The Horace Mann Record, Issue 7

The Horace Mann Record NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017 || VOLUME 115, ISSUE 7

HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903

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Community responds to Manhattan terrorist attack Megha Nelivigi Staff Writer

Courtesy of Jasmin Oritz Freya Lindvall/Photography Editor

HALLOWEEN ABSURDITY Seniors dress up for Senior Asurdity Day and Lower Division students participate in annual Halloween Parade at Upper Division campus on October 31st.

Following the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since 9/11, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly met with the Security Department and sent an email to parents and teachers addressing the attack.

This Tuesday afternoon, a 29-year-old plowed a rented pickup truck through a bike path in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring a dozen more. The attack occurred right outside Stuyvesant High School, as it was dismissing its students.

Following the event, Kelly said, “Those of us involved with the safety and security of the HM community will meet to discuss and review our current protocols in light of the information available about today’s incident.”

This is standard procedure after any event, Director of Security Michael McCaw said, as the security team analyzes and reviews any incident, whether it occurs in Paris or Lower Manhattan.

“If this situation were to have happened at HM, we would have an active dismissal: anybody that was outside would go back into the building, and the rest would be directed into buses, whose drivers are trained on safety protocols,” he said.

In this type of emergency, the school community must be willing to listen to and follow directions given by the security staff, McCaw said.

Because of the relative proximity

of the attack to the school, Kelly sent an email to the parents with a link to the National Association of School Psychologists’ talking points about adressing acts of terrorism.

“While there is never any one correct response to an act of violence of this magnitude,” Kelly wrote in the email, “reinforcing the love and affection we share is a good place to start.”

Members of the school community shared their reactions after the attack.

The fact that the attack occurred so close to home struck a chord, Arjun Khorana (12) said. “I’m always fearful about any of these kinds of events, but this attack happened a block away from my house,” he said. “When I saw videos and pictures on TV I recognized everything.”

Khorana was notified of the event on the bus home when he received a text message from a friend warning him about what had occurred, he said.

Khorana arrived home two hours later than normal due to police cars surrounding his neighborhood, he said.

Aurora Grutman (12), who also lives in the neighbrhood, said there was a high chance she would have been present during the attack had she not had a meeting at school, she said.

“The bike path that the driver drove through is the path I run on every day.

Had I left school H period as I do every other day, I could have been faced with the decision of having to jump out of the way,” she said.

see Terror on pg. 3

Students place at Siemens Competition Futterman, Fischberg voted 9th grade class presidents Tenzin Sherpa Staff Writer

Brian Wu (10), Ella Feiner (12), and Brian Song (12) and Lisa Shi (12) all were semifinalists in this year’s Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology, contributing to exoplanet discovery, analyzing the relationship between the spread of cancer and the cell cycle, and working on ways to identify lung cancer in its early stages.

Over 4,000 students from around the country submit a full-length STEMbased research paper to the Siemens Competition, and just over 400 projects are selected as semi-finalists. More than $600,000 in scholarships are awarded to the national finalists each year.

Wu used the radial velocity method to look for new giant planets, brown dwarfs, and old binary systems in a set of data that was collected by the University of Florida, he said.

“The goal of the radial velocity technique is to discover stellar companions by observing the ‘wobble’ caused by the gravitational forces exerted by the planet on the star,” Wu said.

“I chose to participate in the research competition because I was actually really interested in how the radial velocity method worked,” Wu said. Wu worked on the project from May and late August at the University of Florida, he said.

About a couple of years ago, Wu read in the news that NASA discovered new exoplanets and some of these were suitable for people to live on, he said.

“I wanted to contribute to exoplanet discovery, so I decided to use a ground based technique [radial velocity],” Wu said.

Throughout his research, he found five new giant planets, Wu said.

Feiner worked on developing a visual tool that determines cell cycle state, which she used in order to observe the cell cycle in zebrafish embryos.

She applied that sensor to look at the relationship between cell cycle regulation and cancer metastasis, the process where tumor cells move into the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, Feiner said.

Feiner tested cancer drugs that no one had ever tested in vertebrates before in fish, she said. “I looked at the implications of these drugs on developmental processes that closely resemble metastasis,” she said.

“I was part of the program for seven weeks, and during that time I worked a lot because my project was really time sensitive,” she said. The project was dependent on the ages of the fish in hours, so Feiner was often there until midnight or one a.m., she said.

“I was more interested in the applications of developmental biology, not just understanding how we develop, but how it is relevant to understanding disease,” she said.

Song and Shi collaborated on one project using bioinformatic approaches to identify mRNA biomarkers in blood for non-invasive early diagnosis of lung cancer, Song said.

Bioinformatics uses software and statistical tools to interpret biological data, Song said. “I had to use statistical tools to find which mRNAs were differentially expressed in lung cancer, which pointed to genes that could be used as biomarkers,” he said.

Shi and Song used biomarkers to determine whether they could help diagnose lung cancer in its early stages.

“Lung cancer’s a huge killer, and an early diagnosis can really help improve survival rates,” Shi said.

Since Shi and Song intern at Mt. Sinai in the Bioinformatics department, it made sense to do something using a bioinformatic approach, Shi said.

“I chose to participate in the competition because I wanted to take the opportunity to share the research I have been working on for over a year in a nationwide competition,” Song said.

Shi ended up presenting her portion of the data at a genetics conference in Orlando, she said.

Courtesy of Ella Feiner

SCIENCE RESEARCH Ella Feiner (12) presents research at Siemens Competition

Defining beauty

Evaluating sustainability

Hear why Emma Jones (12) decided not to wear makeup during senior year.

Find out how the school is becoming more sustainable.

Opinions, Page 2

Features, Page 4-5

Sam Keimweiss Staff Writer Last Monday, October 23rd, a runoff was held in the ninth grade election between co presidential candidates Henry Owens (9) & Leyli Granmayeh (9) and eventual champions Liam Futterman (9) & Gabby Fischberg (9).

According to Dean of Student Life Susan Delanty ’79, runoffs used to be more common when you could only vote for one candidate, but people lost interest if their candidate did not make the runoff. With the new approval voting, runoffs were eliminated, as people could vote for all the candidates they wanted too. This time, however, it was an absolute tie.

However, the lack of interest was not present this time around. According to Delanty, only ten fewer people voted in the runoff, and 77% of the grade voted in the primary election.

“I think it’s quite shocking considering that there was [a lot] of votes for there to have been an exact tie,” Owens said.

Natalie Sweet (9) was unsurprised that so many people voted, Sweet said.

Those she knew who did not vote did so because they forgot, not as a conscious decision, Sweet said.

“I want our grade to be represented by people who can understand the importance and responsibility of the class presidents,” Vivien Sweet (9)

Liu’s art reflects on nostalgia Annie Liu’s (12) reflects on art installation created for the Independent Study course.

Amrita Acharya/ Photography Editor

PRESIDENTIAL Ninth grade class presidents Futterman & Fischberg.

said. Sweet doesn’t want to choose someone who will not do their job, she said.

“People are engaged in the process.

They’re choosing the people who are going to be representing them to the school and to the community, and I think that’s a really important thing,” Dean of the Class of 2021 Dr. Susan Groppi said.

