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FROM
THE HEAD
of school
A
A good graduation ceremony is a glorious exhalation
of the positive spirit of a whole community. We enjoyed
a lovely commencement this year: the weather
My feelings were unusually warm, for two reasons. First, a sizeable group of the departing
seniors, those who were Lower Mids in 2007,
were the last of the students who welcomed
me to Hotchkiss three years ago and helped
me to settle in. They are special for me, and I
thanked them on their graduation day for
their tolerance and hospitality. Second, even
more personally, I enjoyed the honor and
wonder of presenting a Hotchkiss Diploma to
my daughter Morag. That was special, indeed.
A parent said to me after the event that she
thought that I might be the first Head to have
done so at Hotchkiss. Research revealed this
not to be so: Headmaster Coy awarded a
diploma to his son in 1897. I can say, however,
that I am the first to have enjoyed this rare
moment with a daughter.
Sam Prouty, from our faculty, gave a
remarkable graduation address, full of humor,
delight, insight, and love. After starting with
some impersonations of colleagues, at which
Sam is a master, he moved to his main topic,
that of impressions, positive and negative, and
the marks that we make on each other and on
the places that make us. At one point he held
up a sandal with a bearcat sole, and said: “Like
this sandal, which is designed to leave a
‘bearcat’ print in the sand wherever it steps,
you have marked this ground; you have
marked one another. If those marks have been
well-made, then they will last, no matter how
strong are the tides of time that erode them, bit
by bit. My hope for you, as well as for myself, is
that the impression is deep enough to withstand that wearing away.”
There is much in this magazine about community service. Service is, indeed, a forceful
and lasting way of making a really positive
impression, of marking others and allowing
them, in turn, to mark us. The tradition of
genuine service at Hotchkiss starts even earlier
than 1897, with the formation of the St. Luke’s
Society in 1894. One of our early graduates,
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George Norton Phillips ’09 (that’s 1909), died
of a sudden illness in 1914. Before his death, he
wrote a charming pamphlet called “Suggestions
to Hotchkiss Boys.” It still retains its freshness,
and it offers useful and wise counsel. In writing
of the St. Luke’s Society, of which George was
President in his senior year, he comments: “St.
Luke’s is a unique Hotchkiss institution, and
from it men have gathered inspiration to DO
things in school, and later in college and in the
outside world.” He then went on to write about
the Boys’ Club at Ore Hill, a small mining
community in Salisbury. Hotchkiss students
brought sports and music to the boys there,
and they built a clubhouse in 1909. In urging
new students to support this endeavor, George
says: “Even the most uninterested of you will
find that as you go ahead the work will become
intensely engrossing and surprisingly helpful. It
is not necessary to urge you to help in all the
‘charity’ work that may come up from time to
time, for you cannot be selfish in such matters
and true to your school.”
The acquisition of a living knowledge of
interdependence, honed in the heart, is what
underpins this claim. A fine illustration of this
is a story by Alec Dickson, the founder of the
British organization, Voluntary Service
Overseas (VSO), the equivalent of our Peace
Corps. Alec used to tell of giving blood when
he was in his late 20s, before the Second World
War. He was a young journalist working in
Manchester. Being known to have a rare blood
type, Alec was called out late one night by the
local hospital to help save the life of a man, of
the same blood type, who would otherwise
have bled to death. As was the case with blood
donations in that remote technological time
(only 80 years ago!), Alec was linked intravenously to the patient. In telling this story,
amazing in our HIV/AIDS era, he would speak
eloquently of the extraordinary experience of
feeling his own blood pumping straight into
the body of a fellow human, reviving and
PHOTO BY JONATHAN DOSTER
was sunny and the mood sunnier.
Malcolm with daughter Morag, setting a precedent
at Graduation
strengthening him. Alec used this image as a
defining emblem of what community service
meant to him from then on. It was the gift of
something rare, essential and life-preserving. It
entailed a deeply personal connection between
donor and recipient. Above all, it implied the
knowledge on the part of the giver that roles
are arbitrary and that they can easily be
reversed. Genuine service of this kind has to
recognize and feel fully the dependencies
between people and appreciate that, in a real
sense, human community cannot survive without acknowledging, supporting and reinforcing
our interdependence upon each other.
How much deeper an impression, a mark
on another, might one make? And how much
more profoundly might one be transformed in
return? The past, and our past, speaks to us
forcefully at times. When it comes to serving
others, “you cannot be selfish in such matters
and true to your school.”
132621_01_19:toc 8/22/10 1:12 PM Page 3
READERS
w ri t e
Dear Ms. Jenckes,
While recently reading the Fall 2009 Hotchkiss
Magazine (yes, some 8 months later) I noticed
two photos that were unidentified.
One from page 32 identified as ‘circa 1960’
is actually ’55-’56. They are my ’57 classmates,
from left: Ed Brown, Tom Wey, H.L. Sparks,
and Dan Lester.
The other photo on page 29, seated with his
back to the camera, is Harry Parker.
I would not want my classmates from the
great class of 1957 to go unrecognized.
Very truly,
Bob Streett ’57
Clayton, MO
(e-mail from Gerald D. Skoning ’60
of Chicago, IL)
Hi, Roberta –
Just a short note to say how much I enjoyed
the feature “For the Love of a Sport – 100 years
of Hotchkiss Hockey.” Congrats to all, especially Molly McDowell and Robert Johnson.
I was particularly interested in Damon
White’s comments on the unfortunate influence of juniors hockey on his program (something I have written – whined – about).
I would imagine everyone who touched a
puck during his or her sojourn at Hotchkiss
will be touched by the piece. And, those of us
fossils who shoveled off the rinks before play
will remember being so exhausted from the
shoveling after a heavy snow that the game
became somewhat of an afterthought. Taft
was the only school in the Housatonic Valley
League that had a covered rink. They
were considered really soft.
Many thanks.
Gerry
P.S. I loved the rest of your magazine as well,
but I’m kind of a hockey nut, so that piece just
jumped out at me.
Dear Ms. Jenckes,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the last issue,
particularly the Woods Squad article, and the
fine look-back on Hotchkiss Hockey, “For the
Love of a Sport,” by McDowell & Johnson.
I played Club hockey for four years at
Hotchkiss (’72-’76) and recall vividly the
transition from outdoor games to indoor
games, and the “integration” of women onto
the team.
I would be remiss to not bring up the first
true woman hockey star at Hotchkiss, Gigi
Harry Parker, Class of ’57, listening to teacher Clint Ely ’45
LEFT TO RIGHT: Ed Brown, Tom
Wey, H.L. Sparks, and Dan
Lester, all Class of ’57
Vayda ’76. Gigi was light-years ahead of her
time. She could skate as well as 80% of the
boys, and could stick handle and shoot with
any of them. She was one of the few, if not the
only, female hockey player with real hockey
skates that first season. The article accurately
depicts the girls, along with a few freshman
boys, being paired against each other after a
whistle to play a few minutes just girl on girl.
Yes, they occasionally scored on the goalie
who, of course, had remained in net the entire
game, Gigi getting her share of those goals.
My Hoyt team won the championship that
year, in no small part due to stellar play by our
goalie during the times when the girls’ line was
out there.
I ran into the U.S. and Canadian Olympic
teams in Denver in December, where they
were staying at a hotel where my company was
having its Christmas party. It was nice to greet
Hotchkiss Olympian Caitlin Cahow. The
Canadian women had won the game 4-2, but
the spirits were high on the U.S. team.
Now, if only we could bring back the days of
Black Ice on the Lake, and hockey games a
quarter mile in length!
Dave Covill ’76
Evergreen, CO
March 30, 2010
Dear Ms. Jenckes:
It was with great delight that I opened the latest
Magazine and saw the cover and article on
“The Woods Squad.” What goes around
always comes around!
It so happens that I am in the midst of closing down and selling our house since the loss
of my wife in June. Amongst the piles of
“unknowns” I came across the enclosed photo
of the cabin four of us built, I guess over the
winter of ’38.
Mr. Van Santvoord was of course overseer
of the project. My classmates were Bob Baker,
Hotchkiss Cabin, winter 1938
Dick Veit, and J.O. Young. Bob Baker was the
mastermind as he was from Maine and had a
good knowledge of what to do. Veit and
Young were strong bodies who did the heavy
lifting and I followed whatever assignment Bob
issued. I found that peeling the bark from the
pine logs with a draw shave was a tiresome and
especially messy chore. The heady odor of pine
sap filled the corridors of Alumni as we dried
out our heavy clothes on the room radiator.
I can hazily recall [that] the Headmaster
selected the trees and we felled them and
hauled them to the cabin site. Most of the
trees were in the swamp near the highway, I
think. When last at school for our 60th I tried
to find the cabin but was unable to locate
even the place.
Building was hard work but one of the benefits was to become familiar with the firm L.L.
Bean, through the instructions of Bob. As a
result, we obtained proper “woods-oriented”
clothing and best of all, proper woodsman’s
tools, especially the axe. I was able to preserve
my axe for years and later used it at my camp
in the Adirondacks. It would be an understatement to say we benefited mightily from the
experience.
I trust that you will guide this material to the
archives.
With kind regards,
Roland P. Beattie II ’39
CORRECTION:
The caption for the map of the Woods on page
six in the Winter 2010 Magazine is not the correct one for the map that’s photographed.
According to Senior Archives Assistant Joan
Baldwin, it is likely the caption for the framed 4’
x 4’ map by Richard Brinckerhoff ’37 that hung
in the small lobby just outside the main Library
lobby for many years and now needs conservation. The map printed in the Magazine is from
the 1933 Record.
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CAMPUS
connection
Graduation
GRADUATION
2009
The PromiseClass
of a New
Day
of 2010
‘ I M PRES S IONS’
by Samuel Prouty
FAR LEFT: Students
in the prep, lower
mid, and upper mid
classes line up to
applaud the 169
graduating seniors.
ABOVE: Pausing for
the photographer
LEFT: A hug before
the procession begins
The following is an excerpt from the 2010 Commencement Address by
Samuel Prouty, Instructor in English. A video of the full address appears
I am known in some circles within the
Hotchkiss community as someone who
does impressions. Indeed, whenever the
energy level in my class or a department
meeting starts to wane, I break into a few
impersonations to enliven the mood; at
this point, sadly, I may be known as much
for these impressions as I am for the quality of my teaching. I take impressions seriously; I want to get them right, down to
even the most minute, subtle nuance. With
that in mind, I would like to talk to you
today about impressions and why they
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mean so much to me.
After all, what is an impression but a
way of demonstrating our appreciation of
that which is unique, special, and memorable in those around us? When I perform
impressions of people I know, I am telling
them in no uncertain terms that they have
made a mark on my life, that they have
contributed something to me that I will
remember and that will accompany me
wherever I go, even when they are no
longer near me. That’s what an impression
is – an indelible mark, a memory that has
ABOVE: Debbo Jones
of Admissions helps
a senior with his
boutonniere.
RIGHT: Each senior
presented the Head
of School with a
unique golf ball.
ALL PHOTOS BY JONATHAN DOSTER
at: www.hotchkiss.org/abouthotchkiss/hotchkiss-today/video/.
132621_01_19:toc 8/22/10 1:13 PM Page 5
ALWAYS LEAVE A POSITIVE IMPRESSION …
been stamped into our minds or into our
hearts.
We make all kinds of impressions: first
impressions, fleeting impressions, lasting
impressions, and sometimes we make no
impressions at all. One impression breeds
another; as you make a mark in your
world, you will do so having been
informed – whether you like this or not –
by your Hotchkiss experience, just as my
future teaching, for example, has been
shaped by the impressions you all have
made on me.
The funny thing about impressions is
that they are just as often positive as they
are negative, and we often don’t even know
when we’re making them. Thanks to the
swirling pheromones of springtime, for
example, some of you have made quite an
impression on the poor main building duty
teams who roam the hallways at night.
ABOVE: The
audience of faculty,
family members,
and friends
TOP RIGHT: Co-School
Presidents Max Bottini
and Emily Drinkwater
‘‘
‘‘
Striving to be your best self… WILL
RIGHT: Malcolm
McKenzie gives
his address.
BELOW: Seniors
show their joy.
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BEEN INFORMED BY YOUR HOTCHKISS EXPERIENCE …
.
FAR LEFT:
Graduation speaker
Sam Prouty won
the day with his
witty and thoughtful speech.
LEFT: Seniors Hye
Yeon Chang and
Leo Scholl provided
a memorable
interlude.
RIGHT:
New graduates
celebrate on their
big day.
BELOW: “Friends
for life”
BELOW RIGHT:
A quiet moment
after the ceremony
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‘‘
‘‘
…as you make your mark…YOU WILL DO SO HAVING
O T C H K I S S
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Certainly, those of you who are about to
celebrate your graduation at this week’s
round of parties will make all kinds of
impressions; I want you to know that I will
be Facebook-stalking you, so be sure to
post only those pictures and comments
that will leave positive impressions. Just as
weak or impulsive moments have the
potential to leave negative impressions, so
too are individual moments alive with positive possibility. Striving to be your best self
even in your most private or dark
moments will always leave a positive
impression. Your time at Hotchkiss has
made an impression. Like this sandal,
which is designed to leave a “bearcat” print
in the sand wherever it steps, you have
marked this ground; you have marked one
another. If those marks have been wellmade, then they will last, no matter how
strong the tides of time that erode them,
bit by bit. My hope for you, as well as for
myself, is that the impression is deep
enough to withstand that wearing away.
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A Spring of Nobel Laureates
In what Hotchkiss Poet-in-Residence Susan Kinsolving aptly calls “an embarrassment of riches,” within a three-week span this spring the School was graced by the
august and inspirational presence of two of the greatest living Nobel Laureates in
Literature: Wole Soyinka and Seamus Heaney. Both are from lands where violence
is all-too familiar, Nigeria and Northern Ireland. Both arrived at the School through
the generous auspices of past or present parents and alumni – Wole Soyinka,
through Ileene and Howard Sobel, among others; Seamus Heaney, through
The Class of ’63 Fund, the Blair Torrey Creative Writing Fund, and the kindness of
Irish poet and publisher Peter Fallon, last year’s Lambert Fund Speaker. Both use
words – whether in poems, plays, or memoirs – as weapons in the fight against
intolerance and racism, as windows into the emotions raised by war and disaster,
as keys to recognizing ourselves, and as a way of capturing reality with a
single striking or subtle image.“Through poetry, we catch fire, we calm down, we
generate and we reflect light,” writes Head of School Malcolm McKenzie, in
answer to a question about the relevance of poetry in today’s world. “The poetry
in poetry allows us to sense the poetry in so much else. Having poets in our
midst shows us how words, language, beauty, and imagination are so central
to our lives. This is not a luxurious ointment, it’s an essential balm.”
Wole Soyinka
Not many Nobel Prize-winners would fly to
the U.S. from Africa for a single night just to
talk to a theater full of teenagers, but that’s
what Wole Soyinka did on March 30.
On a night so rainy that Connecticut’s
rivers rose above their banks and washed
out bridges all across the state, the distinguished 75-year-old Nigerian poet, playwright, and political activist stood on stage
at the Esther Eastman Music Center’s
Katherine M. Elfers Hall, simply dressed in a
white shirt and dark vest, and began to
speak about human dignity.
“I promised I would come,” he said later
that evening, while attending a reception at
Harris House. “And I don’t often have a
chance to speak to high school students.”
