Alumni News
Tucker Garden photo gallery
The community gathered on a beautiful September morning to dedicate the Tucker Garden in honor of woodshop teacher Tom Tucker ’66. Every corner of the campus has been touched by Tom’s creativity and appreciation for craftsmanship. The garden is one more thing of beauty that could not have happened without Tom.
Tom's response in song.
Scenes from the day. Click on any image to enlarge photo and start the slide show.
Creative Arts Center Groundbreaking
RSVP for Creative Arts Center groundbreaking
October 4, 2012 | 4:30 - 6 p.m.
Upper School Quad
Catlin Gabel receives $200,000 grant from M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Funds bolster instructional technology in the planned Creative Arts Center
Catlin Gabel School has received a grant of $200,000 from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The grant will support instructional technology in the school’s planned Creative Arts Center.
Groundbreaking for the new building will be held October 4. Students in grades 6–12 will experience an innovative use of space for interdisciplinary work in visual and media arts, theater, and music when the Creative Arts Center opens in the fall of 2013. Funds from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust grant will be used for computers and recording equipment for the music laboratory, theater sound systems, and state-of-the-art LED stage lighting that will greatly reduce the building’s energy consumption. Additionally, the grant will support servers, networking, classroom projectors, and advanced theater projection.
The $6.9 million Creative Arts Center was designed by renowned architect Brad Cloepfil, of Allied Works Architecture. Funds for the building’s construction have come primarily from donors to the project, as well as grants. Cloepfil has designed notable museum and creative spaces worldwide, from the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis to the adaptive reuse of Manhattan’s Museum of Arts and Design on Columbus Circle. “Catlin Gabel’s project for the new arts building means a tremendous amount to me,” said Cloepfil. “To build on that beautiful campus, with the legacy of great architecture by John Storrs and Thomas Hacker, is a true gift. We have worked with faculty and students to create a building that will be a beautiful catalyst for creativity, not only in the visual and performing arts, but for the entire curriculum of the school. It truly is a laboratory, one that will encourage the students to develop new ideas and forms of expression.”
CREATIVITY IS CENTRAL TO CATLIN GABEL’S PHILOSOPHY
“The arts are a core of Catlin Gabel’s philosophy and are key to a well-rounded education. In no other discipline do critical thinking, problem-solving, predicting outcomes, analyzing, re-assessing, and creativity come together as they do in the arts. The intellectual challenges posed by visual art, music, and theater facilitate learning in all other disciplines. These vital pursuits help make our children more thoughtful, interesting, and well-rounded—and create a life of more profundity and beauty for all of us.” –Lark Palma, head of school
THE M.J. MURDOCK CHARITABLE TRUST
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, based in Vancouver, Washington, was created by the will of Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, a co-founder of Tektronix, Inc., and established in 1975. The trust aims to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants and enrichment programs to organizations seeking to strengthen the region’s educational, spiritual, and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways.
2012 Alumni & Homecoming Weekend Registration
Online registration is open for alumni until September 20.
Danny Schauffler '75 named to Oregon Music Hall of Fame
Portland Tribune article, August 2012
"Food is everything"
Paul Folkestad '82 is the public face of culinary education
From the Summer 2012 Caller
Paul Folkestad ’82, age 16 and studying abroad, pondered the escargot on the tines of his fork at the Café Beaux Arts in Paris. After all, native Portlanders know all about snails and slugs. Disgusting, right? But this garlic-and-butter-drenched bite was a revelation, an inspiration that would lead, more and less directly, to Paul’s career as a chef and educator in the culinary arts.
A second trip to France as a journalism major (and French minor) at the University of Oregon cemented Paul’s fascination with cooking and eating. His homestay mom in Avignon, an astoundingly good cook in her 60s, wowed him with her meals, although he wasn’t allowed in the kitchen.