New members of the Community Council Adam Frommer Lauren Gay Madhav Menon Jaden Richards

@horacemannrecord @hm.record

Arts, Page 7

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THE RECORD OPINIONS NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

Defining beauty: my senior year without makeup

Emma Jones What does your face really look like? This might seem like an obvious question, but many women have two faces they wear, one of which is completely artificial. For most of high school, I really liked to wear makeup. I thought eyeliner was fun, and I’m grateful for the way that colorful makeup allowed me to express my own style. But this year I came to the somewhat disturbing realization that I…well, didn’t really think about what my own face looked like. My makeup had become an extension of myself, a mask of sorts. And I didn’t think it was healthy for part of my face to be something cosmetic I had to pay for and maintain. And no matter how much I told myself that it was part of me, it wasn’t.

So this year, I decided to stop wearing makeup.

One of the things that led me to make this decision was the fact that makeup is considered a standard for women and not for men; in many workplaces, women fear not being respected if they don’t wear makeup

to the office. Men do not have to worry about their appearance being commented on by others if they don’t perform an arbitrary standard of beauty every single day. Unless they’re noticeably unclean, men just have to show up in the morning having done what most people naturally do. For women, showing up in the morning means having practiced an artificial and performative routine.

Makeup is an addiction to feeling like your face is acceptable to others, and the fear of losing that acceptance is what keeps girls coming back to Sephora to spend hundreds of dollars on nude-shade eyeshadow and lipstick. Makeup companies like Sephora profit off of low selfesteem and desperation. That’s not just “business as usual.” That’s exploitation. Makeup also does not exist in a vacuum, it’s a product of the norms we want women to emulate in our society. And of course every woman cannot fit that norm. Trends like “highlights” and “contours” are ridiculous standards to set for young women. Why should girls be expected to create a fake “healthy glow” on their faces, or thin out their cheekbones to make their unconventional features fit the standard of how we think a face should look?

But going makeup-free isn’t always inspiring and empowering for me. The hardest thing to stop doing was wearing concealer, which I felt like I needed to be palatable for other people to look at. Like many teenagers, I have acne, and through a combination of misfortune in the

genetic lottery and the products of an active lifestyle I have a significant amount of it. There were some times when I woke up and wanted to just wave a magic wand and give myself clear, clean, painless skin. But I reframed my acne as something positive, and I realized that I don’t

it. Eyeliner was not a part of my face because it was something I could take off. Acne, for better or worse, is on my face and I can’t take it off.

Last week, I was invited to an awards ceremony for a short story competition, and it took all of my self-restraint not to put makeup

exist for other people to look at. If I am not conventionally attractive in the way my skin looks, who cares?

My wacne is a part of my face, and its unwillingness to go away is, in a way, just like my stubborn and indomitable personality. I accepted it as a part of me. When I thought about it that way, I felt better about

on to this fancy event in Chelsea.

But I reminded myself that without makeup, there were many beautiful things about my face; my striking light eyes against my flowing dark hair, my sharp Cupid’s bow and angular nose, my deep cheekbones, the uniqueness of my chin dimple.

My presence there was based on my

Ariella Greenberg/ Art Director

intellectual ability. If I wanted to be beautiful for that event, I already was.

There has been a trend in third wave feminism to say that makeup can be empowering if you choose to wear it for you and not to impress men, but I caution people to go back to the fact that makeup is corporations exploiting your need to live in a lie for other people. You might “choose” to wear makeup, but you are doing so in the context of our patriarchal western society. No one who wears makeup can truly say that they don’t care what other people think of them. I certainly wasn’t insecure about my appearance in the conventional way when I wore makeup, I just did not want to wear my “real” face in public. It felt disingenuous. No matter how you feel about yourself, makeup is not real.

There becomes a dissonance between who you are wearing makeup and who you are underneath. I am an artist, a student, and an athlete and to be taken seriously in any of those things I should not be required to fit a standard of prettiness. My face belongs to me. It can’t smear off in the rain or under the sweat of my fencing mask. It won’t smudge when I cry. When someone touches my cheek, they will not swab a part of my face away on their finger. Your face is a part of who you are, which is something that you can’t take off in front of the mirror at the end of the day.

Editoral: Destressing the college process The senior class began their school year with two words: college applications. No matter what grade you are in, high school is a stressful time. Freshmen navigate clubs, classes, and a new social environment, sophomores struggle to find their place in the school, and juniors strive to maintain their grades and complete standardized testing. As Tillinghast Hall’s stress levels rise and fall, it is vital that we support each other as members of the same school community.

This support should extend to the Class of 2018. We’ve all been where you are, and you will all soon be in our position. As the Class of 2018 navigates the next few months of college acceptances, deferrals, and rejections on top of high school assignments, here are nine things that can help us: • • • • • • • • •

Don’t ask where we’re applying early unless we bring up the topic. It’s personal, and if we want to share, we will.

Don’t tell us to look at a certain school -- odds are, yes, we would “LOVE IT” but we also may have doubts about whether or not we could get in.

Don’t judge people’s intelligence based on the schools they are interested in. People choose schools for a variety of reasons, whether arts, sports, or proximity to family.

Please don’t gossip. Don’t tell your friends where a senior is applying without permission.

Be sensitive to different financial situations. Just because some people are accepted to a school does not mean that they can receive the financial aid they need to attend.

Try not to trivialize other people’s stress. Although senior year is difficult, we all know how difficult every year at our school is. We are all allowed to feel stressed.

Please don’t be afraid to approach us with questions, as long as they are phrased in a considerate way.

Although it may be difficult for us to give objective advice about the college process, we have gone through the rest of high school and are open to helping you and supporting you.

Don’t assume that the college process is over after Nov. 1. Over 70 percent of us will end up applying to colleges for regular decision.

When decisions do come through, don’t make judgements about why someone may or may not have gotten into a certain school. A college decision does not determine someone’s value as a person.

Spyridoula Potamopoulou/ Staff Artist

Volume 115 Editorial Board Managing Editor Eve Kazarian

Editor in Chief Gustie Owens

Issues Editor Mahika Hari

Features Tiffany Liu Natasha Poster

News Sam Heller Yeeqin New

Opinions Seiji Murakami Rebecca Salzhauer

A&E Jonathan Katz Joanne Wang

Lions’ Den Peter Borini Ricardo Pinnock

Photography Amrita Acharya Freya Lindvall Abigail Kraus

Middle Division Ella Feiner Sarah Shin

Design Editors Evan Megibow Nikki Sheybani Lisa Shi

Art Director Ariella Greenberg

Faculty Adviser David Berenson

Columnists Lutie Brown Amir Moazami

Online Editor Michael Truell

Staff Writers Malhaar Agrawal, Betsey Bennett, Peri Brooks, Amelia Feiner, Elizabeth Fortunato, Leonora Gogos, Caroline Goldenberg, Katie Goldenberg, Surya Gowda, Will Han, Jude Herwitz, Edwin Jin, Solomon Katz, Janvi Kukreja, Madison Li, Connor Morris, Megha Nelivigi, Noah Phillips, Eliza Poster, Julia Robbins, Abigail Salzhauer, Nishtha Sharma, Sadie Schwartz, Tenzin Sherpa, Sandhya, Shyam, Becca Siegel, Charlie Silberstein, Lynne Sipprelle, Griffin Smith, Georgi Verdelis, Ben Wang, Jeren Wei, Robbie Werdiger, Simon Yang Staff Photographers Iliana Dezelic, Eva Fortunato, Miyu Imai, Abigail Kraus, Daniel Lee, Mimi Morris, Benjamin Parker, Tatiana Pavletich Staff Artists Elizabeth Fortunato, Sofia Gonzalez, Surya Gowda, Damali O’Keefe, Spyridoula Potamopoulou, Jackson Roberts, Zoe Vogelsang

Editorial Policy ABOUT The Record is published weekly by the students of Horace Mann School to provide the community with information and entertainment, as well as various viewpoints in the forms of editorials and opinion columns. All editorial decisions regarding content, grammar and layout are made by the editorial board. The Record maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and National Scholastic Press Association.

