September 2020 | The Evergreen, Greenhill School

September 30, 2020 Volume 56, Issue 1

the Everything Greenhill

evergreen.greenhill.org

Mask Up, Greenhill The Community Confronts COVID-19, p. 10

This issue is dedicated to telling the stories of how the pandemic has affected Greenhill lives.

Photo illustration by Jung Min Yean

Views

News

Features

Arts

Sports

Tribute to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, p. 5

Debate continues to claim national success amid global pandemic, p. 2

Marcus Ingram takes over as new Director of Equity and Inclusion, p. 6

Fine Arts adapts classes to accommodate the return of students, p. 12

Athletes push through commitment process during COVID-19, p. 15

Informing Greenhill since 1966

4141 Spring Valley Road, Addison, TX 75001

News

Debate Builds on National Success in a Virtual Environment

Photo illustration and photo courtesy of Sharon Ellman

TAKING HOME A WIN: Greenhill World Schools debate team members, left to right, Aimee Stachowiak, Ashley Shan, Cameron Kettles, Jothi Gupta and Caroline Greenstone claimed top honors at the National Speech and Debate Association’s National Tournament in June. Joshua Timmons claimed first place in oral interpretation with a selection of poems and stories.

Sonia Dhingra

Online Editor-in-Chief

F

or junior Ashley Shan, winning first place in the World Schools category at the national tournament held by the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) felt like a culmination of the years of hard work she had put into debate.

“I cried, and then just got super excited,” Shan said. “It was very, very surreal.

I joined debate in ninth grade and just feel like all the hard work and all the effort that my team and my coaches have put in finally paid off.”

Six Greenhill speech and debate students won first place titles at the national tournament in June.

Current juniors Caroline Greenstone, Jothi Gupta, Cameron Kettles, Ashley Shan and Aimee Stachowiak comprised one of the two Lone Star District World Schools teams and won first place in the World Schools category. Current senior Joshua Timmons won first place in the Oral Interpretation category, becoming the first Greenhill student to do so.

“First, I didn’t think it really happened because I feel it’s a little bit different online,” Stachowiak said. “I guess winning that national tournament just kind of convinced me that like I’m really lucky to have such amazing coaches, such amazing teammates and such amazing support from the school and my family.”

Kettles was also thrilled by her team’s win.

“I think I was stunned and in awe because I can think of everyone I know who has won a national championship, and I look up to them so much,” Kettles said.

Virtual debate The tournament was adapted to be completely virtual, which caused students and coaches to change their tournament preparation. Director of Debate Aaron Timmons believes that, although learning how to communicate on online platforms is important, debating virtually presents more challenges.

“In a physical classroom, if I’m about to speak, I can lean over and ask my partners what they think,” Aaron Timmons said. “In a digital world, you have to find new ways to communicate, whether it be through Google docs or messages.”

Aaron Timmons said he also realizes that persuasion became more difficult in an online setting.

“When in the same room, you can read body language and you can look at nonverbals,” Aaron Timmons said. “While that is possible in a digital world, it’s

different. We spent a lot of time, navigating on students’ virtual backgrounds and lighting because it’s all part of how you are perceived.”

Shan agreed that debating from home presented some difficulties.

“A lot of factors changed,” Shan said.

“Debating is kind of reliant on being able to express yourself verbally and physically within a room, so it’s a bit difficult to kind of just like shift over to an online format.”

World Schools format World Schools is the international debate format. Three people debate together, but there can be up to five members of a team that rotate in any given round. Teams debate a different topic every single round.

For the national tournament, the World Schools team had to prepare both sides of nine different topics, writing a total of 18 debate cases.

In the weeks leading up to the tournament, the World Schools team spent hours each day virtually working with coach Cindi Timmons. They participated in 15 practice debates with the other Lone Star World Schools team, comprised of students from different schools in the Dallas/FortWorth area. They also spent extra time at home doing research and casework. Some of the motions they debated included “this house supports the Green New Deal” and “this house supports giving an African nation a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council,” team members said.

Usually, World Schools tournaments have both impromptu and prepared debates.

Impromptu contests force debaters to prep for an hour without computers before competing. Since the tournament was shifted to an online platform, all the debates were prepared.

“I think that a lot of people think that others rely on natural talent and don’t realize that really hard work can make up any gap to help you achieve your goals,” Cindi Timmons said. “All five of these young women work insanely hard for what they want.”

Stachowiak agreed that the hard work that her team put in paid off.

“We were constantly debating or looking up examples or rewriting cases,” Stachowiak said. “It’s been a long journey, but it definitely paid off.”

Cindi Timmons has been coaching Greenstone, Gupta, Kettles and Stachowiak since they joined Debate Club in third grade.

“Watching them grow up from little shy people to these strong, powerful women winning the national championship was quite amazing,” Cindi Timmons said.

The fact that the World Schools team members are such good friends contributed to them winning, Cindi Timmons said.

“The team dynamic already existed with this team, whereas a lot of other teams from around the country were putting teams together from different schools,” she said.

In addition to winning the tournament as sophomores, the youngest World Schools championship team in the National Speech and Debate Association’s history, the World Schools team was also the second all-female team to win. Cindi Timmons believes that having a female mentor was helpful.

“This certainly does not mean that the male teachers can’t coach women or women can’t coach males,” Cindi Timmons said.

“It’s just that young women have a different communication style, a different way of working and there’s some teen girl drama.

And I think women are comfortable sharing in that environment.”

Oral Interpretation In winning first place in the Oral Interpretation category, Joshua Timmons claimed the title in a category in which he has been competing since fifth grade.

“I expected to make it decently far, but I didn’t really know what to expect when it came to how people would react to my online performance,” Joshua Timmons said.

To compete in the Oral Interpretation category, participants had to put together a program consisting of snippets of different poems and stories. This year was different, as the length of the programs were cut from seven and a half to five minutes.

All performances were pre-recorded and submitted instead of being performed live.

“Normally, I use eye contact throughout the room,” Joshua Timmons said. “There’s a ton of feedback between performer and audience that can enhance the performance even further.”

Joshua Timmons’ program consisted of poems from Black contemporary poets such as Onam Lansana and Danez Smith.

He worked to communicate emotions and an overall message. One important moment in his program was a scene where a dad tells his son, who is playing with a Super Soaker water gun, he cannot do the same things as white kids because someone may not see it as an innocent action.

“I really had to look at what those words meant to me in order to convey those emotions,” Joshua Timmons said. “I imagined in my head what it would be like if my dad was saying those words to me and tried to emulate how he would say it to me and the mood it would set.”

Joshua Timmons believes that more Greenhill students should get involved in the

other individual categories. He believes that even theater students could get involved in the Oral Interpretation category.

“Oral Interpretation is a helpful skill for public speaking, conveying messages and acting,” Joshua Timmons said.

High hopes Aaron Timmons has high hopes for the future of these students’ debate careers.

Kettles and Shan have both joined the USA National Debate Team, which is coached by Aaron Timmons and Cindi Timmons.

The application process consisted of four stages, which included interviews, answering questions and submitting recordings of speeches.

Kettles believes that the strength of the Greenhill debate program and the work the students put in are what allow her to be successful.

“I think what makes the program so special is hard work,” Kettles said. “Every tournament is a building block. There is also more to do and improve on. That growth mindset is the reason Greenhill debate is so successful.”

Above all, Aaron Timmons hopes that debate will prepare students for life in general.

“I think many times you see the trophies and hear announcements and that’s really cool,” Aaron Timmons said.

“What people sometimes don’t understand is the level of depth of the material that the students are engaging, about a wide range of the issues of our day. They also get to meet really smart people from around the world and have a fun time.”

Aaron Timmons believes that debate has proven extremely beneficial in the lives of students.

“We expect the best from our debaters and we want them to win, but in reality we are preparing students for the real final round, which is life,” Aaron Timmons said.

“You will have hiccups in life, you got to deal with that and you have got to figure out how to navigate that.”

Aaron Timmons knows that debate is not just about the trophies.

“I think that it helps people tell stories about the realities of this crazy thing called life,” Aaron Timmons said.

“I think the debate part of it helps people with communication, organization and teamwork. More importantly, in Greenhill, we have smart students who sometimes don’t know how to navigate difference in classes, so conversations will get tense and shut down. I just think we would be more well served to live our mission if civil conversation was more integrated into the broader community.”

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

the

Evergreen Ever

News

3

Robotics Achieves Graded-Elective Status

Photo courtesy of Lauren Hazan

WORKING AND ADAPTING: Robotics adviser Maria Suarez and junior Christopher Dycus work on one of the team’s robots while following Greenhill’s COVID-19 protocols by wearing school-provided masks and staying six feet apart. There can only be a maximum of four people in the robotics lab at any given time because of social distancing requirements.

Isabel Martinez News Editor

A

s members of the Greenhill robotics team manage the challenges of hybrid classes and alternating weeks of remote learning, they are also learning to manage the long-sought switch from clubstatus to a graded elective.

Students and Upper School robotics adviser Maria Suarez have wanted this change for a long time.

Robotics used to be graded as a pass or fail class, as opposed to the traditional grading structure used by other academic courses at Greenhill.

Although some have argued that robotics is not on the same level as other graded courses, Suarez said a graded structure is what she needs to hold students accountable. Members of the robotics team would often stay as late as midnight to get work done, but Suarez had no way to reward exceptional effort.

“This has been an issue among the robotics kids for a while,” said senior Naren Ram, leader of Viridian Robotics, one of Greenhill’s two robotics teams. “People were getting credit for sports and debate. We felt that we were putting in the same level of effort if not more, but we were only a club.”

Another popular activity,

debate, has a different status.

Debate has multiple levels of classes, ranging from beginning to advanced. All of these classes are for credit, and students are given a letter grade at the end of the course.

Robotics, meanwhile, was relegated to club status.

That was a detriment to robotics students during the college application process, as admissions officers would see that robotics had a lower status than graded classes at Greenhill. College admissions teams wouldn’t know that being a part of the robotics team shows extreme dedication and a willingness to try new things, Suarez said.

“In robotics, you have to learn so many new skills,” Suarez said. “You have to learn a little bit of programming, you have to learn how to do some design, you have to learn how to build, but there is also the business side. It takes a lot of dedication.”

Restructuring Robotics The structure of the team has also changed with the new grading system.

Before, robotics did not have a set curriculum that Suarez had to follow. Students would usually do things as needed, and

learning was through experience rather than lessons. However, now that it is a graded course, Suarez has a set program that she and her students follow.

“In the club, you couldn’t force kids to do anything,” Suarez said. “But in the class, there are certain guidelines that students need to follow. If the class is learning something, the kids don’t have a choice.”

Overall, robotics team members are excited about the switch.

“This was something that we’ve wanted for a while now, so we’re glad that it’s finally happening,” sophomore Azal Amer said. “Many people on the team spend upwards of seven hours weekly ensuring that the robot is being upkept, and not getting any course credit for all that work is kind of ridiculous.”

Fall classes Over the summer, student robotics leaders created an online curriculum to teach fundamental principles such as computer science and engineering.

“We were taking really helpful online courses over the summer that were centered on programming and design, because those are digital things that everyone can improve on,” Amer said.

As Greenhill has shifted from remote classes necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic to hybrid classes in which some students are back on campus, robotics has made its own adjustments. There can only be up to four students in the robotics lab and up to eight students in Suarez’s classroom.

That means only 12 out of 38 members of the team can be present in the classroom at one time.

Because of these limitations, the robotics team has designated builders who physically work on the robot in the classroom. According to junior Ryan Schroeder, a robotics programmer, this year will have to be less collaborative because of these constraints.

“We are not going to be able to work together as we used to,” Schroeder said. “Currently, the team has designated people that will work on the building of the robot, while other people focus on design and programming.”

The builders are creating a robot that will be used at competitions. In the past, competitions would entail different teams working together.

However, the pandemic has forced teams to work separately this year. In addition, competitions can no longer take place in person for the time being.

“To compete, we are going to have to take a video of our robot doing its thing, and upload that video to all of the servers,” Ram said. “That way, each person competes by themselves and independently calculates their score.”

Other changes ahead The pandemic is forcing other changes. Students typically gather for a yearly party in which they learn the topic of their competitions or the “game.”

“We usually get together and have a massive party, and they live stream the reveal,” Ram said.

“Obviously, we’re not going to be able to do that this year, so that’s going to be really different.”

More students have signed up for robotics this year than in years past. Instead of the expected four new recruits, there have been 12.

Although this year is going to be different, everyone is looking forward to what the season will bring, according to Suarez.

“Instead of sitting on what is happening, you need to see what you can do to improve this situation,” Suarez said. “I think that the kids are working very diligently, and I am excited for this year.”

4

the Ever Evergreen

News

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Alumna Zayna Syed ’17 Takes on the Journalism World Diane Lin Views Editor

In the hallway between the Upper School learning commons and language pod, a wall plaque lists past editors-inchief of the Evergreen. For the 2016-2017 school year, the plaque identifies the top campus newspaper editor as Zayna Syed.

Today, the name of the 2017 Greenhill graduate can be found on the masthead of the Michigan Daily, the daily student newspaper of the University of Michigan.

Syed holds the prestigious position of investigative editor, writing and overseeing the production of in-depth narratives and investigative pieces on various topics.

Now a senior at Michigan, Syed recently returned to campus after her first taste of professional journalism outside a school setting. She was a summer intern at the Dallas Morning News, where she wrote several front-page articles that turned a spotlight on undercovered communities and topics.

“It was just a really great experience all around,” Syed said. “I learned so much about what it’s like to work as a reporter, and I met a ton of great people.”

Uncomfortable conversations Syed’s introduction to journalism began in her sophomore year at Greenhill.

“I loved to read,” Syed said. “So I gave [the Evergreen] a try.”

As Syed took her first tentative steps into the newspaper world, the Greenhill journalism program was adrift. Because the Evergreen adviser changed every year that she was on the paper, Syed said it was up to the students to maintain consistency. But one adviser, Lauren Laughlin, connected with Syed and had an important influence on her during her junior year.

One of the important lessons that Syed learned under Laughlin was a willingness to take on controversial and uncomfortable conversations.

