The Hill News: Issue 9

VOLUME 112, ISSUE 9

April 16, 2015

Governor Wolf ’67 Honored By 6th Form SUEDA BOLUKOGLU ‘16

Tom Wolf ’67, elected in November as the governor of Pennsylvania, received the 6th Form Leadership Award at a ceremony Thursday night in the CFTA. Headmaster Zach Lehman called Wolf “an exemplary leader, a responsible role model for our students” in his remarks.

George P. “Bud” Bissell ’36, a banker and supporter of The Hill’s squash program, was also honored at the ceremony as the posthumous recipient of the Leadership Award. Bissell’s aged widow, Gina Bissell, was there with her daughter and son-in-law, Lesley and Joseph Hoopes, to accept the award in Bissell’s honor. Bissell died in 1989. Mrs. Bissell asked that the audience microphone be brought to her seat, where she stood with a little assistance from her daughter and thanked the school for the award on her husband’s behalf.

PAST RECIPIENTS 1999: Norman Pearlstine ’60 2000: F. Barton Harvey III ’67 2001: Sandy Warner ‘64 2002: S. Roger Horchow ’45 2003: James A. Baker III ’48 2004: Tobias Wolff ‘64, 2005: Peter S. Rummell ‘63 2006: L. Baird Tipson Ph.D. ‘61 2007: Lamar Hunt ‘51 (posthumous recipient) 2008: The “1399” Club 2009: Bernard Chan ‘83 2010: Charles A. Frank III ‘59 2011: Lewis E. Lehrman ‘56 2012: David Paton M.D. ‘48 2013: Oliver Stone ‘64 2014: James O. Cromwell ‘58

THEHILL.ORG

Tom Wolf ‘67 shared the lessons he learned while at Hill and how they have guided him through life.

After being introduced by girls’ head prefect, Lizzie Porterfield ’15, Wolf came to the lectern and offered the audience a short catalogue of life lessons he said he learned or became aware of during the two years he spent here after arriving from his home in York County in the fall of 1965. He spoke with a lighthearted tone and made the occasional self-deprecating joke (“The photograph outside here? That’s to prove that I once had hair.”)

The thrust of his talk, however was somewhat more serious. He named five prominent values that The Hill had either inspired or affirmed in him. “Life is an essay question,” Wolf began, saying that anyone who

thinks of it as a multiple-choice question or a rightor-wrong answer has oversimplified it. It may have been a reference to the much-discussed and dissected political divide in Washington and the country, which has played out in the stark divide between President Obama and what often seems to be knee-jerk opposition to his policy initiatives by a Republican Congress.

Like the president, Wolf is a Democratic chief executive who must try to work with a majority Republican legislature.

See Wolf, Page 3

Back on the Hill for a Second Look On April 6th, our last revisit day, the News interviewed accepted students who were coming back to see the school.

About What were your first impresions of The Hill School?

Rita Vo

Paige Swart

Vietnam, incoming 3rd former, Boarding Student

Pottstown, incoming 4th former, Day Student

The Hill, it makes you feel like you’re at home already. And I think that’s a good thing, that everyone is very welcoming for you to come.

Will what you have seen today influence I actually already chose to go to The Hill, even though I got accepted to six your decision? schools.

Ethan Johnson Somerset New Jersey, incoming 3rd former, Boarding Student

I loved it. I think being here, experienc- When you compare it to many different ing an actual day is reassuring. schools, you see the sense of community that you guys have here.

Definitely. I think being able to experi- Yes, it will. I still have some revisit days ence what the day here is like - it attract- to go to, but Hill is very high on my list ed me. I just can’t wait to be a part of it. of schools.

Did anything stand out about Hill compared I think the facilities and educations here. The concept of your seated lunch was really I would say the sense of community. Evto other schools you might have visited?

You guys are very strong in arts and sports neat. It’s really unique. eryone knows each other here, and I think and a lot of things, a lot more than others. that’s important for every high school.

What was your favorite part about Revisit Day?

I think the people here.

I think my favorite part was probably the seated lunch. It was just so fun to be with everyone and all together.

Eating in the Dining Hall.

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VOLUME 112, ISSUE 9

The Two New Games in Town Rowing: Coach Stephen Ciraolo Equestrian: Coach Tracy McGrath HILL NEWS What is your experience with rowing?

STEPHEN CIRAOLO I got into rowing, into coaching, up at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts, where I was for 14 years, because I had a smidgen of rowing on my resume.

