The Nueva Current | September 2018

NETFLIX ROM-COMS

INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

CONSTRUCTION WORK

NUEVA VOLLEYBALL

Netflix Originals has entered the fray of teenage rom-coms. In this review, we discuss which ones worked and which ones didn't.

Katie Saylor, who takes over from Hillary Freeman as Director of the Internship Program, is excited to expand the opportunities to students and companies. p. 10

Current construction limits space, and with the addition of 115 freshmen, open campus rules are changing.

Nueva's volleyball team directs their focus this season to playing at a higher level and staying healthy in a hope for playoffs. p. 13

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The Nueva Current SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

NEWS

Dr. Jane Goodall delivers speech on hope and activism Ethologist and conservationist recognizes her mother's impact and shares reasons for hope Antonetta T. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, Nueva hosted ethologist, scientist, and activist Dr. Jane Goodall, who shared her inspiring life story along with the hopes she has for a more propitious future.

Lower, middle, and upper school students filed into the San Mateo campus gym. Her talk highlighted some of the most significant moments of her life, including what led her to her groundbreaking research. She also emphasized how influential the supportive people in her life truly were.

A legend in the conservationist community, Goodall ventured from England to Tanzania in

1960, where she would open a window into the life of chimpanzees and change people’s understanding of what animals were capable of. Renowned for her revolutionary work in this field, Goodall has built a career in shared insight into the pressing matter of species and habitat deterioration and promoted the importance of species conservation.

She began by describing her early childhood, sharing stories that revealed her boundless curiosity with nature and science. She also acknowledged how impactful her mother’s early influence was.

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OLD FRIENDS: Introducing students to her stuffed animal friends, Dr. Jane Goodall explains that her stuffed monkey, Mr. H, has explored the world with her—they have been to over 50 countries together.

(Photo by Willow C. Y.)

FEATURES

OPINION

SPORTS

With Nueva's new branding now unveiled, members of the community ask questions about what identity and brand mean at a school.

NOT SO CRAZY ABOUT CRAZY RICH ASIANS

CROSS COUNTRY UPDATE

"Beyond the glitz and glam of Rachel Chu and Nick Young’s enchanting story of love, heartbreak, resilience, identity, and family, something seemed off."

All four cross-country teams dug deep in the heat to find success at the first meet in the PSAL League.

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Volume 2, Issue 1

131 E. 28th Ave. San Mateo, CA 94403 www.thenuevacurrent.com The official student newspaper of The Nueva School

2 / NEWS

Campus Construction Update What's been happening outside classrooms?

What's the progress on the construction of the new building?

Alyssa H. It’s a new year, and with the construction of the new wing well under way, the school is buzzing with anticipation. An enormous class of 115 freshman has flooded the halls of the Upper School, and the hallways are a constant obstacle course of backpacks. However, there is relief in sight.

It’s widely known in the community that a new west wing is being built as an addition to the relatively new Bay Meadows campus. With an projected completion of July 8, 2019, the west wing promises about 7,300 square feet of occupied space for more classrooms and additional I-Lab and art spaces for students to learn and explore in. The courtyard of the wing will also provide the community with a larger artificial turf field to play on.

As of Sept. 17, the first steel support column for the building’s infrastructure was put up. Steve Osborne, Director of Facilities & Operations, foresees no major setbacks in the months of construction to come. Osborne believes that hot and dry weather might become a challenge, but does not predict it will cause any delay. He expects the entire steel infrastructure will be up by Oct. 9. After the steel is put up you can expect to see the flooring being put in, Osborne said.

The west wing will also continue to uphold the environmentally friendly standard the current Bay Meadows campus has set as a certified LEED Platinum building.

LEED, an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, has four categories—platinum being the highest standard among them. According to Osborne, the Bay Meadows campus accomplishes this through its LED lighting, solar capacities, and other such energy-efficient systems.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

All aboard the Falkor Environmental Earth Science elective tours oceanographic research vessel Joshua Y. Jeremy Jacquot and nine students in his Environmental Earth Science class were granted a rare opportunity to tour one of the most advanced research vessels in the world: the RV Falkor. Currently docked in San Francisco at Pier 15, at the end of the Exploratorium, the ship’s mission is “to advance ocean research, discovery, and knowledge, and to share information about the ocean with scientists and citizens worldwide.”

The science elective went hoping “to learn about what the ship does and how it examines and conducts experiments related to this topic,” Jacquot said.

The Falkor is the flagship vessel of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit established in 2009 to advance oceanographic research and discovery, as well as catalyze sharing information about the oceans. The Falkor was converted from a German fisheries vessel to the research ship it is today in 2012. The conversion was funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy.

The scientists and researchers aboard are allowed free access to the vessel in exchange for a commitment to openly share the outcomes of their research, including the raw observations and data, with the public.

“When I was on the annual tenthgrade trip to Costa Rica, one of the volunteers who came to help on the work was one of the officers on the RV Falkor,” Jacquot explained. “We had been talking about my interest in marine sciences. Afterwards, he generously of-

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ANCHOR DOWN Nico L. (11), Kayla W. (12), Cevi B. (11), Isa A. (11), and Izzy S. (11) toured the RV Falkor while it was currently docked outside the Exploratorium in San Francisco. (Photo by Jan Patton)

fered to take us on a tour when the ship came back to San Francisco. We were just really lucky.”

Many science experiments are conducted on the RV Falkor. There is an ongoing water sampling test, which gathers data on the water potability, salinity, and cleanliness. This ship has many technological advancements as well. For example, they have autonomous robots as well as remote-controlled ones capable of penetrating the deeper parts of the ocean where humans can’t reach. These can collect more samples for different experiments as well as show the people on the ship the view from down below.

Jacquot hopes that the field trip will be able to help spread this exposure to marine biology; he hopes to be able to teach a future marine biology elective at Nueva. He recalls that when he first taught a marine science class three years ago, his dream was to take a group of kids onto an actual boat that does this kind of research to give them firsthand experience.

DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY 1: A group of tenth-graders gather outside during the dance to sing, play guitar, play cards, and kick around a soccer ball in a space illuminated by fairy lights.

2: Students at the dance sit down in response to "SAD!" by XXXTentacion, an emerging rapper from South Florida whose death in June of this year has caused much sadness.

3: Garlands of folded-paper pineapples, inflatable palm trees, and beach balls decorate the spaces in the gym, keeping with the theme of "tropical" and "the last days of summer." Students won points for their houses if they came dressed up in properlythemed attire for the night.

(Photos by Willow C. Y.)

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GROWING IN SIZE AND SPACE Heavy machinery was in full operation on Sept. 17 as a massive crane rolled onto campus and began erecting steel support columns. (Photo by Willow C.Y.)

“There are also many other organizations similar to this one in the [San Francisco] Bay that do not necessarily perform shipboard research, but also stuff like mentoring projects and looking at data sets,” Jacquot said. “Hopefully this trip can galvanize students’ interest in these topics by seeing what's possible to do at sea and [the practical] applications back here.”

One burning question that Jacquot and his students had was how much of these experiments done onboard on the ship can be recreated back on land in a laboratory.

While it is docked in San Francisco, the Falkor is open to free tours through the Exploratorium. However, the Nueva group received a special tour to the engine room.

The Falkor is preparing for its next expedition: to explore hydrothermal vents off the coast of California.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

NEWS / 3

INSPIRING CONSERVATIONISM LEFT: The room delivered a standing ovation for Dr. Jane Goodall as she concluded her speech with, ”I'm pretty sure that you're going to rise to [the challenge] and join us [in making] the world a better place."

ABOVE: Students from the middle school listen attentively to Dr. Goodall as she speaks about her revolutionary experiences with chimpanzees, as well as how they can help change the world. (Photos by Tomo G.)

Dr. Jane Goodall delivers speech on hope and activism

The Story Behind Mr. H

On second visit to Nueva, beloved scientist and activist speaks at all-school event to inspire students Antonetta T. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

As a young girl, Goodall once hid out in a hen house for hours—she wanted to discover how an egg is laid. She was gone for so long, her family grew worried and had called the police when she finally emerged.

“And instead of getting mad at me, [my mother] saw my shining eyes and sat down to hear the wonderful story of how a hen lays an egg,” Goodall said. “Isn’t that the making of a little scientist?

Curiosity, asking questions, not getting the right answer, deciding to find out for yourself, making mistakes, not giving up, and learning patience. It was all there. And a different kind of mother might have crushed that early curiosity.

And I tell that story because some of you will become parents. Just remember that support I had from my mother led me to do what I’ve done and be what I am.”

Years later, after reading the Tarzan books, she became interested in traveling to Africa to observe the wild animals there. Commencing her journey was an extremely difficult process, which included a long time spent saving up to travel.

“That was when my dream began. I will grow up, I will go to Africa, I will live with wild animals and I will write books about them. There was no idea in my mind about becoming a scientist because women just didn’t become that kind of scientist back then,” Goodall admitted. “And everybody laughed at me. How would I get to Africa? It was far away, we called it the dark continent, we didn’t know much about it...Jane, get real. Dream about something you can achieve. Forget this nonsense about Africa. But not my mother.”

Later, she shared that the greatest piece of wisdom she has gotten in her life was from her mother, who said, “If you really want this thing, you’re going to have to work really hard and take

advantage of all opportunities. But don’t give up.” This stuck with Goodall for all of her life, and became a frequent phrase she told children she met to motivate them to continue to pursue their passions, particularly with young people in disadvantaged communities.

Goodall also outlined her time in Gombe, where she had a firsthand look into chimpanzees’ lives. She began to notice that each one of them had a differing personality, some shyer than others, and that they, too, used tools in their everyday lives. These discoveries were groundbreaking, and her research methods were uncommon. When she traveled to Cambridge University to get her degree in ethology, they told her that chimpanzees did not have unique personalities, as those were limited to humans, and that she had misconducted her research.

“I think what impacted me most was to be told I had done everything wrong, and I knew I hadn’t,” Goodall said.

Through her persistence, Goodall was able to persuade the research community of her findings, ultimately becoming one of the most influential figures in conservation.

Goodall then discussed her continued work on a number of different projects, and how she came to identify as an activist. After attending the Understanding Chimpanzees conference in 1986, hosted by the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Goodall’s perspectives changed drastically upon hearing the conditions chimpanzees were subjected to as test subjects in research laboratories.

“I went to that conference as a scientist; I left as an activist,” Goodall said. “And since then, I haven’t been more than three weeks in any one place.”

Now, she spends her days traveling and raising awareness about the environmental crisis, trying to educate and inspire her audiences into having a positive impact on the world. Her efforts led her to found the Jane Goodall

Institute, dedicated to promoting greater protection for chimpanzees as well as supporting further research in Gombe.

Eventually, when students began reaching out to her to see how they might get involved, she created Roots & Shoots, a youth-led program focused on giving younger people the resources to become involved, educated, and compassionate individuals.

