April 2012

C

The Harvard -Westlake

hronicle Los Angeles • Volume XXI • Issue VII • April 25, 2012

Infraction disqualifies Cum Laude candidates

By Judd Liebman

AUSTIN LEE/CHRONICLE

EMPOWERED: Labor union leader and activist Dolores Huerta advocated equality to upper school students in honor of Womens’ History Month on Monday, left. Gender Studies students Katie Golden ’13, Ariana DuBelko ’12, Ric Tennenbaum ’13, Zena Edosomwan ’12, Natalie Margolin’ 12 and Jamie Feiler ’12, from left, introduce Huerta, above.

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

New Leading Men

THE GROTON SCHOOL

Rick Commons

DAVID GOBEL/CHRONICLE

Audrius Barzdukas

By Lara Sokoloff Both the Upper and Middle Schools will have new heads in September, while former faculty member Rick Commons prepares to take over for Thomas C. Hudnut as President of Harvard-Westlake for the 2013-2014 school year.

Associate Head of School Audrius Barzdukas will replace Harry Salamandra as Head of Upper School, and Upper School Dean Jon Wimbish will replace Head of Middle School Ronnie Codrington-Cazeau, who announced her departure in October.

Commons has served as Headmaster of Groton School in Groton, Mass. for nine years. After leaving Harvard-Westlake in 1997, he was Dean of Students and Assistant Headmaster at the McDonogh School in Baltimore, Md. before moving to Groton. Hudnut announced his retirement in March.

Salamandra, who has been at the school for 33 years, will become Senior Alumni Officer, a newly created position.

Barzdukas has served as Head of Athletics for nine years and was appointed to Associate Head of School for the 2011-2012 year, where he

ERIC LOEB/CHRONICLE

Jon Wimbish

took on roles in advancement, alumni relations and admissions.

“I feel very blessed and humbled to have this opportunity because this school and the community has helped transform my own life and my family’s life,” Barzdukas said. “I pledge, I pledge that I will do my absolute best and work my absolute hardest for our community and our kids.”

Salamandra has recently become more involved in alumni relations.

“I’m really excited about the opportunities, the doors it could open,” Salamandra said. “The last couple years, I’ve been getting more involved with alumni gatherings, and have felt that our alums have so much to give back to the school and want to give back to the school. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to explore areas of internships for present students [and] be able to explore possible employment for students once they’re in college.”

Athletic Director Terry Barnum will serve as the next Head of Athletics.

Upper School Dean Beth Slattery will replace Wimbish as Chair of the Upper School Dean Department.

Foreign language teacher Margot Riemer will step in as Foreign

DAVID GOBEL/CHRONICLE

Terry Barnum

Language Department Chair. Current Foreign Language Department Chair Paul Chenier will return to the classroom full time next year, teaching several Latin and Greek courses and directed and independent studies.

“I appreciate the confidence so many people have shown in me,” Riemer said.

Middle School English Department Chair Ellen Ehrlich will step down after 21 years, having been the department chair since the merger.

Middle School English teacher Jen Dohr will become the second department head starting next September.

“The benefits to the individuals who ‘try on new hats’ are matched by the benefits to the school, as these transitions result in cross-pollination of ideas and the establishment of new working relationships and friendships,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said in an announcement to the school.

Related coverage: For profiles of incoming and departing faculty members, please see A8-9.

For the first time in Eric Zwemer’s 14-year tenure as Cum Laude chapter president, students were barred from induction into the Society because of a recent Honor Code infraction, he said. Fifty-five members of the senior class, or 18.8 percent, were elected to the Cum Laude Society for achieving academic excellence and maintaining an untarnished record.

If Harvard-Westlake nominated the full 20 percent of the 292-member senior class eligible for induction to the Cum Laude Society, 58 or 59 students would be inducted.

“The society permits induction of up to 20 percent, but it doesn’t require you to induct 20 percent,” Zwemer said.

“Only students who have demonstrated good character, honor and integrity in all aspects of their school life” are eligible for Cum Laude, according to the Society’s official website. Usually Harvard-Westlake inducts the full 20 percent of the senior class, unless there is a cluster of students bunched at bottom of the cutoff, Zwemer said.

“I applied the criteria outlined by the Society in a way that I thought was appropriate,” Zwemer said.

Although Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra was not involved in the decision, he said he does not entirely back the outcome.

“Personally, it’s a criteria used by the chapter, [so] I can understand why the decision was made. If I had to make the decision, I may have done it differently,” he said.

The disqualification could be viewed as another punishment for students who went before the Honor Board earlier in the year, Salamandra said.

“Once we, the school, feel the students have done whatever we felt necessary, I would hope there wouldn’t be any additional repercussions. With that said, you know that is not the way life is,” he said.

The induction ceremony will be on May 21 at 3:45 p.m. in Rugby Auditorium. See A3 for Cum Laude inductees.

INSIDE Do you know “Axe,” “Choma,” “Chestnut” or “Randy?” Meet them on

B4

THE INSIDE TRACK: At the Arcadia Invitational and Mt. San Antonio College Invitational meets, members of the track and field team proved they have what it takes to make a CIF run.

C4-5

A2 Preview

The Chronicle Wednesday, April 25, 2012 3700 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Studio City, Calif. 91604

News A11

EOJIN CHOI/CHRONICLE

CULTURAL IMMERSION: Foreign language teacher Qinru Zhou and students admire a Chinese artifact on a trip to China during spring break.

Features B12

ARTWORK BY ALEXANDRA REYNOSO

SHOWING OFF: Seniors in AP Studio Art and Drawing and Painting III displayed pieces from their concentrations in Feldman-Horn Gallery.

Sports C6

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF DYLAN PALMER

UP IN FLAMES: Visual arts teacher Dylan Palmer uses a blowtorch to melt glass while on a field trip to Cal State Santa Barbara with his directed studies glass class.

on the

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Offbeat

Sophomore mistaken for green card holder of same name, issued faulty license by DMV

By Lauren Sonnenberg

VIDEO: Incoming Head Prefects Katie Lim ’13 and Michael Wagmeister ’13, discuss their plans for the year.

Scan barcode with a QR reader on your smartphone to see video

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

POOL PARTY: Eusene Lee ’12, above, is part of 4x200 medley relay team that is less than a second away from breaking a 20-year school record.

Mazelle Etessami ’14 sat, awaiting her license test, in a California Department of Motor Vehicles office the morning of Jan. 23. Unlike most drivers, nathanson ’s/chronicle whose licenses Mazelle expire on the fifth Etessami’14 birthday after the date of application, Etessami received a license that expired less than a year after taking the test.

“Initially I was confused because [my license] came three days after I

The Chronicle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is published eight times per year. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the seniors on the Editorial Board. Letters to the editor may be submitted to chronicle@hw.com or mailed to 3700 Coldwater Canyon Ave., Studio City, CA 91604. Letters must be

passed, and my sister hadn’t gotten hers until at least a week after her test,” Etessami said. “So that was sort of suspicious.”

She then noticed that the sticker indicating that she had registered as a blood and tissue donor, which was important to her, was not present on her license.

Etessami’s mother called the DMV and was informed that their records showed that her sophomore daughter had a green card expiring on Nov. 25, the same day that the license was set to expire.

“That doesn’t make any sense because I was born on the third floor of Cedars-Sinai and have never lived anywhere other than Los Angeles,” Etessami said.

Etessami’s mother tried faxing her

daughter’s legal birth certificate to the Winnetka office, but she was told that she would have to come in and get a new license for her daughter.

“I really don’t understand how they could have a date for my green card expiring and a number for the card and everything,” Etessami said. “Also if I were an immigrant I would have had to fill out so many extra forms which I clearly didn’t. It’s been a really funny story to tell because no one has heard of something like this happening.”

According to the California DMV’s website, over 8 million driver licenses and identification cards are issued every year. Within that number, presumably, is an immigrant with a green card that expires next November holding a license with a donor card for a 16-yearold Mazelle Etessami.

signed and may be edited for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format.

Advertising questions may be directed to Alex Gura at (310) 467-1797. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product or service by the newspaper or the school.

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

News A3

Lower school plans to adopt 1-to-1 tech initiative

By Lara Sokoloff

Middle school students will pioneer a “oneto-one” computer p r o g r a m beginning in fall of 2013, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts nathanson ’s/chronicle announced to the Middle School Jeanne Huybrechts Faculty Academic C o m m i t t e e yesterday.

“In 2013, if all the pieces fall into place, students will be bringing c o m p u t e r s to school,” Huybrechts said. “The goal nathanson ’s/chronicle is to have every Jeff Snapp 7th, 8th and 9th grader bring a device to school everyday that much of their resource material would already be on,” she said.

The school also began distributing iPads to the faculty this week.

Huybrechts said she is sending a letter to faculty with more direction of what teachers are expected to do with them sometime this week.

A few dozen iPads were distributed last year to departments for teachers to use as part of a pilot program led

by Educational Technology Chair Jeff Snapp.

The iPads were to be checked out by teachers to explore using them in the classroom, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback has led the school to distribute them to all faculty and most likely staff, Huybrechts said.

Next year, all students will be allowed to bring a computer to school to takes notes with, if they want to.

If students misuse the devices, however, teachers are allowed to ban usage in the classroom, she said.

DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

LISTEN UP: Jon Klein, who was president of CNN from 2004 to 2009, spoke about the power of different kinds of news media

Former CNN executive emphasizes power of digitalization in modern media

By Michael Sugerman

Ex-president of CNN Jon Klein discussed the increasing presence of technology in journalism with the third period Chronicle class on April 19.

Over Klein’s six-year tenure at CNN, he helped usher the news broadcasting company into the digital age, livestreaming the Obama inaugural address on Facebook and introducing CNN’s “magic wall,” an interactive touch screen that enhances the network’s news presentation.

Klein also dispatched Anderson Cooper to cover the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, eventually granting him a 10 p.m show slot in 2005. By 2008, Cooper’s newscast skyrocketed to the number one rated broadcast among adults 25 to 54. Before his executive role at CNN, Klein served 16 years as the Executive Vice President of CBS’ news division, overseeing “60 Minutes.”

Klein endorsed well-roundedness in all writing and broadcasting endeavors, citing his recent exploration into coding,

Honorable mention Fifty-five seniors will be inducted into the Harvard-Westlake chapter of the Cum Laude Society Monday May 21 in Rugby Priyanka Bagrodia Rishi Bagrodia Jessica Barzilay Adam Bennett Federica Brecha Devon Breton-Pakozdi Jeffrey Bu Graham Cairns Colin Campbell Richard Chung Cami de Ry Aaron de Toledo Natalie Epstein Jessica Gold Cheston Gunawan Josh Ha Catherine Haber Allison Hamburger Matthew Heartney Nicole Hirschhorn Garrett Ishida Patrick Kang Megan Kawasaki Julie Ko David Kolin Danielle Korman Hanna Kostamaa Wyatt Kroopf

and the transition from more traditional print sources to newer, digital ones with the Chronicle staff Thursday April 19.

Austin Lee John Lee Marissa Lepor Brooke Levin Judd Liebman Sarah Lund Eleonore Lund-Simon Nika Madyoon Arielle Maxner Alex Moritz Rebecca Nussbaum Richard Polo Jake Schapiro Hannah Schoen Austin Sherman Justin Sohn Saj Sri-Kumar Elliot Storey Mark Swerdlow Sophie Turner Meagan Wang Wiley Webb Amy Weissenbach Jamie West Gus Woythaler Christina Yang Victor Yoon SOURCE: HW CHAPTER OF THE CUM LAUDE SOCIETY GRAPHIC BY SARAH NOVICOFF

despite the fact that he was a history major at Brown University.

“The ticket to a successful career is being really good at what you do,” he said. “But don’t be a specialist. You have to force yourself out of your comfort zone.”

Klein emphasized the importance of broadening horizons.

He found his passion for journalism after quitting his college newspaper to work at the radio station. There, he worked as a writer and producer in the news department.

“The cameras, lights, reporters and trucks with the station name on it…it was just exciting,” he said.

Klein said it was essential to spread the excitement of a story outside of the professional realm, allowing viewers and readers to give their input on breaking stories.

“The audience expects a two-way process,” he said. “The better you get at inviting them in, the better you will be.”

Klein also referred to journalists as “generalists,” relying on other experts to

sharpen articles and hone in essential information.

He said even civilians are valuable news resources, citing social networking outlets like Twitter and Facebook as viable sources for both attaining and spreading information. Klein advocated “crowdsourcing,” or getting news from the community to augment media wires like the Associated Press.

“People can enlighten us,” he said.

“There’s a greater appetite than ever for information.”

CNN has increasingly made moves to satisfy this demand, especially by incorporating iReport contributions, Klein said. iReport allows any person to contribute blog posts and videos to CNN, some of which are selected for nightly broadcasts.

He cited the Kony 2012 movement as an example of this, “activating” people with cell phones to spread awareness.

Klein speculated that print publications will increasingly find a home in the digital category with more multi-faceted coverage.

Courses no longer offered due to decreased enrollment

By Keane Muraoka-Robertson

everything we learned was incredibly relevant to modern politics and current Ten classes will no longer be offered events,” Allison Hamburger ’12 said. “It as part of the curriculum next year due was the most engaging history class I’ve to low enrollment. ever been in.”

Courses that will be eliminated The Foreign Language Department from the curriculum next year include will cut Chinese I, Latin I and Spanish I Contemporary American History, from its course offerings.

Directed Study: However, as H i s t o r i c a l the decision about R e s e a r c h , which classes Geometry, Glass will be offered is There are a lot of new and Meteorology. made on a yearly courses this coming year A d d i t i o n a l l y, enrollment basis, A d v a n c e d it is possible these and the teachers’ time is P l a c e m e n t classes will be needed elsewhere.”

Government reinstated next and Politics: —Katherine Holmes-Chuba year.

Comparative usually History Department Head just“We will no longer be offer one Level offered during I class,” Upper second semester School Foreign and Directed Study: Social Psychology Language Department Chair Paul will not be offered first semester.

Chenier said. “It’s no different than With the addition of the Kutler other years.”

Center’s new classes next year, past The following classes are also classes have declined in popularity. closed to enrollment: Algebra II “There are a lot of new courses this with Analysis, Advanced Placement coming year and the teachers’ time Geography, Advanced Placement is needed elsewhere,” Upper School Statistics, Advanced Placement World History Department Head Katherine History, Business & Life, Criminal Holmes-Chuba said of the two cuts in Law: Appeals, Directed Study: Social the history curriculum.

Psychology, Honors Geology, Human “Contemporary American History Anatomy & Physiology, Math Seminar was such a great class because and Psychology.

“

The Chronicle

A4 News

New site to replace Moodle

April 25, 2012

By Julia Aizuss

The Software application Canvas will replace Moodle next year as the school’s learning management system, a program which supplements nathanson ’s/chronicle classroom educaJeff Snapp tion, Educational Technology Committee Chair Jeff Snapp said.

Canvas will also replace Course Materials on the school website and departmental websites, becoming students’ one-stop location for online resources, Snapp said.

Moodle, which the school has used since spring of 2008, was one of the first learning management systems created, Upper School Head Librarian Shannon Acedo said.

“It did better than what we had before, which was nothing,” Acedo said.

However, Moodle eventually became difficult to use as it became more outdated.

“Just making it work was more and more cumbersome,” Snapp said.

Teachers had begun using digital features like video and audio files that Moodle was not set up to support well, and some teachers required more features and storage than Moodle could provide.

“Moodle is based on an older technology,” Technology Integration Specialist Jennifer Lamkins said.

She said teachers’ attempts to use Moodle with current web advances was “sort of like taking Web 1.0 and throwing it into a Web 2.0 interface.”

The Ed-Tech Committee visited Marlborough and contacted other Los Angeles private schools this past fall to explore the systems they were using and their experiences with them.

The committee eventually voted unanimously to use Canvas.

“Canvas all across the board seemed to have the combination of flexibility, functionality and customer support,” Acedo said.

Lamkins said that everyone on campus should be able to quickly learn how to use Canvas no matter their fluency in technology because of its “low learning curve.”

She will be holding workshops training the faculty in the system in August, Snapp said.

With the decision made and the teachers excited, “now it’s like flying,” Lamkins said.

STRING THEORY: UCLA Professor Eric D’Hoker, left, answers a question from James Wu ‘13, right, on how physicists

Physicist discusses particle research, theorizes about more dimensions

By Michael Rothberg

Theoretical physicist Eric D’Hoker discussed unanswered questions surrounding quantum and string theory in his presentation “Open Problems in Particle Physics.”

Although students could also attend the Women’s History Speaker, D’Hoker’s presentation drew a full crowd into Ahmanson Theater on Monday after fourth period.

A professor at UCLA, D’Hoker has won the “Best Teacher of the Year”

Among her many new experiences she encountered while teaching abroad, Kate Hutchinson had to learn that, in the United Kingdom, casual dress did not mean flip flops and a Tshirt she said.

After months of teaching physics in foreign schools, physics teachers Joe Dangerfield and Karen Hutchinson have learned from and noted the many differences and similarities between the educational systems, cultures and people. This year, Harvard-Westlake swapped teachers with Eton College, a boarding school in Windsor, England, sending physics teacher Hutchinson abroad and hosting Dangerfield to fill her position.

“There are a lot of superficial differences between the two schools,” said Dangerfield, who taught Physics and AP Physics B this year. “Eton is

award 15 times and held regular positions at Columbia University, Michigan Institute of Technology and Princeton University.

Science teacher Antonio Nassar, who arranged D’Hoker’s lecture as a part of a speaker series, gave a brief introduction. D’Hoker began by directing his laser pointer at the periodic table and saying, “When I was a kid, I loved this table.”

D’Hoker explained the particles that exist within protons and neutrons such as quarks and gluons in an an-

swer to the existential question, “What is the world made of?”

Giving basic background on major scientists who contributed to modern quantum theory, such as Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg, D’Hoker explained the more abstract topics he was investigating such as string theory, supersymmetry and the existence of more than three dimensions.

After his lecture, D’Hoker fielded questions from the audience regarding his work and the field of particle physics.

Labor activist urges gender equality

By Julia Aizuss

Labor rights activist Dolores Huerta and school club Girls Learn International emphasized empowering women in presentations they gave for the annual Women’s History Assembly Monday in Taper Gym. Humanities teacher Malina Mamigonian’s Gender Studies class introduced Huerta with a biographical video about her activism, from founding the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization to the various honors she has received for her work, including her 1993 induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Huerta briefly explained her role in labor activism as co-founder with labor leader Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers of America, which improved working conditions for farm-

Across the Pond

By Michael Rothberg

DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

model more than three dimensions. He explored string theory, which predicts nine dimensions, at the end of his lecture.

workers.

“Often we really don’t think about the people that put food on our table every day,” Huerta said.

Huerta encouraged braving to be different. When she quit teaching to take up activism, everyone around her told her she was crazy, Huerta said, but she remembered her mother’s lesson that “you have to be true to yourself ” despite the outside influences of society.

“We cannot be dominated,” Huerta said. “We cannot be manipulated.”

After discussing the lack of female representation in politics, Huerta stressed the importance of being a feminist. Anyone can be a feminist, Huerta said, emphasizing that men and women must work together to change society.

Huerta concluded by leading the

audience in several chants for change including the labor union chant “Si se puede,” which is Spanish for “Yes, we can.”

Girls Learn International followed Huerta’s speech with a presentation on body image in the media.

GLI members showed advertisements throughout their presentation that perpetuate an unrealistic body image.

“Do we have to look like celebrities to be happy?” GLI member Katie Golden ’13 asked.

The presentation also discussed how men are urged to be as muscular and masculine as possible and the media’s heteronormative, hypersexual conception of society.

A video called “The Girl Effect” that advocated the education and value of all girls ended the assembly.

Physics teacher Karen Hutchinson swapped jobs with Eton College‘s Joe Dangerfield for new teaching experiences away from homeS.

a boarding school, it’s all boys, it looks very stuffy and old fashioned, but the academic culture and the relationships between students and teachers are very similar.”

Dangerfield, head of the physics department at Eton, said that because the physics content taught at HarvardWestlake was similar to that of Eton, teaching the different curriculum came naturally.

Both Hutchinson and Dangerfield said they saw the stark differences between the general education systems of the United States and the United Kingdom.

“I think the most significant difference that you might experience as a student is the grading culture,” Dangerfield said. “It’s much more reliant on external exams in the United Kingdom and less significance on internal grading within a school.”

The cultures within Harvard-

Westlake and Eton also differed greatly they said. Hutchinson, who wears a suit to work every day, and whose students call her “ma’am,” said that the overall atmosphere at Eton is much more formal and old-fashioned.

Throughout their experiences, both teachers said they have learned new approaches to teaching, which they plan to take back to their home countries.

“Eton is an academically rigorous place without being too stressful,” Hutchinson said. “Boys work hard and have time to play hard, and I hope to bring back some of this balance to my teaching at Harvard-Westlake. I really appreciate the repetition that is present in science teaching in the UK. Hopefully I can replicate some of that in a one-year course.”

Hutchinson and Dangerfield will return home and teach at their original schools next year.

Eton College >>

All-male boarding school since 1440

>>

Students attend Chapel services every Sunday

>>

Each house has a dame who looks after the boys’ health

>>

Students address teachers as “ma’am” and “sir”

>>

More than 1,300 boys between 13 and 18

>>

Princes William and Harry are former students

>>

School news magazine called The Chronicle SOURCES: ETONCOLLEGE.COM AND KAREN HUTCHINSON GRAPHIC BY CLAIRE GOLDSMITH AND LAUREN SONNENBERG

April 25, 2012

Scientist emphasizes biodiversity

chronicle.hw.com

By Julia Aizuss

A biological anthropologist, primatologist, herpetologist and conservationist whom Time Magazine called a “hero for the planet” stressed to Upper School students on April 18 about the importance of maintaining the planet’s biodiversity.

Russell Mittermeier, president of the environmental nonprofit Conservation International, who has six species named for him, was the 12th speaker in the Brown Family Speaker series.

The series, established by Linda and Abbott Brown (Russell ’94, David ’96) in 2000, has included jazz musician Herbie Hancock, journalist Fareed Zakaria and most recently artist and architect Maya Lin. Alán Sneider ’12, who researched giant pandas in China with Mittermeier last summer, opened the assembly by describing how his work affected his lifestyle. He became more conscious of his water and electrical consumption after the trip.

“Our selfishness is leading to the destruction of the planet,” Sneider said.

Mittermeier began his speech by defining biodiversity as the “sum total of all life on earth” and the “basic underpinning of long-term sustainable development.”

After explaining how little we know about life forms on earth, he stressed the importance of protecting biodiversity.

“The biggest threat first and foremost is the agricultural industry,” Mittermeier said.

He then introduced the importance of wilderness areas with high biodiversity, or hotspots.

