5 Albums
Music moves us–it excites, inspires and soothes us. Music opens doors to new ways of thinking and feeling. At first pass, some music just sounds like noise, but our tastes can expand. Ultimately, we gravitate toward genres of music that speak to us. These five albums are list leaders in each of the genres that I rely upon, for listening and singing, for enjoyment and sustenance. By Mike Kassatly, Math Department Thriller Few people miss out on popular music; it’s aptly named. It’s accessible—catchy melodies and steady, rhythmic...
read moreProducing Groundbreaking TV in Afghanistan and Egypt
Anna Elliot ’03 inspires young entrepreneurs In hindsight, Anna Elliot’s reality TV series might seem like a media mogul’s strategy to build market share in developing countries. A reality television competition for aspiring and inspiring entrepreneurs, the first program aired in Afghanistan on the largest national channel and featured 20 entrepreneurs pitching and launching their social ventures. What Anna did intend, with her countercultural program, was to leverage the power of real people telling real stories. These stories, she...
read moreWhy Would Hotels Go Green?
Tedd Saunders ’79 doesn’t like to say that he pioneered the green hotel movement. A third-generation hotelier, in 1989 he sold his family on the idea that they could reduce their environmental footprint, offer four-star service, and still make a profit. He wrote a book about how to do it and launched a consulting firm to spread his eco-friendly business ideas. Tedd’s hotels were the first in the United States to offer guests, among other things, the option of reusing towels and sheets for more than one night. He was ahead of his time...
read moreThe Storyteller and His Color Machine
The Color Machine’s office is a Brooklyn artist’s loft: all open concept, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows, polished concrete surfaces and jangling elevator cage. The space is a comfortable blend of well worn and cutting edge—a perfect place from which filmmaker Raafi Rivero ’95 and his business partners to craft visual stories. Raafi has worked in film and advertising since graduating from film school at Howard University. Prior to that, he studied film at Brown, and he’s been in New York City since. Two years ago, Raafi and...
read moreOne Truck, Local Sources, Ingenuity with a Dose of Love
The Mei Mei Street Kitchen food truck is parked next to the Boston Public Library on a freezing December morning. Bundled Bostonians rush down the sidewalk intent on destinations. A few know that inside the truck the proprietors are preparing delicious, warm and comforting food that one wouldn’t expect: velvety carrot soup with bits of feta; pork belly with cranberry hoisin sauce on a soft cream biscuit; cheddar and leek bread pudding. Devoted customers begin to line up, shuffling their feet to keep warm, until the window shutter is raised...
read more5 Daring Perspectives
The surgeon, the poet, the financial analyst and the artist need visual awareness—awareness gleaned from intense observation of the material world, as well as awareness culled from experimentation in the studio. For Milton students, the chance to build this acuity starts early and includes everyone. Today, all Class IV students encounter a visual arts program that stretches back to the days of Richard Bassett, a famed studio teacher in the ’60s. Also, from tooting the penny whistle to perfecting the French horn, from writing computer code...
read moreFrom the Lab Bench to the Front Line: Reimagining a Science Career
Pulling on the signature white coat every morning, ensconced in a Yale genetics lab, Althea Grant ’89 could have congratulated herself: her scientific career was right on track. Yet, she was not happy. More than fifteen years later, Althea wears a khaki Public Health Service uniform to her office at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. Now, she is right where she wants to be. Soul searching, networking and research helped Althea devise and embark on an unusual, even unlikely career shift from a coveted role in lab science to...
read moreMaking Dances: How to render ideas in space and time
Excitement has been building for weeks, and not just among the dancers. Don’t count on talking your way into King Theatre without a ticket. The Winter Dance Concert may be the biggest draw all year on campus. Seats are “sold-out” for the three nights’ run. Some students in the show have been dancing for many years; others made their way to dance tryouts after a football practice last fall. Milton choreographers figure prominently in the program lineup. These students, who earned green lights for their proposals from performing arts...
read moreMath Is Strategy: Grade Four Students Make the Decisions
Milton’s fourth graders learn three core tenets of working with numbers: flexibility, efficiency and accuracy. In other words, their teacher Randy Schmidt says, finding the right answer is important, but it’s not quite enough. “Students often come in with just the accuracy part,” Randy laughs, “and that leads to the other important work that we do.” They begin the year reviewing addition and subtraction strategies, as Randy reexamines or introduces multiple strategies for each operation. “Being open to a new strategy when they...
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