Spring 2005

What’s the Big Idea?

Milton Magazine

Managing the International Health Crisis, page 3

Searching for What Sustains Us, page 6

Planning for Disaster Response, page 10

Moving Iraq Toward a Market Economy, page 13

Leading Schools, Defining a Vision, page 18

Delivering Maximum Performance: the Dymaxion Man, page 31

Maintaining a Just-in-Time Inventory: Mathematics at Milton, page 35

Championing a Worthy Ideal: Teaching Grammar, page 39

Features: The Big Idea3 Managing the International Health Crisis

Applying the best management strategies is ofcritical importance in fighting health inequali-ties and health crises among the world’s poor.David O. M. Ellis ’93

6 The Quest for What Sustains UsFood brings us together and—when survivalinstincts or clashing cultures intervene—food can come between us. For these Miltongraduates, food and its frequent companion,wine, are more than the source of energy.They are what sustains us. Heather Sullivan

10 Planning for Disaster ResponseThe attacks of September 11, 2001, thrustElizabeth Davis’s focal concern into Americanliving rooms: we could not and cannot escapethe need to plan for disasters.Cathleen Everett

13 Moving Iraq Toward a Market EconomyDerek Gilman ’79 mobilized and directed a team of attorneys in developing a body oflaw, 39 statutes, to undergird a new Iraqieconomy.Cathleen Everett

16 The Unbearable Lightness of StartingI have a great need to start things: some great,some fun, some utterly useless. This is thelife of a company starter.You Mon Tsang ’84

18 Leading Schools: Realizing Educational VisionsThese two graduates lead two markedly differ-ent schools; the Milton legacy figures in bothof their approaches.Rod Skinner ’72

22 Fueling Modern American DramaA publisher of plays has a certain power toextend the life of a play. Work that enters thepublic repertory lasts forever.Cathleen Everett

24 Jean Valentine ’52 Wins 2004 National Book Award for PoetryDoor in the Mountain collects her life’s workand orders her eight books of poetry chrono-logically, with the exception of the new poemswhich appear first.Lisa Baker

27 Sarah Bynum ’90Madeleine Is Sleeping earned Sarah a spotamong five finalists in fiction for the NationalBook Award, an honor that ensures an eageraudience for her future work.Evan Hughes ’94

30 Linking Minority and Majority Businesses,Kym Lew Nelson Offers StrategicPurchasingLeaving the security of a global companymight be too big a risk for many businesswomen but Kym couldn’t wait to put her savvyto use in a largely untapped market.

Contents

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EditorCathleen Everett

Associate EditorHeather Sullivan

PhotographyGordon Chase, Bryan Cheney, Michael Dwyer,Dana Jackson ’90, Michael Lutch, MiltonAcademy Archives, Nicki Pardo, Martha Stewart,Heather Sullivan, Greg White

DesignMoore & Associates

Cover IllustrationDavid Cutler

Printed on Recycled Paper

Milton Magazine is published twice a year byMilton Academy. Editorial and business officesare located at Milton Academy where change-of-address notifications should be sent.

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

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31 Producing Maximum Performance fromTechnology: The Dymaxion ManBorn of a commitment to service, the ideas of Buckminster Fuller 1913 remain relevant tothe problems that continue to plague us,including sustainability, housing and evenhunger.Michael O’Leary

The Big Idea on Campus

35 Mathematics Conglomerate Is Nimble,Responsive, Maintains a “Just in Time” InventoryMath department’s challenging commitmentto developing their own teaching materialsstrengthens over time.Cathleen Everett

38 Their Idea: Making Mathematical ElegancePart of Campus CultureThough not a business venture, VincentChan’s and Neil Katuna’s idea to start a mathjournal at Milton brought them face to facewith real-world challenges entrepreneursexperience.

39 Championing a Worthy Ideal: No RetreatFrom Teaching Grammar at MiltonWhile many schools have retreated from therigorous consideration of grammar, Milton’sEnglish faculty is still devoted to the pursuitof excellent usage.

41 Their Ingenuity and Drive Centers on ServiceMobilizing their classmates, Lara Yeo ’06 andColin Tierney ’05 have prioritized makingtime to help others.

43 Below the Surface: Ideas in MotionDevotees of this new competitive “sport”devote hours to putting their ideas intomotion. Few, if any, of the nation’s top board-ing schools have similar teams.

45 Linking His Heritage and His Future, Adam Och Studies Arabic at MiltonAdam crafted an independent study plan for Arabic culture and language that is bothchallenging and gratifying.

46 A Dream Delayed but Not DeniedEven without a pool, Coach Bob Tyler keepsvarsity swimming alive and well at Milton.

Departments48 The Head of School

Milton’s most recent “big idea” reaches backin time.Robin Robertson

50 Post ScriptSigns of a Misspent Youth, Reinterpreted: The Making of an EntrepreneurSean McVity ’80

52 In•Sight

54 On CentreNews and notes from the campus and beyond

61 SportsGreg White

63 Make Plans to Return for Graduates Weekend May 13–14, 2005

64 Class Notes

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2 Milton Magazine

What’s thebig idea?This magazine honors the energy, ingenuity, perseverance and risk involved in bringing powerfuland compelling ideas to life.

Ideas matter at Milton. Confidence in your own ideas, respect for others’ ideas—these arecultural essentials here. Faculty, students and graduates take their ideas seriously, and themany examples of efforts to give them life and longevity are ample testimony.

Even within this small sample of Miltonians’ endeavors, the range of individual commit-ments extends from writing laws for economic reform in Iraq, to making artisanal cheeses;from launching Internet businesses, to writing long and well enough to become a NationalBook Award Finalist. Whether we are protecting something inherently valuable that risksslipping away, striking out boldly in frontier territory, or setting higher standards and help-ing others meet them, Miltonians apply purpose and direction to their closely held ideas.On campus and throughout the world, they “Dare to be true.”

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Much of today’s media coverage ofglobal health issues is misleading. Newsstories tend to focus on the controversiessurrounding AIDS drug pricing or theamount of funding necessary to combatthe epidemic successfully. Though theseissues are important, they contribute to amyth that HIV/AIDS is the only loomingcatastrophe in international health andthat cheaper drugs or a dramatic infusionof money could soon turn the tide.

Those who pay closer attention and readsources outside the mainstream get amore accurate picture. HIV/AIDS is onlyone health crisis among many facing theworld’s poor, including maternal and childhealth, tuberculosis, and cardiovasculardisease. Moreover, no amount of moneycould rapidly overcome all the other sys-temic barriers to fighting disease in devel-oping countries, such as undevelopedinfrastructure, weak political will, and apaucity of human resources. Yet even byreading widely, a concerned citizen in theU.S. might not appreciate one of the most

critical obstacles to fighting health inequal-ities. When D. A. Henderson, leader of thesuccessful World Health Organizationcampaign to eradicate smallpox, was askedat a press conference what disease theworld should try to eliminate next, he sur-prised the audience by answering, “badmanagement.”

Two years ago, I went to Rwanda as part of a team dedicated to confronting themanagement problem. The leaders ofRwanda’s Ministry of Health, aware of ourmanagement support project at ColumbiaUniversity’s Center for Global Health andEconomic Development, asked the centerfor assistance in launching a new nationalHIV/AIDS program. We went aboutrecruiting candidates who had expertise instrategic planning, quantitative analysisand communication—a nontraditionalprofile of skills for public health work.Occasionally, we had to struggle with theColumbia bureaucracy to convince seniorofficials that someone with an M.B.A.might be a better fit than someone with an

M.P.H. In the end, we assembled a smallteam that included a management con-sultant, an accountant and a lawyer.

We arrived in Kigali, the capital city, insummer 2003. When someone first askedme about my overall impressions of thesituation in Rwanda, I could think only ofMikhail Gorbachev’s famous commentabout the Russian economy: “In a word,good. In two words, not good.” Rwandahas made remarkable progress since thegenocide, particularly in the area ofdomestic security. The country feels com-pletely safe, with very little violent crimeor political turmoil, and corruption is rela-tively modest. At the same time, Rwandaremains a deeply illiberal democracy root-ed in a culture of deference to authority.Moreover, as a landlocked country withfew natural resources, Rwanda has littleeconomic base outside of traditional sub-sistence agriculture. Nearly half of thepopulation is under the age of 15, and thepublic education system cannot cope.

Managing the International

Health CrisisDavid O.M. Ellis ’93

“When D. A. Henderson, leader of the successful World HealthOrganization campaign to eradicate smallpox, was asked at a pressconference what disease the world should try to eliminate next, hesurprised the audience by answering, ‘bad management.’”

Kigali Central Hospital, Rwanda

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As we quickly learned, all of these prob-lems directly contribute to weak manage-ment, which in turn hampers Rwanda’sability to use the rapid influx of donormoney intended to address the problems.For example, the government’s inability topay adequate salaries to civil servantsresults in a perverse set of incentives.Rather than focusing on organizationalobjectives, health officials spend much oftheir time trying to supplement their mea-ger salaries. For instance, officials oftenattend training sessions run by interna-tional nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) that offer per-diem payments forparticipation, even if the topic is whollyirrelevant. One particularly clever seniormanager was almost never in Rwanda,aggressively seeking invitations to over-seas conferences that paid him as much as$250 per day for hotel and food. He wouldquietly stay in hostels for $10 a night, andsimply pocket the difference.

Poverty also translates into shortsightedthinking and planning. Investment inlong-term improvements is a luxury sel-dom contemplated, as most Rwandans areaccustomed to thinking about how to pro-vide for their families. “In the mediumterm,” one Rwandan joked to me, “we’reall dead.” Everything operates on a short-term outlook. No one knows when publicholidays will be observed, as the govern-ment tends to declare holidays at the lastminute by national radio broadcast. If youfind a car with a tank of gas more than aquarter full, you’ve likely found an expat’scar—Rwandans don’t invest in full tanks.This mindset endures even when capitalbecomes available. Significant funds forHIV/AIDS are arriving, yet the healthcareleadership does not tend to think aboutresolving the bottlenecks that will hamperscaled-up treatment three years from now,such as the critical need for more nurses,doctors and laboratory technicians. Despite$50 million in HIV/AIDS funding thisyear, not a single new nursing school isunder construction.

Meanwhile, the deferential streak in theRwandan temperament contributes toworkplace environments in which veryfew middle managers feel empowered totake initiative and their supervisors tend tomicromanage. The HIV/AIDS manage-ment unit that I was advising initially hada system that required any staff memberto sign a sheet before leaving the office for

any meeting or errand, justifying the needfor the excursion. One colleague occasion-ally wasted entire days of work because hehad run out of cell phone minutes tomake business calls, could not find anoth-er available phone in the office, yet couldnot go into town to re-charge his cellphone because the boss was not there toapprove his errand. In its extreme form,such deference to authority becomesalmost comic. One day, a prison workcrew was landscaping a public square inKigali while the prison guard supervisingthem sipped from his bottle of vodka. Theguard eventually passed out. Rather thanmaking a break for it, the prisonersrespectfully picked the guard up and car-ried him back to jail, then quietly returnedto their cells.

My colleagues and I worked closely withour Rwandan counterparts to begin theslow process of transforming manage-ment culture in two key HIV/AIDS coordi-nation offices. I was responsible for advis-ing Dr. Blaise Karibushi, the leader of oneof these units, and our first step was tooverhaul the implementation plan for thenew national HIV/AIDS program. Wereversed the typical short-term approach toplanning and began by agreeing to three-year goals. We then calculated the level ofhuman resources and infrastructure nec-essary to achieve these goals, and workedbackwards from there. Eventually, Blaise’steam designed a detailed workplan andbudget for the first year of the program.

This plan included investment in improve-ments that would not yield any immediatebenefit but would alleviate anticipated con-straints (such as a looming warehousecapacity problem) in years two or three.

As the project progressed, Blaise and I hadmore time to focus on the more complexchallenges of changing performance cul-ture and management style. First, wedeveloped a completely new incentivesscheme. We translated the organizationalworkplan into individual workplans andperformance targets, and set aside a poolof money for performance-linked bonusesat the end of the year. To make the systemwork, we also instituted a series of regularperformance reviews for each personreporting to Blaise and asked those peopleto create a similar process for monitoringtheir supervisees. In a dramatic departurefrom the Rwandan norm, Blaise alsobegan to seek feedback from his subordi-nates. Though this was initially veryuncomfortable both for him and those giv-ing him feedback, the constructive criti-cism he received helped him rethink hismanagement style.

Responding to this feedback, we experi-mented with new ways for Blaise to man-age his team on a week-to-week basis. Wediscarded the system of daily sign-off oneveryone’s intended activities. Instead,Blaise convened a weekly meeting of unitheads every Monday and agreed withthem on their goals for the week. From

Overcrowded AIDS ward at Kigali Central Hospital

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that departure point, each unit head wasempowered to make any decision neces-sary to achieve those goals. At the nextweekly meeting, the team would discussany obstacles encountered and collectivelyagree on strategies for overcoming them.

Over the year I spent in Kigali, progresson all these fronts was halting. Unit headswere often slow to seize their newfoundautonomy. They usually felt more comfort-able gaining Blaise’s assent before finaliz-ing decisions, even where the decisionwas of only modest importance. The per-formance management system was noteasy to implement in a context wheremany people claimed excuses for anyshortfall, pointing to electricity outages,unreliable implementation partners andso forth.

Even as we focused on long-term manage-ment issues, I spent over half my timehelping Blaise react to unforeseen crises.For example, the central health procure-ment agency notified us one day that ithad ordered HIV test kits for the nextwave of program expansion, but had neg-lected to order needles for drawing blood.So I drove 10 hours north to Uganda andbought 20,000 needles, enough to fill thegap for one month until a new shipmentarrived in Kigali.

I often wondered whether our strategy ofattempting to change management culturewas the right one. Effecting change wasboth slow and expensive. Indeed, theamount of money used to cover my salaryand expenses, though modest by Westernstandards, would have financed tenRwandan salaries or funded treatment for500 HIV-positive people for one year.Ultimately, though, I became convincedthat the kind of work we are doing inRwanda needs to be expanded, becauseany small improvement in managementhas powerful multiplier effects. The rate ofstaff turnover within the managementunit has decreased significantly becausepeople are more satisfied with their jobs.Even more importantly, the gradualchanges we made within the managementteam contributed significantly to the proj-ect’s success in achieving almost all of itsfirst-year objectives. In turn, that successattracted widespread attention fromdonors and the promise of increased fund-ing. With a long-term investment plan inplace, current and future financing will bechanneled to logically ordered improve-ments. Though combating the epidemic ofbad management is no easier than turningthe tide against HIV/AIDS, it is a fightequally worth fighting.

Dai Ellis ’93

Dai Ellis is a student at Yale Law School where heis studying international law, health policy andhuman rights. Prior to law school, he helped toestablish Columbia University’s Center for GlobalHealth and Economic Development. Dr. JeffreySachs created the Center when he joined the faculty at Columbia in 2002. While working atColumbia, Dai spent over a year in Rwanda work-ing as the advisor to the executive director of theNational AIDS Commission. He helped to imple-ment the first national AIDS program for whichRwanda had received funding from the GlobalFund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. During histime in Rwanda, Dai founded Orphans of Rwanda,Inc., a U.S.–based 501(c)3 organization that pro-vides support to vulnerable children orphaned bythe Rwandan genocide and the HIV/AIDS epi-demic. Visit www.orphansofrwanda.org to get fur-ther information or to make a donation.

Before joining Columbia, Dai worked for severalyears at McKinsey and Company. He servedbiotechnology and pharmaceutical industry clientsin the U.S. as well as several international develop-ment organizations, including the United NationsDevelopment Program and International RedCross. Building on his undergraduate degree inbiochemistry and his work in the nonprofit sector,Dai left McKinsey to look for organizations thatare bringing management expertise to bear onpublic health problems. A lengthy job search land-ed him at Columbia. His experiences in Rwandaand at Yale have confirmed his desire to pursue acareer focused on expanding access to healthcareand education among the poor.

Reach Dai at david.ellis@yale.edu.

These children are all orphans, due either to the genocide or HIV/AIDS; their raised hands indicate whohas had malaria in the last year. The orphanage that provides them with care, Izere (Kinyarwanda for“hope”), is supported by a nonprofit organization Dai started. Izere is located in Nyanza, historical seat ofRwanda.

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Food brings us together and—whensurvival instincts or clashing mores or cul-tures dictate—food can come between us.What we consume is closely allied to iden-tity as well as health: You are what you eat,the adage goes.

Traditional Chinese consider food interms of yin and yang. From tomb-paint-ings, we know that ancient Egyptiansprized figs, fish and cucumbers. Duringthe Roman Empire, the senatorial class ateelaborate meals, in a reclining positionand using their hands, washing the mealdown with wine. Food, as much as love, isan ancient and international language,spoken with many accents.

For some, the quest for food purity rivalsthe highest levels of religious fervor. Forothers, food represents good taste or cer-tain values. Some seek food only to staveoff hunger. For these Milton graduates,food and its frequent companion, wine,are more than the source of energy andvitality; they are what sustains us.

Ian Cheney ’98What’s wrong with how Americathinks of food?

Until this year, Ian Cheney ’98 had neverkilled a deer. Why would he? Ian grew upin Milton, Massachusetts—not exactly aheadquarters for hunters—and earned amaster’s in environmental science fromYale, where he urged dining services toprepare locally produced, more healthfulfood. (Later, food maven Alice Watersadded momentum to that movement atYale.)

Ian began considering shooting a deerbecause, he says, Americans are out oftouch with the connection between foodand nature. Eating food, he thinks, is anessentially sensual experience as funda-mental to life as sleep and sex. Ian hasbeen focused on food and its relationshipto the people of our country—food-safetyscares and the obesity epidemic, for exam-ple. Corn, Ian believes, is the center ofAmerica’s food system.

“Corn is essential to the kingdom of fastfood that has come to dominate much ofthe American foodscape,” Ian says. “Cornfast-fattens livestock in confined feedingoperations, sweetens millions of softdrinks as high fructose corn syrup, andtransforms itself into thousands of differ-ent processed foods—it is all but unrecog-nizable in the supermarket, but withoutcorn the food system would be a very dif-ferent place.”

With co-producer and Yale classmate Curt Ellis, director of photography SamCullman and award-winning directorAaron Woolf (who visited Milton as aMelissa Dilworth Gold visiting artist in2002), Ian is producing King Corn, a filmthat goes beyond the heft of Supersize Meto examine America’s evolving and oftenironic relationship with food.

“We launched this project thinking thatsomething was wrong with how Americathinks about food. In the 19th century, themajority of people helped produce theirown food, but now most people don’tknow where our food comes from,” hesays, noting that an average bite of foodtravels 1,300 miles before it’s eaten.

One acre of corn yields 10,000 pounds.According to the U.S. Department ofAgriculture, the annual per capita cornconsumption has soared from 15.4 poundsin the 1950s to 28.4 pounds in 2000. InIowa, where both Ian and Curt can tracegreat-grandfathers, the filmmakers set outto follow a kernel through the food sys-tem.

The film begins with their planting anacre of corn in northeastern Iowa. “Theacre of corn—which must eventually be

The Quest for WhatSustainsUs

Ian Cheney ’98Jon Wright ’75Nicole Bernard Dawes ’91

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sold—becomes a ticket into the worldbetween farm and plate,” the filmmakersassert on their Web site. Film segmentsjump from the acre in Iowa to grain eleva-tors, diners, gene laboratories and corpo-rate boardrooms.

The ripening of the corn drives the film’snarrative. It explores how our culture,economy and political system shape ourlandscapes, our communities and—bymaking certain types of food cheaper andmore accessible—our bodies.

We consume the industrial or “dent” cornin products such as ketchup and ham-burger (that comes from corn-fed cows)and in virtually every processed food. Anirony is that farmers who grow this cornare unable to feed themselves by farming;the corn is basically inedible in its originalstate. The government subsidizes industri-al corn farming; therefore farmers grow itregardless of demand—and the demandstays strong because the cost is low.

Before the corn becomes the corn syrup insoda, it is planted and fertilized, and pro-tected from predators. It must survive tofeed the masses.

Yet as Ian and his colleagues found, thejourney from the dark soil to an Americantable is filled with irony: A friend sent Ianheavy-duty gardening gloves, not realizingthat farmers of large-scale operations havelittle cause to touch the earth. “I didn’t getmuch exercise as a farmer, either,” Ianadmits.

In addition to planting their own acre ofindustrial corn, Ian and his Mosaic Films,Inc. colleagues talked with authors andactivists. Eager to expand the debate aboutfood, they also spoke to ranchers, lobby-ists, restaurateurs, food warehousers andshrimp fishermen. They looked at corn asa concept, a commodity and a catalyst forchanging the American diet. According tothe trailer for King Corn, corn is the mostpowerful food crop the world has everknown, and it has allowed America to feedmore people for less money than everbefore.

Ian warns about a two-class food systememerging: People with means are thinkingcarefully about what they eat, while othersget access to more and more processed—but affordable—food. Ian started the proj-ect with bias about issues such as pesti-cides and the ramifications of using genet-ically modified corn. “I don’t think thatwe’ve been cautious enough,” he says.

Yet, in spite of these issues, Ian says thatfarmers and ranchers are doing “reason-able and wonderful things.” Mosaic triedto capture the farmers’ challenges, whilehonoring the work ethic and commitmentthat they hold in common with their forbears.

“Their values are rooted in a tradition Ireally respect—raising a family and grow-ing food. But they are hooked into a sys-tem that yields little flexibility and littlemoney.”

Is our country subsidizing the right sys-tem? With an investment of $350, Ian andhis colleagues produced 177 bushels ofcorn that in 2004 brought $1.65 perbushel—a net loss of 33 cents per bushel.

Ian’s film includes archival footage, origi-nal music, and promotes dialogue aboutthe way America farms and eats. Itsrelease is scheduled for May 2005; go towww.KingCorn.net for more information.

Jon Wright ’75Making artisanal cheeses onTaylor Farm

“You wore your good jeans today,” jokesDoug Carleton, a carpenter and handymanat Taylor Farm in Londonderry, Vermont.The recipient of the jibe, Jon Wright ’75,nods his head and steps away from Bess.“She’s really a pet,” Jon says of the sow,oversized even by swine standards.

Jon also introduces the farm’s primary“pets,” dairy cows with names such asSally (who possesses the most substantialudders), Nadine (who bore a calf in lateNovember), Harriet, Darla and Sunflower.

The son of a Manhattan physician, Jon is afarmer in an idyllic, 19th-century sense—or at least, his hands, and his jeans, do getquite dirty.

Jon’s interest in farming began when hevisited Vermont as a child and strength-ened when his Milton senior project,advised by Bryan Cheney, centered onphotographing the 150-year-old TaylorFarm. After Milton, Jon attended agricul-ture school, where he was discouragedfrom pursuing an agricultural career. Hecompleted a program in forest manage-ment at the University of Vermont’sSchool of Natural Resources and plannedto focus on forestry consulting until helearned that Taylor Farm was vacant.Everyone said they were crazy when Jonand his wife, Kate, moved to Taylor Farm

Ian Cheney ’98, on the combine at harvest time

Jon Wright ’75 and his pig, Bess

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Channing Daughters Winery

Nude sculptures and “racy” whitewines (to quote the New York Times)pair nicely at Channing DaughtersWinery, where Walter Channing ’59brings both to life. A venture capitalist-sculptor-vintner, Waltergraces his 125-acre vineyard with sensual wood sculptures and theirlikenesses grace many labels of hisboutique wines.

An August 2004 Newsday articlelauds Walter’s wines: “There shouldbe a lot of toasting this summer atChanning Daughters Winery.” OnOctober 3, 2004, the New York Timeswrote that Channing Daughters’wines are notable for their compatibil-ity with food. (Walter’s new winemak-er, James Christopher Tracy, is atrained sommelier and former chef.)

Walter’s wines are also described as “zippy,” “flamboyantly aromatic”and “palate-cleansing.” A visit towww.channingdaughters.com indicatesthat aficionados agree: Most labelsfrom 2002 and 2003 vintages aresold out. (Members of the vineyard’swine club get first dibs.)

Walter planted his first Chardonnayvines at his Bridgehampton, LongIsland, farm in 1982. He believes, hesays, in producing artisanal winesthrough traditional methods: hand-picking grapes, stomping them byfoot and punching them down.Varieties include Chardonnay, PinotGrigio, Tocai Friulano, Merlot,Blaufrankisch and others.

Contributing to his communitythrough the beauty of art and wine,Walter also believes in land preserva-tion: His farm is one of the lastunbroken tracts of land on the SouthFork of Long Island.

as tenants. (They would later buy the core18 acres, surrounded by over 500 acres ofVermont Land Trust land and near threepopular ski areas.) After 10 years as a con-ventional dairy farmer, Jon began to think“everyone” might have been right.

To sustain the farm, Jon and Kate beganoffering sleigh rides in the winter, estab-lished a monthly Farm Day for visitorsand used the property’s “little house” as aguesthouse. Kate set up a roadside farmstand to sell baked goods. But until theydiscovered cheese, these efforts weren’tenough.

While people have been making cheesefor about 6,000 years, Jon started in1999. Part art, part science, cheese-mak-ing capitalizes on the curdling of milk.Enter the farm’s pristine cheese-makingroom, where Jon and his team warm themilk and separate the curd from the whey(hard, isn’t it, to avoid the image of LittleMiss Muffet?) to see artisanal cheese-mak-ing made possible by the rich milk of 45Holstein cows in the barn next door. Onehundred pounds of their milk will make10 pounds of garlic, chipolte, maple-smoked, cumin or regular Gouda—anaverage of 1,200 pounds per week. (Theaverage cow produces over 17,000 poundsof milk each year.)

Jon isn’t alone in these cheese-makingendeavors. His core staff of Doug, herds-man John Michalski, farm help Scott

Bratton and cheesemaker TamryUnderwood care for the animals; milk thecows; warm the milk; add the culture and“hoop” the warm curds in metal roundslined with cheesecloth; weight and pressthe developing cheese, bathe the cheese inbrine, and leave it to dry for 10 days whenit is hand-dipped four times in wax andput in the cheese cave to age.

The Wrights’ decision to keep the farm isreinforced, Jon says, whenever they help acow deliver her calf at 2 a.m. or when oneof the Wright daughters helps make abatch of cheese or when his oldest daugh-ter rides horseback after doing her home-work. (The many awards from theAmerican Cheese Society aren’t hurtingtheir confidence much, either.)

Jon’s wife, Kate, made the farm’s firstbatches of cheese, while consultant PeterDixon guided the family as they developedtheir idea into a commercially viable product.

“I do everything that no one else wants todo,” Jon says of his role on the farm. “Itend to most of the morning milkingaround 4:30 a.m., general farm manage-ment, fieldwork and help out with market-ing and promotion.

“The farm is a real community effort.We’ve had tremendous support primarilybecause we are one of the last farms leftaround here.”

Taylor Farm’s dairy cows include Sally, Darla, Sunflower and Harriet.

