Class Day

Volume 119 Issue 30

The Record Horace Mann’s Weekly Newspaper Since 1903

record.horacemann.org June 6th, 2022

INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

FirstClass to Gmail —2 Faculty farewells — 6-12 Teacher fashion — 13 HMTC year in review — 22-23 Security — 24-25

2

THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Huff (10) establishes cafeteria composting initiative Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

Vivian Coraci/ Art Director

“We’re at a pivotal moment within our environment and what it’s gonna look like in the next 15-20 years, so why not start at a root cause – food waste – which has a huge impact on our carbon footprint?” Nia Huff (10) said. She created a composting initiative which the school will implement next year to reduce food waste.

The project is still in the planning stage, but Huff plans to station bins in the cafeteria so students and faculty can separate compostable food, she said. Huff is confident the project will begin next year once she gets the approval of Upper Division (UD) Head Dr. Levenstein, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, Head of Facilities Management Gordon Jensen, and Senior Director of Dining Services Brenda Cohn, she said. An outside company will pick the bins up throughout the week to continue the process.

Signs and members of Green HM will help facilitate the process, she said.

Composting lowers methane emissions, improves the health of soil, and eliminates the need for chemically-based fertilizers, Huff said.

Compostable foods include fresh foods that have not been cooked such as fruits and vegetables, and also cooked foods such as pastas and sauces, she said.

Huff thought of the idea after observing the high quantities of food waste the school produced during the pandemic with the increased production of recyclable waste with the use of togo food containers, she said.

Huff found other private schools, such as The Nightingale-Bamford School, The Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and The Spence School, have all recently started composting initiatives in the past few years. This discovery motivated Huff to pitch her idea for next year, she said. “They’re all similar sized schools, so [I thought] we can definitely make that attainable.”

Composting has been attempted before, but is not viable in the long term because of the resources required to maintain it, Dr. Kelly wrote in an email. “Nia is what changed,” he wrote.

“She’s an impressive individual who has a track record of succeeding with her initiatives under the most challenging of circumstances.”

Huff pitched her idea at a GreenHM club meeting, she said. She next spoke with history teacher Dr. Ellen Bales, Cohn, and Jenson to bring her idea to life, she said. They encouraged her to do research about what composting at the school would require from the Facilities and Dining Services Departments, she said.

Huff found it would be best for an outside company to take the compost rather than the school create an onsite composting system as it takes a lot of resources to maintain it. She is in the process of finding outside companies that will pick up the compost throughout the week and properly dispose of it. “[An outside company] takes away a lot of the responsibility for the maintenance department and upkeep of composting,” she said. “That’s one of the benefits that has helped the program begin.”

James Ostuni, a member of the Maintenance Department, is supportive of the composting

see Composting on pg. 4

Swen, Yu, and Willer-Buchardis win Capelluto grants Sean Lee Staff Writer Caroline and Charlotte Willer-Buchardi Caroline and Charlotte Willer-Buchardi (10) were co-recipients of this year’s Alexander Capelluto Award for their idea of hosting Hack The Bronx, a Bronx hackathon centered around using digital tools to improve the community.

A hackathon is a multi-day event where participants code unique, innovative, and feasible solutions centered around a specific theme, Charlotte said. “After an opening ceremony on the first day, participants can begin working on their projects individually or collaboratively, which are then submitted virtually through DevPost,” she said.

Some notable projects that came out of the Hack The Bronx in December were an app that digitally holds your spot in a line, a community task board, and medical assistance for seniors, Charlotte said. “We aim to spread the passion for computer science, increase access to digital tools, and come up with new digital ideas for students in the Bronx,” she said.

The twins entered the application process for the grant already having a successful trial run for their idea in December, a Bronx hackathon with over

100 participants and innovative projects as a result, Charlotte said. Instead of focusing on developing an entirely new project, the sisters looked towards increasing participation levels for their hackathon and relied on the Capellutos’ expertise to develop ways to do so, she said.

While the hackathon was completely online last year with participants sending in their projects virtually, the sisters hope to have a hybrid event this fall where students can travel to in-person venues and code, Charlotte said. “We’ve connected with the Superintendent of the school district so we can find time in the school day for students in the Bronx so they can work on their projects,” she said.

“In future years, as COVID dies down, we could do in-person venues — when we talked to Dr. Kelly a year ago, he said that the Horace Mann campus would be available in the future,” Caroline said.

The sisters began the application during Spring Break by writing about their project and explaining what their role would be in the project’s expansion.

This process was followed by an interview, Charlotte said. After they found out that they had made it to the second stage of the application, the sisters focused on writing a second proposal that could only include new information about changes

Vivian Coraci/ Art Director

since the initial interview, and participated in a final interview before results were announced, she said. To prepare for the proposal and interviews, the sisters brainstormed and prepared responses to potential questions that could be asked about their project, Charlotte said.

Throughout the process of interviewing, the Capellutos suggested that the twins reach out to various organizations and resources that they could use to work around problems such as a lack of funding, eventually helping them develop a feasible yet impactful project, Caroline said.

see Capellutto on pg. 4

Pride Month Crossword Across 1. Graphic novel recently adapted into a Netflix original series 6. Swallowed emotion, except during June?

8. Precedes 30 down on Netflix 12. Status ___ 14. Inside, then out 15. Creator and host of television’s famous race 17. U.S. policy regarding queer individuals in the military with 11 down 18. The first letter of 21 across 20. JV of Netflix’s “Queer Eye” 21. Alphabet Mafia?

23. Fantastic Mister?

25. Rock musical adapted from “La Bohème” 28. Concrete jungle where queer dreams are made of 29. See 35 across 31. First Netflix show with several Black trans women in leading roles 32. Flying a blue, pink, and white flag, perhaps 33. All, briefly; otherwise, a cooking utensil 34. Month of Pride 35. Pride anthem written by 29 across Down 1. Potential allies?

2. “My best friend Valentina,” in a

viral Tik Tok sound 3. Where the first brick was thrown 4. Roy G. Biv, officially 5. Elliot who made history as first trans man to appear on Time magazine cover 6. Symbol of inclusivity?

7. 15 across, for example 9. Late American author hooks

10. Award-winning movie, not to be confused with “La La Land” 11. U.S. policy regarding queer individuals in the military with 17 across 13. Pixar’s first queer film, accidentally 16. Nick from one across 17. “________ _______ [22 down],” recently in Florida

19. The “gay capital of the world,” according to some 22. See 17 down 24. Opposite of 32 across 26. Not one of two, by definition 27. They are the part of speech of this sentence’s first word.

28. Lands where gay marriage was first legalized 30. First openly gay Bachelor

School makes transition from FirstClass email to Gmail Naomi Yaeger Staff Writer The school will transition from the FirstClass email server to Gmail this summer, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly wrote in an email. This transition will be led by the Director of Technology Dr. Adam Kenner.

“Over the course of the past three years, we’ve watched FirstClass struggle with updates and, as such, the volume of our usage,” Kelly wrote.

“In consultation with the members of our Administrative Council and legal counsel for HM, not to mention input from our Board of Trustees’ Technology Committee, the decision was made to begin the transition.”

Since the school currently uses Google for so many purposes, moving over to Gmail was the natural decision, Kenner said. “Gmail is the missing piece to tie it all together.” This transition has been in the works for a while, Kenner said. “It got solidified about two months ago, but we’ve been expecting to do this for several years.” This year, the school was finally able to make the switch, he said. “Google made some changes to their licensing to give us more features and more control over Gmail, so it just made sense at this point to expand to the highest level of licensing and then to make the switch.”

The transition from FirstClass to Gmail will consist of two main steps: setting up Gmail

accounts that receive and send out new emails, and moving old emails in FirstClass to the new platform, Kenner said. He expects this first step to be finished sometime after graduation and before the beginning of June, he said.

“Presumably after graduation, the need for mail is going to be lower,” he said.

By the end of June, the ability to send new emails should be completely moved over to Gmail. “When that happens, mail will not come into FirstClass anymore, and you also will not be able to mail out of FirstClass anymore,” he said. Though FirstClass will no longer be able to send or receive new emails, students and faculty will still be able to access their accounts and the older emails they hold.

After this, the IT department will migrate old emails over to Gmail, Kenner said. While most emails will move over to the new platform, some will not be able to.“Gmail has a 25 megabyte limit on attachment size, while FirstClass doesn’t have that,” he said. “It’s possible that people uploaded things or sent emails with huge attachments. Those aren’t going to go to Gmail,” he said.

While students might not have access to these emails on Gmail, they will still be available on FirstClass, Kenner said. “You will not lose any old emails and you will always have access to FirstClass to get them if you want them,” he said.

see Gmail on pg. 4

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THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Teddy Ganea elected valedictorian Clara Stevanovic Staff Writer

Courtesy of Riverdale Senior Services

Brown ‘18 to present award to Dr. Kelly from Riverdale Senior Services Mira Bansal Staff Writer Head of School Dr. Thomas Kelly will receive an award from Riverdale Senior Services (RSS) at the Riverdale Yacht Club on June 27, Director of Institutional Research and Enrollment Management and RSS board member Lisa Moreira said. Lutie Brown ‘18 was chosen as the Master of Ceremonies and will be presenting this award to Kelly.

Riverdale Senior Services provides care to senior citizens and in the past the school has partnered with the organization to unite students and members of RSS, Moreira said.

The decision to award Kelly was backed by the entire RSS board and community, RSS board member Helen Morik said. “[Kelly] was chosen because of his commitment to the intergenerational program between seniors and students,” Morik said. “He has been extraordinarily supportive and generous with his time and resources.”

In Kelly’s eight years on the board, he has furthered opportunities for students to engage with members at RSS, Moreira said.

“I’ve been more of a problem solver for my colleagues and friends at this incredible organization,” Kelly said. He has worked on finding solutions to bus storage, access to technology, annual fundraisers, and hosting events, he said.

To choose the presenter, Moreira went to Director of the Center for Community Values and Action (CCVA) Dr. Kimberly Joyce Bernard.

Due to COVID restrictions, current students were unable to visit RSS and form bonds with the RSS community.

Therefore, Bernard decided to ask a former RSS intern and former student: Brown, Moreira said.

The Party Committee within RSS organized the event, Morik said. The event itself will consist of refreshments, raffles, and some short speeches.

All the money raised will be going towards better funding for the RSS program, Dr. Kelly said.

RSS was one of the first organizations that partnered with the school, Moreira said. The program between the school and RSS first started with Dr. Jeremy Leeds, the founding director of the Center for Community Values and Actions (CCVA). He coordinated a program for students to interact with members at RSS, she said.

Many members of the community have already sent emails of congratulations and donations, Moreira said.

“It is not unusual for Dr. Kelly to be saluted for his efforts for the community,” Moreira said. Kelly has been a supporter for many local community organizations such as the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy, she said. For this reason, she was not surprised that Dr. Kelly received this award.

Although Kelly is often recognized for his exceptional work for the community, he is pleased, humbled, and honored to be receiving this award, Moreira said. Dr. Kelly always wants the recognition to go towards others.

“It’s always nice to be recognized, but more importantly, to turn that recognition into something good, something actionable, for RSS to benefit from,” Dr. Kelly said. This gala will be an opportunity for the members at RSS who have worked hard to be recognized and for their work to be celebrated, he said.

Kelly is honored to be recognized for his honorable work, but is also proud of the students’ and greater school community’s involvement with the program. “I’m proud to know that Horace Mann is not just a resource to RSS when the power goes out, but also for a long list of goods and services, many provided by the students on the service learning team in our Upper Division,” Kelly said.

Volume 119 Editorial Board Head of Design AJ Walker

Editor in Chief Hanna Hornfeld

Managing Editor Liliana Greyf

Features Mia Calzolaio Emma Colacino

News Claire Goldberg Katya Tolunsky

Opinions Devin Allard-Neptune Yin Fei

A&E Purvi Jonnalagadda Arushi Talwar

Middle Division Jade Ciriello

Lions’ Den Lauren Ho

Art Directors Vivian Coraci Lauren Kim Riva Vig

Design Editors Avani Khorana Arin Rosen

Photography Sean Lee Sam Siegel

Online Editor Lucas Glickman

Faculty Adviser David Berenson

“They said vote for someone who you think embodies the spirit of the Class of 2022, and I genuinely don’t think there’s anyone who does embody that spirit more than Teddy,” Michael Shaari (12) said. The senior class elected Teddy Ganea (12) to speak at graduation as their valedictorian.

Ganea is still crafting a graduation speech, which he said will be the “best reflection [his] grade has to offer.” He plans to discuss the role that the school has played in his life and the lives of other students. “[Horace Mann] made us incredibly desirous of learning, given us incredible thinking skills, core values, and a great community of people who are constantly supportive,” he said.

Ganea found out that he was elected valedictorian after many of his peers had already seen the news.

“I was actually on the stairs of Fisher when someone told me, ‘oh look at the e-mail.’” Ganea immediately felt two mixed emotions: he was thrilled, but also nervous.

Before reading the grade-wide e-mail, Ganea had not expected to become the valedictorian of his class, he said. Throughout the year, Ganea had paid much more attention to other aspects of his life than the prospect of becoming valedictorian.

Though it came as a surprise to him, Ganea feels deeply honored and grateful for the opportunity to speak during graduation as valedictorian. He believes that the speech will be among his biggest and most memorable moments at the school. “It’s one of the last times before graduation that we will actually be in the same place, on the same field.”

Although Ganea does not know exactly why his peers elected him, he suspects that it may have been because he is passionate about talking and expressing his opinions. “I think that I was elected by my peers because they know that I’m a big fan of talking,” he said.

In the first round of voting, students could select as many names of others in the grade as they wished.

Those who received at least ten votes moved to the second round: a fiveperson ballot. After the second round of voting concluded, students found out that Ganea had won. “Then I got the mass email that the result was Theodore Ganea is valedictorian,” he said.

Shaari’s first-choice candidate had always been Ganea, he said. Shaari met Ganea during a sixth-grade trip to Dorr and they have been friends ever since. He believes that Ganea is widely recognized in his grade as someone confident, outgoing, and passionate about knowledge. “Everyone knows his interests, which can range from Roman history to Latin, all these different things,” Shaari said.

Ganea is able to use knowledge from one class, or aspect of his life, and apply it to something else, Dean of Students Michael Dalo said. “Teddy connects things that he learns in his classics classes or in his language classes to things that he’s done in physics,” Dalo said, “He just has an incredible ability to make connections. Those are the things that most stand out to me about Teddy.”

Those who know Ganea know

“If there was anyone who I’d want to stand up at graduation and talk about our class, and do so in a very funny and outgoing way, that would be Teddy.”

- Michael Shaari (12) that he can often be found wearing a Roman helmet around campus.

Ganea’s Latin teacher, James McCaw, thinks that he wears a Roman helmet to school because of his passion for the classics. “Teddy has been doing that for a number of years,” McCaw said.

Thomas Grant (12) thinks that Ganea’s decision to wear a Roman helmet to school was very

spontaneous, but also reflected his enthusiasm for learning. “He is also a trendsetter and a great leader,” Grant said. After coming to school with a Roman helmet on, Grant believes that Ganea has begun a trend of students arriving at school wearing helmets.

Ganea bonds with others very easily due to his confidence and enthusiasm, Shaari said. “To me, if there was anyone who I’d want to stand up at graduation and talk about our class, and do so in a very funny and outgoing way, that would be Teddy. It was a pretty clear choice,” Shaari said.

Dalo is also glad that Ganea received the title of valedictorian because Ganea is a curious student who always seeks to learn, he said.

“Teddy wants to know as much as he possibly can about everything,” Dalo said. Dalo believes that Ganea is the kind of student who eagerly shares his excitement for learning with fellow students, his teachers, and anyone else he talks to.

Ellen Bales, Ganea’s history teacher, also commented on his academic scholarship, and said that Ganea “approaches academics with genuine enthusiasm and intellectual rigor.” Bales believes that Ganea deserved the title of valedictorian. “It’s fitting that he would be elected. He was a star among stars,” she said.

Ganea remembers moments when he would sit with his friends in the cafeteria and discuss topics ranging from politics to inanities. “What’s so great about the school is that you can be talking one moment about the weather and the next moment about some abstract theory, the next about some logistics,” Ganea said. “Horace Mann gives us both the ability and in doing so I’d say the responsibility, to go out there and change the world.”

Ari Palla / Staff Photographer

VIVACIOUS VALEDICTORIAN Ganea (12) slides down stairs.

Community Council Members 2022-2023 Staff

Staff Writers Alex Lautin, Alexandra Yao, Allison Markman, Audrey Carbonell, Audrey Moussazadeh, Ayesha Sen, Cecilia Coughlin, Celine Kiriscioglu, Divya Ponda, Emily Salzhauer, Emily Sun, Hannah Katzke, Jillian Lee, Jiya Chatterjee, Max Chasin, Rachael Baez, Sean Lee, Vidhatrie Keetha, Zack Kurtz, Ariella Frommer, Athena Rem, Ben Rafal, Ella Shaham, Erica Jiang, Etta Singer, Heidi Li, Kate Beckler, Lucy Peck, Maeve Goldman, Naomi Yaeger, Neeva Patel, Nia Huff, Rani Ogden, Samantha Matays, Sophie Rukin Staff Photographers Aanya Gupta, Allyson Wright, Amelia Hirsch, Anna Miller, Aryan Palla, Ben Rafal, Catherine Mong, David Aaron, Dylan Greenberg, Harper Rosenberg, Jiwan Kim, Lynn Egan, Madlyn Yoon, Matthew Jacobson, Nicole Au, Oliver Konopko, Trisha Tran Staff Artists Aashna Hari, Addy Steinberg, Aimee Yang, Amira Dossani, Christian Conner, Dani Brooks, Dylan Leftt, Elena Zhu, Felix Brener, Isabelle Kim, Ishaan Iyengar, Karla Moreira, Kayden Hansong, Kristy Xie, Lauren B. Kim, Sam Gordon, Samantha Strasser, Samuel Stern, Serena Bai, Sophia Liu, Sophie Li

CC Chairs: Hannah Moss and Jake Ziman Class of 2023

Class of 2024

Class of 2025

Sean Lee Eshan Mehere Hannah Moss Divya Ponda Ariela Shuchman Jacob Silverstein Steve Yang Jake Ziman

Nate Chiang Dylan Greenberg Erica Jiang JoJo Mignone Matteo Monti Jorge Orvañanos

Emma Chang Carson Eisner Jiwan Kim Oliver Konopko Emily Wang Andrew Ziman

Editorial Policy

About Founded in 1903, The Record is Horace Mann School’s award-winning weekly student newspaper. We publish approximately 30 times during the academic year, offering news, features, opinions, arts, Middle Division and sports coverage relevant to the school community. The Record serves as a public forum to provide the community with information, entertainment, and an outlet for various viewpoints. As a student publication, the contents of The Record are the views and work of the students and do not necessarily represent those of the faculty or administration of the Horace Mann School. Horace Mann School is not responsible for the accuracy and contents of The Record and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

Editorials All editorial decisions regarding content, grammar, and layout are made by the senior editorial board. The unsigned editorial represents the opinion of the majority of the board.

Opinions Opinion columns represent the viewpoint of the author and not of The Record or the school. We encourage students, alumni, faculty, staff, and parents to submit opinions by emailing record@horacemann.org.

Letters Letters to the editor often respond to editorials, articles, and opinions pieces, allowing The Record to uphold its commitment to open discourse within the school community. They too represent the opinion of the author and not of The Record or the school. To be considered for publication in the next issue, letters should be submitted by mail (The Record, 231 West 246th Street, Bronx, NY 10471) or email (record@horacemann. org) before 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening. All submissions must be signed.

Contact For all tips, comments, queries, story suggestions, complaints and corrections, please contact us by email at record@horacemann.org.

4

THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 6TH, 2022

from Capellutto on page 2 “We started out with a good idea, but they helped us find more computers and other options to integrate our project and make sure it happens every year at the Horace Mann School,” she said.

One of the companies the twins reached out to was FIRST Robotics, a non profit organization aimed at increasing access to STEM education, who offered to open up their STEM centers and allow students to use the computers there, Caroline said.

During the application process, the twins realized they needed to make sure that more students had access to the technology they needed to actually be able to participate, Caroline said. “Initially, we’d asked for money to get more computers to Bronx students, and throughout the process, they helped us to reach out to different companies in New York that could provide these computers,” she said.

The Capelluto family also helped refine the sisters’ ideas regarding prizes, Charlotte said.

“Before, we had things like headphones, but this time we decided to do Amazon gift cards because we found that headphones might not be as accessible for people, and that they might want to use that money for other things, not necessarily just for themselves,” she said.

The twins also received support from Monica Major, Director of Education in the Bronx, who helped run the hackathon this past December and ensured that the sisters’ ideas for expansion were feasible to be implemented in the Bronx community from her own expertise, Caroline said.

Overall, the twins hope that their project grows in size and continues on even after they graduate from the school, but also allows for real change to occur in the Bronx using some of the project ideas developed during t h e hackathon, Caroline

said. “There are some very talented kids that can come up with amazing ideas that can really help their community,” she said.

Hanzhang Swen and Joann Yu Alexander Capelluto Award co-recipients Hanzhang Swen (10) and Joann Yu (10) were awarded $1,500 to start a Public Forum Debate

discuss how his debate project worked, and what was effective and what didn’t work,” Swen said.

“Our project is very similar to his, since we’re bringing PF debate to a different country.”

However, there were major differences between the two countries that would challenge the two in their planning process, Yu said. “China’s a much bigger country, and the public school system

“We’ve both had experiences where because of our gender, we weren’t treated equally as men because of Chinese culture... So, we want to try to empower girls through this program and help them speak out against sexism,” -Hanzhang Swen (10) program in international schools in Beijing. Both students participate in Debate at the school, and their project focuses on internationalizing the activity with a focus on China, where Yu attended school before coming to the United States.

The pair also wanted to focus on female empowerment through debate and public speaking, something that has historically been overlooked in China, Swen said. “We’ve both had experiences where because of our gender, we weren’t treated equally as men because of Chinese culture, and China has more of a conservative culture than the U.S,” she said. “So, we want to try to empower girls through this program and help them speak out against sexism.”

After seeing the success of Teddy Ganea’s (12) Public Forum debate outreach program to Romania, Swen and Yu wanted to start a similar program in China, where Yu had attended school before coming to the United States, Yu said. “Before we applied for the grant, we met with Teddy to

already has debate through a program called NSDA China,” she said.

The two planned their project around the Lide International School of Beijing, the school Yu attended during her time in China, working with a rising junior, as well as teachers and administration on the Beijing side, Yu said. “She was a really great help, because Capelluto really wanted to see that we actually had the support from the Chinese side,” she said. “Words from administrators and adults actually meant something and showed them that we had approval and support.”

The online nature of Yu and Swen’s project will help cut down costs and help their project fit within the grant’s budget, Yu said. Instead of travel, the two hope to dedicate their funds towards helping run inter-school debate tournaments for students in China, Yu said.

“We want to start with Lide, but we also want to spread to at least other international schools within Beijing, if not other major cities in China,” Yu said.

“When we do that, we want to plan an annual tournament between these schools, and most of

the costs that we want for the grant to provide will be for the tournament that we hope to organize.”

Costs would include renting fees for a tournament venue, hiring judges, food, transportation, and other expenses that make it difficult for students to host debate tournaments on their own, Yu said.

The two also hope to be able to provide scholarships for those who win at these tournaments, Yu said. “We haven’t hashed out the specific details, but some ideas we’ve had for those scholarships are book awards or partial scholarships to debate summer programs,” she said.

Swen hopes that debate will become selfsufficient in the following years after some preliminary infrastructure has been built up, she said. “We want to establish a club at Lide that can run by itself after we graduate and to establish a connection between Horace Mann and these international schools,” she said. “We’ll know our project is successful if there is a community of schools in China that debate each other.”

Crossword Answers from page 3

from Composting on page 2

from Gmail on page 2

Sophia Liu (10) is excited for the increased reliability Gmail provides.

FirstClass is a glitchy platform that can delete a draft while Liu is still writing it, wasting both time and energy, she said. Additionally, FirstClass doesn’t consistently give phone notifications.“I’m really excited to get email notifications on my phone,” she said.

Luke Harris (11) also views the switch as an upgrade. “I’m excited for a platform with increased usability,” Harris said. He is excited for the increased ease and usability Gmail provides over FirstClass.

For others, such as Isa Melián (10), switching to Gmail means losing the unique features FirstClass provides.

“I really liked the read option on FirstClass, so you can see if people have read your emails,” she said. “My old school used Gmail and there was a prioritization system within email organization that was a little confusing.”

Music teacher Michael Bomwell is worried about the switch to Gmail, as he fears it may have some safety risks, he said. “My concern is that it’s going to be less secure.” Since Gmail is a platform that is used by more people, Bomwell is worried the server may be more vulnerable to hackers, he said.

FirstClass has many useful features, such as the ability to check email history and to unsend

Karla Moreira/ Staff Artist

unwanted emails, Juliet Burgess (10) said. “I feel like the pros of FirstClass outweigh the cons,” she said.

For Celia Stafford (10), despite holding a few reservations, the switch is ultimately the right decision.

Stafford appreciates how FirstClass allows her to unsend emails and she likes the noise it makes when she clicks on a new email, she said.

The change will also allow students to keep all their main emails in one location, Liu said. “I’m really excited that all my email accounts will be in one place.”

The IT Department is aware that this is a big change, so they plan on setting up a document with answers to common questions on the school’s Student Life Page, Kenner said.

“We’re going to try to have an FAQ sheet that people can just click on and go to if they have questions,” he said.

While Kelly will always look back on FirstClass with nostalgia, he is excited for the change. “I’m going to miss FirstClass because it has been a huge part of our tech innovation. Believe it or not, there was a time when email in schools was considered quite revolutionary!” he wrote. “However, having access to greater back end support and less difficulties in the day to day operation of the platform will be terrific.”

Riva Vig/ Staff Artist

initiative, even though it would require more work from the staff, he said. “Kids would have to be conscious and make sure that they don’t put spoons and stuff like that [in the compost],” he said.

Ostuni would support the initiative only if the school was able to use the compost, because he does not want an outside company taking a muchneeded resource for the campus, he said. “We’re doing all the work and then a company’s going to make money,” he said.

