February 2021 | The Evergreen, Greenhill School

February 24, 2021 Volume 56, Issue 4

the Everything Greenhill

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A game changer The debate over sports specialization

Photo illustration by Sarah Luan

unior Kellen Smaw has played volleyball, soccer, track and lacrosse throughout middle and high school. He also plays club lacrosse and has attracted national attention from college recruiters in the process.

As a four-sport athlete, Smaw is a big believer in playing for multiple teams at Greenhill.

“Whenever you play three

sports, you are able to meet a lot of new people,” Smaw said.

“It gives you the opportunity to come in contact with many people from different grades and make new friends that you would not normally see during classes.”

Although he has continued to play multiple sports in his junior year, Smaw says that studentathletes will have to decide whether to specialize in one sport at some point.

“By the time someone is in ninth grade, they should decide if they want to play a sport in college, and if so, what sport, so

they can focus on it,” said Smaw.

For athletes choosing whether or not to pursue collegiate sports, the NCAA offers athletes the opportunity to play in one of three divisions. Competition in the college recruiting process is resulting in fewer and fewer multisport high school athletes—a national phenomenon that is changing the nature of sports participation at schools like Greenhill.

Greenhill prides itself on its holistic approach to education, and the athletics department is no exception. According to its mission

statement, Greenhill “promotes the balanced development of mind, body, and character,” and playing multiple sports aligns with these principles.

“In our admissions process, we love kids coming in and talking about wanting to participate in lots of different things, whether that’s athletics or any other area,” said Head of School Lee Hark.

Throughout Lower and Middle School, students are given the opportunity to try many different sports. By the time they get to high school, students have the experience to

decide which sports, if any, they want to pursue at the next level, while also balancing any athletic commitments outside of school.

“I feel like [high school] is the last chance you have to really dip your toe in a lot of different things,” said Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman. “Having said that, I also understand that people with real gifts or real passions may find that they have no alternative but to specialize in order to fully develop those gifts.”

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Administration ramps up return of Upper School students amid COVID-19 cases, p. 2

Greenhill teachers find challenge and fulfillment in pursuit of graduate degrees, p. 6

Spring theater production takes new forms during the pandemic, p. 12

Weather delays end to chaotic winter season, spring sports begin preseason work, p. 17

Why did law enforcement respond differently to the Black Lives Matter protests vs. the Capitol riots?, p. 18

Lane Herbert Executive Editor Avery Franks Sports Editor

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Informing Greenhill since 1966

continued on page 15 Photo by Raag Venkat

4141 Spring Valley Road, Addison, TX 75001

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COVID-19 cases complicate Upper School return The administration’s plan for accommodating students has been less drastic than feared

Photo illustration by Jung Min Yean and Sarah Luan

CAMPUS LIFE: Students wear official school masks whenever they set foot on campus, including during athletics. Desks are set up at least five feet apart from one another. Classrooms have been changed to accommodate for the varying numbers of at-home and in-person learners. Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester says that “all of the community has risen to the challenge.”

Saara Bidiwala Associate Editor

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n Jan. 19, after an uptick in campus COVID-19 cases and two weeks of remote instruction to kick off the new semester, Upper School officially resumed in-person classes for the first time after Winter Break.

Despite concerns about COVID-19 infections, 345 out of 479 students in the Upper School opted for in-person learning for the first portion of this semester—the largest number of Upper School students on campus since the pandemic forced a shift to online instruction last March.

Sophomore Megan Liu was one of the students who returned to campus in January.

Although she was worried about the increase in campus cases in January, Liu says her family decided that in-person learning would give her a higher-quality education.

“My family is concerned, but we just try to stay as safe as possible,” Liu said. “The situation right now is rough, and we're all just doing the best we can.”

For those who have chosen to remain at home for the first part of this semester, the risks of going back to campus far outweigh the benefits. “[The spike in] cases became kind of concerning,” junior Zaynab Khan said.

Khan chose to stay remote in January.

For students like senior Elizabeth Simpson, however, learning in person is more of a necessity than a choice.

“I'm not the best at focusing when I'm online in my room at my house,” Simpson said. “I'm a much better learner when I can actually be in the class with the teacher there.”

Upper School Math Department chair Darryn Sandler echoed this sentiment, adding that he has full faith in the school’s safety measures for both students and employees.

He supports the decision to return fully inperson.

“I think we sometimes undervalue the necessity of face-to-face interaction,” Sandler said. “I think it's healthy for the mental health of our students and community to have people interacting with one another.”

Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester announced five new measures that the school was considering to accommodate more students on campus: offering classes in Greenhill Towers; offering classes in other campus buildings; “placing airconditioned/heated tents in the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center parking lot;” putting plexiglass dividers between student spaces and having one student join a class in a separate designated area.

Most of the measures were not needed.

Instead, the main difference between the hybrid learning model from last semester and this semester’s fully in-person model is shifted class locations.

“For this first round, because the numbers came out the way they did, we were able to simply scramble the rooms,” Worcester said. “The one adjustment that we did make was that there are about seven classrooms where we have moved the spacing between the student desks to somewhere between five and six feet. That allowed us to get two or three more desks into those rooms, which then allowed us to keep everything pretty consistent.”

Greenhill administration is still enforcing protocols established for the hybrid model, such as requiring mask-wearing and social-distancing on campus.

“We're trying to put everything we can in place and then relying on [the community],” Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer Kendra Grace said. “We are in a community together, and we all need to make good choices to protect the community, both

on campus and off campus.”

Simpson says that, although students are pretty compliant with the protocols during lunch and classes, interacting with friends from a distance during passing periods and losing independence is frustrating.

“It’s like, ‘I just turned 18, I am a legal adult, and I can go to the bathroom by myself,’” Simpson said.

Virtually there According to Sandler, the biggest challenge with the new model is keeping both inperson and online students engaged.

“I make a concerted effort to make sure that people at home feel like they are a part of class,” said Sandler. “I try asking for people to answer questions, between people in the class and people at home.”

Still, many remote learners do not feel like they are given an equal amount of attention.

“I think the teachers are trying their best to give people attention, but it's not really possible to feel fully involved in the classroom,” Khan said.

Head of School Lee Hark believes that, despite the difficult circumstances, teachers are doing the best that they can to tend to all students in their classes.

“Our faculty have really risen to the challenge because they know that it's important to get both groups engaged, even though it's very difficult to teach the people who are in front of you and also make sure that you are reaching the people

who are at home and often in very different environments,” Hark said.

Impressions Although Liu prefers the Upper School’s former hybrid model of alternating weeks on campus to the new in-person model, she says that she is appreciative of Greenhill’s efforts to keep students and faculty as safe as possible.

“I am impressed with how [Greenhill is] doing,” she said. “I'm happy that Greenhill did the hybrid model for the first few months, but I think they should have waited a little longer before putting everybody on campus.”

Worcester says that, though there is much work to be done, the return to campus has thus far been successful.

“We'll get to work now on the next six weeks from Feb. 16 to April 1,” Worcester said. “We're going to see what people say, see how the numbers are, and then we'll get to work again to make sure of which rooms have to shuffle again and what we can keep the same.”

Ultimately, Hark says, the Greenhill community needs to make smart choices to ensure that the new in-person model can safely continue.

“I've been really gratified because all of our community has risen to the challenge— parents, faculty and students,” said Hark.

“And if we keep doing it, we'll be able to keep going.”

Addressing safety on campus Last semester, in a Nov. 13 email,

Graphic by Raag Venkat

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

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Seniors engage in the “hidden” part of the college process: scholarship applications

Quiz Bowl team continues to compete at high level

Graphic by Katherine Li EYES ON THE PRIZE: While many think the college quest ends with an acceptance, the process is actually a two-step approach. Seniors may also apply to numerous scholarships – either merit or need-based – in order to finance the colleges of their dreams. The COVID-19 pandemic has also limited scholarship opportunities and eligibility for students.

Raag Venkat Editor-in-Chief

Eliza Lamster, Pooja Sanghvi

Staff Writers

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n her sophomore year, senior Clarissa Smith knew she would attend a historically Black college or university.

In her junior year, she knew she wanted to attend Howard University. And on Dec. 19, she was accepted into Howard.

But to Smith’s dismay, her college admissions process had only begun.

Smith and many other seniors have applied for numerous scholarships—both merit and need-based—to finance the colleges of their dreams. And, as students are discovering, a scholarship application process that is challenging in the best of times has been further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I got into my number one school, but I knew that I was going to have to come up with some money,” Smith said.

“Now, the process that I am in—applying to scholarships—is actually more rigorous than the general college admissions part.

I probably write an essay Clarissa Smith a day. It’s like there’s always something due, always something to submit, always something on my mind.”

Scholarships for colleges and universities come in many forms and amounts. Many Greenhill students apply for need-based scholarships, the most common forms of which are grants, loans and work-study.

“Even here at Greenhill, the college process is not the same for everybody,” Upper School English teacher Andrew Mercurio said. “Too often, we assume that everyone is on a level playing field.

Socioeconomic status determines a great deal about the college and scholarship process for our students.”

To apply for need-based financial aid, students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, to determine a student’s eligibility for federal financial aid programs.

“Need-based is still talent-based because you still have to get into that college,” said Co-Director of College Counseling Keith Todd.

In addition, students also complete the College Scholarship Service profile, an online application maintained by the College Board for non-federal financial aid, such as private scholarships and state-based aid.

“When I got into my Early Decision school, I had to wait a long time for them to process my financial aid,” senior Micaiah Kapumba said. “I felt the excitement for a bit and then realized that I had to get back into the process and pump out supplemental and scholarship essays in case my aid didn’t work out. When you are in a position where you don’t know if you can afford the college, that last minute realization is really stressful.”

Another need-based scholarship program is the QuestBridge National College Match, a combined college admission and scholarship process through which high-achieving, low-income students can be admitted early with a full four-year scholarship to QuestBridge’s college partners.

QuestBridge finalists rank up to 12 college partners which are options considered for early admission. Students then can be “matched” —or admitted early with a Match Scholarship—to the college that appears highest on their list that also wants to match with them.

Senior Jung Min Yean was a QuestBridge National College Match Finalist, matching with Northwestern University on Dec. 1. Yean said the community at QuestBridge was the most appealing part of the program.

“While the standard college process is highly individualized, I felt that QuestBridge was a close-knit community of motivated students who pushed one another toward success,” Yean said. “Through every Jung Min Yean step of the process, I was able to connect with other people who had similar experiences to me through Facebook groups. I also had the opportunity to attend events like writing workshops and meetings with admissions counselors.”

Greenhill students also apply for merit-based scholarships, which award money based on a student’s academic achievements, interests, experiences or identity. According to Co-Director of College Counseling Randy Mills, some merit-based scholarships are institutional, meaning they come from the school itself.

While some institutional scholarships require separate applications with essays and other information, some automatically consider students who apply to the school itself.

Senior Shreya Saxena is in the process of applying for numerous institutional scholarships. Saxena was automatically considered for merit-based scholarships when applying to schools such as

Southern Methodist University and Tulane University. However, Saxena had to fill out separate applications with essays and recommendations when applying to Washington University in St. Louis.

“The college process is definitely a two-step approach,” Saxena said. “You’ve got the general application and then on top of that, you simultaneously have to be working on the next batch of scholarship essays and information. Shreya Saxena It takes a lot of time, but I feel like merit scholarships are worth it.”

Other local or national companies and organizations, such as the Coca Cola scholarship, AXA Achievement scholarship and the CIA Undergraduate scholarship program, offer merit-based scholarships as well.

“I try to find scholarships that are specific to who I am, whether it has to do with my major, a part of my identity like my gender or where I live,” Smith said. “I just recently applied for the Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship, which is for minorities.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has also had an effect on the process of applying to meritbased scholarships by limiting academic and extracurricular opportunities. Due to this, students are finding difficulty in proving excellence to colleges offering scholarships.

“Virtual tutoring didn’t click as well as hands-on tutoring did, and so I felt like I was performing worse on testing during the pandemic,” Smith said. “I definitely struggled to grasp concepts in the testing area and that impacted my grade and, in that case, the scholarships I’m available for.”

Saxena agrees.

“With a limited amount of opportunities, we’re kind of stretched thin with whatever we have done,” Saxena said. “I remember for Wash U, we had to elaborate on leadership, community service or academics. I had to find examples that were distinct from the general application that also fit the prompt well.”

Though applying for scholarships is arduous, many students have used the process as a means of self-reflection.

“Without [scholarships], I don’t know if I would have found what I really wanted to do,” Smith said. “So many scholarships ask you ‘who are you’ and ‘what goals do you have in life.’ And writing these actually helped me say, ‘Hey this is actually what I want to do in college.’”

Photo courtesy of Lee Hark HEADED TO NATIONALS: The Upper School Quiz Bowl team will take on the national championship virtually in spring. Though the pandemic has forced competitions into a virtual setting, the teams continue to perform well.

Eliza Lamster Staff Writer

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he Upper School A team has qualified for Quiz Bowl’s 2021 High School National Championship Tournament, as Greenhill’s teams continue to excel in the popular scholastic competition that tests the knowledge and recall of participants.

Junior Josh Rubel has high hopes for the A team’s prospects as state and national tournaments loom.

“I think we personally at least can possibly win state this year,” Rubel said. “I think we can do very well at nationals.”

Like most Upper School participants, Rubel has been competing in Greenhill’s Quiz Bowl program since his Middle School years.

