Commencement - The Taft School

Transcription

Great Lit
Crafting a Community
Alumni Weekend
123rd
Commencement
Summer 2013
Summer 2013
in this issue
24
Globe-Trotting
for Top Talent
Admissions officers seek and
recruit the world’s best students
By Jennifer A. Clement
38
Alumni Weekend
Fifty years of lacrosse and so much more
Photography by Robert Falcetti
30
Optional Reading
A list for lifelong learners
By Linda Saarnijoki
Departments
44
Perspective
123rd Commencement Remarks
By Phil Schiller, Betsy Sednaoui ’13,
Andrew Cadienhead ’13, Max Flath ’13
and Cassie Willson ’13
2 From the Editor
2 Taft Trivia
3Letters
4 Alumni Spotlight
10 Around the Pond
19 Sport by Steve Palmer
22 Annual Fund Report
50 Tales of a Taftie:
Yale Kneeland ’18
51 From the Archives:
The Senior Fence
h Tom Moore ’43 pre-parade with granddaughter Ceilie Moore ’13 on Alumni Weekend in May. Robert Falcetti
from the EDITOR
Before the start of every school year,
faculty return for opening meetings and
assemble for a group photo. The practice
dates back to Mr. Taft. With more than 120
faculty these days, we are four or five layers
deep, and tradition is for the most senior
members to flank the headmaster in the
front. The loyalty of Taft teachers means
that it might take 20 years or more to make
“the front row.”
We knew the front row would be
minus a legend this September, with the
retirement of classics teacher Dick Cobb,
but with the unexpected death of Ferdie
Wandelt ’66 in July, we will feel an incredible void this fall.
Within hours of Ferdie’s passing, messages were being posted across social
media about the enormous influence this
man, this legend, had on their lives. And
for four decades, with Joanna at his side,
they welcomed scores of Tafties into their
home and into their lives. As Headmaster
Emeritus Lance Odden said, he transformed this school, and he changed lives.
We invite you to share your memories
of Ferdie and post your photographs of
him at www.taftschool.org/alumni/ferdie.
A memorial service will be held at Taft on
Saturday, September 28, and a full tribute
will appear in the fall issue of the Bulletin.
Now especially, we want to hear your stories.
—Julie Reiff
???
Taft Trivia
Martina Vaculikova/Shutterstock.com
What are the first four words of Taft’s original Alma Mater,
written by John Knox Jessup ’24 and Richard Donovan? A set
of etched Taft glassware (you know you want it) will be sent to
the winner, whose name will be drawn from all correct entries
received. Send your guess to [email protected].
Congratulations to Heminway Merriman ’67, who correctly
identified 1960 as the first year that the Citation of Merit was
awarded. You can see the full list of recipients here:
www.taftschool.org/alumni/merit.aspx.
WWW
On the Cover
v Jared Carson,
Sarah Cassady and
David Berment
at Taft’s 123rd
Commencement.
Robert Falcetti
Great Lit
Crafting a Community
Alumni Weekend
Taft on the Web
Find a friend’s address or look
up back issues of the Bulletin
at www.taftalumni.com
Visit us on your phone with
our mobile-friendly site
www.taftschool.org/m
123rd
Commencement
Summer 2013
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Please recycle this Bulletin
or share with a friend.
2 Taft Bulletin SUMMER 2013
Don’t forget you can shop
online at www.taftstore.com
800-995-8238 or 860-945-7736
Summer 2013
Volume 83, Number 4
Bulletin Staff
Editor-In-Chief: Julie Reiff
Managing Editor: Linda Beyus
Design: Good Design, LLC
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Proofreader: Sue Khodarahmi
Mail letters to:
Julie Reiff, Editor-In-Chief
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
[email protected]
Send alumni news to:
Linda Beyus
Alumni Office
The Taft School
[email protected]
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:
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Summer–May 15
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Alumni Records
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The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855)
is published quarterly, in February,
May, August and November, by The
Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road,
Watertown, CT 06795-2100, and is
distributed free of charge to alumni,
parents, grandparents and friends of
the school. All rights reserved.
Letters
Wisdom
I really enjoyed our latest Bulletin—from
the impressive female Taft admiral to the
piece on J. Irwin Miller ’27.
Speaking of Miller, in 1997 I read his
commencement address in the Bulletin.
It was the wisest speech I had ever read. I
decided to mail it to 50 friends (this was
prior to our current email abilities). So I
took my Bulletin to a local copy shop and
asked a clerk to make 50 copies. He asked
me, “Do you have copyright permission
from the author?” I quickly thought of
Miller’s truths and wisdoms I was about
to copy, but didn’t recall anything about a
little white lie for the greater good, and so I
replied, “Of course I do.” I got my copies.
Before I mailed them off I called Mr.
Miller in Columbus. I told him that while
the ’97 graduates might not have been
listening well to his words, a ’71 graduate
had. I thanked him. And then told him the
copy clerk story. He howled and said I did
exactly the right thing.
His 1997 address is still the wisest piece
I’ve ever read. (Read it here: www.taftschool.
org/alumni/bulletin/sum97/default.aspx.)
—Stan Donnelly ’71
Small World
I just looked at the new Bulletin online and
was intrigued by two coincidences.
The article on J. Irwin Miller reminded
me that there was an article in the Travel
section of Sunday’s New York Times about
Columbus, Indiana, and the architecture
that Miller brought to the town, including
his house by Eero Saarinen, the Swedish
architect. I think I did a report on Saarinen
for Sabra Johnson in Lower Mid Art class.
The article by Jennifer Buttenheim
Eremeeva ’84—I think she went to
Columbia University (where I went to
law school), as I discovered her blog several years ago from a Columbia LinkedIn
group. Interesting how paths cross.
—Jeffrey Boak ’71
Taft Dining
In reading the current issue of the Taft
Bulletin, I was struck by the article on the
food services and the apparent wide choices the students have with regard to eating.
I have to admit my memory is hazy—
not having thought about Taft’s food
policies for over 60 years. I don’t remember how breakfast and lunch were served.
We did have a milk and cracker break in
mid morning.
At dinner we had to wear a coat and
tie. We were assigned to a given table for
a period of time and then reassigned to
another table. I believe there were about
12 per long table—six per side. Each table
was headed by a master and his wife, if
there was one. As you might guess, no one
wanted to be assigned to Headmaster Paul
Cruikshank’s table. He was a bit stodgy.
The main dish was served by the master and passed along down the table. This
prevented some student taking a very
large portion of the main dish. Seconds
were available towards the end of the
meal after the master asked if anyone
wanted some. The potatoes and veggies
were helped individually.
I don’t remember any meal choices being available. You ate dinner or went hungry.
There wasn’t any way to get a hamburger,
etc. You could always fill up on mashed
potatoes and bread. Being a chowhound, I
never had any problems eating. I also don’t
remember any “off” dishes like liver being
served. We had the regular run of desserts.
I believe the waiters were fellow students who set up and cleared the tables
plus getting refills of the various dishes.
Waiting was also by roster. It was good as
you didn’t have to wear a coat and tie and
you ate in the kitchen, where you could
hide an extra dessert.
—Bob Murdoch ’47
Fenton Bio
I have always wanted to visit Columbus,
Indiana, for the architecture and had no
idea about J. Irwin Miller ’27 [“Tales of a
Taftie,” Spring 2013] or that he went to
Taft. I just loved reading Amy’s article.
Biographer Scott Donaldson has published a book about my uncle, Charles
Fenton ’37 (see page 9). Scott was a student of Charlie’s at Yale. I believe my dad,
Dave Fenton ’48, has given a copy to the
Taft library. Amazingly, it is just coming
out in softcover. Honestly, we never expected to see that.
Charlie’s story is a rich one, although
his successes are balanced by failure and
tragedy. The section about his time flying bombing missions over Germany is
especially interesting, as well as his insights about entrenchment and the lack
of diversity in academia in the 1950s
(Yale and Duke) and his relationship
with Hemingway.
Our daughter, Elizabeth Shepherd ’05,
wrote a nice little book about the Fenton
men at Taft for her senior project using
the Taft archives, and I know Scott looked
at that when he was researching Charlie’s
time at Taft. Charlie had the honor of living with Mr. Taft (retired) in his senior
year. I believe a number of Taft grads from
the late ’40s and early ’50s took Charlie’s
tremendously popular freshman writing
course at Yale. And of course, many of
them had his father, Dan Fenton, for Latin
and/or Greek, etc.
—Debbie Fenton Shepherd
Love it? Hate it?
Read it? Tell us!
We’d love to hear what you think
about the stories in this Bulletin.
We may edit your letters for length,
clarity and content, but please write!
Julie Reiff, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
or [email protected]
Taft Bulletin SUMMER 2013 3
alumni Spotlight
By Julie Reiff
v Award winning chef
Carl Thorne-Thomsen ’86,
owner of Story in Kansas City,
Kansas. Crissy Dastrup
A Fresh Story
Chef Carl Thorne-Thomsen ’86 couldn’t
have given his Kansas City restaurant
a more telling name: Story. After living
on the East Coast, where he grew up, he
moved to Wichita, Kansas, in the ’90s,
after earning a B.A. in English literature
from Cornell, to attend a master of
fine arts program in creative writing at
Wichita State. His desire to write was
replaced by a passion for food.
“The fact that my mother and grandmother had large vegetable gardens
seems important in the transition from
writing to cooking,” he says. “Freshness
of ingredients, source of ingredients, has
always been key to me.”
He taught himself enough about
cooking to land a kitchen job at a gourmet food store/café, where he met
his wife, Susan. After several stints in
restaurants to refine his skills, he became
chef de cuisine for two Kansas City restaurants. “I had a dream of opening [my
own] simple little restaurant, and the
dream never went away,” he says.
Story opened in 2011, in Prairie
Village, and has already won a Wine
Spectator Award of Excellence. ThorneThomsen is Food & Wine magazine’s 2013
winner for the People’s Best New Chef,
Midwest, and was also a 2013 James
Beard semifinalist for Best Chef, Midwest.
There is, of course, a story behind the
name “Story,” he explains, which revolves
around themes that are a key part of his
beliefs as a chef. “The name signifies that
I’m inspired and motivated by ingredients. I try to source ingredients carefully,
locally when I can, and I try to find the
best, freshest and most interesting.”
“Inevitably, the more time I spend
looking for ingredients, the more I wind
up knowing about where they’re grown,
pastured or fished. My imagination goes
to work on those details and produces
a landscape or seascape, people at work
in it—a ‘story’ of sorts about or behind
a particular ingredient begins to shape
itself in my mind.
“The possibility of finding novelty
in the familiar motivates me,” ThorneThomsen says. “It’s like reading a great
novel or poem for a second or third
time—you may find ideas you never
noticed before, or maybe there’s a passage that never meant much to you but
it now stands out.”
Esprit de Gaucho
Through La Matera, brothers
Brook Stroud ’06 and Alex Stroud ’09
create wearable items that take you to
Argentina…without leaving home.
After fly-fishing on a ranch in
Patagonia, the brothers got the idea for
their business in Buenos Aires, where
they saw the same woven fabrics worn by
gauchos, with their distinct geometrical
patterns, being sold as belts in upscale
boutiques, and were hooked.
“We had a lot of friends asking Alex
to bring belts back for them,” Brook says,
after Alex returned for more ranch work.
“Alex thought, instead, we should work
on designing a line ourselves.” They
decided to create “an exotic and less
whimsical take on New England’s preppy
needlepoint belt standard,” he says.
“We knew we needed the help of a couple savvy ‘Rhinos,’ so
last summer friends Hank Wyman ’07
and Scott Hillman ’09 joined the team,”
says Brook. “The esprit de gaucho was
strong, and when Alex and Scott headed
back for senior year of college, Hank
stayed on to become sales director.
The resulting line, launched in fall
2012, is La Matera—named for the
spot on Argentine estancias (ranches),
where gauchos gather after work to
unwind. Their rugged-style belts and
wallets represent “the grit and style
of the Argentine countryside,” and as
their website says, “Think the rough
n Brook Stroud ’06, left, and Alex Stroud ’09,
owners of La Matera, sport their company’s
belts made from traditional Argentine fabric.
and tough cowboy from that Cormac
McCarthy novel you never read…but
with cooler belts.”
The Stroud brothers are proud to
note that the belts are handcrafted in
New England using beautiful woven
fabrics imported from Argentina.
[Note: Prince William was recently
seen sporting a La Matera belt at his
baby’s first press conference.]
Black Belt Baton
h Djong Victorin
Yu ’76, South
Korean-based
conductor and
composer
Conductor and composer Djong
Victorin Yu ’76 achieved a milestone
in his career by leading, as guest conductor, the Armenian Philharmonic in
Yerevan in the premiere of his edition
of Bruckner’s Third Symphony to a
standing ovation. “It took me more than
30 years of contemplation to create my
edition of Bruckner’s Third (so-called
‘Wagner Symphony’),” Yu says. “This
year celebrates the 200th birthday of
Wagner, and this was my tribute to him
through Bruckner’s own homage.”
An active and admired conductor
both in the West and the East for nearly
three decades, Yu is a versatile musician
who is as comfortable with symphonic
and chamber music as with opera and
oratorio. A cultural ambassador, maestro
Yu was the first South Korean conductor
to perform in Eastern Europe prior to the
lifting of the Iron Curtain. In Korea, he
has devoted his musical passion to rejuvenating provincial orchestras.
Yu is also a composer, music historian and arranger, and in his leisure
time he devotes his energy as a black
belt to various martial arts.
Over many years, Yu regularly
conducted London’s Philharmonia
Orchestra, making 14 CDs that earned
wide acclaim, and he reflects on shifts
in the world of music. “The recording
industry is in disarray due to rapid technological development and new media,”
he says, “so we are, in a strange way,
somewhat back in the 18th, 19th century,
where concerts and the enjoyment of live
music are the core of classical music.”
Yu’s next ambition is to be the music
director of a major orchestra, a logical
evolution of his career as a conductor.
“I would like to set an example and standard, leave a legacy and create a path for
others who, like me, are enthralled by
the sound, texture and aesthetic joy of
making and hearing live music,” he says.
“I am at the age, as are many classmates, where this is the last big project of
my life, one that all my prior experiences
prepared me for in different ways,” Yu
says. “I want to give back at least a part
of what I have been privileged to receive
over a lifetime.”
alumni Spotlight
Evan McGlinn
What Kind of People?
“Every one of us is a child of God and
deserves a decent burial, no matter how
horrible their crime,” said Reverend Fred
Small ’70 in an interview on WBUR
about the deceased Boston Marathon
bombing suspect. “It comes down to
the question of what kind of people do
we want to be? If we choose hatred and
vengeance, we let the terrorists win—we
become like them. If the Tsarnaev family
seeks burial in Cambridge, they should
not be turned away.”
Small, senior pastor of First Parish in
Cambridge (Massachusetts), Unitarian
Universalist, has the same conviction
when he talks about climate change.