Gabby Solmson (9) supports composting because of its environmental benefits. “It’s a really good way to give back [to the environment] considering how much waste the average student makes,” Solmson said.

According to an article from Volume 118, Junior Issue 1 of the Record, the school produces 80 to

they’re easier to dispose of, she said. “I try to use the reusable plates as much as possible at school, but even then I still use paper plates most of the time because it’s easier to throw out and clean up,” she said.

Huff is concerned that students’ busy schedules will cause them to be less motivated to compost. However, she hopes that by educating students about the beneficial effects of composting it will encourage students to help reduce the school’s impact, she said. “It will take a little bit of investment to readjust ourselves to the new way of disposing or trash,” Huff said. “However, I think a lot of people will take the extra minute to just make sure the compost goes where it’s supposed to.”

Despite the benefits of the project, Huff predicts that students will struggle to acclimate to the new way of disposing food waste, she said.

“It’s a really good way to give back [to the environment] considering how much waste the average student makes,” - Gabby Solmson (9) 100 55-gallon bags of food waste per day. However, the cafeteria staff does their best to minimize food waste by cutting fruits close to the skin, and ensuring food is stored at the proper temperature so it lasts longer.

Food waste is an important issue for Coco Trentalancia (11) because it is a major contributor to climate change, so she hopes composting will help students be more mindful of their waste. “I’ve seen so many people toss full salads in the trash with just a bite or two in them,” she said.

Trentalancia worries some students will not take composting seriously or have the time to separate their food.

“It’s easier to throw [food] out or use plastic because everyone goes away because they’re all so busy,” she said.

Like Trentalanica, GreenHM member Alara Yilmaz (10) predicts that students will not have time to compost, similar to how many students often opt to use paper plates instead of reusable ones because

“Students will have to become better with separating their waste,” she said.

“For example, they have to make sure they don’t put [meat and dairy products] in with the composting.

They [will have to] pay a little more attention to how they distribute and how they empty out their waste.”

Eventually, composting will be integrated into students’ daily routines, GreenHM member Maddie Kim (10) said. “For example, middle schoolers have to use trays, and although they don’t want to, they do — so I think composting will become a part of our daily ritual,” she said.

Kim is glad the school will start composting because it will teach students about food waste and overconsumption, she said. “We do it at Dorr, and I think it’s a great way to reduce our food waste, and it’s going to help save the environment.

Anything that we can do is helpful.”

Like Kim, Trentalancia likes that while at John Dorr Nature Laboratory

the faculty teaches students about composting, but she wishes that practice is carried over to the school, she said. “We had the compost bin, recycling, et cetera with trash,” she said. “And we were so mindful of separating each thing.”

Head of Dorr Nick DePreter believes composting at the UD could be a very successful initiative if the students are mindful while separating their food, he said. “The number one best thing to do is eat everything,” he said. “But if you can’t finish, and you’re going to put your pizza crust in the trash, but put half an apple in the compost, that’s awesome.”

Yilmaz is concerned the composting initiative will not be as successful as it is at Dorr because most of the food in the cafeteria cannot be composted because most of it is cooked, she said.

“People are going to end up throwing everything in the garbage instead of separating it.”

Another concern is that students might not want to go to the cafeteria to compost their food if they ate lunch elsewhere on campus, Solmson said.

“A lot of students don’t really eat in the cafeteria, so it’s possible that not all the students will be composting, but I think a lot of students like who can, will,” she said.

It is difficult for the cafeteria staff to minimize their waste because of the unpredictability around if students will like a certain food option, so at the end of the day they might have extra, or run out, Yilmaz said. “For example, on the International Food Festival day they still had the full cafeteria and they had the full hot food section prepared for it,” she said. “Not many people went there because everybody went to the International Food Festival so that was a really huge food waste.”

The school is already mindful about food waste, such as using leftover food from lunch for after-school activities and events, but composting is an impactful next step to further minimize it, Kim said. The FLIK staff reuses leftover food from lunch like pasta at the salad bar the next day to minimize their food waste, Kim said. “Composting could even take us further.”

5

THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Dr. Fippinger named new Dean of Faculty Zachary Kurtz Staff Writer Upper Division (UD) English teacher Dr. Andrew Fippinger will take over as UD Dean of Faculty next fall, as Dr. Matthew Wallenfang steps down from the position this summer and returns full time to the UD science department.

Wallenfang is ready to return to teaching four classes as opposed to only one, he said. “I had a good run in six years as the Dean of Faculty, which I’ve really enjoyed, but I love being in the classroom and I missed being in [there] full time.”

Wallenfang is choosing to leave the position because he feels that the time is right for a transition since the pandemic is hopefully coming to a close, he said. He believes that it is healthy to have a new person take on the role of Dean of Faculty, he said.

“The position of Dean of Faculty should always firmly be somebody who is a teacher first and foremost, and not an administrator,” Wallenfang said. “I think any one person being in this role for too long risks moving away from that model of the Dean of Faculty as a member of the faculty.”

the Dean of Faculty, he said. In the past, he has observed classes that were taught by his colleagues in the English department, but he has rarely observed classes in other disciplines, Fippinger said. “I’m really interested to see how a Japanese teacher goes about their work differently from a biology teacher from an English teacher,” he said. “I feel like I am going to learn a tremendous amount and hopefully become a much better teacher myself.”

Observing classes has made Wallenfang even more excited to get back into the classroom full time, he said. He has learned many new teaching techniques from visiting classes across the disciplines, Wallenfang said. “I’ve taken things from those arts classes and the history classes and the English classes and I’m excited to bring those into my biology classroom and use the same great techniques and ideas that I’ve seen from my colleagues.”

Fippinger is also looking forward to working with faculty who are new to the school, he said.

“The Dean of Faculty’s role in helping shepherd new faculty into the school and helping them

“I’m really interested to see how a Japanese teacher goes about their work differently from a biology teacher from an English teacher. I feel like I am going to learn a tremendous amount and hopefully become a much better teacher myself.”

- Dr. Fippinger The Dean of Faculty position entails working with and evaluating new faculty members, observing classes to give faculty feedback on their teaching methods, keeping the faculty updated by way of a weekly email, and dealing with situations involving faculty concerns, Wallenfang said.

Wallenfang’s favorite part of his role as the Dean of Faculty was being able to observe classes of all types of disciplines, he said. “I get to see history classes, English classes, computer science classes, and sculpture classes rather than being siloed over in Lutnick Hall, just teaching science.”

Like Wallenfang, Fippinger is most looking forward to observing classes in his new role as

figure out how they fit into the school is really significant,” Fippinger said. “My Dean of Faculty [when I arrived at HM] was Dr. Levenstein, and she was a hugely important figure for me and feeling a sense of belonging at HM and feeling a real understanding of what my job is, what the limitations of it are, what my strengths are, and how I can improve.”

Wallenfang thinks that in order to be a good Dean of Faculty, a person must have both a love of teaching, as well as a love of thinking about teaching and an interest in teaching as a craft beyond the subject matter that they teach, he said.

“I get the sense that Dr. Fippinger very much is

Nicole Au/Staff Photographer

that type of person who loves thinking about teaching and how to convey material and how to get students excited about things.”

Fippinger is well-liked by the faculty at the school, which is important as he will be in constant communication with them in addition to being their representative, Wallenfang said.

“It’s important to have somebody who is known by most of the teachers here and is appreciated by most of the teachers here.”

During his first year as the Dean of Faculty, Fippinger does not plan to make too many changes, he said. “Next year I’ll essentially be a student of how to be Dean of Faculty, so I want to get to know how to do the job,” he said. “I want to listen to as much feedback as I can from faculty members and other Deans and slowly start to figure out ways in which I fit into the job given my own particular personality and areas that I think could use improvement.”

Fippinger believes that one difficulty about the role of Dean of Faculty is that you are in between the faculty and the administration, he said. “Ideally, in my opinion, the Dean of Faculty is working very hard to support the faculty and to push for what they need, and to help them be fully recognized and appreciated at the school, but also getting instructions from the administration that need to be communicated to the faculty,” Fippinger said.

During his time as the Dean of Faculty, Wallenfang helped the school with the transition away from Advanced Placement (AP) courses, he said. “Dr. Levenstein and I were both on the same page that the AP program, while serving many needs, didn’t serve the needs of the students or teachers or rather, we could do better,” Wallenfang said. “We have the resources and we have the talent here to teach really exciting and innovative courses that go beyond what the prescribed AP curricula are.”

Fippinger was also involved in this transition in his role as an elected faculty member of the Committee on Instruction, Wallenfang said.

The Committee on Instruction is responsible for approving all new courses at the school. “All of the new courses have gone through that committee so

[Dr. Fippinger] is already very familiar with the curriculum at school and some of the curricular initiatives that are going on.”

English teacher Jennifer Huang was the other elected faculty member of the Committee on Instruction and worked closely with Fippinger.

“He’s really adept at this kind of work and understands in a deep way how the school works, and he has lots of ideas about how to make it better,” she said. Huang believes that Fippinger is an excellent choice for the position and that he will do a wonderful job, she said.

Wallenfang believes that his biggest accomplishment as the Dean of Faculty was the support that he gave to all of the teachers at the school during two very difficult years of the pandemic, he said. “We were all chomping at the bit to get back in-person and in the classroom and I like to think that I claimed at least a small role in setting the tone for our faculty by being excited to be here and working out the logistics of what it would look like to be back in-person.”

Fippinger admires how Wallenfang helped guide the faculty through the pandemic by making it very clear how faculty should proceed every time there was a development in the situation, he said. He hopes that he can live up to the clarity, organization, and consistency that Wallenfang provided to the faculty, Fippinger said.

get to know her students and their families on a deeper level beyond the context of the math classroom.

As a Grade Dean, Sudarsanan’s ability to teach will be limited to one math class per year, Levenstein said. “When you’re Grade Dean, you’re 75 percent grade Dean and 25 percent teacher, although Grade Deans often teach HMO and SOI as well so they’re in the classroom a fair amount,” she said.

There are several responsibilities of a Grade Dean like scheduling and communication with students and parents that were relevant in the selection process, Levenstein said. “When you’re a Grade Dean, the primary people you interact with are students, so you have to like high school students and enjoy being in their presence,” she said. “But you also have to have quite a lot of contact with parents, so you have to be an adult that other adults are going to trust and feel comfortable with.” Especially in situations where students are in distress, a Dean must be responsive, compassionate and thoughtful, Levenstein said.

When interviewing and considering different candidates, Sudarsanan had many qualities that made her a good fit for the job, Levenstein said. “Some of the qualities that we saw, both in our interview process and in our years knowing her as a classroom teacher, are her warmth, her clarity, and her very strong relationships with her students,” she said. As

a huge Asian population here, and it’s nice for students to see themselves represented in a Dean’s or administrative role,” she said.

Being a Dean will bring new challenges that Sudarsanan did not experience as a teacher, she said. “With teaching, I have my set schedule and I know what I’m teaching,” she said. “But when you’re a Dean, every day brings on something new, and you come to work and you don’t know what’s going to happen — so there’s that sense of uncertainty and not having control that I’m used to having.” However, Sudarsanan is more excited than nervous about the changes and challenges the new position will bring.

As a long time student and Sudarsanan’s advisee, Matthew Edelman (11) believes the Class of 2026 is in good hands. “As an advisor, she always makes sure that she is there for you, and when you do go to her, she is super encouraging and helps you feel so much better,” he said.

Alexa Turteltaub (11) has always appreciated Sudarsanan’s openness and approachability.

“After the tragic mass shooting at the elementary school in Texas, she wasn’t afraid to talk about it with us, and the emotion she showed was comforting to me because I knew that I wasn’t alone in feeling scared or vulnerable and there were adults in the community to support me and communicate with me.”

With the Class of 2026, Sudarsanan wants to be firm while also supporting her students.

“We do a lot of supporting for our students, but

CANDID! Dr. Fippinger smiles at his students.

Dr. Sudarsanan appointed Dean of the Class of 2026 Sam Siegel/Photo Director

CHARTING NEW TERRITORY Dr. Sudarsanan Teaches Pre-Calculus to Juniors.

Sean Lee Staff Writer “She’s always there for her students, she always gets a sense of how they’re feeling, and I feel like that’s super valuable in a Dean who can make individual connections with their students and really make an impact on their lives at school,” Rowan Mally (12) said.

Math Teacher Dr. Shalini Sudarsanan will become the Grade Dean for the Class of 2026, which is entering the Upper Division (UD) this fall. Sudarsanan’s primary role will be to take care of the academic and emotional life of the students in her grade, Head of UD Dr. Jessica Levenstein said.

Sudarsanan has already begun her work as Dean, attending Deans’ meetings once a week, participating in Upper Division Orientation (UDO) for incoming students, and fielding parent questions about class registration, Sudarsanan said. “Sometimes it’s been a little overwhelming because I’ve been trying to juggle meeting with my own kids for extra help with their math stuff and doing some program planning, but now I feel like things are kind of settling down,” she said.

After Grade Dean Dr. Glenn Wallach announced his retirement to the school administration this past summer after 22 years

at the school, the search for a new Grade Dean began, Levenstein said. The administration notified the faculty of the opening, and once interest was expressed, a group was gathered to conduct interviews of all the candidates, she said.

The interviewing committee included Levenstein, Dean of Students Michael Dalo, Dean of Faculty Dr. Matthew Wallenfang, Grade Deans Dr. Susan Groppi and Stephanie Feign, and Director of the Office for Identity, Culture, and Institutional Equity Christine Moloney, Levenstein said.

Sudarsanan was interested in the position because she loves getting to know her students in and out of the classroom, she said. “When you’re teaching a class, you get a sense of who [the students] are in the walls of your classroom, but I really do try to get to know my kids beyond the classroom,” she said. “But then, once they’re out of your grade, you might not get a chance to see them again over the next three years that they’re here if you’re starting with freshmen.”

After teaching math to the current senior class for three out of their four years, Sudarsanan found the process of giving her students support and advice and watching them blossom over their four years at the school to be rewarding, she said. “I was just thinking, if you’re a Dean, you have that opportunity with a whole grade of students and really supporting them through their four years here.” Sudarsanan is excited to

“When you’re teaching a class, you get a sense of who [the students] are in the walls of your classroom, but I really do try to get to know my kids beyond the classroom.”

- Dr. Sudarsanan an advisor, Sudarsanan has advocated for her students, works well with parents, and is a reasonable, thoughtful individual who is a good person to talk about decisions at the school, Levenstein said.

Sudarsanan hopes to provide representation for Asian students in the Dean’s office. “We have

it’s important for them to realize that HM is a special place where we do these supports, and when they leave here and move on into the real world and college, there’s not going to be all of these supports,” she said. “I think it’s important for kids to realize that and have that learning experience.”

6

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Faculty Farewells Amelia Hirsch/Staff Photographer

Etta Singer Staff Writer Ari Palla / Staff Photographer

Kate Beckler Staff Writer

Huang turns a new page

Students can always turn to English teacher Jennifer Huang for advice or to rant to, Juliet Burgess (10), who had Huang in ninth grade, said.

“I’m devastated that she’s leaving because I was so excited that I could have her for a second time in my high school career, and now that opportunity has been taken away.”

Huang will be leaving at the end of the school year after four years as a teacher. “In many ways, working here has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life, but it’s time for me to move on,” Huang said.

Along with student interactions, Huang cherishes her relationships with her colleagues in the English department. “They have all taught me so much about how to be a teacher, and just a person in general,” Huang said.

She loves spending time with her fellow English teachers and respects them immensely, she said.

Her favorite memories from her time at the school come from lunches around a circle table in the Berger Faculty Dining Room when a large group of seven or eight of her colleagues all eat together, she said.

English teacher Stan Lau connected with Huang

in the English Department office, cafeteria, and through the APIDA (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American) affinity space that they both advised, he said. Though he will miss many things about Huang, Lau will miss her patience and listening the most, he said. “She’s someone who’s got a very open heart and open mind, and no matter how my day is going, whether it be as a teacher or out of school, she’s just there for me.”

English teacher Jennifer Little and Huang bonded over their mutual love of knitting and deep conversations, she said. “She’s really thoughtful and I think I’ve really learned a lot from her.”

Along with missing her colleagues, Huang will miss the small moments in her every day routine the most, she said. Huang finds joy walking down the hallway or across Alumni Field and she waves at the students and faculty she knows, she said.

Ever since finding out she is departing at the end of the year, three of Huang’s former students have been pretending she is a ghost when they pass her in the hallway, which makes Huang laugh, she said.

“Those serendipitous little encounters have been a really nice part of the job.”

Along with her work in the English department,

Huang has been the faculty advisor to the East Wind West Wind (EWWW) for three years.

Advising EWWW has been one of Huang’s favorite activities to participate in during her time at the school because the students in the club are incredibly hardworking and dedicated, she said.

“It’s amazing to see what they’re capable of and they surprise me in good ways every year.”

Though she knows the work she does really matters to many students, there is also an added pressure, she said. Sometimes the good things about her job appear inseparable from the harder parts, she said. “There’s always a bit of apprehension that maybe if I make a mistake, it’ll have a negative impact,” she said. Huang does not know what she plans on doing next, so she feels both excited and uncertain, she said. She looks forward to sleeping in and getting an Apple TV+ subscription to catch up on all of the TV she missed out on because she had stacks of papers to grade.

Burgess is excited to see what Huang will do next and plans on emailing her routinely, she said.

“Knowing her, she’ll go on to bigger and better things,” Burgess said.

Administrative Assistant to the Department of Counseling and Guidance Christine Uhrowczik will leave the school after seven years of helping Upper Division students get the mental and emotional support they need.

Her job involves setting up meetings between students and the faculty of the office, Uhrowczik said. “I help students, whether they are walk-ins or with scheduled appointments, and make sure there’s someone for them to speak with or make them an appointment.” Helping out the student body was always her goal, Uhrowczik said. “Seeing the kids grow, and just seeing their moods improve, even just a little, is really gratifying.”

She also works with psychologist Dr. Ian Pervil on all accommodation requests.

Uhrowczik began her journey at the school after she completed her master’s degree in school counseling. She has helped almost two cycles of high schoolers find times to meet with Counseling and Guidance, she said.

A position at the school as administrative assistant opened after she graduated. “It worked well with my life at the time and it’s been great,” Uhrowczik said.

Uhrowczik loves the school and the people within it, she said. One of the best parts of the job is seeing students’ individual growth, she said. “If someone’s come in and had a bad day, it’s just nice to be able to help in whatever way I can.”

Most of her friendships throughout the school came from within her department, she said.

“My best connections were with the members of Guidance and Counseling, Mr. Shaw from the testing center, and the members of the dean’s office.”

Along with her usual duties, Uhrowczik helps to run the testing center when Test Center Coordinator Jesse Shaw is unavailable.

Uhrowczik has a large impact on the school, Sophia Liu (10) said. Although she mainly is friends with her colleagues in the Guidance & Counseling office, she is widely loved by the student body. “I’m

grateful for her because she was always really kind and helpful.”

Not only does Uhrowczik welcome students into Counseling and Guidance with a smile on her face, she also supplies chocolates to the office, Etta Singer (10) said.

There are many things she will miss about working at the school, especially after the seven great years she has spent here, Uhrowczik said. “I will miss the beautiful campus and all of my friends and colleagues at the school.”

Like for the graduating class, this spring was a time of change and reflection for herself, Uhrowczik said.

“I always look forward to hearing reports on where the kids have gone afterward and what they might be doing in their next chapter,” she said. Similar to the seniors, Uhrowczik is transitioning into the next stage in her life. “It’s another milestone,” she said.

and do great things, and you know that what you’ve taught them is going to have an influence on how they’re going to do that.”

Doug made Julia Grant (12) realize she wants to go into the music business, she said. After taking Doug’s Music Theory and Recording Studio Technology classes, his passion and care for his students made Grant want to take his 400 level Music Theory and Composition class, Grant said.

“As I progressed through high school and kept taking his classes, I was so passionate about it, and I owe that all to Mr. Epstein,” she said.

Next year, Grant will attend USC for music business. “I would not have chosen that route and I would not have even applied to that music program or any music program if it weren’t for him,” she said. “We share experiences, colleagues, and stories in a way that leads to a richer understanding of the other person.”

An example of Doug dedication was when Grant could not grasp a topic in her class, and Doug offered to meet with her for two consecutive periods, she said. “I know very few teachers who would take an hour and a half out of their day to teach me something.”

Moreover, Doug works in a unique environment because his son Science teacher George Epstein works alongside him. Because work is a prominent part of their lives, working at the same institution has strengthened their relationship, George wrote.

Although they do not work together, George likes working at the same institution as his father because they play off of each other’s strengths, he wrote. When he does a demonstration to his physics classes about waves and sound, Doug loans George specialized audio equipment and provides guidance, he wrote.

George’s favorite moments from working with his father are from Music Week, he wrote. In the past, the duo has played for full-period sets under their stage name, “Wholly Ghost,” with George singing and Doug on guitar and vocals. This year, they did a rendition of the Elements Song at the

Music Week Assembly.

Music Teacher Nathan Hetherington appreciates how valuable Doug is to the community, he said.

“He came in with a lot of wonderful experiences in the professional music world, and he’s been generous enough to share that with the students and with us,” he said, “He’s been a really cool addition [to the department] that we will definitely miss.”

Additionally, Doug brings an enlightening perspective on music, Hetherington said.

“He’s done a lot to bring a lot of 20th and 21st century ideas into the theory classes and into the department,” he said.

Students have learned valuable skills in Epstien’s class, Hetherington said. “A lot of students have had their first recording studio experience in Mr. Epstein’s class, and they have really fallen in love with that whole process, those tools, and that way of making music.”

Brett Karpf (12), who was in Doug advisory and took his Music Theory class, will miss how relaxed Doug’s classes were, he said. “While you’re expected to contribute and create music, there aren’t lofty pressures that are placed on you.” As an advisor, Doug was always willing to listen to his students and offer advice, Karpf said.

In addition to Doug’s teaching style, Karpf is amazed at how much knowledge Doug has about music, he said. “He’s one of the smartest and most bright teachers at the school in terms of his understanding of musical history and music theory,” he said.

When Karpf’s class spent weeks creating songs, Doug created one in seconds, he said. “We were like, ‘Hey, can we see an example,’ and he, within seconds, would make three minute songs that were ready to be released to the public as actual songs,” he said.

Karpf is grateful for a musical artist that Doug introduced him to, he said. Doug has alarms that are songs at the end of every class to keep track of time, and the alarm for Karpf’s class is Good

Vibrations by Beach Boys, which is now one of his favorite bands, he said.

For Grant, Doug created a space where anyone who likes music can come together and enjoy it, she said. “One summer, I took a college course in music technology, and I missed Mr. Epstein’s teaching because he was so much more fun, and so much more hands-on,” she said.

Doug will miss his students and his time at the school, but he is ready to change pace, he said. With the newfound freedom of retirement, he is planning to begin writing his own music.

Though he received his BA in music theory and composition, he has only recently decided he has the power and stories to write his own work. “I became an artist helping other people with their music as a recording engineer and producer, but at this stage in my life, I have a lot of stories to tell, so I’m going to be writing music,” Doug said.

Although Doug is not certain of what style his music will be in or what it will sound like, he knows that he wants to put his energy into writing music.

“I’m looking forward to two big things,” he said.

“One is not having an alarm clock pretty much ever again, and the other is being able to write.”

“Another milestone” for Uhrowczik

After 20 years, Epstein leaves on a high note

Ariella Frommer Staff Writer

“As tired as I am at 5:30 in the morning, when I get up, I know that by the time I’m in a class, the energy coming off of the kids is just going to lighten my day up,” Music teacher Doug Epstein said.

Doug has been working at the school for over two decades and will be retiring at the end of this year.

Doug was hired by the school in 1999 as a consultant to build the recording studio. But in 2012, Doug decided he wanted to teach. He knew how important early years in music are for students, because getting a good foundation is key to a music career, he said. “I also felt an obligation to pass along 35 years of knowledge of how recording music works.” Now, Doug enjoys learning from students just as much as they learn from him, he said.

Before coming to the school, Doug was a recording engineer and producer. “I worked in the real music business out there in the world doing records, jingles, jazz records, and all kinds of really interesting things,” he said.

He switched from producing music to teaching about music also because he wanted to be more involved with education, he said. He has now worked as a music teacher at the school for ten years. “I get a lot out of working with the kids because I am exposed to more music than I would ordinarily be listening to on my own,” he said.

Doug cherishes the memories that remind him of his students’ passions — once, when his students were creating music for his class, he heard smashing sounds on the keyboard and realized how focused the kids were on their work, he said.

“I didn’t hear what they were doing because they were wearing headphones, but just the sound of their fingers on the keys with energy, focus, drive, and determination was so exciting.”

Though Doug won’t be returning to the school, he will remember his students fondly. “Certain kids just leave a profound memory,” he said, “And you know that they’re going to go out into the world

Cathrine Mong / Staff Photographer

7

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Do retires after inspiring students for 37 years Allison Markman and Hannah Katzke Staff Writers “I just knew I was destined to be here,” visual arts teacher Kim Do said. “As a child in the backseat, whenever we drove on the Henry Hudson Parkway, making that turn by Riverdale, I always had a special feeling about that corner of the drive. And I didn’t know why.

But now I realized I must have known that I was going to be here.”

After spending 37 years working in the Visual Arts Department both as a teacher and a Department Chair, Do will retire at the end of the school year to work on his art and spend time with his granddaughters, he said.

Before coming to the school, Do taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Purchase College, where he pursued graphic design, carpentry, house painting, and painting, he said.

When Do first came to the school, he taught Middle Division (MD) students, then transitioned to teaching Upper Division (UD) students after his predecessor moved to a new job, he said. Over the course of his time working at the school the Visual Arts Department has undergone large changes from working in Pforzheimer to now having a large part of Fisher Hall.

The community feeling and the openness of the campus originally drew Do to the school, he said. “What I’m interested in is the beauty in life, and in painting and art, and that campus sort of feeds that need to see beauty in my daily life.”

Along with the campus, what has kept Do at the school for so many years are the students, he said. He has found that at the school, students have more artistic ability than students at some of the art colleges he has worked at. “The students are so amazing and not just talented, but intelligent and surprising,” he said.

Throughout his time at the school, Do has impacted several generations. “I think he’ll be known as a legend, especially because he’s taught at the school for decades and a number of my teachers right now have been his students, which is really cool,” Louise Kim (11), who has been in his Drawing and Painting classes for the last three years, said.

