C HRONICLE the harvard-westlake
Los Angeles • Volume 23 • Issue 8 • April 30, 2014 • hwchronicle.com
Discipline problems plague spring trips By Julia Aizuss
SCOTT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
STORYTELLER: Brown Family Speaker A. Scott Berg, the biographer of editor Maxwell Perkins, aviator Charles Lindbergh, actress Katharine Hepburn and President Woodrow Wilson, explains the rationale behind his choice of subjects Monday April 28.
Award-winning biographer urges students to discover their passions By Jack Goldfisher
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg implored students to follow their academic passions and act upon the knowledge they gain from these pursuits in an upper school assembly April 28. The author, whose personal life and writings on various subjects have made him capable of speaking on a wide array of topics, was this year’s Brown Family Distinguished Speaker. He emphasized his lifelong interest in great stories. “Ultimately, my job as a biographer is to tell great stories,” Berg said. “Great stories of great people’s lives.” Berg also visited U.S. History and Cinema Studies classes, discussing political movements, American figures and film star Katharine Hepburn and director Sidney Lumet, both of whom were covered in a biography Berg wrote about the late actress.
Berg said that at age 15 he wasn’t an avid reader, but his mother encouraged him to read a biography of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. “Though it’s not the case now, at that point [Fitzgerald] was a forgotten author,” Berg said. “But he so fascinated me that I spent the next two years in high school reading everything by, of and about F. Scott Fitzgerald.” In high school, Berg felt compelled to apply to Fitzgerald’s alma mater, Princeton University. In his application, he said he felt that even if the school didn’t admit him, he would have to come anyway, to make a “pilgrimage” to the author’s alma mater. Berg was admitted to Princeton, and after being on the campus for two days of his Fall 1967 semester, he sought out the library’s rare books and manuscripts room, where he found several hundred box-
es of Fitzgerald’s papers. The very first box he opened held Fitzgerald’s first draft of “The Great Gatsby,” a book often described as the “great American novel.” He also found personal correspondence between Fitzgerald and book editor Maxwell Perkins, with whom he became enthralled. In addition to being Fitzgerald’s editor, “[Perkins] became Fitzgerald’s best friend, money lender, marriage counselor and psychiatrist,” Berg said. “That one man changed [The Great Gatsby] by about 20 percent.” Berg wanted to write about Perkins, and took the idea to Princeton professor Carlos Baker, who was named in Ernest Hemingway’s will as the only person permitted to chronicle Hemingway’s life. “I just went to his office and knocked on his door,” Berg said. “He was an inspiration. You’ve got to find your own in• Continued on page A8
96 percent value academics, but only INSIDE 55 percent enjoy classes, study finds By Noa Yadidi
Although almost all upper school students find their academics valuable, only half find them enjoyable and only a slight majority of students are satisfied and not distressed, according to the workload survey’s culminating report finalized April 24 and released to faculty and staff via the faculty portal April 25. Some 95.9 percent of upper school students reported that they find their academics valuable, but only 54.5 percent reported that they find them enjoyable. The report also states that just over 60 percent of upper school students are satisfied and not distressed, while nearly 85 percent of middle
school students are satisfied and not distressed. The committee’s final report consists of observations made from the data collected from the survey, which was administered to all grades in November. Upper school science teacher David Hinden and middle school Dean of Faculty and Latin teacher Moss Pike led the committee, which has analyze the data from the workload survey and provided recommendations for the school’s direction. Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts and President Rick Commons will decide who at the school is in the best position to act on these suggestions, Huybrechts said.
Huybrechts said she hopes that all these elements will be acted upon by this time next year. “I’m not saying that there will be totally fleshed out solutions or plans from a year from now, but every one of these items will be further examined,” she said. The biggest changes during the last 12 years were that typically students were taking more courses, juniors and seniors were taking more AP classes and were getting significantly less sleep, she said. The survey found an increasing trend towards taking more academic solids. 71.2 percent of students reported taking five solids, 22.6 percent • Continued on page A9
UP TO BAT: The Wolverine baseball team, ranked second in the CIF Southern Section Division I Coaches’ Poll, currently holds a 16-4-1 overall record and a 4-1-1 league record.
Although various school trips over spring break were plagued by similar issues with drug and alcohol use, the extent and nature of the disciplinary action has varied. Five seniors caught drinking on the Jazz Band and Studio Jazz Band trip to Italy were given a one-day suspension while on the trip and had their senior privileges revoked, students said, while Chamber Singers were told by Choir Director Rodger Guerrero that next year’s Chamber Singers trip would be cancelled. Six jazz musicians were sitting at a table with a couple bottles of wine, one of the students said, when the chaperones and the tour guide walked into the same restaurant. “They walked in and saw the bottles of wine and the glasses on the table,” the student said. The student said he was not drinking, but everyone else had about “a glass or two.” He said the other five students, all seniors, were given the equivalent of a one-day suspension by performing arts teacher Shawn Costantino, so they did not perform one night. Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas called, the student said, and revoked the five students’ senior privileges for the foreseeable future. The student said most, if not all, of his companions are 18, which is the legal drinking age in Italy. “It’s part of the Italian culture,” he said. The student said he thought the punishments were • Continued on page A9
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ONtheWEB
CONCERT FOR CARR: Molly Chapman ’14 sings at the “Justin Carr Wants World Peace Concert” at All Saints’ Episcopal Church Monday night. Watch a video at: hwchronicle.com/ carrconcert
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The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle Wednesday, April 30, 2014 3700 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Studio City, Calif. 91604
Preview
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CYCLING LA: Amiya Brown ’14, right, takes a break with Matt Klein ’14, left, and his father Howard during the Harvard-Westlake Cycling Club’s Ciclavia trip April 6.
News A7
Features B1
A NEW MEDIUM: A Snapchat drawing of a penguin by Alexandria Florent ’15. Florent and Alexis Ladge ‘15 both spend time making Snapchat art.
SAM SACHS/CHRONICLE
NAIL-BITER: Phillip Thompson ’16 (#35) carries the ball in the lacrosse team’s 10-9 triple overtime win against St. Margaret’s Episcopal April 26.
offbeat
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A&E B10
WORLD CLASS JAZZ: Jeremy Tepper ’15, left, and Ben Greene ’14 perform with Jazz Band while visiting Italy spring break.
Slattery, Cuseo can’t quite seem to ‘Let it Go’ By Lauren Sonnenberg
“You have a stuffed Olaf?” upper school dean Sharon Cuseo questioned fellow dean Beth Slattery with a hint of envy beneath her curiosity. “Where did you even find one of those?” she added. “They’re sold out everywhere.” Slattery and Cuseo have shared a lot in the nine years they have worked side-by-side as upper school deans—both are known as the deans with the best candy in their respective offices, both have young daughters around the same age and both have a dry sense of humor. What they share has expanded to include an obsession with the Disney animated movie “Frozen.”
Although Slattery and Cuseo regularly take their daughters to childrens’ movies together, they did not rush out to see “Frozen” when it came out. Only after it was recommended did they watch it. “We saw it and we both thought, wow this is really good. And we were googling, like, while we were in the movie, like was Kristen Bell really singing?” Cuseo said. From that first viewing on, every time their daughters wanted to watch it, “it was like a drug and we were pushers, so we were getting other kids to go see it,” Cuseo said. “I was just as much wanting to see it again as they were.” After seeing how much her 5-year-old daughter Ruby
loved “Frozen” and receiving a copy of the DVD, Slattery used it to bribe her daughter into following her rules. Ruby had never seen Frozen at home, and the only chance she had to do so was by attaining her mother’s advanced copy of “Frozen,” so she obliged and followed her mother’s orders. Both deans agree with the general public that “Frozen” sends a good message to its viewers—that the gay store owner with a multi-ethnic family encourages acceptance and open-mindedness, that the sister love being more important than romantic love is applicable to most kids (especially to Cuseo’s twin daughters) and that the strong-willed female protagonist is a good role
The Chronicle, the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School, is published nine times per year and distributed free on both the upper and middle school campuses. There are 727 students at the Middle School and 870 students at the Upper School. Subscriptions may be purchased for $20 a year for delivery by mail. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the seniors on the Editorial
model. However, they are just as quick to credit the great music and funny sidekick with their love of the movie. Both deans love musicals and said they were impressed with the soundtrack to “Frozen.” Their love of “Frozen” affected more than just their relationship with their daughters—the music allowed them to bond with more juniors. “We all belted out the ‘Frozen’ songs on the bus during the college tour,’ Jules Gross ’15 said. “We got to bond a lot with the deans over non-college related activities.” Neither dean can count how many times they have seen the movie, but they have seen it at least five times together.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF BETH SLATTERY
ICE PRINCESS: Upper school dean Beth Slattery’s daughter dressed up as ‘Queen Elsa’ from the movie “Frozen.”
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 signed and may be edited for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format. Advertising questions may be directed to Tara Stone at 310-430-8537. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product or service by the newspaper or the school.
April 30, 2014
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News A3
School removes 13 classes from schedule By Scott Nussbaum
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3 seniors appear in Apple commercial
BIG BREAK: Megha Srivastava ’14, left, and Divya Siddarth ’14, center, launch rockets using an iPhone application in an Apple commercial. The students and Andrew Friedman ’14, shown earlier in the commercial, were contacted by Apple representatives through the science department to appear in the commercial, which was filmed March 22. All three participants were paid and, after being first aired on April 22, the commercial continues to be aired on television.
Career Day moves to Upper School
By Sarah Novicoff
Juniors and sophomores will have the opportunity to hear from 33 alumni and two current parents during third, fourth and fifth periods at the Upper School May 13 in a major revamp of Career Day. In the past, juniors spent a day with their hosts at their off-campus work places. “This way, more students can participate because it’s on campus instead of going off campus,” Alumni Administrator Janiece Richard said. “It was usually for juniors, but I think, by your junior or senior year, you’ve probably done some internships, you may know what you want to do, so we did want to open it up for people who do and don’t fit in that category. So if you do know what you want to do, then you can meet somebody in that industry. And if you don’t know what you want to do, you can meet a bunch of
Howard to become new dean By Lauren Sonnenberg
English teacher Adam Howard ’93 will join the dean team next year, replacing Jim Patterson, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts announced in an email to faculty and staff Monday morning. Next year, Howard will take over counseling duties for Patterson’s rising juniors, as well as counsel sophomores. Patterson’s current juniors will still be counseled by Patterson, as he will remain on campus in his new position as Director of External Learning. “As much as I love my time in the classroom, I only get three hours a week with about 30 sophomores and juniors, whereas as a dean I feel like I will be able to have more of a connection and influence over a three-year process,” Howard said. “I want to get to know them better as students, as citizens, as just overall members of Harvard-Westlake.”
people in different industries.” The event will feature 35 “hosts,” with careers from almost 15 fields, including entertainment, law, medicine, journalism, marketing and politics. Speakers will give presentations in six sessions, with two each period. Sophomore class meeting, scheduled for third period, will be cancelled so sophomores can attend the presentations, which will include videos, powerpoints and question and answer sessions. Some juniors, who have AP exams in AP French Language and Culture or AP Human Geography that afternoon, can attend Career Day that morning. Richard hopes that many juniors who are not taking an AP test will choose to spend their midday frees at the fair. “We’re trying to cover everything,” Richard said. “Students are interested in a lot of things so we just want to make sure there’s something here for every student who wants
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to participate.” Some hosts will stay for all six sessions while others will be there for only a few periods. A schedule with the locations of the speakers as well as short biographies will be distributed to all upper school students in the week before Career Day. “I’m hoping that they get an idea of what it’s like to be ‘fill in the blank’ — to do whatever this person does and to get an idea of maybe that’s something they want to pursue,” Richard said. “Or if they’re unsure, I hope that they can get some guidance from the hosts, of what it takes to do this.” “I think Career Day is important because a lot of people, including me, don’t know what they want to be,” Riya Garg ’15 said. “Choosing what field or occupation you want to go into is one of the most important decisions you have to make in your life so being informed can only help make the decision a better one.”
As much as I love my time in the classroom, I only get three hours a week with about 30 juniors, whereas as a dean I feel like I will be able to have more of a connection and influence over a three-year process .” —Adam Howard English teacher
After graduating from Kenyon College and earning his master’s degree in theater from the University of Texas at Austin, Howard returned to Harvard-Westlake to initially teach performing arts at the Middle School, but later switched to teach English, a job he has held at the Upper School for the past eight years. “I know the college process pretty well because I went to a very small college and then went to a huge university for graduate school,” Howard said. “I loved my decision to go to Kenyon and I think one of the reasons I am so drawn to being a college counselor is that I want to help other kids find that perfect place for them.” Howard currently teaches
as fly fishing. “At the end of the day, it is Ten Interdisciplinary Stud- a cold hard calculation,” Toies and Independent Research bias said. “You have x numclasses, two science classes ber of students, x number of and one foreign language class sign ups, x number of teachers have been cancelled from next and only eight periods so it all year’s schedule of classes due comes down to the numbers. It doesn’t bother me that the to insufficient sign ups. The cancelled classes in- class was cancelled.” It is unknown whether clude “The Art and Science of Fly Fishing,” “Surreal- “The Art and Science of Fly ism,” “The Creative Process: Fishing” will be offered during From Inspiration to Fruition,” the next enrollment period, “Criminal Law: Trials,” “Crim- Tobias said. “I think we have more stuinal Law: Appeals,” “Genetics and Biotechnology,” “Gender dents who are tempted to bite and Sexuality,” “Meteorology,” off more than they are able “Spanish V,” “World Religion” chew than we do students who and “Video Game Design.” are bored, so from that point “Middle East Studies” and of view I don’t think there’s “Mythology and Its Meaning” much inclination to push stuwill only be cancelled for the dents to take more classes than they already do, whether second semester of the year. in the Kutler “EnrollCenter or any ment and other school interest are depart ment,” certainly Silberman part of the At the end of the said. enrollment day, it is a cold hard Juniors and patterns sophomores we’ve seen, calculation. You have were notified but it’s also x number of sign ups, x of the canthat we have added many number of teachers and celled classes in an email renew classonly eight periods so it minding them es without to check their all comes down to the adding any future schedadditional numbers. ” ules to ensure new students and —Art Tobias they are signed up for the cordid so anVisual arts teacher rect classes. ticipating Students that some can choose to classes, new or existing, might not have sign up for an additional class sufficient enrollment to run if they had previously signed the class,” dean Peter Silber- up for one that was cancelled by meeting with their dean man said. “The Art and Science of and discussing their schedule. Fly Fishing” was a new course Students can also chose to added to the Kutler Center leave the period blank if it was classes for next year and was previously filled with a canplanned to be taught by vi- celled class. “I was really looking forsual arts teacher Art Tobias and science teacher Dietrich ward to taking Surrealism and I’m sure whatever I replace Schuhl. The planned curriculum it with will be fine too, but I for the class included the tech- guess I just wish Harvardniques of fly fishing along with Westlake was more open to the scientific aspect of fish less traditional classes,” Ethan and their environment, such Weinstein ’15 said. “I think as conditions in the water and those untraditional classes fish population, and aimed that were cancelled could be to combine art and science much more interesting than through a single medium, such regualr classes.”
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Patterson to serve as new Director of External Learning By Enya Huang
nathanson’s
English II and English III: Living America, and also leads the H-W Sports Council, mentors playwrights for the annual Playwrights Festival and serves on the Senior Independent Study Committee. Howard is excited for his new position because “in the deans’ offices, the challenges are daily, and they’re unique and so unpredictable,” he said. Howard was informed he got the position last Monday. He was not then aware that he was replacing Patterson, he said, but believed he was replacing Dean Mike Bird, who also plans to retire this year. “There were still parts in motion, so I didn’t know exactly which kids I will be taking over,” Howard said.
Dean Jim Patterson will assume the new position of Director of External Learning next year. The job entails “leading and overseeing all the portions of the Harvard-Westlake program that are outside of the traditional academic classroom in some way,” Patterson said. Patterson will work on planning school trips, working with the school’s global initiatives and focusing on entrepreneurial ventures, he said. “We’re at a point in time where the school has a lot of different programming in all these different areas, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to bring them together and provide a vision for where these areas can really go,” Patterson said. As part of his new position, Patterson envisions increased school trips for students to be exposed to additional nonacademic experiences through trips. “When I first started
here we had numerous trips abroad,” Patterson said. “We had numerous trips that would take kids out of HarvardWestlake to a lot of different areas, and it’s kind of diminished over time in my two decades here. I easily could see how some of those trips could increase over the course of the next two to five years.” Patterson will also continue as summer program director. “Being a Harvard-Westlake student isn’t just taking five core academic classes and participating in our co-curricular activities and knowing that we’re a great college prep school,” Patterson said. “We have all of these learning opportunities outside of that curriculum that you also get to take advantage of.” English teacher Adam Howard ’93 will assume Patterson’s position as dean next year, but Patterson will continue to work with his current juniors he has been advising through the college process, he said.
A4 News
Seniors can opt for enrichment learning
cover of Time Magazine in 1991 for her efforts in sparking a debate on date rape laws and Seniors will have more op- safety awareness. After this speaker, the portunities to pursue transitional and enrichment-type school has other plans for selearning in coming weeks than niors. Director of Counseling and in previous years, Head of Student Affairs Jordan Church Psychological Services Kavita Ajmere arranged for Koestner said. The administration will of- to visit campus. “It’s important to know fer more ways for seniors to occupy their time after AP this information before goexams have been completed, ing to college so students are including sitting in on classes made aware of maintaining they would like to sample for safety,” Ajmere said. Following the next two a day. Despite the focus on the weeks’ AP exams, seniors will time after AP exams, the first likely be able to audit non-AP transitional learning offered classes and attend optional will be tomorrow’s senior class speeches during their free pemeeting guest speaker, date riods. Though a small number of rape victim and sexual assault prevention activist Katie students audited classes after AP exams in the past, Koestner, who will this year it will be talk about avoiding more formal and pubdangerous situations licized, Church said. in college. “I’m trying to inKoestner, who crease the amount of was a freshman at offering for seniors,” the College of WilChurch said. “Most liam and Mary in of the administra1990, was date-raped tion and faculty feel by a friend who lived that the post-AP in her dorm. nathanson’s time frame is an unA 1993 article derutilized part of the in the Philadelphia Jordan Church school year, and we Inquirer reported Koestner had no idea what want to help you guys out. I date rape was prior to this think it’s hard for seniors alexperience, nor had she ever ready being at the end of this been told by others to be wary time already, going from being of peers that she thought she very scheduled to not scheduled at all, and hopefully this could trust. Lenient laws on date rape will help ease that.” Previously, transitional at the time left her with little support from friends, family classes were isolated to Senior Transition Day, which will and authorities. She was treated with cava- still occur May 22. Some senior-only events lier practices, and many even refused to believe her telling of are still in the planning stages. Prefect Council is trying the story. Following the incident, to plan an on-campus senior Koestner began speaking out picnic for after AP exams, but about date rape on college the proposal is still pending approval by the administracampuses. She was featured on the tion.
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
By Henry Hahn and Lizzy Thomas
Cum Laude Inductees 59 seniors in the top 20 percent of the class GPA range will be inducted into the National Cum Laude society in a ceremony May 19. Julia Aizuss Aaron Anderson Andrew Arditi Justin Bae Alex Berman Zachary Birnholz Zoe Bohn Nicholas Brooks Jonathan Burns Garrett Cayton Sydney Cheong Eojin Choi Thomas Choi Molly Cinnamon Sinclair Cook James Edwards Andrew Friedman Claire Goldsmith Henry Hahn Lisa He Vincent Huang James Hur Irene Kao Matthew Karo Matthew Kelson Benjamin Klein Annie Kors Emma Lesher-Liao Grace Levin Eric Lin Jesse Liu
Matthew Lucas David Manahan Tigist Menkir Sarah Novicoff Michael O’Krent Kelsey Ogomori Daniel Palumbo Rayne Peerenboom Michael Rahhal Jacqueline Ridgley Emma Sanderson Eliott Sassouni Divya Siddarth Megha Srivastava Matthew Stieg Elizabeth Thomas Alisa Tsenter Aidan Victor Bennett Victor Lydia Weber Mane Williams Christina Woo Hang Yang Frank Yeh Alec Zadikian Kevin Zhang Larry Zhang Honarary Inductee: Julia Kim SOURCE: CUM LAUDE SOCIETY GRAPHIC BY SCOTT NUSSBAUM
MARCELLA PARK/CHRONICLE
Students perform in a poetry slam SLAM DUNK: Hannah Dains ’16 performs in a poetry slam in Ahmanson Lecture Hall April 17. Five faculty judges scored them and Matt Beyer ’15, Tiana Coles ’16, Dains, Brian Ginsberg ’14, Jensen McRae ’15 and Kelly Morrison ‘16 made the team for Get Lit’s Classic Slam in May.
2 teachers win India Fellowship By Elizabeth Madden
Two members of the faculty have been awarded the India Exploration and Immersion Faculty Fellowship sponsored by the Cultural Heritage and Arts of India Club and the Gunter-Gross Asia Initiative. Visual arts department head Cheri Gaulke and middle school visual arts teacher Claire O’Connor ’06 will travel to Mumbai and Delhi, where they will explore temples, slums and monuments. Gaulke hopes to research potential subjects for student documentaries, while O’Connor will focus on transforming Indian mythology into art. The fellowship’s goal is to allow faculty members to create an immersive experience that will increase their understanding of Indian culture, history and/or society, according to an email from Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts
March 17 that announced the trip. Proposals had to include how the experience will improve teaching skills and spark collaboration between departments, Huybrechts said. To apply for the fellowship, two faculty members had to jointly design a program to “result in expanded global interest, awareness and understanding through exploration in India,” according to the email. A selection committee overseen by Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research department chair Larry Klein reviewed the proposals received. Both Gaulke and O’Connor hope to “expose HarvardWestlake students to the resourcefulness and industry of people as they create a living for themselves under incredibly challenging conditions,” their proposal reads. They plan to partner with
Reality Tours & Travel Tour Company, Gaulke said. The first five days are to be spent sightseeing in Mumbai and traveling to Udaipur to visit City Palace and to spend time with a local family. Gaulke hopes to explore the spiritual culture of India as well as explore potential documentary subjects for students, provided that a trip for students to explore media in India could be formed. This would be similar to the previous trips she has led to Rwanda, Laos and Ethopia, she said. “I want to empower students, so that they know how the stories they tell can change the world,” Gaulke said. “I’ve found that on the previous trips I have led, students returned with an appreciation of their own privilege, and how to use it to better the lives of others.” The two-week trip will take place over winter break.