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1986 for plays and poems that demonstrate
“the drama of existence,” Akinwande
Oluewole “Wole” Soyinka is not only one of
Africa’s foremost authors but also a lifelong
human rights activist whose deeply rooted
sense of justice has caused him to be jailed at
least nine times and forced him into exile
for much of his life.
A writer of awe-inspiring fecundity, in the
past half century he has produced such critically acclaimed plays, poems, memoirs, and
essays as A Dance of the Forests (1963); The
Man Died: Prison Notes (1972); Myth, Literature, and the African World (1975); and, most
recently You Must Set Forth at Dawn (2006),
a memoir that continues the story of his life
from the end of his groundbreaking autobiography, Aké: the Years of Childhood, named
one of the best books of 1982.
As a dramatist, according to the Swedish
Academy’s Nobel website, he bases his work
on the mythology of his tribe, the Yoruba,
while also embracing the influence of J.M.
Synge and other Western writers. Linking lit-
PHOTO BY ANNE DAY
Visitors
By Divya Symmers
ABOVE: Wole Soyinka listens as Malcolm
McKenzie introduces him.
erature and politics, European and African
traditions, he continually addresses “the wider
question of the persistence of humanity in the
face of cruelty, intolerance, and outrage,” as
an article in the Harvard Gazette noted.
“If the spirit of African democracy has a
voice and a face, they belong to Wole
Soyinka,” said The New York Times.
A TEACHER’S GENES
He loves to teach – a few years ago he confessed to having “a teacher’s genes” – and
currently holds the post of emeritus professor at Obafemi Awolowo University in
Nigeria. He is also a non-resident fellow at
Harvard’s W.E. B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African-American Research and
the President’s Marymount Institute
Professor at Loyola Marymount University
in Los Angeles, where he lived before the latS p r i n g
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PHOTO BY ANNE DAY
LEFT: Students in several
English classes read Wole
Soyinka’s Death and the
King’s Horseman before
his visit.
est political crisis spurred his return to
strife-torn Nigeria.
As Head of School Malcolm McKenzie
explained in a graceful introduction,
Professor Soyinka “remains deeply concerned about continued clashes between
Muslim and Christian compatriots, and he
is trying to help make an amnesty effective
between the acting President…and militants
or ex-militants in the Niger Delta.
“When we engaged Professor Soyinka, over
a year ago, to speak tonight,” Mr. McKenzie
continued, “we all thought he would be flying
here from within the United States. It is a
measure of his honor, and a huge compliment
to us, that he has flown from Nigeria to be at
Hotchkiss this evening.”
His hair a nimbus of white, his face
betraying the merest hint of jet lag, Soyinka
thanked the School for its warm welcome,
cracked a joke about the weather, and
launched into a subject close to his heart.
DIGNITY IS THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITY
He talked about how attempts to try and
reduce human beings to absolute nothingness have been a constant in conflicts with
tyrants through the ages. How power is tied
to the need to humiliate. He went on to
decry the historic tendency of Europeans to
view Africans as less than human. And he
noted the oxymoron inherent in the phrase
“a dignified slave,” because when one is dig-
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nified, he or she is no longer a slave.
He also spoke of the dual legacy of racism
and colonialism that lies at the root of most
African conflicts, exacerbated by Western
corporate interests – particularly oil – that
have helped to prop up military dictatorships.
But he reminded his audience that there is
something embedded in the human psyche
that finally says ‘no’ – and that dignity lies at
the essence of humanity. “Democracy provides a social framework in which the dignity of the individual is a right,” he said,
pointing out that it was an integral part of
many ancient African societies.
As Head of School McKenzie related earlier, Professor Soyinka’s best-known play,
Death and the King’s Horseman (which students in several English classes read before
his visit) includes a warning against “simplistic notions of cultures clashing,” offering
a hopeful message exemplified in its last
lines: “Now forget the dead, forget even the
living. Turn your mind only to the unborn.”
Eagerly raising their hands for a turn at
the microphone, students peppered the visiting Nobelist with an array of questions:
How does dignity exist within a true democracy? (“Accountability, openness, and transparency are all important.”) Is it possible to
change unjust laws in a different culture?
(“Cultures are not static; cultures evolve.”)
Is justice determined by a society’s morals?
(“To me, justice is absolute.”)
At the end, a student from Botswana wondered whether there is anything important
enough to give up dignity for. Love, perhaps?
“If there is, I haven’t found it yet,”
Professor Soyinka answered, with a merry
little smile, as everyone laughed. “I know
that some people think that it’s the most
important thing in the world. But love
should be dignified; it should be a meeting
of equals. You probably know more about
that than I do,” he added.
He received three standing ovations.
Seamus Heaney
The skies outside were a deep April blue, the
lake looked bedazzled in the remaining sunlight, and the Esther Eastman Music
Center’s Katherine M. Elfers Hall was filled
to capacity with students, faculty, and staff,
all gathered to hear one of the great poets of
the English language.
He didn’t disappoint. In a voice that’s
been described as both musical and intimate, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney transported us to a place where ordinary
moments become transcendent, as in the
pair of sonnets he wrote “out of loss when
my mother died,” one about peeling potatoes, and the other “about the ancient art of
folding sheets.”
At 71, Heaney – who won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1995, when he was 56 – has
a body of work stretching over half a century, from his first book of poetry, Death of a
Naturalist (1966) to his latest, District and
Circle (2006). A new collection, Human
Chain, will be published this autumn.
Dubbed “the greatest Irish poet since
Yeats” by Robert Lowell, Heaney counts
among his influences James Joyce, Polish
poet Czeslaw Milosz, and the Anglo Saxon
he studied as a student at Queens University
in Belfast.
His 1999 translation of Beowulf beat one
of the Harry Potter books to win the
Whitbread Prize and sold 200,000 copies in
2000 alone – unprecedented for a modern
translation of an epic poem written in Old
English a millennium ago.
“I thought I would begin with a poem
about reading aloud in a great hall,” he said,
clutching a well-worn copy, though hardly
glancing at it. What no one in the audience
could see was that this particular copy of
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus
Heaney was not only heavily annotated but
that the handwriting inside belonged to
132621_01_19:toc 8/22/10 1:13 PM Page 9
RIGHT: Seamus
Heaney charms
students after his talk.
BELOW: Heaney
with Susan Kinsolving
re-recited Lightenings viii, cited by the Nobel
committee in 1995 as “a crystallisation of …
history and sensuality, myths and the dayto-day – all articulated in Heaney’s rich language.”
PHOTOS BY ANNE DAY
Instructor in History Robert Barker.
“It was a tremendous honor,” said
Barker, who returned from an out-of-town
trip to discover the poet had taken the time
to inscribe the book. “I’ve used his translation for as many as ten years, maybe more.
It takes the story of Beowulf to an entirely
different level. It flows beautifully. And the
kids just love it.”
In fact, the translation might never have
happened: As Heaney confessed to his
Hotchkiss audience, he began the first 100
lines in the late 1980s, put it down, and didn’t pick it up again until March 19, 1995,
two days after St. Patrick’s Day, on what’s
known (in Ireland) as St. Joseph the
Worker Day.
“I got a fax from an editor at Norton. By
this time, the first one had passed away, so
this one said: ‘I can see you’re not interested
in doing this.’” She asked him for the names
of other poets he thought could handle the
job. Ted Hughes came to mind, he said, as
did another poet. “But then I thought, ‘Why
should they have it?’ So I got to work, and as
I worked on it, I got to love it.”
As he read (“Then a powerful demon, a
prowler through the dark, nursed a hard
grievance, It harrowed him to hear the din of
the loud banquet every day in the hall, the
harp being struck and the clear song of a
skilled poet telling with mastery of man’s
beginnings…”) Elfers Hall fell silent. It
remained that way, in a kind of collective
hush, for the rest of the evening.
“He didn’t look at his notes until halfway
through the performance,” marveled English
Department Co-Chair Charles Frankenbach.
At one point, Heaney, former professor of
poetry at Oxford and poet-in-residence at
Harvard, turned to the students seated in
the upper balcony behind him and said, “I
like this one so much I will read it twice.”
His back to the microphone, his voice
muffled, the faces above him were rapt as he
The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
‘This man can’t bear our life here and will drown,’
The abbot said, ‘unless we help him.’ So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.
© Seamus Heaney
Seeing Things (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991)
Although Heaney has lived in the Republic
of Ireland for well over three decades, his
roots in the North are embedded in the soul
of his work, and the poems he read at
Hotchkiss touched on everything from his
childhood on his father’s farm to the death
of a cousin during the Troubles.
Later, when it came time for questions
(“Questions are more important than
answers for an artist,” Heaney noted earlier),
a senior asked: “Can you learn to write poetry as beautiful as yours, or is it innate?”
Heaney, who is white-haired, entirely
approachable, and resembles a sharp but
kindly librarian, admitted, “I didn’t start
to write in earnest until I was in my 20s. I
was shy of poetry. I didn’t think I had the
gift for it.”
When he reached university, he told his
listeners, he began reading poetry and loved
it, and soon tried his hand at it. Gradually,
he learned confidence, he said, adding:
“Once you have some kind of confidence,
you’re on your way.”
Afterward, the word “magical” echoed up
and down School hallways.
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An Interview with Poet-in-Residence
Susan Kinsolving
B Y
D I V Y A
S Y M M E R S
Despite the School’s proud history of alumni writers and poets (Archibald MacLeish ’11 comes to mind),
Susan Kinsolving is Hotchkiss’s first official poet-in-residence. The Midwest-born, Northeast-raised, West
Coast-educated poet, who has won several major awards and written three critically acclaimed books
and two internationally performed librettos, last year began teaching poetry to four senior and upper-mid
classes. Bright, brilliant, and imbued with a questing spirit that inspires students to learn with joy, she
added new and unexpected depth. Who could forget her “Like” skit in Auditorium? Or the Chapel presentation where students from other countries read poems in their native languages? The intriguing guest
speakers she invited, including Major Jackson, Susan Cheever, Laura Baudo, and Edward Hirsch? The
news that Ms. Kinsolving is returning for a second year fills us with anticipation. Early this spring, we sat
down with her for the following interview:
HOW DID YOU BECOME POET IN RESIDENCE AT HOTCHKISS?
I have taught poetry for many years, at colleges and universities, most recently in the Bennington Writing
Seminars. A former Hotchkiss English teacher, Athena
Fliakos, was one of my M.F.A. students. She invited me to
Hotchkiss to give a poetry reading and to teach a few clas-
ses. I spent the day, and I really didn’t want to leave. So
when someone in the English department said, ‘Oh, what
could we do to get you here?’ I replied, ‘Well, probably ask
me.” [She laughs.] Perhaps they were suggesting that I
return for just another day, but it went on from there.
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THIS PLACE THAT APPEALED TO
RIGHT: Susan
Kinsolving
YOU? WAS IT THE KIDS? WAS IT THE OTHER TEACHERS?
OR WAS IT THE WHOLE PACKAGE?
First of all, the teaching ambience was so inviting: The size
of the classes, the enthusiasm of the students, their differences. And then I met several members of the faculty. I
have enormous respect for them. They are so dedicated
and wise. I’ve learned a lot from my students and from
my colleagues. I’m getting a superb education here!
WHAT AGE GROUP ARE YOU TEACHING?
I’m teaching four courses – Creative Writing, with seniors
and upper-mids, and two units of a poetry elective for
seniors. I’m also teaching American Lit to upper mids. I
really like the mix. I enjoy teaching a Seamus Heaney
poem, then teaching Fitzgerald’s Gatsby or The Tortilla
Curtain by T.C. Boyle. The seniors did a lot of work on
prosody. It’s wonderfully stimulating. The upper mids had
a heated argument over Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne. It
was fascinating. I took notes!
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SCHOOL AGE KIDS AND TEACHING GRADUATE STUDENTS?
House Lights Down
With high school students, I am more involved with the
foundations of their growing intellect. I feel a greater
responsibility, but also a greater excitement. In the classroom, over a semester, I witness transformations. Not just
children becoming adults, but possibilities being realized,
creatively, intellectually, socially, even spiritually. Teaching
can be thrilling. Even addictive. I’m always wondering
about how best to present a text or reach a student.
In the straight-back wooden chairs of eternity left
from a recent run of Our Town, I am here beside you
to tell the darkness how we endure endless forfeiture,
how our days disappear, how all we do must be left
undone. As on a pocket watch that never opens its face,
the unregarded hours elude us and convey seconds
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TEACHING HIGH
HOW DO YOU MAKE POETRY RELEVANT TO SOMEBODY
WHO’S 15 OR 16?
To some degree, it’s finding the poem that meets them,
that gives voice to their elusive feelings and thoughts. Once
they have a poem that they can embrace and identify with,
they’re interested in the next poem. And on it goes. They
want that curious magic, that alchemy of individualism
finding a shared expression. They also want the laughs of
light verse or the fever pitch of a wild love poem. Or maybe
the enraged voice of rebellion. Sometimes, the first poem
that speaks to them is one of loss and sorrow.
WHAT ABOUT STUDENTS FOR WHOM ENGLISH IS
A SECOND LANGUAGE?
I’ve had students here who are Korean, Ghanaian, Italian,
Dutch, Chinese. Although it takes them a while to find
some security with English verse, they bring other points of
view and other possibilities to the classroom. This difference usually becomes an asset. It certainly provided a global context in my creative writing class. Nuance gained further complexity. And that is truly an understatement.
into seasons, making a surrealism of years. Already we have
not walked far enough in snow, swum deep enough in the lake.
We haven’t read a week of Keats or memorized seven
minutes of Mahler. Will we ever pick a wild peach, step
on shadows in Sicily or stones in the Bering Sea?
All unlikely. Like bees abandoning an autumn field,
we yield, relinquishing our nightclothes and notebooks, the lost
powdery scent of our missing infant, the dazzling waltz,
the daily bread, and the best words, left unsaid. Ours is this
small space between an answered prayer and a coming
curse. Still we are honored to have played our part,
lovers living our days unrehearsed, as if each were the first.
– Susan Kinsolving
Also, I believe the international students enjoyed the
acknowledgment.
TELL ME ABOUT THE “LIKE” PRESENTATION YOU
DOES THIS “OTHERNESS” CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR
GAVE IN FEBRUARY.
OWN VOICE IN ENGLISH?
Oh, that was great fun. First of all, it makes me positively
crazy to hear this word “like” used over and over again in a
meaningless way. It’s an invasive species. Rampant crabgrass on the lush lawn of English! An awful metaphor, I
know. Anyway, in my attempt to weed it out, if you will, I
thought it might be amusing to do a skit in Auditorium. I
enlisted a student, Hector Marrero ’11, and our good doctor, Jared Zelman. The basis of the skit was Dr. Zelman’s
rushing to stop the spread of “likitis,” a new epidemic on
campus that was making bright Hotchkiss students sound
stupid! I had hundreds of stickers made with “LIKE”
crossed-out in a red circle. These were our immunity patch-
It contributes new imagery, anecdote, and accent. The first
chapel program I organized was a reading by international
students. They read poems in their own languages, and
then they read English translations. It was an opportunity
for all our students to hear sound separated from sense, to
hear the musicality and rhythm of a language without
comprehending its meaning. Few of us understood Polish,
which was read, or Ga, which was read, or Russian. So we
were able to hear those sounds before we understood what
the poem was about. That’s a particular and rare opportunity. I would like to do a similar program again next year.