He is co-chair of Religious Witness for
the Earth, a national interfaith network
dedicated to public witness on critical
environmental issues.
“Can we learn from the suffering that
we are clearly going to endure over the
next few decades, as the impacts of climate change accelerate? Will we react out
of fear? Or love? Will we cultivate better
relationships with each other and the
natural systems of which we are a part or
respond out of greed and self-protection?”
In his five years at First Parish, a
church long associated with Harvard,
Small and his congregation have been
working to create a community committed to “visible and tangible social justice.
The parish made an intentional decision to attract people of color to create a
‘beloved community’—Martin Luther
King’s term—where no one culture is
dominant and everyone learns from each
other’s stories and traditions. People are
hungry for a spiritual experience that is
not dogmatic,” says Small.
At Taft, Small excelled academically
and athletically and held leadership roles
in the Glee Club, Oriocos, the Papyrus
and as a monitor. “At Yale,” he says with
a laugh, “I couldn’t keep up that pace…I
learned I had to find sources of meaning other than gaining the approval of
others.” Small earned a J.D. and practiced environmental law, but turned to
full-time singing and songwriting about
peace and social justice for 16 years
before earning a master of divinity at
Harvard. He became a pastor in 1999.
“I’ve always felt deeply privileged, and
that it would be unconscionable to be
given so many gifts and opportunities and
then not use them in the service of others.”
—Alison Gilchrist
Go Fish
n Marine biologist Tap Pryor ’49 in Maine,
location of his latest aquaculture venture.
It’s a long way from the Cook Islands in
the South Pacific to Brunswick, Maine,
but marine biologist Tap Pryor ’49 has
the skills to raise fish almost anywhere—
including on land. After 48 years of doing
innovative aquaculture and winning a
U.N. Seed Award for sustainable development in a developing nation. Pryor is
working on a U.S.-based project for raising fish commercially indoors with his
partners as RAS Corporation.
“I came to Maine to recuperate from
hip surgery in 2010 and stayed when
friends here urged me to imagine an indoor aquafarm,” Pryor says. “Since Maine’s
offshore fisheries have declined and coastal
shellfish harvests are not expanding (and
are often shut down by red tide and runoff
pollution), on-land production has enormous appeal, if economically feasible.”
His project for raising fish in indoor
tanks is being done at the Center for
Deeply Rooted in Her Work
Susie Tarnowicz ’03 makes paintings and
drawings that are deeply rooted in her
fascination with agricultural practice and
her own work on farms.
Following a unique path after graduating from Rhode Island School of Design
with a degree in painting, Tarnowicz went
to Italy to pursue dairy farming and to
learn traditional adobe restoration, brick
making and housing construction.
She continued farming in the
Adirondacks on a draft horse-powered,
500-acre CSA farm, where she worked
with beef and dairy cows, chickens and
vegetable production. Later, in Vermont,
while continuing to engage in agriculture
and dairy production on a smaller scale,
she began to paint again with a different
perspective, “cultivating surfaces” using
her intimate experience with the land.
Now living and working on Slow
Roots Farm in New York’s Hudson
Valley, she says, “I feel blessed to have
settled in a place where I am farming and
art-making, both looking at the land and
working with it as a surface. It has called
me to think more about how a space, a
place, a scape, a home, all collaborate
and support on a spiritual, multifaceted,
level, in touch with the land.”
Writing daily has continued to supplement her artwork. At Essex Farm in the
Adirondacks, “showing up at 4 a.m. to
harvest veggies in a headlamp, and seeing
[co-owner and author] Kristin’s light on
in the farmhouse...knowing she was there
writing, working on her book, inspired
me to try to do both,” says Tarnowicz.
In fall 2012, she was a resident artist
at Cow House Studios near Rathnure,
County Wexford, Ireland. She exhibited
that work in Dublin in March and will
have another exhibit in Wexford this fall.
one or more byproducts, such as sandworms and oysters, with zero-waste
aquaculture as a result, so it’s win-win.”
For example, sandworms could be
grown and sold for bait with wastewater
from raising fish.
“On-land and indoor fish farming
is more common in Europe than the
U.S.,” Pryor adds. “It is a bit tricky
because capital costs and operating
expenses are high.
n Susie Tarnowicz ’03, with art
teacher Loueta Chickadauance,
at her Mark Potter Gallery show
on Alumni Weekend.
“We have been test-marketing
black sea bass and California yellowtail, both favorites on the market,
recently with rave reviews,” Pryor
says. By mid-2014, they plan to
expand to full-scale commercial production at another location in Maine,
a former Navy waterfront site. Watch
for their fish at a favorite restaurant
or fish market, or sandworms to bait
your hooks!
AKaiser/Shutterstock.com
Cooperative Aquaculture Research
(CCAR), in Franklin, a business
incubator affiliated with the University
of Maine.
“Staff at CCAR shared our interest
mixing different species beneficially,
especially if the waste from fish can be
used as a resource to feed or fertilize
other trophic levels [where an organism
fits in the food chain],” Pryor explains.
“Done right, this allows the harvest of
n High Tunnel from the Field, 2013,
oil on wood panel.
alumni Spotlight
Racing President
William Howard Taft joined the
Washington Nationals as the team’s fifth
Racing President this spring.
The Presidents Race, started in 2006,
is a promotional event held at every
Nationals home game at Nationals Park
(and previously at RFK Stadium) during the fourth inning. The race features
likenesses of five former U.S. presidents,
four of whom are found on Mount
Rushmore. The fifth, introduced this
spring, is William Howard Taft.
The presidents are dressed in period
costumes and topped with giant foam
caricature heads. Occasionally, they wear
Nationals jerseys with the number on
the jersey reflecting what number president they were (27 for Bill.)
The only person in the history of the
United States to serve as both president
and chief justice of the Supreme Court,
Taft also served as governor general of
the Philippines and secretary of war.
“He served the country at the highest
level for 30 years,” his great-grandson
John G. Taft ’72 told Fox News.
John attended a Nationals game in
April and was able to give “Bill” a Taft
School sweatshirt and water bottle, to
help with his training, along with a letter of encouragement from Headmaster
h John G. Taft ’72
with the “Big Chief”
Willy MacMullen ’78. Like his younger
brother and Taft founder Horace, Bill
was an avid golfer and big baseball fan.
“Bill is the ultimate competitor,”
says the Washington Nationals website.
“Using his mighty stature, The ‘Big
Chief ’ strikes fear in his racing opponents
and often finds himself leading simply
because the others worry about the repercussions of causing him to lose. The
first president to throw out a first pitch at
a baseball game—on Opening Day 1910
at Griffith Stadium in D.C.—Bill also
allegedly invented the seventh-inning
stretch when he stood up to stretch at a
game and fans followed suit.”
You can follow the “Big Chief” on his
twitter feed: @NatsBigChief27,
or watch a clip of the Racing Presidents
http://tiny.cc/BigChief27.
—Julie Reiff
New Trustees
Six new members will join the school’s Board of Trustees this fall. Kate Genung Taylor ’94 of Wellesley, Massachusetts,
was elected to a four-year term as Alumni Trustee. Jim and Sawnie McGee P’14,’16 of Riverside, Connecticut, come on
board as new chairs of the Parents’ Committee. Icy Frantz P’15 also of Riverside, Connecticut, David Gillikin ’93 of Dallas,
Texas, and Laura Whitman ’85 of New York will serve as new corporate trustees.
Icy Frantz P’15
David Gillikin ’93
Jim and Sawnie McGee P’14,’16
Kate Genung Taylor ’94
Laura Whitman ’85
In Print
Hannibal and Me: What History’s
Greatest Military Strategist Can
Teach Us About Success and Failure
Andreas Kluth ’88
The life of Hannibal, the general who crossed the
Alps in 218 B.C.E., is the stuff of legend. The epic
choices he made offer lessons about responding to our
victories and our defeats that are as relevant today as
they were 2,000 years ago. Hannibal and Me explores
the truths behind triumph and disaster in our lives by
examining the decisions made by Hannibal and others,
including Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Steve
Jobs, Ernest Shackleton and Paul Cézanne—men and
women who learned from their mistakes.
By showing why some people overcome failure
and others succumb to it, and why some fall victim
to success while others thrive on it, Hannibal and Me
demonstrates how to recognize the seeds of success
and the threats of failure. The result is an insightful
guide to understanding behavior.
Andreas Kluth has been writing for The Economist
since 1997. He is currently the magazine’s Berlin
Bureau chief, covering Germany. He has previously
been based in California, Hong Kong and London.
He is a graduate of Williams College and the London
School of Economics.
Marijuanamerica: One Man’s Quest
to Understand America’s Dysfunctional
Love Affair with Weed
Alfred Ryan Nerz ’92
A Yale-educated author, journalist and TV producer,
Ryan Nerz is also a marijuana enthusiast who made
it his mission to better understand America’s longstanding love-hate relationship with America’s
favorite (sometimes) illegal drug.
His cross-country investigation starts out sensibly
enough: taking classes at a cannabis college and
visiting the world’s largest medical marijuana dispensary. But his journey takes an unexpected turn, as
he finds himself embedded with one of the largest
growers on the West Coast.
“Marijuanamerica has it all,” says Davy Rothbart,
author of My Heart Is an Idiot, “danger,
suspense, nuts-and-bolts reportage,
If you would like a copy of your work
laugh-out-loud dialogue, gritty charadded to the Hulbert Taft Library’s
acters, sociological dissection and
Alumni Authors Collection and listed in
hella deep thoughts. Nerz has talent to
this column, please send a copy to:
burn; this is participatory journalism
at its finest.”
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road
The Laboratory and Other Plays
Shivani Tibrewala ’96
The Laboratory tells the story of a young woman in
India who aspires to be a doctor—a distant dream,
until her mother finds a solution and volunteers for
a clinical drug trial. It’s a play about sacrifice and
disillusionment—the price that love and progress
sometimes demand.
The play deals with the ethics of obtaining
informed consent in a country where doctors are
treated like gods. It has been read at the Indian
Council of Medical Research’s National Bioethics
Conference and performed at the National Gallery of
Modern Art in Mumbai.
Shivani Tibrewala is artistic director of No License
Yet Productions, an independent Mumbai-based
theater company she founded in 2002. She has written,
directed and produced more than 10 plays in India and
abroad. She also writes for cinema and television.
Published by Writers Workshop, an alternative
imprint in Kolkata, India, the book’s covers are handcrafted from recycled sarees, so each one is unique. Death of a Rebel:
The Charlie Fenton Story
By Scott Donaldson
Charles Andrews Fenton ’37, son of classics teacher
Dan Fenton, was a charismatic teacher, scholar and
writer who took his own life at the peak of his career.
He had written excellent books on Hemingway,
had three other books in print and was working on
a new version of his novel about World War II. He
had earned Guggenheim and ACLS grants. Students
flocked to his courses. He was widely regarded as the
most popular professor at Duke.
An individualist during the notoriously conformist
1950s, Fenton swam against the current, defying
authority and openly inviting controversy. This made
him an appealing figure to many of his students and
colleagues, but it was a dangerous stance that did not
sit well with his superiors. He struggled with bouts
of depression, possibly triggered by trauma derived
from his service as a tail gunner with the RAF bomber
command in 1942.
Scott Donaldson, a former student of Fenton’s at
Yale, recounts his professor’s last days, with the assistance of family members, devoted students and even
the woman Fenton fell in love with 50 years ago. They
share an abiding sense of what might have been, and
a deep regret for the uncounted students who would
never get to know or learn from him. Taft Bulletin SUMMER 2013 9
For the latest news
on campus events,
please visit
www.taftschool.org.
, Former Joint Chief and retired
Admiral Mike Mullen answers
questions with students in the
Woolworth Faculty Room after his
Morning Meeting talk. Julie Reiff
around the Pond
By Julie Reiff
What Worries a Former Joint Chief
Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Presidents
Bush and Obama, says there are five
things that keep him up at night.
“First and foremost, it’s our national
debt,” said Mullen. “We cannot be the
country that we need to be, or are expected to be or want to be, if we don’t get
control of our debt.”
Mullen, who was sworn in as the 17th
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
in 2007, is a native of Los Angeles and
graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy
in 1968. Prior to becoming chairman, he
served as the 28th chief of Naval operations. He retired in 2011.
The second issue that most concerns
him is the quality of K-12 teaching in
the U.S.
“If you ask me to pick a profession
where we are most vulnerable as a
country,” he said, “and where you can
make that biggest impact, that’s it.”
Part of the problem is the political paralysis in Washington, he added, which
ranks third on his list, followed by the
issue of cyberwarfare.
Finally, he worries about veterans’ affairs: “Veterans and their families, that’s
the first check we ought to write,” he said.
In a question and answer session with
teachers and students in the Faculty
Room, Mullen spoke about the importance of emphasizing diplomatic efforts
versus military ones in terms of U.S.
relations with the world right now. We
are over-militarized, he said, adding that,
in the end, it’s all about economies and
standards of living—that’s universal.
“To have someone of the prestige of
Admiral Mullen come and directly engage
our students is a phenomenal learning
opportunity,” said history teacher Greg
Hawes ’85. “And just as impressive was
the candor and directness with which he
answered student questions.”
“It’s so vital to get out of the Taft
bubble and listen to someone who has
been influencing international policy
at the highest level,” agreed senior
Elias Clough.
Admiral Mullen’s visit was made
possible through the Rear Admiral
Raymond F. DuBois Fellowship in
International Affairs, which offers Taft
students the opportunity to learn more
about international affairs through annual presentations by guest lecturers.
You can listen to Admiral Mullen’s talk (May 14)
and others from throughout the year at
www.taftschool.org/students/meetings.
Power of Poetry
Poet Patricia Smith rocked the house
with her powerful and emotional reading to just over 100 students, faculty
and visitors who packed the Choral
Room one evening in May. An artist
recognized as a force in the fields of poetry, playwriting, fiction, performance
and creative collaboration, Smith has
been called “a testament to the power of
words to change lives.”
“Her selections ranged from all over
her work,” said English Department
Head Steve Palmer, who first heard her
perform at the MacDowell Colony in
New Hampshire, “including a humorous, touching poem—to which she
asked for student responses and criticism as she continues to work on it.”
She silenced the crowd right from the
start, says Palmer, by reciting her dedication poem to the first class of students
she ever read to, a group of sixth graders in Florida, each of whom had lost a
relative or family member. She also read
a piece (from her National Book Award
Finalist collection, Blood Dazzler) about
one of the pets left behind, chained to
a tree in a backyard, just as Hurricane
Katrina hit New Orleans.
With four National Poetry Slam
individual championships, Smith is the
most successful slammer in the competition’s history. Her work is featured in
Best American Poetry and Best American
Essays. Her honors include the National
Poetry Series, two Pushcart Prizes and
a coveted MacDowell Fellowship. In
2012, she was featured on the cover of
the 100th anniversary issue of Poetry.
