Sept. 3, 2008 Lucy Jackson
Opinion A23
The Chronicle
Respect our academics, but cherish our community
W “HARVARDWESTLAKE IS A PLACE PEOPLE WANT TO COME BACK TO, A PLACE THEY MISS WHEN THEY LEAVE...”
hat set me apart at journalism camp this summer wasn’t my writing style, or my determination to walk 10 minutes to the nearest Starbucks every morning, or even my far too eager tendency to sit in the front row for every lecture and workshop, at least not initially. I was thrown into a four-story dorm with 87 journalism nerds from around the country whose backgrounds read a lot like mine, and yet as a Harvard-Westlake student, I stood out. A friend I made there, arguably far more high profile than me, having appeared on multiple episodes of MTV’s reality show “The Paper,” knew the average SAT score at our school, and asked exactly how many kids we had sent to the Ivy League last year. While she may be an extreme example, she certainly wasn’t an isolated case. Other students joked about my overachieving tendencies; aware of the breed of student Harvard-Westlake produces. It seemed that everyone recognized the name, and, for better or for worse, found it to be synonymous with high-brow intellect. What they didn’t realize, and what many don’t seem to realize, is that despite its reputation as an academic powerhouse, the school represents a remarkable community, academics aside. We may rank high up in the private school food chain when it comes to board scores and college admissions, but our community is something that we should be bragging about, too. Last year, we hit a rough patch. Commonly known as the cheating scandal, it seemed to be all that anyone could talk about for the months to follow. Those outside the school’s walls and even some within them were quick to place blame on Harvard-Westlake for its lack of community. With such a competitive atmosphere, how could students feel an attachment to their school strong enough to be discouraged from cheating? The word community gets thrown around a lot at Harvard-Westlake, especially after events like that. The rant about the highpressure environment is a common one
Andrew lee/chronicle
among students, and maybe they’re right. Maybe the administration does care more about their academic profile than about fostering community, and maybe students don’t feel the attachment to their school that they should. For my part though, I think they’re wrong. I have a friend who just left for college. She misses a lot about LA, but it often comes back to Harvard-Westlake, which we commonly refer to as her boyfriend. While attending the school, she fell under the category of people who firmly believed we lacked a community. In fact, when I told her I was writing this column, she disagreed with the fundamental idea. Yet, she still misses the school, and I don’t think it’s the stress she can’t live without. From what I’ve seen, she’s not the only one who suffers from Harvard-Westlake withdrawal. Every year before any big break, recent graduates come back to school to see old teachers and underclassmen friends. Harvard-Westlake is a place people want to come back to, a place they miss when they leave, and that can’t be attributed to anything other than the community students felt while here. Not only do students feel an emotional attachment while attending the school, but
Ashley Halkett
Listen to the majority
O
ur school prides itself on integrating students into the system, allowing students to get involved, telling us that it is, in fact, our school. Take the Honor Board, for example. Though students are not completely in charge of it by any means, it makes them players in an important process and respectfully grants them a say in the difficult choices the school is sometimes faced with. At least, that is what it’s supposed to do. So then why, after faculty members and students deliberated for hours after school, sacrificing free time and significant peace of mind, was the decision to readmit the students involved in the Middle School drug incident (the opposite conclusion reached by the Honor Board) ultimately made by the administration? The Honor Board said in its recommendation in May that this was “one of the hardest and most agonizing decisions” it ever had to make, one reached after “extensive discussion and debate about the well-being of the School.” While I’m sure this input was appreciated, it was disregarded and effectively ignored, despite the fact that it was a collective decision made after days of endless discussion and debate. I cannot truly endorse or oppose the administration’s choice to readmit the expelled students because I do not personally know any of the students or what really happened. But I believe it is wrong for a decision with so much weight to
it persists well after they’ve left Coldwater. Regardless of the way we tend to bash the competitive environment, we all still feel linked to Harvard-Westlake, and that’s a more profound example of community than most. We’ve let others dictate to us whether or not we have a community; that because we have high powered, ambitious students, we all must despise each other. There must be so much negative feeling that we all decide to cheat on tests or violate the honor code in a number of different ways. One can’t deny that Harvard-Westlake’s students feel pressure; it’s a given in the academic environment that the school provides, but I don’t think high academic expectations and school community are mutually exclusive. It’s no secret that we have our faults. Last year was a better example of that than most the evidence is splashed on front page of The Chronicle’s February issue. But I think it’s time to move on. It’s easy to dwell on the past, to attribute the scandal or any other of the negative events to the school itself. But how does that help? We need to focus on building up our community, rather than doubting its existence. I’d argue we have a pretty good head start.
“It’s great that our school asks for students’ (and faculty members’) opinions, but it’s pointless if the administration then disregards them.”
rest completely in the hands of the administration without input from those who actually attend Harvard-Westlake and are thus more than capable of judging what is best for their school. And if this arrangement is non-negotiable, then I believe it is wrong to waste the time of many people who were asked to think long and hard about a suitable resolution that was eventually entirely overlooked. Not just in this case, but in all cases. It’s great that our school asks for students’ (and faculty members’) opinions, but it’s pointless if the administration then disregards them. Life-determining decisions should not be left up to a couple of crazy kids. That’s why the Honor Board consists of many students and a handful of teachers: there is a surplus of thoughts and opinions and feelings that will smooth into a reasonable conclusion and eliminate the possibility of an overly drastic and radical sentence (see Federalist No. 10, James Madison). I can also see why the power of absolute determination could be given to the administration as a sort of tie-breaker if the decision were extremely close, vis-à-vis the Vice President’s duties in the Senate. But if the Honor Board comes to a consensus and agrees together on a certain course of action, which Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts acknowledged in her reply to the Honor Board’s decision, writing that the “majority of the Honor Board members… believes that the original transgressions warranted
permanent expulsion,” then why can their decision still be overruled? Either way, the school should not have asked the Honor Board for advice that would not be followed, that would be responded to with a sort of thanks, but no thanks. The Honor Board did not ask for this case. It was given to them to fret and lose sleep over, but when they finally reached a resolution, their decision was snatched back, invalidated and reversed by same group that originally assigned it to them. If the Honor Board and the Code it represents are the highly respected, invaluable institutions they are supposed to be, then the Board deserved better from the administration: if it didn’t plan on following the recommendations, then why ask so many people to agonize over them? The school asked for the Honor Board’s time, effort and opinion. It should have listened.
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