.

With the bulk of the team set to return next season, it should make for another fantastic experience for everyone involved.

M AG A Z I N E

Sam Villeneuve ’17

and Nick Mason ’16, who came in 5th place in CIF Division 3, and Girls CIF Finalists Kate Kaplan ’18, Michaela Kuelbs ’16, Farah Stack ’17, and Marissa Thompson ’16, who finished in 11th place. The two teams combined to shatter 8 total team records over the course of the two-day meet. Quite an accomplishment!

The Boys Volleyball Team had another outstanding season in 2016, winning a Gold Coast League title for the second consecutive year. Led by Coach Steven Chen and 1st Team All-League Award winners Gianni Uba ’16 and Nick Hogan ’16, the team was also able to reach the second round of playoffs.

The Baseball Team had a very promising 2016 campaign despite only having two seniors, Kale Johnson and Charles Kleinman, on the roster. The young group was led by 1st Team All-Gold Coast selection Sam Schur ’18 who led the squad in hits, RBI’s, runs, doubles, triples, and home runs. Utility man Mike Cohen ’17 made the transition to catcher and helped manage pitchers Sam Villeneuve ’17 (3.37 ERA) and Jonah Kirchmann ’17 (3.38 ERA) who emerged as effective starting pitchers in the Gold Coast League. Cary Lucas ’19 (0.28 ERA) impressed on the mound despite being a freshman pitching at the varsity level. Elijah Newman ’19 was equally impressive during his freshman campaign finishing second on the team in total hits, doubles, and runs scored while finishing third in RBI’s. Hank Kaplan ’18 finished his sophomore season extremely strong with a nine-game hit streak. The Patriot batsmen improved on their previous season win total by two games and the team is excited to head into the 2017 season with a great mix of talented upperclassmen leaders and experienced young players.

This year’s Softball Team was led by 1st Team All-Gold Coast League winner Bridget Rosen ’17 (catcher), and 2nd Team All-Gold Coast Winner Katie Gould ’19 (pitcher).

Competing in a very tough league, the team knew that they were in for a battle all season. As a matter of fact, the girls were still in the thick of the hunt for the final playoff spot in our league up until the very last day of the regular season. The team plans on building on that wave of emotion and looks forward to playing on the brand new Robertson Family Field next year.

Viewpoint’s Competitive Dancers were truly a fun team to watch. The team cohesion and dedication really stood out during their end-of-year Showcase but were obvious all year long in the small but dynamic group. Coach Leah Lagrange could not be prouder of Hannah Wright ’16, Tess Wright ’19, Mara Lorin ’17, Sarina Hamer ’18, Jacqueline Tang ’17, and Rebecca Luner ’17.

Viewpoint Golf had a great 2016 season but with a majority of the team returning next year they can’t wait for the 2017 season to begin. The highlight of this season was coming back from behind to finish in a tie for 2nd place at the Gold Coast League Finals Tournament. Led by Team Captain Ari Weintraub ’16 and James Walsh ’17 the boys played amazingly well on the second day of the tournament to secure 2nd place.

Coach Richard Durham was very proud of all the Boys for all the hard work they put in this season.

Lacrosse Captain Mick Leonard ’17, showed great leadership during a season which started well and finished well, but had some struggles in between. The Boys were short-handed for most of the season but persevered. Mick Leonard ’17, Mac MacLean ’19, and Darren Solursh ’18 were named to the Gold Coast 1st-Team All-League Team.

Viewpoint’s Equestrian Team often flies under the radar but their accomplishments are very noteworthy and gives the School reason to be proud. Among some of the most significant achievements by the Upper School team members is the Freshman Hunter 4th place finish by Alexa Kramer ’19. Thank you and congratulations to all the girls who wear Viewpoint’s colors at the shows. We appreciate all your hard work!

The Girls Beach Volleyball had a successful season on the beach. In our second year as a Beach Team, we finished 6-2 in the Mountain Division, paced by our number one team of seniors Jamie Schecter and Maddy Stutz. The second team consisted of sophomores Charli Barcena and Danielle Thompson. The third team was sophomore Katie Mazzolini and freshman Chandler Sumpter-Gillyard. There were 16 girls involved in the program and they competed nicely in a challenging environment. There was notable improvement from freshman Sydney Payab and Alyssa Detterman as well.

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athletics

2015-16 Championships

UPPER SCHOOL CHAMPIONSHIPS:

MIDDLE SCHOOL CHAMPIONSHIPS:

Boys Swimming Gold Coast League Champions Girls Swimming Gold Coast League Champions Boys Volleyball Gold Coast League Co-Champions

6th Grade Boys A Soccer 7th Grade Girls JV Red Volleyball

Spring 2016 UPPER SCHOOL

UPPER SCHOOL

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Boys Tennis All-Gold Coast League

Softball All-Gold Coast League

All-Delphic League:

1st Team All-League Doubles:

Brandon Garber ’16, Gavin Kester ’16

1st Team: Bridget Rosen ’18 2nd Team: Katie Gould ’19

Boys Volleyball All-Gold Coast League

Golf All-Gold Coast League

1st Team: Nic Hogan ’16, Gianni Uba ’16 2nd Team: Zack Friend ’16, Noah Tsenter ’18

1st Team: James Walsh ’17

Boys Swimming Gold Coast League Champions C.I.F. Qualifiers:

Golf – Max Angard ’20 Boys Tennis – Eddy Yang ’20 Boys Baseball – Kyle Corbin ’21 Softball – Sasha Vogel ’21

CONGRATULATIONS TO VIEWPOINT’S COLLEGE ATHLETES IN THE CLASS OF 2016

C.I.F. State Championship Qualifiers:

Thomas Finello ’18, Nick Mason ’16 Girls Swimming Gold Coast League Champions C.I.F. Prelims Qualifiers:

Rebecca Danese ’19, Alyson Edelstein ’17, Cailan Feingold ’17, Andie Harris ’16, Natalia Hernandez ’18, Kate Kaplan ’18, Chloe Kuelbs ’18, Michaela Kuelbs ’16, Farah Stack ’17, Marissa Thompson ’16 Track All-Gold Coast League

Caitlin Hogan ’16, Maddie Jacobs ’17, Hannah Martin ’17

C.I.F. Prelims Qualifiers:

Errol Ashby ’17, Alyssa Hinojosa ’16, Caitlin Hogan ’16, Spencer Hylen ’17, Maddie Jacobs ’17, Julia Kushell ’19, Duane Martin, Jr. ’17, Hannah Martin ’17, Dante Nepa ’16 Lacrosse All-Gold Coast League

Mac MacLean ’19, Darren Solursh ’18

Chandler Gee

SOCCER

Lake Forest College

Mike Jones

University of Oregon

Aram Arslanian Sayo Denloye

Hamilton College

Christian Juzang Kody Knox

College of the Canyons

FOOTBALL

Baseball All-Gold Coast League

Nathaniel Davis

Hobart & William Smith Colleges

1st Team: Sam Schur ’18 V I E W P O I N T

BASKETBALL

Harvard University

1st Team: Mick Leonard ’17,

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From left to right. Back row: Gianni Uba, Nathaniel Davis, Dante Nepa, Rachel Furash, Zel Fortson, Nick Mason, Jonathan Star, Mike Jones, Kody Knox, Jessica Sprague Front row: Sayo Denloye, Chandler Gee, Aram Arslanian, Christian Juzang, Alyssa Hinojosa

M AG A Z I N E

Bowdoin College Moorpark College

Dante Nepa

University of Chicago

VOLLEYBALL

Alyssa Hinojosa

SWIMMING

Nick Mason

University of California Santa Cruz

Zel Fortson

TENNIS

Rachel Furash

Tulane University

New York University Tufts University

Jessica Sprague

Ohio Wesleyan University

Jonathan Star

3

2

From left to right: 1. Coach Chris Adamson and Coach Chris Fowler celebrating a successful scrimmage with the Ritsumeikan Panthers Offensive Line 2. The Panthers scrimmaged the South Pasadena Tigers on the final day of their trip. 3. Coach Jason Romanello takes a final photo with the Panther’s Running Back group.

Sharing Viewpoint Football with Players in Costa Rica and Japan

By Patrick Skahan, Director of Alumni Relations; Major Gifts Officer; Associate Head Football Coach

T

Quincy Eaton ’16, Thomas Finello ’18, Vincent Finello ’18, Jake Jepson ’17, Peter Marcus ’19, Nick Mason ’16, Alex Zhuk ’16

1st Team: Alyssa Hinojosa ’16,

1

HIS PAST SUMMER, Viewpoint football coaches Chris Adamson and Chris Fowler and alumnus Adam Balaban ’14 traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica to help coach in a football camp run by the Universidad de Futbol Americano at the Universidad Politécnica Internacional. The camp was organized by former Viewpoint Middle School football coach Evan Davis, who now lives full-time in Costa Rica. As the marquee leaders of the camp, the Viewpoint coaches shared the values and traditions of Patriot athletics with underprivileged youth and aspiring national team players. The three-day camp served American Football players from 8 years old to over the age of 30. Many of the athletes were members of club teams, but a significant portion of the campers were children living in the many orphanages in San Jose and Cartuga. Coach Adamson remarked, “The opportunity to participate in this great program was too enticing to pass up. There will be many memories from this trip, but what I will remember the most is the true passion and excitement shared by the players and coaches we worked with on the field. These kids were out there working hard in July, even though their season won’t begin until January.”

Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, and a UCLA football practice, where they visited with Japanese football star Gyo Shojima, who plays for the Bruins.

THE TRIP TO COSTA RICA was the first of two cultural immersion opportunities that members of our football program participated in this summer. In August, the Football Team hosted the 21 players from Ritsumeikan Uji High School outside of Kyoto, Japan. These athletes were participating in a cultural immersion program that is required by their school. In addition to practicing alongside our Patriots, the Japanese team, the Panthers, attended American Culture courses taught by Viewpoint faculty members Cisco Dilg and Dmitri Gudkov and Football Chalk Talk courses with coaches Brendan Smith and Patrick Skahan. The 12-day program included trips to the first Los Angeles Rams preseason game, a visit to Dallas

ON THE FIELD, THE PANTHERS WERE AT HOME. The team was fully prepared to compete in practice and with high school teams from the area. On the final weekend of their visit, the Panthers nearly defeated South Pasadena High School in a preseason scrimmage. Coach Adamson summed up the experience: “The 12 days we spent hosting, practicing alongside, and having fun with the Panthers was an experience our players, families, and coaches will always look back upon fondly. The opportunity to share American culture with the members of the Panther’s program while watching their great poise, discipline, and focus in all aspects of the game of football was very impactful and fun.”

AS PART OF THE PROGRAM, the players stayed in the homes of Viewpoint families. Stuart Beattie, father of Campbell ’20, summarized his family’s experience, “We had a great time with our two boys despite the fact that neither one of them spoke a word of English. Google Translate saved us many times! More than anything, they wanted the true “California Experience” so we took them to Hurricane Harbor one Sunday and they loved it. Eating cheeseburgers and drinking shakes, while sitting in the shade on a sunny day at an amusement park, hit the mark for our boys.”

MANY FAMILIES NOTED THE VORACIOUS APPETITE of the travelers. Mr. Beattie continued “They ate us out of house and home, but it made us cook more and eat together more as a family, enjoying the summer evenings outside which I don’t think we would’ve done without them.” Victoria Rhodes mother of Michael ’20 also noted “They loved ice cream! We purchased every flavor at the grocery store for them to sample.”

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advancing VIEWPOINT’S MISSION

A conversation with Patrick Moyal

community / expansion / opportunities

Viewpoint’s Athletic Director & Dean of Co-Curriculum Patrick Moyal

By Jodi Schapiro, Chief Advancement Officer

“Whether through greater opportunities for skills development, spatial awareness, team bonding, spirit, or school pride, Robertson Family Field is a game-changer for Viewpoint Athletics.”

THIS FALL, OUR 1,215 STUDENTS ARE ENJOYING an additional space to run and play, to build confidence and leadership skills, and to go beyond in athletics on Viewpoint’s new Robertson Family Field. Thanks to the vision and generosity of our community, the School raised $3 million to complete this ambitious project, which includes a much-needed second athletic field and renovations to our west campus pool, locker rooms, and coaches’ offices. I spoke with Viewpoint’s Athletic Director and Dean of Co-Curriculum, Patrick Moyal, who shared his enthusiasm for what this opportunity means for our students. I am delighted to share his insights and vision for the program.

Q:

Q:

A:

A:

“How is our new second athletic field – the Robertson Family Field – providing our student-athletes with a competitive advantage as we look to elevate the level of play for our students?”

At Viewpoint, we offer a large and diverse number of athletic opportunities for our students. We pride ourselves in creating a program where each student feels comfortable trying something brand new, learning skills that will last a lifetime. At the same time, we provide the more seasoned athlete the opportunity to hone skills in a challenging, competitive program. To achieve these important and very differing goals, Viewpoint fields over 130 different teams. However, our challenge has been facilities. The new Robertson Family Field allows us to meet our goals and to aspire to go even further.

At the Middle School level, our football, soccer, softball, and baseball teams may now play home games in front of classmates and families, minimizing missed classroom and travel time. Many Upper School teams benefit from more functional practices and no longer need to leave campus for trainings. In addition, our Upper School Softball Team now has a home field! Overall, we expect to bring an additional 70 home games to our campus.

In addition, with the new Robertson Family Field we are excited to offer a Fourth Grade interscholastic program, providing our future Fifth Graders with an additional year of experience as they make their way through our program.

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V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

“You touched upon the values of sportsmanship that come from athletics; how does this new field support the co-curricular goals of the program?”

The Robertson Family Field and renovated athletic facilities provide many new opportunities for joyful play, the benefit of which cannot be underestimated. Our youngest students now have the space to run and play, fostering creativity and self-expression and developing character traits such as commitment, loyalty, integrity, and confidence. Our student-athletes enjoy the camaraderie of teamwork, cooperation, and the passion and joy of competition.

Q: A:

“What do the renovated West Campus athletic facilities mean for our program?”

On behalf of everyone involved in Viewpoint athletics, I wish thank our families and our community who joined together to raise the $3 million needed to upgrade our West Campus athletic facilities. It represents a commitment to Viewpoint athletics. Our Patriots’ new home is a beautiful gathering place for athletes, their families, and classmates.

It is a shining example of Patriot Pride to our athletes and visitors. Our coaches are thrilled to take advantage of these new opportunities!

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advancing VIEWPOINT’S MISSION

By John Nadolenco, Chair of the Board of Trustees and parent to Jordan ’20 and Madison ’23

IN

HIS 30 YEARS as Headmaster, Dr. Bob Dworkoski took Viewpoint School from a fledgling educational institution hoping to survive and transformed it into a school that thrives on every level.

It was 1986. Ronald Reagan was president. The Lakers were dominant. Cheers made us laugh every Thursday night. And here in the West Valley, Viewpoint had just hired Bob as its new Headmaster. Viewpoint had about 350 students on fewer than 7-1/2 acres. But it had a leader with a great vision. More importantly, it had a leader who never lost sight of that vision.

Center go up, Ring Family Field be built, and the Carlson Family Theater amaze. Then came the Academic Hall, Dworkoski Family Hall, the Paul Family Athletic Center, the Competition Pool, and the new Primary and Lower School Buildings. In all, Bob delivered 163,000 square feet of new facilities. But more than that, he created a stunning and cohesive campus.

WE WILL NEVER HAVE TO IMAGINE a Viewpoint without Bob Dworkoski. Bob has left his indelible mark on every facet of the School. Viewpoint, the School, reflects the qualities

Bob Dworkoski Thank You

for 30 Years of Leadership

BOB FOCUSED ON DEVELOPING the School’s curriculum into one of the strongest. A believer in educating the whole child, Bob also ensured that the School developed strong character, arts, and athletic programs. People noticed. They saw Viewpoint’s program eventually offer 28 Advanced Placement classes – among the highest in town. They saw Viewpoint win the Bravo Award for outstanding programs in the Fine and Performing Arts. They saw Viewpoint win championship after championship on the field, on the court, and in the pool. Viewpoint could no longer be ignored. It was a force to be reckoned with.

Bob’s vision did not end there. He wanted the School’s facilities to match the excellence of its programs. Working closely with the Board of Trustees, Bob championed acquiring Meadow Oaks School and then developing Viewpoint’s Master Plan. After obtaining approval from the City of Calabasas, Bob took on the arduous task of delivering on the plan. The community marveled. It saw Gates Academic

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V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

of Bob, the person. He has always been relentlessly focused on improving and providing our students with the very best education and opportunities possible. And he has done so with compassion. Excellence with a heart. Those words describe Viewpoint perfectly. They describe Bob perfectly as well.

Bob, on behalf of the Board of Trustees and a community that adores and admires you, thank you for 30 years of dedicated service to our School, our families, our teachers, staff, and administrators and, most importantly, our children.

We will be forever grateful. It is one thing to be a successful leader. It is quite another to be a transformational one. You transformed our School into a beacon. The name “Viewpoint” will always be synonymous with all you stand for – and your legacy will never be forgotten for it defines who we are as a School and a community.

THANK YOU FOR LEADING US FOR 30 YEARS. Congratulations on your retirement! We look forward to seeing you on campus and on the sidelines!

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college COUNSELING

personal goals / expectations / research / deadlines

g n i o G

University of California: Opportunities and Changes Abound

By Rhody Davis, Director of College Counseling

C

ollege-bound Californians are fortunate to have three excellent public higher education options – California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California (UC). With offerings that are appropriate for just about every student, the systems are versatile and varied. Also, California’s public schools are some of the best values in higher education.

