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alumni/ae page |
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September 2004 by Jeffrey Stanley We are thrilled that the subject of the first alum profile kicking off the year works right here within these walls. Susan Price ’86, our new Director of Alumni, entered BFS in Kindergarten and has always considered herself a lifer. She has been a class co-rep for over ten years, and her late mother Aida Price was a PAT president and School Committee member. Her sister Jennie, also a lifer, graduated from BFS in 1990. But Price never foresaw returning here to work the system from the other side until recently, when she started thinking about how she could “take the things I like the most—finding, researching and reconnecting with people, my historical interests, searching through online databases, resources and old documents,” and finding a way to put those interests to work. When she heard the Alumni position was open, she decided to apply. “I offered to volunteer my services as a researcher regardless of whom BFS hired. I started in July.” Price attended Bennington College for a short time before getting married at 19 and “launching into adulthood with all its responsibilities.” Her experiences from that time until now gave her another kind of learning on which she places a higher value than she could have ever obtained in academia. “I’ve been an account executive for a direct mail and fulfillment company, circulation manager for a free magazine for the blind, mother and homemaker, community activist, volunteer, children’s swim team manager, family history and genealogical researcher, and historical research assistant. My life is not about a career, but is about family and pursuing things I enjoy.” Price stresses that she’d rather be poor and happy than hate a job. She has been “happily divorced” for twelve years and has a 14-year-old daughter, Eva, whom she calls the light of her life. She’s involved with a St. Ann’s man, and says they are having a great time not living together. Price and her daughter live in Fort Greene with her father, Bill, and two cats, in the brownstone in which she grew up. As Alumni Director, Price sees much to be done. “Under Amy Mugavero, Development has started to make positive changes in alumni relations and I want to build on what’s been started. I want our alumni to know that the doors to this school are always open to them. Many feel little connection to the school and I hope that will change. I believe BFS may not fully understand alumni expectations. BFS provided a forum for us to learn from each other and I would like to help all of us reconnect as adults.” She also hopes to create a tangible archive for the school, including an oral history project working with alumni, former parents, and teachers. Looking back on her first impressions of BFS, Price recounts fragmented memories of her school tour when she was 4. She remembers seeing Anne Broomfield ’84, and “one tall, blond, first grade girl who was by the stove making potato pancakes wearing an apron. My parents had selected a number of acceptable schools and left the choice up to me. The fact that cooking was an activity at BFS was the deciding factor for me, and it was then known as the ‘Potato Pancake School’ at my home.” Price figured out at a young age that her family struggled financially to put her and her sister through school. “My father was a novelist, my mother worked full time, and we got by. I did not know that some of my classmates were receiving financial aid until high school. I realized then how lucky we were to be a part of a school that was giving us the opportunity to learn about each other and provide a forum for us to understand that differences in background are meaningless. We are all truly the same as human beings and we all make contributions to one another’s experience, no matter how small.” She was deeply affected during her senior year by a surprise musical performance from one of the maintenance staff during Morning Meeting. “It was announced that Chester Smalls was going to sing for us. Chester was a difficult man to get to know, and I was skeptical when he sat at the piano. When he played the piano and sang, it was as if Ray Charles had come to the school. The entire student body in the Meeting House was in an uproar, we gave Chester a totally crazed ovation. He was unbelievable. It was a revelation for me: one cannot judge others, people are full of delightful surprises, and even those people we pass by every day without a second thought have power, magic, and something that makes them beautiful. It was a pivotal moment in my life.” Price credits BFS for reinforcing her parents’ beliefs and teachings, and for giving her a sense that one must fight against injustice. “I have a strong ethical bent that I believe BFS helped nurture. Also, BFS taught us that one does the right thing because it is right, not because one gets money or accolades. A job well-done should be satisfaction enough.” Her advice to the current crop of BFS students: “Enjoy the opportunity you have for meaningful interaction with your teachers. We learn from both good and bad experiences: revel in both and learn from them. Lastly, don’t convert, subvert.” |
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