“I really just enjoyed the whole team aspect of it,” Rubel said.

In a season where the COVID-19 pandemic has forced competitions into a virtual setting, the Greenhill Quiz Bowl teams have continued to perform well.

In December, the Texas Quiz Bowl Association (TQBA) Houston Holiday Hoedown XII featured 32 teams. The Upper School A team finished in first place, qualifying them for nationals.

More recently, on Jan. 9, Greenhill’s Middle School teams competed in the TQBA Winter Rodeo Tournament. In the 27-team middle school division, Greenhill’s B team placed third, qualifying them for nationals.

The Middle School A squad competed in the high school division, finishing 20th out of 35 teams.

The Middle School B team placed third, qualifying them for nationals, while T.H. Rogers School of Houston won the division.

Although the shift to virtual competitions has required some adjustments, “I think the community has done its best to make it as seamless as possible,” Rubel said.

Other changes have been introduced.

Among them: No two students on the same team are allowed in a room together; and players “buzz in” by typing in the Zoom chat.

Upper School math teacher Ahmed Najm, who is in his first year at Greenhill, coaches the Upper School Quiz Bowl teams.

Najm had never participated in Quiz Bowl as a competitor or a coach, but he decided to take on the role because he was looking for something new.

“I think I got really lucky with Quiz Bowl because of the phenomenal students involved,” Najm said.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

SAGE dining workers feed campus amid pandemic

Jack Trimmer Staff Writer

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ive months after students began returning to campus, SAGE Dining has refined its “grab-and-go” method of serving lunch to account for COVID-19 health and safety restrictions.

SAGE switched from self-serve to prepackaged lunches as well as implemented plans to monitor student flow in the cafeteria to follow federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

“Social distancing and the safety of our community was the forefront of every decision we made going into this school year,” Senior Food Service Director Joseph Healy said.

“That was one of the biggest challenges. Our model of ‘Grab-and-Go’ service significantly helps with this. The line moves students completely through each serving station rather than standing in front of it. This was our safest choice.”

Students move along socially-distanced green pads to pick up their boxed lunches and return to their advisory locations to eat. Despite its simple “grab-and-go” slogan, SAGE’s food distribution methods reflect careful planning and practice aimed at prioritizing safety.

Over the summer, the SAGE Dining staff moved equipment, bought packaging, and mapped out their new system before putting the new system into practice after the September Labor Day holiday.

“It was a lot of planning to figure out the flow of students,” SAGE Dining Executive Chef Orvin Lopez said. “At the beginning of the year, we did a trial with the teachers to see how long it would take to get your food and see if the flow would work.”

Planning included ordering packaging ahead of time to ensure its availability when school resumed. With shifts to pre-packaged

meals occurring at schools across Dallas, such supplies were in high demand, SAGE staff said.

“Planning ahead was our redeeming quality,” Healy said. “We planned our menus and reworked them frequently as the plan unfolded. Additionally, we purchased a lot of our packaging early because the demand in September would have made it hard to get what we needed, and we didn’t want to take the risk.”

Students are allowed only one box from the hot-lunch line on their first trip to the cafeteria but are allowed to come back a second time.

“We just want to make sure everybody has the chance to grab what they want on their first round,” said Lopez. “However, if you need to come back two or three times, that is not a problem.”

Providing a large variety of foods for students to choose from is also a priority for SAGE Dining. The company has worked to put together meals that can satisfy the diverse tastes of the entire community.

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We’re always mindful of the bigger picture and that includes our environmental responsibilities.”

Junior Katie Zweig says she is happy with how SAGE has varied the lunches.

“I am pleased with the variety of food in the boxed lunches,” Zweig said. “I know it’s probably hard to appeal to everyone’s needs, and I think Greenhill has done a good job of that.”

SAGE Dining staff say they are open to any suggestions regarding lunch improvements. Students can use the SAGE app to give suggestions.

“You asked, we listen,” Healy said. “We heard a lot of feedback at the beginning of

the school year looking for more vegetarian choices, so we added more options. We always seek to provide plenty of choice for everyone, no matter what your dietary preferences are.

We want everyone to enjoy their meal every day.”

Lopez says he is eager and curious to hear students’ opinions.

“Instead of a comment box because of the pandemic, the SAGE app can help us get feedback from communities with suggestions to help us improve,” Lopez said.

Many students are just learning about the app and its feedback feature.

“I was unaware that you could leave comments on the SAGE app, but that is something I will look into and tell my friends about to help improve lunch,” Zweig said.

Moving forward, SAGE plans to implement changes for Lower School students to improve variety and prevent waste.

“We’re always mindful of the bigger picture and that includes our environmental responsibilities,” Healy said. “We transitioned into putting trays together for our Lower School community. They get served a choice of protein, vegetables and a side. This significantly reduced the amount of food and paper waste, and gave students more of what they wanted at the same time.”

Healy says he believes that this transition was a success.

“A lot of food has been saved,” Healy said. “Instead of building 300 containers and having 20 leftovers, the kids would eat 280 containers worth of food from the trays.”

Though the transition over the summer was difficult, SAGE staff say they are more comfortable with the process after a semester of experience.

“I just want to add that the Greenhill community has done such a good job of delivering the message of keeping social distancing,” said Healy. “It really has been a joy working for Greenhill.”

Lisa Perkins, SAGE Dining Employee Photo by Bridget Hill

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he morning of Jan. 22 was quiet— really quiet.

From the Left Cam Kettles

Much like the first hours of dawn after a hurricane, Americans slowly and cautiously peeked out from their bunkers, and all noticed the same thing. It was quiet.

The Twitter and Facebook airways were clear, and one name was noticeably absent from the morning news.

The deadly force that had touched down in Washington D.C., four years ago had finally ascended, leaving the nation’s new president to survey the damage and begin to rebuild and restore confidence.

President Joe Biden’s job is massive.

He has entered the White House at the convergence of a global pandemic, a failing economy, a climate crisis, and now, an insurrection.

That is not to say that President Biden should be given any kind of a break. He made big promises to the American people, and they expect results. He campaigned as the man for the job, and now he has to prove it.

What seems absolutely disingenuous to me is the number of politicians on the right now calling President Biden too aggressive or divisive in his actions.

Biden is doing exactly what he was voted into office to do. Ending the Keystone Pipeline, rejoining the Paris Agreement or extending eviction protections aren’t random acts to divide people; they are the very actions we told candidate Biden he should take when he was elected to hold office.

While more than 40 executive orders signal a very clear policy shift, there is a secondary shift taking place with the Republican Party. It’s not so much one monolithic shift but two: some Republicans are opting to double-down in their support for Trump, while others are changing their stance dramatically in an attempt to distance themselves from him.

And while the value of unity cannot be overstated, the actions of some Republicans to jump ship should be seen for what it is: a

last-ditch effort to disassociate themselves from what we know will be the wrong side of history.

To all the Republican members of Congress, Republican voters, and even my Republican classmates who suddenly appear to have seen the light, you voted for Trump the first time after he bragged about rape, supported putting Black and Latino teenagers to death for crimes they were exonerated for, and belittled women, people with disabilities, prisoners of war, and grieving families.

You wore MAGA hats proudly after he withdrew from international organization after organization, banned people from majority-Muslim countries, made pacts with dictators while ditching our allies, removed protections for transgender students, and defunded schools. You voted for him the second time after more than 230,000 people had died in a pandemic that Trump sought to downplay—a death toll that has more than doubled since Election Day. If all of that damage was acceptable to you or at least worth the tax cuts and Supreme Court seats three months ago, you are undeserving of the moral high ground now. You do not get to separate yourself from the fire after you fed the flames for four years. You do not get to act surprised when the person you supported took the policies you supported and the rhetoric you supported to their natural conclusion, with the flags of the MAGA faithful smashing through Capitol windows.

The thing about a hurricane is that we see it coming. The wind picks up and people board up their windows and hide.

No one is unsure about what will happen if they stay outside or don’t evacuate when told to.

Then-candidate Trump gave the country every indication of what he would do when given power. We did see him coming. We had time to prepare, even time to turn the situation around. And yet, when the wind did pick up, 74 million Americans were outside, watching the devastation unfold and jumping for joy.

So yes, President Biden gets to use executive orders to restore what was lost.

He gets to use Congress to give people back the rights that should never have been taken from them in the first place.

He gets to usher in a new era of American democracy.

And all the people who stood by President Trump get to be grateful that their lapse in judgment won’t cost the country any more than it already has.

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merica experienced a sigh of relief on the morning of Jan. 20 as President Trump’s administration finally came to an end.

From the Right Brent Ladin

Trump’s departure came amid his second impeachment, this time for “incitement of insurrection.” He concluded his presidency by defying the 150-yearold tradition of attending his successor’s inauguration.

Just a couple of months ago it seemed like the Republican Party was outperforming initial voting projections, gaining ground with African American and Latino voters and winning seats in the House of Representatives. There was a strong hope that Republicans were going to maintain their majority in the Senate.

However, as post-election Trump began to spin out of control, my hopes began to dwindle.

Trump’s attempts to challenge the election results, his fervent attacks on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (both of whom are Republicans), and his repeated false claims of rigged ballot machines and fraudulent voting practices ultimately came at a high price to Republicans. Both Republican candidates in the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia lost their races, and with those losses the Republicans forfeited control of the Senate As it stands today, the Republican Party’s reputation is in shambles. It has become synonymous with Confederates, antisemites and white supremacists.

How could this happen?

I look back over the past four years of political chaos, instability and corruption and I quickly find the answer. I also find a deep sense of regret and embarrassment that I chose to endorse Donald Trump for president. Too many conservatives, myself included, have failed to acknowledge the damage Trump has inflicted upon both the Republican Party and America as a whole.

The Capitol riots that occurred on Jan. 6 served as a defining moment for the Republican Party. “This is the moment for

Republicans to choose between deciding to break themselves free from this maniacal hold Trump has had on them, or seal themselves inside the tomb he has built for them,” said Michael Steele, former GOP party chair.

Despite the controversy, I remain true to my conservative ideals. What I previous wrote in this space is still true: I am a conservative because I am inclined to be skeptical and trust traditions. I have a strong desire to uphold the political philosophies and rules of government defined within the Constitution. Lastly, I believe in the peaceful transfer of power.

My ideals are intact. But I’m still reconciling my regret over having supported Trump’s Republican Party with the realization that Trump enabled the individuals holding racist and antisemitic signs as they stormed the Capitol.

I was simply wrong in my endorsement of Donald Trump for President of the United States.

I can now see, more than ever, Trump’s inability to lead our country. I can now see that Trump is not a Republican. He is a cult figure. He is a bully. He does not love America. He only loves himself.

Following Trump’s incitement of the Capitol riots, many Republican politicians were quick to condemn Trump and his actions. However, most of them quickly retreated and have chose to defend him during his second impeachment trial in the House of Representatives. Notably, only 10 out of 211 Republican members of the House voted with Democrats in favor of Trump’s impeachment.

To blatantly maintain support for Trump after all of the lies, all of the bullying and all of the attacks makes me lose faith in American democracy. The actions of the Republicans in the House have helped to show me and the rest of America that Trumpism is alive and well.

While I do not support the current state of the Republican party, I remain hopeful for its future. In a statement about the riots, Sen. Mitt Romney stated, “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States… They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history. That will be their legacy.”

Republican leaders such as Romney have stepped up to defend American values and build the foundation for the new Grand Old Party. Now is the time to reclaim the party from those who support anarchy and restore its honor.

Opinion: BLM Protests vs. Capitol Hill Riots Johrdyn Tarpeh

Contributing Opinion Writer

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ver the past few weeks, I have been trying to reconcile why there is such a sharp contrast between how law enforcement officers treated Black Lives Matter protesters last summer and how they treated the pro-Trump rioters that laid siege to our nation’s capital. I’ve concluded that this is because the Black Lives Matter movement challenges national institutions and systems that keep so many people in power.

While I was watching the riots, I felt a combination of anger, sadness and disappointment. It’s not because I wanted the police officers to spray the crowd of rioters with tear gas or shoot them with rubber bullets, but because that’s exactly what was done to Black Lives Matter protesters who were protesting the loss of Black lives: a far more substantive basis for unrest.

But then I realized that’s exactly the reason why they were treated differently.

Black Lives Matter poses a threat to the social order that has disproportionately had

a negative effect on Black Americans and kept them out of positions of power. It is a movement that rightfully calls for systemic change, and change is threatening to people already in power.

Regardless of your views on the effectiveness or peacefulness of the organization, I ask you to take the platform of the organization for what it is.

As part of the organization’s mission statement, they say, “We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise. We affirm our humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”

The organization’s mission is to even the playing field for Black Americans and to promote pride in the Black identity. I believe that people and systems in power are afraid of this mission because it threatens their power and calls for more deeply-rooted change.

Black Americans have a right to be angry at police officers. When compared to the pro-Trump rioters protesting the false claims of election fraud, I can kind of understand

how Black Lives Matter protesters come off more “dangerous,” because their anger is more justified and could create real societal change if addressed.

I think the biggest problem with this discrepancy is that it hinders the actual, necessary change. The primary goal of Black Lives Matter and other social movements like it is to gain political, economic and social equality for a marginalized group. We see predominantly white political groups denounce the movement because of its push for the advancement of Black Americans, which threatens their superiority. Because majority groups like this are afraid of losing that power, the most passionate, emotional and ardent voices of protesters are silenced by society.

