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Head of School Peter Becker ’95
The final two weeks of the school year bring a flurry of activity to campus, and some changes, as well. This year, our current lower mids, mids, and upper mids will spend two days after graduation engaged in thoughtful reflection and visionary thinking as they consider what Taft life might look like when they return in the fall. Hear more about that work from Mr. Becker in the video below.
_______________________________ Background Image: The Class of 2026 plants the Senior Tree.
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One Community, One Hour, 30,000 Meals
Serve Generously
Members of the Taft community recently came together for a meaningful and monumental challenge: Package 30,000 healthy meals for distribution across the greater Watertown/Waterbury community in just one hour. The extraordinary undertaking was built on an extraordinary and multifaceted foundation: Taft’s Human Geography course curriculum, student partnership with the alumni community, and the Taft school motto: Not to be served but to serve. Human Geography is an interdisciplinary field that combines the study of cultural geography and economic geography to explore relationships between people and their environments. In simple terms, Human Geography students explore where people live and why they live there, as well as how they interact across space. “Our final unit of the year is Agriculture,” explained History Teacher and Human Geography Section Head Megan Valenti. “We talk about different types of agriculture, the impact of agri-business, the Green Revolution, and most importantly, we talk about food insecurity.” Enter U.S. Hunger. Since 2010, U.S. Hunger has been working to provide healthy meals to those in need. Their work began with efforts to send food to then earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Since then, they have delivered more than 200 million meals to 53 countries across the globe. They are committed to solving the root causes of food insecurity and creating a hunger-free world. One of the ways they do that: Hunger Projects—high-energy and hands-on meal packaging events that empower volunteers to make a tangible difference in the fight against hunger. A few years ago, members of Taft’s Class of 1970 established a Leadership Grant program. The grants are designed to fund innovative and meaningful student projects built around the Taft School motto. Supporting Taft’s Human Geography students in a Hunger Project created by U.S. Hunger fit the bill to a T. With support from a Class of 1970 Leadership Grant and logistics and supplies from U.S. Hunger, Human Geography students, faculty, and staff volunteers successfully packaged 30,000 meals—red lentil jambalaya—in Laube in one hour. Local nonprofit agencies and Taft service partners will distribute the meals to families in need. “I believe this is really a testament to how we operate as a school,” noted Crystal Alacantra ’28. “We’re always willing to take time out of the day to go out and do something that will better someone’s life.”
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Summer Reading
Learn Deeply
Each year, members of the Taft community enjoy reflective and preparatory reading as part of Taft’s Summer Reading Program. It consists of two parts: an all-school read that is thematically connected to our speakers for the upcoming school year, and a grade-level read which will prepare students for discussions in their English classrooms in the fall. Hear more about our summer reading program from English teacher Emily Estes, and thoughts on reading from Emmy Solso ’29, Ha Haong ’28, Erin Arole ’28, and Sam Crocker ’27.
Guiding Question for the 2026-27 School Year
Next year, the Taft community will ask, "What does creativity look like in the 21st century?” We will explore this question through our summer reading, with help from external speakers and performances, and through work in our classrooms, and across our community. In addition to the artists we most readily associate with the concept of creativity, we will consider the role and power of creativity in technology, politics, religion, capitalism, mathematics, and more.
The Books
The Summer Reading Committee is excited to announce that the all school summer read this year offers two options; faculty, students, and staff are asked to choose between The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. In the fall, seniors and faculty members will explore each book through small group discussions. Students will also have an opportunity to engage in the tangible activity of letter writing or reviewing to express their own creativity within these mediums.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
John Green’s work is a collection of personal essays that showcases the intricacies of the shared human experience of our current geological age. Each essay, from Diet Dr. Pepper to Halley’s Comet, explores Green’s own take on the contribution that these events have made to our planet while also exploring how humanity has been the primary driver of environmental change. While this is one of the few non fiction works Green has produced, his trademark wit and enthusiastic voice permeates through the pages of this book transforming normal historical events into something more.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Virginia Evans' debut epistolary novel The Correspondent follows the life of main character Sybil Van Antwerp and the myriad of letters that she sends to her family, famous authors, and a mysterious recipient from her past. While fighting to hold on to the art of writing a physical letter, Sybil slowly comes to terms with all of the regrets and joys that she has experienced in her life while also encouraging those around her to value analog communication. The Correspondent is a poignant exploration of how we connect beyond the screen and a hopeful reminder that no mistake is too old to be forgiven.
