Prep Volume 79, Issue 6
“If nothing else, value the truth”
News sluh.org/prepnews
St. Louis University High School | Thursday, September 25, 2014 photo | Patrick Enderle
What device?
Committee works to answer BY Sam Fentress EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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BANNED: This week marks the annual Banned Books Week celebrating the freedom to read. The library set up a display of banned books, including Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
Imagining 18 focuses on implementation planning
BY Jack Kiehl NEWS EDITOR
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fter a year of visioning, St. Louis U. High’s Imagining 18 strategic planning focus has turned to planning for the implementation of ideas generated by the process. The closing convocation has been postponed to Feb. 20 to allow more time for planning. “Our goal is to take the discussion and goals of Imagining 18 and put them into real concrete plans,” said Principal John Moran. “Now is the month or so where we say, ‘We want to do this, how do we do this?’” The closing convocation was initially scheduled for Sept. 20. Starting last October, there have been four visioning sessions. “What we wanted was
to have time to come up with this implementation plan,” said Assistant Director of Advancement Ben DuMont. “What we realized was we weren’t giving ourselves enough time.” Over the past few months, six visioning groups have met to discuss ideas on how SLUH can be a model of academic achievement and faith formation to the nation and the world by SLUH’s 200th anniversary in 2018. The groups are 21st Century Curriculum, Campus Facilities/Sustainability, Campus Ministry/Jesuit Identity, Counseling Services, Financial Modeling/Faculty Compensation, and Global Education. Each group is co-chaired by a SLUH faculty member and an alumni. According to DuMont, members of the visioning process are now taking the ideas and looking at how to realize them. “We’re planning for the implementation … kind of like a plan of attack,” said DuMont.
The weekly student newspaper of St. Louis University High School 4970 Oakland Ave. - St. Louis, MO 63110 (314) 531-0330 ext. 2241 online at sluh.org/prepnews prepnews@sluh.org ©2014 St. Louis University High School Prep News. No material may be reprinted without the permission of the editors and moderator.
ll around St. Louis U. High, people are wondering: what device—or devices—will students get next year, and who will get them? That’s the question for the Device Committee, an exploratory faculty group who is meeting regularly from now until November to recommend an option to the administration. “There’s lots of right answers to this question,” said Principal John Moran. “I don’t know that there’s a wrong answer, but there’s better and worse.” The committee has two parts: SLUH’s Instructional Council (IC)—which consists
of department chairs and administrators—and a volunteer committee consisting of around 20 faculty members who have volunteered to be part of the devices discussion. The Instructional Council meets once a week for two periods to discuss academic issues; they are currently devoting most of their scheduled time to discuss and work on the device question. To better answer the question, the IC split into three groups. One group will spend time visiting other schools to study how they have implemented one-to-one technology. A group of six faculty members visited Cor Jesu on
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rying to expand their reach among prospective students and families as well as alumni, St. Louis U. High’s advancement and admission offices joined together over the summer to construct a Blippar page hoping to engage their audiences more. Director of Strategic Planning Ben DuMont, who coordinates the design and publication of the annual president’s report, suggested the idea to Kathleen Parvis, the marketing and creative director at Midtown Printing. Midtown prints and designs SLUH’s school brochure, used primarily for admissions. The initial idea to use Blippar was suggested by Melissa Jones, the Director of Advancement. continued on page 4 “(We) decided that this
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Picture This SLUH photographers catalogue Backer Memorial classrooms for I18 building review. Page 2
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Cummings in Assassins production Senior Nate Cummings performs in Assassins, opening this weekend at Ivory Theatre. Page 5
sports
SLUH wins battle of the Jesuits The Jr. Bills thump 0-4 De Smet in a win last Thursday. Page 6
Kellerman—Page 3
art | Nolen Doorack
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Fister to Friendly Farms Paul Fister, ’14, spends a gapyear in Iowa working on an organic farm, letter writing. Page 2
STAFF, REPORTER
image and then is pre-programmed by the customer (in this case SLUH) to do anything a smartphone or tablet can do, such as playing a video, displaying a page with links to features, loading an interactive game, or even opening a PDF file. The up-front flat fee for creating SLUH’s Blippar page was the education rate of $2,000, split between the Advancement office and the Admissions Department, since it is used in both this fall’s President’s Report and the new school brochure. Since Blippar is image specific, the content is entirely up to the buyer. SLUH’s image was constructed by Ben Banet, ’14, who had to stand on Schmelter’s van to get an
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The instructions on the inside of the Admissions Brochure on how to Blippar the cover.
would be a good thing to incorporate into this brochure because while it’s paper, it has the capability of coming to life through technology, which is something people like, and show them more even before they’re in front of a computer,” said director of admissions Anja Schmelter. Parvis designed the Blippar page using a combination of Adobe PhotoShop and InDesign, working with DuMont and Schmelter on the specific features and links. According to its website, “Blippar is the market-leading image-recognition and augmented reality platform with the power to bring the physical world to life via the camera of a smart device.” Put more directly, Blippar uses its image recognition software to scan a single
BY Charlie Mueth and Matt Godar
t. Louis U. High’s Backer Community Garden will officially become part of the Gateway Greening community garden system on Tuesday. A new sign will be installed in order to mark the garden as a part of a network of community and school gardens—over 250 in number—that extend throughout the city. “It was nice being recognized and being accepted into that group,” said science teacher Bill Anderson. Gateway Greening is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to community development through community gardening. Anderson also noted that, as a part of Gateway Greening, the garden now has more access to educational materials, workshops, seeds, and seedlings. “I think it’s going to open up more opportunities for those of us who want to expand,” said Nancy Landa, a neighbor who owns a plot in the garden. “I think it’s going to help with learning different techniques that will be a little more environmentally friendly.” “We had been wanting to get a garden for ten years,” said Anderson. “Once we got the land available and the garden established, then the next logical step was to get into Gateway Greening.” However, this is not the first interaction between SLUH and Gateway Greening. The Annual St. Louis Community Garden Summit has been held on the SLUH grounds the past two years. “It’s been a really good outreach for us, and a really good experience for the school,” said Anderson. As for the future, an educational sign for composting is in the works, along with
Admissions and advancement team up to create Blippar page
BY Leo K. Heinz CORE STAFF
Garden becomes part of Gateway Greening
INDEX Page 2 Survey Fister Fair STL Page 3 Fencing Bocce Kellerman Page 4 P. 1 Throws Page 5 Assassins Intramurals Costello Page 6 Football XC Soccer Swimming Page 7 P.6 throw Player of Week Box Scores Page 8 Minutes Staycation Garden throw