2000 edgehill - january 2015

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE 1

EDGEHILL2000

The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville Centennial Edition

100 !thHappy

2000 EDGEHILL2

We would love to hear from you about anything you read in 2000 Edgehill, or, for that matter, whatever you have to say about your student days here.

Email [email protected] or write Connie Culpepper University School of Nashville2000 Edgehill Avenue Nashville, Tennessee 37212

On the cover:The first day of school, August 12, 2014, all the students and teachers put on their Centennial t-shirts and assembled on the back field for this photograph. The 64 kindergarten children will long remember their first day at USN. More such photos, taken by Kimberly Manz and Jeff Goold, are at usn100.org, as is a drone video of the scene.

The editor thanks our volunteer writers, especially those who contributed essays for our Centennial collection, The Same River Twice, excerpted in this magazine; Andrew Brandon ’97, who delved into the history of the River Campus; all who sent photos and news for Class Notes; Henry Shipman in Special Collections of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University for his help with our historic photos that reside there; the volunteers who worked so hard on the Ribbon Cutting and the Book Launch, images of which ap-pear in this magazine; Juliet Douglas, Britt McCauley, Lorie Hoover Strong, and Anne Westfall for proof-reading and editorial suggestions.

2000 Edgehill is published by the Alumni and Development Office for the Peabody Demonstration School and University School of Nashville community.

Vincent W. Durnan, Jr. Director

Anne Westfall Development Director

Connie Culpepper Communications Director, Editor

Britt McCauley Alumni Director and Social Media Manager

Our Mission University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of greater Nashville, USN fosters each student’s in-tellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.

University School of Nashville admits qualified students of any race, color, sexual orientation, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, financial aid policies, and athletic and other school-administered programs.

The Alumni Magazine of Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville Centennial Edition

Back to School: Cutting the Ribbon 8

Story Forum A Century of Defining Moments 12

Finding a Home 16

Segregation Ends at PDS 18

An End and a Beginning 22

A Place to Play 26

A Renewed Partnership 30

Our Future: Q and A 34

EDGEHILL2000

In the Archives 40

Goodbye to Kathy Woods 41

Class Notes 42

2000 EDGEHILL4

ver the course of this past school year, when I’ve chatted with our alumni at our out-of-town events or electronically, I love telling them about all our Centennial events and the new physical changes to our beloved 2000 Edgehill.

Some alumni say that the USN of today is nothing like their school. They talk about how much larger and better equipped it is now. They joke that the caliber of student has improved so much that they wouldn’t be admitted if they applied today. Many alumni confess they’ve never been to the River Campus nor returned to campus since they graduated.

My response is simple. USN is still very much the school you knew and loved as a student. Its core remains student-centered. Whether you realized it at the time or not, your PDS or USN was cutting-edge, too. That thirst for knowledge and for charting unknown territory has been with the school since 1915.

As more of our students learn our history during our Centennial celebration, more have been asking to contact alumni. Alumni participated in this year’s high school Community Service Day, with Margie Quinn ’09 serving as the day’s featured speaker. Several other alumni led group discussions or volunteered at sites

alongside students. The Centennial Writing Project has ninth graders interviewing or profiling alumni who are of interest to them because of their careers, location, or what they participated in here. The literary magazine staff is involving alumni in a special Centennial edition, and stu-dents are working to involve alumni in the annual “Zeitgeist,” which brings local bands to campus.

We hope you’ll answer that call or return those emails from USN. Our students want to know about you. Please come home and see the improvements made to your school. We have so much to celebrate! You are part of why the school is what it is today. There has never been a better time to reconnect with and revisit USN. Dana Morris Strupp ’77 and I are looking forward to hearing from you.

Hope to see you soon,

Britt McCauley, Alumni Director & Social Media Manager

Freedom. Creativity. Diversity. Thirst for Knowledge.

These are the words Heber Rogers recently found to describe Peabody Demonstration School and Universi-ty School of Nashville. He was being interviewed for the documentary to be shown at the Centennial birthday party on May 2, 2015. His tenure here, 1959-1995, spanned a sig-nificant part of the school’s hundred year history.

The Heber Rogers era was char-acterized by changes so extreme that many institutions would have

crumbled under their weight. The day he started his student teaching at PDS in 1954, fire destroyed the auditorium and the library. Twenty years later, PDS director Dr. Ed Pratt walked into that auditorium to halt registration and call the teachers to an emergency meeting in the library. The school is closing, he announced, effectively firing his entire faculty, including Mr. Rogers, by then assistant director.

But the school neither burned to the ground in 1954 nor closed its doors in 1974. A group of parents, teachers, and students created University School of Nashville in its place. The day Mr. Rogers

visited, Lewis Burton ’48, Cherrie Forte Farnette ’64, and Sam Stumpf ’67 also stopped by to share recollections of PDS. Dolo-res Nicholson, who taught lower school music at PDS and USN 1969-1978, agreed to be interviewed, and so did Cynthia Lee, who began our outdoor education program and lower school’s Young Naturalists program.

Despite the variety of their perspectives, what they told their interviewer sounded like many verses of a single song. Relation-ships, they agreed, are what matter. The day began with the story of a demanding teacher who became a dear friend to a student and his family. Some names appeared over and over. Lois McMullan, Hazel Lundberg, Doc Holden, Knox McCharen, Heber Rogers, Debbie Davies.

We heard different ways of saying “a commitment to learning” and “everybody respected each other.” We heard “you’re encour-aged to follow your passion” and “everyone’s talents are valued.”

We heard, “This school has always honored learning.”

When he was asked if he ever thought the school might not survive, Heber Rogers said no. He was here the day PDS closed, and he was here when USN’s first director had to resign. Nothing shook his faith in the strength of commitment he saw around him.And it turns out he was right. Happy birthday, USN.

Connie Culpepper, Editor

O


o reach this Centennial moment is to discover a renewed sense of how the school began and why it matters. At this anniversary point, questions of original intent meet ques-tions of emerging opportunity. In the answers to those

foundational and fundamental questions we find more common ground than one might think. The gift of our history is the inspi-ration it provides for our future, one person and one experience at a time.

Consider this recent and transcendent experience: a nondescript envelope arrives on my desk from Indianapolis. The letter began as follows—“I am Edward Alexander. Thomas Alexander was my Grandfather.” Here was a direct link to the fabled founder of the Demonstration School. He graciously continued with an offer from the Alexander family to be of “any help” and closed with this reflection: “You have a rich history to celebrate. Cheers for keeping my Granddad’s vision alive.” With that printed page our dream of connecting with the origin point of this uncommon, unsinkable, and unlikely school was realized.

That visionary grandfather invented Peabody Dem while still a 27 year-old doctoral student, with the blessing and heroic com-mitment of President Bruce Payne at the College. Together they launched a startup enterprise where “on one hand we should make practical application of sound educational principle. On the other we must be ever alert to gain through common sense practice new theories and fuller comprehension.” Could there be a more sensible and compelling purpose? Within a decade they had hundreds of students and a stunning building with big pillars out front, a jewel in the crown of a college for teachers.

From the idealism of those first days grew a culture of educa-tional innovation, drawing a cohort of professors’ children and a socioeconomically mixed group of other kids from its segregated Southern city. The aspiration to lead and to do something of merit never changed, nor did the sense that students learn best when they actually like school. Among many other pursuits, they tended gardens, played in orchestras, staged elaborate dramatic productions, recited poetry, and played basketball, season by memorable season, program by program.

When the chance came, successors to the founding Dem School energy led in the mid ’60’s by desegregating K-12 while their city had yet to do so, then a decade later yet another set of leaders restarted the entire original idea, of necessity, by making

University School, in a story widely and rightly now shared in the USN community. In the pressure of those times, though, I wonder if people realized the degree to which their actions echoed the bold initiative of our progressive forebears.

The decision to place a single founding date on our school seal carries more than symbolic significance. By tracing our story back (and forward) from 1915 we invoke the thought and the action of educational reformers of the highest order. For us to be here to observe this Centennial, when so many schools born in those days did not stand the test of time, suggests that there remains something of some magnitude for us still to do. In that spirit (perhaps in what was once called “the Peabody Spirit” on this campus), let us note that the need for great schools as exemplars of what is possible is every bit as real today as it was in 1915. The reform imperative of those days, in the heart of the Progressive Era, for a nation changing rapidly in its composition and its economic base, can be seen in sequel form in our present and divisive educational circumstances. Our booming city faces challenges of historic proportion. We should ask, quite humbly, what would our founders have done?

If that question strikes us as too bold or too ambitious, we should reflect on the breadth and depth of support now present in the USN community. We should appreciate the singularity of this 100th year and the bright light it provides to see the path ahead. We should learn from the examples set by the determined indi-viduals who combined to open our doors and keep them open. And we should remember what was written here in 1918: “Those who make the curricula for the school which is to lead the way will need a great deal of professional courage.” We should know that they were right.

Enjoy this special issue of our magazine. Come join us when you can as we think about what comes next.

Vince Durnan, Director

What It Means

T

2000 EDGEHILL6

Kitty Higgins Brogden ’44 corrected our error with the photo on page 26, which we found in Vanderbilt’s Special Collections ar-chives labeled “R. Beauchamp.” “The photo on pg. 26 titled Dr. Beauchamp & his wife is not a photo of THE Dr. Robert Beauchamp, the eminent science teacher of the 40’s and beyond, but is a photo of Dr. Beauchamp’s son, class of ’43 or ’44and his wife Mary Louise Gaines, ’43 or ’44. PDS, a wonderful school for each of its 100 years. Happy Birthday PDS!”

John Beauchamp ’55 pointed this error out to us as well.

We often think that it’s worth it to make mis-takes when they lead to our being corrected by people we might not otherwise hear from. Another mistake appears on page 6 in the prom dates photo caption. The girl identified as Elaine Gore was in fact Elaine Morris, as Elaine Morris Eskind ’47 herself told us.

Elaine Gore also wrote to us. She knew that she wasn’t on page 6, but she found herself

on page 25 in the chorus room with “many members of the class of 1948. We were probably about sixth grade and many of the girls look like they are wearing Girl Scout uniforms.”

“I’m not sure who the pianist and choir director were, but I recognize many of the students. I, Elaine Gore, am sitting at the first desk on the front row and next to me is a girl named Bruce Janssen. Then it looks like Ellen Schmidt and Ann Whitaker. I think Linda Harap is seated in the first desk on the second row.”

Elaine and her sister Barbara Gore Kortrey ’45 sent us a picture that was made in 1939.

Elaine writes, “My sister Barbara and I are climbing the front steps to the porch and entrance of Peabody Demonstration School. I was 9 years old and Barbara was 6 years old. The Tennessee Teacher took the picture for the cover of their September 1939 magazine.”

“We were ‘happy students returning to school!’ We truly were happy and fortunate to attend and graduate from PDS, a school we will never forget.”

Cynthia Ponder Davis ’58 wrote, “I love the alumni magazine, Peabody was such a big part of my life...from nursery school through college I was a Peabody girl [and a faculty brat] and even spent the first 8 years of my life on 18th Ave. So. In fact our home was next to the Beauchamps where the student center is located now. Thanks for all the great memories!”

LETTERS to the EDITOR

continued on page 48

Photos this page PDS/USN archives, except where noted

Submitted


MYSTERY PHOTOCoach Bridges looks proud of his team. He should be, since one of his football players, Bob Massie ’46, recalls “three superlative players” his senior year, when he was quarterback: Bobby Goodman, Joe Naron, and Bill Tanksley. Where are they in this photograph? PDS lost only one game that year.

Who remembers Coach Bridges? And Mr. Neil, the man on the right in the suit and tie? Who remembers those games? And what happened next?