With nine undergraduate campuses throughout the state, the University of California in particular is a higher-ed gem.

Founded in 1869, the UC offers 150 academic disciplines and serves nearly 239,000 students. This past year, of the 166,000 or so students who applied, 64% were admitted, making the system accessible to a majority of applicants.

Recent controversy has surrounded the UCs enrollment numbers. This past year, the UC Board of Regents had a goal of increasing in-state students. On July 6, 2016, the UC announced data that reflected “significant gains in the number of California freshman and transfer students admitted to UC campuses for fall 2016, including those from historically underrepresented groups.

The admissions data in part reflects UC’s initiative Rhody Davis to enroll 5,000 more in-state students in 2016-17.

The numbers represent a 15.1 percent jump in the number of California resident freshmen offered a spot at one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses compared to fall 2015, a gain of 9,344 students.”

While the Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego campuses tend to be the most selective, each campus offers excellent academic and social opportunities. Below are some highlights from each campus: Berkeley — Incoming freshmen may elect to join the Fall Program for Freshmen, designed to ease the transition to the large university by offering a smaller learning environment with closer connections to faculty, peers, and advisors. They call it “a small, liberal arts college within a larger research university.”

Davis — Although its highly celebrated programs in veterinary science, agriculture, and engineering are world-renowned, UCD will have seven museums after opening the new Manetti Shrem Museum in November 2016. It will house the UC Davis Fine Arts Collection, which includes works by legendary painter and UCD Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud.

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From left to right. Top row: Alexis Leoni ’16, Nick Mason ’16, Makayla Ives ’16, Paige Cornelius ’16, Amy Wilson ’16 Bottom row: Jillian Ecoff ’16, Rebecca Woolf ’16, Noah Dickman ’16 V I E W P O I N T

M AG A Z I N E

Irvine — An innovative program to attract STEM students to the teaching profession, UCI CalTeach leads students to a

math or science bachelor’s degree with a secondary teaching credential in four years.

Los Angeles — Last year, UCLA announced a new four-year B.A. in Film, Television, and Digital Media within its School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT). Complementing TFT programs is the first-of-its-kind Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment (SIE), “dedicated solely to advancing the power of entertainment and performing arts to inspire social change.”

Merced — The first public research university created in the 21st century, UC Merced is one to watch. Its 2020 Project, a four-year plan to double the physical capacity of the campus, will allow more students to take advantage of brand-new facilities. UC President Janet Napolitano said, “UC Merced, the youngest campus in our system, is poised to become a model for our other campuses as we look for the most efficient ways to construct, operate and maintain facilities that enable us to pursue our teaching, research, and public service missions.”

Riverside — Opening California’s first new medical school in 40 years, UCR is a great place for pre-med undergraduates. Programs such as Future Physician Leaders, Medical Scholars Program, and Health Professions Advising Center are pipelines to the UCR School of Medicine.

San Diego — The College System that includes six residential colleges makes UCSD, a larger research university, more community-oriented. Each college differs by educational philosophy and structure, so students need to research them and rank their preferences on the application.

Santa Barbara — The College of Creative Studies (CCS) is “a graduate school for undergraduates” at UCSB that highlights creativity in arts and sciences interdisciplinary learning.

Students major in one of eight areas and take specific CCS classes that are smaller and offer more individualized attention.

CCS requires an additional application.

Santa Cruz — Home to the fearsome Banana Slugs, UCSC takes advantage of its location near Silicon Valley to form industry, academic, and government partnerships including with NASA, Google, and Cisco Systems.

Viewpoint’s college counselors generally recommend that students create college options among some of the California public universities. They offer top academic programs that capitalize on location, talented faculty, and graduate schools.

Perhaps most of all, the California publics are a true value.

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college COUNSELING

Beyond Viewpoint Institutions in blue type indicate one or more matriculates from the Class of 2016.

American Jewish University American University Amherst College Arizona State University Art Center College of Design Auburn University Babson College Bard College Barnard College Bates College Baylor University Becker College Bellarmine University Belmont University Beloit College Bennington College Bentley University Binghamton University Boise State University Boston College Boston Conservatory Boston University Bowdoin College Bradley University Brandeis University Brigham Young University Brigham Young University, Idaho Brown University Bryn Mawr College Bucknell University Butler University California College of the Arts California Institute of Technology California Institute of the Arts California Lutheran University California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo California State Polytechnic University, Pomona California State University, Channel Islands California State University, Chico California State University, Dominguez Hills California State University, East Bay California State University, Fullerton California State University, Long Beach

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Colleges & Universities Admitting Viewpoint’s Graduates from 2013-16

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Monterey Bay California State University, Northridge Carleton College Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve University Chapman University Claremont McKenna College Clemson University Colby College Colgate University College of Charleston College of William and Mary Colorado College Colorado School of Mines Colorado State University Columbia College Chicago Columbia University Connecticut College Cornell University Dartmouth College Denison University DePaul University DePauw University Dickinson College Dominican University of California Drexel University Duke University Durham University Eckerd College Elmira College Elon University Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Emerson College Emory University Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Florida Gulf Coast University Florida Institute of Technology Fordham University Fort Lewis College Franklin & Marshall College Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering George Mason University Georgetown University Georgia Institute of Technology Gettysburg College Gonzaga University Gordon College Grinnell College

M AG A Z I N E

Hamilton College Hampshire College Harvard University Harvey Mudd College Haverford College Hawaii Pacific University High Point University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Hofstra University Humboldt State University Indiana University at Bloomington Ithaca College James Madison University Johns Hopkins University Kansas State University Kenyon College King’s College London Knox College Lafayette College Lake Forest College Lebanon Valley College Lehigh University Lewis & Clark College Lindenwood University Linfield College Lipscomb University Loyola Marymount University Lynchburg College Macalester College Marist College Marquette University Maryland Institute College of Art Marymount California University Massachusetts Institute of Technology McDaniel College Menlo College Miami University, Oxford Michigan State University Middlebury College Minerva Schools at KGI Minneapolis College of Art and Design Montana State University, Bozeman Moorpark College Morehouse College Mount Holyoke College Mount St. Mary’s University Muhlenberg College Nazareth College New York University Northeastern University Northern Arizona University

Northwestern University Oberlin College of Arts and Sciences Occidental College Ohio University Ohio Wesleyan University Oregon State University Otis College of Art and Design Pace University, New York City Pennsylvania State University Pepperdine University Pierce College Pitzer College Plymouth State University Point Park University Pomona College Pratt Institute Princeton University Principia College Providence College Purdue University Queen’s University Reed College Relativity School Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rhode Island School of Design Rhodes College Rice University Rider University Ringling College of Art and Design Roanoke College Rochester Institute of Technology Salve Regina University San Diego State University San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco State University San Jose State University Santa Barbara City College Santa Clara University Santa Monica College Sarah Lawrence College Savannah College of Art and Design School of the Art Institute of Chicago School of the Museum of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts Scripps College Seattle Pacific University Seattle University Sewanee: The University of the South Skidmore College Smith College Sonoma State University Southern Connecticut State University Southern Methodist University Southern Oregon University St. John’s College St. John’s University Stanford University Stetson University Stonehill College Stony Brook University Suffolk University Swarthmore College Syracuse University

Texas A&M University Texas Christian University The American University of Paris The College of New Jersey The College of Wooster The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art The Evergreen State College The George Washington University The London School of Economics and Political Science The New School - All Divisions The Ohio State University The University of Alabama The University of Arizona The University of Edinburgh The University of Georgia The University of Iowa The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of Tampa The University of Texas at Austin The University of Warwick Trinity College Trinity University Tufts University Tulane University Union College United States Air Force Academy United States Military Academy United States Naval Academy University College London University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Davis University of California, Irvine University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Merced University of California, Riverside University of California, San Diego University of California, Santa Barbara University of California, Santa Cruz University of Chicago University of Colorado at Boulder University of Colorado at Colorado Springs University of Connecticut University of Delaware University of Denver University of Exeter University of Florida University of Glasgow University of Hawaii at Manoa University of Illinois at Chicago University of Kansas University of Kentucky University of La Verne University of Maryland, College Park University of Massachusetts, Amherst University of Miami University of Michigan University of Minnesota, Twin Cities University of Missouri Columbia University of Nebraska at Lincoln University of Nevada, Las Vegas University of New Hampshire at Durham

University of North Dakota University of Notre Dame University of Oregon University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh University of Portland University of Puget Sound University of Reading University of Redlands University of Rhode Island University of Richmond University of Rochester University of San Diego University of San Francisco University of South Carolina University of Southern California University of St Andrews University of St. Mary University of Tennessee, Knoxville University of the Pacific University of Tulsa University of Utah University of Vermont University of Virginia University of Washington University of Wisconsin, Madison University of Wyoming University of York Vanderbilt University Vassar College Villanova University Virginia Commonwealth University Wake Forest University

Class of

2016 Washington and Lee University Washington State University Washington University in St. Louis Wellesley College Wesleyan University Westmont College Whitman College Whittier College Willamette University Williams College Wittenberg University Woodbury University Worcester Polytechnic Institute Yale University

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CLASS OF 2016 GRADUATES!

