ROR Magazine Spring 2022

SPRING 22’

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Hybrid Era of Boarding P. 126

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P. 134

Envisioning a Curriculum for Admissions

Personal Finance Column Immunity-Booster Recipes

& More

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Anton Siler

CEO & Founder

HAGAN SCHENCK

7 Vice President and Artistic Director for World Branding He supervises all critical brand visual and content aesthetics for both ROR Publications as well as the universe of Schenck Enterprises including Dartmouth Associates Family of Services, such as ROR Training, ROR Consulting and ROR Promotions. He also reviews and stabilizes the aesthetic consistency of websites, social media, and all collateral promotional campaigns.

A New York trained artist and entrepreneur, he has contributed his talents to a broad range of creative and business endeavors including The Aware Wolf Collective, a branding and promotional agency, as well as developing a motivational and fitness system that promotes the All I Know Is Go training system.

CHIEF PRODUCT AND A digital marketing expert, Chiranjeev oversees all areas of Schenck Enterprises global technology, strategy, marketing campaigns, product development, including product management, UX design and engineering. He brings extensive experience in building direct to consumer platforms and associated products and services for the digital economy.

Director of Global Media and Outreach Trey manages the production of the ROR Magazine aligned podcast, the Admissions Entrepreneur, A Day in the Life, across all audio and visual platforms. He has created a ground-breaking podcasting system allowing our admission professionals to be featured in sound and print around the world.

Previously he founded Hype Music Network in 2013 with the start of his first podcast “The G-List Show.” Trey set out to give musicians and up & coming creatives and entrepreneurs an opportunity to share their talent globally, all the while creating high-quality content.

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Publisher’s Message

D

ear members of the ROR Magazine community!

I hope that spring has flashed into your lives, as the days grow longer, the colors are brighter and hope for better times abounds.

These last two years have taken us on a challenging journey that has shaken the very foundations of education. Small boarding schools and colleges are burdened with finding enough viable students at a time when there are less students and the money in the hands of fewer people. That said, some trends are starting to emerge. The “We-are-in-this-together” attitude is being replaced with “we-need-more-revenue-now” mantra, which places the urgent impetus on the shoulders of admission professionals to perform, now more than ever before. Heads are feeling the pressure from boards, who feel they have “rightsized”, subsidized the budget with the endowment and altered the mission, enough… they now want more tuition dollars in the door, period.

Particularly at small boarding schools, where even one less boarding tuition can make the difference between a crucial teacher being retained or a signature program continued, admission professionals are feeling the heat to “perform in the wilderness” as they feel leadership is not supporting them. Consequently, we are seeing admission professionals jumping ship to other schools in the spring, rather than even finishing up their contractual obligations through June 1st, thus leaving their past school in an even bigger crisis with now no director!

Our parent company, Dartmouth Associates, predicted this problem and developed a solution to save schools by supporting boards, heads and Admission professionals with our bespoke, Results Oriented Recruitment training (ROR). If you find yourself in this situation, please call them, they will change your recruiting culture in 30 days and save your school!

In the meantime, we will continue to bring you both dynamic lifestyle articles as well as tackling the issues that are on the forefront of education across the globe. In these uncertain times, we must work together, and your passion and expertise through profession submissions lift us all. Please reach out to us and we will include your thoughts as part of the literary fabric that is allowing ROR Magazine to change the shape of education throughout the world.

Again, to our readers and advertisers, we thank you for your continued support in becoming part of a movement. Now more than ever... it is time to ROR! Wishing you all a fearless and dynamic spring!

Yours for a dazzling 2022,

Thomas Schenck

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Editor’s Message Spring is the most sprightly word there is. It is synonymous with new life, change, metamorphosis, color, brightness, hope, new comings and beginnings, and a pleasant balance between the harshness of winter and the heat of summer.

The cold may not have fully left us this season, but we promise our Spring Issue will only leave you warm and cosy. We welcome our readers back with a fresh slate of contributions from aspiring voices from all across the world.

Christian Wang of ULEAD is back with anecdotes on growth curves, Paul Otis of Lake Tahoe Prep illuminates a daring include-all philosophy to solving boarders’ learning difficulties, and Jonathan Naylor, a professional software developer, gives an insider’s guide to school leaders looking into digital learning solutions. We have an active art historian and archeologist penning her findings on the subject of equity in arts instruction, while our favorite historian David Brearty is back with more figures on the state of admissions from around the world.

On the lifestyle side, we bring you immunity boosting recipes from Alia Shakir, a list of 2022 book read recommendations from Nelly Neamo, a beautiful analysis of Bob Dylan’s latest album by a Kenyan music lover, an examination of pros and cons of intermittan fasting from Edgar Wulf, and an engrossing travail through select libraries in Tokyo by Shyam Bhardwa, a member of the international public and private school teachers’ community! Writers from New Zealand and Ukraine educate us with narratives spanning from masculinity, bipolar disorder, air pollution, and of course the war. Finally, relationship expert Dr. Norva Semoy Abiona gifts us essential marital advice, admittedly, focused on women but essential reading for men as well.

While we bring a sampling of contemporary and classic art for your refined sensibilities, a host of original contributors bring us breathtaking photography and artwork and seething cartoon commentary. We are grateful and shall continue to bring you editions that are worthy of your desktop display.

Keep reading with us.

Rhodora O

Our Contributers

Edgar Wulf

is a UK-based freelance writer with a passion for tech and video games.

His work appears on sites like CyberPunks.com and TheXboxHub, and he also runs his own blog: Made in Arcade.

When he grows up, Edgar hopes to become Hank Moody.

Joseph Gachanja

is a well-seasoned writer and content creator who mostly focuses on film analysis and reviews. For the past 10 years, he has been helping movie directors and students through scriptwriting, film bible creation, and overall critical analysis. Joseph has his own business working as a freelance film analyst on Fiverr.

He helps filmmakers create a film that fulfills true happiness and fulfillment.

Shyam Bhardwa Shyam is an English teacher with a deep love for travelling. Since graduating, he has been constantly globetrotting, and currently lives in Yokohama.

The unique culture and food allows him to also enjoy his other great passions - cooking and writing.

Jonathan Naylor

is a software developer and consultant with 10 years of commercial experience developing enterprise technology solutions. You can reach him at techbynaylor@gmail.com to discuss and plant out your software development projects with him.

Christina Wang Founder | ULEAD

After many years of experience as an international education program coordinator, Wang founded her own company where she integrates her personal philosophy for supporting students inspired by her own daughter.

Alia Shakir

has M.Sc. in Applied Zoology. She has 23 years of experience teaching biology to high school grades across different modes of instructions. She loves writing in her spare time.

B. Reagan

has a bona fide background in literature. He has been a reading and writing enthusiast all his life.

As a freelance writer, Reagan specializes in reviewing books, songs, and movies. He also critically ana-

Dr. Norva Semoy Abiona

is a coach, motivational speaker, work-life balance and relationships expert who’s passionate about helping women have success, balance, and achieving fulfillment in your business, love life and home.

Maryna Petrovska

is a freelance creative writer, text creator and book editor.

Texts go through her before going out into the world to be seen by millions of people.

Kim Pinnelli

Jessey Mills

is an experienced writer and editor from New Zealand.

He is a successful self-published author of Woeful Requiem. His edited opus

by Jordan P. Barnes, One Hit Away: A Memoir of Recovery went to awards success last year. He has several excited projects in the pipeline as writer and editor.

has been a professional financial writer for over 15 years, and has appeared in many industry leading financial media outlets. Kim has a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from the University of Illinois at Chicago and loves helping people make sense out of their personal finances.

David McBrearty

is a historical researcher, palaeographer and author who has taught early modern history and manuscript studies at third level. He has published widely and edited early modern manuscript material for publication for several academic presses and government bodies. His interests largely lie in modern European and American history, with an emphasis on state structures and political theory.

He is based in Ireland.

Sofia Mathiou

is a working professional in History and Archeology from Greece. For several years she has studied and worked in Greece, Spain, and Romania and other than professional expertise, has also gained comfort in English and Spanish languages. She is as comfortable with academic essays as with lighter blog pieces, translations, and social media management. You can commission work from her through Fiverr.

Callum Knight

Callum Knight (Ko te Hika o Pāpāuma te iwi) is a writer and editor from Aotearoa New Zealand. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.

He is a Kaiwāwāhi Takirua | co-editor for Te Pararē, the Te Mana Ākonga student magazine.

Nelly Neamo

is a qualified physiotherapist who has a passion for both freelance writing and lifestyle coaching. She has considerable experience mentoring clients through health weight changes and uses her life experience in her writing, with impeccable research and word processing skills.

“Katupat” Indonesian or Malay tradition of creating diamond-shaped basket-weaves out of coconut leaves before cooking rice cakes inside.

Photo by Rizky Yogatama. Unsplash License.

PUBLISHER Thomas Schenck, President Dartmouth Associates EDITOR Rhodora O COVER & CREATIVE DIRECTION Hagan Schenck ART DIRECTION Rhodora O

Disclaimer: ROR Magazine will not be held liable for any contents of the magazine attributed to a particular contributor/ creator. This applies to advertisements. The contributor will be liable for any copyright claims. Details behind the back cover.

PROOFREADING Jessey Mills APPROACH US: Website: www.dartmouthassociates.com Facebook: RORMagazine LinkedIn: DartmouthAssociates CONTRIBUTE/ COLLABORATE: rhodora.jabs@yahoo.com ADVERTISE: dartmouthassociates@gmail.com SUBSCRIBE: rormagazine.com THE ROR PHILOSOPHY: Interventional Playbook Podcast

Copyrights: No part of this magazine may be copied, reused or redistributed in any form. This copyright notice does not apply to images noted as Stock Photos or credited to photographers/ sources placing their work for royalty-free re-use on Unsplash, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons and other Stock websites.

See detailed TERMS & CONDITIONS at the backend of the magazine.

is a graphic designer and artist with a BA in Visual Communication from Hoschchule Luzern, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland. Other than graphic design, Wendelin also pursues 3D Design, music, photography, typography, and skateboarding. Check his great compositions, often donated to the Public Domain, on his Flickr profile.

Milagros Nieto Moreno

is a Venezuelan cartoonist who lives in Argentina. For many years, she has worked as an illustrator in several local newspapers creating satirical cartoons.

Timothy Svoboda

lives in Chesapeake Va. He is an avid runner, and enjoy taking photos along the way of my daily miles. He uses his phone camera presently, but intends to buy something with more capabilities in the near future. You can check out his output on Twitter @t_ photojunkie.

Luis González

is a 34 year old cartoonist from Venezuela. Through his drawings he has been able to cope with the deep problems of living there. He has loved drawing cartoons since he can remember and he really likes what he does.

Luis is a prowrestling fan and also specializes in wrestling cartoons. Professionally, he is an expert in editorial, political, fanart, vector design, and comics.

Featured Artists

Wendelin Jacober

Aliona Syz

is a Ukrainian illustrator, born in Krolevets, Sumy region. When the war began, Aliona was in Brovary, Kyiv region and she had to leave the country to save her life. The city has been repeatedly ravaged by the Russian army.

Now she is volunteering and helping to raise funds for the Armed Forces. She is available for freelance hire at several different profiles linked here.

Richard Duijnstee

is a 47-year-old Canadian born with a pencil in his hand. He is a professional illustrator who, in his words, graduated from the pencil to a fountain pen after art school. He says his drawings are happy, since he can’t draw “mean” things. He shares some of his work on Pixabay.

Admissions as a Profession

by David Brearty, Rhodora O & Toria Abidemi

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by Jonathan Naylor

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ROR INTRODUCTION LewerMark Insurance for Students

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ROR PROFILES Select bios of Professionals in Admissions and Related Fields

Educational 118 Software ROR PLAYBOOK Development The Entrepreuner Mindset: The Guide Pitch Deck Paradigm (Module I: Step II)

by Thomas Schenck

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ROR INTRODUCTION Arts Instruction at Lake Tahoe Prep

Part II – By Christina Wang

Interview by Thomas Schenck

A Hybrid Era of Boarding

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by Sofia Mathiou

Equity in Arts Appreciation

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ROR SCOOP Select News from the Independent Schools Community

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WHAT’S HAPPENING, ROR? Upcoming Events in the Independent Schools Sphere

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ROR INTRODUCTION Cascade Academy

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ROR MUSIC REVIEWS Contemporary Classic: Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways Reviewed by B. Reagan

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HEALTH FEATURE

By Edgar Wulf

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ROR SEASON: Seasonal Art

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FOOD FEATURE

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IMMUNITY BOOSTER RECIPES

ROR STORY: Finality

By Jessey Mills

ROR SCREEN REVIEWS “Flee” & “Coda” Reviewed by Joseph Garcia

By Alia Shakir PERSONAL ESSAY

by Callum Knight

88 the ones who make us men

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ROR COLUMN Personal Finance - Maximize your Savings

By Kim Pinnelli

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ROR INSPIRES Dmitro Yashko’s Routines of Success & Personal Essay

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ROR BUZZ A Walk Through Tokyo’s Bookland

By Shyam Bhardwa

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ROR BOOKS 5 Latest Releases to Read in 2022

by Nelly Neamo

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WAR ESSAY

by Maryna Petrovska

Six 178 Unspoken Marriage Rules To

By Norva Semoy Aviona Follow

Bob Dylan Mural in Minnieapolis, Photo by Sharon Mollerus, Flickr, CC BY 2.0

BOB DYLAN

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Many people never find out that Bob Dylan is the world famous stage name of one Robert Allen Zimmerman. Many more discovered about his far-reaching contributions to American poetic art tradition when they were acknolwedged in his Nobel Prize for Literature award. Commonly regarded as one of the greatest singers and songwriters ever, he also distinguished himself as a visual artist and poet of great distinction.

He has published a lot of experimental work on prose poetry and an autobiography that depicts the memories from the early years of New York City.

Dylan's songwriting has often reflected on individuals' lives, on whose lives should matter, whose should not, and how cruelty and violence have affected various individuals. His songs have been more like songs of protest, confusion, and offering hope during some of the wildest events in American history, for instance, the cold war and the Civil Rights movement. Dylan presents a sense of the American spirit and what it entails in many ways.

Dylan’s newest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020), departs from his usual inclinations and is not quite a protest album. This project was first announced when Dylan released a comeback single, “Murder Most Foul." It is a seventeen-minute ramble in the style of incantation about the death and assassination of John F. Kennedy. Dylan manages to reinvest one of the most chewed-over happenings during the 20th century in this song. He presents it as a crucial American trauma when the nation's soul was torn away and how Kennedy’s death was the death of American purpose and direction. Dylan doesn’t care for Kennedy’s argued badness as a president or human being. He still mourns it as a foul murder and stresses it started the nation’s long decay and rootlessness, which only persists and intensifies with time. As the song progresses, his vantage delves into other happenings during this century, such as the awfulness of segregation.

The album’s opener, “I Contain Multitudes,” is a song about the elusive facades of human nature. Here Dylan offers a reminder about the frail nature of everything withering away to dust with time. The basis of this song and some of the other songs in this album is “Song of Myself,” a poem by Walt Whitman. The song presents a great opener that sets the mood for the following songs.

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The next song, False Prophet, contains intense depth, soul, and poetry. At the beginning of the song, Dylan sums up the existence of individuals and how they have to deal with unending feelings. “My Own Version Of You” presents a humorous story about an unspecified individual constructing a new human being from strange parts and forms. It is not clear whom the artist inhabits, but the audience gets to know that someone is determined to construct a new life form.

In "I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You," the artist has hewn a fragile and delicate song about love and death. It is the singer's account of attempts to overcome despair over the finality of death. That he, just like everyone else, is human and cannot stand being lonely. The next song, Black Rider, is no less dark than the previous song. Here the singer does not want to fight death anymore but also does not want to be put down by death. "Goodbye, Jimmy Reeds" is a song that serves as a tribute to a late blues musician, but it comes across as a reflection of Dylan's life, his career, and is reminiscent of Dylan's past days. Other songs in the album include Mother of Muses, Crossing the Rubicon, and Key West.

Generally, it does not matter what the outward theme of a particular song is; for instance, religion in Goodbye Jimmy Reed, romance in "I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You" is on romance, and art in Mother of Muses. Threaded through all of them is a persistent focus on death and mortality, a subject which is present quite well by different songs’ opening lines, such as “Today, tomorrow and yesterday," and "The flowers are dying as all things do." Another common thread is this culture titan’s mastery in constructing and executing each and every single one of them.

Bob Dylan with Joan Baez, Performance during the Civil Rights March on Washington DC, 1963 US National Archives and Records Administration, via picryl

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P R

ARIANAPOLIS

E P

At Marianapolis Preparatory School, our mission is to educate students in the Catholic tradition of academic excellence with a commitment to an active faith in God and a dedication to building character with content, compassion, and integrity.

The school, founded in 1926, has been a long-time fixture of New England independent school education. Yet, the current global health crisis is a timely test for whether an institution’s mission can meet the needs of students in an unprecedented historical moment.

So what are we doing to meet those needs?

Our academic excellence is all about innovation. The school had a ten-year history of virtual education before students ever needed to pivot online. Our combination of infrastructure and experience was invaluable to sustain scholastic rigor, regardless of location. The current need is flexibility; in-person learning is prioritized and preferred, but online work may be necessary for some to ensure health and safety on campus. Marianapolis classrooms are outfitted with Clear Touch Boards that allows instructors to teach directly to students in the room, as well as to any classmates who may need to log in from home for the day. Similarly, our online platform allows students to view and submit assignments, preview when assessments will occur, and stay connected with our faculty outside of classroom hours.

Marianapolis Preparatory School Grades 9-12, PG Day, 5-Day Boarding, 7-Day Boarding

www.marianapolis.org (860) 923-9245 admission@marianapolis.org 26 Chase Road, Thompson, CT 06277

Dedication to building character with content, compassion, and integrity remains central to our operations and community life. Character growth occurs as a result of open discourse, with supportive adults helping to contextualize priorities and outcomes for each student.

The extracurricular program has also remained active, with interscholastic sports competing throughout the year. The social/emotional benefits of physical engagement are endless. The focus for our extracurricular educators is growth, resilience, and teamwork, as this extension of the traditional classroom fosters countless learning opportunities. In each context, we stay hands-on in our approach to student development.

Finally, our commitment to an active faith in God is central to helping students understand the scope of – and approach to overcoming - challenges. While not all of our students are Catholic, our community approach is wholly values-based. Our students are taught to defend the lives and dignity of all people, seek common humanity, and advocate for both individual rights and the common good. The School holds the philosophy that there is no greater responsibility than to recognize our role in caring for ourselves, our community, and our world.

It is through this principled approach and innovative pedagogy that we are helping students at Marianapolis tackle the obstacles of the twenty-first century. As we approach our centennial anniversary as a school, we sincerely hope your student will consider joining us.

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Admissions as a Profession An overview by David Brearty, RhodoraO & Toria Abidemi

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The Process There is a lack of concrete information in the public domain about how exactly private schools run their admissions processes and how they actually determine who gets it and who doesn’t. Here we examine the facts, so far as they are available, and also query what percentage of applicants are admitted in general and why some are favored over others.

Firstly, it must be noted that precise details concerning admissions processes and acceptance rates are often difficult to obtain. Private and indepen-

dent schools are by their very nature able to set their own admissions processes and, depending on the jurisdiction, they are not obliged to disclose how many pupils apply and how many get in. In fewer cases still will one ascertain general explanations for why those who are successful were so selected and what the criteria are for admittance.

The basic admissions requirements of private schools in general are relatively well-known. Cost often determines admission before one ever even applies. As of 2021 private K-12 schools in the United States charge average annual tuition rates of $12,350 according to EducationData.org, though the median rate is lower and the average rate is driven up by elite schools charging upwards of $40,000 to $50,000 per year per student. Depending on what country one is in, the admissions process may often require a standardized test to be sat, typically SSAT (Secondary School Admission Test) in the United States. Letters of Recommendation are a general requirement in all jurisdictions these days, typically from former teachers. Letters from tutors of core subjects such as Maths and English are typically preferred. A face to face interview will also be undertaken during the admissions process.

Newer approaches to admissions are changing the face of this process. Family is now considered more paramount to involve in the admissions process. This has then extended the start point of the admissions process to a pre-marketing phase where making sure what your school offers falls within sight or hearing of potentially interested families.

From there it’s a matter of attracting as many new families into the admissions funnel and using tours, interviews, visits, and more to make sure they stay in the funnel until their child is enrolled. The numb-

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er of students selected against the total number of students who applied is known as the yield and is typically given as a percentage.

It is a general belief that admittance to private schools, whether in the United States, Canada, Britain or a European Union country is somewhat biased in favor of people from certain economic or demographic backgrounds. Despite the common perception, acceptance rates in general are very high. PrivateSchoolReview notes that in 2022 the national average private school acceptance rate in America was 85% per year. This was 86% for private elementary schools and 81% for high schools. There was, though, considerable regional variation to this.

For instance, states such as South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska and Iowa had acceptance rates between 94% and 97%, but others had significantly below average acceptance rates. For instance, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island all had average acceptance rates in the low seventies percentage-wise. The District of Columbia had the very lowest level, with just 66% of applicants in Washington D. C. accepted. That said, these percentages are a by-product of a private school system which has an intake of millions of students across the United States. When it comes to the elite private schools, such as Sidwell Friends in Washington D. C. where the Nixons, Clintons and Obamas sent their children, or the Dalton School in Manhattan, New York, competition can be exceptionally brutal and fees sky-high.

Similar acceptance rates are seen in Canada and European countries which don’t have a large tradition of private schooling such as Ireland and Germany. Here, market-demand generally dictates how many private schools are open. Yet, the situation can also be very different. The United Kingdom has very low rates of admission to many high-end private schools, particularly in London and some of the other bigger cities. A 2015 report in The Spectator noted that approximately 600 pupils applied that year to acquire one of the 90 places available at St Paul’s School for Boys. That is also the case in France where admissions to private schools are generally quite high, but extremely selective when it comes to institutions such as the Notre Dame International High School or the Lycée Louis le Grand.

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Types of Private Education on Offer with varying demands on admission staff, processes, marketing strategy and training requirements

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Private schools but free education with limited spots.

MAGNET SCHOOLS

Private schools specializing in particular arts, technology or science areas.

Private schools with solely online, digital instruction.

VIRTUAL SCHOOLS BOARDING SCHOOLS

Providing food and lodgings along with traditional education. These schools typically go beyond academia.

LANGUAGE IMMERSION SCHOOLS MONTESSORI SCHOOLS

Specialized bilingual education.

SPECIAL EDUCATION SCHOOLS PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS

Better equipped to service children with specific learning differences.

A religious private school that receives funding from the local church.

Affiliated to a religious association, these schools offer a curriculum in their theology along with academia.

A private school following the traditional, daytime model of education.

RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS DAY SCHOOL

Schools following the Montessori system of education.

Several professionals active in private education have spoken to ROR Magazine stressing the need to treat the admissions team of private schools and colleges as a profession in its own right. Currently the director of admissions and other staff are, judging by their resume qualifications, trained for a related field or have joined their schools as alumni and then gradually drifted over into the admissions section based on personal inclination or passion.

You will hardly find a Masters or Bachelors in Enrollment Management in a private school’s admissions rank for one great reason: there are no current diploma or degree programs when it comes to school. You will find several degrees with course offerings catering to the highly specialized higher education needs. Private schools are a different beast and their typology alone deserves a different syllabus of education, understanding and practicum, with schools ranging from International, boarding, college prep, vocational, therapeautic, to language immersion, to charter and beyond.

The lack of proper training and their own niche in graduation and employment is also holding back the profession from gaining more visibility. It is very hard to find profiles of admissions directors or related staff off school websites in general. Stateside schools with fully functioning, professionally maintained websites do fare better at this and feature their admissions staff as proudly as other departments or faculty.

However, as soon as you move into the private education internet with less regulated websites, or jump the borders into Canada or beyond, you find progressively less. Most international schools do not list their admissions staff at all, as if their positions are not significant enough to place on the front page.