Obama, Time Magazine recognize Collins’s ’97 influence, achievements
By Patrick Ryan
Jason Collins ’97, the first active athlete in a major American sport to come out as gay, was recognized by Time Magazine 2014 list of “100 Most Influential People in the World” and by President Barack Obama last week. Collins was named by Obama to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. “It’s a cool honor,” Collins said of being included in the magazine’s list in an interview with the New York Daily News last week. “But I know I’m not just doing this by myself. There have been a lot of people who have helped me get to where I am, a lot of people who have made the path easier for me, and that’s the one thing I hope I’m doing for other people is making it easier for them to live their authentic life.” Collins announced he is gay last April in an interview with Sports Illustrated. Chelsea Clinton, Collins’ classmate at Stanford University, wrote the testimonial for Collins in Time. “[Collins] has meant so much to our country and made such an imprint on our society,” Head of Athletics Terry Barnum said. “The things that he has done and will continue
to do [are] leaving a legacy are going to affect the whole that is going to be there for country, I think that’s huge,” generations to look back on Barnum said. “That’s a great and revere.” accomplishment for [Collins]. Collins was placed on one It speaks to who he is as perof the inside covers of Time son, as a man [and] what a Magazine. leader he is in our country.” “I’m just proud that he is Collins signed a contract a Harvard-Westlake alum, I’m with the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets proud to know him personally last month and averaged 1.1 and I think it’s just a great points and 0.9 rebounds in 22 thing,” Barnum said. “To have games this season. that honor “Who he really sets is and what you apart. he repreTo be able to sents kind of have the imtranscends The things that pact that he’s sports,” Barhe has done and will had, it’s just num said. phenomenal.” “He’s much continue to do [are] The other more than leaving a legacy that members of a basketball the Presiplayer. [Colis going to be there for dent’s Counlins] has algenerations to look cil on Fitness, ways been Sports and more than back on and revere.” Nutrition are just a basket—Terry Barnum ball player, basketball player Alonzo Head of Athletics as well as his Mourning, brother Jarchef and food ron [’97]. television personality Rachel Basketball has been what they Ray, dancer Misty Copeland do, but basketball has never and SS+K co-founder Robert been who they are. BasketThomas Shepardson. ball may have been the vehicle “Anytime you get recog- from which he reached the nized by the President of the millions of people that he has United States and hand-picked reached, but by no means does to be on a council that is going that define who he is. It’s just to advise him on issues that a part of who he is.”
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April 30, 2014
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News A5
Fundraiser to support cafeteria employee By Kelly Loeb
LAUREN SONNENBERG/CHRONICLE
PITCH PERFECT: Jensen McRae ’15, left, and Aiyana White ’14 perform “Unpretty” by TLC at the second to last Coffee House of the school year. Coffee and snacks were served in the lounge as singers, musicians and magicians performed for their peers and teachers.
Prefect Council hosts 4th Coffee House By Jake Saferstein
Students and faculty packed the lounge Monday after school to watch singers, actors, musicians and magicians at the fourth Coffee House this year. To kick off the performances, coffee and snacks were served in the lounge, which was also decorated to look like a coffee house. “I love it,” Matt Jung ’16 said. “It’s a great way to hang out with friends, listen to some great music and drink some great coffee.” Senior Prefect Greg Lehrhoff ’14 hosted the show while
the other prefects helped en- ets or group performances, sure the show ran smoothly. like Jensen McRae ’15 and Head Prefect Henry Hahn ’14 Aiyana White ’14, who peralso filmed all performed “Unpretty” by formances to upload TLC. them to YouTube. “I’m really happy I “I am always surgot to do a duet with prised at how much Aiyana, especially talent our school that song. She and has,” Alan YousefzaI have become great deh ’15 said. “Coffriends this year and fee House is a great I respect her so much chance for students as a person and an to show off these unartist,” McRae said. nathanson’s expected talents.” “To do a song about Quinn Pe r f o r m a n c e s self-image by a black Luscinski ’14 ranged from classic girl group with somesinging to magic. Many stu- one so talented was amazing, dents performed individual especially since she’s about to acts, but some performed du- graduate.”
In addition to students, faculty also watched the Coffee House, and the crowd was overflowing into the hallway. “Coffee House has been such a fantastic HarvardWestlake tradition,” Zita Biosah ’14 said. “I’m constantly amazed by all of the talent at this school.” Prefect Council will host one more Coffee House this year. “It was really cool [to perform] because there were people that were watching and they clapped at the end and it’s definitely something I’d want to do again,” Quinn Luscinski ’14 said.
A bake sale will be held today and tomorrow to raise money for cafeteria employee Oscar Flores who is undergoing treatment for leukemia. “All proceeds are going to Oscar to assist him in paying for things like prescription drugs that have a cumulative cost that is difficult to afford for most people,” Community Council member Johnny Felker ’14 said. Community Council and the baseball team have teamed up to host the event and are selling assorted baked goods. Students are encouraged to bring goods that can be sold. The Bake a Difference club founded by Lili Cohen ’15 is also providing homemade goods to the event. Baseball hats specially made for supporters of the fight against leukemia are also being sold. The baseball team has previously held fundraisers to raise money for researching cures for leukemia. “The bake sale was an initiative called for by the senior class on its senior Facebook group led by Community Council and the baseball team to team up to help a member of our own community suffering from the disease,” Felker said.
Students to display research, new technology at STEMfest event By Pim Otero
Research, Studies in Sports, Video Game Design, Topics A special assembly sched- in Calculus and Statistics and ule for STEMfest May 21 will Web Programming. allow upper school students STEMfest opened particiand faculty time to view a va- pation to any club that wants riety of research by students, to display its work. such as an Unmanned Aviation The event will feature Vehicle (a drone), a Quadcop- demonstrations from Bridge to ter (a helicopter powered by a Brighter Future, Girl Scouts four rotors), hovercraft, vid- Dominate STEM, Computer eo games, a mood-meter and Hardware Club, Beat-the-Bot multiple iPhone and Android NCAA Predictors, Computer apps. Science Club and Robotics At STEMfest, students Club. There will also be a Sciwill present science and ence Bowl battle between stumath-based research results dents and teachers. and inventions, such as apps “We’re going to pull out or statistics the Waffleof Harvardbot and this Westlake daiyear’s compely life. tition robot,” STEMfest Robotics I am always started as the Club co-capamazed at the energy annual display tain Frank and excitement. of research Yeh ’14 said. results from “People can Students from the Studies in come by to throughout the school Scientific Reeat some search class look forward to sharing waffles and taught by scisee the retheir creations.” ence teacher sults of three Antonio Nas—Paula Evans months of sar. work.” math department head The popuM a n y larity of the past scievent led to ence or math the Middle School having its based student start-ups, comown STEMfest for the first petitions and activities will be time this year. brought back for STEMfest. Both STEMfests will fea- Some of these projects include ture displays and demonstra- H-W Scramble and H-W Intions from classes such as novation Lab, Coder Dojo, Advanced Topics in Comput- Harvard-Westlake Center for er Science, Molecular Gas- Sports & Science, Intel Scitronomy, Studies in Scientific ence Talent Search, Siemens
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Competition in Math, Science and Technology and Women in Engineering Club. “Every year, we have off campus visitors who are blown away by the creativity of H-W students,” math department head Paula Evans said. “I also like to be able to have students who have been recognized nationally show the work that got that recognition.” This year, two students were selected as finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, and as a reward, Harvard-Westlake received a cash prize that will go towards funding this years’ STEMfests. “It’s kind of a self-sustaining cycle: one of our students did well, and they won this competition and then they get some money, and then we get some money and then we’re able to use it again to make science better at this school,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said. “I think it will go great, as I’m looking forward to flying my UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] project at the school and I think it will be an exciting addition to the already awesome lineup of presentations,” Christian Stewart ’15 said. Food will be provided to students and faculty members who attend the STEMfests. “I am always amazed at the energy and excitement,” Evans said. “Students from throughout the school look forward to sharing their creations.”
JESSICA SPITZ/CHRONICLE
LIGHT ’EM UP: Henry Jiang ’14 and Irene Kao ’14 work on their project that harvests energy to power several LED lights.
Siemens honors seniors as finalists in challenge By Pim Otero
Irene Kao ’14 and Henry Jiang ’14 were selected as finalists for the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology March 30. The Siemens Competition fosters growth and talent in high school students by challenging competitors to submit a project created through independent scientific research, according to their website. “It was the perfect way to end the course and my high school research,” Jiang said. For their project, Kao and Jiang generated electrical currents in their Studies in Scientific Research class, which passed through the mechanical compression of piezoelectric material; the resulting energy was harvested and powered LED lights. Kao
and Jiang focused on their project for the entire school year in their Studies in Scientific Research class; they finally submitted their finished write-up and photos Jan. 30. “We thought of doing more biophysics—related stuff at first like lucid dream induction and inflammation prevention through electromagnetic waves, but we couldn’t use human subjects or animal ones without doing a lot of paperwork so we just moved on to energy conservation and harvesting,” Jiang said. Kao was a returning competitor to the Siemens Competition, but this was Jiang’s first time participating in the competition. Kao and Jiang each received $1,000, and Harvard-Westlake also recieved a cash prize which will fund the STEMfests.
A6 News
The Chronicle
inbrief
April 30, 2014
SciBowl competes in Washington, D.C.
The Science Bowl B Team competed in nine rounds and placed sixth in its division in Washington, D.C. at the National Science Bowl championship April 24-28. The students left on April 24 and returned Monday. The B team was selected to go to Washington, D.C. to compete after winning the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Regional Science Bowl Championship in February. Science Bowl adviser and chemistry teacher Nathan Cardin and Assistant Director of Admissions Melanie Leon accompanied them. —Siddarth Kucheria
New library batteries to fix service problem New internal batteries have been ordered for every laptop in the library due to wireless settings issues. A computer services investigation revealed that the frequent removal of the main batteries from the laptops caused internal battery issues that did not allow students to log on wirelessly. “It turns out that because we take our batteries out of the laptops so many times a day, it confuses the laptop and interferes with the network settings,” head librarian Shannon Acedo said. “If we always recharged our laptops by plugging them by cords into a laptop cart, say, this probably wouldn’t be a problem.” —Benjamin Most
Sophomore qualifies for chess tournament Shaileja Jain ’16 has qualified to play in the 2014 World Youth Chess Championships in the girls under 16 division. Jain will represent the United States in Durban, South Africa Sept. 18-30. Jain has been playing chess since she was 11. “Qualifying for World Youth was one of the most exciting moments of my life,” Jain said. “My brother, who had introduced me to chess in the first place, had always aspired to qualify for this tournament, so in doing so I was able to surpass my mentor and hopefully accomplish his goal for him.” —Jessica Spitz
Posters put up to raise genocide awareness The Genocide Awareness and Activism Club put up posters around campus to raise awareness about genocides around the world for Genocide Awareness Week, which began Monday and goes until May 2. The club, headed by Alex Berman ’14, Ben Klein ’14 and Josh Shapiro ’14 put up posters with “faces of genocides” and various facts on them. The club wants to educate students about these historic tragedies that go unnoticed. “The impetus for creating this week was the fact that many students don’t know much about the atrocities that occur many many miles away,” Shapiro said. —Cole Feldman
AUDREY WILSON/CHRONICLE
UP ALL NIGHT: Jacob Gold ’15 reads a chapter from ‘Moby-Dick’ at the English department’s read-a-thon in Mudd Library April 17.
English department hosts 2nd annual overnight ‘Moby-Dick’ read-a-thon By David Woldenberg
The English department hosted the second “MobyDick” marathon read for students, teachers and parents April 17-18 in Mudd Library. The event, organized by English teachers Malina Mamigonian and Charles Berezin, began at 4 p.m. and ran close to 24 hours. Attendees were able to sign up online through a Google Doc to read one of 135 chapters. Chapters ranged any-
where from five to 45 minutes in reading time. Participants were provided with food and drinks from Whole Foods, Big Sugar and Starbucks Coffee. Mamigonian proposed the idea last year, the first year “MobyDick” was an option for the English curriculum. “The reading marathon is something I experienced for the first time in college,” Mamigonian said. “Reading the novel aloud brought it to life for me and I hope it does the same for my students.”
Various props related to the book, like blow-up whales, were placed around the library to enhance the experience. Participants were also offered henna tattoos to honor a character in the book, Queequeg the chief harpooner. “They had chowder and I read a chapter about chowder, so that made the night for me,” Peter Cha ’15 said. Sabrina Szu ’15 and Sophia Szu ’15 both attended the event and slept overnight in the library, though many stu-
dents left before then. “The ambient library setting really set the mood for the whole reading and we all got a 360 experience,” Sophia said. KHWS live broadcasted the whole event on location. Andrew Ravan ’15 designed T-shirts for the event, which are available on a Custom Ink website. All of the proceeds of the sales will go to Oceana, a non-profit organization for ocean conservation. Mamigonian and Berezin plan to host the event again next year.
Tech Council to maintain all school apps
By Lizzy Thomas
A tech council aiming to maintain current campusfocused apps, create new apps for the use of the student body and design digital posters to be displayed on the TVs in the library and lounge for clubs on campus launched this month. Director of Student Affairs Jordan Church and computer science teacher Jason Fieldman ’98 launched the council
of computer science and photography students this month. Church saw a need for such a committee in part because of the way apps created by students for the school community fell into digital disrepair when those students graduated, like the first iHW app launched three years ago. “For a while, individuals would makes apps and then those apps would just die when those individuals would gradu-
ate,” Church said. In addition to upkeep and maintenance, the council will try to generate new apps, possibly from ideas that students or Prefect Council may have but not know how to create. “Prefect Council and the student body come up with ideas but are unable to implement them,” Church said. “Hopefully this council can help to do that.” Church approached Head
Prefect Henry Hahn ’14 and they partnered with Fieldman to select students for the first edition of a council Church hopes will continue in years to come. Though the three essentially hand-selected the current members of the council, it will eventually be open to application, Church said. “It’s really difficult to start things, and we wanted to have some early success,” Church said.
315 new students to enroll for 2014-2015 year By Noa Yadidi
A total of 315 new students will enroll for the 20142015 school year from a total of 1,094 applications across grades 7-11, Assistant Director of Admission Melanie Leon said. Two new students were admitted for 11th grade, 15 for 10th grade, 80 for ninth grade, three for eighth grade and 215 for seventh grade. The 80 students joining the class of 2018 will be arriving from 66 different sending schools, as will the 215 students joining the class of 2020. The entire applicant pool came from more than 200 different sending schools, Leon said. Although the office does not release official acceptance rates, Associate Director of Admission Scott Turner said that the acceptance rate this year has remained consistent with past years. Leon, however, noted that the acceptance rate is most
likely a lot lower than most schools in the Los Angeles area, which allows the school to remain competitive due to the number of applicants. The school did not enroll more sophomores than usual despite originally expecting to do so. The 15 that will join the class of 2017 are a typical number and around the average in about the last five years, Turner said. “We weren’t expecting to have such a low attrition in ninth grade this year,” Director of Admission Elizabeth Gregory said. “This year it’s so far a very small number of kids who are actually leaving. So, in order to keep the enrollment kind of stable we can’t admit as many students as I thought we were going to be able to.” Gregory also noted that the addition of two students to the class of 2016 was unusual in comparison to past years, but also eliminated spots for students applying for 10th grade.
This year’s high yield also conLeon said that the number tributed to this, she said. of siblings admitted was con“It was kind of incredible,” sistent to past years, but that Gregory said. “That’s the other more students tend to come thing we’re not sure of, some- in the seventh grade than the times we predict a lower yield, ninth grade. Although stuthen we’ll take more people. dents remain on the waitlist, But the yield some will be was so high released from we just had to it soon. stop.” S o m e Overall, I feel like s t u d e n t s Leon and Turner both who were on it was one of the best noted that the waitlist, years.” the ninth which will grade pool —Melanie Leon close towards was particuthe end of the Assistant Director summer, have larly strong. “The new of Admissions been taken off ninth grade and enrolled class is alalready, Leon ways really diverse, which I said. think is something that the Recommendations were office is really proud of,” Leon submitted online this year in said. “They all bring some a new change to the applicaamazing quality whether it’s tion process and the admission athletics or performing arts office website was translated or community service. They into Chinese for the first time. give back to the community in “Overall, I feel like it was some way. They bring academ- one of the best years,” Leon ics plus something more.” said.
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April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/news
News A7
inbrief
Students elect Prefect Council members Juniors and sophomores elected prefects on April 23 and April 25 respectively. Sophomores elected Hunter Brookman ’16, Grace Pan ’16, Jordan Strom ’16 and Nina Woythaler ’16 to serve as junior prefects for the 2014-2015 school year. Both Pan and Brookman were incumbents. Sophomores began voting after their class meeting April 22 and the polls closed at 2:30 p.m. April 23. Matt Beyer ’15, Jackson Beavers ’15, Hana Kateman ’15 and Jensen McRae ’15 were elected as senior prefects. Beavers was the only elected incumbent. —Sophie Kupiec-Weglinski
EUGENIA KO/CHRONICLE
HITTING THE HIGH NOTES: From left, Eric Greenberg ’14, Mac Colquhoun ’14, Jordan Gutierrez ’14, Daniel Davila ’14, Morgan Brown ’15 and Katie Hohl ’15 stand outside All Saints’ Episcopal Church Monday while at the “Justin Carr Wants World Peace Concert.”
Justin Carr benefit concert raises funds for charity, outreach programs By Eugenia Ko
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money for the Justin Carr Wants World Peace FoundaA number tion. Many of students students, performed parents and at the “Jusfaculty also I Think [The tin Wants attended. Justin Carr Wants World World Peace “It’s going Concert” at to be a beauPeace Foundation] is All Saints’ tiful celebrainspiring.” Episcopal tion of love, Church in happiness, —Laura Goldberg peace and evBeverly Hills M o n d a y. ArtsAhimsa Founder erything that Darrell and Justin would Susan Carr have wanted,” (Justin ’14) hosted the event Rachel Savage ’15 said in an ein partnership with the foun- mail before the event. dation ArtsAhimsa to raise Before the performances,
Committee to evaluate Civitalks, make changes By Claire Goldsmith
The Character Education Committee will present its preliminary evaluation of Civitalks to faculty and administrators in order to decide what form, if any, the program will take for next year. The final Civitalks program took place April 9. Civitalks, which began this year, brought small groups of students from all three grades at the Upper School together for 45-minute meetings once a month led by faculty members.
The purpose was for students and faculty to “come together and discuss matters of importance to our community,” Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas said at the beginning of the year. During the year’s meetings, students played charades and took part in “survival games” emulating what would happen if they were survivors of a plane crash, talked about Jonathan Martin ’08 and his departure from the Miami Dolphins and made videos about daily life at Harvard-Westlake.
the attendees gathered in a reception and silent auction of Justin’s artwork. Among the student performers were Molly Chapman ’14, Aiyana White ’14, Andrea Torre ’14 and Tara Joshi ’14, who performed the song “Butterfly” by Mariah Carrey. Chapman also sang an original piece remembering her friendship with Justin, titled “Butterfly.” Other performers included Nina Juarez ’16 and Claire Nordstrom ’15. Celebrities including Joe Torre (Andrea ’14), Michael Chiklis (Autumn ’12, Odessa
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’17) and Mandy Patinkin made appearances at the event. Actor William Allen Young read a poem written by Justin as an English assignment in 2013, in which Justin reacted to Langston Hughes’ work by writing about his own opportunities and expressing his gratitude for life. ArtsAhimsa is dedicated to non-violence through classical music. Founder Laura Goldberg performed and spoke at the concert. “I think [The Justin Carr Wants World Peace Foundation] is inspiring,” Goldberg said.
The committee is in the midst of its evaluation, and when FAC approved our running a pilot project of Civitalks this year, one of the things that we said was, ‘We are going to try it.’” —Audrius Barzdukas Head of Upper School
“The committee is in the midst of its evaluation, and when FAC approved our running a pilot project of Civitalks this year, one of the things that we said was, ‘We are going to try it, and we are going to evaluate it,’” Barzdukas said. In order to determine the effectiveness of the program,
nathanson’s
Barzdukas said he hoped the committee would “ask and answer in very simple questions: Did Civitalks accomplish the things that we hoped it would accomplish? Did it build community? Did it raise consciousness about good character and ethical living among our students and faculty? Did it bring people closer together?”
Trustee, alumnus dies while bodysurfing on vacation
By Benjamin Most
Trustee Norman Sprague ’65 died March 14 while bodysurfing in Costa Rica. Sprague began working as a trustee at Harvard School in 1981 and helped during the merger between Harvard and Westlake School for Girls. “It was a contentious time for both schools, and Dr. Sprague’s steady hand on the tiller made a big difference to the early success of HarvardWestlake,” President Rick
Commons said. Sprague was a trustee at several schools, including Harvard-Westlake, the Cate School and Harvey Mudd College. He also served on the Board of Trustees at the California Nature Conservancy, The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Good Samaritan Hospital, the Founders league of the Music Center and the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center. An orthopedic surgeon, Sprague pioneered ar-
throscopic surgery and taught the technique around the world. Sprague also helped found the Arthroscopy Association of North America and chaired the International Seminar on Operative Arthroscopy for 14 consecutive years. Sprague was an avid biker, hiker, backpacker, skier, guitar player and swimmer. He enjoyed rock climbing and reached the summit of the Grand Teton in Jackson Hole, Wyo. six times. He also flew
planes recreationally. Sprague’s wife, Marianne, and their six children and six grandchildren survive him. Sprague’s family named Harvard-Westlake as a beneficiary to accept gifts in his memory, and the school plans on establishing a fund for him. “The lasting memory I will have of him is the way his children spoke about him,” Commons said. “They described his gentleness, his sense of humor and his unusual commitment to his family.”
Lowest attendance occurs before break
Friday, March 21 was the second worst attendance day in school history. On the day before spring break, 20 percent of the student body was absent from school. The worst attendance day was April 2005 on “ditch day,” according to school attendance coordinator Gabe Preciado. While the absences in 2005 were largely due to students skipping school, the lack of attendance this year was mainly the result of school trips. The choir, the jazz band and the robotics club all left school the day before spring break to travel with their groups for school-related purposes. 560 of the 986 total missed classes that day were due to field trip absences, Preciado said. —Lexi Bowers
Dean coordinator to join English faculty Upper school Dean Coordinator Ryan Wilson will join the middle school’s English department in the fall. As a dean coordinator, Wilson helped seniors with their college application essays and has also developed a Kutler Center Interdisciplinary Studies course, “The Creative Process from Inspiration to Fruition.” The course was cancelled for next year. Wilson said he is most looking forward to spending more time in the classroom with engaged students —Jessica Lee
Commons, Huybrechts to speak at PA meeting President of HarvardWestlake Rick Commons and Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts will speak at the Parents’ Association meeting today. All parents are invited. Commons and Huybrechts will share their reflections and host a question and answer session following their program “Eyes on the Future”. The event, organized by Lorraine Berchtold (Gabrielle ’18) and Deborah Davidson (Zach ’16, Jacob ’19), in Chalmers East at the Upper School will begin with a reception at 6:45 p.m. The program will begin at 7:30 p.m. Parents are asked to consider carpooling to the event. —Lauren Rothman
A8 News
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
Disney appoints alumnus president By Lizzy Thomas
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF AMIYA BROWN
Cycling club takes part in CicLAvia event TURNING NEW GEARS: The cycling club participated in CicLAvia April 6. The track was from downtown Los Angeles to Wilshire Boulevard. The participating group members met at Bottega Louie for breakfast and finished their route at the Los Angeles County Musuem of the Arts.
Debaters compete in last tournament By Jessica Spitz
Annie Kors ’14, Shelby Heitner ’14, Cameron Cohen ’16 and Nick Steele ’16 competed in the Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Kentucky April 26-28. Kors was the only debater to clear the preliminary rounds, and she advanced to double octafinals. In order to qualify for the tournament of only 75-80 Lincoln-Douglas debaters, students must earn at least two bids over the course of the
regular season. Julie Engel ’14 and Michael O’Krent ’14 also qualified for the TOC but were unable to attend. Cohen and Steele were two of only seven sophomores to qualify for this year’s tournament. The debate team also competed at the National Debate Coaches Association Championships in Ogden, Utah April 12-14. Kors advanced to semifinals and won the top speaker award with a total of 177.7 points out of a possible 180 points. Steele dropped in double octafinals and Co-
hen dropped in quarterfinals, while also winning a fifth place speaker award. “In the past few years I’ve gained a lot from debate — friends, knowledge, a sense of accomplishment — and I am very grateful to the program for these and the other opportunities it’s given me,” Engel said. “Whether or not I continue with debate in college, I know the interests I’ve picked up while debating and the skills I’ve developed will stay with me for more than just the next four years.”
