Chaz Gagne was in Georgia for a meeting in Augusta and came back through Atlanta where we were able to catch up over dinner. What a blast! Cherish these moments! Realized our friendship is still going strong after 44 years! All the best!! - Hardie Jackson
WHAT VETERANS DAY
MEANS TO ME
BY BENJAMIN PATTON
“To celebrate and honor our vets for their patriotism, love of country, willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.”
It’s a special honor to be able to share my thoughts on Veterans Day. Notwithstanding my lifelong connection to military service through my family and work, it still feels awkward to do so as a civilian. And yet, when you consider the meaning of Veterans Day (and Memorial Day for that matter), perhaps it is indeed fitting. There are distinct differences between these two consequential holidays of remembrance of our servicemen and women.
Memorial Day is perhaps the more complicated of the two. It is a somber occasion meant to encourage us to reflect on those who have given their lives in the service of this country. That is why at commu- nity gatherings on that day, the names of each local life lost in the line of duty is recited. (I honestly don’t know if the names of vets lost to suicide are also read, but they should be, as they are also casualties of war.)
And yet Memorial Day weekend remains one of my favorites. For many, it's an opportunity to set aside the challenges of life and immerse ourselves in people and things we love. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that ability to forget, to lose ourselves in a festive weekend is simply proof of the value and purity of the gift of those servicemen and women who died for our cause.... And yet that ability, that freedom to be able to forget is precisely why it’s so important that we remember.
Veterans Day also commemorates our veterans but in a very different way.
Indeed the origin of this less widely observed holiday was conceived that way. Originally designated “Armistice Day,” it marked the end of World War I, a seemingly interminable, horrifically costly and some say avoidable protracted conflict. When legally renamed Veterans Day by President Ford in 1978, a broader meaning took hold: “To celebrate and honor our vets for their patriotism, love of country, willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.” (VA.gov).
Growing up, my parents took every opportunity to remind me not only of the profound importance of thanking our servicemen and women, but also the often misunderstood notion that we celebrate not just the combat vets who spent time directly in harm's way, but ANY AND ALL veterans – meaning plainly, anyone who ever took the oath and wore the uniform. A large minority of actively serving men and women are at home and doing all the things that must be done to make an army work. Even the great General Patton knew that - and it crept into his standard stump speech to troops in the field.
“Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns; the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.”
There is no way we as a nation can ever adequately thank our veterans and their families for the sacrifices they have made in the service of this country. Veterans Day and Memorial Day, along with Independence Day, Flag Day, Armed Forces Day and others, are important times for us to stop and take a moment to reflect on that sacrifice. But always remember that these are not the only days we are meant to consider our millions of valiant servicemen and women. NO, not by a long shot. These handful of days are merely signposts, reminders if you will, that we need to think about and support these courageous Americans and the families that support them every day. EVERY DAY. They did their job, and now this is ours.
So this Veterans Day, go to a parade. Buy an American flag. Look a veteran in the eye and shake their hand. Introduce yourself to a military family. Ask a question. As my wife often tells me, be interested, not interesting. Above all, mean it. They will know it if you don’t, and you will feel it if you do.
From the GENERAL PRINCIPLES section of the Nov/Dec 2024 issue of Veterans Life magazine.
Gas up the car and prepare to descend upon (ew, what's that smell?) Wallingford, CT on November 9th!
Games begin as early as 9 am, with a full schedule here (scroll to November 9).
Livestreams are also available for some of the games (Field Hockey, Soccer, Volleyball) here.
GO BIG GREEN!
David Ho and Euiduk Han reminisced about Wells over a few glasses of wine during a recent visit in Hong Kong!
Thanks for sending the photo Euiduk!
Brian Steward celebrates another job well done in San Antionio...
While in Dallas meeting up with a bunch of immunologists recently, I was able to take a break and catch up with Jon Bernstein - it has been 25+ years?! John is the big boss at American Airlines cargo & has traveled the world over the last 28 years with AA and his 3 kids and wife. Super fun to catch up and hear all the stories…! - Doug
You may have received an email from Head of School Dr. John Austin recently or seen an article in the WSJ. Deerfield has announced that families earning below $150,000 will pay $0 in tuition or fees starting with the 2025-2026 school year.
That's what you can do when your endowment is large enough. ALL contributions to Deerfield in the past have helped lead to this moment.
Here is the email :
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John Austin Head of School |
Chris Lynch reports from the recently concluded US Open tennis championship: "Had a great visit from Johannes, Angelique and Sebastian Mortier to NYC. We had two days at the US Open to watch some amazing tennis."
Be sure to check out Doug's commentaries at his Hark Capital website where they explain the uses of NAV loans. If you have a clue what that means...read on!!!
See especially his EXPERT COMMENTARY on "Choosing the Right Partner for a NAV Loan" and his KEYNOTE INTERVIEW on "Bridging the Gap in Fund Finance"
Go Doug Go!
The latest Deerfield magazine is landing in mailboxes and it features another two page spread on the great Class of 1983! Well done all! Keep the stories / birthdays coming...
