camPus nEws

announcing the McCartney Scholars Program

For math faculty member Dan McCartney P’08, ’15, whose unexpected death in January 2020 stunned the Rivers community, “Find the Good” was more than a motto—it was the embodiment of his attitude toward teaching and toward life. Countless students, colleagues, and Rivers families were enriched by Dan’s positivity, energy, and passion for teaching.

For the past year, key community members have worked closely with the McCartney family—Dan’s wife, Angela, and their three children, Stephanie ’08, Joe ’15, and Jackie—to create a fitting tribute to his larger-than-life contributions and to keep his spirit alive for future generations of teachers and students.

That tribute was announced this winter, in the form of the McCartney Scholars Program. The goal is to build an innovative program of distinction that provides educational opportunities in mathematics for a select group of juniors and seniors. Once the program gets fully underway, sophomores with a passion for math will be eligible to apply for the program; up to six students from each class will be selected to hold the position for their junior and senior years.

In an effort to honor Dan’s vision of true scholarship and capture his spirit, this program embraces the word “scholar” in its sense of describing a person dedicated to continuous learning—a person who possesses a healthy dose of humility and a keen awareness of their own limits and areas for improvement. Students chosen as McCartney Scholars will demonstrate a passion for learning, strength in mathematics, confidence, tenacity, composure, enthusiasm, ability to work on a team, analytical skills, and generosity of spirit. The essence of the program will lie in close faculty mentoring and advising, as members of the math department work with the scholars to engage their minds, skills, and hearts around new opportunities and new thinking. The McCartney Scholar Advisor will create special coursework, provide exposure to practical knowledge, structure individual mentorships with alumni and members of the Rivers community, and oversee student-directed coursework and problem-solving projects.

Crucially, too, the program requires scholars to give back through applying their passion for math to real-world challenges. Among other program elements, McCartney Scholars will: • Generate enthusiasm for math by showcasing their special coursework and by mentoring peers and younger students; • Engage our community in dialogue around how mathematics can be used to solve complex problems; • Engage in the iterative process of real-world problem solving by addressing, through their mathematical skills, a specific challenge that affects our Rivers community or the world beyond it; • Model our community culture of curiosity, innovation, strong work ethic, professionalism, and academic excellence that inspires young students and distinguishes our school.

The program will be supported by a new endowed fund. Launching the McCartney Scholars Program will require $1 million; to date, more than half of that amount has been raised. If you are interested in contributing, please visit our website, www.rivers. org/mccartney-scholars.

In January, the entire Rivers community—students, faculty, alumni, past parents, and others—was invited to watch a special video tribute to Dan. Many felt deeply moved and inspired by the shared personal stories, anecdotes, and memories, reflecting Dan’s leadership, generosity, and exuberance.

Former students, past parents, faculty members, and administrators spoke of how Dan cared for each and every student. Said Aidan Keusch ’21, whose voice was one among many, “He told my mom that as long as her kids were at Rivers, he was going to be their guardian angel. No one has ever said anything more meaningful. I knew I had someone here who always had my back.”

In the video tribute, Dan has the last word, in footage from a senior banquet speech from 2018. In classic fashion, he exhorted the graduating students to take risks, to get out of their comfort zones: “Do one thing every day that scares you. Do it because it’s the best way to live your life. It’s how we grow.” We look forward to growing this special program to bring Dan’s message to future generations of Rivers students.

Dan McCartney had a lasting impact on countless Rivers students.

“ do one thing every day that scares you. do it because it’s the best way to live your life. it’s how we grow.” dan MccaRTney

In December, Rivers held a book drive for IFSI.

Revers Center Wins Construction Award

Winning an ABC Award, given annually by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Massachusetts, isn’t quite as easy as ABC. At the organization’s virtual awards ceremony in December, only 12 firms in Massachusetts were recognized for a project reflecting “overall excellence in project execution, craftsmanship, safety, innovative elements and challenges, and client satisfaction”— and one of them was Bowdoin Construction Corp. for its work on our own Revers Center for Science and Visual Arts.

In a release announcing the ABC Merit award, Bowdoin noted that its “proactive use of building information modeling (BIM) throughout the project uncovered several coordination issues, which could then be mitigated prior to installing mechanical ductwork and piping in the field, saving time and money.” The Revers Center’s distinctive “floating” staircase, designed to hang from the ceiling by a single two-inch-square rod, was also singled out for praise.