Paul eventually parlayed those inspirations into a life spent in kitchens, but only after a foray into journalism, his supposed career field. Working as an assignment editor in Portland television news, he found himself dreaming of food all the time. After a year of boredom, Paul enrolled at the Western Culinary Institute in Portland.
While a student, Paul worked at Portland’s red-hot Zefiro restaurant, and began catering on the side. That business grew into Armadillo Catering, the full-time business he ran for 11 years, catering many events at Catlin Gabel over the years. It got old fast, though, especially when his family was growing. “Catering was demanding. It’s like being an on-call physician, but you carry the hospital on your back,” he says. So when Western Culinary expanded and put out a call for instructors in 2003, Paul joined the faculty.
Paul is grateful to Catlin Gabel for setting the stage for his career with “a broad and culturally diverse education that helped open doors for me.” His studies in journalism at the U of O paid off when he taught English and writing at Western Culinary Institute. As Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, the focus is now strictly culinary, and today he is brand ambassador, teacher, and restaurant manager. “Le Cordon Bleu is diverse culturally and in terms of age and gender, the ultimate cross section. We get to know each student in depth and engage them, and that’s the most fun,” he says.
Paul has become visible in Portland’s food scene, doing events such as cooking demos at the Portland Farmer’s Market and speaking about all things culinary on KPAM radio. As part of Chef’s Annex, he also offers private cooking classes, small-scale catering, and teaching dinners. He loves doing community outreach, providing food for fundraisers for P:ear, a service for homeless youth, and leading his school’s Slow Food chapter. He’s also a fine writer (as seen in his blogs) and hopes to publish a cookbook in about five years, a travel diary centered on food.
“The most important thing I’ve learned is that there is no more important community connection than food,” says Paul. “The more we learn about food, and how it’s produced, and who’s affected, the better we are. Food influences economics, politics, and health care. Food is history. Food is everything.”
Alumni News, Summer 2012
From the Summer 2012 Caller
As we look back on the year, we are excited to have made connections with so many of our alumni from around the country. Since August, we have connected more than 380 alumni with each other and the school at networking, social, athletic, and community service events. These events have brought together classmates, old friends, former teammates, teachers, and coaches to share a meal, lend a hand, sing along, and root for our favorite team (Go, Eagles!). We have many more events planned in the year ahead, in Portland and in our regional chapters throughout the country. A full schedule of alumni events will be announced in the fall—we can’t wait to see you.
Congratulations, class of 2012
On the last day of school, June 8, the Alumni Association honored our graduates from the class of 2012 at the annual senior picnic. This 30-plus-year tradition brings together alumni board members and current faculty and staff to celebrate the students’ vast accomplishments. We are very proud of our graduates and eager to see where their journey takes them in the world. Welcome to the Alumni Association!
Distinguished Alumni Awards selected
The Catlin Gabel alumni board recognizes distinguished alumni through an annual awards program. The honorees will be recognized for their diverse professional, civic, and service achievements at the Celebration of Leadership and Service on October 4, 2012. This special event kicks off Alumni Homecoming Weekend. Join us in celebrating:
Phil Hult ’88, Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award
Pippa Arend ’90, Distinguished Alumni Service Award
Michael Mandiberg ’96, Distinguished Younger Alumni Award
It’s time to celebrate your reunion!
Dig out your yearbooks—this is a wonderful time to reconnect with classmates, former teachers, and your alma mater. Mark your calendar for Alumni Homecoming Weekend: October 5–7, 2012. You don’t want to miss your class reunion celebration. This year we are honoring the classes ending in 2 and 7. Saturday, October 6, is slated for individual class parties on campus and throughout Portland. Activities start with the Celebration of Leadership and Service presentation of annual Distinguished Alumni Awards and include Homecoming reception and soccer games, annual alumni athletic events, family activities, and class reunion parties. Stay connected at www.catlin.edu/alumni/events/reunions.
Enjoy your summer, and we’ll welcome you back to campus in the fall.
Lauren Dully ’91, associate director of development
Susie Greenebaum ’05, alumni relations officer
Welcome, Susie: from
volunteer to staffer in
the alumni office!
volunteer to staffer in
the alumni office!
