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A literary Tour of Ireland | World Scholars | License to Laugh | F A L L
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B U L L E T I N
Fall 2008
Volume 79 Number 1
Bulletin Staff
Director of Development
Chris Latham
Editor
Julie Reiff
Alumni Notes
Linda Beyus
Design
Good Design, LLC
gooddesignusa.com
Proofreader
Nina Maynard
Mail letters to:
Julie Reiff, Editor
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org
Send alumni news to:
Linda Beyus
Alumni Office
The Taft School
TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:
Winter–November 15
Spring–February 15
Summer–May 15
Fall–August 30
Send address corrections to:
Sally Membrino
Alumni Records
The Taft School
TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org
1.860.945.7777
TaftAlumni.com
The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855)
is published quarterly, in February,
May, August, and November, by The
Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road,
Watertown, CT 06795-2100, and is
distributed free of charge to alumni,
parents, grandparents and friends
of the school. All rights reserved.
This magazine is printed on recycled paper.
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F EA T URE S
In the Footsteps of Joyce:
A Literary Tour of Ireland..........................................16
By Sharon Phelan and Barbara Romaine ’09, photography by John
Lombard ’09
World Scholars.........................................................22
Seven students from around the corner and across the globe are making
the most of a Taft education thanks to the Davis Scholars Program
By Rick Lansdale
License to Laugh......................................................28
It’s all funny business for the president of King Features Syndicate,
Rocky Shepard ’69, who is responsible for marketing and licensing
comic strips and their characters around the world.
By Bill Slocum, Greenwich Magazine
DE P AR T M EN T S
Letters...................................................................... 2
Alumni Spotlight...................................................... 3
Around the Pond...................................................... 7
Alumni Notes...........................................................35
Milestones................................................................72
From the Archives....................................................76
On the Cover: John Lombard ’09 captured this Dublin street scene
at dusk on his visit there in June. (For more of his work, see page 16.)
Taft on the Web
Find a friend’s address
or look up back issues
of the Bulletin at
TaftAlumni.com
For more campus
news and events,
including admissions
information,
visit TaftSchool.org
j Mist still hangs on the pond as
classics teacher Dick Cobb heads to
class one morning. Peter Frew ’75
What happened at
this afternoon’s
game? Visit
TaftSports.com
Don’t forget you
can shop online at
TaftStore.com
800.995.8238
or 860.945.7736
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From the Editor
Fifty years ago this fall a biology teacher and his young family arrived from
California, having taught for nine years
at the Thacher School. They weren’t
entirely new to Taft, having already
worked at the Taft Summer School for
a few years, but in 1958 they made the
move to Watertown, in part to be closer
to family in New York City, where he
grew up.
This science teacher, Al Reiff, and
his wife Tanny had a third child a few
years later (my husband, Al Jr. ’80). I
mention this because many of you ask,
upon learning my name, whether or not
I’m related to the man who inspired you
to study biology (or counseled you away
from it). He went on, as many alumni
know, to head the Science Department,
to serve as college counselor, dean of
studies, dean of faculty and eventually
as assistant headmaster before he died in
1988—the year I was hired.
Fortunately for my husband, his
father hired him to teach math here in
1985, right out of college. As he tells it,
he was considering offers from two rival schools when his father called after
a math teacher decided not to return at
the last minute. They served together on
the faculty for three years.
And so our family and the school
reached a quiet milestone this fall—as
one of few schools to have a father-son
team overlap on the faculty—to mark
the 50th year a Reiff has taught at Taft.
That made it an even more auspicious year for our son, Alex ’12, to start
as a lowermid. And Tanny, five decades
after moving her family here from Ojai,
came back to walk the halls in October
for Grandparents’ Day.
Much has changed in a halfcentury, but the threads of the Taft
community run deep and far. Many
of your families reach back even to the
early days of the school, or others just
a few months ago when your child arrived to meet his old boy or her old
girl. Now, as a Taft parent, I am looking forward to a new perspective on all
that happens at this school. As always,
I’d love to hear your stories.
—Julie Reiff
2 Taft Bulletin Fall 2008
Trivia
What was the name of the wooden Victorian hotel that served as the school’s first home in
Watertown? Once again, you will find a hint somewhere in this issue.
Send a card or e-mail to the address below with your answer. A set of Taft coasters will
be sent to the winner, whose name will be drawn from all correct entries received.
Congratulations to Paul Ross ’64, who correctly identified Stillman Eells, Class of
1891, as the first student to enroll at Mr. Taft’s School. Thanks to all who played.
By Any Other Name
Dining Hall Memories
The Bulletin arrived today and, as usual, it is a
delight in so many ways. I am especially enjoying the letters about Mr. Sargent and perhaps a
controversy over what his nickname was.
When we got our Annuals towards the
end of school, of course we got our classmates
to inscribe it. I also wrote the nicknames of the
different masters and have two distinct ones
for Mr. Sargent, “Winter King” and “God,”
reinforcing Chris Davenport’s assertion.
Here are some of the other nicknames
I’ve noted: “Tall Paul” Cruikshank, “Dougie
the Rock” Douglas, “Moose” Morgan, Roland
“The Toad” Tyler, “Sterno” Stearns, “Backyard
Bob” Adams, “Smilin’ Jim” Logan, Joe
Lakovitch [we called him Joe to his face and
it was OK], “Wild Bill” Sullivan also known
as “Nok-Nok,” “Burger” Cunningham,
“Menace” Carroll, “Jap” Pennell, “The Lace”
Lovelace, “Benny the Beak” Briggs, “Wooly
Bear” Woolsey, “Beezer” Manning, “Uncle
Pete” Candler, “Beetles” Clark, “Tiger Mac”
McKinley and “Oscie” Oscarson.
Mr. Sargent and many other masters have
a special place in my heart, as so many of them
were very special men.
My father, Alexander H. Beard, graduated
from Taft in 1908, so was one of Mr. Taft’s
early students, born in 1891, the year Stillman
Eells graduated [see Taft Trivia]. He apparently preceded the construction of the “new
building” in 1912.
As to the Dining Hall, I do remember
donning the white jacket from time to time
to wait tables. As a scrawny kid I had great
difficulty with the weight of the trays, and
recall losing it one evening when everything
slid off onto the floor. Fortunately, I managed
to volunteer for the Switchboard Committee
(we staffed the telephone switchboard, a rather antiquated piece of machinery located in
the postal substation—but that was fifty years
ago). This activity exempted me from further
Dining Hall duty.
—Alexander H. Beard, Jr. ’60
—Tom Hickcox ’57
Love it? Hate it?
Read it? Tell us!
We’d love to hear what you think about
the stories in this Bulletin. We may
edit your letters for length, clarity and
content, but please write!
Julie Reiff, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
or ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org
Wave-Powered Wonders
Interested in fighting global warming
by reducing the amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere, reducing hurricane
strength, protecting coral reefs, and enhancing fish populations by upwelling
nutrients to enhance phytoplankton?
All it takes, perhaps, are a few wavepowered ocean pumps.
In May, the Climate Foundation
and Atmocean participated in an ocean
test of three pumps in the Pacific about
60 nautical miles north of Hawaii. Wavedriven ocean pumps can be deployed in
a linear array to upwell cooler water into
the mixed layer and reduce peak temperatures of surface waters. Colder water
contains more life, and so in principle
can absorb more carbon. The test is featured on the Discovery Channel Project
Earth episode “Hungry Oceans.”
“The problem we would be most
concerned about would be acidification,”
Atmocean CEO Phil Kithil ’61 told BBC
News. “We’re bringing up higher levels
of CO2 along with the nutrients, so it all
has to be analyzed as to the net carbon
balance and the net carbon flux.”
