a PDF of the Summer 2014 Taft Bulletin

Transcription

Schieffelin’s
Commencement Farewell
Reunion
50
Summer 2014
Summer 2014
in this iSSue
28
50 Years of ISP
Igniting intellectual curiosity
and creativity since 1964
By Tracey O’Shaughnessy
34
Alumni Weekend 2014
Photographs by Robert Falcetti
and Philip Dutton
40
The Smartest Man
in the Room
English Teacher Steve Schieffelin retires
By John Magee
48
124th Commencement
Leaving the Stage
Remarks by Tommy Robertshaw ’14,
Madison Olmstead ’14, Legare Augenstein ’14,
Rob Brown ’14 and Willy MacMullen ’78
Departments
2
4
5
6
14
22
26
56
From the Editor
Letters
Taft Trivia
Alumni Spotlight
Around the Pond
Sport
Annual Fund Report
Tales of a Taftie:
Harold “Doc” Howe II ’36
57 From the Archives:
Pioneers on the Field
v Capturing the day with
a large “selfie” at Taft’s
2014 Commencement.
Highpoint Pictures
Summer 2014
Volume 84, Number 4
eDitor
Linda Hedman Beyus
Director of Marketing
anD coMMunicationS
Kaitlin Orfitelli
DeSign: Good Design LLC
www.gooddesignusa.com
n Celebrating both a graduation and a reunion: Gracie Lyman ’14 at Commencement with her
family, including granddad Jack ’44, who enjoyed his 70th Reunion earlier in May.
from the eDitor
It was the time of Alumni Weekend and
Commencement, and these events, which
unify and strengthen bonds, fill some of
these pages. In his Commencement address,
Head Monitor Tommy Robertshaw ’14 said,
“By the simple virtue of graduating…we
become an important link in the chain of
Taft’s history.”
I think he has hit the nail on the head, as
I think about the profundity and commonality of these two major events that occur
each year. Alumni, who fill and grace this
publication with their stories—their news,
achievements and, yes, losses—are created
by a Commencement or a culmination of
their time at this school.
And they return, again and again, to their
alma mater to celebrate reunions and to renew connections and to forge new ones.
Taft’s young graduates have now become
alumni, a word bandied about easily, but a
word that signifies deep links, not only “in
the chain of Taft’s history” but also to the
web woven between friendships that can
continue for decades, if not a lifetime.
Read the stories in this issue’s alumni
notes and you will see the links living on and
on, right now, thanks to all of you. As always,
we welcome your stories and the pleasure of
hearing what you are up to.
—Linda Hedman Beyus
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2 Taft Bulletin SuMMer 2014
DeaDlineS for aluMni noteS:
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SenD aDDreSS correctionS to:
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Alumni Records
The Taft School
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Please recycle this Bulletin
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SenD aluMni newS to:
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[email protected]
Schieffelin’s
CommenCement Farewell
Reunion
50
Summer 2014
n Longtime English teacher Steve
Schieffelin with Headmaster Willy
MacMullen ’78. Robert Falcetti
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.
reaching Beyond: Julie Reiff’s Impact
, At Taft’s
Commencement
with faculty
colleagues.
n Julie Reiff with her husband,
math teacher Al ’80.
I
t’s easy to think of Taft as a community of 220 acres, 585 students and
over 250 faculty and employees that
functions largely from September
through June. In reality, the school
is an expansive community that reaches well
beyond its Watertown base, stretching back
over decades and including an ever-growing
group of alumni, families and connections in
over 40 different countries.
For the past 26 years, Julie Reiff has been
the person on campus most responsible for
telling the stories of Taft and the diverse
community it has become. Hired as director
of alumni communications (1988), which
informed and connected to the school.
Along the way, she has played a significant role in preserving the school’s history, in
telling the current and past Taft story, and in
capturing the careers and service of alumni,
faculty and students. In addition, she’s been
one of Taft’s leading digital stewards, developing and managing the school’s website and
Council for Advancement and Support of
Education [CASE] Award in 1999 and 2005,
to go with three bronze medal CASE awards
in other years.
Julie pushed the boundaries of the magazine beyond the campus news, reaching out
to a wide array of Taft alumni in the fields of
science (cancer research, archaeology, envi-
“I am not sure any school has ever known a better storyteller: someone with such a
loving and nuanced understanding of the school, such a deep and empathic appreciation
for our history and mission, someone with as sophisticated and classy an awareness of
how to employ different media to share a narrative about our great institution. Alumni,
especially, were really lucky, and I know this firsthand: on my travels I have heard a
thousand times, ‘That Bulletin is the best magazine I receive.’”
—Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78
included serving as editor of the Taft Bulletin,
Julie has kept a foot in both worlds, within
Watertown and beyond, living in the center of
campus with her husband and math teacher,
Al ’80, and son Alex ’12, and working within
the Alumni Office to produce the Bulletin
and keep alumni, parents and grandparents
prolific online visual and text archives.
Under her vision and guidance, the
Bulletin grew into a broad-based and awardwinning publication, recognized as one of
the most popular secondary-school magazines in the nation. Most notably, the Taft
Bulletin won the prestigious Gold Medal
ronmental preservation), business, the law, the
arts and military service, to name just a few.
The eclectic range of profiles and articles
she shepherded reminded us all of the power
of the school’s motto, non ut sibi ministretur
sed ut ministret, particularly as it is borne out
by Taft students who have spread throughout
Taft Bulletin SuMMer 2014 3
n On the rooftop solar panels at Taft’s gym,
Reiff works on a Bulletin story.
the world to do good work for others. Yet all
along the Bulletin has remained a popular and
quality alumni print vehicle, with nearly half
of each publication devoted to alumni notes,
surpassing some of the best college and university magazines.
There has been no better person to tell
those stories over the past three decades, for
Julie is a talented writer with a special skill
to bring people together to tell any story and
get the job done. Believing that the best way
to tell the Taft story is to live it, she spent
15 years in the dorms and advised the Taft
Papyrus for 10 years.
Her positive leadership and tireless
efforts have had a lasting impact on the
school’s legacy, especially in preserving its
history and helping to define the school for
those beyond the immediate campus.
Only someone with Julie’s range of talents and institutional memory could have
been such a steward of the school’s past,
present and future. Her knowledge of the
school, its changes over the years, and the
physical campus is unparalleled. On many
days, she can be found out on the fields at
6:00 a.m. walking her dog, Sassy, then in the
vaults of the Leslie D. Manning Archives in
the basement of the Hulbert Taft Jr. Library,
and caught, if you are quick enough, on
one of several trips between the main hall
and the Alumni Office, and finally in Laube
Dining Hall with Al, enjoying dinner with a
group of teachers and students.
Julie is one of those people at the heart of
Taft, helping to lead and care for the school,
its people and its history, without ever calling
attention to herself. A teacher in her own right
of history and French (at Westover School
before coming to Taft), with experience in
journalism and as an Appalachian Mountain
Club volunteer, Julie will remain on campus
with Al but devote herself full time to being a
writer and working on that first novel.
yard. Solar energy? We thought we were
high-tech when we replaced the old coal
heaters with fancy, new-fangled heat lamps.
Thank you especially for showing an old
alum that there is an honored place for chickens at the new Taft.
—Larry Weidemier ’59
saying in 2009 that fracking “is not a risk I
think we should run.” Surely, it’s important
to add that in August 2012, Bloomberg coauthored an opinion piece in the Washington
Post with fracking pioneer George Mitchell
that promoted fracking countrywide—but
never near Manhattan.
It’s “scientific consensus,” Prud’homme
writes, that gas is an effective “bridge fuel” to
renewable energy because it burns cleaner
than oil and coal. True, that was the conclusion of an influential MIT study from May
2011. But that report was both financed and
designed by an arm of Chesapeake Energy, a
major fracker, and it sidestepped that fact that
the hydrofracking process belches methane,
which is 25–100 times more potent that CO2
as a greenhouse gas. Many scientists now
question whether natural gas is any better than
oil or even coal for addressing global warming.
My guess is U.S. fracking will grow this
decade—spurred by the higher market
prices that result from gas exporting—before
peaking in five to seven years. The very high
environmental costs will be socialized. But
solar/battery alternatives will take hold more
rapidly than many expect.
—Peter Mantius ’68
—Steve Palmer, Faculty
letterS
chicken Heaven
As a Watertown home boy and 1959 Taft
alum, I found plenty of interest in the most
recent Taft Bulletin. In fact, I don’t ever remember resonating with an article as I did
with Debra Meyers’ wonderful story about
Carly Borken. (Kudos go to Robert Falcetti,
too, for the photos.) I wish there had been
a program like this when I was coming
through Taft.
But the astounding thing was the front
cover, featuring Carly Borken and a beautiful
Barred Plymouth Rock chicken. During my
Taft years, I was probably the only Taftie of
my era who was also a chicken farmer. My
dad had about 10,000 of the little devils,
White Rocks, at our place on Thomaston
Road. I was vice president in charge of
chickens, including feeding, watering, egg
collection, egg grading and packing, coop
cleaning, doctoring and protecting from
varmints. My favorite time was starting a few
thousand new chicks and watching their wild
antics. Sometimes I would be up in the coop
all night just making sure that everyone was
warm, happy and well fed.
Let me compliment Taft and Ms. Borken
on its fine, state-of-the-art coop and chicken
fracking update
Good for Alex Prud’homme ’80 for taking a stab at a book on hydrofracking.
Unfortunately, he seems to have taken a
snapshot of the industry in 2011. A lot’s
changed in three years.
He writes that the Marcellus Shale, centered in Pennsylvania, is the world’s second
largest natural gas field with “at least 500
trillion cubic feet” of gas. That 2009 estimate
was circulated by Terry Engelder of Penn
State, industry’s favorite geologist. In 2012
the Energy Information Agency chopped its
estimate to 141 trillion cubic feet. Earlier this
year, the Energy Information Administration
slashed its own estimates of frackable oil in
California’s Monterey Shale by 96 percent.
Initial hype tends to give way to realism
about what’s commercially recoverable.
Prud’homme quotes Michael Bloomberg
letterS continued
the Sustainable Aquaculture Initiative out of
Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where we are
working with Bill Mebane to develop a smallscale tilapia aquaculture model for upland
Haitians. We have exhibited the possibility of
growing fish to an edible size with little time
or resource input.
—Carly Borken, faculty
Quiet Heroes
Appraisal, Grant Wood 1931
likenesses
Upon seeing the cover picture and reading
the article about Carly Borken in the spring
Taft Bulletin, I recalled Grant Wood’s painting, Appraisal, painted in 1931.
A quote from a Minneapolis Art Institute
article on Wood’s painting perhaps describes
some of the motivation for the work Ms.
Borken is doing at Taft:
“[In Appraisal,] a country woman stands
face-to-face with her city counterpart. She
appraises the city woman with the stylish hat
who in turn looks down and appraises the
‘natural’ dress of the Plymouth Rock rooster…. Wood’s sympathies are clearly with the
farm woman…. It was not the issue of money
and class that animates the confrontation, but
the challenge of modernity to agrarian life.”
Ms. Borken and the farm woman in Grant
Wood’s painting look alike. Did her relative
pose for the artist? Is that the same chicken?
Some of the best conservationists around
are found in the county extension services
Love it? Comments?
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!
Linda Hedman Beyus, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
or [email protected]
that are an outgrowth of the land grant colleges whose founding purpose is to bring
agricultural science to operating farmers.
The work of the extension service has been
expanded to bringing horticultural science
to city dwellers.
—Thad Carver ’55
aquaculture
A clarification from Carly Borken, Taft’s director of environmental studies and stewardship,
about why Taft uses tilapia to study aquaculture techniques:
Although tilapia may be used to control
plant species in some instances, they are an
exemplary fish to build an industry around
for poor, malnutritioned tropical nations.
They can provide a substantial amount of
protein in communities that cannot afford
large livestock or have been so depleted
environmentally that the land cannot support raising terrestrial protein sources. This
particular project is in collaboration with
???
I remember Dr. William Bassford. He sat
on the end of the bench at Saturday football
games to attend to the wounded. He cared
for me when I was in the infirmary with
the German measles. I had no idea he was a
solider until I read the last page of the most
recent Bulletin.
One day back in 1965, Mr. Al Reiff, in the
science hall, brought my attention to the man
who swept the floors. He dressed in khaki,
kept his head down, focused on his work,
spreading what appeared to be tiny pieces
of rubber in front of him to mark where he
had been and to keep the dust down. “Do
you know who that is?” queried Mr. Reiff. I
shook my head. “He was on the first wave of
soldiers to land on Omaha Beach. He came
through it without a scratch. Now all he
wants is a quiet life.”
As a physician, I see veterans in my practice often. They never say much about what
they endured so that we that follow won’t
have to. It is usually their children who reveal
their parent’s history if I ask where that scar
came from. I used to know the name of the
man who kept the Science Center. Hopefully,
I’ll remember one day.
—Jim Wu ’69
Taft trivia
If this tree (on the way up the hill toward the football
field) were a golfer prior to the 1990s, would it be
playing a tee on the front or back nine?
Send your guess to [email protected].
The winner, whose name will be chosen at random,
will receive a Taft messenger bag.
Congratulations to both Chris Petroff ’11
and Matthew Petroff ’11, who said the Arts and
Humanities Center opened in 1986.
alumni SpotligHt
By LIndA HEdMAn BEyuS
london Calling
v Journalist Steve
Erlanger ’70, now
New York Times
London bureau chief,
at work in Paris.
Journalist Steve Erlanger’s days are now
filled with the politics of Prime Minister
David Cameron rather than those of
François Hollande. Erlanger, Class of
’70, is currently the New York Times
bureau chief in London, having moved
there in August 2013 after serving as
Paris bureau chief from 2008 to 2013.
Still, he left an impact on French society.
Erlanger was awarded the Légion
d’Honneur in December 2013 for his
decades of service as a journalist. The
Légion d’Honneur is primarily awarded
to French nationals, but foreign nationals who have served France or the ideals
it upholds may also receive distinction.
“I was completely taken by surprise,
since no one had asked me about it, officially or unofficially,” Erlanger says.
“I saw a message of congratulations on
Twitter from a French journalist friend
and asked him if he were joking. He then
sent me a link to the official gazette, so I
had to believe it.”
The move to London was a natural fit.
He had lived in London from 1983 to 1987
when he worked for the Boston Globe as
their European correspondent. “So it’s odd
to return to a place so many years later and
see the differences, which are both good,
mostly, but also not so good,” Erlanger says.
“It’s a more cosmopolitan city now,
with better food. But it is also much more
expensive, especially for housing and
transport,” he says. “And of course, David
Cameron is no Margaret Thatcher. But
with the Scottish independence referendum this autumn and a British general
election next May and the possibility of
a British referendum on membership in
the EU, British politics are much more
interesting now than in France.”
Erlanger joined the Times in 1987
and has also served as a bureau chief
in Jerusalem, Moscow, Prague, Berlin
and Bangkok.
Erlanger told a classmate that late
faculty member Gérard LeTendre
would have liked knowing that all the
exasperation in French class wasn’t entirely for naught.
Why Work flexibly?
Sara Sutton Fell ’92, CEO and founder of
FlexJobs, was named a World Economic
Forum Young Global Leaders Honoree.
As a leader in and advocate for the
flexible employment market, she joins
their class of 2014 comprised of 214
people under 40 from 66 countries who
“dramatically affect the lives of future
generations and craft innovative responses” to global and regional changes.
