School News

On January 30, Browning’s Form II French students participated in the annual Middle School theater festival at the Lycée Français de New York.

French teacher Dominique Bernard reports: The imposing amphitheater was packed, the tension was palpable and the boys a little nervous but very motivated. Their assignment was to present a short performance of five to seven minutes based on this year’s theme, “Disgust and Desire.” The quality of all the plays was remarkable and perhaps even better than in the past. Well-assisted by his talented peers, a Form II Browning boy was awarded the “best non-French speaking male actor trophy.” Browning also won a “Coup de Coeur” (difficult to translate in English, but it means “loving something impulsively”) for Humor. This was a superb achievement indeed! The festival was, as it is every year, an enjoyable and engaging activity. The numerous Browning parents who attended the event had every reason to be proud of their children! View photos.

Read More

Even in a crowd of 3,000 Model UN delegates from around the world, Browning's determined delegation of 20 made its presence known in large and small committees and won recognition at the closing ceremonies. During four days at the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference (ILMUNC) in Philadelphia, Browning's seasoned and novice participants worked hard, topping off the weekend with the annual dinner at the Imperial Inn in Chinatown.

History teacher Gerald Protheroe observed: "It was the biggest ILMUNC I have experienced since we first attended -- a veritable United Nations in fact. This was a truly global affair with schools from China, including the prestigious Shanghai High School, as well as from Canada, Venezuela, Peru, India and the Dominican Republic. Some of the Committees had as many as 250 students on them. Our delegation representing Saudi Arabia performed exceedingly well." View photos.

Read More

Lower School music teacher Lucy Warner reports that on January 21 and 28, recital assemblies featured Lower School boys playing instrumental pieces on piano, guitar, violin, and cello, with selections ranging from Bach to Eric Clapton. Headmaster Clement praised the young Browning musicians for their talent and courage to perform in front of such a large audience. Ms. Warner notes that the final such Lower School Assembly Recital, attended by all Lower School students and faculty during the school day, is scheduled for the morning of March 10. View photos.

Read More

Every January, the Browning Form IV boys and Form VI Peer Leaders make the trek to the Frost Valley YMCA camp in the Catskills to engage in three days of programming with the Interschool community to discuss issues surrounding their shared identity as high schoolers and New Yorkers. Students have the opportunity to participate in outdoor activities such as tubing, cross-country skiing and broom-ball. The boys also look forward to an Open Mic night and square dancing with students from Brearley, Chapin, Collegiate, Nightingale and Spence. Click here to view photos and read additional details from Dean of Students Mr. Keany.

Read More

Every year Art Department Chair Nik Vlahos, along with art teacher Zack Davis, choose a central theme such that all boys enrolled in an art class in the fall will create art focused on that particular topic. Some works are collective and others individual. Mr. Vlahos explained, “The collective works are stretched canvas reproductions of the artists’ work we are studying. The trick is to find an artist or artists who can engage a Pre-primary boy and also challenge a Form VI student. This year the boys studied painters influenced by jazz. The artists span from the early 20th century to the contemporary time period, including Stuart Davis, Alma Thomas, Romare Bearden, Jackson Pollock, Elizabeth Murray and Stanley Whitney.

Many of the artworks are now displayed in the Cafeteria and were unveiled to boys in all divisions the week of January 18. Click here for more details and to watch a video about how the art department utilized the concept of the Mellow Pad to influence the boys’ artworks. 

Read More

Browning’s second annual Community Day was a celebration of the school community and an opportunity to take a closer look at the world outside its walls, according to Dr. Betty Noel, diversity coordinator and science teacher, who coordinated the event. The boys and faculty engaged with one another in a number of morning conversations and activities at Browning, including a shared Google Map with pins indicating the many places where the families of each group member hail from. A scavenger hunt and traditional intraschool games were also part of the agenda, followed by a community lunch. The members of Browning’s food services team were pleased to play their part. Faculty members commented on the fact that the younger boys looked up to the older ones, even holding hands with them as they participated in the day’s activities. The older boys were equally happy to be with the younger boys, taking their roles as models and mentors to heart.

Click here to read more and watch a video of boys and faculty discuss the efforts to to partake in a number of community service endeavors that benefited a local food pantry, under-served youth, and incarcerated book lovers, among others.

Read More

Headmaster Clement always looks forward to the Browning and Marymount Family Skating Party at Central Park’s Wollman Rink, held this year on February 11. He especially enjoyed the 2016 event, as Browning’s hockey team wore commemorative badges honoring Mr. Clement’s 28th and final year as head of our school. The next day, he was pleased to wear his winter coat with the badge in place for all to admire. 