“Ben is one of those unique executives who combines rich ABC News President Ben creative experience with great Sherwood ’81 will be the next business acumen,” Chairman president of Disney/ABC Tele- and CEO of The Walt Disney vision Group and co-chairman Company Robert Iger said of Disney Media Networks, during his announcement the company announced last of Sherwood’s appointment. month. “He’s also focused, strategic Sherwood will replace Ann and competitive, as evidenced Sweeney, whose decision to by the success of GMA, the step down effective next Janu- Yahoo deal that delivered ABC ary was met with widespread News online dominance and surprise when reported last his vision behind our new camonth. ble and digital joint venture, Sweeney Fusion. These had picked reasons, and Sherwood many others, for the ABC make Ben the Ben [Sherwood News job ideal candi’81] is one of those back in 2010. date to overThe prosee the future unique executives who m o t i o n , of the Disney/ combines rich creative which comes ABC Televia little more sion Group.” experience with great than three Sherwood, business acumen.” years after who attended S h e r w o o d ’s —Roger Iger Harvard Uniselection versity and CEO of Disney was a Rhodes for the ABC News presischolar foldent job, polowing his sitions Sherwood as the top time at Harvard School for television executive at Disney. Boys, was previously execuThough Disney marked tive producer of “Good MornSherwood’s effective date of ing America”, and Sherwood appointment for Feb. 1, 2015, managed the program’s coverit announced that Sherwood age of Hurricane Katrina and would be involved in all ABC the 2004 presidential election. decisions in the role of coIn the time immediately president until official ap- prior to his presidency at ABC pointment. News, Sherwood was focused In the meantime, Sher- on book-writing, having auwood will continue to oversee thored three novels and one ABC News, which saw suc- nonfiction work, a 2009 New cess under his leadership, par- York Times bestseller, “The ticularly in the morning news Survivors Club.” sector as its “Good Morning Sherwood’s third book, America” overtook NBC’s “The Death and Life of Charlie “Today” for the first time in 16 St. Cloud,” was adapted into a years back in 2012. 2010 movie starring Zac Efron.
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Pulitzer Prize winning biographer encourages students to take action • Continued from page A1
-spiration. They’re sitting here on this campus; all you have to do is knock on the door, when you go to college, knock on the door.” Baker encouraged Berg to develop his idea, which after 10 years’ work became his first bestselling book, “Perkins: Editor of Genius.” Berg decided after completing one biography that it would be interesting to write a full shelf ’s worth of them. He wanted to embark on a career whose books would form all of the wedges in the apple pie that is American culture. He knew this would take him through the realms of American politics, literature, entertainment, sports and innovation, among others. “I was always interested in Americana. It’s my passion, I’ve always been a flag-waving guy who loved that,” he said. “Besides, I can speak and write Spanish and a little French, but I’m not good enough to go through Louis XIV’s papers and really understand him.” Filling out his apple pie, Berg wanted to write about the opposite type of person from Perkins. He migrated west, deciding to write about studio head Samuel Goldwyn, a first generation Jewish immigrant. Berg
had an initial meeting with Goldwyn’s son in which he was asked to describe the studio giant, a man he knew nothing about. Berg instead described his grandfather, also a Jewish immigrant. Goldwyn’s son was amazed at how accurate Berg’s description was, and opened up his father’s archive to the second-time author. Berg used the movie mogul’s life as a window into the time in which he lived. “I could tell the entire history of American movies through the life of one man,” Berg said. This is a tactic that Berg often uses in his writing. The important thing is not my subject, but the world in which my subject lived,” Berg said. “I’m the lens, and I want to do a pan shot, then come in or the close-ups. I want to write in a cinematic style.” For his book about Goldwyn, Berg interviewed the last and dying generation of movie producers, directors and stars of old Hollywood. “In many cases, I was the last person ever to interview them [before they died,]” he joked. “In fact, it was happening so often that word was beginning to spread around town that if you got a letter from me, it was pretty much over.” From there, Berg wrote about the life of aviator Charles Lindbergh, who he de-
scribes as the greatest hero of the 20th century, and Katharine Hepburn, who holds the record for most acting Academy Awards. He had a close relationship with Hepburn that made his biography of her very detailed, including personal anecdotes and experiences. Next, Berg embarked on a 13-year project that culminated in his most recent work, “Wilson.” Berg views the 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, as the most influential figure of the 20th century. One sentence of a 1917 speech Wilson gave to congress has pervaded American foreign policy for the last century, Berg said. “He said ‘The world must be made safe for democracy,’” Berg quoted. “There is not a day where you will read a newspaper or go online and see something that does not directly go back to Woodrow Wilson,” he said. And beyond that, he believes the president had the most interesting personal life of any American President. In his second term, Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, and his wife Edith became the de facto first female president, Berg said. Berg had been fascinated with Wilson for much of his life; he even had a poster of the statesman hanging on his wall alongside one of Fitzgerald in
SCOTT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
THE ROUND TABLE: Pulitzer Prize winning biographer A. Scott Berg talks with students at the luncheon in Feldman-Horn. his childhood room. Some of his subjects come into his focus later than others, but all come into it in different ways, he said, but they share a distinct unifying characteristic. “There is a through-line to all their stories, and it is this: they all had a great passion for something,” he said. Berg encouraged students to develop similar passions in their lives, be they focused on a field of study, a public figure or any other subject. However, he also encouraged students
to avoid having tunnel vision, stressing that it is desirable to be well rounded and knowledgeable about many things. However, beyond just gathering knowledge, it is important to act on this knowledge to improve the world around us, Berg said. “’We are not put in this world to sit still and know. We are put in it to act,’” he said, quoting Wilson. “I hope you will all be thinking not only ‘What do I want to know,’ but also ‘What do I want to go out and act upon.’”
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/news
News A9
Denim Day raises awareness on rape
By Jonah Ullendorff
A panel of presenters speaking about sexual assault was organized by Trishta Dordi ’15 as part of a series of events leading up to Denim Day April 23. Presenters included Harriet Kerr from the UCLA Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica, representatives from the South Asian Helpline and Referral Agency and Angela Parker from the Jenesse Center for domestic violence intervention. Students were advised to be sensitive when speaking to peers about assault and to never engage in victim blaming. Denim Day originated in Italy, where an 18-year-old Italian girl was raped by her 45-year-old driving teacher. The teacher was sentenced to prison for rape, but during an appeal his sentence was overturned, because he claimed the sex had to be consensual due
to the fact that the girl’s jeans were too tight to get off on his own. Outraged, members of the Italian parliament wore jeans to work in protest. The movement then spread to Los Angeles because executive director of Peace over Violence Patricia Giggans, wished to spread awareness. Giggans encouraged people to wear jeans during a day in April 1999, and Denim Day was born. “Not a lot of people who experience sexual assault know how to receive help and this presentation brought not only an awareness about the severity of the issue but an outlet for those who ever need assistance in the future,” Asrid Garay ’15 said. Denim materials were also posted around the campus, with slogans like “no means no” and “there is no excuse.” According to Denim Day’s website, it’s goal is to inform people how common rape is, and how many rapists are un-
Students say trip rules vary
SOPHIE KUPIEC-WEGLINSKI/CHRONICLE
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF TRISHTA DORDI
LEARNING WRONG FROM RIGHT: Pieces of denim, top, were taped with phrases advocating Denim Day values. Brianna Cooper ’15 and Albert Choi ’15, bottom, hold a “no means no” sign. punished. Only three percent of rapists will ever spend time in jail, and one out of six women will be raped during their lifetime.
“I really think it really informed people on how prevalent sexual abuse really is and how difficult it is for victims to come out,” Dordi said.
Workload survey demonstrates increased rigor • Continued from page A1
took six and 2.3 percent took seven-eight in 2001. However, in 2013, 58.6 percent reported five solids, 34.1 percent reported six and 7.2 percent reported seven-eight. The mean number of AP courses taken by the junior and senior classes also rose from 2.5 in 2001 to 2.9 in 2013. “Our students’ interest in the next level of their education is natural and spurs achievement,” the report reads. “The quality and rigor of our academic programs need to be preserved; however, some of the pressure and negatively perceived competition so often mentioned in the survey responses comes from too narrow a focus on achievement as a means to an end.” The report suggests that the school should look further to “promote a value beyond the self ” through different methods of service to the community. Huybrechts said that a more integrated service component in the school program —like a focused day of allschool service—could be imple-
mented. Although the report suggests that service should be “at the center of how we teach and what we do,” Huybrechts recognized that an intellectually vigorous academic experience is also at the center of what we do. “A soup kitchen is different from a school, in that that’s its central mission,” she said. “That is not our central mission and it’s probably never going to be, but we can improve in this area.” The report suggested increasing the number of school days in order to provide “additional time for service projects, academic enrichment including field trips and other activities focused on learning and interest rather than assessment and faculty development.” There are several ways to increase the school year, Huybrechts said, for example, by starting earlier and ending later. However, there are many possible ways to get more time out of the school year without starting earlier, including reorganizing the midterm schedule and the AP program,
she said. Another feature of the report is the recommendation that the school move towards enforceable limits. Huybrechts noted that there are many ideas as to how to implement such a system. One possible example would be to assign a point value to every academic course and extracurricular activity and impose a maximum limit. The report also considered allowing students to take some courses on a pass-fail or credit-no credit basis subject to departmental approval. The committee also found that girls perceive that they have more homework than boys, get less sleep than boys and are less satisfied with their overall experiences at the school. However, not one free response from those surveyed referenced an issue of gender discrimination. “Obviously teachers are not assigning more homework to the girls,” Huybrechts said. “Girls tend to be less confident than boys. Boys tend to be overconfident, which is also not a good thing, but there’s quite a gap. There are ways to help girls become more confi-
dent and maybe this figuring out how to do that would help in this perception problem.” Huybrechts confirmed that they will again do an extensive workload survey six years from now; however in the meantime, a new, permanent entity would be established to continually examine and assess workload at school. “I think one of our challenges at this school is that it’s the sophisticated, well-run school can sometimes not be nimble enough and so I think that this recommendation is an excellent one,” Huybrechts added. Similarly, taking the report’s recommendation of educational leadership into account, Huybrechts hopes to establish the Harvard-Westlake Teaching and Learning Center in the next few years to use school resources to research educational issues and communicate ideas to others by running workshops and being a leader in the field of education. “We’re not going to hold you back. They can because they think they can,” Huybrechts said echoing the school’s motto.
• Continued from page A1
“pretty mild” and deserved. “We all signed the contract,” he said. “It would technically be drinking alcohol on campus.” The student handbook says it’s forbidden to use drugs or alcohol on “school-sponsored trips and occasions when one is representing the school, even during vacation,” and that breaking this rule may result in expulsion. “You are representing your school and your community,” Barzdukas said. “When you’re traveling on a schoolsponsored trip it’s like being at school.” One of the seniors punished for drinking also acknowledged they received fair punishment. “I was just upset that there was a rule against 18-year-olds drinking in Italy because it’s legal there,” the senior said. “Also, we were completely responsible.” Costantino and Guerrero both declined to comment, but Guerrero told the Chronicle no decision had yet been made regarding the cancellation of the trip, which Barzdukas said is up to Guerrero. However, a Chamber Singers member said Guerrero told Chamber Singers members twice that next year’s trip would be cancelled. The member said Guerrero told the singers kids approached him with rumors about drug and alcohol use on the trip to New York City, but that he hadn’t been given evidence or details. The member thinks the differing punishments suggest the administration is concerned only with punishing misbehavior, not with addressing the underlying culture. “People make mistakes,” Barzdukas said. “I think [students] know what constitutes good and proper behavior and what constitutes crossing the line. I don’t think that we need any kind of special seminar program or online education program, I think we all just need to remind ourselves to do the right thing.” It’s confusing and unfair for the punishments for the same offense to vary, the member said.
A10 News
Both Birds to retire, volunteer in Maine
don’t want anything to do with us.” Director of Financial Aid The two also plan to and French teacher Geoff do volunteer work with Bird and Upper School Dean teenagers from resettlement Mike Bird have spent 47 years communities in Portland and working for schools. Now Lewiston, Maine. they’ve announced that this is “There are big Somali and their last. Sudanese populations,” Mike “I love coming to school Bird said. “There are a lot everyday, but we’d rather leave of kids who aren’t getting a when we aren’t tired of our jobs lot of attention. Between my than when we’re too tired to college counseling experience, do anything,” Mike Bird said. just counseling teenagers “We’ve got lots of energy and in general, and Geoff ’s we’re excited financial aid about all the knowledge, other things I think we we can do, We have to think would make so we should a good team this decision’s going to start doing to help them while underserved be just as good as all we can.” like those other decisions we kids O n c e that.” made, which were hard retired, the Both will m a r r i e d serve on the to make at the time. couple will board of a move into a —Mike Bird private school new house, Belfast, Upper School Dean in travel and Maine, where spend more one of their time with daughters, their grandchildren, who live Amy, lives. Amy Bird once on the east coast. taught yoga at Harvard“I think it was seeing our Westlake. children at Christmas that The Birds first came to kind of pushed us over the Harvard-Westlake in the fall edge and let us know how of 2000, after nine years on far away we are,” Mike Bird School Year Abroad’s campus said. Geoff Bird added, “And in France, where Geoff Bird [the grandchildren] don’t stay was resident director. young all that long, so we want Former president Tom to be part of their lives before Hudnut, who was on the board they get to be teenagers and of School Year Abroad, hired
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
By Marcella Park
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MARCELLA PARK/CHRONICLE
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
BYE BYE BIRDIE: Dean Mike Bird goes over Ashley Aminian’s ’15 preliminary college list. Director of Financial Aid and French teacher Geoff Bird discusses a French film with his sixth period class. the Birds when they decided to return to the States. Mike Bird started as a dean, while Geoff Bird started as the chair of the upper school foreign language department and a cross-country coach. Five years later, Geoff Bird became Director of Financial Aid, but he still teaches and coaches. “I’m proud of what the school has been able to do in financial aid,” he said. “We’ve got 50 percent more kids on financial aid now than we did when I came in in 2005. I think there are big plans to move ahead, and I think that the job isn’t finished.” Before the couple moved to France, he coached track and
taught French at the Thacher School in Ojai, while Mike Bird got her start in admissions – she would move into college counseling while in France. It was at Thacher that their children grew up, the Birds said. Now it is their 14th year at Harvard-Westlake, and their 42nd walking to school together every day. “We’ve talked about this all the time; we’ve looked back on our lives, and we’ve been very fortunate,” Geoff Bird said. “We’ve had a chance to live in really great places with great schools and have great colleagues and teach really great students. I couldn’t complain about anything.”
“It’s the activity and the energy of a school,” he said. “Part of this job is that it keeps you young. I will miss the energy and we’ll try to replace it with being around kids.” “Sure, you get frustrated that there’s always trash around the lounge, but I can’t say won’t miss that; I’m going to miss the kids who make it,” Mike Bird said. “We have to think this decision’s going to be just as good as all those other decisions we made, which were hard to make at the time. It was hard to leave France; it was hard to leave to leave Thacher, but they turned out to be the best decisions, so this is going to be a good one, too.”
Kelly to pursue writing career
By Sophie Kupiec-Weglinski
SOPHIE KUPIEC-WEGLINSKI/CHRONICLE
A NOVEL EXPERIENCE: English teacher Ariana Kelly meets with her English II student Adam Hirschhorn’16 in her office.
English teacher Ariana Kelly, who has taught at Harvard-Westlake for six years, has received a book deal and will not teach at HarvardWestake the next school year. Her book, which might be titled “The Phantom Phone Booth,” is a “collection of lyrical essays about developing ideas around privacy, freedom, power, sanctuary and communication,” she said. The book, which Kelly is still in the process of writing, will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing. When Kelly found out in
January that her book would be published, she decided not to return to Harvard-Westlake for the next school year in order to continue writing. “I didn’t think I could teach and write at the same time given how demanding both teaching and writing are,” Kelly said. Her book is an expansion of an essay she published in Los Angeles Review of Books and Salon, titled “The Phantom Phone Booth.” The essay explores the phone booth from the perspectives of religion, film and literature to see what it can show about isolation and communication and what peo-
ple need for privacy. “I’m both sad and excited,” Kelly said. “I enjoy teaching — it’s challenging and rewarding and the students bring a lot of laughter to my life — but I’m also thrilled to explore unknown territory.” Along with her book, Kelly is also writing a series of essays with topics such as rural New Hampshire, chairlifts and the MARS explorer program. “I don’t know what the future holds,” Kelly said. “I would love to be a full-time author, but it’s a very difficult thing to do. Most likely I will try to balance writing with some kind of work in education.”
Hinden to retire after 23 years By Morganne Ramsey
After 23 years at HarvardWestlake, science teacher David Hinden will be retiring at the end of this school year. When Hinden first arrived at the school, he only taught Biology and Biology Honors. However, as time progressed, Hinden began to play a number of different roles at the school. In addition to teaching, Hinden served as the Dean of Faculty, worked with the school’s Institute for Scholastic Sports Science and Medicine, and has headed the workload study for the past dozen years. Hinden has also created two courses in his time at Harvard-Westlake. He began teaching Genetics and Biotechnology after the school decided to move biology courses to the Middle School. This
move allowed Hinden to teach a specialized course in the field in which he received his Master’s degree. Hinden also taught a class in the Kutler Center called “Criminal Law and Advocacy.” “When the Kutler Center opened, I thought it was a great opportunity to try something different,” Hinden said. “It was interesting to have the freedom to do whatever we wanted to do.” His Kutler Center class also allowed Hinden to put his legal background as an attorney to use. “I wanted to do something that I thought would be inherently more satisfying than I found what I was doing exclusively in practicing law,” Hinden said. Hinden also has put this background to use as coach of the Mock Trial and Moot Court teams. He began coach-
ing Mock Trial during his first year after being asked by a student, and began coaching Moot Court only a few years ago. Both teams have won county and national championships under his mentorship. Nadia Rahman ’15, who took Hinden’s Criminal Law class and participated in Mock Trial and Moot Court, described Hinden as inspirational. “Mr. Hinden has a subtle epic-ness that you don’t really notice until he delivers an argument you’ve written and makes it sound ten times more convincing,” Rahman said. “Then he gives you your speech back and tells you that you can do the same with a little more practice. He’s the best combination of teacher and lawyer you could have.” Hinden said that he will miss his students the most.
MORGANNE RAMSEY/CHRONICLE
RENAISSANCE MAN: David Hinden performs a demonstration for his second period chemistry class. He also teaches classes for criminal law and genetics and coaches Moot Court and Mock Trial. Lucas Hernandez ’14, who had Hinden both for Chemistry and Genetics and Biotechnology, said he felt very fortunate to have had Hinden as a teacher. “He tries to establish deeper connections with the people around him, both personal and academic,” Hernandez said.
“[He is] by far one of the most caring adults I have had the pleasure to know.” While he has made no concrete plans for what he will do after retiring from what he described as a “dream job for a teacher,” Hinden knows that he will be travelling a lot over the course of the next year.
April 30, 2014
English teacher voices character in alum’s game
hwchronicle.com/news
Blink, when Howard got to record at the George Lucas English teacher Adam sound facilities at USC. Howard ’93 is voice acting for “Voice acting is a lot of his old student, Sam Farmer fun,” Howard said. “It doesn’t ’08, on Farmer’s video game, matter how you look, it doesn’t Last Life. matter how you’re dressed. It’s Farmer put the game on about you and a microphone, Kickstarter April 9 to raise and one can completely transfunds to finish development. form themselves into whoever “It’s a bit of a different style they want to be.” from most games,” Farmer Howard takes voiceover said. classes in the evenings, and Farmer plans to make at plans to continue seeking othleast three other episodes af- er voice acting opportunities ter this to finafter comish the Trilpleting the ogy. game with “Once I’m Farmer. It’s about you done I’d like In addito stick to and a microphone, and tion to workthis universe, ing with one can completely it feels like an H o w a r d , transform themselves extension of Farmer also me,” Farmer into whoever they want works with said. the rest of to be.” Farmer his family. asked HowHis mother, —Adam Howard a published ard to voice English teacher writer, helps the main c h a r a c t e r, write the Parker, and to story, his fado the voiceover for the trailer. ther, a musician, is doing the Howard met Farmer when soundtrack and his brother is he was teaching middle school helping Farmer design the virdrama, where he cast Farmer tual world. in his production of “Twelfth Last Life takes place on Night.” Farmer contacted Mars in the colony MarsToHoward again after graduat- pia, as Earth was destroyed 11 ing to do voiceover work for years before the game starts. his iPad app Semi-Auto, and “I like the big questions again for his thesis project, [the universe] raises and the
News A11
By Jake Saferstein
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PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SAM FARMER
GAME ON: Sam Farmer ’08, second from the left, previews his game at the Penny Arcade Expo East in Boston, where game developers test both finished and in progress projects. Farmer’s game, Last Life, is currently on Kickstarter and Farmer has now met his goal of $75,000 to fund game production. ambiguity of the questions — I’m a philosophical guy,” Farmer said. “It asks existential questions like ‘What is it to be human?,’ ‘Are you somebody?,’ ‘Are you still you if your body is made from a 3D printer and your mind is uploaded to a computer?’ ‘What if ’ questions lead down all these roads.” Farmer said HarvardWestlake helped influence his ideas and creative process. “I always considered [my time at] H-W important years — they made me what I am, and college gave me the skills I needed,” Farmer said. “Art was really important for the style I got, not just things like lighting and colors, but also learning that what things I really
Melrose Driving School
care about. It got me thinking creatively, and working on things I really care about which is important.” Farmer started in the software industry right after college, when he sold his thesis app to a startup and moved to the San Francisco Bay area. There he started a consulting company to make contacts in the industry. After developing some of his own apps and developing games for the British Broadcast Corporation based on multiple BBC television series, Farmer decided to go independent and make Last Life. “I’m a huge fan of creationism, and I’ve made lots of kinds of games — social, iPhone and some AAA games — but I pre-
fer storytelling games,” Farmer said. “I like Point and Click style games, so I was thinking about going indie on my project that I loved and wanted to give attention to, so I just got really hooked on this sci-fi world [in Last Life].” Last Life has nearly reached its goal of $75,000 on Kickstarter and still has eight days left to raise funds for development. “[Farmer] has something very special here,” Howard said. “He’s raised an insane amount of money and earned the support of thousands of backers in a very short time. There are a lot of people who are excited about where this thing is going to go. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
C HRONICLE the harvard-westlake
Los Angeles • Volume XXIII • Issue 8 • April 30, 2014 • hwchronicle.com
Editors in Chief: Jack Goldfisher, Noa Yadidi Managing Editors: Claire Goldsmith, Sarah Novicoff, Jensen Pak, Patrick Ryan Executive Editors: Julia Aizuss, Lizzy Thomas
Opinion The Chronicle • April 30, 2014
editorial
Presentations Editors: Mazelle Etessami, Sydney Foreman, Emily Segal Sports Editor: Grant Nussbaum News Managing Editors: Elizabeth Madden, Lauren Sonnenberg News Section Heads: Sophie Kupiec-Weglinski, Nikta Mansouri, Jake Saferstein, Jessica Spitz News Assistants: Justine Chen, Cole Feldman, Kristen Gourrier, Eugenia Ko, Jonah Ullendorff Opinion Managing Editor: Beatrice Fingerhut Opinion Section Head: Haley Finkelstein Opinion Assistants: Alexa Bowers, Kelly Riopelle Features Managing Editors: Eojin Choi, Morganne Ramsey, Lauren Siegel Features Section Heads: Carly Berger, Marcella Park, David Woldenberg Features Assistants: Angela Chon, Sacha Lin, Benjamin Most, Su Jin Nam, Lauren Rothman A&E Managing Editors: James Hur, Alexander McNab A&E Section Heads: Leily Arzy, Zoe Dutton A&E Assistants: Sharon Chow, Siddharth Kucheria, Kelly Loeb, Pim Otero Sports Managing Editors: Lucy Putnam, Sam Sachs Sports Section Heads: Elijah Akhtarzad, Mila Barzdukas, Jordan Garfinkel, Tyler Graham Sports Assistants: Bennett Gross, Caitlin Neapole, Jonathan Seymour, Henry Vogel, Audrey Wilson Chief Copy Editors: Jivani Gengatharan, Enya Huang, Jessica Lee Managing Editors of Chronicle Multimedia: Henry Hahn, Eric Loeb Art Director: Jacob Goodman Chief Photographer: Scott Nussbaum Ads
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Business Manager: Tara Stone
Chronicle Online Webmaster: David Gisser Adviser: Kathleen Neumeyer The Chronicle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is published nine 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, Studio City, CA 91604. Letters must be signed and may be edited for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format. Harvard-Westlake has an enrollment of 870 10th through 12th grade students. The Chronicle is also distributed at the Middle School, which has 727 7th through 9th grade students. Stories go through a rigorous editing process and are rewritten by the writers listed on the byline or with additional reporting credits.
