Alumni Features

When Faith Couch ’15 arrived in Baltimore to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art, she had no family living in the area and didn’t know anyone. Her plan was to make friends, to get involved in the community — and did she ever.

If you think the interests that grab a teenager’s attention in high school don’t really have an impact, talk with Brendan Bradley ’01 and you may change your mind.

When the winds of COVID-19 touched down in North Carolina, the pandemic was met by Becki Feinglos Planchard, a 2007 Durham Academy graduate who has helped navigate the waters of how to safely reopen the state’s public schools.

Speaking from her home in New York City via a virtual meeting of DA Upper School’s History of Durham class in October 2020, Valerie Kennedy ’81 held students in rapt attention as she recalled the challenges and opportunities presented by growing up in Durham and attending DA in a time of change. 

I graduated from DA in 1997, filling the next 23 years of my life with adventures that have a common theme — learning and having an open and agile mindset to take on new challenges. I attended Columbia University, where I played Division I field hockey, majored in political science and spent a semester in Beijing, all of which truly challenged me as I worked hard to find a balance between academics, sports and fun.

In late April, Durham Academy alumna and University of Oxford classics professor Dr. Alison Rosenblitt ’95 reached out with a unique proposal: a trans-Atlantic Zoom master class on E. E. Cummings for Upper School English students and teachers.