KnightTimes Fall 2015

OUT-OF-THE-BOX SUMMER BREAKS

SETTING THE

STAGEPREPARING FOR THE

NEW STRATEGIC PLAN

AN EXPERIMENT OF

GLOBAL PROPORTIONS

FA L L 2015 T H E M A G A Z I N E O F PAC E A C A D E M Y

F A L L 2 0 1 5

PACE CARESWhen our families and staff are in need, Pace Cares.

Contact us to deliver a meal:

404-926-3727 or [email protected]

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www.instagram.com/paceacademy

www.pinterest.com/paceacademy

www.twitter.com/paceacademy

FOLLOW US!

This fall’s Homecoming festivities marked my 15-year Pace Academy reunion. As I caught up with classmates (and met their children!) at the varsity football game, we remembered when Homecoming was celebrated at soccer games, pep rallies took place in Boyd Gym and the old pool sat where the Inman Center’s snack bar is today.

Everyone marveled at our new facilities and at the school spirit on display—and many lamented spending Friday nights at sister schools’ football games long before Pace fielded a team.

As both an alumna and an employee, I have a unique Pace perspective, so when I run into fellow alumni, I frequently hear, “Clearly Pace has changed since we were there, but is it different?”

I know exactly what they’re asking. They want to know about Pace culture, how stu-dents interact with their teachers, how Pace feels. They worry that shiny, spacious new halls have diminished the closeness of this community, that HELEN SMITH and RICKS CARSON’S classrooms have lost their character and that a once unheard-of win over Lovett signals sacrifices in the classroom.

In response, I offer the statistics you’ll find on page 36, the ones that make me so proud to call Pace home today. And then I recall moments that current Pace students and alumni continue to share: a hilarious morning announcement, Spirit Week shenani-gans, lighting “one candle,” Sunday-afternoon AP study sessions, extra-help meetings that morph into life-changing conversations, laughter in the Gardens.

“Pace feels the same,” I say. “It isn’t different, but it’s better.”

Caitlin Goodrich Jones ’00DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

Students are already traveling far and wide to explore the 2015–2016 ICGL global theme—FOOD. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

http://www.pinterest.com/paceacademy

KnightTimes966 W. Paces Ferry Road NWAtlanta, Georgia 30327

www.paceacademy.org

Head of SchoolFRED ASSAF

Division HeadsMICHAEL GANNON Head of Upper School

JOHN ANDERSON Head of Middle School

SYREETA MOSELEY Head of Lower School

Communications DepartmentCAITLIN GOODRICH JONES ’00 Director of Communications, Editor

RYAN VIHLEN Creative Services Manager, Graphic Designer

LELA WALLACE Digital Communications Manager

LIZ WIEDEMANN Stewardship Manager, Staff Writer

Contributing PhotographersFRED ASSAF

GEMSHOTS PHOTOGRAPHIC

LAURA INMAN

Our MissionTo create prepared, confident citizens of the world who honor the values and legacy of Pace Academy.

To contribute ideas for the KnightTimes, please email Caitlin Jones at [email protected].

KnightTimes | Fall 2015

CONTRIBUTORSHannah Kelly ’15

A recent Pace graduate, HANNAH KELLY began her freshman year at Duke Uni-versity this fall and plans to study English and visual art. While at Pace, Kelly was a member of the Barbara and Sanford Orkin Honor Society, the National Honor Society and the Cum Laude Society. In her free time, she enjoys reading, running and playing with her cat. She interned with the Pace communications department over the summer.

Kamran Sadiq ’15

KAMRAN SADIQ graduated from Pace with honors and recently began his fresh-man year at Kennesaw State University. He plans to study international business and resource management. While at Pace, Sadiq was a member of the varsity swim team and the Sanford and Barbara Orkin Honor Society. In his free time, he loves to read, cook and travel. Over the summer, he interned with the Pace com-munications, advancement and college counseling departments.

CONTENTS 6 NEWS

What you need to know

10 AROUND PACE A look at what's happening

14 Spotlight on Life Trustee Bill Tyler

20 ICGL The Year of FOOD begins

26 GLOBAL LEADERS Honoring students who set the pace outside of school

28 AN EXPERIMENT OF GLOBAL PROPORTIONS Reflecting on the Year of WATER

32 OUT-OF-THE-BOX SUMMER BREAKS Globally minded students spread their wings

36 SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE STRATEGIC PLAN Looking back to see how far we've come

42 ALUMNI

42 Updates

48 New Alumni Board Members

50 The Business of Food

52 Reunions

CORRECTIONThe summer 2015 edition of the KnightTimes incorrectly attributed the founding of the Alumni Scholar Award. MARK CARSON ’76 and VICKEY KEY WILE ’71 initiated the award, and we are forever grateful for their dedication to their alma mater.

ON THE COVERUpper School students explored the Kalahari Desert in July. Read about it on page 30.

Photograph by ICGL Director TRISH ANDERSON

4

THE MAGAZINE OF PACE ACADEMY

Dear Pace Family,

Welcome to a new year at Pace Academy! The previous academic year was one of monumental milestones—a new Upper School, a new stadium, a new global-leadership initiative—and forward-thinking members of our commu-nity often ask, “After a period of such tremendous growth, what comes next for our school?”

My response is simple: We will continue to do what we do best; we will focus on teaching and learning; we will strive for excellence. To that end, I’m happy to report that our Board of Trustees has been hard at work on a Strategic Plan that will create a roadmap for these efforts.

We’ll unveil the 2016–2021 Strategic Plan in the winter edition of this mag-azine, but as our vision for the coming years builds on previous goals and endeavors, it’s important that we look back, measure our strategic growth and evaluate our current position. I hope you’ll take a moment to review how far we’ve come (see story on page 36), and I hope our progress motivates you as much as it does me.

And while Pace’s big picture is undoubtedly energizing, day-to-day life on the Pace campus is equally exhilarating. In this issue, we celebrate beginning-of-the-year successes, welcome new families to Pace, take a big bite out of the Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s theme of FOOD and hear how the year of WATER forever changed our inaugural Isdell Global Leaders.

Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Sincerely,

Fred AssafHEAD OF SCHOOL

KnightTimes | Fall 2015 5

I traveled to Greece in June with these

Middle School students. Read the

story on page 21.

LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

THE MAGAZINE OF PACE ACADEMY


The Atlanta Area Association of Independent Schools (AAAIS) has named Pace Academy Director of Diversity RICK HOLIFIELD chair of the AAAIS Diversity Directors Committee.

The nonprofit organization “provides a regular forum for schools to share and discuss mutual issues and solutions, to further the cause and understanding of independent educa-tion in the metropolitan Atlanta area, and to foster closer relationships among the independent schools, as well as public schools and colleges and universities of the metropoli-tan Atlanta area.”

In keeping with AAAIS’s mission, the Diversity Directors Committee meets periodically to discuss issues of equity, diversity and inclusion, and makes recommendations for ap-proval by the Association.

In his new role, Holifield will coordinate committee meetings, help further define the committee’s mission in rela-tionship to the AAAIS mission and provide a written report to be presented at AAAIS’s annual meeting.

HOLIFIELD LEADS AAAIS DIVERSITY EFFORTS

6

NEWS What you need to know

POETRY FOR THE PEOPLEUpper School English teacher RICKS CARSON has long shaped writers of fiction and poetry in his creative writing and English classes—and he practices what he preaches.

Four of Carson’s poems were recently published. Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems includes Upbeat on the Downbeat: A Jazz Hymn for Atlanta, while the fall 2015 edition of The South Carolina Review will feature three of Carson’s poems: Parents, The Coach and Barber Shop.


Senior SAMUEL SLOMAN has always been an outstanding soccer player, but in just his second season as the varsity football team’s place-kicker and punter, it appears Sloman and his right foot have found their calling.

Following the Knights’ 16–14 win over White County High School, in which Sloman hit fourth-quarter field goals of 53 and 48 yards to win the game, he was voted Kohl’s Kicking National Player of the Week. Kohl-sNews.com provides national coverage of professional, collegiate and high-school spe-cialists such as kickers, punters and snappers.

“Pace Academy coach CHRIS SLADE believes he has a player who is worth 9 to 12 points per game to his team,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote following the White County game. “And it’s a player who doesn’t play very much—place-kicker/punter Samuel Sloman.”

As the headline read: “Sloman [is] making a difference for Pace.”

OUT- KICKING

THE COMPETITION

NEWS

NEWS

AS PACE ACADEMY’S strings program has grown in all divisions, so have our perform-ing artists’ musical skills. Organizations outside the Pace community frequently rec-ognize our students for their musicianship, and this year, following competitive audition processes, three violinists were selected to participate in prestigious orchestras.

Junior WHIT FITZGERALD is among the 120 students named to the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, while eighth-grader PAUL-LOUIS BIONDI and fifth-grader AMARTYA KALLINGAL have joined the Met-ropolitan Youth Symphony.

STR

EN

GTH

IN S

TRIN

GS

Biondi

Kallingal

FitzGerald


Save the DateApril 2, 2016

Pa c e Ac a de m y Pa r e n t s C l u b

A u c t ion

w w w . p a c e a c a d e m y . o r g / a u c t i o n

NEWS

EACH YEAR, the National Interscho-lastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) recognizes high-school aquatic teams whose members excel in academ-ics and athletics.

Out of 248 2014–2015 NISCA Scholar Teams in 32 states, Pace Academy’s varsity boys swimming and diving team had the highest grade-point average (3.861), while the Pace girls team was fifth among female teams, with an average grade-point average of 3.923. Pace was one of only six schools to earn Gold Award status (a GPA of 3.75+) for its boys and girls teams.

Senior swimmers GRACE FERRY and MADISON GRAHAM contributed

significantly to the Knights’ scholas-tic success; both were recognized as members of the 2014–2015 Scholas-tic All-American Team. The honor, which both Ferry and Graham have now received twice, recognizes USA swimmers for their achievements both in the classroom and in the pool.

In addition, the NISCA named Ferry an All-American in the 500 freestyle for the 2014–2015 season, making her one of only 100 high-school students honored in the event. Three-time state diving champion HARRISON MONCINO ’15 also received All-American honors—for the fourth consecutive year.

OUR AQUAKNIGHTS:

SPEEDY& SMART

Ferry

Graham

Moncino

AROUND PACE A look at what's happening at Pace


CHARLES B. "BRENT" HASTIE

New Board member CHARLES B. “BRENT” HASTIE and his wife, KRISTI HASTIE, jumped into life at Pace as soon as now-fourth-grader PARKER HASTIE enrolled in Pre-First. Third-grader TAYLOR HASTIE soon followed, and since then, Kristi has served as a room mother; both Brent and Kristi have volunteered with the Fall Fair; and recently, Hastie began chairing the Isdell Center for Global Leadership Advisory Board, now in its first full year.

Currently vice president of strategy and planning for The Coca-Cola Company, Has-tie’s professional history includes executive roles with McKinsey & Company and Bain Capital. He will serve on the Board’s finance and planning committees.

“At its heart,” Hastie says, “Pace is a community of families, educators and lead-ers trying to make a difference in the lives of our children. To me, the intersection of a strong family community… and a powerful mission to help educate our children and build future leaders is unmatched. And, we love the people!”

Hastie says that each year creates an op-portunity to deliver against Pace’s mission, while making the school a better place for future students. “To be directly involved in helping shape the direction of the school for both my children and others is what excites me… about serving on the [Board of Trust-ees],” he says.

With a bachelor’s degree from the Geor-gia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard University, Hastie also serves on Georgia Tech’s Advisory Board.

JESSICA SUTHERLAND LEVENSON '93

JESSICA SUTHERLAND LEVENSON ’93 joins the distinguished ranks of Pace alumni who have served on the Board of Trustees. Levenson and her husband, RYAN LEV-ENSON, are parents to three Pace boys: seventh-grader NOAH LEVENSON, fourth-grader HENRY LEVENSON and first-grader ANDY LEVENSON.

Since rejoining Pace as a parent in 2009, Levenson has served as a classroom volun-teer and grade representative, 2014 Parents Club Auction chair and a member of the Alumni Board. Additionally, she has sat on the Alumni Scholar Award committee.

Levenson says her Pace education prepared her well for a college career at Vanderbilt University, and for her new role on the Board’s finance and governance committees.

“Pace knows each child is unique and teaches to them individually. [The school] does not want everyone to be the same but instead to develop their individual talents,” she says.

The Levensons are members of Northside United Methodist Church and spend much of their extra time volunteering—and cheer-ing—between Northside Youth Organization (NYO) and Buckhead Baseball.

BOARD OF

TRUSTEES WELCOMES

NEW MEMBERS

For the following individuals, the

2015–2016 school year marks the

beginning of their service to the Pace

Academy Board of Trustees:

The Pace Academy Arts Alliance & Atlanta Celebrates Photography present

I m a g e s f r o m I n d i a

An exhibit featuring student photography from a recent Isdell Center for Global Leadership study tour to India

E X H I B I T I O N Pace Academy Fine Arts Center Nov. 3–24, 2015

G A L L E RY H O U R S Monday –Friday, 10 a.m.– 4 p.m.

R E C E P T I O N Friday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m.

Photo credit:

SOPHIE ZELONY '17

Photo credit: LINDSEY SAMPLE '16

Photo credit: LAURA SHELTON '17

AROUND PACE

BILL SELMON

BILL SELMON joins the Board of Trustees as a member of the advancement and gov-ernance committees. Selmon and his wife, ANGELA SELMON, are parents of two Pace alumni: BILLY SELMON ’11 and KENNY SELMON ’14.

Selmon founded Preferred School Care, Inc., an Atlanta-based childcare program for school-age children, in 1995. The orga-nization provides quality and affordable childcare services for the children of working parents, and Selmon now manages multiple locations throughout the metropolitan Atlanta area.