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
Reevaluate Civitalks Contrary to what the five tests you have this week might lead you to believe, the year is winding down, and fast. It’s the season of assessment (and promposals and Assassin 3.0) — AP exams, finals and report cards assign inarguable judgment to the (academic) way in which we’ve spent the last nine months. Why should students have all the fun? With its last session this past month, Civitalks is where we’ll be soon — due for a performance report. Forget for a second the failing grade suggested by the sense of dread the program’s wacky-scheduled days brought. It’s hard to fairly assess the initiative’s ability to meet its goals without first outlining them. But perhaps therein lays Civitalks’ most basic and persistently problematic issue. With the way meetings just began suddenly at the beginning of the year, largely unexplained, no single goal was made especially explicit. Instead, terms alternately admirable and vague were bandied about — community building and character education. But with no one, obvious direction, six 45-minute meetings later it was all too common for students to admit that they didn’t know the names of the people in their Civitalks groups, let alone anything about them. As for imparting moral education, directed discussion of social issues that pertained to the community was largely scrapped midyear for various versions of charades. With the adoption of multiple lofty goals at the outset, Civitalks was the kid who took all the toughest classes in the same year, and had quickly to forget A’s and struggle just to stay afloat. Just as such a student would be pressed for adequate time for any subject, the monthly 45 minutes were neither long enough nor frequent enough to foster the comfort and familiarity necessary to meaningful discussion and interaction. So after two semesters that depressed both the student and their GPA, what would change for next year? The student would likely admit that the APUSH-Phys B-Chem thing or its equivalent hadn’t quite worked, and not pursue as heavy a schedule next year, allotting more time to a single tough class. And perhaps the Civitalks program
could follow a similar rebound process, meeting every two weeks with the express purpose of forming small, close-knit groups, concerned more with being a stress outlet than a character educator. We believe that is what would be required to see anything resembling a passing grade. But we also believe such measures would be met with widespread initial resistance, to the point that any advantage gained by the growth in frequency would be overcome by the growth in resentment. The desire of the school to foster community and character is admirable. Just as admirable: recognition from the school that its first method failed, and an entirely new one should be implemented if it remains invested in those goals. As it happens, we’ve got a few ideas. If what the school is looking for is an activity that promotes a fusion of community and character, a designated community service day or two for the whole school might do the trick. Students and faculty could be divided into several Civitalks-size groups for different community service activities. Unlike the charades and posters and videos characterizing Civitalks, the real sense of purpose inherent in community service may better promote camaraderie among students and faculty working side by side. On the other hand, it may well be that the intent of the Civitalks program evolved primarily towards building community rather than also teaching character. In that case, perhaps a 15-minute advisory class in the morning once or twice a week could provide small communities whose express purpose is being together with no set agenda. The frequency of meeting would, at the very least, make getting to know each other unavoidable. Lastly, as bad as it sounds to stick to the status quo, maybe everything is fine. One sign of a healthy environment is the presence of thriving microcommunities, and Harvard-Westlake has those in abundance, in the form of clubs, sports teams, performance casts and even classes (not to mention the Chronicle). Furthermore, these are not discrete entities — lots of overlap exists in membership, so that, from numerous ingredient groups, Harvard-Westlake emerges from the oven as a single confectionary community.
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/opinion
Opinion A13
No more prom clichés By Alex McNab
P
rom is weird, or maybe it’s just me. I just can’t help chuckling to myself every time I see another proud Prince Charming boldly bestowing his $5 roses and $10 chocolates on another swooning teeny bopper girl, who runs up and hugs her suitor as if this is the happiest day of her week. There is, of course, nothing wrong with roses or chocolates or acting like Prince Charming, but, if I was a girl, I know that I, for one, would not be impressed. To begin with, I’d want orchids. Everybody gets roses, and isn’t part of the point of asking someone to prom to make them feel special and not just like every other girl? Oh, and, no matter how nice the flowers, if the price tag was still showing, that’d be an immediate turnoff. Having a big, orange, Ralph’s sticker on a beautiful bouquet just screams tacky. Secondly, the classic asking, giving and receiving ritual is about as outdated as Prince Charming himself, who first made his appearance in 1890 as an ironic reference in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” While there usually is chemistry between the two sides of a successful prom pair, asking someone to prom is not science nor is it math, and so the old formulas need to be shaken up a bit. Find a more creative way to ask someone to prom than “will you go to prom with me” or writing “PROM?” with seashells or cupcakes. Put it in code. Make it the final reveal at the end of a scavenger hunt. Write it backwards. Then, if you are going to give a gift to your date, don’t just diversify the gift (orchids instead of roses) but find a fun way to give it. Again, put it in a scavenger hunt. Hide it in a prom cupcake or underneath a seashell.
Finally, the receiving. Instead of just receiving a yes and a big hug as confirmation, getting a request to go to prom gives girls the opportunity to be creative too. As soon as a boy asks you out to prom, girls, you now have the upper hand, so use it instead of surrendering all in one, quick response. Make him decode your response, or, write “YES” in cupcakes and seashells, that’d be mixing things up. You can never go wrong with a scavenger hunt. If I was a girl being asked to prom, I would want all these things, and I would respond likewise. The only tradition that I would like to remain are the chocolates because who doesn’t like a nice box of chocolates (assuming of course that the price tag has been removed)? Although if I was a girl, I likely wouldn’t be waiting around for some fauxromantic boy to ask me to be his date. It’s 2014. Women have rights now. Women have freedoms, so who’s to say that the girls can’t do the asking? Let me tell you, if any girl, any girl, I don’t care who, asked me to prom, I would say yes, immediately, because any girl with enough confidence to break away from the Cult of True Womanhood and ask me out to prom is more than good enough for me. I have already decided on whom I’m asking to prom, Covi Brannan ’15. A few days ago, I told her that I’d be asking her in order to make sure that no one else beats me to her, but, as of today, I still have not done any official asking. My plan, however, is already set. There will be no chocolates and no roses and no Prince Charming. It will be cute, clever, creative and, even though I’ve already tipped her off as to what’s coming, she’ll never suspect what I have in store.
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The benefits of Facebook By Scott Nussbaum
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iving without it has never really been a problem for me. I understand that a majority of others have it and that’s something I have accepted. Life without a Facebook account has its downfalls, but I have learned to live without this seemingly vital social tool. I have never been in a Poke war or played Farmville, and that doesn’t really bother me. However, I do miss out on the latest photo album or can’t use Facebook to plan a group project at midnight. To me, Facebook presents deeper information or a new look at a person’s life that someone may not encounter in daily school life. But because I don’t have an account, I don’t see the pictures or comments that people post. This restricts how much I know about what other people do and their opinions on topics, but I feel this benefits me because when I meet new people in a class or in my daily life, I don’t automatically think of what I saw on their wall or who they are in a relationship with. While this seems like a disadvantage, I
feel this allows me to have a different perspective because I am not influenced by people’s Facebook activity. Initially, I didn’t join Facebook because I thought it was a passing trend. Only about six of my close friends had an account in seventh grade and I didn’t understand the concept. Why would other people care about what you were doing or who you were friends with? MySpace had always been a website I had known about, but Facebook was becoming a greater part of my surroundings as I grew older. When I came to HarvardWestlake in ninth grade, I noticed Facebook was a larger part of the social scene. At this point, I began to see the benefits that Facebook could pose. The use of the website as a tool to make friends became more apparent to me, but I was still not convinced that I needed to sign up. For some reason, the benefits did not seem to draw me in and I was surviving without it. Now that I’m a junior, I have begun to see Facebook in
a different light. There is the fear of colleges using Facebook to gain an inside look on students which now reinforces my opinion of not having an account. However, I have begun to see that Facebook has become a greater medium for communication. About two times this year, I have had to find other ways to organize a group project for a class without using Facebook. Although this was only a minor issue, I began to see that Facebook had become a part of communication and social life and that it offered more benefits in a world where instant communication is everything. Now that I have finally convinced myself of the benefits of Facebook, I am considering signing up once I go to college. Now that virtually everyone has an account and you can even buy a Facebook stock, I feel that I can still gain from creating an account, even though I’m a little late. And even if I decide to join, I know I will still be able to return to the dark times without a Facebook account.
It’s not nuts to be cautious: Being allergic in a nutshell By Lauren Sonnenberg
A
nyone who has shared a meal with me knows I carry an Epi-Pen at all times and many can even recite my speech: “I’m allergic to all nuts, seeds and coconuts.” They all know I triple check to make sure nothing accidentally gets into my food. I take my allergies seriously, and they require a constant vigilance. The danger in allergies is a lack of attention to detail, disregard for safety and reckless decision making—all similar to choices we must make in our lives, especially as we contemplate college. The evolution of how I deal with my allergies and how others around me reacted has been similar to how many kids mature into teenagers. When I was little, I was far less concerned with the gravity of the danger that came with eating a nut. Similarly, at a young age, decisions carry less weight and the decision maker is far less likely to take other factors into consider-
ation (like how others will be affected). With maturity, we become more responsible and we are more likely to notice things around us, but this does not necessarily mean that we are prone to making safe decisions. As I have matured, I have become far more concerned with my allergies, so much so that I am prone to panic attacks at even the hint of an allergy attack. We should treat things that threaten our safety (like drunk driving and doing drugs) with the same care and concern for our well-being. By no means do I mean to say that my allergies have been a huge hindrance on my growth—I recognize that there are individuals whose health threats are far more grave than my allergies. They have not ruined my life—the terror of a hospital trip has been counterbalanced by many funny memories—like when Camelia Somers ’14 and I de-
bated whether or not I should experiment and try a peanut in seventh grade, or when Beatrice Fingerhut ’14 had to leave Chronicle layout with me to drive to the hospital, or that Shana Haddad ’14 still maintains that when I broke out into hives on a double-date (a double date that I was unaware of) Sophomore year, it was just an excuse to go home early. Just like with any experience, there is as much chance for fun as there is for danger. The most significant role my allergies have played in my life is teaching me responsibility. I’ve been to the hospital a few times in the years since I became aware of my allergies, but it has always been with the company of parents or friends, passing the responsibility onto others instead of just myself. My most recent trip to the hospital was a few weeks after I turned 18, meaning I was signing myself into the hospital as an adult. Granted, my
parents and brothers accompanied me (my older brother Jake ’11 seemed a little too pleased with the opportunity to stab me with the Epi-Pen) so I was not on my own. But I will be in the coming months and years, and won’t be able to rely on the opinions and guidance of others when I am confronted with a difficult situation or decision. We formulate our own “moral compass” during our formative years in order to be able to make good decisions when we are being sent out into the “real world.” Hopefully we have developed a sense of responsibility over these past few years to better make the right choices when we are away at college. As seniors start to make plans to move away from the comfort and safety of home, with parents and teachers available as safety nets and ever-present enforcers of reasonableness, it is now we who will be responsible for most
of what happens around us. We don’t all have allergies of which we must take notice, but everyone will move away and become independent. With that independence will come responsibility that will need to be called upon from time to time in the face of peer pressure and the chance for fun. I have learned that even one nut can put my health at risk. Similarly, one bad decision while away at school carries risks. We now have to watch out for ourselves and, as my friends are vigilant in protecting me from nuts, we should also watch out for each other. But, at the end of the day, though others care about our well-being, it is solely in our control to make good decisions and be responsible for ourselves. We need to realize that even the smallest decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives, both positively and negatively.
A14 Opinion
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
Time is running out
By Claire Goldsmith
W
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
Stop and listen to advice By Jack Goldfisher
A
few years ago, I watched an episode of “Suits” with a friend of mine who was an avid fan. I wasn’t particularly fond of it, but perhaps that was because it had been hyped up so much. Harvey’s bombast and Mike’s humble cool were entertaining, but didn’t grab me or inspire me to watch the series on my own. However, after a few recent impassioned appeals from friends who watched the show, I decided to re-watch the pilot episode. As anyone who bothers to watch my inconsistently funny Snapchat stories knows, that was the start of a remarkable streak of binge watching. I’m now fully caught up on “Suits,” and while I still don’t think the show has the same artistic merit as one like “Breaking Bad” or “The Sopranos,” it’s furiously entertaining and predictable in a very comforting way. I now lament that it took several endorsements from my friends for me to start watching the show. I feel like I
was missing out on something that I had dismissed as not worth my time a long time ago. Then I remembered math teacher Kevin Weis’ Moment In Contemplation talk from earlier on this year, which implored students to revisit things they had disliked in the past. While Weis used his experiences with food to illustrate his point, I wish I had taken his advice and revisited “Suits” earlier. If I hadn’t been begged to start watching “Suits,” I probably never would have tuned in, and would have missed out on both hours of entertainment and a chance to validate a piece of advice that I’ll now carry with me throughout my life. I change, and so do my tastes, so it’s crucial to give things second chances. I started to think about what other pieces of advice have passed me by, be they conveyed through MIC talks or through conversations with a family member or friend. So often if the lesson someone is trying to teach
us isn’t directly correlated to the problem we’re grappling with, it whizzes by us and we forget it. The day Mr. Weis was telling us to give ourselves a three-year second chance rule, I was probably preoccupied with a math test or English paper, but I would’ve been wise to heed his advice. I wonder what other lessons have passed me by that would’ve helped me more fully enjoy my time at school, at home or in my relationships with friends and family. I can’t count the times I’ve been told to be more adventurous, but I still had to learn the lesson several times firsthand before I lent this advice any credibility. So the next time somebody stops you to impart some wisdom or you have a chance to listen to someone hoping to guide us youthful rascals into more successful futures, take a minute and listen, because it might mean something as small as discovering a show you like or as big as helping you lead a happier life.
hy does Dunkin Donuts Express exist? Who thought regular Dunkin Donuts was too leisurely? I tweeted this while I was waiting in the airport last week, coming back from the East Coast on one of those interminable delays where that too-perky voice keeps cheerily informing you that your plane will be half an hour late, and then another half hour, and then another, until you look up and realize that the sun has set entirely while you’ve been pretzeling yourself in an uncomfortable airport chair trying to squeeze the last few minutes of battery out of your dying phone. That delay feeling is such a strange limbo – you’re stuck in this place that feels out of time but the planes and currents of people are constantly moving around you. It’s a lot like how I’ve been feeling at school recently (as I’ve expressed to some of my teachers’ chagrin), like I sit through my classes waiting to go somewhere else. I think that somewhere else is college, or at least the coming summer. It’s a place outside of the same stretch of Ventura that my car knows so well, a time not broken down into 45-minute classes and five-minute passing periods but extending forever, for me to do with it as I will. Time has felt so untrustworthy lately: sometimes it’s faster than I could have imagined, the way March flew by in a blink, and then it’s slow, when I felt like I’d been away from school for weeks but it had only been three days. Right now, the hours are slipping away. By the time this is published, it will be the last day of April, and then 24 hours later, May 1 (yes, I realize this is how time usually
works, but hold on). May 1 is College Sweatshirt Day for the seniors. It’s the day deposits are due at most schools, and thus the day by which we have to decide which path to take. In celebration – or as reassurance – we each wear the T-shirt or sweatshirt or loudly branded material proclaiming where we plan to spend the next four years of our lives. May 1 is my AP Physics C: Mechanics final, which culminates a very significant part of my senior year. It’s a class I never saw myself taking when I entered Harvard-Westlake in seventh grade. Mech took a lot of my time, yes, but it also expanded my horizons intellectually and has made me consider myself more capable in certain areas than I ever would have thought, although John Feulner may disagree. After that, I have more finals on May 2 and then APs and then the bulk of my senior year – and with it, high school – is over. It’s a strange realization, and made even more so when I think about seniors all over the country feeling the same way. I wouldn’t call this nostalgia, and I’m not sure I will be nostalgic, but I can sense the change coming. This sort of reflection has taken up a lot of my time lately. I haven’t come to any groundbreaking conclusion about my emotional senioritis (or about the myriad varieties of Dunkin Donuts), but at least I’ve distilled these somewhat cheesy, quintessentially senior-esque feelings enough to put them into words. If you’ll pardon the sentiment, I hope the next month, my last month, will lead me to some answers as I try to catch these days that are so quickly drawing to a close.
Cut back and don’t take away our fleeting time By Jacob Goodman
I
’m stressed and blah blah blah blah blah. If you’re a senior or junior you already know what I’m talking about: sophomores, just wait a few months and you’ll know too. I don’t think further explanation is necessary. Stress is just a part of the culture here, and most people have come to accept it. The administration knows we’re stressed too; like I said, it’s part of the culture. They’re not ignorant, They understand that the demands of a school where 33 percent of students go on to attend Ivy League colleges can break a student every once and a while (my panic attack count is at three this year so far). And the administration also knows that there’s a particular pool of stressful occurrences during the second semester of junior year and the first semester of senior year.
APs, SATs, SAT IIs, college tours, summer plans, US history papers, college applications, finals, Chronicle layout, Playwright’s Festival, Cabaret, spring season sports and fall season sports training are all going on right now. If I forgot to include whatever stressful activity you’re doing, please know you’re included in spirit. Yet last week, I attended a two-hour long event known as College Night and by the end of the year I have to turn in a four-page, in-depth questionnaire on top of the other six-page questionnaire I turned in January and peer review forms where I have to write recommendations for other students. All of which are designed to “help me get a sense of what the application process is like” and “to get me thinking about what I could write about for my common
app.” I won’t deny that these exercises are beneficial. I’m all for getting inside the mind of admission officers or doing some prep for the probable dozen college apps I’ll fill out. They’re great if I don’t have other things that may draw my attention away, like grades or SATs, or APs or all the other stuff. However the 10 other juniors who I was in the room with were just as untrained as I was in terms of evaluating applications. The admissions officer who was in the room with us was very experienced and worked for a very selective college, but ultimately any decision regarding my application or anybody else’s is subjective and admissions counselors can’t give advice on how to beat subjectivity. Throughout the night I heard several pieces of advice
that distilled down into two major points: schools evaluate the entire student, not just GPA, and the personal essay is a way to get across your personality. Two points, both of which were drilled into my head during the 11 information sessions I attended during my college tour. The application and admissions prep is great, but it doesn’t go on my transcript, unlike the grades that I will receive in the classes that are quickly coming to an end. I can attend a college night where I can talk to admissions directors and make myself known, but those admissions directors meet thousands of applicants. A firm handshake and a pleasant exchange brought to an abrupt end by the other student who cuts me off to schmooze is going to make less of an impact on my acceptance than a solid
grade on my AP US history paper. The administration can tout these “helpful” events and questionnaires all they want. They’re still annoying inconveniences to me and all the other juniors who just want their stress to be alleviated by a decent night’s sleep or by finally completing that Bio lab. It often seems that the administration is just accepting the culture of stress too readily. They’re not doing anything to help the problem. We don’t need both the questionnaires, and we probably don’t need the peer review forms that most schools don’t require for admittance. They need to cut back and make sure that what we’re doing in preparation for college will actually help us, and not take away our fleeting time.
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/opinion
Opinion A15
quadtalk
The Chronicle asked:
“Do you think that Civitalks should be brought back next year?”
519 students weighed in on the Chronicle poll
“If they bring back Civitalks then they should make it more worthwhile than I think it was. They should really commit to bringing the groups together.” —Juliana Simon ’16
No
4 6 4
“Yes, they should bring it back next year, but in a different way. Maybe with different activities or games that the students would like better.”
Yes
55
—Zach Bohn ’14 ALL PHOTOS BY HENRY HAHN/CHRONICLE
“Do you think that Civitalks was a valuable use of your time?”
Yes
“Which of the following, if any, do you think Civitalks accomplished?” 516 students weighed in on
No
the Chronicle
None
poll
Build community
Ethical living
4.5%
Good character
15.8%
68.4% Bring people closer together
20.3%
5.1% “I knew a couple kids at the beginning and I slowly got to know everyone else so I think yes, it was a valuable use of my time.”
—Ben Green ’14
“It wasn’t a valuable use of my time. It took away from me doing my work and putting that time and energy toward my classes.”
“It did bring people together that wouldn’t normally be in the same groups.” —Cole Staggs ’16
—Shea Copeland ’15
“They tried to build a community, but I don’t think it worked that great.” —Grace Kotick ’15
Take a stand against the rape culture By Julia Aizuss
W
hen I first saw miniature pairs of jeans cut out from denim dangling from the second story of the Munger Science Center, I did a double take. Then I remembered Denim Day. When I walked further into campus and saw the walls adorned with jeans decorated with phrases like “No means no,” I thought only one thing: where’s the pithy phrase about rape culture? I thought my worries were assuaged when I scouted out jeans whose writing read “End rape culture.” Alas, this was only the beginning of my problems. It turns out a pithy phrase is cold comfort when your fellow students, especially your fellow male students, people whom you otherwise like, don’t know what that pithy phrase even means. I was told by a male classmate that the phrase “rape culture” is “inaccessible” and “unfriendly” and invites undesirable “snap judgments.” A male classmate told a friend of mine he didn’t understand what the point of raising awareness about rape was,
that it made him uncomfortable. Another male classmate told me the phrase “rape culture” makes no sense because no one outright approves of rape. No one likes a rapist, so how does our society condone rape? I’ll admit the phrase “rape culture” is unfriendly. Unfortunately, rape is also unfriendly. I’ll admit the phrase “rape culture” probably makes many boys uncomfortable. Unfortunately, in a country where, according to a 2011 government survey, nearly one in five women has been sexually assaulted, I’m not too concerned about the discomfort a mere phrase provokes in boys. If rape is so reviled in our culture, why are so many women sexually assaulted? I’ve noticed my male peers like to talk about rapists like they’re rare monsters ostracized by society. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of rape is committed by people whom the rape survivors know, by people you talk to every day, by people you consider “nice” and “normal.”