Corrections to the 2013-2014 Annual Report The Annual Report included some errors and omissions which we would like to correct. Please accept our apologies.

n The Clayton Family Endowment Fund on page 13 should include Jim Clayton ’04 and John Clayton ’09 along with their parents’ names. n Mary Jim Russell Josephs’ name was omitted from the list of 1952 donors on page 28. n On page 29, the Class of ’64 donor Jimmy Higgins should be Jimmy Huggins.

n Elizabeth Merritt’s name was omitted from the list of 1980 alumni donors on page 30.

n Freya Sachs’ class year is ’00, not ’01 (page 33).

n Zack Stern’s name is misspelled “Zach” on page 35.

n In Caroline Shockley’s letter on page 54, the word “of” is incorrectly inserted into the sentence that she wrote, “In addition to these funds, USNA gave the school a food concession trailer that will be used primarily at the River Campus.”

PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL8

THE CELEBRATION BEGINS Students, teachers, alumni, and families

thronged to University School the Sunday before classes began to celebrate the beginning of the Centennial year and the opening of our new and restored spaces. With Vince Durnan, Centennial Chair Teri Doochin Kasselberg ’73 and Board Chair David Kloeppel cut the ribbon. Live music, balloons, special t-shirts, and popsicles from Las Paletas marked the occasion.

Photos by Kimberly Manz except where noted

Photo by Leila Grossman


Phot

o by

Lei

la G

ross

man

2000 EDGEHILL10

Improved & RestoredWith 42,000 square feet of renovated and restored square feet and 8,000 square feet of new space, our school has been transformed. A welcoming new entrance and lobby from the 19th Avenue parking lot is just the beginning for the students, teachers, and visitors who come to University School every day.


The Cheek Gymnasium

The student commons in the old cafeteria

The auditorium restored to the way it looked before the 1954 fire

A new 3rd floor classroom

Photo by Kimberly Manz

2000 EDGEHILL12

more or less in this same spot, means more stories and more characters than can be squeezed into the pages of a magazine. So in the following pages we limit ourselves to the critical times in our history, beginning with its founding.

The photo above recently came to us from Richard Alexander, grandson of Thomas Alexander, who discovered it when moving his 97-year-old father Richard T. Alexander, Jr. into a retirement home. On the back is written, perhaps in Thomas Alexander’s hand, “Geo Peabody College for Teachers Demonstration School,” and below that, “übungsschule,” which we think is translated “teacher training school.” Perhaps he took it with him when he went to Germany to help with their schools in order to explain what he had done in Nashville.

TurningA hundred years of education here,

PointsBy Connie Culpepper and other contributors


TurningPointsC

ourt

esy

of V

ande

rbilt

Uni

vers

ity S

peci

al C

olle

ctio

ns a

nd U

nive

rsity

Arc

hive

s

Black and white photo and news clippings from PDS/USN archives; color photo by Kimberly Manz

The educational story that began on a summer day a century ago, when children first made their way to school in the basement of the college psychology laboratory, has been filled with challenges. But no challenge has proven insurmountable. In the following pages, we look at some of the decisive moments in the history of Peabody Demonstration School and University School of Nashville, the moments that now seem to have changed the story.

2000 EDGEHILL14

PDS (and USN) ForeverEarliest Days of PDS

In the summer of 1915, the embryonic Demonstra-tion School, kindergarten through seventh grades, began to meet in the brand-new Jesup Psychological Laboratory.

That first elementary school, “eight grades organized in four rooms,” drew a hundred children from Nash-ville’s public schools. Thirty came to kindergarten. Through those four rooms in Jesup, which still smelled of paint and varnish, traipsed 3,000 visitors that first summer, teachers from all over the South.

“Dr. McMurry, Mr. Thomas Alexander, and Miss Frances Jenkins used classes from the demonstration school to illustrate the principles which had been developed in the courses they were offering” and to show Peabody students “how good teaching should be done.”

Summer school at Peabody College seems to have been a chautauqua for the benefit of the entire neigh-borhood. In summer evenings the “twilight play hour” drew neighbors of all ages, who “entered into the spirit of the playground with hearty abandon.”

That first summer, the fifth and sixth graders performed an outdoor play on campus, “the children’s own dramatization of the story of King Alfred.” Even in 1915, Demonstration School principles were in effect: “the small playwrights and actors were allowed full freedom and initiative in working out their own ideas in shaping the play, conducting rehearsals, and staging the scenes.

The members of the demonstration rural school were the invited guests composing the appreciative audience.”

“Quiet Freedom and Happy Ease of Atmosphere”

Somehow, word of this new and promising school spread across Nashville. In fall 1916, children from kindergarten through the ninth grade made their way to the Jesup Psychology Lab. Their parents paid tuition of forty dollars for a thirty-six week term.

Jesup Psychological Lab, first home of Peabody Demonstration School

Turning Points: The Beginning

At first, the story of Peabody Demonstration School follows the story of Peabody College, which began to take shape when Bruce Ryburn Payne became its president in 1911. To fulfill his plans for reforming education in the South, he had to have a demonstration school.

Courtesy of Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives


(“The first installment, twenty dollars, must be paid on the day of entrance.”)

Thomas Alexander’s vision for the Demonstration School prom-ised “to insure a happier and richer childhood and youth and a more truly efficient manhood and womanhood.”

Farewell to the old ways. “Traditional education concerned itself too largely with mental training at the expense of body training, heart training, and hand training,” Alexander says in the 1916 Bulletin of Peabody College.

“Our aim is to have our pupils grow power, power in every direc-tion; power to think, to feel, to do, to be,” he writes a century ago. “School life should be through all its years a happy earnest living through which there may be happy, earnest learning. Boys andgirls who care whole-heartedly for school do not work with less interest and effort but surely with more.”

All that has set PDS and USN apart from other schools can be found in Thomas Alexander’s vision. “Wherever possible, responsibility is thrown upon the pupils for the general outcome of conduct,” he writes. “Good discipline is not external control. It is classroom atmosphere and spirit determined in large measure through sympathetic insight on the part of the teacher and mu-tual understanding.”

“Good learning and good teaching” mean “quiet freedom and happy ease of atmosphere in which pupils feel fully encouraged toward self-expression and achievement.” The teachers’ relation-ship with their students “shows helpfulness, kindliness, consider-ation, and natural friendliness.”

Other tenets of “Dr. Alex’s” educational philosophy: l Our greatest concern must be for what the child is and is becoming from day to day rather than in what he just knows. l If we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow. l To do a mechanical or artistic piece of work thoroughly is much more than the material operation. It is a moral achievement. l The ability to do a thing well is the basis of all active morality.

Bruce Payne Thomas Alexander

“Boys and girls who care whole-heartedly for school do not work

with less interest and effort but surely with more.”

“Pupils feel fully encouraged toward self-expression and achievement.”

Photo this page from PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL1616

PDS students wondered if the new building they had been promised would ever become a reality. Writing in The Volunteer literary magazine in 1924, Robert Ross talks about the “vague rumor that Peabody was to have a new building, a build-ing all her own, for the Demonstration School, where the college might not penetrate.”

“Despite a shortage of funds, money was raised, the work continued, and next year, they tell us, the building will be finished and ready for occupation.”He writes, “No more were we to be inconvenienced by the college and in turn disturb them. We could swim, eat, and play at our pleasure. Nor should we receive lectures weekly at assembly for taking up more than half the walk, or otherwise misbe-having toward college students.”

Swim at their pleasure? Despite the enforced cost-cutting, PDS got its swimming pool, thanks to the Peabody Woman’s Club’s Auxiliary (“girl graduates of the Demonstration School”). This

group committed to raise the $7,000 needed by holding the Mardi Gras ball, “one of the outstanding social events of the winter season in Nashville,” at the Hermitage Hotel. Tickets cost $1, and Francis Craig’s Orchestra played, as it would not be an “outstanding social event” otherwise.

In 1925 Peabody College celebrated its semi-centennial with alumni, “the British ambassador, various professors and Supreme Court officials, and other celebrities.” Though the role of Demonstration School students in all this glory was “to stand off and re-spectfully admire,” they were a key part of one event in the panoply: “the dedication of the new Peabody Demonstration School Building, with a speech by Dr. Thomas Alexander,” who was visiting from his new job back at Teachers College,

Columbia University.

It was Thursday, Feb-ruary 19 at 2:00. Sam Caldwell ’25 writes that the “beautiful new auditorium, seating over six hundred people, overflowed” and that the “fine, large stage held two or three hundred P.D.S. stu-dents and alumni.” Payne presided over a program of music and

The Legend Comes TrueIn the early 1920s,

Turning Points: The Building

At the 1925 dedication of the building at 2000 Edgehill Avenue

From the beginning, Bruce Payne intended the demonstration school to have a home of its own, completing his campus plan by facing the Social Religious Building across an expanse of green. Getting the money for this building took years.



speeches that heightened audience anticipation of Alexander’s address.

“There was the same old Dr. Alex, just as he used to be in the classroom—perfectly at home, speaking with snap—frank, plain, ironic, almost sarcastic when he wished, and withal almost as humorous as a sensible man might possibly be.” Alexander said he had been preparing the speech for ten years. “He told of the dark days when classes were held in basements, when College people

complained of the ‘noisy Demonstration School bunch,’ and when ‘Keep off the Grass’ signs frowned forbiddingly from every green spot. He repeated the old ‘New Building’ legend, which for a while had been relied upon by some, then cast aside by all….”

Afterwards seniors, alumni, and former teachers went to the big new gymnasium, where the principal “Mr. Yarbrough industri-ously wended his way about, spreading free ice cream and much satisfaction in his wake. Then, after a few tours about the building to see how truly fine it was, the party broke up.” n

17

PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL18

For the next four decades, even as the palatial building faded into shabbiness, the Demonstration School thrived despite the Great Depression, Mr. Yarbrough’s subsequent departure, Bruce Payne’s sudden death in 1937, andWorld War II and its effect on society.

But change was on the way, and not for the better. In his history of Peabody College, Paul Conkin calls one chapter “A Troubled Decade, 1961-1972.” With increased competition from state teachers’ colleges after the war, Peabody had lost its preeminence. Its financial troubles worsened, and its accreditation seemed in doubt. Conkin writes, “By 1961, anyone who was at all perceptive realized that it might be impossible for Peabody to survive as an independent school of education.” Still, the college would limp along for another eighteen years before becoming part of Vanderbilt.

In 1963, Peabody College decided to base its undergraduate admissions on “competence, character, and merit,” disregarding race. The Demonstration School would follow suit within months, with Knox McCharen leading PDS through its next defining moment: desegregation. He did it carefully.

18

from Integration at PDS, 1964 By Heber Rogers In a written statement from the Peabody College board in 1963, it was established that “… now it is important that we take vol-untary action to prepare George Peabody College at all levels, including the Demonstration School, for a destiny of national leadership. It is therefore recommended that the Board of Trust-ees at George Peabody College adopt a policy of admission at all levels, including PDS, without discrimination because of race, color, or creed and that a policy of desegregation be implemented at a time and manner to be determined by the administration.”

For the Dem School this meant the director, Knox McCharen.In the board action to make these changes, there was one dissent-ing vote.

The foregoing paragraphs detail what was going on at the Pea-body College Board level in 1963. Actually, the issue had already surfaced at the Dem School in 1960. In the PDS/USN archives, a document of unknown authorship indicates the evolution of thought regarding integration at the school.

In 1960 Bernie Schweid, a local bookstore owner and a PDS par-ent, got together with two other parents, Eunice Orr and Jenny Grantham, to discuss this revolutionary idea of desegregation at PDS. Their first step toward making Dr. McCharen aware of parental interest in this issue was to approach him with a petition signed by many parents. The fact that “more people signed it than wouldn’t” proved that, although there was some opposition, “a lot

Taking Voluntary Action

Turning Points: Breaking a Barrier


of people wanted it [deseg-regation].”