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es. After the auditorium skit, lots of students wore them
and it did help with that dreadful linguistic tic. Some students were even counting others’ misusage. That was a
small victory. I’m not alone in this. My department chair
has been conducting her own crusade against “like” in the
classroom. We’ll have to keep it going. I am all for similes
and healthy verbs, but not spasmodic reiteration. I have
to carry earplugs with me. Now “like” has been joined by
“you know.” More for the weed whacker!
I HEARD THAT AT SOME POINT DURING THE YEAR YOU
TOOK A GROUP OF STUDENTS TO FAIRFIELD FARMS TO BE
ONE WITH NATURE. IS THAT TRUE?
Well, not just to be one with nature. Josh Hahn and I
took all my poetry students to Fairfield Farms. We did a
class comparing so-called nature writing and environmental writing. We read Thoreau, Wendell Berry, Mary
Oliver, Whitman, and others. Josh spoke about viewing
landscape with some environmental insight. We wanted
the students to have some contemplative time with
Hotchkiss’ beautiful land and farm. For a while the freedom to wander in the fresh air seemed to baffle them.
They asked what exactly was the assignment? But eventually they began to connect their senses with the place.
DID THEY PRODUCE POEMS BASED ON THIS?
Poems really require contemplation, reverie, and return.
And by return, I mean rewrite. Verse and reverse. If you
have two hours at the Hotchkiss farm on a beautiful day,
you might come away with a few lines. You might find a
metaphor, an image. You might find a starting point. But
it would be very rare that you would come away with a
complete poem. And I would prefer that my students didn’t try for a complete poem, because they might force it
and lose whatever was essential, impulsive, sensed yet
unknown. Imaginative and unexplained.
WHAT OTHER PLACES DID YOUR POETRY
STUDENTS EXPLORE?
We worked on ekphrastic poetry: poems based on other
art forms (think ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’). So we spent
many hours in the Tremaine Gallery. It’s often helpful to
find inspiration outside oneself, from another art form.
Students would see disparate images or references.
Sometimes they would assume the voice of the painting
or photograph. Or they might create a dialogue among
the pieces. Abstractions can be stimulating. Ascribing lan-
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guage to them refuses the obvious, the representational.
Some of our best creative writing came from these
ekphrastic exercises.
TELL ME ABOUT ALL THE T-SHIRTS WE SEE AROUND
CAMPUS WITH “HOTCHKISS POETRY” ON THEM.
As a surprise, my husband had an athletic-looking blue
sweatshirt made for me that read ‘Hotchkiss Poetry’ in big
white letters. When I wore the shirt, everyone on campus
seemed to want one, too. So I had an idea: I asked Malcolm
McKenzie if I could have 100 shirts made to reward students who memorized and recited poems. He immediately
agreed. Of course, he recited a poem and received the first
shirt! Soon after, varsity athletes were wearing the shirts,
and even faculty from other departments. The whole thing
took off. We ran out of shirts, but the recitations kept coming. Next year, I plan to have more shirts.
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE COMING ACADEMIC YEAR?
I have great hopes to do new programs: poems about
sports, poems about music, poems from the various states
of the U.S.A.; it goes on and on! There are many poems
and novels I am eager to teach. Hotchkiss definitely keeps
ideas coming – it’s an energy chain of sorts. Obviously, the
School has a long tradition in poetry, and the determination of my colleagues in the English department to bring
great writers to campus is thoughtful and ongoing. My
contribution has been only a small continuation of a tradition. The guest list was dazzling long before I got here.
What an embarrassment of riches it was to have Wole
Soyinka and Seamus Heaney here in the same month. The
muses seem quite at home at Hotchkiss. It’s a privilege for
me to be here. It’s hard work, intense, but also a gift.
Susan Kinsolving is the author of three books of poems – her latest, My Glass Eye, is in manuscript. A previous book, Dailies &
Rushes, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle
Award. She has received numerous fellowships, including from
foundations in Italy, France, New York, Scotland, Illinois, and
Switzerland, and two from the Connecticut Commission on the
Arts, along with as many literary laurels. The Poetry Society of
America bestowed its 2009 Lyric Award on her. The New York
Times called her poems “A powerful and practiced repertory of
formal gestures including a startling backhand of wit and irony.”
This year, her new libretto was performed by three symphonies.
Recently, she was invited by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka to
give a reading at his college in California.
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PHOTO BY AL FERREIRA
LEFT: Summer Portals
students take their studies
outdoors.
Hotchkiss Summer Portals will open two more
doors to learning in the next couple of years.
eadership, Peace & Conflict
Transformation will enroll students in
the same age group as those in the
current Portals programs in environmental
science and chamber music – 12 to 15.
Another collaborative program, with Peking
University High School, will enroll older
teenagers selected by the high school who
want to prepare themselves for university
studies in the U.S.
“The Summer Portals program is growing in size as well as growing even more
in tune with the public purpose of the
School,” says Head of School Malcolm
McKenzie. “We bring young boys and girls
from all over the U.S.A. and abroad, to our
campus, many on financial aid. Next year
we are adding a program on Leadership,
Peace & Conflict Transformation as well as
developing a new partnership with the
Peking University High School. It is uplifting to be able to use our amazing resources
like this to give a taste of the Hotchkiss
experience to many who will not be here
during the academic year.”
This year marks the seventh year of operation for Hotchkiss’s three-week summer
program, and Dean Robert Barker, who is
also a longtime history teacher and administrator at Hotchkiss, believes the new addi-
L
tions will build effectively on the successes of
the current Portals.
“The Leadership Portal is something that I
have had in mind,” Barker says, “because I
believe that leadership is not just innate – a
good deal of leadership is learned. Portals has
talented, thoughtful kids who can learn how
to be really good leaders. I think, in part, the
shape of the program came from some of the
work that Malcolm McKenzie is doing within the School with a renewed focus on leadership. So, there is a lot of connection
between the plans for the School and the
embryonic program we are developing.
“We’ve chosen our first director, Cornelia
Holden, the founder of the Mindful Warrior
program. I think Cornelia is going to bring to
this curriculum and to the leadership of the
program some of the best aspects of programs like Seeds of Peace or the Axis of
Hope, but also she will bring a mindfulness
component. This says that leaders have to
model and embody the concept of an internal
healthy outlook on life. They can’t be ‘TypeA’ people, running around all the time trying
to do this and dominate that. They have to be
confident, self-assured, and reflective. And
again, this idea of reflectiveness is something
that Malcolm talks to our students about as
being essential in their education.”
Barker plans to recruit students for the
Leadership Portal from throughout the U.S.,
including possibly from places like the
Navajo Nation, as well as suburban and
urban places. He will also look at enrolling
students from areas such as Israel and
Palestine, Northern Ireland, China, and
Tibet. His goal is to have about 40 students
at the start, with a good gender balance of
boys and girls.
“These students may have very different
backgrounds and different ways of looking at
the world and each other,” he says. “My hope
is that, as with the other Portals students currently in chamber music and environmental
science, although they have separate programs,
everything else is shared. They share life
together in the dormitory, in the dining room,
and in afternoon activities, so there’s a lot of
interaction – sharing ideas, talking about what
they are learning in their programs. So, we
hope that would happen with this program.”
And, as with the existing programs, some of
the students in the Leadership Portal may later
enroll at Hotchkiss. This year, Barker notes, 13
former Portals environmental students will be
attending Hotchkiss in September.
That will not be the case with the students
from the China portal, he says. “We were
approached by the Peking University High
School to offer a program to Chinese students who want to enroll in university in the
United States. So this is not a conduit to
Hotchkiss. What these students want is practice on reading and writing in English, particularly analytical writing, reading, and
speaking. We will offer them, at their
request, British literature, theater, and college advising. In English, history, and theater, they will be speaking more in class,
because it’s not part of the general Chinese
education that kids speak up in class. And
this kind of exchange is very much a part of
American classrooms. That’s the essence of
the program, in which we will ultimately
enroll 40 students.”
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NEW
FACULTY
KEVIN HICKS AND CORNELIA CANNON HOLDEN BRING TALENTS
THAT BROADEN, ENRICH THE SCHOOL
Every September, Hotchkiss renews itself.
Incoming students breathe new life into the
school, even as they acclimate to our traditions;
new faculty and staff, similarly, add energy and
experience developed elsewhere to a community
that is famously lively and learned. In keeping
with this longstanding pattern of renewal, Kevin
Hicks and Cornelia Cannon Holden will bring
an amazing breadth of talents to Hotchkiss when
they begin their duties here this summer.
Kevin Hicks, formerly Dean of Berkeley
College and Lecturer in English at Yale
University, is Hotchkiss’s new Associate Head of
School and Dean of Faculty. A highly respected
teacher, mentor, and coach, Hicks holds a B.A.
degree in Religious Studies from Yale University
and his Ph.D. in English from Princeton
University. As Dean of Berkeley College, he has
taught one course a year, a junior seminar on
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Larry Becker, former Hotchkiss faculty member
who served as a consultant in the Dean of Faculty
search, says of his first meeting with Hicks: “Very
quickly, I knew Kevin was extraordinary: brilliant,
but not pedantic, warm, friendly, articulate. As I
thought about the task of attracting top teaching
candidates to Hotchkiss, I was confident that
Kevin would be outstanding at this. They will be
impressed. While he is brilliant, unlike some great
minds, he will never work to prove to others that
he is the smartest person in the room, although
quite likely, he will be.”
Cornelia Cannon Holden, Kevin’s wife, is the
founder of Mindful Warrior, which teaches elite
athletes, coaches, and teams the principles of
high performance. Recently, Holden worked with
the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team, which held
its first-ever No. 1-world ranking entering the
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. At
Hotchkiss, she will work half-time as Assistant
Dean of Admission and in the Summer Portals
office with Dean Robert Barker. Recently, she
and Barker workd together on the design of a
third Portal, Leadership, Peace & Conflict
Transformation, which will be added to the existing Portals in Environmental Science and
Chamber Music. And, she will work with coaches
Kevin Hicks
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and Athletic Directors Robin Chandler ’87 and
Danny Smith to share Mindful Warrior principles
with individual athletes and teams.
KEVIN HICKS
Hicks is one of two Associate Heads of
Hotchkiss, his major responsibility being the
leadership of the faculty.
“Hotchkiss is poised to become something no
New England boarding school has ever been,”
Hicks said in a recent interview, “even as it maintains its firm commitment to the longstanding
traditions that are at its core. To be invited to
contribute to the school’s distinctive ecology,
especially at this critical moment in its long and
distinguished history, is a true honor. Anyone
who truly aspires to be a ‘schoolkeeper’− and by
that I mean, in part, a person who can think well
beyond his or her own tenure at a place − would
give anything to have a role at today’s
Hotchkiss.”
“My whole life, I’ve enjoyed the blessing of
great teachers,” he added, “and I was reminded of
so many of my favorites when I met the
Hotchkiss faculty.” At the Robert Louis Stevenson
School, the independent boarding and day school
in Pebble Beach, CA, which he attended in the
mid-1980s, he was taught by “inspiring and thoroughly professional people who weren’t just passing through secondary education on their way to
something else. They gave me an opportunity to
see my work as meaningful beyond itself; they
enlarged and enhanced my sense of the world.
When I visited Hotchkiss, it felt familiar to me in
precisely this way.
“The Hotchkiss folks I’ve known throughout my
life − people my own age and older, as well as
more recent graduates − have always spoken of
their time in Lakeville with deep and uniform reverence,” Hicks said. “As I’ve learned more and
more about the school and its evolving mission,
their incredible, soulful love for the place has taken
on new texture and depth. I feel so fortunate to be
coming to this community at this moment.”
Hicks, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on
antebellum American literature, has taught at
The Peddie School (NJ) and Wellesley Public
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High School (MA). He has also served as an
admissions officer at Bennington College (VT)
and Middlesex School (MA), and as an assistant
women’s lacrosse coach at Brown University and
Trinity College (CT). He also developed the curriculum for Peak Goalie School − the nation’s top
summer camp for pre-collegiate lacrosse goalies −
with which he has been associated since 1991.
CORNELIA CANNON HOLDEN:
The founder and CEO of Mindful Warrior,
Cornelia Holden is excited to bring her unique
curriculum to Hotchkiss. Her approach, which
unites mindfulness practices with citizen-leadership models to help clients become more resilient
and powerful, has been successfully introduced at
Georgetown University, Yale University,
Middlebury College, and the Navajo Nation. Since
Holden joined the staff of U.S. Women’s Ice
Hockey in 2006, the team has enjoyed unprecedented success, winning two consecutive World
Championships (2008, 2009) and Gold Medals at
APPOINTMENT
both the 2009 Four Nations Cup and 2009 Hockey
Canada Cup.
Holden graduated summa cum laude from
Bowdoin College, where she was a NCAA Division
II giant slalom ski racing champion and a member
of both the varsity tennis and crew teams. She also
holds a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity
School, where her program of study included
courses at Harvard Business School.
She also worked with The Bridgespan Group,
the non-profit consulting division of Bain &
Company, before entering private practice as a
psychotherapist, coach, and complementary and
alternative medicine consultant. She is a licensed
massage therapist with training in body-centered
healing therapies and a registered yoga teacher.
“We are so excited to partner with Hotchkiss,”
says Holden. “We feel so welcomed by the school
community, and so in tune with the place at this
moment in its history.”
TO READ THE FULL VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE,
PLEASE GO TO: WWW.HOTCHKISS.ORG/ABOUTHOTCHKISS.
JOSEPH FLYNN APPOINTED TO HEAD ADVANCEMENT
oseph P. Flynn, currently the Assistant Headmaster for
External Affairs at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, has
been appointed Chief Advancement Officer at Hotchkiss,
effective August 1, 2010. Joe will be responsible for all aspects of
the program of the Hotchkiss Development and Alumni Offices
and oversee a staff of 26. Current Director of Alumni and
Development Christopher French will become Director of
Principal Gifts, as announced some months ago, in advance of the
School’s upcoming campaign.
“I am honored by this opportunity and excited to join the outstanding Alumni and Development team,” said Flynn. “Hotchkiss
has a rich history, a compelling mission, and a bright future. I look
forward to taking on the challenges of this great school and of the
forthcoming campaign.”
A graduate of The Lawrenceville School, he has extensive experience in education, having run the annual fund at Lawrenceville
and led the development and alumni programs at McDonogh
School and the University of Virginia Alumni Association before
beginning at Woodberry in 2002. At Woodberry, he has overseen
the execution of a $100-million comprehensive campaign and
managed the master plan for institutional advancement.
Flynn earned a B.A. in history at the University of Virginia and
J
Cornelia Cannon
Holden
holds an M.B.A. from Loyola
University in Maryland. He
has served as a trustee of
McDonogh School and
Sacred Heart School, both in
Maryland. He has also served
on the Executive Committee
of The Lawrenceville School
Alumni Association.
“We are thrilled to have
Joe and his family join the
Hotchkiss community,” says
Head of School Malcolm
McKenzie. “In addition to
having an appreciation for the mission of independent schools, Joe
has tremendous experience in fundraising and campaign management. He is very excited about the new initiatives that form part of
the Hotchkiss Plan and is eager to get involved in the ambitious campaign that will flow from the Plan.”
Joe and his wife, Carol, will be moving to Hotchkiss this summer. Their daughter, Claire, will be a Prep at Hotchkiss, and their
son, Conor, is a rising senior at Woodberry Forest School.