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N JUNE 11, Viewpoint celebrated the graduation of the 123 students in the Class of 2016. Family, friends, faculty, and students gathered under a white tent on Ring Family Field for an elegant commencement ceremony, which included performances by the Upper School Vocal Ensemble and Chorus and members of Upper School Strings.

Head of School Mark McKee welcomed the students with “nostalgia, pride, and excitement for the future,” while retiring President of the Viewpoint Educational Foundation Dr. Bob Dworkoski concluded the day’s remarks by offering the graduates some parting words of wisdom and warm wishes for their lives ahead.

SALUTATORIAN ZACH OSCHIN entertained the crowd with memories he collected from the Class of 2016 and his thoughtful remarks on the indelible moments that the students will take with them as they leave Viewpoint. Caitlin Hogan, the Class of 2016’s Valedictorian, emphasized the importance of resiliency, appreciating the moment, and building life on your own terms.

She reminded her classmates that “it is not what you do, but who you are while doing it.”

From left to right Font Row: Yasmine Khalilzadeh, Gavin Kester; Middle Row: Freddy Mulbarger, Jacob Moody: Back Row: Isabella Sprague, Gaia Shoham

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Dick Robertson

From left to right: Paige Cornelius ‘16, Kiersten Crouse ‘16 (bottom), Alyssa Gengos ‘16 (standing), Tyler Gibbs ‘16 (standing), Kathy Cutler ‘16 (bottom)

THE CEREMONY ALSO INCLUDED the presentation of two awards. Brenden Rodriquez won the Arthur B. O’Leary Award, which recognizes a student who demonstrates high academic achievement, character, and a positive spirit. Darla Howell was chosen by the Student Council as the Upper School Student of the Year, given to a senior who exhibits concern for others, school spirit, and interest in improving student life.

OUR COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER, Dick Robertson, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Viewpoint parent, member of the School’s Board of Trustees, and a 53-year veteran of the entertainment business gave his own valuable recommendations to the graduates which included:  Keep it simple.  Be on time.  Have the good sense to resist answering questions that you don’t know the answer to, and then promise to find out the answer quickly.  Make a list of your friends’ birthdays and send them a message. Everyone likes to be remembered.  Be philanthropic.  Learn to make hearing “No” your friend.  Don’t allow others to define you.  There are no failures, only those who give up too soon.  Always have a dog or cat in your life.

MR. ROBERTSON CONCLUDED his remarks by saying, “No one knows what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future.

Congratulations to the Class of 2016!”

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2016 UPPER SCHOOL AWARDS

FINE ARTS AWARDS OF THE YEAR

Brenden Rodriquez ’16 The School’s most significant award recognizes a senior who demonstrates high academic achievement, character, and a positive spirit, qualities Viewpoint strives to develop. The faculty selects the recipient. Mr. O’Leary was the School’s first Headmaster, appointed in 1979.

Alejandro Campillo ’17 The faculty selects the recipient of this award recognizing outstanding qualities of character and service to others. Mrs. Thelma Sitton was Viewpoint’s first Director, appointed in 1963.

VALEDICTORIAN

Caitlin Hogan ’16 Chosen by the faculty, the Valedictorian is the outstanding scholar of the graduating class.

UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT OF THE YEAR

Darla Howell ’16 Chosen by the Student Council, the winner of this award is a senior who exhibits concern for others, school spirit, and interest in improving student life.

JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH HANDLEY AWARD FOR AMERICAN STUDIES

Logan Clark ’17 Established in 2002, this award honors an Upper School student who demonstrates unusual achievement and interest in American studies, expects to pursue these studies in college, and who exhibits excellent character and concern for the community. Mr. and Mrs. Handley were leaders of Viewpoint School during its founding years in the 1960s.

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Jushin Mann ’17

Each year the faculty chooses the Upper School’s Fine Arts Awards of the Year in the four following areas:

ARTHUR B. O’LEARY AWARD

THELMA B. SITTON AWARD

Latin Mandarin Chinese

Jack Salamati ’17 Spanish

Andrew Elzayn ’17

CERAMIC PIECE OF THE YEAR

Tyler Barron ’17

BITTICKS MATH AWARDS

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE YEAR

Alex Toberoff ’19 PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Caitlin Hogan ’16

Alan Howie and Darla Howell ’16

COOPER SCHOLAR-ATHLETE AWARD

UPPER SCHOOL COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD

Dante Nepa ’16 The faculty selects the recipient of this award based on the students’ achievements in academics, athletics, and service to others. The award was established in 1970 by Viewpoint teacher Rayna Cooper in honor of her sons, who excelled in athletics and academics.

Callie Kutasi ’16 The faculty recognizes the student who best demonstrates the spirit of generosity to others. Typically, the recipient volunteered time and effort on a significant, long-term basis, working to better the lives of those in need.

MARY CARPENTER AWARD FOR THE ARTS

Robert Carieri ’16 The faculty selects a student who upheld the standards of the School and achieved unusual growth in the arts.

Established in 1986, the award is named in honor of Mary Carpenter, one of the School’s founders and its first Director of Admission.

MERYL STALEY ’06 AWARD FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Hannah Schulhof ’18 This award in memory of Meryl Staley ’06 is presented to a sophomore or junior who, through his or her generous spirit, quiet determination, and positive attitude, exemplifies the character critical to success in the performing arts. The winner of this honor receives a grant for off-campus programs in the performing arts.

SALUTATORIAN

Zach Oschin ’16 The Senior Class selects the Salutatorian who introduces the graduating class to the audience at Commencement.

VSSA AWARD

Abby Rodgers ’16 The Viewpoint School Service Association (VSSA) annually recognizes a student remarkable for service to the School, often as an ambassador to the community.

The faculty recommends the recipients, and the VSSA makes the final choice.

CALABASAS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AWARD

Michaela Kuelbs ’16 This award is presented to a senior who performed outstanding community service and is likely to study business in college.

Sarah Eicher ’17

Zach Oschin ’16

SCULPTURE OF THE YEAR

2016 UPPER SCHOOL DEPARTMENTAL AWARDS

Gabriella Privitelli ’16 NATIONAL MERIT COMMENDED STUDENTS AND OTHER RECOGNITIONS

National Merit Commended Students are among the 34,000 high scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT. They receive Letters of Commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in recognition of their outstanding academic promise.

Porschia Adler ’16 and Jake Levin ’17 Mrs. Terry Bitticks was a revered math teacher, the Math Department Chair, and Curricular Director until 1992.

MATH AWARDS AP Calculus

Alex Barnett ’16 Calculus

BARBARA EXUM ART AWARD

Marissa Thompson ’16

Gabriella Privitelli ’16 Barbara Exum was an art teacher at Viewpoint for 25 years and served her last 15 years as Chair of the Art Department.

AP Statistics

COMPUTER SCIENCE AWARD

Jeffrey Schare ’16 MUSIC AWARDS

Amy Wilson ’16 Justin Pratt ’16 SCIENCES AWARDS

National Merit Scholars

Anthony Pineci ’18

Lindsay Emi ’16 Caitlin Hogan ’16

DANCE AWARDS

Samantha Wapnick ’17

Shayna Weintraub ’17 Hannah Wright ’16

Chemistry

THEATER AWARDS

Environmental

Logan Clark ’17 Quincy Eaton ’16

Theodora Lewis ’17

ENGLISH AWARDS

Justin Lewis-Weber ’16

Jamie Hood ’17 Katarina Ulich ’17

SOCIAL STUDIES AWARD

National Merit Commended Students

Sarah Ashdown ’16 Tyler Gibbs ’16 Justin Lewis-Weber ’16 Jonathan Luner ’16 Zachary Oschin ’16 Brenden Rodriquez ’16 Andrew Schoenberger ’16 Rebecca Woolf ’16 Alex Zhuk ’16 Each year, the College Board’s National Hispanic Recognition Program (NHRP) recognizes about 5,000 of the 250,000 Hispanic/Latino juniors who take the PSAT/NMSQT. Colleges use this program to identify academically exceptional Hispanic/Latino students.

ZAKI GORDON ’94 FILM AWARD

Ethan Ganouna ’17 This award was established in memory and honor of Zaki Gordon ’94 to recognize outstanding and inspirational achievements in filmmaking at Viewpoint School. The winner receives $1,000 towards tuition for college if he or she is studying film.