“One thing the Evergreen does really well is we push uncomfortable conversations,” Syed said. “When Ms. Laughlin was there, she really challenged us to push uncomfortable conversations.

Always be fair, but don’t be afraid to be controversial.”

Syed began to find her voice as a campus journalist, and with it a growing passion for the craft.

Although Syed didn’t begin high school with an interest in journalism, that had changed by her senior year. Once she started, she was hooked, Syed said.

“I honestly just really fell in love with it,” Syed said. “It’s a way to hold people in power responsible. You write stories about complex situations and write about those to the general public in a way that’s easy to understand. I really admire journalists. It’s a hard life, but a really noble profession.”

Michigan Daily Syed’s passion for journalism continued to deepen at the University of Michigan, where she joined the staff of the campus newspaper her freshman year.

Today, Syed is an investigative editor for the Michigan Daily. In that role, she writes, guides and edits stories that involve days or even weeks of reporting and digging.

Among the stories that Syed has written for the Michigan Daily was one that brought to light allegations of workplace sexual harassment at a popular restaurant in Ann Arbor, the city in which the University of Michigan is located.

The story won Syed and a colleague an investigative reporting award at the University of Michigan.

Another story turned a spotlight on a 2014 website known as Canary Mission, which publishes dossiers on student activists, professors and organizations that site operators accuse of anti-Semitism.

The website focuses on North American universities, and contributors have threatened to send their allegations of antiSemitism to prospective employers of the accused individuals. “[The Canary Mission story] was honestly a very special story for me,” Syed said. “Because almost no one had ever written about Canary Mission. When I was doing my research—I mean, it’s about Israel and Palestine and First Amendment rights, and there’s this huge blacklist—but there was just practically no coverage and I just thought that there was a huge gap.”

!

Don’t stop pushing for those uncomfortable conversations. They might not be pleasant to have, but that’s how communities grow and become better. I don’t think we should settle for good; I think we should try to be great.”

Syed’s interest in writing and reporting about controversial subjects such as Canary Mission is driven in part by gaps in coverage of certain communities, she said.

“You know, being a South-Asian Muslim I didn’t really see myself represented in the news and I didn’t really see the problems that my community faces

Photo courtesy of Zayna Syed

“GROWING OUR OWN”: Dallas Morning News Assistant Managing Editor for Journalism Initiatives Thomas Huang praised Zayna Syed for her coverage of marginal communities.

Photo courtesy of Zayna Syed

A YOUNG REPORTER’S MILESTONE: Zayna Syed ’17 holds a copy of the Dallas Morning News with her first front-page story, which ran during her recent summer internship.

represented in the news in an empathetic and fair way,” Syed said. “The way that a newsroom works means that if you don’t have a diverse newsroom, you’re not going to have diverse story ideas. And then you have communities that are just left out or ignored.”

“Sophisticated, in-depth stories” Syed brought her passion for writing about minority communities and undercovered topics to her Dallas Morning News internship this past summer.

“I learned so much there,” Syed said.

“I had applied my sophomore year—got denied—but I applied again my junior year and was accepted.”

The internship was done remotely over twelve weeks. Syed’s mentor and editor, Thomas Huang, is the assistant managing editor for journalism initiatives at the Dallas Morning News.

“Zayna worked with me as a fulltime reporter.” Huang said. “At the Dallas Morning News we expect our college journalists to be ready to hit the ground running and we treat them as full-time journalists. I selected Zayna out of as many as a hundred applicants.”

Syed’s interest in writing about lesscovered topics and communities resonated with Huang “She really sees it as her mission to amplify voices that aren’t always heard.”

Huang said. “She’s also driven to really dig deeply into stories and research to understand the context of her stories.”

Syed’s coverage for the News included stories about the spread of anti-Asian violence across the U.S. and Texas during the pandemic, colorism within the South

Asian communities and pro-Palestinian activists building coalitions with the Black Lives Matter movement.

“They were all really sophisticated, indepth stories,” Huang said. “I don’t think we would have necessarily gotten them without her presence in our newsroom.”

“Try to be Great” Although Syed isn’t completely certain about pursuing a career in journalism, her Dallas internship took her a step further in that direction. In the meantime, she’s tackling big topics in her work for the Michigan Daily.

Throughout her experiences at the Michigan Daily and the Dallas Morning News, Syed has drawn on her Greenhill education and experiences.

“I’m so thankful for the education it gave me—the ability to critically reason and write,” Syed said. “Greenhill kids are so passionate. And I think we really have to credit our teachers for that, and the wonderful teachers we’ve had at this school.”

She recalled some of her memories of Greenhill—a particularly striking senior speech; seeing a well-liked Muslim teacher; a daunting English class—as ones that have remained with her. They’ve all played their part in her development, both as a person and as a journalist, Syed said.

The push for uncomfortable conversations is important, Syed said, and it’s one that she would like to see happen more frequently at Greenhill.

“Don’t stop pushing for those uncomfortable conversations,” Syed said.

“They might not be pleasant to have, but that’s how communities grow and become better. I don’t think we should settle for good; I think we should try to be great.”

Views

Opinion: What Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Meant to Me Cameron Kettles Managing Editor

!"#$%&'($)*#+&#),-./)*&'($)*#+&($00#)1&2)#& 13#0&$3&$&3/4#56 – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) Growing up, I always saw Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as this one constant in government I could always count on.

Presidents and members of Congress changed, but Justice Ginsburg was always there, fighting for me and people across the country who identify as I do. I was proud and comforted to know women had an advocate on the inside.

Her death on Sept. 18 at the age of 87 leaves both a void in the justice system and in the very image of justice many of us had created in our brains.

Ginsburg’s nearly 60-year career in the legal profession was devoted to fighting for equality. While she was known as a feminist icon in pop culture, her greatest victories were won in the courtroom, on both sides of the bench.

After attending Cornell University, Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School, Ginsburg struggled to find employment, despite making the Harvard Law Review and graduating at the top of her class at Columbia, because she was Jewish, a woman and the mother of a young child.

At the time, there were very few practicing female lawyers, and only two women had ever served as federal judges.

She became an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Law in 1963, and in 1972, Ginsburg became founding counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project. Her earliest legal accomplishment, Reed v. Reed, was the first instance in which a gender-based statute was struck down on the basis of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Ginsburg’s choice of cases to take on was strategic. She took interest in cases that were destined for the Supreme Court; cases that could change laws. She often represented men who had been discriminated against to argue for women’s equality. She picked her battles and she won often.

She was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia

by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993. In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg wrote 43 opinions, both for the majority and in dissent.

She wrote against gender-exclusive admissions, against “unjustified isolation” that restricted the rights of people with mental disabilities to live freely, for the right of same-sex couples to marry, for the right to not be discriminated against in employment and in pay, for protections for non-citizens from expulsion from the country, for the right to access abortion and for voting rights.

Before Ginsburg, any one of my non-

male colleagues could be rejected from state-funded schools and businesses.

We couldn’t sign mortgages or open bank accounts on our own. We could be discriminated against at the point of entry into the workforce and at every step along the way. She quite literally created a path of financial independence for women.

I don’t think people realize how many of the freedoms we now exercise that our grandmothers couldn’t. Many of us will be in college, be in the workforce, be on juries, play sports, have social security, get married to whom we choose if we so choose, have children if and when we choose because of her. She preserved a woman’s right to be independent, and to access a source of dignity outside a husband or a child.

“It’s everything that came after the idea that it was inappropriate to make distinctions based on sex alone,” said Michele Dauber, a law professor at Stanford University, speaking in an interview with The Atlantic. “It’s not one thing that’s different—it’s everything that’s different.”

Her death fills me with a deep sense of despair and dread. Given the Trump administration’s strategic court-packing in lower courts and now, the move to establish a decisive Republican majority in the Supreme Court, many of the protections that Justice Ginsburg fought so hard to protect now feel in jeopardy.

We must honor her memory and her legacy. We must vote for the future we want and fight like hell to achieve the political

Source: United States Supreme Court

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 27 years.

and social equality that Justice Ginsburg dedicated her life to. It will take the combined energy and strength of all of us to carry on her fight.

Her lifetime pursuit of equality under the law changed the lives of millions of women now and for generations to come.

She will be deeply missed but her legacy will continue, and her impact will never be forgotten.

Thank you, Justice Ginsburg. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Opinion: The Wuhan in My Childhood Memories Sarah Luan

Managing Editor

W

hen Wuhan hit the headlines earlier this year, the racist backlash affected me deeply.

I grew up listening to my mom calling her parents back in Wuhan. Whenever she talked to them, she spoke in a Chinese dialect that my sister and I were unfamiliar with, a dialect we decided to name “Wuhanese.”

Sometimes we’d even mock her Wuhan accent, pronouncing Chinese phrases in overly exaggerated tones. We would beg for her to demonstrate it again so we could practice. She would laugh and give in to our request, but afterward, she could flip this imaginary switch off and speak in “normal” Chinese again.

I finally had the enjoyment of experiencing my mother’s hometown for myself when I was around eight years old.

My first and only visit to Wuhan was almost ten years ago, but the memories are still fresh in my mind.

Wuhan was hot and humid that summer, as it normally is, but my uncle always had a stash of popsicles ready for my sister and me to eat. My cousin had his fair share of popsicles too. Even though he spoke mostly in Chinese and I was still learning to speak fluently, we found ways to communicate. I still remember stealing one of his toy soldiers and “accidentally” breaking its head off.

My uncle’s apartment in Wuhan was small, but that didn’t stop our extended family from crowding in the kitchen during meals. My sister and I would sit together on one side and my grandparents on the other.

Everyone at the table would use chopsticks except us.

The adults would always urge us to eat more, dropping “the best part of the fish” into our bowls and saving the largest pieces of meat for us. I would glare at my sister in a “what’s going on” kind of way, but I realize now that it was their way of treating us like family.

Almost every morning, we would eat 热 干面 (Hot Noodles with Sesame Paste) at a

nearby restaurant. It quickly became one of my favorite treats. The restaurant was always pretty crowded, forcing me to squeeze through people to find a nice spot.

My visit to China was enriching and eye-opening, but I realized there was a barrier that separated me from my Chinese background.

Still, when coronavirus first hit the news, it was difficult for me to see and hear negative things about Wuhan and China.

While I desperately tried to deepen my connection with my Chinese heritage, my efforts were clouded by offensive comments that put shame on the country’s rich culture and history.

I felt confused. How could I embrace my background if all I heard about it were negative things? How could I actively stand up for myself and my family without being labeled as a “virus?” I was guilty and scared for simply looking Chinese.

“Wuhan Virus” and “Chinese Virus” flooded the headlines in January, taking an emotional toll on my family. I remember my mom telling me at dinner, “Sarah, if people talk about how Chinese people eat weird things, they are being racist. We aren’t like that.”

Afterward, she would call her parents in Wuhan, who were quarantined in their apartment for weeks. My mother would stress over their health, ordering masks online and shipping them over to her family.

I would always be waiting by the stairs or outside my mother’s office to ask if they were okay. She would reassure me that everything was fine and that my grandparents were safe; nonetheless, each day I was worried if something had happened.

When I think of Wuhan, I don’t think of COVID-19; I’m reminded of my kind, welcoming family and the delicious taste of 热干面.

For my mother, Wuhan was once her home. I always loved hearing her stories about growing up in the city. She would talk about the delicious food and how no restaurant in America could recreate it.

Sometimes I’d look through her camera roll, finding photos of her and her friends

Photos courtesy of Sarah Luan

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES: In the top photo, Sarah Luan, left, paddles across a Wuhan lake with her uncle. At bottom, she spends a summer’s day with relatives at their apartment.

when she went back to visit. I can only imagine how deeply affected she was by offensive comments towards her hometown while being here.

It saddens me that people around the world only think of it as the city that started the pandemic.

Putting this label on Wuhan—the city where my mother was raised, where many of my relatives currently live, and a place where I created cherished memories with

my family—is disheartening.

I hope the world can someday see the beauty of Wuhan that I was able to experience. And even though there is a cultural divide between me and the rest of my family on the other side of the world, I do know that the people of Wuhan and China are incredibly strong. I’m proud that the city and country have such a powerful influence in my life.

Features

Marcus Ingram: An Opportunity to Be Better

New Director of Equity and Inclusion seeks common ground amid racial strife Leah Nutkis Editor-in-Chief

A

mid America’s summer of historic turmoil, Marcus Ingram arrived on campus as Greenhill’s new director of equity and inclusion.

He has already begun implementing ideas aimed at equipping the Greenhill community with means to confront the anguish related to COVID-19 and racial justice protests.

“The goal for me as a newcomer, but also for us as a community, is to see one another better,” Ingram said.

“Some of this will result from me doing a listening pilgrimage, and we will do a proper self-study of the institution relative to multiculturalism and inclusion. In addition, there seems to be a desire in the community to create a space to have not only meaningful conversation but also platforms for action to respond to that which we believe deeply.”

World Perspectives Prior to his journey to Greenhill, Ingram was the inclusion director at George School in Pennsylvania, from 2017 until 2020. Ingram said his experiences and skills in life have largely been shaped and derived from the places he has visited and lived in, whether that’s within the United States or around the globe.

“Geographically, I’m originally from North Carolina,” Ingram said.

“Wherever I’ve been in the world, I still consider North Carolina home. I hope I carry the goodness of being a North Carolinian with me.”

While he never imagined becoming an equity and inclusion director, his experiences led him to the role.

With an undergraduate degree in analytical finance, a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Philosophy in education, Ingram’s studies coalesced into a pedigree that prepared him for this type of employment.

!

In some ways, citizenship is about the ‘I see you’ of being in community together. It’s also about seeing the wider world and our place in it, and the systems that impact that wider world.”

“Throughout my journey through those very different academic programs, each degree experience helped me explore what it means to be a kind and gracious person that listens, hopefully deeply, in order to build relationships,” Ingram said. “Because that’s how I understand inclusion, it’s not entirely surprising that this is the work that I do.”

After traveling over 1,000 miles from Pennsylvania, Ingram finds himself and his family in North Texas. Despite already being employed before stepping onto campus for the first time, he was able to learn about the school’s landscape as well as its culture through virtual meetings and tours.

