By Lauren Henry '99 - The Taft School

S P O T L I G H TGarrison Smith, BiologyGarrison worked at the University of New Hampshirewith a doctoral candidate on a stock enhancementproject with winter flounder, trying to find an optimalsite to release thousands of fish into the natural environmentto help restock the coastal Maine and NewHampshire waters. “The experiment I worked on involvedobserving which colored flounder—they canchange based upon the surroundings—get eaten first.”Garrison also became a member of the AnimalBehavior Society, an international society of over 3,000members, largely professors and masters and Ph.D.candidates. The society has a journal, meetings, seminarsand other publications which all help to furtherpeople’s knowledge of animal behavior. “I am communicatingwith professors all over the country whowill be helping me with a project with my students inmy new animal behavior class for the spring. Studentswill communicate (via e-mail) with some of these professorsand will design their own experiments.”Sally Dickinson, BiologySally worked at a summer school in Maine (Gould Academy) whereshe lived in a girls’ dorm, organized afternoon activities, helpedteach algebra I and geometry, and went on weekend hiking andcamping trips with kids. “It was a fun summer in a beautiful place.When I was done I went on vacation for two weeks, first at a lakein Maine and later in California, where I visited the Monterey BayAquarium and San Francisco, and surfed in Santa Cruz. Fun.”Fran and Andy Bisselle,Geography and HistoryThe Bisselles went up to their house in upstate New York, where Frandesigned web pages for her geography courses and Andy kept abreast ofthe hot political issues—of which there were many, since Hillary Clintonis running for office in NY state. “We concentrated on spending timewith our girls, Lucy and Agnes, since school life is BUSY! Lots of visitorscame - including the Everetts, Mark Traina, and family galore.”Charlie McNair, School Physician“My son, Roo, and I went to Scotland in June to hike the West HighlandWay. This starts just outside of Glasgow in a town called Milgavnie (pronouncedMull-guy, God knows why) and stretches 95 miles north to Ft.William. This was the first time either one of us had done any long-distancehiking. The route goes along the east bank of Loch Lomond, then tothe Rannoch Moor, which is the last wilderness area in Europe. From there,up and over the Devil’s Staircase, skirting the base of Ben Nevis, the highestmountain in Great Britain and into Ft. William.“We set off carrying all our gear and food. It rained some every day,but that kept the midges down to a less than skeletalizing fury. On ourlast day, it rained steadily, washing out sections of the trail. Roo steppedinto a ‘puddle’ and sank up to his thighs in cow mud. It took us 45minutes to get him out. The forecast at that point was for 5 more days ofthe same, so we took the better part of valor path and took the train froma little village called Crianlarich back to Glasgow. We plan to return nextJune to finish the second half.”Amy Bernon, MusicThis summer, Amy Bernon was a participantin the week-long Dennis Keene Choral Festivalon the campus of The Kent School in Kent,CT. As a member of the select 16-voice FestivalChamber Choir, she rehearsed up to ninehours a day. The group, led by the illustriousDr. Peter Bagley of UConn, performed worksin Italian, German, French, and English byMonteverdi, Bach, Hindemith, Britten, andWeelkes. Also a member of the larger choir,Amy sang the Faure Requiem and Haydn LordNelson Mass at the culminating concert onAugust 15. In addition, Amy, a professionalchoral composer, was hard at work over thesummer on three commissions for choralgroups in Connecticut, New York, and Ohio.Jon Bernon,Mathematics, on sabbatical leaveLast summer Jon completed two classes at the Columbia UniversitySchool of Social Work: Social Work Research and Social WelfarePolicy. These classes are required courses for the master of sciencein social work degree he is working on this year and next.Al Reiff ’80, MathematicsAl spent a week in Lincoln, Nebraska, last June gradingAdvanced Placement Statistics exams, thentaught the AP Stat workshops at the Taft EducationalCenter in July. His wife and son managed to keephim busy the rest of the time.18 Fall 1999