As a student, history teacher David Berenson ‘95 took several years of Studio Art classes with Do and completed an Independent Study creating a comic book under Do’s mentorship.

“Every year with Mr. Do, I learned more than the last.” Berenson said. “His studio always felt like an oasis from the intensity of HM. Mr. Do inspired me and countless other students. I consider it an honor to learn from him.”

Do is always exploring new possibilities and modes of thinking and making art, which is what makes him a great teacher and artist, Visual Arts Department Chair Dr. Anna Hetherington said. “He’s inspirational in the way he cares about his community, the students, his colleagues, everybody on this campus,” she said, “He’s really part of the fabric of Horace Mann.”

Do’s impact extends beyond art, photography teacher Aaron Taylor said. Taylor sees this in his interactions with students and in the classroom dynamic he creates. “Besides his beautiful art and his humor, he’s taught generations of students the beauty of art, how to create art, how to improve your art,” he said.

“Seeing what his students are doing has always been an inspiration.”

Kim has grown fond of Do, especially

because of his guidance, which has helped them progress as an artist, they said. “Mr. Do encapsulates all of the virtues of a teacher and an educator,” she said. “He has a lot of great insight about art and aesthetic that has definitely helped me progress or develop my art style.”

Students are always welcomed to stop by Do’s art room. “I would always go during lunchtime, and then he would just give me a huge piece of paper,” Kira Mo ‘20 said. “There would just be materials on the table and we [would] just draw, listening to stories, and it was just a really grounding space.”

Even though Mo only took one course with Do, she was still a regular in his studio, she said. “His studio was like an anchor in [my] Horace Mann experience.”

Do also helped Ryan Finlay (12) grow as an artist by letting him freely express his creativity after giving instruction, he said. “He gives lots of lessons that are sort of the foundational basics of perspective,” he said. “But once you get to the higher levels, he allows individual students to go in their different directions based on what they specialize in.”

Do enjoys teaching advanced students who are working at a high level, as well as teaching beginners, he said. “I like teaching the beginning students because there’s a sense of wonder when suddenly they’re able to do something that they thought was impossible to do,” he said. “It’s very satisfying to be able to share the tradition of art, of visual representation and to see that it gets transferred from generation to generation.”

When Avani Khorona (11) moved from the MD to the UD, she was worried that she would become too busy with school work to continue pursuing art, she said. However, taking Do’s drawing and painting classes and spending time in his art room have allowed her to not lose her passion for art. “Him pushing me to continue has let me foster that side of myself throughout high school,” she said.

Do was also a guide for Evan Rowe (12) as he navigated the college process as an artist, he said.

Do recommended a summer program, helped Rowe compile his portfolio, and gave him insights into what it is like to apply to art schools, he said.

Do had been a mentor to Finlay, he said.

He gives the responsibility of asking questions and tapping him as a resource to the students, and when they did, they were able to learn from his experiences.

In his art classes, Do also takes time to foster discussion on various topics and social issues, Kim said. “He both directly and indirectly teaches a lot of important life lessons and morals,” she said. “He has taught me personally to really continue to lean into what I’m passionate about and put myself first and also value the communities that I’m in and work towards a more equitable and kind

Courtesy of Barry Mason

SMILES IN THE STUDIO! Do and students share a laugh.

Courtesy of Barry Mason

HELPING HAND Do works with Italiani (12). community.”

For example, over the years Do has created commemorative images of Black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Fannie Lou Hamer he said. “As some students expressed this year, they wish Horace Mann would do more for Black History Month, and I think that’s right,” he said, “I think there should be more of a concentrated effort towards that.”

Outside of the classroom, Do has worked on many school committees and has been involved in service learning projects with Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, he said. He has made videos to publicize the school’s involvement in the local c ommu nit y and to r a i s e awareness for the area where the school is located.

“The Bronx is the poorest urban condensed congressional district in America, so it raises awareness of that,” he said, “Our involvement returns us to the i d e a l s of the original Horace Mann Self-portrait by Kim Do School, br ing ing progressive educational ideology to the public schools.”

During his time at the school, Do has also been involved in a faculty band, he said. The band used to perform at a concert called Urban Aid, where they raised money for the homeless.

Some of Do’s fondest memories from his time at the school are of the different projects he has done with his classes, he said. One year, his class made artistic kites that they were able to fly as a class on the beach. Another year, his class focused on inflatable mylar sculptures, he said. Students used their creativity to make a blimp, a sixteen-foot kangaroo and giant “HM” balloon letters.

More recently, Do enjoyed meeting Mets pitcher John Franco when he visited the school for the Marathon Softball event in May, he said.

“That was the thrill of a lifetime, for a baseball fan.”

Do also loved bringing in a Tibetan monk trained by the Dalai Lama to make sand mandalas, he said.

Do also enjoys connecting his students with professional artists, writers, and poets, he said.

One year his class worked with the sculptor who made the school’s lion sculpture which sits outside of Friedman Hall. “My favorite moments were when I was able to bring guests in, and I could share my network with Horace

Mann,” he said.

Throughout his decades working at the school, Do worked to make the arts an intrinsic part of an education at the school, visual arts teacher Ron Logan wrote. “In teaching, administration, and friendship, he has made it clear over the years that his students and his colleagues matter,” he said. “He has brought respect and stature to our department, and has worked tirelessly to promote the arts as integral to a student’s education at Horace Mann School.”

Aside from visual art, Do has also brought other forms of art to his classes. One of Finlay’s favorite memories with Do was watching him and other faculty members rehearse for Music Week in the art room, he said. “It was very interesting because Mr. Do is not just an artist in the visual arts sense, but he’s also an artist in that he plays music.”

In the art room, Do will often experiment with different music and play the guitar for his students, Khorana said. “He loves to play the guitar. If you go into his classroom, he has a bunch of old guitars hung up around the room,” she said. “Mr. Do’s classroom is kind of notorious.”

Do will also be remembered by his students for his many iconic puns and dad jokes, Kim said. “He makes a lot of amazing puns and his wordplay is really fun.”

Do is quick-witted and “punny,” Hetherington said. “I wouldn’t dare try to recreate any, but they’re all good.”

While the community enjoys Do’s puns, he has a greater message behind them. “The reason that I do the dad puns is to create an atmosphere where it’s permissible to fail,” he said. “It’s okay to not be perfect, and that’s that’s the legacy I hope to pass on.” In the future, Do hopes that his students continue to use humor to make their way in life.

Do has made an impact on all the students and faculty he has worked with and has helped create a community at the school that is about celebrating art, Kim said. “People are, frankly, united by art and of the act of creating and of being able to have fun while doing so,” they said. “Mr. Do really fostered and encouraged that playfulness and creativity.”

Like Kim, Taylor is grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Do, he said.

“Knowing him has made me a better person and a better educator.”

Do has been a strong pillar of support, appreciation, and creativity for so many years of students, Kim said. “He has dedicated his whole life to educating.”

Whether the student is an artist today or has not touched a paintbrush since Do’s class, Hetherington knows students have been impacted by having him as a teacher, she said. “There’s so many people who have been positively affected by Mr. Do and his teaching, and I don’t think one can hope for anything more as a teacher.”

Do will be missed by the school’s community.

“Mr. Do has brought an intense love of art and a wonderful sense of humor to our school community,” Logan wrote. “Mr. Do’s artistic, academic, and personal legacy at Horace Mann School is unparalleled. He will forever be part of the history of Horace Mann.”

Do will miss the school community, he said.

“It’s bittersweet because I love this place, I feel a real loyalty to this school,” he said. “I’m very thankful to Horace Mann for all its given me over these years and continues to give me in my memories as I move into my pure artist life.”

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Dean, history teacher, and mentor: Wallach waves goodbye Ariella Frommer Staff Writer “I don’t think you go into this job looking for rewards or for people to say ‘thank you,’ but it’s always nice when you see that you did have some kind of an impact and you were able to make a difference,” Dean of Class of 2022 and history teacher Dr. Glenn Wallach said.

Wallach will retire from the school this year after 22 years as a teacher and dean to travel, rest, and pursue history research, he said.

After teaching history full-time for three years, Wallach became a grade dean in 2003.

on these reflective aviators and the entire class was stunned.”

As a history teacher, Wallach has taught Atlantic World History to ninth graders, US History to tenth graders, Contemporary US History, and his elective History Through the Lens. Wallach enjoys teaching because he likes seeing students engaged in what they are studying, he said. “There are these great moments where everything comes together and students have been sparked by something we talked about,” he said.

Gurvitch is thankful for how he grew as a writer in the class, he said. “Going

Emily Wang / Staff Photographer

DEANING Wallach at work.

“As a dean, getting to know each class and getting to really feel like you have made a connection with them and been there to provide advice was really great,” he said.

Dean of Class of 2024 and science teacher Stephanie Feigin worked with and got advice from Wallach often as a dean, she said. “He has such a thoughtful way of thinking about how to engage with students and how to help them navigate their four years,” she said. “I have taken so much of his framework for being a dean, and I will definitely miss that.”

In 2000, Feigin and Wallach were in the same cohort of new faculty and watching him was one of the factors that made Feigin consider being a dean, she said “I was envious of the way in which he was able to interact with students beyond the classroom.”

Because of his schedule, Wallach had no way of predicting what would happen during his school day, he said. “In a sense, I have a schedule, but so much of it depends on what crosses the transom that day and that keeps it interesting and fun.”

As a dean, Wallach experienced different

into that year, I was convinced I knew how to write, but turns out I had no idea,” he said.

“And Dr. Wallach was the teacher who made me realize that and [taught me] how to fix it.”

Throughout that year, Wallach edited Gurvitch’s papers inside and outside of class, he said. “I would be a horrible history writer if not for Dr. Wallach,” he said.

History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link appreciates how Wallach pulls together sources and materials for his students and colleagues alike, he said. “He wants to make sure that his students are exposed to a broad array of sources to help them approach history in a thoughtful and comprehensive manner.” For example, when the Black Lives Matter protest broke out in 2020, Wallach found various sources on how the media has covered protests by African Americans in the past, which he gave to other history teachers to help them prepare for class, Link said. Additionally, because Wallach has taught at the college level, he prepares students for college well, he said.

Gurvitch appreciates the relationship he

“From his teaching, to his advising, to his role as a class dean, to his constant presence at more after-school events and activities than I can count, a huge part of this school’s success is owned by Dr. Wallach.”

- Dr. Tom Kelly aspects of the school, other than academics, by attending student activities such as sports events and theater performances, he said. “I get to see students sometimes in a place where they are their happiest and most fulfilled.”

Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly often sees Wallach at school activities and events, he wrote in an email. “From his teaching, to his advising, to his role as a class dean, to his constant presence at more after-school events and activities than I can count, a huge part of this school’s success is owned by Dr. Wallach,” he said.

Wallach always brought enthusiasm to his classes and the community, Ben Heller ‘18 said. Heller, who was the senior class president, worked closely with Wallach while in the role. “When working with him, he always wanted to bring the most energy and excitement to us.”

Similarly, Justin Gurvitch (12), who had Wallach as his teacher in Atlantic World History, appreciates the excitement Wallach brought to his history class, he said.

“Throughout the year, he had been telling us that we would have class outside, and we never had it, but on the last day of school, out of nowhere, he pulled out a case and slapped

has built with Wallach, he said. “I can waltz into his office at any point, and he is happy to receive me.”

Heller appreciated how Wallach made an effort to establish a relationship with every student in his grade, he said. “When there are 180 people in a grade, that’s tough, but he made sure to have a legit relationship with everybody in the grade after four years,” he said, “I’m sure everybody can say they had a one-on-one meeting with Dr. Wallach at one point or another.”

Wallach was a support system for each one of his students, Rachel Okin ‘18 said.

One instance of his care for his students was when Okin got a concussion, she said. “I was so appreciative that Dr. Wallach was my dean because he reached out to me, he reached out to my parents, and he was so helpful and supportive of me.”

Likewise for Kelly, Wallach is known for his care for students, he wrote. One of Kelly’s favorite memories of Wallach is when he called Kelly at 2:00 AM expressing a concern about a student in his class, he wrote. “While I was happy to follow through with his concern, I was permanently impressed by Dr. Wallach’s follow up call at 3:00 AM and again at 6:00

AM to see if anything else needed to be done.”

Heller’s favorite memory of Wallach was

not be more grateful for your guidance this year. We all grew as writers and editors under

“He made sure to have a legit relationship with everybody in the grade after four years. I’m sure everybody can say they had a one-on-one meeting with Dr. Wallach at one point or another.”

- Ben Heller ‘18 working with him on class music videos, he said. Wallach was always excited to participate in the videos and perform bits, he said.

One of Okin’s favorite memories of Wallach was their theme for senior absurdity day, “Dr. Wallach’s Bar mitzvah,” she said. “He let us lift him and do the Horah around him, because he just wanted everyone else around him to be happy and have a good time.”

Wallach’s unique relationship with Okin’s grade made their grade’s time at the school special, she said. “We were really lucky that we had a dean like Dr. Wallach, who was like ‘You guys want to do this? I’ll join in on your fun,’ and we had a blast.”

People are going to remember Wallach as an exemplary grade dean because he was passionate about his job and devoted all his time to it, Heller said.

Wallach was almost like a student in their grade, Okin said. “We had merch, and he wore it all around school, and he just really fit in well with the energy and laughter of our class that we had going on all the time.”

your oversight,” the editorial board of Volume 111 wrote for the spread, which was published in their Class Day issue.

Before Wallach became an educator, he researched for a series of books about the Vietnam War, then worked on Capitol Hill, he said. He went to graduate school and received his degree in American studies. After teaching history at various colleges, he served as a dean at one of the residential colleges at Yale University, he said.

Wallach came to the school because he wanted to find a job in New York City to be closer to his wife, who was living in the city while he was working in Washington D.C., he said. He was having lunch with a colleague from Yale, who asked if a former student could join them, who turned out to be English teacher Rebecca Bahr, and she spoke highly of teaching at the school, he said. “She spent all this time talking about how she loved teaching at Horace Mann, and I thought, ‘Wow, I could do something like that.’” Shortly after, Wallach applied to several independent schools in the

Courtesy of Daniel Link

MAZEL TOV! Class of 2018 celebrates “Dr. Wallach’s Bar mitzvah.”

One rewarding part about Wallach’s job is running into alumni on the street, he said.

“Just a couple weeks ago, I was getting on the bus and a kid from the Class of 2006 said, ‘Dr. Wallach?’” he said. His former student introduced himself to Wallach and told him about what he was doing and what experiences at the school were important to him.

For 12 years, between 2002 and 2014, Wallach served as the faculty advisor of the Record. Even though there were a lot of late press nights, Wallach had fun helping students on the newspaper, he said. “I really enjoyed working with students, hearing their ideas, and helping them make the paper what they wanted it to be,” he said.

For Wallach’s last Record issue as the faculty advisor, each previous Volume’s editorial board wrote lengthy notes thanking Wallach for his time as their faculty advisor. “We could

area and got hired at the school, he said.

Wallach decided to retire because he has been a dean for 19 years and he was ready to explore other possibilities, he said. After so many years in his role, he is glad the new dean, math teacher Dr. Shalini Sudarsanan, will have a fresh perspective.

After he retires, Wallach wants to work on historical research and travel, he said. Wallach is still developing ideas for what that research will be, he said. “I’m looking forward to new challenges and doing different types of things.”

Wallach’s legacy at the school will be one of engagement with academic life and devotion to the community, Link said. “He helped create a community at Horace Mann School so that all students feel welcomed and supported, and that’s a really powerful legacy to leave behind,’’ he said.

CHAIRS FOR CHAIRS Wallach receiving an honorary chair.

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

subtractions from the math department Ben Rafal Staff Writer

Tim Behan

After five years at the school, mathematics teacher Timothy Behan is leaving the community to begin the next chapter of his career. Having studied math and science at Monmouth University, Behan is pursuing opportunities in healthcare.

Behan applied for the open position at the

school after receiving his Master’s Degree in teaching. Behan’s application and interview process took place following the end of the 2017 school year; in addition to an interview, Behan was asked to conduct a demonstration lesson, which also took place after the end of the school year. Department Chair Charles Worrall managed to group together an entire class of students a week after summer began, Behan said. “That would probably be pretty hard to manage at some places, and I felt that it was indicative of the school environment and the nature of the students.”

Worrall decided to give Behan more difficult material for his lesson, and was impressed by Behan’s enthusiasm in embracing the challenge of learning and mastering something new, Worrall said.

Worrall taught Honors Geometry with Behan for the first time this school year, Worrall said. “[Behan has] spent enormous amounts of time and energy outside of school this year discovering ideas for himself, finding his own ways of seeing complex and beautiful math, and then thinking through how to use those experiences to create a fantastic geometric journey for his students.”

Behan has taught every grade level throughout his time at the school, including Geometry for four years, he said.

The combinatorics portion of pre-calculus is

one of Behan’s favorite units to teach, because it can be approached from multiple angles.

“I find it so exciting that you can look at the same problem in two totally different ways and arrive at the same result. Many problems also allow you to prove interesting coincidences and come across odd relationships,” he said.

The rigor of the school’s education initially stood out the most to Behan, he said. After attending several schools as a student, it is evident that the motivation within the school’s students to learn and grow is incomparable, he said. As a teacher, the ultimate aim is to learn and grow along with the students, he said.

More than any previous learning environment, Behan feels that students often push him to think about concepts in a new or deeper way.

In addition to teaching math, Behan has advised the Mock Trial club for the past year, and enjoys watching the club compete and prepare their arguments. Having participated in a similar form of debate as a student, advising the club brings back his childhood memories of having mental breakthroughs when building cases, he said.

Small moments that Behan enjoys include the senior reflections, which is a unique way that the school allows departing students to share their experiences, he said. “Hearing what the students here have to say about their personal experiences is amazing as a teacher,

because in the classroom, you don’t necessarily know what struggles they may be going through.”

Behan learned much more about himself as a teacher and classroom values during the pandemic, he said. In retrospect, he is impressed that the community was able to make it through together and make the most of the situation, he said. “I would begin my classes with asking a question of the day on Zoom, since I felt that it was a nice moment with the class and building community,” he said. “I learned the value of being present in a community, because [the school] initially started with asynchronous assignments that were much less effective than being in the room together.”

Behan is moving to Madison, Wisconsin and will be working at Epic Systems, a Healthcare Software company, he said. Many students were surprised that his new profession was not school-related, however, Behan believes that he can utilize his teaching experience while at Epic Systems. “I’m going to be assisting other people with technology, so it feels like I’m exercising a similar skill set,” he said. “It will be different, but I’m excited for the change.”

calc, and two sections of Calculus, so I’ve built a connection with a good amount of seniors,” he said.

Leo Giorgini (12), who has been in Kafoglis’ advisory for multiple years, remembers connecting with him in ninth grade. Kafoglis helped Giorgini look over a presentation an hour prior to class, taking the time to help a new Upper Division student, Giorgini wrote. “I do not think most teachers would have been willing to accomodate a frantic freshman, but he found the time,” he wrote.

Kafoglis often built his best connections with students in advisory, he said. Having a small advisory of five seniors, all of whom he has taught, Kafoglis has enjoyed connecting with a tight-knit group. “It’s one of the places where I get to really interact with students as their full selves,” he said.

“In that, you get the highs and the lows, because high school is hard. It can be emotional, maybe after taking a math test that didn’t go your way or how you feel as you receive bad news back from a college.”

Joaquin Ramirez-Villareal (12) remembers Kafoglis’s advisory being a place where his voice was always heard, no matter what he had to say, he said. “Though I know he’s going to enjoy his new school in Brooklyn as a Brooklyn native, I’m going to miss him greatly as a teacher, advisor, and friend.”

Kafoglis’ presence in the classroom as a trustable figure is noticed by everyone, math teacher Charles Worrall said. “His deeply considered care for his students, for our school, and for how he inhabits and imagines his role as a teacher has been awe-inspiring,” Worrall said.

When Kafoglis began at the school, he was most nervous about teaching Geometry, given that he had the least experience with its curriculum, he said. However, he soon realized that it was a great course for building critical thinking skills in new high-schoolers. “Geometry in particular allows me to put a complicated scenario on the board and the whole class can throw out ideas,” he said.

“It feels like a big problem-solving, brainstorming activity that we get to all do together, and that I felt was always really engaging for students.”

The wide range of extracurricular activities available at the school were often enjoyable for Kafoglis, especially when speakers on social justice—such as writers Jelani Cobb or Ta-Nehisi Coates— visited the school, he said. “My very first year here, the late Robert Moses, a civil rights activist who used to be a math teacher at Horace Mann, came to speak. I was asked to introduce him, and that was a moment I will never forget,” Kafoglis said.

“As a civil rights icon, being able to shake his hand, hear him speak, and find a connection as two Horace Mann math teachers, was a big honor for me.”

Teaching during the pandemic has given Kafoglis a new perspective on classroom

environments, he said. In a year when students were separated by barriers and individual desks, it became apparent that communication between students was essential to a thriving class dynamic, Kafoglis said. “This year, even more so, I try to emphasize students learning from one another and not just listening to me at the board.

Kafoglis had a unique path to the school, as he interviewed for an open position shortly after he graduated college, he said. Originally, Kafoglis did not receive the position, but was later hired by Worrall, who was then a department chair.

Worrall initially interviewed Kafoglis at a New England job fair two years prior to his hiring, and was surprised and impressed at how intelligently Kafoglis spoke about math at such a young age, Worrall said. Worrall told Kafoglis that he hoped they would once again be in touch after he gained teaching experience, and after two years, Kafoglis’ resume displayed that he had blossomed into a fantastic teacher in upstate New York.

Kafoglis will go on to teach high school math in Brooklyn, hoping for a change that allows him to stay closer to home, he said. “I’m excited about what my work-life balance will be like, and I’m excited to walk and bike to school instead of taking the train. But I’m certainly not happy to be leaving,” he said.“I’m definitely excited for my next [opportunity] while being sad that I have to say goodbye.”

Trigonometry classes.

He was struck by an environment w h e r e students were eager to learn, and asked frequent questions, making his job far easier, he said.

Since this year was Fouchet’s first opportunity to teach Geometry, he feels that the class has helped him grow, both as a teacher and along with the students. The best feeling as an educator is when students ask thought-provoking questions, he said.

In all of Fouchet’s classes, he assigned long-term end-of-year projects that students found difficult at first, he said. However, as they continued to work over the course of multiple months, each class felt the rewarding nature of completing a difficult task, Fouchet said. In Algebra II, he

utilized marble slides, an interactive way to apply all of the graphing concepts from throughout the year. “Working with them and seeing them change from, this is hard and I don’t know how to do it, to, this is fun, has been really cool.”

Alara Yilmaz (10) feels that Fouchet’s collaborative style has allowed her to better internalize her work and enjoy a relaxed class environment, she said. “He likes to incorporate his personal life into his exams, which made the assessments very fun. He let us do a lot of group work, so I’ve gotten very close with the people I sit near,” she said.

Fouchet has made his best memories when talking with students about social injustice and the speaker events held throughout the year, he said.

“Getting that perspective from people who grew up very differently from me, in a different culture and age group, is one of the large reasons why I teach, beyond math.”

Ben Kafoglis

After six years at the school, math teacher Ben Kafoglis is moving on to the next chapter of his career. Kafoglis has taught all four grades in the high school during his years at the school, and he will be continuing to teach high school math at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn next year.

Kafoglis has enjoyed being able to teach all different grade levels and connect with multiple different grades, especially this year’s graduating class, Kafoglis said. “I taught three sections of Geometry for these [seniors], two sections of Pre-

Mike Fouchet

After his first year at the school, mathematics teacher Michael Fouchet is moving to Philadelphia to pursue other teaching opportunities. “I feel like I have grown as an educator and am leaving a better teacher,” Fouchet said. “Just like we

encourage students to learn and grow, that is my goal as a teacher, and I feel like that happened a lot this year.”

The school’s math department stands out, not only in mathematical ability, but in faculty members’ collaboration with one another, Fouchet said. “The thing I’ll miss the most is working with the other math teachers, because everyone throws random questions about their [assignments] at one another,” he said. “It’s such a cool environment that I’ve never experienced before.”

The collaborative nature of the entire department has stood out to Fouchet, especially since he has found time to create relationships with fellow teachers outside of school. He and math teacher Varun Prabakar take the train from work each day and often do problems together, Fouchet said. “It has been really fun and is always a great way to cap off each day, and has been a really big highlight of my year,” he said.

In his year at the school, Fouchet taught two Geometry classes and two Algebra II &

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Lucy Peck Staff Writer

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Saying “bye”-ology to beloved science teachers

Camilla Nivison sets off to pursue a degree in marine ecology

UD Science teacher Camilla Nivison is leaving the school after five years of teaching to pursue a PhD in marine ecology, she said. However, she will always miss her memories with both students and teachers, she said. “For the past few years on my birthday, Mr. Zvezdin has busted into at least one of my classes and announced to everybody that it was my birthday and gotten everyone to sing to me,” she said. “It’s little things like that that make you feel seen and appreciated,” she said.

Nivison is leaving the school because she is going back to graduate school at the University of Georgia, she said. “That is my next adventure but I’ve been assured by many that I’m always welcome back here so who knows, maybe you’ll see me again.”

Nivison has most enjoyed teaching environmental science at the school because of the exciting challenge it presented, she said. Nivison is familiar with many of the units and finds them important but there are also units which were new for

her, she said. In environmental science, Nivison teaches about ecosystems and how humans are affecting them and what climate change is and what that means beyond this big buzzword that we’ve all heard, she said.

Nivison’s favorite part about teaching is giving students a knowledge base so they can explore on their own and make independent discoveries, she said. “When you get to a place where students know enough about the topic that we’re studying that they get to be able to figure out something themselves,” she said. “Sometimes that is figuring things out that I hadn’t thought of and sometimes that is figuring something out that was in my next progression of ideas but they didn’t need me to tell them.”

Throughout her time at the school, Nivison has grown to love a variety of traditions such as the senior reflections, she said. “I enjoy when seniors get up and tell their stories,” she said. “I enjoy that by senior year, those seniors are excited and comfortable enough to do that in front of their peers.”

Nivison has also been engaged in many of the Dorrrelated traditions, she said. “I’ve gotten to help with the orientation for new students at the beginning of the year,” she said. “I was also one of the faculty advisors working with Searchers, a program for seniors in the Spring sports season where they learned a lot of outdoor skills and ultimately planned and went on their own backpacking trip.”

