Alumni News

Horace Mann School senior Rachel Ha '13 is known at HM as a dancer, a fencer, a National Merit Scholarship finalist, and more. Now she can add United States Presidential Scholar to that list. On May 6, 2013 Ha was named one of 141 Presidential Scholars from across the country. She will travel to Washington D.C. in June to receive her award—one of the nation's highest honors for high school students—at a reception hosted by President Barak Obama.

Ever since it first began in April 2007 Horace Mann School's Service-Learning Day has logged increasingly-impressive statistics, from the number of people participating in the day's activities, to the tally of neighborhood centers and organizations involved, to the volume of items donated, sorted, packaged or hand-crafted for distribution to communities in need. This year was no different, with close to 1,000 Horace Mann School alumni, students, teachers and administrators, representatives from New York City social action agencies, as well as HM's service-learning partners in the surrounding neighborhood taking part in the April 27, 2013 event.

"The Horace Mann Revue" a musical about the first 125 years of Horace Mann School's history, was performed in Gross Theater this weekend. Almost entirely student-written, the play presents portraits of personalities and accounts of activities from HM's founding in 1887 to today, stories from throughout its history, and about how life outside impacted the school. The legacy left by graduates of the past for students of subsequent generations are portrayed in scenes of alumni from different eras crossing paths on stage, in the way that historical legacy is able to do. The script is simultaneously serious and sardonic, humble and hilarious, celebratory and skeptical, slyly tart and impossibly sweet. In a tone of respect for the past, tempered the reality check of today so accurately in a young person's voice "The Horace Mann Revue" is, above all, astonishingly honest, for it leaves no emotional stone unturned. Over the three days, from April 25 through April 27, 2013 when "The Horace Mann Revue" was performed it was clear that those emotions hit home with the audiences of HM alumni, students, teachers, parents, families and friends. Each performance stirred laughter, awe, stunned silence, and more than a few tears. Finally, after all of the quips, the soliloquies, the inspired singing and dancing, came resounding cheers.

On Saturday, April 20th, Horace Mann School hosted the fourth annual Acappellooza competition, a competition showcasing performances by a cappella groups from area schools. This year's contest featured performances by For Good Measure from Scarsdale High School, The Sons of Pitches from Trinity, Alabanza from Dalton, Bassless Accusations from Nightingale-Bamford, Nothing but Treble from Trinity, and Triple Trio from Spence. The evening also included exhibition performances by HM's own a cappella groups, HarMannics and HarManny.

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on others," the legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson once said. As the first African American in Major League Baseball, Robinson led a life of impact not only on the sport he played with stellar skill, but on history itself, as his decade in the game also ushered in some of the most significant strides in this country's struggle toward Civil Rights. But, how the impact he made on others impacted Robinson's own life was another part of his story. That story is the subject of "42" a newly-released film on Jackie Robinson's first steps into baseball that brings to cinematic life the fortitude and courage it took for him to make his transformative impact on the society of his day, and that continues to inspire today. On Sunday, April 14, 2013, 225 members of the Horace Mann School community shared the experience of learning about Jackie Robinson's life, struggles and triumphs when they gathered at the Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem to watch the film together. The event was organized by HM parents Domingo Neris and Sharon Joseph of The Black Parent's Union at Horace Mann, which the group co-sponsored with the HM Office of Diversity. HM families, students, faculty members, and administrators were invited to the theater for an afternoon screening of the film, followed by a conversation with a former Negro League ballplayer and a League historian, Gilbert Hernandez Black.

Book Day 2013 featured two short novels: A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Among the "amazing" speakers at Horace Mann that day were Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic and author Michael Dirda, and acclaimed novelist, screenwriter and producer Nicholas Meyer. Both are experts on Conan Doyle and his compelling main character, detective Sherlock Holmes. Other guests to HM who presented workshops throughout the day included a physician, a private investigator, a film director, a novelist, and an internationally-acclaimed magician. Each helped students explore various aspects of the complex character and legend of Conan Doyle-slash-Sherlock Holmes. And, of course, there were the home-grown Horace Mann workshops and seminars organized and presented by HM students and teachers on topics ranging from computer science-based puzzle-solving, to literary and historical analysis, to robotics challenges, to legal debate, to science lab tests of blood stains and fingerprints, to acting out a Holmesian drama, to actually painting "a study in scarlet" in the art studio. Most of the seminars played to standing-room-only audiences. All transformed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writing from its literary legacy into an experience within the life of the mind.