Said Bowdoin Vice President Chris Keeley, “Bowdoin Construction is proud to be recognized by the Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts for The Revers Center for Science and Visual Arts. Building projects for learning environments are the most rewarding jobs we get to do each year.”

Jon Wasserman, director of finance and operations at Rivers, added, “We were pleased to receive this recognition now for the second time, as the Campus Center project also received honors from ABC in 2012. Both projects were completed with the same teams from Rivers, Dario Designs, and Bowdoin Construction. Garnering awards on two consecutive projects is certainly a testament to the attention to detail and craftsmanship that went into these projects. We are proud of our partnerships on both these projects and how they yielded wonderful teaching environments for Rivers students and faculty that will serve us for decades to come.”

Students Build Community Connections During COVID

Rivers students typically embrace a number of community engagement opportunities throughout the year. But this year, many organizations have been unable to host would-be volunteers. There’s one noteworthy exception, however: Since April, more than 50 Rivers students have volunteered with Immigrant Family Services Institute (IFSI), an organization that supports immigrant families.

Students have been working remotely with the Mattapan-based organization, tutoring elementary-school students, organizing a book club, and otherwise interacting with the children of Haitian descent who make up IFSI’s clientele.

IFSI and Rivers go way back. Kit Cunningham, director of community engagement, explains, “The initial enthusiasm came from two students who volunteered on their own. IFSI received a large grant from Rivers Givers…. We started out by giving them money, but then we developed a relationship that has really connected IFSI with the school. It’s been a real partnership.” Earlier in the year, when students in Cunningham’s interdisciplinary elective, “Systems Thinking for the Common Good,” sought to participate in nonprofit internships, IFSI was happy to welcome the entire class as tutors and mentors. And many of the Rivers tutors found the experience so rewarding that they stayed on long after the course ended.

Abby Sikorski ’22 works with first- and second-graders through IFSI, tutoring students one-on-one or in small groups. Much of the time is spent reading, and, says Sikorski, “It’s joyous to see how much they enjoy reading and how excited they are, how much they love it.” Sikorski didn’t just leave it at that; she and another student proposed a Saturday book club, and IFSI readily agreed. To further support reading for the young students, Rivers also organized a book drive for IFSI in December. “It got a fabulous response,” says Cunningham. “I couldn’t count all the books we got, but it was way up into the thousands.”

For Kalyl Lindsey ’22, tutoring with IFSI offered a chance to connect with young students whose lives felt relatable. Having attended Boston Public Schools himself, he says, “Every time I talked to the students, I saw a little bit of my own experience in them.” The young students are at an age when they “still have a spark,” he notes, “and I hope that spark stays with them.”

Faculty Member Ben Leeming Awarded NEH Fellowship

The National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship is a prestigious, highly competitive program that supports scholarship in the humanities for up to a year. Among the 8 percent of applicants who are chosen for the fellowship are university professors, scholars affiliated with museums and other institutions, foundations—and, this year, one high school teacher.

The Rivers community was delighted to learn in January that history faculty member Ben Leeming P’17, ’19, ’21, ’23 had been awarded an NEH Fellowship to support his work translating the Newberry Library’s Nahuatl (Aztec) Sermonary, a collection of 64 sermons written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, in the 1540s. Leeming has spent years mastering the Nahuatl language and undertaking this translation; the fellowship will allow him to bring it to completion.

We asked Leeming a few questions about his work and about the fellowship. His remarks, in edited form, follow.

What is the Nahuatl Sermonary?

I’m conscious of the fact that to an average person it sounds profoundly esoteric, but it’s a very important early example of indigenous writings about European subjects. One of the most profound consequences of the Old World and the New World encountering each other in the early 16th century is that you had all these rich examples of translation—not just of language but of culture. These two civilizations had to find ways to understand each other and make sense of each other. The first Europeans to do this kind of cultural translation were members of the Franciscan order who arrived as missionaries. What makes the collection I’m working on important is that they are the earliest surviving products of the initial phase of trying to translate Christianity for the indigenous people and among the earliest surviving examples of any kind of writing in indigenous languages.

