Milton Magazine, Fall 2014

F A L L 2 0 1 4

MiltonMagazine

storytellers are game changers

610 14

1f a l l 2 0 1 4

6 The Moonshot Evangelist Claire Johnson ’90 is steering Google’s self-driving car.

10 New Americans Will Power Chicago’s Future Tonantzin Carmona ’08 includes immigrants in the

city’s vision.

14 Landing the Viewer Inside the Story “A documentary is not a visualized lecture,” says

Llewellyn Smith ’72.

18 Worth a Thousand Words Nick Clark ’65 blurs the lines between fine art and your

favorite childhood picture books.

22 At the Console, Nick Makes Productions Sing Ambitious performances push Nick Mehlman ’16,

Milton’s sound guru.

26 What Should We Know About You? Milton’s eighth graders tell their own stories.

30 A Wider Lens, A Deeper Look Milton launches eight new interdisciplinary courses.

38 Commencement 2014

43 Reunion Weekend

Milton Magazine is published twice a year by Milton Academy. Editorial and business offices are located at Milton Academy, where change-of-address notifications should be sent.

As an institution committed to diversity, Milton Academy welcomes the opportunity to admit academically qualified students of any gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally available to its students. It does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship programs, and athletic or other school-administered activities.

Printed on recycled paper.

Features Departments

t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

4 Across the Quad

31 Head of School The Gift of an Oral Legacy by Todd B. Bland

32 Sports Golf at Milton in 9 Holes by Liz Matson

34 Faculty Perspective Visual Arts Faculty, Past and Present, Exhibit and Explain

48 In Sight Zion, March 2014 Photograph by Matt Magann ’17

50 On Centre

56 Board of Trustees

60 Retiring Faculty

64 Messages

65 Alumni Authors

67 Class Notes

76 Post Script “When It Comes to Movies, Everyone Has an Opinion.” by Ty Burr ’76

EditorCathleen Everett

Associate EditorsErin BergLiz Matson

DesignStoltze Design

PhotographyMehrdad Azemun Erin Berg Matt Bingham Chris Diers Michael Dwyer Misty Enright John Gillooly

Matthew Gilson Matt Magann Liz Matson Clif Stoltze Greg White

2 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy

3f a l l 2 0 1 4

Storytellers are game changers.Nothing matches a story’s power to connect, to create empathy,

to expand our individual worlds. Irresistible and engrossing,

stories can be wily messengers that deftly turn assumptions upside

down. We can find ourselves on new terrain after some stories,

thinking and feeling acutely. Master storytellers seem, almost

effortlessly, to rivet our attention on our shared human condition.

They artfully usher in the realizations that allow us to grow and

to change. We focus this Milton Magazine on the story, on the art

and the skills that bring narratives to life and change the world.

4 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @Milton_Academy

Walter McCloskey Names Eight to RememberStories that moved him, and might move you

a c r o s s t h e q u a d

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel HawthorneHawthorne’s perverse sense of

humor gives this allegory of

universal guilt a distinctively

comic undertone.

“Good Country People” and “The Displaced Person” by Flannery O’ConnorIn these two stories, O’Connor

uses her slam-bang irony to

expose the kinds of false pride

that underlie truly disastrous

prejudices.

“The Swimmer” by John CheeverPerhaps Cheever’s most brilliant

story, “The Swimmer” takes

place in a recognizable suburban

world that moves into nightmare

as former master of the universe

Neddy Merrill navigates the

swimming pools of his neighbors

and revisits his self-destroyed life.

“Calling” by Richard FordIn this story that truly haunts,

the narrator recalls his terminal

reunion, decades before, with

his estranged father, an upper-

class New Orleanian with the

kind of secrets no child would

want to uncover.

She was wild, sassy, but imaginative; so, when

she told me she lived in an island in the sky, I

thought she was insane. But no, there it was, just

like she said. — Sophia Greenaway, Class III

Their Shortest Assignment Ever! Short-shorts by students, like @VeryShortStory, in 140 characters or less.

I love how you can think you’re at the top

with every bend in the path. “False summit,”

I think it’s called. You’re not yet, but you

will be. — Claire Huffman, Class I

She was there. Her stare was oblique. “I’m

sorry.” “For what?” Again, the oblique look.

The wind shook her hair into her eyes. “Never

mind.” — David Mercier, Class I

“The Old People” by William FaulknerIn this story, which anticipates the

much longer and more complex

“The Bear,” Faulkner introduces

one of his major themes: the

multiple ways in which the past

inhabits the present.

“A Memory” by Eudora WeltyFlannery O’Connor once said,

“If nothing happens, there’s no

story.” In Welty’s “A Memory,”

something memorable does

happen, but only in the divided

imagination of the narrator.

“Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman MelvilleMelville’s Bartleby, the lawyer’s

scribe who practices a ferocious

passive resistance, has taught

me one of life’s most useful

phrases: “I would prefer not to.”

5f a l l 2 0 1 4

Upper SchoolApplications for 2014–2015 — 1,100new students enrolled — 141 (92 boarding, 49 day)

K–8Applications for 2014–2015 — 413new students enrolled — 52

K–12 total enrollment — 1,034

VitalsMale — 54% Female — 46%Sibling or legacy — 35%Receive need-based financial aid — 28%

New day students are from 48 surrounding cities and towns.

The Admission Office hosted 1,400 families visiting for interviews last year.

20new boarding students

come from 20 states.

14And 14 countries.

43%Of our new students, 43% are self-defined

students of color.

Admission Stats 2014–2015

F R O M T H E A R C H I V E S Was D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers “the” story of the ’70s, or was the real story the hair?

6 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E YouTube.com > search for “A First Drive”

The Moonshot Evangelist

c h a p t e r o n e C l A I R E H U G H E S J O H N S O N ’ 9 0

Claire Johnson ’90 Is Steering Google’s Self-Driving Car.

Mountain View neighborhood as naturally as a human-

driven SUV. The computer-controlled cars have already

logged more than 700,000 autonomous miles. Until

recently, they’ve also had a few features we’ve become

accustomed to since the advent of the horseless carriage.

Steering wheels, for instance. Gas pedals. Brakes.

Mr. Brin explained that Google has cast aside these

accouterments. Onstage, his hosts showed off a video of a

two-seat electric prototype with an emergency stop button,

but no steering wheel or familiar pedals. Brin compared

the experience of driving in one of the prototypes to sitting

in a chairlift. And while he broke the news of this radical

new prototype casually, punctuating his armchair presen-

tation with the occasional chuckle, the unveiling took

months of intense planning, according to Claire Hughes

Johnson ’90, vice president of Google[x] Self-Driving

Cars. “It’s a nuanced story,” she says. “One of the hardest

things was that this was not a launch.”

At this point, Google isn’t selling a product. The com-

pany is selling an idea. So Claire and her colleagues wanted

the story to center less on the physical prototype than on

the broader technology developments and their implications.

“It’s going to take some time for the technology to realize its

potential,” she says. “So it took a series of steps to make sure

people had an opportunity to think through all the angles.”

On May 28, at the Code Conference in Palos Verdes, California, Google co-founder

Sergey Brin revealed a surprise. The tech world already knew that Google has been

developing self-driving cars that use laser scanners, cameras, and radars to map

nearby terrain, track cars and pedestrians, and even identify construction zones. The

vehicles avoid swerving cyclists, stop at traffic lights, and move around Google’s

The self-driving car project is part of the Google[x]

division — the so-called moonshot factory that pursues

revolutionary concepts. In 2012, the group released a

video of a self-driving Toyota Prius squiring a blind man

around town. Since then, however, they have kept their

advances quiet. Claire, a Google veteran who helped

launch flagship products like Gmail, had been following

the project internally, but it wasn’t until last year that

Google[x] director Astro Teller and engineer Chris Urmson

convinced her to join them. Her mandate is to bring the

technology to market, but she can’t divulge how Google

intends to do that. So, in the meantime, one of her roles

is to act as an evangelist for the technology, showing

regulators, politicians and the general public how self-

driving cars could benefit the world.

After joining the team, she noticed a disconnect between

the national conversation around self-driving cars and

what was happening inside Google[x]. In 2013, the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defined

five different categories for these smart cars, from a level

zero, which is controlled entirely by the driver, to an entirely

autonomous level four. Most automakers appear to be

progressing gradually away from zero, slowly introducing

new and more intelligent features, such as adaptive

cruise control.

7f a l l 2 0 1 4

The Moonshot Evangelist

8 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E

Google decided to go straight for the fully autonomous,

no-human-in-the-loop automobile. The logic was simple:

If, according to NHTSA, 93 percent of accidents are results

of human error, why not get rid of the human and let the

computer drive? Google’s cars can see out to 200 meters in

all directions. They don’t have blind spots. They don’t text.

The only accidents logged during those 700,000 miles

were the result of other cars knocking into a Google-mobile

at a traffic light.

Still, the idea of getting rid of the controls was ground-

breaking, so Claire and her colleagues decided to let people

know what they were doing. “We felt we should share,

as early as we could, the concept that we’re going to skip to

level four,” she says.

After months of planning, they began the reveal by

re-stoking interest in the technology. On May 14, her team

hosted a press day at Google. They invited members of

the media to ride in earlier versions of the self-driving cars —

a fleet of Lexus SUVs with updated software that allowed

them to drive on surface streets, not just highways.

Then they brought in a panel of academics to discuss how

self-driving vehicles could change mass transportation,

alleviate parking problems in cities, and more. At this point,

the new, steering-wheel-free prototype was still a secret,

but the media were given a glimpse of how far the technology

had come. A few years ago, for example, the car would

have recognized a cluster of pedestrians as an amorphous

blob. Now its software can distinguish, and track, each

individual person in a group.

Two weeks after the press day, Mr. Brin made his

announcement, and Claire’s team also released four videos.

One focused on the people who would benefit from self-

driving cars, including the elderly and the disabled. The

other three videos featured the engineers developing

the technology. The first video soon went viral, but Claire

wasn’t sitting at her desk, tracking view counts. For all

the potential reach of a video or a well-placed news piece,

she makes an effort to tell the story of the self-driving

car in person. Sometimes, this involves meeting with state

regulators, city officials, and other business leaders on

Google’s campus, and arranging for brief rides in the car

so they can experience the technology firsthand.

The day of the announcement, though, she was in

Washington, D.C., discussing some of the potential uses for

9f a l l 2 0 1 4

A few years ago, for example, the car would have recognized a cluster of

pedestrians as an amorphous blob. Now its software can distinguish, and track,

each individual person in a group.

the vehicle with an unnamed White House official. Claire,

who worked briefly in politics after graduation from Milton,

was talking about how a self-driving car would help her

grandmother, who had to give up her driver’s license, and

her freedom, because of a degenerative eye condition. The

official, it turns out, was about to face the same problem with

her parents. “Her eyes lit up,” Claire recalls.

After Mr. Brin’s reveal, some stories focused on the

prototype itself. People asked desperately curious questions

about when these vehicles would be available to the general

public, how they’ll be used, and how much they’ll cost.

For the most part, though, the conversation shifted toward

broader implications. The conferences, announcements,

videos, news stories, and face-to-face meetings had the

effect of nudging attention away from the actual prototype

and turning the public’s eyes to the question of how these

vehicles will impact our world.

Claire thinks this impact will be significant. Since her

Milton days, she has had an eye toward leaving an imprint

on the world, a legacy. At first, she thought she might do

so through writing or politics. Now, though, she sees this

technology, and her role in guiding it into the world, as

her chance. When she was recruited to join the effort, she

wasn’t sure she was a good fit. “I’m not building lasers,”

she jokes, and there was not yet a product to sell. But she

has found her role, and she believes that she will help

make self-driving transportation a reality. Until then, she’ll

continue commuting like so many of the rest of us, with

both hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road.

by Greg Mone

A B O V EMap data © 2014 Google, InEGI.


While rancorous debate about immigrants surges across

the United States, Mayor Emanuel has declared that

Chicago “will be the most immigrant-friendly city in the

country.” Some view Emanuel’s line in the sand as smart;

others are enraged; nearly everyone sees it as bold. His

rationale is succinct: “Chicago can accelerate its economic

growth over the next decade by supporting businesses

and ensuring that its workforce is ready to fill employers’

needs,” the mayor writes in his Chicago New Americans

Plan. “The city’s immigrant population will be a key

component of both of these economic growth strategies.”

To succeed, Tonantzin has to stand in the immigrants’

shoes, bring their lives to light, and convince the skeptics

that including immigrants in the city’s vision helps everyone.

It’s her responsibility to put pragmatic policy to work and

deliver progress.

Emanuel’s 50-member advisory committee, drawn from

Chicago’s business, academic, civic and philanthropic

communities, named the plan’s strategies over the course of

his first year in office. Tonantzin helps the mayor realize

those target priorities.

Tonantzin grew up in Little Village, Chicago’s prominent

Mexican neighborhood. She was “vocal” as an elementary

schooler, she says, and competitive: “a nerd who was not

afraid of being smart.” She loved sports. Her dad encouraged

his two daughters to be tough and opinionated; he was

adamant that they take an upfront role, never behind the

scenes. Tonantzin’s mother, aunt and grandmother were

all activists on that front. Her grandparents, “second parents”

according to Tonantzin, drove her and her sister to school,

even though they could see the schoolyard from their home.

“They were strict and protective,” she says. “My family

relentlessly focused on education as the vehicle for success.”

Teenage pregnancy, violence, gangs and drugs, typical

urban forces, were part of the neighborhood’s cultural fabric.

You’d be safe in saying that without a motivation

unusual for any 13-year-old, Tonantzin would not have left

her tight neighborhood for Milton. “I wanted to open doors

for Latino and immigrant youth,” she says. “Even when

I was new at Milton, I was making videos in English and

Spanish to send home, so more kids would apply.” Milton

was “huge, strange, filled with people walking around

using these polysyllabic words,” says Tonantzin. It wasn’t

easy, but she kept her footing and “devoured and absorbed

In midmorning, the light reflecting off North LaSalle Street’s towering buildings pours

into Tonantzin Carmona’s small office in Chicago’s City Hall. Poised and welcoming,

Tonantzin clears the Starbucks cup to one side and ignores the steady ping of incoming

emails. She looks every bit her age — 24 years. Last April, Mayor Rahm Emanuel

named Tonantzin director of his Office of New Americans.

Tonantzin Carmona ’08

c h a p t e r t w o T O N A N T z I N C A R M O N A ’ 0 8

New Americans Will Power Chicago’s Future

11f a l l 2 0 1 4

T H I S S P R E A DPhoto by Matthew Gilson.

12 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E cityofchicago.org/newamericans

“Picking up angry voicemail messages and hearing personal insults is hard.

I do understand where they’re coming from. So many people don’t have

opportunities; so many are intensely worried about their future.”

everything,” including running for office and serving.

She wanted to be closer to home for college. “At

Northwestern I could gain experience and exposure, see

where in Chicago I could put my foot,” she says. She majored

in political science and Latino studies, preparing explicitly

to serve.

Tonantzin immersed herself in the activities of

Northwestern’s Latino community. Working for her father’s

management consulting firm at the same time, she learned

about research on a deadline; problem solving; and the

range of issues that confront businesses and organizations.

She was known and primed for action when she learned

about a policy associate’s position in City Hall.

Putting aside preparation for the medical school exam,

Tonantzin took a shot at the position and was rewarded.

“They needed a generalist,” Tonantzin says. “You name it —

affordable housing, transportation, public health, sustain-

ability — I researched and worked on whatever policy

needs came up. City/county collaboration became my project.

With the city’s chief of policy and my county counterpart,

we convened and managed 15 cross-department teams,

helped them come up with action steps to move the mayor’s

and the Cook County board president’s agenda. We ended

up with a $70.9 million savings, just through conversations —

collaborating, reducing redundancy, targeting the delivery

of services better.”

Absorbed in the city, but still passionate about her neigh-

borhood, Tonantzin regularly badgered Adolfo Hernandez —

a Little Villager who preceded her as director of the Office

of New Americans — to bring her in on projects that affect

immigrants. When he moved on, Tonantzin was the perfect

internal candidate for his position.

Economic growth is the lead issue in the Mayor’s New

Americans Plan, mainly because success in that domain

would prove the underlying argument: that providing

immigrants with equal access to opportunities ultimately

benefits everyone.

The plan moves on to initiatives that serve youth and

neighborhoods. Perhaps because they emerged from

the broad-based advisory group, the goals often seem

to be small in scale, pragmatic, accessible, common-sense

changes. If you want to support small-business entre-

preneurs, for instance, make food cart licenses easier to

get. If you want to increase naturalization applications,

provide help to pay the $680 application fee, a barrier for

most immigrants. To connect new immigrants with key

city services, adopt a policy that makes sure all city

departments have a plan for providing services in the top

languages spoken in Chicago neighborhoods — Spanish,

Polish, Mandarin, Tagalog [Filipino], Russian and Arabic.

Throughout the city, promote alliances and connections,

sensitize agencies, improve processes.

Support for undocumented youth excites Tonantzin

13f a l l 2 0 1 4

A B O V EImages of Chicago’s Little Village (far left) by Mehrdad Azemun and (all others) Chris Diers, via flickr.com.

more than anything else. These are high schoolers whose

older brothers and sisters may well have been among

Tonantzin’s friends in Little Village. While she has been

able to develop her own talents, and follow an ambitious

plan, these kids feel invisible and live with the abiding

fear that their parents may be deported.

She talks about partnering with staff from the Chicago

Public Schools, building awareness, clearing the pathway

for young people to work toward college and play a role

in the city’s future. A move as obvious as educating school

counselors about students’ eligibilities can clear up

confusion and put options into play. Students need not be

documented — or show documentation — to apply to college,

for instance. They do qualify for instate tuition, but not

state or federal aid.

The city established nearly 23,000 volunteer, internship

and job opportunities for, “DREAMers,” undocumented

youth, brought to the United States as children. Because of

President Obama’s DACA program (Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals), young people with work authorization

can build work experience and a college education. Students

at Curie Metro High School established a “DREAMer club,”

linked up with other high schools, and held a statewide

“DREAMer conference” with more than 200 participants.

They pulled together resources for students and families,

to help them get to college.

Tonantzin tells about having heard several of these stu-

dents who came to City Hall and talked with Mayor Emanuel

about the internship program. Why was it important? They

essentially said, in Tonantzin’s words, “It feels great to feel

welcome, to be openly acknowledged. I feel like I have at least

one foot in society, even though one is out.”

“They deal with constant backlash,” Tonantzin explains,

“about who they are. Yet they say, ‘This is my home, and

I want to contribute. I might not be a citizen of the United

States, but I’m a citizen of Chicago.’”

Supporting immigrants, particularly undocumented

youth, is difficult, Tonantzin admits. “Picking up angry

voicemail messages and hearing personal insults is hard.

I do understand where they’re coming from. So many

people don’t have opportunities; so many are intensely

worried about their future.”