“Students lingered for over an hour
afterward to talk about poetry, writing
and some of the moving topics of her
poems,” Palmer added, “and would have
kept her there all night if she did not
have to catch a train.”
n National Book
Award finalist
Patricia Smith
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Bill Bowers
International mime sensation and Broadway performer Bill
Bowers performed his award-winning solo play Beyond Words on
campus in April. Beyond Words is about inclusion and diversity
shown through a collection of stories, some in spoken word,
some in mime, about the journey from boyhood to manhood.
His visit was sponsored by the Taft Gender Committee
as a follow-up to last year’s screening of Miss Representation,
which focused primarily on the under-represented position of
women in society. Bowers explored male gender roles.
“The goal,” says Andi Orben, director of Community
Health At Taft, “is for his performance to generate more
conversation on campus about gender identity, as well as
increase student awareness about the impact of gender
roles on our society.”
around the POND
Partnership for Greater Good
School receives Edward E. Ford Foundation Grant
The Taft School, in partnership with
the city of Waterbury, Waterbury
Public Schools and the Police Activities
League (PAL), is launching the Center
for Global Leadership and Service.
Premised on the philosophy “think
globally, act locally,” the center will allow students from Taft and Waterbury
Public Schools to collaboratively explore global issues while developing
leadership skills to address them.
Funding from the Edward E. Ford
Foundation, along with matching funds
Taft raises, will enable the school to plan
and develop three primary programs
of the Center for Global Leadership
and Service: Mentorship Programs, a
Global Leadership Institute (GLI), and a
Collaborative Service Learning Course.
In its first phase, the center will coordinate three mentorships programs,
building on existing outreach efforts at
Taft: the Summer Enrichment tutoring with PAL, an afterschool program
at a Waterbury elementary school that
focuses on literacy, and a new sports and
service program that will encourage athletes to run sports clinics in an off season
and create more opportunities for sports
teams to serve together. The center will
allow each of these programs to expand
in size from their current enrollment.
In September 2014, the center will
launch the Global Leadership Institute.
Students from Taft and Waterbury public high schools will apply to participate
in a two-year program. Following an orientation, the 20 selected students will
attend monthly talks by global leaders
and scholars and participate in teambuilding and leadership development
workshops in their first year. Students
will participate in a service (internship) experience in the summer leading
into their junior year, and by April of
their junior year they must complete a
culminating Global Leadership Project
(GLP). Students will be expected to
begin working on their GLP during the
summer prior to their junior year. The
project requires students to investigate
a local, national or global problem for
which they have a genuine concern and
propose possible solutions in the form
of a paper and a public presentation.
The most successful GLI participants
may be asked back as facilitators for
their senior year.
In year three, Taft’s existing Service
Learning course (“From Classroom
to Community,” Winter 2009) will
also grow. From a course that currently visits a Waterbury school once
a week, Service Learning will expand
into a joint course between Taft and
Waterbury public schools and expand
its focus into issues of science. Turning
this into a truly collaborative venture
will require new technology (for videoconferencing) and finessing two
disparate school schedules.
The center will also offer an online
resource on global issues for faculty, and
may offer a symposium on the topic in
the near future.
“I want the Center for Global
Leadership to connect the dots of programs that already exist,” says Dean of
Global and Diversity Education Jamella
Lee, “to build on existing threads and
bring them together in a meaningful
way. This is more than about service;
it’s about strengthening partnerships
for the greater good.”
Teaching the Good Life
What does it mean for something to be
good? That’s one of the questions
Dr. Howard Gardner asks. He spoke
with students at Morning Meeting on
April 12, and later with the full faculty in
Laube Auditorium and over lunch.
There are three Es of good work,
he explained: Excellence, or knowing
your stuff. Engagement, liking what
you do. And Ethics, thinking about its
implications.
“Community is important in this,”
said Gardner. “And we know that what
happens in the secondary school years
makes a big difference.”
“Even among the extraordinary
speakers we have had at Taft in recent
years—decorated military leaders,
award-winning volunteers and service
leaders, published authors, leading-edge
scientists—Gardner’s visit is historic,”
said Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78.
“Professor Gardner’s work in the areas of
education and multiple intelligences has
been revolutionary.”
Howard Gardner is the John H.
and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of
Cognition and Education at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education. He also
holds positions as adjunct professor of
psychology at Harvard University and
senior director of Harvard Project Zero.
Among numerous honors, Gardner
received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship
and has received honorary degrees from
29 colleges and universities around the
n The author of 28 books translated into
32 languages and several hundred articles,
Howard Gardner is best known in educational
circles for his theory of multiple intelligences.
For more on his recent work, visit the
www.thegoodproject.org. Peter Frew ’75
world. He was twice selected by Foreign
Policy and Prospect magazines as one of
the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world.
NYBG Lecture
n Dr. Robert Naczi www.NYBG.org
Dr. Robert Naczi, curator of North
American botany at the New York
Botanical Garden, spoke this spring to
post-A.P. Biology students and other
interested students and faculty about
his research on a group of imperiled
native intertidal species along the
Hudson River Estuary, threats to their
continued survival (including discussion of invasive plant species), and
prospects for restoration.
“When we have a healthy environment, we are healthy,” said Naczi.
“Every species is inherently worthwhile. Many times we do not even
begin to know how we can benefit
from the environment and other species on the planet until we study them.
Things we cannot even imagine right
now, we will be reaping the benefits
from them, as long as they are still
present in the future. And that’s one of
the things that motivates me for conservation of our natural resources.”
Naczi is a plant systematist and
a leading authority on the flora of
the eastern United States, the sedge
genus Carex (Cyperaceae) and the
Western Hemisphere pitcher plants
(Sarraceniaceae). He uses a multipronged approach in his research,
utilizing field, herbarium and laboratory methods. His fieldwork has given
him firsthand knowledge of the flora
of much of North America.
He is writing a comprehensive
account of the Northeast’s plants,
New Manual of Vascular Plants
of Northeastern United States and
Adjacent Canada. Also, he coauthored Mistaken Identity? Invasive
Plants and Their Native Look-Alikes: An
identification guide for the Mid-Atlantic
(2008). He has published widely on
Carex, the largest genus of flowering
plants in North America (500 species)
and in most temperate regions of the
world (2,000 species worldwide). His
work on pitcher plants aims to reveal
fundamental aspects of their biology,
which is still poorly known despite
their popularity in horticulture.
His visit was made possible by
the Yerkes Family Botanical Art and
Science Speakers Fund.
Watch excerpts from Dr. Naczi’s lecture:
www.nybg.org/science/scientist_profile.
php?id_scientist=105
around the POND
Magnetic Results
Taft did very well at this year’s Connecticut
Science Olympiad. The A Team placed
fifth overall and won a gold medal and four
silver medals. The B Team also won silver.
Hosted by the University of
Connecticut, the event draws about 500
students from 22 high schools across the
state. The 33 teams, each with up to 15
students, vied for medals in 23 events.
The contests ranged from building and
launching a glider to solving a crime using forensic evidence.
Team A took the gold (and Team B,
silver) medal in the magnetic levitation
h Medalists at the Connecticut Science Olympiad.
vehicle event, in which teams build a
motorized vehicle that moves down a
maglev track (the track has magnets
facing up, the vehicle has magnets
facing down) in order to move a given
distance as fast as possible.
Taft also sent three teams to Trinity
College to participate in the 20th annual FireFighting contest this spring.
The contest attracts entries from all over
the world. In the high school division,
the robots must move autonomously
through a maze, find a candle flame and
extinguish it.
“The Taft teams suffered some frustrating minor glitches,” said adviser Jim
Mooney, “that prevented them from
being as successful as they could have
been.” Team Rhino did well enough,
however, to make the finals, and
theirs was chosen as the outstanding
Connecticut robot in the high school
division by the Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
Wilder Onstage
In Thornton Wilder’s 1942 comedy
The Skin of Our Teeth, we meet the
Antrobus family and their maid,
Sabina, as they face the end of the
world not once, but three different
times. First an ice age, then a great
flood and finally a world war threaten
to destroy life as they know it.
“Sometimes working on a play—
the hours of rehearsal in a room with
no windows to the outside—feels
like an escape from reality,” said
guest director Susan Aziz. “This
production has been the opposite.
Mr. Wilder wrote this script during
a frightening time, and in learning
his words we created a kind of laboratory for coping with some tragic
events that have unfolded in our own
time. The greatest message here: that
in spite of our failings, after every
disaster, be it ice age, flood, devastating war, or some further catastrophe
that we inflict upon ourselves, the
human race can and will find a way
to start again.”
h Sebastian LaPointe
’14 and Vienna
Kaylan ’15 as Mr.
and Mrs. Antrobus,
watched by fortune
teller Natasha Batten
’15 in The Skin of Our
Teeth. Blake Joblin ’13
h Proposed house
design in Greek
Revival style.
Trillium Architects
Mathlete
Walking Forward Into the Past
At boarding school, a house is more than
just a home. It’s also a place to host team
dinners and advisee “feeds”—and for
most faculty, it’s just a hop, skip and a
jump from the classroom or athletic field.
Roughly a third of the Taft faculty live
in dormitory apartments, but after several
years of late night check-ins and the occasional fire drill, most faculty (often with
growing families) move into nearby campus housing. The school now owns about
35 homes in the neighborhood, most of
them adjacent to the playing fields.
Last summer the school renovated
the Rectory building (next to Woodward
Chapel) and this summer plans to build
a green home designed by architect
Elizabeth DiSalvo of Trillium Architects,
a leader in the field of residential green
building, thanks to a gift to support the
school’s commitment to faculty housing
and environmental stewardship.
“This project perfectly embodies two
key strategic priorities,” said Headmaster
Willy MacMullen ’78, “improved faculty
housing and a commitment to environmental stewardship. We are so lucky that
we received a generous grant from a Taft
family to make this possible.”
The school had originally hoped to
renovate the existing home on the site,
but discovered numerous problems and
began to consider the benefits of building
a new home that could be at once historically sensitive to the neighborhood and a
model of environmental sustainability.
“What Taft is doing with the plan for
this new home,” said DiSalvo, “is something I call ‘walking forward into the past.’
I got this term from a Native American in
New Mexico. Basically, it means using the
technological advances we have today to
revive the intentions of the past. In housing, that means getting back to nature and
building intelligently based on what nature tells us and gives us. Why not use the
wisdom of the past to form our houses
and then add the significant benefits of
modern technology to make a house
that can be close to net zero and last for
generations to come. This is what Taft is
doing with the house at 59 North Street.”
Before proceeding, Taft consulted
with the town historian, who discovered
no architectural or historical significance
to the existing house, and then, following
all permitting requirements, presented
the design to the Watertown Historic
District Commission, which approved
the new plan unanimously—although
Uppermiddler Adela Zhang is
among a very small group from a
pool of over 210,000 American
Mathematics Competition participants who are invited to take part in
the 2013 Mathematical Olympiad
Summer Program (MOSP).
This year, 53 students were
invited to MOSP, held on the
campus of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. The purpose
of the three-week program is to
broaden the participants’ view of
mathematics and foster their excitement toward further study and
prepare them for possible future
participation in the International
Mathematical Olympiad.
Adela came to Taft as a Fudan
Scholar from Shanghai, China,
where she did extra practice in
mathematical problem solving and
competed in a variety of contests.
the proposed removal of the home
stirred some controversy.
The school has worked hard to preserve the town’s historic character and
has demonstrated that commitment
through the preservation of the old
town library (now Walker Hall), Christ
Church (Woodward Chapel)—both
of which are still used to host events
that are open to the public—as well
as the Rectory and another home on
North Street that was renovated several
years ago. The Academy Building and
the Woodward Chapel Annex are both
scheduled for renovations this summer.
around the POND
All-School Read
This year’s all-school book is The Legacy:
An Elder’s Vision for Our Sustainable
Future by Dr. David Suzuki, awardwinning geneticist, university professor,
broadcast journalist, environmental activist, writer and educator.
The idea for the book came to Suzuki
(pictured at left), then 77, four years ago
when he began to wonder what he would
say if he had one last lecture to give.
Suzuki’s message is a simple one: We must
learn to live in balance with the natural
world that sustains us and learn to temper
our obsession with economic growth to
preserve the Earth for future generations.
As a third-generation JapaneseCanadian, Suzuki’s early years were
painful as he and his family were
uprooted and sent to live in an internment camp during World War II.
Looking back, he realized that his experiences with racism and loneliness helped
him discover his passion for science,
nature and the wonders of the universe.
He is the author of 52 books and host
of the award-winning Canadian television
program The Nature of Things with David
Suzuki. He will visit campus on October
10 to give the Paley Lecture. For more
information, visit www.davidsuzuki.org.
In addition to The Legacy, students
are asked to read a second book, selected
from a list of books that faculty have
sponsored and will lead discussions on
in the fall: www.taftschool.org/students/
readinglist.aspx.
Earth Week
The school invited children from
the Waterbury Police Activity
League (PAL) to a field day event
in honor of Earth Day. Taft students
led their guests in a variety of games
on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Environmental stewardship director Carly Borken also arranged
a Green Fair on Sunday, followed
by a weeklong program to increase
awareness about our impact on
the planet. Students received a
different color ribbon for each day
they met their goal in reducing
water, waste or energy use, consuming less or eating locally.
, Rio Dennis ’14 and a new “PAL” on
Earth Day. Peter Frew ’75
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem
Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem reuse and
recycle 150 years of American music. They hang a Georgia Sea Islands
song on a New Orleans groove. They
write lyrics for an Irish fiddle tune and
underpin it with an Afro-Cuban cajon.
Leonard Cohen gets clawhammer
banjo; Springsteen gets bluegrass harmonies. They celebrate America’s past
and take it into the present.
In addition to their one-hour
Walker Hall concert in April as part
of the Music for a While Series, they
performed a special 30-minute children’s show beforehand.
For information on upcoming events,
visit www.taftschool.org/concertseries.
This year, Taft seniors chose to matriculate
at the following schools in the highest
number. Georgetown and Trinity tied for
most popular with eight each. In total,
the Class of 2013 will attend 94 different
colleges and universities.
Amherst College..............................................2
Bard College....................................................2
Boston College.................................................3
Bowdoin College..............................................2
Brown University.............................................2
Bryant University.............................................2
Colby College...................................................3
Colgate University...........................................2
Colorado College.............................................2
Connecticut College.........................................2
Cornell University............................................5
George Washington University........................3
Gettysburg College..........................................3
Hamilton College.............................................4
Hobart and William Smith Colleges.................2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology...........2
McGill University.............................................2
Middlebury College.........................................3
New York University........................................3
Northeastern University..................................2
Stanford University..........................................2
Swarthmore College........................................2
Trinity College..................................................8
Tufts University................................................3
University of Colorado at Boulder...................3
University of Michigan.....................................2
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill......3
University of Southern California....................5
University of St. Andrews................................2
University of Virginia.......................................3
Vanderbilt University.......................................2
Wesleyan University........................................4
Williams College..............................................2
Yale University.................................................2
WDG Photo/Shutterstock.com
College Bound
Powered by Wind
Since 2010, Taft has been purchasing 100 percent of its electricity
as green power, and has now been
recognized by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) as a Green
Power Partner.