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2010 COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD RECIPIENTS
LEFT: Participating in
the program were, from
left: Nan Philip ’12,
Jennifer Case ’80,
Malcolm McKenzie,
Wendy Weil Rush ’80,
Julian Houston ’62,
Anna Lamb ’10.
SINCE 1992, 51 ALUMNI HAVE RECEIVED THE COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD, AN AWARD
ESTABLISHED AT THE TIME OF THE SCHOOL’S CENTENNIAL IN 1992. RECIPIENTS ARE
SELECTED BY THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE OF THE HOTCHKISS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF GOVERNORS AND ARE HONORED AT AN AWARD CEREMONY ON CAMPUS. THE
2010 AWARDS WERE PRESENTED TO JULIAN HOUSTON ’62 AND JENNIFER LITTLE CASE
’80 AT AN ALL-SCHOOL MEETING ON APRIL 26.
The Honorable
Julian T. Houston ’62
Julian T. Houston ’62 came to Hotchkiss
in 1959 as a lower mid from Richmond,
VA. He wrote for the Lit, served as art editor of the Review, and sang with the Glee
Club and Blue Notes. He also played on
the basketball team and competed in track.
After graduation, he began studies at
Boston University, but left after one year
to work in civil rights as a community
organizer for the Northern Student
Movement. On returning to BU, he was
elected president of the student body and
received his undergraduate degree in
Government in 1968. He entered BU’s
Law School that same year. While a law
student, he spent a summer working for
consumer advocate Ralph Nader and
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another as law clerk to the distinguished
Boston trial attorney, William Homans.
After practicing law with Attorney
Homans, Houston became director of the
Juvenile Justice Project of the Massachusetts
Advocacy Center. There he organized
Project Interaction, which brought 36 high
school students from southern states to
assist Boston students in the first year of
court-ordered desegregation there. Houston
then returned to private practice.
In 1979 he was appointed Associate
Justice of the Roxbury District Court, with
principal responsibility for the Juvenile
Session. Shortly thereafter, in 1981, he
founded Roxbury Youthworks, Inc., which
he now serves as President Emeritus of the
Board of Directors.
In founding Roxbury Youthworks, he
hoped to reduce recidivism and help inner-
city youngsters stay off the streets. This organization, which started as a small clinic in
Roxbury District Court, now operates seven
youth sites. In its first 25 years, the organization has: grown from two to 37 employees;
served approximately 20,000 youth and families; and operated all of Boston’s youth
Community Re-Entry Centers (and continues to do so).
Judge Houston served for 11 years in the
Roxbury District Court before being
appointed to the Superior Court in 1990 by
Governor Michael Dukakis. He recently
retired after 27 years as a Massachusetts
judge, having devoted himself to improving the relationship between residents of
the inner city and local institutions. In
1984, he was instrumental in founding the
Justice George Lewis Ruffin Society, which
promotes the advancement of minorities in
the field of criminal justice.
He has also worked to develop programs
that build relationships between the innercity community and Boston’s great cultural
institutions, including his role in paying
tribute to African American concert tenor,
Roland Hayes. “Lilacs,” the work commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
for the tribute and composed by George
Walker, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in
Music in 1996, the first such award to an
African American composer.
Judge Houston has served as a member
of the Massachusetts State Board of
Education, the Governor’s Select
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RIGHT: Malcolm
McKenzie, left, with
Julian Houston
Committee on Judicial Needs, and the
Chief Justice’s Commission on the Future
of the Courts. He is the author of a novel,
New Boy, (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Judge
Houston lives in Brookline, MA with his
wife, Susan, and family.
I want to thank the Alumni Association
for giving me this award. Frankly, I have
never expected an award for the things
that I’ve done to benefit the community.
I’ve simply done them because, as I
looked around me, I decided they needed
to be done.
As most of you know, I was a judge in
Massachusetts for 27 years, and most of
what I have done has, in some way,
involved the court system. In 1979, I was
appointed to the Roxbury District Court, a
troubled inner-city court serving a largely
black community. As soon as I arrived, I
began to look for ways the court might
improve life for the people using the
court. Eventually, I realized that there
were lots of people who brought their children to court because they had no alternative. They couldn’t afford day care or a
babysitter, or they wanted a husband or a
boyfriend in custody to see the child.
There were small children languishing in
courtrooms listening to testimony in murder cases, rape cases, cases of extreme violence. It bothered me, but I didn’t know
what to do about it. Then in 1984, I was
reading an article in The New York Times
about childcare centers in two New York
City courts, and I saw the solution to my
problem. I brought together a group of
childcare professionals and social service
agencies to help develop a childcare center
for the court, and in 1989 the first court-
based childcare center in New England
opened at the Roxbury District Court.
Over the next 12 years, we were able to
open nine additional centers in courts
around the state; however, in 2002, our
funding was eliminated to meet a crisis in
the state budget, and all ten programs were
forced to close. This is an unfortunate fact
of life whenever you develop something
that relies upon government funding.
By 1996, I had been appointed to the
Superior Court. My jurisdiction was
statewide, so I no longer worked in a community court. As I travelled to courthouses
around the state, however, I noticed that
there were no portraits of African
American judges occupying a place of
honor in any courtroom. I sought more
information about the history of African
Americans in the Massachusetts courts. I
learned that the first African American to
sit on the Superior Court was Edward
Gourdin, an extraordinary individual who,
in 1921 broke the world’s record in the
broad jump while he was a student at
Harvard College, and who won the Silver
medal in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris,
shortly after graduating from Harvard Law
School. Gourdin was appointed to the
Superior Court in 1958. He died in 1966,
and by 1997 not a single one of my colleagues on the court could tell me his
name. As a result, I organized a committee
to commission a portrait of Judge Gourdin.
Several distinguished members of the bar
raised funds to hire an artist, and today a
portrait of Judge Edward Gourdin hangs in
a courtroom in the Suffolk Superior Court
in Boston. It is the only portrait of an
African American Superior Court judge in
a courtroom in the state.
I began to realize that African Americans
had played a substantial role in the
Massachusetts court system for three centuries. In the late 1700s, the slaves Elizabeth
Freeman and Quock Walker summoned
the courage to sue their owners for their
freedom, and the result was the abolition of
slavery in Massachusetts. At the age of 25,
Robert Morris, the second African
American admitted as an attorney in
Massachusetts, filed the first school desegregation suit in the nation, Roberts v. School
Committee of Boston, in 1848. The decision
of the Supreme Judicial Court rejecting his
claim came as a great disappointment to
the abolitionist movement; however, it led
to the passage of a law by the
Massachusetts legislature prohibiting racial
segregation in the Boston public schools.
Much of Morris’ argument was used a century later by the plaintiffs in the historic
Brown v. Board of Education case, which
abolished racial segregation throughout the
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PHOTOS: ANNE DAY P’09, ‘11,’13
2010 Community Service
Award speech by Julian T.
Houston ’62
17
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CAMPUS
connection
United States. And Anthony Burns, an
escaped slave from Virginia, became a
nationally known figure in 1853 when his
owner hired slave catchers to apprehend
him in Boston and return him to Virginia.
A court hearing on whether to release
Burns was vigorously argued for days until
the judge ordered Burns returned to slavery. Two thousand federal troops were
ordered into Boston to preserve order
when Burns, in manacles, was led onto a
ship that took him back to Virginia.
The more I read, I realized there were
many stories about this history that
deserved to be told, important stories that
everyone should know. So I began to talk
with others about organizing an exhibition
that would portray the experience of
African Americans in the Massachusetts
courts, and I found considerable interest.
At one point, there were more than 40
people working to prepare the exhibition
for its unveiling. In fact, one of the most
satisfying results of overseeing the development of an idea like the exhibition was
the way others came to its aid and volunteered their support.
Four years and four hundred thousand
dollars later, Long Road to Justice: the
African American Experience in the
Massachusetts Courts opened in September
2000 in the Edward W. Brooke
Courthouse in Boston. If you would like
to look at it, it is available on the web.
Simply go to Google and punch in Long
Road to Justice. After travelling throughout the state for three years, the exhibition
has been permanently installed at the
Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston.
If you’re in Boston, you should stop by
and see it. It is an accomplishment of
which I am particularly proud.
I subscribe to the statement Ted
Kennedy made about Senator Phillip
Hart at the dedication of the Senate office
building in Hart’s memory. “His life was
a testament,” said Kennedy, “to the principle that there is no limit to the amount
of good a person can do, if he doesn’t
care who gets the credit for it.” I submit
to you if you give of yourself to those in
need freely and without concern for personal recognition, you will discover that
others will inevitably recognize what you
have done, and, more importantly, you
will gain an inner satisfaction, a spiritual
satisfaction, that is humbling and cannot
be replaced.
Thank you, again, for this award.
Jennifer Little Case ’80
Jennifer Little Case came to Hotchkiss in
1977 from Stamford, CT. She served as
assistant layout editor of the Mischianza
and played on the volleyball, girls’ lacrosse,
and JV field hockey teams.
After receiving her B.A. from
Middlebury College, Case worked for two
years at Bankers Trust. She then earned
her M.B.A. at the Amos Tuck School at
Dartmouth. After completing her graduate
studies, she went to work in TimeWarner’s magazine division, where she did
marketing and business development for
FORTUNE and Sports Illustrated for Kids.
For the latter magazine, she managed a
not-for-profit program that distributed
the publication to 250,000 third and
fourth-graders in low-income areas across
the country. The program was a huge success in engaging these sometimes hard-tomotivate students in reading and learning
activities.
A former volunteer for Save the
Children, Jennifer is the founder and president of Cradles to Crayons in
Philadelphia. Cradles to Crayons provides
low-income and homeless children, from
infants to pre-teens, with the basic essentials they need to be safe, warm, ready to
learn, and valued. All of this is provided
free of charge. The organization also sets a
foundation for lasting change through the
meaningful, tangible volunteer opportunities it provides to thousands of youth and
adults each year.
Cradles to Crayons in Philadelphia was
“born” in September 2005, when Jennifer
Case, with the help of her three young
children, held a multi-family tag sale in
their Glenside, PA neighborhood. All the
proceeds went to assist children who were
victims of Katrina. The event was called
“Kids 4 Kids.” Through the garage sale,
Jennifer, who had been a stay-at-home
mom for several years, saw the lessons that
she could teach her children and others
about the power of giving. At the same
time, Jennifer realized that she wanted to
take this effort to a much bigger level.
Through a good friend, Jennifer was introduced to Lynn Margherio at Cradles to
Crayons, visited the organization’s Boston
office, and made the decision to bring this
successful organization to Philadelphia. In
2006, she founded the Philadelphia chapter
of Cradles to Crayons.
Like her counterparts in Boston, Case
has spent countless hours building bridges
to social-service partner organizations,
volunteer groups, and corporations
(which organize groups of volunteers
and – in many cases – donate funds or
make in-kind contributions). “It’s about
creating opportunities for what we call
‘widespread volunteerism,’” says Case.
“We partner with social-service organizations in the Philadelphia area to connect
communities that have surplus
resources – new or used items in good
condition – with communities that desperately need access to those resources.”
Last year, Cradles to Crayons provided,
free of charge, packages of clothes, shoes,
books, toys, baby safety equipment and
school supplies to 48,000 children in the
Boston and Philadelphia metropolitan
areas. Read more here: H T T P : / / P H I L A D E L PHIA.CRADLESTOCRAYONS.ORG/NODE/5.
2010 Community Service
Award Speech by Jennifer
Case ’80:
How many of you have now, or have at
home any clothes, sweaters, shoes, books
or games that are still in good shape but
that you don’t wear, read, or use any more?
(All hands went up.)
Yes, I thought so. Well, as the mother of
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RIGHT: Malcolm
McKenzie with
Jennifer Case
three, I was living in a home where we,
too, had a lot of ‘extras’ in our closets.
Now, imagine three young children – a
12-year old boy, seven-year-old girl, and
baby girl, escaping with their mother from
an abusive situation and arriving at a shelter in the middle of the night with only
their clothes on their back. How many of
you would like to help these children, providing clothes, books, or toys – if you had
hand-me-downs appropriate for their
age? (All hands go up.) Great!
That is what Cradles to Crayons does.
And that was our first order back in June
2007 for Jeremy, Jamillia, and Johanna.
Cradles to Crayons recycles the children’s essentials that so many of us are
fortunate to have and redistributes them
directly to those living in households at
low-income or poverty levels. ‘C2C’ collects donated items in a warehouse, sorts
and processes these items with the help of
volunteer groups – adults, students, and
school groups – and then distributes the
items when ordered by an agency for specific children. It’s simple, smart, and
incredibly low-cost.
But what I wanted to share with you
today are the lessons I learned in starting
Cradles to Crayons – lessons I also
remember learning during my years at
Hotchkiss.
Follow your passion; Believe in yourself;
Work hard, and perhaps most importantly; Build and work as a team: Everyone has
something to bring to the table.
How Cradles to Crayons started was in
some ways very simple. After Hurricane
Katrina, my children and I decided to have
a garage sale to raise money to donate to
Katrina’s young victims. We sent out 30
emails to tell friends and neighbors to stop
by. We got back 40 emails saying, “I have
stuff to sell, too.” We realized then how
much excess we all had in our closets and
playrooms. Before we knew it, we had a
community yard sale.
But what was most inspiring about the
day was seeing the joy and excitement of
my children, who were getting so much
joy out of helping others.
And THIS is where the passion started.
So, I searched and looked for something
to build that would engage families and
their children in ‘giving back.’ Originally, I
was working on a garage sale model that
would raise and donate funds. But then I
came across Cradles to Crayons in Boston,
which had a warehouse where items were
collected, sorted, processed, and packaged
for children in need.
The next challenge was: How to build an
organization like this in a city with four
times more poverty than Boston; and
where one in three children doesn’t even
have his or her own books to read. It was a
daunting idea.
And this is where Believing in yourself,
Working hard, and Working as a team
became critical. I had to believe that I could
start this from scratch, but that if I only
served one child, then it would be worth it.
So I set to talking about it, and finding
others with a similar passion – building a
team of knowledgeable people – and then
we all worked very hard! We began by col-
lecting product in garage spaces, driving uhauls, and sorting items in dark school basements – endless hours, but a great team.
In June 2007, with one part-time
employee, Cradles to Crayons Philadelphia
opened its first warehouse – 8,000 sq. ft. –
and started by serving six agencies. Our six
distribution partners included: a hospital,
a school district, a homeless shelter, an
abuse center, a faith-based shelter, and a
family support organization.
This March, two- and one-half years
later, we moved to a 17,000 sq. ft. space.
We have grown to a staff of nine, but all of
those on the original team are still
involved and still passionate.
In less than three years, Cradles to
Crayons Philadelphia has engaged more
than 16,000 volunteers and served more
than 31,000 children. And we now serve
over 420 distribution partner programs.
This success could never have happened
without: Following my passion; Believing
in myself; A lot of Hard Work, and most
importantly; Building and Working with
an incredible team.
So – no matter what you go on to do in
life, remember these lessons – and also,
please remember that if we all give a little,
we can make a big difference.
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n a quiet Saturday morning in May, I drove north along Route 41 with the
radio on.
As I was listening to NPR’s morning news program, I happened to catch an
interview with Elizabeth Samet, a professor of literature at the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point. She was answering questions about her book, Soldier’s
Heart: Reading Literature through Peace and War at West Point. She spoke at
length about the correspondence she maintained, mostly by e-mail, with former students serving all over the world.