Grade-Level Selections
This summer, each student is required to read one of the all-school reads as well as their grade-level read. Incoming lower mids will read Everything Sad is Untrue, by Daniel Nayeri; incoming mids will read Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell; incoming upper mids will read There There, by Tommy Orange, and all seniors and PGs will read Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words.
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Meet the Mons!
Lead with Courage
Each year 12 student-leaders are selected to serve as school monitors. These senior mons become role models and guides. Their leadership gives voice to the student body, and sets the tone for community relationships and experiences. They work with the Head of School and Office of Student Life to create space, activities, and relationships that help our community feel connected, inclusive, welcoming and, of course, fun!
Congratulations to the incoming 2026-27 school mons! Top row, left to right: JP Antonino, Cece Chatterjee, Zoe Chiweshe, Sam Crocker Middle row, l to r: Stark Gordon, Billy Halsell, Will McNulty, Scout Milner Bottom row: l to r: Co-Head Mon Myles Petitjean, Co-Head Mon, Anna Rossi, Emma Weitzel, Maya Woodhall
Meet the 2026-28 Co-Head Mons: Myles Petitjean and Anna Rossi
From Anna
Being a leader at Taft is being someone people can look up to, not in the sense of being perfect all the time but being a person that people can relate to and feel supported by. Next year as a Co-Head Monitor, I hope to embody this and be someone people will never be nervous to say “hi" to. I want to be a bridge that connects different groups within our school ensuring that every voice is heard and respected. By being approachable, and actively involved in school life I hope to create a more unified atmosphere where everyone feels like they belong and can thrive! I am more excited than ever for 2026-2027 school year!!
From Myles:
Being a leader at Taft means being an active member of the community, leading by example, and doing the best I can to make the Taft community comfortable and welcoming to everyone. Next year, as a Co-Head Monitor I hope to create a school where everyone feels a part of a community that communicates, helps one another, and is inclusive in order to give everyone a positive and memorable Taft experience. Lastly, the Taft community is always changing, whether it's new students or teachers, change is hard but it's also an amazing opportunity to shape Taft into the school and community we want to be a part of! I'm excited to serve as Co-Head Monitor and can't wait for the 2026-2027 school year!
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Snapshot: Academic Life
Build Purpose
History
Students in Alex Rivenburgh’s Legal Studies class were honored to welcome Federal Judges Hon. Karen L. Stevenson ’75, Chief United States Magistrate Judge, Central District of California and Hon. Sarah Merriam, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit to Taft. The two talked about the work they do as federal judges, rule of law, and the importance of the U.S. Constitution in our democracy. Stevenson, who was among the first group of girls admitted to Taft in the 1970s, also talked about how Taft prepared her for her role as a federal judge.
Science
Scientists working at Bent of the River Audubon Center in Southbury, CT, banded birds with students in Michael McAloon’s Honors Inquiry in Applied Biology class. They attached data bands to the birds’ legs, which included an age, health, and reproductive status assessments for each bird. Students participated in the assessments, then, Mr. McAloon notes, “had the chance to release captured birds back into our increasingly bird-friendly campus.” The project was part of a broader, more in-depth study of avian life, as well as theoretical and applied conservation practices. Students also presented individual research findings, developed using data collected from the eBird repository of avian observations, one of the world’s largest biodiversity projects, with over 100 million bird sightings contributed annually by citizen scientists and researchers around the world. Students identified a collection of diverse bird species for study, examined their natural histories and conservation status, developed hypotheses, and reported findings using thousands of data points. Most of the students have some type of connection to the species they selected for study.