Environmental Science and Policy: Real-World Learning
Students in this interdisciplinary class learn facts--and how to cope with complexity and ambiguity
From the Summer 2012 Caller
By Andrea Michalowsky '12
Catlin Gabel prides itself on being green. We recycle, compost, and emphasize environmentalism in the elementary and middle school curricula. We even have goats roaming the campus to help with landscaping. Surrounded by all this sustainability, I considered myself environmentally conscious and aware of ecological concerns. However, my Environmental Science and Policy classes reminded me of just how little I know and how much there is for me to still learn. More importantly, they showed me the nuances, the importance of understanding issues fully, and how to gather the information necessary to form my own opinion.Peter Shulman and Dan Griffiths began this interdisciplinary class in 2007. Peter, an experienced history teacher who had previously founded the PLACE urban studies program, presented the idea to Dan as an opportunity for students to understand both the politics and facts behind current affairs. Dan, a science teacher and biologist, saw the material as an opportunity for students to better understand the importance of science in current affairs.
Originally, the classes were linked, and the teachers sat in on each other’s classes. This year, however, they were separated for the first time, allowing students to take one of the classes without the other. Moreover, the Environmental Policy class ran for only one semester, complemented by a class on oil in the Middle East. These alterations not only gave the students more freedom in choosing classes, but also gave the teachers more freedom in choosing specific topics. Dan included a unit on truth and recognizing biases in articles. Peter further explored oil, currently a particularly pressing issue in regards to the environment. Even as the program evolved, it maintained its founding ideals and emphasis on experiential learning.
On the first day of Environmental Science, Dan told us that he intended to run the class as he would a college class. He expected us to lead our own learning. As such, one of the major projects of the year was a plant lab that was formulated by the students. Dan provided the plants and the nutrient formulas (we were studying the effects of nutrient deficiencies), but we had to create the procedures. We spent several class periods sitting around the U of desks discussing what should and should not be measured on the plants. The conversation went back and forth among the 17-person class. We often ended with the sense that nothing had been accomplished. The process was slow. In retrospect, I realize just how much I learned during those debates. They taught me the importance of listening, how to work with a group, and the necessity for patience. Moving forward with the lab and editing the procedure as it progressed, I also learned the evolutionary nature of experiments. This was a new aspect of science for me, a transition away from the traditional classroom labs. It provided a real-world applicability that had been lacking before.
This real-world applicability was matched by a real-world foundation. Both classes took field trips, seeing the issues in action. Environmental Policy took a tour of 
New Seasons Market as a model of a business that emphasizes local and sustainable products. During the genetically modified plant unit, Environmental Science visited Oregon Tilth and a genetic modification lab at Oregon State University. At OSU, one of the professors presented his argument for the necessity and naturalness of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The farmers working at Oregon Tilth objected to the superficiality of this solution and called for natural processes. Visiting the lab and the farm, we were able to see both sides of the debate in the real world. We then used this information, along with an extensive list of resources provided by Dan, to craft scientific essays for or against GMOs. However, the essays meant little compared to the field trips. Seeing the issues out in the world provided a grounding that could never be attained in the classroom.
New Seasons Market as a model of a business that emphasizes local and sustainable products. During the genetically modified plant unit, Environmental Science visited Oregon Tilth and a genetic modification lab at Oregon State University. At OSU, one of the professors presented his argument for the necessity and naturalness of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The farmers working at Oregon Tilth objected to the superficiality of this solution and called for natural processes. Visiting the lab and the farm, we were able to see both sides of the debate in the real world. We then used this information, along with an extensive list of resources provided by Dan, to craft scientific essays for or against GMOs. However, the essays meant little compared to the field trips. Seeing the issues out in the world provided a grounding that could never be attained in the classroom.We not only saw current issues in action, but also did projects to address them. We spent the last month of Environmental Science helping the rest of the school community with various environmental issues. The class divided into groups that addressed anything from curriculum for the Lower or Middle School to the best way to improve the greenhouse at the school in Ecuador that students will visit this summer. These projects required communication both within the groups and with the adult clients. Working with the adults to achieve a mutual goal made our projects more immediate. It was also like working for someone, further preparing us for the outside world.