He currently serves on Pace’s athletic advisory planning committee and sat on the Booster Club Board for several years, including two years as president. In addi-tion, Selmon serves on multiple local school councils and is a member of several charter cluster schools.

As an early childhood education profes-sional, Selmon says he appreciates Pace’s history of providing quality education for all of its students and was excited to accept his recent Board appointment.

“I wanted to continue to serve in an edu-cational institution whose goal is to create global citizens,” he says.

RICHARD “BUCK” WOODRUFF

As a new member of the Pace Board, RICH-ARD “BUCK” WOODRUFF will contribute to its advancement and planning committees. Woodruff and his wife, ANN WOODRUFF, are parents to three children, including Pace sophomore HARRISON WOODRUFF and eighth-grader LILLI WOODRUFF.

Owner of Acura/Honda Carland, Wood-ruff attended the University of Georgia before completing an owner/president management degree at Harvard University. Since a brief period with Sony Corporation, Woodruff has worked in the automotive in-dustry, also developing several commercial shopping-center properties over the past 30 years. In 2009, Woodruff signed onto the board of trustees at the Rabun Gap Nacoochee School, where he has served on the finance, investments and facilities committees.

Woodruff, Ann and Pace grandparent JANE WOODRUFF made possible Pace’s year-old Woodruff Library. The family also has volunteered its time in many aspects of Pace life, including the Fall Fair and the Parents Club Auction.

Seventh

Grade at

Blue Ridge

Middle School

OrientationFirst School Day in Lower School

Ninth- Grade Retreat

Upper

School

Convocation

BACK WITH A BANGStudents, faculty and staff returned to school amidst an ambush of activity.

First School Day in Upper School


Sixth Grade at High Harbour

Upper School

Student

Council Retreat

AROUND PACE

13

SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER Pace Summer Programs kept students of all ages busy over break.

Every summer, Pace Academy students face the same problem: no one wants a break from the greatest school on the planet. This year, MARY LIEBMAN ’00, director of Summer Programs, came to the rescue.

With 27 camp opportunities in 2015, Pace Summer Programs offered something for everyone. Paceketeers introduced young children to their first half-day summer-camp experience, while students in Pre-First through fifth grade enjoyed Pace Camp, complete with arts and crafts, swimming and games.

Athletic camps covered sports from basketball and lacrosse to volleyball and soccer, and those interested in creative endeavors tried Abrakadoodle Artist Camp or Creative Fuel Acting Camp. Chess, debate, handwriting and social-entrepreneurship programs provided academic summer experiences, and in Exploring Leadership, middle schoolers built leadership skills through team-building activities, local excursions and overnight camping trips.

Liebman and her team worked tirelessly to plan the action-packed summer and employed more than 50 student-counselors, each of whom made the summer an unforgettable experience for all campers.

— by HANNAH KELLY ’15

“Board service takes a lot of time, if you do it right,” says Life Trustee WILLIAM “BILL” TYLER. “During my time, I knew and learned from some incredible people—some of the very best.”

Tyler served on Pace Academy’s Board of Trustees in the late 80s and early 90s, a period marked by strategic initiatives sur-rounding real estate, the construction of a new arts facility and endowment—the three priorities of the Inspiring the Best campaign. These Board initiatives would ultimately establish key features that define the school we know today.

“People like [fellow Trustees] CHUCK BRADY, RANDOLPH GOULDING, HILTON KORT, MARK PIRRUNG, PAUL GARCIA and DON INMAN were truly amazing to work with,” Tyler says. He attributes credit to ED FESTA for his budgetary expertise, GREG DEXTER for overseeing the tremendous completion of Pace’s Fine Arts Center, and in particular to MARK DUNAWAY, who Tyler says led with energy, generosity and a genu-ine love for the school.

Tyler joined Pace’s campaign efforts in 1988 bearing a diverse commercial real estate background. Following graduation from Washington and Lee University, the Anchorage, Ky.-native worked briefly as assis-tant director of development for W&L before relocating to Atlanta, where he completed a master’s degree at Emory University.

C&S Bank and REIT served as Tyler’s train-ing ground in the early 70s, when he met and married his wife, BETH TYLER. After a time

AROUND PACE


Still, long known for its outstanding visual and performing arts programs, in many ways Pace solidified its reputation in the arts with this outward accomplishment—one that would characterize Meg and Will’s time as students here. Today Meg is director of fine arts at Wesleyan School, and Will is a leasing associate at Colliers International.

Tyler acknowledges that he served Pace’s Board during a different time—long before football and the robust global-leadership pro-gram we boast today—and he knows as well as anyone that balancing arts with athletics is challenging.

“Football is a big change, but it certainly has its place in high-school life. [The Pace Upper School] was losing boys to other schools, and the school responded to that,” Tyler says.

Still, some things remain the same. Tyler served under three headmasters—GEORGE KIRKPATRICK, PETER COBB and MIKE MURPHY—and believes the “toughest job in the world is that of the headmas-ter,” because, he says, there are so many constituencies to please, while staying in line with the school’s mission. A board’s challenge then, says Tyler, is to remain unbiased while forming close relationships—both with school leadership and one another.

“[Those on the Board during my tenure] truly loved the school. Everyone had a voice, and everyone was heard. We were making strides, and clearly today’s Board has contin-ued doing that,” Tyler says.

Now as a Life Trustee, Tyler hopes some of his past experiences—mistakes and success-es—might provide value to current and future Board members. He offers two practices that helped him grow personally and profession-ally along the way:

“Professional development and training classes were offered to Trustees during my service, which I found incredibly useful,” Tyler says. Secondly, he recalls times in his own life when he listened—albeit reluctantly—to insights shared by more seasoned veterans and found wisdom there.

In keeping with the culture that perme-ates everything we do at Pace, Tyler says he will always view his Board contemporaries “a small family.”

as southeast director of finance for Coldwell Banker Real Estate Finance, Tyler went out on his own for several successful years. Ready to increase personal production by the mid 90s, Tyler and his partners liquidated at a good time, allowing him to join the Atlanta office of what is now CBRE. He has worked with the firm ever since, today as a debt liaison.

By the early 80s, the Tylers were vetting prospective Atlanta schools for their two children, MEG TYLER FOSTER ’98 and WILL TYLER ’01. Tyler recalled his public high-school experience in Kentucky, where he did well but was not well prepared for college.

“I had to work very hard to do well at W&L,” Tyler says, “and I wanted my kids to be more prepared. At that time, Atlanta’s public schools were unimpressive due to too much turnover and lack of leadership.”

Among the area independent schools, the Tylers felt that Pace was the right fit. Through the admissions process, Tyler says he and Beth noted that other schools did not encourage parent involvement nearly as much as Pace did.

“The Judeo-Christian component at Pace was also important to us,” Tyler says. “The message was just enough to be meaningful but not divisive.”

While land issues surrounding the expan-sion and improvement of athletic and parking facilities at Pace were Tyler’s primary Board focus, he and Beth had a personal interest in the Fine Arts Center’s completion. Among other activities, including swimming and la-crosse, respectively, both Meg and Will were involved in the performing arts at Pace from an early age.

In 1990, following the close of a $7.2-mil-lion campaign, Pace’s state-of-the-art Fine Arts Center opened with much acclaim. The Atlanta Chapter of the American Institute of Architects named the building one of the 10 outstanding architectural additions to the city. Tyler recalls former Upper School Theatre Director DR. GEORGE MENGERT touting throughout the campaign that “the new Pace theatre will have a deeper stage than even the Fox Theatre,” knowing all along that The Fox stage, despite hosting The Met’s produc-tions for years, was designed as a movie palace and as such was woefully deficient for production performances.

LIFE TRUSTEE SPOTLIGHT:

BILL TYLER

AROUND PACE AROUND PACE

Emma Laura Gash &

Anthony Trinh

A HISTORIC HOMECOMINGAt an electric all-school pep rally on Sept. 18, Director of Athletics TROY BAKER (pictured inset) encouraged students to “shut the place down” with their spirit in anticipation of that evening’s Homecoming game versus Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School.

The varsity football team took that directive quite literally, shutting out the Golden Bears 26–0 to deliver a Homecoming victory and bring the Knights’ record to an undefeated 5–0.

The celebration continued with the announcement of the 2015 Homecoming Court. Se-niors CATER CARLTON, EMMA LAURA GASH, MARY STUART GRAY, ETHAN ROBINSON, SAMUEL SLOMAN and ANTHONY TRINH represented the Class of 2015, and later, at the Homecoming Dance, Sloman and Carlton were crowned king and queen.

15KnightTimes | Fall 2015

Cater Carlton &

Samuel Sloman

Mary Stuart Gray &

Ethan Robinson

AROUND PACE


IN JUNE AND JULY, Keeping Pace, the academic summer program for students from Atlanta’s Peoplestown and Vine City/English Avenue neighborhoods, hosted 62 Pace Scholars—a 63-percent increase over the previous summer. Thirty student-counselors and 36 volunteers staffed Keeping Pace, nearly doubling the service hours contributed in 2014. The 2015 camp session was also extended to six weeks from its previous four.

“I think each child who has been involved in the program—whether as a camper, coun-selor or volunteer—has been changed for the better,” says MARTHA DOWNER-ASSAF, director of Keeping Pace.

Upper School students who volunteered for the program must agree; they earned a com-bined 1,971 volunteer hours in this summer’s session, which was co-led by Pace teacher and coach JOE SANDOE, assistant director of Keeping Pace.

In 2006, a former Pace Trustee shared with the school his vision to establish an academic summer-camp alternative, at no cost to campers, serving Atlanta’s youth most vulnerable to “summer slide.” Through an ongoing partnership with the United Way of Metro Atlanta, Keeping Pace was born.

Keeping Pace has grown beyond its modest fledgling years (Head of School FRED ASSAF was the makeshift—but loveable—bus driver one summer!) into a sought-after summer experience for campers, counselors and volunteers. Now in its ninth year, Keeping Pace is reaching more students than ever.

On average, nearly 70 percent of Pace Scholars come back as returning campers. Engag-ing class offerings, unique local field trips and exposure to new extracurricular activities are likely factors in the high retention rate. Many classes are taught by current Pace teachers and include the basics—writing, reading, math, science and art—as well as creative cross-curricular studies like the history of baseball, Western history, dance, swimming, and this year, how to make fused glass! Field trips this summer included outings to a Braves game,

A RECORD

YEAR FOR

KEEPING PACE

Keeping Pace is making a splash—among both

Pace Academy families and the broader Atlanta

community.

FACULTY & STAFFChristine BunnLisa DubovyKevin JohnsonGinny ParrinoClement RouviereJoe SandoeGrady Stevens

ALUMNIHannah Ferry ’15Cassady Greene ’15Larine Hamied ’15Caroline Mills ’15 Jillian Paul ’15Claire Snyder ’15

SENIORSAilisha CaseyTim ColemanJulie CovallMark HandlerSpencer HemmingwayPhilip MarkwalterLindsey SchragerLian ShepherdPaige Williams

JUNIORSAlexis BensonTrey BlountDeon JacksonSamantha MorelandJordan Payne Andrew ThomasJack RubensteinTahirih Williams

SOPHOMORESTony AddisonBen BernsteinSarah DaveyPaige DembaGrace DwyerRichard EllisWalker HarrisRealus GeorgeBobby MillsReilly MurtaughChip RatliffHannah SchragerSpencer SinclairCatherine Sweeney

FRESHMENBrogan SmithWill Zook

2015 COUNSELORS:

2015–2016 PARENT LEADERSHIPPARENTS CLUBPresident: Amy DwyerVice President: Jenny MarksSecretary: Kate HoodTreasurer: Dave MacRaeFall Fair Chairs: Daphne Gaudet & Kiersten LeachAuction Chairs: Alicia Gant & Susan McCaffrey

ARTS ALLIANCE Presidents: Nancy Gibson & Stephanie HuskSecretary: Alison SampleTreasurer: Lynn Lund

BOOSTER CLUBPresidents: Jenny & Tom BethelVice Presidents: Cindy Gay Jacoby ’83 & David JacobyTreasurer: Keith PayneSecretary: Elizabeth Richards

AROUND PACE

bowling, the Booth Western Art Museum and a day at Burge Organic Farm.

Campers say it’s the one-to-one tutor-ing and personal relationships they develop with each other and their counselors that set Keeping Pace apart. Pre-college and SAT prep is an important component for the older students, while peer-to-peer math tutoring at all age levels resulted in an average improve-ment of 154 percent, based on students’ pre-test and post-test scores this summer.

As a special gift to commemorate students’ Keeping Pace experience, photog-rapher and Pace parent DEBORAH CELECIA WAGONER ’84 takes individual camper portraits for each child to take home.

In true Pace fashion, Keeping Pace has grown both exponentially and organically—that’s not a typical combination. There are plenty of ways to become involved with Keeping Pace, both during the summer and throughout the school year. To volunteer, make a gift, or offer access to an interesting activity or guest speaker, contact Downer-Assaf at [email protected].


NEED AN OLD YEARBOOK?Was yours lost or destroyed? We can send you another copy!

Contact Pacesetter adviser RYAN VIHLEN for availability.

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

AROUND PACE

WELCOME TO PACE!