English
The Pilgrimage is a senior elective in Taft’s English department. The curriculum includes literature of transformative journeys of the spirit and body, from The Canterbury Tales and Siddhartha, to Circe, Wild (From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail), and A Walk in the Woods. Along with engaging in experiential learning opportunities in nearby wilderness areas, students write one chapter of their own memoir of journey or personal movement. As the course draws to a close, Roddy Pratt and his students participated in a culminating outdoor experience this week—they hiked Connecticut’s Bear Mountain.
Arts
How is a theatrical production made? Audrey Kimball’s Theater Technology and Stage Design class answers that question. From conception to opening night, students learn about the roles of the producer, director, designers, actors, stage managers, and theater technicians, with a focus on the four design fields of the modern theater: sets, costumes, lights, and sound.
Global Leadership
Throughout their two-year program, Global Leadership Institute Scholars begin applying knowledge and skills gleaned through Institute work to the development of culminating projects. GLI Cohort XI Scholars presented their final projects at a celebratory gathering marking the end of their two-year program. Their presentations (and projects themselves) reflect each scholar’s dedication to intellectual curiosity, research, leadership, and service, and their commitment to creating a meaningful impact on the lives of people in their community, and included these topics: The Solution to Salt: Sustainable Deicing in Winter; Clothes for Confidence: A Prom Drive for Children in Foster Care; Elevating Emotional Literacy Among Youth; Restorative Practices in Dance; Elderly Isolation; Adolescent Grief Outreach; Music Therapy; Helping Low-Income Families at Home; Supporting Early Education and Diverse Minds; Mental Health & Self-Care; No Empty Plates: A Partnership Approach to Ending Hunger; and The Youth Opportunity Gap: Hidden Barriers to Internships for Teens. The cohort includes students from Taft and Waterbury Public Schools. Congratulations to Taft’s Bernice Zhang, Thomas Shin, Janet Wanyonyi, Preston Yow, Maya Woodhall, Scout Milner, Carson Chen, Anny Qian, Veronica Antov, Zoë Woodhall, Dylan Meullers, Sam Crocker, Taft GLI Director Bri Foley, and Assistant Director Pilar Santos.
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"This History Was Not That Long Ago.” - Clint Smith
2025-26 Speaker Series: What Does it Mean to Be Human?
Award-winning author, poet, and scholar Clint Smith was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, “a majority black city that had more homages to enslavers than there were to enslaved people,” Smith told the Taft community during a Morning Meeting talk on campus. In 2017, Smith watched as those homages— the confederate statues that filled the city’s landscape began to come down. “We know that symbols and names and iconography reflect the stories that people tell. And those stories shape the narratives that communities carry. And those narratives shape public policy. And public policy is what shapes the material conditions of peoples’ lives,” Smith noted. “And that doesn’t just mean that if you take down a 60-foot-tall statue of Robert E. Lee you’ll suddenly erase the racial wealth gap. Or if you change the name of Jefferson Davis Elementary School you suddenly create more equal academic outcomes. But it does, I think, help us recognize the ecosystem of ideas, and stories, and narratives that help ground our understanding of American history, and help ground our understanding of the ways that certain communities have been disproportionately and intentionally harmed throughout American history.” As the statues fell, Smith began to think about how, despite being raised in the city that was the heart of the domestic slave trade and despite being a descendent of enslaved people, he did not “understand slavery in a way that was commensurate to the impact and the legacy that it had on this country. And I had a sense that I was not the only person who didn’t understand the extent to which this legacy of slavery continued to shape the contemporary landscape of inequality,” Smith explained. And so began a journey that would become the foundation of Smith’s book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. His all-school address at Taft continued with stories, reflections, realizations, and insights from that journey—a quest to undercover how the story of slavery is being told today across the United States. Smith spoke of his visit to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, VA. Jefferson was the third US President, and one of the nation’s intellectual founding fathers. He authored the Declaration of Independence in which he wrote, “all men are created equal.” And yet he enslaved more than 600 people in his lifetime, including four of his own children. He condoned and directed some of the most brutal acts inflicted on enslaved people. These are facts presented during tours of Monticello. They are not, Smith said, a version of Jefferson that he was ever taught. “What is lost when we fail to talk about and account for the totality of someone like Jefferson who is so central to