In addition to teaching us life skills, these experiences provided the foundation for a full understanding of issues—and the recognition of the necessity for this understanding. Another project in Environmental Science consisted of a formal debate about nuclear power. We were split into a pro team and a con team and then did the research to support our arguments. We presented these arguments to the class and a panel of judges (Dan, outdoor education director Peter Green, and science teacher Aline Garcia-Rubio). Aside from the public speaking experience, we learned the nuances of the argument. In the end, the debate was tied; neither team came out as the obvious victor. This reflected my sentiment and that of most of my classmates: we don’t know definitively if nuclear power is good or bad. Although we remain unsure about the conclusion, we now better understand the issue. This understanding of the gray area revealed more than a decisive conclusion ever could. Not only did we see both sides, but we also recognized the importance of seeing both sides: the information became more important than the conclusion.
This full understanding and so many other aspects of this program left a lasting impact on students. On the first day of class, Dan had us each say why we were in the class and what we hoped to learn. On the final day, we discussed what we had learned, and if our opinions had changed. The vast majority of students agreed that we were now less sure of our standing on issues such as nuclear power but valued our greater understanding of the issues. We felt prepared to talk about the issues as informed citizens.
As Dan had promised, the class also prepared us for college. Sabin Ray ’11, who took the class last year and subsequently enrolled in an environmental studies class at Brown University, said that she arrived at college already informed about many of the issues that came up. The big, open-ended papers and labs Dan and Peter assigned prepared her and all of us for college-level courses. Beyond college, the classes taught us about learning in any capacity and working on projects and in groups. They provided life lessons that will be useful whether or not we go into environmentalism.
Catlin Gabel teaches us to be green, but more importantly it teaches us to be active learners and thinkers. Likewise, Environmental Science and Policy informed us about current issues, but more importantly taught us how to learn and form our own opinions.
Andrea Michalowsky ’12 will attend the writing seminars program at Johns Hopkins University this fall. She was the chief editor of the Catlin Gabel literary magazine, Pegasus.
The Public Pediatrician
Dr. Don Shifrin '66 speaks for children's health
From the Summer 2012 Caller
By Nadine Fiedler
In the cacophony of voices giving endless and often contradictory advice to parents, that of Don Shifrin ’66 stands out. For decades Don has been the steady, calm, informed voice of reason representing the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He has earned a place in the national media as a premier advocate for children’s 
wellness, weighing in on a huge variety of topics—from obesity and nutrition, to children’s use of media, to safety and medical issues. His expertise draws from a deep well of experience: his 34 years as a beloved and award-winning pediatrician in private practice in Bellevue, Washington.
wellness, weighing in on a huge variety of topics—from obesity and nutrition, to children’s use of media, to safety and medical issues. His expertise draws from a deep well of experience: his 34 years as a beloved and award-winning pediatrician in private practice in Bellevue, Washington.“Pediatrics is all about communication, about teaching families,” he says. His overriding mission: “Consider what kids need, which is often not what parents realize.”
For 13 years, Don has recorded a radio program that runs twice a day on CBS Newsradio in Chicago called “A Minute for Kids,” also available on HealthyChildren. org. He has testified in Congress as a spokesperson for the AAP. He has served on and led the AAP councils on media, communications, and childhood obesity. Don has appeared as an expert on national networks and in many periodicals including the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Time, and Newsweek. His first encounter with the media was a bit of a disaster, though, and he learned a big lesson from it.