The Green Power Partnership is
a voluntary program that encourages
organizations to use green power as
a way to reduce the environmental
impacts associated with conventional
electricity use.
Taft procures all of its energy
from green sources through renewable energy certificates, specifically
for wind power. Taft also generates
some of its own electricity through
photovoltaic solar panels on top of
the athletic complex. Buying green
power helps an organization reduce
its environmental impact while also
providing valuable benefits.
According to the EPA, Taft’s green
power use of more than 4.5 million kilowatt-hours is equivalent to
avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions of nearly 700 passenger
vehicles per year, or the annual CO2
emissions from the electricity use of
nearly 500 average American homes.
View Taft’s EPA Green Power profile:
www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/
partners/thetaftschool.htm.
Senior Project Museum
h Jeff Kratky ’13
demonstrates
how to make
sushi at the Senior
Project Museum
night. Phil Dutton/
PhotoTrophies
Seniors had a burst of creativity this spring as they
explored projects of their own design. Some unusual
topics this year included a documentary on homeless
LGBTQ youth and a study of game theory through
poker, as well as sewing, cooking, pottery, woodworking, painting, drawing and singing—including a
benefit concert for Newtown families. Oliver Salk ’13
also directed another film (he did one last year as an
Independent Studies Project).
around the POND
Music for a Great Space
Collegium Musicum and Cantus Excelsus performed in April at the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine in New York. A reception in Cathedral House followed the concert, which
featured music for choir, organ and brass. The concert was also presented at Woodward
Chapel the Friday before. Peter Frew ’75
In the Gallery
The Mark W. Potter Gallery hosted a joint show this spring, both
rich in botanical themes. Heather
Sandifer’s botanical illustrations
combine her knowledge of art with
herbarium preservation methods
and the precision of nature printing. She studied botanical art and
illustration with the New York
Botanical Garden. Paintings and
drawings by Susie Tarnowicz ’03
(see more on page 7) reflect the
artist’s interest in the Vermont
landscape as well as her observational work in the studio.
For information on coming exhibits,
visit www.taftschool.org/pottergallery.
Faculty News
REtired
Hired
• Dick Cobb
Departed
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rick Lansdale
Alison Carlson
Carl Carlson
Dave Hinman ’87
Jennifer Zaccara
Chris Torino
Will Orben ’92
Andi Orben
Dena Torino
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sabbatical
• Andrew McNeill
Shannon Tarrant
Winnie Adrien
Chris Chung
John Dawson
Moriah Peterson
Kate Seethaler
Emma McBurney
Hannah O’Brien
• Theresa Albon, science fellow
• Alison Almasian ’87, associate director of
college counseling
• Baptiste Bataille, modern language fellow
• Shaavar Bernier, admissions
• Kerry Bracco, English fellow
• David Brundage, math fellow
• Eileen Fenn ’98, English
• Brianne Foley*, history, economics
• Giselle Furlonge, classics
• Sarah Koshi, director of student activities
• Matthew McAuliffe, history, classics
• Dylan Procida, math fellow
• Scott Serafine, video arts
• Gretchen Silverman, math, admissions
• Tamara Sinclair ’05, admissions
• Sarah Surber, dance
• Edie Traina*, associate dean of faculty,
history
• Mark Traina*, admissions, history
Promoted
• Tom Antonucci, associate dean of students
• Jeremy Clifford, math department head
• Casey D’Annolfo, co-director of
residential Life
• Colin Farrar, uppermid class dean
• Caitlin Hincker, lowermid class dean
• Rob Madden ’03, co-director of athletics
• Susan McCabe, senior class dean
• Rachael Ryan, co-director of athletics
• Linda Saarnijoki, dean of faculty
• Sarah Sanborn, dean of students
*returning faculty
For more on the
spring season,
please visit
www.taftsports.com.
spring SPORT wrap-up
By steve Palmer
four boats qualified for the NEIRA
Championships with varied rankings:
18th for the first boat, 14th for the 2nd
boat, 6th for the 3rd boat and 7th for the
4th boat. In cold, windy and rainy weather, none of the boats qualified for the
grand finals, but they demonstrated great
tenacity and consistent improvement.
Boys’ Crew 33–8
h Matt Schimenti ’14
co-captained one of the
strongest golf teams
the school has seen in
decades. Robert Falcetti
Girls’ Crew 20–24
With only five seniors to lead this young
but very hardworking team, the girls
were challenged with the hardest schedule the team has seen in years. Under the
leadership of co-captains Erin Wilson
’13 and coxswain Rebecca Bendheim
’13, the team started off the season
strong, finishing 2nd out of 4 teams in
the first two races of the season. Midseason, the girls began to race a number
of strong Massachusetts teams, including Groton, Deerfield, St. Marks and
Winsor—all teams ranked in the top five
in New England. Big wins included the
5th boat winning over Groton and the
4th boat over Deerfield. In the week prior to the New England Championships,
the girls took on Gunnery, Berkshire,
Canterbury and Rumsey at the Alumnae
Cup, finishing 2nd in a tie-breaker. All
In their dual-meet races, Taft’s four varsity boats compiled an overall record of 33
wins versus 8 losses, including the first
varsity boat’s win against Choate—the
first ever. What followed was a series of
great races for that crew of Alli Elkman
’13 (cox), Liam Carty ’14, co-captain
Hayden Pascal ’13, Jack Torney ’15
and Robert Brown ’14, including a 5th
place at the Founders Day Regatta and
a first at the duPont Cup for the second
year in a row. Four days later, Taft boats
swept all five races against Gunnery,
Canterbury and Berkshire to win the
Smith Cup for the first time, ensuring
that all four varsity boats qualified for
New Englands. The first boat was seeded
4th out of 25 teams (their highest seed
ever), and the other three were seeded in
the top seven. Poised to medal in several
of the races at New Englands, medical issues forced last-minute lineup changes in
every boat. However, in the Petite Finals,
with Aleksa Lambert ’14 at coxswain,
the boat comprised of Carty, Mark
Schiller ’13, Torney and Jared Carson ’13
came from behind in the last third of the
race to win.
Girls’ Golf 13–1–1
New England & Founders
League Runner-Up
The girls’ golf team exceeded the 100win mark in just seven seasons as a varsity
team. This milestone was reached thanks
to the leadership of captains Jackie Eleey
’14 and Legare Augenstein ’14. As Taft’s
top player, Eleey received the Girls’ Golf
Award and All Founders League honors,
while Augenstein, in position #2, won
the John Villano ’44 “Spirit of Taft” Golf
Award and All Founders League honors.
The team won matches against strong
opponents, including Hotchkiss, Choate,
Loomis, Ethel Walker and Miss Porter’s,
before falling to Greenwich Academy at
Round Hill Golf Club. Pen Naviroj ’15,
position #3, and Alice Kim ’16, position
#4, won many matches from the middle
of the lineup, and seniors Morgan Manz
’13, position #5, and Nicole Lu ’13,
position #6, also won matches, showing
the team’s depth. Maddie Hawkins ’16
was an exhibition player. Jackie Eleey
came in 3rd at the Pippy O’Connor
Independent School Girls’ Golf Classic
with a score of 78.
Boys’ Golf 15–2
One of the deepest and most talented
golf teams ever at Taft, the 2013 squad
posted a match scoring average for the
season of 387.1 strokes, the lowest team
stroke average in Coach Kenerson’s
26 years. That type of tight team play
set up incredibly close wins over the
spring SPORT
two strongest teams in New England,
Brunswick (11–10) and Deerfield (389–
397). Co-captain Henry Wesson ’13
played consistent golf all season and was
awarded the John Galeski Golf Award for
his many contributions to Taft golf over
his four-year career. At the season-ending Kingswood Invitational Tournament,
Jack Porcelli ’14 posted Taft’s strongest
individual round, a 74, despite being sick
and barely making it to the first tee. The
Rhinos would finish 4th out of 24 teams,
just two strokes out of 2nd place.
Boys’ Lacrosse 13–5
n Two-time All Western New England selection and 2013 captain Chas South led the
boys’ varsity squad to its best finish in over a
decade. Robert Falcetti
The Rhinos finished tied for first with a
6–1 record in the Founders League and
a 13–5 record, good for 3rd overall in
Western New England. Taft’s big wins
came over Exeter (10–7), Avon (6–5),
Hotchkiss (6–4) and #24 nationally
ranked Trinity-Pawling (7–6) to close
out the year. UVA-bound captain Jeff
Kratky ’13 was outstanding as the leading scorer, with 46 points on 34 goals
and 12 assists, winning 65% of his faceoffs and collecting 135 ground balls.
Cornell-bound captain James Tautkus
’13 finished his career in Taft’s All-time
Top 10 for scoring with 114 points.
Captain defenseman Chas South ’13 was
2013 SPRING AWARD WINNERS
The Softball Award----------------------------------------Kathleen C. McLaughlin ’13
Cassandra L. Ruscz ’13
The Crew Award ----------------------------------------------- Benjamin M. Tweedy ’13
Rebecca S. Bendheim ’13
The Wandelt Lacrosse Award--------------------------------------Mary C. DuBois ’13
The Odden Lacrosse Award ---------------------------------------Jeffrey L. Kratky ’13
The George D. Gould Tennis Award ---------------------------- Jagger W. Riefler ’13
The Alrick H. Man, Jr. Award----------------------------------- Courtney A. Jones ’13
The Galeski Golf Award -------------------------------------------Henry F. Wesson ’13
The Seymour Willis Beardsley Track Award --------------------Sara E. Iannone ’13
Albert B. Nejmeh ’13
Elizabeth L. Shea ’13
The Stone Baseball Award------------------------------------------ Robert T. Kiska ’13
The Girls’ Golf Award---------------------------------------------- Jacquelyn I. Eleey ’14
runner-up for WNE defenseman of the
year and earned a spot on the All-WNE
team for the second straight year. Captain
Oliver Sippel ’13 was the top defensive
middie in WNE and added 86 ground
balls, a goal and 7 assists on the season.
Girls’ Lacrosse 7–8
The girls’ varsity lacrosse team was led
by two seniors and one captain this year;
though gritty and talented, the teams’
youth proved a challenge throughout
the season but an opportunity in the
year ahead. Captain Mary DuBois
served the team as a low attacker in every game of the season with a calm and
confident leadership style. Her decision
making, mental toughness and speed
to win ground balls behind the net
contributed to Taft’s success in games
against Northfield Mount Hermon
and Westminster. Midfielders Caroline
Queally ’14 and Collins Grant ’14 were
Founders League All Stars, and Queally
and Rachael Alberti ’15 were NEPSWL
All Stars for their efforts on both ends of
the field. For 2014, Taft returns 16 players, including defensive stalwarts Gwen
McGee ’14 and Lauren Drakeley ’15 and
goalie Becky Dutton ’16.
Softball 10–5
Despite a tough schedule, the Rhinos
had a strong season playing in many
close games. Highlights included big
wins over Northfield Mount Hermon
(7–5) and Kingswood-Oxford (4–1).
Senior captains Katie McLaughlin
and Cassie Ruscz anchored a strong
infield, while Madie Leidt ’16 had an
impressive first season in centerfield.
Although the season ended with a
heartbreaking loss to Choate in extra
innings, the team played its strongest
game against Choate and demonstrated
tremendous growth and skill. The team
looks forward to having another strong
season next year.
Baseball 11–8
Boys’ Tennis 14–4
The Rhinos went 6–1 during a strong,
mid-season run and recorded big nonleague wins against Deerfield (6–5),
Berkshire (6–4) and Hopkins (8–3).
In the Tri-State league, Taft swept the
two-game series versus Kent, TrinityPawling and Westminster. Senior
pitcher Ryan Coon ’13 was masterful in
the closing-weekend win over archrival
Hotchkiss (6–2) and finished with a
1.99 ERA and three wins. Captain Rob
Kiska ’13, outfielder Nick LaSpada ’13
(.434 avg.) and Kyle Considine ’13 had
tremendous offensive seasons, while
Robby Harbison ’13 led the team with
16 RBIs. Patch Robinson ’14 earned six
wins on the mound as Taft’s most effective pitcher, filling in for the significant
loss to injury of starter and captainelect Hadley Stone ’14.
Following a lean and green year, we had
a very successful season. Joining senior
captain and #1 Jagger Riefler (winner of
the Alban Barker League Sportsmanship
Award) and five other returners, the arrival of Raymond Kanyó from Budapest
and Courtland Boyle from Bermuda
bolstered the top of the lineup and gave
the doubles nearly unstoppable strength.
In 15 of 18 matches, Taft clinched the
critical doubles point, thanks to big serving and aggressive volleying. Gathering
momentum with early wins over
Andover, Deerfield and Choate, the team
was suddenly hobbled by health issues
mid-season, and lost a heartbreaker to
Hotchkiss 3–4 with Jamaican senior Eric
Delapenha in the hospital. Our record
earned Taft the first seed in the New
England Championships, hosted on Taft’s
beautiful courts, but the team fell short
in the semis, again losing to the archrival
Bearcats. The team will be hard-pressed
to equal this season next year, but six veterans return, and the team should do well.
Girls’ Tennis 7–7
With the addition of seven newcomers,
this year’s squad was a work in progress
as they opened the season 0–3. Behind
the leadership of co-captains Courtney
Jones ’13, Taft’s top singles player, and
Jacky Susskind ’13, the Rhinos quickly
turned things around with four straight
wins over Loomis (9–0), Westover (7–
0), Miss Porter’s (9–0) and Westminster
(6–3). Other important wins came
against Choate (6–3), Kent (6–3) and
a down-to-the wire upset of Greenwich
Academy (5–4) when Susskind won
the final match at #4 singles. Taft’s 0–3
start turned into a 7th seed in the New
England tournament, where they lost in
the first round to #2 seed Andover. This
was a spirited group of girls whose toughness and grit will not soon be forgotten.
The competitive singles and doubles
play of Shelby Meckstroth ’13, Jones and
Susskind will be missed next year.
Girls’ Track 5–3
A strong senior class covered many of
the events for this year’s girls’ team. Tess
Kneisel ’13 established a new school
record in the pole vault with a height
of 8 ft. 9 in. during a mid-season meet
at Berkshire. At the Founders League
meet, captain and school record-holder
Candice Dyce ’13 was the champion in
both the long and triple jump, placed 3rd
in the 200m, and anchored the 4x100m
relay team of Leah McIntosh ’13, Krystal
Egbuchulam ’14 and captain-elect Shana
Joseph ’14 to a 3rd-place finish. McIntosh
also placed 4th in the 100m hurdles and
the triple jump. Captain Maggie O’Neil
’13, who led the throwers all season long,
placed 2nd in the javelin with a seasonbest throw, 3rd in the discus and 4th in
the shot put. Sara Iannone ’13, Taft’s
leading distance runner for the past three
years, placed 4th in the 800m and 5th in
h Senior Tess
Kneisel placed 2nd
in pole vault at
New Englands.