Ben Leeming teaching art history, in the fall of 2019. (Inset) A page from the Nahuatl Sermonary.

how did you become interested in this subject?

I was working on my master’s in history in early 2000s. One of the courses was on Mesoamerican civilization. I learned that there was all this writing in this indigenous language, literally thousands of pages of documentation just lying in archives and libraries and church basements, scattered all over. On a whim I thought it would be interesting to see what this language was like. I ordered a book that was a guide to learning classical or colonial Nahuatl, and I got instantly hooked.

It started as a hobby, but I quickly got very serious about it and started seeking out tutelage from those who knew the language. It gradually dawned on me that it was more than a hobby; I wanted to get good enough to read and translate. I reached out to a particular scholar who works at SUNY Albany. She was very supportive of my interest, and Rivers was very generous in giving me a sabbatical. I finished my doctorate in 2017. I’ve spent about 15 years learning the language, and I’m now equipped to tackle the project.

What is it like to study a non-Indo-european language?

It’s very challenging. When you’re trying to read something in French or Italian, and you’ve had some Spanish, you can get the flavor of it. But for this, you have to rewire how you think about language. I can read fluently, but if I had to have a conversation I’d be lost. I could carry on a decent conversation with a 4-year-old.

What made you decide to pursue the Neh fellowship?

It’s one of the only fellowships that will fund a full year of scholarship. I applied to it because I knew I wanted to devote myself 100 percent to a project like this.

Over the past decade I’ve worked hard to carve out a niche for myself as a passionately committed high school teacher who also happens to be passionately committed to independent scholarship. It hasn’t always been easy, but I find my scholarship enriches my teaching and my teaching enriches my scholarship. This feels like a nice validation of the independent scholar part of that equation.

Students Get a Leg Up on Neuroscience

What is the sound of one cockroach leg flapping? Students in the second trimester elective Neuroscience recently found out— and were startled by what they heard.

The lab activity: gently stroking a severed cockroach leg and listening to the resulting electrical signals amplified to the point of audibility.

“What are you hearing?” asked science faculty member Sequoyah Reynoso, who teaches the class. The answer was clear to the students, who had been learning how electrical impulses in the brain and nervous system control the movements of roaches, humans, and most creatures in between: action potentials. An action potential is another term for the nerve impulse that carries information to and from the brain, ultimately resulting in sensation or movement.

The six large roaches, supplied by an outfit called Backyard Brains, arrived in early December for the February activity. Fortunately, roaches are famously low maintenance, and Reynoso kept them alive over winter break with no trouble. And though some of the roaches would have a leg removed in the interest of science, it’s a renewable resource: roach legs, says Reynoso, will regrow in about 120 days.

In the classroom, students broke into small groups of two or three to take a turn placing a leg on a “spiker box” that allowed them to hear the nerve impulses that fire up when the leg is stroked. “It sounds like fireworks,” said one student while engaging in the lab. Other students compared the sound to a crackling fire, radio static, or the ocean.

Once the experiment was concluded, students spread out to write up their lab reports. Reynoso encouraged students to find their way to the answers by referring to what they had just encountered during the lab activity, asking questions about how action potentials work and tying that to the broader themes of the course. Earlier, he’d speculated that some students might be “too squeamish” to enjoy the lab, but in the moment, most seemed to share one student’s assessment: “This,” she said, “was so cool.”

Teacher Sequoyah Reynoso (left) helped set up the project.

Inset: An amplifier allowed students to hear electrical impulses.

Rivers Hosts Middle School Diversity Conference

Sydnie Schwarz, Middle School DEI coordinator at Rivers, vividly remembers the first diversity conference she attended. “I was in eighth grade. I remember feeling like this world had opened up,” she says today. “Going to workshops, meeting kids from other schools—I was so excited.” It’s the kind of experience she hoped to bring to Rivers Middle School students by offering to have Rivers host the AISNE Middle School Students of Color Conference earlier this year.

The conference took place online, but hosting duties meant organizing a day’s worth of activities, from workshops to affinity groups to a keynote address to a final dance party and trivia contest. Rivers faculty played a prominent role, with several members leading workshops and affinity groups. Sixth grade Latin teacher Cathy Favreau and Middle School art teacher Chris Love teamed up to lead a workshop titled “The Art of Protest.” They first walked the students through the history and iconography of protest art. Then, in the second half of the session, students went into breakout rooms where, says Favreau, “We challenged them to make their own images and slogans on topics that were important to them.”

