Fourcast October 2015

The Fourcast

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The Hockaday School 11600 Welch Rd. Dallas, Texas 75229 214.363.6311

hockadayfourcast.org Volume 66 • Issue 1 Friday, October 2, 2015

What Does It Mean to be an American?

Y The Fourcast takes a look into multiculturalism

and how hyphenated Americans find a place in our society. p 12

INSIDE news 2 features 7 photo essay 11 in focus 12 arts & entertainment 14 sports 18 perspectives 21 cast off 24

BEST BRUNCHES IN DALLAS p 17

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What can I do to make the world a better place? p2

LUDFORD PERFORMS ACROSS THE GLOBE Middle School music teacher receives grant p 19

THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

2/news Currently

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The school year starts with new laptop policy p3

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Women in computer science p3

Syrians escape from crisis p4

Get to know the new Upper School Head p6

Hockaday Welcomes the Return of Liza Lee The first Eugene McDermott Headmistress is back as Interim Head of School PHOTO BY MERCER MALAKOFF

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HockaBriefs

A look at recent news on campus Form Retreats  This is the first year in

which all Upper School Forms have a retreat. Form I had their bonding experience at Mo Ranch from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3; Form II had an afternoon of games and group work at Hockaday on Sept. 19; Form III had an afternoon of bonding with an appearance by a grilled cheese food truck, Ruthie’s, on Sept. 4; and Form IV went to Allaso Ranch from Sept.

29 to 30.

New Biology Course  In the new junior biology

8:40 a.m. Sept 14 Interim Headmistress Liza Lee catches up on her email every morning.

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BY KATE CLEMENT

iza Lee’s defining memory of Hockaday for her is not graduation, senior retreats or a gaggle of girls’ discussions.

It occurred on a seemingly random fall day in the early 1990s. “This is going to sound horrible,” she said. “I was fairly new, and I had this ‘open door’ policy. This girl came into my office and began the conversation by telling me that she had been raped by her boyfriend.” Lee was the first person the student came to with the question, “What am I going to do?” But Lee saw a different question: “what are we going to do?”

What struck Lee about the situation was Hockaday’s communal reaction.

“The circle of faculty and students rallied around her and in the process created the first self-defense course to ensure girls were better prepared to protect themselves,” Lee said. “This made me realize that this is the place I want to leave my legacy, because nowhere else could they take such a horrible event and turn it into something positive.”

Before returning to Hockaday this summer, Liza Lee was not just a name on the Academic Research Center. During her time at Hockaday, she implemented block scheduling, raised the diversity rate from 17 to 24 percent and modernized the science, math, technology, arts and engineering curriculums.

Lee generated support for expanding the academic classrooms by 40 percent and began the Campaign for the ‘90s that allowed for new investments in technology and for the Academic Research Center that bears her name.

Alumna Abby Hoak-Morton ‘05 fondly remembered Lee’s open door policy as headmistress and relationship with her students.

“Liza Lee is the kind of leader I aspire to be everyday. When I was at Hockaday, Mrs. Lee was always so willing to hear the students’ concerns and opinions, but was direct and honest with her responses,” she said. “She always made me feel like I was important and so were my feelings, but she also was willing to tell me when I was wrong. She was reasonable and was willing to explain her decisions.”

Fine Arts Lead Chair Ed Long has served under several heads; however, he notes that Lee had the longest tenure after Miss Hockaday herself.

“She brought us into the 21st century, leaving us a legacy of creativity and important resources,” Long said. “Now she returns to us as an exceptionally experienced leader in this next chapter of Hockaday’s progress.”

Lee is on the fence about her digitalization of Hockaday, saying that it has made “communication harder.” Despite her push that led to the laptop program being introduced to the student body in the early 2000s, she believes that modern technology interferes with face-to-face communication.

“It really means we’re behind a screen, and there is a screen behind you and the person you’re not really talking to,” Lee said.

However, Lee did not set out to make these sweeping changes that would shape the school into the institution it is today.

“It used to frustrate me when people asked me about my vision, because I didn’t really have one,” Lee said. “The most I could say was I just want to run a girls’ school that everyone thinks is wonderful. Of course, everyone already thought Hockaday was wonderful.”

“I decided I wanted to run a school that educated girls, which everyone recognized for the content of their character as well as their intellect,” she said.

As Interim Headmistress, Lee wants to adhere to the traditions that made Hockaday what it is today. She does not want to make any major changes.

Instead, she wants to allow the future new Head to see Hockaday the way she saw it in 1990, with a graduation ceremony steeped in tradition and the cohesive student body, but to allow the person to have a fresh perspective on the next chapter of Hockaday’s history.

The traditional aspect of girls’ schools has always been a part of Lee. She grew up in the Upper East Side in New York and attended two different allgirl schools from pre-K until graduation. She then attended Mount Holyoke College, one of the Seven Sisters, an association of seven women’s colleges connected to the Ivy League Schools. She would return to the all-girls school she graduated from, The Brearly School, as a teacher and administrator.

“I find it ironic that I am just now remembering this, but we all wore the exact same white dress when we graduated,” Lee said. “I think our headmistress had the same ideas as Ela Hockaday...

Liza Lee right after the Depression and the Second World is the kind War, we felt conscious that everyone needed to be dressed alike so that no one could tell who paid of leader I more for a dress. Miss Hockaday wanted her girls in the same dress, because she never wanted there to aspire to be be a distinction between her girls based on income as well.” everyday.

As a longtime proponent of all-female education, Lee believes that same-sex education allows Abby Hoak-Morton students “ to really be able to figure out who [they] Alumna ‘05 are in a world of women.”

To Lee, one of our greatest traditions is scholarship. “The number of alumnas my age who can boast of the kind of Latin, English and even math and science training, for the time, is incredible,” Lee said. “Teaching to the test and the obsession with ‘elite’ colleges is blinding girls from the value of what they’re learning.”

Instead, Lee believes that Hockadaisies should live by a different mantra.

“I want girls to come to school [and] to life with a question,” Lee said.

“What can I do to make the world a better place?”

‘‘

course taught by Dr. Barbara Fishel, students are working with the Small World Initiative, a global group of college level lab courses. Students work to isolate soil bacteria with the aim of solving the antibiotic crisis due to the resistance of many bacteria to currently used antibiotics.

The Small World Initiative has been only taught at the college level but Hockaday was invited to pilot the program at the high school level.

Lower School iPads  All Lower School teachers

received an iPad at the beginning of the school year in order to begin integrating technology into the teaching atmosphere. They have undergone training to learn the best applications and uses for elementary education.

Eighth Grade Musical  The venue for the Eighth

Grade Musical has been announced. Due to the new auditorium construction, it will be held in the First United Methodist Church in downtown. Instead of a traditional musical, the grade will be performing a variety of Broadway songs.

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Percentage that Lee raised the diversity rate to at Hockaday between 1990-2004

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

The Rise of MacBooks

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f you stepped inside a Hockaday classroom two years ago, you would see rows upon rows of Lenovo and Toshiba laptops.

Today, however, is a different story.

For the first time since student laptops were introduced in 2000, the Technology Department is allowing students to bring their own laptops to school. Students are permitted to bring any device of their choice as long as it fulfills the requirements put in place by the school.

In order for a laptop to be approved, it must have Windows 7 or higher, a hard drive storage of 128 GB or higher, four GB of RAM and a minimum battery life of six hours.

But of all of the laptop brands available, the primary choice for students has been the MacBook.

Junior Kate Keough is one of the many students who use their MacBook in school instead of the standard Lenovo available from the school.

“My freshman year, very few people had Macs,” Keough said. “Now they make up almost half of every class I’m in.”

According to Technology Department Chair Jason Curtis, while the amount of school computers purchased dropped from over 200 to about 120 in the past year alone, the number of students and faculty using Macs has raised to almost 100 and continues to rise.

But why do students prefer MacBooks over Lenovos?

Keough personally favors Macs because of their convenience, long-lasting battery and special features and programs that aren’t offered on other computers.

“I like the ability to switch between screens so I can organize my windows for multiple classes,” Keough said. “I also like the Pages and Keynote applications, which are convenient for making test reviews and [are] more organized than Microsoft Word.”

Keough also notes that Macs have fewer technical issues, alleviating a lot of stress.

“At a school that is very fast-paced, I think having a computer with [few] tech issues is a big positive because you don’t have to get it fixed, deal with a loner or miss classes to fix it,” Keough said.

In addition to special features and convenience, many students choose to use Macs because of their desire for something new.

“I think part of it is that they have been shackled to Lenovo and Toshiba for so long that they are ready for something more novel,” Curtis said.

As a result of the MacBook’s popularity, the Technology Department hired Braxton Hall, who specializes in working with Apple computers. Hall prefers a Mac environment both inside and outside of school and has been using Macs personally for over six years.

“The future that I see for computer devices is that Upper School will be...let loose to roam the digital age,” Hall said. “Whether that is [with] a laptop or tablet.”

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

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GIRL CODE It’s no secret that people’s interest and desire for novel technology has grown over time– Apple recently reported that from January 2008 to March 2015, approximately 700 million iPhones were sold worldwide. Additionally, schools around the world, even those in developing countries like India, are implementing STEM programs into their curriculums.

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ut this positive trend doesn’t apply to everyone. Despite increased awareness and financial initiatives, female participation in computer science and engineering fields has drastically decreased over the last 20 years.

According to a 2015 study by the American Association of University Women, the percentage of women in computer and mathematical occupations has decreased from 35 percent in 1990 to 26 percent in 2013.

The burning question of why remains unanswered.

Men have always been more involved in STEM careers than women – it’s a fact that’s been around for decades. Senior Bella Manganello experienced this gender gap first-hand during the summer after sophomore year. She took an eight-week course in computer science at Cornell University in a coding language called Python. Among 40 to 50 students in the class, she was one of only six girls.

“When you think of a scientist, you usually think of a male. It’s just kind of a culture thing, which is frustrating and not easy to break down because it’s been around for a while,” Manganello said.

Because of this historical trend, men in today’s society are encouraged, perhaps even expected, to pursue a math or science major. St. Mark’s junior Ivan Day, who hopes to major in an engineering-related field, has noticed this tendency.

“Early on in their development, men are just pushed toward those STEM fields by teachers and society, so it makes women less inclined [to pursue a career in that field] and they grow up with these feelings that ‘Well, only guys are doing this; I’m not accepted,’” Day said. “It’s unfortunate.”

Day’s AP Computer Science teacher Kurt Tholking attributes the gender imbalance to disproportionate support from teachers, specifically outside the realm of single-sex education.

“A lot of it has been the teachers pushing the male students more than the female in a co-ed school,” Tholking said. “There’s no reason at all that female teachers and male teachers can’t push female students.”

However, there’s also a widespread stigma that exists around computer science, which often deters students from partaking in such courses. Senior Camila Trejo, who is currently taking AP Computer Science, described this stigma and said that “computer science is generally looked at as a field in which you have to be really smart if you’re going to be successful at it.”

While it may require a unique and higher-level of thinking, it’s certainly not impossible to learn. Rachel Grabow, who teaches AP Computer Science at Hockaday and grew up loving math, emphasizes that computer science doesn’t need to be a male-dominated field.

“There’s nothing masculine about it,” Grabow said. “It’s sort of fun to program and code and get the computer to do stuff for you and sort of learn how to problem solve that way.”

St. Mark’s Lower and Middle School Computer Science teacher Kendall Murphy equates learning about computers to learning another language – it has no bounds.

“There’s no age limit to computer science, and that’s what’s amazing about it; that’s what’s magnetic about it,” Murphy said. “There’s no requirement. You just have to learn it, and then you can go as far as you want.”

Unfortunately, many schools lack courses at the Lower School level, which is a huge impediment for young students who want to learn more about computer science. continues on p4 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN COMPUTER SCIENCE CLASSES

HEIDI KIM STAFF WRITER

Approximately one-fifth of Upper School students bring their own devices to school.

The Hockaday School

Episcopal School of Dallas

St. Mark’s School of Texas

Of students enrolled in CS classes, 3 percent are girls and 97 percent are boys

Of Upper School students, 3 percent are enrolled in CS classes

Of students enrolled in CS classes, 18 percent are girls and 82 percent are boys

Of Upper School students, 1 percent are enrolled in CS classes

Statistics include programming and CS related courses, and they do not include any percentages from required CS courses. Source: Computer science teachers at the above schools

GRAPHIC BY KATIE O’MEARA

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JENNY ZHU

Parish Episcopal School

School’s in Session for Terry Murray

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anning the landing station and disconnecting students from the ziplines at the senior retreat to Allaso Ranch, new Upper School Head Terry Murray started his task of meeting all the faces of the Upper School and learning all aspects of the Hockaday community – a goal he

has worked toward since moving to Dallas last June.

From St. Louis to Dallas Coming from his former job as Dean of Students at the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis (MICDS), Mur-

ray has not only had to adjust to a different environment but also to a different role.

“As Dean of Students at my last school, I was so connected to the kids and that was always my priority as an administrator,” Murray said. “It’s weird seeing other people have that role. For me, I have to get used to the role a little

bit more, of having to oversee and not always having responsibility over individual things.”

The current Upper School Head at MICDS, Scott Small, worked with Murray as a member of the History Department and as form deans, Murray being the previous form dean for the class of 2017.

“Mr. Murray and I always had the most fun talking about kids – how to support them, how to empower them, how to give them room to grow and make mistakes and figure out things out on their own,” Small said.

One of the ways Murray worked to empower the students of MICDS was through revamping their school honor code and policy by emphasizing the importance of teacher

advocacy for the students and the importance of learning experiences. According to Small, Murray had a way of keeping the the topic light through a life size cardboard cutout of himself.

“He put it up in the corner of his office, which actually meant it was facing the window. When you would walk on campus, it looked like he was staring at you from his office and it scared more than a few people,” Small said. “That always made us laugh and he ultimately kept it in that corner to keep people honest.”

At Hockaday, Murray hopes to continue the tradition of the honor code and empower continues on p6

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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The Dining Hall by the Numbers 2000 pieces of silverware thrown away each year

1700 pounds of food made at Hockaday per day

800 ice cream products ordered once a month from Blue Bell Creameries

Four new types of tea provided during lunch: regular unsweet, sweet, peach and green with lemon

Seven 30-gallon trashcans of waste are thrown away each day

One trip to Whole Foods weekly for various gluten free and vegan items

Each spoon in the Dining Hall costs 16cents.

Silverware is reordered twice a year

2X

35 gluten-free students and 15 vegan students currently at Hockaday

Hockaday girls eat twice as much in the fall/winter as they do in the spring months

GRAPHIC BY SUNILA STEEPHEN; Source: Director of Food Servioces Torie Reynolds

continued from p 3 Although some schools are unable to establish computer science programs due to their funding, schools that have the financial resources should take advantage of them.

“A lot of times, kids aren’t introduced to computer science until either late high school years or college, and no one’s going to go into college and major in something that they’ve never heard [of],” Murphy said. “We really need to cater to that interest of those students and nurture thaWt ability.”

Society is starting to realize the importance of stimulating students at the elementary level: programs like Scratch, Tynker and Khan Academy’s Hour of Code are all geared toward making computer programming something that children can understand.

Tholking believes these programs are instrumental. “Little kids can learn the concepts of programming, and they get interested at an early age,” he said. “That’s where we develop from the Lower School to the Middle School, and then that way they have the interest when they get to the Upper School.”

And this interest isn’t something that only boys have. Trejo never knew she liked coding until she started taking the AP course.

“I actually wish I would’ve started earlier,” Trejo said. “I think it is really interesting, and I think girls don’t know that they’re interested in it because they’ve never been exposed to it.”

While females may be interested, their male counterparts aren’t all that motivating in

some situations. “[In college], you would definitely come across guys who wouldn’t take you seriously because you were a girl in the engineering department,” Grabow said. “It’s something that still goes on.”

And that’s the problem: it shouldn’t still go on. In fact, it’s in society’s best interest: According to code.org, there are currently 1.4 million computing jobs available and only 400,000 computer science students.

However, Hockaday is on the forefront of encouraging young girls to take more advantage of the “T” in STEM. Lower School classrooms are using iPads to work on projects, Middle School students are learning about web design and the Upper School has introduced a new engineering design course this year.

Grabow believes that being at an all-girls school has its perks when it comes to increasing confidence about computer science.

“I think it’s really great to take the class now in high school, especially at a place like Hockaday where you don’t have to worry about guys dismissing ideas in class,” Grabow said.

So if you’re a girl who’s interested in being a little nerdy, don’t be afraid.

“Everyone has to start somewhere. Even if you have no idea what computer science is or what programming involves, just try it,” Grabow said. “I think it’s something that anyone can learn, and I think it’s really fun.”

INAARA PADANI MANAGING EDITOR

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

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YOUR WORLD TODAY | A Look Into the Syrian Refugee Crisis

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Syrians Flee Internal Conflict PHOTO PROVIDED BY NILÜFER DEMIR

he body of a Syrian 3-year-old boy washed up on the shores of Bodrum, Turkey on Sept. 2.

Alan Kurdi and his family, who, with the exception of patriarch Abdullah, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after their boat capsized.