“Early April is when I learned about this position being a possibility,” Ingram said. “My ‘Day on the

Hill’ was entirely virtual and included nearly 45 different people that represented various constituencies of the institution: from students to teachers to employees who work in different parts of administration, to parents, to board members, to alumni.”

Even through a computer screen, Ingram felt compelled to make the move with his family to Texas.

“What made [conversations with members of the Greenhill community] compelling wasn’t that people were unilaterally celebratory about what Greenhill is and what their experience had been up to that point,” Ingram said. “It was that there was this energy about making Greenhill an even better version of itself.”

Despite the impediments that come with COVID-19, Ingram said he remains committed to creating an equitable and inclusive environment, even if, for some, that space is virtual.

That requires the combined effort of the entire Greenhill community.

“We will need to work harder to pay attention to those unanticipated and even anticipated details of our necessary learning and living environments that might separate us in unintentional ways,” Ingram said.

The Racial Divide Ingram’s arrival at Greenhill coincides with racial justice protests and a general growing awareness about the ways race effects people’s lives. The police killings of Black people and other events that have ignited nationwide protests as well as generated tensions and questions within the Greenhill community.

Following national protests sparked by the police-related deaths of Black Americans Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others, Facebook and Instagram accounts describing and condemning racial injustices and inequities at Greenhill appeared online.

“POC [people of color] students are often threatened by the administration and privileged students to protect the school’s reputation,” the Facebook page named Justice AtGh stated. “This page is your way to come forward and demand justice anonymously.”

Along with Ingram, Head of School Lee Hark wants to respond directly to this frustration that’s occurring within the Greenhill community.

“I think there’s pain, I think there’s anger and I think there’s a desire to see change,” Hark said. “I think there’s frustration because this desire has been there for a while, especially with some of our faculty who have been here and have experienced these issues and these problems and have asked for change and not gotten it. We want to respond to that.”

The Look Forward Black members of the Greenhill community, alongside other minority groups at the school, have vocalized frustrations over what they see as institutionalized inequities on campus.

Ingram said he plans to directly target these frustrations through a mixture of interpersonal and sys-

Photo courtesy of Marcus Ingram

A NEW FACE ON CAMPUS: Director of Equity and Inclusion Marcus Ingram sees opportunities to learn from, educate, unite and change the Greenhill community for the better.

temic experiences. He believes that Greenhill intrinsically is capable of working through these difficulties to become a better community and workplace.

!

It’s important to recognize that many people in Greenhill’s past and in previous administrations have worked hard to make this a place where everyone feels a sense of belonging–fully supported and fully valued. These are difficult problems to address, but I know we’re going to build on the work that’s been done before and make real progress.”

“I don’t doubt that Greenhill, like other places, has work to do,” Ingram said. “What I do believe, though, is given my experiences both in my virtual recruitment process and now engaging with people now that I’m on the ground, there’s this palpable energy around of ‘here are the reasons why I selected Greenhill, and here are the ways I believe it can be better.’

It’s that connective tissue that gives this place an opportunity to actually be better.”

In addition to ideas directly shaped by recent events, Ingram has plans to engage the Greenhill community on these subjects in a much wider and deeper fashion than before. One of the initiatives he plans to launch is a series around the framing idea “So this is citizenship?!” These engagements will invite the Greenhill community to explore the con-

cept of citizenship against the backdrop of the U.S. presidential election by looking at the impact of the vote, the systems and stories around the so-called “essential worker,” socioeconomic class and environmental stewardship.

“In some ways, citizenship is about the ‘I see you’ of being in community together,” Ingram said. “It’s also about seeing the wider world and our place in it, and the systems that impact that wider world.”

While Hark is confident about progress being made this year, Greenhill has always been an institution that strives for growth, he said.

“It’s important to recognize that many people in Greenhill’s past and in previous administrations have worked hard to make this a place where everyone feels a sense of belonging–fully supported and fully valued,” Hark said. “These are difficult problems to address, but I know we’re going to build on the work that’s been done before and make real progress.”

Hark said he is hopeful that Ingram will be able to bring positive change to Greenhill as it struggles to handle a global pandemic alongside resurfacing frustrations from communities within the school.

“I think with Dr. Ingram’s help, and with the help of everyone in the community, we’re going to make substantial change, and that’s my goal,” Hark said. “In part it’s to listen and hear, and then to strategize and formulate and get to work, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Ever Evergreen Standing Up and Speaking Out

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

the

Features

7

Students form advocacy groups and organizations around current issues Lane Herbert Executive Editor

Emma Nguyen Staff Writer

O

n June 10 at 11 a.m., senior Clarissa Smith and juniors Lily McArdle and Ari Appel made history by leading the first Greenhill student protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The event had required planning and persistence by the organizers. After Smith had sent out an email inviting Upper School faculty and students, administrators had asked her to send out another email making it clear that the protest wasn’t an officially sanctioned school event.

That Wednesday, students and faculty alike showed up to show their support for the cause of racial justice. Students were allowed to park at the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center (MPAC) on campus and protest organizers led the group to the corner of Spring Valley and Midway. There, the leaders gave speeches and held a ceremony in remembrance of George Floyd, the Black man who died during a police arrest in Minneapolis on May 25.

“We practiced everything and we edited each other’s scripts,” Smith said. “I had planned in my head to say exactly what I wrote down. In the moment, I kind of just spoke from the heart, to be honest. That was probably the most powerful part for me.”

Marching for Change The pandemic and the protests about the death of Black Americans have renewed interest in social justice causes worldwide. Many students have decided to advocate for those causes through the creation of activist groups and organizations.

Smith also co-leads the Greenhill Black Student Union and is a member of NewGen, a student advocacy group focused on women’s rights. She is an integral part of the new youth organizations outside of campus that fight racial injustice and speak up for social justice movements. Like other members of the Greenhill community, she used the weeks of quarantine to spearhead the causes she believes in.

Another is junior Madeline Schlegel, who leads the March for Our Lives club, which was formed to raise awareness of gun violence and possible solutions.

“Last year, we talked about gun licensing and background checks, so we debated it and how effective it was,” Schlegel said.

“Anything related to gun violence, we have discussions about, just to learn more about the topics.”

In the summer between ninth and tenth grade, compelled by her conviction that action was needed, Schlegel started March for Our Lives at Greenhill. She aims to continue educating people about gun violence now in her junior year.

“It can be kind of hard to organize on a school campus, especially at Greenhill,” Schlegel said. “The most important thing for me is to have these meetings and people just learn. And maybe come away with a new perspective or maybe they haven’t heard a certain topic before, so now they know.”

Even amid the coronavirus pandemic, Schlegel said the club still plans to protest. If people are still nervous protesting,

Photo courtesy of Sheena Kwon

PROTESTING WITH PRIDE: Members of NewGen, a student-led organization advocating for women’s rights, participated in several protests for social justice, such as the Black Lives Matter marches as well as this year’s Dallas Women’s March.

they could engage in actions away from large groups or do other activities that would help the cause, Schlegel said.

“It’ll be mostly the same, with the discussions over Teams,” she said. “Obviously, I’m not going to try and sway anybody into protesting, but I’d want to tell them a little bit about the safety measures that I and people around me took.”

Growing Organizations Student activism has swept the Greenhill community over the past few months. With the onset of COVID-19, many of these organizations have moved their platforms online with podcasts and webinars that continue to spread awareness about the causes they hold dear.

One of these organizations is NewGen, the group advocating for women’s rights. The organization was started in the spring of 2020 and has expanded to include chapters worldwide. They participated in the Dallas Women’s March and Black Lives Matter marches this year.

The group’s objective is to provide the resources and education for students to advocate for a variety of causes.

“Our main goal is to make sure that students like us have the resources and an understanding of how to get involved in women’s rights and any rights that they believe are super important to them,” senior Adina Durden said.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, the NewGen team, led by seniors Sheena Kwon, Adina Durden, Kaylee Chien and Drewv Desai, has created online resources to continue to spread NewGen’s mission.

Photo courtesy of Jung Min Yean

STAYING HAPPY: Misha Weiner, left, and Kelly Meng are two of the founders of Students for Happiness, an organization dedicated to giving students a break from the stressors of Upper School, extracurriculars and life in general.

Their most recent initiative, the Purple Project, is a series of webinars where they bring in leaders from different organizations to discuss important issues.

“Our first one was from the president of a local political organization called ‘WOW Dems’,” Kwon said. “She talked about why it is important to be involved in the election process for this year’s election and just know a lot about what’s going on in the political realm.”

The team also launched a student-led podcast called GenTalks where Desai and Chien tackle issues regarding women’s rights and have guests from different parts of the world. The first episode premiered June 6.

Another activist group, Students for Happiness, has also created online resources for teenagers to access during quarantine. Their website features activities such as baking, meditation and self-care meant to help people cope with stress without spending time at a screen.

The organization, which was founded by seniors Kelly Meng, Raag Venkat and Misha Weiner, was originally started as a Happiness Club at Greenhill, with the goal of providing a break from school stress. When the pandemic hit, Meng said she realized how much that brief reprieve meant to the student population at Greenhill.

“The pandemic was the moment I realized how much teenagers and teachers at the Greenhill community need [resources for] mental health, or need to understand the importance of mental health,” Meng said. “I’m a debater and I have a lot of friends from different schools that I would meet from debate tournaments. They were really fascinated by the idea of having a place to talk about mental health and do fun activities.”

Students for Happiness also recently raised $10,000 for the Austin Street Center, the largest homeless shelter in Dallas. The fundraiser was an effort to provide hygienic products and mental health resources to homeless citizens.

“We realized that the COVID-19 pandemic had such a detrimental effect on homeless citizens who were already struggling to survive,” said senior Jung Min Yean, who is the director of photography and web design for Students for Happiness. “So we fundraised through the platform GoFundMe and the support just started pouring in.”

With over 33 chapters globally across four countries, Students for Happiness aims to continue its global expansion.

“Something in the future that we’re trying to do is mental health around the world, where we try to get guest speakers from different countries and explain the stigma surrounding mental health in their cultures and in their communities,” Meng said.

The main goal of Students for Happiness is to raise awareness of teen mental health issues.

“School culture and social media have made mental health disorders more prevalent,” Meng said. “Education is really important to combat mental health disorders [from these two factors] because you can’t diagnose someone without education.”

Meng said she hopes that Students for Happiness can serve as an inspiration and empower teens to talk about mental health and how to address related issues.

One thing the students all said in common seems to be their passion for their causes.

“I don’t know if this is unique from other protests,” said Smith, “but for me it’s a different feeling to speak what you truly feel and have people listen and then respond so positively.”

8

Features

Evergreen Ever the

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Meeting a New Campus, One Camera at a Time

Incoming students adjust to life at Greenhill amid COVID-19 pandemic Jothi Gupta

Online Editor-in-Chief

W

alking into her “classroom,” junior Saara Bidiwala scooted into her desk, opened her computer and waited to greet the more than 20 new faces that stared back at her on her first day at Greenhill.

Having never stepped foot onto campus after being accepted to Greenhill, Bidiwala started her first year at a new school from her bedroom.

Bidiwala had a different vision of her first day of school: no uniform, assemblies with other students and experiencing the campus life with her new friends. Instead, she found herself greeting students online, seeing only a profile view of her new classmates and teachers.

Students entering Greenhill in the middle of a pandemic find themselves facing unexpected challenges.

Every transfer student must grapple with more than meeting new people and acquainting themselves with an unfamiliar campus. Now, they must do it all in a socially challenging world: meeting people purely online and maybe not even seeing them in person for many months.

Students have always had to adjust when moving to a different school. Having attended Dallas International School since kindergarten, Bidiwala still recalls the experience of walking onto campus the first time.

“I remember my first day there,” Bidiwala said. “It was a French school, so I had to adjust to everyone speaking French. [I remember thinking] what are you saying? So that was a bigger adjustment, but we’re speaking in English so that’s a lot easier for me!”

Ekaum Soni, a junior new to Greenhill this year has seen his fair share of new beginnings. He has moved schools nearly every two years, having lived in India, California and Boston. He says he is used to making friends quickly.

Soni is currently living in Boston as a result of COVID-19, having pushed back his move to Dallas.

“School starts at 9:40 for me and it goes all the way to 5, which is kind of a bummer,” Soni said. “Other than that, it doesn’t feel that much different because I would have been doing full remote if I was in Dallas.”

Although students are interacting online, freshman Anisa Walji talks about how she is still getting a handle on Greenhill.

“I have been at school for a month, but it doesn’t feel like my school yet,” Walji said. “When I picture Greenhill, I only picture what I have seen once. And I haven’t seen my classes yet, so it’s hard to picture myself at Greenhill.”

Like Walji, every Greenhill student was once a new student.

Junior Jasmine Najari entered Greenhill as a fourthgrader. On her first day of school, she remembers walking into her advisory, scared to start at a new school. Sitting at

Photos courtesy of Anisa Walji and Saara Bidiwala

VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES: All students began the year learning remotely. Anisa Walji, left, and Saara Bidiwala are meeting their classmates and becoming part of the Greenhill community through their computer screens from home.

a table with her classmates, her fear diminished quickly, she said. She was able to meet new people and even connect with other new students.

But this is clearly not a normal year, and the experiences that new students currently face are very different from those faced by new students in the past.

“If I was in fourth grade and coming to a new school online, I would feel out of place, because you never really meet anyone and communicating online is always a little awkward,” said Najari.

In order to get incoming students more familiar with Greenhill, many groups and organizations have tried to organize activities or meetings to integrate the new arrivals. One such organization that many new students point to as making their transition smoother is the schoolsanctioned “buddy system.”

Walji said her buddy, Morgan Ofenloch, helped her get to know Greenhill.

“It has been so helpful, because she has introduced me to some of her friends and it has been nice to at least know

one person, and I know that if I have any questions I can ask her,” Walji said.

Since student mobility is fairly common before freshman year, Walji says that having a larger group of new students is nice so that others are going through the same thing.

Along with the buddy system, other organizations, such as the club groups have tried to integrate students in their new environment at Greenhill.

