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Th e Magazine of Cary Academy WINTER 2021 Th e numbers (don’t) speak for themselves Page 4 Setting the stage for discovery Page 7 Th e team behind the scenes Page 22 Growth mentality Page 28 CELEBRATING FIVE STRAIGHT STATE SWIMMING TITLES Page 3 LIFE RECASTS ALUM FROM ACTOR TO ACTIVIST Page 14Th is edition of ?, Th e Magazine of Cary Academy comes to you one full year into the pandemic—but at a very hopeful time. In our Campus News section, you will learn that we hosted a vaccine clinic in March for our employees, as well as local educators and fi rst responders. In addition, at the time this issue went to press, plans were under way to begin a transition to Yellow Mode, which will provide for four days of on-campus instruction per week. While continued diligence and adherence to our established COVID protocols—health monitoring, wearing masks, social distancing, and sanitizing—will remain necessary, we cannot imagine a better way to welcome spring! On top of that, this issue is full of wonderful stories of learning, growth, and impact. Our profi le of Aaron Harrington ’10 is a clear reminder of the importance of remaining open and curious to new opportunities … as well as jumping in with both feet when doors open (or curtains rise, in this case). Th is issue also features stories about CA community members who work behind the scenes, literally and fi guratively, to deliver on CA’s mission. Our feature on theater teacher Glen Matthews highlights the importance of collaboration and creativity in a CA education (and in pulling off a much-anticipated musical this spring). Our new Director of Facilities, Tony Hinton, shares how he, alongside his hardworking team, set the stage for on-campus discovery day in and day out. We are delighted to share all this, and more, with you—and are looking forward to brighter and better days ahead. Hello CA Community, FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Mike Ehrhardt, Head of SchoolTh e Magazine of Cary Academy WINTER 2021 In this issue COMMUNICATIONS TEAM Mandy Dailey Dean Sauls Dan Smith PHOTOGRAPHY Dan Smith The CA community HEAD OF SCHOOL Michael Ehrhardt DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS Heather Clarkson DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Mandy Dailey HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL Robin Follet DEAN OF FACULTY Martina Greene DIRECTOR OF FACILITIES Tony Hinton HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL Marti Jenkins DIRECTOR OF EQUITY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Danielle Johnson-Webb DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION Karen McKenzie DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Ali Page CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Deborah Reichel is published three times a year by Cary Academy. CARY ACADEMY 1500 N. Harrison Avenue Cary, North Carolina 27513 (919) 677-3873 www.caryacademy.org All according to plan Facilities innovation is crucial in keeping CA and its students on the cutting-edge. This summer, CA’s Upper School will undergo a long-awaited (and remarkably fast) transformation to better meet the needs of today’s—and tomorrow’s—students. 28 Facing forward How do you create and maintain a thriving learning community that’s always ready for the next leap forward? First, you start with a strong foundation and an outstanding team of players. 22 Stats and storytelling Where can you fi nd the newest, most eye- catching, avant-garde, and informative student art on campus? Why, in a math classroom, of course. 4 All together now Theater teacher Glen Matthews has been empowering students to shed their skins and reveal their most creative selves throughout his 23-year career at Cary Academy. The secret to his success? Cultivating safe spaces that empower students to work together, take creative risks, and grow. 7 Role of a lifetime How do you respond when the world turns upside down? For one CA alum on a meteoric musical theater career trajectory the choice was clear: channel that energy into changing his industry for the better. 14 Family means diff erent things to diff erent people, and according to CA’s students, staff , and faculty, it can mean magic, monsters, and mouth-watering donuts. page 32 Snap- shots 19 Campus News 2 Alumni News 30 The Big Question 32 Informative and incalculably interdisciplinary art in the CMS—the product of a collaboration by US art and design teacher Cayce Lee, US math teacher Kristi Ramey, and US math chair Craig Lazarski. On the cover: TISAC Co-Swimmers of the Year Nisma Said ’21 and Abby Newman ’21Campus News Two Schools Diversity & Inclusion Conference. The program, co-taught by Michael McElreath and Palmer Seeley, is a response to the historical and ongoing crisis of racial injustice in the United States. In a well-received Zoom panel, the students shared their explorations of the complex intersectionalities of race, gender, and class relations through