Germantown Friends School
Encyclopedia
Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a coeducation
al K-12 school in the Germantown
neighborhood of Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania
in the United States
under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers). It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn mainly from the membership of the Meeting and the School's alumni. The School's current Head is Richard "Dick" L. Wade.
Since the 1930s, Germantown Friends has been a respected and influential private day school, educating students in traditional humanistic studies in the light of the Quaker tradition. Many graduates have gone on to leading colleges and universities in the United States, including Ivy League
institutions. In 1925, admission statistics at the University of Pennsylvania
showed that 10-20% of the Germantown Friends School graduating class matriculated at the University. Due to the strong academic preparation of the school, the percentage of Germantown Friends graduates who matriculate at Penn remains about 10-20%. Other popular college destinations include Princeton University
, Dartmouth College
, Haverford College
, Brown University
, Trinity College
, and the University of Chicago
. Present Germantown Friends students generally have a reputation for community service, intellectual boldness, and broad artistic interests.
which like all Friends Meetings valued an equal education for boys and girls. Until some time in the early 20th century, Germantown Friends was a "select" school, meaning that only the children of Quaker parents were admitted. The school in the early 20th century was a cheerful but proper place. Germantown Monthly Meeting was an Orthodox meeting
and thus valued classical education, but athletics and the arts were still considered, as they had been since the founding of the Society of Friends in the 17th century, a diversion from the essentials needed by a young person growing up in a complex world. Esther Greenleaf Mürer has collected some relevant sources on this issue. http://home.att.net/~quakart/texts/index.htm.
. The relay's time of 10:11.54 was the second fastest high school Distance Medley Relay
in the nation at the time, and the fastest in Pennsylvania. A friendly rivalry exists between GFS and Friends' Central School
, who compete with each other for possession of the Felsen Cup, named after an administrator who has worked at and given much to both schools. Another rival is Penn Charter School, whose campus is adjacent to Germantown Friends' athletic fields. However, Penn Charter is a member of the Inter-Academic League, de-intensifying this rivalry. One interesting tradition of Germantown Friends School basketball teams is never to play full-court defense if leading by 20 points or more. GFS also excels in other athletic activities as well, for instance teaching students rock-climbing. There is no Germantown Friends School fight song. Further, the school guidelines on spectator-conduct encourage cheering in favor of the GFS teams, forbid cheering against the opposing team, and are enforced by all faculty and staff present at athletic contests.
of each division. Meeting for Worship gives students the opportunity for introspection and discussion of spirituality. The weekly Meeting of each division have rather different characters. The Lower School Meeting is generally quite active with many short messages from students because elementary school children tend to appreciate the chance to be heard. The Middle School Meeting often is a very silent meeting, only punctuated by the occasional spiritual stirring of a faculty member. The Upper School Meeting is often focused on current events and fundamental issues of young adults. Seniors tend to speak, knowing that they will soon graduate and depart into the hopeful but complex world.
Other notable traditions include concerts by the GFS Choir under the direction of Mary Brewer, Lawrence Hoenig, and Steve Kushner. Choir tours have visited London (UK), Falaise (France), Cracow (Poland) and Copenhagen (Denmark), among other locales. In March 2005, the GFS Choir traveled to China, where it performed in conservatories, concert halls, and in the occasional impromptu street performance. In March 2008, the Choir went on a tour of the Southern portion of the United States, culminating in a few days in New Orleans, where the group helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity. Most recently, the Choir traveled to and throughout Puerto Rico during Spring Break of 2011. Other traditions include the 9th Grade Musical, the Dionysia (an Ancient Greek dramatic festival performed by 10th grade Ancient History classes), the Latin III Debates during an annual "Classics Day," and a Writers Assembly, showcasing pieces by writers from the Middle and Upper School.
One unusual graduation requirement at Germantown Friends School is the requirement that each junior complete an independent project, known as a "Junior Project." During this project, students have the opportunity to pursue some independent but intellectually rigorous activity in the local community or elsewhere in the world. If completed in January, students are given the month off to pursue the project, although they must go through a proposal process and present written and oral accounts of their work afterwards. Students must pay for at least half of all project expenses out of money the student earned through work (rather than by means of a parental allowance).