Frustrated by Washington’s inability to craft compre-

hensive immigration reform, Tonantzin points out how

much is left to local governments with limited resources and

so many needs to meet. “Without national policy, we struggle

with loopholes and gaps,” she says. “Talented individuals

are held back. We have to get creative; we could be much

more productive focusing money and energy in other ways.”

By convening, narrating and navigating, Tonantzin

thinks she’s made connections that may not have happened,

or that wouldn’t otherwise have been as frequent or effective.

Some people don’t view policy as a solution to problems,

but Tonantzin feels that municipal governments are the

laboratories of innovation. “I’ve seen firsthand how an idea

can come about and turn things around.”

“That was what drove me to venture from Little Village

in the first place,” she says. “I am a young, brown woman,

and people underestimate me. I should not question or

be apologetic about who I am. The women I’ve known, in

immigrant communities, get things done. They begin by

looking out for their children; they get involved and take

off from there. I want to get more involved in policy, in law,

to be a role model for other Latinas.”

by Cathleen Everett

14 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E bluesparkcollaborative.com

c h a p t e r t h r e e l l E W E l lY N S M I T H ’ 7 2

Llewellyn Smith ’72

Llew “backed into filmmaking,” by seizing a number of seren-

dipitous opportunities that cropped up in Minnesota, in the

late ’70s, after his undergraduate days at Carleton College.

A tentative teenage conversation with his first girlfriend

predicted the arc of Llew’s career and its challenges. He

was 17 and the two had come around to projecting the future —

what they hoped to “be.” Llew’s girlfriend laughed incredu-

lously when he reflexively said, “I want to direct films.”

“I understood later that she was not really laughing at me,

but more at the idea,” Llew says. “If I’d said I’m going to

work at the post office, or as a teacher, or even a politician,

she could see how that was possible. But a filmmaker?

There were no black filmmakers we knew of in the 1970s.”

In fact, Llew did have to invent himself as a filmmaker.

In the late ’70s, he was working on a master’s in commu-

nication at the University of Minnesota when Reginald

Buckner, a legendary pianist and professor of music,

approached him about creating a TV course on jazz; Llew

leapt at the chance and they produced Jazz: An American

Classic. On the strength of that, Llew says, he was able

to “struggle my way into this business.” He was hired by

WETA to write for a series called From Jump Street: The

Story of Black Music, hosted by Oscar Brown Jr. The show

presented an amazing range of American black music

in live performances. “Everyone around me at that point

“I’m attracted to the consequences of big ideas shaping people’s lives,” says Llew Smith,

summing up what drives his filmmaking. His film legacy over nearly 35 years shows

a diligent historian, a fearless visual artist, a sensitive and ambitious chronicler of

identity and experience in the United States. Llew is alternately, or sometimes simul-

taneously, a writer, director, producer, series editor and “especially rainmaker, if you

know what I mean.”

knew about as much as I did about what they were doing,”

Llew says.

Not until he joined the production team for the series

Eyes on the Prize would he gain the mentoring of seasoned

cinematographers. Arriving as an associate producer,

Llew could observe how documentary storytelling takes

shape as an entity that dictates its own tone and direction,

and demands technical and aesthetic care. The eminent

documentary team included Jon Else, Orlando Bagwell,

Callie Crossley, and legendary executive producer Henry

Hampton.

“Filmmaking is so powerfully collaborative,” Llew

says, “not just the technical work, but the process of

discovering and defining the narrative itself. That happens

not just within the film team, but also with experts who

work with us to build the most compelling story. I depend

on the historians, the social scientists, the economists,

the sociologists and others to help us clarify our vision and

test the veracity of the narrative we’re presenting. It can

be a tough and humbling process.”

“A successful film is rooted in the narrative,” Llew says,

“Facts alone can’t create an inspiring story. A documentary is

not a visualized lecture.” Often, experts have done publicly

funded research in a field for years, he points out. While their

work advances knowledge, their findings usually live in a

landing the Viewer Inside the Story

R I G H TPhoto by John Gillooly.

15f a l l 2 0 1 4

16

peer-reviewed, nearly inaccessible world of professional

journals and conferences. “I like to take important insights

and translate those into a provocative public conversation.”

he says. “If you help me understand your research, I can

help make it more widely available through storytelling to

national audiences — not ‘dumbing it down,’ but rather

getting these ideas into the public imagination, where they

can provoke change.”

The PBS series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us

Sick? (2008) is a case in point; Llew was co-executive director.

In seven episodes, Unnatural Causes relies on individual

stories to anchor a growing body of uncomfortable but

important data. The first takes us to Louisville, Kentucky,

where the lives of a CEO, a lab supervisor, a janitor, and

an unemployed mother “show how class shapes opportun-

ities for good health,” says the series’ description. “Those

on the top have the most access to power, resources and

opportunity — and thus the best health. Those on the bottom

are faced with more stressors — unpaid bills, jobs that

don’t pay enough, unsafe living conditions, exposure to

environmental hazards, lack of control over work and

schedule, worries over children — and the fewest resources

available to help them cope.” The series showed that health

outcomes (and their costs) are inexorably tied to social

conditions that we create in our communities. It triggered

a national discussion, especially in public health circles,

that continues today.

The scholarly discourse supporting “the social determin-

ants of health” was “about 100 years in the making,” Llew

says. As he built the plan for this series, Llew was exactly

where he liked to be: using powerful stories to illustrate a

complex reality, and create a meaningful public dialogue.

Llew wants to share insights that may be new to people,

and even alarming or unsettling, but so compelling and

urgent that they don’t turn away; at the same time he aims

at accuracy, so experts in the field are able to say, “this does

represent our knowledge at this time.”

Each person comes to a film with a preformed idea of

what that film is going to be about, Llew believes, and where

it might go. He likes to “meet audience assumptions exactly

where they are, and then do a jiujitsu number: flip it — turn

those expectations on their head and land the viewer inside

the story, with an emotional connection they didn’t expect.”

Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist and Nobel

laureate, is Llew’s agent for catapulting you into the center

of his new film, American Denial. In 1938, the Carnegie

Corporation chose Myrdal to conduct a five-year investiga-

tion of American life and values. They selected Myrdal

because of his international status as a researcher and

theorist, and as a non-national from a non-imperialist coun-

try. Myrdal was interested in America’s core longing for

equality, contraposed with the reality of our racial inequality.

Moving freely throughout the South, for a time by him-

self and then with the assistance of scholar Ralph Bunche,

Myrdal questioned hundreds of Americans. “I am a Swede,”

he would say. “I’m new to your country. Who are black

people? What are they like?”

Answers — from people who lovingly espoused our public

values — defined black Americans as second-class citizens,

distinctly inferior. Was denial a critical psychological exercise,

Myrdal wondered, that enabled Americans to avow certain

beliefs and act in opposition to those beliefs every day?

M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E

17f a l l 2 0 1 4

llew Smith’s 35 years of documentary work includes:

• Eyes on the Prize (1987)

• Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery (1997)

• The American Experience — multiple episodes (1998)

• Race, The Power of an Illusion (2003)

• Nova, Forgotten Genius (2007)

• Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2008)

• Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness (2010)

• Gaining Ground: Building Community on Dudley Street (2012)

• Independent Lens, American Denial (2013)

After more than a decade with PBS’s American Experience, llew founded Vital Pictures (www.vitalpix.com) in 2005, and in recent years launched a new venture: BlueSpark Collaborative.

Filmmaking honors: • The Council on Foundations Henry Hampton Award

• Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award

• The National Academy of Sciences 2009 Communications Award

• The John O’Connor Film Award of the American Historical Association

• The Eric Barnouw Award

• The George Foster Peabody Award

• Hollywood Black Film Festival Best Documentary Award

• The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Award

• The National Association of Science Writers Award

• Multiple Emmy and Writers Guild nominations

Overwhelmed by these findings from the country he so revered,

Myrdal became profoundly depressed. He began to lose confidence in

himself. His marriage with his confidante and professional counter-

part, Ada, seemed on the verge of collapse. In personal crisis, he worried

whether he had uncovered the same thing within himself that seemed

deeply entwined in the American character.

Ultimately, Ada did help her husband complete his report for the

Carnegie Corporation, An American Dilemma, and the film shows how

its insights are as relevant now as when he completed his study in 1944.

Watching the film without feeling Gunnar Myrdal’s visceral pain

is impossible. Witnessing his intellectual and personal struggle

leads you to new and highly uncomfortable awareness about its source.

Immersed as you find yourself in Myrdal’s story, you cannot avoid

exploring the issues of racism and white supremacy that affected him,

and those issues playing out today.

The important thing, Llew says, in a film like this, is that people

recognize and deal with the discomfort of where they find them-

selves when the credits roll. “I’ve succeeded when a person engages

in a conversation with himself about what he is now struggling to

understand. If we avoid acknowledging what we see,” Llew asserts,

we must understand ourselves as complicit in “the inequality and

racist structures that continue to inhabit our democracy.”

As Llew says, “good storytelling, especially the detail in stories,

reveals universality. It’s in the story details that we see ourselves

and connect with the human condition; and the meaning of that human

condition doesn’t change, no matter our individual backgrounds.”

by Cathleen Everett

American Denial will be aired on PBS’s

Independent Lens on February 23, 2015.

A Select FilmographyFrontAMERICAN DENIAL


19f a l l 2 0 1 4

c h a p t e r f o u r

Achieving that goal is the responsibility of Nick Clark ’65,

founding director, and now chief curator, of The Carle.

The museum is the first in the country to feature children’s-

book illustration seriously and comprehensively.

During a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, award-winning

picture-book artist Eric Carle, and his wife, Barbara,

learned that more than 20 museums in that country are

dedicated to the art of children’s-book illustration. The

Carles decided to establish just one — the first — in the United

States. The architectural benchmark became, “What do

we need to accommodate three school buses full of children

a day?” The Carle, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, is

43,000 square feet — home to three galleries, an auditorium,

an art studio, and a reading library.

Eric Carle had connected with Nick informally in the

past, and he decided that Nick was the right person to bring

the museum’s programmatic vision to life. Nick studied art

history at Harvard, earned his Ph.D. at the University of

Delaware, and had devoted many years to educating people

about art. He was both prepared and enthusiastic about

honoring the art of picture-book illustration, and creating

a welcoming environment for children, and for adults.

“I could take an illustration by Maurice Sendak and

connect it to Albrecht Dürer or Winslow Homer,” Nick says.

“Eric understood that I saw illustration in an art historical

context.” At the outset, Nick wanted to honor the “titans

of the trade” — Leo Lionni, Virginia Lee Burton, Mitsumasa

Anno. The Carle, which opened its doors in 2002, has

mounted more than 100 exhibitions, including thematic

and group exhibitions. It has showcased favorite artists,

including E. H. Shepard, Nancy Ekholm Burkert, Dr. Seuss,

Chris Van Allsburg and Mo Willems. “We use that which

is familiar to prove that appreciating art doesn’t have to be

intimidating,” Nick says.

The Carle’s expansive art studio is a distinguishing

feature, available to visitors of all ages, whenever the

museum is open. Everything is hands-on, eyes-on, ears-

on at The Carle, which relies minimally on technology.

The building is wired and prepared to “boot up” as needed,

but families typically appreciate the refuge.

Well before The Carle’s inception, Nick was a devotee

of picture-book art. In 1996, he and his late wife, Trinkett,

with fellow curator Michael Patrick Hearn, launched an

exhibition of American children’s-book illustration at the

Four wide, welcoming murals — eight feet by 16 — warm the airy central hall of The Eric

Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. The textured swaths of red, green, blue, yellow,

are stunning tone setters — contemporary collages, you think. But then each painting

tugs at a deep-seated visual memory — something familiar, nostalgic — stemming from

hundreds of turns with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The murals showcase Eric Carle’s

signature tissue-paper technique writ large. Blurring the lines between fine art and

illustration art is the goal of The Carle Museum.

N I C K C l A R K ’ 6 5

Nick Clark ’65 blurs the lines between fine art and your childhood favorites.

l E F T PA G E (bottom left) Photo © The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. (bottom right) Photo by Andrew Greto © 2010 The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Tyvek murals created for display at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art were created by Eric Carle in the style of his collage illustrations using acrylic paints. He primed the Tyvek with a matte medium. Tyvek is the same material used to wrap buildings under construction.

Images of murals by Eric Carle © 2002 used with permission from the Eric Carle Studio.

20 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E carlemuseum.org facebook.com/CarleMuseum @CarleMuseum

Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, where Nick was

curator of American art. The exhibition was bold, bucking

the disparaging attitude toward children’s literature and

illustration art at the time. “Guests entered that exhibition

with a very different attitude,” says Nick. “They were

coming to see friends. If you give people a way to relate, they

will embrace the opportunity in a very meaningful way.”

Before his curatorial days, Nick taught art history at

Exeter, and he was shocked that his very bright students

were essentially visually illiterate. They didn’t understand

that decoding a visual image was comparable to decoding

a written text. “We all see things differently,” he told his

students. “If you have a good reason for what you see, your

point of view is valid.” The conversation becomes increa-

singly sophisticated, Nick explains, but at the outset, you

just want people sharing.

In the late ’90s, Nick learned about Visual Thinking

Strategies (VTS), an approach in museum education.

The learner-centered method of examining and finding

meaning in visual art relies on three open-ended questions:

What’s going on in this work of art? What do you see

that makes you say that? What more do you see?

“The parallels between visual and verbal learning are

potent,” says Nick. “This open-ended approach requires

good listening, good paraphrasing, and — most importantly —

suspending judgment. If you’re part of the conversation,

you validate even the most elementary or awkward observa-

tion, because it’s about the conversation. We want the

novice to feel comfortable talking about a work of art.”

Around the world, every museum exhibition tells a story —

about a person, a culture, a moment in time. The Carle’s

recent exhibition was a visual biography of Bernard Waber

(Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile) through his books. The artist never

gave up his day job. He would come home from an eight-

hour day in the office and set to work on his books. “We

wanted people to understand that about him,” says Nick.

“Waber created a book called A Firefly Named Torchy; the

artwork is abstract expressionist, like a Jackson Pollock

painting. That’s because the Time Life offices, where

Waber worked, were around the corner from the Museum

of Modern Art, and he had a press pass.

“We’re trying to tell the story of the artist, but by showing

people Torchy, and then looking at Jackson Pollock, we’re

also elevating the status of illustration art. In another of

“Many of the most enduring and powerful stories come to a child through the

lenses or voices of humble animals, so children find them manageable.”

A B O V E(left and center) Kristin Angel © 2011 The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art; (right) Paul Shoul © 2003 The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art/Paul Shoul.

21f a l l 2 0 1 4

Waber’s books, a couple looks out a window from the

façade of a building — a visual riff on Grant Wood’s

American Gothic. These illustration artists have immense

visual libraries they bring into play.”

Why do some children’s books endure, becoming

treasures for generations of readers? Peter Rabbit, Goodnight

Moon, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Make Way for

Ducklings, Where the Wild Things Are.

“These stories share profound and sophisticated mess-

ages, couched in extraordinarily engaging and accessible

ways,” says Nick. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar teaches

numbers and days of the week, but it’s a story about growing,

and transformation. The story helps a boy or girl going

off to school know that he or she is going to be OK. Many of

the most enduring and powerful stories come to a child

through the lenses or voices of humble animals, so children

find them manageable. Finally, these books engage the

parents as well as the child.”

Nick fondly recalls reading Esphyr Slobodkina’s

Caps for Sale to his daughter when she was 18 months old.

(Slobodkina’s illustrations were in the spirit of French

painter Henri “leDouanier” Rousseau — flat and simple

shapes.) “I hammed it up, which I love to do,” says Nick,

“and when we finished, she looked at me and said, ‘Again.’

My daughter is 29 now, and we still read that book

together once a year.”

by Erin Berg

Twenty Books Nick Clark Says You Must Read to a Child You Love

Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt

Curious George by H. A. and Margret Rey

Swimmy by Leo Lionni

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Eloise by Kay Thompson

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

Snow White by Nancy Ekholm Burkert

George and Martha by James Marshall

Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg


Nick Mehlman ’16 folds his long body into a seat behind an analog sound board and

puts on a headset. It’s Wednesday night at the dress rehearsal of For Colored Girls. In the

black box studio down the hall, a student band is warming up. For the first time in a

Milton production, the musicians are not seated in the orchestra pit; in King Theatre,

the play’s staging and set extends to the far corners of the room, bisecting the audience.

How can live musicians accompany actors several rooms

away? Nick makes that work. New to Class III last year,

Nick brought sound-engineering skills that he started

honing in his middle school theater department, and then

acquired on his own, as he explored the world of electronic

house music. Nick’s fearless innovation lends freedom

for remarkable invention to Milton productions.

“I’ve always loved music, and this is a way I can get

involved without knowing how to play an instrument,”

says Nick. “A lot of what I know is really from playing

around with the sound equipment. There is only so much

you can read about in a book or have someone tell you.

Ninety-nine percent of the learning experience is sitting

behind the console. I have had so many opportunities

at Milton to try different things. I love the variety of shows

here, and each show is its own challenge.”

The student band performing the music in For Colored

Girls call themselves Chee Chee Coal and the Trambones.

They’re seven musicians who answered the call of

Dar Anastas, performing arts faculty and the show’s

director, when she asked students to come up with

a live soundtrack for the show. For two months, the

band rehearsed together two to three times a week,

and only this week, production week, does Nick join

them. He starts by running a sound check, sliding

levers up and down, adjusting the tone of the various

instruments that are miked into his console. “Could

I have just the trombone play something please?” he

asks into his headset. He concentrates, listening closely,

making a few adjustments. Running a sound check

every night is important, Nick says, because the

instruments’ sound can change when the musicians

assemble or tune them.

Theater tech crews, behind the scenes, build the

sets, design the lighting, run the sound, and coordinate

the costumes for all Milton productions. Performing

a t m i l t o n N I C K M E H l M A N ’ 1 6

Nick Mehlman ’16 folds his long body into a seat behind an analog sound board and

puts on a headset. It’s Wednesday night at the dress rehearsal of For Colored Girls. In the

black box studio down the hall, a student band is warming up. For the first time in a

Milton production, the musicians are not seated in the orchestra pit; in King Theatre,

the play’s staging and set extends to the far corners of the room, bisecting the audience.

Ambitious performances push Milton’s sound guru.

How can live musicians accompany actors several rooms

away? Nick makes that work. New to Class III last year,

Nick brought sound-engineering skills that he started

honing in his middle school theater department, and then

acquired on his own, as he explored the world of electronic

house music. Nick’s fearless innovation lends freedom

for remarkable invention to Milton productions.

“I’ve always loved music, and this is a way I can get

involved without knowing how to play an instrument,”

says Nick. “A lot of what I know is really from playing

around with the sound equipment. There is only so much

you can read about in a book or have someone tell you.