the lens of non-fi ction scholarship and works of historical fi ction. UPPER SCHOOL MLK DAY SPEAKER URGES STUDENTS TO ACTION As part of the Upper School’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day observance, CA, in partnership with Durham Academy, welcomed acclaimed scholar Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr.. In his keynote address, Lessons from the Later Dr. King, Dr. Glaude offered a complex and nuanced representation of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and work, ultimately issuing a call to action for us all to strive towards creating the society that King envisioned. NICKY ALLEN RETURNS TO THE MIDDLE SCHOOL IN A NEW ROLE After an exhaustive search, the Middle School found a familiar face to fi ll the position of Assistant Head of Middle School, vacant since June 2020. In early February, former Middle School sixth-grade math teacher and team lead Nicky Allen accepted an offer to rejoin Cary Academy as Assistant Head of Middle School for next year. According to Dr. Ehrhardt, “she is thrilled to be coming back, and we look forward to having her expertise and energy back in the building.” VIRTUAL HOLIDAY SHOPPE A REAL SUCCESS For 2020, the annual Holiday Shoppe moved to a virtual format for the safety and convenience of the CA community, vendors, and Holiday Shoppe fans. Dozens of vendors—both longstanding and brand-new, including a student-designed online Charger Corner—took part in the month-long, virtual event, which attracted shoppers from across the country. Proceeds raised by vendor registrations will help fund various CA initiatives. STUDENTS PRESENT ON LEADERSHIP AND RACIAL JUSTICE In February, the Leadership During Crisis Program cohort of twelve 10th–12th graders presented at the NC Association of Independent With March marking a year since Governor Cooper fi rst announced the COVID-19 emergency in North Carolina, increased testing capacity and the availability of vaccinations have off ered much-needed glimmers of hope on the horizon. At CA, we welcomed students back to campus from winter break with a pair of drive-through COVID testing clinics, with more than 340 members of the CA community participating. Beginning in January, student athletes and employees have had the opportunity to undergo weekly surveillance testing in the Dining Hall. Another round of drive-through testing was off ered on Friday, March 12, to help ensure peace of mind as we returned from spring break. On Friday, March 5, in partnership with Health Park Pharmacy, CA hosted a vaccine clinic in the Center for Math and Science gym. In addition to CA faculty and staff , CA invited faculty and staff from thirteen Triangle-area elementary and secondary schools, and essential workers—including the Cary Police Department and employees from a RTP-based fi rm that manufactures syringes for vaccination. By the end of the day, 450 educators, front- line essential workers, and at-risk individuals from Durham and Wake Counties received an injection of the Johnson & Johnson single- dose vaccine. Hope on the horizon ? Th e Magazine of Cary Academy FIVE IN A ROW FOR GIRLS’ SWIMMING CA’s varsity girls’ swim team captured their fi fth-consecutive NCISAA State title, earning more than double the points of second-place Charlotte Country Day. Seniors Anna Newman and Nisma Said were individual state champions, winning their individual events. They were joined by Sydney Martin ’24 and Elena Zayas ’21 in receiving All-State honors with a convincing win in the 200 Medley Relay. The varsity boys swam to State Runners-Up. In six of the eight individual events at least 3 CA boys scored points. Both Alex Lim ’22 and Oliver Wang ’22 turned in school record-setting performances. Athletic Director Kevin Jones exclaimed, “The coaches are extremely proud of both teams! It was simply a joy to watch.” Way to go, Chargers!Four Th e windows of classroom 128 in the Center for Math and Science—the last classroom in the math wing—are lined with transparent vinyl “stained-glass” suncatchers. When struck by sunlight, colorful railroad cars, peacocks, butterfl ies, lightning bolts, food pyramids, and abstract hearts throw their colors around the room to magical eff ect. Make no mistake—these aren’t just eye- (and sun-) catching artwork. Produced by Upper School Statculus students, they are the latest student-generated data visualizations to grace the Center for Math and Science— every element a deliberate choice to draw the viewer in, to convey a compelling story behind the numbers. Led by Upper School math department chair Craig Lazarski, Upper School math teacher Kristi Ramey, and art and design teacher Cayce Lee, Statculus off ers a deep dive into the connection between calculus and statistics, with a heft y dose of visual arts mixed in. In class, students engage with real-world data to conduct sophisticated analysis, tease out important conclusions, and depict them in compelling and beautiful visualizations. Th ose beautiful suncatchers? Th