PRE-FIRSTCarys AllenNicole & RUSS ALLEN ’93

Caroline AlmondAmber & Peter Almond

Emma AlvarezCordelia Ortiz & Enrique Alvarez

Duda AmbraCarla Silvado & Joao Ambra

Grayden AuchinclossMegan & Will Auchincloss

Henry BaddleyGenny Ferrero & David Baddley

Riley BodnerJennifer & Steven Bodner

Keiden BrownBobbi Meyers & Joshua Brown

Charlie BruntKatie Meredith & Ben Brunt

Markus BurnettMichele Johnson & Anthony Burnett

Evie CampbellAllison Berger & Neil Campbell

Jack DeFrancisMary Alicia & Steven DeFrancis

Sania DesaiAngela & Ketan Desai

Harper DohenyKerry & Mike Doheny

Riley DuttaKara & Anand Dutta

Scarlett ElizondoBanu Asik Elizondo & Paul Elizondo

Annabelle FransenKaty & Robert Fransen

Noah FrushtickJulie & David Frushtick

Asim GeorgeLubna Javaid & Binu George

Lily GrabowskiKIERY BRAITHWAITE ’90 & Matt Grabowski

Charlie HallLara & Chris Hall

Colin HillsJena & Jason Hills

Lucinda HumphreysAmy & Crawford Humphreys

Audrey JordanSusie & Chuck Jordan

Lexie KaufmanJulia & Dan Kaufman

Jeff KlinglerElenore & Rob Klingler

Landen KloppKaren & Mark Klopp

Molly KochAnne & Christian Koch

Angelina LambrightLydia & Randall Lambright

Estelle LevittAlisha & Chad Levitt

Ollie LockardVictoria & Skip Lockard

Sarah LoganJulie & Stan Logan

Hiruni ManawaduKumudika & Chathura Manawadu

Carter MarsicoColleen Cherry & MATHEW MARSICO

Nolan McClenaghanJenny & Sean McClenaghan

Gavin McGurnJENNIFER MCGURN & Darren McGurn

Hudson NelsonStephanie & Mitch Nelson

Katharine NuckolsKim & Hal Nuckols

Charlie PartinSara & Cody Partin

Chloé QuéguinerKimiko & Jean-Baptiste Quéguiner

Radha RetnasabaLILA MCALPIN RETNASABA ’98 & Gajan Retnasaba

Elizabeth RomigJennifer & Curtis Romig

Anna RoweKim & Thomas Rowe

Sam SchoefflerMary & William Schoeffler

Noah SenderJennifer & Eric Sender

Eliza SmithAngie & Brad Smith

Jack SpiresHeather & Chris Spires

Henry SukenikMichalena & Carl Sukenik

Dylan TeplisBonnie Marshall & Louis Teplis

Cynthia ThackerMiriam & Mark Thacker

Ryan TrujilloAMY TRUJILLO & Frank Trujillo

George TuckerKatie & Ricks Tucker

Aleksi UyHamKirsten Travers-UyHam & John UyHam

Finn WalshAnn & Chris Walsh

Graham WhitehartKelly & Allen Whitehart

Caroline WilliamsJessica Williams

Katie WrigleyMegan WrigleyErin & JASE WRIGLEY ’94

FIRST GRADELucy BryanGenevieve Lynch & SEAN BRYAN

Andrew WilhelmNicole & ERIC WILHELM

SECOND GRADE Hayes PollardJill & Derek Pollard

Jameson RyanLiz & JUSTIN RYAN ’95

Paine SpiresHeather & Chris Spires

THIRD GRADEHenry BryanGenevieve Lynch & SEAN BRYAN

Jack McMullanCatherine & Ted McMullan

Weston PierceKristin & Jeff Pierce

Charles SmithAmanda & Shawn Smith

FOURTH GRADEEllie ArenthAlison & Mike Arenth

Jaxon Praise PerezChrishaunda Lee Perez & Jason Perez

FIFTH GRADEBrooke BrumfieldAmy & Hardy Brumfield

Forest PollardJill & Derek Pollard

SIXTH GRADEEddi AronsonDana & Stephen Aronson

Dylan BakerLori & TROY BAKER

Nile BennettTonya & Danny Bennett

Jude BlackChristine Beleckis & Derrick Black

Edward BlahaGeorge BlahaEmily & Buddy Blaha

Samuel BreadyMary & Cameron Bready

Francie ColemanCeCe & Sean Coleman

Austin CulpepperTricia Kinney & Gardner Culpepper

Eleanor DuPreeMimi & DON DUPREE

Megan EghtedariAshley & Bijan Eghtedari

Leah FaveroMELISSA COHEN FAVERO ’91 & David Favero

AROUND PACE AROUND PACE

Hannah GenserJoanna & Ira Genser

Gibby HeiserBrooks & Craig Heiser

Julia HolmesMary & Ed Holmes

Emma JonesKim & Adam Jones

Courtney KahnSharla & BRIAN KAHN ’78

Taylor KnowltonKeisha & Cosmen Knowlton

Maggie LyonElizabeth & Scott Lyon

MJ MorrisKimberly & Eddie Morris

Morgan NeillPamela & Wally Neill

Holland ProctorHolly & Palmer Proctor

Ben SheltonMindi & Pete Shelton

Lauren SmithChristy & Greg Smith

Matthew SteigerBarbara & Lionel Steiger

Ford StrattonClaire & William Stratton

Lewis ToddLEE BARRY TODD ’90 Marcus Todd

Jayla WidemanJamila & Eric Frazier

Dillon WilliamsVeminda & Derrick Williams

Jaxon WilloughbyJohnita Due & Mark Willoughby

SEVENTH GRADELogan BakerLori & TROY BAKER

Nathan CochranKim & Wayne Cochran

EIGHTH GRADESpencyr AronsonDana & Stephen Aronson

Paula SandovalMonica Santamaria & Ricardo Sandoval

NINTH GRADEAlex AllenDoris & Howard Allen

Adara Anthony-JonesErica Anthony

Avi AroraCathi & Manny Arora

Regan BatesGina & Chip Bates

Sophie BeckElizabeth & Andy Beck

Ania BriscoeSylvia Small

Siofra CaseyHelen & Peter Casey

Cameron HamiltonDeeDee Hamilton

Ahsan HenningsNikki & Arnold Hennings

Justice JacksonCarla Edmon

Leah JonesVanessa Jones

Hallie KirkmanRosanne & Scott Kirkman

Andrew LaddenStephanie & Brad Ladden

Patrick MarkwalterJuanita & Jack Markwalter

Morgan MartinLaura Martin Darren Martin

Abigail MeyerowitzJennifer & Adam Meyerowitz

Deron MooreKate Reese

Chloe NelsonElisa & Nils Nelson

Colm PelletierAnna Convery-Pelletier & Doug Pelletier

Keashawn PerrymanKayla & Leroy Perryman

Ann RafeedieTJ RafeedieJane & Mac Rafeedie

Abby RayDana & Mark Ray

Allison ReishJoel Reish

Nathaniel RobinsonNicole Ellerine & A.J. Robinson

Veronica SandovalMonica Santamaria & Ricardo Sandoval

Emily SchmittWendy & Jay Schmitt

Warren SpillersShandy Garraway-Spillers & Warren Spillers

Lawson StrickerRENA ANN PECK STRICKER ’87 & Eric Stricker

Myles ToddConni & David Todd

Hannah WhiteGina WhiteRick White

Raina WilliamsDonyal & Justin Andrews

Brian ZeldinRobin & Andrew Zeldin

Joelle ZelonyLori & Sam Zelony

Aaron ZouZhengxing Zhao & Minghui Zou

TENTH GRADEKenzie CochranKim & Wayne Cochran

ELEVENTH GRADEIsaiah KellyBeverly & Stephen Kelly

Mckenzie BakerLori & TROY BAKER

Olivia BakerBrenda Baker

Trey BlountCecil Blount

Lizabeth FrohweinDana & Rob Frohwein

The following families joined the Pace family this year.


AUSTRALIAMay 26–June 9

This summer, the Land Down Under hosted 16 Pace Academy Middle School students. Led by faculty advisors TARA HARRIS, ANDY LOPUSZYNKI and EDEN TRESIZE, the group explored the Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) theme of WATER, particu-larly as it relates to the country’s conservation efforts.

In Melbourne, students met some of Australia’s native animals at the Healesville Sanctuary before departing on a tour of the Great Ocean Road, “one of the world’s most scenic coastal drives.” Along the way, students studied the desalination process, searched for ocean life at Shark Bay and learned about the consequences of fresh-water dumping in the ocean.

Students also spent a day at St. Leonard’s College, an indepen-dent school in Melbourne, where they shadowed students of the same age. The group then took its journey to Cairnes and learned how to play the didgeridoo, spear fish and snorkel. The action-packed trip came to a close with a visit to Sydney, complete with surfing and a climb up the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

20

ICGL A global education for every Pace graduate

The Academy AbroadICGL summer study tours span the globe. Bike Tour!

GREECEMay 23–June 3 & June 6–17

Pace Middle School students can’t get enough of Greece. The demand for this year’s study tour was so great that two trips with the same itineraries were of-fered. Middle School teachers GRAHAM ANTHONY, COURTNEY MORRISON and former teacher KIM PETERSON led the first tour, while Peterson teamed with Head of School FRED ASSAF and former teacher HUNTER DEBUTTS for the second.

Both groups were constantly on the move and traveled from Delphi and Olympia to Tolo and Crete, enjoying day trips to historical sites like Mycenae and Knossos along the way. Over the course of the trip, students raced on the ancient Olympic track, met the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, took a cooking class in Crete and swam nearly every day. All the while, students visited museums and explored Greek history and culture at every turn. Other highlights included seeing the Oracle at Delphi and learning about Greek theatre.


INDIAJune 1–15

This summer, 18 Upper School visual artists joined faculty advisors KATY COWLES, NEIL DEROSA, FRANCE DORMAN and JANE SIBLEY for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to India. The group explored the art and culture of modern and ancient India, working to discover India’s natural beauty in both rural and urban landscapes.

In Delhi, India’s capital, students visited both the largest and the oldest mosques in the country, rode on rickshaws and toured the Victory Tower. From Delhi, the group traveled to

Jaipur, a city known for its palaces, temples and gardens. There, they toured Amber Fort and the Palace of Akbar the Great, acquiring henna tattoos and saris along the way.

Highlights of the trip included spotting a rare Bengal tiger on a safari in Khana National Park and visiting the Taj Mahal. Photography was the focus of the trip, and participating students will display their work at an Atlanta Celebrates Photography exhibit in November 2015.

21

ICGL

Capturing the Moment

Exploring

the Ancient

World


DOMINICAN REPUBLICJuly 10–20

Serving and learning more about others was the primary focus of the 16 Middle School students who traveled to the Dominican Republic this summer. Under the leadership of faculty advisors HOLLY JIMÉNEZ, EDNA-MAY HERMOSILLO, PETE POPE and MARY ANN POWELL, the group partnered with Project Esperanza, an organization that serves the Haitian immigrant population of Puerto Plata, providing education, social aid and community-development services.

Pace students facilitated arts and crafts, games and story time for local children as counselors at Cambia Mis Estrellas (Change My Stars), one of Project Esperanza’s day-camp programs. With their Haitian “buddies,” students took part in cul-tural exchanges, played games and explored the local area. The group also found time to try snorkeling, zip line through the mountains and take a Haitian cooking lesson.

ITALYMay 25–June 7

A missed connection at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport may have suggested an ominous start for some, but for 19 spontaneous and adaptable Upper School students, it was an opportunity for adventure.

Along with faculty advisors TRISH ANDERSON, MATT BALL, ERICA BARBAKOW and GAVIN BRADLEY, students spent several hours taking in the Paris sights before heading to Flor-ence, Italy, their intended destination.

There, students toured the city’s famous museums and galleries and climbed to the top of the Campanile, Giotto’s Bell Tower on the Piazza del Duomo. A train took the group from Florence to Sorrento, where they ex-plored the city and traveled down the Amalfi Coast, spending afternoons in Positano, Paestum, Capri and Pompeii.

The final leg of the journey was spent in Rome, where students took in the Coliseum and Parthenon, as well as copi-ous amounts of pizza and gelato—they even heard Pope Francis speak during a Papal Audience.

Pompeii

Scenic Views on the Italian Coast

Adventure on Horseback


In the first-ever Lower School Isdell Center for Global Leader-ship (ICGL) study tour, faculty advisers POLI APARICIO, CHERYL LASSITER, SYREETA MOSELEY, and REBECCA RHODES took 14 rising sixth graders to Costa Rica for a week of exploration and service in partnership with the World Leadership School.

Much like Pace, the World Leadership School aims to help children become young leaders and global citizens, and offers edu-cational experiences marked with a balance of nurture, challenge and adventure.

The trip began with zip lining in the Chilamate Rainforest. “Zip lining was a really fun experience, and it’s harder than it looks,” says JAKE BUFFENBARGER. “I could tell everyone had a great time, and the views were amazing. The best moment was when you stepped off the platform because you could see all the surrounding area.”

Chilamate served as the group’s home base throughout the trip, which allowed students to be fully immersed in local language and culture, while still feeling settled. Each morning, the group worked on a service-learning project at the Centro Educativo de Chilamate and helped build an amphitheater, mixing and pouring concrete and moving rocks, while interacting with local students.

Working alongside other children allowed the group to get to know people from a very different cultural background. For MEGHNA SINGHA, the service project was the highlight of the trip. “I had never done anything like that, and it was really cool to experience,” she says.

SAM BROOKS agreed: “I thought it was fun to build [the amphitheater] since I don’t do it a lot in Atlanta. Also, it was fun to meet all of the kids.”

In the afternoons, the group broke from their service project to explore the rich bio-diversity in the surrounding rain forest. They went on nature trail walks, relaxed in hammocks and visited the Chilamate Eco Retreat Center. Students also had the opportunity to go white-water rafting on the Sarapiqui River and enjoyed a night of salsa dancing.

In anticipation of the 2015–2016 ICGL theme of FOOD, the group visited the El Paraiso Organic and Sustainable Farm, where students milked a cow and learned about local conservation efforts.

“The organic farm was a cool environment and really different from what I’m used to,” says KATE JONAS. “We don’t see that in Atlanta a lot. It was really cool to see how all the things grow there.”

Other food-related learning activities included a cooking class in which the group made tortillas and sugar cane juice, a visit to the Tirimbina Chocolate Factory and lunch at a yucca farm with a local family.

