Tower The Masters School
49 Clinton Avenue Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. 10522
VOLUME 72, NUMBER 5
Editorial This year’s Masters Matters symposium was supposed to be about “transcending race.” However, many students felt that the day concentrated too much on black versus white tension and excluded other people of color.
FRIDAY MARCH 11, 2016
tower.mastersny.org
Administration addresses the “stealing problem” Ariel Censor Editor-in-Chief
SOPHIE BUCHANAN/TOWER
STUDENTS DISCUSS THE FILMS I’m not Racist... Am I? and White People at an optional discussion in the Library Conference Room facilitated by student and faculty diversity ambassadors as part of the Masters Matters symposium on “Reimagining Race” on March 4.
Students react to reimagining race rAjAn Cutting Editor-in-Chief Jaws dropped and eyes widened in shock as the audience, which was predominantly white, struggled to understand as the movie they were watching, I’m Not Racist…Am I?, claimed that all white people are racists. Through the advisory reflections and individual conversations that followed, it seemed evident that the community was divided and in disagreement over whether racism referred to an institutionalized oppression, and therefore implicated all white people, or referred only to individualized prejudice. Regardless of what the right answer is, the second annual Masters Matters symposium marked the first head-on dialogue the school engaged in regarding race relations and its roots and succeeded in pushing students into discussing uncomfortable topics. By the end of the day, some white students were angry and felt they had spent the day being attacked, while others were enlightened and felt their time was well spent. Many students could be heard talking about the subject well after the day ended, reflecting on what could have gone better and what solu-
tions could have been presented. Some students thought the first film, I’m Not Racist…Am I?, sampled the wrong group of people and unfairly represented what it means to be a member of a racial or ethnic group. The biggest complaints concerned Anna, an Asian girl adopted to a white family, not being an appropriate representation of what it means to be of Asian descent living in America. Senior Chris Kumaradjaja felt the symposium and other talks the school has surrounding race are too limiting, focusing only on blacks and whites. “I felt that some aspects of the symposium were slightly alienating and, even though I could relate to the struggles that other people of color feel, they don’t affect me as deeply in my day-today life. The dialogue on race has been quite figuratively and literally ‘black and white’ especially white-on-black oppression. As someone who is not black nor white, I’m left out of the conversation,” he said. Kumaradjaja wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Before the screening of the first film it was announced that the day aimed to understand and explore racism in America only. Most international students felt the day did not recognize them and the racial prejudice targeted against them, a direct contra-
diction of the school’s goal of creating a place where every voice is heard. The diversity ambassadors took the lead in facilitating the day, which was coordinated primarily through the Advancement Office. Sophomore diversity ambassador Ahnaf Taha, who is also the boys’ boarder representative, has heard different types of feedback from the boarding community, which statistically is more diverse. “I think that our symposium was really effective in bringing awareness to systematic racism and starting that conversation. Moving forward, I think we just need to work on opening that conversation up and making it accessible to more people,” Taha said. Overall, the second annual Masters Matters symposium set the foundation for future dialogue and succeeded in pushing students out of their comfort zones. Rosaria Golden, Campaign and Special Projects Manager, helped execute the day and thinks it is a necessary dialogue for schools to have. “These are important conversations given all that is happening in the world today. Masters should be a safe haven for everyone; the more we can talk about sensitive issues like race, the more comfortable we become with each other,” Golden said.
