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MiltonMagazine
turn
s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
23
146
1s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
6 KQED Is Executing a Pivot “KQED’s challenge is to extend our digital capacity while
we sustain the radio and TV business,” says Anne Avis ’77.
10 Discovery: A Personal Model, a Business Model Ashley Fouts ’94 is facilitating the myriad decisions
necessary to turn breakthrough science at the bench
into life-changing drugs for patients.
14 Recraft a Company to Create a Lifestyle Brand David Pun ’99 embraces the challenges of running
a lifestyle fashion brand in the hyper-competitive
retail market.
18 Headed for Mars, On Schedule Confident about human capability, Ryan Sebastian ’06
and Harry O’Hanley ’06 are on the SpaceX team, working
to design and execute breakthrough aeronautics.
19 SpaceX on a Need-to-Know Basis
23 The Power of a Posse Lamont Gordon ’87 is helping transform students’ lives
and colleges’ expectations.
26 Mentors: Honest Talk About Teaching Bringing the tool of observation to a professional level
fuels growth for Milton mentors as well as new faculty.
30 Engineering Solutions for a Species in Peril Grade 3 students take a role in reviving the Monarch
butterfly population.
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
34 Sports Hall of Famer Coach Mac Reaches 200 Career Wins by Liz Matson
38 Faculty Perspective Comeback by Jim Connolly
40 In Sight Beatnik Photograph by Michael Dwyer
42 On Centre
48 Head of School “Leave Room to Be Surprised” by Todd B. Bland
49 Messages
52 Alumni Authors
55 Class Notes
60 Post Script A Kinder, Gentler Place: An Appeal to My Contemporaries by Martha Rose Shulman ’68
EditorCathleen Everett
Associate EditorsErin BergLiz Matson
DesignStoltze Design
PhotographyLaura Barkowski ’15Erin BergMartin BermanMichael Dwyer Evisu Ferm Living Genentech John Gillooly Sheila Griffin
Akintola Hanif Liz MatsonGlenn Matsumura Jane McGuinnessThe Posse Foundation David Rabkin SpaceX Susan Wheelwright Greg White
2 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
3s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
Turnaround.How does a shift in direction begin? What kind of insight galvanizes
action and produces unforeseen progress or unprecedented growth?
After the fact, we note when a turnaround has happened. A business
rebounds; a nonprofit makes inroads on meeting a need; a team builds
victories after a stretch of defeats; an idea burgeons into an enterprise.
In this Milton Magazine, we talk with alumni and faculty whose work
and sense of purpose enables them and others to find strategies and
opportunities that change our terrain.
4 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
Faculty Facts: The Lives They Lead
a c r o s s t h e q u a d
Teacher: a person or thing that teaches something; especially: a person whose job is to teach students about certain subjects (Merriam-Webster)Does that include being house heads, class deans, coaches, advisors, coordinators and sponsors? Does it include weekend dorm duty, driving students to the airport or community service, directing plays, choreographing dance concerts, running music rehearsals, leading hikes, or chaperoning dances?
College “Recs” Faculty each write, on average, six to twelve college
recommendations per year. Department heads and
faculty who teach mostly juniors and seniors get the
most requests.
English and history faculty member Elaine Apthorp
once wrote a record 26 recommendations in one year.
Advising students on matters big and smallAt five to six students per year, senior faculty have guided many advisees over the years.
don dregalla
Music:
180mary jo ramos
Modern Languages:
110
dar anastas
Performing Arts:
238laurel starks
History:
189
vivian wu wong
History:
90 tarim chung
English:
84terri herr neckar
Math:
75
A b O v E Do you recognize this mustachioed man? Bob Sinicrope began in the math department in 1973. For 40 years he has led Milton’s jazz program. He recently became president of the Jazz Education network. His inaugural JEn conference hosted 3,500 jazz educators and Herbie Hancock as the keynote.
“It’s a major matter for each student’s application, so I
devote a lot of time and thought to preparing each one.”
— ElainE apthorp
5s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
Did you know?Math faculty members climb 73 steps in Ware Hall to their classrooms an average of five times a day.
Athletics and physical education faculty each spend roughly 500 hours per school year on the fields/courts/rink/training rooms at Milton and another 30 to 40 hours on team buses.
The science department orders about 20,000 pairs of gloves for the labs each year.
Paul Menneg, visual arts faculty, orders three to four tons of clay per year.
Middle School robotics students use 9,600 LEGO pieces every year.
The performing arts department stages eight major productions each year.
Just athletics:They outfit and equip 85 teams (57 Upper School; 28 Middle School) for three athletic seasons.
Average purchases each year include:
24 footballs 80 soccer balls12 volleyballs60 field hockey balls14 dozen squash balls300 hockey pucks36 basketballs108 dozen tennis balls24 dozen baseballs40 dozen lacrosse balls144 Gatorade bottles 120 towels750 pounds of laundry detergent
A year of reviewing papers, quizzes, exams, and labs — just a sample:
English
Maria gerrity: 720 papers
Caroline sabin: 800 papers
tarim Chung: 420 essays
sCiEnCE
heather Zimmer: 4,500 lab pages
Matt Bingham: 166 tests, 35 mid-terms, 65 major labs, and 170 mini-labs
sarah richards: 192 tests, 72 major labs, and 216 mini-labs
Math
susan Karp: 600 quizzes/exams
heather sugrue: 900 quizzes/exams
ModErn languagEs
severine Carpenter: 1,800 quizzes/exams
Mark Connolly: 750 to 1,000 quizzes
isabelle lantieri: “A lot!”
pErforMing arts
susan Marianelli listens to 2,000 speeches each year
history
laurel starks: 416 papers/exams
Josh Emmot: 384 papers, 39 exams
K–8
sachiyo unger, grade 2: 1,800 quizzes/tests/projects
sandy Butler, K–5 art: Hundreds of projects, “from painting parrots with kindergarteners to group Lewis and Clark murals with third graders, to Egyptian masks with fourth graders, to helping fifth graders with their self-designed social justice artwork.”
The secret lives of facultyMark Connolly is training for a 134-mile bike ride in
June. Jennifer hughes performs in community theater
productions. Josh Emmott is an avid fly fisherman.
Matt Bingham can juggle. hal pratt is a cabinet maker.
louise Mundinger collaborates with other composers
to create new works for the pipe organ. Elaine apthorp
plays acoustic guitar, five-string banjo and a “sweet
little ukulele named Amy.” hannah pulit just became
a certified yoga instructor. Matt simonson was a
competitive figure skater. susan Karp paints still life.
tarim Chung is an avid cyclist and triathlete in the
summer. ted Whalen served as a non-ordained minister.
don dregalla has a keen interest in the Civil War.
linnea Engstrom loves to Zumba. gary shrager used
to play ultimate Frisbee. sachiyo unger is a long-term
practitioner of Baptiste yoga. dar anastas designed seven
floors of lighting in the Prudential Tower. ryan stone spent a year in China as the head coach of the Chinese
Women’s National Hockey Team. Matt petherick has run
six marathons. heather sugrue speaks French.
6
c a s e o n e A N N E A v I S ’ 7 7
6 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E kqed.org facebook.com/KQED @KQED
7s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
KQED Is Executing a Pivot Anne Avis ’77
“We need all of that news,” Anne says, “to make real and
important decisions about the people and issues that
affect our lives. That’s why public media is so important
to democracy.”
Anne recently completed eight years as a board member
at KQED and six years on the NPR Foundation board.
“What’s surprising is that our business model — with a
diverse revenue mix that includes membership dues — is
a model that other news organizations are testing right now.
Ours evolved organically; it has worked and is still working.
We have a value proposition and a financial model that
is enviable. It’s so hard to build a news organization from
scratch. Many are trying to do it, so the responsibility to
adapt and thrive is strong.”
The demise of television and radio that was widely
predicted early in the digital revolution has not come
to pass. People are still watching TV and listening to radio,
and at the same time, online, mobile and social media
activity is growing rapidly. “So our challenge,” Anne says,
“is to extend our digital capacity while we sustain the
radio and TV business. Our digital technology has to be
just as robust as our radio and TV infrastructure.”
“Part of the value and the beauty of the public media system,” Anne Avis says, “is that
it reaches 99 percent of the country through this network of independently run local
stations.” Not only in hip, urban centers but in remote, rural areas, NPR stations air
news that is intensely local, as well as regional, national and global.
Rewarding interactive experiences, and the chance to
be part of a vibrant social community, have to happen
alongside excellent content.
All media are scrambling to address the reality that
audiences use multiple platforms, at once, to find what
they want. KQED is uniquely “well-positioned” in this
environment, Anne believes, “to successfully accomplish
the transformation that’s under way.”
Headquartered in San Francisco, KQED is public TV,
radio and online media serving nine counties in Northern
California. KQED is explicitly intent on fulfilling a
leadership role in the nation.
Location is one reason for Anne’s confidence that the
station will succeed. Not only is KQED the single dual
licensee in the Bay Area (TV and radio), but Northern
California is also the most receptive and supportive region
in the country for public broadcasting. Those engaged
KQED fans are in their cars as well. “Everyone is looking
to us to see how we execute this transformation,” Anne
says, “because we can be the model. This awareness helps
us push to be better. We’re testing and experimenting
with strategies that can be replicated.”
7S P r I N g 2 0 1 5
8 m i lt o n m a g a z i n e kqed.org facebook.com/KQeD @KQeD
KQED’s president is Anne’s other key reason for
confidence. Anne served on the search committee that
resulted in John Boland’s appointment in 2010. As he
assumed his role, John Boland said that his big dream
“was that this institution becomes the 21st-century model
for what public service media can be.”
KQED may recently have been seen primarily as a
San Francisco–oriented institution, but during Anne’s
eight years on the board, the station has earned regional
relevance, and has engaged San Jose and Silicon Valley
leaders. Strengthening these connections has been a
priority for KQED and for Anne as board chair. Some of
the region’s experts in digital media, marketing and
education are now invested in helping to realize the front-line
vision for KQED. Wendy Schmidt, a philanthropist focused
on climate change issues, and her husband Eric, former
Google CEO, for example, are now KQED “underwriters.”
After a two-year transition to a custom Salesforce
database, KQED can better define its audiences. “We’re
beginning to learn things about who’s engaging, what
our value is for them, and who might join that audience,”
says Anne. “Then we filter what we’ve learned from listening
to them through the lens of our mission — improving
people’s lives.” Creating new apps, blogs, e-newsletter feeds,
curated content for streaming in Bluetooth-equipped
cars — moves like these, according to the most recent Pew
Research report on media, seem to be building audience
in the public domain, while listening to radio or watching
TV has leveled off. KQED’s most popular blogs are Bay
Area Bites, the food blog, and MindShift, a blog about trends
in the future of education.
Quite a few public media stations have a “chief content
officer” now. John Boland created the position first, at
KQED and then at PBS, assigning top-level responsibility
for integrating content across all the station’s channels
and platforms. That focus and function recognizes today’s
audience expectations.
A stream of innovations, along with updated fund-raising
techniques, demonstrate KQED’s commitment to nimble,
expert marketing, a critical element of the 21st-century
public media model, in Anne’s opinion. “We focus on how
we can more directly target and engage people who might
be inclined to public media,” says Anne. John Boland also
“Everyone is looking to us to see how we execute this transformation, because
we can be the model. This awareness helps us push to be better. We’re testing
and experimenting with strategies that can be replicated.”
9s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
believes in the power of partnering, as a structural and
marketing option that could breathe new awareness
and vitality into the public media “product.” He’s referring
not only to the well-respected cultural and educational
institutions in the area, like Stanford University or the
de Young Museum. He’s talking about unconventional
partners, like the San Jose Mercury News. KQED’s newsroom
is strong. Can KQED fill the news gap, especially in
local and regional news, when fewer reporters from other
organizations are out there in the field? As a nonprofit,
KQED doesn’t threaten corporate news organizations, and
joining strengths might help create a more valuable service
and product. Boland is focusing the station on imaginatively
looking at what’s working in the marketplace and where
the audience is going — rather than hunkering down in the
silos and conventions of the public broadcasting past.
Of course the resource question looms large for KQED
as it does for every public media outlet. Working with
the board’s nominating committee, Anne has focused on
finding and recruiting skilled, committed people to KQED’s
board. Careful to emphasize the board’s governance role,
and distinguish that from management, Anne knows that
talent on the board can facilitate KQED’s strategic direction.
She has been working with John Boland to develop
KQED’s capital campaign and identify the philanthropy
that will address the resource question. Unpretentious,
earnest and compelling, Anne easily shares her mastery
of how each element of the public media financial and
programming infrastructure works in a complicated and
delicate equilibrium.
An ambassador for the station’s aspirations, Anne
outlines the campaign building blocks: expanding KQED’s
technology infrastructure; growing the capacity to create
new programs, especially in the news, arts, sciences and
Bay Area life; and expanding KQED’s footprint in tech-
nology education, at a time when the need to cultivate skills
at the intersection of teaching and technology is great. The
prospect of reaching these goals will really speak to some
donors, Anne knows, and will simply not resonate with
others. She serves as an unflagging, honest communicator
with those who might be capable of helping KQED make
strides on its key priorities.
“I’ve learned so much from doing this work,” Anne says.
“I had so much to learn, I needed advice and counsel. I
asked, I got it, I learned, and I keep learning. I like being
part of a mission-driven and educational institution at a
time of amazing change.
“I believe in the power of the best information and
storytelling to motivate and bring out the best in people. The
medium for the storytelling might change, but people are
hungry for the information, and they’ll find it. I hope there
will always be a demand for those institutions that create
quality news and the chance to learn more about your world.
They are powerful forces for good.”
by Cathleen Everett
10 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
11S P R I N G 2 0 1 5
Discovery: A Personal Model, a Business Model
Genentech’s business is discovery. Genentech wants to
be “the leading biotechnology company, using human
genetic information to discover, develop, manufacture and
commercialize medicines to treat people with serious or
life-threatening medical conditions.”
