CHRONICLE the harvard-westlake
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Los Angeles • Volume 24 • Issue 5 • Feb. 13, 2015 • hwchronicle.com
School policy changes following Cuba trip
Show me the money
By Zoe Dutton
Students and deans try to navigate the often unpredictable world of collegiate financial aid. Admissions officers try to figure out the best way to meet applicants’ needs.
By Jacob Goodman
the majority of the schools ranked in the top 20 of U.S. ith a $32 million News and World Report’s endowment, Har- college rankings. Students vard University is who need large amounts of so rich that it doesn’t need to financial aid often find their consider applicants’ financial choice of schools limited if situations when admitting they want to be sure they’ll them. The university prom- receive enough help. ises to meet 100 percent of “I’m unhappy that there any student’s demonstrat- were a bunch of schools that ed need and make it pos- I wanted to apply to, but sible for them to graduate when I showed them to my debt-free. A few years ago, dean, a lot of them had to Harvard also committed to go off the list because their paying 100 financial aid percent of wouldn’t be the tuition what I needSome of for any qualed,” Jazmin ified candiPiche ’15 said. these are really dates whose She added good schools, but I families that she will earned less need all of her can’t apply to them than $65,000 college tuition because of financial per year. to be covered aid.” Ac c o r d by the school ing to a 2014 she attends. —Jazmin Piche ’15 “Some of these U.S. News and World are really good Report story, only 62 out of schools, but I can’t apply to the 1,137 colleges in America them because of the finanthat send financial aid in- cial aid.” formation to the magazine The problem with apwere able to meet 100 per- plying to schools that don’t cent of students’ demon- promise to meet 100 percent strated need for financial as- of demonstrated need is that sistance. They include all the when they admit candidates, Ivy League schools as well as they often send financial aid
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packages well below what the students need to accept their offers. However often this may occur, it is not the intention of colleges, said Shawn Abbott, Vice President of Financial Aid and Dean of Admissions at New York University. “While yes, at NYU, it is the unfortunate reality that our financial aid budget does not allow us to meet every student’s full need by covering the full cost of at-
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tendance,” Abbott said, “that doesn’t mean anyone here at NYU creates a formula to intentionally provide a ‘gap’ between one’s aid and the cost of being at NYU.” NYU’s admission process is need-blind, meaning it doesn’t factor in students’ financial need when processing their applications. Union College in Schenectady, New York, on the • Continued on page B2
Administration suspends 4 on suspicion of substance abuse at home basketball game
By Scott Nussbaum
and, along with three other students, was suspended for Reports that students were one day and had to remain intoxicated at the boys’ bas- home Monday, Jan. 26. ketball game against Loyola According to the Upper Jan. 23 prompted administra- School Handbook, being untors to pull students out of the der the influence of drugs or crowd and suspend four stu- alcohol at school or schooldents, students said. sanctioned events “may result The administration de- in expulsion.” clined to confirm or deny “School is school, and our whether or how stuentire community dents were removed expects behavior to from the crowd or be consistent repunished, as adminisgardless to the type tration policy is to not of activity taking comment on individuplace at school, and al disciplinary cases. those activities in“I think there were clude classes, they disciplinary circuminclude rehearsstances that were unals and practices, related to the game, they include games, nathanson’s [or to] the Fanatics, they include exhibAudrius and were related only its,” Head of Upper Barzdukas to bad decisions by a School Audrius Barfew people,” President Rick zdukas said. “And so I think Commons said. we are very consistent about A student who wishes to our expectations for how you remain anonymous confirmed should behave when you come that he was high at the game to school.”
Another student who attended the game and wishes to remain anonymous said that he believes that punishment was administered in an uneven way. The student attended the game while high on marijuana and said some students were picked out of the crowd while others were not. “I saw other kids almost definitely more inebriated and blatantly so, but there were no repercussions for them, so I feel like it is just a hard situation for everyone,” the student said. He said one of his friends was pulled out of the crowd and questioned by Barzdukas as to whether she was high. After this discussion, the group of students left the game. During the next day at school, he and his friend both met with their deans to discuss the situation but were not punished. The student said that in the meeting he neither confirmed nor
denied that he was high. “There is this underlying sense that the school is suspending so it doesn’t need to be a public expulsion and there isn’t any comfortable middle ground that students can settle into,” the student said. However, Barzdukas feels that the administration appropriately enforces the student handbook, including infractions involving drugs and alcohol. “We think you should come to school and fully experience all the school has to offer and that if you are coming to school altered in some sort of fundamental way, there is something wrong and there is some sort of a problem,” Barzdukas said. “This is not the place to be like that, and so if we know about it, we do something about it, and we have been very consistent about that, and we are going to continue to be that way. We are going to continue to help people.”
An investigation into student complaints about the digital-storytelling trip to Cuba over semester break, though disputed by organizers, has led to changes in school policy for trips. The administration will no longer allow students from other schools to participate in Harvard-Westlake trips during the school year, nor permit outside vendors to serve as chaperones, requiring at least two teachers on all trips. It will also reiterate the alcohol policy, which forbids drinking on the part of both students and chaperones. Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas said that the investigation was ongoing and had not yet reached a final conclusion. “At a dean meeting we compiled the results of their conversations with students, and those conversations suggested that some school policies may not have been followed on the trip,” Barzdukas said. “As a result of having spoken to students and having spoken to [Head of the Visual Arts department and trip organizer Cheri Gaulke], we are going to make some adjustments in our policies.” More than half of the students on the trip told the Chronicle that alcohol was served to students at meals during the eight-day trip. Of the 17 students who responded to the Chronicle, 15 said there was student drinking on the trip. Twenty-one Harvard-Westlake students went on the trip, among whom six were Chronicle staffers, in addition to two other students from outside of school. Students said they were • Continued on page A4
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JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE VIVIAN LIN/CHRONICLE
AS YOU LIKE IT: See page B11 for a behind-the-scenes look at the spring play, ‘As You Like it.’ Upper school students performed in Shakespeare’s comedy Feb. 5-7.