Preparing the Way

Before submitting his proposal to integrate PDS to the George Peabody College board of trustees, McCharen wisely sought the support of students, parents, and teachers. He succeeded in gaining the approval of the student council, which represented all pupils. He received the majority vote of the PTA. Although there was some mild protest, no parents threatened to remove their children from the school.

Next McCharen had to gain the support of the teachers. He managed to talk privately with each faculty member. A questionnaire was sent to all teachers, and the results revealed no great opposi-tion to the plan, there being but “one teacher who was violently opposed” to the idea.

McCharen was advised by the board not to accept “too many” blacks in the first year, then only “top notch” blacks. In the same document noted in the two previous paragraphs, the writer stated that Felix Robb, President of George Peabody College, was “afraid of integration at PDS.”

Three weeks before notifying parents of his intention to integrate PDS, McCharen wrote to Dr. Robb and assured him that system-atic preparation had been made for this important policy change. He stated that he believed all the constituencies of the school were as “nearly ready for it” as they ever would be.

In order to keep the integration “routine,” McCharen kept the story “away from anyone who would publish it.” The first day

“went smoothly” because there were no photogra-phers or reporters on the scene. On that first day of school in 1964, only a few blacks including Luther Harrell, Harold Stinson, Cassandra Teague, and Kay Roberts entered the high school. (This writer

has no information regard-ing black pupils who may have entered other levels.)

It was not until five years later, in 1969, that the first African-American teacher would come to PDS. That was Dolores Nicholson, elementary music teacher. Two years later, in the spring of 1971, the prominent black Nashville attorney Avon Williams, Sr. wrote McCharen questioning “only token hiring of black faculty.” Also at this time Kelley Miller Smith, a black minister and member of Vanderbilt’s Theology Department, notified McCharen that he was withdrawing his children from the Dem School for the same reason stated by Avon Williams.

The Dem School community’s reactions to integration were muted. But one would be naïve to think that racism was totally absent.

These photos reveal a PDS whose population changed after 1964. The top photo dates from the late 60s. The bottom photo is a People to People group on the way to Europe in 1972.

Dolores Nicholson

continued on next page

Photos above and below courtesy of Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives

2000 EDGEHILL20

Alumni Remember By Bryan Hearn ’05

During his first years as director of USN, Vince Durnan taught a class called “Historical Method” for seniors, who researched and wrote about the school’s history since 1970, when Leland Johnson’s “Ameri-can Problems” class wrote The Past Is Prologue, the history of PDS. Bryan Hearn ’05 focused on the desegregation of the Dem School. Here is an excerpt:

When the school adopted this policy, McCharen wanted to ensure its success. Dr. McCharen was known for traveling across the city, recruiting the best and brightest African-American students, because he was so committed to finding great students that would contribute to not only PDS’ diversity, but also its academic reputation. Joy Sims ’72 remem-bers that McCharen came and talked to her mother at Moses McKissack School (where her mother worked) to recruit African-American students. To get into PDS, African-American students had to interview. “They wanted to find the right Negroes, those who could fit in, be successful, and graduate,” the first graduate, Ms. Cassandra Teague-Walker ’67, said. African-American graduates such as Teague-Walker and Sims contributed to a new image for PDS. Word began to spread regarding PDS’ values and their intention to be different. “Percentages of persons here who were Jewish already knew what it meant to be different, so there was an intentionality here about ad-dressing differences,” Reverend Sonnye Dixon ’70 recalled. And while many turned to the “white flight” private Christian schools, many, both black and white, turned to PDS. Many parents saw the world their children would grow up in as being very different from the one that they grew up in, citing a belief that the world would be diversified and different. They saw the value of diversity, and the value of education. They saw that PDS provided walls that excluded racism and embraced differences in race, religious and sexual preference, and socioeconomic status. “The reason our parents were willing and we were willing to come here is that we knew a change had to come,” Dixon said.

With the busing order upsetting both white and black families, many parents enrolled

their kids at PDS/USN because they saw its commitment to the “new world.” As African-American students were transitioning from all-black schools and all-black neighborhoods into PDS/USN, they began to feel welcomed. The consistent opinion from African-American alums is that, while students were aware and curious of differences, their questions were never derogatory. Students formed friendships and established camaraderie with one another.

The African-American students at PDS/USN had idealistic goals that the school could help them reach: “[We] knew…that educa-tion was the key to access the American dream,” Teague-Walker said. PDS/USN knew that it was becoming a school that allows students to achieve the dream. n

This December 1963 story from The Paw Print, the PDS high school paper, provides some background to understanding the significance of desegregating the Demonstration School the following year. (Read a digital version of this entire paper and others at usnarchives.omeka.net.)

PDS/

USN

arc

hive

s


Desegregation was just one social change at the Demonstration School. The pictures below show how quickly the school and Nashville were being transformed. The photo of the Student Activities Committee officers appears in the 1970 Volunteer. The photo of the Student Council president, the long-haired Irwin Kuhn with bullhorn and pipe, was taken two years later.

Coming to the End of PDS

Turning Points: A Changing World

Whatever was on their minds, and in the early 1970s American teenagers had plenty to think about, it was not worries about the future of their school. Peabody Demonstration School had been there for fifty years—forever, it seemed.

In 1970, history teacher Leland Johnson looked to the future of PDS. He was concluding The Past Is Prologue, the history of the school writ-ten by his American Problems class. PDS “faces the future with the same spirit of adventure which brought the pioneers to Middle Tennes-see two hundred years ago,” he wrote. n

Both photos PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL22

and listened intently as her father-in-law delivered the shocking news: the Board of Peabody College had just voted to close Peabody Demonstration School. With four kids happily attending PDS, Betty felt deflated and devastated.

Across town, Janet Carney (now Schneider) was summoned with other Peabody Demonstration School faculty to leave the audito-rium where they were registering students for the new school year and attend an emergency meeting in the library. It was August 19, 1974, Carney’s first day on the job, and she had the jitters typical of someone starting a new position.

“My focus was quickly taken off myself when Ed Pratt, director of PDS, stood up and made the announcement that PDS would be closing at the end of the school year due to financial reasons at Peabody College,” Carney recalled. “The tie with Peabody had been severed and the school would be no more. I didn’t know most of the faculty and didn’t know how to process this informa-tion except selfishly. I quickly found Claudia Thompson, a friend from Vanderbilt. It was

her first day on the job as well, and we commiserated about our futures. Our first employer was ‘going out of business.’”

Feeling frazzled, Carney scooted out of the meeting to a pay phone in the school lobby (cell phones did not exist) to call her mother, who had been teaching for 37 years. “Her response was calming,” Carney recalled. “She said, ‘Learn as much as you can, get a year of experience, and then you can find another position.’ I figured she knew what she was talking about.”

There had been a warning.

In a confidential memo two years earlier, Peabody College Presi-dent John M. Claunch had foreshadowed the possibility of closing

PDS. In most years, Claunch observed, the school had lost money, putting financial pressure on the college’s

already strained budget. Further-more, Claunch questioned whether

the college would be better served having its student teachers get all of

their experience in Nashville’s public schools, rather than spending time

teaching at PDS, which he viewed as a college preparatory school.

“From time to time, when the Demon-stration School tuition has not produced

enough income to meet all of its ex-penses, we have had the suggestions from

different sources that the Demonstration School should be permanently dissolved

Excerpts from Saving PDSBetty Werthan answered the phone

By David Vise ’78

Turning Points: PDS Becomes USN

Meanwhile, across the street, Peabody College was still struggling to survive. Nothing seemed to work. John Dunworth, who became president of the college in 1974, wanted to keep it open. He appointed a Select Committee of only three professors to consider the options. The resulting report, Design for the Future, changed everything for the college and for the Dem School.

PDS/

USN

arc

hive

s


or discontinued,” Claunch wrote in the memo dated October 6, 1971. “This year the Demonstration School has the largest enroll-ment in many years and, speaking financially, is one of the bright spots in our total operation.”

PDS, according to financial records, generated $135,272 for the college in 1971-72. The reason was a dramatic surge in PDS enrollment stemming from a federal court decree mandating cross-town busing to integrate Nashville’s public schools. After the court ruled in mid-summer of 1971, PDS was immediately flooded with applications and phone calls from anxious parents; enrollment increased so much that the school had to lease five classrooms on the Peabody College Campus to make room for all the new students.

“It was white flight,” recalled Heber Rogers, who estimated that PDS enrollment increased by more than 20 percent in one month, to roughly 800 students.

Just three months before Peabody College dropped the ax, its president, John Dunworth, reaffirmed his commitment to keep-ing it open.

“Peabody should have a fine Demon-stration School as an integral part of its teacher education programs,” Dunworth wrote in a May 16, 1974 letter to a con-cerned parent. “One measure of a great school is that it helps a child to be as well as to know. As long as the Peabody Demonstration School accomplishes this objective, and in addition helps prospective teachers gain the insight and skills necessary for them to be truly great educators, be assured it will have my full support.”

In August, 1974, a committee charting Peabody College’s future had delivered a report to President Dunworth and the college’s board of trustees calling for PDS to be closed, describing it as a money-losing luxury the college could no longer afford. “It serves primarily as a private school for its paying clientele, contributing little to the realization of the central mission of the college,” the report said. “THE PEABODY DEMONSTRATION SCHOOL SHOULD BE CLOSED.”

The Rescue Begins As soon as he heard the news about the PDS crisis, Bernard Wer-than Jr. spearheaded an effort by parents to save the school. With deep Nashville roots and a history of community leadership, Werthan and his family had long ties to PDS, Peabody College, and Vanderbilt University. While his father Bernard Werthan Sr. served on the Peabody College board which had voted to close the school, the elder Werthan had alerted his family to the news and floated the possibility that the school operate independently. Wasting no time, Werthan met swiftly with Peabody College leaders to ask for their cooperation.

“Peabody should have a fine Demonstration School as an integral part of its teacher education programs.”


PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL24

He sought to stabilize the situation by asking the college for three things: l the right to set up a new corporation that would contin ue us ing the “Peabody Demonstration School” name (the answer was “no,” but a newly named school could use the phrase “Successor to Peabody Demonstration School” on its letterhead);

l the ability to lease the PDS building and grounds for one additional school year (the answer was “yes,” for about $80,000 plus expenses);

l the opportunity to buy the PDS building and grounds, or enter into a long- term lease, in the future (willing to discuss, but highly unlikely).

A Transition Committee comprising parents, students, and faculty members began meeting almost immediately on Satur-day mornings, working to quarterback the herculean effort it would take to build a bridge from PDS to a new school that, at least in the beginning, did not even have a name.

The Transition Committee also formed a new entity, PDS Pa-trons Inc., to tackle the mission of raising the money needed to fund the new school’s operations. Suzy Morris took a hands-on role, along with Werthan, as leader of the fundraising effort.

The pace was breathtaking. Within months, the school had a new name and more than $300,000 in contributions from 86 families, and teachers had been offered contracts for the following school year. Meanwhile, the PDS colors, maroon and blue, appeared on bumper stickers proclaiming, “University School of Nashville, Successor to Peabody Demonstration School.”

“I forever will be grateful for that experience on the transition committee,” said Ann Teaff, then a fourth-year middle school teacher, who would become head of Harpeth Hall School. “I had the opportunity to observe the leadership of Bernard and Betty

Werthan and other committed parents. Much of my philosophy of education emerged during that exciting time.”