Whoa! I slowed the car and focused more carefully on what she was saying. I, too, had been
exchanging e-mails with military men and women stationed in far-flung places, all of them Hotchkiss
alumni. And during these exchanges, I found myself struggling always with a worry that I was distracting them from important work or from possible physical danger. My e-mails seemed so trivial.
Hearing the professor talk about her e-mail conversations with young men and women whom she
knew well as former students put me in touch with the disconnect that I felt. Here I was in quiet
Lakeville, working every day at a place of sublime beauty, enjoying the immense pleasure of spring in
New England. How could I not be aware of my own discomfort as I carefully addressed my e-mails to
these soldiers, living in difficult situations and sometimes dangerous places?
And so, here is news received from 12 Hotchkiss graduates serving in branches of the U.S. military,
here and overseas. As to the mechanics of this exchange, I sent e-mail queries to alumni for whom our
database showed a record of active service. I asked questions about their decision to serve, the daily life
in their current deployment, and the lessons and surprises in their military experience.
Several expressed appreciation at being included in an article. “Thank you for contacting me. It warms
my heart to know that Hotchkiss values its sons and daughters in the military,” one wrote.
But, “do they know they warm our hearts?” I asked myself again and again that day.
Letters Home:
Hearing from
Hotchkiss Alumni
in the
Military
By Roberta Jenckes
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FIRST LIEUTENANT
JAMES P. “BIFF” MCNALLY ’02
Currently deployed to Helmand Province
in Afghanistan; graduate of the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point
‘‘A
s an Infantry Platoon Leader
deployed in a combat zone, I am
responsible for the tactical employment of 40
infantry soldiers, four Stryker Infantry carrier
vehicles, and myriad other equipment. I lead
my platoon in the execution of raids, reconnaissance, ambushes, civil-military operations, and other combat operations as needed to support the war effort in southern
Afghanistan.
“I think fighting the war in the heart of one
of the poorest and most radicalized locations
in Afghanistan has really illustrated the benefits we have as Americans. The poverty here
is oppressive, and most people will never
have the opportunity to choose their lives or
affect their futures in a tangible way. The
Taliban has managed to shut down most
educational outlets, save for the madrassas
(religious schools), and this limits the ability
of children to become upwardly mobile. In
effect, the lack of educational opportunity
and reliance on religious education serves to
tie the populace to either a) radical religious
clerics preaching jihad and/or b) makes them
totally incapable of developing the skills necessary to earn a living doing anything other
than harvesting poppy. The Taliban, of
course, provides the poppy farmers with the
most consistent customer, and this lack of
education then binds the people to the
Taliban for economic reasons.
“Many of the children we pass in the streets,
especially the little girls, follow us down the
‘‘9/11
happened while I was at
Hotchkiss. I
remember watching the day
unfold in the Memo common room. I was, of
course, angry and saddened. … I suspected
we would be going to war, and
thought that it would be a defining
experience for my generation.”
— Biff McNally ’02
road with smiles and waves. To these kids,
we represent hope for their futures... one in
which they can go to school, women can
participate in a meaningful and large-scale
way in their public society, not worry about
whether they can leave their homes at night,
etc. Most people here live hard and insular
lives that I am not sure very many Americans
could relate to. I think it is a testament to our
strength as a country that most of us do not
have to worry about the most elementary of
concerns, and that people from other countries still look at us the way in which we like
to think of ourselves.”
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COLONEL CHRISTOPHER
“CHRIS” J. COHOES ’84
U.S. Air Force Pilot, whose service
began in 1987
‘‘I
am currently working on the staff of
the Commander, European
Command. I am involved in the ‘battle of the
narrative.’ We launch ideas instead of
weapons to influence adversary decisionmaking processes in an attempt to dominate
the information environment.
“The military experience has been outstanding. At first it was the thrill of flying
and having the responsibility to make life-
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and-death decisions in combat at an early
age. Most surprising was the realization that
there is a special connection between all military servicemen, past, present, and future,
because we understand ultimate sacrifice.
We do what we do because we are driven not
by what we want, how much we earn, intellectual curiosity, or any other motivation
than that a life serving a higher purpose is
the ultimate reward.
“It has been very rewarding to see a team
of people from incredibly diverse backgrounds come together under my command
and win. I never considered the military
while at Hotchkiss. In fact, my parents’
counsel to me during college was something
along the lines that I’d be committing intellectual suicide by joining the military. They
have since reversed course.”
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SECOND LIEUTENANT
ALEX LEZAMA ’05
U.S. Army
‘‘I
NICK LEZAMA ’75, M.D.,
M.P. H. P’05, ’08, ’11, ’11
Air Force Colonel, currently assigned to
U.S. Transportation Command at Scott
Air Force Base, Illinois
‘‘I
provide medical oversight for the
Department of Defense patient
movement system, which moves war casualties back to the U.S., and civilian patients
during domestic and international disasters.
This August I’ll be moving to a medical
school faculty assignment at the Uniformed
Services University of the Health Sciences,
Bethesda. Maryland.
“I entered the military after receiving an
Army Health Professions Scholarship to
Boston University School of Medicine. I
served nine years in the Army from 1984-93,
then had a three-year break in service while
working as an emergency physician in
Framingham, MA. I joined the Air Force in
1996 and am still on active duty.
“Military medicine offers many opportunities outside the traditional civilian hospitalbased practice. Over the last 23 years, I have
held clinical, teaching, command, and headquarters staff assignments. My most rewarding experiences have been during my deploy-
ments in support of our current operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and during hurricane and earthquake disaster responses.
“The most surprising aspect of my career
has been how much I missed the military
after leaving the Army. I missed the camaraderie, common sense of purpose, and pride
in wearing the uniform. I never expected to
serve 20 years, but interesting opportunities
kept popping up, and I had a supportive wife
and family who were willing to endure multiple moves and ‘uprootings.’ Hotchkiss has
been very generous in its support of the
Lezama family; my three sons and daughter
(Diana ’11, Robbie ’11, Alex ’05, and Peter
’08) all have had the benefit of a Hotchkiss
education, for which I will always be grateful.
“When I was at Hotchkiss, I knew I wanted to be a physician, but I never imagined
being a career military officer. Growing up in
the ’70s left me with an independent and
freedom-loving perspective on life, and surprisingly I have found personal and professional satisfaction in the military... guess we
all gotta’ serve somebody!”
began my military service a year ago
after graduating from The George
Washington University in Washington, DC.
I am a Military Intelligence Officer and currently work in an Army Counterintelligence
unit at Fort Meade, MD. I have a four-year
commitment to the Army in exchange for
my ROTC scholarship.
“In the year I have been in the Army, I
have been fortunate to do a significant
amount of travel around the U.S. I have not
yet deployed overseas but am planning on
going as soon as I am able to. The most surprising thing about the Army so far has been
the incredible diversity that exists within the
organization as a whole. My unit is comprised of people from different areas of the
country, ideologies, and socioeconomic
backgrounds. The integration of all walks of
life within the Army is a welcome surprise
and, I believe, a driving force for its organizational success.
“The idea of joining the Army was always
in the back of my mind due to my father’s
military career (Colonel Nick Lezama ’75)
and my general exposure to military culture
as a child growing up. Coming to Hotchkiss
in the fall of 2001 brought that idea to the top
of my priorities. Experiencing September
11th as a young Prep convinced me to pursue
a military career, and I began to explore ways
to do so. Eight years later, after Hotchkiss and
college, I am finally in the position to serve
my country to the best of my ability as an
Army officer. The Army has turned me into a
stronger person and a better leader. I strongly
encourage everyone, current Hotchkiss students and alumni alike, to consider a military
career as a way to honorably serve your country while gaining experiences that will change
your life for the better!”
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AFGHANISTAN:
ANYTHING BUT ROUTINE
by Biff McNally ’02
“Daily life for me is pretty varied, as I am in the middle of a
combat deployment. It is hard to give an exact definition of a
‘normal’ day here, because there are so many variables that can
affect what you experience. Your unit, your area of operations,
the people you serve with and under, the enemy you fight, etc. all
have votes in what your daily routine may consist of. Fighting in
southern Afghanistan in 2009-2010 (a region defined as the heart
of the insurgency) has been interesting, and my platoon has seen
a relatively significant amount of combat (We have had over half
of my 40-man platoon wounded in ten months, and I was
wounded myself in a suicide attack just over a month after I got
to Afghanistan), which has obviously shaped my experience in
the Army thus far.
“The variability has been a departure from my original youthful expectations. On a Monday, you may patrol into a village and
spend the day drinking chai and eating goat with the elders, sharing stories about your respective homes and families and building a relationship. That Tuesday, you may walk into a nearby
town and find yourself in a fight that lasts the better part of the
day, taking fire from machine guns and RPGs while Improvised
Explosive Devices, suicide attacks, and car bombs detonate nearby or on your guys.
“Wednesday may consist of refitting for the next mission by
conducting vehicle maintenance, planning for the next set of
missions, resting and working out, checking equipment, helping
one of your soldiers deal with a family problem at home, credit
issues, plans for their future, etc. You really have to be ready for a
variety of situations of variable levels of intensity. I’m not sure
that you are ever really aware of that concept while you are thinking about leading a platoon in combat; it’s just something you
need to experience to understand. Being a platoon leader has
been as much an intellectual challenge as a physical one, and
again I am not sure that dynamic is necessarily at the forefront of
your thoughts as you prepare to lead in combat.”
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CAPTAIN EDWARD J. “TED”
HUBBARD ’02
Joined the Marine Corps in 2006 after
graduating from Boston College
‘‘I
am an Infantry Officer with tours in
Iraq and Afghanistan, but I am now
stationed at the Marine Barracks in
Washington, DC. We conduct ceremonial
missions throughout the Capital and the
country. If you want more information
about my most recent deployment to
Afghanistan, you can watch the PBS
‘Frontline’ documentary, ‘Obama’s War.’ My
Company and Platoon are featured in it, and
I appear a few times as well.
“The Marine Corps has been very good to
me, and right now I am committed to continuing my service. The most surprising
thing to me has been the incredible amount
of dedication and determination that many
Marines put in on a daily basis. Our jobs
require extremely long hours and many sacrifices, and while Marines often complain
about it as young men and women are prone
to do, they continue to do incredible things
in the worst imaginable conditions and are
happy to do it.
“I guess that has also been the most
rewarding. Being given the opportunity to
lead 40-60 of America’s finest young men in
combat is a huge responsibility and a great
honor. Seeing them develop into mature
men and watching them sacrifice everything,
including their lives, for their brothers has
been completely awe-inspiring.
“Good luck and go, Bearcats!”
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‘‘U
LIEUTENANT
CHRISTOPHER “CHRIS”
KIESEL ’98
Currently an Instructor Pilot in the Navy
at HSC-3 in San Diego teaching young
aviators how to fly the MH-60 Sierra
Helicopter
pon graduating from Hotchkiss
in 1998, I attended the United
States Naval Academy, graduating in 2002. I
was winged as a Naval Aviator in 2004.
“I spent two years completing flight training in and around Florida and Texas prior to
earning my wings as a helicopter pilot. I had a
deep desire to travel as far as I possibly could,
and the Navy made my dream a reality when
they chose to station me in Japan for three
years as a member of the Helantisubron
Fourteen Chargers. This was a challenging
experience because this helicopter squadron
was part of the only permanently forward
deployed Air Wing in the Navy. This proved
to be the beginning of a truly unique adventure that is still fresh in my mind to this day.
My squadron’s job was to provide support in
Search and Rescue, Submarine deterrence,
and Logistics support. It was an extremely
rigorous, yet rewarding experience that
forced me to grow and mature in more ways
than I believed possible.
“After completing my tour of duty in Asia,
I was chosen to become a flight instructor in
San Diego, where I now train newly winged
Helicopter pilots in the mission areas they
will need to master prior to heading out to
the fleet. I have been a flight instructor for
two years now and am currently waiting for
my next set of orders. Where I go from there
is anyone’s guess.
“The challenge of dealing with constant
change in dynamic environments has been
the most rewarding aspect of my job and one
that continues to surprise me to this day. I
believe what was so special about my time at
Hotchkiss is that I was able to savor each
moment because I already knew that I had
been accepted to the Naval Academy
through the Foundation Program. This
knowledge allowed me to embrace the
school, my classes, my fellow students and
the shared experiences in a very dynamic and
fulfilling way. I continue to reap the benefits
of my Hotchkiss experience and know that
both my personal and professional lives are
more robust as a result.”
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‘‘I hope
CAPTAIN JOSEPH L. “JOE”
HOLLIDAY ’02
U.S. Army, the Battalion Intelligence Officer
for 2-327 Infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st
Airborne Division; currently deployed in
Konar Province in Afghanistan
‘‘A
fter my freshman year at
Princeton, when everyone began to
think about what they wanted to do after
school, I soon realized that I didn’t want to
be an investment banker or lawyer, at least
right away. I wanted to do something exciting and memorable that would be good life
experience. There are plenty of jobs that fit
that description, from Peace Corps to
teacher, but none that also offered the level
of responsibility and leadership as the Army.
“When I graduated from Princeton and
commissioned in the Infantry, I spent nearly
a year of training at Fort Benning, GA,
before taking a platoon of 30 soldiers to
Baghdad, Iraq in November 2007. The
deployment was a rewarding experience
because I was lucky enough to be at the center of it all at a pivotal moment in Iraq. In
March 2008, when the Iraqi Army moved on
Shia gangs in Basra, this quickly led to
Muqtada al Sadr’s calling for a general resistance among the Shia population in
Baghdad, primarily in Sadr City, which our
Battalion’s operational area bordered. This
26
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M
A G A Z I N E
some Hotchkiss
students will think about this path. As
hard as this is right now, every day I find
myself in situations where
I have to think, ‘How many of my
friends ever will experience
something like this?’”
— Joe Holliday ’02
became the last major Shia uprising to date.
“Here in the Konar Province, the pockets
of population that we can’t easily reach are
completely controlled by the Taliban
through brutal, armed propaganda. No one
wants to be seen as working against the
Taliban in those areas because they’re dead
in a day or two. It is incredibly sad and frustrating because our responses to this violence
are limited by restrictions about the types of
operations we can and can’t do. Winning
hearts and minds and protecting the population have somehow been interpreted as no
offensive actions. But when villagers have
surrendered for fear of their lives, how can
we expect to protect them other than
through force, which by the way is what the
military is designed to do?
“Encouraging the people to resist themselves is equally frustrating because everyone
here is convinced that we are leaving, and as
soon as we are gone that Karzai’s government will fall. Everyone, and especially those
political survivors who have survived the last
30 years in Afghanistan to reach the highest
levels of government, has an exit strategy that
involves maintaining a relationship with the
other side of the fight. More than once I have
had dirt-poor farmers with no access to
international news media say things like,
‘Why should we help you? Your president
said you will be gone in 2012, but the
Taliban is here to stay.’”
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of Iraq. As the Executive Officer, I was
responsible for supervising supply and maintenance operations, while planning future
missions and facilitating combat operations.
Prior to my assignment as the Executive
Officer, I served as the Vertical Construction
Platoon Leader. I led a platoon of 55 soldiers
on numerous combat patrols and construction missions throughout the Salah ad Din
and Diyala Provinces while successfully training and working alongside soldiers from the
Iraqi Army’s 5th Field Engineer Regiment.”
What has been the greatest lesson of the
experience?
“Individuals, especially soldiers, have a
remarkable ability to persevere and get
through the most challenging circumstances.”