ey refl ect student learning in sampling methodologies and complex data analysis. Each represents an opinion data set collected from peers and faculty and parsed using analytical tools that students learned from class. In an array of carefully calculated designs, they off er insights into our community’s preferences—from favorite colors to superhero movies, Hogwarts’ houses sorting to family relationships, sleep habits to dietary choices, and more. “Your fi rst impression may not be that these are numbers that you’re looking at, but once you think about what you’re seeing, it becomes what Kristi calls a ‘gut-punch’; it communicates something important in a powerful way,” says Lazarski. POINT OF ORIGIN And that, of course, is precisely the point. Th e ability to work with, interrogate, and powerfully communicate data is particularly timely in a world awash in statistical claims. “Th e misunderstanding that people can ‘lie’ with statistics is one of the key reasons Some of the newest, most eye- catching student art at CA isn’t in Berger Hall; it’s in a math classroom (no, that’s not a typo). STATS AND STORY- TELLING ? Th e Magazine of Cary Academy Five everyone should take statistics,” off ers Ramey. “It’s not that the statistics are lying; it’s that you don’t know how to interpret the data or that the data is being visually misrepresented.” Created by Ramey and Lazarski as the product of a 2018 Curriculum Innovation Grant, Statculus was conceived to expand CA’s statistics off erings to better meet the needs of our academically diverse student body. “We had a wide spectrum of skill levels in a single statistics class—from students who were taking collegiate-level Calculus 3 to those who had recently completed Algebra 2,” explains Lazarski. “Rather than repeat material for students who had already taken calculus and try to bring students who hadn’t up to speed, we decided to off er a more specialized statistics for those students already versed in calculus.” Th e result—Statculus—is something akin to a graduate-level statistics course, uniquely tailored to their students’ skills. (It doesn’t hurt that both Ramey and Lazarski are currently pursuing graduate degrees in statistics at NC State University and regularly incorporate material they encounter into their classes). GETTING AN EYE FOR VISUAL LEARNING Th at’s why, in recent years, Statculus has evolved to include a signifi cant and crucial data visualization component, courtesy of a collaboration with Upper School art and design teacher Cayce Lee, and facilitated by yet another professional development opportunity—this one from the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). However, they are quick to point out that mathematics is only one part of the statistics puzzle; communication of the data is equally important. “Statistics is all about communicating. It’s what distinguishes statistics from its calculus lineage,” explains Ramey. Th e NCMA’s Fellowship for Collaborative Teaching pairs educators from various fi elds of study who are committed to using art to engage students in new ideas and deepen their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. On hearing of the opportunity, Lee immediately thought of partnering with Ramey, who had long expressed an interest in combining art and math in the classroom. Selected for the fellowship, in the summer of 2019, Lee and Ramey joined ten fellow educators from across the state in a series of intensive seminars and workshops to design curricula that combined art with other disciplines in meaningful and engaging ways. As the fi rst math-focused pair selected for the fellowship, Lee and Ramey broke new ground for the NCMA program, then in its fourth year, according to Jill Taylor, Director of School and Teacher Programs at NCMA. For both, it was an eye-opening and fruitful experience, one that underscored not only the vital role of data visualization in statistics, but the importance of visual arts—of color and composition and narrative—in data visualization. ? Th e Magazine of Cary Academy “With artful data visualization, statistics can achieve an emotional response from the audience,” off ers Ramey. “Data visualization allows us to provide a point of view along with communicating data. Instead of ‘here’s a pie chart,’ it’s ‘oh my gosh, that was really impactful, and I now see it diff erently.’” CLARITY OF VISION With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting students’ opportunities to work together in large groups, Lazarski, Lee, and Ramey had to rethink the scope, scale, and purpose of this year’s Statculus data visualization project. “Last year, we focused on developing students’ communication skills, and their grade was mostly derived from their presentations. Virtual and hybrid learning made that next to impossible, so this year, we leveraged a partner art project to provide that opportunity for them,” says Lazarski. Six As the suncatcher project was conceived, students were granted control over the