The family was trying to reach Canada after escaping civil war in Syria. Pictures of his death initiated worldwide attention to the Syrian conflict and the subsequent refugee crisis. Kurdi was just one of the 9 million Syrians that have been displaced from their homes and require humanitarian assistance.

THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR The Syrian unrest began in early 2011 when people of North African and Middle Eastern countries rose up against their leaders in what was called the Arab Spring. This was already preceded with tensions against the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, due to his failure with promised political and economical reforms.

As the conflict gained more traction, it increasingly became more violent. Many ordinary Syrians took up arms as well as former members of the Syrian army, creating the Free Syrian Army. They were later joined by jihadists and freedom fighters who, post-Arab Spring, were on the side of the anti-government rebels.

College student, Kareem Sharba, who lives in Syria, has first hand experience with this conflict. He grew up in a small city, Tartous, before going to college in Homs, a relatively safe city. “There are only explosions and rockets - in Syria that’s considered a safe city. I witnessed two explosions and almost got killed by one of them. I was one minute away from it; it happened near a primary school and a lot of kids got killed and others injured. Every month, five to 15 rockets fall all over the city,” Sharba said.

University of North Texas professor Nancy Stockdale specializes in Modern Middle Eastern History.

“The [Assad] regime responded with a tremendous force against the rebels and this ultimately led to the civil war,” Stockdale said. “That’s when we began to see people, in Syria, becoming displaced refugees. And some of them, beginning in [2011], began to leave the country.”

In August 2011, President Barack Obama signed an executive order supporting Assad’s removal.

“We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way.

He has not led,” Obama said at that time. “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” This was the first U.S. involvement in the Syrian plight.

By the end of 2011, both the United States and the European Union had imposed economic sanctions against Syrian oil and petroleum. At that time, the United Nations’ refugee agency reported over 1.5 million people had already left Syria. Over the next two years, the civil war became more violent, and despite the efforts of many countries and humanitarian

6:30 a.m. Sept. 2

groups, the war continued to be the cause of countless civilian deaths.

“Anyone who criticizes the government goes to prison, is tortured and sometimes dies. “In the beginning the protests were peaceful, but [Assad] started taking people to prison and shooting protesters. Then the people began to buy weapons and fight; then the fanatics said that it was jihad to fight the government and more fanatics started to come to Syria. Now Syria is full of terrorists and the Syrians have two choices: ISIS or dictatorship,” Sharba said.

But increasing attacks by President Assad’s forces and the growing presence of ISIS in the area are fueling war. Because the conflict seems unlikely to be resolved, these circumstances have created an environment in which many people have been forced to leave Syria.

“There’s really no end in sight here because the Assad regime is getting a tremendous amount of support from places like Russia, and we know know that there are Russian troops on the ground fighting for Syria,” Stockdale said. “I think what will happen in the meantime is that more people will leave Syria, people who are displaced inside the country will be forced to leave the country, and it’s going to result in making it even harder for the country to stabilize once the war does end.”

Involvement from other countries often comes with their own agendas. “I know that none of the countries, whether it is USA or Russia, care about the human rights or the terrorism. They only care about their own interests. what I said is what every Syrian feels, lives and knows,” Sharba said.

FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT For the past several years, Syria’s neighboring countries – Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey – have been shel-

tering a combined 3.6 million Syrian refugees. As these countries cannot accommodate any more refugees, many are taking the dangerous journey for asylum in Europe rather than staying in the overcrowded refugee camps.

Upper School History Teacher Tracy Walder teaches a comparative government class that deals with different countries’ government policies.

“In the Middle East, they just put refugees in detainment camps, that’s what they do,” Walder said. “What we do is we physically relocate them; we give them jobs, social welfare [and] apartments. In the Middle East, they don’t do any of that.”

Refugee programs open the doors to a lot of opportunity for the recipients. “Refugee plans give hope to the Syrians who have ambitions to learn in a better way, who want to live a better life, who seek opportunities and chances they can’t have here to learn and grow and become better human beings and those who want freedom,” Sharba said.

According to the International Organization for Migration, in 2015 alone, 473,887 people have arrived in Europe by sea, and of those, “at least 182,000 of those migrants have arrived from Syria – making Syrians just under 40 percent of this year’s total..”

Currently within the EU, there is a law called the Dublin Regulation. This requires the country in which the asylum-seeker first applies to be responsible for processing and documenting their application and then resettling them. This system causes problems primarily for the southern European countries, especially Italy, Greece and Hungary, where the bulk of the refugees are arriving.

“The countries that are in southern Europe and eastern Europe, who are absorbing these refugee populations...they are among the worst economically in the EU,” Stockdale said.

“They’re not able to economically absorb these groups.”

3-year-old Alan Kurdi washes up on the shore of Bodrum, Turkey.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, recently released a plan for how to deal with the crisis.

“We Europeans should remember well that Europe is a continent where nearly everyone has at one time been a refugee. Our common history is marked by millions of Europeans fleeing from religious or political persecution, from war, dictatorship or oppression,” Juncker said to the European Commission last month.

Juncker went on to explain how redistribution of the refugees would take the burden off of southeastern nations.

“I call on Member States to adopt the Commission proposals on the emergency relocation of altogether 160,000 refugees at the Extraordinary Council of Interior Ministers on 14 Sept.,” Juncker said. “We now need immediate action. We cannot leave Italy, Greece and Hungary to fare alone.”

In response to this first call to action, there has been a lot of opposition. The Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, responded saying that countries taking in refugees and then distributing them to other states is “mad and unfair.” He especially believes that the influx of many more refugees will be “a threat to Europe’s Christian identity.”

The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has said that that there is no legal limit to the amount of refugees that are allowed into Germany.

However, Germany reinstated border control with Austria to try and stem the flow of refugees into the country.

Thus far, Germany has allowed in more refugees than any other European country.

“A lot of the refugees face discrimination in countries that they go to. So, now people are asking the Middle East to open their doors, but the Middle East does not actually recognize the concept of a refugee,” Walder said. “They do not grant refugee status, which is a problem. I think some [refugees] genuinely want to go there; some want to go to Europe, but it’s upsetting to me that [the Middle East is] not opening their doors.”

According to the White House website, the “total U.S. humanitarian assistance since the start of the conflict in March 2011 is now more than $4.1 billion. The United States remains the single-largest donor of humanitarian aid for those affected by the Syrian crisis, which has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sept. 9 that the United State’s government is “looking hard at the number that we can manage with respect to the crisis in Syria and Europe. That’s being vetted fully right now.”

“But that’s just a drop in the bucket when you’re thinking of over 4 million Syrians outside of Syria and over 10 million displaced inside the country,” Stockdale said.

Sharba hopes to join the 4 million people who have fled the country.

“I lost hope from this country, and as soon as I get the chance to get out of it I will- just like millions of Syrians who decided to take a leap of faith towards freedom,” Sharba said.

ASHNA KUMAR STAFF WRITER

PHOTO PROVIDED BY MSTYSLAV CHERNOV

PHOTO PROVIDED BY REI-ARTUR

PHOTO PROVIDED BY GÉMES SÁNDOR/SZOMSZED

PHOTO PROVIDED BY AGÊNCIA BRASIL/ RICARDO STUCKERT

SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS (Left) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Alma al-Assad address the nation. (Center Left) Syrian migrants sneak under the border of Hungary and Serbia. (Center Right) Refugees migrate from Syria (shown in red) to surrounding countries. (Right) Syrian rebels strike outside a Budapest Railway station.

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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PHOTO BY CLAIRE FLETCHER

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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE ON TERRY MURRAY

Campaign Central Upper School Head Terry Murray’s fourth grade daughter, Mary Claire (MC), confirms the real scoop on her father.

A look at the leading 2016 presidential candidates.

Top Republican Candidates

1. What is his favorite sports team?

Donald Trump  Donald Trump is currently the leading candidate

2. What is his favorite restaurant in Dallas?

for the Republican presidential nomination. Known for his lack of political correctness, Trump’s unique oratory has garnered many supporters. While Trump has no political experience, he has been the focus of a lot of media attention due to his unique campaign style, which analysts have dubbed “The Trump.”

3. What is his favorite movie?

4. What is his favorite band?

Carly Fiorina  Carly Fiorina, like Trump, has no experience in a

5. What is something that you do on the weekends?

1:30 p.m. Sept 28

6. What is his favorite sport?

Upper School Head Terry Murray hopes to communitcate with students as much as possible.

Nov

2-6

CANDY DRIVE FALL SPC

Austin, Texas

Nov 5-7

SPC SPIRIT RALLY

Penson at 11: 45 a.m.

Nov 3

HALLOWEEN

Boo! Trick-or-treat

Oct 31

Clements at 11:45 a.m.

STUDENT DIVERSITY BOARD FORUM

UPPER SCHOOL WHOLE GIRL PROGRAM Oct 19

Oct 23

FALL BREAK NO SCHOOL Oct 12

COAT DRIVE BEGINS

Donate your gently used coats. Drive ends on Oct. 19.

5

Oct

7:30 p.m.

3

Oct

UPPER SCHOOL COFFEE HOUSE

FOURWARD

Bring in your leftover Halloween candy!

UPPER SCHOOL FALL PLAY

Nov 5-7

Nov 2 11:45 a.m.

PSAT

CLAIRE FLETCHER PHOTO & GRAPHICS EDITOR

EARLY RELEASE FOR US

Oct 14

As a self-named eternal “optimist,” Murray has created a positive outlook toward the rest of the year through his visits with students and faculty during the first few weeks of school.

“I think every year is different and it all depends on

8:30 a.m.

Oct 5-8

FREEDOM FROM CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY

Oct 4 1:00 .p.m.

ADMISSIONS PREVIEW

Planning for the Road Ahead

7:00 p.m.

Throughout the summer, Murray worked with Interim Eugene McDermott Headmistress Liza Lee in order acting as the sole representative to the House of Representatives for the entire state of Vermont. He is for them to gather a better understanding of the Hockcurrently a senator for Vermont and has 34 years of aday community. They anaexperience as an elected official. lyzed the student handbook and took a closer look at the Joe Biden school curriculum.

“He exceeded my ex Joe Biden, current Vice President, is not officially pectations because he is so in the race, but CNN is giving him until the day of the thoughtful. He has such good Democratic debate to join. Prior to vice presidency, Biden served as Senator of Delaware. He has unsuc- experience; I really found his knowledge of Upper School cessfully ran for presidency in 1988 and 2008. If he were to succeed in the presidential campaign, Biden and Upper School life extraordinary,” Lee said. “He has a would become the oldest newly elected president very clear vision of how to at 74. include students in the decision-making process.”

ASHNA KUMAR Murray also worked during STAFF WRITER

Bernie Sanders  Bernie Sanders’ political experience includes

Oct 24

personal email address and server for official governA+ Attitude ment business.

the people and how they embrace those opportunities,” Murray said.

Working over the summer and through the first few weeks of school, Lee and Murray observed the student and faculty communities in order to establish goals for the upcoming school year.

“I loved exploring where he might take the Upper School in the future. For both of us, this year is a year of getting to know the school especially well,” Lee said. “I loved hearing what he discovered.”

However, with all the changes in the upcoming year, it is important for Jones to stay true to Hockaday’s mission.

“My hope for the year is that we continue to do all of the great things that we have been doing at Hockaday,” Jones said. “I think also in a year of change, with new leadership, it’s important to maintain some consistency.”

Acknowledging his unfamiliarity with the Upper School, Murray looks forward to becoming a leader rather than an observer and helping the Upper School grow rather than change.

“I want to see what we can do better,” Murray said. “I want to grow.”

ST. MARK’S HOMECOMING

students and teachers to be their best selves through collaboration.

Top Democratic Candidates “One of the things that I would like to do is to build teams of people working toHillary Clinton gether, and continue to encourHillary Clinton is the leading candidate for the  age collaboration amongst stuDemocratic presidential nomination. She has served dents and faculty,” Murray said. as the First Lady of the United States, Secretary of “I’d love to have more opportuState and a senator of New York. Clinton, a member of nities for adults and students to the Republican party until 1968, is a more moderate connect in genuine ways.” liberal. She is currently under scrutiny for using her

Oct 23

continued from p3

the summer with Assistand Head of Upper School Elizabeth Jones. Inspired by Jones’ knowledge of and familiarity with the student body, Murray set a personal goal to memorize all the names and faces of the Upper School.

“She is an incredible listener and so connected to her students,” Murray said about Jones.

“I love the fact that every time I see her, she is always engaged with the students in some way.

[She] knows them, each one of them very personally.”

Murray and Jones work together on all aspects of the Upper School student life: parent programming, academic curriculum and student council agendas. “[Murray] brings a fresh perspective to everything that we have done and everything we plan to do,” Jones said. “He is really student-centered, which is what Hockaday is all about.

That’s why I think he is such a good fit for the Upper School.”

END OF 1STQUARTER

retired neurosurgeon. He is known for some inflammatory remarks which could prove troublesome in the future of his campaign. Carson is considered an “anti-Trump;” he speaks his mind but also is believed to be more of an intellectual.

1. Liverpool , 2. Eatzi’s, 3. Shawshank Redemption, 4.U2, 5. Go to church, 6. Chicken... any type of chicken, 7. Football/Any sports. or anything about Alaska like “Naked and Afraid”

Ben Carson  Dr. Ben Carson has no political experience; he is a

7. What is his favorite food?

Clements at 7:30 p.m.

governmental office, but she advised John McCain in his 2008 Presidential Campaign. Fiorina recently made headlines after the Sept. 16 Republican Debate in which 51 percent of Republican viewers declared that they believed she won.

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

1/features Y

Currently

Students worked unusual summer jobs p10

Teachers behind the scenes p9

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

07

Students think about their futures in dance p8

Yung-Fang Ludford receives grant p8

Northpark Celebrates 50th Anniversary The Nasher-Haemisegger family continues to contribute to the community PHOTO BY MADISON SMITH

a Alumna of the Issue Lilly Lerer ‘10 currently works at the hospice center at the Visiting Nurse Association in Dallas. She trains volunteers to spend time with hospice patients.

Check out our next issue to learn more about Lerer and her time with hospice patients.

12:30 p.m. on Sept. 17 Crowds gather at Northpark Center for Texas Giving Day. David Haemisegger stands to the right of the balloons.

A

By Sonya Xu

lthough their name is sprawled against a backdrop of leaves on the way from the main building to the science building, you may not know much about them. However, along with contributing 6 million dollars to the construction of the science building, the Nasher-Haemisegger family has made an enormous impact in the Dallas community in both philanthropy and the arts. Recently, the Nasher-Haemisegger family celebrated a very special birthday.

As the owners and operators of Northpark Center, they, along with other members of the Dallas community, celebrated the center’s 50th anniversary on Aug. 19.

In addition to festivities, this day also marked the beginning of Northpark’s 50 Days of Giving. From Aug. 20 to Oct. 28, Northpark is donating to 50 different charities that have contributed to the Dallas community.

But philanthropy is nothing new to Hockaday Board of Trustees Chair David Haemisegger and wife Nancy Nasher. Each year, Northpark contributes to various charities and allows them to host events on the premises – including many that their daughter, sophomore Isabelle Haemisegger, helps with, such as the Salvation Army.

“I love the smiles that it puts on people’s faces when you are helping them directly or indirectly,” she said. “It’s also very rewarding to know that you are making a difference in someone’s life.”

For Northpark’s half century birthday, however, Northpark and the Nasher-Haemisegger family decided to do even more.

“What we did this year was really try and extend that list and so every day a different charity gets honored,” David Haemisegger said. “[Northpark’s 50 Days of Giving] is a way to give back to the community because the community has been so positive and appreciative and helpful of everything we have ever tried to do.”

The charities range from the Dallas Opera to the Susan G. Komen Foundation to the Dallas Public Library. Each organization was asked what type of contribution they required to fit their needs. For example, twenty wigs were donated to patients with breast cancer at the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Irving on the twelfth day.

To ensure that their gifts are long-term, Haemisegger sought out the help of the Communities Foundation of Texas, which helps donors achieve philanthropic goals and meet the needs of the community.

“We definitely want to understand what they supported, how they worked, how they operated and really try to find those charities that were what we thought the most important for the region,” Haemisegger said.

The Communities Foundation of Texas also contributes in significant roles that involve Northpark.

Since 2009, the foundation has hosted the annual North Texas Giving Day. This year, it took place on Sept. 13. This day allows community members to research nonprofits doing good work in 16 counties around Dallas and be able to contribute to causes that they feel passionate about.

This year, participants of North Texas Giving Day can donate to 2100 different charities. Carol Goglia, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Communities Foundation of Texas, believes that giving on one specific

day can be meaningful.

“On North Texas Giving Day, when we give all through one site, we are able to aggregate the giving that day and make a really powerful statement about the amount of giving that we do in one day,” Goglia said.

In addition to making contributions online, participants of all ages are encouraged to donate at fairs and celebrations around town. One of these locations will be the Northpark Center, where several organizations will be present.

North Texas Giving Day is the nation’s single largest day of community benevolence.

“Nonprofits are doing work behind the scenes and aren’t really celebrated,” Goglia said. “This is a way of bringing awareness to the power of the nonprofit sector to make our region a great place.”

