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Contentsf e a t u r e s

d e p a r t m e n t s

14 A C A l l to AC t i o n , Mick Follari ‘90

18 E v o lu t i o n o F A B u i l d E r , Elliot Berkowitz ‘92

19 F r o M A n t h r o to E n v i r o : t h E s to ry o F E Co h A n dyM A n , nate Burger ‘94

21 s M A l l h A n d s FA r M , Julia K. Altes ‘97

23 A l i s t o F F o u r , sherab Kloppenburg ‘92

24 At h o M E i n t h E W i l d E r n E s s , thomas McArdle ‘91

26 t E AC h E r F E At u r E : nyq uA n ’s B o o K s , deborah schaeffer ‘01

Co M M u n i t y n E W s

4 G re e n M e a d ow

8 s u n b ri d g e Co l l e g e

8 th re e fo l d

9 Fe l l ows h i p Co m m u n i t y

10 Al u m n i

29 W h At W o u l d s t E i n E r s Ay ?

30 Co n t r i B u to r s

As Jan Melchior, Ivy Greenstein and I finished the Fall 2007 issue of the Alumni Maga-zine, we were already discussing editorial and artistic themes for the Spring 2008 issue. It seemed we all had houses on our minds. Between my many moves, Ivy’s restoration of her Rockland County farmhouse and Jan’s home-as-perpetual-construction-site, the

subject loomed large in our conversations. We spoke about what makes a house a home. Think-ing about our Waldorf alumni and their holistic approach to living, we wondered what their ideas about making “home” might be. From reading the Fall 2007 issue, we knew there were many Green Meadow alumni engaged in the building trades. Wouldn’t it be interesting, we thought, to invite them to write about their work? Great idea! We read carefully through the Magazine’s Class News columns searching for names, solicited more names from Tony Cirone, and developed a list of alumni whom we knew worked with houses and homes and set about tracking them down. Alas, we could not find contact information for everyone on our list, nor did we hear back from everyone we tried to reach, but each one who responded to our call for articles did so with wonderful warmth and enthusiasm.

When their articles started piling into my email box in January, I was in for a big surprise. While we, as editors, had been thinking about hearth and home, our Waldorf alumni had some-thing far more dynamic and forward-thinking to write about! As I read their articles, I thought back to a year ago when Peter Almasi ’93 wrote his “Global Climate Change” article for the Maga-zine. That single article, like a pebble cast into a pool, has had a remarkable ripple effect. Late last spring, Kenneth Mankoff ‘96 came to GMWS to make a customized presentation of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to the high school students and faculty. Talking with him afterwards, I learned that after reading the Alumni Magazine, Kenneth had immediately called Peter to talk about their mutual academic interests. What I had always hoped for had happened: Green Meadow alumni from different classes were making connections with each other through the Magazine. Kenneth’s enthusiasm for countering global warming lead him to write “A Simple Change,” about replacing incandescent light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL), for our Fall ’07 issue.

In this issue, too, you will find the same passionate concerns for earth tending, this time expressed from the perspective of designing, building and maintaining the built environment. Here, you will read about strawbale and rammed-earth construction; houses designed, built, re-stored or updated using recycled materials; and other eco-friendly techniques. You will also read about historic preservation, land conservation, and living outdoors. Our authors have taken great inspiration from nature; their deep and abiding love of mountains runs through many of their articles. Their innovative, creative spirits breathe light and life into each challenge and opportu-nity they meet. At a time when Americans are loosening their connections with nature and when the construction and housing industries have been seriously depressed, it is heartening to know that their idea of home is more comprehensive and expansive than the one we had first imagined: Home is not just a building that shelters us from the elements. Home is also the Planet Earth, which shelters, nourishes and sustains us all.

It is clear that environmental awareness is not just a matter of academic interest to these Green Meadow alumni. They are seeking solutions to the many challenges of global warming by actively leading the way with materials reuse, waste reduction, recycling, and utilizing alterna-tive energy sources. We can be rightfully proud of their important contributions to the design, construction and maintenance of homes across the country, and, even more so, for their deep and abiding love for the home we all share here on Earth. And right behind them, Green Meadow high school students, the next generation, are developing their skills and gathering knowledge – and after school, some are building robots. It will not be long before they, too, enter the work world and when they do, they will bring with them solutions and innovations we can only imagine!

~Candace Stern, Editor

Cover Photograph: The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, California, June 2005, by Thomas McArdle ‘91

Green Meadow Alumni Magazine

Spring 2008

Director of DevelopmentVicki Larson

(845) 356-2514 x [email protected]

Associate Director of DevelopmentChris Delaney


Alumni CoordinatorIvy Greenstein


Alumni Magazine EditorCandace Stern(201) 264-8100

[email protected]

Design/Production ManagerJan Melchior

[email protected]

PhotographersJulia ‘97 and Tristan K. Altes,

Elliot Berkowitz ‘92, Nate Burger ‘94, Mick Follari ‘90, Ivy Greenstein,

Sherab Kloppenburg ‘92, Ray Manacas, Thomas McArdle ‘91,

Martha Paradis-Evans

Editorial OfficeGreen Meadow Waldorf School

307 Hungry Hollow RoadChestnut Ridge, NY 10977

Green Meadow Waldorf School publishes this Alumni

Magazine two times a year in Fall and Spring.

Editorial CommitteeJennie Abbingsole ‘91Jennifer Brooks-Quinn

Ivy GreensteinJan Melchior

Ann StahlAlexis Starkey ’91

Candace Stern

Writing home

and math heroes were simply not valued by young people in the same way rock stars, athletics champions, and movie idols were. Kamen set out to create a venue that would in-spire young kids to be scientifically and technologically challenged— something so exciting that it would be as exciting as performing at a rock concert. In 1989, he founded FIRST, an acronym meaning: “For Inspiration and Recognition of Sci-ence and Technology.” By 2007, 37 competitions were held around the world. Kamen remains the driving force behind the organization, and continues to gain support and pub-licity from major corporations, uni-versities, and colleges.

“The way these events occur is very exciting,” says Madsen. “There’s loud techno music, it’s all highly ani-mated, and it’s very exciting for the kids. It’s nothing like a spelling bee or a science fair; instead there’s in-tense animation, excitement, yelling, screaming. And what’s really great is the gracious professionalism that imbues everything we do in all the competitions. Dean Kamen’s ideal of helping your competitors perme-ates every aspect. Being a monopoly and destroying everyone else doesn’t help anyone. Helping each other helps everyone. And you see that in the competitions. The students are all helping each other, sharing soft-ware, helping with spare parts.”

This article excerpted from an ar-ticle by Winslow Eliot that recently appeared on AWSNA’s new website: whywaldorfworks.org

high school Week2008Jessalyn Traino ‘08

Every year, the high school sus-pends its normal classes to let

students explore certain areas of in-terest for High School Week. There is always a theme and different workshops that relate to it, joined

by field trips, a featured speaker and a panel of four speakers. The week culminates in a display of what the groups have learned. This is a time to learn something new and have fun doing it!

This year, the High School Week Planning Committee consisted of Fiona Cansino, Dylan Farrell-Bryan, Aidan Nelson, Sundi Powers-Adler, Adrienne Sibrizzi and me, and was headed by the wonderful Green Meadow high school teacher Mrs. Christofides Lowenthal. We came up with the theme of Isolation and Com-munity. We wanted people to see the difference between the two, and how we live our lives based on those two ideas. The workshops that were offered were African Drumming, Jewelry Making, Cooking, Poetry, Ecological Footprint, Conflict Reso-lution, and Aikido. The field trips were to Liberty Science Center, art galleries in New York, a Mystery Trip to New York, People to People assis-tance, and caving (spelunking). Our panel speakers were Assemblywom-an Ellen Jaffee, Vicki Forster, alum Jemal Gulum ‘03, and Carol Galione, Director of Programs from People to People. The week progressed well, with many adventures on the field trips, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Our featured speaker this year was Brian Turner, a poet who has served in Iraq. He read many of his poems and spoke of his experiences before leading the poetry workshop. Most of us were surprised to discover that someone who had fought in Iraq had many of the same views on the war as we had. His poetry had the ability to turn the horrific things he expe-rienced into beautiful works of art. I know I am not speaking only for myself when I say that he was one of the most inspirational speakers I have heard.

Our week ended with a wonderful presentation from every group. I hope

that all of the students learned and received a lot throughout the week, but I also hope they had fun.

high school MetalworkingMichael Witri

A new addition to the ninth grade curriculum is metalworking.

Our ninth graders are not just learn-ing about blacksmithing and copper work, they are doing it! When work-ing with copper the students make useful objects, such as bowls. Mrs. Volpe teaches copper work; I teach blacksmithing. Many people think of blacksmithing as putting shoes on horses. That is a specific kind of blacksmithing done by farriers. Generally speaking, blacksmithing is making things that are useful and ornamental from steel.

To begin, we take a piece of steel, heat it in a forge until it is red hot and then bang it with a hammer until it is the shape needed. It sounds simple when described, but I think elemental is more de-scriptive. It is a great activity for anyone, but especially for ninth graders who hunger for cause and effect, and tangibility in their efforts. It is rare that a student has experi-ence with hot steel and so at first they are a bit intimidated. But as they experience the activity and see the results those feelings dissipate and they bang away freely. Unlike wood and fabric, if you make a mistake with metal, usu-ally all you have to do is heat it up again and bang it some more. The pedagogical notion of having a pic-ture in one’s head and bringing it to life with one’s hands is in full bloom at this point. As they trust them-selves more and more, the students are impressed and even amazed with what they can make. We start with basic techniques, such as learning

Spring 2008 | �

Community News

G r e e n M e a d o w n e ws

alliance that won the Snow Day Showdown tournament in Hights-town, N.J. on December 15—an event that is part of FIRST, an in-ternational program designed “to inspire and recognize excellence in science and technology through robotics co-opertitions.” The Poly-Gnomes robotics team includes Alexander Evans, Nicholas Frei, Noah Kaplan, Gavin Langdon, Aid-an Nelson, Charles Rudish, Sung-Pil Moon, and Sung-Ryul Moon. Team members gather together after school every week under the guidance of Green Meadow High School robotics coach and physics and math teacher, James Madsen. Together they strategize, plan, program, and build.

The FIRST Robotics Competition challenges teams to design a robot that will win against a robotics game designed by FIRST founder Dean Kamen and a committee of engi-neers and other professionals. Stu-dents are rewarded for excellence

faculty green meadow waldorf school sunbridge college fellowship community threefold educational foundation pfeiffer center eurythmy spring valley

in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and ma-turity, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Scoring the most points is a secondary goal. Winning means building partnerships that last. “On the playing field there are a bunch of three-inch rings and different types of goals,” Madsen describes it. “The teams are trying to gather rings and score them on goals. The goals move. It gets pretty fast and serious.”

