CUSHING TODAY MAGAZINE and ANNUAL REPORT Permit #1382
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FALL 2014 Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Hartford, CT REPORT ANNUAL AND MAGAZINE TODAY CUSHING Permit #1382 39 School Street CUSHING ACADEMY MAGAZINE Ashburnham, MA 01430 CushingToday Stay Connected to Cushing! facebook.com/CushingAcademyFans @CushingAcademy Cushing Academy Alumni Network and Cushing Academy Parent Network [email protected] 978-827-7400 cushing.org Visit our website. “Like” us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Send us an email. Find us on LinkedIn. Give us a call… 2014 FALL No matter how you like to stay in touch, Cushing has you covered. WILL DAY ’89 CUSHING’S SESQUICENTENNIAL ANNUAL REPORT 2013–2014 Awakening his creative spirit Join us for an event 150 years in the Thank you to everyone who supported at Cushing making the Academy during the year CushingToday Cushing exists for the students, their academic growth, and personal development. In educating the mind, shaping the character, and nurturing the creativity of an academically and culturally diverse student body, we challenge each individual, support excellence in the learning process, and promote active participation and service in all areas of life and learning. We offer a demanding college preparatory curriculum, teach skills that build confidence, and instill values that endure. Cushing Today is a publication of Cushing Academy’s Office of Development and Alumni Programs. Headmaster Christopher Torino Associate Head of School Catherine Pollock Director of Development Caitlin O’Brien Cushing Today Editor Amy Ostroth Director of Marketing and Communications Heather Hill ’90 Your Gift Matters Contributing Writers Amy Ostroth David Sacks ’67 Jennifer Klein Your gift to the Cushing Academy Fund makes possible everything Photography that makes a Cushing education special. Jake Belcher Tom Kates Tim Morse Amy Ostroth Gifts purchase supplies like those Dr. Sponholtz and his students use in the laboratory. They pay for Phil Wexler transportation that allows Julia Ohm to take her theatre students to New York City. They ensure we’re Design Andrea Hopkins able to build the infrastructure that allows our students to take advantage of the latest technology. Cheney & Company They allow us to add new spaces like the new patio outside the student center, and upgrade existing Printing Allied Printing Services, Inc. spaces like creating the semiprivate dining alcove in the Fisher-Watkins Dining Commons. They allow Cushing Today welcomes class notes, us to offer scholarships to worthy students both domestic and international. photographs, story ideas, and comments by alumni/ae, parents, and friends. Please send them to [email protected] or call 978-827-7400. Your gift today will allow us to do all of that and more. TO MAKE A GIFT, return the enclosed business reply envelope or go online to www.cushing.org/give. If you have questions about how to give or why your gift matters, please contact us by phone at 978- Uri Barky ’16 photographs 827-7400, by email at [email protected], or visit our website at www.cushing.org/gifts. Cushing’s fall foliage In This Issue FEATURES 20 Commencement Graduates Matriculations After 74 Years, a Cushing Diploma 26 Alumni Profi les Meghan Duggan ’06: Playing for Gold Cullen Concannon ’89: Celebrating Silver Reunion Will Day ’89: Awakening his Creative Spirit 32 Building Building a Fitter Future DEPARTMENTS 2 On Campus From the Headmaster Along School Street New Faculty and Trustees Show Your Work Good Sports 25 A Day in the Life A Day in the Life of Jimmie-Gaye Buono 36 What Am I? Found in the Archives 40 Annual Report 2013–2014 66 Alumni International Corner Alumni News Reunion 2014 What Am I? Alumni Take a Trip into the Country’s Past Can you identify this Class Notes piece of Cushing’s history? Think you know In Memoriam where it is on campus and what it has to do ON THE COVER A close up of the Penguins on the Rocks, with Cushing’s past? located next to the Emily Fisher Landau Center for Visual Arts, Read the full story on crafted by James Breidenbach ‘03 and his brother, Peter ‘05. page 36 to find out. FALL 2014 1 From the Headmaster CHRISTOPHER TORINO I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. A NEW SCHOOL YEAR IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE BEGINNING of a new journey. Yet, this start is simultaneously a continuation—like ascending a spiral—of a meaningful journey we’ve been on for quite some time. My journeying with Cushing began last year, of course, and as transitions often are, the year was one of brilliant discovery and reflection for me, and our faculty, staff, students, parents, and alumni. We spent the year