the founding of this country?” Smith asks. “What does it suggest to us when we fail to account for the totality of what American has been?” Smith also spoke of his visit to the Louisiana State Penitentiary—Angola—with Norris Henderson, a wrongly convicted man who served 27 years in a facility built on a former plantation, where 75% of those held there are Black men, and 70% are serving life sentences. Some have been held in Angola there since they were 13- 14-, 17-years old. Convicted by non-unanimous juries—due to a loophole in the 13th amendment that is rooted in racism. As they were leaving Angola by bus, “Norris looked at me, opened his hands, calloused. ‘I can’t explain to you what if felt like to pick cotton for seven cents an hour and to wonder if my relatives picked cotton on the same land 200 years ago.’” Smith recalled. “For the people incarcerated in Angola, this history is not a metaphor, it’s not an exercise, it is not something in a textbook, it’s not an intellectual abstraction. It is in their bodies. It’s in their bones. It’s in the callouses in their hands. It is what Saidiya Hartman calls ‘the afterlife of slavery.’ How the residue and remnants of slavery continue to shape the social and political infrastructure of this country in profound and direct ways.” And Smith shared the starkly disparity between the experience of visiting a confederate cemetery—Blanford Cemetery in Petersburg, VA—where a man named Jeff shared what he learned at his grandfather’s knee on that site, with his own visit to National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC with his grandparents. Much of what Jeff learned about of the Civil War, secession, and slavery in those moments with his grandfather and family is infused with happy memories—shaped by the people he loved, in the community he loved. It represents a relationship foundational to his identity. He shares the same stories in the same cemetery, now, with his own grandchildren. “In that cemetery I realized that, for so many people, history is not about primary source documents or empirical evidence, it is a story that they are told. It is an heirloom that is passed down across generations. It is something where loyalty takes precedence over truth. And for me, it was deeply important for us to understand what is animating the beliefs that people hold.” But for Smith, there is primary source material—empirical evidence—that is deeply valued: his family’s lived history. Smith’s grandparents were both born in the south during Jim Crow Era. Their visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture was revelatory. “I had this moment where I was watching them looking at these exhibits in this museum where I realized that so much of the history that is documented in this museum are things that that they experienced first-hand,” Smith told the Taft community. “I asked my grandmother about it later and she had this refrain she kept saying: ‘I lived it. I lived it. I lived it.’ “I’m reminded that this history that we tell ourselves was a long time ago was not that long ago at all. There are people alive today who knew, loved, who were raised by people who were born into slavery. Slavery existed formally in this country for about 250 years. It has not existed for 160. We have an institution that has existed for a century longer than it hasn’t. “I started this book by thinking about how the scars of slavery are etched into the physical landscape of our country. That everywhere you turn, whether it be Georgia or Connecticut. If you look around you will find the history of slavery if you look hard enough. But part of what also happened is I got a clearer sense of our temporal proximity to this history. How it’s not only our physical history—how the ground we walk on was once walked on by these people— but it is also recognition that this history was not that long ago.” _________________ Clint Smith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of two books of poetry, the New York Times bestselling collection Above Ground as well as Counting Descent. Both poetry collections were winners of the Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and both were finalists for NAACP Image Awards. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Smith has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art for Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and elsewhere. He is a former National Poetry Slam champion and a recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review. He is the host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History. He received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Clint Smith’s visit to Taft was part of the school’s yearlong exploration of and quest for uniquely informed answers to the question, “What does it mean to be human?” The work includes an all-school read, community conversations, morning meetings, work by faculty in and outside our classrooms, and through our outside speaker series, of which we are deeply grateful to Mr. Smith for taking part in this year. In addition to his Morning Meeting address, Mr. Smith held an open Q & A, spent time with individual students and in classes, including Human Geography, Honors Senior Literature Class, History of Art, Race and Gender in Film, and Senior English.