Peabody College eventually agreed in June 1976 to sell the build-ing, grounds and adjacent properties for $800,000, enabling the newly-named University School to remain in its historic home. Suzy Morris, who co-chaired fundraising, described it as the ful-fillment of a dream and a bargain too: “7.15 of the choicest acres in all Nashville, and at a reasonable price.” Though there had been scary moments, the experience of saving the school reflected bold action, giving students a profound life lesson that dire situations could be turned into promising opportunities if they acted confi-dently, decisively, and swiftly. n

“Many people wanted to keep the school. Mrs. Peggy Hays called a group of parents, former students, and teachers together. She suggested that they buy the school from Peabody College,” it says on this page of The Story of Our School, the book written by lower school children. The central figure standing by the stage in this illustration is Mrs. Hays as imagined last year by a fourth grader, Acadia LeQuire.

This fall Peggy Hays visited USN in the company of her friend, former teacher Gracie Allen. In this photo are (l. to r.) Connie Culpepper, Gracie Allen, Peggy Hays, Janet Carney Schneider, and Vince Durnan.

PDS/USN archives


from 1979-1989, University School of Nashville began to come into its own. When he arrived on campus, the young school was deep in debt, struggling to establish itself and recover from its first, unsuccess-ful director, who had lasted less than a year. Taking over from interim director Heber Rogers, Sperling relied on a succession of able board presidents and others to help him put the school on a solid financial footing and begin improving the physical plant.

He sums it up. “During my tenure, the key issues were gover-nance, finances, facilities, and curriculum...all within the context of maintaining the best elements of the past including pluralism, diversity, inquisitiveness, outstanding teaching, and learning at its best. The USN environment fostered creativity, tolerance, dif-ferences, and commonalities. It worked because of the enormous talent and dedication of the board, faculty, parents, students, and numerous outstanding leaders. The school emerged as the mod-ern USN during those years.”

In “Roots, Structure, and Vision,” Sperling’s essay for USN’s Centennial book The Same River Twice, he points to the change from an elected to an appointed board as a critically important de-cision made during his tenure. He writes, “The degree to which the school would survive was directly correlated to the composition of the board and the manner in which it governed.” n

Harvey Sperling

The Modern USN Emerges

Though by 1978 University School had a home on Edgehill Avenue, a dedicated faculty, students and loyal supporters, its survival was far from guaranteed.

Turning Points: The Sperling Years

During Harvey Sperling’s time as director

During Harvey Sperling’s tenure, the school completed its first addition since the original construction in 1925: the West Wing housing the lower school, finished in 1986. A new gym and cafeteria, called the Sperling Center in honor of the departing director, followed in 1989.


2000 EDGEHILL26

Significant challenges remained for USN’s next director, Ed Costello. The building was crowded and in need of updating. Teachers were underpaid. Sports teams lacked fields to play on. He addressed all these problems during his eight years at USN while ensuring that long-range plans were made for the future. But what would change the life of the school was the decision to buy 80 acres on County Hospital Road.

USN’s 80-acre collection of athletic fields, tennis courts, a track, and a wetlands research area on the Cumberland River—is now more than 15 years old. No current USN student can remember a time without the River Campus. And while its integration into the daily life of USN’s students has been remarkably seamless, its current familiarity obscures just how unlikely a project it was, and how different life was before it became an integral part of the USN experience.

The origins of a need

With the benefit of hindsight, the River Campus can be seen as the answer to an elaborate geography problem that was set into motion from the earliest days of USN’s separation from what was then Peabody College.

In 1974, the parents, alumni, and teachers who sought to con-tinue the legacy of Peabody Demonstration School on Edgehill Avenue could not have envisioned the USN that exists today with more than 1,000 students, more than 150 faculty and staff, and a dramatically expanded physical plant. At the time, Peabody sold the PDS real estate to PDS parents at an almost de minimis cost, but with one important restriction: if USN ever vacated the land, it was required to return the land and improvements to Peabody at the same cost. This generous arrangement gave the nascent school a chance to succeed, but the financial realities of the deal inexorably tied USN to the Edgehill campus.

In some ways, that campus would become the victim of the very success that USN’s founding parents and teachers had hoped for.

As the student body expanded, USN began a series of building projects in 1985 that continues today. Although the six addi-tions to the “Old Building” on Edgehill have improved academic and artistic life at USN immeasurably, they have demanded more and more of USN’s already limited urban green space. The expansion of the student body and faculty demanded even more of that space, whether for work, play, or simply parking. At the same time, USN’s outdoor space became the victim of Nashville’s success as a city. Nearby tennis courts and vacant lots gave way to parking garages and Vanderbilt’s land-hungry expansion. Ad-jacent property in booming Midtown Nashville became prohibi-tively expensive, foreclosing any hope of outward expansion.

By the mid-1990s, the one-time athletic field behind USN—the field that for many years inexplicably featured a single set of football uprights—could no longer support any substantial athletic prac-tice, much less a true “home game” for any of USN’s outdoor sports.

Life before the River Campus

Athletes in outdoor sports at USN in the 1980s and 90s led an itinerant existence. Our basketball- and volleyball-playing com-patriots enjoyed the benefits of the new construction, with two gyms to choose from and a built-in fan-base for any home game. Not so for baseball, soccer, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, cross-country, and others. Field athletes had to beg, borrow, and (only occasionally) steal field space, with arrangements potentially changing every year, or even in the middle of a season. Students learned to call various locations throughout Nashville “home”: Looby Field, Centennial Sportsplex, Vanderbilt, Rose Park,

By Andrew Brandon ’97

Home Field AdvantageThe River Campus—

Turning Points: The River Campus


Elmington Park, Percy Warner Park, and many more. These practice spaces did not guar-antee regulation-sized fields, flat surfaces, or bathroom access, much less personal safety and security. On a positive note, these adopted homes in unlikely locations taught many valuable lessons (“You are more privileged than you might think,” “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”), but some of those lessons were, perhaps, better taught at a distance (“Duck if you hear gunfire,” “Do not touch the hypodermic needles”).

These makeshift arrangements resulted in daily migrations of herds of vehicles from USN to various practice fields, with coaches and older high-school students being required to drive younger or carless teammates. This logistical problem affected middle-school field sports—where none of the student athletes could transport themselves—to an even greater degree, to the point where many would-be middle-school programs simply failed before they could ever begin.

Inconveniences aside, perhaps the most unfor-tunate aspect of USN’s catch-as-catch-can field space was the inability to create a sense of commu-nity through athletics. I played on a newly-formed lacrosse team in the mid-90s and still vividly remember efforts to cajole friends into attending ostensibly “home” games on cold spring days on fields they had never heard

of—fields that coach Jeff Goold was forced to paint at odd angles because of their utter unsuitability for the sport of lacrosse and its requisite dimensions. While basketball and volleyball at USN felt like essential viewing for student fans and school boosters, outdoor sports sometimes seemed the red-headed stepchildren of USN athletics. Opposing teams often brought more fans to home games than we did.

Out of these concerns about suitability, security, and community arose a growing recognition among the USN community that a change was needed. In an unfortunate but catalyzing moment, someone fired a gunshot during a women’s soccer game at Looby

Senior James Harper ’99 advances the ball in a USN home game at Metro Center.



2000 EDGEHILL28

Field. No one was hurt, but this incident caused suffi-cientconcern among parents and the administration to convert what was once an abstract geography problem into an urgent need.

The germ of an idea

It is fitting, perhaps, that the Cumberland River would an-swer the problems of a school that felt increasingly land-locked in its urban campus, but it was also highly unlikely. Ed Costello, USN’s director from 1991 to 1999, recalls the long road toward the River Campus. In response to the suddenly urgent need for field space, USN parents and administration initially rallied around a po-tential space in the Whitworth development in the heart of West Nashville. A failed portion of the development (hard to imagine in today’s booming Nashville real-estate market) had left room for a single athletic field and a running track in a safe, conve-nient part of the city. Although USN’s financial resources were stretched thin, the school marshalled its resources to move on the property. But the residents of the extant portion of the Whit-worth development “went wild,” in Mr. Costello’s words, very publicly rejecting the notion of sharing their neighborhood with a school’s field space rather than additional condominiums. As Mr. Costello now quips, “That is why I am not a developer.”

The Whitworth failure made clear that USN would have to think creatively. Several USN parents with real-estate and development experience became aware of an 80-acre plot of land on the banks of the Cumberland River. The location of the land seemed im-probable, but it was closer to the school than some of the spaces being used by USN teams at the time, and it was well suited to the task. The urgency of the need and the recent Whitworth failure only made the acquisition more attractive. USN jumped.

Although it is only a fifteen-minute ride away from USN—less than ten miles—the future site of the River Campus was situated in an area that just felt remote from the school, both geographi-cally and conceptually, surrounded as it was by prisons, gun rang-es, airports, and water. Rather than providing an obvious answer to the question of how to get dozens of students to different fields every day, the River Campus would create a new problem: how to get dozens of students to the same place every day. While this

answer might seem obvious, USN lacked experience with busing, as any USN student who has ever missed out on a perfectly good snow day can attest. For-tunately, the River Campus acquisition occurred at the same time as USN was developing a broader transportation plan, and the two plans grew together.USN acquired the land in 1998 and im-mediately began the

process of grading the land, building access roads, and determin-ing how best to utilize the space while minimizing both the cost and environmental impact of the development. One of the zoning requirements to develop the river site called on USN to create certain wetlands areas to mitigate run-off and erosion from the use of the land. USN’s parents and teachers quickly realized that this potential inconvenience—the kind of additional cost that most developers would do anything to avoid—could be one of the site’s greatest assets: an ecological and scientific bonanza for USN’s students. Thus, in addition to building fields, construction at the site now required planting wetland species, developing marsh lands, and, later, building elevated boardwalks to allow access to the wetlands areas.

From idea to practice

After graduating from USN in 1997—just before the inaugura-tion of the River Campus—I had the privilege of returning in 2003 to coach the middle-school boys’ lacrosse team for a season before attending law school. What I saw was unexpected: in a few short years, the River Campus had become a mainstay of USN athletics. Rather than the strange daily diaspora of USN students scattered across countless fields throughout Nashville, I witnessed the inspiring (if occasionally raucous) sight of busloads of athletes arriving at one time to one place, all with the com-mon goal of playing the sports that they loved. Suddenly, parents, teachers, and fellow students not only knew where home games would be held, but they seemed to actually view it as “home”—as a safe and comfortable place to go on afternoons or weekends to watch as their children, students, or classmates competed.

Early work on the River Campus athletic fieldsPDS/USN archives


And just as the athletes had grown more comfortable practic-ing on their own home fields, USN could more credibly claim to have a true sports “program,” as opposed to merely having a few sports. Rather than continue as the perennial invitee to other schools’ tournaments, USN could now host outdoor tourna-ments, something almost unheard of before the River Campus. USN could hold clinics or summer sports camps in a dedicated space. The later addition of lighted fields allowed for night games, another pre-River-Campus rarity. The school could now develop new middle-school teams and support them with practice space and transportation to and from the main campus. Thus the River Campus has led to a more self-sustaining athletics program, teaching the values of practice, fitness, and teamwork early and often in the lives of USN students.

USN has never aspired to be a sports powerhouse, and nor does the River Campus limit its utility to athletics. Starting as early as kindergarten, USN students travel to the River Campus to use its wetlands research area in scientific exploration. (They are in good company: Belmont University’s biology program has also used the River Campus for its introductory classes.) Thus, in an age where many schools are cutting out recess and physical activity in favor of preparing students for standardized testing, the River Campus has enabled teachers to offer hands-on lessons in chemis-try, biology, and geology in an active, outdoor environment.