I get it—no one wants to think that those who rape are nice and normal, people we chat with, people or celebrities who do things we consider admirable. But as long as a caricature persists of a rapist as a sinister figure lurking in the shadows, our culture will implicitly condone behavior that approves of the real people who rape and live in the daylight. How else does our society condone rape? Well, off the top of my head: every time someone makes a rape joke, as when a male classmate giggled to me about the jeans around campus that had the (admittedly poorly phrased) slogan “consent is not an option,” they imply that rape is something to joke about, something one doesn’t need to take seriously. That same urge to minimize the gravity of rape occurs every time someone says, “That math test raped me.” Rape culture is when women are taught their whole lives how to avoid rape, when the onus is on them to prevent it, while those who can
truly stop rape—the perpetrators—aren’t taught not to do it. Rape culture is when lyrics in Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines” are, as demonstrated by the photo project Project Unbreakable, the same exact words that sexual assault survivors report their rapists using to justify their actions. It’s when “Blurred Lines” becomes a number-one hit. Rape culture is when a Brown University student can rape and strangle his friend and be allowed to return to campus this fall, the same time when she will return because of the spine injury she suffered in the assault, as in the current college sexual assault scandal du jour. It’s when so many colleges can’t properly deal with sexual assault that I can use the phrase “college sexual assault scandal du jour.” Rape culture is when survivors are blamed for their rapes, when they’re asked why they dressed the way they did, why they drank, why they acted like they were
“asking for it.” It’s when women fear to report rape because of the imminence of these questions, when the burden of proof falls on them to “prove” their rape. It’s when, because of these challenges, only three percent of rapists are sentenced to prison, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. It’s when, on the rare occasion that the survivor comes forward, that the rapist is convicted of rape, CNN anchors mourn the destruction of the “promising futures” of the teenage rapists whose “lives fell apart” while neglecting to mention the teenage girl they raped whose life they caused to fall apart, as happened last year in Steubenville, Ohio. It’s when those teenagers didn’t realize they were raping her because she was unconscious and couldn’t say no. It’s when people don’t realize that not only does “no mean no,” as last week’s Denim Day photoshoot emphasized, but that not saying no doesn’t mean yes. Rape culture is if you read this column and do nothing to change your behavior.
A16
The Playmakers
exposure
April 30, 2014
The Playwrights’ Festival featured 12 plays which students wrote and acted in. The plays were presented in two sets from April 18-27. CHANGING THE PAST: Jay Gatsby, portrayed by Conor Belfield ’14, considers how he would have written The Great Gatsby in “Bedtime Stories” by Marianne Verrone ’15.
SCOTT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
SCOTT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
GRASSROOTS: Casey and Benjamin, portrayed by Oliver Sanderson ’15 and Will Hariton ’15, share a smoke in “What You’re Dealt” by Jeremy Bradford ’14.
NIKTA MANSOURI/CHRONICLE
SLICE OF LIFE: Jenny, portrayed by Aiyana White ’14, teases Jackson, played by Carlos Guanche ’16, in “American Pie” by Rebecca Katz ’15.
GHOST STORY: Boy, played by Quinn Luscinski ’14, shines a flashlight in wonder at his dead girlfriend, Girl, who is played by Emma Pasarow ’14, in “Ghost Girl” by Covi Brannan ’15. NIKTA MANSOURI/CHRONICLE
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
DRIVER’S SEAT: Elizabeth Edel ’16, Delilah Napier ’15, Grace Levin ’14 and Oliver GoodmanWaters ’14 personify emotions in “All of Me At Once” by Jensen McRae ’15.
A PLAY IN A PLAY IN A PLAY: Outer-playwright, portrayed by Kayla Darini ’16, writes a play within the play being written by Playwright Tara Joshi ’14 in “Mock Up” by Chloe Shi ’16.
Finger Painting Two juniors use Snapchat, a popular photo messaging app, to create virtual works of art to share with their friends. ART BY ALEXANDRIA FLORENT AND LEX LADGE
B2 Features
The Chronicle
XXX-Rated
April 30, 2014
About 60 percent of students have viewed pornography, but many are unaware of the long-term effects it may have. By Alex McNab
Hardcore pornography isn’t Ajmere said. “What they’re protected by the First Amend- learning is demoralizing to ment right to free speech, but the other sex. Teen boys [are] even U.S. Supreme Court jus- learning that it’s okay to subjutices have had trouble defining gate women.” However, three studies citexactly what it is. As Justice ed in Stony Brook University Potter Stewart said in a 1964 sociology Professor Michael case, “I know it when I see it.” The 1973 Supreme Court Kimmel’s male gender studies case Miller v. California de- book “Guyland” found that pornography consumption has alfined obscenity as material that most no effect on the behavior “a the average person, applyor attitude of the consumer. ing contemporary community Ajmere said women are standards would find..., taken more likely to read pornoas a whole, appeals to the pru- graphic books like “50 Shades rient interest b depicts or de- of Grey” because women are scribes, in a patently offensive less visual than men, but that way, sexual conduct... and ... c more girls are starting to lacks serious literary, artistic, watch pornography as it grows political or scientific value.” less stigmatized and more acPerforming arts teacher cessible through tools like cell Ted Walch has his own defini- phones. tion. “As women have gained “If they are actively having more rights and freedoms, sex,” Walch said, “that’s porn.” they’ve exercised these freeAlthough pornography is doms in many different ways, targeted towards adults, 60 not just in the workforce but percent of students reported in also in the sexual arena,” Aja Chronicle poll that they have mere said. “[In the past] it regularly watched pornogra- wouldn’t be considered ladyphy. Many, though, may not be like for a girl to say ‘oh yeah. I aware of the effect their con- watch porn.’” sumption of pornography has But even as more girls beon society, on the performers gin watching pornography, Ajand on themselves. mere thinks the self-esteem of “A big part of the way we teen girls is harmed by male learn and the consumpway teens learn tion, since is by observapornogrational learnphy creates Porn, largely, is ing,” Director i mp ossi b l e fantasy. It’s not reality, of Counseling sexual ideand Psychologials for wombut the teen brain, often cal Services Kaen to conbecause the frontal lobe vita Ajmere said. form to. “Porn, largely, is “I can’t isn’t developed, can’t fantasy. It’s not imagine make that distinction.” reality, but the that girls teen brain, offeel okay —Kavita Ajmere ten because the when their Director of Counseling boyfriend’s frontal lobe isn’t developed, can’t atching and Psychological Services w make that disa bunch of tinction. They’re porn,” Ajwatching pormere said. nography, and they transfer Kimmel’s book says men that to real life.” watch pornography for three Ajmere believes this inabil- reasons: to relieve themselves ity to distinguish between por- of the pressures of an increasnography and real life can be ingly feminist society; as a form very dangerous. of revenge against women, from “It’s not my understand- whom some men believe they ing that when teenagers look don’t receive enough sexual atat porn they’re thinking ‘wow! tention; and to restore male auThat was such an honest thority. and loving relationship,’” All these conflicts mean
“
The bare facts: Porn by the numbers
pornography is one of the biggest issues in feminism today, Levi Craske-Curtin ’14 said. Under the direction of English teacher Malina Mamigonian and visual arts department head Cheri Gaulke, CraskeCurtin is writing a paper examining the relationship between women’s rights and pornography as a part of a Gender Studies directed study. The paper will explore the differences between how the radical and liberal feminist movements view pornography. Radical feminism argues pornography is bad because the performers have been conditioned by a male-dominated society to exploit their bodies. Liberal feminism, meanwhile, supports the industry as an outlet for women’s sexuality in which women are praised rather than criticized for being sexually active. Liberal feminists often champion pornographic ventures like MakeLoveNotPorn, a sort of YouTube for amateur pornography that aims to reveal the falsehood of gender and sex myths created by mainstream porn. “[Craske-Curtin’s] really looking deeply into these issues and questioning codes of morality and who defines them,” Gaulke said. The paper, which CraskeCurtin will present in class, will remain neutral, but CraskeCurtin sides more with radical feminism. Craske-Curtin acknowledges the sexual autonomy given to women through pornography, which is a tenament of liberal feminism, but believes it’s still sexualizing. “There’s a problem with the way they go about it because they still call her a slut,” Craske-Curtin said. “But the idea behind it I think is good, because it’s making people more autonomous over their sexuality. This is a society that will see men as a whole being, and see women as more like parts. Women’s bodies will be sexualized. Men are less expected to do [pornography] because they’re less sexualized in society.” Craske-Curtin’s research and analysis confirms Kim-
Media of pornography consumption: 93% watch pornographic videos 10% read pornographic novels
31% of female students have watched pornography
90% of male students have watched pornography
28% look at pornographic magazines
mel’s assertion that men watch pornography to reaffirm their masculinity. “The man is expected to be very dominant, very aggressive, very masculine,” Craske-Curtin said. “[Male consumers of pornography] want to buy into that ideal because they think it can be a reality for them.” Even in pornographic scenes where the woman assumes the dominant role, gender roles are perpetuated because, CraskeCurtin said, the fact that the woman is performing outside her assigned gender role is being sexualized. Pornography, Craske-Curtin discovered, is also physically dangerous for the women involved, although few women are raped or coerced into the industry. In a study involving 177 female pornographic performers by psychologist James Griffith, the largest pornographic research study ever done, Griffith found that only one of the women had been forced into the industry. Pornography is often defended as an art form, but Gaulke believes there’s a distinction between pornography and erotic art. “It seems seamy in comparison to erotic art,” she said. “Can porn be art? Porn, it’s a business. Its purpose is to sell. I don’t think the purpose of porn is to make art. It’s to make money.” Making money off minors in pornographic films is illegal, but the laws concerning the dissemination of pornography to minors vary by state. However, Section 1470 of Title 18 of the United States Code prohibits anyone from attempting to give “obscene matter” to a minor under 16 years old. Also prohibited are any attempts to “deceive a minor into viewing harmful or obscene material.” Gaulke said that from the viewpoint of a mother, she doesn’t think pornography is a good way to learn about sex. “I think it’s important to have a really good sex education,” she said. “I don’t think porn’s the best place to get your sex education. The way that bodies are in porn, it’s unrealistic.”
Among students who view pornography, they began to do so:
15% 67% 18%
in elementary school in middle school in high school
SOURCE: CHRONICLE POLL OF 433 STUDENTS GRAPHIC BY ZOE DUTTON PHOTOS FROM FREEPHOTOS.COM
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/features
NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014
THE NEWS FANATICS Some students and teachers keep up with the news using a wide range of sources, while others, despite their interest, prioritize other activities. By Leily Arzy
which I value.” of the other things on the InterShe turns to The Economist net and distract the reader’s at“I am a news fanatic,” history and BBC for her news, especially tention away from the news. teacher Dror Yaron said shak- when she has a debate tournaLike Yaron and Yu, Pecheck ing his head. “I probably spend ment coming up. likes to visit a wide range of too much time keeping up with Miller’s father — a Washing- sources from the Chicago Trinews. The more you know, the ton Post columnist, NPR news bune and The Economist to more confusing it is, the more show host and candidate for the New York Times and The frustrating it is.” Congressional District 33, a dis- Washington Post. However, the Yaron spends a lot of his time trict that includes most of Los sources he trusts the least are looking at a multiplicity Angeles’ Westside — MSNBC, FOX News and the Los of sources in an effort and mother set aside Angeles Times. to form educated and articles from the New “What bothers me is when valid opinions. He says York Times or other a guy says something and has no that if he is watching newspapers that they evidence to support it,” history the more liberal CNN think she would be in- teacher Francine Werner said. or MSNBC, he will terested in. “Like with Obamacare, there turn to the more rightShe says a lot of are definitely reasons to debate wing FOX to get their the sources that she it. But when you make things take on the news. trusts are influenced by up like ‘women and children are nathanson’s He religiously reads her parents and debate going to die,’ then you shut out Amelia the New York Times, Al coaches. argument. I find this frustrating Miller ’15 Jazeera and especially When David Mana- because it shuts the people down the Wall Street Journal, han ’14 wants to check who have legitimate arguments.” which he says has the best edito- the news, he tries to veer away Whenever looking for her rial section and goes straight to from fringe media, random web- news, Werner goes to sources the heart of the stories. sites and the pop ups on Face- that can actually support their “I like the wide gambit of book because he feels that in arguments, whether conservaopinions, even when it is tenden- many cases they are factually tive or liberal. tious,” he said. “To me it is fine incorrect. Instead, he Werner considers as long as you are exposed to a turns to the Los Angekeeping up with the wide variety of views.” les Times and The New news a hobby and a “I do not want to read news York Times. passion of hers. But that will reconfirm my biases, I “I recently got my despite her interest, want to read news that will chal- first smartphone and she says that she does lenge and test my views,” Yaron have since subscribed to not always have the added. “I want it to irk me in the the New York Times,” time to keep up with process, so I can reinforce what Manahan said. “It is expolitics and looks forI think is right or explore pos- tremely handy, as I can ward to the summer sibilities of what might be right read on the go. Having and other vacation nathanson’s on the other side.” news so readily accestimes when she can David Similarly, Victoria Yu ’15 de- sible makes it easier for make even more time Manahan ’14 votes a certain amount of time me to keep up. Also, the for current events. everyday to keep up with cur- fact that I pay for my subscripZoe Dutton ’15 also thinks rent events. Every morning she tion actually encourages me to that being politically aware is spends about 30 minread. I paid for it, so I especially important, but beutes at home and then don’t want to waste my cause of her heavy school load uses her third period money.” and varying extracurricular acblock at school to read Miller also appre- tivities, including the Chronicle, NPR, the New York ciates how accessible it is especially hard for her to Times and Politico, news has gotten. Some make time for in-depth reading which she says leans of her favorite apps during the week. conservatively, so she are Newsify, which she “Being aware of the news likes to balance it out says condenses news is so important because it inwith the more liberal and make it easier to forms how we vote,” Dutton said. CNN. read, and the Econo- “Young people don’t take voting nathanson’s “It is so important mist app, which reads seriously, and as a result, poliDror Yaron to have context of what the articles out loud. ticians don’t care about youth you are doing in this world,” Yu “Technology is also great be- opinions or issues like student said. “We live in LA, and we are cause you can find global sources loans. The majority of the voting diverse and tolerant, generally, and perspectives that would be population is older, and that is but there are things going on be- harder to access without the reflected in our representatives.” yond our spheres which are not technology, like Al Jazeera,” Of the 498 students asked, really great. It is so important to Miller said. only 56 considered themselves picture ourselves in terms of a Yu said that she likes how news fanatics. Most students that greater picture.” accessible news has gotten, but said they did not keep up with “If I had more time and less that there is nothing like read- the news responded, “I do not work, I would read more,” Ame- ing just text. care,” or “It does not affect me,” lia Miller ’15 said. “It is hard to Grant Pecheck ’15 also ap- while other students answered, devote a lot of time to the news preciates the accessibility of the “I go to Harvard-Westlake. I with such a busy schedule. But news, but his concern is that the don’t have time to keep up with debate forces me to make time, actual news can be hidden by all the news.”
Features B3
B4 Features
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EOJIN CHOI
Supplementing food
By Eojin Choi
doctor recommended these supplements as sources of nuEver since she was four, trients like omega-3. Kennedy Green ’14 has taken “It was all a part of me tryvitamins regularly, starting ing to get better nutrition to with vitamin gummy bears run well and get enough daily and later switching to mul- vitamins in,” he said. “The fact tivitamins. When her father that I have well-rounded nutold her to drink more milk trition makes me feel better, because she wasn’t growing so I think it did help.” enough, she started taking Bradford cited convenience calcium supplements, which as another reason for taking she says helped her grow seven supplements, since he does inches since ninth grade. not always have time for a full “I don’t drink milk, so if I meal. don’t take my pills, I probably “The [cafeteria menu] have to take two boxes of soy- doesn’t always interest me, milk,” Green said. and I don’t always have the Green also took iron sup- time to wait in line in between plements in middle school due classes,” he said. to anemia but stopped when Science teacher Walt Werher doctor recommended that ner takes multivitamins every she eat iron rich foods like sar- morning and vitamin D as recdines and spinach instead. She ommended by his cardiologist. said she will probably start While he has not always been taking iron supplements again consistent with his vitamins, in college, if she does not have he said that he made an effort enough time to continue her to take them more regularly iron rich diet. after being diagnosed with On the whole, Green said lymphoma last summer. that taking supplements has “I have been taking them been beneficial, which is why off and on for a while, but I’ve she continues to take them. been really much more consci“I try to entious about take them to it now, espesupplement cially when my food,” my body was I try to take them being zapped she said. “As a Harvardto supplement my food. by all the cheWestlake stumotherapy,” As a Harvard-Westlake dent, it’s so Werner said. student, it’s so much much easier He said to get sick that in addieasier to get sick and and feel tired tion to takfeel tired when I don’t when I don’t ing vitamins, take my multake my multivitamins.” he tries to tivitamins.” eat healthy. —Kennedy Green ’14 At school, he Green is one of 43.7% usually has of students a salad or who take dietary supplements, smaller portions of food for according to a Chronicle poll lunch. At home, both he and of 458 students. Dietary sup- his wife, history teacher Franplements include anything cine Werner ’68, are conscienfrom vitamins and minerals to tious about their diets, he said. herbal products and enzymes. The 2010 Dietary GuideA 2013 Gallup poll re- lines for Americans, pubported that approximately lished by the Department of half of Americans take vita- Health and Human Services mins or other mineral supple- and the U.S. Department of ments regularly, with older Agriculture, states, “nutrient and wealthier Americans with needs should be met primarhigher levels of education be- ily through consuming foods. ing more likely to take vita- In certain cases, fortified foods mins. and dietary supplements may Because he also thought be useful in providing one or that supplements would help more nutrients that otherwise improve his diet, Jeremy Brad- might be consumed in less ford ’14 started drinking flax- than recommended amounts.” seed oil and taking daily teen Strength and conditionvitamins two years ago. His ing coach at Impact Basket-
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Although experts say that dietary supplements are not a substitute for a well-balanced diet, some students and teachers say they feel healthier when they take them. ball Alex Bui also believes that supposed to make her happier, supplements only help to a but so far she has not noticed certain extent. Even though it a difference. is often convenient for teenage “You just keep taking them athletes to consume protein once you fall into a routine,” supplements after a game, Chung said. “I’m still kind of there is no need for supple- weak, to be honest. But the viments if you have a well-bal- tamin gummy bears are really anced diet, he said. good for a sweet tooth.” “[Supplements] are not The benefits of dietary that effective, and they’re not supplements have been a subnecessary for students or for ject of debate in the medical anybody, really,” he said. “You community as well. can’t really substi“Annals of Intertute the minerals and nal Medicine” wrote vitamins from food in its December 2013 with supplements.” editorial that “sales Although not all of multivitamins and of the food in the cafother supplements eteria is healthful and have not been affectnutritious, cafeteria ed by major studies worker Den Iam said with null results, and that there are many the U.S. supplement options available for industry continues nathanson’s students who want to to grow, reaching $28 Walt Werner eat healthy. billion in annual sales “We have so much variety in 2010.” that [students] can choose The publication, published what to eat,” Iam said. “We by The American College of have vegetarian food, salads, Physicians, added that “evisandwiches. The food we cook dence is sufficient to advise is also healthy, like white meat against routine supplementaand brown rice.” tion, and we should translate He added that there are null and negative findings into also snacks at the cafeteria, action. The message is simple: like protein bars, supplement- Most supplements do not preed with multivitamins and vent chronic disease or death, omega-3. their use is not justified and However, some students they should be avoided.” believe that vitamins and othThere is also a risk of overer health supplements are not dose when it comes to fat-soluvery effective. ble vitamins like A and D. The Eugenie Lund-Simon ’14 National Academy of Sciences began taking calcium pills and has established upper limAsian herbal products around its of intake, recommending six years ago after receiving amounts of some vitamins and recommendations from doc- minerals that should not be tors. Even though she still exceeded during any given day. takes them to balance her False claims, such as “curemedications, she thinks that all” and “no side effect” claims, some of the claims she sees on are also something consumers labels are not always accurate. should watch out for, accord“I don’t see any difference ing to the FDA. whatsoever if I do or don’t Werner said that although take them,” Lund-Simon said. the benefits of supplements “Personally, I think some of and overdosing are not always them are a waste of money. clear, it is probably better to But doctors recommended take vitamins than not to take taking these, and it also makes them, considering vitamins’ my mom happy.” importance as coenzymes in Similarly, Grace Chung ’14 many biological processes. takes daily women’s vitamins, “Since my wife takes them, fish oil and vitamin gummy and she’s on my case to take bears. Because she was often them, I take them,” he said. hungry, she started taking fish “When I was dealing with oil when her friend recom- the chemo, I decided that evmended it. Instead of snack- ery little thing probably helps, ing every hour, she eats fewer and I’ve continued with them. snacks now, she said. A nutri- Also, at my age it’s probably tionist she talked to at UCLA a better idea to do something also told her that fish oil is like that.”
April 30, 2014
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Features B5
Uber Dangerous Uber is an app commonly used by many students, but it is not necesssarily a safe and cheap alternative to driving in a taxi.
ILLUSTRATION BY JACOB GOODMAN
By Zoe Dutton
study contributed this gap to the higher rates Uber charges others always say nev- during rush hour, called ‘surge er to get in a stranger’s charges,’ when drivers are in car, but that’s exactly greater demand. During nonwhat many students are doing. rush hour times, however, the According to a Chronicle study found that UberX was poll of 508 students, 63 percent cheaper than both regular taxis of upper school students have and the competitor app Lyft. In used Uber or have an Uber ac- Los Angeles, Uber says a ride count, an online, app-driven from Beverly Hills to Santa car-for-hire service in which Monica will cost $15.83 in an drivers provide their own ve- UberX, compared to $26.80 in a hicles. normal taxi. The app is particularly popDespite its widespread use, ular among partygoers. Uber is not without contro“It means nobody gets stuck versy. Since it is technically not being the designated driver,” a taxi service but a technology Paul* ’14 said. “You can go to company, the business operates a party and drink and have a outside the usual regulations. good time without worrying The easiest position to apply for about parking or needing to find is that of an UberX driver, for somebody to come and get you. which applicants must prove Or even if you’re not drinking that they are a licensed driver and are just out doing stuff and with a safe car and submit to a you need a ride fast, then you background check. can call an Uber.” There have been For 99 percent of stuseveral cases in dents who use Uber, conwhich drivers with venience is the primary criminal pasts or a attraction. poor driving record “They’re just a lot were hired. In the easier to get hold of [than most well-publitaxis],” Kate Goodman cized, a driver with ’15 said. “You don’t have a prior conviction of to worry about having reckless driving hit nathanson’s cash on you or paying and killed a 6-yearright then, because your old girl on New Kate credit card information is Year’s Eve in San Goodman ’15 already in the app. Plus, Francisco. There now they’re relatively close to have also been allegations of being the same price as taxis.” sexual harassment of passenSeveral students cite cost gers. as an important factor, and 50 Sally* ’16 said she felt percent believe that Uber is uncomfortable using the service cheaper than taxis. Others dis- after an encounter with an agree, saying that although they Uber SUV driver who behaved still use the service, it is more inappropriately. expensive. “The Uber driver was very The company states on its enthusiastic when we first got website that UberX prices are in the car, saying things like 10 percent lower than taxi pric- ‘Hi girls, I’m you’re new best es. According to an informal friend,’” she said. “He was playtest conducted by a Wall Street ing really loud club music and Journal tech writer, in which kept saying ‘You girls are my teams in six cities took more girls, you’re mine.’ He offered than 30 rides comparing taxis us whiskey, and things just kept and other ride-sharing apps, getting creepier.” the cost of an UberX was on avSally said that at one point erage approximately 20 percent the driver insisted on pulling higher than that of a taxi. The
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the car over to take photos. “We said ‘Oh no, it’s fine, we can just take them ourselves, but he was like ‘No,’” she said. “So he took a few photos and then gave my friend her phone back and continued to drive. It was so weird.” Feeling uncomfortable, Sally and her friends had the driver take them to CVS and told him that one of their parents would pick them up. The driver, though, wouldn’t leave them alone. “He pulled over to the side and said ‘No, only one girl get out with me and we’ll go to CVS. Just one,’” she said. When they refused to split up, he insisted on coming with them. “I was walking a little behind the rest of my friends and so he came up to me and grabbed me and started hugging me. He kissed my head and said ‘You’re my girl now.’ He was like ‘Since I’m driving you girls, you need to do me a favor. You owe me something.’” Running to the back of the store, one of Sally’s friends called her mother and had the group picked up, though not before the driver gave Sally a box of chocolates he’d bought. She decided not to report the incident to Uber or the police because she was afraid that her parents would forbid her to use Uber. “I didn’t want to tell my mom the entire story because Uber is very convenient, and I’d taken Ubers so many times without that happening,” Sally said. “If I’m with my friends, they’re going to want to take an Uber. I didn’t want to tell her because then she’d freak out and be so overprotective of me. So I didn’t report it and thought about it for a really long time and all my friends were telling me to report it, but then it got to a point where it was too late and I felt like I couldn’t.” Although she still occasionally takes Uber cars, Sally said she does so only with friends and always feels uncomfortable
in them. In addition to issues surrounding drivers, Uber detractors say that the company’s insurance policy is insufficient. Uber’s website states that if a driver’s personal insurance policy fails to cover an accident, then their coverage is capped at $50,000 per individual per incident for bodily damage, $100,000 per incident total for bodily injury and $25,000 per incident He was playing for property damage. really, loud club music The issue, and kept saying ‘You critics say, girls are my girls, you’re is that the insurance mine.’ He offered us industry whiskey, and things just routinely excludes uskept getting creepier .” ing personal —Sally* ’16 policies for coverage in commercial use. Services like Uber respond that claims are still getting through on personal policies, to which some opponents counter that is only because those insurance companies don’t know that the accident took place during a commercial drive. “Taxi insurance provides coverage on a 24 hour, seven day per week basis, regardless of the use of the vehicle,” William Rouse of Los Angeles Yellow Cab said. “The public is always protected by taxi insurance. What we know now from Uber’s insurance is that there are major gaps in coverage and the vehicles are on the road uninsured putting the public at risk for major parts of the day.” Regardless of the legal issues, the majority of students say they’ve had positive experiences with Uber and are unaware of any controversy. “I’ve got places to go and things to do,” Nico Lubkeman ’15 said. “Uber helps me do them.”
