SUMMER 2019 Liz Barre ’19 Competing in the Hurdles SUMMER Against Deerfield and Andover in Mid-April
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SUMMER 2019 Liz Barre ’19 competing in the hurdles SUMMER against Deerfield and Andover in mid-April. ROBERT FALCETTI 2019 44 Alumni Weekend 2019 Photography by Robert Falcetti, Anne Kowalski, and James Shannon . INSIDE 52 The Ongoing Work of Inclusion A Conversation with Andrew Prince, Dean of Multicultural Education . 58 129th Commencement Remarks by Mayor Neil O’Leary P’19 . DEPARTMENTS 3 On Main Hall 5 Social Scene 6 Alumni Spotlight 16 In Print 18 Around the Pond 34 Sports 42 Annual Fund Report 66 Class Notes 108 Milestones 112 Looking Back On MAIN HALL A WORD FROM An excerpt from Taft’s 2019 HEADMASTER WILLY Commencement Remarks MACMULLEN ’78 SUMMER 2019 ON THE COVER To this class not long ago I said that to become a Taft graduate is to join Volume 89, Number 3 One very happy graduate a family of men and women, of all ages, and around the globe. Dennis Franklin ’19 EDITOR (school monitor and varsity A dinner three weeks ago reminded me of this. Linda Hedman Beyus athlete) with a crowd When the Class of 1969 returned to campus on Alumni Weekend of excited classmates! for their 50th Reunion, I joined them for dinner. Some were regular DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS ROBERT FALCETTI Kaitlin Thomas Orfitelli visitors to campus, but others had not set foot here for half a century. I was the guest, privileged to see them greeting each other, the years and ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS distance melting in hugs and handshakes, blessed to hear stories of their days here, interested to hear Debra Meyers them remark on how Taft in many ways was the same and in others so utterly different. They had the PHOTOGRAPHY full range of memories and experiences. For some, their adolescence was difficult and even painful; for Robert Falcetti others, their Taft days were among their happiest. It was a gathering of remarkable men. CLASS NOTES EDITOR When I addressed them after dinner, their experience as students in the late 1960s was very much Hillary Dooley on my mind. Think of the boy who arrived in the fall of 1965 as a lower mid and who graduated in 1969. “You have been The cultural and political landscape was shifting and fracturing in such extreme ways, one wonders DESIGN how this nation could stand—and it very nearly did not. The Vietnam War was drawing us deeper and Good Design, LLC | www.gooddesignusa.com at Taft in the deeper, the 1968 Tet offensive launched their senior year. Our struggles and advances in civil rights TAFT ONLINE most complex continued: President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act the week before their lower mid year began; and demanding Tommy Smith and John Carlos, African-American track medalists, raised their fists in protest on the Find a friend or past Bulletin: taftalumni.com medal stand. The long hot summer of their upper mid year saw confrontations with police and race riots years, and I in Newark and Detroit. There were powerful movements elsewhere. Environmental consciousness was SEND ALUMNI COMMENTS? Visit us on your phone: taftschool.org expanding dramatically, and the National Organization of Women (NOW) was founded when they were NEWS TO TELL US! believe here you mids. And before they would become seniors, they witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Taft Bulletin We’d love to hear what you Alumni Office think about the stories in What happened at today’s game? taftsports.com have learned a Jr. and Robert Kennedy. I marvel at how these Taft boys could study algebra and Shakespeare and wake The Taft School this Bulletin. We may edit up for classes and clean their rooms and attend sit-down dinner as the landscape under their feet was 110 Woodbury Road your letters for length, kind of resilience, grinding, shaking, and upheaving along the fractures of cultural and political tectonic plates. Watertown, CT 06795-2100 clarity, and content, Shop online: taftstore.com [email protected] but please write. courage, and And so, as I concluded my remarks, I said, “I posit this. No class in this school’s 128-year history experienced so much change in so few years. None.” Linda Hedman Beyus, editor facebook.com/thetaftschool strength that the DEADLINES FOR Taft Bulletin There was a second of reflection and then the to-be-expected murmurs of agreement, nods. CLASS NOTES 110 Woodbury Road And then, in some brief and unexpected silence, I heard someone say, almost as an aside, “Unless it’s Fall–August 30 twitter.com/taftschool times demanded Watertown, CT 06795-2100 your senior class this year.” Winter–November 15 [email