When Don realized in the mid 1970s that car accidents were the biggest killers of children, he gave the first lecture on auto restraint safety systems, and proselytized for years to change the laws in Washington State. People were angry about the possibility of being required to use any form of restraint: they felt safe holding their kids. During one of his testimonies, a reporter asked him how he felt about always coming back and not getting anything from the legislature. “There are only two reasons people won’t use safety restraints,” Don said. “One, they don’t see the need. Two, they’re stupid.” Predictably, the headline the next morning was “Pediatrician calls parents stupid.”
Lesson learned, Don sought out the medical reporter at the Seattle Times, resulting in an article and a TV program about the worth of restraints. “The light bulb went off for me with this media coverage. I thought, ‘I can reach more people in one minute on TV than in five years in an office.’ So we must make media our friends and collaborators. Let’s tell them what’s medically appropriate for kids,” he said.
Don was first taken with the idea of a life devoted to the good of children when he was a child himself in Portland, and adored his pediatrician, the legendary Dr. Benward. Don’s father was a Russian immigrant— a salesman—and his mother was of Austrian descent. They both planned for him to become a doctor. After earning his B.S. at the University of Washington, Don went to Georgetown University Medical School, and then did a residency and chief residency at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles during the golden age of pediatric mentors there.
Pediatrics is dauntingly complex, a dense specialty due to the tremendous variation of ages and stages from toddlers to teens—so the work held Don’s interest. He felt that the field was a tremendous opportunity for him: “Kids are a tabula rasa. Most kids don’t want to be sick; they want to get well. So they are compliant. If you do the right things and make the right diagnoses, things usually can go pretty well,” he says. “In most cases you are able to make a significant difference in the life of a child. That’s the great joy of pediatrics. You see youngsters from a young age through all their physical, mental, emotional, and social changes and can be a resource as well as a caregiver.”
Childhood obesity is one of the concerns Don deals with in his office as well as in the media. “You must have sensitive antennae as a pediatrician. If you don’t notice and ask about a health concern, you won’t be able to initiate a discussion,” he says. He measures body-mass index and looks at family factors, such as what and how much they eat and snack. When he talks to children and families about foods, he describes them as healthy or unhealthy: not “bad” or “good.” He talks to parents about small, measurable changes, because big changes are difficult for kids: a bagel cut in three pieces instead of two, chocolate milk once a day instead of twice. He speaks to children in a way they can understand: a can of soda pop equals a glass filled with 10 ½ teaspoons of sugar. “A pediatrician is a health translator,” he says. “We engage caregivers in this dance, and it is a dance, about how they can participate in their child’s health.”
“Kids walk through their parents to get to the world,” he says. “Can we give them the right opportunities?” He speaks to parents about how they affect their children using what he calls Dr. Don’s 4M Method:
1. Model the behavior you want your children to achieve. (Use your napkin, be polite, don’t smoke, be active.)
2. Mentor that behavior, teach that behavior. Kids have big eyes and big ears. (Did you notice that I held the door open? Did you see that I didn’t say a bad word back there?)
3. Monitor closely to see if the behavior is being done.
4. Mediate to change behaviors. Parenting is a slow, time-intensive process. It’s like a cruise ship: it takes a while for it to reconfigure its course. You have to mediate with your children in a slow, steady, consistent, calm way. Kids stop listening if you yell. Remaining calm and in control, and trying to achieve balance, is the key.
Don gives credit to Catlin Gabel for best preparing him for his life and career. “My best education—considering my college, medical school, and residency—was still my elementary and high school education at Catlin Gabel,” he says. “My teachers didn’t just teach: they took it on themselves to make me better and help me learn. Every time I give a talk I remember Schauff [former head Manvel Schauffler] by putting words into language everyone can understand.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics honored Don for his work in 2009 with its Holroyd-Sherry Award, in recognition of his national impact in talking about kids and media, and forming policy that has national implications. Don is proud of that award, as well as his charitable work. He received an award in 2000 from Seattle Family Services for his work as medical advisor on its Children Grieve project. His biggest satisfaction, however, lies in his daily work.