This is not the first time Goodall has come to the school. In fact, Goodall visited 20 years ago during the 19961997 school year, when Colin Tribble, the seventh-grade dean and humanities teacher, was in first grade at Nueva. At the time, the entire school was able to fit in the ballroom.

“It was more intimate than what we experienced at Bay Meadows,” Tribble recalled. At the time, he was a first grade student at Nueva; while he admits that he doesn’t remember much, he did describe his fascination with the activist and scientist at the time.

“She seemed like a kind, quiet, but confident old lady,” Tribble said. “She was passionate about the animals and the environment.”

Goodall spoke about similar things in this visit, including her background in animal welfare and her current programs, as well as encouraging students to participate in Roots & Shoots. Tribble even remembers a Roots & Shoots festival that took place afterwards in the school’s parking lot, where they raised money for this cause.

Goodall ended her talk with a call to action, motivating students to join her in protecting the Earth.

“I hope that if they were feeling hopeless about the future, they have regained some hope.” Goodall said. “If they were thinking that they couldn’t make a difference, that they realize they can.”

Mr. H was given to Dr. Jane Goodall by a man named Gary Horn, who lost his eyesight at age 21. Horn became a magician despite the comments people made about how blindness and learning magic don't go together.

"Things might go wrong in your life—we never know.

But if they do, don't give up; there's always a way forward," said Horn.

Since he lost his vision, Horn has climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, gone on skydiving and shark-watching adventures, and completed cross-country skiing runs.

Goodall says that Mr. H reminds her of Horn, and that he continues to inspire her. The "H" in his name is a symbol of Goodall's hope for the world.

4 / CULTURE

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

Cliché or Replay?

Netflix enters the teen rom-com sphere with three new original films

STREAM OR SKIP The powerhouse production studio that is Netflix has been churning out original movies. All three of these teen rom-coms were based on other source material: a Wattpad story, a popular YA novel, and a play written in 1897.

You’ve probably heard or seen around the internet the names of Flynn, Peter Kavinsky, or Noah Centineo this summer, and if you haven’t, you clearly didn’t spend much time online over your break. (Good for you.) Netflix released three romantic comedies to its audience of over 100 million subscribers, the first arriving in May and the latest just a few weeks ago. Filled with crushes, heartbreak, drama, and a healthy dash of awwinducing moments, these new rom-coms made us squeal with excitement and realize how drastically this genre has changed over the years—or not, in some cases. A word of caution before reading: some spoilers lie ahead.

Totally forgettable

Standout performance

Surprisingly unlikable

Isabel C. THE KISSING BOOTH Overdone, cheesy, predictable and surprisingly sexist, The Kissing Booth, an overdone movie hidden behind a creative name, really isn’t worth the watch. Released on May 11, Netflix’s teen-targeted rom-com drew both love and hate from viewers.

As someone who loves a good rom-com but knows that they usually aren’t that spectacular, I wasn’t expecting much—just a story based on the usual stereotype of a unnoticed girl pining for the guy who she can’t have, either because he doesn’t notice her or because she isn’t allowed to date him. I was pretty much right. While I expected the movie to be similar to other teen fiction books I’ve enjoyed in the past, I didn’t know how overdone the film would be until I heard it was based on a book originally published on Wattpad, the popular web platform for reading and self-publishing stories. Most books on the site are either very typical teen romance novels or fanfiction. Originally posted to the website in 2011, by 2012 it had amassed over 19 million reads and 40 thousand upvotes on Wattpad.

So what’s the premise? Elle Evans (Joey King) has been best friends with Lee Flynn (Joel Courtney) since birth. Their friendship has endured because of an agreed-upon set of ironclad rules: like not dating Lee’s handsome older brother Noah Flynn (Jacob Elordi), the bad boy who wears a leather jacket everywhere in Los Angeles, rides a motorcycle, and gets into physical altercations with other students. When the best friends host a kissing booth at a fair fundraiser, the booth brings Elle and Noah together, allowing for a slew of problems to proceed. The standard rom-com storyboard of the best friend getting in the way of romance has been done so many times before, and here the story never transcends its predictable themes. The girl gets the boy either through a jealous encounter or a broken friendship, but either way rules (in this case, Elle and Lee’s) are usually broken. There is no depth, no character growth, and side characters don’t seem to be shown much—or contribute anything at all.

Admittedly, I enjoyed it at first. I found the kissing booth to be a slightly creative (although how the physical booth ever got past school administration approval confuses me) addition to the story. What I disliked was the blatant sexism. When Elle gets ready for the first day of junior year and rips her pants, the skirt she’s outgrown gets her catcalled and ogled by seemingly every guy at the school, leading to a fight over her honor, and a trip to the principal’s office, where both her best friend and the principal tell her she was asking for it. In the climate we live in today, these types of movie scenes should be behind us.

In the long run, a movie should have

memorable characters. Elle Evans, while a acceptable character, isn’t great, just generic, leaving me trying to recollect any memorable moments less than a month after watching the film.

TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE Clichéd, but produced well, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (based on the popular YA novel of the same name by Jenny Han) brought the audience a touching, creative, heartwarming story, leaving many on the internet wanting a Peter Kavinsky of their very own. I was excited for this movie to come out as soon as the trailer was posted in July. The story felt new and innovative, as it centers around secret love letters being unexpectedly mailed and a resulting fake relationship. The characters were diverse, adult topics were handled with maturity, the LGBT character wasn’t played as a stereotype, and almost all the main characters have more depth and story to them beyond a name and face.

The movie got heaps of praise when it arrived in early August for its diverse cast, headlined by Vietnamese-American actress Lana Condor playing half-Korean half-Caucasian lead Lara Jean Song Covey. If it weren’t for Jenny Han’s persistence, this movie would be very different from her book. Han recalled the struggle to find a production company that would keep the main character Asian in a recent interview with People magazine. “It was a difficult position,” Han explained. “You have to say no again and again.”

In the past decade or so, Hollywood has come in for a lot of fire for not casting Asian actors for Asian roles—like when Scarlett Johansson played the role of Japanese character Motoko Kusanagi in a remake of Ghost in the Shell—so this movie made a lot of people happy.

Condor’s stunning performance as Lara Jean allowed us to connect with her character; her anxieties and angst resonated with us.

Becuase of the depth that was given other characters, I could understand their feelings as well. Having a younger sibling myself, I could relate to both Lara Jean and Kitty, but I could also see Peter Kavinsky’s (played by Noah Centineo) side. The personal growth that these characters experience during the movie made me root for them. As someone who is quite introverted and lives in her own fantasies, I found myself excited for Lara Jean, her personal success in becoming a more confident person a hopeful thought for both me and other reserved teenagers.

SIERRA BURGESS IS A LOSER Despite a promising trailer (notwithstanding revealing almost the entire story within two minutes), Sierra Burgess is a Loser disappointed in so many ways. The storyline, based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac, seemed interesting at first: a popular boy by the name

of Jamey (Noah Centineo) mistakenly texts Sierra Burgess (Shannon Purser, known for her portrayal of “Barb” on another Netflix Original, Stranger Things), a studious and unpopular plain teenageer, mistaking her number for that of the pretty cheerleader Veronica (Kristine Froseth). Instead of revealing her identity, Sierra continues their texting, leading Jamey on in behavior known as catfishing.

I thought that with catfishing (the act of luring someone into a relationship while pretending to be someone else) being a modern topic, the film would address the problems associated with it. But I found myself in the unique position of rooting for the antagonist (Veronica) to get the guy instead for a slew of reasons.

While I applaud the casting and the movie’s attempts to address toxic insecurities these girls may face in high school, having Sierra use these self-doubts as an excuse for her bad behaviour is kind of disgusting. With the #MeToo movement still fresh, Sierra using her fears about herself to justify kissing Jamey while he believes her to be someone else feels icky. Sierra uses the same excuse when, after gaining Veronica’s trust, she leaks photos of her new best friend to engineer Veronica’s social downfall. When she uses her lack of confidence and insecurities about herself to justify questionable choices and actions, it reveals how weak her character is, which makes her really unlikeable.

The homophobic and transphobic jokes also turned me off this film. At one point, Sierra fakes being deaf in front of Jamey and his brother to avoid revealing her identity. Movies these days should aim to avoid these types of jokes and offensive comments. I’m not the only one who feels this way: the scene where Sierra pretends to be deaf generated significant backlash. Actor, model, and deaf activist Nyle DiMarco lashed out at Netflix, saying on Twitter, “When I learned [about my friend’s deaf son being in the movie], I was elated. Finally more deaf actors/representation & ASL inclusion in films.... Only to find out the deaf character was written and used for a terrible joke. PS- pretending to be deaf is NOT ok.”

But there are some parts that I enjoyed and would love to see more of in other films.

Sierra Burgess is a Loser stepped away from typical chick-flick casting tropes by hiring a larger actress whose character doesn’t seem to let any of the insults thrown at her diminish her personality, even though she struggles with her own lack of confidence.

Overall, while I appreciate aspects of Sierra’s character, like her confidence and personality, the offensive joking and the actions and self-justifying she engages in throughout the movie without any repercussions make Sierra Burgess an unlikable protagonist.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / 5

The difficulty of defining “internet addiction”

Recent interest in and attempts to define “internet addiction” raise questions as to whether a consensus can be reached— and whether the disorder exists at all Grace H. In recent years, the general public has become far more aware of the possible dangers of technology overuse. Chief among these concerns is what is being called “internet addiction,” a term that is used in both informal conversation and more formal scientific papers or news articles. In early September alone, the SF Chronicle, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Daily Mail—along with countless other publications—have run articles that mention internet addiction and its supposed effects. It appears in contexts varying from USA Today’s “Obamamania is a burst of optimism in an era of Donald Trump” to The New York Times's opinion piece “The Big Myth About Teenage Anxiety.”

It’s been the focus of the Journal of Medical Internet Research and has been mentioned in the Upper School's neuroscience class.

However, despite the public interest and rapidly expanding body of research on the subject, there is yet to be a unified definition of internet addiction—or even consensus as to whether it exists in the first place. In the DSM-5, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, internet gaming addiction is classified as a condition for further study.

An article published in 2014 identified no fewer than 45 tools— including both self-reporting questionnaires and diagnostic criteria models based on the DSM—that have been used to assess internet addiction, and only 17 that have been evaluated

more than once in terms of their psychometric properties. Additionally, though many psychologists argue that internet addiction is similar to gambling addiction—and thus ought to be classified as an addiction itself—there is some doubt as to whether internet addiction is a secondary manifestation of a comorbid or underlying psychiatric disorder rather than being an independent issue.