protected] Spring–February 15 and which our And with that, you in the Class of 2019, without even knowing it, were connected to the Class of 1969— instagram.com/taftschool Summer–May 15 SEND ADDRESS world needs.” without knowing you, they had declared a kinship, extended you a hand to grasp, tossed you a line to knot. CORRECTIONS TO Whoever made that comment was wise. You seniors have seen incredible change, and you well might Cathy Mancini bit.ly/taftlinkedin feel like those graduates—as if the world was shifting under your feet. In your years, the cultural and Alumni Records The Taft School political landscape has again buckled in the tremors, some familiar, some new, along the fault lines of vimeo.com/taftschool 110 Woodbury Road race, class, gender, environment, class, equity, party. Consider what you have witnessed: the Women’s Watertown, CT 06795-2100 March and the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, NFL athletes kneeling in protest, environmental 860-945-7777 [email protected] WWW.TAFTALUMNI.COM demonstrations on climate change and at Standing Rock, eroding of faith in all three branches of gov- ernment, a change in presidency. There’s a reason future history texts will probably have these years under a special chapter title, much as the texts today reference “The Late Sixties.” It would be a disservice to history and both Taft classes to say that these were identical times, but whoever made that aside at the 1969 dinner was on to something. I am very comfortable arguing that The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855) is published quarterly, in February, May, August, the landscape feels similarly unstable. We all know that history does not repeat itself, but as they say, and November, by The Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100, it surely rhymes. Whatever one’s views, surely we would agree that these seniors have lived in a time of and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends Please recycle this Bulletin of the school. All rights reserved. or share with a friend. extraordinary change. 2 Taft Bulletin / SUMMER 2019 Taft Bulletin / SUMMER 2019 3 Follow @thetaftschool on Facebook and @taftschool SOCIAL SCENE on Instagram for daily glimpses of Taft life. “Thousands of alumni…will welcome you and say, ‘We need you. An inside look at We need what you Honors Chem. #taftlife have learned at #mytaft #whytaft Taft. We need your leadership. We need your service.’” “You seniors have And so to you, seniors, I posit this: you have been at Taft in the most complex and demanding years, and I believe here you have learned a kind of resilience, courage, and strength that the times demanded Living the #nonutsibi life. #nottobeserved seen incredible and which our world needs. And I am very confident in saying that the need for leaders of strength, #taftlife #mytaft #whytaft Connecticut Food Bank change—as if the kindness, and principle is as great now as it was then. Here’s what I have seen in you: a deep awareness of and interest in the issues of this day; a love for world was shifting the school we are and also for the one we aspire to become; a passion for justice and a commitment to change; an ability to build bridges across difference of all kinds; a resilience and toughness in the face under your feet. From Little Farm on of setback; a willingness to listen empathically to those with whom you disagree; and a commitment to Main. Bethlehem, CT, In your years, caring for—dare I say loving—each other. and Cows Around the the cultural and You did not know it when the Class of 1969 reached out, if accidentally and unexpectedly, but they Corner to the White did. They seemed to empathize, maybe even know you. They are just a few of the thousands of alumni Memorial Foundation, political landscape who will welcome you and say, “We need you. We need what you have learned at Taft. We need your lead- Bantam Civic Association, ership. We need your service.” Brass City Harvest Urban has again buckled Garden, the Watertown So here’s a dream: that 50 years from now you will come back for your reunion, just as those men Greenway, and so many in the tremors, from 1969 did. The head of school will watch you in the Faculty Room as you greet each other. Hugs and more special sites, our some familiar, handshakes. Smiles. Tears. There will be photographs of faculty on the walls, some of teachers you love. seniors fanned out You will joke about how different the school is, but smile at how the Main Hall feels the same. Someone across the region today some new, along may say, “I don’t remember much of what he said at graduation, but didn’t Mr. Mac say something about for one last day of service us coming back to our 50th?” as Taft students.