There are 35 recognized hotspots worldwide, but 86 percent of hotspot land has been lost over the past 100 years, he said. Many of the animal and plant life in these hotspots are endemic species found nowhere else in the world. Mittermeier displayed original photos of these endemic and endangered species throughout his speech, drawing coos of appreciation from the audience.

He focused often on Madagascar, which he called a “microcosm of the problems and challenges we face and what we’re at risk of losing.”

Molecular gastronomy and social psychology will be offered as Directed Studies classes next year.

Chemistry teacher Krista McClain will teach Molecular Gastronomy: the Science of Cooking to seniors, and school counselor Luba Bek will teach a Directed Study in Social Psychology.

Directed studies classes allow students interested in a specific subject to study in a small group with a teacher two to three days a week. Former directed studies include Japanese Cinema and Ancient Greek.

The idea began when students from McClain’s 2010-2011 AP Chemistry class wanted to explore molecular gastronomy but could not add a full class to their schedules. Though unable to create the course for this year, McClain submitted a proposal to the Faculty Academic Committee for a directed study in molecular gastronomy for next school year.

FAC, comprised of department heads, recommends curricular policies that affect academic life to the administration.

Teachers submit proposals to the committee for approval.

Pulitzer committee names alum runner-up

By Saj Sri-Kumar

ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

IN HIDING: Russell Mittermeier shares a picture of a giant panda taken on a recent expedition to China accompanied by students Alan Sneider ‘12 and Alex Oberfeld ’13.

Madagascar, which has a high conHe has worked with 50 indigenous centration of endemics, is one of the groups worldwide and formed policies best examples of a bio-diverse hotspot, of ecotourism, which demonstrated he said. conservation benIt is also efits to local com“one of the munities. world champiMittermeier We have a historic ons in habitat also discussed opportunity to do things destruction,” he green econosaid. mies as a way to right.”

In response help the environ—Russell Mittermeier ment, saying dealto problems President of Conservation ing with climate facing high biodiverse wilderInternational change and carness areas like bon emission is the Amazon critical. and the Congo He said green forests, Mittermeier has established economies demonstrate that biodivermany funds while working with or- sity and renewable natural resources ganizations and governments to help need to be central to the long-term maintain their unique environments. sustainable economic development.

Mittermeier said indigenous peoHe ended by calling on the audience ples “are our greatest partners in the to take responsibility for the future of conservation movement.” our planet.

“

FAC adds Gastronomy, Social Psych courses

By Claire Goldsmith

News A5

“Molecular gastronomy is cooking and chemistry, basically,” McClain said. “It’s the science behind cooking.”

While researching for the nathanson ’s/chronicle FAC proposal, she Krista McClain perused books and examined the way television shows like “Chopped” and “Top Chef ” use scientific concepts to prepare dishes.

The class will meet twice a week, once for a lab or demonstration and once for a lecture on the science behind the experiments, McClain said.

Planned labs include working with sugars, flours and various binding agents.

“We’ll do things with caramelization, working with sauces, gels and foams and making those little sphere balls,” McClain said.

Enrollment for the class was higher than anticipated, she said.

Social psychology will be a second semester course taught by school counselor Luba Bek for students who have already taken Psychology.

Students have asked Bek for another psychology class or an extension of the regular class for years, she said, but she was unable to provide one until now. Bek chose to nathanson ’s/chronicle teach social psyLuba Bek chology partially because it is the final and smallest of the 12 areas of focus in her regular class.

“It’s quite interesting, and there are a lot of opportunities for studies and research,” Bek said.

The class will focus on basic topics and skills needed to conduct testing and analysis. During the second quarter, students will design and perform their own experiments on group dynamics, social relations and more, according to the course statement.

Bek limited the course to 10 students, but she hopes to expand it if it is successful.

“I’ve actually never heard of a course structured like this,” Bek said.

“I know there is not a course in high school, so I’m creating it from scratch.”

The Columbia School of Journalism named an alumna a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for her work examining debt collection.

Jessica SilverWALL STREET JOURNAL Greenberg ’00 Jessica Silverpublished a series Greenberg ’00 of articles in the Wall Street Journal explaining how debt collectors sue consumers to recover money and collect expired payments that consumers are no longer legally required to pay.

Silver-Greenberg said she was notified about the nomination by the Journal but did not know she was a finalist until April 16. The award ultimately went to David Wood of the Huffington Post for his examination of the troubles faced by returning veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iran.

A professional reporter since she graduated from Princeton in 2004, Silver-Greenberg said she hadn’t investigated debt collection before she started at the Journal two years ago.

“Once I was at the Journal, it was a project I was very interested in, and my editor was really, incredibly supportive,” she said.

Silver-Greenberg didn’t encounter much resistance during her reporting.

“I think consumers were surprised I wanted to hear their stories, but were very generous with me in sharing,” she said.

In March, Silver-Greenberg left the Journal and currently works as a reporter for the New York Times, where she has published more stories about the financial industry, including two front page stories.

As Managing Editor of the Chronicle during her senior year, SilverGreenberg co-wrote a story on teen sexuality, which led concerned parents to call the administration. But SilverGreenberg said that she got her start in journalism well before the Chronicle.

“I’ve always been interested in being a reporter,” she said.

New Additions Two new directed studies classes will be offered during the 2012-2013 school year.

Molecular Gastronomy: the Science of Cooking >>To be taught by Krista McClain >>Will use chemistry and biology to create food >>Labs experiment with sugars, flours, caramelization, gels and xantham gum

Social Psychology >>To be taught by Luba Bek >>1st quarter to be spent learning theory, 2nd quarter to be spent designing and performing experiments >>Social experiments to be conducted on other students SOURCES: LUBA BEK AND KRISTA MCCLAIN GRAPHIC BY SARAH NOVICOFF AND CLAIRE GOLDSMITH

The Chronicle

A6 News

inbrief

April 25, 2012

4 place in county science fair

Huybrechts lends a hand

Huybrechts to visit schools in New Zealand Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts will tour schools in New Zealand this summer during the annual Global Connections conference.

Huybrechts will travel with 50 educators by bus around the country.

She attended the same conference last summer in South Africa, where she visited the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.

—Lara Sokoloff

By Sarah Novicoff

Latin student competitors rank 3rd in JCL convention A team of four students clinched third place in a Certamen Latin Trivia competition at the California Junior Classical League convention, held at Menlo High School in Atherton, California from March 30-31. Josh Lappen ’13, David Lim ’13, Jensen Pak ’14 and Michael Rothberg ’13 competed at the High School Advance level.

Twenty-five other students attended. Latin teachers Paul Chenier, Moss Pike, Joyce Wagner and Derek Wilairat chaperoned.

—Elana Zeltser

Seniors to sign mandatory pledge to attend Prom Prom will be held on May 19 at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, senior prefects announced last week.

Students should arrive by 7 p.m. so they have time to eat dinner before dancing, they said.

Tickets will be sold in the bookstore. When buying tickets, students are required to sign a pledge of good behavior in which they agree not to arrive at prom intoxicated, have drugs or alcohol in their limo, plan or attend an afterparty at a non-residential venue or stay in a hotel room over prom weekend.

—Arielle Maxner

History teachers win grant to study American history The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History granted upper school history teachers Celia Goedde and Ken Neisser fellowships to study American history this summer.

Goedde will attend a one week long seminar titled “Gender, Race and Nation in Civil War America” at the University of Pennsylvania.

Neisser will study the “United States in Depression and War, 19291945” at Stanford University for a week at the end of June under the direction of historian David Kennedy.

“Professor Kennedy has long been my idol among great, writing historians and I never in my wildest dreams expected I would meet him, much less spend a full week in his company,” Neisser said.

—Maddy Baxter

Spectrum claims top award at journalism convention The Spectrum won Best of Show for junior high newspapers at the National Scholastic Press Association’s Spring Convention that eight members of its staff attended April 12-15 in Seattle.

J.J. Woronoff ’15 earned a Superior award in Feature Writing, the highest possible distinction.

Elijah Aktarzad ’15 and Chris Han ’15 won Excellent awards for Photography.

Sarah Evall ’15, Nikta Mansouri ’15 and Jake Saferstein ’15 won an Excellent award for group layout, and Saferstein also received a second Excellent rank for individual layout.

—Claire Goldsmith

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF JOYCE OK

REACHING OUT: Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts spent time with children from the 112th Street Elementary School and Harvard-Westlake students at the Montebello Barnyard Zoo during a Community Council event on April 21.

Four students placed in the senior division of the Los Angeles County Science Fair and will present their projects at the California State Science Fair.

The fair, which took place March 29-31 at the Pasadena Convention Center, “provides a yearly setting for middle and high school students to show off their investigative skills and creativity,” according to the fair’s website.

Christian Stewart ’15 won first place in the Engineering Applications Division for building a prototype system for a low-cost unmanned aerial system for civilian use. He also developed the software to control and monitor the system. Stewart also won the National Society of Professional Engineers Award and the Office of Naval Research Award.

Divya Siddarth ’14 won first place in the Behavioral and Social Sciences for her research on the health benefits of yoga, tai chi and aerobic exercise in older adults. She found those who participate in yoga and tai chi performed better on all mood variables measured and reported fewer sleep problems as compared to aerobic exercise participants. This is the fifth year she will compete at the state fair.

“I loved doing my project and presenting to the judges, the participants, as well as the other people who visit the fair,” Siddarth said.

Winning second place in the General Physics division, Kevin Zhang ’14 wrote a program to prove that smaller biochemical molecules like RNA form more easily than DNA and found a numerical relationship between the probabilities that any single molecule would form based on a randomized system.

Larry Zhang ’14 placed third in the Biochemistry division by locating introns and exons on a DNA sequence based on the frequency that particular nucleotides, or molecules that make up DNA and RNA, occurred next to one another.

7 to travel abroad with Junior Fellowship

By Camille Shooshani

For the first time, the Board of Trustees awarded the Junior Summer fellowship to seven juniors instead of one. Each junior will receive a $4,000 grant to study a topic of their choice while abroad. In the past, only one junior was given $3,500.

“I was so impressed with the quality of the submissions that I shared them at the March Board of Trustees meeting and invited trustees who caught my excitement to join in the underwriting in as many as we could, rather than restrict it to just one,” President Thomas C. Hudnut said.

Jordan Elist ’13, David Hoffman ’13, Kallista Kusemanagara ’13, David Lim ’13, Jose Morales ’13, Keane MuraokaRobertson ’13 and Laurel Wayne ’13 each won the opportunity to pursue their interests abroad.

Elist will encourage middle and high school students in Spain to recycle more as a part of the organization he founded in 2008, “Save a bottle, save a life.”

“Spain had one of the lowest recycling rates in Europe according to a UN statistical report in 2011, and I want to reach out because [those students] have the capacity to make a difference,” Elist said.

Elist has been speaking at schools in the local and regional area, organizing raffles and prizes for the most successful students.

“Ever since I began the organization, I’ve been able to extend it to the regional and local community,” Elist

said. “The junior fellowship has given to look at the effect of environmenme the opportunity to expand on an in- tal circumstances on artists in Venice, ternational level, a goal that I had set Italy “because of its strong relationship for myself when I created the organiza- with the Renaissance and its interesttion four years ago.” ing gradual sinking situation,” she said.

Hoffman will spend over two weeks “I plan to examine if there have in Jordan interviewing students at the been any changes in Venice’s modern University of Jordan to understand artistic style or subject matter because the effects of living under a monarchi- of the rising concerns of the water,” cal government while taking classes to she said. learn more about the Middle East.

Lim plans to research architec“I took an Arabic class at UCLA, ture and art in relation to literature in but the fellowship gives you the mon- Rome and other sites in Italy. ey and a reason to pursue something Lim has studied Latin since the you wouldn’t otherwise,” Hoffman said. fifth grade and will use his encoun“Jordan was the ters in an independent safest country to study senior year with do that.”

Latin teacher Paul Keane MuraChenier, who helped The fellowship gives oka-Robertson him plan the trip. Lim you the money and ’13 will journey to will blog his travels.

Africa to study Wayne will take lesa reason to pursue the economic imsons in London with something you pact of fresh water the first female trumon rural villages. pet player to ever hold wouldn’t otherwise.”

Women in many a principal position —David Hoffman ’13 in an orchestra, Anne rural villages spend the majority McAneney. McAneney of their time walkis a trumpeter in the ing to distant fresh London philharmonic water sources, Muraoka-Robertson and teacher at the Guild Hall School said. of Music.

“The creation of wells opens up “I wanted to find out what it’s many economic opportunities for the like being a professional as a female,” women who are given microloans,” she Wayne said. “I’m very interested in her said. “ With the loans, they are able to journey.” start up small businesses and transArchitecture drew Morales to Barform their lives. The impact of fresh celona, where he wlll study Antoni water is outstanding, and it’s some- Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Fathing we often take for granted.” milia and other works around the city Kallista Kusumanegara ’13 chose by the artist.

“

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

News A7

inbrief

Environmental Club serves treats to honor Earth Day

The Environmental Club will host an Earth Day celebration in the quad next Monday, April 30 during break.

The festivities included a table with eco-friendly products from the bookstore, ice cream for people who carpool and “mud pies.”

Co-president of the Environmental Club Jessica Barzilay ’12 said she hoped the celebration would “raise awareness of environmental issues and encourage people in the community to act ‘greener’ even in the smallest ways.”

—Emily Segal

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF BRIAN JUN

COMMUNITY SCIENCE: Brian Jun ’13 passes around a squid to a group of students at the Korean Youth and Commu-

nity Center during his science outreach program. He conducted the experiment to show the kids the animal’s internal structure.

Junior’s Science Outreach Program lets kids do hands-on experiments

By Keane Muraoka-Robertson

A lack of funding in his elementary school’s science program, inspired Brian Jun ’13 to create a program that would give students at underfunded schools the opportunity to conduct science experiments. After proposing the Science Outreach Program last year, Jun has begun to work with local schools, along with Anser Abbas ’14 and Justin Bae ’14.

“My past has really influenced me to give back to the community that supported me socially and emotionally, and I could think of no better way than to start introducing real-life science to students at a very young age,” Jun said.

Every month, SOP works with nonprofit organizations that sponsor extracurricular activates for children in low-income families.

“The mission is to reach out to as many students as possible and per-

form experiments with them, using the near-unlimited resources that only Harvard-Westlake can provide,” Jun said. “In our lectures, we really try to emphasize the combination of fun and comedic elements with the detailed scientific theory behind each concept.”

Recent experiments involve squid dissections and the use of non-Newtonian fluids.

SOP will soon be exploring bioremediation by investigating oil-eating bacteria and will also have the opportunity to work hands-on with the AIDS virus, Jun said.

Jun hopes his pilot program will continue after he graduates.

“The reason I seek to work with sophomores is because they are the ones who will continue this program.”

Jun said. “My job is to lay the foundations and firmly establish the program while expanding it as much as possible this year, but the future generation

will be responsible for maintaining this program and building upon the foundation that we create this year.”

Jun attributes the success of the program to the support of Upper School Science Department Chair Larry Axelrod.

Recently, The Korea Times ran an article recognizing Jun’s efforts. “[I] hope the publicity we receive will help spread our mission and start a wave of more programs with similar missions not just at the local level, but possibly to the national level,” Jun said.

“I believe this program is beneficial to our school because it targets a group of students never before tapped into: intelligent scientists and mathematicians who have a genuine interest in stepping out of the classroom and the laboratory in hopes of bringing tangible change to our society,” Jun said.

“More importantly, the program really breaks the stereotype of the scientist.”

Rain floods Seaver halls, classrooms

As of April 16, middle school students are allowed to use their cell phones in certain areas around campus. Assistant Head of Middle School Paul Mastin announced the change at an all-school assembly, where he said the administration was going to permit the use of cell phones with the understanding that they are to be used responsibly and cannot cause any sort of interruption during the day.

The decision was reached after a successful two-week trial period before Spring Break, in which students were allowed to use cell phones to check messages from and talk to their parents.

—Tara Stone

6 compete in regional math competition, win 1st place A team of six sophomores and juniors took first place in Division B during Math Day at the Beach, a competition on March 17 at California State University, Long Beach. The event consisted of multiple choice and free response timed questions, some completed individually and some as a team.

Harvard-Westlake placed second in all divisions after Irvine’s University High School. Kevin and Larry Zhang ’14 came in fourth and fifth place in the individual portion of the competition.

—Rachel Schwartz

Sophomore sells ice cream to raise money for Girl Up

By Sam Sachs

The first floor of the Seaver Academic Center flooded due to heavy rain during sixth period on April 13.

The maintenance crew attributed the flooding to clogged drains just outside the doors to Seaver.

The flood briefly obstructed the hallway and students were redirected to walk outside, around the scene.

Classes along the hallway were cancelled that Friday, April 13 to the following Monday, April 16 and ACT tests on Saturday, April 14 were also relocated.

The carpet was replaced over the weekend.

Maintenance tended to Seaver at the beginning of the flood and began sweeping some of the water out through the doors as they waited for their water vacuums to arrive.

Water vacuums were then used to drain the hallway and a few classrooms that had been partially flooded.

“The water started to snake in quite quickly beneath the front doors,” Foreign Language Chair Paul Chenier said.

Chenier called the maintenance crew “the heroes” for arriving quickly and replacing the carpet.

“I heard a ruckus from outside my classroom, then I walked outside and [water] was everywhere,” Sam Hummel ’14 said.

Middle School allows cell phones after successful trial

KEANE MURAOKA-ROBERTSON/CHRONICLE

CHEMICAL ATTACK: Kenneth Kim ’13 adds sulfuric acid to solids in solution while conducting a lab in preparation for the Chemistry Olympiad on April 19.

An ice cream sundae fundraiser to benefit Girl Up, a UN Organization aimed to improve girls’ education and healthcare in countries worldwide, is planned for today.

The fundraiser was organized by Sarah Novicoff ’14.

Novicoff held a similar fundraiser last year and raised more than $1,700 and has expanded to the Upper School this year. A middle school fundraiser will be held later in May. Novicoff will be serving sundaes with toppings in the quad from Activities to seventh period.

—Noa Yadidi

Scientists qualify for National Olympiad semifinal exam

Symphony, Madrigals take 1st at music competition

Seven students cleared the preliminary round of various Science Olympiads qualifying them for the semifinal exam. The students inlcuded Jeffrey Bu ’12, Brendon Cho ’14, David Lim ’13, Brian Jun ’13, Kenneth Kim ’13, Kevin Zhang ’14 and Larry Zhang ’14.

The preliminary exam is open to all high school students. The top percentage, which varies for each science, then moves on to the semifinal round where qualifiers must take another exam to qualify for the next round.

Bu and Kim made it to the semifinal round of the Chemistry Olympiad. They both took the semifinal exam last Saturday, April 21 and will

The Middle School Symphony and Madrigals won first place at the Heritage Music Festival of Gold in Chicago April 13-17.

The symphony orchestra was the only middle school orchestra participating, orchestra director Emily Reola said. The Madrigals and Vocal Ensemble competed in the chamber choir and women’s choir categories.

During their five-day stay, the students worked with professional music educators and conductors, watched performances, performed at Chicago’s Symphony’s Orchestra hall and Fourth Presbyterian Church and toured some of Chicago’s museums.

—Noa Yadidi

By Keane Muraoka-Robertson

receive their results in May. The semifinal exam consisted of multiple-choice questions and a lab.

“There’s a lot of chemistry we can’t cover in Honors and AP because of time reasons that I find fascinating,” Kim said. “I get to go in depth into my favorite parts of chemistry. The fun in learning these new things makes the seven hour test worth it.”

Brothers Kevin and Larry both qualified for the semifinal round of the Physics Olympiad. To prepare for their exam, Kevin and Larry studied over the summer at Avid Academy in Orange County.

Cho, Lim and Jun made it to the semifinal round of the Biology Olympiad.

A8 News

The Chronicle April 2

Changing of the guard

Hudnut wa for having a

By Elana Zeltser

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF ART DURITY

WORKING TOGETHER: Future President of Harvard-Westlake Rick Commons, second from left, teaches an English class at

Groton School. Commons served as headmaster at the selective five-year Massachusetts boarding school for nine years.

Former faculty member to serve as ‘this generation’s Tom Hudnut’

By Lara Sokoloff

The future President of HarvardWestlake School sits with his son in a window seat, reading E.B. White’s “The Trumpet and the Swan” on a spring morning in Groton, Mass.

“Children’s books are great!” he said.

“I think I was loving it more than he was.”

Although he won’t be engaging students in children’s novels, Rick Commons, who spent five years at HarvardWestlake as an English teacher, assistant dean, college counselor and soccer coach, said he hopes to be the chief question asker to mold his position.

Commons will replace Thomas C. Hudnut as President of Harvard-Westlake School for the 2013-2014 school year, Hudnut announced on April 9. Hudnut announced his retirement in March after 26 years at the school.

Commons is currently the Headmaster of the Groton School, a five-year boarding school for 370 students in Massachusetts.

“Both [Harvard-Westlake and Groton] have academic excellence as a primary characteristic,” Commons said.

“Both have students who are incredibly talented in other ways as well. Both have faculty who are inspiring and magical in what they do in and beyond the classroom.”

Commons attended the University of Virginia and received his Masters of Arts in Teaching from Stanford University and a Master of Arts from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

Commons has served as Headmaster of the Groton School for nine years, where he is responsible for the school’s internal and external aspects.

“I often think about five different constituents: students and their experience, faculty and their experience, staff and their experience, parents and their experience and alumni and their experience,” he said. “I am generally involved in ensuring that the experience of all those different groups is as positive and inspiring as it can be, with the focus clearly on the students. That’s what we’re most interested in.”

“Every day is different,” he said. “Ev-

“

He is the perfect combination of good humor and gravitas. Every conversation was meaningful. I always left with some nugget of insight that I didn’t have before.

—Jocelyn Medawar English Teacher

ery moment is different. This is my ninth year here, and no two days are really the same, or even close. It’s fun in that way.”

Commons said he chose to leave Groton to be closer to his wife’s family, which lives in the Los Angeles area. Commons’ wife, Lindsay McNeil, graduated from Harvard-Westlake in 1996. He also said that to “be involved in a school as great as Harvard-Westlake was the perfect opportunity.”

He was first approached by Hudnut in January about the position and has been talking with members of the Board of Trustees since.

“I think the transition [to HarvardWestlake] will involve a lot of listening and asking questions of many different people,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to that period of time where I’m hoping to be a sponge and soak up everything that I can. I know going in that there is just no way that I can possibly have as much to offer the school as the school has to offer me in those early days.”

Upper School Dean Sharon Cuseo, who worked closely with Commons in the college counseling office in the 1990s, said he always made people feel confident.

“He was smart enough to know that you have to fake it until you make it,” she said. “It was so genius because he never let parents or students feel that he had any questions. That was a really good skill that will serve him well.”