Haemisegger hopes that North Texas Giving Day and Northpark’s 50 Days of Giving will shine light on Northpark as something more than just a The center shopping mall.

“The center was always viewed as not just a was always place for shopping but a place for partnership with the community,” Haemisegger said. “We’ve always viewed as not been very active, whatever the needs were over the years, and sharing the art and trying to make it a just a place cultural experience as well as a retail experience.”

The Haemisegger-Nasher family also shares for shopping their love for the arts with the city.

For Haemisegger and his wife, Nancy Nasher, but a place for contributing to both the visual and performing arts, partnership with along with education, is vital. Each holiday season, Northpark hosts hundreds of performing groups. Apart the community. from the Nasher Sculpture Center, helping the Dallas Symphony is another way they have contributed.

David Haemisegger “Whenever [performing and visual arts] can Hockaday Board of Trustees Chair intersect with educational institutions, that’s kind of a plus for us,” Haemisegger said. “We live in such a world that is scientific – it’s quantitative, it can be financial, and I think these qualitative issues and dimensions like this are vitally important if one really wants to be well rounded.”

As for the next 50 years, Haemisegger believes that Northpark will change with the world and that it will continue to impact the community in a positive way.

‘‘

What is the best interaction you have had with a patient?  Oh, that is a tough question. I’ve seen lots and lots of dying people.

[I have] two favorites.

One was I took the oral history, like the life story of a 102-year-old man who was clear as the light of day, and was in fact a professional oral historian.

It was really meta. I was taking the life history of a historian as he was dying.

It was crazy. This guy was hysterical, too. I would be like, “I gotta stop, I’m tired.” And he would be like, “Why? Why can’t we just keep going?” The second one was [with] this man; he was in his 60s and he was dying of lung cancer, and this was in Chicago [when] I worked for a hospice there, and he had never been to the aquarium! And Chicago has this really cool aquarium, and he was like, “I just need to see the aquarium before I die.” So we wheeled him into the aquarium with his oxygen tank and everything, and he loved it.

What is the best piece of advice you have received from a patient? A woman who had been married to her husband for 70 years told me to never to go to sleep mad at your partner.

What led you to work in hospice care? I lived in a zen monastery after my freshman year of college.

I met a number of zen hospice people, and there’s actually a lot of overlap between the zen and hospice worlds. It was a very natural progression from zen into hospice.

V

Zen is all about life and death, and hospice is too.

Lilly Lerer ‘10

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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Performance Dream Becomes Reality

M

iddle School music teacher Yung-Fang Ludford is no stranger performing in front of large crowds; she strikes a chord with her audience. Since her childhood, Ludford has dreamt of “making the world the best I could,” Ludford said.

One of the city’s core values is love. Playing on this string, Ludford chose love ballads including “O Mio Babbino Caro” and “Signore, Ascolta.” She sang a medley of songs, ranging from Italian arias to Chinese modern art songs.

The process of picking the songs was long, and she took painstaking measures in order to ensure that the series of songs flowed well. Her overall mission was to confer her audience with love and the grace of God. Sabina Belei, the pianist who accompanied her on this trip, described Ludford as dedicated to her audience and a pleasure to work with. Ludford’s constant happiness and optimism lifted everybody’s spirits.

“I really think she came away with a new perspective,” Belei said. “I think her students will benefit from her new performing experience and stage presence.”

Currently, Ludford aspires to be an “artist-teacher.” She would love to continue both teaching music and touring. She believes that her experiences performing help her impart more knowledge

NEHA DRONAMRAJU STAFF WRITER

PHOTO PROVIDED BY YUNG-FANG LUDFORD

a prettier place, one song at a time” and of performing around the world. This past summer, her dream came true.

Ludford scored a solo concert in Italy through a Hockaday study grant and sang on July 15 at the International Center for the Arts in Monte Castello, a small town in Italy.

To apply for the study grant, Ludford wrote a proposal and submitted it to the former Head of Academic affairs, Cathy Murphree.

She then received the funding.

“Hockaday approved my dream,” Ludford said.

The grant allowed her to perform as a soprano in Italy, the center of classical operatic talent.

When she arrived at the scenic village of Monte Castello, Ludford was overwhelmed by the rich history tied to the village itself and to the cities around it.

Monte Castello is a tightknit community and its people made her feel welcome and at ease immediately. The sense of community inspired her to make her performances more relatable to her audience.

“I think I owed it to my audience to make my performance

and skills to her students.

“I want to bring my passion to the classroom to inspire my students to pursue performing arts,” Ludford said.

Ludford’s current students, especially fifth grader Ela Guo, find her class exciting and reflective of her musical talents.

“Ms. Ludford’s class is super fun,” Guo said. “The stories that she tells about her trip inspire me to do something with performing arts in the future.”

According to sophomore Kate Fundis, a former student and advisee, Ludford has always been a very hands-on teacher. Fundis enjoyed her time with Ludford and believes that the fundamentals she learned in music still serve her well.

“She integrates her experiences with the lesson plans. I think her class will learn more about what it’s like to perform music both on a small scale and a high level,” Fundis said. “I am confident that she will bring her European experience back to her classroom.

Students Dance on a Different Course

A

s seniors currently complete numerous college applications in the hopes of getting into their desired universities, junior Lily Bines and freshman Rachel Rohrich, both ballet dancers at the Dallas Conservatory, ponder

different courses of action instead of the traditional college route.

While both danced recreationally at a very young age, Bines has focused on ballet for five and half years, while Rohrich has done ballet seriously for five.

“I used to do a lot of musical theater dance. I still do, but one day my mom said she saw me leap across the stage and decided I needed to start taking ballet,” Bines said. “I loved it the minute I started.”

Rohrich first started dance classes because, like many young girls, she “loved the activity and the pretty performance tutus.” She was later encouraged by her current ballet instructor to focus on ballet.

Bines and Rohrich do not take dance at Hockaday, but they dance intensively outside of school, with Bines dancing 25-30 hours a week and Rohrich around 20.

It is their love for dance that motivates them to continue it, even after high school. Both are considering joining a dance company right after graduating. This will be the first time Hockaday has students interested in going straight to a dance company after high school.

“I really haven’t decided yet,” Bines said. “I am thinking that I will audition to be an apprentice at a ballet company senior year and see where that takes me.”

Bines said she would start with online college, which would allow for more flexibility in terms of when to complete schoolwork, if she were to join a company right after high school.

If this does not happen, Bines wants to attend a college with a great ballet program, specifically Indiana University, which has “one of the best ballet programs in the country.” She hopes to then get recruited by a ballet company out of college.

Rohrich is also considering joining a dance company after graduating from Hockaday but is trying to determine how she will have the “best of both worlds.”

“It would be great if I could join a dance company but also attend a local college, probably at night, to earn college credit,” Rohrich said.

“Most major dance companies are in cities with major universities so this might be an option for me.”

According to Rohrich, some

companies like Pacific Northwest Ballet are affiliated with local universities to help their dancers earn a degree while dancing in their company, opening up another option for her.

Bines is interested in several dance companies, including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, Miami City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.

While Rohrich has similar companies in mind, she plans on “keeping an open mind” about which company she would like to join. She plans to spend her next several summers attending ballet intensives at major schools.

Performing Arts Chair and Dance Teacher Beth Wortley, however, stresses the lengthy process it takes to join a company. “Like in theater or music, the process for getting into a company is audition, audition, audition,” Wortley said.

“One must fund their own travel expenses to attend these auditions so it can be expensive and prohibitive for many.”

Wortley also notes the intense competition dancers must face when getting into a company.

“One doesn’t have a choice of what company to join. One must audition all over the country and hope to get a contract eventually,” Wortley said. “In reality only the very best dancers in the country get contracts to the well-known companies.”

According to Rohrich, most students spend time in summer intensive programs that are associatPHOTO PROVIDED BY LILY BINES

Junior Lily Bines showcases her dance skills while doing a penche.

Dec. 7, 2014 Sophomore Rachel Rohrich danced as the sugar plum fairy n the Dallas Conservatory’s Nutcracker.

be able to get into her favorite company. Rohrich compares the audition process to applying to college.

“Just because you don’t get admitted to your first choice, doesn’t mean you won’t attend college.”

Rohrich said. “During this process, it is important that I work with a ballet company that will allow me to continue my college education.”

However, for Bines, if she does not get into a good company, she would probably go try to work on Broadway because she also loves singing and acting. “But if I could do ballet or sing and act I have no idea what else I would ever want to do with my life,” Bines said.

Bines hopes to dance as a soloist someday but understands that she needs to first start in the corps. If she joins a company, Bines said she will enjoy it regardless of position.

“I want to stay in the company for as long as I am enjoying it.

Even if I never move up, being on stage and being able to perform in the corps in all the ballets will be incredible,” Bines said.

Even so, both Bines and Rohrich understand the importance of earning a college degree while dancing due to the relative shortness of a typical dance career.“Earning a college degree is definitely important to me and how I go about doing this will be dependent on if and where I join a company.”

CATHERINE JIANG WEB EDITOR PHOTO PROVIDED BY RACHEL ROHRICH

5:30 p.m. on Sept. 7

ed with major companies.

At a certain age, usually around 15 or 16, Rohrich said, you may be asked to stay for their year-round professional program division, and then after a year or so, you may be asked to join the company as a trainee or apprentice. If by then, Bines said, the company has not offered you a contract into their corps de ballet (from French, body of the ballet), then you know that you probably will not be joining that company. “It’s pretty sad but that’s the way it works,” Bines said.

However, Rohrich said, if you are fortunate enough, they will eventually ask you to officially join the company in the corps de ballet at which time you will work your way up through the ranks: demi-soloist, soloist and then principal dancer.

The numbers that audition and are accepted vary from year to year. Currently, the American Ballet Theater in New York has five Principal Dancers, three Soloists and 54 members in the corps de ballet, while the Pacific Northwest Ballet has 12 Principals, seven Soloists and 22 members in the corps de ballet.

Bines and Rohrich understand that getting into a dance company is extremely competitive and that at first they may not get into their company of choice.

Rohrich said if this were to happen she would keep dancing professionally and improve her skills, so that she ultimately might

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

09

PHOTOS BY MARIA HARRISON AND MERCER MALAKOFF

JESSICA KRAMER

Teachers take Extracurricular to a New Level Although students only know them in the classroom, Hockaday faculty and staff take on many roles outside of their day jobs. This issue, the Fourcast goes “behind the scenes” to take a look at the secret lives of teachers offcampus.

BY MEGAN PHILIPS

d

ANDRE STIPANOVIC

U

pper School Attendance Coordinator Jessica Kramer’s swimming school, Swimmers by Jessica, is heading towards its 25th year of classes, and she has a lollipop wrapper-covered bathroom in her house to prove it. After each lesson, as one of the ways the school approaches their belief that “every child learns better when they are having fun,” Kramer gives her students a lollipop and keeps the wrappers.

By now, she’s accumulated enough to make a colorful, candy-coated wallpaper.

Kramer found her passion for teaching kids to swim long before the start of her business. When she was just 16 years old, Kramer asked if she could help at a swimming camp associated with the Visual Impaired Center in Dallas. Her father, a pediatrician, would let the center use their pool during the summer to teach blind children how to swim.

After helping out one summer, Kramer knew she wanted to pursue it in the future.

“I loved it, and I told my dad, ‘I wonder if I could do it and make some money,’” Kramer said. “He had a patient who taught [in Dallas] for almost 12 years and he called her for me and said, ‘Hey, would you ever hire an assistant?’ and she said she would.”

After working as an assistant for three years, Kramer’s boss moved, leaving thenSMU senior Kramer the business.

Now, Kramer runs it all. She opens registration in February for her small, twoweek group classes that she divides by age range. Each has an average of eight students with two CPR and lifeguard certified instructors in the pool. With her evening classes starting in May and her June and July days reaching 11 hours of teaching, Kramer sees lots of students while she rotates through her 45-minute sessions, many of which happen to be part of the Hockaday community.

“I have had a lot of Hockadaisies who I have taught and who have worked for me, including my daughter, [sophomore] Bebe Sullivan, who has taught with me since she was teeny tiny, but this summer she was actually lifeguard certified and taught with me,” Kramer said.

Although it takes a lot of hard work, which Kramer says sometimes makes her feel like she is “running around like a chicken with her head cut off,” she still finds the job rewarding.

“When you have that kid who comes in on the first day who is screaming and crying and doesn’t even want to put their face in, and then on the last day, which is Show Day [when] the parents get to come watch, they jump in and swim across the pool, it still gives me chills every time,” Kramer said. “You look at it and go, ‘Hey, I did that.’”

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SARAH TRAPHAGEN

lthough Latin teacher Dr. Andre Stipanovic has educated students at Hockaday for 16 years, he has also spent many years educating and influencing young men through his involvement with the Boy Scouts.

Stipanovic first got involved with scouting as a supportive “parent pal” when his oldest son Luke became a cub scout almost seven years ago, but his role in the system has become much larger since then. The next year, Stipanovic led a small group of cub scouts called a Den. He continued to be the Den Leader until Luke moved on to become a Boy Scout at age 11, but Stipanovic stayed a leader at the Cub Scout level because his younger sons were still involved. He took the position of Cub Master, the leader of a Cub Scout group made up of many Dens, three years ago. His role as a Cub Master is to teach the scouts certain tasks and help them earn their badges as well as planning a year’s worth of activities to keep them active in their communities, something Stipanovic thinks is important for them to do.

“No matter how far they go in scouting, even if they said ‘I’ve had enough,’ everything they’ve done up to that point, I feel, is important stuff that we should do as parents with our kids anyway,” Stipanovic said.

Even with his hands full regarding the Cub Scouts, Stipanovic still makes sure to be involved with his two older sons’ Boy Scout troops as a committee member and by helping with merit badges.

For Stipanovic, being involved with his sons’ scouting journeys has been special.

“I’ve been involved in Cub Scouting with all three of my sons in various ways, and I really love it because we go camping, we do all sorts of fun things I think are fun like tying ropes and knots and building things and just having fun,” Stipanovic said.

Throughout his time spent with the scouts, Stipanovic has watched them grow.

“To see these boys, just like [at Hockaday] to see young women just growing year to year is the best thing, to see these boys, meeting them at ages seven, eight, or nine, and then seeing them go on to become more and more responsible and more resourceful and more independent [is most rewarding]” Stipanovic said.

Recently, Stipanovic witnessed this in his own children when he, his wife, and sons, who are now nine, eleven, and thirteen, went camping. “[My sons] are actually helping set the camp up, cook, make the fire, and all the stuff that I can do and my wife can do.” Stipanovic said, “That was one of the best things in my life so far to see my own family grow closer because we were able to actually support each other in that situation and have fun.”

E

veryone deals with stress in a different way, but Upper School English teacher Sarah Traphagen chose to become certified to help women during a significant event in their lives to relieve her stress from an overwhelming school workload.

Traphagen is a birth doula, a non-medical companion who aids the mother during birth, In 2013, while she was completing her doctoral dissertation, she began the certification process in order to take her mind off the stresses of school and help others.

“I decided that I wanted to become a birth doula because I really believe in serving women. I am very interested in birth and midwifery,” Traphagen said.

Although Traphagen is still waiting for her certification to be approved, she has completed all of the requirements of the program she took with Doulas of North America. Traphagen is a support system, in all aspects besides medical, catered toward what the mothers she works with need of her.

“If they need verbal reassurance, or I can show their partner how to help them, and also to just give them a sip of water or running an errand, or I was at a home birth, so while I was there I did the laundry and helped make food and things like that,” Traphagen said.

“I’m there to help.”

Traphagen gets to play a role in a special moment in her client’s lives.

“Being a part of that moment with a parent is a miraculous feeling. That’s all I can say, is that it’s just miraculous,” Traphagen said. “I’ve stepped back just as babies are born and just [had] tears coming down my face because it is just such a wonderful moment.”

Working as doula has been just as rewarding as Traphagen imagined it would.

“I think the most rewarding part is making someone feel loved and cared for, and, you know, enhancing their birth experience, because they are always going to remember that,” Traphagen said. “It’s really about their story, supporting the narrative of their birth.”

Although the unpredictability of childbirth prohibits Traphagen from working as a doula during the school year, she hopes to be able to work during the summer, specifically with low-income mothers and teen moms.

To learn more about what faculty and staff do after hours, and see more pictures of them in action, visit www. hockadayfourcast.org.

Daisy Duels

A look into the tussles and quarrels of the Upper School community.

VS. CAMERON GILES

BY HEIDI KIM

VS. ORANGES

Junior Cameron Giles has always felt a great discomfort when it comes to oranges. Although she has tried relentlessly to alleviate her phobia, it seems there is no cure. “Oranges are the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the world. Their horrid scent reminds me of bullying,” Giles said. “One time [someone] put them in my backpack, and I then bought a new backpack.”

FINE ARTS

VS. PORTABLES

At the end of last school year, the Fine Arts Department moved into the infamous portable village where they would be forced to make do with the small spaces. The choir singers must now belt their high notes in a room with less-than-optimal acoustics, the theatre stage crew is left to yearn for the dearly departed black box, the orchestra students now must both play their instruments and avoid getting poked in the eye by someone else’s bow and the pianos are still trying to recuperate from the summer mildew epidemic. Nonetheless, the show must go on.