Robert Falcetti
the 1500m. At the New England meet,
Dyce was the triple jump champion and
surpassed 17 ft. in the long jump for the
first time in her career, while Kneisel
placed 2nd in the pole vault.
Boys’ Track 7–3
This balanced team started the season
with wins over Avon, Deerfield, TrinityPawling and Brunswick, then battled
hard but came up short against league
champion Loomis and powerful teams
from Choate and Hotchkiss. David
Berment ’13 was the Founders League
champion in both the 200m and the long
jump, and, in a tightly contested 200m
final, he placed 2nd at the New England
meet in a season-best time of 22.10.
Tri-captain Shane Hardie ’13 defended
his New England title in the high jump,
winning again this year with a jump of
6 ft., and he placed in the top six in the
110m hurdles. Co-captain elect Troy
Moo Penn ’14 placed 2nd at the league
meet and 5th at the New England meet
in the pole vault. Both relay teams—the
4x100m with Adam Parker ’13, Bulolo
Jonga ’13, Berment and Chizi Wigwe
’14, and the 4x400m team of tri-captain
John MacMullen ’14, Charlie Vallee ’13,
Tommy Grant ’13 and fellow tri-captain
Al Nejmeh ’13—ran well all season and
placed in the top four in the league.
Annual Fund
2013 Class Agent Awards
Snyder Award
Largest amount contributed
by a reunion class
Class of 1963: $188,034
(includes Annual Fund
and capital)
Class Agent &
Gift Committee Chair:
Rick Muhlhauser
Chairman of the
Board Award
Highest percent participation
from a class 50 years out or less
Class of 1963: 57%
Class Agent &
Gift Committee Chair:
Rick Muhlhauser
McCabe Award
Largest Annual Fund
amount contributed by a
non-reunion class
Class of 1962: $98,538
Class Agent: Fred Nagle
Class of 1920 Award
Greatest increase in dollars
from a non-reunion class
Class of 1949:
increase of $35,189
Class Agents:
Jim Baker and Buz Lydon
Romano Award
Greatest increase in participation from a non-reunion class
less than 50 years out
Class of 2005: 41% from 30%
Class Agent: Cyrus McGoldrick
Young Alumni
Dollars Award
Largest amount contributed
from a class 10 years out or less
Class of 2006: $7,873
Class Agent: Su Yeone Jeon
Young Alumni
Participation Award
Highest participation from
a class 10 years out or less
Class of 2012: 47%
Class Agents: Eliza Davis
and Will Dawson
Spencer Award
Largest number of gifts from
classmates who have not
given in the last five years
(Two winners)
Class of 1988: 10 new donors
Class Agent:
Darcy Bentley Frisch
Class of 1993: 10 new donors
Class Agent: Eric Hidy
Awards determined by gifts and pledges raised as of June 30, 2013.
We would like to
express our appreciation
to all Taft families who contributed to the 2012–13 Taft
Parents’ Fund. Contributions totaled $1,636,936 and
participation reached 93 percent for the year. We also wish to
express a special thanks to the Taft Parents’ Committee, which
worked so hard to connect with parents about the importance
of participation. The Parents’ Committee again reached 100
percent participation this year. This team will undoubtedly
continue this success next year under the guidance of incoming
chairs, Jim and Sawnie McGee.
Sincerely,
Don & Maris Pascal
Parents of Laurel ’12 and Hayden ’13
2012–13 Parents’ Committee
Maris and Don Pascal
Jan and Eric Albert ’77
Michelle Andrews
Sonia and John Batten
Rachel and William Brannan
Anne and Toby Brown
Constance and Michael Carroll
Lynn and Ed Cassady
Sheilah and Tom Chatjaval
Louisa and Edward Cheng
Stasha and Mark Cohen
Margaret and Anthony Colangelo
Lilo and Tom Cunningham
John Davidge III and Deborah Lott
Laura Delaney-Taft and John Taft ’72
Jacqueline and Christian Erdman
Linn ’82 and Robert Feidelson ’82
Melissa and Trevor Fetter
Libby and Terry Fitzgerald
Icy and Scott Frantz
Deborah S. Galant and Eric Tongue
Danielle and David Ganek
Colleen and Peter Grant
Jean Marie and Douglas Jamieson
Laurie and Britton Jones
Tim Jones and Annie Cardelus
Val and John Kratky
Kathryn and John Kuhns
Youngbum Kwon and Misook Yoon
Catherine and Peter Lau
Juliette and James Lee
Frederic Leopold and Celeste Ford
Alice and Albert Ma
Christiana and Ferdy Masucci
Sawnie and Jim McGee
Rose and Paul McGowan
Wendy and John Motulsky ’74
Regina and Dennis Olmstead
Nan and Tim O’Neill
Ellen and Bill Oppenheim
Madeleine and Frank Porcelli
Lee and Michael Profenius
Bridget and Doyle Queally
Elizabeth and Frank Queally
Staley and Carter Sednaoui
Steve Shafran
Karen and Rick Shea
Anne and Joe Sheehan
Gigi and John Sheldon
Chris and Jim Smith
David Soward and Roxanne Fleming
Claudia and Allen M. Sperry
Mimi and Marc Tabah
Christine and Kenneth Taylor-Butler
Denise and John Trevenen
Cissy and Curt Viebranz
Beverly and Mark Wawer
Rod Westmoreland
Diane Blanchard Whiting
Susan and John Wilson
Elizabeth and John Woods
Annual Fund Raises Record $4.2 Million!
“Our hardworking volunteers and staff members
deserve our sincere thanks for their effort in this
hard won achievement,” said Annual Fund Chair
Dylan Simonds ’89, “but the highest praise goes to
our community of donors. No matter how I try, I
cannot adequately express my profound appreciation for your loyalty and generosity. Thank you!”
The support Taft has seen from its alumni,
parents, grandparents and friends has always been
remarkable. “But this year,” Headmaster Willy
MacMullen ’78 added, “the generosity has been inspiring, and I am thrilled. The work of this school is
vitally important, and the widespread support from
our Taft family is a powerful affirmation of all we do.”
Reasons to be proud:
j
Annual Fund raises a record $4,207,972.
j Alumni contribute at the highest level ever,
raising $1,792,352.
j Alumni participation reaches 41 percent—
the highest level in 13 years.
j Young alumni—Classes of 2000 to 2012—
handily win the February Faceoff, a participation
challenge between Taft and six peer schools.
j Parents’ Fund raises a record $1,636,936 and
solidifies its status as one of the strongest funds
among the nation’s top secondary schools.
j For 21 consecutive years, more than 90 percent
of parents contribute to the fund—this year
reaching 93 percent.
It’s very simple: tuition does NOT cover the full cost
of educating a student today.
At Taft, as at nearly every school everywhere,
tuition alone does not completely cover the cost of a
student’s education. These fundraising achievements
reflect a broad and deep commitment to filling that
revenue gap and empowering the school to provide
the finest possible educational experience for its
students. “Every dollar to the Annual Fund makes
possible the great work that happens on our campus
every day,” said MacMullen. “Without the Fund, we
could not be the school we are.”
“Records aside, we have a long way to go in securing Taft’s financial sustainability,” said Simonds.
“While annual fundraising ensures that day-to-day
programs meet the high standards we hold for our
school, Taft is always striving to be better. To do that,
the school needs an equally strong endowment.”
Simonds added, “Taft boasts a rich philanthropic
tradition, and we have much to be proud of in our
school. Through the continued generosity of our
community of donors, we will be an even stronger
institution and have many more reasons to celebrate.”
Dylan Simonds ’89
Annual Fund Chair
Globe-Trotting for
Top Talent
Admissions officers seek and recruit
the world’s best students
by Jennifer A. Clement
W
His
mission:
to find the
most talented
students on
the planet
and recruit
them for Taft.
ithin days of welcoming students back to campus on September 8, Peter Frew ’75,
director of admissions, will be packing his bag and heading to the airport. His mission: to find
the most talented students on the planet and recruit them for Taft.
One of nine full-time admissions officers who travel aggressively from September through
January, Frew targets various cities throughout the U.S. and the world. One day he might be
standing in a living room filled with 20 eighth grade students and their parents in Charleston,
South Carolina. More often than not, he will be invited to gatherings like this by an alumnus,
parent or past parent of a Taft student, someone with “local knowledge” who can help him identify the best and brightest students, from L.A. to Seattle, Caracas to Shanghai.
Frew’s search also takes him to cities throughout the U.S. where, armed with his own experience as a Taft graduate, faculty member and coach, as well as with the school’s new iPad app,
he will accompany colleagues from the Ten Schools Admission Organization (TSAO), which
includes Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Loomis and Hotchkiss.
“We travel with a consortium of great schools, so part of our job is to help families identify
what is unique about Taft,” Frew said.
He noted the entire admissions process is conducted deliberately. In some ways, putting
together each class is like concocting an elaborate soup. Every student selected for enrollment
has an opportunity to add to the richness of life at Taft, through the diversity of his or her
background, interests and talents.
In past years, new students have included a world champion squash player from Egypt and
the ranking scholar from in Hanoi, Vietnam. This fall, Taft welcomed Jennifer Jeon, an accomplished violinist who has played Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and garnered one
million hits on YouTube, all before her 12th birthday.
“One of the most profound and powerful aspects of a Taft education is the people you are
surrounded by. There are kids at Taft from 38 states and 30 countries. That diversity plays a very
important role in the education of a Taft student,” Frew said.
“This is a unique school,” said Frew, “and not only because of our enviable physical plant and
gorgeous campus. It’s an amazing place because of the students and the faculty—the people. The
Portraits by Highpoint Pictures
illustrations by bannosuke/Shutterstock.com
Diving into the Pool
The Admissions Process, Month-by-Month
kids who walk down the hall every day, greeting me on the way
to class, practice or study hall, are bright, passionate, and they
love being at Taft. They love being surrounded by other kids
who also want to learn, study, write, perform and who want to go
to school with classmates who are not exactly like themselves.”
Competition among students seeking to enroll at Taft
is fierce—and growing stronger all the time. Each year, the
Admissions Office receives about 1,600 applications for just
170 spots. Ultimately, that means the school has to turn down
the overwhelming majority of applicants, and there are more
academically qualified students in the pool every year than Taft
can accommodate.
In addition to good grades on a transcript that reflects
a challenging curriculum, the admissions officers look at
standardized test scores, teacher recommendations, student
essays and interviews. All are viewed as valuable and important to the process. Admitted candidates typically have As and
Bs, a median SSAT of 83, 83rd percentile and an extracurricular talent or two. Leadership qualities and desire to serve others
are particularly attractive.
“This place is hard. It’s demanding, it’s challenging, it’s tiring. Kids go from the minute they wake up in the morning until
they finish their homework at 10:30 p.m. or midnight. It takes a
lot of energy, resilience and grit to get through here,” he said.
“Some of our favorite students at Taft did not score very
well on the SSAT but they had extraordinary personal qualities, magnetic qualities, determination and leadership skills
that made them successful here,” Frew said, recalling that
there have been times the admissions committee deliberated
long and hard before admitting students who, after struggling
Late Spring/Early Summer
The process of recruiting new students begins as admissions officers begins formulating their travel plans. Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Alexandria, Atlanta, Palm
Beach, Dallas, Phoenix, Denver and Chicago are on their
itinerary. So are stops in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, India,
China, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
September Through January
Admissions officers travel to meet and interview prospective students. Nearly 1,800 families visit campus for tours
and interviews.
January 15
Applications are due. The following week, Frew forecasts
“a blizzard of paper,” as administrative assistants Joanna
Wandelt, Eileen Blais and Caroline Murphy magically
assemble the paperwork submitted by 1,600 applicants.
Mid-January
The applicant pool is broken into categories: ninth grade
boarding girls, ninth grade boarding boys, PGs and day
students, etc. A committee of faculty readers from all departments completes an initial reading of all applications.
Applications are then prepared for the admissions committee by the “pool sharks.” The job of the pool sharks is
to read every single piece of paper in every folder for that
group—interview notes, correspondence, essays, test
scores, transcripts—and decide which students should be
admitted, wait-listed or rejected.
“Every student selected for enrollment has an opportunity to
add to the richness of life at Taft, through the
diversity of his or her background, interests and talents.”
February Through Early March
For five weeks, the admissions committee meets to reread
every decision by the pool sharks. “Around the table, we
argue, we debate, sometimes passionately,” Frew said. In
the end, students who were initially rejected may make
the waiting list and those who were wait-listed may get
bumped up or down until the committee reaches its target
number of accepted applicants.
The final pool of accepted students is sent to Financial
Aid Director Michael Hoffman and Assistant Director
Will Richardson for financial review.
March 7
Each decision letter is signed, the decision is
double-checked.
March 10
Decision letters are sent to the 1,600 applicants
electronically and by mail.
Late March/Early April
School hosts three revisit days for accepted students
and their families.
April 10
Deadline for accepted students to matriculate.
initially, “impacted the school so positively and led their peers
so well and were ultimately very successful academically.”
Those who have some type of talent to add to their academic ability definitely have an edge. Frew calls it “that extra
punch—if you can act and sing and dance as well as do physics
or write well, that makes you an attractive candidate.”
Part of the admissions process means meeting the expectations, and demands, of various program directors, thus the
title of casting director. “That’s one of the challenges of being
admissions director,” Frew said. “We have a jazz band: I need
saxophone players. We have a chamber orchestra: I need
cellists and bassoonists. We also have a football team, robotics
team and crew.”
With only 170 openings and a huge variety of extracurricular offerings at Taft, every student contributes. More
than 10 percent of the student body is involved in drama.
The Collegium Musicum performs around the world. Each
term, roughly 100 students contribute volunteer work in the
community. All of those diverse interests are weighed in the
decision-making process.
Legacy matters, too, says Frew. “We have always been loyal
to sons and daughters, grandchildren of Taft graduates, and 28
percent of our students have relatives (siblings, uncles or aunts,
Each year, the Admissions Office receives about
1,600 applications for just 170 spots.
etc.) who’ve also attended the school. There was a time when
any legacy candidate who could be successful academically was
admitted. As Taft has gotten stronger and stronger and more
and more popular, the competitive nature of the applicant pool
has inevitably meant that we can no longer admit every legacy
who is capable academically.”
For example, each year Taft has about 35 beds available for
ninth grade girls, but receives 400 applications for those spots.
“So the competition for those 35 beds is really stiff, especially
when you consider that some of those beds are committed
to international students and some to talented students from
programs like PREP 9 in New York, A Better Chance and the
Wight Foundation,” Frew said, listing organizations that are
dedicated to opening the door to a prestigious boarding school
education for students who might not otherwise have that opportunity. “What begins as 35 quickly diminishes.”