Perhaps the most dramatic of the River Campus’s unintended consequences has been the way in which the daily trip across the river helped normalize the regular use of buses. As students, coaches, and faculty came to know and rely on USN’s bus drivers,

other ways to take advantage of this resource became obvious, and off-campus excursions for class, field trips, community ser-vice, and numerous other activities have become routine. In that way, the River Campus’s solution to a very particular problem of geography for a very particular purpose has resulted in an even greater expansion of USN’s campus– opening up all of Nashville and its environs to innumerable educational opportunities.

It is possible to indulge in a small amount of unearned nostalgia for the “bad old days” when students had to be more adaptable and pur-sue their athletic goals outside of their community comfort zone. But the unintended life lessons that we learned in the days before the River Campus are more than made up for by the lessons that the River Campus has created, both intentionally and unintentionally. In addition to the many scientific benefits of the Campus’s wetlands research center, USN students have been forced to learn how to sup-port each other in a variety of sports, how to coexist peacefully on a school bus, and, now that they can no longer use the lack of regular field space as an excuse, how to bear the occasional home-field loss with grace.

In my brief stint as an athletic coach, as well as in numerous return visits over the years, I have had the good fortune of witnessing first-hand the unlikely genius of the River Campus. The space has become more than just an unlikely solution to an intractable prob-lem. Although it created an athletic experience that was far different from my own, it now feels quintessentially “USN” in the way that a single piece of land on the Cumberland River has been enthusiasti-cally adopted and creatively used. It is a true home field, one whose many uses the USN community has only begun exploring. n

PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL30

Relationships severed with the closing of the Demonstration School in 1974 have in the last decade been revitalized, taking different forms and continuing to evolve. This edited excerpt from Vince Durnan’s 2014 disserta-tion, Cases in Partnership with Independent Schools and Universities, examines the partnership of Peabody College and University School today.

between the two institutions, there is no budgeting done in common or for commonly funded initiatives, and there is no strategic planning done in the same room. Instead, the partnership is organic, evolu-tionary, and embodied in the personal relationships that connect the two educational communities, often on a first-name basis, devoid of hierarchy.

That informality in governance does not preclude a wide and dynamic range of program opportunities. The obvious starting point for both partners is the classroom, whether that means the chance for USN students to study at VU or the chance for VU education students to attend, or even enroll in, a class on the USN campus. USN students typically enroll at VU when they have exhausted high school options at the high end, for example after second-year calculus or a fifth-year language course. Specialty classes, including playwriting, Japanese, and music composi-tion, are another possible route for precocious USN juniors and seniors.

The Program Connections

The most attractive opportunity in the other direction is the chance for aspiring teachers to observe K-12 classes in session, in a way harkening back to Demonstration School days and the origin story of the partnership. That happens most frequently in conjunction with a teaching methods course, typically guided by a Peabody faculty member and a USN teacher—sometimes the USN Middle School head. That course draws primarily Vander-bilt sophomores and it offers a chance to look into the teaching

life by observing USN faculty in middle and high school. Those USN teachers are under no obligation to be anything but welcoming to the undergraduates.

Another area of direct program interaction is in USN’s after-care program. Estab-lished to serve working families with children in grades K-6, AFTER-SCHOOL, as it is known, offers 100+ children a friendly place to be from the end of the class day through 6 p.m., also of-fering a host of low-key, fee-based specialty classes in languages and the arts. The availability of time and young people provides a great draw for researchers, and every year the benevolent director of the program welcomes a few research studies, subject to the in-dividual approval of any participating families. While the benefit of that participation runs almost exclusively to the researchers, the resulting strengthening in community fabric for the partner-ship really counts. It puts deposits in the favor bank from which

Good NeighborsBy Vince Durnan, Director

Turning Points: The Neighborhood

AFTER-SCHOOL program coordinator Beckie Stokes talks to a group of boys one rainy afternoon

There are no formal reporting relationships


USN may later draw. And occasionally Vanderbilt students, undergrad and graduate, join the program staff.

A final and emerging area of program partnership opportunities is found in the 10 weeks of summer break from K-12 classes. What began as a handshake agreement favor with the Kennedy Center, a research crossroads in the area of developmental disabilities, grows by the year. The most ambitious initiative with Kennedy Center researchers is Sense Theatre, serving 15 or 20 adolescents with autism by staging a special play at USN, in conjunction with USN’s high school theatre director and student theatre guild. The outcomes generate good data, good press, good feelings, and good progress for all participants.

Beyond the high school, middle school, lower school, after school, and summer program connections, a few grab bag examples re-main to be mentioned. USN’s swim program borrows lanes from the VU pool and assistant coaches from the VU student body, in fee-based but much-appreciated arrangements. Guest lectures from VU scholars, many of whom are USN parents (neuroscien-tists are a big hit), occur with frequency if not predictability.

Maybe most noteworthy for me over the past few years has been a guest stint by a professor at VU’s Owen School of Management in the USN high school economics elective. We team-taught a semester course for seniors, using his first-year MBA managerial economics text as a beta test for the book’s publisher. The benefit feels mutual, as our students get a genuine glimpse of graduate school and that professor, another USN alumni parent, gets towatch young people encounter his core teaching instrument. The fundamental nature of the collaborative work is informal.

The Model

From a culture and identity standpoint, and as University School celebrates the centennial of its founding as Peabody Demon-stration School, the question of where the partnership will be a generation hence remains. Maintaining a symbiotic working relationship while all the interactions are voluntary remains both the challenge and the opportunity.

The Future

The absence of coercive capacity places even more importance on leadership, starting in the USN Director’s office and VU’s Chancellor’s office and extending through both organizational cultures. The complexities of those governance systems con-tinue to dictate the educational program landscape and resulting partnership culture. If some kind of office accountable to both partners existed, perhaps some new momentum would result, though at the same time vested interests and fiefdoms could cre-ate setbacks.

Ultimately, what makes a relationship between a multi-billion dollar research university and a thousand-student K-12 inde-pendent school with an endowment of $12 million work is the fact that the school is relevant to the university. As long as USN maintains its relevance to VU, the disparity in resource bases keeps things as they are, collaborative and amiable, but standing on two very different footings. It is an entirely different matter to think about the ideal partnership between the two, though cur-rently there is no venue to address that question. It may be that the ideal has already been reached—but in comparison to what alternatives?

Only time will reveal the ultimate shape of the USN/VU part-nership. It continues to serve a purpose as a draw for faculty to offers from the university, though without a guarantee of admission. It continues to serve as a center for discussion of best practice and a research site for Peabody College of Education, though only on a voluntary basis. And it can still be a site for encouraging the next generation of teachers, though there is no formal system for doing so. n

...the school is relevant to the university.

Senior Chandler Floyd is one of 16 USN high school students taking a course at Vanderbilt University this year—in his case, multivariable calculus.

2000 EDGEHILL32

There you go: a hundred-year-old school, distilled. This descrip-tion of University School of Nashville comes from a kindergart-ner writing in The Story of Our School, a new children’s book just published to celebrate USN’s 100th anniversary.

If only Thomas Alexander, the founder of the school, could see this colorful, charming book. He’d love it. He would be fascinat-ed, too, to read the new collection of essays about USN, written by much wordier grown-ups: The Same River Twice: Reminiscences from a Century of Learning at Peabody Demonstration School-University School of Nashville.

It tells the story of a school unlike any other.

Back in 1915, Peabody College wanted to open a demonstration school, where teachers in training could gain classroom experi-ence. Born in the progressive education movement of the early 20th century, Peabody Demonstration School, as USN was first called, was from the outset designed not to be like typical schools of the day. Alexander writes, “Wherever possible, responsibility is thrown upon the pupils for the general outcome of conduct. Good discipline is not external control. It is classroom atmosphere and spirit determined in large measure through sympathetic insight on the part of the teacher and mutual understanding.”

This core philosophy remains today. It’s remarkable, actually, to read the original vision and see how closely the school has kept to it: “Our greatest concern must be for what the child is and is becoming day to day rather than in what he just knows.”

USN is buzzing these days: a thousand students, kindergarten through high school, artfully wedged into one meandering building that has expanded from the original McKim, Mead, and White structure. It’s a beehive every day of the week, a room rarely empty, the parking lot always full. So much happens there, 365 days a year. When USN students leave for the summer, the building fills with students from other schools around town, par-ticipating in enrichment programs not available at their schools.Each spring, a new batch of graduates heads out to join the world, taking with them the lessons of Thomas Alexander. “If we suc-ceed in giving the love of learning,” he writes, “the learning itself is sure to follow.”

USN’s centennial birthday is being celebrated all year long, with a lot of gratitude being expressed for the parents and administra-tors who steered the school through shallow waters and rough winds. Being a part of the larger Nashville community has always been a priority. Now, the school has the ability to reach out more than ever. In a school with more tales and legends than most, it is tantalizing to imagine what the USN bicentennial book will tell, a hundred years from now.

One thing is certain. Thomas Alexander would be glad to read, from another kindergartner writing in The Story of Our School: “We are nice to people at this school.” n

Ann Meador Shayne is a 1981 graduate of University School of Nashville. Her essay in The Same River Twice is about life in the 1970s at PDS/USN. Books are available at the USN Bookstore, bookstore.usn.org/store.

USN at 100: The Beehive on Edgehill Avenue

By Ann Meador Shayne ’81

“We read. This is a really good school and you learn a lot.”

Turning Points: USN Today

On the occasion of the Centennial, an alumna reflects on University School today.


Making The Story of Our SchoolWorking together, Lower School students wrote and illustrated the Centennial book.

Photos by Kimberly Manz

2000 EDGEHILL34

USN’s Chief Financial Officer Teresa Standard interviewed Board of Trustees treasurer Brett Sweet, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Chief Financial Officer at Vanderbilt University, about University School’s financial reality.

What is your opinion of the current state of USN’s financial position?USN’s financial position is quite strong (and getting stronger). In spite of modest year-over-year tuition increases over the past decade and a remarkably conservative approach to endowment spending, the school’s leadership team manages the school operationally in a way that optimizes every dollar of financial and physical resource available.

Another key contributor to the school’s financial success is the great support – both financial and non-financial – provided by the USN community. Through annual giving and sweat equity gifts in kind (particularly many of the USNA-supported activities at the school), the school’s financial foundation is strengthened con-tinuously. Consider that only a short few decades ago the school, while excelling academically, was floundering financially. Fortu-nately, the administration and families then had the courage and foresight to go ‘all in’ for USN. We are the lucky beneficiaries of their (and their successors before us) fiscal wisdom and prudence.

What do you think were the predominant factors contributing to or holding the school at the current state?I think of the USN community as being socially and intellectually liberal yet fiscally conservative. We endeavor to apply those same principles to the operational and fiscal management of the school. The management team uses a carefully designed recipe of facili-ties management, benefits design, merit-based faculty pay, and a relentless focus on behind-the-scenes trade-offs and efficiencies to deliver an educational and social experience for our students that is unmatched, even by schools that operate at significantly higher per-student cost levels.

How would adding $10 million to the endowment change the school’s financial position?Aside from the pure mathematical doubling of the endowment, it would help us address the gap between our historically under-en-dowed position and that of our peers. We recognize that in order to deliver the unique ‘product’ we all enjoy at USN, we are forever subject to Baumol’s curse. Tuition will never keep pace with the financial needs of our school, and endowment is the ‘secret sauce’ tying it all together. While we have made incredible progress in

No look at a school’s history is complete without a mention of its budget realities. And though we are celebrating a century of exemplary education here, we have been an independent financial entity only since 1975, when University School was formed.

In the past forty years, the school’s leaders have been working to establish a secure financial model. Thanks to the generosity of alumni, parents, parents of alumni, and friends of Peabody Demonstration School and University School of Nashville, we’ve come a long way since those days of an endowment of $0 and loans with an interest rate of 18%.