And did you catch the ski story in the class of '77 section with the photo sent in by Adam Feiges?????
John Cianciolo and John Knight hosted Jim Wareck for lunch at Matunuck Oyster Bar on the south coast of Rhode Island to wish Jim well as he heads back to Boise State in Idaho to teach in the fall term. Local oysters were enjoyed and hopes and dreams were shared, all with an undertone of hilarity.
The universe is calling… ran into Whit Armstrong and we were able to grab dinner and catch up during quite a torrential downpour on the Upper West Side. When not chasing after his 9 yr old boy, Whit is back spending his days sketching with charcoal and graphite - impressive work if one is looking for art to adorn any walls. We reminisced (and had a few chuckles) about Tim Engelland and Hodo. Good times. - Doug
Correspondents from the class (thanks Sean Nottage) and even two others unrelated to DA have been flooding the blog with pictures of the ongoing renovations (currently demolition) at the Deerfield dining hall.
Bubbles have been removed in order to be rebuilt larger and the entire kitchen will get a much needed remake. The Shepherds Pie will taste that much better and the Buffalo Chicken sandwiches will continue to win praise...
In honor of the DH, the Apple Crisp recipe is also included!
Doug Schmidt, while waiting in New Haven CT for his crazy good garlic and clams pizza at Pepe's, John Ehmann walked in the door to meet up with some of his friends. Schmidt was only there for 1 hr so it was clearly meant to be. Wonderful to see each other and John's doing great selling plastic polymer film to healthcare companies. Super cool.
In response to Leigh Guyer's post knee replacement X-Rays, our class orthopedic surgeon send best wishes to Leigh for a speedy recover and a thumbs up!
"Gute Besserung,
While Leigh had hinted that his knee replacement was scheduled for the Fall, he jumped the line somehow and reports that the surgery is complete. Clearly he was determined to play beer league hockey again this year! Congrats and good luck with the rehab.
Perhaps Dr. Mortier can opine on these photos?
Doug Cruikshank was minding his own business at work today when in walked Peter Pauley! Remarkably, they remembered to take a picture. Thanks guys. Lookin' Good!
Well its my 4th try, but if you get this as an email, the feed is back up and running! Here's a photo from Stowe, VT this weekend to enjoy too...
Colleges should strive to teach students both how to think and to be career-ready when they graduate, the leader of Denison University argues.
Colleges are facing a crisis of faith: high costs, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and a range of other issues threaten to make the prospect of higher education less appealing to students. Part of the solution to reestablishing trust and demonstrating value is for colleges — particularly liberal arts institutions — to revamp approaches to career readiness.
For years, leaders of liberal arts colleges have argued the education their institutions offer is valuable in and of itself. The liberal arts teach students how to think and problem-solve — qualities that can propel them to success in any career.
While this is true, in a competitive and uncertain job market, liberal arts colleges need to shift their positioning away from, “Trust us, learning how to think will be enough.” Instead, the objective should be teaching students how to think and how to be career-ready when they graduate. We need to give students a life-shaping education that launches them quickly and successfully into lives and careers.
For the last decade, I have been part of a team at Denison University asking questions on this topic.
How do we help students explore what kind of life they want to lead? How do we help them identify career paths that will help build these lives? And how do we ensure that our students graduate with the skills, values, habits, networks and experiences to get started?
Making career launch a central part of our classic liberal arts education required focus, commitment, time and attention to nuance. As we get it right, our students are launching quicker and with more success.
Not surprisingly, our applications for admission to Denison have tripled over the past decade.
What we’ve learned serves as a playbook others will undoubtedly benefit from implementing.
First and foremost, universities too often treat their career services department as an ancillary afterthought, tucked into a small office suite with too few resources and little visibility. That is a losing strategy. The starting place is recognizing that it requires a significant investment in staff, time, money and visibility.
The next step is to align and focus resources in five ways:
Go where the students are. Rather than expecting students to take the initiative, colleges need to weave career services throughout the activities students are already doing, making them unavoidable. This means embedding career work in the first-year experience, connecting with courses, going into residential halls, and working with student groups and athletic teams.
We found success, for example, in reorienting work-study programs to ensure students develop career-related skills — things like learning how to use in-demand technology or going through networking coaching — while working on campus.
Close skills gaps. It’s important to speak to campus recruiters when prioritizing career preparedness, asking not just what they look for in students, but why some get rejected. Overwhelmingly, the answer we heard was that it comes down to a need for certain hard skills.
A liberal arts degree helps students develop critical skills like problem-solving, communication, leadership and the ability to work as part of a team. These are vital in the workplace, and liberal arts students tend to do well in these areas. Fortunately, the hard skills that liberal arts students often miss, such as strong Excel skills, are relatively easy to teach.
In 2021, we launched Denison Edge, which offers short certificate and credential programs designed to provide supplementary skill-building experiences. We leverage regional industry professionals to help us design these courses, which has two benefits — students learn from the people who know exactly what they need to know, and students build relationships with potential employers.
