The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School • North Hollywood, CA • Volume XVIII • Issue 1 • September 3, 2008 • chronicle.hw.com
Beijing Olympics ’08
Dara Torres ’85
Peter Hudnut ’99
3 silver medals in women’s swimming
1 silver medal in men’s water polo
• • •
Olympics Coverage, A28-A29
50 meter freestyle 4x100 medley relay 4x100 freestyle relay
PHotos Courtesy of Darlene Bible
Building from the ground up
Huybrechts stresses character development
By Lucy Jackson
Cathi choi/chronicle
new and improved: The new Library/Science Building (at right in bottom photo) includes a library with three re-
A
source centers (shown at top left). Vice President John Amato surveys the 850-seat auditorium (top right).
As the new middle school campus opens its doors, a look inside the project 17 years in the making. By Julie Barzilay
fter 17 years of planning and two full years of construction, the revamped middle school campus welcomed students and faculty for the first time today, signifying the completion of Phase I-A of the Middle School Modernization Project. The project is intended to provide up-to-date technological resources, meet curriculum needs and provide spacious, sophisticated theatrical and athletic facilities, Vice President John Amato said. Phase I-A involved the demolition of the music and Administration Buildings, as well as the construction of two new buildings. These will be referred to as the “Academic Building” and the “Library/Science Building” until the final names are released later this fall. Phase I-B consists of building a regulation size field, turning Reynolds Hall into a state-of-the-art Visual Arts edifice and making the Marshall Center a solely athletic center. On July 7, workers demolished the Administration Building, home to Westlake School’s original
Alumnus, seniors win at Olympiads
boarding students. “Seeing the building go down tugged at my emotional heartstrings,” Amato said after a thoughtful pause. “But we’ve tried to mix architecture, old and new, to honor the old building and unify the campus.” Most classes will be held in the three-level Academic Building, which houses dean and teacher offices, 24 classrooms, the 850-seat auditorium/ theatre, the seventh and ninth grade lockers, the school store and the cafeteria. Nine science classrooms, administrative offices and the library now reside in the two-level Library/Science building. The Offices of Admissions and some of the Advancement offices are connected to this building along with the new front desk, but four Advancement office members were relocated to the upper campus. The new structures were designed to connect smoothly with the old ones, as per the goals of architect Susan Oakley of Jeffrey M. Kalban &
By Jamie Kim
see ‘CONSTRUCTION,’ A18 B Section
Jamie Kim/chronicle
gas prices: Gas prices are affecting students’ way of life. A13
Democratic convention: Students attended SXC.hu and worked at the DNC in Denver, Col.
A15
B SECTION: first day: Today’s a fresh start for 26 new faculty and staff.
first da
The Chroni
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As the first step toward a new emphasis on character education, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts will announce her theme for the upcoming school year in an all-upper school assembly today. The theme, “Character, not circumstance, makes the person,” is a Booker T. Washington quote that Huybrechts hopes will remind students to model good character, she said. “Just like the theme every year, it’s a reminder that we care about character education at this school, and that we want it to be a systemic part of education here,” she said. Although Huybrechts said she had no way to gauge the effectiveness of themes in the past, she still thinks they serve an important purpose. “There are no metrics to measure whether the character education theme is working or not, but I’d rather have a theme than not,” she said. In addition to the theme, Huybrechts hopes to integrate character education into the classroom, which she has discussed with the Faculty Academic Committee. “Like study skills, character education is better incorporated into the context of courses rather than as a separate entity,” Huybrechts said. Although she thought students may not remember the full quote, she felt the overall message would stick with them, she said. “I’m a little worried that students will forget it because it’s long, but I just think it’s a great quote,” she said. “Every little bit helps.”
y Sept. 3,
2008
It’s the 11 new first day of sch staff mefaculty and 15 ool for mbers today, new too. CATHI
CHOI/CHRON HIS FIRST ICLE new upper DAY: school Ken Neisser history is teacher. a
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Michelle Nosratian
Joshua Oreman ’09, Jonathan Lee ’08, and Rebecca Jacobs ’09 brought home medals in a different kind of Olympiad: the International Science Olympiads. Oreman won a gold medal in the International Physics Olympiad in Hanoi, Vietnam and Lee won silver in the Chemistry Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary. Harvard-Westlake was the only school in the United States to have students on both the national physics and chemistry teams. It was also the only independent school to have a student on either team. In the physics competition, four of the five U.S. participants won gold, and the fifth won silver. The competition consisted of a threeproblem theoretical examination and a see ‘OLYMPIADS,’ A4
A2
Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008 The Chronicle
preview
CourtesY of Darlene Bible
BEIJING 2008: The U.S. water polo team celebrates in Beijing after beating the Serbian national team in a semi-
final match. Peter Hudnut ‘99, who is in the middle wearing a white cap and smiling, was a key defender, allowing no
goals to be scored on his team. Hudnut scored a goal in a preliminary match against the Italian team. A28
sports A24
Alex Stepheson ’06 returns home to play basketball for USC.
A30
The girls’ volleyball team gears up to defend their state title.
features
heidi chung/summer times
A24
intense acting: The Summer Intensive Acting Workshop performed two showcases. A19
Football looks to set season’s tempo with Franklin game Friday. Courtesy of cheri gaulke
i do: Visual Arts teacher Cheri Gaulke wed her partner of 30 years, Sue Maberry, on July 5 in Pasadena.
news A7
After the California legalization of same-sex marriage, two teachers wed their partners this summer.
retires after 25 years of A11 Marsden teaching chemistry.
opinion Alex Edel/Chronicle
pump-fake: Max Eliot ’09 practices his fake. A “pump-fake” is when a player pretends to shoot. A31
Schlom ’09 laments his A21 Derek wasted summer. Etra ’10 advocates less waste A22 Anna when buying school supplies.
what’s online www.chronicle.hw.com
»Extended photo galleries chronicling Nick Mer-
ill’s journey through the Isle of Man.
» Coverage of Peer Support Retreat, Brendan
Koerner’s’ 92 new book, Ali Pechman’s ’08 writing award and the Korean Parents’ Barbecue.
New online features: » Real Simple Syndication » “Contact Us” box (RSS) feeds and links » Facebook application » Interactive calendar » New web-page design » iPhone compatibility available
Courtesy of Nick Merill
at sea: Nick Merrill ’09 photographed scenery and residents on the Isle of Man. His visit was funded by the Junior Summer Fellowship Program he won in June.
Merrill ’09 travels to A18 Nick study Manx language. the transfer students A13 Meet in the 10th and 11th grades.
off-beat
By Lucy Jackson
Cindy Ok’s ’10 trip to Africa this summer read more like a medical chart than an itinerary. On the continent for a month to visit orphans and teach literacy classes to adults, Ok suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident, then contracted malaria later in the trip. Ok crashed her motorcycle when she got distracted by a water buffalo and reacted late to a bump, she said. After plowing over two trees, she flipped her bike and fell off, but fully recovered from her concussion in three days. “We rode motorcycles because we were going to places where there wasn’t room for a car,” Ok said. Ok continued traveling throughout the country with her group, Orphan Angels, and though she took an anti-malarial drug every day, she was apparently bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria virus two weeks later. Symptoms developed two weeks after that, when Ok started suffering from malarial attacks every other day, she said. Ok had blood tests done when she got home, which revealed she had contracted the disease. “I got it at the end, so I didn’t miss out on anything with the kids,” she said. “It started getting better, but you have days where you just feel so weak. There were a lot of highs and lows.” Despite the one-two punch of a concussion and malaria, Ok doesn’t regret her decision to go to the foreign nation. “My doctor told me to be careful, maybe stay home next summer and get a job,” Ok said. “I told him I was going back next year. It gives you so much perspective. If you don’t get the reality check, you live in a bubble where you don’t know what’s going on.”
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle communitycouncil
News A3
Annual Giving reaches record $6 million By Andrew Lee
michelle yousefzadeh/chronicle
Women at work: Caity Croft ’10, Lauren Wolfen ’09, Taylor Hooks ’09 and Shelby Layne ’09 prepare the database of charities, organizations and projects for the Community Council during a summer meeting.
Community Council alters school outreach program
By Shayna Freisleben As the Community Council was officially unveiled at the end of last school year, members of the Council utilized the summer months to create databases, organize events and prepare the agenda for the group’s inaugural year. Today, the council will set-up a meeting area specifically for student inquiries. Summer meetings have been spent conducting research and compiling information about various organizations and projects. The council has strived to develop contacts at organizations in order to provide students with ways to begin their own projects. The primary goal of the Community Council, according to member Taylor Hooks ’09, is to directly impart the new community service requirement, which consists of one half-day event with at least three other students, to students and faculty members alike. “For something new like [the Community Council], we’re going to be inventing the wheel,” member Lauren Wolfen ’09 said. “We have spent a lot of time working on the simple, fundamental things that one wouldn’t expect to be time consuming.” In addition to meeting and collectively writing the purpose and mission statement of the council, members have been continually meeting with faculty about policy and liability of potential projects and events. “Obviously, we want to work on transparency and accessibility,” Hooks said. “We want people to be able to approach the council and make their community service experience as easy as possible.” While the Council is planning on hosting at least one community service event per month, the members strongly believe in advocating student initiative,
“we want people to be able to approach the council and make their community service experience as easy as possible.”
—Taylor Hooks ’09 Community Council member
Hooks said. “We want students to incorporate family and friends into what they already do,” she said. The Council will hold an office in the student lounge next to the offices of Father J. Young and Director of Student Affairs Jordan Church. Members will try to be present in the office during all periods. “In order to generate excitement, people need to see us in different ways,” Wolfen said. “There might be a particular event that really catches someone’s attention.” The community service program and requirement first changed last year as former Community Service Director Jan Stewart was gradually phased out of her position. “It isn’t necessarily better, just achieving a different goal,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said. “It’s a way of building community that’s better in many ways to collecting hours.” While the physical requirement has been lessened, both Huybrechts and the Community Council would like the school community to develop. “There are youngsters who are terribly committed to working for a cause, but I’d like us to be very intentional about doing Harvard-Westlake community service,” Huybrechts said.
Six detentions to result in suspension By Sammy Roth
Under a new policy created by the Upper School Deans, students who receive six detentions over the course of one semester will receive a one-day suspension. Dean Vanna Cairns said the new policy would help prevent students from cutting class, the most common reason for a detention. The deans decided that a new policy was needed as a result of statistics provided to them by Attendance Coordinator J. Gabriel Preciado. These statictics showed a 60 percent increase in detentions last year. “Maybe it was too easy,” Cairns said, referring to one-hour detentions. “Any disciplinary action has
to be unpleasant.” The statistics also showed a decrease in tardies over the last three years, which Cairns credited to the other so-called “rule of six,” that having six tardies in one quarter results in a detention. With that in mind, Cairns said it was logical to implement a similar rule with regards to multiple detentions. “It seems scary,” Preciado said, “but when you look at the numbers, it would only affect those who are really abusing the detention system.” Twenty eight students received six or more detentions last year. Of this group, Cairns said there were about five who would have violated the new policy by accu-
mulating six detentions in one semester. Students will be warned by their deans when they have served five detentions. “If we had this rule in place last year, I think those kids wouldn’t have been such rampant detention attendees,” she said. Preciado also hopes that the new suspension policy will curb detentions, especially among second semester seniors who have already been accepted to colleges, since colleges would be notified of a suspension. “I really think that our school, compared to other schools, has a really lax policy on detention,” Preciado said. “This is really a step in the right direction.”
The Office of Advancement expects $6.8 million in Annual Giving funds this year, which would be the largest annual fund for any day school in the nation. The Annual Giving funds would account for nearly 11 percent of the school’s operating budget of $55 don hagopian/chronicle million this year, Chief AdvanceEd Hu ment Officer Ed Hu said. “It is pretty remarkable given the economy,” Hu said. “Will we get there? We sure hope we will.” Last year, the school garnered a record-setting $6 million in annual funds. Ninety eight percent of all faculty and staff made gifts to Annual Giving last year, director of Annual Giving Alan Ball said. This was the highest faculty donation turnout ever. “We’re counting on the extra generosity of the parents and alumni to support the school,” Hu said. Tuition does not cover the full operating cost of the school and Annual Giving makes up for that difference, Hu said. Even with the construction of the middle school campus, the school continues to increase expectations for annual funding each year. “It’s difficult economic times for some people, with the price of gas and real estate investments,” Ball said. “Regardless of peoples giving capacity, people will reach into their hearts and give what they’re able to do in the spirit of giving.” The Annual Giving program has always been strong and the school expects the funds to only grow, Hu said. The $55 million operation cost covers faculty salaries, benefits, technology, financial aid and other operations to keep the school running.
Former student faces preliminary hearing By Jack Davis
and
Lucy Jackson
A preliminary hearing has been set for Sept. 22 at Los Angeles Superior Court in Van Nuys for a former student whom prosecutors have charged with attempted murder in a hammer attack on another former student. Rupert Ditsworth, the alleged attacker, could testify at the preliminary hearing three weeks from now. In the attack, which took place in May 2007, Lizzie Barcay ’07 suffered head, face and leg injuries when Ditsworth struck her more than 40 times with a hammer, she said shortly after the attack. Defense attorneys David S. Kestenbaum and Donald Re are representing Ditsworth, who is out on $1.05 million bail pending trial. Barcay testified on Aug. 8 at the Van Nuys courthouse. Deputy District Attorney Edward Nison, who is representing the state of California in the case against Ditsworth, said Barcay testified early because of “scheduling reasons,” and told the court he wanted to get her testimony in before she went back to college. Nison expects to wrap up the preliminary hearing in one day. “We hope we will conclude the matter on the 22 but it may take longer,” Nison said. “It all depends on the court’s calendar and how much time they have for everything.” Ditsworth was originally charged as a juvenile, but was recharged as an adult after he turned 18.
Attendance Ascendance Over the past two years, tardies and cuts have declined while detentions have soared.
2006-2007
2007-2008
CUTS
3381
1791
TARDIES
4657
4553
DETENTIONS 397
650
A4 News
The Chronicle
chatting up a storm
Sept. 3, 2008
Deans continue lounge food ban By Sammy Roth
carly radist/chronicle
mathematics teacher catherine Campbell and allison farfel ’09 reminisce and laugh about their sophomore algebra class at the Senior-Faculty Barbecue last Friday. The event was planned by the Office of Advancement, which now has offices located on the Upper School campus.
Upper school deans decided last week to continue to ban food in the student lounge this year. Dean Jim Patterson cited a “frustration” about growing trash levels in the lounge in his explanation of the decision. “I think that there’s some general frustration with the message that that sends in terms of the stewardship for the community, taking care of the community here and being responsible for your own garbage,” Patterson said. Deans banned the consumption of food and all drinks but water. Though this is a continuation of a policy implemented near the end of last year, Dean Vanna Cairns said that the deans have had to ban food from the lounge due to student messiness numerous times in the past. This year they would try a different path she said. “Every year we go through the same dance…[this year] I guess we just realized that nothing’s different, so why get to the point where we’re all upset and not happy with the students, and why not just start with no food—that’s where we’re going to end up anyway,” she said. Cairns said that there is always the chance that the lounge could be reopened to food and drink, should students create some sort of “proactive program” to show that they would be able to keep the lounge clean. Patterson did not know what sort of program students could implement, but agreed the ban was not necessarily permanent. “There are very few rules that are hard and fast,” Patterson said. “As frustrated as we are as deans about the way that that room is cared for, that’s not to say that a month from now or three months from now we wouldn’t be going to revisit that and see what happens.” Cairns added that students would be allowed to eat in the lounge should it rain, although deans would have to make certain that students throw away their trash at the end of each period.
Seniors, alum win at overseas Olympiads ‘olympiads’ from page A1 practical examination, each five hours long. Oreman, who took the two most advanced physics courses at the school last year, (AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism), said the level of difficulty was so high it would be impossible to make a comparison. 376 high school students from 82 countries competed. Participants with scores in the top six percent were awarded gold medals, those in the top 12 percent received silver medals, and those in the top 18 percent received bronze medals. Antonio Nassar taught Oreman last year in his AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism class, and said Oreman was innately gifted. “He would get [things] right away. He really saw through, and could also anticipate what I would teach. He was a step ahead of the class. He just had it,” Nassar said. Oreman, who was selected as a member of the five-person traveling team after several rounds of examinations and screening and a nine-day training camp at the University of Maryland, also credits hard work. “[The coaches] had asked that we do about one old IPhO [a practice test from previous competitions] per day, which is about five hours, so it was quite a lot of preparation... I finished just about every IPhO since 1980, and it helped, definitely,” said Oreman. Oreman said his participation in this year’s Olympiad “really broadened my horizons.” He hopes to return next year, when it will be hosted in Mexico. At the Chemistry Olympiad, Lee’s silver medal helped give the U.S. team a fourth place ranking out of the 66 participating nations. Lee underwent a similar selection process in the months leading up to the competition. In June he joined 20 other finalists at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado for the two-week Chemistry Olympiad summer camp. Lee said he was “ecstatic” but also surprised when he was announced as one of the four students selected for the traveling team. Christopher Dartt, who was Lee’s chemistry teacher for two years, said a combination of hard work, “very good lab skills” and “excellent test taking skills” led to Lee’s success. Lee is now a freshman at Harvard University,
PHOTOs COURTESY OF REBECCA JACOBS, Josh Oreman, and linda wang
medal count: Rebecca Jacobs ’09 celebrates with one of her teammates after winning gold in the Linguistics Olmpiad in Bulgaria (left). Josh Oreman
’09 poses for a photo after his golden win in the Physics Olympiad (middle). Jonathan Lee ’08 took home a silver medal at the Chemistry Olympiads (right).
“josh would get [things] right away. he really saw through, and could also anticipate what i would teach. he was a step ahead of the class. he just had it.”
by researchers and scholars in computational linguistics. Students were presented with obscure languages that they had never studied, such as Micmac, a Native American language spoken in Canada. Using clues provided about sounds, words and grammar, the students were judged on how quickly and accurately they could decipher the rules and structures of the languages. A gifted student in science and math, Jacobs found that excelling in these subjects helped her solve the linguistics problems. “Being good at math helps,” Jacobs said. “Linguistics involves logic problems and you can apply skills learned in math to solve them.” Dean Rose-Ellen Racanelli encouraged Jacobs to compete and arranged for her to take the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad qualifying test, Jacobs said. The students selected to be part of the United States delegation to the Olympiad were chosen from over 750 high school students who participated in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad qualifying events at 77 sites throughout the United States and Canada. Jacobs also said that she can read Bulgarian, albeit with difficulty. “It was somewhat disorienting, but exciting from a linguistic point of view, that Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet rather than the Latin alphabet,” Jacobs said. Jacobs has been interested in linguistics since she was 13 and plans to double-major in math and linguistics in college.