Ninety-nine percent of the learning experience is sitting

behind the console. I have had so many opportunities

at Milton to try different things. I love the variety of shows

here, and each show is its own challenge.”

The student band performing the music in For Colored

Girls call themselves Chee Chee Coal and the Trambones.

They’re seven musicians who answered the call of

Dar Anastas, performing arts faculty and the show’s

director, when she asked students to come up with

a live soundtrack for the show. For two months, the

band rehearsed together two to three times a week,

and only this week, production week, does Nick join

them. He starts by running a sound check, sliding

levers up and down, adjusting the tone of the various

instruments that are miked into his console. “Could

I have just the trombone play something please?” he

asks into his headset. He concentrates, listening closely,

making a few adjustments. Running a sound check

every night is important, Nick says, because the

instruments’ sound can change when the musicians

assemble or tune them.

Theater tech crews, behind the scenes, build the

sets, design the lighting, run the sound, and coordinate

the costumes for all Milton productions. Performing

At the Console, Nick Makes Productions Sing

23f a l l 2 0 1 4

24 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E milton.edu/arts

arts faculty are the lead directors, and students are

immersed in every aspect of a performance. Each member

of the cast and crew is key to bringing the story to life.

“Nick loves doing the behind-the-scenes work,” says

Kelli Edwards, who teaches dance and worked closely with

Nick on the Winter Dance Concert. Last year’s concert

included 14 dances, 70 performers, innovative lighting and

sound design, and a packed house every night. “He’s

proactive about making sure everything is all set. And

when he has the opportunity to get creative, he’s even

better. One of the reasons he is so successful at what he

does is that he interacts with each performance.”

Milton chooses productions that present challenges of

all kinds, and the performance lineup last year exceeded

even Milton’s norm. One of the most ambitious shows

of the school year was Avenue Q: School Edition. In addition

to singing, acting and dancing, students mastered the

art of puppeteering. Onstage actors managed and brought

to life their life-sized puppets, which interacted with

each other and with human characters. They learned to

work with new technology — special microphones and

headsets — and spent an afternoon training with Kevin

Noonchester, a master puppeteer known for his work

on stage and in film.

“We never saw Nick sweat during Avenue Q,” says Peter

Parisi, performing arts department chair. “Working with

Nick is like working with a professional. He knew what

to do, and he was unflappable. He worked patiently with

everyone involved, and I gave Nick complete authority

to work with our sound consultant. During the production,

Nick had his iPad, he was mixing the sound, and he was

so conscientious about making sure that it was done right.”

Nick shows that calm demeanor right away during the

“Having live musicians perform during a show is better than

recorded music, because they can react to what is happening on stage.

No software can do that.”

25f a l l 2 0 1 4

For Colored Girls rehearsal, as issues arise from the start.

A video camera next to Nick is sending a live feed to a large

screen in the black box studio, so the musicians can see

and hear what is happening onstage. But it’s not working,

and someone runs to tell Nick that the musicians can

see, but not hear, the video feed. Not realizing the actors

have started to speak their lines, the band continues to

play pre-show music, drowning out the first scene. From

the front of the set, Dar turns to look back at Nick, and

she is not happy. The purpose of the dress rehearsal is to

perform the play without stopping, so the actors continue

on. Nick calmly rattles off a list of things to try back in

the band room, and when those don’t work, he realizes the

camera is causing the issue. He fiddles with the camera,

and the problem is solved. Unruffled, he sits back down,

picks up the script he is following, and gets back to work.

“Having live musicians perform during a show is better

than recorded music, because they can react to what is

happening onstage,” says Nick. “No software can do that.

But part of the challenge is making sure the audience

can hear the actors when the music is playing. Moving the

musicians out of the pit gives you a bit more control of

the sound.”

Nick’s first Milton production was the Class IV Play,

Midsummer/Jersey, a raucous modern twist on Shakespeare’s

tale that called for upbeat and current music.

“Nick is the reason the play worked,” says the show’s

director, Robert St. Lawrence ’07. “I worked with him

as I would a professional sound designer. I gave him creative

license to do what he thought best. He live-deejayed

during the show, and it was amazing. Nick doesn’t just

execute; he creates.”

Peter and the other performing arts faculty are thrilled

that they and Nick have two years ahead to continue

working together and break new ground. “Not only is he

a wonderful guy, but what he brings to the table is extra-

ordinary,” says Peter. “I’m sure he will pass his wisdom on

to other students, as well.”

by Liz Matson

A B O V E (left and center) On the set of Avenue Q: School Edition.

26

It’s Monday morning, and 145 middle schoolers gather in Ware 500. The

faithful assembly space buzzes with 8 a.m. energy. Left of stage, an eighth

grader flips through a collection of notecards a final time. She takes two

deep breaths and steps onto the stage, where four weeks of preparation will

culminate in her Grade 8 Talk.

What Should We Know About You?

On Mondays and Fridays for nine years now, eighth

graders have shared themselves with their classmates,

and prepared through this experience for the traditional

Class IV Talks that lie ahead. Grade 8 Talks, the

brainchild of Middle School director Will Crissman,

combine storytelling and speechmaking, developing

skills and broadening perspectives — of the speakers

and audience.

Formal public speaking is new for many middle

schoolers. “I tell students they need to give themselves at

least three weeks,” says Debbie Simon, Grade 7 teacher

and Middle School speech coach. “Preparation is the key

to eliminating your fear of public speaking.”

During week one, students work with Debbie to develop

their topics — perhaps a passion of theirs, or something

others might not know about them. Week two is devoted

to developing a rough draft; Debbie helps students structure

that draft into a simple, informative speech. The final

week is “all out loud,” which Debbie claims works to get

over nerves.

Most students do “talk” — that is, they deliver a speech

to kick off the morning’s assembly. Sharing yourself is

the goal, however, so students might choose to showcase

a talent or skill — playing an instrument, or demonstrating

fencing, karate, rhythmic dance techniques. One girl

recently exhibited her archery skills. (No arrows fired!)

Whatever the format, students share something personal

and important.

For Milton middle schoolers, the Grade 8 Talk precedes

that rite of passage and deep-rooted tradition, the Class IV

Talk. Every Class IV student delivers a personal, researched

and assessed five- to seven-minute speech to his or her

classmates. While the practical value of learning to speak in

public is an important tool, Will says the most powerful

outcome of the Grade 8 Talks is stimulating empathy and

appreciation for one another.

Though each Talk is a student’s own creation, themes

do emerge: the value of hard work, learning from failure,

the support of family and friends, taking risks, pursuing

a passion. Some students talk in very personal ways about

their families: growing up with two moms or two dads,

growing up without a mom or dad, the role of grandparents

and siblings.

“Without intending to, students convey our common

values,” says Will. “They articulate a set of ethical standards

that reflect what the School is trying to impart. And they’re

doing it entirely on their own. Delivering a Talk can be

transformative, too. A quiet student might use it as a means

of coming out of his shell. A girl might become an icon of

something in a way that hadn’t existed before. It may help

a student to formulate an identity, and that can be really

powerful.”


a t m i l t o n G R A D E 8 TA l K S

27f a l l 2 0 1 4

Imagine walking onto a tennis court expecting to play a small 10-year- old, and when you look across the net you only see the person’s chest. This is the story of the tennis match I played in the local town tournament near my house in Maine. It started two summers ago when I played a 16-year-old who was 6' 4" and towered a foot and a half over me. I stepped onto the court for the warmup and he started to hit balls that whizzed by me. I started to panic, and when he got the first serve, I felt like a help- less gazelle in front of a lion at dinnertime. He served the ball and I shut my eyes in prayer muttering to myself, “I’m too young to die, I’m too young to die!” As I heard the racket hit the ball, I cringed. When I finally opened my eyes, I trailed the ball like an outfielder watching a home run go right past him. I heard a loud “THUD!” as the ball hit the back fence. In my head I started to get excited: maybe his size doesn’t make his game. In the end, I actually won! In the beginning I thought I should quit for mere survival purposes, but if I had bailed, I never would be here telling you this story.” — jack weiler ’18

In different cultures around the world, people have different ways of naming their children. In America, most names are chosen by the parents of the child. However, in Africa, the “nandis of the Great Rift Valley” in Kenya have a particularly interesting way of naming their babies. The baby naming takes place in the mother’s hut, where the mother and attending women call spirits’ names to watch over the baby. The baby is supposed to squeeze, indicating which name has been accepted. In nandi traditions, the original name given to a child does not get used until a substitute name related to the circumstances of their birth, selected by the mother, is given a few days later. In my case, before I was born, my grandfather gave my parents a list of nigerian names to choose from. They chose Kalaria to be my first name. My first middle name is Juliette, after my aunt on my mother’s side, and I have a second middle name, nnenna, which means “first daughter.” Some parents may choose their child’s name because it is family tradition, others because it means something, and some choose it because they simply enjoy the name. Whatever the process, the naming of any newborn child is special. — kalaria okali ’18

Debbie works as a “guide,” never changing a student’s

topic. She describes her suggestions as structural, adding

transitions, or strengthening a thesis. “To be effective, your

speech can’t wander all over the place,” she says. “You

have to remember your audience. If you’re talking about

something very technical, or very personal, you have to

make sure everyone can engage, relate to your topic in some

way. A story is the best way to bring your message to life.”

“Structure gives the students security,” says Debbie.

“Without structure you lose your audience, and you lose

your own place, too. With a sense of structure, if the

speaker gets lost, he or she can get back on track with the

next point. In its early stages, this process can seem a bit

formulaic, but that formula allows people to take a baby

step into public speaking.”

The Grade 8 Talks help students, and adults, to

see one another in different ways. Witnessing moments

of vulnerability and honesty in another person is a

memorable experience.

“Talks are routinely a highlight of the day,” says Will.

“The students have delivered some of the most meaningful

and emotional messages that I’ve seen here at Milton.

They respect each other for what they’re doing up there.

The Talks have become an important part of our culture.”

by Erin Berg

28

I’m sure we are all familiar with Walt Disney. Whether it is Disney World, a Disney production, or Walt Disney himself, we all marvel at the world Disney created by fantasizing. Walt Disney was a trailblazer in his field because he set out on a path unheard of before. He created worlds of nonsense, filled with cartoons and songs that redefined television during the early half of the 20th century. Characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse came from Walt’s brain, where everything that would be, wouldn’t, and everything that wouldn’t, would. He turned his imaginary reality into something tangible, and he turned his fantasies into a world where he could truly express himself. He showed us, “If you can dream it, you can do it!”

When I was younger I used to use my imagination all the time. I had multiple worlds that I lived in. I lived in worlds where my stuffed animals, Puppy and Kitty, could talk, and we would have tea parties together outside in my yard or on my bedroom floor. It didn’t matter where I was, I felt like I was in a dream. Wearing a plastic tiara, I could become a princess. Holding a spoon, I was a chef. At the time it didn’t seem silly to create forts or pretend my siblings were monsters coming to eat me. It just felt liberating, and fun! It was easy to let my imagination run wild and let myself go. I was free. I am fascinated by the way imagineers use their imaginations. What puzzles me is how today it is harder for me to believe in worlds that only I can see. And I worry that if I stop using my imagination, I won’t really see what my creativity can be. — soleil devonish ’18

g r a d e 8 t a l k s , c o n t .


F A l l 2 0 1 4 29

When I heard that the MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players were putting on Into the Woods, and my voice teachers encouraged me to audition for the role of Little Red Riding Hood, I thought to myself, “Sure! Why not?” I had worked with the company the previous summer, I knew and liked the directors, and I had always wanted to be in Into the Woods. I figured there was nothing to lose. I was less sure of myself walking into the audition. I found myself in a long, dark hallway deep within the bowels of MIT. The hallway was lined with adults, warming themselves up, running scales, practicing monologues, and generally milling about in a highly professional and intimidating fashion. Then the auditions began. The noises emitting from that room were absolutely unbelievable. The most death-defying sopranos, incredible altos, and baffling basses I had ever heard. I began to panic. What was I thinking?! What was I doing here auditioning for a role against other adults in an entirely adult company for a role that is ALWAYS PLAYED BY An ADULT? I got goose bumps when I heard the woman next to me say how much she wanted to play Little Red. My knees began shaking when my name was called, and I actually broke out in a cold sweat as I walked in the door. There was the long table. There were the sleepy-eyed, fidgety-handed, spaced-out-looking people I had to impress. Then I opened my mouth and began to sing. At the end of the audition, the directors did not seem noticeably changed. My heart sank as I looked up. I thanked them and scurried out the door, embarrassment hanging off of me like a garment. I went home second- and third-guessing myself, wondering how I could have been so cocky, so presumptuous as to assume I had any hope of being cast. Through some miraculous alignment of the stars, I got the part. I got to perform my dream role. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. If I hadn’t gone to the audition, taken the risk, I wouldn’t have gotten the part. — alexandra upton ’18

Veterans of the Middle School, with successful

Grade 8 Talks under their belts, Kiana Mendes ’15, Benjamin “Mack” Makishima ’16 and Jacob Atwood ’17 delivered Class IV

Talks that people still remember. Their talks

were among the “Best of Class IV Talks”

voted by their classmates. Here’s what the pros

have learned.

“Being able to think deeply about one topic is a

valuable skill. With social media and so many

other distractions, it’s easy to float on the surface

of things, never digging deeply into one topic.

Focusing and researching one idea from different

angles is a skill you use in your Class IV Talk

and throughout high school.” — jacob

“Hearing your classmates share a piece of them-

selves gives you the confidence to do the same.

I was most surprised that I was actually good at

public speaking. I have always been a talker,

but public speaking was foreign to me. Until I

delivered my Grade 8 Talk, I hadn’t yet

discovered that niche.” — kiana

“Some people will write their Talk as an essay,

and though it might be a very good essay, it’s

not a speech. A speech has to conform to the voice

of the speaker and keep the audience interested.

First, the speech has to sound like you. It

shouldn’t sound academic unless you talk like

that. If you don’t write in your own voice, people

will be bored, because they’ll feel like they’re

talking to a human research paper. They don’t

want to hear your footnotes — they want to be

entertained. Most importantly, they want to have

learned something about you.” — mack

Three Lessons from “Talk” Veterans

Documentary FilmmakingThis course explores the research techniques, methods and skills used in creating documentary film. With room for creativity and invention, students will construct a documentary that is visually engaging, as well as intellectually and emotionally appealing to a broad audience.

Creating Form and Space: Architecture and Engineering Students will learn about the art, science and technology of both engineering and architecture as an integrated whole. Both courses include community engagement, reviews by professionals, and field trips. Projects will help students develop skills of analysis, communication, collaboration, and problem solving.Architecture and Engineering 2-D introduces sketching, orthographic plan views, moment and shear diagrams, Google Sketchup and photography. Architecture and Engineering 3-D introduces physical and virtual model building, structural studies, framing models and vibration modes.

30

Reading ConsciousnessThis course considers literature, philosophy and religion that investigates our notions of humanity, from antiquity to the present. Students will pose critical questions, lead discussions, and formulate writing prompts. Readings include writings by W. E. B. DuBois, George Eliot, Toni Morrison, René Descartes and Thich nhat Hanh.

Neuropsychology: Influences of the Brain on BehaviorBeginning with a study of the brain, its structural areas and their functions, this course explores neuronal communication. Students will learn about the psychology of sensation, learning, memory, thinking, intelligence, motivation and emotion. We will explore the concepts of neuroplasticity, its influence on basic human function, and new research in neuropsychology.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: Politics of Food in the 21st Century This course explores political and social issues through the lens of food, considering its production, sale, preparation, consumption and disposal. Students will build a common understanding of these issues, then propose and execute independent projects, which will be evaluated by a “food working group” made up of students, faculty, and outside experts.

StoryCorps, Milton: Narrative Journalism and PerformanceThis course will teach the art of storytelling by coaching students to shape and share stories for both the page and stage. Students will learn narrative journalism skills, performance skills, and peer workshop practice; they will research, develop and present stories within Milton and beyond.

*StoryCorps is a non-profit organization and national project that collects, broadcasts, and archives the stories of ordinary people from around the country. (www.storycorps.org)

Becoming American: Immigrants and Immigration TodayHow has immigration shaped what it means to be and to become, “American?” How does immigration influence our individual and national identity? This course will examine these questions through literary, historical, sociological and personal lenses.

Math, Politics and SocietyThis course applies branches of mathematics to current events. Drawing equally on mathematics and political science, using election analysis, conflict simulations, games, independent projects, research papers, and problem sets based on case studies, we will explore questions of power and fairness, leading to a broader under-standing of our society and our world.


A Wider Lens, A Deeper Look

Eight new courses at Milton this year integrate disciplines in pursuit of a fuller under-

standing, and rely upon teachers working in collaboration. Last spring, teachers began

preparing for their proposed course work through workshops with Veronica Boix

Mansilla. A senior research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education,

Veronica chairs the Future of Learning Institute. Her research examines how to produce

quality interdisciplinary work addressing problems of contemporary global signifi-

cance. Faculty are excited that these courses will allow students to think about relevant

intellectual, social and cultural challenges in new ways.

a t m i l t o n N E W A N D I N T E R D I S C I P l I N A R Y

31f a l l 2 0 1 4

The Camp — built by my great-grandfather, Hiram

Bingham, as a retreat for his wife and seven sons —

has been a family gathering place for more than five

generations. So many of my childhood “firsts” happened

during annual visits to the Camp; so many meaningful

memories took root there. There, I learned through stories

about my family’s intriguing adventures.

My mother and father, aunts, uncles, great-uncles

and great-aunts told stories, but my grandmother’s and

grandfather’s were the most powerful. In the telling,

the two of them were surrounded by walls crowded with

family portraits and historic people, places, events and

documents significant to our family and to public history.

The most prominent photographs are some of the first

photographs ever taken of Machu Picchu in Peru.

The Incas, I learned through my grandparents, did

not have a written language. The largest and most

advanced pre-Columbian civilization, with its intricate

understandings of astronomy, medicine, architecture,

agriculture, government and science, did not use writing

to share who they were or to preserve their knowledge

and culture. The Incas relied on oral tradition to make

sure all were aware of their beliefs, and knowledge, and

story as a people. Incan “runners,” who ran a hundred

miles or more in a day, were entrusted with relaying

messages across thousands of miles of Incan civilization.

One of the reasons that Machu Picchu had been unknown

as a historical treasure was because no historical text

documented who built Machu Picchu, what led to their

siting and creating this particular settlement, and what

its central purpose was.

A child growing up in my family inevitably developed

an endless curiosity and appreciation for history. My

forebears passed on to the younger people stories of their

serving in very public roles over time — as elected leaders,

professors, explorers and inventors from one generation

to the next. As a result, history was lively and fascinating

for me from the start. I came to understand the study

of history through personal accounts of family members

involved in events that affected not only our family, but

also the public at large, nationally and well beyond.