I got into it late. My experience before that was primarily Masters Rowing, which is a nice way of saying rowing outside of college. I was not a collegiate oarsmen. I came at this coaching business as a teacher first. I always consider myself primarily as a teacher and that includes on the water.

NEWS What does a competitive crew regatta look like?

CIRAOLO On land, lots of tents for the spectators. That’s a whole aspect of rowing culture in and of itself with the tent and the food and all that. On the water, it could be dual racing, where you have two programs racing down a race course, or large multi-boat racing which is usually up to six boats across. Different strategies apply to each one. It is a sport where the actual competition is very short, a boys race might go for less than six minutes.

Rowing is not a terrific spectator sport because most spectators don’t know what they are looking at.

NEWS Who will the crew team compete with?

CIRAOLO There are two components to what I think it would look like. We would race our natural competition, who are the other MAPL programs. There are four other MAPL schools that row: Hun, Blair, Peddie, and Lawrenceville. Also natural because it’s in the area, and because it’s very fast, is Philadelphia. Philadelphia is where the racing happens. When you get to “Cities” at the end (of the season), it’s all seeded. Even though it’s called “Cities”, it attracts people from around the region. The standards are very high because the programs are large and there’s a depth of coaching. There will be limited racing this year, we’ll do a little bit in May. NEWS What’s it like to coach a program in its first year?

CIRAOLO In the winter, I felt very keenly the absence of experienced kids. On the other hand, I was really impressed with the kids that I had. I had 14 kids this winter and they did everything I asked them to do. Every week almost everybody got better. When you have experienced kids in a winter training program, they are going to work hard because they have been in the water. My guys didn’t have that, they’ve never been in the water. They did all this work on some kind of mystical faith. ‘Ciraolo says that this is going to help us to row, and we believe him. But in addition to that, we think it will be fun.’

NEWS Will you actively recruit talent?

CIRAOLO If the school is committed to rowing and we become an official interscholastic sport, yes. I think that the the chief value of rowing is that it will appeal to kids who may have latent talent that hasn’t come out yet.

NEWS What does crew practice look like?

CIRAOLO There is a technical component, which usually means getting better on the water and becoming more efficient. The other part of it is to get more fit and more accustomed to pain. Everyone has a point at which they will quit, you are pushing this moment of quitting further and further away.

NEWS Where will the team row competitively and practice?

CIRAOLO The future of Hill Rowing is, in fact, some stretch of this river nearby (the Schuylkill). It could be at Hannover street, that’s where we are rowing now, out of Coventry Rowing Center/Owen J Roberts High School’s club. Can we race on the river? I don’t know the answer to that quite yet, we are going to have to see how the water levels are and a bunch of other factors. It’s more likely that we will race at other venues and down on the lower Schuylkill at the Fairmont Park course.

NEWS What prompted the start of a crew team?

CIRAOLO We have a trustee who has an interest in rowing. The headmaster also has an interest and the energy to say ‘let’s try it’, and it happens that they have somebody (me) who has been a crew coach for a long time.

NEWS What do you hope to accomplish in the first season?

CIRAOLO Everybody has to have a solid understanding of the technical aspects of rowing and a commitment to the culture of continuous physical improvement, to the culture of pain.

NEWS What are the long term goals of crew?

CIRAOLO To get the program on a solid foundation to grow and to win the Princess Elizabeth Cup at Henley in 2025 by open water.

HILL NEWS What is your experience with equestrian?

TRACEY MCGRATH I’ve ridden my whole life — my parents bred Arabian Horses. I rode on the hunt, and I did eventing which is an Olympic sport. After graduate school I was introduced to endurance horse racing and I did that for a number of years. I had been breeding Arabian Horses and raised, competed and trained my own. One of the horses that I raised and trained was a national reserve champion in endurance horse racing. We were selected for the Pan-Am games to represent the United States.

BAILEY HARARCH PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS Describe what competitive equestrian looks like.

MCGRATH The competition season takes place in the fall or the winter. For Hill, competition will be started in the Fall with the IEA (Interscholastic Equestrian Association) and will have four levels: a beginner’s walk, trot and canter level (1), a more advanced cross-rail level (2) and two jumping levels (3&4) with the difficulty of each level increasing as you go up. You need riders who are of all different ability levels because in order to have a successful team you need to fill each of the levels. There’s a spot for everybody.

NEWS What’s it like to coach a program in its first year?

MCGRATH The first challenge was assessing what everybody’s skill levels and interests are. It has also been challenging to convince more advanced riders to participate in disciplines that they have already moved past, and also to step out of their comfort zone and try something new like eventing. It is a team sport here at Hill instead of individual competition.