—Antonio Nassar Science Teacher
where he plans to major in chemistry. He was previously a semifinalist in the U.S. Biology Olympiad, the Physics Olympiad and an American Invitational Mathematics Examination qualifier. In the International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria in August, Jacobs brought home the bronze medal in the individual competition, and the gold in the team competition. In its second year participating in the Olympiad, the United States competed against 16 teams from around the world and took home 11 of 33 awards. The United States sent two teams to the ILO and secured both gold and silver medals in the team competition. “Most of the other countries competing have a long history of high school-level linguistic competitions, so it’s remarkable that only in our second year the United States has done so well,” Jacobs said. “I’m very glad that I got a medal this year. Last year, only one of the U.S. team members scored high enough for an individual award.” In the competition, students emulate skills used
Sept. 3, 2008
FAC to vote on proposed second break
News A5
The Chronicle
By Nicki Resnikoff
The Prefect Council has proposed a second break period in addition to the one on Mondays, which they hope will be approved and become effective early this year. The idea was conceived at the beginning of last year. The proposal is meant to address the problem of a lack of free time at the Upper School. “We came up with the idea to raise the morale of the school and to allow students and teachers to build relationships and improve communication,” Head Prefect Tessa Wick ’09 said. “It’s a stepping stone to solving all the problems.” “The break gives students more time,” Prefect Aarti Rao ’10 said. “We only have one break a week and that’s taken up by fire drills or clubs most of the time. A second break will make the club program stronger.” The proposed second break would be 25 minutes long and take place once a week. It would either take place each Friday or rotate Tuesday through Friday. Student support will probably determine which idea is used. The time of day is also undecided. The second break would not necessarily change school hours, though it might make the school day five minutes longer. On the day with the extra break, each class would be five minutes shorter and it is proposed that athletic practices would end five minutes earlier. The rest of the week would remain unchanged. In order for a proposal to be passed, it must be
julie barzilay/chronicle
Showing support: Trini Rios ‘09 (right) signs a petition advocating a second break as Head Prefect Brandon Levin ’09 looks on. The Faculty Academic Committee will vote on the proposal next Tuesday. approved by the Prefect Council, its advisors, the Faculty Academic Committee, Head of School Dr. Jeanne Huybrechts and Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra. The proposal still has to be passed by the FAC, which will vote on it at its first meeting next Tuesday. If approved, the proposal may go into effect immediately. So far, many of the Department Heads and other faculty members have shown support for the proposal on behalf of their departments. Yet some teachers do not support the proposal because they do not want to lose five minutes of class. “The hardest obstacle is the teachers that think
they can’t give up the class time,” Wick said. Students who are not on the Prefect Council have been involved in and supportive of the passing of the proposal. The prefects made a petition available to sign. In a poll, they found a 92 percent positive response among students. “Student support is the most powerful tool the school has,” Wick said. “There is nothing more powerful or important than the student body.” A number of people, prefects and others spoke to dean groups during class meeting. “It’s one of the first times we’ve really come together to support a cause,” Wick said.
thiak lor | 1940-2008
Lor was ‘always giving’ By Alexia Boyarsky Thiak Lor, Director of Food Services, died June 6 at the age of 67 after a battle with cancer. Lor ran food service on both campuses and worked for the school for over 25 years, President Thomas C. Hudnut said in an e-mail sent to the faculty and staff on June 7. Lor left behind him not only a wellrun business but also a staff devoted to helping the school and serving the students, Chief Financial Officer Rob Levin said. Lor emigrated from Thailand around 40 years ago. After working in Seattle for a few years in the school catering business, he moved to Los Angeles. In the late 1980s, prior to the merger, Lor joined the original business that ran the cafeteria. “I remember the first time I saw him, he handed me a huge, slobbery beef sandwich with open arms and a big smile,” Levin said. After a falling out with his partner, the school asked Lor to become the
new cafeteria manager, and director of his own company. “Because the school trusted him and kept him, he wanted to thank them by giving them the best service he could,” business partner and close friend Kay Tirakayos said. “That was his entire goal, and it’s still our goal.” Throughout the years, Lor developed a reputation for being not only dedicated to his job, but generous and selfless, Levin said. “He would be up at five in the morning every day,” Levin said, “he was always trying to pick the best food.” When planning his wedding, Levin asked Lor to cater the wedding dinner. Afterwards, Lor did not want to cash Levin’s check. After waiting a few weeks, Levin confronted Lor, whose solution was to give all of the money to Harvard-Westlake Annual Giving. “That just shows what type of person he is,” Levin said, “he was always giving.” Amato remembers how at annual barbeques hosted at the school, Lor
courtesy of kay tirakayos
in loving memory: Flowers decorate Director of Food Services Thiak Lor’s memorial at his memorial service. Lor died of cancer on June 6. would “look over the tables in Chalmers or in the quad and smile because people were eating his food.” “He thought the students’ happiness was important, and that through their stomachs, we could get them to be happy,” Amato said. After Lor’s death, the cafeteria rearranged members of the management. Nipa Boonyames and Tirakayos will head the new company. Called “Healthy Choices,” the new company will focus on providing healthier alter-
natives to the cafeteria food. They also plan on focusing on more environmentally friendly choices, Levin said. Plans for the future include getting rid of plastic bottles and using compostable plates and cutlery, Amato said. Meanwhile, Lor’s legacy leaves a cafeteria staff dedicated to honoring Lor’s memory by providing quality service, Amato said. “Will anything change?” asked Levin, “I don’t think so, his people are too dedicated to his memory to fail.”
A6 News
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Fundraiser proceeds used to build 5 wells By Carly Radist
Five wells providing clean water were built as a result of Caitlin Cunningham’s ’09 school fundraiser last May. She sold blue bracelets to raise money for the wells in Cambodia. Through the sale of the bracelets, Cunningham raised $601 and after subtracting expenses, she donated $510 to the Tabitha Foundation. She was inspired to start her own project when she visited Cambodia a few years ago while she was still living in Singapore. Cunningham lived in Singapore until she was 14. “I walked through a village and was told by a native Cambodian tour guide that many villages in Cambodia were suffering from dehydration and an inability to properly irrigate crops because they didn’t have any wells for clean water,” Cunningham said. The water from the wells is the only source of clean water for Cambodian villages. Without water to irrigate crops, families cannot grow food and face starvation. After hearing this, Cunningham decided to help and raise money for the cause. Although she left Singapore soon after, she continued her efforts while living in Los Angeles. The blue bracelets represent clean well water and are engraved with her project’s name, Cambodia Wishing Wells. The wells were built in a region called Siem Reap. Each well costs $125 and will provide clean, safe drinking water for people in Cambodia. The wells are usually used by five families which can include up to eight people each. One of Cunningham’s goals for raising money from Harvard-Westlake students is for them to
courtesy of caitlin cunningham
Wishing wells : Cambodian villagers stand around their new well, built with the proceeds of Caitlin Cunnighham’s ’09 school fundraiser, Cambodia Wishing Wells. understand the needs of people in a foreign country. “When students see pictures of the wells they helped build, they will feel a connection to people in another part of the world, specifically a third world country, and it will have an effect on their lives,” she said in her proposal to the Planning Committee. In addition to raising money on her own, she has motivated friends from Singapore to get involved. A friend of Cunningham’s has recently moved to Connecticut and plans to sell the “Cambodia Wishing Wells” bracelets at his school. He will then send the proceeds to Cunningham towards her project.
“I’m glad that my project was so successful and is now being done on the East Coast,” she said. Cunningham is deciding on an exact date to begin another fundraiser at school. However, students can donate money directly to Cunningham and buy bracelets from her. Also, students can help with the fundraising process by putting up posters and flyers at the bracelet-selling station during the sale. Students can find out more about the Tabitha Foundation to which Cunningham donates her proceeds by visiting its website at www.tabithafoundationaustralia.com.
7th graders may opt for Chinese By Erin Moy
Cory Bloom /Harvard-Westlake Summer times
En garde: Summer school students demonstrate the skills
they learned during Fencing Gold Medal Sports Camp.
Nearly 1,000 spend summer on campus for programs, sports By Katherine Hong Every day throughout the summer, nearly 1,000 students used the upper campus for summer programs and training, a significantly larger number than the 850 who attend during the school year. Overall summer program enrollment for academic enrichment classes, summer workshops and Gold Medal Sports Camps increased 14 percent under upper school dean Jim Patterson, distributing a total of 700 students across the campus. Due to the Middle School Modernization Project, the Summer Enrichment Program relocated temporarily from the middle to the upper campus, bringing another 70 students. In addition, 300
varsity athletes also prepared for the upcoming seasons on campus. However, there is still room for more students. “There’s a lot of growth potential, especially in the visual and performing arts,” Patterson said. While it was only “reasonable to make use of some of the best performing and visual arts facilities in the city,” Patterson has also been looking to expand the summer enrichment classes to include programs from the Center for Talented Youth, which are already being offered at John Hopkins University. Beyond the added classes, changes include a new online registration portal, mailed brochures and new advertisements placed in local newspapers.
Starting this year, Chinese will be offered to seventh graders. Though the class used to be offered to ninth graders, middle school teacher, Bin Bin Wei will be teaching nearly 40 seventh graders this fall in three separate classes. With an additional three freshman classes, there will be a total of six Chinese classes at the middle school. Chinese III Honors will be offered on the upper school campus, another new development for the department. The language departments on both campuses hope to implement a Chinese class for eighth grade and an Advanced Placement Chinese course by next fall. This summer, Wei took classes with STARTALK in Virginia, a program under the National Security Language Initiative. In order to expand and improve the teaching and learning of strategically important world languages that are not currently taught widely in the United States, NSLI awarded grants for summer programs to instruct teachers and high school students languages. Wei found the program herself and spent month learning how to apply new technology-
“People see more opportunities to interact with the chinese language Now... so there is a greater need and desire to learn chinese”
—Bin Bin Wei Middle school Chinese teacher
enhanced techniques in teaching Chinese. “It was very helpful and I’m glad that I went,” she said. For her new seventh grade classes, Wei says that the program recommended several books, and went over different teaching methods “I think that the influence of China in the world has increased significantly,” Wei said. “People see more opportunities to interact with the Chinese language now, both in a business and non-business setting, so there is a greater need and desire to learn Chinese.”
Vista replaces XP in school computers By Lauren Seo When returning students sign on to the computers on campus, they may be surprised with the changes they see on screen. During the summer, the operating systems of both the upper and middle school’s computers have been upgraded to run under the new versions of Windows Vista. All of the software students regularly use, including Microsoft Office and Adobe, has been updated also. In addition, every computer at the middle campus has been replaced with newer computers, on top of the new software that has been programmed. David Ruben, the director
of computer services, explains that this updating of the middle school’s computers is an attempt to accommodate the newly moderized campus. “Every network switch and router had to be changed out because of the new campus,” Ruben said. The number of computers at the upper and middle schools hovers around 500 and 300, respectively. Faculty and staff have also received new laptops this year. Last spring, teachers and staff were given the option of receiving either a laptop or a tablet for this year. Although they routinely acquire new laptops every three years, this year a third of the teachers and deans opted
to receive tablets instead. Tablets are notebook or slate shaped mobile computers with touch screens. They come with high tech pens which allow for new features and capabilities. Usually the computer services team limits itself to one large task per summer. They cycle between updating the computers of the upper school, middle school, and faculty and staff. This is the first year that they have completed all three projects within three months. Handling these changes is a task the computer services teams has been preparing for since January. “They worked really hard, putting a lot of effort into all that they do,” Ruben said. “They did a great job.”
Sept. 3, 2008
News A7
The Chronicle
Teachers tie the knot following legalization of same-sex marriage By Jordan Freisleben Visual Arts teacher Cheri Gaulke and Middle School Library and Technology Department Head Susan Kallok married their respective partners this summer after same-sex marriage was deemed legalized in the state of California. Kallok, a self-described longtime advocate for same-sex marriage, married her partner of 15 years, Nicki Freeman, on June 18. The couple’s spur-of-the-moment ceremony took place in their local town of Long Beach with only 20 people present. The wedding reception continued at a nearby restaurant. “I think it’s really important, especially for a couple like us that’s been together for 15 years,” Kallok said. “The only thing separating us was the legality from any other married couple. It was important for us to stand up and be counted. Every little step, every little victory, leads us further down the path of equality.” “Our initial impulse,” Gaulke said, “was ‘let’s get married as a political statement’, but what happened was it became this really profound event where 250 guests from all parts of our lives came together and witnessed this huge community celebration.” She wed her partner Sue Maberry on July 5 at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalists Church in Pasadena. Gaulke and Maberry have been together since they met 30 years ago while working for a feminist art organization. Being married at the Neighborhood Church had a “great deal of sig-
“It’s not like we’re these young blushing brides that barely know each other; we’ve actually built a life together.” —Cheri Gaulke Visual Arts Teacher nificance,” she said. The two have been attending the church, which strongly advocates marriage equality, since 1996. One of the reasons they opted to marry at the church was to honor the history of their fight for marriage equality there. Maberry and Gaulke frequently repaired and rehung the church’s banner that states “We Support Marriage Equality, Love Makes a Family” after it had been cut down by opposing locals. First notified of the law during class, Gaulke jumped up and announced it to her students. She then sent Maberry an e-mail asking “Will you marry me?” “It’s different getting married, it’s not like we’re these young blushing brides who barely know each other,” Gaulke said. “[We’ve] actually built a life together over time and we have children,” Gaulke said. Gaulke’s daughters, Xochi ’12 and Marka Maberry-Gaulke ’12, referred to the ceremony as “our” wedding, as it included all four of them. Both teachers and their spouses plan to support same-sex equalities in the future.
courtesy of Cheri gaulke
a family affair: Marka ’12 and Xochi Maberry-Gaulke ’12 pose for a wedding photo with their parents, Visual Arts teacher Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry.
courtesy of Susan kallok
wedding at sunset: Head of the Library and Technology department at the middle school, Susan Kallok, tied the knot with her partner of 15 years, Nicki Freeman, in their hometown of Long Beach.
Senior wins prize money for project, named ‘Cool Kid’ By Michelle Yousefzadeh
courtesy of shelby layne
golden girl: Shelby Layne ’09 sells donated jewelry at her first jewelry sale outside of a boutique in the Pacific Palisades in 2006. Proceeds from the jewelry aid the women of Darfur.
Shelby Layne ’09 was awarded $36,000 for the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award last week. Layne pledged a portion of the funds towards a project she will start geared towards informing teens of the situation in Darfur, a region in Sudan that is plagued by conflict. Layne was also featured as a Los Angeles Channel 7 Eyewitness News “Cool Kid.” Layne was nominated for both awards by Jewish World Watch. She has raised money for the organization and volunteered to advocate the treatment of women in Darfur since she was 14. She wrote letters to jewelry manufacturers explaining the atrocities occuring in Darfur, asking them to donate jewelry. Layne sold both the donated jewelry and jewelry she made herself to supply the women
of Darfur with solar-powered cookers. “Getting started, I never expected it would lead to raising thousands of dollars, by any means,” Layne said. The Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards recognize up to five teens in California who follow the concept of “tikkun olam,” a Hebrew phrase that means repair the world. The money can be directed toward the beneficiary’s college education or toward furthering his or her charitable passion. Layne hopes to use a portion of the award money to start a program at school that would send students to Washington D.C. to lobby to congressmen about the urgency of the genocide in Darfur. “I intend the project to show students how to get involved,” Layne said. “I’m excited and honored to be selected.”
A8 News
Student film screens at festival
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
By Marni Barta
“It’s a Wonderful Climate,” a comical short film on global warming created by seven students for a video art assignment, premiered at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood on July 19 at the Fresh-I Student Film Festival. Out of 400 festival submissions, “It’s a Wonderful Climate” was selected as one of the top 20 films and took second place in the comedy category. Joseph Friedrich ’09 produced the film with video art teacher Kevin O’Malley. The film starred Friedrich as Max and Carly Radist ’09 as Carly. Jason Hirschhorn ’09 played the penguin. It was written by Joseph Meyer ’09 and directed by Evan Ryan ’09. The message of the film is that the effects of global warming may be closer than people realize and that people have the ability to make a significant difference through their efforts, such as using energyefficient light bulbs and walking rather than driving. The decision to submit “It’s a Wonderful Climate” to festivals was not made until production on the film was wrapped. “Our assignment was to make a movie on global warming, and once we had finished it, we realized that it might actually be good enough to submit,” Friedrich said. Friedrich submitted the film to the International Environmental Film and Video Festival, the SoCal
Courtesy of Joey Friedrich
lights, camera, action: Jason Hirschhorn ’09 (left) dressed up as a penguin for his role in the comical short film “It’s A Wonderful Climate,” which was produced by Joey Friedrich ’09 (right). Independent Festival, the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival and the Fresh-I Student Film Festival. The film was accepted by the Fresh-I Student Film Festival, rejected by the SoCal Independent Festival and the crew is still waiting to hear the results from the other two festivals. The greatest obstacle Friedrich faced when submitting the film was securing the rights to the music used in the film. Through many e-mails, phone calls and faxes, Friedrich obtained “gratis non-profit” licenses from Time Warner and Atlantic Recordings in order to use the songs “Cold as Ice” and the theme song from “2001, a Space Odyssey” free of charge.
However, he was unable to obtain rights to the song “Air” without paying $400 to Sony-BMG and EMI Publishing. The issue was resolved when the Save the Earth Foundation agreed to sponsor the film and pay for rights to the song. Ryan was the only member of the cast and crew able to attend the July 19 screening. “It was awesome to know that our movie was being played on a big screen,” Friedrich said. “It’s a Wonderful Climate” is just the start for Friedrich, Meyer, and Hirschhorn assistant director and actor in the film. The three seniors will be taking a directed study devoted to filmmaking.
Students exhibit films at Moondance Festival By Drew Lash
Daniel Rothberg/chronicle
At work: Ryan Wilson in his office. Wilson is attempting to restart the literary magazine “The Black Boot,” with the help of Madeleine Witenberg ’08.
Wilson restarts magazine By Sammy Roth
With the help of Madeleine Witenberg ’08, Deans’ Office and Summer Programs Coordinator Ryan Wilson is working to re-launch the literary magazine “The Black Boot.” The magazine was originally a project of Wilson’s friend Ethan Antonucci, who published five issues during 2004 and 2005. The name, Wilson said, came from an old friend who had at one time kept his writing “rolled up in an old black boot.” Antonucci and Wilson decided to give the magazine another shot this summer. “He had been doing it by himself, kind of underground, and so we decided just to take it to the next level…and really start to try to attract some LA writers,” Wilson said. Witenberg, who was an editor of the student literary magazine Stone-Cutters last year, got involved with “The Black Boot” when Wilson told her near the end of her senior year that he and Antonucci were rekindling the project. With Antonucci, Witenberg helped create a new website, www.theblackboot.com, and started to get the word out about the magazine. “[It] doesn't feel like work at all,” she said. “Reading, writing, getting the word out about up and coming writers? I
couldn't ask for a better way to be spending my time.” Witenberg is now a co-editor of the publication from New York, where she is starting her first year at New York University. She said she will read submissions, run the magazine’s Facebook page and make the magazine known in New York by “plastering ‘Black Boot’ flyers all around the city.” “It is a great way to reach a wider audience,” she said. The magazine officially launched this summer with an event called “The 90 -Minute Assignment,” during which a dozen writers ventured down Hollywood Boulevard to “find a story,” Wilson said. Witenberg participated in the event along with Siena Leslie ’08, although she said she did not plan on joining in. “Originally I wasn't planning on writing—my job was to document the extravaganza with my camera,” Witenberg said. “But about 20 minutes in, I just couldn't resist.” Witenberg’s story, “Stealing Souls,” and Leslie’s “Games” can be read on the website. Wilson said that even before January, when he hopes to publish the magazine, the website will be a “breathing organism” which will be updated twice a month.
Nine students and alumni were named semifinalists and finalists in the Moondance International Film Festival. Michael Stampler’s ’09 film “Castles Made of Sand” and Danielle Strassman’s ’11 film “The Amazing Adventure of Sarah Waters” were semifinalists in the Short Film for Kids category. Short Films by Kids semifinalists include Sebastian Spader ’08 for his film “1234: A Study of Romance” and Jackson Kroopf ’06 and Michael Lubin ’06 for their film “Books and Cartwheels”. Harvard-Westlake cleaned out in the Short Films by Kids finals, winning all five spots. The finalists were Evan Hamilton’s ’07 “Broken” and “The Life and Times of Buster Chaplin,” Jessica Lee’s ’08 “Never Again”, Xochi Maberry-Gaulke’s ’12 “The Good, the Bag, and the Ugly” and Zelda Wengrod’s ’13 “The Night in Question.” “Broken” by Hamilton won the Columbine Award and “Never Again” by Lee won the Dolphin Award. The Moondance International Film Festival is held each year in Boulder, Colorado at the base of the Rocky Mountains at Chautauqua
Park. The first festival was at the end of the summer of 2000. This is the first year that visual arts teacher Cheri Gaulke entered students in this particular festival. Gaulke had heard of the Moondance festival, but it wasn’t until one of her students, Zelda Wengrod, did some research that she considered submitting works into the Festival. The submitted films were made by students from the past two or three years since films were not required to be new upon entering. The large range was also due to the fact that none of the films had been seen at the festival before. When choosing which films to send, Gaulke picked films that had done well in other film festivals. “I just want to send the best work,” Gaulke said. Strassman, director and co-writer of the short film, “The Amazing Adventure of Sarah Waters,” made the film at Gaulke’s summer program in 2007. “It’s about a quirky girl who finds a book that teaches her how to read minds and tries to help people by reading their minds,” Strassman said. “But then it goes bad, and all the good things she’s done have consequences and she has to fix them. It has a happy ending though.”
courtesy of cheri gaulke
never again: Jessica Lee’s ’08 Public Service Announcement about Darfur, was a finalist in the Short Films by Kids catagory at Moondance.
Sept. 3, 2008
News A9
The Chronicle
Students learn Spanish, volunteer in Argentina
By Hana Al-Henaid
photos courtesy of andrew zaragoza
Argentinian wild: The school group goes horseback riding in Barreal (above) and skis through the snowy mountains of Penitentes (below).