Atmocean is developing its patentspending wave-driven ocean upwelling
system to cool the upper ocean and
enhance natural biological processes to
absorb CO2. When widely deployed
across critical ocean regions, the technology may also mitigate coral reef
bleaching and help reduce hurricane
intensity driven by rising ocean temperatures. Upwelling is the naturally
occurring mixing of deep, cold, nutrient-rich ocean into the upper sunlit
ocean that is critical to growth of most
marine species, so it may enhance ocean
fisheries as well.
“We believe our wave-driven upwelling technology can play a critical
role in mitigating these deleterious effects of CO2-induced warming, in the
years and decades ahead,” adds Phil. For
more information visit atmocean.com.
. Phil Kithil ’61
explains how his wavedriven pumps might
help change climate.
Taft Bulletin Fall 2008
3
Global Health
m Peter Berg ’80, who starred in the
television series Chicago Hope and
directed the 2004 film Friday Night
Lights, takes on the cult classic Dune.
Courtesy of Peter Berg
Superhero
to Sci-Fi
In director Peter Berg’s summer
blockbuster, Hancock, Will Smith
plays a superhero “who swills bourbon, hates his job and…looks
unnervingly like Berg. Producer
Akiva Goldsman told the New York
Times that, “Smith, on meeting
Berg in one of his work-worn states,
said: ‘Oh. Oh. He is Hancock.’”
Always looking for more adventure, Berg is now directing his
attention to a new version of the
sci-fi classic Dune for Paramount
Pictures. The award-winning and
hugely popular science fiction novel published in 1965 has already
been made into a film as well as a
television series, but Berg told the
Hollywood Reporter, “I read the
book and really liked it. What I
never saw in Lynch’s film was a really strong adventure story. There’s
a much more muscular time to be
had there.”
Peter is also working on the
script for Universal Pictures’ Lone
Survivor, about a Navy Seal who
led a team into Afghanistan on a
mission to kill a Taliban leader but
was the only one to survive.
Even though Friday Night
Lights may be over (Berg directed
the film and produced the television
series), he can’t quite get football
out of his blood and now makes
time to coach his son’s team.
The road is unpaved and few cars or
buses pass through the Peruvian neighborhood where the Centro de Salud de
Santa Elena is located, but the health
center is the first place patients from the
surrounding rural areas come to, often
with medical emergencies such as heart
attacks and complicated deliveries.
Neena Qasba ’02, a medical student at UConn School of Medicine, has
come to know the center well. While an
undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, she
spent six weeks in the provincial capital of Ayacucho, as a global studies and
Latin American Studies Research Award
fellow, researching the formal and traditional medical systems in rural Peru.
“I first went as a volunteer and then
I got really attached to the place,” says
Neena. “The doctors are very dedicated
and they have sacrificed the limelight
and high-paying salaries of the city to
work in a government run health center
in a rural and poor part of Peru. Their
commitment to patients inspired me.”
Ayacucho is nestled in a valley in
the southeast corner of the Peruvian
Andes. It was a strategically important
city during the Incan Empire, located
between Cuzco and Lima. She became
mesmerized by its scenery, immersed in
its cultural history, attached to its people and deeply troubled by its poverty
and underdevelopment.
Located in the poorest area of
Huamanga (population 20,000), the
health center is 20 minutes from the
regional hospital. While there, Neena
shadows doctors, attends births, and assists in health fairs.
“Many mothers at the health center
told me that it was their first delivery
at a medical establishment because it is
tradition to give birth at home with the
village partera (midwife) surrounded by
family and friends,” adds Neena. These
traditions are now being considered by
health providers and policymakers to
promote culturally sensitive birthing
m Her work in Peru helped inspire Neena
Qasba ’02 to study medicine.
practices at health centers, she explains.
Maternal deaths occur all too frequently
in this area while women still choose to
give birth at home.
“The doctors and patients of
Ayacucho welcomed me with open
arms and taught me about their beautiful land,” she says. “As a future physician
and as a fellow human being, I have an
obligation to help and fulfill the medical needs of this community. The words
of the Taft motto have always resonated
within me—to be of service to others.
We hope our work is not simply about
charity, but about improving healthcare
infrastructure and developing sustainable resources to deliver medical care for
future generations.”
With a team of UConn students
and former Hopkins classmates, Neena
is working with the Peruvian American
Medical Society to bring medical equipment and supplies to the center. They have
brought the first electrocardiogram and
are fundraising to provide an ambulance,
defibrillator and ultrasound machine.
“Ayacucho was my initial inspiration to pursue a career in medicine,”
Neena says, “but going forward I see
global health as an integral part of my
personal and professional life.”
For more information, contact
Neena at nqasba@student.uchc.edu.
Golfing Buddies
More than 100 friends and family attended a golf benefit at the Duke
University golf course on August 11,
nearly a year after Phil Ficks ’68 was injured in a bicycle accident.
Phil was hit by a truck while training for a triathlon and remains partially
paralyzed. “Through tremendous courage and tenacity, he remains true to a
very strenuous therapy program as his
prognosis improves ever so slowly,” explains classmate Randy Abood. “We
want to raise money for therapy that is
not otherwise covered by insurance.”
To find out how you might help,
please contact Randy Abood (see 1968
Notes on page 51 for more information). c Classmates Rick Palamar, Jack Smith,
Ken Abramowitz and Randy Abood with
Phil Ficks at the August golf benefit on
Phil’s behalf.
EDGEWISE: New Play by Eliza Clark ’03
Playwright Eliza Clark’s gritty, comedic
thriller, Edgewise, opened at New York’s
Cherry Lane Theatre in July.
The story involves three suburban
teens, working at a New Jersey burger
joint, who find their safety compromised and allegiances tested when a
bomb raid blows a hole in their restaurant, and a bloodied stranger stumbles
in the door. Set in the midst of World
War III, where terror reigns and international alliances hang in the balance,
these teenagers deal with the unknown
the only way they know how—by tying it up. Edgewise explores the trials
of American adolescence in a post-9/11
world. For more information, visit
www.edgewise-theplay.com.
Eliza’s work has appeared at the
Provincetown Playhouse, at Yale
University and in the New York
International Fringe Festival. Her plays,
The Metaphysics of Breakfast (2005),
Hiccup (2006) and Puppy (2007) were
featured in the Yale Playwrights Festival
performed at Yale Repertory Theatre
three years in a row.
She is a co-creator, writer and
performer for the internet sitcom
“Inconvenient Molly.”
b Three suburban teenagers deal with the
unknown the only way they know how in a
new play by Eliza Clark ’03.
5
In Print
WRITERS IN PARIS: Literary Lives in the City of Light
David Burke ’54
Counterpoint, 2008
Literary detective David Burke explores the most creative quartiers of
the City of Light, the Latin Quarter
and the Marais, raffish Montmartre,
“Lost Generation” Montparnasse and
others. He tracks down the haunts of
dozens of the world’s finest and most
colorful writers in this unique look at
literature’s greatest city. From native
Parisians such as Molière and Marcel
Proust to expatriates like Henry Miller
and Samuel Beckett, Writers in Paris
follows their artistic struggles and miraculous breakthroughs, along with
the splendors and miseries of their invariably complicated personal lives.
With maps, descriptions and more
than one hundred photographs, Writers
in Paris also pinpoints key places in the
lives of fictional characters, including
Gargantua’s ribald visit to the towers of
Notre Dame and Vladimir and Estragon’s
wobbly first step onto the stage of an
obscure little Left Bank theater.