Browning and Marymount community members enjoyed hot chocolate and the warm camaraderie that exists between both schools. Along with Headmaster Clement and Marymount's headmistress, Concepcion Alvar, everyone enjoyed seeing “felines on ice!” Browning’s panther mascot and Marymount’s Rory the lion mascot donned their skates to join in the festivities. What a great way to start off the week! View photos.

Read More

French teacher Dominique Bernard reports on an annual class project that combines hands-on fabrication with research and language skills: “Every year we continue the Browning tradition of asking that the sixth grade French students create scale models of famous French monuments and write essays recounting the history of the edifices chosen. As always, the boys creatively built and presented their excellent projects to their classmates! Chapeau les garçons for such excellent work! View photos.

Read More

The Browning community joined together on December 18 in Temple Emanu-El for the School’s annual holiday program, “Circle of Song,” led by Music Directors David Prestigiacomo and Lucy Warner. This festive event began with remarks from Headmaster Clement, followed by readings and performances by individual boys as well as Form I Hand Chimes, Holiday Strings Orchestra, Starbright Strings, Tick-Tock Orchestra, Holly Jolly Dancers, Ovation Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, and Middle and Upper School Choruses. Click here to view photos.

Read More

On December 15 the sixth grade boys, along with teachers Mary Bosworth and Zack Davis, walked up Park Avenue to the Asia Society where they viewed “Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms.” Ms. Bosworth explained, “This wonderful exhibit tied in with our study of archeology. We are grateful to one of our Browning parents who works at the Asia Society and is from Vietnam for offering to speak to the boys during our tour. Afterward, she gave us all a Chinese coin and chocolate truffle wrapped in gold paper as a remembrance of our visit.”

This special exhibit was organized in conjunction with the Ayala Museum, located in the Philippines, and features exquisite gold jewelry, including necklaces, pendants, bracelets and earrings, as well as gold bowls and dishes. Because many of the 120 treasures in this exhibit are so finely detailed, the boys used magnifying glasses to gain a closer look at the incredible work involved in fabricating these pieces. Click here to view photos and read a report of the trip.

Read More

The third grade boys recently took a trip to the National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath), billed as "the nation’s first major museum dedicated to mathematics." The facility appeals to a kid's sense of fun with a hands-on learning center that challenges conventional views of mathematics. Ms. Kehoe and Ms. Alterman organized the trip to enhance classroom learning based on the Singapore math program. Click here to view photos and read a report from Director of Communications Design Jeremy Katz '04, who accompanied the boys and teachers on their trip.

Read More

At a Lower School Assembly on December 10, Rhonda Keyser of Cafeteria Culture spoke to Browning boys about the importance of decreasing waste in the School’s dining hall. Originally founded in 2009 by a group of concerned parents and educators as Styrofoam Out of Schools, this group partnered with New York City’s Department of Education School Food and Parsons The New School to eliminate the 860,000 toxic and polluting Styrofoam lunch trays used in school cafeterias every day. View photos and learn more about what the boys learned in the program. For more information on Cafeteria Culture, visit their website at cafeteriaculture.org.

Read More

Coach Dan Ragsdale reports that during the November 30 varsity basketball game against Friends Seminary, Will Jacob '16 netted his 1,000th career point in the second half. Will is the fourth player in Browning’s history to reach this auspicious milestone. Athletic Director Andrew West ’92 said, “Having been a Browning student and watching Adam Friedman ’89 score his 1,000th point in 1989 and later coaching both Terrel Phelps ’11 and Sean Brownridge ’07 as they went on to score 1,000 points in 2009 and 2007, respectively, I know how hard it is to score that many points.”

Coach West added, “From the time he was in Pre-primary, I have watched Will zip up and down the court playing whatever game we were playing and always doing it at a lightning-fast pace. He has always had that extra ‘something’ that is hard to explain and even harder to teach. He is fearless and willing to sacrifice his body in order to get to the basket; he always gives it his all. Outside of basketball, Will is also quite the soccer and baseball player as well as recreational tennis player. I look forward to keeping in touch as fellow alumni. Congrats, Will!” Click here to watch video of his 1,000th point.

Read More

Form V and VI boys in Spanish IV and Conversational Spanish enjoyed a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) along with Spanish teacher Elizabeth Suárez and art teacher-chaperone Zach Davis. In a most impressive display of their mastery of the language, the boys conversed entirely in Spanish with Ms. Suárez and Mr. Davis while walking from Browning to the museum and browsing in the MoMA bookstore before their tour.