Twelve students volunteered at an orphanage for girls and polished their Spanish while they spent three weeks of their summer in San Juan, Argentina for the Foreign Language Department’s 14th annual summer trip. The trip was centered on language improvement, immersing students in the culture and offering four hours of Spanish language instruction every day. “[Volunteering] is one of the highlights of our trip since these are institutions with real social needs and our students rise to the occasion and provide a much needed service,” chaperone and Spanish Department Head Javier Zaragoza said. The students, led by Zaragoza, his daughter Laura Zaragoza ’06 and middle school Spanish teacher Andrew Brabbee, departed for Argentina on July 17. After three days of touring, the students arrived in San Juan and were assigned to live with an Argentinian family while they attended classes. Other than language classes and community service, the students participated in city excursions, nature sightseeing and tango lessons during the weekdays. On the weekends, the students traveled outside of San Juan. They stayed in cabins in Barreal and toured Buenos Aires, engaging in activities from horseback riding to tango shows. “Our students were placed in an environment with no English spoken, so they had to fend for themselves,” Zara-
Science teacher Wendy Van Norden received a grant for about $15,000 from the National Science Foundation at the end of the last school year. She will use the money to continue work from a previous $83,000 grant from UCLA. Van Norden’s goal is to make geology a subject available for students who are especially passionate about science in schools throughout the state of California and the rest of the country. The reason it is so important that there is a challenging Honors Geology course geared for high school students is because many students who are good at science chose not to take geology in high school and therefore do not take it in college, Van Norden said. This leaves the United States with a desperate need for geologists, she said. Van Norden also said that the reason so many students do not take geology is because most geology courses (with Harvard-Westlake as an exception) do not grant lab credit for the course. Van Norden received her first grant three years ago after being approached by a representative of the Geoscience Education at the National Science Foundation, who thought Van Norden might be interested in creating an Honors Geology class and then using the course as a model. Since Van Norden was extremely interested in putting together an Honors Geology course, she applied for a grant at UCLA and collaborated with UCLA to construct a course
in which students would receive college credit. The goal was not just to piece together the course, but also to display this model to other educators around the state and the country, so that they might be able to implement this Honors Geology course. Van Norden also used her grant to give a few workshops, she said. At the end of last year, Van Norden gave the National Science Foundation, her report on what she had created. With her grant from UCLA, Van Norden established a course that would give students lab credit and an extra GPA point. Her class was officially classified as an Honors class according to the UC system. The day after Van Norden turned in her grant report she received an e-mail from the National Science Foundation asking her to apply for more money to do more workshops. Subsequently, Van Norden wrote a second grant so she could do more workshops specifically in California. San Diego public schools are looking to try her model. She believes this could be beneficial because other schools in the state could see how her model works in public schools. Van Norden has already started giving more workshops on the second grant and is scheduled to do more. “High schools give students the opportunity to take Earth Sciences, which include meteorology, oceanography and astronomy,” she said. She also hopes that “people go to college realizing there are more sciences then simply biology, chemistry and physics.”
—Jack Petok ‘11
goza said. “The results after three weeks are a reversal of their self esteem and the confidence to speak the language.” Generally, the summer trip appeals to students who want to improve their Spanish skills and experience a new culture. The objective of the trip is to put the students in a safe environment in order to facilitate personal growth and maturity, Zaragoza said. “The bottom line for our trips is to help the students develop character and learn to address a culture different from ours from within, from its foundation,” Zaragoza said. After the program, four students who were previously on the borderline for acceptance into Advanced Placement Spanish courses will now enroll in the classes, while another student who hoped to advance to Spanish II was placed in a Spanish III class after a placement test, Zaragoza said. “I understood everything within three days and could speak with proficiency, which is amazing because I had never taken a Spanish class,” Jack Petok ’11 said. “I even dreamed in Spanish.”
New president leads Parents’ Association
Science teacher receives grant for Honors Geology By Daniel Rothberg
“I understood everything within three days and could speak with proficiency. i even dreamed in spanish.”
By Nicki Resnikoff
Katherine Hong/chronicle
geology rocks: Science teacher Wendy Van Norden experiments with earth rocks and distilled water in the classroom.
Susie Goren (Zach ’03, Sheera ’05, Jake ’08, Nicole ’12) has assumed the role of president of the Parents’ Association for the upcoming year. Goren has been involved with the Parents’ Association on and off for 11 years. She has held positions such as Corresponding Secretary, Committee Chair for Faculty Appreciation and Grade Representative. She was chosen as president through the standing method of nomination. Goren has also been involved within the Parents’ Association at Stephen S. Wise Temple. Goren has made the decision to be involved for so long because she views the commitment as a way of saying thank you to the school and the faculty, she said. “In my opinion, the job of an effective president is to come in with a wealth of volunteer experience, allow the officers to do their jobs, listen, communicate and provide feedback when necessary,” she said. “In order to make improvements and/or create change, it takes a group effort.” Goren will collaborate with the executive board and meet with the committees to oversee all the portfolios and activities. As of now there have been no events planned that are unique this year, nor have there been any major changes to the structure of the association; there are only new faces. The Board of the Parents’ Association had had several meetings this summer. Goren is most looking forward to “working alongside fellow Harvard Westlake parents and building community,” she said. “It is important to be able to see the bigger picture respecting the philosophy of our school.”
A10 News
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Study abroad programs attract juniors By Mac Taylor
Gavin Cook ’10 has always been fascinated with China. So during his sophomore year, he sat down at his computer and searched “school year abroad programs in China.” Now, six months later, he is in Beijing, riding a bike to school every morning from his Chinese host family’s home. He is taking classes at a local school where he will work on his Chinese and study the country’s history from the Qing dynasty to modern times. “I’m really excited, and maybe a little nervous because of the political situation, but it’s really a once in a lifetime experience,” he said. Cook will also have several opportunities to travel during his year abroad. In November, his class of 30 students will take an excursion to the Hunnan province and live among the indigenous people there while doing community service, as well as taking a hike on the Great Wall. Cook said he is especially looking forward to the February trip to Tibet. “I’ve heard from other students that it’s really phenomenal, and I’ll be seeing things that most white people or Americans will never see,” he said. Cook is one of several students spending this school year studying in a foreign country. Some are travelling through the School Year Abroad program (SYA), which offers students the opportunity to study in France, Spain, Italy, China and India, while others found schools on their own. SYA accepts around 60 students for each of its schools, and requires students studying in France and Spain to have taken at least two years of French or Spanish. Harper Wayne ’10 chose to spend her junior year with SYA in Rennes, France. Wayne has taken French since seventh grade and became interested in going to France last year when her French teacher, Geoffrey Bird, showed her class a video made by SYA advertising their program. She then began the application, which required two teacher recommendations, an essay, and a letter to her host family written in French. “I’ll have the opportunity to take classes that aren’t offered at Harvard-Westlake,” such as French
courtesy of harper wayne
i louvre france: Harper Wayne ’10 stands in front of the Louvre in Paris on her first trip to France. Wayne will return to France this year to study in Rennes with the School Year Abroad program. Culture and French Art History, she said. In Rennes, she will live with a host family and take classes conducted entirely in French at an American school. “I’ve been counting down the days all summer,” she said. Danielle Naghi ’09 is the lone senior going abroad, spending first semester in India. She will take the SAT at an Indian school, as well as completing and mailing her college applications from India. After seeing an SYA presentation at school, she initially wanted to go to Spain, but was reluctant to spend her entire year abroad. She then learned that SYA was adding India to its offered destinations, and allowing students to stay there for only one semester. Naghi was attracted to the numerous community service opportunities in India. She will attend classes at a local K-12 school, which has added a classroom for SYA students.
On weekends, students will go on excursions to landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas, as well as do community service projects related to climate change. The SYA program in India has several unique requirements. Students must be vaccinated for Yellow Fever and malaria before arriving, and girls must observe a modest dress code. Tops that reveal shoulders are forbidden, as well as skirts that end above the knees. Zack Peck ’10 will be spending his junior year in Switzerland, independent of any program. He will attend Aiglon College in Schtaadt, where he will take Philosophy, Business and Music. “I wanted to go there because my dad went, and it looks like Hogwarts,” Peck said. During the year he plans to work at a restaurant and try out for the school’s ski team. “I’m really looking forward to taking a Philosophy class, and being able to take photos in the Swiss Alps,” he said.
Junior, senior organize charity event to benefit non-profit organizations
Zwemer wins ‘loyalty’ award By Alexia Boyarsky
By Tiana Woolridge
History teacher Eric Zwemer received the Carolyn and Marion Hays don hagopian/chronicle Award for loyalty and dedication to Eric Zwemer the school at the faculty meeting last Wednesday. The award is named after former teacher and Harvard School assistant headmaster Marion Chandler Hays. Zwemer was chosen for his “consideration of the interests of others” which “characterizes all of his interactions with his colleagues and students,” Head of School Dr. Jeanne Huybrechts said in a speech at the faculty meeting. “It was very surprising to me,” Zwemer said. “If you look at the people that got it before me, it’s a very special and a very rarified group.” The award was established in 2004 by Hays’ sons Thomas ’53 and Louis ’62 following their father’s death. The first award was given to Vice President John Amato. Zwemer is the fifth teacher to be honored, following history teacher John Corsello and visual arts teachers Kay Carlson and Kevin O’Malley. The recipient of the award is chosen annually by President Thomas C. Hudnut and Huybrechts. “The thing I’ll remember most is how I was sitting in the middle of my row and I had to wade through the crowd, who were all offering congratulations to get to the stage,” Zwemer said. “The gestures and the reaction of my colleagues, it all felt very warm.” The honoree is also awarded with $5000, but Zwemer says he has “no plans for it at the moment.”
A dinner and silent auction will be held at the JJ Grand Hotel in Korea Town tomorrow to raise awareness and funds for REDesign Los Angeles, a non-profit organization working to redesign government facilities or facilities of other non-profits, to make them more comfortable and practical. REDesign, which was created in 2007, is managed by Heidi Chung ’10 and Grace Park ’09 along with Matthew Kim, a junior at Windward School. Once Chung, Park and Kim research and choose a non-profit in need, select a room and create a design for that room, the construction company TCG carries out the physical work to make their plan a reality. “We are a newly created organization and the construction company was generous enough to do [the construction work] for free,” Chung said, “but what we need to do now is actually have money in the organization so that we can help other people with what we raise.” REDesign has already redone the flooring and walls of two dental rooms at Los Angeles Christian Health Centers, and is supplying their waiting room with a new air-conditioner and chairs. The organization is also working with Kollaboration, a non-profit organization focused on empowering Asian Americans through entertain-
~All ages ~All subjects: i.e. calc & stats ~Available: evenings & weekends
ment. Future plans include donating new furniture to Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Center and speaking with the Olympic office to see what they need. Chung, the vice president of the organization, and Park, the president, have known each other for years. When a family friend of Park mentioned a community service opportunity, she shared it with Chung and they began formulate ideas of what projects they could do themselves. They are no strangers to helping communities at home and around the world. Chung worked with Habitat for Humanity to build houses in New Orleans and volunteered at an orphanage in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Park repainted a school in Costa Rica and volunteered to work with children through Para Los Niños, Mar Vista Head Start and the same orphanage in Mexico. However, when their first project with the Los Angeles Christian Health Centers (previously known as the Los Angeles Mission Community Clinic) involved more construction than medical work, they realized their passion for designing through community service. This gave them the idea to change the focus of their organization, and also a name; by boldening and capitalizing “red” in the word redesign, they emphasize the design aspect of the organization.
Contact:
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LAmathGuy@yahoo.com Cell: (310) 383-9072
(323) 462-1010 (323) 462-1515 FAX
14422 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 (818) 907-6716 (818) 907-0526 FAX
www.iguanaclothing.com
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
AP, Honors chemistry teacher leaves school after 25 years
By Cathi Choi Chemistry teacher Stephen Marsden wrote famously fast responses to student e-mails. But to emails for this article with questions about why he left the school, Marsden wrote no response. “He was amazing in terms of responding to emails, which completely influenced me,” Marsden’s former collegue Chris Dartt said. “I’m sure he would have helped you with chemistry past midnight, on weekends, but that was the line. Beyond that, he was pretty private.” And it was in this fashion that Marsden ended his 25-year teaching career. He sent an e-mail in March to his departmental colleagues and Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts announcing his departure, but asked them to keep it secret. He did not go to the end of the year faculty party where President Thomas C. Hudnut usually recognizes departing teachers. When some faculty members tried to throw him a party, he said he would not attend. And without a word to students about retiring, he left his Munger desk on the last day for good. “Mr. Marsden didn’t want anyone to make a fuss,” Dartt said. Dartt began teaching AP Chemistry three years ago, most likely in anticipation of Marsden’s retirement, Dartt said. He will assume Marsden’s role as team leader of AP and Honors Chemistry. He will share the Honors Chemistry load with Krista McClain and new teacher Stephania Quan. “[Marsden] was a very conscientious, very caring person,” Huybrechts said. “I frankly think that he might never have left had there not been a good person to take over for him.” Huybrechts made Marsden’s departure public through a June e-mail in which she detailed her admiration for his teaching and future plans. “I sort of doubt he will be teaching,” Huybrechts said. “I know that he and his partner like to travel. He has a lot of hobbies and likes to garden. But it might just be that he is retired, period.” Huybrechts taught alongside Marsden for two
News A11
“Mr. marsden didn’t want anyone to make a fuss.”
—Chris Dartt Chemistry Teacher
years in AP Chemistry. “He was shy and quiet and it was not surprising that he wanted his departure to be unannounced,” Huybrechts said. “Sometimes the best thing you can give a person is what they want, and what he wanted was just to fade off into the sunset.” Gina Chang ’09 was surprised when she went with AP Chemistry peers to give Marsden their class gift, and he gave them no hints about his retirment. “He just said ‘have a good summer’ and ‘see you next year,’ ” Chang said. But Chang said that she knew Marsden was never a fan of attention. And while other Marsden students were shocked at the news, they recognized, like Chang, that their teacher disliked the limelight. “I think we were all surprised by his departure and certainly upset, but I don’t think anyone was surprised by his manner of departure. He’s always been very low-key,” Adam Rothman ’09, Marsden’s student in AP Chemistry said. Marsden was the team leader for the AP and Honors Chemistry courses and taught AP Chemistry since the merger. He structured the program since the merger, department chair Larry Axelrod said. He also wrote all the lab text for the course, and for some labs he attributed content to outside sources. “He left the campus a much better place for a student to learn chemistry,” Dartt said. “When your kids take chemistry at Harvard-Westlake, they will take a class that is heavily influenced by Mr. Marsden.” Outside the classroom, Marsden would often help out colleagues with computer programming and questions about chemistry and lab equipment. “Because he has such expertise, other colleagues would come and ask him, and he’d bend over backwards to help you,” Axelrod said. Marsden set a standard in the science department
vox
moving on: Chemistry teacher Stephen Marsden left school with little fanfare at the end of last year. with his integration of technology, Dartt said. He created the Honors and AP Chemistry course websites and used programs to present information in his classes, created by others or by himself. “He was innovative in using technology if it were effective in teaching,” Axelrod said. “He’d be more likely to write a program from scratch than use an already-created program that he didn’t trust.” Marsden created numerous original calculator programs for Honors and AP labs. He wrote a program that controls the Texas Instrument program Calculator Based Laboratory, a program used in Honors and AP. He also modified the program to make it more user-friendly and reliable, Dartt said. And even before its creation, Marsden wrote a program performing the CBL’s functions that were “very advanced for its time,” Dartt said. On top of making calculator programs easier to use, Rothman said his style of teaching eased his understanding of AP Chemistry. “It’s no small feat to make ridiculously complex concepts easy to grasp. It’s another thing entirely to make it fun,” Rothman said. “That was Marsden’s real gift: making us enjoy the most stressful and difficult class we will probably ever take.” From her two years of working with Marsden, Huybrechts also said she learned a lot. “There’s no individual that has taught me more about teaching than Mr. Marsden,” Huybrechts said.
A12
features
The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School Volume XVIII Issue 1 Sept. 3, 2008
Ditching the gas guzzler: Students are gearing towards more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Smaller and lighter cars Mini Cooper S City: 28 mpg Highway: 32 mpg Cost of a fill-up: $54 Annual fuel cost: $1,990
Motorcycles Yamaha Majesty 400
Hybrids Toyota Prius City: 48 mpg Highway: 45 mpg Cost of a fill-up: $40.06 Annual fuel cost: $1,217
City: 50 mpg Highway: 62 mpg Cost of a fill-up: $14.73 Annual fuel cost: $1,085* * Based on 15,000 annual miles and a fuel price of 3.98 per gallon Source: fueleconomy.gov
Avoiding the gas pump By Andrew Lee Eli Stein ’09 didn’t use air conditioning in his car once this summer. That way he was able to get an extra three miles per gallon on his Volvo. The discomfort was worth the dollars he shaved off his gas bill, he said. Stein is one of many students changing the way he drives in response to skyrocketing prices at the gas station. In an informal survey of 50 upper school students, 41 said that escalating gas prices have made them adopt new habits or drive different cars. Six of the students interviewed traded in their gas guzzlers for smaller or more fuelefficient cars, and three students bought manual transmission cars to improve gas mileage. Seven said they had adopted efficient driving habits such as braking less, taking highways more and avoiding peak traffic hours. Some students cut back on other expenses and avoided going out with friends. The change at Harvard-Westlake mirrors a larger state and national trend. The U.S. Department of Transportation reported Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer miles in April compared to the same month last year. It is the first time since 1979 that traffic on the roads declined in California, the Department of Transportation
How to get more bang for your buck
1.
Brake less: Driving with your foot on the brake can increase gas consumption by as much as 35%. Savings: 96 cents per gallon
clean: Check your air 2. Keep filter. Nearly one in four cars
needs a replacement, and it can improve gas mileage by almost 10%. Savings: 28 cents per gallon
3.
Slow down: Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph. Savings: 19 cents per gallon, by reducing speed from 70 mph to 65 mph
smoother: Increase gas 4. Drive mileage by up to 33% on the
highway and 5% on the streets by accelerating and decelerating more smoothly. Savings: 48 cents per gallon
Source: thedailygreen.com
of her meals at home to avoid spending extra money at restaurants. Her parents won’t let her drive unless she has an “important doctor’s appointment.” Sharma said it was not always like this in her house. “Now that I think about it, gas prices have taken over my family’s lifestyle,” Sharma said. “It makes you really want to try and get the most out of your trip.” Sharma takes the freeway more and avoids slow local streets to save gas. “These habits are more beneficial to our wallets and the environment,” Sharma said. “It’s sad to know that we’re destroying all this natural beauty that the world has to offer because of our own selfish needs.” Other students said they were motivated to use less gas because of their concern for global warming. Allison Paller ’09 and Kelsey Geiser ’09 bought hybrid cars because they wanted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sunho Lee ’09, Carl Lawson ’09, Rory Handel ’09 and Belton bought manual transmission cars to increase fuel efficiency. Lawson said manual cars are more efficient because drivers can shift at a lower RPM and roll in neutral. Lawson traded in his automatic BMW for a manual Audi last April. “It was hard to make the stick shift adjustment at first but I was forced to get used to it,” Lawson said. Handel, who drives an Audi S4, enjoys going on a joy ride in Malibu at least once a month, but hasn’t been able to since April. “With a declining economy and the effects of global warming in front of us, these new habits are definitely here to stay in the next few decades,” Handel said.
Lowest gas prices near campus* A) Arco-$3.84
C
B
Many students change their lifestyles to save gas as prices rise.
reported on its website. Gasoline costs are causing students to reconsider carpools, vacations and car purchases. With gas nearing $4 a gallon in Los Angeles, students suggest that gas prices are transforming teenage culture. Alistair Belton ’09 is looking to buy a Honda motorcycle for $4,500 to cope with rising gas prices. He calculated that the price of the motorcycle would pay itself off in seven months through the gas money he would save. Since his Audi only gets 10 miles per gallon, the 50 mpg motorcycle will reduce his weekly gas costs by $150, he said. “A motorcycle might be dangerous, but I’m only using it for short commutes,” Belton said. “These gas prices are just too much.” “Not only do I have more money to spend, but I can also live a greener lifestyle by emitting less green house gasses in the air,” Belton added. Kimo Thorpe ’09 pays $97 to fill up the tank of his 1991 Cadillac Brougham that gets 10 mpg. Thorpe now spends more days at home instead of going out. “I can’t afford these sky-high prices,” Thorpe said. “It’s ridiculous.” Thorpe has been asking his mom to trade his car for a more gas-efficient car, but so far she has not agreed. Neha Sharma ’09, who lives in Agoura Hills, said she doesn’t hang out or go to parties far from home because they are not worth the drive. She only goes to the gym when she can carpool with a friend in her neighborhood. She walks or roller skates to the local grocery store and takes the bus for local commutes, she said. Sharma stays home and eats in for most
4359 Coldwater Canyon Ave 0.73 miles
B
B) Arco-$3.93
12500 Ventura Blvd 0.95 miles
C) Chevron-$3.95 12007 Ventura Blvd 1.3 miles
*As of Aug. 29, 2008
A
Sept. 3, 2008
Features A13
The Chronicle
New kids on the block
Eve Bilger ’10
The class of 2010 has two new students and the class of 2011 has eight new students.
Courtesy of Gracie Warwick
upper school Bookstore
Gracie Warwick ’10
From Marlborough School
From The Lady Eleanor Holles in London
Interests: Photography Quote: “I wanted to transfer to Harvard-Westlake because it is a larger school and has a lot more opportunities. I am so excited to be able to participate in the classic high school events like a football game.”
upper school Bookstore
Interests: Lacrosse Quote: “Harvard-Westlake looked by far the nicest; everybody was really friendly, including the teachers.”
Courtesy of Emily khaykin
Courtesy of Kelly Ohriner
Ryan Gould ’11
Emily Khaykin ’11
Kelly Ohriner ’11
Interests: Water polo, art, foreign language Quote: “I have been really excited about HarvardWestlake since I found out about my acceptance.”
Interests: Tennis, drama Quote: “I’m totally psyched for next year.”
Interests: Singing, guitar, drama, journalism Quote: “The schedule at Harvard-Westlake and the possibility of having multiple frees in a day appeals more to me.”
From Campbell Hall
Ellie Diamant ’11
From BASIS in Arizona
Courtesy of Ellie Diamant
Benjamin Dreier ’11
From Palisades Charter High School
upper school Bookstore
From Mirman School
From American Heritage in Florida
Interests: Art, philosophy Quote: “I chose to go to Harvard-Westlake mostly because of the academics and how many classes I can take there. You could say our schedule at Mirman is pre-made.”