“I joined Math Club, Model UN, and Robotics Club,” Soni said. “They seemed like a little fun and I got to meet a lot of new people.”

While some new students are only starting to meet their peers as the campus transitions back to in-person classes, many have not even been to campus since they were accepted. These students, as well as the rest of the community, are finding ways to adapt.

“I thought, ‘well, I just have to make the best of it,’” Bidiwala said.

The Uncertain Fate of Senior Traditions Sumana Kethu

Chief Section Editor

N

oah Grimsley had anticipated his senior year at Greenhill since arriving on campus as a Preschool student. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended some of the events that Grimsley and other seniors have been looking forward to for years.

“Almost 14 years later, I expect my senior year to be special, especially after seeing the seniors being kind of glamorized in our community” said Grimsley, who is also Student Body President. “It’s kind of tough to be the one grade who doesn’t get hardly as many experiences.”

Last year, Head of School Lee Hark changed some senior traditions, including the Homecoming Pep Rally. Some of the changes were criticized by students and parents, and the changes became a point of discussion in senior exit interviews with Hark.

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a whole new expanse of changes.

The first senior tradition that typically sets in motion the countdown to graduation is the painting of the old campus water tower, with members of the graduating class inscribing their names or initials in garish colors on the green backdrop. That event has been pushed back to Oct. 14.

Another tradition, in which graduating class members attend the Senior Breakfast in black or white formal attire, took place on Sept. 11, the first day of hybrid classes for seniors.

Other traditions, including the Homecoming and Winter Formal Dances, have not been officially canceled or postponed, but their fate is uncertain.

“I don’t know that losing or postponing some of these traditions will change them in the long term,” 12th Grade Class Dean April Burns said. “I don’t think that they will go away at all. They may have to evolve, but maybe that evolution is a good thing.”

Photos courtesy of Pearson Brooks

MASKS AND MEMORIES: Seniors arrived at school for a masked and distanced version of their annual Senior Breakfast wearing black and white first day attire. This is one of the many traditions that has been modified for the sake of safety.

For longtime students like Grimsley, the changes are a letdown.

Freshmen have also found the absence of certain traditions another disorienting facet of the pandemic.

“It’s just weird to drive by every day and not see names all over the water tower,” freshman Ravi Vasan said. “I also think it will be harder for Greenhill to feel like a community, including the freshmen, because we were expecting these senior traditions to be a way for us to feel comfortable and build connections with the rest of the Upper School.”

Historically, freshmen enter the Upper School and experience the traditions that add so much to the Greenhill experience. This year will be markedly different.

“With the senior traditions last year, as a freshman, I felt welcomed into the Upper School community,” sophomore Haylie Stobaugh said. “Traditions like the Senior Run In really made my friends and I feel like a part of the community and also made us excited for all the other traditions that come throughout high school.”

The unpredictable nature of these changes has made the

start of the year disappointing for many seniors.

“As a community, I think we’ll lose a bit of connection and spirit that usually just comes with being together and through all our traditions,” senior Theo Johnson said. “However, in the long run I think it just depends on our response. If this year continues to be a mourning of the Greenhill we once had, I suspect this year will be disappointing and at times miserable.”

Changing senior traditions is just one of the many alterations occurring this year due to COVID-19.

“I think our real challenge is how we, as a community, are going to make this year special for seniors when we’ve been expecting something else,” Grimsley said.

Although this year has been unprecedented, Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester has urged students to remain optimistic and resilient.

“My hope is that we find the right balance of honoring the seniors throughout the year, and finding ways to connect as a community with the traditions we can engage in this year with all our safety protocols in place,” Worcester said.

Special Report

Virtually Possible

How Greenhill has shifted to the online learning environment

Graphic by Sarah Luan

Nate Stitt News Editor

As summer has given way to fall, the Greenhill community has also experienced a change of seasons. After months of remote-only classes, students have begun to return to campus for a new phase of pandemic-era education: hybrid learning, featuring remote and in-person instruction.

It’s been a historic and sometimes bumpy educational journey over the past six months, from an abrupt shift to a remote-learning program that was pieced together in the midst of the deepening COVID-19 crisis, to a more polished fall curriculum that began remotely but has shifted to a mix of classes in September.

The new reality has drawn on lessons learned, both nationally and internationally, as well as within the Greenhill community.

“Every time you figure out the answer to one question, another 10 bubbled up,” Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman ’81 said. “And so, it’s just absolutely fascinating to see this determination to push forward.”

Summer Planning The abrupt March transition from normal campus life to quarantine now seems like years ago, rather than only six months. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the nation, Greenhill quickly shut down along with many schools across the country.

Over Spring Break, Greenhill faculty members had to respond quickly. With just a few days’ notice, an entire virtual learning system was set up for both students and teachers to communicate, collaborate and complete the school year while physically being apart.

This summer, things were different, as administration anticipated a virtual start to the school year.

As the Texas heat rolled in, Greenhill faculty and administrators established a “Return to the Hill Remote Learning Task Force” to plan out

what a school year online would look like.

A “Roadmap to Reopening” web page was created for parents to explain changes in schedules, athletics, academics, arts, grading and digital supplies within each division. Emails and updates were sent out and administrators hosted webinars about campus safety changes and hybrid learning plans.

Not everything was set in stone. Throughout the summer, the Dallas Health and Human Services Department constantly changed its recommendations and mandatory orders for schools. The school had to switch gears a few times, but administrators eventually put together a plan that included a 22-page COVID-19 addendum in the updated Greenhill handbook.

With the input of division heads, faculty and Education Technology (EdTech) Specialists Melissa Battis, Don Myers and Lauren Marold, detailed plans for a quality online curriculum were made.

One constant throughout the summer planning was this year’s theme of community.

“It’s going to be a huge challenge to create a community, but we are asking exactly how to do that at every turn,” Perryman said. “Community is at the top of our list.”

Lower School In the Lower School, there was some worry that it would be difficult to keep younger students engaged.

“Throughout the summer, we focused on how we wanted it to look, what changes we could make and how we could make it the most developmentally appropriate and robust system,” said Mary Ellen Brence, first-grade team leader and teacher.

So far, their work has delivered the desired results.

“It’s actually been surprising — [our Lower Schoolers] have been really great and engaged,” Brence said. “I think any kind of different activity for them made them really excited.”

Teachers use tactics like singing, dance par-

ties, “read-alouds” and journaling to keep students engaged. Students also use virtual software such as IXL to increase proficiency in language and math while submitting work through the app SeeSaw. “Creating a community in Lower School has been key in planning each activity and assignment, and Lower School faculty have come to see the strengths of one another through this experience,” Brence said.

Middle School The transition to virtual (and now hybrid) learning in Middle School differed from the other divisions for two main reasons.

First, Middle Schoolers are old enough to where they can be engaged without Lower School tactics, but they are at the age where teacher guidance is still a necessity.

Second, the Middle School switched to a block schedule a year earlier than they intended to. This meant that core academic classes switched from meeting five days in a six-day rotation for 55 minutes to convening every other day in a two-day rotation for 75 minutes.

“Though the class periods are longer, the fact that we have fewer classes is just a really huge change,” Middle School history teacher Peggy Turlington ’75 said. “This required many teachers to redo their curriculum and reevaluate.”

Turlington described the planning that had to go into creating an entirely revamped curriculum for the block schedule, while also making sure that it was suitable for online learning.

“The teachers seem to be more prepared to do online school this year,” eighth-grader Shreya Chayya said. “They know how to operate the technology better and technical difficulties interrupting class aren’t as much of an issue.”

Upper School In the Upper School, students are far more independent. However, advanced coursework can be more difficult to grasp in an online envi-

ronment, Additionally, the transition to a block schedule adds an additional layer to the year’s complexity.

“Students cannot sit and listen to a lecture for [80] minutes,” Upper School history teacher and debate coach Demarcus Powell said. “So chunking the class into different activities is helpful. I’ve kept that same approach for remote learning.”

Another question that has come up is how teachers should assess students, particularly in math and science courses.

“We are rethinking how we should test, in the way of creating spaces that more relates to explaining what you know and check conceptual understanding,” said Battis, the Upper School education technology specialist, who also teaches math.

“Regardless, giving grace both to and from teachers and students to grow is key to creating a successful online learning environment,” Battis said.

Digital Tools At the same time, faculty and students have had to learn a new course management system, Blackbaud, which replaced Canvas and other supplemental systems. Blackbaud is used alongside the Microsoft Teams video call and calendar app.

Some students say the transition has been largely seamless.

“The switch to Blackbaud has actually been easier than I thought,” sophomore Carcyn Coleman said.

In this area and others, Perryman sees Greenhill core values and sense of community as the essential component.

“There are moments in our school’s history where our character was revealed,” Perryman said. “This is yet another one of those moments and it is absolutely fascinating to see. I think that Greenhill, true to our DNA, is showing extraordinary care and concern for every member of the community.”

Everg Ever the

10

CORONAVIRUS CONFLICT: HOW GREE Cameron Kettles Managing Editor

Khushi Chhaya

Features Editor

Valerie Xu Arts Editor

T

he devastating global COVID-19 pandemic became personal for junior Kaden Nathani in early June.

First came the news that his sister, Alisha Nathani ’19, tested positive for the virus at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Within a week of his sister’s diagnosis, his aunt and uncle in Pakistan also fell ill with the deadly disease.

“That’s when it started getting pretty real for me,” Nathani said.

Nathani’s sister and aunt were fortunate, as their bouts of COVID-19 were relatively mild. His uncle, however, required hospitalization for breathing problems and spent four days in an intensive care unit in Pakistan. After his release, the uncle had to return to the hospital for treatment of a related stomach infection.

The Nathanis are just one of millions of families around the world that has experienced the pandemic firsthand. In fact, they’re among the lucky ones.

On Jan. 20, the U.S. and South Korea both recorded their first known case of COVID- 19. While South Korea managed to contain the outbreak by early May, the U.S. has struggled to overcome the virus, with more than 2 million Americans infected and 200,000 dead as of late September.

Globally, the pandemic has shuttered schools and businesses, crippled global economic activity and left millions of Americans unemployed.

Awareness that the pandemic might become such a life-changing event took hold only slowly at Greenhill. With alarm bells sounding across the nation about the growing COVID-19 pandemic, the school first closed its doors on March 13. But no one had any idea what lay ahead.

“I don’t think I really understood the weight of the situation, since so few Americans had been impacted by it at the time,” freshman Payton Blalock said. “I believed that this would be under control within a week and we would go back to living our lives as normal.”

As everyone knows, that hasn’t happened.

Students’ Wellbeing As the number of COVID-19 cases rose last spring, weeks of disruption turned into months.

For many students, teachers and their families, staying home during the spring and summer posed unforeseen psychological consequences.

“I don’t think it’s been too hard for me personally,” senior Uday Narayanan said. “But I do understand that I have seen a lot of people having a really hard time with it.

It is disheartening to me to see people I care about having a rough time through this.”

Anxiety about a new disease can cause strong emotions in both adults and children. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, social distancing and quarantine can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety.

!

Change, big or small by nature, is difficult and requires adaptation. With increased frequency of change, everyone builds the skill of adaptability and flexibility. I’m thankful for the positive spirit of my colleagues as continue to navigate these challenges together.”

Students say they recognize the toll that being separated has had.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve realized is how much I need people around me,” freshman Zoya Iyer said. “I knew that I was a social person before all of this, but I didn’t realize how much I actually needed social interaction and being able to see my friends and people outside my family.”

Teachers often play a role in helping students feel more connected.

“Be there for friends; don’t check out, reach out, check in with people, don’t let it slide,” Upper School English teacher Linda Woolley said.

Faculty Challenges After the March school closings, educators across the country made a giant leap: transitioning their face-to-face teaching to online.

For Greenhill, this happened in a week. Teachers swiftly adapted to save the rest of the school year, but, as many acknowledge, the result wasn’t perfect.

“I think things went well for students in the spring,” Oros said. “I don’t think you missed out on a lot on the educational side of things, but we wanted to make the fall more robust.”

Over the summer, Greenhill faculty began preparing for a very different fall semester.

Teachers participated in both optional and required professional development in order to learn how to adapt to the challenges of virtual learning. Many teachers pursued optional professional development courses on their own.

Some took courses at the Global Online Academy on how to teach virtually.

“I’m lucky that we have employees who work hard,” Head of School Lee Hark said. “Every single person who works at Greenhill has done more to help make reopening a possibility.”

Other teachers and administrators participated in sessions related to diversity, equity and inclusion—an area that took on even greater urgency with the racial justice protests sweeping America at the same time the pandemic was playing out.

“Historic, systemic inequities related to education, jobs, housing and health care have been laid bare by the onset of COVID-19,” Director of Equity and Inclusion Marcus Ingram said. “So-called essential workers have been thrust onto the frontlines of response and work during the battle to flatten the curve of infection en route to a vaccine; many of these workers represent the lowest socioeconomic quartiles of society, which in the United States maps onto race and ethnicity because of its sustained systems of exclusion for certain groups from access to high-quality education and higher-paying jobs.”

Since beginning a new school year in August, Greenhill teachers and students have transitioned from trimesters to semesters, shifted to a block schedule and embarked on a new hybrid system of classes that has meshed remote-learning with in-person instruction.

It’s been a demanding time, especially for faculty and administrators.

“Change, big or small by nature, is difficult and requires adaptation,” Kiang said. “With increased frequency of change, everyone builds the skill of adaptability and flexibility. I’m thankful for the positive spirit of the students and my colleagues as we continue to navigate these challenges together.”

green

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

11

ENHILL HAS DEALT WITH A PANDEMIC Teachers are mindful that in online learning students missed out on many aspects of Greenhill classes, including projects, group work, more traditional assessments and community activities like clubs.

“It is a lot of change and it’s tough trying to get footing,” Woolley said. “However, in classes, seeing students, hearing students, hearing ideas and insights literally bursting out from them—I find footing in classes.”

With training for both online and hybrid teaching under their belt, teachers have adjusted. And many are drawing inspiration once again from the in-person contact with students.