With adventure, learning and service components, it’s safe to say that the inaugural Lower School ICGL study tour was a success. These global leaders are ready to go out and make the world a better place!

— with contributions from HANNAH KELLY ’15

COSTA RICAJune 9–16

Spotlight on

ICGL

23

TAKING A BITE OUT OF THE YEAR OF FOOD


ICGL

1) As part of their study of Italy, Pre-First students talked about food safety, local food sources and the history of ice cream with Honeysuckle Gelato owner Wes Jones.

2) An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but our first graders know way more than that about everyone’s favorite fruit. Their study of apples has included lessons about the fruit’s many varieties and its lifecycle, as well as Design Thinking challenges in which apples were used as building materials.

3) As part of the second grade’s “From Farm to Table” unit, students and their families were invited to participate in Farm Chastain’s classes and workshops, and students enjoyed a visit from the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association.

4) Seniors JAKE JENKINS and LAUREN PICK-MAN, the two students in TOMMY HATTORI’S biotechnology independent study, have com-bined the ICGL themes of WATER and FOOD in an aquaponics project. They’ve engineered a system in which fish waste cultivates herbs grown in water.

The Pace community has jumped into the Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) global theme of FOOD. Lower School teachers have incorporated food into their curriculum; Middle School students have engaged in thoughtful discussions about food issues with commu-nity leaders; at print time, our Upper School Global Leaders had just returned from a fall-break study tour to California; and we welcomed ICGL Visit-ing Scholar Joel Salatin in early October (more about Salatin’s visit in our winter issue).

Here’s a look at some of the FOOD-related fun we’ve been having.


ICGL

5) During the Middle School’s August pre-plan-ning period, faculty devoted a day to FOOD. The program, facilitated by Middle School Director of Global Leadership EDNA-MAY HERMOSILLO, included lesson planning, food from local eateries and an insightful address from Rev. Kate Mosley, executive director of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light.

6) Middle School visual art students have been putting their drawing skills to the test with sketches of fruit.

7) Rev. Kate Mosley returned to the Middle School in September to speak with students about personal food choices and their impact on the world. Discussion topics included food waste, child labor and environmentalism. Each student then created his or her own “food story.”

8) JULIE HALL’S AP chemistry students partici-pated in a chromatography lab using FD&C food dyes in an effort to identify the colorings used in their favorite food products.

GOING GREEN One Upper School club’s mission to save the world—starting with the Pace campus

SARAH LETTES ’15 started a movement. As Green Team president during the 2014–2015 school year, Lettes assembled a group of like-minded Upper School students and, with the support of the Pace Parents Club and faculty advisor JONATHAN DAY, embarked on a yearlong, peer-to-peer edu-cational campaign around sustainability.

Lettes and the Green Team organized a design contest for trash and recycling decals to be placed around campus, coordinated an e-waste drive to collect used electron-ics and introduced composting to the Pace cafeterias.

Two of Lettes’s apprentices, seniors TORY DANCU and JAKE JENKINS, have taken charge of the Green Team’s efforts this year and have big plans. They say composting remains a focus for the group, which now boasts more than 50 members.

“Composting is a huge step for waste management in Georgia,” Jenkins re-ports. “Other states have government-run composting services. We want to make that happen here.”

But before they tackle statewide issues, Jenkins and Dancu must educate their class-mates about what exactly is compostable. “The biggest misconception is that you can compost ice cream wrappers and Styrofoam,” Dancu says. “Apparently, some [Pace students] think you can compost silverware as well.”

Beyond the compost bin, the group will organize an event for students to make reus-able grocery bags out of old T-shirts; they plan to post energy-saving reminders beside light switches; and they’ll frequently share tips for saving money and resources with the Pace community.

Their first piece of advice? “Always carry a water bottle and take lukewarm showers.”


GLOBAL LEADERS Faculty Spotlight

I TRULY BELIEVE that the world’s prob-lems will be solved by young people,” says TOMMY HATTORI, director of Upper School global leadership and social entrepreneurship. Paired with Hattori’s legendary dedication to his students, that belief has shaped many of Pace Academy’s programs today.

Since he came to Pace in 2009, Hattori has given students many opportunities to voice their ideas and solve real-world problems. He started as a math teacher, and, eager to further his involvement in student life, became dean of the Class of 2013 the fol-lowing year. When Hattori transitioned to the science department to teach AP biology, he and Director of the Isdell Center for Global

Leadership (ICGL) TRISH ANDERSON began talking about ways to bring entrepreneurial opportunities to Upper School students. In 2013, the Pace Academy Social Entrepre-neurship Challenge (PASEC) was born.

PASEC strives to stimulate creative think-ing and action for solving social problems through innovation, invest in sustainable change and promote enterprise devel-opment for the quadruple bottom-line (purpose, people, planet and profit).

“Adults like me are too pessimistic, too jaded and stuck in our ways to see simple, elegant and game-changing ideas,” Hattori says. “My hope is that PASEC gives students the platform to bring these ideas to fruition.”

Hattori instills the same happiness in each of his students. He cares deeply about his interactions with them in every setting. He is the teacher who eats lunch at the student tables; he cheers for students in the stands during home games; with the Class of 2013 long since graduated, he is again a dean, now leading the Class of 2017.

Hattori influences his students’ world-views and values through his character and the opportunities he creates—now that’s what we call a global leader.


Not only did Hat-tori give students the

platform to share their ideas, he worked to make all

students feel welcome to participate. When they observed the uneven ratio of males to females in PASEC, Hattori and Anderson partnered with SunTrust Bank and introduced the Women’s Business and Entrepreneurs Group.

Outside the classroom, Hattori also leads students on life-changing trips around the world. “Experiencing a culture is a huge leap from reading about it,” he says. He has traveled with students to Japan twice and has dedicated his spring break every year to working with Habitat for Humanity Interna-tional with groups of Pace students.

Through Habitat, Hattori and fifth-grade teacher REBECCA RHODES have led trips to Jordan, Bolivia, Cambodia and Romania.

“My favorite part of doing international service projects is the ability to live and work with the local community,” Hattori says. “You get to see a very different side of the people and their culture. Being able to glimpse into their lives, even for that brief time, is a blessing, and their genuine happi-ness is infectious.”

I truly believe that the world’s problems will be solved by young people.HATTORI

T O M M Y

26


LET YOUR GEEK FLAG FLY! BEWARE, summer boredom! You’re no match for our self-professed “geeky” eighth graders. Under the fearless lead-ership of classmate HARRISON SAINI, nine members of the Class of 2020 took summer planning into their own hands and organized a weeklong camp they called “Geek Week.”

From math and science competitions to Anime, “Hide-and-Geek” and in-depth analysis of superhero movies—a viewing of The Dark Knight kicked off the week, while Guardians of the Galaxy brought it to a close—these students planned every minute of their geeky getaway. They assigned daily locations, coordinated car-pools and food—they even made T-shirts.

“Harrison had the idea to have a Geek Box, where we put various geeky items in the box, and at the end we had a raffle,” says NIKKI RUBIN, who designed the T-shirt and hosted the final extended day of camp—from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. “It was fun just to hang around and get to know each other a little bit more!”

OUR VARSITY football players and coach-es kicked off the 2015 season by serving others. On Aug. 8, the team partnered with the Agape Youth & Family Center to repair and paint the homes of several of the families Agape serves.

The organization “empowers and supports underserved families within [Agape’s] community to discover and em-brace their full potential.” Agape offers

academic support and family services that focus on character development, aca-demic achievement, reading proficiency, successful high-school graduation and post-graduate placement.

“The experience was truly gratifying,” says senior co-captain ANTHONY TRINH. “The opportunity to help the less fortu-nate while also bonding with teammates was unbelievable.”

THE FUTURE of Pace soccer looks bright. Over the summer, freshmen REGAN BATES, EMILY PULVER, KAYLA ROSS, HANNAH WHITE and their TopHat 19 Gold U14 teammates crisscrossed the country in pursuit of the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship title.

The girls traveled to Little Rock, Ark., where they were crowned Region III US

Youth Soccer champions, making them one of only eight teams to earn a spot in the national championships in Tulsa, Okla.

After four competitive matches against the country’s top teams, TopHat 19 Gold came up one win short of playing in the tournament’s final match—quite a feat in an original field of 10,000 teams!

FOOTBALL STARTS SEASON WITH SERVICE

GLOBAL LEADERS

A TIP OF THE HAT TO PACE HATTERS

THE GLOBAL EXPERIMENT


Imagine a high-school course without a cur-riculum, a forum in which students’ curiosities dictate discussions and their instructors serve as colleagues in a great research endeavor.

Field trips span the globe, and the student-teacher ratio is one to a million because students encounter educators at every desti-nation and in every conversation along the way. The rules are simple: invest yourself; immerse yourself; do it yourself.

There are no grades—only learning for the sake of discovery—but there is one goal: become a prepared, confident citizen of the world.

It’s a big dream, but it’s one Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) Director TRISH ANDERSON aimed to achieve with Pace Academy’s inaugural class of Isdell Global Leaders (IGL).

The ICGL, now in its second year, is a re-sults-oriented program that strives to build effective global leadership capabilities among students and faculty in our Lower, Middle and Upper Schools. We do this by exploring

an annual global theme—something that im-pacts human beings around the world—and examining it from all angles and at all ages. The hope is that students then apply that same thinking to other issues, thereby de-veloping leadership abilities, global mindsets and cultural appreciation—that they become citizens of the world.

During the 2014–2015 school year, the Year of WATER, four students and three fac-ulty members led the way in this endeavor, the ICGL’s original guinea pigs. Selected as Isdell Global Leaders (IGL) following a com-petitive application process, SARAH LETTES ’15, seniors CHRISTOPHER HOWARD and ALEC ROGERS and junior JULIA ROSS weren’t entirely sure what they had signed up for—and, truth be told, neither were sci-ence teachers and IGL advisors JONATHAN DAY and KEVIN BALLARD.

Together with Anderson, the third IGL fac-ulty advisor, Day and Ballard structured the IGL program around three study tours that

would take the group down the Chattahooch-ee and Apalachicola rivers, through Big Bend National Park and into Africa’s Okavango River Delta. The team of students and fac-ulty would meet once a week for students to share the results of individual research proj-ects related to the water issues they might encounter on each adventure.

“Our goal was to put students in places and situations in which they could experience new things and people and hopefully begin to view the world a little differently,” Ballard says. “We were not able to predict what they would learn on our trips, but we were confi-dent that they would learn something—and probably quite a bit.”

For Lettes, Howard, Rogers and Ross, the idea of tackling a subject as vast and far-reaching as water was daunting.

“I learned from reading a few articles [prior to the program] that water is either

AN EXPERIMENT OF GLOBAL PROPORTIONSThe inaugural class of Isdell Global Leaders reflects on the Year of WATER.

THE GLOBAL EXPERIMENT THE GLOBAL EXPERIMENT


directly or indirectly involved in practically everything that occurs on the planet,” Rogers says. “I assumed that we would narrow our study to a single subject such as ‘water in various ecosystems,’ or ‘municipal conserva-tion of water.’”

But when exploring such different parts of the planet and the very different water chal-lenges each area faces, it turned out—much to Rogers’ surprise—that focusing on a single water issue was impossible. “Contrary to my initial belief,” he says, “our group managed to study many themes associated with water in great depth.”

Those themes included the decades-old water wars between Georgia, Florida and Alabama, the plight of oystermen on Apala-chicola Bay, the American public’s ignorance of water scarcity and disregard for conver-sation efforts, desert ecosystems, grazing methods, unemployment, biodiversity… the list goes on.

As the IGL group learned more and more

about water, it became clear how little they initially knew about the subject and how much more knowledge they needed to acquire.

“Even at the beginning of the year, I had a very vague perception of my relationship with water,” says Lettes, now a freshman at Brown University planning to study environ-mental science. “I knew it was part of my life, and I knew saving water helped the environ-ment, but I really didn’t know specifically how my daily use of water was made possible and how water really works.”

Ross felt the same: “It had never occurred to me to question where the water spew-ing from my faucet had been days, weeks, months or even years ago,” she says. “I over-looked the importance of water because it was always within an arm’s reach.”

Nine months, 40 days of travel and thou-sands of conversations later, things have changed.

“Now I think that humans need to take a

step back and evaluate what steps need to be taken when it comes to water,” Ross says. “Lack of knowledge about water has been ex-tremely detrimental to the environment and has caused humans to negatively affect the environment, and that can’t be undone.”

Building knowledge, Day asserts, is the foun-dation of global leadership: “You have to start from zero. You have to efficiently ac-quire information and then synthesize that information—what does it mean, what did we learn, what are the subtleties and nuances?” he says.

“Then you develop action—here’s what we know and what we need to do. And then you do it. Being a leader requires reflect-ing on situations and asking questions, not being afraid.”

That didn’t always come naturally to the IGL team. “We couldn’t just visit places and expect to see the full picture,” Lettes says.

In July, the Isdell Global Leaders (IGL) team

explored the Okavango River Delta in Botswana

and Namibia.


“To truly understand, we had to ask ques-tions and dig deeper. This proved to be an unexpected challenge. At first, asking strang-ers questions that seemed weirdly specific or almost personal felt uncomfortable. But after practicing over and over again, it became second nature to think of questions and ask one after another.”

Pushing these students outside their classroom comfort zones through the IGL experience was not only crucial to the pro-gram’s success, it was vital to bolster each student’s critical-thinking habits, to make curiosity a character trait.

“When we teach a discreet subject, kids don’t often take the time to see how every-thing’s related, how subjects fit together… for example, the politics of science and how that is incorporated into English literature,” says Day. “For the first time, these kids were doing something fully intrinsically motivated. It’s a different kind of learning experience, and it brings satisfaction in learning. It makes learning more authentic.”