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Food Figures for Other Graduates

As restaurateurs, farmers and more,many Milton alumni enjoy food astheir business. Explore the Miltonfood connection further:

George Bemis ’69, organic farmerwww.hutchinsfarm.com

Powell Cabot ’49, cheesemakerwww.fannymasoncheese.com

Mike Chase ’80, investment bankerfor nutrition industrywww.healthbusiness.com

James Doulos ’90, Kim Doulos ’84and Reni Doulos Cadigan ’86, restaurateurs www.jimmysharborside.com

William Lobkowitcz ’79, brewer www.czechbeer.com/lobkowicz.htmwww.lobkowicz.org

Peter Saltonstall ’71, vintner www.treleavenwines.com

Taylor Farm, part of the Vermont CheeseCouncil of which Jon is vice president, isVermont’s only Gouda producer. TheWright family is committed to sustainableagriculture. They fertilize their rotationallygrazed pastures and hay fields naturallyand do not treat their cows with growthhormones.

Gouda has made Jon’s farm tenable, but—despite product placement in marketssuch as Manhattan’s Zabar’s and Murray’sand Boston’s Savenor’s—the financial benefits do not yet rival the personal ones,which is okay with John: “After years oftremendous responsibility, hard work andraising a family, I have found great spiritu-al and emotional rewards in this work,” he says.

To find Jon’s cheese or to visit the farm’schicken, dog, cats, rabbits, 45 cows, nine horses and one turtle, go to www.taylorfarmvermont.com.

“I remember that line from Apollo 13 com-ing into my head: ‘All right, there are athousand things that have to happen inorder for us to survive—and we are onnumber eight.’ I could relate.”

Most new businesses go out of business,so Nicole explains that keeping a stream-lined staff—while you struggle for shelfspace and refine the mechanics of distri-bution—is crucial to keeping a businessviable. She notes that she has mixed feel-ings about food giants such as Kraft andHeinz “going organic” as the market fororganic products grows. “In the end, theobject is to grow the industry,” she says.“Thank goodness America loves theunderdog.

“This year, business could not be better,”she says. “We’re in over 6,000 stores andgrowing.”

Nicole, whose mother ran a natural-foodsstore in Harwich on the Cape in the1970s, grew up eating tempeh sandwichesand carob-covered rice cakes.

Since then, food and its production havebeen close to Nicole and her family, whointroduced all-natural Cape Cod PotatoChips and Chatham Village Croutons tosupermarkets in the ’80s and ’90s. ButNicole had no immediate plans to take thelead in a new family business until, whenshe was pregnant in 2001 and cravingsaltine crackers, she found supermarketshelves bereft of organic crackers.

Nicole convinced her father, SteveBernard, to join the venture. Marketresearch showed that the $4 billion crack-er market might just have room for afamiliar product—featuring organic ingre-dients and without trans fats and artificialcoloring. Relying on old-fashioned recipesfrom Farmer’s Almanacs she spent monthspreparing sample batches of crackers inher New York City apartment.

“The guiding principle for me,” she says,“is would I feel proud and comfortablegiving this to my son.

“So many products, like some yogurts forchildren, masquerade as ‘health food.’ Butif you read the label, you may reconsiderfeeding some products to your family.”

Nicole quickly realized that her biggestchallenge would be maintaining “mouthfeel” or the customary cracker flakinessthat comes from the use of hydrogenatedoils. “I was never willing to compromisetaste,” Nicole says.

Nicole Bernard Dawes ’91Her organic crackers please consumers

“Our crackers look familiar and tastegreat, so we attract a lot of crossover busi-ness from people who might not usuallybuy organic,” says Nicole Dawes ’91, co-founder, president and chief operatingofficer of Late July Organic Snacks.

“We are part of creating a sustainablefuture, which is why we’re all doing this.”

Nicole also manages marketing—earningan “irresistible” review from the New YorkTimes—customer relations and even stepsin as forklift operator for her fledglingcompany, Late July. She says that in thefirst year of business, the company wascontinually in triage: Each day she mend-ed logistical snags, soothing retailers asdistribution details began to makeprocesses more routine.

Ensuring a shelf life to please consumerswas another challenge, as was designingperfect packaging—a nostalgic beach-scape, in this case. The result is bite-sizedcheddar cheese snacks, round saltinecrackers, classic rich and peanut butterand cheddar cheese sandwich crackers.

The sandwich crackers are made withorganic peanut butter and organic cheese.All of the crackers are made withouthydrogenated oils (where the trans fatshide), preservatives, artificial flavors or colors.

“If you have a society that relies onprocessed food, then it makes sense forpeople to read the labels and understandwhat’s in their food.

“But there’s so much to worry about in theworld. The quality of our crackers willnever be one of them.”

For more about Nicole’s company, go towww.latejuly.com.

Heather Sullivan

10 Milton Magazine

“I do what I do with a passion because I feel a tremendous obliga-tion and responsibility. What I bring to the table is long-standingexperience and knowledge of the disability community—that is, a truesingular understanding as a member of that community—matchedwith years of experience in emergency management planning andapplication. My career brings those things together.”

Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary TomRidge told us that we owned responsibilityfor a prepared response, at least at thefamily level. Since then the issue has onlygained momentum as we witness events,natural and manmade, that affect thou-sands every day.

About one-fifth of the U.S. population, 54 million Americans, are persons withdisabilities, individuals with an array ofneeds as well as abilities who, nonethe-less, are particularly anxious about theirpersonal safety in an emergency, accord-ing to two Harris Surveys done by the

National Organization on Disability in2001 and 2003. Elizabeth Davis runs herown emergency management consultingfirm. She focuses on planning andresponse with and for populations thathave special needs.

Within our communities, among ourneighbors, relatives and friends, one outof every five Americans has a disability ormedical need that should be taken intoaccount in developing and carrying outemergency plans. Within the fraction ofNew York City staked out as “GroundZero,” for example—in addition to thetowers of businesses that included work-ers with mobility/physical, sensory (i.e.vision or hearing), and cognitive disabili-ties—were the following considerations:

• More than 200 languages are spoken inNYC and the Chinatown neighborhoodwas within the impact zone.

Planning for Disaster Response

Elizabeth A. Davis ’85

September 11, 2001

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rtCertainly the attacks of September 11,2001, thrust Elizabeth Davis’s focal con-cern into American living rooms: we couldnot and cannot escape the need to plan fordisasters. We started thinking explicitlyabout the vulnerability of our workplaces,hospitals, schools and transportation net-works as well as our homes. We askedpointed questions about who would springinto organized action to help us in thecase of an “incident,” implementing aplan we assumed would be well-designedand fully resourced. Then Department of

11 Milton Magazine

• Commercial and residential structuresmade up the mixed-use area whichincluded special housing for seniors,people with disabilities, and lowerincomes in addition to the market-ratehousing.

• Seven home-based care agencies hadoffices in the zone serving roughly 5,000clients living in that area as well.

• Several daycare centers, elementary andhigh schools along with colleges, twosenior centers and even one hospitalwere all affected.

“Special needs can create dynamic issuesfor emergency professionals respondingduring (or to) a crisis,” Elizabeth explains.“Their bottom line is to save lives but thatmeans all lives. Better-laid plans maximizeand utilize scarce resources during emer-gencies; these plans identify the needs aswell as the abilities within the disabilitycommunity. This is not just a victimmodel for planning: the extent to whichyou empower people to respond to thebest of their abilities, you minimize theamount of response required from profes-sionals, and stretch the availability of allkinds of resources.”

Elizabeth points to the Chinese characterthat relates “opportunity and crisis” whenshe teases out the circumstances, bothchallenging and fortuitous, that led to hernational prominence in a specialized field.

“My dyslexia—I am so dyslexic that theonly reason I can tell the differencebetween a “b” and a “d” is that my lastname begins with a “d”—led me torequest a language waiver at Milton,”Elizabeth says with a grin. “Rather, Irequested a language substitution, andMilton agreed. I substituted AmericanSign Language, which I studied atNortheastern on weekends, for modernforeign language.” At Barnard College,Elizabeth concentrated in sociology andpolitical science, and wrote her thesis ondeaf studies. Her intention at Boston

University Law School was to develop theskill set necessary to commit herself fur-ther to the field of disability rights and dis-ability law. In addition to her law degree,she earned a master’s in education,focused on deaf cultural studies.

“At the end of my graduate career, someeffective pieces of legislation passed in the’70s and ’80s culminated in the Americanswith Disabilities Act of 1990, a strongpiece of civil rights legislation, and I bene-fited from the hard work that went into itspassage.” Elizabeth’s first job was not as alawyer; she joined the Mayor’s Office forPeople with Disabilities (MOPD) as assis-tant to legal counsel and senior policy analyst. That job combined advocacy andapplication of policy for the disability com-munity, along with legal and analyticalwork. After the 1993 World Trade Centerbombing, Mayor Giuliani identified emer-gency management as a commitmenthoused under mayoral authority, and created the Mayor’s Office of EmergencyManagement (OEM). As the MOPD representative to the Office of EmergencyManagement, Elizabeth provided “struc-tured advice and review” as she describesher role; she “incorporated disabilityaccess standards and protocol into thecity’s emergency contingency plans, drillsand outreach programs.”

Her shift from a policy analyst to a front-line emergency response professionalcame when she was called upon to helpresolve a crisis in Queens in 1997 wherepolice had found a group of 64 deafMexicans who had ostensibly been smug-gled into the country and forced into slavelabor. Elizabeth found that she “held thecommunication key” in that situation—the ability to help responders, as well asMayor Giuliani, sort through complexlegal, cultural and social needs, to set pri-orities, and to initiate an appropriateresponse. The need for emergency man-agement planning to include disabilityconcerns was manifest. At that pointElizabeth became a member of the Officeof Emergency Management, the organiza-tion with the resources and the authorityto bring together teams for planning andresponding. “My duty was to infuse con-sideration of disabilities within the emer-gency management structure, whether thedisabilities were medically based, agebased, or other kinds of special needs.”She ensured that, within the system,trained people were capable of respondingto unique issues, whatever the triggeringfactor: a power outage, a water mainbreak, a blizzard.

The extreme and immediate needs ema-nating from the attacks of September 11,2001, wrenched Elizabeth, who had beentransitioning into her own private consult-ing firm, back into frontline response atground zero. The Mayor’s Office ofEmergency Management, as manyremember, was located at 7 World TradeCenter, which ultimately fell. She surren-dered the effort to “achieve more balance”in her life through tailoring her own busi-ness to the imminent and overwhelmingmonths-long demand in response to thiscrisis.

Once Elizabeth was again ready to launchher business, the nation was consumedwith the need to plan. One goal in estab-lishing EAD & Associates, LLC Emergency

President George Bush shakes hands withElizabeth after having signed Executive Order 13347focused on including people with disabilities in allemergency planning.

12 Milton Magazine

Management & Special Needs Consultants,Elizabeth says was to “be selective aboutprojects—to take on projects because ofthe overall impact they would have. Icould take my experience to the largestand most effective emergency manage-ment venues, and apply that experience tomake a difference.” As principal of EAD &Associates, Elizabeth has worked with pri-vate businesses, advocacy organizations,and governmental agencies in many statesand at the federal level.

Elizabeth just completed a three-year proj-ect with the National Organization onDisability, the “Emergency PreparednessInitiative,” which perhaps most success-fully epitomizes the philosophy and strate-gies that drive Elizabeth’s work.

“We had two parallel goals,” Elizabethsays, “we wanted to educate individualswith disabilities to be better prepared toact on behalf of their own needs, and thento be part of the solution process, whetherthe incident was an apartment fire, an icestorm or an act of terrorism. We empow-ered them to search out the planningagencies in their municipalities, and par-ticipate in shaping the solutions to emer-

gency challenges. The other arm of theinitiative was to address the emergencymanagement professionals—the plannersand first responders—to make them awareof the unique emergency special needsthey might face that may change thedynamic of their response, and help themdevelop more appropriate plans, with thestakeholders at the planning table.”

Working closely with the Department ofHomeland Security has predictably been aconsistent feature of Elizabeth’s consult-ing. Last September she chaired a majorconference on emergency preparednessfor people with disabilities for theNational Capital Region (Washington,D.C., Virginia and Maryland), supportedby the Department of Homeland Securityin partnership with the National Organiza-tion on Disability. Emergency manage-ment professionals from throughout theregion and beyond immersed themselvesin crucial issues, from plans for medicallyfragile populations to alert systems, evacu-ation issues, impacts of disaster responseson pediatric and senior populations, toworkplace models. This conference is anexample of a unique “window of opportu-nity,” Elizabeth says, that she and her col-leagues now have and must use effectively.

For Elizabeth, and her peers and col-leagues in both the emergency manage-ment and disability communities, themost significant symbol of their success in this area was Executive Order 13347,signed by President Bush in July 2004.Elizabeth was present in the Oval Officefor the signing and feels that the tremen-dous impact of this order is both recogni-tion of the issues and a commitment topositive change. The presidential orderdirects that people with disabilities mustbe included in all aspects of emergencyplanning at all levels, throughout thenation.

“Emergencies are never going to be easy, and there is always going to be aresponse,” Elizabeth advises, “but if you atleast have the knowledge and the ideasahead of time, you can be better equippedto make the decisions that affect people’slives. A strategic and inclusive approach to emergency preparedness benefits peo-ple of all abilities.”

Cathleen Everett

Elizabeth Davis and her husband, Luis Penalver, and their children, MadeleineIsabelle (left) and Abigail Soledad

13 Milton Magazine

economists in undertaking this project.The vision entrusted to him and his teamwas to set the framework for transitioningIraq from a managed economy to a mar-ket economy.

With a staff of 19 attorneys set in Baghdad,and with the help of several professionalsin the U.K., Australia and the UnitedStates, Derek coordinated simultaneousefforts to write “Orders” concerning issuessuch as the national budget, the operationof banks, a system of taxation, a securitiesexchange, the registration of companies,trademarks, patents, foreign investmentand insurance.

An army reservist on active duty at thattime, Derek was initially assigned to theDepartment of Defense, Office of GeneralCounsel, International Affairs Division.He had been in Iraq working with theIraqis on the legal documents that wouldbecome the foundation for the special tri-bunal trying Saddam Hussein and othersenior Ba’athists, when “It was decided,”he said, “that I would stay on to work onthe Commercial Law Reform Project.”

To create “the conditions for sustainabledevelopment” (the directive from U.N.Security Council Resolution 1483), and to

Moving Iraq Toward a

Market Economy

“From an intellectual point ofview, this experience was exhila-rating: bright people around thetable, challenging issues, lots ofdecisions to be made—madequickly, and made right.”

As deputy general counsel of the CoalitionProvisional Authority for Commercial LawReform, Derek Gilman ’79 mobilized anddirected a team of attorneys in developinga body of law, 39 statutes, to undergird anew Iraqi economy. He and his teamworked closely with policy makers and

Derek Gilman ’79

14 Milton Magazine

implement a transition, Iraq needed abroad-based body of law. One of the firstelements in a complex process, in fact,became identifying and prioritizing the legal needs. Members of the Iraqiministries working with the CoalitionProvisional Authority (CPA)—such as theministries of finance, trade and plan-ning—in addition to private developersand Iraqi businessmen, all contributed todelineating what needed to be done; themission-critical issues were numerous anddiverse. According to Derek, the min-istries, at that point, were staffed withIraqis who had not been Ba’athists. Thenew minister of finance, for instance(Kamil al Gailani), came to the post fromprivate industry: “His advisors were longterm professionals in the Hussein admin-istration, but were not Ba’athists,” Dereksaid. “We also dealt with a number of pro-fessionals who were trained in the U.K., inWales, who were capable and knowledge-able about Iraqi law.”

Ambassador Bremer in response torequests from Iraqis and coalition advisorsoutlined 39 legal initiatives and Derekcommitted the working group to develop-ing drafts of those 39; these Orders wouldat least be ready for the thorough “coordi-nation” process that would occur beforeAmbassador Bremer signed the Ordersinto law.

Lawyers from the project researched eachof the issues at hand for relevant Iraqi law,trying to build upon it when possible,while remaining consistent with interna-

tional law. With regard to the public debt,for instance, international law prohibits anoccupier from increasing the sovereigndebt of a nation. The Law Reform Project’sresolution with respect to that restrictionwas to write that while “Iraq would notincrease its debt during the period of occu-pation, it might substitute existing instru-ments with other instruments.” Iraq, therefore, could reschedule its debt, onceoffers to forgive that debt were reconciled.

The project routinely sought both helpfrom advisors and subject-area expertisefrom specialists. Three Iraqi attorneyswith master’s of law degrees, along withan Iraqi law professor, provided regularassistance to the project group. Lawyersfrom the project met twice weekly with the Iraqi Governing Council, and frequentlywith Iraqi bankers and businessmen.Various U.S. agencies provided support:the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, theComptroller of the Currency, the Patentand Trademark Office, and the Departmentof Commerce. The assistant director of theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commis-sion (SEC) was the principal drafter ofsecurities law, but he worked in close con-sultation with securities lawyers workingfor the coalition in Iraq, who amended thedraft to take into account Iraq’s practicalrealities. Other support came from U.K.and Australian government agencies, theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) andthe World Bank. In many cases lawyerswere drafting orders in Washington,Canberra or London, which would then beamended in Baghdad.

Once orders were drafted, they began towind their way through an extensive coor-dination process, beginning with consulta-tion with Iraqi government officials andprivate citizens, and seeking commentsfrom the U.S., U.K. and Australian gov-ernments, the IMF and the World Bank.Lawyers would revise the draft and trans-late it into Arabic. Paul Bremer wouldreview the revised draft Order and approveits presentation to the Governing Council.Discussions with the Governing Councilled to further revisions, until a final draftreached Ambassador Bremer’s desk forsignature. The CPA Web site posted thesigned orders, in English and Arabic, andpublished them in Iraq’s Official Gazette.“The coordination process was logisticallydifficult,” says Derek, moving six separategroups through reading, commenting, col-lecting, responding, rewriting; ultimatelythey all had to sing from the same sheet ofmusic.”

As has been the case in other countries,moving a nation from a planned economyto a market economy opens opportunitiesfor many, but threatens the stakeholdersof the old system. Many expatriates return-ing to Iraq were excited about the econom-ic opportunities and were ready to makemore radical changes. However, those whohad grown up in a planned economywanted to keep their authority and theirdominance. Some in the Ministry ofPlanning, for instance, wanted controlover foreign investment and were reticentto make the changes in budget law recom-mended by the IMF.

Working on commercial law reform in Iraq, fromleft, Muhammad Helm, Egyptian tax expert withBearingPoint; LTC Derek Gilman ’79; Kamil alGailani, Iraqi minister of finance; Dr. AhmedChalabi, chair of finance committee, IraqiGoverning Council; Dr. Aziz Jafar Hassan, deputydirector of the Ministry of Finance; RichardLaliberte, Canadian economist with BearingPoint;Rick Chewning, Internal Revenue Service

15 Milton Magazine

Derek points to other challenges posed bycultural differences. “It was crucial for usand those working with us to ensuretransparency in our process,” Derek says,“but operating with transparency was notan Iraqi experience.”

“Under Saddam corruption was rampant;bribes were commonplace. In responseand at the suggestion of Iraqis, manyOrders reduced the discretion of publicofficials. For instance, regulations wereadopted so that if a company met clearregulatory criteria, then it could be regis-tered: no bribes, no red tape. We tried tomake it easy for people to transform tangi-ble wealth into intangible businesses—registered companies that would creategreater wealth.

“People who had had experience workingin Eastern European countries advisedus,” Derek says, “one who had writtenbankruptcy law for Bosnia, and a securi-ties lawyer with experience in the Balkans.They and others who had seen what hap-pened in Russia were concerned that weavoid allowing the riches of the country togo into a few pockets, that we avoid yield-ing the economic terrain to oligarchs.

“We often had to move from thinkingabout broad strategic goals to consideringthe mundane and particular,” Derekexplains. That was true with respect todeveloping a tax program. The IMF con-sidered the availability of a non-oil sourceof revenue to be crucial if the Iraqis were

to renegotiate their sovereign debt. Theexisting tax codes were vastly unfair: thoseworking for the government or in state-owned businesses did not pay taxes. Taxespaid by individuals working in privateenterprise exceeded 40 percent, while pri-vate enterprises were subject to a total taxrate of 78 percent. Therefore many taxpay-ers would negotiate to reduce their taxes.Furthermore, a 25 percent “social welfare”tax paid by private enterprises didn’t go tosocial welfare at all. The reform initiative,therefore, needed to address those differ-ences in citizens’ experiences and providea tax that was relatively low (to promotecompliance) but still high enough to gen-erate sufficient non-oil revenue. A 15 per-cent flat tax was the strategy that prevailed.

What’s the status of the implementation?What progress has been made? “At timeswe ran into significant internal Iraqi politi-cal differences, but at the end of the day,every one of the economic Orders wasapproved by the Governing Council,”Derek says. “On the whole, the legal prin-ciples underlying a new economy havebeen accepted.” For the system to operateeffectively, more reorganizing and retrain-ing of officials lie ahead.

Derek points to the positive tracks thusfar: More companies have registered inIraq since February 2004 than in theentire 60-year history of the CompanyRegistry; numerous companies are tradingon the Iraq Stock Exchange; three foreignbanks have received licenses to do busi-

ness in Iraq, and propose making millionsof dollars available to Iraqi banks to lendto Iraqi businesses; and we’re seeingmany joint ventures between Iraqi compa-nies and foreign companies.

Across the country, however, getting theword out about changes, reorganizing andretraining is going slower than anyonewould have wanted, because resourceshave been diverted to cope with securityissues and the election. “But economicdevelopment is occurring in some territo-ries, and, in general, progress is beingmade,” Derek asserts.

Derek is hopeful and grateful for theopportunity to make such a difference inthe destiny of a country. “I was able tocombine two aspects of my life, my legalexperience and my experience in militaryservice as a JAG officer, to work withextraordinary people, and to make a per-sonal commitment to begin the rebuildingof an entire economy. I had HernandodeSoto’s Mystery of Capital at my bedside.That book examines the question of whycapitalism succeeds in the West, but failseverywhere else. DeSoto’s conclusion isthat the key cause is a lack of legal frame-work to support capitalism. That legalframework is what we tried to develop.

Cathleen Everett

“…moving a nation from aplanned economy to a marketeconomy opens opportunities formany, but threatens the stake-holders of the old system.”

16 Milton Magazine

As I write, I am on the last cross-country flight of the evening after twodays of evangelizing about the company Istarted. The flight is already two and a halfhours late and I am still over four hoursaway from home and my family. And Ifeel all right.

I think about how to help a trade publica-tion pep up their coverage of our spaceand how to convince a global conglomer-ate that our company, less than one quar-ter of 1 percent of their size, is the idealpartner for them. I put the final toucheson the family holiday card (which felt a lit-tle rushed this year but I think will still bea crowd pleaser) and wonder why micro-payments still have not flourished on theWeb.

This is the life of a company starter, anentrepreneur.

I realized in my mid-20s that I have aneed to start things: some great, somefun, some utterly useless. As a profession,that means starting companies. I’ve done it with a few thousand dollars andthe sweat of my brow; I’ve done it with$20 million and the sweat of my brow.

I am neck deep into my latest start-up,Biz360. We are trying to change the wayGlobal2000 companies manage theirbrands. This company is my biggest betthus far.

Biz360 came from an idea nurtured dur-ing years of creating data analysis softwareat Brio Technology. Here is the problem:organizations seem to have a pretty goodidea of how their corporate processes arerunning, but they have little idea of howtheir corporate reputation and brands arefaring. They know sales of a product wentup, and when, but they do not know howthe media or consumers perceive theproduct. The have less than they need toplan strategically—to make decisionsabout what direction and resource alloca-tion will achieve the outcomes they want. I am trying to solve this problem.

Probably the toughest part of the road tosuccess at Biz360 is convincing peoplethat getting this accurate view of them-selves is possible. In the first two years ofbusiness, my main role was education.Potential customers, never having seenanything like our capability, would com-pletely underestimate what we do; theywould assume, for instance, that we mere-ly automated the gathering of news sto-ries. Biz360 gives marketing professionalsmedia analysis tools that provide a rangeof metrics previously unavailable—meas-

The UnbearableLightness of Starting

You Mon Tsang ’84

“I realized in my mid-20s that Ihave a need to start things: somegreat, some fun, some utterlyuseless. As a profession, thatmeans starting companies. I’vedone it with a few thousand dol-lars and the sweat of my brow;I’ve done it with $20 million andthe sweat of my brow.”

17 Milton Magazine

though, I feel great. My energy seems end-less. That energy comes from the thrill ofthe start: an idea turning into something“real”; new jobs for good people; peoplesaying, for the first time, “I want that.”

And to get to the great feeling, I need toplow through the “no, thank yous,” themissed flight connections, the “that’s notpossibles,” the slow movement forward,and the “95 percent of all start-ups fail.”

This life is not for everyone. Sometimes I wish it weren’t for me. In the past, I haveruined relationships on account of myfocus. This focus and drive to start is botha source of power and a significant charac-ter flaw. Fortunately, I now have a lovelywife who understands. Maybe this life isfor you.

Did I know right away that I was a starter?I did not. After Milton, headed to college, I was convinced I would be a banker. Incollege, I was attracted to urban planning.In business school, however, I fully real-ized that having tight control of one’s des-tiny was paramount to my happiness.

Since then, I have faced many decisionsabout control. What do I do well? I yieldedthe CEO position when the company grewlarger than what I had previously handled.When do I cut bait? Many times, walkingaway seemed the easiest option. And

when does the next new business start? I don’t know. One thing I do know is that I cannot get enough of a new thing.

Twenty years ago when I was at Milton, I found myself trying to exceed my ownexpectations. I came to Milton very self-aware. I knew why I came to Milton eventhough I came from New York City’sChinatown: I wanted to be challenged. I thought of myself as a math and sciencemajor, but I walked out looking to majorin humanities.

In business, I see myself as the “zero-to-five-million-in-yearly-revenue” guy. That’sthe person I’m comfortable with, and I’mgood at it. I start small companies. But,again, I want a good challenge. When I move on to whatever the next thing is, I want to walk out as the “zero-to-fifty-million” guy. I want to build enduringcompanies. Stay tuned for that.

You Mon Tsang ’84

You Mon Tsang with his son Liam, 4 years old. “We were at SBC Park rooting for the San FranciscoGiants,” You Mon says, “but for some reason, he’sa Red Sox fan!”

urements that pinpoint both opportunitiesand threats on an industry landscape aswell as on consumer and general publiclandscapes, nationally or internationally.To convince them that we do this andmore was a tremendous amount of work;I often had to overcome the frustration ofexplaining over and over again to a skepti-cal audience the ways in which we weredoing something new and special.

We did this through demonstrations. Wedid this through the testimony of a smallgroup of early customers that were com-fortable with using technology. We did thisthrough tireless promotion in the pressand at conferences.

The flip side of this early road is tellingtoday’s story: that the biggest brands inthe high tech, pharmaceutical and finan-cial services businesses—from Bank ofAmerica to Harley-Davidson to SunMicrosystems to AstraZeneca—are clientsof ours. Over 70 of the largest global com-panies have bought into our vision.

But I continue to evangelize; I continue to move forward. In fact, I think aboutBiz360 all the time: thoughts on how togrow it faster, to convince more people touse it, occupy my spare moments, tuckedinto corners and cracks of the days. Somedays, I feel very tired, even dejected. Somedays, I talk about moving on. Most days,

18 Milton Magazine

Leading Schools:

RealizingEducational

Visions

Randall Dunn ’83Anna L. Waring ’74

Randy Dunn ’83 reading to students

19 Milton Magazine

Sometimes you don’t know that you areon the trail of something big. Sometimesyou are simply following your heart, lis-tening to your conscience, doing what youthink is right, and suddenly you realizethat you have arrived at your life’s work.

