St. Andrew's Magazine

Seventy-Five ST. ANDREW’S First Days FALL 2005 WINTER 2005 SPRING 2006 SUMMER 2006 MAGAZINE of School This fall St. Andrew’s opened its doors to students for the 75th time. This moment provides an opportunity to reflect on the rich tapestry created over our 75-year history, EXECUTIVE EDITOR EVERYalumnus, parent, trustee and friend of St. Andrew’s representing Joy McGrath ’92 an integral thread, weaving the essence of what is St. Andrew’s. DESIGN DIRECTOR Amy MacKenzie ASSISTANT EDITOR A. Hope McGrath ’01 CLASS NOTES EDITOR Denise Thorn PROOFREADER Jo Graves ONE CONTRIBUTORS John Abbott John Austin ’83 C. Stephen Baldwin ’55 Bill Brownfield ’70 Chris Childers Nathan Costa Beth Crook Dana Daugherty ’06 Jamie Devereux ’06 Greg Doyle ’87 Marti Dumas ’06 Letitia Hickman Green ’80 As today’s stewards we need to do all we can to protect the valuable Gary Harney P’98,’01 attributes of St. Andrew’s. We have nearly reached our comprehensive Benjamin Kennedy ’97 Chris Kim ’06 goal of $25 million, but to do that, every St. Andrean who has not yet par- Monica Matouk ’84 ticipated in the Cornerstones Campaign must consider increasing, even John McGiff Tad Roach P’04,’07 doubling, his or her gift to the Annual Fund this year. This year, your gift Kevin Schroedter John Wang ’06 ADDRESS CORRESPONDENCE TO: St. Andrew’s Magazine 350 Noxontown Road Middletown, DE 19709-1605 Fax (302) 378-0429 COUNTSmore than ever before. Will yours be the gift that puts us over our goal? Tel (302) 285-4257 General E-mail: [email protected] Class notes E-mail: [email protected] Pavsner Press in Baltimore, Md., prints St. Andrew’s We hope you will join us in speaking with Magazine. one voice to support the unique, eternal St. Andrew’s Magazine is published four times a year by the Advancement Office for the alumni, parents and qualities of this great school. If there friends of St. Andrew’s School. were ever a moment at St. Andrew’s when Copyright 2005. Third-class postage paid at: Middletown, DE every one counts POSTMASTER: Send address changes to St. Andrew’s this year is that moment. School, 350 Noxontown Road, Middletown, DE 19709- 1605. This publication is printed with vegetable-based soy inks on paper with 15% post-consumer waste Annual Fund 2005-2006 and 50% total recycled content. Please complete http://www.standrews-de.org/donations the process by recycling your copy when finished. ST. ANDREW’S FALL 2005 VOL. 27, NO.4 MAGAZINE Talk of the T-Dock 8 John Austin ’83 addresses the state of education at Convocation Sabbatical report from Egypt In the Classroom with the Classics Department Update on the campus What Did You Do This Summer? 28 From Peru to Rome, the desert to the rain forest, St. Andrew’s 16 students and faculty tell us what they did this summer. 34 Chapel Talk 34 Faith and learning at St. Andrew’s Today—a look at an Episcopal School in the 21st Century. Alumni Perective: William Cameron 41 Steve Baldwin ’55 shares his memories of revered faculty legend William Cameron. Alumni Around the Globe 42 Ambassador to Venezuela Bill Brownfield ’70 shares his reflections on a career in the foreign service. 28 41 DEPARTMENTS Headmaster Remarks 2 Trustee Notes 6 Names & Faces 24 ACB News 45 Obituaries 50 Class Notes 52 28 Fall 2005 u 1 Remarks from the Headmaster Headmaster Tad Roach responds to recent criticism of boarding n early July, Suen Hwang, a staff and its inevitale moments of schools in the media. reporter for the Wall Street Journal, confusion and challenge. wrote a front-page article on § Teachers at boarding school I cannot influence or inspire their what the headline editors described as students in the ways parents do. “enrollment woes” in boarding schools § Boarding schools are campuses across the nation. Hwang suggeﬆed and communities that are affluent, that the rise of the over-committed, entitled and indulged. over-inveﬆed and over-protective Of course, I found Hwang and Sittenfeld’s parent population within contemporary articles interesting, thought provoking, American culture makes the proect of misleading and ultimately affirming. Let boarding school much less attraive for me explain. families. She cites other factors for the Hwang’s article suggeﬆed that the new admission challenges boarding schools 21st century parent, caught up in an face—competition from a larger private obsessive desire to market, package, day school industry, the rise of home control and manipulate their children’s schooling and faith-based schools and lives, finds the very notion of boarding stereotypical perceptions about boarding school to be difficult to accept. After all, school peer cultures. the boarding school parent must trust In September, Curtis Sittenfeld, the the school and its faculty to provide a author of the recent novel Prep, joined comprehensive and extensive program this rather one-sided