THE SUN DIAL Winter 2018 The Magazine of The Ethel Walker School AN UNCHARTED JOURNEY Designing a Career in a New Era of Work Traditions • Science and Engineering • 100 Years in Simsbury PUBLISHED BY The Ethel Walker School 230 Bushy Hill Road, Simsbury, CT 06070 +1 (860) 658-4467 | www.ethelwalker.org Dr. Meera Viswanathan HEAD OF SCHOOL EDITORIAL BOARD Gretchen Orschiedt DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT Marion Paterson P’17, ’19 DIRECTOR OF ALUMNAE RELATIONS Michelle Helmin P’19 DIRECTOR OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS CONTRIBUTORS Carlin Carr, Calista Duggan ’18, Margaret Gooch P’24, Michelle G. Helmin P’19, Theresa Jo ’18, Gretchen Orschiedt, Marion Paterson P’17, ’19, Matt Sawyers, Laura Schmelter, and Tyler Varsell TAKE NOTE Margaret Gooch P’24 PHOTOGRAPHY Corina Alvarezdelugo, Ben Barker, Matt Branscombe, Isabel Ceballos, Jenna Dunn P’19, ’20, Mimi Duran ’18, Addie Friedlander ’18, Elizabeth Greenberg ’10, Jim Healey, Michelle G. Helmin P’19, Rose Lincoln, Genie Lomba P’13, ’16, ’18, Andrew Mason, John Monagan, Monique Pace ’18, Marion Paterson P’17, ’19, Cheri Soule, and Tyler Varsell ADDRESS CLASS NOTES TO: Advancement Office The Ethel Walker School 230 Bushy Hill Road Simsbury, CT 06070 Or submit via email to: [email protected] SEND ADDRESS AND EMAIL CHANGES TO: [email protected] DESIGN John Johnson Art Direction & Design PRINTING Pyne-Davidson Company THE SUNDIAL MAGAZINE IS PRINTED WITH VEGETABLE BASED INKS ON FSC CERTIFIED 10% POST-CONSUMER FIBER CHLORINE-FREE PAPER STOCK. We make every attempt to publish accurate information. If you notice an error, please let us know so that we can fix it. Thank you. Editor’s Note: Our apologies to Liss Couch-Edwards ’07 who contributed photography to our last issue and was not listed as a contributor and to Adrianne Massie Hill ’56 whose name was misspelled in our last issue. The Ethel Walker School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origins in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletics, and other School-administered programs. In This Issue 2 Message from the Head of School 3 Reunion 2018 4 Note from the Board Chair 5 New Trustee: Lindsay Flynn ’05 6 An Uncharted Journey: Designing a Career in a New Era of Work 12 Small World Initiative 15 New Engineering Course 16 Community Partnerships 20 New Faculty and Staff 23 Faculty News and Appointments 24 100 Years in Simsbury 26 Traditions 34 Margaret Huling Bonz Women of Distinction Speaker Series 36 Alumnae on Campus 38 On Campus & Beyond 42 Where In the World Are Walker’s Students? 43 On the Stage 46 Horizons at The Ethel Walker School 48 Athletics 52 Equestrian 55 Walker’s Out and About 60 Why I Give 62 Leaving a Legacy 64 Spotlight on Katherine Hypolite ’04 65 Message from Alumnae Board Co-Chairs 66 Take Note Updates and News from Your Walker’s Classmates and Friends 100 Births & Adoptions Marriages & Unions 101 In Memoriam & In Sympathy 103 In Memoriam: Former Trustees 104 EWSPA News Inside Back Cover: EWS Specialty Scarves ON THE COVER: Anne Lacouture Penniman ’76, Lauren Nicholson ’14, Emily Sappington ’06 and Henrietta Cheng Mei ’79 WINTER 2018 1 MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Dear Walker’s Community, Greetings from Simsbury for our inaugural Design issue of the Sundial! A year ago I had the pleasure of visiting my alma mater Stanford University to hear about their Design School and its harnessing of the arts, engineering, medicine and a host of other disciplines in collaboration to create productive change in our society. This semester at Walker’s we are team-teaching a course on South Asian and Southeast Asian History and in studying ancient Indus Valley civilization, we began to explore the topological mathematics of pulli kolam (the geometric designs defined by numerically arrayed grids of dots), both in terms of the structures they impose and the innumerable creative possibilities engendered by those rigid structures. To this day, Hindu women from all over India and all socio-economic strata, literate and illiterate alike, decorate and sanctify the entrances to their homes early every morning by creating such designs whose origins go back five thousand years. As many of you know, my mantra has been girls as joyful “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, thinkers and doers in the world, and it struck me immediately we lose the excitement of possibilities. upon my arrival at Walker’s that girls are natural engineers and Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” designers and continue to be as they develop — as adults, most of us are engaged problem-solvers in whatever walk of life we inhabit. GLORIA STEINEM This is also what I discovered about our wonderful alumnae body — that we have produced a host of ‘designing