“Serendipity” is what Dr. Anna Waring,’74, calls the confluence of circumstancesthat brought her to the presidency ofJosephinum Academy, a Catholic schoolserving low-income young women inChicago. A professor of organizational the-ory at DePaul University and an educatorfor 25 years, Anna had served on theboard of Josephinum, or “the Jo” as thosewho work there call it, for seven years.Anna was planning to go off the boardand “get my nights back,” but, in thecourse of board discussions about a leaderfor the institution, a board member turnedto her and asked, “Would you think aboutit?” In fact, Anna realized, she had beenthinking about such an opportunity forsome time.

“Get a job.”

Although “there is an apocryphal storythat as a child I said I would run my ownschool,” Anna says, “I do not think I cantalk about my career as intentional. Eveneight years ago I would not have knownthat I would end up doing what I amdoing now.” An A Better Chance (ABC)student, she was one of the first black stu-dents at Milton and one of the first tograduate from Williams College as well.Not sure about what to do after gradua-tion, she “thought about taking a year offto find myself, but then my mother, said,

‘Don’t do that; you’ll be disappointed. Geta job.’” So, Anna got a job with ABC. Afterthat she went to Stanford to get her doc-torate in education thinking that eventual-ly she would run an educational non-profitlike ABC, not a school. But “the dirty littlesecret of grad schools is that professorsinvest more in you if they think you willbecome a professor yourself.” Anna thenfocused on professorial matters and made her way to DePaul, working withJosephinum Academy as a volunteer. Inthat work all the issues of opportunity andjustice that had been part of her thinkingas far back as her own days as an ABC stu-dent “came alive again. What happened tostudents who did not have the opportuni-ties I had? How could we do somethingrevolutionary to help young women? Howcan institutions facilitate opportunities foryoung women?”

A collaboration that says “yes” to girls

In the presidency of “the Jo,” Anna sawanswers to those questions: “It broughttogether skills and values that I have.Social justice causes, low-income students,gender, curriculum, faith, tradition, allthese strands came together.” Founded in1890 by the Sisters of Christian Charity,Josephinum Academy has weathered thedecline in the number of Catholic schoolsin Chicago from more than 440 to 220 (at one point the Catholic system was thesecond-largest city school system in theUnited States) and the dwindling num-bers of the Sisters of Christian Charity. In1990 it collaborated with the Religious ofthe Sacred Heart. Today it contains vital

elements from both Orders: from theSisters of Christian Charity, a 115-yearlegacy educating young women at theschool and an in-kind of the building, anin-kind contribution; from the ReligiousSacred Heart, the educational philosophythat shapes the core academic andextracurricular program. Josephinum’shistorical mission has the education ofyoung women within the tradition of theCatholic faith. Says Anna, “The Jo is aplace that says ‘yes’ to girls, to theirdreams and hopes. We’ve always beeneducating girls even when educating girlshas not been a priority.”

Historically, the Academy drew most of its students from the surrounding neigh-borhood. The Wicker Park neighborhoodhas changed, as has Josephinum’s studentbody. Founded for the daughters ofGerman immigrants, and historically hav-ing educated Eastern European youngwomen, today’s students are now largelyAfrican American and Latina. The comefrom 24 different zip codes throughoutChicago.

“There are more transitional issues,” notesAnna. “Many of the young women arecoming from large public schools wherethey’re not used to one-on-one attention orwhere disputes are settled with fights. Butwith the their own commitment and thatof families, faculty and staff they make thetransition to young women with clear andpositive goals.” Each year, more than 95percent of Josephinum’s seniors graduateon time and go on to attend colleges anduniversities.

20 Milton Magazine

“We’re leaving you our eggs andit’s your job to keep the nestsafe.”

With tuition covering less than 20 percentof the operating budget, Dr. Anna Waringspends significant time fund-raising(“Fortunately I have a fabulous develop-ment staff”). Recent priorities have beentechnology (moving from one computerand no network to three computer labora-tories and Internet hook-ups in each classroom) and faculty salaries (“Miltonshowed me how important a well-trainedfaculty that really likes students can be. Iwanted to reproduce that excellence.” LastSeptember starting salaries increased by30 percent).

Anna’s work does not end with fund-rais-ing. “I am learning things I never thoughtI would have to learn: roof repair, howwater pipes break, wiring buildings fortechnology, working with populations thatare highly mobile.” Anna has also seenher previous lives intersect with her life atJosephinum in ways she had not anticipat-ed. Milton, Williams, and Stanford class-mates have contributed to the school.DePaul connections have helped with stu-dent interns and volunteers. “If you havetreated people well, they will do right byyou.”

Most importantly, Anna has never lostsight of “the fact that this work is aboutstudents. In a budget meeting or a boardmeeting about bylaws, always rememberwhy you’re there.” She quotes a nun whosaid of Josephinum, “I don’t always under-stand it, but God’s work is being donehere.” Anna remembers a senior at the

last assembly of last year telling herschoolmates that “education is contagiousand life is complicated” and then saying,“Dr. Waring, we’re leaving you our eggsand it’s your job to keep the nest safe.”Muses Anna, “I think about that a lot.This work is a calling. If you’re doing whatyou love, working on a good cause, even ifyou’re not quite sure what you’re doing,things will work out, people will come toyou.”

“I knew that education was what I wanted.”

A similar opportunity to bring severalparts of his life together led Randall Dunn ’83 to assume the Head of Schoolposition at the Roeper School this year. AnABC student like Anna, he came to Miltonfrom the Boston public school system.Although he had held his own in thestreets of Dorchester, when Randall firstcame to Milton, he felt “like a beat-upChevy in the Indy 500.” But he also neverfelt alone. “The thing that changed my lifeis that people took care of me.” Lefty Marrchecked in with him regularly. Dick andEllie Griffin allowed him to stay overnightonce a week so that he didn’t have to trekhome after a long day of classes andsports. Randall became such a part of the24/7 life of the school that eventually “Mr.Millet allowed me to become a boardingstudent even though I lived right down theroad.” By the end of junior year Randallwas thriving so well at Milton that he waselected Head Monitor. “The point is thatall these people were looking after me.”While at Milton, Randall worked withChuck Burdick at summer camp. “Rightthen I knew that education was what Iwanted.”

From Milton Randall went to Brown. AfterBrown he earned a master’s of educationat Harvard and then taught in a Brooklinepublic elementary school while at thesame time working as a dorm parent inForbes. A stint working with Ed Foley atDerby Academy followed, after whichRandall worked seven years as middleschool head at the Landon School. AtLandon, Randall “fell in love with theopportunity to make change, but I wasalways searching. As middle school direc-tor I certainly had an impact on students’lives and the school but I wanted more.”In Roeper, with its humanistic, child-centered approach, Randall found what hewas looking for. It was not only an oppor-tunity to work intensely with children, butalso “a great opportunity to be part of amission focused on preparing kids formore than more school. It had a world-view. To have both of these things in onejob was ideal.”

The patience and skill to go withwhatever ideas come up

The cornerstone of the Roeper educationis personalization. Founded in 1941 byGeorge and Annemarie Roeper, educatorsfleeing the persecutions in Germany, theRoeper School espouses “the importanceof realizing the positive potential of eachindividual. Through a process of lifelonglearning, each individual strives to becomeself-actualized as a moral, creative, produc-tive, and fulfilled person, partner, andglobal citizen. The school recognizes thatall people are unique and develop accord-ing to their own timetable and plan. Thisdevelopment grows from everyday deci-sions and genuine expressions of care,

Anna remembers a senior at the last assembly of last yeartelling her schoolmates that “education is contagious and lifeis complicated” and then saying,“Dr. Waring, we’re leaving youour eggs and it’s your job to keepthe nest safe.” Muses Waring, “I think about that a lot. Thiswork is a calling.”

21 Milton Magazine

kindness, humility, respect and responsi-bility” [quoted from the Roeper Schoolphilosophy].

As Randall puts it, “It is about getting toknow kids on a personal level. We want tofocus on ways to allow their passions todictate what happens in the classroom.”Even at the youngest level (Roeper is pre-Kto 12), students choose what they arelearning at any given moment. Teachers,in turn, “are comfortable going with what-ever ideas come up; they can’t be in a rushto get someplace.” Through this process ofpersonalization, the students “grow upbeing respectful of others’ ideas, no matterhow wild or ordinary they might be. Itteaches a whole lot about patience and lis-tening,” habits of mind which, as theRoeper Preferred Future Plan 2003 states,“prepare our students to live justly, wisely,and artfully in the world.” This “prepara-tion for life,” as George Roeper called it,forms the second vital, distinct thrust ofthe Roeper education.

A diverse school for gifted children

The third distinct feature emerged in 1956when Roeper reorganized itself as a schoolfor gifted students. Roeper is one of thevery few schools for the gifted that goesthrough high school. It sits cheek-to-jowlnext to the Roeper Institute, an interna-tionally known think-tank on gifted educa-tion that publishes the equally influentialRoeper Review, and benefits from the intel-lectual buzz and access to foundationgrants that the institute brings. Studentscommute from 60 different communities,some as far away as Indiana. Roughly 40percent of the 640 students receive some

form of financial aid; a smaller percentageattend Roeper on full or half scholarships.In addition to this socioeconomic diversity,students of color comprise roughly a quar-ter of the student body. In fact, in theDetroit area, where neighborhoods tend tosort by race and ethnicity, Roeper is morediverse than the public schools ofBirmingham and Bloomfield Hills, thetwo towns where the Roeper campuses aresituated. A recent tuition hike may makeRoeper’s commitment to diversity morechallenging and the school is working oninnovative ways to recruit students fromdiverse backgrounds. “We try to makeschool affordable,” says Randall. “Our stu-dents tend to be from gifted programs inthe publics, so the whole notion of payingthat much money is daunting.”

Becoming “more inorganic to stayorganic”

In fact, Randall finds himself leadingRoeper at a crucial time in its growth. Theethic of personalization meant that theRoeper community approached life in afluid, spontaneous way and just trustedthat things would work out. But now theschool has reached a point where it has tobe more deliberate in its actions. In thepast eight years the school has becomemore rigorous in its budgetary disciplines.It has begun to cultivate alumni, to buildan ethic of giving, in order to increase theendowment and prepare the way for a cap-ital campaign. As a way to ease the con-cerns of families that might balk at thetuition and to increase enrollment (Roeperhopes to add an additional 40 to 50 giftedstudents to its student body), Roeper fami-lies have been encouraged to reach out in

their neighborhoods and “tell their storiesabout the Roeper experience.” Withoutthoughtful planning, the increase in thestudent body could present challenges topersonalization. Notes Randall, “It’s not asituation where you can just increase thenumber of faculty. When a school gets big-ger the culture changes. As we get biggerwe will have to get more thoughtful andsystematic about personalization. Rightnow personalization and activism oozeorganically from the philosophy; but in thefuture, I think, we will have to becomemore inorganic to stay organic.”

For, make no mistake, it ultimately comesdown to personalization. “Personalizationputs us on the map,” states Randall. “A lotof schools struggle to do that, but childculture has moved so far away from adultculture. There are not obvious intersec-tions. Our school has done a good job ofbringing adults and students together,each giving meaning to the other.”Certainly, Roeper has brought meaning toRandall. “I feel more relaxed as a headhere than I have in typically less stressfulpositions at other schools because it’s avery natural fit for me. My children arehere and they love it. I feel as though myheart and soul are in this place.”

Like Anna, Randall sees a Milton legacy inhis own professional journey. “Roeper is aplace where people understand that theycan be themselves. That’s the kind of envi-ronment Milton was, and that’s what Iwant Roeper to be.”

Rod Skinner ’72Director of College Counseling

Anna Waring ’74 with students

22 Milton Magazine

“Anybody who loves the the-atre, I think, will admit to agenetic predisposition in thatdirection: My parents took me tothe theatre often, probably start-ing with Gilbert and Sullivan.The immediacy of live perform-ance hooked me—the person-to-person communication.”

So Christopher (Kip) Gould ’73 dove intodrama at Milton, and then at Tufts. Thatexperience taught him that the most obvi-ous way to stay connected with the the-atre—acting—was not going to be his way.“I realized that not only was I not as tal-ented as I would need to be, but also Iliked going to the theatre more than beinginvolved in the creation of it,” Kipexplains.

“Theatre is ephemeral,” says Kip, “a playexists in performance, live, on stage, andonce a production closes, the play’s gone.The one person who can extend the play isthe critic; a critic’s power can give more

life to a play.” So his quest to help keepplays alive took Kip to New York after col-lege, where he realized that he could writereviews and features about the theatre forpublications right away. Quickly, however,his estimation of a critic’s power evolvedto embrace the reality: only one critic has“real” power—the New York Times theatrecritic. “Perhaps with 20 years of goodwork and tons of luck, I could get there,”Kip thought, “but that’s unlikely.”

In fact, he thought, a publisher of playshas similar power. “Once a play hasclosed, you have only the script,” Kipnotes. “The script is inadequate, but atleast it’s a peek into what the playwright istrying to do.” Work that enters the publicrepertory lasts forever.

Through the intercession of a then girl-friend, Kip secured a job in the mailroomat Samuel French, Inc. Samuel French,whose tag line is “The House of Plays for175 years” was founded in 1830 and pio-neered the concept of providing publishedscripts to theatrical producing groupsthroughout the world.

Kip began in the mailroom, then did somelicensing work for amateur productions,and eventually became head of the musi-cal licensing department. He sought outand recommended plays for the companyto publish. This success, Kip reasoned,was unlikely to jettison him ahead of theFrench family members slated for theleadership of the firm. At that point, also,his eagerness to strike out in an uncon-ventional direction was growing; he want-ed to make a commitment to new, talent-ed, American playwrights so that otherscould value their work.

The spirit moved Kip to action in 1982,when he left Samuel French and startedBroadway Play Publishing Incorporated(BPPI), beginning with playwrights whowere then unknown to the public. Today,one link on BPPI’s Web site celebrates“over 20 years of brilliant playwriting,”listing an outstanding playwright eachyear, based on the year he or she was firstpublished by BPPI. “After I started thecompany, Native Speech by Eric Overmyerwas the first play I read where I knew Ihad a genius on my hands,” Kip recalls.

A play exists in performance

Fueling modern American drama

Christopher Gould ’73

Broadway Play Publishing Incorporated

23 Milton Magazine

“On the Verge, Eric’s second play that Ipublished, was my first big hit in terms ofbook sales and production licensing; itwas the eighteenth play I published. EricOvermyer is such a poet and so imagina-tive. On the Verge is an extraordinary play;hundreds of groups have produced it, andmore will be doing it for another 30 or 40years.”

The catalogue of BPPI plays available toproduction companies across the countrywill generate hundreds of thousands ofdollars for the playwrights over time, andguarantee that contemporary Americanplays light our stages.

Kip purposefully set the size and the focusof his business. His is a highly personalventure: He chooses the plays to publish;his aesthetic underlies the body of workBBPI has printed. Playwrights on Kip’s“20-year” list, like A. R. Gurney, JoseRivera, Laura Shaine Cunningham,Naomi Wallace and Tony Kushner, haveearned Obie Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, aMacArthur Grant, NEA Awards andnumerous other distinctions. (Dario Fo,one of the few foreign playwrights Kippublished early on, won a Nobel Prize.)Kip’s aesthetic seems to prize power andartistry in the use of words; bold grapplingwith ideas; fresh treatment of issues; polit-ical relevance; pushing the limits of con-ventional theatre; and work that resonateswith theatre audiences even as it chal-lenges them.

As it has for many industries, digital tech-nology is radically altering the dynamicsthat have defined play publishing. In the

past, BBPI would need to publish 1,000copies of a play to achieve an acceptableeconomy of scale, and the process wouldtake two to three months; now that it’spossible to print 100 to 150 copies inex-pensively with a two-week turnaround ona project (including color artwork), mak-ing a commitment is much easier. “Ithugely expands what I can publish,” Kipcomments. “We can even publish and sellat the theatre where the play is still in pro-duction.” Kip did just that with an A. R.Gurney play, Big Bill, in production atLincoln Center.

This change has led to altering the sub-mission guidelines on the Web site, aswell. “If a play is going to have a profes-sional production, I’ll publish it,” Kip says.“This experiment completely shifts the ter-rain. Formerly, I chose from among thoseplays I saw; instead I’ll be depending on

the professional theatres to vet the poten-tial plays. This arrangement is possiblebecause I can print such a limited numberof copies of a given play. Furthermore,now that BPPI is publishing books withcolor covers (formerly they were black andwhite), it may be possible to convinceBarnes and Noble or other chain book-stores to carry these publications. Thirty or40 years ago trade publishers would regu-larly publish plays as one of the genres ofliterature for sale in general bookstores.That rarely happens now, and that leaves awhole niche open to a new printing andselling model.”

The care and feeding of drama on stagehas also included serving as president ofThe Vineyard Theatre board and memberof the Adobe Theatre Company board. For10 years Kip was a Tony Award voter aswell (“One or two Broadway plays overthat time were good,” he says). Focusinghis career energy on stimulating anancient, rich and valuable art form hasbeen rewarding for Kip. The parents whobrought Kip to the theatre when he wasyoung also chose careers that reflectedtheir values, including a commitment tofamily. Kip reflects that the role models hehad in his parents, strengthened by thevalues he learned at Milton, yielded theidea that you could do something you lovethat benefits the community at the sametime. For more than 20 years, BroadwayPlay Publishing Incorporated has fulfilledthat idea.

Note: BPPI’s Web site is www.broadwayplaypubl.com

Cathleen Everett

Kip Gould ’73

24 Milton Magazine

“Letter” is a poem by Jean Valentine’52 that I found among the new poems ofher most recent collection, Door in theMountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003, the winner of the 2004 NationalBook Award for Poetry. The poem is unas-suming in the space it takes up, quiet inimage, in its movement and thought—easy, even, to overlook. But the longer Ispend with it, the more I appreciate thework of Jean Valentine.

In its title, “Letter” offers us somethingtangible, something, well, deliverable. Andyet like the hornet’s sleepy hold on thecurtain she climbs, our grasp on thepoem’s physical world is tenuous: Whohas penned this letter? Who is its recipi-ent? Where in the physical world of thepoem does it sit? And, if “Letter” is thepoem (the arrangement of letters intowords) that we read, a letter opened for us,how do we translate its intentions?

Just so, I think, Jean sets in motion thiscomplicated and utterly tenuous relation-ship between the physical world and theinterior experience of the present “I”—a relationship we see repeatedly throughthis collection. In the second stanza, this“I” is “the guest,” someone invited toenter but foreign, unfamiliar with thespace entered—a letter herself, still in for-mation. “These words/are my life,” thenarrator says—an admission of emotionalconnection between self and language, butalso of physical connection: if words are,literally, self, then nothing is stable.

Jean demonstrates this instability as sheshifts and reorders language: “The effortof becoming” is, a line later, “[t]he effort ofloving the un-become” and later, “[t]he un-become love.” What we lose is also whatwe cherish; what we become is also unbe-coming. Metaphor shifts our perception ofthe physical: a “leaf” is a book’s page; aletter is a “seed-pod” sent, is “this red rib-

bon,” is “my tongue.” The body is thephysical letter. If we are words, after all,we are subject to the manipulation of writ-ers and, of course, readers.

Throughout this collection, Jean’s poetryworks hard to articulate a self that is strug-gling to articulate itself (“the suffering vis-ible”). “Letter” enacts both the necessity ofself-articulation and the perpetual processof it: no letter is sent; completed action isnot attainable; completed, defined self isnot the point. Perhaps the point is to lovewhat is still undefined.

In a recent interview with Kate Green-street1, Jean says, “Don’t turn away fromsomething that’s difficult because it’s diffi-cult. Try to go toward it. Try to bring thesame degree of necessity to reading it thatthe writer brought to writing it.” To readJean well is to commit to plumbing thedepths of each poem, to wrestle with theirwrestlings. “[I want to] get to a place thathas some depth to it,” she says. “Certainly,

Jean Valentine ’52 Wins 2004National Book Award for Poetry

Letter

The hornet holds on to the curtain, wintersleep. Rubs her legs. Climbs the curtain.Behind her the cedars sleep lightly,

like guests. But I am the guest.The ghost cars climb the ghost highway. Even my handover the page adds to the ‘room tone’: the little

constant wind. The effort of becoming. These wordsare my life. The effortof loving the un-become. To make the suffering

visible. The un-become love: What we lost, a leaf, what we cherish, a leaf. One leaf of grass. I’m sending you this seed-pod,

this red ribbon, my tonguethese two red ribbons, my mouth, my other mouth,

—but the other worlds—blindly I guzzlethe swimming milk of its seed field flower—

Jean Valentine ’52

25 Milton Magazine

I’m always working with things that Idon’t understand—with the unconscious,the invisible. And trying to find a way totranslate it.” Jean’s poetry echoes the irrev-ocability of Sylvia Plath, the political ofAdrienne Rich, the gravity of Dickinson.She asks her readers, explicitly in “Letter”but more subtly in other poems of the col-lection, to read her, to commit to the rela-tionship and the responsibility of inter-preting the letters sent.

Door in the Mountain collects her life’swork and orders her eight books of poetrychronologically, with the exception of thenew poems, which appear first. So manyof these poems feel like shards to me:ragged, sometimes dangerous frag-ments—utterances of a self as it navigatesliteral and linguistic space. Her goodfriend and poet Adrienne Rich says of herwriting: “Looking into a Valentine poem is

like looking into a lake: you can see yourown outline, and the shapes of the upperworld, reflected among rocks, underwaterlife, glint of lost bottles, drifted leaves.”2

Beneath the surface of many of thesepoems, Valentine’s own personal struggleswith alcoholism, depression and divorcelurk.

I read Jean’s collection on the sameDecember day I heard the inventor andfuturist Ray Kurzweil dazzle the studentbody assembled in the FitzgibbonsConvocation Center (see story, page 54). I had left staggering, filled with newknowledge of the exponential speed ofprogress, with the limitless nature ofhuman exploration and invention in theworlds of biotechnology and artificial intel-ligence. Immediately following, Jean’s

1Interview with Jean Valentine, 2004, by KateGreenstreet. www.jeanvalentine.com

2Ibid.

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26 Milton Magazine

Door in the Mountain: New and Selected Poems, 1965–2003

poetry felt like an antidote to the breath-lessness, even recklessness of change: aconcentrated slowing; a relentless focuson interiority and on the process of self-narration. Maybe now more than ever, inthe face of so much change, we need suchattention to how we “become,” and howwe love the “un-become.”

But the longer I spend thinking aboutJean, the more I consider. The last stanzaof this poem “Letter” presents, in mymind, a world beyond word-bound identi-ty. The language is unfettered by punctua-tion: a rush of consumption, of nourish-ment, of natural productivity, left open at either end with dashes: a nod toDickinson, but also the promise of limit-less white space unmarred by words. Thislast moment of this poem feels hopeful,possible—an undefined place for identityto exist, free of the (uncertain) certainty oflanguage. Maybe this is Jean’s image ofthe subconscious or subliminal, thewomb-like space where the self swimsbefore it rises to meet consciousness. The irony, of course, is this: words areinescapable; they are the poet’s medium,the only way to connect the imagined andthe “real.”

And now I picture a projected, virtual,three-dimensional Kurzweil, all orchestrat-ed by the “real” Kurzweil from his homein Cambridge, lecturing to Asian scientistsabout our imminent ability to move in andout of various selves in an extraordinaryspace beyond the physical—all imaginedby the very “real” neurons that firethroughout our human brains, and I won-der if this scientist and this poet are moreconnected than not. And I wonder if Jeanwould mind the comparison.

Lisa BakerEnglish Department

By John Freeman

Jean Valentine made her poetic debut in1965 with a book called Dream Barker, atitle that aptly bugled the arrival of asensibility unlike any other in Americanletters. While her contemporaries haveturned the blank page into a confession-al, Valentine fashioned a magic carpetout of it instead. Using an eerie sense ofpoise, she transports readers to cloudydreamscapes where ordinary things takeon secret menace and poignancy. All thewhile the poet’s consciousness lurks inthe corner like a bat.

Door in the Mountain, winner of the2004 National Book Award, collectsfour decades of Valentine’s work andadds a hefty selection of new poems.Read the book chronologically and youcan appreciate the gradual winnowingdown of Valentine’s style. As with anypoet, you can also infer the emotionalarc of a life, from the heartbreakinghonesty of the line, “God break me outof this stiff life I’ve made,” to the poem“Happiness,” which replays a streetencounter through the prism of thepoet’s weary gratitude.

In the newest poems, words trickledown the page like rainwater from aleaky storm gutter. To fully appreciateValentine’s care with language, onemust slow down and watch the wordsfall, pay attention to each drop.

October morning —Sea lions barkingOn the off-shore rockAutumn evening —Seals’ heads nosing throughthe pink Pacific

It’s a luxurious mandate, this quintes-sential style of Valentine’s, for it givesthe reader a chance to indulge a height-ened awareness in the natural world,the passage of time and the aural qualityof language.

In the magnificently strange and myste-rious title poem, Valentine writes in thevoice of a hunter walking through theforest with a deer strapped to his back.No one will give him shelter. Tired andperhaps cold, the speaker beseeches:“Door in the mountain/let me in.”

This book is a door to a wonderfulmind. Open it.

John Freeman is a writer in New York.Reprinted with permission.

27 Milton Magazine

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum ’90 looksmuch like she did in 1990, and her man-ner seems about the same, too. She has asweet round face, a mess of curls in herhair, and eyes that are quick to come alive.Her voice is strikingly high and small andeven childlike, but her big gestures andher quick and animated patterns of speechsuggest a decidedly adult intensity. In con-versation with her, you can’t help but thinkthat there’s a lot going on behind her eyes.

Any reader of her first novel, Madeleine IsSleeping, published in September byHarcourt, would have to agree. Part fairytale, part bildungsroman, the book, in veryshort chapters, tells the story of a younggirl growing up in provincial France at atime that is difficult to place. When shefalls into a deep sleep, we are plunged into

a dream world of unlikely but likable char-acters and strange but pleasing scenarios.The man who performs a stage act basedon his own flatulence, the magnificentlyfat woman who sprouts wings, the photog-rapher with strange enthusiasms, the trav-eling gypsy circus—they are all here, andthe question of what is real and what isimagined begins to dissolve, even as weare drawn into Madeleine’s story.

Madeleine Is Sleeping earned Sarah a spotamong five finalists in fiction for theNational Book Award, an honor thatensures an eager audience for her futurework. She and her Milton classmate DanaJackson are married and expecting theirfirst child in April. After living for a num-ber of years in the Ft. Greene section ofBrooklyn, they are moving to Los Angelesto further Dana’s film career and give thegrowing family more space. For an aspir-

ing writer, the experience of interviewingSarah should have given me a seriousSalieri complex, but it is too difficult tobegrudge her this success. We met at acoffee shop in Brooklyn to talk about herbook, the Milton roots of her writing andthe controversy surrounding the NationalBook Awards.

EH: Maybe you could tell me a little bitabout what you were setting out to do inwriting Madeleine Is Sleeping. Do youremember when the idea for the book wasborn?