Of the 170 students enrolled this fall, 22 are legacy students and 35 are siblings of Taft students, which in itself does
not guarantee admission. “I sometimes am in the position of
delivering painful news to Taft graduates who have dreamed
of having their son or daughter follow in their footsteps. But
when I do that, it’s because I have to look out for that student’s
well-being,” Frew said. “We want students to be challenged,
but if we look at the application and the assessment tools we
use and Taft projects to be overwhelming, then my job is to
steer the child to a better fit. The right school for one student is
not necessarily the right school for another.”
Financial considerations also play a role, and the request
for financial aid is on the rise. “The importance of our endowment [and annual fund] is that it generates a financial aid
budget of $7 million annually, which enables us to bring almost 37 percent of our student body to Taft on some form of
financial aid,” Frew said.
j j j
Those lucky enough to be counted among the overall student
body of 585, including 480 boarding and 105 day students,
have the opportunity to experience the facilities and curriculum of a big school and the spirit of a close-knit community.
“I frequently equate Taft to a beehive. You cluster 585
students plus 120 faculty in a very small space here, all compressed, you’re constantly bumping into people. The buzz is
palpable. If you like solitude and hours of solo contemplation,
this is not a good school for you. You encounter people every
minute of your life here. You’re constantly being engaged by
faculty in a dialogue. If you ask students what Taft is like, everyone will talk about the sense of family,” Frew said. j
Reformulating
the Admissions Team
U
ntil recently, Taft’s admissions committee
consisted largely of part-time admissions officers
who also managed to teach, coach and live in the
dorm. It was an attractive model in that it enabled
admissions officers to speak from personal experience about every aspect of student life at Taft.
For instance, Jack Kenerson ’82 can talk
about what it is like in a history classroom. Dana
Bertuglia, who teaches chemistry and forensic science, can explain what happens in science labs. Rob
Madden ’03, co-director of athletics and head coach
for girls’ varsity soccer, can explain the role of a
dorm parent, and Tyler Whitley ’04, a former threesport varsity captain who now coaches football and
JV boys’ basketball, can talk about being a studentathlete and coach.
“There are also a number of us who are Taft graduates, which gives us the advantage of being able
to speak from a student’s perspective,” Frew said.
“On the other hand, it’s very hard to schedule close
to 2,000 interviews with a team comprised of triple
threats, because we were all pulled in so many different directions.”
That is why, beginning this September, Taft
will begin the admissions season with a team that
includes nine full-time and five part-time admissions
officers. “What that facilitates is the ability to travel,”
Frew said, estimating that the team interviews 1,800
students while on campus or traveling—and as many
as 35 in one day.
Admissions Team
2013–14
Peter A. Frew ’75
Director of Admissions
Suzanne Campbell
Associate Director of
Admissions
Kisha Watts
Associate Director of
Admissions, Director of
Multicultural Recruitment
Michael Hoffman ’97
Director of Financial Aid
Will Richardson
Assistant Director
of Financial Aid
Shavar Bernier
Jack Kenerson ’82
Rob Madden ’03
Danny Murphy
Ginger O’Shea
Gretchen Silverman
Tamara Sinclair ’05
Mark Traina
Tyler Whitley ’04
Support Staff
Eileen Blais
Gail Blomberg
Peggy Byrnes
Caroline Murphy
Joanna Wandelt
Optional Reading
A List for Lifelong Learners
Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock.com
W
hen you were in school, I hope reading seemed like fun—as long as
you weren’t being told what you had to read, right? The books we were required
to read somehow never seemed quite as enthralling as the books we found on our
own or that were recommended by friends.
I remember when I fell into the world of The Lord of the Rings and when I
explored the Harvard Classics on my parents’ bookshelf and discovered Henry
Fielding and Jane Austen. It was my summer reading that instilled in me a love for
literature that gradually edged me away from history and into the English classroom.
Now out of school, finally away from teachers’ prescriptions of what we should
be reading, we can choose any book we want to read—classic or junk or romantic
adventure tale—the world of books is wide open. But there’s so much to choose
from and so little time! How do we know that a book will be good, will be worth
our time, will fill us with pleasure, will entertain and enlighten and thrill us?
We called on a few seasoned Taft teachers, across the disciplines, to share the
titles of books they love, or those they believe everyone should read—some on the
syllabus, some not. We’re readers here at Taft. Surely you remember that.
We love to read because we love to learn and probably always will—for life. Every
book on the list will stimulate your thinking and enlarge your understanding of the
great world around us. As Milton wrote: “A good book is the precious life-blood of a
master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
So browse their recommendations, or the complete list below. Find a book that
interests you or a familiar name whose opinion you have always valued, and dig in.
The best part? None of it is required!
—Linda Saarnijoki
Dean of Faculty
Jon Bernon
Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
An exploration of the factors that
contribute to the extraordinary performance of highly successful people in a
variety of occupations.
Tom Cesarz
Man’s Search for Meaning
by Victor E. Frankl
Frankl survived four Nazi death camps.
If you think your life is hard, this book
will change your perspective.
Jeremy Clifford
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
A fascinating discussion of the way people
make decisions by a Nobel Prize winner.
The Foundation Trilogy
by Isaac Asimov
A classic science fiction series that explores the power and limitations of social
science and the future of humanity.
100 Books We Recommend
1776
by David McCullough
Jack Kenerson ’82
A Sand County
Almanac
by Aldo Leopold
Laura Monti ’89
A Death in the Family
by James Agee
Bruce Fifer
A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf
Rachael Ryan
A Tree Grows
in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
Susan McCabe
A World Lit Only By
Fire: The Medieval
Mind and the
Renaissance
by William Manchester
Jack Kenerson ’82
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Karen May
Jen Kenerson
& Steve Palmer
Almost any book
of poetry
The Bible
Karla Palmer
Bruce Fifer
Adventures of
Hucklebery Finn
by Mark Twain
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
Willy MacMullen ’78
Karen May
Rusty Davis
How We Know What Isn’t So
by Thomas Gilovich
A psychologist at Cornell University,
Gilovich will change the way you think
about your reasoning ability in this
short but provocative book. We all make
conclusions based on biased, filtered,
incomplete and confusing information,
and these conclusions are sometimes
firmly believed even though they are
dead wrong.
Blaire Farrar
Personal Politics by Sara Evans
Iwona Grodzka/Shutterstock.com
The American feminist movement of
the 1960s and ’70s was propelled by the
concurrent fight for civil rights, but I
was shocked and dismayed to learn that
women were often marginalized by their
male counterparts within the civil rights
movement. Evans brings her extensive
research alive with a personal narrative
and interviews of the period’s most pivotal figures.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
The main character’s strong sense of justice, as well as her search for self amidst
tragic romance and confining societal
norms, make Jane a protagonist that a high
school student can readily identify with.
It is possibly my favorite book of all time.
What if evolution explains human
morality, including not only our basic
concepts of right and wrong, but also
less obvious virtues like altruism and
fidelity? Read this book and you’ll never
see human behavior in the same light.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
An exploration of what can happen
when man plays god—clearly a question society struggles with today as it
navigates the waters of cloning and genetic research. As a writer, I appreciated
Shelley’s commentary on the relationship between artist and art, as one’s
creations never do approximate the ideal
in the artist’s imagination, and, once let
loose in the world, take on a wholly separate existence from their maker—one
that can never be fully controlled.
A sociological explanation for why
things happen—and how little things
make a difference.
Colin Farrar
The Black Swan
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Elegantly summarizing recent mathematical theory and explaining his
arguments with pithy anecdotes, Taleb
explains how the world is far less predictable than we think, what this means for
foreign affairs, finance and national security, and what we can do about it.
The Bigend Trilogy:
Pattern Recognition,
Spook Country, and
Zero History
by William Gibson
Book of
Common Prayer
by Thomas Cranmer
Jim Mooney
The Book of Ebenezer
Le Page
by G.B. Edwards
The Black Swan
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Freakonomics
by Stephen Dubner and Steven Leavitt
This book helps you cast aside prejudices and consider the world with fresh,
offbeat, critical thinking.
The Second World War
by Winston Churchill
Other works about the greatest event
in human history have surpassed
Churchill’s account when it comes to
research, but none of them surpasses the
Last Lion as a master storyteller.
Bruce Fifer
The Bible
[King James or Revised Standard]
I grew up reading it, not in an evangelical
way, but for its great stories. It led to a life
of wanting to bring those universal stories
alive in a sacred setting and fostered a
genuine love of the English language.
Childhood’s End
by Arthur C. Clarke
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
Jim Mooney
Jen Kenerson
The Chronicles
of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Disraeli
by Andre Maurois
Baba Frew
Dream of the Earth
by Thomas Berry
Bob Ganung
Candide
by Voltaire
The Complete Calvin
and Hobbes
by Bill Watterson
Rachael Ryan
Karla Palmer
Bruce Fifer
Blaire Farrar
Jim Lehner
Colin Farrar
Empire of Liberty
by Gordon Wood
Greg Hawes ’85
Encounters With
The Archdruid
by John McPhee
Ethics for the
New Millennium
by H.H. the Dalai Lama
Bob Ganung
The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan
Rachael Ryan
Optional Reading
Book of Common Prayer
by Thomas Cranmer
The iconic prayer book of the
Episcopal/Anglican Church written in
1552. Setting aside its religious impact,
the sheer beauty of Cranmer’s use of the
English language has had a major influence on my life.
A Death in the Family by James Agee
A very powerful and beautifully written
book about a close-knit family and their
courage when faced with loss. The prologue has been set to music by Samuel
Barber (Knoxville: Summer of 1915) and
has remained my “go to” piece to reconnect and get centered.
Hiroshima by John Hersey
As I grew up in the 1950s, the era of
“duck and cover,” this book had an obvious and huge impact on me then and
continuing to this day.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This story brought home to me the reality
of segregation in the 1960s, and the importance of family and doing the right thing.
The Seven Story Mountain
by Thomas Merton
An amazing autobiography about his
spiritual journey. There is no question
that this book helped shape my direction in life—particularly when I read it
in the 1970s!
The Five Dysfunctions
of a Team
by Patrick Lencioni
Baba Frew
Jack Kenerson ’82
by C.S. Lewis
An account by a great historian of the
Age of the American Revolution and
how the American dream of independence became reality.
I received the complete set when I was
8 and was a goner from then on. I still
remember the magic of being swept
away to another world, staying up late
at night to read them with a flashlight
under my blanket. I have been captivated
by literature ever since.
Greg Hawes ’85
Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood
This admittedly massive tome is essential to understanding what made the
American Revolution truly revolutionary.
Wood explores how America changed
from an experiment in self-governance to
a nation ready to grow into a great power.
Freedom From Fear by David Kennedy
Kennedy explores the fundamental changes wrought by the twin trials of the Great
Depression and the Second World War.
The Lords of Finance: The
Bankers Who Broke the World
by Liaquat Ahamed
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
Blaire Farrar
Freakonomics
by Stephen Dubner
and Steven Leavitt
Colin Farrar
Jeremy Clifford
The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
Al Reiff ’80
Freedom From Fear
by David Kennedy
Greg Hawes ’85
A World Lit By Fire: The Medieval
Mind and the Renaissance
by William Manchester
Manchester provides a great read of
Europe in the midst of transition, including interesting anecdotes about
men and women who lived through this
violent, creative period. Characters from
Lucrezia Borgia to Ferdinand Magellan
make this a terrific read for historian and
non-historian.
Unbroken: A World War II Story
of Survival, Resilience, and
Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
More than a World War II book, the story of Louis Zamperini’s life holds lessons
for all of us. I’m not sure I could survive
all that Zamperini faced, but given what
he did survive, we can all make the best
of our days!
A shorter read that traces how the
Central Banks of England, France,
Germany and the U.S. precipitated the
crisis of the Great Depression.
Ginger O’Shea
The Foundation
Trilogy
by Isaac Asimov
l776 by David McCullough
The Chronicles of Narnia
Fried Green
Tomatoes at the
Whistle Stop Cafe
by Fannie Flagg
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hope in the Unseen
by Ron Suskind
Susan McCabe
Helena Fifer
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
House Made of Dawn
by N. Scott Momaday
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
John Magee
Steve Palmer
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Helena Fifer
How We Know
What Isn’t So
by Thomas Gilovich
John Magee
Hiroshima
by John Hersey
Rusty Davis
Bruce Fifer
Jen Kenerson
Willy MacMullen ’’78
Moving from Addis Ababa to New York
City and back again, this is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine
and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.
With this collection of short stories,
Hemingway completely upends the
American voice, and almost every writer
of the 20th century was dealing with the
legacy of his work. “Big Two-Hearted
River” has been described by many as
the greatest short story every penned.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Jim Lehner
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
by G.B. Edwards
This novel is so lush, so beautiful, so
tragic and so essentially American
that it falls easily into the “must read”
category. If this nation is based on the
idea that we can re-create ourselves, this
novel gives an answer that is equal parts
illuminating and dark.
A fictional memoir of a man who lives his
entire life from the turn of the 20th century until near 1970 on an island in the
English Channel. My mother was from
England, so this novel also allowed me to
know just a little bit what her childhood
was like. I turn to this book to remind me
of its lessons about the human experience
under difficult circumstances.
Yen Liu
Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
(translated by Moss Roberts)
This book is very famous in China and
read over and over again by the Chinese.
Mao: The Unknown Story
by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
Written in 2005, this is an important
biography of this influential leader.
The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn by Mark Twain
The American themes of individuality
and conformity, the nature of slavery,
race relations, the frontier—they are all
there. And add the extraordinary boldness of the work—the choice of the
narrator, the use of vernacular, the realist
depiction of violence and racism, the
darkness of the humor—and you have
a simply astonishing, troubling, complicated and provocative work.
In Our Time
by Ernest Hemingway
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
John Magee
Steve Palmer
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
L’Assommoir
by Emile Zola
Blaire Farrar
WT Miller
The Left Hand
of Darkness
by Ursula LeGuin
Journey Through
Genius
by William Dunham
Le Pere Goriot
by Honore de Balzac
Ted Heavenrich
by John Steinbeck
It’s easy to forget that the Depression
was the single most important event
in the century: nothing else, not even
the two world wars, affected lives more
profoundly, altered geography and demographics more significantly, and changed
social policy more radically. This is the
one novel that does justice to the poverty,
suffering, displacement, hope and courage that marked the 1930s.
John Magee
Light in August or Absalom,
Absalom! by William Faulkner
Perhaps the greatest American author,
Faulkner stated on the occasion of
receiving the Nobel Prize:
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal,
not because he alone among creatures
has an inexhaustible voice, but because
he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write
about these things. It is his privilege
to help man endure by lifting his heart
by reminding him of the courage and
honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice that have
been the glory of his past. The poet’s
voice need not merely be the record of
man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
Light in August or
Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
Man’s Search
for Meaning
by Victor E. Frankl
John Magee
Tom Cesarz
The Lords of Finance:
The Bankers Who
Broke the World
by Liaquat Ahamed
Mao:
The Unknown Story
by Jung Chang and Jon
Halliday
Leviathan
by Thomas Hobbes
Greg Hawes ’85
Yen Liu
Andrew McNeill
The Man Who
Knew Infinity
by Robert Kanigel
Me Talk Pretty
One Day
by David Sedaris
Ted Heavenrich
Helena Fifer
Julie Reiff
WT Miller
The Grapes of Wrath
Optional Reading
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
What happened to Aristotle and
Sophocles’ vision of tragedy? Hundreds
of years later, the genre has evolved and
man has stayed the same.
