Janet Levine, English Department
Member of the Faculty, 1986–2014
Last year the English department saw the departure of Janet Levine, one of its most veteran members, whose worldly intellect enriched generations of students and colleagues. A writer and political activist fleeing South Africa’s apartheid government, Janet moved to Milton in 1984 when her sons, Roger and Tony, enrolled in the Middle School, and Janet turned to her burgeoning writing career that produced such diverse titles as Inside Apartheid (1988), The Enneagram Intelligences: Understanding Personality for Effective Teaching and Learning (1999), and the novel Leela’s Gift (2010). In Janet, Headmaster Jerry Pieh rightly sensed a sharp mind and global perspective to be recruited, and she soon joined the English department in 1986 as a teacher of Human Condition, Class IV English, and Philosophy and Literature. To Janet, the classroom was a place to challenge her students’ perspectives, asking continually how another nation, race, or faith might tell the story you thought you knew by heart. Inspired by her own Buddhist practice, she brought a studied Eastern perspective to the senior philosophy course that drew strong annual subscription. Similarly, she used her voracious reading habit to keep her colleagues’ curriculums full of writing from other quarters, particularly Africa. And Janet’s interests were not limited to these profound realms of study. She also was (and remains) a steadfast local sports fan who could talk about the Red Sox free agency and Belichick’s defensive philosophy with frightening powers of prognostication. While Janet loved and embodied so many of the qualities of Milton Academy, she took exception to its location: our cold winters were an effrontery to her constitution. So, she has found the climate of her girlhood on the beaches and among the mangroves of southern Florida, where she now reads, writes, and takes long walks.
by Tarim Chung
English Department Chair