Milton Football Players Recognized as Outstanding Scholar-Athletes
Milton seniors Kalel Mullings and Mitchell Gosner were both recognized as outstanding scholar-athletes by the Jack Grinold Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame.
The award honors senior football players who have excelled on the football field, in the classroom and within the school and community. The 45th-annual banquet, which was scheduled for May 17, was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The recipients will receive a plaque and a commemorative program at a later date.
“As football players, Mitch and Kalel enjoyed tremendous careers at Milton,” said Kevin MacDonald, head coach of varsity football. “Both were named all-scholastic and all-state. Additionally, Kalel was a consensus first-team all-American. They were also outstanding leaders, consummate student-athletes, and beloved members of our team both in the estimation of their coaches and their peers.”
Both will continue to play football this fall—Mullings at the University of Michigan and Gosner at Harvard University.
Milton Team Wins ISL Virtual Hackathon
Three Milton teams competed in a virtual Independent School League hackathon hosted by Middlesex School. Teams had six hours to collaborate and then develop a working prototype focused on the theme of “creating something that will be beneficial to others.” They presented their projects over Zoom. The winning team was Ben Botvinick ’21, Zack Ankner ’20 and Blake Ankner ’23, who built a fully functional website called Hobbyist https://hobbyist.fun.
“It’s a simple website, where anyone suffering from quarantine boredom can go to find a hobby,” says Botvinick. “Users fill out a quick form about their goals, interests, and inclinations. Then we give them a suggestion for how to spend their time and some video courses to get them started.”
Dancing From Home For Advanced Dance Choreography
Performing Arts Department Chair Kelli Edwards has found creative ways for her Advanced Dance Choreography students to continue to learn and grow as dancers from the confines of their homes. For a recent assignment, students had a choice between creating a tight-space dance or creating a ritual dance.
Alli Reilly ’20 chose the first option, for which the instructions read: Embrace even more your lack of space and make a movement study based on a very tiny amount of space. No more than 3 feet by 3 feet. Your movement must include level change and traveling! And some sort of “big” movement that you would never think could fit in that space.
Asian Society Students Support Boston Relief Efforts
The student Asian Society (AS) turned missed opportunities into philanthropy this spring, donating all the funds they raised for club programming to COVID-19 relief efforts in Boston.
“It feels empowering to have made a tangible difference, and it’s comforting to know that Asians and Asian-Americans in Boston are receiving aid,” said Tony Wang ’20. “We hope Boston’s many communities will support each other in weathering COVID-19 as well as its economic impacts.”
Performing Arts Students Virtually Visit with Actor and Playwright John Cariani
Rural, tucked-away places contain rich stories, but they’re not often found on stage in modern theater, playwright and Tony Award-nominated actor John Cariani told Milton performing arts students this week.
Cariani wrote Almost, Maine, a play told through nine stories about love and loss in a remote, fictional Maine town. Milton students performed the show in February; Cariani joined members of the cast and crew—along with others who had planned to put on Milton’s spring musical, Urinetown—via Zoom to talk about the play and his career in theater and television.
Small-town life hasn’t always been ignored—plays from the middle of the 20th Century depicted nuanced suburban and rural lives—but political divisions seem to have created an “us vs. them” rift in American culture, with rural people often depicted unfairly as simple or ignorant in current media.
Staying Engaged with Important Community Work
Making meaningful differences is the mission of Milton’s Community Engagement Programs and Partnerships (CEPP). And this important work continues despite the pandemic, as students and their families, faculty, and staff have found ways to help others. CEPP has updated a list of ways to help local and national organizations. Even the simple act of students writing letters to residents in local nursing homes and assisted living facilities has continued community engagement connections.
Victoria Fawcett ’22, Ellie Mraz ’21, and Sofie Mraz ’23, made masks for residents at the Village of Duxbury, a senior living facility in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Fawcett first reached out to see what the residents needed and then used social media to ask for helping hands for their project. They said they received great support and collected enough material to sew over 250 fabric face masks.
Clowning Around in Improv Class
Even when they’re fully committed to a character, the best improvisers bring their own personalities to their performances, says Gemma Soldati ’09.
Soldati and her comedy partner, Amrita Dhaliwal, visited improv classes taught by Performing Arts Department teacher Peter Parisi before spring break. The performers shared the joy and connection present in clowning. As students performed—improvising as chickens and horses, and taking audience cues for their characters—they added telling flourishes: a Shakespearean flair, comic movement, and a confrontational “neigh.”
“These things are real, they’re part of who we are,” Soldati told the students. “You have to bring the truth of who you are to the stage. You’re not going to be successful onstage if you’re trying to hide.”
Naturally Inspired, Simple Solutions Can Solve Complex Medical Problems
The question was a daunting one: Could there be a way to repair a congenital defect in a child’s heart that would grow with the patient without requiring additional invasive surgeries?
To answer it, Dr. Jeff Karp, this year’s science assembly speaker, and his lab team broke down the problem—the repair would have to be flexible and adhesive, to accommodate the movement and growth of a beating heart and to stay put despite the blood flow. So they looked to nature, investigating how other living things have evolved over time to thrive in similar environments.
“Everything natural that exists today is here because it solved seemingly insurmountable problems,” Karp told Milton students in March. Karp is a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and he has more than 100 issued or pending patents.
The Story Behind Students’ “Ode to Joy”
For students, the few days before and continuing into the March break were unsettled. John Matters ’22, a talented violinist, was supposed to perform with the Wellesley Symphony after winning a spot in a competition last fall. He was also supposed to tour with Milton’s Chamber Orchestra and continue rehearsals with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. After everything was canceled, Matters looked for another way to connect musically.
“In any big event, music can bring unique power to people, but how could I provide for the community with music?” Matters asked. Then Music Department Chair Adrian Anantawan shared a video of himself playing Bach in a split-screen video and John said he knew what he wanted to do.
“Although members of the Milton community were unable to meet each other in person, we could still stay in contact and play music together in a special way,” he said. “We could let everyone know that although we are separated physically, we can use music to connect together and stay strong.”
Student’s Weekly Crossword Is A Hit
Margot Becker’s ’20 weekly crossword puzzle has become a fun and challenging Friday must-do for many students and adults arounds campus. Individuals and teams of students rush to complete the challenging 15×15 published on the inside back page of The Milton Paper. Becker gives out prizes for a variety of categories and e-mails out the names of everyone who completes the puzzle correctly.
“I wanted it to be that if you send it in and it’s right, you get a reward of some kind, regardless of your speed,” said Becker. “Last week, I started a ‘beautiful completion’ prize for the best looking puzzles (see photos). My whole aim is to encourage everyone to do these, have a good time and get something out of it.”
Becker said she began making crosswords last year on her own, first just sketching some and then making 5×5 puzzles, which are called “minis.” Using a software program called Phil, she progressed to the “midi” size and then to the more difficult 15×15 format, which is the size of The New York Times weekday crossword.