Today private schools’ marketing strategy evident from their internet fronts seems to center heavily on featuring their academic and extracirricular offerings and their diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives. There seems to be an expectation that mention of these programs will be enough to attract families. But is it sufficient and how well-trained is the admissions staff to capitalize on the available attractions when families do approach?

Mark Sklarow is an experienced educational consultant who gets to see admissions staff of

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ThE ProFESSIONAL

schools in action when he conducts his clients’ visits. He believes that school heads need to invest in their admissions department as in regular ongoing training that coaches the staff on a number of skills such as articulating the school’s offerings, playing detective to discover the family’s specific set of concerns in sending their kid to school and then tailoring those offerings around the family’s concerns. The magazine found Thomas Schenck’s ROR training module has expanded the arsenal of the admissions staff to sophisticated and persistent marketing and salesmanship strategies that are adaptable to the admissions funnel.

We continue the discussion on Page 35 where columnist Toria Ink helps us envision an introductory course on school management and we tackle its essential modules and core competencies.

St. Bernard School and Church. 1890-1910. Wikimedia Commons, via Picryl

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Vintage color postcard featuring: The Pasture, Wesleyan Academy, Wilabraham, Massachusetts.

Currently, Wilabraham and Monson Academy, Wesleyan was one of the oldest educational institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Courtesy of the Wilabraham Public Library, via Picryl

ENROLLMENT AS COUNSELING

As we said above, one of the main reasons holding this profession back is lack of proper training opportunities and lack of a clear pathway arriving in the admissions office. The subject-matter expertise for admissions is broadly called enrollment management and college courses are full of college level testing, recruitment, interview and selection processes that are not always directly applicable to the tapestry of private education models out there. So we turned to professional course writers and asked them to come up with the content for a School Enrollment Management 101 course. All discussion and research percolated into three large areas or core competencies such coursework should focus on.

ThE CURRICULUM The first module of the curriculum must emphasize the starting point of the admissions journey at one hand and the end-goal at the other. Simply put, schools offer different types of specialized services, benefits or advantages in the education market, and ideally every family’s child would be in the school that perfectly matches the profile of this child and family’s needs. For instance, suppose there are three kids who are borderline musical geniuses and stand frustrated with the public education system. One of the families is wealthy and the kid wants independence in his educational pursuits. The second kid’s family is not very affluent but he too wishes to be autonomous to avoid at-home distractions and fast tracking for college. The third kid wants to stay close to a nurturant, highly supportive family while developing advanced musical talents.

Now ideally, the first kid with affluent family should be able to afford an elite Magnet education vehicle solely focused on music and also providing accommodations for long-distance travelors.

The second kid deserves a boarding house facility with a highly developed musical program. While the thrid kid could do well in a local private school with advanced music courses.

The key is to match the profiles of the kid’s unique personal and family picture with the profiles of the school choice spectrum. That is why we liken this set of core competencies to counseling. As Christina Wang, our international consultancy columnist, will enlighten, the essential service is to lay out a growth path that maximizes the child’s potential. It shouldn’t matter whether you are approaching the child from the end of a consultancy or receiving them in the admission office of your school.

Core Competencies:1. Student & Family Counseling Skills

ESSENTIAL OPEN-ENDED & GUIDED INTERVIEWING SKILLS DESIGNED TO TEASE OUT THE UNIQUE SCENARIO OF THIS KID AND FAMILY THAT THE SCHOOL PROFILE IS EXPECTED TO MATCH.

2. Aptitude & Skills Testing

BASIC EXPERIENCE WITH IN-DEPTH ASSESSMENT TOOLS TO GAUGE THE SKILLS PROFILE AND POTENTIAL ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES BESETTING THE CHILD.

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being well-versed with the psychological testing arsenal will help the admissions trainee to match interested students’ with the school’s unique roster of offerings.

ENROLLMENT AS SALES Treating Enrollment as sales opens up the whole arena of marketing to the admissions office. Even in its basic form, salesmanship is a diligent discipline, with the salesperson constantly at a door or phone or a computer screen, networking to new markets, approaching new prospects, and chasing leads until sales targets are met. More sophisticated marketing publicizes all aspects of a school’s existence and functioning using the tools of brand management, SWOT analysis, lead generation, media management, digital marketing, social media, and campaign creation. Marketing is a constant, ongoing process and it runs the gamut from daily phone calls to website maintenance to publicizing events in order to attract new prospects.

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When admissions professionals roll in from traditional teaching and school management pathways, they have missed any period of actual, formal training in marketing strategies. They are relying on personal skills and what they have picked up from former staff and school leaders.

Associations and Support groups sure help them along with webinars and courses, but it cannot be a substitute for a proper two-year immersion in theory and practice of the marketing world.

Core Competencies:BRAND MANAGEMENT. SALES STRATEGIES. LEAD GENERATION. SWOT ANALYSIS. MEDIA MANAGEMENT. DIGITAL MARKETING. SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT. ADMISSIONS CAMPAIGNING.

37 ENROLLMENT AS A YEAR-LONG JOURNEY Enrollment cannot be reduced to a psychological or business context. It is the running engine of a unique eco-system that is the private school. The end game of both marketing strategies and needs-based profile matching is to convert a potentially interested family into a secure admission. But enrollment goes beyond that and recruitment is just one wheel in its vehicle.

A big part of the enrollment director’s job is retention: ensuring continued progress, success and satisfaction of current admissions so they keep returning year after year and become part of the school’s marketing campaign through word of mouth and referrals.

Another role that goes beyond a counseling session or a marketing campaign is that of managing finances. Marketing strategies and recruitment and testing procedures are considerable financial investments which must fit like a puzzle piece with other big pieces of school’s teaching and learning resources, infrastructure and equipment maintainence. A good enrollment director, therefore, is nothing without budgeting skills, making sure that the total fiscal resources are managed in such well-oiled assemblage that the engine of enrollment suffers no breaks.

Research is another important step on the enrollment ladder. Research is not just numbers tracking. Using a return of investment approach, research can let you know which strategies have contributed what percentage of the year’s admissions and retentions targets.

Research also lets you measure success in a bigger way: the return of investment in terms of learners’ success. After all, the best enrollment strategy is to show parents they are getting what they wanted: results. The knowledge that their learners are growing and performing in meaningful ways that translate onto the transcript is the biggest proof of concept there will ever be. This level of school performance is also the best stimulus package you can put on your website as the main attraction. As such, the enrollment director invests in the overall school spirit so learners’ success comes across in happy students and fulfilled teachers.

Core Competencies:1. Recruitment 2. Retention 3. Budgeting 4. Research

38 A classic postcard depicting the lake by the Mount Holyoke College. The college is a private liberal arts education instituition and, historically, is part of a group of elite women’s colleges in the Northeastern United States.

39 “You guys want me to succeed soo bad...

I feel sorry for y’all!”

Waterlily artwork by Paul Klein. Public Domain via Pixabay.

A watercolor piece by American-Estonian artist Imbi Ebrus.

Credit Maalija, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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“Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy” (1887) Vincent Van Gogh.

Image digitally enhanced and distributed by Rawpixel.

Via the Art Institte of Chicago. CC BY 4.0.

“Decor Plat” (1915). Henry Lyman Sayen. Rawpixel via Smithsonian. Public Domain.

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45 “Allegory of Spring” (1817).

Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os. Still life with flowers in a Greek vase. Rawpixel via The Rijkmuseum.

Public Domain.

“Painting Easter Eggs” 2000, oil on canvas. By Mykhalo Chornyi. Described as the founder of Ukrainian folk art, he paints in realist and neo-primitivist traditions. Image donated to Wikimedia Commons by owner of the painting, Black Milly, CC BY-SA 3.0

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Pysanky (traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs.). Displayed 2021 in the exhibition hall of Volyn Regional Sceintific and Methodological Center of Culture. Image donated by BiwyH to Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0

Rows of lanterns in the traditional Islamic style lined for sale during Ramadan. The holy month involves waking up for the Sehri meals before dawn. Hence the lanterns to avoid waking up those exempt from the fasts.

Photo Credit: Rawan Yasser. 2019. Egypt. Unsplash License.

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Salat prayers for Eid-ul-Fitr, 2021, are perfectly framed around the unrenovated beauty of classic architecture, in the Rawalpindi HIlly area, Pakistan. Photo by Salman Preeom. Unsplash License.

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Simply titled “Spring,” this oil on canvas masterpiece by Peter Breughel the Younger, a Flemish Baroque painter, cheekily points out the harsh labor that goes into the manicured urban spring civilizations are familiar with. Wikimedia Commons via Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Public Domain.

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BY JONATHAN NAYLOR A Software Engineer shines the light on what happens when a school approaches for educational software solutions.

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oughly, there are three major decision-making steps that the school and the engineer must work through. After that, there will be anther round of secondary decisions to make.

The three major decisions are: Identifying the Problem Sourcing Existing Solutions Working Through to “Mission Complete” Status Let us take up these major stages one by one, and then we will overview the secondary tier decisions.

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Educational Software Development Guide

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Three Major Decisions in Educational Software Development: A. Identifying the Gap between What-You-Have & What-You-Want Believe it or not, organizations, including schools, can have difficulty describing or even knowing exactly what they want. Specially if they don’t have their own digital technology expert speaking for them.

Typically an organization reaches out to a software development contractor or a firm because they need help with one of three problems: i) a volume problem, such as too many man hours needed to accomplish tasks; ii) a time problem, finishing all the tasks per schedule is becoming difficult; or iii) or a money problem, looking for cost-effectiveness.

Sometimes the organization already has a collection of loosely coupled technologies that almost do the trick, but need some additional infrastructure to glue them together. This is almost universally more cost effective than building a system from scratch; which is why it’s important to identify what you have vs what you need. Only rarely is it because someone just wants to mod-

ernize a system that doesn’t have any pain points.

(Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken, so to speak). Figuring out what problems you are having with your current system of doing things is the first step. You may say that you want to convert an expanded curriculum into an online examination system, but it will take the consultation with a skilled technologist in the software field to determine in which direction to move next.

In the case of education, perhaps there is a lower budget to service more students, with fewer faculty and staff, and the students aren’t getting the education they deserve as indicated by test scores or some other metric. A possible solution to this may be to automate where possible so fewer staff are required to manage a growing workload. Perhaps it’s a matter of reducing the amount of time a teacher needs to put together customized lesson plans for their student body, or more automated ways of organizing, disseminating, and grading curriculum materials.

B. Are there Commerically Available Solutions that Solve your Problem?

Sometimes the vast technological growth that this century has seen in all industries including education is isolated and niche, and not obvious to someone who isn’t involved in technology development every day. The second important step is to have an experienced developer review commercial offerings to determine if anything exists that can be brought into the project early. Down the road, this will only reduce your project’s costs of solving big picture problems that may already have been solved in your industry before. Maybe some school already digitized testing on a component you only expanded to this year. You wouldn’t know that but your software expert would research.

Today, the availability of ready-made solutions is dynamic and rapidly changing. What was once an industry-standard may have been discarded and replaced without notice. So if you aren’t actively looking for these solutions, they could easily go unseen. And, like I said before, building solutions to your problem from scratch is always going to be more costly, time-consuming, and potentially risky than adapting or starting with already available and field-tested solutions.

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55 C. Define ‘Mission Complete’ Status for the Project, then Engineer Bridges between Pre-Existing Solutions and Mission Complete Let’s suppose Mission Complete is “software grading of mapping assignments per your new curriculum.” Continuing the argument from Decision B., the educational software items already on offer will be targeted either directly at your problem, or are targeted at the software developer/engineer you have contracted for your problem. Programmers have at their disposal a type of marketplace for software components, or parts of software. Consider it something like how a mechanic knows where to find a variety of car parts that can be used to fix problems with your car. Oftentimes creating new software is a matter of adapting these parts and enabling them to work together to solve bigger or more unique problems.

For example, there may be a component that exists which already reads maps in the way your new advanced geography component needs, and that’s all it does. Suppose there is another component that allows users to create maps in a way that students (and teachers) at the target grade level can easily learn (and teach). What a software developer may do is called an _integration_, where the job is to create a third component that makes sure the output of the second, map-creating component is also readable by the first map-reading software part. As a rule, integrations are much cheaper and time-saving than proprietary development. If this step of research were neglected, financial and time costs will be exponentially larger for making all three components (map-creation, map-reading, and integration) from scratch.

All in all, it’s imperative to start with a clear definition of Mission Complete for your project, so the developer can tell which software components in the marketplace will do and exactly how to bridge them to reach Mission Complete. If you are planning to convert a whole curriculum segment into an online examination program, your developer will work with your technology experts to divide the whole examination process into constituent parts and then come up with as many Mission Complete definitions as needed to cover the roster.

Once the three big decisions are made and the main part of the project is laid out, it’s time to tackle a number of secondary decisions.

Secondary Decisions in Educational Software Development: a. Hosting your Software Solution?

Software exists on physical computers and resides inside a physical RAM when being executed. So, what physical machine is this software going to be installed onto for actual use? Some organizations may have a server room onsite where it is managed by an on staff IT person or team. Other organizations may opt to host it remotely on equipment that is managed by a third party (the cloud).

Part of deciding where to put your software depends on the type of security that is needed. For example, if the technology has to handle sensitive student information such as names, addresses, financial documentation, payment methods, medical

records and the like, the software will need to securely communicate that information from within the on-site network to an off-site network over at least one third party infrastructure. Policy and legal requirements may add additional overhead to account for the security of this information.

Often the benefit of not having to maintain the computer equipment onsite can outweigh the cost of remote hosting. Remember, cloud hosting allows low cost scaling up. If your usage needs were to multiply with time, it may not be possible to keep and maintain enough equipment on-site to support that growth.

b. Maintenance and Administration of your Custome Software?

The question here is: Does the school need to hire a qualified software expert in admin position once their custom software is up and running or even before that?

Modern schools are likely to be equipped with at least one technology literate role, to manage and maintain the general technology requirements that already exist. Most of the software that exists on the equipment at an organization is supported by a large commercial software company that has a type of contract or legal obligation to ensure that the software they produce remains operational while hardware and security standards change over time. For example, the operating system on each desktop machine must be updated regularly in order to provide security patches that keep the infrastructure safe from malicious activity. These maintenance costs are usually absorbed by the larger business model of the software firm through distribution of their software across their client roster. That is, everyone pays a little bit more to keep the software working.

It’s a little more complex if there is only one or few clients. The software developers still need to produce the security patches, but they also need

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to be compensated for this additional ongoing development time. So, there are a number of options here for the school to choose from: i) retain the original developer with a contract, ii) outsource the maintenance work to a more competitive firm, or, iii) hire a software developer to reside on staff and do this work full time.

Note that this question is separate from hosting. Do not assume that becuase a server cloud is hosting your custom software, you don’t need on-site maintenance and troubleshooting. You will always do. One thing to consider would be the balance of additional payouts to company vs staff salary when judged against the breadth of the custom software itself. If you have recently converted the whole breadth of your high-school’s curriculum offerings to an online teaching, learning and examination system, it makes more sense to have a round-the-clock software expert overseeing operations on-site. Finally, all these options need to be discussed before development begins.

If the administration of the software will be done by someone who is already on staff, there will be a training period, and documentation will have to be created for that task.

c. Deployment Model to End-Users?

In the case of educational software, there are at least three types of end-users: students, teachers, and administrators. The final decision affects the ways in which these end-users access and use the software once it’s up and running, ready to use. It is a question of delivery and there are two different ways to do it.

For one, the software can be installed directly on to the computer system that is being used. Think common office applications. They are downloaded on the computers the end-users are working on. This type of software has access to the computer’s hardware in many cases, and is much more powerful, but does come at a maintenance cost of manually installing on every machine that is to use it. The developer will deliver the software in the form of a downloadable package, which will then be individually downloaded and installed at every end-user computer. It’s the school’s choice if they want to avail the download package for use from home as well for teachers or learners’ convenience or not (for

e.g. after hours grading, lesson planning, or extra practice from home).

The other option is browser-accessed web-based application. Think the whole Google Suite: documents, classroom, meets and so on. You don’t need to download anything. Instead, you use any standard browser to access the apps on their serving clouds with your sign-in information. The biggest benefit of this approach is that software updates done by the developer are instant, and do not require any additional compatibility concerns for an administrator. The applications exist on a centralized server, thus providing more control over the user experience compared to native (downloaded) applications.

Moreover, web applications tend to shift the burden of security responsibilities onto the software vendor, so it may alleviate some administration costs over the life of a project. In this case, once your custom software is ready to use, your software developer will upload it to the cloud server and train your on-site administrator.

d. Legal, Data Privacy, & Security Issues?

In terms of legal decisions, software licensing is of major importance. It is important to establish the expectation of usage and ownership early on in the development process. As I mentioned before, there exists a great deal of ‘open source’ software components in the wild that may be utilized to produce a new technology. But it also means you are subjecting your own work to the licensing requirements of the software being used. Often, using open source components requires that the software you are building can also be considered open source. What it means is you cannot distribute your software to end-users without making the source code of your work available to other consumers. Most organizations do not wish to disclose the source code of their commercial product to the public, however. In this case, the software can only work as a browser-accessed web application. Insisting on having a downloadable software without keeping your source code open source means every single component will have to be built up from scratch, which racks up your costs exponentially. Additionally, there can be legal impacts if third party software components you utilized had more strict licensing terms These licenses can be an oversight on part of the developers if emphasis isn’t placed on the importance of maintaining certain legal rights early on. The upshot here

is that you need a developer who is not a competent programmer but is fully cognizant of legal issues involved at all stages of development and end-usage.

Plus, as you can see, you need to be clear of these legal threads early on, as your decisions will impact your choices in nearly all the decisions already detailed in this guide. Your software developer will upload it to the cloud server and train your on-site administrator.

There is also the need to abide by industry regulations where applicable. There are rules about how private identifying information can be stored, transmitted, and accessed in a digital environment that must be considered in order to maintain compliance.

Legal fines may be incurred if these rules are not followed, so it is important to establish a clear understanding of the kind of data that is to be handled by the application during development. Due to changing regulations and software requirements, this is likely an important driver of maintenance costs over the life of the project. Sometimes security standards change in such a way that requires your software to be rebuilt to accommodate on short notice. Therefore, having access to someone who can handle these software updates can be critical to operations without major interruptions.

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It’s worth mentioning that security is of great importance in today’s technological ecosystem. Software tends to be both immensely powerful and fragile, exposing sensitivities that you or your team may not be fully aware of. This poses certain risks to organizations that depend on technology to operate as malicious actors are constantly looking for vulnerabilities to attack both for political and financial gain. Depending on the vastness of your educational digitization project or on the sensitivity of everything that is coded in the software, it may be as important to have a cyber security professional in your essential contacts list as it is to have a lawyer.

GAN generated AI artwork created using VQGAN + CLIP, and depicting desertification or terraformation.

Art by M. Ahabb Sheraz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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59 “Dreamy Architecture Vibes” Public Domain Art

By Wendelin Jacober Flickr

Antoni Gaudi’s Gaudy Barcelona.

Left. Gaudi’s masterpiece Casa Batlló, in the center of Barcelona, Eixample district.

Locally called House of Bones (Casa dels ossos) for its skeletal quality, both design and decor of the building, outside and inside, is unusual and defies expectations.

Right. Park Güell, a privatized park system consisting of architectural and design highlights by Antoni Guadi, located on Carmen Hill. It is a collection of buildings and accents distinguished by Gaudi’s mosaic work.

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BY EDGAR WULF For millennia, Muslims around the world partake in Ramadan, as they did this year in April. They commit to no eating between dawn and sunset for an entire month, every year. They practice self-discipline and focus their thoughts on prayer and fellowship.

But fasting is a practice that has existed religiously or otherwise in various other cultures.

In times gone by, people lived in uncertainty. When food wasn’t available in markets and everybody had to hunt it or grow it for their own families, vagaries of war and climate affected annual bounty and seasonal produce. Sometimes weeks or even months could go buy without breadwinners bringing any food for the table. Thus in bountiful times, the practice of fasting — deliberate abstinence from eating/drinking — was a useful habit to maintain. Today, with industrialized agriculture and commercialized supply chains, health experts view fasting as a useful and holistic diet mechanism and lifestyle practice. We call it Intermittent Fasting.

An Iranian Iftar meal in Ramadan.

Credit: Sayyed Shahab-o-din Vajedi, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Most traditional diets seek to exclude certain foods to avoid their potentially negative health effects.

For instance, vegetarianism excludes any meat from the menu while veganism goes a step further and cuts animal products altogether. Unconventional diets, like the carnivore diet, contradict common nutritional concepts by excluding almost everything but meat.

But unlike the previously mentioned diets, and many other diets, for that matter, intermittent fasting doesn’t discriminate against any foods. In fact, it isn’t even a diet technically. It’s a lifestyle choice or practice. In theory, and supported by ongoing research, intermittent fasting seems to combine the beneficial effects of many traditional diets without almost any of the accompanying limitations.

To begin with, intermittent fasting falls into several categories, such as alternating between days of fasting and normal eating or limiting calorie intake to just one meal per day. Also known as time-restricted eating, intermittent fasting initiates different bodily processes depending on the duration of a fast. It ranges from short fasts of 16 - 24 hours to prolonged fasting of 1 - 2 days. For the muslim people, since they follow the lunar calendar and their fast starts at dawn and ends with sunset, their fast lasts for several hours depending on season and region.

It’s worth noting that prolonged fasting should be exercised under medical supervision.

Intermittent fasting may seem daunting at first but is likely among the easier diets to get into and maintain. It doesn’t mandate you to significantly alter your menu and provides you with plentiful benefits even during short fasting windows. Mark Sisson, a former triathlete and author of “The Primal Blueprint,” describes intermittent fasting as a means to achieve metabolic flexibility. In other words, it incites your body to derive energy in absence of calorie intake to survive. Medical researchers have also demonstrated its ability to regulate insulin sensitivity and fight aging and disease.

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Normally, the human body prioritizes glucose to feed cells and internal organs, including the brain.

But this process changes when you abstain from calorie intake for a specific amount of time. Once the body depletes its glucose reserves and enters a fasted state, it begins to burn body fat. Dr. Valter Longo, during a podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, mentions that intermittent fasting targets visceral fat specifically. He adds that any lost muscle tissue gets rebuilt upon refeeding. This sequence of events reveals the significance of refeeding after a period of fasting. Nutrients ingested right after fasting considerably affect the outcome of previously initiated processes. A balanced meal of healthy fats, grains, and proteins, for instance, does a much better job at replenishing damaged cells at this time, than sugar or processed carbohydrates.

Whenever the body enters a fat-burning mode, liver converts fat into ketones and uses them, instead of glucose, for energy. Because the brain works significantly better on fat than on glucose, one of the first apparent benefits of intermittent fasting is increased mental clarity. This aspect becomes prominent around the 14-15 hour mark and enhances as time passes.

Also, while it works perfectly fine on its own, intermittent fasting goes hand-in-hand with the ketogenic diet. Both rely on metabolizing fat into ketones.

Intermittent fasting also increases insulin sensitivity and research shows that it could prevent the progression of diabetes. Coupled with a healthy diet, intermittent fasting leads to more elevated energy levels. Likewise, due to its insulin regulation effect and connection to inflammation control, it can decrease symptoms of auto-immune diseases like dermatitis and psoriasis, according to recent research findings.

In prolonged fasting, at the 18-24 hours stage without calories, intermittent fasting triggers a powerful regenerative process known as autophagy. During autophagy, the cells in your body start to actively recycle broken components such as damaged proteins, and use them to restore integrity.

Effects of autophagy increase exponentially over

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longer fast periods. Studies show that autophagy may prevent the formation of neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s, and even inhibit the growth of cancer cells. David A. Sinclair, a professor of genetics at the Harvard Medical School, touts intermittent fasting’s impact on longevity by creating beneficial stress on cells which postpones early aging.