“Pediatrics is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. It’s one thing one moment from toddlers to teens, and another thing the next,” he says. “But with great challenges come great rewards. You can try to help everybody, but you don’t have a magic wand. What you can do is to make small changes that will build lifelong habits. Pediatrics is not just about helping the sick get well. It’s about working together with families every day to identify better ways to improve the health of their children.”
Nadine Fiedler is editor of the Caller and Catlin Gabel’s publications and public relations director.
The Advocate Who Makes a Difference
Curt Ellis '98 works to educate about food policy--and bring healthy food to children nationwide
From the Summer 2012 Caller
By Nadine Fiedler
Curt Ellis ’98 changed the national conversation about food and agriculture with his film King Corn. Now he’s set in motion a new national organization, FoodCorps, that will improve children’s access to better nutrition and school food. He’s idealistic, determined, and a great collaborator. With enthusiasm and humility, Curt Ellis faces big challenges—and gets things done.Curt began his work as a food and agriculture advocate as a student at Yale University. “Something felt strange to me about graduating from college with an understanding of philosophy, science, and history, but knowing nothing about the food we eat,” he says. “The more we learned about the way food is grown and produced, and its impact on land and people, and the decline of health in Fast Food Nation, we came to feel that the system was not serving people well.” He and his friend Ian Cheney engaged the campus community with actions that were hard to ignore: they filled a kiddie wading pool with manure, stocked the quad with sheep, and brought in renowned chef and food activist Alice Waters to cook a dinner with food from local farms.
After graduation, Curt and Ian kept telling the story of the state of food and agriculture. They co-produced a documentary film called King Corn, released in 2007, which chronicled how Curt and Ian grew an acre of corn in Iowa for a year. Ian, Curt, and the film’s director, Curt’s cousin Aaron Woolf, produced an engaging, funny, and deeply serious film that brought to life their concerns about how food systems undermine health and fill markets with unhealthy food such as high-fructose corn syrup and confined, corn-fed beef
Curt and his collaborators weren’t content to stop at the making of the film: they wanted to bring its message to as wide an audience as they could. They used King Corn as a vehicle to change minds by screening it in Congress during deliberations about the Farm Bill and showing it in church basements and colleges in the Farm Belt and around the country. They worked with journalists to get them involved, and they connected with people at the grassroots level working on the issues. “The King Corn distribution blitz was a great, crazy adventure. We poured blood, sweat, and all our credit cards into King Corn, so it was a relief to know people other than my mom were watching it,” says Curt. Their efforts paid off: King Corn has had a powerful effect on the way Americans now view food policy.
“We’re still small potatoes in the world of blockbuster Hollywood movies, but King Corn reached several million people who saw the whole film, and many millions more who heard about it from the media and started getting educated on the issues. Film is a conversation starter—it’s not the last word. We got people talking, and that led to real change,” Curt says. After PBS aired King Corn in 2008, he and his crew were honored for their efforts with a Peabody Award.
Curt and Ian followed up with the 2010 film Big River, another collaboration with Aaron Woolf, about the effect of their acre of corn on downstream waters, and it was shown on Discovery Channel’s Planet Green series. They then embarked on the Truck Farm public art project, growing food on the back of a pickup truck in Brooklyn. On a road trip with the Truck Farm, Curt saw how magical it was for schoolchildren to see food grown in a strange place, and how it perked up their interest in fruits and vegetables.
With the experience he gained in making and marketing King Corn, Curt began conversations in 2009 with a group of five other advocates to figure out how they could accelerate the changes they wished to see in the national food system—in particular, with children in communities where obesity and hunger are significant challenges. Their idea, which is completing its first year on the ground, was FoodCorps: a national nonprofit, a “Teach for America for healthy school food.”“There’s an inspiring generation of young leaders interested in food and agriculture,” says Curt. “FoodCorps gives them an opportunity for one year of paid public service. We thought it would work. We made it possible and paved the pathways.”