The View From Above The fall learning plan was the result of countless hours of discussion and coordination at the administrative level.

School nurses and administrators worked with health experts

over the summer to begin crafting a reopening plan that would maximize student education while preventing transmission of COVID-19.

In the Upper School, the hybrid model allows students who choose in-person learning to be on campus every other week.

“We made the decision to go with the hybrid model for the Upper School because it was necessary to allow for proper social distancing,” Hark said, “The class sizes in Upper School wouldn’t allow for social distancing without it.”

For those who have returned on campus, the experience has been different. Students are required to stay six feet apart and wear masks at all times to deter virus transmission.

Many campus lounge areas like the Buzz have been restricted and all fabric furniture in classrooms has been removed in an effort to make sanitation efforts more thorough and effective.

Blalock, the Upper School freshman, said she thinks that Greenhill has done a good job in making sure everyone feels safe and comfortable back on campus.

“I don’t think that Greenhill would send us back if they didn’t feel like we were safe,” Blalock said.

“I trust that they are approaching this very carefully and looking after our safety.”

However, students like Uday Narayanan decided not to return to campus in September, because they were still worried about the rising COVID-19 cases in Texas.

“I think it is a good step, however I don’t know how I feel about going back in general,” Narayanan said. “Given how cases have been and how the spread has been, I think it is very likely that everyone will go back and after a few weeks, maybe even a few days, there’s an infection and they will have to go back online.”

Narayanan is not alone in his hesitation to go back to school.

Hark said that by giving people a choice about whether they wanted to go back on campus or not, he hoped to “provide an educational platform that felt comfortable for all of our families.”

Regardless, reopening Greenhill has been no easy feat, Hark said.

“I don’t think I fully appreciated the complexity of reopening school in the midst of this,” Hark said. “It has caused us to rethink how we do everything.”

The Politics of America’s Pandemic While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the health and well-being of millions of Americans, it has also exacerbated political fault lines and polarization.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed the message that the pandemic would disappear, and he has pressured Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to demand the reopening of schools. Administration officials have also pressured the CDC to loosen guidelines for school reopenings and health warnings about the risks to students. In a recent campaign rally, Trump claimed that “young people are almost immune to this disease.”

These statements have politicized such precautions as stay-at-home orders, business closures and even maskwearing.

“In the beginning, there was so much misinformation and it was being spread everywhere,” Nathani said. “Since there weren’t that many cases at all in America at the very beginning, there was a lot of information saying [the pandemic] was not going to do anything.”

Perhaps in no area has politics been more evident than in the varying opinions surrounding masks. Some conservatives across the country have protested state and county mask mandates, citing an infringement on their rights.

“It is really frustrating to see how basic health and safety have been made into something where you have to be on one side or the other,” sophomore Emma Rikalo said. “It should not be tied to politics in any way, especially on the level of wearing a mask in public.”

!

I think the biggest thing I realized is how much I need people around me. I knew that I was a social person before all of this but I didn’t realize how much I actually needed social interaction and being able to see my friends and people outside my family.”

Hark said he does not share the opinion that masks are an infringement on personal freedoms. For students who refuse to oblige by Greenhill’s mask regulations on campus, they “are welcome to choose our stay-at-home option,” Hark said.

For teachers and students, the 2020-2021 school year promises additional challenges and opportunities, and perhaps even more surprises.

“We are wired to go to the negative of a situation, so we need to be purposeful to find the positive,” said Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester. “As a colleague of mine has said to me, these times are ’extraordinary, but temporary.’”

Graphic by Sarah Luan and Raag Venkat

Arts

Arts in the New Normal

As COVID-19 flares, Fine Arts programs adapt to hybrid learning

Photos courtesy of Lucik Aprahamian and Demarcus Powell

ADAPTING TO COVID: Middle School choir students, left, wear face shields in a class meeting in Rose Hall. Plexiglass shields, right, were installed on desks in the Debate Room to protect students during classes and afterschool practices. In addition to wearing masks, students in all Fine Arts classes remain socially distanced to follow health and safety guidelines.

Saara Bidiwala Staff Writer

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has turned life upside down, but Greenhill’s Fine Arts instructors are using their creative skills to adjust to the hybrid learning model.

The result: students returning to campus for in-person classes are encountering a very different learning experience.

Among other changes, collaborative efforts that were once common will be rarer under new safety protocols.

“We’re used to having four people work at an art table in the art studio,” Head of Fine Arts Terry Martin said. “Now we have to cut it back to only two.”

Teachers are facing their own challenges as they reshape classes to account for the new realities.

Martin said he is optimistic that teachers will still be able to help students reach their artistic goals and find in their art an outlet from pandemic stresses.

“It will be a learning experience for all of us,” Martin said.

Band Band Director Brian Donnell and Assistant Director Tony Lopez are working on two tracks to satisfy COVID-19 restrictions: physical and musical.

Measures aimed at providing additional safeguards include new sanitation protocols, the use of puppy pads to absorb the discharge from spit valves and the use of extra cameras and microphones to allow for social distancing.

The Band Hall had previously been fitted with a bipolar ionization air ventilation system, which is believed to limit COVID-19 transmission, Donnell said. Special high-performance filters were recently added to further maximize safety.

Other physical adaptations include seating students at least six feet apart and spraying chairs and stands after every practice. Plexiglass has been added as needed, most notably around the podium where the band directors conduct, now jokingly referred to as “The Penalty Box.” Musically, each band will be divided into ensembles consisting of four or five students who will perform chamber music rather than full-band selections. The ensembles are utilizing the breakout room feature in Microsoft Teams.

“I feel very comfortable that the students will have a safe experience in the Band Hall,” Donnell said.

Additionally, the band will no longer perform concerts in Rose Hall or perform live on the Quad or at football games. Instead, ensembles will record themselves playing their chosen pieces and the performances will be distributed as streamed video.

The one thing that will remain mostly unchanged is the Upper School Drumline, due to the drummers’ ability to easily socially distance and wear masks, Donnell said.

“I think they have done a good job with making sure we are safe and have not left anything out,” freshman Kyra Crawford, who performs in the Upper School jazz and concert bands, said.

- !"#$%&''(&)$"*+$,(-."$/"0)'&1

Choir Pandemic restrictions have created significant complications for Director of Middle and Upper School Choir Lucik Aprahamian and her students.

Among the challenges: The inability of remote students to hear their peers makes it nearly impossible for everyone to sing on beat and in tune.

“There is not really a way to sing over the internet because of lag and everything,” senior Ava Markhovsky, choir student president, said. Sophomore Laya Venkat added: “We haven’t really been able to sing together since it’s really hard virtually, so we have to keep our mics off and practice on our own.”

To account for the technical challenges, remote students mute themselves while singing along with the unmuted Aprahamian as she leads the class.

With some students now back on campus, Aprahamian has other challenges.

Singing has been identified by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an easy way to spread COVID-19, which requires extra precautions.

“The floor has all been measured out, so everyone is six feet apart at least,” Aprahamian said. “Then, when we are singing, we wear a visor on top of a mask.”

The problem is that masks tend to muffle voices, and that makes it difficult for Aprahamian to identify and correct students singing out of tune.

Under those conditions, choir students are now learning new songs.

“It’s not like a normal choir where you just come in, and we give you music and sing together,” Aprahamian said. “But the good news is how we will use technology to make sure everyone has an equitable experience.”

2$3*+1&4$!"**$"*+$,0-(5$67-**

Dance After having to transition to an online environment in March, Greenhill dance students made changes. Chairs became ballet barres and bedrooms became dance studios.

With the limitations of a computer screen, not being able to see the entire body of a dancer, work with a partner or get as much feedback is difficult.

“You don’t realize how important it is to be in a dance studio until you have to watch class on a computer,” senior Alison Thieberg said. “If you are just dancing alone in your room and can’t see other people, you won’t be as motivated as if you were next to people dancing.”

Dance is separated into Dance Technique and the Dance Company. While Dance Technique entails learning the skill of dance as the name suggests, the Dance Company goes a step further by being more performance based.

“Dance is therapy and comfort for many,” dance instructor Kelly McCain said.

The new realities have resulted in the elimination of many events, but hybrid classes are a step toward normalcy, McCain said.

“I think there is an excitement from students about coming back to campus and things being somewhat normal,” McCain said. “We need that, and I feel like we can have fewer daily failures which will eventually fall away and remembering that will help us all.”

2$,00"$89:0"*$"*+$,0-(5$87

Debate For sophomore Isabel Martinez, the loss of interaction with classmates has been the most challenging change to debate in the COVID-19 era.

“Debate is such a strong community,” Martinez said. “Not being able to see our friends and talk to our friends in class every day, that’s something that I’m really missing.”

The return to hybrid learning is a welcome development for sophomore Madison Rojas.

“The fun of learning debate is being in a classroom, asking questions,” Rojas said.

“It is kind of something that you have to be active in learning about.”

One of the pillars of debate—competition—has posed a larger challenge for programs nationwide, including Greenhill’s.

Despite the inability to connect in-person,

however, tournaments are continuing online.

Many of the advantages of in-person competitions, like interpreting other’s body language, are no longer available to debaters. These, along with possible technical issues, have created extra complications for the teams.

However, these tournaments allow students to continue to argue against a variety of debaters and hone their skills through competitions. Instead of going to a room to discuss debates, students join online meetings. Instead of whispering ideas to their partners, students now call them on another device.

Director of Debate Aaron Timmons said the adjustments haven’t changed the heart of debate.

“It’s changed,” Timmons said, “but it’s still great.”

2$3;"$<4")=9$"*+$,00"$>-="(9

Improv Timing is everything in improvisational comedy, and that fact has been apparent to students in Middle and Upper School Improv classes during long-distance learning.

“You cannot duplicate the emotional connection that a live class provides [while] online,” Henry Paolissi, the Middle School and Upper School Improv teacher, said.

Before the pandemic started, Paolissi’s classes would start out with a warmup that usually consisted of working with others.

Now, hybrid classes allow some students to be in the same room with one another. But social distancing requirements still make teamwork a challenge, weakening the connection between students, Paolissi said. The internet delay also presents a barrier, destroying the rhythm crucial to improv comedy.

Paolissi has devised activities to revolve around individual movement or mind games. He is keeping his class less structured, so there are more opportunities for people to jump in and participate, he said.

Paolissi is still hopeful that the year ahead will see a resumption of performances by the Improv Troupe, either online or in-person.

“If there is something you want to teach, it doesn’t matter what situation you’re in, you will find a way to teach it,” Paolissi said.

2$?'&@A"*-&$>9B")$"*+$C"'&$>7'(&+D&

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Evergreen Ever the

Arts

13

Arts in the New Normal (cont.)

Photos courtesy of Nick Paraskevas and Paige Furr

STARTING A NEW CHAPTER: Head of Middle School and Upper School Orchestra Nick Paraskevas, left, checks on students gathering six feet apart from each other in the orchestra room. Plexiglass shields have been added to the room where ceramics classes meet. Remote learners have been provided materials for them to produce home projects.

Orchestra Head of Middle School and Upper School Orchestra Nick Paraskevas has felt the pandemic-era limitations on emotional and musical levels.

“I really love working with students in person, and every teacher is going to tell you that,” Paraskevas said. “It’s a real special thing to share in music making.”

Paraskevas has relied more on such things like one-on-one sessions with students, especially those that do not study music privately, and using the website FlipGrid to record lessons and then ask students to submit a prepared performance of a short passage of music.

His class has also developed another method of learning online using a metronome beat and having one person lead while the other students play muted.

Paraskevas misses the in-person connection with his students, but freshman Jadon Lee sees some benefits in online classes.

“Online, I get to really assess how good I am, so I think for my orchestra skills, online is better,” Lee said.

Both online-only and hybrid, Paraskevas’ class has found ways to adapt.

“One of the best ways to learn is in a group setting where, just by participating with classmates, you can learn from and with each other,” Paraskevas said. “That’s the very thing that’s been taken away from us.” !"#$%&'(")$*+,-"('*".(/&"0(-('

Photography Through the challenging spring of online classes, Photography teacher Frank Lopez said he learned a lot about the “resiliency and the creative aspect of every student.”

Photography is an issues-based program, focused on students expressing themselves about cultural, societal and racial messages, Lopez said.

“The class is about how we make a connection,” Lopez said. “Our expectation is different in how we utilize our tools and information.”

Over the summer, he spent time trying out new techniques in a photography course he was teaching to prepare for the fall. He gathered supplies and created take-home kits of materials so his students could still learn safely.

Senior Olivia Kim gives the current hy-

brid Photography class high marks.

“This opened up an opportunity to learning some new techniques, like collaging, for me,” Kim said.

Lopez also is encouraged by the work he is seeing. His students, Lopez said, are “adapting beautifully.” !"1,,2("3('45/&"('*"#('%,'"35$**

Theater Theater teacher Valerie Hauss-Smith and her students have had to face multiple obstacles due to COVID-19, but they’re finding ways to overcome.

A big part of acting is interacting with other performers and feeding off their energy, Hauss-Smith said. But with remote learning, students aren’t able to read the “temperature” of the room and adapt based on the atmosphere.

With hybrid learning, her creative solutions include having classes outside, performing more monologues and having the finished product be digital.

“Even though we aren’t going to be able to perform in front of a crowd, I’m interested in how we’re going to work around that,” sophomore Erica Fulbright said.

The theme of the play this year was supposed to be about the justice system, but they couldn’t get digital rights to perform it.

Hauss-Smith and her students have already found a way around that challenge.

“Our group of performers and tech people are embarking on a journey where we are going to research, write, produce and film our own piece,” Hauss-Smith said. !".&("64(+7(%"('*"1(89,'":%(%,;<

Technical Theater Will Turbyne’s first year at Greenhill already promised to be difficult as he was switching from teaching college to high school. Contending with a global pandemic has made it harder.

In a normal year, the structure of the Tech Theater class would be much more physically interactive in the early goings, and his students would get to the “doing” part– the “hands-on” part–sooner, Turbyne said.

“We’ve had to be creative in how we bridge that divide, both for full remote and as we transition into hybrid learning,” Turbyne said.