The Poly-Gnomes spent a couple of months thinking about how they could create a robot that would win the game. “The students have to constantly apply all the physics and math they’ve been learning; weigh-ing the costs and benefits of using one design over another,” says Mad-sen. “And without a lot of money to invest in research, they have to be creative. There’s a maximum of ten students on any team, which means that everyone needs to be active and participate. This is a terrific place for these students to be. It takes a lot of physics and programming to get the robots to do what they want them to do. They’re computer whiz-zes; they are great at playing com-puter games, but with this program that FIRST offers, they can get re-ally creative.”

FIRST emerged from a strong personality, a New Hampshire en-trepreneur called Dean Kamen, with several scientific patents to his credit. In the late 1980s, he saw something occurring in the United States that troubled him: Science

in the high school...

Green Meadow robotics team Wins Championship AllianceWinslow Eliot

They’re called the Poly-Gnomes. They are a group of eight

Green Meadow HS students who design and create robots. And they made up half of the championship

� | Alumni Magazine

School News

Poly-Gnomes

Front (l-r):Nicholas Frei,Noah Kaplan,

Sung-Ryul Moon

Rear (l-r):Charles Rudish,

Mr. Madsen, Alexander Evans,

Sung-Pil Moon,Gavin Langdon

The S-Hook

Students are rewarded for excellence in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and

maturity, and the ability to overcome obstacles.

� | Alumni Magazine

Community News Community News

taking the initiative

Ivy Greenstein, with reporting by Melissa Barton ’11, Cate Sandstrom ‘11, and Jessalyn Traino ’08

This past year, more than a dozen Green Meadow students from

all four high school grades, band-ing together and calling themselves the Student Initiative Group, proved what can happen when the desire to give turns into action. With no faculty advisor directing them (but with teachers and other adults on hand to dispense advice and assis-tance when called upon), this group took on a number of service projects designed to show both their interest in the world beyond Green Meadow and their insistence on taking the lead in carrying out their work.

The teens’ first project was the sale of Waldorf-inspired Peruvian dolls made by a collective of poor women in Lima. Profits sent to Peru from selling these dolls at venues such as the Fall Fair, a Green Mead-ow kindergarten parents’ evening (with its appropriate discussion topic of “Warmth”) and Sunbridge College’s Waldorf Early Childhood Conference will serve to better the lives of the collective’s community. Next, the students turned their at-tention to the children of Africa. En-listing the generosity of the Green Meadow community, the Student Initiative Group put out a call for crayons, pencils and other art sup-plies which were collected and do-nated to orphanages and children’s hospitals in Rwanda. Joining forces with GMWS third grade students and parents, the high schoolers then created three gingerbread houses (made with nearly 100% organic in-gredients, including candy decora-tions, from our local Hungry Hollow Co-op!). Raffled off at December’s Holiday Assembly, the $400+ ginger-bread house profit was forwarded to children in African hospitals and

NEW GMWS WEBSITE IN THE WORKSWe are happy to report that Green Meadow is in the midst of a long-await-ed revision of our school website, including creating a brand-new website for our alumni. We hope you will use it to share news and happenings with one another; learn about school news, campus events and upcoming reunions; and reconnect with former classmates via a brand-new online directory (an innovation for us, but one which will save printing costs, postage and trees!). Keep checking in at www.gmws.org to see when the new site will be up and do let us know what you think!

to make a round rod square and a square one round. Next we move to pointing and tapering, and then we work with moving material around. At this point the students are ready to put their skills into practice and start making actual things.

Our first project is to make hooks beginning with the S-hook. S-hooks are used for suspending something, such as a pot over a fire. Then we make a drive hook, which is a hook with a pointed right angle at the top that can be driven into a tree or a wall to hold something. Then comes the J-hook which can be hung on a shelf or sometimes there is a hole in it so that it can be hung on a nail. Each of these projects employs skills with which the students are already comfortable and which also adds something new. Next, we practice making leaves and when we have mastered that, we make a letter opener with a leaf handle. All of these projects are practical and can be useful.

As the years go on, these simple everyday objects will provide our students with a reminder of who they once were, as well as how they got to where they are pres-ently. It will also remind them of one of the ways in which they worked through something they did not understand at first and brought it to its conclusion. to full houses both nights. We thank

the audience for giving us the op-portunity to perform, and we hope to see you next year.

Editor’s note: “Guys and Dolls” was performed in the Arts Building on February 5th and 6th. If you wish to be alerted to the schedule of fu-ture Drama Club performances— as well as other Green Meadow events—make sure we have your email address and we’ll be happy to send you advance notice!

Andy Petersen (left)and Alex Evans (right)

While on their September trip to Hermit Island, Maine, this year’s 12th graders stopped off at Merriconeag Waldorf School to visit former GMWS English teacher, David Sloan, now Chair of Merriconeag’s new high school. Accompanying the class on this annual rite of passage were senior class advisors John Wulsin and Jennifer Brooks-Quinn and alumni chaperones Anna Booth ‘99 and Deborah Schaeffer ‘01.

An invitation fromthe GMWs Bulletin

Lisa Kreisel Wolfe ‘77Editor, The Bulletin

As this Magazine attests, the insights, perspectives, and experiences of Green Meadow alumni are inspiring! Bringing alumni voices more often to our bi-weekly school newsletter, The Bulletin, offers our whole school community an opportunity to learn more about these members of our Green Meadow family and their lives today.

If you’ve logged on to our website re-cently and followed the links to current or past issues of The Bulletin, you’ll notice that we’ve added a new column: Alumni Corner. Contributors to this column have ranged from Brendan Oswald, Class of ’92 (and now a GMWS parent himself), reflecting on the role his Green Meadow education has played in his profession as a teacher, to Elizabeth Volpe ’04, describ-ing how her decision to enter the world of investment banking was informed, in part, by Green Meadow’s emphasis on curiosity and well-roundedness.

Please help us enhance this alumni col-umn with stories of your experiences and adventures. Perhaps you would like to of-fer a biographical sketch, or share photos of your current surroundings, a recent trip, a special event or an artistic project. The Bulletin is published 19 times each school year, from September to June. I would be happy to receive your submis-sions at any time. Please send them to me at [email protected] or (845) 356-2514 x 301.

Alumni can read both The Bulletin and The Alumni Magazine online by going to www.gmws.org and following the links.

Metalworking:

John Robertson, Grade 9

Spring 2008 | �

orphanages. For Valentine’s Day, the Student Initiative Group joined with Green Meadow’s Parent Hand-work group to create Waldorf-style dolls as another way to benefit those in need in Africa. A $10 donation bought a doll-inspired card—also produced by the teens—to deliver the message of love and giving to one’s Valentine here, and a gift of a doll to the children there. Thus far, Rwandan hospitals and orphanages have received over 80 dolls and gifts totaling several hundred dollars from this “heartfelt” activity. Projects to benefit those in need closer to home, including a food drive for Rockland’s People to People and other local hunger organizations, are next up on this dynamic group’s agenda.

two nights onlyCharles Sherwood Rudish ‘10

Yes, The Drama Club continued after its inaugural year this

year with a production of “Guys and Dolls.” There are nine of us who meet on Tuesdays not only to act, but also to just have a great time telling jokes, complaining about teachers—you know, the usual. When we started “Guys and Dolls,” we were pumped, but after a while, we got really scared. There was so much to do in so little time. To tell you the truth, there were times when I thought we’d never pull it off. But after working like crazy the two days before, the lights went up

four years later

Spring 2008 | �8 | Alumni Magazine

s u n b r i d g e Co l l e g e n e wsJulika Stackelberg-Addo

When you are asked about your education and respond: “I went

to a Waldorf school,” you probably encounter a myriad of responses, ranging from interest or familiar-ity, to a blank stare. Even though the Waldorf school movement is one of the fastest growing independent school movements globally, with over 1,000 schools in 64 countries, Waldorf education is still largely unknown. As a Waldorf graduate who has bumped into other Waldorf graduates in some of the most re-mote places on Earth, this phenom-enon stimulates a burning question for me. How can an education that is forward thinking and widespread not be better known?

Being active in the field of educa-tion for a number of years now, I have become aware of the fact that there is a lack of quantitative and qualita-tive research that demonstrates the benefits and potentials of Waldorf education. In light of this fact, I am

thrilled that Sunbridge College was recently re-accredited and will con-tinue as the only independent de-gree-granting anthroposophical col-lege in the English-speaking world. Why? Because being accredited as an institution of higher education in today’s world means that rigorous standards and requirements have to be met. It means that the College will continue to foster research ac-tivities by its faculty and students, which is a first step to making Wal-dorf education better understood and more accessible to educators, students of education, and prospec-tive teachers.

As you can imagine, expanding the quality and quantity of research on the value of Waldorf educational methods will not happen overnight. However, I am excited to say that Sunbridge recently hired Chris- tine Shakespeare, Ph.D., (a Waldorf graduate herself!) as the first Dean of Academic Affairs. With four Wal-dorf graduates on the team, Sun-bridge College is taking important steps toward strengthening the rigor of its teacher preparation master’s programs for Waldorf educators. For

my part, by working in Sunbridge’s Development Department, I am hop-ing to increase the awareness of and support for Waldorf education and its potential to bring new life and re-newal to education and our culture. If you want to help too, please spread the word!

Also, did you know that there are over 400 teaching positions that need to be filled each year in the Waldorf schools in North America alone? If you know someone who you think may have the potential to teach or who wants to be a teacher: tell them about your education and where they can explore the vocation of Waldorf teaching: www.sunbridge.edu

t h r e e f o l d n e wsMimi Satriano

I spent over an hour reading the last Alumni Magazine, catching

up with all of you. It was a moving experience, a little bit like being in the Twilight Zone, remembering most of you as teenagers and abso-lutely amazed at how you all went on to such interesting paths.

When many of you were students, I worked at the school. As far as I know, I hold the singular distinc-tion of having worked in all three sections of Green Meadow. In 1991, I moved on to work at the Threefold Educational Foundation, whose mis-sion is to support and develop edu-cational work based on the work of Rudolf Steiner. We try to ensure that all TEF institutions (Green Meadow, Sunbridge College, the Eurythmy School, the Hungry Hollow Co-op) are in step with requirements im-posed on us by outside authorities, while fielding requests and ideas to make new things happen.

Rafael Manacas, Threefold’s Di-rector, is working on plans to cel-ebrate the 75th anniversary of the first international anthroposophi-cal conference in America, held in Spring Valley in 1933. The theme of

the celebration is “Envisioning the Future” and it will take place here in late August 2008. At the age of 21, Henry Barnes, a pioneer in this country’s Waldorf movement, met anthroposophy and Waldorf educa-tion at the 1933 conference. A resi-dent of the Fellowship Community, he turns 96 this summer and looks forward to participating in the an-niversary conference and meeting today’s young people. We are trying to create a program of interest to young people. We would be happy to hear from you about topics that would make you want to participate in such a conference.

While Rafael is doing that, I am trying to figure out how to renovate the Auditorium, without ruining the near perfect acoustics and the cozy feeling that is so well loved by all who enter the building. A new roof was installed this year, as well as new stage curtains, so that will buy us time while we try to figure out how to air-condition the place and meet accessibility requirements, among other challenges. Oh yes, then there’s always the fund-rais-ing that goes along with all these

adventures and keeping up with the new technology. Which reminds me, soon Threefold will have a nicely de-signed website as well as signs along Hungry Hollow Road so people will be able to find us more easily.