Interests: Debate, choir, tennis Quote: “I chose to come here because the school has a good feel and a good reputation.”
Courtesy of richard Weisman Jr.
Richard Weisman Jr. ’11 From Crossroads School
Interests: Baseball Quote: “I love baseball and I am really exited to play at Harvard-Westlake.”
Courtesy of Skylar Tsutsui
Courtesy of Nick Lieberman
Skylar Tsutsui ’11
Nick Lieberman ’11
From Granada Hills Charter High School
From Mirman School
Interests: Basketball, photography Quote: “I came to Harvard-Westlake because there is a good basketball program and the coaches at Granada were not very serious.”
Interests: Drama Quote: “I’m really looking forward to participating in the performing arts department.” Compiled by Anna Etra, Jack Davis, And Sean Kyle
A14 Features
Chapter 1: Four seniors begin the college application process. By Derek Schlom Holly Holly, whose name, like all the others in this story, has been changed, currently plans on applying Early Decision to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “I want to be an actress on Broadway someday, and Northwestern has a fantastic theatre program,” she said. Holly’s dean has placed Northwestern in the “50/50” category on her college list, indicating that she has a 50 percent chance of being either accepted or rejected. In addition, Holly will probably soon submit an application to her second choice school, the University of Michigan, which makes admissions decisions on a rolling basis and thus does not conflict with her Early Decision application to Northwestern. However, Northwestern’s Early Decision program dictates that Holly would be contractually obligated to attend Northwestern in the event of her acceptance. If she is denied admission to both universities, Holly plans to apply to at least seven other schools. Most of her choices, including Yale and Brown, are in the Northeast. “I want an experience different from the West Coast,” she said. “I want it to snow in the winter.” Also on Holly’s list of schools are the alma maters of her parents, yet she said that both have remained “hands off throughout the process.” “They’ve heard the horror stories about some Harvard-Westlake parents and don’t want to be like that,” she said. “They have their preferences, but they really want me to choose a school based on what I want.” Denise In contrast, Denise’s parents are significantly influencing her list of college choices. “Basically, they want me to stay home because they are going to miss me,” she said. “They don’t want me to go away.”
Interview s
Re ad y, S et, GO !!
High Stakes
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Col lege College
Applicatio
ns
Deferred
Early Decisio n
Accepted
Graphic by Drew Lash
As a result, Denise is almost exclusively planning to apply to Los Angeles-area schools, with Occidental College as her current top choice. At the moment, however, she does not plan to apply there Early Decision. “I’m just not sure if I’ll be ready to make a commitment like that yet,” she said. “I don’t rule it out, though.” Occidental has been designated by her dean as a “50/50” school, while USC, UCLA, and Pitzer College are “realistic challenges.” Denise is also considering a select few colleges on the East Coast. Among her choices is Clark University in Worcester, Mass., a school that she considers her second choice. Her parents have misgivings. “My dad says that he would understand if I like a school that’s far away, but they’d rather me do that for graduate school,” she said. Raymond Raymond, a varsity athlete, has been recruited by several small Midwestern schools, but none have piqued his interest. Instead, he plans to walk on to the team at whichever college he eventually attends. “I’m not relying on [my sport] to help me too much,” he said. He spent part of his summer at a camp for his sport at UC Davis, a school he refers to as his top choice. “It’s a really nice environment,” he said. The UC system does not offer an early admission option. Davis’ distance from Los Angeles (about an hour by plane) is a draw for Raymond, who is reluctant to leave behind his single mother. “It’s difficult because it’s always just been my mother and me and now that I’m leaving I’m not sure
we remember
how she will react,” he said. “She didn’t go to college and I’m her only son so this is all new for both of us. She just wants me to go to college.” As a result, Raymond has been relying heavily on his dean as a resource throughout the process. “She has a big say in what schools I apply to because I trust her a lot and she has been right about everything so far,” he said. Raymond considers the amount of financial aid offered to him the most important factor in his college decision. “I would drop UC Davis or SMU for a school with a better aid package,” he said. “I will be on some sort of aid wherever I go, but the less [tuition], the better.” Brian Numerous top schools, including Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and Brown, are recruiting Brian, also a varsity athlete. “All of the schools that I am interested in are recruiting me so I guess I got lucky,” he said. Stanford, the first school to begin recruiting Brian, then a sophomore, is now his top choice for its academics. “I value the quality of the education that I would receive rather than the strength of the sports program,” he said. After receiving his initial letter from Stanford, Brian (who has a 4.0 weighted GPA) contacted several schools with strong programs in his sport, as well as reputable academics, indicating his interest. One of those universities was Princeton, now Brian’s second choice. “[Princeton’s] sports program isn’t at the same level as Stanford, but if I went to Princeton I would get significant playing time my freshman year,” Brian said.
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Sept. 3 2008
Features A15
The Chronicle
Rallying for Obama
Hannah rosenberg/chronicle
hannah rosenberg/chronicle
Signs of change: (clockwise from top) Maddy ’09 and Ben Sprung-Keyser ’11 sit in the Pepsi Center in Denver, Col.; a fellow supporter with Tessa Wick ’09, Maddy, and Hannah Rosenberg ’11 hold up Obama signs at the convention; Brandon Levin ’09 and Wick pose at the Pepsi Center. By Hana Al-Henaid At 11 a.m. last Thursday, Brandon Levin ‘09 was standing in a line with 5,000 other diehard fans, patiently waiting for the gates to open at 1 p.m. The line-up for the show included performances by Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, will.i.am,. John Legend, Michael McDonald and Jennifer Hudson. But the 84,000 men, women and children that would eventually pack INVESCO field didn’t come thousands upon thousands of miles to see any of these types of celebrities. This was the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and everyone here came to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America. It all started on Aug. 24 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Col., with a speech by Michelle Obama. Nestled in among the crowd of expresidents, senators, and thousands of delegates sat at least 11 HarvardWestlake students and alums. Sam Teller ’04, Brandon Levin ’09, Tessa Wick ’09, Maddy Sprung-Keyser ’09, Ben Sprung-Keyser ’11, Aiden Brewster ’10, and Hannah Rosenberg ’11, Sammy McGowen ’07, Sam Alper ’07 attended the DNC and witnessed everything from Bill Clinton’s speech on Wednesday to conga lines weaving through the crowd before Obama’s remarks on Thursday. “It’s been unbelievable – you can’t
even imagine the intensity in that room, everyone’s been going crazy,” Wick said. “I came to the DNC this year because I wanted to see history happening in front of me, and I definitely have.” One of Levin’s favorite speeches was delivered by former President Clinton. And although excitement was a major factor for the attendees, the most memorable moments didn’t always come from times of complete certainty. “Before the speech, I was scared he wouldn’t advocate unity as much as he needed to or say what needed to be said — but he really did,” Levin said. As head prefects, Wick and Levin said they were particularly influenced by the leadership qualities Obama demonstrates. “Nobody’s a better example of a fantastic leader than Barack Obama. It’s amazing to even be in his presence. When he walked on the stage, people around me started crying,” Wick said. “Barack has given me, and hopefully most of the kids at school too, the sense that we can change things for the better. He revolutionized politics and made it more about the belief and hope that people can change,” Levin said. Alumna Jessica Yellin ’89 covered the convention for CNN and Brian Goldsmith ’00 is a producer for CBS news and will attend both conventions.
courtesy of BEn Sprung-Keyser
Alumni working at the convention: Brian Goldsmith ’00 Former Executive Editor of The Chronicle Producer for CBS Evening News
CBSNews.com
Jessica Yellin ’89 Westlate Class President 1989 CNN Reporter cnn.com
chronicle.hw.com “Experiencing ‘change’ first hand” Hannah Rosenberg ‘11 blogs about her experience working as an intern for Senator Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Illustrations by Drew lash
The Ch
A16 Features
if you build it, they will c
Sept. 3,
After a summer of demolition and con campus is back in action and the first p plete. Full coverage of how they got th
cathi ch
the last leg: Vice President John Amato looks on as workers pave the stair case, one of several minor jobs that were done on campus last week in prep orientation yesterday. Across the unplanted lawn is the new academic building. The names of all of the buildings will be released some time this fall, Amato sa
Construction shakes up routine Effects of the Middle School Modernization go beyond the new buildings on campus.
By Dana Glaser
cathi choi/chronicle
OUT WITH THE OLD: To the left a series of photos show the destruction of the old tower. The Administration Building originally belonged to Westlake and was built in 1927. Above, a new tower has been built with a nod to tradition; the light that hangs at the top is a relic from Westlake.
daniel lundberg/vox
On 700 North Faring Road gleaming new buildings rise up from an expanse of hot, dry dirt. It’s a little more than one week before the beginning of the new school year – the phone lines are disconnected and there is no internet. Boxes are stacked in empty classrooms, carpets are being laid and workers touch up paint jobs in classrooms. One week left and the middle school modernization surges forward, pushing the deadline with assorted odd jobs and what Vice President John Amato calls “finish work.” But through the odd jobs the construction site is becoming a campus for the first time as teachers begin to trickle into their offices. And now, ready or not, the campus is housing 730 middle school students and ready for a return to business as usual, with the addition of a new academic building, library, auditorium, and an expansive Lower Lawn. Everything was to be ready by yesterday for orientation, while the phone lines and internet were to be up by Friday. Phase I-B, which includes a new field, will be under way this year while students are on campus, though the school will continue its policy of separating students from the construction with the use of a construction fence. In the previous two years of the project the physical realities of construction have affected students in minor ways, said Head of Middle School Ronnie Codrington-Cazeau. Freshmen lost the ninth grade circle and used a different locker area, student athletes played more games and
practices off campus and in the final months the Lower Lawn began to shrink. “Faculty were also affected minimally,” Cazeau said. “We lost faculty parking and many folks took the bus or carpooled, but people were great about doing it.” Summer Enrichment was pushed to the Upper School campus and Fast Start was cancelled. The administration, admission and advancement office also set up on Coldwater. The admission program is in flux as new seventh graders arrive to a campus vastly different from the one they toured nine months ago. “We gave a tour of the old campus,” Assistant Director of Admission Michelle Hung said. “But our philosophy is that our school is not buildings, so they were still able to get a feel of student life.” The new admission system to be implemented this year puts an emphasis on student life. Prospective students will now visit the middle school individually and interview during the week instead of the traditional family visiting day. “We are thinking very carefully about how to host people in the new buildings. [The ambassadors] are so excited, but we are going to need some time for students to actually experience the school themselves so they can give tours,” Hung said. Administrators are still unsure how much those experiences will change on the new campus, though the longer term effects of the modernization will be felt beyond the buildings it erected. Eventually, Amato said, the curriculum will adapt to utilize the new resources available. “We really don’t fully understand the full capabilities of that facility. I’m sure that over time the curriculum will be changed to fill it,” he said. “The greatest thing about the middle school faculty is that they have a great sense of adventure. We’re going to have a great adventure.”
hronicle
Features A17
, 2008
come
nstruction, the middle school phase of the project is comhere and what will happen now.
inner workings: The middle school now has its own kitchen (right). In previous years all the food was cooked at the upper school. A stained glass window and chandelier were preserved from the Westlake School (below) and installed in the new building. A man works in the connectivity center (left), where phone lines and internet lines meet.
cathi choi/chronicle
cathi choi/chronicle
cathi choi/chronicle
daniel lundberg/vox
September 2006: Purchased property adjacent to old campus regraded
hoi/chronicle
paration for aid.
June 2007: Steel supports for new buildings erected
July 7, 2008: AD building demolished
Sept. 3 2008: January 2009: Phase 1-A Expected comcomplete pletion of field February 2009: Expected completion of I-B
June 4, 2008: Music building and 7th grade locker area demolished
June 5, 2006: Groundbreaking ceremony
cathi choi/chronicle
stephanie deutsch/chronicle
graphic by Lauren Seo and Dana Glaser
Phase 1-A of construction comes to an end ‘construction’ from page A1
Associates. The buildings mirror each other across a re-created “Lower Lawn.” The stairway to the Academic Building evokes the old Terrace and a tower was designed to reflect the old Westlake tower. The library contains two technology labs, a research area with reference materials and computers and a silent study with a view overlooking the Lower Lawn. “It’s a beautiful setting,” Amato said, laughing. “I hope kids aren’t just going in there looking out the window and kind of dazing.” The 1,200 square feet of science classrooms are connected to full laboratories, like those in Munger Science Center at the Upper School. The new performing arts facilities include a dance studio with an enhanced sound system and connected dressing room. There is also a “Black Box,” an experimental theatre room for classes and performances. The eighth grade lockers and some social studies and foreign language classes will still be in Reynolds Hall, but the entire third floor and parts of the first floor are now devoted to the Visual Arts department.
Students can navigate the campus via the Fire Road, which connects the new buildings to the old ones. Passing periods have not been extended because Amato believes that five minutes is ample time to traverse the campus. Nixing things that don’t work and keeping those that do is essentially the theme of the modernization, Amato said. For instance, the library has the same 17,000 volumes that it held before. There is space for more books, but the librarians will first cull the collection and get rid of obsolete or unused books before adding any. Likewise, no new classes will be added solely for the sake of using the new facilities. “It’s like a science experiment,” Amato said. “You have to have a control. If you change too many things at once, you won’t know what works and what doesn’t work.” The six-day cycle is being maintained, but teachers’ offices have been reconfigured. Each department has a large office with individual desks and the departments are arranged in a circle of rooms on the top level of the Academic Building.
“I’m looking forward to being closer to all the other performing arts teachers,” dance teacher Carrie Green ’99 said. “It will be so nice to collaborate more as a department.” Green has a unique perspective, having attended Harvard-Westlake herself. “I remember hearing rumors about this ‘new campus’ when I was a student, so it’s pretty rewarding to be a part of the new campus as a teacher,” she said. Near these new offices, there is a lounge for seventh and ninth graders and two areas to store sports bags. Phase I-B is ahead of schedule, Amato said. Driveway site work, walkways and the new field are already underway. Soon a construction wall will be erected where the Administration Building and old field were, within which a new field will be built. Teams will practice at the Upper School until the field is completed. Together, Amato and Director of Campus Operations and Construction James De Matté have tackled minor obstacles, but there have not been major setbacks, Amato said. Teachers moved into their new offices the week of Aug. 25 and new
seventh and ninth graders had an orientation yesterday. Eighth and ninth graders went on tours last year but were not formally familiarized with the campus before the first day of school. “It’s going to be hilarious for the first couple of days,” Amato said. “It will be confusing, but we’re all going to learn together.” Amato said the response from parents and teachers has been generally positive. Assistant to the Head of the Upper School Michelle Bracken has received a few calls from parents worried about how their children will put their books away before school. “Parents and students are anxious about the changes and how this will ultimately affect their daily academic lives,” she said. “As an employee, I am very excited about the Modernization Project and the wonderful opportunity that this will bring for all of the middle school students new and returning.” “I’m excited for the opening day,” Amato said. “I’m excited for the kids, especially eighth and ninth graders, who have seen it in its awkward stage, to give it this jaw-drop and say ‘oh my god.’”
A18 Features
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Trying to restore a dying culture
By Faire Davidson At the end of July, the total number of Manx speakers in the world rose from 54 to 55 and Harvard-Westlake became the leading source on the language in the United States. All because Nick Merrill ’09 spent three weeks on the Isle of Man. Merrill spent his summer on the small island between England and Ireland stretching a mere 32 miles long as part of the Junior Summer Fellowship grant he received last May. He proposed a project to learn the nearly-extinct language of Manx, the native language on the island. His proposal was chosen out of seven others created by students and sent to school president Thomas C. Hudnut. “His proposal was unique, well-researched, thoroughly investigated and well presented,” Hudnut said. “It also dealt with a somewhat quirky, very unusual subject that might soon disappear, so I thought finding out about the Manx language before it died out completely would be a worthwhile project.” In order to find a subject for the fellowship, Merrill began by researching endangered languages. The native language of the Isle of Man was noted as under “extreme risk” of becoming an extinct language. He described the language as a small piece of England’s medieval past and a living relic, something that deserved to be preserved. “My purpose in going to the Island was to examine the cultural forces that push a language to the brink of extinction and to thoroughly document and record the language in case it ever dies out completely,” Merrill said. For his Independent Study course, Merrill will detail his experience in a 40 to 50 page paper outlining the history of the Island, the language itself, Manx’s threat of extinction and its recent revival. Manx began to die out in the 1950’s when many people began to deny they spoke the language because of pressure coming from the U.K. about English being a more proper language. One local was curious about the dwindling number of Manx speakers and found an older native speaker to teach him the language. In the 1980s, he began a class to teach Manx out of his home. It grew and in the 1990s the class became extremely popular and public interest in Manx began to spread. “Adults who had never heard a word of Manx in their life greeted one another with typical Manx greetings,” Merrill explained. Strangely, the island is a developed nation but began to lose pieces of its culture when the number of Manx speakers shrunk and nearly disappeared. Merrill saw the danger of com-
photos courtesy of Nick merrill
Island in the sun: (counterclockwise from the top) Nick Merrill ’09 stands on a cliff overlooking the Irish Sea, the town of Douglas, which Merrill frequented to find speakers of Manx, a class of young students learning Manx that Merrill observed as part of his study of the revival of the language. plete homogenization with the United Kingdom as an immediate threat and Manx as a way for the Isle of Man to retain its individuality. Although the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom, it is crown-dependant,
meaning that Britain does have some influence in its government. This close relation with the British people could have contributed to the diminution of the language, something Merrill will explore when writing his independent
study project. For three weeks Merrill lived in a boarding school in the city of Castletown along with archaeology students from the University of Liverpool who were excavating Rushen Abbey nearby. He shared a suite with four students from the university at King William’s College, which ressembles a small castle. He spent time with these students exploring the area and getting a better sense of the island’s culture. A few days after his arrival, the Duke of Lancaster’s regiment of Her Majesty’s Army arrived as well. Although they stayed across the campus, their early morning workouts on the cricket lawn became an alarm for the rest of the lodgers. In order to learn the language, Merrill took the train daily to various towns and explored the area to find Manx speakers. With a tape recorder and a notepad, he interviewed native speaking children and locals. Other days were spent tracking down Manx books and recordings to use to study and will be donated to the library when his research is done. Most text and recordings concerning the language are rare outside the island and until now, nonexistent in the United States. Merrill also sat in on Manx classes being taught to young children. After the class, he interviewed the students to find out more about their reasons for taking the class as part of his research on why it is being revived. He found them very enthusiastic to learn more about their culture, an interest that surprised Merrill. He also visited Bunscoil Gaelgagh or the Elementary School of Manx, which had taught 40 students who are now fluent speakers. While much of his time was spent learning the language, he also focused on learning about the culture of the island. One local told him “the best part about the island is that you make it yourself. There i’nt nothin’ to see. ‘Tis what you find in it, the island is.” It is lessons like this that Merrill learned from the locals that he brought back with him to the United States. Although Merrill technically went to the Isle of Man to learn a nearly extinct language, his experiences on this small island in the middle of the Irish Sea have amounted to more than expected, making the main goal of his trip, personal growth, exceed his expectations. Merrill summarized his experience in few words: “There’s a Czech saying: ‘The amount of tongues you know, the amount of times you have been human.’ I’d argue that this principal applies not only to language but to all of human culture.”
Going behind the textbook’s bindings By Ava Kofman, Drew Lash, and Jennie Porter
Irma Hernandez sits in her office adjacent to the bookstore and pulls open a thick white binder stuffed with pages of typed lists. She calls it “The Bible.” It contains all the course information for the entire school and the requests necessary to order books for any course at the Upper School — a process which takes over two months. “It is definitely one of the biggest operations on campus,” she says flipping through to the 10th grade English section, where 10,000 books were purchased for one year. The process begins in the spring after departments finalize their lists and turn them into the bookstore. The bookstore orders them from the publishers for the
lowest prices. The books are then delivered, catalogued, and if necessary, damaged books are returned. The ordeal of sorting through the thousands of books takes about two months and students are hired over the summer to aid the long process. The main job of all of the student employees is to count, catalogue and sort all of the books. Each individual student has their own book box and it is the job of the students to put the right books for each student in their own box. “Didax is our lifesaver,” Hernandez said, referring to the school’s computerized organizing system. Above Hernandez’s office two floors up, Paula Evans, Math Department Chair, is explaining why her department does not “change books on a whim.” Although teachers do not want to
change what they teach, ordering books can be confusing because they have to decide what “packaging to get.” The math department orders over 1,000 books a year. The math department heavily supplements their books with notes and review materials to “fit an entire notebook,” Evans said. She cited Statistics and Discrete Mathematics as the most supplemented class due to the wide range of topics covered. Switching books can be a necessity because used books are hard to find and college and SAT expectations keep changing. Edition changes that benefit students are inevitable as well. “Publishers are making the problems more approachable incorporating [online] materials,” Evans said.
In history as well, books are frequently revised. “A book may go out of print, we may get tired of a book, there may be a new edition and this prompts us to look for a new book,” History Department Chair Katherine Holmes-Chuba said. “For instance this year the regular U.S. team chose a new book because they had become dissatisfied with the new edition of the old book. So for a year different team members read different text books, and narrowed it down to the one that they choose.” Larry Weber, English department chair, said he changes an edition when it is physically unstable, unavailable or it offers “esoteric and somewhat useless notes on the text.” There is no policy or limit on the number of books English orders per year.