For many years, Germantown Friends gave academic awards to its students. During the 1990s, there arose concerns that the tradition might contain an underlying negative effect on the broader school community. After five years of faculty discussion and four years of student and alumni surveys, in 2002 the school discontinued its practice of making academic awards. In announcing this decision to the school community, the head of school noted that there were long-standing concerns about the detrimental effect of elevating a select few students above others in a ceremony with clear winners and losers, and how the practice stood in contrast to Friends' beliefs in honoring every person. He further noted that when surveyed, "students opposed any practice that created incentive to compete for grades rather than for learning's sake." While athletic awards are still given at Germantown Friends, the academic awards have been replaced with more opportunities for all students to showcase their work.
Commencement in recent decades has taken place at Arch Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia. The ceremony begins with an instruction concerning Meeting for Worship by a Quaker member of the graduating class, followed by a meeting. At present, GFS does not calculate GPA for purposes of class ranking, and therefore no Valedictorians or Salutatorian
s are selected. Instead, the graduating class elects one faculty member and one member of its own ranks to give addresses after the conclusion of the meeting. Following the addresses, the Head of School speaks and then awards diplomas to each member of the graduating class.
Coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al K-12 school in the Germantown
Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...
neighborhood of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
(Quakers). It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn mainly from the membership of the Meeting and the School's alumni. The School's current Head is Richard "Dick" L. Wade.
Since the 1930s, Germantown Friends has been a respected and influential private day school, educating students in traditional humanistic studies in the light of the Quaker tradition. Many graduates have gone on to leading colleges and universities in the United States, including Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
institutions. In 1925, admission statistics at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
showed that 10-20% of the Germantown Friends School graduating class matriculated at the University. Due to the strong academic preparation of the school, the percentage of Germantown Friends graduates who matriculate at Penn remains about 10-20%. Other popular college destinations include Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
, Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Trinity College
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Trinity College is a private, liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut after Yale University. The college enrolls 2,300 students and has been coeducational since 1969. Trinity offers 38 majors and 26 minors, and has...
, and the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Present Germantown Friends students generally have a reputation for community service, intellectual boldness, and broad artistic interests.
History
Germantown Friends School was founded in 1845 by Germantown Monthly Meeting which had grown in size and stature in the Philadelphia Quaker community during the previous several decades. The School was founded in response to a request of Philadelphia Yearly MeetingYearly Meeting
Yearly Meeting is a term used by members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, to refer to an organization composed of a collection of smaller, more frequent constituent meetings within a geographical area. These constituent meetings go by various names such as Quarterly Meetings, which...
which like all Friends Meetings valued an equal education for boys and girls. Until some time in the early 20th century, Germantown Friends was a "select" school, meaning that only the children of Quaker parents were admitted. The school in the early 20th century was a cheerful but proper place. Germantown Monthly Meeting was an Orthodox meeting
Meeting for worship
A meeting for worship is a practice of the Religious Society of Friends in many ways comparable to a church service. These services have a wide variety of forms, creating a spectrum from typical Protestant liturgy to silent waiting for the Spirit .A Meeting for Worship may start with a query;...
and thus valued classical education, but athletics and the arts were still considered, as they had been since the founding of the Society of Friends in the 17th century, a diversion from the essentials needed by a young person growing up in a complex world. Esther Greenleaf Mürer has collected some relevant sources on this issue. http://home.att.net/~quakart/texts/index.htm.
Athletic traditions
Germantown Friends School teams are nicknamed "The Tigers." A charter member of the Friends Schools League (FSL) http://www.friendsschoolsleague.org, its teams are almost always competitive within the League and sometimes are well-known in the Philadelphia area. In 2008, the Boys Track team won the High School Boys Distance Medley Championship of America at the Penn RelaysPenn Relays
The Penn Relays is the oldest and largest track and field competition in the United States, hosted annually since April 21, 1895 by the University of Pennsylvania at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
. The relay's time of 10:11.54 was the second fastest high school Distance Medley Relay
Distance Medley Relay
The distance medley relay is an athletic event in which four athletes compete as part of a relay. Unlike most track relays, each member of the team runs a different distance. A distance medley relay is made up of a 1200 meter leg, or three laps on a standard 400 meter track; a 400 meter leg, or one...
in the nation at the time, and the fastest in Pennsylvania. A friendly rivalry exists between GFS and Friends' Central School
Friends' Central School
Friends' Central School is a college-preparatory, Quaker, coeducational day school for nursery through grade 12 located in Wynnewood, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, who compete with each other for possession of the Felsen Cup, named after an administrator who has worked at and given much to both schools. Another rival is Penn Charter School, whose campus is adjacent to Germantown Friends' athletic fields. However, Penn Charter is a member of the Inter-Academic League, de-intensifying this rivalry. One interesting tradition of Germantown Friends School basketball teams is never to play full-court defense if leading by 20 points or more. GFS also excels in other athletic activities as well, for instance teaching students rock-climbing. There is no Germantown Friends School fight song. Further, the school guidelines on spectator-conduct encourage cheering in favor of the GFS teams, forbid cheering against the opposing team, and are enforced by all faculty and staff present at athletic contests.