NEWS What does equestrian practice include?

MCGRATH More experienced riders will practice on their own horses outside of school and just come to the events. I expect that the beginners will have a once-a-week lesson on the weekends. If they want to do more, they are welcome to, but it shouldn’t be a financial burden either. In a particular beginner lesson, the goal there is IEA, they would be given a different horse for each lesson. Each lesson would try to simulate the situation that they will face at IEA competitions.

NEWS What prompted the start of equestrian at Hill?

MCGRATH Admissions always had a lot of kids coming and looking at Hill that were surprised that Hill, as a boarding school, didn’t have an equestrian program. The schools that kids were comparing to Hill have equestrian programs. It’s also a unique sport because boys and girls, men and women compete against each other, even at the highest level of national competition. At IEA competitions, the team consists of both boys and girls. There is also a sport called the Modern Pentathlon, which is an Olympic event that consists of running, swimming, fencing, horseback riding, and target shooting.

Hill now has all the components to compete in this, and it would be kind of fun to see kids make an effort to try it in the future.

NEWS What do you hope to accomplish in the first season?

MCGRATH I would hope to do well at regionals. We have some really strong riders at the higher levels and we have more than enough kids who are interested in riding. I think we can produce a good breadth of a team. For this spring, the purpose of having equestrian as an extracurricular activity is to offer the students the opportunity to take some lessons, improve some skills, and get going now in order to prepare for competition in the fall and spring. It will get going (in terms of competition) this fall.

NEWS Does Hill have horses at a local stable? If so how many? Where are they? Do students bring their own horses?

MCGRATH The Hill itself doesn’t have any horses right now. We are partnered with Bethel Farms of Spring City, which will allow us to host competitions and use their horses. They have a set of very nice horses, and the lady that runs it is a collegiate coach. She’s plugged into the IEA community and is very experienced. It is a nice facility. This means kids don’t have to own a horse to participate, which I think is very important. There are Hill students who have their own horses, but they cannot use them in IEA competition.

NEWS Will the equestrian program cater to beginners or experienced riders?

MCGRATH The way we are organizing it offers inexperienced riders the opportunity to take more, basic riding lessons in the fall and winter to prepare them for the IEA competition. It doesn’t have to be every day, maybe once or twice a week. Since the competitions will be on weekends, the program will also allow students to participate in other school-run sports and activities. For those kids who already ride and have their own horse, the program will push them to try to reach the next level and to learn the disciplines that lead to international competition.

NEWS Who, if anyone, will equestrian compete with?

MCGRATH There are a lot of teams in Pennsylvania. For example, Linden Hall of Lititz has a team. Several schools in Virginia and Maryland have teams. In addition to that, kids who ride together at a barn can form a team, so it won’t just be schools, it will also be groups of kids who got together to make a team. I’m not sure that any MAPL schools have a team.

NEWS What does the long-term future of equestrian look like?

MCGRATH I would love to see the school own four to six horses at a barn. This would allow Hill students to try disciplines of riding other than those included in the IEA. It would also allow students to compete in the U.S. Equestrian Federation competitions that are in these Olympic disciplines.

The List THE HILL NEWS

10 Requests The Hill News has for Madi Newman when she becomes Headmaster for SWITCH Day

Editor-in-Chief: Preston Tietjen ’15 Managing Editor: Sueda Bolukoglu ’16 Design Editor: Max Holmes ‘16 Copy Chief: Monica Sager ‘17 Arts Editor: Mary Henderson ‘15 Sports Editor: Julia Hernan ’15 Editors-at-Large: Jimmy Davidson ‘16, Maddy Lutwyche ’16, Reed Bauer ‘18, Hannah Cummings ‘17, Haley Weller ‘17, Nicole Sergiwa ‘18, Geeta Sharma ‘16, Kathryn Chase ‘15, Amanda Dupell ‘17, Ejin Jeong ‘18 Photo Editor: Breana McDonald ’16 Advisers: Tony Reid ’75 and Diane Richards

1. Tell Lehman: No phone in class 2. Pimp the headmaster’s golf cart 3. Erect a water slide into the Dell 4. Bring back 6th Form privileges 5. Have lunch actually start at 12:22 6. Rename a squash court: Overholt 7. Hire Johnny McGinness as the official class bell 8. School-wide discount for all games on the App Store 9. Delete SharePoint 10. Show some faith in the SGA

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VOLUME 112, ISSUE 9

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COMMENTARY | PRESTON TIETJEN

T

he latest installment of the House Cup Challenge was supposed to have taken place when students got back from spring break with a talent show in the CFTA. The plan was that each dorm would prepare two acts to be voted on by the audience.