EDITORIALS & OPINIONS Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the majority of the senior editorial board. Opinion columns are the sole opinion of the author and not of The Record or the editorial board.

NOTE As a student publication, the contents of The Record are the views and work of the students and do not necessarily represent those of the faculty or administration of the Horace Mann School. The Horace Mann School is not responsible for the accuracy and content of The Record, and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

LETTERS To be considered for publication in the next issue, letters to the editor should be submitted by mail (The Record, 231 West 246th Street, Bronx, NY 10471) or e-mail (record@horacemann.org) before 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening. All submissions must be signed and should refer to a Record article. Letters may be edited for grammar, style, length and clarity.

CONTACT For all comments, queries, story suggestions, complaints or corrections, or for information about subscribing, please contact us by email at record@horacemann.org.

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HORACE MANN NEWS NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

School hosts three debate-based events in October Lynne Sipprelle Staff Writer

Last month, Model UN (MUN), Debate, and Parliamentary Debate all held events at school, beginning a new year of debate, politics, and teamwork.

At the 32nd Horace Mann MUN Conference many sophomores won Outstanding Delegate and Honorable Mention, while at Debate’s third Horace Mann Public Forum Invitational Nina Mussa (9) and Sofia Jang (9) won the novice division and Sasha Snyder (9),Leyli Granmayeh (9), Walker McCarthy (9), and Teddy Ganea (9) placed in the top five.

At the first ever Horace Mann Introductory Parliamentary Debate Tournament (HMIPDT), Eli Bacon (9) came in 4th and Julia Robbins (10) came in 11th for speaker awards while Sophia Zelizer (10) and Grace Ermias (10) won 5th and Bacon and Paul Wang (10) won 12th in team awards.

The conferences required the clubs to begin to plan far in advance.

Model UN started planning in June once Secretary Generals were announced, co-Secretary General Valerie Maier (12) said.

Over 1,000 delegates came to the conference from 45 different schools, Model UN co-Secretary General Evan Megibow (12) said.

Debate held their tournament on Saturday, Oct. 21. Debate’s last tournament was in 2015, Horace Mann Debate co-President Honor McCarthy (12) said.

“It was a good learning experience

for all of us, and we made sure to include juniors and sophomores in logistical planning so they can hit the ground running in future years,” McCarthy said. The team began planning in Oct. 2016, when they had to book the date for the tournament, Horace Mann Debate co-President Ella Feiner (12) said.

About 120 debaters and 44 judges attended the tournament, while 28 teams from the school competed, Raab said.

Although the Oct. 6 Parlimentary Debate event was part of the New York Parliamentary Debate League (NYPDL), it was run by school students, Parliamentary Debate Vice President William Golub (11) said.

92 debaters, including 36 from the school, as well as 38 judges came to the conference, which was geared towards new debaters, Golub said.

Parliamentary debate is a much younger club than Model UN or Debate and was created during the 2015-2016 school year.

The planning process for the conference included recruiting debaters and judges from schools in the tristate areas, deciding on topics, and preparing the team’s novice debaters for the event, Golub said.

Both HoMMUNC and the Debate HM Invitational were full-day conferences, while the HMIPDT ran from four to ten Friday evening.

HoMMUNC started with opening ceremonies, where Elizabeth Marks, the Director of Community Engagement at the charity USA for UNHCR (United Nations High Courtesy of Gustie Owens

MUN-CHKINS Part of HoMMUNC included MD-based events

Courtesy of Radhika Mehta

Courtesy of Honor McCarthy

Courtesy of Gustie Owens

TRIPLE THREAT Parlimentary debate team poses at conference (top left); Nina Mussa (9) and Sofia Jang (9) win novice division for Debate conference (top right); George Lowenson (12) leads HoMMUNC commitee (bottom) Commissioner Relief), spoke about the Syrian refugee crisis and what high school students can do to help, Model UN co-Secretary General Jenna Freidus said.

“We raised over $1,000 for that charity during the day in all our committees, which was really exciting,” Megibow said.

“There was definitely friendly competition between committees to see how much money each could raise, which made the kids really excited and interested in the charity and helping,” Maier said. “We had delegates sing or dance to raise money and would give updates to the committees about how much was raised to keep them motivated.”

After the first three rounds at the HM Invitational, teams were “power matched” against teams with similar records for the fourth round, Mussa said. After this round, there were

generally only two teams left with the same record, and they competed in the final round, she said.

Parliamentary Debate and Debate can only hold events on campus every other year, unlike Model UN, which holds HoMMUNC every year.

Freidus said that many schools have been coming to HoMMUNC every year for over a decade and use it as a training conference for their students.

Parliamentary Debate would not have been allowed to hold a conference this year, co-President of Parliamentary Debate Evan Frommer said. “We emailed them and said we really need this tournament because we’re building a league and trying to grow,” Frommer said.

The school compromised with Parliamentary Debate by allowing them to hold the tournament Friday night instead of Saturday, Frommer

Freshmen attend sexual abuse assembly

Jude herwitz Staff Writer

On Friday, October 20th, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) facilitated an assembly and workshops on the prevention of sexual abuse for the ninth Grade and any new 10th and 11th graders.

Students first attended an assembly, run by two experts on sexual abuse from the NYSPCC, in which they learned about abuse, including stastics about abusers and signs of abuse.

Last year marked the first time the orientation broached the topic of consent regarding peer-to-peer relations, sparked by a multitude of questions during the workshop periods in previous years, said Dr. Daniel Rothstein ’77. This year, that topic was expanded upon, both in workshops and assemblies.

One facet of the section on consent was a video using the example of drinking tea to illustrate the concept of how positive consent is needed any

and every time sexual relations occur.

“It was very funny and made a lot of people laugh, so I feel they didn’t take it as seriously as they should have,” Mandy Liu (9).

“It was a very serious assembly, so any humor made the students laugh more than they would normally,” Rothstein.

Armaan Kakodkar (9) found that the humor in fact helped get the message across.

The students were also given a series of scenarios by the facilitators and asked to discuss what they would do if they were in those situations, said Rothstein.

Liu felt that both the assembly and the workshop were equally informative, but for different reasons, she said.

“The workshops were more specific about different situations and what we would do, but the assembly gave

“The cycle of sexual abuse solely continues to grow in secrecy and shame,” -NYSPCC representative Annie Costello “I think that the fact it was so funny helped everyone deal with such a difficult subject much easier, because it lessened the tension in the room,” Kakodkar said.

The workshops, held by NYSPCC facilitatiors, allowed students a chance to ask questions that they might have had lingering from the assembly, Eli Bacon (9) said.

a really good overall introduction to what sexual abuse was,” said Liu. “I feel like the workshops narrowed it down.”

Bacon preferred the assembly to the workshops. “I got much more out of the assembly, though partially because my seminar group was very quiet, with a lot of drawn out awkward pauses,” Bacon said.