Commons said he knows the name of every Groton student and hopes to develop a similar closeness with members of the Harvard-Westlake community.

“I don’t have the bandwidth to be able to know 1,500 by name,” he said. “I will depend on students being willing to

Perched atop the Upper School campus in a white house turned office, President Thomas C. Hudnut enjoys a piano composition by Frederic Chopin. This is one of the many classical pieces he rotates through his speaker system, filling the room with music. However, Hudnut, who announced his retirement from his post last month, hopes his office will be remembered for a different sound.

“I hope that when people remember my office they will recall that the dominant noise was laughter,” Hudnut said.

“That this has been a place where people have enjoyed working.”

The culmination of the school year in June marks Hudnut’s 25th year as headmaster and then president of HarvardWestlake. Hudnut said his greatest challenge as headmaster was overseeing the merger of Harvard School for boys and Westlake School for girls in 1989.

Since the merger Hudnut said that improvement in girls’ athletics as been most gratifying.

“I have taken a tremendous amount of satisfaction and pride from the show-

Changes O

Head of School Jeanne Huybre series of administrative change Hudnut’s replacement was ann

>>

Thomas C. Hudnut to step do

Hudnut, the first and on will step down in 2013 a nathanson ’s/chronicle

talk with me. Students who see a new person they don’t know might feel some distance, and I hope I can erase that distance very quickly by asking a lot of questions and showing a lot of interest and displaying real belief in the community.”

In working with colleagues to gain the broadest perspective, Commons said he hopes he will construct a role for himself that has the greatest possible impact without getting in anyone’s way.

Former Head of School Mimi Flood, who led Harvard-Westlake when Commons was last here, remembered him for his eagerness and energy.

“Throughout those years, he continued to teach, to coach and to throw himself into the whole of campus activities,” she said. “He loves kids and loves school life. He is a school man through and through.”

“He is the perfect combination of good humor and gravitas,” English teacher Jocelyn Medawar said, who worked with Commons in the English department.

“Every conversation was meaningful, every conversation I always left with some nugget of insight that I didn’t have before.”

Flood said she thought Commons was a fitting replacement for Hudnut.

“Tom Hudnut is almost an impossible act to follow. What he has accomplished at Harvard-Westlake over the years of his stewardship is astounding,” Flood said. “It is so in keeping with his character that the man he has helped select as his successor is a man of equal stature.

His wisdom, clarity, integry and proven effectivenes make him not only a worthy sucessor but also an ideal one.”

“This is this generation’s Tom Hudnut,” Cuseo said.

>>

Rick Commons to become Pre

Commons taught at Har and is the headmaster o

>>

Harry Salamandra to serve as

Salamandra has been H and will serve as the firs next year.

>>

Audrius Barzdukas to serve a

Barzdukas, who became with Head of Athletics, w Upper School.

>>

Terry Barnum to take over as

Athletic Director Barnum the next Head of Athletic holds.

>>

Margot Riemer to become Fo

Spanish teacher Riemer w Chenier, who has held th return to teaching full tim

>>

Beth Slattery to become Chai

Slattery will replace John of the Middle School.

>>

Christopher Jones to replace Jones currently works as Academy in Ohio.

25, 2012

chronicle.hw.com

News A9

With President Thomas C. Hudnut scheduled to leave Harvard-Westlake after the 2012-2013 school year and Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra to serve as the first ever Senior Alumni Officer, the administration will be seeing many changes.

ants to be remembered an office full of laughter ings of our girls’ teams,” Hudnut said.

Despite Hudnut’s investment in different departments, his role as president deals with the business aspect of Harvard-Westlake. As Chief Executive Officer, Hudnut said his main focus has been interactions with national and international organizations and local governments as well as fundraising, alumni outreach and public relations.

After Hudnut delivers his final commencement address at the 2013 graduation, he said he does not plan on spending much of his life in retirement on campus.

He will join a head search firm, scouting administrators for other schools. In addition, he will take part in an educational, entrepreneurial venture in China.

Hudnut is excited about devoting more time to his hobby fly-fishing. After his retirement, Hudnut will have more time to go fly fishing around the world.

Hudnut said his travels will not be limited to places where the fish population is high and the waters are calm.

“One of the by-products of being president of Harvard-Westlake is that I have gotten to know school heads literally from all over the world,” Hudnut said.

“I can go to any continent and anywhere from 20-30 countries and have a friend there who runs a school. I look forward to seeing one of them on their own turf.”

Despite his travels, Hudnut does not plan to uproot his life in Los Angeles. His wife, Deedie, is Head of Admissions at the Center for Early Education in West Hollywood. He also has three children and two grandchildren who live in the Los Angeles area. This summer, he plans to fly to London to watch his son, Peter Hudnut ’99, compete in the Olympics.

Hudnut will also continue to remain close friends with fellow teachers and administrators at Harvard-Westlake.

“We don’t get to see that much of each other as it is because he is so busy,” Performing Arts teacher Ted Walch said.

“I’m hoping he’ll be a little less busy, and that as a result he and Deedie will have more time to go to a movie or to come over for dinner. So, weirdly, Tom’s retirement is good news personally.”

Upon returning from summer vacation, Hudnut will start his final year as a member of the administration.

“I’m going to leave here knowing that the school is in good shape, knowing that

Salamandra to pioneer new position

By Saj Sri-Kumar

VOX ARCHIVES

90s STYLE: Then-Headmaster Thomas C. Hudnut appears in the 1990 yearbook.

I have an excellent successor, knowing that I have been privileged to work with some extraordinary people and knowing that I have done my best,” Hudnut said.

Hudnut has been a member of a school every day since he started kindergarten at 3 years old, and while his retirement marks the end of his career at Harvard-Westlake, he continues to be dedicated to education.

“I’ve always looked at the possibilities of our students and what they will be able to achieve,” Hudnut said. “I consider it our responsibility to help them become the best people they can be and to help them learn that doing well is nice but doing good is more important.”

On Campus

echts announced April 12 a es for next year. Thomas C. nounced on April 9.

own as President

nly president of Harvard-Westlake, after 26 years.

esident

rvard-Westlake from 1992 to 1997 of Groton School in Massachusetts.

s Senior Alumni Officer

Head of Upper School for 14 years st Senior Alumni Officer beginning

as Head of Upper School

Associate Head of School along will replace Salamandra as Head of Head of Athletics

m will take over for Barzdukas as cs, a position Barzdukas currently

oreign Language Department Chair

will replace Latin teacher Paul he position for three years and will me next year.

ir of the Upper School Dean Department

n Wimbish, who will become Head Wimbish as dean a college counselor at Columbus

SOURCE: JEANNE HUYBRECHTS GRAPHIC BY SARAH NOVICOFF

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF ROGER ON

CHEERLEADERS: Future Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas, right, and Track and Field Coach Jonas Koolsbergen, left, attend a cross country meet.

Barzdukas to apply athletic experience in new admin role

By Julius Pak

Head of Athletics, Associate Head of School and now the future Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas has always focused on nurturing the individual. Even when he first began his Harvard-Westlake career as the school’s first Head of Athletics in 2003, he held this belief.

“Harvard-Westlake is not a one-sizefits-all place,” he said. “We take things on an individual basis.”

At the University of Virginia, Barzdukas earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and master’s degree in sports psychology before working for 12 years at the United State Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo. first as a sports scientist and later as the associate director of coaching.

Throughout nearly a decade as Head of Athletics, Barzdukas has worked to create structured and coherent curricula for student-athletes at HarvardWestlake.

One of the centerpieces of his tenure so far is building a relationship with Italian soccer champions AC Milan since their philosophy embodies his own, Barzdukas said.

“Everything they do is about developing kids, it’s continual,” Barzdukas said.

“That is part of their idea of social responsibility. They do what they can to ensure that they have good lives. It’s hard to tell when someone is 10 if that person is going to be a professional soccer player, so you want to provide all your 10 year-olds a great experience. And you want to provide this great experience all the way through so they stay a part of you, just as we hope our experience at Harvard-Westlake will.”

Barzdukas’ work has begun to spread outside of the athletic realm of school.

Two years ago, he began auditing academic and arts classes to get a better feel of the academic situation of the school.

Last year, he was named Associate Head of School to become more involved in the school’s administrative workings. He hopes to bring whatever he achieved in the athletics department over to the rest of the school.

“If there’s one thing I think I’ve done well in my job as Head of Athletics, it is to bring in resources to athletics, and I am excited about doing that for the Upper School academically,” Barzdukas said.

In 1979, a young science teacher came to 3700 Coldwater Canyon Avenue as one of 13 new faculty members that year. Thirty-three nathanson ’s/chronicle years later, Harry Harry Salamandra Salamandra is still here.

“I didn’t expect to stay here as long as I have,” Salamandra said.

Today, Salamandra, or “Mr. Sal,” is known as the Head of Upper School, a position he has held for 14 years. Next year, he will be shifting roles to become the school’s first ever Senior Alumni Officer.

Even before he joined the faculty, Salamandra was a part of the Harvard School family—literally.

His sister married science teacher Jim Brink who, after a year of working at Harvard School, told his brother-in-law about a new position in the science department.

“I applied to the school, came out for the interview, and next thing I know, I’m working here,” Salamandra said.

Today, even when he leaves campus, he is still not far from the community, living in a house adjoining his sister Vivian and Brink.

“It’s been a great opportunity, truthfully, to be able to live close to relatives, and yet we have separate lives,” he said. “But, you get the best of all worlds. You have the support of a big family and you get to live your own separate life as well.”

Initially an eighth, ninth and 10th grade science teacher, Salamandra also coached the boys’ varsity tennis team. In 1987, incoming Headmaster Thomas C. Hudnut promoted Salamandra to Dean of Students. Simultaneously, he began teaching computer science instead of science.

During his tenure, Salamandra witnessed the merger between Harvard and Westlake Schools.

“I believe we’ve grown into a school that has the best of both worlds, the best of both schools,” he said. “We’re a school that has students that are intellectually curious, as well as students that are talented athletes, musicians, artists. I believe the faculty from both schools have worked hard to make sure the student body for our new school is one we would be proud of, and really even surpass the expectations that were initially out there.”

Although it has been years since he has taught a science class, Salamandra still teaches Choices and Challenges to sophomores.

“I still do consider myself a teacher,” he said. “Some of the best parts of my day are when I’m with students in the classroom. I learn from the students. It’s a two-way street. I enjoy the intellectual vigor that there is in a classroom situation.”

Although he will no longer have an official position working with current students next year, Salamandra said he plans to continue his involvement through Peer Support and teaching classes. He also hopes his new role will allow him to bridge the gap between students and alumni, working with alumni to find internships and other offcampus opportunities for students.

Even after 33 years, Salamandra said that he hasn’t gotten tired of working on the same campus.

“I still wake up in the morning and want to go to work,” he said.

The Chronicle

A10 News

Talking Heads

April 25, 2012

Incoming Head Prefects Michael Wagmeister ‘13 and Katie Lim ‘13 discussed their plans for next year.

By David Lim and Michael Sugerman What do you think is the best thing that the Prefect Council has been able to achieve this year?

By David Lim

Michael Wagmeister: I think one thing we really did a good job on was the Spring In Your Step event. When everybody found out that semiformal wasn’t going to be coming back, a lot of people were disappointed. We had to collectively come up with some event that everyone could enjoy.

What’s something you think the Council could have handled better?

Katie Lim: I think communication is kind of a constant theme. It’s something of a struggle sometimes to open that communication line between the students and the Head Prefects. That’s always in the back of my mind.

Wagmeister: Definitely. I think what could be interesting is if we have some kind of large council which incorporates leaders from all different student organizations, whether it be student council, Chronicle, Social Committee or any club, to have a direct outlet of communication to really implement students’ ideas.

What do you think will be the most important part of your job as Head Prefect?

Lim: I think the job of a Head Prefect is voicing the opinion of the student body and being able to communicate that to the administration, because I know we’ve talked about that. There’s

Next year’s prefecture elected

MAZELLE ETESSAMI/CHRONICLE

also the communication between the administration and student council itself.

How do you think your experience on Prefect Council has prepared you for next year?

Do you think that any changes need to be made with the Honor Board system or with how students deal with the Honor Code?

Lim: The student body knows the Head Prefects, but what do they really know about the process of what they do? After really seeing what they do, it’s going to be a huge help for us.

Wagmeister: A lot of students felt that the Honor Code is very valuable on this campus, but what constitutes an Honor Code infraction is a little vague, so we really want to try to open up the actual Honor Boarding process and the Honor Code.

On the Web The full transcript and a video of the interview are available online at chronicle.hw.com

The sophomore class elected next year’s Junior Prefects Oliver Goodman-Waters ’14, Henry Hahn ’14, Mazelle Etessami ’14, and Ashley Sacks ’14 without a runoff on Monday.

Ben Gail ’13, Luke Holthouse ’13, Morgan Hallock ’13 and Mikaila Mitchell ’13 clinched their spots as Senior Prefects last week after two rounds of run-offs for the boy Prefects last week. Incoming Head Prefects Michael Wagmeister ’13 and Katie Lim ’13 won their seats before spring break.

Chaplain Father J. Young said that about 70 percent of students voted in this year’s election through the runoffs.

Twelve sophomores and 14 juniors submitted candidate statements earlier this month to run for election. Head Prefect Rishi Bagrodia ’12 said there were “noticeably more” candidates than have run in the past few years.

“It’s been pretty much the same seven or eight candidates [per grade] in recent years and the number of candidates has increased this year over the long term trend,” he said. “Three or four years ago we never would have expected so many candidates.”

Wagmeister and Lim went to the Middle School on Tuesday to speak to next year’s sophomores about how the role of prefects differs from that of class Senators. They plan to emphasize the importance of the Honor Code at the Upper School and role prefects have on the Honor Board, Lim said.

2012-2013 Junior and Senior Prefects

“ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

My idea of communication is more than just a dropbox. I want people to feel they have a part in the student council just like a Prefect does.”

—Ben Gail ‘13

ELANA ZELTSER/CHRONICLE

As a Prefect I’m open to criticism. If students aren’t happy, then as their representative, I’m not doing my job correctly.”

—Mazelle Etessami ‘14

MAZELLE ETESSAMI/CHRONICLE

“[We] want to get away from the stereotype ‘Oh, [the prefects] are above the student body,’ while in actuality we represent the student body.”

—Morgan Hallock ‘13

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

I would really encourage prefects to make their phone number known to students if they ever want to talk about initiatives they want to start.”

—Oliver Goodman-Waters ‘14

DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

“I think there are more efficient ways we can connect with the student body by using social media more effectively.”

—Luke Holthouse ‘13

MAZELLE ETESSAMI/CHRONICLE

We’re working on a lot, but one thing I’d like to specifically focus on is helping students achieve their own goals.”

—Ashley Sacks ‘14

MAZELLE ETESSAMI/CHRONICLE

I want to make sure that there’s someone really listening to what everyone wants and making sure their wants are implemented.“ —Mikaila Mitchell ‘13

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

We’ve already started with this this year, but I would really like to try to revamp the Daily Bulletin to improve our sense of community.”

—Henry Hahn ‘14

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

Expanding horizons

Students participated in language immersion programs, built houses and snorkeled during spring break, March 24 to April 8.

PRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF BEN WEISSENBACH

SHARK WEEK: Ben Weissenbach ’15 flashes a thumbs up as three black-tip reef sharks swim just feet away from him. He

News A11

was one of a handful of students who swam with these sharks, in addition to swimming with other underwater creatures.

Students snorkel, study marine biology in Tahiti Over the course of two weeks, students studied marine biology hands on during visits to Tahiti, Moorea and Rangiroa. Among activities were scuba diving and immersion into the culture of the French Polynesian islands.

To learn about Tahitian culture, students took Tahitian dance lessons, attended a feast where they helped prepare traditional Tahitian dishes like mahi mahi and poisson cru and visited an ancient temple. Much of the trip was spent in the ocean observing different marine species. Lizette Medina ’14 said students snorkeled multiple times with eels, stingrays and sharks, and even boated in a sea of dolphins.

In one instance, students swam with black-tipped reef sharks during their feeding hour.

“I saw shark frenzy,” Medina said.

Students also visited UC Berkeley’s field station, the Gump Station, in Moorea. In Rangiroa, students went farming for black pearls. Two students flew home early due to illness.

— Morganne Ramsey

Spanish students delve into Costa Rican life

14 travel to China, explore culture and language during interactions with Chinese high schoolers

Students taking Spanish at both the Middle and Upper Schools traveled to Heredia, Costa Rica and improved their language skills nathanson ’s/chronicle through homeAndrew Brabeé stays.

The trip was chaperoned

by Spanish teachers Andrew Brabeé and Javier Zaragoza.

Students from the Middle School bunked in pairs, while students nathanson ’s/chronicle from the Upper Javier Zaragoza School lived independently with host families. During the day, students attended the Intercultura Language School to take Spanish classes.

They later went bowling, helped at a daycare center and watched movies.

Students also visted a beach in Samara during the last few days of the trip.

“It was hard at first, because I had to speak entirely in Spanish to my host mom, and sometimes we had no idea what the other was saying,” Margeaux Craske-Curtin ’14 said. “I feel a lot more comfortable with how I speak in Spanish and what I’m saying.”

— Jivani Gengatharan

Calligraphy lessons, visits to the Forbidden City and dinners of traditional Beijing Duck and sea cucumber hotpots entertained Chinese language students for both weeks of spring break.

Students visited Suzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, where they stayed with a host school. The trip was chaperoned

by Chinese teachers Binbin Wei and Qinru Zhou. While in Beijing, students stayed at the High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, sleeping in the dorms and attending classes.

While there, the students gave a five minute presentation to the Chinese 10th graders in English about Harvard-Westlake, who then in turn gave a five minute presentation in Chinese

EOJIN CHOI/CHRONICLE

A GLANCE AT HISTORY: Michael O’Krent ’14 walks by a Chinese statue.

about their school.

“Our students’ Chinese speaking often caused the admiration of Chinese people” Zhou said.

The students interacted very closely with the Advanced Placement class of the host school, visiting the Great Wall of China together. While at the high school, students took Chinese language and culture classes. The visiting students also gave feedback to the Chinese teachers at the high school on the teachers’ new design for a Chinese book for foreigners. The students also did several activities such as learning Taiji Shadow Boxing and calligraphy.

In Huangzhou, the students visited the Silk Factory of Suzhou.

— Christine Jarjour

Volunteers build homes in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity, bond with faculty Trading in their pens and pencils for hammers and nails, students built foundations, stuffed insulation and hammered roof shingles in an annual partnership with Habitat for Humanity over spring break.

Volunteers built houses for victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans April 2-6. Through their work, students were encouraged to bond with faculty, Chaplain Father J. Young said.

Habitat for Humanity aims to build simple and affordable housing for families in need, especially victims of Hurricane Katrina, the hurricane that

tore down levies and left New Orleans in shambles in 2005.

“On the last day, most of us were inside one of the houses painting,” Alex Haney ’14 said. “It was so much fun, and lots of us got covered with paint. I saw that some previous volunteers had written notes to the recipient of the house on its foundation, and I thought that was really cool.”

In the afternoons, students explored New Orleans’ sites, smells and sounds, eating traditional cuisine in the French Quarter, Haney said.

— Mariel Brunman

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF FATHER J. YOUNG

WORK IT OUT: Students paint and nail in roof shingles in New Orleans.

Chronicle The Harvard-Westlake

3700 Coldwater Canyon, Los Angeles, CA 91604

Editors in Chief: Judd Liebman, Lara Sokoloff

Managing Editors: Eli Haims, Allison Hamburger, Austin Lee, Saj Sri-Kumar Executive Editors: Justine Goode, Rebecca Nussbaum Presentations Editors: Chloe Lister, Arielle Maxner, Victor Yoon

O

The Chronicle • April 25, 2012

A12

pinion Los Angeles • Volume XXI • Issue VII

Ads Manager: Alex Gura Business Managers: Sanjana Kucheria, Susan Wang Assistants: Tara Stone Chief Copy Editor: Micah Sperling Chief

of Photography: Daniel Kim Photoshop Editor: Hank Gerba

News Managing Editors: Maddy Baxter, Nika Madyoon Section Heads: David Lim, Keane Robertson, Michael Sugerman News Copy Editor: Ana Scuric Assistants: Julia Aizuss, Beatrice Fingerhut, Jivani Gengatharan, Jack Goldfisher, Claire Goldsmith, Elizabeth Maden, Alex McNab, Lauren Sonnenberg, Noa Yadidi Opinion Managing Editors: Abbie Neufeld, Anabel Pasarow Section Heads: Mariel Brunman, Rachel Schwartz Opinion Copy Editor: Ana Scuric Opinion Assistants: Sarah Novicoff, Lizzy Thomas Christine Jarjour Features Managing Editors: Cami de Ry, Megan Kawasaki Features Section Heads: Michael Rothberg, Megan Ward, Elana Zeltser Features Copy Editor: Carrie Davidson Features Assistants: Eojin Choi, Leslie Dinkin, Sydney Foreman, Eric Greenberg, David Gisser, Jessica Lee, Jessica Murdock, Morganne Ramsey, Emily Segal, Lauren Siegel Science & Health Editor: Jessica Barzilay Science & Health Section Head: Gabrielle Franchina Centerspread Editors: Caitie Benell, Jamie Chang Arts & Entertainment Managing Editor: Claire Hong Arts & Entertainment Section Heads: Maggie Bunzel, Aaron Lyons Sports Managing Editors: David Kolin, Julius Pak Section Heads: Michael Aronson, Luke Holthouse, Camille Shooshani Sports Copy Editor: Robbie Loeb Senior Sportswriter: Charlton Azuoma Assistants: Eric Loeb, Grant Nussbaum, Patrick Ryan, Lucy Putnam, Sam Sachs

Chronicle.hw.com

Editors in Chief Eli Haims, Austin Lee Online Editors: David Gobel, Alex Gura, Sanjana Kucheria, Chelsea Khakshouri, Cherish Molezion, Shana Saleh, Meagan Wang, Susan Wang Online Assistants: Mazelle Etessami, Jensen Pak, Malanna Wheat Adviser: Kathleen Neumeyer

RACHEL SCHWARTZ/CHRONICLE

Let’s make the last month count — seniors, let’s make it memorable

The brunt of our work is over, and we’re at the pinnacle of our senior year. We’re the Class of 2012, and you “wish you were one two!” So where’s the spontaneous lower quad senior BBQ? Where’s the grade-wide beach day? And where did our senior prank go?

Days before the historically designated senior prank day, members of the senior class posted ideas for the prank in the senior Facebook group.

Many of the ideas were rushed and poorly thought out, and most were at the expense of innocent underclassmen.

We scrambled at the last minute and couldn’t even agree on what mean-spirited stunt to pull.

This cycle needs to be broken. Each year we senselessly mimic the seniors who wronged us the year before.