The winners would amass points for their dorms in the year-long event.

The event was postponed – again – because of a combination of scheduling conflicts and a lack of interest. When Brandon Jacobs, the director of student activities, sent around the latest standings in the House Cup Challenge on February 22, most students were shocked to find that their dorm had so many points, given the lack of events.

The rankings, it turns out, were determined by more than performance in competitions -- demerit count and GPA were also factored in. The only unsurprising thing about it was that Wendell and Foster were at the bottom of the standings.

We haven’t had a required schoolwide event, besides meetings, since

House of Cards

the fall term, when we had the balloon fight on the Far Fields and then the wheelbarrow race at the Lawrenceville Pep Rally. Most people couldn’t tell you who won either of those events. There have been smaller competitions, but they’ve been poorly advertised and, hence, poorly attended. Until I received Jacobs’ email, I thought the school had abandoned the House Cup Challenge.

Maybe it should have.

The school is clearly struggling with the whole idea of the House Cup Challenge, and for a good reason: there is no house system at Hill.

The house system, used by schools such as Exeter and Lawrenceville, calls for students to live in the same dorm throughout their time at the school.

Houses develop their own identities and ways of life, and students become attached to those houses and the people who live there. The competing system is the one we have here, where students move from residence to residence over their tenure, and no dorm or house develops a particular allegiance.

Students’ loyalty is to the school and the larger community, not to the place they live. We call it Hill Pride.

Now, though, we seem to have a Halfway House system. For the past year or two, banners representing each dorm have hung from the Dining Hall rafters. These things are, to put it mildly, strange. For starters, they’re all the same color, making it hard to differentiate one from the other.

They also have something resembling coats of arms, with monochromatic shields boasting arbitrary wild animals.

Wendell, where I live, is represented by a buck. That seems appropriate.

Perhaps too appropriate. But the symbol on the Rolfe flag, a girls’ dorm, appears to be a stallion on its hind legs.

Go figure. None of the symbols have any meaning that’s readily apparent.

The problem isn’t that the school has or doesn’t have a house system. It doesn’t have one, but it seems to want to act as if it does. And this institutional confusion has consequences for student life. It suppresses school spirit

instead of fostering it. No one can buy into a competition that artificially pits “houses” against each other if no one identifies with their house. And the competitions themselves are held sporadically with rules that no one seems to understand or be able to enforce.

Look no further than the water balloon fight.

The underlying problem with the House Cup Challenge is that we’re claiming to be something that we’re not -- a school with a house system. It’s the same with the paradoxical claim that Hill is “the most traditional and the most innovative” boarding school in the country. The irony here is that, in both cases, the attempt to define the school results only in creating an identity crisis.

The school has bought into its own marketing slogans. It seems to comfort itself in its bold rhetoric. But as Theodore Roosevelt said, “Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action and we have trusted only to rhetoric.”

The Artist Behind the Billboard HILL NEWS What was the original assignment that lead you to create this piece?

SEON GYOO LEE The original assignment was to create a piece to submit to the Fast Lane Arts Competition. It was an interesting project because we were given certain dimensions to work with (7”x20”).

NEWS How were you notified that you had won?

Did you realize that it meant your artwork would be placed on a billboard?

LEE After the class one day, Mrs. Nelson wanted to talked to me in the hallway. I was a little scared at first as to what the topic of the conversation would be, but she told me that I had won the contest and I was very surprised. I didn’t expect my artwork to be hung up on a billboard because I just thought I had won one of the smaller prizes in the contest. It wasn’t until I actually arrived at the final unveiling ceremony that I realized that I had won the grand prize.

NEWS How did it feel to see your art in its largerthan-life state?

LEE At the unveiling ceremony, I saw the blown up version of my artwork when the curtain dropped.

Until then, I honestly had no idea that I was the grand prize winner so I was in complete shock. I never realized how big those pictures were, so the size of the vinyl billboard surprised me for the second time.

NEWS A friend recently quoted you on Twitter saying “The fact that I can brag to my friends about

Seon Gyoo Lee’s watercolor “Jazzfest” was awarded first prize in the Fast Lane Arts Competition.

having my art on a billboard is priceless”, and yet you don’t seem like the bragging type, though correct me if I’m wrong. What did you do with the prize money?