For example, Ashley points to Genentech’s drug
Herceptin, a treatment for metastatic breast cancer, as “the
fi rst personalized medicine.” Drugs like Herceptin are
now commonly called targeted therapies; they can be
eff ective if and when a person’s breast cancer cells have a
certain genetic composition. Today, genetic testing of
a patient’s cancer cells drives certain decisions about what
treatment regimens may be most eff ective. Herceptin helped
lead that pivotal shift in responding to certain diagnoses.
A competitive cyclist and hard-core skier whose early
post-college years played out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
Ashley would not have predicted her work world today. Still,
as she points out, some of her earliest memories of childhood
do seem predictive, at least in hindsight.
One of her earliest and happiest memories was of getting
lost on her bike with two neighbors. Prowling around in
unknown terrain had a certain high tension to it. With
no one looking for them or at them, they were free and
mobile on their wheels; they discovered a dead mouse
in an alley. “What wasn’t to love about that adventure?”
Ashley summarizes. “We had freedom, and we discovered
something we could examine right up close, with sticks
and tools at hand.”
Ashley, who loved math, ran into a crisis when she moved
from Denver, Colorado, to Franconia, New Hampshire.
For two full years, the Franconia schools did not introduce
her to any math she hadn’t already learned in Denver.
That deprivation only fed an aggressive appetite, and when
she got to Milton, Ashley “dove into the deep end.” She
devoured math and science regardless of whether she was
formally “ready” for the levels she chose.
At Penn, she took advantage of many diff erent science
programs, all over the world, like a semester of marine
biology in Australia. She majored in ecology and
environmental science, “but that didn’t feel right as a
career,” she says. So she put off fi nding a career and joined
the many highly educated skiers living and working in
A B O V EMolecule Building Set, photo courtesy Ferm Living.
Last December, Ashley Fouts moved away from a lab bench. That is, away from her
own lab bench. At Genentech, she began a new job keeping track of a molecule
and the teams working on it. As a project manager, she facilitates the myriad decisions
that are necessary to turn breakthrough science at the bench into life-changing
drugs for patients.
Ashley Fouts ’94
c a s e t w o A S H L E Y F O U T S ’ 9 4
a Business Model
Genentech’s business is discovery. Genentech wants to
be “the leading biotechnology company, using human
genetic information to discover, develop, manufacture and
commercialize medicines to treat people with serious or
Last December, Ashley Fouts moved away from a lab bench. That is, away from her
own lab bench. At Genentech, she began a new job keeping track of a molecule
and the teams working on it. As a project manager, she facilitates the myriad decisions
that are necessary to turn breakthrough science at the bench into life-changing
drugs for patients.
Ashley Fouts ’94
A Personal Model, a Business Model
Last December, Ashley Fouts moved away from a lab bench. That is, away from her
own lab bench. At Genentech, she began a new job keeping track of a molecule
and the teams working on it. As a project manager, she facilitates the myriad decisions
a Business ModelA Personal Model, a Business Model
12 M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E � � �gene.com��� �facebook.com/Genentech�� �@genentech
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her timing was fortuitous.
The CEO of a biotech fi rm located in La Jolla, California,
bought a Jackson Hole company and hired local people
to work in his lab, sequencing DNA. “Five of us worked
from 3 p.m. until midnight, after skiing all day,” Ashley
says. “This is where I learned the basics of molecular
biology.” This is also where she discovered how much she
loved working at the lab bench. “The physicality of it,
building something with my hands, literally running from
the centrifuge to the bench — ‘I really like this,’ I thought.”
When two Ph.D. friends left the lab for research at Emory,
Ashley decided to explore graduate programs herself. She
began at Stanford in the biology department but the search
for research that met her own defi nition of excitement led
to Stanford’s microbiology and immunology department.
“Microbiology is actually comparable to ecology, in that
it’s about a pathogen and a host, and all those interactions,
at a molecular level.”
“You’re in the deep end,” Ashley comments about
research leading to a Ph.D. “The intense problem solving,
continually motivating yourself to ‘build and scale brick
walls’; then fi guring out what the next ‘wall’ should be,
building it yourself, and getting over that one as well was
rigorous. You develop problem-solving skills, and more
than anything, a core of self-motivation.”
“My advisor was fantastic,” Ashley says. “His methodol-
ogy and focus were similar to Dr. Eyster’s at Milton,” Ashley
remarks. “He taught me to ask the questions that would
disprove my hypothesis, and ask them as soon as
possible. Ask them fi rst, if you can. Researchers tend to
ask questions that would prove, rather than disprove, a
hypothesis, because doing the opposite is hard. Sometimes,
in the end, people catch what’s missing, but not always.
There’s a reason why so much of the scientifi c literature
that is published today just doesn’t hold up.”
“A really good scientist develops,” Ashley says. “It’s like
cooking: you have this intuition about what you can and
can’t do, but it’s building on experience that really matters
and enables your skills to grow.”
Having earned her Ph.D., developed a body of work
“that held up,” as Ashley describes it, and worked on
a post-doc project, Ashley moved from academia to join
Genentech’s new program in infectious diseases. She
worked on CMV (cytomegalovirus), a common human
virus that typically does not become symptomatic.
However, if a woman becomes infected with the virus for
the fi rst time during pregnancy, the virus passes to the
fetus. Babies infected in utero can be severely compromised,
developing symptoms that include hearing loss and
mental retardation. The virus is also very dangerous for
immunosuppressed individuals.
“Developing a drug to treat CMV in pregnant women
seemed both noble and important,” Ashley thought, and
trying to achieve that was consistent with Genentech’s
“The physicality of it, building something with my hands, literally running from the centrifuge to the
bench — ‘I really like this,’ I thought.”
13s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
mission. Ashley was using her training to address basic
research questions like, “How does the virus enter a cell?”
But what differentiated her work at Genentech from that
at Stanford were the other questions that occupied so much
of her time. Who are the patients we want to treat? What
type of drug might be safest for them? Could such a drug
work on CMV? What would a clinical trial look like to
test whether it works?
In the end, the decision on Ashley’s molecule was a
“no go.” The clinical path involved too many hurdles; the
sum of the barriers put the project out of reach. But the
rigorous review that led to that negative finding had an
alluring appeal: “I got to see all these fun decisions,” Ashley
says, “a strategic side of the process, wholly dependent
on the science of course, but at a higher level.” It led her to
take on an intense new internship at Genentech, testing
her aptitude and inclination to help lead at the crucial
intersection of science and strategy.
As a result, the whirling set of “as-yet-unknowns” that
orbit around the development of any drug are now Ashley’s
home base. Her deep, tested knowledge of science is vital,
and her role is to help teams work together to craft the bigger
picture beyond individual perspectives.
She is a project manager, one of roughly 50 people in a
field of 1,200 researchers; she is part of the Portfolio
Management and Operations (PMO) group at Genentech.
Project managers help “pull everything together,” as
Ashley says, on the 30 molecules currently under
development at Genentech. “Each molecule has its own
devoted teams: pharmacology, clinical, biomarker,
core, and technical development (manufacturing). Project
managers tend to work on more than one molecule,
thus gaining exposure in diverse disease areas.
“I’ll be helping the teams make the best decisions on
their molecule, bringing experts from all different
functions together and holding team members accountable
for their contributions.”
“Once again, I acted opportunistically and followed a
passionate interest,” Ashley muses, having now taken on
the work of discovery both literally and metaphorically.
“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘How does this make sense,’
having left the physical lab bench where I was so thrilled
to be?”
“Well, I’m exploring a different sort of ecology,” she
says, naming a concept that wraps the present and the
past tidily. “You can compare a company to an organism,
and in my new role I smooth the interactions between
the distinct parts of the company.” The best memory of
a 7-year-old lost on her bike may go one better to explain
where Ashley is now: the thrill of being lost, the rigor
of real evidence, the power of shifting perceptions, the
diligent pursuit of a new path.
by Cathleen Everett
A b O v EDnA on parade. Photo © Genentech, via flickr.com.
15s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
c a s e t h r e e
Six years ago, David was working for a private equity firm
and Evisu was one of the portfolio companies. According
to David, Evisu was “grossly mismanaged and the brand
had lost its identity.” David saw promise in the company
and tried to convince his firm’s founders to keep investing,
but they wanted to sell.
“Even though the company was on the verge of bank-
ruptcy, I felt confident that my plan could turn the company
around. So I organized a management buyout. I mortgaged
my mom’s house and used all my savings. I basically put all
my eggs in one basket and everyone thought I was crazy,
but these opportunities are rare.”
The Evisu brand, named after the Japanese god of
prosperity, was founded in 1991 in Japan. At the time, Levi’s
was selling their original shuttle loom machines, which they
no longer considered efficient. Evisu bought the looms and
became part of the vintage heritage denim movement that
took off in the ’90s. The brand expanded quickly and globally,
but it began to flounder in the 2000s. One of the first deci-
sions David made when he took over was to exit the U.S. and
European markets and retrench the business back to Asia.
“We thought there was a huge opportunity in the
China markets, where our consumers really embrace the
brand. I felt it was the right way to reposition the company
for growth. At the time, it was a one-step backward,
two-step forward strategy. We wanted to figure out what the
brand stands for and what we are trying to communicate
to consumers.”
Within one year of David’s leadership, Evisu went from
five years of red ink to operating in the black, cutting
expenses from $12 million annually to $4 million. Instead of
offering 1,000 different products per seasonal collection,
David’s team cut down to 400. Today, Evisu has 120 stand-
alone stores in Asia. They are mainly concentrated in
China, including a five-story concept store in Hong Kong
filled with art and a mixology bar.
“Selling the lifestyle of the brand, instead of just focusing
on ‘please buy us,’ is important,” says David. “A consumer
who wears Evisu appreciates art, challenges the status quo,
and wants to self-express in a unique way. Our customers
appreciate the more irreverent and humorous elements of
the brand.”
Everyone has a favorite pair of jeans. Whether it’s a worn pair that has seen better
days or a designer pair that fits just right, jeans are a personal wardrobe staple.
David Pun’s jeans are works of art. He is the enthusiastic chairman and CEO of Evisu,
a Japanese lifestyle fashion brand best known for producing jeans with high-quality
craftsmanship, vintage buttons and hand-painted details.
D A v I D P u N ’ 9 9
David Pun ’99
All imagery courtesy Evisu.
recraft a Company to Create a lifestyle brand
16 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E evisu.com facebook.com/evisu @evisu1991
There were certainly missteps along the road. David was
initially very cost conscious, he explains, and didn’t hire
a full team. Now he feels that slowed the turnaround.
Because he doesn’t have a fashion background, he believed
that hiring international design talent would be more
effective; over time he learned that design talent in Asia is
strong. And his initial China business partner was not
the best choice, but financial pressure led him to rush into
certain deals that in hindsight he would have managed
differently. Now that the business is stabilized and it’s a
“reasonably strong” franchise, David’s next move is figuring
out how to reenter the U.S. market.
“What I like most about what I do is being an effective
and motivating leader for my team and my peers,” says
David. “Fostering the right culture and having people who
are passionate and work closely together to achieve the
same goal is important. It’s a very different environment
from my finance days. In the creative world, the rewards
aren’t all financial.”
David is energetic; his life is fast-paced. Four months
each year he travels to stores, visiting anonymously to
observe consumers in action. In his downtime, he enjoys
racing cars at the racetrack and playing squash. As a
student and squash player at Milton, David was hugely
influenced by former coach and beloved faculty member
Frank Millet.
“When I was a student, he was a grandfather figure to
me on and off the squash courts,” says David, who
affectionately calls him FDM. “I apply what I learned from
him subconsciously in my work — lead by example, roll
up your sleeves and get to work. I once saw FDM fixing a
clogged toilet at the squash courts! Another time after
“Fostering the right culture and having people who are passionate and
work closely together to achieve the same goal is important. It’s a very
different environment from my finance days. In the creative world,
the rewards aren’t all financial.”
17s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
a match, he was the last person there, picking up the trash
all the students had left behind — their wrappers, their
drinks. He could easily have had someone else do it, but he
was doing it himself, and that moment stayed with me. I
learned there are no shortcuts. Everyone has to do their
time; put in the hard work and the hard work will pay off.”
David embraces the challenges of running a company
in the hypercompetitive retail market. He balances ambition
with pragmatic business sense, striving to keep a creative
element in his commercial enterprise.
“When you take a risk like this, a lot of naysayers
challenge your thought process or your strategy. When we
exited the U.S. market, industry people said it was going
to be the end of Evisu: ‘You don’t know what you are doing,
you are a finance guy!’ But that’s the beauty of not having
a fashion industry background, because I think differently.
I ask a lot of questions, talk to many different people, and
do my research. But at the end of the day I stick with my gut
instinct. Obviously, you have to be realistic and listen to
what people say, but at the same time, you have to dare to
challenge the norm, be confident in yourself and use your
best judgment.”
by Liz Matson
18 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E spacex.com facebook.com/spacex @spacex
Headed for Mars, On Schedule
c a s e f o u r r yA N S E b A S t I A N ’ 0 6 A N D H A r r y O ’ H A N l E y ’ 0 6
Ryan Sebastian and Harry O’Hanley, graduates in the Class of 2006 who were also
Class IV roommates in Goodwin, are among the designers, engineers and fabrication
specialists working on breakthrough aeronautics at the massive SpaceX headquarters
in Hawthorne, California. Ryan and Harry are immersed — for many intense hours
every day — in the design and operations of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Reaching beyond
what many of us may have considered the outer limits of human capability fills them
with enviable energy and purpose. This conversation with Ryan and Harry sheds some
light on the whys and hows of their lives with rockets today.