I have spent most of my adult life living and working on Hungry Hollow Road and it has been very gratify-ing. Whether at Green Meadow or at Threefold, there has never been a day when I didn’t want to go to work. My tasks have ranged all over the map, but at the end of each day, they were in support of an ideal that I value deeply. How many people have that satisfaction at the end of every day? I wish the same for all of you.

Fe l l o ws h i p Co m m u n i t y n e wsfrom the Fellowship Community Newsletter

When the Fellowship Community began its journey over 40 years

ago, we did not realize that we were paving quite a new road, with care of the elderly embedded in a commu-nity of all ages, with enough worth-

while activities to assure that life is worth living, and with an end that is but a new beginning. Though we did not begin trying to be unique, many a friend tells us that, in fact, we are.

Over the years there have been many challenges to the birthing of enriching events and new undertak-ings. These events have nourished our determination to continue our striving to bring human care with gentleness, dignity, and productiv-ity. We are very grateful to have been pioneers in this direction, seeking support for the betterment of long term care. We are grateful to have the experience of caring for single individuals in a community, while working for humankind in the process.

We have co-workers, elders and volunteers who are ready to help in ways that they never knew they could – in work areas, on the farm and in human care. They bring a kindness of heart with their care. Some of our elders who come here to retire can become active and busy within the community.

Those who become more frail and in need of assistance can bring their lifetime learning to share with others. They can bring about a unique and informal educational circumstance for youngsters in the community.

Community News Community News

MartinandLuther: Born on Mar-tin Luther King Day, the two new-est lambs of the Duryea Farm of the Fellowship Community draw visits to the community from neighbors and friends of all ages.

Browsing in the Sunbridge

College Bookstore

Pictured left, The Threefold Auditorium

10 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 11

A l u m n i n e wsdevelopmentsIvy Greenstein Alumni Coordinator

This past January marked my first full year as a member of Green

Meadow’s Development staff. Dur-ing this year, significant changes oc-curred in the Development Office as a whole. A major change has been saying farewell, at least for now, to Tony Cirone, beloved class teacher of the classes of ’95 and ’03 and, since 1999, Director of the GMWS Devel-opment program and originator of the GMWS Alumni program. Tony had long wanted to exchange the grey days of Northeast winters for California sunshine and this Janu-ary, he and Gail headed west to San Diego, where he is now Director of Development and head of the Capi-tal Campaign for the Waldorf school there. We are extremely grateful to Tony for his many years of service and inspired leadership and wish him well in his new endeavors.

We are delighted to introduce you to Tony’s successor, Vicki Lar-son, an experienced development professional who has worked in the non-profit sector since 2001. Vicki comes to us from MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization based in NYC. Prior to 2001, she managed Laby-rinth Books, a scholarly bookstore in Manhattan, and edited Monthly Review, an international political affairs magazine.

In terms of her view of develop-ment work, Vicki has this to say: “I think it’s really important to re-member that fundraising is always about relationships—everyone has something to contribute to the pro-cess, including donors, recipients, and fundraisers. Money is a loaded topic in our society, but I believe that privilege carries responsibility and wealth is meant to be shared. I’m interested in making the pro-

cess of giving and receiving as natu-ral and comfortable as possible for everyone involved, and in erasing the inequalities—both real and per-ceived—between giver and receiver. I never intended to be a fundraiser: I have always seen fundraising as a necessary step in making possible the work that I believe in. So, for me, the ideal fundraisers are people who have professional skills and are to-tally committed to the projects they are fundraising for, who see rais-ing money as a tool rather than an end. The goal is to make our dreams real, and money is simply one of the things we need for that to happen.”

As you all know, our school has a long and successful history of de-velopment events: Many of you re-member when the Fall Fair was a two-day event and how, each spring, the school was transformed by the three-day Pottery Show. While the Fall Fair is still going strong, the Pot-tery Show closed its doors after 25 successful years, giving rise, in 1994, to the Spring Family Music Festival. Today, our community events are run by Christine Delaney, now in her seventh year as GMWS’s Associ-ate Director of Development. Dur-ing her tenure here, Chris has also added the late winter/early spring Goods and Services Auction and the early fall Jack Onderdonk Memorial Golf Outing to our repertoire of an-nual events; her prodigious organi-zational and management skills are key to drawing people from a wide area to our school and productively engaging vast numbers of parent

and faculty volunteers. Chris is also the school’s database guru extraor-dinaire and the administrator for our other fund-raising programs: SCRIP and online shopping. Both of these development tools require no extra out-of-pocket expenditures for the buyer, yet net wonderful profits for GMWS.

Rounding out the Green Meadow Development team is our talented and dynamic graphic designer, Jan Melchior, who, in addition to design-ing The Bulletin and our school’s new website, creates posters and postcards for our events and the lay-out for this Magazine. It would be hard to overstate Jan’s contributions to the success of our department’s endeavors. As you know from the last issue of the Magazine, Candace Stern, our fearless editor, is now liv-ing in Dallas and Maine, embracing technology as she conceives each issue and works via telephone and email with us all in the editing and production process.

As for me, getting to know the workings of the Green Meadow Alumni Department has been a wonderful experience, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the tasks in-volved: coordinating my first Fall Fair All-Alumni Gathering (you can find my 11/05/07 article on this topic in The Bulletin archives on the GMWS website); working with Class Giving Agents on the Annual Appeal; assisting in the production of the Magazine; planning my first Alumni/Varsity Basketball Game post-game party; sending GMWS-style “care packages” to our newly minted graduates (now college freshmen). Even updating the database and gradually recogniz-ing alumni names—and success-fully matching them up with year of graduation!—has been a gratify-ing experience. My responsibilities here are as varied as the commu-nity I serve.

One thing I’ve come to learn in this department is that while “Green

VICKI LARSoN, DEVELoPMENT DIRECToR

Alumni News Alumni News

Tomorrow Within TodayA Campaign for

Green Meadow Waldorf School

Vicki Larson, Director of Development

GMWS’s alumni have joined with the wider Green Meadow com-munity to show their support for Tomorrow Within Today—Green Meadow’s capital campaign. The alumni portion of the campaign has been led by Green Meadow alumni David Bosch ’85 and Jennie (Ab-bott) Abbingsole ’91, and alumni parent chairs Ann Stahl and Richard Hansen. The purpose of the capital campaign is to realize the dreams of our community: a beautiful addition to the Arts Building and much-needed gym and high school renovations.

There is much good news to report. As this issue of the Magazine goes to press, we have exceeded our original fundraising goal and are approaching $3 million; two alumni-sponsored challenge matches have brought alumni giving to $220,000; alumni parents have given gener-ously, contributing $388,000; the school community has enjoyed sev-eral campaign benefit events—the Jerrahi Mosque Ottoman Feast, an opera performance by two current Green Meadow parents, staff-led fitness classes, and several student-organized events. As we wrap up the campaign, our goal is 100 percent participation: from alumni, fac-ulty/staff, and parents.

F A C T S & F I G u R E S

Amount raised to date: $2.9M

Fundraising Goal: $3M

Actual costs: $4M(of construction and renovation)

CONTRIBuTEd By...

CuRREnT PAREnTS: $1.6M

ALuMnI: $220,000

ALuMnI PAREnTS: $388,000

GMWS BOARD: over $700,000

FACuLTy/STAFF: over $75,000

GyM RENOvATIONS BEGINSuMMER 2008

ARTS BuIldING GROuNdBREAKING

IN 2009

Meadow alumni” is a very easy term to toss about—and certainly, you do share a unique and wonderful commonality—you are, nonethe-less, a very heterogeneous group of individuals. Our alumni class lists range from young people still in their teens to fifty-something adults. Not only have you alumni had a range of educational and social experiences while at Green Meadow—reflec-tive of both the decades in which you grew up, as well as the milieu of the school at the time you attended —but you have naturally followed a range of different directions in your personal and professional lives since then. My assignment, as your Coor-dinator, is to recognize and meet your current interests and needs as GMWS alumni. My interest goes far beyond merely trying to enlist your financial support on behalf of today’s students. You should know that the school considers you very much a vital part of our community, and we value your participation and input in current campus life. Please, get in touch with me and let me know if there are any events, activities, or services you would like us to of-fer—or perhaps you have something you’d like to bring back and offer to us. Together, we can carry on the great legacy that Tony has left us!

Ifyouhaven’tyet

participatedinthe

capitalcampaign,

nowisthetimeto

acknowledgethe

importantrolethat

GreenMeadowhas

playedinyourlife.

It’snottoolateand

everygiftmatters!


2008 Alumni Basketball night Reported by Stu Kornberg and Ivy Greenstein

Green Meadow’s gymnasium be-gan to fill slowly the night of

January 11, but by game time the “house” was packed. There was a buzz in the air and all in attendance knew they were in for a special eve-ning: the Annual Alumni/Varsity Basketball Game! Rookie Green Meadow players realized very quickly that this was no ordinary match. Although the alumni wom-en, coached by faculty member/alumni parent Stephen Kotansky, tried their best against their young-er opponents, the varsity women, directed by alumni parent Skip Herman, opened up the night’s fes-tivities with a 40-28 victory. Then, the alumni men took the court…twenty plus in number, under the able coaching of David Bosch ’85. The game was great. Although the Warriors, coached by alumni par-ent Bill Oswald and aided by Micah Witri ’05 filling in for side-lined senior, Beno Stewart, hung tough, even Witri’s 23-point performance wasn’t enough to guarantee victory. In the end, it was the Warriors who came up short, 48-44. Afterwards, beer and wine flowed and dozens of sandwiches were consumed, as 40 alumni and faculty partied into the wee hours of the morning at a festive post-game party hosted by the Alumni Department and Green Meadow’s new Athletic Director, Stu Kornberg, and his wife, April. A grand time was had by all.

Alumni News Alumni News

HAPPENINGS!

MusicThe Chapin Sisters (Abigail ’98, lily ’99, and Jessica) released their first LP album, Lake Bottom on Plain Re-cordings, on March 18. The album title is an ode to their family, as Lake Bottom is the farm in new Jersey that their great-grandfather, Kenneth Burke, bought in 1925, and which the family still owns today. The Chapin Sisters will do a residency of Mon-day night shows in March at The Echo in LA to celebrate the release, with parties and tour dates to follow in April, up and down the East and West Coasts. Check their website for details: www.thechapinsisters.com

Walker Adams ‘00 has released a CD entitled The Power Of One under the pseudonym JoyEngin (www.joyengin.com). Available at (cdbaby.com/cd/enginjoy). Walker has recorded his original compositions with a full band including the horn section from Digable Planets. Listen at walker-adams.com. He is currently playing drums with the indie pop act St. Vincent (ilovestvincent.com), and the fusion trio Tunnels fea-

turing bassist Percy Jones (from Brand X).