Before teaching at the school, Nivison went to graduate school to get her Masters Degree in teaching and then taught at a boarding school in Western Massachusetts, she said. Nivison came to the school because she was looking for a job in New York City, she said. After meeting the science department, Nivison knew that the school would be a great place to teach, she said. “That has really held true because a lot of the teachers that I work with on a daily basis are my close friends,” she said.

Nivison has become friendly with many teachers at the school, including UD physics teacher Oleg Zvezdin.

“I’m friends with her [Nivison] outside of school,” Zvezdin said. “Being friends with my colleagues makes it much easier to come in and have a good day.” Zvezdin enjoys being able to call on colleagues like Nivison for help setting up labs, he said.

Nivison had a lot of great mentors when she was growing up who inspired her to pursue science, she said.

Her high school biology and biology teacher specifically fostered her passion for teaching and science though of his knowledge and passion for the subject, she said. “I also did quite a bit of community service working in schools in highschool and in college so I didn’t necessarily know for sure I wanted to be a teacher, but it was a logical path that I followed.”

One new thing that Nivison introduced to her classes was an increased emphasis on visualization of data collection, Zvezdin said. “The study of ice cores, for example, is super important to trying to figure out what the environment was like in the past,” he said. “I remember helping her to do a cool lab where she literally made an ice core sample out of beads,” he said. “That required counting out thousands of beads which we did together,” he said. “Actually creating an ice core for the kids to play around with and examine speaks to her desire to get the students to interact with the data.”

with her children, she said. “I’m excited to be more present in my kids’ lives.”

While teaching at the school, Leo devoted a lot of time to the job so it was difficult to balance that with spending time with her children, she said.

She is going to focus on her children for a bit and then figure out a new job after that, which could be teaching or something entirely new, she said.

Leo decided to pursue teaching in graduate school, she said. Her favorite aspect of graduate school was interacting with students, which led her to look for teaching jobs at the high school level, she said.

She began to work at the school in 2013, she said. Her interview to teach chemistry was her first job interview and her first job, she said. “The rest is history.”

Over her 12 years at the school, Leo has most enjoyed learning new things from other teachers and from students, she said. “I learned how to be a teacher and learned from really wonderful people.”

Leo has also enjoyed getting to know students and advisees and watching them grow, she said. “I had some advisees from freshman year to senior year, and seeing them grow over the long term and turn into adults that will enter the world was a cool experience for me.”

Leo’s advisees loved having her as an advisor, Daphne Tsai (10) said. “When we were in advisory, she would tell us about her family and about her newest daughter, Vera,” she said. “Dr. Leo was always a nice and helpful advisor who was happy about my successes.”

Her patient way of teaching was very helpful, Aamri

Sareen (10) said. “I would come to her office hours every month and she would walk through every topic we had learned,” she said. “I remember her spending 15 minutes going over polarity and intermolecular forces when I was confused.”

Leo’s favorite part about teaching chemistry was the latitude that the school provides, she said. “I had the freedom and flexibility to feel out where the students were and be able to adjust accordingly.”

She has also taught alongside amazing colleagues who initiate new ideas and inspire her, she said.

UD science department chair Dr. Lisa Rosenblum said Leo’s colleagues will miss her dearly. “Dr Leo is an incredibly thoughtful teacher who cares deeply about her students and is not afraid to try new things in the classroom or lab, especially for the benefit of her students,” she said. “She has had a huge impact on the chemistry curriculum and the Science Research Program, and the Science Department will very much miss her.”

Leo will miss getting to know students and teaching chemistry, she said. This is especially notable because she is not going into another teaching job straight away, she said.

“I’ll miss the students and my colleagues tremendously as well,” she said.

Christine Leo journeys into a different element

When Alara Yilmaz (10) was confused about stoichiometry, she scheduled a meeting with Upper Division (UD) science teacher Dr. Christine Leo, her chemistry teacher, she said.

“She explained the topic to me from start to finish and clarified all of my confusions,” she said. “She was always a patient teacher and made sure everyone understood before moving on.”

Leo will leave the school after teaching chemistry for 12 years. After leaving the school, Leo plans to spend more time

11

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Lester Lee

“From the moment that I met him, I knew that Mr. Lee was not like most of the teachers I remember,” Tuhin Ghosh (12) said. “He was younger, more casual with us, and even though I didn’t know how it was going to be different, I was excited to see it.”

Computer science teacher Lester Lee will leave the school after three years of working in the department. Next year he will be writing curriculum for coding bootcamps for adults in addition to taking classes for his masters degree.

While he enjoyed his time teaching at the school, he is looking forward to focusing on adult education, Lee said. “What I like about [coding bootcamps] is I get to teach higher level concepts and focus more on content since, hopefully the adults I am teaching will have study skills, time management, and things that I still have to teach as a high school teacher,” he said.

At the school, Lee developed curricula for some of the new classes that are being taught this year in the computer science department, he said. One of the classes he designed was Theoretical Computer Science, a 400-level half-credit that was introduced this year. However, Lee was not able to teach the class this year, he said.

Lee arrived at the school when they were in the process of getting rid of Advanced

Placement courses, he said. He was given a list of topics he could teach for new classes from which he designed to courses that are now available to students, he said. “I took what I got, and I tried to put as much of my own experience as possible into them to make them more enjoyable for the students.”

Lee’s favorite aspect of teaching at the school is interacting with the students, he said. He loves being in class with students and letting them have fun conversations, he said. “It’s the inside jokes, little things like, ‘Yo, did you watch a show?’ and being able to chat with y’all as people.”

Lee will miss getting to hear “high school humor” on a daily basis, he said. He is only three years out of college and has enjoyed working with students who have exposure to similar social media, he said.

Elias Romero (12) loved how Lee would always stop class to talk about current events and other topics that his students care about, he said. “I don’t think that really happened in a lot of other classes, and it’s often kind of overlooked.”

Ghosh found that Lee did an excellent job of making sure that all of his students are comprehending the material while also being

challenged, he said. “He wasn’t afraid to go on a little tangent for five minutes, indulge me in whatever I was talking about, because he had a really masterful control over everybody in the class and always made sure that they were engaged and learning in the ways that they were comfortable with.”

English teacher Stan Lau first met Lee at the new faculty orientation in 2019, he said. “It felt great to see another Asian guy because there aren’t always a lot of us in independent schools,” he said. He also immediately noticed that Lee has style, Lau said. Lee has many really cool shirts and an energy level that allows him to be very engaging, he said.

While Lee applied for jobs at many different schools, he settled on the school since it was the only institution where he met a person of color in the computer science department, he said.

Former computer science teacher Danah Screen served as his mentor at the school and was the person he could go to for questions, Lee said.

Lee grew up in New York City and attended Stuyvesant high school. Given his familiarity with a large public high school, there was a culture shock when he first arrived at the school, he said. “I was used to rooms with 30, 40 kids, 1000 kids per grade where you don’t really get to

Computer Science teachers, logging off Ariella Frommer Staff Writer

OK

know your teachers because there’s 40 other kids in the room,” he said. In contrast, he has found that students at the school already knew how to send emails, meet with their teachers, and schedule office hours, he said. These attributes made Lee feel like he was teaching at a small college, he said.

Lau also believes that Lee brought interesting perspectives to the community, he said. Since Lee is a recent college graduate, he is up to date on all of the newest research and is able to bring that information to his classes, Lau said.

Lee was a co-facilitator of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) affinity space with Lau, Lau said. “When there was the whole shooting massacre in Atlanta against Asian Americans, it was a moment when I could lean on individuals such as Mr. Lee to talk through my own feelings and anxieties,” Lau said. “It was a way to be there for each other in a different capacity that wasn’t just strictly academic.”

English teacher Jennifer Huang was another co-facilitator of the APIDA affinity space with Lee. She also remembers how Lee took charge after the Atlanta shooting and put in a lot of effort to help the group navigate such fraught territory, she said. “It was another moment where I really appreciated having him as a colleague and also as a friend,” Huang said.

“He was just a good source of steady, quiet wisdom.”

Lau remembers getting dinner with Lee one night in Chinatown and how they conversed in Cantonese, Lau’s first language, he said. “Just talking with him was really powerful,” Lau said. “I think what was so wonderful was, I could see a younger version of myself in him as we chatted about teaching and living in the city.”

“While it is a tremendous loss for the school, Mr. Lee is going to be an incredible educator wherever he ends up,” Lau said.

“The fact that he discovered that working in education is something that’s valuable to him is something that will in a lot of ways guide him, and I hope he listens to that.”

CANCEL

Samuel Grunebaum Though computer science and engineering teacher Samuel Grunebaum has only taught at the school for two years, he has formed relationships with students and coworkers that have made him realize his hope to continue teaching into the future. He plans to devote the next few years to expanding his education, then return to the world of teaching.

While teaching at the school, Grunebaum enjoyed interacting with the student body, he said. “Pretty much 100 percent of the kids that I’ve met here want to learn the material that I’m teaching, and that’s not true at every school, which is a testament not only to the quality of the kids here but it’s also to the quality of the school,” he said.

The school community values learning for the sake of learning, he said. “In addition to being happy to learn, I feel like the students here take their role seriously and they know that the school is only as good as they make it,” he said. “It’s not just kids that want to learn but it’s also kids who are respectful of each other and of the teacher and of the material.”

When he arrived at the school, Grunebaum was most excited by the task of redesigning the curriculum, he said. “I didn’t just want to teach, I also wanted to design curricula and decide what I was teaching,” he said. “It’s a rare opportunity for someone as young as me, with only two years of actual classroom teaching experience, to get to design curricula.”

For his first year at the school, Grunebaum was asked to teach the Mobile App Development course, which was a very unique experience, he said. While he had never created an app before, he centered the course around design, user interaction, and interfaces, he said. He enjoyed getting to tailor that course and teach students how to design apps that would solve problems in their communities, he said.

Grunebaum was given an advisory during his second year at the school which consisted entirely of ninth graders.

Maddie Offit (9) is a member of this advisory and appreciates how during every advisory, Grunebaum asks the group a fun question, she said. The questions give the group something fun to do and bond over, Offit said.

Offit also appreciates how much help he gives to the students in his class, she said. “When we have big projects in Python,

such as making a game or coding games, he gives us a bunch of work periods during class when he just goes around and he helps every single person.”

Before coming to the school, Grunebaum lived in Málaga, Spain as a computer science and English teacher through a grant based fellowship program, he said. “When COVID hit, I was told to evacuate at or stay at my own risk, and I chose to evacuate because I didn’t want to potentially be stranded in Spain for who knew how long,” he said.

Grunebaum knew that he wanted to continue teaching, so he reached out to people he knew were teachers, including computer science teacher Lester Lee, who he attended college with, he said. Lee informed Grunebaum of an opening in the computer science department at the school, and he decided to apply for the position, he said.

Computer teacher Glenda Guerrero first met Grunebaum during his interview demo class, which he taught online due to the pandemic, she said. For the demo class, his topic connected with issues about Universal Design which is an area of study the department focuses on, Guerrero said. He does a wonderful job of engaging the students in discussion and teaching at their level of understanding, she said.

Guerrero also appreciates Grunebaum’s fluency in Spanish, she said. “Every once in a while we speak in Spanish, and I think it’s an additional link to our relationship and in the department.”

Currently, Grunebaum also does freelance work as a web designer and tutors high school aged students, he said.

“I’m going to basically take the summer to see if I can sustain myself while working freelance,” he said. “If I have enough clients and consistent enough work and earn enough money to pay the rent and buy food, I’ll just keep doing that.”

If he does decide to search for other jobs, he will only look for positions in which he would also be teaching, he said.

“That teaching could be training new employees, literally being a teacher to adults and teaching adults how to code like a coding boot camp, or more likely, what I would be interested in would be curriculum design.”

Grunebaum has not yet applied to attend other institutions,

but he does hope to pursue some kind of advanced degree within the next few years, he said. “I know that I want to learn more, get more life experience, and also just more broad career experience, and then come back to teaching full time,” he said.

“I definitely want to be teaching because I really enjoy it, and I think it’s really gratifying to be face to face with another person and teach them something and then see them understand it.”

12

THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION JUNE 6TH, 2022

Middle Division goodbyes: Three who will be missed

Ben Rafal Staff Writer

Caitlin Hickerson

“I’m excited about new opportunities and new horizons, it’s exciting, in similar ways perhaps as a graduate of [the school] might both be excited about college but nostalgic and feeling connected to where they are,” Caitlin Hickerson said. She is currently an eighth grade history teacher, an eighth grade advisor, the Service Learning Coordinator, the Student Activities Coordinator, a Seminar on Identity teacher, and a Leadership Through Service elective teacher. After being part of the school’s community for 13 years, she is leaving the school to teach and be the Dean of the Class of 2026 at Grace Church.

Leaving the school will be an opportunity for learning and growth, Hickerson said. “It is a time for me to take on new challenges and grow professionally. Those who have been here since the threes, I think you can relate,” she said.

Due to Grace Church’s smaller size, both in enrollment and physical size, it will give her the

Susan Fanelli

Norma Rodriguez

“I’ve always felt that my real education began when I joined the [school’s] community 21 years ago,” Norma Rodriguez, MD Advisory coordinator and Faculty Advisor for the Mentor Program, said.

Rodriguez is retiring after 21 years at the school to spend more time with her immediate family and to volunteer for organizations that help children.

Rodriguez started out as an Administrative Assistant in the Guidance Department and worked under its former director, Wendy Reiter.

“I happened to be reading The Riverdale Press and came across an ad for an opening at HM so I decided to send in my resumé,” she said. “The rest is history.”

After Rodriguez finished touring the beautiful campus with Reiter and meeting the deans, she knew for sure that she wanted to work at the school. “The first time I stepped through the doors at HM I immediately felt I belong here,” she said.

After her third year of employment, Rodriguez attended Lehman College and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology. Afterwards, she became the full-time Life Skills teacher for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Life Skills is a socialemotional learning class that focuses on many

opportunity to get to know her class very well. “[Grace Church’s high school is experiencing a] unique movement in its growth and history as several leaders are new to their positions. I am excited to be a part of that change,” Hickerson said.

Hickerson will miss being in the MD as she moves on to the Upper Division (UD) at Grace Church. “I have loved being in middle school, there’s this wonderful experience of growing up that happens in middle school and so I see a different person coming out of eighth grade than I met when they came in sixth grade and it’s really exciting to watch and to be a part of that journey and see that growth,” she said.

Although Hickerson has worked with and taught high school students while at Horace Mann, her primary focus has been the MD. Moving into the UD at Grace Church, she expects the conversations to be more abstract and focused on ideas more than information, she said.

She has learned a lot while at the school, especially that every activity, such as lesson plans, trips, and events, need a sturdy structure, she said.

“There is bound to be something that doesn’t go as planned; careful planning can help minimize the likelihood and can provide support within which you can — and must be — flexible,” she said.

Hickerson has had a lot of fun while working at the school, for example going to Colonial Williamsburg with the 6th grade. “My fondest memories…[were] bonding with my colleagues in the evenings while we supervised the students in the hotel,” she said.

Steve Yang (11), who had Hickerson as his advisor in sixth and eighth grade, is sad that she’s leaving. “She was a wonderful teacher and since I was new in sixth grade she really helped me,” he said. Hickerson helped him navigate the new MD environment. One of Yang’s favorite memories Susan Fanelli is retiring after many years of teaching math at the school’s MD. She will be moving to where her granddaughter lives in order to see her more often. “I like spending time with young people, I really do,” Fanelli said. She has taught a wide range of math in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade which all have been different experiences, and she will miss teaching. “I enjoy interacting with the students and the teachers,” she said.

Head of the Middle Division Javaid Khan remembers his first conversation with Fanelli about her sons. “She has three and I am one of three boys, and I appreciated listening to the love of a mom for

with her was meeting her for the first time at Dorr during August before sixth grade.

In his first year at the school, Dorr finished the construction of their new treehouse, Javaid Khan, Dean of the MD, said. “Hickerson was one of the first people to go up and spend the night in it. She loves the outdoors: taking a hike, being one with nature,” he said.

According to Khan, she is a supportive colleague and friend. “We have had amazing conversations over lunch or a planning meeting. She’s brilliant, fun, and really loves being an educator,” he said.

Another of Hickerson’s former advisees, Amelia Resnick (11), had Hickerson as both an advisor and a teacher. Hickerson was always checking in on and helping her students, Resnick said. “In our advisory Hickerson would ask us what ‘real world skills’ we would like to know,” Resnick said. “One time she taught us about taxes and another time she took us outside and we learned how to change a tire on a car.”

In the MD, Hickerson has many different roles , allowing her to have a wide range of experiences.

She has been a history teacher, advisor, club leader, service learning leader, and more, allowing her to reach a variety of students in different ways.

Hickerson has taken part in programs such as HM Lead, Ethics Bowl, Social Justice Club, L’Chaim, DIY Club, Coding Club, and many more.

“I find that those extracurricular spaces are really where people, individuals, find their people, form their identities, and it’s been great to be a part of our students’ journey in the spaces that are more social and less academic,” she said.

Coming into the classroom and teaching with her students always brightens her day, but she has also enjoyed being a part of student’s service experiences as well. The Sanctuary for Families Winter Party was particularly special for her. It

each of her sons who had very different paths and needs in life,” he said.

Working with Fanelli was terrific, she cares deeply about her students and fellow colleagues, Khan said. “She works tirelessly on behalf of her [students], who truly benefit from her attention, care, and wisdom,” he said.

MD math teacher Anil Sookhoo met Fanelli his first year at the school in 2019, when she was his mentor. Sookhoo and Fanelli sat next to each other in the office, where she would always ask him about his day, being very supportive and having positive comments to say. “One memory that stuck out to

important topics, including decision-making, identity, and different forms of relationships.

Her favorite part about teaching at the middle school was that she got the chance to teach in all three grade levels. “The topics that I covered with students range from self-image to substance use, and it was enlightening to hear students’ perspective and ‘expertise’ on the topics that matter to them,” she said. Many times, those discussions brought laughter. “I just loved being in the classroom with middle schoolers.”

Mrs. Rodriguez is someone you can trust, Head of the Middle Division Javaid Khan said. “[She can be trusted] to accomplish tasks, dream new ideas, and bounce ideas off of. If you need to vent, she has some strength in the listening department, as well,” he said.

Four years ago, Rodriguez was appointed by Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly to be the coordinator for the MD advisory program. Last school year, she became the faculty advisor for the Mentor Program. “The mentor program has afforded me the opportunity to work with UD students, some of whom I remembered from middle school,” Rodriguez said.

One of Rogriguez’s favorite moments at the school was four years ago when her eighth grade advisory handed her a thank you card during the Middle Memories ceremonies. “Each one of my advisees had written a lovely sentiment and their expression of gratitude really touched me,” she said.

One card that stuck with her came from a student who wrote, “I view you as my mother at school. Thank you for always being there for me.”

Before she retires, Rodriguez will see that same group of students graduate from the school and head off the college. “I am so proud of them,” she said.

Another great memory Rogriguez has from the school is when she volunteered to chaperone a group of eighth grade boys on a service learning

was no small feat and a true collaboration across MD and UD students and faculty on Summer on the Hill, she said.

Hickerson also has fond memories of the assemblies she had worked on with the HM Lead Students. She was so proud to watch my students interview a survivor and staff member from Sanctuary for Families, a lawyer fighting for climate justice, among others. “They were poised and prepared and asked great questions,” she said.

Louise Kim (11), worked alongside Ms. Hickerson in student-led activism and social justice work. “Her confidence in asserting feminist and antiracist values helped inspire me to become more invested in those issues,” they said, “I looked up to her as a person who wasn’t afraid to advocate for what was right.”

Hickerson helped Kim co-organize the MD March for our Lives walkout. When Kim was in eighth grade, Hickerson advised the Social Justice club, and she was really engaged in their discussions, Kim said.

At the beginning of summer 2020, when things were difficult due to the pandemic and racist violence, Hickerson checked in with Kim via email, a gesture that meant so much to them.

Hickerson will also miss the beautiful campus.

The school’s pool permits her to swim in the morning before class starts.

However, she will especially miss the people she has met at the school, including students and colleagues. She would have liked to have seen her students during their next four years in the Upper Division, but she knows that the school’s students will still mature and go out into the world without her. “I know that you’re still out there even if I’m not here,” she said.

me is constantly being on Facetime with her during the beginning of the pandemic, working through all of the technical difficulties on Zoom, uploading work for students, and venting most of the time,” he said.

When Sophie Pietrzak (10), one of Fanelli’s former math students, first came to the school, Fanelli welcomed her into the school’s community. “She would always offer to explain concepts to me that I didn’t understand because it was my first year in the United States,” Pietrzak said. Pietrzak began to enjoy math because of Fanelli and is grateful that she was able to help her manage the teaching

trip where they delivered food packages via Project Hope to homebound seniors. “The activity was an eye-opener for many of the students when they realized, in conversation with the seniors, that some had no visitors in months,” she said.

During the debriefing portion of the activity, the students wanted to know what else they could do for the seniors and many said they would sign up again to deliver food packages in the future. “That brought a big smile to my face,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez will miss the chatter of students, the noisy hallways, and watching nervous sixth graders on the first day of school become confident young teens by the end of their eighth grade year. One of her students who struggled while he was in seventh grade would leave a note on Rodriguez’s desk whenever he wanted to meet with her. “I developed a soft spot for him and I made it my job to make sure he felt supported right through eighth grade,” she said. After all of her help, she received a lovely email from both of the student’s parents and grandmother, thanking Ms. Rodriguez for all that she did for their child.

This year, he finished his last year of college.

“I will also miss working with the faculty and my one-on-one discussions with advisors and learning more about them beyond their teaching role,” she said. In her 21 years here, Ms. Rodriguez has developed close friendships with both staff members and faculty.

She was great as an advisor and very comforting, Ariela Shuchman (11), a former advisee of Rodriguez, said. Whenever Schuchman felt overwhelmed or forgot something that was coming up, Rodriguez would bring Shuchman into her office to help her get reorganized and reassure her that she was doing great. “Her passion for the [advisory] program is really amazing to see, but outside of the program she’s just a great person within the school community to go to for support,” Shuchman said.

Although he had Mrs. Rodriguez as his Life

differences between the education system in England and the United States.

Pietrzak remembers that in class, Fanelli would connect the Smart Board to her Ring camera at home, and they would watch her dog.

Fanelli would always bring blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers and Dum Dums lollipops, former advisee Stephanie Lee (10) said.

One of Fanelli’s favorite memories at the school was watching a 747 airplane carry a space shuttle in the sky from Alumni Field in 2014, she said. “It was during Middle Mania and I still have a photograph of it,” she said.

Skills teacher in MD, he got to know her much better this year, since she serves as the faculty advisor to the MD Mentor Program, and he is one of the program leaders, Michael Shaari (12) said.

Rodriguez is a very kind, supportive, and understanding teacher who always provides authentic and genuine advice, he said. “The main thing I always notice when working with Rodriguez is how she is very understanding of all circumstances and has the best interests of everybody around in her mind,” Shaari said. She always goes out of her way to help us as students, and that is something he deeply values, he said.

Shaari’s best memory with Rodriguez was at the MD Mentor Program training last year when she made the event very fun, working with the leaders to allow for the most engaging and enjoyable training session. “She understands the importance of being time-efficient and making sure that students stay engaged,” he said.

A few years ago, Rodriguez lost everything in her home to a fire. Two days later, a colleague from the school’s community came to the hotel where she was staying with two shopping bags of new clothes and a check to cover immediate necessities.

“This individual took time out of her day to take care of me through her kind gestures and words. I will always carry that memory with me,” she said.

Rodriguez has two grandsons who are a big part of her life and she is looking forward to spending time with them. “Both boys are a big fan of my home cooked meals,” she said.

While she has enjoyed her time at the school immensely, Rodriguez is excited to move on. “I am looking forward to spending time volunteering for organizations that help young children.” Several years ago, she volunteered at the Bereavement Center of Westchester Treehouse, where once a week she worked with young children who had experienced the loss of a parent or sibling. “I found the experience very rewarding and I would love to give my time to helping others,” she said.

13

THE RECORD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 6TH, 2022

Emily Sun Staff Writer Halfway through class, English teacher Dr. Adam Casdin’s student took a pair of scissors and cut several holes in the blue v-neck sweater he was wearing that day. The student had said it would look better distressed, he said. “I was like, ‘could you actually show me?’” He liked the look, partly. “I have not worn it again — yet!”

Fashion is a way to define oneself, Administrative Assistant to the Grade Deans Ennis Smith said. Working in an institution that is by nature conformist, he finds room for individuality through his color selection, accessories like his ball chain necklace or a wrist cuff, and — always — patterned socks, he said. On Wednesday, his socks were a stacked layer of blue, cream, and speckled brown. “I have to dress myself to wake myself up,” he said. “I’m always looking for just one element

Courtesy of Nicole Au

BRILLIANT BASICS Huang’s essentials that shocks [the outfit] into existence.”

Even when the school went remote due to COVID, history teacher Dr. Ellen Bales still dressed up to teach over Zoom, she said. “It sends a certain message about being serious and respecting my students,” she said. “It’s important to present yourself, especially when you’re in the middle of a global catastrophe.”

English teacher Jennifer Huang started to teach at the school after graduate school, where her go-to outfit was sweaters and leggings, she said. “When I got this job, I had a little bit of a panic because I was like, ‘they’re not going to take me seriously.’” She bought a haul of “serious” clothing — button-downs, black slacks, close-toed shoes — then realized once she got to the school that she could dress how she wanted and settled into her personal style.

At Huang’s previous university teaching job, when she was fresh out of college and only a few years older than her students, she stuck with a formal uniform. “I really felt like I had to establish through my dress sense that I was older, wiser, and I should be looked up to as a figure of authority,” she said. “At HM, that’s less of an issue just because I’m a lot older.”

Like Huang, Casdin also underwent a style switch when he started teaching. For a decade until he became a teacher, Casdin only wore a button-down shirt, blue jeans, and Doc Martens. When he got a teaching job out of graduate school, he swapped the casual look for a jacket and tie and stuck to it, he said.

“I was afraid of not being taken seriously.” He avoids the cliche “Brooks Brothers” playbook; anyone can match a jacket, shirt, and pants, so he throws a tie in the mix to up the challenge.