It was towards the beginning of Morning Meeting and about two thirds of the student body was standing up while Head of School Laura Danforth looked around the theater amazed. She had asked the students to stand up if any of them had something stolen from them while at school. “Clearly, this is a problem,” Danforth said, looking at all the standing students. However, there is debate about whether students are actually being stolen from or are simply losing things and claiming that they were stolen. “There isn’t a significant stealing problem at Masters,” Fernando Mejia, Director of Safety and Logistics, said. “People put their things somewhere, forget about it and never check the lost and found. Claiming that their stuff was stolen transfers the guilt onto someone else.” Mejia recalled a recent incident involving a lost diamond ring. A female boarding student had misplaced her diamond ring, but was convinced it was stolen. She believed she had left it in the sink in the dorm bathroom, went to do something else, and then when she came back it was gone. Her dorm parents talked to Danforth about things going missing in the dorm. She then made an announcement at Morning Meeting. “When the girl said that, other girls started thinking that their missing stuff had also been stolen,” Mejia said. The girl’s ring was found in the third floor bathroom of Masters Hall. Mejia had seen a drawing of the ring hung up in the dorm and contacted the girl. “There’s very little stealing, there’s more misplacing,” Mejia said. “If people labeled their things and checked the lost and found every time they were missing something, the so-called ‘stealing problem’ at Masters wouldn’t exist.” Many people disagree with this assessment, however. “When kids come to me telling me something has been stolen, I press them pretty hard,” Matt Ives, head of the Upper School, said. “In most cases, it’s pretty clear that something was stolen and the students who are telling me
this are generally students I really trust. There are definitely instances where a student may have actually lost something, but with the kids that have come to me, there was definitely something stolen.” “I lost my glasses and I know that no one stole them, but I think far too many things have gone missing recently for it to just be people losing things,” Tim Kaplowitz, co-chair of student government, said. “We’ve had much worse years with stealing. Laptops and other valuable items aren’t really being stolen,” Ives said. “But there are strange, small things getting stolen. People’s coats, bags of makeup, it’s not big ticket items, but it does upset the victims.” Many believe that the people stealing these items belong to a group called the “Klepto Club,” a group of boys that supposedly steals random, typically not very valuable objects from students. “If anyone continues in the Klepto Club and is discovered, they will face very serious consequences up to and including removal from our school,” Danforth said. “To be proud of being part of a club that violates the rights and property of others is corrosive in any community. If someone thinks stealing things from other people is fun, they can go find another school to do that in. I urge anyone who is tempted to violate community norms and rules to walk away from that kind of destructive behavior,” she said. Both Danforth and Ives feel strongly that if students know what’s going on, they should tell the administration. “It’s the students who are being affected by this problem, so if they know other students are stealing, it would be in their best interest to tell us so we can do something about it,” Ives said. “To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., it’s not the actions of the bad, but the silence of the good that corrode our society,” Danforth said. “I don’t believe in kids turning in other kids, but I do request that students who know what’s going on do something to help stop it. It could be an anonymous note, I don’t have to know who actually told me.” “Unfortunately, unless students step in to stop this pattern of thievery, the only way I see it stopping is for someone or even a group of people to be removed from the community,” Danforth said. “This just isn’t Masters.”
As Masters grieves, Ellen Cowhey writes a thank you letter to Jane Rechtman ellen Cowhey History and Religion Faculty Dearest Jane Rechtman, You were always so good at writing thank you notes—handwritten, on a card or nice stationery, and at least three lines. Just three days before you passed on, you sent me a thank you note for something I’d just sent you, plus asked me to thank again the whole team who created a quilt for you. But now, it’s my turn to write you a thank you note on behalf of the waves of Masters students you taught, your friends, colleagues, and the many more lives you profoundly touched. Thank you for your sense of wonder and exploration, whether that meant finding the best dumplings in all of Flushing, Queens, or pursuing yet another degree. It also meant learning everything you could about bioethics and how the mind-body-spirit connection worked from a multitude of scientific, technological and spiritual perspectives. You were open to it all, ever eager to learn and grow and explore. Thank you for your smile that
danced all the way up to your eyes. A smile that broke open so easily into generous laughter. That smile, and the laughter and big warm hugs to go with it, let us know you genuinely cared about us, wanted the best for us, and were willing to see us for who we truly were, even as you called us forth to our higher selves. You always expected to see, and therefore did see, the good in each one of us. Thank you for holding true to the vision of Miss Eliza Masters by helping transition what once were Bible Study classes into World Religion classes. You also developed Matters of Spirit, from what had been Chapel in an earlier era, into a respectful exploration of many different religious pathways, all the while allowing our own truths to shine forth. You’ve shown us how to live. You’ve also shown us how to die with heart and eyes and arms wide open, embracing the mystery into which you were headed. I can remember when you first shared the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in the spring of 2014. You said, “Well, I’m going on an adventure. I get to see what‘s on the other side. Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s nothing, but
I’ll get to find out. I just feel bad for all the people I love who I’ll leave behind.” No self-pity, you just had that adventurous spirit of sailing off into the wide unknown. None of us will be here forever, Jane. You’ve reminded us of that. But you have been with the Masters Community for almost 25 years as a classroom teacher of religion and wisdom traditions. You’ve also been a mentor, a class dean, a colleague and a friend far beyond the classroom. You have modeled listening without always needing to “fix” the concern shared. You’ve shown us how to live to the very edges of our lives, ever extending beyond the perceived limits, showing us to see further with the vision of a kind heart. Thank you for teaching us, not only how to live with passion, but how to die with an effervescent spirit of adventure. When your bodily form passed on, it felt less like a loss and more like a great burst of energy was being released into the universe in a million bright sparks. May each of us be lit by those sparks of kindness, light and laughter, as our own deep thank you back to you, Jane Rechtman, for all you have been to us.
TOWER
JANE RECHTMAN WAS AN integral part of the Masters community, in the classroom and on the stage. She was revered by her colleagues and was an inspiration to her students.