Biology

Jake Levin ’17

Physics

Hannah Wright ’16 PSYCHOLOGY AWARD

Niki Pazsitzky ’16 STUDENT COUNCIL MEMBERS

Zach Oschin ’16 President

Darla Howell ’16 Vice President

Abby Rodgers ’16

National Hispanic Recognition Program

WORLD LANGUAGES AWARDS

Secretary

Justin Lewis-Weber ’16 Brenden Rodriquez ’16

French

Brenden Rodriquez ’16

Zoe Beckman ’17

Treasurer

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INDUCTION OF THE CUM LAUDE SOCIETY 2016 Viewpoint School’s chapter of the prestigious Cum Laude Society welcomed 28 new members during an induction ceremony in the Carlson Family Theater on April 13, 2016. The faculty members of the Society select students for membership who have demonstrated scholastic excellence (Areté ), justice (Diké ), and honor (Timé ).

The Cum Laude Society, modeled after Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society for college graduates, recognizes superior scholarship in selected high schools in the United States and abroad. A member since 1992, Viewpoint is one of only 31 schools in California to have earned the distinction of having a Cum Laude chapter.

2016 CUM LAUDE SOCIETY INDUCTEES Class of 2016

Sarah Evans Sydney Feyder Rachel Furash Tyler Gibbs Catherine Grey Kailee Hicks Michaela Kuelbs Alexis Leoni Zach Oschin Niki Pazsitsky Jamie Schecter Andrew Schoenberger Hannah Wright

Brenden Rodriquez ’16

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N MAY 23, VIEWPOINT AWARDED 18 Upper School students with Gold Medals in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Young Americans’ Challenge. The School also presented 36 students with Silver Medals and another 60 students with Bronze Medals. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award program encourages students to challenge themselves outside the classroom and to make a positive difference in the world. Each award-winning student completed personal goals in four different areas: service to others, adventurous journey, practical or vocational life skills, and physical recreation.

Zoe Beckman Logan Clark Daniel Delgado Andrew Elzayn Seth Frank Dominique Gordy James Hood Spencer Hylen Zhanqin Liu Jake Levin Jushin Mann Jack Salamati Katarina Ulich Evan Visher Ethan Williams V I E W P O I N T

Gbolahan Fajolu ’16

DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S AWARD 2016

Class of 2017

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Abby Rodgers ’16

THE BRONZE, SILVER, AND GOLD AWARDS of the Duke of Edinburgh’s award program require three, six, and 12 months of concentration respectively. Each level also requires an overnight adventurous journey lasting between two and four days. In addition, gold medalists complete a residential project, in which students spend at least four consecutive nights and five days in an unfamiliar residential setting with strangers working toward a common goal.

VIEWPOINT IS PROUD TO OFFER THIS PROGRAM, which was introduced to the School by Trustee Emeritus Sam Haskell in 2007.

In May 2007, Viewpoint became the first Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade School in the United States to offer the program, which was founded in 1956 by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. To date, over 8 million young people from over 144 countries have met the requirements of this award.

M AG A Z I N E

Gold Award Winners

Alanna Barron ’17 Jessica Blumberg ’17 Alejandro Campillo ’17 Michael Cohen ’17 Kiersten Crouse ’16 Sophia Frazier ’17 Molly Gross ’17 Spencer Hylen ’17 Rachel Jacobson ’17 Kathryn Kolpin ’16 McCloy Leonard ’17 Rebecca Luner ’17 Hayley Ratzan-Wank ’17 Jack Salamati ’17 Gaia Shoham ’16 Alexandra Stiller ’17 Samir Venkatesh ’17 Nicholas Zakari ’17 Silver Award Winners

Nathan Alexander ’18 Matthew Bahar ’18 Jansen Baier ’18

Jake Bubman ’17 Calvin Chen ’18 Isabella Cohen ’18 Ella Diab ’18 Kayla Dworsky ’18 Brian Evans ’18 Michael Fang ’18 Persia Fardad-Finn ’18 Thomas Finello ’18 Vincent Finello ’18 Iayn Gates ’18 Ellis Glickman ’18 Joseph Gunnarsson ’18 Jack Hall ’17 Sarina Hamer ’18 Andrea Harvey ’18 Chase Hirt ’18 Chloe Hodgson ’18 Connor Hogan ’18 Kate Kaplan ’18 Dylan Lashever ’18 Jack Leach ’18 Ashley Leoni ’18 Landon Levitt ’18

Gavin Levy ’18 Zhanqin Liu ’17 Tommy Maher ’17 Matthew Malcolm ’18 Yusuf Mohamed ’18 Hannah Rosenberg ’18 Cassidy Samovar ’18 Ryan Singsank ’18 Sabrina Urban ’18 Bronze Award Winners

Nadia Ahluwalia ’18 Avalon Aragon ’19 Sarah Berger-Maneiro ’19 Megan Berkovits ’19 Rebecca Berkovits ’19 Matthew Blumberg ’19 Sophie Boock ’19 Robert Brooks ’19 Hudson Campbell ’19 Piers Carmichael ’19 Daniel Cashdan ’19 Sabrina Chagan ’18 Cole Lindsey ’18

Rebecca Danese ’19 Melissa Deng ’19 Sasha Dhameja ’18 Amy Estrada ’18 Qiulin Ge ’18 Cole Gengos ’19 Ben Gold ’19 Nick Gould ’18 Katie Gould ’19 Josh Gross ’19 Katie Hameetman ’19 Evan Henley ’19 Robert Hsu ’18 HongYi Huang ’19 Annette Izumi ’19 Catherine Jones ’19 Nicole Kim ’19 Alexa Kramer ’19 Chloe Kuelbs ’18 Jiahao Liao ’18 Zimou “Edmund” Liu ’19 Ryan Lopata ’19 Peter Marcus ’19 Lila Mass ’18

Kyle Michels ’19 Ben Moody ’19 Anya Nanda ’19 Ryann Perlstein ’19 Ryan Peterson ’19 Parsa Rezapour ’18 Aiden Rodriquez ’19 Taylor Ross ’19 Amir Saley ’19 Julia Schwieger ’19 Ian Sheets ’19 Drew Shulman ’19 Nyssa Singhal ’19 Alex Toberoff ’19 Tifanie Tsai ’19 Eric Wang ’18 Maddie White ’19 Sarah Williams ’19 Eddie Wolfson ’19 Duolai Xing ’17 Christopher Yalda ’19 Carina Yiu ’19 Chloe Zebrack ’19

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HE CEREMONY ALSO INCLUDED the presentation of three awards. Lauren Juzang was selected by the faculty as the Middle School Student of the Year for demonstrating academic diligence, unquestionable character, a positive attitude, and respect for the School’s community.

KaiLan Mackey was awarded the Eighth Grade Academic Achievement Award by the faculty for her outstanding scholarship, and awarded the Middle School Classperson of the Year by her fellow Eighth Graders for exhibiting exceptional qualities of leadership, dependability, a positive spirit, and respect for the School and classmates.

THIS YEAR’S EIGHTH GRADE commencement ceremony was particularly emotional, falling less than a week after a brush fire that threatened Viewpoint’s campus and the surrounding area. Fortunately, due to the extraordinary efforts of the Fire Department and Viewpoint’s own Campus Safety staff, the School was unharmed. Head of School Mark McKee could not help but conclude his Commencement remarks with the lessons learned from this experience, excerpted here:

in classes, arts, and sports. You have done your homework; you have rehearsed; you have learned that champions are made in practice. The same was true for us, as we had cleared our brush around our buildings some 10 days before the fire started 25 yards from our campus. Brush clearing is as exciting as flossing your teeth, but essential, and one of the firefighters told me it made all the difference. In high school, remember: prepare.

“SECOND, work together as a team. We were blessed on Saturday to have a full complement of our operations, events, and safety staff, as well as many administrators and teachers. When danger came, we worked together. It was inspiring to see and hear people springing into action, helping each other, taking care of each other, and taking care of business. The superintendent of our construction project, building the West Campus Athletic Field, heard about the fire and drove towards us. He had a water truck and knew it would be useful. Together with our Campus Safety Director and members of our team, they put out small fires and kept us safe. Fire companies from all over Southern California donated resources, building strike teams with one engine from each of five cities, and even though they didn’t work together every day, we watched them come together as teams to do what they prepared to do. In the same way, you know, whether in a group project or encouraging one another in your individual efforts, your class in high school is your team, and teamwork brings out our best.

“I WANTED TO LEAVE YOU WITH A STORY to help you on your way as you prepare for high school. However, the recent events of the 516-acre brush fire that surrounded our campus over the weekend caused me to stop, and to tear up my initial idea. The fire commanded our attention, and so while I have yours I want to tell you seven lessons learned from the “THIRD, recognize diverse talents. The best teams are made up story of fire that will help you in high school, and in life. We of individuals who have different gifts and strengths. On Saturday, are so fortunate, and so grateful, that through good fortune, some learn of danger and run towards it, to address the fire divine protection, and the actions of our staff and many brave directly.