In its general form, intermittent fasting forbids the intake of any calories but does allow the consumption of water and unflavored teas without additives, such as black and green. A cup of black coffee, even though it may contain up to 1 calorie per cup, also doesn’t pause the fasting-related body processes. Drinking water and other non-caloric beverages help curb hunger so that’s a surface benefit for the prolonged fast-keepers. Some research suggests that polyphenols in coffee stimulate pre-emptive autophagy, leading to better overall results.

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ea br ! a @ e m !#! $ ve Gi !%*

While there have been other researches that are less consistent, some doctors point out the lack of any direct connection with weight loss. It may come down to personal choice and preference on how you can make it work for yourself. Sadhguru, a practitioner of yoga and spirituality, explains it by recounting the story of an encounter between a mechanic and a doctor. Frustrated, the mechanic asks the doctor: “You’re a heart surgeon, you fix engines.

I also fix engines. How come you’re paid 10 times more than me?” To which the doctor replies: “Try to fix the engine when it’s running”.

Simply put, how can your body fix itself when it’s constantly occupied with metabolism? Intuitively, the beneficial experiences derived by the practitioners may well arise from the break from the unrelenting metabolism schedule the body faces during weekly eating patterns.

Since our launch in 1991, LewerMark Student Insurance’s guiding principle has been ’Do the right thing’. Thirty years later, and with the second and third generations of Lewer family leadership now at the helm, this principle continues to drive us.

We administer health insurance for international students because we believe those students and their institutions need better options—options that do right by the schools and students. We listen to our clients, adapt to their changing needs (and the changing times), and ultimately, help them protect the dreams and goals of our nation’s international student body. Similar to the K-12 schools we partner with, our level of service and care is holistic.

Client Advocacy The cornerstone of LewerMark's commitment to student care is our Client Advocacy Team. No matter the benefits we offer, if the student can’t understand or access their benefits easily or can’t get questions answered or provider billing problems resolved, we haven’t brought the student any value.

That’s why our team is available by phone or web chat to provide solutions. They make claims processing and payment, billing and enrollment, and program management a breeze for you, for your international office, and for your students.

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“We have been working with LewerMark for more than seven years,” said Kim Fiala, Assistant to Head of School and Registrar at Thomas Jefferson School. “The team is always professional, friendly, and helpful. Annual renewals are simple and easy to complete. The claims folks are always helpful and quick to resolve any issues that crop up. We really value their partnership.”

Simply put, we know you already have more than enough on your plate, so it’s our pleasure to handle the insurance administration duties for you. Speaking of insurance administration, have you ever tried to explain American health insurance to anyone? It’s confusing!

The jargon can be intimidating, especially when it directly impacts both the student’s health and wallet. This is why our Client Advocacy Team hosts orientations for students and families. We’ll help navigate the complexities of the US healthcare system and even have a little fun while we’re at it—because we all know the topic of health insurance can be tedious.

Trusted Basics Our approach is to cover all the expected basics by providing a robust PPO network and low out-of-pocket cost immunizations, annual health checkups, sports physicals and coverage, and tuberculosis testing, to name a few. “We’ve yet to find a company that can match LewerMark’s product and customer service,” said Gay Bennett, High School Vice Principal, and International Program Director at Linfield Christian School. “Truly, the personalized website, knowledgeable staff, and immediate

Photo Credit (all on spread): LewerMark Insurance

67 response to questions set LewerMark apart from all the others. They are consistently outstanding and provide peace of mind to families that the medical needs of students will be met.”

Beyond Basics Like we said earlier, we want to build better options for students — using the global benchmark for features and design. That’s why we don’t stop at the basics. We go beyond the expected coverages to provide care that is directly applicable to the needs of international students.

For example, LewerMark offers Interscholastic sports coverage. We know students in your schools like playing sports, — that it leads to a sense of community and builds character. So whether they hit it off with the tennis team or decide to kick it with the soccer team, we have the coverage that’s just right for them. They will be able to access care from anywhere, because we’ve brought telemedicine to international student care. We’ve partnered with Teladoc, the global leader in virtual care. They provide both general medical and complex care by web, phone, or mobile app. It is a convenient and affordable option that allows students to talk to a doctor who can diagnose, recommend treatment, and prescribe medication. But we didn’t stop there.

Adapting to Current Needs Even further beyond the basics, we are constantly adapting to meet new needs.

We listen to our clients and students, and explore new options and opportunities to provide a product that students will actually use.

After two years of quarantining, masking, and vaccinating, the coronavirus still hasn’t gone away. But we’re taking the panic out of pandemic with a little common sense.

COVID-19 treatment is covered under the LewerMark plan and medically necessary diagnostic testing is covered at no charge to your students.

The pandemic has also accelerated the concerning trend of emotional well-being among students, especially international students. Our plan offers outpatient and inpatient mental coverage if prevention and intervention methods at your school are not meeting your student’s needs.

We believe our commitment to meeting the unique and changing needs of international students is why we hear such positive comments from our clients, like this one from Joelle Williams, International Student Program Advisor at Grand Rapids Christian Schools: "The strong desire for both rigorous insurance coverage for our students and efficient and professional customer service—for both our students and us as program administrators—led us to LewerMark Student Insurance.

From the very beginning of our involvement with LewerMark we have been truly impressed by their knowledge of the needs associated with working for students in the secondary education market, their attention to details their quick responses to our questions, and their genuine desire to see students well cared for. Our switch to LewerMark has so far been an excellent move!”

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by Alia Shakir

IMMUNITY BOOSTER RECIPES

Kale With Chana & Coconut According to BBC Food, this delectable vegetarian concoction is halfway between chana masala and saag bhaji. It can be used both as a standalone dish for a high immunity diet and a great side to main courses, especially Indian style curries.

3-step recipe

2-step recipe

Sautee DICED ONIONS then DICED TOMATOS (or, tomato puree) in 1 Tbsp melted BUTTER; adding 1 tsp grated GINGER and 1 tsp ground spices (TURMERIC, CUMIN, & CORRAINDER).

Sautee DICED ONIONS then DICED TOMATOS (or, tomato puree) in 1/2 Tbsp melted BUTTER; adding 1 tsp grated GINGER and 1 tsp ground spices (TURMERIC, CUMIN, & CORRAINDER).

Add 200g SHREDDED KALE to simmer, until wilted (for about 10 min), with 1 can SOFT CHICKPEAS, 5 Tbsp PLAIN YOGURT, and 50g FRESH GRATED COCONUT.

Add 200g SHREDDED KALE to simmer, until wilted (for about 10 min), with 1 can SOFT CHICKPEAS, and 50g FRESH GRATED COCONUT.

In 1 Tbsp VEGETABLE OIL, sizzle grated GARLIC and fresh CURRY LEAVES until the garlic is golden. Spoon over the cooked kale and sprinkle GRATED COCONUT to serve.

GOES WELL WITH · Cheese & chilli naans · Tandoori roast chicken · Spiced rice

Photo Credit: Piping Hot Curry

The stir-fry flavor of the 2-step recipe works as a quick, savory salad.

Mixing with boiled liguini, with chunks of roasted meats or fried shrimps, provides a complete single course meal.

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Soften 300g FROZEN BLUEBERRIES in 2 Tbsp WATER with 1/2 Tbsp clear HONEY over medium heat, then lightly crush with spoon.

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Bring 120g PORRIDGE OATS to boil in 750 ml SKIMMED MILK, then stirr and let simmer until porridge thickens.

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Distribute the porridge into 4 spoons, ladling the compote from Step 1 equally on them.

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Top all bowls with 1 Tbsp YOGURT and sprinkle CRUSHED PISTACHIOS.

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Breakfast recommendation by Weight Watchers! A simple preparation with as many variations as you can dream up in both composition and presentation!

Porridge with Blueberry Compote

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73 Wrapped in tinfoil, bake 300g BEETROOT QUARTERS in at 180C, tossed with 1 tsp CORRAINDER SEEDS and 1 1/2 Tbsp Canola oil.

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After 45 min, lay 2 SKINLESS SALMON (or trout) FILLETS on top, sprinkled with ORANGE ZEST (from half an orange’s peel) for another 15 min.

3 Treat as a salad or scoop up with choice of naan, spaghettini, or arabian rice.

Experiment with other high immunity veggies to vary taste~

Zesty Salmon with Beetroots & Spinach

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Finely grate 1 GARLIC CLOVE and set aside for 10 min for enzymes.

Mix into fresh juice from 2 ORANGES. Add 1/2 Tbsp Canola oil to complete the seasoning.

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Gently toss into a bowl: the BAKED BEETROOT (from Step 1), 1 chopped RED ONION, ORANGE ZEST from half an orange’s peel, 3 Tbsp PUMPKIN SEEDS, and 4 handfuls of BABY SPINACH. Mixed in 1 THICKLY SLICED AVOCADO wth BEET LEAVES, then top with the baked salmon.

A recent trend in healthy, Asian-style, easy cooking, this traybake provides a solid main course rich in immunity-empowering natural ingredients. In addition to being a savory highlight of your day, feel free to pair the dish with as many staple foods or sides as you can think of on different days. Switching mackarel for other fish and meats will also be a constant source of nutritious and flavorful experimentation, once you have practiced your hand at this recipe.

Blend a smooth paste together using:

Bake, tossed together, for 3045 min upto 200C.

2 CHOPPED RED CHILLIES

200g SWEET POTATOS CHOPPED INTO 1 CM CUBES.

4 CHOPPED SHALLOTS 3 GARLIC CLOVES 1 THUMB-SIZED GINGER PIECE CHOPPED 1 LEMONGRASS STALK 1 TBSP HOT SMOKED PAPRIKA ZEST & JUICE OF 2 LIMES

1

1 TBSP WATER

Mark 4 MACKAREL FILLETS on both sides with a knife.

Then arrange atop the baking tray of potatos.

Make sure the skin is on top.

Bake for another 5 minutes until the fish is cooked through.

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CURRY PASTE FROM STEP 1 2 RED PEPPERS, DESEEDED & SLICED 3 DREID LEAVES

KAFFIR

LIME

2

1 TBSPN CANOLA OIL

Season with 4 sliced SPRING ONIONS, a bunch of CHOPPED CORAINDER, fresh LIME JUICE squeezed over from lime wedges, and 320g STEAMED BROCCOLI.

4

Thai Mackarel Sweet Potato Traybake

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75 The rare healthy recipe for people short on budget, or time, or both. Shiitake mushrooms bring in a meaty texture on the tongue, while traditional oriental condiments leave you hungering for more.

Dilute 300ml VEGETABLE STOCK with 1/2 cup WATER and boil. Add 250g EGG NOODLES and let boil for 3 min. Add 1 HEAD BROCCOLI FLORETS and drain when the broccoli is tender per your liking.

On the days you have more time, add fried beef strips or stir fried shrimps to take it up a notch.

Spicy Mushroom Broccoli Noodles

In 1 Tbsp heated SESAME OIL, stir-fry 250g thickly sliced SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS until golden brown. Add and stir fry 1 chopped, fat GARLIC CLOVE, 1/2 tsp CHILLI FLAKES, 3 sliced SPRING ONIONS, and finally, the drained noodles.

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3

Gently mix in, using tongs or wooden spoons, extra VEGETABLE STOCK, 2 Tbsp HOISIN SAUCE, Serve seasoned with SLICED CASHEWS, 1 sliced SPRING ONIONS, and a dash of SESAME OIL.

T

his is a last goodbye, a final farewell.

Her words replay over and over in my mind, each consonant echoing a simple truth: my sixteen-year-old daughter will leave Earth. I know it should make me proud that she’s chosen to help with the colonization of Mars, but letting go of her like this still hurts. And yet, it’s still better than what I did to her and our family.

Tearing my sight away from the metallic wall, I look at Laura, who sits before me with her hands clasped on the table, wringing them out of frustration or guilt. A deep frown wrinkles her forehead and the top of her cheek twitches. Her light brown eyes dart away from me to her hands then to the wall as if she was nervous, or as if I had done something wrong within this moment of time.

To tell the truth, she has every right to feel awkward despite our predicament.

I shuffle in my seat and imagine how hard it would be to tell someone you love, or had once loved, that you’d be leaving them forever to be on another planet while Earth was dying, feeling guilty from the fact that you would be alive while the rest of humanity perished. To know that you would be one of the few survivors to help aid the human race into a new age.

Slight tremors rush through my body and force the little hairs on my arms and legs to stand upright. The adrenaline rush is familiar, wholesome and comforting. It becomes an instant shot of myself wanting to act out, the feeling I felt before being arrested by their company.

While my breathing becomes heavier and dampens the protective mask I have to wear, perspiration beads on my head as everything closes in around me, pushing itself into the table. Unable to escape, I yank on the cuffs round my wrists, wishing for a way out. Metal scratches skin. Friction causes irritation. A burning sensation throbs not only in my wrists, but deep inside my supposedly rotten core. Or so they say.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but I wanted to tell you myself,” Laura says, staring down at her hands. She draws in a deep breath and looks at me with a stoic, placid facade. “I didn’t want to be like you, to hide in the shadows.”

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77 A cold knife digs into my chest, forcing my heartbeat to double in speed. The icy grip then flutters about in my chest, which causes grief and despair to rise in my throat. I study her to see how she reacts to me, but her calm and cold demeanour doesn’t change at all.

“I-I-I didn’t have time to tell you,” I whisper loud enough for her to hear. “They took me, Laura. Sent me to jail. Killed my wife. Made everything seem like a conspiracy theory. Trust me, they are to blame for everything that happened. They made me out as crazy, as a conspiracy degenerate.”

Laura shakes her head. Tears spill from her eyes, staining her mask which hides her beautiful smile, the one I will never see again. “Dad, Amajax wasn’t to blame. Mom knew of the risks and opted to venture outside. Even though the test results were negative for sulphur and CO2 emissions, the air was normal. She went out on her own free will. It was a malfunction, something a hacker or terrorist had done to mess with Mom’s research team.”

I grit my teeth and breathe through my nose. “Amajax knew your mother posed a threat, hence why they made her death look like an act of terrorism.

She was going to expose that the world’s largest tech corporation didn’t care for our people and only looked at them as a profitable gain.”

I slam my bound fists onto the metal table, causing Laura to jump in fright and then flinch. The fully clad guards wearing heavy duty protective gear standing on either side of her step forward with their laser batons raised, waiting for my next move.

“Laura, they don’t want humankind to stay on Earth. They want the chosen few to promote their terraforming project on Mars as a utopia, a place where people can dream again. And because they will manipulate the people, they will get what they want: full, complete control of the world’s population. We will all become their slaves.”

One of the guards swings their baton and hits me where my neck and shoulder connect. Instant pain rakes through my body and burns. Grinding my teeth together, I refuse to say anymore to prevent further acts of punishment. After all, they do love displaying their power of authority over the weak.

There is no point in provoking them.

“Stop spreading disinformation,” the guard states in a robotic voice. “That is a felony against the laws of Amajax.”

by

Jessey Mills

Glaring at the guard and becoming annoyed by how our society has made a turn for the worse, I decide not to play the script the guards would like me to adhere to and exhale my anger through this contraption of a mask to slightly calm myself. I sit back in my cold metal chair and hold my shoulders back without wincing. The guard who assaulted me eases a little and refrains from further action, then both guards step back to fall into place beside Laura’s side. I look at Laura and notice how her pupils shake while she analyzes me, the shadow of her once father.

I draw in a deep breath, shake my head and say, “All their greed, all their corruption. It taints the land, poisoning humanity with lies and deceit. Your mother could see that. Why couldn’t you or anyone else? Why can’t you see that they’re using you as a martyr?”

Huffing and puffing, I watch Laura intently and hope she hasn’t become someone who’d rather follow than lead. But as soon as she looks away, I know I’m right. She’s become like all the others, manipulated for the greater good of mankind, the lie that Amajax has fed the forsaken.

Memories of that day cascade in my mind, one on top of another, the death and destruction I had caused replaying in my mind’s eye. Bodies are strewn about all masked and splayed out. Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons all manipulated by the words of Amajax. They were just innocent bystanders to the main cause of Earth’s problem: complete global domination.

I look down at my hands and feel nothing but despair. They made me feel this way, they made me feel as though there was no other choice, they helped me make that one final decision, a decision to kill and seek revenge.

“Amajax is portraying me as a saviour, not as a martyr, and yet I’m still a product,” Laura whispers with a hint of disgust. I break from my reverie, slightly perplexed. “Even with everyone dying, they use commercialism to get what they want. It’s like the disinformation war all over again, but this time the human race is on the line.”

Her interlaced fingers wring tightly within one another, straining against the anger she must be feeling. I swallow and remember the lives I took, the ones who fell on their knees and prayed for their lives, wringing their hands in the same manner that Laura is doing now. I imagine blood entwining with her hands and coursing through all the distraught emotions she feels, blending with the potential hatred she may have for the commercialization that destroyed our planet, that has destroyed our family and livelihood.

Prying her fingers apart, Laura retracts her hands back onto her lap. The vision of blood instantly evaporates, like the motif of what is about to come. She clears her throat and says, “Even though what you did destroyed our family and made a dent to Amajax’s unwavering faith, at least they’re giving our family one last chance at redemption.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that they did something like that,” I mutter quietly, realizing how wrong I am about Laura. “But that doesn’t fix the problem.

They’re only doing that to save face and restore what I sought to destroy.”

She looks at me again with knowing eyes, ones which show determination and strength. “I wish we weren’t in this situation and wish that our family was normal. However, your sabotage of Amajax’s research facility changed all that. But I still love you, even though you left me on my own. That was stupid.”

Waves of emotion roll through me, a trip I am definitely not prepared for. Anger, sorrow, despair and guilt invade my consciousness and force my hands to shake as a lump trembles in my throat.

I try to stifle the moan that wants to escape between my lips, but I can’t hold it in for long. I lose control.

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“I love you too, sweetie,” I mumble, crying noisily.

“Use Amajax like how they’ve used us. Make them obey for once.”

Laura bobs her head up and down, silently agreeing with me. She swallows and wipes at her eyes, while making sure her mask stays securely in place.

Before I can say anything more, the electronic door opens and another guard comes out fully clad in industrial armour, with a semi-automatic rifle in hand. Their fully protected helmet swivels in Laura’s direction. “Time to go, Miss,” they say, their voice emotionless and robotic.

Again Laura nods, then gets up from her seat and heads towards the guard. I watch her long auburn hair trail down her back, covering the Amajax logo on her black puffer jacket. She takes long strides and gives me one last look.

I clear my throat. “Laura, as a final request, please make your mother and I proud.”

Fresh tears well up in her eyes but before she can say anything, the guard pulls on her forearm and coaxes her out of my cell.

The door slams shut.

A crackle comes out from the overhead speaker, reminding me I’m never alone, that Amajax are always watching. “Prisoner 683-25, prepare for execution.”

“Affirmative,” I say aloud, the habit of complying wanting to be heard.

The guards standing on either side of the empty chair stay motionless, their infrared visors aimed directly at me, watching my every single move, every twitch, every breath I take.

Ignoring the impending stare of oppression, my attention drifts back to the table. I stare at it, concentrating on my inhale and exhale, knowing that my death nears. I clasp my hands together in prayer and lean forward, feeling my thumbs press onto my forehead. And for once I don’t say my thoughts or prayers aloud.

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Gustave Courbet’s famous self-potrait, “The Desperate Man (Le Désespéré)” (1848). Oil on Canvas.

Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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People who work in the admissions world are special individuals and we are delighted to introduce you to some of your colleagues. Reach out to them so we can all learn from each other!

DISCLAIMER: All profiles have been borrowed or put together from the professionals’ official online presence.

Shuja joined the Rowland Hall community in July of 2021. He started his career at Schools of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco, where he spent fourteen years teaching math, coaching basketball and baseball, and eventually serving as the Director of Admissions. He left San Francisco in 2017 to become the Director of Enrollment Management at Gulliver Schools in Miami and is very excited to take on that same role here at Rowland Hall. From the first moment he was introduced to the school, he knew it was where he wanted to be. The sense of community was overwhelming, and he’s beyond excited to engage with the work of ethical education.

SHUJA KHAN Director of Enrollment Management, Rowland Hall School, Salt Lake City, UT

In Shuja’s personal life, he loves reading, writing, playing tennis and basketball, and going on hikes with his wife Emily (also at Rowland Hall), his kids Nas and Aubrey (students at Rowland Hall) and their dog Cali (the only one in the family not at Rowland Hall). In his spare time, he helps run a non-profit that provides free SAT tutoring for high school students.

Shuja has a BA in Computer Science from Dartmouth College, and MA in Math and Education from Stanford University.

DIANE LASALLE Director of Admissions, Rowland Hall School, Salt Lake City, UT

A native of New York City, Diane received her BA from Emerson College in Mass Communications and her MA at New York University in Human Sexuality. She began her work in the PWS Admissions office in 1999, took a 3 year “sabbatical” to pursue a career in real estate, and returned to PWS in the spring of 2018. In her two decades at the school, Diane has steered the admissions and on-boarding of hundreds of PWS students and their families. Diane loves meeting new prospective families and helping them make important decisions for their children. She is also an alumni parent, with both of her children graduating from PWS.

A native of Weston, MA, Chris is in his 18th year at Proctor. Chris jumped at the chance to return to his alma mater after working at the Berkshire School for two years. A 1990 graduate of Allegheny College where he played club hockey and lacrosse, Chris coached lacrosse at Proctor and serves as an advisor alongside his wife Lynne, a biology teacher at Proctor.

Together, they have 2 daughters, Jane and Pippa. Chris is a citizen of both the US and Australia and spent many summers working on his family’s sheep and cattle station in “outback” New South Wales, Australia.

CHRISTOPHER P. BARTLETT, Director of Enrollment, Proctor Academy, Andover, NH Claudia loves to work in this International School, where students own their learning and become responsible global citizens. She believes that Education shapes our future and that choosing the right school for your child is one of the most important decisions parents face.

As the Admissions Registrar of Lincoln, Claudia is committed to help families through the selection process, providing all necessary information, listening to their needs and priorities, and answering any questions they may have, whether they’re new to Argentina or just to Lincoln.

After passing her National Normal Superior, Claudia received a degree as Public Translator in English from the National University de la Plata. She joined the Asociacion Escuelas Lincoln almost immediately, now boasting an experience of 32 years and counting at the school. While she has served as both Assisstant to High School Counselor and International Exams Supervisor, Claudia has served as the Admissions Registrar for the school for the last 20 years now.

CLAUDIA PACHA, Admissions Registrar, Asociacion Escuelas Lincoln, Buenos Aires 82

83 Gaynor Samuel was brought up in a tiny coal-mining village in Wales. It was here, at the foot of the Black Mountain in Brynaman, where she learned the strong family values and traditions that make her such a natural for Shawnigan.

In 2006, Gaynor left teaching to become an Admissions Associate, taking over the role of Admissions Director in 2008. She has a BA and teaching certificate from Cardiff University. When not at work, Gaynor is a keen interior designer and is highly sought after to assist in the decorations of houses on campus.

GAYNOR SAMUEL, Director of Admissions, Shawnigan Lake School, British Columbia Prior to moving into AISCT Admissions and the Upper School English and French classroom, Mrs. Petersen’s career took her around the world teaching English, French, and ESL in high schools and universities in Kentucky, Tennessee, the Comoros Islands, and South Africa.

HELEN PETERSON Director of Admissions, American International School of Cape Town

Mrs. Petersen obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and French from Centre College. She holds a Master of Arts in English with a concentration in writing, a Master of Education with a concentration in teaching English as a second language, and a secondary teaching certificate, all from Western Kentucky University.

Most recently, Mrs. Petersen earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Education specializing in Educational Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the University of Cape Town.

PATRICK FRASER, Director of Admissions, Stanstead College, Quebec

Patrick joined the Admissions team in 2012 and took on the role of Director of Admissions in 2021. Originally from Vancouver Island, Patrick holds degrees from the University of Victoria, the University of Waterloo and most recently an M.Ed. from Bishop’s University.