Were you the prototypical little guys shooting rockets off in empty fields while you were growing up? ryan: Definitely. I was always into rockets. My uncle
introduced me to rockets and I built them in my parents’
garage and launched them in the park fields nearby. I
couldn’t get enough; as I grew, so did my interest. I applied
rocketry to as many school science projects as I could
and kept flying bigger rockets in bigger fields. I found
rockets fascinating then and still do today. In terms of
engineering and design, rockets travel further and faster
than anything else man-made.
harry: Not at all. I really stumbled into this work. I was
always interested in engineering but had no intention
of going into aerospace. In fact, the beginning was hard,
because my background was not in aerospace.
A b O v E Portrait photos by Martin Berman.
O P P O S I t EPhotos courtesy SpaceX.
When did working on rockets become mainstream academic work? At Milton? ryan: At Milton. Mr. Gagnon, in particular, was totally
onboard with my investigation and exploration of rocketry.
Whenever I spent time away from Milton, I was building
rocket motors and developing solid propellants at home.
When it came time for my senior project, with Amanda
Brophy and Kathryn Evans, I designed, built and launched
an 11-foot, 85-pound rocket to an altitude of 1.5 miles.
I attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for
college, where I majored in mechanical engineering with
an aerospace concentration. WPI had few institutionally
supported explorations in rocketry. Contrary to what I
expected, I had more support and encouragement at Milton
than at WPI. The projects I was involved with waned
while I completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Ryan Sebastian ’06 and Harry O’Hanley ’06 of SpaceX are designing and executing breakthrough aeronautics.
19s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
SpaceX on a Need-to-Know basislocations SpaceX Headquarters Hawthorne, California
launch and landing sites Cape Canaveral, Florida (launch pad 39A, site of Apollo rocket launches); Vandenberg Air Force Base, California; and South Texas
rocket-development facility McGregor, Texas
Offices Houston, Texas; Chantilly, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle, Washington
founder Elon Musk, entrepreneur whose other companies include zip2, PayPal, SolarCity and Tesla Motors
when it expects to have a fully certified, human-rated launch escape system incorporated into the spacecraft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
“As of February 17, 2015, SpaceX has completed 17 back-to-back successful missions on its Falcon 9 rocket.”
“Profitable and cash-flow positive, SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on its manifest, representing more than $5 billion in contracts. The SpaceX customer base is diverse, including space station resupply missions, commercial satellite launch missions, and U.S. government science and national security missions.” www.spacex.com
what is spacex? Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. More than 3,500 employees work at SpaceX on this effort. www.spacex.com
In December 2008, SpaceX won a nASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract. SpaceX will fly a minimum of 12 cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) for nASA; and in the near future SpaceX will carry crew as well. SpaceX is planning its first crewed Dragon/Falcon 9 flight in 2017,
20
vision Elon Musk believes that our becoming inter- planetary is the next key step in evolutionary life. If something is important enough to figure on the scale of evolution, he asserts, it’s worth our commitment and our resources.
“The lessons of history would suggest that civilizations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far — the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline. Given that this is the first time in 4.5 billion years where it’s been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we’d be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/17/elon-musk-mission-mars-spacex
firsts First privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit on September 28, 2008
First privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) on December 8, 2010
First private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station on May 25, 2012
“It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010. The company made history again in May 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft attached to the International Space Station, exchanged cargo payloads, and returned safely to Earth — a technically challenging feat previously accomplished only by governments. Since then Dragon has delivered cargo to and from the space station multiple times, providing regular cargo resupply missions for nASA.” www.spacex.com
products Falcon 9: two-stage launch vehicle, designed from the beginning to be reusable and carry crew.
Falcon Heavy: heavy-lift launch vehicle, designed from the beginning to carry humans into space. Restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the Moon or Mars.
Dragon: a free-flying spacecraft designed to deliver both cargo and people into orbiting destinations.
“To control quality and costs, SpaceX designs, tests and fabricates the majority of its components in-house, including the Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco rocket engines used on the Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft. This has helped SpaceX to offer one of the lowest launch prices in the industry and to significantly reduce conventional rocket development time.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
s p a c e x o n a n e e d - t o - k n o w b a s i s , c o n t .
21s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
harry: I knew engineering was my thing, but rockets just
weren’t part of the picture for me early on. My undergrad
work at MIT concentrated on mechanical engineering. I
returned to MIT and got my master’s in nuclear engineering.
How did you get started, professionally?ryan: I started my career at Raytheon Missile Defense
Systems but at the advice of one of my WPI professors
began looking for a job in rocket propulsion to align my
career with my interests and get more involved in rocketry
as I had been before WPI. I moved to California to work
on solid rocket motors at Aerojet, where many space and
defense propulsion systems are built. Aerojet primarily
sells solid propellant systems in which the oxidizer and
fuel are premixed — cast and cured into a physical solid
contained within a chamber. Using a propellant that’s in
place and ready to be ignited when you need it has a
practical advantage in military situations. These motors
are very similar to what I was making in my garage.
At Aerojet, I led several teams working on different
projects. I enjoyed learning how to motivate people,
translate expectations, keep stakeholders and engineers
happy, and at the same time gain insight into solid
propulsion system designs. Although the technical work
was fascinating, the exposure to the business model
of the defense industry made me turn toward SpaceX.
harry: I interned at SpaceX in 2011, left to go to graduate
school, then returned to SpaceX in 2013. I’ve always
worked for SpaceX.
What are your days like at SpaceX?ryan: I am the Falcon 9 Second Stage Build Engineer.
[Falcon 9 is the two-stage rocket designed to launch
satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit.] I connect
the build processes to the design and make sure we are
meeting the engineering intent in the physical rocket. The
h e a d e d f o r m a r s , o n s c h e d u l e , c o n t .
“At SpaceX there are clear goals, a ‘get it done’ attitude, and a persistent desire
to do better from all aspects, all while not throwing cost out the window.”
production “The SpaceX factory is vast and employs 3,000 people but is remarkably clean, bright and quiet. Technicians are casually dressed in shorts or jeans, sneakers or sandals. One group checks on a Falcon 9 launch system; across the corridor another works on protective fairings to encase cargo; a few yards from that a guy with goggles produces spare parts from a 3-D printer; in a sealed lab next door colleagues with hairnets and blue coats inspect equipment for a launch later this year, the company’s third supply mission for nASA.
“The factory exudes Silicon Valley’s no-fuss ethos, a streamlined contrast to nASA bureaucracy and bloat . . . . SpaceX’s focus on reusable technology has slashed costs — the company says it can get an astronaut to the space station for $20 million, versus $70 million charged by Russia for a seat on a Soyuz rocket. SpaceX is testing reusable prototype rockets that can return to Earth intact, rather than burn up in the atmosphere. If successful, rockets could be reused like aeroplanes, cutting the price of a space mission to just $200,000, for fuel.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/17/elon-musk-mission-mars-spacex
sourceswww.spacex.com
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/ the-elon-musk-interview-on-mars
www.theguardian.com/technology/ 2013/jul/17/elon-musk-mission-mars-spacex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX
O P P O S I t E Photos courtesy SpaceX.
22
teams need to be in continual communication to make
sure that the parts we’re building meet the design needs
and that those build processes are always improving.
harry: In terms of a position, I’m a Falcon 9 First Stage
Responsible Engineer. My job is to design and develop
the first-stage propulsion systems and provide launch
support. I can be at the design phase of the design operations
ladder or actually be driving the launch vehicle — that is,
on the console, in mission control, monitoring the rocket,
in Hawthorne or Cape Canaveral. There are plenty of
interesting engineering problems, and working all the
way along the ladder is great.
Can you talk about some of the challenges?ryan: Integrating myself into the liquid propellant rocket
world: Familiarizing myself with the rocket as a system
has been challenging but an excellent learning experience.
Ever-growing responsibility and insight in all aspects of
the rocket and SpaceX’s business tools are both a challenge
and an opportunity at SpaceX.
harry: Every person at SpaceX has an uncommon,
probably unrivaled, amount of freedom and responsibility
from day one. I enjoy that. When your work involves
operating systems you need to make decisions in real time,
like during the launch campaign.
How does the reality of your job compare with what “outsiders” might think your job involves?ryan: People might not realize the level of detailed work
that is involved in every aspect of the vehicle. Every
item goes through design and analysis before it is built,
inspected and tested. The reality of the job is managing
the minute details to make sure that the components and
vehicle are ultimately successful.
harry: The schedule at SpaceX is very impressive. We
turn things around at a fast speed. You go from concept to
seeing something “real” quickly. Typically, we complete
things on the order of days, rather than months or years,
as in some businesses.
What do you draw upon from your personal tool kit most often?ryan: My interest in searching for the root cause of an
outcome, the driver behind a result. I learned to investigate
and understand issues while building and flying amateur
rockets; any outcome would be the result of the level of
detailed thinking I did beforehand. Because of that experi-
ence, I enjoy digging into the details of systems and problems.
harry: Operations necessarily generate huge data sets.
They’re complex. You need to form an understanding
quickly, about what happened or what is about to happen.
You need a fundamental understanding of the system to
do this. I’ve always been good at forcing myself to dig deep
and understand the system I’m working on so that I can
intrinsically know what’s going on.
What do you love most about your work now?ryan: Besides being able to work on rockets? The
environment: At SpaceX there are clear goals, a “get it done”
attitude, and a persistent desire to do better from all
aspects, all while not throwing cost out the window. There’s
a confidence that we can and will accomplish things that
haven’t been done before. It’s fast-paced, collaborative, and
people are excited. I love coming into work and being
surrounded by people so passionate every day.
harry: It’s the freedom and responsibility tension that I
like the most. It gives me the sense that I control my own
destiny. I work on high-tech Falcon rockets and having direct
responsibility on the vehicle does it for me. Some cool stuff
is going on here that isn’t going on elsewhere. There’s lots of
responsibility throughout SpaceX; it’s a unique company.
We’re involved in the next frontier.
by Cathleen Everett
h e a d e d f o r m a r s , o n s c h e d u l e , c o n t .
“Operations necessarily generate huge data sets. They’re complex. You
need to form an understanding quickly, about what happened or what is
about to happen.”
M I lt O N M A G A z I n E spacex.com facebook.com/spacex @spacex
23s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
c a s e f i v e l A M O N t g O r D O N ’ 8 7
Buoyed by an admission brochure and encouragement from his father,
Lamont applied and earned a full scholarship. Move-in day was the first
time he set foot on Milton’s campus. “Milton was a great opportunity for me,
but it was also my only opportunity,” he says. “I had no options at home.
Milton changed the trajectory of my life.”
Today, Lamont is professionally dedicated to educational access and
equity. He discovered the Posse Foundation while working at Brown, his
alma mater, helping to scale up the university’s impact on public education.
The Posse Foundation helps young people — many of whom would be
overlooked by traditional admission processes — attend some of the
country’s top colleges and universities. “I was impressed with the mission,
the model and the outcomes,” he says. “The program was perfectly in line
with my career interests and goals.”
Posse has partnerships with 51 top-tier colleges and universities,
and places 10 students each year into each entering class of
schools like Dartmouth, UVA, Boston University,
Tulane, Cornell and Wesleyan. The name
“Posse” refers to the linchpin of
the program’s success.
Growing up in Washington, D.C., son of a single father,
Lamont Gordon ’87 attended seven different schools
through eighth grade. Most of his family didn’t graduate
from high school; no one had gone to college. When
he discovered Milton through a summer enrichment
program, boarding school was an unknown concept.
Lamont Gordon ’87
the Power of a
24 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E possefoundation.org facebook.com/possefoundation
A b O v EPhoto by Sheila Griffin.
P r E v I O u S PA g EPhoto by Akintola Hanif.
O P P O S I t EPhoto courtesy the Posse Foundation.
“The name and the model developed from student
feedback,” says Lamont. “Students need a network when
they’re leaving their own communities and transitioning
to these colleges and universities.”
Founder and president Deborah Bial earned a
MacArthur “Genius Grant” for the overwhelming success
of Posse’s cohort model and outstanding graduation rate.
Founded in 1989, Posse has helped place more than 6,200
young people and maintains a graduation rate of 90 percent.
Lamont began with Posse as director of the Boston office,
which serves about 300 students each year from the city’s
public schools. Eager to be part of the foundation’s strategic
direction, he became an associate vice president in January
2014, based at the national headquarters in New York City.
Posse’s partner schools commit to admitting the
selected cohort of students and providing a full scholarship
for each student, over four years. Posse recruits the
students, prepares them, and provides the support that
helps them succeed.
The foundation works from nominations from the
public school system and community-based organizations;
students are accepted into the program in December
of their senior year in high school. (In 2014, 700 students
were admitted from a pool of 16,000 nominees.) Posse’s
admission process pushes back on traditional admission
criteria, which are dominated by SAT scores. “We’re
not just looking for academically talented students, we’re
looking for leaders,” says Lamont. “We’re looking for
students who work well with a team, communicate well,
are strategic thinkers, and who will bring those skills to
campus and to the workforce. The best way for us to assess
these qualities is to see them in action.”
The program achieves that observation and selection
through their Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP). During
the DAP, students problem solve during activities large
and small, which allows them to showcase their qualitative
skills. Evaluators walk around the room, observing,
taking careful notes. After a second round of traditional
interviews, students rank their top three school choices.
By accepting a spot in a posse, students effectively enter
25s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
into an early decision agreement.
Once admitted to the program, Posse Scholars partici-
pate in weekly workshops on team building, leadership
development, cross-cultural communication, and academic
awareness from January until August, preparing for the
transition to campus. They anticipate and discuss the
challenges ahead and figure out how to access resources.
“Posse is an asset-based organization,” says Lamont.
