Milton Academy was a big part of the plan Jake Thibeault ’22 made for his own future.

The plan: Work hard, get into Milton, play hockey at Milton, work hard at Milton, get into college, play hockey in college, and so forth. Thibeault learned about the school when his older brother attended; he saw how driven Milton students were about their passions and, he said, “I knew it was going to take a lot to get there, but I knew I wanted to be part of this community. I put my mind to it and decided that this was the journey I was going to take.”

Accustomed to achieving his goals through a combination of determination and grit, Thibeault was well on his way in September 2021, when a collision on the ice during a pre-season club tournament changed everything. He awoke in the hospital two days later, with his parents and brother Drew ’19 by his side. He had suffered a spinal cord injury that caused paralysis; a doctor told the lifelong athlete that he may never walk again. 

“I turned to him and said, ‘Doc, I am going to fight this,’” Thibeault said. “I’m going to war with it. I’m still at war with it.”

Fans of college basketball have two former Milton Mustangs to look out for as March Madness kicks off this week.

Cormac Ryan, a senior guard for the North Carolina Tar Heels, set a career record earlier this month, scoring 31 points in UNC’s win against Duke to clinch the ACC title. No. 1-seeded UNC takes on Wagner Thursday afternoon in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament. Ryan was a captain at Notre Dame before transferring to UNC this year.

Casey Simmons, a sophomore forward for the Yale Bulldogs, is in his first year playing for Yale. The Bulldogs face off against Auburn on Friday. Simmons was rated the No. 1 player in Massachusetts as a four-star recruit out of Milton, and was one of the top prospects in New England. He transferred to Yale from Northwestern this year.

He’s in two of the films nominated for Best Picture at this weekend’s Academy Awards—as well a movie still in theaters across the country—but you won’t catch Mike Malvesti on the red carpet.

You’ll catch him, instead, quietly working to keep Milton Academy beautiful and safe.

Malvesti, a member of the Facilities Services team, has found his niche as a film and television actor, a side job that has had him rubbing shoulders with some of Hollywood’s most esteemed stars. There he is in American Fiction, playing a police officer; in The Holdovers, hawking Christmas trees to Paul Giamatti; in The Town, playing the guard of an armored car that Ben Affleck targeted for a heist; in “Madame Web” as a trucker. Malvesti also scored a recurring role on the HBO series Julia* as Benny, Julia Childs’ cameraman. You might have seen him in popular commercials, as a detective in Boston Strangler, or going toe-to-toe with Rosamund Pike in I Care a Lot.

Ben Rhodes-Kropf ’24 has a message from his father. In order to receive it, he’ll have to travel to Spain.

That’s because his dad left the message through Trace, an app Rhodes-Kropf and classmate Benjamin Siegel ‘24 developed throughout their junior and senior years at Milton. The location-based service combines the functions of a messaging app with the thrill of an in-person treasure hunt, allowing users to “leave a Trace” wherever they are in the world. Messages for other Trace users (or their future selves) are delivered only when the recipient is physically close to the location where the message—in video form—was recorded.

Frustrated by the passive nature of existing social media, which users can idly scroll through for hours on end, Siegel and Rhodes-Kropf set out to create a different kind of messaging service that would foster more-meaningful connections and inspire users to travel near and far.

Nobody’s perfect—unless you’re talking about the Milton Academy math team.

Milton’s math competitors have maintained a perfect score through months of competing at the New England Math League (NEML) this academic year. Currently, the school sits atop the NEML rankings, which includes both private and public schools. Math contests give students opportunities outside of the classroom to flex their analytical muscles while proudly representing Milton.

“We have a lot of good mathematicians on our team this year,” said Devan Agrawal ’25. “One thing that’s nice about the NEML is that you don’t have to learn a lot of new concepts. You have to practice critical thinking and creative problem solving, and I think Milton Academy students in general already shine with that.”

“The future” can mean different things to teens: It could describe next weekend, or spring break, or college, or even a potential career path. 

One group of Milton students takes a decidedly long view that includes making sure that they (and others) are prepared financially for all the possibilities—college and housing costs, budgeting, building credit, saving, investing, retirement, and financial stability for their families. 

And planning for this future? The sooner you start, the better. The students’ passion for helping their peers and other young people achieve financial literacy has taken them from Milton to the Apple App Store and even the Massachusetts State House. 

To help young people learn financial literacy and investment principles, Hugo Eechaute ’24 created StockSense. The free app, aimed at users ages 15 to 21, teaches the basics through fun, easily accessible games. He’s gotten the app off the ground with the help of some Milton peers, including Simon Farruqui ’25, the COO of StockSense, and Isabella Alba ’26, its CFO.

This year’s Graduation speaker is actor and educator Jason Bowen, Milton Academy Class of 2000. Born and raised in Boston, Bowen has performed on Broadway, television, and film. Bowen’s notable and previous credits include The Play That Goes Wrong (Broadway), Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Blue Bloods (CBS), The Upside (STX/Amazon), and Mother/Android (Miramax/Hulu). In 2012, Boston Magazine awarded Bowen “Best Actor” honors in its annual “Best of Boston” issue. 