debate by writing for the education of their students. an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times The boarding school parent must trust arguing that she, a boarding school the essential generosity, humanity and graduate, would not send her own professionalism of a school’s faculty to children to boarding school. In her provide educational inspiration and article, she made the following claims: opportunity, as well as superb advising § Boarding school students immerse and mentoring. Somewhere along themselves in a 24-hour-a-day the way, a very small percentage of peer culture that is ultimately an unhealthy one for their American independent school parents, development. perhaps five percent by Dr. Michael § Parents need to be with their Thompson’s informal estimate, lost children during high school to help their faith in schools and their ability to guide them through adolescence provide quality education for students. St. Andrew’s do not see themselves, These parents express their distrust of organize themselves, or live with the schools by not allowing their children to paradigm of creating two disparate experience the challenges and inevitale worlds on our campuses: a student reect, admiration and care, where frustrations and disappointments of culture with its own private culture and students reject attitudes of classism, adolescence, and they undermine their value system—an adult world with its sexism, racism, religious intolerance, children’s development towards maturity own system of values and expectations. homophobia. and independence. What makes St. Andrew’s a community Great boarding school teachers close the The St. Andrew’s parent body, in in the best sense of the word is our gap between the world of the adolescent contrast, supports the culture, energy student and faculty consensus and and the world of the school. They see and optimism of St. Andrew’s. They see agreement on what we value, what we their work day as a 24-hour-a-day St. Andrew’s as a remarkale exception are willing to accomplish and fight for in opportunity for education, mentoring, to the private schools they have the spirit and culture of the School. How engagement and challenge. Our teachers known. They trust the faculty to serve do we achieve such a consensus? First, work in multiple roles every day, and all as inspirational teachers, role models we appeal to the community’s desire these roles bring them into important and mentors to their children. They to be part of an educational institution communication and connection with watch their children grow and develop willing to seek excellence in human our students. We teach great classes and here. And they are humle enough, relations, in academics, in athletics, the follow up those classes with tutorials in confident enough, secure enough to say arts and community service. I ask our the morning, afternoon and evening. that St. Andrew’s teachers have made students whether they want to go to a We have advisee groups that meet on a a difference in their children’s lives. I school where everyone is valued, heard, weekly basis for desserts, dinners and can say it: St. Andrew’s teachers have accepted, celebrated and encouraged. I trips. Our teachers coach, direct plays made all the difference in the ways my ask our students if they want to go to a and choirs, advise clubs and aivities. two oldest children view education, school where diversity, difference and Our teachers are on the dorms every view citizenship, view the responsibility dialogue lead to a new understanding of night between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. to and opportunity of their own lives. I human relationships and communities. tutor, to supervise study hall, to talk admit it: St. Andrew’s teachers are I ask our students if they want to to students before they go to bed. Our more influential and inspirational to my go to a school where learning true teachers dine with students at family- children than I am. understanding is celebrated, where style meals, attend Chapel, school meetings, games, praices, recitals. Our What Ms. Sittenfeld misses in her novel, students reject cheating and other faculty work through the weekends, and what she neglects to understand in forms of dishonesty, where students offering their support and participation her essay, is that schools like and teachers treat one another with Fall 2005 u 3 Forty-seven percent of our students receive financial assistance—our average grant is about $25,000; our financial in a wide range of cultural, athletic, and a pulic school student body. He artistic and social occasions, on and off believed that poor students could learn as aid budget is about campus. Where are the teachers, the role much, accomplish as much, contribute as $3.15 million this year.

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