“We focus on our students’ strengths. When students say,
‘I can’t do this,’ we say, ‘Yes you can.’ They may not be used
to hearing that message, but they internalize it. Posse is
a merit-based scholarship. Kids are here because they’re
smart, driven, accomplished students with great potential
and strong academic backgrounds, well prepared, and
with every right to be there.
“We’re not simply a diversity program, but that’s part
of what schools are looking for. They also partner with
us because they know our scholars are going to graduate,
and they’re looking for leaders who are going to be active,
contributing members of their campuses.”
These days, Lamont is expanding several key initiatives
from Posse’s recent strategic plan. Those include the
foundation’s career and alumni programming, graduate and
fellowship opportunities, and the new veterans initiative.
“Posse Scholars graduate and become leaders in the
workforce, so we want to help them think about long-term
goals as soon as they enter the program,” says Lamont.
“Our model is based on partnering with undergraduate
institutions, but we have affiliations with some top graduate
programs as well. We want to create a culture where
students know about fellowship opportunities and they
know they have access to them. We learned that 40 percent
of Posse alumni were pursuing or had earned graduate
degrees two years after college, but many were not going
to top-tier programs. We want to help students see
themselves as eligible and then help position them well.”
Posse’s Veterans Program leverages the cohort model
to serve post-9/11 military veterans looking to earn
bachelor’s degrees at top schools. Vassar was the first
school to admit a Veterans Posse; Wesleyan was next,
and Dartmouth committed in 2014. Posse is applying its
cohort model — which has been successful with younger
students for 25 years — to a new population with very
different needs. Lamont oversees a team that is working
to help build a strong nomination network, and gain
a foothold in veterans’ community programs and the
military’s transition services. They are thinking through
what a “posse” means for 20- and 30-year-olds, some with
families of their own.
Posse operates in nine cities across the country and is
opening its tenth site in San Francisco this year. Not only
is Posse changing life opportunities for students, but it’s
also stimulating changes in the way colleges approach
evaluating students for success. “The program is not just
about college access and graduating — it’s about looking
at the people running this country, and wanting to make
sure those decision makers represent the diversity of the
United States. When a 12th grader steps into that room, we
want to be able to determine whether she might one day
be running Citibank, spearheading medical research, or
starting a nonprofit. If so, we want to help her get there.”
by Erin Berg
26 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
a t m i l t o n t H E M E N t O r P r O g r A M
Mentors: Honest talk About teachingYou won’t catch Lydia Thorp walking. If she runs she can get where she needs to be
on campus, just barely. Lydia has taught Spanish at Milton since 2010, and she lives in
Millet House. Twice each week she also attends classes taught by new Milton faculty
members. She sits alongside students taking Spanish III with José Benítez-Meléndez;
and she leans on the art tables with students in the Drawing course that Jenny Hughes
teaches. Each week Lydia also meets with José and with Jenny separately, so they can
talk about what she observed.
Chiseled out of schedules that are famously tight, a new
mentoring program links eight veteran Milton teachers
with 14 teachers new to the School for work over several
years. In year one, they spend their most significant time
observing one another and reflecting on what they see.
Launched this year, Milton’s Mentor Program
deliberately creates a non-evaluative space for new faculty
to ask questions, talk honestly about teaching, and learn
about the School.
a WEEK’s ChroniClEJosé’s smile is as wide as the classroom door; he greets
each of his students in Spanish, with a separate comment.
The moment they’re seated he moves them into a discussion,
completely in Spanish, about travel and vacations. Through
quick “Q&A,” reacting and playing off their answers, José
records words, phrases, concepts. His follow-up questions
generate more — about logistics, people, what happens at
the airport. Once their web of words consumes the
whiteboard space, José sets up a quiz game. Teams of
three: two kids sit facing the class; a third stands, facing his
teammates. The standing team member must give apt
enough clues (in Spanish, of course) that his teammates
successfully guess a particular word. The clock is ticking.
Teammates rotate sitting and standing. Five teams of
three keep the game hopping. One team will ultimately win.
The students are invested — anticipating their own team’s
turn; watching the cues; guessing the right word; keeping
track of the score. José closes the class with a worksheet.
The pulse of the class never falters.
Lydia watches, smiles, take notes continually. Using
a chart, she tracks the progress and timing of elements
within the class (travel vocabulary build-out; quiz game
gamble; worksheet closure). She records José’s techniques,
his interaction with students (who speaks, how often,
who doesn’t). She notes how students arrange themselves
in the room: Can José connect visually with each student?
She and José have already discussed his objective for
this class, so she notes what happens compared to what
he had planned. In follow-up classes, José plans to build
organically toward the grammar and usage complexity
involved in the concepts they launched together today.
“I’ve always looked for feedback,” José says. “I like
concrete facts. They give me constructive feedback; general
comments do not. For instance, I’d like comments about
my writing on the board, how I communicate the definition
of a word, the pace of the class, to what extent students were
involved, and did the material and the activities vary enough.
“I want feedback from students as well,” he says. “I’m
impressed at Milton’s willingness to get students’ feedback.
I’d like to know what they think of the homework, whether
they like the stories we’re reading, whether the pace of the
course is okay. They might tell me, for instance, ‘It’s okay for
honors; a little fast for non-honors level.’”All photos by John Gillooly.
27s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
28 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
“Getting to know the academic culture of the School, the
expectations within this environment — mentors can help,”
Lydia explains. “Going into this, I anticipated explicitly
observing teaching and learning. Often other things come
up too, part of teachers’ daily lives that affect their teaching,
assumptions you don’t realize you make if you’ve worked
here for a while. For instance, what it means to live in the
dorm and interact with students day and night; or comment
writing; or particular idiosyncracies of the Milton schedule.
“José planned the vocabulary lesson to stage his teaching
of the grammar,” Lydia explains. “His methodology is
more organic, whereas I use a kind of ‘equation’ format to
help kids understand grammar. It will be interesting for
both of us to see which students respond to each of these
two approaches, as we observe one another over time. I
document what José’s process was, and I watch for a general
gauge of students’ reaction to the material and the process.
I take note, too, of whether any kids drifted off into their own
conversations, and how consistently they seemed to focus
on what was happening. Clearly, doing this with José makes
me reflect intensely on my own practice.”
Jenny Hughes is slight, relaxed and soft-spoken. Without
raising her voice, she owns every student’s attention as
she reviews the project they’ve undertaken. Each one is
developing a poster, an ad, a book or a DVD in Photoshop
for printing in large format. They work from an image, a
drawing or a photo (their own, or one they’ve found online);
they conceive a plan, then use attributes in Photoshop
to design an original treatment. It cannot be a reflection of
some other promotional material or image that already
exists. Students move from the art table to desktop
computers in the digital design lab. Some students are
Photoshop “pros”; some are Photoshop-phobic. Each
student dives in, and different types of individual requests
pop up quickly: One boy needs an explicit explanation;
someone else needs an approach to a technical problem;
another is looking for an interim critique. Jenny moves
around the room, responding calmly and thoroughly,
person by person. Regardless of a student’s starting place,
Jenny helps him or her gain the ground that makes an
independent follow-up step possible. One student, for
instance, was having trouble moving her drawing from her
email inbox to Photoshop so she could work with it. Jenny
ultimately got a camera and reshot the image, saved it to the
hard drive where the student was working, and helped
her browse to find it and move it into Photoshop. Students
ask one another for help as well. They all seem to know
who can help with what. Their project choices are diverse:
a poster advertising an NFL game; a highway sign to
advertise a movie; a book cover designed around the profile
images of the characters; and an ad for Planet of the Apes,
creating a visual treatment from a tiny element of the
original promotion. In one class, Jenny needed to be an
unflappable resource, teaching general digital skills,
Photoshop application specialties, design considerations,
and artistic conceptualization.
Once Jenny had launched the class, Lydia walked around
the room, noting the number and pace and range of
questions from and responses to students. She observed the
designers at work, watching to see how each was making
progress independently. Lydia drew a “map” of the work
29s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
stations in the room and numbered the students so she
could keep track, for Jenny, of which students asked how
many and what kind of questions during class.
Like José, Jenny was eager for what Lydia’s observation
could bring to light. Boys asked fewer questions, it turned
out, although all the students wanted Jenny’s help, from the
experienced kids to the novices. The two teachers looked
at Lydia’s map and the patterns of interaction. “As a
department, we’re working on integrating art and tech-
nology,” Jenny says. “This project puts the two together,
and we’ll see how the differences in Photoshop familiarity
work out. Once we know, we can stay with this plan, or
consider giving students several smaller projects that build
to this larger one. Or, I could present Photoshop tools in
one class — how to add text, enlarge or size down, select and
erase color. Each person would have to learn quickly, but
at least everyone would have the basics when we started
the project.”
Lydia went on to ask Jenny about the status of her
advisees. They had been talking over the semester about
effective supportive steps for different students. They
rounded out their meeting by previewing the challenge of
Milton’s January schedule. “I know I’m always surprised
at how quickly we move from break, through to review, to
exams,” Lydia said, “and I thought you might want to
think about how the month would go.”
Observation is frequent and steady (at least once,
weekly) and the debriefing meetings follow at the same
rhythmic pace. Those logistics are one key element, and
new skills are another. Milton mentors reflexively start
observing by relying on how they have been observed
in the past, and that was mostly for their own evaluations,
Lydia explains. Training for the mentor team, which
happens both on and off campus, redefines observation.
“You need to begin with a clear understanding of what
a teacher’s specific objective is for a class,” Lydia says.
Natural tendencies to critique or praise, or both, need to be
refocused on a different kind of attention, recording and
reviewing. Mentors also learn about instructional coaching,
goal setting, diversity, and Milton’s recently crafted
“Principles of Teaching and Learning.”
“We learn so much from each other,” Lydia says
frequently. “Across disciplines, levels, vastly different
kinds of learners, and diverse teaching strategies,
the growth that goes on is absolutely reciprocal.” These
teachers seem to have a tactile feel for each other’s styles
and motivations, energy and ways of connecting with kids.
Their meetings give them insight into how a particular
person parses a teaching challenge and plans to approach
it. Each of them learns how that effort worked, in real
time. They can help one another be aware of the socio-
cultural issues active in teenagers’ lives, their fears, their
expectations about their own competencies, or how they
understand risk.
Observation by your colleagues is a luxury; teachers
know that. It’s also a nearly invaluable asset; a discrete
skill; and a powerful motivator for growth. The bonus,
when veteran and newer teachers observe one another, is
reciprocal growth. That was fully anticipated — now it’s
being fully appreciated.
by Cathleen Everett
José benítez-Meléndez earned his bachelor’s degree in Spanish education with minors in French and Italian from the University of Puerto Rico. José earned his master’s degree from Middlebury College in Mediterranean studies, Spanish, and Italian. José has tutored students in Florence, Italy; instructed kindergarteners in Romania; and, most recently, taught Spanish and lived in a dormitory at the Darrow School. José lives in Wolcott House.
Jennifer Hughes of the visual arts department earned her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and her master’s degree in printmaking from the University of Iowa. Since 2009 she has served as studio manager at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where she has also served as an instructor. Jennifer has taught at the Eliot School in Jamaica Plain; at Tufts University’s Experimental College; and at the Boston Architectural College. A practicing artist, she has held solo shows at Harvard University’s Holyoke Center Arcade Gallery and Roxbury Community College.
lydia thorp joined the Milton faculty in 2010. A graduate of Skidmore College, Lydia lived in Madrid for eight years before moving to Milton, and she served as an admission representative at the Madrid campus of Saint Louis University. Earlier in her career, Lydia taught Spanish, served as a dorm parent, and coached at the Westtown School in Pennsylvania.
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Engineering Solutions for a Species in Peril “Engineering is the future, and young people are primed to learn about it,”
says Phoebe Ryles, Milton’s Lower School woodworking teacher. “To
design and construct, children have to think through steps and decide
what should come next. You just need the right project to launch 8-year-
olds into this work.”
Inspired by a program on cutting-edge engineering
curriculum developed by the Museum of Science, Phoebe
leveraged the Grade 3 Monarch butterfly unit. Phoebe
charged her students with researching, designing,
building and installing a 4×8 foot raised planting bed —
a butterfly way station. With teachers Jane McGuinness
and Susan Wheelwright, third graders learn about
the Monarch’s life cycle; they raise butterflies from the
caterpillar stage and learn about habitat, diet, and
migration patterns.
In recent years, students also learn that Monarch
butterflies could become extinct, because their natural
habitat is being destroyed. Each year, migrating Monarchs
lay their eggs on abundant milkweed. Housing and
commercial development, as well as the increasing growth
of genetically modified corn, has decreased the wild
milkweed. An intercontinental movement is working at
placing way stations strategically, at points where the
butterflies can feed and lay their eggs. In building their
raised-bed way station and planting it with the right flora,
Milton students learned that they could help reverse the
decline in the Monarch population.
The third graders began by examining other raised
beds on campus and asking their own questions: How are
they joined at the corners? Are any weak or breaking? What
kind of lumber was used? Together, based on their research
and experience, the students design what they hypothesize
will work. Phoebe walks the children explicitly through
the Engineering Design Process — a five-stage course of
asking questions and solving problems: Ask, Imagine, Plan,
Create, Improve.
Students build models — several — and then test them.
They learn as much from the failed ideas as they do
from their success. From drawing plans on paper, they
move to cardboard models, to building “to scale” models.
Challenges are many, and often unexpected. “We’re
problem solving in real time, all the way through,” says
Phoebe. “For instance, if we run out of wood, we need
to reassess and come up with a new plan. I’m trying to
teach the children to be resourceful and think through
challenges. I tell them, ‘You made it, so you can fix it.’”
Children rely on concepts of fractions and
division — math above their grade level. When the time
comes to learn about division, they’re prepared and excited.
“These children gain confidence based on ability,”
says Phoebe. “Assembling and installing the raised bed
means manipulating — lifting, measuring, cutting — solid
2×12 boards. The students do the lifting on their own!