Jesse Kotansky ‘06’s Mid-dle Eastern, Balkan jazz en-semble, Which Way East, played a gig last fall at nyC’s experimental music club, the Knitting Factory, in Tribeca.

FilmStefan Schaefer ’89 co-wrote and co-directed Ar- ranged, an award-winning feature film (www.arranged themovie.com) that opened at nyC’s Quad Cinema on December 14.

PublicationsGoldmacher, Amy ‘92 “Graduate Socialization in Anthropology: Developing a Professional Anthropology Identity.” Michigan Discus-sions in Anthropology, Vol. 18, 2008.

Goldmacher, Amy “Lo-cated Mobility: Living and Working in Multiple Places.” Mobile Work, Mobile Lives: Cultural Accounts of Lived Experiences. Tracy L. Meer-warth, Julia C. Gluesing, and Brigitte Jordan, eds. nAPA Bulletin 30, 2008.

Miller, Christine Z., Amy Goldmacher, Julia Gluesing,

and Joerg Siebert “Disjoint-edness: The Challenge of Partnerships in Complex Cultural Environments.” Bri-ody, Elizabeth K.and Robert T. Trotter, II, eds. Partnering for Organizational Perfor-mance: Collaboration and Culture in the Global Work-place. new york: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2008.

ArtShowsThe fiber art of Orly Cogan ’90 was featured this past winter in “Pricked: Extreme Embroidery” at nyC’s Mu-seum of Arts and Design and was included in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” a group exhibit at 31GRAnD on Ludlow Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Zaria Forman ‘01’s chalk pastel drawings of Green-land are being shown March 27 - April 26 at the Allen Sheppard Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, new york, ny. Her Greenland landscape explorations figured promi-nently in “Zaria Forman and Catherine Minery” at the Mikhail Zakin Gallery of the Old Church Cultural Center in Demarest, nJ, February 8 - March 7.

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9

At the game...

1 Chela Crane ‘97 with daughter, 2-year old Ananda

2 Women’s team: (left to right): Helaine Schonfeld ‘06, nura-nisa Rae ‘05, Jennifer Daugherty ‘01, Gabri-elle Stryker ‘04, Chela Crane ‘97, Sylke Jack-son ‘88

3 Coach Kotansky with alumni women

4 Men’s team (partial: left to right: (Coach) David Bosch ‘85, Angelos Kontos ‘07, Andrew Shurtleff ‘05, Max Oscar ‘07, Ismar Mahmutovic ‘98, Hasan Oswald ‘07, Robbie Rindlaub ‘05, Rafi Cansino ‘06, Karel Schur-man ‘05, Dominik Landowne ‘07

5 Brendan Oswald ‘92 and referee

introducing Happenings!, a new section of the Alumni Magazine with announce-ments of recent or upcoming art shows, performances, publications, and movie and musical releases. Please contact ivy Greenstein at [email protected] if you wish to include news items here or on the alumni website.

1 The Chapin Sisters2 Walker Adams3 Jesse Kotansky4 Stefan Schaefer (left)5, 6, 7 Orly Cogan artwork8, 9 Zaria Forman artwork

calendarof events

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. . .May 17

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Headlinersincludetomchapin.Forupdates

andinformation,visitwww.gmws.org

. . .Week of June 2SenIorcLASSPLAy

. . .June 14-15

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September 25jAckonDerDonk

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1� | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 1�

A Call to Action

him, I had some friends who were already doing that kind of thing on their own—using an ad-hoc net-work of contractors to jump on op-portunities to score free flooring, lumber or windows, and other ma-terials for building.

I had come to Boulder, Colo-rado after college with my eyes and climber-hands focused on the world-famous cliffs of Eldorado Canyon, mountains of rock and ice in nearby National Parks, the un-natural preponderance of slender blondes (though I don’t discrimi-nate, I promise), and thoughtful Buddhists. My Ivy League degree stayed behind on the wall. I loaded the car with some carpentry tools, climbing gear, and a garbage bag of clothes, to go “start a life of adven-ture” (and it turned out, a life of ever-changing careers!). I was for-tunate to fall in with a large, tight group of climber-friends, who, in this case more importantly, were simi-larly environmentally conscious, specifically when it came to sus-tainable building design and con-struction. I was quickly introduced to things like Earthships (www.earthship.net), strawbale homes, rammed-earth construction and a whole fascinating world of al-ternative building techniques. I also spent evenings hiking out to the nearby cliffs and boulders with guys like Bob, the passionate dreadlocked Scotsman ex-pat mas-ter of adobe and plaster, talking intensely about the use of space, the human footprint, shelter, com-munity and other factors that enter into a re-visioning of the American-built environment.

After some discussion of my situa-tion and negotiation, the guy on the phone agreed to pay me $9/hour to help pry apart the home. At the site I found a lone thin figure, a man in his 40s, tenacious, with thick glasses. Over the course of the day

I learned he was an engineer, one of the board members of the BECC, and a co-founder of ReSource 2000 (now simply ReSource, for obvious reasons; http://www.resourceyard.org), a new non-profit construc-tion materials reuse and recycling program. He also was engaged in working out a couple of patents and inventions that would serve the growing reuse and deconstruction industry. We hit it off; imagine a cou-ple of idealistic, mad-scientist, en-gineer-types pulling 2x4s out of the walls of this fast-diminishing house, while excitedly talking through the details of a machine to de-nail lumber. By the end of the day, he’d offered me the job of running The Yard, the unprotected, outdoor pile of material they had been collecting and selling on alternate Saturdays. He also hired me to sketch and design the inventions we were dis-cussing. Dressed in leather gloves

and thick carpenter’s pants, that winter I set about organizing and cleaning up The Yard, and selling material to the public. The concept was simple: we were a 501(c)(3) non-profit, which means that dona-tions to us were tax-deductible. So we would get our material for free, either through drop-offs or through major deconstructions of ill-fated structures, and then re-sell the material to cover the costs of the program, while diverting quantities of solid waste from the landfill. Of course, the material was sold at a significant discount, and many hap-py homebuilders and homeowners were served. Three months after starting, the director quit, leaving me the sole employee of the grow-ing operation. With no competi-tion in my way, I immediately (that same hour, I believe) stepped up to run the program. My friends were excited also to see that my work

A Call to Action

self as being associated with Boul-der Energy Conservation Center, or BECC (now acronymically leaner, semantically broader, the Center for Resource Conservation, or CRC), and identified me as a “potential volunteer,” my mind immediately went elsewhere. I probably would have started to multi-task had I not been curly-cord tethered to the wall (remember those?). However, when he described the project they were involved in, I snapped back to attention. He asked if I wanted to help “de-construct” a house that was slated for demolition, so that the materials could be salvaged, cleaned up and reused. My excite-ment was piqued because, as I told

Sometimes the call to ac-tion is one you can an-swer on the phone. Mine was ringing fatefully one

crisp, sunny, late-November Colo-rado day. I had just returned from a far-flung, 3-month, life-changing, “3rd-world,” high-mountain/deep-jungle/cultural-spiritual adventure (the first of many). I was sailing un-der strong spiritual winds, my gaze had steadied and calmed that year, my heart and mind were broad and fierce. But I was also unemployed, and despite my inexpensive, Boul-der bohemian-climber lifestyle, worldly (read: financial) pressures loomed threatening on the horizon. So when the caller identified him-

A CALLTO

ACTIONMick Follari ‘90

LEFT | used tires packed with dirt make up the rear, “tromb” wall in an Earthship, which charges up with sunlight and re-radiates heat into the home. They are packed and stacked, then plastered with 4 coats of adobe to create a warm, welcoming space. Photograph taken by Joe Callahan, owner/builder of the Earthship where i lived, and president of SimpleSolar, a photovoltaic installation company. The boy is Caleb Stonacek, who attended the Shining Mountain Waldorf School here in Boulder, where i taught science and mathematics.

ABovE | Joe’s 1,200 sq ft Earthship located at 7,500 ft in the mountains outside Boulder. it features a living roof and stone, stucco, and juniper wood from the site, as well as recycled wood and other materials inside, and no tie to the city “grid.” Power is entirely from photovoltaic cells and wind, heat is from passive solar heating, and “plumbing” includes a composting toilet.

ABovE | A view of “The yard” at ReSource, where used building materials are col-lected, processed as needed, and resold to custom-ers. Lumber, flooring, doors, windows, and other materi-als arrive from “deconstructions” where homes are dismantled for their materials. often there are waitlists for ma-terials; framing lumber from the 50’s is considered furniture-grade to woodworkers now.


The trend toward green building is a growing imperative also being met by a growing number of institutions, cities, builders and consumers—by necessity, incentive or policy. Last summer, based in some measure on my experiences in green build-ing, I participated in the writing of the Climate Protection Manual for Cities (http://www.climatemanual.org/Cities), produced by Hunter Lovins’ Natural Capital Solutions. This document is a best-practices manual to help cities that have committed to reducing their carbon footprints (despite the federal gov-ernment’s refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty). Included are a number of building and infrastructure-related

suggestions to entice, force or other-wise coerce the building, rental, and homeowner communities to par-ticipate in these carbon-reduction goals. In the broader sense, energy efficiency (a no-brainer with oil near $100/barrel and only anticipated to go up, and climate change concerns gaining volume), waste reduction (construction waste makes up 75% of all landfill space), using alterna-tive energy sources, and recycling and reuse (reducing open-pit min-ing, forest destruction, and petro-leum extraction) are all practices that are gaining hold in the psyche of the building community.

Now, years and several other careers later (including being a

Waldorf teacher), I have remod-eled and sold off my first home, and bought another property near downtown Boulder. It is on a large lot, with incredible views, neighbor-hood cachet, and perfect southern exposure. It has the potential to be a highly visible showcase of green building techniques and technolo-gies (something already being done around Boulder): energy efficient, using natural/local materials, clev-er passive solar design, thoughtful and creative use of space, light and pattern, and, of course, recycled and reclaimed materials. Here in Boul-der, the standards for green build-ing are high, and have just gotten higher, with new tougher efficiency and eco-friendly requirements be-ing placed on all construction. I see it as a welcome intellectual challenge for myself, and a future selling point to a cost- and eco-conscious buyer. In fact, the call is coming in again for me: to study architecture, something I hope will marry my engineering background with my creative needs. This time, I suspect I’ll be able to take the call free of the curly phone cord!

against a culture of construction waste, like their fights in their own small proj-ects, was becoming an institutionalized reality. Over the first few years, we grew in leaps and bounds, consulted with other communities, attend-ed conferences, wrote

articles and watched as a whole in-dustry and new conception of con-struction waste grew up nationwide alongside us.