Prior to settling in the Eastern Townships with his wife and two young children, he lived and taught for several years in China, Korea and Thailand. As a member of the school’s senior leadership team, he oversees the department while remaining active in all areas of student life.

Prior to founding Louis Educational Consulting in 2014, Jean spent nine years working as an administrator at a public mid-size college in New York. During his tenure as an Enrollment Management Officer, he helped students achieve success by supporting each freshman. He counseled a diverse student population regarding registration and billing issues, enrollment, financial aid, and how to stay on track with the academic workload and graduate as scheduled. This experience taught him that there is no “one-size-fits-all” because each student is unique. Such an experience has helped him better understand what makes a college or university the “right fit” for a student.

With each student’s priority in mind, he tailors his company’s services to fit each client’s needs. He sets goals that highlight each applicant by challenging them to focus and be prepared to tackle the challenges of being a college student. His strategic approach has proven to be effective and invaluable to his clients.

Jean boasts post-graduate degrees in Public Administration, College Counseling, & HIgher Education Administration.

JEAN LOUIS, Founder President, Louis Educational Consulting, USA & Switzerland

KRISTEN J. NAPSO Managing Partner, Boarding School & Non-Traditional Advising, The Bertram Group, Educational Consultancy Prior to becoming an educational consultant, Krissy Naspo spent twelve years in boarding school admissions, the last seven as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Hillside School, a junior boarding school in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Krissy has worked with Portsmouth Abbey School, and St. Andrews School, in admissions. In the last 5 years, Krissy has been a fulltime educational consultant, providing services for both traditional boarding school candidates and those needing therapeutic school placements.

Krissy’s experience in boarding school admissions taught her the value of having international students be a part of an institution. With Krissy’s leadership at Hillside, international representation at the school grew from five to fifteen countries. Other than that, she has presented on various panels in New York City, the Bahamas, Japan, and Hong Kong. She was on the Steering Committee for the Junior Boarding School Association (JBSA) for five years and represented the Board in various capacities. Krissy is the Past Chair of the Schools Committee for IECA and is on the Board of Trustees for the IECA Foundation.

She has also presented and done webinars for the Association of Independent Schools Admissions Professionals (AISAP), and has presented multiple times at IECA. Krissy is also an experienced consultant working with at-risk teens and young adults. She works with students needing a more therapeutic setting and those who have been to a program and are looking to make the transition back to traditional schools. She has presented to traditional school admissions officers about working with and preparing for students coming from therapeutic programs and has worked with numerous students who have had a misstep in the traditional school world and need a more structured environment.

Krissy is a graduate of Lawrence Academy in Groton, Massachusetts and attended Providence College, where she earned both Bachelors and Masters Degrees.

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Above. Image from a web-based tool developed by NASA “that helps park managers better understand the impact of outdoor lighting and noise on animal species in national parks.”

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory April 15, 2022.

Top Left. “Every winter, a layer of carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) forms on the surface of Mars. At its greatest extent in mid-winter, this frost reaches from the poles down to the middle latitudes, until it is too warm and sunny to persist. In most places this is around 50 degrees latitude, similar to the latitude of southern Canada on Earth.”

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona April 05, 2022.

Bottom Left; “When spring warmth melts snow off the steppe of eastern Mongolia, the remains of last year’s plant growth are exposed. In dry and windy conditions, these brown, withered grasslands can become tinder for wildfires.”

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

April 19, 2022

the ones who

“Tamati Waka Nene” (1890), oil on canvas, by Czech born New Zealand painter Gottfried Lindauer (1836-1926). Source: Auckland Art Gallery, via Google Art Project and Wikimedia.

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make us men

by Callum Knight

I look for fathers in the margins of books, in the side-plots of movies, in the description cards of museum exhibits.

Growing up, I knew my father in pieces.

An inscription in my copy of The Cat in the Hat. My middle name, before my name was changed. A book of Banksy street art for my thirteenth birthday. There were letters, until he moved and I lost his new postal address. No photos, though, not until I was eighteen—and only then because I sought them out, creating permutations of his name and occupation to be fed into a search engine.

My father’s absence framed how I viewed the other men I grew up around. First among them was Grandad. He and Nana never married, and he wasn’t my grandfather by birth.

He became Dad to my mum and her sisters after Mike, their father, tore a hole in our family and fled to America, chasing cultist delusions of grandeur. Grandad’s middle name became one of my middle names, after my name was changed. I trace my whakapapa through Mike, though it’s with my mum’s help I’ve grown my connection to our tīpuna.

I was five years old when my mum moved from Taranaki to Hawke’s Bay without me.

For the first few months that year, I lived with Nana and Grandad in Bell block, while Mum found her footing on the East Coast. I helped my grandparents in the vegetable garden. I watched Grandad clean his tools in the garage that doubled as his workshop. He took me for bike rides; by then, he wasn’t allowed to ride his Indian Scout anymore.

Then we travelled across the North Island together, and I celebrated my sixth birthday in a house I didn’t know. That was the last birthday I still clutched a piece of hope, like the sea glass I used to collect from the black sands of Taranaki, that one day my father would reemerge from the place he had gone. That one day our family would grow from two to three.

The first time I met Kent, he was talking to my mum in the lounge when I entered the room. Who was that hulking stranger with the granite brow? Nobody, in my mind. I didn’t wait for him to finish talking—I just spoke. Until then, that was alright: it was just my mum and I. Kent took it as a sign of disrespect. Told me to be quiet and wait my turn. On its own, on paper, it sounds reasonable. It sounds like setting boundaries. What that overlooks is Kent’s harsh, unyielding intensity: a dominating force that shaped my life, like wind carving rock.

For eight years I waited. My father might not be coming back, if he was ever really there, but I did not yield the space reserved for him to Kent. I tolerated Kent’s presence. To his son I afforded more room, but he knew how deep my dislike for his father ran—they both did. Out of the links between my mum, Kent, his son, and I, we built a hesitant balance. I wonder sometimes how my mum and I might have fared if we’d already found our tūrangawaewae when she met Kent. If our tīpuna would have warned us away, or lent us the strength to resist his control of our lives.

I know that Kent didn’t think much of my father for his absence. For his distance. I know that he made an effort to talk to my grandfather when we visited Taranaki during the holidays. I know that he was tender when our dog’s body failed her, when my cat Zuko died.

I know him for how he held my brother when he was born, three years into our uneasy truce.

I know his acts of kindness, but I know his acts of cruelty too. When given the choice, he almost always chose the latter. He gave my mum only anger, not support, when she began her teacher training. More times than I can count, he called me a ‘f***ing poof’ for having a sensitive nature—a slur he happily extends to gay men as well. He dubs the workers on the vineyard he manages ‘coconuts and horis.’

I know him for the way he speaks to and looks

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at women, as though he can claim dominion over their lives. I know him for the steak knife he threw at the floor when I refused to rinse it for him. And I know him now in the words my brother hurls at my mum when they fight.

My mum and Kent separated when my brother was five.

For me, the world opened up. For my brother, the world fell away.

Months after the split, Kent tried to bring us back together. Mum asked me to hear what he had to say, and to decide how I felt about going back. He told me he’d change, that he’d changed, that he wanted us back, that he missed us. I looked into his eyes and I saw the tears welling there.

I said no.

Had I read much New Zealand literature growing up, I’d have discovered its perpetual crisis of masculine identity—but I did not read much New Zealand literature growing up. Instead, I devoured the canon of Pākehā and tauiwi speculative fiction, which has its own anxieties about masculinity expressed through big spaceships and wizard staffs.

Occasionally I brushed against New Zealand’s peculiar traits of masculinity in crisis in films like Boy. Images interested me. I liked the way film and photography arranged and captured moments in time.

Banksy’s Wall and Piece—the book my father gave me for my thirteenth birthday—documents graffiti, but it also puts street art beside people and places. I decided to take Photography as an elective subject in Year 12. My mum’s response when I told her surprised me: Grandad used to be an avid photographer. I’d known him only as the builder, the motor-obsessed mechanic who lost his hearing in World War Two servicing airplanes in the Pacific Theatre. This man, equal parts walrus and brown bear, had a passion for something as impractical as photography?

I struggled in that class. Without a foundation in art theory, I had to figure things out as I went, often relying on intuition. I tried. I failed. I tried again. I wish I could say that in the end I submitted a portfolio I was proud of, but the truth is I gave up. I didn’t pass. Learned a few things, though. My basic understanding of image composition became foundational at university when I switched majors from Japanese and Linguistics to Film. More than that, it got me thinking about both the subjects of images and the people creating those images.

Grandad’s NZDF personnel records from ‘52 note his interest in photography alongside house repair and motorcycles. Most of his photos, and the photos of him, are in boxes stored in Nana’s spare room now.

In one of the albums Nana still keeps on her dresser, there’s a photo of him wearing stubbies and roller-skates. He looks faintly surprised, ambushed by the camera for once. There are photos of him with my mum and her sisters from that day, too.

It’s easier for me to look at these than the family photos from the years we lived with my brother’s father.

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91 I met my father when I visited Australia in late 2019. It was the first time I travelled overseas on my own, a tentative step that I hoped to follow by moving there in 2020. Circumstances changed dramatically in the months following, but while I was in Melbourne, that was my goal.

I found his details again through LinkedIn, a week into my visit. We arranged to meet the final weekend I was there.

We met in the late afternoon at a bar overlooking a river running through a city, near a railway station and a bridge.

This place was meant to be temporary, he told me, but its success led to it establishing a permanent presence. While I sipped my drink of choice—a gin and tonic—he explained that he drank hazy beer because the sulphites added to many alcoholic beverages made him feel more drunk than he should.

Why do I remember details like that, and little else? There was a surreal quality to that afternoon, a dreamlike fuzziness that makes it hard to pin down. Those details stand out because they were tiny explanations I didn’t know I needed, clicking into place.

He pointed out a building across the river he helped design. I told him I was considering moving to Australia to study and work; he wished me all the best with my application to a master’s program in Melbourne. When we parted, we said we’d keep in touch.

If he could manage it, we might be able to meet again before I returned to New Zealand in a few days. If not, I’d be back next year in any case.

The strangest thing about that meeting was that he seemed more nervous than me. I think he was worried I hated him, or resented him for his distance. There are very few people I truly hate, and he was never one of them. By the time I arrived at the bar, I’d long since made peace with his absence. I just hadn’t realised it until then. I already knew about myself what I really needed: my whakapapa and my tūrangawaewae.

Throughout my life, there’s been an absence where a father might be. Different men have occupied that space in different ways; some I allowed there, others I bitterly resented.

I will not romanticise the relationship I have with my mum as a perfect counterpoint to this absence. We’ve had plenty of our own conflicts, struggles, even times when I thought I did hate her. But I will say this: when given the choice, she always chose to be there.

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“Torpedoed” by military artist unknown. Details unknown. Released to the public by Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files. Courtesy U.S. Navy Combat Air Center. Archived 1982 at the US National Archives.

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95 aking up from an air raid alert is not something you really expect in the 21st century. The first rocket flew… The second one. Explosion, an air raid alert. Someone’s crying. People are running and screaming. Chaos, mess, horror. Everyone thought it was a bad dream; no one could understand that it was reality… How is this possible in 2022? How is this possible when just a few days ago people were supposed to enjoy the first spring flowers, look at the stars in the night sky, cook dinner and drink wine with loved ones?

The war has changed reality. People had to go through all five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And here we are: instead of enjoying the first spring flowers, we enjoy moments of silence when no air raid alert is heard. Instead of looking at the stars in the night sky, we watch deadly missiles fly over our heads and pray they don't hit our homes. Instead of cooking dinner and drinking wine with loved ones, we watch the news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, hoping someone will say, "The war is over."

The questions, “How are you there? Is it quiet so far?” became some kind of a sign of love and care from those calling in from a distance. Many people were forced to leave their homes and fled to other cities, other countries. It's such a paradox that something positive and amazing, like travel, had to become a compulsion. “I traveled for the first time in my life! Today I received my first stamp in my passport” people will tell you but not enthusiastically. They utter the words with sadness and grief, as they had to leave their homes and seek for something new and unknown.

Left. The aftermath of Russia’s bombing of Mariupol.

Wikimedia Commons via Ministry of Internal Affairs Ukraine. CC BY 4.0.

Top Right. An artistic rendition of Ukraine’s national symbol: the sunflower. Stock Photo.

Right. Aerial view of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, before Russia’s attack. Stock Photo.

However, there is a blessing in disguise. The Ukrainian people say the war has rallied them like never before. Not a single politician or cultural figure could have achieved the result of uniting the people as on the first day of the war. Ukrainians are staying strong. They have a powerful leader, professional military, they know what to do, and their spirit is stronger than ever.

Civil people also don’t give up; they bond together; they sing songs; they stop the invaders' tanks with their bare hands; protect their cities with human shields; only to prevent the enemy from entering the territory. Civilians build a very strong resistance, helping the Ukrainian Warriors of Light. And they pray… Every day they pray and fight. No one ever expected the ordinary people would group up very quickly and start donating their very last money to help the army purchase everything needed. No one expected that many Ukrainians would not want to stay in any other country for a long time. Those who fled abroad have a plan to return to Ukraine as soon as possible and help build a new Ukraine. They are as key to the cause as those stayng.

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As for the Russians, they are also going through hard times, but this cannot be compared with the loss of a home, the lives of loved ones, children born in shelters, and a humanitarian catastrophe. The Instagram being shut down was more heatedly discussed in Russia than the currency dropping. But they are still silent about the events in Ukraine.

They say every cloud has a silver lining and the war has shown to the entire world that Ukrainian people are strong. But the price Ukraine paid and is still paying is very high. However, despite the fact that Russia is more than six times larger than Ukraine, the blitzkrieg that their government planned failed. In the meantime, the help of the whole world is more than needed. If Ukraine falls, the next target will be someone else.

97 “Ukrainian Madonna” Original digital illustration created for the ROR Magazine by Ukrainian artist Aliona Syz

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A morose sea turtle stares out into the beyond, apparent off the coast of Tortuga, the small Turtle Island near Haiti, in this random urban mural. The polluted state of the ocean is amply captured by painting on a damaged section of the wall.

A rare gem among the countless throwaway public domain art in the annals of the internet, this artwork captures the core of what’s wrong with today’s society.

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PART II

lessons learned in shepherding learners’ growth in a career of educational consultancy

CHRISTINA WANG In our Winter 2022 issue, Christian Wang enlightened our readers with stories of her personal and her student clients’ growth curves. She explored parents’ essential role in slowing down or steadying their children’s growth.

In the current issue, Wang is back with her three takeaways about growth curves. She supports each point with a real life case study, illustrating how the student client in each case navigated their arc.

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Growth involves gradual and clear self cognition and positioning Student Z was the most challenging of all I’ve tutored. He was active, had strong critical thinking and wouldn’t swim with the stream. For this reason, guiding him was like going on a roller coaster — sometimes positive, sometimes downhearted — which made me spend more time thinking about what kind of child he was, so as to mobilize his cooperation.

In the first half of 2019, when setting an education plan, he would always argue with me. He would say something like, “I don’t like anything. I don’t like playing drums at all.“ I would ask, “Then why do you learn it?”

“My mom forced me to!” he would retort, his mother sitting next to me with a bitter smile. “My drum level is average, and I can’t compete with American kids...,” he would follow.

I was curious how average it was. After watching a video, although I’m not professional, it was clear he had a good sense of rhythm.

Truth is, Z has studied drums, as well as ice hockey, for ten years now. For a 13 or 14-year-old child, it was a lifetime. So his lack of confidence with it wasn’t sitting well with me...

When communicating with Z, I discovered he actually wanted to do his best in everything, but faced with pressure and less than ideal results, he would become depressed and confused, then would start doubting himself. Adding the rebellious mind of adolescent, his emotions couldn’t be vented.

So when Z was feeling discontent, I would intentionally arrange other teachers of his to communicate with him again, and I would take his mom on me. The teachers dispelled Z’s negative emotions using their own different styles, motivated him to make positive progress, and assigned all kinds of tasks to him. In this process, the teachers constantly changed roles to help him manage the rebellious emotions and pull him back to track. He experienced seismic changes in this process, from his mother taking notes for him in the first class to managing his key points and tasks all by himself.

In all his growth planning sessions with me, he would always argue just for the sake of arguing.

Children are children after all. But in the process, I was able to capture the direction of his interest.

In fact, he liked math very much and had excellent results. He also hoped his teachers recognized this direction! So I encouraged Z to search more math activities and to seek out interdisciplinary fields

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that could give a fuller, more meaningful play to his mathematical skillset. By the end of the year, he participated in a science and innovation camp and learned relevant knowledge such as electronic sensing, programming, mechanics and CAD drafting.

The process of making a temperature-controlled smart bowl made him more confident in his creative and practical abilities.

Then I turned my attention to drums and ice hockey and asked him to recall every successful game, to share with me his thinking when failed, and tell me what was the challenge. I also asked him to explain the meaning of the ups and downs. In this process, I watched his painful expression, but slowly forced him to reflect and realize the growth path he went through. This repeated exercise let him think about what he wanted from life and how he could get there.

The love and hate entanglement between Z and ice hockey in the past ten years was a very touching point. He was devastated losing the election to Beijing youth ice hockey team. However, as the sessions continued, he quickly moved on from earlier self-defeating emotions, returned to normal training and was selected again. In the beginning he didn’t realize that this accumulation was actually the result of his persistence and love for sport.

When we repeatedly emphasized and explored this experience together with some psychological and technical challenges he encountered in the training process, he gradually recognized himself and that made him aware of his growth and progress after overcoming the challenges.

As for the drums, I got the mother to let the drum teacher estimate his performance level in his drum-playing vibes that I had seen. This step proved very critical. Not only did his level turn out to be quite competent, the teacher told me Z had acquired it a long time ago. It is crucial to let the child realize his level, so as to finally build his real confidence from the inside, rather than being rebellious. We have brainstormed many times and finally decided to highlight his open mind and diversified creative ability when playing drums. The final effect was really novel and shocking! His music attracted numerous schools in the United States, and when the interview teacher told him to bring the drums to school next year, that was when Z realized and recognized himself.

What made me the most gratified was what he

said to me in the end of our application journey.

He said: “Teacher Wang, I think this process has brought me the greatest harvest ever, because now I know who I am and what I want, and I have learn-

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ed how to chase what I want. I think I used to be too arrogant...“ I think that is the power of the growth perspective!

Growth requires stepping out of the comfort zone The main hero of this story is student S, a typical “other’s daughter” (referencing a parental mindset that the other family’s child is always better than mine). She seems to have some kind of magic that people can’t take their eyes off her.

However, when we first met, she was a very shy and sensitive child.

When it came to something that hadn’t been done well recently, she would fall into tears right away. Before Grade 5, she never tried any sports. She was very introverted, and unlike other girls, who liked to wear skirts, she would wear shorts in her school uniform, and barely had any friends. In Grade 5, one of her PE teachers encouraged her to participate in a FOBISSIA sports competition, which became her turning point — she never expected to win so many awards.

We started our work when she was in Grade 6. Every time she shed tears during the conversation, I would silently wait but also encourage her to focus on positive things. For example, I encouraged her to join the volleyball team, as well as to form her own small band, and then encouraged her to participate in the house captain elections.

At that time, she was a fragile and crying child who had just begun to emerge in sports.

Throughout, I brushed up my trust in her again and again. Sometimes I felt frustrated too when our progress wouldn’t translae into a more confident persona in the student. Always, “the awkward age” made itself felt in her case. Whenever I asked her a question, her first response would be: “Ask my mom”. When the time showed 1 hour 55 minutes out of 2 agreed hours of training, she would run home. I couldn’t help but think: was my personal charm not enough? Why would she run as soon as possible?

At last, when we were reviewing her experience to prepare for the high school admissions cycle, it came to me... Shy. Shine. From shy to shining, this is her!

The activities we encouraged her to participate in have greatly changed her character. She had been re-elected to house captain for two terms, won the volleyball MVP, had her own band and started writing her own songs. She was glowing, and she is now. She showed her enthusiasm and versatility to the school, as well as her courage to challenge herself and get out of the comfort zone. Every time the interviewer talked to her and laughed, I knew she made it.

I still urged her to do better every time her test scores were not satisfactory: don’t give up! Keep going! In mid February, nearly a month after the interview deadline, her score finally reached 93%.

She realized she could get good grades only

through hard work. I believe, she will learn to calmly deal with challenges in her future studies. Through this child, I realized that with our continuous encouragement and inspiration, children will always move in the direction we expect and they yearn for! This calls growth and harvest. And this is the power of growth!

Growth is creating one’s own opportunities Student M was a girl coming from public school.

Her English level was one of the most outstanding between the public school students we tutored.

However, due to her study loads, she couldn’t squeeze out more time for extracurricular activities.

She was one smart and funny girl, who could always boldly put forward different opinions, even during group practices with students from international schools. I was deeply moved by her mother’s ability to raise such an excellent child without stifling her creativity and the ability to speak out her opinion!

I suggested that M might thrive focusing on debates capturing her linguistic advantages combined with her agile, on-her-toes thinking skills.

Consequently, we planned and applied for a debate summer school.

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After attending the summer school, M shared with me that she gained a lot. She discovered that most American schools had British-style debates and she found that much more interesting. This one-month study enabled her to successfully break through a hundred people in the debate competition in Tianjin and win a spot on the “Top Ten Debaters” list. Judges and interviewers mentioned her distinguished language skills and critical thinking!

This whole experience inspired and strengthened her and led to the follow-up story of M creating opportunities by herself. She liked playing football and was a member of the school football team in primary school. After getting to junior high school, she found there was no football team there, meaning she might have to give up the only sport she loved.

105 Looking at her firm eyes in one of our sessions, I asked: “If there is no football team in the school, how about creating one yourself?” Although a little uncertain at first, I saw the light in her eyes. “Just go and try; I believe in you!” was all I had to say then.

At this point, the story of M establishing the first girl football team in the history of the school began. We followed up on her progress from time to time, and I found that she really took it seriously. She even wrote a scheme book! When M put forward this idea, the school didn’t support it in the beginning. So she adjusted her strategy: she started with the student end, and distributed a questionnaire in the whole school going from class to class to guage student interest. After summarizing the survey results, she found that school majority was supportive of a girls football team. Holding solid data, she once again found a PE teacher to talk with the school leaders, and finally persuaded the school. After about three months of preparation, the first women football match organized by M was successfully held.

M’s activities grew out of nothing, weak changed to strong, ordinary changed to unique, and passive performance changed to active strategizing. What better arc to have for one’s growth?

Conclusion: I feel a lot of emotions every time I talk about these children. These consulting plans played a great role in their growth. Whether a clear self-awareness, or becoming the brightest self, or learning to strive for opportunities — all proved to be wealth on their growth journeys. These are the real stories of real children hidden behind the admissions funnel!

Many parents like to use words like “firm” and “extreme” to describe me. In fact, for me, it is more like

a faith and responsibility I have being a consultant.

Trying to steer these adolescents makes me want to go back to the roots and solve their problems.

Perhaps that is because I don’t see it as just a personalized education work, but as an essential accompaniment in the children’s growth process.

“Stars within their grasp” A look back at the ESO’s Ultra HD Expedition at Paranel. Wikimedia Commons, via European Southern Observatory. CC BY 4.0

Education requires the combination of love, care and professional patience. I always tell students: “Be persistent! This activity will not play a bad joke, but a vital significance and role for you in the future!”

BY FILM ANALYST

Jonas Rasmussen’s 2021 release is a Danish animated documentary that got the distinction of Academy Award nominations in three feature categories: Animated, International, and Documentary. This movie outlines the real-life story of Amin Nawabi from his childhood up until his adulthood.

Amin found out that he is gay at a very tender age. Being born in an Afghan family where same-sex relationships are highly prohibited, his feelings are highly undermined. This docudrama presents Amin’s emotional and social troubles through the use of exposition and animation.

