Mercersburg Academy Newsletter - torchbearer march 2008

Visit Mercersburg This Spring!

Come to Mercersburg this spring! Many alumni tell me that the spring is their favorite time for a campus visit. It’s easy to understand why. Mercersburg has one of the most beautiful school landscapes anywhere. The Buildings & Grounds staff takes extraordinary care of the grounds. Restoration will begin on the front quad this spring with a goal of re-establishing the large heritage trees that were in the original design. Many alumni tell me of memories of the fragrance of lilacs (and fertilizer!) in the spring, and yards and yards of tulips that visitors would come to see. There are still such wonderful sights and fragrances for visitors today—the bright colors of flower beds at the Davidson Gate, the Irvine Memorial, and the Boys’ Garden. The flowering trees among the mature ones with budding branches of new leaves—all happy signs of spring.

This newsletter has information about many spring-term activities that you are welcome to attend. If you haven’t visited the Burgin Center yet you are in for a treat. Two lectures will be presented there this spring thanks to the generosity of alumni; plan to attend one. The students’ work throughout the year culminates in wonderful music and dance performances, and a student exhibition of the visual arts in the Cofrin Gallery. Everyone enjoys the opportunity to enjoy the Boys’ Garden during Classical Scenes—it is a terrific Sunday afternoon. You can find a schedule of spring athletic contests on our website; bring your family and a folding chair for an exciting afternoon of men’s and women’s competitions. And you are always welcome to sample the fare in the dining hall when you visit! I look forward to seeing you sometime soon.

—Mary Carrasco, assistant head of school for external affairs

Exciting Speakers Highlight Spring Term

Ammerman Family Lecture –

Scientist, conservationist, and author Tim Flannery, will present the Ammerman Family Lecture on Monday, March 31, 2008, at 7 p.m., in the Simon Theatre as part of the school’s 2007-2008 Monday Evening Lecture Series.

Flannery believes that human activity is drastically altering the earth’s climate, and that soon these changes will have a devastating effect on the planet. He wants to mobilize social and political will to address this problem before it’s too late. In his provocative book, The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, which debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, Flannery tells the story of climate change over millions of years to help us understand the predicament we face today.

Flannery, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement, also contributes to ABC Radio, NPR, and the BBC. He is the former director of the South Australian Museum and is currently a professor at Sydney’s Macquarie University. In 2002, he spent a year as professor of Australian studies at Harvard University, where he taught in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In 2005 he was honored as Australian Humanist of the Year and in 2007, he was named Australian of the Year.

Class of ’48 Lecture-

Monday, April 14 at 8 p.m., esteemed lecturer and author Marcelo Suarez-Orozco will present the Class of ’48 Lecture. Suarez-Orozco has made an incalculable contribution to the worldwide discussion on the far-reaching implications of immigration and globalization. A member of the National Academy of Education, he is currently the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University.The co-founder of the Harvard Immigration Projects, he has also served as that university’s tenured professor of Human Development and Psychology, as well as its Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education and Culture.

Suarez-Orozco is co-author of a new book, Learning in a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, based on a study that followed 400 newly arrived children from the Caribbean, China, Central America, and Mexico for five years. The winner of the 2008 Stone Award for the Best Book on Education, it provides a compelling account of the lives, dreams, ironies, and frustrations of these young immigrants. In Learning in the Global Era, Suarez-Orozco’s new anthology, he explores the challenges of educating a global generation of youth in our rapidly changing world.

Cum Laude Convocation –

Dr. Ivan Sag ’67 will be the speaker at the Cum Laude Convocation on Friday, March 28, at 11:10 a.m. in the Simon Theatre. Sag is a noted linguist and a professor of linguistics at Stanford University. He has co-authored several books that introduce and develop the syntactic theory known as head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). In addition, he has written numerous articles about linguistic theory and analysis.

Sag received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1976, where he was advised by highly celebrated linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky. He received a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied comparative Indo-European languages, Sanskrit, and sociolinguistics.