I was fortunate; my grandparents brought to life events

and issues from the journey of the Mayflower, through

military intelligence in World War II, to John Kennedy’s

administration, to pivotal moments in civil rights pro-

gress in our country. For 25 years I have told my students

that this storytelling inspired me to become a history

teacher and ultimately to dedicate my life to education.

Though many of my friends’ encounters with history

classes had been dry and lifeless, my experience was full

of riveting events and exciting detail.

Many characteristics come together in the art of

teaching, but certainly one is the ability to tell stories well,

stimulating students to do the same. Stories help us to

feel, not just know, the impact of the human condition.

They help us come to grips with the past, and with one

another, in more personal terms. Stories connect us not

only with events affecting people all over the world today,

but also across time. In telling stories to one another, we

fire up our memory bank, make new connections, and

stoke the desire to learn more, hear more, share more. All

of us, especially those who work with teachers, need to

cultivate and honor these person-to-person storytellers.

Through them, we come to a new level of understanding,

a new launching place for an even greater, always

growing reach.

h e a d o f s c h o o l

The Gift of an Oral Legacyby Todd B. Bland

32

Golf at Milton in Holesby Liz Matson

hole

In 1912, Milton Academy decides to establish a golf club.

Recognizing this endeavor could create logistical issues,

the trustees label it “an experiment.”

“The game of golf is not to be introduced here to compete

with the major sports of baseball and football, but to

give a comparatively large number of boys and others in

the Academy, who cannot participate in these games,

an opportunity for some healthful athletic diversion.”

— The Milton Orange and Blue, December 1912

hole

The trustees approve $150 in funds to build the nine-hole

golf course on campus. However, there are concerns

about the course layout as expressed in this unsigned letter

to Headmaster Frank Edwin Lane dated Nov. 29, 1912.

“In hole 2, it is suggested cutting down fifteen trees,

which none of the trustees approve of . . . Two of the

trustees think this hole would be dangerous when the

baseball field is being used . . . I think we all feel that

playing on the school side of Centre Street is more or less

an experiment and we might want to stop it at a later

date . . . The people who will use it most are inexperienced

boys who are learning the game and who might be as

wild as hawks. I feel sure that if I used the course I would

imperil the safety of everybody on the property.”

s p o r t s

hole

In May 1913, the club asks the trustees for an additional $137

to cover additional labor expenses and miscellaneous items

such as seed and fertilizer. The course is completed and play

commences. Over the next few years, numerous “ringer” and

“serial” tournaments are played during the fall and spring

seasons, culminating with a Graduates’ Cup Tournament

held on Graduates Day and open to both students and alumni.

hole

The golf club’s existence is short-lived and comes to an end

after the spring 1917 season. When the United States officially

entered World War I, the School looked for ways to contribute

to the war effort and decided to grow crops on the open land.

“In order that the School may do its share of farming, the golf

course has been encroached upon for the use of the five acres

that lie across the street from the school house. The students

divided into squads of twenty . . . are planting and caring for 3 ½

acres of potatoes and 1 ½ of beans. During the summer, the

land will be tended by certain members of the school who live

in this vicinity.” — The Milton Orange and Blue, May 1917

After World War I, the Academy’s enrollment doubled in

size; Apthorp Chapel and Ware Hall were built; and the

School focused on the expansion of the campus.

hole At some point in the 1970s, golf is resurrected as a club team,

playing at the Milton Hoosic Club in Canton, Massachusetts,

which is still the home course of the Mustangs. According to

Ben Procter ’77, the league was loosely organized and for one

match the team “joined forces” with Noble and Greenough in

1977 to play a visiting team from England and were roundly

“crushed.”

B E l O WThe schematics of Milton Academy’s golf course, 1913.


33f a l l 2 0 1 4

snowing at the eighth hole, and by the ninth it was snowing

really hard. I remember pulling a tee from my pocket, and

I couldn’t feel it because my hands were frozen. When I hit

the ball on the green, it rolled into a snowball as it made its

way to the hole. I remember thinking I will probably never

see something like this again.”

Today, Emma Martin ’15 is a rising star. She played the

number-three spot her Class II year. She has placed in

the top 10 in many national junior golf tournaments, and

she came in second for the 2013 Women’s Golf Association

of Massachusetts Junior title.

hole

The 2014 season was a success. In a span of six days, Milton’s

varsity golf team won eight straight matches without a single

defeat. They finished the season in fourth place. Co-captains

Sam Procter ’14 and Scott Majkowski ’14 (pictured below)

played spots one and two, respectively. Coach Jay Hackett

said, “We were lucky to have strong, competitive players in

the first four positions; and in the next four positions, we had

the ability to play any one of five golfers who are very close

in skill. We also have an excellent relationship with and

support from the Milton Hoosic Club. We are lucky to have

members of this course who really support junior golf.”

Coach Hackett is proud of how the players conduct them-

selves on the course as they uphold the legacy of the original

club, which published a tiny pamphlet in 1917 titled, “What

Constitutes a Real Golfer.” The future of the team is promising.

With so many interested, young players, there is a possibility

of developing a junior varsity team.

hole In the 1980s, golf becomes a varsity sport. The first official

golf team photo (above) is from 1982.

hole

In 1990, the Joseph Procter Award is established as an annual

award for the golf team’s most valuable player. Mr. Procter ’32

was born and grew up in Milton. During his youth, he played

an eight handicap until stricken by polio as a freshman at

Harvard. Though his right arm was 90 percent paralyzed,

Mr. Procter never gave up the game of golf and maintained

a handicap in the midteens for most of his adult life. Mr.

Procter loved all aspects of the game, especially the cama-

raderie. In 2011, the award went to freshman Sam Procter

’14, Mr. Procter’s grandson. Ben Procter ’77 was asked to

present the award to his son at the M Club dinner.

“That was so special for me, and my father would have

been thrilled. The inscription on the plaque speaks to what

the award represents: handling yourself correctly on the

course, and the importance of sportsmanship.”

hole In the late ’90s, the team officially becomes coed. Although

male players outnumber female players, Milton has a

history of powerhouse female players coming out of the

program, even before it was coed. Amy Gibbons ’77 played

the number-one spot on the club team and won the

Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts Mowatt

Trophy in 1975 and 1977. She became a successful Division 1

golf player at Duke University.

In 2006, Claire Sheldon ’06 completed a stellar six-year

golf career at Milton. During her tenure, she played in

the number-one spot her Class II and Class I years; was

the 2005 ISL champion; won the Priscilla Bailey Award;

and was 2004 and 2005 Women’s Club Champion at The

Country Club in Brookline. She was also a three-time

recipient of the Procter Award. Claire is now an assistant

golf coach at Harvard University.

“I remember playing in the snow in early April at the

President’s Golf Club in Quincy,” says Claire. “It started

Frozen Pegasus Inferno, archival inkjet print,24 inches x 52 inches, 2014

35f a l l 2 0 1 4

paul mennegInside Out, clay, 2014

The strangeness of the world interests me — its surprises and mysteries, the impossibility of explaining. I don’t go along with science when it looks for ironclad explanations of phenomena.

shane fullerJump, bronze/marble, 8 inches by 8 inches by 18 inches, 1996Bananas, acrylic on canvas, 36 inches by 24 inches, 1998

I have always thought of myself as an artist, from childhood sketches and cartooning; to studio painting, sculpting and ceramics; to theater set and lighting design, directing, and writing; to screenwriting and filmmaking. I have played around with most media, and I am always open to experimenting with new forms. I see art as choice and selection. Whether taking a picture, writing a story or representing a form in any media, the artist makes a choice, makes a selection, and by doing so creates art.

jennifer hughesHybrid Reptile I and II, lithography, 11 inches by 15 inches, 2014

As a printmaker, I am attracted to surfaces, methods and collections. I enjoy the tactile quality of my work, working in series, and having that series come from multiple sources . . . This series of images emanated from photocopies from a book of illustrations. I wasn’t inter-ested in the animals themselves, per se, but more in the texture and shape of the surfaces.

anne neelySquall, oil on linen, 60 inches by 80 inches, 2012

In 2004, I was imagining what an aquifer looked like, which led me to a decade-long search for ways to paint issues related to water, as well as expressing the fleeting, lost stillness of place in landscape. Since then, I have paid homage to water sources: oceans, aquifers and lakes. My paintings linger between beauty and foreboding, addressing water issues environmentally, ecologically and culturally in our time.

36

emilie stark-menneg ’02American Baby, oil and mixed media on canvas, 80 inches by 48 inches, 2014

I paint on both 2-D and 3-D surfaces. I roam the streets collecting discarded objects: sinks, baby carriages, chalk- boards, tents. I incorporate these elements into my paintings. I also enjoy painting from life, especially in conversation with abstraction. Endlessly impulsive, I throw paint, slap on tape, and model the surface to create vibrant juxtapositions. I am interested in being “wrong” — cutting up American flags, placing something highly rendered next to something shoddy. I also create images that conjure multiple readings.


f a c u l t y p e r s p e c t i v e , c o n t .

larry pollansPeter, ceramic, 16 inches by 13 inches by 12 inches, 2012Bill, pastel on slate, 55 inches by 45 inches, 2012

One by one, as our campus was renovated and renewed, the old sheets of slate black- board were removed. Our old friend Bill Moore, who spent much of his teaching career at Milton, used those boards. His tracings were legendary. What better material for a Moore drawing than slate. As a Vermonter, Bill has a flinty, practical nature, but he is also driven by more exotic voices. His Ph.D. in French literature attests to that. From the stony to the ephemeral, from the practical to the romantic, from stone to pastel, the materials suggested themselves for the Bill Moore portrait. The imperative is to find a path, both formal and expressive. That was also the process I went through with Peter Haines’s ceramic portrait.

maggie starkWord Play, neon, 10 inches by 36 inches by 4 inches, 2012

In 2009, I received a cultural fellowship from the Goethe Institute to study in Berlin, which coincided with the 2oth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. My observations of the public events and historical discourse surrounding the anniversary provided the catalyst for the two videos, Wall-Play and Still-Time. These films use playground play to examine the implications and associations of the wall before and after its fall.

37f a l l 2 0 1 4

pamela walkerAtlantis Teapot, low fire ceramic, 2012

I first discovered ceramic sculpture during my undergraduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, and I have worked with clay on and off over the years. I am drawn to the non-functional vessel (primarily the teapot) as my vehicle to create a narrative or homage to people and places that are meaningful to me. I have traveled extensively in Mexico and Central and South America. These cultures and environ-ments have been particularly inspirational.

julia von metzsch ’03Alarm Sensors, oil on board, 31.5 inches by 62.5 inches, 2013

My ocean-scape paintings are both spiritual and practical. Verging on the abstract, they come from a dark fantasy world filled with curiosity. They provide the opportunity to record a specific narrative revolving around themes of love, death and hallucination. My inspirations come from beach walks, or childish fears having to do with the forces of nature. When I allow the water to take over, a significant story becomes a reality in paint.

ian torney ’82At the Horizon series, oil on board, 2014

I am interested in exploring the dichotomy between the social constructs of painting and humanity’s understanding of nature. The importance of thick, impasto paint in the manifestation of the energetic mark has endured. Increasingly, as I experiment with a tension between realism and abstraction, I have abandoned the conventional hori- zontal landscape format in favor of the iconic square, with even the distinct horizon-line fading, as I attempt to create paintings with greater atmospheric ambiguity, paintings about the intrinsic impermanence of nature and the sublime.

38

c o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 4

2. Doing what you love will never be a waste of time. Even if you set out with one career in mind, and then

change course, I guarantee whatever you learned will be

useful. Despite my attempts to be the next Lucille Ball,

it wasn’t to be. But when the opportunity emerged for me

to work at the lowest level of the film development and

production business, I tried it. I decided that if I didn’t

miss acting, the new gig was meant to be. I never turned

back. However, my acting training served me well in

my new career. I got jobs initially because I was more

entertaining than the average executive, and as an actor

I learned how to listen and read a room. I gave up acting,

only to act every day of my life in my new career.

3. Don’t be scared to admit you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. After working my way up finding movie

ideas and scripts for other producers for about eight years,

I finally produced my first movie, 200 Cigarettes. I was

stranded on the streets of Manhattan with a rotating cast

of young actors, shooting all night, every night, for 35

days with about $3.95 to make the damned film. I started

off trying to pretend I had a clue. Here is a tip: Pretending

you have a clue does not go over well on the streets of

New York with crews who have been doing this since before

you were born. And, let’s face it: I can’t drive a truck,

or do hair and makeup, or even understand what all those

camera lenses are for. The difference between my surviv-

ing, or ending up in a rubber room, was my learned

ability to go up to anyone and ask for help. People like

to be asked for help. It is a sign of respect and strength.

4. Choose passion, not fear. Fear is often the easier

emotion to access, but passion is the key to clarity and

good work. For about 12 years, every movie I worked

on tanked. I couldn’t figure it out. Some were good movies,

which I genuinely liked, but mainly we spent our time

being sent out to imitate successful films. Everyone seemed

afraid to take a risk. But I had a secret. I watched tele-

vision. It wasn’t fashionable then. It was considered the

lower art, like pro wrestling. (To this day, at the Golden

Globe Awards, they make the television nominees sit

in the back of the room and the movie stars sit up front.)

Five Things I Have Learned Since Graduating from Milton1. You will always learn more doing a crap job than a great one. At some point, wait on tables, fold clothes at the Gap,

or be a lowly assistant. Not what you expected to hear, right?

Take waiting on tables: You see people at their best and

their worst, and you have to learn to negotiate between a

hungry public and a volatile guy in the kitchen who wields

knives as part of his job. Ten tables, all seated at once, all

hungry? I still have a nightmare that I come back to a station

and all the customers are dead. So why is this important?

Waiting on tables is making order out of chaos. It is deliver-

ing something important with your own hands, on time,

and with a smile on your face. It’s keeping colleagues from

killing each other and keeping your cool. It is a lot like

producing a major network television show. Once you have

had that experience, it will change the way you think of

those working around you. If you have already experienced

any of the above, feel good that those years of scooping ice

cream will pay off.

Commencement SpeakerBetsy Beers ’75


39f a l l 2 0 1 4

Then an amazing thing happened: I got the opportunity

to pitch hour dramatic television shows to the networks.

During that time, I met Shonda Rhimes, an incredible

movie writer who was, like me, obsessed with television

and pop culture. Grey’s Anatomy came from a simple,

emotional place. Shonda and I both wanted to see a show

on television that reflected our lives. We were two strong,

competitive women with dark and twisty centers who

did virtually nothing but work, who had complicated love

lives and messy relationships with a diverse group of

friends who were as screwed up as we were. So even

though we had never produced a television show, we just

made up the rules as we went along. And my fear of failure

went away, because I was so passionate about the show

she had created.

5. Nice guys don’t finish last. It is a popular notion in my

business that you have to be a rabid, backstabbing animal

to succeed. These are the folks who — even after the menial

job kept them humble and focused — get their first taste of

success and become total jerks. We have our share of them.

I have watched famous actors make set hairdressers cry

when they didn’t like the way they looked. I’ve seen a well-

known producer throw furniture at an employee who

was barely making a living wage. These people are bullies,

and bullies are frightened people, not happy people. I am

here to tell you that you can have

a conscience and treat your

co-workers decently and honestly

and still become a success. For

every phone thrower out there,

there is someone like Kerry

Washington, who buys cupcakes

for the crew to thank them when

she wins an award. You can stand

up for the little guy, ask for help,

listen to people, and not lie like a

rug, and you will do just fine. In fact, we have a policy at

Shondaland: zero tolerance of jerkdom. It hasn’t hurt our

business yet, and we hope it is catching on.

Congratulations to the Class of 2014. Now go out and

make your own five things. You have received the best

academic and humane preparation here at Milton, and

thus, you are walking into a world with a huge advantage.

Use your power wisely, your fear sparingly, and your

curiosity enthusiastically. And never lose your sense of

humor. You won’t regret it, I swear.

Excerpted from the speech delivered by television and film

producer Betsy Beers ’75 to the graduating Class of 2014 at

commencement on June 6, 2014.

40

c o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 4 , c o n t .

Awards and Prizes

priscilla bailey awardTo a senior girl who has been a most valuable

asset to Milton Academy athletics and to the

Milton Academy community — an athlete who

has demonstrated exceptional individual skills

and teamwork, as well as true sportsmanship.

Kaitlin Kim Gately

henry warder carey prizeTo members of Class I, who, in public speaking

and oral interpretation, have shown consistent

effort, thoroughness of preparation, and

concern for others.

Oluwayemisi Oluwakorede Olorunwunmi Daisy Eliza Walker

robert l. daley prizeCreated by his students of 1984 in his memory

and honor, this prize in Classics is awarded

to the student from Latin 4 or beyond who best

exemplifies Mr. Daley’s love of languages.

Elana Rose Golub

richard lawrence derby memorial awardTo an outstanding student of Class II in

mathematics, astronomy, or physics.

Siyu lu Neekon Vafa

alfred elliott memorial trophyFor self-sacrifice and devotion to the

best interests of his teams, regardless

of skill.

Michael John Cronin III

gorham palfrey faucon prizeEstablished in 1911 and awarded to

members of Class I for demonstrated

interest and outstanding achievement

in history and social science.

Jade ly Beguelin Mary Mayland Ellis John Vaughn Gilmore III Geoffrey Hulme PottowSamuel Ward ProcterPatrick John SheehanHelena Ruth Thatcher

benjamin fosdick harding latin prizesAwarded on the basis of a separate test

at each prize level.

level 5: Hannah Ilana Hoffman level 4: Alexander Cary Garnick level 3: Elina Thadhani

modern languages prizesAwarded to those students who, in the

opinion of the department, most exhibit

the qualities of academic excellence,

enthusiastic participation, and support

of fellow students, both in and out of class.

Emeline Noelle Atwood Tiffany Kar Guan Ashley Soo Jin KooPatrick Michael MclaughlinVictoria Hope Saunders White

milton academy art prizesAwarded for imagination and technical

excellence in his or her art and for an

independent and creative spirit of endeavor.

Cin Yee Selina Cheah Tze Chen Chun Delaney Jean Harrop Alaina Elisabeth MarangosMorgan Shaffer O’ConnellBrandon lucas RodriguezHelena Ruth Thatcher

head of school awardPresented each year to honor and

celebrate certain members of Class I

for their demonstrated spirit of self-

sacrifice, community concern, leadership,

integrity, fairness, kindliness and

respect for others.

Emeline Noelle Atwood Charles Thomas Blasberg Tapley Dane Eaton Valentine Kenechi OraSydney Wallace ParkJohn Patrick Urquhart


41f a l l 2 0 1 4

A B O V EValentine Ora, Class of 2014 speaker

l E F TSydney Park, Class of 2014 speaker

leo maza awardAwarded to a student or students in Classes

I–IV, who, in working within one of the

culture or identity groups at the school, has

made an outstanding contribution to the

community by promoting the appreciation of

that group throughout the rest of the school.