We target the innocent below us, fueling their desires to wreak havoc when they get to be in our shoes. But these efforts are futile. We seniors need to shift our focus. A senior prank should stem from a place of humor and celebration. Opening juniors’ backpacks and misplacing their binders is just plain cruel.

Moving the tables on the quad into a “2012” shape on the field would have been perfectly suf-

ficient.

This, however, calls the administration to action. We were encouraged to “be creative” at class meeting the day before senior prank day. Yet we were flanked by armies of angry deans and security equipped with walkie-talkies in hand. We were told to “Drop the water balloons!” as if they were dangerous weapons.

While we’ll admit that our prank should have been more friendly, why was it made so difficult to unite as a class and do anything? Allow us to be seniors, and we’ll meet in the middle. We shouldn’t end on a sour note. At the urging of Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts, we should make our mark as a senior class remembered for our ingenuity. Still, if our intentions had been pure, the administration would have made it impossible anyway.

Instead of babysitting us, work with us.

Ditch day was yet another

example of our failed unity.

What could have been a fun coordinated “All H-W seniors go to the beach!” day to celebrate how far we’ve come, was instead a day that highlighted how disjointed our senior class is. Participation was minimal, and many students were penalized by their teachers on quizzes and tests for missing class.

If we think we deserve a day off, we can settle with a grade-wide detention on an early Wednesday morning as punishment. Ditch day does not merit zeroes on tests though. We can make more of an effort to enhance our senior community with the help of the school.

It’s not over until it’s over.

We still have one month to go, so let’s fry up some burgers in the Lower Quad, play music during break and decide as a group on the perfect token to deposit in President Thomas C. Hudnut’s hand at graduation.

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

Opinion A13

RACHEL SCHWARTZ AND CLAIRE GOLDSMITH /CHRONICLE

Admiring fun from afar

Don’t excuse Coachella absences

By Allison Hamburger

I

will probably never go to Coachella.

As I settled for watching some of my favorite artists perform at the festival via YouTube’s live broadcast two weekends ago, this sad realization sunk in. My college kid-sized budget and schedule will probably not allow me to attend any time soon, and there’s no guessing whether I will be able to go as an adult.

I spent much of that weekend envying my friends and classmates who traveled to Indio, Calif. I glowered at the empty seats in my classes on Friday and bombarded my attending friends with texts. I was jealous, or more accurately, “coachell-ous.”

It seems like people are always talking about Coachella. My Facebook newsfeed explodes with elation when the line-up is published each year and frustration when tickets sell out. Questions about the school’s attendance policy are murmured, but those with tickets would be willing to accept any repercussions if they existed. A lie, a detention, anything is worth the three days of music, sun and freedom.

Or so I imagine. Coachella feels

like a myth more than anything else.

It has transformed in my mind from a simple music festival to a mystical experience, a unique subculture of musical wonder and unparalleled delight. Even its name feels a little magical. And the YouTube stream could never convey all that.

As it dawned on me that I may never make it to Indio, my envy raged momentarily. Like most fables, the legend of Coachella must be rooted in some truth. But more likely than not, my perception is exaggerated.

Coachella is really only a music festival, just one with an excellent line-up and a strong following from private Los Angeles high schools.

So maybe I’ll never be able to tell my children about an epic Coachella weekend way back in the 2010s. I had a perfectly average weekend instead.

But I’ll live.

I probably would have had a positive experience, but my burning “coachell-ousy” will fade, and I’ll never really know what I missed.

Of course, should the opportunity arise to attend some future year, I wouldn’t dare pass it up.

By Judd Liebman

F

or the second consecutive year, the administration excused Coachella-related absences. At first, I was furious that the teachers and deans would accept such a ridiculous excuse for missing school. Not only did it have the potential to wreck classes by having so few students in class, but it also went against the attendance guidelines that I thought were taken so seriously.

I thought the rules were simple.

You come to class every day, every period unless you are sick or have a legitimate excuse corroborated by your parents. Seniors are excused for three days to make college visits, but must fill out a green extended absence form before leaving. These green sheets are also used to excuse students from class for what I thought had to be valid reasons approved by teachers.

Legitimate excuses include doctors’ appointments and sickness.

Turns out, our attendance policy is more simple than I thought: come to class unless your parents sign off on you missing, no matter the excuse.

Want to go to a Dodger game? Get permission from your parents and

Facebook: a ‘double-edged sword’

By Elana Zeltser

R

ecently, my sister forwarded me an interview with college student Jake Reilly, who embarked on what he called his “Amish Project.” For 90 days Reilly didn’t use TV, cell phone or internet.

Reilly said he was distressed over the all-consuming and addictive nature of such superficial means of communication, and set out on a mission to live without them. He said the experience changed his life.

My sister called me that day, desperately trying to convince me to deactivate my Facebook with her for 30 days, a less abrasive version of the project Reilly created. Enjoying Facebook while I was on the phone with her, I laughed, said “no way,” and continued to flip through photos of a friend I hadn’t talked to in six months.

After we hung up, I wasted the next half hour skimming through someone else’s “happy birthday” posts and began to reassess my decision.

Something Reilly said struck a chord

with me. His fundamental frustration with the site was that profiles only represent the superficial aspects of daily life. The more I thought about this, the more I began to agree.

People post the most flattering photos of themselves doing the most fun things with the friends they find most exciting. In this virtual world where “liking” is the only emotion, it becomes so easy to get caught up in the presumably delightful lives that people work so hard to project.

I weighed what I would gain and what I would give up by disconnecting myself from Facebook, and with a swift click of the deactivation button, I decided part of the fun would be figuring that out along the way.

Even though I would have been quick to say that Facebook was merely a form of entertainment, I was curious to see how much of my social life was actually chained to the blue and white bars of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s prison.

you can go. College baseball game? No problem, all you need is a signature.

Want to sleep in? Go for it, just make sure your parents write you a note.

Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra said only your parents can dictate where you need to be every day, not the school.

This program is a terrible excuse for an attendance policy. We’re in high school to learn, but right now, this policy teaches us to have our parents bail us out. We do not need to be held accountable for our actions, as our parents can always just write off a ditch day.

Head of Attendance Gabriel Preciado does a great job of keeping track of every student, every period. Lying to him is disrespectful. Turning in bogus excuses, I think, is equally rude.

If you really think you have a reason to miss school, take the detention that comes.

I’ve had days where I think I can’t come to school. If I’m overtired, I’ll rally the best I can. If I’m actually feeling ill, a sick day is warranted.

That said, we shouldn’t abuse our extremely lenient policy.

I began to understand that Facebook is a tool for me: a resource more important than Moodle or Outlook.

Throughout the rest of the weekend I was surprised to find I did not miss the networking experience much at all — rather it was somewhat liberating. Despite occasionally moving my mouse to the Facebook shortcut on my Safari out of habit, I had free time to fill that most likely would have been spent scrolling up and down my newsfeed.

As the school week rolled around, with it came the inevitable tests and assignments, and I began to realize Facebook’s true importance in my life. It was not, as I previously thought, simply for my own personal enjoyment.

Instead, I began to understand that Facebook is a tool for me: a resource more important than Moodle or Outlook. I simply had no way of reaching countless people with whom I could discuss an upcoming test or assignment, ask a quick question or help a classmate out. I only have a few phone numbers, but I can reach

practically anyone in any of my classes through Facebook. I missed wishing a few friends “happy birthday” because I never got the update. I fell behind on the proceedings of clubs I am in that post on Facebook groups. The Fanatics page, for instance, posts regularly about events that I would have a hard time hearing about any other way.

It became clearer and clearer to me that by failing to comply with the technology-oriented world, I ran the risk of falling behind. Facebook may serve to be the ultimate tool of procrastination, but it is truly a double-edged sword. The site also acts as a quick and reliable avenue of communication essential for the overly stressed and busy high school student.

Reilly was definitely right in that social media has become something of an evil in our society, but I have come to find, at this point in my life, it is truly a necessary evil.

The Chronicle

A14 Opinion

April 25, 2012

Finding my forte in second semester

By Anabel Pasarow

I

thought second semester senior year would be one big messy freefor-all. I would be the absentee punk kid opting for surf lessons with cool college-drop-out instructors by day and pulling all-nighters by night, or going to double features at the movies and feeling no remorse about not buying a ticket for the second show. These things haven’t happened though. While these delusions are not totally far off (I have been slacking off in school a bit), my plans for the semester were thrown off, in part by my Creative Writing class. In January, I stared at my schedule for the impending semester with quasi-excitement and some dread. Just the idea alone of having to crank out projects that probably required too much effort was kind of unsettling. I was close to dropping the class before the semester even began.

But what I had looked to with mostly indifference before the semester started turned into my day’s peak. Each new day of class became a 45-minute-long escape filled with blindfolded writing and iambic pentameter.

I sit pretzel-style at the same desk every day, taking in the signature sardonic, praising and witty commentaries of my classmates. There is the comfort of my little journal. I love to watch the contours of my pencil strokes and the way the ashes of my eraser collect in the seams of my journal. The tapping of toes around the room as we work in mellow calm is interchangeable with the passionate cries of students eager to defend their interpretations of and reactions to prose. The prospect of new writing forms and styles thrills me, the prospect of learning them, even more so. I am crafting stories and poems about faraway lands and dreaming up characters at the will of my pencil.

Creative Writing grounds my days and serves as the centerpiece of my second semester. I produce work that I am proud of, and it only enhances my seniordom. This second semester is leagues better than the fictitious one I had dreamed up six months ago. I feel so lucky to have these sentiments.

Make it your goal to do what floats your boat. And even if it doesn’t float your boat, try it, because maybe you’ll learn that it does.

Latin: a dead but relevant language

By David Lim and Michael Rothberg

O

ur friends take “practical” languages that they can “speak” with living people.

They travel abroad to immerse themselves in living cultures. Their languages can be tools that help them connect in an ever-globalizing world.

But over the years, we’re glad we’ve stuck with Latin. Of course, we’ve heard slanderous accusations that Latin is a “dead language.” People say that it is impractical. They say we only took it too boost our SAT score with obscure Latin derivatives like “ambulance,” “Argentina” and “beef.”

Nonetheless, we were willing to spend an entire year deciphering the intricate epic poem, the Aeneid by Virgil. We read about the trials and tribulations of the dutiful Aeneas on his journey to found Rome and carry out his divine fate.

But this city-founding, god-fearing, war-waging hero proved to be surprisingly insightful and relevant to the lives of us, two teenagers living in 2012 Los Angeles. Removed from the subjects of our texts both by time and space, we are enabled to observe the most basic human tendencies, which are otherwise shrouded by social conventions and modern culture.

Our connection with Latin is a

uniquely personal one. When we look at the works of Roman authors, there is nothing between us and the words written over two millennia ago. Every time we translate Latin, we explore a complex and vibrant society, bustling with vicious politics, compelling characters and profound ideas.

Each reader can react differently to the same text, for we freely interpret the messages put forth by these writers in reference to our own lives. As juniors, we certainly can all sympathize with Aeneas’ struggle to understand a world that throws challenge after challenge at us. His wanderings through a vast and seemingly endless expanse of ocean to reach a new land bore an uncanny resemblance to our trek through ceaseless homework and tests. Like him, we have even questioned whether all of our efforts were worth it.

By the time we arrive at the Upper School, those who have stayed with the Latin program are part of a tight-knit community. Together, we commiserate over an absurdly large volume of translation. We draw parallels between our daily lives and the experiences of mythological characters like Aeneas or Jupiter.

In our English classes, we manage

We should all be feminists

By Rachel Schwartz

I

try to be respectful of everyone’s opinions, but I feel that those who oppose legalization of gay marriage are either ignorant or bigoted. I don’t feel passionate about this issue only because I have two gay moms. Saying that a traditional definition can prevent marriage between consenting adults reminds me of the arguments used against legalizing interracial marriage during the Civil Rights Movement.

I like to think of myself as a poster-child for the success of gay families, and I try to confront people about the reality of diverse family structures.

We still live in a hetero-normative world where everyone is assumed to be straight. Imagine if we lived in a world where everyone had to come out, where everyone was felt comfortable to declare love for whomever they

RACHEL SCHWARTZ/CHRONICLE

wanted and thus uniquely express their own sexuality?

With strangers I will casually use ‘mothers’ in plural to see if strangers pick up on why my family is different.

I am mostly surprised if they pick it up immediately. I don’t mind having to spell out “My moms are lesbians,” but sometimes I think people’s overly enthusiastic, “Ooooh!’s” or “Oh my God, I love lesbians!” is their code to assure me that they are comfortable with the fact that my parents are gay, when really the unfamiliarity makes them uncomfortable. I like to think that I help people expand their expectations to include diverse families like mine.

When I was at a summer camp the summer before eighth grade, I had a friend who was as emphatically conservative as I was liberal and said things like “Women should stay

to bring obscure figures of speeches, known only to fellow Latin scholars into our discussions of Darl, Gatsby and Sethe.

The Latin teachers at HarvardWestlake have consistently been some of the most devoted and passionate teachers we have encountered. With every class they share their unequaled enthusiasm for the Latin language and Roman culture with us, their eager students. They make even the more tedious topics in grammar interesting and even humorous.

Like the Sibyl who guided Aeneas through the underworld in a surreal journey, our Latin teachers have taken us through Harvard-Westlake have left us imbued with a classical perspective that will likely shape our lives for years to come.

Perhaps, the slanderers have some truth in saying Latin is dead with no native speakers to find anywhere. But its legacy continues to thrive today. We’re not talking about the 700 million speakers of Latin-derived Romance languages or the fact that the majority of English words come from Latin. Maybe Latin is dead, but the teachers at HarvardWestlake bring it to life.

We as youth have tremendous power since our decisions and beliefs will shape the future. I think everyone should be what Dolores Huerta defined as a feminist: an activist for equality.

home and cook.” Livid, I would start debating so aggressively that I would nearly scream and never let him get a word in edgewise. Even though I still consider myself the polar opposite of him politically, he said something in response to my fury that changed the way I look at the world: “If I’m not allowed to have my opinion, neither are you.”

This comment started me thinking about respecting rights to personal viewpoints; if I want the liberty to express myself, I guess I must concede the same right to conservatives.

Today, I think of myself as much more levelheaded and receptive to different points of view. For the most part can respect opinions no matter how strongly I disagree. But, with gay marriage, I think that homophobia is the number one reason behind anti-

equality legislation. America is very good at holding on tenaciously to the comfortable past, yet in the future we may reflect upon anti-gay marriage proponents as bigots. We as youth have tremendous power since our beliefs and decisions will shape the future. I think everyone should be what Dolores Huerta defined as a feminist: an activist for equality.

I just don’t understand why people say to me “Oh, so you’re a feminist,” when I make a comment that points out an inequality. I feel like yelling “Oh, so you’re NOT a feminist? You don’t believe in gender equality?”

Men can be feminists and girls can still shave their legs. We don’t have to chain ourselves to the White House gates. To be a feminist means to be aware of women’s power and to act on this power to make a more just world.

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

quadtalk

Opinion A15

The Chronicle asked seniors:

“Do you think the administration and/or Prefect Council does enough to help facilitate senior events?”

111 seniors weighed in on the Chronicle poll:

“The only event I can think of is Senior Retreat. They could do some cool events like senioronly Coffee House events.”

58

Yes

—Jackie Arkush ’12

“I feel like there have been many senior events and the seniors have really bonded as a whole. If that is due to the Prefect Council, then good job Prefect Council.”

53

No

SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE

“I guess they could be doing more considering I can’t think of a single senior event, but that being said it’s not like there’s a void in my life because of it.”

—Noah Weinman ’12

—Hannah Zipperman ’12

ABBIE NEUFELD/CHRONICLE

“No, I mean we don’t have senior events.

Someone suggested having a sleepover in the gym, that’d be cool. But that’s big, we shouldw just have stuff in the quad or after school. “

“There haven’t really been many senior events — I can’t recall any events. I definitely wish there were more senior events.”

—Jake Schapiro ’12

—Colin Campbell ’12 SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE

“Do you think the school should excuse absences for Coachella?”

The Chronicle asked:

245 students weighed in on the Chronicle poll:

“Yes, Coachella is an opportunity to experience new music and it offers a short break from all the hard work of the school year.”

174

Yes

—Elizabeth Cohen ’14

No

SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE

“Yes, it’s nice to give us a chance to be teenagers.”

—Patric Verrone ’13

71

“If [students] wish to spend a weekend listening to hipster music and smoking excessive amounts of marijuana, they should have to deal with the consequences of their choices.”

—Tom Thorne ’14

ABBIE NEUFELD/CHRONICLE

“Yes, because it is a vacation like anything else and students can take a day off here and there. ”

“For the most part, yes.

Students understand what classes and work they will miss and will have to take responsibilty to make it up. I don’t think that they should be punished as long as they do.”

—Wiley Webb ’12

“If they don’t, it won’t stop kids from going, it will just cause more kids and parents to lie.”

—Kacey Wilson ’12

reportcard + A B “Spring in Your Step” raises $7,000 for Gabri Charter School

—Laurel Aberle ’13

ABBIE NEUFELD/CHRONICLE

The editorial board of the Chronicle evaluates recent campus developments.

Boba is a regular option in the cafeteria.

C-

Noise from Kutler Center construction distracts classes in Seaver.

D

Teachers threatened to give zeros on graded assignments if seniors ditched on ditch day.

exposure

April 25, 2012

between

Lines

More than 200 performers, writers and directors collaborated to create last weekend’s annual Playwrights’ Festival. Here are selected lines from the 11 student-written one acts.

“

“

It’s like everything

Are you

the

fantastic

prostituting

that I’ve ever experienced

combined with

yourself?”

adventure and

splinters.”

—Maddie Lear ’13, as Abby in “A Dollar A Point”

by Cathy Mayer ’12, in which high school students pay the valedictorian, played

by Greg Lehrhoff ’14, left, to take the SAT for them

—Noah Ross ’12, upon leaving his home, the table, for the first time, prompted by a woman, portrayed by Kassie Shannon ’13 , in “Under The Table” by Alex Gura ’12

ELANA ZELTSER/CHRONICLE

“

Studies have shown that

drinking alcohol improves

foreign

language skills.”

—Olivia Schiavelli ’12, as Genevieve, far left, in “The Keeping”

by Dani Wieder ’12.

The play followed four female code-breakers during World War II.

“ “ “

somewhere.

I want to go

nowhere.”

ELANA ZELTSER/CHRONICLE

Mazelle Etessami ’14 and Nick Healy ’13, as lovers in silent play “Ocean, Desert, Arctic, Ocean”

by Hank Doughan ’12

—Jake Chapman ’12, as Ian, left, in “Echo”

by Wyatt Kroopf ’12, in which Ian and his friend Ray, Alex Musciant ’13, right, drive to a cave

I’m not in love

I’m not like,

Not many people

know this about me,

but I was the first

flapper.”

ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

I don’t want to go

with everything.

CHEERS: Actresses Olivia Schiavelli ’12, Catherine Davis ’13, Megan Ward ’13 and Bella Hicks ’12 toast as World War II code-breakers in “The Keeping,” by Dani Wieder ’12. Wieder’s play won the Leon C. Fan Memorial Award, which honors the late Fan’s ’88 “desire to promote students of the dramatic arts,” the festival program says. The other one acts performed, not pictured, were: “Arc” by Elana Zeltser ’13, “A Melody of Spring” by Tara Joshi ’14, “Pope Fiction” by Natalie Markiles ’13 and “Occupy” by Cory Batchler ’13.

A16

—Grace Levin ’14, as Mrs. Patterson, in “The Nightshift At Gooseneck”

by Rebecca Moretti ’13, which describes a bar’s closing night through the eyes of a bartender, played by Angus O’Brian ’14, left.

ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

‘Hey, nice stapler.

Let’s get

ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

—Ben Gail ’13, as Seth Cook, in “The Good Boy,”

by Leland Frankel ’12.

Cook, who is homeless, meets charity worker Moira Donnelly, played by Chloe Lister ’12.

freaky.’ ” ARIELLE MAXNER/CHRONICLE

F

The Chronicle • April 25, 2012

eatures

Los Angeles • Volume XXI • Issue VII

t a g n i l l chi

coachella

YOUNG, WILD AND FREE: Corinne Miller ’12 and Caroline Maeda ’12 jump in excitement upon arriving at the Empire Polo Field, top. Girl Talk peforms on the last day of Weekend 1, middle.

Nadia Dubovitsky ’12 dances to the Arctic Monkeys at the Coachella Stage, bottom.

A record number of students made the annual trek to Indio, Calif. to catch acts like Radiohead, Florence + the Machine, David Guetta and even a ghostly reappearance of Tupac Shakur.

By Justine Goode As over 100 students streamed into the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 13, they likely had no idea that by the end of the weekend, they would witness a resurrection. Those who stayed for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s set on Sunday, April 15 found themselves cheering on late rap legend Tupac Shakur as a life-like hologram performed his hit “Hail Mary.” Most students were infants when the rapper died in a 1996 shooting.

“Tupac was incredible,” Molly Chapman ’14 said. “I’m still in awe of how they did that. It was amazing and definitely one of my favorite moments from Coachella.”

The three-day festival, which also ran for a second weekend April 20-22, spanned 30 acres of grass dotted by five stages and a number of whimsical sculptures. A giant mechanical orchid bloomed next to a food court, and a massive metal lobster with flaming antennae watched over the entrance to the Mojave tent.

According to Head of Attendance Gabriel Preciado, 111 students were absent for Coachella on Friday, April 13, and 60 students were absent on Monday, April 16. Last year, only 61 students missed Friday and 12 missed the following Monday.

One band making their Coachella debut was honeyhoney, which featured Brian Gross’ ’12 bass teacher Patrick Taylor.

“It was really exciting to see him play,” Gross said. “One can only play as well as they are taught, so it confirmed my thought that he is right for me. Patrick has been my friend for years, and it is super exciting to see a friend play a show like Coachella.”

Many students found ways to get prime spots near the stages, whether they arrived a few sets early or elbowed their way up at the last minute.

Corinne Miller ’12 was almost in the front row for Childish Gambino’s set on Saturday, April 14.

“The set was at 2:50 p.m., so we got to the festival around 1,” Miller said. “We got really good spots for the band before him, so that when he finally came on we were right in front of him.”

The performance was a highlight for Miller, who had played Gambino’s most recent album, “Camp,” on repeat during the drive to Coachella.

Camping out on a site adjacent to the Coachella grounds allowed Graham Cairns ’12 to stay a part of the festival’s excitement long after the last set had been played.

“It was a nonstop party,” Cairns said.

Camping helped him avoid the rush to get to sets on time, and the energy from the day carried over into the atmosphere of the campground.

“Camping is the only way to go,” he said.