OVERFLOW PARKING

STUDENTS

As a result of the construction of the Nasher-Haemisegger Family Center for the Arts building, students have been forced to make the long, grueling trek between the overflow parking and the academic buildings every morning and afternoon. The battle to get the closest spot to the entrance is no joke. Either way, they all make it to first period on time…whether they want to or not.

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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HUMANS OF HOCKADAY | A Look Into the Lives, Passions and Secrets of the People at Hockaday

Q

What is the happiest moment of your life?

The Fourcast is introducing a new segment based off of the widely acclaimed series Humans of New York. Each issue a broad question will be presented, and the responses of a different group of Humans at Hockaday will be featured. This issue focuses on residence students.

GRACE CAI

MARIA GONZALEZ

GRACE ZHANG

ASHLYNN LONG

FRESHMAN

JUNIOR

JUNIOR

SOPHOMORE

SOPHOMORE

“The happiest moment of my life was when my grandmother dragged me in a tiny shopping cart when I was three through the busy morning streets of Beijing as we made our way to the open market, where all the farmers knew my name and let me taste their strawberries, slices of melons and apples.”

“I spent [the day] at the Dallas Animefest. Laugh if you want, but that day was the first time in my life that I was surrounded by people who were similar to me. When I was first introduced to anime, I only had one close friend who was as interested in it as I was. When I came to Hockaday, however, she cut off contact with me and I was left alone. I’ve always wanted to go to anime conventions, but my mother didn’t care enough to allow me to go. That’s why finally going to Animefest was such a joyous occasion for me. After so many years of isolation from other serious anime fans it was like a breath of fresh, clean air to go to the convention.”

“My dad brought a mariachi band on the midnight of my 15th birthday and the sound of the guitar and trumpets woke me up.

I walked down the stairs to find my dad standing at the entrance holding the door open for all of them to walk in when the main singer started singing “Mi Quinceañera,” which was a song he had written himself. I hugged my dad and gave him a kiss on the cheek, listening to the band play five more songs. I felt like a princess for the half hour they were there.”

“After a short time of thought about the question during my shower, I realized that I do not have a happiest moment.

It came to my understanding that I do not rate my happy moments from 1-10, but rather, I only remember the moment as happy. To me, there is no ‘happiest moment’ that I cherish, or write about in my English paper; there’s only the fact that I have these moments that I label ‘happy’ and that to me is enough to hold onto for a lifetime. I may not have a cute story or a cliché life lesson that I learned, but I have a compendium of averagely happy memories and that makes me the happiest I will ever be.”

PHOTOS BY HEIDI KIM

MICHELLE CHEN

Senior Hired to Experiment with Mosquitos

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osquito bites line senior Meg O’Brien’s forearm, but they are not from a recent camping trip. They are the result of one of many experiments that O’Brien assisted in this summer at a mosquito research lab.

This summer, O’Brien traveled to the Mosquito District in St. Augustine, Fla. to test a product known as Attractive Toxic Sugar Bait. O’Brien worked in the labs over five days doing a range of activities including aspirating mosquitoes, setting up experiments and riding in mosquito trucks.

“I learned a lot about how mosquito diseases spread and about how people are curing diseases,” O’Brien said. “It was so [similar] to science class, like setting up an experiment and watching it.”

The experiment testing the ATSB took 24 hours and helped prove the quality of the project.

“Ultimately, the experiment went exactly like we wanted it to,” O’Brien said. “After the 48 hours, over 90 percent of the mosquitoes died.” Following the successful experiment, hopes are high that ATSB could help cure diseases like malaria, which would leave the young O’Brien a part of a major contribution to global health development.

To learn about other students’ unusual summer jobs, visit www. hockadayfourcast.org.

AUSTRIA ARNOLD CASTOFF EDITOR

“Getting lost in New York.

My parents got us lost, but it was so interesting to just wander through [one of] the biggest cities in the world. We got off schedule and it was so much more fun just experiencing the non-touristy parts of the city. We’re so used to having to abide by a schedule and be constantly moving, it felt special to slow down and just enjoy the real New York, not the touristy part. It made me feel like I was actually a part of the city.”

lLLUSTRATION BY LILY SUMROW

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photo essay/

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Sea-ing Life on a New Level This past summer, senior Molly Waring traveled to the Galápagos Islands with her family. While visiting the islands of Santa Cruz, Isabela, San Cristóbal, Floreana, Espanola, Fernandina and Bartolomé, she explored the captivating wildlife around her.

1. When snorkeling, Waring made friends with sea lions that loved to pose for the camera.

2. Waring took this photo when her mom pointed out that the pile of marine iguanas looked like a family photo.

3. Blue-footed boobies, some of the most iconic animals of the Galápagos. They sat mostly on the sides of the rock and were easily identified because of their blue feet.

4. Waring photographed these two sea lions laying in the sand just off a walking path.

5. These vibrant red crabs stood out against the dark lava rocks.

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To check out more of Waring’s work visit her photography website, www. mollywaring. photography, or scan the QR code.

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

in focu

OCTOBER 2, 2015

Nov. 1, 2005. First walks into class dres But there is a differen on her forehead.

TRUTH, JUSTICE and the

AMERICAN WAY

HYPHENATED

Two girls in her class block they ask her.

“It’s a bindi,” Deshpande e proceeds to describe to them the ant Hindu festivals, with celebra “It looks weird,” one of the Deshpande is startled by th of a question than an answer.

Without a response, the gir pande’s forehead. They throw i pande scared and alone.

“That was the first time I something weird about me,” De Confused. Out of place. Un between two cultures.

HISTORY OF THE HYPHEN The term ‘hyphenated Ame has been an integral part of Am slaved Native Americans. While ated Americans are not Cauca actually started out as a derogat grants who flocked to the Unite ing better lives.

U.S. citizens at the time re sentment was expressed throug as the Know-Nothing Party, als gled Banner. Americans saw th especially after the Panic of 183 employment was as high as 25 Upper School history teac hostility Americans felt towards “They were seen as clanni bath and people accused them

65

percent of students said that res cultural differences is the most im part of being American

us

HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

Unless someone was describing their own heritage, the term ‘hyphenated American’ was seen as an insult.

Mexicans joined this minority group after the Mexican-American War, in which vast amounts of land were ceded to the United States by Mexico, including Texas. Along with the incorporation of Mexican territory into the United States came the issue of assimilating the Mexicans who lived in that territory into American culture.

The California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s brought in wealth-seekers from all around the globe, including Chinese immigrants. They, too, were given their own prefixes. Thus, in the late 19th century, the term began to stop applying to white immigrants and became used more and more for immigrants of color. A pervasive ideology that certain civilizations were superior made white Americans feel as though they were above non-white Americans. European-Americans compared industrialized America to places like Africa and were convinced that America was somehow better. Social Darwinism and other philosophical scientific movements helped peak this sense of superiority.

In the early 20th century, people began to speak out against Americans who chose to identify with prefixes. In 1915, President Theodore Roosevelt criticized these Americans, stating that “there is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.”

More recent political figures have also expressed their aversions to the term. Bobby Jindal, a 2016 Presidential candidate whose parents immigrated from India in 1971, said at a Republican leadership summit in April that he was “tired of the hyphenated Americans,” and that if his parents had wanted to raise Indian-Americans, they “would have stayed in India.” Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh said in March 2014 that “people came to this country…to become Americans,” and that immigrants should not be “blinded by any kind of nationalistic loyalty other than to America.”

Liberal journalists have expressed their disagreement with such views, sparking a debate on what exactly defines an American.

grader Emma Deshpande ssed like all her classmates. nce: she is wearing a bindi

k her path. “Why are you wearing that?”

explains. “I’m wearing it for Diwali.” She e significance of one of the most importations usually spanning over five days. girls interrupts. “You need to take it off.” he girls’ bluntness. “No?” She says, more

rls reach over and rip the bindi off Deshit in the plastic trash can, leaving Desh-

realized that being Indian was seen as eshpande, now a junior, said. naccepted. This is how it feels to be torn

N erican’ is deeply rooted in racism, which merican society since colonists first ene the majority of modern-day hyphenasian, the term ‘hyphenated American’ tory epithet for German and Irish immied States during the 19th century, seek-

esented these immigrants, and their regh the formations of nativist parties such so known as the Order of the Star-Spanhe immigrants as threats to their jobs, 37, an economic recession in which unpercent. cher Steve Kramer has taught about the s immigrants. ish, they drank, they despoiled the Sabof ‘stealing the ballot box,’” Kramer said.

specting mportant

AMERICANISM, DEFINED The Great Melting Pot – a term historians ascribe to America’s nature of unifying many heterogeneous groups of people, and also how Ed Dorne, professor of political affairs at the University of Texas at Austin who has written multiple works on race relations, describes America.

“In the U.S., each of us is a composite. We are the sum of a variety of backgrounds and personal experiences,” Dorne said. “What makes up that composite – gender, religion, race or ethnicity, national origin, even our political affiliation – varies with circumstance.”

Certain studies, such as the research paper “Defining American Identity in the Twenty-first Century,” written by Tufts University Political Psychology professor Deborah J. Schildkraut, confirm this viewpoint.

Schildkraut found that 81 percent of the study’s participants, a group of people with various backgrounds who identified as American, emphasized “respecting America’s political institutions and laws” as a very important part of being American, while only 3.8 percent viewed “being white” as significant to the American definition.

Upper School students similarly reflected values of respect, primarily directed towards the various cultural backgrounds that many Americans possess, as defining themselves as American. Of 134 Hockaday students surveyed about what they believed was the most important part of being American, zero percent thought it was being white, while 65 percent chose respecting any cultural differences.

According to Schildkraut, however, an association between being white and being American still exists in society.

“We’re talking about implicit versus explicit attitudes here, something that’s well documented in psychology,” Schildkraut said.

“People genuinely believe the kinds of things that they said to me, but that doesn’t mean that implicitly, what comes to mind automatically, is the same.”

Thus, surveys, such as the one Schildkraut has conducted, may not reflect the internalized attitudes, which Schildkraut believe may be difficult to dismantle.

“Even if they genuinely feel like they would reject any policy that said that Americans have to be white, they still have that automatic association,” Schildkraut said. “It’s very hard to break that.”

But why does this automatic association between being white and being American exist in society?

According to Dorne, the association has a large basis on history.

“The problem has started since the Naturalization Act of 1790, in which only free white persons can become naturalized citizens of the U.S.,” Dorne said. “The reason [the association] makes sense is that the history of this country is a history of white privilege, or put more crudely, this has long been perceived to be a white man’s country.”

THROUGH THE EYES OF AN AMERICAN In the aforementioned survey, 31 percent of Upper School students identified as white-American, 22 percent identified as simply American, 32 percent identified with a prefix other than white and 8.2 percent identified as other. Deshpande is one of the 51 students that identifies as a hyphenated American, and has suffered through racial prejudice because of it.

“Not fitting into the traditional stereotype of what ‘American’ is has definitely been a source of confusion for me,” Deshpande said.

People seem to have an image of a typical American as a white

41

percent of students said that it is important to have prefixes before the term “American”

THE FOURCAST

person, as evidenced by conspiracies about President Barack Obama’s birthplace. In 2010, a poll conducted by Harris Interactive revealed that a quarter of Americans surveyed believed that Obama, whose father is Kenyan, was not born in the United States, and was therefore ineligible to be president. Nearly half of all Republicans surveyed believed that Obama resented America’s heritage.

Conspiracy theories still persist today, despite the numerous releases of Obama’s birth certificate, which states that he was born in Hawaii. Seemingly-white 2016 Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, on the other hand, was born in Canada to a Cuban father – yet there are no demands to see his birth certificate, no conspiracy theories about his eligibility.

Deshpande advocates for the use of hyphens, and argues that the prefixes are necessary in order for non-white Americans to hold onto their cultures.

“The hyphens are there for a reason,” Deshpande said. “Otherwise, their cultures are stripped away and they’re forced to assimilate.”

Hockaday boasts wide diversity within the student body. Students of color constitute for 31 percent of all Hockadaisies, and the Hockaday Residence Department includes students from seven states and 12 different countries.

Freshman Rhett Anderson identifies as simply American, although she occasionally uses the prefix “Northern,” referring to the northern part of the United States.

“I’ve found that the North, the South, the East and the West [parts of the United States] are all very different,” Anderson, who hails from Vermont, said. “Texas is so different from where I’m from, I might as well be from China.”

Anderson chooses not to judge people based on first impressions, and will not assign a prefix to someone unless they use it themselves. “I don’t call people [using hyphens]. I’ll say black or tawny or speckled or copper-tone. I think much more physical appearance than ethnical appearance.”

She used to assign prefixes, but stopped due to mistakes she was making. “I used to, for example, go up to someone and say ‘hey, you’re Japanese, right?’ And it would turn out they were Korean or something.”

Identifying as Hispanic, Senior Karla Salinas believes that using a prefix is a personal choice, and usually describes hyphenated Americans with only the prefix, dropping the ‘American.’

“I take more pride in calling myself Latina than calling myself American,” Salinas said. “If you’re a minority, you should take pride in that.”

According to Salinas, the hyphen acts as a barrier between America and other cultures. “I don’t like [the prefixes] because it seems to me like it’s saying, ‘you have to be this before you can be American.’”

On the other hand, Freshman Hallet Thalheimer identifies as German-American and considers her German heritage to be an important part of her identity.

“I think that if someone feels that [the prefix] is important to them, then they should be able to use it,” Thalheimer said. “But I can see both sides of the argument.”

Salinas and Deshpande, however, both say that the prefixes aren’t necessary for white- Americans, who, due to a history of white privilege, often do not struggle with their identities in the way that hyphenated Americans do.

Deshpande argues that the hyphen is used to recognize the unique experiences of each prefixed group, and that while, for example, a Hispanic-American will experience America differently than an African-American, a French-American and an English-American will most likely have similar experiences without discrimination.

While she recognizes that it’s important to hold onto your heritage, Deshpande says that the prefixes are there for a reason.

“When you become part of the dominant culture, you lose your prerogative to be able to identify with a certain prefix,” Deshpande said.

A BROADER AMERICA “A simple [acknowledgement] that we experience America in different ways.”

That’s the first step, according to Deshpande, to full assimilation of minorities in the definition of being an American.

She points to a still-existing stigma on race and discussion of it in society. “Oftentimes we think our perspectives is everyone’s perspective,” Deshpande said. “We get uncomfortable when we talk about race and about privilege, and the way those affect our experience.”

Because of this stigma, Schildkraut believes that the dissolution of associations between being white and being American will take a long time.

“These associations were formed early on in life, and are thus very difficult to break. It takes efforts early on by whole communities when people are young to even begin to undo some of those automatic associations that we form,” Schildkraut said.

Though he also believes that the disassembling of this association and the formation of a new definition of an American will be slow, Kramer holds a more hopeful view.

“People thought that after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ‘well that’s the end of racism.’ It’s not,” Kramer said. “But I think at some point, I’m optimistic that the assimilation of minorities will happen.”

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percent of students identify as solely “American”

AMANDA KIM & JENNY ZHU | STAFF WRITERS

63

percent of students consider asking someone where they’re really from a micro-aggression Source: Responses of Upper School student survey

ILLUSTRATION BY WENDY HO

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Seniors work in the film industry p15

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The history of boy band break-ups p16

Best brunches in Dallas p17

Fresh Faces in Fine Arts

Fine arts turnover brings new teachers and ideas to drama and visual arts programs PHOTO BY NINA LA BARBA

d Daisy in the Arts Junior Grace Voorheis is a photographer who won second place in a photo contest held by The Dallas Arboretum last year.

Here’s what she has to say about her art.

What do you look for when taking a photo?  I would look for some-

thing that’s aesthetically pretty. It’s hard to photograph something that’s ugly.

Most of the time it’s just whatever catches your eye. I do a lot of nature photography and architecture photography. I hate photographing people because I think it’s hard to tell people what to do. Unless it’s a professional model, they always ask, “How do I pose?” And it’s uncomfortable to boss them around.

1:30 p.m. Sept. 17 New Drama teacher Emily Gray demonstrates an acting technique in front of her class

N

What inspired you to start photography?  My litte brother’s teacher

BY MARIA KATSULOS

ew Studio Art teacher Emily Howard had barely started her interview trial class before making an impression, after Howard’s interactions with students sparked immediate creativity, Visual Arts Chair Susan Sanders knew she had found the best choice. “[Howard’s] own work is very beautiful and interesting,” Sanders said. “[Her work’s] ideas together with images are so strong.” Howard will teach her students to blend ideas and images in four Studio Art classes this year, including the Advanced Placement level.

Hockaday, even adding an extra class.

Her students, including senior and Fine Arts Board chair Karla Salinas, appreciate that their teacher is always accessible and has more time to plan classes.

“There’s a lot more structure. She has more time to focus on just [our] class and her other class,” Salinas said. “She has a lot of plans for us.”

Some of those plans are already in action. Because each school now has its own drama teacher, Hockaday will have its own plays separate from St. Mark’s for the first time in 34 years. The fall play is the comedy “Hay Fever.”

“We’re doing more shows, more roles, more everything,” Gray said. “I want to do as much as I can for the girls.”