Tze Chen Chun Catherine Calabresi Oldshue

a. howard abell prizeEstablished by Dr. and Mrs. Eric Oldberg for

students deemed exceptionally proficient or

talented in instrumental or vocal music or in

composition.

Sydney Ololade Adedamola

harrison otis apthorp music prizeAwarded in recognition of helpful activity

in furthering in the School an interest and

joy in music.

Charles Burgess Janeway Sydney Wallace Park

george sloan oldberg memorial prizeAwarded in memory of George Oldberg ’54,

to members of the School who have been

a unique influence in the field of music.

John Vaughn Gilmore III

science prizeAwarded to students who have demonstrated

genuine enthusiasm, as well as outstanding

scientific ability, in physics, chemistry and

biology.

Neil Yash Chandra Tiffany Kar Guan Nicholas Cheng-Wei Jiang Geoffrey Herrmann OwensCameron Young ParkMykayla lexi SandlerVictoria Hope Saunders White

wales prizeAwarded in honor of Donald Wales, who

taught Class IV science for more than

36 years. It recognizes students in Class IV

who have consistently demonstrated interest

and excitement in science.

Anne Gardner Bailey Julian James Batt Elliot Waterman Burnes Hei Tung Claudia Chung Gabrielle Choi FernandopulleTe Shelia Palandjian Tyler John PiazzaElina Thadhani

james s. willis memorial awardTo the Headmonitors.

Cameron Young Park William Gabriel White

william bacon lovering awardTo a boy and a girl, chosen by their classmates,

who have helped most by their sense of duty to

perpetuate the memory of a gallant gentleman

and officer.

Morgan Shaffer O’Connell William Gabriel White

louis andrews memorial scholarship awardTo a student who has best fulfilled his or

her potential in the areas of intelligence,

self-discipline, physical ability, concern for

others and integrity.

Helson Jose Taveras

frank d. millet scholarship awardTo a student who demonstrates moral

integrity, supports classmates, and has

established meaningful relationships

with peers and faculty. The Millet scholar,

by virtue of character and deeds, is an

integral member of his or her class and

shows great promise as a leader.

Anthony Michael Scurto

42

c o m m e n c e m e n t 2 0 1 4 , c o n t .

richard price ’50 prize in technical theaterAwarded for unusual contributions of

time, energy and ideas in theater production

and in technical assistance throughout a

student’s career.

Theodore Alastair Bastian Solana Rose CzwakielAlexandria Elaine Hanyok

kiki rice-gray prizeAwarded for outstanding contributions

to Milton performing arts throughout

his or her career in both performance and

production.

Solana Rose Czwakiel Daisy Eliza Walker

robert saltonstall medalFor preeminence in physical efficiency and

observance of the code of the true sportsman.

Drew Tyler Jacobs

a.o. smith prizeAwarded by the English department to

students who display unusual talent in

non-fiction writing.

Jonathan Daniel Chang Titania Thanh Nguyen

critical essay prizeAwarded by the English department for

the best essay about a work or works of

literature.

Emeline Noelle Atwood

donald cameron duncan prize for mathematicsAwarded to students in Class I who have

achieved excellence in the study of

mathematics while demonstrating the

kind of love of the subject and joy in

promoting its understanding that will

be the lasting legacy of Donald Duncan’s

extraordinary contributions to the

teaching of mathematics at Milton.

Theodore Alastair Bastian Nathaniel David Bresnick Neil Yash Chandra Tze Chen ChunNicholas Cheng-Wei JiangVictoria Hope Saunders White

markham and pierpont stackpole prizeAwarded in honor of two English teachers,

father and son, to authors of unusual talent in

creative writing.

Victoria Hope Saunders White

dorothy j. sullivan awardTo senior girls who have demonstrated good

sportsmanship, leadership, dedication and

commitment to athletics at Milton. Through

their spirit, selflessness and concern for

the team, they served as an incentive and a

model for others.

Cameron Young Park

performing arts awardPresented by the performing arts

department for outstanding contributions

in production work, acting, speech,

audiovisuals, and dance throughout his

or her Milton career.

Emeline Noelle Atwood Oluwayemisi Oluwakorede OlorunwunmiTheodore Alastair Bastian Shonnese Theresa Reid-BaileyRebecca Elizabeth Chernick Corey Jacob SchwaitzbergPatrick Michael Mclaughlin Daisy Eliza Walker

Created in 1968 to honor Talbot “Bake” Baker ’25, this award “provides a living memorial based on a confidence in the humanity of teachers and the quality of teaching” that Mr. Baker experienced as a student at the Academy and as parent to nick ’51, Toby ’53 and Ben ’57.

the talbot baker award

John Banderob (Math)Nicole Colson (English)Jenn Katsoulis (Grade 5)Peter Parisi (Performing Arts)Thomas Troy (Grade 8)


43f a l l 2 0 1 4

r e u n i o n w e e k e n d

44

r e u n i o n w e e k e n d , c o n t .

45f a l l 2 0 1 4

46

C A P T I O NCaption

r e u n i o n w e e k e n d , c o n t .


47f a l l 2 0 1 4


i n s i g h t

Milton’s H. Adams Carter Outdoor Program was founded to honor the

Milton graduate (’32), teacher and world-renowned mountaineer, who,

in 1947, established the Program’s precursor, the Ski and Mountaineering

Club. Through the Program, Milton students learn about the back-

country for sport, beauty, contemplation and camaraderie. These outdoor

experiences teach students to take responsibility, meet challenges,

take intelligent risks, and to trust themselves and each other. Trips

include sea kayaking, day hiking, overnight backpacking and kayaking,

winter hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, mountaineering,

ice climbing and rock climbing. The Outdoor Program provides

technical equipment, food, transportation and basic instruction. These

trips are free and are open to all Upper School students. One of Ad

Carter’s former students, Gil Butler ’55, is the main benefactor of today’s

program, contributing his time and resources to continue the tradition

of involving students in outdoor experiences.

Zion, March 2014Images by Matt Magann ’17, render views of Zion National Park

during Milton’s Outdoor Program trip in March 2014.

49f a l l 2 0 1 4

50

o n c e n t r e

For the first time, at least in “modern” history,

students can pursue any and all of Milton’s

visual arts programs in one building, the Art

and Media Center (AMC). This summer,

changes that will not strike some as dramatic

have nevertheless prepared all three levels

of the AMC for unparalleled opportunities and

collaboration in the arts. Ian Torney, visual

art chair, used the relocation of sculpture,

ceramics and woodworking from Robert

Saltonstall as a chance to rethink how spaces

are outfitted and aligned, not only for today’s

world of arts, but in anticipation of how the

field will develop over time.

The two studios on the AMC’s south side

are now all dedicated to 3-D art, including

sculpture and ceramics. The two north-facing

studios will serve drawing, painting and

printmaking. All four main-level studios are

flexible enough to support any studio art

foundations course. A new machine tool shop

located in the center now connects both

banks of studios, making projects of all kinds

possible as contemporary art making blurs

The Art and Media Center Old Science Repurposed as High Functioning Art Space

the lines between two- and three-dimensional

arts. The building’s loading dock now has

electrical power to accommodate outdoor

welding, and electrical outlets hang from the

ceilings in various locations throughout all

the studios. New Smartboards in all four main-

level studios support teaching.

On the AMC’s top floor, the former Weld

Library has become a technology and design

studio; Bryan Cheney (Visual Arts) and Brad

Moriarty (Science) teach their new collabora-

tive course in this studio, Creating Form and

Space: Architecture and Engineering. A

digital imaging MAC lab is located on the west

side of the top level, along with a lighting

studio for photography. The east side of that

level features a MAC moving-image lab and

viewing studio.

Not to be left out of the action, the AMC

lower level now includes an office and work

space for Milton’s busy Audio Visual depart-

ment, and a film and moving-image production

studio, with a “green screen,” a prerequisite for

shots that involve actors and imposed imagery

(like the meteorologist broadcasting a weather

forecast in front of a relevant map). The AMC

lower level also provides dedicated space for

robotics and computer engineering projects,

in addition to Greely Auditorium, the Nesto

Gallery, and photography darkroom facilities.

The AMC is now fully code-compliant and

accessible to persons with disabilities, as well.

This upgrade and reworking of AMC space

looks to maximize capability and functional

ease for all types of imaginative projects that

students and faculty typically devise. Class-

rooms are flexible; technology, which “is one

of the key drivers in visual arts growth,”

according to Ian, is ubiquitous. “We haven’t

precluded doing more in and for the arts,” he

says, “and the enhancements in this building

are not only effective today; they look quite

deliberately to a future that we regularly work

to anticipate.”

Note: RSG’s vacated spaces now accommo-

date two classrooms for Milton’s health, fitness

and wellness programs, and create needed

meeting, office and storage space for Athletics.


51f a l l 2 0 1 4

Economist Sam Bowles was the Sally Bowles Keynote Speaker, lead-

ing the student-organized Seminar Day in May. More than 20 other

experts and activists followed, covering a wide range of publicly

debated domestic and international issues. Many alumni were among

the guest speakers, stimulating great questions and discussions.

Called the Keyes Seminar Day, this lively event has been one

of Milton’s most important traditions since 1977. It is named in

honor of its founder, former faculty member Peter Keyes, a legendary

promoter of student interest in the political process as well as public

and governmental affairs and service. In the Milton spirit of devel-

oping students’ confidence and competence to live by our motto,

“Dare to be true,” Seminar Day brings to campus individuals who

have made compelling choices. They are scholars, business people,

scientists, educators, writers, political leaders and artists making

a difference in the world.

Speakers this year included a string theorist; two experts on

the crisis in Ukraine; social entrepreneurs working on issues such

as educational reform and sustainable food policy; environmental

activists; an inventor of medical devices; a member of the Massachu-

setts National Guard; social justice and political activists; and the

chief of trauma at Massachusetts General Hospital, who discussed

lessons learned from the Boston Marathon bombings.

Mr. Bowles’s talk was titled “The Origin and Future of

Economic Inequality: The Good News.” He is a research professor

and director of the behavioral science program at the Santa Fe

Institute. He is also professor of economics at the University of Siena.

He taught economics at Harvard from 1965 to 1973 and at the

University of Massachusetts, where he is now emeritus professor.

Bowles’s current research includes theoretical and empirical studies

of political hierarchy and wealth inequality and their evolution

over the very long run. He has served as an economic advisor to the

governments of Cuba, South Africa and Greece, to presidential

candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, to the Congress

of South African Trade Unions and to South African President

Nelson Mandela.

Surrounding the keynote speaker, students chose from among

many presenters during three time blocks in the day. Exchanges

that occur on Seminar Day stimulate ideas and conversations over

weeks to come. Held every other year, Seminar Day alternates with

Community Service Day — another occasion that encourages students

to think beyond their immediate community and concern them-

selves with the complexity and opportunity afforded by the world.

With ace serves and slicing backhands, the girls’ varsity tennis team

dominated the courts of the Independent School League, going

undefeated (15–0) and earning the title of ISL Champions after beating

Nobles in the last match of the season. The team also earned the

NEPSAC Championship trophy over tough competitors.

Coach Troy Crichlow ’99 described the season as a perfect cul-

mination of the team’s strong results over the past few years. The team’s

top-ranked player, Maddie DeWire ’16, had an outstanding season,

winning all of her singles matches.

“Tennis season is the most fun time of the year for me,” says Maddie.

“We are such a close team, and we were excited and confident this season.”

Co-captains Kaitlin Gately ’14, Abby lebovitz ’14 and Ilve Bayturk ’14

led the team, which included three freshmen. Semi Oloko ’17

and Te Palandjian ’17 were ranked second

and third, respectively, on the team.

“Our youngest players fit right in right away,”

says Coach Crichlow. “They had a good

understanding of what we were trying

to accomplish this season.”

The boys’ varsity team also had a standout

season (16–1), winning the ISL Championship

under the leadership of captains Alex lee ’14

and Andrew Hahm ’15.

Seminar Day in its Fourth Decade: Economist Sam Bowles Was Keynote

Milton Tennis Dominates

52

You taught me to love sound,rolled soft r’s into my ears like humming street lamps.Listen. This is where I like to be found.

In the heat of flamenco, toes, heels, hands pound like rainon Calle Velazquez. Women and men sweat and breathe tears.They teach me to love sounds.

Like a nation’s blood, Jamón Serrano is striped red.Horchata, too sweet, yellowed under the sun for a year.Look. This is where I’d like to be found.

In between besos on my cheek, thick lisps settlelike the age-old stones in cathedral floors, almost too quiet to hear,teaching me to love sound. A city pumped on sangria, squid-ink paella,shrimp whiskers tangled in cracked black mussels — no fears,just taste. This is where I’d like to be found.

This is a city where the streets hunch together, keeping secrets of the people,where 3 euro Marlboros curl, smoky, into your hair,where I learned to love sound,here, Madrid, I am found.

Villanelle for Madrid

Ruting Li ’15A Poet Who Wins Prizes

When Ruting li ’15 sits down to

write, she doesn’t know quite what

will make it to the page. “I don’t

set out to write about a particular

topic,” she says. “Sometimes I start

my writing from a prompt, or an

image. Most often I write about

something I’ve seen or experienced,

which sparks an idea.”

In the spring, Ruting’s poetry

earned her a finalist spot in many

regional and national writing

contests, including the Smith

College High School poetry contest, the Naked Truth/PEN

New England High School writing contest, and the Oxbridge

Edge poetry contest.

Ruting completed a year of the Advanced Creative

Writing course, a workshop for student writers looking to

hone their craft. “Taking Creative Writing has made me see

myself in a different way,” says Ruting. “I’ve always leaned

more toward math and science, but taking this class has

made me a better writer, and it has helped me see myself

that way.”

Ruting’s poem that earned her Smith Prize recognition

is titled “Ode to Summer Storms.” As a Smith Prize winner,

Ruting was invited to campus, hosted at the Poetry Center,

where she met and worked with the contest’s guest judge, poet

Alicia Ostriker. With three other finalists, Ruting spent the

day with Ms. Ostriker, talking about the writing process,

attending a Q&A with the author, and being invited to share

her award-winning poem, onstage, at the author’s reading

that evening.

“Villanelle for Madrid” — one of Ruting’s favorite poems —

earned her recognition in the PEN New England and Oxbridge

Edge contests. As part of the Oxbridge award, Ruting

was invited to attend an Oxford-Cambridge summer writing

program, for which she earned a partial scholarship.

“Having my work recognized in this way is so exciting.

Writing is very personal, so sharing it can make you feel a

little exposed,” she says. “However, workshopping my

writing in class, with my teacher and classmates, has made

me more comfortable sharing my poems, and it is such a

helpful way to improve your writing. My classmates and

teachers always offer great advice to help me refine my work.”

o n c e n t r e , c o n t .


53f a l l 2 0 1 4

Lisa Donohue, Milton Academy Class of 1983,

will succeed Brad Bloom as president of

the Milton Academy Board of Trustees when

his term concludes in 2015. Milton trustees

voted in May to elect Lisa as the president,

effective July 1, 2015. Since she joined the board

in 2008, Lisa has taken a leadership role,

particularly in the areas of external relations,

strategic planning, campaign preparation, and

developing the membership and practices (or

processes) of the board.

“I am thrilled that I will be able to build

on Brad’s strong leadership over the last five

years, and the board’s work to strengthen

Milton’s tradition of excellence in education,”

Lisa says. “I look forward to making sure

that the exciting momentum at Milton, as we

implement our bold Strategic Plan and build

the campaign to dramatically increase Milton’s

endowment, continues at a brisk pace in the

years to come.”

Lisa Donohue is CEO of Starcom USA,

a media agency focused on the convergence

of media, technology and creativity.

Since she became CEO of Starcom in

Lisa Donohue ’83, a Leader in Media and Technology, Will Succeed Brad Bloom as Board President

2009, the company has won more than 100

honors for its clients, spanning disciplines,

including digital, print, TV, mobile, out of

home, event, social and branded content. For

the past three years, Starcom has been named

the most effective media agency network in

North America by the Effies, and was selected

as MEDIA’s 2011 Creative Media Agency

of the Year.

Lisa was named Chicago Advertising

Federation’s Advertising Woman of the Year

in 2011 and Adweek’s 2011 Executive Media

All-Star. At the time of the award, Adweek

described Lisa as an executive “who has

transformed Starcom from a stodgy numbers-

crunching conglomerate into a taproot of

innovation. Since assuming her role in June

2009, she invested in bleeding-edge analytics

tools, bolstered the company’s entrepreneurial

culture with internal social networks and

events, and hammered home her message of

‘experience planning.’”

Prior to joining Milton’s board, Lisa worked

effectively as a volunteer for the School in

a number of areas. She was a member of the

Head of School’s Council, a group that provides

perspective and expertise to the head of school.

Lisa chaired her 25th Reunion Committee,

and she also established an endowed fund that

supports a female scholar-athlete.

“I credit Milton for giving me the skills to

handle what I do every day,” Lisa says. “I

learned how to think, how to assess situations,

how to look at all the information and come

to [my] own conclusions. I learned these core

skills at Milton.”

Brad Bloom, current president, and Todd

Bland, head of school, had planned for some

time to implement a smooth and gradual

transition to new leadership of the board. They

are both looking forward to working with

Lisa as she gains increasing responsibility and

connection with Milton constituencies over

the coming year.

Lisa graduated from Brown University.

She serves on the Advertising Women of

New York (AWNY) Board of Directors, the

4A’s Board of Directors and Media Leadership

Council, and is a member of The Chicago

Network.

54

Practicing what he preaches and teaches, science faculty member

Matt Bingham spent two weeks in Greenland this spring with a group

of fellow researchers, studying how ocean conditions on the west side

of Greenland affect the vast ice sheet covering roughly 80 percent

of the country. Milton students supported the trip stateside, writing

content for a blog documenting the trip and conducting experiments

on samples brought back from Greenland.

“The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet,

and this ice sheet is showing evidence of a complicated, or nonlinear,

melting process,” says Matt. “[The glacier] is not simply turning from

ice into water. Our goal was to understand what is happening during

this process.”

With research scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu-

tion, Clark University, Wheaton College and University of Washington,

Matt traveled to three sites. The group focused its study on the Jakob-

shavn Glacier, where part of the western side of the ice sheet drains into

the ocean. This glacier is the subject of many scientific studies and was

featured prominently in the documentary Chasing Ice.

The team looked at the structure of the ice with ground-penetrating

radar; they dug snow pits, collected layers of snow, and drilled shallow

ice cores. They sent snow and ice samples back to the United States for

study, and Milton students will experiment on a set of samples this fall.

o n c e n t r e , c o n t .

Matt Bingham Extends His Science Classroom by 2,000 Miles

Jazz at Milton IsForty Years Young Playing one of the signature tunes of hard bop, musicians

spanning five decades of Milton Academy jazz gathered

onstage to perform “Moanin’” as part of a free concert event

to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the jazz program on

April 4, 2014.