Burke is a writer and documentary filmmaker who went to Paris in
1986 for what he thought would be a
stay of one year, but turned into more
than twenty. He now divides his time
between Paris and the United States.
The Little Book: A Novel
Selden Edwards, former faculty
Penguin, 2008
The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of
Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir
of the famous Boston banking Burdens,
philosopher, student of history, legend’s
son, rock idol, writer, lover of women,
recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball
hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living
in San Francisco. Suddenly he is—still
his modern self—wandering in a city
and time he knows mysteriously well:
fin de siècle Vienna. It is 1897, precisely
ninety-one years before his last memory
and a half-century before his birth.
“This novel ends up a sweet,
wistful elegy to the fantastic promise
and failed hopes of the 20th century,”
writes Publishers Weekly.
Selden Edwards began writing The
Little Book as a young English teacher in
1974, and continued to layer and refine
the manuscript until its completion in
2007. It is his first novel. He spent his career as headmaster at several independent
schools across the country, and for over 40
years has been secretary of his Princeton
class, where he also played basketball. He
lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Embracing the Edge: Stories of Tenacity and Personal Power
Neil Peterson ’61
Edge Foundation, 2008
Self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur”
Neil Peterson founded five companies
during his 40-plus-year career, most
notably Flexcar, the award-winning
car-sharing company that recently
merged with Zipcar. Peterson’s resume
is an impressive list in both the public and private sectors. Numerous
awards, including Time magazine’s
“100 Newsmakers of Tomorrow” in
Seattle, attest to his success.
But over the years, Peterson
says, “no one suspected I suffered
from Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder until my two children were
diagnosed with ADD and ADHD in
their mid teens.” Embracing the Edge,
Peterson’s newly published collection
of personal inspirational stories, recounts how he overcame physical and
learning disabilities, as well as life’s
normal disappointments, to become
a successful entrepreneur, corporate
executive and public servant.
Having seen the benefits of personal coaching in his own life and
those of his children as an effective
intervention strategy and an important part of a multi-prong ADHD
treatment approach, Peterson founded
the Edge Foundation, an organization
committed to providing professional
coaches for students with ADHD to
help them realize their potential and
their passion, and to become tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.
“Kate Schutt’s debut album, No
Love Lost, has many delightful features,”
JazzReview.com writes. “These songs
are more than coffeehouse tunes. The
classic jazz buffers and fluency of blues
in her folk music makes this an album
that you can read a book to, sip a drink
with, or enable you to be private with
those thoughts that you needed to
make time for but have neglected in the
course of the day. The album is com-
fortable for entertaining any company.”
All About Jazz described her
work as “old school gypsy jazz aesthetics” and praised Schutt’s “wise,
original words, persuasive melodies
and economic arrangements.”
Her latest project, Telephone
Game, is available at kateschutt.com,
as is information on her touring schedule, which includes upcoming events in
Philadelphia and Toronto.
No Love Lost
Kate Schutt ’93
Artist Share, 2008
You could call Kate Schutt a musical triathlete. She is a guitarist, producer and
singer/songwriter of rare skill and originality. The sports analogy is fitting, given that
her prowess as an ice hockey and lacrosse
player helped the Pennsylvania-born and
bred former head monitor gain access to
Harvard. Her other passion, music, then
took over. After a rigorous education at
Berklee College of Music, Kate became
totally committed to music.
j Chaplain
Bob Ganung
displays
the school’s
newly
acquired
Qur’an.
Yee-Fun Yin
For the latest news
on campus events,
please visit
TaftSchool.org.
Around the pond
by Sam Routhier
Keeping the Faith
As Taft’s student body, faculty and curriculum become as internationally and
culturally diverse as ever, Chaplain Bob
Ganung has looked to bring studies of
world religion into the consciousness of
the community. In that vein, and with
the help of a series of donors, the school
has put together a collection of original
texts of Holy Scripture. Most recently,
the school has acquired an original
Qur’an from the late 19th-century,
handwritten and illustrated by calligrapher Mohammad Wasfy. The Qur’an
joins a collection of sacred texts that
already includes a 19th-century Torah
and a 1616 King James Bible.
The Holy Qur’an arrived at Taft
with the help of U.S. Ambassador to
Saudi Arabia Ford Fraker, the school’s
2008 commencement speaker and parent of Antonia ’04, Jonathan ’06, and
Charlie ’08. His current post connected
him with Jeddah businessman Sheikh
Khalid Alireza, and when Ambassador
Fraker and Sheikh Khalid discussed
Taft’s initiative to acquire sacred texts
Sheikh Khalid enthusiastically offered
to donate the Qur’an.
“The Qur’an will, I trust, be a guiding light to make people aware of the
tremendous similarities between the
Abrahamaic faiths, which I and my
family hope will lead to better understanding and tolerance in this world,”
Alireza wrote to Taft headmaster Willy
MacMullen ’78.
Ambassador Fraker commented,
“There are few things more important
than understanding what the great religions of the world have in common, so
that they can be a source of world unity
and peace. This gift is framed by the interfaith dialogue initiative launched by King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his Madrid
Conference last July, which saw representatives from all the world’s religions meet
to discuss the commonalities inherent in
their faiths. This gift to Taft School endorses and reinforces those efforts.”
Currently, the Qur’an is displayed
in the entrance to the Taft library, and
the chaplain hopes to put together a display of all three sacred texts soon.
“The books are imbued with spiritual energy,” Ganung said, “and will
compel the community to think critically about the role of religion in the
world today.”
Plenty of other activity is going on in
Taft’s spiritual department. On campus,
Ganung has been working with the Jewish
Student Organization and Christian group
FOCUS to help students discuss religion
in a reflective manner. He is interested in
starting a Buddhist meditation program
in the evenings and also in gathering representatives from all world religions at Taft
to celebrate the common ground between
diverse traditions.
Ganung, who succeeded Michael
Spencer last year, hopes to use his role as
chaplain “to draw people into the study
of religion and how these great wisdom
traditions have shaped our culture and
continue to have an impact.”
7
Big Red Graduates Go Green
It has long been a tradition at Taft for
each graduating class to make a class
gift, something to commemorate their
time at Taft and also to remember them
by. Past gifts have included such items
as benches or trees, but recent graduates
used their class gift to demonstrate their
leadership in the 21st century.
The classes of ’07 and ’08, with
help from the administration and
the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund,
have donated a 12,000-kilowatt solar
panel array.
In October, a New Britain-based
company, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaics,
began installing the system above the
squash courts in Cruikshank Athletic
Center, an area chosen to provide maximum sun exposure. An added benefit
of installing the panels on top of the
squash courts will be, in fact, their
relative invisibility from the ground.
“We chose Pioneer Valley in part
because of the educational component of their system,” said Director of
Facilities Jim Shepard. Students can
actually monitor the impact these solar
panels have.
“We’ve been talking about installing [solar panels] for a long time,” said
Headmaster Willy MacMullen, “and it’s
not surprising to me that the impetus
came from the students.”
Students are excited too. This gift
“shows that there is real concern in the
student community for the environment,”
senior Nick Tyson said. “It’s a more visible
change than anything previously.”
While the panels won’t offset the
entire electricity use of the gym complex, a significant quantity considering
the two ice rinks and two field houses,
Mark W. Potter ’48
gallery
September 9 through 20
Work by Taft Students
September 26 through October 24
Robert Eshoo
Fantasy World
Andrew R. Heminway ’47
Memorial Art Fund Exhibition
Opening reception Friday, September 26
the array is, according to Shepard, “on
an appreciable scale.”