The ultimate project for me came up when I was about to leave Re-Source in 1998… The opportunity arose to join an incredible journey through Africa with National Geo-graphic (see the May 2000 issue). I had already begun to plan my exit from running the non-profit I’d helped build from desperate infan-cy to a stable, successful company. Just then, a strange phone call came in: it was the executor of the estate of a man who had suddenly (inexplicably) died in his sleep. This man had scored the beams and decking from a car dealership being demolished, and had been storing them at our local airport, intending to build himself a han-gar. Picture this: there were about a dozen huge glue-lam beams, each 85’ long, 42” high and 9” wide, and also about a dozen panels of 3”x6” tongue-in-groove decking spiked to-gether and intact, each about 12’ by 30’. The local waste hauler wanted about $10,000 to chainsaw it up and landfill it. By calling some of those same friends (one of whom was about to build a hybrid strawbale, Earthship recycled timber-frame home), we put into motion a mas-sive project to clean, de-nail and re-mill all this material for sale on-site at the airport. Our policy at ReSource had been that people

could exchange sweat-equity for material, so in April 1998, an army of volunteers, including homeown-ers, community service workers and other non-profiteers collected to get to the task. We built clever contraptions where, after disman-tling the decking, we could pass the boards through a kind of as-sembly-line with a metal-detector suspended over them, with people marking nails with lumber crayons, and others removing them. We used a portable gas-powered band-saw mill (like the type people drop onto a remote property in Alaska) to re-mill the boards to expose the beau-tiful clean white wood a fraction of an inch below the surface. We cut the huge beams down and used a variety of methods, including sand-blasting, planing, belt-sanding, or simply band-sawing off the surface to expose the clean orange Douglas Fir wood lying under the paint and weathered exterior. Some of those beams we milled up and assembled to-order into large beam trusses for a show-home in the Denver Parade of Homes that year; much of the material went into the Greenwood Wildlife Sancutary building (where many of the volunteers came from); and we did a spectacular no-steel Japanese timber-frame job using those beams on the Earth-ship/strawbale home at 9,000 feet elevation above Nederland, CO that my friend hired me onto after I left ReSource later that year, before go-ing to Africa. All in all, that single project had diverted literally tons of beautiful warm wood materials from filling up a hole in the ground; gave several other non-profits and homes inexpensive, high-quality material to build with; saved the estate at least $10,000 cash; and gave them a tax write-off of nearly $50,000.

During several of the following years, I continued to work on, and

live in, homes built in alternative, eco-friendly ways. I spent one year at 7,500 feet in the mountains out-side Boulder in a home completely off the grid (no tie to local power, water or gas). That home was solar-powered (via photovoltaic panels), solar water-heated, with a compost-ing toilet, gray-water planter bed, built out of truly local material (rocks, wood and earth from the site), as well as recycled materials. While living there, I also worked at 9,000 feet on a large project com-bining remilled/recycled timbers (from the project described above), rammed-earth walls / foundation, strawbale walls, and other eco-friendly techniques.

A Call to Action A Call to Action

ABovE | Self- portrait while enjoying the

solitude of the mountains; solo ice climbing Mt.

Somus while alone in the

remote South island of New

Zealand.

RiGHT | Solar panels adorn the roof of a project

in Colorado. With tax incentives,

high energy prices, and grow-ing awareness of

energy conser-vation, green

energy compa-nies are growing

quickly around the country.

ToP| Windows waiting for new homes at the ReSource sales yard.

BoTToM | A view inside Joe Callahan’s Earth-ship. Much of the trim work (including the bench) was crafted out of standing-dead juniper on site and the ceiling from re-milled used lumber. The greenhouse at the front of the house treats gray-water (from shower and sinks) using plants such as banana trees.

18 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 1�

After graduating from GMWS in 1994, I went straight to business school. When I received my degree from

Babson, just outside Boston, I was intent on someday starting my own company. Ever since the time when I mowed neighbors’ lawns and painted their houses to pay my way through college, I thought running my own ship—setting my own goals and making my own hours—was the way to go. One of my idols was Sir Rich-ard Branson, the business mogul and founder of the Virgin companies. As far as I know, he didn’t cut lawns, but he said something that has stuck with me: “I can have an idea in the bath in the morning and have it up and running by tea time.”

Well, I was never much of a tea drinker and nothing close to a Knight of the British Empire, like Sir Richard. But during my first stint in the work world at Kaplan in New York City, I started learning fast. What did I learn? For start-ers, that selling test-prep programs to students wasn’t my calling. So I jumped from the East to Seattle for a job at Amazon.com. What were my learnings there? That answer-ing customer inquiries didn’t do it for me either. And neither did get-ting laid off, which is why I landed another job about 6 weeks before the layoffs and hopped back East, where I dabbled at a tech company and an advertising agency (“Would you like fries with your multi-media advertising campaign?”). Clearly, things weren’t clicking yet.

In search of my more creative, Waldorf side, I began studying in-

FROM ANTHRO TO ENVIRO: THE STORY OF

Eco Handyman Nate Burger ‘94

dustrial design at Mass Art. While the program was fun and stimulat-ing, I realized that if I were lucky, and my “form-drawing” paid off, I would end up about three rungs down the corporate ladder stuck in a cubicle just like Dilbert, design-ing $12 toasters for manufacture in China. I thought, “This is what I was looking forward to?”

Suddenly, none of this seemed important anymore when, out of the blue, my mother died from an asthma attack. I was devastated. Who knew that this could happen to someone who was so healthy and ac-tive, who seemed to have her whole life ahead of her—someone I loved so dearly? I sought comfort in work-ing as the director of marketing for a hipster clothing company called Karma Loop. I thought this would give me the stability and meaning I had been looking for. Yes, now I had a livable salary, but stability was the last thing I should have been looking for at that company. After just three months busting my butt to single-handedly get a marketing program off the ground, I was laid off. (I guess I’ll just chock it up to bad karma—how “anthro!”)

My karma was telling me, “It’s time to get out of the corporate world.” Was I going to take up Eurythmy? Hmm. Actually, it was time to start my own company, like Sir Richard. Maybe my idea wasn’t going to be up and running immediately after tea time, but I was going to make it hap-pen somehow, somewhere.

Now, up to this point, when it came to starting a company, I’d been full of ideas but short on clarity. What

Evolution OF A BUILDER

Elliot Berkowitz ’92

I never intended to be a build-er. I graduated from college in 1996, and since I didn’t re-ally have any plans or know

what I wanted to do, I took a job with the carpenter who renovated my parents’ home. Initially, I was the guy who picked up the trash

and loaded the dumpster all day, but it wasn’t long before I got to participate in some actual carpentry. I fell in love with the craft—the precision and creativity of it, the almost immediate gratification of seeing my handiwork at the end of each day. Shortly afterward I bought a house of my own.

It wasn’t much of a house. In fact, it was a gutted, run-down shell of a place, which was the only reason I was able to afford it. It’s one of the old railroad homes in South Nyack that the rail-road company built for its managers. It was built in 1872, and when I bought it, it looked like no one had done anything to it in the intervening 120 years.

Meanwhile, I got another job, this one with a general contractor who specialized in historic restoration. I was literally spellbound by his ability to reform bat-tered old homes into lit-eral masterpieces. He had enormous amounts to teach me, and I was a most will-ing student. Every morning I was eager to get to work

so that I could hone my craft, learn something new. As historic restora-tion is a field of literally limitless possibilities, the learning has never stopped.

In 2001, I decided to start my own company, Riverside Builders. With all the renovation going on in our corner of the world, I knew there would be no shortage of work. And by then I had mastered enough of my craft to be confident in my abil-ity. My first job was the Estate House in Sneden’s Landing. The entire time I worked on that house, there wasn’t one moment when I wasn’t nervous about doing it right. Yet I was confident in what I’d learned about historic restoration and I had, and still have, such a passion for the craft that I knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied until that house was exactly the way I, and its owner, wanted it.

Since then, I have established a successful business, one in which I now do as many modern homes as I do historic ones. I work almost ex-clusively in Manhattan and one of the additional benefits about this job is the people it has allowed me to work with. For instance, I’ve worked with architect Charles Rose, a Gar-den City Waldorf School graduate. I have worked on the homes of violin-ist Joshua Bell, poet Mark Strand, and the rapper Kanye West. I no lon-ger do much of the actual building, and that’s okay. As much as I once loved building, I now love working with clients to form a concept of what they want their house to be, and then orchestrating the process to achieve that. Oh yeah, and speak-ing of houses . . .

I didn’t immediately renovate my shell in South Nyack. I was too busy working on other houses. Not to mention that my house was filled with fellow Green Meadow alums looking for cheap rent. At one time I had an alum in every room! But af-ter a time, I finally decided to make

it the house I wanted it to be. Part of my business required me to set up a workshop where I could mill tradi-tional moldings, cabinets, windows and doors that are no longer avail-able. Thus, for the woodwork in my house, I was able to replicate mold-ings and cabinets that were histori-cally accurate. In addition, I built a Rumford fireplace and fabricated all new doors and double-hung win-dows. When I bought the house, the outside was covered in fake brick sid-ing; I stripped that off and restored all the original siding and detail. For paint, I consulted with historic ar-chitect Jeffrey Hall to reproduce the original colors. From the outset, I’d planned to renovate the house so I could sell it. Hokey as it sounds, I de-veloped a real bond with the house in the process of making it into the home I wanted it to be. So it’s where I’m living now and where I intend to live for a long time to come.

was going to be the mission of my company? I knew that the way my brothers Peter, Tim, and I could best honor our mother was by upholding the values that she—not to mention our GMWS Waldorf education— in-stilled in us.

When I was pondering my first career move during college, Mom would always say, “You should find a way of working in solar or wind energy,” to which I would always laugh and say, “Yeah, right!” They say mother knows best and, lo and behold, now I had clarity. Now I had my idea. I knew sustainability would have to be the centerpiece of my company.

THE SEED OF A BUSINESS

After several years jumping from one company to the next, I be-

gan to look back at my youthful painting and maintenance pursuits and see a handyman business as be-ing a great way to help people save time maintaining and remodeling their homes. Where would my niche be? I wasn’t sure yet, but it began with the following theory: it’s easy to find a good general contractor if you have the money to get a big job done, but hard if you need a smaller project completed. While there are numerous general contractors who would be happy to build you a new green dream-home, very few good contractors are willing to take on the smaller projects, from to-do lists around the house, to bathroom and kitchen updates and energy ef-ficiency upgrades, and with a knowl-edge of green building.


1 | Rebuilding the façade

2 | Front window detail

3 | Porch detail

4 | House fully restored

2

3

1

4


I wanted to combine this smaller job niche with an understanding of how the business affects the environment—to take a green building approach—by combining environmentally sound materials, techniques, and building science to make sure each job improves the home in a way that’s minimally harmful to nature rather than sim-ply maintaining the home in the cheapest manner possible.

A small-job green building busi-ness was my niche, but what was my market? I was sure that any somewhat liberal town in America would love this service. So, af-ter buying a flight to Boulder and checking the GMWS website to find out that Mick Follari ‘90 lived out there, I ended up crashing on his couch for a week while check-ing out the scene (hiking, cycling, mountaineering, skiing… oh yeah, and seeing what handyman busi-nesses were out there already). I picked up the phone and called all the handyman businesses I could find. Masquerading as a prospec-tive customer, I asked what they charged, what they did, and what they knew about green building. They would say “What building?” (This was back in 2005, and I am sure they have heard of it now, as they see my signs around town.) I had found my market.