The initial set of criteria for defining internet addiction was proposed by Kimberly S. Young, the founder of the Center for Internet Addiction, in an issue of the CyberPsychology and Behavior journal first published in 1998, nine years before the release of the first iPhone. This set of criteria is based loosely upon the DSM criteria for pathological gambling, and characterizes internet addiction as an impulse disorder in which the individual experiences intense preoccupation with internet use, difficulty managing time spent on the internet, irritation when disturbed while online, and decreased “real world” interactions. Unfortunately, this particular definition encounters the same pitfall as all of the DSM definitions for mental disorders—they are defined by behaviors rather than mental states, a fact that introduces a great deal of inherent inaccuracy, since many mental states can produce the same behavior and, likewise, numerous behaviors can be indicators of a singular mental state.

In this particular case, Luke De, the head of Nueva's research program and the neuroscience teacher, has an idea of how the scientific community could reduce the impact of this imprecision.

Behind the website migration team

Student interns helped develop the new website

“The trick, as far as fixing it goes, is saying, ‘whatever this thing is, whether it be internet addiction or whatever, let’s define it both behaviorally and mechanistically, so you know it’s this behavior that you see when you have this characteristic,” De said.

Though this list of features may appear to be a unified definition, there is still a lot of debate as to whether or not internet addiction can be defined as addiction to the internet as an individual entity, even after it is assumed that it can be defined at all.

In a 2013 paper, Kuss et al. suggest that there are several distinct subtypes of internet addiction, including online shopping, gaming, and social media.

Likewise, Widyanto et al. argue that individuals can be addicted to the experiences or activities presented through an internet-based medium, but not to the internet itself.

That said, even if the scientific community is able to reach consensus on the definition of internet addiction, De believes that it will be a long time before the new information will reach the general populace, and even longer before any political action is taken relative to the decision. In order to explain what how that maps to a more precise timeframe, he said, “I think a lot of the addiction stuff that we saw in the 90s, 2000s is coming to the surface now, and I don’t think there’s

Aliya G. Over the summer, a group of students, including three current Nueva students, worked as interns supporting Nueva's rebranding efforts.

These students were Benjamin L. (11), Noelle F. (12), and Stephanie S. (10).

In contrast to some of the vocal student critics of the rebranding, they feel positive about the new school brand and were grateful for the internship experience.

Going into the internship, the students did not know entirely what to expect. Noelle was particularly excited to redesign the Nueva website. As she put it, “The old one... had significant room for improvement.”

They were generally surprised by how much of the stylistic work had already been completed before they began, and there was less coding involved than expected.

Working under Julia Barzizza, Nueva’s digital content specialist, they carried out the bulk of the website migration—the painstaking process of transferring all of the content: web pages, files, photos, and forms. Their other tasks included structuring different user groups and reformatting all of the pages, converting them into something more in line with the new design vision. Working out of a classroom on the third floor, they wrote SEO descriptions—SEO standing for search engine optimization—and what sites show up on on Google Search.

While a lot of the design details had already been finalized, the interns were supplied with style guides to ensure the pages all adhered to and reflected the new brand.

ILLUSTRATION BY EUGENIA X.

legislation that deals with addiction as it is mechanistically understood, but I think it is heading that way.”

However, there was some of what may debatably be considered hope in terms of how quickly the information would be spread through the population through the vehicle of pop science. “[Although] I think that as a whole we’re probably going to be just propagating stereotypes and misunderstandings that we have, there’s some evidence of change and I think that people like to know one more thing than the people around them, so that might be a way to harness people’s vanity to get them to figure out what’s going on,” De said. “It is going to be beneficial in calling attention to an issue that is currently not as seen.”

“It was really an exercise in problem solving,” Benjamin said. “You know, all sorts of questions that would lead to other questions.”

What made the project most exciting for him was the consistent completion of different tasks. “We were always making progress—the team I worked with was amazing at getting things done, whether it was creating new pages, puzzling out ideas, or moving 500-plus news stories,” he said.

For Noelle, there were certainly aspects of the internship which she knew well; however, she didn’t expect the range of different tasks they undertook. She said, “It really put into perspective the kind of work that goes on behind the scenes.”

After the rebranding was unveiled, Benjamin’s perception is that people are most concerned with the logo rather than the website, although some people have mentioned that they found the website redesign unnecessary.

That being said, general consensus among the branding interns, who looked over every single page of the old website, was that it was incredibly disorganized. Benjamin described the old brand and website as “chaotic” while Noelle finds the new site to be “a big step up.” Benjamin also pointed out that the web redesign may seem unnecessary to students because they never use the external site.

“We're not really the target audience,” he said. “The consistency is good for the school's image—it might not be for us, but it's for the sake of prospective parents and students and colleges who don't yet know who we are.”

6 / FEATURES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

“Life doesn't have to be linear” Drawing upon his diverse experiences, new Director of College Counseling provides guidance, support to seniors Elizabeth B. P. As the stress of the college process simmers through the fall and seniors agonize over Common Application essay prompts, the college counseling team gears up for business, now led by a new face in the community: Gavin Bradley.

With a diverse skill set and experience ranging from coaching to the military, he looks forward to helping seniors through their college applications.

An educator for the past 23 years, Bradley has worked in a variety of areas: he has joined the Marines, worked as a logistics analyst, coached football, and taught history. It took a while to find his niche in college counselling, and for him, the journey has been an exciting, enriching, and rewarding process.

Bradley grew up as a son of a professor, and ended up as a basketball player in high school who eventually became recruited. Athletics played a large part in his college process. He later dropped out to join the Marines. After that, with the encouragement of the Marine Corps, he decided to go back to school and ended up conducting most of his own research on colleges.

“My friends saw me applying to college and got interested in what I was doing, so I helped a few of them. Which may be why I’m a college counselor now,” Bradley said, who considered his time as a Marine to be an essential part of figuring out what he wanted to do—in fact, as a kind of four-year gap year.

“The thing I took away from my college process was that life doesn’t have to be linear, the year after high school doesn’t necessarily need to be ‘13th’ grade, the idea of a gap year may be the best thing for some people,” Bradley said. “I’m not sure most people need four gap years like I had, crawling around in swamps and deserts, wearing funny green clothes, and getting up at five am every morning—but it sure did me a lot of good, and taking time before or during college may feel odd but can pay off in many unexpected ways.”

With the resources the college counselling department has, Bradley wants to make sure to support students in finding schools that fit them well and also to guide them on a path to personal development.

“I expect the college counseling process will reflect the larger ethos of the school itself—the encouragement of self-discovery and exploration, of risk-taking and a willingness to fail, a

“I expect the college counseling process will reflect the larger ethos of the school itself.”

GAVIN BRADLEY

pursuit of authenticity and the ability to be vulnerable,” said Bradley. “That’s all pretty lofty for just applying to college, but I think that’s what students have come to expect of the school. I’m not sure there are many ‘changes’ to be brought, the program is really strong given the youth of the school. I think the better way to think of it is how will the program grow and evolve in response to various changes in the school and college admission. Whether it’s adding programs, looking at different college counseling models, or continuing to raise the profile of the school, there is a lot of energy and support for growth in our

office.”

The college counseling team spends the fall in meetings with seniors and their parents. They support students in improving college essays, editing applications, and making sure to get recommendation letters from teachers. They spend time meeting with visiting schools’ representatives and reaching out to schools all over in order to get the best possible sense of what would be good for Nueva students. In the spring, they spend time with the juniors in preparation for their senior year. And throughout the year, they’re building relationships with colleges and finding out more about the college process as it continues to evolve.

“I think most people don’t think about the dual internal and external role we hold in the school,” Bradley said.

To the younger grades, Bradley said, “Your time will come. If you’re a ninth grader, be the best ninth grader you can be. If you’re a tenth grader, be a really great tenth grader. No matter where you are in the process, pursue things you’re truly interested in, don’t attempt to figure out a way to game a process that really doesn’t reward gaming.”

“That’s one of the things that has impressed me most with Nueva students— the authenticity with which they do the things they do,” Bradley said. “Kids here explore their interests with a passion, led by a faculty that doesn’t just encourage, but expects them to get pretty far out over their skis, to use a metaphor from a sport I have zero experience with.

That risk-taking and genuine love of learning, exploring, building, and, yes, sometimes failing, come through in really compelling ways.”

What’s most helpful for families, he believes, is for them to keep an open mind.

“Of the really amazing list of colleges to which the first two classes of students were admitted, all of them were places that Nueva students could get a great education—every single one of them,” Bradley said. “Nothing is more fulfilling to a college counselor than suggesting

PROVIDING GUIDANCE: Gavin Bradley takes over from Pat Goldsmith as the Director of College Counseling. (Photo courtesty of Gavin Bradley)

a college that you or your parents have never heard of and having a student come back at the end of the process feeling like it’s the best fit ever. It’s also really helpful to focus on the process: searching for a college, applying to college, and selecting the college you will attend.”

Besides, it’s not all about the acceptance or rejection. The process students go through is demanding academically and emotionally, and can put a strain on all sorts of relationships. As important as where a student goes to school might be to them and their parents, even more important is what that student turns out to be and how they get to be that way.

“Outcomes are certainly important, but we have far less control over those in this process,” Bradley said. “And, at the risk of being clichéd, it’s just not Nueva to focus on the outcomes.”

Building Our Nueva Community Community-focused assembly explores what it takes to be a beloved community Alyssa H. On Aug. 30, the first Thursday of the school year, the upper school students filed into the gym for a school-wide-assembly to build community hosted and presented by Alegria Barclay, the PreK-12 Equity & Social Justice Director and Alison Williams, the Equity & Social Justice Associate Teacher. On the way in, teachers posted by the doorways handed out short lengths of mysterious blue string.

When the students had all all sat down in rows of white folding chairs, Barclay and Williams began with this question: “What does it mean to be part of a beloved community?”

This referenced the Dr. King. quote, “Our goal is to create a beloved community which requires a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”

Barclay said that although Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s work in racial justice was crucial, she felt that it overshad-

owed his other philosophies, such as his hope for a better future that could be built on forgiveness and redemption.

At its most fundamental level, a beloved community is one where its members understand and care about each other. An all-inclusive global vision, Dr. King’s idea was founded in nonviolent and fair philosophy and methods that were rooted in love and trust, Barclay and Williams said. Starting this year, the duo wanted the Nueva community to strive to realize Dr. King’s long-forgotten beloved community.

To support this idea, the students were prompted to ask questions about things normally overlooked. Who is that friend, acquaintance, stranger, sitting next to them? Students asked each other, “Who are you?” People paired off and asked each other, “Who are you?” ten times in quick successions. The answers moved from “student” to “grandchild” to “kind,” spiralling deeper into the students’ senses of self.

The rest of the assembly alternated

between presentational speaking from Barclay and Williams, and interactive exercises to “actively work on [creating community],” as Barclay said. Another activity that the students participated in was a period of silence, based off of parts of a Quaker service, in which students, faculty, and other members of the community could stand up at any time, and share something that they were thinking about. Yet another exercise involved students standing up in rows, and placing their hands on top of one another, passing a clap around the room.