I think it’s really important that we absorb this moment and the incidents at the Capitol and take time to think about what they really mean. I believe these riots represented the climax of division within our country. There is a gap between who we are in practice and who we say we are to the rest of the world. We treat white protestors who protest and raid the Capitol better

than we treat Black protesters who protest for equal protection under the law simply because people in power are afraid of losing their superiority.

In our Current Events club meeting the day after the riot, History Department Chair Amy Bresie said something I think is important for us to remember. She said that evil wins when we stop fighting for good. I am continuing to fight for good despite the evil around us, and I ask you to do the same.

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Features

Back in the shoes of a student Greenhill faculty pursue higher degrees while teaching

Graphic by Sarah Luan

Emma Nguyen Associate Editor

N

o teacher looks forward to grading high school math tests.

Grading tests after a Wednesday evening statistics exam, even less so.

Yet, to earn her master’s in statistics, that’s the life that Upper School math teacher Carina Morgan ’09 is currently living.

If nothing else, Morgan says, the experience has made her an effective multitasker.

“It can really overwhelm and kind of drown you if you’re not intentional about how you spend your time,” Morgan said.

As the school year progresses in and out of remote learning, most Greenhill students can attest that being educated in such an environment is draining.

Some teachers, however, are choosing to pursue both higher education and a teaching career, two independently intensive workloads put together in an already hectic year.

Morgan, who teaches Honors Algebra 2 and Vector Calculus, says that the classes she teaches were inspired by her higher education. Currently halfway through her classes at Texas A&M University, she decided that picking up teaching was logical.

That didn’t mean her workload was light.

“One of the things that makes this feasible for me is taking full advantage of every moment I have,” Morgan said. “If I have a planning period and I planned my lesson, then I will absolutely work on school.”

Upper School math teacher Ahmed Najm agrees. While teaching Algebra 2 and Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics, he’s also pursuing a doctoral degree in

educational leadership and policy. To him, time management is key to being successful in both, though the actual course design of his higher education helps.

“It can feel really overwhelming, but my degree program is, by design, meant for practitioners,” Najm said. “While the work itself is substantial, the weight forces you to collaborate with other members of your cohort.”

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You have to sacrifice some sleep and free time, but I love what I do in terms of working and teaching.

That motivates me.”

Compartmentalizing and delineating between work and family has been crucial in managing coursework, he added.

Moral support has been instrumental in helping him persevere.

Though the workload is intensive, both Najm and Morgan agree that the experience has been fulfilling, despite the new challenges presented by the pandemic. Taking every available opportunity to finish their coursework or grade tests is key to this tenuous balance.

That is especially true for Upper School science teacher Kaleb Mathieu.

“You have to sacrifice some sleep and free time, but I love what I do in terms of working and teaching,” Mathieu said. “That motivates me.”

Mathieu teaches Upper School chemistry and physics while pursuing a doctorate in educational psychology.

For him, picking up both teaching and working was the next logical step.

Pursuing higher education is a way to expand his interests and work toward his goal to help him better understand students’ mindsets in the classroom.

“We know a lot about how learning happens in terms of psychological research, but within education and teaching, that’s not applied a lot of the time,” Mathieu said. “I’m really interested in trying to bridge that gap and helping students learn more effectively, especially in science.”

The experience of being taught brought back memories of what it was like to be a student as well. Combined, the new experience and old memories influence how Morgan teaches her classes.

“I can put myself in the shoes of all of you guys and what you have on your plates,” Morgan said. “Being a student and reminded of what that’s like has influenced how I’ve approached things.”

Meanwhile, Mathieu’s coursework on educational psychology and the actual experience of learning in an institutional setting has helped him empathize with students more. His higher education has equipped him with methods to better understand how his students process the curriculum.

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I can put myself in the shoes of all of you guys and what you have on your plates. Being a student and reminded of what that’s like has influenced how I’ve approached things.”

“It’s influenced how I teach, just learning how the brain works and how people best learn—my schoolwork is all about that,” Mathieu said. “I do use a lot of those principles in my daily practice as a teacher.”

He adds that the ability to empathize with their plight has helped him bridge the disconnect between teachers and

understanding their students’ workloads.

Najm’s higher education was a matter of timeliness and practicality. While pursuing a doctorate now means a heavier workload, he has been able to draw on the discipline and continuity of his established college routine.

“I had a strong desire to continue my studies,” Najm said. “That’s the practical answer—building off the momentum.”

Despite the challenges, all three say they feel satisfied with the results of educating and being educated at the same time.

“I still want to be a teacher after this,” Mathieu said. “I’m not doing this to get another job; I’m doing this out of interest and to improve my teaching and be a better teacher overall.”

To Najm and Mathieu, the pursuit of educational degrees has given them valuable tools and insights that will refine and sharpen their teaching.

“Recognize that engaging with others and putting a lot of thought into engaging the people around you, whether you’re a student or a teacher, improves the experience for everybody,” Najm said.

For Morgan, the workload of being both a student and teacher forever isn’t sustainable. However, she has found gratification in the effort she is putting into both her schoolwork and teaching.

“If I’m going to spend 10 hours on my Saturday doing homework because I like it and I have fun learning about it, it doesn’t feel like a chore,” she said.

“I don’t ever want people who are in a career already to feel like they can’t stop learning. Even if you’re not going to advance your career but you’re interested, that’s a point in itself and there’s value in that.”

7 Ever Evergreen An addition to the math department the

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Features

Ahmed Najm joins faculty as a math teacher and extracurricular coach Saara Bidiwala, Emma Nguyen

Associate Editors

Emma Rikalo

Staff Writer

Isabel Martinez

Arts Editor

T

eaching wasn’t originally in Upper School math teacher Ahmed Najm’s plan.

When he stepped foot onto American soil as a high school freshman, he and his family having arrived as political refugees, Najm sought another kind of refuge in the midst of his internal turmoil: music.

“The flute and music sustained me through school,” Najm said in an email interview.

He later attended Boston University, studying art history and flute performance with the intention of playing in an orchestra. As graduation loomed on the horizon, though, he began looking for a way to support himself.

He ended up volunteering for Teach for America, a nonprofit focused on improving the U.S. education system. The idea was introduced to him by his sister, an alumna of the organization.

“I started teaching more out of necessity than anything else,” Najm said. “It was at first for public service, and the work appealed to me greatly. I ended up remaining in education.”

From there, he moved to New York City, where he taught at a Brooklyn charter school and later on at the Brearley School.

“The draw of my students, of teaching itself and my colleagues have all kept me firmly in place in the classroom where I really love what I do,” Najm said.

Teaching at the Brearley School gave him the opportunity to explore leadership roles in education such as grade dean. The magnetic draw of the classroom and the support of his colleagues convinced him to pursue an administrative master’s degree in school leadership at Harvard University.

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He just embodies what you want out of all your teachers—someone who is easy to work with, very knowledgeable, there for the students and just a selfless member of this community.”

After completing his master’s, Najm did not have the constraint of staying in New York anymore. He and his husband decided to move to Texas, the home of his husband’s family.

It was his husband who introduced Najm to Greenhill when job offers were posted in January 2020.

The attractive values, caring community and diversity of Greenhill convinced Najm that this was where he wanted to be, he said.

A model teacher “When we started the hiring process in February of last year, we had Mr. Najm come into Greenhill to try teaching a class,” Upper School math teacher Melissa Battis said. “He had never taught AP Statistics before, but he observed [former math teacher Michael Legacy] carefully and was able to use his skills to confidently teach the lesson.”

Since his arrival on campus, Najm’s dedication to his work has been evident to Upper School Math Department Chair Darryn Sandler.

“When I met with him for the first time, we had another teacher leave last minute and had to reshuffle classes,” Sandler said. “Mr. Najm was willing to adjust the schedule we already had given him without hesitation.

Also, losing our Math [Club] team coach in the middle of the summer was a challenge, yet Mr. Najm just stepped right in without anyone really asking him to volunteer to help with the math team, which is no small task.”

The contributions Najm and his mindset bring to the community, Sandler added, are invaluable.

“He just embodies what you want out of all your teachers—someone who is easy to work with, very knowledgeable, there for the students and just a selfless member of this community,” Sandler said.

Life on the Hill Najm says he plans to apply his educational leadership skills in the classroom through critical engagement with both the material and his students.

Currently, Najm teaches Advanced Placement Statistics and Algebra 2 and coaches the Math Club and Upper School Quiz Bowl team.

Having coached the Math Club at his previous school, he happily took the offer to play the same role at Greenhill.

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My advice, especially for the year, and for myself, is really be willing to hit the restart button as often as you can and give yourself a clean slate.

Don’t beat yourself up for what happened.”

“The Math Club was looking for sponsors, so I signed up,” Najm said. “I thought it would be a great way to get to know the students who were really passionate about math.”

On the flip side, coaching Greenhill’s Quiz Bowl team was more of a “happy accident,” Najm said. He hadn’t planned on coaching the team when he arrived on campus, but when he was asked, he accepted.

Despite being a novice coach, Najm says he found himself enjoying many aspects of the activity and the students themselves.

“My favorite part of Quiz Bowl would probably have to be the meets,” Najm said.

“They’re just so thrilling and interesting and fun to be at.”

In his classes, Najm says he tries to create an environment centered around students, to allow them to learn from their past work and to learn skills that will help them in the future.

“The act of students parsing through their own work and engaging in meaningful iteration is something that I would really strive to do in all my classes,” Najm said. “My hope is that my classes are highly participatory and that they involve a kind of student-guided approach to coming at key takeaways.”

Sophomore Izabella Faber, both a member of Najm’s advisory and his Algebra 2 class, appreciates this approach.

“My first math test, I thought that I failed it, and I just remember that he was so comforting about it,” Faber said. “He just made me feel better about it and handled the situation really well.”

Faber also values the attitude he brings to the classroom, which emphasizes self-care and positivity.

“He’s always just so upbeat and brings a happy personality to the room, and then is also very welcoming of mistakes and of improving yourself,” Faber said.

This understanding, forgiveness and willingness to improve has been an underlying theme for Najm in all of his classes, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“My advice, especially for the year, and for myself, is really be willing to hit the restart button as often as you can and give yourself a clean slate,” Najm said. “Don’t beat yourself up for what happened.”

A clean slate Outside of the classroom, Najm is doing his best to integrate himself into Greenhill’s community by looking ahead and planning to join various affinity groups.

“I am not currently in any affinity groups, but I would love to work with South Asian students at Greenhill, as well as Muslim students,” Najm said. “I plan to join the LGBTQ+ group sometime soon.”

Photo courtesy of Ahmed Najm

DEDICATED TO THE CRAFT: Although his initial plans did not entail teaching, Najm has become a devoted educator. From volunteering for Teach for America to pursuing a master’s degree, the pull of the classroom pushed Najm to do more.

8 Features

Ever Evergreen Block schedule in action the

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Upper School teachers share opinions on the new daily schedule Sarah Luan

Managing Editor

T

he block schedule was officially incorporated into a full semester in the Upper School last fall after a year of planning, revealing new challenges and benefits for students and teachers.

The new class format was originally implemented to alleviate stress for students. The previous schedule comprised six 55-minute class periods, with one class being skipped or “floated” each day. The block schedule has classes that meet every other day, switching between “Green” and “Gold” days. With only a maximum of four classes each day, students face less homework each night, at least in theory.

Senior Meredith Roberts says that, although she has less daily homework, her teachers have been assigning bigger projects instead.

“I feel like teachers expect you to have a lot more time to do work now, so they give bigger projects,” Roberts said. “On top of college applications, I just had a whole bunch of projects that lined up for me leading up to Dec. 17. That was just really overwhelming.”

Upper School math teacher Cathy Falk has found that, because there is less instructional time overall, she

had to shift more responsibility to her students to watch explanatory videos outside class. While her Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus BC class is on track, her Advanced Algebra 2 class fell behind schedule.

“The best way to get through that material is for both my Algebra 2 and BC kids to have regular homework, but because we don’t see them every day, we can’t expect them to be able to do too much on their own,” Falk said.

Upper School English teacher Andrew Mercurio has experienced the same problems with his classes. He has had to cut material from his yearlong courses.

“Trying to fit English 10 into the space that’s given is incredibly challenging because I’m trying to avoid giving 1.5 times more work for them to do because they have the extra day,” Mercurio said. “A book that would take two or three weeks to get through is now taking five to six weeks.”

Students also have had to adjust to the longer 80-minute periods. Some say they tend to lose focus toward the end of class, but that short breaks during classes help.

“Half of my teachers give us mask breaks in the middle of the class which makes it easier to focus,” sophomore Marielle Benitez said. “When my teachers don’t give us mask breaks, I find it harder to focus at the end of the class.”

Upper School Fine Arts Department Chair Corbin Doyle believes that longer classes are beneficial for fine arts, since these courses normally take extra time to set up materials.

“Especially if you get to the collegiate level, [fine arts classes] are always way longer than a normal class,” Doyle said. “If you need to change clothes for dance or warm up for the performing arts, you need that time to prep. I think it benefits us across the board.”

Students and teachers appreciate how the block schedule facilitates periods like Community Time and Office Hours, but some students say they would like to see a set club schedule.

“We’ll find out when we’re meeting the week of or even just the day before and have to scramble to make a plan for what we’re going to do,” said junior Katherine Li, leader of the East Asian Affinity Group.