Luke Witkowski ’24 knows a thing or two about balance.

For one thing, he’s a figure skater, which requires a tremendous amount of balance—not to mention strength, dedication, and precision. For another, he’s managing a competitive skating career while navigating a busy senior year at Milton. Preparing for competition at his level is a massive time commitment; he trains about five hours a day, five days per week.

“I sleep very well at night with all the run-throughs I do during the day,” he said.

Luke finished in the top four in the U.S. Pairs Final last month. He and his partner, Sofia Jarmoc, won first in the short program and third in the long program, qualifying them to compete in the Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January.

This past weekend, members of Milton’s Robotics Team joined schools from across the United States and Canada to compete in the fifth annual WAVE tournament, a three-day Vex competition hosted by Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“With almost eighty teams, it is a truly competitive tournament, which sets it far apart from other events we have attended this year, so far,” says Hailey Coval (I). “It demands hard work, long hours, effort, commitment, creativity, practice, and talents.”

This year, the History and Social Science Department hosted Dr. Ilyon Woo P’25 for the Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Lecture in History. The department tried a new model for the lecture; Dr. Woo spoke to American history students in an assembly November 9 and then visited individual classes to dive further into the content of her work as part of an in-house field trip. During the assembly, she shared her journey as a historical researcher and storyteller, from her early struggles to her New York Times best-selling book, Master Slave Husband Wife. On November 28, the Times named Master Slave Husband Wife one of its 10 Best Books of 2023.

Milton film students traveled to New York City for the All-American High School Film Festival, where two students, Yevgeniya Regent ’24 and Luke Witkowski ’24, had films accepted and shown. Yevgeniya’s documentary, “Prayer of the Birds” made it to the Best of Fest showing and was nominated for Best International Film and Best Documentary. 

Yevgeniya has earned accolades at several festivals for “Prayer of the Birds,” winning Best Picture and the Audience Choice Award at the Williston Northampton Film Festival and Best Film About a Social Issue in the Student World Impact Film Festival. The documentary chronicles the experience of a young Ukrainian refugee—Yevgeniya’s sister—as she adjusts to life in a new country. Luke’s film, “Bloodshed,” won Best Editing at the Williston Northampton Film Festival.

Milton’s Robotics Team dominated at its first tournament of the 2023–2024 season, with one of its four robots placing first overall and first in skills out of more than 30 competitors. The 17 Milton students who competed at Saturday’s Massachusetts STEM Week VEX Robotics Competition “showed amazing sportsmanship,” celebrating the success of their peers and excitedly planning for their next tournament in November, said Chris Hales, chair of the Computer Science Department and Robotics Team coach. Two Milton’s robots finished sixth and seventh on the skills list. 

Milton robot 1898A finished as tournament champion and skills champion, double-qualifying for the Southern New England Regional Championship and placing 58th on the world skills ranking.

Milton’s K–12 community welcomed Larry Spotted Crow Mann, an Indigenous speaker, writer, artist, and advocate, for its all-school programming Tuesday in recognition of Indigenous People’s Day.

Mr. Mann, a member of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts, shared music, language, games, and storytelling with students, as well as some of the history of the people who have lived in the region since well before European settlers arrived. He told students the preservation of traditions and cultures—in the face of systematic oppression—is a testament to the endurance and resilience of Indigenous peoples, who have passed down stories and practices through generations.

“Everything starts with a story,” said Mr. Mann. “We have a language that did not disappear because our grandparents, and their grandparents, and so on, made sure that we still have our words.”

The Board of Trustees on Friday officially installed Dr. Alixe Callen ’88 as Milton Academy’s 13th head of school. 

In a ceremony attended by the entire K–12 community, Board members, faculty and students from all three academic divisions celebrated Dr. Callen’s installation. In her remarks, Dr. Callen emphasized her belief in Milton and schools in general as powerful drivers of good in the world. Thirty-five years after her own graduation from Milton, she said, “I feel like I’ve come home.”

“I have known since I was a kindergartener, just like you here in the front row, that I would be a teacher and that I would spend my life in schools,” Dr. Callen said. “My belief in the power of community started here at Milton, and it’s been a theme in my life and my work ever since. I have long believed that the most important work of schools is to teach students to be active, contributing, inclusive members of their communities.”

Outside of the Art and Media Center, Michael Alfano has installed five of his surrealist sculptures in his exhibition titled Mind Made Visible. Mr. Alfano states: “I am sculptor and clay, both shaping and being shaped.” These sculptures will be on display through June of 2024.

In the Nesto Gallery—on the lower level of the Art and Media Center—painter Eric Koeppel presents his show, Landscape Painting in the American Tradition. Mr. Koeppel states: “In the act of painting, I have sought to discover that highest knowledge of Beauty, poetic and philosophical, that has been the common thread between all of the great masters of Art.” This exhibit runs in the Gallery through November 2.