PHOTOS BY JUSTINE GOODE/CHRONICLE

The Chronicle

B2 Features

April 25, 2012

>>

Hilary Ethe ‘00 science teacher

>> vox archives

Yanni Vourgourakis ‘90 science teacher

vox archives megan ward/chronicle

Isaac Laskin ‘98 English teacher

>>

megan ward/chronicle

Adam Howard ‘93 English teacher vox archives

Katie Lowry ‘99 dance and yoga teacher

chloe lister /chronicle

>>

>> vox archives

Back to class

By Maddy Baxter and Gabrielle Franchina

I

n Upper School English teacher Isaac Laskin’s ’98 sophomore year, performing arts teacher Ted Walch cast him as Big Julie, a husky character, in “Guys and Dolls.”

He had a growth spurt late, so he was very short as a senior, Walch said. In an attempt to make the character work, Walch used basketball players Jason Collins ’97, who was 7 feet tall, and Jarron Collins ’97, who was 6 feet 11 inches tall, to play Laskin’s bodyguards.

“He was brilliant. It was really kind of wonderful,” Walch said.

Nowadays, Laskin walks into Rugby Hall in a different role each morning. On his way in, he passes Rugby Auditorium and the stage where he starred as Big Julie and enters the same classrooms he sat in every day for three years, where he now teaches sophomores and juniors.

Laskin is just one of many faculty members who attended HarvardWestlake as a student before returning to teach among familiar faces. Former teacher-student relationships have transformed into friendships and professional relationships.

When Katie Lowry ’99 watches her students dance around the Chalmers studio, she knows exactly what it feels like to be in their shoes.

“It feels a bit like I’m being let behind the curtain,” Lowry said. “A lot feels the same, but there are some things that make the school feel very different.”

Upper school English teacher Adam Howard ’93 said the transition was simple.

“It’s not too weird to be colleagues and now friends with some of my former teachers,” Howard said. “Ted Walch and I have been buddies for many years, and if anything, I feel that

megan ward/chronicle

vox archives

megan ward/chronicle

Not that long ago, the colleagues these five teachers eat lunch with and attend faculty meetings with were giving them homework and grading their papers.

we’re closer through our multi-stage all had Cairns as a teacher or adviser. experiences with each other.”

Upon each student’s return, Cairns Walch and Howard first became shows him or her the recommendation friends when Howard tried out for the she wrote for him or her when they musical “Hair,” and Walch did not call were applying to college.

Howard back after his first audition.

“I think it’s more awkward for them Howard refused to give up and later than for me, but not for long,” Cairns approached Walch, asking him for one said. more chance to show him what he had “Over the years, no one has sat worked on. He wound up with one of in my office and said, ‘I want to be a the leading roles. high school science teacher,’ so it is fun “If you’ve when they come had kids in back and realize theater, you get how wonderful to know them in the job really is It feels a bit like I’m being a different way,” — the schedule, Walch said. “I the kids. It’s fun let behind the curtain. A lot knew them also they come to feels the same, but there are that as friends. I’m not the realization,” some things that make the surprised at all at Cairns said. their success as Vourgourakis school very different.” teachers.” says he first Not a year —Katie Lowry ’99 interviewed at the has gone by Upper School Dance school because he without Walch and Yoga teacher needed a job after seeing Howard spending two or Laskin several years traveling times, Walch said. after grad school but has been happy Upper school science teacher Yanni teaching at Harvard-Westlake ever Vourgourakis ’90 also has co-workers since. who were once his teachers.

“It feels old and less fun [than “As I recall John Feulner was my being a student] but I like not having physics teacher, Nini Halkett and homework,” said Vourgourakis.

Katherine Holmes-Chuba taught me Upper school science teacher Hilary history, or at least tried,” Vourgourakis Ethe ’00 said it is a privilege to learn, said. “I wasn’t the best, but at least as a teacher, from people who have I remember the ins and outs of been teaching for many years.

Romanesque architecture.

Vanna “It must be weird for them in a way Cairns was my college counselor, and because they remember me as a kid,” Coach Greg Hilliard was my basketball Ethe said. coach.”

Lowry was also excited to work Upper School Dean Vanna Cairns with her old teachers. She said when has worked at Harvard-Westlake she was a student, she was extremely for 27 years. At one point, she had influenced by upper school dance a past student serving as a faculty teacher Cyndy Winter and the dance member in every department. program itself.

Howard, Vourgourakis, Plant Manager “When the opportunity came to Dave Mintz ’87 and Middle School teach along with Cyndy, I jumped at mathematics teacher Dan Reeves ’94 it,” Lowry said. “Now that I’m teaching

“

both dance and yoga, I’m able to share two of my greatest passions with bright and talented young students.”

Howard recalls some vivid traditions from his time at Harvard School that have been lost since the merger with Westlake. He said the school has evolved into a very different place than he remembers.

“When the school was all boys, we had seventh through 12th graders on one campus,” Howard said. “Seventh graders weren’t allowed, unofficially, to take the tower to class. If a senior saw you, he’d make you turn around or pick you up and carry you to the bottom of the staircase. It was all about paying our dues, like first-year students at Hogwarts.”

Similarly, Ethe still looks back fondly on many of her unique high school experiences, including some embarrassing ones.

“One of the funniest memories I have is of my 10th grade Spanish teacher trying to make me laugh after I had my wisdom teeth removed,” Ethe said. “I looked ridiculous with swollen chipmunk cheeks, and he tried to crack me up all week so I wouldn’t feel so embarrassed.”

Lowry still keeps in touch with many classmates, recalling her favorite memories and stories with them.

“I’m still very close to many of my friends from Harvard-Westlake, so we reminisce about our high school days often,” Lowry said. “I have great memories from canoeing down the Colorado river to dancing at the prom.”

However, Vourgourakis said that when he attended his 20-year reunion, he could not remember many names, but could still recite the opening to the Canterbury tales in Old English.

“Harvard-Westlake is a great place to learn and a great place to work,” Howard said. “If there’s an opening, who wouldn’t want to come back here?”

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

A gift that

saved his life

Jazz director Shawn Costantino underwent a kidney transplant in October after a test showed that only 10 percent of his kidney muscle was still active.

The diseased/low functioning kidney is not removed from the body during a kidney transplant, as doing so increases mortality rate.

Features B3

Renal vein

Renal artery

The donor kidney is surgically implanted near the pelvis.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELANA ZELTSER

By Jessica Barzilay

T

his year, jazz director Shawn Costantino’s father gave him the best birthday gift he could have imagined — a kidney. On Oct. 25, two days after a quiet family celebration, Costantino underwent kidney transplant surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

“It was scary, but it was also kind of the best birthday ever because I woke up feeling better,” Costantino said.

The surgery treated Costantino for Focal Segmental Glomerularsclerosis, a kidney disease he contracted while playing saxophone on a cruise ship during college.

He was suffering from an ear infection at the time that damaged his kidney function. The antibiotics he was prescribed worsened the condition. FSGS causes scarring of the glomeruli, which filters blood in the kidney, according to the University of North Carolina Kidney Center. As a result of the disease, the kidney muscle atrophies, allowing dangerously unfiltered blood to circulate. Costantino has monitored his blood levels with the help of a nephrologist for over a decade, but last year test results first indicated the need for a transplant, as only about 10 percent of his kidney muscle was still functioning.

His father was the first of several of Costantino’s family members to volunteer as kidney donor immediately upon the diagnosis. Both his mother, Anne, and father, Nick, spent over a month living with Costantino and his wife, middle school

ELANA ZELTSER/CHRONICLE

dance teacher Carrie Green-Costantino ’99, at first to help his father recover and then to support Costantino during his healing period.

An outpouring of support helped him throughout his recovery and medical leave, Costantino said. Immediately after the procedure, Green-Costantino started her husband on a strict physical and dietary regimen.

“Since my wife is a dancer and a fitness freak, it was decided that I would make a fast recovery,” Costantino said.

“Within four hours of when I woke up, she had me walking around the hospital. She went from wife to personal trainer.”

During his bed rest, members of the school community and the jazz program flocked to Costantino’s side to show their support and enrich his recovery with music, making it as stress-free as possible. From the faculty came flowers, balloons, iTunes gift cards and presents. From his students came cards and visits. And from the parents came a food train, delivering daily meals to the Costantinos’ doorstep throughout his recovery.

“It was really uplifting to know that besides my family, there were people treating me like family,” Costantino said. “I think that’s a big reason why so many teachers stay here for their entire career, knowing that people care about you so much. They stopped what they were doing and helped.”

“The school and both Mr. C’s and my students’ families were so supportive, caring and involved,” GreenCostantino said. “I firmly believe Mr. C would not have recovered as well and quickly as he did were it not for this kind of support.”

Natalie Freedman (Chris ’12) coordinated the food delivery through a website called lotsahelpinghands.com.

After communicating with GreenCostantino, Freedman posted grocery lists that followed the doctor’s nutritional guidelines.

“Originally, we started this so that Green-Costantino didn’t need to be

worried and could just focus on taking care of Shawn,” Freedman said. “It was about creating a caring community.

You didn’t have to bother the family or the patient.”

In addition to compiling a list of acceptable foods, the parents, led by Freedman, organized all the deliveries, Green-Costantino said.

“The generous groceries that were provided to us every day by H-W families not only lifted the burden of grocery shopping for me, but it enabled me to cook quality fresh food for Mr. C. every day,” Green-Costantino said.

Costatino’s substitute Rymvidas Paulikas kept the jazz program up to high standards, Costantino said. To Noah Weinman ’12, a saxophonist in Jazz Explorers, this level of play comes from Costantino’s musical flexibility.

“He really gets the point when it comes to playing,” Weinman said.

“Some teachers try to make sure you hit everything just for the sake of hitting everything, but Mr. C. has a real approach to jazz. He gets at what matters.”

Green-Costantino left the dance program in the hands of her co-worker Kathleen Davidson.

“I could really focus on being a good nurse for Mr. C.,” she said.

Aside from diet, fitness was a huge part of the recovery. Costantino said his wife was instrumental in setting him on the right track to a healthy lifestyle.

“She’s kind of a rock star,” he said.

The couple jogs, lifts weights and rides bikes together.

“Now Mr. C is way faster than I am,” Green-Costantino said.

Costantino led his first jazz performance March 9 and 10 and traveled to South America with the jazz players over spring break.

He is currently preparing his students for their upcoming spring jazz concert April 27.

“We are just so grateful to so many people for helping us through this challenging time,” Green-Costantino said.

Jazz band performs 6 concerts in Argentina over spring break

By Eojin Choi

With hundreds of Argentinians watching, Laurel Wayne ’13 stepped forward, gripping her trumpet tightly in her fingers. She stood alone at the front of the stage with the rest of the band backing her up.

When the band finished the piece, the audience erupted into cheers and applause, Wayne said.

The upper school jazz band members performed six concerts in Argentina over spring break.

The 25 band members, accompanied by performing arts teachers Shawn Costantino, Carrie GreenCostantino ’99 and Starr Wayne, performed in concerts and immersed themselves in Argentinian music and culture. Their audiences, composed mostly of Argentinians who wanted to

hear jazz, ranged from a small group to 900 people.

“It was scary and difficult to play in front of so many people, but at the same time, I grew as a performer,” Wayne said.

In their free time, the members watched a tango show and visited the Pink House and the White House of Argentina, among other activities.

The students met the jazz bands of two other schools to talk and play music for each other.

Through this experience, Wayne said that they learned about the school lives of Argentinian students and thier different styles of music.

“It was amazing,” said band member Justin Ho ‘12. “It really gave me a better appreciation for the time and the work we as a band put into our music. I had so much fun [performing].”

ARGENTINIAN ADVENTURE: Members of the Jazz Band stopped in the street to watch some live magic. Jazz director Shawn Costantino conducts the Jazz Band during a performance abroad.

PHOTOS PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF STARR WAYNE

B4 Features

Also known as...

The Chronicle

Nicknames given by coaches, teachers and friends have replaced the real names of students and faculty.

CLAIRE HONG/CHRONICLE

CLAIRE HONG/CHRONICLE

Alex “Randy” Rand-Lewis ’12

By Sanjana Kucheria and Rebecca Nussbaum Justin “Chestnut” Berman ’13 Justin Berman’s ’13 name changed on his first day of cross country practice. When coach and Olympic gold medalist Johnny Gray asked his name, he replied, “Justin.” Unable to hear the young, shy runner, Gray thought he said “Chestnut.” The nickname became a joke among the runners, and while it began with a few teammates referring to Berman as Chestnut, it quickly spread throughout the school.

It’s gotten to the point where he introduces himself as “Chestnut” to other students.

“I bet a lot of people don’t even know my name is Justin,” he said.

“I’ve even had to make it my middle name on Facebook so that when people search ‘Chestnut’ they find me.”

“It’s special though because it was given to me during my most meaningful activity I partake in at HarvardWestlake,” Berman said. “Over my three years at Harvard-Westlake, the cross country team has become a second family to me, and it’s thanks to the team that I got this nickname.”

April 25, 2012

CLAIRE HONG/CHRONICLE

Alec “Choma” Zwaneveld ’12 Alec Zwaneveld’s ’12 first name is essentially unknown on campus, he said. Instead, he is “Choma.” The nickname was created by his old water polo coach, Richard Corso, during a summer camp six years ago.

Zwaneveld’s mom bought him a swimsuit that had red, white and blue stripes zigzagging up and down the back. Unknowingly, Zwaneveld was wearing the Russian national team swim suit. The captain of the Russian team was Revaz Chomakhidze. Corso decided to call Zwaneveld “Chomakhidze” for the remainder of the camp, which was shortened to “Choma.”

Six years later, the nickname has stuck, as waterpolo players and students know him as “Choma.”

“I like to think that the person I am in the water is known as Choma, but when I’m out of it, I’m Alec,” Zwaneveld said. “I really don’t care what anybody decides to call me, because I’m both people at once. It’s unique, some would say weird, and I like that.”

Randy, Randelion, ARL and CARL. Alex Rand-Lewis’ ’12 name has inspired a wide variety of nicknames, “I have a large number of nicknames, so there really isn’t any single nickname I hear consistently,” RandLewis said.

His most popular nickname, Randy, was coined by the baseball team because players call each other by their last names.

“Rand-Lewis is a mouthful,” he said. “Calling me Randy made it easier to get my attention quickly.”

Another nickname is Nelson Randela, given to Rand-Lewis by his carpool driver, Connor Dillman ’11, during his sophomore year. Dillman had been reading about Nelson Mandela and mashed the two names, Nelson Mandela and Alex Rand-Lewis, together.

ARL is yet another of Rand-Lewis’ nicknames. Initially given to him by his ninth grade geometry teacher, Dan Reeves, ARL is now used predominantly by the yearbook staff.

“My nicknames are special to me because they make me feel unique” Rand-Lewis said. “It makes me feel like I stand out.”

JAMIE CHANG/CHRONICLE

Larry “Axe” Axelrod Science Department Chair Larry Axelrod’s nickname has stuck with him for decades. He began going by Axe in high school because he never liked his first name much, he said.

Now most of his close friends call him Axe, and that’s how he refers to himself, too.

“I’m not sure where students necessarily picked it up,” he said. “Although sometimes, I may sign emails ‘Axe’ or sometimes I’ll say, ‘Oh, you can call me Mr. Axe if [Axelrod] is too long,’ and then that gets cut off.”

Typically students begin the school year calling him Mr. Axelrod and adopt his shortened nickname once they get wind of it.

“When kids first come into class, most don’t know me, so they’re more formal,” he said.

The informality of the nickname doesn’t bother Axelrod at all, he said.

“At this point, they [call me Axe] a lot,” Axelrod said. “It’s probably something that grew over the years.”

www.ombrala.com

3737 Cahuenga Blvd.

Studio City, CA 91604 info@ombrala.com 818-985-7337

Harvard-Westlake Proud Book your events now!

April 25, 2012

chronicle.hw.com

Driving distracted

By Megan Ward

documented that the reaction time of a person approaching a red light while Jenna* was cruising to school for texting will begin braking about 60 feet the first time in her brand new Volk- later than a person who is legally drunk swagen Jetta, taking a new route, when at .08 breath alcohol content level. her built-in GPS stopped working. InLuckily for Jenna, her airbags destead of pulling over, she took out her ployed, and she managed to escape the phone to check a map on her iPhone. accident with only bad bruising from As she was driving downhill, picking the seatbelt and cuts that stretched up speed, she didn’t realize she had from her chest to her neck and a first swerved into oncoming traffic. Before offense fine. she had time to react, she smashed Tickets for using a cellular device head on into, a large pick-up truck. begin at $20, the base fine for the first According to the California De- infraction, and $50 for repeat offenders. partment of Motor Vehicles, the lead- According to an article in the Los Aning cause of death in teenage years geles Times, after penalties and court is car crashes.

Statistics show that fees, the tickets usually cost over $140, around 10 teenagand different situers die a day from ations can lead to distracted drivhigher penalties. ing accidents. A Although the ofAccidents can happen study conducted fense is reportwithin two seconds and by the Virginia able, no points are Tech Transporadded to a driver’s the consequences are tation Institute license. If a drivvery severe. Don’t think and the National er accumulates Highway Traffic enough points you’re invincible on the Safety Adminisfrom traffic law road because anything can violations, his or tration found that happen.”

80 percent of acher license can be cidents and 65 suspended.

—Jenna* percent of “nearHowever, if crashes” occur the driver is a rewhen the driver is peat offender, the distracted. driver in question can face more seriAlthough California law now pro- ous penalties, like suspension of their hibits the use of cell phones for drivers license at the discretion of a judge. under the age of 18 and prohibits tex- Many accidents occur at traffic lights ting and the use of handheld devices for and intersections when the driver drivers over 18, accidents continue to takes out his or her phone to send a occur because of this problem. message while the vehicle is slowing “After the crash, I was sore all over down or stopped. and everything hurt,” Jenna said. “I Rebecca Aaron ’13 was in the car could barely walk or even bend down. with her mom when a distracted driver My back was aching so badly, it hurt to hit them from an opposite lane. even lie down. It took a while to fully “He wasn’t looking at oncoming recover. I had bandages on both my traffic,” she said. “It was eye-opening wrists for some time, too. The whole to see that an experienced driver didn’t thing was just awful.” even look up to see a sign that said he Car and Driver Magazine has even couldn’t turn left when he turned right

“

Features B5

CAMI DE RY/CHRONICLE

Texting while driving is illegal and can be as dangerous as driving under the influence, yet many students have a hard time fighting the urge to use their cell phones behind the wheel.

into our car.”

Elana Meer ’13 said it is difficult to not answer a call from a parent.

“When my mom calls, I feel the need to pick up,” she said. “But I am always safe and try to pull over if possible or put my phone on speaker. Parents worry sometimes if you don’t pick up, which makes it more difficult to ignore the call.”

To combat this, many cell phone carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless and insurance companies such as Allstate are taking initiative and starting campaigns against distracted driving. Companies have reduced the prices on hands-free devices, making them more accessible and affordable. Incentives on insurance policies reward careful driving, lowering the price of insurance for drivers who do not have any reportable offenses within their first two years of driving.

Along with these campaigns, new cell phone applications are being created that can stop a driver from receiving or send calls or texts messages while in motion. These programs, such as iZup, Textblocker and Phoneguard, can be programmed to send an automatic message to whomever is trying to reach the driver informing them that he or she is driving. Another devise, Cellcontrol, is a piece of hardware that can be inserted into the OBD port under the steering wheel of a car. This will send a signal to the phone when the car is in motion and put up a blocking screen so that no phone calls or text messages, except for emergency calls to 911, can be made.

“I never thought I’d total my brand new car, but look what happened,” Jenna said. “Accidents can happen within two seconds and the consequences are very severe. Don’t think you’re invincible on the road because anything can happen.” * name has been changed

Texting and Driving Various studies show that texting and driving causes a dangerous increase in chances of getting into a car accident.

60% 49% 34% 18% 16%

of drivers use their cells phones while driving. of drivers with cell phones under the age of 35 send or read text messages while driving. of teens who text message admit to texting while driving. of fatalities in distraction-related crashes involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction. of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving.

SOURCE: WWW.STOPTEXTSSTOPWRECKS.ORG GRAPHIC BY CAMI DE RY

The Chronicle

B6 Features

April 25

From a single camer screens, videos uplo students to share ar

Writer brings music to life on YouTube

By Eli Haims Leland Frankel ’12 walked backwards down a street adjacent to the Venice Beach Boardwalk with a video camera in one hand and an iPod in the other. “Beach Chair Reserve,”

by Giant Pony, a band whose members include Frankel’s former tutor, played from the musical device. A woman in a bluegreen dress and red Ray-Bans followed Frankel, singing the lyrics to the song.

“Even with the person who wrote the song, it’s going to be tricky [to sync the music to the video],” Frankel said, while shooting a music video at the time. “You think you know something, and when you’re trying to sync up to it exactly, it doesn’t always work.”

Frankel began making music videos when he was given an assignment to make one in his video art class. That project, which featured Gus Woythaler ’12 and Dory Graham ’13, was filmed on the construction site in the Mudd Library and was one of nearly two dozen student films screened at the Harvard-Westlake Film Festival last month. The day before the festival, Frankel posted the video on YouTube, where it has since massed over 100 views.

“I liked the thought that I could share it with people, and hopefully I guess I could get a lot of people to see it,” he said. “I want to get a lot of reactions to it.”

Frankel started to upload videos to YouTube in seventh grade, when he first started making videos.

Although most popular videos on the site are watched hundreds of millions of times, he said that most of his videos have close to no views on the site, except for one entitled “Agent Bernard & Agent Fernando: Part 1.”

“Like five years ago, [the video] leapt up to having like 30,000 views overnight because suddenly all these video watchings were coming from

Spanish speaking countries and all of the comments were in Spanish,” he said. “I think it was because the word Fernando was in the title of the video and for some reason that just popped up on more people’s browsers.”

Brian Gross ’12 said Late Nite Run, the band he and Jack Bloomfield ’13 play in, has been talking about making a music video since last November.

He added that once the band is able to get into the studio and record another track, they will start working on a video.

Gross said the band will most likely work with Frankel, as he is impressed with Frankel’s work.

Late Night Run currently has a couple of recordings of them performing live on YouTube, some of which Frankel has shot.

“I would say primarily Facebook is where we get the most views from and even then, it’s not a lot because people have a billion things on their wall,” he said. “One more video posted by some guy they kind of know isn’t going to stick out.”

Gross agreed that Frankel could do more to promote his videos to get more hits, but said that he does the majority of the promotional work for his band’s videos.

“A new-school way of doing things is Facebook and YouTube and unfortunately, in today’s society, that is the only way, that is the way to do it,” Gross said. “It seems like that’s where its headed and that’s what he should be doing.”

Frankel said he is primarily a writer, not a director, and keeps many of his screenplays off of the internet, as he sends them to studios in hopes of them being picked up.

“The stuff I do for fun, the stuff I make myself, I shoot myself, I put on YouTube to share,” he said. “The projects I make myself, independent of my agent or my producers or anything, those I’ll tend to put on YouTube.”

