Moral, Happy, Productive: DA's Mission in Action
Dr. Michelle Rosen
Teachers often tell their students that learning is a lifelong pursuit. Preschool/Lower School librarian Michelle Rosen demonstrated just that when she added a “Dr.” before her name with her completion of the University of South Carolina’s Doctorate in Education in Educational Practice and Innovation program.
Her dissertation, Decentering the White Gaze: The Effects of Involving African-American Students in Curricular Decision-Making in an Independent School Library, studied how Black students’ sense of belonging is impacted by opportunities to develop autonomy in their learning.
“My research involved several fourth-grade Black students who performed a partial audit of the library collection and then selected and purchased new titles. The study found that even though Black students must deal with the effects of being vastly underrepresented on campus, they have still managed to find significant ways to connect with the school. Students made suggestions about how to improve their school lives, including the recruitment of more Black students and teachers. They also suggested additions to the curriculum that focused more on people of color. Additionally, they said that opportunities to control what and how they learn made them feel empowered. They felt the actions they took to change the library collection made a significant difference to themselves and others.”
She is pictured with her husband, Rocky, and daughters, Hillary Rosen ’09 and Stephanie Rosen ’15.
Robotics Program Makes Time for Outreach
It’s been a busy year for Upper School robotics classes and the DARC SIDE robotics team — and that doesn’t even take into account their competition season!
The program’s calendar was chock-full of efforts to connect with the community, foster partnerships and bring theoretical solutions to reality. Members of the DARC SIDE worked with DA Lower Schoolers to engineer electronic holiday cards, and they partnered with students from the Emily K Center — a local nonprofit that aims to prepare underrepresented students for college — to wage robot battles.
Students in the Robotics II class employed their collective talents to solve a local business’s real-world problem. Clean Green — a Raleigh-based industrial environmental waste management company — needed help patrolling its facility for people, wildlife and vehicles, and DA robotics came to the rescue.
Check out their solution in action at url.da.org/robotics.opr.
Ori Moore Wins Major Music Composition Contest
Ori Moore ’25 won the Dr. J. Douglas White Ellington Student Composition and Arranging Contest for his work “Fallen.” In addition to a cash prize from the Essentially Ellington program, Moore received a composition lesson with Jazz at Lincoln Center composer and arranger Ted Nash. He also won a trip to New York City to observe the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra record his composition and attend the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival in May.
Jeff Biersach
Having taught English at Durham Academy Upper School for more than 20 years, Jeff Biersach shared some of the wisdom and experience he’s gleaned in that time during DA’s first alumni master class, “Life Lessons I’ve Learned from Teaching You American Literature.” The talk, hosted on Zoom in February, revisited familiar texts that Biersach has taught over the years, but with new insights.
In studying Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, Biersach related the addiction to social status in the novel to present-day student social media usage. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God left Biersach with the idea that to practice empathy is to first gather experience, much as protagonist Janie Crawford experienced different worlds alongside different husbands.
More than 40 alumni brought their questions for Biersach with enough enthusiasm to promise similar alumni events in the future.
Watch a recording of the discussion at url.da.org/biersach.mc.
Asha Kumar & Hanwen Lu: Queens of the Chess Board
While knowing an opponent’s next move may feel impossible to some, it’s a challenge that rarely, if ever, fazes Durham Academy chess star Asha Kumar ’25. In April, Kumar won the Under-18 division at the 2024 KCF All-Girls National Championship, which featured 512 competitors from 34 states.
Hanwen Lu ’36 — part of a long line of successful young DA chess players — held the No. 1 ranking in the U.S. for girls under age 6 (and third overall for boys and girls 6 and under) in early April. She also set a new all-time record for DA kindergartners.
Overall, the DA chess program has much to celebrate. At the K-12 state chess championship, DA teams earned first place in the K–5 Under 900 section; third place in the K–5 Championship section; and third place in the K–3 Under 600 section.
Mathematical Modeling Team Earns Top Honors in International Competition
Mathematical modeling at Durham Academy has blossomed from a club into an Upper School course, leading to major awards for students who competed at the international level. A team of four Upper Schoolers — Claire Hong ’24, Michael Hansen ’24, Riley Kim ’24 and Sarah Muir ’24 — represented DA in the HiMCM (the High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling), hosted by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications. From a pool of 967 teams hailing from 18 different countries and regions, the DA team took home the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Award and was one of nine teams to earn “Outstanding” status.
Read more about their approach and research.
Owen Bryant
The impact of Durham Academy teachers extends far beyond their time at DA, as evidenced by DA alumnus Christos Polzak ’20 recognizing Upper School history teacher Owen Bryant as part of a Stanford University award celebration in April.
