editor’s letter
T
he Back to School season always puts me in mind of new begin-
nings and a chance to see things in a new way. Take, for example,
an evening hanging out with friends. You could go to one of the
fine bars in the area, or you could spend time at your friend’s
place. Or you could do both at the same time — if you’re buddies
with one of the homeowners profiled in “The Two-Car Bar”
who turned his garage into a watering hole for invited guests. There’s creative
thinking in action!
Another creative person who spent her formative years in Millburn is novelist
and short story writer Joan Silber, whose Improvement won both the National
Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. In “Always
Room for Improvement,” she talks about her recurrent theme of characters
striving to better themselves, and readers’ hunger “to see people do good
things.”
Handling high expectations is something a lot of young people grapple with,
and the Millburn public school system, recently named No. 1 school district by
research and ranking site Niche.com, has taken a number of replicable steps to
help students de-stress. Read “Lower Stress to Boost Scores” and learn what
they are.
And speaking of raising the bar, in our Neighbors column, Millburn resident
Pamela Kruger talks about her work at Catalyst, a global nonprofit devoted to
advancing women in the workplace, and how the #MeToo movement has made
her cautiously optimistic about the power of change, one season at a time. ■
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BACK TO SCHOOL 2019 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
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