The pandemic and mix of in-person and online students have added further complications for teachers, so the full impact of the new schedule is still uncertain.

“In-class teaching and the block schedule are just so completely different to begin with right now with the pandemic,” Mercurio said. “I can’t really tell what a regular block schedule would feel like, because we’re not really in it right now.”

“Senioritis”: Has the pandemic made it worse?

Raag Venkat

Editor-in-Chief

Sumana Kethu

Chief Section Editor

S

enior Jung Min Yean attends virtual classes with a lack of determination. As a second-semester senior, she feels that her grades do not matter and finds it hard to pay attention in class. She says the solution is too easy; she turns off her camera, turns off her microphone and simply stops listening.

Senioritis has taken over.

Senioritis is defined by one popular dictionary as a “decline in motivation or performance” by students in their final year of high school or college. The affliction has found new ways of presenting itself in Upper School students due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Senioritis has hit me like a truck,” Yean said.

“Especially because of virtual learning and the new world we are currently living in, it feels so much easier to kind of ‘opt out’ of school knowing that my performance isn’t as important as before.”

Most seniors, now in the second semester of their last year of high school, report feeling a lack of motivation in their studies.

“I am, without a doubt, experiencing senioritis,” senior Theo Johnson said. “Day-to-day homework feels even more pointless than it usually did. From here on out, I’ll probably just focus on learning just what I truly find interesting.”

The “disease” tends to especially kick in after a college destination has been determined. This happened to Yean, after committing to Northwestern University to study biomedical engineering next fall.

“For the past three years, the only long-term goal we had been told to look towards as high school students was getting into college,” Yean said. “Now that I had achieved that goal after I decided to attend Northwestern, I was kind of struggling to find what to look to next for motivation. It was really hard to keep

my grades up and to study for major assessments.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated senioritis. Because of pandemic restrictions and regulations, Greenhill ended the 2019-2020 school year and opened the current school year in remote learning.

The Upper School has since transitioned to offering inperson or stay-at-home learning options for students.

Seniors have been affected uniquely by the pandemic since about half of their junior year and possibly their entire senior year will look very different than the traditional Greenhill experience. As a consequence, senioritis is presenting itself differently.

“I think it’s very interesting because we didn’t see the same flavor of senioritis during remote learning as we did in the past, especially because everything was in disarray,” Upper School Science Department Chair Treavor Kendall said. “People were busy trying to adapt to the new situation, and I think that’s the case this year because things are still in flux with everyone slowly coming back to campus.”

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Senioritis has hit me like a truck. Especially because of virtual learning and the new world we are currently living in, it feels so much easier to kind of ‘opt out’ of school knowing that my performance isn’t as important as before.”

Upper School Spanish teacher Stephanie Almanza has also noticed the challenges in remote learning and in labeling specific behaviors as senioritis.

“It’s really hard to tell whether [remote learners] are experiencing senioritis or pandemic fatigue or simply just feelings of being away as long as they have,” she said. “I think it’s going to look and feel different this year and we can’t necessarily point to something and say it’s senioritis or pandemic fatigue or a kid being lazy like in the past because it could be all of those things.”

Almanza is also a senior adviser this year, a role with

Graphic by Raag Venkat

Photo illustration by Sarah Luan

PRODUCTIVITY IN THE PANDEMIC: Seniors say that virtual learning causes motivation to decline even more than attending classes in person.

the unique responsibility of keeping students on track to fulfill graduation requirements. Though most of the heavy lifting was completed during course scheduling for juniors, Almanza said there are still requirements— such as community service—that advisers must pay attention to.

Senioritis does have some potentially dire consequences.

Colleges and universities can rescind admission to students based on poor academic standing during the senior year. The National Association of College Admissions Counseling reports that approximately 21% of colleges nationwide annually revoke admission for students, with a portion of those revocations resulting from a decline in academic grades during senior year.

“A little bit of senioritis is okay, but too much is not,” Kendall said. “There are some extreme cases where folks can actually disrupt their college plans if they take too sharp of a nosedive. I have seen admission decisions reversed because of performance in the spring.”

In order to emphasize the consequences to seniors, Upper School Spanish teacher and Senior Class Dean April Burns communicated with her students about staying on top of deadlines.

“It comes down to making them turn in assignments and communicating with teachers and families about how their kid isn’t doing assignments, what [assignments] are missing and what the arrangement will be,” Burns said.

During normal years or during a pandemic, senioritis signifies the end of a long and complicated journey, according to Kendall. “[Senioritis] is very real, and it’s sort of a natural progression,” he said. “A lot of things are wrapped up for seniors, including their college destinations, and they are ready to move on to new places. I think that’s part of the mentality of seniors. They just need a break.”

Special Report

9

The Advanced Placement hierarchy Diane Lin Views Editor

Nate Stitt News Editor

F

rom Women’s History to the Chemistry of Photography, the Upper School prides itself on allowing students to create their own academic path. Among the most challenging offerings are nationally standardized Advanced Placement courses, in which students get a taste of college-level material.

At Greenhill, the list of AP courses skews heavily in one direction.

For students who choose a more STEM-based path, there are 10 year-long AP courses that allow students to get a head start on college majors in science, technology, engineering and math.

Humanities-oriented students, on the other hand, have more limited choices: only three semester-long social science Advanced Placement classes and no English APs. For some humanities-oriented students, this creates a problem: they take AP courses they aren’t passionate about, or don’t take many at all.

The STEM-heavy AP course offerings are a source of frustration and concern among some students.

“I think particularly for the humanities, students are looking to showcase both rigor and interest, but you can’t really have both,” senior Kilo Kapumba said. “Because it’s like—to showcase rigor, you would be expected to take the highest rigor course, which at Greenhill would be an AP course. But we don’t have those in humanities courses.”

Those sentiments are shared by some students who are still early in their rise through the Upper School.

“I think that Greenhill definitely favors those interested in STEM,” sophomore Chancey Stefanos said. “I am not at all

interested in math or science, and so I won’t take AP STEM courses. Because of that, my transcript looks rather bare despite having a full schedule. There are hardly any advanced humanities courses, and while I love the several options we have, I’m limited in the amount that I can take.”

The pursuit of education Greenhill’s flexibility as an independent school allows administrators and teachers to tailor a curriculum that balances institutional philosophy with student needs. Advanced Placement classes are part of the equation, but they are also “problematic for an institution like Greenhill,” said Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester. “I think there are some AP courses that work very well for certain disciplines and there are others that don’t work as great.”

On the humanities side of the discussion, History Department Chair Amy Bresie and English Department Chair Joel Garza agree. AP classes often feel too content-driven and emphasize performance on a standardized May exam over a student’s learning experience, Bresie and Garza said.

“Teachers have to cover so much material for this test that you end up getting very superficial understanding and knowledge,” Bresie said.

Garza notes that humanities departments tend to prefer classes with widely varying goals; junior and senior electives in the history and English departments tend to focus on one aspect of a subject, an approach that clashes with the standardized regimen of AP courses.

“The best students might have unique standards of personal and academic success,” Garza said. “While individualization can happen in AP

classes, a critical mass of students always seem to leave my [non-AP] classes more confident in their own skills than they were in the beginning.”

There are other complications that weigh against AP courses in the humanities space, including the process for determining who can take a course.

The process for determining who can take an AP STEM class “is a bit more straightforward,” Worcester said.

Ultimately, educational philosophy may determine the value of an AP class in the STEM-humanities equation.

“Education should be valued over how classes look on a transcript, and this is a philosophical conversation worth having,” Worcester said. “To decide if APs provide the best and most challenging experience for our students—both in terms of their academic curiosity and achievement.”

Head of School Lee Hark shares this sentiment. “[Expanding our AP program] is not just about whether or not we should simply have a few more AP courses,” Hark said. “[This decision] gets at what we value most on a fundamental level and if we are consistently applying those values.”

College admissions pressures AP courses, at their core, are meant to be college-level courses. The level of academic rigor makes them a popular method of showing a student’s academic capability nationally.

“AP classes are very visible nationally, and there’s a wide variety of schools that can choose to offer them since the College Board is a national organization,” CoDirector of College Counseling Keith Todd said. “And I think it’s fair to say that the AP program is growing nationally.

That’s probably another reason why it gets talked about more.”

A popular belief among students is the more APs on a transcript, the better for college admissions.

The imbalance in AP courses offered affects how students choose which courses they take.

“We do see people just trying to take APs because their college counselor or their parents or their brother or sister has told them to do so, not necessarily because they’re interested in the topic,” Science Department Chair Treavor Kendall said.

“What we’re hoping is that those folks will look for classes they get excited about—or if they happen to take the AP that they will discover something they enjoy.”

Some juniors take the AP English Language and Composition exam to look more competitive to colleges, even though the class itself isn’t offered.

“One reason we offer it and students take it is to show colleges and universities that students are taking advantage of the challenges that are out there for them,” said Linda Woolley, an Upper School English teacher who hosts optional meetings for students who want to take the exam.

But taking Advanced Placement classes to impress college admissions committees probably isn’t as essential at a prestigious private school such as Greenhill.

“We know from our experience and from our current interactions that independent schools have a lot more flexibility in setting curriculum often than large public districts,” Todd said.

Greenhill’s school profile acknowledges the imbalance between STEM and non-STEM disciplines in terms of Advanced Placement course offerings.

Still, some students still feel obligated to take a high number of AP classes to be nationally competitive in the college admissions process, and they express frustration at the lack of options at Greenhill.

“Honestly, there aren’t enough APs at Greenhill for how the curriculum is centered,” sophomore Carcyn Coleman said. “It feels like they are not broad enough for different interests and they cater towards STEM kids.”

Possibilities Administrators say they want to find solutions that address the frustrations of humanities-oriented students.

The pressure that students feel to take AP classes for college transcripts “is certainly an issue,” Worcester said.

“The problem is, I don’t necessarily have a solution for it that solves for all of the issues within the AP curriculum or within the process itself.”

Some private schools have gotten rid of Advanced Placement classes completely, while others have added AP courses to English and history departments.

“I think it would be better if we got rid of all AP classes,” Kapumba said. “I think it would balance out the rigor of our classes, as classes at Greenhill are of a higher rigor anyway.”

As Greenhill administrators discuss ways to rethink the curriculum, the wellbeing and education of students is the most important factor, Worcester said.

“There’s a lot of imperfections with the way AP courses are,” Worcester said.

“They’ve got to be accessible to everybody, but you’ve got to set people up for success in them too. And that’s a challenge. I think we do the best we can, but it doesn’t mean we can’t keep looking at ways to make it better.”

Graphic by Emma Nguyen

10

Everg Ever the

Centerpiece

PROCESSING JAN. 6: HEALING THE D Khushi Chhaya Features Editor

Valerie Xu

Arts Editor

Anger.

That was the first emotion that came to English teacher Andrew Mercurio on Jan. 6 as he watched helplessly on his television screen as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, broke glass windows and “threatened the integrity of our democracy.”

As the scene unfolded, Mercurio couldn’t help but feel despair for democracy and for America. The riot, Mercurio says, was fueled by lies that sought to invalidate the results of an election. The lies were perpetuated because of a lack of accountability, in Mercurio’s view.

“It starts with leadership,” Mercurio said. “They’re complicit with it. I mean when you sit there and question the integrity, the most fundamental element of the democratic republic that we have, when you openly challenge that with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and inspire anger, it lands on the people who were put in place to protect American citizens.”

Mercurio’s sentiments of anger and frustration were reflected across the country and Capitol Hill where, later that night, both Senate and House members met to confirm the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Lies have consequences,” Sen. Ben Sasse, the Nebraska Republican said. “This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the president’s addiction to constantly stoking division.”

The somber words and calls for unity echoed throughout the night until Joe Biden was finally confirmed as the 46th president of the United States just after 3:40 a.m.

But the events of Jan. 6 have continued to reverberate across the United States. In response to the Capitol assault, federal authorities have arrested and charged more than 200 people for various crimes. A day after the riot, House Democrats began drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” On Jan. 13, Trump became the first president to be impeached twice during his term of office.

Despite the impeachment and political upheaval in Washington, Mercurio says that events at the Capitol have taught America a lesson bigger than politics—a lesson that he has stressed to his students: that truth is fundamental, and division is dangerous.

“Being truthful and honest was what I emphasized,” Mercurio said. “And that’s not a political thing. It shouldn’t be a political thing. Honesty shouldn’t be political; it should just be part of our approach to citizenship.”

Shock becomes anger “It is undoubted that the Capitol riots have stirred up a vast array of emotions among the Greenhill community,” Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester said in an interview. “Some felt

fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness, and some were simply too overwhelmed to put their initial reaction into words.”

“I was aghast,” Worcester added. “I was horrified. It was unreal.”

Some teachers drew parallels to emotions felt after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

“You knew that you were living through something historical and awful and that sort of went at the very heart of what this country is supposed to be,” said Upper School History Department Chair Amy Bresie ’96.

The overwhelming feeling on campus was one of shock, but not surprise. Many students and faculty felt that violence was inevitable given the misinformation about election fraud spread

by Trump and his supporters.

“There were a lot of angry feelings from Trump supporters toward how the elections went over,” junior Jordan Levy said. “I didn’t know exactly what would happen or when it would happen, but I wasn’t surprised that there was violence.”