Since 1974, Milton’s jazz program, founded and directed

by music faculty member Bob Sinicrope, has grown to

include more than 75 students involved in the study and

performance of jazz in nine different jazz groups.

Current jazz students and alumni filled the evening

with a range of musical performances. Special guest Horace

Alexander Young, a former music director and saxophonist,

led the group in a set of South African music. Jazz pianist

Aaron Goldberg ’91 sent along a video performance that was

played for the audience, which included Bill Zildjian ’75,

one of Bob’s first students. The concert concluded with a jam

session of more than 40 students playing penny whistles.

Milton’s student jazz musicians have toured South

Africa nine times, during which they have performed with

T. S. Monk and for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, delivering

more than $135,000 worth of donated materials to township

schools. Students regularly play at popular and esteemed

local venues, such as the Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge,

Massachusetts. They have performed on NPR’s nationally

broadcast quiz show “Says You,” and at the inaugural ball

of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick ’74.


55f a l l 2 0 1 4

Artist Anne Neely’s large canvases, filled with

rich hues of blues, greens and browns, hang

in an exhibit hall in Boston’s Museum of Science.

The paintings in Water Stories: Conversations

in Paint and Sound reflect Anne’s interpretation

of water cleanliness and water access issues

plaguing the United States. This merging of art

and science developed from a collaboration

between teacher and former student.

Anne was new to the visual arts faculty in

1974, and David Rabkin ’79 was one of her

students, whom Anne describes as “inquisitive

and full of ideas.” They kept in touch on and

off over the years. David earned his doctorate

in technology and innovation management

from MIT and is now director for current science

and technology at the Museum of Science.

Anne retired from Milton in 2012 and focused

on her art, specifically the phenomena of

water, a subject of her paintings since 2004.

“I am an ocean-loving person,” says Anne,

who has studios in the South End and on

the coast of Maine. “The shifts and subtle

changes of water patterns have been

Art and Science, Teacher and Student, a Collaboration at the Museum of Science

influential to me,” she says. After reading

Water by Marq De Villiers, she began a

“decade-long search to find ways to paint

unseen aquifers, rivers, oceans and streams.”

She began researching water-related issues,

such as droughts and fracking, and began

to incorporate what she was learning. She

arranged a meeting with David Rabkin to

explore her idea about a water exhibition at

the museum. Coincidentally, David had been

thinking about mounting a water exhibit,

as well.

“At the museum, mixing art with our more

typical educational approaches works well,”

says David. “The art opens people to ideas,

emotion and scale, in ways that more explicit

techniques may not. Art broadens the audi-

ence, welcomes all kinds of learners, and adds

dimensions of experience that are otherwise

unavailable.”

Anne interviewed residents around the

country about their experiences with drought,

fracking and pollution. She gave her recorded

interviews to sound artist Halsey Burgund,

who created an audio composition that

accompanies the paintings.

“I didn’t want the paintings to look like

what you would see if you were looking

at a photograph of an algae bloom or a

drought,” Anne says. “I wanted to paint from

imagination, emotion and interpretation.

I want different things to bubble up when

someone looks at the painting. Some will

see beauty and foreboding; others will conjure

up their own memories or experiences about

water. I hope that each painting raises their

awareness.”

“Working with David has been a memorable

collaboration,” says Anne. “His visits to the

studio to see the progress of the paintings and

our conversations were a wonderful exchange

of teaching and learning for both of us. Bringing

the public into a visceral experience was our

goal for Water Stories. I’m so fortunate to have

this opportunity.”

Water Stories: Conversations in Paint and

Sound will be on exhibit at Boston’s Museum

of Science until January 2015.

T H I S PA G EFormer visual arts faculty member, Anne neely, with David Rabkin ’79.

56

b o a r d o f t r u s t e e s

JoiningTed Wendell ’58Edward “Ted” Wendell Jr. ’58 was

elected to the board during the

summer of 2013. Ted is a founding

partner and principal of Northern

Cross, LLC. During the 1960s,

Ted served as a math teacher,

head of admissions, and dean of

students at Marlboro College, in

Marlboro, Vermont. He graduated

from Harvard College and earned

a master’s degree in mathematics

from the University of Washington.

Ted served as a Milton trustee

from 1974 to 1986 and has been

active on reunion committees. Ted

and his wife, Mary, have been

generous and supportive to many

Milton students, particularly to

classmates of their children,

Liddy ’94, Ellie ’98 and Macky ’01.

Ka-Kay (Kevin) Yip ’83In February 2014, Milton trustees

elected Kevin Yip ’83 to join the

board. Kevin is a devoted Milton

volunteer and president of the

Milton Association in Hong Kong,

School in Michigan. Randall

returned to campus in January

2013 as the Martin Luther King

assembly speaker; he talked with

students about how Dr. King’s

talent as a facilitator made him

an effective leader and agent

of change.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica,

Randall came to Milton through

A Better Chance program. At

Milton he was a co-head monitor,

participated in community

service, and was a three-season

athlete, setting several track and

field records. Randall is co-chair

of the National Advisory Board of

the Principals’ Center at the

Harvard Graduate School of

Education. He earned a bachelor’s

degree from Brown University

and a master’s degree in education

from Harvard University. He and

his wife, Elizabeth Hopkins Dunn

’83, live with their two children

(Chase and Hunter) in Chicago.

RetiringKitty GordanMilton Academy Board of Trustees, 2006–2014During her eight years on Milton’s

board, Kitty brought the wisdom

of her deep school experience to

serve — generously and graciously —

the head of school, all of us as

trustees, and the adults and

children at Milton today, and

through the importance of her

work, for years to come.

Kitty is reliably open and

consistently positive. Her

appreciation for how myriad

pieces contribute to a whole bigger

than the sum of the parts is

always evident in her comments.

No aspect of school life has been

which plans events and supports

admission and development work.

Kevin has more than 23 years of

investment banking and equity

investment experience in the Asia

Pacific region. He is vice

chairman and managing partner

of NewMargin, which focuses

on growth private equity

investing in Greater China in the

consumer, financial services,

resources and clean-tech sectors.

He is also a member of General

Oriental’s global investment

committee and sits on the main

board of GO’s holding company.

Kevin’s son, Cameron, is in Class

II and lives in Goodwin House.

Kevin himself lived in Forbes

House; he is a graduate of

Harvard University, where he

was named a John Harvard

Scholar.

Randall Dunn ’83 Randall Dunn ’83 was elected to

the board of trustees this spring.

He is head of school at the Latin

School of Chicago and previously

served as head of the Roeper

outside her interest, and she is

consistently both constructive

and supportive.

Kitty is a model for saying

“yes” and then meaning “yes.”

Asked to spend gorgeous summer

mornings here on campus, she

and Warren and the faculty

carefully crafted the charter of

that organization that secures

communication between the

board, the administration and the

faculty: the Faculty Council. She

was an astute listener and key

participant on the Trustee Faculty

Council Liaison Committee. Kitty

is a champion of excellence and

accountability, coupled with

a deep understanding of — and

empathy for — the very human

tendencies of adults, children and

organizations, all striving to

become better at what they do.

We all listened carefully (it

was always worthwhile) to Kitty’s

carefully composed, beautifully

rendered reports from the Enroll-

ment Committee, which she

chaired in its earlier life, and now

from Academic Affairs, Student

Life and Enrollment, which she

co-chairs.

Kitty may know more about

Milton than most of us do. She

served on at least one long-range

financial planning effort; she

chaired the Enrollment Capacity

Study, analyzing the factors that


57f a l l 2 0 1 4

affect the size and character of the

School and how they intersect;

and thanks to her son John, who

graduated in 1996, Kitty knew

residential life at Milton, and she

could mark our progress over the

last decade in real terms.

She helped us learn about

ourselves, by situating Milton

within the encompassing world of

independent schools: how our

faculty work, and how they feel

about their work; how we

navigate the complex “dance”

involved in enrolling students;

how we’ve progressed as a board

and a school; and how significant

and bold a plan we’ve adopted.

Kitty always expressed

genuine delight and joy about the

work of educating young people.

We’ll honor her spirit and do our

best to honor her amazing work

ethic. Thank you, Kitty, for your

friendship, and your inspired and

devoted service to Milton.

Og Hunnewell ’70Milton Academy Board of Trustees, 1993–2014We’ve long joked about Og really

being on staff at Milton. It’s no

joke. Og’s style — and the results

surround us — is “hands-on.”

Og has been on task for every

project from 1993 until today:

from brainstorming through

dedication, from architectural

studies through value engineer-

ing, from issues of capacity

and function and cost, through

small-scale finishes that set a

look and feel.

In 1996, Og led the questioning

about what kind of space the

Athletic and Convocation Center

should be.

In 2002, at midproject, he

asked why we wouldn’t render

some valuable classroom space at

the top of Warren Hall as long as

we were renovating.

In 2004, he pondered how to

design a doorway through

Hallowell that connected it to the

new quad but didn’t risk severing

a unified house.

In 2006, Og led the team that

built our now-beloved Pritzker

Science Center.

Og ushered in Milton’s

“modern era,” that period of time

in which we realized that our

facilities need to support the

excellence of our program; that

shabby gentility may have been

our signature, but that providing

a quality educational experience

for students is our responsibility.

At once attentive to function,

aesthetics, tradition, scale and

cost, Og thinks like a planner and

a problem solver. He is completely

responsive to Milton’s needs:

those that are known, the subjects

of long-term planning, and those

that emerge “overnight” on a

campus of 125 acres and 52

buildings. Old buildings and

grounds present problems, of all

sizes and varieties, without

warning. New administrations

find that exciting new programs

urgently need well-purposed

space.

And he’s reluctant to let a

valuable opportunity pass.

It was Og, many years ago, who


suggested that the old science

building might serve the visual

arts department very well.

Og is just as focused on gnarly,

inglorious problems as he is

on sparkly, dramatic solutions.

He has diligently studied faculty

housing, ADA implications,

lighting and way finding, among

many other things.

He is the guardian angel of

deferred maintenance, educating

us, exhorting us, sometimes

successfully, about the impor-

tance of tending to our assets

prudently.

Og’s legacy, and more than

two decades of institutional

history, is alive in the physical

campus, so well used by faculty

and staff, students, alumni

and parents — the campus that

many carry in their minds’ eyes

t r u s t e e s , c o n t .

sense of place without losing the

Milton we love.

Warren McFarlan ’55Milton Academy Board of Trustees, 2001–2014For 13 years, we have counted

on Warren’s willing agreement

to share every challenge that

confronted Milton, from recruit-

ing our head of school, to

resolving the abatement issue,

to setting strategic planning in

motion.

We shouldn’t be surprised to

find, then, that at several pivotal

points, Warren’s unique leader-

ship skills helped orient us and

define our future.

In 2002, Head of School Robin

Robertson asked Warren to

launch our drive to put Milton

science on the map. That effort

as Milton Academy’s visual

iconography and memory bank.

Hunnewell history and Milton

history are woven together.

Og’s brother Bob and cousin Meg

graduated from Milton, as did his

uncle Tom and his father, James.

Og’s trustee years preceded and

continued beyond his sons’ time

at Milton: Brad graduated in ’05,

Nick in ’08, and Will in ’09.

How fitting that Og’s role in

the life of the School connects his

father’s Milton years, his own, his

sons’ experiences in classrooms

and on the fields, and Milton

students’ lives today. We hope, in

years to come, Og’s grandchildren

will enjoy the Milton campus he

helped so much to realize.

We are so grateful for your full

attention, devotion and skill. You

have helped us develop a new

began with a department-wide

self-study, and Warren set the

template for the kind of assess-

ment that is a strategic priority

today: It had a wide scope —

facilities, curriculum, resources,

teaching, impact over time. The

department was fully involved;

alumni opinions figured in; a

visiting team reviewed; and the

report provided the roadmap

for the Pritzker’s architectural

design, for growth in teaching,

curriculum expansion, and

enhanced student experience.

Later, Warren was among

the team of diplomats who built

connections among faculty,

administration and the board.

He helped draft the Faculty

Council charter, a living symbol

of his belief that a thriving

institution understands and

59f a l l 2 0 1 4

honors the respective roles of all

the people who are part of the

whole; and that communication —

high in quality and plenty of

it — sustains that mutual respect.

As chair of the Trustee Faculty

Council Liaison Committee,

Warren set its course — with

openness, accessibility, fairness

and balance. He was a trust-

worthy emissary for everyone,

listening intently, sharing,

appropriately registering or

diffusing concern. Warren helped

the faculty, and the board, gain

awareness and experience about

the roles we play and our discrete

responsibilities. A guardian of

good governance, he appreciated

its value and its impact on our

credibility.

With roots in teaching,

business, technology, Asia, and

donor relations, Warren under-

stands the intersection of

business and education, of goal

setting and fund raising. He is

the model “big picture” guy.

Always well read and well

prepared, Warren was ready

to offer perspective — with humor,

humility, anecdote and even

an apt homily now and then. He

entertained us, educated us,

and exhorted us, with a signature

smile and a twinkle in his eye.

Regardless of what we asked of

him, he was physically,

intellectually and emotionally

present.

Warren has been a wise

counsel, a diligent trustee, and

a loyal, passionate supporter

of his School, and we thank him.

Erika Mobley ’86Milton Academy Board of Trustees, 2007–2014Erika is one of those special

trustees who enthusiastically

agrees to serve despite the

distance between two coasts, the

challenges of an intense career,

and having very young children.

She simply asked us to wait a bit

while she lived in Australia,

until she moved back to California.

A true utility infielder who

brought broad competence, insight

and intellectual energy to all of

her work on the board, Erika was

tapped for committees where her

expertise was especially valuable.

On Enrollment (in her earlier

years) and External Relations, her

creative ideas for communication

and connection elevated our sense

of what was possible.

On Academic Affairs, Student

Life and Enrollment, Erika

explored the life of the School

today, and she affirmed her great

love for what Milton gave her.

Erika was refreshingly open and

expressive about her powerful

urge to honor Milton and to give

back to Milton a measure of what

she felt she had received.

Erika was on everyone’s short

list for every project-based

trustee committee. When asked,

she willingly agreed to join the

Institutional Brand Council,

the Enrollment Capacity task

force, the Trustee Committee

and the Technology Advisory

Council, even though she

sometimes needed to be a player

on a conference call at 6 a.m.,

her time.

Erika’s commencement

address to the Class of 2009 was

a particularly important gift to

the School. In sharing her story

with graduates, she highlighted

exactly those values and qualities

we hope we develop in students,

and we hope they sustain over

a lifetime: the ability to live a life

that dares to be true to who you

are; the desire to set and meet the

highest expectations; the eager-

ness to use every opportunity you

can to keep learning.

We are very grateful for

Erika’s contributions to Milton’s

great progress over her time as

a trustee, and we look forward to

her continued participation on

the Technology Advisory Council

and in the life of the School in

years to come.

60

r e t i r i n g f a c u l t y

In 1978, Gordon Chase brought to Milton his

energy and passion for students making

art. Milton’s walls have highlighted student

self-expressions for more than three decades —

witness to Gordon’s idea that art is about

“identity” — where students have tested their

assumptions and declared their beliefs.

With long hair and cowboy boots, supported

in his creative quest by Head of School

Jerry Pieh, Gordon’s energy for new ideas

was colorful and constant.

Gordon chaired the visual arts department

for more than 25 years. His goal was building

an arts center that included within it all of the

arts. He initiated the effort to create the Kellner

Arts Center, explored R. Buckminster Fuller

as a potential designer, hosted two multischool

Bradley Arts Festivals, and dramatically

increased student enrollment in art by intro-

ducing semester courses, now common in

many departments. These courses built on the

important foundation of the arts program —

Milton’s long-standing and pioneering arts

Gordon Chase, Visual Arts DepartmentMember of the Faculty, 1978–2013

requirement that centers art in the academic

core. Milton students now routinely pursue

art in successive years. Their high achieve-

ment distinguishes them in the college

process. Gordon’s commitment to creative

thinking and to self-expression, shared by the

department and the School, elevated Milton’s

art program to the top of the independent-

school world.

Two “big ideas” informed Gordon’s work

on professional events: the idea of art with a

social conscience, and the idea of design as the

integration of art and science. As head of the

Art Association of New England Preparatory

Schools, Gordon organized workshops and

worked with Facing History and Ourselves on

social-justice art projects. He co-created a

New England event called “Art with a Social

Conscience” for students to focus on identity,

social issues and diversity. Two years ago,

Milton hosted “Classrooms with a Conscience”

to highlight the idea that we teach “students

first and subjects second.”

Gordon sought to integrate art and science

with proposals for Milton to build a design

center, to start an inventor’s camp, to honor

Bucky Fuller with an integrated approach

to solving the world’s problems with innova-

tive ideas. He organized the New England

Design Olympics in the ’90s, which showcased

applied design long before today’s innovation

labs. Gordon still believes this integration is

possible at Milton.

Gordon was a soccer coach, a Nesto Gallery

assistant director, a Cultural Diversity Com-

mittee member. He and Marky Kauffmann are

parents to Milton graduates Greg ’06 and

Corina ’08, and they are grateful for that edu-

cation from devoted and passionate colleagues.

As he leaves, Gordon’s hope is that Milton

will continue to embrace the ideals of creativity

and social justice.

by Paul MennegVisual Arts Department


61f a l l 2 0 1 4

As a librarian, Missy is an ace researcher. A

horticulturist at home, Missy enjoys weeding

in the library, and (unlike some softies) is able

to discard books without weeping over each

one. Perhaps that is because she is a master of

collection development, and she can always

find the ideal choices to broaden or rejuvenate

our holdings.

As director of Cox Library, one of Missy’s

cardinal accomplishments has been to oversee

the incorporation of digital resources. During

Missy’s tenure, we have moved from present-

ing information limited to the physical library

to presenting online offerings, including

the catalogue, research guides and electronic

databases. We have gained relevant, new

material by including in the library’s holdings

Missy Manzer, Director of Cox LibraryMember of the Faculty, 1998–2014

the speech team collection and the history

department collection, as well as CD collections

for jazz and general music. Missy introduced

routine consultations with departments and

teachers to determine how the library could

contribute to their curricular needs. As one

history faculty member said, “With librarians

and teachers working together, research pro-

jects are more rewarding experiences for

students and teachers alike.” Even when they

need not be in Cox, many students appreciate

the peaceful and productive environment.

Missy created this atmosphere.

As a supervisor, Missy insisted that her

staff cross-train, learning about each other’s

work. Missy encouraged our professional

development by allowing us to participate in

webinars and local meetings, and by forcing

us to prepare for research season with rigorous

training exercises. Missy cultivated a spirit of

customer service, routinely bending over

backward to obtain resources for our patrons.

