March 2013 Issue

Page 1

the harvard-westlake

CHRONICLE Los Angeles • Volume XXII • Issue VI • March 13, 2013

New president meets students, promises changes By Michael Rothberg

PHOTOS BY JACK GOLDFISHER

HAND IN HAND: Top left, Robert Lee ’14 and Andy Arditi ’14 perform at the vigil. Top right, Darrell Carr sings The Lord’s Prayer, beside his wife. Bottom center, Swim Coach Jon Carroll bows his head.

Justin’s Legacy

After-school arts, cardiac screening for athletes and a cyber-campaign for world peace memorialize the life of Justin Carr ’14. By Michael Sugerman The sudden death of Justin Carr ’14, who died of cardiomyopathy during swim practice Feb. 22, has led the administration to convene a panel of medical experts to consider a detection program for heart defects in student athletes, President Tom Hudnut said. “We are going to see if we can maybe be leaders in that field as we have been with concussions and other things,” he said. “This would certainly be a lasting impact.” Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas said the panel will identify potential ways to screen and test students to make participation in sports safer. Carr’s death has prompted not only further study of the ailment that may have killed him, but also support for his

extracurricular the quad March 4 loves: the visual and and 5 to support the performing arts. fund. “I want to be Three weeks afable to give back to ter his death, Carr those less fortunate is still, as Hudnut than me by creating put it, a “ubiquian after school protous” presence on gram in neighborcampus. hoods where kids Chanell Thomnathanson ’s are not exposed to as ’13, who sang in Justin Carr ’14 the visual and perChamber Singers forming arts,” Carr wrote in and competed on the swim January for a summer pro- team with Carr, helped pull gram application. Carr out of the pool when he His family has set up the became unresponsive during Justin Eugene Carr Memorial practice. Now, she not only Fund for this purpose. Susan wears a “Smile for Justin” Carr said that Harvard-West- wristband, but also a heartlake students might be able to shaped locket with a lock of volunteer for those programs. his hair inside. A group of Carr’s friends “I feel like he’s always with and members of the Black me,” she said. “I know that his Leadership Awareness and body isn’t here, but that locket Culture Club sold turquoise is my physical proof that he “Smile for Justin” bracelets, hasn’t left me and he is still baked goods, and BLACC garments (designed by Carr) in • Continued on page A8

Rick Commons, the next president of Harvard-Westlake, visited campus on Monday, and though he was glad to see that the school hadn’t changed much since he left 15 years ago, he said that it, like all schools, needs to innovate in order to thrive. Commons, who is currently the Headmaster of Groton School in Massachusetts, will be replacing Thomas Hudnut next fall as the second president of Harvard-Westlake. “[Harvard-Westlake’s] got to change,” he said. “No place that stays the same is going to be successful in the long run. I think that schools have been able to defy that logic for a long time. Online learning, as an example, is a change that is so dramatic and so profound, in the ways in which millions and millions of people are learning around the world, schools like Groton and Harvard-Westlake have to deal with it in a way we didn’t know in the past.” At Groton, Commons introduced an experimental program to encourage education in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, in which a select group of ninth graders were chosen to take a double period class called “STEM Foundations I,” in lieu of traditional science or

Coldwater Canyon will be closed from Mulholland Drive to Ventura Boulevard from Saturday, March 23 through Thursday, April 25. The closure will last from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every weekday and from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturdays, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power representative Greg Bartz said. Students who drive to

school, parents and faculty will receive placards allowing them to access Coldwater Canyon during the closure, Head of Campus Operations J.D. DeMatte said. During the hours of the closure, drivers who leave Harvard-Westlake can only head north toward Ventura and will not be able to make a left out of the main driveway or Hacienda Drive. During the month-long closure, one lane will remain open for emergency vehicles

and residents will have access passes. Additional street closures may occur at various points, Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken told students in an email. Since Saturday, March 9, drivers have not been able to turn left from Coldwater Canyon onto Ventura Boulevard from either the north or south side of the intersection. • Continued on page A8

• Continued on page A10

SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE

COMMONS SENSE: Incoming President Rick Commons speaks to the junior prefects and visits the Kutler Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, a building that did not exist when he left 15 years ago.

LADWP to close Coldwater Canyon INSIDE By Claire Goldsmith

math courses. “[At Groton,] we have taken the plunge, and are trying, and probably in certain places failing. And if we’re not going to fail, we are not going to be able to learn and innovate. That’s the hardest thing for a school like Harvard-Westlake,” Commons said. Commons plans to encourage innovation in education as president, by maintaining the 1 to 1 laptop initiative and experimenting with new programs. In the morning, Commons took a tour around campus led by prefects Mazelle Etessami ’14, Oliver Goodman-Waters ’14, Henry Hahn ’14 and Ashley Sacks ’14. Commons was an English teacher, assistant dean, college counselor and soccer coach during his five-year tenure at Harvard-Westlake. Other than a few new buildings, Commons said that the school felt similar to it was when he worked there. “Happily, it doesn’t seem profoundly different. I say happily because I’ve spent the morning seeing lots of old friends,” he said. “There’s a number of faculty who were here when I was here, who are still here, and somehow still look young and vibrant, like

STRIKEOUT: Jack Flaherty ’14 pitched a no-hitter, days after Chloe Pendergast’13 did the same.

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B5 IN A TRANCE: Amateur hypnotist David Goldberg ’15 practices his hobby on fellow students.


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