Senior Coryell Smith is the stage man-

ager for the upcoming play. She said that although remote learning offers her more flexibility, it comes with some problems for the Greenhill theater program. They won’t be able to do a live performance and, because of licensing issues, the cast will have to write more of the play themselves.

“I think that going remote has hindered the dynamic between the cast and crew,” Smith said. “But I hope as we move forward in the year, that will improve.” !".&("64(+7(%"('*"1(89,'":%(%,;<

Video Production The pandemic has forced the Video Production class to make drastic changes in order to accommodate an entirely new academic environment with the presence of COVID-19.

Every aspect, from communication to filming, has been an obstacle for Video Production teacher Corbin Doyle and his students.

“Not having the same kind of setup gives [Video Production] a very different atmosphere,” senior Sheela Vasan said.

The environment change has also led to a struggle to find inspiration.

“Being stuck in my house limits the boundaries I have, and when I actually make a film, I have to think, ‘how do I do this?’”

Still, Vasan said, “Even when things get difficult, there is still potential to make something cool.”

Doyle has adapted and found ways to communicate and teach his students.

“We can almost make more podcastlike production, we make a cinematic soundscape,” Doyle said. “But the visuals are much more limited.” !"=(9$,">('?&%%,99("('*"3,@5&(">&

Visual Art The pandemic-related challenges in the 2D and Visual Art space for Middle School and Upper School Visual Art instructor Thomas Martinez are daunting.

It’s hard to create a group atmosphere.

It’s difficult to share feelings that lie at the heart of art. And it’s nearly impossible to give immediate feedback to students, Martinez said.

“Everything changes in how we’re going to have to proceed in education from here on out,” Martinez said. “Everything is new.”

Freshman Shreya Ram said her Studio Art class “has been going really well online.

“We’ve been creating on our own and then sending pictures of our work to Mr. Martinez.”

With the shift to hybrid classes, oncampus Studio Art students find themselves separated by Plexiglass and other new health protocols aimed at keeping the class safe.

After more than 20 years of teaching, Middle School and Upper School 3D Art teacher Paige Furr has had to drastically change her curriculum. 3D art is usually very hands on, with students using clay, sharing utensils and making cardboard masks.

Last spring, Furr had about a week to change her entire curriculum.

Furr decided to use papier mâché rather than clay, because she had to find something everyone had at their house: newspaper.

She then started to post YouTube tutorials of herself making the art so that all her students could learn how to replicate her work.

“It is hard to teach a class when you can’t see people’s faces and read the visual cues,” Furr said.

Now, the shift to hybrid classes brings its own set of challenges, including the need to sanitize utensils and keep students socially distanced. !"A(*$'"6%&B5(&"('*"C,-&$"6+BD;<%$

Yearbook Yearbook students managed to overcome the spring challenges to put out another edition of the Cavalcade. Now, instructor Lesley Rucker is overseeing the production of a new yearbook using a mix of students learning on campus and at home.

The challenges are considerable.

Pandemic-related restrictions also prevent Yearbook students from going into any classroom, studio or gym to take pictures, Rucker said.

“So, we don’t have many pictures of school life,” sophomore Lian Hahn said.

“Some teachers have volunteered to photograph for us.”

Rucker, who also teaches Studio Art courses, said she has expanded the range of her classes.

“One thing I’ve adapted and will keep is allowing the final works for some courses to be created in multiple mediums,” Rucker said. “Giving students the opportunity to work in media they feel confident working in will make for stronger final works.”

14 Arts

Ever Evergreen Hooked on Art the

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Junior Christine Yan gains online following for her art on TikTok

Photos courtesy of Christine Yan

PAINTING WITH A PASSION: Junior Christine Yan has been going to art classes since she was four years old. She has recently received recognition on social media for her work, including a portrait of her as a child with her mother. Yan and junior Katherine Li last year made an animated film, “Fish Fish Bish, ” which has been accepted into 13 film festivals.

Sarah Luan

Managing Editor

A

pile of empty canvases sits in the corner of the room. Half-finished paintings lean against the walls. A mix of brushes, oil paint tubes and watercolors decorate the desk.

This is where junior Christine Yan works her magic.

“Every time I sit down to paint, I feel so calm,” Yan said. “My painting area is next to four massive windows.

I just put my AirPods in and start and it eventually turns into a piece of art.”

Yan has received recognition for her art on the social media platform TikTok. She has also put her talents to use in creating animated films as part of Greenhill’s Video Production program, where teacher Corbin Doyle marvels at her relentless effort that results in “filmmaking magic that I didn’t see coming.”

Yan’s art career started long before she became recognized through social media. Since age four, she has been taking art classes outside of school. At Greenhill, Yan has taken multiple visual arts classes: Advanced Drawing, Black and White Photography and Advanced Video Production.

“I don’t remember when I started drawing and painting because I was really young,” Yan said. “I just did it for fun, but now I make actual paintings that I take seriously.”

Video Content Builder While Yan is most familiar with traditional painting, she discovered a new creative outlet for her talent after taking the class Video Production: Animation as a freshman.

“My favorite thing about creating animations is that when your drawings are all put together, everything comes

to life,” Yan said. “When you add the sounds, it just feels so real.”

Last year, Yan and junior Katherine Li produced their own animated film, “Fish Fish Bish.” The film consists of around 500 drawings and was accepted into multiple film festivals, including South by Southwest. Yan and Li’s animated production was one of the 23 films selected for the Texas High School Shorts section of the South by Southwest Film Festival.

“We were both friends before, and we both really liked doing traditional and 2D art, so we thought we could combine our talents,” Li said. “It was nice to try a different medium and see how technology could help with [our] art.”

“Fish Fish Bish” would have been shown at South

by Southwest, but the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some high school films received deals to stream their films on different platforms. Yan and Li received $3,000 to stream “Fish Fish Bish” on Mailchimp, a marketing automation platform and email marketing service.

Doyle, Yan’s teacher and mentor in the Advanced Video Production class, praised Yan’s creativity and work ethic in creating “Fish Fish Bish.”

“I talk a lot in class about process over product,” Doyle wrote in an email. “I use the ‘every blind squirrel finds a nut analogy.’ But every year there is one film that goes crazy on the festival circuit. And that is never for a marginally well-made film. Only special projects get this. Christine and Katherine’s ‘Fish Fish Bish’ was that film for 2019-20.”

To date, the film has been accepted into 13 festivals in the U.S. and abroad—a feat that speaks to the film’s originality and technical execution.

“To do this you need a story told in a manner that isn’t seen very often,” Doyle wrote. “You need to have a striking use of materials, and you have to have the follow through

to keep swinging until the last thing is done on the film.”

Rise to Fame on Tik Tok Yan kept herself busy during the quarantine by starting an art account on TikTok. She now has more than 15,000 followers and has posted more than 35 videos.

“I felt really excited and also super nervous when I first started gaining a ton of followers,” Yan said. “I definitely think that after my account started doing well, I became more motivated to post because then I knew that my [artwork] would actually reach a wide audience.”

Yan said she is glad to be a part of the art community on TikTok, and she enjoys interacting with her followers through comments. She even started a “painting my followers” series and has a print shop where followers can buy her work.

“The art community on TikTok is super close and supportive,” Yan said. “I get a lot of nice comments and sometimes constructive criticism, which is really helpful for improving.”

Additionally, Yan has been working on many paintings.

One of her more recent pieces addresses xenophobia and racism against the Chinese community, a topic that is personal and important to her, Yan said. “[East-Asians] have been the victims of hate crimes because of coronavirus,” Yan said. “I hope it raises awareness about the racism being faced in the community.”

While Yan said she doesn’t know exactly what she will do with her art in the future, she knows she wants to keep practicing her craft.

“I hope to continue to make art in the future because I enjoy how fun and relaxing the process is,” Yan said. “It allows for creative expression and takes my mind off of the stressful things in my life.”

Sports

Recruiting Rerouted

Prospective athletes experience hardships during COVID-19

Photos courtesy of Emilio Garcia and Shreya Saxena

THE GOOD OLD DAYS: Emilio Garcia, left, has made a verbal commitment to play NCAA soccer for Columbia University, but he notes that the pandemic may change his plans. For athletes like senior goalkeeper Shreya Saxena, right, the pandemic has complicated the college recruitment process, resulting in canceled showcases and limited in-person college visits.

Raag Venkat Editor-in-Chief

W

hy are you interested in being recruited to this school?” the interviewer asks.

Senior Shreya Saxena, an aspiring college field hockey recruit, only has a couple minutes to make the perfect argument to convince the coach she is the right fit for the university. Even harder is the fact that the interview is a virtual meeting via the platform Zoom.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has raged across the United States in recent months, the collegiate sports recruitment process has drastically changed.

Not only has most of the interaction between coaches and aspiring recruits gone virtual, but the opportunities that these athletes were offered in previous years are simply not available due to the circumstances.

Nevertheless, many Greenhill students are currently in the process of committing or have committed to an NCAA sports team during the pandemic.

“When you go on official visits to a campus as a student-athlete, you spend time with the players, spend time with the coaches and truly envision yourself as an athlete in that space,” Saxena said. “Because of COVID-19, we’re stuck in a situation where we must rely on virtual forms of communication to select where we are going to spend the next chapter of our lives. It’s a blind decision.”

Verbal Commitment Junior Emilio Garcia completed the recruitment process during the pandemic.

Currently, Garcia is verbally committed to Columbia University to play on their NCAA Division I soccer team.

Garcia started playing soccer at the age of eight because his dad played semiprofessionally for Flamengo in Brazil for four years and professionally with Atlas FC in Mexico for three years. Garcia now plays for the FC Dallas Youth club and competes in tournaments on local, national and even international levels that host many college scouts.

“I didn’t really know much about the college recruiting process until I entered high school,” Garcia said. “But once a lot of schools started reaching out, I started to look

into them and realized that it was a great opportunity that I should take advantage of.”

With the help of his college counselor, advisors, friends, parents and coaches, Garcia started reaching out to schools and showing them his skills. He then started to get offers from big schools such as the University of Notre Dame, Southern Methodist University and Columbia. He was able to visit some of these schools before the pandemic hit.

Garcia has noticed how the pandemic has affected his peers. His soccer league, called the Developmental Academy, was shut down in March with no tournaments or matches taking place for the rest of the season.

“COVID-19 poses a huge loss for everyone,” Garcia said. “With big tournaments canceled, where some of the best teams in the nation compete, even some of the top athletes in the nation are struggling to go to college.”

Even with his verbal commitment, Garcia said that COVID-19 poses risks to his own recruitment.

“Nothing is written or fully official yet in my recruitment process: it’s just verbal,” Garcia said. “I’m only a junior, and with these unprecedented times, anything could happen at this point.”

Disrupted Plans Though some athletes have been able to find success in their recruiting journey during the pandemic, many are still in the process.

Among these athletes are Saxena and senior Sheela Vasan, aspiring field hockey commits. They were both introduced to the sport after joining Greenhill’s Middle School field hockey program. Saxena and Vasan also play for clubs outside of school: Saxena for Texas Pride Field Hockey and Vasan for Lone Star Field Hockey.

“I started spending more time with my club, which included going to tournaments, and I found this joy that I didn’t have anywhere else,” Saxena said. “Field hockey started affecting me not only on the field, but also in the classroom. It was helping me become a better person, and that’s when I realized that I wanted to proceed through the recruiting process.”

According to both Saxena and Vasan, tournaments, clinics and official visits to

schools became an important factor in the recruiting process.

Throughout her sophomore year and the beginning of her junior year, Saxena kept in contact with coaches and was able to then play at club tournaments, where these coaches invited her to their respective campuses for student-athlete visits. Saxena had just scheduled her official visits to campuses when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country.

“I had to reroute all my plans,” Saxena said. “Not only was I missing official visits, but the recruiting process got increasingly complex because interviews and calls over Zoom were stressful. I felt like I was missing the full experience.”

College admissions offices are also relying on her to provide a standardized test score. However, since many standardized tests, including the SAT and ACT, have been canceled due to COVID-19, she does not know where her recruitment stands, Saxena said.

Like Saxena, Vasan was also signing up for clinics and preparing to visit schools and coaches when the pandemic hit.

“It became really challenging as the school year progressed because a lot of schools I was interested in started contacting me saying that, due to the situation, their admissions [office] wasn’t allowing them to give out offers to any more people this year,” Vasan said. “That’s just heartbreaking to hear for people who have been working toward this goal for years.”

The pandemic also made practicing the sport challenging as well, Vasan said.

“There was simply an inability to play with other people,” Vasan said. “It’s very hard to get better practicing by yourself. As a defender myself, it’s so hard to improve on my skills without someone to defend against.”

Terminated Tournaments, Postponed Seasons Senior Drewv Desai is also in the process of being recruited. Drewv has been immersed in the sport of fencing for about seven years and currently competes for the Globus Fencing Academy.

During his junior year, Desai emailed coaches and fenced in monthly tournaments.

As coaches responded, he started meeting

coaches at tournaments and narrowing his prospective college list before the 2020 Summer Nationals tournament. However, after Desai returned from a tournament in March, USA Fencing announced a postponement of the Summer Nationals and eventually its cancelation because of the pandemic.

“There is a rating system for fencing student-athletes, and the Summer Nationals tournament is one of the best places to not only raise your rating, but to also get noticed by and talk to coaches from big colleges,” Desai said.

Like others, Desai’s visits to campuses were canceled and communication between coaches and athletes went strictly virtual.

However, according to Desai, virtual tours or emailing current team captains is not the same as being on a campus in person.

Even Greenhill alumni, sports recruits themselves, are feeling the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic on their college seasons.

Alumna Sola Omonije ’20 was officially recruited to Davidson College for NCAA Division I volleyball. Her recruitment was relatively simple, but the pandemic has posed limitations on her first volleyball season in college, Omonije said.

“I had been physically and mentally preparing to enter the Davidson volleyball community since I verbally committed during the summer after my sophomore year,” Omonije said. “But when COVID-19 started at the end of my senior year, the summer volleyball programs, practices, and trips started getting canceled. I kind of felt my dream slipping away.”