Academic and extracurricular traditions
Since 1993, Germantown Friends has been divided into three divisions, the Lower School (K-5), the Middle School (6-8) (later named after former teacher, administrator, and Quaker, Eric W. Johnson), and the Upper School (9-12). First among the traditions of the school is weekly Meeting for WorshipMeeting for worship
A meeting for worship is a practice of the Religious Society of Friends in many ways comparable to a church service. These services have a wide variety of forms, creating a spectrum from typical Protestant liturgy to silent waiting for the Spirit .A Meeting for Worship may start with a query;...
of each division. Meeting for Worship gives students the opportunity for introspection and discussion of spirituality. The weekly Meeting of each division have rather different characters. The Lower School Meeting is generally quite active with many short messages from students because elementary school children tend to appreciate the chance to be heard. The Middle School Meeting often is a very silent meeting, only punctuated by the occasional spiritual stirring of a faculty member. The Upper School Meeting is often focused on current events and fundamental issues of young adults. Seniors tend to speak, knowing that they will soon graduate and depart into the hopeful but complex world.
Other notable traditions include concerts by the GFS Choir under the direction of Mary Brewer, Lawrence Hoenig, and Steve Kushner. Choir tours have visited London (UK), Falaise (France), Cracow (Poland) and Copenhagen (Denmark), among other locales. In March 2005, the GFS Choir traveled to China, where it performed in conservatories, concert halls, and in the occasional impromptu street performance. In March 2008, the Choir went on a tour of the Southern portion of the United States, culminating in a few days in New Orleans, where the group helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity. Most recently, the Choir traveled to and throughout Puerto Rico during Spring Break of 2011. Other traditions include the 9th Grade Musical, the Dionysia (an Ancient Greek dramatic festival performed by 10th grade Ancient History classes), the Latin III Debates during an annual "Classics Day," and a Writers Assembly, showcasing pieces by writers from the Middle and Upper School.
One unusual graduation requirement at Germantown Friends School is the requirement that each junior complete an independent project, known as a "Junior Project." During this project, students have the opportunity to pursue some independent but intellectually rigorous activity in the local community or elsewhere in the world. If completed in January, students are given the month off to pursue the project, although they must go through a proposal process and present written and oral accounts of their work afterwards. Students must pay for at least half of all project expenses out of money the student earned through work (rather than by means of a parental allowance).
For many years, Germantown Friends gave academic awards to its students. During the 1990s, there arose concerns that the tradition might contain an underlying negative effect on the broader school community. After five years of faculty discussion and four years of student and alumni surveys, in 2002 the school discontinued its practice of making academic awards. In announcing this decision to the school community, the head of school noted that there were long-standing concerns about the detrimental effect of elevating a select few students above others in a ceremony with clear winners and losers, and how the practice stood in contrast to Friends' beliefs in honoring every person. He further noted that when surveyed, "students opposed any practice that created incentive to compete for grades rather than for learning's sake." While athletic awards are still given at Germantown Friends, the academic awards have been replaced with more opportunities for all students to showcase their work.
Commencement in recent decades has taken place at Arch Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia. The ceremony begins with an instruction concerning Meeting for Worship by a Quaker member of the graduating class, followed by a meeting. At present, GFS does not calculate GPA for purposes of class ranking, and therefore no Valedictorians or Salutatorian
Salutatorian
Salutatorian is an academic title given, in the United States and Canada, to the second highest graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is traditionally based on grade point average and number of credits taken, but...
s are selected. Instead, the graduating class elects one faculty member and one member of its own ranks to give addresses after the conclusion of the meeting. Following the addresses, the Head of School speaks and then awards diplomas to each member of the graduating class.
Notable alumni
- John "Skip" BarberSkip BarberJohn "Skip" Barber III is a retired racecar driver who is most famous for his Skip Barber Racing Schools.- Driving career :...
: Racing Instructor. - Emily BazelonEmily BazelonEmily Bazelon is an American journalist, senior editor for online magazine Slate, and a senior research fellow at Yale Law School. Her work as a writer focuses on law, abortion, and family issues.-Journalism career:...