Strong student-teacher relationships are the core of the Pace experience, and the IGL program elevated the degree to which par-ticipants felt truly "known" amongst one another. Forty days of sleeping in tents, kayaking through patches of wilderness, fol-

lowing paths carved by hippos, flying over the African delta, cramming into tiny taxis and careening down ancient sand dunes forged durable bonds.

“We quickly moved beyond formalities,” Howard reports. “It was fun seeing teachers outside a professional setting. We became a very close, tight-knit group.”

The feeling was mutual. “These kids were totally driven,” Day says. “They needed a little steering and direction, and that’s what we were there for, but we were colleagues as much as anything. Our yearlong exploration was a total team effort.”

Each individual brought unique knowledge and skill sets to the team. “My strengths are different than [Ballard’s or Anderson’s],” Day says. “We were able to play off each other in ways you don’t get to in a classroom with a single teacher.”

The same was true for the students. “It was really cool having [students in] differ-ent grades participate in the program,” says Lettes, then the group’s lone senior. While Lettes focused on college applications, Ross, then a sophomore, was still finding her foot-ing in the Upper School.

“We all became friends really quickly, and we had to rely on each other while we were traveling,” Howard says. “We pushed each other to reflect, to extract meaning, even when we were tired.”

Despite the exhaustion inherent in some-times-trying travel situations, the students insist they never fought.

While Day, Anderson and Ballard acknowl-edge that the IGL program remains a work in progress—next steps include determining its structure in future years and how to dis-seminate lessons learned to the entire school community—they are energized by its inau-gural year and its long-term, life-changing potential at Pace.

“These students are far more confident in themselves now than they were one year ago,” Day says. “They have confidence in their ability to handle unknowns, to deal with ambiguity, to have to figure things out on their own, to see a job that needs doing and do it.”

“Although the main goal of the IGL pro-gram was to study water, I feel like I’m leaving it with more than just additional knowledge about water,” Rogers reports. “After all of these trips, I now have fond memories and strong bonds with everyone in the group. My interpersonal speaking skills have increased greatly… and my ability to ask good ques-tions has improved. Overall, the IGL program has made me a more informed, more engaged citizen of the world.”

Mission accomplished.

“Students learn most in informal settings and in the course of often-routine activities—sitting around the campfire, shopping in the supermarket, going for a walk and having a conversation. In these settings we truly learn about cultures and people.”

KEVIN BALLARD IGL Advisor


INTO AFRICAOther Upper School students joined the IGL team to explore the Okavango River Delta in Botswana and Namibia.

“Coexistence between people and the environment was a reality that I experienced firsthand on this trip,” senior IGL ALEC ROGERS recalls. “Around the campfire during our nights in the delta, our guides told us stories that had been passed down for generations in which the divine cre-ator interacted with the hippos, lions and elephants that lived there. The most striking thing about the trip was that the people we met genuinely respected and lived in harmony with the environment.”

DON’T MESS WITH TEXASWater issues in Big Bend National Park and on the Rio Grande River in Texas and Mexico were the focus of the IGL’s second study tour.

“The trip showed me the incredible effect of water in nature and its ability to foster life in the most unforgiving places,” says senior IGL CHRISTOPHER HOWARD. “The trip also revealed the economic disparity between the largely affluent U.S and the largely impoverished Mexico.”

SHOOTING THE HOOCHIGL participants paddled portions of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers in Georgia and Florida in an attempt to understand water wars between Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

“People in Atlanta believe that water is an unlimited resource when, in fact, just the opposite is the case,” says Rogers. “This illusion only fuels disregard for water conservation in Atlanta that will lead to further shortages of water downstream. On this trip, I truly realized that water is a finite resource.”

OH, THE PLACES THEY WENT…

OU

T-O

F-TH

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ER B

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serious business for these global leaders.

■ Georgia Region 6AA Basketball Player of the Year junior WENDELL CARTER is now a global sensation. After an impressive regular season at Pace—he averaged 21.3 points and 12.3 rebounds per game while leading the team to a regional championship and a 27–3 record—Carter joined 11 other talented high-school students to play for the USA U16 National Team.

In June, the team headed out to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where they practiced for two weeks with six-time USA Basketball gold medal-ist coach Don Showalter before heading to Bahía Blanca, Argentina, for the 2015 FIBA Americas U16 Championship.

The team defeated Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Argentina to advance to the finals, where the U.S. emerged victorious, defeating Canada 77–60. Despite the big win, Carter is still looking to improve next season. “The next step in my game is my confidence,” he says. “My overall game is pretty good, but my confidence has got to get higher if I want to be one of the greats.”

Our faculty and staff aren’t the only ones who take seriously Pace Academy’s mission to create prepared, confident citizens of the world; our students believe in the charge as well.

This summer, many Upper School students balanced beach trips, college visits and summer reading with business basics and life-changing lessons. From downtown Atlanta and Beantown to Italy and Argentina, our globe-trotting students struck out on their own to get a taste of what their futures might hold. Read on for more about some of their adventures.

WENDELL

CARTER

with contributions from HANNAH KELLY ’15

■ As a two-year member of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art Teen Team, senior HOPE LENNOX enjoys behind-the-scenes access to exhibits and collections while advis-ing museum leadership regarding youth outreach.

“Our goal is to create and execute programs that increase teen awareness and participation in the arts,” says Lennox, a glitter artist recently featured on the interna-tional blog My Flash Trash.

As a result of her involvement, the High Museum selected Lennox to represent Atlanta teens at the Institute of Contempo-rary Art’s National Convening for Teens in the Arts, a four-day conference in Boston. Lennox and her peers were charged with creating innovative museum programming that would appeal to teens and coordinating a “Teen Convene” in their respective cities.

■ “Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” has never been a truer statement for senior MITCH INMAN. The fashion expert put his styling skills to good use over the summer, working as an intern for 2 Maven, a men’s fashion and technology startup.

At 2 Maven, clients complete an online fashion survey before personal stylists pick a collection of clothing to send to each client’s home. From there, the client can try on the clothes and send back whatever he doesn’t like.

As an intern, Inman compiled weekly sales reports, organized client profiles and “shopped” for 2 Maven users. He enjoyed learning the ins and outs of wholesale buying from different brands and hopes the experience will prepare him for his dream job: creative director for a high-end market-ing company.

■ In the summer we often complain about excess: “I over packed,” or, “I ate way too much,” are common complaints for students and parents alike. Senior HALEY HARTMAN, however, turned excess into a good problem. Working as an intern for Medshare, a nonprofit organization that redistributes surplus medical supplies and equipment to those in need, Hartman helped hundreds of individuals access the healthcare they needed.

At Medshare, Hartman created a program to involve high-school students in New York City, San Francisco and Atlanta in volunteer work. In addition to managing social media for the project, she contacted schools in each city to spread the word about the program. Hartman also used her artistic tal-ents to create brochures and informational packets—her favorite part of the job.

“I was really lucky to work [with Med-share],” she says. “It’s a great program to be involved with.”


PHOTOS1) Carter in action last season 2) Hartman 3) Lennox 4) Inman's official intern photograph from 2 Maven 33

HOPE

LENNOXMITCH

INMANHALEY

HARTMAN


■ You may see senior QUIN WALDROP on a Times Square billboard in the not-too-distant future. This summer, the aspiring model worked full-time for Major Model Management in Milan, Italy. Her international experience involved sharing an apartment with girls from the Czech Republic and Brazil and attempting to get by with minimal Italian.

As a result of morning meetings with potential clients, Waldrop booked fashion shows and shoots for editorials, commercials and catalogs. Evenings included attending restaurant openings and art galleries with colleagues or exploring Milan.

“I had the best time of my life in Milan, but going there really made me appreciate living in America,” Waldrop says. “When I met new people and told them I was from the United States, all of them would say that it’s their dream to go there. My friends were com-pletely obsessed with American things. This experience made me realize how lucky I am.”

■ Do you love food? Are you great with social media? If so, you have a lot in common with senior CARLY SHOULBERG.

This summer, Shoulberg combined her passions for Facebook, Instagram and all things edible through an internship with Peachtree TV’s Atlanta Eats, the city’s premier “foodie” television show. While the show’s producers explored Atlanta restau-rants, Shoulberg designed and implemented Atlanta Eats’ social-media marketing plan with the goal of building brand aware-ness. She also contributed to Dish Worth the Drive, a new show featuring food and restaurants from around the south.

“I’ve always been the type of person who takes pictures of my food, and I eat out all the time,” Shoulberg reports. “The fact that those two things were my job made them even more fun!”

■ Senior KELLYANN MALONE set the internship bar high this summer as the first Pace student to work with the highly selec-tive Atlanta Bar Association Summer Law Internship Program.

Following several mandatory orientation sessions, Malone spent six weeks working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Defender Program. She met with many Atlanta legal and busi-ness leaders, studied weekly “enrichment” topics, weighed in on a recent Supreme Court case in a required essay, and assisted attorneys with organization and compiling exhibits for court—she even found her way into the courtroom.

“My biggest takeaway [from the experi-ence] is that big issues we hear about on the news like immigration and drug trafficking are not just abstract ideas, but actually impact the daily lives of individuals right here in Atlanta,” Malone says. “It was eye-opening to meet and work with the people implementing policies as well as the people impacted by them. My experience definitely made me want to explore law as a future career. There was never a dull moment!”

QUIN

WALDROPCARLY

SHOULBERGKELLYANN

MALONE

PHOTOS1) Malone with Alfie Owens, chief counsel for the Atlanta Office of the United States Department of Homeland Security; 2) Shoulberg; 3) Waldrop; 4) Ray; 5) St. Amand; 6) Rodriguez; 7) Wu with Nicole Moore, manager of interpretation and school programs at Atlanta's Center for Civil and Human Rights

34


■ Senior ANDREW WU is a history buff, but—as a result his participation in Pace’s Model United Nations program—he’s equally fascinated by current events. A field trip to Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights (Pace is an affiliate partner) convinced Wu that he could combine the two interests within a single internship—applying his historical knowledge and enthusiasm for understanding contemporary world events to furthering the cause of social justice.

For three weeks, Wu worked with the Center’s education and interpretation department to match exhibit offerings to five states’ academic standards. “This meant going through a list of every exhibit area and outlines for classroom standards and matching any relevant topics or information,” he explains. “The ultimate purpose of this project was to turn the matched standards into field guides and lesson plans for schools visiting the Center.” Wu also contributed to the Center’s blog and to a report on human rights events of the past century.

“From a global perspective, discussing human rights with coworkers and sitting in on a discussion of a group of college students from historically black colleges and universi-ties exposed me to present discrimination and human rights violations around the world, most notably one’s ‘ethical footprint,’” Wu says.

“Ultimately, the most valuable lesson I took from the experience is encapsulated in my blog post title: You Never Stop Learning. Even though I was in the position of someone facilitating the educational process for poten-tially thousands of students and adults, I still learned much more than I originally expected about a variety of topics from museum logistics and educational programs to the continuing struggle of human rights activists at home and abroad.”

Read Wu’s blog at post at: www.civilandhumanrights.org/blog.

■ When astronaut Buzz Aldrin nominates you for a prestigious science-and-technology program, there’s really only one response.

“How could I say no?” asks freshman BLAKE RODRIGUEZ, who traveled to Boston in June to attend the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders. The honors-only program for high-school students who are passionate about science, technology, engineering or mathemat-ics (STEM) aims to “inspire, motivate and direct the top students in the country… [and] to provide a path, plan and resources to help them reach their goals.”

Rodriguez joined students from across the country at the Congress, where they heard from Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science winners, deans of the world’s top tech universities and science prodigies. “I got to meet some of the greatest scientific and technological minds of my era,” he says. “They ranged from the creators of the Roomba robot and the Foursquare app to various motivational speakers just like me—and even the legend himself, the inventor of the Segway and other inventions, Dean Kamen.

“My favorite moment was meeting an astrophysicist not much older than I am. At 15 years old, [and] with autism, he is pursuing a master’s degree and has been featured in a TED Talk! That showed me that even kids my age are capable of astonishing feats.”

■ Like many of his classmates, senior HAR-RISON RAY’S summer involved preparing for the college-search process. But instead of taking tours, studying for the SAT and writing essays, Ray, who hopes to become a Naval officer, spent three weeks at service acad-emies: the U.S. Military Academy’s Summer Leaders Experience, the Naval Academy’s Summer Seminar and Riverside Military Acad-emy’s Georgia Boys State.

During these programs, Ray caught a glimpse life in the armed services and learned more about local and state governments. Through the Georgia Boys State program, he and 250 other rising seniors even created a “51st state.” Participants established cities, campaigned, ran for office, and held town meetings and trials—all to learn the ins and outs of our political system.

Then, Ray and fellow senior EMMA ST. AMAND spent two weeks as interns for Florence Healthcare, a software company in Atlanta’s Tech Village that streamlines docu-ment management and monitoring.

“I was incredibly interested in the idea of researching medical clinical trials, and Florence Healthcare is going to revolutionize these trials by converting all of the clinical-trial work into a user-friendly site that easily stores all of the studies,” St. Amand says.

She researched biotech companies, venture capital firms and the various stages of the funding process before presenting her work to her colleagues. “I learned how to take a very broad topic that I knew noth-ing about, research it and really dive into something interesting with little guidance,” St. Amand reports. “I eventually figured out how to filter the important information for the company from my research.”

Ray worked as “sort of a market analyst,” creating a presentation that outlined the history of clinical trials and how Florence Healthcare fit into that time line.

“I learned so much about what it means to have a 9-to-5 job,” Ray reports. “I also got to see how small startup companies begin. My experience gave me a goal to work towards. Someday, I want to be as dedicated to a cause as the people at Florence are. Right now, my cause is the Navy. Hopefully I’ll be able to fulfill that goal in the coming years.”