FlexJobs, started by Sutton Fell
in 2007, is the leading online service
specializing in jobs with flexible work
options. The World Economic Forum’s
Global Risk 2014 Report highlights unemployment and underemployment as
two of the biggest impact issues facing
the world this year.
“Flexible work, historically, has
been an undervalued, misunderstood
and looked down upon part of the job
market,” says Sutton Fell. “But that view
is antiquated. Flexible work, such as
telecommuting, freelance, part-time and
flexible schedules offer true value for
both employees and employers.”
The reasons why flexible work is important are growing: “Work-life balance/
integration, dual or single working parent families, depressed local economies,
long commutes, health issues or caring
for loved ones with health issues, environmental pollution, the cost of gasoline,
traffic congestion or weather patterns
that prevent people from getting to the
office,” Sutton Fell says. Each of these
real-life challenges reinforces why people
want work flexibility.
“As a result, employers who offer
flexible work options are attracting and
retaining top talent, achieving higher
productivity and engagement levels,
reducing overhead costs and increasing
employee loyalty,” she says. And this impacts their bottom line in a positive way.
Sutton Fell has been featured in media
outlets ranging from CNN to MTV News,
the Wall Street Journal to Marketplace
Money, Businessweek to Family Circle magazine. She recently launched the 1 Million
for Work Flexibility initiative to inspire
people to show their support of a different
work model.
“Workplace technology offers a very
different picture of an ‘office’ than 20
years ago, and with younger generations
n Sara Sutton Fell ’92 at the helm of her
innovative flexible employment firm, FlexJobs.
Jamie Kripke
who grew up on mobile technology coming into the workforce, there is no chance
the tide is going to turn back,” she says.
Sutton Fell’s fulfillment comes from
helping people find jobs that make their
lives better and running a company she
deeply believes in.
“I also love the freedom that working
from home, with flexible hours, allows
me so I can be both present for my family when it counts, and have a challenging
professional career that is making a positive difference in the world,” she says.
Announced in March, these WEF
Young Global Leaders are fully involved
in the 900-member Forum of Young
Global Leaders meetings, initiatives and
research throughout the world.
h Writer/actor
Giorio Litt ’99 as
the character Gabe
in the film, Waking
Marshall Walker.
Reconnections
How many hats can one actor wear?
Giorgio Litt ’99 wrote the screenplay,
was behind the camera, produced
and acted in Waking Marshall Walker,
which debuted at the Sonoma
International Film Festival, and will
be screened at the Corti da Sogni
(Italy), Plymouth and Stony Brook
film festivals.
Waking Marshall Walker is a
15-minute narrative short involving a
vintner whose wife dies and the family’s struggle to reconnect. Chappell
Vineyard in Northern California is
the film’s beautiful backdrop.
An encounter with a mysterious
stranger brings unsettling premonitions, sending Marshall Walker on a
desperate race through memory and
time to reunite with his estranged
daughter and undo a fateful mistake, or risk being trapped between
worlds forever.
With a bachelor’s in drama from
the University of Virginia and a
master of fine arts in acting from
University of Missouri—Kansas City,
Litt says, “Shooting this film was like
taking a crash course in filmmaking.”
Sarah Drew, from Grey’s Anatomy,
plays the lead along with actor Richard
Warner, a drama professor from the
University of Virginia. Litt and cowriter/producer Thom Canalichio
were friends and UVa classmates
with Drew and studied with Warner.
Coming together for this film was a
serendipitous reunion for all four.
Litt plays Gabe, “a spirit guide of
sorts, whose job it is to transition
souls from life to whatever comes
next—and I leave that to the viewer,”
he says.
“Waking Marshall Walker paints for
us a different world,” Litt says, “where
the effects of the choices we make
ripple into other dimensions, where
loss isn’t final and where finality is
but a doorway to endless possibility.”
Litt and Canalichio are now
developing the project into a featurelength film.
The film can be viewed by
clicking the Festival Screener tab at
www.wakingmarshallwalker.com
and entering the password:
wakingmarshallwalker
Shawangunks Redemption
Imagine hiking a beautiful trail through
the Hudson River Valley’s Mohonk
Preserve, the largest member and visitor-supported nature preserve in New
York State, and at the end of the day
finding a welcoming space to camp for
the night—the new Samuel F. Pryor III
v An active outdoorsman, Sam Pryor ’46
has been passionate about preserving open
space. A new campground has been named
in his honor.
Shawangunk Gateway Campground.
The campground will be operated
in a partnership between the American
Alpine Club and the Mohonk Preserve,
which have worked since 2006 toward the creation of a campground
near the popular climbing area, the
Shawangunks—or “Gunks” for short.
With 50 campsites on 50 acres, the
campground is a short walk from the
Visitor Center near the Trapps and Near
Better Belties
On the high plains of northwest
Kansas, the family farm endeavors of
Jeter Isely ’72 and his wife, Nina, have
become second careers, “stumbled
upon following our daughters’ horsecrazy dreams,” he says.
As his 15-year corporate job was
winding down, Isely and his family
went on a sailing journey for about
two years, spread over three segments.
Once the Iselys returned, they looked
for a new place to live.
“I had always wanted a farm, my
wife wanted to move closer to her family, and our daughters had an interest in
horses, so we made the leap,” says Isely.
They started Y Knot Farm &
Ranch in 2007, when they moved to
Bird City. The ranch encompasses
more than 960 acres and contains
everything from free-range chickens
to rescue and show horses (“these are
not for sale, the Isely daughters may
protest,” their flyer says).
The farm raises organic wheat
and forage as well as organic produce
and grass-fed beef from their herd of
Belted Galloway cattle, called Belties
or Oreo cows.
“My wife told me that we were going to be ‘certified organic,’” he says.
Providing good, healthy food for their
family and others drives the Iselys’
Trapps climbs as well as Uberfall climbing area. Amenities include an outdoor
central gathering and cooking area,
bathhouse facilities and indoor space for
visitors to gather in rainy weather.
A modest man, not given to monologues about his achievements, Pryor,
Class of ’46, has been effective in persuading politicians to preserve open
space. He once buttonholed thenSpeaker of the House Newt Gingrich
h Former corporate
IT director Jeter Isley
’72 with one of his
Belted Galloways at
Y Knot Farm & Ranch.
commitment as they watch “how
farming and ranching has changed
with GMOs and chemical farming.”
“Our yields match our chemical
neighbors; however, our land is healthier and so is our food,” says Isely. “We
are in a generally unhealthy society,
and poor food is a cause. We hope to
lead others to farm differently and lead
consumers with their taste buds to
seek quality—not quantity.”
Running a farm on the High Plains
is not easy, according to Isely. “The
saying is, you are either in a drought
or recovering from a drought. In 2013,
we lost both our forage crop and
to support his effort to preserve the
Sterling Forest, an 18,000-acre natural refuge in New York. For his work,
he won an award in 1997 from the
Appalachian Mountain Club for which
Pryor served as president of their board
of directors in the 1990s. He was awarded Taft’s Citation of Merit in 2006.
Over the years he has scaled mountains, both literally and figuratively.
An avid hiker, Pryor and his family have
wheat crop. But we had a couple of really good years before this, which was
of help as we rebuilt farms—our original 320 acres and 640 nearby acres in
2008—that had been empty for years
and are now organic.”
Isely, a former IT controller and director for a large international business,
had worked on ranches in Montana,
on a cattle drive in New South Wales,
Australia, with sheep in New Zealand
and on farms in upstate New York.
“In the interest of disclosure,” the
Iselys advise those planning a visit, “our
horses like peppermints, and our cows
like to be hand fed natural range cubes.”
experienced the beauty of open areas,
hiking all over the world, from
New Hampshire’s White
Mountains to the Alps,
the Himalayas and
even Kilimanjaro.
alumni SpotligHt
Sea Change
h Craig Leidersdorf ’68
where he’s most at home:
working on coastal
engineering in the Alaskan
Beaufort Sea.
From Southern California to the Alaskan
Arctic, coastal engineer Craig Leidersdorf
’68 studies, protects and improves the
condition of beaches, which he’s done
for the past 40 years. Much of his current
work relates to studying sea ice.
“I enjoy interacting with small teams of
motivated people and figuring out how to
survive in frontier environments,” he says.
What’s most compelling to Leidersdorf,
however, is being able to address practical problems that impact how we interact
with our environment. “The thrill of discovery never grows old,” he adds.
An opportunity designing some of
the first man-made islands in Alaska led
to the study of Arctic processes such as
ice gouging of the sea bottom and then
to studying the sea ice itself.
As a principal and co-founder of
Coastal Frontiers Corporation, his interests are shore protection, man-made
islands, coastal sediment transport,
Arctic sea floor processes, field data
acquisition and construction supervision.
“We’re in the fifth year of a research
program sponsored jointly by members of the petroleum industry and the
Department of the Interior,” Leidersdorf
says. “The two groups have differing
missions (offshore development versus
regulation), but our hope is to get the
science right so that the policy decisions
stem from a sound foundation.”
Another recent project was the removal of the first man-made surfing reef
in El Segundo, California—an interesting idea using geotextile bags, but with
unintended results, as the reef lost its
ability to enhance surf quality.
The geographical range for his work
is broad: he’s done coastal and offshore
projects in Alaska, Russia and the
Caspian Sea, as well as on the U.S. East
Coast, the Pacific Northwest, Mexico’s
west coast and in the Caribbean.
Leidersdorf is also a certified scuba diver with more than 30 years of experience
in underwater inspections and a director and treasurer of the California Shore
and Beach Preservation Association. His
recreational interests—surfing, sailing,
swimming and diving—drew him to
coastal engineering, he says.
What Leidersdorf enjoys most is
spending time with his wife, son and
friends, mentoring aspiring engineers
and training for swim races in places like
San Francisco Bay, where he won’t have
any sea ice to contend with.
new Alumni Trustee: Anthony Pasquariello ’95
Tony Pasquariello came to Taft
as a lowermid from Litchfield,
Connecticut. During his four years on
campus, he was a corridor monitor, a
Papyrus editor and a member of the
varsity football, wrestling and track
teams. His fondest memories of Taft
include receiving the Stone Athletic
Award, spending time in Jerry DePolo’s
math classes and forging friendships
that are among his closest today.
After Taft, he attended Colby
College, where he was a three-year
starter on the football team, and, as
a senior, named co-captain and AllConference. He graduated cum laude in
1999 with a B.A. in English literature.
After graduation, Pasquariello joined
Goldman Sachs as an analyst in the
fixed-income division. He was named a
managing director in 2007 and a partner in 2012. His current responsibilities
include management of the firm’s U.S.
equity derivatives business.
Style and Purpose
“When I was a kid, my father would set
up a still life for me to paint every weekend in oils or acrylics,” says accessories
designer Kendall Conrad ’82. “I also did
lots of murals with colored pens—big
underwater oceanscapes.”
The revelation inspires a vision of a
serene and sophisticated childhood. But
there was another side—one that was
decidedly less stoic.
“My father was a matador, so I grew
up going to Spain and Mexico to see the
bullfights. The pageantry of the Corrida
was a huge influence; Spain was a huge
influence, the flamenco, the music…. I
traveled extensively, and that always affects how you perceive the world, and, as
a result, your expression.”
Conrad’s handbags, wallets, shoes and
jewelry gracefully fuse quiet sophistication
with raw energy and elemental style. The
influence of tauromachia, flamenco and art
are clear, as are her love of nature and her
equestrian bent. Her original collection of
bags, Tauro, incorporated traditional techniques of Spanish saddlery.
“There were not a lot of bags on the
market [in 2000], and I had ideas for
some,” Conrad says. “My first bag was
the Coco, now called the Marisol, which
is still a top-selling style for us. I wanted
a tote bag with stitching to go with my
Jack Roger sandals.”
Responding to an immediate interest
to her bags, Conrad refined her aesthetic,
expanded the line and introduced exotic
Service is a priority for him and
his family. He is board chair of the
Excellence Boys and Girls Charter
Schools of Bedford-Stuyvesant in
Brooklyn. Additionally, he is a member
of the Leadership Council of the Robin
Hood Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting poverty in New York
City. Finally, Pasquariello is an overseer
h Designer Kendall
Conrad ’82 in one
of her three retail
locations. Chito yoshida
leathers to the new, eponymous Kendall
Conrad collection. Those leathers, and
all of the components used in her collection, are sustainable materials.
“I love animals and am only interested in working with hides that have
already been a product of the food industry,” Conrad notes. “That includes
snakeskin and American alligator. The
leathers are all accented with custommade, solid brass hardware.”
Conrad’s designs are created “for
longevity both in function and design,”
and are produced in limited edition in
the United States. They are available
online and in her three California stores.
Each piece reflects the totality of her life
experience, melding inspiration from art,
nature and culture into organic expressions with style and purpose.
—Debra Meyers
To learn more or to view Conrad’s designs,
visit www.kendallconraddesign.com.
of Colby College and a participant on
Taft’s Headmasters Council. Since 2000,
he has also served a co-head class agent.
He currently resides in Manhattan
with his wife, Amy, and their three
young children: Mia, Tony and Owen.
Each year, Taft alumni elect a member of their own to serve a four-year
term on the Board of Trustees.
in print
Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage,
Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow
Jennifer Buttenheim Eremeeva ’84
Based on Jennifer Buttenheim Eremeeva’s two
decades in Russia, Lenin Lives Next Door knits
together vignettes of cross-cultural and expatriate
life with sharp observation, colorful historical
background and ample humor.
When Eremeeva (and her alter-ego heroine,
coincidentally named Jennifer) quit her job to
write full time, she became enthralled with the
gray, dingy building across the courtyard, where
Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed corpse was routinely
freshened up and preserved. The result: Lenin
Lives Next Door.
Each chapter is an anecdotal exploration of an
aspect of life in today’s Russia, told with the help
of a recurring cast of Russian and expatriate characters. Lenin Lives Next Door introduces readers to
Russians in their everyday milieu: “at their dachas,
in three-day traffic jams and celebrating their
300-plus public and professional holidays with
mayonnaise-based salads.”
Eremeeva, who divides her time between
Russia and the United States, is the author of
the award-winning humor blog Russia Lite:
The Funnier Side of Life in the World’s Largest
Country, and the creator and curator of the food
blog, The Moscovore: Culinary Adventures in
the Russian Capital. She is the regular humor
and cooking columnist for Russia Beyond the
Headlines, and her work has appeared in the
Moscow Times, Russian Life and on the BBC’s
Russian Service. Eremeeva received a B.A. in
Russian area studies from Columbia University and
studied at the Moscow Academy of Photography.
Lenin Lives Next Door was a finalist for the
Next Generation Indie Awards, the National Indie
Excellence Awards and International Book Awards.
The Rule of Nobody:
Saving America from Dead Laws
and Broken Government
philip k. Howard ’66
The secret to good government is a question no
one in Washington is asking: “What’s the right
thing to do?” Government can’t work because no
human has authority to roll up his sleeves and fix
it, says author Philip Howard. From the White
House to the school house, the people supposedly
in charge have been handcuffed by mindless law
and bureaucracy, he says.
Yes, there’s gridlock, polarization and selfdealing. But hidden underneath is something
bigger and more destructive, Howard argues: a
broken governing system, and from that comes
wasteful government, rising debt, failing schools,
expensive health care and economic hardship.