As of now, Omonije’s team still has not had a full team practice. Nor does Omonije believe that she will get to be in the gym with her full team for a while. Currently, the team is conducting socially distanced outdoor workouts.

Though COVID-19 has created unprecedented times for aspiring college recruits, these student-athletes have come to terms with the situation and are pushing through the process.

“Though the pandemic is a disappointment for virtually anyone who is trying to get recruited, we must accept that this is our new reality,” Vasan said. “We’re all dealing with it in our own ways, and we simply must hope for the best.”

16

the

Evergreen Ever

Sports

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

No SPC, No Problem

Greenhill fall sports teams adapt to the cancellation of their seasons

Photos courtesy of Kevin Chien

NEW WAY OF PRACTICING: The girls volleyball team practiced on a sand court over the summer, since COVID-19 prevented them from playing indoors. The seniors on the team organized optional, outdoor and socially-distanced practices to keep in shape, get in some skill work and help players get to know each other in the absence of spring and summer training.

Avery Franks Sports Editor Jack Trimmer Staff Writer

F

all sports teams are preparing to begin informal local competitions in the coming weeks after shifting from remote training to in-person practices and workouts in mid-September.

The preparations are contingent on the campus situation regarding COVID-19 cases. Head of School Lee Hark announced in a Sept. 29 email to parents that Greenhill had its first laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 case after about two weeks of limited inperson classes.

Any fall sports competition will be informal, non-conference contests. The Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC), in which Greenhill teams compete, released a statement from its Board of Directors on Aug. 21 announcing the cancellation of the fall season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the same day, Hark shared the news with Greenhill families and suggested that competition with local peer schools might be an alternative, if pandemic conditions allowed.

“In the event that health conditions improve sufficiently to make some limited athletic competitions possible in the fall, we will make every effort to provide for our students with opportunities to engage with athletes from local peer schools,” Hark wrote in an email.

It’s unclear what impact Greenhill’s first confirmed COVID case will have on the fall sports plans.

The buildup to the planned peer-school games and matches has gathered momentum in recent weeks. Teams started with inperson and socially distant practice on Sept.

14. The first week consisted of two to three on-campus workouts and two TeamBuildr workouts. Sports-specific athletic training began on Sept. 22.

“Preparation for the fall season changes every week,” Director of Sports Performance Jessen Houston said. “There has been lots of pivoting and numerous adjustments, but we are encouraged that we will get some good news and normalcy with returning to campus in the next couple weeks.”

The Athletics Department hopes that teams may begin competing against other Dallas-area schools in October, depending on health guidelines provided by the Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS).

“If you can’t do it the right way, in my opinion, don’t do it,” said Head of Athletics and Physical Education Jarrett Shine. “We will have protocols in place, once things progress and improve so that we will be allowed to have athletics sometime in October.”

Efforts to salvage some form of a fall sports season began over the summer with team meetings and workouts on Zoom.

Another component required at-home

workouts through the app TeamBuildr.

Virtual workouts consisted of mostly bodyweight workouts and speed and agility drills, so athletes could do everything from home with limited access to equipment.

“We leveraged TeamBuildr as a way to stay connected over the summer and hold athletes accountable to get in work that we couldn’t do on screen,” Houston said.

Some teams, including field hockey, cross country, and girls volleyball, organized optional practices to prepare for a possible return to competition.

“The summer really lacked the sense of team bonding and togetherness that we usually have, which was very annoying,” said senior Sheela Vasan, who plays varsity field hockey. “So, we organized these practices to just get out and exercise and build that community aspect.”

Other protocols included athletes answering health questions before practice, warming up and cooling down with masks on, social distancing, and bringing their own water bottles, said Director of Academics Jason Yaffe, who is also head coach of cross country.

The practices were organized by seniors, since coaches could not be in attendance, which allowed them a chance to take a leadership role on their teams.

“Summer practices gave us a sense of what it feels like to be a senior, which we had been looking forward to for four years,” Vasan said. “It was really great to just come out to play field hockey for a couple of hours, to meet some of the freshmen and make up for some of the traditions we missed out on.”

The next phase of the fall sports plan involved in-person practices as students began returning to campus Sept. 14. Studentathletes worked with the Sports Performance staff, doing speed, agility, cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance work, Houston said.

!

If you can’t do it the right way, in my opinion, don’t do it. We will have protocols in place, once things progress and improve so that we will be allowed to have athletics sometime in October.”

“The goal of the [High Performance Center] is to make you fit and athletic, and then it is the coaches’ jobs to take that athleticism and translate it into sportsspecific activity,” Houston said.

That was followed by sports-specific practices, which began Sept. 22.

“Coaches will always wear masks,” Shine wrote in a statement released prior to the sport-specific workouts. “Students will wear masks unless they are actively exercising.

Locker rooms will not be utilized.”

Shine acknowledged that it is harder for certain sports to adapt to COVID-19 protocols.

“Football is the most challenging [to

create a plan for] because it is a contact sport,” Shine said. “Field hockey is similar to football, but there is a way to keep studentathletes away from each other and create an atmosphere and environment where they can compete.”

The uncertainty has been hard on fall athletes, especially seniors, who are forced to consider that they may never suit up for their fall sport again “Staying motivated has not been a problem for me,” said senior Johnny Thompson. “Yes, COVID-19 has challenged us all, but I always looked for ways to stay motivated, like running around my neighborhood or finding things to lift around the house, staying strong.”

On the other hand, senior volleyball player Pearson Brooks said he believes that staying motivated will be a challenge for him and the boys volleyball team.

“Being separated from my team has definitely made it harder to focus,” Pearson

said.

Health guidelines regarding indoor sports have caused the volleyball players to use the tennis courts to practice, so all players can remain socially distanced.

“I think in terms of a season, everything is still up in the air,” Brooks said. “I know the coaches are doing what they can to get us time on the court.”

Since it is unknown if and when Greenhill teams will be able to compete and what a fall season might look like, the athletic staff are prioritizing student-athletes’ health, fitness and physical literacy this fall.

“I think I’ve said over and over that my goal is to make sure our kids have an opportunity to stay fit,” Houston said. “I want more than anything for them to be healthy, staying active, and having planned and purposeful sports performance routines, which all lead to athleticism.”

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Evergreen Ever the

Sports

17

New Course Combines Classroom Instruction and Physical Activity

Photos courtesy of Dhilan Patel

FITNESS AND FLEXIBILITY: In-person students, left, attend the Foundations of Lifetime Fitness course. Students first learn about a certain fitness component and then how to execute it. Coach Gillian Glengarry, right, engages with stay-at-home learners as they discuss the scientific aspect of exercise and how to implement athleticism into their daily lives.

Chloe Wetzler Backpage Editor

A

t the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, students who do not participate in at least two seasons of sports during their ninth and tenth grade years will be required to take a new introductory course, Foundations of Lifetime Fitness.

The Greenhill Athletics department created the course to teach students how to maintain a healthy lifestyle through exercise and nutrition, as well as to prevent sports injuries by teaching proper exercising techniques.

“Lifetime Fitness is a course where we engage students with the fundamental principles and components of fitness that are important for a lifetime of disease prevention and physical activity,” said Jessen Houston, Director of Sports Performance.

In previous years, students not participating in sports could take Total Body Fitness (TBF), Yoga, or Ultimate Frisbee. Yoga and Ultimate Frisbee will be available to students after they complete Lifetime Fitness. TBF is now being phased out and replaced by new exercise courses.

“What we want to prevent is students taking, for example, Yoga for four to five semesters throughout high school,” Houston said. “We want to diversify your Upper School PE curriculum.”

Foundations of Lifetime Fitness is the first step in students’ physical education in the Upper School. The course is a semesterlong prerequisite for other physical education courses. Lifetime Fitness is held during the school day and follows the high school’s block schedule. Unlike TBF, where students solely did scheduled workouts, Lifetime Fitness focuses on education.

“They’re going to know all the components of fitness,” Houston said. “We are going to talk about body composition, about balance. We’re going to develop speed, power, muscular strength. We want them to understand those things in order to perform athletically at their best.’

The course alternates between lesson days and lab days. Lesson days are spent learning in the classroom, while lab days are about applying learned concepts. Lab days serve as the exercise portion of the class, as well as encompassing many fitness assessments.

“Our labs are going to be a direct

reflection of what we’re covering in our lectures,” Houston said. “In a typical week, it’s notes, PowerPoint presentations, videos, research articles, and then we apply what we learned.”

Labs are intended to be experiments rather than workouts.

“It is a lot different than I thought it would be,” said freshman Dhilan Patel, who is currently taking the course. “There’s a lot of lecturing and learning that’s involved instead of strictly workouts.”

Ramiro Mendez, Greenhill’s new Sports Performance Specialist, believes that it is important to establish concepts before attempting them.

“We want to understand our body,” Mendez said. “We want to understand the muscles and we want to understand all these energy systems before we actually get to work. Let’s learn it, let’s define it, let’s understand it all the way through, and then let’s go do it.”

During the course, students will learn a variety of subjects relating to fitness.

They will spend their time in the classroom learning physiology, how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and developing their athletic ability.

“They’re going to get a very good understanding of the energy systems and how that relates to nutrition to help prevent other chronic diseases that are associated with obesity arterial sclerosis,” Houston said.

Houston is also the school’s nutritionist, and he plans to incorporate the relationship between food intake and physical activity into the course. He wants to underscore the importance of a healthy diet.

“Sometimes, the information that people need, they don’t get until it’s too late,” Houston said. “A lot of times, people don’t see dietitians until they’re in the hospital.

That’s not the most advantageous time to teach people about the importance of what they need to consume to prevent them from getting in the hospital.”

Mendez and Houston agree that the class is important for students of all athletic calibers. They see the course as an overall guide to maintaining lifelong health and wellbeing.

“It’s important for everyone to have that information, no matter what field you decide to go to,” Mendez said. “It’s going to help the student, and these athletes, no matter what they decide to do in life.”

Opinion: Universities Cutting “Non-Revenue” Sports Violates Title IX Stanford University’s vision is built on four pillars: Solutions, knowledge, education and community. Its stated goal is to support a “diverse community of faculty, students and staff, who underlie the university’s beneficial impact in the world.”

The Sports Lane Lane Herbert

And yet, on July 8, the Stanford University Athletic Department announced that at the end of the 20202021 academic year they will cut the field hockey program along with ten other varsity sports, including women and men’s fencing, co-ed and women’s sailing, squash and synchronized swimming.

As a member of the USA Field Hockey community, I was devastated for my friends and teammates who had dreamed of going to Stanford to play the sport they

had become so invested in. But Stanford’s message was clear: they weren’t the right type of athlete, didn’t play the right type of sport and wouldn’t make enough money for the university.

Of course, I don’t believe that. I am an avid advocate for sports that do not generate positive revenue for the school or its program, or non-revenue sports.

By cutting these 11 small, non-revenue sports, Stanford makes it clear that they do not care for the families, athletes, alumni and coaches who have dedicated their lives to become experts in their respective sports.

Elise Ogle, an alumna of Stanford field hockey, started a petition in July to reinstate the program.

“Does Stanford not realize their power and influence to grow sports beyond their community?” Ogle wrote. “Stanford’s values state that they recognize their sense of responsibility and purposeful impact on the world. If Stanford was aligned with their own values, they would use their privilege and their power to grow these sports and increase sports diversity and opportunities.”

I could not agree more with Elise Ogle and the over 19,380 people who signed the petition.

Stanford waited until July 8 to announce their decision. They didn’t communicate with or hear from the alumni and sport communities they so publicly support. I firmly believe they waited to prevent any opposition from being able to respond.

This action by the Stanford Athletics’ Department is in direct violation of their vision. Instead of using Stanford’s reputation, privilege, wealth and education quality to improve access to small sports like field hockey in California, Stanford takes advantage of this power and disengages from the fight. The fight is for equal opportunities for women’s and men’s sports, big and small sports, and revenue and non-revenue sports.

I concur with Elise. Stanford’s heartless decision did not have the vision to see its true impact.

This is not simply a rant about what happened at Stanford. Similar decisions have already been made by other prestigious universities. In June, Dartmouth College cut five varsity sports and Brown University justified cutting 11 varsity sports by saying it was a “costsaving measure.” These decisions set a dangerous precedent: universities can cut sports because they do not meet a

monetary quota.

COVID-19 has affected everyone. It is hard to believe that these large institutions aren’t resourceful enough to continue to provide these opportunities. In fact, Stanford’s annual endowment is $27.7 billion.

By cutting these teams, universities who pride themselves on being inclusive and diverse are turning their back on Title IX, the federal civil rights law that is supposed to ensure equal opportunities for men and women in collegiate sports.

Because of many factors, men’s sports overall earn more money than women’s sports teams. They have larger fanbase, account for a greater number of views and generally get more sponsors who want their products front and center. If schools decided to keep or cut sports based on the amount of money the team can generate for the university, there would be a deficit in women’s sports. This imbalance would violate the creed of Title IX. Cutting these programs stomps on the fundamentals of providing equal access and opportunity to female and male athletes in our communities. This is a hypocritical message from prestigious universities.

My heart goes out to all the affected athletes and communities.

18 Views

Evergreen Ever the

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Opinion: COVID-19 Has Only Heightened Racial Disparities Across the United States Nikitha Thoduguli

Contributing Opinion Writer

A

t first thought, a virus that affects all of us might have been a virus that could unite us. But data shows that this has not been the case.

The inequality between Americans, whether it be the gender gap, racism or classism, has come to permeate nearly every aspect of life during the pandemic: employment, education, politics and more. And although the virus itself is not discriminatory or more likely to be caught by one gender or race, it’s been proven that across the United States, Latinos and African-Americans have been three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors.

A clear correlation between income inequality, race and America’s COVID-19 response emerges when looking at areas such as healthcare and occupations. It happens like this: people in minority or lowincome communities hold jobs that uniquely put them at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19. As the New York Times recently reported, 43 percent of Black and Latino workers hold service or production jobs that typically can’t be done remotely. In contrast, only about one in four white workers hold such jobs.

While this seems more like a deeplyingrained structural problem than a disparity encouraged by COVID-19, Greenhill’s Director of Service Learning and Community Service Angela Woodson noted that this racial disparity has led to a push for

a expedited reopening process.