While Gray cites a desire for “collaboration with other schools” for performances, she also has a new vision for improv at Hockaday.

The St. Mark’s-Hockaday improv group is a combined group from both schools with an almost-daily practice schedule and well-loved skits. Gray’s decision for a Hockaday-only improv group will focus on acting games and sketch-writing.

But coffeehouse appearances by SMockaprov won’t stop, Gray says; she recognizes the significance of performing in front of an audience.

While Gray already has many plans in action for current students, she’s looking ahead.

I want the arts “We’re standing at the bottom of an amazing mountain range,” Gray said. “We’ve got all these to be known. amazing places to go.”

Some of these places are right here in the Dallas Emily Howard community. Gray hopes to take Hockaday shows on Upper School Art Teacher the road, sharing the drama department with local elementary schools and senior living communities.

Both Sanders and Wortley see great things ahead for the Fine Arts department.

Sanders sees Howard putting down roots that will strengthen the visual arts program.

“She’s at the front end of her career,” Sanders said. “The program will grow with her and she’ll grow with the program.”

Wortley echoed expectations for growth throughout the Fine Arts, knowing both teachers will continue strengthening their programs while bringing in brand-new ideas. “[They’re] just going to skyrocket the...department,” Wortley said. “And change the whole world.”

‘‘

How has Hockaday helped you with your photography?  If I wasn’t taking pho-

tography as a class, I would have dropped it a long time ago, because it’s hard to keep up with it when you’re so busy. But to have it as a class and have assignments you have to keep up with has forced me to stay with it and take photos that I normally wouldn’t have.

PHOTO BY AMANDA KIM

She knows the importance of being able to present to large groups of people and will be adding to the AP Studio Art curriculum, accordingly. This year, students will have a presentation component, in addition to their AP-required portfolio.

“They’re required to have a rationale,” Howard said. “I want them to be able to express themselves and their own artistic viewpoints.”

Howard, a professional artist herself, will expose her students to the possibilities of artistic careers. She will also provide opportunities for submissions to scholarship contests and art competitions.

“Art is not just a for-fun hobby,” Howard said. “You can make a really successful, lucrative career out of art in so many ways.”

In the future, Howard wants to see the Studio Art classes grow from just the four students, seniors Kate Cooper, Jee Yeon Kim, Raney Sachs and Lily Sumrow, submitting AP portfolios this year.

Cooper, who is the Studio Art representative for the Fine Arts Board and plans to major in art in college, appreciates Howard’s new ideas for the class.

“Hockaday students are so driven that we need someone who’s going to take arts and not have it isolated from academics but rather have it [be] cohesive,” Cooper said.

Howard thinks that the new Fine Arts building, as well as this new blend of visual art with other parts of the Hockaday academic and artistic experience, will help draw more attention to the arts. She wants to partner with her colleagues to strengthen the Fine Arts department from the inside out.

“I want the arts to be known,” Howard said.

The search for a new drama teacher largely focused on candidates’ prior work. Performing Arts Chair Beth Wortley heard rave reviews on Emily Gray.

“Everyone who I thought might know her in some way has known her,” Wortley said. “They were all like, ‘Oh, you’re going to have her? You’re so lucky!’”

Gray, a professional actress in New York for over a decade, has more recently been active in Dallas productions through Dallas Children’s Theater. She also still reads voiceovers for commercials and audiobooks.

After hearing about the job posting for the vacant spot in the Fine Arts Department, however, Gray knew it was time for a career shift and put her New York career on hold. She’s been a professional actress there for over a decade.

After applying, Gray and Wortley skyped before the in-person interview.

Wortley had nothing but good things to say after her first interaction with Gray.

“I loved her by the time we got off the phone,” Wortley said, citing Gray’s creativity as something she sensed immediately. “You instantly get a sense of her personality and you can’t help but like it.”

The program Gray inherited from former Hockaday and St. Mark’s drama teacher Rod Blaydes transitioned quickly to adapt to one full-time teacher for

when I lived in Costa Rica.

She started a photography club and I thought, “Oh, I’ll just sign up for kicks,” and then I actually really liked it. I was in the sixth grade.

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Seniors Embark on Filmmaking Adventures

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impressed with Lidji’s work, agreed to have the installation at her gallery.

Dunn believes that the reason for Lidji’s success was the thoughtfulness and complexity of her vision and her project.

“I get contacted by a lot of people – artists around the country and around the world,” Dunn said. “But Sadie really stood out, because she took this initiative. Just given her age, I was really impressed by her maturity and her strength in taking a risk.”

According to Lidji, this was one of her greatest accomplishments to date and an immense learning experience. Reading all of the teenage girls’ journal entries made her realize that while everyone’s experiences were different, everyone was connected through similar feelings and emotions.

“It was a very validating experience for me as an artist and as a teenage girl, because everyone took me seriously and everyone took all of the girls participating seriously,” Lidji said.

Twenty-four days and 9,716 miles later, another Hockaday senior was peering out of the car window at a huge silver building, visible even from a mile away. As the car cruised closer and closer to the building, senior Lexie Chu read the sign on the front, emblazoned with glowing white words: “Infinite Studios.” Jittery ,but excited, Chu was about to embark on a filmmaking adventure of her own – albeit in Singapore.

“I was jetlagged,” said Chu. “But ready to hit the ground running.”

At the beginning of July, Chu flew to Singapore with her parents for two filmmaking internships. The first internship was for Infinite Studios and spanned the month of July, while the second internship was for CreativesatWork and took place during the first few weeks of August.

For Infinite Studios, Chu interned under Infinite Frameworks, a facility that helps movies in Singapore with post-production, the work done after all of the footage is shot (including editing, sound mixing and special effects). Infinite Frameworks has divisions in Warner Brothers Television, Discovery Channel and MasterChef Asia.

While working under Warner Brothers, Chu shadowed producers and scripted promos (typing up lines to be translated for other regions).

When working under Discovery Channel, she prepared projects in Avid, an editing program, for producers and editors. She also watched people edit promos for TV shows such as Arrow and Gotham.

“I was awestruck at basically anything,” Chu said. “I was just so eager that they had stuff for me to do.”

Senior Sadie Lidji poses by one of her murals. The murals were composed of journal entries from girls around the world.

10:14 a.m. July 31

PHOTO PROVIDED BY LEXIE CHU

as occupied as her thoughts; clutching three large pink-and-purple paintings and a towering stack of journal entries, Lidji sat on the ground and carefully began to lay out each journal entry on the floor. “I am such a jealous person,” one entry said. Another showed a Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait.

“I worked the whole day until about 5 p.m. arranging the entries onto three murals in a way that was aesthetically pleasing,” Lidji said.

“And by 7 p.m., people came trickling in, and my nerves starting going away as I saw people soaking in my work.”

That evening Lidji opened her own gallery installation, titled “Journals Opened: What Our Secrets Say About Us.” When visitors first walked into the room they saw three murals lined with taped journal entries. Then they stepped outside into the courtyard to watch three projection videos showing digital copies of journal entries on a loop. Over 100 people attended.

What visitors to the installation came to see was the result of two years of planning and hard work.

In 2009, Lidji first created her Youtube channel, “defense360,” where she makes and edits vlogstyle videos documenting her own life. A self-described lover of journaling, Lidji has discussed journaling several times in her videos.

In 2013, then-sophomore Lidji was struck by the idea of reaching out to her viewers – teenage girls from around the world – and asking them to send in their own journal entries for some sort of compilation.

However, as the entries came pouring in, Lidji was not yet sure what she wanted to do with them.

“The months went on by and I had about 100 journal entries accumulated,” Lidji said. “Then I realized that I wanted to make a combination of a film and physical mural installation.”

During the summer before her junior year, Lidji buckled down and began to plan. She wanted to create three experimental films and three murals. Journal entries that fit into three categories – crushes, intensity and self-loathing – would be played on a loop in the three projected films.

The other, longer entries would be arranged into three murals.

However, while planning the creative aspects of the installation, Lidji still struggled with the logistics.

“I was thinking: Where am I going to do this? What gallery would take a teenage girl’s work?” Lidji said.

She eventually reached out to Talley Dunn ’86, owner of the Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, and met with her in January 2015. Lidji showed Dunn the first experimental video she had made. Dunn, who was very

8:23 p.m. June 12

PHOTO PROVIDED BY SADIE LIDJI

N

o one’s going to come. Everyone’s going to hate it.” Fear after irrational fear raced through senior Sadie Lidji’s mind as she opened the door to the Talley Dunn Gallery on the morning of June 12. Her arms were

Senior Lexie Chu takes a break with Eden Ang, host, and Cherie Leong, one of the producers, for 50on50,

As the beginning of August came into view, Chu transitioned to her internship at CreativesatWork.

There, she worked as a production assistant for 50on50, a web series on the History Channel celebrating Singapore’s 50th year of independence.

As production assistant, Chu helped gather props and script-supervise – making sure everybody had the right lines. Chu was also in charge of craft services, meaning that she picked what everyone ate each day.

“Overall, I had to be ready at any moment to help anybody,” Chu said.

Chu, who wants to be a producer in the future, said that these internships helped her learn about every single aspect of the production process for films, TV shows and more. Chu also learned about the significance of the ever-growing film industry.

“Film is really universal,” Chu said. “What you learn can be applied anywhere. You don’t just have to go to only Hollywood to be successful in film. Asia is a growing center for film and TV and video.”

Both of these girls have also been taking Film Studies teacher

Glenys Quick’s Advanced Filmmaking class since their sophomore year, the first year the class was offered.

Before Hockaday offered film classes, both then-freshmen took the joint Hockaday/St. Mark’s film class at St. Mark’s.

According to Quick, these girls’ love of film and determination have allowed them to achieve what they have achieved so far.

“Sadie lives for filmmaking – it’s not just something she turns on for class,” Quick said. “And Lexie is very independent – she likes to volunteer for different film festivals on her own.”

Both of these girls also plan to continue to pursue film in college.

Lidji, who is interested in screenwriting, is considering a double major in creative writing and film. On the other hand, Chu would like to major in film with an emphasis on producing.

“Both have a realistic understanding of the film industry,” Quick said, “And I believe that they will have visible and rewarding careers in film.”

ELIZABETH GUO STAFF WRITER

Senior Interns at Infinitude Employees in swivel chairs sat in a circle during their weekly Monday morning meeting, where they caught up on events that happened during the weekend. As she walked into the Infinitude office building on the morning of July 6 she was greeted warmly. “This is our new intern, Nathalie.”

Over the summer, senior Nathalie Naor interned at Infinitude Creative Group in Plano.

Infinitude, a film production company that is contracted by other companies to make videos for employees, creates videos that are often used to promote or educate about a newly launched product.

“The films [that I worked on] weren’t artistic films,” Naor said. “These had to present information in an organized way.”

Naor gained a well-rounded perspective of the company by doing many diverse jobs.

Some of these jobs included working the slate (the clapperboard used before each take), organizing call sheets (which showed at what time actors were supposed to come to film production) and assisting with general management of the company.

On the production side, Naor learned how to use Photoshop, Adobe Premier and a new program called Hype that is used to animate videos.

One of Naor’s favorite parts of the whole internship experience was getting to know her coworkers. According to Naor, on her first day on the job, everybody had already introduced themselves to her by lunchtime. One of the employees recommended movies to her regularly.

“I thought they would all judge me because I’m a high school girl,” Naor said. “But everyone welcomed me with open arms.”

The Masterpieces of Dallas and Fort Worth A Closer Look at the Art Housed in the Metroplex

HITLER’S MURILLOS Meadows Museum During World War II, Hitler’s art-looting division snatched two paintings of Seville’s patron saints, “Justa” and “Rufina,” by Spanish master Bartolome Murillo from the walls of Rothschild Mansion in Paris.

Estimated to be worth over $10 million each, they were recovered by the Monuments Men in a salt mine after the fall of Nazi Germany. Other recovered pieces included Michelangelo’s “Bruges Madonna” and van Eyck’s “Ghent Altarpiece.” When Algar H. Meadows purchased the paintings in 1972, he did not know the paintings’ history; however, Robert Edsel, founder of the Monuments Men Foundation, informed Meadows of their historical origins in 2007.

Both masterpieces are displayed at the Meadows Museum on Southern Methodist University’s campus.

BY KATE CLEMENT

OUT OF THE ICE Dallas Museum of Art

PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT Kimbell Art Museum

Frederic Church was one of the first artists to venture into the Arctic tundra in 1859. By contrasting his painted Arctic as a place of both breathtaking beauty peril, Church expanded the Hudson River School genre as the first independent American art movement. Throughout his painting career, Church traveled to various corners of the globe to create his large scale, vividly detailed nature canvases, painting remote landscapes in Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica, Israel and Jordan. When the art world turned away from the Hudson River School and towards Impressionism, Church’s work lost favor with buyers. However, in 1979, Church rose out of obscurity when “The Icebergs” sold at Sotheby’s London for $2.5 million, a price that broke all pre-existing records for an American painting sold at auction. Its purchasers, the Hunt Family, immediately donated it to the Dallas Museum of Art, where it remains one of the museum’s signature paintings.

Similar gambling scenes, yet markedly different, hang in the same place for the first time – one version inspired by the other. The original, Caravaggio’s “Cardsharps,” is considered one of the Italian master’s greatest works, while its counterpart, Georges De La Tour’s “The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs,” hangs alongside it. It is extraordinary that here in the metroplex the two hang in the same room at the Kimbell so that viewers can contrast Caravaggio’s Venetian delicacy with De La Tour’s French opulence. While “Cheat” has been in private collections since it was painted, “Cardsharps” was lost in the 1890s and was found in 1987 and then purchased by the Kimbell.

REPRODUCTIONS PROVIDED BY MEADOWS MUSEUM, DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART AND KIMBELL ART MUSEUM

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SOFI MIRA

9:30 a.m. March 25 Zayn Malik becomes the first member of One Direction to jump ship.

History and Heartbreak of the Average Boy Band

I

t’s June 23, 2012. Junior Tori Gudmundsson, then a seventh grader, fights through the throngs of people stuffed into Gexa Energy Pavilion, anxiously awaiting this moment. Gudmundsson’s life had led up to this point – five handsome, young Brits step on stage. Gudmundsson (and twenty thousand other concert-goers) erupt in screams and shrills: One Direction has arrived.

Fast forward to March of 2015. Gudmundsson, now a junior, refreshes her inbox to find an email from One Direction fanmail, a remnant of times long past.

The email concerned Zayn Malik, one-fifth of the band, and his decision to leave the group, breaking the hearts of teenagers all across the globe. But was this breakup avoidable, or was it meant to happen?

“My life with One Direction has been more than I could ever have imagined. But, after five years, I feel like it is now the right time for me to leave the band,” Malik said via the band’s Facebook page.

Just a few months later, in late August, Gudmundsson heard rumors of the whole band breaking up after the release of their newest album. According to Simon Cowell, X Factor judge and the man credited with One Direction’s success, the boys want to take some time to themselves before they get into solo work.

After five years, four albums and a whole lot of fans, what happened to One Direction?

Brad Wavra, Senior Vice President of Live Nation Touring, has had the opportunity to work with many boy bands, including One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys throughout his career.

In his extensive experience, Wavra notes that boy bands normally enter the spotlight without a solid plan in place.

“I think by definition the boy bands are young, and with youth you have a[n] innocence and the anticipation of what’s next,” Wavra said. “Everyday is a new adventure and they have no idea of where it will end or how popular they will become.”

Boy bands are something different than other bands. They have characterized generations of fans for decades.

It all started in 1964 with the Beatles. After one too many years in the spotlight, too much time together or a combination of the both, even the greatest of the great have fallen out of fame. The Beatles entered a decline in 1968, with rumors of the band splitting circulated among fans. It was not until 1970, nearly two years later, when the group split for good, attributing the fact to the death of their manager and difference in opinion among band members.

Boy bands tend to ‘die out’ generationally. As an age group of fans grows older, they break from preteen fantasy and drop the romanticized notion of who the band really is.

According to Upper School English teacher and former boy band fanatic Dr. Jennifer Boulanger, there is a time in our lives for boybands, a time that Boulanger is no longer a part of.

“One Direction is speaking to a place where you guys are in life and not where I am so I don’t care that much about them,” Boulanger said. “[But] I understand why you guys care so much about them.”

Boulanger believes that we love these celebrities “because they’re unreal,” comparing them to desirable literary figures like Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre and Mr.

Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

“I loved Brian of the Backstreet Boys because his character was sensitive and sweet and a bit vulnerable, which probably revealed a bit about the kind of romantic partner I might seek later in life,” Boulanger said.

When we grow up and realize that a relationship with this person is just a fantasy, we begin to lose interest in the band. Although generations of fans are lost as people grow out of the boy band age, new fans are there to fill the void.

Another common reason for the demise of the boy band is the length of time that they have spent in the spotlight.

Although Gudmundsson was upset initially after hearing about 1D’s breakup, she soon adopted a different attitude.

“They deserve to have a break because they have been going at it, like, nonstop for four years, so I think that it is good for them. Hopefully it will only be a year, but we will see,” Gudmundsson said.

Wavra, like Gudmundsson, notes that boy bands like One Direction break up because of a change in priorities.