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF

CAPTURE THE MOMENT: Amanda Aizuss ’13 presents her new iPad 2 while filming video for her channel, iTalkApple. She makes tutorials and gives reviews of other Apple pr

Top Comments

Thousands from around world have voiced their of iTalkApple’s YouTube

How was your experience collaborating on videos?

“

Leland’s a lot of fun to work with. He doesn’t tell me exactly what to do so I guess I kind of have freedom.”

—Gus Woythaler ‘12

nathanson ’s/chronicle

“

nathanson ’s/chronicle

Gus did all of his own dances, and every time he did any type of shot, he’d just be improvising something completely. It was fantastic. The video itself was very rewarding, to edit and put together with music.”

—Leland Frankel ‘12

SCREENSHOTS PRINTED ACCORDING TO COPYRIGHT SPECIFIC

5, 2012

chronicle.hw.com

Features B7

ra lens to millions of computer oaded onto YouTube enable t and ideas globally.

F AMANDA AIZUSS

g a YouTube roducts.

d the r opinions e videos.

CATIONS OF YOUTUBE.COM

Junior captivates millions of viewers with videos about Apple techonology

By Michael Rothberg Amanda Aizuss ’13 displays her brand new 64-gigabyte iPad 2 in front a Canon T3i camera with a smile.

While explaining every feature from the volume button to the fine print on the back, she carefully unboxes the packaging and reveals the device to her viewers. More than 200,000 have viewed the video, after less than a year on the web.

Aizuss started making web videos on YouTube in seventh grade under the alias “iTalkApple” to share her passion for technology and Apple products with the world, she said. In addition to unboxing and reviewing newly released devices, she posts tutorials for Mac OS X based software.

Though her parents bought Aizuss her first computer, she has purchased the rest of her Apple products mostly with the money she makes from the YouTube videos.

Aizuss uses a program called Google AdSense, which posts advertisements related to the content of a video.

The advertisements produce revenue depending on the number of views the video receives.

Aizuss said she tried to keep her videos somewhat secret at the beginning by only telling her closest friends. However, as her YouTube channel became more popular, more people began to discover it.

“When I was in seventh grade, I didn’t want to be judged for being nerdy, and the same in eighth grade,” Aizuss said. “Even though I love doing it, and I’m really passionate about it, I was afraid of people’s reactions.”

Aizuss said she commits hours of effort to the production of her YouTube videos, which she films, writes and edits on her own.

“

A lot of people might see me around school, looking at my phone. I’m usually reading YouTube emails.”

—Amanda Aizuss ‘13 nathanson ’s/chronicle

Having posted over 200 videos, drawing in a total of nearly 3.5 million views on YouTube, Aizuss has attracted a loyal fan-base of roughly 28,000 subscribers. She reads each of the thousands of emails and comments they send.

“A lot of people might see me around school, looking at my phone.

I’m usually reading YouTube emails,” Aizuss said.

Among the messages, Aizuss has received multiple letters from girls and young women, expressing admiration for standing out in a field largely dominated by men.

“This whole YouTube tech thing has gotten popular,” Aizuss said. “I was one of the first people who did it, and I am still basically one of only three girls [making technology based videos].”

Aizuss addressed the issue in her speech in front of the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference in New York. Aizuss attended the conference as part of a trip taken by the Harvard-Westlake chapter of the Girls Learn International club, an organization that encourages leadership and education among young women worldwide.

“The main idea of my speech is that gender should not limit or determine career opportunities, and I also spoke about stereotypes and role models in STEM (Science, Technology,

iTalkApple has: 3.5 million 28,154 video views

subscribers

5,072

219

Twitter followers

videos

Engineering, Math) professions,” Aizuss said. “It was exhilarating speaking to about 150 young men and women about the backlash I encounter as a teen girl who makes technology videos. When I read a few rude comments, there were audible gasps in the audience.”

Aizuss, who can trace the demographics of her viewership on YouTube, said she has viewers from all over the world, including many from Europe, South and Central America.

To stay in touch with such a diverse group of followers, she often posts on Twitter, a popular social media website.

For a time, she had an impersonator on Twitter who posted “racist and sexual things with terrible spelling and grammar” under her name.

“I never communicated with the impersonator, but I contacted Twitter support, and they took the account down after I verified my identity,” Aizuss said. “People are strange.”

Despite some of the hours of work and the sometimes offensive comments Aizuss has received, she said her passion for sharing Apple technology with the world endures.

“I’d like to continue [making videos] in college,” said Aizuss. “I just feel like it would be awkward in a dorm with a roommate sitting there, but I really love it.”

Countries with the most viewers: 1

United States

2

United Kingdom

3

Canada

4

Australia

5

Germany

6

Netherlands SOURCE: YOUTUBE.COM

GRAPHICS BY ALLISON HAMBURGER, GABRIELLE FRANCHINA AND MICHAEL ROTHBERG

Revealing the seniors

Pitzer

“I can’t wait to be in a different environment and meet people from all over the country.”

Wade Clement ’12, “Leo” the athlete

>>

>>

Roz Naimi ’12, “Diana” the filmmaker

Duke

“I’m really excited to have all the opportunities available and create new relationships.”

April 25, 2012

The four anonymous seniors share the colleges they will be attending in the fall, as a new trend, starting university in the spring semester, gains appeal.

Nikki Goren ’12, “Haley” the all-around

Patrick Kang ’12, “Kyle” the brainiac

>>

highstakes

The Chronicle

>>

B8 Features

Vanderbilt

Dartmouth “I really liked the vibe of the campus. I had a senior host and one morning we went on a hike.

I don’t think any other school can say they can just wake up and hike.”

“I’m most excited about meeting a bunch of new people from different walks of life and also studying abroad.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MICHELLE CHANG PHOTOS BY REBECCA NUSSBAUM

Spring college admissions grow in popularity

By Rebecca Nussbaum

Most college-bound 18-year-olds graduate high school in June and begin college in August. However this common path is changing as more universities are offering spring admittance to help manage enrollment, Upper School Dean Vanna Cairns said.

“The college that uses [spring admission] the most is USC,” Cairns said.

USC doesn’t use a waitlist and instead offers some applicants spaces in the spring semester. A handful of these students are eventually admitted to the fall semester, but the majority of them begin college in January.

“Why is that good?” Cairns said.

“Well, you actually are admitted. You are into the college, and that’s better than waiting outside of the door.”

Ryan Blackwell ’12 was thrilled to be accepted to USC, one of his first choice schools, but because he was admitted to the spring, he now faces the conundrum of how to spend his fall semester.

“I have a few options,” Blackwell said. “I could go to community college, I could study abroad, I could get a job or I might be able to go to a UC school for the first semester.”

Months ago, Blackwell didn’t know that spring admittance was an option.

“I just wasn’t expecting that,” he said.

Although he was blindsided by his spring admission, his enthusiasm for USC overshadowed his doubts beginning late, he said.

“There aren’t many other schools that I would accept entering in the spring semester,” Blackwell said.

Other colleges with spring admission policies are American University,

Brandeis University, Colby College, Middlebury College, Northeastern University, Pepperdine University, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego and University of Maryland. Some of these use both waitlists and spring admissions to prioritize applicants, what Cairns called a tiered admissions system.

“Obviously spring is better than a waitlist,” Cairns said. “There’s something compelling about the student, they didn’t have enough space for fall, but they really want the student to come. It’s a tiered admissions system.

I guess that’s what it seems to be. Fall, then spring, then waitlist.”

Five years ago, Northeastern University developed a program to offer spring admits. Through N.U.in, spring admits study at colleges in Australia, Costa Rica, England, Greece and Ireland before attending Northeastern second semester.

By December, Northeastern was Alex Rand-Lewis’ ’12 first choice. He was deferred early action and then admitted for the spring semester.

“Originally I wasn’t really sure what to think of [being admitted for spring],” Rand-Lewis said. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe they’re accepting me just because I showed such an interest, but not really accepting me because it was spring.’”

However after looking into N.U.in, Rand-Lewis became excited about studying abroad.

“The thought of being able to study outside of America and get some experience in the world is pretty impressive,” he said.

Rand-Lewis will study Media Arts and Design through the Foundation for International Education in London

“

I have a few options. I could go to community college, I could study abroad, I could get a job or I might be able to go to a UC school for the first semester.”

—Ryan Blackwell ‘12

before involving himself in the Northeastern journalism program, he said.

“When I looked at it, I realized that it’s actually a big plus,” he said. “I get to experience what kids going directly to Boston have to wait until their third year to experience, and even then I can choose to do it again or not to do it.”

Halle Levitt ’12 was also offered spring admission to Northeastern, and if she chooses to attend the university, she will study communications at the Dublin Business School in Dublin, Ireland. While Levitt hopes to study abroad in college and is interested in the program in Dublin, she has some reservations about returning to Boston in the spring semester.

“I love the concept of studying abroad, but coming back second semester scares me,” she said.

Although Northeastern plans many orientations for spring admits and is proud of fully integrating the new students into life at Northeastern, Levitt worries about starting college months after her peers.

Levitt is still deciding where to attend university, but being accepted spring instead of fall changes her decision.

“I made sure I kept a really big open mind [while applying to colleges],

nathanson ’s/chronicle

so I didn’t really get my heart too set on anywhere when I applied,” she said.

“So it was always going to be a decision making process, but being accepted for spring makes it a different decision making process than I thought it would be.”

There are many possible reasons that students are put in the spring instead of the fall pool.

“Colleges contend there is little difference between the groups and that some students are put in the spring pool because of their majors or for geographic diversity, not grades,” said Larry Gordon in the Los Angeles Times. “They insist that graduation rates are similar and that many midyear students manage to finish with the fall group by taking extra classes or summer courses.”

Cairns said alumni who began college spring semester have generally adjusted successfully. As more universities turn to spring admission programs, Cairns has seen the student body become increasingly open to the spring admit option.

“I think our kids are pretty aware, especially for USC,” she said. “They’ve heard about it so much for USC that if it happens for another school, they are aware of it.”

A

The Chronicle • April 25, 2012

rts & E ntertainment

Orchestra plays medley of classical music and jazz

the Jazz Explorers also played solos on the bassoon, cello and clarinet.

In the last orchestra concert of “It was a mix between classical and the year, Concert Strings, the Wind jazz, something we haven’t done beEnsemble, Percussion Ensemble and fore,” Ha said.

Symphony Orchestra played pieces of Second chair violinist Justin Sohn varying styles at the First Presbyterian ’12 said “Colors” was very “modern and Church of Santa Monica on April 12. experimental, playing with the capaci“As a senior, it’s a little bit bitter- ties of the orchestra. It really used the sweet,” said Josh Ha ’12, first chair different colors of the orchestral palclarinet player of ette.”

Symphony. “But Pe r c u s s i o n i s t it was fun.”

Danni Xia ’12 said “It was an the composer atIt was an awesome awesome experitended rehearsals experience and really fun ence and really of the piece and to go to, especially since fun to go to, esgave pointers. pecially since it Xia said he was it was at a church, which was at a church, really satisfied afadded to the effect of a which added to ter the concert. the effect of a lot Xia, a member lot of our songs.” of our songs,” said of the Percussion —Kevin Zhang ’14 clarinet player in Ensemble and a the Wind Ensempercussionist for ble Kevin Zhang ’14.

Symphony, played six instruments for The concert began with two pieces the concert, including the crotales, from Concert Strings followed by the which she had never played before.

Wind Ensemble, which played “Braul “I had to play four instruments in and Maruntel” by Bela Bartok and the ‘Colors,’” Xia said. “I’ve never played folk song “Summer Joy.” The Percus- that many in one piece before.” sion Ensemble then performed a Latin The final piece, “Carousel,” began etude. Finally, Symphony played two with a waltz and used popular melocompositions, “Colors” and a medley of dies from the musical, such as “Mister songs from the Rodgers and Hammer- Snow” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” stein musical “Carousel.”

“There was an old couple in the au“Colors,” composed by Ternot dience who started to sing the lyrics Wolfgang, a friend of orchestra direc- to some of the songs,” Xia said. “It was tor Mark Hilt, incorporated solos by the sweetest moment.”

Jake Chapman ’12 on the vibes, Daniel “‘Carousel’ was really a feel-good Sunshine ’13 on the drums and Chris piece,” Sohn said. “Ending on that note Freedman ’12 on the bass. Members of was nice and satisfying.”

B9

Los Angeles • Volume XXI • Issue VII

By Arielle Maxner

“

Upcoming events in performing arts April 27:

May 13: Scene Monkeys Mother’s Day Show May 18: Scene Monkeys Show May 25, 26: Upper School Choral Cabaret May 29, 30: Upper School Dance Showcase

SOURCE: HW.COM GRAPHIC BY CLAIRE HONG

MUSICAL HARMONY: Upper school performing arts teacher Mark Hilt addresses the audience after a performance by Concert Strings. The concert was the last one of the year and was held at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica.

Admiration for classical music inspires new club

By Jessica Barzilay

Upper School Spring Jazz Concert

DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

Four students stroll into choir director Rodger Guerrero’s office, dump their backpacks on the ground and chatter excitedly about their weekends and their workloads.

“Guess what? I beat my high score on Temple Run!” “Do you understand that physics lab?”

“All right guys, let’s listen to Haydn’s concerto,” Michael Zaks ’13 says, bringing the weekly meeting of the Classical Music Club to order.

Zaks founded the Classical Music Club at the start of the year, after recruiting Guerrero as his faculty adviser.

“I felt like there needed to be a place where people could relax and learn about the essentials of western classical music,” he said.

The desire to study and engage with the works of famous composers was the result of an overwhelming admiration for the classics. No prior musical experience is required, but Zaks has familiarized himself with some of the pieces the club reviews by playing piano and participating in Wolverine Chorus. In particular, he cites Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s overture to the opera “Don Giovanni” as an example of musical excellence.

“Once I began to see how truly genius the works of the great composers were, appreciating how beautiful they are came naturally,” Zaks said.

Although he acknowledges that for most students, Classical Music Club isn’t the most exciting of clubs, Zaks can rely on a few similarly interest-

“

Classical music enthusiasts convene to listen to classical music, discuss music theory and reflect on which composers are superior.

ed classmates, Elias Aquino ’12, Brandon Chong I felt like there needed to ’13 and Nicholas be a place where people Ramirez ’14, to attend meetings could relax and learn about regularly. the essentials of western Aquino joined the club due to classical music.” his interest in —Michael Zaks ’13 classical music, nathanson ’s/chronicle but he also looks forward to hearing Guerrero’s professional opinions on to continuously smile,” Guerrero said.

Part of Guerrero’s joy in supervisspecific pieces and musical theory.

“I want to be able to hear what he ing the club comes from his conviction has to say outside of the classroom in the importance of musical scholarship. He said he believes the study of about music,” Aquino said.

Guerrero likewise enjoys the club’s music is analogous to the study of the weekly meetings, although he sees his world: immersion in music from all cultures during all eras enables personal role as secondary.

“I think that it’s important in a growth in the same way learning about student-run activity for adults to be world history enables greater perspecsupportive but silent partners when tive. Studying the history of music enriches the musicianship of today’s artpossible,” he said.

At the outset, Zaks prepared a ists and students, he said.

“I believe that the enjoyment of all list of classical composers to address throughout the course of the year, types and styles of music is concomibut the dynamic of meetings is very tant to self-understanding as well as relaxed, giving members the freedom a balanced education,” Guerrero said. for personal exploration. The majority “We discover ourselves through muof the names on Zaks’ list — Mozart, sic. We understand the present via the Bach, Handel, Beethoven — have been musical looking glass of the past.”

Although the club has not yet orgarepeatedly revisited.

“Without a doubt, my favorite part nized any events, Zaks, Guerrero and of this experience has been the obser- Aquino have expressed interest in atvation of an unbridled passion on the tending classical music concerts. Guerpart of the club members for classical rero looks forward to the growth of the Classical Music Club in the future. music,” Guerrero said.

“I was and am wholly enthusiastic Since club membership is voluntary, conversation does not generally about Michael’s idea and hope that it is stray from the topics of classical music, the beginning of something wonderful,” which “warms my heart and causes me he said.

B10 A&E

The Chronicle

April 25, 2012

Orchestra teacher hosts, plays organ in concert

Musicians to compete at Disneyland

By David Gisser

By Jack Goldfisher

Orchestra director Mark Hilt sat down at the organ bench in Santa Monica’s First Presbyterian Church Saturday in a concert held by Jacaranda, a series of chamber music shows that he co-founded.

The group’s purpose is to reintegrate classical music into Los Angeles culture and provide residents with music they might not hear elsewhere.

“We program what we are passionate about, then we figure out how to pay for it,” Hilt said.

The organ sat in the middle of the church in a small sunken area surrounded by wood and glass panels.

The closest audience member sat less than six feet away from Hilt. The lights dimmed, and Matthew Lucas ’14, who assisted Hilt during the show by turning the pages in his songbook, crouched next to the organ. The pipes, not directly connected to Hilt’s organ, stood high in the upper back corner of the church hall, and they bellowed as Hilt’s fingers flew across the three terraced keyboards of his instrument.

Saturday’s show, titled “Rosary Mantra,” focused on works by Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux and was the West Coast premiere of Risonanza, a 2001 composition by Sofia Gubaidulina. Patrick Scott, Jacaranda’s artistic director, described the show as a “baptism of fire,” meant to give the audience “incredible waves of pleasure.”

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

VIRTUOSITY: Orchestra director Mark Hilt performs a solo piece during a concert held by Jacaranda, a performance series that features classical and modern music.

“This concert is a 20th anniversary tribute to Messiaen that also celebrates two of his great successors,” according to the group’s notes about the show.

Hilt started the show by playing two solo pieces on the organ, both composed by Messaien. Between each one, he walked onto the church’s main stage and bowed to his audience, which applauded thunderously. After intermission, Hilt played one more solo composition, a piece by Gubaidulina. He returned to the show for the last song with a fourteen-piece orchestra.

Hilt, who has been teaching at the Upper School since 1997, was inspired

by Messiaen, composer Richard Wagner, author Willa Cather and rock band Radiohead, he said to the Los Angeles Times before the concert. Hilt serves as the musical director and principal

conductor of Jacaranda and has been with the group since its inception in 2003. Film and theater studies teacher Ted Walch is the vice chair of the group’s board of directors and attended the show.

The group will play another show on May 20 again at Santa Monica’s First Presbyterian Church. The final concert will feature a piece from Lou Harrison and will be the United States premiere of Terry Riley’s Olson III. Hilt, who will conduct in the final show, said he is enthusiastic about presenting classical music in Los Angeles.

“Los Angeles is the best place in the world right now for music — a lot of people don’t know it,” Hilt said. “But there’s more going on, more diversity, more creativity. And fewer established rules.”

SPECIAL OCCASION DRESSES: PROM

The Symphony Orchestra, Concert Strings and Wind Ensemble, as well as Chamber Singers and the Wolverine Chorus, will compete in the Heritage Festival Competition at Disneyland on Saturday.

They will leave school on Saturday morning, compete, attend the awards ceremony and return late that night.

The Symphony Orchestra will play “Variations on a Korean Folk Song,” written by John Chance, who heard the original folk song while fighting in the Korean War. Concert strings will perform “Concerto Grosso” by Handel and Wind Ensemble will play “Summer Joy” by orchestra director Mark Hilt, as well as “Marentel,” a movement of the Romanian Folk Dances by Bela Bartok.

The upper school groups have never performed in the Heritage Festival Competition before, although the Middle School’s Symphony and Madrigals have competed there in the past.

The Symphony placed first in the Heritage Festival of Gold in Chicago on April 13-17.

The festival “offers the kind of instrumental competition, adjudication and top-notch venues you can’t find anywhere else,” according to their website.

After each group’s performance, the judges will give each group suggestions as to how they can improve.

Between the performance and the awards ceremony the group will be able to roam Disneyland and go on the rides.

EVENING HOMECOMING RUNWAY SILK CHIFFON CHARMEUSE ORGANZA

SEQUIN LACE EMBELLISH CRYSTAL FEATHER

A-LINE MERMAID STRAPLESS SHORT TRUMPET HALTER BALL

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

Senior wins award for short animation

Film festivals to screen student films

By Rachel Schwartz

By Rebecca Nussbaum

Although she lives mere miles from Hollywood, Elaine Tang ’12 produced her animated short film “El Monte” in Beijing this summer.

The film docunathanson ’s/chronicle ments the plight Elaine Tang of 72 Thai workers imprisoned in a Southern California garment factory in 1995 who were paid less than one dollar for an 18-hour work day. It will be screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on May 12 in Koreatown.

Tang envisioned the film while volunteering at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles where she has interned for two years. “El Monte” was one of APALC’s most notable legal cases, Tang said, and she hoped a film would draw more attention to the challenges facing modern immigrants.

“When I learned of these Thai immigrants, making the difficult decision to leave their families in pursuit of a better life, their imprisonment in what can only be described as a labor camp and the generosity of community advocates and lawyers who fought for them, I was filled with emotion,” Tang said in the “El Monte” press release. “I knew

A&E B11

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF ELAINE TANG

ANIMATED: “El Monte,” created by Elaine Tang ’12, follows the story of Thai laborers who were imprisoned in a clothing factory and how they won their freedom. in that instant that I needed to make more people aware of this story as well as of the challenges faced by so many Asian-American immigrants in pursuit of the American dream and the incredible role that the APALC plays in this process.”

Tang acted as a middleman between Chinese animation firm Xing Xing Digital and the legal center back in Los Angeles, explaining the El Monte story to her production team and translating the legal center’s comments back to the animators.

Tang speaks dialects of Chinese at home and takes Mandarin at school, but her language skills were tested in the animation studio, as her co-workers spoke only Chinese.

“A lot of the technical animation terms I didn’t understand,” she said.

Tang said that it was vital that the film be as historically accurate as possible. To make this happen, the real sweatshop workers did voice-overs for their characters, and the animators drew the cartoons to look like the workers.

15% Discount for Harvard Westlake Students

Pick-ups and Dine-ins from the regular menu

Tang co-wrote the script with John Liu, Director of Content Development at Xing Xing Digital.

“We whipped out the script in two or three days,” she said. “The rest was kind of just talking with the legal center and getting their feedback on our work.”

After finishing the film in two and a half months, Tang entered it in a few film festivals.

“I wasn’t expecting [it to be chosen] at all,” she said. “It was really just for the legal center.”

“El Monte” was Tang’s first attempt at animation filmmaking.

“It was really cool, but I don’t know if I want to focus on it,” Tang said. “It was a fun side project for my work at the APALC.” As Tang hoped, the film has given the APALC publicity and raised awareness about the El Monte case and labor rights.