SB: Oh, absolutely. I was still a senior atBrown. And I had been recently exposedto so many texts that I was agitated andexcited by. On the fiction side, Borges andAngela Carter. On the literary criticismside, Barthes and Irigaray and Foucault.

Fiction that captures national prominence:

A Sleeping Protagonist Makes It Happen

Sarah Bynum ’90

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Jack

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’90

28 Milton Magazine

So I was kind of in a state of foment [abubbling gesture]. At the same time I wastaking a class in hypertext. I was very com-puter illiterate, but I liked the idea of thistool, this way of crafting a story that wasmore Weblike rather than chronological.So originally it was an experiment, but Ibecame so excited by this idea of having asleeping protagonist at the helm of a story,and by all of the freedoms that offered,that I brought it back from hypertext ontothe page. But I didn’t know it was going tobe a book when I started writing. It wasjust this thing I was playing with.

EH: And you had other writing projectsthat popped up in the meantime?

SB: Oh, this hasn’t been my consumingobsession for the last ten years. I wouldhope it would be much fatter if it hadbeen.

EH: In the times that you were workingon it, was it slow going? Or are you a fastwriter?

SB: I’m a horribly slow writer.

EH: Oh, good, so am I.

SB: I’m painfully, excruciatingly slow, inpart because I don’t like to move on to thenext sentence until I’m happy with thecurrent sentence.

EH: It was clear to me in reading the bookthat a lot of attention was paid to thesounds and the rhythms of language. Andsome of those very short chapters struckme like poems, prose poems. Were therepoets that influenced you, or did you everthink of it as poetry?

SB: No, but I’ve been so delighted by thatcomparison. In fact, it’s been turned intosomewhat of an accusation [laugh], espe-cially by the New York Times. But I’ve beendelighted, because I’m awed by poetry,which is still this very mysterious mediumto me. [Leaning in and speaking quietly] Idon’t read very much poetry, just betweenus…

EH: Well the readers of the MiltonMagazine might have to find out.

SB: Okay, between us and the readers ofthe Milton Magazine. [Laughs.] But, thatsaid, the poetry book that did actually havea great influence on this—especially whenI was about halfway through, and I wasbeginning to think of it as more than justa thing but maybe, possibly, a book—isAnne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, whichis a novel in verse. And that book just …completely transfixed me. It was a bookthat I kept returning to and reading pas-sages from as I was finishing my book.

And, in fact, I have the same agent asAnne—not that I’ve met her, I don’t meanto say Anne like I’m on a first-name basis.His name is Bill Clegg. I had met him,and I really liked him, but at the time Ithought it was too early in the process. Butwhen I read Autobiography of Red, literallyI rushed home from the bookstore andcalled him up. And it was all actuallythanks to Mr. McCloskey [English depart-ment], because he’s the one who intro-duced me to Bill Clegg, and Bill ended upbeing such a major force in making thisbook happen. So I’m forever indebted toMr. McCloskey for giving me that push. Ihad been teaching English for three years,and I hadn’t been writing. And he just feltstrongly that I should try to give the writ-ing a shot. Even though I said “I’m notready, the manuscript is not done,” he wasvery adamant. He said, “Just do it, it’s notgoing to hurt.”

EH: In the book it is rarely clear to thereader—or at least this reader—what exact-ly is real and what is part of Madeleine’svivid, fantastical dream life. And eventual-ly I began to give up on the project of try-ing to separate one from the other. Is thatokay?

SB: I’m so glad you did! The book verywillfully blurs the two. The line betweenmemory and dreams, and between one’ssleeping life and one’s waking life, seems

so porous to me, that I wanted to avoidcreating what to me would have been afalse distinction. As opposed to somethinglike Alice in Wonderland, where eithershe’s up on the riverbank, or she’s downthe rabbit hole. I know the book asks forthe reader to make a leap of faith—or a fallof faith, to go with it.

EH: Who influenced you at Milton? Whatactivities or classes were important to you?

SB: Oh, Milton was where I caught thewriting bug, for sure. It was having Mr.Smith my Class IV year, Red Smith, andthen taking his creative writing class.There were some really great writers inthat class. Theo Emery was in it. And Ijust remember being so…thrilled, and justfeeling as if I was in my element, in thatworkshop. And then I also had wonderfulexperiences with Mr. McCloskey, though Ididn’t study with him, and Mr. Connolly.And Kay Herzog, I had her as an Englishteacher.

EH: She is wonderful.

SB: Amazing. The Sound and the Fury, Tothe Lighthouse, books that feel so seminalto me—she was the one who unfoldedthem. When we did The Sound and theFury, she read—not read, she recited—thatpassage from Macbeth, and I still have, inmy 17-year-old’s handwriting, “Tomorrow,and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps inthis petty pace from day to day.” Everytime I read that passage, I hear her voice.So I have tremendous fondness and grati-tude toward the English teachers I had.Randy McCutcheon too. I had him inClass III and adored him.

EH: What did it mean to you to be a final-ist for the National Book Award?

SB: It was enormous—

EH: How did you find out?

SB: I was at my day job, and my boss hadjust asked me to order her lunch, and shewanted a chicken and avocado pressata.

“So originally it was an experiment, but I became so excited by thisidea of having a sleeping protagonist at the helm of a story, and by allof the freedoms that offered, that I brought it back from hypertextonto the page. But I didn’t know it was going to be a book when Istarted writing. It was just this thing I was playing with.”

29 Milton Magazine

And Fran, the secretary, said, “There’s aHarold on line two for you.” And helaunched into this explanation: “Out of so-and-so many submissions, you wereone of the five finalists…” And it really did sound like I was being called byPublisher’s Clearinghouse. I kept waitingfor that moment: “You just need to buythree magazine subscriptions.” I was sobewildered. But I wrote down his nameand I Googled him, and sure enough hisname came up as executive director of theNational Book Foundation. And I complete-ly lost it. The sense of astonishment kindof defies description. And then my bossyelled from the other room: “Did you get achance to order that sandwich?” So thatkind of immediately brought me backdown to earth.

EH: You recently read aloud from yourwork in a large auditorium in an event forall the finalists. Can you describe whatthat was like? How nervous were you,scale of one to ten?

SB: I wasn’t nervous at all. When you’rereading you already have your script. Thedifficult part has been having to be inter-viewed and defend the book and speak tothe National Book Awards controversy.That—that has made me nervous.

EH: Well, I have to do my duty and askyou about the hubbub you don’t like talk-ing about.

SB: Oh, by now I’m an old veteran.

EH: The controversy surrounding thefinalists in fiction was that all five of youwere women who live in New York City.None of you is a household name, andaccording to one report, only one of yourbooks has sold more than 2,000 copies.Some have criticized the panel of judgesfor picking overly obscure books.

SB: It’s really remarkable how much vitri-ol and passion this has awakened, particu-larly in the New York Times. Who knew?

EH: Also in The New Yorker, though thenovelist Thomas McGuane said the fictionfinalists were a sign of the “meltdown” ofthe National Book Awards. How do yourespond to that?

SB: Among the five finalists, we’ve pub-lished 16 books—I’m the one who hasn’tpulled my weight there—and there areGuggenheims, and NEA fellowships, etc.These are very well respected writers, distinguished writers, and so “obscure”seems a misinformed way of describingthem. I do have to say that the commentthat was the most wounding was the TomMcGuane comment in The New Yorker.I think I naively thought that anotherwriter, especially a literary novelist, wouldnot be joining the ranks of the critics, andinstead would be speaking up on ourbehalf. He admitted he hadn’t read thebooks. So that was wounding. After awhile I guess you get a little inured to it.But I have to say I’m relieved that it’s over.

EH: One of the other finalists, ChristineSchutt, has said, “I think publishers areafraid of taking risks on something that isdifferent.” Do you think that’s true?

SB: If that’s true, my situation is anom-alous. I was lucky in that my agent founda publisher for it very quickly. And thepublisher, Harcourt, got behind it immedi-ately, from day one. They never tried tomake it appear more conventional. Theykind of embraced it in all its weirdness.But I don’t know if my limited experienceis necessarily representative.

EH: Are you working on something now?

SB: I’ve been working on short fiction. Ihaven’t started on something longer. I’manxious to, I’m excited.

EH: Do you think you might do a collec-tion of your short fiction?

SB: I get asked that because a bunch ofstories I’ve published have been about thesame character, a middle school teacher,and are based on my experience teachingmiddle school. But I don’t want to justcobble together old stuff. I want to dosomething new.

Evan Hughes ’94Evan is on the editorial staff of The NewYork Review of Books. Reach him atehughes@aya.yale.edu.

Editor’s note: On January 19, Sarah visitedMilton as a Bingham Lecture Series speaker.She dedicated her talk in memory of poetLexi Rudnitsky ’91.

“It’s really remarkable how muchvitriol and passion this has awak-ened, particularly in The New YorkTimes. Who knew?”

30 Milton Magazine

Kym Lew Nelson came by the urgehonestly: She is from an entrepreneurialfamily and she couldn’t resist going solo.Kym’s mom ran a neighborhood nightclubin Roxbury, Massachusetts; her sisterowns a consignment shop; and her unclehas one of the largest minority construc-tion companies in New England.

As president and chief operating officer ofThe KLEW Company, a consulting firmwhich she founded in 2002, Kym har-nessed 19 years of brand managementand purchasing experience at Proctor &Gamble (P&G) in Cincinnati and a masterof business administration from Harvardto help companies develop strategic pur-chasing, optimize their supply chain, andlink minority and majority suppliers.

Leaving the security of a global companymight be too big a risk for many businesswomen, but Kym couldn’t wait to put hersavvy to use in a largely untapped market,while trying to spend more time at homewith her husband, Michael and theirdaughters, Alexis (12) and Sydney (6).

So far, the competition of the big procure-ment consulting firms has not threatenedher niche: helping minority companiesconnect through joint ventures whichgrant them enhanced purchasing power,while connecting those same groups ofentrepreneurs with majority companies

who need their services and want to sup-port a diverse business model. “I’m kindof a matchmaker,” Kym says.

Kym also has mobilized a flexible work-force by developing a network of subcon-tractors who can manage the 20 or 30 per-cent of the work that she can’t do alone.

A recent alumni class on entrepreneur-ship at Harvard Business School rein-forced much of what she learned on thejob at P&G, Kym explains; the class mate-rial on business start-ups and the detailedcase studies will be helpful if she decidesto expand her business. “The class wasreaffirming,” she says.

Kym thanks her spirited family and hereducational background for preparing herfor the business world; Kym earned abachelor’s from Stanford after Milton.“Attending Milton was really a great acci-dent,” Kym says. “My sister was working

as a nurse in a doctor’s office. One of thepatients was the former principal of theLower School who talked about Miltonand asked my sister if she knew anyoneinterested in applying.” Kym left Catholicschool to attend Milton, where she playedbasketball, was involved with theatre aswell as the speech and debate team.

Before recognizing her strength in busi-ness and changing her college major toeconomics, Kym had been a drama major.In addition to her own postgraduate work,Kym maintains a connection to academiathrough her client base: She trains YaleUniversity employees to purchase forgreater efficiency and economy.

Kym has managed global organizations,global suppliers and global brands. Shedevelops and implements business andpurchasing strategies, while helping toreduce costs. Her experience with minori-ty companies helps them become effectivesuppliers for Fortune 500 companies.

Pointing to a deal she facilitated between aGerman company and a domestic minori-ty company that makes product labeling,Kym says, “I help business leaders whowould never have met come together in away that benefits everyone.”

For more about The KLEW Company, visitww.klew.biz.

Linking Minority and Majority Businesses,Kym Lew Nelson Offers Strategic Purchasing

Kym Lew Nelson ’75

31 Milton Magazine

Last summer, the U.S. Postal Serviceissued a stamp commemorating the life ofR. Buckminster Fuller ’13. Foregroundedby platonic solids and a lozenge-shaped,three-wheeled automobile, Fuller’s gianthead is perched atop a ball-and-sockettruss amid gaping onlookers. Spideringacross the great dome of his forehead arethe signature lines of triangles and hexa-gons that constitute his geodesic geome-try. In the background, more geodesicdomes lie on the Euclidean plane punctu-ated by what appear to be oversized powertransformers and a helicopter pulling yetanother dome along the invisible vectorsof optimum design. Not your typicalsomber portrait of an elder statesman orgroundbreaking scientist, this millennialtake on a ’50s sci-fi aesthetic is, despite itswinks and overall mood of loopiness,telling of both Fuller’s life and reputation.

Born in Milton, Massachusetts, July 12,1895, Buckminster Fuller attended MiltonAcademy from 1904 to 1913, where helater claimed to have learned all the engi-neering he needed to know from his highschool physics class. He was expelled fromHarvard twice before apprenticing as amachine fitter at Richards, Atkinson, animporter of cotton mill machinery inBoston. He then held various apprenticejobs at Armour, the industrial meatpack-

ing and byproducts firm, interrupted bytwo years of service as an ensign in theU.S. Navy during World War 1. At the ripe age of 27, he became president ofStockade Building System, a constructionfirm poised to change the way homes wereconstructed before eliciting the ire of thebuilding unions.

In 1927, after two years of lackluster divi-dends, the controlling interests of thecompany fired Fuller. Bankrupt and job-less at 32 with a wife and a newborndaughter to support, Fuller could only con-clude that his family would be better offwithout him. He stood, desperate, on theicy shores of Lake Michigan in Chicagowhen he suddenly realized that his life didnot belong to him, but rather to the wholeuniverse. In the light of this revelation hehad no right to take his own life; in fact,he was obliged to use his life in service ofthe cosmos. It was then that he began con-ducting “an experiment to discover whatthe little, penniless, unknown individualmight be able to do effectively on behalf ofhumanity.” With his diverse education inmass production and industrial distribu-tion networks, an intuitive feeling forstructures and an infectious optimism,Fuller was uniquely positioned to offer aDymaxion vision to the universe that hadsaved his life. Dymaxion (dynamism +

maximum + ion) is one of the signatureterms Fuller coined during his career,meaning that which produces maximumperformance from available technology.The term itself suggests a sense of humorand showmanship that would serve himwell in conducting his grand experiment.

Most people know of Fuller through thegeodesic dome, examples of which can befound on almost any playground built inthe late 1960s or ’70s. Ingenious for itssimplicity and structural integrity, the geo-desic dome is an elaboration of the trussprinciple in three dimensions. Pin threesticks together to form a triangle and youhave a completely stable structure inwhich the angles of the triangle remainthe same no matter how you attempt todeform it. Try the same thing with a rec-tangle and the joints at the corner willrotate with the slightest push. The geodes-ic dome simply extends the integrity of thetriangle off the plane through repetition ofthe form.

Described as such, it seems perhaps moreremarkable that no one had thought ofsuch a structural system until Fuller. Itturns out that Fuller wasn’t the first personto employ the efficiency of the space truss;thrilled by the structural strength of histetrahedral kite, Alexander Graham Bellerected a five-story tower on his island in

Producing Maximum Performance from Technology:

The Dymaxion Man

Buckminster Fuller 1913

32 Milton Magazine

“Dare to be naïve.”—R. Buckminster Fuller

Nova Scotia in 1907 using a tetrahedralspace truss. Fuller’s genius lay instead inknowing, contrary to commonly heldassumptions among engineers, that thestrength of the geodesic dome wouldincrease with the magnitude of the overallstructure.

In 1967, Fuller’s claims were put to thetest at the Montreal Expo. Computeranalysis had anticipated that his Expo bub-ble enveloping the U.S. Pavilion wouldburst at the equator from the outwardthrust of the weight of the structuralmembers. Fuller understood throughyears of experimentation, however, that

the force of gravity would be easily resis-ted by the tensional integrity of the dome’smaterial and geometry.

To put Fuller’s achievement in a properhistorical context, the largest dome of theancient world was the Pantheon in Rome.Constructed in the 2nd century A.D., thePantheon’s diameter measures 143 feet. Ittook roughly 1,300 years before that spanwas surpassed by Brunelleschi’s dome inFlorence, which measures 153 feet indiameter. The Duomo stood as the largestdome in the world until 1967. Fuller’sdome measured a staggering 250 feet indiameter and stood 20 stories tall. Equallyimportant, the 600-ton dome was a frac-

tion of the weight of its Italian rivals, expo-nentially stronger and its constructiontime could be measured in months ratherthan years.

Although the U.S. Pavilion at the MontrealExpo would secure Fuller’s place in thehistory of architecture and engineering,the geodesic dome was, by Fuller’s ownstandards, a failure. By 1971, when thefundamental patent for the geodesic domeexpired, just over 20,000 domes had beenerected. Despite the U.S. Marine Corpshailing the geodesic dome as “the firstbasic improvement in mobile militaryshelter in 2,600 years,” Fuller had intend-ed the geodesic dome to revolutionize the

Geodesic dome over mid-Manhattan

33 Milton Magazine

housing industry as Ford’s assembly linehad done for the automobile industry.Convinced that a house should cost nomore than a car, Fuller envisioned the geodesic dome as the means to mass-produced affordable housing. Because theindividual members of a geodesic domeare small, a dome kit could be easilyshipped and assembled quickly with noskilled labor. He had even anticipated atime when prefabricated domes could bedelivered on site by helicopter. (Thus thecurious image in the upper left-hand cor-ner of the stamp.) While the domesachieved a quasi-mystical status amongCalifornia hippies, 20,000 structures in 17 years hardly fulfills the dream of an America covered in mass-producedbubbles.

Fuller and many of his followers arguedthat the housing industry, with its dis-parate unions more closely resemblingmedieval guilds than modern assemblylines, was threatened by the obsolescenceheralded by the dome industry. Instead ofaccepting the inevitable change, the hous-ing industry used its deep political ties todestroy Fuller’s solution to the housingcrisis. While there is undoubtedly sometruth to such claims, Fuller’s enthusiasmfor the efficiency of the dome had blindedhim to a critical aspect of housing: thetrue function of a home is to provide bothphysical and metaphorical shelter fromthe inclement weather of living.

Domes as habitats have little precedent inthe modern world and thus do not reflectthe conventional image of domesticity.Perhaps this points to a nagging romanti-cism that limits the progress of an indus-trial world, but if efficiency were the solecriteria for housing, everyone would livein dense cities. Furthermore, everythingfrom books to ovens to city streets isdesigned orthogonally, which makes itvery difficult to fit a round house into asquare world. Perhaps most importantly,the strength and efficiency of the geodesicdome make it appear insubstantial com-

pared to the structurally inefficient butseemingly solid brick town home.Appearance matters in this case; peoplewant the feeling of stability as much as theshelter a building provides. Geodesicdomes project anything but the protectivecomforts of home.

The geodesic dome wasn’t Fuller’s onlyfailure. Go down the list of his patentsfrom the Dymaxion car to the Dymaxionbathroom and you will discover the sameinability to reach the mass audience thathe had intended. A visionary before histime? Perhaps, but we can never knowwith certainty because most of Fuller’sinventions were based on the technologiesavailable at the time. His work and ideasshould not, however, be relegated to the

cultural ephemera of mid-century mod-ernism as the stamp suggests with itskitschy interpretation of his life’s work.Freed from the constraint of commercialsuccess, the inventions can be viewed asartifacts of a much larger effort to opti-mize humanity’s relationship to nature,the bizarre forays into poetry an attempt tosuccinctly articulate that relationship(check out his Untitled Epic Poem on theHistory of Industrialization with HenryFord as Odyssean industrialist), and thetireless lecturing a measure of his enthusi-asm for the project.

Although he rarely prepared notes for hisspeaking engagements, Fuller was fond ofopening a discussion with the image of aknot. Just as the human body cannot be

In 1933, Fuller introduced the fast and fuel-efficient Dymaxion car. Hopes for adoption and mass production were dashed when a demonstration resulted in a fatality.

34 Milton Magazine

reduced to the food that nourishes it, sotoo the essence of a knot cannot be dis-cerned in the nylon fibers that realize itsform. Instead, the knot is a self-interferingpattern, an applied platonic form. It wasFuller’s ability to extend this metaphorinto structural engineering and renewableenergy that distinguishes him from mere-ly a man of the times. Born of a commit-ment to service, Fuller’s ideas remain rele-vant to the problems that continue toplague us, including sustainability, hous-ing and even hunger. Patterns, forms,dauntless initiative, marvel and enthusi-asm for human discovery, an insistencethat humanity with all its technologicalappendages is a part of nature, the life ofservice: these are the promise of Fuller’slasting legacy.

Michael O’Leary

Michael O’Leary is a poet, publisher andengineer. He lives in Chicago.

“Buckminster Fuller was and continues to be one of my heroes,” says Gordon Chase (visual arts), whotook this photograph during one of Buckminster’s visits to campus in the late 1970s. “He was one of a fewpeople in the 20th century who worked passionately to improve the world and who refused to accept thelimitations of politics and cultural divides,” Gordon says. “He influenced the thinking of an amazing num-ber of people around the world and did as much as any goodwill ambassador to get leaders and ordinarypeople alike to see and to seek the ‘common good.’ He was the supreme optimist. In coining phrases like‘operating manual for spaceship earth,’ he sought to unite us all beyond differences of religion, class andrace.” Justin Aborn ’79 and David Rabkin ’79 show their version of a three-wheeled vehicle to Fuller.

From the Milton Academy archives: Fuller shares his vision with colleagues.

35 Milton Magazine

Math department’s challengingcommitment to developing theirown teaching materials strength-ens over time

Over the last 10 years, mathematics facultyat Milton have collaborated on an in-housesuite of “products” that take “what’s bestfor the consumer” seriously. Focusing onthe math experiences of their con-sumers—Upper and Middle School stu-dents—mathematics department facultyteach, in large measure, with materialsthey have developed themselves, in lieu ofstandard texts.

The department’s years long commitmentto shaping their own teaching materialsreflects their love of math and the fun theyhave with mathematical ideas, as well astheir genuine understanding of adoles-cents, those who are mathematically giftedas well as those who may not be enthusi-astic about math (initially). Teaching thisway is different, challenging, and ultimate-ly much more rewarding: it requires constant dialogue among colleagues andunremitting attention to what happensamong students in each class, each day.

The faculty’s decision to compose and col-lect course materials grew from practicalmatters, and ultimately harnessed facultycreativity and teaching skill. Each year,math faculty members found themselvesconferring and ordering new texts for eachcourse, only to be disappointed once theybegan using the books. “We were supple-menting so much,” John Banderob com-ments, “that the cost of the books seemedwasteful. We were looking to strike a bet-ter balance between providing skills-basedproblems, and asking students to useskills in new applications.”

The introduction into the classroom of thegraphing calculator (in the early 1990s)changed the teaching of math so signifi-cantly that this, too, pushed faculty towardthe decision. “With the calculator you areable to treat ideas and concepts inductive-ly,” explains Keith Hilles-Pilant. You cando a hundred experiments quickly: settinga hypothesis and proving a hypothesis.The advent of new software in geometry,Geometric Supposer and its sequel,Geometer’s Sketchpad, also shifted theclassroom dynamic toward discovery.“Students ‘uncover’ a theorem throughmanipulating a figure,” Hal Pratt explains,“rather than doing exercises that apply a

textbook theorem to a static figure on apage.” Finally, the department was movingtoward “modeling” within the curriculum:“We wanted a manipulable application for every concept we introduced,” Johnrecalls.

“Using the materials we develop, we’reable to determine how we spend time ineach course, and how we approach thematerial,” says Jackie Bonenfant, depart-ment chair. “We spend less time on therepetitive practice of skills, in the abstract,and more on presenting a stream of situa-tions, asking students to determine whatthey need to know to solve the problem.We help them develop mathematical ideasand skills by working on them in a con-text—a more intriguing, less routine treat-ment of math for students.”

Members of the department agree thatthis “discovery and extension” method ofstudying math is much closer to whatmathematicians do in a research environ-ment. Faculty ask students to understanda concept and then see where else it mayapply. “In pre-calculus, for example,together we take a look at a special situa-tion, establish a set of criteria, learn a lot,

13

+ 4>Mathematics conglomerate

is nimble, responsive, maintains a “just in time” inventory

What’s the big idea, on campus?

36 Milton Magazine

and then zoom out to test where elsethose criteria might apply,” says Keith.“They might apply to circular motion, forinstance, or a field of objects that work ina similar way.”

Writing your own teaching materials takestime and work, and it fosters a collegialenvironment that members of the depart-ment who have come from other schoolsexperience as rare and intellectually invig-orating. “You understand,” says Jackie,“that to do the best work with students,you need to trust and depend upon yourdepartment colleagues.”

“As a department, and as a group of indi-viduals, we have had to think and talkabout what we are teaching, why we areteaching it, and how best to teach it; it’s an essential and ongoing conversation,”says Terri HerrNeckar. All those who teachsections of a given course meet once each week; teachers of several courses

have many meetings. They discuss howclasses have gone and roadblocks thathave appeared; they agree upon commonhomework assignments and who willwrite an upcoming quiz. The discussionsinclude: “What way would you use to solvethis problem?” or “I want to introduce thisconcept. Do you have an effective problemto do that?”

The outcome of teacher collaboration andattention to the craft of teaching is a cur-riculum that is responsive, efficient, cus-tomized, open-ended. “I teach two classesthat each have a single section of stu-dents,” Erica Banderob says. “I writesomething up after each class. It’s not thesame as last year; it fits exactly. When I seea need, I respond with the right thing,tomorrow!” Rather than following the pre-ordained sequence in a textbook, “having adata base of our own materials gives usthe confidence to change the flow, basedon the students,” Terri notes.

When he arrived at Milton almost 20years ago, Keith Hilles-Pilant designedMath 7 for students who have alreadytaken at least two years of advanced placement-level calculus. “The content iscompletely different every year,” Keithsays, “based on the interest of the stu-dents. I poll the incoming students andtogether we establish the syllabus for thecoming year. This year, the students wereinterested in studying mathematicalphysics, so we are doing that. Along withthe students, I generate the materials forthe course. The result is a book, or per-haps a research journal is a more appro-priate name for it. My hope is that the stu-dents will not only learn, but also discoverthat they can and want to do their ownresearch.”

Not surprisingly, students respond well tomath that is designed just for them. Eachstudent keeps a notebook, compiling dailythe teaching materials from faculty mem-

=15Mathematics department faculty, left to right, front: Terri HerrNeckar, MarthaJacobsen, Jeanne Jacobs, Heather Sugrue, Erica Banderob, Gregg Reilly, andKeith Hilles-Pilant; back: Geoff Theobald, Steve Feldman, Anne Kaufman, PeterKahn, Hal Pratt, John Banderob, Juan Ramos, and Jackie Bonenfant, chair.

37 Milton Magazine

bers along with their own work. “Whenyou give students a new section of the‘text’ each day, every day is important. Thestudents know the pages are the work ofthe faculty in the department and they sortof share in our pride of ownership,” saysSteve Feldman. “When a student asks ateacher why he or she is studying this orthat, a faculty member can easily answerthe question.”

Students are responsible for building theirnotebooks; therefore, they are in charge ofthe key resource for the course. (The facul-ty keep a close eye on the Class IV note-books, as they emerge.) In this environ-ment, note-taking increases in impor-tance: students can’t easily look up in abook the information they miss, althoughthey might find helpful information onthe Internet. Students learn to use otherresources, too, like each other.