women’ changing the face of our world in productive, impactful ways. All of you, courage in which all girls at Walker’s achieve functional mastery in artists, engineers, authors, designers, poets, creators, teachers, and a host of areas before they graduate, including a swim test, first-aid agents of change! certification, a self-defense course, the ability to give a three-minute Despite the negative associations of the idioms ‘designing impromptu speech on any topic with no ‘ums,’ ‘you knows,’ or women’ and ‘artful females’ in pre-21st century history, we need ‘likes,’ international experience, financial competency including to embrace the power and possibility of these designations. Which personal finance, taxes and investments, a paid summer internship leads us to the fundamental question of what is ‘design’? It surely is among others. one of the most meaningful and resonant of terms. Design is by turns: Hence, I want to apologize for the fact that instead of embellishment/ornament, plan/engineer, creation/ production and producing our usual fall, spring and summer issues this year, we carries within it the notion of sign or mark, the bearer of meaning. are highlighting some exciting changes at Walker’s by devoting two Surely these various definitions lie at the heart of any significant issues of the Sundial this winter and late spring to the topic of educational institution. Teachers and students are designers Design and Design Thinking. This is in keeping with our emerging alike, crafting together the educational process. Recently, we are strategic plan, Walker’s blueprint for the future. Beginning with hearing more and more about design thinking — the process of our summer Sundial Supplement we will return to our traditional adopting and adapting creative strategies from the world of design scheduling of issues. So in this first installment of our two-part to solving real-world problems and questions. And in a fortuitous design theme, I hope you will share our excitement as you turn the coincidence this semester by repurposing Galbraith Gym, Walker’s successive pages of this issue. has found just the place for student engineer/designers to let their imaginations run free. Your fellow dreamer, In order to realize our goal of having our girls become joyful thinkers and doers both in their time at Walker’s and beyond, we need them to feel convinced of their capacity to dream, create and achieve. In the next issue of the Sundial, I want to share with all of Dr. Meera Viswanathan (aka Ms. Vis) you our vision for designing a ‘Capabilities Approach’ to helping HEAD OF SCHOOL our girls develop confidence, conviction, integrity, resilience and 2 THE SUNDIAL National Reunion Chair Alexandra “Alex” Badger Airth Class of 1983 — 35th Reunion As Walker’s moves forward under Head of School Meera Each year, Reunion is a major event in the life of the School Viswanathan’s leadership, Alex is excited to be helping lead the and this year I ask you to make it an important event in your efforts in shaping a meaningful and exciting Reunion 2018 life too. The role of women in the world, and the importance of this spring. educating young women, is more vital “Some of you may have seen and perhaps more challenging than ever. Walker’s classmates or visited campus Come see for yourself how Walker’s is recently, and others may not have embracing this challenge. Opportunities re-connected for years or even since for fun, learning, networking and sharing you graduated. Reunion is a time during the course of the weekend will when ALL of us can embrace the leave you surprised and delighted by what opportunity to renew connections you discover upon your return. to our School, rethink the role the Please join classmates and friends, School has played in our lives, and come back — this is our School and our rediscover the intersections of our Reunion — and come together to support paths through the common bond of and recognize Walker’s, our students, our Alexandra Badger Airth ’83, her husband, Alan, The Ethel Walker School. and their children, Chandler, Graysen and Hailey history and our future.” WINTER 2018 3 A NOTE FROM Kit O’Brien Rohn ’82 CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES For the past year and a half, I have served as board chair and know, in my heart, that I have received more from Walker’s than I have returned in service to the School. Every day, I work with extraordinary people and many at Walker’s are now family. I am fortunate to have a team of dedicated trustees to serve beside me who are devoted, smart, creative and disciplined people. We are all driven and motivated by a common cause — our commitment to Meera’s success as our head, our School’s long-term financial sustainability, and a unified and clear vision for Walker’s future.