CAPTAIN COURTENAY
W. CULLEN ’03
U.S. Army
C
ourtenay recently returned from a 12month deployment to Iraq and began
study at the Captain’s Career Course in July.
She will return to Fort Bragg following graduation to attend the Civil Affairs
Qualification Course, which is headquartered
under U.S. Army Special Operations
Command. Civil Affairs is a relatively new
branch in the U.S. Army and an important
aspect of our ongoing counter-insurgency
operations in the Middle East.
Courtenay knew when she was at Hotchkiss that she might pursue military service
and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers in May 2007
after graduation from Lehigh University’s
Army ROTC program.
“I was recently assigned as the Executive
Officer of Headquarters and Headquarters
Company, 37th Engineer Battalion (COMBAT)(AIRBORNE) in Iraq. As the Executive
Officer, I was responsible for running the
day-to-day affairs of a company consisting
of over 250 soldiers conducting combat
operations primarily in the Diyala Province
SECOND LIEUTENANT MILES
KASS ’04
U.S. Marine Corps
Commissioned in March 2009; Currently
at Ground Intelligence Officer Course in
Virginia Beach, VA
‘‘I
when I have the opportunity to mentor
young Marines, either as their platoon commander or intelligence officer.
“Three things have been most surprising
about my Marine Corps experience. They are
the striking mental aptitude of my peers, the
emphasis the institution places on learning
from its mistakes, and the importance of
being a person of principle in both our private and public life.
“When deciding to enter the Marines, I
knew that I would be surrounded by intelligent people. However, the reality of their
capabilities far exceeded my expectations.
“Learning from mistakes: The Marine
Corps has the remarkable ability to ‘check its
pride at the door’ when the conversation
turns to righting past wrongs and improving
the institution as a whole. Abu Ghraib and
Mai Lai are constant topics of discussion.
The Marine Corps recognizes that pretending such incidents did not happen or that
there were no wrongs committed, leaves us
vulnerable to repeating past injustices.
“Public vs. private life: Marines, especially
officers, are held to a very high standard
when it comes to personal conduct. A violation at home is taken just as seriously as a
violation at work. If an officer is caught having an extramarital affair or engaging in an
affair with a married woman (man) even if
he himself is single, the Marine is separated
from the Marine Corps immediately. The
rationale behind it (as I understand it) is that
if you are unable to be faithful to your wife
and respect the most sacred covenant in our
culture, then there is no reason to believe
that you can be faithful to your country.”
knew early on in high school that I
would choose military service. My
time in the Marine Corps so far has been
short. I have spent all of my time in training
commands. However, I am certain that the
most rewarding element of my job will come
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CAPTAIN JOSEPH T. “JOE”
CURNOW ’03
1-82 Attack Reconnaissance
Battalion “Wolfpack”
J
oe graduated in 2007 from the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point as a
military intelligence officer with a degree in
electrical engineering. In 2008 he was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, assigned to the 182 Attack Reconnaissance Battalion of the
82nd Combat Aviation Brigade as the assistant military intelligence officer.
In May 2009 he deployed to Southern
Afghanistan with 1-82 ARB as the primary
intelligence officer for the battalion in support of NATO forces. His unit returned from
deployment in April and is currently conducting reintegration operations.
“When I first attended Hotchkiss, I did
not have plans to join the military, though
both of my grandfathers had served. My
RYAN LARRIVEE ’03
Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U.S.
Navy; commissioned on graduation from
the United States Naval Academy in 2007
C
urrently serving as Assistant Supply
Officer onboard the USS Princeton,
which is deployed to the Indian Ocean,
Middle East, and Horn of Africa in support
of various operations including the UNsanctioned counter-piracy operations, for
Combined Task Force -151; then, to Bahrain
for 12 months
“Being a post-grad student at Hotchkiss
my only goal was to have a good year and
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receive my acceptance to the United States
Naval Academy, which had been a childhood
dream of mine.
“My time in the military has been incredibly formative. The usual standbys of discipline
and confidence are certainly something that
all military personnel are familiar with, and
the training did wonders for that in me. It’s
the sailors that I work with on a day-to-day
basis that are the real surprise and part of the
job that we were never trained for. So many
different types of people coming from different countries (Philippines, Malaysia, Japan)
working to gain citizenship and get a better
life for their families. My sailors are some of
the most dedicated and hardworking people
that I have ever met, and they continue to
amaze. They also do some of the craziest
things on leave that I could never have
dreamed of.
“The most rewarding part of the experience is the knowledge that by our presence
we help stabilize troubled regions and try to
make the seas a safe place to be for everyone.”
senior year I became interested in the military as a way to serve my country, so I conducted a tour of the academy and spent the
weekend attending classes and training
events. That weekend I recognized that West
Point offered in addition to academics, leadership training, physical training, and more
importantly an opportunity to serve my
country. After the weekend I had made my
decision and applied for early acceptance
before leaving the campus.
“The biggest thing I have learned in the
military is problem solving. Often a young
leader is given a task to complete that he or
she was not trained on, and it is up to that
individual to find a way to complete it. This
is especially true in the current war we are
fighting, as young soldiers are making decisions that have a great impact on the larger
success of operations.”
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E
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
SUNIL DESAI ’87
On active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps,
presently stationed at the Pentagon and
working on strategic issues such as
preparing the Marine Corps for future
threats to national security
ven before arriving at Hotchkiss, Sunil
knew he wanted to join the Marines.
He recalls, “I told my faculty advisor at our
first meeting that I intended to go to the
Naval Academy or enlist in the Marine
Corps if I didn’t get accepted. As it turned
out, I was accepted and, upon graduating,
was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
U.S. Marine Corps.”
An average day now: “I am presently
assigned to the Marine Corps’ Headquarters,
which supports the Commandant in his
duties leading the Corps. I have been here
two years and have one more to go. This
‘staff’ assignment is very much like a corporate office job and completely different from
my ‘operational’ assignments, which have
included five deployments, most recently to
Iraq in 2007-2008.”
Have there been any big surprises in the
military experience? “In many ways the
Marine Corps is exactly as I expected, and
yet, in many ways, it is very different – not
necessarily for better or worse, just different. I think, however, that is true of most
organizations – what one knows on the
outside is not completely what one finds on
the inside.”
What has been the greatest lesson of the
experience? “There are many great lessons
that are worthy of note, but perhaps the best
overarching lesson is the realization that I am
capable of overcoming even greater challenges that I had previously thought.”
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TEACHING
ma t t e rs
Griffith ‘Fritz’ Mark: Broadening Horizons
in Many Corners of the School
B Y
W
H E N R Y
M C N U L T Y
“When I was young,” says Griffith “Fritz” Mark,
“I wanted to be a medical missionary and organist. Albert Schweitzer
was my hero, and there’s always been that streak in me.”
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Mark, who retired this past spring after serving for many years as Instructor of English
and for a time as Coordinator of International Programs, has worn many hats at
School: teacher, coach, admission officer,
adviser, and more. But at heart, he is a missionary, exploring uncharted territory to
improve the lives of others.
He grew up in Winnetka, IL, and attended
Lawrence Academy in Groton, MA. “In high
school,” he says, “I was interested in medicine,
but before I got into that, I needed to know
why, so I got into philosophy.” At Carleton
College, where he earned his degree in three
years by going to the University of Chicago in
the summers, he was a philosophy major with
a minor in ancient Greek.
After being graduated from college, he
returned to his alma mater, Lawrence, to teach
English. “I absolutely loved it,” he says. “I
thought, ‘nobody should love something this
much at such a young age’.” He also pursued a
Ph.D. in philosophy at Boston University.
But those were the late 1960s, a time of great
social upheaval, and Mark decided to become
more involved in societal issues than being a
teacher and graduate student would allow. He
joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. in New
York, and became an Assistant Secretary in the
company’s newly formed Urban Affairs
department, dealing every day with the problems of inner-city poverty.
132621_30_35:tmatters 8/22/10 4:43 PM Page 31
OPPOSITE: Hilla Meller
'04 with Fritz Mark
RIGHT: Faculty, staff,
and students cheer Mr.
Mark after his last class.
BELOW RIGHT: Mark, posing with
varsity sailors Blaire Largay Farrar
'87 and David Williams '87,
with the team's trophy
LIFE IN THE ‘BED-STUY’
PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE
It was, at first, not an easy adjustment.
“Australia had been such a warm, friendly
place,” he says. “New England is a lot colder,
more formal and correct. And I was not ‘of
the Hotchkiss manner’ – I’m from the
Midwest. But I stayed here anyway.”
His first week, the then-head of Admissions
asked him if he had any particular goals in
selecting students. “I looked around, and I saw
there were only a handful of African American
students at the School,” Mark remembers. “So
I said, ‘I think we should recruit our own
minority students.’ I then spent the better part
of 10 years trying to change the complexion of
this school as much as I could. I went to the
major cities and established networks.”
He was pleased when then-head of English L.
Blair Torrey gave him permission to start a Great
Books course. “My passions are authors like
Plato, Dante, Milton,” Mark says. “I love teaching, no matter what it is, but I would say the
Great Books course is the one that sustained me.
It gave me freedom to grow myself by teaching
new books and exploring new minds. It’s really
teaching philosophy through literature.”
Faculty colleague George Faison agrees
wholeheartedly. To hundreds, “maybe thousands,” of students, he said in a speech at
Mark’s retirement dinner, “you have given literary life, engendering their passion for reading great works. You have spent whole semesters talking about archetypes, but you are
yourself an archetype, the template of the
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOTCHKISS SCHOOL ARCHIVES
“My days were spent in Harlem, and the lower
East Side, and the South Bronx,” he says. “For
four years, my job was to find out about drug
abuse, housing, health care, and education. I
learned that until you experience something,
you have no credibility. If you want to make
changes, you have to immerse yourself in the
situation.” So he, his wife, and their two children moved into a house in the troubled
Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, where riots and looting were not
uncommon.
Working with Morgan Guaranty, Mark
helped create the publicly and privately funded Lower East Side Prep School, where
minority students, particularly Chinese, predominated. At the time, there were virtually
no Chinese-speaking teachers in the New
York City school system, but the success of
the school he helped start led city administrators to hire many more.
Still, he missed teaching, so in 1973 he took
a post at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pa. A
few years later, touched by the spirit of adventure, he moved to Canberra, Australia, to
teach English, religion, history, philosophy,
and personal development at the Canberra
Grammar School. “That’s the Australian system,” he explains. “You teach everything, and
I mean everything.” The position originally
called for his filling in for a year while another
teacher was on leave, but the Markses, then
with three children, fell in love with Australia
and ended up staying four years.
Eventually, they came back to the United
States. “I wanted to teach at either Hotchkiss or
Deerfield,” he recalls, “but at the time,
Deerfield was not yet coed, and I did not want
any more boys schools. So I came to Hotchkiss
in 1982 and took a job in Admissions.”
PHOTO BY LEN RUBENSTEIN
NEIGHBORHOOD
independent school teacher whose benevolent
mark on students is indelible.”
Says Instructor in English Carita Gardiner:
“Last year, Fritz helped a group of eager
Upper Mids to read Les Miserables together as
an Independent Study. They grew to love the
book, each other, and Fritz. This year, most of
them begged me to figure out how to get
them into his senior English elective.”
A NURTURING PRESENCE
Mark also coached sailing – something he
admits he knew nothing about. “My grandfather was an Admiral,” he says, “so sailing was
in our family, and I did know how to sail.
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TEACHING
ma t t e rs
bers the confidence Mark gave her. “His
teaching,” she says, “helped me find a confidence in my academic ability and laid the
groundwork for all that followed for me with
my studies and my career.”
THINKING INTERNATIONALLY
But I didn’t know how to coach sailing, which
is quite a different thing. And I knew zero
about racing.
“It was difficult, but I worked at it, and I
finally made it my own. I spent as much time
on sailing as I did on anything else. Those
sailors were hugely important to me, and as
usual, the kids knew much more than the
coach. They needed support, attention, and
then somebody to make a final decision, but I
couldn’t teach them anything about sailing.”
Under his leadership, Hotchkiss won a national sailing championship, the Mallory Trophy,
in 1991. And the New England Team Racing
trophy is named the Fritz Mark Trophy.
Former students fondly remember Mark’s
enthusiasm. “For my last semester of
English,” says Katherine Afzal ’10, “we spent
almost the first quarter solely on Hamlet,
reading every scene carefully and multiple
times. Every class was filled with interesting
discussions, and often arguments, where Mr.
Mark was just as heated as the students.”
Others recall his nurturing presence.
“When I arrived at Hotchkiss,” says Nakia
Elliott ’93, now a corporate lawyer in New
York, “I was nervous about what to expect,
because I hadn’t spent much time outside of
Brooklyn, NY, where I grew up. I have never
forgotten the confidence Mr. Mark gave me
when I was sitting in his office in tears and
feeling overwhelmed. He told me I was one of
the smartest students at Hotchkiss, and he
encouraged me to read books and newspapers, and open my mind to the world.”
Gretchen Biedron ’83, founder of the
Willow School in Gladstone, NJ, also remem-
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In the 1990s, Mark’s view of Hotchkiss’s
potential expanded. “Just as we had very few
minority students when I first was here,” he
says, “we had done very little internationally,
apart from the school year abroad. The door
was open to all kinds of changes, but how do
you wake a school up to an international perspective?” The answer came in 1998, when at
its 50th Reunion the Class of 1948 gave more
than a million dollars to set up a fund for
global understanding. Mark was chosen to
develop the program.
Part of what he did was to encourage international students to come to Hotchkiss. One
was Hilla Meller ’04, who had found Mark’s
name on the Hotchkiss website and sent him
a request. “The e-mail said, more or less, ‘you
don’t know me, I’m a 16-year-old from Israel.
I found your name on the Hotchkiss website.
I want to come to Hotchkiss,’” she says. He
not only encouraged her, he practically insisted that she apply, and she did.
“Coming to Hotchkiss was a bit like landing
on the moon,” she recalls. “Although I was
determined to come to boarding school,
everything I knew about it I had learned in the
movies. I found myself in a new language,
without family, no friends to speak of, and
basically no idea what I had gotten myself
into. Mr. Mark immediately took over. When
I got sick, he talked to the doctor, and when I
was homesick I found a home with his family.
His office, which was then in the college counseling office, became a second home for me.”
He also encouraged the School to give summer grants for students to go abroad, providing they did some sort of community service;
the program has involved as many as 50 students per summer, and continues under the
leadership of Assistant Head of School Manjula
Salomon and Coordinator of International
Programs David Thompson. And he helped
Hotchkiss become a member of Round
Square, the worldwide association of secondary
schools with an international perspective.
“We were very insular,” Mark says. “There
was mostly ‘the Hotchkiss Way’ – the
‘Hotchkiss Experience.’ Now, the School is
such a much healthier place than it was. We
have students from all over the world; we
send students to colleges all over the world;
we have faculty from all over the world. It’s a
one-world environment.”
To Hilla Meller, Mark’s missionary zeal has
meant a stronger Hotchkiss. “It’s been only
six years since I graduated,” she told guests at
Mark’s retirement dinner, “but I am thrilled
to see the many positive transformations that
Hotchkiss has undergone. I have spoken to
many here, and [they] have seen great change,
welcome change. In conversations we’ve had,
he has told me about how he sees that change
– how he sees the school evolving, growing,
becoming better. Those are the fruits of the
work of many people, but Mr. Mark is a
unique visionary among them.”
