THE WILLILIST

A by-the-numbers look at recent school highlights BY DENNIS CROMMETT

7

Videos filmed by Admission this fall in which current students give tours of campus, dorms, and Easthampton hot spots. Visit our YouTube channel and let us show you around! 12 The number of hours ahead of Eastern Time that Melody Pan ’22 reports for The Willistonian from her Shanghai home. Melody asked students which foods they missed most during remote learning. Their answers? Easthampton staples Tandem, Kisara, and La Veracruzana.

10,000+

COVID-19 PCR tests given this fall in tents on the quad and then processed at Harvard and MIT’s Broad Institute in Cambridge 106% Increase in participation of young alumni giving to the Williston Northampton Fund since 2016. Let’s go, young ’Cats!

$20K Amount raised by Williston in our secondannual Just Tryan It triathlon, which supports families dealing with pediatric cancer. Williston is stronger together! 16 Number of alumni classes that reunited (and it felt so good) during our June Virtual Reunion 2020 IX Songs on Latin Teacher Beatrice Cody’s beautiful new album of original songs. Cody collaborated on the music and lyrics with jazz pianist Stephen Page, a music tutor at Williston and other area schools.

400+ Masks sewn for faculty and sta by Vivian Liu, parent of Williston student Andrew Warren ’21. Thanks for keeping us safe, Vivian!

481 Headsets distributed at the beginning of Trimester 1 (one for each student) to ensure students can easily hear and communicate with their Zooming classmates 50 Number of shovelers who helped clear Sawyer Field after an early snowfall to make way for that day’s scrimmages. Talk about teamwork!

6Number of Williston football alums who will be playing in the Ivy League in 2021 (counting two on this fall’s team who are committed). The schools: Brown (2), Columbia (2), Harvard (1), and Princeton (1). Touchdown!

2,500

Approximate square feet of clear Lexan polycarbonate plastic installed across campus. And just like the Wildcat spirit, it’s tough to shatter.

PAINT BY NUMBERS

33

Art supply kits made by Williston faculty so that students would not have to share materials during pandemic art classes

156

Bars of instrumental electronic music composed by Z. Demetriou ’21 for the fall play, Antigone

1,839˚F

Average kiln temperature during the initial bisque firing of the 70+ pieces made in ceramics classes during Trimester 1

16

Choral students who serenaded legendary choir director and retired faculty member Dick Gregory

400

ISO of the 35 mm black and white film used in the darkroom class, taught by veteran photography teacher and class of 1977 alumnus Ed Hing

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

In addition to virtual classes, assemblies, and advisory meetings, the spring of 2020 brought the first-ever remote commencement in Williston’s 179-year history. In his address to the class of 2020 and their families, Head of School Robert W. Hill III talks about loss, resilence, and this historic moment that will forever bind students together.

Since 2013, each grade has processed behind a special class flag. This year’s senior class banner was designed by senior artist Hannah Cannizzo ’21.

The vuvuzela is a long plastic horn, typically blown by fans at soccer matches. W illiston class of 2020—I cannot possibly stand before you this morning without first acknowledging this epochal moment—in fact, my remarks will turn on Williston’s long history and your place in it. But first, I know that everyone tuning in now has been wrestling with isolation and loss—and my heart and sympathy go out to all families who have su ered the loss of loved ones or friends from the insidious reach of this pandemic.

That hardly sounds like an upbeat way to begin a celebration, class of 2020, so I am going to shift gears.

On a normal graduation we come together as an entire school, all grades having processed behind their class banners to take their places in the matrix of over one thousand chairs. Beneath the canopy of the grand tent covering the Reed Student Center lawn, it is at this point that I ask seniors to rise and face the audience and show your appreciation to your extended families and supporters who helped bring you to this auspicious moment. I then ask you turn around to face the stage and thank your teachers and mentors. So, wherever you are, I will now pause for the shouts, and hugs, and high fives, and sounds of vuvuzelas.

You are making history today, class of 2020, and on behalf of everyone at Williston, your teachers and coaches and advisors, I cannot overstate how proud we are of you.

We have been thinking about you constantly, and the more it became obvious that your Williston careers would end not with a bang but with a Zoom, the more my thoughts have turned to how to makes sense of this colossal deviation from the norm.

You are making history, 2020. For the first time in Williston’s 179 years, graduation cannot occur on our campus. This is where you say: Thanks for that news flash, Mr. Hill.

I do not blame you if at some point this spring you have thought or said aloud: Why me? I could have been born a year earlier, or a year later. But instead, here we are. Many of you were born in 2001, a monumental year itself, the year when 9/11 occurred, and so it seems you cannot escape history. What was arguably the greatest historical inflection point since World War II, 9/11 indelibly imprinted meaning on otherwise unnoteworthy numbers, which now give way to 2020. Future historians will categorize and contextualize the year of this novel coronavirus and COVID-19, but it does not take a big leap to say you are completing your Williston careers at a pivotal moment in world history, not just United States history. The world has, literally, come to a standstill. The novel coronavirus is particularly heinous as it attacks the weakest among us, the poor or the sick, no matter what their home address. And for those other seniors, senior citizens, who graduated from high school 50 years ago or more, the virus

Like high school seniors across the world, Williston students headed o for March break 2020, having no idea they had just attended their final inperson classes on campus.