: journalist. - Eric BazilianEric BazilianEric M. Bazilian , is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer, best known for being a founding member of the rock band The Hooters.-Early life:...
: Musician and songwriter of the band The HootersThe HootersThe Hooters is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By combining a mix of rock and roll, reggae, ska and folk music, The Hooters first gained major commercial success in the United States in the mid 1980s due to heavy radio and MTV airplay of several songs including "All You...
. - Henry BeanHenry BeanHenry Bean is an American screenwriter, film director, producer, novelist, and actor.Most famous as a screenwriter, Bean wrote the screenplays for Internal Affairs, Deep Cover, Venus Rising, The Believer , Basic Instinct 2 and Noise.Bean...
, 1963: film director, script writer. - Jesse BiddleJesse BiddleJesse Biddle is a starting pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. Biddle stands tall and weighs...
, 2010: Left-Handed Pitcher selected by the Philadelphia PhilliesPhiladelphia PhilliesThe Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
27th overall in the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft2010 Major League Baseball DraftThe 2010 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft was held on June 7–9, 2010 at the MLB Network Studios in New York City.-First-round selections:The draft order was determined based on the 2009 MLB standings, with the worst team picking first.Key...
. - Sandra BoyntonSandra BoyntonSandra Keith Boynton is an American humorist, songwriter, children's author and illustrator. Boynton has written and illustrated more than forty books for both children and adults, as well as over four thousand greeting cards, and four music albums...
: Cartoonist, songwriter, and best-selling author. - Stephen G. Cary: Commissioner for European Relief of the American Friends Service CommitteeAmerican Friends Service CommitteeThe American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
after World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(during this time the American Friends Service Committee was awarded Nobel Prize for Peace). - Sarah ChangSarah ChangSarah Chang is a Korean American violinist. Her debut came in 1989 with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, Chang was recognized as a child prodigy. She enrolled at Juilliard School to study music, graduating in 1999 and continuing university studies...
: Violinist. Studied at GFS but did not graduate. - Stacy LevyStacy LevyStacy Levy is a sculptor who works in sculptural media suggestive of ecological natural patterns and processes such as water flows...
: Sculptor. - Owen ChamberlainOwen ChamberlainOwen Chamberlain was an American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his discovery, with collaborator Emilio Segrè, of antiprotons, a sub-atomic antiparticle.-Biography:...
: Discoverer of the antiprotonAntiprotonThe antiproton is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy....
and Nobel Laureate in Physics for 1959. - C. West ChurchmanC. West ChurchmanCharles West Churchman was an American philosopher and systems scientist, who was Professor at the School of Business Administration and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley...
: Philosopher, System Theorist and a founding father of Management Science. - Joan Countryman, 1958: Acting Head, Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for GirlsOprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for GirlsThe Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls - South Africa is a girls-only boarding school that officially opened in January 2007 in Henley on Klip near Meyerton, south of Johannesburg, South Africa...
. She was a teacher and administrator at GFS and the Lincoln School, Rhode Island, and the first African-American graduate of GFS. - Walter CopeCope & StewardsonCope & Stewardson was an architecture firm best known for its academic building and campus designs. The firm is often regarded as a Master of the Collegiate Gothic style. Walter Cope and John Stewardson established the firm in 1885, and were later joined by Emlyn Stewardson in 1887...
: Architect known for academic buildings. - Kathryn DavisKathryn DavisKathryn Davis is an award-winning American novelist.Davis has taught at Skidmore College, and is now senior fiction writer in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St...
, 1964: Novelist. - Garrett Dutton III, aka G. LoveG. LoveGarrett Dutton , better known as G. Love, is the frontman for the band G. Love & Special Sauce.-Biography:Dutton, the son of a banking lawyer, was born in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, and began playing guitar at age eight. He wrote his first song by the time he was in the ninth...
: Musician and front man of the band G. Love & Special SauceG. Love & Special SauceG. Love & Special Sauce is an alternative hip-hop band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are known for their unique, "sloppy", and "laid back" blues sound that encompasses classic R&B. The band features Garrett Dutton, better known as G...
. - Michael FriedmanMichael Friedman (composer)Michael Friedman is an American composer and lyricist. He is a founding Associate Artist of The Civilians and an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop. He received a 2007 Obie award for sustained excellence. His musical Saved earned him a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Best Musical...