“I think sometimes with Nueva what I worry about is that there is that sort of default sense of ‘Oh we’re Nueva, we’re so kind’...and I don’t know if we always work as hard [at that] as we should,” Barclay reflected. “We need to cautiously and intentionally make this what we want it to be.”

There were still a few steps Barclay hoped this community could take to better achieve a beloved community environment. She felt that this community

often got caught up in a liberal bubble and could be intolerant of other belief systems. She recounted students telling her that they were uncomfortable sharing some of their beliefs and opinions because they felt community would be closed off to them.

“To me that's like a red flag. That means as a community, even though nominally, superficially, we are very inclusive and supportive, that on some other fundamental levels we’re policing each other,” Barclay said. She thought the community would benefit if the community became more inclusive to everyone.

But what of the blue string given out at the beginning of the assembly? Each piece of string had come from the same ball of yarn; connected yet individual, it was a clear metaphor for Nueva and its values. To tie it onto themselves, the students needed to reach out and ask for help from each other—that in itself created an atmosphere of a caring community. For the rest of the day little pieces of blue yarn, painstakingly cut, traveled around the campus: on fingers, laptops cases, and backpacks. Each going their own way, under the roof of the nurturing Nueva community.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

New year, new food

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FEATURES / 7 2

Epicurean Group brings variety, flavor, and nutrition to daily lunch service Amanda W. At 6:30 a.m. every day, long before any students arrive at school, Rafael Calderon—who prefers to go by Rafa— and his team of chefs come to the kitchen to prepare for the four-hour-long process of cooking the day’s lunch. With 33 years of cooking experience, Rafa is the executive chef of the Epicurean Group, the new dining service that has replaced FLIK Independent School Dining, the dining service used in years past.

Before the chefs even think about cooking, the Epicurean team ensures that the kitchen is receiving fresh meats, vegetables, and other ingredients from local farms. With these fresh ingredients, Rafa and his team start by cooking the meat of the day first, as it takes the longest, sometimes using up to 180 pounds a day, to feed the roughly 480 people of the upper school.

While the meats are being seared, grilled, or baked, a team of chefs starts preparing the sauces. After cooking the proteins, Rafa’s team moves on to the vegetables—they particularly favor broccoli, potatoes, squash and other veggies. They cut, season, and cook over 120 pounds of these diverse and versatile foods every day. To keep it hot and delicious, the cooking staff create a soup last, as no Nueva meal is complete without a fragrant bowl of daily soup.

The last thing the team prepares is the salad bar. The chefs cut two to three large cases of fruit and ready separate ingredients for people to create their own salads. New this year, Epicurean also always has a daily “Superfood Tossed,” where an already-prepared salad is offered. (For example, a recent “Superfood Tossed” had organic garden bib lettuce, blue cheese, roasted organic sweet potato, and tomato tossed with white balsamic vinaigrette.) The salad bar now always has crafted sandwiches for students and faculty members to grab and go—like a BLT with Applewood bacon, organic romaine, and heirloom

Open campus rules change for sophomores Callisto L. The mood the best one could hope for a late spring assembly: light, buoyant, and rowdy, with crowds of students calling across the sunny plaza at the Hillsborough campus. They filed loudly into the gym, hands grabbing at each other and backpacks thumping, one after another, into piles outside as they dropped from students’ shoulders. They moved quickly, past the fresh-smelling cardboard displaying floorplans in the lobby, to take their seats in the dark, shaded gym. It wasn’t until the conversations died down and the mood began to settle that the lights rose on the stage, and Head of School Diane Rosenberg stepped out.

The purpose of her speech was simple: brief the students, 79 of whom would be continuing onto the Upper School in the following year, on the new construction work coming to the campus. And between the elaborate walkthrough videos showcasing the new Hillsborough treehouse or the far-flung concept of an auditorium at San Mateo, she also announced the most pressing and prominent new construction: the brand new wing at the Upper School,

tomato on a whole grain roll.

Even though Rafa is used to cooking at schools and the long hours of standing by the stove, he didn’t start out this way.

He was born and raised in El Paracho, Michoacan, in Mexico and originally did not plan to cook. After moving to the U.S. at 15, he started to work in kitchens, initially by washing dishes.

At the age of 16, Rafa watched cooks skillfully cut ingredients, sear meat, and plate aesthetically pleasing dishes.

Little by little, dish by dish, he started gaining more knowledge about food and its preparation. He mastered technique and kitchen skills through trial and experience.

Calderon learned “all the names of the items and utensils…and the ways to prep fresh and tasty food from all the different [cultures].” Through cooking at these restaurants, he also learned “the names of the meats, spices, and produce and learned how to cut and prep whole chicken, ducks, salmon, shrimp, clean and prep a beef tenderloin, rack of lamb, or lobster.”

Before working with Epicurean Group, Rafa worked at Beausejour French Restaurant in Los Altos, where he learned a lot about cooking. However, cooking at a school is a vastly different experience. At Nueva, he focuses on cooking healthier meals, and he’s more mindful of the many dietary restrictions of students and faculty/staff. Rafa says that he loves cooking because when he “feeds somebody, [he] feels like [he’s] taking the hunger away.”

Terry Lee, assistant head of school, was part of the Food and Nutrition Task Force—a team of parents, faculty, and trustees who were experts in food and nutrition—who ultimately brought Epicurean to work at Nueva this year.

“The nutrition task force spent a year assessing the situation and considering solutions before deciding to make a change,” Lee said.

They started by assessing the needs of the school and reviewing proposed solutions. Lee said this team solicited

filled with new, flexible classrooms to accommodate an increased student body.

What Rosenberg didn’t tell the students, at least not up front, was that the new buildings comprised only a part of a new plan to expand Nueva further. The Realize the Potential capital campaign, announced in the spring of 2018 to officially launch the following autumn has a goal of $100 million, 65 percent of which will be put towards new building projects. Though only $39 million had been raised at the start of the assembly, that was enough to begin construction: ground would be broken, Rosenberg finished, over the summer.

With that, the students dispersed, filling up the halls and courtyards of Hillsborough once more. As their echoes faded away as they hurried up and down the campus, down the tree-covered hills and towards the towering J-Building, the eighth graders’ peals of laughter rang perhaps a tad more loudly than the rest: they were going to high school. And a lot of them were going to Nueva.

When it opened its doors in 2013 to a class of freshmen, it was no surprise that the class was small. The school was, after all, brand new and completely untested, so the number of continuing students would be relatively small: four years later, only half of the eighth-grade Class of 2017 (the upper school Class of 2021) chose to continue. This was, according to Davion Fleming, Associate Director of Admissions, fine with the administration: Nueva upper school classes were still growing year by year, with the Class of 2021 hitting the aim

3

SERVE IT UP 1: Nayely Contreras, one of the kitchen staff, fixes salad bar food in preparation for lunch.

2: Contreras and Noe Portillo wait for the horde of students to descend to lunch.

3: Rafael "Rafa" Calderon is the new head chef of the cafe.

(Photos by Willow C.Y. and Amanda W.)

suggestions and needs in a partner to narrow some choices of food providers down to two finalists. In addition to interviewing the finalists, they also visited the sites where these food service groups were already serving food. Ideas and thoughts had to be considered from both campuses, Lee said, as the students of the Hillsborough have different preferences than the high-school students at the San Mateo campus.

After careful consideration, the task force decided on Epicurean Group for several reasons. Epicurean has a strong focus in school dining and is experienced and knowledgeable of school environments and the right chefs needed for that environment. Many of their other clients are local, and they’re well-attuned to Bay Area preferences. Lee also noted how Epicurean is also conscious of sustainability and nutrition, while still able to keep the food as tasty as it is healthy. One of the biggest factors in the final decision was that Epicurean is headquartered in Los Altos, meaning the people in charge are close by, giving

a stronger sense of relationship and accountability.

In the first month, Epicurean has been impressing students at Nueva.

“They seem to have a stronger focus on the health aspect of the food, which is really cool,” Lucy B. (10) said. “I love how they always have sandwiches in the salad bar, too. The meat last year would always be very dry, and so far it’s been very good this year.”

Benjamin C. (12) also praised the new lunch service: “I really like the new food; I think that there are a lot more options than last year,” Cheng said. “I’ve especially enjoyed the soups this year and the new salad bar, which I think varies more every day now, which I appreciate a lot over the course of an entire year.”

Both students, however, commented that the lunch lines “seem especially bad this year,” as Benjamin put it.

“If something could be done to make them more efficient, I would enjoy lunch even more,” Benjamin said.

for 100 students when its new admissions were added.

However, this was all set to change.

When the Class of 2022 came along, the first to go through the high school application process with full access to the list of schools and jobs entered by the first graduating class, enrollment at the Upper School soared, and a whopping 79 chose to continue. An additional 36 new acceptances brought the size of the freshman class to its current 115: the target for the year and the size that all future classes will aim for. However, their arrival in San Mateo came with one caveat: there was suddenly a huge amount of construction going on, closing off half of the school’s outdoor space.

Suddenly, the classrooms and canteen seemed very, very small.

But the Nueva admin wasn’t done yet. They had a plan, small stages of which had already been in the making for quite some time. And now, it was time for the implementation.

“We’re letting the tenth graders leave during lunch,” says Fleming, “and that’s really because we’re not going to have access to the west side of campus.

So just to alleviate some of the tension around space, we’ve decided that it’ll be nice for the tenth graders just to be able to go off campus.”

This means that just a scant few weeks after the juniors and seniors are able to leave for lunch, tenth graders will be joining them for the first time.

This isn’t a brand-new concept; last year, Student Council was involved in discussions with the admin about letting

second-semester tenth graders leave during lunch, and granting second-semester eleventh graders the opportunity to leave during free period. However, Fleming clarifies that this new decision was based predominantly on this new work, not any pre-existing considerations; he adds that letting tenth graders leave in the future is not off the table.

“That may be a conversation that we have, to see if that’s something we’ll continue to do,” he said matter-of-factly.

However, he added that “our hope is that everyone will find and feel comfortable staying on campus during lunch, and that this is a place that they want to be.” After all, he says, while many of the seniors and juniors have open-campus privileges, plenty of them choose to remain at Nueva during their lunches and free periods.

That being said, plenty of these future decisions rest on the head of the current cohort of sophomores.

“We feel confident that the tenth graders will be able to handle [the responsibility] appropriately,” Fleming said about future allowances. “The majority of people who do go off campus for lunch [are] staying within the Bay Meadows area.”

But while the administration is certain that the tenth graders will behave themselves, there’s still plenty riding on their shoulders, such as the open-campus privileges of all future Nueva tenth graders Behave yourself then, Grade 10.