Captured me in that it brought history
alive. When I visited Russia later in life
and wandered the Kremlin museum, I felt
as if I were stepping back into that time.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Disraeli by Andres Maurois
What happened to Aristotle, Sophocles
and Shakespeare’s vision of tragedy?
Hundreds of years later, the genre has
evolved and man has stayed the same.
A marvelous glimpse into the political
world of Victorian England. Disraeli and
Gladstone are presented in larger than
life fashion. Painless history for a person
who normally goes for novels!
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Second to Peter’s denial of Christ or
Hal’s denial of Falstaff might be Pip’s
denial of Joe Gargery. Dickens has a
grasp of the human condition that gives
the lie to the characterization of popular fiction as trivial.
Susan McCabe
Karen May
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind
A great insight into issues that may
be present in the lives of many
scholarship students.
by Betty Smith
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Has proven to be the harbinger of environmental alarm.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Really piqued my interest as a young
adult when I believed that with focus
and willpower the world offered endless
possibilities; however, with age I am not
quite so naive. Nevertheless, I believe it
was a driving force in believing I could
accomplish anything I put my mind to.
Family, community, education, class
differences, dealing with and overcoming setbacks: there are so many lessons
to learn while reading this beautifully
written story.
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
The Moral Animal
by Robert Wright
Linda Saarnijoki
Colin Farrar
Oedipus Rex
and Antigone
by Sophocles
Andrew McNeill
A citizen in a democracy is pretty well
equipped to improve the greater good if
he/she reads:
The Republic by Plato
The Prince by Machiavelli
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
On Liberty by J.S. Mill
Laura Monti ’89
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
and A Sand County Almanac
by Aldo Leopold
Both give one the sense that our actions can have consequences far
beyond what we anticipate and that
the long view is both difficult to
achieve and vital to our continued
existence.
Jim Mooney
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke looks at man in the context of
the larger universe and speculates on a
possible future.
Operating Instructions
by Anne Lamott
Helena Fifer
Steve Palmer
Mistress Masham’s
Repose
by T.H. White
My Antonia
by Willa Cather
Helena Fifer
Helena Fifer
Moonstone and
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
Pedagogy of the
Oppressed
by Paulo Freire
Blaire Farrar
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
Outliers:
The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
Personal Politics
by Sara Evans
Loueta Chickadaunce
Jon Bernon
Blaire Farrar
My Family
and Other Animals
by Gerald Durell
On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill
Peace Is Every Step
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Pierre et Jean
by Guy de Maupassant
Helena Fifer
Andrew McNeill
Bob Ganung
WT Miller
Helena Fifer
Pattern Recognition,
Spook Country, and Zero History:
The Bigend Trilogy of William Gibson
The author of Neuromancer wrote these
books with more conventional characters but continues to comment on the
relation between technology and human creativity.
Karla Palmer
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
by Bill Watterson
I’m totally serious: most everything I’ve
come to understand about small boys
and their grown-up versions comes from
Calvin. I’d call it essential bedside reading were it not 22 pounds of book.
And pretty much any book of poetry.
To me, reading poetry is a more personal experience than a novel. Years ago,
when I lived alone, I’d read it aloud. I
have a bundle of all-time favorite poems,
among them:
Andrew Marvel, “To His Coy Mistress”
Alfred Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”
Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son”
Richard Wilbur, “The Writer”
Donald Hall, “Names of Horses”
Jane Kenyon, “Otherwise”
Steve Palmer
Foundations of Western Literature:
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and
Antigone
Sophocles’ tragedies carry the most
meaning in the fewest words. Exciting
action, great characters and powerful
final moments.
Great American Novel: Toni Morrison’s
Beloved
I could have put Hawthorne, Faulkner
or Hemingway here, but Beloved is as
emotionally powerful and thematically
central to American literature as any of
the “great” American novels.
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
Linda Saarnijoki
The Relaxation
Response
by Herbert Benson, M.D.
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
John Magee
Bob Ganung
The Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli
Andrew McNeill
& Rachael Ryan
Republic
by Plato
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir
Rachael Ryan
Andrew McNeill
Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell
Julie Reiff
Julie Reiff
Momaday’s novel reads like a memoir/
poem at times and is a seminal work
among the rich vein of Native American
literature, a genre that is often relegated
to a few college courses in our educational system.
African Literature: Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart
It is hard to cover an entire continent
with one choice, but I’d start with
Achebe’s story about the clash of
cultures when the first European missionaries arrive among the Ibo people in
what is now Nigeria.
American Poetry: Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
American poetry does not start and end
with Whitman, but if I had to choose
one work, from all genres, to capture
the essence of American literature, I’d
choose this—an uplifting, spirited, philosophical and exciting collection.
Natural World and Philosophy:
Henry D. Thoreau’s Walden
I don’t know why Thoreau seems to
continue to lose space on high school
shelves with each passing year. I think it
is the central American work in terms of
shaping our relationship to the land and
leading a meaningful life.
The Seven Story
Mountain
by Thomas Merton
The Sound and
the Fury
by William Faulkner
Bruce Fifer
Ted Heavenrich
Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse
There Are No
Children Here
by Alex Kotlowitz
WT Miller
The Second World War
by Winston Churchill
Colin Farrar
Sense and Sensibility
by Jane Austen
Rachael Ryan
Native American Literature: N. Scott
Momaday’s House Made of Dawn
Steve Palmer
Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
Karen May
& Laura Monti ’89
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Steve Palmer
Optional Reading
Modern American Culture:
Alex Kotlowitz’s
There Are No Children Here
Kotlowitz has some great books and
has done as much as any writer to shed
light on the great flaws of our society in
a direct, readable and moving way. This
book covers a year in the lives of two
young boys growing up on Chicago’s
West Side.
John Piacenza
Two New Sciences Galileo Gallilei,
(translated by Stillman Drake)
This translation of Galileo is great. It
contains an excellent introduction by
Drake, and it shows Galileo’s writing
style at its best—his method of presenting his ideas (and the debate about
them) by using a dialogue between characters that he invents.
Al Reiff ’80
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Her classic work that displays her view of
the crucial role of individualism in society.
The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Although much of what Friedman celebrates is now pervasive in our everyday
lives, his work illustrates how truly lifechanging the information revolution
has become.
Thinking, Fast
and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
Excellent political commentary that
applies to many political situations
throughout history.
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir
One of the first feminist treatises and a
must read for any woman interested in
the topic.
The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan
The seminal American feminist work that
ushered in the third wave of feminism.
A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf
Has been the driving credo in my life:
That you have to a have a room of your
own. Too obvious? For me I knew after
reading this book that I always needed to
have something that was my own, and I
also needed to be able to support myself.
It is OK to be dependent on others, but
you also need to be able to maintain
your own independence when needed.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Such an amazing story, who can resist
romance like this?
The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell
Colin Farrar
Yen Liu
John Piacenza
Bruce Fifer
Unbroken: A World
War II Story of
Survival, Resilience,
and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand
John Piacenza
Tinkers
by Paul Harding
Two New Sciences
by Galileo Gallilei
(translated by
Stillman Drake)
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Tom Jones
by Henry Fielding
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Prince by Machiavelli
Jeremy Clifford
Three Kingdoms
by Luo Guanzhong
(translated by
Moss Roberts)
Linda Saarnijoki
Rachael Ryan
Besides being a very funny social comedy
and a wonderful romance, Austen’s bestknown novel gives us a picture of 19th
century life, particularly for women, and
gives us, as well, one of the great, strong
women of literature in Elizabeth Bennet.
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
Long one of my favorite books to read in
the heat of summer because the descriptions of winter effectively chill my bones,
Helprin’s optimistic novel celebrates the
innate goodness of mankind and presents
a vision of the past and future in a rollicking story that sustains my faith that it is in
human relationships that our hope lies.
Jon Willson ’82
The Underground History
of American Education
by John Taylor Gatto
A highly biased and selective but still
scholarly examination of why and how
the U.S. came to have the public education system—if it can even be called a
system—that it does. A good place to
start for anyone who wonders why our
public schools have proven largely and
stubbornly unreformable for decades. j
Underground History
of American Education
by John Taylor Gatto
The World Is Flat
by Thomas Friedman
Al Reiff ’80
Jon Willson ’82
Walden
by Henry D. Thoreau
Steve Palmer
Jack Kenerson ’82
Loueta Chickadaunce
Alumni
ot only was the Class of ’63
back on campus for its 50th Reunion,
but five decades of Taft lacrosse players
returned to celebrate as well. The rain held
off long enough for the annual alumni parade
as well as the game, but a soggy afternoon
made for a cozy atmosphere under the tent for
the Headmaster’s Supper on Saturday night.
For a second year, younger alumni gathered at
The Heritage for a combined four-class party that
was tons of fun. The Class of ’93 arranged for a
retro dinner at The Jig, which had everyone
asking, “Why didn’t our class think of that?”
[Photography by Robert Falcetti]
—Julie Reiff
1
2
1. Pat Kerney ’95
and Scott Zoellner ’83
celebrate after the
alumni lacrosse game.
2. Cindy Thebaud ’81
marches with Waleed
Hadeed ’63, who
traveled from Kuwait to
attend his 50th Reunion.
3. John Watling ’53
leads his class.
4. John Frechette
3
4
’98 goes “Back to
Class” with Loueta
Chickadaunce in the
Tremaine Art Studio.
5. Carolyn Starrett ’98
and Dan Chak ’98 at the
Headmaster’s Supper
on Saturday.
6. 1993 alums at their
20th: Nikki Mayhew
Greene, Margaret
Fitzgerald Wagner,
Amanda Costanzo
McGovern and
Mukta Dhumale.
7. Ginny Folsom
Umiker ’73, Brad Joblin
’73 and Linda Tilghman
Murphy ’75 at the
40th Reunion dinner.
6
5
7
Weekend
8. Beth Kessenich
8
’08, faculty member
Rachael Ryan and
Hannah Baker ’03 at
the Headmaster’s
Supper on Saturday.
9. Shelly and Drum
Bell ’63, Rafe de la
Gueronniere ’70
with Deb Avis and
Biff Barnard ’63.
9
10. Michael Wu ’73.
11. Cindy Thebaud
12
’81 has a laugh with
Headmaster Willy
MacMullen ’78.
12.
Rear Admiral
(Select) Cindy Thebaud
’81 with members of
the Class of ’63 who
also served in the Navy.
10
13.
Cynthia and
Bob Barker ’63
leaving Service of
Remembrance.
14.
Former
Headmaster Lance
Odden during the
Alumni lacrosse game.
15. Shanika Audige ’08
11
at reunion after-party.
14
16.
1988 golfers
Doug Freedman,
Kingman Gordon, Dan
Pearl and Colin Aymond.
13
15
16
adia Zahran,
Glenton Davis, Georgina
Harding-Edgar (from
London) and Kendra Pettis
enjoy their 10th Reunion.
17
18
harlie Yonkers ’58
and daughter Kate ’88
both celebrate reunions
19.
Faculty emeritus
Barc Johnson ’53 enjoys
the Old Guard Dinner.
20.
At 45th Reunion
dinner, Laura Sklaver,
Mac Whiteman ’68 with
friend Caryn Wagner
and Gary Sklaver ’68.
19
20
21.
Kendra Pettis ’06,
Daquan Mickens ’08,
Shanika Audige ’08,
John Riggins ’08 and
Phil Camille ’08.
22.
Jol Everett,
faculty emeritus,
at 50 Years of
Lacrosse celebration.
22
21
23
23.
50th Anniversary
Alumni Lacrosse game:
front row, from left,
Duke Sullivan ’83,
Tucker Cavanaugh ’86,
Jake Odden ’86, John
Utley ’90, Greg Seitz
’86, Andrew King ’86,
George Utley ’74,
Tyler Letarte ’09,
John Long ’88 and
Luis Mendoza;
back row, from left,
Willy MacMullen ’78,
Rob Madden ’03,
Teddy Barber ’06,
Whit Brighton ’06,
Casey D’Annolfo,
Rob Peterson ’80,
Henry Millson ’09,
Jon Stevenson ’97,
Dave Jenkins ’97,
Colin Aymond ’88,
Doug Freedman ’88,
Pat Kerney ’95, Augie
Masucci ’12, Cooper
Del Zotto ’12, Kevin
Mulvey ’12, Scott
Zoellner ’83, Lance
Odden, Jol Everett and
Andrew Everett ’88.
24.
Ted Pratt ’43
with Sally Waugh and
Tom Moore ’43 at Old
Guard Dinner cocktails.
25.
At Class Agents’
and Secretaries’
Breakfast, Glenton
Davis ’03 and
Max Jacobs ’08.
26.
24
25
28
26
Marisa Ryan ’03,
Ashley Ciaburri ’03
and Helen Goblirsch ’03
at the gallery reception
for classmate Susie
Tarnowicz.
27.
1978 classmates
Liz Bermingham
Blanchard, Lowell
Thomas, Chip Bristol
and Lisanne Burk
Gourley with Emily ’13,
daughter of Liz.
28. Collegium Revisited
27
in Woodward Chapel.
perspective
123rd Commencement
1
Highpoint Pictures
by Phil Schiller
2
commencement speaker
“the
journey
3
is the reward.”
It’s a simple thought. And not a new one either. Ancient philosophers
knew it, as did explorers. You may travel the world in search of your
goal, all the while the real treasure is the experiences you have, the
friends you make, and the knowledge you gain along the way.
There is another saying that we at Apple like as well.
Alan Kay, a computer scientist who once worked there,
said, “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”
Who doesn’t want to be smarter, right? All
it takes is changing your angle of view. Sailors
and explorers knew this as well. In order to navigate treacherous waters, they would climb the
rigging to stand atop the masts and see more of the
world. If you climb high enough, you can even see
the curvature of the earth in the ocean’s horizon.
You can’t see any that from the deck; you have to
take a risk and climb. With technology today, you don’t have to travel
far to find adventure. In the palm of your hand is
a smartphone that has more performance than
the sum total of all the computing power that every parent assembled here today had access to when
we graduated high school. I hope this doesn’t sound
like an ad, but you carry in your pocket access to
most every book, textbook, manual, newspaper and
magazine, most every song, album, TV show, news
broadcast, sports event and movie produced.
You hold the power of a high-performance computer, high-resolution camera and high-definition
camcorder, ready to do what ever you dream up.
The trick isn’t to figure out what it can do, but
what you will choose to do with it.
If you have ever wondered why Taft believes so
deeply in educating the whole student, you only
have to consider it from Apple’s perspective on
what it takes to innovate and you will understand
the tremendous importance of educating the entire
person. We know that when you mash different perspectives together, great things can happen. Taft Bulletin SUMMER 2013 45
1
Class speaker
Cassie Willson
also celebrated her
birthday that day.