They figure out how to work together, and they feel capable,
because they are.”
a t m i l t o n I N t E r D I S C I P l I N A r y A C t I O N I N g r A D E 3
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i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y a c t i o n i n g r a d e 3 , c o n t .
Students need to apply what they’ve learned of life
science (keeping data, forming hypotheses) to this
engineering-math-woodworking collaboration. With
Spanish teacher Lucia Castineira, students learn the related
Spanish vocabulary and test it, connecting via Skype with
peers in Mexico — other young people committed to this
cause. Students use the Internet program Journey North
to track the butterflies’ migration north and south; they
keep track of current events; and they artistically express
what they’re learning in nature journals.
“We’re focused on extending and connecting lessons
throughout the year,” says Grade 3 teacher Jane McGuinness.
“Students bring in New York Times articles about the declining
Monarch population that they’ve found online with their
parents. On top of everything else, they’re using technology
well to help with their research.”
“Grit is a top predictor of success, and this is what they’re experiencing.
The physicality of woodworking makes it appealing and tangible. Creating a
concrete, practical product makes this learning real for [the students].”
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“This unit involves many academic skills, but it also
appeals to students’ character, persistence, desire to
do good,” says Phoebe. “Grit is a top predictor of success,
and this is what they’re experiencing. The physicality
of woodworking makes it appealing and tangible. Creating
a concrete, practical product makes this learning real
for them. Students love helping a creature they’ve come
to care about. We’re helping them develop great habits —
being good citizens, communicating, compromising
productively, and persevering in the face of challenge.”
by Erin Berg
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Hall of Famer Coach Mac Reaches 200 Career Winsby Liz Matson
s p o r t s
A perfect day for football. Cool and breezy with peeks of
sun. The last game of the season against rival Nobles
and Greenough. As always, Coach Kevin MacDonald, or
“Coach Mac,” is the first to arrive at the Robert Saltonstall
Gym — getting organized and filling water jugs. A man of
habits and rituals, he calls himself “obsessive compulsive.”
“I always sleep the night before, but before games, I’m
very nervous,” says Coach Mac, who was inducted into
the Massachusetts Football Coaches Association Hall of
Fame last spring. “The kids will tell you that I pace. I’m
always pacing. I feel that if I’m not nervous, they’re not
going to think it’s an important game.”
When the team takes the field, Coach Mac paces the
sideline, carrying his clipboard, his face set in concentration.
A win against Nobles would be the season’s highlight. And
this win would be Coach Mac’s 200th career win as a
football coach. A huge milestone in any coach’s career. The
players are amped up, knowing what is riding on this game.
As an undergraduate at College of the Holy Cross,
where he played hockey and football, Coach Mac knew
he wanted to be a teacher and a coach. His first job was
teaching English and history, and assistant coaching hockey
and football at Archbishop Williams High School in
Braintree, Massachusetts.
“I was lucky to work for Joe Crowley, a legendary
football coach,” says Kevin. “His theory is that football is
not complicated; it’s a simple game. He ran only four plays,
but the players always knew what they were doing. He
was very consistent. We went from being one of the worst
programs around to one of the best programs around.”
After two years, Coach Mac became head coach when
Coach Crowley retired. He continued winning at Archie’s
for 19 years before coming to Milton in 1996. He continued
the upward trajectory of the Milton football program that
his immediate predecessor, Joe Lang, had begun. He
also excelled in the classroom, and he still enjoys teaching
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When Justin Yoon ’15 first arrived at Milton in Class IV, his athletic focus was hockey. This spring, he graduates as one of the top-ranked high school football kickers in the country and will bring his talent to notre Dame. He will be the starting kicker for the Fighting Irish and a student in the Mendoza College of Business.
From nashville, Tennessee, Justin started playing football in eighth grade, after a middle school coach took notice of his soccer kicking skills. He pursued this kicking talent at summer football camps. His spot-on, long-range kicks added a new dimension to Milton football, and Justin credits Coach Mac for his support.
“He really trusts me, and that trust factor makes me believe in him, as he believes in me,” says Justin. “It’s not always easy to trust the kicker to get the job done. I respect Coach Mac for letting me do what I do and believing in me.”
Justin says one of his most memorable games was Milton’s 27–21 win over Lawrence Academy in his sophomore year, in which he blasted four successful field goals, the final one from an amazing 54 yards. These long kicks led to Justin being selected to play in the 2015 Under Armour All-American Bowl Game this past January. Justin was spot on and set records for most field goals made (three) and longest field goal made (47 yards) in the seven-year history of the bowl game.
A dedicated student, Justin’s work ethic is strong, both on and off the field. When he was injured in the season opener this year, Justin turned his focus to rehabilitating his injury, but he also spent hours mentoring Min Park ’17 to be Milton’s next kicker. Justin says although it was frustrating to miss five games this past season, he enjoyed what has always been his favorite part of Milton football: “Just spending time with the team and being around my friends on the field.” And when he was back in form for the last game against nobles, Justin capped off his Milton career with a 49-yard kick.
Justin Yoon ’15, a National Top Ranked Kicker
“You could be a great coach as far as wins and losses go, and not be a
great high school coach. A high school coach needs to be a good
role model. You should be teaching right from wrong. You should be helping to get students into
college. That’s why high school coaching is so rewarding.”
Expository Writing. It is telling of his coaching and teaching
that former players and students make up the majority of
his coaching staff.
The Mustangs are dominant in this Milton–Nobles game,
up 21–0 in the first half. Coach Mac, pacing, bellows across
the field: “Don’t relax! Do. Not. Relax!” His go-to phrases
both encourage and direct the action: “Dish it out, don’t take
it!” “Kick and stick!” and “Poison! Poison!” when he doesn’t
want a player to touch the ball. He compliments players and
notes sportsmanship as he sees it. In the last two minutes of
the game when Milton is up 40–7, Coach Mac finally releases
the tension in his face. The players can’t contain their
excitement over the win. When Coach goes out to shake the
Nobles coach’s hand, his players swarm him, shouting and
whooping, and Coach Mac’s smile is big and wide.
“Winning is important,” says Kevin. “That is your chief
goal. But you could be a great coach as far as wins and losses
go, and not be a great high school coach. A high school coach
needs to be a good role model. You should be teaching right
from wrong. You should be helping to get students into
college. That’s why high school coaching is so rewarding.”
When the season ends, Coach Mac is busier than ever.
First up is working with seniors and helping them through
the college process. Over the school year, roughly 100 college
football coaches visit Milton on recruiting trips. Coach
Mac handles this constant flow of visitors, maintaining an
important network. He also keeps tabs on the juniors as
they start their college plans. In the summer, he works at
various college football camps where he can “advocate for
our players.”
36
s p o r t s , c o n t .
Since Coach Mac shines the spotlight on his players rather than himself, we asked some Milton football alumni for their thoughts on Coach Mac. The stories poured in.
the Championship in ’14“I was the starting quarterback for three years and a senior captain under Coach Mac. Playing for Milton and Coach Mac was an honor. Before every game he would talk about the word ‘pride.’ Before Milton, that word didn’t mean much to me, but when I left it meant a whole lot. He taught me how to take pride in my studies, athletics and my day-to-day life. He strived for his players to be ‘good guys’ on campus and to do the little things — hold doors open for people, or thank the staff in Forbes. He was one of the most approachable people on campus, always willing to lend a hand and lead me in the right direction if I struggled with a class or any aspect of School life.
My greatest memory was winning the new England Championship my senior year. Winning it with Coach Mac was so gratifying, because our team had grown with him over my three years. We were a below average football team during my sophomore year, and one of the best in new England my senior year.” — anthony scurto ’14
this Milestone“Coach Mac was a fantastic coach and role model for me when I played fullback and linebacker. I learned about being a team player and challenging myself both on the field and in the classroom. I have wonderful memories of Milton and many are related to playing for Coach Mac from 2001 to 2005. He is a great coach, a great mentor, and most importantly a great person. He has had a huge influence on many young men who have graduated from Milton, and the 200th win is a testament to his dedication and commitment to players, present and past. An amazing milestone and well deserved.” — ryan fitzpatrick ’05
Coach Mac, year one“I had high expectations and a lot invested in Coach Mac’s inaugural season at Milton. My teammates were equally invested. With the 100th Milton–nobles game as the ’96 season headliner, nothing short of an undefeated season was acceptable to any player on the roster. Anticipation and curiosity took a hairpin turn toward concern during our first team meeting with Coach Mac when we learned that our balanced, offensive attack would be overhauled into a run-only offense, reminiscent of the Vince Lombardi days, when a pass was considered a trick play. Coach Mac didn’t give our concern an opportunity to fester. His actions made it clear that he had just as much riding on the ’96 season; our goals were aligned.
Coach Mac led with hard work, accountability, perseverance and pride, and the latter singularly defined our ’96 season. He dove in with his players, especially his seniors, taking an interest in all of their pursuits. He maximized his players’ ability with daily encouragement and unwavering support. Coach Mac naturally gravitated toward the tradition and rivalry at Milton Academy. He embraced and valued Herbert “Stokie” Stokinger, and made Stokie the focal point of the 100th Milton–nobles game.
To say that Coach Mac’s first season at Milton was a success is an understatement. not only did he lead the ’96 team to victory in the 100th Milton–nobles game, he also made good on an undefeated season and added a new England Championship for good measure. With Coach Mac, the lessons we learned on the field were as valuable as the lessons we learned in the classroom. On behalf of the ’96 team, and all his players, congratulations on a hall of fame coaching career and teaching excellence.” — alexi evriviades ’96
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the fundamentals“I was the running back in 2003 and 2004 when we went a combined 13–2–1. Coach Mac was not about trick plays or snazzy, spread offenses. He believed in fundamentals, doing your job, and simply being stronger, faster, and better prepared than the opposition.” — timothy daniels ’04
the Joy of the game“Coach Mac’s competitiveness and focus are matched by his integrity and desire to see his players succeed. He loves seeing his players get where they want to go, in football and in life. Mac always has a plan and a reason for what he is doing — a seemingly crazy drill or pre-game pep talk. It usually sets you up to succeed and to learn, which are often the same thing.
Coach Mac also has a ton of fun, and he instills the joy of the game in his players. He enjoys victories for the same reason players do. He gets pumped up, hates to lose, and can’t wait to get back to work for the next week.
Coach Mac doesn’t get caught up in the hype or the moment, and he embodies what he preaches: living up to your own best standards, keeping your word, never giving up, and working not just for yourself but also for those around you.
I feel honored to have spent time with him on the football field and to have had his guidance; and I would not be the person I am today had it not been for Coach Mac. He has a generous spirit and understands what truly brings satisfaction in life. It’s really great to recognize him for reaching this milestone. He deserves every accolade. He’s a legend.” — tom pilla ’02
a game of Emotion“I played tailback for Coach Mac from 1996 to 1999 and went on to play for Brown University. I was lucky enough to be a part of Coach Mac’s first Milton Academy team that went 8–0 and won the new England Championship. Coach Mac made it clear from day one that our goal was to be the number one team in the ISL. He brought a winning attitude. By the time we opened the season, he had instilled so much confidence in us that we felt unbeatable. Coach Mac told us that ‘football was a game of emotion.’ He used our emotion to motivate and inspire us. He played the underdog card to get us fired up for a big game, to inspire us to be our best and compete fiercely for ourselves, our families, our School and for each other.
We all loved and respected Coach Mac’s hard-nosed philosophy. no frills, finesse or trick plays, just old-fashioned man-on-man football. He demanded that we be the most fit team, and that often showed up in the fourth quarter of games. Coach Mac gave us a platform to be ourselves and to succeed in doing so. Down 20–0 at the half against Thayer (for the new England Championship), there was no panic in the locker room. We had been coached to respond to adversity and to dig deep. We won that game 21–20.
I learned so much from Coach Mac about the value of hard work, preparation, and an emotional commitment to the task at hand. Running into guys I played with and reliving some of the special moments is fun. I am excited for Coach Mac’s 200th win and proud to have been a small part of his legacy.” — leo evriviades ’99
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f a c u l t y p e r s p e c t i v e
Comebackby Jim Connolly, English faculty
Jim Connolly of the English department, who has taught creative writing at Milton since 1983, has long been a poet and writer of fiction. The textbook devoted to teaching poetry that Jim developed is unique in including students’ writing and commentary. He has shared this text with many educators — individual practitioners eager to maximize their effective ness in the discrete art of understanding teaching and teaching poetry. Jim’s poem, “Comeback,” is included in his recently published collection, Picking Up the Bodies. Jim is now at work on a novel.
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Rocco Francis Marchegiano:
I met him once. He shook my hand,
said “Nice to meet you, kid” and looked
away, money on his mind.
I was with his nephew. I said
“Nice to meet you, champ” and looked
away. I was sixteen,
my own hits and licks on my mind.
Our city’s legend retired
into a dull weight of fame —
overrated, underrated —
and death in 1969,
Newton, Iowa, a mangled plane.
His body flown home to Brockton,
to our family’s funeral home,
my grandfather buried him —
my father, the embalmer, touched him up.
In 1970, I went to Des Moines, Iowa
to teach and met Lowell Coburn,
the young undertaker who shipped Rocky’s corpse
back home to Brockton.
He lived next door. “Nice to meet you,”
he said. “Coincidence is what death can give us.”
And when I returned to Brockton,
a beaten-up place with window grates
on Main Street’s abandoned stores,
the steel defending against the nothing that is left,
I couldn’t find the signs of my
old hometown. At George’s Café,
one of the city’s last landmarks,
I walked through its rooms to study
all the newspaper clippings and photos hanging
on the restaurant’s walls.