Polzak was honored with the Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Scholastic Award, which recognizes the top students of the undergraduate engineering senior class. Honorees are allowed to invite “the most influential secondary school or other pre-college teacher who guided them during the formative stages of their academic career,” and Bryant was honored to be invited to offer remarks about Polzak on Stanford's campus, with full funding from the Terman Award.
“I was completely overwhelmed to have been one of the teachers Christos selected to be a part of the celebratory luncheon in honor of his tremendous accomplishments at Stanford's School of Engineering,” Bryant said. “Before Christos became my history student, I first became familiar with him because his computer science class met in my classroom. I remember being impressed by how curious, focused and attentive he was in Julian Cochran's class and saying to Julian, ‘I hope I get to teach him some day.’ I am not surprised that Christos excelled at Stanford. It is my honor to celebrate Christos' accomplishments; he is such a bright, humble, graceful, self-motivated, good-humored, friendly and intensely curious student.”
Speech and Debate Celebrates Competitors’ Success, Launches Middle School Elective
Durham Academy’s speech and debate team is growing by leaps and bounds — in both the scope of the program and in the success of its competitors. About 150 students from grades 7 to 12 participated in speech and debate this year, and there’s a lot to celebrate in competitors’ results over the course of the year.
Upper Schoolers competed at tournaments around the country, with some highlights including:
- 53 students qualified to national championship tournaments
- Overall state runner-up, with six individual state championships
- Championing Public Forum Debate at the Glenbrooks tournament in Chicago
- Multiple finalists at the Blue Key Tournament in Florida
- Elimination-round participants at the New York City Invitational
- Finalists at the Barkley Forum for High Schools hosted at Emory University
The year concluded at the NSDA (National Speech & Debate Association) National Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, with the program’s largest-ever cohort of students to qualify for the tournament. These 21 students represented Durham Academy in the largest academic competition of the year.
In addition, seventh- and eighth-graders had the opportunity to participate in the inaugural year of the Middle School Speech and Debate elective course. Middle Schoolers were also offered the opportunity to participate in virtual competitions, including the Harvard University tournament and the Middle School Tournament of Champions, and saw great success.
Susan Ellis
Varsity girls soccer coach and Middle School PE teacher Susan Ellis helped coach a team of pro- and college-level women’s players to a runner-up finish in the inaugural women’s bracket of The Soccer Tournament (TST), held over four days in June in Cary. Ellis was an assistant coach for the NC Courage team, which fell to the US Women team in the championship match. Also competing in TST was DA alumna Mollie Pathman ’10, who played with SoccerHead FC.
Chinese Program Earns National Accolade
The Durham Academy Chinese program has been recognized as a National Distinguished K-12 Chinese Program in the United States — a recognition bestowed by the Chinese Language Teachers Association. DA’s program was featured in the November 2023 publication of the Chinese Language Teachers Association and was lauded for students consistently excelling in state contests, presenting research at symposiums and publishing essays in prestigious academic magazines — as well as for the program’s efforts to create language and cultural immersion experiences, offer a variety of courses, support learning autonomy and provide interdisciplinary opportunities.
Eric Block
For more than 25 years, physical education teacher Eric Block has helped Preschool and Lower School students learn the joy and importance of moving and taking care of their bodies. His dedication was recognized at the Share the Wealth PE Conference in January, when he was honored with the Elizabeth Juanita Carter Dockery Award. The award, which recognizes educators for their work and love for students and the profession, provides a scholarship for a PE teacher to attend the conference, in memory of Dockery, a longtime physical education teacher.
“PE is an important part of our educational program in the Lower School, and we are grateful for Eric and our PE teaching team — Courtney Hexter, Costen Irons and Kristin Stroupe — for all they do to promote sportsmanship, health and wellness in our children,” said Lower School Director Carolyn Ronco. “It’s fun to watch our children’s skills grow from year to year and from class to class. PE is a perfect place to practice perseverance, commitment and empathy as children work on their own skills and support their classmates, too.”
Bern Costello Sets Lower School Reading Record
As a fourth-grader, Bern Costello ’32 established an unofficial Lower School record by checking out at least one book for 200 straight days during the 2023–2024 school year.
When asked how many books he read between Aug. 23, 2023, and May 20, 2024, he offered a modest estimate of 234 titles. However, Lower School librarian Dr. Michelle Rosen, suspecting that was an underestimation, consulted the library checkout system and — with great excitement — confirmed that Bern’s actual total was more than 375 books.
The Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce is at the top of his most-read list; Bern said the series’ humor played a big part in his interest. When asked whether he would aim to continue his streak in the Middle School, Costello shrugged nonchalantly: “I’ve always loved reading. I learned how to read at a young age, and it’s always been really fun to me.”