Preparing for the Next Century

Turning Points: The Financial Future


the past few years advancing the endowment’s support of the school’s operations, we still have a long way to go.

What level of endowment would be a game changer for the school? What should our goal be for the next 10 -20 years?Endowment is the ultimate buffer for economic stress in schools. Today, the endowment supports less than 2% of the school’s operating budget. Many of our national peer day schools enjoy operational budget support from the endowment in the 5% -10% range. To get to the middle of that range, our endowment would need to be ~3X as large as it is today. A change that large does not occur overnight—it takes many years of alumni and family sup-port to accomplish that, and through the Centennial Campaign we are making our generation’s contribution to achieving that level of endowment success.

Which scenario would you choose as the most important for the school at this time and why: a) double the endowment b) pay off the debt in full c) double the non-endowment reserves d) substantially expand programs through restricted gifts

Double the endowment. Over the long term, that helps accomplish all of the other items on the list in a perpetual, sustainable way.

In hindsight, what decision during your board leadership do you think was a positive turning point? What decision was too risky or too conservative?The decision in the fall of 2013 to commence the Centennial building project prior to having the funding and operational details fully fleshed out. It was bold and decisive yet fiscally pru-dent. Just one short year later, we are seeing huge dividends from this great investment. Taking a long position on the education of our students was a great bet!

If you had $100 million to give to the school, how would you want the gift to be used? What would be your priority? (a) Endowment (b) Endowment (c) Endowment

Endowment will cure what ails you.

What do you see as unique about the strategic leadership by USN’s board? Does it differ in approach and structure from other non-profit boards you have worked with?Yes, tremendously. It is a working board. Unlike some other boards, the goal is not simply to have lunches together, raise funds and enjoy an annual gala. We work our board hard. And that is good. We tap into the enormous pool of talent we have in the alumni and parent communities. It’s part of that secret sauce we use as a school to leverage every available resource to make USN a better place.

How long do you think the current education tuition model will remain sustainable for independent schools? What could change the current financial model for independent schools in general or for USN in particular?For years people have been predicting the demise of the current independent school tuition model. Yet, for schools like USN that deliver a product worth far more than the tuition paid in, the demand is stronger than ever.

Here, too, endowment strength through intergenerational giving and support is the key to maintaining the viability of our model.

2000 EDGEHILL36

ast year the USN community produced two books: The Story of Our School, written and illustrated by the children of lower school, and The Same River Twice: Reminiscences from a Century of Learning at Peabody Demonstration School-University School of Nashville, a collection of essays by writers with strong ties to the school as alumni or faculty and staff.

With contributors whose ages span eight decades, it’s no surprise that the books include a range of voices and perspectives and make appealing reading for all ages.

“Though it’s not intended to be a spellbinder, I honestly could not stop reading certain sections once I started. As a student here in the 70s and 80s, I have new appreciation—all over again—for the people who saved this school. It is stunning to me to read in detail how inadequate the facilities were when PDS became USN. As kids we didn’t really notice. We didn’t know any differently. I have no idea what Harvey Sperling was thinking when he took the job, but like thousands of others I’m glad he did,” says Jeff Greenfield ’84. n

L

Books Mark Centennial Year



Top: At the book launch party in September, alumni, parents of alumni, and friends gathering in the lobby before the authors read selections from their essays, with Harvey Sperling in the foreground.

Bob Gordon, Diane Esstman Sacks ’81, and David Vise ’78; Amy Kurland ’73 and Wanda Meadows ’78; Bernard and Betty Werthan with Heber Rogers, who is signing a book for someone.

Inset: Leland Johnson, whose American Problems class wrote the book, showing and perhaps selling copies of The Past Is Prologue to alumni in 1970.

Opposite page: contributing authors (front row, l. to r.) Harvey Sperling, Robert Massie ’46, Julie Reichman ’70, Connie Culpepper, Heber Rogers, Ann Meador Shayne ’81, Pat Miletich; back row Vince Durnan, David Ewing ’85, David Vise ’78. Not pictured: Mary Lee McCharen Di Spirito ’56, Jon Van Til ’57, and Greg Downs ’89.

The Story of Our School and The Same River Twice are both available in the USN bookstore or online at bookstore.usn.org.


2000 EDGEHILL38

hen the high school Community Service Club was asked how they wanted to mark their school’s centennial, after much discussion and consideration the students decided to work

toward strengthening their school’s relationship with the Edgehill community. This effort became known as the “Centennial Initiative.” Last year interested club members, their sponsor Betty White, and others met with Edgehill leaders to begin discussing possibilities.

This fall the students brought these neighborhood leaders to USN for a public meeting. Organizers Hannah Bollen ’15, Kellon Patey ’15, and Sydney Robbins ’16 invited members of both the USN and the Edgehill communities to our auditorium for a panel discussion of neighborhood issues. The meeting was well-attended, with a range of questions raised and issues discussed.

Joining the students on stage were:l Reverend Bill Barnes: founding pastor of Edgehill United Methodist Church, advocate for the Edgehill community, and author of To Love a City.

l Nancy Crutcher: director of Edgehill Brighter Days program and passionate community leader.

l King Hollands: chair of Organized Neighbors of Edgehill, civil rights activist, and one of fourteen black students to integrate Father Ryan High School.

l Betty Nixon: former Metro councilwoman and Assistant Vice- Chancellor for Community, Neighborhood and Government Relations at Vanderbilt University, long-time neighborhood resident (and mother of Mignon Nixon ’79)

As Kellon later wrote, “Although students will graduate, and the Edgehill community will continue to change, we hope to steadily work toward our goal of being more reliable, more active, and

more positive participants in our neighborhood. It is our hope that deep into the next hundred years, students who take part in the Initiative, along with all those who support us along the way, will be able to return to our school and see the effects of their actions.”

Kellon expressed the stu-dents’ gratitude to those who came to the panel “asking questions and shaking hands,” adding that the event’s “reception and success exceeded our expectations.” n

Together on Edgehill

Organizers Hannah Bollen ’15, Sydney Robbins ’16 , and Kellon Patey ’15 with Edgehill neighbor-hood leaders King Hollands, Bill Barnes, Betty Nixon, and Nancy Crutcher.

W


Peabody Demonstration School

Centennial Birthday PartyUniversity School of Nashville


n February 15, 2015 | Music NightDierks Bentley and Friends headline a Centennial Jam

in our auditorium. Stellar alumni Nick Buda ’92, Gabe Dixon ’96, and William Tyler ’98 will open the show.

Don’t miss this unique Nashville evening!

n March 5, 2015 | USN Movie Night at the Belcourt

We oughta be in pictures! Take a seat in the historic Belcourt Theatre for a night of spectacular films by USN

students and alumni, dating all the way back to the 1920s.

n May 1– May 2, 2015 | Birthday WeekendCome one, come all! Join alumni from throughout the century and across the country for a giant, weekend-long birthday extravaganza. No matter what year you graduated, you’re invited to come join the fun.

n Out of Town Alumni EventsJanuary 13, 2015: San FranciscoJanuary 14, 2015: Los AngelesMarch 3, 2015: Atlanta March 26, 2015: Philadelphia

Stay tuned for more information and the 2015 schedule of events.

Want to help? Email Dana Morris Strupp ’77 or Britt McCauley in the Alumni Office: [email protected] or [email protected].

Centennial Events






2000 EDGEHILL40

Visitors to University School this year are invited to sign our guest

book, hand-made in honor of the Centennial celebration. Please stop by to add your name to the growing list of alumni and friends.

usn100.org

Even if you can’t visit in person during the Centennial, you can still explore the riches of PDS and USN material in our digital archives: usnarchives.omeka.net. If you’d like to contribute to the archives, email Jenny Winston at [email protected].

PDS/USN archives


Vince Durnan spoke at Kathy Woods’ memorial service, held at Vanderbilt University’s Benton Chapel in August. Kathy told him, “Don’t make me sound too good” and “just talk about what it was like working together.” Here are excerpts from that talk.

ome people become the thing that they do every day— they just are what they do. Kathy worked that all in reverse—who she was became what she did as our LS Head. That role was a vehicle for her to be who she was— holistically and completely. Her funda-

mental respect for childhood as an age and stage worthy of deep consideration set an instructive example, one for many of us to embrace. Of course she found kindred spirits in this work, but in a profound way she affected our big educational pond more than the pond affected her—her little spring fed the whole thing.

She could admonish without sounding, or being, critical. Kathy, when in correction mode, asked a lot of questions. Questions were for her an Archimedes lever to move the world around us. Maybe most lasting of her lessons for me is the disarmingly direct idea that we let the nature of children’s questions determine the length and breadth of our answers.

When Kathy told me that she had decided to step down, more than a decade ago, to take care of her health, my response was not exactly progressive or relational or Zen influenced or now, in hindsight, a point of pride. I just said no—no way—she needed to stay—we needed her—and she was so good at being there for us. Kathy gently and caringly confirmed that in fact she would be making a change—a change that turned out to be a source of love and comfort to many other people in her teaching after USN. And she returned to lend a loving hand to the work of our Board, where she always said a lot by saying a little in the right way.The farewell notes from her faculty colleagues ranged across the map, but the garden metaphor did shine through—gratitude for Kathy’s care for the garden that is Lower School. Pretty perfect. Babs Freeman Loftis ’74 wrote that “learning to say goodbye to Kathy has brought out the best in us and tied our lower school community closer together.” May it be so for us today.

Kathy, in her turn, deflected the adulation, thanking others in-stead—she shared her “deepest gratitude with the Lower School faculty.” To quote, “none of my ideas would have gone anywhere if it hadn’t been for your willingness to try them out in the crucible of your experience in the classroom and make them better.”

Vintage Kathy. And she added that “most of what kept her com-ing back for 15 years is the delight she found in being around children.”

That delight was like the finest fragrance for us, so subtle and so powerful, that changed the air we breathe at University School— it’s still very much in our inhaling and our exhaling.

What’s left for us is to continue learning, to continue growing, to continue in a culture of fundamental love and respect for children as a legacy of our love and respect for Kathy and her dear family, four generations of whom are here today, and one of whom starts kindergarten just steps from her formerly cluttered desk at USN on Tuesday.

As an utterly unqualified searcher of Buddhist texts and perhaps the least Zen evident figure in the room, I still want to close, as a promise to Kathy to listen to that still small voice she helped us hear, with a Thich Nhat Hahn verse, a wish for her beautiful and loving and generous soul.

Peace in every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy.

Peace in Every Step Kathy Woods

S

Visitors to University School this year are invited to sign our guest

book, hand-made in honor of the Centennial celebration. Please stop by to add your name to the growing list of alumni and friends.

usn100.org

PDS/USN archives

2000 EDGEHILL42

CLASS NOTES

1950Eugene May continues to teach and super-vise students in the American Psychological Association-accredited doctoral psychology program, Center for Psychological Studies, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauder-dale, Florida. He retired as staff psychologist working in medical facilities of the Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs, and psychologist, Department of Psychiatry, Evening Mental Health Clinic, Cleveland Metro General Hos- pital. He resides in Pompano Beach, Florida.

1956In October Mary Lee McCharen Di Spirito and her husband Don served as the grand marshals for the annual Annandale, Virginia Parade in October. “Much fun was had riding in the Yellow Mustang convertible waving at the crowd at the parade.” The local Annan-dale Chamber of Commerce selected them to lead the parade to recognize their volunteer work in the community.

1960Ten years ago, Nancy Estes retired from Broward College in Ft. Lauderdale after four

decades of teaching there in the Wellness Education and Education departments. “I have continued teaching there and at Florida Atlantic University (Education majors-how to teach reading) as an adjunct. I love what I am doing” in her 51st year of teaching. Nancy plans to move back to Nashville “soon.” She says, “USN gave me that great desire to learn and to follow my dreams.”