As a parent, Missy launched two sons,

David ’02 and Jonathan ’07, who not only

appear for family holidays, but actually enjoy

vacationing with their mother!

We wish Missy a long and happy retire-

ment, whether contentedly digging in her

garden, or intrepidly traveling the world. Her

legacy of collaboration and support is one

we will endeavor to continue.

by Diane Pierce-WilliamsCox Library


For 18 years, Gordon has been an institutional

leader who helped Milton come alive for

donors. He has been a teammate who put his

shoulder to the common wheel, a problem

solver, a can-do person.

With donors, Gordon was as passionate

as he was honest about Milton. That’s a perfect

combination if your job is to build authentic

relationships and keep them lively. Perhaps

that is why he was such a successful fund

raiser. He led Milton’s first comprehensive

capital campaign. The goal was $50 million —

a major stretch for Milton in the ’90s — and

he raised $60 million. Overall, Milton donors

gave nearly $194 million to the School during

Gordon’s years.

Gordon partnered with four heads of school:

Ed Fredie, Robin Robertson, Rick Hardy and

Todd Bland. That gave him plentiful opportu-

nities to model some core Milton competencies:

Gordon Sewall, Assistant Head for Development and Alumni Relations, 1996–2014

creativity, flexibility, and resilience. Gordon

dependably adapted and stayed centered. He

embraced the situation at hand; he emanated

optimism, and his optimism was contagious.

Under Gordon’s leadership, Milton evolved

Reunion Weekend from a paper-plate, rubber-

chicken, heavy-on-the-microphone day to

an attractive, multi-level weekend that draws

hundreds of alumni to activities geared

for them, no matter their ages or interests.

Gordon and his team made Milton’s

campus transformation possible. We celebrat-

ed together the dedications of the Athletic and

Convocation Center, including the Fitzgibbons

Center; a fully renovated Wigglesworth and

Warren halls; the Schwarz Student Center;

Norris House and Millet House; and the

Pritzker Science Center.

Because of Gordon’s stewarding, many of

Milton’s families with deep roots are now closer

r e t i r i n g f a c u l t y , c o n t .

to the School, and understand how their Milton

and today’s Milton form a single treasure.

Gordon was a superb advisor-at-large.

Always engaged, ready to help with any

issue, he invariably contributed wise and

balanced perspectives, always with humor.

He’s a schoolman: a great listener, respect-

ful, resourceful, and willing to put in his oar.

And despite the overwhelming challenge of

his wife Elizabeth’s illness and death, Gordon

did not falter in his dedication to the School.

We all have a great and kind friend in

Gordon. We hope he leaves his official duties

at Milton as a proud father of graduates

Scott ’10 and Duncan ’13, and with the rich

gratification of having moved a living

institution forward.

by Cathy Everett Chief Communication Officer

63f a l l 2 0 1 4

Arriving in 1982, a daughter of teachers, a

mother of two girls under eight, and already

an experienced teacher herself, Mickey

Steimle had two connections to the School:

her sister Sheila in the English department,

and her beloved husband, Chip, a graduate

from 1965 with strong ties to Milton. Her first

weeks were a tad overwhelming: teaching

Middle School boys grammar in the then

language skills department. Mickey entered

the room each day to find a new boy hiding

behind the door or stuck in a trashcan. From

the start, Mickey enjoyed her Milton school

ties, but she equally enjoyed the challenges

of teaching.

She soon joined the English department,

found a vintage of dear colleagues, including

Fran McInnis and the Fitzpatricks, and

saw her daughters flourish in the Upper

School. After 13 years, Kim ’92 and Erin ’95

had graduated, and Mickey was a fixture

in Class IV English and a recent nominee for

Mickey Steimle, English Department Member of the Faculty, 1982–2014

the Williams College Outstanding Teacher

Award. Unwilling to rest, she became a class

dean, shepherding students with a gentle,

firm hand. Can’t you see her now, 25 years

later, sitting on the bleachers with Larry,

clipboard in hand, each “Good morning,

honey” as bright as the next? Her students

can write librettos about her tough standards

but also the fun they had with Ms. Steimle:

her annual Othello hoax and her love of

scavenger hunts, dramatic performances,

and laughter in all weather.

Despite this interviewer’s best attempts

to shake her from her contented, retrospective

perch, she remains clear-headed and sunny:

She gave much and received much from Milton

in an exchange always willing and generous.

In the department’s hallways, we will forever

hear her calling to students: “I am free third,

fifth, sixth, and eighth if you need help . . . and

I am free after that, too!” For her, the hard

work of teaching was never too hard; her

teaching appears as natural as it is vigorous.

Was 30 years of commuting onerous? No, it

was an opportunity to talk to her girls and

reflect. Were a few shoulders colder and chauv-

inistic when she arrived? No, she accepted

her colleagues, and they her, in good time.

The only way to sway Mickey from her big-

hearted daily rounds is to dangle some

injustice nearby; if she senses unfairness

or impropriety: Annie, bar the door!

Hers is a career to be admired, and if we

are lucky, imitated: Mickey gave her smarts

freely and never applied conditions to her

affections. From the start, she heard the call

of the classroom and, knowing its amazing

demands, answered it happily. That happiness —

its own legacy — is now ours. Mickey, for

these 32 happy years, we thank you from the

bottom of our hearts.

by Tarim ChungEnglish Department Chair

m e s s a g e s

Dr. Eric Jay DolinDr. Eric Jay Dolin is an environmental scientist, a researcher

and a writer. Dr. Dolin, presenter of the 2014 Hong Kong

Lecture, told students the story of how America’s trade

relationship with China began. His most recent book, When

America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and

Money in the Age of Sail, chronicles the period following the

American Revolution through the mid-19th century with

tales of the tea, fur and opium trade, clipper ship travels and

life in the seaport of Canton.

“During this period, trading between the United States and China was significant, but not particularly important

economically or to American policy makers. Things could hardly be more different today. China is the second-largest trading partner behind Canada to the United States. Once measured in tens of millions of dollars, today the China trade is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, and it’s one of the critical policy issues of the United States.”

Jennifer PoznerJournalist and media critic Jennifer Pozner spoke to students this winter

about how women and girls are treated in the media and the effect this

coverage has on female leadership. Ms. Pozner was the 2014 Margaret A.

Johnson Speaker, a series that brings noted female leaders to campus

each year. Ms. Pozner is executive director of Women In Media & News

(WIMN), a media analysis, education and advocacy group. She is also

managing editor of WIMN’s Voices, the popular group blog on women

and the media. Her work has appeared in Newsday and the Chicago Tribune.

She has appeared as a media commentator on NBC, CNN, Fox News,

MSNBC, NPR, and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

“Media literacy is the strongest weapon we have against propaganda and manipulation in today’s media-saturated culture. There is also really interesting and diverse journalism happening. There has never before been a time when media and communications tools are as cheap and easy to use. You can create your own media, and you can change the conversation.”

Naomi Shihab NyeAward-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye read a selection

of poems and spoke about the writing process to students as

last spring’s Bingham Visiting Writer. Ms. Nye’s books of

poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East,

a finalist for the National Book Award; A Maze Me: Poems for

Girls; and You & Yours, a bestselling poetry book of 2006. She

has written several prize-winning poetry anthologies for

young readers, as well. Ms. Nye has held several fellowships,

including Guggenheim, Lannan, and Witter Bynner. She

has received several major awards, including four Pushcart

Prizes and the Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature.

On writing poetry: “People often ask, ‘What can you do when you are utterly blank?’ The two things I tell them are eavesdrop and babysit. If you listen to other people talk, you will hear interesting language that isn’t like your own. If you spend time with little children, you will be refreshed by the majesty of their inquisitive metaphorical wonder.”

65f a l l 2 0 1 4

a l u m n i a u t h o r s

Duck & Goose Go to the Beachby Tad Hills ’81Schwartz & Wade Books, April 2014

Duck and Goose have shared, explored,

learned and quarreled in a long series of

picture books, every time returning to

the importance of their friendship. Duck &

Goose Go to the Beach is the tenth book in

the New York Times bestselling Duck & Goose

series. Duck wants to go on an adventure.

Goose doesn’t. He doesn’t see the point. After

all, why would they go anywhere when

they’re happy right where they are? But then

Goose sees the ocean and loves it. Who

doesn’t? Well, Duck, for one!

“Hills’s illustrations are rendered in

bright oil paints that capture meadow and

sea with equal vivacity. Duck and Goose,

of course, are their usual comically at-odds

selves, this time nicely illustrating the

benefits of both adventurous and cautious

personalities.” — Booklist Review

Addiction on Trial: Tragedy in Downeast Maineby Steven Kassels ’68AuthorHouse, October 2013

When Downeast local Annette Fiorno is found

at the bottom of a ravine, outsider and relapsed

drug addict Jimmy Sedgwick is accused of

murder. Unassuming Maine lawyer Rob

Hanston and big-shot attorney Shawn Marks

form an unlikely legal team as they attempt

to discredit the overwhelming evidence.

Addiction on Trial, the first in a series of Shawn

Marks thrillers, sends a powerful message of

societal discrimination toward drug addicts

and explores common misperceptions about

what drug addiction really is — a chronic

illness requiring a similar treatment approach

as other chronic diseases. Medical and

behavioral aspects of addiction are woven

into the thriller, which culminates in a riveting

murder trial.

Dr. Steven Kassels is an author and phys-

ician, board-certified in addiction and

emergency medicine. He has served as chief

of emergency medicine at an inner-city

hospital and is now the medical director and

founder of Community Substance Abuse

Centers. He is a member of the American

Society of Addiction Medicine, and shares his

time between Boston and Downeast Maine.

Drop It, Rocket!by Tad Hills ’81Random House Children’s Books, July 2014

Rocket, the beloved dog from the New

York Times bestselling picture books How

Rocket Learned to Read and Rocket Writes

a Story, is back in a Step 1 leveled reader.

Rocket is ready to find new words for

his word tree with his teacher, the little

yellow bird. He finds a leaf, a hat, and

a star . . . but when he finds a red boot, he

doesn’t want to let go. What will make

Rocket drop it?

With predictable patterns, simple

words, lots of repetition, and bright, color-

ful illustrations, this Step into Reading

book is perfect for children who know the

alphabet and are eager to begin reading.

Tad Hills is author and illustrator of the highly acclaimed bestselling picture books How Rocket Learned to Read,

Rocket Writes a Story, Duck & Goose, and Duck, Duck, Goose. His board books include the ALA-ALSC notable

Children’s Book What’s Up, Duck?; Duck & Goose: It’s Time for Christmas; and, most recently, Duck & Goose:

Goose Needs a Hug. Tad lives in Brooklyn with his wife, their two children, and a real dog named Rocket.


My wife, Susie, and I spent many years in the Peace Corps.

We lived in Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia as

volunteers, volunteer trainers and overseas staff. We then

decided to make Maine our home, still continuing

multiyear family adventures in Sri Lanka, Ghana and

Macedonia.

Crossing cultures — learning how others work, grow

their families, play, and practice their religions — while

viewing our own country through others’ eyes, has been

formative in our lives. Watching our children, Windi

and Sean (’95), grow and become marvelous global citizens

has been equally rewarding.

In 1990, the Bowditch family created the Ebenezer

Francis Bowditch ’31 Scholarship Fund for Global Education in honor of my dad. It supports

Miltonians learning abroad, as well as foreign students or faculty members coming to Milton.

Citizens from all corners of the world live and work more closely every day. Our schools

must guide students to become active, effective and responsible global citizens. For that

reason, we have made a substantial contribution to my dad’s scholarship fund. We chose a

charitable gift annuity because we appreciate the quarterly annuity payments and want to

savor our contribution to a Milton Academy that has meant so much to the Bowditch family.

For information on gift planning, contact Suzie Hurd Greenup ’75 at [email protected] or 617-898-2376.

Nate Bowditch ’62

Gifts with Global Reach

67f a l l 2 0 1 4

Gifts with Global Reach

trustee to the Manchester Essex

Conservation Trust, and as the

director and past president of

Friends of Manchester Trees, Inc.

He also sings with the Yale Russian

Chorus and two church choirs.

Elizabeth Barrett and her

husband moved to Dover,

Massachusetts, to be near family.

Although they miss singing in

the Oratorio Society of New York,

they certainly keep up music

(cello for Rud and piano for Liz)

and greatly enjoy the Cambridge

Musical Club. The Barretts

joined the Manomet Center for

Conservation Sciences. “I’m

passionate about gardening and

raising blue birds, 12–15 fledglings

every summer,” Liz says.

▼ The Girls’ Class of 1954

celebrated their 60th reunion

on Friday, June 13, at the home

of Jean Childs. Front row (L to

R): Duffy Royce Schade, Jean Cutler Whitham, Sally Chase Flynn, Cynthia Hallowell, Kadie Maclaurin Staples, Jean Worthington Childs. Back row (L

to R): Connie Trowbridge, Martha Mayor Smith, Martha Fuller Chatterjee, Cynthia Kennedy

c l a s s n o t e s

1944William Weeks and his wife,

Frances, are “in reasonably good

health” and celebrated their 60th

wedding anniversary last year.

William sends his best wishes

to his classmates, some of whom

he reconnected with at Reunion

Weekend in June.

1953Bob Freeman published the book

The Crisis of Classical Music in

America: Lessons from a Life in the

Education of Musicians in August

2014. He says the book “envisions a

whole new ecosystem for studying

music in a nation that produces

more than 22,000 collegiate

degrees in music annually, but

where too many professional

musical organizations are failing

fiscally.” The book includes many

positive references to Bob’s five

years at Milton. Bob is the Susan

Menefee Ragan Regents Professor

of Fine Arts at the University of

Texas at Austin.

1954Jean Worthington Childs enjoyed

catching up with classmates

while encouraging them to attend

Reunion Weekend in June. “While

some live abroad and could not

join us, others traveled from afar,”

she says.

Following the graduation of

his three children from Milton,

George P. Smith moved to the

house in Manchester where he

grew up summering, near Singing

Beach. For retirement income,

he offers short-term rentals of

the cottage part of the house.

George stays busy serving as a

Sam, lilla lyon, liz Biddle Barrett,

Sally Sprout lovett.

1959After a hectic few months, which

included the sale of her house,

“a vacation in France seemed

like a good idea!” says Kitty Blodgett Winter. She also had a

wonderful time visiting her four

grandchildren in K–8 this spring

during Grandfriends’ Day at

Milton.

Ellen Gross Miles retired as

curator of painting and sculpture

at the National Portrait Gallery

in 2010 and now volunteers doing

research for the curatorial staff.

She remarried in 2009, after the

death of her second husband in

2004. Ellen gives an occasional

lecture in the Washington, D.C.,

area, and has been traveling in

the U.S. and Europe with her

husband, Neil Greene.

Deborah Webster Rogers is

content in retirement and is

involved in Scottish country

dancing, Bible courses, and with

mental health with Recovery

International. Debby has two

“I’m passionate about gardening and raising blue

birds, 12–15 fledglings every summer.”

Elizabeth Barrett ’54


Catherine Bradley Sayers.

Back row: Christine Mussells,

Jane Burley, Hanne Blom-Bakke,

Emily Fuller Hawkins, Emily Burr, Margaret Pierpont, Vicky Vincent MacKay, Eleanor King,

Betsy Auchincloss.

1974Anthony and leslie Will cele-

brated their 40th Milton reunion

this spring. Leslie is working for

Coldwell Banker in residential

real estate, and Tony is a feng

shui coordinator. They have three

children: Kit (29), an entrepreneur

and professional sailor; Laura (26),

a nurse practitioner specializing

in geriatrics; and Amanda (22),

an education major at Lesley

University in Cambridge.

1975Teacher and author Sally Paine

won the Richard W. Leopold

Prize and the 2012 PROSE award

for best book in European and

world history for The Wars for Asia,

1911–1949. The book was also long-

listed for the 2013 Gelber Award.

and John Bihldorff. Not pictured:

Peter Burling.

1964Nick Hinch retired from

commercial flying three years

ago and thought he could finally

sit back and relax. (That didn’t

happen.) “You just can’t go from

flying along 500 MPH for 45 years

to a complete stop overnight,” says

Nick. He now works for Boeing

as B-787 simulator instructor and

travels around the world teaching

pilots from many countries.

1969▼ Ms. Jean McCawley gathered

with 23 fans from the Class of 1969

for the Alumni Glee Club Sing

during Reunion Weekend. Front

row (L to R): Dixie Brown, Eliza Kimball, Kirk Emerson, Jean McCawley, Mary Feather, Susan Francis Putnam, Melinda Saxton White-Broson, Nancy Roberts.

Middle row: Molly Quinby Eberle,

Sara Greer Dent, Nancy Madden,

Kay Dickersin, lisa lloyd Hobson, laura Robinson Roberts,

daughters: One is living in her old

home in Milton with her family;

the other is in Minneapolis

working as a flight attendant.

1962In Beijing last September, Jeffrey Koplan was honored with the

China Friendship Award. This

is the highest award that the

Chinese government gives to

foreign experts who have made

outstanding contributions to

the country’s economic and social

progress. Jeff was involved for

more than 30 years in the creation

and development of the Chinese

Center for Disease Control and

Prevention (China CDC). Jeff is

the vice president for Global

Health at Emory University and

served as founding director of

the Emory Global Health Institute

from 2006 until 2012. Prior to

joining Emory in 2002, he was

director of the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention.

1963▲ Classmates celebrated the life

of dear friend Jim Sise in New

Hampshire in late May. Jim

passed away in January 2014. L to

R: Charles Stillman, Walter Page,

Bill Vanderbilt, John Grandin,

David Taylor, Roger Feldman,

Jeffrey Koplan ’62 was honored with the China

Friendship Award.

c l a s s n o t e s , c o n t .

69f a l l 2 0 1 4

1978laura Appell-Warren has

published her second book, titled

Personhood: An Examination

of the History and Use of an

Anthropological Concept. Laura

teaches at St. Mark’s School in

Southborough, Massachusetts,

and is the school’s director of the

Global Citizenship Institute.

1979Jim Sitrick is living in Santa

Fe near his nine-year-old son,

Thane, and working as a tutor and

teacher while seeking work as a

public health consultant.

1981▲ In April, John Bergan and

his sister, Betsy Altman ’71,

celebrated the 50th anniversary

of Northwestern Medicine’s

Organ Transplant Program

in Chicago. They were there to

honor Dr. John J. Bergan, Betsy

and JB’s father, who in 1964 led a

team through the first successful

organ transplant. Dr. Bergan

passed away in June 2014. L to

R: Emily Barton, Toby Altman,

John Bergan ’81, Dr. Michael Abecassis, and Betsy Altman ’71.

1984lucie Greer is excited that

her niece, Rosamond Carr ’14,

graduated from Milton this spring,

and that they will be on the same

reunion cycle!