This field trip augmented their unit on Latin American and Spanish painters, including Joaquín Torres-García, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. Upon their arrival, the boys and teachers were given a tour by a docent who spoke only in Spanish; Ms. Suárez had specifically requested beforehand that the boys explore the artworks with one of MoMA’s three Spanish-speaking guides. Among the fantastic art viewed that day were two special exhibits, “Picasso Sculpture” and “Joaquín Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern.” The former is described by MoMA as “a sweeping survey of Pablo Picasso’s innovative and influential work in three dimensions; the first such museum exhibition in the United States in nearly half a century, while the latter is billed as “a major retrospective of [Uruguayan artist Torres-García featuring] works ranging from the late 19th century to the 1940s, including drawings, paintings, objects, sculptures, and original artist notebooks and rare publications.” The boys also appreciated wonderful works by Miró and Dalí, including “The Persistence of Memory.”

Click here to read details of the trip and photos, which includes a group portrait of the Browning boys, Ms. Suárez, Mr. Davis and docent Ms. Ada Cruz in front of an enlarged image of Torres-García’s iconic “America invertida” on display at MoMA. 

Read More

On December 7 Dr. Craig Nevill-Manning, director of New York Engineering at Google, Inc., and a computer scientist who founded Google’s first engineering center outside of Silicon Valley, spoke to Form II through VI boys at Browning during Computer Science Education Week celebrated across the world via “Hour of Code” events. Dr. Nevill-Manning completed his doctorate in computer science at Waikato University, New Zealand, in 1996 before moving to the U.S. for post-doctoral work at Stanford University. He was honored in 2010 by the Carnegie Institute as one of America’s great immigrants. Read more about him at carnegie.org.

During his talk, facilitated by Browning parent David Eun, Dr. Nevill-Manning discussed various projects that Google is working on, including self-driving cars, Internet for all, and disaster relief support. He encouraged the boys to get involved with the Hour of Code via code.org.

The day before, Browning’s Director of Academic Technology Saber Khan organized a hackathon series with Columbia Prep and Riverdale on December 6 as part of the Agile Youth Challenge (AYC), a programming hackathon/codeathon competition for students in grades 6-12 with any level of programming experience enrolled at any New York City or area school. Mr. Khan, along with Director of Technology Aaron Grill, led two teams of Browning boys in the competition. He declared, “This was the most diverse hackathon we’ve ever seen!”

Mr. Khan added that AYC was founded by members of several New York City schools, and grew out of the organizers’ desire to blend ongoing learning experiences into the immediate and intense challenges of a hackathon/codeathon. The goal is to bring teams together in friendly competition, give them a chance to evaluate and learn from their performance back at school, and then present another chance to compete and apply what they’ve learned. The second AYC hackathon will take place at Grand Central Tech on Sunday, March 13, 2016. View photos.

Read More

Since the start of the 2015 school year, Browning boys have earnestly taken to heart the School’s mission statement that they be responsible “to the broader community” by lending a helping hand to a number of charitable organizations. Lower School boys led a successful initiative to benefit City Harvest, an organization that provides food to the hungry in New York City. They also participated in the annual McDonald Fun Run in Central Park, which raises money for temporary housing for children diagnosed with cancer. 

Members of the Middle School Student Council organized another successful Thanksgiving Food Drive and Dress Down Day in November to benefit the New York Common Pantry. Together these efforts collected 460 pounds of food and raised $1,298.07, an amount to buy enough food to feed 37 families. The boys and their faculty advisors, Megan Ryan and Dan Ragsdale, are grateful to members of the Browning community for their generous support of this long-standing tradition.

Upper School Student Council members hosted a Dress Down Day in October, with boys and faculty encouraged to wear a pink apparel item in support of Susan G. Komen®, a non-profit organization dedicated to “saving lives and ending breast cancer forever.” The fundraiser raised a total of $1,956.75. As part of this effort, the varsity soccer team donned pink uniforms to raise awareness while on the field. Team member Micah B. ’17 said, “To wear a special pink jersey for a game this season was fun and a really nice touch. It was exciting to go out onto the field in spirit and promote a really good cause with the hope it will lead to other teams raising awareness as well. It is a new tradition that I am proud will continue in seasons to come.”