Students are much more aware of theirhomework; they have a sense of owner-ship for it, and it becomes part of theiroverall math notebooks. “Having the samehomework as others in different sectionsof the course is helpful, too,” HeatherSugrue notes. “They’re likely to work on ittogether, in the library, the student center,or the dorm. The conversations stretchacross sections.”

“We have the technology now to producemuch more professional-looking materi-als,” John says, and reworking the materi-als is constant and demands time. Thetransition from textbooks to faculty-developed materials is the most difficultpart; the up ramp is steep, and it takes twoto three years to come up with a good criti-cal mass of material. After that, teachingwith these materials is easier, mainlybecause it’s not boring, it’s more effectiveand much more efficient.

New technological developments that areaffecting the teaching environment andsparking creativity today are digital projec-tors and SMART Boards. “The next bigquestion,” Jackie says, “is whether or notwe’ll use a computer algebra system(CAS). Students can use calculators with aCAS on standardized tests and AP tests,so that’s the next issue we will need toaddress.”

Providing the best possible math experi-ence for students has been the mathdepartment’s abiding goal, as they workedclosely together to shape pertinent, chal-lenging material year after year. “This styleof teaching,” says Heather, “is what makesme want to stay at Milton. Not manyschools are doing this: I feel I can con-tribute to students’ success on a dailybasis.”

Cathleen Everett

“We spend less time on the repeti-tive practice of skills, in theabstract, and more on presentinga stream of situations, asking stu-dents to determine what theyneed to know to solve the prob-lem. We help them develop math-ematical ideas and skills by work-ing on them in a context—a moreintriguing, less routine treatmentof math for students.”

—Jackie Bonenfant, Department Chair8

2

38 Milton Magazine

Though not a business ven-ture, Vincent Chan and NeilKatuna’s idea to start a mathjournal at Milton brought themface to face with real-world chal-lenges entrepreneurs experience.In response, they had to reachfor still-emerging skills: persist-ence, adaptation, pragmatism,personnel management, expertcommunications. They succeed-ed. With a host of student writ-ers, designers and editors, theyproduced Axiom—“a journal toinspire a love of mathematics inevery member of the MiltonAcademy community.” In hind-sight, both of the founderswould agree to having learnedsignificant life lessons, but nei-ther would say the project waseasy.

Neil and Vincent love to thinkabout math. Among the myriadstudent publications at Milton,none involved the community inexploring mathematical ideas.Why not? “Where is math in theMilton student scene?” they pon-dered. They wanted to build abridge from the math thinkers tothe School community at large.

Eager to share the enthusiasmthey felt both for provocativemathematical problems and ele-gant solutions, Neil and Vincenthoped to replicate the collegemath journals they had discov-ered during two summers atmath camp—Canada U.S.A.Mathcamp at the University ofPuget Sound and Colby College.They advertised their idea atSchool and recruited many stu-dent volunteers. The task of

mapping out an editorial plandrove home the complexity oftheir mission. They found them-selves (reluctantly) asking,“What assumptions should wemake?” “How much familiaritywith what level concepts shouldwe assume?” “What makes a‘normal’ person want to read anarticle about math?” Thinkingabout math ought to be in themainstream of campus culturallife, but how to make that hap-pen wasn’t so clear.

A democratic approach requiredthat the pair solicit suggestionsabout what topics the proposedjournal might take on. Fromtheir own reading on math, Neiland Vincent already had their“own perspective on what isinteresting, and what isn’t,”Vincent admitted. Realizing thatthey couldn’t mandate the edito-rial content, they underwent adifficult process of watchingtheir idea “popularized.” Articlesabout mathematics and gam-bling, or Descartes’ role in mod-ern math, were not what theyhad in mind, but were articles

the staff were interested in writ-ing, and believed would buildthis elusive bridge.

The founders made their waythrough a thorny set of issuesfamiliar to adults who have initi-ated ventures of any kind, butnew to a pair of teenagers excitedabout a great idea. They dealtwith bureaucratic red tape: Thedean of students suggested thatthey come up with a differentidea for the journal’s title. Theyconfronted organizational chal-lenges: meeting the expectationsof volunteer staff and motivatingthe volunteers to follow throughon what they’d agreed to do.They experienced the transitionsof leadership changes. They hadto compromise: Final contentand design were not what theyhad in mind; they even triedincentives (prizes) and humor toreach the multitudes. Publicationdeadlines came and went andthey had to plug on with adjustedtimelines. They became excruci-atingly aware of how criticaleffective communications are.

The community sees Axiom dif-ferently, as you might expect.The fresh, engaging newsletterreaches out to the curious witharticles written by students onthe mathematics behindroulette; the numerous mathe-matical concepts connectedthrough the arrangements ofnumbers in Pascal’s Triangle; the“simple” computer program-ming behind certain dynamicpatterns on your computerscreen; Descartes’ contributionsto math and philosophy; or“New Age Numerology.” Axiomhas energy and life. It communi-cates the encouraging idea thatthose of us who don’t routinelythink about math might like toenjoy it as much as these stu-dents do. While students did nottake on the eight problemsVincent wrote as part of a con-test to accompany the first issue,the community thinks Axiom isa success.

Perhaps in college Neil andVincent, in addition to devotingthemselves to doing math, willonce again involve others inexcitement of thinking aboutmathematical ideas. Perhapstheir learning curve was so valuable they will apply theiracquired wisdom in a new ven-ture in their next venue. Despitea rough road, they brought abrilliant idea home, accom-plished what they set out to do,and as high school seniors expe-rienced more than many adultsever do.

Their idea: making mathematicalelegance part of campus culture

Neil Katuna (left) and Vincent Chan, Axiom’s founders

39 Milton Magazine

If a student can master the qualities ofeffective composition—clarity, unity,coherence, concision, correctness andenergy—then clear, informative, perhapseven entertaining, communication is thehappy, inevitable result. While manyschools have retreated from the rigorousconsideration of grammar, Milton’sEnglish faculty is still devoted to the pur-suit of excellent usage.

The gems set forth in “Key Concepts forExpository Writers” by David Smith(English faculty) include standard warn-ings to writers: Avoid clichés, for example.(The use of the work “gem” in the pre-ceding sentence might qualify.) Forgo theuse of pronouns such as “it” or “this”unless they have direct antecedents. Knowthe difference between active and passivevoice, and choose passive deliberately, only to effect ambiguity or enervation.Understand how a paragraph is made andthe important contribution of each unit—the sentence, the phrase, the word andpunctuation.

Practice unraveling sentences. Take thissentence from Tarim Chung’s Class IVEnglish class: “I gave money to whomeverI thought wanted it.” Well-educated read-ers who are not grammarians might rushto agree that “whomever” is in this casecorrect simply because it follows “to”; itmust be the object of a preposition, right?Wrong. Take away the parenthetical “Ithought”; identify what comes after the“to” as a noun clause; and realize that thesubject of a noun clause must use the sub-jective “who.”

Jim, who led the workshop from 1991 to2004, applauds Guy Hughes, retiredEnglish chair and leader of the depart-ment’s re-emphasis on the cognitivedomain over the affective domain. Anembracing of the affective domain in the1960s, Jim says, had popularized “rap sessions” and “values education” abovepure reading and writing; Guy standard-ized and formalized the Class IV Englishclass experience and introduced the work-shop, which meets 20 times during eachacademic year.

“Often, when grammar is covered nowa-days, students have the sense that they canwait you out,” David says, especially if theirteachers are not comfortable with the mate-rial. Milton combats the “waiting it out”avoidance with a thorough, highly struc-tured system that relies on the quality, reg-ularity and energy of the workshop, whichis reinforced by in-class exercises. “Formany students, the workshop codifies thetechniques that they have adopted becausethey are intuitive readers—they find thatprecision is possible and desirable,” Tarimsays. “The workshops give students achance to get into the detail of writing.

“It’s a moment of real pleasure for mewhen students come into class and say,‘Yesterday, I saw 20 grammar errors onthe news and read 20 more in a maga-zine. Mr. Chung, I can’t enjoy a song onthe radio now because I hear the danglingmodifier or the pronoun reference errors.’

“I think that means that they really get it:Their world is composed of language, andnow they have better access to the inner

Championing a worthy ideal:

No retreat from teaching grammar at Milton

Illustration by David Cutler

“Being a good mechanic pays,” saysTarim, who now heads the School’s weeklyClass IV Writing Workshops, which bringtogether the entire class to diagram sen-tences and practice strategies for sentenceattack. The workshop is in tandem withthe Class IV English classes, whichencourage familiarity with important liter-ary genres and help students develop com-petence as readers and writers. Tarimjoins the legendary ranks of longtimeteachers Jim Connolly and David Smith,two of the workshop’s five leaders duringits more than 30-year history. Former fac-ulty member Jane Archibald, anotherworkshop leader, wrote the course. (Tarimjokes that he’s also inherited an archaeolo-gy site: He bases his lectures and exercisesin part on the hand- and typewritten notesfrom the workshop’s four associated filedrawers—the equivalent of an Olympictorch.)

40 Milton Magazine

workings of their world. I liken themoment to the climax of the Matrix whenthe hero finally sees all the computer codestreaming down the walls and realizes thateverything, everything is composed of thissimple but dominant code.

“I also tell students that they may not getall of the grammar all of the time, but oneday they’ll be writing a paper in collegeand they will start to make choices aboutlanguage that are just right, that they justknow deep down hews to all mechanicallaws of English that they studied way backwhen.”

Helping students become good writers isthe goal, but good teaching must beaccompanied by competent learning:David’s booklet on expository writing offersreaders four appendixes, the first of whichis an essay, “On Good Students and Bad.”Here, he wonders about the wisdom ofasserting that any bad student must be badonly because his self-esteem has not beensufficiently puffed up. He offers a compari-son between good and bad students:

“Bad students settle for the minimumevery time. They have, at best, a ‘get it offmy desk’ attitude, one which values justfinishing an assignment above doing itwell. They believe they have read some-thing when they have merely passed theireyes over it. They tend to lack stayingpower and may go belly up at the first hint

since feeling is firstwho pays any attentionto the syntax of thingswill never wholly kiss you

e.e. cummings

In his 1998 “Why We Should Teach Grammar:A Manifesto” to English department col-leagues, David Smith argues that grammar isamong the most important and useful skills astudent can command. The e.e. cummingsstanza above has been used by opponents ofthorough grammar instruction. David’s refu-tation: “This was a very disingenuous posi-tion to take for someone who cared as muchabout syntax as e. e. cummings. The notionthat there could be a language of pure feeling,devoid of structure, is tempting; but cum-mings, even (or especially) in his wildestexperiments, showed a constant regard forconventional grammar, and he understoodthat structure focuses and empowers emo-tion that would otherwise leak away. In fact,he might better have written that ‘only some-one who pays close attention to the syntax ofthings/ will ever wholly kiss you.’”

Carriers of the torch (from left) David Smith, JimConnolly and Tarim Chung joined Milton’s facultyin 1981, 1983 and 2001, respectively. The depart-ment’s efforts are now led by Rick Hardy, whobecame department chair in 1999 after joiningthe faculty in 1983. For grammar exercises, go towww.onlineapp.milton.edu:85/grammar/view/index.asp.

of fatigue or unhappiness. In contrast,good students manage to make the mostof opportunities even when they don’t ‘feellike it.’ And they go beyond the minimum.They read until they have mastered thecontent of an assignment…they flesh outideas and deliver rich illustrations. Theytake risks with metaphors. They edit outthe dross and the grammatical errors.They proofread. When they put a paper onthe teacher’s desk, they are not merelyputting the ball back into his court butrather whacking a shot that they hope willknock his socks off.

“Every bad student is a good student wait-ing to happen, but the ones who actuallymake the transition are the ones who,instead of just waiting, work at it. Theyshake off setbacks, work from strengths,extend themselves to master the materi-al—and emerge from the process withwell-earned self-esteem.”

Taking inspiration from those who haveearned their self-esteem before us, Davidexhibits quotations by Rilke, Mailer andUpdike in his classroom. A Thomas Mannquote aptly expresses a truth for many ofthe world’s great writers. Mann wrote, “A writer is a person for whom writing ismore difficult than it is for other people.”

Milton sets out to help students who writebecome writers and embrace the difficulty.

Heather Sullivan

41 Milton Magazine

Organizing “Night of a ThousandDinners” for landmine victims

Lara Yeo ’06 is irritated by people whoclaim they don’t have time for service. “I don’t have time for it either,” she says.“You make time to help others because it’simportant,” she says. “If you never stopbeing busy then people just keep dying.”

In November 2004, Lara mobilized herhousemates in Robbins House to plan a“Night of a Thousand Dinners.” On onenight, caring citizens from all over theworld host dinners to raise funds andawareness for landmine clearance and sur-vivor assistance. Launched in 2001, theevent has spurred thousands of dinners inmore than 50 countries and has raisedmillions of dollars.

Lara and 12 of her housemates held aKrispy Kreme doughnut sale and raised$363 to fund the pizza and homemadecupcakes for the Night of a ThousandDinners. The event yielded a net $690 forAdopt-A-Minefield. At home in Canada,Lara volunteered for the LandmineFoundation, which inspired her to begin achapter of Youth Against Landmines(YAL) before coming to Milton in fall2004.

Lara says that Canadian students mustcomplete 50 hours of documented com-munity service to graduate. Her commit-ment to helping others began when anolder student, already involved in thecause, spoke at Lara’s old school abouthow she had fulfilled that obligation. “She showed us a video, and it was reallysomber stuff.

“Since then, I’ve had to detach myselfemotionally a little bit, while holding on tothe commitment to act,” she says.

Lara says that her group’s fund raisinghelps communities in Afghanistan, Bosniaand Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia andMozambique. “It costs between two andthree dollars to make a landmine andabout 0ne thousand dollars to clear it,”she says.

In addition to her work on behalf ofAdopt-A-Minefield, Lara volunteers locallyin Dorchester with Mujeres Unidad Accion,an organization that helps Spanish-speaking women to learn English so theymay find jobs and gain independence.

Lara, who plans next year to hold anotherdinner to benefit communities affected bylandmines, believes that it’s important toact globally as well as locally.

For more information, go to www.landmines.org or www.youthagainstlandmines.org.

Their Ingenuity and Drive

Centers on Service

Lara Yeo ’06

Students measure success by what they do for others

42 Milton Magazine

Habitat for Humanity, only one ofseveral ways

Colin Tierney ’05 talks about his favoritepart of building a house: “When the foun-dation is laid, you have the outline,” hesays. “You can get the walls up within aday. When the walls go up, it starts to feellike a house.”

Colin belongs to the Boston and Cape Codchapters of Habitat for Humanity. Duringeach of the last two summers, he spentseveral weeks building homes through theorganization.

Colin enjoys learning from the profession-al contractors who donate their time. Themost rewarding part of the work, though,is seeing how thrilled the families are with their new homes: Each family whoreceives a new house earns it. In fact, fam-ilies help volunteers build the home.

“My dad worked with me on the houses inthe summer. He and his father built thehouse that my father grew up in.”

Colin’s first building project was in eighthgrade—a six-foot bench. Later that year, asa Boy Scout, he built a bridge in his home-town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Now anEagle Scout, Colin began doing service infifth grade as a Scout member.

In the winter, Colin raises funds forHabitat for Humanity. He is also studenthead of the Young Republicans. InDecember, the Young Republicans enlist-ed classmates to help write letters to sol-diers serving in Afghanistan. The groupsold pizza and solicited contributions tofund care packages for soldiers in theBravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 35thInfantry. The packages contained fre-quently requested items such as batteries,comic books and Chex Mix.

Colin says that his idea of achieving suc-cess is intimately connected with what hecan do for others. He’s inspired, he says,by these words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To laugh often and much; to win therespect of intelligent people and affectionof children; to earn the appreciation ofhonest critics and endure the betrayal offalse friends; to appreciate beauty; to findthe best in others; to leave the world a bitbetter, whether by a healthy child, a gar-den patch or a redeemed social condition;to know even one life has breathed easierbecause you have lived. This is to havesucceeded.”

For more information on Habitat forHumanity, go to www.habitat.org.

Colin Tierney ’05

43 Milton Magazine

Devotees of this new competitive“sport” devote hours to putting their ideasinto motion. Few, if any, of the nation’s topboarding schools have similar teams.

It isn’t physics, chemistry or engineering. What is it?

Club members idolize Robert Ballard, whodiscovered the Titanic wreck and usedhigh-tech underwater gadgets to exploreand study it. The 25 Milton Academy stu-dents who spend time fall and springhanging around a cluttered science work-shop are underwater explorers, too, alsoknown on campus as MAROV (MiltonAcademy Remote Operated Vehicle) team.They were first-place winners of the NewEngland competition last year.

Their fourth annual mission is to pit theircombined engineering skill and strategyagainst MIT and other regional schools,colleges and universities that have ROV

teams. Their advisor, Tom Gagnon (science department), insists he does littleto guide students as they brainstorm vehicle designs aimed to pick up sticks,probes, “bucky balls,” and tow fish andcomplete more complicated underwatermaneuvers. The outcome of these earlysessions will determine the ease and gracewith which they will “fly” the final vehi-cle—using camera views and a control boxto maneuver.

“What we do is applied science,” Dan Lee(Class I) says. “This kind of project hasapplications in the real world.” Dan is inhis second year with the team; he designedan ergonomic control box for last year’svehicle, intuitively placing the controls formovements up, down, forward, back, andfor turning.

In the design phase, students considerideal placement and magnitude of thrust,control of buoyancy, the weight of thevehicle, its stability with and without

transported objects, its number of parts,how its tether above water might affect itsmaneuverability (ideally, not hindering it),and a list of other factors that can make orbreak a final mission.

With a modest $600 budget last year, aug-mented by an underwater camera donatedby the Milton’s swim team (see story, page46) and a few odds and ends from par-ents, Milton students became supportersof the local Home Depot and Radio Shackoutposts and many Internet electronicssuppliers. There, they purchase PVC pip-ing, connectors, foam arms and grippers,tubing and miscellaneous hardware.

Meet Herbie

Herbie is the much-loved vehicle from2004. He has two vertical motors, and twohorizontal motors. His simple frame iscomposed primarily of PVC piping.

Below the Surface: Ideas in MotionOne science extracurricular gains cult status

Milton Academy Remote Operated Vehicle Team, top: Tom Gagnon (science faculty), Yoo-Na Kim ’07, Seohyung Kim ’06, Alice Tin ’06, Daniel Lee ’05, CharlesJohnson ’07, Tim Fram ’07, Austin Cheng ’07, Rueben Banalagay ’07; bottom: Sam Minkoff ’06, Matthew Schoen ’06, Louisa Zhang ’05, David Wu ’05.

44 Milton Magazine

With his underwater cameras, he’s able tosee clearly underwater and share thosepictures with humans via a monitor. He’squite capable and he is made to be water-tight (though he might not know enoughto come in out of the rain).

Herbie performed heroics in the MiltonAcademy team’s quest for a regional winlast year. His grace, if not his beauty (seephoto above), secured his team a place inthe national competition in Santa Barbara,California, last June. There, he performedflawlessly in his underwater trial, only tobe blocked from victory by a failed cameraduring the actual competition.

“Seo Hyung [Kim] and I were working onthe deck retrieving items from the sub andre-launching it,” says team member SamMinkoff (Class II). The left buoy was dam-aged as they attempted to put Herbie backinto action after the camera failure—butback into action she went. “We put a lot ofheart into that sub,” he says. Despite thefailure, the team placed 10th out of 23nationally and took top honors for overalldesign and use of their three remotelycontrolled grippers.

The 2004 members were SeoHyung Kim,Albert Kwon, Daniel Lee, Fred Lien, SamMinkoff, Andrew Oates, Matthew Schoen,Megan Smith, William Joo, Alice Tin,HsingYu Tsai, David Wu and LouisaZhang. (See photo for 2005 members.)

Design it, build it, “fly” it: a team’s philosophy

K.I.S.S. (or Keep It Simple, Stupid) maynot be the expected philosophy of a groupof students who fiddle with circuitry andlike to don goggles for drilling. But thestudents maintain that a simply designedvehicle is less likely to fail catastrophically,and it can rely on the smooth interactionof fewer parts (with any failure affectingthe whole, fewer elements better thechances of completing a mission).

“The competitions present a problem and,to find the best solution, students workwithin real time constraints and a fixedbudget. Teamwork and decision-makingare at the core of this successful team,”Tom says. “The students understand thatif a single bad decision gets made at anypoint in the process, their whole missionmight be jeopardized,” he says.

Another choice that counts is finding theright driver—one who can stay calmunder pressure. “You’re essentially flyingthe vehicle,” Tom says. Dan Lee, last year’s“driver,” who was part of the triage teamthat enabled Herbie to finish his mission,says, “It’s a video game that you makeyourself. It’s very exciting, even when it’sstressful.”

Tom’s students do investigate best prac-tices and consider anecdotal case stud-ies—especially important as they don’t

have enough time to test and re-test everyeventuality. (Without an indoor pool, theteam tests its vehicle using the pool at Blue Hills Regional Tech in nearbyCanton and the UMass–Boston pool inDorchester.) The competition judges stu-dents on how well they complete the tasksassociated with the mission; engineeringand communication; technical reports;and poster displays.

The student group is small enough, Tomsays, that every student has a full under-standing of every component of the proj-ect—but members recognize each others’strengths and allow for subspecialties toemerge: there is a role for researchers; tinkerers; solderers; PhotoShop and CADdesign program experts; and spies (tomonitor Web sites of the competition).

The task for the 2005 Marine AdvancedTechnology Education (M.A.T.E.) competi-tion for the “ranger” class—teams workingwith a modest budget but with tasks aschallenging as their richer “explorer”peers, who use up to 40 amps comparedto the ranger team’s 25—will consist ofthree “Olympic” events (note the ROV jar-gon emerging). Teams will appear at the“control shack” at the appointed time, following strict protocol as set forth atwww.marinetech.org/rov_competition/index.php.

The idea for an ROV club at Milton wasborn when, during Tom’s 2001–2002 sab-batical, he developed a hands-on sciencecurriculum for middle and high school atTufts University’s Wright Center forInnovative Science Education. He alsoworked with educators there from theNew England Aquarium and the Museumof Science as well as MIT—home of oneof the country’s best ROV teams.

“The competition is definitely not yourtypical science fair,” says Tom, who alsoadvises the Rocketry Team at Milton.

The 2005 competition, scheduled for May, will bring 26 teams to the Universityof Rhode Island, home of the GraduateSchool of Oceanography, where ProfessorRobert Ballard teaches.

To follow the Milton team’s progress, visitwww.milton.edu.

Heather Sullivan

“Herbie,” MIlton students’ 2004 remotely operatedunderwater vehicle

Sam Minkoff (Class II) and Dan Lee (Class I) working in the lab

45 Milton Magazine

The full warmth and fun of Syria wasjust a bit more out of reach for Adam Ochthan it was for his cousins. During Adam’smost recent summer visit, he wished that,like them, could set off independently,interact, and get involved in more of whatwas happening. Language fluency, itseemed to Adam, was the key differential.

Adam, whose father is Syrian-Americanand mother is Irish-American, attended anIslamic Sunday School as a child. In addi-tion to gaining elementary familiarity withthe religion and culture, he learned thealphabet, and how to read and write on abasic level. This early connection withArabic culture and language proved valu-able once Adam decided to study theArabic language seriously.

Last summer, Adam spent three hours aday, four days a week at the BostonLanguage Institute delving into Arabic.Having made this commitment, losingwhat he’d gained during the summer didn’t sit well. With his instructor at theinstitute willing to tutor him during theschool year, Adam submitted an independ-ent study proposal to Milton. Sarah Wehle,chair of student independent study, agreedwith Adam’s proposed study plan, andserved as his Milton Academy advisor.

“Starting off studying Arabic was the hard-est time,” Adam feels. “The grammaticalstructure is difficult and the rules arecounterintuitive if you approach the lan-guage with an English framework. Arabsthink that the English language is over-simplified. Arabic is more complicatedand you need to say things with greaterspecificity.”

I finished the first grammar book thissummer, and I thought things couldn’t goany further, but they do. For instance, oneverb will be the base form, and then thereare 10 different forms that stem from thebase; if you twist the word around you getthe passive voice, and so on. The languagerelies on a root system; if you get the pat-tern of three or four letters, you can figureout other words. Keeping up with buildingmy vocabulary is a big challenge. I learn20 new words for each chapter, and thewords get more complicated as the bookgoes on.

Choosing to study Arabic independentlyhas involved challenges beyond the com-plexity of the language itself. Adam’s tutorcomes to School twice each week for oneand a half hours each time, and roundsout a day already packed with academicclasses. “Studying in a one-on-one situa-

tion is different, ” Adam says. “You haveto like your teacher, and you have to beprepared. There’s more homeworkbetween classes, because I only meet withhim twice each week, and judging howlong the homework would take me washard. We’ve worked it out.”

“At this point,” Adam says, “I can compre-hend spoken Arabic—even what’s said at agood pace—quite well. It’s a harder thingfor me to form sentences; I still have totranslate from the English rather thanthinking in Arabic.”

Realizing his idea of a summer ago hasmeant hard and solitary work, Adam ispleased and planning ahead. “I’m going tofinish the second level this year, take thethird level next summer, and do the fourthlevel in my Class I year,” he says. “I’mlearning the family language, and cancommunicate with my family on a differ-ent level. At the same time I’m pursuingsomething of great interest to me. I’vealways been interested in business andeconomics, and this prepares me for inter-national business. In any case, doing thishas given me a whole different dimen-sion—a completely different way to look atother subjects and issues in general.That’s an advantage few have.”

Adam Och ’06

Linking His Heritage and His Future,

Adam Och Studies Arabic at Milton

46 Milton Magazine

A Dream Delayed but Not DeniedEven without a pool, Coach Bob Tyler keeps varsity swimming alive and well at Milton

At once an optimist and a realist, BobTyler came to Milton’s science departmentin 1988 with a vivid dream. Bob hadcoached some outstanding swimmers atAvon Old Farms, and at Bernal’s Gators,the premier New England competitiveswim team that practiced at Harvard’sBlodgett pool. “I always wanted to createthat quality of a program of my own,” Bobsays.

Circumstances demanded that the realistside of his personality take over. For 17years, this quintessential coach has enthu-siastically (and doggedly) trained and man-aged a competitive interscholastic swimteam at Milton, without an on-campuspool. For hundreds of swimmers between1988 and today, the swim team experienceis one of their best and most lively memo-ries of Milton. “We did well,” they oftensaid about their performance at the NewEngland swim team championships, “thebest of all the schools without pools.”

Bob confesses that coaching powerfulswimmers—he had worked with studentsswimming at the junior national level who

went on to make the Olympic team—wasfun and exciting. “I’ve found that I haven’tlost my love for swimming or for coach-ing, despite working with swimmers whowill never reach that level,” says Bob. “SoI’ve realized that the coaching is the fun ofit—working with teenagers in any medi-um, in class, in the dorm, or as a coach.”

When Bob came to Milton, a colleaguefrom his alma mater, Deerfield, hadorganized a club swim team. Former fac-ulty member David Foster had 30 stu-dents, a van, and some pool time at theDorchester YMCA. Bob’s arrival was theimpetus to shift the club to an inter-scholastic varsity sport, which happenedthe following year. “Of the 30 swimmers,”Bob recalls, “few could swim competitively—Shannon Connelly (’89), Marc and AlexChung (’89 and ’90, respectively) andBrendan Everett (’91). The others werenew to competitive swimming.”