“Through this film, I hope to give a voice to those previously unheard and to inspire all to uphold justice,” Tang said in the press release.

and

Emily Segal

Two public service announcements featuring Holocaust survivors created by students who are part of the Righteous Conversations Project will be shown on April 29 at the Newport Film Festival Youth Film Showcase, and five student-made films will be featured in the Archer Film Festival on May 11.

Rebecca Hutman ’12 created the PSA “Learn the Difference” about ethical consumerism with Adam Yaron ’16 and Crossroads student India Wilson. The second PSA, “Love our Families,” created by Xochi MaberryGaulke ’12, Gabby Trujillo ’12 and Marlborough student Anjoum Agrama, points out that all kinds of families exist and love each other.

“We’re trying to send messages to people and all of these festivals are places where people can see our message,” Hutman said.

The Archer Film Festival will screen five student-created films, including “She’s A Doll” by Robert Vega ’11, “Let Down” by Chelsea Khakshouri ’12, “Learn the Difference” by Hutman, Wilson (Crossroads School) and Yaron and “A Day” by Jacob Weiss ’13. They were created during various HarvardWestlake programs including Video Art 2, Video Art 3, Summer Film Program, and Righteous Conversations Project, under visual arts department head Cheri Gaulke.

The festival begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater and will include a red carpet reception and a speech by keynote speaker Nina Jacobson.

The Chronicle

B12 Features

GRAHAM CAIRNS

GRAHAM CAIRNS

ood, family and imagination are some of the themes that make up the artwork featured in the senior art show that opened on April 16. Seniors of Drawing and Painting III and AP Studio Art have been working on these pieces since Thanksgiving break, although some also include work from their junior or sophomore years.

Each student is required to choose a theme for his or her senior concentration, and the artwork they make during their senior year features this theme.

Sophiea Kim ’12, who takes Drawing and Painting III, picked her family as the theme of her senior concentration. The focus should be related to the artist’s interests and values, she said.

“My senior concentration is ‘food for power,’ which uses food as a symbol of political power,” said Graham Cairns ’12, who is in AP Studio Art. “I chose it because it’s fun and because I did a piece last year with waffles, and I enjoyed it, so I decided to keep doing

that.”

Danny Roth ’12, who is in AP Studio Art, wanted to focus on dreams for his senior concentration because he wanted to explore a topic that would allow him to use his imagination to its fullest, he said. “[My favorite piece] is a very large, nightmarish piece,” he said. “It was the first time I’d ever used a canvas that big. I wanted the size of the canvas and its message to have an incredibly strong impact on the viewer.”

Students are allowed to work in any medium, including acrylic and gouache paint and colored pencils.

To take AP Studio Art, students must complete a portfolio of 12 pieces before the start of senior year. Upper school visual arts teacher Marianne Hall will then look over the pieces to determine whether the student is ready to take the AP course. Another option is to finish the pieces by the end of first semester of senior year. Students taking Drawing and Painting III who wish to take AP Studio Art can place into the course for second semester.

April 25, 2012

Seniors choose themes reflecting interests

By Claire Hong

F

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

“

MAZELLE ETESSAMI/CHRONICLE

THEMATIC ART: Two pieces by Graham Cairns ’12 out of the six exhibited in the Feldman Horn Gallery, top left. The theme of Cairns’ concentration is “food for power,” which uses food as a symbol of political power. Upper school visual arts teacher Cheri Gaulke explains the art projects to Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts, above.

Three students received medals for winning national recognition for their artwork.

Jake Schapiro ’12

Art is something I’ve always been interested in, but it was never something I thought I was good at. Winning an award like this is something that I never thought would happen, but it did, and it’s awesome.”

nathanson ’s/chronicle

“Watched” Silver Medal Photography

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF JAKE SCHAPIRO

“

Chloe Lister ’12

My piece was about fear.

It’s like the feeling of being watched and feeling pressure, and I guess that pertains to how I felt senior year — how everything you’re doing is scored, and you’re being watched by colleges and parents and deans.”

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF CHLOE LISTER

“

“Caesar’s Cup” Gold Medal Ceramics & Glass

Matt Mantel ’12

It was really amazing to be recognized by such national standards. I was just really surprised. The painting is actually unfinished. I just started painting and the deadline came around, and this was my best painting, so I just submitted it.

nathanson ’s/chronicle

nathanson ’s/chronicle

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF MATT MANTEL

“Draft of Father” Silver Medal Painting

3 students win national art awards

By Gabrielle Franchina

Three students were honored nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Award after regional recognition in January. Jake Schapiro ’12 received a gold medal for his glass vase titled “Caesar’s Cup.” Chloe Lister ’12 received a silver medal for her photograph titled “Watched.” Matthew Mantel ’12 was also awarded a silver medal for his painting “Draft of Father.”

Lister, Mantel and Schapiro were all entered by their art teachers into the regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and each received a Gold Key award, the highest of three awards.

All Gold Key entries are then considered on the national level.

Schapiro will have his vase displayed at the 2012 National ART. WRITE.NOW NYC Exhibition June 1 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. His piece will be one of 350 works of art and writing showcased.

Winners of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are given both scholarships and the opportunity for their artwork to be exhibited or published.

All submissions are judged on technical skill, the artist’s personal voice and originality. Throughout its history, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards have acknowledged nine million artists and writers, giving away more than $25 million in awards and scholarships.

Seniors awarded national medals are also eligible for scholarships through partnerships with certain colleges and universities.

ports S The Chronicle • April 25, 2012

Los Angeles • Volume XXI • Issue VII

Extended Run After suiting up together for the past four years, hoops stars Zena Edosomwan ’12 and Josh Hearlihy ’12 will join forces for one more year at Massachusetts prep school Northfield Mount Hermon.

C2

MISSION: LEAGUE

After winning its first-ever Mission League title last year, the baseball team trails only Loyola in the current league standings. The Wolverines need to win out to claim their second straight title.

By Camille Shooshani

A

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

LEFTY SENSATION: Southpaw Max Fried ’12 winds up for a pitch in an April 17 league win against Chaminade. Fried’s draft stock has skyrocketed during the season, now an ESPN projected top-10 pick in the 2012 MLB Draft could even rise to the top-five by the June draft.

s Max Fried’s ’12 draft stock climbs, his team’s chances of securing the league title grow as well. As of April 10, ESPN ranked Fried the ninthbest MLB prospect, and after Loyola shut out Alemany 5-0, a repeat league title is in sight.

Alemany’s loss could amount to a Mission League title for the Wolverines if the team wins out.

The title is five wins away.

In the next few weeks, the team must sweep Notre Dame, St. Francis and Loyola, all games they took last year.

“We need to stay on track and take things one game at a time in league play,” Head Coach Matt LaCour said. “Staying focused each day is the challenge.”

After Lucas Giolito’s ’12 elbow injury, Fried took the the lead role in the rotation and met the expectations as the number one left-handed pitcher in the nation, maintaining a 1.33 ERA. “Max is doing well, really has solidified himself as one of the elite pitchers in the country,” LaCour said.

Starting pitchers Jack Flaherty ’14 and Brandon Deere ’12 and closer Hans Hansen ’13 have stepped up to secure a 163-1 overall record and recover from the loss to Alemany in the season opener and reclaim the Mission League title.

“Our defense and pitching has been a steady force for us this year,” LaCour said. “Our offensive production needs to solidify and be more consistent.”

The team played Notre Dame yesterday but results were unavailable at press time.

On April 20, the Wolverines topped Chaminade 10-6 in the second game of the series. First

and

Jessica Lee

Track and Field Program Head Jonas Koolsbergen and Girls’ Soccer Head Coach Richard Simms won the California Coaches Association Coach of the Year awards in early April. Both coaches were recognized based on their achievements coaching this year.

Koolsbergen was also nominated last year for the award. Koolsbergen emphasized that the award not only recognizes the coach but the program as a whole and all the athletes involved. “[The award] honors tremendous and extremely dedicated athletes and their work and it of course also honors talented, knowledgeable and superb assistant coaches,” Koolsbergen said.

For each sport, five finalists were chosen in January from the 15 coaches

that members of the CCA nominated.

The CCA notified the recipients of the honor at the beginning of April.

Simms, who joined the coaching staff in 2005, helped catapult the girls’ soccer squad to their highest ranking ever at ninth in the nation.

“This year’s team did exceptionally well,” Simms said. “We relied on more ninth and 10th graders than any year previously and they far exceeded our expectations with their performance.”

In his 22nd year heading the track and field program at Harvard-Westlake, Koolsbergen said his proudest moment this year was “a tie between winning the Southern Section Team Championship and our night of truly extraordinary success at State Finals.”

The Coach of the Year awards also recognized Koolsbergen’s and Simms’

Continued on page C7

INSIDE

CIF honors Koolsbergen, Simms as coaches of the year

By David Lim

baseman Joe Corrigan ’13 went 2-3 with a homerun and three RBI’s. Flaherty pitched five innings before Hansen relieved him and allowed two runs in the sixth but closed out the seventh for the win.

The April 19 game against Westlake was a show of strength for Deere, who pitched a complete game but allowed eight hits. Although he allowed batters on base, Deere pulled through with runners in scoring position almost every time and only surrendered one run in the 6-1 win over Westlake.

On April 17 against Chaminade, Fried had to be pulled in the fourth after allowing three runs.

“I gave up a lot of walks,” Fried said. “I’m doing the best I can to give the team a chance to win.”

The Wolverines took home second place at the inaugural USA Baseball National High School Invitational in Cary, N.C. after falling in extra innings to Santa Ana Mater Dei in the championship game.

The NHSI tournament highlighted the solidity of the pitching rotation that the Wolverines will rely heavily on in the next few league games, with three out of four pitchers throwing complete games.

The Wolverines opened the four-day tournament on March 28 with a 6-2 victory over Russell County (Ala.). Flaherty struck out six and walked none in the complete-game win, throwing 72 strikes in 100 pitches.

The next day against Parkview (Ga.), Fried allowed two first-inning runs, but finished the game with eight strikouts en route to a 10-3 rout.

FOREHAND:

daniel kim /chronicle

Richard Simms

Harrison Kalt ’13 and the boys’ tennis team await their seed for CIF playoffs.

nathanson ’s

Jonas Koolsbergen

“professional contributions of time, services and dedication” outside of school, according to the award criteria.

Koolsbergen also coaches Gold Medal AC, a track club run with other Harvard-Westlake coaches, and Simms leads three club teams in the Coast Soccer League.

“It’s an accomplishment that our entire school and program should take pride in,” Simms said. “From the players, parents, coaches and administrators I am very grateful for everyone’s contributions. It is a tremendous achievement.”

C6

daniel kim /chronicle

BACK AND FORTH WITH MATT MANTEL: Goalkeeper Matt Mantel ’12 is the last line of defense for the lacrosse team.

C8 cindy kallman

The Chronicle

C2 Sports

Facts & Figures

1

Second off setting the school record time for the boys’ 4x200-meter medley relay team.

9

Shutout innings pitched

by Hans Hansen ’13 in the baseball team’s 1-0 win over Heritage.

11

Strokes the Wolverines defeated Loyola by, the Cubs’ first loss this year.

14

Strikeouts recorded by Lauren Li ’12 in a 10-0 win for softball over Louisville last week.

70

Inches jumped by Alex Florent ’15 in the high jump event last week to set a school record.

Consecutive matches won by the tennis team in Mission League.

131

game of the month BASEBALL vs. Loyola

May 8 @ O’Malley Family Field 3:45 p.m.

The baseball team has a chance to win its second consecutive Mission League title if it wins its remaining five league games. Standing in the way are the rival Loyola Cubs, who currently sit atop the league standings. But if the Wolverines win at O’Malley Family Field on May 8 as well as at Loyola on May 10, then they will overtake the Cubs in the standings.

Records: Harvard-Westlake:

16-3-1 overall; 4-1-1 league Loyola:

15-6-1 overall; 6-2-0 league

Player to Watch: Joe Corrigan ’13 The first baseman led the team to a 10-6 win against Chaminade on April 20 by going 2-3 with a home run and three runs. The Wolverines will need his bat to stay hot against the Cubs if they hope to win the Mission League.

School Comparison: Wolverines Cubs League Standings:

2

1

SAAC March Athletes of the Month

nathanson ’s/Chronicle

Lauren Li ’12 Softball

nathanson ’s/Chronicle

Hans Hansen ’13 Baseball

April 25, 2012

Hoops stars to attend MA prep school

By Robbie Loeb

Widely-recruited basketball star Zena Edosomwan ’12 publicly announced on March 11 his decision to attend Massachusetts prep school Northfield Mount Hermon before heading to Harvard in 2013. When Josh Hearlihy ’12 heard his teammate’s announcement, a smile instantly stretched across his face and he couldn’t help but laugh. The coincidence was too great.

Hearlihy immediately invited Edosomwan over to tell his teammate that he, too, was privately planning on attending the same prep school in northern Massachusetts.

“He just started smiling and laughing,” Hearlihy said. “He came over and he embraced me and was like, ‘Man, this is going to be so good for both of us.’”

Hearlihy had committed to play at the University of Utah for next year before Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak asked him to forfeit his scholarship in February. Hearlihy scrambled to find a school for next year and ultimately decided his best option was to reclassify for the class of 2013 and attend Northfield Mount Hermon.

Edosomwan had received over 30 offers from Div. I schools, including powerhouses such as Cal, Connecticut, Harvard, Southern California, Texas, UCLA and Washington before ultimately deciding on the Crimson. As a condition of his Harvard admission, Edosomwan must first complete a year at Northfield Mount Hermon.

Edosomwan and Hearlihy have suited up together since the eighth grade, when they began playing club basketball together, and they have taken it to the hardwood together for the past four years with Harvard-Westlake.

“I’m very excited,” Edosomwan said.

“It’s not even necessarily basketball wise, but just to have a friend there.

To see both of us grow with that extra year, I think it’s going to be a very fun experience.”

Krystkowiak contacted Hearlihy’s mother, Melissa, towards the end of the basketball season in late February to express his concerns with Hearlihy’s recently injured knee.

Due to a partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee suffered in midDecember, Hearlihy was on the brink of losing his entire senior season. To avoid surgery and save his season, he successfully underwent an experimen-

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

MORE TO COME: Co-captains Zena Edosomwan ’12 and Josh Hearlihy ’12 will play alongside each other at a Massachusetts prep school next year. tal platelet-rich plasma treatment called Tenex FAST, cutting his injury time down to six weeks.

With his doctors’ permission, Hearlihy postponed the required second round of injections until shortly after the season to in order to make an early return.

His doctors told Krystkowiak their plan to postpone treatment and that there would be plenty of time to fully recover before he had to report for summer workouts.

But the Utes coach doubted that the oft-injured small forward could handle the intense 30-plus-game collegiate schedule with his debilitating knee and back issues early in his career, Hearlihy said.

Despite Hearlihy’s and his doctors’ insistence that he would be healthy by June, the coach had already made up his mind and suggested that Hearlihy sign a letter of release, which voids the letter of intent he signed in November.

Under NCAA rules, a signed letter of intent obligates an athlete to play at the school in exchange for a one-year scholarship. After signing the letter

Passing the torch

By Austin Lee

The campus — empty. Ted Slavin Field — without its towering lights. The walls of Taper Gymnasium — missing many of its chamnathanson ’s/chronicle pionship patches Terry Barnum and banners.

These were the sights that greeted Terry Barnum in the summer of 2004, on his first day on the job as Athletic Director.

Now, after eight years of helping shape Harvard-Westlake athletics into the active championship power it is now, he will be taking over as the Head of Athletics next year.

At USC, Barnum played fullback for the Trojans, scoring the winning touchdown in the 1996 Rose Bowl Game against Northwestern University.

He was approached about a job in Harvard-Westlake athletics in the spring of 2004 but was not interested in high school athletics at first.

“I really wanted to get into college athletics,” Barnum said. “That’s really

of intent, neither side can opt out unless the athlete signs a letter of release per the school’s request, releasing both sides from their obligations.

“I didn’t want to go to a place that didn’t want me or didn’t believe in me,” Hearlihy said. “They made up their minds, and I respected that.”

By the time Krystkowiak asked him to sign the letter of release, it was too late for Hearlihy to explore his options at other schools because schools had already chosen their recruiting classes.

Hearlihy and his family decided the best course of action was to explore the prep school option.

“I liked everything about [Northfield Mount Hermon], the academic side and the basketball,” Hearlihy said.

“So we decided to pursue that one and now it’s all set in stone.”

While Edosomwan is already committed to Harvard, Hearlihy will have to restart the recruiting process this summer and throughout next year.

“It is still my dream to play college basketball,” he said. “I will continue to work hard every day to make that dream a reality.”

Terry Barnum will assume the role of Head of Athletics next year after working at Harvard-Westlake for eight years.

what I wanted to do.”

He said he applied to “just kind of see how it was,” and came in for an interview with Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas.

“I interviewed here on my 30th birthday, and I fell in love with the place,” Barnum said.

As he started that summer, Barnum soon discovered that there was no true Harvard-Westlake summer athletic program.

“Within the first week I was here, [Barzdukas] said, ‘Okay, I’m going on vacation for two weeks. You’re in charge,’” Barnum said. “I was like, ‘I just got here! And I’m in charge of the whole thing?’ Little did I know, at that time, there were not a lot of sports going on in the summer.”

Since then, Barnum has helped to facilitate numerous changes in the athletics program.

The once near non-existent summer activities have developed to include practices for the vast majority of teams along with the Gold Medal Sports Camps.

The one or two teams going to playoffs back then have now grown into a majority of teams qualifying.

In addition, he has worked with the school to bring about many new facilities for athletics, including the installation of lights on Ted Slavin Field, which allowed for night football games, and the construction of the O’Malley Family Field in Encino for the baseball team.

“I remember the first night football game,” Barnum said. “That was pretty special, under the lights.”

Barnum has also worked with students extensively as the adviser for the Student Athlete Advisory Council.

As he takes over the Athletic Department, Barnum hopes to continue leading the school’s athletes into success and aims to increase overall school participation in sports. He will also work on developing the school’s partnerships with the Institute for Scholastic Sports Medicine and AC Milan.

“We’ll want to continue to improve and challenge for league, CIF and state championships,” he said. “We’ll want to continue to increase the involvement in sports, have more and more students coming out and enjoying playing sports. Those are all goals that we still have out that we’re going to be working hard to do.”

chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

Sports C3

Climber places 3rd in nationals

By David Kolin

and

David Lim

After placing third in the speed category at the Men’s Open U.S. National Championship, Charlie Andrews ’13 qualified for the USA Climbing Men’s National Team.

To qualify for the finals, Andrews knew he had to step outside his comfort zone and execute a bold move.

“I looked at a risky leap on the route that only the defending national champion had used successfully and thought, ‘I can do that,’” Andrews said. “I then used it to make finals in a promising third-place position.”

In the finals, Andrews climbed in 6.57 seconds, the fastest time of the night, earning him first place.

As one of the top eight climbers in the country, Andrews secured his place at World Cups in International Federation of Sport Climbing World Cup Circuit in Italy, China, Korea and the 2012 World Championship in Paris.

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

EVASION: Midfielder Oliver Levitt ’15 outpaces two Loyola defenders in the boys’ lacrosse team’s 8-5 loss to the Cubs on April

17. The game was the team’s only league loss as of press time.

The Wolverines had previously defeated Loyola on March 17.

Lacrosse falls to rival Loyola at home, rebounds at Brentwood

An 8-5 loss against rival Loyola jolted the boys’ lacrosse team and shattered its 12-game winning streak in Mission League play. The team currently holds an 8-3 overall record and a 5-1 league record.

Having beaten the Cubs earlier in the season without the team’s two top scorers because of injuries, Noah Pompan ’14 said the team came into the matchup over-confident.

“We were slacking off before the Loyola game,” Pompan said. “[The loss] was a big wake-up call.”

The Wolverines responded well to this “wake-up” call, winning at Brentwood on April 21 by a score of 8-1. The team stifled the Eagles’ offense, holding them to six fewer goals than they did in their first 8-7 win three weeks ago.

The Wolverines still sit atop Mission League standings. Loyola is 4-2 in league play after splitting with the

Wolverines and the Crespi Celts, who are also 4-2.

The Wolverines need to win both of their remaining league games this season to guarantee their second straight Mission League championship. Last year, the team went undefeated in all eight league games and lost only one game all season.

Winning league would guarantee a spot in the playoffs for the Wolverines, but the team would still have a chance at earning an at-large bid for playoffs if it doesn’t win league. Pompan said the key to finishing the season strong is maintaining a strong focus during practice.

“We just have to get it going so everyone can work as hard as they can at practice,” Pompan said. “Every drill we’re doing is full speed.”

The team will go into Monday’s game against Crespi with only one loss in league as of press time. The results of yesterday’s game against Chaminade were unavailable as of press time.

By Daniel Kim

Charlie Horowitz ’17 claimed the Gold Medal in Men’s Epee Y-14 at the United States Fencing Association’s North America Cup on April 14 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Horowitz is currently a member of the Los Angeles International Fencing Club in Southern California.

In the first round of the tournament, Andrews was seeded sixth. The rounds of the North America Cup were played in a round robin style, where he won five of his six bouts to take first place in his pool. Ultimately, he placed in the 16th seed in the elimination round.

JV Lacrosse

After seven straight losses, JV lacrosse won its first and only game of the season against the Cate School on April 14.

Overall Record: 1-8 League Record: 0-4 Last game: Loyola L (4-3) Next game: Monday April 30 v. Crespi

Football starts 1st weekend practices

“We have had a tough year but we are really picking it up and improving as a team.”

—Ben Klein ’14

By Eric Loeb

NATHANSON’S

By Charlton Azuoma

SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

Softball makes early Valley Invitational exit

By David Kolin In the Valley Invitational Tournament last Saturday at Birmingham High School, the girls’ softball team failed to put up any runs in its 7-0 and 8-0 losses to Canyon and El Camino High School. Prior to the tournament, the team had not lost a game since its season opener.

As of press time, the team’s overall record was 12-3-2, and its league record was 3-0-1.

According to MaxPreps, pitcher Lauren Li ’12 has a .705 batting average this season with a total of 26 runs, the highest batting average and the highest total runs scored on the team.

Earlier this month, Li was named March’s female Athlete of the Month by the Student Athlete Advisory Council.

The softball team beat rival Chaminade at the beginning of this season 4-2 despite losing to the Eagles both times the two faced off last season.

“Our most competitive game will be against Chaminade, especially since we shocked them the last time we played them,” Ashley Wu ’13 said. “However, we are still going to need to give it our all against Alemany and Notre Dame.”

The team split games with Alemany last season and has yet to play the Warriors this year. Against Notre Dame, the Wolverines tied 10-10 earlier this season.

“Everyone is pretty excited for our next game against Notre Dame,” captain Maddie Kaplan ’14 said. “We tied them in extra innings in our first league game, and we can’t wait to beat them next time.”