In this critique of modern legal orthodoxy,
Howard shows how American government is organized to fail. Rigid rules make it impossible to use
innovative thinking, or adapt to new circumstances, or to be fair. Resetting priorities is so difficult
as to barely be on the table. Constitutional checks
and balances—designed to prevent too much lawmaking—make it almost impossible to amend or
repeal old laws, he suggests.
In The Rule of Nobody Howard argues for a
return to the framers’ vision of public law—setting
goals and boundaries, not dictating daily choices.
This book explains how America went wrong and
offers a guide for how to liberate human ingenuity
to meet the challenges of this century.
Philip K. Howard is the chair of Common Good
and author of the New York Times bestseller The
Death of Common Sense. He lives in New York City.
Voyage of the Suzy Wong
Steve Jackson ’53, Paul Cardoza,
George Todd and Walter Banks
Voyage of the Suzy Wong is the story of how four
intrepid would-be sailors managed to build a
41-foot Sparkman & Stephens sailboat in Hong
Kong, and, by sheer will and plenty of luck, sailed
26,000 miles in 17 months home to America.
The long journey began in 1960 when William
Holden was the latest cinema heartthrob and his
movie, The World of Suzie Wong, was all the rage. U.S.
Servicemen Steve Jackson and George Todd were
stationed together in the Philippines. Sitting in a bar
late one night and sharing stories, Todd suggested
the idea of sailing home—to America—and the plan
was hatched. It didn’t matter that neither of them had
any real seafaring experience—it would turn into an
adventure they would never forget.
They enlisted crewmembers Walt Banks and
Paul Cardoza, also ex-military men who had no
real sailing experience. Armed with not much
more than their wooden sailboat, a Chinese Chow
puppy and enough gumption to survive dysentery,
monsoons and equipment failures, they christened
their newly built vessel the Suzy Wong and set sail.
With the help from Paramount’s film publicist,
the four sailors became some of the best-publicized voyagers in the Far East. Along their route
home, they received invitations from generals,
ambassadors and civic leaders and were honored
with receptions and dinners.
Voyage of the Suzy Wong is the story of
this foursome, who relied on the kindness of
strangers and their own resourcefulness and luck
to survive the journey.
In addition to this adventure as a young sailor,
Jackson has also been the chief financial officer of
the Baha’i National Center in Wilmette, Illinois;
a consultant for USAID, the World Bank and the
Experiment for International Living for projects in
Africa; and a professor at Nanjing University in the
People’s Republic of China.
Happily Ever After
Elizabeth Maxwell
(Beth Von Ancken McMullen ’87)
Writing under the name Elizabeth Maxwell, Beth
Von Ancken McMullen ’87 “deftly bends the rules
of genre fiction, letting the boundaries between
reality and fiction [blur],” says Kirkus Reviews.
At 46, character Sadie Fuller’s life isn’t exactly
romantic. A divorced, overweight, somewhat
sexually frustrated mother of an 11-year-old, she
lives in the suburbs, shops the big box stores,
makes small talk with her small-minded neighbors and generally leads a quiet life. But while her
daughter is at school, or when Sadie is up late at
night, she writes erotic fiction under the name
K.T. Briggs.
During a routine shopping trip, Sadie runs
into someone familiar…too familiar, in fact. She
encounters a man exactly like the one in her imagination—and her latest novel. Is Aidan Hathaway really
one of her characters? And if so, what is he doing at
Target? As Sadie tries to negotiate this strange new
world, her eyes begin to open to romantic possibilities in places she never dreamed of looking…places
where Happily Ever After might not be so far-fetched
after all. But “even the expected happy ending has a
clever twist,” says Booklist.
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That
Will Change the Way You Cook
Aki Kamozawa and
H. Alexander Talbot ’92
Whether you’re interested in molecular
gastronomy or just want a perfect chicken recipe
for dinner tonight, the authors of Ideas in Food:
Great Recipes and Why They Work deliver reliable
techniques and dishes—no hard-to-find ingredients or break-the-bank equipment required—for
real home cooks.
On the cutting edge of kitchen science,
Kamozawa and Talbot, at their Ideas in Food lab,
in Bow, New Hampshire, regularly consult for
restaurants to help them solve cooking conundrums. Yet they often find it’s the simplest tips that
can be the most surprising—and the ones that can
help home cooks take their cooking to a new level.
Sharing expert advice on everything from
making gluten-free baking mixes and homemade
cheeses and buttermilk, to understanding the finer
points of fermentation or sous-vide cooking, the
authors chronicle their quest to bring out the best
in every ingredient.
With a focus on recipes and techniques that
can help anyone make better meals every day
and 75 color photographs that show step-by-step
processes and finished dishes, Maximum Flavor
encourages any cook to experiment and discover
why cooking and eating are both fascinating and
fun. The authors have a gluten-free cookbook
coming out in early 2015.
Kamozawa and Talbot have worked with both
individual chefs and companies. Their company
grew out of their blog, www.ideasinfood.com,
which they started in 2004 as a way to record their
daily work in restaurant kitchens. Winners of an
IACP award in 2012 for their recipe writing, they
have been featured in the New York Times, Popular
Science, Food & Wine and Saveur.
if you would like a copy of your work
added to the Hulbert Taft Library’s
Alumni Authors Collection and listed
in this column, please send a copy to:
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
110 woodbury road
For more information,
visit www.taftschool.org/news
around the ponD
By JuLIE REIFF
h Brooks and Laura
Klimley, with their sons
Preston and Graham,
christen the new crew
shell that bears their
daughter Zoë’s name.
Phil dutton
run 2 Remember
Crew coach Carly Borken would have
liked nothing more than to have Zoë
Klimley ’15 back in the first boat this
spring, but Zoë’s unexpected death in
early January changed all that.
“At the time, I dubbed this year ‘the
season that could have been,’” said
Borken, “but Zoë’s spirit has clearly been
with all of us as we rowed strong, pushing up against the toughest of opponents
and achieving success at Founders and
winning the Alumni Cup.”
At the dedication in May, as the
Klimley family was about to christen the
new crew shell that bears Zoë’s name,
Borken added, “It is only fitting that we
have Zoë with us as we race at the New
England Championships on Saturday. She
will travel down the course with her crew
in the first boat, as it would have been. So this season was not the one that could
have been but now, the season that was.”
After the boat dedication, Headmaster
Willy MacMullen ’78 kicked off the Run
2 Remember: Zoë B. Klimley 2K—two
kilometers being the typical length of a
crew race. Hundreds of students and faculty joined the Klimley family and friends
for two loops around the campus on a
spectacular spring day.
“Kids that are part of Service
Through Sports (under the auspices
of Taft’s Center for Global Leadership
and Service) were a great help getting
the race organized,” said Ginger O’Shea,
who directs the program. “Especially
Rashi Narayan ’14, Madison Haskins ’15
and Pen Naviroj ’15.”
The money collected from the run
went to the scholarship that was also created in Zoë’s memory. View more photos
of the day at www.taftschool.org/news.
Building Bridges
Admiral James Stavridis was this
year’s DuBois Fellowship speaker.
Addressing issues of 21st-century
security, he told students that security
going forward will not be about building walls but about building bridges:
“The 20th century was about building walls—the Maginot Line, the Iron
Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain, the
Berlin Wall. We tried to wall ourselves
off, but walls don’t work. I came to
that realization the day an airplane hit
the wall of the Pentagon, where I was
working at the time. I came outside
through the smoke thinking, I was just
standing in the safest building in the
world. Walls don’t work.”
We are better off if we build bridges, he argued, principally using service
to address the world’s challenges—
violent extremism, nations that live
outside the norms of international law,
corruption that threatens fragile democracies. We can build those bridges
through cooperation and disaster relief
and by listening better, but the greatest
bridge is knowledge—through education and reading.
“No one of us is as smart as all
of us thinking together,” he added.
“There are many ways to serve, but
we all need to choose to serve in
some way—our society, our family—
but we need to step up.”
Stavridis is the 12th leader of the
Fletcher School at Tufts University.
A retired admiral in the U.S. Navy,
he led the NATO Alliance in global
operations from 2009 to 2013 as
supreme allied commander. He also
served as commander of U.S. Southern
Command, with responsibility for all
military operations in Latin America
from 2006 to 2009. A Fletcher Ph.D.,
he won the Gullion Prize as outstanding student and has published five
books and over a hundred articles.
you can listen to his entire talk
at tiny.cc/TaftTalks.
Holocaust Survivor
The school commemorated Yom
HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day,
on May 13, with a Morning Meeting talk
by Anita Schorr, a Holocaust survivor.
Schorr spoke about her experience
growing up in a middle-class family in
Brno, Czechoslovakia, and the years
that followed her family’s arrest by the
h Holocaust
Survivor Anita
Schorr spoke
about her experiences at Terezín
and Auschwitz in
Morning Meeting.
Robert Falcetti
Nazis when she was only eight. Schorr
would endure the concentration camps
of Terezín and Auschwitz, then a slavelabor unit in Hamburg before ending
up in Bergen-Belsen. She was the only
member of her family to survive.
After liberation, Schorr joined the
Haganah and fought in the 1948 ArabIsraeli War. She married a fellow Czech
and lived on a kibbutz until 1959,
when the couple came to the U.S. She
did not speak about her experience
in the camps for more than 30 years,
and began to tell her story only after
retiring from a successful career as a
commercial artist.
Schorr’s visit was made possible
through the generous support of the
Albert Family Holocaust Study Fund,
which brings recognized authorities on the
Holocaust to campus annually. For more
information visit www.anitaschorr.com.
around the ponD
Alicia wang
Musician Alicia Wang ’15 played in
Carnegie Hall at a young musicians
concert in May.
“Alicia is a versatile, talented and
humble musician,” says instrumental
music director T.J. Thompson. “We get
the pleasure of hearing her on an almost
daily basis. Just this year alone she
performed part of the third Beethoven
Piano Concerto with the Chamber
Orchestra, played multiple reeds in the
orchestra pits for several shows, and
was a featured saxophonist and pianist
with the Taft Jazz Band and Chamber.”
Alicia has been with the Taft Jazz
Band for three years and played in the
pit orchestra for Les Misèrables and
Guys and Dolls at Taft, as well Avenue Q
at Forman School last winter. She has
also traveled with the band to Prague,
Lisbon, San Francisco and Boston.
perSepoliS The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
Committed to finding a book with a female
protagonist and to exposing the Taft community to a part of the world sizzling with
unrest, the Summer Reading Committee
selected the graphic novel PERSEPOLIS by
Marjane Satrapi.
Satrapi’s memoir of life in Tehran from
ages 6 to 14—years that saw the overthrow of
the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic
Revolution and the devastating effects of war
with Iraq—is told through powerful blackand-white comic strip images. The intelligent
and outspoken only child of committed
Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one
of Iran’s last emperors, Satrapi bears witness
to a childhood uniquely entwined with the
history of her country.
Local author Nikoo McGoldrick (mother
of Cyrus ’05 and Sam ’09), who also grew up
in Iran on the eve of the Islamic Revolution,
will speak on campus in the fall. Students are also asked to read a second
book this summer, selected from a list of
books sponsored by faculty and fellow
students. You can peruse the list at
www.taftschool.org/students/readinglist.aspx.
Author, author
h Visiting
writer Oonya
Kempadoo.
Greg Bal
colleges in Connecticut. She is an adviser to Caribbean literacy dedicated
nonprofit Hands Across the Sea and
co-founder of the Mt. Zion Library and
homework center in Grenada. Her first two novels are Buxton Spice
and Tide Running. For more information,
visit www.oonyakempadoo.com.
Divine
In April, visiting writer Oonya
Kempadoo read from her most recent
novel, All Decent Animals. In it she examines personal aesthetic choices and looks
at the island of Trinidad, developing but
rich, aiming at ‘world class’ status amidst
its poor island cousins.
Kempadoo grew up in Guyana
and has worked and lived in various
Caribbean islands; she currently resides in Grenada. A creative writer and
novelist, she was a Fulbright Scholarin-Residence and creative writing
instructor this year with two community
Collegium Musicum gave its annual concert at the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine in April, performing Festival Music for Choir, Organ
and Brass, along with Cantus
Excelsus and the Woodward
Chapel Brass Ensemble. This year’s
concert was followed by a Taste
of Italy Reception in Cathedral
House with a silent auction to help
defray the costs of Collegium’s
June trip to Italy.
Steel Magnolias
The Woodward Black Box Theater
morphed into a Louisiana beauty
parlor in April, where all the ladies
‘who are anybody’ come to have their
hair done. Steel Magnolias, written
by Robert Harling, centers around
a group of strong Southern women.
Outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy
(Simmons Gaines ’15) dispenses hairspray and free advice, helped by her
eager new assistant, Annelle (Celina
Piechocinski ’16). Their clients include the town’s curmudgeon, Ouiser,
(Ai Bui ’16); an eccentric millionaire,
Miss Clairee (Kelly Park ’15); and the
local matriarch, M’Lynn (Samantha
Westmoreland ’14), whose daughter,
Shelby (Kimberly Wipfler ’17), is
about to marry a ‘good ole boy.’
The play is filled with witty repartee and a good dose of humor as their
lives move toward tragedy when, in the
second act, Shelby enters a high-risk
pregnancy. The sudden realization of
their mortality draws on the underlying strength—and love—which gives
the play, and its characters, the special
quality to make them truly touching,
funny and marvelously amiable company in good times and bad.
“This play will stay in my memory,” says director Susan Becker Aziz,
“for the opportunity it gave this very
special company of actresses to dive
into material that is at once funny
and tender.”
Harpsichord
h Organist Daniel
Scifo playing the
Neupert Cristofori
harpsichord in
Woodward Chapel.
Robert Falcetti
x There are glass panels
on both sides of the
enclosure that allow
observers to watch the
bees work, as well as a
chute at the bottom that
allows the honeybees
to come and go.
A honey of a view
Robert Falcetti
Even though students are gone for the summer, the second
floor of the Lady Ivy Kwok Wu Mathematics and Science
Center is a hive of activity these days—literally. Science teacher Mike McAloon and Kevin Barry from Woodbury Saw and
Motor installed a new observation beehive this spring, alongside the aquaculture tanks.
“Honeybees are a vital part of any ecosystem they participate in,” says Science Department Head Jim Lehner, “and have
been failing locally and nationally for a few years now. We
thought we’d help the little critters while watching and learning in the process.”
When Robert Owen served as organist at
the American Cathedral in Paris, he took
the opportunity to study the harpsichord
with Marcelle De Lacour at the Paris
Conservatory. Not long after, he purchased
one of his own, a 1948 Neupert Cristofori
harpsichord. Thanks to the generosity of his
family, the instrument has made a home in
Woodward Chapel.
The inaugural concert in 2012 featured
Andrus Madsen playing the Toccata octavi
toni by Hans Leo Hassler. This spring, the
instrument was one of the highlights of the
Tenebrae vespers in Woodward Chapel.
An internationally known concert organist and teacher, Owen made records for RCA
Victor and served as organist and choirmaster of Christ Church in Bronxville, New
York, for 45 years. He was also the father
of Taft librarian Patti Taylor. His papers are
held by the American Guild of Organists at
Boston University: www.organlibrary.org/
collections/robert-g-owen/
While we can
n Plant ecologist Dr. Chuck Peters.
Olivia Paige ’15
Tropical forests grow in a very small
area of the world, Dr. Chuck Peters
told students at this spring’s New York
Botanical Garden Seminar—about
2 percent of the planet. “And yet this
land mass contains more than 50 percent of all plants and animals on earth
and is a source of many valuable products. They are being destroyed before
we have a chance to study them.