1961Since Camille Walker Morgan has two grandsons in high school at USN, Arden Gil-bert ’16 and Bennett Gilbert ’18, she has “at-tended many soccer, lacrosse and basketball games there! The new school is fantastic.”

1964Susan Hammonds-White continues in pri-vate practice in Nashville with specialties in couples, trauma and eating issues. She began her second term as president of the American Association of State Counseling Boards in July, 2014.

1966In recognition of Judge Daniel B. Eisenstein’s work as Metro General Sessions Judge, the Tennessee Senate sponsored a joint resolu-tion to honor his time as judge in Nashville, his work with the Davidson County Mental Health Court over the last ten years, as well as his advocacy for people with mental illness. Judge Eisenstein retires this year from Division II of the Davidson County General Sessions Court. Senators Stephen Dickerson, Douglas Henry, Thelma Harper and Ken Yager and Representative Brenda Gilmore sponsored the resolution.

1967Rosemary Zibart has a new picture book out from Azro Press, I Have a Grandma Who….Three grandmothers banded together to produce this charming picture book: the illus-trator Valorie Hertzlich, a the long-time Azro Children’s Book Publisher, Gae Eisenhardt and Zibart, an award-winning author and playwright.

1969Rodney Lister received the 2014 Jane Stack-house award for excellence in teaching at the Preparatory School of The New England Conservatory.

usn.org/alumni n

Senator Douglas Henry presenting Dan Eisenstein with a resolution honoring him upon his retirement as General Sessions Judge.

Eugene May


1972Curtis Miller writes, “I received notice of allow-ability for a classified pending patent concerning the fabrication of nickel filters. (Because it’s classified the patent can advance no further than pending).” In May he received a patent for his “Method For The Prepara-tion of Ferrous Low Carbon Porous Material.” This makes a total of four classified pending patents and one unclassified patent.

1975 Al Pailet, writing as A.D. Penedo, has two upcoming productions of musicals written with his son, Marshall Pailet: The world premiere of Loch Ness will be playing at the Chance The-ater in Anaheim, CA, from January 15 through March 1, 2015. Who’s Your Baghdaddy? or how i started the iraq war will be playing at the Sig-nature Theater, Arlington, VA, from May 13 thru June 7, 2015. Both productions will be directed by Marshall. If any of you live near either of these venues, he would love for you to come. If you do, please let him know in advance— [email protected] or 646-319-9982.

1985Chris Chamberlain’s new book The Southern Foodie’s Guide to the Pig has been published by Thomas Nelson.

1988Wynne Stallings has hung out her shingle as a licensed psychotherapist in West Palm Beach, specializing in “working with people who are struggling to survive in unhealthy relationship systems (what we lovingly have come to know as ‘dysfunctional families’).” She says, “It is my mission to help struggling people find another way to live.”

Sarah Gillmor Hymowitz says that her new baby Hannah’s big brothers Mark and Michael and sister Rachael are very excited to wel-come their baby sister.

1991Last January Susannah Felts cofounded a nonprofit center for writing in Nashville, The Porch Writers’ Collective (porchtn.org). “We received our 501(c)(3) tax status in July, and in January we’ll celebrate our one-year an-niversary with our first big fundraiser event: Dubbed ‘A Tale of Two Tims,’ it will bring to-gether iconic American author Tim O’Brien (The Things They Carried) with the star Americana/bluegrass musician Tim O’Brien for a night of story and song, literature and lyrics. (The two have received each other’s fan mail for years, but have never met.) The Porch’s mission is to empower and educate writers of all levels and ages through high-quality workshops and edu-

cational opportunities, and to nourish literary community in Nashville.” Susannah compares their efforts to those of The Loft in Minneapolis or GrubStreet in Boston. She and co-founder Katie McDougall “are excited to be building this organization in our hometown, and are thrilled to be part of the tremendous creative culture here. I’m also working on a second

ALUMNI WRITE A BOOKThe Same River Twice: Reminiscences from a Century of Learning at Peabody Demonstration School-University School of Nashville, is largely the work of our alumni. Bob Massie ’46, Mary Lee McCharen Di Spirito ’56, Jon Van Til ’57, Julie Reichman ’70, David Vise ’78, Ann Meador Shayne ’81, David Ewing ’85, and Greg Downs ’89 each contributed a chapter reflecting each writer’s per-spective on and relationship to the school.

The appendices contain work done by people who were students when they wrote it. One includes excerpts from The Past Is Prologue, the 1970 history of PDS written by the American Problems class taught by Leland Johnson. The other appendix comprises selections from writing by the students in Vince Durnan’s Historical Methods class, which took up the school’s history where the 1970 book stops.

The title comes from Greg Downs’ chapter, which refers to Heraclitus’ idea that “you cannot step into the same river twice.”

It’s available in the USN bookstore, bookstore.usn.org, in both a paper-back and a cloth cover version. Also in the bookstore is The Story of Our School, a children’s history of PDS and USN written and illustrated by people who won’t become USN alumni for years to come, as they are in lower school.

The children of Dan Lubetkin ’93: baby Ayla with big brother Elijah and big sister Tova.


2000 EDGEHILL44

novel and new short stories. My husband, the writer Todd Dills, and our 6-year-old daugh-ter Thalia and I are happy residents of East Nashville.”

Eric Jewett has left Microsoft to become Vice President of International for Skykick, the Se-attle start-up that helps businesses move onto Microsoft Office’s 365 cloud platform. Eric is the newest member of USN’s National Alumni Board of Visitors.

1992Earlier this fall, Jenny Boucek, associate head coach of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, attended training camp for the Dallas Mav-ericks of the NBA. Coach Rick Carlisle, also a University of Virginia graduate, told the Dallas Morning News he was happy to have Jenny attend camp. “If women are serious and qualified and committed, then they de-serve a chance,” he said.

Darek Bell’s Corsair Distillery recently pur-chased a second site in the popular Wedge-wood-Houston district.

1995Mandy Williams has a song, “She’s Tired of Boys,” on Garth Brooks’ new album, Man Against Machine. She says it’s a “dream come true.”

1997Rosalind Helderman has been awarded a George Polk Award. The Polk awards are given annually to honor special achievement in journalism. She won for her work in revealing the relationship between the Virginia governor and a wealthy businessman who showered the governor and his family with money and gifts. The former governor and his wife have been indicted on federal corruption charges. Roz was also named Outstanding Journalist of the Year by the Virginia Press Association. She is a member of the national political investigations

Where are You on the PDS/USN Timeline?1915 First lower school classes meet in Jesup Psychology Laboratory

1925 New Demonstration School building opens on Edgehill

1954 1954 Fire destroys the auditorium

1964 First black students are admitted

1974 The college announces its decision to close the

Dem School

Ann Teaff Entertains Former StudentsAt the beginning of last summer, when Ann Teaff retired as Harpeth Hall’s Head of School, she invited all her former USN students to her house for a party. Many of them came to wish Ms. Teaff well and to tell hilarious stories about their favorite history teacher. These photos are courtesy of Wanda Meadows ’78.

1934 PDS football team enjoys undefeated season

Rachel Miles and Andrew Schulman ’96, October 18, 2014

continued on page 44


n usn.org/alumni

Where do you fit in? Visit usn100.org to add your time here on Edgehill Avenue to the timeline.

1983 1983 Smoking on “The Wall” is prohibited

1993 USN wins the first of 4 state volleyball championships

1997 USN acquires the 80 acres that will become the River Campus

2014 USN publishes two books in celebration of its Centennial

Pippin 1996Inspired by this year’s performance of Pippin, retired middle school French teacher Beth Interlandi, known to her students forevermore as “Madame,” sent us these pictures of the 1996 USN version of that musical. It was directed by Gus Gillette. Beth’s daughters Nina ’97 and Holly ’99 appeared, and Ben Fundis ’97 starred as Pippin.

1979 Harvey Sperling becomes the director of University School of Nashville

2000 EDGEHILL46

usn.org/alumni n

Michaela Cilento ’93 at her October, 2013 wedding

and enterprise team at the Washington Post and lives in Washington, D.C.

Eric Appelt has received his PhD in physics.

1998Steven Davis won an Emmy. He’s a writer for Bob’s Burgers, which won for Outstanding Animated Series.

Brittany Witkin has a new book, The 30-Day Ultimate Closet Guide.

Jessica St. Cyr Kleinberg’s new baby Liam joins his big brothers Jacob and Kaleb.

Duke University has commissioned William Tyler to write the musical score for a show of rare photographs from the Civil War. The

pictures were taken by two men, George Barnard and Alexander Gardner. Ac-cording to Duke, Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War and Barnard’s Photographic Views of the Sherman Campaign, published in 1866, are considered “among the most important pictorial records of the Civil War.” For the performance, the images will be projected on large screens. William composed a score to accompany the photographs and will perform it live.

1999Ceacy Amanda Werme Hagler has retired from the photography business in pursuit of natural healthcare. “This summer I became a licensed massage therapist so I could have a mind-body wellness practice. Aside from massage, I am having great success with Acu-Oil therapy (needle-less acupuncture), Bars Therapy, and Red-light therapy to help my friends reduce pain, illness, and clear emotional issues and stress away. I am loving it!” She adds, “My son, Andrew, is an amazing little boy” who has started kindergarten early. “Life is won-derful!”

Paul Gruber is celebrating, with his wife Bridget and 16-month old son Sam, the birth of a wonderful little girl, Ellen, who arrived on Halloween at a surprising 9 lb 12 oz. Life continues at a more hectic, but still pleasant pace. Both Paul and Bridget now manage programs at UC Davis.

2000 Claire Meneely is opening a bakery in the Wedgewood-Houston area of Nashville. She has been selling her delicious cookies for almost five years. Claire told the Tennessean, “We’re pushing things to the limit where we are. This will give us the capacity to expand our product line.” She also said that she plans to expand her wholesale business, which serves such places as CREMA, Bang Candy Company and Pinewood Social, and continue selling at local farmers markets.

2001Ariel Neaderthal Voorhees writes that now that her baby Edith Ann is about to crawl, “it’s going to get harder to take good (non-blurred) photos of her.”

2003When Michaela Cilento got married at the Schermerhorn a year ago in October, her classmates Ariane Guy, LeAndra Rice Walk-er, and Ben Raybin were there. “I really love getting the Edgehill in the mail; it’s always so nice to see everything that is happening at USN, especially since I live out of town.”

Paul Gruber and his children, baby daughter Ellen and son Sam

Stephanie and Matthew Gillmor ’02 with baby Mary Allis

Steven Davis ’98 with his Emmy and his wife Samantha Shelton


2004After getting married in England last summer, Rosie Siman and her husband Faris Yakob went on a “whirlwind tour: France, Mexico, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the Maldives (honeymoon dive trip!).” This fall they made their way to Nashville, where they planned to live and work for a few months. Rosie and her British husband were married at a friend’s farm in East Sussex, UK. The food was “a mashup,” with English meat pies, sweet tea, tacos, fried chicken, and “New York style hot dogs for a late night snack.” Rosie is also in “a little show called The Day Before Tomorrow (hint: it’s today!) which is about disruption in the near future.” She is in 3 of the 6 episodes, “talking about the disruption in the healthcare industry, entertainment and education.” See thedrum.com/daybeforetomorrow.