Nonetheless, Bob worked on improvingtechnical skills, creating the swim teamculture, building and broadening the com-petitive experience. Eventually Milton’s

team entered the New England champi-onships, and students’ eyes were openedto serious swimming and inspired by whatthey saw.

As he watched team momentum build,then ebb, then build again, Bob set hisown context. “We’re lucky,” he says, “thatwe have such a great school. We attractstudents who primarily want a great aca-demic experience, and among them aresome terrific swimmers for whom thelearning environment comes first.”

The logistics of using off-campus poolshave always dogged the team. Althoughthe situation has improved significantlywith recent arrangements to swim atUMass Boston, the 20-minute drive overand back has always compromised prac-tice time. “For the first 12 years, Milton’steam could only practice an hour each day,while other teams practiced a minimumof nearly double that,” Bob says. Frequentlysnowstorms closed Milton’s adopted pools or Milton’s practice and meet sched-ule had to adapt to the primary user’sschedule.

47 Milton Magazine

Challenges notwithstanding, swimmerswould say that their team experience inthis sport at Milton was unparalleled.“There have been such great people overthe years,” Bob says. “They have great char-acter, they give one another terrific sup-port, they like being together, they’re eagerto learn, and they really do get better. Wefocus on everyone moving forward. Onegreat thing about swimming is that there’san objective standard against which youcan measure and celebrate improvement.”

The coed nature of the swim team is arich source for other lessons. “They gainso much,” Bob believes, “from seeing thepower, discipline, focus and competenceof their counterparts of the opposite sex.”The girls are particularly nurturing asteammates, and they maintain traditionslike the “secret psych,” messages and gifts that pump up a swimmer with arecord to break or a challenging opponentto confront.

Coach Jamie LaRochelle’s arrival at Miltonin 1996 boosted the swim team’s resourcesand stature even further. Another sciencefaculty member, coming from Strake JesuitHigh School in Texas, Jamie swam withBob Tyler’s brother at Deerfield (“Jamiewas long my hero there,” Bob says), andcoached with Bob at Avon.

The two work well together—“neither ofus needs to be a head coach,” Bob allows.Both are interested in technique overyardage, that the stroke be as efficient andeffective as possible.

It’s not as if Milton’s teams haven’t hadsuccesses as well. Roughly 25 girls’ teamsand 20 boys teams compete in the NewEngland championships, striving forplacement in the top eight teams for eachevent. Milton’s best performance for thegirls was achieving fifth place and theboys’ top finish was seventh place.Individual Milton swimmers have alsoachieved top eight status in various eventsover time. Milton’s first winner of a NewEngland championship was Jason

Reichard (’98), in the 500-freestyle. “Notbad,” say the swimmers, “for a schoolwithout a pool!”

Good-humored and completely supportiveof the priorities in Milton’s master plan(that does not include a pool), the optimistand advocate in Bob can’t help explaininghow quickly Milton, with a pool, couldturn things around. “The nucleus wouldbuild quickly,” he asserts, “once we built apool. We’d have an outstanding programin three to five years, and make our markin swimming among New England board-ing schools.”

A successful competitive swimmer him-self in the Master Swimmer program,Bob’s dream still thrives. He loves workingwith young people in any and every way,and has his years of enthusiastic devotionto Milton swimmers. “The coaching is thefun of it, after all,” Bob rejoins.

Some of the Milton Academy Swim Team members, 2004–2005, at practice

48 Milton Magazine

Milton’s story, a history that has been in motion formore than 200 years, includes many expansive ideaspromoted by believers—ideas that may have seemedoutrageous at certain points in time. In 2005, one ideadeveloped by the board at the turn of this century hon-ors the energy, creativity and risk the magazine cele-brates. This idea reached back and connected boldlywith Milton’s tradition.

The board opted to rebalance the Academy’s enrollment:to achieve, over a number of years, a ratio of boardingstudents and day students closer to the ratio that existedprior to the 1980s. The board’s analysis, their attentionto what students and parents of the 1990s told them,resulted in the belief that increasing the number ofboarding students, while keeping School size the same,was a pivotal goal.

They took stock of the challenges involved in staying thesame, the challenges involved in making the change, thepotential for strengthening Milton, and they opted for avision. In this vision, families from across the countryand around the world are aware of and interested inMilton Academy, a boarding and day school in theBoston area with unusual attributes. Our distinguishedand thriving school attracts highly capable boarding stu-dents, day students and faculty, eager to join a vigorouscommunity of diverse individuals, active learners, deeply

involved both in top-notch, up-to-date scholarship and inrelationships and extracurricular commitments thatstimulate extraordinary personal growth.

Believing in the soundness of the vision as well as ourcapability to achieve it, we launched the effort. Weundertook this “while we were at the top of our game,”as Fritz Hobbs, board president, is fond of saying. Thatmeant that although the progressive steps toward rebal-ancing the enrollment were as numerous as they weredaunting, we needed to address each of them whilemaintaining the excellence that had long characterizedour School.

Reaching the goal involved reorganizing our admissionoffice to reach out more effectively across the nation,and to manage a greater number of applications. Weredesigned our admission materials and outreach pro-grams which had, in the past, insufficiently highlightedthe size and strength of our residential program.Developing an enrollment plan that would acknowledgeMilton’s K–12 identity (i.e., some students would bemoving from Lower and Middle Schools to the UpperSchool), include the highly qualified day students wehad typically admitted, and increase the number ofboarding students—all without changing the fundamen-tal size of the School—was a monthslong challenge. Theupshot was a plan that, among other things, contributedto a project already in motion: a redesign of Milton’sMiddle School.

Milton’s most recent “big idea”reaches back in time

The Head of School

49 Milton Magazine

In the meantime, a new student activities directorstrengthened our weekend programs, which eventuallydeveloped into the popular, well-attended raft of week-end events and goings-on students now enjoy. Facultyheld school orientation events on weekend days to helpestablish early inclinations among new students towardspending time on campus. Knitting together moreseamlessly the lives of boarding students and day stu-dents, so that all students experienced a richer, fullersense of each other and identity with the School, was acrucial element of the vision. The Schwarz StudentCenter, opened in 2003, was designed (with the help ofstudents, faculty and parents) to further that goal.Spending a moment in that space today testifies to itssuccess. The student center is teeming with life morn-ing, noon and night.

Of course, we turned to alumni and parents close to theSchool and committed to this vision for the generosityand leadership that would bring the architectural ideasto life. Not only did friends of Milton make gifts thatallowed us to build the Schwarz Center, they also fundedtwo new residences, Norris House and Centre House.The shovel went into the ground for these houses in thefall of 2003, and boarding faculty were (barely) moved inand ready to welcome new students for the opening ofSchool in September 2004. The houses were designed

to heed the wise counsel of veteran faculty and boardingstudents who told us clearly and compellingly what ele-ments contributed to Milton’s strong boarding program.Today’s happy residents, who love their houses, theirhousemates and their faculties, are developing a particu-lar culture and set of traditions for Norris and Centre,respectively, comparable to those the other Milton hous-es enjoy.

This spring, we will enroll approximately 100 newboarding students, an historically high total, from agroup of more than 700 highly qualified and talentedapplicants. In fact, applications from potential boardingstudents in 2005 increased over those in 2004 by 38percent. The new students will join in the exciting life ofa thriving boarding and day School, where the eveningsand weekends are as much a part of the learning envi-ronment, for all students, as the classrooms we all valueso highly.

Robin Robertson

50 Milton Magazine

“A bright and ambitious-enough student, but some-times scattered and uneven…often resistant to authori-ty…moves in fits and starts.”

To a student who has labored under the threat of teach-ers’ reports, or a parent who has despaired of a fitful orunderachieving offspring, these observations may ringcruelly true. My mother feels your pain.

Maybe they’re right. Or maybe these are the germinat-ing seeds of a life seeking a different heading: artist,actor, adventurer, or all of these rolled into one—anentrepreneur.

Volumes have been written about entrepreneurship.Much as been said about what it takes: love of yourproduct, an abiding belief in your own ideas, the forti-tude to weather failure without the support of a largeenterprise as you rebuild. Less is made of the one char-acteristic I see as paramount: the inability to conform.

My own road to entrepreneurialism began in 1991,when I followed my boss out of Citicorp to start a pri-vate investment bank, Meenan, McDevitt & Company, in

the New York suburbs. Despite doubts about leaving thesecurity and prestige of Wall Street, I knew the movewould give me things I needed much more: license tomake my own rules, live by my own schedule, bemyself.

Ambition wasn’t a problem; nor was my work ethic.Both of these were profound. However, rather than thelinear, make-a-list-and-finish-by-the-end-of-the-day stylethat organized businesses demand, my style is more likea game of Whack-a-Mole, zapping back and forth as dif-ferent tasks catch my eye, and sustains my interest andmomentum far better than the regularity of responsibletasking.

Since the sale of Meenan, McDevitt to French bankSociete Generale in 1998, I’ve become a founder or part-ner in four other businesses:

• In 1999, Heart Center Online, a cardiovascular medi-cine Internet site (www.heartcenteronline.com);

• Returning to Wall Street in 2001, the Loan PortfolioSales Group at New York investment bank Keefe,Bruyette & Woods (KBW);

• In 2004 (after leaving KBW), Garnet Capital Advisors,an investment bank specializing in selling loan portfo-lios for banks and raising capital for companies thatbuy these loans;

Signs of a Misspent Youth, Reinterpreted: The Making of an Entrepreneur

Post Script is a department that opens windows into the lives and experiences of your fellow Milton alum-ni. Graduates may author the pieces, or they may react to our interview questions. Opinions, memories,explorations, reactions to political or educational issues are all fair game. We believe you will find yourMilton peers informative, provocative and entertaining. Please email us with your reactions and yourideas—cathy_everett@milton.edu.

Post Script

51 Milton Magazine

• Since 2002, the Los Angeles–based film-productioncompany Goff-Kellam Productions (as executive pro-ducing partner), where our first full-length feature, Girl Play, is set for theatrical release in May.

These experiences have put a new slant on my view ofmy adolescence. If my parents and teachers thought Iwas all over the map, well, I was, and maybe that’s notsuch a bad thing. I’ve been fascinated to realize howmuch Milton had to do with helping me forge myyounger self into a successful entrepreneur.

It’s not that my teachers and advisors steered me in thisdirection. Rather, it was through their thoughtful—anddiscerning—observations that I came to frame myunderstanding of myself better.

Chuck Duncan, then the dean of students and my ClassII advisor, wrote in 1978 that I seemed to operate in onlytwo gears, Fast and Stop, and that I needed to recognizefast gear and harness it, or I might grind to a halt. Heconcluded: “There will be no middle ground for Sean.”He was dead right, and this understanding has pro-foundly influenced the course of my life.

Mary-Louise Baumlin made me read through long pas-sages of Le Rouge et Le Noir and Phedre in French class,explaining later that I had a “marvelous capacity,” butthat I thought “comme un papillon”— constant energyand no direction. The class readings, she said, were tohelp force my mind through the material.

I have kept these observations close at hand, to this day,and they have helped me determine how to channel aconvention-resistant nature and short attention span tocreate opportunities. On the large scale, I have learnedthat I need to be perpetually overbooked to stay produc-tive but, in handling many commitments, I must pursuethem in small doses to stay committed. Practically, theyhave taught me that I will be scatterbrained but thatthings will get done, if I accept that I have to wait untilthe inspiration strikes.

But my mother’s comment is the most trenchant: “Weused to be so concerned about how much time youspent B.S.’ing your way out of jams—and now you getpaid for it!”

I always knew I’d make her proud.

Sean McVity ’80

52 Milton Magazine

In•Sight

53 Milton Magazine

In November 2004, Milton Academy students put up Seussicalthe Musical. Co-conceived by Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flahertyand Eric Idle, Seussical combined the works of Dr. Seuss into asingle colorful story. Peter Parisi directed, while Kelli Edwardschoreographed and Ted Whalen served as musical director.Robert St. Laurence ’07 played the Cat in the Hat, aided by 33other cast members who acted, sang and danced their way tostanding ovations.

54 Milton Magazine

OnCentre

“What the Future Will Bring” Inventor, Author and Futurist Delivers Science Lecture

Dr. Ray Kurzweil’s inventionsinclude the first print-to-speechreading machine for the blind,the first flat-bed scanner, thefirst text-to-speech synthesizer,the first omni-font optical char-acter recognition, the first musicsynthesizer that could re-createthe grand piano and otherorchestral instruments, and thefirst large vocabulary speechrecognition.

On December 15, this inventor,author and futurist delivered the 2004 science lecture, “Whatthe Future Will Bring,” in theFitzgibbons Convocation Center.He is the father of Amy Kurzweil’05 and Ethan Kurzweil ’97.

Called “the restless genius” bythe Wall Street Journal and “theultimate thinking machine” byForbes magazine, Dr. Kurzweil’sideas on the future have beentouted by Bill Gates and BillClinton. Time magazine wrote,“Kurzweil’s eclectic career andpropensity of combining sciencewith practical—often humanitar-ian—applications have inspiredcomparisons with ThomasEdison.”

“Most projects fail because thetiming is wrong. Inventionsmust be relevant not only whenthey are conceived; they muststill be relevant when they arecomplete,” Dr. Kurzweil told stu-dents. “I have become an avidstudent of technological trends.”

He talked about the “seductiveand explosive power of exponen-tial growth,” also known asMoore’s Law and noted that theNew York Times first referred tothe World Wide Web in 1993.He explained that technologyalready drives 8 percent of theeconomy and influences most ofthe rest of it; he predicts thatcomputers as we know them willdisappear by 2010, being sup-planted by nanotechnologyembedded in everyday objects.Intelligence, though inherentlyimperfect, will be expandedenormously through fusion withtechnological devices.

“We can know more of thefuture than you think,” Dr.Kurzweil said. “The most perva-sive trend is that the rate ofprogress is increasing,” henoted, adding that scientists,leaders and the public mustweigh the promise versus perilof a changing world, whileacknowledging that progress isunstoppable. Dr. Kurzweilasserts that new technologiesmust be harnessed for thegreater good and not sent under-ground where they cannot bemonitored. He also believes thatvirtual reality will incorporate allof the senses by the year 2030,allowing people to “explorebeing a different person.”

Dr. Kurzweil talked about thebiotechnology revolution—theintersection of biology withinformation technology—pre-dicting that human disease maybe curtailed and human life dra-matically extended in comingdecades. He compared the

human body to a house: Onethat is well-maintained, properlywired and has a sound founda-tion and roof may last indefinite-ly; the same home, if poorlycared for, might disintegrate toosoon.

Dr. Kurzweil has been inductedinto the National Inventors Hall of Fame, received theNational Medal of Technology,the nation’s highest honor intechnology, from PresidentClinton, and received the$500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize,the nation’s largest award ininvention and innovation. Hehas 12 honorary doctorates,seven national and internationalfilm awards and awards fromthree U.S. presidents.

His best-selling book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, WhenComputers Exceed HumanIntelligence, has been publishedin nine languages and wasAmazon’s best-seller in the cate-gories of “Science” and “ArtificialIntelligence.” His most recentbook, coauthored with Dr. TerryGrossman, is Fantastic Voyage:Live Long Enough to Live Forever(fantastic-voyage.net). The bookshares information on how tomaintain optimal health—through aggressive vitamin sup-plementation, exercise, carefuldiet and calorie restriction(shown to keep mice and eldersfrom the Okinawan Islandsyounger longer)—in preparationfor the biotechnology revolutionthat will preserve quality of lifefor many years beyond currentexpectations.

Dr. Kurzweil’s presentation wasfollowed by a question-and-answer session in Straus Library,where Dr. Kurzweil explainedtechnology as an expression ofhuman potential. “We’re notdefined by our limitations,” hesaid. “We’re defined by the factthat we seek to go beyond ourlimitations.

“Power through technologyamplifies creative and destructivetendencies: Two world wars weremade possible by technology.

“I believe that the benefits out-weigh the peril.”

Ray Kurzweil

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55 Milton Magazine

Mr. Millet Honored at MiddlesexLegendary coach and teacherFrancis D. Millet—better knownto generations of Miltonians assimply “Mr. Millet”—receivedMiddlesex’s Henry Cabot Lodge’20 Distinguished AlumniAward. Established in 1993, theaward pays tribute to Middlesexalumni who have brought creditto their alma mater.

“Frank arrived at Middlesex in 1931 and quickly establishedhimself as one of his class’s top scholars,” wrote JimZimmerman, director of devel-opment at Middlesex, in theschool’s alumni magazine.

As a young man at the school,Mr. Millet served as editor of TheAnvil, class president, and playedtennis and squash. In 1942, hecame to Milton, where he hasserved as a teacher, advisor, dor-mitory master, secretary of thefaculty, director of financial aid,director of admission and, ofcourse, as architect of theSchool’s squash program.

Mr. Zimmerman writes, “Frankbegan the formal squash pro-gram at Milton in 1965, and inthe four decades since, he hasbuilt Milton into a regional andnational squash powerhouse.”

Author and Musician James McBride Visits CampusJames McBride, award-winningwriter, composer and saxophon-ist, visited Milton Academy onWednesday, January 12, as the2005 Dr. Martin Luther KingSpeaker. Realistic, insightful andhumorous, Mr. McBride con-nected with students whom heurged to think, to question, toread, and to challenge the ubiq-uitous propaganda.

Drawing on rich life lessons toillustrate his ideas, James sharedhis family life, educational expe-riences and professional musiccareer with the students. Mr.McBride’s memoir, The Color ofWater, which remained on theNew York Times Bestseller Listfor two years, has been translat-ed into more than a dozen lan-guages, and has become anAmerican classic read in collegesand high schools. It is the auto-biographical account of hismother, a white Jewish womanfrom Poland who raised 12 blackchildren in New York City andsent each to college.

Noting that Martin Luther King’skey relevance to the world was asa moral standard of excellence,Mr. McBride helped studentsunderstand the power of MartinLuther King in his world. Heencouraged students to “learnhow to fail,” as well as to suc-ceed—in other words, to “growup in ways that are normal.”That said, he told students thatthe world is depending upontheir ability to think, ask ques-tions and respond. “Wheredecency lives is with every singleone of you. It’s not about com-mittees,” he said. “If you want tochange the world, you must do itindividually, and then the moralcollective moves forward.”

James McBride is a former staffwriter for the Boston Globe, theWashington Post, and People. Hiswork has appeared in many pub-lications, including the New YorkTimes and Rolling Stone. He is

the recipient of the 1997Anisfield Wolf Book Award, aswell as awards for his work as acomposer in musical theatre,including the American Arts andLetters Richard Rodgers Award,the ASCAP Richard RodgersHorizons Award, and theAmerican Music TheatreFestival’s Stephen SondheimAward.

He has written songs for AnitaBaker, Grover Washington Jr.,Gary Burton, Silver BurdettMusic Textbooks, and for thePBS television character“Barney.” James also conducts a12-piece R&B jazz band. He hasa bachelor’s degree from OberlinCollege, having studied composi-tion at the Oberlin Conservatoryof Music. He holds a master’sdegree in journalism fromColumbia University and hasreceived an honorary doctoratein humane letters fromWhitman College and theCollege of New Jersey.

Mr. McBride’s newest book,Miracle at St. Anna, which theBaltimore Sun called a “searingly,soaringly beautiful novel,” hasbeen dubbed “a lyrical, touchingfable about the miraculouspower of love” by PublishersWeekly. The book, already climb-ing the bestseller list, is the storyof a black American soldier whobefriends a 6-year-old Italian boyduring World War II.

Milton likewise recognized Mr.Millet’s civility, character andexcellence—and his uncannyability to model those behaviorsfor students—when he wasawarded the Milton Medal in2002.

“More than six decades of distin-guished service to education isan inspiring achievement,”writes Mr. Zimmerman. “Eventhough his service has been rendered at a rival school, andeven though many of thosesquash victories have come atMiddlesex’s expense over theyears, the school honors hisextraordinary commitment toyoung people, to education andto a more civil society.”

Frank D. Millet

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56 Milton Magazine

An Odyssey: Teaching Epic Poetry and Essay-Writing to Eighth Graders Of mortal creatures, all thatbreathe and move,

earth bears none frailer thanmankind. What man

believes in woe to come, so long asvalor

and tough knees are supplied himby the gods?

—Odysseus to Amphinomos in Homer’s Odyssey

Ask anyone what Homer’sOdyssey is about, and the initialreply might include, “a journey,”or “a quest.”

The metaphor of the quest alsoresonates with the ancient epicpoem’s place in the Grade 8 cur-riculum at Milton: Using RobertFitzgerald’s 1961 translation, students examine the poem’slyricism, structure, meaning andcultural significance. FromOctober through January, theOdyssey unit is a major compo-nent of the eighth-grade curriculum.

Kim Walker is in her third yearof teaching Middle SchoolEnglish at Milton. “When Icame, I was surprised that theOdyssey was on the syllabus. It’sdense. It’s an ancient epic. It hasadvanced vocabulary,” she says.

In the beginning, students gaincomfort with ancient Greek cul-ture by focusing on gods andgoddesses. (Each studentbecomes an expert on a deity ofchoice.) They play games, win-ning “nectar” or “ambrosia.”They talk about format and char-acter development; they drama-tize the poem; in groups, theytackle study questions; and theytalk about modern-day nods toHomer’s classic: They watch, forexample, the Coen brothers’ ver-sion of the tale, Brother, WhereArt Thou, comparing its plot toits inspiration.

Kim says that one of the mosteffective ways for eighth-gradestudents “to get” this material is

by acting it out. The exerciseforces them to make decisionsabout intent and to wrestle with perplexing passages:Portraying an action necessi-tates, and sometimes bolsters,basic comprehension.

Also fascinating to students arethe figures that emerge duringOdysseus’s journey: Charybdis,Kalypso and the Cyclops.

“I really liked to watch the char-acters change,” says eighth-grad-er Kate Davidson. “When thepoem starts, everyone is very dif-ferent than when it ends, andyou see new sides to everyone. Itis an intense study of how peo-ple react under different circum-stances, especially when youthrow gods and weird creaturesinto the mix.”

The Odyssey bundles the ingredi-ents of a great story—love, war,adventure, betrayal, hideous vil-lains—and Kim says that stu-dents enjoy these lures, but thattheir intellectual experience goesdeeper than simple fascinationwith Penelope’s loyalty or curios-ity about exactly what the lotus-eaters consume.

“Trying to figure out the plot ormeaning of one book, or evenpassage, is hard to do because ofthe ancient Greek dialect,” sayseighth-grader Alec Seymour.“It’s kind of like deciphering aforeign language with only a lit-tle bit of prior skill. But whenyou finish the poem, you have amuch better understanding ofnot only Greek culture, but alsothe English language.”

“I love anything and everythingto do with classical Greece andRome,” says eighth-grader SarahLoucks. “Along with reading thepoem, we got to review ancientGreek mythology and history,which was also a lot of fun.”

“The students really feel confi-dent, proud and privileged,” Kimsays. “They work very closelywith specific passages. Theypush through a challenging text.They keep at it, and they excel.

“They do personal interpretationas well as oral work,” she adds.“We also ask them to draft [notin verse] their own book of theepic, filling in where they’veidentified gaps in the action.”

“Now I look at poetry not just asa form of writing or art,” sayseighth-grader Dylan Tedaldi, “butalso as a way to communicate.”

En medias res, Emily Law, whoalso teaches eighth-gradeEnglish, found her studentsstumbling over the text’s chronol-ogy, which is not straightforward.She asked students to illustratethe main action, then postedtheir creations around the room, in chronological order, forreference.

Emily and Kim say that studentsare quick to identify subtletiesabout race, religion and culturein the text. When a student doesstruggle, Kim says that thatmakes their eventual break-through in understanding—through visual representation,acting or in brainstorming forexam essay-writing—all themore remarkable.

The Odyssey unit was developedin the 1980s by former Englishdepartment faculty LauraArmstrong and longtime facultyNan Lee, Elaine Apthorp andRick Hardy, current Englishdepartment chair.

Alexander Moffett, Grade 8, as Odysseus

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Included in the unit is a closereading and comparison of theOdyssey to Barbara Kingsolver’s1988 novel, The Bean Trees, inwhich a young woman leavesPittman County, Kentucky, todiscover her place in a globalcommunity and to learn to trustand be trusted by others.

In addition to close textual analy-ses and comprehension, compe-tent comparative essay-writing isa primary goal of the unit. Exampreparation includes strategizingessay structure.

“Let’s talk about transitions [in your essays],” Kim tells herstudents. “Transitions allow youto hold your reader’s hand andtake him or her to the next paragraph.”

In preparation for continuingacademic challenges in theUpper School, students learn toidentify potential essay topicsand list what to do before theybegin writing a timed essay:know the question; make a quickoutline; understand the value ofa strong entrance and exit; bal-ance detail, while rememberingto manage time.

“Reading the Odyssey is like atreasure hunt,” says eighth-grad-er Melissa Mittelman. “Not onlyare you looking for the culturaland era imprints, but you arealso working to follow the storyand catch details.”

“In their textual analyses, stu-dents begin to think more abouttheir identities as well as thecharacters’,” Kim says. When students begin to see rawhumanity wrapped in verse—when Penelope fends off hersuitors or when Athena com-pares Odysseus to Telemachus,“measuring [him] with hisfather,” for example—studentsbegin to grasp and appreciate theuniversality of great literature.

Heather Sullivan

Literary Analysis: good readers, confident thinkers, sharp writers How the Lower School builds a culture that reveres books

In his reading journal, MichaelChar of Grade 6 recently wrotesome pointed criticism of authorGeorgia Byng’s writing style.

“Georgia Byng included so manysimiles in her story ‘Molly MoonStops the World,’ that I felt like adrowning man being thrown a bot-tle of water. (Oops! It’s catchingon.) The similes in the book werevery good ones. However, becausethe similes were so long anddetailed I would forget what washappening in the story. The follow-ing quote is an example of a good,but long simile, ‘The world was soquiet… No traffic, no music, novacuum cleaners, no lawnmowers.Just silence…Then, suddenly as ifthe pause button on the world’svideo player had been released,everything started again.’ It’s agreat description, but after readingit I totally forgot what was happen-ing in the story.”

A sophisticated critic, Michaelcomes by his skill honestly:Along with his Lower Schoolclassmates, he’s been analyzingauthors’ work since Kindergarten.

“I want students to understandthat authors make lots of choic-es, and as they read, to thinkabout what choices an authorhas made. I want them to knowthat a book didn’t spring upwhole.” Connie Dodes, sixth-grade literature teacher, explainsthat the link between learning toread well and to write well isessential. Students’ awareness ofhow authors achieve effects withtheir writing comes into play asthey themselves write. Conniehelps them think of authors asmentors. “For instance, whenI’m asking a student to stretchout a moment of tension in herwriting, I ask her, ‘How didMildred Taylor do it?’”

As a major component of theirliterature program, sixth-graderswrite weekly in their readingjournals. They receive their jour-nals during the last week of fifthgrade. A letter from Connieinside the front cover explainsher expectations of them inGrade 6; the inside back coverincludes a list of suggested top-ics for their journal entries. “Arethe characters believable? Inwhat ways does the author letyou know what the charactersare like? Did the lead of the book‘grab’ you and pull you in to thestory? Why?”