I stalked each fight in search
of the city that was gone:
Below Rocky’s photos, Ali snaps a left
through the bloody mouth of Cooper,
and Hagler’s right cross clubs
the “Motor City Cobra’s” chin,
a right, that night, as right as right,
the “Hit Man’s” legs collapsing,
his eyes on queer street,
that bewildered look that takes me
back to the rings and heavy bags
of my youth, all the bad words,
the punches given and taken.
They come back to me like letters
through a chute, the forgotten words
of a boy who learned the lessons
that each fist delivered: fight
to the death, be willing to die
on each street corner,
every win and defeat another notch
in a reputation that tells you
who you are —
I was a dumb kid,
I say to myself, who has grown old and dumb,
neither embarrassed by it nor proud of it —
we were boys who grew up in our fists.
And, today, I wonder what Rocky would say
about The Brockton Enterprise’s front page news,
the heroin addiction infecting our city,
the headlines spreading across the country,
the White House announcing
the match between the government
and the bad batch of stuff
that’s killing our city’s immigrants
in staggering numbers, the newspapers recording
each day’s deaths like judges scoring the rounds
of a one-sided fight.
And I remember my grandfather
chalking the names of the deceased on his blackboard,
the posting of the wakes and funerals.
I stare Rocky down once more.
Hanging high above the other boxers,
his right arm is raised in victory,
and that right hand, famous,
now, and then, is always
coming back to me, heroic
in that night of near defeat against Walcott,
our champ coming back in the thirteenth round,
that right smashing into Jersey Joe’s jaw,
a bullet in a bolt that locks shut —
what we had and can never get back.
40 M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E � � �milton.edu��� �facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798�� �@MiltonAcademy
i n s i g h t
BeatnikNanseera Wolff , Class IV, Robbins House. Photo by Michael Dwyer.
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o n c e n t r e
John P. Reardon ’56 Receives the Milton Medal
On January 23, 2015, the Milton Academy Board of Trustees
awarded the Milton Medal to Jack Reardon, a longtime
trustee and a wise and loyal supporter of his School.
Head of School Todd Bland recalled the dinner meeting
in 2008 that he and his wife, Nancy, shared with Jack
Reardon and Brad Bloom — an evening that solidified Todd’s
decision to serve as Milton’s head of school. He spoke
about the supportive care and insight that Jack reliably
and generously provided throughout Todd’s last six
years. Similarly, Brad Bloom credited Jack with his own
willingness to assume the presidency of Milton’s board.
Brad noted, in particular, Jack’s ability and willingness
to listen, and his effectiveness in helping institutions
understand what challenges should be addressed, and
what changes should occur. “Four heads of school — Ed
Fredie, Robin Robertson, Rick Hardy and Todd Bland —
and four board presidents — Harold Janeway, Marshall
Schwarz, Fritz Hobbs and I — sought his counsel,” Brad
said. “In every conversation, public or private, Jack is
steady, calm, and focused on the point. He responds with
candor, wisdom and sensitivity, regardless of the issue. He
frames the importance of a decision in few but relevant
words. We all try to understand the full measure of each
of those words.”
As he delivered the Milton Medal Award, Brad sum-
moned Mr. Frank Millet’s words about Jack from just
that week: “Jack has a wonderful way with people. When
you talk with him, you know that you have his full attention.
If you want something, he will do the best he can to honor
that. He’s regularly in contact with many people and he has
many friends. He understands the essence of a person, no
matter the person’s age. He’s been devoted to Milton since
1956. He’s a very loyal person.”
“Jack’s service to Milton has been vast, deep and
meaningful,” Brad concluded. “He epitomizes the life and
spirit of Dare to be True. Jack, we are aware and most
grateful for your decades of commitment, engagement and
service to Milton. Please join me in thanking my friend
and mentor, Jack Reardon, recipient of the Milton Medal.”
Citation from the Milton Medal programJack Reardon was elected to the board of trustees in 1991.
With skill, loyalty and generosity, Jack supported every
aspect of Milton’s institutional strength until and beyond his
retirement from the board in 2013. Jack began by chairing
the campaign steering committee in 1992 that prepared
for Milton’s first comprehensive capital campaign. “The
Challenge to Lead” raised $60 million from 1995–2000, and
expanded the supportive connections with alumni and
parents that would be a critical foundation for meeting
Milton’s aspirations in the future. Jack chaired the Trustees
Committee during his tenure, guiding trustees and trustee
practices, informed by his unfailing acumen about matters
of governance. That position signaled a much broader port-
folio: trusted emissary, diplomat, counselor, honest broker,
or change agent when that was necessary. On the board
and in the School, Jack was an astute listener, and always
promoted the broadest possible understanding of an issue.
Co-chair of the search for Head of School Todd Bland, Jack
implemented a process that stands as an example of open,
responsive communication with the full Milton constituency.
Milton is extremely grateful for Jack’s seemingly limitless
service over 22 years, helping Milton to be both daring and
true, always; he has prepared Milton well for the future.
“Jack’s service to Milton has been vast, deep and meaningful.
He epitomizes the life and spirit of Dare to be True.”
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o n c e n t r e , c o n t .
Randall L. Kennedy Shares His Thoughts on Race Relations in America
favoritism and has done too little to educate
the public on the hazards that blacks face.”
“Beneath the malaise is a deep current of
racial pessimism that has a long history in
American and African-American thought,” said
Mr. Kennedy. “Pessimists believe that racial
harmony predicated on fairness is not part of
the American future. They posit that America
will not overcome its tragic racial past.”
Professor Kennedy made clear that he is
an optimist while stressing that “intentional,
invidious racial discrimination constitutes a
force in American life that is far from negligible.
It is a substantial headwind that blacks and
other racial minorities face in many key areas,
including housing, finance, employment,
criminal justice, electoral politics, and markets
for romance and marriage.”
Professor Kennedy said he is hopeful of the
“prominent trajectory” of African Americans.
Milton’s 48th War Memorial speaker, Professor
Randall L. Kennedy, told students, alumni
and parents that despite “a chasm that
separates the circumstances in which whites
and blacks typically find themselves,” he
is still an optimist about race relations in the
United States. Professor Kennedy is the
Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law
School, where he teaches in the fields of
criminal law, contracts, and the regulation
of race relations. In September, Professor
Kennedy continued an important Milton
tradition that brings to campus public figures
who discuss core social and political issues.
Although the election of President Barack
Obama was an amazing and pinnacle moment
for America, Mr. Kennedy said many African
Americans were deeply affected by the economic
downturn and believe President Obama has
“been too fearful of being charged with racial
He cited numerous statistics and laws that
traced the long, slow path of blacks from
an oppressed group of four million slaves in
1860 through the civil rights era to the election
of the first African-American president.
“Changes in public attitudes, law and custom
have clearly elevated the fortunes of African
Americans as individuals and black America as
a collectivity,” said Professor Kennedy. “Hard
facts may give plausibility to the pessimistic
tradition, but they make the optimistic tradition
compelling. Despite the many wrongs that
remain to be righted, blacks in America
confront fewer racist impediments now than
ever before in the history of the United States.”
The War Memorial Lecture was established
in 1922 to honor those Milton graduates who
gave their lives in World War I, and the
foundation brings to campus notable guests
who have dedicated their careers to the
responsibilities and opportunities connected
to leadership in a democracy.
Professor Kennedy was born in Columbia,
South Carolina, in 1954. He attended St. Albans
School, Princeton University, Oxford
University, and Yale Law School. He served
as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of
the United States Court of Appeals and for
Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States
Supreme Court. He is a member of the bar of
the District of Columbia and the Supreme
Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime,
and the Law, Professor Kennedy writes for
a wide range of scholarly and general-interest
publications. His most recent books are For
Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the
Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line:
Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011),
and Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008).
A member of the American Law Institute,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
and the American Philosophical Association,
Mr. Kennedy is also a Charter Trustee of
Princeton University.
45s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
With chanting fans packing the ACC, the atmosphere was electric as the
girls’ volleyball team faced off against Nobles and Greenough in the final
game of their regular season. The Mustangs blocked and spiked their
way to a thrilling 3–0 victory. With only two losses to ISL teams this
season, this win clinched the league championship title and earned the
team a spot in the New England playoffs.
“For that hour and a half, the girls were rock stars out there,” says
Derek Palmore, varsity coach and Middle School faculty member. Last
year the team finished strong, but this season surpassed all expectations.
“The girls sustained such high-level play this season,” says Coach
Palmore. “As a team, they had incredible turnaround and recovery time.
So if we found ourselves down a few points or lost a match, the team did
a great job moving forward quickly.”
This marks the first time in more than a decade that the team has
made the playoffs. Though they fell to Phillips Andover in the first round,
captain Marina fleites ’15 credits both Coach Palmore and Assistant
Coach Fang Yuan with bringing the players up to their A game.
“In practices, we would split up,” she says. “Defense players went
with Coach Fang, because that is his specialty. Coach Palmore focused
on offense. This way we worked on a lot more technique, got specific
feedback, and then brought it all together as a team.”
Most players pick up the
sport in high school, because
volleyball programs are not
as entrenched in New England
as they are in warmer parts
of the country. Marina is the
most seasoned veteran on
the team, playing since her
freshman year.
“I’m so excited we made
post-season,” says Marina.
“I remember as a freshman
looking up at the banners
hanging in the ACC, and
all I wanted was a banner
for volleyball. And now we
have one! I am so proud of
the team. Everyone played
amazingly well against
Nobles, and the energy of
the crowd certainly helped.”
Volleyball Earns ISL Title in Record Season
neekon Vafa ’15 and harry Kwon ’15 took their computer program-
ming skills to a whole new level when they participated in — and
placed first at — MIT’s Internet of Things Hackathon in October.
A hackathon is an event in which computer programmers and
software developers collaborate intensively on software projects.
“The spirit of a hackathon isn’t competitive,” says Harry. “Every-
one goes there to learn, even the most experienced programmers.”
Most of the attendees are working professionals; Neekon and
Harry were the only high school students participating. Last
summer, Neekon added his name to MIT’s waitlist after researching
various hackathons. The night before the two-day event, Neekon
received word that he was in, with a couple of extra tickets included.
The event kicked off with team leaders pitching their projects.
Participants then chose which team they wanted to join. Neekon
and Harry picked the “Perfect Playlist” project, which involved
programming dynamically adjusting playlists that use sensors to
read the atmosphere of the room. For example, at a house party, the
sensors might pick up that it’s time to play a dance song.
“Although we were younger than the other team members, we
both understood what they understood and what they were saying,”
says Neekon. “We also contributed our own ideas and felt very
comfortable as part of the team.” Harry and Neekon are both taking
Mr. Hales’s Programming Applications class this semester.
When work was complete, each team presented its project to
the judges. Neekon and Harry’s team was awarded first prize. The
prize included tickets to the main Internet of Things conference
the following week, which Neekon and Harry attended for one day.
“We learned a lot of actual programming and engineering at the
hackathon,” says Harry. “The event also gave us an idea of what
real software engineering is like. Now I see how the whole process
works, from designing and building the product to working
efficiently as a team.”
Among College Students and Professionals, Milton Seniors Win First Prize at MIT’s Hackathon
46 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
Dr. Eyster Fuses Biology and Art as She “Looks Closely”
o n c e n t r e , c o n t .
Linde Eyster enjoys looking closely at things — as a scientist,
as a teacher, and as a photographer. For the past few years,
she focused on the natural environment in her backyard
garden, photographing a range of organisms with a macro
lens. The result was a stunning, colorful collection that was
on exhibition in Pieh Commons in October.
“I wanted the photos to tell biological stories,” says Linde,
who has taught a variety of life science courses at Milton
since 1990. “So, you’re not just looking at a photo of two ants.
You are looking at a biological process. The ants are on a
stem guiding the tiny aphids up and down, because the ants
are dependent on the aphids for their nourishment.”
Linde shot all the images outside in natural light, with
the subjects in their usual patterns and environment.
The plan grew out of a cross-curricular biodiversity project
she assigned her Advanced Biology students, who were
required to find and photograph a dozen different inverte-
brates on campus or near their homes.
“I did the assignment myself to estimate how long it would
take to accomplish, and the project reawakened my love
of photographing little things,” says Linde. “Even without
a camera in hand, I love the surprises of looking closely in
the leaves and stems in my small garden, where I witness
both amazing organisms and fascinating animal behaviors.”
Linde’s friend and fellow faculty member Bryan Cheney —
a photographer and member of the visual arts department —
answered her photography questions and helped her sort
through hundreds of photos to select the ones to exhibit.
Linde’s interest in photography began as a child, when
she occasionally converted the bathroom into a darkroom
to develop her prints. For research toward her master’s
degree, she took her first close-up photographs to document
the colors of nudibranchs (sea slugs), which fade quickly
when the organisms are placed into preservatives. During
her doctoral research on embryonic shell formation at
Northeastern University, she spent many hours photo-
graphing subcellular structures with transmission electron
microscopes, followed by hours of printing thousands of
black-and-white images of cells and cell parts. Many of these
images were published in her scientific papers.
“Without realizing it, I was learning skills through my
microscope photography, such as composing the shot,
finding the right angle, and cropping to focus on the elements
you want,” says Linde.
47s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
A Tricycle Rides Back to Milton
A new art installation hanging from the rafters in the Art
and Media Center completes a circle that began with two
inquisitive students in the late 1970s. david rabkin ’79 and
Justin aborn ’79 were in their junior year when they built
a large, recumbent tricycle called the “A-Rab.”
“Both of us were fiddlers,” says David, who is now the
Farinon Director for Current Science and Technology at the
Museum of Science in Boston. “We liked building, and we
were always taking stuff apart and putting it back together
again. The idea of the trike came about because we really
wanted to learn how to weld. Welding is one of the great
crafts, being able to work with metal and bond it in a way
to make it really strong.”
They approached Michael Bentinck-Smith, who was the
woodworking teacher in the Lower School at the time. He
agreed to teach them to weld, but to count the work as an
independent project they needed a solid idea and design.