“I think the sheer amount of time they spend together is both a blessing and a curse. To be successful you need to work when you get hot, to get hot you need to work really hard to create good music and to promote your music on the radio,” Wavra said. “All of this takes 100 percent of your time. As teenagers, being together is a ton of fun and you become your own sort of family, but as you mature and as time passes, days become weeks, become months, become years and during this time the individual band members are maturing from teenagers into adults.”

Wavra also mentioned the desire for individuality that many of the boys long for, after being grouped together for so long.

“After 4-5 years of non-stop work, you would want to change things up and live for yourself, not as a member of a band,” Wavra said.

In the history of boybands, reuniting is rare. Maybe a reunion concert or reunion album will appear in the years to come, but it is more likely that One Direction will never again be the band they were in 2010.

“They probably will need that time and it may be longer than a year,” said Boulanger, who has fond, recent memories of jam sessions to the Backstreet Boys Spotify playlist. “Maybe they will come back and fans will get to have a reunion and you will be older and buy their album like I did. It’s not over and you can always go back and listen to them.”

Although the boys may never get back together, they will go on to pursue their own musical careers.

This raises an important question: Who will be the breakout artist of One Direction?

MARY CLAIRE WILSON SPORTS EDITOR

Passionate About Piano

T

wo pianos. Three judges.

An audience of one hundred people. That sets the scene for the conference room in which sophomores Mira Mehta and Anna Taglioli, junior Grace Cai and senior Hallie Gu performed at the most prestigious and highly selective competition in the state, the Texas Music Teachers Association Convention. The competition was held in the conference rooms of the Houston Hyatt Regency Hotel on June 13.

In order to be invited to play, students had to pass the music theory exam as well as play for two judges in their respective local competitions. Gu, resident of the Richardson district, won the local competition and then advanced to state.

The state competition concerto usually involves an orchestra, but due to logistical concerns as this was a smaller audience, Gu and Mehta played the piano solo accompanied by a professional pianist. They both played Camille Saint-Saëns’s Concerto #2 in G Minor.

Cai, Gu and Mehta advanced to the final round. Gu placed first in the 11th and 12th grade division and Mehta placed in the top five in the ninth and 10th grade division.

Dr. Grace Long, a member of the Richardson Piano Teachers Association and Gu’s Hockaday-employed private piano instructor, attributes Gu’s success to her dedicated work ethic.

“She always comes to lessons prepared and will have the whole piece ready to go,” Long said.

Long has taught Gu for three years; since then Gu has won the Hockaday piano cup two years in a row. She is also the first Hockaday piano student to earn first place in the state level.

During the competition, Long advised Gu to “listen to yourself and understand that you have learned the piece.”

“I think she got first place because she poured her heart out playing it,” Long said.

Preparation for this concerto has been years in the making. Mehta and Gu’s passion for the instrument started at very young ages: Mehta started when she was 4 and Gu started when she was 6 years old.

“Piano teaches you a lot about focus and helps me de-stress,” Mehta said. “It involves self-control and patience.”

Mehta practices two hours a

day, but near competition days she practices five to six hours a day, divvying up time in the morning, afternoon and at night. Apart from lengthening her practice time in order to prepare for competitions, Mehta rehearses the song in her head and looks at the sheet music for notes and dynamics.

“If I don’t win, at least I know I gave it my all. It’s not all about winning, it’s also about the work habits,” Mehta says.

Gu agrees with Mehta, saying working hard gets you far, but winning is another tribulation of its own.

Both compete in five or six competitions per year, which have also prepared them for this contest. Some competitions that both of them have competed in include

‘‘

I think she got first place because she poured her heart out playing it Dr. Grace Long

Upper School Piano Instructor

SMU’s Dallas Symphonic Festival and the Dallas Music Teachers Day. Mehta placed first in the DSF. “I just like performing for people, because when you play, your own self really comes through,” Gu said. “You’re communicating your feelings and your emotions through your piece because music really says a lot.”

Regarding the future, Gu plans on minoring in music in college and maybe starting an amateur piano performance program. Mehta, too, plans on playing piano in college.

“I think it’s something that’s always going to be with me once you know the notes and once you have a love for music,” Mehta said.

Gu’s next major performance is the McKinney Young Artist Competition held in early April 2016, in which she will compete for the grand prize winner for a cash prize of $1,000.

NOOR ADATIA NEWS EDITOR

#Relatable Song Lyrics

BY ELISE NGUYEN

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

17

CULTURE POPS | The Fourcast’s Favorite Restaurants, Movies, Music, TV Shows and More

Best of the Brunch

Fall in Love with TV PHOTOS BY AURELIA HAN PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH CHAN

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2 Fall Television

Every season has its perks. While winter brings gloomy weather, spring brings allergies and summer brings the deadly heat, during fall, many great shows premiere, and even greater ones return.

3

4

THE MINDY PROJECT

From old-fashioned diners to new American grub, Dallas restaurants serve pancakes, waffles and eggs sent straight from the food gods. We recruited some of Hockaday’s food bloggers – alumna Ellie King ‘15 (@eatsbyellie), junior Helen Williams (@helensfood), sophomore, junior Abby Fuller and sophomore Emily Fuller (@fullerfoodies) and sophomore Abby Bush (@foodwithfrands) – to share their favorite brunch finds. But which brunch is the best of bunch? Holy crepe, this is going to be tough to chews. BY AURELIA HAN

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Origin Bar + Kitchen @eatsbyellie

Small, cozy and modern, Origin Bar + Kitchen is an intimate spot to meet up with friends or family for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Just driving around Knox-Henderson, you could easily miss it, but if you are ever in the area, look for it. Origin is a must. Their kitchen is located right next to the dining area, and there’s something about hearing the chatter of chefs and the sizzle of pans that makes the restaurant experience that much better. Going off King’s recommendation, I ordered the seasonal hash bowl and shared the açai bowl with my family. The hash bowl, which includes sweet potatoes, your choice of eggs, bits of bacon, sunflower seeds and avocado is a seasonal dish. Although the açai bowl falls short compared to Nékter Juice Bar, it was still commendable and worth trying.

Overall, delicious food, friendly staff and relaxed ambience. A+ for Origin Bar + Kitchen. $$ 4438 McKinney Ave. #150, Dallas Monday-Friday 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

Sunday 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

2

Oddfellows @helensfood

Located in the heart of The Bishop Arts District, Oddfellows is whipping up some of the most unique brunch dishes, including red velvet pancakes, duck chilaquiles, and lemon beignets. The red velvet pancakes are definitely worth trying as it’s also not often you see a cake-flavored pancake on a menu. But I will say, however, they are not as fluffy or “melt in your mouth” good as Spiral Diner’s pancakes.

Their American classics are also worth mentioning. According to @helensfood, Oddfellow’s chicken and waffles are her favorite in the Dallas, and after trying a bite of my dad’s, I can gladly say she’s not wrong. And to all the coffee lovers, this place offers a wide range of different roasts, and the cute foam designs on their lattes are definitely a plus. The staff is also consistently amicable, the ambience is welcoming and the food is served in a timely manner. And, if the Texas weather is permitting, you can grab an outside bar seat or on the patio. $$ 316 West 7th Street Dallas Every Day 7 a.m.-3 p.m.

3

Spiral Diner @fullerfoodies

If you are a vegan living in a TexMex, barbeque, bacon-loving city, finding a restaurant that accommodates your diet may seem impossible. But look no further!

With two locations in Oak Cliff and Fort Worth, Spiral Diner and Bakery features an entirely vegan menu that offers tofu egg scrambles, vegan sausages and ice cream. Because it was my first time there, I went with the waiter’s recommendation of the Viva la Migas and a side of blueberry pancakes. As an egg lover, I was hesitant at first to try a scramble with no eggs, but after my first bite of the tofu scramble, I was convinced. If that wasn’t good enough, the pancakes with agave nectar syrup were like heaven in my mouth – they are some of the best I’ve tried in the Dallas area.

But while the food was great, service was disappointing. I went on a busy Sunday morning, but to me, waiting almost 30 minutes for food is way too long. $ 1101 North Beckley Ave., Dallas Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Sunday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

4

Breadwinners @foodwithfrands

Serving breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, Breadwinners has become a must-go restaurant in the Dallas area. Ever since my first time there when I tried their veggie scramble, I’ve been going back again and again. Their menu includes everything from caramel pecan cinnamon buns, banana bread French toast and egg scrambles to crab cake benedicts.

I got the pecan waffle with bananas, and I have to admit it was a little dry and nothing too special.

But the banana bread french toast Their service is also a hit-or-miss.

During my most recent visit on a Saturday morning, the restaurant was already buzzing but nowhere near packed; we still waited nearly 10 minutes for our waitress. If you’re going for Sunday brunch, be ready to wait anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour just to be seated. But props to the complimentary assortment of fresh baked breads that saves the day. $$ 5560 West Lovers Lane, Dallas Brunch: Saturday 7 a.m.-4 pm.

Sunday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

Breakfast & Lunch: Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-4 p.m.

The “Honeymoon” is Over

L

ana Del Rey’s album “Honeymoon,” released Sept. 18, 2015, took me back to her debut in 2011 with the hit song “Video Games” and her resulting first album “Born to Die.” Although the album is reminiscent of her previous works and still speaks to Del Rey’s anti-feminist view, it has a gloomier tone that weaves its way throughout the soundtrack.

“Honeymoon” sets the tone for the rest of the album with its soporific melody and Del Rey’s desire to get back with an abusive boyfriend. Unfortunately, Del Rey seems to disregard feminism as the album goes on.

Like in her previous albums,

Del Rey continues to chase love even when it causes her pain.

Referencing her first album, Del Rey mentions a “Mr. Born to Lose” in her title track and continues to sing about her dependence on men in tracks like “Terrence Loves You,” “Salvatore” and “Music To Watch Boys To,” in which she sings “I like you a lot, so I do what you want.”

Aside from a few lyrics that stood out to me, I was unimpressed by the lack of variety and meaning on this album. In addition to being musically similar, almost all of Del Rey’s songs are centered on her submissive nature when it comes to men. Although she has publicly said that she does not want to be a role model when it comes to love, I was hoping that an artist like Del Rey, who has a strong female following, would

add some female empowerment to her songs.

Straying from her repetitive themes, she ventures out of her comfort zone and incorporates T.S. Eliot’s work in the song “Burnt Norton (Interlude).” She sings the poem, which touches on topics like time, the universe and the future, over electronic music which was a refreshing thematic change in the soundtrack.

Like in her previous album “Ultraviolence,” Del Rey chose to cover another Nina Simone song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” for the closing track. Del Rey redeemed herself with this track; she took strong lyrics with powerful vocals and made them equally moving with her softer sound.

Unfortunately, this amazing track was not enough to overcome the 60-plus minutes of anti-feminism.

This album is perfect for Del Rey’s hardcore fans and for newbies who want to start listening to her music because it is the definition of the Lana Del Rey sound.

The album is available for $12.99 on iTunes – buy at risk of taking a long nap.

SHREYA GUNUKULA STAFF WRITER PHOTO CREDIT TO UNIVERSAL MUSIC

Lana Del Rey “Honeymoon”

Everybody’s favorite gynecologist is back. Last year, Fox announced that they were canceling “The Mindy Project.” Hulu, a streaming site similar to Netflix, took the sitcom under its wing and continued production, releasing the first episode of the new season on Sept. 15. Everybody was hoping that Hulu would take notes from Netflix and upload the entire season at once, but unfortunately, episodes will be released weekly.

To top that off, there will be an ad break at least three times during each episode, even if you have a paid membership. If you can sit through the ads, watch Mindy struggle with her love life and earn the big bucks every Tuesday on Hulu.

SCANDAL

Close your eyes and think about things that stress you out. If “Scandal” isn’t already on that list, you either haven’t watched the show or you have no soul. Main protagonist Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, runs a secret organization that solves problems in the government. After getting to know and love the characters, plot twists start to dominate the show, resulting in emotional viewers. The show premiered on Sept. 24 along with the rest of producer Shonda Rhimes career-based dramas, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “How to Get Away with Murder.” The three hour epic starts every Thursday at 8 p.m.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

If you thought “American Horror Story” was weird before, it’s about to get a lot weirder now that Lady Gaga has joined the cast.

Entertainment Weekly describes Gaga as a countess that “sustains herself with a nutritious diet of [intercourse] and blood,” so with its gory, violent and sexually explicit content, “American Horror Story” is a kind of show that has its viewers wondering, “How can this be shown on TV?” Along with Lady Gaga, the recurring cast – Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates and Sarah Paulson – welcomes Darren Criss and Max Greenfield to the show.

The seasons’ plots aren’t connected, so there is no need to binge watch all four preceding seasons; if you want to go down that path, all seasons are on Netflix. The first episode will air on Oct. 7 on FX at 11 p.m.

SCREAM QUEENS

In July, Ariana Grande was the star of a leaked video where she said she “[hates] America” and licks donuts in a donut shop, leaving them unsanitary and covered in her spit. That was a low point for Grande, even though those donuts could probably have sold for thousands of dollars on eBay. Since then, she has moved on to bigger and better things. In “Scream Queens,” a new show that premiered on Sept. 22, Grande plays Chanel #2, sidekick and Kappa Kappa Tau sorority sister to Emma Roberts, Chanel #1. The show claims to be a “horror comedy,” which basically means it’ll try its best to mimic the effects of the “Scary Movie” series. If that fails, hopefully celebrities like Nick Jonas, “90210’s” Diego Boneta and Rookie Mag’s editor Tavi Gevinson that star in the show will give it good ratings. Watch everything that can go wrong with sorority hazing every Tuesday on Fox at 8 p.m.

CHERYL HAO STAFF WRITER

18

THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

s&w

8/sports & wellness Y

Currently

Coaches introduce third volleyball team p20

Debris in Bachman prohibits crew practice p20

HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

Why you shouldn’t say “throw like a girl” p20

Cheerleaders shatter stereotypes p19

The Science Behind Weight Loss

Research reveals new ways to continue losing weight after hitting a weight loss plateau PHOTO BY CLAIRE FLETCHER

4 FourScore

A look into the numbers that define athletics.

2

The number of players on the varsity field hockey team who left for Swiss Semester: sophomores Genny Wood and Audrey Magnuson.

6:30 p.m. Sept. 24 Upper School junior measures waist size after a hard workout.

60,000

The average number of meters that the varsity crew team rows per week at Bachman Lake.

BY ESHANI KISHORE

O

n a hot day in October, junior Melanie Kerber navigates through the lunch line and fixes herself a salad comprised of spinach, chickpeas and tomatoes, along with a chicken breast and a glass of water. Although Kerber makes it a point to eat healthy most of the time, she makes her food choices in the pursuit of a singular goal: losing weight. The high-protein, low-fat diet that Kerber follows is the traditional diet for initial weight loss.

But recent research by the Mayo Clinic reveals that the most effective way to lose weight after a “weight loss

plateau” may be to reevaluate one’s current diet and exercise plan, continue to cut calories and increase muscle definition by strength training.

BALANCING THE ENERGY EQUATION Eric Godat, Ph.D, a theoretical physics professor at Southern Methodist University, believes that the key to bouncing back from a weight loss “plateau” has to do with increasing metabolism.

The energy that someone expends goes to either one’s metabolism or to kinetic energy – the energy of motion.

Kinetic energy includes exercise such as walking or any other movement that humans perform throughout the day, whereas metabolism processes things such as digestion and homeostasis, or the maintenance of a stable internal environment.

“Your metabolism is highest if you are young and active,” Godat said. “If you are anything but those factors, then your metabolism will be lower.”

One of the ways to increase metabolism is to eat healthy snacks in between meals. According to The Mayo Clinic, eating fruits and vegetables as snacks is a way to feel full without consuming a lot of calories.

Snacking on fruits and vegetables can also end a “weight loss plateau,” because it can help someone feel full until their next meal without adding a lot of additional calories to their daily total.

There is a difference, however, between eating Reese’s peanut butter cups as a late breakfast during advisory and consuming a healthy snack.

“Refined white carbohydrates and sugar aren’t likely to help you feel full for very long,” Godat said. “However, fiber fills you up and speeds up weight loss by increasing the rate at which you burn calories,” he said.

Physics teacher Richard Taylor agrees with Godat but believes that moderation is key – even with healthy foods. “Moderation is extremely important, and the only effective way to lose weight is by reducing the amount of calories you consume,” Taylor said.

that make it easier to live a better, healthier life, one way to change up your diet and speed up weight loss again is to “carb cycle,” or eat healthy carbs on days that you exercise and half your carb intake on days that you don’t work out.

Kerber, however, sees results with the diet plan and exercise regime that she follows and does not anticipate needing to “carb cycle” in the future because she already has a healthy diet.

“I doubt that I would try a carb cycle because I focus on consistency in my diet everyday,” Kerber said. “If I stopped seeing the results I wanted, I’d be more likely to make sure I’m balancing my carbs, fats and proteins.”

THE SCIENCE OF FITNESS The Mayo Clinic reports that the best way to improve a fitness regime after reaching a plateau is to reassess your workout schedule and increase your metabolism by doing more cardiovascular exercise and strength training to burn calories.

“From a physics standpoint, it is possible that you’ve decreased the amount of energy needed to function once you have lost some Your metabolism weight,” Godat said.