Sixth-graders choose their own“independent reading” and mustread at least a half hour nightly.Either Connie or Joan Eisenberg,Lower School librarian, respondsin writing to each of their weeklyentries, “prodding them,” asConnie says, “to dig deeper, to

A sixth-grade section during library period, one of the many moments to share observations about their reading

58 Milton Magazine

think about literature in newways.” These exchanges allowthem, as Joan says “to recom-mend other books, to build theirsense of reading as a special,personal pleasure.”

Joan could be considered theLower School’s secret ingredientin the yearslong cultivation ofreaders and reverence for books.“Library” is a full class period, asis art and science, and Joan usesher frequent connections withchildren, from Kindergarten on,to introduce them to books;build habits of perusing andchecking books out of thelibrary; share ideas, reactionsand recommendations with eachother. “Over the years, I learnabout different students’ tastesin books. I have time to talk withthem about their reading.Sometimes I work and work andwork to just hit it, to find thetype of book that hooks a certainstudent to reading. I often beginclass with a pile of books: newbooks, books on a theme, booksyou shouldn’t miss. If one of thechildren has read one, then I askhim or her to talk about it.When they hear one another’srecommendations, they talkabout their own reactions towhat others have already read.”

You don’t have to wait until sixthgrade to learn that your opinionabout a book matters. Third-graders stage a Milton Academyversion of the Caldecott Medalcontest, choosing the book theythink ought to garner the award.Joan and some of the LowerSchool teachers decide which sixpicture books deserve considera-tion for a Caldecott Medal (theCaldecott Medal honors illustra-tion). Third-graders, who havebrought home a book a night for“home reading” over the courseof several years, have developeda solid critical eye. “I ask them,”Joan says, “to make as persua-

sive an argument as they possi-bly can for the book they thinkshould win; and I ask them tolisten carefully, because some-one may persuade them tochange their opinions.”

A favorite student event is thegrand debate that precedes stu-dents’ casting their votes for theMassachusetts Children’s BookAward. Of the 25 books nomi-nated by teachers, librarians and children, Milton’s fifth- andsixth-graders must read five, and can try to convince otherstudents that their analysis of aprize-winner should prevail.Only children may vote; theirvotes count. They come armedwith opinions, notes and exam-ples and defend their choices.From Joan’s and Connie’s pointof view, their analyses and obser-vations are remarkable: Is anidea “worthy”? Is a characterbelievable? Is an outcome realis-tic? Whether children are stillthinking concretely, or havemoved toward more abstractthinking, they all believe them-selves to be good thinkers on the level playing field of literarycriticism.

Near the end of every year,Connie asks her students towrite about how they havechanged as readers. Their ownwords, she says, testify to theirgrowth and increased skill. “Idon’t just think about plot any-more, I think about charactersand suspense and ideas and rela-tionships,” one will say. “I don’tjust read adventure stories any-more; now I’m reading lots ofdifferent kinds of books, and I’m

reading more challengingbooks,” is another commonrefrain. When a student stopsJoan as she passes in a hallwayand says, “Oh, I just have to tellyou how much I loved thisbook,” she’s thrilled. The LowerSchool traditions, activities, andcurricula mindfully and explicit-ly build a culture of readers—and excellent critics.

Cathleen Everett

Sixth-grade book critic Michael Char follows up on a comment.

Joan Eisenberg (left), Lower School librarian, and Connie Dodes,Grade 6 faculty member

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Alumni AuthorsRecently published works

Such Is Life in theTropics: 25 Years inCosta Rica; 40Anecdotes

Such Is Life in the Tropics(Litografía e Imprenta LIL,2004) by Roberta Hayes deMacaya ’56 is a collection ofshort tales of an Americanwoman who lives in Costa Ricawith her Costa Rican husbandand their children. Over 25years, they live in Puntarenas,Barrio Jimenez and Escazu.

Arranged by place, relative, ani-mal or trip, Roberta’s charmingvignettes capture reflectivemoments, the beauty and mys-tery of place, or ably characterizeher pushy mother-in-law whoreferred to Roberta as “the moth-er of my grandchildren” and fedthem doughnuts instead of thewhole grains favored by Roberta.

In “Barney and the Angels,”Roberta shares the momentwhen her 13-year-old cockerspaniel, Barney, is put to sleep.Worms from the tropical torsalofly have invaded his head andhis eyes, and Barney is weakwith the fight. After consultingwith her son, who also lovedBarney, Roberta decided to gowith the vet’s advice: “I gave theyes signal and while she [the vet]readied the long needle I tried tocomfort Barney by putting myhand over his nose, smell being

one remaining sense. I strokedhis luxurious coat because hecould also still feel. I was con-stricted by sobs, watching theneedle go in. I felt that solid,male heart beating so strongly, aslow, steady pound. Then therhythm sped up – boom, boom,boom, boom, and one last boom.Silence. Inertia. Death. And timestopped. And my heart died abit.”

Her final two of 40 tales—oneentitled, “I Never Wore BlueJeans”—center on herself.Roberta reflects how missingmore than two decades of main-stream culture in her homecountry feels. “My world is thecows peering into the bedroomwindow when I open the cur-tains, or two-hour lunches, afterpeeling and chopping and sear-ing and boiling…I seem to havetotally missed the era of bluejeans, never having worn them.”

Such Is Life in the Tropics is available in the United States by emailing Roberta atroberta_hayes@yahoo.com.

Chatter

In his first book, Chatter(Random House, 2005), PatrickKeefe ’94 reveals how, and onwhom, our government eaves-drops. He investigates what hasbeen hushed up by politiciansand overlooked by the Americanmedia. He also explores whetherthe interception of communica-tion is effective for predictingand preventing future attacksand to what degree it threatensour privacy.

“Chatter represents a timely andimportant contribution to the lit-erature of eavesdropping andcode breaking, and an extraordi-nary introduction to a worldabout which most Americansknow very little,” writes DavidKahn, author of The Codebreakers.

In the late 1990s, when Patrickwas a graduate student inEngland, he heard stories aboutan eavesdropping network led bythe United States that spannedthe planet. The system, knownas Echelon, allowed America andits allies to intercept the privatephone calls and emails of civil-ians and governments aroundthe world. Taking the mystery ofEchelon as his point of depar-ture, Patrick explores the natureand context of communicationsinterception, drawing togetherstrands of history, investigativereporting and riveting anecdotes.The result is part detective story,part travelwriting, part essay onparanoia and secrecy in a digitalage.

Chatter begins at Menwith Hill,a secret eavesdropping stationcovered in mysterious, gargantu-an golf balls, in England’sYorkshire moors. From there,the narrative moves quickly toanother American spy stationhidden in the Australian out-back; from the intelligencebureaucracy in Washington to

the European Parliament inBrussels; from an abandonedNational Security Agency base inthe mountains of North Carolinato the remote Indian Oceanisland of Diego Garcia.

As Patrick hunts the truth ofcontemporary surveillance byintelligence agencies, heunearths little-known informa-tion and introduces us to arogue’s gallery of characters. Wemeet a former British eavesdrop-per who now listens in on theUnited States Air Force forsport; an intelligence translatorwho risked prison to reveal anAmerican operation to spy onthe United Nations SecurityCouncil; a former member ofthe Senate committee on intelli-gence who says that oversight isso bad, a lot of senators only siton the committee for the travel.

“It is absolutely thrilling to seesomeone as young, as compe-tent, and as gifted as PatrickKeefe taking on the secret worldof Washington,” writes investiga-tive journalist Seymour Hersh.

Provocative, sometimes funny,and alarming without beingalarmist, Chatter is a journeythrough a bizarre and shadowyworld with vast implications forour security as well as our priva-cy. It is also an impressive non-fiction debut.

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The Flame Keepers

The Flame Keepers (Hyperion,2004) by Ned Handy ’40 is thefascinating first-person accountof a World War II soldier’s cap-ture and imprisonment in Stalag17, one of Germany’s most notori-ous prisoner-of-war compounds.

Ned enlisted at age 19, fourmonths after Pearl Harbor. Shotdown on his bomb group’s ninthmission against the Nazis inApril 1944, he survived a year inStalag 17.

In the infamous Nazi prisoncamp, Ned soon led an escapeteam determined to tunnel tofreedom. Along with the unfor-gettable comrades he describes,Ned worked relentlessly formonths on a tunnel that was toprove instrumental in saving thelives of four fugitives sought bythe Gestapo. One of those fugi-tives would become the onlyAmerican ever to escape perma-nently from Stalag 17.

The Flame Keepers is a vivid first-hand account of an Americansoldier’s experience as a prisonerof war in Nazi Germany and apoignant portrait of the POWswho worked to survive withinthe wire and their German cap-tors. Illustrated with originalphotographs taken inside thecamp from a smuggled cameraand published for the first timein the trade press, The FlameKeepers recounts one of WorldWar II’s great untold stories.

At war’s end, the GI Bill put Nedthrough MIT. Now Ned is seniorvice commander of the Stalag 17Association.

Ned co-wrote the book withKemp Battle, an author and acontributor to the Today show,who serves on the board of theAcademy of American Poets.

Soul City

In Soul City (Little, Brown,2004) Touré ’89 introduces ablack utopia whose legacy andfuture are on the line.

When journalist CadillacJackson’s train arrived at SoulCity, Cadillac “smoothed off intoa new life.” Cadillac is sent byChocolate City Magazine to coverSoul City’s mayoral election, buthis real intent is to “render SoulCity honestly” in a book thatwould establish his preeminenceas a writer. Cadillac Jackson falls in love with MahoganySunshine, the DJ in the BiscuitShop—as well as with Soul Cityitself—and works to reconcilethe black culture he has experi-enced thus far with life withinSoul City. Soul City was “found-ed by escaped slaves who couldfly, a miraculous place whereflowers grow out of the concrete,music is revered, and ailmentsare healed by doting grandmoth-ers rather than doctors. Accord-ing to Soul City legend, theescaped slaves blessed the citi-zens to live lives confined only

by the boundaries of theirdreams,” says Vanessa Bushwriting for the American LibraryAssociation.

In Soul City Touré draws on hislived experience with imagina-tive skill and expert word-smithing to flesh out the hum-ming reality and magic of SoulCity. Cadillac Jackson, for exam-ple, “checked into his hotel, the Copasetic on Cool Street,then walked from Nappy Lane to Gravy Ave to CornbreadBoulevard. The sidewalks wereforty to fifty feet wide and thestreets were abuzz with all-agemini-festivals of hair braiding,marble shooting, bubble blow-ing, puddle stomping, roller-skating, faithful preaching,‘God’s coming!’ mommiesstrolling, babies toddling, gro-ceries spilling lots of flirting and gossip flying. On BookooBoulevard the Vinylmobile creptby offering old albums for a fewdollars and children pouredfrom homes to chase it as chil-dren elsewhere chase ice creamtrucks. The Washeteria onBadass Ave had its own DJ soyou could dance while you dried.And it made perfect sense thatin a world where bad meansgood, the traffic signals usedgreen for stop and red for go.”

The mayoral race in Soul Cityhinges on the mayor’s primefunction, which is to DJ for thetown (speakers in the city side-walks are connected to a centralturntable at the mayor’s man-sion). “This year’s ballot consistsof the Jazz Party’s ColtraneJones, the Hiphop Nation’sWillie Bobo, and the Soul MusicParty’s Cool Spreadlove.” Whilethe mayor of the last 12 years,Emperor Jones, had integratedvarious sounds and played a bal-anced play list, the winner wouldstick to his party’s musicalgenre, and could therefore

potentially “unbalance the moodof the town and lead to all sortsof catastrophes.” Hence a criticalhistorical moment looms in SoulCity.

Critics have described Touré’swork as an “allegory on blackculture filled with magic realismand biting social commentary.”They have commented on hisability to satirize stereotypesthrough inventive hyperbole.Touré capably translates hisawareness of black culture, andparticularly music, into a talethat envelops readers. AsCadillac Jackson discovers muchabout himself, we join him inlearning more about humannature and the meaning of racein America.

Touré is a contributing editor atRolling Stone, an MTV personali-ty, and a CNN regular. His workhas appeared in The New Yorker,the New York Times, and manyother publications. He attendedthe Columbia MFA program andlives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.Since his first book, The PortablePromised Land, was published,Touré has read his work andjoined creative writing classes atMilton several times.

Alumni AuthorsRecently published works

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Sports

Coach Wendy Holden helps Milton girls’ hockey team “outplay themselves”Wendy Soutsos Holden is headcoach of Milton Academy’s girls’varsity hockey team. She comes toMilton after a season as assistantcoach at Middlesex School. For the past four years, Wendy hasbeen a head coach with CharlesRiver Girls’ Hockey, and has ledher team to the U.S.A. HockeyNational Championships in two ofthose four years. During the sum-mers, she is the on-ice director forMilton Girls’ Hockey Camp.

Holden attended DartmouthCollege, where she was defensemanand captain for the varsity women’shockey team. She was namedTeam Defensive MVP in 1999 andECAC All Star in 1997. Prior toDartmouth, Holden spent her highschool years on the ice as defense-man and captain for Taft School.

Where did it all start?Coach Holden began her hockeycareer at the age of 4, battlingher three older siblings on herhometown rink in Winnetka,Illinois. During her early years,Wendy says she was fortunate tobe on the receiving end of greatcoaching. “When I was 8, myfirst all-star team was all boys,”Wendy recalls. “My coach wentout of his way to help me likethe sport, and taught me not tobe intimidated by the male-dom-inated league.” At age 11 Wendywas greatly influenced by herSquirt League coach. At thetime, she doubted her talent; hercoach was the person who gaveher the confidence to learn fromher mistakes. During the courseof that year, Wendy remembers“jumping up two teams.”

What is the secret to motivating your team?This year, Coach Holden hasproven that she can motivateplayers to perform past theirexpected potential. Wendy calls

it “maxing out players.” Whenasked her secret, Wendy says, “I emphasize that hockey is aseries of one-on-one battles. I tell the girls to focus on oneperiod at a time, to do their jobon the ice, and to have faith thattheir teammates are doing theirjob.” She adds, “Every team isdifferent, but when coachinghigh school girls, the mostimportant element is to makesure they feel confident.”

What makes an athlete a great teammate?“There is no one answer to thatquestion,” remarks Wendy.“Different players contribute indifferent ways. Some playerslead by example, some playersencourage others on the ice, andsome players bring the teamtogether off the ice.” Each type

of player, she says, brings aunique asset to a team, and eachone is important to the team’ssuccess.

What are the strengths ofMilton’s girls’ hockey program?“The most obvious is the verysupportive network of parents,”says Wendy. “Milton Academyhas some of the greatest die-hard fans. I believe the programalso has the benefit of attractinggood players, because the girlsget along really well. The teamconsists of players with greatpersonalities, which makes iteasy to work together as a team.”

How do you help players balancetheir academic and athletic lives?“There is no question that academic work comes first, andstudy also comes before prac-tice,” Wendy says. “Athletics simply enhances their education

in terms of work ethic and time management. Playing asport doesn’t allow you to procrastinate.”

How is the team doing this year?“I’m very pleased at how the sea-son is going,” Wendy says. “Weplay in a tough league, but Ibelieve as a team we’re exceed-ing expectations, and our indi-vidual players are exceedingtheir expectations of themselves.I guess you can say we’re out-playing ourselves.

“As for next year,” Wendy says,“the systems are in place, and Ihave a clear idea of what I wantthe team to do. With the excep-tion of one graduating senior, weshould have a lot of returningtalent. With a few new playersand a larger team, we’ll be ableto build up a bigger bench.”

Wendy Holden, girls’ varsity ice hockey coach

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A Hat Trick Athlete for MiltonThe big game of this year’s footballseason—Milton vs. Nobles—fellvictim to New England weather.Athletes from both teams tried toclear six inches of snow from theplaying field so the highly antici-pated match could occur. Thestorm proved too strong. The gamewas rescheduled, and time height-ened the drama.

Milton hit first and hit hard; theMustangs threw for a 45-yardtouchdown. The wide receiver whoput the points on the board wasnumber 2, Ryan Walsh. It was thebeginning of what Ryan calls hismost memorable game. Playingboth wide receiver on offense andsafety on defense, Ryan finished the afternoon with three receptionsfor a total of 85 yards and twotouchdowns, and forced a Noblesfumble in the second quarter. TheMustangs stampeded Nobles in a28–0 victory.

Make no mistake about it, RyanWalsh loves football, but thissenior from Milton, Massachu-setts, does more than catch apigskin. Ryan excels in threesports: football, hockey andlacrosse.

Ryan downplays his contribu-tions to these sports and pointsto his teammates as the reasonfor his teams’ successes. Why?Ryan Walsh’s favorite aspect ofsports is the team.

“I always avoided sports thatfocus on individual perform-ance,” says Ryan. “I love sportsthat rely on teamwork and team-mates working together as one.”Ryan believes that the trustgained and given between play-ers is the most important ele-ment in athletics, and ultimatelyis the key to winning. “You needto be able to sacrifice for yourteam and your teammates inorder to win,” says Ryan. “Coach[Paul] Cannata, for example, isalways telling us to block the

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hockey uniforms to honor hisfather—a Boston firefighter withLadder 17.

Ryan is an athlete, a scholar anda true gentleman.

Greg White

shots with our bodies and to‘take one for the team.’ That sortof selfless sacrifice is whatmakes a team great.”

Ryan Walsh knew at a young agethat he wanted to be a part ofMilton Academy’s athletic pro-gram. His older brother, MikeWalsh ’01, played hockey forMilton and, like most youngerbrothers, Ryan wanted to followin his brother’s footsteps. Heentered the Academy in Grade 4and spent most of his free timepracticing and playing the threesports he loves most.

Ryan believes that every coach atMilton played an important rolein his development as a player.“The coaches at Milton show upevery day and give everythingthey have,” Ryan says. “They areable to respond to their playersand they know how to make usplay to our potential.”

Ryan cares more about hisfriends on the team than he doesabout his own accomplishments.He wears the number 2 on hisfootball jersey to honor his olderbrother, who wore that numberbefore him, and he carries thenumber 17 on his lacrosse and

Ryan Walsh ’05

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Don’t Miss

• John Noble M.D. ’55, speaker at the Dare To Be TrueLuncheon, relating his experiences as a smallpoxeradication officer with the United States PublicHealth Service and as a member of a physician teamworking to control tuberculosis in Russian commu-nities, hospitals and prisons. His work developinghealth programs to improve care in Boston’s innercity, has led to his recent appointment by theAmerican College of Physicians to serve as Commis-sioner on the Board of the Joint Commission ofAccreditation of Health Care Organizations.

• Provocative and energizing classes for graduates andfriends led by Milton faculty

• Singular events on campus Friday evening for eachreunion class

• A chance to talk with Head of School RobinRobertson and trustees about Milton’s future

• Saturday lunch in Milton’s newly opened residentialhouses: Centre and Norris

• Panel discussions about Milton athletics today andhow admission works at Milton

• Topflight student musical and dramatic performanc-es in Kellner Performing Arts Center

For the latest reunion information or to register, go tothe “alumni” pages at www.milton.edu, or call the alum-ni relations office at 617-898-2421 (Kathleen Kelly,director) or 617-898-2385 (Laura Barrow, assistantdirector).

Make Plans to Return for

Graduates Weekend May 13–14, 2005

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Class Notes

1935Rose Weld Baldwin enjoysreturning to Milton to attendclasses and events with hergranddaughter Naja Baldwin ‘05.She believes the academic pro-gram is vastly more demandingthan when she attended andwonders if she could have han-dled the present curriculum!

1937Rebeckah DuBois Glazebrooklives on Cape Cod during thesummer and in Osprey, Florida,in the winter. Surgery on her leftfoot in 2001 has left her in awheelchair. She enjoys her fivegrandchildren coming to WoodsHole each July and watching thecousins get to know each other.

1938On a recent trip to Cleveland,Marjorie Handy Nichols recon-nected with Hathaway Houseroommate Barbara BrownWebster. The two correspondedonly occasionally and had notseen each other since gradua-tion. Despite the long separa-tion, she writes, “We met,hugged, kissed and talked non-stop for two hours as though itwere yesterday…just shows howdeep and binding those Miltondays were!”

1941Corrine Kernan Sevigny sadlyreports that her husband Pierredied at the age of 87. He taughtcourses until two years ago atConcordia University, and manyof his students have been won-derful in their support.

1943Alice Hall van Buren finds beinga volunteer in the guidancedepartment at the Cape CodRegional Technical High Schoolvery rewarding, and does a lotwith her music. Her husband isnot well, but her children andgrandchildren are very helpful.

Stephen Washburn celebratedhis 80th birthday with a squaredance at his house in Belmontwith extended family and oldfriends. Stephen rememberssimilar dances held in theSaltonstall Gymnasium when atMilton. His oldest guest wasPete Fuller ’42 and the youngestdancer was Kate Fuller, daughterof Pete Fuller Jr. ’75.

1946J. M. Burry and his wife Helgaare spending more time at theirplace in the San Juan Islandsand cruising in their boat upfrom Port Handy to Victoria,British Columbia.

1948Lansing Lamont and his wifeAda celebrated their 50th wed-ding anniversary this year. After publishing his sixth book,No Twilight About Me, in 1999,Lansing is at work on a jour-nalist’s memoir. He has 12 grandchildren, one of whom(Christopher Lamont, Class III,son of Douglas R. Lamont ’73) is currently a day student atMilton.

1949Bernard J. Florin was happy tovisit Milton, where he “spenttwo of the best years of my life,right after World War II (1947–1949).” He hopes some of his grandchildren will spendsome time here, especially withall the developments since hegraduated!

Thayer Fremont-Smith reportsthat he is happily retired as atrial judge and has been happilymarried for 44 years. He hasfour wonderful sons and sevengrandchildren.

1951Rebecca Faxon Knowles and herhusband Bob have a new condoin Yarmouth, Maine. She says,“Come see us and take a spin onour bright red lobster boat!”

1952Arthur Harris became professoremeritus at University ofPennsylvania in March 2004.He welcomed grandtwins AerinRees and Christopher BrooksHarris in September 2004.

1954Marie Iselin Doebler and herhusband Joe returned from agrand African trip that tookthem from Cape Town toZambia, Botswana and Namibia.

1955Pricilla Rand Baker attended theannual convention of the Societyof American Travel Writers(SATW) in Switzerland. Afterserving on the board of directorsof SATW in the 1980s, she isnow chairman of the organiza-tion’s Senior Advisory Council.

1956Katrina Carter Cameron and herhusband Duncan live in FortBragg, California, where theyperform locally and tour withtheir Puppetarium Theatre. Alsoknown as Papa and MamaGeppetto, the Camerons writeand perform their own librettos,as well as classic stories. Katrina,an experienced Off-Broadwaycomposer, sculpts, paints, buildspuppets and writes music for alltheir shows. Duncan, formerly atApple, builds stages, handlesaudio and lighting, and designsrod-puppets.

Judith Chute and her husbandPaul Cifrino had another greattrip to Costa Rica last spring,where they were hosted byRoberta Hayes de Macaya ’56,the author of Such Is Life in theTropics, a book of short stories.

Betsy Reece Hall returned towork after eight months ofretirement. She is executivedirector of the associates of theBoston Public Library. The asso-ciates work to “expand the roleof the Library in the intellectuallife of the City,” which they dothrough literary events, fundraisers and community outreach.On the personal front, her chil-dren continue to give her joy—Tony is a film editor in LosAngeles and Lisa, in Maine, hasher own jewelry business. Lisa’s

Having not seen each other since graduation, Marjorie Handy Nichols ’38 andher Hathaway House roommate, Barbara Brown Webster ’38, reunited recentlyin Cleveland.

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daughter, Matilda, born Augustof 2002, is a constant delight.“My best to everyone and let’sget ready for 2006!”

Ann Crockett Stever traveled toNew Zealand in January 2004 toattend a world gathering ofQuakers. Three hundred peoplecame together to consider howtheir faith informs their lives,both individually and as groupsworking for peace and justicelocally, nationally and interna-tionally. With her partnerDorsey, Ann explored gorgeousNew Zealand, especially thesouthern half of the SouthIsland.

1957Keith Brodie, retired from DukeUniversity, continues as presi-dent emeritus, working withchief residents in psychiatry atDuke Hospital. His book on the university presidency will be published by Praeger thissummer.

Helen Wilmerding Milner losther husband Michael in August2003. Her first grandson, Miles,was born two weeks later. Shealternates babysitting for Miles(1) and his cousins Caroline (9)and Brooke (7). She was inLondon for daughter Angela’swedding on New Year’s Eve. Shethen went on a cruise to the

Seychelles, Maldives andColombo before settling to golfand garden in Princeton, NewJersey.

1963Henry Beyer continues in thebanking business but is increas-ingly frustrated as new laws andregulations make for less effi-ciency and productivity.

1967Linn Jackson and a businesspartner have taken over Educa-tor’s Ally, a 30-year-old businessthat specializes in placing teach-ers in Independent Schools.They operate primarily in thegreater New York area, but arebeginning to operate with a fewboarding schools as well.

1968Albion Fletcher Jr. designs jetengine control systems, mostlyfor helicopter engines, includingboth contenders for the newPresidential helicopter. He alsoorganized a group that defeateda change to city government inBraintree.

Richard Wilson finished secondin his class in the 2004Singlehanded Transatlantic Raceaboard The Great American II.He created a school programonline and in a newspaperwhere experts from a variety of

fields write online and answerchildren’s questions. His pro-gram reaches fifty-thousandkindergarteners through twelfth-graders.

1969In 1993, after working in ruraldevelopment in Papua NewGuinea, the Solomon Islands,and Tanzania, Roland Lubett andwife Tandy settled in Armindale,New South Wales, Australia, inan area ironically called NewEngland. Roland founded theLast-First Networks (www.last-first.net) as a resource center fordevelopment fieldworkers. Tandyworks for the Aboriginal com-munity in Armindale. Rolandand Tandy invite Milton travelersin Australia to stop by.

1972Cynthia Campbell Kimmeywonders, “At fifty years old, twophysicians, two teenagesons…where did the time go?”

1975Richard Barbour, his wifeCharlotte and their daughtersRachel (16) and Annie (13) haverelocated to Charleston, SouthCarolina, after two years inMaryland. Richard has a newposition as senior engineer withScientific Research Corporation,providing support to Navy ship-building and modification.

1976Peter McKillop recently returnedfrom 15 years in Asia as a corre-spondent for Newsweek in Tokyoand Hong Kong and as a bankerfor J.P. Morgan. He is now onhis newest foreign assignmentin Charlotte, North Carolina,where he oversees communica-tion for Bank of America’s con-sumer bank.

Julia Simonds loves the operat-ing room and continues hernursing education. She teachesat Cannon on the weekends andat Blue Hill some mornings.Coming full circle, she helpedcoach the Milton ski team lastyear and hopes to do it againthis year. Her mother, JeanHendrie Simonds ’41, loves hernew house. She recently recov-ered from a hip fracture sus-tained by chasing squirrels offthe deck, which she has learnednot to do anymore!

1977Elizabeth Burns reports that RedSox Nation spreads to the Mid-west and beyond!