The team will face Notre Dame today at Franklin Field in its sixth of ten league games of the season before heading to Chaminade next Tuesday.

In eight of the total 17 games this season, the Wolverines have held

opponents to one run or fewer.

“We at times go a couple of innings without scoring,” Wu said. “We’ll have a big inning then put up a string of zeroes. One of our biggest strengths is our ability to help each other out, whether we back each other up on the field or step up when someone makes a mistake.”

Prior to last Saturday’s Valley Invitational Tournament, the team held a four game win streak.

“I am really happy with the way the team’s coming together,” Chloe Pendergast ’13 said. “I think we’ll do big things this season, and I’m excited to see how far we go.”

JV Softball After losing two straight games, the Wolverines will try to bounce back against Notre Dame today as they head towards the end of their season.

Overall Record: 2-4

“We’ve had our share of wins, losses and ties, but we’ve all become so close as a team and have really bonded during practices and the bus rides to Valley College.”

—Alex Berman ’14

Last game: Flintridge SH: L (21-2) Next game:

Today v. Notre Dame NATHANSON’S

SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

Fencer takes gold in national tournament

The varsity football team will practice on Saturdays during spring training for the first time in team history.

Head Coach Scot Ruggles implemented the new practices to help the Wolverines, who finished last season with an overall record of 5-5 and improve their play in the challenging Mission League.

“It is convenient for people who are playing other sports right now because they can come once a week on Saturdays and keep up on new information Coach Ruggles has to give about our offense, defense and special teams,” running back Correy King ’13 said.

Scouts to observe football players

By Luke Holthouse Washington State will send two assistant football coaches to scout Chad Kanoff ’13 and Thomas Oser ’13 this Friday after school. Oser, an offensive lineman, will snap for Kanoff, a quarterback, and Kanoff will practice throwing passes to a group of wide reveivers. Scouts will observe Oser’s quickness and footwork and to Kanoff ’s throwing abilities.

Kanoff has already received a scholarship offer from Vanderbilt. He is also considering several Ivy League schools which have expressed interest in him.

Oser has received an offer from Colorado and is also looking at Ivy League schools.

The Chronicle April 2

C4 Sports

In their shoes

Long jumper joins team as senior, dominates event

By David Gobel

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

LEAP OF FAITH: Colburn Pittman ’12 is the best long jumper on the team despite never having jumped competitively before this season.

helped me. Basically, they said you just run and then you jump.”

Colburn Pittman ’12 has That meet, against Alemany, nearly set a school long jump re- Pittman jumped 20 feet, 4 inches cord with a leap of 23 feet, one- on his first attempt. He became half inch, despite only joining the one of the strongest boys’ long track and field jumpers on team two weeks the team. after training Before I’d be the Cami [Chapus’12] senior year, started. In fact, Pittman didn’t P i t t m a n and Amy [Weissenbach know he would was involved ’12] of jumping right now.” with be competing in the long jump until —Colburn Pittman baseball prothe day of the gram. After first meet. his junior “Doing [long year howevjump] was a er, Pittman complete surdecided to prise to everyone,” Pittman said. try out a different sport. For him, “I started out running because track and field seemed like a good I always thought of myself as change of pace. a sprinter. I started with high “I had always been thinking jump, and then coach told me he about it because I like to run,” signed me up for triple jump and Pittman said. “Also, I had some long jump the day of the meet. I friends who were doing it, and it said okay … how do you do those, always looked fun. I had always I didn’t know. Anthony [Thomp- played baseball, and that really son] ’13 and Akosa [Ibekwe] ’13 limited the other sports that I

“

could play.”

Pittman has since improved his technique, and is making significantly longer jumps than he was when he first started, including his personal record jump of 23 feet.

However, Pittman said the jump might have been wrongly marked and he is currently jumping in the 21 to 22 feet range.

With Pittman, it is easy to wonder how far he could be jumping now had he started track and field earlier. However, Pittman tries to take a positive attitude about his experience.

“All of the coaches who have seen me have said, ‘Oh if you had joined in ninth grade you’d be just running people over.’ I’d be the Cami [Chapus ’12] and Amy [Weissenbach ’12] of jumping right now,” Pittman said. “But you know in my opinion you never really know what would have happened. I’m just happy for the time I have had and being able to contribute for [track and field].”

Gaylord has most domin in the league consistently the team ea

Persona

Ele

In only her firs team, Florent jumped an all school record.

Personal (CA #1

hands slant at hip

Garre

foot flexed upwards

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

GRAPHIC BY CAMILLE SHOOSHANI

B

arms at 90°

back slightly bent foward

Tim Sharpe

Top

Al

Fundamental Forms Track and Field varsity coach Tim Sharpe points to key techniques that translate into faster running times.

DANIEL K

PERFECT PACE: Will Tobias ’12, left has made his way onto the varsity sprint relays. Ben Weissenbach ’15 has established himself as areliable young distance runner.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

25, 2012

chronicle.hw.com

Sports C5

Girls’ track team wins Mt. SAC sweepstakes

By Julius Pak

KIM/CHRONICLE

For the third year in a row, the girls’ track and field team won the Mount San Antonio College Sweepstakes at the Mt. SAC Invitational last weekend.

For each team event, the top seven finishers are allotted a certain number of points.

At the end of the meet, the points are totaled up, and the team with the highest overall score wins the Sweepstakes.

To win, the girls’ team placed in the top five in three events. Team cocaptains Cami Chapus ’12 and Amy Weissenbach ’12 paired up with Rebecca Armstrong ’14 and Elle Wilson ’13 to grab a victory in the 4x800meter event. Lizzy Thomas ’14 replaced Armstrong later that night in the 4x1600-meter relay, in which the team placed third.

In the 4x400-meter event the next day, however, few things went well for the team. The first problem came when Shea Copeland ’15

injured her hamstring in practice, forcing them to rely on a modified roster. Armstrong took Copeland’s place in the race.

The quartet was also slightly unprepared for the race because a request that the team had sent earlier in the meet to switch from the open division race to the invitational division was granted minutes before the race.

The most dramatic setback for the team happened in the first leg of the race.

For the majority of her 400-meter leg, Imani Cook-Gist ’15 held the lead, but a mid-race injury caused her to slow down and drop back before she passed the baton to Chapus.

“Imani started off the leg brilliantly,” Weissenbach said. “Then, with like 110 meters or so to go, she pulled her hamstring, and she pulled up and went from being the really, really front of the pack to being passed.”

For the remainder of the race, Armstrong, Chapus and Weissen-

bach were “playing catch-up,” as described by the team. The Wolverines were able to recover into fifth place by the end.

Entered in five events, the boys’ team only placed in the top seven once.

Boys’ co-captains Judd Liebman ’12 and Aaron de Toledo ’12 joined David Manahan ’14 and Ben Weissenbach ’15 in the 4x400-meter event, in which the team placed sixth.

The team later had to drop out of the 4x1600-meter event because Manahan sustaining a blister on his foot that prevented him from competing any further, Head of Program and Varsity Head Coach Jonas Koolsbergen said.

“He had an injury problem,” he said. “He had a blister. The blister prevented us from running the 4x1600, but you know, that’s athletics, sometimes you don’t get to do everything you want to do.”

After tomorrow’s league dual meet with Crespi and Louisville,

both teams will head into the end of the regular season at the Mission League Prelims on Monday.

“Considering that Imani was hurt finishing her leg and Shea was hurt and not running, we’re feeling pretty good about where we are, but it’s hard to really know until we get all four of our pieces together,” Weissenbach said. “We’re probably going to have to go into the postseason having never run the 4x400 together.”

JV Track and Field After five straight losses, the boys’ track team seeks revenge at Mission League prelims.

Boys’ Overall Record: 0-5 Girls’ Overall Record: 2-3 Next meet: Tomorrow at Crespi SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

p of their field

Ben Gaylord ’13 Pole Vault

been one of the nant pole vaulters e this season, scoring points for ach meet.

al best: 15’0.75” (CA #15)

ena Crowe ’12 Pole Vault

Despite injuries early on in her high school career, Crowe’s best jumps this season are only two inches from meeting the school record.

Personal best: 10’0.0” (CA#81) JUDD LIEBMAN/CHRONICLE

FULL STRIDE: David Manahan ’14 runs in the boys’ distance medley event at the Mt. San Antonio College Invita-

lex Florent ’15 High Jump

st year on the has already time varsity .

best: 5’10” 1, US #2)

ett Robinson ’15 400 meter

After impressive runs in the 400-meter event, Robinson joined the sprint and distance medley relay teams to capture school records in each event.

Personal best: 49.11 seconds (CA #20)

tional. The relay team placed twelfth but Manahan injured his foot, forcing his team to drop out of the 4x400-meter event.

Sophomore runner eyes CIF Masters following impressive freshman season

By Luke Holthouse

The first time Track and Field Program Head Jonas Koolsbergen saw David Manahan ’14 run during the summer before his freshman season, Koolsbergen knew he had a potential star in his program. But he didn’t expect Manahan to be competing in CIF Finals in the 800-meter run later that year.

“I thought he looked like he hadn’t done any real racing or real training yet,” Koolsbergen said. “But I thought that he was a guy that could be good.

This guy has ability. I had no inclination he was going to turn into what he turned into.”

Koolsbergen said that of the 504 male athletes who competed at the CIF Finals meet last year, Manahan was one of four freshmen to qualify.

“Just making CIF Finals as a freshman boy is extraordinary,” Koolsbergen said.

This year, Manahan said he hopes to make the next step and qualify for

the CIF Masters meet. Manahan finished seventh for Div. III in the CIF Finals meet with a time of 1:58.26, but did not qualify for Masters. Manahan has already improved on his time, running a 1:56.63 at the Trabuco Hills Invitational on March 31, but he said he needs to shave an additional three and a half seconds to qualify for Masters.

“I’ve gotten better this year, so I’m hoping I can go to the Masters meet,” he said. “We believe that to get to Masters, I would probably have to run 1:53,” In addition to his individual work, Manahan is a critical member of several relay teams. Manahan runs the 1200-meter leg in the Distance Medley Relay and is a part of the 4x400 and 4x800-meter relays.

On April 20, at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational, the 4x800 relay team finished fifth and the DMR team finished 12th. Manahan was disappointed by the results for the DMR team, who could be competing at the prestigous New Balance Nationals meet this summer.

“It didn’t go quite as well as we wanted,” he said. “We had a little problem because we were a little behind by the time our anchor leg came up. The anchor leg was Aaron [de Toledo ’12] and he went out a little fast to try to catch up and he had trouble finishing.”

Despite the disappointing finish, Manahan is confident that he and his teammates have plenty of time before the post-season to improve. The CIF Finals meet is not for another four and a half weeks while the Masters meet is the week after. Manahan also said that the team will have more success competing at CIF in the 4x400 event.

He expects to run it with Judd Liebman ’12 and Garret Robinson ’15. The fourth leg could be de Toledo, David Olodort ’12, Will Tobias ’12 or Jordan Gutierrez ’12.

“We’re not quite sure who the fourth leg will be,” he said. “But we’re pretty confident we’ll have a good fourth leg.

We’re hoping to set a new varsity record in the 4x400. The question is can we put it all together in time.”

C6 Sports

The Chronicle

April 25, 2012

Rival Loyola sweeps boys’ volleyball

By Luke Holthouse

In the Mission League which Loyola has perennially dominated, the boys’ volleyball team has an opportunity to take second place if they finish the next two weeks of league play strong.

Their 5-4 league record trails undefeated powerhouse Loyola. The Wolverines can finish runner-up to the rival Cubs if they win their final three league games.

“What people don’t understand is that Loyola is really good and that was never a plan to win league,” outside hitter Chase Klein ’13 said. “Second in league is pretty much a win for us.”

Loyola has won four straight Mission League Championships and boasts Div. I scholarships to all six starters and the number one ranking in the country by MaxPreps.com.

The Cubs dominated the Wolverines in three straight sets Thursday, April 19.

However, the Wolverines took down Chaminade in four sets on Tuesday, April 17, to win their first other league game since Spring Break.

“That was a really good win,” opposite Charlie Troy ’12 said. “At the beginning of the season, they weren’t good at all, we crushed them in three

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

TWO UP: Setter Steven Carr ’12, left, and middle blocker Davey Hartmeier ’14, right, jump to block against Loyola. The sets. We went there [last week], and it was a completely different team. I had never seen anything like it, but we rallied and came back to win in four.”

The Wolverines’ remaining two league games are tomorrow at Alemany and Friday against Notre Dame. The Wolverines beat both teams earlier this year in straight sets.

The Wolverines played Crespi yesterday, but results were unavailable at press time.

The Wolverines lost at Crespi

earlier this season in four sets.

However, before the game, Klein said the team knew what changes to make to beat Crespi.

“Their middles were really dominant against us the first game, and I think if we can shut them down, we’ll have them. It’s a big game, whoever wins has a good shot at getting second in league. We’re going to come out and we’re going to have a gameplan.”

[We’re] setting ourselves up good for playoffs.

JV Volleyball The Wolverines head into their final three matchups of the season looking to redeem their last two losses.

Overall Record: 17-7-1 League Record: 7-2 Last two games: Loyola L (2-0) Chaminade W (2-0) SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

Boys’ golf stands at 6-4 overall, prepares for League Finals

Tennis sits atop league, awaits playoffs

By Robbie Loeb

By Luke Holthouse

Today’s matchup at Santa Barbara may be the best indicator of where the boys’ tennis team stands for this season’s CIF Playoffs.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Jeffrey Bu ’12 said. “It’s a really important match in terms of what we get seeded for CIF.” The Wolverines are currently ranked third in Div. I while Santa Barbara is ranked fifth.

Jackson Frons ’12 said a win could jump the team to the second seed and set it up for a rematch with University High School in the final while a loss would drop them to the fourth spot and force them to play University in the semifinals.

University is expected to claim the top seed in the Southern Section.

The Trojans beat Harvard-Westlake twice earlier this season and also defeated the Wolverines in the Championship match of CIF playoffs last year.

If the Wolverines meet University in the final, Bu said this year’s team might have a better shot at pulling an upset because some of the Trojans’ top players are injured.

But even if the Wolverines are unable to upset the Trojans in playoffs and win CIF, they are still expected win league for the 16th straight season.

The team is 7-0 so far in league with three games remaining before playoffs.

Wolverines lost the match 3-0 to the Cubs who are currently the top team in the nation according to Maxpreps.com.

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

FIRST SERVE: Michael Genender ’15 serves in a 14-7 win over Beverly April 14.

JV Tennis After losing its third match of the season, the JV boys’ tennis team won eight straight and remains undefeated in league play.

Overall Record: 10-1 Last two games: Beverly Hills W(16-2) Chaminade W(18-0) SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

An 11-stroke win over the rival Loyola Cubs on April 17 at Loyola’s home course, Wilshire Country Club, narrowed the gap in the race for the boys’ golf Mission League title. After the win, the Wolverines dropped their next match two days later against Loyola by five strokes.

“In the loss, we got a little bit overconfident, and we did not play with the same intensity we played with in the first match,” scoring-leader Bakari Bolden ’14 said.

The last time the golf team beat Loyola was in a one-stroke win two years ago.

“This year, Loyola was undefeated heading into the match and odds were against us, but we didn’t let that get in our heads,” Jeffrey Aronson ’15 said.

“We went in as an underdog but with a strong belief that we could beat them.

Heading into Thursday, we were way too cocky because of Tuesday’s win.

Golf is 50 percent mental.”

The Wolverines stand second in league at 6-4 behind Loyola after the loss, with a one-match advantage over third place Notre Dame.

The team will play its final regular season match tomorrow against Alemany.

“We stand a great chance in the playoffs,” Andrew Sohn ’13 said. “I think that once we gather some momentum going into CIF, we will very difficult to beat.”

The Wolverines have won a match off every league opponent so far, which serves as a reminder to the team that it can win on any given day, Sohn said.

“When we win, it’s about the team,” Parker Thomas ’12 said. “We’ve got three guys up front, Bakari, Charlie [Benell ’12] and Max [Goodley ’12].

At least one of them is going low on any given day. I think the wins are just about everybody doing their part, whether it’s Bakari shooting 3-under or Michael [Aronson ’13] shooting 1-over.”

The Wolverines will head to League Finals at Lakewood Country Club April 30 where a win could give them their first league title since 2009.

“Everyone on our team is capable of shooting under par on any given day,” Jeffrey said. “That’s just the way golf is.

When all of us are at our best, there isn’t a team in the state that can beat us.”

JV Golf The JV boys’ golf team has outscored opponents by 324 shots and has won every match so far.

Overall Record: 8-0 League Record: 8-0 Last two games: Chaminade W (203-225) Viewpoint W (213-255) “There is no comparison between this year and last year. We’ve just matured, and our skills have really developed.”

–Ojas Parshar ’14 nathanson ’s

SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

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chronicle.hw.com

April 25, 2012

Sports C7

Baseball takes 2nd in national tournament Continued from page C1

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

STREAMLINE: John Copses ’14, part of the 200-meter medely team, swims freestyle in the Wolverines’ 103-68 victory

over Alemany on April 19. The Wolverines will swim at League Finals Wednesday and currently stand at 3-1 overall.

Medley team flirts with school record

By Michael Aronson

Less than one second separates the boys’ 200-meter medley team from a school record that has been in place for almost 20 years. The 200-meter medley relay team of backstroke swimmer Andy Liu ’14, breaststroke swimmer John Copses ’14, butterfly swimmer Eusene Lee ’12 and freestyle swimmer Max Quilici ’12 finished in 1:39.7 in a meet against Notre Dame on April 19.

The time is less than a second off the 1:38.96 record set in 1994.

Lee expects the team to break the record by the end of the season because of how close the team has been to etching their names in the Wolverines’ record books.

“It would be nice to come back to school ten years later with our names in the record books,” Lee said. “If we break the record, it wouldn’t be broken for a long time.”

Other medley teams have also come close to the record, but none have come as close as this 200-meter medley team, Quilici said.

“We’ve been falling short by only a

little bit at meets, but we’ve also been learning what order of swimmers in the relay has been working best for us, and working out the little things,” Quilici said. “Hopefully at league finals we’ll have worked out all those little things enough to get us to where we want to be. We want to be rested and in the best shape to break the record.”

Quilici also thinks that if the team broke the record, it would not be broken for a long time “The record hasn’t been broken for so long because it was such a great time,” Quilici said. “League [Finals] are coming up, so if there was a place to break the record, that would be it.”

Both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams are 3-1 after losing to Loyola and Flintridge Sacred Heart and beating Notre Dame, Agoura and Alemany.

Both will swim their final regular season meets Thursday before heading to League Prelims and League Finals. Lee and Quilici will swim their final meets at Harvard-Westlake on the same relay team in the upcoming weeks, which Quilici said is added motivation to break the 200-meter record.

“Having my name up there with my team mates would be an honor,” Quilici said. “I’ve been a part of the swim team all throughout my time at Harvard Westlake, so having it up there with the names of swimmers whom I looked up too as a freshman would be very cool. Hopefully it’ll inspire the kids on the team in the future to get up there.”

JV Swimming The JV swim team will have its last meet of the season tomorrow against Crespi before heading to its league finals.

Overall Record: 2-2 Last meets: Loyola L (121-13) “I am looking forward to league finals because that is our last opportunity this year to go out with a bang.”

–Justin Carr ’14 nathanson ’s

SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

Fried tripled with an RBI and Brian Ginsburg ’14 doubled and drove in two runs in the Thursday game.

On day three, Hansen, usually a closer, pitched nine innings for a complete-game shutout against American Heritage (Fla.) 1-0. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the ninth, when Fried sent Flaherty home on a grounder to short.

“I feel great contributing to a team that has a chance to do something special,” Hansen said. “I want to help get us far.”

The Wolverines fought to the championships to face Mater Dei, but fell 2-3 in the final to the Monarchs in eight innings. Deere pitched through seven innings, but could not earn the win despite holding the lead until the bottom of the seventh. Closer Alex Rand-Lewis ’12 saw his first action of the tournament in the eighth inning and allowed a walk-off hit with two outs.

“We learned that we can play with anyone out there on any given day,” Lacour said.

JV Baseball Though the Wolverines suffered four of their last six games, they have outscored opponents by 44 runs on the season.

Overall Record: 9-7-1 League Record: 3-3-0 Last two games: Chaminade L (2-3) Narbonne W (9-4) SOURCE: HW.COM/ATHLETICS

The Chronicle

C8 Sports

April 25, 2012

Between the pipes with

Matt Mantel ’12 Varsity Lacrosse Goalie

7

Average goals allowed

18

Most saves in a game

1

Least goals allowed in a game NATHANSON’S/CHRONICLE

With three first-year starters playing defense in front of him, goalie Matt Mantel ’12 serves as the vocal leader of the Wolverines’ defensive unit. Mantel’s best games in goal include a 9-1 win over Brentwood and a 7-1 win over Thatcher.

By Luke Holthouse

Q A Q A Q A Q A

DANIEL KIM/CHRONICLE

DEFENDING THE GOAL: Co-captain and goal keeper Matt Mantel ’12 passes to a teammate in the lacrosse team’s 8-1 victory over Brentwood High School March 21.

Q A Q A Q A

What has been your favorite moment of the season?

Mantel: “Probably our game against Oak Park because it was our first win of the season. It was the best game we have played so far this year.

Our whole team came together, and we all worked really hard to get the win. I also played pretty well, so that’s always fun.”

What does the team need to do to improve?

Mantel: “A lot of times in practice, we don’t go as hard as we should, and it definitely shows during game time. I would say that’s the biggest issue because we have a lot of talent, especially now that we have a middle school team and new guys coming in every year that have the potential to start on varsity. We definitely have the skill, but we need to improve our work ethic a little bit.”

Even after losing your first league game in two years, do you think the team has a good chance at winning the Mission League?

Mantel: “Absolutely. I think we can win league. We just have to work hard in practice each day and improve from there.”

What are your expectations for the playoffs this year?

Mantel: “We never know what teams we’re going to play in the first round until it happens, but we’ll just get ready for when the time comes.

For now, we just have to keep our work ethic up and focus on winning out for the rest of the season.”

How has it been working with Coach Jay Pfeifer, a former goalie, this year?

Mantel: “He has definitely helped because he knows all about the game.

He has also had ups and downs, so he’s really sympathetic. He has been working a lot with me, and anytime I have a question, he is there to help.”

How has the recruiting process been for you?

Mantel: “I got into Delaware without any lacrosse involved, so I won’t necessarily be playing on their varsity team. I need to talk to the coach, and maybe he will give me a tryout. We’ll see from there.

As of now, I can play club or just do whatever I want there.”

What would it be like to play on the varsity team at Delaware your first year?

Mantel: “I think it would just be a cool experience. If I make it, it would be awesome, but if I don’t, I have a lot of work cut out for me because I got into engineering school, so that will be a burden on its own.”