INTRODUCING ECO HANDYMAN

Green building is about building energy efficiency, comfort, du-

rability, and sustainability into proj-

ects whenever possible. But most handymen willing to take on smaller projects are quite often unreliable and not experts in all the areas of home maintenance. Eco Handyman has a team of handymen with specific areas of expertise, so we can provide quality work, whether we’re design-ing built-in bookshelves, laying tile, or doing plumbing repairs. We are happy to fix a leaky faucet, adjust a door that doesn’t close properly, or totally remodel a 1970s bathroom, and replace it with a sleek, resource- efficient, modern masterpiece.

The process starts when a client calls. We inquire about their goals for their home. Some people just want us to take care of their to-do list, and others have more specific needs, such as a kitchen remodel or finishing a basement. They may even have a family member with chemical sensitivities to many tradi-tional building products. Other cli-ents call wanting to know how they can reduce their “carbon footprint” through a more efficient home.

WHAT MAKES IT “ECO”?

The eco part comes in when you use healthier adhesives, paint,

and materials, efficient Energy Star appliances, low-flow and dual-flush toilets, and low-flow shower heads that still give you a great shower. We also provide air sealing and insulat-ing, as well as energy-efficient win-dows to drastically reduce the heat-ing and cooling needs of homes.

When we switch out an old light fixture, we tell clients who don’t already know about compact fluo-rescent bulbs about how much more energy efficient they are. We try to purchase products that come from a closer source. One example in Colorado is using travertine tile from Mexico for a shower enclosure rather than marble from Italy; since Mexico is closer to Colorado than is Italy, this reduces fuel consumption and the so-called carbon footprint.

In general, we don’t push our phi-losophy on clients, but we do make them aware of their options, and al-low them to make sensible decisions based on their own values. Some-times green options are more expen-sive—many times they are not. In addition to the work we do, we buy wind credits to offset our office and vehicle energy consumption. While this does not change the fact that we are burning fossil fuels, it does help to get more renewable energy on-line more quickly, and is a step in the right direction.

At Eco Handyman, we try to be as green as possible, but we know there’s much to be done to optimize our sustainability. Our clients appre-ciate that we inform them of the lat-est building options. Of course, the fact that we pick up the phone right away, answer questions promptly, and arrive on time doesn’t hurt, ei-ther. Some clients thank us profusely when we call them back immediately, as though they were not expecting a return call at all. In fact, sometimes I think good customer service gets us more business than the knowledge of green building.

GREEN TEA

Today, just like Sir Richard, I’m running my own business, even

though it may not involve an airline, record label or cola brand, and I still don’t drink tea. His inspiration to me was that anyone can have an idea and get it “up and running” as long as they put in the work. The bot-tom line in this business is that I’m now profitable, I don’t sit in a box, and I’m a couple hours away from the greatest skiing in the world. It makes me happy to know I’m help-ing to bring the Boulder community one step forward towards a greener future. Let’s just say, at the risk of mixing metaphors, if I drank tea, it would be green tea. After all, isn’t being green what it’s all about for a GMWS graduate?


Small Hands FARM Julia K. Altes ’97

Long before we met, my now-husband, Tristan, and I each had our own intentions of liv-

ing sustainably. When we were teen-agers, our respective ideas about homesteading were grand and vague. Now, as we clear and manage, design and build, we find that, in practice, living near the land means starting small and thinking specifically.

In the fall of 2005, Tristan pur-chased 260 acres in Halifax, Vermont, and immediately began planting seedlings: apple, chestnut, quince, lilac, blueberry, cedar, cypress, ash and oak, as well as cold-hardy persim-mon, pecan, grape, and Asian pear. At the time, I didn’t grasp Tristan’s sense of urgency. But I have since come to understand that, on a farm, time is arguably the most precious resource of all. It will take years for these plants to mature —from five to one hundred, or more.

And time is not all. Energy is in-valuable…In my years at Green Meadow, I knew the joy of growing up in community. As it turns out, there are practical reasons for sharing the labors and harvests of life with other people. Tristan and I find that we need the support of many small hands to accomplish our many large goals.

In our first three years of owner-ship, we repaired logging roads, carved out a driveway, demolished the old hunting cabin, cleared a house site, perked for a septic, con-structed a platform and erected a yurt, built a shed and a new cabin. We have been blessed with lots of help. We have named our acreage Small Hands Farm.

Before we came to Small Hands Farm, a neighboring family owned it, having bought the parcel to protect it from development. Previously, a logging company, using dubious for-estry practices, stripped the prop-erty of 90 percent of its marketable lumber. This was forest that had sprung up after the decline of sheep farming in Vermont in the 1800s. The rings on one white pine stump we found revealed 125 years of life before it was felled.

Our first order of business was to clean up the mess the logging com-pany left behind—small trees scat-tered like pick-up sticks, corduroy roads and compacted ruts that, if ig-nored, would lead to further erosion. We spent the first year clearing, burning, moving logs around. When

we consulted a professional forester, he told us that the entity most capa-ble of restoring the forest is the for-est itself. What we do to aid in that process is in collaboration with time, with the trees, with the soil.

We are in love with this place. Two year-round brooks course through the woods, and a trout-inhabited river runs across the road. There are forested hillsides containing birch, beech, cherry, sugar maple (great sugarbush stands capable of maple syrup production), blackberry bush-es and conifers. We are wealthy in field stone – there are stone walls everywhere, edging once-and-future pastures. There’s a lifetime supply of heating fuel (wood for the wood-stove), and salvageable felled trees we mill for lumber. We enjoy close views of the surrounding hills and, from up along the ridge, a deep vista taking in the Green Mountains.

We currently live in the vivacious southern Vermont town of Brattle-boro (population 12,000), 12 miles east of Halifax. Tristan has a full-time job as managing editor of Envi-ronmental Building News, a national

ABovE | Man about town:

Nate Burger, Eco Handyman

BELoW | Eco Handyman

catches a fat trout

(left) Cleaning up the logging: clearing for our wedding and house site

ovERLEAF (PAGE 22)

1 | Demolishing the old hunting camp

2 | Erecting the walls of our new cabin

3 | The cabin, sheathed, last summer

4 | The cabin in winter; exterior finished, but for siding

5 | one of many “burn parties”

6 | Julia & Tristan Korthals Altes


trade publication. I coordinate a middle-school enrichment program and teach music. A plethora of per-sonal and household endeavors fill our days.

We used to talk giddily about our vision: Raising chickens, goats, and sheep; building barns, workshops, dwellings, a music studio, a chapel; creating an orchard, vegetable and flower gardens, hiking trails, an ed-ucational center and an intentional neighborhood. Then we began to build. And suddenly our vision nar-rowed to 8x8 timbers and structural engineering. There are hundreds of choices to be made about building materials and process. We thor-oughly research and consider each one, and the result is a concert of compromises and innovations.

Last summer, with the help of our community of friends, family and neighbors, we built a cabin on the old farmhouse foundation. We also cleared and landscaped a separate site where we hope to build a big-ger house, and we got married there in August, celebrating on the hot-test day of the year. The event was complete with a dramatic thunder-storm, and fireworks.


This summer we plan to move into our cabin, and to begin build-ing our bigger house—on a dry-laid stone foundation, with clay-plas-ter walls and slate roofing. Recent developments in our vision include adding solar power, and founding a Waldorf-inspired, outdoor-educa-tion elementary school. Practically speaking, we are focused on interior finish carpentry and plowing snow. We hope that the practical and the visionary will meet—perhaps five to one hundred years down the road. If and when that happens, it will be in no small part due to the many good people who lent us a hand.

A List of Four 1. Creativity2. Working with people3. Building with my hands4. Doing good for the planet and all its inhabitants

I am fascinated by the puzzle of design: it is a journey which ends – or starts – by turning an idea into sculpture that is used, transformed, and loved by its users, hope-fully for many lifetimes.

I decided to study architecture in an afternoon. I sat down with a list of four requirements that

I felt best summarized what I love, what I am good at, and what my val-ues are. Architecture bubbled to the top as the only career that would meet all four requirements – with a few modifications to better suit my ethic and philosophy.

I did not fully understand what an exciting, challenging, and reward-ing adventure I was starting. In true Sherab fashion, I geared up, dove in, and buckled down. The next natural step would be to attend graduate school and earn a Master’s of Archi-tecture which would take 3.5 years. Instead, I decided to quickly get in-formed by deferring graduate school to live in South America for the next two years. My training there con-sisted of building a Permaculture garden and house in the lush valleys of Chile between mountain guid-ing expeditions on big peaks in the Andes. As it turns out, this was the best preparation I could have had to be the designer and architect I wanted to be. When I moved back to the USA, I was ready to learn; to work in poorly lit basements of large architecture firms, and was fluent in Spanish, making me a popular mem-ber of any construction team.

I received my graduate degree from Colorado University, School of Planning and Architecture in 2005. As architects go, I am in the begin-ning of my career. Besides the years it will take to understand the depth and breadth of the architecture field, I will also have to complete two more years of apprenticeship and then pass nine licensing exams required to attain my architectural

license in Colorado. Only then will I be considered an Architect (with a capital ’A’).

In the meantime I am learning from as many professional craft mas-ters as I can. This is a time of dis-covery. I am clarifying what type of architect I want to be and how my life as a creative person will be, both on a personal level and as an emis-sary for positive change in the green design culture.

I am fascinated by the puzzle of design: it is a journey which ends – or starts – by turning an idea into sculpture that is used, transformed, and loved by its users, hopefully for many lifetimes. The longevity of good design is a thing of wonder and will outlive the designer many times over. In my own work I have had the honor of restoring older buildings back to a useful, if not beautiful, and even longer lasting existence as members of my community.

Life in the Colorado Mountains, working as a designer and builder, is full of beauty, creativity, and compromise. The quickly growing Green Architecture field is a good place for adventure-loving, creative people like me. There is a youthful spirit amongst our clients, fellow designers, and building profession-als. We are all master puzzle solv-ers, fascinated and emphatic about

what we are doing. Sometimes I feel righteous, but mostly - especially when I am laying out a foundation in sub zero weather, wearing six lay-ers of dirty work clothes in a muddy dirt pit - I feel like we are building a strong foundation from which people with great creative minds and strong hearts will reach up into a clean blue sky and make something better.

SherabKloppenburg ’92

Sherab Klopppenburg

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The word “home” conjures up certain images of safety, comfort, and warmth. For five

months in 2002, my home was the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail. Wher-ever I stopped walking for the day, as the trail wound through Califor-nia, Oregon, and Washington, was my home.

When you have to carry the com-forts of home on your back, the concept of comfort takes on new meaning. What’s comfortable is to have the lightest pack possible, and hope you have everything you need when you stop walking. The irony on the trail was that you could tell how far someone was hiking by how little they had. Those that were hik-ing the entire trail had tiny packs. The instant giveaway of a week-ender was the extra pair of shoes dangling from the back of a 60-70 pound pack. People would stare at my small backpack and say, “Where


AT Home in theWilderness

are you headed?” I’d say, “Canada” and keep walking with a smirk on my face leaving them to wonder whether I was joking or just crazy.