1978After 181⁄2 years together, OliverRadford married his partnerSteve Perry on June 14, 2004, ina small ceremony in Cambridge.In early September, family andfriends, including classmatesMaggie Jackson and JanetAuchinclosss Pyne, joined thecouple at their Gloucester housefor a memorable reception.

1979Sarah Felton and her husbandMark Manasas are thrilled andvery proud to announce theadoption of their daughter ElizaMei Xian Manasas. Eliza wasborn May 9, 2003, and herForever Day is July 26, 2004.She is a happy, healthy toddlerwho is keeping her parentsextremely busy!

David Marcus is a renewableenergy investor in West Newton.

Jim Sitrick and his wife Claudiaare pleased—and overwhelmed—to welcome Thane DanielSitrick to their family. He wasborn August 4 in Papillion,Nebraska. Jim would love to hearfrom former classmates at

Donald Duncan (former faculty), Henry (Harry) Norweb III ’66, TedSouthworth ’66 and Albert Norweb enjoy the wedding day of Harry’s daughterin Boothbay Harbor, Maine—a day after Hurricane Bobbie passed through andthe day before Hurricane Charlie threatened. “We were very lucky,” Harrywrites.

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jbsitrickjr@cox.net. In particular,he would be overjoyed if anyonehas an instruction manual forbabies, as his arrived withoutone!

1980Albert Creighton is busy with hisfamily, town volunteer activities,and growing a business foundedin 1992. He hopes to see manyclassmates at the next reunion!

Chris Myers has fond memoriesof Milton and can’t wait to seeold friends at the 25th reunion.He’s had a lot of fun starting anonprofit after-school programin the Latino neighborhoods ofDenver that tap the power ofpeer teaching. The organizationhas aspirations to “go national”one day. The Web site iswww.openworldlearning.org.

1981Anne Myers Brandt lives inCambridge with her husbandCameron and daughter Charlotte(1), awaiting the winter birth of a son.

Oliver Bustin coaches the Boston Bandits football team.They lost in the Eastern Finals ofthe National Tournament afteran 11–1 season. He was inWashington, D.C., for the 2005Presidential inaugurationbecause his son was invited.

1982Althea Lindell lives in mid-coastMaine and enjoys the ruralatmosphere. Her husband Kenhas just been elected to the statelegislature. They have three chil-dren: William (10), Thomas (8)and Sarah (5). Althea works pri-marily as a homemaker, butoccasionally validates environ-mental lab data from home. Shealso started a quilting/sewingbusiness called Blue HeronQuilts. She and her family arevery busy but enjoy life together.

Bonnie MacDonald’s husband of11 years, Rob Gould, died sud-denly on August 26, 2002, whileplaying tennis. Throughout thesubsequent months of shock,grief, pain and longing, Bonnieand her two daughters, then fourand eight, received much sup-port from family, friends andcommunity. Several Miltiesresponded with kindness andgenerosity when Ted Sears letthe community know about acollege fund established for thegirls. On October 3, 2004,Bonnie found happiness andlove again, and was married toTim Thomas. Their new familyincludes Tim and his two daugh-ters, who are close in age toBonnie’s girls.

Susanna Hodges Salk lives inConnecticut, where she is a play-wright and also a special projectseditor for House and GardenMagazine.

1983John Garrison lives with his wifeMaria and children Diego (6)and Elena (4) in Maryland,where he has taken up bike rid-ing (mainly as transportation tothe Metro) and is working forthe U.S. Agency for Interna-tional Development (USAID) onregional environmental issues in the Latin American andCaribbean Bureau.

Wyman Fraser Davis wasordained a deacon in theEpiscopal Church. Currently, sheserves as a missionary liaison tothe Diocese of Liberia. She livesin Atlanta, Georgia, with herhusband Paul and five children.

Paul Goldberg married his part-ner of 11 years, Joseph Bell, in a private ceremony on PlumIsland in Massachusetts thisyear. He is “very proud to be oneof the first Milton grads to enjoythe same rights, privileges, andresponsibilities of marriage ashis heterosexual classmates.”Paul owns a steel distributioncompany, and he and Joseph livein Newburyport.

1984Flynn Monks and his wifeJennifer Monks welcomed SashaBaron Monks on August 27,2004. Flynn writes, “She’s cute,bald and in charge.”

1985Christina Takoudes Morrisonand her husband AndrewMorrison welcomed their seconddaughter, Alyssa Roula Morrison,in November 2003. She joins bigsister Stefanie (4). After 13 yearsin investment banking, Christinaswitched careers and is now vicepresident, New Business inWomen’s Health, at Wyeth.Andrew has also changed careersand is now a stay-at-home fatherand loves raising the girls inCollegeville, Pennsylvania.

1986Erika Mobley and her husbandAndrew Speight welcomed ColinNicholas Speight on October 30,2004. Erika says Colin is “acharmer so far and futureMilton prospect for sure!”

1988Matthew Day and his wife Tracyproudly announce the birth oftheir son, Jackson Boland Day,on March 16, 2004.

Ann Louise Elliot and her hus-band John Williams welcomedtwo baby girls into the world inJune. Georgianna Hulett ElliottWilliams and Ruth RobertsonElliot Williams—fraternal twins—are doing very well, as aretheir exhausted parents. Anne isconsulting for a philanthropicmarketing company as she con-

Erika Mobley ’86 and her husband Andrew Speight welcomed Colin NicholasSpeight on October 30, 2004. He was 8 lbs, 1 oz and 20.25" long.

Fabulous at 40! Ann Taylor Black ’82 celebrates her birthday with her four chil-dren, Hunter (4), Logan (2) and Bailey and Quinn (6 months).

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templates a career change; she is enrolled in an interior designgraduate program at theCorcoran. She and John love liv-ing in Washington, D.C., just afew blocks from Jess Hobart ’87.

Adam Towvim married LauraGomberg in October of this year.They were engaged for abouteight months, after he proposedon a ski trip along the French-Italian border. They will live inCambridge.

Adam Wolfberg writes that theBrigham and Women’s residentgynecology service brought himtogether with three other Miltonalums: medical student YetsaTuakli-Wosornu ’97, and resi-dents Whitfield Growdon ’94,and Chrissy Curley Skiadas ’95.

1989Anneliese Euler is busy record-ing her second album and firstfull-length studio work, “TheSinger-Songwriter Song.” Shehas a live EP, “Live Brie,” aswell. Her Web site featuresMP3s, photos and video of heroriginal comic cabaret work asinvented character BrieFeingold-Africa. She is alsoteaching Pilates matwork andconsidering an M.F.A. in the-atre. She recently spent timewith Katy Henrickson ’88, GalaTrue ’88, and Sam Briger ’90,who are all parents!

Carolina Schweizer Hiebl wasmarried on September 24, 2004.She and her husband have ababy girl, Rosely Sofie MarleneHiebl, born May 5, 2004.

Emily Moore has had a busycouple of years. She got marriedin June 2003 and had a baby,Greta Ann Moore Sturgis, inSeptember. She says parenthoodis a lot of fun, but she hopes toget some sleep before long!

Robert Rosenthal is moving toDubai, in the United ArabEmirates, where his wife Malini

grew up. “Come visit and I’llshow you the best jewelry mar-ket in the world.”

1990John Costello and his wife KateCostello announce the birth ofAlessandra “Allie” Grace Costelloon May 1, 2004. They are livingin Westwood, Massachusetts.

Anne Francis suffered a strokein December 2003 at the age of32. After being medi-flighted toMass General Hospital, Anne

lost her ability to speak and herright hand was numb. She cansee peripherally with her left eyeand has full sight in her righteye. Anne recovered at homeafter spending four days in arehab center. She owns a land-scaping business, has a goldenretriever, and has a wonderfulboyfriend.

Amy Saltonstall Isaac and hus-band Johnathan welcomed MollyElizabeth Isaac on August 28,2004, and reports that all is well!

Matthew Day ’88 and his wife Tracyintroduce Jackson Boland Day.Jackson was born March 16, 2004,weighing 8 lbs, 8 oz. Matthew, Tracyand Jackson are at home in Milton.

Ann Louise Elliot ’88 and her husband John Williams welcomed twin girls:Georgie is in yellow (left) and Ruthie is in pink (right).

Anne McManus Hurlbut ’91 and her husband Matthew welcomed WilliamDawson Hurlbut, on June 1, 2004.

David Niles ’90 married Ann Ciaglia this summer. After a pre-wedding party inNew York City, attended by former Forbes dorm head David Dunbar andForbes dormmates and classmates Nat Paynter, David Kimball, Adam Slocumand Marc Chung, the couple tied the knot in Barrington, Rhode Island.Pictured are Alexis Graves, Adam Slocum, Ann Ciaglia Niles, David Niles andBo Thorne Niles ’62.

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David Niles married Ann CiagliaNiles this summer. After a pre-wedding party in New York City,attended by former Forbes dormhead David Dunbar and Forbesdormmates Nat Paynter, DavidKimball, Adam Slocum, andMarc Chung, the couple tied theknot in Barrington, RhodeIsland. Bo Thorne Niles ’62,Adam Slocum and AlexisGreeves attended the 30-personceremony.

Caroline Roberts got marriedSeptember 18, 2004, to hermedical school classmate JacobAbraham. They are both doingfellowships at Johns Hopkins—he in cardiology and she inendocrinology. She hopes to seeeveryone at the reunion in May!

1991Jamus and Tara CallahanDriscoll welcomed Ethan WoodDriscoll on October 9, 2004. Hewas 9 pounds, 8 ounces and sofar is a very easygoing baby.Older brother Gabriel loves hav-ing a little brother to tell peopleabout, but the cat and dog arestill a bit unsure about this noisynew person.

Anne McManus Hurlbut andher husband Matthew welcomeda son, William Dawson Hurlbut,on June 1, 2004. They live inMarion, Massachusetts.

Kate Brooks Leness and her hus-band Tony announce the birth oftheir daughter, Lucy BrooksLeness, who arrived on April 10,2004.

Jennifer Simon and her husbandFred Phillips joyfully announcethe birth of their son, JacobSamuel, on May 10, 2004.

1992Sophie Coquillette Koven andher husband Jamie celebratedthe birth of their second daugh-ter, Annabel Frances Koven onAugust 16, 2004. Their olderdaughter, Lucy, turned 3 in May.

1993Maureen Lyons teaches socialstudies at Pollard Middle Schoolin Needham. She also coachesgirls’ basketball at NeedhamHigh School and works atMilton at the Saturday Courseand Sports PLUS.

Jess Hayes McDaniel marriedEvan McDaniel in early fall. Abig crew of Milton folks wasthere.

Galt Niederhoffer sold her novel,was engaged to her boyfriendJim and gave birth to her daugh-ter, Magnolia Breyer Strouse.Her production company, PlumPictures, will have two movies atSundance this year. Galt, Jimand Magnolia live in New York.

Priya Thomas Stephen lives withher husband Ben in Arlington,Virginia. She practices generalpediatrics in Silver Spring,Maryland. She had a great timethis summer catching up withJulia Travers, who was in towndoing her M.B.A. internshipwith the United Way. She recent-ly heard from Celina Kennedy,who is doing well in Portland,Oregon.

1994Frederick Melo lives inMinneapolis, where he is acrime reporter for the St. PaulPioneer Press. He welcomes anyMilton folks interested in learn-ing more about media careers tocontact him.

Susanna Zaraysky is working inthe wine industry, but is alsopursuing a career in freelancetravel, feature, and short storywriting.

Jess Hayes McDaniel ’93 married Evan McDaniel in fall 2004. Pictured fromleft to right: Josh Senders, Katie Leeson ’93, Mike Lustbader, Jenn FrankLustbader ’93, Talia Kohorn Senders ’93, Evan McDaniel, Jess HaynesMcDaniel, Marissa Coyne, Chris Coyne ’93, Darren Ross ’93, Johanna Ross,Jess Yager ’93.

Milton graduates joined Charlie Everett ’94 and Caty James at their weddingSeptember 5 in Little Compton, Rhode Island: back row from left, BrendanEverett ’91, Parker Everett ’97, Ian Zilla ’94, Will Coleman ’94, Dave Rockwell,Lars Albright ’93, Connor Spreng, Charlie Everett ’94, Caty James (bride), NikaThayer ’94, her fiancé Greg Mone, Vanessa Hynes ’94, Dan and JenniferParkes, Jessica Horak Stout ’94 and John Bamford; front row, Walter Horak ’65,J.P. Ribiero, Kathleen Campbell, Tim Langloss, Lawson Allen Albright, DevonWhite ’94 and Dwight Angelini

Sophie Coquillette Koven ’92 and her husband Jamie celebrated the birth oftheir second daughter, Annabel Frances Koven, on August 16, 2004. Their olderdaughter, Lucy, turned 3 in May 2004.

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Moriah Campbell-Holt Musto ’96 married Christopher Musto on August 1,2004. Pictured (from left) are Alice Burley ’96, David Dildine ’96, MoriahMusto ’96, Christopher Musto (groom), Mary Johannsen Warner ’95, Laura DeGirolami Vander Elst ’96.

Nine friends from the Class of 1997 celebrated 10 years of friendship on Labor Day 2004 in New Hampshire. From left to right, back to front: Heather McGhee ’97, Lauren Wahtera ’97, Lily Davis ’97, Annie Moyer ’97, Lisa Balzano ’97, Emily Brooks ’97, Meroe Morse ’97, Alex Muenze ’97 andAlyssa Friedman ’97.

Charlie Everett and Caty Jameswere married on September 5,2004, in Little Compton, RhodeIsland, where many Miltonalumni helped celebrate.

1995Nat Kreamer accepted a com-mission as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving in a reservecapacity for the Office of NavalIntelligence when he’s not work-ing as a consultant for PriceWaterhouse Coopers in NewYork.

Shana McMenimon McCarthyand her husband Ryan areexpecting their first baby thisMay.

1996Moriah Campbell-Holt marriedChristopher Musto on August14, 2004, in Marion, Massachu-setts. Milton grads in attendancewere Alice Burley, Laura DeGirolami Vander Elst, DavidDildine and Mary JohannsenWarner ’95. Moriah is headcross-country and track coach atthe Winsor School in Boston(with Mary Warner as the assis-tant coach) and also works inthe online banking group atCitizens Bank.

First Lieutenant Philip H.Dickinson married MoiraMuholland on August 22, 2004at the Old Post Chapel, Fort

Myers, Virginia. Spencer E.Dickinson, III ’93 was the bestman, Sarah Dickinson ’98 abridesmaid, and Nat Kreamer’95 a groomsman. Phil andMoira will live in northernVirginia, where he is serving inthe “Old Guard” 3rd InfantryRegiment and she is working atthe state department.

Peter Huoppi was married inNovember 2003 to JenniferClose. They both graduated fromMiddlebury and now live inBurlington, where he is a staffphotographer for the BurlingtonFree Press.

Phil Schmid lives in Los Angelesand works in finance at HBO.He is enrolled in an M.B.A. pro-gram at UCLA’s AndersonSchool of Management. Hereports that he makes times forsurfing and playing bass in apsychedelic-rock revival band.He occasionally crosses pathswith many Milton alumni andrecently saw Eliot Wadsworth’s’96 New York–based band, TheHead Set, at the Key Club onSunset Boulevard. “See them if you get a chance, they areamazing.”

1997On Labor Day weekend this year, Heather McGhee, LaurenWahtera, Lily Davis, AnnieMoyer, Lisa Balzano, Emily

Brooks, Meroe Morse, AlexMuenze and Alyssa Friedmancame together to celebrate 10years of friendship. The bulk ofthem entered Milton in Class IIIin 1994, so Labor Day 2004marked 10 years of close friend-ship that has not only enduredbut grown. In true MiltonAcademy style, they had blueand orange T-shirts made—thefront featured a mustang and“1994–2004” and the back read“10 Years Strong.” The groupwas hosted by Emily Brooks at

her family house in Franconia,New Hampshire. HeatherMcGhee is developing economicpolicy at Demos, a think tank inNew York. Lauren Wahtera liveswith Alex Muenze in Boston andis pursuing a nursing career. LilyDavis published her first book,an English translation of theFrench biography The FirstRasta. Annie Moyer runs a jobsprogram for juvenile offendersat a New York City courthouse.Lisa Balzano will attend medicalschool in New York next fall.

The Brigham and Women’s resident gynecology service in August broughttogether four Milton alums: (from left) Harvard medical student Yetsa Tuakli-Wosornu ’97, and residents Chrissy Skiadas ’95, Whitfield Growdon ’94 andAdam Wolfberg ’88.

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Amanda Drummond ’99 married Chris Conley in June. Pictured are JohnBlanchard ’99, Shira Milikowsky ’99, Amanda Drummond Conley ’99, ChrisConley, Hannah Labaree ’99, Sarah Schram ’99, Terence Burek ’99, AdeleBurnes ’99.

Deaths1924 Katherine Dalton Hitch1930 Lloyd Brown

Nancy (Hannah) Saltonstall

1931 Elizabeth Perkins Nickerson

1934 Edward L. Barnes1935 David Waddell Lillie1936 Phillips C. Hallowell1937 Sydney Biddle

Katharine Skinner Cook1938 Mary Mulligan McKee1943 Clarke Freeman

Peter Knox1951 Joseph Conzelman1952 John J. Reddy III1955 Jonathan Knowlton1959 Peter Kane1991 Alexandra (Lexi)

Rudnitsky1998 Addison (Addi) Franklin

Lyon

FriendsAlbert J. Kelley P ’75 and formertrustee

Remembering OurFriends

Classmates or friends ofrecently deceased alumniare welcome to honor theirfriends by writing remem-brances. We will printremembrances in ClassNotes as space allows. Youmay direct questions toCathy Everett, editor, atCathy_Everett@milton.edu.

Lydon Friedrich ’98 married Eli Vonnegut, bringing together some Milton community members. Back row: Simon Rasin ’98, Mackie Dougherty ’99,Christopher Palmer ’96; middle row: Debbie Simon (faculty), KateMacCluggage ’00, Eli Vonnegut, Lydon Friedrich Vonnegut, Lindsay Haynes ’98 and Nia Jacobs ’98, bridesmaids, Randy Cox (former faculty), Lila Dupree ’98; front row: Sarah McGinty ’98 and bridesmaid, Lyh-Ping Lam ’98, Danny Schlozman ’99.

Civil Affairs Specialist Nick Morton ’02 is serving in Baghdad.

Emily Brooks, an advertisingexecutive, is running the NewYork marathon this year! MeroeMorse works at Sloan-Ketteringin New York and is headingtoward medical school. AlexMuenze is getting her master’sin public health from BostonUniversity, and Alyssa Friedmanis a social worker in New YorkCity.

1998Many Milton alumni attendedLydon Friedrich Vonnegut’srecent wedding. Lydon and herhusband Eli live in Ann Arbor,

where Eli attends law school atthe University of Michigan andLydon teaches at Stony CreekPreschool. She plans to get hermaster’s at Columbia when thecouple returns to New York.

1999Amanda Drummond Conleymarried Chris Conley in June onMartha’s Vineyard, with manyMilton alumni there to share theday. Amanda teaches math atTabor Academy.

2000David Huoppi graduated fromTrinity in May, where he receivedthe Robert Stewart MathematicsPrize and the Larry SilverAthletic Prize. He now teachesmath at Salisbury School, wherehe is also a dorm parent andcoaches sailing and lacrosse.

2002Libby Hadzima and Kate Brodiecompleted The Stretch, theDartmouth earth science off-campus program. They werejoined by graduate student ColinO’Farrell ’99. All three traveledaround the West Coast fromMontana south to Arizona andthen west through Nevada andCalifornia studying geology.

Nick Morton is a civil affairs spe-cialist with the 443rd Battalion,based in Warwick, Rhode Island.He is serving in Baghdad. If youwould like contact informationfor Nick, please email his moth-er at pmorton@surfbest.net.

71 Milton Magazine

The Boston GlobeSeptember 24, 2004

Edward Barnes; Helped Shape Modernism in ArchitectureEdward Larrabee Barnes, one ofthe leading American architectsof his generation, died Septem-ber 21, 2004, of complicationsfrom a stroke suffered in April.He was 89.

He and his wife Mary had madetheir home in Harvard Squaresince 1995, after he retired fromhis New York office.

As an architect, Mr. Barnes wasknown as a modernist who stuckto the modernist creed, ignoringchanging fashions as he crafteda personal style of his own. Hestudied architecture at HarvardUniversity, where he was one ofa remarkable generation ofyoung designers attracted to thatschool in the 1940s by WalterGropius, the former director ofthe Bauhaus School in Germany.Gropius’s students, includingPhilip Johnson, IM Pei, and PaulRudolph, led the nation intomodernism in the decades afterWorld War II.

Mr. Barnes’s early work wasnotable for crisply geometricalbuildings, often of richly tex-tured wood or shingle. The bestknown is the Haystack Moun-tain School of Crafts on DeerIsle, Maine, built in 1961, aninformal cluster of shed-roofedpavilions and dock-like pathwaysthat seems to float above the for-est site as it spills down a hill-side toward the ocean. Haystackhad a strong influence on otherarchitects who, like Mr. Barnes,were seeking a humane versionof modernism. In 1994, it wonthe prestigious Twenty-Five YearAward from the AmericanInstitute of Architects, a prizeawarded annually to anAmerican building that hasstood the test of time.

Among his many later buildingsare the IBM Corporate Head-quarters tower on MadisonAvenue in New York, with itsgenerous public greenhousefilled with clumps of bamboo;the Walker Art Center inMinneapolis, often cited by cura-tors as among the best muse-ums in the nation; the DallasMuseum of Art; a master plan for the State University of New York at Purchase; andthe Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building inWashington.

Mr. Barnes was born in Chicagoin 1915. His father was a lawyerand Harvard graduate and hismother, Margaret Ayer Barnes,was a writer who won the 1931Pulitzer Prize for her novel Yearsof Grace. Mr. Barnes attendedMilton Academy and Harvard,where he was president of theGlee Club and a varsity wrestler.He started Harvard as an Englishmajor, but later switched toarchitectural history. After col-lege, he briefly taught Englishand other subjects at MiltonAcademy.

He was inspired to become anarchitect after a visit to twohouses in Lincoln, whichGropius and his colleagueMarcel Breuer had built forthemselves. Mr. Barnes returnedto Harvard and received his master of architecture degree in 1942.

After serving during World War II in the Naval Reserve inSan Francisco, he worked inCalifornia for designer HenryDreyfus on the development oflow-cost, prefabricated housing.“At that time there was no ques-tion in my mind that modernarchitecture and social commit-ment were inextricably linked,”he once said.

He found little government sup-port for affordable housing andmoved to New York where hestarted his own practice in 1949.His wife Mary, who studiedarchitecture in London, wasamong his collaborators and alsoserved as curator of architectureat the Museum of Modern Artfrom 1947 to 1949.

Mr. Barnes was a tall, lanky, soft-spoken man who dressed inpreppie tweeds and seersuckers.Until late in life, he spent anhour each morning running outdoors. He did most of hisdesigning on weekends in hishouse in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., wherehe had a studio, and he wouldgo to the New York office onMonday mornings with carefullyworked out drawings for hisstaff. He was a person of warmthand charm, and in spite of hissuccess, of great modesty.

He liked his buildings to be as simple and logical as hisclothes. They do not attempt tobe flamboyantly original worksof art. They are, rather, placesthat fit their sites, their inhabi-tants, and their purposes. Theyoften have a spare and under-stated simplicity.

Mr. Barnes’s buildings in NewEngland, besides Haystack,include the 28 State Street officetower in Boston (formerly NewEngland Merchants Bank); theCathedral of the ImmaculateConception in Burlington, Vt.;Old Stone Square office buildingin Providence; dormitories at the Harvard Divinity School, St. Paul’s School, DeerfieldAcademy, and Bennington andMiddlebury colleges; and a num-ber of private houses. A book on his work, Edward LarrabeeBarnes: Architect, published in1994, lists 123 works.

Mr. Barnes won numerousawards. He received the ThomasJefferson Medal from theUniversity of Virginia in 1981and a 350th Anniversary Medalfrom Harvard in 1986. He was afellow of the American Academyof Arts and Sciences and of theAmerican Academy of Arts andLetters. In 1980, his firmreceived the Firm Award fromthe American Institute ofArchitects.

He leaves his wife Mary; a son,John, an architect who is direc-tor of campus planning at theUniversity of California-SantaCruz; and two granddaughters.

Copyright 2004, Globe Newspaper Company

The Boston GlobeReprinted with permission

72 Milton Magazine

Providing for Milton’s FutureLucius Wilmerding III ’48 Safeguards School’s ‘Truths and Traditions’

Consistency marks the generosity of Lucius Wilmerding III ’48: He sup-ports Milton’s Annual Fund regularly and has established two charitable gift annuities that grant lifetime income for him and will later help grow the School’s endowment.

Lucius was in Class VI as the United States entered World War II. Youngerfaculty members were going off to war and many retired faculty returned tothe classroom. “We had the best teachers,” Lucius says.

Lucius appreciates the intellectual discipline that Milton gave him. “The curriculum trained our minds to make accurate judgments,” he says. “I alsovalue friendships begun at Milton, which have deepened over time as werecognize the perspectives shared and the depth of wisdom imparted.

“Now our gifts to Milton Academy assure that the School’s truths and traditions are offered to each new class as it takes up the challenge andexcitement of School life that we knew over 50 years ago.”

For information on planned giving options at Milton, please contact Suzie Hurd Greenup ’75 in the development office at 617-898-2376 orsuzie_greenup@milton.edu.Adela and Lucius Wilmerding

Bradley M. BloomWellesley, Massachusetts

William T. Burgin ’61 Dover, Massachusetts

Jorge Castro ’75 Pasadena, California

Edward Dugger III Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

James M. Fitzgibbons ’52 Emeritus Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Victoria Hall Graham ’81 Haverford, Pennsylvania

Margaret Jewett Greer ’47 Emerita Chevy Chase, Maryland

Antonia Monroe Grumbach ’61 SecretaryNew York, New York

J. Tomilson Hill ’66 New York, New York

Franklin W. Hobbs IV ’65President New York, New York

Barbara Hostetter Boston, Massachusetts

Ogden M. Hunnewell ’70 Vice PresidentBrookline, Massachusetts

Harold W. Janeway ’54 Emeritus Webster, New Hampshire

David B. Jenkins ’49Duxbury, Massachusetts

George A. Kellner Vice PresidentNew York, New York

Helen Lin ’80 Hong Kong

F. Warren McFarlan ’55Belmont, Massachusetts

Carol Smith MillerBoston, Massachusetts

Tracy Pun Palandjian ’89Belmont, Massachusetts

Richard C. Perry ’73 New York, New York

John P. Reardon ’56Vice PresidentCohasset, Massachusetts

John S. Reidy ’56Boston, Massachusetts

Kevin Reilly Jr. ’73 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Robin RobertsonHead of SchoolMilton, Massachusetts

H. Marshall Schwarz ’54 EmeritusNew York, New York

Karan Sheldon ’73Blue Hill Falls, Maine

Frederick G. Sykes ’65 Rye, New York

Jide J. Zeitlin ’81 Treasurer New York, New York

Milton AcademyBoard of Trustees, 2005

Milton MagazineMilton AcademyCommunications OfficeMilton, Massachusetts 02186

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