Throughout the assembly, Rothstein and the two representatives from the NYSPCC, Annie Costello and Lauren Graham, repeated the point that abuse only continues in secret and urged students to report to any adult if they ever were in an uncomfortable siuation.

“The cycle of sexual abuse solely continues to grow in secrecy and shame,” Costello said.

According to Rothstein, the school started the mandatory orientation with the NYSPCC in 2012, after news broke of sexual abuse between former students and former teachers between the 1970s and 1990s, and has since been held annually for all students new to the Upper Divison.

The School also works with the NYSPCC in the prevention of sexual abuse in the Bronx community, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said.

“Through an annual grant, the School supports the NYSPCC’s ability to bring its Safe Touches program to elementary age students attending public and private schools in the Bronx,” he said.

said.

The school waived the debate tournament’s fees for schools that could not afford to participate otherwise, McCarthy said. The school also waived some school’s conference fees for HoMMUNC and provided free transportation for some schools attending HoMMUNC as well, which at around $35 per delegate was the most expensive event.

Debate and Parliamentary Debate only cost $10 per person and were free for school students, McCarthy and Golub said. “One of our main goals for this year is making debate accessible to everyone regardless of finances,” McCarthy said.

Parliamentary Debate purposely kept the price low as well but had to charge $10 per participant in order to pay for food and awards, Golub said.

From Terror page 1

Others felt connected through students who attend the schools located at the heart of the attack.

Aidan McAndrew (9), for instance, whose friend attends the Stuyvesant, said he felt that this event specifically impacted him, he said. His friend was standing on a walkway over the street, and witnessed the man drive into a crowd of people, he said. Although his friend was left unscathed, McAndrew said the friend sent him a disturbing text message following the incident: “I feel kind of empty inside.”

Physics teacher Oleg Zvezdin, who attended Stuyvesant High School,felt upset that yet another terrorist attack happened, but also flashed back to his time at high school, he said.

“I was there for four years at that exact corner,” he said. “I can’t help but think about all the children and families who were affected.”

Issue 6 Corrections The article “Alumni write, produce, and star in original play,” was changed to “Alumni write, produce, and direct in original play,” as none of the alumni actually starred in the show. Zoe Maltby did not star in the show as paragraph three states. The photos used were from Marie Antoinette, a different alumni show, and not My Parents Are Here

4

THE RECORD FEATURES NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

Ariella Greenberg/ Art Director

How the school is addressing climate change and reducing its carbon footprint Sadie Schwartz & Julia Robbins Staff Writers Over the years, the school has undertaken many initiatives to help increase sustainability and awareness about becoming more environmentally friendly. Some of these initiatives are ongoing, while others have been disbanded for the time being.

Two weeks ago, during an Upper Division (UD) assembly, Dr. Ben Strauss ‘90 gave a presentation about climate change and how scientists know that global warming is a manmade issue.

Strauss mentioned that as a student at the school, he created a recycling system using cardboard boxes as paper recycling bins. The recycling bins have since been modernized, but this was an early push for sustainability at the school.

Strauss spoke about helping with an issue of The Record that was devoted to sustainability.

In the October 27, 1989 edition of the Record, pages were filled with articles about sustainability, including the headline “How does HM teach us about the environment?” The editorial for the week spoke of Strauss’ recycling program, stating that “The Record strongly encourages all members of the HM community to look for the cardboard boxes which are steadily being placed around campus.”

WATER BOTTLES In the past, the school’s disposable water bottle usage has

been a flashpoint for sustainability discussions and initiatives.

Over the past ten years, there have been four instances when the school has given the student body and every employee the opportunity to pick up a free, reusable water bottle, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said.

This was unsuccessful because most students either lost them or did not bring them to school, GreenHM co-President Jada Yang (12) said.

Former photography teacher Karen Johnson and Assistant Director of Dorr and Co-Chair of the Sustainability Committee Nick DePreter came up with the idea of a water bottle “embargo” in the school cafeteria where students were unable to purchase water bottles every other Friday.

Water bottles had become a symbol of the school’s commitment to sustainability. There is a large impact of everyone using plastic water bottles and it is not very difficult to use a reusable water bottle, Johnson said.

Kelly’s role in the embargo was to support the idea and work with FLIK to make it happen, he said.

Johnson took on the responsibility of communicating to the student body and the faculty what the reasons behind the embargo were and how often it would be happening, Johnson said. Students created posters that brought awareness to the negative impact of using plastic water bottles, some of which are still up in Fisher Hall, she said.

The embargo succeeded in raising awareness about the need to reduce disposable bottles at

Brenda Cohn’s Guide

to Sustainable Eating @ HM • Eat a healthy breakfast to sustain you for the morning • Visit the grill station for protein • Limit trips to the fry station to once a week • Entrée station always has a protein, vegetable, and vegetarian option • Limit sugary drinks: choose water or low fat milk instead!

• Sprinkle wheat germ on your oatmeal for extra fiber • Eat your fruit, don’t drink it

Did you know?

Horace Mann School recycles...

• 65,000 pounds of cardboard each year • 80,000 pounds of paper each year • 80,000 cans and bottles each year

school. However, students began purchasing unhealthy beverages instead of water, and in hindsight, the embargo should have included all bottled drinks, Kelly said.

The embargo had major flaws: students who didn’t care about the cause would buy a different drink, empty it out, and fill it with water, Eliza Bender (10) said. A better way to solve this problem would be for the school to provide reusable water bottles that they can drop off in the cafeteria after use, she said.

“If we made a larger effort to

“Students need to become comfortable with the concept that change requires a degree of selfsacrifice” - Jamie Berg (11) recycle plastic bottles it would have the same effect as the embargo.

Also, plastic utensils in the cafeteria seem to be harmful,” Nicky Rile (12) said.

“I don’t fault those students and employees who found the embargo to be an inconvenience,” Kelly said.

“That said, I do think it makes sense for HM to continue to do things that make people think about the environment and the reality of a growing number of limited resources,” he said.

Students are often not aware of the adverse impact that purchasing water bottles creates, Mayanka Dhingra (10) said. One way to raise awareness about this issue might be to talk to Head of Cafeteria Brenda Cohn and see how many water bottles are purchased by students daily, and then show students how big of an impact their collective actions have, she said.

Given the increase in the sale of soda and sports drinks, Kelly asked for an end to the embargo until the school can put a program in place that does not result in students simply purchasing an alternative beverage in a plastic bottle, he said.

In a survey taken by The Record, 16 percent of students believed that a ban on water bottles on certain days would be effective. 44 percent believed that a ban on all other bottled drinks besides water would be more effective.

CAFETERIA INITIATIVES There are many steps that the cafeteria has taken to become environmentally friendly, Cohn said. Napkins are made from recycled materials, the kitchen uses reusable pan liners, left over scraps are used for chicken and vegetable stocks, takeout containers are made with cornstarch, and bowls are made without petroleum, she said.

The cafeteria recycles its oil in

order for it to become biofuel and works with the school to recycle cardboard and other materials, Cohn said.

Cohn is starting to speak to each grade about how to be more conscious of their environmental impact in the cafeteria, she said.

Sometimes students choose not to use reusable utensils in the cafeteria because they believe that the silverware is not sanitary, but they should not be concerned about this because “everything is sanitized,” Cohn said. Students also should be using the reusable plates in the dining room as opposed to the paper plates, she said.