data they would collect and analyze, as well as the designs that their suncatcher would use to visualize their results. Students collected and analyzed the data outside of class and then used weekly Flex Days to collaborate and develop their data-driven artwork. To prepare, Lee introduced students to artworks that incorporated data in thought- provoking ways, such as Timo Aho and Pekka Niittyvirta’s light-painted series on sea-level rise, Mike Knuepfel’s sculptural interpretation of keyboard letter usage, and Blake Fall- Conrony’s Minimum Wage Machine, which provides a tangible sense of how much work is required to earn so little. It had an impact. “Usually, when we ask students to take data and do something more with it, what results is a bigger bar graph,” smiles Lazarski. “But our students, inspired by what Cayce had shared, really ran with the suncatcher project. Th ey put careful consideration into the questions they would ask and the best way to produce them as impactful visuals.” “I have always thought that math is beautiful, but I was excited to present it beautifully!” refl ects Shannon Jenkins ’21. “I think my favorite part of the project may have been measuring out the angles that my partner, Sanjana Chillarege, and I used. We had to constantly adapt our methods to make sure that our proportions were accurate.” “When we fi rst were assigned the project, I was a little overwhelmed—I had no idea how to approach it,” says Samantha Lattanze ’21. “Working through the project step-by-step helped me enjoy the process and provided me with a new lens on math.” For the teachers, too, it was a rewarding experience. “It’s been fantastic to see students in a diff erent context than the art studio,” off ers Lee. “Getting to revisit a key lesson I teach during the ninth-grade art and design class—that visual communication is the most universal form of communication—with real- world applications is particularly rewarding.” ? Th e Magazine of Cary Academy BEYOND THE CLASSROOM And it is perhaps that real-world application that best prepares Statculus students for what comes next—helping them to better grasp the material by getting truly-hands on, encouraging them to delve into areas of knowledge that they might not have sought to explore, all while honing communications skills that will serve them long aft er their time at CA. “Almost every fi eld is about collecting information and analyzing it in today’s world,” says Ramey. “Either you’ll have to interpret data analytics or interpret data yourself. Th ose communication skills are key in a world increasingly driven by data analysis.” programming, and robotics teacher Betsy MacDonald, the students created three-dimensional coxcomb spheres that are suspended in the Center for Math and Science’s atrium lobby. Each sphere—crafted from a Wiffl e ball, wedges of plexiglass, and transparent vinyl appliques—is mounted on spindles that allow them to rotate. Putting the data in motion seeks to engage viewers, allowing them to see the relationships between the complex layers of data in greater detail. Data Art This year’s sun catcher project is not the fi rst data visualization project to adorn the Center for Math and Science. Through Lee and Ramey’s NCMA fellowship, last year’s Statculus students were invited to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art and leverage the museum’s collection as data points for a data visualization project. Breaking into teams, students analyzed the museum’s vast collections based on artists’ gender, nationality, media used, and composition. With data sets in hand, and in consultation with RTI researcher and data visualization expert Simon King via Zoom (before it was the cornerstone of meetings in 2020), students worked with Lazarski, Lee, and Ramey to design an art installation that would shed light on the strengths and shortcomings of the museum’s holdings while engaging viewers to learn more. Inspired by Florence Nightingale’s pioneering data visualization work, Diagrams of the Causes of Mortality, which used a coxcomb—a more sophisticated form of a pie chart in which the slices are subdivided and vary in radius in proportion to the data set—and utilizing the cutting-edge tools of the CMS Makerspace and know-how of design, Lazarski agrees, “Every year, I get emails from young alumni who say, ‘I’m so glad that I took statistics at CA; I use it so much in college, and I wouldn’t have gotten so far without taking it in high school.’” Across campus, CA students are taking note of the increased visibility of statistics thanks to the installation of Statculus students’ data visualization pieces. “Students in other classes have been intrigued by the suncatchers,” says Lazarski. “Aft er taking part in the surveys, they have been fascinated by how the results were presented and the notion that meaningful data could be visualized in a non-traditional way. And that you can have fun and make an impact in the process.” Seven ? Th e Magazine of Cary Academy Next >