A 2001 Department of Energy study
found that an average 2,000-square-foot
household used 10,656 kilowatt hours
of electricity per year, or almost 2,000
fewer kilowatts than Taft’s solar panels
will produce.
The solar panels are only part of
Taft’s broader efforts to become a greener
campus. New students were greeted this
year with “goodie bags,” reusable canvas
bags with water bottles, compact fluorescent bulbs and important information
about energy use. Over the summer,
one of three oil burners at the steam
plant was replaced with a more efficient
natural gas burner, and the facilities office continues to replace old windows
with newer better-insulated ones.
—Wells Andres ’09
January 9 through February 6
Dawn Clements
Works on Paper
Rockwell Visiting Artist
Opening reception Friday, January 9
February 13 through March 7
Work by Taft Students
Opening reception Friday, February 13
October 30 through November 22
Caitlin Fitzgerald ’90
Photographs 1998–2008
Opening reception Thursday, October 30
April 3 though April 24
Yee-Fun Yin
Daily Bread
Opening reception Friday, April 3
December 2 through 17
Taft Student Show
Opening reception Friday, December 5
April 30 through May 30
Amy Wynne Derry ’84 and Gail Wynne
Clay and Paint
Opening reception Thursday, April 30
j With the lower dining hall removed, there are views of HDT not seen in 50 years. Julie Reiff
Hardhat Headlines
Editor’s note: Following up on the summer Bulletin’s cover story about the 53,000-square-foot dining hall addition and HDT renovation,
we thought readers would like to follow the progress of the construction. Therefore, we bring you “Hardhat Headlines,” a report on
ongoing changes on campus.
Construction firm O&G began their
demolition of the lower dining hall
in June. In the four months since, the
project has gone largely to plan, and has
worked hard to minimize its footprint,
both aesthetically and logistically, on
the Taft community.
This past summer, the builders had
a three-fold focus of taking down the old
lower dining hall, maintaining all utilities that went through that zone so that
the rest of the school could function, and
beginning the renovation of Mac House.
As a result, enrollment in both Taft’s summer school and in the Teacher Education
Center decreased by about 25 percent.
“Steve McCabe, director of the
Summer School, David Hostage, who
runs T.E.C., and I all agreed that we
needed to maintain the quality of those
summer experiences,” said Business
Manager Gil Thornfeldt. “As a result,
the numbers had to decrease.”
All parties agreed that the programs
ran smoothly, and that the benefit from
a construction perspective is immeasurable. The dining hall project got off to a
great start, utilities to the rest of the campus were preserved, and in Mac House,
there is a new heating system, 3.2 miles
of piping and all formerly exposed wiring
and pipes have been covered. Thornfeldt
said that the summer work was “painstaking,” but ultimately worthwhile.
As the school year has begun, most
on campus agree that the construction
footprint has been relatively small compared to what they had expected. In
order to feed the campus, we have started using two dining halls, one in the
upper dining hall in the HDT building and a temporary one in the student
union and Jigger Shop area.
While the weather allowed, the Jig
Patio had tables and umbrellas for beautiful pond-side dining. Some students
felt initially inconvenienced by not
knowing where their friends would be
eating, most adjusted quite well.
“The success of the renovation
and the minimal footprint on campus
are testaments to our whole crew: faculty, staff, the construction workers and
students,” Thornfeldt said. “I’m also
thankful that alumni are so supportive,
loyal and generous, as it is their passion
for the school that continues to move
this project forward.”
For recent images of the construction progress, please visit TaftSchool.org.
9
Around the pond
Live From New York
j Seiko Michaels
and her Japanese
language students
on a field trip
to Manhattan
Yugi Tsuchikawa ’10
Manhattan—After a chorus of welcomes, greetings and introductions,
Megumi Sato, the woman who unifies Japan and New York via a cultural
bridge of music, recent trends, and political events, and our host for the day,
cheerily informs us of her little surprise.
“Make yourselves comfortable. The
show starts soon and I would like you
all to speak live on the broadcast…”
We, students of Japanese at Taft,
spent three hours with Ms. Sato in her
New Faculty
Standing, from left, Chris Dietrich, Linda
Chandler, Patti Taylor, Jason Honsel,
James Duval, Michael Harrington,
Leon Hayward, Giovanni “Nikki” Willis,
Susan Henebry, Tom Adams, Meredith
Lyons, Terry Giffen, and, seated, Ben
Chartoff, Michelle Murolo, Chamby
Zepeda, Carly Borken, and Jennifer
Reilly. Peter Frew ’75
(For more on the new faculty, see the
summer 2008 issue.)
studio in New York for a live interview.
Live? An exhibition of my inability
to speak such a challenging language
broadcast from a prerecorded and edited tape already held my nerves in a vise
during the trip from Connecticut into
the city; but to now hold a live conversation for all of Japan to critique?
We entered the booth with one
final piece of encouragement from
Ms. Sato herself: “Don’t worry, it’s
three in the morning in Japan.”
It’s truly amazing how talkative
we all became after that profoundly
relieving statement. Japanese has been
classified as one of the most difficult
languages to learn, not only because
of its unusual grammatical structure,
three writing systems and remarkable
untranslatability into English, but also
due to the intensely cultural aspects,
which have the unfortunate side effect
of a constant fear of disgracing one’s
family honor by saying “good morning” improperly.
My opportunity to speak on a
Japanese radio show shattered those
inhibitions and granted me the ability to practice my conversational skills
with an authentic Japanese speaker and
indulge in the culture that I have adopted as my second heritage.
The field trip didn’t end after the
interview. From Japanese coffee shops
to book stores, grocery stores to restaurants, our clan of like-minded
Japanophiles circumnavigated the city,
satiating our desires for and increasing
our knowledge of Japanese culture.
Our sensei, Seiko Michaels, turned
a classroom exercise of honorific expressions into a real-world, phenomenally
engaging exposition of culture.
—John Lombard ’09
Smells Like Team Spirit
When Rachael Ryan, now in her sixth
year as varsity field hockey coach, attended the National Field Hockey
Coaches Association’s annual convention in Hartford last year, she was
looking forward to meeting fellow
coaches, sharing ideas, and learning
about the future of American field
hockey. Little did she know that she
would come across a booth for ZAG
summer tours, a reputable group led
by Princeton University’s field hockey
coach known for bringing together
high school teams and top international athletes.
Iñaco Pusco, a coach of Spain’s national
men’s team as well as a former assistant
on top college program Ohio State’s
squad. According to Ryan, Pusco had
“a great attitude and encouraged the
girls to move beyond the way we traditionally played field hockey.”
In addition, the girls worked with
the national Bermuda team coaches,
both of whom hail from South Africa,
a nation with a rich field hockey tradition. The athletic portion of the trip
culminated in a tournament that pitted Taft against two Bermudan national
teams and three teams from large pub-
m Joe Dillard ’09 with ABC World News
Anchor Charlie Gibson at the Republican
National Convention in August.
Cool, cool summer
Furthermore, ZAG’s tradition of
including a service element in their
tours attracted Ryan, who is also heavily
involved in the school’s Green initiatives. While Taft’s field hockey program
has found huge success from attending
five-day camps in New England, Ryan
saw a real opportunity for innovation,
and this resulted in the Big Red Field
Hockey Team’s six-day trip to Bermuda
this past August.
The primary element of the tour
involved an immersion in world-class
field hockey. The team worked with
lic schools in New York, each of which
had been training with their varsity
programs for weeks in advance. In the
semifinals of the tournament, Taft put
together a stunning comeback over the
Bermudan national team, as they went
from 0–2 to win 3–2 on a last-second
goal by senior co-captain Kelsey Lloyd.