Shock became anger as many Greenhill students began to question inadequate Capitol security.

“How did [security] allow all these people to literally breach the Capitol while they were counting the electoral votes for the election?” sophomore Shreeya Madhavanur said.

Although many police officers tried to protect the Capitol and its occupants, including Eugene Goodman, who is slated to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for leading rioters away from the Senate chamber, others seemed acquiescent, if not complicit.

“A lot of those Capitol Police put their lives in danger,” Mercurio said. “Many of them were truly heroic individuals, but some of them were taking selfies, fist pumping, opening doors, showing people where to go.”

The relatively mild reaction from law enforcement also raised questions about the much harsher response to racial justice protests that occurred nationally last summer.

“When we see such double standards between how a white mob is treated and how Black people peacefully protesting are treated, I think it can be very discouraging,” Worcester said. “It can make people feel hopeless and it can make people feel like things just aren’t working.”

Josh Flowers, a member of the Black Student Union, says he found Worcester’s comments to the Upper School on white privilege and the law enforcement double standards to be extremely empowering. At the same time, Flowers says, Trump’s role in “tearing up our country” was not the least surprising.

“The president has been actively harming the Black community for the past four years,” Flowers said. “This is nothing new to us.”

Even within Greenhill, Flowers says that modes of racial ignorance still exist—a reality that shows the need for more conversations and education on anti-Blackness in America, Flowers says.

“I have been told by Greenhill students that white privilege doesn’t exist, which I just have such a hard time believing,” Flowers said. “You can’t deny my lived experience. You can’t say that privilege doesn’t exist when I sit here and watch people benefit from it.”

The riots unveiled the structural racism in America that Flowers says has been prevalent for centuries. Although saddened by the racist messages conveyed through the clothing of some rioters and their actions, Flowers says that he wasn’t surprised by this either.

Jewish Americans also felt targeted in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Photographs showed a few rioters waving Confederate flags or flags based on the Nazi swastika, and at least one rioter made light of the Holocaust by wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt.

“I feel like people don’t really recognize that there’s anti-Semitism in America,” Levy said. “Seeing people wearing the ‘6 million wasn’t enough’ shirts made me realize that there’s people out there that want Jewish people dead. That is a horrible feeling.”

Levy says the riots made her ashamed of her “youthful naivete” and unchecked trust and faith in American democracy.

“I think a lot of the trust that I had in America is lost after what happened,” Levy said. “When I was growing up my parents used to say that America is the best place and I believed that.

But now it’s just different.”

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

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DIVISIONS OF “A DAMAGED NATION” Blame and reckoning Trust in the system is key to maintaining a democracy, but Zach Kennedy, leader of the Conservative Student Alliance, says that this trust, so vital to the fabric of American democracy, is fracturing in the aftermath of Jan. 6.

“It’s Trump,” said Kennedy, “He instigated this whole thing.”

Despite agreeing with many of Trump’s fiscal policies, Kennedy says that the misinformation about election fraud instigated by Trump and his legal team was the reason why so many people felt empowered to riot and storm the Capitol.

“If you can just look at it from an apolitical lens, you can see that all this was a super violent act against the United States government, and that’s wrong,” Kennedy said. “Violence should never happen.”

With the impeachment trial of Trump now sparking a new round of debate, Kennedy hopes for unity both across the country and in Greenhill classrooms. Even more, he hopes that the events of Jan. 6 don’t cause students to misconstrue conservative ideology or smear conservative students.

Senior Danny Enrico expresses similar sentiments.

“Just because I’m a conservative and just because in the past or maybe even now I support the Republican Party and vote along this kind of lines doesn’t necessarily mean that I align myself with [Trump] and the stuff he does,” Enrico said. “It especially doesn’t mean that I associate myself with the people that stormed the Capitol.”

Although Enrico says that teachers were very respectful and supportive of his conservative beliefs in class discus-

sions, students were less so.

“What I’ve noticed for myself is that people are really quick to associate myself and other people with what happened at the Capitol, which I don’t think it’s fair,” Enrico said.

Senior Uday Narayanan suggests that Republicans have brought this criticism on themselves by their close association with Trump.

“I don’t think Republicans are being misunderstood,” said Narayanan. “When you pledge yourself to someone who has done horrible things [to] this country, I don’t think you can take the tone of being the victim. This is not the first time that Trump has tried to make our country worse, and yet it seems like the Republican Party continues to make excuses for him.”

Greenhill’s response In response to the riot, Greenhill took steps to ensure that the event was properly addressed by both the administration and by teachers in individual classes.

Head of School Lee Hark sent an email to Greenhill families on the evening of Jan. 6, denouncing the riots and detailing a plan to discuss the events with students in the following days.

Upper School students gathered virtually on the morning of Jan. 7 for an assembly to address the events. Worcester shared a brief message voicing his thoughts and condemning the actions that had taken place.

“We want to take pride in ourselves that we not only talk the talk, but we walk the walk,” Worcester said. “Well, in order to do that, people who look like me need to do more than simply talk about it.”

To Worcester, his speech was not only an effort to uphold the school’s philosophy of inviting challenging conversation, but also an opportunity to make a personal statement of conviction.

“If I continue to not say something, am I just perpetuating something that I don’t necessarily believe in?” Worcester said in an interview. “[If] I’m disregarding the power and privilege that I have in this role and with my particular identifiers by not saying something, I think it would have been worse.”

Many students appreciated Worcester’s stance against the Capitol riots in his remarks to the school.

“I know administrators could have chosen to dance around the subject and be sort of unclear and ambiguous about it,” said Madhavanur, the sophomore student. “I felt really relieved that [Worcester] decided not to ignore this significant moral aspect of it, and stressed that as a community, the events that occurred at the Capitol were the exact opposite of the values that we prioritize and strive for.”

On the evening of Jan. 6, Greenhill administration asked several members of the Middle and Upper School history departments to gather materials to distribute to the rest of the faculty.

Teachers had the choice to use the resources provided or conduct conversations in their own way.

“It was made clear to us that we needed to take the time no matter what we taught,” Bresie said. “Across the board we needed to take the time to help students process.”

Healing in the classroom In the days that followed, Bresie and other teachers not only educated students about the Jan. 6 events, but also comforted them.

“It’s really difficult to try to process something with students when you yourself are shocked and horrified and saddened,” Bresie said. “It’s all the more jarring, right, because my entire job is to explain America to students. When something happens that is so antithetical to who we say we are as a nation, it’s very difficult.”

To deal with these conflicting emotions, Bresie and many other teachers opened up classroom discussions to break down the riots as well as process the events.

“I wanted to provide this space where people could post their thoughts, reactions, questions,” Bresie said. “I just think that it’s absolutely essential to have conversations like this. If we’re not talking about it, and if we’re not teaching students how to have conversations about things like this, then we’re just not doing our jobs.”

The importance of education is to promote good citizenship among future generations, and for Bresie, being a good citizen means being cognizant of injustices and willing to stand for change.

“Character and citizenship are so crucial,” Mercurio said. “To disregard them [or] to ignore them is to do so, I think, at our own peril.”

Madhavanur says that she found the discussions initiated by teachers extremely vital in helping students like her break down and process the riots.

“I think that sometimes people can have a tendency to try to ignore the ugliness, and focus on the good things that are happening, and I understand that,” Madhavanur said. “But although it’s taxing, it continues to remain so important that we really dissect and understand the events that are occurring before us, so we can decide whether we want those things to occur again in the future or not.”

Looking forward

As the Greenhill community continues to process the Capitol riots amid a global pandemic, a worsening climate crisis, and calls for social change, the tone set by the new Biden administration offers hope to some students.

“I’ve heard a lot from this administration that they’re really focused on unity and I believe that they are really interested in unity,” junior Madeline Schlegel said. “So, while I don’t really know what their plans are for that yet, I hope that this division will hopefully get better.”

Bresie says the only way to heal the divisions of “a damaged nation” is to maintain hope in the values of freedom and democracy that have bonded Americans for centuries.

“It can be easy to give in to despair, to give in and to give up,” Bresie said. “But I would hope that one thing that we could all take out of this experience is that we should not take that route, that we should fight harder, and that we should do better so that we can all start living out the promises of democracy.”

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Arts

Lights, camera, action

Theater students modify stage production for a pandemic world

Mila Nguyen Staff Writer

A

fter the fall cast wrote and performed a play about wrongfully convicted inmates and the quest for racial justice, Upper School theater teacher Valerie Hauss-Smith wanted to follow up with a spring production that would be just as meaningful.

The importance of frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic led Hauss-Smith and her students to settle on “Working,” a musical based on the 1974 book of the same name by the late author and radio broadcaster Studs Terkel.

In his effort to illuminate the lives of working-class Americans, Terkel traveled around the United States to interview people about their jobs. His book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1975.

46 years later, COVID-19 has turned a spotlight on workers across socioeconomic classes who have kept the country functioning during the pandemic.

“This is all about the essential workers that have helped our country to stay afloat,” HaussSmith said. “It shows all the different people in America and we decided to put our own twist on the musical and set it in 2021 during a pandemic.”

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When we work on a play and musical, it forms a family dynamic. We have a great group that is sometimes dysfunctional and crazy.”

“Working” is a mix of monologues, musical solos and group songs, with the production designed to allow actors and crew members to remain socially distanced.

“All the characters are interconnected to create a cohesive storyline,” said Josh Flowers, one of the actors.

The actors have relatively little interaction, especially when compared to most musicals.

“I like this production a lot,” junior Kayla Rutner said.

“It is very different from what we normally do because of the monologues and COVID-19 restrictions, but for what we can do, it is really good.”

Hauss-Smith finished casting the production in mid-January, and auditions were held virtually with video submissions. Flowers will play the character of Freddy, a fast-food worker. Rutner performs the role of a mill worker named Grace Clements.

“We are really trying to make sure that everyone gets a part, gets to work and gets to spend time with me, the dance teacher or the singing teacher,” Hauss-Smith said. “The people at home have to navigate from one thing to the next to stay involved, but this has been a big commitment we have all made.”

Pandemic restrictions led the theater program to push the annual musical from fall to spring. The problem confronting Hauss-Smith and theater students: Singing in an unventilated room while in close contact with others greatly increases the risk of spreading COVID-19, experts say.

To keep students safe, actors are required to wear masks and face shields while singing together. Additionally, singing rehearsals are limited to 30 minutes per class.

“I sing in my car and at home, but when it comes to learning music, that is not something that I am the best at,” Flowers said. “It has been quite a challenge to only get 30 minutes every other day and still, you might not be the person who is getting one-on-one time with [Middle School and Upper School choir teacher Lucik Aprahamian].”

Like the fall production, the spring musical will be filmed and presented as a livestream to avoid large gatherings. With the help of the musical crew, scenes will be filmed and edited together. The film will also include a behindthe-scenes look at the process of putting on a production.

“We knew that we would not be able to perform it inside,” Hauss-Smith said. “Performing it outside was a ‘maybe’ because we had to consider the weather condition and the availability of

our actors. But what if an actor falls sick the day of the show or has to quarantine? That’s why we decided to film ahead of time and make it a movie to present.”

A recorded performance is giving students other opportunities. For “Working,” students will go to a recording studio to record their songs. The actors are currently in the process of creating a cast recording, which is common in larger musical productions.

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This is all about the essential workers that have helped our country to stay afloat. We decided to put our own twist on the musical and set it in 2021 during a pandemic.”

While filming what should have been a live performance eliminates the fear of botched lines, students like Flowers and Rutner were trained for the stage.

“There are pros and cons to filming,” Rutner said. “It is a cool experience no matter what. It is different, and something to put on the resume. I just really miss live theater and I thought we were going to be able to do that again.”

Beyond the stage, this year has disrupted the bonds and traditions that are commonly formed as the cast and crew go through the entire production cycle.

“When we work on a play and musical, it forms a family dynamic,” Hauss-Smith said.

“We have a great group that is sometimes dysfunctional and crazy. There is a mix of different people that is missing.”

“Working” is the last Greenhill production that this year’s seniors will participate in.

It’s not the ending to their high school theater careers that any of them imagined.

“It does kind of feel like we were robbed of the bonding experiences, but we, as students and faculty, are working really hard to make this as memorable and enjoyable as possible,” Flowers said.

Graphic by Sarah Luan

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Evergreen Ever the

Arts

Creativity in bloom

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Senior Josh Flowers dives deep into his passion for art and photography Chloe Wetzler Backpage Editor

L

ast November, senior Josh Flowers was named one of the 10 finalists in photography by the National YoungArts Foundation.

Each year, YoungArts receives up to 8,000 applications from sophomore, junior and senior students. An independent panel of artists evaluates the applications and selects winners through a blind adjudication process.

“It’s a national competition that celebrates and recognizes award-winning students in all forms of artistic endeavors, from spoken word to jazz, to singing, to music, photography, fine art, sculpture,” Upper School photography teacher Frank Lopez said. “It encompasses so many different areas.”

Winners fall into three distinctions: finalist, merit and honorable mention, with finalists being the most selective. There were 659 winners total this year, around 100 of whom were at the finalist level.

Flowers applied to the photography division last October and was selected as one of the 10 finalists in his category.

As a YoungArts finalist, Flowers is one of the top student photographers in the nation. For Flowers, earning this honor was the culmination of years of work.

Flowers started photography when he came to Greenhill in the ninth grade. Prior to Greenhill, he had attended a school with very few arts programs.