Documentaries are the closest form of realism that filmmakers can achieve while presenting events through a camera. However, Flee majorly makes use of animated characters which begs the question why? Amin, the narrator, seeks to hide his identity while being interviewed. The animation allows Amin to express his ideas freely without the fear of being judged by the online community and the world at large. The film’s animation aspect also presents a rather mellow approach to Amin’s life as a child. Many documentaries of this nature are usually gruesome to some degree when presented in reality. The animation allows the audience to focus more on the story rather than the visuals on screen.

The film’s lighting also alleviates Amin’s sense of fear and rejection. As Amin narrates his story, his character is presented in a dark-lit environment. This mise en scene allows the audience to experience Amin’s fear. The audience can relate

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to his situation being a gay individual in an unforgiving environment. His mellow voice drowns the tension evident in the animation presented onscreen.

The entire film is a flashback of Amin’s life as he was growing up. Having fled from his country for safety, his intended safe haven is even worse than they expected. This primarily creates a sense of hopelessness for the audience. However, Amin’s presence in the interview creates a glimmer of hope seeing that he did not succumb to the elements. Exposition is used to provide the audience with Amin’s backstory and issue a chilling account of events that defined his entire childhood. This being the case, the audience is able to sympathize with him as he narrates his experiences with unyielding consistency.

Through it’s unique format and soul-piercing visuals that sometimes transition into live action, the movie evokes questions about the nature of vulnerability and loneliness and the definitions of borders, barriers, communication, and a “better life.”

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JOSEPH GARCIA

Sian Heder’s

is clear and concise about her keeping time. Seeing that he doesn’t offer her any sympathy due to her situation, his character serves to promote the film’s theme of equality. However different she or her family might be, she is still required to be timely and respectful.

Sound design is the primary mode of information relay in the film. The film features an ensemble mainly consisting of deaf actors. Ruby’s entire family is deaf which makes the film’s sound design quite mellow.

CODA

is a 2021 musical-drama film that outlines the life of a teenage girl, Ruby, trying to chase her dream. The story is a culmination of various activities that take place in Ruby’s life. Having been born into a deaf family, she is the centerpiece that holds the family together. She acts as their translator making her a very crucial element in her family’s day-to-day activities. The director utilizes narrative and sound design to accurately deliver the film’s theme of equality.

The film’s narrative design is highly figurative. When Ruby fails to attend her music lessons with Mr. Bernardo on time, he scolds her for wasting his time.

Despite having to juggle between classes and her family business, Mr. Bernardo

At one point in the film, the audio is silent while there’s a choir singing on stage. This mimics the deaf couple’s situation as they are in attendance. This single aspect of film design immerses the audience into the silent world of the deaf. The director is able to capture the viewer’s attention momentarily at this point in time as they try and figure out what the deaf actors are thinking.

It creates more emphasis on the importance of having Ruby in the family. She is not only the protagonist but also the audience’s interface between them and her family hence equality galore.

108 “Sphere within sphere” (1990) Arnaldo Pomodoro. The original version, gifted by the artist to the Vatican Museum. Stock Photo.

109 “Ven a la luz” (Come into the light) 2018 by Daniel Popper. Installed as part of a cultural festival at the entrance of Ahau Tulum resort, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Photo by Bernard Dupont, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

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111 “Palacio Nacional da Pena” or the Pena Palace stands atop the Sintra mountains overlooking Sintra, a town in Portugal. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of Portugal. The building is often used as the venue for various state occasions by the national government. The castle rose from a Middle Age monument through several stages of construction and reconstruction over the centuries. Today it is the world’s major exampler of the Romanticist style of architecture.

Stock Photo.

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113 Ship at sea. A dated artpiece in the classic style. Artist unknown.

Image credit: Pixabay User GLady, Pixabay License.

The ROR Personal Finance

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How to Tell if you’re Saving Enough or Saving in the Right Places If you have a savings account you probably feel like you’re doing everything right. You have money to fall back on should you have an emergency and you’ve saved money for your personal goals.

Perfect, right?

What if I told you that you may not be saving enough or saving in the right places? Keeping your money in a savings account is almost as bad as keeping the money under your mattress. There are many other ways to make your money grow much faster, helping you achieve your financial goals sooner.

So how do you know if you’re saving enough and in the right places? Read on.

Always make sure you have a stocked emergency fund first. Your emergency fund should have at least 3 to 6 months of expenses in it.

Your emergency fund should only be used for true emergencies, such as losing your job, falling ill, or being unable to work for other reasons. The fund should get you through enough time to figure out your next steps while staying on track with your bills.

Stock your Emergency Fund

Once you have your emergency fund ready, you can move on to saving in other areas.

If you can sleep better at night knowing some of your funds are liquid and not at risk of any loss, put a fraction of your savings in an online high-yield savings account or CD. Shop around and make sure you get the highest yield possible. Online accounts usually pay higher yields because they have much lower overhead costs.

Contribute to your Company’s 401K

If your employer offers 401K and if they match your contributions, take advantage of the opportunity for ‘free money.’

Let’s say for example that your employer will match 3% of your salary dollar-for-dollar. If you make $75,000 a year, this means they’ll contribute $2,250 per year to your 401K if you do. At the very least, contribute $2,250 so each year, you’re contributing $4,500 to your 401K even if you save elsewhere.

Your 401K isn’t the only tax-advantaged account you may have. Here are a few other ways to reduce your tax liability and save money: • IRA — As long as you or your spouse is employed, you can contribute to an IRA. In 2022, you can contribute up to $6,000 each to your IRA with a catch-up contribution of an extra $1,000 if you’re over 50-years old.

• 529 savings plan — If you have children and want to save for college, you can fund a 529 savings plan. The contributions themselves aren’t tax deductible, but any earnings you make are, as are withdrawals as long as they’re used for qualified education expenses.

• HSA — If you have a high deductible insurance plan, you may qualify for a Health Savings Account. The money you contribute to your HSA is tax deductible. Your earnings also grow tax free and if you use the funds for qualified health expenses, the withdrawals are tax free too.

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H i g h -Y i e l d Savings Accounts or CDs

Fund Other TaxAdvantaged Accounts

Once you exhaust all tax-advantaged accounts, you can invest any remaining funds in taxable accounts.

You have many options to diversify your portfolio and increase your earnings. For example, you can invest in stocks and bonds. Stocks are generally a more aggressive investment and bonds are conservative — they can offset the risk of a stock loss.

Other options to diversify your portfolio include ETFs, REITs, mutual funds, or investing directly in real estate, which is often a great hedge against inflation and can offset any stock market crashes that might occur.

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Invest Your Funds in Taxable Accounts

Final Thoughts There is no right or wrong way to save, but taking advantage of tax savings or making the most of your investments will make your money grow faster.

The key is to make your money work for you, so you don’t have to work so hard. Leaving money as cash will only make you lose money, especially in high inflationary environments like we’re experiencing now.

Instead, make your money work for you by investing it well. Diversify your portfolio and reallocate your funds as needed, especially as you get closer to retirement and need a more conservative portfolio.

Public Domain image of last century bank notes from various countries. via Rawpixel.

Interventional Playbook THE NEW BLUEPRINT TO SAVE YOUR SCHOOL

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By Tom Schenck, President

Results Oriented Recruiting is a proprietary intervention that immediately empowers your recruiting efforts. You have now joined professional colleagues across the globe who have decided to break from the status quo and take charge of all aspects of the admissions process once and for all. The core approach is for you to prepare your mind to become nimble and be ready to pivot as you consider possibilities across the organizational world and no longer feel bound to follow just educational trends. Additionally, you will approach every admissions decision with a thought-out plan and a specific set of strategies and tactics to achieve your desired results.

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ROR has mixed the best aspects of educational recruiting and sales fundamentals with an entrepreneurial mindset to create a powerful new standard for quickly attracting families to your school. ROR is a focused approach that deals specifically with managing all potential and current stakeholders through your marketing, admissions and retention funnels. Consequently, you will now have a system that will bring you enough referral sources and families that will control everything from inquiry to matriculation.

The ROR playbook is not designed to audit all aspects of your enrollment management.

Rather, it will give you the immediate tools to create more inquiries that will stay in the funnel and join your school!

This playbook gives you the steps to easily implement and execute the ROR solution. Ultimately, you are creating an office culture of empowerment where you and your colleagues will control every aspect of your admissions process. You have now taken the crucial steps in the journey to regain full enrollment.

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STEP II

The Pitch Deck Paradigm

The Pitch Deck Paradigm As an admissions entrepreneur, admissions is your business and you must take total ownership of a plan that will fill your school. Traditionally admission offices were content to follow the best practices of admissions within the realm of other schools. But times have rapidly changed in the last decade, meaning you must adapt to the frame of mind that will work. It is not only the world of education, but it is the world at large that you must consider your informational source now.

As you are an entrepreneur, you must be prepared to promote your school on different levels. You must think of your school as a viable business proposition.

This is the way you would present your business to potential investors. Your prospective families are also investors, who are willing to invest long-term in both the future of their children and their own personal legacy. The pitch deck approach is a way for you to present a complete overview of your school.

Besides parents, keep in mind that some of your most important cohorts are current and prospective referral sources such as international agents, domestic consultants and feeder school placement directors as well as school stakeholders like alums, current parents and trustees.

You must know how to explain every aspect of your school. Often you never get a second chance to make that first impression The pitch deck is normally a powerpoint presentation of business strengths. But in your presentation you would offer compelling reasons for families to start and quickly finish the enrollment process. You could actually prepare a presentation, or you could use it as a conceptual road map… so you wouldn’t miss details when you present the school.

Not all of these categories will relate to each person, but you will be prepared for any situation. Even if you never have to use a pitch deck, it is a crucial exercise to strengthen your Entrepreneurial Mindset.

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Present Your Vision This is a brief overview of the unique value that you provide to your families. Keep it short and simple. This is essentially your elevator speech.

There is a Problem What is the unique problem that you feel your school solves for parents and their children better than any other institution? Give some specific reasons parents send their kids to your school.

Ideally, with all of these points, tell relatable stories when you are defining the problems that you have solved for other families.

Target Market Show the types of families you have at the school. Potential families and students like to know that there are people like them at your school. The more specific you can be the better the chance potential families feel that your process will be tailored to their needs.

The Solution Describe your school’s specific offerings to show how it helps both students and families. As I mentioned earlier, parents are making this investment in their children; but just as importantly, they are making it for themselves and their family legacy. If they see your school as helping their individual and family legacies, they will be motivated to enroll.

This is classic storytelling where you build up the educational opportunities and how your school is essentially meeting the whole family’s needs. Then contrast that scenario with a family who did not choose your school and what problems they encountered. Remember, people make decisions for two reasons: Either to improve their lives or avoid problems. Always think about a family’s motivations and you will be on the right track.

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The Investment benefit This is where you show the long-term benefits of parent investment. How this present decision is already helping the child’s college future and ongoing life skills. And, be prepared to show what it could cost them, if they didn’t make the investment in your school now. For instance, you can break down what it would cost for the family to have their child at home… show the cost of food, transportation, utilities, housing, hiring extra tutors to supplement what the public school cannot provide, as well as hiring consultants to help them get into college.

While this may not be a top-of-mind comparison for some families, you can never be over-prepared to speak about the specific value your school adds to both their present and the future.

Validation of Success Show the success and skills you have brought to students. Such as college placement success, testimonials from alums, parents, students, educational consultants… as well as local, regional, and national thought leaders.

Marketing and Recruiting Strategy Be able to discuss your marketing approach. Families want to know that you are a dynamic institution with a well-developed plan to further its image and reputation in the marketplace and, most importantly, attract your mission-appropriate students just like their own children.

Most parents are not educators, therefore, the admission process can be scary. It is important to let them know that you have a clear process that takes them easily and quickly to matriculation. And you are personally there to guide them every step of the way!

Leadership Highlight the achievements of your admissions and leadership team. Compare your Head of School’s qualifications against your competing schools’ Heads. Always look for areas where you stand out as the obvious choice. You might even discuss succession planning as another example of your school’s stability to manage consistent leadership. Remember, succession planning shows the board’s long-term strategic planning ability as they are already working to ensure smooth and high-quality leadership changes in the future.

Financials All families want a financially stable school. Be able to discuss capital projects and how much money was raised for the annual fund. It is also good to show parents how the annual fund pays for the gap between expenses and the actual operating budget and how all children essentially receive financial aid. Similarly, you can share how much the school has in its endowment and what is its endowment philosophy - 5% year draw for expenses or just kept for emergencies (like Covid).

It’s important to know that some people feel a large endowment takes away from the potential benefits for current students. However, a large or small endowment is not necessarily a positive or a negative. You want families to know that your school is carefully planning for long-term success, explaining the endowment decisions. Lastly, it never hurts when you can, again, show important financial distinctions between you and your competition.

Competition Here is where you can bring up some head-to-head comparisons... sports records, extracurricular achievements, accreditation accolades, state-of-the-art facilities as well as your general reputation at local, regional, national and, in some cases, international level, as it compares to your competition.

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123 Family Investment and Urgency If this was a business pitch, this is where you would specifically ask your investor to agree for some kind of funding. As the school, you summarized why the family's investment would be good for this particular child and specifically why it would be important to finish the process quickly. This also might be time to discuss the ease of affording your school regarding financial aid merit scholarships or even tuition discounts if net tuition revenue is part of your strategy.

Speak to the incredible benefits they will receive that will change the rest of their lives. Throughout this process, you may well feel that some information is not relevant with the pitch deck approach. You will obviously have the discretion to present what is most germane. At the preparation stage, however, you must be fully prepared regardless of the audience’s needs.

Artist Richard Duijnstee. License-free via Pixabay.

“Don’t tell me I didn’t save my deck!”

TOC

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“Villa de Maecenas mit den Wasserfallen in Tivoli” 1783. Oil on Canvas by Jacob Phillip Hackert, a German landscape painter. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons, via Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

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A Hybrid Era of Boarding Over the past sixteen years, Paul has worked as a teacher and administrator at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School. Paul has a passion for providing students with inquisitive experiences that allow them to experience science first-hand. As an avid rock climber, trail runner and skier, he enjoys exercising in the outdoors and sharing his love of outdoor sports with students. Paul lives off-campus with his wife, Julie, their son Aaron and daughter Amy.

Lake Tahoe Preparatory School represents the new era of boarding education. They bring a hybrid approach to the adolescent journey that offers a comprehensive suite of emotional and academic support without compromising a robust college prep curriculum. They have also figured out how to help Generation Z overcome the technological and social media stressors that can overwhelm them. This school is a sanctuary of hope and rebirth for their students…where everyone finds the courage to embrace the goodness of life.

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Tom: Being considered the new era of hybrid boarding schools is pretty exciting stuff. Can you speak a little bit on what’s your secret sauce that is changing the lives of students so dramatically?

Paul: Thanks, Tom. I think what makes our school different than many others is the small student body size with a maximum number of 65 students on campus. This way we feel that we can attend to each of our students individual, academic and social needs. And we can really focus on a holistic method of educating the entire student. I think that these days many students are languishing in large public high schools or other institutions where they’re allowed to slip through the cracks without adults taking a profound interest in them. We like to take those students, bring them up here to the mountain and really focus on each student as a citizen, a scholar and an athlete while they’re on our campus.

Tom: Those are pretty lofty goals. Can you give me some examples of how you’ve achieved them, some true to life examples of students that you’ve helped.

Paul: Yes, absolutely. So when a student comes to our campus, we custom-tailor an educational program for that particular student. We like to make sure that each student has an individual experience and so we want to custom-tailor everything that we’re doing as staff to meet that student where they are. From their time in the dormitory and picking appropriate roommates and a good floor of similar students. We also help that student make an individual graduation plan so that we know right from the first moment what classes they need to take to achieve their goals and at what point they need to take those classes. For example, how many years, how many summers… and we wanna talk about what a students long range goals are… what are their goals for college… what their goals are for high school… academically, athletically and socially. Then we try and compose a program for each individual student to achieve those goals.

For example I have a young man who came to me in his 10th grade year from Colorado. He lived in the Denver area and struggled with a lot at home.

He had a hard time getting along with his parents .

School had never been an issue for this young man and he really had a love for skiing and the mountains. In his case his family’s dynamic was such that it took a variety of strategically putting together individual therapy for the young man and some parent coaching at home to fully custom-tailor his education.

For example I have a young man who came to me in This also allowed him to form a relationship with the mountain ski team where he was able to work with other students and with coaches so that he could perfect and pursue his skiing skills.

His academic schedule was challenging with many AP classes but during spring semester he would only take five classes to allow more time to train on the mountain. He would then spend the summer doing one course in our summer school program and had a full course load during the fall. He had a lot of stumbles along the way as any young person will, but I think the difference is that here at the school, they’re surrounded by a supportive group of adults who are ready to help them to manage some of the other issues and hurdles they may face. I very much look forward to his graduation this coming May. Tom: It’s fantastic that you will work with involving the family, so even as this student finds success you’re helping give tools to the family at the same time.

Paul: I think 50% of our client is the student, and 50% is the family at home. I always reiterate that when moms and dads get on the phone with me. I tell them this helps reinforce everything that we’re doing and I wanna help parents to better understand their kids so that they can have positive home visits when the time comes. I also like to personally express to them the kind of progress and success we’re seeing with their student on campus. A lot of times with the type of teens that we see, it’s the parents at home that really have a lot of the problems and there’s a lot of different dynamics that go along there. I find that for a lot of families bringing that teenager out of the home, bring them up here to Lake Tahoe and having be on campus where they can make a lot of choices in their day, where they can fend for themselves and prepare for college in an appropriate way with professionals nearby supervising everything they’re doing — I think that really helps to make things better at home and it certainly helps to prepare that student for the next level when they get to college.

Tom: Sounds like an incredible program that a lot of families could benefit from. Let me ask you to talk a little bit about this term hybrid in the sense of these other support systems you offer. What kind of backgrounds do your staff have but also the academic support that a lot of students might need?

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Paul: It comes down to relationship building, whether their issue is academic or emotion. Whether it’s school avoidance, ADHD, depression, you name it.

What makes our community thrive is the establishment of personal relationships from the first moment. We are the kind of place where everyone knows your name and your life story. We will greet you with a smile and a “good morning” and that’s the tone in our campus. We work hard to establish that. For example, our first week of school we don’t actually do a whole lot of academics. We focus more on doing teambuilders and doing experiential learning. We pack up our entire student body and all of our staff and we take everyone up to a summer camp on top of Donner Summit. It’s a beautiful place in the Sierra Nevada, with lots of outdoor activities. We spend that time getting to know each other and by the end of that weekend we are fast friends.

We have a watchful eye for our students’ moods, their grades and overall performance, and I think that’s one of the ways that you could call us a hybrid. We are a college preparatory school that provides rigorous athletics and athletic training but we also provide that therapeutic support that all teenagers can benefit from. If a student has a particular learning issue we have specialists. We have three different Special-Ed teachers who get testing information on students for their learning preferences.

We have a clinical director who’s available to meet with students on a regular basis or whenever they’re having a rough moment. So, I would say that we go above and beyond and we figure out what makes them tick on a personal level as well.

It’s important for our students to have personal relationships with each other and with the adults.

We are not the kind of school where you can get lost in the crowd; we’re the kind of school that if you have a bad day there’s a lot of other people who will notice and help and support you. It doesn’t matter whether your bad day has an academic or a therapeutic focus.

Paul: We do indeed. Where kids might need medications, we have Dr Gail Pritchard who is retired from Stanford University with a practice off-campus. But she meets our students on campus, making it convenient for check-ins, appointments and medications, etc. Then we also have a clinical psychologist who is board certified and has worked with young folks for the last 15 years.

Tom: Sounds like you really have established a 360 support system there. I know that you have clinicians available as well.

129 Artwork created by a participant in Mental Health Awareness Week, 2019, hosted by the University of Edinburgh. Flickr via the University of Edinburgh, CC BY 4.0

Tom: As you know, I’ve not only visited the campus but chatted with you and your incredible headmaster Bill Grant. And I came away just unbelievably impressed with not only the great institution but also its fantastic environment. You know you’re a thought leader in education. You could go anywhere. What has kept you at Lake Tahoe Prep?

Paul: I started out as a classroom teacher here at the school. I was like I get to talk about science with kids all morning and then take them skiing in the afternoon and you’d like to offer me a salary for that? Well, sign me up! And they haven’t got rid of me, sixteen years later. I grew up as a type one diabetic living in Dallas, TX. I wasn’t always the happiest young man, then I found myself through mountain sports, particularly rock climbing and skiing. Those passions led me to a college career into academia. I found a group of adults who wanted to take me under their wing and mentor me not only in sport but in life. Now I appreciate the opportunity to get to do the same thing for kids here at this school and that’s what makes me tick.

I like working with kids who had some trauma.

They’ve had some struggles along the way and my favorite thing is to help those kids to generate an epiphany. If you expose these kinds of kids to good experiences in the real world, they’re going to find something that clicks with them. You could be passionate about a job or career in science, math, writing. It really doesn’t matter what, I want you to live it to the fullest. So here at Lake Tahoe Prep, I like to be an epiphany generator.

Diverging boarders away from social media and diverting their attentions to simpler, everyday focuses in life is a cornerstone in dealing with teenagers’ persive anxiety in Paul Otis’ hybrid boarding approach.

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I like to expose kids who are languishing, who have never been called out, or never been sought out. I like to seek them out, encourage their ideas and creativity and allow them to pursue their passions.

Tom: With every great man there’s many times a great woman. Let’s talk a little bit about Paul the father and Paul the husband. How did you and your wife meet?

Paul: We happened to meet freshman year at the University of Colorado. She was two floors above me in our freshman dorm. She was also in my biology class. So we studied biology together in a study group and I was forever enamored with her. It was a large school so we did not cross paths again until the end of senior year when we began dating and we have been together ever since. She also shares my love of the outdoors and adventure, so we’ve been on many worldwide rock climbing trips together. We were blessed with a baby boy who we named Aaron Otis and then again later with my daughter Amy Lou Otis. I’m so very blessed to be raising both of my children three blocks from the beach at Lake Tahoe. My wife is also an educator as a bilingual reading specialist, so she spends her days at a Spanish immersion school.

Tom: Wow. Well, you guys are quite the educational juggernaut. That’s right. Let us talk a bit about some of the challenges you see coming up for young people. And those challenges change certainly with COVID and technology...

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Paul: Certainly technology and COVID rank high on the list. I have seen a massive change in the therapeutic need for teenagers in the last decade. Ten to twenty years ago we were seeing more kids with acting out, substances, problems with the law and such. Today I see a lot more anxiety and kids can be quite different in their presentation with anxiety. It can be quite difficult to understand and it can look like defiance, depression or rejection of school.

Back in the day, bullies couldn’t come home with you. But now every kid is bringing the bullies home in the form of their cellphone and social media. It has a profound influence on young people today.

The big feeling is a lack of self-confidence, a lack of self-esteem. Teenagers are so susceptible to peer influence and when they get onto social media, it brings up a lot of unpleasant feelings about themselves. We have a lot of students here that come from high pressure large public schools and the Silicon Valley area where the parents are part of the rat race. They’re pushing hard at work and it’s extremely competitive at school already. That combined with your technological socialization can be a recipe for disaster for kids where they just don’t know where they fit in.

I’ve had students who appear to be extremely aggressive and defiant. But then when we start getting into the therapeutic causes, it’s because they’re terrified… to get out of bed and go deal with life.

They are developing this coping skill for avoiding

the external stimulus by being defiant and it gets people away from you. So there’s a lot of different ways that anxiety can appear but it’s certainly a large therapeutic need these days.

Tom: If you could try to crystallize what you think people need to really focus on to help their life and if you were gonna put it all on the Billboard of Life, what would that be? You know, based on what has worked in your life or what you feel people need to keep sight of...