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"Because our kids are bombarded with messages on the importance of achievement, home needs to be a safe place to land, a place where their mattering is never in question.” -Jennifer Wallace
2025-26 Speaker Series: What Does it Mean to Be Human?
Jennifer Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling books Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It and Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. She worked as a producer at CBS “60 Minutes," where she was part of the team that won The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and frequently appears on national television programs to discuss her work. Wallace recently visited Taft as part of our 2025-26 Speaker Series built around the guiding question, “What does it mean to be human?” She spoke with students during an all-school meeting.
In researching her book, Wallace found a Washington Post article looking at two national reports that asked, “Who are the young people most at risk for negative health outcomes?” “For the first time ever, in 2019, they named students in high-achieving schools, public and private all over the country like my kids go to, like you go to,” Wallace told the Taft audience. “These students were two to six times more likely to suffer from clinical levels of anxiety and depression, and two to three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse disorder than the average American teen. And this is because of what researchers were calling excessive pressure to achieve. So for the book and as a parent I wanted to know who are the kids who are doing well in these high-achieving communities? What do they have in common? What did their parents focus on when they talked to them? How did they experience the relationship with their friends and with their teachers? How did they see their role in the wider community? And these healthy strivers, as I call them in the book, had a lot in common, but it all boiled down to an idea called mattering.” Mattering, Wallace notes, has been studied since the 1980s, and is defined by researchers as feeling valued for who we are deep inside and having an opportunity to add value back to the world around us. Mattering gave the healthy strivers a kind of “protective shield,” Wallace noted, when they bombed a test or didn’t make a team or get a part in the play. “These setbacks—these failures—didn’t define them. They were just things that happened to them,” Wallace explained, "but they felt like they mattered no matter what.”
You can watch Wallace’s full all-school talk here, using this password: JWSpeakerSeries2026
Wallace also joined Amy Julia Becker ’94 for a conversation about mattering that was livestreamed for Taft parents. It included Q & A time based on questions submitted by parents. You can watch that conversation here using this password: TaftTalks2026.
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The Arts at Taft
Cultivate Creativity
The spectacular spring musical, 13 may be over (amazing photos here and below), but there is still more to come from Taft’s artists.
Spring Dance Showcase
Join us Sunday, May 17th at 7 pm in Bingham Auditorium for the Spring Dance Showcase. Can’t make it to campus? Join the livestream here.
Taft Chamber Orchestra Performs with Waterbury Symphony Orchestra
Taft musicians will join the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra (WSO) for their season finale, “Simply Fantastique,” Sunday, May 17th at 3 pm at the Fine Arts Center of CT State Community College, Waterbury, CT. The concert opens with the side-by-side collaborative performance between WSO and Taft Chamber Orchestra musicians. They will perform the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 “Haffner.” WSO Music Conductor Leif Bjaland will visit Taft for a special rehearsal on campus Friday; Taft students will rehearse with the full orchestra on Friday evening. Click here for tickets, information about WSO, and information about the concert.
Honors Studio Art in Potter Gallery
Honors Studio Art students will show works from their portfolios in Potter Gallery May 15th through May 25th. An opening reception begins at 6 pm on Friday, May 15th.
Graduation Concert
Collegium Musicum, Jazz Band, and Chamber Ensemble will perform a graduation concert Saturday, May 23rd at 5 pm. Catch the concert in Bingham or via livestream here.
The Show! 13: The Musical
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A Job Well Done!