2
Mary DuBois
and father
Ray DuBois ’66.
Mary received the
Sherman Cawley
Award in English
and the Bourne
Medal in History.
3
Commencement
Speaker Phil
Schiller congratulates his son Mark.
photography by
Robert Falcetti
4
5
4
Classics teacher
Dick Cobb presents
Jack Simonds with
the Latin Award.
5
Valedictorian
Isaac Morrier.
6
Photography
teacher Yee-Fun
Yin presents Kaiima
Griffith with the
Thomas Sabin
Chase Award in Art.
6
We choose to sit at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. It is not enough to just make
cool gadgets. To make something great we must
consider how it will be used and how it will enhance
people’s lives. We bring together engineers, computer scientists, designers, economists, musicians,
mathematicians and artists to invent the future. Let me tell you a story of an ancient technology
mash-up to illustrate this point. Once merchant
ships did not stray far from the continental shelf—it
was too easy to get lost at sea without a reliable
method of nautical navigation. A system of pinpointing latitude and longitude took centuries to develop. Latitude, the position parallel to the equator, was the easier to figure out. Mariners
discovered that by measuring the altitude of stars
such as Polaris, the North Star, above the horizon
you can derive a ship’s latitude.
Longitude, the slices from the North Pole to
the South Pole, was much more difficult. After
many decades the solution was invented by John
Harrison, a British carpenter and part-time clockmaker. He created a seagoing chronometer—that’s
a fancy name for a very accurate clock—to precisely
measure the time difference, and thus longitudinal
distance, between the start of a journey and your
new destination. It’s exactly like the time zones with
which we all are familiar today. In 1779, Captain James Cook was the first to use
these new inventions to circumnavigate the globe
and forever change the nature of sea travel. It could
only have happened by bringing together people
with diverse expertise in naval engineering, astronomy and horology, that is, the study of time.
You are now further along on your own journey,
and with each step it becomes more yours to navigate. The choice of how much risk to take in order
to gain new perspectives and learn more about the
world around you, is yours.
You can take the easy path and stick to ideas, subjects and relationships that are comfortable to you.
Or, you can take advantage of the great technologies
and opportunity before you, more than any generation has ever had access to, and expose yourself to
that which is different, that which challenges your
own perspective. If there is one thing my work has
taught me, it is that to do something great, something
really great, you have to embrace difference. 7
8
9
10
And at Taft, you have come to understand
how the choices you make must consider the
importance of honor, integrity, respect and, above
all, service to others.
Phil Schiller is senior vice president of worldwide marketing
at Apple Inc.
truly unique. They inspire us, support us, guide us,
and more often than not keep us in line. I’m truly
grateful for their passion for being here.
I could stand up here for as long as the entire
ceremony would take talking about my classmates
here. There is no other way to say it. I cannot
imagine being any more proud to be a part of this
graduating class.
Betsy Sednaoui
head monitor
I have used this last week to reflect on every aspect of
Taft that has shaped my experience in some way or
another. I first thought about my advisers—my first
one, whom I had for my first three years here, and
my second one, who took me in this year because
my first one went on sabbatical. Both people have
made an indescribable impact on me, and it would be
impossible to graduate from Taft without thanking
them for everything they have taught and given me.
The list did not stop there, however. I began
to lose track of the number of teachers that I will
remember forever. The faculty members here are
Andrew Cadienhead
head monitor
When I first came to Taft freshman year, my mom
told me that high school would be some of the
most fun years of my life and that I’d better enjoy
it because it would fly by, and she was absolutely
right—which I’ve noticed that her being right
seems to be a recurring trend in my life. Although
Taft may be the definition of a struggle, it’s also a
definition of opportunity, friendship and triumph.
It’s moments like the one we’re living right now
that truly allow us to see the beauty and sentimental value behind this place.
7
Maggie Alisberg
and family.
8
Angelina
Sophonpanich
with her friend
Victoria from
Malaysia.
9
Head monitors
Betsy Sednaoui
and Andrew
Cadienhead with
the class stone.
10
Lily Tyson
receives the
Harry W. Walker ’40
Non Ut Sibi Award
from Baba Frew.
11
12
13
11
Yen Liu presents
the Chinese Prize to
Alexa Colangelo and
Megan Teeking.
12
Alex McClellan,
Jillian Wipfler,
Andrew Cadienhead
and Sophie Snook.
13
Willy and Pam
MacMullen with
Edward and Louisa
Cheng and their
daughter Claudia.
I remember asking my mom one day while I
was home on break when she was going to take me
back home. And at the time it just came out and
I thought it was real weird because I was already
home. I realize now that Taft is definitely a home for
most of us. And to be honest, the thought of leaving this home behind is terrifying. But part of going
to Taft is leaving Taft. In a way, I still think that we
could spend more time here. There’s still so much
we could learn and more friendships that we could
make. But leaving is imperative in order for all of us
to start the next chapter in our lives.
Cassie Willson
class speaker
Taft gives you the freedom to fail and the opportunity to succeed. Everyone has a unique Taft
experience, but we also go through it together. Taft
molds you into a human being, no matter if you’ve
been here for a year or four years or 17 years.
I’m a faculty kid, also known as a fac brat or 17-year
senior. Taft has been my home since I was one year old.
But I don’t want us to look at these four years as
having been a transitional phase on the way to adulthood. At least for today, I want us to appreciate how
far we’ve come. This class is exceptionally talented,
ambitious and supportive of one another. I am beyond proud to be graduating with all of you because
our bond as a class is so strong. We’ve carved a place
for ourselves in Taft’s history, and I can’t wait to see
what we accomplish as we move forward.
Of course, we all have a lot to learn and we don’t
have it all figured out, but at least we’re ready to give the
old college try. And seniors, I hope that when we come
back for our 25th reunion, pulling up the Main Circle
in our carbon neutral hovercrafts and strolling through
the hallways wearing our silver jumpsuits, we will
remember the moments that made Taft great for us.
Max Flath
class speaker
When I came to Taft, things were a little different
for me. I hadn’t lived in the United States since I was
5. I had just been living in Kuwait for three years
15
14
and was now being shipped off to Taft to follow
in my brothers’ footsteps and receive a good old
American education.
Taft is an experience with which we are afforded
communal purpose, singular integrity and opportunity for high scholarship. Taft is the quintessential
education, a provision of intellectual, moral and
social instruction.
I know what Taft looks like. I know what Taft
feels like, and I have some sort of half grip on what
Taft really is. So I’ve come to identify three things
that I think make Taft, Taft.
Number one. One of the most common elements
of a Taft experience is the increasing proclivity for
calling Taft home, because Taft is home. This community is the strongest community I’ve ever had the
pleasure of being a part of. Students wave and smile
in passing. We share a common identity as Tafties. I
hate Hotchkiss, you hate Hotchkiss. I’m a Taftie and
by God, you’re a Taftie, too. There is a resounding
notion that no matter our differences, we are one. We
are all Tafties, and this is our home.
Number two. Every single one of us brings something to the table, something distinctive, something
16
17
different. You would be extremely hard-pressed to
find a Taftie who is not extraordinarily talented in
one way or another, who does not possess a unique
perspective on the world, who could not teach you
something new and fascinating. Every Taftie has potential and carries the promise of achievement and
excellence in his or her own field. We are an eclectic
bunch of accomplished young men and women,
and we wear it well.
Number three. Taft believes in tradition.
Lincoln’s Golden Beak, Headmaster’s Holidays and
this lovely ceremony all stand as time-honored traditions of the Taft School. Founded in 1890, Taft’s
123-year history goes unforgotten by students and
faculty alike as we must honor what has come before us in order to ably go forward and accept what
must come after us. Tafties believe in tradition.
And so here we are. We stand at the brink of a
bygone era. Another Taft class to be handed diplomas and conferred upon them the moniker of
alumnus or alumna. After four years of rigor and exhaustion, we are given a gift—the gift of graduation,
a Taft diploma in our left hand and the headmaster’s
firm grip in our right. j
14
Aurelian Award
winner Gaby Fabre,
right.
15
Rubbing a
returned Lincoln’s
nose for good luck
after graduation.
(He had been
held for ransom
all week).
16
Teresa Mugica
and Ryder Smith
show off their
new diplomas.
17
Class speaker
Max Flath.
tales of a TAFTIE
By Laura Monti ’89
Dr. Yale Kneeland, Class of 1918
The sleuth of the common cold
SOURCES:
A. R. Dochez, K. C. Mills,
and Yale Kneeland, Jr.
1936. Studies on the
common cold VI.
Cultivation of the virus
in tissue medium.
Journal of Experimental
Medicine 63(4): 559–579.
N.P. Christy. 1995.
Faculty remembered:
Virginia Kneeland Frantz.
Physicians and
Surgeons Journal 15:2.
N.P. Christy. 1972
Memorial: Yale Kneeland,
Jr. MD. Transactions
of the America Clinical
and Climatological
Association 83: xxix-xl.
Y. Kneeland, Jr. Filterable
viruses in upper
respiratory infection.
1937. Proceedings of the
American Philosophical
Society 77: 467-471.
What successful Taftie,
no longer living, would
you like to see profiled
in this space? Send
your suggestions to
[email protected].
A brilliant physician, scientist and teacher, Yale
Kneeland is perhaps best known for definitively
demonstrating that the common cold is caused by
a virus, but he was equally well remembered by
his colleagues for his compassion, humor and talent as an educator.
Kneeland attended college at Yale University,
a fitting place for a man whose first name was
Yale and whose nickname was Eli. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1922, he was convinced
by his older sister—a surgeon, researcher and
teacher at Columbia University’s College of
Physicians and Surgeons—to abandon his studies
of literature and to instead pursue medicine. He
began as a student at the College of Physicians
and Surgeons, graduated to the faculty there and
remained as a professor and professor emeritus
until his death 48 years later.
Kneeland was briefly absent from Columbia
during World War II. A colonel in the Army, he
served as a senior consultant on infectious disease
in the European Theater. He received two bronze
stars for his work caring for the wounded and controlling the spread of typhus among the civilian
populations of North Africa and Italy.
As a researcher, Kneeland authored or coauthored more than 40 papers chiefly relating to
the causes of upper-respiratory infections. In the
1930s, along with two colleagues, he performed
a thorough investigation into the etiology of the
common cold. Studies done as early as 1914 previously suggested a virus as the cause of the common
cold; however, failure to duplicate those early results meant that, during the 1920s, there was little
belief in such claims. Kneeland and his group used
exemplary experimental procedures to rule out
bacteria as a causative agent and then irrefutably
identified a virus as responsible for the common
cold. They were also able to improve methods for
preserving and cultivating the virus in the lab.
Kneeland was at the heart of investigations
into the causes of atypical primary pneumonia
and was very active in research into the efficacy
of antibiotics in treating a variety of ailments. It
is interesting to note the manner in which Dr.
Kneeland’s group investigated the etiology of upper-respiratory tract infections: they deliberately
infected human volunteers with “nasopharyngeal
secretions,” commonly known as mucous, from
patients with symptoms of the flu or a common
cold, and then studied the course of the disease.
Dr. Kneeland embodied the well-rounded
academic. As a professor of medicine, his students
found him an encouraging and courteous instructor. He was so well loved by his pupils, in fact, that
the College of Physicians and Surgeons yearbook
was dedicated to him a record four times. He
maintained a continued interest in literature and
was the first physician to be elected president of
the Century Association, a New York-based group
comprised mainly of authors and artists. Other
honors bestowed upon him during the course
of his life included a trusteeship at the American
University of Beirut and an honorary membership
to a Senior Common Room at Oxford University, a
rare honor for an American. j
Laura Monti teaches biology at Taft.
from the
ARCHIVES
n 1929 team captains:
Raymond Burnes, baseball;
Carter Treadwell, football;
Seymour Beardsley, track.
v Horace Taft, far left, perches with
students on the fence soon after the
school moved to Watertown, ca. 1893
(Howard Davis 1895, at right)
The Senior Fence
For a long time, photographs of the Senior
Class, athletic teams and captains were taken
at the long white fence that ran in front of the
campus along Woodbury Road. The fence first
became a special place when the Senior Class
of 1895 gave it honorary status.
In 1895, Mr. Taft’s School was only
five years old. The editors of the Papyrus
were determined to establish a tradition.
Sounding a bit wistful as many of these
soon-to-be Yale men looked back at their
years in Watertown, the paper put out this
call for a Senior Class custom:
n The 1894–95 editorial staff of the Papyrus
One of the pleasant pictures of English school life
which Thomas Hughes sets before us in “Tom
Brown at Rugby” is when the fellows gather with
their chairs and tables in the long summer evenings, sing their songs, and drink their beer while
they listen to speeches from the older boys.
…we all know how the “Fence” accords the
Yale graduate one of the most treasured recollections of his college days, and how the fellows gather
around it with their pipes and while the hours
away as the years draw to a close. We have no
school customs at all as yet, and though we have
appealed to the Class of ’95 time and again …we
make this plea from the very bottom of our hearts:
that before the year is over, some fitting ceremony
be chosen at which the graduating class shall intermingle with the school on an equal basis with each
and every fellow, and then bid its farewell as a class
to the comrades of our school-boy life.
…What we desire to propose is: that after the
baseball games the fellows gather round the fence
and sing under the leadership of the Glee Club,
and that a day or so before school breaks up the
Senior Class hands its part of the fence over to the
upper middlers, and then…after the songs and
ceremonies are over with, the whole school shall
partake of refreshments of a mild nature.
There is some formality attendant even upon
the discharge of a convict from the penitentiary,
and surely we, who should have every cause to look
back upon our life here with pleasure, and yet with
a feeling of regret that it has passed by, should do
something more than merely packing our belongings and boarding the first out-bound train.
In practice, the gentlemanly handover was a
friendly skirmish, or rush, whereby the upper
middlers would take the fence by force. Later,
usually during an intermission in the Senior
Dance on Commencement Eve, the classes
would adjourn to the fence and give cheers and
short speeches as the president of the graduating class would officially hand the fence over
to the rising seniors. This was followed by a
call for speeches, or “fence orations,” from the
headmaster and senior faculty members. We
have yet to find one of these in the archives.
The fence was replaced by the current
hedge in the 1980s.
—Alison Gilchrist,
The Leslie D. Manning Archives
Taft Bulletin
Nonprofit Org
U.S. Postage
PAID
burlington VT
Permit # 101
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road
860-945-7777
www.taftalumni.com
Change Service Requested
Frederick H. Wandelt III ’66
1948–2013
We are deeply saddened to report the
death of Ferdie Wandelt on July 25.
There will be a memorial service at Taft on
Saturday, September 28, and a full tribute
to his inspiring 42-year career at Taft will
appear in the fall issue of the Bulletin.
We invite you to share your recollections
and photographs at www.taftschool.org/
alumni/ferdie

Commencement - The Taft School

Transcription

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