“Something that went fast with wheels made sense to our
adolescent minds,” says David. “We decided that a human-
powered vehicle would be much more elegant, so the design
grew from that idea. Back then, you could go to the dump
and find building materials. So much of the trike came
from the old Milton dump!”
After 1,000 man-hours during the winter, the trike was
ready to ride that spring. ian torney ’82, chair of the visual
arts department, says he remembers David and Justin riding
the trike around campus. After they graduated, the trike sat
in David’s mother’s garage until 1997, when they extensively
refurbished it for an arts festival. This time it was stored
more carefully, so when they took it out of the garage in 2013
to hang in the AMC, it was in much better shape.
“Seeing the trike hanging in the AMC is very satisfying,”
says David. “It does my own and Justin’s heart good to
know that it’s somewhere other people will enjoy it. It’s an
interesting form. From where it is hung, you get to look at
it from all angles; it looks different from various directions,
and you can appreciate a whole other dimension of it. Milton
students are so bright and motivated, so if even a little
inspiration is derived from looking at it, and that leads
somewhere interesting, that is great. If it opens a door and
shakes up someone’s mental model of something they
were thinking about, then we’ve achieved our mission.”
48 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy48
Every Wednesday morning, I look forward to
sitting around the Harkness table with the
14 students in my section of Senior Transitions.
This course is designed to help Class I students
manage the complexities of senior year and
the college admission process, and focus on
how to make a smooth and healthy transition
from high school to college. Senior Transitions
is one of four courses in Milton’s Affective
Education program that all students take over
their Milton years.
During this year, we focus explicitly on life
questions: What makes you happy? What does
success look like? Who are you now, and who do
you want to become? How does a person lead a
good life? These foundational questions, and the
answers they prompt, set a context that enables
students to make the most of their final year
at Milton, of college, and of the world beyond.
Milton students set high expectations for
themselves. The same great qualities that
brought them to Milton — intellectual curiosity,
self-motivation, focus on a passion — can make
them particularly vulnerable when realities
alter the plan they had envisioned. Sometimes
without even knowing it, young people define
success by a set of external criteria, and find
themselves living lives that they are “supposed
to” live, rather than lives they choose.
I am a planner. I believe in setting goals
and creating plans to help you realize those
goals. I also believe in pausing regularly,
to assess, to make sure my goals and plans
align with my priorities. Life invariably
interrupts even the best-laid plans. Falling
in love with my wife at age 18; taking on a job
for which I felt woefully under-qualified;
having three children in 14 months. My life
h e a d o f s c h o o l
“Leave Room to Be Surprised”by Todd B. Bland
was irrevocably changed by these events.
And I am grateful every day for the friends
and mentors who helped me alter my plans
and realign myself with a new — exciting,
terrifying — set of circumstances.
My students are often subjected to my many
“best” pieces of advice. But this one is a gem:
Be open to plans that evolve over time. Life
comes at you fast, and often you do not know
what you know, until you know it. Moving
from failure to success; despair to fulfillment;
financially strapped to financially capable;
illness to health: Navigating those transitions
takes grit, courage, flexibility, resilience, and
striking out into unknown territory. So many
Milton graduates I have met and admire have
traveled these pathways.
In his commencement speech to Milton’s
Class of 2011, author Reif Larsen ’98 said, “We
like plans. But don’t plan too hard. Leave
room to be surprised.” I am proud to be part
of a School that prepares students to follow
paths that they have determined — that helps
develop confidence, and courage, and creativity,
that helps young people pursue their passions
and find authentic, meaningful success, and
fulfillment. Our graduates show us, again and
again, that Milton fosters and supports this
thoughtful way of leading a life.
Debby IrvingActivist and author Debby Irving talked with students
about what she explained as an epidemic of “white silence.”
Ms. Irving, this year’s Multiculturalism and Community
Development Speaker, said that when it comes to racism
in the United States, white people must be part of “cross-
racial conversations” in order to make progress on racial
divisions and injustices. A graduate of the Winsor School
in Boston, Ms. Irving holds a bachelor’s degree from
Kenyon College and an M.B.A.
from Simmons College. She is
the author of Waking Up White.
“We are all connected, but we are damaged, and we need to repair that damage.”
m e s s a g e s
Jennifer Finney BoylanWhat does it mean to be transgender? What is gender identity? This
year’s Talbot Speaker, Professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, answered
these questions for students and faculty, with charm, personal anecdotes,
and compassionate advice. Professor Boylan is the inaugural Anna
Quindlen Writer-in-Residence at Barnard College and the author of
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders.
“The question is not how you go from being a man to a woman, or a woman to a man. The real question is: How do you live an authentic life? How do you be you, out in the world? That well-intentioned advice, ‘just be yourself,’ can be the most diffi cult advice to follow.”
in the United States, white people must be part of “cross-
racial conversations” in order to make progress on racial
divisions and injustices. A graduate of the Winsor School
in Boston, Ms. Irving holds a bachelor’s degree from
Kenyon College and an M.B.A.
from Simmons College. She is
the author of Waking Up White.
“We are all connected, but we are damaged, and we need to repair that damage.”
Quindlen Writer-in-Residence at Barnard College and the author of
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders.
“The question is not how you go from being a man to a woman, or a woman to a man. The real question is: How do you live an authentic life? How do you be you, out in the world? That well-intentioned advice, ‘just be yourself,’ can be the most diffi cult advice to follow.”
50
Donald JohnsonDr. Donald Johnson — English professor and
poet in residence at East Tennessee State
University — was last fall’s Bingham Visiting
Reader. In honor of Veterans Day, Dr. Johnson began his
reading with two poems about soldiers and war. The first,
“The Sergeant,” was inspired by his father, a World War II
veteran who later commanded a squad of the Honor Guard
that traveled through West Virginia. The second poem
he read, titled “Point Lookout, Maryland,” recalled the
American Civil War. An avid sports fan and accomplished
sportswriter, Dr. Johnson served for 16 years as general
editor of Aethlon: Journal of Sports Literature. His most recent
book of poetry is More Than Heavy Rain.
When others mustered out in ’46, you soldiered on, commanding a squad that buried the box after narrow box the Army sent home from abroad.
For a year the wind off the Kasserine,peasants muddled to their knees on Mindanao and oceans being oceans all over the world kept turning up dead West Virginians. — From “the Sergeant”
Blake GilpinThis year’s Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Speaker
in History, Professor Blake Gilpin, used
his expertise on the 1850s abolitionist John
Brown to illustrate how the narratives
of history are created: by combining fact,
perspective, and sometimes imagination.
Dr. Gilpin, a professor of history at Tulane
University, has spent a decade studying
John Brown and the cultural phenomena
surrounding the man and his legend. His
book John Brown Still Lives!: America’s Long Reckoning
with Violence, Equality, and Change was a finalist for
Gilder Lehrman Center’s Frederick Douglass Book Prize.
Dr. Gilpin earned his Ph.D. from Yale University.
“you are all historians, the moment you learn two facts and link them together, creating a narrative. Our history actually tells us more about who we are today than about people in the past. And that’s okay. We need that narrative, that context, to make sense of who we are, and where we are, now.”
Anand GiridharadasJournalist Anand Giridharadas had an “almost American
life” growing up. Born in Ohio, the son of Indian
immigrants, he shared with students the story of what
led him to live in India for six years. A New York Times
columnist and the author of India Calling: An Intimate
Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking, Mr. Giridharadas was this
year’s Hong Kong Distinguished Lecturer.
“the country I grew up with in my mind was giving way to a different India. It was a revolution from within . . . the changes had to do with people revolting against parents
who told them they would be a doctor or a lawyer, or who they would marry . . . you had millions of people starting to say to themselves that destiny is what you make it.”
m e s s a g e s , c o n t .
51s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
Maysoon ZayidMaysoon Zayid — comedian, actress and activist — was the
2015 Margaret A. Johnson Speaker. Born with cerebral
palsy, Ms. Zayid is a powerful advocate for the disabled.
She told stories about growing up in New Jersey, where
she was accepted for who she was. But as a theater major
in college and a struggling actress pursuing a career, Ms.
Zayid realized that disabled people were almost nonexistent
in the entertainment industry. She has appeared on
“Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” Comedy Central, PBS,
CNN, HBO, MTV, ABC and Huffington Post Live. She is a
recurring columnist at The Daily Beast and was a speaker at
TEDWomen 2013. She is the founder of Maysoon’s Kids, an
education and wellness program for disabled and wounded
Palestinian refugee children.
“the world is broken, but together we can fix it. Including people is important not because we have to, but because it makes for a better world. Don’t let other people define you. Clap for yourself, and other people will join you.”
Michael A. McKennaMike McKenna, network manager of Milton’s Academy
Technology Services department, delivered this year’s
Veterans Day assembly speech to students as a proud and
accomplished veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
Growing up in Manville, Rhode Island — home to the
country’s first World War I monument — he knew and
admired many American veterans. Enlisting at age 19,
Mr. McKenna spent ten years as a U.S. Marine.
“the military can provide you with invaluable experiences: an education, leadership opportunities, problem-solving and planning skills, just to name a few. In the military there’s a Plan A, Plan b and Plan C. We plan for everything, because no matter how much planning you do, Murphy (as in Murphy’s law) will always pay you a visit.”
Junot DíazPulitzer Prize–winning author Junot Díaz spoke with students
not only as a creative writer, but also as a Dominican American
immigrant and an activist. Hosted by Milton’s student Latino
Association, Mr. Díaz answered questions from a packed room
of students, on topics ranging from the writing process to the
response to Ferguson, from gender equity to immigration. Mr.
Díaz is the author of several books, including The Brief Wondrous
Life of Oscar Wao, for which he earned the Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction in 2008. He is a creative writing professor at MIT and
the fiction editor of Boston Review.
“When your teachers tell you to ‘write what you know,’ they are teaching you to scale things correctly. In other words, if you can’t draw a cup, it’s going to be hard to draw a battle station. until you can accurately describe your own world, it’s probably going to be difficult for you to describe someone else’s.”
52
a l u m n i a u t h o r s
the Season of Migration: A Novelby nellie Hermann ’96Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2015
Vincent van Gogh is one of the most popular
painters of all time, and yet we know very
little about the difficult period in his youth
when he and his brother, Theo, broke off
all contact. In The Season of Migration, Nellie
Hermann conjures a profoundly imaginative,
original and heartbreaking vision of Van
Gogh’s early years. In startlingly beautiful
and powerful language, Hermann transforms
our understanding of Van Gogh and the
redemptive power of art.
nellie Hermann was born in Boston and lives in Brooklyn, new York. Her first novel, The Cure for Grief, was published in 2009. She teaches creative writing at Columbia University and has taught and lectured widely on the use of creativity in non-traditional contexts.
the big trip: A Family gap yearby Martha McManamy ’75Lulu Publishing, July 2014
Taking a year off from the “rat race” is an idle
dream for many, but the McManamy family —
including their three teenagers — decided to
make it happen. The Big Trip: A Family Gap Year
tells how they put high school, college and
work on hold while they learned Spanish
in Spain and volunteered in Bolivia, Guatemala
and Kenya. Choosing home stays and local
transportation over hotels and rental cars, they
undertook a deeply immersive journey of
“slow travel,” living simply, and experiencing
life as the locals do. A vivid account full of
adventures and lively observations, the story
also offers a template for anyone yearning
to undertake an intellectual, emotional and
spiritual journey of discovery.
Martha McManamy is a multi-lingual, Quaker activist with a serious travel bug and a desire to make a difference. She lives with her husband and children in newburyport, Massachusetts.
Out of left Fieldby Liza Ketchum ’64Untreed Reads, July 2014
The summer of 2004 is full of promise for
Brandon McGinnis. He has a job, a spot on the
varsity swim team, loving parents, and loyal
friends. Brandon and his dad, ardent Red Sox
fans, wonder: Could this be the year the Sox
finally win the World Series? Then Brandon’s
father dies suddenly. His will, signed just
before his death, reveals a secret kept for 30
years. As shadows of the Vietnam War bleed
into the escalating war in Iraq, Brandon sets
out to solve the mystery his father left behind.
His journey takes him to Canada’s Cape Breton
Island, where he uncovers the bittersweet
truths about the past, and a family facing its
own hidden demons. Brandon’s courageous
search throws him into life’s game, with its
devastating losses, unexpected curve balls,
and thrills as wondrous as a home run on an
autumn night.
Liza Ketchum is the author of 15 books for young people, including Where the Great Hawk Flies, winner of the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award for Children’s Litera- ture. Liza is on the faculty of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University. She divides her time between Massachusetts and Vermont.
M I lt O N M A G A z I n E
53s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
the Social Profit Handbook: the Essential guide to Setting goals, Assessing Outcomes, and Achieving Success for Mission-Driven Organizationsby David Grant, former facultyChelsea Green Publishing, Spring 2015
People working in non-profit organizations
can and will lead us out of our world’s
“mess,” David Grant believes, but to achieve
that, they have to change the way they
think about assessment — measuring their
success. To begin with, David argues for a
shift in vocabulary. We are familiar with
organizations that create or preserve financial
profit; the groups that give us access to
medical care, art and music, clean rivers,
high-functioning public transportation or
that empower young people should be called
social profit organizations. Social profit
organizations have to define the outcomes
that people they seek to help actually need
Veteran of Two World Wars: Charles Davis Morgan, Class of 1902
A memoir about a Milton graduate who fought in both World Wars arrived in Mr. Frank Millet’s hands this fall. The author, Dick Morgan ’46, remembers fondly Mr. Millet’s role during his Milton years. Mr. Millet delivered Dick to the ship in new York that would reunite him with his father in England. Dick had not seen his father for six years; during four of those years, his father was a prisoner of war.