Students who attended were positive about the conference. Kayla Thugi ’25 said, “This was my first time attending an event like this. I was very excited to attend because I would be able to hear from others just like me and about their experiences at schools like Rivers. It was nice to hear their perspectives.”

Concluding with a joyful dance party, the conference went out on a festive note, but participants were mindful of its serious purpose. Love noted that hosting the conference was an important step for Rivers. “It showed that we are trying to take some steps forward and attend to everyone on campus,” he said. “It shows that we’re willing to put our talk into action.”

Strong Showing at Scholastic Art Awards

The Scholastic Art & Writing awards have been recognizing and inspiring student creativity for nearly a century, since their founding in 1923. This year’s state-level awards saw 16 Rivers students garnering 21 prizes for photography, drawing, painting, and other forms of visual art. Among them were two Gold Key awards, which are automatically entered into the national competition.

“Students’ entries are blindly adjudicated by some of the foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts,” explains visual arts faculty member Nicole Winters. “Jurors look for works that exemplify the awards’ core values: originality, technical skill, and the emergence of personal voice or vision.”

In a typical year, the state’s winning entries would be displayed on the Tufts University campus. Needless to say, such a display isn’t possible this year, but an online virtual awards ceremony was held on March 4. Meanwhile, all the winning artwork by Rivers students can be viewed in a SmugMug gallery on our website.

Romy Arie ’21, sculpture, Pop Box

gold key Winners

Cailyn Murphy ’23, Photography Chelsea Yan ’25, Digital Art

Silver key Winners

Marin Broderick ’22, Printmaking Madeline Foley ’22, Drawing & Illustration Ceanna Kinney ’21, Photography Maggie Leeming ’21, Photography (two awards) Adebiyi Oyaronbi ’21, Printmaking and

Ceramics & Glass (two awards) Eli Wasserman ’21, Photography Chelsea Yan ’25, Drawing & Illustration

Chelsea Yan ’25, Digital Art, A Dark Night’s Wish

Adebiyi Oyaronbi ’21, Ceramics & Glass, In The Time of COVID

honorable mention:

Romy Arie ’21, Sculpture Ian Brown ’22, Painting Bennett Cavallo ’25, Photography Max Gold ’23, Ceramics & Glass Alex Hiatt ’21, Photography Andrew Ho ’25, Photography Ceanna Kinney ’21, Photography Luciano Lewandowski ’23, Photography Logan Ngai ’22, Ceramics & Glass Adebiyi Oyaronbi ’21, Printmaking

Madeline Foley ’22, Drawing & Illustration, Brr

Ian Brown ’22, Painting, The Wedding

Grain of Truth: Roman Bread Brings Ancient World Alive

If you want to understand Latin, says In their kitchens, students mixed Later, she walked them through Rivers sixth-grade Latin teacher Cathy whole-wheat flour with fennel seed, forming the round panis quadratus loaf. Favreau, you have to understand An- poppy seeds, and parsley, and, once The finished product looked and tasted cient Rome. And if you want to under- the ingredients were combined, threw authentic—very plausibly like a food stand Ancient Rome, says experimental their weight into kneading the stiff, dry consumed in ancient times. archaeologist Farrell Monaco, you have dough by hand. As they worked, Monaco Monaco had met with the students to understand bread. encouraged them to imagine the lives virtually during class time the day before,

Toward that end, Favreau—along of those who performed this task in to talk about Ancient Roman foodways. with science teacher Emily Poland— the ancient world. The conversation about food systems teamed up with Monaco to offer a baking “You’ll feel the kneading in your formed a lead-in to the science side of class in which students re-created the biceps tomorrow,” she said. “So you will the lesson. The mass production of bread bread of Ancient Rome. On a Saturday know with your body, not just with your helped fuel the emergence of cities like afternoon, some 40 members of the mind, how a Roman slave felt.” Pompeii, and access to grain dictated Rivers community used how large those cities could modern technology to ex- grow. Poland helps students perience the ancient world, draw parallels with our world, gathering around computers as climate change, the panin their home kitchens while demic, and other geopolitical Monaco guided them factors shape the growth and through the preparation of movement of populations. Ancient Roman specialties. “There’s a lot of systems