“We have two alternatives for tropical forests,” Peters added. “We can use
them mindfully, use them wisely and
creatively, or we can do what we do
with the greatest frequency—we can
use them up.” The best way to address
the conservation of tropical forests,
Peters says, is to involve local communities in their sustainable use.
Peters is a plant ecologist and community forestry researcher at the New
York Botanical Garden. He is currently
working in the Tapajos-Arapiuns
Extractive Reserve in Brazil with several communities that are developing
management plans for the sustainable
production of furniture woods. He is
also involved in community forestry
research in the Selva Maya of Mexico,
and has recently started work in
Myanmar and Vietnam to look at the
conservation and sustainable use of
rattan (Palmae) in these two countries.
Dr. Peters is also an associate professor of tropical ecology (adjunct) at the
School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies of Yale University, an adjunct
senior research scientist at the Center
for Environmental Research and
Conservation (CERC) of Columbia
University, and editor of the monograph series Advances in Economic Botany.
The NYBG Seminar Series at
Taft is made possible by a grant from
the Yerkes Family Botanical Art and
Science Speakers Fund. You can listen
to his talk at www.taftschool.org/news.
MagLev (build a magnetically levitated
vehicle that moves down a standard
maglev track) and Scrambler (build a
vehicle—powered only by the energy of
a falling mass—to transport an egg).
n Physics teacher Jim Mooney,
Srinidhi Bharadwaj ’15, Tiffany Li ’14
and Science Department Head Jim Lehner
show off the trophy this year’s team won
at the Science Olympics. Peter Frew ’75
Science olympics
Taft placed third overall and earned
medals in six events at the annual
Connecticut State Science Olympiad,
held at the University of Connecticut. In
this contest, teams of up to 15 students
compete in 23 events, usually two students per event. A total of 36 teams from
26 schools competed.
Taft earned silver medals in events
called Mission Posssible (create a device
that transfers energy from dropping
marbles, paper clips and golf tees in until
a light is activated) and Dynamic Planet
(complete tasks associated with glaciation and long-term climate change);
and bronze medals in Designer Genes
(solve problems and analyze data using
their knowledge of genetics), Disease
Detectives (use investigative skills in
the study of disease, injury, health and
disability in populations with a particular focus on environmental auality),
around the ponD
Senior Service Day!
h Seniors getting
ready to work at
Flanders Nature
Center in Woodbury.
Four years ago, the senior class began
what is now a tradition during Senior
Week: Senior Community Service Day!
The seniors thought it would be fun and
memorable to start off Senior Week with
a day devoted to community service,
ending their final days at Taft by living
out the school motto: to serve, not to be
served. The Class of ’14 carried the torch
of this great tradition.
“What a fantastic day we had yesterday!” wrote Alex Thomson of Flanders
Nature Center in Woodbury. “Brush removed, firewood split and stacked, more
firewood collected, trails cut back, a fence
installed and a chimney cleaned—that
was a tremendous amount of work that
your group completed. Throughout the
day, your fellow students exhibited a
wonderful sense of mission, friendliness
and willingness to help Flanders. I am
always amazed at the diverse background
that Taft students have and at the same
time, their common desire to support the
school’s motto. Special thanks to Chris
Capece and Sami Albert for being the
student leaders.”
Volunteer Council members
(Heather Gordon, Bridget Dougherty,
Taewan Shim, Chris Capece, Sami
Albert, Tess Conciatori, SoYoung Park
and Kayla Romano) led site projects,
and faculty advisers Baba Frew, Jeremy
Clifford, Catherine Ganung, Laura
Monti, Carly Borken and the Global
Leadership & Service Committee helped
organize the day.
Students and faculty pitched in at
Carrington School in Waterbury, Steele
Brook Greenway in Watertown and
Waldingfield Farm in Washington.
“While the school has received much
appreciation from our service partners
in the past,” says Center for Global
Leadership and Service Director Jamella
Lee, “they all noted the amazing spirit of
this year’s entire class and the wonderful
work they did last week.”
Faculty news
RETIREd
• Steve Schieffelin
• Terry Giffen
dEPARTInG
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Isabel Aguirre-Kelly
Jonathan Bernon
Colin Farrar
Blaire Farrar
Giselle Furlonge
Matt McAuliffe
Luis Mendoza
Jean Strumolo Piacenza ’75
Julie Reiff
Christopher Ritacco
Courtney Vris
Kisha Watts
PROMOTEd
• Alison Hoffman Almasian ’87,
director of college counseling
• Erin duffy, co-director
of residential life
• Eileen Fenn ’98,
director of teaching fellowships
• Ozzie Parente, uppermid class dean
• Rachel Russell, director of
counseling
HIREd
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•
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Martin Aspholm, history fellow
Rosy Cohane-Mann, chemistry fellow
Michael Corbelle, history
Micaela deSimone, English fellow
Stuart Guthrie, English
Lauren Henry ’99, counseling
Jonas Katkavich, counseling
Lisa Klein, classics
diana LaCasse, admissions
Jeremy LaCasse, history
Matthew Mullane, Spanish fellow
Patrick Pothel, French
Jillian Stanley, Spanish
Ranbel Sun, physics
v New head monitors Vienna Kaylan and
Quentin Harris ’15. Olivia Paige ’15
Head Mons Named
Seniors Quentin Harris and Vienna
Kaylan have been named head monitors for the 2014–15 school year. Head
mons are the leaders of the student
government at Taft, working closely
with the headmaster and a team of 11
other school monitors to implement the
Honor System, assist in the supervision
of the dormitories and accept a large
share of the responsibility for the day-today conduct of the school’s affairs.
“I think Taft’s greatest asset,” says
Vienna, “is its diverse and capable student body filled with individuals who
all have something to offer to our community. I want students to see their
suggestions in terms of dances and
community activities take shape, and for
them to feel like they have a voice.”
Quentin is captain and quarterback of
the varsity football team and a three-year
member of the varsity baseball team, for
which he plays center field. Vienna is
head of Improv, is involved in many of
the theater productions on campus and
is features editor of the Taft Papyrus.
essayist
Sonny An ’17 won second place in
the National WWII Museum’s 2014
essay contest for his essay on the internment of Japanese-Americans in
World War II and his own experience
coming to America.
“In 2007, my mother, my brother
and I moved from Korea to Boston in
search of a better education,” writes
Sonny. “My memory of the flight to
America was stained with tears and
emotion; I was leaving my comfort
zone and being taken to a new environment in which I barely spoke its
language or knew the culture.
“I learned that in circumstances
mainly beyond my grasp, the
only things I knew I had control
over were my dedication and
perseverance…. Although not
comparable to the adversities faced
by the Japanese-Americans, the
limiting expectation and demeaning
comments that I have suffered over
the years in America have certainly
encouraged my academic perseverance. Just as my endurance has
translated into my academic success,
the determination and the spirit that
the Japanese-Americans showed
even under the harshest conditions
have led to significant reforms in
legislations protecting the rights of
minorities. Discrimination arises
from the fear of the unknown. The
solution to prejudice and bias, therefore, is first to welcome
others with open arms,
and second to withstand
adversities with unflagging determination.”
college Choices
This year, Taft seniors chose to matriculate
at the following colleges and universities
in the highest number (two or more). The
University of Virginia proved popular
with seven members of the class attending,
although Trinity and Middlebury were a
close second with six Tafties apiece.
Bates College ............................................... (2)
Boston College............................................. (2)
Brown university ......................................... (2)
Bucknell university ...................................... (2)
Clemson university...................................... (3)
Colgate university ....................................... (4)
Columbia university .................................... (4)
Cornell university ........................................ (4)
Dartmouth College ...................................... (2)
Elon university ............................................ (2)
Georgetown university................................ (4)
George Washington university ................... (2)
Hamilton College ........................................ (3)
Harvard College ........................................... (2)
Johns Hopkins university............................. (3)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ....... (2)
Middlebury College ..................................... (6)
Muhlenberg College .................................... (2)
new york university .................................... (4)
Saint Michael’s College ................................ (2)
Southern Methodist ................................... (4)
Stanford university ...................................... (2)
Trinity College .............................................. (6)
Tufts university ............................................ (3)
union College .............................................. (3)
united States naval Academy...................... (2)
university of Michigan ................................ (2)
university of n.C. Chapel Hill ....................... (3)
university of notre dame ............................ (2)
university of Richmond ............................... (3)
university of Southern California ................ (3)
university of Vermont ................................. (2)
university of Virginia ................................... (7)
Washington and Lee university ................... (2)
Williams College .......................................... (3)
yale university ............................................. (2)
You can read the
complete essay online
at tiny.cc/sonnyan17
For more on the
spring season,
please visit
www.taftsports.com.
spring Sport wrap-up
By STEVE PALMER
Baseball 10–10
Boys’ crew 41–44
A .500 season was a success in this rebuilding year for the Rhino nine. Taft
was 7–7 in the Colonial League—good
enough for 4th place behind Choate,
Avon and Loomis, and ahead of
Hotchkiss, Kent, TP and Westminster.
Senior pitchers Hadley Stone and Patch
Robinson were 5–3 and 5–2 respectively,
and uppermid Justin Lebek earned five
saves in addition to leading the team with
a .403 batting average and being elected
captain for next year. A solid group of rising seniors—Lebek, Hunter Frantz, Ross
Colton, Doug Goldstone and Quentin
Harris—along with rising uppermid
Jeremiah Vargas will be the nucleus of
a team that expects to compete for the
league championship next year.
In their dual-meet races and regattas,
Taft’s four varsity boats compiled an
overall record of 41 wins versus 44 losses, with the first varsity boat posting a
record of 15–9. The first varsity lineup
of Aleksa Lambert ’14 (cox), tri-captain
Liam Carty ’14, Jack Torney ’15, tricaptain Carl Sangree ’14 and Richard
Gilland ’15, became the first Taft boys’
crew to medal at the Founders Day
Regatta, earning a silver medal and taking 1st place among all the scholastic
programs at this prestigious event. In
a crazy season shortened by ice on the
lake and then wind, Taft managed to
qualify all four varsity boats for New
Englands—with the first boat seeded
6th out of 29 teams. First boat would
2014 SPRInG AWARd WInnERS
Softball Award ------------------------------------------------------- Audrey C. Quirk ’14
Crew Award --------------------------------------------- Charlotte D. Cunningham ’14,
Amelia R. Wilhelm ’14, Liam D. Carty ’14
Wandelt Lacrosse Award -------Collins J. Grant ’14, Sadie Rose Oppenheim ’14
Odden Lacrosse Award -----------------------------------------------John S. Collins ’14
George D. Gould Tennis Award ------------------------------------ Isabel R. Stack ’14
Alrick H. Man Jr. Award --------------------------------------- Raymond Z. Kanyó ’14
Galeski Golf Award ------------------------------------------Matthew C. Schimenti ’14
Seymour Willis Beardsley Track Award ------------------------ Shana K. Joseph ’14,
Troy-Jay N. Moo Penn ’14
Stone Baseball Award ----------------------------------Christopher Hadley Stone ’14
Girls’ Golf Award ------------------------------------------ Mary Legare Augenstein ’14
go on to finish 11th in that championship race, but it was the fourth boat that
shone brightest, finishing 5th, an outstanding achievement for a young crew
composed of Shelby Hetherington ’16
(cox), Josh Molder ’16 (stroke), Noah
Baird ’16, Michael Molder ’16 and
Keenan Murray ’15.
Girls’ crew 33–53
The girls’ crew schedule remained challenging but exciting as Taft steadily
decreased the margins each week
against the top teams in New England
and in the country. At the Founders
Day Regatta, the 1st boat of Rita
Catherine O’Shea ’14 (cox), Charlotte
Cunningham ’14 (co–captain), Kate
Tewksbury ’16, Sophie Kamhi ’17 and
Athena Wilkinson ’15 fought for an
exciting finish to qualify for the petite
finals. The 2nd boat also qualified for
the petites, and the 4th for the grands;
all finished in the top half of their
second race. The following weekend,
Taft was 3rd overall at the DuPont
Cup, out of six very strong crews. In
the last race of the season, the Rhinos
won the Alumni Cup against Berkshire,
Gunnery and Canterbury with crucial
wins coming from the 3rd and 4th
boats. All four boats qualified for New
Englands and had outstanding showings, but none qualified for the grand
finals or petites.
h The boys’ golf
team took home the
Founders League
Championship, at
home on Alumni Day,
setting a new course
record of 369 strokes
and a stroke average
per player of 73.8.
Boys’ golf 8–1
FOundERS LEAGuE CHAMPIOnS
Building on of last spring’s success,
this year’s team had an excellent record
and posted a team 18-hole scoring
record. While weather wreaked havoc
with the match schedule, Taft’s play
in three tournaments illustrated their
depth and strength. Finishing 2nd at
Newport Country Club in the Andover
Invitational, Jack Porcelli ’14 won comedalist honors with a round of 73.
At the Kingswood Invitational, Julien
Papadopoulo ’14 shot a round of 72,
good for 6th place in a field of 110 prep
school golfers. The team total of 380
bested Taft’s previous KIT record by 8
strokes and earned a 3rd place finish, just
two strokes out of first place. Finally, at
the Founders League Championship,
played at the Watertown Golf Club, the
Rhinos’ tremendous depth secured the
league championship and a new scoring record. Sebastian Cheng ’14 led the
way with an even par 71, followed by
Porcelli (74), Papadopoulo (74), Owen
McGowan ’15 (74) and J.P. Raftery ’15
(76), for a five-man score of 369 strokes.
Girls’ golf 8–2
FOundERS LEAGuE CHAMPIOnS
nEW EnGLAnd RunnER-uP
Under the leadership of captains
Jackie Eleey ’14, who will be attending
Georgetown, and Legare Augenstein
’14, who will be attending the United
States Naval Academy to play golf, Taft
captured the Founders Championship
by a whopping 38 strokes. Eleey received the John Villano Taft ’44 Spirit
of Taft Golf Award and All Founders
League honors, plus she was the medalist at the league tournament with
a 9-hole score of 36. Augenstein, at
#2, won the Girls’ Golf Award and
All Founders League honors as well.
The team won matches against strong
opponents including Hotchkiss,
Choate, Loomis, Ethel Walker’s and
Miss Porter’s before falling twice to
Greenwich Academy at Round Hill Golf
Club and on Taft’s home course. Pen
Naviroj ’15, also All Founders League
honors at #3, and newcomer Meghan
Foos, playing #4, won many matches
from the middle of the lineup. Hannah
Wilczynski ’16, Avery Andreski ’17 and
Marisa Mission ’17 also won matches,
showing the team’s depth. Eleey and
Augenstein both shot a 78 and tied for
4th at the Pippy O’Connor Independent
School Girls’ Golf Classic, with more
than 60 girls competing.
spring Sport
consistently controlled games on the
offensive end for Taft and was the team’s
leading scorer. Rachel Muskin ’14,
co-captain Rosey Oppenheim ’14 and
CoCo Tautkus ’14 were also important
offensive weapons. Co-captain Collins
Grant ’14 and Caroline Queally ’14 were
strong and consistent in the midfield
all season, while Lauren Drakeley ’15
anchored the defense in front of goalie
Becky Dutton ’16, who finished with
several 20-plus save games.
Softball 6–6
h Will Sipperly
’14 helped lead
his team to a 12–4
record, earning u.S. Lacrosse
All-American and
All-Western New
England honors.