FLIK works to teach Lower Division (LD) students about food waste, Cohn said. LD students scrape their leftover food into a bin to see how much waste there is each day and each week the goal is to reduce the amount of waste. They also post flyers in the lunchroom about food waste, she said.

The cafeteria keeps production records to get an idea of how much food they will need each day so that they waste less, Cohn said. If there are leftovers that cannot be repurposed, then the food is sent to the night staff and cleaners, she said.

Other SCHOOL Initiatives The school has a Sustainability Committee consisting of faculty representatives from each division.

They meet once per trimester to discuss how to improve sustainability at the school, Middle Division (MD) Science Teacher and Sustainability Committee member Roselle Yang said.

“We look at how we can encourage certain behaviors to increase student activity in sustainability.

We’re trying to find these little things that add up to improve sustainability overall,” Roselle Yang said. “We look at it schoolwide but we also look at what are appropriate actions to approach the issue from

Jackson Roberts/ Staff Artist

different ages,” she said.

Multiple students were invited to the first meeting of the Sustainability Committee this year, DePreter said.

Any worthy cause needs individuals that are committed to the larger picture, so it was great to have students come to the meeting and share their ideas, he said.

Three years ago, the Sustainability Committee implemented threesection trash cans to encourage

recycling of plastic bottles and paper, Head of UD Dr. Jessica Levenstein said.

Last year, a former student donated solar panels to provide energy for Rose Hall, AP Environmental Science teacher Dora Barlaz said. There are 174 solar panels and they provide 53 kilowatts of energy, Director of Facilities Management Gordon Jensen said.

As fluorescent light bulbs die out, Jensen replaces them with LED bulbs. The change from fluorescent to LED amounts to around a 75 percent energy reduction, DePreter said.

As water coolers begin to malfunction, the maintenance department changes them to water fountains with bottle fillers, Jensen said.

The Community Council (CC) also has its own Sustainability Committee.

Recently, the CC has passed two initiatives: trash cans for batteries in the computer science department and sleeves for coffee cups in the cafeteria.

“When people put batteries in standard trash cans, the lithium nickel in the batteries seeps out and it’s bad for the environment,” CC Chair Amir Moazami (12) said.

“When people get coffee, they use two cups. This is terrible for the environment and unnecessary,” he said.

However, the CC has reversed past sustainability initiatives, such as the replacement of paper towels with electric hand dryers in bathrooms. Several years ago, former Community Council Chair Adam Resheff ‘15 brought paper towels back to the bathrooms at school. For several years, hand dryers were the only option for students, Resheff said.

The school has held TedX conferences and other assemblies focusing on renewables, installed worm bins in kindergarten classrooms to help with compost, integrated recycling games as part of the curriculum, and sent teachers to workshops about sustainability, DePreter said.

GreenHM Vice President Jamie Berg (11) will be focusing on increasing student participation in the club. This year, the club is modeling itself after successful grassroots activist campaigns by speaking to students about the importance of sustainability. The club will also be using student support and influence to effect policy and create impactful changes at the school, he said.

It is a problem that so many students are aware of climate change and the fact that action needs to be taken against it, but that they either don’t know what steps to take to help or they are unwilling to take these steps, Berg said.

In a survey taken by The Record, 56.7% of students said that if they had something recyclable to throw away and there was no recycling bin in the room, they would not look for a proper bin to dispose of it.

“Students need to become

5

HORACE MANN FEATURES NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017 comfortable with the concept that change requires a degree of selfsacrifice,” Berg said.

“I just couldn’t imagine taking a plastic bottle and putting it in the garbage can,” DePreter said. “And eventually, the goal would be that nobody could imagine doing that, and that would be a cultural shift,” he said.

“If we want to create a general culture of being aware, we need to think about [sustainability] more than just five times a year, but rather on a daily basis,” Roselle Yang said.

The AP Environmental Science course teaches students to understand the significance of sustainability, Jane Frankel (12) said.

The course shows how important it is to be conscious of one’s impact on the environment and how an action as small as turning off classroom lights can make a big difference, Zaie Nursey (12) said.

“I think [AP Environmental Science students’] understanding of these topics is important knowledge for them to lead sustainable lives in the future,” Barlaz said.

OTHER SCHOOLS The school is a member of the Green School Alliance, which is a group of schools that work towards becoming more sustainable, DePreter said. In the past, the UD has taken part in a competition that challenges schools to use the least amount of energy possible and become more aware of their energy usage, he said.

Other New York City high schools have also undertaken different initiatives to help combat climate change.

At the Spence School, there are four different types of recycling bins. One is for old whiteboard markers in order to be recycled in a manner specifically tailored to markers, Spence sophomore Dora Usdan said.

At the Riverdale Country Day School, along with Spence, all plastic utensils and plates have been switched to metal, Riverdale sophomore Andrew Bank said.

At Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, there is a “big focus on recycling and being environmentally conscious,” Columbia Grammar ‘15 member Daniel Martin said. There are several classes and clubs that focus on sustainability and the

environment, he said.

“I find it hard to believe that there is another independent school out there with the commitment to do something substantial and sustainable every year,” Kelly said in an email.

FUTURE PLANS While a concerted effort to be sustainable is already being made, the school plans to implement many more initiatives.

To encourage the school body to take part in the effort towards greater sustainability, GreenHM is developing a service learning project which will include participating in climate conferences and climate change rallies in New York City, in addition to students helping the maintenance staff sort through recycling at school, Berg said.

During club meetings, GreenHM will be approaching the issue of global warming from a scientific perspective and having discussions

Dhingra is a founder and head of the student committee for the “Sustainability Through Student Voices” conference. She will be taking a group of students to the conference at Calhoun for the first time this year, she said.

“At the end of the day, we want people to reconvene with members of their own school community to discuss what they have learned and how they can implement new forms of sustainability to their own school communities,” Dhingra said.

According to Jensen, there will be many sustainable advancements in the new science and athletics buildings.

Some of these will include motor sensors in hallways for after-hours, which will turn on the lights when a security guard walks down the hallway so they are not running all night, daylight harvesting, which controls the amount of light emitted from a bulb depending of the amount of sunlight in a given day, low water-consumption faucets and toilets, and charging stations for cars, he said. The pool building

“I find it hard to believe that there is another independent school out there with the commitment to do something substantial and sustainable every year.”

- Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly where students analyze what they can do to make an impact, Ari Moscona-Skolnik (11) said.

GreenHM also wants to set up compost bins so people can see sustainability in action and compost their food as well as organize a day of action which would involve multiple clubs, Jada Yang said.

“We want to look at activism.

Instead of signing up for clubs, students would be signing petitions or signing up for actions. Having a day where you can sign up for these all at once would be a great community bonding experience and great way students can be involved in their communities and take political action,” Jada Yang said.

Concurrently, the CC is thinking of ways to diminish the usage of mini water bottles in the library during break as well as migrating from using plastic to reusable water bottles, Moazami said.

“In the not-so-distant future, drinks in the cafeteria will be dispensed through fountain-type devices and not sold in individual bottles,” Kelly said.

is being built to support the weight of solar panels so that if there is a time where money is available to add them, they will be added, he said.

The School is “investigating buying options for power that could potentially mean [the school] gets 100% of its energy from renewable sources,” DePreter said.

“Just be more aware of what you’re using, what you’re disposing of, and how it’s going to affect the future. Reducing the amount of waste is the first step and then try to recycle so that it can be reused,” Jensen said.