1992▶ Antony Bugg-levine and Tracy Palandjian ’89 are pictured on the

stock exchange floor after ringing

the closing bell on behalf of the

U.S. National Advisory Board to

the G8 Impact Investing Taskforce

(which Tracy co-chairs). Antony is

CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund, a

national nonprofit and financial

intermediary. Tracy is CEO and co-

founder of Social Finance, Inc., an

impact investment firm in Boston.

1996Steve lehman received a 2014

Doris Duke Artist Award, an

unrestricted prize of $275,000

awarded to “American performing

artists of exceptional creativity.”

laura Appell-Warren ’78 has published her

second book, titled Personhood: An Examination

of the History and Use of an Anthropological Concept.


and will be moving to Louisville,

Kentucky, next year to work in

corporate strategy at HUMANA.

He would love to connect with any

Milton alums in the area!

Colleen Ritzau leth enjoyed time

spent with faculty and friends

at reunion and is living in New

York City. She spent a year in

Cairo, completing her master’s in

art history and archaeology. In

2013, she joined the Metropolitan

Museum of Art as an associate

in the director’s office.

2006▼ Oliver Pechenik married

Ardea Thurston-Shaine in a

meadow overlooking Puget

Sound, Washington, in July 2014.

In attendance from Milton were

Oliver’s mother linde Eyster

(science department) and Jeff Moffett ’05.

2010During his senior year at Brown,

Ross lerner played Connor Johnson ’11 (a senior at Harvard)

in club hockey. Harvard beat

Brown, but Ross made some good

saves on Connor!

1998Julia Morgan married Tim Martin

in May 2014. Four of Julia’s class-

mates attended the wedding: Emma Doggett, lila Dupree, Morgan Bradylyons, and liz Jalkut, along

with faculty member linnea Engstrom.

1999▲ leanne McManama ’99 and

David Conyers eloped in February

2014. They were married at the

John and Mable Ringling Museum

of Art in Sarasota, Florida.

2000Daniel Weisman lives in Los

Angeles and manages recording

artists, including Wale (who

performed at Milton in 2009) and

Capital Cities (who toured with Katy

Perry this summer). He recently

joined Jay Z’s company Roc Nation

and is part of Kanye West’s manage-

ment team. Last year he launched

a high-end sneaker company called

Buscemi (available at Barneys,

Colette and The Tannery) as well

as a wet-toilet-paper company

called “One Wipe Charlies,” which

he sold to the Dollar Shave Club.

He’s developing a reality show

with Pitbull, Sony Television and

SonyATV Music Publishing. Dan

was in Japan last summer and

caught up with Kelly Grimes. He

spends time with leo Evrivriades ’99 on Cape Cod during the summer,

and his sister, Margaux Weisman ’05, came to see Capital Cities at

Coachella in April.

Shannon Gulliver Caspersen ’00

and her husband, Sam, welcomed

their daughter, Greer Gulliver

“G. G.” Caspersen, on March 12, 2014.

▼ Jane Innis Crawford ’00 and her

husband, Tyson, welcomed their

daughter, Emily Grace “Millie,” on

February 4, 2014.

2003Beau Rhee launched a design

studio, Atelier de Geste, in New

York City in 2012 after completing

her M.F.A. at the Haute école d’art

et de design (University of Art and

Design) in Geneva, Switzerland.

“My Milton experience enriches me

to this day. Some of my greatest

friendships and formative creative

years sprouted there and keep

growing . . . Vive Milton!” she says.

2004Scott Motejunas recently com-

pleted his M.B.A. at the Darden

School (University of Virginia)

Daniel Weisman ’00 launched a high-end

sneaker company called Buscemi last year.


71f a l l 2 0 1 4

◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 3 9(l to r): Evan Calkins, Head of School Todd Bland and Galen Stone.

▲ C l A S S O F 1 9 4 4(l to r): Ted Reynolds, Stan Bourne, Bill Weeks, Sam Adams, Tom Wales.

▶ C l A S S O F 1 9 4 9(l to r): John Hewett, Bill Thorndike, Katharine Baker, George Baker, Myles Richmond.



◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 5 4front row (l to r): Martha Fuller Chatterjee, Jean Cutler Whitham, Duffy Royce Schade, Liz Biddle Barrett, Cynthia Hallowell, Sally Sprout Lovett, Sally Chase Flynn, Jean Worthington Childs, Kadie Maclaurin Staples. middle row: Tom Gregg, Ed Ofgant, Ross Sherbrooke, Kit Bingham, Jon Beecher, David Ehrlich, Jack Cannell, George Smith, ned Crosby. back row: Jim Perkins, Lindsey Durant, Ben Williams, Bill Hartmann, Dick Beckwith, Larry Altman, Marshall Schwarz.

▲ C l A S S O F 1 9 5 9front row (l to r): Ellen Miles, Steve Jones, Bonnie Akins. back row: Steve Parker, John Coburn, Tom Claflin, Henry Davisson, Phil Kinnicutt, Sissel Falck-Jorgensen, Sandy Greene, Tim Clark, David Ames, Brin Ford, Chris Lehman, Dave Brown, Fred Churchill, nick Bancroft, Tim Williams, Dave Wheatland.

73f a l l 2 0 1 4

◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 6 4front row (l to r): Casey Murrow, Isabel Barzun Parfit, Frannie Sykes Moyer, Peter Reed Pavan, Lindley Greenough Thomasset, Lola Atwood, Sarah Satterlee, Deborah Myers Strzepek, Meg Estabrook Cooper. second row: Fred Douglass, Jeffrey Gray, Rachel Sullivan Berlin, Jesse Kornbluth, Jannie Williams O’Conor, Liza Ketchum. third row: Charlie DeLorme, nick Hinch, Anthony Forbes, Susan Davidson, Tudy Stebbins Bartlett, Carson Custer Taylor, Dave Schoyer, Charlotte Cherington Burrage, Maeve Kinkead Streep, Judy Field Laing, Rick Meadow. back row: Jim Pappas, Bob MacKay, Finley Perry, Peter Holmes, George Hilton, Chris Hallowell, Ed Brown, John Straus, Phil Lehman, Bob Bradley, Don Paige.

▲ C l A S S O F 1 9 7 9front row (l to r): Paula Goodrich, Tedd Saunders, Bill Weyerhaeuser, Todd Saunders, Beth Zonis, Gene Reilly. back row: Philip Higonnet, Ben Simeone, Richard Fitzpatrick, Eric Schwarz, Geoff Bok, nick d’Arbeloff, Bryan Austin, Peter nawrocki, Sam Gordy, Glenn Allen.

◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 74front row (l to r): Felicity Myers, Cathy Jay, Deirdre Dempsey-Rush, Susan O’Hara Riley, Cassandra Perry, Sarah Lincoln Trafidlo, Brian Driscoll, Linda Rice. back row: Jon Gifford, Bob Sinicrope, nick nichols, Mark Panarese, John Moot, Annette Buchanan, Jay Brooks, Robert Altschuler, Eric Finke, Dan Gregory, Mark Evans, Sam Dennis, Mary Carton Gregory, Rick Wood, Steve Kinnealey, Jeff Hurst, John Hemenway, Michael Bleakie.

◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 6 9front row (l to r): nancy Roberts, William Perkins, Melinda White-Bronson, Sam Harrington, Sara Greer Dent, Laura Robinson Roberts. middle row: Kay Dickersin, Lisa Lloyd Hobson, Emily Burr, Christine Mussells, nancy Madden, Catherine Bradley Sayers, Betsy Auchincloss, Joe Glaser, Susan Putnam, Eleanor King. back row: John Goodhue, David Fitz, Emily Hawkins, Kirk Emerson, nick McDougal, Margaret Pierpont, Georgia Pappas, Alex Felton, William nesto, David Dudley.

◀ C l A S S O F 1 9 8 4front row (l to r): Chris Morrow, Barak Rosenbloom, Erik Singer, John Koltun. back row: Ligia Brickus, Doug Cabot, Frank Quinn, Melissa Glen, Jerry Godes, Sally Wright Waxman, Sue Mahanor, Paul Higgins, Helen Bronk, John Bisbee, Celeste Vega, Sid Whelan, Christine de Vegvar Parsons, neil Godfrey, Lucie Greer, Flynn Monks, Theo Spencer.



▲ C l A S S O F 1 9 9 4front row (l to r): Hillary Lombard, Devon White, A.J. Simon, Laura newmark, Ali Johnes, Susannah Bancroft, Ethan Sigman, Mollie Webster, Dune Thorne, Heidi Felago, Sam Drohan, Ian Zilla, Doug Sigourney. second row: Bob Collins, Elizabeth Wilder, Yolande Goodman, Sadio Desmond, Rachel Saxton, Caroline Cornish Kmack, Vera Zieman, Peter Cervieri, Ku Asare, Gabe Heafitz, nika Mone, Ashley Fouts. third row: Jonathan Kohler, Kate Middleton, Mary Lisio, Andrew Bonney, Andy Topkins, Peter Scott, Andy Katzman, Emily Groom, nat Hennigar, Sam Douglas, Jesse Baer, Lynn Rasic, Hilton Marcus, Lisa Walker, Ben Fawcett. back row: Jeff Kurson, Julie Barnes, Kathryn Maguire, Jess Lubitz, Leslie Garrett, Peter Garran, John Serafini, Charlie Everett, Dan Sarles, Sam Sezak, John Collins, Ian Burnes. ▲ C l A S S O F 1 9 9 9

front row (l to r): Pat Donovan, Kevin Bennett, Joanna Ostrem, Kristin Ostrem Donelan, Amelia Shillingford, Sarah White, Shira Milikowsky, Mike O’neill. middle row: Ben Leslie, Morgan Gray, Kelly Menice, Amanda Conley, Beth Pierson, Jamie Perkins. back row: Conor French, Chris Chao, Caroline Page, Rob Higgins, Tatiana Lingos-Webb, Kiran Singh, Greg Schwanbeck.

▶ C l A S S O F 1 9 8 9front row (l to r): Ethan Burns, Emily Fenster, Rachel Hong, Bill Hanson, Martin Zinny, Hadley Rierson, George Papageorge, Mark Paresky, Jason Downie, Ann Diedrich, Ka-Hay Yip, Ethan Fenn, Katie Bacon. middle row: Brian Martin, Jessica Fortunato, Anna Weymouth nicholas, Rachel Powers, Jenny Ford Barrett, Peter Barrett, Justin Campbell, Amy Dine, Josh Everdell, Jake Upton, Greg Quinn, Robert Rosenthal, Peter Sahlin. back row: Matt Kane, neil Bray, Lewis Robinson, Christopher Schell, Rich Corcoran, Liesel Euler, Alex Donahue, Adam Berrey, Jay Sullivan, Mark Driver, Perry Cabot, Kevin Henderson, Jonathan Travers.

75F A l l 2 0 1 4

DeceasedClass of 1933Bradley Dewey Jr.

Class of 1937Winslow W. Wright

Class of 1938Frances P. Field

Class of 1940The Honorable Franklin S. Billings Jr.

Class of 1941Ruth Jones Andrews

Class of 1942James G. Wheeler

Class of 1944Stephen M. StackpoleMiriam Jeffries Whitney

Class of 1949David B. JenkinsSuzanne Jaques Runton

Class of 1951Richard Carden

Class of 1952Daniel Pierce

Class of 1963James G. Sise

Class of 1972Francis P. Magoun IV

Class of 1981Alexandra F. Sichel

To read the obituaries of deceased alumni, you

can log in to Milton’s alumni web pages and visit:

alumni.milton.edu/alumni-deceased

▼ C l A S S O F 2 0 0 4 :front row (l to r): George Gregory, Elspeth Macmillan, Emily Tsanotelis, Emily Ebert, Scott Motejunas, Joanna Chow, Suzanne Levy, Dina Guzovsky, Dan Adair, nick Lazares, Abby Wright. second row: Emily Phelps, Jackie Kelly, Leonard Mazzone, John Donahue, Sophie Suberman, Emily Oatis, Helen McCarthy, Justin McIntosh, Joanna Berliner, Haley Smith Kingsland, Stephanie Shui, Colleen Ritzau Leth, Sarah Wooten, Jordan Raphel, Kika Pyclik, Amanda Duncan, Megan Bailey. back row: Jeff Marr, Andy Mittelman, D.J. Mauch, Josh Krieger, Bennet Hayes, Catherine Morrissey-Bickerton, Rachel newman, Ashley Phillips, Andrew Baird, Lindsey Moran Dashiell, Sam Wheeler, Emma Clippinger, Alfred Chan, George von Metzsch, nate Danforth.

▲ C l A S S O F 2 0 0 9 :front row (l to r): Amara Warren, Caroline Palmer, Matthew Trammell, Sarah Diamond, Gemma Soldati, Sam Rosen, Wyatt Cmar. second row: Douglon Tse, Will Hunnewell, Brady Caspar, Julie Shapiro, neelum Wadekar, Gabi Starfield, Mike Baldino, Michelle Su, Samara Bliss, Bora Kim, Holly Mawn, Eliza Dryer, niya Desai, Melissa Mittelman, Emily Bartlett. third row: Will Trepagnier, Abbott Cowen, Brian Mason, Sam Schuffenecker, Chris Sperandio, Jay Haseley, Chris Fan, Samara Oster, Jenna Brickley, Breanna Dance, Anthony Garrity, Abby Bok, Will Hutchings, Ryan Edwards. fourth row: Dan Reynolds, Armide Storey, Chloe Cole, Loreen Watts, Kimberlee Chang, Kelsey Jost-Creegan, Hillary Mcnamara, Angela Baglione, Alli Rubin, Sarah Konowitz, Caitlin Hickey. back row: John nimmo, Charlie Cabot, Alex Harris, nick Hurst, Bikrum Chahal, Alec Seymour, James Keefe, Will Sullivan, Keller Henderson, Ryder Stroud, Mohammed Alkhafaji.

76 M I lT O N M A G A Z I n E bostonglobe.com/staff/burr @tyburr

Ty Burr ’76 is a film critic for the Living/Arts section of the Boston Globe and a critically-acclaimed author of several books about the movie industry.

Being a movie critic can be a strange way to make a living.

For one thing, everyone wants to talk about my job, but

no one quite respects it. This occasionally includes me. I’ll

meet someone at a party, ask what they do, and he or

she will say “cardiac surgeon” or “third-world food bank

coordinator,” and then I have to admit I spend my days

watching movies about heavily digitized superheroes while

taking illegible notes in the dark. And then someone else

will walk up and want to talk about the new Hunger Games

movie when we should really be asking the doctor what it’s

like to massage a human heart back into working condition.

But that’s the thing: When it comes to movies, everyone

has an opinion. We all know what we think of The Departed

or The Grand Budapest Hotel, whereas not many of us can

speak with authority on the subject of ischemic cardiomy-

opathy. The fact is, everyone is a critic. When you come

out of a movie and discuss it on the drive home with your

significant other — parsing its meaning and effect, per-

formances and punch lines — you are engaging your critical

faculties. So what does paying someone to do this in public

bring to the party? And can it ever be said to make the

world a better place?

I didn’t use to think so, but now I’m not so sure. First

of all, no art or artifact can change the world — only people

can do that. But people are affected by what they see and

absorb, and they’re profoundly affected by experiences that

take them outside the parameters of their lives. I’ve come

to think of movies as magic windows onto other, less familiar

realities; while too many of those windows overlook

our modern pop circus, others reveal different countries,

cultures, kinds of people and ways of being. They can

broaden your sensibilities without your being aware of it.

Back in 2005, I reviewed a documentary called Mad

Hot Ballroom, about a New York City program that sponsored

ballroom dancing lessons and competitions in 60 public

middle schools. It was a good movie, and my daughter, then

10, thought it was a great one, and I used the review to

talk about how you could see the effects of the program on

the faces and in the behavior of even the toughest kids.

The movie, I wrote, will speak most loudly to audiences the

same age as its subjects.

About three years later, I was giving a talk at a local

library, and afterward an older man came up to me and

started telling me about that Mad Hot Ballroom review. How

reading what I’d written convinced him to see a movie

he’d never heard about, and how seeing the movie con-

vinced him to start his own ballroom dancing program for

disadvantaged school kids on the South Shore. How that

program had flourished, letting boys and girls interact

within the safety zone of beautiful, timeless steps.

In other words, I had pointed to a window, and he had

turned that window into a door. Through that door into

new territory were streaming dozens, maybe hundreds of

children whose lives would never be the same.

This is why I do what I do, I tell myself whenever I’m

slogging through the latest CGI action-fantasy spectacle.

It’s not heart surgery, obviously, yet movies and the other

arts do operate on the spirit, for better and sometimes

for worse. My job, I guess, is to urge you toward the former

and warn you off the latter. Once you look through those

windows, you’re on your own. Who knows? Maybe you’ll

start dancing.

p o s t s c r i p t T Y B U R R ’ 7 6

“When It Comes to Movies, Everyone Has an Opinion.”

3f a l l 2 0 1 4

b o a r d o f t r u s t e e s

George AlexCohasset, Massachusetts

Robert Azeke ’87new York, new York

Bradley M. BloomPresidentWellesley, Massachusetts

Bob Cunha ’83Milton, Massachusetts

Mark Denneen ’84Boston, Massachusetts

Elisabeth Donohue ’83Vice PresidentChicago, Illinois

Randall Dunn ’83Chicago, Illinois

James M. Fitzgibbons ’52EmeritusChestnut Hill, Massachusetts

John B. Fitzgibbons ’87TreasurerBronxville, new York

Margaret Jewett Greer ’47EmeritaChevy Chase, Maryland

Franklin W. Hobbs IV ’65Emeritusnew York, new York

Harold W. Janeway ’54EmeritusWebster, new Hampshire

Claire Hughes Johnson ’90Menlo Park, California

Peter Kagan ’86new York, new York

Stephen lebovitzWeston, Massachusetts

Yunli lou ’87Shanghai, China

Stuart MathewsVice PresidentWaban, Massachusetts

Chris McKownMilton, Massachusetts

Wendy Nicholson ’86Vice Presidentnew York, new York

Caterina Papoulias-SakellarisMilton, Massachusetts

H. Marshall Schwarz ’54Emeritusnew York, new York

Frederick G. Sykes ’65SecretaryRye, new York

Dune Thorne ’94Lincoln, Massachusetts

Erick Tseng ’97San Francisco, California

Kimberly Vaughan ’92Boston, Massachusetts

Dorothy Altman Weber ’60Boston, Massachusetts

Ted Wendell ’58Milton, Massachusetts

Ronnell Wilson ’93Jersey City, new Jersey

V-Nee Yeh ’77Hong Kong

Kevin Yip ’83Hong Kong

Milton Magazine

Milton AcademyCommunication OfficeMilton, MA 02186

Change Service Requested

non-Profit OrganizationU.S. PostagePAIDBoston, MA Permit no. 58423

Date post:	06-Apr-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	milton-academy
View:	237 times
Download:	6 times

Milton Magazine, Fall 2014

Documents