“I had never been exposed to the kind of arts programs that are offered by Greenhill,” Flowers said. “I went to a middle school that focused on academics rather than the arts. I came to Greenhill, and I had my eyes opened to the limitless possibilities of the arts.”

Wanting to explore a new array of options, Flowers signed up for the introductory photography class taught by Lopez.

“I just immediately fell in love with the program,” Flowers said.

His first two years in photography were spent exploring techniques and ways of producing imagery. Then, in his junior year, Flowers took Honors Photography.

“Junior year, I really started thinking about my artist statement and creating a cohesive body of imagery that reflected what I had written,” Flowers said. “I started creating work that revolved around a lot of social justice issues.”

Flowers began creating pieces that covered topics like gender identity and

representation, body image issues and racial equality.

As Flowers’ junior year ended, the Black Lives Matter movement began to gain momentum after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. He used photography as a way to reflect.

“Being biracial, I have always felt like I’ve been caught in between two worlds,” Flowers said. “I wanted to use my photography to define how I see my own blackness, and I started playing a lot with color.”

Lopez, who is also Flowers’ Honors Photography teacher, says Flowers’ identity is a major contributor to his artwork.

“Josh’s identity as a Black male has been very important to informing the kind of work that he creates,” Lopez said. “His work deals with Black Lives Matter issues, as well as identity issues: who he is, how is he perceived by society and how does he present himself?”

In his racially-themed photography, Flowers utilized collaging, an art style he specialized in during the pandemic.

“Taking pictures of other people is one of my greatest joys, but when we were moved to online, I didn’t have access to people to

Photo courtesy of Josh Flowers

PICTURESQUE: Senior Josh Flowers receives national recognition for his photography and digital art, including self portraits that highlight his identity as a young Black man.

photograph,” Flowers said. “So, I turned to taking pictures of myself.”

When Flowers began taking selfportraits around his house, he discovered that the backgrounds in his photos weren’t interesting enough to him. So, he cut out the photos he had taken of himself and collaged them.

“The work is very much threedimensional,” Lopez said. “In the collages, you may see images that are not his own; you will find them from magazines, old books, newspapers. But he will collage with images of himself. If you view his work, you will see a tremendous amount of self-portrait photography within his imagery.”

Photography is just one of Flowers’ many artistic talents. Since his freshman year, Flowers has been a member of the Improv Troupe and starred in the annual musicals all four years. Flowers has also been involved in Greenhill’s advanced film program for three years.

“I love any kind of creative outlet or expression,” Flowers said. “There’s so much going on inside my head that I just want to get out into the world, and so I try to do that through every medium possible.”

Flowers says he cannot be tied down to one art form.

“I’m everywhere and nowhere at once,” Flowers said. “I’m always changing everything about myself; I rearrange my room every two weeks. I just find so much inspiration in exploring new things.”

With the opportunities presented to him by Greenhill’s arts programs, Flowers has been able to find his passions.

“I don’t care if you’re a football player or a computer scientist, take an art class,” Flowers said. “Art is so incredible and so fun.

I know it sounds so stupid and cliched, but art is my entire life.”

Photos courtesy of Josh Flowers

ADVOCATING THROUGH A LENS: At Greenhill, senior Josh Flowers started developing a passion for photography. Through photography, Flowers hopes to advocate for social justice movements like Black Lives Matter as well as convey the struggles of being a young Black man in America. Many of his works deal with his personal identity and race.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Taking ACTion

Upper School students bring awareness to important adolescent issues Ria Agarwal, Ava Iwasko, Emma Rikalo Staff Writers

T

hrough Dallas’ Planned Parenthood TeenAge Communication Theater program (TACT), Greenhill students are able to focus needed attention on important adolescent issues.

TACT is a program that uses short skits to educate teens in the Dallas area on topics such as sex education, mental health and substance abuse. Their performances aim to spread important information and facilitate conversations around serious topics that affect many high school students.

The Dallas program has 43 members, with 14 of them being team leaders, or TLs. Members spend a lot of time preparing and presenting their skits while also focusing on educating themselves by listening to outside speakers and creating presentations to share with each other.

Senior Ryan Newman, who is a team leader in the TACT program, believes that the group’s work is necessary to overcome the lack of candid talk about many teen issues.

He believes sex education is a prime example, as abstinence is often the focus over teaching teenagers how to practice safe sex.

“Spreading factual information of reproductive health and sex education helps young adults understand the meaning and importance of birth control, shows teens how to have productive and necessary conversions about subjects they may consider ‘taboo,’ and prevents unwanted or accidental pregnancies for all of our audience members,” Newman said.

Senior Javy Bautista, who is also a program team leader, says that TACT allows him to turn his interest in social advocacy into action.

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Joining TACT was the best decision of my life. Nothing in my life has really fulfilled me or gave me meaning or purpose like TACT has.”

“It just gave me an opportunity to be with other people who felt that same passion for that,” said Bautista.

Senior Josh Flowers is also passionate about educating others and spreading awareness about relevant issues. In his role as a TACT team leader, Flowers gives presentations on social justice issues.

After any skit about a specific topic, the team leaders encourage the audience to ask questions and start a discussion. The objective is to enable audience members to make more

Photo illustration by Linda Fyfee

(T)ACT IT OUT: Upper School members of the Teenage Communication Theater program seek to educate teens on sex, mental health and substance abuse. Senior Ryan Newman says the group’s work is necessary to overcome the lack of candid talk about many teen issues.

responsible decisions in their own lives.

“I really loved becoming a TL because talking with the audience is such an amazing experience,” Flowers said. “I think it’s the highlight of my time in TACT, just getting to meet incredible individuals and hear so many powerful stories, and see first-hand how important the work that we’re doing is.”

The work of TACT members takes them into schools, churches, juvenile detention centers and foster care homes.

“There’s been times that people in the audience will come up to TACT members after a performance and just say, ‘Hey, I’ve been through x, y, z, and that’s why your performance today really resonated with me’ or ‘Hey, I’ve been dealing with this at home, and your performance is the reason that I’m going to reach out to someone and ask for help’,” Flowers said. “Those situations are really just the most powerful because it means so much to see that you can make a change in an individual’s life just through performing a skit and having a discussion.”

TACT coordinator Linda Fyffe says the move to online Zoom performances as a result of pandemic restrictions has allowed

the group to expand its online presence.

Group members also make content for social media platforms, something Fyffe believes is especially important right now due to the pandemic. For example, they have begun creating videos and sharing content on TikTok. Another way TACT members stay current is by educating each other on topics during their weekly meetings.

“That’s one of the best things about TACT: having people to talk to,” Bautista said.

In addition to sharing information with each other, TACT members often listen to speakers with advocacy experience to deepen their grasp of various topics.

“The kids get training from experts in the field,” Fyffe said. “For example, this weekend we’re hearing from a doctor on eating disorders, and over the summer we heard from speakers from places like the Dallas Rape Crisis Center. We’ve had a trans panel come and speak to the team. It’s really important that they learn about these teen issues, because that’s what they’re educating on.”

For group members, TACT offers an outlet for making an impact in their communities and spreading awareness on issues of personal importance.

“Because of the way that so many people in our city don’t have access to the proper resources and knowledge to be safe people, I just really hope that I can get that information to those vulnerable populations to keep everyone safe, happy, and healthy,” Flowers said.

According to Fyffe, Greenhill students have been an important part of TACT and have helped propel the group forward.

“The attitude that they have about it, they’re just passionate,” Fyffe said of Greenhill members. “They want people to make healthy and responsible decisions.”

TACT members say that participation in the program has not only benefited the lives of others in the Dallas community, but also their own.

“Joining TACT was the best decision of my life,” Flowers said. “Nothing in my life has really fulfilled me or gave me meaning or purpose like TACT has.”

Virtual reality

Students showcase their work in an online art exhibit Emily Hu, Sophia Li, Pooja Sanghvi Staff Writers

D

ue to social distancing requirements resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, student art exhibits that traditionally would be showcased in physical spaces on campus have transitioned to online platforms for the 2020-2021 school year.

To maximize accessibility, Greenhill art teachers are using a free platform, Artsteps, to create exhibits to showcase student work.

The platform doesn’t differentiate between those students who are attending classes online or those who are in person. Upon completion of a project, students take pictures of their artwork and their teacher posts the images in the exhibit.

While it’s not the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center (MPAC) or Fine Arts Building hallway, these virtual exhibits allow the Greenhill community to view this art at any time and place.

“[Artsteps] has ways for you to add walls and doors for your gallery space,” said Middle and Upper School art teacher Thomas Martinez.

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We had parents that were able to share with family overseas. It’s nice knowing you don’t have to be in the physical space to appreciate what your student has created.”

Reflecting on the first semester, Martinez says that it was difficult to try and talk to everyone online and in the classroom while adapting to such a different style of teaching.

“Sometimes we walk around and give more attention to those physically in the art space. Depending on the number of students in the classroom, there may be limited interaction with those online. It is a good juggling act and a lot of balancing that

we are having to overcome and develop,” Martinez said.

This was the first time that Greenhill teachers and students utilized online platforms, and the shift to the new exhibition format has presented some inevitable challenges.

“It was time consuming,” Upper School and AP Studio Art Instructor Lesley Rucker said. “There was a lot of upfront work that took a great deal of time.”

There was a wide range of experience and expertise among the students in presenting their artwork for the exhibit.

“There was a variety of artworks, some were photographed at a really high quality,” Martinez said. “But the struggle came with students who are new, and not being able to give them those hands-on techniques on how to photograph their work was tough.”

As an online platform, there are no viewing restrictions. Family and friends who don’t live in Dallas are now able to

enjoy a student’s work.

“We had parents that were able to share with family overseas,” Martinez said.

“It’s nice knowing you don’t have to be in the physical space to appreciate what your student has created.”

Some students say the new format has allowed them to share their art with people who live in the area but might not have come to campus for a traditional exhibit in the past.

“Even before the pandemic, it was hard to get people to come and see an exhibit at Greenhill so I definitely think it makes things easier just sending a link,” sophomore Iza Faber said.

Despite the challenges, the experience has been a success, said teachers and students.

“I would absolutely do online exhibits in the future,” Rucker said. “The chance to see student work in a gallery is the next best thing to seeing [work] in person.”

Sports 15

Greenhill athletics tackles the rise of sports specialization

Photos courtesy of Kellen Smaw, Katie Stone and Lexie Stone

ALL SORTS OF SPORTS: Junior Kellen Smaw, top left, competes for a club lacrosse team while also playing volleyball, soccer, track and lacrosse for Greenhill. Sophomore Lexie Stone, top and bottom right as she spikes the ball, competes for the Greenhill volleyball team with her twin sister, Katie, bottom left and right, wearing No. 5. The twins compete on five school and club teams.

!"#$%#&'()*+",)-.)/ Greenhill prides itself on its holistic approach to education, and athletics is no exception. According to its mission statement, Greenhill “promotes the balanced development of mind, body, and character,” and playing multiple sports aligns with these principles.

“In our admissions process, we love kids coming in and talking about wanting to participate in lots of different things, whether that’s athletics or any other area,” said Head of School Lee Hark.

Throughout lower and middle school, students are given the opportunity to try many different sports. By the time they get to high school, students have the experience to decide which sports, if any, they want to pursue at the next level while also balancing any athletic commitments outside of school.

“I feel like [high school] is the last chance you have to really dip your toe in a lot of different things,” said Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman. “Having said that, I also understand that people with real gifts or real passions may find that they have no alternative but to specialize in order to fully develop those gifts.”

Changes over time As the college admissions process becomes more intense, many students with athletic talent choose to dedicate their time and energy to one sport in the hopes of standing out and gaining easier access to the nation’s top universities.

This philosophy contradicts the idea that students should play multiple sports in high school to stay healthy and bond with their peers to cultivate a larger sense of community.

“I think it’s much harder to [be a

multisport athlete] than it used to be,” said Hark. “There’s more competition for time, more pressure on athletes of any level to specialize.”

Sports specialization has become increasingly common in the Greenhill athletics arena. The number of multisport athletes is declining, while the number of students playing one sport or participating in a club is on the rise.

“I believe that student activities no longer do the thing that they’re purported to do: to connect kids to the school and help them find a place,” said Hark. “We need students to participate and collectively make the institution go, and it’s just harder to convince people that that’s important now.”

Head of Athletics and Physical Education Jarrett Shine has seen this trend and is working to reverse it. When looking at talented athletes who might be interested in attending Greenhill, Shine is drawn to students who participate in multiple sports or who are interested in doing so.

“We don’t bring in a ton of athletes, so when we do, it’s very important that they can help with multiple teams,” said Shine.

“You may have a program that’s doing well, but the others are suffering. If you just attract that one athlete who can help out one particular program, it’s not as favorable as one that can impact multiple programs.”

Varsity boys soccer coach Greg Krauss says his team has a higher percentage of athletes who are focused only on soccer than in prior years.

“Mathematically, we can’t have specialized athletes and succeed as a department,” said Krauss. “We can have a few really successful programs if we had specialized athletes, but we’re not going to have a successful department.”

Aside from the impact talented athletes can have on multiple teams, there are also

health benefits to cross-training by playing different sports rather than specializing.

“The science tells us that athletes that do one sport repeatedly are more prone to what we call repetitive-use injuries,” said Director of Sports Performance Jessen Houston. “One of the things Greenhill has done a great job at is having professionals on campus that understand that research.

