As a rule, Patrick and Amina Moreau always let their curiosity get the better of them.
The founders of Stillmotion, a Toronto and San Francisco based company, the Moreaus visited The Williston Northampton School campus on Tuesday, September 25 as the first speakers in this year’s Photographers’ Lecture Series. During their visit, which was made possible by the Canon Explorer of Light program, the pair spoke about the importance of, and difference between, affect and effect in their work.
“What we’re really talking about here with affect versus effect is having some kind of emotional quality or purpose rather than just making something look cool,” said Patrick.
When 7th and 8th graders at The Williston Northampton School settle into their seats for one of the fall assemblies, they may spot their head of school standing in the aisle, playing a joyful tune on the trumpet.
Jen Fulcher can’t think of a much better way to announce a new program that will have every student in the Middle School involved in music.
“I played the trumpet all through middle school, all through high school,” Fulcher said recently. “So this was an easy sell for me of the importance of music in young people’s lives, because it was a huge part of my life and my education.”
Under the new year-long program, students will join either the string ensemble, wind ensemble, or Middle School Chorus. The groups will meet three times every two weeks, and students will receive school credit for their participation.
Fulcher said the program was the culmination of several years of discussions, coupled with a recent change to Williston’s school day that added a seventh period. While Middle School students had been able to join the orchestra or band in the past, their practice times were limited to one 45-minute period, once a week.
Thirteen women from the Northampton School for Girls Class of 1962 were heading down a back staircase when one looked around with sudden recognition.
“Miss Whittaker and Miss Bement used to walk down these for prayers!” she said.
“Oh my God! Yes!” said a classmate.
The women paused for a moment, glancing around, and then continued on their way down the stairs, swapping stories of French fieldtrips, old pranks, and favorite teachers.
The tour of the former Northampton School for Girls buildings and grounds was just one of many activities that celebrated school history and alumni during Reunion Weekend, June 8-10. Special reunion exhibits and slideshows celebrated the past, while jazz on the quad, summer barbecues, and class dinners recognized the spirit of the present.
During the class-sponsored seminars, faculty and alumni offered lectures on everything from playwriting and mite infestations to the upcoming Presidential election.
In a popular talk on Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Richard H. Brown ’72 and Colonel Stephen P. White ’77, P’11 discussed the country’s drug trade and the development of, and setbacks with, major infrastructure.
“I can’t emphasize enough how very difficult this stuff is because of the terrain,” Lt. Col. Brown said, showing slides of rugged mountains and arid desert land. Still, he said that the development of infrastructure, in a long-term and sustainable way, was critical to getting Afghanistan back on solid economic footing.
“The silk road is the balancing act,” he said. “That’s what could tilt the economy positively.”
A balancing act of the academic kind was the focus of another talk—“Williston Northampton Today,” presented by Head of School Robert W. Hill III P’15.
Speaking to alumni in the Williston Theatre, Hill talked about how boarding schools have changed over the past decade and how The Williston Northampton School, in particular, had become “a more diverse campus in every sense.”
“We are schools of the world,” he said. “What happens in our classrooms, on our fields, in our dorms provides a foundation for everything that follows. That almost 350 alumni and former faculty are on this campus this weekend is a testament to the strength of this experience.”
Both the pre-merger institutions of the Northampton School for Girls and Williston Academy were recognized in archival images and slideshows over the weekend. There was also a special dedication of the NSFG Angelus bell in its new home on the lawn of 194 Main Street.
But it was a tour of the old NSFG campus on June 9—through buildings now part of the Cutchins Programs for Children and Families—that proved to be a highlight of the weekend.
In celebration of their 50th Renunion, members of the Class of 1962, their spouses, and a few fellow alumna walked through the old buildings, reminiscing about school life. The rooms brought back memories of favorite teachers, awards ceremonies, English papers, and science labs.
“I dissected a frog in here!” said an alumna, through a doorway.
“Are the worms still in here that we cut up?” joked another. “Do you see any worms?”
It was not a walk down memory lane, perhaps, but a stroll through memory’s classrooms and corridors. Which made it all the more fitting that, as the tour was drawing to a close, the NSFG alumna lined a front staircase and together sang the Alma Mater.
Charles Frank ’13 took top honors for the second year in a row at the fifth annual Williston Northampton School Film Festival on May 11.
Frank’s film, Breezeless, swept into first place. The short won praise from the panel of judges—all of whom have made their careers in the film making industry. Steve Porter ’97 is the owner of owner of PorterHouse Media; Patrick Burns ’89 is an editor at the Northern Lights Post; and Loren Feinstein ’01 recently directed the documentary Ciclovida: Lifecycle.
“Something is wrong with this picture,” Sam Abell said to his audience on May 9, during the final Photographers’ Lecture Series of the 2012-11 season.
Projected on the screen in the darkened Dodge Room was a photograph of two coffee cups on a tray and a glass of water. What was wrong? The audience strained to see.
Then the next slide appeared. Abell had turned the handle of a coffee mug, ever so slightly, to create a sliver of space between it and the shadow cast by the water.
Such small details have obsessed Abell throughout his long and illustrious career as a documentary photographer and on in-depth projects for National Geographic. As he noted in his artist’s statement, Abell “explores ways in which places can be purely recorded, with images simultaneously shaped by the photographer’s imagination.”
As a rule, Patrick and Amina Moreau always let their curiosity get the better of them.
