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“I’ve only seen one or two dancers in twenty-three years of her caliber…and that other dancer was her sister,” said Director of Dance Jennifer Whitcomb of former student Ilse Kapteyn ’12. This summer, Kapteyn journeyed to Russia along with her sister Ingrid Kapteyn ’09, Nina Shevzov-Zebrun ’12, and other dancers from East Street Ballet in Hadley, MA, to study at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Kapteyn’s teacher from East Street, Irina Vakhromeeva, arranged the two-week trip. During the visit, some of the school’s year-round faculty observed Kapteyn in her classes and invited her to come back to train for the entire year. “Ilse went to the summer program with the hopes of earning a spot in the Academy’s program for international students. After this year, Ilse can audition with the main Russian section of the Bolshoi. I am so happy for her,” gushed Shevzov-Zebrun. Ilse is the daughter of Kirsten Kapteyn, Bement School faculty member, and the late Jamie Kapteyn, who was a member of the Deerfield English faculty. When Kapteyn’s mother was asked if she was at all hesitant about letting her daughter leave high school to focus completely on her ballet training, Mrs. Kapteyn replied, “Yes, I was worried about her leaving Deerfield and taking time off to train before finishing high school, especially as she probably will not go to college in the near future if this year of training is successful and prepares her to jump right into a career as a ballet dancer in a professional company either abroad or here, as she hopes.” Explaining how she was able to let go of Ilse, Mrs. Kapteyn explained, “With the encouragement of several wise Deerfield faculty members, within a few days of our return from Russia in August, I had overcome my conventional fears and threw myself completely behind the idea. Ilse needs to follow this dream of hers.” Kapteyn aspires to be a professional ballerina. “Like many young dancers, Ilse’s ultimate dream is to dance for ABT (American Ballet Theatre) in New York City,” Mrs. Kapteyn elaborated. In addition to daily ballet and pointe classes, Kapteyn participates in more specialized classes focused on historical dance forms, character dance, acting, choreography, and stretching for a total of about seven hours a day. Kapteyn is also studying Russian daily and hopes to be fluent by the end of the year. Although the Deerfield dance program has certainly lost an incredibly talented senior ballerina, Ms. Whitcomb and Kapteyn’s peers are happy for her. Ms. Whitcomb noted that “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Her time is now.” Editor’s Note: Ilse Kapteyn could not be reached for an interview due to internet issues in Russia.

While most students took to the practice fields, theater, fitness center, or community service vans for their co-curricular activities, others chose to commit themselves to afternoons of calm, focused interaction with 1000-pound animals cantering, trotting, and jumping. Hannah Wulkan ’12 took an equestrian exemption last winter to spend more time training for the Interscholastic Equestrian League, which provides a unique sort of competition. Rather than bringing their own horses with which they have trained, competitors select randomly from a pool of horses, and ride an unpracticed course. Of the competitions, Wulkan said, “They’re a lot harder, because you don’t get to form a relationship with the horse that you’re on. You just have to go.” Currently, Wulkan is on two competitive equestrian teams and hopes to continue with her exemption this coming winter. Meaghan McKelvey ’13 decided last spring that she, too, wanted to devote more time to riding. She applied for the exemption, drawing up a schedule that involved three-to-four afternoons of riding a week, coupled with gym workouts. Why go to the gym when you can get a full workout sitting down? When asked if riding ever felt physically demanding, McKelvey explained. “Your thighs can get really sore, especially if you haven’t ridden for a while, because there is a lot of gripping and stabilizing that you do with your legs.” A typical practice consists of warming up the horse, walking, trotting, then cantering, each for between five and ten minutes, then progressing to short courses and jumping. These girls are committed to improving their riding skills and are very grateful for their opportunities to take exemptions. “I had never considered it as an option,” said Wulkan. “I wasn’t sure I could even get it, but now I can devote a lot more time to doing what I love, and I’ve improved a lot!”

Recently, day students were given the good news that they could now park their cars behind the Koch Center. Now however, if day students fail to park in the designated area, they are given a letter of reprimand. There was very little communication about why this change was made, and, in fact, in the online handbook it still says that the punishment for this minor offense is only accountability points. More troubling, though, is the fact that a letter of reprimand was the only punishment given in a few cases of alleged disrespect for others and harassment. What message does it send to the community, especially girls and day students, when the punishment for these alleged actions and parking a car in the wrong place are the same? If there is a reason, the community has a right to know, especially when we speak of trying to be an inclusive community and emphasize our respect for others.

Allison Gruneich ’13 has worked for several months to create a service trip to India for Deerfield students. This past summer, Gruneich spent four weeks in India, splitting her time between Calcutta and Ladakh on what she called a “test run” for the Deerfield-sponsored program she is helped to engineer. Gruneich’s interest in this project began after her freshman year when she participated in student trip focusing on environmental sustainability in India. Her love for India led her to Associate Head of School Martha Lyman, with whom she has been working for several months to design a trip that would consist of touring and teaching experiences that mirror her own. In Ladakh, Gruneich taught at SECMOL, a school that began, Gruneich said, “as a campaign movement to encourage education in the area.” “The students there are all tenth graders who failed their board exams because their English was so poor,” she explained. “They couldn’t make it to the eleventh grade.” SECMOL, one of the schools at which Deerfield students would teach, also features an impressive self-sustaining campus. According to Gruneich, the campus “has animals, farmland, and solar panels, and they buy hardly anything.” “I really love India, and have never been happier than then I was there,” said Gruneich. “I believe in these initiatives to promote English education there, and I want other students to have the same amazing experience I did.”