Levenstein hopes that if the student body becomes aware of the direct impact on their own personal future, then they might alter their behavior. From her experience, if the student body is passionate about something, they will make change, she said.

“Members of our community have a right to feel good about the progress we’re making in marginalizing our carbon footprint,” Kelly said.

10 things hm has done to reduce

our environmental Impact 1. Going paperless with many of our administrative and divisional functions (the school saves the equivalent of eight full-grown trees, or approximately 65,000 sheets of paper, annually, and these numbers grow daily) 2. LEED-Gold Certification for Dorr (photovoltaics, solar collectors, rainwater run-off collection - flushing toilets with rainwater, geothermal, use of natural light, sustainable building materials, regulated water use, etc.)

3. Bottle filling water coolers/fountains 4. Solar Panels on Rose, with solar panels to be installed on the roof of the new pool 5. Waterless Urinals (Each urinal is estimated to save 40,000 gallons of water per year for a total of 1,600,000 gallons per year.)

6. We participate in the New York City MetroCard program as a means of encouraging students to utilize public transportation and the New York City TransitChek program to encourage employee use of public transportation.

7. Green Kitchen certification in our all of cafeterias 8. HM In Motion (over five million dollars is being spent on environmentally friendly upgrades to both the new and renovated structures) 9. In Prettyman and Hazen Gymnasiums, the outdated energysiphoning sky lights were replaced with energy efficient Kalwall units resulting in a heating and cooling savings.

10. We have restored the forest at Dorr and Brody Pond

If you had something recyclable to throw out but there was no recycling bin in the room, would you look for a proper bin to dispose of it? Responses taken from 363 students.

Does our riverdale campus have solar panels? YES. Out of 359 students polled, across all Upper Division grades, 62.4 percent of students did not know whether we had solar panels and 14.5 percent thought that we did not have solar panels on our Riverdale campus. Despite being there for over a year, only 23.1 percent of students knew we had solar panels.

Courtesy of HM Security Department

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT Solar Panels on top of Rose Hall, installed last year to more efficiently power Rose Hall

6

THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

Let the games begin!

MIDDLE MANIA DRAFT Charlie Silberstein Staff Writer This past Thursday, the annual Middle Mania draft of sixth graders took place in Upper Gym. The sixth graders were told to go to the Main Gym, where the captains of the blue, black, yellow, green and red teams were dressed up and waiting for them, sixth grade dean Michelle Amilicia said.

This year, to announce the teams, the eighth-grade captains read each of the sixth graders’ names, threw colored confetti, and gave them a colored hat which indicated which team they are in, Amilicia said.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION Middle Division students gather in the atrium for movie night

At the end of the draft, each team performed a cheer with their captains which was nice to see, Amilicia said.

“Personally, I thought it was a pretty cool experience to be able to be called out in front of everyone and drafted to a team,” Adande Nartey (6) said, “I think it’s a great opportunity to meet your teammates and get a good relationship with them before the actual mania starts so that you can communicate more often,” he said.

“It was a really cool experience and I can’t wait for Middle Mania to start,” Jack Silberstein (6) said.

Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor

HM Lead hosts annual movie night Georgi Verdelis Staff Writer

This past Monday, around 50 students enjoyed popcorn in the Rose Hall atrium and lined up to see various different movies at HM Lead’s Movie Night.

Movie night is everything that a busy student at school can ask for on a Monday night: popcorn, friends, and movies, Krish Gandhi (6) said.

Movie Night took place after school and offered an easy, accessible, and successful way for students to enjoy themselves, history teacher Caitlin Hickerson said, who was involved in the event. HM Lead has hosted Movie Night numerous times in the past, and hopes to continue the event going forward.

HM Lead, the Middle Division’s

(MD) student leadership program, convenes every Monday afternoon to discuss and address a wide variety of school issues from general needs at school to social events, such as Movie Night, Hickerson said.

As students gathered in the atrium and enjoyed popcorn, they waited for the movies to be announced. When they heard the name of the movie they wanted to see, they approached the ticket booth and cashed in their tickets to gain access to the movie.

Students and teachers involved in HM Lead also conducted the event in addition to planning it. “I just came and asked what I needed to do, and now I’m doing it,” Yang said, who operated the ticket booth. “I just want to help.”

During the event, teachers brought

in and operated a popcorn machine, called out tickets for certain movies, and set up the movies in various rooms.

Gandhi is one of many students who attended the event. “I think movie night was a very fun experience, I liked to hang out with my friends, watch Spider Man: Homecoming, and also I enjoyed having popcorn and candy,” he said.

The event was well coordinated, and he enjoyed every aspect of it, Gandhi said.

Movie Night presented an after school opportunity for Middle Division students to have fun and be social. This successful event is a staple of HM Lead, and is likely to happen again, Hickerson said.

had arrived at the school, what they expected from the program, and what challenges they faced at the school.

Mackey’s drive to create HM STEPS stemmed from her personal experiences as a student at the school and the culture shock she experienced, she said.

other locations, which will serve as bonding activities in addition to local outreach, Gordon said.

“I think it’s really important for the mentors to not only be a resource academically or socially, but also serve as a role model and embody the HM core values,” she said.

A group of around 10 mentors and mentees attended the meeting, several with their parents.

“The meeting was very informational,” P’ 20, 22 Jennifer Hippolyte-Thomas said. “I connected with a lot of parents. This [was] a great way to connect families and go through the journey of Horace Mann together.”

“It was really good to get to know people and my mentor,” Eva Campbell (7) said. “I’m looking forward to learning and asking for help when I need it.”

“We were able to come together and form bonds with the students,” Hutchinson said. “It was pretty eyeopening, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year.”

Mackey hopes that in the future, the program will be implemented in the school’s curriculum for the next generation of students, she said.

“When parents are applying, we can say, sign up for this: this is a way we can help your child and give them the support they need,” Mackey said.

Abigail Kraus/ Photo Editor

COLOR WARS Newly drafted sixth graders wear their Middle Mania team hat

HM STEPS holds kick-off meeting Caitlin Goldenberg Staff Writer

Last Friday, students of color and their parents gathered in the atrium to participate in the kick-off of HM Students Together Empowering People of Color Successfully (HM STEPS).

The program, created by Deveraux Mackey (11) with funding from the Alexander Capelluto Grant, is designed to cultivate relationships between Middle Division (MD) and Upper Division (UD) students of color in order to help the younger students navigate their MD experience, Mackey said.

“This program adds an extra layer of support for students of color who are navigating their way through a predominantly white institution, because the experience can be very isolating,” STEPS Faculty Advisor Sharina Gordon said.

“Thinking back on my own middle school experience and how hard of a transition it was for me, I want to help other students go through that transition a little smoother,” mentor Nyle Hutchinson (11) said.

During the meeting, laughter and conversation rang through the space as students were paired with their mentors and as parents became acquainted in a separate group.

Both students and parents discussed topics such as when the families

“This program adds an extra layer of support for students of color who are navigating their way through a predominantly white institution...”

-Sharina Gordon

“When I was in middle school I wasn’t sure where to go or how to navigate my situation,” she said. “The program provides someone to talk to; I can’t give you a road map, but maybe you won’t have to hit your head as many times as I did.”

Taking place over monthly Friday afternoon meetings, each middle school student will be assigned a high school mentor with whom they will develop a one-on-one relationship and discuss topics ranging from the academic to social aspects of the school, Mackey said.