We really try to impress upon the student body and the community that we would like our athletes to play more than one sport.”

Shine and other Greenhill coaches and athletics administrators looking for ways to encourage students to become multi-sport athletes using this science.

“We might try to do a Zoom call to educate the parents to realize that athletes that play multiple sports will have less injuries and [that research is] proven,” said Shine. “I’ve seen a lot of kids who specialize, and they have a lot of injuries as a result of that because you’re working just one type of muscle group.”

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I feel like [high school] is the last chance you have to really dip your toe in a lot of different things.

Having said that, I also understand that people with real gifts or real passions may find that they have no alternative but to specialize in order to fully develop those gifts.”

One of Shine’s goals is to build an athletics program that brings home championships. By promoting participation in more than one sport, Shine says this will create a strong foundation for Greenhill athletics as a whole.

“In the end, I want to see multiple championships down the road at Greenhill,” said Shine. “That can only happen if we

have a number of really talented athletes that help out multiple programs.”

A different game Some specialized athletes, such as sophomore twins Katie and Lexie Stone, still choose to participate in multiple sports.

From a young age, the sisters played a wide variety of sports, many of which they continued at Greenhill. Now, they play varsity volleyball, basketball and lacrosse, as well as club volleyball and lacrosse.

“Sometimes the schedules conflict, but the coaches are usually understanding if you communicate early,” said Lexie Stone.

The Stone sisters feel that, by playing on Greenhill teams with both club and nonclub athletes, they get a unique experience that is unlike the sports they play outside of school.

“The game is pretty different between school and club, and it’s fun to mix it up,” said Lexie Stone. “Since we don’t play club basketball, it’s really fun to learn from the people who do play club because they are more experienced than us.”

While club teams are a main priority for most students seeking to become collegiate athletes, many students enjoy playing Greenhill sports for fun.

Some athletes that may not play sports outside of school still have luck in the college recruiting process. Krauss says that top Greenhill athletes who aren’t playing on a club team typically attract attention from smaller NCAA Division III schools.

“We’re in a unique position,” Krauss said. “There are a lot of D III programs that are similar to Greenhill or parallel.

For example, this year we have Jake Nelson going to Hendrix College.” !"#$%#&'()"#)-.)/0

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Photos courtesy of Ellie Peterson and Sophie Schwartz

ONE-TRACK MIND: Ellie Peterson, right, rides her horse, Tino, at a Dallas-area equestrian center. Peterson rides outside of school and does not play campus sports so she can focus on achieving her goal of becoming a professional equestrian. Sophie plays United States Tennis Association-sanctioned tournaments year round, but she also plays on the Greenhill team.

!"#$%#&'()*+",)-.)/0

The elite path Greenhill prides itself on having a diverse group of athletes on the field, not just students in the classroom. Some students play multiple sports to stay in shape and expand their high school experience, but other athletes focus solely on their sport and their chance to make it to a college team.

Freshman Sophie Schwartz plays tennis for Greenhill and plays year-round tournaments outside of school. Schwartz started playing tennis when she was five years old while playing other sports. She started playing exclusively tennis when she was 10.

Year-round sports like tennis require large time and financial commitments. For this reason, Schwartz remains focused on her goal of playing at the next level rather than pursuing other sports.

“It’s always been my goal to play [NCAA Division I],” said Schwartz. “I’ve had my ups and downs, and I’ve been unsure about it, but that is what I work toward.”

The journey to playing Division I sports is long and time consuming, and athletes like Schwartz would rather focus a majority of their time on preparing for that goal. There is also a risk that playing multiple sports at the same time provides more opportunities to get injured, depending on the type of sport.

Senior Kate Marano suffered a serious knee injury playing soccer during her sophomore year, but she still managed to excel at club lacrosse, school lacrosse and school field hockey. She is now committed to play Division I lacrosse at Drexel University.

“It’s important to be a multisport athlete to stay in shape for lacrosse and for college,” Marano said.

Club and school sports have different paces, styles and skill levels. As an elite athlete, Marano has been able to challenge herself further. “[The difference is] challenging, honestly,” Marano said. “But it’s given me a chance to step up and be more of a leader, even as a freshman on varsity.”

The move toward athletic specialization has seen some Greenhill students move away from the traditional school sports and devote their time to niche sports.

Senior Ellie Peterson knew that horseback riding was her passion from a young age. She commits to riding her horse, Tino, every day during the week and on the weekends. Peterson participated in volleyball during middle school, but when the time came to choose, it was not a difficult decision.

“It was an easy decision to quit volleyball, since riding was what I had always wanted to

Hark and Perryman view the decline in multi-sport athletes at Greenhill as symptomatic of a larger issue: a decline in school spirit.

“I’m not sure how much our students feel a sort of commitment to represent the school anymore,” said Perryman. “From the time I was a little boy at Greenhill, I wanted to wear the ‘G’ on my chest or on my helmet.

I was looking forward to that and it was a real honor. I played on some really bad teams, but I had fun.”

Even though not all students and faculty are involved in Greenhill athletics directly, sports competitions are still important events that unite the school.

“There are events that build community, and I think a great example is a Friday night football game,” said Hark. “It’s one of those events that pools people from lots of different corners of the school together to celebrate Greenhill. We need more of that.”

But the school-first philosophy is bumping up against a national sports culture that increasingly places a premium on highly specialized skills developed at an early age.

The hope of multisport advocates is that an early and balanced exposure to sports might encourage Greenhill students to bring their talents and love for the community to multiple high school programs.

“Youth programs like the [Hornet Sports Association] are an opportunity to get ‘Hornet Fever’ in students early,” said Hark. “We need to make sure we’re structuring [a sense of community] into our youngest kids, so they understand that value really early.”

As Greenhill administrators and coaches strive to inspire a new generation of multisport athletes, they draw on the institution’s founding principles. With optimism, they talk of establishing connections that help foster a greater sense of community.

“One of the advantages that we have is that our varsity coaches, for the most part, work with these kids from the time they’re four years old, all the way through,” Hark said. “Education in general, whether it’s academics, arts, service or athletics, is all about relationships, and ultimately it’s about learning how to be human in the world.”

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for practices. Teams have experienced a few positive COVID-19 cases, and a freshman team implemented a two-week quarantine, the club member said.

Junior Tatum Sims describes a similar situation with her club team, Summit Volleyball in Plano.

“There have been two players on my team and my coach has gotten COVID-19, and they all got it outside of the club,” said Sims. “They couldn’t come to practice until they got a negative test.”

Sims says Greenhill’s pandemic protocols have been stricter than her club team’s.

“For clubs, you don’t have to wear a mask when you play, only when you’re on the bench,” said Sims. “They allow parents in, and they allow people standing close together.”

The contrast between club and school

swimming restrictions has also been significant. Club meets with hundreds of swimmers have continued, one club athlete said.

“There is a max number of swimmers allowed at a meet, we are socially distanced by teams and you have to wear a mask until you are about to get in the water,” said freshman swimmer Eliana Campbell, who also competes with the Texas Elite team.

Masks and social distancing are mandatory at club practices and meets, but Campbell says those rules are loosely enforced by officials.

“As with any club, there have been cases, but every time we run into an obstacle, we overcome it,” Campbell said.

Unlike Greenhill soccer, where masks are required and players are socially distanced,

club competition has mostly continued in full throttle since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks are usually not required, and when they are, the rules aren’t strictly enforced, club athletes said.

There have been more positive cases in club soccer than at Greenhill, and they aren’t treated with the same amount of gravity, a club soccer player said.

Another club soccer player, junior Henry Johnson, says his team has played four or five in-state tournaments and one out-of-state tournament during the pandemic. Two outof-state tournaments have been canceled.

“When we traveled to Oklahoma, we shared hotel rooms but we didn’t eat in restaurants or leave our rooms when we were not playing,” Johnson said. “During practice and games we are not required to wear masks.”

Niche sports

do,” Peterson said. “I want to go pro, and that meant [riding] required all my time.”

Since Peterson is a nationally ranked equestrian, college riding is on her mind.

She is going to Babson College, which does not have a NCAA riding team but has a student-run club team that Peterson plans to participate in.

“Hornet Fever”

Club sports adapt to COVID-19 restrictions

Josie Arbuckle, Emma Hoffman, Andrew Mann, Ravi Vasan, Payton Blalock, Mateo Lanzillotta Staff Writers

U

pper School sports teams have confronted impediments, cancellations and delays due to COVID-19 since March, but many Greenhill athletes have continued to compete away from campus on club sports teams.

Among the teams that have kept Greenhill athletes competing through the pandemic months is Excel Volleyball Club in Carrollton.

The club is currently running with a normal practice schedule, and no tournaments have been canceled, said one Upper School athlete who plays for the club.

The club has used a mask-optional rule

Greenhill changes PE requirement for upperclassmen Max Kettles, Kaden Alibhai, Nate Rutledge Staff Writers

T

he 2020-2021 school year has brought about many scheduling changes, and athletics is no exception.

One of the biggest changes: Juniors and seniors are now required to take only one season of a sport or a single semester of a physical education (PE) class, as opposed to two trimesters during previous school years.

“We decreased the PE requirements to better serve everyone and give more sustainable flexibility,” Head of Athletics and Physical

Education Jarrett Shine said.

Among the benefits of the change will be less congestion in the High Performance Center (HPC), especially given pandemic restrictions, allowing for more structured workouts during the afternoon, Shine said. One-sport athletes will be able to focus more on their specialty, but “students can and are encouraged to still come play for multiple teams they’re interested in,” Shine said.

The change will also reduce the studentto-faculty ratio in PE classes, Shine said.

Junior William Langdoc swam for Greenhill and took the PE class Total Body Fitness (TBF) as an underclassman. With the

changed requirements, Langdoc has dropped TBF and is focused only on swimming.

“The time in TBF did not really help me with swimming,” Langdoc said.

This year, in addition to TBF, Yoga, Dance and Tutorial, Upper School students can choose from the following PE classes: Foundation of Lifetime Fitness; Group Fitness and Workout Fitness. The added classes are offered during a variety of periods during the day.

The PE requirement for freshmen and sophomores is two seasons of sports, two semesters of athletics or some combination of the two.

Freshman Ava Spence took Foundation

of Lifetime Fitness in the fall and plans to run track and field this spring.

“When I become an upperclassman, I will probably only do either PE or track, but not both,” Spence said.

The new requirements could have another benefit: teams will be composed more of student-athletes that are on the team because they enjoy the sport rather than attempting to fulfill a graduation requirement, Shine said.

“Those that were forced to be on a team to fulfill their PE requirements may be good for numbers but not necessarily good for the actual team,” Shine said.

17 Ever Evergreen Chaotic winter sports season concludes

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Stephanie Rojas, Helina Tedros Staff Writers

W

ith COVID-19 quarantines and cancellations disrupting winter athletics, season-ending Southwest Preparatory Conference tournaments have been set aside for manageable formats as a challenging season comes to an end.

The Greenhill swim team was the only winter team to compete in something resembling a typical SPC championship tournament, but not before inclement weather forced two postponements. The tournament was originally scheduled to get underway Feb. 11, but two snow storms forced another delay before the tournament got underway on Feb. 24.

The swimming SPC was a scaled-down version of the traditional tournament, with the competition split into North and South Zone championships. Greenhill swimmers competed against local rivals such as Hockaday School, Episcopal School of Dallas, Fort Worth Country Day and other independent schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

the

Throughout the season, swimmers practiced new COVID-19 protocols, which are especially important during competition.

This year, the championship tournament was broadcast on a livestream feed for both swimming and diving.

“Needing to cancel meets for one reason or another has been challenging, but we are trying to do anything we can so that the kids can have as close to [a] sort-of-normal season as possible,” varsity swimming coach Patti Monzingo said before the season-ending tournament.

Both boys and girls soccer teams are adopting a points system to crown an unofficial SPC champion, with one title to be awarded in the North Zone and one in the South Zone. Each team in the area must play a certain number of games to qualify for the championship: four for girls and five for boys, team members said.

Under the agreed-upon system, three points will be awarded for each win, one point for a tie and zero for a loss. Each team’s point total will be divided by the number of games played, and the team in each zone with

Sports

the highest points-per-game average will be awarded the championship.

“I just want all the players, especially our seniors, to go out feeling really positive about their experience this season,” varsity girls soccer coach Laura Flanagan said.

The boys and girls basketball teams are deciding season championships based on conference games, which are played between SPC North Zone teams throughout the winter season. The team with the best winning percentage in their respective zone, with at least five games played, will be crowned the winner.

“The game minimum is there to ensure a team that went 1-0 and beat the worst team in the conference doesn’t win over a team that goes 5-1 and loses to one of the best teams,” senior Reed Elphingstone said.

While players and coaches are disappointed that the winter season won’t culminate in a typical tournament-style championship, athletes are keeping positive attitudes and trying to make the most of an unprecedented time.

“I’m trying to be as excited about things

Photo courtesy of Greenhill Athletics

MASK ON, GAME ON: The boys basketball team plays a COVID-19 mandated game against Cistercian Preparatory School.

as possible and stay hopeful throughout the season, because obviously COVID-19 has made things unpredictable,” senior Kristal Crockett-Rodgers said. !"#$%&'()*+,%-##.%/"0)#(,%!#0"%1"23"2(% #04%56"27%82#0)+%#9+:%;:0(2*3'("4%(:%($"%+(:27<

Spring sports begin preseason amid pandemic Hanlon Shedd, Emily Quinn Staff Writers

S

pring athletics is facing many of the same restrictions and uncertainties as fall and winter sports as the season officially gets underway after mid-February snow and ice storms.