“As soon as data came out saying more black and brown people were dying from COVID-19, there was a shift for a push to open things back up with the logic of ‘[COVID-19] is not applicable to those of us who have good jobs, nice home and [are able to] protect our families, so let us go out,’” Woodson said.

President Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations gave credence to this solipsistic logic when he gave the go-ahead for reopening far before the pandemic was under control. Woodson observed that an early reopening endangered many lowincome people who would have to work in the newly reopened restaurants and public places where personal contact is almost inevitable. The impact of this is clear: a disproportionate number of Black and Latinx people in America must earn their living by working in-person jobs at recently reopened businesses, serving customers who have little regard for their safety, thus placing them and their families at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

Inequities in the U.S. healthcare system only serve to amplify the immediate effects of COVID-19 on low-income, minority communities. Studies show that from 2010 to 2018 African Americans were 1.5 times more likely to be uninsured than whites, while Hispanics were 2.5 times as likely as whites to be uninsured. A lack of healthcare also leads to people without a regular clinic or doctor’s office, which snowballs into larger

issues, like being unable to seek treatment or even get tested for the virus. The impetus to continue working despite the need to seek treatment for COVID-19 compounds preexisting racial and class inequities.

The bottom line: Even if low-income and minority workers don’t get COVID-19, they cannot weather the pandemic as comfortably as their white counterparts due to lower wages and lack of access to healthcare and paid leave. The onus is on us, as a community and individuals, to not flout health protocols during the pandemic.

Instead abide by social distancing and mask-wearing protocols. It’s not only the right thing to do. The health of minority and low-income communities may hinge on our actions.

the Ever Evergreen staff Editors-in-Chief Leah Nutkis Raag Venkat

Executive Editor Lane Herbert

Managing Editors Cameron Kettles Sarah Luan

Chief Section Editor Sumana Kethu

News Editors Isabel Martinez Nate Stitt

!"#"$%&'(%)*+,+-"'".'&'/)0$1"2+$"0,')3"0")0' 41"$51'4%)'/)651.'/+1150$'5650$.'.+/%'&.'

789:;<=>'&0*')$%51'3)-"$"/&-'"..+5.?'@%5'".' /+1150$-A'&'.)3%)B)15'4%)'.350*.'%51'C155'$"B5' &.'&'/)B35$"$"65'*52&$51'&0*'3%)$),1&3%51'?''''

Features Editor Khushi Chhaya

Arts Editor Valerie Xu

Sports Editor

Editorial: Defying Pandemic Safety Protocols on Social Media is an Unwelcome Trend

I

n a nation with over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and counting, the global pandemic has pervaded every single aspect of life. Despite recommendations from global health organizations and medical professionals nationwide, a substantial part of the American public, including members of the Greenhill community, feel that social distancing, mask-wearing and other necessary safety precautions are beneath them.

Young people, despite being significantly less likely to experience severe effects, are making up a growing percentage of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations because they are exposing themselves at higher rates. By clustering in large groups and not taking the virus seriously, teenagers and some students at Greenhill are blatantly violating health recommendations and putting their lives and others in danger.

With the domination of social media in younger generations’ lives, a toxic concoction has been created that normalizes

the disregard for social distancing and health guidelines.

Following lockdowns put in place by state and local governments in midMarch, many continued to socialize and come into close contact with friends and distant relatives, as well as travel and go on vacations, with little regard for their safety or the wellbeing of others.

Social media platforms have become catalogs of these events. Networks such as Instagram and Snapchat have been plagued with posts and stories of teenagers consciously violating the aforementioned health regulations. These platforms have also been showcases of the huge gatherings that students, both inside and outside the Greenhill community, have engaged in.

These unsanctioned gatherings not only violate safety regulations, but they also serve as catalysts for cultural normalization of this dangerous behavior. When more and more of a person’s Instagram feed is filled with post after post ignoring the pandemic that’s

Our Editorial Policy

national and international events through articles and editorials written and edited by students.

The Evergreen welcomes letters and emails from readers. We reserve the right to edit submissions for accuracy, grammar and length. The Evergreen will not publish material that we judge to be libelous, obscene, invades privacy or constitutes hate speech.

Anonymous letters will not be published.

The Staff Editorial represents the opinion of The Evergreen staff, not necessarily that of Greenhill School.

The Evergreen is an independent, student-run newspaper serving the community of Greenhill School. It is printed six times during the school year. Print circulation is 1,000 copies. Past issues are archived at issuu.com/ghevergreen.

The Evergreen staff upholds a code of ethics that values honesty, integrity, accuracy and responsibility. Our mission is to help the local community interpret campus, local,

ravaged our nation, they subconsciously begin to project the message that the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t as serious as it actually is. This process spirals into a vicious cycle of defying health guidelines and inadvertently extending the length of the pandemic while also deepening its impact.

There are members of the Greenhill community who are contributing to the toxic cycle. Despite an acknowledgement of the inherent consequences of continuing to go into crowded areas without a mask on, many Greenhill students seemingly don’t care.

For any community members who don’t understand how their actions are impacting the lives of others: you are the problem.

As seen across the world, the length of the outbreaks is a direct reflection of how well society responds to the health and safety precautions put in place. Our nation is still battling the pandemic and normalizing blatant disrespect for the guidelines is a dangerous prescription for the health of our nation.

Avery Franks

Views Editor Diane Lin

Backpage Editor Chloe Wetzler

Staff Writers Emma Nguyen Saara Bidiwala

Adviser

Gregg Jones

Assistant Adviser Amy Bresie

Have a response?

Opinion?

Original Idea?

Email the editors-in-chief: nutkisl21@greenhill.org venkatr21@greenhill.org

Advertisements

Corrections and Clarifications

The Evergreen welcomes advertisements, but we reserve the right to refuse an ad.

We pledge to correct our errors. To request a correction or clarification, please email Gregg Jones:

Business inquiries should be directed to Spencer Jacobs: jacobss22@greenhill.org

jonesg@greenhill.org

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Rants

&

Evergreen Ever the

Views

19

Raves

RAVE to sleeping in. For those of us who live far away from

campus, not having that 60-minute, stuck-in-traffic drive to and from school every day means we can wake up so much later. Remote learning, it turns out, you have your selective perks as well.

RANT to confusing schedule changes. Especially the

irregular community times. I swear, we had maybe three community times in one week at one point, and I didn’t know about any of them. Please tell us about these kinds of decisions once they’re made–and by us, I mean the student body, not just our parents and teachers.

RAVE to “9th Grade Wellness.” As a non-freshman, it’s literally a mandatory break in my schedule every Tuesday, and I am delighted it’s there. Freshmen, be thankful that instead of Wellness being a whole class during the school year or the summer, it now meets a couple of days a year.

RANT to High Performance Center workout times. 7:15 a.m.? Haven’t numerous scientific studies throughout the years proven that teenagers are not morning people? Must we drag ourselves out of bed at 6:45 in the morning to work out?

RAVE to the wide array of technology and resources that we

have at our disposal. COVID-19 has made it so that this year is going to be rough–and I’ve done my share of complaining in my rants–but, on a more serious note, we should all be aware of the immense privilege that we have at this school.

RANT to staring at my screen for so long. I get it. There’s

not much anyone can do about it. However, I’ve had more headaches in a week from staring at my laptop screen for 80 minutes at a time than I did all of last year.

How to Be Successful in AP Calculus (BC) Leah Nutkis

Editor-in-Chief

W

hile many Advanced Placement (AP) courses cover a semester’s worth of college-level content in a yearlong high school class, AP Calculus BC has the distinction of being one of the few classes to cover a year’s worth of college calculus in one year, making it incredibly fast-paced.

There are two types of calculus courses offered

by College Board, the not-for-profit organization that administers AP exams: AP Calculus AB, which covers the material of a semester-long Calculus 1 college course; and AP Calculus BC, which covers the material of both Calculus 1 and Calculus 2.

As part of our “How to Be Successful in…” series, we’ve asked some BC alums a series of questions. Here is some of what we learned: !"#$% &'% $"(% ')**(+% #''&,-*(-$% ./+% 01% 2#34)3)'% 526%!"#$%#+(%7/)+%+(4/**(-8#$&/-'%./+%8/&-,%&$6 “The summer assignment consists of precalculus review problems and introduction to calculus problems.

It ranges from basic algebraic expressions to limits and derivatives. My advice would be to get started on this early in the summer and if you feel like you are struggling on anything, make sure you feel solid about it before heading into the course.” – Anagha Gouru, senior 0-7%'$)87%$&9'%./+%*#:&-,%')+(%$"#$%7/)%+($#&-%#33%/.% $"(%&-./+*#$&/-%&-%$&*(%./+%$"(%$('$6 “For study types, the best way to feel prepared is active preparation. I did tons of practice problems both from old AP tests and from the textbook. Of course, whenever you need help, ask Ms. Falk, as she will always be able to answer your questions.” – Anagha Gouru, senior ;/<%&*9/+$#-$%&'%8/&-,%"/*(</+:=%>/$"%./+%7/)+% ,+#8(%#'%<(33%#'%./+%$('$%9+(9#+#$&/-6 “Do it all. I cannot stress this enough. I know teachers say it over and over, but they have a point. Homework may not affect your grade very much, but it definitely affects how prepared you are for the test.” – Victoria Le, senior

RAVENT to 80-minute classes. I actually like how longer class periods mean we get to cover topics further and more in-depth, but at the same time, I feel like my brain stops functioning by the last 10 minutes of class.

RANT to the weird club scheduling that’s been going on. By putting multiple clubs in one time slot, aren’t they competing for students? My sincerest apologies to any club that has the misfortune to share a time slot with Math Club. Also, things like scheduling the LGBTQ+ Student Association in the same time slot as the Christian Student Association and the Muslim Student Union are not it.

RAVENT to the new advisory times. It’s right after

lunch, which means that one can finish up lunch and check back into a school mindset. But I do miss rushing to eat breakfast during advisory. Also, it’s so much longer.

My fellow advisees, I do enjoy the chaotic-ness of our advisory, but I really don’t need to see you for at least half an hour every single day.

;/<% #+(% $"(% $('$'% &-% $(+*'% /.% $&*(=% 8&?4)3$7% #-8% /@(+#33%4/-$(-$6 “The tests tend to vary in difficulty and time depending on the unit. All of the content is based off of what you learn in class and do for homework.” – Uday Narayanan, senior !"#$%'"/)38%7/)%"#@(%#%'/3&8%./)-8#$&/-%&-%,/&-,% &-$/%$"(%43#''6 “Make sure you have a strong foundation in algebra.

Algebra is the foundation for everything that you learn in calculus.” – Michael Rayburn, ’20 ;/<% 8&8% 7/)% 9+(9#+(% ./+% $"(% 2/33(,(% 5/#+8A #8*&-&'$(+(8%(B#*6%;/<%<(33%8&8%$"(%#4#8(*&4%4/)+'(% 9+(9#+(%7/)%./+%$"(%$('$6 “My out-of-class preparation for the AP exam was more of a sanity check than anything. I just went over a handful of things to refresh myself and that was basically it. The class prepares you incredibly well for the test. If you did well in the class, you can reasonably expect to do well on the test.” – Ria Subramanian, senior

20

Evergreen Ever the

Backpage

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Are face masks necessary in the pandemic we are living through today? Yes, according to health experts. In many states across the country, wearing face masks where social distancing cannot be maintained is required. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasize that wearing face masks can limit the spread of COVID-19 and save lives. The Evergreen has assessed the protection level and comfort of various masks. Here is a guide to our ratings:

MEDICAL MASK

What weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re referring to as medical masks are the flat, thin paper-like masks that are usually white and light blue. They are made of a nonwoven fabric using a melt-blowing process. They were first used around the 1960s to replace cloth masks in developing countries to protect people from infections in hospital settings. Medical masks are usually worn by healthcare workers in a surgical environment and have the ability to protect the wearer from droplets, sprays and splatters. Medical masks have different thicknesses and therefore may vary in quality and levels of protection. According to the CDC, diligent use of Medical masks in public spaces can significantly reduce the spread of respiratory infection. They are not as effective as respirators, such as N95s, in protection from airborne bacteria or viruses whose particles are smaller. According to a 2013 study published in Aerosol Science and Technology, medical masks can filter about 60 percent of smaller, inhaled particles that carry viruses. Medical masks should not be--and are not designed to be--worn more than once. Ideally, individuals should dispose of these masks after wearing it.

N95 MASKS

N95 masks act as face respirators and offer the most protection against the novel coronavirus as well as other respiratory diseases. N95s have the capacity to filter out an estimated 95 percent of particles from the air breathed in. They are designed to have a tighter fit than other types of masks to create an airtight seal. They are most commonly used by healthcare workers on the frontlines of the pandemic, as they need a higher level of protection. The CDC does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators in an effort to preserve the masks for healthcare workers. There are certain exceptions, however, for individuals who are more susceptible to the coronavirus. For example, immunocompromised individuals are at a higher risk of getting severely sick from Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the onset of COVID-19. The CDC recommends that individuals discard N95 respirators following each use.

CLOTH MASKS

Cloth masks are usually made of one to three layers of common textiles, including cotton. They are used by the general public in household and community settings as protection against infectious diseases. Cloth masks come in a variety of shapes, sizes, materials and colors. They are more comfortable than N95s or medical masks due to their slightly stretchy material. This material has the ability to conform to your face structure without causing irritation to your skin. The effectiveness of a store-bought cloth mask depends on its construction. According to a research publication by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, individuals looking for cloth masks should try to purchase masks with at least three layers of fabric: ideally from tight-weave, 100-percent cotton cloth. For coughing and sneezing, a multiple-layered cloth mask has been shown to significantly reduce the droplet spread. Cloth masks are reusable with regular cleaning and washing. Individuals should include their masks with a regular load of laundry, use regular laundry detergent, use the warmest appropriate water setting for the fabric and select the highest heat setting in the dryer, according to the CDC. They are not considered personal protective equipment but can be helpful to reduce disease transmission overall.

Graphics by Sarah Luan and Raag Venkat