He will play for
the university of
Virginia in the fall.
Robert Falcetti
Boys’ lacrosse 12–4
Taft was one of the best teams in one
of the most competitive high school
lacrosse leagues in the nation. The
Western New England Division I group
included six teams that were ranked
nationally in the top 25, and after
10–1 start, Taft rose as high as #7 in
one national poll. Big wins came over
Exeter (16–7), Brewster (11–7), and
Westminster (6–5), but the highlight
of the season was the Rhinos’ 8–7 victory over Deerfield (8–7)—the first
in 11 years and the Big Green’s only
loss this year. Goalie Angus Viebranz
’14 (bound for Middlebury) tallied
20 saves and scored a goal in that win
to go along with the superb play of
defenders co-captain Eric Smith ’14
(Michigan), Zach Ambrosino ’15 and
Brandon Salvatore ’15. Taft then won
its final game at home in exciting fashion, as All-American Will Sipperly ’14
(Virginia) scored with 40 seconds left
to tie the game, and Tim Shield ’14
(Vermont) won it with 20 seconds to
go. Sipperly and co-captain Jack Collins
’14 (Brown) were finalists for Western
New England midfielder of the year.
Bryant-bound Brady O’Donnell ’14 led
the team with 28 assists and 49 points,
and Virginia-bound Tyler Breen ’14
finished his career with 113 total points
and was named an Under Armour
All-American.
Having graduated six seniors, Taft faced
many positions that needed to be filled
this spring. Leading the way was captain
and catcher Audrey Quirk ’14, who had
a strong season behind the plate. She
worked well with pitchers Shelby James
’15 and Daria Acosta-Rua ’16, who
faced some tough teams early in the season, going 1–3 to start. The Rhinos got
their bats going in mid-season, as they
soundly defeated Deerfield 7–0, Miss
Porter’s 21–5 and Canterbury 16–1.
They ended the season with a win over
Hotchkiss (8–0) and their best game,
a close loss to Choate, with no errors
in the field and a solid showing at the
plate. Centerfielder Madie Leidt ’16
and Acosta-Rua were named Founders
League All-Stars, and Quirk received
the Softball Award.
Boys’ tennis 14–4
Girls’ lacrosse 10–4
SOuTHERn nEW EnGLAnd
LEAGuE CHAMPIOnS
Taft got off to a fast start this spring,
with five quick wins, including good
games over Berkshire (7–5) and a
come-from-behind victory over a strong
Loomis team (11–9). The Rhinos then
alternated wins and losses the rest of
the way, dropping one to Deerfield
(14–17), but winning a tight one over
Westminster (6–5). With her skill
and athleticism, Rachael Alberti ’15
The Rhinos were strong from top to
bottom and made a good run at the
New England team title. It was a season
of balance among the best New England
teams, with Taft earning hard–fought
4–3 wins over Hotchkiss and Deerfield
early in the season. All four Taft losses
were by the score of 4–3, including to
one early to Andover (New England
Division I champion) and one late to
Hopkins (New England Division II
champion). Taft’s second 4–3 win over
Hotchkiss earned them the Southern
New England Tennis League title, but
they were prevented from making it to
the New England Tournament championship match with a 4–3 semifinal
loss. Captain Raymond Kanyo ’14 and
Courtland Boyle ’16 were strong and
steady as the #1 and #2 singles players
all spring. Mike Mulroy ’15 and George
Johnston ’15, #3 and #4 singles players,
formed Taft’s best tandem at #2 doubles. Jacques Pellet ’17, Griffin Conner
’15 and Tucker Killian ’14 rounded out
this very talented team.
Girls’ tennis 8–6
The Rhinos opened the season by
knocking off New England powerhouse
Hotchkiss for the first times since
2002. The girls followed up with solid
wins over league rivals Choate (9–0)
and Loomis Chaffee (8–1). An upset
win over Sacred Heart (6–3) secured
Taft’s place in the New England Class
A Tournament. In the first-round
match, Taft lost the doubles point by
the closest of margins, an 8–9 tiebreak
loss by co-captain Bella Ordway ’15
and Hannah Friend at #1 doubles.
However, Friend ’15, Olivia O’Malley
’15 and Eugenie Greeff ’17 overpowered their Nobles opponents at the #2,
#5 and #6 singles spots, respectively.
With the match tied 4–4, co-captain
Isabel Stack ’14 fought back at #4
singles to win the second set 6–4, but
could not quite take the final tiebreaker—after 3 hours and 45 minutes of
tennis, Nobles emerged with a thrilling
5–4 victory but had to fight for every
point. The team will lose a lot in the
steady play of seniors Stack, Alison
Sheehan ’14 and Natalie Whiting ’14,
but with six returners, including top
two singles players Ordway and Friend,
the team is excited for next year.
h Co-captain
Collins Grant ’14
in action.
Robert Falcetti
Boys’ track 6–5
The season started well with wins over
Avon, Deerfield, Trinity Pawling and
Brunswick, and Taft battled hard but
came up short against powerful teams
from Choate, Loomis and Hotchkiss.
The Rhinos had a talented core of
returners who blended well with the
newcomers, leading to a team that had
balance and depth. At the rain-shortened
Founders League Championship, cocaptain John MacMullen ’14 returned
from injury to win the 400m, Jared
Thompson ’14 placed 2nd in the pole
vault, Nadir Pearson ’15 placed 3rd in
both the 110m and 300m hurdle races,
Preston Veley ’15 placed 5th place in the
1500m, the 4x100m relay placed 6th and
throwers Carty Campbell ’14, Fernando
Fernandez ’14 and Jacob Goldstein ’15
all earned places in the top six. At the
New England meet, the Big Red finished
in a 9th place tie with Andover, with
MacMullen placing second in the 400m
with a season-best time of 50:09 and
Thompson taking second place with a
season-best vault of 11’ 6”.
Girls’ track 3–7
With only three returning seniors, the
Taft girls opened the track season as
a team that was youthful and inexperienced. Backed by the leadership of
those seniors—captain Shay Joseph ’14,
Taylor Rado ’14 and Rashi Narayan ’14—
the team made significant progress,
highlighted by their victories over
Kingswood, Greenwich Academy and
Sacred Heart in a quad meet in late
April. At the rain-shortened Founders
League Championship, Caroline
Kearns ’15 in the javelin and Rado in
the pole vault placed 3rd. Joseph placed
5th in the 400m, and Livvy Barnett ’15
in the 1500m, Jules Falkow ’16 in the
pole vault, and the 4x100m relay team
placed 6th. At the New England meet,
Narayan placed 5th in the 800m, and
Kearns placed 6th in the javelin.
Annual Fund
Record-Breaking Annual Fund
We’ve done it, again!
Our Taft community—alumni, parents, grandparents and
friends—carried the Annual Fund from last year’s superb
campaign to this year’s more than $4.4 million,
record-breaking triumph. Those dollars equate to more than
$7,500 of support per Taft student, and they underwrite
critical operating support for the school at a time when more
families than ever before are seeking and receiving tuition
assistance. Our community should be incredibly proud of our
Annual Fund donors, whose steadfast generosity continues
to sustain a vibrant institution and the dynamic, talented and
good young people it serves.
In the midst of celebrating their 50th Reunion, the
Class of ’64 led by example in winning both the Snyder
Award and the Chairman of the Board Award by, respectively,
contributing the most dollars by a reunion-year class
($160,325 for Annual Fund plus $608,516 for Capital Fund)
and achieving the highest level of donor participation (74%)
among classes 50 or fewer years out. Not to be outdone by
their predecessors, the Class of ’14 deserves special
commendation for breaking the record for Annual Fund
participation by graduating seniors with commitments from an
astonishing 96% of its members! With overall alumni participation hovering around 41%, all alumni classes would do
well to honor these new graduates by emulating their inspiring
conviction and generosity.
Once again, the Taft Parents’ Fund capped another fantastic
fundraising year with near-perfect participation and contributions of more than $1.7 million. This phenomenal success
is the result of the continued largesse of our current parents,
the exemplary leadership of the Parents’ Fund Chairs Sawnie
and Jim McGee, and the determination and toil of the Parents’
Fund Committee. The Fund continues to set the standard
among all such funds at the nation’s best schools, and the
thoughtful donors and volunteers behind this effort deserve
our unreserved gratitude.
As chair of the Annual Fund, I am fortunate and honored
to work with many talented and dedicated volunteers and staff
in service to Taft and its future. Through their hard work and
the generosity of our cherished donors, the Taft Annual Fund
continues to generate financial resources that are critical to
providing the best possible learning environment for our students.
To those who made this year a
bountiful success, I offer my sincere thanks for your partnership
and your steadfast support of Taft.
With warm regards,
Dylan Simonds ’89
Annual Fund Chair
You gave back.
Now Taft’s future
looks brighter.
2014 Class Agent Awards
Snyder Award
Romano Award
Chairman of the
Board Award
Young Alumni
Dollars Award
McCabe Award
Young Alumni
Participation
Award
Largest amount contributed
by a reunion class
Class of ’64: $768,841
(includes Annual Fund
and Capital Fund)
class agent and gift
committee chair: Carl Wies
Highest percentage
participation from a class
50 years out or less
Class of ’64: 74%
Largest Annual Fund
amount contributed by
a non-reunion class
class of ’62: $107,309
class agent: Fred Nagle
Class of 1920
Award
Greatest increase in dollars
from a non-reunion class
Class of ’93:
increase of $24,679
class agent: Eric Hidy
Greatest increase in
participation from a
non-reunion class less than
50 years out
class of ’86: 47% (from 38%)
class agents: Sarah Curi and
Matthew Park
Largest amount contributed
from a class 10 years out or less
Class of ’04: $10,399
class agent: Mike Palladino
Highest participation from a
class 10 years out or less
class of ’13: 41%
class agents: Jagger Riefler
and Elizabeth Shea
Spencer Award
Largest number of gifts from
classmates who have not
given in the last five years
Class of ’64: 14 new donors
Awards determined by gifts and pledges raised as of June 30, 2014.
We would like to
express our appreciation
to all Taft families who contributed to the 2013–14 Taft
Parents’ Fund. Contributions totaled $1,706,627 and
participation reached 93 percent for the year. We also wish to
express a special thank you to the Parents’ Fund Committee,
which worked so hard to connect with parents about the
importance of participation. The Parents’ Fund Committee
again reached 100 percent participation this year.
Sawnie & Jim McGee
Parents’ Fund Chairs
Parents of Gwendolyn ’14 and Locke ’16
2013–14 Parents’ Fund Committee
Sawnie and Jim Mcgee, chairs
Jan and Eric Albert ’77
Michelle andrews
Linda and Paul Barnett
Sonia and John Batten
cathy and wing Biddle
Megan and courtland Boyle
rachel and william Brannan
anne and toby Brown
nanny and Marty cannon
constance and Michael carroll
laurent chaix and
Wendy Weaver Chaix ’79
Margaret and anthony colangelo
Jeanmarie and colin cooper
lilo and tom cunningham
John Davidge III and Deborah Lott
Jacqueline and Christian Erdman
Hiram ewald and
Molly Mccann ewald ’82
alicia and Bill ewing
linn ’82 and robert feidelson ’82
libby and terry fitzgerald
Icy and Scott Frantz
Deborah S. galant
Danielle and David ganek
Kristine and Tom Gordon
colleen and peter grant
Debbie and paul guiney
Diana and william Hildreth
Laurie and Britton Jones
tim Jones and annie cardelus
Jeff Keeler and Marietta Lee
laura and Brooks klimley
Youngbum kwon and Misook Yoon
Betty and Francis Lam ’77
catherine and peter lau
fredric leopold and celeste ford
Beaumont and Ben Lett
alice and albert Ma
Christiana and Ferdy Masucci
rose and paul Mcgowan
Cindy and Jim Meeker ’69
Paige and Steve Molder ’78
eileen and Michael nelson
regina and Dennis olmstead
nan and tim o’neill
ellen and Bill oppenheim
Madeleine and frank porcelli
Bridget and Doyle Queally
elizabeth and frank Queally
claire and randy Salvatore
Jane ’83 and Mark Schoenholtz
Staley and carter Sednaoui
Steve Shafran
anne and Joe Sheehan
David Soward and
roxanne fleming
Mimi and Marc tabah
Denise and John trevenen
cissy and curt Viebranz
Diane Blanchard Whiting
lin Xu and Stanley Xu
Alison and Scott Zoellner ’83
50
By Tracey O’Shaughnessy
The photographs in this article
are from a series of a paper
sculptures created by Nam-Anh Nguyen ’15
for her iSp project this spring.
Sam Lamy ’14
“
ignite
STudenTS’ mindS and paSSiOnS”
In their last year at Taft, Robert Brown ’14 and Dawson Jones
’14 were able to accomplish a musical feat neither had attempted before—record their own music on their own instruments
using Taft’s new recording studio. The pair was able to do so
because they availed themselves of a 50-year-old program that
gave them the time and encouragement to take on a project that
they otherwise would not have had the time or assistance to do.
Jones and Brown were part of the school’s Independent
Studies Program (ISP), the first in the country to allow innovative, scholastically advanced students to pursue a project
of their own interest with the rigor, time and discipline often
expected of college students. The students are exempted
from their afternoon projects to allow them time to accomplish their objectives.
“I’ve been writing music since seventh grade, but working
in the studio has totally opened up my songwriting” said Jones.
“It’s definitely not easy.”
The ISP, said Brown, who will attend Georgetown University
in the fall, “required a lot of motivation. It’s for people who
want to have something special on their Taft record. It’s definitely for people who have a passion that they want to fulfill.”
The idea that the ISP, which began largely by encouraging
students to write scholarly papers, would have morphed into
a program that sanctions and even encourages projects like
music, website design, poetry, ceramic arts and dance, would
have been unimaginable to its creators in 1964. But it fits
within the impetus for the program: to ignite students’ minds
and passions.
“The program is amorphous by design,” said Ken Hincker,
who became adviser for the program last year. “It allows students to pursue a passion that has either a specific scholastic,
artistic or service component.” Students then seek out a faculty
member with the requisite experience and expertise to help
guide them in their pursuit. The yearlong program emphasizes
that the process is the most important element in the project,
Hincker said, adding that students learn not only about a specific topic but also learn how to manage their time efficiently.
Each year, about 20 students are accepted into the ISP,
about half of the number who apply. Typically, only uppermids
and seniors are accepted.
Student projects—displayed or performed—conclude in
early spring before A.P. exams begin. Outstanding independent work is recognized at a special awards assembly at the
end of the year for uppermiddlers or at graduation for seniors.
More than 1,000 projects, from still-life-painting to alternative
energy exploration, have been completed since 1964.
“This is entirely done for the sake of learning,” Hincker said.
“No credit, no grade. The payoff, if there is one, is that it’s a
really wonderful thing to have on your college application and
something incredibly empowering.”
Indeed, said Brown, one of the most important lessons for
him has been learning to manage his time. “It’s important to have
that passion,” he said “But it’s important to have the perspective
and determination. It can be taxing. There are no grades. It’s all
up to you to see how hard you want to push yourself.”
This year’s projects were varied and ambitious. Some took
Lance Odden beLieved that many Of hiS
mOre inteLLectuaLLy agiLe and reStLeSS
StudentS needed tO exerciSe their
scholarly gifts
in a venue that did nOt fit intO the thenrigid StrictureS Of academicS.
on engineering and design work (one student designed a
photovoltaic cell, while another made a harpsichord). Others
leaned toward artistic projects (one student created clay sculptures of the characters in Alice in Wonderland, another wrote
and produced a one-act play). Other students took a more
academic approach to their projects, including one who wrote
a paper on how Winston Churchill’s childhood affected his
political decisions.