Mclaine Richardson of Margaret Ellis Jew-elry and Project Runway Season 13 finalist Amanda Valentine are launching a collab-

orative capsule jewelry collection – Amanda Valentine by Margaret Ellis Jewelry. From the press release: “The Nashville-based designers collaborated to design pieces for Valentine’s Spring 2015 collection. The ‘Ro-man Holiday’ collection debuted last month at Lincoln Center in New York City during the invitation-only Project Runway finale runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and aired on Lifetime Television Network’s popular reality show season finale on October 23. The limited edition collection is now available for purchase through both of the designer’s websites and in the Margaret Ellis Studio at Cummins Station.”

2005David Tannenbaum and his new wife Mag-gie Xu (“the girl of my dreams”) met while they were both pursing their MBAs at Ameri-can University. Joe Logan was the best man. They are expecting their first child in January. “Everyone is very happy and can’t wait to see the new little Tannenbaum. On the not-nearly-as-exciting front, my business is taking off and we have been doing some very interest-ing work both in the U.S. and abroad. My sister Danielle, another former USN student, is living in Israel for a year teaching. And of course my mom Beth [Ginsberg Dreifuss ’74], a PDS alum, is going full speed transitioning to future grandma mode.”

Joann Lee Kim, a graduate of the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, participated in the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the March on Washington. She says she was “fortunate and humbled to contribute my graphic for and be a part of the planning of the 50th Anniver-sary of the March on Washington activities on August 24, 2013. I also had the opportunity

to stand among greats on the steps of the Lin-coln Memorial, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood 50 years ago.”

2006When Molly Cunningham and Michael Snow got married, many USN friends joined them: Dylan Andrews, Alison Douglas, Carly Compas Horn, Isabel Ross Martin, and Erin Shmerling (all ’06) and Liza Dansky ’07, Grace Ann Cunningham Lukach ’03, Steven Snow ’01, and Thomas Snow ’05. Molly and Michael have moved to the Dupont area in Washington, D.C. Molly teaches third grade in Potomac, Maryland, and Michael works at the law firm Hogan Lovells.

Molly Cunningham and Michael Snow, both ’06, get hitchedRosie Siman ’04 at her summer wedding to Faris Yakob in England

Edward Gottfried, Ari Schiftan, and Dan May, all ’07, at Ta Prohm, in the Angkor complex in Cambodia.

Mclaine Richardson (l.) with Amanda Valentine


2000 EDGEHILL48

Mark Kelly is in his first year at Duke Univer-sity Medical School.

2007In the spring, Edward Gottfried and class-mates Dan May and Ari Schiftan spent two weeks traveling to Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong, “hiking, cycling, kayaking, explor-ing temples, and eating. It was truly the trip of a lifetime. Also, Dan wore a USN t-shirt for more than half the days we were there!”

2008Brothers Ben ’11 and Julian Kurland, both 13 year club members, have launched a new start-up negotiating cable, internet, and phone bills.

Piper Jones sang USN’s alma mater at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Miranda Merrick is the Marketing Coordinator for Brilliant Sky Toys & Books in Green Hills.

2009Ricky Coleman was named NAIA 2nd Team All-American in baseball at Cumberland University. Cumberland won the NAIA World Series.

Margie Quinn was the featured speaker at the assembly that begins the high school’s an-nual Community Service Day. She is the Opera-tions Manager for a Seattle organization, Facing Homelessness, “building a new relation-ship about our relationship to homelessness.”

2010Stanford graduate Ian Ball has begun work on a PhD in economics at Yale University.

The Valory Music Co. has signed Levi Hummon, who is working on his debut album, due out next year.

2012Will Kochtitzky writes, “Attending Dickinson College has opened my eyes to the Earth Sciences and I have deeply enjoyed it. This summer I went to Northern British Columbia to work on volcano-ice research with a Dickin-son professor. We are studying how lavas propagate under ice and the implications for the Laurentide ice sheet. I was also able to go to Greenland and Iceland this summer to study the regional geology, hike, kayak and encounter polar bears! I am currently prepar-ing for a summer field season in Peru to study volcano-ice interactions, glacial dynamics, and agrarian impacts.”

Margie Quinn ’09 speaking at the high school’s Community Service Day

Will Kochtitzky ’12 in northern British Columbia

Miranda Merrick ’08 with her fiancé Tim Buell Piper Jones ’08 sings the alma mater at the Centennial Ribbon Cutting in August



Forest Miller’s band Chasin’ Crazy released their first music video for their breakout single, “That’s How We Do Summertime.” Forest and the rest of the band are featured in a new re-ality series on GAC (Great American Country).

2013Bailey Conner has been elected to Tufts University Student-Athlete Advisory Commit-tee (SAAC). The 22 members of SAAC serve as the liaison between the student-athletes of NESCAC member institutions and the admin-istrators. Bailey has also been elected as a Co-Captain of Tufts Track and Field team.

Evie Kennedy took first place at both theMissouri State Championships and the St. Louis Summer Feis, back-to-back Irish dance competitions.

2014David Shayne has published a piece on The Huffington Post called “Sticker Shock” about casting his first vote. He is described on the site as “eighteen years old, member of the Harvard Class of 2019, currently taking a gap year to work for Rep. Jim Cooper, proud Nashvillian.”

Sam Perlen is taking a gap year to serve as International President of BBYO, the Jewish youth organization. He writes, “I have been to over 16 states so far and am seeing the world this year.” You can read his blog and see a map of where Sam has been at bbyo.org/blog/keepingpace/. Zoe and Emma Zagnoev, daughters of Jennie Shepard Zagnoev

Ariel Neaderthal Voorhees’ daughter Edith AnnLeo Auslander, Allison Yazdian’s baby

Randy Gross’ daughter Lilia Claire

Matthew and Ellen Duke Haber’s baby Jonathan

Hannah, daughter of Sarah Gillmor Hymowitz Liam Kleinberg, son of Jessica St. Cyr Kleinberg


2000 EDGEHILL

IN MEMORIAM

Violet Janet Watkins ’36

Jean Dusenberry Sanders ’37

Lyles “Jane” Fite Rebrovick ’38

Edward Turner ’44

Martha McIntyre Baldridge ’44

Neely Coble ’44

Sally Hines Hinkle ’45

Edward Horde ’48

Everett “Buster” Smith ’48

Jean McIntyre Boyd ’50* *date of death unknown

Judy Graves ’64

Allan “Buddy” Bass ’64

Eugene Nelson Hester ’74

Hal Maier, father of Marc ’85 and Kurt Maier ’87 and former president of the USN Board of Trustees

Kathy Woods, former head of Lower School, mother of Cecil Vandevender ’96 and grandmother of Hugo Ward ’26 and Cecil Ward ’27

To read obituaries of most of these alumni, visit usn.org/publications.

Please email [email protected] or call Connie Culpepper at 615-321-8011 to share your thoughts on anything in this magazine.

n usn.org/alumni

WEDDINGSAndrew Schulman ’96 and Rachel Miles, October 18, 2014

Meghan Hovey ’02 and Jacek Kawecki, September 27, 2014

Jessica Lingo ’03 and Andrew Hill, May 17, 2014

Michaela Cilento ’03 and Steve Ruebel, October 26, 2013

Rosie Siman ’04 and Faris Yakob, July 5, 2014

David Tannenbaum ’05 and Maggie Xu, August 2, 2014

Molly Cunningham ’06 and Michael Snow ’06, June 7, 2014

BIRTHSRandy Gross ’81 and Michael Downie, a daughter, Lilia Claire Watson Gross, October 11, 2014

Jordan and Sarah Gillmor Hymowitz ’88, a daughter, Hannah Diane, July 22, 2014

Mike and Kate Bush Loyco ’93, a son, Henry Michael, April 25, 2014

Lori and Dan Lubetkin ’93, a daughter, Ayla Micah, July 2, 2014

Ashley and Adam Small ’93, a daughter, Alexis Emerson, December 1, 2014

Sandy and Jessica St. Cyr Kleinberg ’98, a son, Liam, July 1, 2014.

Jamie Auslander and Allison Yazdian ’99, a son, Leo Emanuel Auslander, August 20, 2014

Bridget and Paul Gruber ’99, a daughter, Ellen, October 31, 2014

Jackie and Daniel Chappell ’00, a son, Alexander Logan, April 24, 2014

Sam and Ariel Neaderthal Voorhees ’01, a daughter, Edith Ann, March 7, 2014

Matthew ’99 and Ellen Duke Haber ’01, a son, Jonathan Duke, August 1, 2014

Brad and Jennie Shepard Zagnoev ’02, two daughters, Zoe Lauren and Emma Brooke, August 14, 2013

Stephanie and Matthew Gillmor ‘02, a daughter, Mary Allis, September 15, 2014

Brandi and Stephen Rodriguez ‘04, a daughter, Lydia Marie, September 9, 2014

Letters to the Editor, continued from page 4

We heard from Robert Burko ’73. “I was saddened to read about the death of former teacher Leland Johnson in the last Edgehill issue.

“I have fond memories of Mr. Johnson, who was largely responsible for nurturing my love of history. To this day, I remember his quirky mnemonic for remembering the order of the terms of office of some of our less well known Presidents: ‘Tyler Polked Taylor, Fillmore Pierced Buchanan.’

“Mr. Johnson was largely responsible for the publication of what was perhaps the first history book about Peabody Demonstration School, The Past Is Prologue. I’d like to think he would have relished being at the upcom-ing Centennial celebration.

“I still enjoy history but, in the back of my mind, I remember another teaching from Mr. Johnson, ‘History is a trick by the living played on the dead.’”

50

IN MEMORIAM

Violet Janet Watkins ’36

Jean Dusenberry Sanders ’37

Lyles “Jane” Fite Rebrovick ’38

Edward Turner ’44

Martha McIntyre Baldridge ’44

Neely Coble ’44

Sally Hines Hinkle ’45

Edward Horde ’48

Everett “Buster” Smith ’48

Jean McIntyre Boyd ’50* *date of death unknown

Judy Graves ’64

Allan “Buddy” Bass ’64

Eugene Nelson Hester ’74

Hal Maier, father of Marc ’85 and Kurt Maier ’87 and former president of the USN Board of Trustees

Kathy Woods, former head of Lower School, mother of Cecil Vandevender ’96 and grandmother of Hugo Ward ’26 and Cecil Ward ’27

To read obituaries of most of these alumni, visit usn.org/publications.

Non-Profit

Fan us at facebook.com/USN.PDS Follow us on Twitter:

@USN_PDSand @USN_Sports

We pin at pinterest.com/usnpds

Follow us on Instagram@universityschoolofnashville

Add us to your circles on Google+

University School of Nashville

Friday, May 1 The weekend starts Friday afternoon with our Distinguished Alumni Panel Discussion. Join us in the auditorium to hear a group of Distinguished Alumni discuss life at PDS, USN, and beyond.

The All Alumni Party: Prom Re-do follows at 6:00 p.m. in the newly renovated Cheek Gym (“the oven” now has air condition-ing and bathrooms!). Enjoy cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres and dance to your favorite hits from your time at 2000 Edgehill.

Saturday, May 2 At 10:00 a.m., we welcome you to Reunion Brunch in the audito-rium, catered by Loveless Cafe. USN’s 100th Birthday Party starts on campus immediately afterwards.

Individual class parties will be held Friday and Saturday evening.

Check out usn.org/reunion to find out more about Reunion 2015 —including continually updated class party information.

Need a hotel room? We have a block of discounted rooms for Reunion attendees at Embassy Suites Vanderbilt. 615/320-8899, Group Code: USN.

University School of Nashville2000 Edgehill AvenueNashville, Tennessee 37212

100100

100 100Join the Celebration!Centennial Birthday Party

May 2, 2015For more information visit usn100.org

2000 edgehill - january 2015

Documents

day of school

schooladministered programs

past school year

vanderbilt university

ethnic origin

centennial tshirts

centennial collection

qualified students