Dori Stern, MJC’80, P’10, P’15, is the education director at the Sunday School for Jewish Studies in Newton, Mass., an innovative K-7 school with 160 students, at least 80 percent of whom come from interfaith families. The school was founded after World War II by Harvard University professors who were not comfortable with synagogues. Since the 1980s, it has drawn increasing numbers of interfaith families. The staff includes Michelle Andler, MAT’12, who teaches seventh grade. Sylvia Beville, Heller MMHS’83, was named to the board of trustees of MassBay Community College. She has served as executive director of Partnerships for a Skilled Workforce since 1996. Her career in workforce development has taken her to adult education programs in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, Colorado’s San Luis Valley and Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation. Sylvia has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services for delinquency prevention programs with a focus on building community systems that enable all young people to flourish. Broadway veteran Ray Wills, MFA’85, returned to his hometown of Wichita, Kan., to portray President Harry S. Truman in the one-man play “Give ’em Hell, Harry!” An in-demand working actor in New York for 25 years, Ray had a successful 2 1/2-year run on Broadway with Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.” In addition to performing, Ray teaches theater at Wichita-area colleges and universities, including his alma mater, Wichita State University.
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