My gear consisted of: sleeping bag, small tent, backpack, small pot, canister of butane fuel with attach-able stove, knife, plastic spoon, wa-ter filter, small camera, cell phone, journal and pen, map, compass, sunscreen, toothbrush and paste, sunglasses, light foam bed pad, and flashlight. My clothes: one pair of socks, one pair rain pants, rain jack-et, hat, polypropylene shirt, goose down vest, shorts, T-shirt, gloves, and one pair trail running shoes. If it was cold or rainy, I was wearing every piece of clothing I had. All my clothes were synthetic fabrics de-signed to wick away moisture and keep you warm, even when wet. My clothes and gear weighed about 20 pounds.

Depending on when I would be re-supplying for food (every 75-150 miles or every 3-8 days), I had 5-15 pounds of food on my back. My wa-ter weight depended on how soon I would reach the next water source. In the desert, this might mean car-rying ten pounds of water. In snow-melt mountainscape, it could mean carrying no water at all. I brought a

light anywhere on the horizon when I went to bed gave me an odd feeling of comfort. I was back in the wilder-ness and I wouldn’t trade it for a ho-tel room if I could. I recalled fondly that town was what made me feel isolated, and I was glad to be back “home.”

Of course, I was not really alone. In southern California, lizards and flowering cacti accompanied me ev-erywhere. Fat rattlesnakes sunned themselves on the trail like they owned it. A dozen bear encounters in the mountains fortunately played out as though the bear thought I was some freak of nature not worthy of investigation. I encountered so many elk in Washington in September that, were it not for the haunting sound of their bugling at dusk, I might have found them commonplace. Some-how the many hunters in camouflage and face paint I met near trailheads found these grand beasts elusive.

Mountain goats, foxes, and coyote were among other furry encounters. Most of the trip is a blur of seem-ingly every different size, shape, and color of rock that exists on earth, and enough different versions of the ce-lestial rooftop to last a lifetime.

Did I learn anything? Have any epiphanies? Well, I can’t explain why I wanted to do it in the first place, nor why I kept walking month after month. I do know this: I was never homesick, and even at the coldest, wettest, most lost moments I never regretted placing myself at earth’s mercy with so little to protect me. I also know that if current realities of life permitted it, I would do it all over again. Trust me when I say that I en-joy the creature comforts of home as much as anyone else. And that hiking the PCT with 20 pounds of earthly possessions as my home was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. Perhaps that’s epiphany enough.

hiker water filter that provided safe water. This meant that my full pack was between 30-40 pounds when heading back into the woods.

Other than huckleberries by the handful in late summer, I procured all my food from town re-supply points. Every 3-8 days, the trail would cross a road that I could take into a small town with a post office that held my food package for me until I arrived. Even though I was scruffy and smelly, strangers would still re-spond to my outstretched thumb and give me a lift into town. Drivers were always keenly interested in hearing about my trek, as they politely rolled down their window for fresh air.

My food consisted of a freeze-dried dinner and assorted snacks for all other meals. After chomping down 25 pounds of dried fruit, sampling every form of meat and fish man has seen fit to jerk, and eating bushels of every edible nut, I finally accepted that the best source of food to sup-plement the 4,000-5,000 daily calo-ries I strived for was junk food. It turns out that “flaming hot crunchy chee-tos” can be a delectable sea-soning for your hundredth serving of tunafish. A king-size Snickers bar contains 510 calories, possibly the highest density of calories per square inch outside of a tub of lard.

When in town, my routine was the same: Eat, shower, eat, do laundry, then eat some more. After a day of rest on a soft bed in a motel, the same question would arise: Do I re-ally want to live in the woods again? But I would go, and an hour into it my body would re-adjust and my mind would re-engage into a serene truth: I was having the time of my life! I was traveling through a beau-tiful landscape reserved for, and only seen by, those who could walk there. The sun was my alarm clock, the moon my lantern, and creatures large and small my soundtrack. The fact that I could not see a man-made

ThomasMcArdle ’91

1 | Map of the Pacific Crest Trail, Source: Pacific Crest Trail Association.

2 | valley hollowed out by glaciers, Northern Washington State, September 2005.

3 | yosemite National Park, CA, July 2005.

4 | Trail enters the Cascade Mountain Range north of yosemite, July 2005.

5 | Marmot in the High Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, CA, June 2005.

6 | Thomas McArdle on the trail in Southern California, May 2005.

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Environmental Studies. After gradu-ating, I moved to New York City, where I spent two years working in inner-city public schools. Then, by the grace of Mr. Henderson and the GMWS faculty, I was offered the chance to teach biology here for a year, and I very gladly accepted.

What I want to do now is tell you about my experience working in in-ner-city neighborhoods. The story actually begins back in tenth grade, when I was doing my community service. I had chosen to work at a day care center because I loved children. We would pile into the Green Meadow van, and Mr. Crane would drive us. Back then, all I knew was that this day care cen-ter was located in a neighborhood which some people deemed “bad.” At that time I had no understand-ing of poverty or segregation.

I distinctly remember my first day at the day care center. Four or five children immediately began piling on my lap, hugging me, and holding my hands. This was all very nice, but I found it strange that these children became attached to me so quickly. I was struck by a sense that these children had needs that were not being met. The sense that these children needed me stayed with me for some time, so that several years later, as I was finishing my fresh-man year in college and looking for a summer job, the idea crossed my mind to look for work at that day

pletely removed from anything nat-ural. They never play in the woods or grass. Even the playgrounds at school are built on concrete or as-phalt. As a result of this and other environmental influences, many children develop severe allergies so that they can’t even stand to be in nature at all.

Another key difference is in the school environment. Green Meadow was born out of a philosophy of love for the developing human being, and this love is what motivates the teachers. In the public schools that children from Queensbridge attend, the focus is on one thing: passing the state tests, which are very difficult for most of the students. So, whereas here, typical questions that you ask each other might be, “where are you going on exchange?” or “what are you doing for your senior project?,” typical questions that young people in Queensbridge ask each other are “did you pass the reading test?” or “are you going to get left back?” And many do get left back and have to repeat at least one grade, which is always a source of shame and dis-couragement.

In Waldorf education, we often talk in terms of forms and ges-tures. I was thinking about it, and it occurred to me that the gesture for students going through Green Meadow is an inverted triangle. As students go through this education, they gain a fuller understanding of themselves and world around them, so that more and more possibilities open up over for who they can be and what they can do in the world. This certainly was my experience: I came here in ninth grade, and as I went through the high school, I experienced this broadening of the possibilities of who I could become in this life. Unfortunately, I feel that young people in Queensbridge

often experience the opposite ges-ture. As young children, they start open-minded and yearning to learn new things. But over time, their possibilities become more and more narrow, as they get locked into a cycle of failure in school, and lose their open-mindedness as they conform to pop-culture and street culture. For the girls, this process often ends in early pregnancy, and for the boys, in street violence or incarceration.

I spent a year working in a 5th grade classroom with children from the Queensbridge neighbor-hood, and I saw this happening, and wanted to do something about it. As the year was drawing to a close, I realized that I was about to repeat my experience in Spring Valley. I had bonded with the kids and been a positive person in their lives during that year, but then I would leave and have no lasting im-pact on them. Then I had an idea: what if I could take a few students and really get involved in their lives; take them out of Queens-bridge and expose them to all the great things my parents had ex-posed me to as a child—museums, performances, culture, etc? Maybe this would open up more possibili-ties for them. There was one child in particular that I wished to get involved. His name was Nyquan, and I took notice of him right away because he was always asking lots of questions (many of which had nothing to do with the lesson) and he always seemed bored. I would look over and see Nyquan fidgeting at his desk, so I would go ask him, “What are you doing? Why aren’t you doing your work?” He would respond, “Oh, I finished that a long time ago.” I started asking him about his interests, and discovered that he wanted to be an “Egyptolo-

by Deborah SchaefferClass of 2001

Several years ago, I was sitting in your seats, and I can tell you that I would never have

imagined that I would ever find myself standing here. But life often takes you to the most unexpected places, and those are sometimes the best places.

I want to start by giving you a brief biography. After graduating from GMWS, I went to Bowdoin Col-lege, where I majored in Biology and

teacherfeatureteacherNyquan’s

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care center. So I went there and ap-plied for a job, and to my surprise, was put in charge of the 5- and 6-year-old classroom for the summer. That summer had a profound im-pact on me. It was the time when I became awakened to the realities of poverty, segregation, and their effect on children.

All the children at the day care center were African-American or Hispanic. Most came from single-parent homes, some were home-less, and most had some kind of emotional, academic, or behavioral issues. As I struggled over the sum-mer to maintain structure and or-der with these rambunctious, rowdy children, something changed in me. First of all, I found a strength that I never knew I had. Secondly, I dis-covered a deep sense of caring for these children, so that when the summer came to a close and it was time to return to college, I found it difficult to leave. I felt that while I had bonded with those children and been a positive person in their lives for a short period, this wasn’t going to make any lasting impact on them. However, that experience certainly had made a lasting impact on me. I starting seeing pockets of segregation and poverty wherever I went, and felt driven to return to those neighborhoods. And so, when I graduated from college, I found jobs where I could work in inner-city public schools and after-school programs.

What I want to do now is to de-scribe to you one of the communi-ties that I worked in. This com-munity is located in Queens, and it includes the largest public hous-ing development in New York City, called Queensbridge. For those who don’t know, public housing is hous-ing owned by the city, where resi-dents normally pay whatever rent

they can afford, which for many is nothing. Queensbridge houses more than 7,000 residents in six-story, brown, box-like buildings. There are six buildings on each block, and six blocks altogether. All the blocks look almost identical to an outsid-er. Besides a few small stores and a little community center, there’s not much there for the residents. The area is almost entirely industrial. Across the street from the develop-ment is a park overlooking the East River. In the park is a playground, and right next to the playground rises up an enormous grey, steel fortress. This is the Keyspan power plant. Out of the plant rise three enormous red and white-striped smoke stacks, which tower over the entire neighborhood.

As I’m describing this neighbor-hood, I’m sure that the contrasts be-tween Queensbridge and this com-munity here are obvious to you. I was thinking about it, though, and I realized that there are some signifi-cant similarities. Here, most of us experience a sense of closeness with each other, and of being protected from the outside world. In Queens-bridge, there is also this sense of be-ing in a safe “bubble” where everyone knows each other and everything is familiar. Part of what I love about Queensbridge is that, like here, it feels like a real community, where I can walk down the street and run into people I know.

Yet there are, of course, some important differences between Queensbridge and the Green Mead-ow community. One is in the rela-tionship between people and na-ture. Here, we look out the window, and are surrounded by trees, grass, and flowers. We feel a real connec-tion to nature. In Queensbridge, there is no connection to nature because children grow up com-

Each September, when the High School gathers in its new configuration of students and faculty, there are several familiar rites of passage to mark the occa-sion: the arrival of a new class of ninth graders fresh from the Lower School, hilarious faculty skits, and an opening address given by a member of the high school faculty. This year, Deborah Schaeffer ‘01 (who is standing in for James Henderson, who is on sab-batical), was invited to speak. This is her address.