Paul: I would probably sum it up with a list of words: hard work, loyalty, honesty and love. We can’t do too much without the love. I would say to any educator, any parent, any adult who is working with young people or has young people in their lives, I think the number one thing you can do is to be their cheerleader. My number one goal for a day on campus is to give as many positive affirmations as I can; that is my bread and butter.

Tom: Incredible words, Paul. I want to thank you very much, wish you continued success, and I want more parents and consultants out there to find out about your great boarding school. It’s just not a job for you guys, it’s a passion and it’s a lifestyle.

Lake Tahoe Prep. 255 Oympic Valley Road. Olympic Valley, CA 96146. 530.583.8665 info@laketaheprep.org www.laketahoeprep.org

nder the intentional direction of our Head of School, William Grant, Lake Tahoe Preparatory School has greatly increased its emphasis on providing high quality music and arts instruction.

Students of all ability levels have the opportunity to take a wide variety of classes in these areas. Music classes include music ensemble, chorus, digital music, instrument performance, and songwriting. Comprehensive art classes include ceramics, 3D art, AP Art, studio art and a wide variety of visual arts including drawing, painting and sculpture. Additionally, returning this year are classes in Jewelry Design, Art History, and Film Appreciation.

Students not only have the opportunity to learn art skills, but to also perform and showcase their projects. Whether it is during monthly musical performances or a year end art show and sale, students are able to share their accomplishments with others. Over the last few years, several students have been accepted into and are attending programs at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Under the direction of our Director of Visual Arts, we are fortunate to have three highly talented teachers in our Arts department. Sarah Hetu is the Director of Visual Arts at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School. She has been involved in Art Education for nearly a decade. Ever since she was able to hold a pencil she has been immersed in art, and has been a visual artist her entire life. Although her favorite mediums are painting and drawing, she enjoys teaching Ceramics the most.

Sarah’s true love of art came when she was in high school as she discovered her love of oil painting and figure drawing with her high school art teacher. She was so inspired by him, she chose to teach high school art herself! Sarah has a Bachelor of Science in Art Education and takes a unique and successful approach to teaching art in her classroom. Classes that she teaches include many visual art electives, such as Digital Art, Ceramics, Studio Art 1-3, and AP Studio Art: 2D. After a three year hiatus, famed Jewelry Design Teacher and snowboarder extraordinaire Barry Jones is back at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School! He is excited to return and bring his Master of Fine Art skills to teaching Jewelry Design, Film and Digital Photography and Art History.

Barry has over 25 years teaching experience at the college preparatory boarding school and college level. He was a Master level Instructor for three Outward Bound Schools, has been a Wilderness Instructor for numerous Wilderness programs and teacher in Therapeutic boarding schools. An American Mountain Guides Advanced level Instructor in rock and ice and a private mountaineering guide for over 20 years, he has led student and client trips all over the United States and around the globe. During the winter months, Barry loves taking students out to local ski resorts to share his passion for Alpine snowboard carving. When it's not snowing, you can find him out riding his road bike, training for his next great cycling century road race.

Arts Instruction at Lake Tahoe Prep

U

Elspeth Collard is in her first year as the Music Teacher at Lake Tahoe Preparatory School, where she teaches Music Ensemble, Music Technology and Introduction to an Instrument of the students’ choice. From a very young age, she has played several instruments and began writing songs as a teenager. This love of music led her to get her undergraduate degree in Music at the University of Cambridge, before moving to the United States to get her Master’s degree in Musical Theater Writing from New York University.

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When she’s not teaching, she stays very involved in music. As an accomplished songwriter, her album, Little Love Notes from Collard and Rosenblatt, can be found on all major streaming services. She has also performed many concerts and shows around New York.

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Photos by Lake Tahoe Prep: From the bottom up clockwise: Sarah Hetu, Winter Formal, Barry Jones’ jewelry making and skiing activities.

Facing: Elspeth Collard.

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"Generally, we are in Hell.

Still, I'm Feeling Good."

135 It might seem strange, but it looks like my diagnosis, Bipolar I Disorder, has already saved my life at least twice. Both times with manic episodes. Both times from Russian soldiers. And both times in about a year before Russia's fully armed military aggression against my motherland. Maybe, there is even something magical in fact, how my diagnosis protects me from direct participation in military action in this war, which has been going on for more than 9 years now.

I've been hospitalized in Mykolaiv city hospital with severe mania episodes only twice in my life, in 2013 and 2021. And the second time was much worse for me than the first one...

Now, I am staying in the village Krynychky near Mykolaiv. I'm safe, all members of my family, except only my father, who is a soldier, are in safe places as well. All thanks to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. My country has entered Hell now. Still, a few places have a "much lower temperature than average," even in Hell. So, I'd like to tell you my personal survival story in the context of my nation's fight against Russians, which continues, to be honest, for centuries. But, in my subjective opinion, this fight will reach its final point in a few next years.

Russia has constantly flexed her military powers and kept extremely saber-rattly since I can remember. The Ukrainian nation was a pain in the back of Russians, as we’ve fought for our freedom and independence for generations. It was only a matter of time before Russians would attack my country to try to create a new USSR-like country. Still, when invading in 2014, they didn't take into account relevant geopolitical situations and, even more, the Ukrainians' determination.

In 2013, I lived a pretty simple life as a mediocre Ukrainian medical student. Studying was never one of my first priorities, and I preferred to do drugs and play music with my friends. As it was bound to happen sooner or later, I bumped into a very stressful situation. I tried to overcome my emotional reaction to it with even more drugs. As a result, I completely broke down in the summer of 2013 and was hospitalized.

In a few months, I left the asylum and began to rebuild my life from scratch. That was a tough time, as my medication load was extremely huge. The main reason is that I was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia and was forced to take an enormous amount of drugs, which severely slowed down my mental functioning. Those days were extraordinary times not just for me. My nation started a revolution against Victor Yanukovich, one of the worst presidents of Ukraine of all time. This happened when Yanukovich decided to stop the integration process of Ukraine into the EU and decided to "renew a friendly relationship with Russia." It happened in the late autumn of 2013.

On the personal side, in the autumn of 2013, I was having a hard time with even basic stuff like reading complex literature.

When the whole country joined the revolution, including Vinnytsia (the city where my university was situated), I visited a few local demonstrations with my friends, which was the most I could do. But on the 20th of February 2014, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and the war began. My father is a pretty skillful military officer. He joined military forces almost immediately and went to the Donetsk region with his brothers in arms.

A magical night in peace-time Mykolaiv, the city where the author is currently based. Photo by Olexandr (2013), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

I stayed home and fought my own battle — with my own mind, with the wrong medications, the incorrect diagnosis and more.

As time passed, the war with Russia slowly reached a cold point. Our military forces were fighting Russians in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, while the Crimean peninsula was fully occupied by Russia.

Many brave soldiers of my country, including a few of my friends, gave up their lives. The state of my mind slowly improved over time as well, but I’ve still struggled due to mis-prescribed antipsychotics.

I started to use drugs again (mostly, but not only, CNS stimulants, psychedelics, and weed) as they helped me to feel better. But the war with the Russians was still going on. I graduated in 2016, became a doctor, and had a few years of medical practice.

But the war with the Russians was still going on. At least now since I was a medical graduate myself, I finally understood that I'd been misdiagnosed. I decided to find another psychiatrist and got my current diagnosis which is bipolar I disorder. And the war with the Russians still kept going.

I started a new treatment and kept taking drugs right until 2021. I was addicted to them by that point but hid that fact from my psychiatrist and

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therapist. And the war with Russians continued.

My father’s military contract ended. He came back home to attend to his business. The war with the Russians still hadn’t stopped.

I ended up having another severe stressful episode in the spring of 2021. Once again I was hospitalized. Thankfully this time my presentation was not labelled psychosis, but recognized as a severe episode of mania. The treatment went much better this time, and I was discharged in less than a month. I made the decision to avoid ALL drugs in the future — no excuses. Without drugs, I soon slid into a severe depression that lasted until February 2022. And, just to remind you, the war with Russians was only showing the signs of intensifying and getting out of hand.

On the 24th of February, 2022, at 4:50 AM, I woke up with no purpose, as I didn’t have any strict schedule, didn’t watch the news, and even ate only on occasions. A deep depressive episode, which attacked me, took complete control of my actions and will. Due to the relentless tail-chasing of my symptoms and the effect of dampening medications, I am mostly sleeping while managing to perform enough freelance writing work to pay for necessary

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It was hell and a total disaster. I was deeply shocked. After the escalation, my family reached me for the first time, and my father said: "Let's go to a safe place." I was about to reach an even deeper self-isolation and reality-avoidance level. But due to my family’s timely steps, it never happened. We all went to my grandparents' house in Krynychy.

Later, my father drove back to the city and rejoined his old brothers in arms. While the rest of us keep living our lives in the Krynychky, Mykolaiv region.

We know there is a military training ground near the village, and I thought my medical knowledge will prove useful if the soldiers in our area required any medical attention. We constantly saw columns of war technicians moving in and out of the training ground. There was a hospital being prepared for readiness and I decided to present myself there for work. But unfortunately, the training ground was

bombed by Russian artillery in the first few weeks of the escalation. My anger and hatred had no limits. But I felt like there was nothing I could do to support my country due to my bipolar disorder.

In some outbursts of my condition, I can potentially be a threat to my own military colleagues, based on the fluctuations I go through as I pass my daily routine among my family members. On top of that, as I'm constantly keeping track of international newsreporting, I can see how disinformed some parts of the world, in particular the western society, are about the situation in Ukraine.

As a result, I decided to join a small group of people who reached western politicians and influencers via email newsletters and social media. Now I’m consistently doing a lot of content writing to help my family survive these challenging times. We all require food, medications (especially my grandparents), and other stuff. My father is still busy smashing Russian meat on the battlefield, so I'd have to provide all the necessary financial support at the homefront.

I’ve gotten much more emotionally stable with this new sense of purpose.

Not only am I doing something for my country, I’m also earning with it.

Nationalistic pride in ample display in a residential street of Kiev, Ukraine. Photo by Marjan Blan, 2019, Unsplash License.

expendiutres. I started to browse the Internet and came across a YouTube video of Putin talking about some "special military operation," I didn’t know what to say or think. Because the truth is that the war had been going on for the whole of last nine years if maybe not to an extent to make bigger waves on international media. But my feelings changed dramatically when the bombs started to land on previously peaceful territories just a few hours after Putin’s transmission.

All those people who work with me on the informational front have great and supportive personalities. We are constantly doing great work together and will continue to do so.

You can’t even imagine what Russian soldiers do with civilians there. They are being murdered, they are being raped, and they are constantly losing their homes and property.

On about the 10th of March, 2022, the situation became significantly worse near Mykolaiv. My mother with my younger brother decided to move abroad to save their lives. They asked me if I would like to move too, but I decided to stay. You see... first, my grandparents still require some supervision.

Second, I am now a part of a great group that working to support my country. Third, somebody still needs to provide my family with sustenance. It may seem strange, but I got a stable internet connection and electricity in Krynychky, a good laptop, and all the software required to keep up my work.

So, I’ve decided to stay. I still haven’t regretted this decision and I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve learned via an official piece of information that 136 kids were killed and 199 were wounded due to Russian aggression in Ukraine in March alone. The US DoD is estimating about 810 missile launches from the 24th of February, 2022, to the 14 of March 2022, the date of this writing. Just imagine the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe inflicted by those missiles. Russians can't do much with Ukrainians in combat. Russian troops are merely equipped, but unmotivated, and have much worse command than the Military Forces of Ukraine. Putin thought that Ukrainians were waiting for his army and the "Russian word," but he was wrong, as always. He got a "warm welcome" from our soldiers in the form of javelins, bullets, and stingers. Russians got nothing but Molotov cocktails from our civilians. Putin got all the hatred, not only from Ukrainians but also from all people of free will worldwide.

We want Russians to pay for all their crimes in Ukraine and Syria, Georgia, Moldova, and other countries. So, please, support us in any possible form, and ask your authorities, politics, and influencers to do the same.

Other exciting things have been happening with my personal situation. I have gotten good and free of charge support from well known, worldwide software developers. My granny was hospitalized, and I’m keeping an eye on my partially disabled grandfather amidst everything else. But, I'd prefer to say a few words about those who are nowadays are not as lucky as I am.

I’m not sure that readers of this magazine are familiar with the names of these cities: Kharkiv, Kherson, Gostomel, Mariupol, Irpin, Bucha, and thousands of much smaller towns and villages. But, I’d really like it if they would Google any info regarding those cities.

Slava Ukraini, Former MD

Dmitro Kyiashko Dmitro relies entirely on his freelance activities for his monthly income. Since February, he has also joined online writing organizations to help the international media understand the true situation in his country: https://www.zvedeno.info/ and https://safely.today/

Right. Detailed map showing all of the areas where Rusiian military aggression is currently taking place in Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.

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‘S Routines of Success!

Adapt to What Life Throws at You Fight Out Your Battles No Matter What They Are Don’t Give Up Your Instincts and Convictions Don’t Let Medicines or Drugs Define You Stick it Out with Your Family Endeavor to Apply All Your Skills Whenever Possible Transition to Reasonable and Actionable Goals When Things Go Beyond Your Control Publicize Your Own and Your People’s Perspectives However You Can Help Your Nation in Crisis with What Opportunities You Have 140

141 An original cartoon created for the ROR Magazine by cartoonist Luis Gonzales.

“I’m trying to free Ukraine!!!”

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143 “Flowers of the blue background,” by Ukrainian painter i primitivsm style. Wikiart, Fair Use License.

“Native American totem poles at the Field Museum in Chicago Two enormous red cedar totem poles from British Columbia. Ornately carved with figures of grizzly bears, birds, and killer whales, the poles stand over 20 feet tall. The figures represent specific families, similar to the crests of European noble families.

The totem poles stood outside or attached to homes as indicators of the inhabitants.”

Heather Paul, Flickr, 2013,

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Equity in Arts Appreciation

By Sophia Mathiou

Art can be viewed as part of a group’s culture, something that is related to its aesthetic values, its artistic expertise and technology. Today, we know it is a holistic expression of society, rather than a trivial and detached part of it. It’s the interaction between art and society that helps one shape the other.

And yet, society and human relationships are based on discrimination and inequality in the real world, leading to the predominance of some social groups and the marginalization of the rest. Unfortunately, its the privilege of being born in the majority demographic that defines the opportunities that this person is given. And this dynamic extends to the art world much the same as any other area of life. One look at the mainstream art galleries, art academies and even curriculums of schools teaching art is enough to show the breaches of negligence and indifference to the rich world of art that exists in the native and local peoples all over the world.

With a view to increase visibility of the global, native art treasures, we are going to examine the artisitic heritages of diverse groups, such as indigenous people from North and South America, Europe and Australia.

One cannot take upon such a subject without a reference to European Colonialism and its contemporary effects. Even though, the former imperial powers (Belgian Empire, British Empire, Dutch Empire etc) have ceased to exist, the consequences of their imperialistic missions are still active and even thriving. It should be strictly understood that the political decolonization of a region does not guarantee the return to its original pre-colonial status quo. This applies to all areas of societal existence and extends to all the art forms.

A number of recent protest campaigns have highlighted the bias in museums, arts exhibitions and teaching institutions in terms of both exploiting

minority cultural heritages and legacies (what is usually termed appropriation) and the widespread indifference and negligence. This has placed today’s institutions under much-needed pressure and a critical spotlight.

The biggest problem will always be underrepresentation. A study conducted by Williams College in 2019 showed how 18 of the largest American art museums and galleries are distinctly dominated by white creations. The results of the research are revealing: 85.4% of the exhibited works belong to white artists and 87.4% to men. On the other hand, artists of African descent come first on the list of the least represented communities at 1.2%, while those of Asian descent at 9% and Hispanics origin at 2.8%. Another issue worth noting is that the problem of underrepresentation extends to all kinds of professionals working in museums and galleries. A study by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation showed that only 4% of all curators, conservators, and educators were black, 3% were of Spanish descent and 6% Asian.

Several other issues also pointed out in the critical discourse surrounding art institutions include the acquisition and possession of indigenous art, the claim for repatriation, the existence of indigenous art in ethnographic museums rather than art galleries and, lastly, the problematic language use of museums. When local or native arts appear exclusively in ethnographic collections, it creates the damaging idea that such art is “exotic” rather than art per se. It poses the risks of misrepresenting the diverse cultures and relegating them to a “longgone” or “primitive” status in history, without continuity and correlation to existing communities.

Additionally, language use is an important factor in the process of democratizing art institutions. The problem is that a vast majority of texts and labels in museums and galleries are available only in the official languages of the former colonial powers.

Furthermore, the use of offensive or improper language poses the risk of misrepresenting a culture, fetishizing certain communities and echos, and hence reinforces ideas and terminology established in the colonial era.

Mending the Inequities

Over the years, there has been greater sensitivity regarding the art of minorities. Institutions are starting to welcome, exhibit and promote it. The operational definition of art has certainly widened from its former western values.

In 2018, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago made a vigorous step towards decolonizing its collection of native communities of North America by renovating its exhibition halls. The institute issued a public statement, committed to creating bridges of communication between the institution and indigenous academics and museum professionals. There is also their refreshing initiative to provide space and visibility to contemporary indigenous artists such as John Weinstein, whose work pays homage to the heritage of his native ancestors.

https://www.sdmx.no/en/sami-daida-museum

A similar approach was adopted by the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum by way of the Sámi Dáiddamusea exhibition, dedicated to the Sami community, an indigenous Finno-Ugric-speaking population inhabiting the region of Sápmi, that is the northern part of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Aside from the visibility that came with the exhibition, the mu-

Emu plume : Lieutenant C C Busby, 22 Light Horse Regiment (Tasmanian Mounted Infantry). Low Resolution Copy, Australian War Memorial.

seum took everything a step further and included the language of Sami as one of the 3 official languages of the event. Not only the language appeared in the museum’s captions but also in every auxiliary label in the museum space, alongside Norwegian and English. The website is still available in all three languages and the whole project, exhibition and all, was collaborated closely with the Sami community itself.

In a similar but different vein, there have been authentic attempts at repatriation, where a return of artworks has been demanded by native communities, naturally claiming the management of their own cultural heritage. The examples are countless and this issue gets even more sensitive where the objects in question are either sacred or consist of human remains. For instance, the Manchester Museum used to possess a series of Australian Aboriginal objects. In 2019, 40 sacred and ritual artifacts were returned to a series of native communities, such as the Aranda, Gangalidda, Garawa, Yawuru and the Nyamal.

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The repatriation was part of a formal and symbolic ceremony for the 250th anniversary of the first European trip to Australia led

by James Cook. The museum’s decision to let go of these 40 artifacts was considered as a starting point for similar positive initiatives by other institutions possibly. However, according to the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), British art institutions still have in their possession around 30,000 artifacts, which the Aboriginal communities continue to claim.

The Manchester Museum.

Photo Credit: David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via The Geograph Britain and Ireland Project.

Today, the social pressure that art institutions receive worldwide brings them face to face with their colonial past. The ways of acquiring and managing their collections, their cooperation or not with indigenous communities, and at the same time their interpretive and curatorial approach are being called into question. Changes in political climates, the abandonment of the colonies and the ever-growing demand for social justice, equality and visibility in culture mark a new era. Ultimately, it is on today’s curators and educators alike to re-contextualize the art of indigenous peoples, highlighting its artistic value and the contribution of native communities to civilization per se.

of G e m s of T h e Gems The r t Nativ e A Native Art

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Left. “Kiowa ledger art, possibly of the 1874 Buffalo Wallow battle, Red River War.” Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Below. “The Muisca raft; circa 600–1600; gold alloy; 19.5 x 10.1 cm; Gold Museum (Bogotá, Colombia),” Wikimedia Commons, via Columbia Official Tourism Portal, CC BY-SA 1.0 Next Piage. Oil on canvas by Angel de Cora, c. 1900, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons via Heard Museum

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Toyobunko Museum, Bunkyo City, Japan.

Photo by Zhipeng Ya, 2020, Unsplash License

A WALK THROUGH TOKYO’S ROR Buzz Piece

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By Shyam Bhardwa

Tokyo Tower, Minato-ku, Japan.

Photo by Jazael Melgoza, 2018, Unsplash License.

T

okyo has been defined by its cultural amenities as one of the busiest and most heavily populated metropolises in the world. Articles exist on almost every facet of its offerings, from fine dining to fashion to festivals. Tokyo is often presented as a city defined by unique experiences. However, as someone with a background in Literature, a Tokyo experience that I’ve often noticed gets overlooked is that of its libraries. At last count, Tokyo has over 200 libraries in its administrative area. And much like other cultural outlets, very few are similar, catering to unique demographical needs, specific target audiences, and even accessibility requirements. With this in mind, I explored four vastly different publicly funded libraries in the Tokyo Metropolitan area over the course of a day. They are all within approximately 20 minutes travel by public transport from each other in the city proper, allowing me to examine just how Tokyo approaches the challenges of its library systems.

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155 Mid-morning, I stopped at a café on the outskirts of Arisugawa-no-miya Memorial Park for a bubble tea and pastry. The park is only a few streets away from some of the trendier, more heavily gentrified locations in Tokyo such as Azabu-Juban and Roppongi. Walking into the park to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library required navigating through small crowds of children and their parents enjoying the sun. The library itself is near the centre of the greenery, an enormous square complex sheltered by the trees and softer sounds away from the play areas near the park edge. The sounds of the park seem to fade away upon entering the copse of trees surrounding the main entrance.

Tokyo’s largest library contains upwards of 2.1 million books over five floors of shelves, archives, and study halls. Established in 1973, the library architecture is modern, with open spaces and reading areas scattered throughout the stacks allowing for easy circulation across an open plan layout. Aside from books, the library also offers services and exhibits blurring the lines between library and museum – current exhibitions include the Olympic and Paralympics games, Ukiyo-e artwork, and Imperial Japanese history. As a municipal library, the awareness of local demographics and needs are immediately apparent from the atrium, with literature and curated books in both Japanese and English.

The third floor has extensive collections of fiction and non-fiction in English, Chinese, Korean, as well as more limited collections of French, Spanish and Hindi.

The depth of complexity in the library’s collections are reminiscent of a university library, with intermediate level texts and writings on a broad array of

National Diet Relics at the National Archives.

These documents were saved and preserved after the Great Kanto Eathquake of 1923.

Photo credit: Author

academic subjects. Foundational texts for study are the bulk of the material available – the works of major literary figures and anthologies of literature composing the majority of the English Literature shelves. Popular fiction and similar recreational reading material was available although extremely limited, occupying a small corner of the library’s first floor. The availability of personal studying niches and group discussion rooms on the fourth floor further developed the impression of a university library, and despite the availability of a ‘Kid’s room’ and cafeteria facilities, the bulk of the library’s patrons tended to be young adults or mature students using the library facilities as a resource to assist with their studies. The associated facilities available for patrons are largely academic, with archive requests, research assistance, and clerical assistance such as photocopying or translation. Staff remain on hand to assist with queries and are mostly bilingual with intermediate English, ensuring the library is an open resource for visitors from abroad and Japanese residents alike.

Though the middle of a popular park in a trendy Tokyo ward might seem the oddest place for a library that presents such a strong atmosphere of the academic, the multiculturalism and emphasis on municipal service is evident. From the copies of The Times and The Wall Street Journal in the newspaper reading rooms to the bilingual exhibits, the Tokyo Municipal Library remains one of the most easily accessible and foreigner-friendly libraries in the Tokyo area.

Minato Library.

Photo credit: Author

A brief twenty-minute hop northwards by foot and train then leads to some of the more crowded, urban areas of Tokyo such as Shimbashi, Ginza, and Tokyo. Unlike the more residential wards near the Tokyo Municipal Library, these areas are home to offices, high-end stores, and government buildings. But also in the midst of these is Hibiya, a small sub-district known for its gardens and theatres, as well as a popular spot for urbanites to relax after work in one of many izakaya or cocktail bars.

On the very edge of the district is Hibiya Park – the first western style park to be built in Japan in 1903, and within it, we can find Hibiya Library and Museum.

