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Multimillion-Dollar Gift Supports Math Education

Multimillion-Dollar Gift Supports Math Education

As the parents of two Upper School students, trustee Shadi and Omid Farokhzad P ’23 ’25 know the importance of having a space that inspires a modern approach to teaching and learning. That is why they made a multimillion-dollar commitment to create a new home for math at Milton. The new Farokhzad Math Center will move the Math Department from the cramped attic of Ware Hall to a modern, light-filled, renovated building currently occupied by Cox Library—which is moving to Wigglesworth Hall this year.

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John Avlon ’91 to Speak at 2023 Graduation

John Avlon ’91 to Speak at 2023 Graduation

This year’s Graduation speaker is John Avlon, Milton Academy Class of 1991. John is an award-winning journalist and author of six books, including Lincoln & the Fight for Peace and Washington’s Farewell. He is a CNN senior political analyst and anchor, known for his “Reality Check” segments across the network. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and chief speechwriter for the mayor of New York City during the attacks of September 11, 2001. He lives in New York with his wife, Margaret Hoover, and their two children, Jack and Toula Lou.

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Humanities Workshop Panel Details Key Roles of Empathy, Community Connections in Public Health

Humanities Workshop Panel Details Key Roles of Empathy, Community Connections in Public Health

Welcoming experts in public health, two Milton Academy faculty members recently convened a forum to examine challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of supporting mental health—particularly among young people in our communities. 

The Feb. 6 panel discussion, hosted by Boston College High School, was the latest event in the Humanities Workshop series. A collaborative initiative connecting public, private, and charter schools, each biennial program explores a single social justice issue through the lens of the humanities—the academic disciplines including arts, literature, languages, history, society, and culture. Created in 2018 by Milton faculty members Lisa Baker and Alisa Braithwaite, the initiative currently involves hundreds of students and faculty across eight area high schools. 

The goal of the Humanities Workshop is to show students how key themes prominent in humanities studies—in particular, the importance of empathy and compassion—can be instrumental in working to solve the world’s complex problems. 

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Awareness is Key to Racial Literacy, Says Dr. Howard Stevenson

Awareness is Key to Racial Literacy, Says Dr. Howard Stevenson

“Racial stress is observable and resolvable because we can see it,” Dr. Howard Stevenson told Milton students recently. “And if we can see it, we can do something about it, but only if we face it in our own racial stories. Courage is in how much we ask about what we don’t know.”

Stevenson, the first of Milton’s 2023 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) speakers, gave Upper and Middle School students racial literacy strategies to handle the inevitable discomfort of situations involving racial stress and threat present in our everyday lives. When people are prepared with tools—including reading and recasting scenarios, locating where stress manifests in our bodies, communicating with ourselves and others, and deploying calming breathing techniques—they are better prepared to make just decisions. 

When people encounter conflicts related to race, they’re not just facing the facts of the moment: They’re bringing in a lifetime of internal and external factors that may influence their reactions, so awareness is necessary for a good resolution, Stevenson said. 

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A Brave Space: MLK Jr. Day Speaker Régine Jean-Charles ’96

A Brave Space: MLK Jr. Day Speaker Régine Jean-Charles ’96

“In my view, the job of the formative educator is to make justice irresistible.”

So writes Régine Michelle Jean-Charles ’96 in her 2021 book, Martin Luther King & The Trumpet of Conscience Today. In the same passage, she describes helping a group of students process an act of police brutality they witnessed in Paris at the tail end of a course she taught there.

Jean-Charles, a Black feminist literary scholar, cultural critic, and university professor, had led students in a summer course called Paris Noir: The Literature and Culture of Black Paris, which covered Black culture in France from the 1930s to the Black Lives Matter movement. During their final week in Paris, students were unwinding at a nightclub when they saw French police officers violently detain a Black man. Following the incident, Jean-Charles asked the students to reflect on what they’d seen. It was a moment not only to care for their well-being but also consider the role they play in making a more just world.