“When I find a combination that I consider to be perfect, I never do it again,” he said. “It’s more of an exercise for me.”

When World Languages Department Chair Maria del Pilar Valencia started to teach, she dressed a bit more formally so students could tell she was the teacher, she said. “Then I grew up, so they know I am the teacher and there is no need to do that.” She loves a good

dress — one that has pockets, is put together without being stuffy, does not break the bank, and “knows how to teach,” so she can move comfortably in it without getting tangled up, she said. “Dresses make me happy.”

Coats are a style staple for Smith because of the drama in how they move when worn, which he is attuned to from his background as an actor, he said. “I love dusters, I love Chesterfields, I love coats that have a Raglan Sleeve.” He especially loves to thrift for vintage, timeless pieces made with genuine fabric, an appreciation he learned from his seamstress mother and tailor brother. “My mother’s bedroom was piled high with fabric, buttons, and thread, and she made all of my sister’s clothes,” he said. “I was constantly aware of the talk about clothing.”

Bales knows a good outfit when she sees one, she said. She still remembers the coat she begged her mother to buy when she was five years old — fluffy, red faux fur with animalengraved gold buttons. “It looked fantastic,” she said. When she was a child, fashion was a way for Bales to connect with her grandmother, who had a strong sense of style, she said. As she grew up, her interest continued as she learned to sew and knit, thrifted throughout high school, and absorbed knowledge from fashion magazines. “I’ve always found it fun,” she said. “And I still find it fun.”

Coming out of high school, Casdin dressed, as he called it, like a “preppy Jew” — an outsider who learned how to dress from “native prepsters,” he said. His family has a history with fashion: his great-grandfather sold clothing to mill workers in Worcester, MA; his grandfather was a child of Russian immigrants who used clothes to assimilate; his father was a hippie, complete with flannel shirts, an Abe Lincoln beard, and a pair of Italian Gabardine, low waisted, rust-colored pants from 1965. “I remember wearing them at age 15 and being like, ‘these are crazy.’”

piece” for Bales, like the dark green dress with pink parrots she wore on Wednesday. “I haven’t actually worn it for two years, so I got it out and I was like, ‘it’s time to reinstate the parrot.’” She matches her clothes, accessories, and shoes based on their color and mood then lays them out the night before, and even when she does not have the energy to plan out a full outfit, she still has one item to carry her through the day — like a good pair of cowboy boots, she said.

Courtesy of Nicole Au

CHIC OUTFIT Fippinger’s casual take Outfit ideas come to Valencia as she showers in the morning, she said. “I’ll say, ‘I’m feeling like blue today.’” She gravitates towards bright colors and patterns, especially florals. “I’m from Bogota, which is high up in the mountains and rather cool — but I have a tropical soul,” she said. That stylistic sensibility reflects her personality, as her colleagues call her “annoyingly optimistic,” she said.

Bales also picked up on how her fashion reflects who she is — and what she teaches.

Ever since she started Global Environmental

When people look at Huang, she hopes her clothing conveys that she is comfortable with herself, though she does not want it to be the first thing people notice about her, she said.

“

“I really felt like I had to establish through my dress sense that I was older, wiser, and I should be looked up to as a figure of authority.”

-Jennifer Huang

“If I want to draw attention to myself, and I want to do it myself, I don’t want my clothes to do it for me.” Her understated wardrobe reflects her life philosophy, she said. “In most areas of my life, I try not to do the most, but just have one little thing that I can feel good about.” Likewise, she picks simple clothes that have one dimension of interest, like their color, volume, fabric, or story — the black linen dress she wore on Wednesday brings back fond memories of when she bought it in Japan.

Once, Casdin was at a conference and participated in a group activity where people said the first thing that came to mind about the person next to them. Someone said, “you must be a frustrated artist because you spend so much time on your clothes,” Casdin said.

“I was like, ‘bingo.’” He is interested in the art side of fashion, like pattern-mixing and the way that colors “vibrate” against each other, and he wears what feels right, even when it clashes with conventional wisdom. “A student said to me, ‘after a year of class with you, I no longer know what looks good. I’ve lost all sense of what the normative is.’”

Fashion allows Valencia to celebrate every moment and share that joy with others, she said. Students inspire her when she can tell they put “a thought in every thread” of their outfit, and her husband sometimes helps her pick out accessories. “What you wear is like a sign to tell other people that you care,” she said.

If her outfit does not look deliberate, it bugs Bales because it seems sloppy, she said.

“You’re only going to be on the planet for so many days, so why would you want to have a bad accessory? It’s a missed opportunity.”

PERFECTLY PATTERNED Smith experiments with prints Comfort is key for Huang, who describes her wardrobe as “pajamas I can wear in public,” she said. She switches between a muted palette of black, white, cream, and tan because it is easier to get ready if everything matches. “I don’t have to stress about it in the morning because I really just want to get out the door as soon as possible, so that I can sleep as late as I can.” It takes her less than 10 minutes to get her outfits ready, and though she has tried to prepare clothes the night before, it has not happened yet, she said. “I can never get my life together enough to plan out my outfits in advance,” she said.

“I’ve thought so many times to myself [that I would], but I have never once in my life done that. Never once.”

Outfits come together around a “hero

History, she noticed that many of her clothes feature animals, like the parrot dress and a sweater with a pit bull on the front. “It wouldn’t work for me if it was a cutesy dog, it has to be tougher,” she said. “Because whatever other qualities I might have, I’m definitely not cutesy.”

Fashion is often dismissed as trivial, inconsequential, and superficial, Huang said.

Part of the reason is ingrained misogyny.

“It’s like a thing only women care about and serious people, especially men, have weightier things on their mind.” That view obscures how clothing is one of the first things that people notice about others, she said. “As soon as people look at you, they start to form an idea of who you might be right even before they say a word to you.”

Courtesy of Nicole Au

SOPHISTICATED STYLE Bales’ outfit

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY

TULANE UNIVERSITY

Elias Romero

Lauren Conner Peyton Rosenberg

SCRIPPS COLLEGE

XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA

Stella Shah

Jaiden Wilson

Vivian Coraci/Art Director

STANFORD UNIVERSITY Theodore Ganea UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Julia Grant Julian Kepnes Patrick Stinebaugh

BATES COLLEGE Brett Karpf Matthew Peeler COLBY COLLEGE Chloe Choi Johanna Scher Sen Subramanian

TRINITY COLLEGE Helen Fajemirokun Rachel Fearon WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY Jaden Piccirillo Alex Rosenblatt James (JT) Thomas

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MARYLAND Malaya Gaboury

YALE UNIVERSITY Miles Kuhn Vincent Li Jacob Shaw AJ Walker

AMHERST COLLEGE Eliza Becker BABSON COLLEGE Bulyn Panjamapirom

EMORY UNIVERSITY Samantha Blackman Laila Farmer Oliver Lewis Miles Schamroth

BOSTON COLLEGE Lucas Alexander JP Eliopoulos BOSTON UNIVERSITY Pavan Kumar BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY Dylan Acharjee CLARK UNIVERSITY

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Alejandro Espejel Emmi Zeitler Jake Zukerman UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Connor Bernard Rohan Buluswar Vedant Dangayach Santiago Espejel Tuhin Ghosh Leonardo Giorgini Lucas Glickman James Grant Thomas Grant Justin Gurvitch Alexei Le Dalia Pustilnik Leah Sepiashvili Myra Singh Ethan Waggoner Torres Zheng

Uddipto Nandi

BARNARD COLLEGE

EMERSON COLLEGE

Sareena Parikh Esha Patel Sunshine Quinones

Riva Vig HARVARD UNIVERSITY Rowan Mally Catherine Mignone

CARLETON COLLEGE Leonardo Hess

SMITH COLLEGE Tomoko Hida TUFTS UNIVERSITY Federica Italiani Daniela Koplin Rachel Kuhn Douglas Richardson Jayden Siegel

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Matthew Baumann Rhea Patel Luca Pryor

WILLIAMS COLLEGE Mia Calzolaio Maddy Wu

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Avery Lin

INDIANA UNIVERSITY Theo King Ryan Lax Giacamo Maroni PURDUE UNIVERSITY Ailill Walsh

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY George Harris Ricky Lipsey UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Ria Chowdhry Ryan Finlay Griffin Klein Jack Parento Sydney Pruzan Arushi Talwar

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Claire Goldberg Hanna Hornfeld Lauren Kim Nathan Zelizer

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Corey Brooks Gabby Chong Emma Colacino Yin Fei Madison Four-Garcia David Maydan Alex Nagin ‘26 Brandon Pae Gabriela Peralta Ben Rothman Juliette Shang CORNELL UNIVERSITY Ben Becker Tommy Botts Stephen Chien Lucca Correia Chloe Mei Coward Adam Dickstein Kri Galvan-Dubois Tae Kyu Lee Ryan Reiss Chandler Reyes Spencer Rosenberg Lauren Song ‘26 Damian Stellings Ajani Green-Watson Grace Wilson Val Zeitlin HAMILTON COLLEGE Sophie Gordon

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Mazyar Azmi Bella Colacino

Maya Nornberg

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Irene Argenti Darson Chen Morgan Francis Cohen Dylan O’Reilly Joaquin Ramirez Villarreal Asher Swersky PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN Evan Rowe

RICE UNIVERSITY CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Ben May

Brandon Kuo

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

Annelise Jones ‘27 Matthew Aponte RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Ernesto Marks Marcella Risa SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS LAFAYETTE COLLEGE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY

Erik Hamel Amanda Wein

Justin Burrell GETTYSBURG COLLEGE Saniya Lamoni

STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY Jhanae Ottey UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

Ellery Lapin ‘23

Liv Dwyer

Joelle Haynes-Maddan Lauren Song ‘23

Daniel Schlumberger Yunshu Wang

Morgan Smith

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT PLATTSBURGH

PURCHASE COLLEGE

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Charity Chu Ashley Chung Kaia Fisher Amanda Mark Simon Schackner Sam Weidman

Felix Brener Jennifer Feng

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Ellery Lapin ‘26 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN Alex Nagin ‘24

Connor Dwin Ellie Henes Purvi Jonnalagadda Diane Kim Walker McCarthy Bennett Neuwirth Sarah Taub Katya Tolunsky

BROWN UNIVERSITY DUKE UNIVERSITY Nick Butera Logan Dracos Destiney Green WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY Julian Silverman

Devin Allard-Neptune Liliana Greyf Michael Shaari Piper Wallace Jordan Wasserberger All art by Vivian Coraci/Art Director

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Students find community at HBCUs and HWCs Ava Lipsky and Jorge Orvanaños Staff Writers “I have always been fascinated exploring women’s voices in history,” Sareena Parikh (12) said. Parikh chose to attend Barnard, a women’s college, because she felt that in an environment with many people of diverse interests and identity she would be able to better understand the importance of women.

Similarly, Sunshine Quinones (12) chose to apply to Barnard because she felt that a women’s college was the right environment for her. “Reading about the experience at Barnard made me realize that going to a women’s college would be a place I could really thrive at,” she said.

Quinones prefers STEM-related subjects and has noticed that women’s voices are not always heard in maledominated STEM fields, she said.

Even though many colleges ensure that women feel represented within the classroom and create spaces where women can comfortably share their experiences with each other, she believes that this will occur more naturally at Barnard. “It won’t be something that’s encouraged, it’ll just be the norm,” she said.

Quinones felt confident during the application process that she wanted to apply to a women’s college, she said. “I realized during the college process that going to a school where women lead the conversations and empower each other is something that I value and would

want to experience before I go down a likely male-dominated career path.”

However, unlike Quinones, Parikh was hesitant about applying to a women’s college, as it was not an option she considered initially, she said. “I felt conflicted because I had never previously thought of applying to an allgirls school before my college counselor suggested it.”

After Parikh researched women’s colleges, she was convinced that they would be a good fit for her as she felt that a women’s college would help her grow academically and emotionally, she said.

Along with Parikh and Quinones, Stella Shah (12) will be attending a women’s college. Shah chose to attend Scripps College because she was interested in applying to a college where she would be pushed to be a better person and could surround herself with people who wanted to become better people as well, she said. “I realized pretty early in my college process that quite a few historically women’s colleges have cultures of self improvement and earnestness that resonated with me.”

Scripps College is a part of the Claremont Colleges — a group of seven schools where students can take classes in any of the colleges, Shah said. These shared classes will include men, but she is also able to take all-female classes if she chooses to. “I have the ability to, for example, take a math class with all women, but simultaneously, I get to use that confidence and skill set to practice in a co-ed environment,” she said.

Shah was attracted to the idea of

attending a women’s college prior to the application process, she said.

Specifically, she was interested in the population at women’s colleges, as these schools often have strong LGBTQ+ communities and women from more religious backgrounds, she said. This population will be similar to her current friend group at the school. “I could see all of my closest friends fitting into the schools I applied to,” she said.

“Only a few of my close friends did wind up applying to women’s colleges, but I think it was important to me that there would be people not dissimilar to them at my potential [colleges].”

Apart from the women’s colleges, other seniors chose to apply to Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs). Jaiden Wilson (12) chose to apply to Xavier University, a historically Black university, because she thought she would feel more comfortable in that environment, she said. “I applied to an HBCU because I wanted to be around people that looked like me, especially after being at a predominantly white institution [like the school] for the last 13 years.”

Wilson also felt that an HBCU would focus more on her needs as a Black student and would prepare her best for her future after college, she said. She was confident that she wanted to apply to a HBCU from the beginning of the application process, she said. “I was not conflicted about applying to [HBCUs] because I knew where I wanted to go.”

Wilson is most excited to be able to attend college away from home, she said, as it will give her the experience of not being close to her friends and family. She is also enthusiastic about meeting new people, especially at an HBCU, she said.

HBCUs have been shown to support and produce graduates who are far better equipped for their post-college experience — precisely what Wilson hopes to find, she said.

Earlier this year, Shah and her friend Jhanae Ottey made a presentation on HBCUs and found that 50 percent of Black lawyers, 50 percent of Black public school teachers, 12.3 percent of Black CEOs, 80 percent of Black judges, and 40 percent of Black engineers are trained at HBCUs, Shah said.

Shah strongly supports HBCUs and women’s colleges because of the remarkable assistance they offer Black and female students, respectively, she said. “I’m a big believer in any

college that offers that kind of support.”

Specifically, Shah believes that HBCUs and women’s colleges are beneficial to giving their students, who typically feel like they are part of the minority, representation within their colleges, she said. “One of the reasons that I think HBCUs and [women’s colleges] are so effective is because [they are] one of the only times that traditionally underrepresented groups in academia can be part of the majority,” she said, “It’s a powerful experience, and a productive one.”

Similarly, Parikh believes that women’s colleges play an important and unique role in assisting women.

“Throughout history, women have been subordinated in various cultures and religions,” she said, “I believe that women’s colleges fight this historical notion.”

Vivian Coraci/Art Director

ROAMING LIONS: SENIORS PLAN TO STUDY ABROAD Sophie Rukin and Josh Shuster Staff Writers

“I’m excited to be in a totally different country and see how they function,” Ellery Lapin (12) said. “We have this idea of the American college experience, and I kind of get to have a little bit of a French one as well.” After graduating from the school, Lapin and three of her other classmates have decided to study abroad — choosing to attend college in a foreign country for anywhere between one semester and a full four years.

Next school year, Lapin will spend her first year of college at the American University of Paris (AUP) in Paris, France, before returning to George Washington University (GW), in the United States, for the following three years. She decided to study abroad when, upon receiving her acceptance into GW, the university sent over information about their study abroad program. “It wasn’t really as much of a decision to apply there,” she said. “It was more of ‘do I actually want to consider this’ and ‘do I actually want to do it.’”

On the other hand, Alex Nagin (12), who will be attending the Dual BA Program between Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and Columbia University in the US, applied specifically with the intent of studying abroad, he said.

He decided to attend Columbia University because, unlike other American universities where a student can only study abroad for one semester, Columbia offered a wide array of longer-term study abroad programs, he said. “The idea behind the Columbia programs is that the programs are made for students that want something that’s a little bit more than just a typical study abroad experience.” He has always loved traveling and experiencing different cultures, so going to a school with a vast study abroad program was important to him, Nagin said.

Studying abroad is something that Yunshu Wang (12) has considered doing since she was a child, she said. “I was in China for elementary school, and I went to Singapore for sixth and seventh grades, and I was like ‘wow this is great, I want this experience for college,’” she said. She wants to learn in a different type of environment and hopes to do so as she attends the University of Toronto next year, Wang said.

To learn about study abroad programs, Nagin talked to recent alumni, he said. He found out about the Columbia Dual BA program after speaking to Vivien Sweet ‘21, who is currently in college at the program.

The program Nagin is participating in is relatively small and unknown, he said. “In my year, there are

[roughly] 100 dual BA students, meaning there’s only [about] 100 people that are doing the two years at Trinity and two years at Columbia,” he said.

Wang also heard about abroad programs through word of mouth, she said. “Many of my friends in both Singapore and China, who are currently studying at the schools I applied to, have good comments, so I chose [to apply to the same schools].”

The application process for applying internationally was similar to applying domestically, Lapin said. Since GW has a partnership with AUP, the international application process was slightly easier than it would have been if she applied independently, she said. All she had to do was submit her test scores, and take a placement test, while GW handled the rest.

Contrary to Lapin, Daniel Schlumberger (12), who will be attending the University of Toronto, found applying internationally to be very different from applying domestically, he said. “You do the application in one sitting and it consists of a video interview where you record yourself with no prep time and you’re given questions on the spot and then you have to write a 20 minute 200 word essay on the spot.” He prefers the international application process because it is a quick one and done thing, rather than something students can stress over, he said.

recommendations, and they don’t have you write a single essay, so they are basically just looking at your stats,” he said. “Their criteria is a lot more rooted in numbers than the United States where a lot of schools are emphasizing test-optional policies, and looking at individuals as a whole, and not just through the lens of test scores.” Part of the reason international universities center around these criteria is because they are much larger and therefore more interested in statistics than a student’s writing capabilities, Nagin said.

Even though international colleges are large, Lapin does not know of many students at the school attending international colleges or programs, she said. Regardless, she is ready to spend time in a foreign country and learn new things about France’s culture, she said. “Especially in Paris everything’s really social, so lunch is a really big deal, and I know especially coming from Horace Mann, that is not the case, since people sometimes don’t even eat lunch, so I think that’s going to be really interesting,” Lapin said.

Being one of the only ones from the school attending college internationally does not worry Schlumberger, he said.

Vivian Coraci/Art Director

The international schools and programs Nagin applied to had very different application processes than schools in the US. International schools have their own application systems that are not as straightforward and easy to understand in comparison to application systems in the US, he said. “You’re kind of on your own a little bit, but it’s not that hard to figure out if you try.” He also found that the school’s college counselors were very helpful and knowledgeable when applying to international schools, which made the process easier, he said.

International colleges are looking for different things from applicants, than American schools, Nagin said. “I applied to a Canadian university as well, and the only things that they required to be submitted are your grades and your teacher

“I don’t want to take the same route as anyone else,” he said. “I feel like I’ll grow more as a person since I’m forced to meet new people and not rely on people I already know.”

Nagin is also excited to immerse himself in a new culture, and participate in the traditions that are unique to international colleges, he said. “There [are] a lot of constant social events, and [they’re] all run by students, which is really cool, and there [are] also a lot of especially bizarre and obscure traditions at European universities,” he said. At many social events in Europe it is customary to wear suits and tuxedos than in the United States, Nagin said. “I kind of just like the unique social energy that European universities bring.”

The interactive style of classes is also interesting to Lapin, she said. “If you’re taking architecture, you’ll go around the city, so it’s not really lectures or slideshows, so I like that,” she said. “It’s just kind of reflective of the culture itself, since they have a

much more hands-on culture than we have here.”

However, while Lapin is excited, she is somewhat worried about the adjustments she will have to make while in a foreign country, she said. The hardest adjustment will be the time difference, she said. “They are six hours ahead, so a lot of normal things that I would do back here, or even talking to my friends back at home, it will be six hours ahead so that will probably be difficult.”

Similarly, to Lapin, Wang is worried about being able to stay in touch with her family and friends.

“If you stay in the US, since most of your family members are going to stay in the US, they can help you out when needed, but when you’re going to another country, sometimes they can’t really help, and you are on your own,” she said.

Adjusting to the new academic system will also be a challenge, Nagin said. At Trinity, they do not take attendance, so students are not marked absent if they do not show up, he said. Another big difference is the grading structure. “At Trinity, anywhere from a 70 to 100 is an A, but if you get a 70, that’s considered really good, so the actual scale is different,” Nagin said. Colleges are also much larger than schools, and students do not have the same close teacher relationships as they do at the school.

Although Lapin is going to an Englishspeaking school, she expects there to be a slight language barrier, she said. “I don’t think it’s that big of an issue, though, especially talking to other kids that are going, since a bunch of them are from all over the world and all over the country,” she said.

“So whether they speak only English, only Spanish, or whatever it is, I think the language gap is an experience a lot of kids are having.”

While taking a language class at AUP is not required, Lapin hopes to improve her French skills and learn to communicate better, she said.

The social life of Ireland is also very different from the US, Nagin said. A lot of the social scene in Irish universities centers around going to bars — especially since the legal drinking age is 18 and almost every college student is 18 or older, he said.

“Everyone I’m going to school with can legally hang out at a bar, which is obviously something I would not do as a teenager living in the US, so I’m definitely going to have to get used to that being a normal social experience,” he said.

The entire experience of traveling to a foreign country brings up a mix of emotions, Lapin said.

“The whole process itself, just going to a totally new place, especially a new country for me, is a little terrifying, but I’m also excited, so I think it all balances out.”

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

Rachel Baez Middle Division Editor

Audrey Carbonell Opinions Editor

Max Chasin Lions Den Editor

Vivian Coraci Art Director

Amira Dossani Art Director

Oh, Baby!

Hannah Katzke A&E Editor

Welcome Volume

Celine Kiriscioglu Middle Division Editor

Vidhatrie Keetha Features Editor

Avani Khorana Head of Design

Zachary Kurtz News Editor

Sean Lee Opinions Editor

Sophia Liu Art Director

Allison Markman A&E Editor

Aryan Palla Photo Director

Sophie Pietrzak Design Editor

Ben Rafal Photo Director

Arin Rosen Design Editor

Emily Salzhauer Managing Editor

Ayesha Sen Features Editor

Sam Siegel Photo Director

Emily Sun Editor-in-Chief

18

THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Redefining what “Jewish” looks like to me

Chloe Trentalancia What does it mean to be a Jew? What should a Jew look like? What should a Jew believe in? There are no concrete answers to any of these questions — nor should there ever be. Born in Guangzhou, China, I am an Asian adoptee in a white Italian American, Jewish/Catholic family, attending a predominantly white institution in the United States of America. With such a multifaceted background, you can imagine how questions of identity and belonging are bound to arise.

Let’s put it this way: it was never clear who I was or where I fit in.

Whether I spent Chinese New Year at a synagogue or a Chinese restaurant, I always felt conflicted about dedicating my time unfairly.

There was this sense of disrespect if I leaned towards one part of

my identity, and there was almost always guilt.

Before I joined my synagogue, I had little affiliation with my Jewish identity. We had friends from Horace Mann who had invited us to attend, but it took me a very long time to muster up the courage and go. Frequent interactions with other white Jewish students spurred charged emotions, and I was afraid there would just be a continuation of familiar feelings of isolation and exclusion if there were no people of color present. However, I still had hope that I could change the perception of what a Jew “looks like” and decided to go despite my trepidation.

A few years ago, I was introduced to a Rabbi at Central Synagogue who changed what Judaism meant to me. As a Korean American woman, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl — the head Rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York — is not what you would imagine for a Rabbi. When my family and I had our first Shabbat at our current synagogue six years ago, I remember Rabbi Buchdahl gave me a hug and greeted me with open arms even though we had had little prior interaction. It felt cathartic.

At that moment, I knew I wanted to further explore my Jewish identity.

After our first meeting, I Googled everything I could about Rabbi Buchdahl. From reading about her in newspapers to watching her speak at the White House and

lead sermons at Rosh Hashanah inYoutube videos, I felt an instant connection with this woman despite only having met her once. She gave me a sense of confidence. If a Rabbi could look like Angela and be Jewish, then I could too. Feeling such liberation was a groundbreaking experience.

In the fall of seventh grade, I went to Hebrew school for the first time.

I was absolutely terrified I would completely embarrass myself.

Not only did I not look like other Jewish kids in my class, but I did not have much knowledge of my Jewish background. Quite frankly, I felt completely disassociated from the religion as I had this belief that being Jewish was synonymous with being white. Trying to “act white” or having to act as if I had been prepared for Hebrew school like my fellow white peers was a huge pressure cooker for me, even though it was never explicitly stated by any of my fellow peers.

However, my experience at Central Synagogue proved me wrong. As I had interacted more with my Rabbi and started to slowly see more Jews of color in the pews, I began to stray from this narrative in my head that all Jews need to look the same to feel validated and be considered a part of the community.

I finally discovered my passion for my religion and felt a shift in how I perceived myself.

Still, when it came time for my Bat Mitzvah, I felt extremely self

conscious, being the only Asian American Jewish adoptee in my synagogue’s history to have a Bat Mitzvah. As the day of my Bat Mitzvah approached, I became consumed with the need to prove that there are Jews of color in this world. I knew deep down that people would have their biases, and even if they did not say anything outright, I was sure I had something to prove.

At my Bat Mitzvah, I had never felt more confident in my life. I still remember seeing strangers at the Saturday morning service who were not my guests, in complete awe of two Asian women on the bimah reciting Torah. I had a newfound reassurance in myself and the milestone confirmed something I was beginning to discover: there is no template for being a Jew. After all, if a Chinese-American young woman who was adopted by a European family could have a Bat Mitzvah, then anyone could too.

To this day, I am a part of almost everything the synagogue offers for children in their community — Bar/ Bat/B’nai Mitzvahs, confirmation, teen choir, social justice committees, etc. But out of all these exceptional memories, a moment I will hold dearest in my heart was when I spoke at an event and reflected on a documentary titled “FOUND.” It was a powerful experience to talk about three Chinese adoptees and their stories of navigating the world after their adoption. It was also

one of the first times I talked so openly about my adoption. Having bottled up so many emotions and unresolved feelings from when I was younger, I was relieved to see them spill out as I saw the film and spoke on the podium. My growing security in my Jewish community encouraged me to branch out even further and explore aspects of my adoption.