Established over 100 years in the past in 1905, the Hibiya Library underwent extensive renovation in the early 2010’s, reopening in late-2011. Visitors might be struck first by the unique architecture, as the building is triangular, leading to long halls on the first floor and subdivided wings in the library proper. The building provides a cosier and intimate feel with comfortable seating and small grouped study areas on the landings of each floor. The atmosphere is distinctly more relaxed, with drinks and food being permitted both inside and outside the cafeteria area, and the patrons being a mix of students, families, and individuals of mixed ages and genders. Small pieces of furnishing, such as children’s toys and reading booths overlooking the park create a welcoming environment for visitors to stay and read for longer periods of time.

The Hibiya Library and Museum consists of 5 floors, with only the second and third offering reading materials. Despite the relative simplicity of the material, however, foreign literature is all but non-existent outside of a handful of texts in each section, and as such the library is less accessible to those without a strong grasp of Japanese. However, the library’s most unique offering comes from the museum portion of its charter, which the first and fourth floors are dedicated to. A permanent exhibition room and special exhibition room on the first-floor display historical exhibits such as a virtual walkthrough of Edo Castle complee with 18th century samurai artifacts, located a few minutes away on foot. The cultural properties area on the fourth floor offers a look into cultural artifacts and relics from Japanese history. I saw, for instance, a display of armour and a katana, all decked in period-appropriate style.

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Inspired by the historical leanings of Hibiya, I made my way to the National Archives of Japan, a forty minute walk away around the Imperial Palace Gardens to the north. Located adjacent to The National Museum of Modern Art, the library building is a squat, utilitarian government office, with little of the ornamentation or reverence of the National Archives in the US. However, it is here that some of the key founding documents of Japan, as well as from Japanese history, are located. Established in 1971 as a way of collating several agencies performing the same function without wider government oversight, the current Japanese constitution and several of its predecessors can be examined here, as well as records relating to any of Japan’s public agencies or government offices. The museum is a single corridor with close to a dozen hermetically sealed glass displays of Japanese documents from the time of the Meiji restoration in the late 19th century and 20th century Japanese documents pertaining to World War II. These documents are displayed straightforwardly, with simple plaques describing their origins in Japanese.

The reading rooms on the second floor further emphasise the austerity of the building, and its function as a government office more so than a recreational library. The archives use a request form system, where patrons are directed to an archive terminal giving a brief overview of the records and documents available.

The search options are streamlined effectively, with searches via government agency, issue, and author being available options. Once the documents have been located on the archiving system, patrons fill out a request form to requisition them, and the staff will locate the documents and deliver them to the patron. The majority of materials are free for all visitors to read with a minority requiring examination or specific qualifications to view.

As could be expected, the Archives offer expert level texts and reports designed for field specialists and professional use. The archiving system requires users to be extremely familiar with the material they require, and documents can run into hundreds if not thousands of pages of complex, specialised kanji. Of the four readers present at the time, two were lawyers co-operating on case law, whilst the others were corporate employees searching for specific data for their fields. The complexity and specific knowledge required further means that staff are unable to help beyond general administrative advice, and do not speak English, although the terminals offer limited English support for foreign visitors. The Archives, for all its functionality in retaining state records, seems much closer to museum than library, but for those with an expertise in their fields and an interest in Japan’s history or legislature, it is a visit worth taking an hour out of your day for the museum portion.

It was late afternoon by the time I completed my brief reading in the National Archives, which left me just enough time to visit one more library. Minato Library is a 20 minute southbound journey by train to Onarimon station, a mile or two away from Hibiya Library and Museum. Built in 1979 as part of a thirty-year celebration of the administrative district of Minato City, it is located in Shiba Park – a smaller, quieter park than either Hibiya or Arisugawa-no-mori Park with a large children’s play area directly adjacent to the library. When I arrived, a small crowd of children were running between this play area inside the park and the library doors, giving the nondescript red brick library building a welcoming atmosphere of community.

The library itself further supports this atmosphere within, with the layout and design reminiscent of small community libraries from childhood. The vestibule contains numerous corkboards advertising local community events and classes, flyers for local services, and a small section of curated books for all ages. Across the three public access floors, the first floor has a large collection of different fiction and non-fiction for patrons, while approximately a third of the floor is dedicated to a children’s space with books for ages 3 to 12, decorated colourfully and with seating for families. A low hum of parents reading to their children suffused the area, but good oversight from staff and larger shelves separating off the area ensures other patrons are not disturbed.

Minato city is a popular ward for foreign residents, and the library also welcomes foreign residents with a large collection of foreign literature aimed at both adults and children. Several popular English young adult novels were amongst the curated literature in the vestibule, and several shelves are dedicated to books in English, Chinese, and Korean.

Perhaps uniquely amongst the libraries, Minato also offers a large collection of audio-visual material aimed at family consumption, as well as staff designated to assist with children’s study queries and terminals for safe use of the internet. The second floor is dedicated to these, additional seating, and reference materials for the local area, creating a safe communal area where patrons can talk to each other, supervise their children, and explore materials relating to local history. Whilst there, several small groups of senior citizens, as well children, were using the facilities as a community centre as much as a library, with drinks, snacks, and light conversation. To ensure that focused study and work remains available, however, the basement floor contains a silent reading room with fifty seats, as well as a meeting room to serve as overflow. In contrast to the upper floors, in these rooms were several high school and university students. The Minato Library could not contrast more sharply with the National Archives, as a relaxed, open, and communal area for members of the community to meet, read, and study together. For anyone who spent a significant portion of their younger years in a local library, the nostalgia will be incredibly pervasive.

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Hibiya Library.

Photo credit: Author

Somehow, although I had gone into the day expecting a variance in the scope and design of the libraries, I still left Minato library surprised. For four libraries so close to one another, and thus surrounded by a relatively similar populace, the differences when in the libraries themselves were staggering. Moving from a city museum annexed to a library, to a professional, government archive, and then to a small community library in the span of a few hours highlights the diversity of Tokyo’s library system. The libraries did have certain elements in common, with the emphasis on small exhibits and museum elements being perhaps the most common to all four, as Tokyo’s library system is closely entwined with its museums and history conservation efforts. But beyond that, the unique appeal of the libraries, whether as community centres with easy accessibility for local residence, museums for historians and those with an interest in Japanese culture, or archives for educational purposes makes these libraries an essential component of Tokyo life, and a well worthwhile visit for residents and tourists alike.

We Round Up Select News from the Independent Schools Community Rowland Hall’s distinguished Rowmark skiing program had a distinguished presence at the olympics in Beijing this year in form of alumni success. Katie Hensein, ‘18, dubted as part of the US Olympic Ski Team this year. She became the National Champion in 2020 prior to this.

Kaitlyn Vesterstein, ‘17, who was also a dual citizen of her native Estonia, represented her original country at Beijing Olympics. It should be noted that Rowland Hall was supposed to have two more alumni, one for Team USA and another for Team Australia, but they had to bow out due to injuries.

Via Yahoo Finance: Non-public Schools (NPS) have the ability to access over $180 million available through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Emergency Assistance to Non-public Schools (EANS) Program which provided over $5.5B to assist Non-Public Schools that can be utilized to supplement purchases designed to enhance health and safety in schools and classrooms such as Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). The federal government had previously allocated over $121B for our national K-12 Public Schools. In March 2022, the White House highlighted an additional $350B that is available to address improving Indoor Air Quality through the “Clean Air in Buildings Challenge”.

More details and contact info can be acquired via the government webpage by the US Office of Elementary & Secondary Education, DoE.

Three proud Proctor Academy alumni officiated at the Beijing Olympics this year with Team USA. Christine Toriello Walshe ‘97, who is President of the US Olympic and Paralympic Foundation, oversaw USA’s campaign from stateside, while Max Cobb ‘83 (President of US Biathlon) and Jed Hinkley ‘99 (Sports Director for US Nordic) were in Beijing as athletic supervisors for their respective sports.

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COLLEGIATE SCHOOL CHANGES MASCOT IN RESPONSE TO RACISM CALL OUT For several years, USA’s oldest private school, Collegiate School in NYC, has faced criticism and protests from its own students on the racist overtones of its long-held mascot. The protestors, largey its pupils of color, made the mascot centerpiece in their campaign to get their school to deal with its racism and prejudice. Under this healthy pressure, the school created a 17 member task force last year and finally came up with a more progressive, forward and positive mascot picutred above.

SECURITY GUARD ARRESTED AT COLUMBUS TORAH A security guard who worked at the East Side School was arrested in March after posting disturbing images with a gun and an explicit threat of unleashing gun violence against the Columbus Torah Academy, in Columbus, Ohio. Officials at the school later thanked local law enforcement for their quick discovery and action.

NEW PRIVATE SCHOOL TO LAUNCH IN INDIANA Marian University of Indiana has launched a new, faith-based preparatory school system across the whole state. It is powered by Stride, Inc. an innovative, tech-enabled education solution. Offering it’s first full annual year starting August, this school will be the one of the first of its kind, fully post-pandemic school.

It plans on offering 3 full modes of education, with parents choosing the best one for their child: fully virtual, full hybrid, and fully in-person.

What’s Happening, ROR? 164

NAIS - USA 19 MAY 2022

Meet-Up for International Student Program Directors

National Business Officers Association NBOA 6-24 JUN 2022

Budget Meets Mission: School Finance for Non-Business Leaders — “Understanding school

finances can inspire resourceful action on the part of all leaders charged with managing their schools.

This online course is designed for those administrators who desire to be good stewards of their school’s financial resources, to be strategic in light of financial pressure and to work more collaboratively with their leadership team around financial issues.”

TRAVERSE - Watershed School, USA 13-15 June, 2022

In this conference, “innovative educators [will] gather to re-imagine school as a hub for real-world learning. They are inspired by leading speakers, engage with peers from across the country, and head out on learning expeditions that offer hands-on experience with new ways to engage students in real-world problem-solving.”

WASET - International 16-17 JUN, 2022 Venue: Toronto, Canada

International Conference on Gifted Talented Education & School Reforms — “provides

a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Gifted Talented Education and School Reforms.”

ICETL - International 24-26 JUN, 2022 Venue: Oslo, Norway

The 5th International Conference on Research in Education, Teaching and Learning — “will be covering the most pressing topics in the fields of teaching and education.”

“The conference is seeking submissions related to the following conference topics: Education Theory and Practice, Teaching, E-Learning, Language Education _ ELT / FLT, Education Policy and Administration, Child and Family Education, and Learning.”

ICEF - Asia

28 JUN - 01 JUL, 2022 Venue: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The Asia Event of International Consultants for Education & Fairs —

“With the recent explosion of Asia’s middle class forecast to create a new consumer market larger in number and spending power than the rest of the world combined by 2030, this unique event is vital for educators, recruitment agents and relevant service providers.

ICEF Asia 2022 is an exciting and greatly anticipated event providing a first-rate networking environment for professionals with an interest in over 20 outbound student countries in Asia, including Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, China and India.”

AISAP - USA

10-13 July, 2022 Annual Institute — “Join us for this

in-person event in July that is focused solely on the art and science of Admission and Enrollment Professionals. ”

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13-15 June, 2022 2022 Administrative Leadership Institute Workshop “helps develop your leadership style and expand your management skills. Gain a new perspective on what it means to be a leader in an independent school with practical techniques and real-life solutions. Featuring Rob Evans and Michael Thompson.”

27-29 June, 2022 Summer Conference “is designed for those who focus on the well-being of the school com-

munity. This year’s sessions include fostering a culture of belonging, partnering with families, and recruiting and retaining talented teachers. Content will be appropriate for heads, assistant heads, division leaders, deans, counselors, and other school leaders. Participating together as a team is encouraged.

EMA - USA 13-17 SEP, 2022 Annual Conference — “Join us in Orlando, FL for precons September 13-14. General conference begins September 15 - 17. Registration opens soon!”

EDTECH - International 30-31 MAY, 2022 Venue: London, UK

EDTECH World Forum 2022 - In-Person — is the “world’s leading educational conference

for e-learning.” The forum will “focus on the growing intersection between EdTech, AI (Artificial Intelligence), EdTech Platforms, Apps, GameFi, Online Learning, AR, VR, Metaverse and Virtual Learning.” Keynotes include Google, Harvard University, Microsoft and Kickstart Innovation.

TABS - USA 23-25 JUL, 2022 NewBoarding Webinar — “will get you up to speed and ready to make an impact! It’s a robust and reflective three-day on-boarding to the complex world of boarding school life. You’ll experience learning and mentorship to equip new members of a boarding school faculty and staff across all functional roles to ask the right questions and make an impact from day one.”

What’s Happening, ROR?

SAIS - USA

“Boat Supreme” A private drydock in Portsmouth, VA. April, 04, 2022.

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167 Timothy Svoboda’s fantastic, original contributions to the ROR magazine.

Blue Mystique.

Right after susnset, the local lake gives out an irresistable allure to the casual viewer April, 07, 2022.

Gold Rush In. The liquid gold of the coming summer’s sun is alredy bursting through the forest cover in this breathtaking shot a short walk from Timothy’s house.

April, 15, 2022.

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Spring Swirl.

The coming spring holds on to the relics of last fall in this dynamic capture, reminding us of the poetry of classic poets such as Wordsworth and Richard Wilbur.

April 08, 2022.

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Fairytale Sunset.

Reality and fantasy blur lines in thisarresting shot of the parting day.

April, 18, 2022.

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The 5 Latest Releases To Read in 2022 Do you know that 75% of US adults read at least one book in 12 months in any format, fully or partway through? This figure has remained unchanged since 2011. The pandemic may not have converted many to excellent readers, but readers have been reading more.

Although the new year would have already raced to nearly the halfway point when this magazine reaches you, in every quarter there is a slate of exciting, shiny new releases to grab for the couch. For your pleasure, a survey of the best of the best in the written word:

1.

Sea of tranquility.

Emily St. John Mandel. April 5, 2022.

From the famous author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel comes a science fiction exploration of metaphysics, spanning from 19th century Canada to a human colony on the moon in the 23rd century. Three characters from three different eras are tied by a metaphysical experience involving haunting violent notes rising against human cacophony from a forest deep in Canada. Scenes are entrenched in small, tender and tragic human moments against the backdrop of current ailments of the planet, pandemic and all. The time-ranging mystery smoothly comes together when a detective from the secretive Time Institutes investigates, time-traveling back all the way from the 25th century. Book connossieurs have called this gem an unmissable read for the year.

FICTION

Being called the debut novel of the year, author Bonnie Garmus has penned a delightful 1960s story about how no woman is ever an average woman. The story begins as its main character, a chemist struggles as the lone woman member of a prestigious research institute. The story circles through many adventures in her life including the attentions of a fellow academic, a change of line, single motherhood, and the hosting of a trendsetting cooking show teaching the love of chemistry and taking mainstream TV by storm. Reviewers are praising the for her “intellect, honesty, and Lessons in chemistry heroine unapologetic selfhood.” The story teachBonnie garmus es in the best way possible to stand up for oneself and not to dumb one down April 5, 2022. to the reducing views of women.

2.

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177 Nelly Neamo picks the 5 recent book releases to grab this season!

NONFICTION Fights like Hell Kim kelly April 26, 2022.

3.

A freelance journalist with Teen Vogue, Kim Kelly has collaborated with fellow columnists. Their labor of love is an unprecedented history of the literal blood and tears that marginalized peoples of America shed to get to modern workers rights. In the pages, you will find freed Black women organizing for protection rights, Asian American field workers for the government, Jewish immigrant garment workers, incarcerated workers, and queer labor leaders. All struggling for rights, independent, safety, and equity, winning some and losing some. These faces were the brushed-aside heroes, often silenced, often unheard and always forgotten. But Kelly’s great investigative work has finally dusted their names off the shelves of America’s workers history. A must read for serious students of the Americas.

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I used to live here once: The haunted life of Jean Rhys. Miranda Seymour. July, 28, 2022.

Respected British biographer, Miranda Seymour, dives into the fascinating personal history of Jean Rhys, the fabled author of Wild Saragasso Sea. Rhys stands out in literature for her “vulnerable” and often “disaster-prone” women. Explored in depth for the first time, Rhys’ own story of turmoil and tragedy reflects on how her solitariness and perpetual “outsider” personality helped shaped her creations. Shockingly, Seymour’s investigation reveals a self-mocking and unpredictable woman who comes across as very contemporary. Seymour has worked with journals, papers, and writings that were never consulted until now. This is a much laudable remedy of a nelgected meastro of literature. and Seymour has come up with a story that is both authentic and educating.

5.

Find your calm: A workbook to manage anxiety Dr. Jamie Zuckerman. May 10, 2022.

With effect, well-thought out interactive activities such as “worry art,” “word reframing,” “sticky note project,” “time tast tricks,” and “balloon breathing,” this workbook will be a viable companion during your stressful times.

Dr. Jamie is a qualifed and certified psychotherapist who has been helping people with stress and anxiety throughout her career. She understands how undefined, pushed-away fears gnaw at our sanity even during our assured routines. She leaves us with deep-down truths of being with your body and teaches us how to lean in to your discomforts with acceptance to cure them.

Six Unspoken Marriage Rules To Follow

by Dr. Norva Semoy Abiona

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179 If any relationship is to thrive then rules or guidelines are necessary. However, there should be the element of love that governs all agreements between two spouses. Rules are designed to protect each individual, the union and also to create trust and understanding. However, since many of these rules remain unsaid, they tend to slip by under the radar of one or both spouses. Generally, these unspoken rules are ways you should treat your spouse by default. But that’s how it doesn’t happen always. This opens the door to a lot of dissatisfaction creeping in. Since the unspoken rules is often never brought up, one may not know how to start the conversation and the dissatisfaction can linger into something persistent and intense. Being ignorant of a rule does not mean that you may not be affected if it is broken.

To help you out, we look at some of the common unspoken rules that every wise spouse should bear in mind as you seek to maintain a happy marriage.

Art by Alan Levine, Pxhere, CC BY 2.0

Do not broadcast the problems you are having with your husband. This may be particularly hard to do when you feel as if you will explode if you say nothing. Instead of automatically turning to social media, friends or a family member, you should seek to resolve the issue with your spouse.

Sometimes you may even need to find a private space to sit and think before telling an outsider about the issue. Yes, that’s right. Find an isolated spot to think things through, even give a good scream or cry if necessary and then talk to your husband. It may be that you can resolve the problem without any outside help and get back to being happy. The reason for keeping things private, especially off the general web, is that once you put that information out there you have no control over where it will end up. What tends to happen is that long after you have forgotten about it, someone can dig up that content and embarrass both you and your spouse with it. When it comes to family and friends you may create a negative impression of your spouse with the person you choose to confide in. This may affect their advice to you and may push you away from a positive resolution.

Another thing to consider is that they may tell someone else and it may get back to your husband. You do not want your husband discussing your marriage with others so give him the same consideration. If the problem is severe, then you may want to consider seeing a counsellor or coach for help.

Keep Your Marriage Issues Out of The General Public

Allow Your Husband To Express Himself

Generally speaking, men do not like arguing with their wives. This may be because they do not want to “rock the boat” and want peace in their home. As women, this may seem to work well but in reality, it may create distance in the marriage. You can usually tell when your husband does not agree with you so find out his reason. Keep an open mind so that you can see where he is coming from. In doing this, you may give him something else to consider or vice versa. Encourage him to talk to you and allow him to say all that he wants to, while listening attentively. Resist the urge to interrupt or raise your voice as this may have an adverse effect. This may be a difficult change at first but it will strengthen your marriage and help to foster good communication between the both of you. If you have children and they are within listening ear of your conversation this can also help them learn about effective communication with others. Remember, children will quicker copy what they see and overhear than what you teach them directly.

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Digital art by Camila Denleschi, an illustrator from Brazil.

Public Domain, Pixabay License.

181 A healthy relationship involves making sacrifices and finding the right balance. Simple examples may be adjusting your position when sleeping so you both get a comfortable night’s rest or sharing your favorite dish so that your husband has some to eat as well. Of course, both parties must be willing to make sacrifices to grow your love and sometimes simply to keep the peace. Please understand that I am not referring to the extreme where you can end up becoming a pushover for your husband or you begin to behave like a bully. No, in the spirit of love, stay true to your core beliefs and ensure daily that you are happy with the version of you when you look at in the mirror.

Make Sacrifices That Do Not Change You At the core of your sacrifice should be the fact that you are on the same page with your spouse. In addition, make a concerted effort to pursue your individual and joint passions and dreams together. Make a list of the things you need to do and prioritize your marriage as often as you can. In relationships where love, valuing and respecting each other is at the heart of it, your husband is normally able to tell that you are willing to make the sacrifice for him and he will absolutely appreciate you for it. By doing this, you will also make it easier to say no when you need to. This is not to say that you should keep a score or bring up past sacrifices that you made. It is all about balance and compromises.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ fotostalker/4858397745

Be Constructive When You Criticize His Family & Friends

You may like having things done your way but if you take control of everything, then you may burn out. You may also come to feel as if you are doing everything and become resentful of your husband. You may not like how he washes the dishes or cleans the bathroom, but do not take over and do it yourself. Do not complain about how he messed up but thank him for doing it. Then make a suggestion for him to try next time. If you must make any changes or adjustments to what he did, then do not negatively labour on the point or unnecessarily make him aware that you are doing this. You do not want him to lose confidence in his ability to help around the house.

Sometimes this type of situation can lead you to think of your spouse in that same way that you feel about a child, however, resist the urge to do so and remember that this is not the sum total of all your spouse is. You fell in love and married him because of mature character traits. You must continue to show trust in him and give him a chance to make your life easier and happier. If he takes a longer time than you would to get something done, then make adjustments for this.

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You may really dislike someone who is close to your husband or they may dislike you. Even so, it is not your decision as to who your husband can communicate with. He chose you to spend his life with. You just need to focus on your marriage and do things to make both of you happy and healthy. In order to protect your spouse, you may need to state your opinion but do so constructively. For example, you could say, “Billy is a nice guy but you get into some crazy situations that may get you hurt. Can you try to be safer so you can come home to me?” or “Your mother did a good job raising you so I’m ok if she doesn’t fancy me”. Do not bash his family and friends but make him aware that you see an issue. Allow him to make the right adjustment. Do not make ultimatums that will put him in an awkward position. If you voice your concern in the right way, he may be encouraged to talk to you about possible solutions. This can lead to better communication and understanding which helps to make your marriage stronger.

Do Not Become A Control Freak

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Do Not M a k e Threats To Get Y o u r Point Across

There will inevitably be arguments or disagreements in your marriage and how you respond is very important. Threatening to separate or divorce from your husband if you do not get what you want is a bad idea. You may get your husband’s attention but you may also cause him unnecessary pain and anguish. You may also erode his confidence in you and make him believe that you are unhappy with the marriage. If he has broken your trust, then you should seek the help of a counselor or coach. The only time you should mention separation is when you truly believe that there are irreconcilable differences. If you use this threat outside of those circumstances, your husband may not take you seriously and ignore you. Neither result will be beneficial to you or your marriage. It is best to refrain from threats altogether. Be respectful of your spouse's feelings. Don't seek to manipulate him to get your way. Be honest and cherish your friendship with him so that your love can prosper and weather the bad times.

“Hun, lately my biggest dream is that we finally stopped stepping onto each others’ toes...”

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Artwork by Thomas Schroeder, German illustrator.

Pixabay License.

Spectacular entry in a sand sculpture comeptition held in Ostende, Belgium in 2019.

Photo credit: Pixabay user armennano from Ostende, Pixabay License.

ROR Introduction

ascade Academy began with a dream of treating adolescent girls suffering with severe anxiety. Adolescent girls are three times more likely to experience anxiety than boys. This need presented an opportunity to serve students and families across the country. As with most dreams, there were many obstacles to overcome to keep hope alive. It took three years to make the dream a reality.

Cascade Academy was founded by John & Carol Probst, Caleb Cottle and Brad Gerrard in January 2020. With dynamic leadership forging the way, each partner has worked hard on their mission to help students and families to embrace life with courage and joy.