Drew lash/chronicle
arts entertainment
Sept. 3, 2008
Features A19
Actors participate in summer workshop
30 students fine-tuned their acting skills at a 3-week workshop this summer. By Katherine Hong Student actors donned red, bulbous noses and rainbow-colored wigs as they showcased the art of clowning, which was just one of the many theatrical disciplines they learned this summer. Performing Arts teacher Christopher Moore and 32 professional teachers, directors and artists worked with 30 students in the Summer Intensive Acting Workshop held at the upper school campus this summer. The SIAW, which is offered every other summer, runs for three weeks, eight hours a day. “The SIAW is a training program offering theater students many opportunities to further develop their craft,” Moore said. “It would be difficult to find many of the workshops we offer throughout our three-week SIAW in a college theater program.” This summer, the workshop took field trips to see two local shows and had two showcase performances, the first of which was a scene study showcase. Students were assigned 10-min-
ute scenes or plays and worked with professional directors before performing before an audience of 170 family members and friends. The last showcase the students held highlighted the different aspects and disciplines of theater they learned over the previous three weeks. “I loved our last showcase, where we combined all of the workshops that we’d been taking and gave the audience a taste of what SIAW was like,” Sarah Brandon ’09 said. “The whole show had so much energy, and there was a really fun sense of camaraderie when the whole ensemble got to put on a show together.” Moore believes the workshop was successful as well. “I was extremely proud of all the students who were involved and how hard they worked in all the workshops. They bonded as an ensemble,” he said. Incoming sophomores and current upper school students are eligible to apply for the SIAW, but it is not a prerequisite for any theatrical productions.
CHristopher moorE/reprinted with permission
CHristopher moorE/reprinted with permission
clowning around: Students actors participate in an exercise onstage (top); The members of SIAW play dress up as they showcase their less serious side in an exercise on “clowning around” this summer (bottom).
Hilt to direct orchestras
‘Woods’ auditions begin on Monday
By Jamie Kim In high school, new Upper School Orchestra Director Mark Hilt entered into the world of music when he began playing the trumpet. “My mom made me play the trumpet, and I hated it. I was terrible,” he said. When he didn’t make the band, he switched to the bass clarinet because no one else played it. Eventually, Hilt discovered choir. “It was what I was really interested in,” he said. Hilt’s musical “schizophrenia” did not end in high school or college. Since coming to the school as an accompanist to the choral ensembles more than a decade ago, he has also taught sight-singing, coached singers, conducted and served as music director of the annual musical theatre production. When last year’s director, William McClain, announced he would leave at the end of the school year, Hilt jumped at the opportunity. “I was very interested in doing it,” he said. “Of course I will miss being with the students on a regular basis, the singers that I’ve known and everything, but I’ve become more of a conductor in the last eight years.” Hilt has a vision for the program: quality over quantity. He plans on only having three concerts this year instead of the usual four. The first concert will be in January, giving students an extra month to prepare and perfect. “I think it’s more important to play less music really beautifully, than a lot of music sort of okay, because you guys are under a lot of pressure to do fast, and get things done, but that’s not what art should be about,” Hilt said. “Art should be about living with a piece for a long time, and feeling really great about it. When the orchestra sits down to play the concert they’ll know what they’re going to do, and they’re going to exceed what they’ve done.” Another change to the program is the elimination of the Symphony Orchestra’s Concerto Concert. For many years, the Concerto Concert has served as a showcase for individual talent. Winners in the Concerto Competition were given the chance to perform as soloists with the Symphony Orchestra. “I felt like it was more important that
By Lauren Seo
allegra tepper/chronicle
READY TO LEAD: Hilt will now conduct the upper school orchestras as the new director and will not longer be the choir accompanist. the orchestra play as an orchestra, rather than as an accompaniment to soloists,” he said. “Granted, there is a lot of great repertoire, and we have a lot of great soloists, but people signed up for the class Symphony, or Concert Orchestra.” Hilt plans on breaking up the Symphony into several smaller ensembles for the January concert. He also has plans for a collaboration between his orchestras and a small group of Chamber Singers for the January concert. “He is an incredibly talented guy. I’m sad he won’t be with us as our accompanist anymore, but I think he’ll also make a wonderful conductor,” Susanna Wolk ’10 said. Hilt also runs a concert series in Santa Monica called Jacaranda, and is the director of music at his church, where he conducts a choir and plays in services. “I want students to realize that music is not just something that they do when they’re kids,” he said. “You can still do it all your life. Our society is not really built for that, like it used to be.”
Although tawdry affairs and the deaths of loved ones are not themes one usually associates with childhood fairytales, “Into the Woods,” the upcoming fall musical production, was never supposed to be conventional. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine, the musical intertwines the stories of classic characters like Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood as each undergoes a quest to find his or her respective wish in a magical forest. While Act 1 sees everyone’s wish granted, what begins as a light fantasy morphs into a grim tale when the characters must deal with the consequences of their actions in Act 2. “The first half is fun with all the different fairy tales coming together, but the second half is much darker with the affairs and killings,” Kat Arenella ’10, who plans on auditioning for either Rapunzel or Cinderella, said. The musical was last performed at Harvard-Westlake in 2001, codirected by Ted Walch and Michele Spears, the current co-directors. “It’s a really popular and fun musical,” Christopher Moore, the show’s producer, said. “A lot of people liked it last time, so we decided to do it again.” Among the reasons why the Performing Arts Department chose to produce “Into the Woods” again was how drawn the directors were to the music and lyrics of Sondheim. “The music is beautiful and compelling,” said Mark Hilt, the musical director. “It creates mood and emotion so powerfully.” In particular, Hilt spoke about a song in the second act called “No One is Alone.” “It’s a catharsis,” he said. “It speaks not just to those poor characters on stage but to the whole audience. That’s really terrific when that happens in the theatre.” Sondheim’s music was also preferred because of the way it crosses
“THESE CHARACTERS ARE THREE-DIMENSIONAL. BY THE END OF IT YOU GET A COMPLETE HUMAN BEING.”
—Ted Walch Co-director
over from spoken dialogue into song. “Sonheim can make this cross over seamlessly. It’s truly amazing how his music subtly negotiates between the different parts,” Hilt said. Unlike recently performed musicals such as “Les Miserábles” and “Cabaret,” “Into the Woods” has no chorus. Instead there is a large number of roles each with its own individual stage time. Spears described it as “an ensemble piece, where there’s a smaller cast, but every part is complete.” Although the characters of “Into the Woods” are derived from children’s literature, the musical itself deals with more mature issues, such as filial relationships, broken marriages and moral cowardice. “It goes more deeply than any recent musical I can think of into the character,” Walch said. “These characters are truly three-dimensional. By the end of it you get a complete human being.” E-mails were sent out to Upper School students on Aug. 11 notifying them of the audition packets available outside for pick-up outside of the Drama Lab, giving student actors a month to prepare for the auditions. To be eligible for a role, students must familiarize themselves with both a song chosen for their respective vocal ranges and a scene from the audition packet. Auditions for the musical start next Monday at 3:30 p.m. with the vocal auditions in the choral room and will run for the rest of the week. The play will be performed Friday Nov. 14 through Sunday Nov. 16 in Rugby Auditorium.
A20 Opinion
The Chronicle
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School•Volume XVIII• Issue 1• Sept. 3, 2008
3700 Coldwater Canyon, North Hollywood, CA 91604
“But what about me?”
Editors in Chief: Lucy Jackson, Andrew Lee Managing Editors: Alexia Boyarsky, A.J. Calabrese Executive Editors: Julie Barzilay, Derek Schlom Presentations Editors: Cathi Choi, Dana Glaser Business Manager: Carly Mandel Ads Manager: Neha Nimmagadda Assistant: David Burton, Alex Velaise Chief Copyeditor: Ellina Chulpaeff Online Assistant Editor: Mac Taylor News Managing Editors: Shayna Freisleben, Carly Radist Section Heads: Hana al-Henaid, Sammy Roth Production Head: Nicki Resnikoff Online Editors: Katherine Hong, Michelle Nosratian Copy Editor: Spencer Gisser Assistants: Olivia Kwitny, Matthew Lee, Alice Phillips, Daniel Rothberg, Sade Tavanganian, Emily Wallach, Catherine Wang Features Managing Editors: Marni Barta, Faire Davidson Section Heads: Drew Lash, Lauren Seo Production Editors: Jamie Kim, Candice Navi Assistants: Ingrid Chang, Jordan Freisleben, Jordan McSpadden, Kelly Ohriner Hannah Rosenberg Opinion Managing Editors: Annie Belfield, Ashley Halkett Section Heads: Anna Etra, Erin Moy Production Editor: Ester Khachatryan Assistant: Sarah Enriquez Sports Managing Editors: Ben Goldstein, Cody Schott Section Heads: Sam Adams, Jack Davis Production Editors: Alex Edel, Jonah Rosenbaum Junior Varsity Editor: Cary Volpert Copy Editor: Jack Schwada Online Editors: Seth Goldman, Sean Kyle Assistants: Austin Block, Alec Caso, Ashley Khakshouri, Alex Leichenger, Tiana Woolridge Supplement Managing Editors: Emily Friedman, Candace Ravan Supplement Section Heads: Allegra Tepper, Michelle Yousefzadeh Assistants: Mary Fissinger, Jean Park Adviser: Kathleen Neumeyer The Chronicle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is published eight times per year. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the senior members of the Editorial Board. Advertising questions may be directed to Business Manager Carly Mandel at (818) 481-2087. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product or service by the newspaper or the school.
“We finished our requirements!” Andrew lee/chronicle
Community Council’s ‘community’
I
n an attempt to promote a sense of community in the student body both on and off campus, the new Community Council has changed the school outreach requirement to at least half a day of hands-on work in a group of three or more Harvard-Westlake students. While its aims are admirable, the Council’s new requirement unfairly discounts the work students do individually. Whether intentionally or not the community council has put an obstacle in the way of individual commitment to a specific cause. The four person requirement makes accomplishing 6 hours of good work into an extraordinary feat of organization and planning across each person’s conflicting sports schedules, meetings, and rehearsals atop the usual pressures of school work. At least part of it becomes a chore, which undermines the school’s community service philosophy that outreach should be enjoyable. Not to mention the fact that four friends getting together to do community service hardly constitutes community bonding. Though there are, of course, those students who have the time or will to continue work on personal projects, the reality is that there are many who, already juggling various extracurricular activities, will bow to stress without the incentive of a requirement. An even larger number of students may miss out on the experience of being regularly involved with an organization because they are not required to go out and find one; in this sense the new requirement favors those who are already committed to community service as opposed to inspiring the
student body to discover an interest in it. The Community Council has tried to combine its dual mission of inspiring school bonding and reaching out to the greater Los Angeles community into one requirement. It is true that the school needs to pick up the slack on community service — under the old requirement many students completed their requirements with minimal involvement — and it is equally true that the student body could do with a stronger sense of community. However, by nature of the fact that the Council does not give credit to individual work, it has made outreach more about our school than about the outlying community. The Council has approached its goals backwards. By calling for students to work in groups the new rule requires a sense of community and encourages good service, a concept that inherently does not work — you can’t force students to bond. The Council should require good service and encourage a sense of community. In other words, no one is complaining that the council is planning to organize community service events — or other events for that matter — that could allow students, teachers, and other members of the HarvardWestlake community to work together. In fact, we’re glad that events like this will be available to us next year. But people working alone should also be able to get credit.
Break proposal has potential
I
t’s time to give the Prefect Council some credit. Let’s back up and answer any questions you may have following that statement. Yes, we’re talking about the Harvard-Westlake Perfect Council. No, we haven’t all been sedated.
Yes, we realize we’ve been hard on them in the past; we all have. No, we’re not taking any bribes or favors under the table, nor have our kneecaps been threatened with baseball bates by their infamous “Prefect Goons.” We all remember the outrage when Student Council was joined with the Honor Board. We remember the endless naysayers in the student body who claimed it was unfair, only to have their complaints fall on deaf ears. As a matter of fact, the second break proposal was put in for consideration at the beginning of last year; however, it was sidetracked by Honor Board cases, and by the time Student Council brought it up again for discussion the FAC had already had their final meeting of the year. We all remember the almost comically chaotic class meetings where the four class representatives went on stage and became sacrificial offerings for their peers, subjecting themselves to angry rants from classmates and opening the floor to suggestions to make school life better that never materialized in the long run. Next Tuesday, the FAC will take a vote that will determine whether or not the proposed second break will go into effect. If approved, the student body will receive an extra 25 minutes every week to try something new, do last minute homework or gather their thoughts and take a
breather. School on days with a second break would not even run longer; rather, class time would be cut by five minutes. In those class meetings where the prefects were barraged with complaints, one of the biggest gribbles was that the students themselves don’t see the results of the prefects’ work. This will finally set the record straight. The passing of a second break could result in two things. The desired result is that it paves the way for more things like it, since we now see concrete results. The other result is that nothing happens, and this small step is all the students get for a more unified community. Head Prefect Tessa Wick ’09 called the second break a “stepping stone to solving all the problems.” How many problems there are and how many stepping stones are needed seem yet to be determined, but for now the optimism is greatly appreciated, and for us, not to be taken with a grain of salt. If all else fails, the prefects worked hard on this, and that alone warrants gratitude. We feel some appreciation has been a long time coming, because, frankly, being a class representative is a thankless job. So let’s cut our losses and give thanks to these overworked student mercenaries for this opportunity for which they’ve so graciously strived, just for us. Now let’s see what they do next.
Sept. 3, 2008
Letters Prefects call Huybrechts gives weight for spirit to character
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Reid Lidow/vox
student leaders: Brandon Levin ’09 and Tessa Wick ’09 look forward to the upcoming year at the Prefect Council retreat in Lake Tahoe.
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e are excited and optimistic about the year ahead. The start of school marks more than just the onset of early mornings and late nights: it brings with it a sense of renewed responsibility and resolve and an unwavering commitment to oneself to do and be better. And while it is crucial that each of us grows intellectually and socially this year, it is our mission to ensure that we also grow together. Over the past few years it has become evident to us that our greatest asset as a school and as a community has gone largely uncultivated and unexplored. That asset is the might of the student body. As individuals, we have excelled; as a community, we have often fallen short of our potential. While we have made it our task to rediscover the spirit of the Harvard-Westlake community, we know that this is not an endeavor the Prefect Council can pursue alone. The weight of this challenge lies on each of our shoulders: students, faculty, and administration alike. Whether it’s by attending a play, cheering at a game, reading a school publication, or fighting for a proposal, we must each do what we can to perpetuate camaraderie. We have developed a proposal to add one additional break each week; we will present this proposal to the first FAC meeting next week. However, this proposal will not pass without the overwhelming and active support of the students. We must find our voice as a student body. We must talk to our teachers, administrators, and peers. Our hope is that we are all able to stay true to ourselves while not neglecting the equally important obligation that each and every one of us has to each other and this community. — Brandon Levin ’09 and Tessa Wick ’09
Alum defends actions as Student Body President
I
Opinion A21
The Chronicle
want to take this opportunity to address what was said in the April 23, 2008 editorial entitled “Ask us what we think” and the May 28, 2008 article entitled “Former Student Council member reacts to criticism” written by my friend and former classmate Gil Imber ’06. Both articles make irresponsible, factual errors, and both articles strongly imply that I was central to the decision to implement the new student government. The anonymous author of the newspaper’s April
lthough I say this every year, repetition doesn’t diminish my sincerity: Welcome back; we missed you! Your teachers need their summer break just like you do, but by mid-August, they’re eager to return to the work they do well and love to do: teach all of you. And so we begin again. Educator, author and leader Booker T. Washington first expressed the words what will become our character education theme this year. “Character, not circumstance, makes the person,” he said. A good person has good character. Any of the circumstances of his or her existence — intelligence,
Editors remain committed
F
or the last several years, we’ve used this letter as a platform to talk about the website, to introduce a more interactive era of The Chronicle and to promise our readership access to the news faster and more conveniently. Last year, we made great strides in accomplishing that goal, but we can do better. This year, we will. We redesigned our website this summer — there is a “contact us” box so you can tell us what you think, and the layout is more user-friendly, with features appearing at the top next to breaking news and sports stories appearing next to the day’s box scores just below. For readers who can’t get enough, we’ve even added an RSS feed so you can subscribe to the website and get your daily Wolverine news fix effortlessly. The Chronicle features, in some form or another, all of the news about Harvard-Westlake that’s fit to print. To that end, we will be featuring more web-exclusive content than ever before — stories we want you to read but that couldn’t be included in our latest issue. We’ll be blogging more about timely issues in our community and in the world at large. Right now, there’s a post up about one staffer’s experience at the Democratic National Convention, and we’ll add more throughout the year spanning a range of topics. Breaking stories will be posted as they happen, and more multimedia will be used to add an additional perspective. We’ll feature a slideshow on the latest event at the top of the page — right now it’s the Senior Faculty Barbecue — and post
editorial “Ask us what we think” writes: “The decision to create this new body was made by the faculty and the student government of 2005-2006 and reduced the number of representatives from 22 to 14. Andrew Segal ’06, Student Body President at the time, said that it was unnecessary to have the student body vote because they had already decided to put the new government through.” In a similar vein, Imber ’06 writes that the new student government “was a concept bred out of closeddoor meetings between Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra, Honor Board Chairs Billy Whitaker ’06 and Dani Koo ’06 and Student Body Presidents Andrew Segal ’06 and Tessa Williams ’06.” This is simply not true. The decision to create the new student government was made in the year before I became president of the student body by the 2004-2005 presidents, chairs of the Honor Board and Mr. Salamandra. In fact, though it may come
wealth, appearance, talent — are always of secondary importance when compared to his or her character. Being good — being trustworthy and kind and principled — is more important than being wealthy or smart or gifted. In the hierarchy of personal attributes, good character trumps them all. Born a slave on a Virginia plantation in 1856, don hagopian/chronicle Booker T. Washington had no access to education as a young child. Many years later, and after he’d earned a Ph.D. and become the president of what is now Tuskegee University, he said this about his boyhood: “I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be about the same as getting into paradise.” I hope you experience some elements of paradise this school year and that you remember that character, not circumstance, makes the person. Warm wishes, Jeanne Huybrechts additional photo galleries for everything else — stuff you won’t find in Facebook albums. As always, The Chronicle is committed to giving you the news in a timely, up-to-the-minute fashion, but in-depth coverage in our issue each month remains a priority. We’ll do our best to give you the best of both worlds, posting frequently on the web while delivering the classic Chronicle you’ve come to know and love. (We hope.) Above all, we’re dedicated to writing the same reliable coverage we’ve provided for 17 years. As much as things change, we firmly believe that should stay the same, and we look forward to continuing that legacy this year. Don’t hesitate to let us know how we’re doing. — Lucy Jackson ’09 and Andrew Lee ’09
Annie Belfield/chronicle
a new era: the 2008-2009 Editors-in-Chief Lucy Jackson ’09 and Andrew Lee ’09 put their heads together outside of Weiler Hall during August layout.
as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the situation (and apparently some who are familiar with the situation), I opposed the new student government when the idea came up for discussion when I served as president of the junior class during the 2004-2005 school year. The new student government was supposed to be implemented in time for my senior year; however, the architects of the system decided to delay its implementation by one year in hopes of smoothing out some inherent kinks. Williams, my fellow Student Body president, Whitaker and Koo, the 2005-2006 chairs of the Honor Board, and I were supposed to usher in the new system. However, the decision to put the new student government into effect was not ours to make – and I can’t stress this enough. I am happy that the authors of both articles have gone through the trouble of engaging the topic at hand. Indeed, criticism, dissent and an aptitude for reevaluation are all part of what makes the academic
community at Harvard-Westlake so vibrant. I am also happy that these articles were brought to my attention, lest their fallacious assertions go unanswered. Yet I would like to conclude with a few requests. Firstly, let’s be more professional with rhetoric. Imber says “I discerned a tenor of totalitarianism exuding from the administration.” The administration is no junta, and though Imber is simply trying to demonstrate a point, I believe his efforts are undermined by his flamboyant rhetoric. Secondly, when peoples’ supposed opinions are cited with no specific quotations, I would ask that authors verify the veracity of said opinions prior to publication. The use of misinformation is poisonous and unprofessional, and furthermore, it can be detrimental to the critical project at hand. — Andrew Segal ’06 Student Body President, 2005 - 2006
A22 Opinion Sam Adams
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Re-vamp our summer
S “the stress in some of our summers is enough to rival even the most packed school day.”
ummer, as we know it, is dead. I can’t say they didn’t warn us. But there it is, clear as a bright July afternoon. It wasn’t always this way. As April turned into May turned into June in earlier years, we would grow increasingly giddy at the prospect of a worry-free summer. No more classes, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks, right? Well, those days are long gone. As we progress on our slow, laborious march through a Harvard-Westlake education, the arrival of summer vacation becomes less of a welcome occurrence on the horizon and more of a necessary respite from the heavy stress of the year and, fresher still, finals. More of a break to stave off insanity than one to reward our diligence throughout the year. What only exacerbates the general lack of frivolity associated with a Harvard-Westlake summer is the strategic use of such summers. Not one fellow incoming junior that I have talked to about their break has said something along the lines of, “Oh, I pretty much just slept, ate, and hung out with my friends all summer.” If they didn’t have a paying job, they had an internship. Or were practicing a sport. Or were preparing for the SAT. Or were taking college courses. Almost every one of which included a resume-packing motive. Now, this is not a pure indictment or lamentation of the passing of the traditional “fun” summer break. Summer jobs have been a part of the nostalgic American upbringing. As Lester Burnham, the protagonist in the movie “American Beauty” once longingly reminisced to a teenager, “When I was your age, I flipped burgers all summer just to be able to buy an eight-track… I had my whole life ahead of me.” There is absolutely something to be said for having a summer job. A reliance on one’s own two hands rather than Father’s Visa card for spending money is one that can be developed through such a job. But the kind of jobs we get are a bit much for high school students. The stress in some of our summers is enough to rival even the most packed school day. Of course, high school is just preparing us for “adulthood,” but let’s take our friend Lester Burnham’s advice. High school is a taxing time both academically and socially, but we’re not that far removed from our younger days, when summer was a time to take it down a notch and just relax. A summer job that involves the mindless labor of, say, a fast food joint allows for a mental break and a summer that isn’t preparing us for careers. High school is tough, so why can’t we just take a few months out of the year to stop and just smell the hamburgers?