Use the whole ice. In an academic setting, it is easy to fall prey to trying to shove everything into the curriculum. This is a mistake. Students are only in classes for a small part of the week, and the semesters are only about 60% of the calendar year. We can and should use the whole week and the whole year.
While summer internship programs tend to attract high-achieving students, we found that running career programs during fall, winter and spring breaks has also been effective. Students often want to return to campus early for these opportunities.
Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. While there’s no industry consensus on which metrics truly capture the effectiveness of a university career service program, colleges need to be looking beyond the basics. Average salary and employment rates are fine but they fail to capture the whole story of success. In the modern economy, for example, a student’s first job rarely indicates career success — it’s their second that determines their trajectory.
We measure three things: the number of students landing internships and jobs at the top companies and organizations in their chosen professions, upward mobility for lower- and middle-income students, and a Net Promoter Score — a commonly used survey to measure customer loyalty. The NPS lets us understand how well our students and alums believe their college experience prepared and launched them into their careers.
Lean on — and into — networks. Staff within career service centers need to realize they don’t need to do it all themselves. They can be the conductors of the orchestra. Every college has an alumni and parent network and often a network of local companies and organizations.
Institutions need to fully organize and leverage these networks to create robust career service programs and identify mentors for students. We realized that one of the most important things we could do to support our career service team is to invest in a stronger alumni and family engagement office.
College should be a great four years, but not the best of our students’ lives. Higher education should set students up for a life they could never have imagined when they arrived on campus. To do this, it’s time to pay as much attention to career services as we do to other parts of a student’s college experience.
So wonderful to hear from Euiduk Han after a visit from David Ho!
I'm very sorry for being so distant for the longest time.
Euiduk Han '83
While congratulations are in order for John Cianciolo on the occasion of his 60th birthday, it was universally agreed that his daughter Lilly should get all the praise for the SURPRISE 60th she unleashed.
It started with an abbreviated Peleton ride when Bob Keirstead (from Illinois), Will Piersol (from Colorado) and local driver John Knight showed up in his driveway. (CC was overhead later saying, "I'm gonna kill her!")
Thanks to Nelse Clark (MA), Spence Brown (CT) and Jim Wareck (CT) for joining in the fun!
Big congratulations to David Morley and Laura Kimble, a formidable pair of realtors in the Bahamas and now a lovely married couple!!!
Wills Elliman continues to make the most of it by building his real estate business and mastering LinkedIn!
Seen hanging out in St. Johnsbury, VT yesterday for the eclipse, Dave Shelton and Mark Beaubien!
We are thrilled to announce the official launch of Advocus Partners, a public affairs firm made up of 8 firms: BGR Group, Capitol Advocacy, Capital City Consulting, The Herald Group, Hicks Partners, LLC, Hilltop Public Solutions Stateside Associates, and The Tarrance Group. Advocus Partners is a comprehensive advocacy company with a national footprint. We are fully
bipartisan, geographically diverse, and cover every aspect of public advocacy.
Working together, we are excited to help clients drive impactful change and achieve success. Learn more about we can help you at advocuspartners.com
From his company bio:
CRAIG PATTEE Craig Pattee is the Managing Director of Advocus Partners, a national government relations, public affairs, and strategic communications firm based in Washington, DC. Craig’s background is in developing and managing integrated advocacy campaigns at all levels of government. Having served in the George HW Bush White House and the US Department of Education, Craig honed his expertise in helping companies manage political and policy risk across 50 states.
He has served as an advisor to numerous governors, including Tommy Thompson (R-WI), Steve Merrill (R-NH) and Terry Branstad (R-IA) and served as the Washington representative for Governors Ed Schafer, John Hoeven (R-ND), and Governor Jim Douglas (R-VT). Craig remains active today with the national governors’ associations and other state and local groups.
In the 2000s, Craig was an integral part of the team that built one of the largest and most successful international government and public affairs agencies in the country. As President of Dutko Worldwide, Craig helped pioneer innovative practices in education policy and advisory services and played a key role in launching Washington’s leading government markets and procurement practices.
In his current position at Advocus Partners, Craig leads the integrated advocacy business, assembling a team of top professionals in the key disciplines of government and public affairs. Recognizing advocacy as a collaborative effort, his mission is to support and leverage the capabilities, expertise, influence, and talent of the member companies to benefit shared clients.
With the tools of advocacy ever-evolving, Craig is committed to identifying and recruiting new talent to the team. He also spearheads the government markets and procurement business (Advocus Government Markets) while advising on public affairs, public relations, and advisory services.
Craig is also personally engaged with various conservation and education initiatives. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Borana Conservancy in Kenya, dedicated to preserving critically endangered species in Africa, as well as the Grand Teton National Park Foundation in Wyoming. He also serves as a senior advisor to His Majesty King Abdullah II’s Kings’ Academy in Jordan and as a Board member of The Kearns Prize, a national education non-profit.
Craig splits his time between Washington, DC and Jackson, WY