8 / FEATURES

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

Rebranding the Nueva Identity Nueva's new branding sparked big questions about what identity and brand mean at a school. Our school.

THE NUEVA

A CURRENT

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

FEATURES / 9

“I think that there is a productive way to provide [feedback].”

STEPHEN DUNN

Willow C. Y. The air was dark and tense inside the gym as nearly 400 students sitting in dirty-white chairs faced the back-projected screen. It wasn’t quiet— restless murmurs and the occasional question interrupted the stillness—but the room held its breath. The presenters clicked through yet another slide, and landed on one that said only, “Questions?” There was a moment of silence, and then the atmosphere became even thicker with dissent.

“Why did you start this?”

“What even is the ‘open N’?”

“Why didn’t we know about this? Why weren’t we consulted?”

“What’s the point?”

The event was on Wednesday, Aug. 29, when the new, long-time-coming logo was revealed to the Upper School. Headed by two parent volunteers who had been with the campaign since its birth two years ago, the presentation consisted of a brief explanation of the whys, hows, and whats of the new brand: why it had happened, how the logo came to be, and, of course, what the logo was.

However, “brief explanation” seemed not to be enough, as during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, the assembly descended into controversy as critics voiced their opinions in a way that most considered “disappointing,” as Stephen Dunn, the Head of the Nueva Upper School, put it.

“I was disappointed in the way that students chose to approach their feedback,” Dunn said. “Not necessarily that I disagree with it, but I think that there is a productive way to provide it that appreciates the work that’s gone into it, that appreciates the parents and the volunteers [who] were there.”

Neither Mara Wallace nor Andrea Johnson, the presenters during the assembly and Co-Chairs of the Marketing and Communications Team (MarCom) of the Board of Trustees, were particularly surprised by the feedback—as Wallace said, “If you ask five Nueva students, you’ll get at least six opinions”—but both were taken aback at the rancorous, “confrontational nature” of it.

However, Dunn, Head of School Diane Rosenberg, Wallace, and Johnson saw positive in the assembly as well. Dunn praised those who responded to the critics by recognizing the hard work of Wallace and Johnson—and the duo agreed. After the disheartening assembly, they received “a lot of emails of support.”

“There was this overwhelming Nueva-ness of it,” Wallace said.

Dunn also acknowledged the fact that both camps were, collectively, the Nueva identity; the outspokenness of both sides, he said, was indicative of the fact that Nueva students as a collective whole are opinionated and, when debate arises, firm in their beliefs.

Due to this opinionated, involved mindset, Nueva students had felt that their own ideas were not consulted nor heard during the designing and final decision-making process in the branding campaign. This was main cause of the dichotomy that both an unnamed student and Dunn and Rosenberg identified.

However, Johnson and Wallace said that they made sure to extended invitations for a total of 11 listening sessions across divisions, and at least three in the Upper School alone. Additionally, a school-wide survey was sent out at the end of last year. At the same time, students were not consulted in the final decision-making process, particularly around the default “Hero” logo, as the final vote took place over the summer—and the survey itself

did not include any potential concrete designs or colors to vote on. While recognizing that this was a concern for many students, Johnson said, "As with any brand, it is unlikely that... [everyone] will like it.”

Rosenberg provided an alternate explanation.

“The Board makes the long-term, strategic decisions,” she said, “and the brand was one of those.”

In other words, the brand was an important choice to make, one that the Board had to make, and one that would affect Nueva for many, many years to come. As Wallace said, on behalf of the MarCom Team, they hope that this brand will last “for another 50 years to come.”

However, Rosenberg acknowledged that, if given more time, they most likely would’ve gotten more consensus among the students of the Upper School. But she also added, “Yes, I wish we had more time, but at some point we have to move on.”

There were a couple of separate issues—albeit lower-level and less spotlighted. For one, some students were concerned about the cost of replacing the old branding—during the presentation, Johnson and Wallace said that they were going to go around the school and pick out objects in the school that needed to be updated, like metal signs with the old serif logo, painting jobs, and the colors of the gym floor. During our interview, they wanted to clarify that statement.

definitive brand with a specific font or a specific color; in other words, there was an incredible amount of inconsistency.

“A brand is so much more than a picture or a color; it’s a message,” said Wallace. “We need to communicate in a clear, concise and consistent way who we are, what we do, and why we are unique.”

Aside from the above, there was one last concern that students had: why the “open N,” why the default “Hero” icon?

Cynicism towards the logo showed itself during the assembly and has persisted after as well.

Within a few days, meme pages began popping up on Instagram, their sole purpose to poke fun at the new “open N.” Even in the non-digital world, people used the “open N” symbol to direct derision at the institution as a whole, as evidenced by, among other things, the appearance of the “Loss Meme” in conjunction with the “open N” on one of the bulletin boards on the second floor.

Although clearly just jokes, these do reveal a grain of truth: that people—students in particular—are not fully satisfied with the logo.

As for the animosity against the logo, Rosenberg predicted that it would fade with time and use, as had happened with the sans-serif change a decade ago. “There will be less pushback when people begin to utilize and personalize that N,”

“A brand is so much more than a picture or a color; it's a message.”

MARA WALLACE

“Most are not new costs,” said Wallace said. Instead of immediately remodeling whatever didn’t fit with the new brand, the MarCom team decided that relics of the old brand would be replaced when they were due for a remodel, independent of which brand they showcased—it could even be a few years, as is in the case of the gym’s floor colors, before a change happened.

Additionally, they foresee that the new brand could streamline the process of attracting prospective students, faculty, and families. “We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the value of this is really high compared to the expense,” said Wallace.

However, even as the technical and aesthetic aspects of the rebranding mission were up for debate, the elephant—or maverick, perhaps—in the room was, again, the identity of Nueva. If there was one thing that Dunn, Rosenberg, Wallace, and Johnson all agreed upon, it was that the serif brand of before was not consistent, and that consistency is key.

Ten years ago, when the logo was changed to the now-old serif emblem, digital capabilities were neither as widespread nor as accessible as in the modern day—as time progressed, the Nueva community began to tinker with the logo, and different iterations began circulating. Dunn described it as, “Because we can, we do.” And because the Nueva community could recreate, modify, and distribute the logo at will, there was no longer a standard,

she said.

Wallace and Johnson both had similar ideas.

“You can put anything in the heart of [the ‘open N’],” Wallace said, “anything.”

Wallace and Johnson hoped that, in the future, students, faculty, the administration, and others would use the “open N” as an expression of identity—that they would put “[scientific] beakers, history globes, even one of the dances” within the “open N.” Even now, people have begun using it around campus—like Luke De, an upper school science teacher who put a bubbling beaker within the N for the Journal Club, for which he is the faculty advisor. As Wallace explained, “We weren’t trying to change anything about who we are; we would like to be known, and we would like to be known accurately.”

This, Dunn, Rosenberg, Wallace, and Johnson all believed, was the point of the new branding: to create a “sandbox,” as Dunn called it, in which the Nueva community could play and create and express their individuality while also putting forth a unified community front.

But more than that, this brand was an opportunity to make Nueva “yours,” as Rosenberg described.

“If you don’t love it, you can make it better,” said Wallace. “You can take it and run with it.

Go!”

10 / FEATURES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

Seniors continue “learn by doing” motto at summer internships

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

OFF THE WHEEL LEFT: Shiley E. (12) explores the ins and outs of self-driving cars at his internship with Playground Global. RIGHT: Maya L. (12) and Laurel M. (12), who both worked with Playground Global as well, hurriedly type code on the road. (Photos by Katie Saylor)

Nueva's Internship Program provides exposure to various professions Zulie M.

During a tour of the VC company Playground Global in Palo Alto, a group of seven interns asked Katie Saylor if she wanted to see their project. Saylor, the new director of Nueva’s Internship Program, immediately said yes. They then proceeded to drive her around in a 2015 Kia with only the use of a Playstation remote controller.

The interns had spent much of the summer turning this car, given to them by the CEO of Playground Global, into a fully functioning autonomous vehicle. Saylor had dropped by to experience what the students were getting out of their opportunities.

“I was just blown away by what everybody was doing,” Saylor said.

The internship program connects students to summer opportunities around the Bay Area, with over 55 participating organizations from a variety of professions. Only in its fourth year, the number of opportunities has nearly doubled since the program’s beginning. Every summer brings new internships which range in length from one week to three months. Saylor is working to increase this number and expand the program.

A tenet of Nueva’s internship program is that students are placed in opportunities that allow them to collaborate and work with a team, as opposed to just shadowing people within an organization.

Audrey C. (12), who was a writer and researcher for a team at CK-12, a online education nonprofit, walked away from her internship proud of how much hands-on experience she had gained.

“It allowed me to get experience being in a work environment and collaborating in teams but also

taking initiative and leading my own projects,” Audrey said.

Saylor holds a clear vision for the program and wants to focus on what she thinks students should be getting out of their experiences. As much as she loves the program for what it is currently, she is also looking forward to making some changes.

Saylor wants to expand the number of students who can get this beneficial experience beyond juniors to include more seniors and sophomores. She hopes to do this by adding to the database as well as connecting with companies.

“I want to make sure that on our end everything is as professional and streamlined as possible, so that it's easy for [the organizations] to say yes,” she said.

Currently, parents, friends, alumni, and other connections can approach Nueva with any opportunities for internships that they may have. These are then compiled into a database that interested students can look through.

Students then submit an application, including a statement of purpose that reveals their understanding of the organization’s mission and also serves as their proposal for how they can contribute. The final decision is up to the organizations themselves.

“I would talk about why I liked the organization, what I was interested in doing there, what I could contribute, and what my past experiences and skills were,” Chin said, of her statement of purpose.

Shiley E. (12) was another of the seven interns who worked on the self-driving car at Playground Global.

Both Shiley and Audrey praised their organizations for the company’s openness and accommodation. CK-12 was flexible around Audrey’s “crazy schedule” and also allowed her to take initiative. One of her favorite

moments from her internship was when she had to put together a report to present to her boss without very many guidelines. Shiley also commented on this freedom in the workplace. “We didn’t really have that much structure.” Shiley said.

“We came in around 8:30 to 9, we had breakfast, most of the time they had food there. And we were just kind of working in small teams or on our own. We would frequently take our computer out to the car and test some bit of code and come back and iterate.”

Saylor hopes the internship showcase will be a good advertisement for the program to other grades. It takes place Nov. 14 and is a requirement for students who participate in the program. At least 26 students will present, not including any exhibitions by other students. "I want them to be able to share that with other students and hopefully spark interest as well,” Saylor said.

AUTO PLAY ABOVE: The CEO of Playground Global in Palo Alto gave the Nueva interns a 2015 Kia to turn into a self-driving car.

BELOW: Maya L. (12) working on her code for the self-driving car internship at Playground Global.