, 1993: Composer. - Adam Goodheart: Journalist and author.
- Nathaniel KahnNathaniel KahnNathaniel Kahn is an American filmmaker. His documentaries My Architect — about his father, the famous architect Louis Kahn — and Two Hands were nominated for Academy Awards....
: 1981. Filmmaker. Writer and director of My ArchitectMy ArchitectMy Architect: A Son's Journey is a 2003 documentary film about the American architect Louis Kahn. Kahn led an extraordinary career and left three families behind when he died of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom....
, a film about his father, Louis KahnLouis KahnLouis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
. - Tom MyersSkywalker SoundSkywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of George Lucas' Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California...
: 1976. film sound designer at Skywalker SoundSkywalker SoundSkywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of George Lucas' Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California...
in Marin County, California. Nominated for two Academy Awards. Sound design and sound mixing for such films as: Toy Story 2Toy Story 2Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
, Wall-EWALL-EWALL-E, promoted with an interpunct as WALL•E, is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future...
, CarsCars (film)Cars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...
, UpUp (2009 film)Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film...
, The Dust FactoryThe Dust Factory-Plot:Ryan Flynn is a young boy traumatized by the death of his father, who has not spoken aloud or exercised his imagination since. While on a walk with a friend, Ryan falls from a bridge and apparently drowns. He finds himself in a parallel universe called the "Dust Factory", which houses all...
, and others. - Santigold: Musician.
- Scott PaganoScott PaganoScott Pagano is a Los Angeles-based video artist, filmmaker, and motion graphics designer and is recognized for his distinctive style of moving images constructed by re-mixing images of architecture, daily life, and intricate CG graphics...
, 1996: Video artist. - Saul PerlmutterSaul PerlmutterSaul Perlmutter is an American astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of...
, 1977: Astrophysicist; winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the accelerating universeAccelerating universeThe accelerating universe is the observation that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate, which in formal terms means that the cosmic scale factor a has a positive second derivative, implying that the velocity at which a given galaxy is receding from us should be continually...
. - Sam SmithSam Smith (journalist)Sam Smith is an American journalist and political activist who was an early pioneer in alternative media. He was also involved in the establishment of the Green Party of the United States. Several times a week, Smith publishes an email news digest, Undernews.-Biography:Smith was born in Washington...
: Author, editor, journalist. - Merrie SpaethMerrie SpaethMerrie Spaeth is an American political and public relations consultant, and former film actress.She is a regular contributor to several periodicals, including D/CEO Magazine, in addition to her contributions to National Public Radio through radio station KERA in Dallas, Texas...
: Political public relations consultant; appeared in the film The World of Henry OrientThe World of Henry OrientThe World of Henry Orient is a 1964 American comedy film based on the novel of the same name by Nora Johnson. It was directed by George Roy Hill and stars Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury, Tippy Walker, Merrie Spaeth, Phyllis Thaxter, Bibi Osterwald, and Tom Bosley.Filming started in...
while a sophomore at GFS. - Makiko TanakaMakiko Tanakais a Japanese politician, the daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.Tanaka attended high school at Germantown Friends School in the United States and graduated from Waseda University...
: Japanese Foreign Minister, 2001-2002. - Michael Grant TerryMichael Grant TerryMichael Terry is an American actor, primarily known for his role as Wendell Bray on the Fox series Bones. He is sometimes credited as Michael Grant Terry.-Biography:Michael Terry was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
: Actor in tv show Bones, as well as other shows and films. - Rebecca Traister: Senior Writer for SalonSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, author of Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women. - Elizabeth Gray ViningElizabeth Gray ViningElizabeth Janet Gray Vining , born Elizabeth Janet Gray and also known as Elizabeth Gray Vining, was a professional librarian who tutored Emperor Akihito of Japan in English while he was the crown prince...
: Newbery MedalNewbery MedalThe John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
winner and English tutor to Emperor Akihito of Japan during his early adolescence. - PJ Vogt: Assistant Producer, On the MediaOn the MediaOn the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program, hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, covering journalism, technology, and First Amendment issues. It is produced by WNYC in New York City...
.
Entertainment
- The main character from the TV series Twin PeaksTwin PeaksTwin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
, FBI Agent Dale CooperDale CooperFBI Special agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan. He is the lead protagonist of the series, and briefly appears in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me....
, supposedly grew up in Germantown and attended Germantown Friends School (as created by director David LynchDavid LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, who spent many years in Philadelphia).