OUT-OF-THE-BOX SUMMER BREAKS

HARRISON

RAY& EMMA

ST. AMANDBLAKE

RODRIGUEZANDREW

WU

35

http://www.civilandhumanrights.org/blog

SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE STRATEGIC PLAN

■ “Pace Academy’s overarching goal is to further realize its founding vision and core mission,” Pace Academy Board of Trustees then-Chairman MARK PIRRUNG wrote in his introduction to the school’s 2004–2009 Strategic Plan.

The plan called for visionary leadership; ex-cellence in academics and college admission; outstanding co-curricular and extracurricular activities, including athletics; a continued em-phasis on community; a vibrant commitment to diversity; a strong faculty and staff; world-class facilities and state-of-the-art technology; and a significant increase in the school’s endowment and financial-aid budget.

The plan was ambitious and aspirational. If successfully executed, it would transform “Atlanta’s small school” into Atlanta’s best school, while ensuring Pace remained the “warm,” “academically rigorous,” “com-munity-centered,” “unpretentious” and “freethinking” institution it had become. In short, the plan encouraged the Pace com-munity to THINK BIG.

Following the plan’s publication, the Pace community got to work. The school resolved long-standing property disputes with its neighbors and implemented a 20-year master campus plan. The SHINE capital campaign al-lowed for the creation of two satellite athletic facilities as well as renovations and an addi-tion to the Lower School. Pace introduced football and educated the school community about drug and alcohol use through Pace LEAD. The arts and athletics thrived, and the school added more Advanced Placement courses, an Academic Resource Center and additional college-counseling experts.

By 2009, much of what had been dreamed in the 2004 Strategic Plan had been set in motion. It was the dawn of a new era at Pace Academy.

Pace is now ready to enter a new era. It has new consciousness regarding its own strengths and intentionality with respect to its future. A heightened level of excellence lies ahead, and Pace has the courage to bring it to pass.

u Pace Academy Strategic Plan: 2004–2009

■ The 2010–2015 Strategic Plan expanded upon the goals set forth in 2004. It emphasized innovation and global education, the addition of a new Upper School, increased alumni involvement, meaningful professional-development opportunities for faculty and staff, and strong parent and neighbor relations.

Once again, the Pace community delivered. The Board of Trustees approved a global-education initiative (now under the Isdell Center for Global Leadership umbrella); Pace partnered with the University of Virginia to pilot MyTeachingPartner, a peer-to-peer pro-fessional-development program; admissions applications skyrocketed; alumni and parent giving reached record highs; and the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School and Walsh Field opened for business.

As Pace reached new heights, the school community remained true to its founding mission, vision and values. By every objective measure, Pace has surpassed the strategic objectives articulated more than a decade ago.

As the Board of Trustees prepares to publish the 2016–2021 Strategic Plan, we take a look back, measure our progress and reflect on how starting small allowed us to THINK BIG. uuu

As the Board of Trustees prepares to unveil its vision for the next five years, we look back to see how far we’ve come.



ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: Striving for Excellence■ Academic excellence is chief among Pace’s priorities. This past year, Upper School students chose from 23 Advanced Placement courses and seven post-APs. More students are taking AP exams than ever before, and all students in AP class-es are required to sit for the AP exam.

In 2005, Pace administered 327 AP exams; 77 percent of students scored 3 or higher; 73 were named AP Scholars. In 2015, 671 tests were administered, and 83 percent of Pace students scored 3 or higher; we had 127 AP Scholars.

Our students’ standardized test scores far exceed national averages and continue to climb. In 2011, graduating se-niors averaged 27 on the ACT; the Class of 2015 averaged 30—nine points higher than the national average (Georgia’s average is 20.8). Only five percent of all ACT test-takers scored 30 or better.

SETTING THE STAGE

38

SETTING THE STAGE


FINANCIAL SUPPORT & ENDOWMENT: The Pace of Giving■ Partnership—with parents, students, faculty and staff, grandpar-ents, alumni and the greater community—is a Pace hallmark. The Parents Club, Booster Club and Arts Alliance make possible world travel, state championships and Broadway-caliber productions, and our endowment has grown from $17.1 million in 2000 to $50.6 mil-lion today. Financially, Pace has never been stronger.

39

SETTING THE STAGE

According to a Washington Post analysis of College Board and ACT data, the percentage of students taking the SAT is declining nationwide, and more students than ever before are taking the ACT. Pace's numbers mirror this trend.

*The maximum score on the ACT is 36 and the maximum score on the SAT is 1600. In 2015, the average ACT score for Pace seniors was 30, which is equivalent to a SAT score of 1340.

The Pace Arts Alliance launched in the 2009–2010 school year.

SETTING THE STAGE

ACADEMIC RESOURCE CENTER: Support for Every Student■ With increased knowledge of learn-ing differences, it became clear that Pace needed structures in place to help students with these differences and to educate parents and teachers about the issues they face.

In 2007, Pace officially launched the Academic Resource Center (ARC) with a staff of one. The ARC today boasts five full-time employees and five part-time staff, who serve all students within all three divisions of the school.

ACCESS: Prepared, Confident Citizens of the World■ An institution that strives to create prepared, confident citizens of the world should reflect the global community. This requires a commitment to a diverse school family in which all quali-fied students have access to the highest level of academic excellence.

Today, every Pace senior takes at least one AP exam; students of color represent nearly 20 per-cent of our student population and one third of our applicant pool; nearly 12 percent of stu-dents receive need-based financial aid.

ENROLLMENT: Our Pace Family■ In 2007, Pace entered into a historic agreement with the West Paces/North-side Neighborhood Association that allowed for expanded facilities and a moderate boost in enrollment. Since then, enrollment has steadily grown, while the admissions process has become increasingly selective.

Today, Pace has 1,102 students and enrolled only 18 percent of 2016 ap-plicants. Student attrition between the 2015 and 2016 school years was 1.12 percent—the lowest since we began tracking attrition rates.

SETTING THE STAGE

40

SETTING THE STAGE

ARTS & ATHLETICS: Developing the Whole Child■ Pace is not “an arts school” or “a school for athletes”; we aspire to provide the highest level of programming in every arena. Today, 84 percent of Upper School students participate in the arts; 85 percent play a sport.

Since 2005, we’ve nearly doubled our arts faculty, and athletic offerings have increased by 40 percent. Five years ago, our Middle and Upper School bands boasted 68 total members; today there are 132. The 2015 school year saw Knights bring home state titles for athletic and artistic efforts, as well as five national debate tournament wins. Regardless of how you slice it, it’s a good time to be a Pace Knight!

PACE ARTS BY THE NUMBERS■ When Pace Academy’s state-of-the-art Fine Arts Center opened its doors in 1991, the school’s reputation for excellence in the visual and performing arts was firmly established. From theatre productions to photography exhibitions, Pace artists wowed at every turn.

Today, our performers, painters, sculptors and photographers continue to excel, and their numbers have signifi-cantly grown—as have the programs in which they participate and the number of talented faculty who support them.

Twenty years ago, Pace employed 11 arts teachers and offered 12 Upper School visual and performing arts electives; today, 20 arts faculty shape artists in all divisions, and Upper School students choose from 32 arts electives. The 2014–2015 school year marked the opening of additional studio space for Middle School visual arts, and KATY COWLES joined longtime Middle School visual arts teacher JANE SIBLEY in the new space.

This fall saw even more growth with the addition of three new arts positions.

Strings instructor NIRVANA KELLY now assists TARA HARRIS in the Lower School; chorus teacher CHRIS HALL works with choral director SUSAN WALLACE in the Middle School; JACK WALKER joined Fine Arts Chair DANNY DOYLE’S team as associate band direc-tor; and we welcomed Upper School Theatre Director SEAN BRYAN.

In addition, Pace now boasts its own composer in residence. Under his new, distinguished title, WILLIAM PITTS, for-merly associate band director, composes and arranges material for Middle and Upper School performing arts ensem-bles and collaborates with teachers in all divisions to supplement their curriculum with music.


WHERE ARE THEY NOW?


ALUMNI

JED APPLEROUTH ’94 operates Applerouth Tutoring Services, a national organization with more than 200 tutors and offices in Atlanta, D.C., New York, Chicago and Seattle. The company prepares students for standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT and GRE. In August, the Pace Office of College Counseling coordinated a pre-planning session for Upper School math and science teach-ers during which Jed discussed recent changes to the SAT and ACT.

The Class of 1994’s valedictorian, Jed is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Huntsman Program for International Studies and Business. He received a master’s in professional counseling and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Georgia State Univer-sity. He lives in Atlanta.

School of Law, Julie serves as a public defender in Fulton County and credits Pace with instilling her “calling for ‘Service Above Self.’”

“There are a lot of important issues affect-ing the future growth and development in our city,” Julie writes. “I decided to throw my hat in the ring after the disappointing behavior of a City Council more concerned about debating the look of street signs than considering the future economic health and growth of our city.”

If elected, Julie plans to focus on lowering property taxes, smart growth and develop-ment and accessibility.

With a Ph.D. in naturopathic medicine and a master’s in natural health, SELENA ANDUZE ’97 worked as a high-school English instruc-tor before teaching anatomy and physiology

sociate professor of computer science at Harvard University. James teaches a class on computer security, performs research on datacenter-scale storage systems and will give the closing keynote address at the USENIX Conference on Large Installation System Administration.

This summer, ELIZABETH JABLONSKI-DIEHL NEWCAMP ’00, her husband, Jeff, and their two young sons moved to the South Holland city of Delft. Delft sits between The Hague and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The family took the Queen Mary over from New York City to Southamp-ton and spent a few days in London before taking the Eurostar through the Chunnel to their new home. The family will be in Delft for three years as Jeff works toward his PhD. Elizabeth says the family plans to travel

LEE ANDUZE ’95 lives between Los Ange-les and his home in Athens, Greece. He is a touring musician, continuously working with prominent artists in the European market. Lee also runs the largest live local music-booking agency in Los Angeles with his business partner. He recently released The Lone Wolf Odyssey, an electro soul album. Listen at anduze.bandcamp.com.

JULIE NEWMAN ’96 has announced her candidacy for the Doraville, Ga., City Coun-cil District No. 1 position. A graduate of the University of Georgia and Florida Coastal

at the college level for seven years. She recently left the classroom to pursue her passion for the performing arts. Selena can be seen in co-starring roles in USA Net-work’s second season of Satisfaction, as well as the ABC series Kingmakers and Nashville. This fall, she will start filming her first sup-porting role in a feature film. She has been married for six years. Keep up with Selena at selenaanduze.com.

After six years as a researcher at Microsoft, JAMES MICKENS ’97 has moved from Seattle to Boston, where he is now an as-

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http://anduze.bandcamp.com

http://www.selenaanduze.com/

ALUMNI

frequently and is blogging “the whole crazy adventure” at dutchdutchgoose.com.

JAMIE BERNTHAL ANDERSEN ’01 has been named executive director of Florida’s Southern Gulf Chapter of the American Red Cross. In her new role, Jamie will provide leadership to hundreds of volunteers as they support residents with lifesaving programs and services.

A Southwest Florida native, Jamie joins the American Red Cross after a decade in the financial services industry. She was an executive director at J.P. Morgan in Manhat-tan and also worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Jamie graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and served as College Government president. She remains an

active volunteer in the Wellesley commu-nity, driving its recruiting, mentoring and fundraising efforts.

Jamie and her husband, James, have a son, Jimmy, 1. James is a director at Bank of America, where he serves as head of client analytics for corporate and investment bank-ing. Jimmy is happily adjusted to his new life and daycare in Florida.

ERICA PETROSKY DELANEY ’01 recently accepted a job as a physician assistant at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta, where she works in the emergency department. She and her husband, former Pace student Evan DeLaney, are expecting their first child this fall.

After nearly six years in Comcast’s marketing department, KATIE DALY JOHNSON ’03

accepted a new position in July 2015. She is now account director at DigitasLBi, a global marketing and technology agency. Her hus-band, Ben, works in commercial real estate. They live in Sandy Springs, Ga., with their two dogs, George and Maggie.

LAURA RIDALL TOBERT ’03 has started a residential interior design firm, Laura Torbert Interiors, recently showcasing interiors throughout the Southeast, including homes in Atlanta, Lake Burton, Ga., and Charles-ton, S.C. Laura and her husband, WALT TORBERT ’97, have two children: Walter, 5, and Hanson, 3.

GRANT YARBROUGH ’04 recently joined Hands on Atlanta as annual fund manager. Grant was previously the grants/social media manager for Senior Connections, an


1) Lee Anduze performing at South by Southwest

2) Julie Newman3) Selena Anduze4) Jamie Bernthal Andersen5) Katie Daly Johnson6) James Mickens7) Elizabeth Jablonski-Dihl

Newcamp and family

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http://www.dutchdutchgoose.com


On June 30, JENNA MITCHELL ’12 and her band, Daddy Issues, released their debut album, Can We Still Hang, and on Sept. 29, the group signed with Infinity Cat Record-ings. Mitchell and her band mates Emily Maxwell and Jenna Moynihan describe their music as “slow-fi” and/or “post-pizza rock,” and the group has taken Nashville by storm.

Blogger Kevin Brown writes, “Daddy Issues is one of the finest grunge bands in a local scene that has somehow largely ignored this genre. The trio are also torchbearers for a new wave of female representation in one of the most trendy music cities in the country.”

It has been an uphill battle for this all-female group to make its name in the male-dominated industry, but its members have overcome the challenges thrown their way by making strong connections and ignoring misogynistic comments.

“With this band, and with my whole life, everything I’ve been doing up until this day has always been ‘do you,’” Mitchell says. “It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks.” Mitchell, Maxwell and Moynihan also rely on their deep friendship on stage: “We sing to each other,” Mitchell explains.