THE WATCHWORD: WISDOM
As he approached retirement, Mark, ever the
philosopher-missionary, continued to examine
the heart and soul of the School. “The moral
question for me is, how do you justify Hotchkiss
– a concentration of wealth and beauty like this
– in this world?” he asks. “I think it’s important to articulate who you are; then our mission is to put that philosophy into action.”
To that end, at the close of the school year,
he gave a Chapel talk – he termed it his “last
lecture” – in which he urged Hotchkiss to reexamine and better define its essential principles. He argued that truth and virtue – the
“logos” and “arete” inscribed on the front of
the Main Building – are excellent qualities,
but they are not enough; they must be supplemented by wisdom, as represented by Athena
on the School Seal.
“Wisdom,” he told the assembled students
and faculty, “is our essential watchword …
‘Act with wisdom’ our motto, our individual
and communal charge. And if we can do that
well, we will be able to lead well, serve well,
and steward well.”
In retirement, Mark plans to work with
Global Connections, the international consortium of independent schools, teaching
abroad. His job will be to match retired teachers with foreign schools.
“This program is for retired teachers who
want to stay involved, perhaps in another
country,” he explains, “but not committed for
the long term – maybe for a month, or two
months. We’re not just going to sit back and
twiddle our thumbs, but have a purpose.”
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TEACHING
ma t t e rs
Sandy Haiko: Teaching Students
to See with New Understanding
B Y
A
H E N R Y
M C N U L T Y
“Anybody now can go out with a digital camera,” says
Instructor in Photography Sandra Haiko, “and come back with
some pretty good pictures. But can they go beyond that?”
There, in a nutshell, is Sandy Haiko’s
approach to teaching photography: going
beyond. Whether it’s finding beauty in the
seemingly ordinary, bringing back long-ago
techniques such as using pinhole cameras or
hand-tinting, or mastering darkroom techniques in the digital age, she has always gone
beyond the routine.
For almost 25 years, she has been half of
Hotchkiss’s Photography Department – the
other half being her husband, Bob Haiko,
who started the department in 1969.
“My father got me interested in photography,” says Sandy, who retired this past
spring. “He had lots of things he did as hobbies, and one of them was photography. He
would process the film and make prints in
the basement, so that’s where I learned. I
started out with a 35-millimeter camera.
Until, then my main interests had been
painting and sculpture.”
Interested in art since high school, Sandy
was a liberal arts major at Boston University
when she met Bob, an art student at B.U. A
few years later they married, and shortly
after he started teaching photography at
Hotchkiss; when she arrived here, she
enrolled at the State University of New York
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TEACHING
ma t t e rs
LEFT: Sandy Haiko, in
the backyard of the
Haikos' campus home;
a photo taken by Bob
Haiko
at New Paltz and earned a Bachelor of Fine
Arts degree with a major in photography.
COMING ON BOARD
Then she found work nearby at the
Lakeville Journal. “For three years, Sandy
was the darkroom lab technician,” Bob
explains. “Typically each week in a two-day
period Sandy would develop about 50 rolls
of film, make contact sheets, and then print
30 or more photographs. It was grueling
work. I don’t know how she did it.”
34
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M
A G A Z I N E
She then worked as an assistant in the
Hotchkiss library. In 1985 the photography
department underwent a dramatic renovation and Bob needed help, so Sandy came
on board.
“I started teaching black-and-white basic
photography, and some of the old processes,” she says, “and I continued ’till today. In
addition, both Bob and I taught color photography and until, at last, when the quality
of digital was good enough and archival
inks and papers were readily available, we
stopped working with color chemistry.
However, digital photography has been part
of the program since 1991.”
And while she has taught “straight” photography – many of the Haikos’ students
went on to photograph for the Misch or the
Record and for the Alumni Office – Sandy
never neglected her more artistic leanings.
“The kids also do mixed media,” she says,
“photocopying, coloring, collages. Of
course, you can do similar work digitally,
but there is something about the hands-on
approach that, to me, is more immediate.
Another aspect of photography that I
enjoyed was teaching students how to
extend the meaning of an idea by bringing
two or more photographs together to make
a statement. This led to teaching sequences
and narratives including handmade books.”
In some classes Sandy allowed students to
try unconventional laboratory techniques,
such as developing film using instant coffee
and washing soda – yes, it can be done, with
interesting results – or giving prints an
antique look by staining them with tea.
“Mrs. Haiko had a profound effect on me
during the four short years that I was a student here,” says Annika Lescott ’06, who
graduated this spring from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill and who
spoke at Sandy’s retirement dinner in May.
“When I enrolled in basic photography
with Mrs. Haiko at the start of my lower mid
year, I knew nothing about photography as
an art form,” she says. “I had never been in a
darkroom, much less developed a photo.
Shutter speeds and f-stops were completely
foreign concepts. I was prepared to take photography for one year to fulfill the mandatory art requirement; one year evolved into
two, two became three. And by my senior
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RIGHT: "Bittersweet 1,"
2004, by Sandra Haiko
LOWER RIGHT: Enjoying
the speakers at the retirement dinner in May
year, I was voluntarily spending every free
period in the bottom of the science building,
working on projects for my independent
study in photography with Mrs. Haiko.”
PATIENCE AND KINDNESS
Bryan Small ’03, who now works for an
insurance advisory firm in Jersey City, NJ, is
another former student who knew little of
photography before taking an introductory
course from Sandy. “I came to enjoy it a
whole lot,” he says. “Learning about light
and shadow, and the way you can manipulate images with filters – it was all very interesting to me. Also, I found her to be one of
the nicest people at Hotchkiss; people I talk
with still mention her fondly.”
To some, using celluloid film and developers in darkrooms may seem like ancient
techniques, but they are still taught at
Hotchkiss, to give students a thorough
understanding of the medium. And that
requires patience – a quality several students
mentioned when describing Sandy.
Bob Haiko agrees enthusiastically.
“Oftentimes, students ruin their film,” he
says, “so you have to send them back to
process again, and if they do mess up again,
they do it a third time. And printing, too,
often involves asking students to repeatedly
do more test strips, or burn this in, or dodge
that, or crop this – students often protest,
but they go back and do it anyway, and
eventually, if they come back with a really
nice print, they feel that all of this stress was
worth it.”
Her own specialty is hand-coloring
black-and-white gelatin silver prints. One
recent series shows bittersweet, an invasive
vine that can engulf entire stands of trees.
Looking at her hand-colored prints of local
bittersweet, one can almost feel the smothering. Sandy’s work has been exhibited at
the Lyman Allyn Museum, the Slater
Memorial Museum, the Longy School of
Music in Cambridge, MA, and the Agnes
Irwin School in Philadelphia. For a number of years, she was a member of a collaborative multimedia ensemble that brought
20th-century music and poetry to the
stage. One performance piece performed
by the group brought together a song cycle
of 20 poems by Wallace Stevens, set to
music by Vincent Persichetti, and accompanied by simultaneous projections of
imagery by Sandy.
In retirement, she says, she plans to
return to her love of studio art. “I would
like to get back to the sculpture,” she says.
“Yes, I’ll do photography, as well, but it’s
always going to be mixed media for me.”
Former student Nicole Tang ’00 wrote,
“Marcel Proust once wrote, ‘The real voyage
of discovery consists not in seeking new
landscapes, but in having new eyes.’ Mrs.
Haiko was an inspiring and wonderful pho-
tography teacher…She is someone who
helped me see with new eyes and take risks
in the creative process of photography and
ultimately, seeing life in a whole new dimension. I will be forever grateful for the time,
energy, and kindness she bestowed upon me
during the hours in the lab and during our
field trips. She and Mr. Haiko went above
and beyond their responsibilities as teachers
at Hotchkiss and became wonderful mentors and basically surrogate parents!”
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ALUMNI
n a m e s a n d fa c e s
Jenny DaSilva ’94: Teaching
financial literacy and creating new
beginnings in the South Bronx
F
BY KRISTEN HINMAN ’94
From an organic farm to a fair elections campaign,
a clinic for domestic violence victims, and a microfinance institution, Jenny DaSilva ’94 spent her early
30s lending thousands of hours to an array of service agencies.
Three years, three continents, and a spate of
life-changing experiences later, she’s returned
to her native New York to launch what she
hopes will be a life-changer for residents in one
of the U.S.’s poorest Congressional districts.
The organization – Start Small. Think Big.,
Inc. – aims to get people banked.
The idea might not sound novel to most
people. But to many working immigrants
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newly settled in the South Bronx, banking’s a
concept as foreign as the English tongue.
Cash rules. Pawn shops, “payday” loan centers, and the informal I.O.U. dominate the
local credit market. Annual interest rates
exceeding 400 percent leave families saddled
with a legacy of debt.
“Almost 60 percent of the people who live
in this community don’t have a bank
account,” Jenny explains. “They have all the
same financial needs as everybody else, but
they have no access to the means that you or
I will use to conduct our business.”
Founded in February, the startup aims to
sever that reliance on predatory lending with
free financial literacy classes and personalized counseling. A massive challenge, maybe
– but colleagues say there’s nobody better
equipped than Jenny. As Josué Rodriguez,
associate executive director of East Side
House Settlement, a social services agency
that houses Start Small, puts it: “She’s a
member of the Bar both in New York and
D.C., and she’s choosing not to practice law
but to try to provide for these folks here. If
that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is.”
Rodriguez met DaSilva more than a decade
ago when she was a Yale University junior.
She’d just finished reading Amazing Grace, a
non-fiction account of the poverty plaguing
one South Bronx neighborhood. Jenny’s
mother lived in Yonkers, just a ten-minute
drive from the destitution the book described.
Recalls Jenny: “I thought, ‘How is it possible
that this place exists right nearby?’”
Intent on volunteering in the area, Jenny
132621_36_41:alums 8/22/10 4:45 PM Page 37
OPPOSITE: Jenny, with
children in Cambodia
RIGHT: Financial literacy
class graduates
BELOW RIGHT: In
Cambodia
arranged to meet a community organizer.
But the woman never showed. Walking back
to her car, Jenny noticed East Side House and
wandered in. By day’s end, Rodriguez enlisted her to run a summer program for parents.
“We serve close to 10,000 people a year,
and my toughest experience is getting volunteers who are really committed,” Rodriguez
says. “You get a volunteer that will come in
for a day – a month, maybe, if you’re lucky.
Jenny was one of those who came in and
hung in there. She put in more hours than a
salaried employee.”
Rodriguez later hired her to run a collegeplacement program. Jenny went on to Cornell
University Law School, clerked for a federal
judge in Washington, D.C., and became a litigation associate for Debevoise & Plimpton in
New York. In the spring of 2007, her husband
took a job in The Hague; the couple began a
three-year adventure abroad.
Unable to work because of foreign visa
rules, Jenny honed her goals by volunteering
worldwide. She was the West Coast director
of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights’
fair-elections effort during the 2008 U.S. election cycle. And in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,
she helped a microfinance lender develop an
insurance product.
She found the entrepreneurial environment in Cambodia intoxicating. “Watching
people start up a whole new business with
130 dollars: it was incredible. Our landlord
was a young woman who had built the building, ran it, and then started a store on the
first floor. She was supporting her extended
family on all of this. She was 22! There were
stories like that all over the place, where people with almost nothing just go and do.”
Jenny had been thinking about starting a
microfinance operation in the South Bronx;
Cambodia clinched it for her. “I think it sort
of shamed me. What was my excuse? I had
this idea, a supportive family, and a great
education. There was nothing stopping me
from doing it.”
She’d thought her startup would make
loans, but soon realized that many local
banks and credit unions had sound products
to offer and were eager to partner. Graduates
of Start Small’s financial literacy classes qualify for free checking accounts, discounted
interest rates, and match-savings programs.
Beginning this summer, Start Small will also
host a free legal clinic to help combat the
underlying problems that can contribute to
debt. All the financial advisors and lawyers
are working pro bono. (More are needed. See
www.startsmallthinkbig.org.)
The agency is en route to providing some
$250,000 worth of services this year. That’s
on a budget of $80,000, and thanks to wordof-mouth fundraising with help from a few
Hotchkiss connections, including John
Bourdeaux ’91, former director of The
Hotchkiss Fund, and a former classmate,
Kelly Shimoda.
“I’ve worked on other professional projects
with friends, which can be tricky,” says Kelly,
a Start Small board member. “But it occurred
to me that I would really trust getting into
business, so to speak, with any of my good
friends from Hotchkiss. I think it stems from
the unique bond we created living together
during our formative years. I knew inherently
that Jenny would give this 100 percent.”
Jenny came to Lakeville as an upper mid;
she says she’s indebted to the School.
“Beforehand, I wasn’t sure I was going to go
to college. Then I got to Lakeville and met all
these amazing friends and got into student
government. It opened up a whole new world
– an academic world, certainly – but just a
world of possibility that was much bigger
than the world I’d come from.
“So from a psychological standpoint, I
went to Hotchkiss, and therefore I went to
Yale, and therefore I went to law school, and
therefore I started this organization.
Hotchkiss put me on this path to think big.”
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ALUMNI
names and faces
Tony Essaye ’51: Helping to Build the
Rule of Law in Developing Nations
T
BY ROBERTA JENCKES
The International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) supports
grassroots nonprofit organizations and developing country governments
around the world by enlisting senior lawyers and law firms
to work with them on a pro bono basis on programs
This young organization, founded in 2002, in
one single year (2009) linked volunteer lawyers
and firms to projects in 25 countries, providing
more than 27,000 hours in pro bono services.
ISLP’s co-president Tony Essaye ’51 easily
recalls the ISLP’s unlikely beginnings. The idea
grew out of a lunchtime conversation. In 2000,
Essaye, then a partner at Clifford Chance US
LLP in Washington, DC, was talking over lunch
with a friend, also a Washington attorney,
about the work they might do in the future.
“We would be retiring in a few years,” he said,
“and we thought we might want to do something together… perhaps offer our services to
an international human rights organization.
We’d both done a lot of international work.
“The more we talked about it, the more we
thought other senior lawyers might be interested in international work as volunteers. There
were two real question marks. One was, were
there in fact a lot of people our age who would
be interested? And even if there were, would the
opportunities and needs in the developing
world be such that volunteer lawyers from the
U.S. and other developed countries could really
contribute and do effective work? We got a
grant to explore those issues and hired an able
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varying from human rights to economic development.
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OPPOSITE: Volunteer
Andy Haas in Ethiopia
training public defenders
RIGHT: ISLP volunteer
(fourth from right) in
Goma, assisting a local
NGO in providing legal
assistance to women victims
of sexual violence and
training of their lawyers
consultant who had done this type of work for
the U.S. government. She came back with a
very positive report on both counts.”
Essaye and his friend and co-founder,
Robert Kapp of Hogan & Hartson LLP, set
to work on building the framework for the
new organization. The ISLP has “a strong
board of directors,” says Essaye, whose
members bring a variety of experiences to its
work. “We have a small but very effective
paid staff,” he notes, adding that he works as
a volunteer in his administrative role. He
finds the work “most rewarding.”
“The ISLP has really progressed beyond
my expectations,” he notes. “We owe it to the
commitment and skills that the volunteer
lawyers have brought. We started with the
idea of only recruiting semi-retired or retired
lawyers, but over time we found a great deal
of interest on the part of lawyers who were
still practicing. While these attorneys can
only go overseas for a couple of weeks at a
time, some of our projects can either be carried out on a short-term basis or involve
work that can be done from the United
States. And sometimes the volunteers go back
for two or three times – to follow up and
each time to build up a little more capacity.