In light of my experience, I encourage others to realize that you are who you make yourself to be, no matter what you look like.

At the end of the day, one’s own interpretation of their identity should always matter more than external perceptions. Nobody’s opinions or comments should ever alter their sense of self and their sense of belonging.

Moreover, HM students should recognize that while we live in a PWI with many white students who identify as Jewish, there are also POC like me, and we should not have to be subjected to any kind of pressure to prove that we are Jewish.

Given that Jewish POC probably go to Temple and services just as often as people who “look Jewish on the outside,” this awareness is imperative for respecting their dedication to their religion and identity. There is no template, so people should stop trying to enforce one.

many students’ ability to practice empathy for the students of color at our school, especially since, in my previous experiences at Predominantly White Institutions, Black hair was looked upon with ridicule. I was so excited to become a part of a community that embraced and accepted my hair; but when I later consistently experienced and heard of microaggressions relating to many non-white students’ hair, I was disappointed and discouraged.

Over the last school year, many non-Black students have asked: “Can I touch your hair?” In almost every instance, I’m left with a feeling of emptiness — a result of a nation that is still divided by miseducation but also filled with internalized racism that many people do not recognize.

In almost all of these instances, I have replied to the question with a polite “no,” and somehow, each time, their reaction is pure shock.

People a r e

flabbergasted that someone would deny them the ability to touch their hair to satisfy their own ignorant curiosity. I find it comical that someone would ask for this consent and feel annoyed because I made a reasonable choice and response.

These microaggressions take an emotional toll on me and other students of color at the school.

They lead students to feel “othered” and objectified for their hair. I have heard from many of my friends who viewed their hair in a more negative light after other students asked to touch their hair. Some might see these questions as healthy curiosity, but what people do not understand is that Black and POC students do not have to teach white students about their hair and should not have to explain o r

unfortunate that Black and other POC students have to endure these feelings when hair is a symbol of their identity and should be regarded with positivity. This ignorance towards approaching curly hair can leave POC students feeling tired and isolated from their white peers. One of my friends experienced an instance where a white student grabbed her hair randomly, without asking her for permission. This incident reflects the mindlessness and utter ignorance of the student who grabbed her hair. In addition, to touch a peer’s hair without their permission illustrates entitlement and audacity.

Disrespectful actions like these create a divided community where POC students are not able to feel secure or comfortable in their own school. This should never be the experience of any student at Horace Mann, as we certainly have the resources and ability to properly educate students on topics such as these.

There is a difference between asking out of curiosity and asking out of ignorance. When people ask me questions about my hair it implies that they genuinely care about my answer, because they want to learn and are coming from a place of humility. It allows me to open up and answer their questions without fear of an unwanted conversation.

However, as a Black student, when a white peer asks to touch my hair I feel the question comes from a place of disrespect as they do not want to learn about my culture — they want to see my hair put on display for them like an animal.

What I and many of my POC friends have observed is that when someone asks to touch our hair, their hand is already extended. This hand reveals that they were not asking for our genuine answer. In actuality, they expected to be able to touch

our hair. As a result, it is difficult for me to accept the idea that someone could honestly ask a question about my hair in hopes to talk about my culture.

Many white students are not exposed to students of color outside of school. Countless POC students are thus forced to withstand daily ignorance from their white peers.

Although ignoring microaggressions and quickly evading uncomfortable conversations and questions about our hair can appear as an easier route short term, it unfortunately results in students never realizing that their questions, actions, and discussions are ignorant.

I do not believe that all students of color should have to give a presentation to their white classmates and explain the danger of these queries, nor do I think that every POC student with curly hair has to say no when someone asks to touch their hair. My experience is that when white students touch my hair or ask to touch my hair it makes me feel like an animal in a zoo. It is an uncomfortable, tormenting, and vexing event because the white people who ask these questions and touch my hair will never be able to understand the pain that their actions cause. They will never be able to experience my struggle as a Black woman and that is what hurts the most. This close-minded, selfish ideology of asking to touch and feel someone’s curly hair renders the goal of a real Horace Mann community nearly impossible: it forces POC students with curly hair in a box as the “other” of the community and leaves white students as invading inquirers of POC hair.

White students need to be educated on how to address POC students and curly hair appropriately so that the students of color can feel both safe and respected at school.

Confronting the microaggressions surrounding the students of color’s hair

Amaris Christian In my family, hair has always been an attribute that we cherish and celebrate as though it were our crown. Historically, curly and kinky hair has been demonized or deemed inferior. In the beginning of this year, my first at Horace Mann, I felt refreshed by

justify d e n y i n g anyone access to their hair.

I am more than my h a i r , but it’s

Christian Connor/Staff Artist

THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Fear, risk, and the state of political expression at HM

Ryan Finlay The Horace Mann School appears on the surface to be a remarkably homogeneous community — politically.

Our curricula are infused with the latest theories from the progressive academic community. An entire philosophy on American society and its future is packaged and distributed to the student body, and too often, as designed, students accept it at face value. There’s something rather important missing from this picture: a vast swath of the political spectrum. One could easily conclude that there are very few non– progressive students at HM, but this is an illusion; the community contains silent multitudes.

Here is the problem: HM, like so many other academic institutions today, fosters a learning environment that I believe is hostile to those who do not subscribe to progressive politics. This includes not just conservatives but also centrists and moderates on the left. As a result, our school has developed a political bubble in which the majority of the views expressed in classrooms are far to the left of the mainstream views of both the American public and the actual political average of the student community. A fantasy is built for progressive members of the student body, making them believe that their most radical opinions are far closer to the mainstream than is actually the case.

Over the course of this composition, I will attempt to illustrate exactly how this bubble is facilitated and maintained.

I also intend to offer an explanation for why so many members of the student body who are not progressive are unwilling to express their political views in class. I will use personal examples, as well as reference the experiences of others. To protect everyone’s privacy, I will not identify by name any of the courses, faculty members, or students involved in any of these true events.

I recently spoke with a faculty member about the school’s political bias.

This faculty member made the case to me that many teachers feel obligated to open students’ eyes to the inequality that surrounds them, as though taking off the horse blinders that supposedly plague children of economic privilege.

Something is clearly being lost in translation. The result is a continuous pressure in the classroom to embrace visions of wholesale societal reform.

Time and time again, when students attempt to contradict these ideas, they are criticized for failing to recognize the lived experiences of others, as if the lived experiences of their own families are irrelevant. At the end of my conversation with this faculty member, they estimated that perhaps ten percent of the student body is at odds with the politics of the school. I disagree; after four years and hundreds of conversations out of earshot from teachers, I propose a figure closer to thirty or forty percent, a sizeable portion of the student body, one composed not simply of white males of privilege as some might claim, but rather a diverse collection of students from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

We are constantly encouraged to think in terms of morality, which is weaponized to reinforce the political bubble. When issues of politics or social reform are raised in classroom

discussions, there is a certain approach HM students are accustomed to expect from the faculty. While the specific strategies depend on the context and the individual issue, there is a common reliance, in the majority of cases, on preaching right versus wrong.

A perfect example would be the equality versus equity comparison.

Every junior and senior is well acquainted with this cartoon graphic; the school makes sure of it in Seminar on Identity. For those who are not familiar with it, spectators of different heights watch a baseball game from behind a fence. On one side, labeled “Equality,” each spectator stands on a box of similar size. As a result, only the tallest can see the game. On the other side, labeled “Equity,” the shorter spectators are supplied with appropriately sized boxes so that everyone can watch the game from an equal vantage point. As the tallest spectator can see over the fence without a box, they receive none.

Everyone is exposed to the graphic at some point during their HM education and told to recognize the inherent superiority of the equity model. In other words, equity is taught as a moral imperative.

The gravity of the graphic’s message is easy to miss. When it’s displayed to students, the struggle between the two choices is made cartoonishly simple, literally. The choice of equity seems so plainly obvious that if you argue for equality, it appears as if you are an elitist who doesn’t want people without certain resources to enjoy their lives.

There is never any dynamic discussion on the real effects of either choice.

Equality and equity are philosophies on access, but the real pros and cons of choosing one over the other, details which are decidedly complex and unable to be reduced to childish cartoons, are practically ignored. When the principle of the sports game is applied to the real

made clear that there was a right system and a wrong system.”

The school offers a range of incentives for adopting a specific outlook on society. We are at a highly impressionable point in our lives, and the school’s willingness to glue some of our ideas on progress into place while discarding others should frighten everyone. It is not a problem that some students may naturally espouse politics that are considered radical by others. It is not even a problem that they might choose to reaffirm their sentiments with a set of morals they have chosen to adopt. It is a problem when a generic set of progressive morals is pushed upon everyone else by an institution we rely upon to facilitate education.

Treating one set of political views as moral automatically labels all others as deficient. Morals are not deductive; they are a sense of right and wrong. When students are encouraged to believe in specific political ideas according to moral justifications, it becomes all too easy to decide that alternate ideas are rotten, and those who defend them are immoral. This is damaging to the community and damaging to education. It narrows the scope of perspectives deemed fit for students to engage with honestly and without unfair preconceptions. How is anyone to competently argue their position on a current political issue when the conversation assumes that one side has staked out an inherently immoral view?

Casual and sanctioned attacks on non–progressive views are frequently integrated into classes, especially the first few minutes of the period when current events are brought up for roundtable discussions. I have always enjoyed these moments: I think it is important to hear what others have to say about the latest developments around the world, regardless of whether or not we agree.

What I do not enjoy is the common

“I overheard a junior advising some underclassmen on how to get through discussions in humanities classes: [...] ‘Just lie about what you believe. It’s not worth it.’” world, it proposes either a rejection of meritocracy, or a denial that it exists in the first place. This approach gets students bogged down in a false impression of simplicity, leading to such conclusions on meritocracy that frequently include: the system is broken, unable to be reformed, rotten to the core, and deserving of demolition.

To those students who do not share the political leanings of the institution, the graphic is inflammatory and the associated classroom dialogues steamroll any real consideration of the benefits of equality. What is so disturbing for non– progressive students about many class discussions on politics is not just that the goal is to discredit non– progressive strategies, but rather that the merits of progressive

devolution of these conversations into vilifying conservatism, which both progressive students and even some teachers are happy to do. In one instance, a student was decried by their classmates after voicing support for deportations.

Our community member was labeled immoral for speaking honestly about their political beliefs — beliefs which are accepted as perfectly normal across the country. In the Horace Mann classroom, however, this person became a punching bag for their progressive classmates.

Some teachers openly fail to set a better example, choosing to fan the flames. One year, I had a history teacher

preferences are so often steeped in moral arguments.

Students who agree with these Vivian Coraci/Staff Artist arguments have the school’s unspoken w h o , authorization to attack the day after an opposing ideas on the grounds event that they felt merited of righteousness. This training the press’ attention, brought in moral protectionism begins copies of The New York Times and early, as I recently heard one student The Wall Street Journal to class. They explain: “I remember being introduced would place the newspapers side by side to the equity versus equality diagram and argue that because The New York back in the Middle Division. Teachers Times’ front page included more stories

about social justice issues and people of color, the more right-leaning Journal was maliciously indifferent and trying to minimize the importance of those stories. No mention was made of the fact that the Journal is openly focused on issues surrounding economics and finance. The teacher held such discussions multiple times throughout the year.

In an equally blatant display, a student shared with me their experience dissenting in SOI. While voicing concerns about the political bias of the curriculum and the overall condition of free speech at school, their instructor cut them off mid–sentence, saying,

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important problems facing our country.

Just recently, I overheard a junior advising some underclassmen on how to get through discussions in humanities classes without “getting on the bad side of your teacher.” The advice consisted of: “just agree with what everyone else is saying, that’s what I do.” When I objected to this hapless approach, I received this defense: “it doesn’t matter if you disagree with it, just lie about what you believe.

It’s not worth it.”

There are multitudes of HM students, with whom I identify, who privately speak of their opposition to progressive race-focused policies but would never volunteer to say this in a class discussion.

“I once heard a classmate ask their history teacher – word for word – to “tell us what to believe,” concerning a recent civil–rights issue, as if it were teachers’ responsibility to shape students’ politics. It is not.” “that’s enough.” It was reinforced to this student that the purpose of social justice-related curricula is not for the material to be challenged but rather to be absorbed without question.

Signs of indoctrination manifest across campus. More concerning, though, is that some of the students seem comforted by it and rely on their teachers to feed them opinions. I once heard a classmate ask their history teacher — word for word — to “tell us what to believe,” concerning a recent civil rights issue, as if it were teachers’ responsibility to shape students’ politics.

It is not. We ought to think for ourselves, and the school ought to encourage independent inquiry.

The structure of the bubble leaves students with other views in a delicate position. So many of us want to resist and be open with the HM community about who we are and what we believe.

At the same time, we must grapple with the vulnerability that comes with many faculty openly opposing our politics.

At the end of the day, the impulse to self-censor is fueled by risk assessment: it is not worth jeopardizing academic success at HM in exchange for political expression. Unfortunately, by protecting ourselves, we reinforce the illusion that we are a small minority of limited conviction.

Every classmate I know who is not progressive self-censors in class during discussions of current events and politics. The degrees of self-moderation vary widely, depending on a range of personal factors. Most choose to keep their comments vague to leave little room for accusations of being “too conservative” about an issue. Then, there are the most saddening cases, including the few who have resigned to stay silent because the perceived risks of speaking their mind are too great.

Looming over HM’s conservative students, there is the fear of unknowable and arbitrary reprisal by those in power. Even if some of those fears are blown wildly out of proportion, as I must admit, most non-progressives have determined that the safest path in the classroom is always the silent one.

It is the mystery of unknown consequences that constrains students’ desire to speak their mind on the most

None of us want to be labeled as a racist or be reviled by our peers. Those of us who have this opinion are not racist.

HM’s environment would have one think otherwise. I do not claim to identify as a Republican, identifying instead as an Independent. I consider myself moderate in most of my views. That said, I leave the impression in nearly every classroom political discussion that I am a right–wing conservative, as I frequently hear through the grapevine. I have no doubt that this is because the students’ conception of the political spectrum has been so grotesquely warped from years in the bubble.

One of the fundamental reasons why so many students feel unable to share their beliefs is the endless newsfeed telling of academic scholars and regular citizens who have had their lives turned upside down by the ravages of cancel culture. It is not so much that anyone at HM fears being sent to the Honor Council for citing their support for a conservative policy. It is that many nonprogressive students at HM are terrified by the ambiguity of an administration that preaches independent thought but permits and encourages attacks on it. As far as many students are concerned, the administration has practically endorsed cancel culture through its silence on the phenomenon. Currently, students’ conclusion is: watch yourself and censor yourself; you are not protected.

Even students who believe in the messages defended by the school should feel concerned over these examples. It should make you question where exactly education ends and indoctrination begins. It is easy to claim that HM is just a progressive institution and that students and families knew exactly what they were signing up for. I disagree. When my family enrolled, we were confident that HM would prioritize “teaching students how to think, not what to think.” We saw among the schools core values, “life of the mind” and “mutual respect.” The school is not living up to its own values.

I call upon the administration to clarify its policies on political expression; I call upon the administration to actively protect and sanctify diversity of thought; and I call upon the administration to disentangle itself from the progressive political agenda that has turned the school into an incubator of bias and intellectual intolerance.

Show us we are free to develop our own moral compasses. Only action can reassure us that it is okay to disagree at HM. Prove that we should be — and can be — confident, and the school will truly have safe spaces.

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THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 6TH, 2022

Harms of negative lesbian media portrayal

Harper Rosenberg The media reinforces the sexualization and romanticization of lesbianism and people are not cognizant of it.

Throughout the past 50 years, there has been a notable increase in media like television, movies, and music. Although the LGBTQ+ community, specifically gay men, have seen more representation and acceptance, lesbians, despite their increase in positive representation, have faced more problems in achieving media visibility due to how their intersectionality makes them a threat to both heteronormativity and patriarchy.

Such limited representation could prove problematic for young lesbians looking to model their actions after lesbian characters on television, due to the pervasiveness of media in the development of sexual identity.

The media’s widespread reach into the psychological development of young women allows it to inform what a lesbian “looks like,” how to act, and what to expect from romantic relationships. Young lesbians may therefore lack positive role models to exemplify the lesbian experience truthfully and adequately.

When looking at queer representation in television, there is a common trope known as “bury your gays” in which lesbians, who already make up a small fraction of television characters, are killed off in the series. One of the earliest cases was in 1976, when Julie from “Executive Suite” is hit by a car while chasing her love interest after coming to terms with her lesbianism. Helena Cain from “Battlestar Galactica” is shot by her female ex partner in 2006; Sophia from “Skins” dies by jumping off of a building after buying MDMA from the girl she was obsessed with; Veronica Cortes in “La Reina del Sur” dies, which results in her partner Patty O’Farrell taking her own life; Bizzy Forbes from “Private Practice” also takes her life after her secret lover died.

CNN lesbian writer AJ Willingham said Villanelle’s death in “Killing Eve,” “felt like a shot to the back. Another queer romance, snuffed out the moment it properly began,” she said. “We deserve better.” Although “Killing Eve” nearly steered clear of most lesbian tropes, it fell short of showing a lesbian relationship that does not meet a tragic end.

These trends prevent the lesbian community from seeing long-lasting, healthy portrayals of their sexual orientation in the media.

“I am not the first open lesbian to endure a man presuming I can be coaxed into sex, and I will not be the last,” writer Mal Hartigan, who has studied how media sexualizes lesbianism, said. The lack of healthy representation in mainstream media results in a lack of acceptance of lesbianism. As a result, there is a belief among some men that it is an exciting challenge to “turn lesbians straight.” For instance, popular musician

Lil Uzi Vert, with over 23 million monthly listeners on Spotify, exclaimed in his 2020 song “Venetia,” “I can make a gay girl turn to a straight.” In Eminem’s song “Bagpipes from Baghdad,” he says “in the bed with two brain-dead lesbian vegetables, I bet you they become heterosexual,” undermining and delegitimizing lesbian sexuality.

Songwriters fetishize lesbians in other ways as well. In Drake and Lil Baby’s song “Girls Want Girls”, he says, “she like eating pussy, I’m like, ‘me too,’ I can’t wait to get off work to go

and see you, please bring your girlfriend along with you.” Another example is in PnB Rock and Lil Skies’ song “I Like Girls,” which was popularized through trends on social media platforms, such as TikTok, by creators with millions of followers. The chorus revolves around the line, “I like girls who like girls,” which serves as a blatant fetishization of the female queer community.

For women who like women, it is harmful to see grown men posting “thirst traps” while singing the words to this song. They feel extremely uncomfortable because it is as though they made those videos in order to convert them to be straight, and because they refer to lesbianism like they do not take their sexuality seriously.

There is also a gap in the literature regarding the depiction of lesbian relationships in media, specifically through the eyes of the lesbian population. Lesbians portrayed are

the “hot lesbian” was the most frequently presented and that the idea of lesbians moving too quickly in relationships was the most frequently portrayed lesbian relationships.

In 2018, GLAAD, an American nongovernmental media monitoring organization founded in protest against defamatory coverage of the LGBTQ+ community in media, studied queer representation in film.

Of the over 100 in the most popular movies from major studios in 2017, only .05 percent featured lesbian characters, and that number has not improved signinifcantly since.

At MTV’s Video Music Awards in 2003, global sex icons Britney Spears and Madonna kissed, adding on to the already rampant fetishization of non-men engaging in sexual activity with other non-men. 20 years later, many men still think lesbians are “hot,” which can encourage straight girls to make out in pursuit of male attention, while college-aged women who are frustrated with men often pull the “I’m-goinglesbian” card.

Aashana Hari/Staff Artist Increased media attention is a ​​ double-edged sword, as popular culture suggests lesbianism is a temporary and a conscious choice if a bored wife can decide to rendezvous with another woman. Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” provoked girl-on-girl kissing action nationwide, as long as boyfriends “don’t mind it.”

Regardless of Perry’s intention, the popular tune legitimized female experimentation, but only when heterosexuality is the ultimate outcome. These earlier instances of sexualized lesbianism are still relevant as celebrities like Britney Spears, Madonna, and Katy Perry remain significant to this day.

June, international LGBTQ+ Pride Month, is a good time to learn about the lesbian experience and understand how you can help.

It is important that we make the school a safe space for lesbians, often sexualized and stereotyped, falling into where they can be open about their sexuality. one of the five following categories: the hot We must constantly work to avoid lesbophobic lesbian, the out lesbian, the closeted lesbian, slurs, validate lesbianism, and deconstruct the butch lesbian, and the feminine lesbian. In the stereotypes and biases that we have been researcher Adrienne Annati’s 2020 study “The fed over the years. Additionally, it’s helpful Frequency of Stereotypical Media Portrayals to understand how certain song lyrics and and Their Effects on the Lesbian Community,” phrases are harmful to lesbians, and always she examines a sample of 178 self-identified be aware of how social media trends fetishize lesbians and gauges their reactions to certain their experiences. clips of lesbian stereotypes in popular media, while also keeping track of how often each stereotype appeared. Results indicated that

Legitimize Health class discussions surrounding consent and sexual health

Tomoko Hida In health class, the sex education unit tends to feel silly. Whether we watched a particularly touchy couple get intimate on the screen to demonstrate safe sex, or passed around silicone testicles to emulate finding cancerous lumps, the classroom was always riddled with awkward smiles and laughter.

While I too found myself cringing with friends at certain demonstration videos, I otherwise committed myself to active engagement in discussions about

consent and identifying healthy relationships. Unfortunately, it was routine for my classmates to browse on their devices or even fall asleep during class. Sure, it’s normal to feel discomfort discussing a topic that feels personal and private among your peers, but it’s of the utmost importance to take sex education seriously. Sex education isn’t innately explicit — it is less about sex itself and is more concerned with our safety and health as young adults. Learning about sexual health (particularly surrounding STDs and STIs), consent, and seeking help in an instance of sexual violence are all topics that make sex education so critical.

Instances of sexual violence are severely underreported. In the United States, it is estimated that only 310 cases out of 1000 cases are reported according to sexual violence statistics by Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).

More specifically, individuals of the female sex ages 16-19 are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

Among college-aged victims of sexual violence that did not report to law enforcement, 49 percent did so because they believed it was a personal matter, 40 percent had a fear of reprisal, 31 percent thought that it was not important enough to report, and 24 percent did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble. As for children under the age of 18, 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys have experienced sexual misconduct at the hands of an adult, according to RAINN statistics. Sex education can not only inform students of what is classified as sexual assault and violence, but it also can aid in alleviating the stigma around reporting these instances.

Sex education encourages students with ethnographically or religiously conservative backgrounds to feel uplifted and capable of coming forward despite their community’s preconceived feelings of shame and disgust associated with recognizing and reporting assault. And as past trends in sexual assault and violence reporting have demonstrated, reporting begets reporting, and more reporting begets stronger

and more effective legislation. Sex education is instrumental in both destigmatizing victims’ decisions to report and propelling the antirape movement forward.

It is essential for our age group to be able to identify an instance of sexual misconduct and take the necessary steps to seek help.

Furthermore, as students graduate and begin life on college campuses where both sexual health and violence continue to be everpresent issues, it would be ignorant of private high schools to deny their students a thorough sex education.

And at private institutions that do provide sex education (like Horace Mann), the responsibility falls on the students to be attentive and really welcome the content discussed in class.

I emphasize the importance of private institutions teaching sex education because New York State legislature does not mandate the curriculum for public schools.

In fact, New York is far from leading the way in a progressive approach to sex education on a national level. According to the Sexual Information and Education

Council of the United States (SIECUS), as of May 2020, of the thirty-eight states that provide healthy relationships instruction, only nine states mandated consent education. New York was not among those nine.

Fortunately, the fight for consent education in New York is active, albeit slow. In 2021, legislators introduced four bills that would require the New York state commissioner to create and establish a consent education curriculum in public schools. And as of May 2022, one bill has passed the introductory phase and is in committee awaiting approval.

In short, we’re incredibly fortunate to have access to a comprehensive sex education curriculum as students attending a private high school in New York. I’m well aware that these conversations can be uncomfortable. But that discomfort is inconsequential compared toa world where sexual assault and violence are far too prevalent.

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

l l A

e t b t i n s g t r i o n p t S h : e g n s i t h u t d o y bo n r o

Ayesha Sen Staff Writer

When Ryle* (12) — who requested anonymity toWhen Ryle* (12) — who requested anonymity to avoid seeming like he is flaunting his wealth — entered quarantine in March of 2020, he began to search for ways to entertain himself, he said.

He found himself drawn to the thrill of online gambling games such as Blackjack and poker on roobet.com. However, he ended up losing more money than he was winning. In the summer of 2020, he transitioned to a form of gambling that he had a better shot at profiting from: sports betting.

Ryle began to bet on sports more regularly when he moved away from general online gambling, he said. “I found that sports betting was a lot more profitable than online gambling, especially because I had a lot more knowledge about sports,” he said.

“Ever since I moved away from the online gambling where I lost a lot of money, I have made money in the thousands because of sports betting.”

Sports betting, one of the most common forms of gambling according to Statista.com, involves placing a wager or a monetary bet on the outcome of a sports game. The practice was legalized in various states after Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2018, in which the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prohibited gambling on football, basketball, baseball, and other sports. In January, New York became the

since he did not plan to splurge with his earnings, he said. The thrill of winning a bet is less about

the money and more about the competitive aspect, he said.

“Honestly, most of the fun from sports betting comes from lording my winnings over everyone else,” Tristan said. “When I went on my roll of betting correctly for four straight weeks, it was very fun to talk about it with friends and exhilarating to follow.”

Because Tristan does not participate in sports betting regularly, losing money has not presented a problem for him yet, he said. “When I first got into betting I told myself that if I won a lot of money I was going to stop at some point because I knew over the long run that I was not going to be able to break even with the sharks,” he said. “When I did luck into a substantial amount of money, I stopped betting outright and haven’t bet since.”

Although Ryle has been profitable overall, he

“You definitely don’t feel good after losing a $500 bet — I’ve been there many times — but for me, with every loss, I know that there are multiple wins coming, so it doesn’t feel too bad.”

- Ryle* (12) 18th state to legalize mobile sports betting for New Yorkers aged 18 and older.