Deborah Schaeffer and

Nyquan English

Spring 2008 | 2�

The History of Architecture

GREEN MEADoW-ST YLE

Green Meadow’s Grade 12 architecture block, taught by Alix Christofides Lowen-thal, provides an overview

of the architectural forms and styles associated with primary historical pe-riods both in terms of their respective characteristics and innovations, and as they express the various and evolv-ing perspectives of architecture as an art. The architectural philosophy of John Ruskin serves as the philosophi-cal foundation of this course. This past fall, the class took several field trips, visiting recently restored Grand Cen-tral Station, Warren & Wetmore’s 1913 Beaux Arts design; the 2006 Hearst Tower designed by Norman Foster, the first Manhattan skyscraper built after 9/11 and NYC’s first green build-ing (winner of the gold designation from the LEED certification program); the architectural firm of Urbahn As-sociates; prominent artist Frederick Church’s 1872 Hudson River estate, olana, designed by Calvert Vaux in the Persian/Victorian style; Frank Gehry’s Performing Arts Center at Bard Col-lege; and the local Jerrahi Mosque.

Students compiled notebooks containing daily class notes, sketches, and nightly homework drawings of significant buildings and styles. Each student independently studied a lo-cal architectural icon and wrote a re-search paper on it. The class formed teams, each team designing and con-structing models for a final project demonstrating their understanding of architectural principles.

Alumni News

our thanks to Jon Wolfe ’97 who graciously provid-ed us with this quotation by Rudolf Steiner from a lecture given in Berlin on 5 February 1913 and ex-cerpted from Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts, by Rudolf Steiner (translated by Johanna Collis, Dor-othy osmond, Rex Raab and Jean Schmid-Bailey) .

Architecture is the art of creating an enveloping, enclosed space, with the help of a variety of materials and by the means of various shapes and forms, either for ordinary activities and dwellings or for religious purposes. Therefore it is connected with the soul life of hu-man beings. It originates from the soul, and it can be comprehended to the extent that the soul can be comprehended. ~Rudolf Steiner

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gist and an archeologist,” and that he was interested in Greek mythol-ogy. So I started bringing in books that I thought would interest him, which he genuinely seemed to ap-preciate. But I felt that this wasn’t making a real difference for him. He was still bored in school, and I wished that I could do something more. The problem was that I didn’t see a way forward. I had always gotten involved in projects and organizations, but I never started something myself. I didn’t see any way that I could change anything for the Queensbridge kids, and so I gave up on the idea.

Finally, the last day of school rolled around. I had said goodbye to all the kids, and was just about to leave, when I bumped into Ny-quan and his mother. I introduced myself, and Nyquan’s mother said, “So you’re Ms. S. You’re the one who’s been sending books home for Nyquan.” (Uh-oh, I thought.) “Ms. S.,” she continued, “Nyquan talks about you all the time. I re-ally appreciate you giving him those books. He really needs that.” I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. “I know Nyquan’s in-terested in ancient Egypt,” I said. “Could I take him to a museum sometime to look at the Egypt ex-hibits?” Nyquan’s mother said that would be fine. We exchanged infor-mation, and I walked away with this amazing feeling that fate had given me the chance to follow through on my idea. But then it dawned on me that it wasn’t fate. That small action of giving Nyquan the books had made more of an impact than I had thought, and had put some-thing in motion.

From that point on, I was able to assemble a small group of chil-dren who I took out on various

28 | Alumni Magazine

educational outings in the city. We went to museums, parks, gardens, and had a wonderful time. No one could understand why I would want to spend my weekends hang-ing out with these kids, but I felt great, because I had finally found a way to make a lasting impact on a group of children and stay involved in their lives. Now, it’s a funny thing, but if you’re like me, and more on the passive side, then you might find that once you take ac-tion, it becomes easier and easier to do so. Later on, when I heard that Nyquan was having trouble at school, I decided to bring him and his mother to Green Meadow to vis-it. As it turned out, they loved the school, and Nyquan was enrolled. I arranged to have him stay with me during the week so that he could attend the school. So he’s starting 7th grade here tomorrow. He’s very excited to be here, and I’m very happy that he’s going to experi-ence the inverted triangle gesture for himself. I think that it will have a profound impact on his life.

So, that’s the story of how what started with 10th grade community service ended with me being able to make a real, significant change in one child’s life. Now what do I want you to take from this? Well, going into the year, I hope that you

will move more in the direction of wakefulness and action in your own lives. My wish is that each time you speak the Morning Verse, you will be reminded to actually “look into the world,” and to really see what’s going on around you, with your fel-low students, in this community, in this country, and in the whole world. If you do so, I suspect that you will feel called to act to change something. It may be in several years, or right after this speech. It may be finding a way to feed 1000 starving children, or simply com-forting a fellow student. Gandhi said, “Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.” To me, this means that this is how things change in the world, because small actions can often turn into some-thing greater. As Waldorf students and as individuals, each one of you has unique gifts. Each one of you has something to offer that can help someone else, and I believe that if you live a wakeful life, you will find that opportunity to give of yourself. Because to me, this is what being a human being is all about.

Edward Everett Hale was an American writer, pastor, and abolitionist. He said the follow-ing, and I’ll leave you with this thought:

I am only one, but still I am one.I cannot do everything, but I can do something.And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the somethingI can do.

what would steiner say?

Illustrations taken from Alice Shi’s Main Lesson book

30 | Alumni Magazine

Contributors

Julia Korthals Altes ‘97 (you knew her as Julia Slone) majored in performance studies at Marlboro College. She has since worked as a music teacher, voice coach, and choral director. She has trav-eled abroad, lived in a yurt, and moved to Brattleboro, VT, where she now lives with her husband, Tristan Korthals Altes. Julia is in the process of recording an indie rock album; she performs as a singer with sev-eral groups, and is studying the Québécois fiddle. Although at times she hears the call of Montréal, Austin, New York, and L.A., Julia chooses to launch her music career from New England, in the context of com-munity, and the land she so loves.

elliot Berkowitz ’92 says: “My first job was working with Chris onderdonk ’91 for Michael Miller at Green Meadow. I credit Mr. Miller for teaching me about work ethic; he really inspired me to appreciate something well made. I worked at GMWS for 3 summers before turning to lifeguard-ing at the Pond through my first summer back from college. In the summer of 1996, I got my first job in construction working with a local contractor who had finished my parents’ house the prior year. I then worked for several other contractors and woodworkers and cabinet makers before starting my own business. When I’m not working, I am working—We now have 20 employees! (including Kevin Masback who was hired as employee #2 in 2001). I am an avid golfer, I hang with friends and travel. I try to get out to Napa Valley at least once a year to visit Micah Flynn ‘94 and I just got back from Costa Rica. I will be go-ing to India this year to visit my brother, Michael ‘88, and his family, who moved to Mumbai last fall.”

Nathaniel Burger ’94 lives with his girl-friend, Suzy, in Boulder, Co. During the winter, they can be found telemark skiing in the backcountry or at one of the many local resorts. In the summer, they can be found eating appetizers or sipping a

latte downtown on Pearl Street; mountain and road cycling; running, backpacking or working on their houses. “It’s a rough life out here, I tell you!”

winslow eliot is a Waldorf graduate of Mi-chael Hall School in Sussex, England. Her novels have been translated into eleven languages and published in twenty coun-tries. After graduating from Scripps Col-lege in California and the Publishing Pro-cedures Course at Radcliffe, Eliot received her Waldorf High School Teacher Certifica-tion from the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, NH, and is currently working as outreach associate for AWSNA. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Mick Follari ‘90 continues to pursue a bit of a renaissance life. He has taught science and math blocks in Waldorf schools around the country, is a design/build entrepre-neur, and a web design/developer. He’s working on a Descriptive/Projective Ge-ometry book, and says hopefully someday he’ll finish the novel he’s begun writing. For fun, he casts himself around the globe in search of remote cliffs to ascend: cold, icy walls of granite that scratch at the belly of heaven (read: are high-altitude) or remote jungles / deserts / tundra / beaches; won-derfully different cultures to photograph (www.follari.com); and people, experi-ences, and ideas that will help him make sense of it all. To those ends, he’s managed to stumble through about 30 countries, never had the same career for more than 4 years (or girlfriend for 2, though hopefully that’ll change), and hasn’t yet managed to go back to school. But then, people tell him “30s are the new 20s.” He says, “I’m just trying to keep the misty zeitgeist from turning my work quixotic”.

sherab Kloppenburg ‘92 lives in Car-bondale, Co, where she divides her time between building and designing residen-tial and commercial buildings. She is the design department for Jacober Brothers Construction (www.JacoberBrothers.com).

Her most recent project is ELLA, a bistro in a re-used / refurbished / restored turn-of-the-century building in downtown Carbon-dale, where all interior and exterior finishes are recycled, re-used, low VoC, and, when possible, locally manufactured materials. Besides her work in Carbondale, Sherab is also working for a new educational project called “The other 90%.” Along with design-ers and educators from around the world, she is developing design curricula for uni-versities in the US and overseas to encour-age young designers to design for the 90% of people who live without the basics of food, water, and shelter.

Thomas McArdle ‘91, a graduate of the University of Chicago, worked in insurance for 9 years in the Chicago area, leaving his position as a VP of Sales in 2005 to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and then move to Helena, MT. His brother, Daniel McArdle ’88, also lives there, as does their mom, Ruth (“we’re still trying to talk my Dad into joining us”). His sister, Laura ’86, works in Alaska during the summer and spends winters in Brazil. Thomas works as Staff Director of AAA MountainWest in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska, and has participated in the past 11 Chicago Marathons and in Montana’s “Griz-zly Marathon” last summer. He and his girl-friend, Angela Albers, are expecting their first child in June.

Mimi satriano worked in the GMWS high school office for seven years. She is the mother of two GMWS graduates, Maureen ’88 and Nicholas ’90, and grandmother of one new Waldorf student (in the nursery program) and three more potential candi-dates, ranging in age from 3 to 1.

Deborah schaeffer ’01 grew up in Ber-gen County, in northern New Jersey. She attended Green Meadow High School, graduating in 2001, and went on to earn her B.A. in Environmental Studies and Bi-ology at Bowdoin College. After gradua-tion, she moved to New York City, where she spent two years working with inner- city children in schools and after-school programs. She is currently teaching high school life sciences and math at Green Meadow.

Julika stackelberg-Addo grew up in Heidelberg, Germany, where she attend-ed the freie Waldorf Schule. After high school, she moved to South Africa, where she assisted in several Waldorf kindergar-tens. She enrolled in Sunbridge’s orienta-tion Year before moving to the University of London, where she earned a B.A. in African and Development Studies. After a year working with an international de-velopment organization, she returned to Sunbridge as Development Director.

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Documents

waldorf alumni

list of alumni

jans home

global climate change

candace stern s

high school students

simple change

global warming