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*Names have been changed
The Chronicle April 3
B6 Features
By Sydney Foreman
I
t was dark and neither Billy* ‘14 nor his younger sibling could see from their positions in the backseat of the car their father was driving. It was Thanksgiving, and the family was on its way back from dinner. Billy, then 8, felt a jolt of fear as the car lurched off the road, onto the center island and into a signpost. Although he shredded his tires, Billy’s father continued driving. Once they got home, Billy’s father stumbled into the bushes. His father made it to the front door, only with the help of Billy and his sibling. As Billy and his sibling waited, their father repeatedly jammed his key into the door, missing the lock. Only then, as his father struggled to get into the house, did Billy realize that something was wrong. “I had known what the word alcoholic meant, and I had known that he had an addiction, but I didn’t understand what it was until it had implications for my safety and having to bear that responsibility at that age,” Billy said. Dr. David Kipper, author of “The Addiction Solution,” defines an alcoholic as a person who recognizes the dangers of alcohol, but continues to use it. The medical consequences can include dementia, anemia, stroke and arrhythmias. “With chronic alcoholism, you become dysfunctional,” Kipper said. “Every single organ in the body is affected ultimately by chronic exposure to alcohol.” Around the same young age as Billy, Elton* ’14 also noticed his father had a drinking problem. Elton remembers his father throwing up, passed out on the couch with all of
his clothes on and “foolishly” related to his alcoholism, but walking around the house. that Billy believes may have inIt took a screaming match creased in severity due to his for Elton to come to terms drinking. with his father’s problem. After unsuccessful at“It just hit me at that point. tempts to overcome his lanI was 14; there was no point in guage barrier with the docarguing with a drunk person,” tors, Billy’s father reluctantly Elton said. used Billy as his translator. He “You’re a total embarrass- was forced to admit to his docment,” Elton has yelled at his tors via Billy that he had been father at night, when drinking again. Billy his father was drunk. and his father engaged “You’re a drunk,” he’s in a screaming match. shouted. “You’re the His father shouted at worst parent ever,” he Billy, suggesting that has screamed. When Billy cared less for day comes and his him than he did for father’s sobered up, Billy. Elton has to restrain “Just hearing him himself. say ‘you’ve never renathanson’s “The worst part ally cared about me’ Luba Bek about having somewas totally crushing,” one who is under the influence Billy said. “Whenever he says and yelling at them is that they that I’m betraying him by redon’t remember a thing the moving myself from the situnext morning,” Elton said. ation, those are the hardest Having a parent demon- moments because he discounts strate this type of unstable everything I’ve done for him in behavior is often the most dif- an instant.” ficult part of living with an alBilly often struggles with coholic parent, school psychol- the sensitivity of his father’s ogist Luba Bek said. alcoholism. He tries to stay op“It’s a very tough place to timistic and supportive of his be because home is supposed to father, while still holding his be your comfort zone, a place father accountable for his acwhere it’s safe and where your tions and reminding himself parents take care of you,” Bek that he is not responsible for said. “In a family with an alco- his father’s addiction. holic, the kids are taking care “It’s always tough because of the parents.” on one hand I don’t want to Billy is familiar with un- feel like I’m abandoning my predictable behavior by his fa- dad, but I also don’t want to ther. After not contacting his be co-dependent and have him father for several months due think that he can always rely to an episode of substance use, on me to get him out of any Billy and his father reconnect- situation,” Billy said. ed by vacationing together in Participating in co-depena foreign country. Billy antici- dent behavior, Bek said, can pated the trip to be filled with have long-term negative conbonding time, but instead he sequences. Adult children of sat next to his father’s hospital alcoholics are people who grew bed. His father was drinking up with an alcoholic parent again and was hospitalized for and who are accustomed to a potentially life-threatening compensating for that parent. condition that was not directly Bek described these people as
Parentin the Infl
When parents abuse alc heavily affected becaus the situation; often the confusion about a cond
extremely other-oriented and selfless. “Your whole life you were taking care of an alcoholic parent so this is the only relationship that you know,” Bek said. Bek’s words rang true for Billy. He’s found that his relationships often follow the pattern he’s established with his father: compromises to avoid conflict. “Sometimes I worry that I’m not assertive enough,” Billy said. “It’s in my nature to remedy situations.” Elton does not think that his father’s alcoholism has ever threatened his personal safety. He believes his father has a mild case of alcoholism, especially in comparison to some of his uncles, one of whom is dead in part due to alcohol and another of whom is no longer in communication with the family because he refused to go to rehab. Performing arts teacher Ted Walch, now a recovering alcoholic himself, noticed a similar pattern with the male members of his family. Walch refers to his father as a “functioning alcoholic,” meaning he was a successful father, provider, friend and worker. However, Walch deemed another
30, 2014
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ng Under fluence
cohol, their children are se of their proximity to ey struggle with guilt or dition they could inherit.
male relative “a falling down drunk alcoholic.” “I was aware that he was an alcoholic,” Walch said. “I wasn’t aware that maybe just about every other male in my family, in some way, shape or form needed to drink every day.” This isn’t too surprising, as Kipper says alcoholism is a hereditary disease that runs clearly in family lineages. “There are genes that we have identified that not only are generic for addiction, but there are certain genes that are generic for alcoholism,” Kipper said. Kipper noted that it is more common in males in part because they have less of a particular dehydrogenase enzyme found in the liver, which causes less alcohol to cause a greater feeling of intoxication. Aware of this genetic correlation and promising himself at a young age that he would never drink, Elton has kept his distance from alcohol. At age 18, he has never had a sip of alcohol, which often surprises people. “As years go on it’s more fun to say I’ve never had alcohol before,” Elton said. Elton enjoys his sobriety,
but said it can sometimes all colleges at that time were cause problems in his friend- very good at teaching drinkships. He is repeatedly forced ing,” Walch said. “And, I hate to act as the designated driver to say it, I think that colleges and he often feels that he is are still very good at teaching used for his sobriety in order drinking.” to take care of others when It was there that Walch they are intoxicated. believes his drinking habits “Sometimes I feel like I’m became like those of the other being used,” Elton said. “It men in his family: dangerous. sucks being the sitter.” “I do believe deeply that Although he does not want it’s in our DNA. That we are to be drunk himself, it’s often either predisposed, or not prefrustrating when his friends disposed to have a problem,” and he are in different states Walch said. “I know people who of mind. drink as much as I did who do Elton plans on maintaining not drink alcoholically. They his sobriety throughout his col- can either take it or leave it. I lege years. couldn’t. It’s not about amount, Billy also plans to continue it’s about need and behavior.” his current cautious attitude In his early days of sobriety, towards alcohol while he is in he attended Alcoholics Anonycollege. Billy occasionally en- mous meetings daily. Now, 28 gages in social drinking. He years later, he only visits occarecognizes that he is at a high- sionally. er risk for alcoholism, but he Kipper cited other treathas not experienced anything ment options in addition to that would lead him to believe Alcoholics Anonymous, which he has an addiction. is a form of behavioral treat“I have to continue the same ment. There are pharmacomentality I have here, which is logical treatments, which supbeing aware of the dangers of ply the system with serotonin. alcohol while still being able This diminishes the craving for to have a drink in a social en- alcohol and can reverse some v i r o n m e n t ,” of the mental Billy said. health issues For Walch, associated It just hit me at college inwith alcoholvolved lots of ism such as that point. I was 14; drinking. Aldepression, there was no point in though he had anxiety and arguing with a drunk his first sip of somewhat alcohol at age obsessiveperson.” 8, and clearly compulsive remembers —Elton* ’14 disorder. This drinking a treatment case of Budcan come in weiser beer at age 14, he didn’t the monthly injectable form participate in “drinking Olym- of Vivatrol. Medicines that depics” until college, Walch said. crease anxiety, anxiolytics, can In college, “you either also be helpful in treating allearned how to drink so that coholism. you didn’t get sick, or you Elton’s not sure whether learned maybe you shouldn’t his father has sought therapy be drinking,” he said. to treat his alcoholism. How“My college was not unique, ever, Elton believes his father
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Features B7
has not had a problem with alcohol for the past two to three years. Elton describes his father’s recovery as gradual — he first tried to see whether he could last a week without a drink, then a month, then a few months. “He seemingly just fixed it on his own,” Elton said. “It was something he had enough willpower to fix for himself.” Despite visiting many clinics and staying sober for almost five years, Billy’s father continues to flicker in and out of sobriety. Billy has visited him at these rehabilitation centers often, but rather than depressing, he’s found these times to be uplifting. “It keeps me going in a way because I feel like I have access to my real father,” Billy said. It is frustrating for Billy to deal with the disconnect between his drunk father and his sober father, which he describes as “essentially two different people.” The real pain, though, more than the gap between his father’s drunk and sober sides, lies in having to experience his drunken father at all. The cyclic and unpredictable nature of the disease, he said, makes it even worse. His grandmother, who was also an alcoholic, gradually gave up drinking. Billy wonders if his father will do the same. “At times it seems so bad with my dad that I think is it so bad that he will keep drinking until the day he dies,“ Billy said. “It’s hard not knowing. I can pretend like I have some sort of control over the situation, but it’s really completely in his hands and it’s really completely in the hands of the alcoholism.” *Names have been changed
GRAPHIC BY JACOB GOODMAN AND MARCELLA PARK
B8 Features
The Chronicle
highstakes
HENRY HAHN/CHRONICLE
Jackie Ridgley, the All-Around Columbia University
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JACOB GOODMAN
Jackie Ridgley, The All-Around Having been admitted to Columbia University early decision, Jackie Ridgley ’14 decided to attend the school’s admitted students weekend. There she had the opportunity to meet other admitted students as well as spend time on campus. Ridgley particularly enjoyed participating in a bus tour of New York and meeting with one of the student advisers. Ridgley warns future applicants not to procrastinate on their applications. “It’s a crazy process,” Ridgley said. “Start it early. Everyone tells you to start it early, but actually start it early.”
CARLY BERGER/CHRONICLE
NOA YADIDI/CHRONICLE
Matt Leichenger, the Artist New York University
The Final Decision By Sydney Foreman
April 30, 2014
Matt Leichenger, The Artist Although his feelings about moving to New York have fluctuated, Matt Leichenger ’14 is once again excited about attending New York University this fall. After the excitement of being accepted early decision wore off, Leichenger felt neutral about his college decision. Even in Los Angeles, Leichenger often feels he wants to escape city life, so he slightly worried about moving to another major city. “The school itself, Gallatin, that whole program I’m still excited about because I know that’s what is good for me,” Leichenger said. Leichenger is ultimately very pleased with the way his college process turned out.
Anser Abbas, the Brain University of California, San Diego
MILA BARZDUKAS/CHRONICLE
Efe Agege, the Athlete Bucknell University
Seniors reflect and give advice on the college process, having decided where they are attending.
He advises students applying to college in upcoming years to find safety schools they are excited about. He said that had he been rejected by NYU he would have mostly been interested in schools that would have been a reach for him. Leichenger believes he would have been slightly more comfortable waiting to hear back from NYU, if he had been more excited about his safeties. “Follow what you actually want to do,” Leichenger said. “A lot of the time the best school for a person isn’t going to be an Ivy League school.” Anser Abbas, The Brain Anser Abbas ’14 will be attending the University of California, San Diego next fall. He
will most likely be majoring in chemistry. “They have a good bio and bio-chemistry department, which I find intriguing,” Abbas said. Abbas was also briefly considering Reed College, but felt the school lacked diversity of thought. UCSD was not Abbas’s first choice. He recommends that students who do not get into their top choice school find ways to distract themselves from the disappointment. “I think it’s probably good to maintain a healthy suspicion of what you want,” Abbas said. “Going to my first choice would have been nice but it wouldn’t have made me automatically marvelous or handsome.”
Efe Agege, The Athlete Efe Agege ’14 is very excited to be joining the class of 2018 as well as the track team at Bucknell University. Agege was recruited by the track coaches at Bucknell, and she applied regular decision. Only after submitting her application did she commit to the school. “When I met the team they were all really nice, so I’m looking forward to four years of basically having fun in the sport that I want to pursue and enjoying the people too,” Agege said. Reflecting on her college process, Agege cannot think of anything she would have done differently. Agege recommends talking with coaches as early as June of junior year.
Arts Entertainment
The Chronicle • April 30, 2014
Hitting the right notes By Jacob Goodman Last spring break, Sara Shakliyan sat to the left of choir teacher Roger Guerrero translating questions from Bulgarian into English. The interview, which was being filmed for the Bulgarian National television, was edited, and intercut with footage of the Chamber Singers performing at the Bulgaria Concert Hall. The trip took the Chamber Singers through Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria and presented a rare opportunity for the upper school accompanist to visit her native country and her family while being part of The Music of America in the Frames of European Music Festival. “It’s not a usual destination for people,” Shakliyan said. “But it has a great heritage of choral music. We knew there was a great audience to appreciate it. The performance was pretty phenomenal.” Shakliyan was born in Plodiv, Bulgaria to a family of musicians, her father a violinist, and her mother a pianist. She started playing piano at age 5, and by age 10, she was performing with orchestras. “I was focused on music, and I knew I wanted to do that,” Shakliyan said. “Looking back I think I maybe could have done something else, but it’s such a sacrifice that you have to start at an early age and follow through. I know the other art forms are also hard but drawing or acting, you could start it a little bit later, I suppose, but with music you have to start when you’re a child.”
A former Bulgarian piano prodigy, performing arts accompanist Sara Shakliyan juggles music, raising two young daughters and a husband deployed in the army.
She later attended the and Hawaii. Bulgaria State Conservatory In Hawaii, she worked with in Sofia, where she received the Hawaii Theatre for Youth a bachelors degree in choral as a musical director. music and piano performance. She was in the education A f t e r department school in Bulof the Hawaii garia, ShakOpera. liyan decided In 2005, Looking back to pursue S h a k l i y a n ’s further educomposiI think I maybe could cation in tion entitled have done something America par“Sednalo e tially due to Djore dos” else, but it’s such a the difficulwas published sacrifice that you have ties of being by the Santa a professional Barbara Muto start at an early age musician in sic Publishing and follow through.” her home company. country. The song —Sara Shakliyan “Music was preAccompanist miered education is by very strong in the HarBulgaria, so v a r d -We s t we come very well prepared,” lake Chamber Singers at the Shakliyan said. “It’s the real- American Choral Directors ization afterwards that’s hard Association National because Bulgaria was a com- Convention. munist country until 1987. So S h a k l i y a n ’s my generation graduated at first daughter, the time of the transition. It’s Alba, was born really difficult. If I had stayed in 2006. now, even in the country’s capW h e n ital, I would only make, maybe Alba was 10 $300 to $400 a month.” months old, She came to California in S h a k l i y a n ’s 1998 to obtain her masters de- husband was gree in choral music at USC. deployed to She continued into a doc- Iraq. torate program and received Shakliher Ph.D. in choral music in yan decided 2004. to return to While in Los Angeles, Bulgaria so Shakliyan met her husband she wouldn’t Jairo Mendez, who is an ac- be alone. tive duty soldier in the United “ Y o u States Army. know you’re She toured around the in the game, country with him for the next and so you few years, staying wherever have to play his military assignments took it. I have the him, in California, Virginia kids so it’s
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Shifting the Spotlight 41 students will be members of Chamber Singers in the 2014-2015 school year. Tenors
Sabrina Batchler ’15 Jessica Brandon ’16 Laura Campbell ’16 Elizabeth Edel ’15 Sara Lucas ‘17 Delilah Napier ’15 Claire Nordstrom ’15 Marcella Park ’15 Karin Rhynes ’16 Shelby Weiss ’16 Jessica Wolf ’16
Nick Abouzeid ’15 Saransh Desai-Chowdhry ‘16 Landon Fadel ’15 James Hansen ’16 Henry Platt ’17 Dylan Schifrin ’16 Jordan Strom ’16 Benny Weisman ’15 Adam Yaron ’15
Altos
Basses
Ari Berman ’15 Katherine Calvert ’15 Nina Dubovitsky ’15 Elizabeth Gaba ’17 Elizabeth Goran ‘15 Nina Juarez ’16 Maxine Moore ’15 Kelly Morrison ’16 Jenna Thompson ’16 Marianne Verrone ’15 Jona Yadidi ’16
Jackson Beavers ’15 Michael Edwards ‘16 Will Hariton ’15 Matthew Jung ’16 Hudson Ling ’15 Kenneth Noble ’16 Lucas Perez ’16 Monte Samuelian ’16 Teddy Sokoloff ’15 Bryce Terman’16
SOURCE: ROGER GUERRERO GRAPHIC BY MORGANNE RAMSEY
transcendent.” In 2012, Shakliyan’s husband was sent to Korea. Their second daughter, Nairi, was born in 2010, and Shakliyan decided to stay in Los Angeles with her two young daughters. “It’s really hard,” Shakliyan said. “It’s good because we have a mutual understanding of the kind of job he does and the kind of job I do. He knows that I love working at Harvard-Westlake. We said ‘okay, we’re going to go through this. And now he’s doing his last year in Korea and then he’s done because things have to settle. One of us has to follow the other. The girls miss their dad.”
SU JIN NAM/CHRONICLE
Plays chosen as national winner, semifinalists in theater’s festival By Caitlin Neapole
Sopranos
not so emotionally difficult, but he doesn’t have anybody,” she said. She returned to Los Angeles in 2009 and joined Harvard-Westlake as an accompanist for Guerrero, who she had worked with during her time at USC. Her husband had received an assignment to Los Angeles and came with her. Shakliyan has also been an accompanist for the Southern California Honor Choir for the last five years. She is also a counselor at Idyllwild summer arts camp. “It’s imperative that the younger generation is involved in arts,” Shakliyan said. “And here we have such talented kids. On an everyday basis you can see transformations because music is able to bring out so much of each individual. I don’t know what the right expression is, but it’s really transcendent. And you can see young people during a performance and they’re
and Enya Huang ’15 were selected as semifinalists. Aiyana White ’14 was anKatz’s play, “American nounced as the winner of The Pie,” was inspired by “Friday Blank Theatre Company’s Night Lights,” and covers the Young Playwrights Festival, story of an adolescent boy which received over 250 na- and girl who become friends tionwide submissions this through their town, football year. and life dreams. White’s play “Barophobia,” “It’s a commentary on will receive a professional the south in the ’80s and raproduction at The Blank The- cial congregation and kind of atre in Hollywood in June. about how even really differWhite’s play foent people can form cuses on the interlasting connections,” action between four Katz said. “It’s an instrangers who meet credible honor to even in an airport and be selected as a semidiscuss their perfinalist. Play writing sonal fears. has recently become “I decided I one of my passions, wanted to write a and I’m lucky to be play that included able to be part of a nathanson’s the sentence, ‘When group with such talAiyana a child screams ented people.” White ’14 for his mother beHuang wrote cause there’s a monabout four characster in the closet, what does ters with their own individual the mother say? Go back to problems under a totalitarian sleep.’” government in her play “ReThe Young Playwrights membering.” Festival is a competition The story concludes with where writers under the age the appearance of a fifth of 19 can submit up to three character who ties the story plays of any content. together. Rebecca Katz ’15, Hannah Huang’s was the only one Dains ’16, Kenneth Noble ’16 of the plays that did not re-
ceive a student production at the Harvard-Westlake Playwright’s Festival. “One of the writers that made the semifinals at this festival is a play we are not producing as part of our Playwright’s Festival 2014,” Moore wrote in an email to the Playwright’s Festival contestants. “I love to hear that because it reinforces what I always say, ‘our H-W Festival is just one festival/competition you all should be submitting your work to.’” “It was very rewarding because the play had been so personal, and the fact that someone liked it was extremely exciting,” Huang said. “Fireborn,” Noble’s play, tells the story of a man in 1969 Ireland who faces moral dilemmas when his relationships with his romantic partner, brother and religon come into conflict. Dains’ play is told in monologues by the survivors of a bridge collapse. No one knows exactly why the bridge collapsed. At the end of her play, it is revealed that a girl removed a bolt from the side of the bridge in her attempt to jump off.
B10 A&E
On Tour
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
IN MEMORIAM: Morgan Brown ’15 and Drew Mirman ’15 look out at Madingley Cemetery, a cemetery for American World War II soldiers in Cambridgeshire, England.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF LAURALEE HARPER
Three performing arts groups traveled during spring break. Bel Canto went abroad to London while Chamber Singers competed in New York City and Jazz Band performed in Italy.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF ANDREA TORRE
THE BIG APPLE: Zita Biosah ’14, Jordan Gutierrez ’14, Molly Chapman ’14, and Angus O’Brien’ 14 play around on while in Times Square.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SU JIN NAM PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF RYAN LEE
CAFFE AMERICANO: Roland Montgomery ’16, Nico Greenlee’15, Zach Saunders ’14, Nick Knight ’14 and Nick Steele ’16 play jazz music at a club in Italy.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF ANDREA TORRE
AMERICAN PASTTIME: Members of the Chamber Singers pose for a picture while visiting Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY.
HEY JUDE: Abby Shaum ’16, Ryan Finley ’16 and Juliet Nguyen ’16 recreate the cover of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” while visiting the historic site in London.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SHAWN COSTANTINO
SMOOTH JAZZ: Sinclair Cook ’14 amd Jeremy Tepper ’15 play the saxophone while Benjamin Greene ’14 plays the trumpet and Alex Lange ’14 plays the guitar at one of the stops on their tour.
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April 30, 2014
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A&E B11 Biographer and director visits class Film critic, TV producer, studio publicist, college professor, entertainment commentator, author and biographer Nat Segaloff spoke to the Cinema Studies class April 17. He wrote a biography of Arthur Penn, directed the films “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Chase” and also was the executive producer of “Law and Order.” He spoke about the making of “Bonnie and Clyde,” which the Cinema Studies class had watched prior to Segaloff ’s visit, and the impact it had on film history. He also showed the students conversations he had recorded with Penn when he was researching him for his biography. —Nikta Mansouri
JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE
Senior art gallery opens in Feldman-Horn
ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT: English teacher Jeremy Michaelson, left, and English teacher Jocelyn Medawar admire the art pieces of Sydney Foreman ’14 during a Feldman-Horn Gallery display of the works of AP Studio Art and of Drawing and Painting III students. The show took place during break on Monday, April 21 and received an audience of teachers, parents and students.