“I believe that the enclosed manuscript can be of interest to you,” Dick writes, “as it is largely based on the correspondence of one of Milton’s most outstanding graduates, my father, who fought both World Wars in the British army, thus twice losing his American citizenship.
and value. To create and capture social profit,
David argues, you need both quantitative
and qualitative measures, both numbers and
assessment of things that can’t be expressed
in numbers. In his newly published handbook,
David “shows how to measure success in a
way that helps you achieve it, illustrated by
examples of organizations that have done
exactly that.” Those who lead, govern and
support non-profit organizations can learn
about formative assessment in The Social Profit
Handbook — assessment practices that will
improve future work rather than merely judge
past performance.
During the first he was wounded three times, badly gassed, and was decorated for valor by King George V. During the second war, while in his late fifties and suffering from the effects of the previous war’s wounds, he spent four years as a POW in Germany and died shortly after. . . . He was a highly courageous, literate, sensitive man.”
Dick completed the memoir “One Family — Two Wars,” as an 86-year-old, for the benefit of his children, grandchildren, and other interested family and friends. Remembering the important role that Milton played in his father’s life, he made sure that Mr. Millet was able to read it.
David Grant, former Milton English department faculty member, and his wife, nancy Grant, a co-founder of Milton’s Mountain School Program, have developed this handbook for mission-driven organizations. David’s career has centered on innovative teaching and learning; he served as president and CEO of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in Morristown, new Jersey. He now consults with organizations around the world that have a social or educational mission.
54 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E milton.edu facebook.com/MiltonAcademy1798 @MiltonAcademy
NAME:
ClASS OF:
ONE MIltON MEMOry:
OCCuPAtION:
PASSIONS:
HOW MIltON PlAyED A rOlE IN My lIFE:
MIltON tODAy IS:
WHy DO I gIvE bACK:
I CHOSE A PlANNED gIFt bECAuSE:
For information on gift planning, contact Suzie Hurd Greenup ’75 at [email protected] or 617-898-2376.
55s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
gregory Jacobson ’78 hosted the second annual “The Jake” best ball golf
tournament.
▲ tare Newbury, Josh lane and
the late Hale Sturges learned
at their 50th Reunion that they
were distant cousins, united by
the “Ware” name. Since then, they
have held reunions in New York,
Maine and Massachusetts. This
picture was taken at their most
recent gathering at Tare’s house
over the summer. Hale passed
away just weeks later.
1942 In December, Henry Moulton
lunched with John Carey and
John’s wife, Pat, at the Grand
Central Oyster Bar in New York
City. John is a columnist for
The Rye City Review; his column
is called “A Rye Oldtimer.” He
brought with him a recent column,
which mentioned his football
days as captain of Milton’s team.
1956▼ Ernesto Macaya Ortiz
and his wife, roberta Hayes Macaya Ortiz, celebrated their
son, Roman, who was made
ambassador to the United States
from Costa Rica. Ernesto and
roberta are pictured with
President Barack Obama, Roman
Macaya Hayes, and Roman’s wife
and children.
1966tom turner’s first book, Palm
Beach Nasty, was published
in January. The crime novel
has attracted the attention of a
Hollywood production company
interested in making the book into
a movie. Tom is also working on a
screenplay called Underwater. Tom
lives in Charleston, South Carolina,
and would love to connect with
local Milton classmates.
1978On September 29, 2014, gregory Jacobson hosted the second
annual “The Jake” best ball
golf tournament for men and
women in support of the National
Multiple Sclerosis Society. The
event was held at the Salem Golf
Club in North Salem, New York.
1988Dr. Curt Cetrulo recently
dedicated a scientific article to
longtime Milton faculty member
Mr. Frank Millet. In the article,
Curt cites Mr. Millet’s influence
on his pursuing a career of
caring for burn-injured patients.
Curt’s research on the subject
was awarded Best Poster at
c l a s s n o t e s
tom turner ’66 published his first book,
Palm Beach Nasty, in January.
56 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E
c l a s s n o t e s , c o n t .
1996Steve lehman earned the top spot
in the 2014 NPR Music Jazz Critics
Poll — Jazz Album of the Year — for
his album Mise En Abîme.
1997▼ On September 16, 2014, James Meeks and his wife, Jennifer,
welcomed Adam Thomas Meeks
into the world. He was born
in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
weighing 9 pounds and 14 ounces.
1994▲ laura beatrix Newmark
welcomed the birth of her son,
Milo Liev Zaklad, on November 13,
2014. First son Elias is adjusting
well to his role as older brother
to “Mellow Milo.” Laura says she
is tired, but enjoying her family
of four.
▼ Old friends Mollie Nelson Webster and lily Davis ’97 enjoy
beach time in Little Compton,
Rhode Island.
the meeting of the American
Association of Plastic Surgeons in
June 2014.
Alejandro “Ali” Danois was
named a finalist for the 2014
Salute to Excellence Award by
the National Association of Black
Journalists for his article “New
Jersey Drive,” featured in the
November 2013 issue of Ebony
magazine. Ali recounts the story
of George Briscoe of Newark,
New Jersey, who set out to help
his son, Isaiah Briscoe, reach his
NBA dreams against the back-
drop of high-stakes recruiting
wars between major collegiate
programs over middle- and high-
school athletes. Ali is a senior
writer and editor with The Shadow
League and co-host of WEAA’s
Blacktop Xchange Sports Report.
1991James Matthew Chamberlain,
who attended Milton’s Lower
School, passed away on
November 10, 2014. Formerly
from Milton, Hingham and
Scituate, Massachusetts, he spent
his career as a renowned chef
initially in the Boston area and
for the past 15 years in Sarasota
and the Charlotte County areas
of Florida.
1993Jessica McDaniel is a baby
photographer who has been
running Boston Baby Photos for
11 years. She lives in Milton.
Steve lehman ’96 earned the top spot in the 2014 nPR Music Jazz Critics Poll for
Jazz Album of the Year.
57s p r i n g 2 0 1 5
▲ trustee Erick tseng married
Rachel Lee on July 26, 2014. The
ceremony was held at Campovida
Vineyard in California wine
country. The entire weekend was
one massive party, including an
Indian baraat procession. From
Milton Academy, sister Anita tseng Shaw ’99 and honorary
cousin Janet lin were there to
help the happy couple celebrate
their special day.
1998▼ lindsay lowder and Milton
friends lydon vonnegut,
Sarah Mcginty london and
Nia Hays got together with their
babies and toddlers for a photo
shoot with Lindsay’s sister,
Jessica Haynes McDaniel ’93,
a local photographer. Lydon’s
daughter Janie, Lindsay’s
daughter Josie, Sarah’s son
Mac, and Nia’s son Gus were
all smiles.
2000Ashley Carter was married over
Labor Day Weekend to Phillip
Draviam.
2004Parker rider-longmaid was
named a 2015 Bristow Fellow,
earning a one-year fellowship
in the U.S. Solicitor General’s
Office to work on cases pending
before the Supreme Court. The
fellowship is awarded to recent
law school graduates with
outstanding academic records
and top clerkships.
Parker rider-longmaid ’04 was named a 2015 Bristow Fellow, earning a one-year
fellowship in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office.
58 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E
c l a s s n o t e s , c o n t .
2012James McHugh, musical director
of the Vanderbilt Melodores,
helped the a cappella group place
first in the holiday edition of
NBC’s hit singing competition
show, “The Sing-Off.” On the
show, the Melodores wowed the
judges with their renditions of
Jason Derulo’s “Trumpets” and
Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.”
2013Ellen Sukharevsky contributed
to the recently published The
Boarding School Survival Guide,
a book written for students
by students. Ellen’s piece, “Day
Students: Finding Your Place,”
is one of several chapters in this
unique guide that is designed
to help students navigate life at
boarding school.
2005▲ liz O’Neill and John Dennison
were married in Apthorp
Chapel on September 20, 2014.
Longtime O’Neill family friend,
Rev. Scotty McLennan, parent
to Will Mclennan ’00 and Dan Mclennan ’03, officiated the
ceremony. Malcolm thayer Dennison was best man and Kate O’Neill ’00 was maid of honor.
Liz and John are the second
Milton Academy marriage in the
Dennison family, the first being
John’s maternal grandmother and
grandfather, Jane and Malcolm
Mackenzie, who met fighting
over an alumni bulletin at Jane’s
nursing station at Columbia
Presbyterian. The reception was
held at the MIT Endicott House
in Dedham, Massachusetts.
James McHugh ’12 helped the Vanderbilt
Melodores a cappella group place first in the holiday edition of nBC’s hit singing competition
show, “The Sing-Off.”
59S P r I N g 2 0 1 5
DeceasedClass of 1928barbara Wendell Kerr
Class of 1940Alice Hurd Moulton
Class of 1941the reverend Augustus l. Hemenway Corinne Kernan Sevigny
Class of 1942Ernest H. gunther
Class of 1943Anne Sage SaxtonAnne Putnam Seamans
Class of 1945Peter N. toulmin
Class of 1949Charles robinson
Class of 1950Hugh P. Chandler
Class of 1954gunther E. Fritze
Class of 1955Albert J. Scullin
Class of 1956Hale Sturges II
Class of 1957 Kenneth W. gregg
Class of 1971 Sara J. McCarthy
Class of 1976Jonathan A. Spound
Former FacultyWilliam M. Moore
To read the obituaries of
deceased alumni, you
can log in to Milton’s
alumni web pages and visit:
alumni.milton.edu/alumni-deceased
2014▼ Eighteen years after Emily bland and Maggie bland were
born two months prematurely
and spent the first six weeks of
their lives at Mount Auburn
Hospital, the twins returned to
the hospital in a different capacity.
Emily and Maggie delivered
to the newborns caps that they
knitted as part of their senior
service project, “as a way to give
back to the wonderful community
that gave us the chance to live
the healthy lives we do today.”
The caps were purple in honor
of November’s Shaken Baby
Awareness month.
▲ Milton pulled off a 1–0 win in
the 33rd annual Milton–Nobles
alumni soccer game against a
Nobles squad at least twice as
numerous. Milton’s record in the
alumni matchup is 14–11–6 with
two cancellations (hurricane and
snow!). Front (L to R): Chris robertson ’83, Zac trudeau ’05,
Doug Sibor ’05, Max Hoffman ’05,
Dan Sibor ’01, Eric Pascavage ’01.
Back (L to R): trevor Prophet ’07,
Colby tucker ’05, Mike Chao ’08,
Matt Enright ’05, Chris trakas ’77,
Seth reynolds ’90, ted Hays ’70.
60 M I lt O N M A G A z I n E
Martha Rose Shulman ’68 is a cookbook author and writes Recipes for Health for the New York Times.
When I graduated from Milton Academy in 1968, I did not
look back. I kept in touch with close friends and a few of
my teachers, and I visited the school once, but I never went
to a class reunion and I never donated. Nor did my sister
(Class of 1967). I always appreciated the amazing education
I got at Milton, especially because I didn’t go on to lead a
conventional life, and I’ve always believed that my Milton
education gave me the intellectual confidence to do that.
But I do not have fond memories of my time there.
So I am more surprised than anyone that I am now a
Milton parent and thrilled to be one. This is not because
I have changed; it’s because the School has changed. The
Milton Academy that my son goes to is not the Milton
Academy that I went to in the ’60s.
That School was not kind, and it certainly was not
fun. Nor was it diverse, by any stretch. It was an enclave of
WASPs; it made me more aware that I was Jewish than I had
ever been in my life. When I first arrived at Milton I was a
fish out of water. That first week I shook during classes, my
hands sweat, and I had a lump in my throat. I know this still
happens to students who suddenly find themselves out of the
little pond where they had always been the smartest, but at
the time this feeling had more to do with the fact that Milton
was not nurturing in any way. It was sink or swim.
Driven survivor that I am, I swam, willing my teachers to
love me, becoming an enthusiastic hockey goalie, and work-
ing so hard that the headmistress, Miss Johnson, expressed
concern to my parents. Making friends was easy, but I never
developed any passion for the place. Few of us did.
Decades later I was surprised to hear from two of my
closest, coolest friends in L.A. that their daughter, Tess, had
decided to go to boarding school and had chosen Milton.
She had a wonderful time, and when they told me what the
place was like, I could tell that things had changed since my
Milton days.
Private school for my own son had never been on my
mind. It was not a financial possibility for me, and Liam
was getting a good enough education in the magnet public
schools he attended in Los Angeles. But by eighth grade
he was bored, and one day he told me he wanted to go to
boarding school.
I told him to research several East Coast and California
schools online. “If you get in, and if you get financial aid,
then I’m all for it.” Both of those things happened.
In April 2013, Liam and I went to Milton’s revisit day.
My sister came, too. It was the first time we had set foot on
campus since 1968. We were flabbergasted by the different
world we walked into that day. We were not surprised by
the excellent education. The beautiful, new facilities were
also not unexpected, nor that the place was now thoroughly
co-ed. But everything else was different. Life at Milton
seemed balanced. The administration and teachers seemed
to really care about the total well-being of the students, and
the students looked happy! The faculty and administration
looked happy too, and both the faculty and student body
were diverse.
What changed? We cornered Mr. Ball after a presentation
and asked him. He seemed to know exactly what we were
referring to, and said that the changes had begun to take hold
in the 1990s. “We knew that we had to change if we were
going to survive as a school,” he told us. And so they did.
The gamble Milton Academy took on Liam is paying off
both for Liam and for Milton. Which is why now, to my great
surprise, I find myself to be one of Milton’s biggest boosters.
One way I can give back is to reach out to my contemporaries,
who, like me, may not have the best memories of Milton. Look
again; go and visit; check out the website. You will smile
and shake your heads in disbelief. I hope you’ll be inspired
to give, so that more students can have the life-changing
opportunity that was so generously given to my son.
p o s t s c r i p t M A r t H A r O S E S H u l M A N ’ 6 8
A Kinder, Gentler Place: An Appeal to My Contemporaries
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
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