According to The New York Times, New York became the top market for sports betting in the United States just a month after its legalization.

As of February 2022, sports betting platforms like Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, FanDuel, Rush Street Interactive, Bally Bet, BetMGM, Wynn Interactive, PointsBet, and Resort World Bet had 1.2 million accounts based in New York, according to GeoComply Solutions.

All forms of betting and gambling are prohibited on school property, as stated on page 62 of the Family Handbook. “There is not much to say, the rules are very simple — there is no betting or gambling allowed on campus, period,” Upper Division Dean of Students Michael Dalo said. “Out of school, it is out of our purview to be monitoring what our students are doing off of our campus, but in general, we would never advise students to be betting or gambling.”

Tristan* (11), who requested anonymity to avoid judgment from the school, is not a frequent sports bettor, but has recently engaged in the activity online, he said. “I did [sports betting] mostly because I have spent a lot of time following the NFL in life, so I thought that this season, I had sufficient knowledge to not lose all of my money,” he said.

“I basically went four straight weeks betting the money I won the previous week, I started with $50 and ended up with $900.”

Tristan used an online betting platform called DraftKings to place his bets. Because betting was not legal in New York when he engaged in the activity, Tristan used a virtual private network (VPN), which ensures internet privacy, to connect to Montana and bet, he said. Since he was underage, he lied about his age when he signed up on the website.

After Tristan won his bets, he transferred them to his debit card for everyday spending

Do you place bets on sports?

Based on 122 student responses to an anonymous UD poll.

does occasionally lose bets, resulting in significant monetary losses, he said. “I would 100 percent say it’s scarier for me when I have $500 on the line than when I have $5 on the line, just because there is that risk,” he said. “You definitely don’t feel good after losing a $500 bet — I’ve been there many times — but for me, with every loss, I know that there are multiple wins coming, so it doesn’t feel too bad.”

Ryle exclusively bets his own money, he said.

“Many people use their parents’ card when they bet, but I have never used my parents’ money,” Ryle said. “I have always used my own money from either working as a hockey ref or investments in Bitcoin cryptocurrency from several years ago.”

Grace Wilson (12) decided to sports bet for the first time when she attended the Kentucky Derby in May, she said. She bet on one of the horses at the show, Epicenter, “showing” at the race, which meant that she would win money if he finished first, second, or third.

Because Epicenter came in second, Wilson profited — she placed a bet of $21 and won $45 at the end of the show, amounting to a $24 profit. “I wouldn’t say I’m super into sports betting,” Wilson said. “I bet for the first because I thought it would just be a fun thing to do and literally everyone there was betting.”

Although Wilson enjoyed her experience of sports betting, she does not plan to regularly engage in the activity, she said. “I think I’ll only continue to bet at major sporting events that really promote betting like horse racing,” she said. “I really have no interest in betting on random stats like I know some others are. For me, it was definitely more a social thing than an attempt to make money.”

Overall she enjoyed her experience betting at the Kentucky Derby, even though she does not plan to become an active bettor, she said. “I definitely had the ideal experience — I was there with my mom’s

coworkers and Sophia Liu/Staff Artist their significant others, and two of the men offered to take me to place bets because they had been doing so for years,” she said. “They both used their own money so I knew no matter what, I wasn’t losing anything.” Although Wilson tried to pay the men back when she won the bet, both of them declined.

In contrast, JP Eliopoulos (12) does not engage in sports betting because he is not yet 18, so even if he wanted to bet online, he would have to create an account under the name of one of his parents, who would not approve of him gambling, he said. “Lots of parents don’t care, but mine would.”

Instead, Eliopoulos enjoys fantasy sports, which are different from sports betting, he said. “Instead of winning money, the winner of our fantasy football league gets to pick the day when the loser has to do their punishment,” he said. “This year, the loser of our league’s punishment was that they had to wear a funny outfit to school for a day.”

While Ryle enjoys sports betting, he also recognizes that the activity has its disadvantages which makes it controversial, he said. According to SIT news, only about three to five percent of sports bettors are profitable in the long run. “Even though I have found a lot of success, for the people who may not know how to go about it or may be a little worried, that’s definitely the biggest thing because no one wants to lose a bunch of money,” Ryle said. “I think the biggest thing is being strategic because if you go about sports betting randomly, then the chances you lose are even higher, but if y o u are strategic and really know your stuff, then there’s a decent chance you can succeed.”

Ac c o r d i n g to the New York Times, about o n e percent of American Sophia Liu/Staff Artist adults have a gambling disorder, causing them to continue to gamble despite knowledge of potential consequences.

Moreover, due to the recent opening of virtual gambling, individuals are more at risk of developing an addiction since accessibility to the activity has increased.

The addictive nature of sports betting is one of Tristan’s biggest worries about engaging in the activity, he said. “People can get addicted to sports betting, which can be a huge problem and cause people to go deep into debt, so there’s definitely that dangerous aspect to it,” he said. “I have not put in insane amounts of money yet, so I haven’t been too worried, but it’s definitely something if I continue sports betting in the future and is definitely something I know many people who do

dy

it think about.”

Gambling, like many activities, is not in itself benign or harmful, Director of Counseling & Guidance Dr. Daniel Rothstein said. “Gambling becomes a problem when a person starts to crave the excitement that can come from making a bet in a way that either is taking up a lot of their time or a lot of their money,” he said. “It all depends on the person and how it impacts their life whether it is a problem or not.”

According to an article on Web MD, gambling, like other activities that allow an individual to experience a ‘rush,’ floods their brain with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which plays a significant role in addictions. Gambling provides an individual with a far greater rush than other activities, and as a result, encourages a person to continue gambling to continue feeling upbeat and high. However, once a person becomes addicted, their brain stops producing dopamine, which furthers an addiction since people keep gambling in an attempt to recreate the initial high.

Ryle has experienced greatly fluctuating emotions as a result of sports betting, he said. “The emotions range from happiness to a lot of sadness to a lot of happiness again,” Ryle said. “Obviously it depends on whether you win or lose, but even when watching a game with a bet on the line is stressful, I generally end up being in a good mood which makes watching a game pretty nice.”

Like Ryle, Tristan enjoys sports betting because it heightens the experience of watching sports, he said. “You just have more invested in a game that you might otherwise not care that much about,” he said. “It’s honestly just a lot of fun to sports bet and a lot of the time that offsets the money that you are likely to lose. It’s really just exhilarating.”

Although Eliopoulos does not engage in sports betting himself, he also enjoys games more when someone he knows has a bet on the line, he said.

“It makes me feel more invested in the outcome of a game I might have not cared about otherwise,” Eliopoulos said.

Gambling is not legal in most states for those under 18, but many teenagers are exposed to fantasy sports which can lead to betting and sports gambling, Rothstein said. As a result, teenagers are at risk of addiction. “If a person were to say, I will wager five dollars and that is all I can spend, then loses the money, and, rather than stopping there, tries to borrow more money from a friend, or asks for an I.O.U., or takes money from parents, t h e n t h e y have a problem,” he said. “Just like with social media apps, which are designed with each ping to give a little dopamine rush, the gambling industry puts a lot of effort into hooking people in.”

Ryle enjoys sports betting because he enjoys the overall experience, not just profiting, he said.

He places bets on most of the games that he watches, using online platforms like FanDuel and DraftKings. “I know some people are worried about wasting time by betting and then losing, but if you genuinely enjoy sports, then watching games is a lot of fun when you can win money,” he said. “It really just gives you something to look forward to, and even if you lose at the end, if you actually enjoy sports like I do, it’s not a waste of time. It’s more like I’m doing something that I enjoy and there’s the added bonus of profiting.” * Any name with an asterisk represents a student granted anonymity.

What is the average amount of the bets you place?

Based on 22 students who said they betted on sports in a response to an anonymous UD poll.

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THE RECORD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 6TH, 2022

The Dining Room “ I was new to Horace Mann and I was just very nervous that people were not going to accept me. But the people in the theater did. Me and AJ Walker, we were in the same scene. [...] He became like a brother to me. That was a really cool experience to have someone like that have my back.”

- Amaris Christian (9)

201-HMTC Year in Review

Reporting by Emily Salzhauer

All photos courtesy of HM Flickr

“To see [The Dining Room] as the first live show here, in our spaces, since COVID: what a beautiful way to begin. We’ve set the table again, and the room is open. I love that.”

- Theater Teacher Benjamin Posner

“[AJ] was my husband in the show. It was really fun to do the scenes because we [were] in agreement that [it was] just very weird for the both of us. I remember when we did our rehearsals, we could not stop laughing. Our director Mr. Nye was so mad because we just could not do a scene correctly without laughing and so it was really funny.”

- Amaris Christian (9)

Singing in the Rain “[Singing in the Rain] is one of my favorite movies, but having that on stage and seeing all these young people in suits [was adorable]. I just love the story. And I love the music, and the tap dancing was amazing. Just watching them having fun, and the frivolity on stage was great.”

- Theater Teacher Benjamin Posner

“This is my first year at the school and we started rehearsals at the end of September, so it was really like jumping right in. They were new, I was new. Everyone was really excited. And it was just really fun.”

- Dance Teacher and Choreographer Patrick O’Neill

“I had this idea that throughout the course of Singing in the Rain, our characters and our scenes and our costumes grow in vibrancy and color. So each of our leads had a specific color.

The general audience member wouldn’t necessarily notice, but I think it added another layer to the students who are acting and the design of the show and music and the dancing.”

- Dance Teacher and Choreographer Patrick O’Neill

Student Written One Acts “[The One Acts are]really one of my favorite experiences because students get to say another student’s words rather than some adult’s words. I think it’s a really powerful and empowering experience.”

- Theater Teacher Haila VanHentenryck

“The process of putting together the studentdirected, student-written One Acts was really rewarding because we could interact with the people who wrote the play, and we had the opportunity to learn from them and improve our performances.”

- Oscar Shah (10)

“Me and my friend, Jah’si, who played one of the main characters in Canceled, did the single ladies dance. Oh my gosh, it was so funny. That was what I looked forward to every single time. Everybody was wearing heels. [Jah’si] was wearing heels. This other guy was wearing [heels] it was just incredible. It was so fun.

- Amaris Christian (9) “Everyone in [Cosmic Cleanup Crew] was so incredibly talented, especially Malaya, who just stepped in when one of our leads couldn’t attend a performance.

She had less than a week’s notice to memorize the whole play. And it was a monologue heavy play, so she did a good job with that.”

- Bailey Hecht (11)

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THE RECORD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 6TH, 2022

The Addams Family “Bailey is an incredible performer. Their mannerisms just work so well and when I heard them sing and do their lines I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is Pugsley.’ I don’t know who else they would have picked. It was just so perfect.”

- Amaris Christian (9)

“I love directing and I loved working with the cast and crew of Addams Family. It was such a fun, joyful experience with lots of old faces, lots of new faces. Just honestly, we had a blast really.”

- Theater Teacher Benjamin Posner

2021-2022 HMTC Leaders Co-presidents: Sarah Taub and Bailey Hecht Communications Director: AJ Walker

“Matthew Aponte, who played Lurch in Addams Family, learned how to walk on stilts. We also had puppeteers in our ‘family’ so we brought in a puppet master who helped to show the cast how to animate puppets. And we brought in a stage combat choreographer to teach our students how to fight safely and effectively on stage with swords and sabers.

- Theater Teacher Benjamin Posner

Jungalbook

Logistics Director: Emily Sun Creative Director: Athena Spencer Outreach Director: Matthew Peeler

“I love working with all the kids. They are so talented and creative and have great ideas. It was a joy to rehearse with them because they bring a lot to each audition: a lot of energy, a lot of ideas, and a lot of talent.”

- Theater Teacher Haila VanHentenryck

Middle Division Director: Matthew Aponte “Loewy Miller [(8)] was Shere Khan in Jungalbook. It was a role that required a lot of playfulness as being the villain. That’s a hard thing to do sometimes, because we, as humans, don’t want to be the villain. But to do that as an actor, to pit hat, it’s fun, and it’s exciting. And I thought he did a phenomenal job.”

- Dance Teacher and Choreographer Patrick O’Neill

“I’m really happy that this year we were able to offer two Middle Division productions. I’ve always thought that just one play was too little… The fact that we were able to do the fall and the spring productions, and that we had really good turnout for both of those productions was my favorite part.”

- Theater Teacher Benjamin Posner

Letter from the co-presidents Dear HMTC, What a year! We brought live theatre back to the school community after too long without it. You are all so talented and special; each and every one of you brings a unique spark to the club and all of our productions. From The Dining Room to the Student-Written One Acts to The Addams Family, you have so much to be proud of! And middle shoolers, you all pulled together not one, but two whole shows this year. That’s so impressive! Complaints!: The Musical, Karaoke I-periods, and late-night HMTC traditions have all brought us closer together! Thank you to Mr. Posner, Ms. VanHentenryck, Mr. Nye, Ms. Miller, Ms. Patmon, and Mr. O’Neill for making all of our productions possible. Thank you to the entire HMTC for all of your dedication, commitment, and care this year! Bringing theatre and art to the school community is so important, and we can’t wait to see all that the HMTC accomplishes in the future!

To the school community school community: We hope that our productions and events this year brought a little light, laughter, and hope to what has been an extremely difficult past few years. Theatre has the ability to form connections, and we hope that you were able to connect with the art we made this year. It’s been an honor to share our time in the HMTC with you all!

Lots of HMTC love, Your Co-Presidents, Sarah and Bailey

2022-2023 HMTC Leaders Co-presidents: Bailey Hecht and Celia Stafford Communications Director: Athena Spencer Logistics Director: Etta Singer Creative Director: Serena Bai Outreach Director: Yasmeen Massoud Middle Division Director: Juliet Burgess

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022

On the lookout: A behind-the-scenes look at the work of Public Safety Vidhatrie Keetha and Neeva Patel Staff Writers “We’re not up in the forefront. We stay very much in the background, and that’s the way we want it,” Assistant Director of Public Safety Peter Clancy said. “When the time comes when we need to step forward, we do that, we take control and we calm things down.”

Whether they are helping a student get on the bus safely or taking action during an emergency, the school’s Public Safety team aims to ensure that students feel safe every moment that they are at the school, Public Safety Specialist Glenn Smith said. The team is made up of 36 members, making it one of the largest departments in the school.

The team is composed of two directors, four supervisors, thirteen parttime officers, and 17 full-time officers.

Almost all members of the school’s Public Safety team have previously held careers in law enforcement.

Among the staff are ten retired police officers, two active duty police officers, three retired police lieutenants, one supervising fire marshal, one active duty fire marshall, two detectives, and one retired New York Police Department (NYPD) firefighter who was a police officer for ten years before joining the fire department, Director of Public Safety Mike McCaw said. McCaw himself was formerly a police captain in the NYPD. McCaw has worked as a member of the school’s Public Safety team for fourteen years. Prior to working at the school, he served as Director of Security for the College of Mount St. Vincent, worked in the position of Assistant Director of Security Operations for New York University, and was the Commanding Officer of Transit Bronx Task Force with the NYPD. McCaw has worked with the police department for a total of 21 years and has also worked in educational institutions for 21 years, he said.

Smith, a retired fireman and fire marshall, said that having had prior experience in law enforcement — such as experience as a police officer, court officer, or fireman — is a necessary prerequisite for working at the school, he said. “I was most likely hired due to my previous experience as a fire marshall because there I worked a lot with safety.”

Max Feng (10) thinks it is vital for Public Safety officers to have previous law enforcement experience, he said.

“I do know that a lot of our Public Safety officers are retired firemen and policemen, which is good for knowing how to deal with a variety of situations.”

McCaw, who is in charge of hiring, intentionally selects members from a variety of professional law enforcement backgrounds with the approval of Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, he said. “They bring a wealth of experience. It’s all about emergency response, handling medical emergencies, any serious and minor incidents and how to interact with the community.”

English teacher Brad Engelstein thinks those with law enforcement experience are appropriate for the job, he said. “I think the individuals on campus are responsible and exude a sense of confidence.”

Sofia Kim (10) feels safe knowing members of the Public Safety team are professionally trained and have the experience and the knowledge required to best protect the school, she said.

“While there are obvious flaws within

Facts, figures and quotes:

the police system, I think the officers we have on campus have been working here for a while and they strive to protect our school, so I would hope they still have those goals in mind.”

Although a candidate’s experience in educational institutions is an important factor in McCaw’s hiring process, the most important quality is a candidate’s personality and ability to interact with community members, he said.

“The major part of our job here, probably 98 to 99 percent of our job, is public relations. How do we interact, and how do we help?” McCaw said.

A candidate’s ability to blend into the background on campus is also taken into account when hiring, as it is an important part of how the team operates and responds to emergency situations.

“A lot of us dress very casual, so we could look like a teacher. We can look like a coach in case somebody is watching and seeing what’s going on,” McCaw said, “We need people that are going to be friendly, and who are going to be kind, and in the event of an emergency, be able to step forward and take complete control of the situation.”

Engelstein has not had many interactions with Public Safety

we do a lot to prevent that from ever happening, so when you’re responsible for the safety of others it can be a little stressful,” Clancy said. “But it’s just more customer service paced — we’re here to help the community, and like in the police department, we’re there to help the citizens too.”

One incident during which the Public Safety team stepped forward happened around seven years ago and involved a woman who did not properly park her car. The woman’s car started rolling and as she went to jump into the car to try and stop it, she ended up getting caught underneath the car. “We all responded very quickly. We stabilized the scene, we stabilized the car, and we were in the process of removing her from underneath the car when the first responders arrived,” Clancy said.

The situation also demonstrates the experience the team has, Clancy said.

“We knew what to do. We knew that the scene had to be stabilized and that woman needed medical attention,” he said. “We were underneath the car keeping her calm, while other members were trying to jack up the car to get her out,” he said. “And luckily she wasn’t hurt. Very minor injuries.”

said. “Cameras are tools used to identify and also respond to emergencies so that we can intercept them before they can even happen.”

The team keeps a lookout for anything that might negatively affect students, Smith said. “We go to every medical emergency there is at the school and we monitor what’s going on outside the school, to make sure it stays outside the school,” he said. “We respond to anything that’s out of the ordinary and do drills like the fire and lockdown drills the school has.”

Along with drills, to ensure that students are familiar with protocols at the start of the year, the Public Safety team hosts the annual safety assembly, introducing members of the team and showing safety videos.

While the team has a number of other measures in place, McCaw intentionally does not present all this information at the assembly, to avoid the risk of exposing the team’s procedures to potential bad actors. “We don’t know where [that] information is going to go,” he said. “So, we talk to you, I’m not telling you about everything that we have.

Dylan Leftt/Staff Artist

members, but he appreciates that they stay behind the scenes, he said. “I feel as if it would be a distraction from their state of permanent vigilance if they were to prioritize talking to teachers or students,” he said.

Smith does try to talk to students when they enter the school because he rarely needs to use his emergency departmental skills. He has a Certified First Responder Defibrillation (CFR-D) credit from the fire department as well as other professional law enforcement experience but finds that his knowledge rarely comes into use during the school day, he said.

Although members of the team, such as Smith, have years of immediate response experience, the team’s daily operations rarely require the actual handling of major emergencies.

Working in a school is more engaging for McCaw, he said. “The police department comes with a high level of stress, but there’s also anxiety and there’s pressures and there’s so many things going on in schools, colleges, universities,” he said. “So it’s a beautiful kind of transition, because we serve a purpose.”

Although the job still comes with a lot of responsibility, Clancy finds that working at the school has been less stressful than his time as a police officer, he said. He has worked at the school for close to ten years, prior to which he worked for 25 years as a police sergeant for the NYPD. “We don’t want anything to happen to any member of our community, and

Because emergencies do not happen frequently, Julia Werdiger (10) thinks the team has expanded more than they need to, she said. “I don’t remember the last time where I was scared for my life or when the team stepped in, maybe it’s happened, and I just don’t know it,” she said.

This method reflects the Public Safety team’s approach, McCaw said. “It’s a team method. It’s comprehensive and every component works together. So if you think of a puzzle, it’s putting puzzle pieces together. My job is to obviously manage it,” he said.

A typical day for Clancy mostly involves overseeing daily operations.

“Probably one of the busiest parts of our day is the arrival with the students and faculty and staff coming in, coordinating the buses coming in and out, controlling the traffic and making sure the students get across the street safely, and just making sure all of our equipment is up and running — our camera systems, our access control devices and different things like that,” he said.

Public Safety Trainer Rob Aviles, who manages the security in Lutnick Hall, uses cameras to piece together stories and look for situations or people that might need assistance, he said.

“Although we help members of our own student body, we also look out for anyone that shouldn’t be on campus,” he

Since the start of the pandemic, the public safety department has almost doubled in size, and fences have been built around the entirety of the campus.

I wouldn’t tell anybody about everything that we have.”

Giselle Paulson (11) finds the information shared in the assembly repetitive. “I can’t say I’ve noticed the reactions of other people, but I assume that like me, they know all this info already, so I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say they’re less engaged in this assembly than others,” she said. “However, they’re actually more engaged in the video than normal, because everyone loves the ‘sorry I have a bus to catch’ line.”

Along with hosting the annual assembly, the team is responsible for making sure students leave school safely at the end of each day. “Arrival and dismissal, that’s when you’re mixing school buses with cars and students and crossing the streets and it brings a whole set of scenarios that could turn really bad really quick,” McCaw said. “So we have to manage that completely.”

While monitoring cameras during arrival, dismissal, and throughout the day, McCaw watches for anything out of the ordinary, he said. “Let’s say there’s a suspicious person that we need to keep an eye on, or a traffic hazard, we can watch it and we can make calls to let’s say 911 and get additional services if needed.”

To Aviles, “suspicious” is a general term, and the team usually identifies when someone is a danger to the school using their judgment as retired law enforcement, he said. The team does not have a specific “look” that they deem suspect, but identification is more so based on the behavior of people and narratives of the day, he said. “If we have a football game that day, we have to stay more vigilant since parents and other individuals are entering the campus

The team is made up of two directors, four supervisors, 13 part-time officers, and 17 fulltime officers, and almost all members of the school’s Public Safety team have previously held careers in law enforcement.

who are not here on a daily basis.”

Because most of the team has worked at the school for a period of time, Aviles finds that the team is generally aware of the cues and cultures that comprise the typical rhythm of life on campus.

“It’s funny when you live in a world of unison, the odd thing presents itself to you,” he said, “If an individual is on campus, I ask myself, ‘why is this person continuing to stare in this direction?’”

Aviles looks out for subtleties when visitors come to campus, he said. “If someone says that they came to the school 25 years ago and explain that they are lurking outside campus just admiring the new structures, they might want to get into the school,” he said.

Alara Yilmaz (10) also feels that the team handles emergencies well, although she does not know much about the team’s operations, she said.

“Especially with recent events, if something like a school shooting were to happen, cameras and other technology would be very helpful and effective.”

In addition to managing daily operations, a major part of operating the Public Safety team is research. “If any violent incidents occur in schools, we research it, we look into it, we all discuss it to see if we need to tweak any of our security systems,” Clancy said. After the school shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, the team conducted an in-depth analysis on mass casualty incidents, he said.

“Any kind of mass casualty incident we evaluate it to see what we can learn from it, and what we can change and we have changed things in the past.”

Some of these changes include announcing fire drills before they happen, tweaking lockdown drills, and informing students, faculty, and staff how to respond to an emergency situation, McCaw said. The team recently changed its lockdown procedure in response to a strategy used during the shooting at Oxford High School on November 30, 2021. The shooter knocked on locked doors and urged students to come out of hiding by pretending to be the police, McCaw said.

“We modified our procedures based on that. Our procedure before was that the police will come and knock on the door, and then you open the door, so we had to change that.”

Generally, in response to any instance of school violence — including school shootings — the Public Safety office puts together a detailed review of the event, Kelly wrote in an email. The review typically summarizes how the school would have responded to the event, as well as the areas where the school might have fallen short. From the review comes a list of recommendations for Kelly and the board to consider, he wrote.

Aviles thinks it is important to stay current and change procedures without students being tipped or gaining knowledge of those changes, he said.

“Most people don’t realize that we are armed or even understand what we do everyday, and that’s fine, that’s actually what we want,” he said. “However, when the school needs someone to respond and react, they want people with expertise who wear many different hats.”

Anyone who speaks to Aviles would see him talking about different tactics to combat threats, he said. “Most people assume that by ‘tactics’ I mean kicking and fighting, but it is more so just going over hypothetical scenarios to increase our default response,” he said. The team often practices active shooter scenarios to prepare for a situation that could

The school currently has over 620 cameras installed across its three campuses, including the nursery division and Dorr, and the number has been expanding for the past 12 years.

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 6TH, 2022 potentially happen, he said.

In addition to an adjustment of procedures, the Public Safety team recently lobbied for and installed a traffic light at the intersection in front of the school, a process which took 17 months, McCaw said. The delay occurred because the team needed to first communicate with the bureaucracy of the NYC Department of Transportation. “Before the light could be installed, a traffic survey was required and after that, the case was moved to planning and installation which took more time,” he said.

Before the traffic light was installed, all vehicular traffic was controlled by a four-way stop sign, but to McCaw, the light is a more efficient way of managing traffic, he said. “[We felt] somebody was gonna get seriously hurt with cars going through those stop signs and not paying attention to them,” he said. “It’s for us, and it helps the community also.

Any benefit that comes to the school ultimately benefits the people that live in this area.”

However, Kim wishes the team had done a better job communicating with the school community about the unplanned fire drills that occurred in February, she said. For both drills, she was in Fisher Hall, when told to evacuate, where the fire alarm was triggered. “[Unannounced fire drills] happened two times within a week, so I think there should have been a statement sent out, just because we kind of moved on and I didn’t really know what was going on, I mean, I saw a fire truck at school,” she said. Although she is fine with planned drills, Kim hopes the team will do more to inform the community about serious or unexpected situations in the future.

Along with improving protocol, the Public Safety team has put forward a number of technological changes in the school’s security systems. When Clancy first started working at the school, the team did not have advanced technology apart from cameras and automatic dual locking systems, he said. Recently, Clancy has noted that the team’s technology has expanded, and they continue to research new technology to help keep our community safe, he said.

Public Safety Systems Analyst Anthony Trotta is responsible for managing all of the security systems on campus, including cameras and any access control points or technology

which shows the different angles of a certain location. The stationed Public Safety staff view cameras within the vicinity of their post.