In addition to the on-field improvement that the tour brought, the
team bonded over afternoons at the
beach and a tour of Bermuda. They
attended Harbor Night, a showcase of
Bermuda’s culture in the capital city of
Joseph Dillard ’09 wound up with
an in-the-trenches perspective of the
Republican National Convention
over the summer when he interned
with ABC News.
While at Journalism Camp in
Chicago in July he met ABC chief
investigative correspondent Brian
Ross. “We got to talking,” says Joe,
“and he offered me the position.”
Joe, a Minneapolis native,
worked nearly 12-hour shifts from
August 30 until September 4 (the
day before he came back to Taft).
“The energy was incredible,”
Joe adds, “especially at the balloon
drop right after McCain’s speech.
Being there is nothing like seeing it
on television.”
Hamilton, and also toured St. George,
the island’s historic district. Coach
Ryan told the Bulletin, “I couldn’t be
happier with the outcome. We had all
our returners come with us as well as
several JV players, and they used the
trip to become closer as a team and
take a new approach to our sport. The
energy from Bermuda has carried us
into the season on a different level than
ever before, and I feel lucky to be part
of this team.”
11
Around the pond
Peter Frew ’75
Theater After Dark
Once again Director Ralph Lee ’53
brought his fantastic creations to campus, this year in Mettawee River Theater
Company’s production of Nanabozhou,
a tale drawn from Winnebago creation
stories that describe how elements of the
natural world emerged out of chaos and
achieved their present form.
The title role is an unlikely hero, “a
trickster hare, whose fearless, sometimes
dimwitted impulses have unpredictable
results.” He leaves the comforting arms
of Grandmother Earth to confront frog
demons, friendly beavers, and a bevy of
spirit women.
“We first adapted material for
Nanabozhou in 1980,” Lee says, “and
we are glad to be revisiting and continuing to develop this material after
all these years.”
In addition to directing the outdoor
performance, Lee, a former Guggenheim
fellow, created the masks, puppets and
giant figures and designed the set.
Music for a While Concert Series
September 19
Mettawee River Theater
Company
Ralph Lee ’53,
Director
December 5
Bills Mays and
Inventions
Jazz
October 3
Harold Zinno Jazz
Orchestra
Big Band Concert
and Dance
December 16
Holiday Service of
Lessons and Carols
First
Congregational
Church, Watertown
October 24
Four Flutists from
Around the World
Classical
January 9
Rani Arbo and Daisy
Mayhem
Folk
November 7
Avery Ensemble
Classical
January 23
Tiffany Consort
Early Music
February 13
Art from the Heart
Valentine’s Concert
with Taft Adjunct
Music Faculty
April 3
Basically Baroque
Taft Adjunct Music
Faculty
All concerts are at 7:00 p.m. in Walker Hall,
50 DeForest Street, Watertown (except where noted),
and are free and open to the public.
New Members of the Board
Joining the Taft Board of Trustees this year are alumni trustee Karen Stevenson ’75, who was elected in May, and Ivy Kwok Wu
and Hord Armstrong ’59.
J. Hord Amstrong III ’59
After Taft and Williams College,
Hord served in the United States
Army Reserve before joining the
Morgan Guaranty Trust Company
in 1964. He was elected assistant
treasurer in 1967 and moved on to
Laird Incorporated in 1968, which
ultimately became White, Weld &
Co., which was acquired by Merrill
Lynch in 1978. He then joined Arch
Coal, Inc., as treasurer and became
CFO. In 1987, Hord led a group
of investors and founded D&K
Healthcare Resources, Inc., which
grew from $70 million in revenues
to $4.4 billion in sales and was sold
to McKesson Corp. in 2005.
He is currently chairman
and CEO of Armstrong Coal
Company. He was formerly a director of Standard Havens, Inc.; Jones
Pharma, Inc.; Correctional Medical
Services, Inc.; and was chairman of
the Centerland Fund, a registered
investment company. He currently
serves on the board of GeoMet, Inc.
Hord lives in St. Louis with
his wife, Bunny. Two of their five
children, daughters Hillary and
Leslie, graduated from Taft in ’85
and ’87, respectively. He spends
time in Gulf Stream, Florida, in
the winter and in Harbor Springs,
Michigan, in the summer.
He served as a 10-year
trustee of the St. Louis College
of Pharmacy, one of three such
privately funded institutions in
the U.S.
Karen L. Stevenson ’75
Karen was among the first group of
girls admitted to Taft in the fall of
1971. Originally from Washington,
D.C., during her four years at Taft,
she ran track, served as a monitor,
sang in Glee Club and was a member of the Cum Laude Society. She
attended the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she
was a Morehead Scholar, captained
the women’s varsity track and field
team, was a member of Alpha Phi
Omega service fraternity and gradu-
ated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A.
in history. In 1979, Karen was
named a Rhodes Scholar and attended Magdalen College at Oxford
University, where she earned a master’s in modern European history.
A graduate of Stanford Law
School, Karen is senior counsel with
Buchalter Nemer law firm in Los
Angeles, where she specializes in complex commercial litigation. A member
of the Board of Governors for the
Women Lawyers Association of Los
Angeles, Karen has been selected three
times for inclusion in Los Angeles
magazine’s Southern California Super
Lawyers – Rising Stars Edition. She is
a trustee of St. James Episcopal Day
School and enjoys mentoring women
law students who seek to balance family and career.
Karen lives in Los Angeles with
her twin sons, Keenan and Brennan.
Her favorite pastimes include hiking
in Yosemite, lazy beach trips and skiing in the Sierras with her family.
Lady Ivy Kwok Wu, P’88,’89,’90
Born and raised in Hong Kong,
Ivy is a non-executive director
of Hopewell Holdings Limited,
which is a Hong Kong-based property and highway infrastructure
company, publicly listed in Hong
Kong in 1972.
Ivy is a member of the
Guangdong Provincial Committee
of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Committee and a
justice of the peace of the HKSAR
Government. She is very active and
enthusiastic in civil and community
service work. Ivy is a director of
Hong Kong Red Cross and chairman of its International and Relief
Service Management Committee.
Ivy also serves on the committees
and boards of numerous social and
charitable organizations, including
the Asian Cultural Council’s Hong
Kong Friends’ Committee, Asia
Society Hong Kong Centre Advisory
Council, and the Hong Kong
Federation of Women. She is also
chairman of the standing committee of Hong Kong Chinese Women’s
Club and founder and director of
Wu Chung Charitable Foundation
Limited and Hong Kong Academy
of Ice Hockey.
In addition, she had formerly
served as a member of the Council
of Chairmen of the Hospital
Governing Committees of the
HKSAR Government’s Hospital
Authority as well as their Regional
Advisory Committee; Chairman
of the Hospital Governing
Committee of Tsan Yuk Hospital
as well as chairman of the Board of
Yan Chai Hospital.
She has been awarded on a number of occasions for her outstanding
performances and contributions to
various social and community services, which include Badges of Honor
from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth
II and from The British Red Cross
Society, Individual Distinguished
Award from The Chinese Red Cross
Society, Dedication and Outstanding
Leadership Award from the HKSAR
Government’s Hospital Authority,
Honorary Fellowship from The
University of Hong Kong, and
the Dean’s Award for Community
Services from The University of
Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine.
13
Around the pond
Summer Adventures
m Kira Parks ’09 was so moved by her work
with autistic children last summer that she
has started a pen-pal club to have students
write to them throughout the year.
Taft students continue to use their
summer vacations toward challenging themselves with international and
domestic opportunities. Through the
Poole, Page, and Kilbourne Fellowships,
nearly 20 students traveled worldwide
to explore new passions.
