The Horace Mann Record RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG
HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903
SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2018 || VOLUME 116, ISSUE 3
Take Back the Tap initiative targets plastic bottle usage Jack Crovitz Contributing Writer Take Back the Tap, a waste-conscious initiative led by Natalie Sweet (10), will be implemented at the school for the second year in a row to decrease the student body’s plastic usage and encourage environmentally friendly practices. The initiative aims to reduce the use of disposable plastic bottles in the cafeteria by incentivizing students to bring their own eco-friendly reusable water bottles. To accomplish this, Take Back the Tap will be supplying the cafeteria with coolers containing naturally flavored water on Fridays. “Take Back the Tap is for students to be aware of the amount of plastic bottles that are used by the school every day and also to reduce the amount of bottles used,” Sweet said.
Annabelle Chan/Contributing Artist
Parent Association kicks off the new year Sam Keimweiss Staff Writer with Additional Reporting by Nistha Sharma
The Upper Division Parents Association (UDPA) kicked off the year yesterday when chairs Cecile Caer P’19 ’21 ’24 and Benay Taub P’13 ‘17 ’19 ’22 led a meeting outlining their plans for the future. The meeting covered the year’s calendar, protocol, and general advice for planning events, 11th Grade Representative Ellen Bender P’16 ’20 said. In the second half of the meeting, UDPA Secretary Amy Federman P’21 taught parents the procedure necessary to plan an event, Bender said. This meeting was especially important because it is difficult to get all the PA representatives in one place, Caer said. Within the UDPA, there are many committees, from the book fair committee to the athletics committee, Caer said. Beginning their second two-year term as co-chairs, Caer and Taub plan to expand their collaboration with UD Head Dr. Jessica Levenstein, Caer said. Last year, they worked with Levenstein to put together workshops for parents focused on student life skills, she said. “We wanted to have some events that were more focused on things she had implemented regarding some of the topics we think that parents should be more aware of,” Caer said. Last year’s topics included sexual health and drugs, she said. This year, due to the popularity of the events, Caer
and Taub plan to work with grade representatives to have more talks and cover more topics, such as screen time and social media, Caer said. Other topics covered included discussing the PA’s annual events, such as Book Fair and the International Food Festival, financing for the upcoming year, and creating a more accessible PA for working parents who can’t make meetings, Caer said. “A lot of [parents], for example, are going back to work, so they are not as available as they used to be when the students were younger,” she said. “We want to be as inclusive as possible, we want the events to be as accessible as possible,” PA President Grace Peak P’21 said. Bender has been involved with the PA for 13 years serving various roles, she said. After a oneyear hiatus, she was “pleasantly surprised to see how organized everything was,” she said. In past years scheduling was an issue, so a large part of the meeting was spent urging parents to be on top of dates, Bender said. The UDPA is part of the larger PA, which spans all divisions, but the UD poses unique challenges for parents, Caer said. “A lot of times we feel that [our kids] don’t need us, or we don’t need to be there to help in any way,” she said, “But in fact it’s really fun and interesting to still be involved in the upper school.” Part of the joy of working in the UDPA is collaborating with students, she said. “It’s a way for us as parents to realize the level of maturity that they are achieving.”
The school’s Take Back the Tap initiative is based on similar initiatives to reduce usage of disposable water bottles at institutions such as the University of Chicago and Cornell University. Many of the school’s strategies have been inspired by these programs. However, Horace Mann represents the first high school to open a Take Back the Tap chapter, Sweet said. The school’s Take Back the Tap chapter is also unique for its strategy of flavored water coolers and posters to encourage reusable instead of disposable bottles. Although Luke Weber (11) has noticed the water coolers in the cafeteria, he is “not aware of Take Back the Tap’s goals,” he said. Take Back the Tap “seems like it has a good intention, and I’m sure some people use it, but I’ve never used it,” Lowell Finster (10) said. However, Luke Weber (10) believes many students are not aware of their environmental impact, he said. To improve Take Back the Tap during this school year, Sweet has been asking students what they want from the program, she said. “I’m trying to create more incentives to participate by taking suggestions from people,” she said. These suggestions, which students can send to Sweet by email, have included requests for sales of reusable water bottles at the school, putting up more posters, having flavored water coolers more often, and speaking about Take Back the Tap at assemblies, she said. However, there are other ways students can help with Take back the Tap’s mission, Sweet said. The most simple thing a student has to do to be involved in the initiative is to “just bring your water bottle to school,” she said.
Juli Moreira/Art Director
Student Ambassador program revamps tours and applications Jude Herwitz Staff Writer
INSIDE
The Student Ambassador program has undergone changes in its application process and tours since former Middle Division Head Robin Ingram and Director of Admissions Jason Caldwell have taken over leadership of the program,. One of the largest changes to the program has been the elimination of eighth grade ambassadors, decreasing the size of the program. “It got way too big, so with the natural fracture of Mr. Garrison leaving and me coming, Dr. Kelly, Mr. Caldwell, and Ms. Moreira made the decision, ‘Let’s shrink it a little,’” Ingram said. The program has decreased from around 171 ambassadors last year among five grades to 150 among four. The switch permits more students per grade to be ambassadors, allowing the program to be more inclusive and eliminating some of the competition, Garrison said. “We didn’t like saying no to so many students who just genuinely wanted to express a passion about the school to families and spent so much time going through the process to apply,” Registrar and former head of the Student Ambassador program Chris Garrison said. The change also aims to reach a more diverse section of the student body and to make sure that mentors “represent the diversity of possibilities here, especially in the Middle and
Lying in church
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Vivien Sweet (10) discusses her struggles to balance truth and religion.
Juli Moreira/Art Director
Upper divisions,” Ingram said. Another major adjustment has been the elimination of applications for ambassadors. Instead, grade deans and Admissions Office members will pick students whom they wish to invite to the program, Ingram said. There were only 19 students invited to be ambassadors this
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Teachers reveal the path to a PhD and what led them there.
year, down from around 50 accepted applications in years past. The goal of the decision was to reduce the competition around admission to the program, according to an email Ingram wrote to the Upper Division. Young Joon Kim (12), one of the Student Ambassador Leaders this year, views his role as perhaps more important than previous leaders due to the transition and believes he and the other student leaders will be able to offer helpful experience, especially at open houses, he said. In addition to adjustments in program size, ambassadors will also need to contend with the new task of touring Lutnick Hall, which will require fitting the tour to a 45 minute period and knowledge of the new building. To account for the increased amount of space to cover, ambassadors will ask prospective families what their interests are and prioritize those while putting less emphasis on other areas, Ingram said. Another strategy that may be used is to “walk and talk,” Lexi Levy (11) said. Although the campus was already large, the increased ground means that she will need to answer questions while moving instead of stopping for in-depth answers, she said. Ingram plans on having ambassadors teach each other about areas in which they themselves have a lot of experience so that each ambassador will be able to talk about the school as a whole, she said.
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Community members share their love for reading.
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