“We’re doing everything we can to work together to set up small three or four team meets, so we can really control who’s there and make sure everyone’s following the same procedures,” track and Stacey Johnson field coach Stacey Johnson said.

!

I am very optimistic about this season, but we don’t really know what the guys are going to look like coming onto the field.”

Senior runner Clarissa Smith says she is motivated to give 110% effort to her last season.

“There’s another level of focus I’ve given to my senior year,” Smith said.

The golf team expects to face only minimal changes.

“Golf is naturally a socially-distanced sport, so tournaments and competitions Mike Krueger

have changed very little,” varsity boys coach Mike Krueger said.

Varsity boys baseball coach Troy Haugen says his team has the most talent of any he has coached since arriving at Greenhill in 2016.

“I’m going into the season as if things were normal,” Haugen said. “I know they are not, but I want to keep the kids and program in a positive mind Troy Haugen frame and moving in an upward direction.”

!

We’re doing everything we can to work together to set up small three or four team meets, so we can really control who’s there and make sure everyone’s following the same procedures.”

Senior baseball player Zachary Kennedy says he has been “working out every day and making sure [his] body is right for the season.”

Varsity boys lacrosse coach Jack Fisher is hopeful that COVID-19 will inspire his athletes to embrace new Jack Fisher leadership roles.

“I am very optimistic about this season, but we don’t really know what the guys are going to look like coming onto the field,”

Fisher said.

Boys tennis coach Scott Cotton says he has been working with Head of Athletics and Physical Education Jarett Shine as well as varsity girls Scott Cotton head coach Lauren Nicholson to set health and safety protocols for tennis.

Softball coach Monica Stephens says a

lack of players will prevent her from fielding a varsity team, so she will be focusing on the Middle School squad.

“We have an amazing group of young ladies in the Middle School program that will pair up well next year with Monica Stephens

the girls that did sign up,” Stephens said.

18 Views

Evergreen Ever the

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

How to be successful in Biochemistry (post-AP) Raag Venkat Editor-in-Chief

O

ut of only four post-Advanced Placement classes offered in the Upper School, Biochemistry is one of the most rigorous courses a Greenhill student can take.

Biochemistry is a one-semester postAP course that encompasses a broad range of scientific queries and serves as a foundation for careers in any field pertaining to biology or chemistry. Students explore the molecular and chemical basis for the changes occurring in living cells; the difficulty of material is equivalent to that of a course taken by college juniors.

A Biochemistry student must complete either AP Biology or AP Chemistry and have departmental approval to sign up for the course. The course provides a pathway for students to further explore several of the key topics covered in those classes.

Biochemistry involves critical readings and discussions, instructor-guided and inquiry-based laboratory activities, and applications with projects involving the isolation and characterization of proteins.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Biochemistry students learned to write persuasive scientific articles rather than pursue lab work as their final project.

We’ve asked some Biochemistry alumni about the class, and here is what we learned: What topics should you have a solid foundation in going into the course?

“Going into Biochem, you should have a strong foundation in both biology and chemistry topics. This includes— but probably isn’t limited to—kinetics, equilibrium and protein dynamics. The Biochemistry units this year were split into three parts: molecular components of cells, proteins and protein dynamics. You

should try to review these topics and the ones suggested above during the summer before Biochem so you are prepared for the readings and fast pace of the course.”

– senior Anagha Gouru

importance of cleanliness and precision in biology. This along with learning how to operate a number of different machines to identify samples.”

– Michael Rayburn ’20

Any tips to fully grasp the textbook readings in preparation for class discussions?

“Readings are so important in Biochemistry because we learn new material fast. My recommendations are to start the reading on weekends before we start the class discussions during the week because I found myself really busy during school weeks. The best way to practice with the concepts from the assigned readings are to do the suggested homework problems at the end of the chapter. They have application and synthesis questions that really prepare you for quizzes and tests that require you to expand upon your learning to answer problems.”

– senior Jung Min Yean

Thoughts about the “Journal Club” in Biochemistry?

“I loved the Journal Club. Rarely do we ever get to engage in academics beyond what is ‘concrete,’ and exploring novel areas of biology was eye-opening. I read and presented on an article titled ‘Mechanism of Eccentric Cardiomyocyte Hypertrophy Secondary to Severe Mitral Regurgitation.’

In summary, it is about the mechanisms that the heart uses to regain functionality after damage, whether that be from a heart attack, or in this study’s case, a cut to a particular place in the heart. Without the Journal Club I wouldn’t be able to have an early introduction to higher academia that I know that I will encounter in the future.

Through reading and analyzing the paper, I learned invaluable ways of thinking about data, biology and research that I know will serve me well in the future.”

– senior Victoria Le

How did you prepare for quizzes and unit tests? What study techniques did you find helpful?

“To study for tests and quizzes, I would use all the resources I had by printing out the slides before class and taking notes on the lecture slides themselves. We also had a great support system in class; I think we were close, and my classmates were a very helpful resource. I found using a mixture of class resources like the textbook in combination with online videos and class lectures the best way to study. Also, there are so many practice questions available that can solidify understanding.”

– senior Aminah Asghar What kind of lab work did you do in the course? What skills did you learn from them?

“A lot of what I learned was the

What advice would you give to current juniors who are thinking of taking this course next year?

“For the juniors taking Biochem next year, I would highly recommend them to take the class if they really want to learn more and have hands-on lab experience about the topics we learned in both biology and chemistry. Sometimes you can feel discouraged by how difficult the material is, but every challenge in learning in this class was also really fun. The information showed me a new perspective for experimentation and science.”

– senior Kaylee Chien

Editorial: Campus COVID-19 guidelines should be strictly enforced as more students return

J

an. 19 saw the official return of all Upper School students who chose to resume in-person classes after four months of alternating weeks at home and on campus.

As friends saw each other in person for the first time in months, people flooded into the Student Center, with clusters of Class of ’21 members grabbing their senior blankets and cups of hot chocolate.

While the beginning of the semester was a moment of celebratory connection for ex-hybrid learners, it also set a strong tone of casual adherence to pandemic protocols. Nearly a month later, many Greenhill students aren’t comprehending safety guidelines, and it seems that few consequences are being dished out to those students.

With the significant increase in the number of students coupled with the necessary decreasing of distance, in-person learners—as well as teachers and faculty— are at a much greater risk of contracting COVID-19 than they were during the first semester. While some classes had less than 20% of their students at a time physically in class during hybrid learning, many classes now have over half of their students in person.

This increased risk of transmission necessitates stricter and more careful adherence to mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines. But as the risk has increased, many students aren’t reflecting that in their safety protocols, with some becoming increasingly careless now that they’re finally able to hang out side by side with many of their friends on the opposite side of the surname alphabet.

Students are entirely responsible for their actions; however, the same students who have repeatedly violated health guidelines continue to share in-person classes with students and teachers who are trying to maintain their safety to the fullest extent. As the second semester has progressed, the students standing two feet away from their friends or classmates and the students repeatedly forgetting to put their masks back on as they cross a room have seemingly seen very little consequence.

And yet, Greenhill has allowed these same students to remain on campus, furthering the risk of COVID-19 transmission already posed by allowing this many students to return to campus.

However, steps have been taken since the semester began. Advisers have received

Our Editorial Policy

national and international events through articles and editorials written and edited by students.

The Evergreen welcomes letters and emails from readers. We reserve the right to edit submissions for accuracy, grammar and length. The Evergreen will not publish material that we judge to be libelous or obscene, invades privacy or constitutes hate speech.

Anonymous letters will not be published.

The Staff Editorial represents the opinion of The Evergreen staff, not necessarily that of Greenhill School.

The Evergreen is an independent, studentrun newspaper serving the community of Greenhill School. It is printed six times during the school year. Print circulation is 1,000 copies. Past issues are archived at issuu.com/ ghevergreen.

The Evergreen staff upholds a code of ethics that values honesty, integrity, accuracy and responsibility. Our mission is to help the local community interpret campus, local,

the names of students that repeatedly and carelessly violate social distancing; however, what truly matters is what happens with those names. While advisers have these names, the offending students appear to be receiving light punishments that don’t accurately reflect the gravity of their actions.

Until enough of the Greenhill—and national—population have received a vaccine so that the spread of COVID-19 is significantly curtailed, there is no compromise. Despite the longing for a “normal” senior year or friends wanting to be able to hang out close together, there should be no compromising the line on safety.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. government, doctors and health officials across the nation have repeated the same mantra: wear a mask, socially distance and wash your hands. To compromise on any of these pieces is to risk the lives of those who, because of personal or familial health risks, don’t have the liberty to go to school or hang out with their friends.

It’s the job of Greenhill to tightly enforce these rules—not only for teachers, administrators and other students, but for the country as well.

the Ever Evergreen staff Editors-in-Chief Leah Nutkis Raag Venkat

Executive Editor Lane Herbert

Managing Editors Cam Kettles Sarah Luan

Chief Section Editor Sumana Kethu

Associate Editors Saara Bidiwala Emma Nguyen

News Editor Nate Stitt

Views Editor Diane Lin

Features Editor Khushi Chhaya

Arts Editors Isabel Martinez Valerie Xu

Sports Editor Avery Franks

Backpage Editor Chloe Wetzler

Staff Writers Ria Agarwal Kaden Alibhai Josie Arbuckle Payton Blalock Emma Hoffman Emily Hu Ava Iwakso Max Kettles Eliza Lamster Mateo Lanzillotta Sophia Li

Andrew Mann Emily Quinn Emma Rikalo Stephanie Rojas Nate Rutledge Pooja Sanghvi Hanlon Shedd Helina Tedros Jack Trimmer Ravi Vasan Kaylee Wilson

Adviser

Gregg Jones

Assistant Adviser Amy Bresie

Have a response?

Opinion?

Original idea?

Email the Editors-in-Chief nutkisl21@greenhill.org venkatr21@greenhill.org

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We pledge to correct our errors. To request a correction or clarification, please email Gregg Jones:

Business inquiries should be directed to Spencer Jacobs: jacobss22@greenhill.org

jonesg@greenhill.org

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Rants

&

Evergreen Ever the

Views

19

Raves

RAVE to the number of four-day weeks we’ve had. While

RANT to the lack of senior speeches this year. A couple

the recent snowstorm has meant that some of the four-day weeks in April will be turned into five-day weeks, less school = more sleep = happier me. It’s as simple as that.

of years ago it seemed like we always had senior speeches.

This year, we’ve had a grand total of two. Seniors! We want to hear your advice and embarrassing stories, even virtually!

RANT to being forced to have my camera on when I’m working out on Microsoft Teams. There is no more effective way to make me feel like I’m out of shape than the thought of all my classmates watching me flop around out of breath.

RAVE to pets! The best feeling is when your classmate’s pet

RAVE to Ms. Shuman having laptop chargers for us to use.

RAVENT to the change to a block schedule. I love all of

When everything has to be done on a laptop, and Microsoft Teams sucks the life and soul out of my computer’s battery, the readily available chargers are very much appreciated.

pops its head in to say hi during a class. It’s also a great way to get a break while everyone is distracted. Shout out to all the cats that keep wandering in front of laptop cameras.

my newfound free time, but only having class two or three times a week for 80 minutes at a time is making some of my classes, especially calculus, harder than they need to be.

RAVE to COVID-19 vaccines. It is so exciting to see that front-line workers and high-risk individuals are able to get vaccinated, including some students and faculty at Greenhill!

We are one step closer to the end of this mess!

RANT to being broadcast on the board during class as a remote learner. I’m certain that no one in the room, from my teachers to my classmates, enjoys going through class with my pixelated face blown up on the whiteboard.

RAVENT to College Board canceling SAT Subject Tests.

On one hand, my summer plans have been cleared. On the other hand, AP exams are more important now, which means everyone will be even more stress come May.

20 Backpage

Evergreen Ever the

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

PFIZER V. MODERNA A LOOK AT THE FOREFRONT OF AMERICA’S COVID-19 VACCINES

As the United States approaches the first anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, two vaccines have received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. While both are effective against the virus, they are different. Here’s a comparison of the two vaccines. $ $@$;#.,01$ 1,;#$>B;=$<#$=/C#0$D,($<,="$:/..+0#;$=,$<#$DBEEF$#D) D#.=+:#A$!"#$%&:;3%5<=#,>?%+"&()4&@,4%5)(&(5%&7,1"& %N%+1#-%9&(&6(1#%)1&'0.1&5%+%#-%&1F,&4,.%.&,D&%#1"%5&-(++#)%& 1,&7%&65,1%+1%4C&O,5&:;3%5<=#,>?%+"9&1"#.&.%+,)4&.",1&'0.1& +,'%&PL&4(*.&(Q%5&1"%&;5.19&F"#$%&D,5&@,4%5)(&1"%&#)1%5-($& #.&PR&4(*.C&?"%&.1(88%5%4&4,.%.&($$,F&D,5&1"%&7,4*S.&#''0)%& .*.1%'&1,&65,6%5$*&(4T0.1& 1,&1"%&65,40+1#,)&,D& ()1#7,4#%.C

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Graphics by Sarah Luan and Chloe Wetzler