Ashley Halkett/chronicle
Anna Etra
No need for new
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t the end of every summer there is one thing that I look forward to: shopping for new school supplies. It’s not just that there is one more shopping opportunity when I can feel the joy of using something new, but I get to coordinate and arrange everything for the next year. I love buying new notebooks, three-ring binders, and pencil cases and organizing it all to be flawless for the first day of school. Like the majority of high school students all over the country, I toss aside the half-used spiral notebooks in place of the newest in five star school supply technology. Supply stores such as Staples and Office Depot thrive on the back-to-school rush every August and spend time and money advertising the new supplies in stock. Some families head to stores that are known to be cheaper such as Costco, Target or Wal-Mart to stock up for the new year. No matter where you shop, it is still a waste of material. Back-to-school shopping is expected to reach over $18.4 billion this year in the United States according to the National Retail Federation, seven percent more than last year. A solution to all these costs is simply to reuse. Good quality backpacks should last for at least a couple of years. It is rare that a pencil is ever sharpened all the way down to the eraser and pens are infrequently used enough to run completely out of ink. To be fair, some possessions do get misplaced, and supplies do break, but the
excess bought in the previous years should really make it possible to go one year without buying completely new supplies. Mechanical pencils were invented to be refilled infinitely. In a generation where it is trendy to be pro-environment, and hybrid cars are littered across high school parking lots, you would think that students would look for practical ways to avoid adding to the waste they are already producing. Garbage cans are filled with usable spiral notebooks, intact binders and reams of empty college-ruled paper. Unfortunately, not all of the exhausted materials are disposed of correctly. Look around any classroom on campus one week into the school year and I can guarantee there will be a blend of misplaced school paraphernalia. Students produce 28 pounds of waste each year, according to greenliving.com. Marketed to the people of the “Green Era,” companies are producing environmentally friendly school materials. Ellie Pooh, a company based in Sri Lanka, produces notepads, journals and paper made from 75 percent post consumer waste and 25 percent elephant dung. Earthpak makes backpacks from recycled plastic bottles. Basura Bags sells messenger bags made from used juice containers. Eco-friendly supplies are available at local retailers for an affordable price. Think again before you equip yourself with all new school gear; it’s just not that necessary.
Derek Schlom
The summer of my discontent
T
he time is early June. With a grand sense of accomplishment, I ceremoniously pen the last word on the last page of the last blue book of my last final of my secondto-last year of high school. Barely bothering to hand in the exam, I rush, beaming (I would imagine) with glee, into my last summer as a high school student, ready to kick off three months of self-discipline. This summer, after all, is my chance to follow through on all of those plans I’ve set aside during the school year. Plus, the college applications clock has started to tickfreedom will soon come crashing to an end and long nights of worrying await. Sometime between now and my pile of rejection letters, I’ve got to squeeze in some education. The day after school ends, at a bookstore in Westwood, I buy two items: Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” (an easy read, I tell myself) and something I should have finished a long time ago-and a CD. I’ve listened
to the CD all summer. The book — well, that’s another story. This thin, fairly user-friendly novel has developed into an unwelcome reminder of the disappointment that was the summer of 2008. Kerouac’s masterpiece, a classic of American literature, the Beat Generation’s Bible, sits on my end table on occasion; most days, it’s buried somewhere between old math homeworks and essay drafts. When I couldn’t find it one day, I convinced myself that I had left it somewhere in Spain…where the book hadn’t left my bag for the duration of the trip. I later found it underneath a pile of clothes on the floor of my room. I had imagined that reading this book, which celebrates American ideals and the wonders of youth, would be a swell beginning to my most productive summer ever. And why not? If I could ace my finals after one good weekend of cramming, surely I could read “On the Road” in a single afternoon, with time to spare to catch most of a “Rock of Love” marathon, all before dinner.
Instead, the bookmark is trapped in page 56, as it has been for months. My hopes, obviously, were dashed. And, as I write this in the dog days of August, I’m starting to wonder where all that time has gone. Harvard-Westlake hasn’t stopped working its crazy magic. The events of the past couple of months are summer translations of the same anxieties and paralysis that all self-loathing Wolverines endure. Over the course of the hottest season, a recognizable pattern has emerged. First, you head straight into denial. This summer, you say, will be different. This summer you’ll read for fun. This summer you’ll learn to surf. This summer you’ll lose weight. And so on. Second, reality hits, and it goes a little something like this. June 5: You don’t want to check out that new LACMA exhibit today, you want to sleep instead. June 7: Go to the gym? Eh…your arm is sore from channelflipping. And the cycle continues. Soon it’s August, and the third,
crucial stage kicks in: angst. Only one month left to make all of that progress on the Common App, or to learn how to play poker. One month to finish what you’ve started. And, most importantly, someone in this world is doing just that. In fact, somewhere in Los Angeles there’s a Harvard-Westlake student who has pre-read their textbooks and published a short story in the New Yorker this summer. This isn’t a neurotic nightmare—at this school, we lazy bums have met the enemy: the overachievers, the people who actually follow through on their plans. When we return to school and hear all that they’ve accomplished in June, July and August, the rest of us will sink back into despair. Or relaxation. While the constant anxiety may reach a fever pitch during senior year, I’ve never underestimated my own ability to stave off that guilt with a healthy dose of denial. We live out our lives in the same pattern, and for some reason, after driving us crazy for five years, it works.
Sept. 3, 2008 Lucy Jackson
Opinion A23
The Chronicle
Respect our academics, but cherish our community
W “HARVARDWESTLAKE IS A PLACE PEOPLE WANT TO COME BACK TO, A PLACE THEY MISS WHEN THEY LEAVE...”
hat set me apart at journalism camp this summer wasn’t my writing style, or my determination to walk 10 minutes to the nearest Starbucks every morning, or even my far too eager tendency to sit in the front row for every lecture and workshop, at least not initially. I was thrown into a four-story dorm with 87 journalism nerds from around the country whose backgrounds read a lot like mine, and yet as a Harvard-Westlake student, I stood out. A friend I made there, arguably far more high profile than me, having appeared on multiple episodes of MTV’s reality show “The Paper,” knew the average SAT score at our school, and asked exactly how many kids we had sent to the Ivy League last year. While she may be an extreme example, she certainly wasn’t an isolated case. Other students joked about my overachieving tendencies; aware of the breed of student Harvard-Westlake produces. It seemed that everyone recognized the name, and, for better or for worse, found it to be synonymous with high-brow intellect. What they didn’t realize, and what many don’t seem to realize, is that despite its reputation as an academic powerhouse, the school represents a remarkable community, academics aside. We may rank high up in the private school food chain when it comes to board scores and college admissions, but our community is something that we should be bragging about, too. Last year, we hit a rough patch. Commonly known as the cheating scandal, it seemed to be all that anyone could talk about for the months to follow. Those outside the school’s walls and even some within them were quick to place blame on Harvard-Westlake for its lack of community. With such a competitive atmosphere, how could students feel an attachment to their school strong enough to be discouraged from cheating? The word community gets thrown around a lot at Harvard-Westlake, especially after events like that. The rant about the highpressure environment is a common one
Andrew lee/chronicle
among students, and maybe they’re right. Maybe the administration does care more about their academic profile than about fostering community, and maybe students don’t feel the attachment to their school that they should. For my part though, I think they’re wrong. I have a friend who just left for college. She misses a lot about LA, but it often comes back to Harvard-Westlake, which we commonly refer to as her boyfriend. While attending the school, she fell under the category of people who firmly believed we lacked a community. In fact, when I told her I was writing this column, she disagreed with the fundamental idea. Yet, she still misses the school, and I don’t think it’s the stress she can’t live without. From what I’ve seen, she’s not the only one who suffers from Harvard-Westlake withdrawal. Every year before any big break, recent graduates come back to school to see old teachers and underclassmen friends. Harvard-Westlake is a place people want to come back to, a place they miss when they leave, and that can’t be attributed to anything other than the community students felt while here. Not only do students feel an emotional attachment while attending the school, but
Ashley Halkett
Listen to the majority
O
ur school prides itself on integrating students into the system, allowing students to get involved, telling us that it is, in fact, our school. Take the Honor Board, for example. Though students are not completely in charge of it by any means, it makes them players in an important process and respectfully grants them a say in the difficult choices the school is sometimes faced with. At least, that is what it’s supposed to do. So then why, after faculty members and students deliberated for hours after school, sacrificing free time and significant peace of mind, was the decision to readmit the students involved in the Middle School drug incident (the opposite conclusion reached by the Honor Board) ultimately made by the administration? The Honor Board said in its recommendation in May that this was “one of the hardest and most agonizing decisions” it ever had to make, one reached after “extensive discussion and debate about the well-being of the School.” While I’m sure this input was appreciated, it was disregarded and effectively ignored, despite the fact that it was a collective decision made after days of endless discussion and debate. I cannot truly endorse or oppose the administration’s choice to readmit the expelled students because I do not personally know any of the students or what really happened. But I believe it is wrong for a decision with so much weight to
it persists well after they’ve left Coldwater. Regardless of the way we tend to bash the competitive environment, we all still feel linked to Harvard-Westlake, and that’s a more profound example of community than most. We’ve let others dictate to us whether or not we have a community; that because we have high powered, ambitious students, we all must despise each other. There must be so much negative feeling that we all decide to cheat on tests or violate the honor code in a number of different ways. One can’t deny that Harvard-Westlake’s students feel pressure; it’s a given in the academic environment that the school provides, but I don’t think high academic expectations and school community are mutually exclusive. It’s no secret that we have our faults. Last year was a better example of that than most the evidence is splashed on front page of The Chronicle’s February issue. But I think it’s time to move on. It’s easy to dwell on the past, to attribute the scandal or any other of the negative events to the school itself. But how does that help? We need to focus on building up our community, rather than doubting its existence. I’d argue we have a pretty good head start.
“It’s great that our school asks for students’ (and faculty members’) opinions, but it’s pointless if the administration then disregards them.”
rest completely in the hands of the administration without input from those who actually attend Harvard-Westlake and are thus more than capable of judging what is best for their school. And if this arrangement is non-negotiable, then I believe it is wrong to waste the time of many people who were asked to think long and hard about a suitable resolution that was eventually entirely overlooked. Not just in this case, but in all cases. It’s great that our school asks for students’ (and faculty members’) opinions, but it’s pointless if the administration then disregards them. Life-determining decisions should not be left up to a couple of crazy kids. That’s why the Honor Board consists of many students and a handful of teachers: there is a surplus of thoughts and opinions and feelings that will smooth into a reasonable conclusion and eliminate the possibility of an overly drastic and radical sentence (see Federalist No. 10, James Madison). I can also see why the power of absolute determination could be given to the administration as a sort of tie-breaker if the decision were extremely close, vis-à-vis the Vice President’s duties in the Senate. But if the Honor Board comes to a consensus and agrees together on a certain course of action, which Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts acknowledged in her reply to the Honor Board’s decision, writing that the “majority of the Honor Board members… believes that the original transgressions warranted
permanent expulsion,” then why can their decision still be overruled? Either way, the school should not have asked the Honor Board for advice that would not be followed, that would be responded to with a sort of thanks, but no thanks. The Honor Board did not ask for this case. It was given to them to fret and lose sleep over, but when they finally reached a resolution, their decision was snatched back, invalidated and reversed by same group that originally assigned it to them. If the Honor Board and the Code it represents are the highly respected, invaluable institutions they are supposed to be, then the Board deserved better from the administration: if it didn’t plan on following the recommendations, then why ask so many people to agonize over them? The school asked for the Honor Board’s time, effort and opinion. It should have listened.
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A24 Sports
sports
The Chronicle Harvard-Westlake School Volume XVIII Issue 1 Sept. 3, 2008
Football faces Franklin on Friday night By Sam Adams
Led by a nucleus of veteran players, the Wolverine football team enters the new season after months of summer training following last year’s playoff run. The Wolverines have advanced to the CIF tournament for two straight years, losing in the second round last year to Oak Park. The team’s first challenge comes this Friday at home when they play Franklin. With the luxury of a core of seasoned varsity starters including quarterback Sean Berman ’09, running back Terhon O’Neal ’09 and wide receiver Corey Vann ’09, the offense can afford to cultivate the younger players on the team. “There’s a number of guys that really paid the price of being veteran players and showing other players by example,” Head Coach Vic Eumont said. The number of returning starters allowed the team to refine their game. “We were able to implement a deeper playbook this year on offense because so many of us already knew the old plays,” returning starting center Jake Lasker ’10 said. Key returners on the defensive side include Kimo Thorpe ’09, Joe Cadiff ’10, Jeremy Cairl ’09 and Jordan Tolson ’10. The Franklin game is critical to the Wolverines’ playoff ambitions, Eumont said. Franklin, like the Wolverines, finished with a record of 8-4 and lost in the quarterfinals of the CIF tournament. They also play in the city division in which the caliber of teams played is higher, Eumont said. He went so far as to compare the team to that of Carson in prior years, including the team that was upset by the Wolverines two years ago. “[Franklin] will be bigger, faster, stronger – hopefully we will be Wolverines and be incredibly ferocious,” Eumont said. After the Franklin game, there will be another defining game for the season against Lynwood at home. The two games will, in the coach’s mind, serve to set the tempo for the entire season. The summer practicing schedule was retooled this year. Traditionally, Eumont said, the team practiced
Sam adams/chronicle
ready position: Wolverine players assemble at the line of scrimmage in the middle of a summer practice last Wednesday. The team plays its first game at home against Franklin on Friday. for six weeks, followed by a three-week break. The team then returned for “hell week,” during which the players slept in the gym and had multiple practices each day. This year, though, the team practiced for only five weeks before the break, but added a week of lifting to get back into shape before the training camp officially began. This new schedule, Eumont said, allowed the players to get back in shape before the intensity of the week. “We were much better prepared, and in much better condition to start so I think our kids have learned a lot more in this camp than in the past,” Eumont said. Berman, the returning quarterback, spent the summer before his senior season attending numerous quarterback camps. “When he wasn’t playing volleyball then he was playing at several different college quarterback
Baseball alums go pro in Big Apple By Jack Davis
and
Stepheson transfers to USC for family reasons
Cody Schott
Former Wolverine ace Nik Turley ’08 and second baseman Josh Satin ’03 have begun their professional baseball careers in New York. Both were drafted in this year’s MLB Amateur Draft by the Yankees and the Mets, respectively. Turley, who started in last year’s 20-inning playoff loss, originally committed to Brigham Young University at the start of his senior year. To lure him away from college, the Bronx outfit went over slot - the amount of money Major League Baseball suggests that teams pay for a certain pick - and gave him a 6-figure signing bonus. Turley has joined the Gulf Coast League Yankees (a low level minor league organization.) In eight innings pitched thus far, Turley has a 2-1 record. He has only let in one run and has struck out 13 batters. In his final year of high school baseball, Turley proved to be the ace of the Wolverine pitching staff. He had a 1.88 ERA in 11 starts. It was rumored that the Yankees were going to draft him earlier, but feared that he would choose to go to college. The Yankees also agreed to pay $60,000 for Turley to go to BYU in the offseason. Varsity Coach Matt LaCour got a chance to talk to him before he left. The Turley family invited the Wolverine coaching staff over after the decision was made. “I did talk to Nik and his parents quite often during the process. I have already told Nik everything I felt I should,” LaCour said. “He will be fine.” see BASEBALL, page A25
camps around the country, all without missing any of our practice,” Eumont said. “He is set to have a great year.” On the coaching staff, there are a number of new hires, as well as coaches filling new capacities. Dylan Washausen was hired as the Wolverines’ receivers coach from Burbank Burroughs, a school that the Wolverines have played against in past years. Former eighth grade head coach Fernando Castro was also promoted to the varsity team. In addition to the returning starters that are expected to provide stability and experience to the team, there are a number of players new to the varsity squad that are expected to make an impact. Alistair Belton ’09, a first-year football player and lacrosse expatriate, has impressed the coaching staff as a lineman. Tony Pothoulokis ’09 is moving up from JV this year, and the team needs for him to step up, Eumont said.
By Ben Goldstein
Aj calabrese/chronicle
pitcher up: Nik Turley ‘08 steps up to the plate in a game last year.
Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas said. “When he Former Wolverine stand- comes around here, his smile out Alex Stepheson ’06 joined is as big as he is.” Over the the USC Trojans last month summer, Stepheson worked after transferring from North out at the school’s facilities, Carolina. The power forward including the weight room in announced after last season Taper Gym. that he would leave In 2005, Stepheson UNC to be closer to led the Wolverines to his family because a CIF title, but his his father was ill. squad fell just short Stepheson considof winning the state ered several schools championship. As a on the West Coast, senior, he averaged particularly UCLA 20.4 points and 17.8 and Arizona State, rebounds per game. before settling on Stepheson found USC. himself in a much difCourtesy of R ivals.com Whether or not ferent role as a freshAlex Stepheson the 6’9” junior will man at North Carolisee time on the na. In his first season court this season as a Trojan he played just over six minremains to be seen. Athletes utes per game and averaged who transfer schools ordinar- 2.1 points and 2.2 rebounds. ily must sit out one season He saw more playing time his according to NCAA rules. sophomore year, averaging 14.5 However, Stepheson’s mother, minutes per game. He scored Diane, said he will request 4.3 points and grabbed 4.5 rea waiver to play this season bounds per game. because of the serious fam“He got some great coachily reasons responsible for his ing at UNC and played against move out west. the best players,” Head Coach “I’m happy that Alex is Greg Hilliard, his high school closer to Harvard-Westlake,” coach said.
Sept. 3, 2008
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The Chronicle
Water polo prepares for Serra after early playoff exit last year By Alex Edel
Courtesy of brendan zwaneveld
air zwaneveld: Brendan Zwaneveld ’10 winds up for a shot during a tournament game over the summer. The varisty boys’ water polo team plays its first game against J Serra on Friday, Sept. 12.
Baseball alumni drafted from BASEBALL, page A24 Satin was selected in the sixth round of the first year Major League Baseball player draft by the New York Mets and reported to short season single A Brooklyn after signing a five figure signing bonus. Satin was a four year starter at second base for University of California Berkeley, earning first team All-American honors from Baseball America in his senior season. Satin had a walk off home run in his last home game against UCLA to send the Golden Bears to the playoffs, and hit for a .379 batting average with 18 home runs and 47 runs batted in for Cal. At Harvard-Westlake, Satin led the Wolverines to the State Championship game while hitting for a .478 average with 10 home runs. He was named to the All CIF Southern Section 1st team and the Los Angeles Times All-Region
team. Satin entered his name into the 2007 draft but was not selected, and had to deal with injuries throughout his college career. “[Being drafted] was the best feeling in the world,” he said. “All the work of the last 21 years of my life had finally paid off. My dream of being a pro finally came true.” Satin has also dealt with obstacles in Brooklyn, spending two weeks on the disabled list with a knee sprain and being demoted to rookie ball for three games. “The hardest part of the adjustment for me has been having to play every day instead of just three times a week like in college,” he said. “The daily grind is really difficult.” However, after hitting for a .583 average with a home run in rookie ball, Satin was sent back up to Brooklyn where he has hit for a .254 average with four home runs and 12 runs batted in 38 games.
Last week saw the start of “hell week” for the boys’ water polo team, when it got back into shape after the team’s only break all summer. Their first game is against J Serra on Friday. Each day during the summer, the team had four hour practices. At 7 a.m. every morning, the boys went to dry land training where they lifted weights, ran, did stairs, push ups and sit ups. From there, they made their way up to the pool and swim coach Dawn Barrett conducted a swim workout. It was about 9 a.m. before they played any water polo. They then did drills and practiced for two hours. The team also played in several tournaments and scrimmages over the summer. The highlight for Max Eliot ’09 occured during a summer tournament. The Wolverines were seeded lower than expected, so they had to play the number one-ranked team, El Toro, in the second game. The Harvard-Westlake team went on to beat El Toro and get fourth place. “It wasn’t expected by everyone else,” Eliot said. “It kind of woke everyone up and like this team is legit, they are going to do well.”