This year, Poole Fellows tackled
projects as diverse as tagging turtles and
protecting their nests and helping repair
the devastation from last year’s earthquake
in Peru. Others taught English or renovated schools. Some built houses for the
homeless or worked with orphans. This
year’s fellows were Genevieve Bleidner ’09
(New Jersey), Tierney Dodge ’10 (Costa
Rica), Will Ide ’09 (Ecuador), Hailey
Karcher ’10 (Peru), Matthew McLaughlin
’10 (Costa Rica), Catherine Moore ’09
(Vietnam), Benjamin North ’10 (Costa
Rica), Nick Tyson ’09 (Puerto Rico), Cara
Welch-Rubin ’10 (Guatemala) and Annie
Ziesing ’09 (India).
The Robert Keyes Poole ’50
Fellowship, which helps Taft students engage in global and environmental issues,
was established with an initial contribution by Rodman W. Moorhead III ’62,
who is a longtime member of the board
and currently serves as board chair.
Meg Page ’74 Fellows found various ways to get involved in health care.
Senior Robin Oh, who spent the previous summer working at an orphanage
in China, traveled to Uganda this year.
Uppermiddler Thu Pham traveled to
Vietnam, where she served as translator
for a volunteer medical project providing medical education and training to
local staffs. Middler Jasmine Oh worked
at a nursing home in China, helping
out any way she could, and senior Kira
m Yee-Fun Yin spent part of his summer traveling through Thailand. He also spent
time working on a photographic study of farm life with funding from the Largay
Faculty Support Fund. His daughter Elizabeth captured this image of Yin exploring
the floating markets in Bangkok.
Parks commuted daily to the League
Treatment Center in Brooklyn from her
home in Bronxville, New York. Founded
in 1953, it was the first day treatment
center and school in the nation to provide an alternative to institutionalization
for children and adults with autism and
severe developmental disabilities. Kira
worked with both adults and children
at the center and found the connections
she made there very rewarding. “I looked
foward to my time at LTC every day,” she
says. “To witness the small accomplishments each child and adult experienced
put a smile to both their faces and my
own. One of the most important lessons
I learned, thanks to my grant, was the
value of a smile. It is this smile that is
going to be on my face for the rest of
my life.” She has since started a pen-pal
club called Autism Breeds Champions,
where Taft students send letters to children at the center.
Page Fellowships are given in
memory of Meg’s commitment to compassionate health care and is awarded
annually to students who wish to explore
an experience or course of study devoted
to the provision of better health care in
areas such as public health, family planning, medical research, mental health
and non-Western practices of healing.
The Kilbourne Summer Enrichment
Fund again supported a number of students in the arts. Jahdai Kilkenny ’10
attended the Julian Krinsky Summer Arts
Program at Haverford College. Tucker
Jennings ’10 studied at the Berklee
School of Jazz percussion festival. Sydney
Low ’09 studied theater production at
Indiana Repertory Theater. Will Sayre
’09 returned to the School of Cinema
and Performing Art in NYC again last
summer to study film production; and
Wells Andres ’09 studied violin at the
Pebble Beach Summer Music Festival in
California. Each of them will share part
of their experience in some way with the
school at a Morning Meeting this winter.
Campus Canines
j Rick Doyle (shown center back with his familiar collie companions Willow and Otis) organized this shoot of faculty pooches.
If you look carefully, you'll spot 21, although at least four other campus residents are missing. Yee-Fun Yin
In Brief
Yale Provost
Yee-Fun Yin
Linda Lorimer, Yale’s youngest provost, addressed faculty at their opening
meetings in September, focusing on
what more educators can do to prepare
students for global citizenship. She
looked above all to Taft’s unique opportunity, working in loco parentis as
a boarding school, to address our students emotional development as well as
their academic progress. “It’s a family
calling to be at a place like this,” she
added, which helps create the school’s
uniquely close-knit community.
Write Stuff
Ben Zucker ’09 is one of 10 students
in the state to earn a certificate for superior writing in the National Council
of Teachers of English Achievement
Awards in Writing for excellence in
writing by high school juniors.
Winners demonstrate writing
ability in two forms: first, in a sample
of their best writing, in any form or
genre, drafted and revised over time;
and second, in an impromptu essay
on a subject set by the Achievement
Awards Advisory Committee and responded to by all candidates for the
award in that year.
Nationally, a total of 525 students
were selected as outstanding writers in
the competition. The recipients were
chosen from 1,789 students nominated in their junior year by their teachers,
from the 50 states, the District of
Columbia, Canada, the U.S. Virgin
Islands and American schools abroad.
Grading the Grade
Scale
Taft is in the second year of a challenging but innovative process of changing
its grading scale. The scale has been from
1.0 to 6.0 since the mid-1970s, and
while it has many advantages, a committee of experienced faculty last year
concluded that a new scale was needed.
After long deliberations, Taft will be
moving toward a 40–100 point scale in
the fall of 2009. Said Dean of Academic
Affairs Jon Willson ’82, “Although
change is always difficult, the consensus
on campus is that the new grading scale
will foster more transparency and consistency in grading, and a wider range of
the scale will be used.”
For more information
visit TaftSchool.org
15
In the
Footsteps
of
Joyce
T
hose who believe
James Joyce’s
Ulysses is inaccessible or
incomprehensible may be
otherwise convinced by
self-proclaimed Joycean
scholars John Lombard
and Barbara Romaine.
As participants in the
Bloomsday Trip, James
Joyce Scholars 2008, fully
supported by the Ireland
Cultural Exchange Fund,
Barbara, John and I,
Sharon, traveled to Dublin
in June with nine other
students and three faculty
members from other
schools. The intensive
eight-day program provided
us with the opportunity to
explore simultaneously
both Joyce and Dublin
through the lens of the
other—each made more
accessible as a result.…
Students embark on a literary tour of Dublin
By Sharon Phelan and Barbara Romaine ’09
Photographs by John Lombard ’09
17
…In addition to
reading chapters of Joyce’s
Ulysses, Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man, and
Dubliners and walking
Dublin’s streets, we
ventured to areas outside of
“His smile faded as he
walked, a heavy cloud
hiding the sun slowly,
shadowing Trinity’s surly
front. Trams passed
one another, ingoing,
outgoing, clanging.
Useless words. Things go
on same, day after day.”
—Ulysses
the city associated with the
world of his characters.
We traveled to Glendalough
Abbey, Avondale, Martello
Tower, and Sandycove,
where some of us jumped
from the cliffs into the
Irish Sea like Stephen
Dedalus and Buck
Mulligan at the opening
of Ulysses; we toured
Clongowes Woods College,
the Irish boarding school
made famous by Portrait.
All of which brought James
Joyce himself and his
characters to life.…
“Solemnly he came
forward and mounted
the round gunrest.
He faced about and
blessed gravely thrice the
tower, the surrounding
country and the
awakening mountains.”
—Ulysses
“Dublin was a new and complex sensation. In the beginning
he contented himself with circling timidly round the
neighbouring square or, at most, going half way down one
of the side streets: but when he made a skeleton map of
the city in his mind he followed boldly one of its central
lines until he reached the custom house.”
—Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
My stomach growled as we entered the James Joyce Center. We were introduced to a ball of energy also known
as James Quinn, the all-knowing James Joyce scholar who would be our tour guide on our Bloom’sday walk. Using
Joyce’s “Lestrygonians” chapter we followed Leopold Bloom’s footsteps through the hectic city and the more we read
the more I began to feel as though I was being digested by the city, just as Joyce intended. While were in the heart
of the city, I could feel it pulsating with my every move. It was just like a movie, a flashback to the early 1900s, I
could hear the loud clatter of the carriages as they rode across the cobblestoned streets and the chatter of the
waves of people gallivanting throughout the city in this mid-afternoon scene. After I caught myself daydreaming of
the life Bloom must have led, James Quinn continued to guide us through the rest of the city like we were a group
of untrained puppies aimlessly pulling in different directions. We moved through the entire digestive tract of the
city finally ending at the National Art Museum. By this time it was my stomach that was growling not the city’s.