(Photos by Katie Saylor)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

OPINION / 11

Why I want to but can’t embrace the representation in Crazy Rich Asians Crazy Rich Asians is hailed as revolutionary Asian-American representation. It has charmed global audiences with a lavish, dramatic, and at times comedic fairy tale of romance, culture and family. However, the praise and criticism largely overlook the film's representation of disabled characters.

Eugenia X. For most of my life, I felt like my racial identity was represented. Shanghai was home. Not only was I surrounded by people who looked like me, but Shanghai’s diversity also ensured that I would always be around people who understood the experience of being foreign to my home city. However, everything changed when I moved to the Bay Area. I didn’t see experiences that I could relate to. My foreign-ness became scary and ever-present. I grasped for something to hold onto, something that I identified with, which quickly devolved into binge-watching the fourth season of The Voice of China with my mother and obsessing over the Chinese-American contestants, but even that wasn't enough to make me feel at home.

Three years later, I would walk into a movie theater and see a film that my seventh-grade, fresh-off-the-boat self needed.

However, beyond the glitz and glam of Rachel and Nick’s enchanting romantic comedy of love, heartbreak, resilience, identity, and family, something seemed off.

Since its release in mid-August, the impact of Crazy Rich Asians, directed

by Jon M. Chu and based on Kevin Kwan’s book of the same name, has been felt all over the world. With an all-Asian cast and director—something that Hollywood hasn’t seen in 25 years, since Joy Luck Club—this film is paving the way for Asian representation. Crazy Rich Asians also has ties to our Bay Area community—Chu’s father, Lawrence Chu, owns the restaurant Chef Chu’s, popular among celebrities and locals of Los Altos alike.

Despite its groundbreaking release, Crazy Rich Asians has also been dogged by criticisms focused on race, the most prominent of which is that of colorism—the movie’s focus on wealthy, light-skinned Asians, while casting dark-skinned actors as servants and security guards, only plays into colorism already prevalent in Asian communities. Opinions about this film are a subject of constant discussion. Is Crazy Rich Asians itself perpetuating colorism or is it meant to showcase colorism present in Singapore and the broader Asian community? Is the presence of the backlash itself racist? Since when has a film about rich white people been

criticized this much after its release?

However, few people have examined the portrayal of disability in Crazy Rich Asians, possibly because disability was hardly mentioned in the film. I'd like to point out that disability representation doesn’t need to be explicit, and references to disability still matter because they set mainstream beliefs of what disability looks like and how it interacts with abled populations. Disabled characters whose personalities are based on outdated beliefs, therefore, perpetuate those toxic ideologies to a broader audience and thus are a bad form of

“References to disability... set mainstream beliefs of what disability looks like and how it interacts with abled populations.” representation.

The brother of Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina’s character), PT, played by Calvin Wong, is a clear nod to disability. His awkwardness, directness, and “creepiness” all pose a strong similarity to the 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-5)’s diagnostic criterion for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), including “unusual social initiations,” “withdrawn; aloof; in own world,” and “extremely directive or rigid.” As his character is not explicitly labeled disabled or autistic, it also displays the “Ambiguous Disorder” Trope, as characterized by TV Tropes, a database for stereotypes in film.

PT’s first appearance shows him eating noodles in a way one would often characterize as sloppy. As many disabilities, including ASD, can prevent people from eating “neatly,” I saw this detail as

ILLUSTRATION BY EUGENIA X.

a sign of PT’s disability. This decision could have very well been intentional; Wong said that he “had no idea...which version of PT they used because [they] did so many different takes and approaches,” meaning that Chu made an active choice in keeping those takes.

Throughout the same scene, PT only speaks to Rachel—whom he avidly stares at—when his father prompts him to, and bluntly declares “I love you.”

Giggles radiated across the theater. I sat and squirmed uncomfortably. The audience was lapping up the film’s use of ASD’s characteristics as comedic relief. I connected this portrayal of PT to that of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory—Sheldon’s characteristics that resembled stereotypes of autistic people were the core of the show’s comedy. Though the show’s co-creator, Bill Prady, and Sheldon’s actor, Jim Parsons, did not formally characterize Sheldon as autistic for this reason, they have both acknowledged in interviews that the character’s traits commonly associated with Asperger’s were used for comedy—or, in other words, the “Ambiguous Disorder” trope: the film heavily hints at disability but the directors don’t want to accept the responsibility of their representations.

The giggles resurfaced during PT’s occasional appearances creepily snapping photos of Rachel. His actions could be seen as dangerous—a harmful stereotype that haunts neurodivergent people; or one could characterize it as innocent, as Wong did when he was invited to talk on an Asian-American-run podcast. He saw PT as “a little unsure of the boundaries, a little personally awkward, but ultimately harmless,” a portrayal explicitly identified in what TV Tropes recognizes as the “Hollywood Autism” trope, or, the way the film industry employs the stereotypes of ASD as a plot tool. Though it seems innocuous, this mainstream belief is problematic: it’s justification for reducing disabled people, particularly autistic people, to kids who don’t know better and can’t speak for themselves. “[For] a lot of what we were doing, I got the sense that it was improvisational on behalf of Jon, the director, and sometimes some of my castmates would give me suggestions,” Wong said.

Asked whether he thought that the incorporations of the neurodivergence tropes were intentional, Wong replied,

“Almost definitely yes. The thing about media and tropes, especially in media like film which is so filled with shorthand, rely on clichéd stereotypes to convey information; especially for background characters with very little screen time...tropes that point to neurodivergence are...just sort of part of the filmmaker’s toolkit.”

Wong said that he had had no idea that PT could be read as disabled or more specifically autistic on set. However, these harmful tropes still made it unnoticed into a film praised for its racial diversity. It just goes to show that ableism is often ignored in discussions of social justice. Perhaps people—namely abled people—are uncomfortable thinking about oppressive power structures that they benefit from?

I discussed PT’s character with a friend who argued that PT was less a reference to neurodivergence or ASD and more to the stereotypical awkward Asian male. Though this is a good observation, I’m highly skeptical that it has to be strictly one or the other; it just means that we should be examining both tropes together. Disability theorists argue that race has been historically medicalized, meaning that the establishment of the white body and mind as the default by white-dominated medical institutions makes characteristics associated with people of color seem abnormal or disabled. This intersection of Asian male stereotyping and problematic disability representations only strengthens my conviction that discussing disability representation in this film is really important.

Crazy Rich Asians is a captivating film with impacts rippling across the globe. For the first time in my life, I saw the little things from my culture—the dumpling folding, the intense mahjong games, the color superstitions—being projected on the big screen in the U.S., and I applaud Crazy Rich Asians for giving that to me and many of my Asian-American peers. However, the narrative of disability in Crazy Rich Asians makes me reluctant to embrace it as my representation. A dominating system of oppression that is often overlooked, disability is incredibly important to me, and this film’s representation of disability, however unintentional, is inaccurate and dangerous.

12 / OPINION

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

Difficulties in Pronunciation

BY A.L.

Expectations vs. Reality

Charted

BY EUGENIA X.

BY JORDAN M.

identity crisis

EDITORIAL

Defining identity for The Nueva Current What does identity mean to our community?

To The Nueva Current?

Masthead

/īden(t)ədē krīsis/ Noun.

A period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person's sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to a change in their expected aims or role in society.

It is not a far stretch to say that Nueva is going through a bit of a crisis recently.

The school’s philosophy seems to be pulled in a number of different directions, like a multisided tugof-war in which the teams are the different subcommunities within our school with different ideas of what the Nueva identity is and what we should do about it.

Of course, this is a dramatic caricature of the situation. After all, we all are still bonded by our school, by our daily collaboration and coexistence, by our school spirit, and there isn’t evident rancor or raw competition like there is during our inter-House contests. However, there is conflict—perhaps better presented as a “nudge-of-disagreement”—and it does involve each and every person in the community, even if one is

Questions or comments? We welcome your voices. Please email us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool. org; corrections will be addressed on our website and published in the subsequent issue.

The opinions expressed in The Nueva Current belong solely to the writer and are not a reflection or representation of the opinions of the school or its administrators.

standing off to the side watching the debate while eating popcorn.

It’s not an easy issue to resolve, and one that, if a stance is taken, may prompt pushback. It makes sense why we would be going through such growing pains: after all, the grade sizes are almost doubling, the physical campus is expanding, the school has gone through several brand-renovations already, and, five years in, Nueva is trying to find our footing as a private high school in the incredibly competitive Bay Area. And growth like this, change like this is good—it means that we’re advancing and adapting to a new, more modern role in the community.

But, at the end of the day, we’re still Nueva, still the Mavericks.

Recognizing this, that we, as a community, are still tied together by our school, The Nueva Current is going to try and feature amazing people in our community, and put our finger on the pulse of student life.

We at the Nueva Current have been doing some thinking as well about what exactly we want to provide for you, our community and readers, and what we hope to achieve in the coming years.

Our mission statement is: “The Nueva Current strives to provide informative and impactful articles

Editor-in-Chief Willow C.Y. Design Editor Jordan M. Copy Editor Isabel C. Web Editor Elizabeth B. P. Sports Editor Anam T. Culture Editor Aliya G. Adviser LiAnn Yim

Staff Grace H., Alyssa H., Callisto L., Zulie M., Luke M., Willow T., Nikhil T., Antonetta T, Amanda W., Mirielle W., Eugenia X., Joshua Y.

for our community. Our issues cover stories related to our school, the Bay Area, California, and other relevant spheres. We are dedicated to helping readers understand the ways in which we can all make a difference in the world around us.” We hope you consider it with as much sincerity as we do.

You can also reach us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org, where we welcome your letters to the paper, ideas, articles, art. We want our paper to be a voice for what you’re passionate about, connected to, and excited for. We hope to hear from you in the coming year.

As for the issue at hand, Nueva has gone through several iterations of its identity and brand before—and in no case did we immediately take to the change, if the switch from the Wave to the Maverick was any indication. However, our 50 years— and the fact that although we are not the same school now as when Karen Stone McCown first had the idea back in the 1960’s we are still a cohesive group—are testaments to the fact that we will still be a tightknit community after this rough patch, and that we’ll tug more wars in the future.

Have something to submit? We accept photographs, articles, illustrations, and other pieces of work. Please send them to thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org for review; we will contact you if we publish your work.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

SPORTS / 13

RACING THE HEAT LEFT: Alex C. (9) maintains his stride as he loops back to the finish line at the Crystal Springs Cross Country course.

CENTER: Maya C. (10) described the race as taking place in "challenging conditions." RIGHT: Coach Robert Lopez encourages Bayan S. (10) as he comes into the last leg of the race. (Photos by Maya C. and Robert Lopez)

Cross-country teams dig deep in the heat to find success in meet 1 of PSAL League With a new head coach, the crosscountry runners double down on training and team bonding Nikhil T. Running three miles—“technically 2.95,” according to Eleanor M. (10)—may seem like torture, maybe even impossible, but for the cross-country runners, this is exactly what they signed up for.