“I would be too self-congratulatory if I said the program
works because of the way the school prizes the life of the
mind,” said Hincker. “But I think it has an awful lot to do with
it. We tend to get some really interested, committed and freethinking individuals. In an era when more and more efficiency,
effectiveness and payoff matters, we are continuing to bring in
students where being a student is their raison d’etre. I would
tip my hat to those folks.”
At the time of its implementation, the Independent Studies
Program was a groundbreaking initiative unique in independent
schools. The idea was to harness the surfeit of intellectual curiosity that was fomenting in the minds of Taft students, but, in
the minds of its designers, had very little avenue of expression.
“They were so inventive that it was embarrassing to realize
that they had this pent-up ability,” said Barclay Johnson ’53, an
emeritus English teacher who advised the ISP for 40 years.
Arriving at the school in 1963, Headmaster John C. Esty,
who had been a dean at Amherst College, believed that private
school students were disadvantaged by their lack of freedom
in academic study. He believed a program that would allow
students to pursue scholarly interests about which they were
passionate would better prepare them for college.
Esty, now 85 and living in Concord, Massachusetts, recalled
how revolutionary the idea was. “I remember the faculty meeting where I announced that that’s what we were going to do.
Several faculty voices said, ‘Well that’s crazy. The students
won’t do the work.’ So my answer to that was ‘Let’s try it.’”
One faculty member who was encouraged by the idea was
Lance Odden, who succeeded Esty as headmaster.
Odden, who then taught East Asian and United States history, also believed that many of his more intellectually agile
and restless students needed to exercise their scholarly gifts in a
venue that did not fit into the then-rigid strictures of academics.
“The old world was very teacher-centered, very didactic and
very textbook-bound,” said Odden. “It was ‘Here are the facts,
learn them and regurgitate them.’”
Odden and his colleagues began working on the ISP
that fall and were thrilled by the results. “They were absolutely phenomenal,” he said.
One of the first students to benefit from the program
was Arthur Waldron ’66, now the Lauder Professor of
International Relations and Chinese History at the University
of Pennsylvania, “ISP was the making of my time at Taft,” he
wrote via email. “I felt I was breathing intellectual oxygen. I am,
however, someone who for some reason has an inborn intellectual agenda. That is required for ISP.”
Ellis Wasson ’66, a historian at the University of Delaware
who has written more than six books, largely about British
ISP
PrOjectS
Charlotte Anrig ’14
Natasha Batten ’15
Maggie Blatz ’15
Rob Brown ’14 and Dawson Jones ’14
Tiffany Bushka ’15 and Jocelyn Kim ’15
Fernando Fernandez ’14
Hannah Kim ’14
Penn Naviroj ’15
imperialism and the Whig Party in 19th century, was another
early participant who credits the ISP with his decision to become a scholar in history.
“I learned a lot about using primary sources, organizing
large amounts of material, and writing,” he wrote, adding that
those skills were invaluable when he got to Johns Hopkins,
where he was able to accelerate his history program into
a simultaneous B.A./M.A. and then to go on to a Ph.D. at
Cambridge. “Had the ISP program not existed, things might
have turned out differently,” he said.
“The ISP opened intellectual windows, broke up the routine
of school, gave me time to read deeply in a really complicated
subject for the first time, and the opportunity to work one on
one with a mentor. It was Odden and [Walter] Foley who made
me want to do history, but ISP gave me the chance to road test
the idea and confirm my passion in life,” Wasson said.
The initial ISP program looked far different than it did
today. Participants–about 24 boys a year in those days–lived
on a special dormitory floor, listened to outside speakers,
had class-cutting and campus-leaving privileges, and typically ate together.
One boy studied the effects of pesticides. Another looked
at the religious issues in the poetry of Dylan Thomas; still another looked at the march of the Cheyenne Indians from the
Dakotas to Oklahoma; and still another was testing 32 types of
fertilizer in a soil microbiology project. David Armstrong ’65,
who went on to a career as painter, did an ISP under the supervision of Mark Potter ’48.
Short stories, essays and poetry
gender in c. elegans
Busboys (novella)
music
ceramics
Short stories for Spanish Speakers
The Rhino Rialto: Web marketplace
volleyball translation book
Nam Anh Nguyen ’15
Maria Ossa ’15
So Young Park ’14
Mia Polokoff ’15
Tommy Robertshaw ’14
Sam Stamas ’14
Gabby Vachon ’15
Claudia Villalona ’15
Athena Wilkinson ’15
Light installations
perspective
experiments in interior design
family tree
american poetry Revisited
The Taft School Staff: Seeing eye to eye (video)
dove Self-esteem project
exploring Spanish art and Literature
Writing in the Recording Studio
As the first program of its type, the ISP generated national
interest. The Independent School Bulletin published an article
on the program by Odden in 1966, and in 1967, the National
Association of Independent Schools put out a booklet by
David Mallery titled A New Look at the Senior Year, of which
the Taft program is the opening chapter. In the program’s
fourth year, Taft had already received visitors from more than
40 schools interested in starting similar programs.
In its early years, independent study projects were mostly
academic papers (bound copies of which still live in the school
archives), but that changed in the 1970s. Barclay Johnson ’53,
who took over the program in 1970, said the program evolved
with the times. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, he said, the
school was struggling to be relevant to students who were concerned about social unrest and the Vietnam conflict.
“We were, in those days, very self-conscious about getting
through to students,” he said. “They were all anxious about
the war. They were worried for their own safety, and they were
worried about getting through college. They had to suffer the
stigma of being the little rich kids, and they had to grow up fast
because they were certainly on the bull’s eye of criticism.”
The ISP, he said, “gave the kids some kind of place to speak
out and something creative to do because they weren’t satisfied
with the academic fare of the average school.”
Increasingly, the arts became a vital part of the ISP. “The
dancing was extraordinary,” said Johnson. “We also had a lot
of musical projects, both vocal and instrumental.” Students—
then as now—were interested in film and studio art.
“i feLt i WaS breathing
intellectual oxygen.
”
There were bumps, of course, he said. “We have had to
kick some kids out of the program because they didn’t have
the discipline they said they would have.... It was school. It
was not camp.”
Odden believes the Independent Studies Program was a
precursor to the more student-centered method of learning
favored in most schools today.
“Education has moved to the teacher no longer being the
fact-giver, but to being the coach of kids who are learning on
their own. So what we did back then is an absolute precursor
to what’s going on today,” Odden said.
“An ISP happens at odd times, at the juncture of unplanned connections and shifting plans,” Hincker reflected
at the final ISP showcase in the faculty room in May. “So you
write some there, you screen your last few scenes here. You
overindulge in poetry late into a Thursday night or you find
yourself late for an appointment because you fell into the
beauty of the natural world that only data—in its implacable
certitude—reveals. ISP isn’t an act; it’s an attitude. We set
ourselves private study projects to find out what we can, and
might someday, become, thus taking part in the age-old task:
know thyself. And we celebrate the apparently paradoxical purpose of solo scholarship: learn for yourself that your
knowledge may in turn serve another.” j
Sam Stamas ’14 received the david edward
goldberg award for independent Work
for Seeing eye to eye, his 30-minute
documentary about the staff at the
taft School. you can watch it here:
www.vimeo.com/96214141
Tracey O’Shaughnessy is associate features editor at the
Waterbury Republican-American.
Alumni Weekend
2014
P hotography by Robert Falcetti and P hilip Dutton
F
rom as close as Woodbury to as far as Japan,
alumni returned to Taft in record numbers.
What makes them come back?
Connections: those made at Taft and renewed
through Alumni Weekends, Class Reunions and even
the alumni notes in the Bulletin.
To borrow words from an alum, “I was struck by
the bonhomie and camaraderie....While there were
many stories and many life trajectories,” he said,
“the common goal was to forge a bond of heart
and spirit….There was an understanding that our
terrestrial tenure is limited; and what truly matters
is the connections that we make with one another.”
Here, you can see those connections—the warmth,
the laughter shared and why they return to Taft,
year after year.
—Linda Hedman Beyus
1
Thomas Mahoney ’39 and
Buz Lydon ’49 ready to join
the parade.
2
Celebrating their Fifth Reunion,
Kathy Demmon ’09, Sarah Albert
’09 and Gabby Masucci ’09.
3
Will Miller ’74, recipient of the
Horace D. Taft Alumni Medal, at
the Old Guard Dinner with his
wife, Lynne, and daughter Laura.
34 Taft Bulletin Summer 2014
1
2
4
Classes gather in Mac House
Quad for the Headmaster’s
Welcome.
3
5
Three generations of Tafties:
Samantha and Joe dillard ’09
with his dad, Joe ’84, and brother
Aaron ’16.
6
Headmaster Emeritus Lance
Odden greets George utley ’74
during the Alumni Lacrosse Game.
4
6
5
2
1
4
3
5
6
7
1
Rocky Shepard ’69, dick Stevens
’69 and former faculty Wayne
yankus celebrate the Class of ’69’s
45th Reunion at Good News Cafe.
2
Headmaster Willy MacMullen
’78 with head monitors Maddie
Olmsted ’14 and Tommy
Robertshaw ’14.
3
At the young alumni reunion
celebration, foreground,
Joanne and Hugh Caldara ’64,
Richard Loughran ’64, Brandon
Shreve ’64, ned Smith ’99 and
dottie Shreve.
4
1974 alums Melissa McCarthy
Meager, Mac Brighton, Cindi Post
Stone and Marian Reiff Cheevers
arrive for their 40th Reunion.
5
Alumni Soccer players: front, from
left, Connor Partridge ’10, Alex
Kremer ’06 , nick Hurt ’09, Will
Orben ’92 and son Reed, Willy
MacMullen ’78, faculty Ozzie
Parente, Rob Madden ’03, faculty
Luis Mendoza, Jake Albert ’11;
back, Jesse newbold ’09, Andrew
Trevenen ’13, Peppie Wagner ’81,
Bob O’Connor ’74, Tom Brand ’91,
Max Brazo ’11, Shelby Meckstroth
’13, Omar Bravo ’11, Tyler Carlos
’12, Brandon Sousa ’12, Lexi
dwyer ’12, Erin Largay ’94, Katie
McLaughlin ’13, Andy Cannon ’11.
6
Coach Larry Stone with daughter
Katey ’84, guests of the Class of ’69.
7
George Hefferan ’54 with his
daughter, Fran Hefferan Timpson.
table at Old Guard Dinner
1
1979 friends at the Alumni
Luncheon: front, Jane Buckley
Kiley, Kathy Sheridan Russell,
Holly Sweet Burt and Michio
Fushihara; back, Poppy Gilbert
Luchars, Kit Boyatt, Susan Conroy
Ryba, Margaret Farley and
Patty Buttenheim.
2
Rusty Davis took alumni
“Back to Class” for physics fun.
3
A sea of returning alumni fills
Mac House Quad next to
the Moorhead Wing.
4
1994 alums Bridget George,
Andy Bernard and Victoria
Larson Maggard.
Charlie Vallee ’13 and Shelby Meckstroth ’13
during the co-ed Alumni Soccer Game.
5
2004 alums Mike Palladino,
Lindsey Gael and T.J. DeFilippo at
the young alumni gathering.
6
At the Litchfield Country Club
1989 Class Dinner, Jennifer Boyer
Fortney, Amy Ostrander Twombly,
Anna DePolo Shultz and Laurie
Odden Brown.
7
At the Headmaster’s Supper,
1999 alums Eyram Simpri,
Lauren Chu, Alex Dickson,
Taj Frazier and Kayode Leonard.
1
2
3
4
5
7
6
“…the apotheosis of the schoolmaster”
^
The SmarTeST
man in The room
e
By John magee
very spring the line grows outside the Academic
Office as students select their courses for the coming year. Inevitably-rising seniors will ask about
signing up for a class with Steve Schieffelin, as departing
seniors have advised them to do. You can’t leave Taft without taking a class from him, they say. He’s a legend.
While the word “retirement” has been associated with
this event, anyone who knows Steve Schieffelin finds it difficult to put that word and that name in the same sentence.
In his tenure at Taft Steve has virtually done it all, and done
it all superbly. Steve has left his stamp upon this community. His good friend, longtime faculty member Dick Cobb,
cited Steve as instrumental in the development of the
Honor Court. His profound grasp of student behavior, his
command of precedent and procedure, his compassion and
concern shaped that body. He defines what every teacher
should aspire to be. He defines excellence.
32 years of teaching at Taft (39 total)
13 years as English Department head
Director of the Teaching Fellows program
Head of the Discipline Committee and Honor Court
Teacher and coach
Independence Foundation Chair holder since 1997
Abramowitz Award for Teaching Excellence, 2008–09
>
>
>
>
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There is no better way to celebrate Steve Schieffelin than to
listen to what his colleagues and former students say about
him. A few of them share their thanks, praise and respect
for him here, but time and space allow only for a distillation
of the volume of shared experience that expresses the collective thanks of all whom he has touched.
to helping students individually,
^ Committed
Steve created the Writing Center on campus.
—
I started teaching with a one-year horizon, sort of a pre-med
school idea. Schieffelin opened me up to the possibility of teaching as a life’s work. Everyone in the Fellows Program was in awe
of not only his brilliance, but also his levelheaded compassion.
We called him The Wizard. If anyone has reached the pinnacle
as a teacher, it would be Steve, but he wouldn’t admit that…
he’d be the first to say, “I have so much more to learn.”
—ozzie ParenTe, faculty
—
We all have formal and informal mentors, and Steve is the latter for me. When I first started teaching, he observed my class
and gave me the kind of detailed feedback, in a measured fashion, that allowed me to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
I have used that model since then. Always available to crossread, discuss a way to make a point and just plain listen, Steve
gives much more than he takes…and not just in the classroom
but also in his approach to boarding school life.
“he SeT a STandard
To WhiCh We all
Should aSPire
in our moST
amBiTiouS momenTS.”
—BoB CamPBell ’76, faculty
—
I well remember hiring Steve early in my headmastership. We
were looking for a first-rate English teacher to replace Dick
Lovelace, who was retiring as the most distinguished teacher of
the post Bill Sullivan era. Down from Northfield Mount Hermon
came Steve, who struck…me as just the person we needed.
Early the next fall, a parent—the president of Wesleyan
University—took me aside to report that he had just witnessed
one of the finest classes he had ever seen, that of a new teacher
named Steven Schieffelin. What an affirmation of our decision,
and how well it proved out over the next three decades. Steve was
a true scholar who demanded the very best from his students
even as he served as a model English scholar himself. His students
learned to write with great clarity, to read with equal care, to
value the critical ideas they generated and to love reading great
literature. Those who excelled in Steve’s class could hold their own
in any classroom in the most competitive university.
Steve was also one of the school’s great listeners, serving as
an invaluable colleague and a devoted adviser to his students.
In later years he became the official mentor to all new teachers
as he shepherded them through their opening year at Taft with
a formal seminar on the culture of the school while introducing thoughtful pedagogical discussions on the best practices in
teaching. Add to this his remarkable record as coach of the girls’
softball team and one has the making of a truly multi-talented
schoolmaster. Taft has been blessed by his presence…he has
deepened the great heritage of wonderful English teachers who
have empowered the students they taught.