Piano duo to perform ‘Rite of Spring’ in Rugby By Benjamin Most 4HandsLA will perform Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” on Thursday, May 1 in the Rugby Theater. This will be the second 36-minute annual performance for the study of aesthetics in the
Philosophy in Art and Science course taught by performing arts teacher Ted Walch and math teacher Kevin Weis. “The Rite of Spring” is a 1913 ballet and orchestral work notable for its avantgarde style and named one of the 20th century’s most influ-
ential compositions by critic Jan Smaczny. The performers, Steven Vanhauwaert and Danny Holt, perform together as the piano duo 4HandsLA and specialize in the music of Stravinsky. Individually, they have both performed at Carnegie
Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall and other venues across the United States, Europe and Asia. Vanhauwaert also won the 2004 Los Angeles International Liszt competition. The pianists will be available to answer questions following the performance.
Orchestra students to perform original compositions By Su Jin Nam
Two students will have their original music pieces featured at the spring orchestra concert on May 2 at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica. Ray Kim ’14 will conduct the Symphony, which will play his original orchestral piece, titled “Pobi’s Little Adventure.”
Performing arts teacher Mark Hilt will conduct Concert Strings, which will play an original arrangement of Coldplay’s popular song “Paradise” arranged by Lauralee Harper ’16. Kim will be only the second student to have composed an original piece to be played by the Symphony. After being announced as one of the three winners
And the award goes to Archer Film Festival • ”Open the Door” by Dora Palmer ’15, Emma Bloom, Trey Carlisle, Sofia Servin and Harrison Shea • ”Swords into Ploughshares” by Max Cho ’15 Chicago International Film Festival’s CineYouth • ”Blockbusted” by Sarah McAllister ’15, Lauren Morganbesser ’19, August Blum, George Khabbaz, Ulysse Silva and Mathias Valenta • ”Invisible” by Danielle Stolz ’15 • ”Once Upon a Childhood” by Sarah McAllister ’15 and Marcella Park ’15 • ”A Pizza the Size of the Sun” by Dora Palmer ’15
of the 2013 National Young Composer’s Challenge for his submission of “Pobi’s Little Adventure,” Kim approached Hilt and asked him if he could conduct his song. “I feel honored to be conducting an award-winning orchestra, but as a result, I feel nervous,” Kim said. “I find it encouraging that the Symphony is excited to be playing a piece composed by one of their
peers.” Harper’s arrangement of “Paradise” was made specifically for Concert Strings. She asked Hilt if she could arrange a piece for Concert Strings to play in order to help herself master her music theory. “It presented just the right amount of challenge for the ensemble, so I agreed,” Hilt said.
18 student films have been selected for screenings at eight different student film festivals around the country.
National Film Festival for Talented Youth • ”Blockbusted” • ” Invisible” • ”Once Upon a Childhood” Newport Beach Film Festival • ”Disconnect to Connect” • ”Once Upon a Childhood” • ”Wings of Peace”
Los Angeles Student Media Project • “Anaerobe” by Cosi Elwes ’15 and Danielle Stolz ’15 • ”Insomnia” by Hana Kateman ’15 • ”Legacies of War” by Koji Everard ’15 and Hana Kateman ’15 • ”The Lingering War” by Delilah Napier ’15 • ”Notice the Change” by Marisa Hattler ’16, Laura Lopez ’17 , Marcella Park ’15, Lauren Rothman ’16 and Jacob Sainers • ”A Pizza the Size of the Sun” • ”Wings of Peace” by Danielle Stolz ’15
Notre Dame High School Film Festival • ”Blockbusted” • ”Friendly Fire” by Bennett Gross ’16, Tess Haber ’17, Cole Hattler ’16, Troy Hattler ’17, Danielle Kaye ’17 and Jesse Nadel ’17 • ”Invisible” • ”Notice the Change” • ”Open the Door” • ”The SAT Games” by Molly Cinnamon ’14 • ”Swords into Ploughshares” • ”Wings of Peace”
Marlborough Film Festival • ”Disconnect to Connect” by Max Rolnick ’16, Troy Loizzo ’16, Sofia Barrett, Arine Eisaian, Sydney Keys, Alice Levine, Samantha Myman and Kali Van Dusen • ”Invisible” • ”Once Upon a Childhood”
SCREEN Film Festival at Pacifica Christian High School • “Anaerobe” • ”Notice the Change” • ”Once Upon a Childhood” • ”Open the Door” • ”Swords into Ploughshares”
SOURCE: CHERI GAULKE GRAPHIC BY SARAH NOVICOFF
Symphony earns award at festival The Symphony Orchestra earned the highest award possible at the Southern California Band & Symphony festival Saturday, April 12. The orchestra had to play a piece that was not professionally arranged. They performed “The Romanian Dances” by Bartok as well as participating in a sight-reading competition. The scores from each performance were totalled, earning the award. —Lauren Rothman
Jazz groups prepare for upcoming concert Jazz Band, Studio Jazz Band, Jazz Ensemble and various jazz combos will perform May 3 at the Spring Jazz Concert in Rugby Theater at 7 p.m. The Advanced Jazz Combo, Jazz Ensemble Combo and the Explorers program consists of selections chosen by its members while the majority of the big band music is determined by performing arts teacher Shawn Costantino. Jazz Band, which will close the concert, will perform pieces that showcase individual seniors. —Sacha Lin
Choir groups to sing in spring cabaret
The spring cabaret show “Lights, Cabaret, Action!” will be performed on May 23 and 24 at the Rugby Auditorium at 7 p.m. Bel Canto, Chamber Singers and Wolverine Chorus show will feature soloists, duets and groups singing songs from movies. There will also be a loose story line and dancing that will accompany the songs. The groups will also sing songs from “Cinemagic!” arranged by Mac Huff, which is a medley of different movies. —Sharon Chow
Middle school spring musical to open May 1 The middle school spring musical, “Little Shop of Horrors” will play May 1-3 at 7 p.m. and May 4 at 1 p.m. Students can purchase the tickets online at hw.com/boxoffice or at the bookstore. The show is directed by performing arts teacher Jim Doughan and features a cast of 16 students. —Jonah Ullendorff
B12 Features
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
snapart By Zoe Dutton
Nathan Jurgenson wrote in The New Enquiry magazine. With a final flourish, Alexandria Florent ’15 Regardless of whether her pictures qualify, surveys her masterpiece. The strokes are pre- Florent draws inspiration from the works of cise, the shading even. Yet unlike most other other artists she’s studied in class, in addition works of art, Florent’s canvas is an iPhone and to other Snapchart art she sees on Buzzfeed. her chosen medium Snapchat. “I really love Dali, and I’ve been thinking Snapchat is a popular photo messaging ap- about doing something on Snapchat that uses plication used by 76 percent of students, ac- his ideas, since we’re on surrealism in art right cording to a Chronicle poll of 208 students con- now,” she said. “I might mash up a couple of his ducted this weekend. Users can send images works or recreate The Persistence of Memory.” with added text or drawings to a controlled list While Ladge may not consider her creations of recipients, and after being viewed for sev- to be true art, they still impress her friends. eral seconds, the photos self-destruct. More “They’re very well-drawn,” Alisha Bansal than 150 million images and messages are sent ’14 said. “Sometimes in the middle of the night through the app daily, according to Time Mag- when she’s complaining about homework, she’ll azine.Yet a few students, like Florent and Lex send me this really detailed snap of her being Ladge ’15, rise above the common silly selfie by attacked by a dragon or something.” using Snapchat to create deLadge’s and Florent’s peers tailed drawings. for the most part echo Bansal “Last October I found out and are consistently imyou could draw in all sorts Obviously it’s not pressed with their work. of different colors, and I just “It’s crazy,” Imani Cooksomething you can put went on a rampage,” Florent Gist ’15 said. “I can’t draw like said. “Everybody was really that with a pencil and paper, in an art gallery or sell impressed by my pictures so I forget a phone.” for a bunch of money, just kept doing them.” Florent said her classBoth take art classes at mates are often as fascinated but that doesn’t mean school, but Ladge doesn’t beby the process as the end reit’s not art.” lieve that her Snapchat cresult itself. ations are comparable to the “A lot of people don’t be—Alexandria Florent ’15 work she’s done in classes. lieve I can draw them with my “It’s not high art,” she said. finger,” she said. “They’re like “It’s something to procrastinate with when I’m ‘No, no, you have to use a stylus!’ I’ve done a lot doing homework. They’re just glorified doodles.” of demo works where people just sit and watch Florent disagrees, and believes that Snap- me draw.” chat is another aspect of art’s evolution in the For most people, though, Snapchat is more digital age. about having fun than making art. “Snapchat can definitely be art,” Florent In addition to students, a few teachers enjoy said. “I’ll spend [more than] an hour on each using the application as well. drawing. Obviously it’s not something you put “I like Snapchat because it’s a creative way in a gallery or sell for a bunch of money, but to interact with others,” English teacher Jocthat doesn’t mean it’s not art.” elyn Medawar said. “I send pictures of my dog She noted that work done on Snapchat had along with interesting things I see when I walk some advantages over that created in real-life. him in the hills around my house: views of “Unlike my drawings or paintings, it’s some- the city, stunning flowers, an interesting bug. thing that I can share with everybody,” she said. Thinking of what might be worth sending to “I just send it on Snapchat or post it as a Snap- others makes me more curious about the world story, and all my friends can see it.” around me.” The issue is by no means limited to HarBoth Ladge and Florent agree that as much vard-Westlake and has been the subject of some as they enjoy doodling away on their phones, it’s public debate. ultimately a passing amusement. “Snaps could be likened to other temporary “I love art, and Snapchat drawings are just art such as ice sculptures or decay art (e.g. a part of that,” Florent said. “Especially going Yoko Ono’s famous rotting apple) that takes se- to Harvard-Westlake and being so stressed, it’s riously the process of disappearance,” essayist nice to know I can come back and do this.”
“
ART BY ALEXANDRIA FLORENT AND LEX LADGE
Sports
ON A ROLL: Baseball has gained momentum with a four-game undefeated streak approaching CIF playoffs.
The Chronicle • April 30, 2014
C4 Rebounds to Receptions
Former Wolverine hoopster Erik Swoope ’10 spent his athletic career playing basketball, but hopes to make it big as a professional football player. By Tyler Graham
F
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GRANT NUSSBAUM
or eight years, Erik Swoope ’10 devoted week after week to becoming fluent in the language of basketball. Swoope studied up to perfect his game on both ends of the hardwood day-in and day-out. But starting this month, Erik Swoope will attempt to translate high-flying dunks into leaping end zone catches, strong rebounds into clutch first down receptions and ball screens into bulldozing blocks. Swoope, a basketball star at Harvard-Westlake who continued his basketball career at the University of Miami, declared for the NFL Draft seemingly out of nowhere on April 15 in a tweet. In his senior season as a Wolverine, Swoope averaged 21.8 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and was named to the California All-State Basketball Second Team. Swoope was in contact with several professional basketball teams overseas before making his decision to put his name into the NFL Draft. Not only did Swoope never suit up on Friday nights for Harvard-Westlake, but he also never played a single game of organized football throughout his childhood. The first time Swoope puts on pads for an NFL squad will be the first time he has ever put on pads. “A part of me regrets not playing football in high school,” Swoope said. “I know the experience would have been outstanding and toward the end of my tenure there the football team needed just a little bit more to take them a bit further and a few of my teammates were interested in also playing, so I think it would have been an awesome experience.” The possibility of playing football never even crossed Swoope’s mind until his coach at Miami, Jim Larranaga, approached him after the ACC Tournament to tell him the Denver Broncos were interested in seeing him workout. “It was mainly just the opportunity that pushed me towards the NFL, and it really came out of nowhere,” Swoope said. “At first I wasn’t really sure if it
was legitimate or if it was just a joke. I was able to exchange numbers with the scout that was interested in me and found out that this wasn’t a laughing matter, so I ran a workout and things were very positive so I figured I should pursue the opportunity.” After being contacted by the Broncos, Swoope only had a week to prepare for his workout and make the huge transition. “I just wanted to try my best and just try to be an athlete,” Swoope said. “With the basically no experience that I had, the only thing that I could control was just trying to work hard and just do my best. I had very little familiarity with each drill, so my main focus was just to be as good an athlete as possible.” Standing at 6’5” and weighing 225 pounds, Swoope’s size, strength and athleticism are easily translatable to the NFL, so Swoope is focused more on learning the intricacies of the game, like perfecting his footwork, to ease his transition. Scouts have told Swoope that in order to be successful in football he would have to put on 10 to 15 pounds of muscle. “Playing above the rim like I have for a very long time and getting used to timing up passes in the air or on the move, route running is very similar to cutting and reading a defense,” Swoope said. “Some of the things carry over, but a lot, I would say when it gets to the real technical aspects of football, in terms of the efficiency with your feet, that’s where it’s a bit more torn.” Swoope chose to dedicate all of his efforts to basketball growing up, but football was still a big part of his life, as his older brother Devin played college football, giving him an understanding of football’s culture and easing his adjustment. “Just understanding what it takes is key for my transition,” Swoope said. “Understanding the lifestyle, the methods of training, just the whole mindset. It’s just much different from basketball because it’s skill specific, you don’t have to worry about defense, you just • Continued on page C3
Track and Field
Wolverines prepare for postseason run following Arcadia Invitational By Tyler Graham As the postseason approaches, the track and field team is making its final tuneups and preparations necessary for success. The team is coming off of a dominating performance at the Brentwood Invitational on April 25 in which both the boys’ and girls’ squads came out victorious in an eight-team field. At the Brentwood Invitational the girls’ team won with a total of 161 points, and the boys’ team won with a total of 150 points. “I’m extremely happy with our performance at Brentwood,” Track and Field Head Coach Jonas Koolsbergen said. “It really reinforced the hard
work we put in throughout the regular season. At this point, we are continuing our evolution toward the championship meets.” The girls’ team clinched their third consecutive Mission League title with an April 11 win over Chaminade. Efe Agege ’14, Shea Copeland ’15, Courtney Corrin ’16 and Lizzy Thomas ’14 are among the athletes to propel the team to the title. Copeland was named Athlete of the Month by the Student Athlete Advisory Committee in March after breaking the school record in the girls’ 100-meters with a 12.13 run at the Mt. Carmel Invitational. “Agege has stepped up,” Koolsbergen said. “She had
a school record in the triple jump at Arcadia. Corrin has also had a great season, setting a national leading long jump mark at the Mt. Sac Relays.” Koolsbergen also cited Alexandria Florent ’15 and David Manahan ’14 as athletes he expects to step up in Mission League and CIF meets. The team competed at the Arcadia Invitational on April 11 and 12. The meet is widely considered to be one of the most competitive meets in the country. “Arcadia is always a great opportunity,” Koolsbergen said. “It really is the best inseason invitational in the country. We did well there once again, playing in a number of very good relays, includ-
GRANT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
IN THE AIR TONIGHT: Efe Agege ’14, long jumping above, broke the school record in the girls’ varsity triple jump at the Arcadia Invitational April 12 with a total jump length of 38 feet, 11 inches. ing both the girls’ and boys’ 4 x 200 as well as the girls’ and boys’ sprint medley.” The team had its senior day yesterday as it hosted Marymount and Yeshiva.
“We say this group is an excellent group who competes well and has a strong approach to their work,” Koolsbergen • Continued on page C7
The Chronicle
C2 Sports
April 30, 2014
Facts &
Figures David Manahan’s ’14 400 meter time, which was seventh fastest in school history.
15
50.51 The number of strikeouts Jack Flaherty ’14 had against Capistrano Valley Chistian.
Number of overtimes played in the Wolverine lacrosse team’s victory against St. Margaret’s.
3 GRANT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
11:51
MAKING THE CUT: Courtney O’Brien ’15, left, dribbles past a Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy defender in the team’s 1-0 league win Feb. 7. O’Brien led the team in scoring this season and was subsequently named the Daily News’ female soccer athlete of the year. Courtney Corrin ’16, above, passes the ball upfield to a neaby forward. Corrin also received honors as a member of the Daily News’ All First Team and as Co-MVP of the Mission League duing the 2013-2014 season.
Audrey Wilson’s ’15 3200 meter time,10th fastest in school history.
Game to watch MAY 5
Lacrosse vs. Loyola At Ted Slavin Field
The Wolverines are 5-1 in Mission League play this season and are riding a two-game win streak entering their final game against Loyola this Friday. The squad notched a total of 11 wins on the season while only losing four, while the Cubs are currently 4-1 and are second place in the Mission League behind the Wolverines.
KEY PLAYERS
Phil Thompson ’16 Thompson was crucial in the team’s most recent victory, a 10-9 triple overtime win over St. Margaret’s Episcopal. Thompson won the face-off at the start of the third extra period, which allowed the Wolverines to control the ball for almost the entirety of the period. Players say Thompson’s ability to grant extra possessions will be important in the team’s quest for CIF.
Daily News names O’Brien ’15 Player of the Year By Eric Loeb
Following a disappointing end to their season, a 4-3 loss to Santa Margarita on penalty kicks in the CIF Semifinals on March 4, six members of the girls’ soccer team received allarea honors from the Los Angeles Daily News. This year’s Wolverine squad featured three all-area second-teamers, two firstteamers and the L.A. Daily News 2014 Player of the Year, Princeton commit Courtney O’Brien ’15. O’Brien, who scored 22 goals and tallied 11 assists on the year led the Wolverines to a 20-2-2 record, was also named to the CIF Division I first-team and was named the Mission League’s top offensive player. “I am honored to have been
Team to face Loyola tomorrow
By Elijah Akhtarzad
Baseball (11-6) Last Game: L (13-3) vs. Cypress
Boys’ tennis (6-1) Last Game: W (18-0) @ Chaminade
Lacrosse (10-2) Last Game: Boys’ volleyball (11-17) Last Match: L (2-0) @ Simi Valley
also received Mission League in the season prior. co-MVP and Division I firstThis past season was Ridgteam honors after finishing ley’s second as the team’s the season with 11 goals. starting goalie. The keeper alIn her final season as a lowed an average of only 0.67 Wolverine, Putnam was named goals per game this season, into Division I first-team and cluding 13 shutouts. was selected as the Mission Wheat started at fullback League’s top defendthis past season. The er en-route to the senior committed to team’s undefeated, Southern Methodist 9-0-1 finish in league University in June of play this season. last year. Players say Frankel, a fourWheat played a major star recruit and the leadership role this 85th best player in year. the class of 2016 ac“I think that cording to topdrawwithout each other’s nathanson’s erssoccer.com, starthelp none of us would Courtney ed at forward this have gotten an award O’Brien ’15 past season, contribindividually,” Franuting to the team’s efforts to kel said. “We all helped each balance its young talent with other to stand out throughout its more experienced core, a the season and to have that be core that was also defeated in recognized both individually penalties in the CIF semifinals and as a team is really nice.”
Boys’ Volleyball
Junior Varsity
W (14-1) @ Birmingham
chosen as there are so many great players in the area,” O’Brien said. “I feel privileged to be able to play with so many selfless, hardworking and talented players on my team and to have Richard [Simms] as our coach. Any individual recognition I get is only possible because of my team’s support which allowed me to perform at such a high level this season.” Fellow teammates Courtney Corrin ’16 and co-captain Lucy Putnam ’14 were named to the all-area first-team, while Quinn Frankel ’16, Jackie Ridgley ’14 and co-captain Malanna Wheat ’14 were named to the second-team. Corrin, who was named the Big Red Female Athlete of the Year in 2013 for her efforts as a member of both the track and field and soccer teams,
MILA BARZDUKAS/CHRONICLE
SMASH: Nico Lubkeman ’15 spikes against a Notre Dame blocker in the team’s 3-0 loss. The team is 5-4 in league play.
After a 3-2 victory against Oaks Christian last Tuesday, the boys’ volleyball team will play its second to last Mission League match of the year against rival Loyola Cubs tonight. The Cubs are undefeated and atop the Mission League, while the Wolverines will need a win in order to tie Notre Dame for the third seed. “I feel like we will handle business against St. Francis and Crespi and can put up a good fight against Loyola,” opposite hitter Marc Shkurovich ’15 said. In the team’s game against the Oaks Christian Eagles, the Wolverines came out victorious in five sets. Outside hitter Hudson Ling ’15 drilled three aces in a row to end the match at a crucial moment when the squad was down 13-14 in the fifth set. “The last moments were like any other points in volley-
ball: serve in and battle,” head coach Adam Black said. “We have been stressing to the guys that no matter what the situation we just want to be good. Not great or spectacular. Just good in every play.” With the down-to-the-wire victory against Oaks Christian, the Wolverines notched their eighth win of the season to move their overall record up to 8-7-2 and have been able to stay above .500 in the Mission League with a 5-4 record. “I tried to remain confident and enjoy the excitement of game five,” Ling said. “I just wanted to serve the ball deep, giving us a chance. Stepping back for a moment in a pressured situation, I just went back to the basics to give us a chance to fight and win the game.” Although the Wolverines lost to Notre Dame in both meetings this year, the squad has played strong in the final stretch of the season, and with victories coming against
Loyola and Crespi this week, they will be able to take the third seed from the Knights. Although the team is currently fourth in the Mission League, they will still be considered for a spot in CIF Playoffs come May. The team will match up against a star-studded Loyola team, which has yet to lose a league match all season for the second year in a row. The first time the two teams met, the Cubs defeated the Wolverines in a three game sweep in Taper Gymnasium. “The team has done well this year improving significantly over the last few months,” Black said. “To that end, we are excited for the last stretch of matches and I expect that we will pay up to our potential.” The Wolverines played St. Francis yesterday, but results were unavailable as of press time. The team defeated St. Francis 3-0 in its first meeting of the season.
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/sports
Sports C3
inbrief
Lacrosse
Squad captures 3OT win
Flacks receives award for coaching
By Mila Barzdukas
The Wolverines’ nonleague season concluded Saturday in a 10-9 win against St. Margaret’s Episcopal. The last time the team faced the Tartans was last year’s 15-8 CIF finals loss, so the win was considered redemption. The Wolverines led St. Margaret’s by at least two goals until the fourth quarter, when a brief lapse in the Wolverine defense allowed the Tartans to score back-to-back goals in the last few minutes, tying game up at 9-9. The teams were at a stalemate until the third overtime period, when midfielder Noah Pompan ’14 scored the game-winner with 25 seconds left on the clock. The game was the longest game the Wolverines have played this season. “I was very surprised that we played for so long,” midfielder Andrew Corlin ’15 said. “We were all just very in the game.” The Wolverines experienced many narrow wins this season, most notably in a thrilling last-second winner over Crespi April 12.
MILA BARZDUKAS /CHRONICLE
WINDING UP: Brooks Hudgins ’14 prepares to score a goal between two St. Margaret defenders in the team’s 10-9 triple overtime victory Saturday. The Wolverines are currently 5-1 in league play. Up 10-9 with around 30 seconds left, the Celts scored to tie the game and potentially force an overtime situation. However, with just a few seconds remaining on the clock, the Wolverines ran a hail mary play down the field. Attacker Brooks Hudgins ’14 passed the ball to attacker Roman Holthouse ’15 who scored to win the game and leads the team in scoring. “It was just the most insane goal,” defender Andrew Park ’15 said. “Crespi was just insane. We didn’t play that well to start off the game and we started off a little slow, but we buckled down in the second half. To win the game, the ball hit the net, bounced back up and then rolled straight into the goal.” Park considers the game to be pay back for the 14-13 loss to the Celts earlier in the season.