“People think running is boring, but what people do not realize is that it can be a fun way to bond with your friends and is a way to go cool places that you wouldn’t be able to find if you were just driving or taking the train,” said Angus Z. (12), a runner on the varsity

team.

Brian P. (10), another varsity runner, loves the camaraderie and the environment that the team has created for running. “We try to create a positive and supportive group of friends within our team to run together. We bring each other through the difficult parts of races and work toward success,” Brian said.

In their practices, the team does a variety of exercises, including five 1-mile repeats and hilly runs up and down the trails at Laurelwood Park.

Their revamped training regimen is a big part of the team’s plans for success this season.

The teams are headed by new cross-country coach Robert Lopez, who will also coach track and field in the spring.

Previously, Lopez coached cross country and track and field at Oaks Christian School in southern California.

To kick off the season with strong team bonding, Lopez organized a scavenger hunt for the team with dozens of items—like a Chipotle bag or a restaurant take-out menu—worth a range of points.

Getting a video of a UPS driver reciting a line about Nueva cross country was worth 6,500 points.

“I noticed a UPS truck pulling up to a red light. Knowing this was my only chance to get that video worth thousands of points, I sped up and caught the truck at the light,” varsity runner Maya C. (10) recalled.

“I started explaining who I was and what I needed, but the light turned green. I didn’t even think—I just ran. I ran four blocks, my legs throbbing with every extra step, and followed the UPS truck until [it] turned onto a small, residential street. I raced down the street and met up with the UPS driver, who was shocked to be encountering me again. It was worth it though—I got the video, and felt more rewarded by running than I ever had before.”

Cross country is—quite vocally—considered to be the most spirited sports team at the Upper School. This can partly be attributed to the large number of runners on the team—63 runners in total.

As the season kicks into full

gear, the team would like to build on their impressive run last season, which ultimately culminated in both the boys and girls earning a Top 10 finish at the CIF State Cross Country Championships.

They’ve found early success at the first meet in the PSAL league, which took place at the Crystal Springs Cross Country Course in Belmont on Sept. 20.

The runners of both the JV and varsity teams took off down the starting hill in the midst of dust and dirt flying through the air. Couple this with the 86-degree weather, and before they made it down the first length, everyone was baked in the late afternoon sun.

“Our first PSAL meet was tough for everyone—conditions were worse than usual,” Maya said. “I remember that as my race started, and the dust was kicking up and parents were cheering, I knew that it was going to be a difficult race.”

She was especially anxious about her performance at the meet due to the extreme heat.

While temperatures didn’t reach quite as high as last year, the day was far from ideal.

“The Crystal Springs Cross Country Course has little shade. In fact, I can only think of one tiny section that has any shade at all,” Maya explained.

“Additionally, we’re constantly battling the hills and curves that are part of the course.

While it wasn’t a strong race for me particularly, we placed well as a team and managed to push through the rough conditions.”

The Mavericks persevered through the heat: all four teams, JV boys and girls, and varsity boys and girls, finished first in their races—a clean sweep. Of the seven girls on the varsity team, all of them placed on the top 10 leaderboard for the meet. At another meet, Caleb D. (12) of the varsity boys' was able to run three miles in just about 15 minutes, averaging out to roughly five-minute miles.

The second PSAL meet takes place Thursday, Sept. 27, and the Stanford Invitational will take place Saturday, Sept. 29.

New changes to volleyball training and team mentality The varsity team grows "volleyball IQ" in second season under Coach Burnett Willow T. “Be a winner,” declares Arielle C. (9), a setter on the varsity girls volleyball team. It’s her goal for the season: to play well in games and be part of the team.

The team is working hard to meet that goal. Currently, the varsity volleyball team is 8-1 after beating Pacific

Bay Christian (formerly Alma Heights) on Tuesday. This is the first season the varsity volleyball team has defeated rival Crystal Springs or regular league contender Pacific Bay. The team has only suffered one loss, to Castilleja in the pre-season games.

Both the JV and varsity squads started practicing at the beginning of August and are now in the middle of

their season. One highlight of the season was their defeat of Crystal Springs Uplands School during the pre-season; last year, the varsity team had lost to them in a close, nail-biting match.

This year, the team won three out of the five sets in a shutout.

Last season, their training focused primarily on skills, but this year, their training regimen has taken on new dimensions. The varsity team practice is now more targeted on rotations and positioning, which is how players respond to plays of the other team during the game.

Another new addition to the training program this year: is 30 minutes of conditioning at the end of every practice with Mallory Celaya, the athletic trainer.

JV and varsity also have different season goals. Coach Janelle Burnett said that for JV it’s more about community because the JV players have never played competitive volleyball before. Since the majority of players on the varsity team have played the club

sport before, they are more focused on playing “higher level volleyball.”

“I push the girls a lot more there,” Burnett said. She added, “I think the team mentality has changed a lot from last year.”

It’s her second year of coaching the volleyball team, and she attributed the change in mentality to the athletes knowing her better. She also noted that the players’ “volleyball IQ” is growing as they get older.

One problem the team faced last year was that the players weren’t committed to coming to practice. “If you miss practice you need to come in and make it up,” Coach Burnett stated matter-of-factly. Because of the low level of practice attendance last year, the players are now mandated to make up for missed practices outside of normal training times.

The homecoming game takes place Oct. 18 against Pacific Bay Christian, one of the top teams and the Mavericks’ toughest competition from last season.

ON THE COURT Laura S. (11), Cate L. (9), Piper H. (11), and Arielle C. (9) cover Paige M. (10) after she hits past opposing blockers.

14 / SPORTS

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

College Football

Where our local teams stand, and what to know about this season

Photo courtesy of Michael Macor, SF Chronicle

Luke M. #7 Stanford Stanford will look to continue its success from last year behind returning star running back and Heisman trophy runner-up Bryce Love. Stanford’s offense will also feature junior QB KJ Costello and WR JJ Arcega-Whiteside. With only six starters returning, the Cardinal defense will the biggest question this year. Overall Stanford should have a positive year; however, they will have three challenging road games when they face #23 Oregon and #8 Notre Dame early in the season and #9 Wasington towards the end of the season. Stanford has the talent to make it back to the Pac12 Championship, but the coaching will determine the fate of the Cardinal.

2017 Record: 9-5 (Pac-12 Record: 7-2) #24 Cal Cal will be continuing its rebuilding process under second-season head coach Justin Wilcox. Cal had a disappointing season last year, coming one win short of the required six wins to make it to the bowl season. Cal’s offense will be led by RB Patrick Laird, who is on the Maxwell award (best all-around football player) watch list. Cal’s defense looks to continue its growth from last season with young yet experienced players. The Golden Bears do not have the team to challenge for the Pac-12 championship

but should make it into a decent bowl game.

2017 Record: 5-7 (Pac-12 Record: 2-7) SJSU San Jose State had a disastrous season last year. The Spartans racked up only one win against an FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) opponent. San Jose State’s appalling season was headlined by their 10-game losing streak. With a similar coaching staff returning and no new standout recruits, look for the Spartans to repeat last season’s sorrows. It is clear that the San Jose State Athletic Department has given up on their football program. They have kept mostly the same coaching staff except for a new offensive coordinator. While this is a start, it is still not enough to turn the program around. San Jose State has kept the same defensive coordinator even though the Spartans defense gave up an appalling 41 points per game. The Spartans may have some individual successes with Josh Oliver on the John Mackey award (Best Tight End) watchlist and Bryce Crawford on the Lou Groza award (Best Place Kicker) watchlist.

2017 Record: 2-11 (MWC: 1-7) Urban Meyer This offseason Ohio State has been dealing with an ongoing crisis concerning a former assistant coach. On July 23, 2017, receivers coach Zach Smith

Power Rankings & Players to Watch Nikhil T. With the offseason in the rearview mirror and new faces in new places, it is time to gear up for the regular season. Here are the top 10 teams heading into the regular season.

1. Golden State Warriors: DeMarcus Cousins The defending champs shocked the basketball world with the addition of center DeMarcus Cousins. Boogie took a large pay cut to join the stacked Dubs team with five All Stars. Cousins turned down a two-year, $40 million deal from the Pelicans and instead opted to sign a one-year, $5.3 million deal. They now have the most deadly starting lineup of all time. With three championships in the past four years coupled with the addition of Cousins, the Warriors are once again the heavy favorites to capture the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June.

2. Boston Celtics: Gordon Hayward The C’s made a deep playoff run without the likes of Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving.

With the Celtics strong young core and their stars returning, they are the clear favorite in the East. Gordon Hayward, who missed all but five minutes of the 2017-18 season after a leg injury in the season opener, will have to prove that he can still play at the level that he was at before with the Jazz. The Celtics are a young, exciting, and fast group teeming with talent.

3. Houston Rockets: Carmelo Anthony Although the Rockets retained Chris Paul, the quality of the role players on the team has decreased, despite the addition of Carmelo Anthony. Anthony will have to prove his doubters wrong next year, after the worst campaign of his career.

was fired due to allegations of assault from his wife, Courtney Smith, back in 2015. Smith was arrested in 2009 under similar charges while he was a graduate assistant coach for Florida, then coached

by Urban Meyer. On August 1, Ohio State placed Urban Meyer on administrative leave to conduct an investigation on whether or not Urban Meyer knew of these allegations and didn’t tell anyone.

Before being placed on leave, Meyer told the press that had not known about the recent allegations. Courtney Smith came out and said that in 2015 she told Urban Meyer’s wife about the assault. Meyer was widely criticized for his handling of the situation and his lack of remorse.

Ohio State has banned Urban Meyer from coaching in the first three games of the season. While this is a very confusing timeline, it is important to look at the bigger picture. Urban Meyer and Ohio State had Zach Smith as an employee even after his arrest in 2009 and after these allegations in 2015. Their handling of this situation was completely embarrassing and shameless.

Heisman Watch The Heisman trophy is the most prestigious award in college football, given to the best individual player. The Heisman, while available to all positions, is mostly given to quarterbacks and running backs. Will Grier, quarterback from West

4.Philadelphia 76ers: Ben Simmons Although the Sixers missed out on acquiring their targets this offseason, namely Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James, it is evident through last year’s play that their rebuilding—a.k.a “The Process”—has paid off big time. Through their accumulation of high draft picks, the Sixers got Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. After five years of bottom-dwelling, including the horrendous 10-72 season of 2015-16, the 76ers are the main challengers to the Boston Celtics in the East.

5. Toronto Raptors: Kawhi Leonard Although Toronto had the best record in the East, they decided to part ways with Coach of the Year Dwane Casey. The Raptors made a huge splash by trading for Kawhi Leonard. The deal shipped DeMar DeRozan to San Antonio. Kawhi Leonard is set to become a free agent in 2019, and his preferred destinations are rumored to be the Clippers or Lakers. Will the Raps do enough to keep the Klaw in the 6?