This year, the team played many more games than in past summer trainings. “It helped bring team chemistry,” goalie Michael Boggan ’09 said. After coming off of a disappointing season last year and losing eight seniors, Eliot said that “the biggest difference in my mind is that we play as a team, we play together, you know we listen to each other in the water, we listen to [Head Coach Larry Felix] and we are a cohesive unit.” The team also got a taste of international competition when they played a Hong Kong club team during the summer. Michael Hartwick ’09 said that the Chinese squad “relied on speed and were not as physical.” Going into each season, the boys hope for a CIF win. Eliot thinks it is a reality this year. “I do believe in my team and I believe that we are a very, very good team,” he said. Many players feel that season is different and by playing more as a team they will achieve their goals. “Everyone plays a big part in the team,” Boggan said. “We play hard and we play to win, but we don’t play dirty,” Charlie Weintraub ’09 said.
Girls’ golf seeks redemption in Mission League this season By Cary Volpert The girls’ varsity golf team will seek vengeance on Notre Dame and the rest of the Mission League when it kicks off its season against Chaminade at home on Sept. 23. Last season, the squad placed second in the league after losing to Notre Dame by one stroke. “It was really tough to lose by just one stroke when you play so many rounds of golf during the season,” Alex Green ’09 said. “In golf you rarely come down to one stroke. It has happened only twice in my career here at Harvard-Westlake.” The team is determined to win the Mission League this year after the crushing loss last season. “Of course it was difficult to hear the news of our one stroke loss, but we worked hard and next year we’ll just try harder and strive for first,” Tiffany Yang ’10 said. But becoming the Mission League champs is not the only
thing on players’ minds. “I hope that we as a team work hard as a whole and become the champions in our Mission League,” Yang said. “I also hope we qualify for the CIF team finals.” Players put confidence in Head Coach Amy Alcott for the year ahead. The players say that Alcott notices the little nuances in golf that make her a great coach and teacher. “When she came to our practices, she would notice small details in our swings and gave helpful advice to work out the kinks in our follow-throughs,” Yang said. With Alcott moving to the Program Head position, former assistant coach Linda Giaciolli will become the Head Coach and newcomer Lisa Grimm will become the program’s assistant coach. In addition to the personnel changes, the team will also welcome back Charlotte Abrams ’09 to the team after she spent her junior year in Spain.
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A26 Sports
Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Alum runs college summer hoops league By Sam Adams Rico Cabrera ’97 likes helping people get better. That basic concept, a guiding idea for his career, has done little to narrow his field of specialty. A selfdescribed “management consultant,” Cabrera has worked with underground musicians, started a college basketball summer league and launched a major channel on a social networking site. He has focused on using new technologies in the pursuit of exposing his clients to the world. One of Cabrera’s most recent ventures is “Rico’s Get Better League.” Cabrera directed this NCAAsanctioned college basketball summer league, and has eight teams made up of college players, Playing in the league this past year were former Wolverine basketball players Zane Ma ’08, John Sebastian ’07, and Jon Jaques ’06. Cabrera recently signed a deal with LiveVideo, a hybrid multimedia and social networking site, to post games on their website on a “Get Better” channel devoted to the league. Cabrera can trace his path towards management all the way back to elementary school. He attended the Los Angeles Open Charter School, where students are drawn from diverse backgrounds and a focus is placed on technology. “Being drilled and taught to use it at a very high level at a young age completely changed my mind set, and so I saw technology as a language,” Cabrera said. He continued along this career path as a student at Harvard-Westlake, where he was a member of the varsity basketball teams that won back-to-back state championships in 1996 and 1997. After Harvard-Westlake, Cabrera spent a postgraduate year at Worcester Academy, and then graduated from Colgate University, where he spent
COURTESY OF RICO CABRERA
PEP TALK: Rico Cabrera ’97 talks to some players in his NCAA-sanctioned summer basketball league. nearly two years on the basketball team. The reason he is able to succeed in the field of management, Cabrera believes, is because he can connect with people quickly. Cabrera had owned an internet management company, but when the dot-com bubble burst, he moved towards the field of personal management, including the fields of coaching, talent management and music. Though these fields may seem very different, they
Girls’ tennis looks to avenge lost league title
Newly merged cross country hires former Olympian to coach By Jack Schwada After two winning seasons, the boys and girls cross country teams have combined into one squad for the upcoming season under new head coach and former Olympian Johnny Gray. The merger is something that former boys team head coach Geoffrey Bird said “always made sense.” He added that runners are grouped by levels of skill, so it made no sense to divide up boys and girls of the same skill level. Bird will retain a position on the team, serving now as the chef de mission, a term given to a staff member who oversees the program and makes sure things run smoothly. Gray ran for the US at four Sum-
By Jonah Rosenbaum After several key seniors graduated this year, the lack of experience could prove to be a big challenge for the varsity girls’ tennis team, which kicks off its season next Tuesday. Last year marked the first time in nearly a decade that the team did not take home at least a share of the Mission League title. Head Coach Chris Simpson said that injuries played a substantial role in the team’s failure to win the Mission League. “We are disappointed about losing to Chaminade, and also losing our first Mission League title in nine years,” Simpson said. “Injuries hurt us a lot and the competition was very tough. Hopefully we can learn from last season.” Simpson also said that the team will not go into the season as an early favorite, in part because of a lack of varsity experience on the team. “(Division one) is very competitive, and the level of play will be very high,” he said. “The basic goal is to have everyone improve and build for seasons ahead.” Returning varsity player Nicole Hung ’10 said that winning the Mission League is both an important and realistic challenge. “I definitely want to regain the Mission League Title,” Hung said. “It will be difficult, but it is doable. We have a lot of talented seniors and lowerclassmen who are talented and ready to step up.” Ally Kalt ’09 also said that her number one goal for the upcoming sea-
appear quite similar to Cabrera. “The personalities in these fields are pretty similar,” he said. All sorts of media are becoming more integrated.” And that, at its core, is what Cabrera does. He stands at the crossroads between sports and music, between traditional television and web media. No matter the format, if Cabrera can help someone get better, that’s exactly what he’ll do.
Sam Adams/chronicle
HUNG-up: Nicole Hung ’10 practices her forehand ahead of the upcoming season. The Wolverines are attempting to win back the Mission League crown. son is to win back Mission League. Kalt added that she was excited to meet her new teammates, and to be a senior on the team. Caroline Richman ’09, who was the number one singles player on last year’s team, said she has high goals for the upcoming season. “As a team, we always strive to do our best, and hope to win league championships,” Richman said. “I think the team could improve by each player maintaining a positive attitude on the court regardless of the score.” Tryouts have yet to take place. Simpson will pick his squad in the opening weeks of school.
mer Olympics and won the bronze medal in the 800 meter in 1992. Gray will be the “physical face” of the team this year, attending all the practices. The team, however, has to deal with the loss of their star runner Chris Okano ’08, who graduated last year. Veteran senior Caroline Cuse ’09 was made the team captain with fellow seniors Chris Chang ‘09 and Michael Richardson ’09 as joint co-captains. “There’s a lot of excitement in the kids,” Bird said. Even Gray has an optimistic outlook on the seasons to come. “We have a very young and talented group of kids,” Gray said. “It’s my job to help the kids see what they’re capable of accomplishing.”
Sept. 3, 2008
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The Chronicle
Cheerleading adds stunting to routines By Alex Edel
Courtesy of kelly vernon
cheer support: Wolverine cheerleaders practice stunting during summer training. The team now has enough members to perform stunts in their routines at football and basketball games throughout the year.
At the end of the cheerleading season last year the squad and coach Kelly Vernon decided that they needed a boost. They needed to add stunting and tumbling. During games the team will now be throwing girls into the air and doing back handsprings, along with the dances from last year. The squad started practicing their new tricks in late June and continued practice all through August. With the help of two new coaches, Jessica Miller, who specializes in stunting, and Gianna Dahlia, who was a world-class gymnast, the team has been able to incorporate these new tricks into their routines. Three girls will be flying for stunts this year: Angela Navarro ’09, Emma Sczudlo ’11 and Christina Yang ’12. Sczuldo, having been on a prior competitive cheerleading squad, is the only girl on the squad with previous stunting experience. Vernon said that they did not need to buy extra safety equipment, because the stunts that they will be doing will be more basic. When they first started to work on stunts they did drills to help them prepare for the actual stunts. At first the team had only one group doing stunts at a time while the rest of the team spotted from below. “The cheerleaders have been diligent about getting stronger,” Vernon said. For example, the entire team has been doing pushups regularly. “We are really excited to show off our completely revamped squad,” cheerleading team member Adedoyin Oyekan ’10 said. “We have worked really hard to perfect the stunts and routines and we are going to be much better than last year.”
Field hockey set to take on Edison By Seth Goldman With several quality players returning from a team that finished third in playoffs a year ago, the girls’ field hockey team will have high expectations when it opens league play against Edison next thursday. According to Coach Erin Creznic, they aim to win the league championship and advance into the playoff tournament that follows the season. The team boasts a lineup that features several Division I prospects among its ten returning seniors. Additionally, most of the players have been playing together since seventh grade, which Creznic believes is one of the team’s biggest strengths. Creznic’s main point of emphasis leading up to the season was team unity, she said. Because the team has so much individual talent, sometimes the players don’t pass as much as they should, she said. The team can best utilize its strengths if the players work together better. “Our biggest need is just to come together on and off the field,” Stacy Lee ’09 said. “We need to work together better and pass more,” A key aspect of improving on last season’s 9-6-3 record will be performing better in Sunset League play, where the team posted a 5-4-1 record last year. The team will face stiff competition from Newport Harbor, who eliminated them from the playoffs last season. In addition, the team plays rival Louisville twice. The team opened its season in the St. Louis Beltway Tournament this past weekend against 40 of the top teams in the country. Though confident in her team’s ability, Creznic said she is slightly worried about the tendency for the players to sustain injuries. Still, she remains confident about the season. “I think we have a great chance to win league and go to the playoffs,” she said.
Jordan Freisleben/chronicle
RETOOLING THE POOL: A man works in the drained pool at Zanuck Swimming Stadium. The pool underwent renovations during the summer break, including a replastering to repair cracks in the plaster around the pool, which had been eroded by chemicals over years of usage.
Zanuck pool undergoes full replastering, other renovations over summer vacation By Seth Goldman For the first time in at least 15 years, Zanuck Swimming Stadium was finally refurbished. Over time the chemicals in the water had eroded the plaster on the bottom of the pool, Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas said. There were also cracks in the concrete around the pool. The pool was simply not up to the standards of the school and did not create a good athletic environment, Barzdukas said. “A little bit of Botox wasn’t going to work,” Barzdukas said. “We needed to give the pool a facelift.” The servicing, which included re-plastering the entire pool, was a significant construction project. As a result, it presented a scheduling conflict with the summer activities that took place at the pool, most notably boys’ water polo practice. Construction began on Aug. 1, the beginning of the
mandatory three week dead period in which practices do not take place. However, it lasted longer than three weeks, so the water polo team practiced at Oaks Christian School’s Olympic-sized pool until construction finished Aug. 28. The team usually practices at the pool at Zanuck Stadium, but has been displaced by the construction period. They are forced to play at Oaks Christian, as well as play games and scrimmages at other facilities. “We lose practice time on Wednesday and Friday [when we play at Oaks Christian], but it is nice to get out of our comfort zones. It’s more of a game situation when we play at a different pool,” water polo player Russell Martin ’10 said. The team was at Oaks Christian during last week’s “hell week” of multiple, intense daily practices. The team opens up their season on Friday with a match against Serra.
Sept. 3, 2008
Dara Torres ’85
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lympics in numbers
3
The total number of alumni who went to Beijing as Olympians
4
The total number of medals won by alumni
41
Dara Torres’ age, making her the oldest Olympics swimming medalist
0
The number of overall goals allowed by two meter defender Peter Hudnut ’99
Students, teachers travel as fans By A.J. Calabrese Ben Goldstein
and
Alumni, faculty, and students voyaged to Beijing to cheer on family, friends, and former students at the Olympic Games. Among the crowd were President Thomas C. Hudnut, Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts, director of publications Terry Baris, and coaches Darlene Bible and Kim Hieatt. Eric Arzoian ’09 attended fencing matches in Beijing with his sister Rebecca ’05. Eric, already a globetrotting fencer himself, has friends on the U.S. Olympic team, including silver medalist Jason Rogers. “It was great to see our team do unexpectedly well,” Eric said. “It was inspiring to see, especially because I hope to eventually compete in the Olympics.” Hudnut attended the sabre semifinal match with Arzoian, where the U.S. men’s sabre team made a miraculous comeback against Russia to advance to the gold medal match. He said he also got in touch with many alumni at the Olympic games. Lisa Feigenbaum ’00, a former softball player for Harvard-Westlake and Harvard College, traveled to Beijing to cheer on a friend on the silver medal winning U.S. softball team. Also in attendance were Taylor Megdal ’97, Kirsten Segal ’05 and Charlie Melvoin ’05.
COURTESY OF DARLENE BIBLE
courtesy of eric arzoian
SOUVENIRS: Fencer Eric Arzoian ’09 (left) poses with friend and Brentwood alum Jason Rogers’ silver medal which Rogers won with the U.S. men’s sabre team. Darlene Bible and Dara Torres ’85 (above) pose with one of Torres’ three silver medals. Bible coached Torres while she was a student at Westlake.
Alumna and coach take on Beijing By Sean Kyle
courtesy of palisadespost.com
KIWI: Ali Riley ’06 dribbles in a match for Stanford. She made an appearance in Bejing for the New Zealand women’s soccer team.
and
Jack Schwada
For Ali Riley ’06, competing in the Olympics was a dream come true. Riley, who played defense for the New Zealand women’s soccer team and also plays for Stanford called it “an amazing experience and one that I will never forget.” Although the New Zealand team advance beyond group stages. “It was an honor to play for my country,” Riley said. Riley competed with the New Zealand National Women’s Soccer team last September in the Women’s World Cup, and during her senior year at Harvard Westlake claimed New Zealand citizenship to play for their under-20 national team. Aside from the actual competition, she describes being in the Olympic Village as one of her favorite parts of the trip. She appreciated “being surrounded by incredible athletes from every country imaginable,” as well as the smaller advantages to being an Olympian such as the key ring which the athletes could swipe at the vending machine to get whatever they wanted for free. Another experience that made an impression on Riley was when her team overlapped with the Brazilian men’s team in Shenyang and spent time with Ronaldhino. “That was definitely a highlight,” Riley said. “I still can’t believe that even happened.” Riley is modest about her accomplishments, claiming that the achievements of the other Wolverine athletes
in the games, Peter Hudnut ‘99 and Dara Torres ‘85, outshone her own. “If I am in half as good shape as Dara when I am even 25 I will be happy,” she joked. She also praised the American team, saying “I could not have picked more deserving players to win the gold.” For Riley, playing at the international level was inspirational because seeing so many talented players and different styles of play reminded her that there is always room to improve. In comparing the Olympics to the World Cup, she claimed that the levels of play are the same but nothing can compare to the atmosphere surrounding the Olympics. She said that to her, the purpose of the Olympics is to bring people together. Track and Field coach Félix Sánchez entered the Beijing Summer Olympics last month as a gold medal winner and a defending champion. Sánchez has represented the Dominican Republic since 1999, and in 2004 he won the gold medal for his parents’ home country in his 400 meter hurdles event at the Summer Olympics in Athens. He carried the Dominican Republic’s flag in the Opening Ceremonies last month in Beijing. Sánchez, one of the few hopes for the Dominican Republic to win a medal in Beijing, lost to American favorite Kerron Clement in a pre-heat competition. Sánchez had been bothered for several years by an injury to his left ankle, which was blamed for his disappointing loss last month.
COURTESY OF IAAF
ON THE MEND: Track and field coach Felix Sanchez came into Beijing nursing an ankle injury. He did not make it past the qualifying round.
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Silver Lining Peter Hudnut ’99, a young Olympian athlete, and Dara Torres ’85, a legend in her sport, both came away from Beijing with silver medals. By A.J. Calabrese
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FATHER’S SUPPORT: President Thomas C. Hudnut flew to Beijing with his family to watch his son Peter ’99 play for the U.S. men’s Olympic water polo team. COURTESY OF DARLENE BIBLE
Ben Goldstein
Peter Hudnut ’99
For school president Thomas C. Hudnut, his son’s Olympic medal was not the main cause of his pride. He was already proud of Peter’s ’99 commitment to the sport of water polo throughout Harvard-Westlake, Stanford, three years playing professionally in Europe, three major surgeries, and being the final player cut from the 2004 Olympic men’s water polo team. He was proud of Peter’s determination to make it onto the 2008 team and he was especially proud when he found out his son had secured a spot to represent his country in the Beijing Games. “I know how much work has gone into it over the years,” Hudnut said. “That wouldn’t have been any different if the team had come in 12th or if they had won the gold medal.” But the United States did win a medal. The men’s team entered the Beijing Games carrying hopeful but mild expectations after finishing ninth in the 2007 World Championships. They fought their way to the semifinals and scored a stunning victory over Serbia, then lost in the final bout against 2004 defending champion Hungary. For the first time in 20 years, the American water polo team came away from the Olympics with the silver: a feat of such great magnitude that Hudnut compared it to the 1980 “miracle on ice” men’s hockey team. “Nobody ever, ever thought this team would be in the last game,” he said. While at Harvard-Westlake, Peter Hudnut was a three time All-American, three time All-CIF, fourtime All-League, and two-time league MVP. In past years he has helped coach the Wolverine boys’ water polo team during the off-season from European league play. From 2005 to 2007, Hudnut played for S.S. Lazio in Italy and the past year he has played for C.N. Barcenoleta in Spain. Peter was not scored on in any of his Olympic appearances, the primary goal of his position as two meter guard. His father got to see him score his first and only Olympic goal in a preliminary match against Italy. “He doesn’t get paid to score,” Hudnut said. “So seeing him score in the Olympics was a big treat.” But the most vivid memory he could recall of his son was seeing him emerge from the pool in the middle of the semifinal game against Serbia with a bloody gash above his left eyebrow that required stitches to close, and then seeing him rejoin the action, despite his vulnerable injury, only to be targeted by the Serbs’ violent elbow throwing. Peter finished the game, but needed stitches above his lip as well. “I’ve always thought that a little blood and a little injury enhances the image of the tough guy position that he plays,” Hudnut said. “I frankly thought it was pretty cool.”
COURTESY OF DARLENE BIBLE
protect the goal: Peter Hudnut ’99 (above) defends a shot for the silver medalist Team USA against Serbia in the semifinals for men’s water polo at the Olympics.
Dara Torres ’85
In the summer before her senior year at Westlake, Dara Torres ’85 swam in the Olympics and helped the United States win a gold medal. Twenty-four years later, she is still doing the same thing. Torres competed in her fifth Olympics last month in Beijing and won three silver medals. The 41-yearold Westlake graduate is the oldest swimming medalist in Olympics history. Furthermore, her 12 career medals ties her with Jenny Thompson for the most medals of any U.S. female Olympian. Athletic Director and head of the school’s swimming program Darlene Bible coached Torres from seventh through 10th grade at Westlake and was in Beijing for the Olympics last month. Bible got to spend a moment with Torres after her silver medal winning 50 meter freestyle race and 4x100 meter medley relays on Aug. 17. “I was tearing up, and she said, ‘Stop, you’re going to make me cry!’ I was so proud of her,” Bible said. Torres had previously won silver in the 4x100 meter freestyle relays on Aug. 10. Although she trained for the Olympics at Mission Viejo High School during her junior year, Torres had a far-reaching impact on Westlake athletics during high school. She played on successful volleyball and basketball teams at Westlake while she was already a world-class swimmer. She continued to play volley-
COURTESY OF DARLENE BIBLE
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER: Dara Torres ’85 dives in to swim the anchor leg of the medley relay. She led her team to a silver in this competition, as well as winning two more silvers overall in Beijing. With these wins, Torres became the oldest Olympic swimming medalist of all time at 41. ball at the University of Florida. “One of the things about Dara that sets her apart from others is that she is an amazing athlete,” Bible said. “See how many Olympic swimmers played another sport in college. At 41, she is an amazing story of fortitude, courage and desire.” President Thomas C. Hudnut was also in Beijing for these Olympic Games. “Staying in shape all those years, and proving that you’re not necessarily over the hill at a certain age-
it speaks to her dedication and hard work,” Hudnut said. He continued, referring to the school’s motto, “Throughout her career she has persevered and done well because she thought she could do well.” Head of Athletics Audrius Barzdukas said that current students had much to gain from Torres. “Dara embodies the idea that you can be a good student, person and athlete for life,” he said. I think she got her foundation for all three areas at her school. She is a lifelong learner.”
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Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle
Cody Schott
The dynasty begins
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JACK DAVIS/CHRONICLE
JUMP FOR JOY: Danielle Salka ’11 tries to hit over the block during a summer practice. The girls’ volleyball team is coming off a season where they won multiple titles, including the Division-III state championship.