Others stayed in the protection of shelter, to take care firefighters, we emerged from the Saturday’s fires without injury of our guests and make for a safe evacuation. The world needs or loss of people or buildings. We can build on that good fortune many gifts – the world needs your gifts, and when you recognize by stopping to reflect on what the last few days teach us. the gifts of others without judgment, you can be stronger. I was “FIRST, students, preparation is essential. You have learned this talking with one firefighter about how students would respond From left to right: Leila Assil ’20, Niko Balbín ’20, and Colin Beazley ’20

EIGHTH GRADE COMMENCEMENT ON JUNE 10, VIEWPOINT’S 111 EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS gathered with their

family, friends, and faculty on the Ring Family Field for a Commencement Ceremony to celebrate their accomplishments and the completion of Middle School.

The morning event included performances by Eighth Grade Strings, Vocalists, and Class Historians, and remarks by Eighth Grade Graduation Speaker KaiLan Mackey.

KaiLan Mackey ’20

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coming back to school, seeing the hillsides, and whether our younger children would be frightened. He said he would be stoked! And I mentioned that he was in the right line of work.

You have learned this lesson and it will be even more true in years to come your diverse talents make you stronger, and your own contribution – different from that of your friends – matters.

“SIXTH, tell people what’s going on. Communicate. One of the things that brought us through safely was the continuous communication of the team members on campus, and of the campus with the broader community. You will face challenges in high school, but if you don’t let people know what’s going on, they can’t lend a hand to help. From fighting a fire to making a winning play on the field, to talking with parents and teachers, “FOURTH, nature wins. Didn’t we see from the path of the fire, you will do better if you communicate what is happening for you, that nature has a way of acting that we can direct, perhaps we which sometimes takes courage and skill. Find your voice, speak can manage, but we may not defeat or control. Firefighters did up, and communicate, and you will thrive. a beautiful job of working with nature to keep us safe, which “AND FINALLY, get curious. Learn from the world around sometimes means stopping the fire in its tracks, but sometimes you. As we see from this fire, every single day, the world is full meant directing its path away from people, homes, and of opportunities to learn and grow. Be present, and stand with buildings. We should work to understand the natural world so an attitude of curiosity, wondering what you can learn. I know we can work with it, recognizing that often nature wins. The I learned a great deal along the way these days, talking with the same is true of our own nature – one of your jobs in education firefighters, asking questions, and then – wait for it – being quiet is to look inside yourself, to know your strengths, talents, and and listening. This attitude of learning takes, well, 10,000 hours what challenges you – to work with your nature rather than of practice to become habit. Make learning your friend; don’t fighting it to achieve success. resist the lessons around you, and who knows, you may discover “FIFTH, service matters. You have learned this lesson in your schooling to date, including these years supporting the West Valley Food Pantry, or Hope of the Valley, or Doctors without Borders. The ethic of service is one of the highest ethics of your education, which we saw in our own staff’s spirit of service to our School, and the hundreds of firefighters who have given their careers in public service. Find your way to serve, and be of service to others. You may not be called to be a firefighter, but your gifts can make our world better, and make others deeply grateful as a result.

a passion for a new field – fire science, anyone? – or a new opportunity to serve. It all begins with asking questions.

“STUDENTS, WE ARE PROUD OF YOU, as we promote you from big bad Eighth Graders to become the small fry freshmen and begin a new journey of high school. These lessons, to prepare and work together, to recognize your strengths, to communicate and learn from nature, will help you thrive in your pursuits and in service to others. And together we, your joyful parents, coaches, and mentors, can’t wait to see the result. You are prepared to own your future in high school.”

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT OF THE YEAR

EIGHTH GRADE GRADUATION SPEAKER

Lauren Juzang ’20 The Middle School faculty selects an Eighth Grader who best exemplifies academic diligence, unquestionable character, a positive attitude, and respect for the School’s community.

KaiLan Mackey ’20 The faculty of the Middle School chooses the Speaker based upon a student’s demonstrated academic excellence, outstanding character as represented through his or her actions, and the extent to which he or she represents the learning expectations of the School.

EIGHTH GRADE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

KaiLan Mackey ’20 The faculty selects the Eighth Grade’s outstanding scholar to receive this award.

MIDDLE SCHOOL CLASSPERSON OF THE YEAR

KaiLan Mackey ’20 Selected by fellow Eighth Graders, the Classperson of the Year exhibits unusual qualities of leadership, dependability, a positive spirit, and respect for the School and classmates.

CLASS HISTORIANS

Margaux Bauerlein ‘20 Andrés Concha ‘20 Alyssa Frederick ‘20 Jonathan French ‘20 Lauren Juzang ‘20 Julian Samek ‘20 The faculty of the Middle School chooses the Class Historians.

MIDDLE SCHOOL COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARDS

Margaux Bauerlein ’20 This award recognizes the Eighth Grader who best exemplifies the spirit of giving.

Right page top: Lauren Tepper ’20 Right page midde: From left to right: Alyssa Frederick ’20, Andrés Concha ’20 Right page bottom: Janah Omordia ’20

Left Page: From left to right: Eric Evans ’20, Cameron Wycoff ’20, Konrad Ulich ’20, Zeck Humphreys ’20, Caleb Park ’20

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Dajah Massey ’10

By Patrick Skahan, Director of Alumni Relations; Major Gifts Officer; Associate Head Football Coach

W

HAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE A PASSION for business, fashion design, and the environment? If you are Dajah Massey ’10 you find a way to combine each of your passions into a unique, and historic, college career.

VIEWPOINT

Alumni Profile

IN 2010, UPON GRADUATING from Viewpoint, Dajah was selected to represent The Posse Foundation at Bucknell University. Each year The Posse Foundation chooses, recruits, and trains student leaders from high schools across the nation to form diverse teams called “Posses” at member universities.

The Posse Foundation awarded Dajah a full-tuition scholarship out of over 3,000 applicants, based upon her academic merit and the leadership qualities she displayed at Viewpoint as a member of the Viewpoint Basketball team, leader of the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots club, and as the Secretary of the Class of 2010.

Once on campus at Bucknell, Dajah immediately set out to make the most of this opportunity and to forge a unique educational experience. She first enrolled in Bucknell’s challenging dual-degree Civil/Environmental Engineering and Business Management Program. Although Dajah had taken many Advanced Placement courses as a student at Viewpoint, none of them had

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been in a science-related field. She found herself in a new environment taking on new challenges and committed herself to outworking her peers. In the spring of 2016, Dajah became the first AfricanAmerican to graduate from Bucknell with a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Bachelor of Management for Engineers.

IN ADDITION to the challenging coursework, Dajah embraced experiences outside the classroom. She spent four months in London studying sustainable cities. While she was there, Dajah studied anaerobic digestion, which involves turning food waste into energy. The experiences gave her a European perspective on renewable energy. It also provided her with hands-on research experience, which helped her to earn a position working with a professor to advise the D.C. Water company. In addition to her travels to the United Kingdom, she took a threeweek course in engineering in Argentina, and spent another three weeks in Burma studying minority religious groups.

Opposite page: Dajah Massey photo from the cover of the Bucknell University’s student-run Be Fashion magazine.

Outside of her studies, Dajah has always had an interest in fashion. While still in college, she established her own smallbusiness – Dajah Apparel – which allowed her to combine her engineering training and her experiences abroad with her passion for design. Dajah designs, creates, and manufactures all of the custom apparel for her company from sustainable and eco-friendly materials. Her training in engineering has proved invaluable in her approach to design, and her knowledge of business management is useful for costvalue analysis of those designs.

DAJAH IS EXCITED TO BEGIN her career as an engineer with a passion for renewable energy and the global search to find ways to keep our air and water clean. She credits her time at Viewpoint with her decision to focus on continuing her career in civil-engineering, “Mr. Didden’s Oceanography course, AP Environmental Science with Mrs. Hunt, and Mr. Rush’s Physics class all helped me to see the fun and excitement in solving problems through science. That feeling persists to this day.”

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profit organizations. One of those paintings has been sold at auction for $10,000. Anastassia will complete her final project and graduate in December. After graduation, she wants to pursue a career as an Entertainment Designer at one of the major movie or animation studios.

CELEBRATING OUR ALUMNI

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CLASS OF 2012!

Brigand Blake ’12

BRIGAND BLAKE Trinity College

Electrical Engineering While at Trinity, Brigand continued her Chinese education and enjoyed a semester abroad in Shanghai. Brigand served as the musical director of the Discords, an a capella group at Trinity, and throughout her time in Hartford she continued with creative writing. Brigand has been accepted into the Engineering Management master’s program at California Polytechnic in Pomona, where she will earn a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA. She is currently living in a “tiny house” that she designed and created at the beach in Malibu. She will live part time in Malibu, and part time at Cal Poly Pomona as she continues her studies.