Members of the program will also participate in at least three different service trips to soup kitchens and

Mimi Morris/Staff Photographer

TAKING STEPS FORWARD MD students converse with their mentors

7

HORACE MANN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

SPOTLIGHT: ANNIE LIU

Liu’s installation Swann’s Way captures nostalgia

Nishtha Sharma Staff Writer As students walked by the mysterious wooden box parked in Roth Lobby, Annie Liu (12) anticipated the opening of her installation Swann’s Way on Tuesday, Oct. 24, created as a part of her Independent Study project.

Liu built the installation from scratch with the help of Faculty Technical Director Joel Sherry as well as her friends. Swann’s Way features a singular lamp that lights up a room with walls covered in dolls and other childhood toys.

Liu was inspired by her fondness of childhood innocence and the hope to create something that rekindled childhood memories, she said.

“My intent was for people to enter this intimate space and feel strong emotions about childhood nostalgia, identity, and how they can be physically manifested in inanimate objects,” she said.

Liu also meant for the installation to be “cute but creepy,” as she believes dolls can invoke dual emotions in people.

She wanted the physical manifestation of the animals to contribute to a theme of collective identity, while also adding

an individualistic aspect to her piece, Liu said.

“Being in the room made me feel like I’m in a children’s book, and I felt like a little girl again,” Amrita Acharya (12), one of Liu’s friends who assisted her, said. “I realized that innocence never escapes us.”

“Immediately upon entering the dim-lit room, I felt a sense of comfort but severe nostalgia,” Madison Li (10) said. “It made me think about how people still have ties to their childhood.”

Although the installation took a week to construct, Liu prepared for over two months. After developing the idea in August, she immediately began contacting the administration.

“Getting approval made this a logistical nightmare,” she said.

“Nonetheless, I had great guidance from Mr. Sherry, who taught me how to cut and construct everything, and from my friends who helped.”

“Liu was very flexible and open to all of the teachers querying her work,” Theatre Arts teacher and Liu’s Independent Study advisor Alexis Dahl said. “I was struck by her adaptability and resilience.”

Liu fell in love with installation art when she attended a program this

summer at the Maryland Institute College of Art, she said. She was exposed to installation art and 3-D sculptures and created installations related to femininity and art history.

“When creating these, your perception of space is much different, and you can focus on many more aspects of materialism.”

While not working on installations, Liu enjoys 2-D painting and experimental sculpture work. “I take inspiration in everything I see,” she said.

In Liu’s everyday life, “art is the one thing she always talks about,” Acharya said. “Annie enjoys remembering and preserving childhood innocence, and her art really reflects who she is as a human being.”

Liu finds that as an artist, it’s common to go through long periods of “total uninspiration,” she said.

While she often finds creating art to be “stressful, especially on a time constraint,” she continues to expose herself to the world of contemporary art to allow for more resourcefulness in her work.

As the year progresses, she plans to craft more diverse art styles as a part of her Independent Study project.

Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor

A STUDY OF LOST TIME Stuffed animals adorn the lamp-lit walls

Stanford choir director hosts clinic with Concert Glee, teaches new techniques Betsey Bennett Staff Writer

Courtsey of Timothy Ho

A-E-I-O-U Dr. Steve Sano works on annunciating vowels with Concert Glee

Unified vowel sounds and Hawaiian music filled the choral room during D period on Friday Oct. 20. Dr. Steve Sano, Director of the Chamber Chorale and the Symphonic Chorus at Stanford University, stood at the front of the room, pausing periodically to address the Concert Glee Club.

Sano has known Music Department Chair and Concert Glee Club teacher Timothy Ho since the early 1990s, when he worked with Ho’s choirs in Hawaii.

Ho wanted his students to have the opportunity to sing with someone else, he said.

According to Concert Glee Club member Eunice Bae (11), the workshop had two components. First, Sano led the group through several warm-up exercises that focused on dictation and

forming vowels, Bae said.

“We worked on creating space in the back of our mouths while singing vowels,” Bae said.

Gibby Thomas (11), another member of the Concert Glee Club, said that vowel unification was her biggest takeaway from the clinic.

“Vowel unification is a really important component of ensemble singing,” Sano said. “It’s something that a soloist does not have to think about in the same way, but all of a sudden you get two people or more, and it becomes a big issue in unifying sound.”

During the second half of the workshop, Sano instructed the group on one of their Hawaiian pieces, Ku’u Pua i Paoakalani.

“There are not many people in the country that I would trust with my Hawaiian music, but Dr. Sano has studied Hawaiian music quite in depth,” Ho said.

“He was able to guide us through the first half of the piece, giving us advice on dynamics and rhythmic changes that we could make to give the song a more personalized touch,” Bae said.

According to Gavin Delanty (11), another member of the Concert Glee Club, Sano also advised students on their breathing. He suggested that the singers breathe in with the shape of the word or vowel that is about to be sung, Delanty said.

Sano began his musical career with the piano at the age of five and received a master’s degree and doctorate in conducting. He has taught at Stanford for the past 25 years.

This is the first time that Ho has brought in one of his colleagues to teach a clinic.

“I think Concert Glee has evolved a lot and is ready for this kind of experience, and I am just thrilled that it was Dr. Sano,” Ho said.

Adolf (12). “Based on our practice and effort, we were all really happy with our performance,” Adolf said.

“It was a big change from being in the Glee Club, and being in a smaller group gave us all a chance to challenge ourselves, since smaller groups require more effort and participation,” Adolf said.

“I hope the students take away the experience of preparing for a concert, as well as the contribution that each person has, and that the value of each individual in a smaller ensemble is even more important than that of a

larger one,” Jazz Combo and Wind Ensemble conductor Michael Bomwell said.

“As music teachers, we always like to do something like this earlier in the year because it’s often easier for smaller, more advanced groups to prepare concert materials early on,” Bomwell said.

“I want my students to appreciate the other groups performances as well as enjoy and feel confident about their own,” G-period Steel Band conductor Alan Bates said.

Actress and playwright visits, discusses passion for theater Advanced ensembles rock first concert Kiara Royer Contributing Writer

Being on stage is nothing new for Jocelyn Bioh: C period on Monday, she sat in front of an attentive audience in the Black Box and talked about how being a first generation GhanianAmerican influenced her work as an actress and playwright.

The Playwriting and Production class hosted Bioh, and her visit was open to Upper Division students and faculty as well.

Bioh is a commissioned playwright with the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Atlantic Theater Company and has been featured on Kilroy’s List for her plays in 2015 and 2016.

Bioh discussed how she first wanted to be a dancer but realized later on that both writing for and performing in theater was really her passion, Brooke Hailey (12), who attended Bioh’s discussion with her senior elective English class, said.

Bioh hopes that after hearing her talk, students will feel inspired to stay on whatever path they enjoy, whether in theater or another field, she said.

“I think it’s important to talk to the

youth really early on in their career and find the people who are thirsty to hear new and innovative voices,” she said.

The main take away was that nothing should stop you from writing, Playwriting and Production student Daniel Wolf (10) said.

“Bioh has a very unique perspective on the art of drama, and she has given me new forms of fuel to power my own process of writing,” Ben Rosenbaum (11), another member of the class, said.

“I appreciated that she encouraged students to tell the stories that haven’t been told and to bring a new perspective to familiar stories by seeing them from someone’s else’s viewpoint,” Director of Office for Identity, Culture, and Institutional Equity (ICIE) Patricia Zuroski, who attended Bioh’s visit, said.