Having worked many years in the behavioral health industry, Caleb saw a need to serve adolescent girls with severe anxiety and began his search for the perfect location and the ideal team. Uninterested in a facility with an “institutional” feel, he began a search for something that felt like “home.” Through a series of fortunate events, he was led to John and Carol Probst, respected entrepreneurs and community members in Midway, Utah. They were interested

in selling their 13,000 square foot home. With nine bedrooms, ten bathrooms, two kitchens and plenty of office space, it was the “home” he had been searching for. Rather than sell their beautiful home, John and Carol offered it as part of a partnership agreement and Cascade Academy was born. Situated in the scenic Wasatch Back just outside of Park City, Cascade Academy is the perfect environment to promote healing for students and their families.

With the location established, Brad Gerrard, a well-respected and seasoned expert in the behavioral health field, was recruited and completed the ownership team, filling the role as Executive Director. Shortly thereafter Bekah Schuler joined the team as Clinical Director and quickly became specialized and knowledgeable in the treatment of adolescent anxiety. With over thirty years of experience in education, Jacki Burnham fills the demanding role as Academic Director, creating personalized education plans for each student. As the Admissions Director, LeaKae Roberts walks parents through the difficult process of placing their daughter in treatment. Porter Roe acting as Program Director makes certain that the needs of students and their families are met throughout the duration of treatment.

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Ceramic art featuring a fish. Photo Credit: Pixabay Member GLady, Pixabay License

LIFESTYLES OF THE ADMISSIONS PROFESSIONAL

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°ê˘êĦŜêŎ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦêˌŔ˘ŔêàĬĦæ˘žêÃŎ˘ŸĉŜƢŋŎĉæêʨ˘ ĉĦ˘ ŔŜêŋ˘ ŸĉŜƢ ŜĆê˘ æĥĉŔŔĉĬĦŔ˘ ĬĥĥšĦĉŜž˘ ŸĆĬ˘ ĆÃŷê˘ ŋšŜ˘ ŜĆê˘ êÃŎğž˘ ŸĬêŔ˘ Ĭÿ˘ ŜĆê˘ ŋÃĦæêĥĉà˘ àžàğê˘ ßêĆĉĦæ˘ŸĉŜƢĦêŸ˘ŎêŔĬğšŜĉĬĦŔ˘ÃĦæ˘ŔĬğšŜĉĬĦŔ˘ÿĬŎ˘Ã˘ ĦêŸ˘êŎÃʧ EĥÃĀê˘ ĬšŎàêŔʩ˘ šŎàĆÃŔê˘ ÃĦæ˘ æĬŸĦğĬÃæ˘ ĆĉĀƢĆĉĀĆğĉĀĆŜ˘ ŎêŔĬğšŜĉĬĦ˘ ŋĆĬŜĬŔ˘ ÿŎĬĥ˘ ĬĦğĉĦê˘ ešŎ˘ ÿêÃŜšŎêŔ˘ ŜĆê˘ àĬĥŋğêŽ˘ ÃĦæ˘ŔŜĬàĜ˘ ŋĆĬŜ EĥÃĀê˘ ĬšŎàêŔʩ˘ šŎàĆÃŔê˘ ÃĦæ˘ ŔĬšŎàêŔ˘ÃĦæ˘šŔê˘ŜĆêĥ˘ĉĦ˘žĬšŎ˘Ãæʧ˘eŎʨ˘ĆĉŎê˘žĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ŋĆĬŜĬĀŎÃŋĆêŎ˘ÿĬŎ˘ĬŎĉĀĉĦÃğʨ˘ĆĉĀĆʿŎêŔ˘ŋĆĬŜĬ æĬŸĦğĬÃæ˘ ĆĉĀƢ ŎêŔĬğšŜĉĬĦ˘ÃğÃŎĥĉĦĀ˘ ŋĆĬŜĬŔ˘ ÿŎĬĥ˘ ĬĦğĉĦê˘ ŔŜĬàĜ˘ ŋĆĬŜĬ˘ ĉŔŔšêŔ˘ Ĭÿ˘ ŜĆê˘ ŸĬŎğæ˘ ŎÃĦĀĉĦĀ˘ ÿŎĬĥ˘ ŜĆê˘ ŔĬšŎàêŔ˘ÃĦæ˘šŔê˘ŜĆêĥ˘ĉĦ˘žĬšŎ˘Ãæʧ˘eŎʨ˘ĆĉŎê˘žĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ŋĆĬŜĬĀŎÃŋĆêŎ˘ÿĬŎ˘ĬŎĉĀĉĦÃğʨ˘ĆĉĀĆʿŎêŔ˘ŋĆĬŜĬŔʧ˘ Ćê˘ ĉæêÃğ˘ ĉĥÃĀê˘ ŎêŔĬğšŜĉĬĦ˘ ĉŔ˘ ÃŜ˘ ğêÃŔŜ˘ ʎʒʍʍ˘ ŋĉŽêğŔ˘ ĬŎ˘ ĆĉĀĆêŎ˘ ÿĬŎ˘ êŷêŎž˘ ŋĆĬŜĬ˘ ŜĆÃŜ˘ Ÿĉğğ˘ àĬŷêŎ˘ à ŋĬğĉŜĉàŔ˘ßêĆĉĦæ˘ŜĆê˘ŸÃŎʨ˘ŜĬ˘àĬŎŋĬŎÃŜê˘ĀŎêêæʨ˘ÃĦæ˘ Ćê˘ ĉæêÃğ˘ ĉĥÃĀê˘ ŎêŔĬğšŜĉĬĦ˘ ĉŔ˘ ÃŜ˘ğêÃŔŜ˘ʕʧʒ˘Ž˘ʒʧʒ˘ĉĦàƢÃŎêÃ˘ĬĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦê˘ŋÃĀêʧ˘EĥÃĀêŔ˘ŋšğğêæ˘ÿŎĬĥ˘ŜĆê˘ĉĦŜêŎĦêŜ˘Ÿĉğğ˘ßê˘Ĭÿ˘ŋĬĬ ğêÃŔŜ˘ ʎʒʍʍ˘ ŋĉŽêğŔ˘ ĬŎ˘ ĆĉĀĆêŎ˘ ÿĬŎ˘ êŷêŎž˘ ŋĆĬŜĬ˘ ŜĆÃŜ˘ Ÿĉğğ˘ àĬŷêŎ˘ ÃŜ˘ êĦŷĉŎĬĦĥêĦŜÃğ˘ÃĉğĥêĦŜŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ŜĆê˘ŋğÃĦêŜʧ˘°ê˘ğêŜ˘žĬš˘ ğêÃŔŜ˘ʕʧʒ˘Ž˘ʒʧʒ˘ĉĦàƢÃŎêÃ˘ĬĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦê˘ŋÃĀêʧ˘EĥÃĀêŔ˘ŋšğğêæ˘ÿŎĬĥ˘ŜĆê˘ĉĦŜêŎĦêŜ˘Ÿĉğğ˘ßê˘Ĭÿ˘ŋĬĬŎ˘ ōšÃğĉŜž˘ÃĦæ˘àĬšğæ˘ĆÃŷê˘ĆĉææêĦ˘àĬŋžŎĉĀĆŜ˘ĉĦÿŎĉĦĀêĥêĦŜŔ˘ÿĬŎ˘ŸĆĉàƢŸê˘ŸĬĦˌŜ˘ßê˘ğĉÃßğêʧ˘ ğĉĀĆŜêĦ˘ šŋ˘ ßŎĉĦĀĉĦĀ˘ ĀŎêÃŜ˘ àšğŜšŎê˘ ŎêŷĉêŸŔʨ˘ ÿĬĬæʨ˘ ōšÃğĉŜž˘ÃĦæ˘àĬšğæ˘ĆÃŷê˘ĆĉææêĦ˘àĬŋžŎĉĀĆŜ˘ĉĦÿŎĉĦĀêĥêĦŜŔ˘ÿĬŎ˘ŸĆĉàƢŸê˘ŸĬĦˌŜ˘ßê˘ğĉÃßğêʧ˘ àĉĦêĥÃʨ˘ÿÃŔĆĉĬĦʨ˘ÃĦæ˘ßĬĬĜŔ˘ÿĬŎ˘žĬšŎ˘ŋğêÃŔšŎêʬ˘

Ad °ê˘ĆÃŷê˘ĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ÃæʿàŎêÃŜĉĬĦ˘ŔêŎŷĉàê˘ŸĆĉàƢŋŎĬæšàêŔ˘ŜĆê˘ßêŔŜ˘ Submission °ê˘ĆÃŷê˘ĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ÃæʿàŎêÃŜĉĬĦ˘ŔêŎŷĉàê˘ŸĆĉàƢŋŎĬæšàêŔ˘ŜĆê˘ßêŔŜ˘ B#˘ōšÃğĉŜž˘ÃæŔ˘žĬš˘Ŕêê˘ĉĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦêʧ˘;ĬŎ˘ŜĆĬŔê˘ŸĆĬ˘Ÿĉğğ˘ßê˘ B#˘ōšÃğĉŜž˘ÃæŔ˘žĬš˘Ŕêê˘ĉĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦêʧ˘;ĬŎ˘ŜĆĬŔê˘ŸĆĬ˘Ÿĉğğ˘ßê˘ ŔšßĥĉŜŜĉĦĀ˘žĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ÃæŔʨ˘ĜĉĦæğž˘ÃæĆêŎê˘ŜĬ˘ŜĆêŔê˘ĀšĉæêğĉĦêŔʩ˘ Guidelines ŔšßĥĉŜŜĉĦĀ˘žĬšŎ˘ĬŸĦ˘ÃæŔʨ˘ĜĉĦæğž˘ÃæĆêŎê˘ŜĬ˘ŜĆêŔê˘ĀšĉæêğĉĦêŔʩ˘

ŷĬĉæ˘ ğĬàĜŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ êŽŜŔʩ˘Eÿ˘žĬš˘ÃŎê˘ŋğÃàĉĦĀ˘ŜêŔŜĉĥĬĦĉÃğŔʨ˘ÃĦĦĬšĦàêĥêĦŜŔ˘ĬŎ˘ÃĦž˘àĬĦŔĉæêŎÃßğê˘ŜêŽ ŷĬĉæ˘ ğĬàĜŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ êŽŜŔʩ˘Eÿ˘žĬš˘ÃŎê˘ŋğÃàĉĦĀ˘ŜêŔŜĉĥĬĦĉÃğŔʨ˘ÃĦĦĬšĦàêĥêĦŜŔ˘ĬŎ˘ÃĦž˘àĬĦŔĉæêŎÃßğê˘ŜêŽŜ˘ ʐʍʨʍʍʍ˸˘ êÃæŔ ˘ʎʒ˸˘ ŋĬĦŔĬŎŔ˘ ŎĉĦŜ˘ĬĦ˘#êĥÃĦæʬ ŋÃŎÃĀŎÃŋĆŔ˘ĉĦ˘žĬšŎ˘Ãæʨ˘Ĝêêŋ˘ŜĆêĥ˘ŔĥÃğğʧ˘XÃŎĀê˘ßğĬàĜŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ŜêŽŜŔ˘ĀĬ˘ßğšŎŎž˘ŸĆêĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĉĥÃĀê˘Ǝğê˘ ŋÃŎÃĀŎÃŋĆŔ˘ĉĦ˘žĬšŎ˘Ãæʨ˘Ĝêêŋ˘ŜĆêĥ˘ŔĥÃğğʧ˘XÃŎĀê˘ßğĬàĜŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ŜêŽŜŔ˘ĀĬ˘ßğšŎŎž˘ŸĆêĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĉĥÃĀê˘Ǝğê˘ĉŔ˘ ŋğÃàêæ˘ ĉĦ˘ ĬšŎ˘ ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦêʧ˘ °ê˘ ĆÃŷê˘ Ã˘ ŜĬŜÃğ˘ æÃŜÃ˘ ğĉĥĉŜ˘ ÿĬŎ˘ êÃàƢ ĉŔŔšêʨ˘ ÃĦæ˘ Ÿê˘ àÃĦĦĬŜ˘ ŋğÃà ŋğÃàêæ˘ ĉĦ˘ ĬšŎ˘ ĥÃĀÃƇĉĦêʧ˘ °ê˘ ĆÃŷê˘ Ã˘ ŜĬŜÃğ˘ æÃŜÃ˘ ğĉĥĉŜ˘ ÿĬŎ˘ êÃàƢ ĉŔŔšêʨ˘ ÃĦæ˘ Ÿê˘ àÃĦĦĬŜ˘ ŋğÃàê˘ ĬŷêŎŔĉƇêæ˘ƎğêŔ˘ʹĥĬŎê˘ŜĆÃĦ˘ʏʍʍʍ˘ŋĉŽêğŔʺ˘ĉĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀ˘ŜĬ˘ŔŜÞ˘ŸĉŜĆĉĦ˘ĬšŎ˘ŜĬŜÃğ˘àšŜʿĬƋ˘ŋĬĉĦŜʧ ĬŷêŎŔĉƇêæ˘ƎğêŔ˘ʹĥĬŎê˘ŜĆÃĦ˘ʏʍʍʍ˘ŋĉŽêğŔʺ˘ĉĦ˘ŜĆê˘ĥÃĀ˘ŜĬ˘ŔŜÞ˘ŸĉŜĆĉĦ˘ĬšŎ˘ŜĬŜÃğ˘àšŜʿĬƋ˘ŋĬĉĦŜʧ

šßĥĉŜ˘XÃŎĀêŎ˘ êŽŜ˘ ğĬàĜŔ˘ÃŔ˘Ã˘ ĬĥŋÃĦĉĬĦ˘'ŔŔÞʩ˘Eÿ˘žĬš˘ĉĦŔĉŔŜ˘ĬĦ˘ĆĬŷĉĦĀ˘Ã˘ğÃŎĀê˘ŋĉêàê˘Ĭÿ˘ŜêŽ šßĥĉŜ˘XÃŎĀêŎ˘ êŽŜ˘ ğĬàĜŔ˘ÃŔ˘Ã˘ ĬĥŋÃĦĉĬĦ˘'ŔŔÞʩ˘Eÿ˘žĬš˘ĉĦŔĉŔŜ˘ĬĦ˘ĆĬŷĉĦĀ˘Ã˘ğÃŎĀê˘ŋĉêàê˘Ĭÿ˘ŜêŽŜ˘ ÃŔ˘ŋÃŎŜ˘Ĭÿ˘žĬšŎ˘ŔŋĬĦŔĬŎŔĆĉŋ˘ŋÃàĜÃĀêʨ˘ÿêêğ˘ÿŎêê˘ŜĬ˘ŔšßĥĉŜ˘ĉŜ˘ŔêŋÃŎÃŜêğž˘ÃŔ˘Ã˘ʧæĬàŽ˘Ǝğê˘ÃĦæ˘Ÿê˘Ÿ ÃŔ˘ŋÃŎŜ˘Ĭÿ˘žĬšŎ˘ŔŋĬĦŔĬŎŔĆĉŋ˘ŋÃàĜÃĀêʨ˘ÿêêğ˘ÿŎêê˘ŜĬ˘ŔšßĥĉŜ˘ĉŜ˘ŔêŋÃŎÃŜêğž˘ÃŔ˘Ã˘ʧæĬàŽ˘Ǝğê˘ÃĦæ˘Ÿê˘Ÿĉğğ˘ ĉĦàğšæê˘ ĉŜ˘ ÃŔ˘ ÃĦ˘ ĉĦŜŎĬæšàŜĉĬĦ˘ ŜĬ˘ žĬšŎ˘ ŔàĆĬĬğʶŔêŎŷĉàêʧ˘ šßĥĉŜ˘ ÃææĉŜĉĬĦÃğ˘ ŋĆĬŜĬŔ˘ ŜĬ˘ ĀĬ˘ ŸĉŜƢ ŜĆ ĉĦàğšæê˘ ĉŜ˘ ÃŔ˘ ÃĦ˘ ĉĦŜŎĬæšàŜĉĬĦ˘ ŜĬ˘ŋĉêàêʨ˘àĬĦÿĬŎĥĉĦĀ˘ŜĬ˘ÃßĬŷê˘ĀšĉæêğĉĦêŔʨ˘ŸĉŜƢÃààšŎÃŜêğž˘ğÃßêğğêæ˘ŜĉŜğêŔʧ˘EĦàğšæê˘àÃŋŜĉĬĦŔ˘ÃÿŜêŎ˘ŜĆ žĬšŎ˘ ŔàĆĬĬğʶŔêŎŷĉàêʧ˘ šßĥĉŜ˘ ÃææĉŜĉĬĦÃğ˘ ŋĆĬŜĬŔ˘ ŜĬ˘ ĀĬ˘ ŸĉŜƢ ŜĆê˘ ŋĉêàêʨ˘àĬĦÿĬŎĥĉĦĀ˘ŜĬ˘ÃßĬŷê˘ĀšĉæêğĉĦêŔʨ˘ŸĉŜƢÃààšŎÃŜêğž˘ğÃßêğğêæ˘ŜĉŜğêŔʧ˘EĦàğšæê˘àÃŋŜĉĬĦŔ˘ÃÿŜêŎ˘ŜĆê˘ ßĬæž˘Ĭÿ˘ŜĆê˘ŜêŽŜʨ˘àğêÃŎğž˘ğĉĦĜêæ˘ŜĬ˘ŜĉŜğêŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ŔšßĥĉŜŜêæ˘ŋĆĬŜĬŔʧ˘ ßĬæž˘Ĭÿ˘ŜĆê˘ŜêŽŜʨ˘àğêÃŎğž˘ğĉĦĜêæ˘ŜĬ˘ŜĉŜğêŔ˘Ĭÿ˘ŔšßĥĉŜŜêæ˘ŋĆĬŜĬŔʧ˘

Book Ads: Thomas Schenck. 717 538-6000. dartmouthassociates@gmail.com Contributions: Editor. rhodora.jabs@yahoo.com

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Terms & Conditions

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Terms and Conditions The following are certain terms and conditions governing advertising published by Schenck Enterprises (“Publisher”) in the U.S. virtual edition of ROR Magazine (the “Magazine”). These terms and conditions may be revised by Publisher from time to time.

Submission of insertion order for placement of advertising in the Magazine, and/or delivery of advertising materials to Publisher for inclusion in the Magazine, constitutes acceptance of the following terms and conditions by both the advertiser (“Advertiser”) and any agency or other representative acting for or on behalf of Advertiser (“Agency”).

No terms or conditions in any insertion orders, reservation orders, blanket contracts, instructions or documents that are submitted or maintained by Agency or Advertiser will be binding on Publisher, unless expressly authorized in a writing signed by a senior executive of Publisher.

AGENCY COMMISSION AND PAYMENT 1. Publisher has sole discretion over payment terms for advertising. Publisher may change the payment terms from time to time and without limiting generality of the foregoing may require Advertiser to make payment in advance of the on-sale date of the relevant Magazine issue. 2. Agency and Advertiser are jointly and severally liable for the payment of all invoices arising from placement of advertising in the Magazine and for all costs of collection of late payment. 3. If an account is placed with a collection agency or attorney for collection, all commissions and discounts will be rescinded or become null and void and the full advertising rate shall apply. 4. Agency commission (or equivalent): fifteen percent (15%) of gross advertising space charges, payable only to recognized agents. Payments are due in full, upon receipt. All payments must be in United States currency. Any discounts received by Advertiser on ad space charges may not be applied to production charges. 5. Advertiser shall pay all international, federal, state and local taxes on the printing of advertising materials and on the sale of ad space.

CANCELLATION AND CHANGES 1. Publisher expressly reserves the right to reject or cancel for any reason at any time any insertion order or advertisement without liability, even if previously acknowledged or accepted. In the event of cancellation for default in the payment of bills, charges for all advertising published as of the cancellation date shall become immediately due and payable. 2. The conditions of advertising in the Magazine are subject to change without notice. Publisher will announce ad rate changes thirty (30) days prior to the closing date of the issue in which the new rates take effect. Orders for subsequent issues will be accepted at the then-prevailing rates.

PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY 1. Publisher is not liable for any failure or delay in printing, publishing, or circulating any copies of the issue of the Magazine in which advertising is placed that is caused by, or arising from, an act of God, accident, fire, pandemics, public health emergencies, failure of transportation, strike, acts of governments, terrorism, or other occurrence beyond Publisher’s control. 2. Publisher does not guarantee positioning of advertisements in the Magazine and is not liable for failure to meet positioning requirements.

PUBLISHER WILL TREAT ALL POSITION STIPULATIONS ON INSERTION ORDERS AS REQUESTS. 1. The liability of Publisher for any act, error, omission or other matter for which it may be held legally responsible shall not exceed the cost of the ad space affected by the error. In no event shall Publisher be liable for any indirect, consequential, special, or incidental damages, including, but not limited to, lost income or profits. The foregoing limitations shall apply to the greatest extent permitted by law and regardless of the theory under which liability is asserted.

MISCELLANEOUS 1. Agency and Advertiser jointly and severally represent and warrant that each advertisement submitted by it for publication in the Magazine, and all materials contained therein (collectively, the “Ad Materials”) including, but not limited to, Ad Materials for which Publisher has provided creative services, contains no copy, illustrations, photographs, text or other content or subject matter that violate any law, infringe any right of any party, and/or is libelous, defamatory, obscene, disparaging, racist, hateful or scandalous. As part of the consideration and to induce Publisher to publish such advertisement, Agency and Advertiser jointly and severally shall indemnify and hold harmless Publisher from and against any loss, liability, damages, fines, penalties, and related costs and expenses (including attorneys’ fees) (collectively, “Losses”) arising from publication of such Ad Materials in any applicable editions, formats or derivations of the Magazine, including, but not limited to: (a) claims of invasion of privacy, violation of rights of privacy or publicity, trademark infringement, copyright infringement, libel, misrepresentation, false advertising, or any other claims against Publisher; or (b) the failure of such Ad Materials to be in compliance and conformity with any and all laws, orders, ordinances and statutes of the United States or any of the states or subdivisions thereof; or (c) any products, goods, services, programs, events, offers and promotions that are promoted by or referenced in the Ad Materials (and the fulfillment or non-fulfillment thereof). 2. Publisher may, in Publisher’s sole and exclusive discretion and without penalty to Publisher, reject and refuse to run any Ad Materials that Publisher believes: (a) do or may violate Agency’s and Advertiser’s representations and warranties set forth above; (b) are reasonably likely to be considered objectionable by a reasonable person; and/or (c) are likely to expose Publisher, Agency and/or Advertiser to heightened legal or reputational liability or risk for any reason. 3. As part of the consideration and to induce Publisher to provide such services, Agency and Advertiser jointly and severally shall indemnify and hold harmless Publisher from and against any Losses arising from such materials, products or services, including, but not limited to, those arising from any such claims. 4. Publisher’s acceptance of an advertisement for publication in the Magazine does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service advertised. No Advertiser or Agency may use the Magazine’s name or logo without Publisher’s prior written permission for each such use. 5. The word “advertisement” will be placed above all advertisements that, in Publisher’s opinion, resemble editorial matter. 6. All terms and conditions of this Rate Card and associated insertion orders, including but not limited to pricing information, shall be the confidential information of Publisher, and neither Agency nor Advertiser may disclose any such information without obtaining Publisher’s prior written consent. 7. This agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflicts of laws provisions. Any civil action or proceeding arising out of or related to this agreement shall be brought in the courts of record of the State of California. Advertiser and Agency each hereby consents to the jurisdiction of such courts and waives any objection to the laying of venue of any such civil action or proceeding in such courts.

ALL PARTIES WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO TRIAL BY JURY. ADDITIONAL COPY AND CONTRACT REGULATIONS 1. Orders and schedules are accepted for the advertising by brand of product or service only and may not be re-assigned to other products or services or to affiliated companies without the consent of Publisher.