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Lindsay Cohen-Weingarten ’12

NATALIE BRAININ

ANNE CHRISTIAN

BRANDON DE CAUSSIN

University of California, Los Angeles

California Institute of Technology

University of San Diego

English, minor Music History During her time at UCLA, Natalie was a member of Delta Gamma sorority, a fishing guide, and a lifeguard at UCLA’s alumni center/family camp, Bruin Woods. She is a founding member and musical director of Resonance A’Capella. Natalie participated in UCLA’s Spring Sing three times with her sorority, a capella group, and as a solo act. Natalie pursued her music throughout college and was able to record and release an album thanks to a recording session with Red Bull Studios, L.A. She will be moving to Nashville to work in music publishing, continue songwriting, and develop her artistic ambitions.

Biology, minor Geological and Planetary Sciences Anne will continue her studies at Tufts University to begin work on her master’s degree in Conservation Medicine.

Economics, minor in Mathematics While at USD Brandon walked onto the Men’s Crew Team and earned a position on the team each year. As an NCAA athlete, the highlight of his rowing career was traveling to New Jersey to compete in the 2014 Nationals alongside the best teams in the nation. As a junior, Brandon interned with Farmers Insurance and was offered a full time position as an analyst in the Commercial Insurance Division.

MELODY FADAEE Chapman University

Psychology, minor Law, Justice, and Social Control Melody is a case manager at Northbound Treatment Services in Costa Mesa helping men and women dealing with addiction and co-occurring disorders find their way to recovery, sobriety, and a new sense of freedom. She is in the final stages of obtaining her drug and alcohol counseling certificate, as well as applying to various Clinical Psychology master’s programs all over the world. She hopes to one day be the clinical director of a treatment center, and to have her own practice to help individuals who are struggling with addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, and various psychotic disorders.

Anastassia Drobyazko ’12

SAMANTHA EAGLE Scripps College

Psychology Samantha graduated cum laude from Scripps College where she was also a member of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Women’s Tennis Team, one of the top ranked teams in Division III. This fall, Samantha will begin her studies in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis to pursue a Clinical Doctorate of Occupational Therapy.

John Christian ’11 and Anne Christian ’12

LINDSAY COHEN-WEINGARTEN

Melody Fadaee ’12

JAMIE FINE University of Southern California

Accounting and a Master’s in Business Taxation Jamie completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in four years due to the number of excellent Advanced Placement courses at Viewpoint. This summer she studied for her Certified Public Accountant exam and will begin work as a Tax Accountant with KPMG in downtown Los Angeles.

Chapman University

Natalie Brainin ’12

Marketing and Public Relations Lindsay enjoyed a great experience at the Dodge Film School at Chapman and was very involved in Greek life as a Delta Gamma.

She spent a semester abroad in Florence, Italy, which afforded her the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. In addition, Lindsay recently completed her Birthright Trip to Israel. Lindsay will begin her career working for Creative Artists Agency in Century City as a marketing assistant.

Brandon de Caussin ’12 (on left)

ANASTASSIA DROBYAZKO Art Center College of Design

Since graduating from Viewpoint, Anastassia has been studying various forms of visual art at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Some of Anastassia’s paintings have been donated to fundraising events, benefiting non-

Samantha Eagle ’12 (on left)

Jamie Fine ‘12

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JASON FLAHIE Cornell University

Mechanical Engineering, minor Business Jason graduated summa cum laude, while also remaining actively involved in Tau Beta Pi (The Engineering Honor Society), serving as President and Treasurer of Cornell American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and a team member of the Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council and Mars Rover Project Team. Jason spent the summer of 2015 at UPC Barcelona’s NanoSat Lab, where he worked on the first Catalan satellites. Upon graduation from Cornell, Jason worked at SpaceX in the Avionics Manufacturing and Mechanical Integration departments.

Jason will attend Stanford University in September to pursue a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, with a focus on robotics and controls.

as an Emergency Medical Technician alongside the International Surf Lifesaving Association with the rescue efforts of refugees on Lesbos, Greece in the spring of 2016. Nicholas completed two years of college at Middlebury, but transferred last August to Copenhagen University where he is now an international student. He speaks fluent Danish and plans on applying to the university as a full-time student having recently earned dual citizenship.

CAITLIN GOLDSTEIN

MONTANA HALL

Indiana University

School of Visual Arts

Communications, minor Fashion Design Caitlin absolutely loved her four-year college experience in Bloomington, Indiana. She studied abroad in Barcelona the spring semester of her junior year which gave her the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. She spent her summers interning with public relations firms in both Los Angeles and New York.

She recently accepted a position at CBS Television Publicity.

Lindsay Gartman ’12

Montana returned to Southern California eager to begin her new career as an animator, and she is currently seeking employment in a role that fits her talents.

Before finishing college she completed a short animated film entitled Monster that took First Place at the Dusty Awards in New York City.

Devyn Gortner ’12

ANDIE GECHTMAN

LOUIS (CHARLIE) GREULICH

University of Wisconsin

Rice University

Textile and Apparel Design This past year, Andie completed her senior thesis in which she designed a line of handbags made out of fabric that was screen printed and laser cut. She showcased her collection at the annual fashion show, where she earned an award for Best Textile Design.

Andie also won two other awards in the past year: First Place in the Lands’ End Outerwear Challenge for a wool coat she both patterned and constructed, and an award in the annual Juried Student Exhibition for her collection of sustainable paper clutches. Andie hopes to one day become the creative director for a highend handbag company.

Mechanical Engineering Charlie is currently employed as an applications engineer within the Manufacturing Technology division of Lockheed Martin in Marietta, GA. He is working toward completing his private pilot’s license and is excited to begin flying a myriad of different aircraft as he expands his passion for planes.

Montana Hall ’12 (on left)

PAIGE HANDY St. Mary’s College Nicholas Frazier ’12 Jason Flahie ’12

NICHOLAS FRAZIER Copenhagen University

Psychology Nicholas is passionately engaged in his three loves: world travel, ocean rescue, and education. He continues to serve as an ocean life guard in Encinitas, and his experience recently took him to Ghana where he taught ocean lifeguard classes.

He also took a year off working with the Lifeguards in Jaco, Costa Rica and worked

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LINDSAY GARTMAN University of California, Berkeley

Public Health Lindsay enjoyed her time in Berkeley and plans to pursue a master’s degree in Physician Assistant practice. Lindsay is a certified Emergency Medical Technician and has been on medical missions in the Philippines and Panama. She plans to live in the Bay Area and work as an EMT or Medical Scribe until she enters graduate school in the fall of 2017.

Caitlin Goldstein ’12

DEVYN GORTNER Duke University

English and Psychology Devyn will be moving to Santa Cruz this summer to pursue a career in non-profit work.

Andie Gechtman ’12

Louis (Charlie) Greulich ’12

Psychology and Spanish, magna cum laude The academic highlights of Paige’s four years at Saint Mary’s include studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain; interning at La Casa de Amistad; presenting at the Midwestern Psychological Association conference in Chicago; being inducted into the Psi Chi honor society; and receiving one of Saint Mary’s Psychology Department’s top awards recognizing her for her high academic achievement and meaningful contributions. Paige competed on the University of Notre Dame’s cycling and triathlon teams and she won a criterium at Michigan State and S U M M E R /FALL

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qualified and competed at the Collegiate Triathlon Nationals in South Carolina.

Most recently, Paige completed her first IRONMAN after returning to Southern California. Paige plans to continue her studies next year to pursue a master’s degree in Occupational Therapy.

Resource department of an international business firm in the United Arab Emirates.

This past summer, Farinaz spent time in Iran exploring the anthropological and social elements of the society in order to assist in her master’s thesis.

ELIZABETH SPENCER JOHNSON University of Southern California

Computer Science Spencer is returning to USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering in the fall of 2016 to obtain her Master of Science in Computer Science.

MICHAEL RADBEL

HAYLEY SCHNEIDER

University California, Santa Barbara

University of Pennsylvania

Computer Engineering In his final year of college, Michael led his Computer Science Capstone Team to a second place finish with an Augmented Reality Project. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, and this August he began work as a software developer for Microsoft in Seattle.

Finance, minor Fine Arts

ANA VANESSA PLOUMPIS Tufts University

Farinaz Kavianifar ’12

International Relations and Spanish Ana Vanessa graduated magna cum laude and will begin her career working at Deloitte in Washington, D.C. as a federal business analyst. Here she hopes to gain the consulting skills necessary to eventually work in statistically-driven international development, particularly as it relates to women’s rights and access to finance. For now, she is very excited to join the working world!

Biochemistry Brandon graduated summa cum laude, and is applying to medical school to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a doctor.

Brandon was an avid soccer player at Viewpoint and continued playing soccer for UCSB as a club player freshman year, and on the intramural fields his final three years. For the past few years, Brandon interned at Santa Monica Hospital and compiled research and data analysis for visual acuity enhancement after brain surgery for a paper pending publication.

Stanford University

Elizabeth Spencer Johnson ’12

FARINAZ KAVIANIFAR George Washington University

International Affairs and Middle East Studies Farinaz will be attending a master’s program at the University of Chicago’s Center of Middle East Studies this fall.

