By Kate Taylor ’11, Lens Section Editor
In the summer of 1958, Headmaster Herbert Davison offered a sophomore a place in the ninth grade at Cincinnati Country Day School. Despite his age, Tim Wollaeger’s entrance examination was not up to the standards of tenth grade. His aptitude scores would be the lowest of all the freshmen, and the headmaster warned him that if he did not pass all his classes by the end of tenth grade, he would be asked to leave.
Before enrolling at CCDS, Mr. Wollaeger lived in Milwaukee, where he played on the City of Milwaukee Championship football team. His father’s job moved the family to Cincinnati where he attended Indian Hill high school in ninth grade. After a number of disappointing football games (“we lost to CCDS 46-0” he said) and some bad experiences at summer football practice, he agreed to repeat ninth grade at CCDS.
“I’m not sure I really read a book before I came here,” said Mr. Wollaeger, who graduated in the class of 1962. But CCDS forced him to work hard and turn himself around. Well-respected history teacher Mr. Lee Pattison aided him with his study habits. He continued to exert his athletic prowess, playing on the 1960 undefeated football team and setting 7 track records.
Mr. Wollaeger went on to study economics at Yale University and spent three years as a naval officer in Vietnam. Upon his return, he enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Since earning his MBA in 1971, Mr. Wollaeger has worked for and founded many successful biotechnology companies, including companies that developed the modern pregnancy test and the PSA test for prostate cancer. Mr. Wollaeger said he owes this later success to those four high school years: “Without [CCDS], I wouldn’t have gone to Yale, and I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
This past weekend, Mr. Wollaeger returned to CCDS. “I want to give thanks,” Mr. Wollaeger said. “[CCDS] changed my life completely.”
His gratitude came in the form of a seminar, similar to ones he has taught at Yale. The seminar, offered to seniors and juniors, was entitled ‘Goal Setting and Problem Solving.’
He came up with the idea for the seminar when he realized that many students graduate from college and are unsure of the next step they should take. “There are a lot of very bright people and they get out of college and they don’t know what to do. We are going to get you to think about it,” said Mr. Wollaeger. He described the seminar as having three facets: 1.Career goals 2. Staying healthy 3. Relationships between family and friends.
However, there was an air of mystery to what exactly the seminar would entail. “I don’t know what the seminar is going to be but it’s going to be really good,” said Headmaster Dr. Robert Macrae. But he emphasized that students should enjoy to the opportunity to pause from their regular academic life. “We don’t take enough time when we are focusing on academic pursuits to think about what students want out of life,” he added.
The seminar began on Friday morning, when a group of 49 seniors and juniors gathered at the Yeiser Auditorium. First, students took a pop quiz on the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and the movie The Blind Side which had been assigned over the summer. Then Mr. Wollaeger presented the stories of five recent college grads, ranging from a student employed at a law firm to another who had returned home and taken a job at ‘The Gap’. A discussion ensued, determining who had been the most successful and how success should be measured.
After a brief break, students were divided randomly into groups of seven, which would provide teams during the rest of the seminar’s activities. The first team activity was designing a game for the strange inhabitants of the planet Obtainium. The games that the teams presented were incredibly imaginative, ranging from bubble wrap coated slides to arenas shaped like giant soup bowls.
Next, the teams had to work their way through a series of logic puzzles, such as how to cut a pie into eight pieces using only three cuts of a knife. “This was my favorite part because it was a perfect example of thinking outside the box and not imposing limitations,” said Lilly Fleischmann ’11.
Friday afternoon was spent at the pool competing in relay races. In the first race, teams had to swim to the other end of the pool with a balloon, drop it in a box, and then sprint back. In the second race, each team had to complete 42 lengths of the pool. The objective was to learn to work together and figure out how to complete the task as a group.
Students returned to the auditorium on Saturday. First, Mr. Wollaeger led a discussion on the homework packet, which proposed a problem concerning a failing business in Mexico. After the students determined a solution to save the company, Mr. Wollaeger revealed that it was his own true story. He also said he was very impressed that students had done the reading. He said he had given the same packet at another college and not a single student had read it.
For the rest of the morning, students wrote down life goals and discussed how they could achieve them. The seminar ended with games out on the track. There was a Frisbee course, an obstacle course, and a jump-rope competition where Basil DeJong ’11 showcased his awesome skills.
Though there was some confusion as to how each activity related to the overall theme of goal setting and problem solving, the seminar was given good reviews by students who attended.
“I thought it was a thoroughly enriching experience providing leadership opportunities and new ideas about goal setting,” said Jules Cantor ’11.
“It showed how you can think your way out of everything if you think unconventionally,” said Rachel Neal ’10.
Mr. Wollaeger was also pleased with the way the seminar went. “It was a lot of fun,” he said. He added that CCDS students were very “encouraging.” Mr. Wollaeger will return to CCDS in May to give a follow-up seminar. Until then, he hopes his students will remember to reach for their goals: “I want them to ask, ‘Does this make sense? Why am I doing this?’”
Photo by Ilana Habib ’11, Photography Editor