Girls’ volleyball aims to continue championship form in new season By Jack Davis After finishing their season on a 20match win streak and capturing the Division-III state title, the girls’ varsity volleyball team enters its first scrimmage next Tuesday hoping to duplicate last season’s success. They will take on Thousand Oaks High School in Taper Gymnasium, where they were undefeated last season. However this season they will have to compete with a younger and less experienced squad, as the team graduated 10 seniors, including Cathryn Quinn ’08 who is plying her trade for the Princeton Tigers. “Losing all the seniors definitely leaves a bit of a leadership void,” outside hitter Meg Norton ’10 said. “Last year they gave our team so much and the five returning players really need to step up.” Norton, who was MVP of last years’ state title team, in addition to being the youngest player on the squad at the time, still thinks this group has a shot at success despite the loss of so many key players. “We might be a younger team this year but I definitely think we have a lot of potential,” Norton said. “We’ve looked solid practicing all summer and this unit has great chemistry. Our goal is still state” The girls’ volleyball team has spent the prior two months practicing together in Taper in hopes of getting a head start on developing team chemistry and getting extra practice playing together as a collective unit. “Everyone has been in here all summer working hard and it is really helping us build our chemistry,” Norton said. “We are all just trying to work together and do the best we can. Last year’s team was more used to playing together so they already had that great chemistry, but this team needs to build that and replace all the leadership the
seniors provided.” The team is once again led by head coach Adam Black, who was named coCIF coach of the year last season in his first year manning the bench for the Wolverines. Black has implemented a complex, diverse stat sheet in order to help players see exactly what areas of their game need improvement. The stat sheet, which is updated and replaced with a new sheet every 11 days, covers all aspects of the game, including digs, sets and attacks. “The stat chart is really helpful because it shows us exactly what we need to be better at,” Jillian McAndrews ’10, a new comer to this years’ squad, said. “Coach Black comes up with a number or a rating of where we need to be, shows us where we are, and if we aren’t at his pre determined average of what our position requires, we focus on improving that specific part of our game.” McAndrews is one of ten new players on the team, but Black hasn’t been concerned about the loss of so many experienced players from the previous season. “For me it’s not about us losing those seniors, it’s about the players we have coming back,” Black said. “We’ve got five returning players from the team that made state last year, and four seniors from that team.” Black said that he was not concerned about having a dip in talent level from last years’ team. “We’ve got girls on this team who play volleyball year round, who are definitely solid players,” he said. “And all the girls on this team are very receptive to each other and really work well together.” When asked if he thought this team could make another run to a state title, Black smiled. “I’ll let you know that after December,” he said.
volleyball court spans 60 feet. Last year, it seemed like the girls’ volleyball team turned every last inch of that into excitement. With a new season coming, we can expect the same. They play with passion and they play smart; but above all else, they love playing. They are intimidating. Kill after kill leaves the other team defenseless and downbeat. The sight of Meg Norton ’10 jumping is enough to make me quiver. When she makes contact with the ball, I’m sure a few silent screams go off, both in the stands and across the net. Then the wonder kicks in. After leaving their opponents bloodied and beaten, the Wolverines draw applause from the audience. Half of them are dumbfounded by what they saw; the other half claps in fear. I’ve attended my fair share of games. I have my favorite cheers (“Na-NaNa”) and have lost my voice on a considerable amount of occasions. Watching them in the CIF final was different, though. Amidst all the verbal assaults with the Flintridge fans, the jeers and the empty pizza boxes on the floor (we had ordered Dominoes on the bus), I really began to appreciate what I was watching. It was after the first game point that I realized something. It was an epiphany of sorts. I wanted the clapping and cheering to stop. “Shhhh,” I whisper to a friend next to me. “The coronation is about to begin.” The definition of a queen is quite simple: a female monarch, a woman who exhibits power. Queen Victoria left her impact on their world as did Queen Elizabeth. These volleyball girls
are leaving a legacy on this school, a place where pride matters. The march to queen-dom began last year. Norton, along with her fellow starters, powered the team to an undefeated record in Mission League. That didn’t suffice, though. They were hungry. They wanted more, and their ambition couldn’t be contained. They rolled through the CIF playoffs, leaving their mark on both court and opponent. State was the cherry on top for a team that ended up being ranked third in the entire nation. They breezed through that too. It seemed as if they evoked divine right-they could not be stopped. They proved that they were more than just a team, and I can only do justice for them by giving them the royal stamp. Some may argue that we lost Katherine Sebastian ’08 and Cathryn Quinn ’08. Ariana Sopher ’09 and Krystle Higgins ’09 are both prepared to fill those respective roles. Norton and fellow outside hitter Emily Waterhouse ’09 are both one year more experienced. The depth of the team is just as strong, thanks to a youthful bench and a formidable JV team from last year. The “princesses” are ready to step up into their new role. At every step of the way this year, I’ll be sure to remind people that we are in the presence of royalty. When they retain the league crown, I’ll praise them. When they swarm the floor after winning CIF, I’ll bow my head in reverence. When Norton spikes the Wolverines to a second state championship? The coronation will be over. Fanatics will be parading through the streets. The dynasty will begin. Welcome to the reign of volleyball.
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Sept. 3, 2008
Q A Q A Q A
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The Chronicle
In his own words...
How long have you been playing water polo and when did you first want to play? I started swimming on a swim team when I was 7. And I swam for about two years and got really bored of it and tired and frustrated because I didn’t really like swimming that much. And then we moved to Studio City right near school and my mom found out about a water polo club over at the school here when I was 9. I started playing water polo for what was then the Harvard Club and is now the Los Angeles Water Polo club.
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Max Eliot ’09
varsity boys’ water polo
What position do you play? I play 2 meter or the center position. If you don’t know water polo, it’s kind of like basketball except with six people instead of five. So the position I play is exactly like the center position in basketball.
How has the team changed over the years? The first two years were the end of [former Head Coach Rich] Corso’s kind of regime or group of kids. The next year we had Max Lubin ’08 and Billy Evashwick ’08 who did play for Corso but weren’t quite as influenced by him as past players. And now this year we have a group of guys who have played together for a while. I have played with Michael Hartwick ’09 and Michael Boggan ’09 and Charlie Weintraub ’09 since we were in 10 and unders. And Michael and Charlie stopped for a while but we have all been playing together for a very long time.
How do you balance water polo, your work on Community Council and a heavy course load? You would think it’s a lot but the times when I do best in school are during water polo season, because I go to practice, I come home, and I know I just need to get my homework done. When I’m not in season I get home and I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got all this time, and I don’t focus on doing my homework.” When I’m playing water polo I am really focused whatever it is that I’m doing.
What are your hopes for the season? To win CIF. I actually think that we have a very good shot at it. Our coach, Larry Felix, told us the other day that the top six teams in CIF all have a shot of winning it, and I would definitely put us in the top six. So I really think we could win CIF, but I don’t want to eat my words.
You guys just had “hell week.” What’s that like? The goal is to get everyone back into shape. Because during the summer we played more games than ever before. We played a lot and we played very well. But now we get three weeks off and we all get out of shape. So it’s meant to get us back into shape. Then when season starts we will start focusing on the more tactical part of the game. This is just strength and conditioning.
INTERVIEW AND PHOTO BY ALEX EDEL
September Games to watch...
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vs. Franklin
vs. Edison
vs. Palos Verdes
vs. Corona Del Mar
“We want to win CIF this year, so it’s important we get our season off on the right foot.” —Ketter Weissman ’09
“They are at the top of Div. I but they are not in our league, so it is a good test to see how we would do against other people in our divison.” —Nicole Hung ’10
Football Friday at 7:30 p.m. Ted Slavin Field “Last year (Franklin) were just like us, and they’re in the City Division so they play a lot of big, good teams.” —Head Coach Vic Eumont
Field Hockey Girls’ Tennis Thursday at 3:15 p.m. Ted Slavin Field
Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. Studio City Golf & Tennis Club
Water Polo
Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. Zanuck Swim Stadium “[Both Harvard-Westlake and Corona Del Mar] are in the top six teams that could win CIF..” —Max Eliot ’09
23:
Volleyball
vs. Bishop Montgomery
Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Taper Gym
“It’ll be our first real test this season and by that point we should be coming together as a team.” —Jillian McAndrews ’10
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while you were Construction, athletics and summer programs kept the campus buzzing.
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jordan freisleben/chronicle
DRIED UP: Workmen replaster the drained Zanuck Swimming Stadium pool floor, a project that began in August. See A27 for full story
cathi choi/chronicle
RUN IT: Members of the JV Girls Field Hockey team practice in the last week of summer (above).
erin moy/chronicle
WATER BREAK: Shawn Fateh ’09 and Kimo Thorpe-Barofsky ’09 take a break during their varsity football practice last week.
nikki goren/summer times
REDESIGN: Workmen tear up the quad after graduation to make space for more tables and benches.
ali sacks/summer times
A FAVORITE SPORT: Girls Basketball Coach Melissa Hearlihy (right) directs summer campers at basketball camp in late June.
B Section
first day
The Chronicle . Harvard-Westlake School . Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008
It’s the first day of school for 11 new faculty and 15 new staff members today, too. cATHI CHOI/chronicle
HIS FIRST DAY: Ken Neisser is a new upper school history teacher.
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Seven new upper school teachers and four new middle school teachers are joining the Harvard-Westlake faculty this year. From Japanese and Latin to math and science, these 11 will become familiar faces at school.
Eric Olson will join the upper school English department this year. Olson will be teaching English II and English III American Studies this year. “Harvard-Westlake was an opportunity I couldn’t pass on and I’m thrilled to work here,” Olson said. Though he was born in Sydney, Australia Olson moved to the California and attended University High School in Irvine. He attended Cornell University where he majored in English and religious studies. He later got a master’s degree in American studies at California State University Fullerton. Olson started his teaching career in Japan and taught English to students there for three years. He then chaired the middle school English department at Ojai Valley School. Most recently, he was a humanities teacher and division coordinator at Wildwood School. There, he developed curriculum and programs for English classes and advisory and outdoor education programs. “I look forward to seeing my new students and developing relationships with them,” Olson said. “I want my students to learn for the sake of learning, not just trying to get an A at the end of the year.” —Sade Tavangarian
This year middle school Latin teacher Derek
Wilairat
will move to the Upper School. A graduate of Pomona College, Wilairat received his bachelor’s degree in classical languages. “I liked it a lot at the Middle School, but I thought it would be challenging and rewarding to teach Latin at the Upper School,” Wilairat said. Wilairat and Latin teacher Paul Chenier will sponsor the Junior Classical League, a club active on both campuses. Aside from tackling a new schedule and new buildings, Wilairat is teaching more advanced courses. This year, he will have four different classes: Latin 2, Latin 3, Latin 3 Honors, and Latin 4 and 5. Having only taught Latin 4, the other courses offer a new and advanced Latin curriculum for him. In addition to the grammatical aspect of the language, Wilairat is “looking forward to learning Latin literature.” Wilairat said, “I’m going to do my best to be prepared here.” — Emily Wallach
The Foreign Language department will be joined this year by Kyoko Tomikura, who will be teaching Japanese II, III and IV. Tomikura previously taught Japanese at Brentwood School, and has worked as a teacher in California for the past six years. A Japan native, Tomikura first came to the United States as an exchange student. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Japanese literature at the Kokugakuin University in Tokyo. She then earned a second bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Utah. She is now working on her master’s degree in linguistics at California State University, Northridge. Tomikura’s favorite subject in high school was history. “I guess I was interested in people. That’s why I enjoyed studying history,” she said. “So, I would like to teach Japanese history, literature and society for the future. On the other hand, teaching Japanese language and culture involves teaching all elements above.” — Sarah Enriquez
Gabriel Ramirez will join the middle school English department and teach seventh and eighth grade English this school year. Even though he majored in English at UCLA, Ramirez was not always interested in teaching English. At first he was a pre-med student and then changed his major to art. It was not until he enrolled in a class highly populated with English majors that Ramirez discovered his passion for English. He changed his major and began studying British literature and ultimately graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education. For the past several years, Ramirez has been working as a teacher and advisor at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles where he taught English and Drama to high school students. “I wanted to help kids reach their fullest potential,” Ramirez said. Since graduating UCLA, Ramirez has dedicated himself to helping students reach their highest goals, he said. — David Burton
As a new member of the upper school English department, Ariana Kelly will teach English II and AP Language and Composition. Kelly graduated from Yale University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in literature and then went to the University of Washington to complete a master’s degree of fine arts in poetry. Kelly began her teaching career in Utah, but later took a job in the Microsoft Recruiting division, conducting interviews and other hiring procedures. While the Microsoft job “enabled me to write because it was a day job that I left at the office,” Kelly found that “it wasn’t very fulfilling.” “I wanted to narrow the gap between my work life and my creative life,” Kelly said. After looking into positions at numerous schools, Kelly visited Harvard-Westlake and met students and faculty members and “felt at ease on campus.” Once the school year gets underway, Kelly plans on looking into a school radio program and getting to know the culture of the school. “I’m really looking forward to working with students again,” Kelly said. — Alice Phillips
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Jim O’Leary will be joining the middle school history department this year. O’Leary will be teaching eighth grade World Civilizations, ninth grade World and Europe I, and will coach the freshman football team. O’Leary graduated from Tufts University with a bacherlor’s degree in history. He was a very involved athlete and was awarded the Male Sportsmanship Award by the Tufts faculty for his impact on the baseball and football programs. Before joining the Harvard-Westlake faculty, O’Leary taught ancient and modern history at Kingswood-Oxford School in Connecticut. He said he is “thrilled” for Harvard-Westlake’s “mix of a great academics and athletics program.” O’Leary was born in Easton, Mass. and attended high school and University in Boston. “I am looking forward to meeting new students and teaching my ninth graders about my favorite part of history, Ancient Rome,” he said. O’Leary’s goals for the new year are to “have a successful year, have the kids enjoy history class, and to help out with sports.” — Sade Tavangarian
History teacher Ken Neisser comes to the Upper School with a resume that includes experience teaching history and Spanish in independent schools. Neisser will teach two sections of The World and Europe II and three sections of United States History. He is “thrilled” to teach at HarvardWestlake: “[The school] has always seemed to be at the academic pinnacle of things. And when I met the faculty and administration here, frankly I was dazzled.” Neisser attended Yale University, where he majored in history. He studied at Harvard Law School and practiced entertainment law for 23 years. He is currently working toward earning his master’s degree in history from California State University, Los Angeles. Neisser looks forward to working with enthusiastic students and being able to have in-depth discussions about history. “I have always thought that history could be brought alive,” Neisser said. “If I have a good year, I will have convinced some kids that history is a lot better than they thought it was.” — Alex Leichenger
Moss Pike joins the middle school foreign language department as a Latin teacher to eight and ninth graders. He attended Cornell University and received his bachelor’s degree in applied and engineering physics. Originally, Pike wanted to become a doctor, but he cultivated an interest in the classics when he took a classical mythology course the summer of his junior year. After graduating from Cornell, he decided to enroll in a post-back program at UCLA where he studied Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, French, German, Italian, and, Spanish. He also worked as a UCLA teaching fellow and designed and taught courses. “So far it seems like [the school] has all of the advantages of a big college in terms of the opportunities, the motivation, great faculty, great student body; but the feel of a small college, which is really appealing to me. Everybody seems to know each other and it is intimate that way,” Pike said. — Ashley Khakshouri Stephanie Quan will be teaching chemistry and honors chemistry on the upper school campus. She attended Columbia University where she studied biochemistry and worked as a research assistant and an organic chemistry teaching assistant. Quan decided to become a teacher when she realized she wanted to interact and work with more people than she was able to while researching. “Columbia opened me up to many different minds from people all around the world,” she said. In addition to her interest in sciences, Quan is also very much involved in her personal hobby of rock climbing. While at Columbia, she was the president of the Columbia Rock Climbing Club. She also served on student council and wrote a weekly column for Blue and White Online. Quan loves science because of the improvements it can contribute to the world, and she intends to bring that love of science into the classroom with her. “I want to challenge my students in a fun way and look forward to working with a great science department,” Quan said. — Alec Caso
Tara Kheradyar has joined the upper school science department after years of teaching as an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University and working as an administrator at the University of San Diego. This year, she is taking on four sections of AP Environmental Science. Born in Iran, Kheradyar left the country shortly before the end of high school. She received a Ph.D. in earth sciences from Stanford and a master’s in micropaleontology from UC Berkeley. Before pursuing a career as a teacher, Kheradyar worked as an environmental geologist and monitored groundwater quality for a landfill. Kheradyar has been working as an educator since 1995 and has found that she prefers teaching in a classroom to administrative work. Kheradyar’s goals for this year are to “make a real difference in the students’ lives,” and “set a good example for her students,” she said. — Daniel Rothberg Regan Galvan graduated with a bachelor’s degree from University of California, San Diego in 2001 and earned a secondary teaching credential from San Diego State University. Galvan will joing the middle school math department and teach Algebra 1 and Geometry to eight and ninth graders. Born and raised along the coastline of San Diego, Galvan attended Oha High School. Galvan tutored kids in math throughout high school and college to earn extra money, she said. Soon after graduating from college, Galvan was hired as a math teacher at a public school in San Diego. Ready to broaden her horizons and expand her experiences as a teacher, Galvan moved on to work at Pacific Hills in West Hollywood. “I have goofy personality in the classroom, yet I know how to get the work done,” Galvan said. Galvan heard Harvard-Westlake was “the best school in Los Angeles. It is not only gorgeous, but academically rigorous,” she said. — Olivia Kwitny
Photos by Cathi Choi, Dana Glaser, Erin Moy, Candice Navi, and Michelle Yousefzadeh Front page graphic designed by Emily Friedman and Candace Ravan
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Sept. 3, 2008
The Chronicle Jim Crawford, owner of CJL Security Inc., the security company that guards both the Middle and Upper Schools, became Head of Security in July. Crawford started as a Los Angeles Police Department officer in 1980 and joined the school as a night security guard in 1981 at Harvard. During the early years of his career, Crawford worked patrol at different divisions while night guarding at the school. In 1999, he became a detective and investigated gang homicides for nine years. Crawford worked as a police officer and detective while maintaining CJL Security Inc., a company he founded in 1981 when the school requested a security service. “I’ve been here for almost 30 years.” Crawford said. “I know most of the students and teachers which has made the transition easier.” Crawford hopes to train students
and teachers alike in an effective lockdown technique that will make the response time to crises quicker. “Security has changed and violence has become a big security issue across our country,” said Crawford. Security guards are now being trained in stimulated crisis situations. The guards carry guns and are able to respond to crisis anywhere on the campus in one minute. Crawford also wants to be more available to teachers and students. He plans plans to be more active in the school by talking to more students and speaking at class meetings. “I think we have one of the best security systems in the nation and the school security is on a different level,” said Crawford.
stafffaces Keeping the school safe, integrating technology and supervising study time are all in a day’s work for these three staff members.
— Neha Nimmagadda
After a four year hiatus,
Shaw
Jennifer Lamkins is the new technology integration specialist. She will serve the faculty by developing curriculum that utilizes technology. She has been teaching since 1988 and is originally from Riverside County. “I was chosen to be a teacher before I actually decided to be one,” Lamkins said. “One of my mentors ‘discovered me’ after observing me work with some folks at work one day, asked me if I had ever considered teaching. I was offered a full scholarship to complete a master’s [degree] in teaching and I fell in love with teaching kids.” Lamkins has taught high school and middle school, and has mentored other teachers on how to work technology into
Steve
’71 has resumed his work at Harvard-Westlake, marking his 21st year at the Upper School. Shaw has previously held the positions of Dean of Students, yearbook adviser, journalism teacher and boys’ water polo and swimming coach, and is now the head of Afternoon Prep. “I found that I missed the life of the school where I have spent so much of my life. It’s like home to me,” Shaw said. Afternoon Prep, previously known as Study Hall, is an after-school study session geared towards student-athletes who have late practices and games. From 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays and 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, athletes are required to meet in the Seeley G. Mudd Library. The goal of the program is to provide study time for athletes before practices and games, rather than late at night. Although similar programs have ex-
their teaching. She previously worked at California State University, Long Beach. Lamkins will teach students how to integrate technology into their school work. Lamkins’ plan for the upcoming year is “to get an idea [of what the teachers] want to learn, I want to work with a couple of departments exclusively.” Lamkins will mostly be working with the English and History departments. Lamkins said that at Harvard-Westlake “there is a desire to always improve, a desire to always get better.” She said she enjoys Harvard-Westlake’s “friendly and welcoming atmosphere.” — Jordan McSpadden
isted in the past, Shaw assures that he will use a different approach this time around. “I will be personally involved in helping the students as much as possible,” Shaw said. “I see this as a great opportunity to work with the students, primarily academically, but in peripheral ways as well, such as time management and study skills.” Shaw feels that the structured time will benefit athletes not only in the classroom, but only on the field. “I firmly believe that being a better student leads to being a better athlete, and vice-versa. The skills overlap,” Shaw said. “[I am looking forward to] returning to the Harvard-Westlake community, working with the faculty, administration and staff, and most of all being in a position to help the students however I can.” — Candace Ravan
Photos by Cathi Choi, Michelle Yousefzadeh and Candice Navi. Graphics by Candace Ravan and Allegra Tepper. For more information about new staff and faculty members, visit chronicle.hw.com.