That is something I hadn’t anticipated.
“We began with just U.S. lawyers, and now
we have lawyers from Europe and Canada.
For example, recently, for projects in Haiti
we have been able to recruit fluent Frenchspeaking lawyers from Canada and France.”
What are some of the kinds of projects the
ISLP attorneys do? In the area of human
rights, a partner in a Boston firm spent time
in Nairobi with The Kenyan Coalition for
Disability Legal Action, helping to catalyze
the establishment of the first legal aid clinic
in Africa for persons with disabilities. In the
area of strengthening the rule of law, the ISLP
sent an experienced litigator to Moscow to
work with the Center for Journalism in
Extreme Situations, a human rights group
that provides legal assistance to journalists
facing defamation and other charges in the
Russian Federation. To help promote economic development, the ISLP arranged for
an attorney to travel several times to Liberia,
to advise on a range of economic initiatives,
from tax investment incentives to proposed
regulations governing mineral exploration
licenses. And this spring, eight ISLP volunteer
attorneys with experience in international
contract negotiations conducted a two- and
one-half day mock contract negotiation exercise with 20 lawyers and other senior officials
from Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, who will be leading their country’s contract negotiations with
international oil companies for the expansion
of Iraq’s oil production.
While Essaye has been involved in planning some projects, he has not had time yet
to do a volunteer assignment with ISLP.
Growing the organization has consumed his
time to date. “We have a large board to coor-
dinate, and we have to do constant fundraising. I’m probably working about 75% of the
amount of time compared to when I was
fully engaged in my law practice.”
Practicing international law seems now to
be in his DNA, although while he was at
Hotchkiss, Essaye did not know that it would
become his career. Hotchkiss did help to open
his eyes to the world, however. “Certainly
George Van Santvoord had a worldwide view
for his day,” Tony says. “While I was born in
England and came over to the U.S. at an early
age, clearly my years at Hotchkiss sustained
my interest in international matters.
“Hotchkiss really gave me a fine, broadbased education. I think it prepared me for
my further education: how to study; what
serious work meant in terms of preparation
and learning; how you had to apply yourself.
It took me a while, but by my senior year I
think I started doing that effectively. I had
some great teachers — Robert Hawkins,
Richard “Gus” Gurney, Delaney Kiphuth. I
had a great Latin teacher, Allan Hoey, and
Peter Beaumont for French. These were just
outstanding people in my memory. Peter
Beaumont taught me to box. I think this was
just an interest of his, but I did continue
boxing in college.”
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ALUMNI
names and faces
After college, he served overseas in the
U.S. Army and then began graduate study in
history on his return. But, “I felt it was so
removed,” he recalls. “Law was more of a
present, vivid experience, so I decided to go
to law school. I didn’t know how I would use
it or how long I would do it, but I practiced
every day from 1961 to 2003.”
After a brief stint with a New York law
firm, he joined the five-person legal office of
the fledgling Peace Corps, where he ultimately became deputy general counsel. There he
was involved in everything from drafting
amendments to the Peace Corps legislation to
the myriad of legal issues that arose as more
and more Peace Corps volunteers went overseas. He recalls the excitement of seeing the
ranks of the Corps grow to 16,000 volunteers.
Essaye was hired away from the Peace
Corps by William Rogers, Attorney General
under President Eisenhower and later Secretary of State in President Nixon’s Cabinet.
Rogers and Wells, his law firm, wanted to do
more international work. But principally,
Essaye did libel defense work for the firm for
about five years, including work for The
Washington Post on the famous Pentagon
Papers case. It was “intense,” he recalls.
Then one day the firm’s other principal,
Jack Wells, asked Essaye if he spoke French.
“That went back to Hotchkiss,” he says. “I
did speak some. He asked me if I’d like to go
and take over the fledgling office in Paris.”
The Essaye family moved to Paris in 1974
and stayed for two- and one-half years.
“That experience was a watershed for me,”
Tony says. “It got me back into international
work. I was able to start in on a new international practice, mostly a corporate practice,
helping foreign companies with U.S. regulatory issues and helping U.S. companies with
investments overseas.”
And that work and his Peace Corps experience provided the foundation for the work
with the ISLP, a venture in which he feels such
pride. “We have been blessed with exceptional
volunteers, people with great skills and equally
great commitment. While it’s not always easy,
they have generally been able to achieve concrete results and make a real impact.
“We’ve also been helped by the fact that
there is a certain degree of worldwide commonality in the legal process. For example,
how you go about compiling effective evidence to support a claim against a mining
company for despoiling grazing land in
Mongolia is not that different from preparing an environmental claim in the United
States. And the role of our lawyers is not
only to provide guidance to the people with
whom they’re working but also to build up
their capacity to carry on their work more
effectively.
“All of this is encompassed in my mind
with the concept of building the rule of law
as a foundation for effective government and
effective civil society.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION, GO TO WWW.ISLP.ORG.
ABOVE: Tony Essaye ’51
LEFT: ISLP Volunteer in
Liberia for her project with
the Ministry of Health
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132621_36_41:alums 8/22/10 4:45 PM Page 41
A MESSAGE TO ALUMNI
f ro m t h e B o a rd o f G o v e r n o r s o f t h e A l u m n i A s s o c i a t i o n
Dear Fellow Alumni,
Five years ago I joined fellow Hotchkiss classmates to celebrate our 50th reunion. I edited our reunion yearbook, a
project that brought me back in touch with the School and
stirred up lots of memories. Several trips to Lakeville to
pore over the School archives searching for yearbook material, while spending time talking to faculty and students,
gave me fresh insight into Hotchkiss. While at first glance
the School looks much the same as it did when I was a student, it has steadily evolved into a dynamic, energetic
preparatory school that has moved far beyond what I experienced in the 1950s.
Three years ago I received a telephone call asking if I
would serve as a member of the Hotchkiss Alumni
Association’s Board of Governors (BOG). My recent retirement, combined with my interest in Hotchkiss, made me a
very willing listener. My first question was for a description
of what exactly the BOG is and what function it performs.
I learned that the BOG serves as a link between Hotchkiss
and its alumni. Its various committees focus on a variety of
topics and programs of interest and value to alumni and
the School. Accepting nomination to the BOG was a decision I have not regretted for a moment. Working with
other Hotchkiss alumni spanning several decades on a
variety of meaningful projects is stimulating, informative,
and fun.
ing to discuss that person’s perspective on Hotchkiss, his or
her perception of the School today and the direction in
which it is heading, and describe his or her experience as a
student. We ask whether alumni keep in touch with faculty
and classmates, what type of local Hotchkiss event most
appeals to them, and we try to learn something about their
career experience and personal interests. The point of the
exercise is to reach out to Hotchkiss alumni, let them know
the School is sincerely interested in them. The Initiative also
provides alumni and the School with up-to-date information and feedback that could be of interest and helpful to
both parties, including updates on the current size of the
student body, admissions, and what it means for Hotchkiss,
with its New England roots, to be a national school on a
global stage.
The Board of Governors’ Outreach Initiative is now in its
second year. The initial experience has been very positive.
Alumni have been most gracious with their time and very
willing to talk. Our contacts have spanned graduates from the
early 40s to those in recent classes, providing very interesting
conversations. The major source of Hotchkiss information
for alumni seems to be the Hotchkiss Magazine, so I hope
readers of this article will respond favorably should they
receive a call from a member of the Board of Governors asking them to meet.
Shortly after joining the BOG, I was asked to chair the
Alumni Services Committee. The BOG had voted to undertake a new program of outreach to individual alumni under
the direction of that committee. We realized that we were
breaking new ground with this particular initiative.
Hotchkiss is a vibrant community with an outstanding
group of alumni. The Alumni Association Board of
Governors Outreach Initiative is an important way we can
continue to keep in touch, help the School learn more about
its alumni, and keep alumni informed and up-to-date on the
ever-changing and evolving landscape that is Hotchkiss.
The Outreach Initiative is structured in the following
way: each Governor is given a list of three to five alumni in
his or her locale and asked to call each and arrange a meet-
Ed Greenberg ’55
Vice President and Chair, Alumni Services Committee
E-mail address: esgreenb@optonline.net
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IT’S
MY
t u rn
PUBLISHED ON THE FREIRE PROJECT: WWW.FREIREPROJECT.ORG
A Thank-You Letter to My Teachers
D
BY LIZ MEYER ’89, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF
EDUCATION AT CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY IN MONTREAL
Dear Mr. Wilson & Mr. Katzman: I am not quite sure how to start
this letter other than to let you know that I recently received an email
from a former student of mine, and it made me wonder if I had ever
written to you to thank you for the lessons I learned in your class.
I was a student in your American Studies
class during the 1987-1988 school year.
After my three years at Hotchkiss, I wanted to work with students to support and
challenge them the way I had been, and you
were both an essential part of that decision. I
had been a student at a large, anonymous,
public school in Texas where I had become a
cheerleader to fit in. School was a place
where I was bored and an exercise to be
endured. At Hotchkiss, I was thrilled that I
could be an athlete, a performer, and a
scholar and be celebrated for each of these
strengths. I appreciated the new challenges
presented by the culture of teaching and
learning at my new school. After college, I
became a high school teacher for five years,
and am now a teacher educator and am constantly reflecting on my own experiences in
school. I am currently writing an article on
critical ontology, or self-study and teacher
education, so I’ve been doing a lot of reflection recently. This is an exercise that I regularly encourage future teachers to do in order
to critique and analyze their own understandings of education and what they know
and think they understand about schooling.
In my own reflections, I keep coming back to
my experiences in this class and your teaching because it was so revolutionary for me
and it was my first exposure to what I now
call critical pedagogy.
American Studies was a sort of curriculum
experiment (as far as I can remember) where
our English and History classes were harmonized so that what we studied from a literary
and cultural perspective intersected and
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aligned with what we were learning from a
political and historical perspective. You
brought in guest speakers to teach about Jazz,
art history, and religion. I remember reading
poetry in the woods, a field trip to HancockShaker village, and studying powerful literature such as My Antonia, Invisible Man, The
Color Purple, and Their Eyes Were Watching
God, as well as The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet
Letter, the poetry of Walt Whitman, the civil
disobedience of Henry David Thoreau, and
the short stories of Mark Twain. Looking
back at this curriculum, I am impressed with
the diverse selection of authors and perspectives, since many high school English classes
still are dominated by the white, European,
heterosexual, male Christian perspective. This
class brought important works by women,
gays and lesbians, and writers of color into
my “canon” of American literature and is the
foundation of my critical approach to “reading the world.” I remember grappling deeply
with the topics of racism and discrimination
in Ralph Ellison’s novel and being stunned
when Mr. Wilson actually called our attention
to the homoerotic imagery in Whitman’s
writing– this was the first time such topics
had been introduced into my formal schooling experiences.
I can still remember Mr. Katzman’s
mnemonic for us when analyzing any historical event: PISER. We had to understand and
explore the political, intellectual, social, economic, and religious implications of these
events. We never studied anything in a single
dimension – everything was questioned and
examined from multiple points of view. This
approach to learning and understanding
American history and culture was rich and
fascinating and was strengthened by the brilliant peers who were also in this class.
Although you were both passionate presenters, the discussions you facilitated allowed
such deep understanding and co-creation of
knowledge to emerge that I still have visceral
memories of moments and conversations
with my peers in that class. The major assignments you gave us helped me to develop
essential research, writing, and critical thinking skills through the interdisciplinary
research paper (I did mine on American
Impressionism), as well as an ‘identity paper’
based on reflective journals we’d been keeping throughout the year.
I am writing this as an open letter because
as an educator, I feel it is so important to
publicly celebrate our mentors and to help
others understand how deep learning and
critical thinking can be sparked in schools. I
want my fellow alumni, current colleagues,
and students to be able to be a part of my
ongoing learning and dialogue about how to
infuse more critical pedagogy in K-12 education as well as teacher education programs.
Thank you so much for being such passionate
educators and enduring role models in my
educational career.
Sincerely,
Liz Meyer
Hotchkiss ’89
David Wilson taught English at Hotchkiss
from 1978-1999. Tim Katzman taught history
at Hotchkiss from 1981-1997.
132621c 8/22/10 1:00 PM Page 2
Board
of Trustees
Alumni Association
Board of Governors
Thomas C. Barry P’01,’03,’05
EMERITI
Katheryn Allen Berlandi ’88
Howard C. Bissell ’55, P’82
Christopher M. Bechhold ’72, P’03,
Vice President and Chair, Nominating Subcommittee for Membership
Ian R. Desai ’00
John R. Chandler, Jr. ’53, P’82,’85,’87, GP’10
Lance K. Beizer ’56
Thomas J. Edelman ’69, P’06,’07
Edgar M. Cullman ’36, P’64, GP’84
William J. Benedict, Jr. ’70, P’08, 10
William R. Elfers ’67, Vice President
Frederick Frank ’50, P’12
Katheryn Allen Berlandi ’88, President
John E. Ellis III ’74
David L. Luke III ’41
Lawrence Flinn, Jr. ’53
Dr. Robert A. Oden, Jr. P’97
Keith E. Bernard Jr. ’95, Co-chair, Alumni of
Color Committee
Diana Gomez ’76, P’11,’12
Frank A. Sprole ’38, P’65,’73,’78,
GP’89,’91,’01,’02,’03,’07,’09,’09
Douglas Campbell ’71, P’01
Nancy Watson Symington P’76,’78, GP’00,’10
Patricia Barlerin Farman-Farmaian ’85
Francis T. Vincent, Jr. ’56, P’85
Kerry Bernstein Fauver ’92
Arthur W. White P’71,’74, GP’08,’11
Quinn Fionda ’91
Sean M. Gorman ’72, Secretary
John P. Grube ’65, P’00
Elizabeth Gardner Hines ’93
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet ’85
Charles A. Denault ’74, P’03, Ex Officio
Eleanor Green Long ’76
Meredith Mallory George ’78
Forrest E. Mars, Jr. ’49, P’77,’82
GP’09,’09,’11,’11, Vice President
Brenda G. Grassey ’80
Malcolm H. McKenzie P’10,
Trustee Ex Officio
Edward J. Greenberg ’55, Vice President and
Chair, Alumni Services Committee
Seth M. Krosner ’79
Christopher H. Meledandri ’77
D. Roger B. Liddell ’63, P’98, Secretary
Kendra S. O’Donnell
Jennifer Appleyard Martin ’88, Chair, Gender Committee
Philip W. Pillsbury, Jr. ’53, P’89,’91
Peter J. Rogers, Jr. ’73, P’07, ’11
Jean Weinberg Rose ’80, Vice President
Roger K. Smith ’78, P’08
Jane Sommers-Kelly ’81
Marjo Talbott
John L. Thornton ’72, P’10,’11, President
William B. Tyree ’81, P’14, Treasurer
Alison L. Moore ’93, Co-chair, Alumni of
Color Committee
Alessandra H. Nicolas ’95
Daniel N. Pullman ’76, Ex Officio
Peter J. Rogers ’73, Ex Officio
Wendy Weil Rush ’80, P’07, Vice President
and Chair, Nominating Committee
Peter D. Scala ’01, Chair, Communications
Committee
Bryan A. Small ’03
George A. Takoudes ’87
Jana L. Wilcox ’97
To learn more about The Board of
Governors, please visit
www.hotchkiss.org/Alumni/BoardGov.asp
132621c 8/22/10 1:00 PM Page 1
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