After meeting Bioh several years ago at a new play development workshop at Dartmouth, Playwriting and Production teacher Alexis Dahl was inspired by her as an artist and teacher and asked Bioh to visit, Dahl said.

Dahl plans to invite other playwrights and actors to the school in the future, she said.

Victor Dimitrov Staff Writer

On the night of Oct. 26, advanced ensembles performed in the Recital Hall, a more intimate and concentrated setting. The concert consisted of Jazz Combos, Chamber Winds, String Sinfonietta, Steel Band G, Concert Glee Club, and the Treble Choir.

This was Treble Choir’s first performance, and they sang “Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down” and “Rain Tuahine ‘O Mãnoa,” said Isabel

Annie Liu/Contributing Artist

THEY’LL BLOW YOU AWAY The Wind Ensemble performs

Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor

Record Sports

LIONS’ DEN

Download the app “QR Reader” and scan the code to be taken to the Lions’ Report Youtube Channel.

NOVEMBER 3RD, 2017

School showcases generosity through tennis court donation Nelson Gaillard Contributing Writer

Both the Girls and Boys Varsity Tennis teams utilized the Paul Hecht Tennis Courts in Van Cortlandt Park for practice, but after wear and tear over the years, the courts began to develop cracks due to the rapid temperature changes during the winters. Since the school takes advantage of the courts, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly thought that something must be done to restore them, not only to benefit the school’s tennis teams, but also to benefit the Bronx Community, he said.

The restoration took place in October of 2016, and the school was happy to fund the project, Kelly said.

“We are very aware that we use the resources in Van Cortlandt Park,” he said. “The wear and tear of the courts was substantial and they needed immediate attention.”

While the Girls Junior Varsity Tennis team practices at Sarah Lawrence College, all 13 girls on the Varsity team practice down in the park, Tennis Coach Rawlins Troop said. “We have a permit for four courts every day, but the school funded the restoration of all 6,” he said. “A lot of

VAN(COURT)LAND PARK Girls Varsity Tennis practices on the courts in Van Cortlandt Park people have been using the courts, that sometimes it’s very difficult to get our four courts.”

Director of Athletics Robert Annunziata specified that the restoration of the tennis courts only involved resurfacing, which is typically a 10 to 12 day process from start to finish. Over time, the courts begin to develop cracks and wear away which is why they need resurfacing,

Annunziata said.

“Because of the past winter, we asked the same company to go back in and inspect the courts,” he said. “This is usually a four-day process to fix any spots that may not have adhered in the last process.”

Since the courts have been restored, it has been much more convenient for the team in terms of home matches, because they don’t need to go to

GVT remains undefeated with NYSAIS Tournment win Gabrielle Kepnes & Griffin Smith Contributing Writers The Girls Varsity Tennis team is Ivy League Champion for the fourth year in a row. The team was challenged by one obstacle in particular this season, Elizabeth Raab (12) said, namely the move from the school’s home courts to down the hill in Van Cortlandt Park. Despite the sudden location change, the Lions went undefeated this season and Gibby Thomas (11) won the NYSAIS Tournament.

“With practices now being held in Van Cortlandt Park, the team doesn’t get much support from students and has less practice time,” Carolyn Chun (12) said.

“It’s a lot harder to practice because we lose a lot of time walking there and back every day,” captain Elizabeth Raab (12) said. “It’s harder for people to watch. We didn’t have that many fans before but now it feels less like home when we play.”

“Practicing on public courts in Van Cortlandt Park poses other issues as they only have a permit for four courts, which limits practice space,” Chun said. When they have to kick members of the community off the courts, they are visibly upset, and some refuse, she said.

Despite this setback, the team has turned this inconvenience into a bonding experience where teammates can talk and listen to music together, Rachel Okin (12), said.

“We’ve still been playing some of our best in a long time,” Kyra Hill (12) said. Although there have been obstacles, the change in practice location has not impacted the

performance of the team negatively, she said.

“I think we’re more focused because since we have a little less time to practice, because we have to take the time to walk there and back, we use the time that we practice productively,” she said.

“I think that we’ve been improving a lot through practicing together and spending more time together.” Raab said.

Okin said that each match was won with hard work and determination. “I think we are improving, definitely, and also we’ve all really fought for our matches, they were not easy wins.” she said.

“Between each point, my partner and I strategize and talk whether

we lose or the other person double faulted. We decide what we are going to do the next point by helping each other out,” Okin said.

Another positive quality the team has is the close connection, Hill said.

“We have 13 members on our team which first of all makes it really intimate. Everyone really knows each other, everyone knows the habits, the good things, and the bad things.” Hill said.

“Throughout the season, our team has definitely improved and strengthened our techniques,” Chun said. She credits the team’s improvements to the coaching staff and how effective they have been in practice, she said.

Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor

Flushing Meadows. Additionally, Ryu said that the courts are in good shape and good to play on, JJ Ryu (10) said.

“Some of the downsides of the team using the courts in Van Cortlandt Park are that for homecoming, only three or four parents were watching while when we played at the school the past few years, we’ve always had a crowd,” Kyra Hill (12) said. Other than the lack of spectators, there is nothing to

8

complain about, she said.

Walking down the hill is a really great bonding experience for the team, Hill and Ryu said. “We blast music on speakers,” Hill said. The Lions are “a very close-knit team and I think there is a communal sense of bonding.”

“It is very difficult to find good, public tennis courts that are kept in good condition,” Annunziata said.

That said, despite the school’s need for four courts every day, “we still leave two courts open and try to be good neighbors to the community’s players,” he said.

“We are delighted to have our teams on courts that are safe for athletic competition,” Kelly said. “We have been very excited to hear about how the local residents have been using the courts since they’ve been restored. I’m a very grateful that Mr. Annunziata helped coordinate and oversee the work.”

With high hopes of the school’s tennis courts being finished for the fall of the 2018 season, the school still wants to give back to the community and maintain the courts in Van Cortlandt Park, Annunziata said.

Varsity Season Records Varsity Field Hockey 11-3 Varsity Football 5-2 Boys Varsity Soccer 5-8-3 Girls Varsity Soccer 11-1

Girls Volleyball 4-11 Girls Varsity Tennis 11-0 Varsity Waterpolo 4-5

Current jv season records JV Field Hockey 1-3 JV Football 1-1 Boys JV Soccer 5-6-4

Girls JV Tennis 12-0 Girls JV Volleyball 9-3 JV Waterpolo 1-4

upcoming games Friday, November 3 Girls Varsity Soccer- NYSAIS Semifinal vs. Riverdale Varsity Field Hockey- NYSAIS Semifinal vs. Rye Country day school

Saturday, November 4 Varsity Football- HVFL Championship Bowl Game vs. Dalton Girls Varsity Cross Country- NYSAIS Championship

Sunday, November 5 Boys Varsity Cross Country- NYSAIS Championship Girls Varsity Tennis- NYS Federation Championship (Individual) Varsity Field Hockey- NYSAIS Championship (Depending on result of 11/3) Girls Varsity Soccer- NYSAIS Championship (Depending on result of 11/3)

Tuesday, November 7 Girls Varsity Tennis- Mayors Cup Quarterfinals

Sunday, November 12 Courtesy of Gibby Thomas

4-PEAT Tennis team gathers after winning Ivy League title

Girls Varsity Tennis- Mayors Cup Semifinals and Finals (Depending on Result of 11/7)