Vol. CXXXII · July 10, 2026
On Tuesday, May 26, The Guardian ran the unanticipated headline, "Dog shoots woman with shotgun at Nebraska convenience store." We would likely not, however, encounter the headline "Man shoots dog." In many journalism classes, students will encounter a similar comparison: while "Dog bites man" rarely makes headlines, the extraordinary and unexpected "Man bites dog" will.
On Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16, as Milton students attended classes, 620 alumni, from graduation classes every five years before 2021 (e.g., 2016, 1991), arrived on campus for Reunion Weekend, marking the first time in fifteen years that the event has taken place during the school year.
The following is a transcript of our 23-minute interview with Head of School Alixe Callen ’88, edited for brevity and clarity.
For students who traveled on one of the three exchange programs this month, learning does not have to live in the classroom. On May 19, 21, and 27, students traveled to Spain, France, and Japan, to solidify modern language skills developed at Milton, to explore new cultures, and to deepen connections between Milton and other schools around the world. All programs partnered with local high schools and host families and featured programming that familiarized with local cultures.
In 1986, lifer Farah Pandith ’86, now a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, sat stumped in her senior Middle East elective. It was her first day, and Mr. Proctor, the instructor, just handed out a map of the Middle East without any country labels. Pandith’s job was to fill everything in.
On May 21, eleven Milton Academy Speech and Debate team members and three chaperones boarded a flight to Washington, D.C., for the National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) tournament, which brings qualifying speech and debate competitors from across the country.
In Upper School Meeting on Monday, May 11, 2026, Upper School Principal Rachel Stone encouraged students to step back from their devices on Tuesdays and instead connect with the broader community. Dubbing the initiative “Take Back Tuesdays,” Stone suggested students keep the dining hall, library, Stu, assemblies, class meetings, and campus walkways phone-free spaces on Tuesdays.
Every Sunday in early May, joy emanates around the track. Rather than a Mustang team clinching a pivotal win, the elation radiated from over 500 athletes competing at a Special Olympics event and the people who helped make the event happen. Volunteering at the Special Olympics turned out to be one of the most rewarding afternoons of my entire freshman year. Ever since, I couldn’t help but wonder how different my freshman year would have been if I had volunteered sooner. Should Milton have made me volunteer?
In the 1970s, one in twenty Harvard graduates went into finance or consulting. In fact, the fields of finance, consulting, and technology combined accounted for 53% of Class of 2025 careers. Princeton University similarly produces around twenty management consultants per thousand graduates. Elite colleges are pipelines to such careers, and that is no coincidence. More importantly, elite schools like Milton serve as the first stage.
Humans have a desire, concealed by daily routines and eclipsed by the pressure of the future, to revitalize a past version of ourselves. Nostalgia fills tedious ceremonies like graduation with verbose speeches tangled in youth ful memories. While listening to these speeches, I cannot prevent nostalgia from seeping through my own memories and controlling my mind.
At Milton, the importance of speaking is rarely underestimated. Take most Monday and Friday mornings as an example. A plethora of student and faculty voices at Upper School and Class Meetings greets us, with each voice sharing and promoting various engaging opportunities here at Milton. But where speech has the power to inform and to persuade, discussion has the power to compromise and thereby create change in our communal expectations.
With his head collapsed over his elbow on the Harkness table, my friend naps during class. His eyes, which he forced to remain open late into the previous night, close. As he sleeps, a sixth of the material for our new unit whizzes by. “What are we doing?” asks my friend after he sees the worksheet before him.
On Friday, May 29, students gathered in Straus Library for Beatstock, an annual event celebrating the culmination of the three Magus Mabus boards’ work: music, art, and literature. Unlike Beatnik, Beatstock is traditionally performed on the Quad rather than in Straus.
From Thursday, May 14 to Saturday, May 16, 2026, student performers put on a vibrant performance of Wicked Sketchy, the annual sketch comedy performance held in King Theater. This year’s production—a program of 12 individual sketches by a cast of sixteen students—left members of the community hungry for more. The show has developed a reputation for finding humor in the things students and teachers love and care about, and this year was no different.
When I came to school on May 15, I was surprised by how tired everyone around me looked. People drifted in silence, AirPods in, eyes half-open, as if they had stayed up far too early the night before. Many of them, I learned, had. The night before, popular Canadian music artist Aubrey Drake Graham, better known as Drake, released not just one but three separate albums: Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour. Many of my classmates had stayed up until midnight to listen to the songs.
Launching on May 1, 2026, The Devil Wears Prada 2 debuted in theaters with enormous anticipation and equally fierce criticism. With a current audience rating of 6.8/10 on Internet Movie Database (IMDb), this sequel to The Devil Wears Prada has been a massive box office hit, opening at $76 million domestically and grossing $430 million in its first twelve days in release. Twenty years ago, the original movie became a worldwide blockbuster, shaping fashion trends and redefining the fashion industry for an entire generation. Yet two decades later, despite the seemingly successful financials and audience expectations hoping to relive that magic, many left feeling conflicted, anxious, and disappointed.