LEE I did say that as a joke, but I don’t usually tell that to my friends all the time. I decided to donate all the prize money to the Berks Arts Council and to In Ian’s Boots. The majority of the cash prize was donated to the local non-profit charity, In Ian’s Boots because the fifth form class had recently gotten involved with supporting them. I received around $900 in total and $750 went to In Ian’s Boots. Aside from the money, I just thought that it was a great

THEHILL.ORG

opportunity to give back to the community around us and start off a wonderful relationship between the Hill School Class of 2016 and In Ian’s Boots organization.

NEWS Do you have any other concluding thoughts?

LEE I honestly didn’t think that this would be such a big deal. I am very happy to see my piece of work in the public, and I am excited for the future fifth form community service program with In Ian’s Boots.

Wolf Receives Leadership Award Wolf From Page 1 A point on the benefits of curiosity followed, especially on a day-to-day basis, and then Wolf talked about one of his hallmark values, fairness towards others.

“Our first instinct is to be fair, to reach out,” he said. “One of the things that you have to take out of here [is that] fair treatment of others leads to fair treatment of you.” This sentiment mirrored an integrity-themed talk Wolf had given at the school during a visit -- his first trip back here since he graduated -- while he was running for governor.

Wolf’s fourth and fifth points focused on method rather than morality: he encouraged students to “do the difficult thing” whenever the opportunity presented itself and argued that the harder choice would be more satisfying in the long run.

And he told students to “live life without regrets,”a philosophy partially responsible for his own venture into politics.

“I wasn’t anywhere close to being a frontrunner,” he said of the Democratic primary, in which one early poll had him receiving two percent of the popular vote, he recalled. He said running for the nomination “was something I did because I didn’t want to be on my deathbed looking at the ceiling and saying, ‘I really should have done that.’ ” A brief question-and-answer session with the students followed his speech. The questions ranged from the bizarre to the personal, and Wolf responded broadly, maintaining his relaxed, casual tone. His answers played up his ideologies or

touched on previously discussed experiences, such as his time at college and, during a year off, in the Peace Corps. In one case, he explained his views on public education -- Wolf ran on, and has pursued in office, his determination to increase state funding for public schools -- and how they correlated to his experiences at The Hill.

“I understand and appreciate the diversity of options we give and want THEHILL.ORG to give through education Gina Bissell accepted the posthumous award on her husband’s behalf. in the United States,” he said. “What we need to do as a society is to maintain collective responsibility.”

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VOLUME 112, ISSUE 9

Editorial

Hill Girls Break the Dress Code Every Day; Here’s Why

Another Change in the Rules Prompts Four Frustrated News Editors to Air Their Grievances

By BREANA MCDONALD ‘16

How do girls break the dress code? Let us count the ways. In each of the pictures above, at least one dress code rule has been violated. This is a daily and widespread occurence on Hill’s campus.

There’s No Perfect Combination

Students Should Have a Say

I have received enough emails this year alone about dress code modification because of weather, or because we aren’t “upholding” the standard, to last me for my next two years here. It’s true that we, Hill’s females, don’t follow the dress code. If it isn’t a collarless top we’re wearing, it’s a skirt that’s too short. If it’s not the lack of tights, it’s that someone is wearing leggings for the third time this week. Or maybe, it’s that a student on scholarship doesn’t have the money to afford an oxford from Ralph Lauren, J.Crew, Brooks Brothers, or any of the other high-end stores many girls buy from.

To me, the dress code is a classy tradition I’m happy to continue, especially during L’ville Weekend. When I look good, I feel good. Even beyond the academic day, I like to look nice. So the questions are: Where does the problem lie? and Why is it that so many girls refuse to follow these simple guidelines? Let’s cut to the chase: nobody cares. If a girl is wearing leggings, it’s because she didn’t feel like wearing uncomfortable dress pants. If her skirt is too short, it’s because there are zero skirts that are attractive AND meet an appropriate length. If nobody is wearing a blazer, it’s because they’re physically restricting. It’s simple.

The next question is: How do we resolve this problem? The answer will not come from the Deans or from the administration. The answer will come from us. If there were a system that allowed for the opinions of students on the dress code to be heard, we could submit a suggestion referring to the impracticality of the dress code, and there lies the resolution. The thought could then be voted on, and the dress code would be changed. No more demerits, and, most importantly, no more emails.

Hill girls seem to have more problems with dress code then the boys. Some members of the faculty can’t understand why we don’t follow the dress code. The answer is simple -it’s not important to us. While most of us look presentable, even while wearing leggings or a coat instead of a blazer, we still get called out for it. A vast majority of the teachers don’t seem to care, but there are a few who will catch you and give you demerits.