My friend Liz and I meandered our way finally stumbling on a little café where we drank fresh fruit smoothies and
pondered the literary devices of James Joyce that have scholars perplexed to this day.
—Barbara Romaine ’09
19
…Our trip, however,
was not simply a literary
…where some of us jumped from the cliffs into the Irish
Sea like Stephen Dedalus at the opening of Ulysses
tour. We were invited to
a reception at the U.S.
Ambassador’s Residence
and a tour of the U.S.
Embassy; we attended
a presentation on Joyce
by Senator David Norris
and then toured the Irish
Parliament, the Dail, with
him. All of this while
making sure we saw the
Book of Kells and Trinity
College, shopped on
Grafton Street, studied
in the National Library,
listened to traditional
Irish music, attended
services at St. Patrick’s
Cathedral and ate our
share of shepherd’s pie.…
“The grey warm evening of August had
descended upon the city and a mild warm
air, a memory of summer, circulated in the
streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose
of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured
crowd. Like illuminated pearls the lamps shone
from the summits of their tall poles upon the
living texture below which, changing shape and
hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey
evening air—unchanging unceasing murmur.”
—Dubliners
As London is to Dickens, Dublin is to Joyce,
from the James Joyce Museum to the Bloomsday festival in June.
…Most importantly,
we experienced the
infamous June 16
Bloomsday festival, the
day in the life of Leopold
Bloom and the novel
Ulysses, and learned that a
single day can present us
with obstacles like those
of an epic adventure and
allow us to be heroic in our
willingness and ability to
overcome them.
—Sharon Phelan, Taft
English teacher
21
World Scholars
Seven students from around the corner and across the globe are making
the most of a Taft education thanks to the Davis Scholars Program
By Rick Lansdale
Alexandra
Hamilton ’11
“She looks you square
in the eye, speaks
with clear confidence,
and then explains
the world as she sees
her place in it.”
W
hen home is 1,650 miles
away, you hope you’ve made
the right choice to attend a
place such as Taft. And for Ally Hamilton,
leaving Kingston, Jamaica, for Watertown
was not just a matter of a great number
of miles. Everything here is different, she
says: food, weather, academic expectations, people, music, culture.
One of the top students at Hillel
Academy in Kingston, where she won
numerous academic, athletic and
artistic awards, Ally could have com-
pleted a successful high school career
and gone on to college or university
without heading first to boarding
school in the United States. “I like
taking risks,” she says, in order to test
herself and grow, and so here she is,
a new middler, thrown into the thick
of it all: a full slate of courses, life
in McIntosh House, extracurricular
activities, new friends.
Ally knew when she was in middle school that she wanted to attend a
boarding school in the United States.
Photo credits: Andre Li ’11, Peter Frew ’75
D
iversity is a key component to any modern educational community. Where schools once reached
out to talented but economically disadvantaged
students, today’s campuses are looking to enrich the educational
experience by seeking applicants with different regional, economic,
social, political and religious points of view—preparing graduates
to be worthy global citizens. A pilot scholarship program funded
by the Shelby Davis family (Lanse ’95) helps Taft do both.
“We want to build a broadening network of international
decision makers,” explains Phil Geier, executive director of the
Davis United World College Scholars Program, “by providing funds to support students not coming from independent
school families, who might be the first in their families to attend university. We hope this will help schools recruit highly
motivated future leaders seeking extraordinary opportunities
at American boarding schools.”
The Admissions Office brought to campus local community
leaders with ties to lower-income students to speak with them
about the Davis Scholars program. They also turned to our long-
x
e
l
a
A
n d ra
Why? Because of all the opportunities
that exist here that are not available in
Kingston. And so she began the process
of applying and met both Taft admissions officers Chris Dietrich (then at
Loomis) and Will Orben ’92, who interviewed her in Kingston.
The most difficult part of the
process, Ally says, was all the writing.
The interviews, though, were easy. She
looks you square in the eye, speaks with
clear confidence, and then explains the
world as she sees her place in it.
standing relationship with ASSIST (American Secondary Schools
for International Students and Teachers) to identify a candidate
specifically from Eastern or Central Europe. And alumni served
a key role in introducing potential scholars to the school.
“Although boarding schools are largely a known commodity in the northeastern U.S.,” says Taft admissions director
Peter Frew ’75, “the Davis Scholarships allow us to reach out
to kids in new markets in parts of the country and abroad
where families simply don’t realize what a Taft experience can
offer their children.”
This year alone, students hail from 28 countries and 35
states. “Our objective is to ensure that our Davis Scholars—
as with all new students—are quickly integrated into the
main stream of life at school and impact the community in
singular ways,” says Peter.
By any standard these seven Davis Scholars—two from
the United States and five from abroad—are an impressive
group. Already they are contributing to the richness of a Taft
experience, and having some fun while they’re at it.
23
“You’ve got to come and see this kid.”
Sebby
Orman ’11
S
ebby Orman arrives every morning at Taft from Waterbury, just
twelve miles away, but the distance he travels is greater than it might
seem. Sebby’s journey began when his
parents immigrated to the United States
from Poland in 1986, soon followed
by Sebby’s grandfather in 1994, all of
whom live together in Waterbury.
The first of his extended family to
be born in the United States, Sebby
“...a unique young
man, a hard worker
brimming with
leadership skills.”
M
arieta Kenkovova arrived at
Taft from Banska Bystrica
in the Slovak Republic,
4,238 miles away. Her journey began
when she applied to the ASSIST program; a few months later she landed at
JFK and drove up to Watertown in the
company of Jenny Jin ’09, (another of
the Davis Scholars) and Jeff Su ’09,
who had just arrived from Beijing and
Shanghai respectively.
ASSIST has sent many remarkable
and talented students to Taft over the
Lou
Louie Reed ’11
will be the first to attend college, too.
Although Sebby had heard of Taft because of his proximity to the school, the
idea of coming here was not even a distant glimmer until his soccer coach, Phil
Lima ’01, called Will Orben ’92, Taft’s
varsity coach, and said, “You’ve got to
come and see this kid.”
Will drove over to the Waterbury recreation center in the middle of the winter
and watched a rather thin, blond-haired
ie
years, and Marieta brings with her ambition, curiosity, determination and a
wide view of the world.
“I saw your course offerings and
they all look so wonderful,” she wrote
to Director of Admissions Peter Frew,
“and I am sure it will be a very hard
decision for me to choose just some
of them.”
School at home was not as challenging, and she often felt that she was
simply going through the motions during classes and not really learning what
she deemed was important to improve
not only her home country but also international relations.
Fluent in Slovak, Czech, German
and English, she enjoys the challenges
of living far from home and studying at
a place where thinking counts.
“My favorite aspect of the school is
Bingham Auditorium,” she says. “The
spirit of the school is located there, and
it’s something you can feel all the time,
which I did not feel about my school
back home.”
Se
y
H
ome for Louie Reed is
Oakland, California, 2,977
miles away from Watertown.
He loves art, is passionate about the guitar,
composes music, and plays ice hockey.
