In Brief

SPORTS BUSINESS CLUB WELCOMES LPGA COMMISSIONER

LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan P’22, a former coach and athletics administrator at Lawrenceville, returned in November to address the Sports Business Club. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images Sport)

Ladies Professional Golf Association commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan P’22 spoke to members of Lawrenceville’s Sports Business Club in November, sharing stories about her career and key lessons she has learned from working in the business side of sports.

After graduating from Princeton University, where she was an accomplished athlete, Marcoux Samaan came to Lawrenceville as the assistant athletic director and coach of the girls’ ice hockey and soccer teams. In 1995, she left the School to work for Chelsea Piers Management, where she gained extensive experience in the sports business industry. After spending almost two decades with Chelsea Piers, Marcoux Samaan was appointed athletic director at Princeton University, where she remained until early 2021, when she was named commissioner of the LPGA. — Ryan Jahn ’22

REMEMBERING THE DEAD: DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

Lawrentians gathered on November 1 to honor departed loved ones in the School’s celebration of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. To mark the event, students and staff screened the documentary film BBC Feasts: Day of the Dead, decorated sugar skulls and skull luminarias, and served Mexican treats on the Bath House Café patio. The event was cosponsored by student clubs Latinos Unidos and the Catholic Students Organization, along with the Religious Life Council and Bunn Library.

Alexis Gonzalez ’22, co-president of Latinos Unidos, was happy to see so many students and adults at the event. “I really appreciate that so many people came and hope that this will become a Lawrenceville tradition,” she said.

Community members were invited to add a photo to a Day of the Dead altar, which was decorated with flowers, candles, and other items representing the traditional Mexican holiday. Salt (to purify the soul), favorite foods and drink (for the soul to enjoy), and marigolds are traditional means of guiding souls to the altars, as are representative items recalling things that the person loved in life.

“Everything is about guiding the soul back home,” said Spanish teacher Josefina AyllónNuñez. “The altar is personal so the soul knows that this is the place for them to come.”

Photos of Lawrentians’ lost loved ones filled the altar during the School’s Día de los Muertos celebration on November 1 in Bunn Library.

ELLIS LEADS AT PEOPLE OF COLOR CONFERENCE

Math teacher Summar Ellis led a workshop, “Black Joy and Celebration,” at the 2021 National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) People of Color Conference (PoCC) in December.

“I feel very privileged, honored, and so excited,” Ellis said after she was announced in October.

PoCC is the flagship of NAIS’s commitment to equity and justice in teaching, learning, and organizational development. Its mission is to provide a safe space for leadership and professional development for people of color, and networking for people of color and allies of all backgrounds in independent schools.

“Black Joy and Celebration,” Ellis said, was a workshop centered around happiness in the Black community.

Summar Ellis led a workshop at a National Association of Independent Schools conference in December.

“It will be a space to escape the consistent display of Black tragedies and traumas by dedicating time to illuminate Black joy absent of oppression – an idea that seems impossible.” She also

looked at what it means to have a space dedicated to Blackness without trauma being the center of every conversation and ask how news outlets portray or purposely avoid this imagery.

BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ CROSS COUNTRY RUN TO M.A.P.L. TITLES

Both Big Red cross country teams legged out Mid-Atlantic Prep League team championships in October at The Hill School. The girls swept the top four spots, with Nishka Malik ’24 finishing first overall, just ahead of Elizabeth Parnell ’23, Allison Haworth ’22, and Megan Kumar ’24.

The boys were led by Thomas Atkinson ’22, who finished fifth overall. Taksh Gupta ’25 placed sixth, and Yan Tsenter ’23 crossed the finish line in ninth place to complete the strong Lawrenceville showing. — Zoha Khan ’22 and Alex Xia ’23

STRIKING GOLD AT MARTIAL ARTS CHAMPIONSHIP

Three members of Lawrenceville’s karate program participated at the World Tang Soo Do Association U.S. National Championship in October 8-9 in Pocono Manor, Pa. Rebecca Chou ’22 and Deyaan Guha ’22 competed as advanced brown belts, and karate coach Eli Montes was challenged at black belt. Chou captured two gold medals; Guha won two golds and a silver.

“I am so proud of these students,” said Montes, a first-degree black belt who is aiming to advance to second degree in the spring. “They’ve worked really hard for this, especially since they have had to deal with COVID-modified classes – over Zoom, outside, and inside with masks on – since they started.”

Ain’t That a Kick? Rebecca Chou ’22, Deyaan Guha ’22, and karate coach Eli Montes competed in the World Tang Soo Do Association U.S. National Championship. (photo

by Connor King ’22)

NOT GOING BY THE

BOOK Yanhong Zhang created her own text for Honors Chinese Language students.

“No one knows my students better than me,” said Yanhong Zhang, who spent parts of two summers creating an anthology of Chinese works appropriate for her Lawrenceville students.

Yanhong Zhang couldn’t find a highquality textbook for her students. The Chinese Honors Literature teacher wanted to further their Chinese language and cultural knowledge, but she felt that the content in the available texts wasn’t quite right.

So, she created her own.

Zhang spent parts of two summers creating an anthology of Chinese poetry, prose, plays, and song lyrics that would contain material appropriate for her Lawrenceville students.

