Author: admin1798

Forty-nine years of service to Milton does call out for celebration. When Bryan arrived at Milton in the fall of 1968, he came with “an embarrassment of riches,” enough talent and energy to power several full-time careers. His mind, observed one friend, “whirls everywhere, an idea a minute.” In Bryan’s open way of looking at life, everything is possible. He has never found a problem he didn’t want to solve, and he is always working on at least one. Some friends suspect Bryan never sleeps; lifelong friend Clay Hutchison ’76 claims that Bryan sleeps with his eyes open: an apt metaphor, perhaps, for Bryan’s approach. Gordon Chase thinks Bryan’s signature collection of hats is the perfect metaphor for the roles Bryan has served. A brief sampling of the things Bryan has done during his years at Milton includes: Advising the yearbook staff forever. Winning a nationwide photo contest sponsored by J&B and serving as photographic editor for a book on Israel. Joining Kay Herzog and John Torney as the trio of creators of Milton’s pictorial history: Visions and Revisions. Creating an “installation”: a room-sized timeline for Milton’s Bicentennial, called “Milton Creates, Milton Connects.” Though wrestling was new to Bryan, he became “an integral part of the program,” according to Dick Griffin. Griff remembers a particular photo of Bryan leaping, fist in the air, after we eked out a victory...

Inspired by the social change sweeping college campuses in the late ’60s, Paul Menneg first taught at the Verde Valley School in Arizona before coming to Milton. From his first moment in the ceramics area of Warren Hall, Paul personalized his spaces and made himself available to his students. He has stayed close to them and to the School’s graduates. And those students-turned-alumni have experienced the laughter, sense of inner calm, and love of the absurd that animates Paul’s everyday life. They know him as a kind man. Paul helped Milton progress from its groundbreaking Arts Program diploma requirement to a full complement of semester electives. He established a challenging standard as the department’s primary teacher of ceramics and sculpture. Over time, his students won first prizes in New England competitions and demonstrated that they could create works of art that could be called professional. Informed by Paul’s love of surrealism, these pieces were a surprise and delight to all, as a life-sized torso acquired a bird’s nest and tree branches for a head, as sculptors transformed found objects into “windows of vulnerability,” and as others created metamorphoses of one form into another. Paul’s students embraced “creative process” in numerous ways, as they constructed cardboard boats to achieve a “Victory at Sea” in Milton’s swimming pool. In the 1980s, the visual arts department initiated the process that led to...

Practicing artist, gallery director, parent and innovative teacher, Maggie Stark has had to be a proficient juggler during her 37 years at Milton. Like all the best jugglers, she managed that skill so self-effacingly that after a while the eggs seemed to be circling of their own accord. Years before the creation of innovation labs and “maker spaces,” Maggie was already connecting art and science through design. Her 3-D Studio Art course was groundbreaking for Milton and for secondary education. Maggie provided an important role model, especially for girls in a traditionally male realm. Often using books as triggers, Maggie connected the designer’s world of space and form to the world of ideas. Eighth graders would channel what they’d read into tile designs for the Middle School common room. Ninth graders would transmute fairy tales into a suite of murals for the town library. Older students in the 3-D Studio Art course would progress from building a functional chair out of cardboard to designing a conceptual clock based on Alan Lightman’s novel Einstein’s Dreams. Maggie’s professional work as an artist and designer animated her teaching. Her classroom doubled as her studio space and was filled with silver mirror balls, glowing glass tubes, and light boxes. As with her recent “Timelock” series, her many “high- tech” exhibits, contemporary in all respects, have captured human struggles in meta-physical terms. Her reach...

My friendship with Susan began 13 years ago, in the fall of our first year at Milton. I received an email from Susan, asking if I could help with the speech team. Susan noted her assertion that academic excellence should be matched with knowledge of the practical. In keeping with Susan’s philosophy on educating the whole student, I unexpectedly found myself in the dance studio standing in front of the mirrored wall with all of the young men on the speech team. I was educating them on the art of tying a tie. If I recall correctly, this required multiple sessions for some of our most accomplished students. Deemed a capable instructor on how to tie a Windsor knot, I soon received another invitation from Susan—a promotion, really, from sartorial consultant to economic and historical consultant. Over the years, I have spent many an afternoon posing current events questions to Susan’s students, and critiquing their responses. I have come to enjoy these afternoons with the speech team—a window into the world of speech, but also a window into the world of Susan as a teacher. What I have observed is that Susan is not only passionate about her craft, but she also cares deeply for her students and knows each one as an individual person. When students enter Susan’s classroom, they are there to give 110 percent—in part because...