The Birth of Team 2234 The Birth of Team 2234 - Episcopal Academy

Academics
Courtney
Portlock Named
New Director
of Diversity and
Community Life
Portlock replaces Eric Jones,
the new head of school at
the Community Partnership
School in Philadelphia
Courtney Portlock, who currently
serves as a middle
school math teacher, has
been named Episcopal’s new
Director of Diversity and Community
Life. Portlock will
assume her new
position on July
1st. A graduate
of Germantown
Friends and the
University of Pittsburgh,
Portlock
joined Episcopal’s
faculty in 2005
after teaching at
her alma mater. In
addition to her faculty duties, Portlock
teaches and coaches dance at Episcopal
and has served on the Diversity Council.
“I’m excited to be taking on this new
role at Episcopal and I can’t wait to get
started,” said Portlock. “Diversity is a
core value in all that we say and do at
Episcopal and it enhances our efforts
to create a learning environment that
demonstrates the unique worth and perspective
of all human beings and helps
us retain a broad range of families and
employees.”
Portlock replaces Eric Jones, who is
leaving Episcopal to become head of the
Community Partnership School, a joint
venture between Germantown Academy
and Project HOME to educate elementary
students in North Philadelphia.
The school is located in the Honickman
Learning Center and Comcast Technology
Labs and currently has 36 students in
PK-1st grade.
Lower School Students
Honor Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Creating Quilt
Each student in Pre-K through 5th grade create swatch
with key message
In honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, students at the Lower School at
Devon came together at their regular morning meeting in April to create a quilt
reflecting the “big words” of the civil rights leader.
The project began several weeks prior to the holiday, with students reading
“Martin’s Big Words,” in Chapel. Following that exercise, individual homerooms
(Pre-K– 5th) engaged in discussions about King, his work, his words, and his vision.
Once returning to school after the holiday, the community came together and
explored the history and meaning behind quilts (the AIDS quilt, Amish quilts, friendship
quilts, quilts used in the Underground Railroad) before each student created a
square or swatch expressing what King’s words, message, and work meant to them
personally.
Students in Pre-K through
5th grade create their own
swatch to be included in
the Martin Luther King Jr.
quilt.
The finished Martin Luther
King Jr. Quilt created by
Episcopal Academy Lower
School students.
Episcopal
Announces 2007
Kulp/Oxbridge
Fellowship
Selection
Lower School drama teacher
Mandie Banks to study
at Oxford University this
summer
This spring, The Episcopal
Academy named
Mandie Banks, Lower
School drama teacher,
Middle and Upper School choreographer,
and dance instructor,
the 2007 Kulp/Oxbridge Fellow.
This professional development
opportunity, endowed by former
assistant head of school
Jonathan Kulp, provides an opportunity
for faculty to become students
again and study at the one of the world’s
most distinguished universities.
This summer, Banks will attend the
Oxford Teacher Seminar for 10 days at
the prestigious Mansfield College. She
will attend various presentations and
seminars led by a distinguished group of
educators and will also be participating
in a discussion group, which she was able
to choose. “I chose ‘Western Civilization
in the Curriculum’ as my first choice
because of my love of history and my
passion to bring history to life through
drama,” said Banks. She will also visit
museums, historic sites, and other cultural
and social events. “I want to take in
as much of England’s incredible history
as possible and to immerse myself in the
rich academic offerings in order to better
myself as an educator.”
In its third year, the Kulp/Oxbridge
Fellowship is part of a larger initiative
by Episcopal to foster a community of
learning not only among its students,
but also with faculty and staff as well.
The program excels at enriching participants
through group discussion, cultural
immersion, and lectures from renowned
English scholars, writers, and historians.
Elizabeth Cocco, Kindergarten at Merion, and Joyce Gavin, Pre-Kindergarten at Merion,
have each been granted a half-year sabbatical next year. Cocco will begin her sabbatical
mid-year. She plans to spend her time visiting different schools and volunteering at
Germantown Academy’s new school at the Honickman Learning Center. Gavin will use
the first half of the year to create a children’s book of the Merion and Devon campuses
as a memoir. After 16 and 27 years at Episcopal respectively, Episcopal is delighted to
be able to honor them both in this way… Anne Barr, Upper School English teacher, will
be giving a presentation at the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project’s Celebrate
Literacy teacher conference in late June. Her presentation is entitled “A Poem Must Not
Mean But Be” and highlights best practices for teaching poetry in the upper grades….
Jacquie Sabat and Linda Smith, co-directors of the library, will continue for another year
as co-presidents of the PREP consortium (local independent school library directors).
This spring, they were instrumental in organizing and facilitating the national American
Independent School Librarians conference in Philadelphia. They also hosted a group
of 20 librarians for dinner one night at a local restaurant. Also
on hand were Linda Hassett, Nina Coffin, and Gretchen Simon,
who joined them for the final banquet with guest speaker Terry
Gross from National Public Radio... Upper School history teachers
Kris Aldridge, Justin Brandon, Chuck Bryant, Lynne Hay, Holly
Johnston, and Anna McDermott will complete a 15-month curricular
revision project for 9th and 10th grade world history this summer.
Bryant will also be presenting “AP US History Writing Labs: A
Collaborative, Technological Approach” at the Advanced Placement
Annual Conference in Las Vegas this summer... Assistant Director
of Community Service, Susan Swanson, and Upper School English
teacher, Doug Parsons, will take a group of five rising seniors back to
Tanzania for two weeks this summer to work with AIDS orphans in Tanzania. According
to Swanson, they also plan to teach math, English, and art in the village school, paint
the orphanage, and help with the meal program. Their fundraising efforts for the Mika
Foundation will also continue… Upper School music teacher Ryan Dankanich recently
recorded a track for Atlantic Records with a new R&B artist, Laura Izibor… Upper School
math teacher and ice hockey coach Madeline Weeks’ ice hockey team qualified for the
U.S. national tournament for the second year in a row. They made it through the first
round and into the quarterfinals. Thanks to one of the school’s travel grants, she will also
spend a week rafting through the Grand Canyon… Assistant head of Middle School,
Andrea Killian, graduated on May 15th from the Teachers College at Columbia University
with her master’s degree in education and private school leadership. Killian spent the
past two summers in New York completing the intensive program. She completed her
research project at Episcopal researching how the increasingly competitive college
admissions environment challenges Independent schools to fulfill a mission of mind,
body, and spirit. Her research was combined with that of six other independent schools
evaluating the same criteria… Second grade teacher at Merion, Joan Devon, became a
grandmother again this spring when her son Josh ’85 and wife Mitra welcomed daughter
Lili… Classics Chair Lee Pearcy has been busy. On January 7th he responded to papers
in a panel on his book “The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America”
at the American Philological Association annual meeting in San Diego. In February, he
led a seminar on his book for faculty at Ohio University and later in the month lectured
on “Classical Philology, Classical Humanism, and American Pragmatism” at the Center
for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University. He also published “Erasing
Cerinthus: Sulpicia and her Audience” (Classical World 100(2006), 31-36). This summer
he hopes to begin working on his next book on literature and the moral imagination.
Faculty & Staff News
10 Connections
spring 2007 11