Virginia, is considered to be the current front runner for the Heisman. Grier threw for 3,490 yards and 34 touchdowns last season. Tua Tagovailoa is also in the running for the Heisman, assuming he will beat out Jalen Hurts for the quarterback position at Alabama. Tagovailoa was supposed to be the backup this year, but an incredible performance in the 2018 CFP Championship game changed all of that. The running backs in contention are Bryce Love from Stanford and Jonathan Taylor from Wisconsin. Love is an explosive runner and was the runner up last year for the Heisman after averaging 8.1 yards per carry. Love will have to do his best to break the Stanford Heisman curse, where five of out of the last nine years the Heisman runner-up has been from Stanford. As a freshman last year Jonathan Taylor ran for almost 2,000 yards and will hope to have similar success this year to help him bring home the Heisman. Ed Oliver, the defensive tackle from Houston, may have the best chance to be the second defensive player ever to win the Heisman. He would also be the first fully defensive player to win the Heisman.

6. Thunder: Andre Roberson After an early exit in the playoffs at the hands of the Jazz, the Thunder moved on from Carmelo Anthony. OKC locked up Paul George for another four years. The loss of Andre Roberson, a force on the defensive end who suffered a torn Achilles last year, proved to be a significant one as the Thunder were not as capable on defense.

With Roberson returning to the lineup, the Thunder should be able to make a deep playoff run.

7. Jazz: Donovan Mitchell The Jazz offseason was quiet, with the only addition to the roster being Grayson Allen. The Jazz will look to build on their impressive season last year, which included defeating Oklahoma City in the first round, but as Donovan Mitchell puts it, “There are no moral Ws." MONEY MOVES LeBron James signed a four-year, $154 million contract to join the Los Angeles Lakers on July 1, the first day of Free Agency. LeBron joins a Lakers team filled with young players with bright futures–Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, and Josh Hart. The move marks

the first time that LeBron will play in the stacked Western Conference in his career. James is coming off his first 82-game season and will be looking to lift the Lakers back into contention status after 5 seasons without making the playoffs, the longest stretch in franchise history.

Will LeBron be able to bring the glory of the Showtime Era back to the City of Angels?

Devin Booker is in Phoenix for the long haul. The 21-yearold signed a monster $158 million deal for five years. The new contract makes him the highest paid player in Suns franchise history. Booker will have more help next year in DeAndre Ayton and Mikal Bridges, the 1st and 10th overall picks in this years draft. With Josh Jackson hitting full stride at the end of last season, Phoenix may be the place to be in a couple of years.

Chris Paul re-signed with Houston on a four-year, $160 million deal. Chris Paul was a key piece for the Rockets team—that is, when he played.

CP3 had a hamstring injury that undoubtedly affected the Rockets in their Western Conference Finals matchup with the Warriors.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

SPORTS / 15

New NFL rule changes are opportunity for innovation These updates to the rulebook could dramatically change America's most popular sport

Mirielle W.

Both rule changes have sparked fierce debate in the football world.

Starting this year, the new National Football League (NFL) rule changes could spell a dramatic change to the game as we know it. In response to the loud and condemning media coverage of concussions and other football injuries over the last few years, the NFL has begun to implement more and more rule changes in hopes of lowering the number of serious injuries to players. This season, the NFL has added two of the biggest rule changes the game has seen in at least a decade. Their impact on injury numbers remains to be seen, but it is clear that the changes will encourage evolution of the game at both the technical and large-scale levels.

The more visible rule change, at least to the casual viewer, is a targeting/helmet-hit rule that, according to the NFL Rulebook, deals a 15-yard penalty to any player who intentionally lowers his head to make contact with his opponent. The more technical but equally important second change is a new set of kickoff rules banning running starts by the kicking team and limiting the movement of the receiving team, which will drastically decrease the number of high-speed collisions in what is by far the most dangerous play in football.

Both rule changes have sparked fierce debate in the football world, with players and coaches coming down on both sides of the law. Vikings safety Harrison Smith and 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman are just a few of many players who argue that the new rules “need to be physically possible,” to quote Smith, and others like former league official Mike Pereira have also spoken out against the targeting rule in particular.

But just as many if not more counter those claims. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick feels that the changes are fairly unambiguous,

while players such as Rams cornerback Aqib Talib and Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner have explained that making it illegal to lead with the head won’t affect the way they tackle. Talib stated that “Guys just have to adjust” to the new rules—especially since it’s impossible to tell exactly how they will be officiated. The effect of the targeting rule in particular will become more well-understood after we’ve seen an entire regular season. And despite complaints and controversy, the new rules are here to stay. Furthermore, if history is any indication, they may even be a good thing for the evolution of football—innovations developed as a result of rule changes have made football into the complex, strategic game it is today.

Football innovation is an ongoing process at all levels. Though American football has been played since 1869, the game was still a far cry from its current form well into the 1940s. The last truly fundamental change was prompted by a shortage of college football players as a result of World War II. By 1941, many colleges were struggling to field football teams due to the number of players who had left to serve in the war. At the time, rules were such that any player who exited a game for any reason could not return during that quarter, even if the player in questions was only fatigued or shaken up, which meant that coaches could cycle through players relatively quickly in an intense game. With so few players left, several coaches struggled to field teams. In response, Herbert “Fritz” Crisler, head football coach at the University of Michigan, suggested a rule change to allow substitutions whenever the play clock was stopped between plays, and to allow any player to come back into the game. The proposal passed, and college teams continued playing despite their slim rosters.

The adoption of the substitution rule at that 1941 meeting would not prompt great innovation until 1945, when Crisler’s Michigan team played Army. Crisler, upon realizing he would have to start nine freshmen (out of 11 total starters) against a much stronger, more experienced Army team, developed a brilliant, unorthodox strategy. He divided his team into better offensive players and better defensive

players, then subbed each unit in depending on whether Michigan had the ball. This “two-platoon system” became the offense and defense that are ubiquitous today.

Beyond modernizing football strategy, however, Crisler was a visionary who saw far ahead of his contemporaries when it came to the direction of collegiate sports. In one prophetic example, Crisler remarked in a 1964 interview with Sports Illustrated that he felt that new plastic equipment, particularly hard helmets, would cause severe injuries and change tackling methods so that players would lead with their heads. It turns out that he was exactly right, both about the tackling and the injuries. Helmet-hit tackles are the exact developments being outlawed by rule changes today. Perhaps those calling for a return to old leather helmets and bygone decades’ playing styles are right—or maybe we just need more innovators to move past tackles that lead with the head and invent an entirely new way to play football.

From the first football game in 1869 until at least the 1940s, college football coaches and players were the ones who pioneered a multitude of innovations, often in parallel with rule changes that worked to make the game safer and more understandable. During these years, several coaches worked together to turn football from an awkward combination of soccer and rugby into truly American football. These innovators came primarily from schools in the Ivy League and what is now the Big Ten Conference, but would ultimately include Southern and West Coast coaches as well. The earliest and perhaps some of the most influential of these “football elite” included Walter Camp (often called the “Father of American Football”), Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glenn “Pop” Warner, Parke H. Davis, John Heisman, Fielding H. Yost, and Knute Rockne. Often working together, they invented football’s point-based scoring system, system of downs, forward pass, center snap, punts, varsity letters, uniform numbers, and names and roles for the eleven positions used at the time, not to mention countless technological terms and plays which are the ancestors of every football call today.

16 / ENTERTAINMENT

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1

More accurate name tags ART BY WILLOW C.Y.

Worried that my friends all forgot about me over the summer :(

done with reflections

over-caffeinated from the coffee, red bull, and energy drinks i had last night

a senior, and i have given up on everything except wry mockery

s t a r ved.. .

I didn ' t ea t br e a k f a st

dead insid e X_X

Things to do before you graduate

only a month into junior year, and I’m already content with having another summer break next week

Mike Peller

Ken-Ken

Willow C.Y.

Jordan M. Mavericks are always seeking opportunities to challenge themselves, not only in terms of academic learning, but also personal growth and achievement. Try tackling this list below to have a true upper school student life experience.

1. Use the I-Lab for a project (e.g. Quest or a design-thinking assignment in other classes) to learn and interact with not only the machines and tools in the space, but also the people (i.e., Angi Chau, David Dixon, John Feland, George Jemmott, Jason Oswald, Jen Selby, Carl Shan, Alison Wong, Rob Zomber) who put 110% effort into maintaining the space and helping students.

5. Get enough sleep so that you don’t have to consume a single serving of caffeine the next day.

6. Finish your Quest a week before Expo and bask in the school-wide panic.

Go to Angi, Rob, and John to collect praise.

7. Bring advisory snack all of your assigned days for at least one year.

2. Bring freshly popped popcorn to class, letting the buttery salty scent waft past all the other classrooms first.

8. Put in at least one honest Open Session card and give at least one meaningful answer in response to someone else’s.

3. Take the train at 4:51 p.m./5:09 p.m.

(Northbound) or 4:50 p.m./5:15 p.m.

(Southbound) in December so you can see the sunset at Hillsdale Station.

9. Go to Chipotle with your advisory for lunch and save just enough food so that you can ostentatiously finish it off in your next class.

4. Somehow manage to be first in line for lunch so you can brag about it on your way out of the café with your food held high as everyone ogles your bowl to see what’s for lunch.

10. Take the time to read through a full issue of The Nueva Current. *Follow @thenuevacurrent on Instagram for updates and announcements about new issues of the school newspaper.

Want more to-do lists in your life? Turn to page 286 in the 2017-2018 yearbook to check out what the Tidal staff recommended on their bucket list.

INSTRUCTIONS: Your goal is to fill in the whole grid with numbers, making sure no number is repeated in any row or column. The number and operation in the upper left corner indicates the sum/difference/product of the squares in that section. In this 7x7 puzzle, you can use the numbers 1-7 to fill in the squares.

Crossword ACROSS

Willow C.Y.

1. Brand of the swoosh 4. App whose icon is a white and rainbow camera, abbr.

6. ______-friendly 7. Comes at the end of a school's web address 8. Name for process of showing "natural" web search results, abbr.

9. Comes before a former name 10. Spanish for "cans" 12. A modern feature to see a digitally-modified world, abbr.

13. File extension for the Apple Icon file 15. Japanese martial art with head guards and gloves 16. How commentors address the thread-starter, abbr.

DOWN 1. Has a mascot who is a brown, long-eared bunny 2. Government agency partly responsible for immigrant detention centers 3. Has a mascot who is a jug of fruit punch 4. What prompts "Eureka!"

5. Has a logo that is an inverted triangle 7. Abbr. for this section of The Nueva Current 11. Oil company whose logo is four red triangles in the shape of a diamond 14. " ______ what?"