—lanCe odden, headmaster emeritus
—
“…Serious and witty within a single moment”
^
My friendship with Steve began before Taft, at Northfield Mount
Hermon in the fall of 1980 when I was a new and inexperienced
teacher and Steve was the good friend of my not-yet-husband,
Mike. Immediately I was taken in by his friendliness and genuine
interest in getting to know me, although I later learned that he
thought my name was Peggy for several months—which Mike
still calls me to this day.
No question for Steve was ever insignificant, and during my
second year we served as dormitory heads together. Although
he was not the dean in charge, Steve led those meetings, holding
us all to a higher standard and demanding nothing but the best
for his girls in Cottage V. I learned from him what it meant to
be a professional and to care deeply for every aspect of my job.
Disciplined thought was followed by disciplined action.
A few years later we ended up at Taft together. We were back
and forth between houses a lot, and there is no way to count
how many times we would find Steve tucked into his study with
a set of essays, filling the margins with his thoughtful, validating
and lovingly critical comments—always written with a lead
pencil, never “hostile” red ink.
Steve never was never interested in titles and administrative
positions at Taft. He was a teacher—of students and of his colleagues. I remember one of his teaching fellows sharing with me
that “a conversation with Steve is like a graduate course … you
have to show up prepared and able to hold your own.” Steve
always had time for me and my questions, and more than once
after a particularly difficult conversation with a faculty member
when I was dean of faculty, I would find my way to his office for
a debriefing that invariably turned out to be a pep talk. department who wanted to be one-tenth of what he was in
the classroom. And as the years went by, even as I grew in the
normal ways of a teacher, I never lost my profound admiration for him. They simply do not come any better than Steve
Schieffelin. One of the great pleasures of my travels is that I
talk with alumni of every age. Invariably they tell stories of the
great teachers, the legends, the men and women they have never
forgotten. Steve will be one of them. When we talk of what
teaching at Taft looks like at its very best, when you ask a young
teacher whom they admire, when you talk to a colleague about
who defines scholarly and pedagogical excellence, you are going
to hear Steve Schieffelin’s name.
— Wi l l y m aC m ul l e n ’ 7 8, headmaster
— Pen n y To W n Send , former faculty
—
Steve Schieffelin—the apotheosis of the schoolmaster. He is a
scholar of the first order and a true professional. His tremendous respect for the profession and his devotion to his fellows
led him to give endlessly of his time and wisdom to colleagues
young and old. He loves and respects his students as much as
he loves Yeats and Shakespeare. He is my great friend and
mentor, and whatever success I may have achieved is in large
part a result of his counsel. Teaching was not his career but his
mission. He set a standard to which we all should aspire in our
most ambitious moments.
—m ik e ToWn Send , former faculty
—
When I arrived at Taft as a young teacher in 1983, Steve was
my mentor and quickly became a close friend. It was clear to
me, within weeks of my arrival, that he was all I aspired to be
as a teacher. I had never encountered someone with as much
scholarship, passion and excellence. I was like many in the
Schieffelin in the Commencement lineup
^ Steve
with dick Cobb and linda Saarnijoki
—
During my senior year, Mr. Schieffelin agreed to embark on the
journey of an independent English project with me, which will
forever be one of the highlights of my experience at Taft. There
never seemed to be enough time during our meetings each week,
as we would get lost in the pages of the novels and plays and
the details of debates over our respective interpretations. To
this day, I have my copy of The Sound and The Fury in the
stack of books next to my bed. I remember at a certain point
we spoke about one character’s role in this book as proof that in
an ordinary way, one can have extraordinary effects on people
and situations. I think this notion is similar to the legacy Mr.
Schieffelin will leave behind at Taft. Through his passion and
compassion, intelligence and energy in the classroom,
—
In all that he has done at Taft, Steve has brought a professionalism and scholarliness that has made us a much better school.
When he came, I was probably in my second or third year of
teaching, and I was impressed by his articulateness, his erudition and, at the same time, his humility.... He was entering a
department that was fractured between old guard and new
thinkers, but bridged that gap with sensitivity and collegiality.
His political sense is sharp, and he needed every bit of it. When
he became head of the department, he guided us in restructuring
the curriculum, brought sensitivity and clarity to the evaluation
of teachers, and was instrumental in mentoring many young
faculty who became the solid foundation of the department.
Steve inherited the [Teaching Fellows] program while it was still
relatively young. He gave it a heft and consequence as a training
ground for new faculty through his scholarly research into good
teaching and new pedagogy, his compassion for the recent college grad thrust into a very adult world and a challenging job,
but most of all through his wisdom and experience as a master
teacher and professional who has always been reflective about
his practice and eager to learn and share. He has been a mentor
and friend always to his colleagues, young or old(er).
as an english teacher,
^ Stevebutisherevered
was also a remarkable coach,
guiding the girls’ softball team for years.
Mr. Schieffelin was able to achieve the extraordinary by catalyzing and cultivating creativity and a love for learning among
his students. He further instilled a true passion for writing and
learning in me—I am only one of the countless students inspired
and impacted by his brilliance. I will always have the utmost respect, admiration and appreciation for him as a teacher, scholar
and friend. I wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life! — Sarah alB er T ’0 9
—
For me, he was a rock, a resource that I could use at any time in
my four years with him, and that stability is something that I
believe without a doubt catalyzed my success at Taft. My favorite part about the man was that he never shied away from giving
me the criticism I needed to truly get the most out of myself, and
that brutal honesty is what fostered a mutual respect and friendship between us. He’s someone who deserves for the world to give
back to him in the same way that he’s given to the world.
— Will Po Pe ’1 3
—linda SaarniJoki, dean of faculty
—
I arrived at Taft as a fragile lowermid, my life dominated by a
learning disability no one understood and a deep-seated terror
of teachers. Although I worked hard, I knew that eventually a
teacher would grow frustrated and be replaced by another. I
had the same expectation when I entered Mr. Schieffelin’s class,
and I remain incredibly grateful that I was so very, very wrong.
He did not give up. Instead, he pushed me to what I thought
were my intellectual and academic limits and then, when I
couldn’t possibly go any further, pulled me, exhausted, onward.
I remember being called into his office … to talk about an essay
I had written. I heard him out and then offered my spiel about
how my disorder prohibited me from writing like a normal
“he ShoWed me ThaT
WiTh knoWledge and
reSPeCT for a
ProBlem ComeS The
aBiliTy To Solve iT…”
human being. I promised I would work harder. Schieffelin allowed me to finish and then said something along the lines of
“that’s unacceptable.” It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t
talking about me, but about my disorder. I had never thought
about it in that way before. I had been angry about it, submissive to it, allowed it to influence my sense of worth, but I had
never thought of it as unacceptable.
The next hour I remember with remarkable clarity. He
spoke to me of ideas, of intellect and of discipline. He had assessed my brain in less time than most people take to form a
first impression, and he understood it better than anyone else—
better than I did myself.
That meeting was like having a series of gears lock into place
and begin to turn. A method of thinking, of checks and balances
and organization, began to put down roots. He showed me that
with knowledge and respect for a problem comes the ability
to solve it, and through his dissection of my essay he built me
up—from letters to words, from words to paragraphs, and from
paragraphs to argument and structured, articulate thought.
As I learned, I became emboldened, and I have applied the
framework he helped me construct to every intellectual challenge I have since encountered. It is a framework without which
I would not have graduated from Taft as a top student, without
which I could never have been admitted to the University of
Chicago, where I became intellectually alive, and without which
I would never have obtained or excelled at my current job. I owe
him an eternal debt, because how can you repay someone for
giving you liberty over yourself?
—
Being asked to articulate how grateful I am for Steve
Schieffelin’s profound influence in my life is one hell of an assignment. He taught me AP English and Humanities during
my most formative years. When I indulged in the vanity project
of constructing an illusion of myself as the most attractive college applicant possible, he provided the sharp reminder to ask
questions of myself immeasurably more significant than any
admissions officer ever would. Providing a know-it-all teenager
a greater frame of reference for her life takes great compassion
and wisdom, and he was up for the challenge. He not only
taught me how to study the humanities and express myself with
precision, but most importantly why I should….
In short, I love Schieffelin so much that I’m disappointed on
behalf of all the future Taft students who won’t have him there
and won’t know what they’re missing—especially some smartass
kid like me who needs someone to put her in her place and tell
her she’s wrong about what she thinks will make her life good.
He’s made such an enormous difference that it makes me consider
teaching someday, and I can’t stand adolescents. This man knows
True North. Steve Schieffelin is True North. That’s a teacher.
— J e n n m e de i r oS ’ 07
John Magee is a member of the English department.
He came to Taft in 2005.
—m arlen a Slo W ik ’0 7
—
What always struck me about Mr. Schieffelin was his ability to
switch between serious and witty within a single moment. You
would be in class, and he would be discussing Faulkner and all
of its complexities, then sprinkle in humor that only those who
were really listening would catch. He also knows everything—I
think that’s what we would say about him most. To this day, as
I am about to graduate from college, I have never met anyone
who has a wider range of knowledge. And the best part is that
he assumed we could also reach this level, not in a blithe sense,
but that we, as his students, were not just high schoolers but
also scholars. His English classes were also about art, philosophy, writing and meaning in general. Mr. Schieffelin welcomed
us into his vast store of knowledge, showing us that there was a
lot more out there than what was on the page in front of us. —h ailey k a r Ch er ’1 0
who will continue to teach
^ Jo-ann,
pottery at Taft, and Steve arrived
on campus in the fall of 1982.
STeve SChieffelin WaS honored aS The 2014 TafT CommenCemenT SPeaker.
BeloW iS an exCerPT of hiS Talk.
To hear his and other Commencement speeches in their entirety, visit www.taftschool.org/parents/graduation2014.aspx.
TogeTher
in The
PreSenT momenT
i
t occurred to me that I should take advantage of this
opportunity to thank the students before me and the
colleagues behind me, both of whom represent all
the other students and teachers who have graced my life of
endless learning. It won’t take me long to tell you what I’m
thankful for.
Every September since I was five has found me in a
classroom. At first I was there because it was the law, civil
and parental, and then I was there because tolerant teachers
allowed me to stay in spite of my behavior, but eventually
I was irresistibly drawn to it because something happened
there that didn’t happen anywhere else. And whenever
I’m lucky enough to be at my best when my students are
at their best, it happens again, and there is no feeling quite
like it. Regardless of the subject or the company I was in, I
had the good fortune to lose myself in a timeless moment
of complete absorption. Mentally and emotionally, I was
all in, to use a betting metaphor. Utterly unconscious of
Steve Schieffelin and all that he was and might be, my mind
was just plain there: alive and well in what the students
and teacher were thinking, feeling and talking about. Even
though I’m afraid you’ll dismiss me as another English
teacher who slipped on a patch of hyperbole and landed on
his ass, I’ll risk saying that to be wholly present in such a
moment is almost a miracle.
But miracles are made, they don’t just happen even if
they are a mystery. The union between fully present students and a fully present teacher, with no walls between
“iT’S noT aBouT WhaT you Come ouT
knoWing, BuT aBouT WhaT haPPened To you
WiTh oTherS in Coming To knoW iT.”
them, is an ephemeral creation of inspired, committed,
artful and improvising students and teachers. It is no less
difficult to produce than the marvelous mandalas you have
seen the Tibetan monks build grain by grain; and when it
is complete, it is borne away in the stream of time. The experience of learning, the piecing together of what you want
to understand or be able to do with the peers and teachers
that share the moment and the motive, makes education
come alive for us. If you can “kiss [that] joy as it flies,” as
William Blake says, you can “live in Eternity’s sunrise.”
Now, I imagine there are students out there thinking,
Hold on—I’ve been in his classes, and that’s not what I was
feeling at all. I wonder what kind of medication he’s on. And
more than a few of my colleagues have seen me coming out
of a classroom with no traces of ecstasy in my face. But even
though the experience I’m talking about doesn’t last long or
happen often enough, I know it exists because of what I’ve
witnessed in these students and in my colleagues—and it is
worth reaching for, maybe even insisting on.
We could whine that there are too many walls that come
between students and teachers, but I believe that there
are too many people who desire this union for it to perish.
The intrusions are legion, ranging from standardized tests,
Advanced Placement Programs and the college application
process to hydra-headed technology and the inescapable
internet. Encouragingly, though, Frost reminds us, “something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down,”
and I believe whatever that is is as vital and strong in us
now as it ever was. Our world was just as bewildering 400
years ago when Shakespeare called it a distracted globe
in Hamlet, and it will likely be as distracted in the coming
times. We can’t do much to change that, but we stand a
better chance affecting what goes on in this [pointing to
head] distracted globe. I gratefully learned—from teachers, when I was a student, and from students when I was a
teacher, and from my colleagues—that we can be keenly focused in a moment of learning that makes the whole world
ours instead of putting us at the mercy of the whole world.
All the perceived enemies at the gate of education will
be unavailing if you students (who are, I hope, on the way
to lifelong learning) and we teachers (who have dedicated
our lives to learning) have the will to reach out and take
back the experience of education and let all the grades and
goals that are the fruits of learning grow naturally from it.
We can revive the workshop of the mind where learning
is not an acquisition of information that evaporates like
the dew, or a circus act of high-bouncing students passing
through hoops, or a forced march through testing skirmishes and exam battles from grade school to graduate
school—and finally, where students are not induced to
offer gifts of the hand that are approved by the head but
might not come from the heart. Then our educations won’t
be the creation of an image, but the creation of a life.
Too often commencement is associated with the unknowable future or with wrapping up the past, when I think
it’s really just putting one foot ahead of the other in the
present moment to move forward with pride and humility. I know that it’s the experience of befriending people
personally—face to face—in the classroom and across the
campus that breathes life into learning. It’s not about what
you come out knowing, but about what happened to you
with others in coming to know it. So I can join Yeats now
in saying: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
and say that my glory was he had such friends.” j
leaving the
PhotograPhS by
robert FalCetti, Peter Frew ’75
and highPoint PiCtureS
tommy head
robertShaw ’14
monitor
I’d like to start with an excerpt from a play we read
this year in Humanities called Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead. You may remember those
names from Hamlet, maybe not. Tom Stoppard’s
existentialist interpretation of the two characters
offers great insight on what it means to stay and
what it means to leave. In this excerpt Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern argue on whether or not they
should leave the stage—bear with me.
He said we can go, cross my heart. I like to know where
I am. Even if I don’t know where I am, I like to know
that. If we go, there’s no knowing.
No knowing what?
If we’ll ever come back.
We don’t want to come back.
That may very well be true, but do we want to go?
We’ll be free. I don’t know. It’s the same sky.
124th CommenCement
stage
I have been very afraid of leaving this place. Afraid
because I love Taft and the people sitting before me
and behind me so deeply, because I know moving
changes things, that people may not come back the
same way; some may not come back at all. I know
I’m not alone in that fear. But I know also that it’s
not the only response to leaving Taft.
< head monitors
Tommy Robertshaw ’14
Some people can’t wait to get—as they say—
“outchyea,” and that too is a valid feeling to have. and Madison Olmstead ’14
carry the class brick
But here is what I think is true for all of us wearing
toward its new home in
red and blue today: this mattered. No matter how
the wall of Centennial.
you feel about this place on an individual level,
whether you hated it or loved it, your years or year at
Taft mattered; because here we were made to think,
we were made to try, we were made to feel.