There are some parts of the dress code that we just don’t like. There are other parts we can’t afford. Whether it’s because you hate wearing tights or because you can’t afford to buy a new wardrobe when you come to Hill, you’re probably going to break the dress code. The Deans’ Office sends out email after email reminding girls about the rules, but they don’t seem to matter. Perhaps the deans should look to the piles of demerits as an indication that, despite the notifications, something more is wrong. The students should have the power to choose what they wear, or at least to share in that decision. Of course, there must be some supervision over the choices, but why discipline us when we can look perfectly presentable without heavy blazers and uncomfortable tights?

No Regard for Practicality

It’s Not the Look That Counts

The girls’ dress code has become a little too strict. It was better earlier in my time at Hill. My feeling, and the feeling of many of my schoolmates, is that the deans make decisions about what the girls should wear without any input from the girls themselves.

That’s not smart and it’s not fair. For example, when girls were allowed to wear dresses on Wednesdays, it made the day a little bit special. I miss the excitement of seeing all of my friends pick out dresses for one day of the week. Now that girls can wear dresses any day of the spring term, that feeling is gone. I used to like seeing only senior girls wearing dresses everyday in the spring. It was a senior privilege that I was looking forward to.

In addition to the change in the rules about dresses, I don’t like the change to oxford shirts. The deans say they want us to look professional, but I don’t see many professional women on the streets of New York City wearing oxfords. I see them wearing blouses, and I have a hard time understanding what is inappropriate about a conservative, tasteful blouse.

The biggest problem with the girls’ dress code is that’s it’s not practical, either in its requirements or in its enforcement.

It will never be practical to alter the dress code midway through the year, or even between school years, without significant notice. Upperformers will always resist having to buy new clothes just because of a slight rule change. Underformers will always resist having to adhere to rules that aren’t followed by their older role models.

It will never be practical to force students to wear uncomfortable combinations, like a heavy coat over a blazer, and then expect them not to wear a coat in the dining hall when it’s forty degrees in that very room.

It will never be practical to have male teachers enforce a non-uniform dress code for teenage girls.

It will never be practical to force female students to dress more restrictively than their female teachers or to wear outdated styles.

The bottom line is that the dress code is unrealistic. Teenage girls will not adhere to a dress code we do not believe is attractive, comfortable, and within our price range, and faculty will never enforce a dress code that is so widely breached and so unnecessarily pedantic.

My first impression of Hill’s dress code was through my older sister. I distinctly remember waiting outside dressing room after dressing room at the Coventry Mall the summer before her freshman year as she tried to find appropriate dress pants and blazers.

At the time, I was annoyed that I was being dragged along, but I could sense her frustration as well. It was difficult to find clothing that my sister liked and that conformed to the dress code, especially when working within a budget. The summer before my third form year, I went on a similar -- but shorter -- shopping trip with my mother. Even though my sister and I are not exactly the same size, she passed down all of her Hill attire to me. These hand-me-downs were definitely in dress code, especially the skirts. If it’s four inches above the knee on her, it’s probably four inches below the knee on me.

But then, midway through my Hill career, the dress code changed. The school announced that “[t]ights must be worn with skirts during the winter term and upon notification for certain events,” and a “collared blouse” became a “collared oxford shirt.” A lot of my clothing was suddenly obsolete, and I was told I had to buy clothing that I won’t wear after graduation.

So instead of complying, I asked questions. I was told that the tights rule was implemented not to cover girls’ legs, as I thought, but instead to add a layer of material between a skirt and a girl’s underwear, especially the shorter skirts. But why was it so important that my skirt not be too short? And who was doing the looking, and the deciding?

The Handbook says that the length of a Hill girl’s skirt must not be shorter than four inches above the knee. How does one measure that? Should I get a ruler out before wearing a skirt? Why do I even have to comply with this rule? Perhaps because the world sexualizes its young women. Even as a minor, I am an object. Even at the age of 14, I was told to button one more button lest I reveal too much.

I doubt that there is a solution to this problem. The older girls at Hill are going to continue teaching the underformers how to break the rules, and the deans are going to continue threatening them with demerits and detentions. How do you force someone to care? I am not sure you can. Perhaps the school could consider turning a blind eye. After all, our girls are here to learn, not to look pretty.

- Nicole Sergiwa ‘18

- Haley Weller ‘17

- Maddy Lutwyche ‘16

- Geeta Sharma ‘16