Mitchell got her start in music playing the violin at Pace, where she picked up the bass in high school. Growing up, she always knew that she wanted to be involved in the music industry, but she wasn’t sure what that would look like. Now in a successful grunge band with plenty of local support, Mitchell’s childhood dream has become a reality, and she’s turned one of her passions into a career.

This fall, Daddy Issues will record its debut vinyl full-length record with Infinity Cat Recordings.


Photographs courtesy of Infinity Cat Recordings

ALUMNI

Atlanta-based nonprofit. Grant is a gradu-ate of Presbyterian College and received a master’s in political science from Georgia State University. He and his wife, Holly, reside in the Huntley Hills neighborhood of Chamblee, Ga.

MARSHALL YARBROUGH ’06 has trans-lated The Unknown Guest, a book by author Charlotte Link, from German to English. The book, now available on iBooks, was Marshall’s second translation project for the author.

Marshall is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia and finished his senior year at the University of Bamberg, Germany. He currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and is foreign rights manager at Waxman Leavell Literary Agency. He also serves as assistant music editor for The Brooklyn Rail, a monthly journal that covers arts, culture and politics throughout New York City.

During Southern Methodist University’s 100th Homecoming celebration on Sept. 26, AUSTIN BROWN ’12 was elected Centennial Homecoming King. Austin, who serves as Interfraterniy Council president, represented his fraternity, Kappa Alpha Order, on the court.

COREY RICHARDS ’14, HANNAH KELLY ’15 and KAMRAN SADIQ ’15 spent two

JENNA MITCHELL ’12

Spotlight on

1) Austin Brown2) Marshall Yarbrough 3) Grant Yarbrough

44

months of their summer break as interns for the Pace communications and advancement departments.

As part of the 2015 Atlanta Bar Association Summer Law Internship Program, MARYEL-LEN MALONE ’15 interned with the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office for six weeks this summer.

“Each day was different and interesting,” Maryellen writes. “I helped open new cases, write and mail subpoenas and observe court. I also had the fascinating opportunity to observe closing arguments in the case against [suspended DeKalb County CEO] Burrell Ellis. It was really cool to be able to witness something I had been hearing about on the news.”

As part of the program, each intern wrote a 750-word essay on the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Elonis v. United States, regarding threatening Face-book postings. Out of 49 interns’ essays, Maryellen’s piece won first place.

RACHEL MUCH ’15 spent the summer interning at Farrago Comics, a startup company that operates an app that connects high-quality comic books with comic-book fans, allowing fans to read comics and graphic novels free of charge. As part of the internship, Rachel, an artist, learned how to code while developing her own comic strip.

“I heard about the app last year at Dragon

Con, and I love it because it combines my interests in art and comics with the new expe-rience working in technology,” she says.

Rachel is a freshman at the University of Chicago.

MARRIAGES AMES GRAWERT ’02 married Sandy Myers on July 24, 2015, in Spring Lake, N.J. ERIN CULP ’02, NATALIE PYE ’03, ANDY DRINKARD ’02 and SUZY SCHUMER ’03 attended.

Ames, a graduate of Rice University, received his law degree from New York University and is assistant district attorney in the Appeals Bureau of the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office. Sandy is associate director of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York.

SAM SABULIS ’05 married Bailey Blair Sabulis, a Woodward Academy graduate, on June 27, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. PHIL MASUI ’05, JOHN HAWKINS ’05, MAT-THEW CHOYCE ’05, PEARSON WEEMS ’05, HARRISON KAUFMAN ’06 and PATRI-CIA SABULIS ’08 were in the wedding party. ALEX ROBERTSON ’04, PERRY ELLISON ’05, JOHN PARKER ’06 and LAUREN WILKES ’08 attended.

Bailey and Sam met as students at the University of Georgia School of Law and are

now attorneys in Atlanta. Bailey works for the Midtown firm of Huff, Powell & Bailey, while Sam is at the Buckhead office of Lueder, Larkin & Hunter.

MARYBETH CULP FREEMAN ’05 and Bran-don Freeman were married at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church on July 18, 2015. ERIN CULP ’02 served as the maid of honor, and REBECCA CULP JACKSON ’99 was matron of honor. Bridesmaids included former Pace student Catherine Hancock, RACHEL CLARK ’05, RAHIMA DOSANI ’05, ALEX CUNLIFFE ’05 and JULIA KIN-CAID ’05. Also in attendance were GRACE SOUTHWORTH ’10, former Pace student Anna Southworth, SARAH DAVIS MI-CHAELS ’05, COREY MCANINCH ’06, and Pace faculty members AMY SECOR and JASON SMITH. MaryBeth is the daughter of BETH CULP, co-director of Upper School Student Affairs.

MaryBeth recently started an ORISE Fellowship at the CDC Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, Cancer Surveil-lance Branch. Brandon works as a systems administrator specialist at the University of Georgia. They currently reside in Athens, Ga., with their two dogs, Earnest and Phinn.

HAMILTON REYNOLDS ’08 married Mallo-rie Wicker Reynolds of Central, La., on Aug. 1, 2015, in Dallas, Texas. The ceremony was held in the Highland Park United Method-



ist Church on the Southern Methodist University campus.

Hamilton’s sisters, MAGGIE REYN-OLDS ’06 and GINNY REYNOLDS ’15 were bridesmaids, and SAM BIRDSONG ’08 was the best man. Fellow members of the Class of 2008 SCOTT JOSPIN ’08, FENWAY MERLINO ’08 and NICK RHODES ’08 also participated in the ceremony. WILLIAM BARKSDALE ’08, CHASE BROWN ’08, JUDSON HILL ’08 and CAMERON KENELLY ’08 attended.

Hamilton and Mallorie met in an English class during their freshman year at SMU. Hamilton is pursuing his MBA at the SMU Cox School of Business. Mal-lorie is the financial controller at Thurston Energy, LLC in Dallas.

BIRTHS

Brittany and JOHN HOOVER ’88 are thankful for the arrival of their daughter, Kylie Hope, on May 25, 2015. She weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 22 inches long. John is president of operations at Direct Metals in Kennesaw, Ga., and Brit-tany enjoys running her dental practice, West Paces Family Dentistry, off of Howell Mill Road in Atlanta.

Olivia Shay was born on April 23, 2015, at Atlanta’s Northside Hospital to KARINA KHOURI BELINFANTE ’95 and JOSH BELINFANTE ’95. She joins two very proud brothers, fourth-grader COLE BELINFANTE and first-grader IAN BELINFANTE. She weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 20.5 inches long.

Sarah and CHRISTOPHER BOWMAN ’98 had a son, James Brooks, on Aug. 12, 2015. The family moved back to Atlanta two years

ago after a decade in the Washington, D.C., area. Chris is a regional director for Appian, a software firm founded by MARC WILSON ’92, and Sarah is a marketing manager at Taylor English LLP.

MARY FRANCES SNODGRASS CHRIS-TIANSEN ’99 and her husband, Eric, had a boy, Anders Wilhelm, on March 16, 2015. He joins big sister Mary Jane. The family lives in Sandy Springs, Ga.

ANNE SMITH STEPHENSON ’99 and her husband, Martin, welcomed a son, Sanders Thompson, on May 23, 2015. He joins big brother Gibson.

GREGORY SIMMONS LEMOS ’00 and her husband, Rob, welcomed Charles “Stry-der” on July 14, 2015, at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. Stryder was 8 pounds and 20 inches long. Siblings Eliana, 2, and Joshua, 1, were thrilled to meet him. The family lives in Washington, D.C. After

1) The Myers/Grawert wedding, photograph by Sophie Mathewson; 2) The Blair/Sabulis wedding; 3) The Reynolds family; 4) MaryBeth Culp Freeman ’05 with faculty and classmates from Pace; 5) Hamilton Reynolds ’08 with his groomsmen

ALUMNI

covering politics, elections and Congress at ABC News for several years, Gregory is enjoying staying home with her children. Rob works for Privia, a healthcare startup.

CHRISSY BROOKER MCWATTERS ’00 and her husband, Matt, had a son, Harris Brooker, on June 25, 2015. The family lives in Nashville, Tenn., where Chrissy is a nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Matt works in healthcare IT. Their daughter, Amelia, 2, loves being a big sister.

David “Reid” was born to JACI THOMP-SON SHANKS ’01 and her husband, Jamie, on June 11, 2015. Reid weighed 9 pounds and was 21 inches long. He joins big sister Ashton, 2.

Jaci works as an attorney at Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton in Midtown Atlanta, specializing in international trademark prosecution and enforcement. Jamie is a partner and vice president of finance for Carter-Haston Real Estate Services, a Nashville-based private-fund and property-management company.

Abby and BUD WHITMIRE ’05 welcomed Lucy Mae on July 1, 2015. She was 8 pounds, 4 ounces and 21.5 inches.

JACKI GLASS THOMAS ’06 and her husband, Bobby, welcomed Robert Putnam Thomas IV on Aug. 13, 2015. He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20.5 inches long. The family lives in Augusta, Ga., where both Jacki and Bobby practice law.

IN MEMORIAMFormer Pace Academy English teacher EVELYN FISHER SOLOMONOV passed away on Sept. 14, 2015, following a two-year battle with lung cancer. She was 68.

A native of Ohio, Evelyn developed an early love for Israel from her parents and worked for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for a time. She taught at Pace from 1973 until 1975 and moved to Israel soon after. She went on to teach at Herzog High School in the Israeli city of Kfar Saba for 20 years.

Evelyn is survived by her son, Mi-chael Solomonov, daughter-in-law Mary Solomonov and grandsons Lucas and David Solomonov. A second son, David Solomonov, preceded her in death.

Longtime Pace employee MAGER LEACH (pictured right) passed away on Sept. 1, 2015, at the age of 95. Mager was a member of the Pace facilities team—then called “operations”—from 1964 until his retirement in 2000.

Alumni will remember fondly Mager’s old station wagon, bucket hat and signature cardigans. “Mager Leach was Buckhead before it became Buckhead,” recalls faculty member RICKS CARSON. “He kept the country alive inside the bubble. He and his wife tended a big garden, heated—and maybe cooked on—a wood stove. He’d stand in the Castle kitchen in the morning… and sidle up and talk to anyone who came in. I never quite understood his job—porter? Mailman? Util-ity man? He just did what he did.”

Mager also sold delicious produce—Vi-dalia onions and tomatoes—from the back of his station wagon. According to librar-ian LINDA TEAGUE, faculty members called Mager the “human orange cone” because “every morning during carpool he would stand like a statue in the driveway to discourage parents from dropping their children in front of the Castle,” she says. “Mager was a wonderful character in Pace history.”

Mager was preceded in death by his wife, JACQUELINE “JACKIE” DAVIS LEACH.


1) David "Reid" Shanks and sister Ashton; 2) Harris Brooker McWatters; 3) Olivia Shay Belinfante; 4) Charles "Stryder" Lemos; 5) Lucy Mae Whitmire; 6) Robert Putnam Thomas; 7) James Brooks Bowman; 8) Sanders Thompson Stephenson and brother Gibson; 9) Anders Wilhelm Christiansen

48

ALUMNIALUMNI

BRYAN CHITWOOD ’93

“When I attended my 20-year reunion a couple years ago, I was amazed [by] how many of my classmates lived within a few miles of me,” says BRYAN CHITWOOD ’93. “I wanted to be a part of connecting that group of alumni to each other and back to Pace.”

So, Chitwood, a private client manager for U.S. Trust, joined the Pace Alumni Board and hopes to help connect even more Pace graduates, wherever they might be.

“Our amazing alumni have exciting careers all over the country and in different parts of the world,” he says. “Continuing to grow and strengthen that network will not only benefit all alumni but Pace as well.”

Chitwood credits much of his success to his Pace experience. “Pace taught me that working hard and good preparation for any aspect of life makes things a lot easier,” he reports. “If you have survived one of [Upper School teacher] HELEN SMITH’S history classes, you know what it takes to prepare yourself for just about any academic or pro-fessional curve ball that life may throw you.”

Chitwood and his wife, Jodi, have a daughter, Allison, 8, and a son, Connor, 5.

You spend one year at any place, and it is going to shape who you are one way or another. I was lucky enough to spend 13 years at Pace. The faculty, staff and my fellow students are a huge reason I am who I am today.

Evans RAINER ’04

CARTER INGLIS ’89

CARTER INGLIS ’89 was well prepared for his current role as president of Angel Oak Capital Advisors, a financial-services firm where Inglis manages mutual-fund sales and operations.

“Pace Academy’s rigorous academics and strong ethics helped shape the person I am today,” he says. “I want to reconnect and give back to an institution where I had such a positive experience, and to develop new relationships with alumni across multiple graduating classes who want to play an active role in the school’s continued growth and success.”

As a member of the Pace Alumni Board, Inglis hopes to increase the school’s alumni donor base, as well as alumni participation in Pace events. He also plans to help strengthen Pace’s alumni network. “I want alumni to develop professional relationships,” he says. “Leveraging those relationships through networking and social events, mentoring and internships will benefit our young alumni’s career development.”

Inglis, his wife, Hillary, and their “very active” 3-year-old, Wright, live in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood.

ALUMNI BOARD WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS

2015–2016 PACE ACADEMY ALUMNI BOARD

Charley Brickley ’88, President

Austin McDonald ’97, Past President

Andrew Alexander ’04Beth Allgood Blalock ’96Julianna Rue Cagle ’03Bryan Chitwood ’93Tripp Foley ’99Jenn Festa Giordano ’94Carter Inglis ’89Cindy Gay Jacoby ’83Zeena Lattouf ’12Trey Pope ’86Evans Rainer ’04Matt Stone ’99Andrew Teegarden ’99Frank Woodling ’05

ALUMNI


EVANS RAINER ’04

EVANS RAINER ’04 credits Alumni Basket-ball Night for connecting him with his alma mater as an adult.