Way back in the early 2000s, before the media adopted today's "Dork is the New Cool" adage, Desiree Akhavan '03 appropriated the idea for herself. Addressing a group of current Horace Mann School students and teachers at the school's recent TEDxChange conference Akhavan recounted the sometimes bumpy ride that took her from awkward adolescent to acclaimed web series star and emerging film innovator. Desiree Akhavan's advice resonated with the Upper Division students who participated in TEDxHoraceMannChange on April 3, 2013, for the theme of the day was "Positive Disruption." It was also the theme for TEDxChange conferences taking place simultaneously at over 200 sites around the globe.

Passionate about their work, and eager to encourage students in their audience to pursue their own passions, four speakers at Horace Mann School's 20th annual Women's Issues Club (WIC) dinner described how they had transformed language and cultural barriers into meaningful connections in their work in the international arena. Three of the speakers were HM alumnae: Deborah Friedman '96; Allison Kraus '96; and Lara Setrakian 2000. The fourth, internationally-honored attorney Dorchen Leidholdt, has a strong connection with Horace Mann School through her work with Sanctuary for Families, an organization for victims of domestic violence that HM students and alumni have supported for about 25 years.

For a film producer, it can't get much better than an Academy Award nomination. First there's the announcement, followed by new focus on the film you've produced, and, finally, the walk down the fabled "red carpet" on Oscar night. For Horace Mann School alumna Regina Kulik Scully '81, executive producer of "The Invisible War: Breaking Silence about Sexual Assault in the Military" having her film nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary feature category was an honor indeed. But Oscar night, February 28, 2013, brought Regina an unexpected bonus for her work on the film. Strolling down the red carpet she ran into a close friend from her days at Horace Mann – Marco Della Cava '80, who was there covering the happening for USA Today.

A job doing something you love, that includes the chance to make great new friends, travel to new countries, learn a lot, and do some good while you're at it: It doesn't get much better than that. Call it the "Luck of the Irish" – with a lot of hard work. Together, they've landed Horace Mann School alumnus Brendan Barile '06 in a dream job this year—coaching and playing basketball in Ireland. And, while being far from home may add the drawback of missing family, Brendan is five for five this St. Patrick's Day week: His mother and siblings are in Ireland to visit, and to add some American accents to his cheering section for a few games, of course. Not to worry. Brendan's dad, veteran Horace Mann School coach Ray Barile, made it to Ireland for a short visit late last fall, between HM's fall and winter sports seasons.

Back when he was a student at Horace Mann School Dr. Glenn Fleisig '80 had three passions: sports, science, and math. An avid Little Leaguer growing up, he hoped to make HM's varsity baseball team, but the Lions failed to call him up. That left science and math. Fleisig excelled in these subjects, earning him acceptance to MIT. A mechanical engineering major there, he discovered he could pursue his love of sports from an academic standpoint, studying the mechanics of motion in athletes. The HM alumnus shared some of the insights he has gained through his research over the years, while teaching the physics involved, in a lively, humorous and informative lecture at Horace Mann on Thursday, March 7, 2013. About 200 HM physics, Advanced Placement physics, AP biology students, and other interested students, along with their teachers and several administrators, including HM Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, attended his presentation.

"If every school was doing what Horace Mann is the rate of child sexual abuse would drop significantly," Dr. Mary Pulido, Executive Director of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) told HM parents at a meeting at the school on February 28, 2013. "With all the steps Horace Mann has undertaken regarding training for its students, faculty and staff, and in reviewing and revising its policies and procedures concerning abuse, the school has become the model in the area of prevention," Dr. Pulido said.

Six overtimes. A dramatic steal with four seconds left to go in the game. The player takes the ball down court and lobs a three-point prayer toward the basket. It lands, just as the buzzer sounds, and the Horace Mann School Lions take the tournament 54-51 over the Riverdale Country Day School Indians.

Victoria Arlen has a motto: "Rock Your Disability." That's why the gold and silver medalist at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London uses a wheel chair with gold spokes and a silver "blinged-out" seat cover. That motto is also why she loves sharing her story with audiences young and old, as she did at Horace Mann School's first-ever Paralympic School Day. Held on January 10, 2013, the special program presented to HM's sixth graders, was also one of the first Paralympic School Days held in the United States.

Horace Mann School's Basement Lions robotics team placed first in its bracket in the final leg of the Zero Robotics Competition, held at MIT on January 11, 2013. The competition involved running software the team helped develop on the International Space Station (ISS).