“No one knows my students better than me,” said Zhang, who did the work with the support of a Lawrenceville School Woods Grant, a stipend that supports faculty summer curricular growth that will benefit students in the classroom.

Her anthology, Selected Reading of Modern Chinese Literature, includes 20 literary works by renowned Chinese writers. Each chapter includes the text of the literary work (with simplified and traditional characters), a vocabulary list, grammar highlights, Harkness discussion questions, and essay assignments.

“The selected works in this textbook are concise and easy to understand in terms of language expression,” Zhang said. “I avoided works with too many local slang words, overly colloquial expressions, or too formal of a writing style.”

Zhang’s anthology also gives Lawrentians a chance to revisit excerpts from a classic Chinese novel they read previously – in English – in their Second Form English class. Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China (Journey to the West, written in the 16th century). Her honors students also get a chance to read portions of “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” written in the 14th century, in Mandarin.

Last summer she added Dream of the Red Chamber, another work considered one of China’s great classical novels, written in the 18th century. It’s a book Zhang, who has a doctorate in linguistics, has drawn more from as she’s read it at different times in her life.

“I want my students to start on that journey,” she said.

Zhang works diligently to “honor the writer” in her translations, making meticulous word choices to express the author’s original nuances.

“The challenge for students is to understand the subtleties, especially between synonymous words,” she explained. “If you can master that information, it will help you precisely express yourself.”

After consulting with her peers at other schools, who face the same dilemma in finding appropriate texts for honors students, Zhang has begun submitting her anthology for publication.

“It’s not easy and it takes time,” she said. “But it’s OK, because my students find it useful.”

Zhang is happy to be back in her classroom this year, surrounded by students, as the School carefully moves closer to “normal” during the ongoing pandemic. On the first day of classes, she said, she felt so much positive energy from her students.

“They motivate me every day,” she said. “I’m so lucky to be a teacher.” — Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

GIRLS’ TENNIS SWEEPS M.A.P.L.

The girls’ tennis team swept all five flights at the Mid-Atlantic Prep League championship in October at Mercersburg Academy. “The team played with hustle, guts, and intelligence,” said head coach Dave Cantlay H’89 ’91 ’93 ’94 ’15 P’07 ’09 ’11. “It was all a joy to watch, just as these kids have been a consistent joy to coach all season long.” Title winners were: Sabrina Yeung ’22, first singles; Tiffany Yeung ’22, second singles; Piper Harrell ’22, third singles; Christabelle Sutter ’23, fourth singles; and the team first doubles tandem of Siri Larsson Regnstrom ’22 and Aarushi Attray ’23.

ALI ELECTED TO ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION NATIONAL COUNCIL

Zaheer Ali was tapped to serve on the national council of the Oral History Association.

Zaheer Ali, director of Lawrenceville’s Hutchins Institute for Social Justice, was elected to serve on the national council of the Oral History Association (OHA), the leading national organization of oral history practitioners since its founding in 1966.

Ali has worked as an oral historian for nearly two decades, collecting, preserving, interpreting, and sharing life histories, testimonies, memoirs, and narrations of people from all walks of life. He has interviewed hundreds of people, including public figures, private citizens, activists, artists, educators, students, business leaders, politicians, community organizers, and clergy members, as well as people of different ages, faith traditions, nationalities, sexual orientations, and racial, ethnic, and gender identities. Oral historians “gather, preserve, and interpret memories of people, communities, and participants in past events,” according to the OHA. It is both the oldest type of historical inquiry – predating the written word – and one of the most modern, now using 21st-century digital technology to capture narratives.

Ali came to oral history many years ago as a historian in search of primary sources that could help tell the stories of communities that were marginalized, ignored, and/or silenced in traditional archives.

ELEVEN SIGN NCAA NATIONAL LETTERS OF INTENT

Eleven Lawrenceville student-athletes signed NCAA National Letters of Intent on November 11, committing them to study at and compete for some of the nation’s finest colleges and universities. All members of the Class of 2022, they are:

Hanaway Croddick – rowing, Lehigh University Piper Harrell – lacrosse, Davidson College Kyley Toye – ice hockey, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Bella Koch – lacrosse, Bucknell University Charlotte Bednar – track and field, University of Notre Dame Brooks English – lacrosse, Johns Hopkins University Mel Josephson – lacrosse, University of Virginia Chris Begier – lacrosse, Bucknell University Mimi Brown – rowing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Annie Brown – rowing, University of California, Berkeley Astrid Gruber – rowing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BOYS’ WATER POLO WINS GARDEN STATE TOURNAMENT

The boys’ varsity water polo team captured the 2021 Garden State Tournament in October at Lawrenceville. The title is the team’s fourth in a row and its eighth since the tourney’s 2010 inaugural. Big Red entered the tournament with high expectations but received a harsh greeting from a strong Pingry School squad, which handed them a loss in the first game. Boys’ water polo won its fourth “The beauty of it was that that loss gave our kids consecutive Garden State Tournament. the necessary fuel to fire them up, and we dominated all the other games,” head coach Julio Alcantara Martin said. And dominate they did. In the next rounds, Big Red dominated St. Benedict’s Prep and St. Peter’s Prep before downing Pingry in the final, 11-7.

Goalie Bradley Barrett ’23 shone brightly, as did Akeil Smith ’23, who led the team with 11 goals, followed by Max Blecher ’23, with ten. Barrett made 25 saves over the four matches.