Panis quadratus was thinking that goes into putfound at the site of ancient ting together our curricuPompeii, the Roman city bur- lum,” notes Favreau. Poland ied in 79 A.D. by the eruption adds, “Our mission is to make of Mt. Vesuvius. “When they this as interdisciplinary as excavated the city, they found possible, and to have students 87 loaves of it,” Favreau explains. “They’re so iconic, Students prepared the famed panis quadratus during the class. discover through doing.” they’re in a museum.”

MLK Day: King’s Work Marches On

Over the years, commemorations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day have taken different forms at Rivers. In this fraught and challenging time, it seemed only fitting to focus on Dr. King himself. History faculty member Arturo Bagley addressed the January virtual assembly, sharing the story of King’s leadership in the fight for civil rights.

Bagley began with the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 15th Amendment, granting all men the right to vote. Those events, he noted, may have put a technical end to slavery but did not ensure equal rights for Black people.

Jumping ahead to the Montgomery bus boycott, Bagley explained how this act of peaceful protest eventually led to a Supreme Court ruling that supported desegregation. King, chosen as the boycott’s leader, was thrust into the national spotlight.

Demonstrations in Birmingham soon followed. Protesters were attacked by police and arrested, but the protestors, under guidance from King, hewed to the approach of non-violence. It was impossible not to draw comparisons to recent events in Washington, and Bagley highlighted the contrast between peaceful protestors and the violent mob that attacked the Capitol. He went on to address the ongoing issue of Black voter suppression, which continues despite the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Finally, Bagley quoted King’s “drum major” speech. In the famed sermon, King spoke of how he’d like to be remembered: Not as a Nobel laureate or the recipient of countless other honors, but as a person who gave his life to serving others.

“That is what we should remember on Martin Luther King Day,” Bagley concluded. “Remember that what is most important in life is that we become our best selves by helping others become their best selves.”

Jillian Dempsey hoists the Isobel Cup after leading the Boston Pride to the title.

Jillian Dempsey ’09 Leads Team to National Championship

Baseball has its World Series, football has its Super Bowl, and the NWHL—the National Women’s Hockey League—has its Isobel Cup, awarded to the league champions each year since 2016. And this year, for the second time in team history, the Boston Pride, helmed by Jillian Dempsey ’09, has its Isobel Cup, after a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Whitecaps on March 27. To top it off, Dempsey—also a member of the Isobel-winning 2016 team— took home MVP honors.

When we caught up with Dempsey a week or so later, she said, “I’m still on cloud nine. It was that storybook ending that you hope for; I’m still thrilled about it and doesn’t feel real.” Last year, Dempsey explained, the team was heavily favored to win the championship when COVID shut the league down, two days before the final game. The frustration hung over the team this season, and they entered the tourney an underdog. “We believed we were stronger, but we were just being counted out by many people besides ourselves. But we stuck with it,” says Dempsey, and victory was all the sweeter for it.

Dempsey and her teammates were also excited to have the final game nationally broadcast on NBC. “To have our games shown on primetime—that’s where we want to be consistently, with even better visibility for women’s hockey,” she said.

Dempsey was, of course, a hockey standout even in her Rivers days. She went on to excel in the sport at Harvard, leading the team as captain to the 2013 Ivy League Championship. In her sixth season in the NWHL, Dempsey is the league’s all-time leading scorer, as well as the current leader in points and co-leader in assists. When not playing hockey, Dempsey works as a fifth-grade teacher in her hometown of Winthrop; she holds a master’s degree in education and served in Teach for America. In the run-up to the final, says Dempsey, “my students were awesome. Some have T-shirts with my name and number on back; they were sending me good-luck messages. It’s really special how much support my school, my community, and the town have shown.”

Back in a 2012 interview, while Dempsey was still at Harvard, she reflected on how Rivers helped her reach her goals on and off the ice, noting, “Rivers prepared me academically for the time commitment and difficulty of college courses. The teachers, staff, and coaches made every day worth it because of their passion for what they do and genuine concern for me to do well.”

And done well she has—with the Isobel Cup to prove it.