As a goalie for the varsity lacrosse and field is highest if you hockey teams, Kerber is more interested in improving her muscular strength than her cardiovascular are young and endurance. She follows a workout regimen that consists mainly of free weight exercises such as biactive. cep curls and barbell rows.

Strength training like the kind that Kerber does Eric Godat, Ph.D. is critical to bouncing back from a weight loss plateau because muscle burns more calories than fat does, while cardio burns calories immediately.

“Aside from burning calories, cardio stresses and strengthens the heart and the walls of the arterial system,” Finazzo said.

The perfect formula to recover from a weight loss plateau currently does not exist and probably never will because of highly variable factors such as age and body composition.

But science points to a nutrient-rich diet replete with healthy snacks and a regular exercise regime that incorporates strength training as the fundamental way to continue shedding pounds.

“Eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly will speed up your metabolism and cause you to lose weight,” Godat said. “Ultimately, the potential energy in your body, which is stored in your body as fat, will reach a low percentage.”

‘‘

A BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE According to mayoclinic.org, the body uses up its stored glycogen and loses water weight during the first few weeks of weight loss. However, as you continue to lose weight, your metabolism slows down and causes you to burn fewer calories than you did at your previous weight.

Biology teacher Brandi Finazzo stresses the necessity of changing one’s diet or exercise regime after losing some weight and not seeing progress afterwards.

“Bodies are really good at adjusting to being on a diet, and when you get off of a diet, your body adjusts,” Finazzo said.

According to livestrong.com, a website that provide tools and applications

25

The number of points that the junior varsity volleyball team scored during a game against Grace Academy at home on Wednesday, Sept. 17.

8:09

Freshman Adouette Vaughan’s 5K time at the Waxahachie Woodhouse Cross Country Invitational in Waxahachie, Texas on Saturday, Aug. 29.

s&w

THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

THE FOURCAST

19

St. Mark’s Cheerleaders Tumble Through Stereotypes

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7:30 p.m. Sept. 28 Senior Wendy Cohen and junior Sam Galardi cheer on the St. Mark’s Lions.

face, pom-pom waving personality of a 76ers cheerleader.”

This type of information helps the public shape a different, new opinion on cheerleaders.

“When you do see positive interpretations of cheerleaders, it is somehow the cheerleaders defying an expectation,” Beacham said.

And while these former high school cheerleaders are currently pursuing high-caliber careers, they look back at their high school years fondly.

SATURDAY, NOV. 7

WED., OCT. 28

THURSDAY, NOV. 5

Varsity field hockey goes to SPC. Location TBD

Varsity cross country heads Nov. to St. Andrew’s Episcopal 7 School for SPC. Location TBD

Nov. 5

Oct. 28 Junior varsity field hockey at Parish.

5:00 p.m.

THURSDAY, OCT. 22

Oct. 22

MARIA HARRISON STAFF WRITER

Varsity field hockey plays Greenhill at home.

4:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, OCT. 20

THURSDAY, OCT, 15

Junior varsity volleyball Green Oct. at All Saints .Episcopal School 20 5:00 p.m.

supporting “Science Cheerleaders” as they pursue careers in math, science, technology or engineering.

According to Cavalier, possible employers will express their concern about “past cheerleader” on the resumes of the “Science Cheerleaders.” However, Cavalier knows that the cheerleaders have the potential for professional success due to skills of time management, determination and ambition learned through cheerleading.

While developing her website, Cavalier knew she had to “combine the academic attitude of UPenn, the mass reach of Disney and the in-your-

Oct. Varsity volleyball at Fort Worth Country Day School. 15 6:00 p.m.

Varsity field hockey at Greenhill.

Time TBD

TUESDAY, OCT. 6

THURSDAY, OCT 8

Varsity field hockey at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth 6:30 p.m.

Oct. 8

leader,” Bush said.

Along with Bush, other Hockaday cheerleaders strive for success away from the pompoms.

First year cheerleader, sophomore Kaleigh Beacham, participates in Hockadebate, Model UN and Girl Scouts along with taking one AP course and two honors classes.

“I might have even [tried out for cheerleading] as kind of a challenge to myself, because it’s unlike a lot of the other stuff I do,” Beacham said. “It was kind of taking a risk and putting myself out there in front of an audience.”

While maintaining the leadership of cheer captain at University of Virginia, Compton earned her bachelor’s degree in American studies and political science. Now, she works as a deputy press secretary for a congressman.

“One of the most important things cheerleading taught me was how to effectively manage my time,” Compton said. “With practices every night and games every weekend, I had to learn how to prioritize my schoolwork and make the most of my free time.”

Winston also has to manage her time while pursuing her passion of applied mathematics and economics at Yale. As a Hockaday senior, Winston served as editor-in-chief of The Fourcast and participated in Habitat for Humanity and JETS. Former Philadelphia 76ers professional cheerleader Darlene Cavalier is another example of someone who has broken the stereotype. Cavalier worked full-time at Discover, a company owned by the Walt Disney Company for 10 years, a time period in which she met some of the brightest minds in science. Finding her passion in science, Cavalier earned her Master’s degree while studying science policy and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Featuring current and former professional cheerleaders, Darlene Cavalier started “Science Cheerleader,” a blog that opens conversation on science policy and research while also

Oct. 6

demonstrate how they break the stereotype off the field.

But this stereotype also exists at Hockaday.

“The majority of the comments that I heard revolve around the notion that cheerleaders are not smart,” former St. Mark’s Cheer captain Rachel Compton ‘09 said.

Many cheerleaders are astonished upon hearing the derogatory stereotype.

Former and aspiring, determined cheerleaders are examples of how this wide misconception is false.

“It is not unusual for a cheerleader to vary in academic, athletic and extracurricular interests,” said former St. Mark’s cheerleader Hailey Winston ‘13, who is currently a junior at Yale.

Like other athletes, high school and college cheerleaders must maintain a strict grade point average.

Compton, who was also University of Virginia’s 2012 cheer captain, was a witness to how cheerleaders kept good grades, along with the practices and travel time that came with being a cheerleader.

“Furthermore, cheerleaders have to learn a vast amount of information in a very short time period,” Compton said.

“We are expected to learn and perfect new dances, cheers and routines every week before each game.”

This academic rigor is true for many professional cheerleaders. Amy Trader, a current Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, majored in biomedical engineering with a minor in computational neuroscience. Trader hopes to use her degree “to develop implantable discs that change people’s lives and help with injuries.”

Trader isn’t the only one with goals. Bush is currently taking several AP classes, applying for top colleges and participating in the highest level of HockaDance. Looking into the future, Bush aspires to be a speech pathologist, helping people ranging from kids with autism to elderly folks.

“Hockaday and St. Mark’s cheerleading has taught me how to speak up, use my voice and be a

PHOTO BY GRACE VOORHEIS

ompoms in hand, short skirt on and hair in a high ponytail, senior Ellie Bush, leads the cheerleading team onto the football field.Although the media’s and the public’s perception is that a cheerleader can only be peppy and provocative, St. Mark’s cheerleaders

THURSDAY, NOV. 5

Time TBD

Nov. Varsity volleyball travels to Austin for SPC. 5

THURSDAY, OCT. 29

Varsity volleyball at ESD 6:00 p.m.

Oct. 29

SATURDAY, OCT. 24

6:00 p.m.

Varsity cross country to North Zone.

Location TBD

Oct. 24

THURSDAY, OCT. 22

Oct. Varsity volleyball at home 22 against Greenhill

SATURDAY, OCT. 17

Varsity cross country runs at the CCA Invitational at Carrollton Christian Academy 9:00 a.m.

Oct. 17

TUESDAY, OCT. 13

Junior varsity field hockey at home against Highland Park.

Time TBD

Oct. 13

Junior varsity field hockey at Parish Episcopal School.

6:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7

Oct. 17

Oct. 6

TUESDAY, OCT. 6

Varsity volleyball at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth.

6:00 p.m.

FOURWARD

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HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

ILLUSTRATION BY ANNABELLE FOLSOM

10:15 a.m. Aug. 15 A record number of girls from all forms sign up for fall volleyball, resulting in the creation of three teams.

W

varsity team to help the program grow and to allow more girls the opportunity to play.

“Last year 45 girls tried out and I had not planned accordingly,” Achilefu-Ebeniro said. “I had to cut about 15 girls, which is not anything a coach wants to do.”

After receiving an overwhelming amount of interest for the last three years, Achilefu-Ebeniro decided it was time for a change and set out to create a third team.

Achilefu-Ebeniro decided to have roughly 15 girls on varsity and 10 girls on each of the junior varsity teams, junior varsity green and junior varsity white. With six players on the court at once, each girl now has significantly more playing time.

Once Slinker approved the change, Achilefu-Ebeniro began finalizing all of the details for the program.

Originally, both Slinker and

Achilefu-Ebeniro hoped to add a third coach to the program, but JV volleyball coach Jason Atwood offered to coach both teams.

Sophomore Grace Olson, a junior varsity green player, believes that the practices focus more on the development of the team rather than the individual players.

“We do not get a lot of individual attention. It is much more what the group needs,” Olson said. “So there is not a lot of change in how we are playing.”

On the other hand, Atwood believes that the girls are still improving, even with a larger team.

“The girls are progressing more than on a smaller team,” Atwood said. “They get to see the mistakes more through added competition and can easily fix them.”

Freshman Rebeca Espinosa, a junior varsity white player, agrees.

S

ynchronized paddles propel four Hockaday crew teammates around Bachman Lake. Clunk. The canoe rams into a maze of branches; they are forced to weave through to continue their training exercise, which, after the thunderstorms that occurred last spring, never goes uninterrupted.

Heavy spring thunderstorms resulted in a buildup of debris on the lake as well as the formation of a sandbar, which caused part of the lake bottom to shift from five feet to about six inches deep.

Stray branches and the sandbar create obstacles that restrict the team from practicing long distance pieces and forces them to slow down and, in some instances, even cancel practice.

Junior Teal Cohen, a member of the crew team since her freshman year, said that during a typical practice the team will either train “With a lot of group practice, at a race pace, a steady pace or you know where you are supposed complete the head course, which to go and what everyone else is supis a 3,000 meter loop around the posed to do,” Espinosa said. lake. The accumulation of branchWhile several athletic teams es and other debris has blocked have high numbers at tryouts like off major parts of these training volleyball, there is not enough physroutes. The blockage makes it difical space to add another team. Typficult for the team to practice lonically, Slinker will look at the numger distances on the already small, bers for each team and adds another crowded lake. team if one has a large number of “I remember we pulled up to girls trying out over the course of the lake one time,” Cohen said. “It about three years. At this point, there was one of the last days of school are no plans for adding another right after a huge storm and we team to any other sport. could not row”.

“Tennis carries a large varsity According to varsity crew roster and no junior varsity team,” coach Tim McAllister, the crew Slinker said. “We cannot add anothteam has always practiced at Bacher team because we do not have the man Lake, and although the debris facility space.” proves to be a challenge, he tries to As the athletic department conremain flexible. tinues to grow, Slinker hopes that “A lake is not like a basketball many teams will have a larger turncourt,” McAllister said. “It is a very out and that the teams and continue dynamic environment susceptible to have success. to storms, wind, heat and cold.”

“We want to offer as many girls Not only does the debris iman opportunity as possible to play a pact the team’s practice routines, sport,” Slinker said. “And still mainbut it can also lead to boat damage. tain a competitive program.”

Cohen said damage can result if a boat drifts too close to the sand bar. And, if rowers are not careful, the fin under the boat will snap off upon impact.

Despite the debris, Cohen feels her team has performed well at regat-

Third Volleyball Team Formed ith more than 40 students trying out for volleyball in Aug. 2014 and again this year, varsity volleyball coach Adaku Achilefu-Ebeniro and Athletic Director Tina Slinker added an additional junior

Debris in Bachman Hinders Crew Team tas. The buildup of debris on the lake can make practices unproductive, but the girls have learned to work around these obstacles, determined to make the most of their practices.

“The girls and I make do with what we have,” McAllister said. “In reality, if the girls in Dallas have the right equipment and the right coach they can do anything and be successful.”

The boathouse captain of Bachman Lake, Matt Naifeh, said

‘‘

We are very hopeful that nature will take its course.

Matt Naifeh

Boathouse Captain

that he and many of his co-workers are waiting for the decomposition of organic matter, such as leaves, logs and fallen trees. They hope more storms will cause rising water levels, spreading out the debris and flushing it into deeper parts of the lake so that it no longer causes major obstructions.

Naifeh said that in order to remove the debris, the Dallas Parks Department and City Council would need to get involved. In the past they have aided with the cleanup of Bachman Lake, but the current circumstances are not significant enough for the Council to take action.

“We are very hopeful that nature will take its course,” he said. “And that conditions will improve,” Naifeh said.

AMELIA BROWN STAFF WRITER

Manisha’s Mind Social Media Director Manisha Ratakonda writes her opinion on various sports issues, both globally and at Hockaday.

“You throw like a girl!”

As opposed to what? A praying mantis? I am a girl, so I sure hecking hope that I throw like one. What features even classify a “girly throw?”

Is the ball trailed by a rainbow? Does it smell like vanilla? Does it do a little dance before you catch it?

We often use the phrase “throw like a girl,” or even more generally “____ like a girl,” without even realizing its meaning. It is commonly used as an insult when in reality, it’s an accurate truth. I do throw like a girl, but that’s because I am built like one. It doesn’t make my throw any better or worse than a boy’s throw.

If you won’t take my word for it, Mythbusters put this “insult” to the test this past May. To any guys reading this (which if you are, and it is not by accident, then good for you, The Fourcast rocks!), the two hosts on the show have beards. That’s right, they have facial hair. They’re real men.

They have to be right.

The show took eight people of each sex and different age groups, and analyzed each of their throws. First with their dominant hand, and then with their non-dominant hand.

After analyzing each of the throws, it was concluded that neither sex has the superior throw. The guys tended to throw more accurately, while the girls threw faster.

So next time one of your uncoordinated friends attempts to toss you a pencil, rather than telling them that they throw like a girl, why not come up with a real insult at the very least?

Because next time you claim that your friend “throws like a girl,” all you’re really saying is that they make 23 cents less while doing it.

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Editor-in-Chief answers a student’s question p21

An atheist’s perspective p23

Sophomores debate eating meat p22

Intersectional feminism p22

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In Yeezus We Trust

Senior Manisha Ratakonda America: The land of the free, the home of the brave.

We use weird units for measuring things, we play “football” instead of “futbol” and we practically coined the term “obesity.” But despite all of these differences, many nations consider the West to be a great role model. Kanye West, that is.

It’s the year 2028 and Kanye West has just successfully finished his second term as President. Now we would like to take the time to reflect on his years in the White House.

When Kanye first announced at the 2015 Video Music Awards (VMAs) that he was planning on running for president, not many people believed him. But they weren’t completely to blame – I mean, Kanye openly admitted to having “…rolled up a little something…” before coming to the awards show.

He couldn’t possibly have been thinking straight.

Years later, however, when “Yeezus is the Reason for the Season” signs began sprouting along highways, the American public couldn’t help but wonder if this was part of a joke that had gone too far,

or part of a strange political campaign. It wasn’t until Kanye began going on campaign tours when American citizens realized that Mr. West was, in fact, running for president.

Kanye began traveling from city to city performing hit songs as support for his campaign metastasized.

Children and grandparents alike could be heard walking through the streets humming songs such as “Gold Digger.”

Even Hockaday began to change. Dingy saddle oxfords were soon replaced by green and white platform Air Yeezys.

In HAM class, Mr. Long began including Kanye in his lessons about Beethoven, Bach and Schumann; for whatever reason, the skirt rule was finally changed to four inches above the top of the knee. The Hockaday School of Dallas, Texas

was doing better than ever.

When Kanye won the 2020 presidential election, American citizens were beyond thrilled. So were politicians in other countries. Putin had always been a secret lover of all things Yeezus, so when Kanye became president, Russian-American relations were somewhat mended. Global trade and tourism improved drastically, as did our nation’s economy. Appreciation for the arts and music increased, as did America’s sense of fashion. The Kardashians were all somehow able to move into the White House where they continued filming their hit reality TV show. It was as if Kanye had created a whole new America.

Former president George W. Bush once stated that “a leadership is someone who brings people

together,” and as the great leader of our nation, that’s exactly what President West has accomplished. In Yeezus we trust. Peace out.

Editor’s Corner Editor-in-Chief Erin Thomas answers the troubling questions of Upper School students.

Q: When should I post on Instagram for maximum likes?

- Senior Electra Thomas

ILLUSTRATION BY KATE COOPER

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID wwwwww

TWITTER TWITTER

MY LAPTOP HAS ASTHMA! Eleanor Wilson in response to her Toshiba heating up

Treat every day like it’s chicken parm day.

Student Council’s Twitter Bio (@HockadatStuCo)

DO I LOOK LIKE JOHN ADAMS?!

Why does Donald Trump still look like Rufus from Kim Possible?