In the last week we’ve talked a lot about what
makes our class exceptional. Our desire for excellence, innovation, improvement; our restless spirit;
our connectedness with the entire student body. At
a pivotal moment like this it’s easy for any class to be
unabashedly egocentric, to believe that we’re the best
that ever was, and I think that’s okay. I think we’ve
Head Monitor
Tommy
Robertshaw ’14.
earned that. When I think about our class, the best
class that ever was, I return to losing my connection
with this place and with you all. I read a statistic recently that, on average, you lose half of your friends
every seven years and replace them with new ones.
That stat scared me for a while, then I remembered something. What we have here is not average,
and I mean that in every sense, but especially on
a community level. Relationships, friendships,
mentorships—they mean something fuller here,
something deeper, something exceptional.
Two years ago I spoke on a student panel for
Alumni Day. After we students spoke on the state of
affairs at Taft, we were encouraged to ask our own
questions of the alumni sitting in front of us. One
of us asked, “Have you stayed in touch with your
friends from Taft?” I will never forget the response.
Beginning at the front row of alumni, an all-male
50th Reunion class, all the way to the back of the
room full of eager alumni sitting pretty, Tafties of
all eras said the same thing, “I am sitting here with
my best friends in life.” That made me smile then; it
makes me hopeful and excited now.
Here’s another memory, a more recent one. A
week ago Maddie Olmstead ’14 and I marched in
the Alumni Day Parade. After the not-so-brisk walk
around campus Maddie and I stood on the steps
to the Dining Hall and watched the parade file in
throughout Mac Quad. It was a very poetic moment. Each reunion class carried a sign stamped
“it waS a very PoetiC moment. eaCh reunion ClaSS Carried a Sign
StamPed with itS reSPeCtive year and marChed ever onward,
SometimeS quiCkly, SometimeS Slowly, aS time itSelF doeS.”
From near and far,
Carty Campbell, from
Connecticut, and
Ezra Siyadhuba, from
Zimbabwe, share
their triumph.
natalie Tam ’14
accepts the P.T.
Young Music Prize.
marched by him, but he wasn’t mournful or regretful or despondent. He smiled.
As I sat this morning with about 40 seniors on
the lacrosse turf field to greet our final sunrise as
Taft students, as friends hugged and laughed and
cried, kissed golden by a beautiful morning, I finally
felt ready to leave this place, not because I’m happy
to go, but because I know I will carry Taft and the
Class of 2014 with me in my heart for as long as
I live. So I end where I began with our anxious
friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Rosencrantz
urges Guildenstern to leave the stage to go on somewhere else. As he moves to exit he says—I imagine
quietly with a smile—“We’ve come this far and besides anything could happen yet.”
124th CommenCement
with its respective year and marched ever onward,
sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as time itself
does. As each class marched by me, each five-year
increment bringing time closer to our own year to
the Class of 2014, I felt a deeper connection to Taft
than I ever have, because I knew then without a
doubt that I am, and we are, bound inextricably to
something greater than ourselves.
By the simple virtue of graduating from this
institution, we become a unique and inevitable
and undeniably important link in the chain of
Taft’s history. We matter. This mattered. Beyond
the parade, standing slightly apart, supported fully
by a wooden cane, an alumnus of the Class of
1949 watched as the best years of his life literally
Class Speaker
Rob Brown ’14.
Valedictorian
Tiffany Li ’14 receives
the Wilson-Douglas
Math Prize, the
Cunningham Award and
was inducted into the
Cum Laude Society.
Zach Lewis ’14 is appointed
to the u.S. naval Academy
by Lt. Col. Jonathan Wort,
and Legare Augenstein ’14 is
welcomed to the Academy
by her father, Roger.
Isabel Stack ’14
cheers the day after
receiving the Berkley
F. Matthews ’96
Award and a Senior
Athletic Award.
legare augenStein ’14
class speaker
Who knew after probably being the last person to
be accepted into our class when I came, I would be
asked to speak at Commencement?
Learning from my teachers and classmates and
working to rise to their expectations brought out
the best in me, and the idea of rising to the challenge ahead of you is what I think my classmates
and I represent.
If everyone here stopped trying when he or she
were told “no,” or when it simply didn’t work out
the first time, we would not be as great.
As a class we’ve built each other up, learned from
each other, made each other better. You have made
me better. This class shaped me, shaped us, into
people who now have the tools and confidence to
rise to others’ expectations, and because of this, the
girl who initially got a rejection letter four years ago
will now receive a very different piece of paper—
one that four years ago I never saw myself getting.
My mom will watch me open it with my best
friends around me and my dad will be there to hug
me when I cry. Everyone, just as we did with our
first Taft letters, will remember what we wore, who
was there, and how we felt when we received our
last. All of the emotion is still there, but this time I
have the privilege to share that moment with you.
When Mr. Mac asked us to reflect upon this question, “How have you changed this year as a school
monitor?” I wrote, “I have come to understand that it
is sometimes okay to make a big deal out of the little
things in life and to move on from the big things.”
This concept initially came to me last year from
my mom. After my brother suffered from some
mental health setbacks, she told me, “Robert, as
long as you are safe, happy and healthy you can do
whatever you want.”
It was a significant time for our family, and
in that context what I took from those words is
this: “When life is uncertain or difficult, it’s okay
just to get by and stay happy.” At Taft especially,
the moments that mean the most to you fade the
quickest, and the times where life is hard tend to
hang around.
I feel like I owe it to my brother, Sandy, and that
we owe it to the people who we love and inspire us,
not to be defined by the situation presented to us,
but to do what makes us happy and define ourselves
around those moments.
This is why I think it’s okay to make a big deal
out of the little things. Never again will we be in
this unique environment where these moments are
made possible—so please, I implore you, find what
matters to you in life, find what makes you happy,
and celebrate it.
124th CommenCement
Rob brown
’14
class speaker
madison olmStead
’14
head monitor
Taft has prepared us to enter the larger world. I have
seen myself grow these past four years differently
from any of my friends at home, and I attribute that
to Taft.
I have been to Cambodian and Thai orphanages.
I have traveled across the Mongolian steppes riding
a horse that feared each divot in the endlessly divoted ground. I’ve visited Ghanaian and Moroccan
schools and communities, and spent time in a
French school trying to learn the language. Each
one of these trips helped to shape my experience.
Each time I have come home from one of these
Sam Stamas ’14
receives the
Goldberg Award for
his Independent
Studies film on the
Taft School staff. He
also received the
Cunningham Award.
humbling experiences, I have come back to a life
of unimaginable privilege. No one here at Taft
must go without a meal for a day. No one here
at Taft is struggling to stay warm in the Sahara
desert at night. No one here at Taft has to worry
about surviving.
Although we changed in these exotic and faroff places, the most growth that took place was in
Watertown, behind the brick walls, in the dorms on
the cross-country course, in the classroom. We all
have been prepared for the world in the most beautiful way possible.
124th CommenCement
Shay Joseph ’14
Grads Dominique Moise,
Troy Moo Penn, Reed Motulsky
and Rachel Muskin.
nicole Lowell ’14
with faculty member
Laura Monti.
willy maCmullen
’78
headmaster
Today, we are all part of some great sprawling family, some piece of our hearts wanting our children to
have forever what they have had here.
You look at the pages of the 2014 yearbook, see
your sons and daughters, and you want nothing to
change. They are where we want them to be, in a
green and hopeful place.
You mean, they can’t stay in the garden forever,
where they could be so fully themselves, where they
could live near some fragile ideal, where they have
stood so naked and unashamed? There’s a fractured
world out there. As headmaster, I want to hold them
back forever, with all their unsullied hopes and
In a rare moment, Headmaster
Willy MacMullen ’78 gets to
present his own son, John ’14,
with the Aurelian Award, the
class’s highest honor
glittering dreams, their complete confidence that
they can better the world.
But there’s another voice in me that says, and
with ringing confidence: “They need to leave. Now.
What we have given them means they can no longer
stay. They are ready. And the world needs them.”
When I look at you seniors, I feel satisfied,
and proud, and at complete peace that you must,
through that arch, leave this garden space. You are
perfectly ready, and this imperfect world needs you.
retiring faculty
member Steve
Schieffelin was the
2014 Commencement
speaker. an excerpt
from his speech is
included in a feature
about his retirement
on page 40.
To listen to the complete remarks from Commencement
or to view photos visit www.taftschool.org/news.
tales of a taftie
By JuLIE REIFF
Harold “Doc” Howe II, Class of 1936
u.S. COMMISSIOnER OF EduCATIOn
With a reputation for educational reform, Harold Howe believed that
schools are the solution “to almost all of our social problems.
As U.S. commissioner of education during the Johnson administration, from 1965 to 1968 , Howe directed the federal government’s role
in abolishing school segregation under the 1964 Civil Rights Act by
providing federal funding to school districts that could prove they did
not discriminate on the basis of race.
Grandson of the Union Army general who helped found the
Hampton Institute, a historically black university in Hampton,
Virginia, Howe attended public school in Hampton for two years
while his father also served on the faculty. This introduction to “the
South in its segregated condition probably influenced things I did
later in my life,” Howe recalled in 2000.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale (where he played varsity
hockey) and received a master’s degree in history from Columbia in
1947. He joined the Navy in 1942 and served as a minesweeper during World War II.
Howe’s 50-year career spanned education’s broad range, from a
teacher to the federal government’s top education post. He taught history at schools in New York and Massachusetts and served as a high
school principal in Ohio and Massachusetts. In 1960 he became superintendent of schools in Scarsdale, New York, before President Lyndon
Johnson appointed him U.S. commissioner of education in 1965. At
that time the Office of Education was part of the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare (HEW).
“The biggest issue in my three years as U.S. commissioner was the
whole national furor about school desegregation,” Howe recalled. “The
1964 Civil Rights Act said nobody gets federal money for a discriminatory activity, and the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
said to 15,000 school districts in the United States that we have a lot
of money to give you. Here I was blocking the money until a district
stopped discriminating. In much of the South, the schools were still
formally segregated. I had to set up rules and regulations for getting the
schools desegregated—something no one knew how to do.”
When Richard Nixon spoke in the South in the fall of 1968 in his
bid for the presidency, the opening line of most speeches was a promise
to fire Harold Howe on the grounds that he was moving far too fast.
Howe worked briefly in India for the Ford Foundation, and then became vice president at the foundation for the next decade. He quickly
realized that he had to focus on a few significant issues in order to have
any real impact on educational and social concerns. Two issues had special appeal for Howe: the education of minority students and the status
of women in American society. As vice president, he created two major
programs to support minorities in higher education, which resulted in a
substantial increase in African-American and Hispanic Ph.D.s.
He went on to join the faculty at Harvard Graduate School of
Education, where he headed a commission that produced the frequently cited report “The Forgotten Half, Pathways to Success for
America’s Youth and Families.” A student fellowship and chair at
HGSE are named in his honor.
In 1994, he received the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education.
Over the years he served as a trustee of Yale, Vassar and the College
Board. He was honored with honorary degrees from Princeton and
Notre Dame, among others. Taft awarded him the Alumni Citation of
Merit in 1967. His father, Arthur Howe, was chaplain and head football
coach at Taft in the 1920s, before teaching at Dartmouth and then becoming president of Hampton Institute in 1930. His son Gordon is a
member of the Class of 1970.
Before his death in 2002, Howe reflected that “Education comes not
just from schooling, but from all kinds of things. The most overreaching and significant missing of the game by this country about schools
has been this neglect of the broad definition of education.” j
SOuRCES:
www.educationnews.org/articles/an-interview-with-harold-doc-howe-ii-stirring-the-pot.html
www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/howe12022002.html
Education Week, “Educators Honor ‘doc’ Howe’s Contributions,” Erik W. Robelen, Jan 12, 2000 Vol XIX Number 17
What successful Taftie,
no longer living, would
you like to see profiled
in this space? Send
your suggestions to
[email protected].
from the
arcHiVeS
n As one of the school’s
first female athletes, Faith
Bushby ’74 (right), helped
create a solid foundation
for girls’ sports at Taft.
v The girls’ lacrosse
team at Taft quickly rose
from humble beginnings
to establish itself as a
powerhouse capable
of posting wins against
college teams.
The Leslie d. Manning Archives
Pioneers on the field
No locker rooms. No uniforms. A coaching
staff that had never worked with female athletes. That was the Taft that greeted the young
women who were to become the first female
athletes to enter the previously all-male institution in the fall of 1971.
Harriet Staub Huston ’74 was just 16
when she walked into Taft’s Main Hall. A
fierce sportswoman, she had honed her
skills playing lacrosse and field hockey at
Greenwich Country Day School with Melissa
McCarthy Meager ’74 and Faith Bushby ’74.
Together, the three set out on a course that
would begin breaking down the barriers facing Taft’s first female athletes.
“We came to Taft as a defensive triangle,”
Huston said. “Basically there was no women’s
athletic program, period. But there was a small
framework. [It was] a very rag-tag situation.
Though we may have been trendsetters at the
time, we had come from a background where
women’s athletics was a big deal.”
As Huston notes it was, in general, a time
of sweeping change at Taft. And women’s
sports were just one piece of the puzzle.
“In [Taft’s] defense,” they had only decided
the year before to go co-ed. They went full
throttle. Athletic Director Larry Stone
and Assistant Athletic Director Marion
Makepeace, they did a valiant job, but we had
to show them the way. I don’t want to take
anything away from what they did, but we
kind of had to teach the school [about] women’s athletics and how competitive we were.”
The challenges the girls faced were good
training, Bushby recalled. “Coming from a
school that was well established and organized
in terms of women’s athletics, it was like now
we’re older so we’ll take more responsibility
for organizing the team. It was a combined effort between Marion Makepeace, the coaches
and us. How are we going to run the team?
How are we going to prepare the team to play?
We just used our experience from before.”
McCarthy Meager remembers having to
purchase kilts to wear on the lacrosse field,
rather than being provided with uniforms
by the school. Makepeace conceded that the
Athletic Department wasn’t ready for the
influx of female athletes who expected the
same equipment and services provided the
male students.
“We were very competitive,” Huston recalled. We felt like we came in and had to set a
tone that we were good, we were here to win,
we’re aggressive, and we’re not afraid of it. We
want to go out there and play and play well.
For Mrs. Makepeace, we helped her set the
tone, and we helped Mr. Stone set the tone by
how tough we were.”
Makepeace remembers how competitive
those early female students were. “They all
loved sports,” she said. “There’s no question
that those girls, those leaders, set a tone. We
had some good victories. It was all very fun.”
The determination of these groundbreaking athletes meant that by the time these
three pioneers graduated in 1974, Taft was
fielding girls’ teams not only in lacrosse and
field hockey but in a wide-range of sports
that remain strong at Taft today, including
soccer, hockey and volleyball. It also meant
that when the girls’ varsity lacrosse team
played against Princeton University’s varsity lacrosse team in 1974, they beat them
soundly. The girls had shown their strength
and earned respect—girls’ sports had not
only arrived at Taft, but were thriving.
—Bonnie Blackburn Penhollow ’84
Taft Bulletin
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u.S. POSTAGE
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BuRLInGTOn VT
PERMIT # 101
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road
860-945-7777
www.taftalumni.com
Change Service Requested
Fall Events
At Taft
Parents’ Weekend—October 17–18
Hotchkiss Day—Sunday, November 9
On the road in October and November
Long Island
Boston
Chicago
Denver
Hong Kong
Beijing
Shanghai
Taipei
Be on the lookout for invitations in the coming months!

a PDF of the Summer 2014 Taft Bulletin

Transcription

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