“I like to think we’re a talented team and when all of our players do our jobs and we do what were supposed to do our offense is undefendable,” Park said. “We just need to work on staying focused and doing our jobs.” The squad has established themselves as a contending team in Southern California by playing against top teams such as Torrey Pines, Foothill and Peninsula, and only losing by a few goals each game. “The disparity in talent of our schedule is pretty drastic,” midfielder Oliver Levitt ’15 said about the teams the Wolverines faced this season. “We’ve had four really hard games and we’ve lost three of them. Of those games, one was really close, one was a blow out and the most recent game against Torrey Pines was much closer than the score suggested.”
The Wolverines lost to the Torrey Pines Falcons 8-2 April 19. The Wolverines will face off against Loyola for the second time this season Friday before entering post-season play. They previously beat the Cubs 17-11 March 20. If they win the game, they will earn at least a share of the Mission League title. Park is excited for playoffs, and thinks that the team is ready for a big post-season run after losing to St. Margaret’s last season in the finals. “We’re better this year than we were last year,” Park said. “I don’t see why we wouldn’t make playoffs. Defensively we’ve improved on executing our slide package, getting our spots on clears, and running the plays we need to be running. As a team we just have to work on developing an overall sense of focus in general.”
Swoope ’10 declares for NFL May Draft
“Harvard-Westlake helped prepare me for life in pretty have to worry about running much in every way,” Swoope your routes properly, blocking, said. “The experience I had and catching the ball. It’s a at Harvard-Westlake, coming little bit simpler, but it’s some- from a public school far away thing you have to become an from Los Angeles I had to expert at if you expect to be adopt different things: speaking to people that are in posigood or dominate in the pros.” Swoope’s decision vaulted tions of authority, testing your him into the attention of the boundaries, testing your comnational media, earning him petitive nature, being willing an interview with CBS sports to try new things.” If Swoope could give any radio host Jim Rome and a advice to a Harvard-Westlake host of other coverage. While certainly unconven- student athlete it would be to tional, Swoope’s move is not find what you truly gravitate unprecedented. Swoope is fol- towards, and once you find lowing the path of basketball that, be relentlessly committurned football stars Antonio ted. “I would tell any high Gates and Jimmy Graham. Gates has had a Hall-of- school player that it’s your Fame-worthy football career mindset, it’s what you find after playing only basketball gives you purpose,” Swoope in college, while Graham has said. “If you want to be a professional basketball become one of the player or just a profootball’s most danfessional athlete, it’s gerous tight ends afabout dedication, ter focusing primarily effort, it’s the thing on basketball prior to you do when no one’s his career in the NFL. watching, the things Swoope’s story is that you focus on a near mirror image and dedicate yourof Graham’s, who also self to. If you really played basketball at want to be a part of Miami. nathanson’s “I’ve had the Erik Swoope ’10 something special, it has to go more than chance to meet with just when people are Jimmy Graham a few times,” Swoope said. “I’ve been watching. It has to become a trying to learn as much as I lifestyle.” Although Swoope would can and get as much informabe “shocked” if he got drafted tion from him as possible.” Swoope is not new to tran- due to both his lack of highsitions. Coming to Harvard- light film and experience, he Westlake in ninth grade from believes the most likely scea public school, he had to ad- nario is that he signs as an just to a completely new cul- undrafted free agent and plays on a practice squad for a year. ture and set of expectations. • Continued from page C1
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF JUSTIN YOO
ATTAQUE AU FER: Justin Yoo ’15, right, escapes a hit by an opponent and prepares to win the épée by countering while in the air.
Justin Yoo ’15 makes épée history
By Jonathan Seymour
Fencer Justin Yoo ’15 became the first American fencer in history to place in the top three at both the Junior and Cadet World Championships in the same year this month. He travelled to Plovdiv, Bulgaria in the beginning of April to compete in the U17 Cadet World Championships and the U19 Junior World Championships, and placed second in the U17 championships and third in the U19 championships. Yoo has been fencing for the past eight years, and he hopes to continue fencing in college “Fencing is a mix of physical and mental ability,” Yoo said. “Combined with the fact that it’s a one-person sport, fencing forces you to make quick decisions and formulate strategies based on your physical skill alone. I find that aspect of fencing very appeal-
ing because I hate when people make decisions for me.” Yoo is ranked first in the nation and 13th in the world in the U19 age group. In addition to his weekly training regimen, Yoo will compete in the Youth Olympic Games in August. “I’m really excited to live in the Olympic Village in Nanjing, China,” Yoo said. “After that, I’m aiming to make the U19 national team again.” Yoo did not compete on the school fencing team this year because he didn’t have time. However, next year, he will join the team to fulfill his PE requirement. “I’m really not sure where fencing’s [going to] take me,” Yoo said. “Right now, I’m just taking it one day at a time. It’s just been a great outlet for me. It drains all the mental stress and it keeps me active. It’s also really fun.”
After being pegged in early February by USA Water Polo to receive the Bill Barnett Distinguished Men’s Coaching Award (Scholastic), head water polo coach Brian Flacks received the award April 7 at the 2014 USA Water Polo Hall of Fame Induction & National Awards Dinner at the Hotel Irvine Jamboree Center. According to USA Water Polo’s website, “In just three years Brian Flacks has quickly restored the Harvard-Westlake program to elite status.” —Jonathan Seymour
Copeland, Lynch named Athletes of the Month Shea Copeland ’15 of the girls’ track and field team and Colin Lynch ’14 of the boys’ swim team have been chosen by the Student Athletic Advisory Council to be the Male and Female Athletes of the Month. In addition to his two previous school records, Lynch broke the school record in the 100 Freestyle with a time of 47.12 seconds. He was also a part of the record-breaking 200 Medley Relay Team. Lynch is committed to continue swimming next year at Bucknell University. Finishing in 12.13 seconds, Copeland broke the school record in the 100 Meter. This is Copeland’s second record after being a part of the 2012 CIFwinning 4 x 400 Meter relay team. Copeland usually runs the 100 and 200 Meter events. —Jonathan Seymour
Wrestlers earn Daily News honors
Daily News recognized wrestlers Jake Bracken ’14 and Jake Adler ’17 in its wrestling wrap-up article. Adler, wrestling at 126 pounds, was named Newcomer of the Year after his strong freshman season, finishing fourth at CIF and qualifying for Masters. Bracken was selected to First Team All-Area wrestling at 132 pounds. During the regular season Bracken posted a record of 34-5, and finished third at CIF and qualified for Masters, where Adler and Bracken went 2-2. “I’m honored to be chosen to First Team All-Area. Next season Adler’s going to have an exciting season next year along with the rest of the team,” Bracken said. —Caitlin Neapole
Seniors to play collegiate softball Jackie Carr ’14 has committed to play softball at Amherst College while Molly Steinberg ’14 has committed to play at Carleton College next year. Carr, an outfielder, has a .333 batting average on the season while Steinberg, a catcher, is batting .375. Both are trying to lead the varsity team to a Mission League Championship as the season comes to a close. All four seniors on the varsity team were recruited to play softball at the collegiate level next fall. —Henry Vogel
The Chronicle
C4 Sports
April 30, 2014
Baseball
CAUGHT STEALING: Jack Flaherty '14 throws to first baseman Tyler Urbach '14 in an attempt to pick off a baserunner in the Wolverines' 5-0 win over Capistrano Valley.
Team heats up as playoffs approach By Sam Sachs The Wolverines travelled more than 400 miles to Horizon High School in Scottsdale, Arizona before they lost their first game. This loss to Horizon started a nine-game stretch from March 24 to April 14 where Head Coach Matt LaCour’s previously top-ranked baseball team struggled with unexpected inconsistency. The Wolverines lost four games and tied a game to the rival Loyola Cubs, but also beat up on teams shutting out one opponent then beating another 19-2 during the nine game stretch. The team has seemingly turned it around since slumping in Arizona and during spring break as inexperienced players have gotten more and more comfortable with the rigors of playing varsity baseball. “Spring break was tough for us,” Jack Flaherty ’14 said. “We didn’t play our best baseball, that’s for sure. It started in Arizona, went 2-2 there.” These four losses and a tie are the only blemishes on the team’s 16-4-1 record, as of press
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time. Last season’s national champion team had four losses the entire season, including a similar eight game stretch that included three of its losses. “Every team goes through a rough patch in their season, and Spring Break seemed to be our rough patch,” Flaherty said. Comparisons to last year’s team are nothing new for a Wolverine squad that returns such prominent starters as reigning MaxPreps National Player of the Year Flaherty, four year varsity member Brian Ginsberg ’14, Tyler Urbach ’14, Michael Vokulich ’14, Jackson Grayson ’15 and Ezra Steinberg ’15. These returning players have been supported by the emergence of players like Cameron Deere ’16, Jake Suddleson ’16, Matt Karo ’14, Logan Simon ’14 and John Thomas ’16, who filled in for Karo while he was injured. “[This year’s team and last year’s team] are two different teams,” Flaherty said. “There are a lot of young guys this year. All the young guys, right now, they are really starting to fall into their roles. They are
Against Loyola we are going to have energy, but I feel like we have done a good job carrying that over since we played them. —Ezra Steinberg ’15
starting to understand who they are as baseball players on this team," he said. "Last year, we had a bunch of experience on our team. We kind of knew what our roles were, and this year guys kind of have to feel their way through for part of the season. But, it seems like right now everybody knows what their role is," he said. With only three series left in the regular season before playoffs, the Wolverines seem to be hitting their stride at the perfect time. On April 14 the team came back against the Loyola Cubs and took the game into extra innings before the game was called as a tie. Following that game, the Wolverines won their next four games by a combined score of 31-5 including the 9-1 victory over the Cubs the next game. “We have had a lot better energy in the dugout,” Steinberg said. “Obviously, against Loyola we are going to have energy, but I feel like we have done a good job carrying that over since we played them.”
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The team is also getting healthier as they enter the final stretch of their season. Thomas was praised by teammates and LaCour for the job he did replacing injured starter Karo at the catcher spot, but Karo’s return certainly makes the Wolverines more experienced behind the plate. “I’ve really looked at everything in perspective,” Karo said. “Just try to do whatever I can to help the team win and I’ve just been trying to take every day one at a time, and it’s really paid off. I think I’m fully back; I think I’m 100 percent now.” The Wolverines hosted the Alemany Warriors Tuesday, but results were not available at press time. Their next game is the second game against the Warriors May 2 at Alemany before the team closes their league season with games against Chaminade and Notre Dame. “I think we have the ability to continue to play well and ride our momentum through the rest of the season if we just keep working hard,” outfielder Suddleson said.
I think we have the ability to continue to play well and ride our momentum through the rest of the season if we just keep working hard." —Jake Suddleson '16 ALL PHOTOS BY SAM SACHS/CHRONICLE
April 30, 2014
hwchronicle.com/sports
Split Decision Professional Flaherty is expected to be drafted in the first two rounds of the upcoming MLB draft, ranked as the 26th best prospect, according to ESPN's Keith Law. His selection and choice to go pro would follow in the footsteps of Lucas Giolito '12 (bottom) and Max Fried '12 (below) who both skipped college in favor of the minor leagues.
Sports C5
Projected to be an early pick in the upcoming MLB amateur draft, Jack Flaherty '14 must decide if he is going to go pro or play in college at the University of North Carolina.
Collegiate
soundbyte
“It’s all about the opportunity. Whatever opportunity I feel is best when that time comes is the choice I’m going to make.” —Jack Flaherty ’14 nathanson’s
CHRONICLE ARCHIVES
CHRONICLE ARCHIVES
CHRONICLE ARCHIVES
Flaherty's other choice is to play baseball at the collegiate level like Alex Horowitz '13 (bottom), now at Butler University, or Arden Pabst '13 (below), now at Georgia Tech. Austin Wilson '10 (middle), was drafted out of high school but played three years at Stanford University before joining the Seattle Mariners farm system.
SAM SACHS/CHRONICLE
SAM SACHS/CHRONICLE
C6 Sports
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
Swimming
Five swimmers qualify for CIF before Mission League Finals
By Audrey Wilson
With five swimmers having already automatically qualified for CIF, the varsity boys’ and girls’ swim teams exited Mission League Championships April 29 fueled with motivation for CIF Prelims May 12. Henry Copses ’14, John Chu ’15, John Copses ’14, Alec Hsing ’16 and Colin Lynch ’14 have all qualified for CIF with automatic times over the course of the Mission League season. Prospective swimmers who either have the consideration times or expect to qualify are Bryanna Lee ’15, Sydney Wong ’14, Brennan Lee ’17, who is going for a relay. Johnny Hooper ’15 made consideration for the 50 free at CIF Preliminaries April 28. “The season has been going very well so far,” captain Lynch said. “I feel that this
is the first year we have been successfully able to create a good team dynamic through team hangouts. In the prior years there was no real “team” feeling because swimming is such an individual sport.” The girls’ and boys’ teams have scored 4-1 and 3-2 respectively in the Mission League this season and both hold overall records of 5-2, culminating in League Championships, results of which were unavailable as of press time. “We’ve definitely had our ups and downs this season, and some really fast swims,” Lydia Weber ’14 said. “One of our weakest meets this year would have to be our home meet against Notre Dame. Even though we lost, I still think that the Loyola/FSHA meet was an important meet for us as a team. They’re toughest competition every year and we
gave it our all this year. “ The Wolverines have adjusted their training in preparation for CIF. “Most swimmers have been cutting down on the intensity of [their] training in preparation for the Mission League Finals with the exception of the CIF swimmers, who will train through Mission Leagues and taper for CIFs,” Lynch said. In their second season under head coach Jonathan Carroll, the teams’ will aim to build upon their CIF run in 2013, when seven Wolverines reached CIF Finals. “We have all of our fastest girls swimming the 200 free relay at Leagues,” Weber said. “Hopefully that will lead to a CIF qualifying time. Just yesterday at practice a couple of girls were trying on some full-body fast-skins to wear at Leagues as well – a second can make all the difference.”
CAITLIN NEAPOLE/CHRONICLE
OFF THE BLOCK: Bryanna Lee ’15 dives into the water at a duel meet against Chaminade. Lee has yet to qualify for CIF Finals.
Softball
Injuries plague team all season, still in contention for league title By Bennett Gross and Henry Vogel
GRANT NUSSBAUM/CHRONICLE
OUT OF THE PARK: Catcher Molly Steinberg ’14 swings her bat back and prepares to hit a ball during a league match this season. The Wolverines are currently 2-2 in league this season.
With six league games remaining in their season and seven more in total, the varsity softball team is trying to get out of their away game slump. Despite their high win percentage in home games with a 4-1-1 record on their own turf, the team is struggling to win on the road, where they have a 2-8 record as of press time. “The season has been really hard with so many people being injured,” Captain Jessica Johnston ’14 said. “For example on Saturday, I was the only senior there out of four, so it was tough.” Although the team has nine losses, only two of those losses came in Mission League play. Their 2-2 league record
has them in second place, only With Molly Steinberg ’14 one game behind Notre Dame, committing to Carleton ColChaminade, and Alemany who lege and Jackie Carr ’14 acare all tied in first with a 3-1 cepting an offer from Amherst league record. College both in the last month, The team is still in con- all four seniors will be contention for tinuing softthe Mission ball at the League title, next level. which is up As the The season has been in the air games bereally hard with so come more this season with no one many people being and more imteam domiportant, their injured. l e a d e r s h i p nating the league. —Jessica Johnston ’14 will be needAt the ed to help the beginning of overall young the season, team focus two of the four seniors had and win the wide open Mission already committed to play col- League. lege softball with Jessica John“Winning Mission League ston ’14 going to University of is going to be really hard, but California at Santa Barbara if everyone is there for all of and Madeline Kaplan ’14 at- our remaining games, we potending Harvard University. tentially could,” Johnston said.
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Boys’ Golf
Loss to Loyola denies Wolverines of title, team still hopes for strong postseason By Jordan Garfinkel
After a rocky 3-3 start, the golf team has bounced back, winning four of their last five league matches. The Wolverines are currently in third place in the Mission League Standings and need to maintain position in order to earn a CIF playoff spot. After their one-stroke loss to St. Francis, the Wolverines bounced back with back-toback wins against Crespi. In their second match against Crespi on March 20, the team posted a 182, their third best total of the season. Crespi posted a 250, giving the Wolverines a 68-stroke win, the largest margin of victory this season. “In the beginning of the
season, we were not cohesive as we have been in years past,” Adrian Berger ’15 said. “We let a couple of matches slip because we weren’t having great performance day in and day out. We became motivated by our losses to work harder, and I have seen our team return to its usual form.” “We’re just getting more consistent performances from all of our guys and we have settled into the season better,” co-captain Jake Lepler ’14 said. The Wolverines continued to add to the momentum after they defeated Alemany at the home Balboa Golf Course twice on consecutive days. In their match on April 10, the team had their second best performance of the season in their 180-201 win against Ale-
many. Co-captain Bakari Bolden ’14 led the team with a 1-under-par score, followed by Tyler Graham’s ’15 one-overpar score in the second win against Alemany. “In particular, Bolden has really stepped up his game since our first few matches,” Berger said. “I’ve also seen some strong performances from Bray Caverly ’16 and Aidan Victor ’14. We are excited to finish the season strong, and we have high expectations for post-season play.” Berger has his mind set on the next few matches. “We want to win our last three matches, particularly against Loyola,” Berger said. “I personally want to put up a few under-par rounds. I expect we will continue to improve as
the season progresses.” On Monday, the Wolverines took a dissapointing 184181 loss to the rival Loyola Cubs. The team entered the rematch motivated after dropping their season opening match to Loyola 181-187. Daniel Furman ’16 led the Wolverines with an impressive one-under-par performance. Jeffrey Aronson ’15 followed Furman, shooting an even par roun The Wolverines will play in their final league matches on April 29 and May 1, one home match and one away match against Chaminade. Following the end of league play, the team will compete in the Mission League Team Championship Tournament on May 6, as well as the Individual Championship Tournament on May 8.
TYLER GRAHAM/CHRONICLE
TAP IN: Jeffrey Aronson ’15
hits in a two foot putt during a match this season against Alemany at Balboa Golf Course.
hwchronicle.com/sports
April 30, 2014
Sports C7
Boys’ Tennis
Wolverines make school history by winning first Griggs Cup
By Lucy Putnam
For the first time in school history, the boys’ tennis team won the Griggs Cup in the 114th Ojai Valley tournament. The Cup is presented to the best team in both doubles and singles. This success comes off a six-game winning streak and perfect 7-0 league record. The two standouts from the tournament were singles player Michael Genender ’15 and doubles pair Max Rothman ’14 and Sam Hummel ’14. Rothman and Hummel defeated El Camino, Diamond Bar, Palm Desert and Torrey Pines but ended up losing to Palos Verdes 6-3 6-4 in the semifinal match. “Max and I both wish we
could have gone farther in our draw,” Hummel said. “But we had some epic wins and it was a good tournament for us.” While Genender easily beat Fairmont Prep’s Max Pham as well as Fullerton and Coronado’s singles players, among others, he eventually fell to Austin Rapp of Palm Desert. Moving forward from this tournament and the team’s recent victories, its sights are set on CIF playoffs. “Our team is coming together really nicely,” Hummel said. “If we stay on this course, other teams should be looking out for us in CIF.” “Players are really starting to develop, especially Jason Vranek ’14 and George Noonan ’16,” Rothman said.
Track & Field
After losing to University 12-6 on March 4, the Wolverines look to bounce back during their CIF playoff rematch. “We would really like to try and win CIF, and with University at its weakest in a long time, this is our year,” Rothman said. “But still we have to work on some new doubles teams and try and get a lot of doubles points against University if we have any hope of taking them down. We also must focus on staying fit and healthy for the next coming month because it’s a really brutal time of the year with AP tests and finals along with a lot of tough matches.” The squad will play in the Mission League Prelims next Monday and Wednesday.
LUCY PUTNAM/CHRONICLE
LUCY PUTNAM/CHRONICLE
POWER: Sam Hummel ’14, top, returns the ball with a backhand hit against Palos Verdes March 13. Jason Vranek ’14, above, adjusts his position as his partner returns the ball. The team ended up losing 10-9.
Wolverines anticipate CIF Prelims
• Continued from page C1
MILA BARZDUKAS/CHRONICLE
LONG STRIDES: Olan Moon White ’15 takes his strides in the 400m relay against Notre Dame High School March 18.
said. “This group has enjoyed great success. Among them are CIF champions, State finalists, people who have been in really high-level spots and competed in high-level competitions in our sport.” Koolsbergen holds high expectations for the Wolverines heading into the postseason, which includes both the Mission League Finals and the CIF Prelims.
“We definitely want to compete well at the Mission League Championships,” Koolsbergen said. “We want to qualify as many athletes as possible for CIF Championship competition, and then ultimately want to finish the season as a strong team with strong individuals.” The Mission League Finals will be held May 8 at Occidental College, and will be
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followed by CIF Preliminaries May 17 at Estancia High School. The following meets are CIF Masters and the State meet. Runners that finish in the top three places or hit the hard mark qualifying time, length or height at Mission League Finals will continue on to CIF Prelims the following week to compete in the same event.
C8 Sports
The Chronicle
April 30, 2014
Roman Holiday
Q&A with Roman Holthouse ’15
CAITLIN NEAPOLE/CHRONICLE
WHEN IN ROME: Attackmen Roman Holthouse ’15 cradles the ball in the Wolverines’ 17-3 victory against Chaminade March 15. Holthouse is currently the team’s top scorer.
By Audrey Wilson
What made you decide to start playing lacrosse, and how old were you when you started? My brother Luke Holthouse ’13 started playing a couple years before I did. One day in seventh grade, he told me I should try out. I went to one practice with him, and I just really liked it.
What club lacrosse team are you on, and what is the commitment like? I have played on a team called Brady’s Bunch and a team called Lasers. Lasers is only in the winter and the summer. We have practices once a week and usually three or four tournaments per season. The time commitment is not that bad.
How do you feel about holding the record for the most goals scored on the team? I have 53 goals right now. We have a couple more season games left, and then hopefully a deep playoff run. Jack Temko ’14 and Noah Pompan ’14 are very good players and right there with me. It’s just nice to get a lot of goals and have our team win most of our games.
What was it like to beat St. Margaret’s the second time around? It was super exciting especially because it went into triple overtime. It was probably the most exhausting game I’ve ever been a part of, but we could not be any more hyped.
What is your pre-game ritual? My only superstition is that I always have to un-tape and re-tape my stick before every game. Other than that I don’t do anything special, I just try to stay relaxed.
What has been the most memorable moment of your HarvardWestlake career? My most memorable moment is either my first game freshman year on varsity when we beat Oak Park 8-7 in overtime and I had the game winning goal or just last year beating Palos Verdes in the Los Angeles Finals.
Stats:
53
Goals Scored
11-4
Overall Record
What game are you looking forward to most this season? Our last game of the regular season is against Loyola, and if we win that game, then we win League, and that’s obviously a huge rivalry.
What is it like being on one of the newer Harvard-Westlake athletics programs as it forms its reputation? It’s fun because the group of guys we have, between me, Oliver Levitt ’15, Temko, Andrew Park ’15 and Pompan, are all bringing it up to the top. I know the middle school team has a bunch of really good players, and the JV team has been really successful too. So I think we are finally starting to build a program that’s going to be really successful for a long time, and we are the first ones to do it. Winning Los Angeles [North Division Final] last year was by far the best HarvardWestlake has ever done in the playoffs. NATHANSON’S