As the end of Milton’s performing arts season nears, The Humans, the last of the 1212 plays for the year, took place in the Black Box Theater from April 30 to May 2. The Humans, written by Stephen Karam, follows a modern-day family gathering for Thanksgiving while also offering a look into the family’s individual and collective struggles. The production was directed by Shane Fuller and featured a six-person cast consisting of Lyla Tanzi ’26, Davey Glazer ’28, Vivienne Mockenhaupt ’27, Phoebe Zhang ’26, Nora Jin ’28, and Arsen Shymon ’27. As a 1212 play, a series of productions named for their previous location in Warren 1212, The Humans had a very different style compared to many other Milton Academy productions, both in scale and in material. While The Humans’ setting, a family dinner, is definitely less grand compared to those of other productions this year such as Hadestown or Clue, it provides a much-needed change and voice in Milton Academy’s performing arts, one that reflects our own everyday lives.
On Sunday, May 17, Boys’ Varsity Baseball overpowered Tabor with a score of 7-0 and finished off their season crowned as the 2026 ISL Champions. Yet, only weeks earlier, the idea of Milton making a championship run seemed implausible. Through a confident, reliant team bonded in a uniquely Milton way, Varsity Baseball cemented the 2026 season into Mustang history.
This spring, the Athletics Department introduced Intramural Volleyball as a sports credit option. Daniel Rohde ’28 advocated for the creation of the team as an option for male students to play volleyball. Now, the cohort has become a fun opportunity for all students who don’t play at the JV or Varsity level of volleyball. Due to ISL and NEPSAC rules, any girls on Thirds, JV, or Varsity Volleyball are unable to participate on the intramural team; this rule opens the team up to a new subset of students.
On Wednesday, May 27, at 2:00 p.m., the four Varsity Soccer Captains—Siun Salmon ’27, Ethan Fine ’27, Nicholas Pittarelli ’27, and Isa Cavallini-Hsu ’27—hosted a 5v5 soccer tournament on Berlyson Turf Field. Fine hoped that, through the tournament, the captains could help “engage the campus community through soccer.” At the end of a long game stood not a tangible prize but, Fine said, “the bragging rights of the 2026 5v5 champion.”
Milton Academy’s 2026 Track and Field season hit the finish line, bringing success to the Mustangs once again. Athletes dominated in meets all across the season, hit new PRs, set school records, and won the ISLs for the first time in 25 years.
When the sack comes to you, you “stall it.” Then, you “drop it” to your foot for a “round the world” into a “scorpion kick.” Despite the perplexing terms, these moves, all a part of hacky sack, have become increasingly common around campus. The game provides a space for all kinds of students to be a little uncomfortable while trying something new. Though sack is not for everyone, the game gives students an opportunity to get to know and have fun with one another without their screens.
“To quote Jerry Garcia, ’what a long, strange trip it’s been.’” Music Teacher Ted Whalen didn’t expect to spend 31 years teaching here. He thought he’d be here for just a few months: he interviewed for what was originally a sabbatical replacement. But, “by the time they got to the final interviews, it had changed… to a full-time position,” he stated. Though he had previously taught some private music lessons, Mr. Whalen discovered his passion, not just for teaching, but for Milton as a whole. “I had two young children who had been born in ’91 and ’94… Once they started school, I certainly didn’t want to leave… When I was growing up, I barely knew places like this existed. I grew up in a town that, at that point in time, had very few people who had even been to college… For my children to have had the chance to do this was really wonderful for me.”
Intellect. Humor. Care. Called the “most important teacher I’ve ever had,” Eve Goldenberg, known to students as Ms. Goldenberg, has been a powerful member of the English department for the past decade, permanently altering the way her students and colleagues think and learn. This June, the Milton community wishes her well as she moves to Washington, D.C.
Anne Kaufman ’79—to students, Dr. Kaufman—returned to Milton Academy in 2002 and has since influenced all facets of the community. In over two decades, she has been a math teacher, a dorm parent, a house head, and above all, one of the kindest members of this community.
Hubert Hwang, known as Hwang to their students, entered Milton five years ago during the pandemic. Since then, they have embodied the roles of math teacher, Academy House dorm parent, and Asian Society faculty advisor.
Anika Walker-Johnson, known to students as Ms. Walker-Johnson, has served as the Director of Residential Life at Milton since 2022. During that time, she has overseen all operations for the entire boarding population. She has been a part of organizing every aspect of boarding life, from dining services to collaborative house events and individual house logistics. Former Co-Boarding Monitor Jennifer Li ’26 reflected that Ms. Walker-Johnson “was incredibly supportive of students’ initiatives” and that she “found creative ways to reconcile our visions with administrative restrictions.”