Mr. Dunn, Director of Athletics and the Afternoon Program
As the end of the year rapidly approaches, Mr. Dunn pauses to acknowledge all of the hard work and dedication shown through the Afternoon Program this year.
It is also championship season. Tomorrow, Saturday, May 16th, features a number of big events for our teams. Find the full schedule here. GO RHINOS!
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A Walk Through Taft
A Poem by and for the Taft Community
April was National Poetry month, and when Justin Hudak asked his seniors in his poetry elective how a class dedicated to studying poems, poets, poetry at Taft should celebrate, their idea was, well, poetic: A community poem. Hudak’s students invited each Taft English class to collaborate on a single verse about a location on campus. The senior scholars then arranged the submissions to create the poem below, A Walk Through Taft. Can you identify all of the stops on their campus tour? Thanks to Mr. Hudak and his students—Josephine Andonellis, Cindy Cao, John-Jay Comfort, Lincoln Durfee, Alex He, Charlie Hurst, Lachlan Newell, James Peck, Logan Reed, Stasia Spurling, Mac Trombley, Michael Werblow—for this creative walk through our hallways, common spaces, and special Taft places.
A Walk Through Taft Welcome to Taft, where fear turns to flowers as new buds blossom Bring in new, bring in good Look up! Lucky Lincoln’s gold nose, this is the start of it all Stately, routine gathering for listening or blathering Squirrels, girls, and the voice of Bridger’s chorals — as you walk by, sound sings! Students explore the world under ripples — quack — careful, don’t fall
Tour guides go in and out, prospective students fill the couch The place where constant chatter flows, different language, different tones History on the walls, gather and meet, on a comfy couch Community resource and a tradition, of course What’s up, Marty? These bacon-egg-and-cheeses make me wanna party
Students’ laughter fills the air, the smell of coffee everywhere Up the steps, serene silence — shhh . . . scholars scolded softly. Bang! Whooosh — a world gone still; ceiling high as wonder, brush strokes fill A whiff of ancient history, study, while books bask in light Closed windows, rust fountains, spiral staircase, and genius on walls
Under golden letters, barren is the path to Paradise LAXadaisical beasts indeed. I’d only show face for a Fino’s feed Sandwiched between DoorDash and Dining A forbidden zone, unknown, the last frontier; girls are dear Crazy corridors crash with chaos and laughter Little house at the edge, between the walls alive with friendship
Class of ’38, Wade through tough terrains, house made in his name Sisterhood thrives where KJM lies; legacy never dies Vibrant courts withstand it all, where champions play Frew it all Squash courts’ glass, works like a mirror as you pass Spirit, pride, strength, and passionate roars — Taft always scores Players collide, puck hits the net, horn blares, white shirts roar — “Rhinos!”
Chants of “We are!” echo where we are.
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In Case You Missed It...
A Little Evening Music
Taft musicians performed in Walker Hall this week. Watch the full concert below.
Taft Talks: Parenting Boys
Social science data that suggests that many teenage boys are having a tough time, and that depression and anxiety rates on the rise among this group. Moderator Amy Julia Becker '94, Director of Counseling Dr. Rachel Jacobs, School Counselor Dr. Jonas Katkavich, and Dean of Community, Justice and Belonging Thomas Allen shared their perspectives on the health and wellness of the young men in our community and talked about how Taft leads and shapes conversations around these issues, while working to support our students.
Watch a recording of their conversation here using this password: TaftTalks2026
Taft Talks: Parenting Girls
Taft Talks Moderator Amy Julia Becker '94, Director of Counseling and Community Health Dr. Rachel Jacobs, and School Counselor Gaby Dorval '99 explored the pressures young women often face during adolescence, with a particular focus on the newer challenges that come with the proliferation of and social media. How are girls at Taft faring in a world filled with images of ideal humans, constant comparison, and the pursuit of academic, athletic, artistic, and co-curricular excellence? How can parents support their daughters in this climate? Watch a recording of the Zoom event, Taft Talks: Parenting Girls here using this password: TaftTalks2026