Of the 131 students who graduated in 2020, 75 of them—or just shy of 60 percent—were born in the monumental year of 2001.

Fun fact: Mr. Hill grew up as a “faculty brat” on the campus of Middlebury College, where his father was an English professor. Go, Panthers!

Just in case Mr. Hill is correct, Wildcat alumni may want to stock up on Willistonthemed face masks at willistoncampusstore.com

A plaque on Easthampton’s Town Hall is dedicated to the memory of 22 Easthampton sons “who died for their country during the Great Rebellion.” has induced a state of fear and mortality levels that we hope to never see again. I was 10 years old in 1970, and the American war in Vietnam, and the Cold War, and the eruptions of the civil rights movement, and the makings of a constitutional crisis with Watergate, all threatened my world, but not like what you have endured.

We do not yet know the aftermath of this pandemic because we are still in the middle of it. What new habits will become normal? No more handshakes, no more middle seats on airplanes, Slack and Zoom doctors’ visits, face masks every flu season—who knows? You might find that wearing fuzzy slippers and pajama bottoms becomes classroom dress. Maybe pandemic Tik-Toks will make you famous. Yet these are small considerations against the backdrop of what you have given up, being deprived of your long senior spring goodbyes, those truly meaningful rites of pas-sage that allow you to step from teenagehood and into early adulthood. About the only silver lining I can see is that the class of 2020 never had to endure the student handbook “talk” from me this spring about staying inside the lines, since school rules and Saturday night consequences do not translate virtually.

You are making history, class of 2020. To give you some “Button Speech” context, Williston has held in-person commencement exercises every year: Through the years of the Civil War, while the cannons were firing on Fort Sumter, headmaster Josiah Clark was giving diplomas to the class of 1860. In 1916, Joseph Henry Sawyer conferred diplomas as World War I raged, and in 1944 as D-Day changed the course of World War II, Archibald Galbraith sent Williston’s young men o into the world. Fifty years ago, when student protests against the Vietnam War resulted in the killing of four students by the National Guard on the campus of Kent State, graduation ceremonies were canceled at a handful of major universities. Even then, Headmaster Phil Stevens presided over commencement at Williston. So here you are, class of 2020. You have not chosen any of this, none of us has, but the question you should be asking is not, “Why me?” but, “Since I am here, how do I respond to the moment?” There is no easy answer, but that does not mean you should not apply your considerable powers of reasoning to reflect on how you will make your way through this truly unprecedented moment.

You have shifted from being present at Williston, some of you for an astonishing six years, or one-third of your lives, surrounded by your best friends, to quarantining at home or some other sanctuary. You have handled technology and time zones, Zoom bombs and unmuted mics, and home chores along with homework. In my 10 years of being head of Williston, I have never seen a community come together with such a common sense of purpose as you have done this term.

Williston seniors, you are about to receive your diploma signifying an extraordinary education from a uniquely caring school. You will be considered adults as you enter these unparalleled times, and you have endured with courage, patience, and resilience the massive disruption that has deprived you of important ceremonies and meaningful moments of celebration. The number 2020, like the numbers 9/11, will mark a before and after for the rest of your young lives. Paradoxically, the events that pulled you apart and separated you from Williston will be the shared experience that binds you together for the decades to come. I have faith and confidence that you will rise to the challenge, you will meet this moment in history by making history of your own. Do so with Purpose, Passion, and, above all, Integrity, no matter what you choose to do, and no matter where life takes you. Godspeed, 2020.

Technically, Zoombombing is defined as an “unwanted disruption by internet trollls into a video conference.” For Williston students and faculty, though, last spring’s Zoom bombs were much friendlier—family pets, little siblings, and parents delivering study snacks.

Where has life taken the class of 2020? They matriculated to more than 105 di erent colleges and universities, from Assumption to Yale. Find the full list on the college counseling page of Williston.com.

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT WILLISTON FOR YOUR FAMILY.

Williston is a true family school with generations of students wearing the green and blue. As an alum, you know how great Williston’s community and faculty are, but do you know about all the new programs and facilities at the school today? Come find out how we’ve changed—and which traditions still anchor us.

TO SCHEDULE A VISIT OR RECEIVE A COPY OF OUR VIEWBOOK, PLEASE EMAIL ADMISSION@WILLISTON.COM

The work of metal artist Betsy Lewis ’12 evokes the natural world—vinelike coils, bones, even a four-chambered heart— yet still retains a crafted delicacy. Now installed in her new Brooklyn studio, she is developing pieces on a larger scale. To read how Williston continues to shape her life and work, turn to page 27.

ALUMNI NEWS