For Louie, playing hockey in New
England was much more appealing than
playing hockey in California—imagine
traveling from Oakland to San Diego
for an away game—and his mother
was hoping he could find some balance
in his life. She didn’t want it to be all
about the hockey; she was looking for
bb
kid run circles around the other players
in the game. Sebby’s soccer skills were one
thing; his academic talents were another:
best student in his class of 350 students
for the last two years, glowing reports
from all his teachers, highest commendations from his school administrators.
“It’s a dream come true to attend Taft,”
he says. “I’m honored to be here and want
to do well, not only for my own sake but
for my parents’ and my grandfather’s.”
something challenging, but “healthier.”
When the Blochs, former Taft parents and old family friends, explained all
the opportunities—educational, artistic,
athletic and social—that their children
Matt and Reisa ’05 enjoyed here, Louie
applied…and accepted the school’s offer of admission the first moment he
stepped foot on campus, even before he
saw the Mays and Odden rinks.
Jake Odden ’86, who interviewed
Louie in California, instantly recognized a unique young man, a hard
M
worker brimming with leadership skills.
“It’s a little easier being away from
home than I thought it would be,” says
Louie, “because there’s so much to do
and the teachers are cool.” He enjoys
the hard work: five classes, getting into
shape for the upcoming season, hanging
out in HDT, the social scene.
What makes Taft special for Louie is
the warmth of community. “I can’t tell
how often I’ve just said ‘hi’ to people in
the hallways, maybe hundreds of times in
the three weeks since school opened.”
arieta
“...ambition, curiosity,
determination and a wide
view of the world.”
Marieta
Kenkovova ’10
25
e
o
N
m
i
Neomi
Sanghrajka ’11
Naeem Ahmad ’10
N
aeem Ahmad has not returned
to Kabul, Afghanistan, since
he arrived as a new middler
in the fall of 2007. For this year and
the next, Taft will be his home, and,
frankly, he doesn’t know when he
will go back. Not only is the distance
great, 6,661 miles, but returning is also
fraught with dangers on a scale unknown to most Taft students.
Too often, visas for young men who
have studied outside of Afghanistan are
simply not renewed, and the risk of not
being able to return to complete one’s
education is greater than the desire to
see one’s homeland.
In spite of these issues, Naeem’s
positive outlook is undiminished, and he
has thrived at Taft in ways that he knows
he could not have at home. There’s opportunity here—resources, academic
infrastructure, teachers and advisers—
that is simply not available in Kabul.
As Donald Goodrich, Naeem’s
host parent in the United States puts it,
“What is the use of a degree from Kabul
University if you can’t get a job there?”
Naeem knows that his future is still
inextricably bound to his homeland,
and a Taft education followed by an
American collegiate education will do
more for him and his homeland than
his native city can provide at this point.
Naeem tried wrestling last winter and joined crew, where he learned
to row. His boat qualified for New
Englands, and he is looking forward to
rowing again this spring.
“Living far away from home was
a pretty challenging experience at first,
but now, it’s fun,” says Naeem. “I found
students and faculty very helpful and
Jenny
Jin ’09
J en ny
“The Davis Scholarship
has allowed her to
finish her high school
career here, and we are
the richer for it.”
N
eomi Sanghrajka was born
and raised in Mumbai, India,
7,716 miles away, and became
interested in Taft when her older sister’s
best friend, Supriya Balsekar ’04, would
visit while home on vacation from Taft.
Supriya would bring back pictures of
the school and her new friends, and,
although Neomi was president of her
class at Bombay International School,
she realized that it would soon become
too small for her.
Another alum, Rishi Dalal ’96, who
lives in Mumbai, interviewed her for Taft,
and in September, she was on her way to
Watertown. Initially she felt a little lost,
since she was used to the Indian system of education, which follows British
English and measurements, and especially since Mumbai’s time zone is eleven
and a half hours ahead of Watertown’s.
Even so, she is thrilled to be here
and hopes to take advantage of the travel
opportunities available to Taft students
during the school year. She’s been to
Kenya and South Africa already and
can’t wait to explore the world alongside
her new Taft classmates. “You have to
make the effort to travel the world,” she
says. “It’s part of the reason I’m here.”
“She can’t wait to explore the world alongside her new Taft classmates.”
friendly. Now, I am pretty much accustomed with everything. Dorm life is my
second favorite thing about Taft. Just
being here tops the list.”
His journey to Taft began, unusually
enough, with a conversation in the fall of
2006 between Peter and Dave Edwards
’70, an anthropology professor at Williams
and producer of the documentary Kabul
Transit, when David screened the film at
Taft. Wouldn’t it be great, they wondered,
if we brought an Afghan student here who
could help our community understand
the situation in Afghanistan?
W
hen Ferdie Wandelt ’66
helped expand the ASSIST
program to China, he knew
that one day someone such as Jenny Jin
would find her way to Taft. Jenny is the top
student in the school this year, as she was
last year, and her record of achievement is
nothing short of spectacular. By the end of
her Taft career, she will have taken six AP
courses, five of them in math and science.
She is a member of the Math
Team, the collection of top-flight math
students who compete in various problem-solving competitions. She ran up
a perfect score in all six New England
m
e
a
e
N
“...he has thrived at Taft in ways that
he knows he could not have in Kabul.”
Math League contests last year, was a
member of the Taft team that competed in the Harvard MIT Mathematics
Tournament last spring, and was one of
58 students in all of the United States
to have been invited to the Mathematics
Olympiad Summer Program.
In high school in Beijing, she would
have been one student in a class of fifty.
Jenny combines her talent with unbridled enthusiasm for learning. “I love
Mr. Hostage,” she says. “I learned so much
in AP Chemistry last year.” This year she
is studying quantum mechanics with Jim
Mooney and multivariable calculus with
John Piacenza, teachers from whom she
has received the school’s top marks.
As a returning student this fall, she
welcomed her “new girl” from Shanghai
and quickly took her under her wing. As
an ASSIST student, Jenny would normally
have returned to China at the completion
of her year here, as all ASSIST students
do. The Davis Scholarship has allowed her
to finish her high school career here, and
we are the richer for it.
Rick Lansdale has taught English at Taft
since 1989 and now heads the Independent
Studies Program as well.
27
29
31
33
This article is reprinted with permission of Greenwich Magazine.
Fr o m t h e Ar c h i v es
The Presidential
Marathon Run
Leslie D. Manning Archives
I
n this cartoon from 1908, the popular
sector roots for Democratic candidate
William Jennings Bryan, while William
Howard Taft is shown sheltered by and
pulled along behind the GOP windshield.
He is cheered on by its big business constituency, embodied in John D. Rockefeller.
Taft’s caricature as the corpulent, nonathletic Republican Old Guard nominee is
drawn in stark contrast to Roosevelt’s aggressive athletic persona representing the
Progressive branch of the GOP.
“Will was humorous about [his weight]
himself and, of course, the cartoonists were
delighted with the opportunity it gave them,”
Horace Taft wrote in his memoir. He refuted
the popular image of his brother’s laziness,
adding “My brother was a hard worker. Will
was not an athlete, but was a man of extraor-
dinary physical strength. He had enormous
vitality and a healthy ambition.”
Will had been secretary of war under
Theodore Roosevelt and was his chosen successor in the 1908 election, winning out over
Bryan in the end, only to have Roosevelt
challenge him for the Republican ticket four
years later.
“Presidential Marathon Run” is one of
34 original drawings by Norman Ritchie
that the school acquired in 1971. Ritchie
was well known for more than 50 years as
a leading editorial cartoonist for The Boston
Post. Many of his cartoons are in the collections of the Library of Congress, state
capitols, courthouses and museums around
the country.
—Alison Gilchrist, archivist
TaftSchool.org…
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