Features

Hungry? Here’s One Solution. Helson Taveras ’14 and Israel Moorer ’16

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

Hungry? Here’s One Solution.  Helson Taveras ’14 and Israel Moorer ’16

Helson Taveras, a sophomore at Columbia University, strides along West 116th, the heart of campus, passing students whose lives he has already helped to change. At an institution with a $9.6 billion endowment, students are hungry, and Swipes is a solution. Last spring, Helson and his friend Julio Henriquez watched classmates turn to Facebook to connect with other students who had extra meals on their meal plans, asking for an opportunity — coordinating times and locations — to be “swiped” into a campus dining hall. The two were well aware that financial aid packages often...

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The Big (Green) Room Ophelia Wilkins ’97

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

The Big (Green) Room  Ophelia Wilkins ’97

“I have always loved making things, craft-y sorts of things,” Ophelia says, “clothes, furniture, pottery — I was really into ceramics at Milton, for instance.” Slight and strong, both understated and definitively stylish in a textured black-on-black dress (“I wish I’d made it, but I didn’t,” she says), Ophelia explains how and why every detail matters in what she’s “making” today. An architect with the firm Kuth Ranieri in San Francisco, Ophelia is working on creating a space where ideas will ignite, and moving nine companies of designers and contractors to work...

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Taking Risks and Keeping Cool, Jennie Dundas ’89

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

Taking Risks and Keeping Cool,  Jennie Dundas ’89

Making ice cream can be messy, albeit delicious, work. Jennie Dundas ’89 is dressed for a production day — jeans, sneakers, and a pink sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over a required hairnet. Large bags of organic sugar, tubs of pure maple syrup, and boxes of organic pecans line the walls. On this day, 44,000 mini-cups will be filled with four different seasonal flavors of ice cream for JetBlue’s first-class service. Jennie, CEO and co-founder of Blue Marble Ice Cream, based in Brooklyn, is at the production facility in Rhode Island to make sure it goes smoothly — tasting...

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Buffering the Consumer from Hard Work, John Tucker ’96

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

Buffering the Consumer from Hard Work,  John Tucker ’96

In 2009, Trunk Club launched online. Its mission: create a better way for men to shop for clothes. Trunk Club wanted to make it easier for men to show up at work and on weekends looking good, especially if they had little time and even less inclination to shop. An early player in a burgeoning field, “Trunk Club was a problem solver when it launched, which accounts for its early success,” says John Tucker, co-founder and vice president of member experience. Trunk Club isn’t a designer-to-customer direct sales company. Nor is it a digital version of the mall stores, rendering a quick view...

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Counting on You, Day and Night: The Look and Feel of a Boarding Faculty Member’s Life in 2016

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

Counting on You, Day and Night: The Look and Feel of a Boarding Faculty Member’s Life in 2016

“There’s something remarkable about getting to know a teenage boy over four years,” says Joshua Emmott, Wolcott House head, “to see him as a full person so completely that when life’s key questions come up, it’s natural for him to knock on my door and say ‘I just don’t see how it all connects.’” This year is Joshua’s twelfth — in the history department, and in Wolcott House. “I started on the fourth floor and have lived on every floor,” he says. “This is my third year as house head.” Fortunately, some adults seek out a career that allows them to build deep...

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Building on Virtual Connections: Faculty Advance the Lower School Curriculum

Posted on Mar 24, 2016

Building on Virtual Connections: Faculty Advance the Lower School Curriculum

This past fall, four Lower School faculty visited classrooms and children whom they’d only met over Skype. The Milton teachers spent six days in Spain, eager participants in the activities of Colegio del Pilar, a K–12 school in Madrid, and longtime exchange partner for Milton’s Upper School Spanish students. They were excited to explore possibilities for expanding the connections between Milton’s Lower School and El Pilar’s youngest learners, now that Milton is teaching Spanish in the elementary grades. El Pilar’s service-learning program was of particular interest to Milton...

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