Junior Malini Naidu’s comparison (@malini66)

Junior Maryam Bolouri regarding her low ponytail

PHOTO PROVIDED BY DIARIO DIGITAL COLOMBIANO

THE GREAT SWAMI KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING. Upper School history teacher Steve Kramer in reference to himself during AP European History TWITTER

You know you go to Hockaday when you find yourself taking soil samples at a football game. #fridaynightmicrobes Junior Sara Held reflecting on her Friday nights (@_saraheld)

STAFF STANCE | Skirting the Rules ment should not come to us as a surprise.

Uniform rules are not new to us. We have always known that we can’t wear sweatpants in place of our skirt, t-shirts on Mondays or a polo on dress uniform days.

If anything, the rule is far less restrictive than it has been in the past.

In 1990, girls’ skirts could not be more than two inches above the knee. At least now when we go to class, we don’t have to kneel on the ground and wait for our teacher to measure our skirts with a ruler. The rule simply has not been enforced as strictly in recent years as it is now.

Debuting in 1974, the plaid skirt serves as a staple of Hockaday’s longstanding history and tradi-

PHOTO BY CLAIRE FLETCHER

Walking down the hallways these past couple of weeks, it isn’t uncommon to see skirts with fraying threads flying from ripped-out seams or hems so recently let out that the old hemline still creases, reminding us of the days of less strict uniforms.

Since the beginning of the school year, we have garnered a large collection of tricks and tips to deceive our teachers’ eyes and pass the dreaded skirt checks.

Whether it’s leaning forward when the infamous pink card is held to our knees or unzipping and pulling our skirts down, we all have our ways of passing (or in some cases, failing) skirt checks.

Nonetheless, the skirt length has been the center of commotion, conversation and complaints around the Upper School hallways.

But truly, the skirt length reinforce-

tion. The issue of skirt length is no longer just about Hockaday’s image. It has transcended to a reflection of each of our individual characters.

Keep in mind that character is one of our Cornerstones.

What we wear serves as a first impression to not only guests visiting Hockaday, but members of our community as well. When Interim Headmistress Liza Lee attended a summer conference with college representatives, one of the comments made to her was about the length of our skirts. It was not about our academics or our intellect. It was about something as mundane as our skirts!

Is that really the impression we want to leave?

A: Dearest Electra, It’s 10 p.m. The time has come. You scroll through the filters, stressing more about which one looks better than about the AP European History quiz you have tomorrow. Finally – it happens. You have created the ultimate Insta post. You greedily hit share, overjoyed. You just know that this post will hold the record for maximum likes.

8 a.m. You have received one like...from your 70-year-old grandma.

It’s no big deal! Who’s awake at 8 a.m. anyway?

2 p.m. rolls around.

You can feel the beads of sweat collecting on the sides of your face and under your arms. You nonchalantly text every single person in your contacts list, including your seventh grade history teacher, asking them to like your post.

It works...sort of. A few minutes later you receive two likes.

“What could I have possibly done wrong?!” you scream, shouting internally into the void. “What have I done to deserve this?”

Your problem? You posted at 10 p.m. Don’t do that. If you want to achieve maximum likes on Instagram, post anywhere between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Your friendly neighborhood swag chief, Erin Thomas P.S. Like my Insta maybe?

Furthermore, Hockaday’s current rule is neither irrational nor unfair. We are not the only school with skirt length rules.

Parish Episcopal School requires students to wear skirts that are two inches above the knee, while at Ursuline Academy, skirts must be no shorter than one and a half inches above the knee.

We have been taught to be independent and free thinkers.

Standing up for what we believe in is what we Hockadaises do best. Yes, we are standing up for ourselves by expressing our discontent of the skirt rule. Yes, the length of our skirt doesn’t dictate our ability to learn in the classroom. But there is no point in fighting this rule. It is not unreasonable and keeps our best interests in mind. After all, it isn’t going away anytime soon.

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HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

STAFF STANDOFF | Should People Eat Meat?

WE LOVE IT, WE LOVE IT NOT

Halloween is on a SATURDAY!!!

We are more than halfway through the FIRST QUARTER!

Super cool ASSEMBLIES (even though they take away our conference periods).

Vs If you ever doubt that Americans love meat, take a second to evaluate the influence of the crown jewel of meat products: bacon.

In a market driven by consumer demands, one can find thousands of bacon-related products ranging from bacon air freshener to bacon alarm clocks.

Meat is everywhere and in every form: it’s chicken breast on your dinner plate, it’s ground beef in the grocery store, it’s even bacon lip gloss in Claire’s and Toys “R” Us. So, why be afraid of meat? Granted, there are religious and moral reasons not to eat animal products. However, setting those issues aside, meat has several health benefits, and meat has helped modern humans evolve into highly intellectual beings. Ultimately, meat is as American as “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, meat is the best source of many vitamins and nutrients necessary for life such as iron, amino acids and vitamin B-12. Without those, your body would be deficient in oxygen-carrying red blood cells, you would not have the enzymes necessary to make new cells and your nervous system would decline in function. While you may be able to get some of these nutrients from non-meat products, there is no better – or tastier – single source for these vital elements of our diet.

We can also thank meat for our large intelligent brains, canine teeth and specialized digestive tracts. In her article “A Hypothesis to Explain the Role of Meat-Eating in Human Evolution,” Katharine Milton, a dietary ecology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said that during the million years of human evolution, meat has provided a high energy source to power our growing brains. Therefore, we can be grateful that meat has gifted us with the complex technology to take a picture of your delicious steak and share it with all your friends.

In addition to these health and evolutionary benefits, meat is a fundamental part of our culture. Celebrating, socializing and eating meat go hand in hand. Nearly every holiday is commemorated with an extravagant meal centered on tasty meat dishes. Even our beloved state fair celebrates Fletcher’s corny dogs and turkey legs.

There are over 300 million Americans who eat meat, according to a 2012 Gallup poll. How many of these Americans do you think would give up their hot dogs at a baseball game, their fried chicken at family reunions or their turkey on Thanksgiving? I know I wouldn’t.

EMILY FULLER STAFF WRITER

Feminism: Not Just a One-Way Street

Juniors Audrey Black and Emma Deshpande The weather At this point, we’ve all heard needs to FALL it: women make 78 cents to every in line, stat! man’s dollar.

(We miss sweater weather!)

We’re sorry, let us restate that.

White, abled-bodied women make 78 cents to every man’s dollar.

Over the course of a lifetime, white women lose millions of dollars in the workforce by receiving significantly smaller paychecks. Women of color, women with disabilities, queer women and transgender women lose even more.

Intersectional feminism not only acknowledges a person’s gender, but an entire identity and the confluence of systems of oppression and different levels of privilege a multifaceted person may experience.

Factors of identity like race, religion, gender identity, class,

sexuality and ethnicity interrelate, creating multiple dimensions of privilege or lack thereof.

A woman of color experiences womanhood and sexism differently than a white woman, as forms of discrimination interconnect and she cannot experience either identity separate from the other.

The history of the feminist movement is wrought with a lack of intersectionality. We continue to prioritize privileged straight cisgender white women in the equal rights movement today.

The first wave feminists were divided over what their prime interest should be; it was eventually decided they would prioritize black women’s basic human rights over their own because of the more atrocious circumstances of slavery. This split up the movement, as intersectionality continued to do throughout the decades and various waves of the feminist movement. The side of the first wave movement that garnered more support promoted and helped white women, and even stressed white superiority and separation between women of different races.

The second wave of feminism focused on sex positivity, reproductive rights and casting off the patriarchy. This wave continued to be fairly

exclusive toward women of more complex identities, causing some women to form their own affinity movements, such as womanism, a black feminist movement, and same gender loving, a queer black movement. These movements address their varying needs as people of multiple persecuted identities.

Feminism took a theoretical turn at the beginning of the first wave, featuring discussions and debates about the meaning of womanhood, sex and gender. Third wave feminism became more global and more inclusive, de-objectifying and empowering, focusing on ideas of “universal womanhood.”

The movement is still split into subcategories with different goals and beliefs, such as radical feminists, trans exclusionary feminists, sex positive feminists, queer feminists and white feminists (feminists who prioritize the needs of white women over other women).

The mainstream feminist movement today often centers itself on middle class, cisgender, straight white women and overlook the various levels of privilege and disadvantage within the feminist movement.

Intersectionality is crucial to modern feminism. It recognizes women as more than a homogenous group, and acknowledges the unique

experiences and voices of unique, diverse women.

Without intersectionality, we only hear the voices of the privileged, inherently excluding voices of people we need to be listening to even more.

Too often fists are raised and people are rallied to support white, cisgender, straight, middle-class women, but eyes are lowered and heads are turned when faced with the complex, demanding issues of racism and queerphobia. We must examine our own places of privilege in terms of feminism, for it should be a place for the privileged to lift up and listen to the consistently silenced.

In order to truly reach the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes, we must consider and include every women, and every women’s multifaceted identity.

PHOTO BY CLAIRE FLETCHER

Only three days of FALL BREAK instead of four.

MARY ORSAK STAFF WRITER

Producing 11.32 billion pounds a year, Texas has the second-highest rate of animal slaughter in the United States, behind only Nebraska. The mastered science of the factory farm is designed not to raise healthy livestock, but to maximize profits and quantity without regard for the millions of suffering animals.

From birth to slaughter, there is an exact timeline to get cows to “market weight” as quickly as possible. Because factories steal the baby calves milk from their mother’s, the calves are pumped with steroids to gain hundreds of pounds in a year. However, in order to keep them alive long enough to butcher, they are constantly injected with antibiotics. So eating these medicated animals decreases the antibiotic’s effect to us humans, when we take them from a prescription.

Next time I have strep, I would like my medicine to work.

Along with not being able to heal our sicknesses, for the grand reward of one burger patty, factory farms use 6.7 pounds of grain, 52.8 gallons of water, 74.5 square feet for grazing and growing feed and enough energy to power a microwave for 18 minutes for drinking water and growing feed crops. While thousands of charities dedicate themselves to helping the 1 billion malnourished people in the world, half of the world’s edible grain is given to cows for consumption.

Furthermore, we don’t need meat to survive. Our bodies are designed so that we can get all our nutrition from plants. According to the non-profit animal advocacy organization, Free from Harm, though some people think that without meat protein, athletes cannot function, that is not the case. Between legumes, greens, nuts, seeds and soy, a vegetarian gets meals packed with protein, without all the feces and cholesterol from janky animal meat.

Although humans need at least 30 grams of protein a day, also known as one and a half servings of chicken parm, after 50 grams the bodies starts to store fat, so there is really no need to have a protein-filled feeding frenzy.

Meat is also gross. It’s packed with feces, E. Coli, staph, listeria, blood and salmonella, making it the top source of food poisoning in the United States! Ew. Save a cow. Eat some vegetables.

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THE FOURCAST

23

(Don’t) Take Me to Church ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY BASCHAB

f EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Erin Thomas MANAGING EDITOR Inaara Padani WEB EDITOR Catherine Jiang BUSINESS MANAGER Sunila Steephen

Senior Erin Thomas “Mom, I’m an atheist.”

Glass shatters. The dog barks from the commotion. My mom has me by the shirt collar and is dragging me to the front door. This is it, I say. I am officially going to hell.

Born into a Catholic family, I was raised on the crisp pages of the Holy Bible and the smell of burning incense every Sunday afternoon. My parents, naturally, sent me to a private Catholic school. Clearly they wanted me to be Catholic as well. (Disclaimer: it didn’t work out.)

So after eight long, grueling years in Catholic school, it probably came as a shock to my parents when I completely disregarded tens of thousands of dollars of their money to become an atheist. But let me be clear: I didn’t choose the atheist life. The atheist life chose me.

Ever since I popped out of the womb, I have questioned God’s existence all while confessing my sins to an elderly man clothed in white robes and drinking diluted wine in acceptance of Christ’s blood and sacrifice. As I joined in the chorus of song at my weekly Sunday mass as a 13-year-old, something just didn’t feel right. I felt out of place – like I was trying to sing a song but didn’t know the words.

All of my Catholic friends swayed and danced beside me, basking in God’s glory and righteousness, but I – I was blanketed in a fine layer of disbelief.

Despite this self-discovery, the world continued to revolve around me. I was surrounded by Catholics, which had to mean that I, too, was Catholic. Or perhaps just a closeted atheist.

I became a puppet and the church my puppeteer. Strings wrenched me up, down and side to side, spitting words out of my mouth and clasping my hands together in prayer. The slightest rebellion of my weary shoulders

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Manisha Ratakonda NEWS EDITOR Noor Adatia FEATURES EDITOR Megan Philips ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Kate Clement SPORTS & WELLNESS EDITOR Mary Claire Wilson PERSPECTIVES EDITOR Sonya Xu CASTOFF EDITOR Austria Arnold PHOTO & GRAPHICS EDITOR Claire Fletcher COPY EDITOR Maria Katsulos

or calloused hands earned me a harsh yank in the other direction.

I began to realize the difference between religion and me.

I was black – devoid of photons and therefore incapable of producing light. Religion was white – holy, fresh, precious and pure.

Religious people spoke so freely of their faith. God would save them. God was there. God would forgive. Those who believe will find salvation.

But where was my God? Who would forgive me? How would I find salvation?

Even without a God, I have seen that the world is righteous and pure and hopeful. I have seen that there is no right way to live except to live in the way one sees right. Atheism is defined as a lack of faith, but no, I do not lack faith.

I strive to understand what is most likely true rather than believe what I wish to be true. The world is not a wishing well to waste ev-

ery penny on mere chance.

People choose to think that it is easy being an atheist—that I lazily choose not to believe because I do not care or am not committed. I assure all that this is not the case. Being atheist is one of the hardest things I have had to accept. I do not have the luxury of God forgiving my every sin, nor the constant reassurance of life after death. I am my own God. I forgive my own sins. I rule my own life. But this part of me does not reveal itself unless people suggest to me that I cannot live without a God. Again I assert that there is no right way to live.

I am not tragically atheist. I do not belong to the hateful, egotistical atheists that rebel against all religions. Someone constantly reminds me of my lack of faith in God, but it does not make me any less proud. My beliefs are not going to change, for I am a woman of science. And yet, I do not discrim-

inate others’ faiths, but people discriminate me for mine.

And they say atheists are not kind. While lending a helping hand to a homeless person on the street or constructing a home for a desperate family, I smile at the religious man beside me helping others because of his faith in God. What he will never understand is what motivates me to help others, to lend a helping hand to someone in a time of need. It is in this moment, the moment when I feel the most alive, that I do not know that I am atheist. I have no need nor desire to know because kindness does not go hand-in-hand with religion.

They will say that I am a sinner, that I care about nothing but myself, but God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life. I am not slamming the church doors closed; I am just choosing not to open them. So please, don’t make me.

VIDEO EDITOR TBD STAFF WRITERS Eshani Kishore, Heidi Kim, .

Jenny Zhu, Aurelia Han, Mary Orsak, Cheryl Hao, Elizabeth Guo, Katie O’Meara, Shreya Gunukala, Neha Dronamraju, Emily Fuller, Maria Harrison, Amelia Brown STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Yuhan Jiang, Erica Jones, Nicole Klein, Nina La Barba, Cher Qin, Madison Smith, Molly Waring STAFF ARTISTS Sarah Chan, Annabelle Folsom, Luda Grigoryeva, Wendy Ho, Lily Sumrow ADVISER Ana Rosenthal

EDITORIAL POLICY The Fourcast is written primarily for students of the Hockaday Upper School, its faculty and staff. The Fourcast has a press run of 1,200 and is printed by Dallas Offset, Inc. It is distributed free of charge to the Hockaday community.

Businesses who wish to advertise in The Fourcast should contact Sunila Steephen, Business Manager, at ssteephen@ hockaday.org. We reserve the right to refuse any advertising which is deemed inappropriate to the Hockaday community.

Opinions will be clearly marked and/or will appear in the perspectives section. Commentaries are the expressed opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect that of The Fourcast staff, its adviser or any member of the Hockaday community. Unsigned editorials that appear on the opinions page will reflect the official position of The Fourcast, but not necessarily the position of the Hockaday community.

The Fourcast staff may cover student, staff, faculty or alumnae deaths as the staff is made aware. We reserve the right not to cover a death based on relevance, timeliness and circumstance.

Corrections and clarifications from previous issues will be found as designated in the news section.

Any questions or concerns about should be addressed to Erin Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, at ethomas@hockaday.org.

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The Fourcast

The Hockaday School 11600 Welch Road Dallas, Texas 75229

THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL

OCTOBER 2, 2015

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HOCKADAYFOURCAST.ORG

CLAIRE COTHREN, Ph.D. Fun fact: She cleans a different room in her house every day.

Drama Teacher

English Te ach er

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Fun fact: She is getting married in June.

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EMILY HOWARD

Hockaday Welcomes New Upper School Faculty & Staff

Fun fact: If she could eat dinner with one person, it would be Queen Elizabeth I.

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Fun fact: She is a past spelling bee champion.

ELIZABETH BENNETT, Ph.D.

Histo ry T eac he c r

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SUMMER HAMILTON

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JEN FORE, Ph.D. Fun fact: She competed in pole vaulting in college.

EMILY GRAY

JUDY WARE

Fun fact: She met Heath Ledger on the streets of New York.

Fun fact: She cans peas every summer.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATE COOPER GRAPHIC BY AUSTRIA ARNOLD AND CHERYL HAO