Earlier this year, Director of Athletics Andrew West ’92 and Modern Languages Chair Megan Ryan coordinated a donation effort for a school in Kenya. Stephen Fleischer ’10 served as the link between Browning and the Kenyan school, Our Lady of Nazareth, where Stephen volunteered this past year. Athletic jerseys, chess sets, games and school supplies were among some of the items given as a result of the collaboration between Mr. Fleischer and Coach West. “Thanks to the generosity of The Browning School, we were able to equip this Kenyan school with basketballs, uniforms, whistles, practice pennies and even a referee’s uniform,” said Mr. Fleischer. “We created Our Lady of Nazareth’s first competitive sports team. Teamwork, sportsmanship and competition are just three of the many benefits that this basketball team imparts to its members.” View photos.

Read More

On November 24, the Browning community participated in the School’s 28th Thanksgiving Assembly in Christ Church. As faculty and boys took their seats, the Form II Drumming Circle performed “Improvisations from the New World.” Headmaster Clement, who began this tradition in his first year at Browning in 1988, welcomed everyone and asked them to quietly reflect on what they are most thankful for. Mr. Clement noted that he is grateful for the teachers who further the goals of the School and that he will miss them when he retires at the end of this school year.

Following his remarks, an ensemble of faculty singers led the community in another tradition, the singing of “We Gather Together.” Next, John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Pumpkin” was read by a Form III boy, and the president of the Upper School Student Council offered remarks and extended wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all. The president of the Middle School Student Council spoke about the success of the council’s annual Food Drive and Dress down Day which benefited the New York Common Pantry. Their efforts collected 460 pounds of food and raised $1,298.07, an amount that will buy enough food to feed 37 families. He acknowledged the generous support of the Browning community in making this long-standing tradition so successful.

Musical performances always add a wonderful element to this particular assembly.  Chair of the Music Department David Prestigiacomo and Lower School music teacher Lucy Warner worked with the boys for many weeks to prepare for this day. The Ovation Orchestra played Mozart’s “Minuet in G, K. 315,” while the Browning Balladeers (Grade Four) performed a spiritual, “Peace Like a River.” Finally, the Form II Handchimes played “An American Medley.”

A favorite part of the program occurred when Director of College Guidance Sanford M. Pelz ’71 and the Class of 2016 welcomed returning alumni who introduced themselves and indicated the college they are currently attending. As is tradition, the Browning Panther mascot made a special appearance, this year dressed as a turkey. The program concluded with the singing of “The Browning School Song” followed by distribution of the first issue of the Grytte student newspaper. Alumni were treated to a reception back at the School where they mingled with former teachers and Form VI boys. View photos.

Read More

Department Chair and Dean of Students Sam Keany offers the following news about Browning’s Science Bowl Team: “I am excited to report that on November 21, the team won in convincing fashion in the Interschool Science Bowl. Competing against teams from Brearley, Chapin, Dalton, host school Spence, and Trinity, the ‘science Panthers’ made it to the finals with a 4-1 record in the preliminary rounds. Meeting Trinity in the finals for the third straight year, Browning immediately shot ahead with a series of correct toss-up questions (worth four points each) and follow-up bonus questions (worth 10 points each), amassing a lead that the Trinity team never challenged. The final score of the game was Browning 130, Trinity 58.”

Mr. Keany extended congratulations to the Browning team composed of boys from Form III to Form VI, all of whom played in at least one match, and, of course, to their inspiring coach and science teacher Melodie Ting! He added that in a positive turn, the logistics for the tournament were completely organized by Spence’s student team members, and he hopes future host school teams will follow suit. View photos.

Read More

The Middle School boys have been hard at work since the end of September to stage their production of "The Comedy of Errors," directed by Head Librarian Sarah Murphy. With 18 Middle School actors from Browning and four actresses from Brearley, along with a band composed of Middle and Upper School boys, the cast and accompanying musicians entertained a standing room-only crowd on their opening night this past Wednesday! Additional performances on Thursday allowed many members of the Browning and Brearley communities to experience one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies. View photos.

Read More

The fourth grade boys recently spent the morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with their study of Ancient Egypt. As they explored the Egyptian wing of the museum, they were able to point out many gods, pharaohs and artifacts they recognized from their readings. The Museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art, according to its website, consists of approximately 26,000 objects of artistic, historical and cultural importance, dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (ca. 300,000 B.C.–A.D. 4th century). Click here to view photos and read a report by Director of Communications Design Jeremy Katz '04, who accompanied the fourth grade class on their trip.

Read More