In an open planning process, the New York-based FoodCorps group solicited applications from organizations at the state level that were already doing work of this kind to be FoodCorps partners, and to work with the service members. They felt that working with local organizations and agencies, which are attuned to their local cultures, was key to success.
More than a thousand people applied for the 50 open positions as FoodCorps service members. “It’s not easy work. The service members earn a poverty-level wage, and they donate all their time and talent to make change possible in the world. The good news is the hard work is incredibly rewarding,” says Curt. Service members, who are also members of the AmeriCorps national service network, are working right now in 10 states, including Oregon, concentrating on three areas:
+ Food and nutrition education. They show where food comes from, in the classroom or in the garden. They talk about why fruits and vegetables are good for you in a way that sticks.
+ School gardens. This may be the students’ first time tasting healthy food. Because they’ve grown it, they can take pride in it. It’s a way for kids, parents, and community members to get their hands in the dirt side by side with their neighbors.
+ Access to good food, and a chance to eat well. FoodCorps members involve food service staff and chefs to get healthy farm-to-school food on school lunch menus.
Many FoodCorps service members have told Curt about the positive reactions they get from the schoolchildren. One stationed in Arkansas told about a day she did a pesto taste test with the kids, and a girl said, “I’d rather have this than a cookie.” A kid said to one member in Maine, “I never knew you could eat green leaves grown in the dirt!” And one member in Des Moines reported that a kid said to him, “You’re just like Justin Bieber, but for vegetables.”
In its first year, FoodCorps has shown remarkable results. “We’ve worked with 42,000 kids in the nine months we’ve been active. We’ve recruited more than 1,100 local volunteers to join in the work and help sustain it. We’ve built or revitalized 323 school or community gardens since August of 2010. We’ve donated 7,465 pounds of extra produce to needy communities,” says Curt. FoodCorps hopes to double the number of service members next year, and to keep growing.
Reflecting on his time at Catlin Gabel, Curt sees the value of a close community. “People care about each other at Catlin Gabel, in a way that sometimes feels like it’s missing from our culture at large. Our food culture can be brutally unfair: people who are not affluent often don’t have access to healthy, high-quality food. We’re not farming sustainably or looking out for our kids’ health. It’s a short-sighted view, when you think of the long-term consequences to the environment and health. My teachers at Catlin Gabel did an amazing job helping all of us to learn to take the long view. We were always asked to look outside ourselves, and to think how we can contribute, individually and as a country.”
“FoodCorps is all-consuming for me. I work long days, but I love my job,” says Curt. “It’s different from making films, but is actually a better fit for my interests and skills. Making films, you get to tell stories about people making a difference—but now I get to be part of getting things done myself.”
Nadine Fiedler is editor of the Caller and Catlin Gabel’s publications and public relations director.
Se-ah-dom Edmo '94 in Oregonian article on Indigenous Ways of Knowing program
Oregonian article, June 2012
Graduation 2012 Photo Gallery
After a week of steady – sometimes torrential – rain, the weather brightened on the class of 2012. The sun came out just in time to catch photos of a great group of seniors just before they became alumni.
Click on any thumbnail to start the slide show, and see larger and downloadable images.
Catlin Gabel's Academic Achievers in the Oregonian
Oregonian article, June 2012
Video: We Love You, Seniors
Thoughts from the community on the class of 2012
Video produced by junior Cody Hoyt. Props also to Jesse Kimsey-Bennett '11, who filmed many of the interviews. Jesse is a film major at USC.
Lifers 2012 photo gallery
Twenty-one members of the class of 2012 have attended Catlin Gabel since preschool, kindergarten, or first grade. They joined Beginning School students, teachers, and family members for a special Friday Sing. The seniors shared memories, gave advice, and sang along to favorite Beehive songs such as "Old Dan Tucker," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," and our favorite tear-jerker "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You."
Thank you, Sara Dier, for taking pictures.
Click on any image to enlarge it, download it, and start the slideshow.
alumni News