“As soon as I walked into the Inman Center, years of great memories came flooding back,” he says. “The campus may have looked different, but so many of the faces were the same. Coach MARK SOM-MERVILLE about broke my back with a bear hug, and [Head of Upper School] MIKE GANNON was quick to give me a hard time about how long my hair was. It was like I’d never left. I quickly realized I needed to be involved with the place that had meant so much to me in my younger life.”

Rainer’s involvement began when he served on the host committee for the 2015 Alumni Knight Cap, which raised more than $25,000 for The Alumni Fund. Rainer looks forward to continuing to serve the school on the Pace Alumni Board.

“The Pace faculty constantly pushed me outside of my comfort zone; they didn’t let me settle for mediocrity. The lesson to strive to be better is something that will continue to drive me for years to come. I hope I can continue to get other alumni involved in the goings-on at Pace so we can ensure the place we were lucky enough to experience is here for generations to come.”

Rainer, an account executive at CentricsIT, lives in Atlanta with his wife, Kelcy, and their labs, Winnie and Purdey.

MATT STONE ’99

For MATT STONE ’99, ensuring that all ac-cepted students who want to enroll at Pace are able to attend—regardless of a family’s ability to pay—is a priority, and he’s excited about The Alumni Fund’s role in that effort (the Alumni Fund supports need-based student financial aid).

“My hope is that Pace alumni will con-tinue to find creative ways to help more students afford a Pace Academy educa-tion,” he says.

Stone’s desire stems from his own Pace experience. “To this day, my best friends in the world are the friends I met as a Pace student. It’s important for me to take a more active role in the life of the school because I want future students to form the same longstanding friendships and have similar experiences at Pace.”

Stone works in real estate investment banking at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. He and his wife, Shelley, have a son, Jack, 6, and live in Atlanta.

JENNIFER FESTA GIORDANO ’94

As a leadership consultant and executive coach for Fortune 500 companies, JEN-NIFER FESTA GIORDANO ’94 knows the importance of discovering and maximizing one’s passions and skills—and she credits Pace with helping her do just that.

“My teachers met me where I was academ-ically, and Pace’s value around every student being a star allowed me to find my niche outside of the classroom,” Giordano says.

That unique environment is something Giordano plans to support as a member of the Pace Alumni Board. “Pace’s family culture is something that [the school] has always—and should always—value,” she says. “I hope we can remain true to that culture while positively leveraging the changes in technology and this virtual world to enable Pace to be the best it can be!”

Connection in a virtual world is a personal priority for Giordano. “My Pace friends are still some of the closest people in my life,” she says. “I feel lucky and blessed for my time at Pace and truly believe it laid the foundation for the rest of my adult life and career. I am so thankful and will do anything to help current students at Pace have a similarly positive experience.”

Giodrano and her husband, Mark, have two children: Elle, 4, and Ward, 3. The family lives in Atlanta.

50

A s the saying goes, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

JODI SHEFFIELD ’05 (pictured above) has no trouble handling the metaphorical heat while working as a producer on ABC’s cooking-themed talk show The Chew.

Taped in front of a live audience at ABC’s New York studios, the lifestyle show boasts five celebrity hosts (restaurateurs and Iron Chefs Michael Symon and Mario Batali, Top Chef alumna Carla Hall, lifestyle expert Clin-ton Kelly, and natural-food chef and author Daphne Oz) and keeps Sheffield on her toes.

A Pace Academy global-education study tour first sparked Sheffield’s interest in tele-vision production. While visiting Spain, the group attended the taping of a TV show in Madrid, and Sheffield was hooked.

“I’ve always been interested in the arts, which were really cultivated at Pace,” she says. Inevitably, Sheffield’s passion for all things artistic and her interest in production led her to pursue a major in broadcast jour-nalism at the University of Georgia. While in Athens, she ran a student news channel and found the human-interest segments she produced most exciting.

After college, Sheffield trekked across the country to Los Angeles to give Holly-wood production a try. While working on a talk-show pilot, she once again found herself enamored with the medium, with the energy and excitement that comes when working in front of live audiences.

Sheffield’s desire to work fulltime in the “talk” world took her to New York City two years ago. She says she’s enjoyed every exhilarating and challenging moment that comes with life in the City That Never Sleeps. She loves being part of both The Chew and New York’s “foodie environ-ment,” where she learns from the best in the business on a daily basis.

As a producer, Sheffield collaborates with The Chew’s culinary team to bring the chefs’ recipes and stories to life. She’s also respon-sible for researching and pitching unique stories about people making a difference in food communities around the country. “It’s invigorating to take a sneak peek into the minds of culinary trendsetters, all while being a part of a daily show that highlights others’ successes.”

Now in its fifth season, The Chew has taken a big bite out of the daytime market: its hosts recently won their first daytime Emmy.

After two seasons on the job, Sheffield is still in love with The Chew, TV production and the culinary world as a whole. Each day brings a new show, new recipes, new inter-views and new challenges, but, she reports, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

— by KAMRAN SADIQ ’15

Jodi Sheffield ’05 brings good food and good stories to living rooms across America

Are you an alumnus working in a food-related industry? Let us know!

Email [email protected]

ALUMNI

THE BUSINESS OF FOOD

From Asheville to the Big Apple, Pace alumni are changing the way we eat.

mailto:[email protected]


ALUMNI

Start Small. THINK BIG, a common phrase at Pace Academy, perfectly encapsulates

the career path of JAMES SUTHERLAND ’03. Sutherland got his start moving through the ranks at restaurants like Starbucks, J. Christopher’s and Doc Chey’s before opening Blue Dream Curry House in Asheville, N.C. (shown above), this past June. The restaurant, “an international journey of flavor,” serves up local beers and curries made with high-quali-ty, fresh and locally sourced ingredients.

Sutherland and his business partners, Chris Cunningham and Sean Park, devel-oped the idea over late-night meetings at Waffle House, hoping to create a restaurant reminiscent of curry houses in 19th-century England. Their 65-seat establishment pro-duces a wide range of curries from around the world—countries such as Thailand, Japan, India and China.

“We wanted to feature a style of food instead of just one country’s food,” Suther-land explains. “It’s a way we embrace and celebrate diversity in our dishes and in our mindset.”

While serving dishes from far-away places, Sutherland also wanted to give back to the Asheville community in meaningful ways, so Blue Dream Curry House sources more than 80 percent of its food locally or regionally—whether it’s buying tempeh from Asheville’s Smiling Hara Tempeh or selecting produce at local farmers markets.

“Buying locally is convenient for us and provides a good-quality product,” Suther-land says. “It also helps the environment and

reduces the restaurant’s carbon footprint.” In addition to recycling, Blue Dream Curry

House limits packaging waste by offering beer only on tap and serving beverages in glasses rather than plastic cups. The kitchen is completely electric, with induction stoves instead of natural gas, and all food scraps are diverted from landfills thanks to a part-nership with CompostNow. The restaurant even pickles broccoli stems to reduce waste!

Supporting local farms and protecting the environment isn’t the only way Blue Dream Curry House gives back to the Asheville community. On opening weekend, 20 percent of all sales were donated to Go! Kitchen-Ready Training, a community nonprofit that provides job-placement ser-vices and basic culinary training to Ashville’s underserved populations.

Additionally, Sutherland says a goal for the restaurant is to keep prices low. Despite the fact that Blue Dream Curry House uses fresh, local and organic ingredients, entrees are priced around $10 a plate.

“We keep our price point low because we want anyone to feel comfortable eating here. Everyone deserves quality food,” Sutherland explains. “Eating any kind of curry is kind of like eating a multi-vitamin, you eat it and it just makes you feel good. We want to present an environment where people are comfortable and there is an at-titude of acceptance.”

The restaurant quickly achieved Living Wage Certification not long after opening—another priority. “I think it’s really important

to pay a living wage both from a business perspective and from a wanting-to-be-a-good-person perspective,” Sutherland says.

In Asheville, the living wage is $12.50 per hour, far more than what this starting restaurant is required to pay. As time goes on and Blue Dream Curry House becomes more established, Sutherland hopes to make all employees partners and offer bonuses.

While Sutherland, Cunningham and Park now enjoy a bustling restaurant and good reviews, reaching this point wasn’t an easy process. With limited funding, they took a very hands-on and humble approach to launching their business, painting the res-taurant themselves and creating their own website rather than outsourcing work. All three owners work in the restaurant every day, doing whatever is needed.

Sutherland believes he owes much of his success to his Pace experience: “There are so many good teachers at Pace, and the Pace Middle School in particular was so en-couraging. I had a lot of resources that most students don’t get to access, like learning how to make a website as an eighth-grader. Now I run all of Blue Dream’s social media, and I created our website myself.”

As the Pace community digs deeper into the Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s (ICGL) Year of FOOD, we might take a cue from Sutherland and Blue Dream Curry House and consider more than just the flavor of the food we eat.


People, purpose, planet and profit—the “quadruple” bottom line— drive James Sutherland’s ’03 North Carolina restaurant


ALUMNIALUMNI

HOMECOMING & REUNION WEEKENDKnights fans of all ages turned up to show their Pace Academy spirit during Home-coming & Reunion Weekend, Sept. 18 and 19.

The festivities kicked off with a family friendly tailgate at Pace Academy Athletics Complex, where alumni and their families enjoyed dinner from Low Country BBQ before watching the varsity football team defeat Holy Innocents’ 26–0.

The next morning, alumni gathered for a Pace “play date,” and their children made new friends on the Lower School playground. Brunch and tours of the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School followed. That evening, the Classes of 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000* celebrated reunions.

*The Classes of 2005 and 2010 will celebrate reunions over the Thanksgiving holiday.

CLASS OF 1975Members of the Class of 1975 gathered at Meehan’s Public House to celebrate their 40th reunion. DIANE COLLINS HISHTA organized the event.

CLASS OF 1980Meehan’s Public House also hosted the Class of 1980’s reunion. RANDY MARCRUM and CAROLYN SINGLETON WILLIAMS coordinated the evening.

CLASS OF 1985 BILL SHIPPEN opened his home for the Class of 1985’s 30th reunion. SHELBY POWELL DRINKARD, TONYA DUNCAN GANDOLFO, LESLIE COLEMAN REN-JILIAN and MICHELLE MOSS WEISS helped plan the event.

CLASS OF 1990JENNIFER BOLES, JARED PAUL and IAN SMITH gathered their classmates at JCT Kitchen Bar to celebrate the Class of 1990’s 25th reunion.

CLASS OF 1995The Class of 1995 had a crowd of more than 50 people at its 20th reunion, which took place at Fado Irish Pub in Buck-head. MEREDITH WINTT FORRESTER, CHAFFEE BRAITHWAITE HEILMAN, DAVID IBSEN, LINDSAY MITCHELL KLIP-PING, CAMERON BROWN RICHARD and JOSH YOUNG organized the event.

CLASS OF 2000Local Three, a Buckhead restaurant, played host to the Class of 2000’s 15-year reunion. KATHERINE COLBATH BISHOP, DORSEY STINSON BRYAN, BRITT JACKSON GRIFFIN, KELLY HARRIS, AMANDA ROGERS INMAN, MARY LIEBMAN, J.D. RICHEY and MELISSA OXMAN SHAPIRO planned the evening.

Alumni Out & About

Class of 1975

Class of 1980

Class of 2000

Class of 1975Class of 1995

Class of 1990

Friday, March 18, 2016 7 p.m.–12 a.m. at

Chastain Horse Park

SAVE THE DATE for the

third annual Alumni

Knight Cap!

Benefitting The Pace Alumni Fund’s dedicated cause:

need-based financial aid. The evening will include a bourbon tasting and scrumptious food from

Avenue Catering Concepts.

If you are interested in contributing or want to learn more about

the event, please email [email protected].

ALUMNI

Have you liked, followed or joined us yet?

www.facebook.com/paceacademyalumniassociation

www.linkedin.com/paceacademyalumniassociation

On Aug. 10, alumni parents gathered for dinner in the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School to celebrate the new school year. More than 60 guests attended and heard from Head of School FRED ASSAF and Alumni Association President CHARLES BRICKLEY '88 about the future of Pace and upcoming Alumni Association events. Seventy-two alumni currently have children enrolled at Pace.

ALUMNI PARENTS COME BACK TO SCHOOL

A NEW GENERATION OF LEADERSLeadership Pace seeks applicants for inaugural class.

The Pace Academy Alumni Office is excited to announce the launch of Leadership Pace, a program that will prepare alumni to serve as the next generation of school leaders.

Leadership Pace has been designed to increase the number of alumni actively engaged in the life of the school. Modeled after leadership programs offered by local Chambers of Commerce, Leadership Pace will educate participants about the school’s inner workings and long-term direction, allow for in-depth interactions with school leaders and provide an avenue for meaningful volunteer involvement.

The Pace Alumni Board believes that Leadership Pace will become a prestigious and sought-after opportunity for young alumni, and will help shape the school’s future.

Leadership Pace participants will be selected through an application process. Qualities considered suitable for participation include leadership involvement in professional, com-munity or faith-based organizations, awards, recognitions or personal achievements. The yearlong commitment to Leadership Pace will require attendance at regular meetings and a two-day retreat. Apply by Dec. 1, 2015, at www.paceacademy.org/leadershippace.

Join the voices of Pace's next generation!

http://www.paceacademy.org/leadershippace

966 W. Paces Ferry Road NWAtlanta, Georgia 30327

www.paceacademy.org

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTEDIf you have received multiple copies of this publication, please contact the Advancement Office at 404-240-9103 or [email protected] to update your address.

uKnight means more than a dollar amount—it is the collective support that defines the Pace Academy family. Together, we fulfill our singular mission: to create prepared, confident citizens of the world.

For more information or to make a gift, visit www.paceacademy.org/thepacefund.

It takes a village!

You Set Pace

Apart!#PaceFunduKnight

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