THE REVOLUTION OF ’96
“If I had to pick a single overarching takeaway from the program,” says Bowen, “it would be an insight into the grand interconnectedness of things, something that’s uniquely evident in cities.”
“We are continually introducing new projects like these and then modifying them based on what works best,” says Erica Chapman F’99, Co-Director of CITYterm. “Innovation is built into the bones of the program.”
Through the Neighborhood Study—another mainstay over the decades—students immerse themselves in a single neighborhood for a week, researching every aspect of its identity: its commercial activity and history, architecture, culture, and street life.
Those who have taken part in CITYterm over the years speak of its impact in powerful terms. “It was my first extended exposure to a community of peers who were intellectually curious and equally interested in a rich conversation about ideas and art,” says Campbell-Holt, who today heads an independent theater company. “I can’t tell you how much that meant.”
“Your challenge is to develop a deep understanding of a neighborhood,” says Adrienne Campbell-Holt S’97, who took part in CITYterm in its very first year. “You are working to articulate the logic of that neighborhood. It’s such an ambitious goal for high school students—especially in our case, as we were focusing on Chinatown, and as non-Chinese speakers, interacting almost entirely with people who spoke only Cantonese or Mandarin.” In case it’s not evident, another theme inspiring much of CITYterm is a commitment to nudge students beyond their comfort zone. In a more recent neighborhood-focused project, students have been exploring areas within the South Bronx, researching housing, education, transportation and more. They are then assigned an undeveloped lot and charged with designing a new use for it. After meeting with local residents, conducting research and completing designs, they present their work to a group of architecture and city planning professionals.
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Bowen agrees: “You are living and learning with 30 of the most exceptional people you will ever meet. That means just having bagels together in the morning is a memorable experience. It means that riding the Metro-North train and talking for a half hour on the way into Grand Central becomes an experience that stays with you and changes you.” “I took so much from the program,” she concludes, “from interviewing skills to empathy. I learned so many things and so many different ways to think.” Anna Sobel, CITYterm F’97, Masters ’99, another alum of the program, sums it up this way: “It transformed my life. It made me trust myself as a learner and thinker in the world.”