examining much of what we do, how and why we do it, and what needed to improve so we could be a better, stronger school. We reviewed our curriculum, and we studied our diversity. We renovated dormitory common rooms, and we opened new, community doors. All that we have accomplished and will seek to accomplish moving forward was and will be rooted in our longstanding tradition of excellence. Working deliberately to enhance our ability to meet our mission, we created a portrait of a Cushing graduate, which, hand-in-hand with our mission statement, will serve as a foundational document—a statement of core values—for our work moving forward. Read more on page 4. In speaking with faculty and staff to launch this new school year, I framed and outlined our collective vision, one rooted in Cushing’s proud history and our community members’ shared goals for the future. Great leadership, I said, empowers a community of individuals —each with her/his own needs, desires, and motivations—to create and achieve shared goals. Much as a teacher and student share the responsibility of learning, an entire school com- munity shares the responsibility of leading—students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and other partners. This year, we will continue to examine and reflect on much of what we do, and we will act on what we will have learned to the benefit of our students because, as our mission 2 CUSHING TODAY ON CAMPUS CHRISTOPHER TORINO I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU statement declares, Cushing exists for students. We are committed to regaining and deepening those elements that are essential to an exceptional education. We want Cushing to be exceptional; and everyone, from students to faculty to Trustees, is aligned and daily seeking ways to improve. I’m proud of the work we’ve already done, which you will read more about in this issue of Cushing Today. Out of a deliberate, inclusive, and authentic process, we’ve created a new brand and logo that speaks to our traditional strengths and is a reflection of who we truly are at Cushing (read more on page 6). Of utmost importance, we’ve reduced our enrollment to just over 400, a student body size that aligns with tradition and enables us to gather as a community in ways we’ve been unable to do in more than a decade (read more on page 6). We have engaged critical outside perspectives, including author and educator Rosalind Wiseman, to challenge and guide us in strengthening student life (read more on page 11). We have de- termined that our highest priority capital need is a new athletic center; and we have already begun the fundraising journey for this transformational facility (read more on page 32). Obviously, these efforts are just the beginning. This year and every year will see the faculty, staff, and administration of the Academy engaged in the vigorous and perseverant pursuit of excellence. And because such pursuit, such a journey is only successful when many Cushing minds and voices are heard and converge, we hope you will join us. FALL 2014 3 Introduction of Cushing’s “Portrait of a Graduate” BY CHRISTOPHER TORINO You might be shocked by this, but I’ve learned that, on list of knowledge, skills, and mindsets, the committee occasion, students are curious to know why they’re learn- focused on those traits and tenets that most aptly portray ing what they’re learning—why we, whether as parents the Cushing we are and want to be. The entire faculty or teachers, are asking them to work hard at something then participated in drafting the portrait that was re- in and out of school. Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to viewed and revised by the twenty faculty who participated know this? in July’s three-day, student-life retreat. The portrait was The Cushing faculty recognizes this questioning of and also presented to the Board of Trustees during its annual search for purpose not only as common, but also as essen- summer retreat and, ultimately, recognized and adopted tial. It is our honor and responsibility to frame and guide as a powerful expression of learning at Cushing. students in their respective journeys to grapple with and As its preamble reads, the Portrait of a Graduate details answer these questions. and supports Cushing’s mission to educate the mind, Whereas Cushing’s mission statement expresses our shape the character, nurture the creativity, and foster most cherished principle—that our Academy “exists for the well-being of each student. As a lens through which students” and their learning—we have felt the need for we examine ourselves and our work, this portrait guides a more specific statement of vision of and purpose for and informs all aspects of school life. And each of the student learning.