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Hong Kong Speaker Lisette Le Shares How Asian Immigrants Have Shaped Massachusetts

Hong Kong Speaker Lisette Le Shares How Asian Immigrants Have Shaped Massachusetts

Born in Vietnam, Lisette Le moved with her family to Akron, Ohio, at the age of 6, and was one of just a handful of Asian American students in every school she attended. She had to quickly learn English, losing some of her Vietnamese language skills except when she translated for her parents.

“There’s a major intersection among race, immigration, and class that shapes our country and our familial structures,” said Le, this year’s Hong Kong speaker. “My story is an individual’s story, but it’s in the context of systems and policy.”

Now a nonprofit leader with more than 16 years of experience in community organizing, civic engagement, and advocacy at the local, city, and state levels, Le shared her personal immigration story and provided some history of Asian communities in Massachusetts. Milton is situated just a few miles from several communities with strong Asian and Asian American populations, such as its neighboring city of Quincy and the Dorchester and Chinatown neighborhoods in Boston. Massachusetts has several enclaves of Asian communities, including Nepalese families in Somerville, South Asian communities in Central Massachusetts, and Vietnamese families in Dorchester’s Fields Corner. 

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Premier Prep Teams Face Off During Winter Break

Premier Prep Teams Face Off During Winter Break

Every year at this time, the best teams in independent school hockey descend upon the rinks of Milton and Nobles for a chance to claim the coveted championship titles of the Flood-Marr Tournament and the Harrington Invitational Tournament.

The annual Flood-Marr Holiday Hockey Tournament is named for Dick “Lefty” Marr and his college roommate, longtime friend, and rival hockey coach Dick Flood. Lefty Marr was a member of the Milton faculty from 1957 until 1980. Now in its 57th year, the three-day competition for boys’ teams includes Milton, Nobles, Hotchkiss, Andover, Westminster, Deerfield, Kimball Union and Salisbury.

On the same weekend, top girls’ talent takes to the ice at Milton and Nobles to compete in the 41st Annual Harrington Invitational. Milton will face off against Nobles, Lawrence, St. Paul’s, St. Mark’s, BB&N, Westminster, and Williston-Northampton.

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Holidays Mean Music

Holidays Mean Music

Join Milton Academy—either in-person or virtually via a live stream—to experience the Jean McCawley Orchestra and Chorus Winter Concert. This annual event is a celebration of music by the students of Milton Academy’s vocal and orchestral program. The concert features seasonal tunes to celebrate the holidays, alongside repertoire ranging from Baroque to Contemporary, and classical traditions representing a diverse range of cultures and geography.

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Heyburn Lecturer Elizabeth Hinton Discusses Race and Protest

Heyburn Lecturer Elizabeth Hinton Discusses Race and Protest

Acts of rebellion and resistance in American social movements have received vastly different responses from police and mass media—based on the race of protesters—since the foundations of the country, this year’s Heyburn lecturer Elizabeth Hinton told Milton students. 

Hinton, an author and Yale professor who researches poverty, racial inequality, and urban violence in the United States, described the history of Black protest movements and their characterization as “riots,” even when they were peaceful in origin. In order to understand the disproportionate response to Black social movements, we have to look at history, she said. 

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Milton Robotics Is On a Roll

Milton Robotics Is On a Roll

This past weekend, Milton’s Robotics Team—comprised of 11 students and three robots—attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s WAVE Tournament, a three-day competition against 78 other robotics teams from across the United States and Canada. One of Milton’s teams, self-dubbed Duct Tap & Dreams, advanced to the eliminations round and finished 16th in robot skills. Another of Milton’s teams, under the name of Moonrise, won the Innovate Award, one of the top three awards given to a team based on overall performance, organization, and teamwork.

In November, Milton’s Robotics Team also attended a VEX Robotics tournament in Framingham, Massachusetts, where our students competed against 45 schools from across southern New England.

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