Having cameras constantly watching her at school does not unsettle Kim in the slightest. In fact, she thinks having strict security around campus is comforting, she said. “It honestly doesn’t affect my performance in school knowing I’m on camera, I’m not doing anything stupid so I feel comfortable,” she said.

“It is good that there are cameras in the hallways and in public areas where there are a lot of kids because the team can watch many people at once and see if there is an intruder who might target those areas.”

Prior to working at the school, Trotta worked for two years at Triad Security Systems, which is the company that sells the school its security systems. “I was fortunate enough to be offered a job to actually come work for the school and basically be the contact person for all security systems related,” Trotta said.

“We still use Triad Security Systems as our vendor and our backend support for anything that we may need for any sort of replacement devices. And I manage projects on a day to day basis with that company.”

Working at the school has been a new experience for Trotta, he said. While he has never worked in an educational institution before, he enjoys being a part of a Public Safety team, rather than going to various jobs in a vehicle as he would in his previous job.

“We have all the tools that we need to make sure that this campus is protected.

And I’m not talking about just the physical campus itself. I’m talking about the students, the faculty, and everybody that’s involved with this community,” Trotta said. “That’s how it is different.

I’ve never been able to say that I’m part of something that’s so vital to protecting an institution like this and everybody gets involved. So it’s a pleasure to be working here. It really is.”

One of the ways the teams keeps vigilant is through their surveillance footage and camera systems. “So let’s say for example, we have Mr. Aviles in Lutnick, so he’ll be using the camera system and looking at the cameras in his area, Lutnick Hall and Prettyman Gym. He also has access to the access control software system. Now what that does is that’s all the electronic door locking card readers, things of that nature,” Trotta Jorge Orvañanos/Staff Photographer

HARD AT WORK Rob Aviles watches over the Lutnick building. the teams use in their day-to-day operations, he said.

According to Trotta, the school currently has over 620 cameras installed across its three campuses, including the nursery division and Dorr, he said. “Our goal hasn’t been to have 620 cameras, but we’ve achieved this number through frequent evaluations of our campus layout and available technology,” he said.

All guards on duty are stationed at a post or a desk, which are located, for example, in Olshan Lobby or beside the entrance to Lutnick. Each post is equipped with a surveillance system behind the desk,

said.

Yilmaz said it is unnecessary to place cameras everywhere — for example, at the entrances of bathrooms — because she cannot think of a reason why it would matter who exits and enters that space, she said. “I sometimes feel like cameras at places like that infringe on my privacy, but then again, I think there are only two security members watching me so I don’t really care.”

The abundance of surveillance systems helps Aviles identify threats before they get to the school, he said. “I have really never looked at footage while

Each surveillance system on campus can perform a lockdown and is equipped with radios that allow officers to communicate with each other. “They also listen to the police scanner radios too, so we can hear what’s going on in the neighborhood,” Trotta said.

the students are here and seen someone already on campus that shouldn’t be there, we prevent it before,” he said.

However, one such incident did occur on November 20, 2019, when an intruder came onto campus at night posing as a student. “One of our midnight guards went up to the intruder, asked them of their whereabouts, and eventually the police were called and the suspect was taken into custody — they had no right to be on campus,” Aviles said. Because of situations such as this one, which might happen when students are not on campus, the team has a group of security members at school from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. every day, he said.

Each location can perform a lockdown and are equipped with radios that can communicate with each other.

“They also listen to the police scanner radios too, so we can hear what’s going on in the neighborhood,” Trotta said. “ If there’s anything that we need to take notice of in this area of the Bronx, the five zero precinct is what responds to this area. So we always listen to their radio communications.”

Overall, Trotta believes that from a Public Safety viewpoint, the school is the safest school in the country, he said.“Technologically, we’ve grown. I was able to bring a lot of myself, I think I was able to bring a lot of technological skill to where we need to be, as far as a technological standpoint and how we can best use technology as a major tool within our arsenal of other tools that we have,” he said. The team’s technological growth has been expanding for the past twelve years, he said. Trotta urges himself to constantly research new innovations that are introduced to the field and analyze how they can be applied to Public Safety, he said.

The added cameras and new technology also assist Smith during his job. Smith has worked at the school for seven years and spends most of his time behind the desk in Olshan Lobby, he said. When Smith comes into school in the mornings, he opens up all the doors, makes sure all the computers and cameras are up and running, and greets students as they arrive.

Kayla Choi (10) is sometimes greeted

by Smith in the mornings when she enters school, but to her, the interactions with safety members are not daily occurrences, she said. “When I say hi, they say hi, that’s all it really is, but at the same time I don’t expect them to help me with any personal issues, so I think they reach out as much as they need to,” she said.

During the school day, Smith mostly answers the phone, monitors the camera, and runs dismissal at 2 p.m. Dismissals are the busiest part of Smith’s day, and ever since the pandemic, dismissals have been much more chaotic and busy, he said. “More parents are coming to pick students up, which is one of the reasons why we have a group of members of Public Safety working out there instead of just one or two like before,” he said.

Whether he is working near the buses or simply at the front desk, Smith wants more students to be able to approach him whenever they have a problem they need to resolve, he said. “It doesn’t matter if they are having an emotional problem or something else, I always try to keep an eye out to see someone who is crying or anything similar to that,” Smith said. “Also, if they have questions, they should feel free to ask, our team is here to help, not really for any other reason.”

The interactions Yilmaz has had with members of Public Safety have mostly been positive, she said. “One time I lost my earrings at a basketball game and when I went to the public security office,

they had them right there which was so nice,” she said. Yilmaz also appreciates Aviles who waits with students for the 6 o’clock bus, she said. “He opens the door for us and says goodnight, which always makes my day a little bit better,” she said.

The school’s Public Safety department has grown and expanded to the point that it has become unrecognizable from the school’s original Security Office in 2005, when Kelly first started working at the school,

we shouldn’t add them just because we can,” she said.

To Kim, this expansion in budget makes sense and safety should be prioritized by the school more. “Our academics, athletics, and arts are all important, but the number one priority should be our safety,” she said. “Once we have established that, we can turn our focus onto other advancements of the school, which is why the team deserves such a big budget.”

Jorge Orvañanos/Staff Photographer

FRIENDLY FACES Lockhart and Smith stand post in Olshan. he wrote. “Everything and anything has changed within the now-Office of Public Safety,” he wrote. “In light of the world around us, and continued instances of grotesque school violence, our Public Safety Office and the quality and caliber of its officers continues to evolve with the times.”

Specifically, the department has changed its hiring qualifications, established annual training for all officers, improved technology relating to supervision, fire safety, and gunshot management, and improved equipment used in emergency situations, Kelly wrote. “Everything has shifted for the better, for the safer. Even our drills with students and employees and those resources attributed to our lockdown procedures have been dramatically enhanced,” he wrote.

Kelly declined to comment on the specifics of how the school allocates a budget and resources to the Public Safety department.“It is important to know that the Office is well-funded, and its initiatives are a priority in the budget process,” he wrote.

Ever since the pandemic began, the Public Safety team has expanded in terms of members and budget, Smith said. “The team has definitely grown, it’s almost doubled in people ever since they closed off the school a little more, we used to have a more open campus and now there are fences all around.”

The school granted the team this expansion because of the precautions that came with the pandemic as well as the number of school shootings around the country, Smith said. “If you watch the news, you can tell that shootings are way up now, so school safety is extremely important to us and we are working to make sure we protect students from these types of threats,” he said. In the last five years alone, the U.S. has had over 2,000 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Aviles stands by the rule that “more is better,” so adding extra personnel and security systems to protect the school is ideal, he said. “If you are afforded the opportunity to be able to increase your systems, why would we not?”

Werdiger instead thinks that additions should only be made if they are necessities, she said. “If there are some areas in the school which are unsecure and don’t have cameras stationed, then yes, the school should make those changes, but if they are not needed, then

“Most people assume that by ‘tactics’ I mean kicking and fighting, but it is more so just going over hypothetical scenarios to increase our default response,” Aviles said. The team often practices active shooter scenarios to prepare for a situation that could potentially happen.

At first, the team had most of its security members stationed in large buildings, but as years passed, the school realized that smaller spaces should also have personnel, Aviles said. “God forbid something does happen, we don’t want to have a gap or a bridge in our abilities to sequence the cameras,” he said. “I stay vigilant because I enjoy helping students live the simpler way in life, and we humans tend to live life in fear, which we shouldn’t be doing,” he said.

Feng does not find himself living in fear on a daily basis, but instead accepts the possibility that something might happen, although it is a rare thought for him, he said.

In terms of members, the team has added part-time officers for dismissal, officers working at midnight, and officers working in the afternoon, Smith said. “At night, we used to only have one person, but now we have two people working around the clock, and in the afternoon, we have expanded from three people to five,” he said. “The school is also starting to have more events on weekends so with the help of our parttime workers, the guys who are full-time don’t have to work during the tours on the weekends.”

Another form of team expansion is the addition of trained officers who help the team work better together as a whole, Smith said. “We have a couple guys who used to train in the police department so instead of having outside guys visit us over the summer break, we have our own people who can train us,” he said. “Also, we have a guy who used to work as a police officer and lieutenant in a school division, so as a professional in education, he helps us work together better.”

At each training session, Aviles, who conducts the training, usually goes over traffic patterns, challenges the team faces, basic CPR skills, and active shooter scenarios, he said. “If there is anything I want our team to remember, it is the process of identification and response,” he said. The team also does location training in preparation for times when students aren’t at school, like in the summer, Aviles said. “It’s important for us to be on campus even when students are gone because those are some of the best times for outsider threats to plot an attack or plant something,” he said.

“If you are afforded the opportunity to be able to increase your systems, why would we not?” Aviles said.

26

THE RECORD LIONS’ DEN JUNE 6TH, 2022

LIONS FINISH OFF SPRI Boys Golf — 8-3

Baseball — 11-6 Oliver Konopko Staff Writer

The Varsity Baseball team ended the season as the third-ranked team in the Ivy Preparatory League, Varsity Baseball Head Coach Matthew Russo said. Their success can be attributed to the strong team effort more than anyone’s individual play, he said.

The team was competitive in all of its games, and even their losses were close, Aden Soroca (11). Though the team slowed down after a strong start, they bounced back to win their final six games in a row, he said.

Logan Dracos (12) led the team in steals and played very well at center field, Soroca said.

Soroca, Theo King (12), and Sam Spector (10) all pitched very well this season and were important to the team, Russo said. In addition to strong pitching, the team had strong hitters, including Matthew Baumann (12), Max Ting (11), and Dracos.

A highlight of the season for Soroca took place during their playoff game against nationallyranked Poly Prep, he said. Going into the fifth inning, the score was tied 0-0, something no other team in the league had accomplished against Poly Prep, he said.

Courtesy of Barry Mason

READY TO SLUG Ting (11) at the bat.

Another major moment in the season took place during a game against Collegiate at Randall’s Island. The team had three home runs in one inning, and two of them were back-toback, Russo said.

The team improved throughout the season, Russo said. “They just got better and better each day,” he said. “They worked really, really hard.

They focused on some of the little things and the approach of how to play and how to compete.”

Boys Lacrosse — 3-11 Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

The Boys Varsity Lacrosse Team had a slow start to their season, losing their first few games, but were able to work hard as a team and end the season with four wins, Ricky Lipsey (12) said.

The team didn’t qualify for states because of their losses, but were still proud of themselves and the progress they made throughout the season, Lipsey said.

Lipsey was proud of the team’s goalie, Josh Baron (11), because of his skill set and how much of an asset he was to the team, he said.

“All teams need a good goalie and that’s what they base themselves off on,” he said. “He made a lot of key saves throughout a lot of games.”

Another key player was Brady Winter (9) because he had experience playing lacrosse outside of school and is really talented, Lipsey said. “He was our best player by far,” he said.

“He would score five goals every single game.

He was just insane to watch.”

The team was particularly proud of their two wins against the Harvey School because both games went into double overtime, he said. “A real highlight from the season is winning both

Courtesy of Barry Mason

ON THE ATTACK Harris (12) runs with the ball. those games,” he said. “Those are kind of insane to win – both in double overtime.”

Despite multiple tough losses, the teams’ friendships helped to raise morale and motivate them to work hard, he said. “Everyone still was really positive,” he said. “Everyone showed up at practice, competed hard. We never gave up and that’s the really good thing about it. We always kept going and kept fighting.”

Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

Despite starting out slow and with a shaky lineup, the Boys Golf team finished their season strong with a record of 8-3, Arjun Jayant (11) said. “We were able to really come back strong and get on a good winning streak.”

Their season began to turn around after a win against the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Jayant said. “We started catching fire from then so we had a lot more confidence,” he said. “We started beating teams like Hackley and Poly.”

Matthew Grant (9) stood out to Jayant because of his advanced skill and ability as a freshman, he said. “The first few matches we were all a little shaky, but then he really started getting really confident,” Jayant said. “He really grew as a competition player and I’m really proud of the way that he handled himself.”

Jayant is particularly proud of the team’s win against Poly Prep because, although it was heated, they defeated them twice, he said.

“Those were really emotional wins because there was a lot of controversy around the matches.”

The team placed seventh in the NYSAIS tournament, which was disheartening, but

Blake Bennett Staff Writer

The Boys Varsity Tennis (BVT) team have had a season filled with big wins. After starting the season with a loss, they won thirteen straight times to end with a phenomenal record of 13-1.

In addition, the team won the Ivy Preparatory League in a clean sweep against Trinity with a final score of 5-0.

Doubles pair Connor Bernard (12) and Damian Stellings (12) were crowned NYSAIS Doubles champions and will go on to represent NYSAIS in the Federal Championships.

The team’s main strategy going into all of their matches was to be confident and support each other through their games, Lukas Frangenberg (9) said. The team loves to support each other and do all that they can to help each other win, he said.

The team was extremely confident in their ability to win a lot of matches, Frangenberg said.

“We believe that we are number one in the state.”

Throughout the season the lineup was constantly changing, as many members of the team were injured or sick, Josh Winiarsky (11) said. However, during the finals they had their entire starting lineup, he said. “We needed new

Crew

Oliver Konopko Staff Writer

Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

“To come off a two-year break and end the season at the state finals is quite an accomplishment,” Boys Varsity Volleyball coach Jason Torres said.

The team started off the season with a 3-1 loss to Calhoun, but managed to make tremendous progress, especially considering this was their first season in two years, Torres said.

At the beginning of the season, the team’s communication and teamwork were not great, Rowan Mally (12) said. However, by the end of the season the team had made massive strides in both of these areas, allowing them to beat Calhoun 3-2 after having lost to them during their last encounter, he said.

Patrick Stinebaugh (12) was the team’s MVP and a vocal leader throughout the season, Torres said. Mally stood out to Torres for playing around the net, making first-team all-league, and being “an intimidating factor for other teams,” he said.

Griffin Klein (12), the setter of the team, stood out for his leadership and his setting

IN THE AIR Mally (12) spikes the ball. ability, Torres said. “It’s really hard to play volleyball without a great setter,” Mally said.

While there was limited practice time at the beginning of the season, as it went on, the team was able to refine their volleyball skills, communication, and build their team chemistry, Mally said. By the end of the season, the team played cohesively, and were contenders for the state championship, Mally said.

SUNSET GOLF Golfers walk on the course. nevertheless they were proud of themselves, Jayant said.

The team developed close friendships as the season progressed, both because of their shared interest in golf and everybody’s welcoming and friendly attitude, Jayant said. “Everyone had their big moments,” he said. “I was really proud of the group effort that we put in and I’m looking forward to continuing taking that momentum from last year into the next season.”

Boys Tennis — 13-1

Boys Volleyball — 10-3 Niki Pande/Staff Photographer

Courtesy of Golf Team

The Boys and Girls Crew teams practiced on the water throughout the season and ultimately attended the New York State Scholastic Championship Regatta, their first regatta since the pandemic, in Saratoga Springs.

“Being able to participate and row the regatta in and of itself is an accomplishment because of how hard it was to get out in the water and how we were racing against more experienced teams,” Miller Harris (11) said.

The Boys team placed seventh to last and the Girls team placed third to last, which disappointed both teams, but they were proud of themselves, Harris said. It was the only regatta the team attended due to logistical issues, but they bonded and had a memorable time having dinner before the meet, he said.

The team missed two seasons of rowing due to COVID-19, but with the leadership of captains Lauren Ho (12) and Mekhala Mantravadi (12), the team was able to adapt, crew coach Chelsea Ernst said.

The most rewarding moment was seeing the race, Ernst said. “Seeing them come down the racecourse – the first race in years – was great.

Courtesy of Barry Mason

GAME TIME FOCUS Grant (12) watches the ball. players to step in at big moments, and they did.”

Max Meyer’s (11) favorite moment during the season was celebrating their victory with BVT alumni who came back to support the team at their final match, he said. To celebrate their win, the team took photos together with the Ivy Preparatory League Championship trophy, Frangenberg said. “We were all excited, but knew we deserved it more than any other tennis team.”

Courtesy of Miller Harris

READY SET LAUNCH Rowers launch boat from dock.

That was really exciting for me as a coach.”

Despite not having much practice before the regatta — the Boys Four was only able to row on the water together for three practices — they became close friends as the season progressed, Harris said. “It did take a lot of effort from all of us,” he said. “We were able to go from what was a pretty shaky boat and not knowing if we’d be able to complete the course to understanding that we can row long distances and knowing what we should be doing, which was a great improvement.”

27

THE RECORD LIONS’ DEN JUNE 6TH, 2022

ING SEASON WITH A ROAR Girls Lacrosse— 1-13

Girls Golf — 3-4 Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

The Girls Golf Team was able to build a community and support one another throughout the season despite losing some of their matches, Sofia Filardo (10) said.

One of the highlights of the season for Filardo was going to Invitationals, a tournament where all the private schools compete against each other, she said. “We didn’t win, but we still all played our best and it was a good time overall playing against a bunch of schools.”

Sophie Li (9) stood out to Filardo as a dedicated member of the team because of her commitment and overall work ethic, Filardo said. “She won the coach’s award even though she’s a ninth grader,” she said. “She’s very committed to the team – she didn’t miss a single practice.”

Audrey Carbonell (11) stood out as a player to Lily Wender (10) because, as the only upperclassman, she provided a lot of guidance and leadership to the underclassmen, several of whom were new to the sport, she said.

The team mainly consisted of underclassmen, which helped them grow close and build a strong team dynamic, Wender said. “Because we’re a younger team, mostly sophomores and freshmen,

Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

Courtesy of Golf Team

SUNNY DAYS Girls Golf team poses for a pic after match. it means that the next few years we’ll also be a lot closer and tight knit which is very nice.”

Filardo was particularly proud of the teams’ win against Rye Country Day School because the team had many new players while Rye had several members who were more skilled than them, she said. “A lot of people just started playing golf, but by the end of [the season], they were scoring pretty well.”

Outdoor Track Nia Huff Staff Writer

This year, the Boys and Girls Varsity Outdoor Track teams succeeded on and off the field as each athlete became more driven, Julia Phillips (10) said.

Members of both teams made it to NYSAIS Championships creating an exciting end to the season, Spencer Kim (10) said. On the Boys team, six out of the eight members made the NYSAIS Competition, Kim said.

Daniel Schlumberger (12) was the teams’ most successful member, placing fifth in the 400 meters and sixth in 200 meters during NYSAIS, Kim said.

For the Girls team, Destiney Green (12), Allyson Wright (11), and Molly Zukerman (9) all made the competition. Zuckerman enjoyed NYSAIS as it allowed her to see her teammates’ work pay off and to accomplish her own goals, she said. The previous week, Zuckerman had fallen at the finish line and did not qualify, so, when she qualified at the next race, it made the moment even better, she said.

While not everyone qualified for NYSAIS, everyone improved tremendously, Suzette Sheft (10) said. Most set their own personal

The Girls Lacrosse team had a tough season, losing most of their matches and ending up with a record of 1-13, Rachel Kuhn (12) said.

The team had a rough start, because there were multiple new players, but throughout the season they became close friends and teammates, Kuhn said.

Throughout the season many of the players improved their stick work and overall ability on the field, Kuhn said. “We really improved and we could move the ball around the eight meter which we just couldn’t do at the beginning of the season.”

There were a few members of the team that stood out to Kuhn because of their skill. Audrey Goldberg (10) was an essential member of the team because of her stick skills, Kuhn said.

“She understands the game and she’s our best defender in my opinion,” she said.

Laila Farmer (12) also was a key player because of her abilities and strength, Kuhn said.

“She’s just an athletic beast,” she said. “She’s really good at all the sports she plays and her athleticism really shines through on the field.”

The first win came on Senior Day, which

Courtesy of Rachel Kuhn

BIG WIN Girls Lacrosse team poses after big win on senior night. made it emotional for the seniors, Kuhn said. “It was awesome to win on Senior Day and it meant a lot to me, Laila, and Scarlett as well. That was one of the best moments.”

The team always tried their hardest until the very end, she said. “In my opinion, our team never gave up one time during the season. Even if we were being [beaten] by a lot of goals we played until the very last minute.”

Rugby — 8-0 Courtesy of the Track Team

READY TO GO Track team poses at Icahn Stadium before the race. records and worked hard during practices, she said.

Despite setbacks of injuries and sickness, everyone kept on pushing to have a successful season, Kim said.

A highlight for Dylan Greenberg (10) was making it to the Ivy Championships and NYSAIS with his friends and getting faster, he said. “Track is a sport where everyone pushes each other to run faster and it feels more like a community than an individual sport.”

Isabella Ciriello Staff Writer

“Taking people from absolute beginners into a team that wins 65-10 is an accomplishment in itself,” Clementine Bondor (11) said. Despite having mostly new players, the Girls Rugby team won most of their games this season, finishing the season with a record of 8-1, Jojo Mignone (10) said.

The team grew close as the season progressed, Jojo said. “I had never even met some of the girls at the beginning of the season, but now we see each other outside of school and we’re friends.” she said.

“It’s nice to see people that I don’t have classes with or people that aren’t in my grade.”

To Bondor, both Catherine Mignone (12) and Jojo were stand out players because of the leadership they demonstrated, she said. “They were wonderful mentors to the rest of the team throughout the training process, because even though they came in with the most experience, they were very understanding [and] very supportive of everybody,” Bondor said.

In addition to being captain and MVP of the team, Catherine founded the team during her freshman year. Catherine is proud of the team’s bond, she said. “We really created something

Courtesy of Barry Mason

ON THE RUN Mignone (10) escapes defenders. beautiful as a varsity sport this year.”

This season was the team’s first time playing tackle and contact since 2019, Bondor said. Players could now tackle each other instead of tapping to signify a tackle — a former COVID-19 precaution — which was intimidating for Bondor at first, she said. “There is something about quite literally throwing yourself onto another person that builds confidence. So I would say we learned a lot about the courage that it takes to play a sport.”

Softball — 4-8

Ultimate — 6-4

Nia Huff Staff Writer

Nia Huff Staff Writer

Despite the loss of three starters at the start of the season, the Varsity Softball team excelled throughout the season as they worked together as a team and improved constantly, Eliza Becker (12) said.

Due to the number of players out from injuries, every player stepped up and tried different positions, not only making the team better, but allowing each player to improve individually, Zeba Packer (10) said.

One highlight during this season was during a game against Fieldston, where the team made a comeback and scored 13 runs in one inning, Emily Weidman (10) said. The team finished that game with a score of 25-13.

A few standout players to Becker were Claire Goldberg (12) and Mia Calzolaio (12).

Goldberg shined in offense as she constantly made huge hits and improved tremendously as the center fielder, Becker said. Additionally, Calzolaio’s defense and leadership played a significant role in the success of the team, she said.

Weidman also really enjoyed how many seniors were on the team as they brought

Courtesy of Arushi Talwar

TEAM HUDDLE The softball team discusses strategy mid-game. spirit and uplifted the team, she said.

Along with the big wins, the team experienced tough losses against Riverdale and Fieldston, costing them a spot in the NYSAIS tournament, Packer said. The team tragically lost by a few points at the end of the Riverdale game.

However, despite losses, the team improved on all fronts which yielded an undoubtedly successful season, Packer said.

The Ultimate Frisbee team had a successful spring season, qualifying for DiscNY playoffs as the fourth seed and holding an overall record of 6-4, Larry Tao (11) said.

Throughout the season, the team experienced improvements as evidenced through the players’ communication and teamwork both on and off the field, Rohan Buluswar (12) said. Specifically, the team worked on their set plays, strategies, and individual skills such as throwing and catching, all helping the team succeed towards the end of the season, Buluswar said.

Divya Ponda (11) attributed much of the team’s success to the dedication of the coaches and the seniors, who helped guide the team.

The team had a few big wins, Buluswar said.

In a game against Regis, the score was close, but the Lions were able to win. Similarly, in the game against Riverdale the team was first behind but they managed to win the last point, securing their spot in the first round of NYSAIS, he said.

Devin Allard-Neptune (12), Sam Singh (11), and Sareena Parikh (12) were strong in getting open on the field and catching the disc, Tao said.

Additionally, Buluswar and Nicholas Wong (11)

Courtesy of Ultimate team

EXECUTING PLAYS Ghosh (12) throws frisbee to Buluswar (12). helped the team maintain possession of the disc and throw the disc where needed, Tao said. Tuhin Ghosh (12) was an overall standout player who worked to support the team.

Ghosh appreciated how hard everyone worked to make the playoffs. This season was the first time there was a Junior Varsity and Varsity team which demonstrated the interest of the sport, allowing all players to improve regardless of their skill level, he said.

THIS YEAR IN HEADLINES All art by Riva Vig and Vivian Coraci/Art Directors

Fall School holds Homecoming in person for first time in two years (October 15th)

Varsity Water Polo celebrates historic win against Pingry (October 22nd)

School mandates vaccines for LD students (November 12th)

Winter Lutnick fish tank breaks, flooding hallway (December 3rd) The layered history of the dress code, from suits and ties to hoodies and leggings (December 10th)

School tightens mask policy enforcement (January 7th)

A whirlwind of letters: Wordle takes the school by storm (January 28th)

Community reacts to war in Ukraine

(March 4th)

Spring SCHOOL GOES MASK OPTIONAL (March 11th)

No safe spaces: Project X returns with renewed intensity (April 8th) Students weigh in on Justice Alito’s draft opinion

(May 13th)