While taking a year off, Farinaz enrolled in an Arabic Intensive Program at the acclaimed Qasid Institute in Jordan, and upon completion of the program she spent time working in the Human

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Cognitive Science, minor in Spanish and Computer Science Emina is currently teaching computer science at an elementary school in Oakland and is preparing to teach English for a year in Madrid, Spain before returning to the Bay Area to pursue a career in educational technology.

University of California, Santa Barbara

GALINA MEYER

Chinese and Computer Science Galina one of only 31 students to be awarded dual bachelor’s degrees out of Stanford’s 1,775 graduating seniors.

While in college, every summer Galina had a variety of software development internships: she worked on creating the most aerodynamic wing for a new model of an airplane, wrote new production software for a Bay Area startup, and participated in a massive Artificial Intelligence project at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, China. For two consecutive years, Galina served as the President of Stanford Robotics Club.

Galina is interested in continuing her work in Natural Languages, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics as she looks toward a career and continued education.

Ana Vanessa Ploumpis ’12 (on right)

EMINA SONNAD University of California, Berkeley

BRANDON RYVKIN Galina Meyer ’12

pursuing her music degree at the graduate level, followed by a career in music.

Brandon Ryvkin ’12

Hayley Schneider ’12

DANIELLE SMITH Stanford University

Music (Vocal Performance) At Stanford, Danielle continued her musical education by studying voice and violin.

She was a Stanford Music Department Award recipient for vocal performance, and was a member, all four years, of the prestigious Stanford Chamber Chorale, and receiving the MVP award upon graduation. With the Chorale, she toured Thailand, Hawaii, and Great Britain.

She performed with the Stanford Opera Workshop in various productions. She was committed to chamber music at Stanford and was a member of Stanford’s volunteer organization, MELODY (Music Enriching the Lives Of Developing Youth), in which she taught piano and music theory to elementary school students in Palo Alto.

In past summers, Danielle has participated in exceptional summer music programs, including the 2015 Bel Canto Institute (where she won the performance award), the 2014 Salzburg Summer Vocal Performance Program, SongFest, Intimate Opera Company, and Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival. In the future, Danielle plans on

Emina Sonnad ’12

JONATHAN (J.J.) SPRAGUE Baylor University

Mechanical Engineering J.J. started working for the international engineering firm AECOM in their Oakland office in June 2016. He absolutely loved his four years at Baylor where he was also a founding member of the Baylor BUV (Basic Utility Vehicle) organization. BUV is a humanitarian organization whose mission is to engineer and build rugged, low-cost vehicles for third-world nations. The vehicle that he worked on as his capstone project will be donated and shipped to a village in Rwanda with the hope to be S U M M E R /FALL

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the first of many to come. J.J. encourages any Viewpoint graduates living in the Bay Area to drop him a line at jjsprague@sbcglobal.net

LAUREN TRAINER

DYLAN VISHER

BENJAMIN WILLNER

University of Southern California

Yale University

Notre Dame

Political Science and Communication Lauren graduate cum laude and was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority during her college years. She recently began working at Neo@Ogilvy in Playa Vista as an Affiliate Account Executive, where she does affiliate marketing for Apple.

Computer Science magna cum laude Dylan received the top Yale University Department of Computer Science Award at Graduation in recognition of his outstanding research and academic achievement in Computer Science.

Thank you to his Upper School Computer Science teacher Dan Anderson for his dedication in giving Dylan a strong foundation and love for the subject.

Dylan began working at DropBox in San Francisco in this fall.

Economics and Chinese During an incredible four year experience at Notre Dame, Benjamin had many accomplishments both academic and personal. He had the opportunity to spend three months during his junior year studying in Shanghai, China, and he was selected during his senior year to serve as a resident assistant for his residence hall. He made the Dean’s List two semesters as well as gained entry into the Economics Honors Society, Omicron Delta Epsilon. After graduation, he returned to Notre Dame and begin a full-time position as an Admissions Counselor in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. He writes, “I am excited about this next chapter of my life and look forward to seeing where the future takes me.”

Michael Stevenson ’12

AUSTIN TESORIERO Southern Methodist University

English and Economic Sociology, minors History and Italian Austin received Departmental Distinction for his thesis on 1930s Los Angeles Noir Fiction. Beginning in the fall of 2016 he will pursue a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at USC’s Marshall School of Business.

J.J. Sprague ’12

MICHAEL STEVENSON Occidental College

Geology In April 2016, Michael was part of a geological research group from Occidental that presented its findings to The Geological Society of America during its 112th Annual Meeting. Michael presented the paper The Paleointensity Results from the Pleistocene-Aged Aleutian Island Volcanic Rocks, which was an amazing contribution as an undergraduate.

Michael is currently living in Eagle Rock playing with his band, Small Forward, coming home to surf, and taking some much needed time to figure out his next steps.

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Lauren Trainer ’12

MICHAEL WILLIAMS-HART JOHANNES (JOEY) VERHAEGH

Rice University

Old Dominion University

Bioengineering Michael graduated from Rice University with a B.S. in Bioengineering in May 2016, earning awards for Outstanding Service in Bioengineering and Outstanding Bioengineering Design. In hopes of further developing the skills he gained from his undergraduate degree, Michael will be returning to Rice in the fall to pursue a master’s degree in Bioengineering, with a focus in Global Medical Innovation. Prior to the fall semester, Michael spent two months in Heredia, Costa Rica working in manufacturing engineering at Boston Scientific. After graduating from the master’s program, Michael hopes to work in the medical technology industry as a design engineer and product developer.

Finance and Business Analytics After a postgraduate year at Phillips Academy Andover and a year of junior college, Joey received an FCS scholarship to Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia.

Due to a serious shoulder injury he has yet to play, but he still has three years of eligibility remaining. Joey currently has the highest GPA of any member of the football team, and will graduate in spring 2017.

Dylan Visher ’12

Austin Tesoriero ’12

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Benjamin Willner ‘12

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The Annual Fund for Viewpoint 1,300 donors at all levels support our:

Every Gift Matters

1,215 students 160 faculty and staff

Your donations directly benefit our students. Here are some examples of what your generosity supports:

From left to right: Eric Wang ’18, Nick Zakari ’17, Farah Stack ’17, Dominique Perriseau ’17, Jushin Mann ’17

VIEWPOINT Editor: Monica Case ’90

Additional Photography: Jennifer Berger, Steven Chen, and Gregg Kessler

Editorial Consultant: Anne Leonetti

Head of School: Mark McKee

Creative Director and Photography: Bill Youngblood

Director of Strategic Communications: Jill Shaw

Art Direction and Design: Ken Camner, Dog Ear Design

CONTRIBUTORS A special thank you to those listed below for contributing articles and photographs, and for assisting in the production of Viewpoint magazine.

Cathy Adelman Claudia Antoine Greg Bisheff Cherie Boss Nan Cohen Rhody Davis Sarah Davis Megan Ende Donna Hicks Jennifer Kirchmann Joshua Langley Wendy Mar

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Patrick Moyal John Nadolenco Verity Paton Shelley Robertson White Mary Rodriquez Jodi Schapiro Charlie Sitzer Patrick Skahan Donald Thompson Tracy Wymer Nell Yates Anna Yi

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Viewpoint is published by the Viewpoint Educational Foundation. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our apologies and notify us. Thank you.

$1,000

$2,500

$7,500

Young programmers — this gift supplies the hardware and software needed to program two robots for our Middle and Upper School Robotics Program

“Maker Certification” for our Innovation Space Teacher, expanding the program and our local and national prominence in the field

“MidSchool Math” program, integrating story-telling through math into the existing Middle School math curriculum

$15,000

$25,000

Equipment and Technology integration instruments for a in the classroom new inter-disciplinary by providing an “Film Scoring iPad cart, iPads, and Fundamentals” program related tools for — a hybrid of music an entire class and film curricula

Viewpoint School admits students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. The School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, its admission policies, scholarships, and athletic or other School-administered programs.

Viewpoint School 23620 Mulholland Highway Calabasas, CA 91302-2060 www.viewpoint.org Page 12 Mystery Readers, left to right: Top Row: Sam Kritzer ’19, Hannah Martin ’17, Jake Jepson ’17, Charlie Mellman ’17 Second Row: Claire Taylor ’17, Daniel Flores ’17, Stephanie Libonati ’17, Joceline Lvovich ’17 Third Row: Austin Furgatch ’17, Lupe Martinez ’17, Maya Tribbitt ’17, Aaron Pessin ’19 Fourth Row: Alex Toberoff ’19, Logan Clark ’17, Lily Andersson ’19, Mike Cohen ’17

$50,000 Four full days of “Responsive Classroom” training for each Primary and Lower School teacher and administrator, acquiring strategies and practices to give every student a voice in the classroom, increasing engagement, social interaction, and cognitive abilities

Thank you to our 2015–16 supporters!

The 2016–17 Annual Fund is underway.

We hope that you will join us in reaching our goals.

Give now at www.viewpoint.org/give

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