Capturing moments of symbolism, contrasts, and depth, Zoe Perot ’12, Marissa Morte ’12 and Lindsay Stevens ’12 won the three first-place awards at the Round Square photo competition this fall. The exhibition in the Hilson Gallery weaves together travels and the ideals of Round Square through a collage of unique photographs taken worldwide. Perot said, “During my time in Holland last year, I would look outside my window for inspiration.” Seeing the buildings across the canal and their swirled reflections upon the water, she said, “The whole idea of distorting what was actually there connects to having to discover and dig a little deeper to understand [Holland’s customs] despite cultural barriers.” Competition judge and art teacher David Dickinson echoed the notion of finding cultural metaphors within Perot’s photograph. In the ripples of the canal’s water, he observed, “The symbols are indigenous to different civilizations [such as] the Eskimos and [Native Americans]…The compilation of symbols are civilizations being reflected in the canal.” Morte chose to capture and submit a scene of the Italian seaside because of its contrasts. She said, “The fiery red and orange buildings not only contrasted with the crystal clear blue water of Italy, but also the brick buildings of Deerfield Academy.” Mr. Dickinson noted, “The tightly-packed buildings speak to the human condition of people stacked on top of each other.” Finding a juxtaposition, he, like Morte, compared the scene to American architecture: “As opposed to Manhattan skyscrapers, [the series of buildings] looks like children’s blocks piled together [with the] playfulness of primary colors.” The happiness that radiated from a South African pre-school boy named Lingomso appealed to Stevens during her volunteer experience in an outreach program this summer near Cape Town. “Lingomso and the other children in the pre-school would take tires and push themselves on the cement because their only toys were the trash around them,” explained Stevens. She added that despite this, “The children were all just so happy.” Mr. Dickinson noted, “The child is clearly from an arid land, but his smile, the rain boots, and his sitting in a tire are like floating on a river in an inner tube.” Holly Taylor ’13, who organized the competition said, “Standing at the front of the gallery and seeing the collection was like looking through a treasure box.” She concluded, “Round Square emphasizes cross-cultural interactions and makes it easier to see how connected we are through proof, like photos.”

The Voice of Russia, a Russian international broad-casting station, responded to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests gaining worldwide popularity and momentum with “…the ‘Arab Spring’ was just a beginning of an ‘American Fall.’” Who are all of these protestors and what do they stand for? Amanda Fairbanks of the Huffington Post estimated that students “from nearly 150 college campuses across the country will participate” in the OWS protests as of late October. Along with the mass of college students, union members have also joined OWS movements. Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) support the protests on their website, seiu.org, and have a comprehensive list of all the OWS protest locations across the United States and Canada. Aggravated Americans have carried signs and camped out along Wall Street and other major locations in cities across the United States for over a month. However, some alarming consistencies have begun to appear among the OWS protests that criticize crucial facets of the American way of life. Homemade posters calling for political and economic ideologies like socialism, communism, and even Maoism appeared on scene from OWS New York to OWS Los Angeles. Guest speakers like Alex Callinicos (professor of European Studies at King’s College London, editor of the International Socialism journal, and author of An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto) and Arturo Cambron of the Communist Party USA have given multiple presentations at OWS protests in which they demonize capitalism and promote ideologies America has fought wars to eliminate from the global community. More support for OWS protests has come from the leaders of the American Progressive Party. SEIU’s Stephen Lerner, a prominent member of the American Progressive Party, stated at the Chicago Progressive Conference in March 2011 that he was collaborating with others to plan “a week of civil disobedience to destabilize the folks that are in power.” Lerner went on to say that, ultimately, his goal for the movement was to “collapse the American system.” The OWS protestors have shown tremendous courage and unity by standing for what they believe in and capturing the support of thousands of people. However, we must be careful as a nation to be aware of what they are protesting. We must pay attention and point out the posters promoting socialism, the guest speakers demonizing capitalism, and protestors like Stephen Lerner who are openly trying to “collapse the American system.” Another point we must monitor is the potential violence that could erupt at any time during OWS protests. As of late October, over 1,000 arrests have been made, according to the NYPD, for a variety of reasons including assaulting police officers and resisting arrest. In comparison, the Tea Party movement has held nearly 1,000 rallies nationwide and only one protestor was arrested. In an interview with Keith Olbermann on day six of the OWS protests, Michael Moore ensured that “Occupy Wall Street will only get bigger.” As future leaders of this country, we must understand what we are supporting if we support the OWS movement. Despite our political beliefs, we must understand that the promotion of ideologies that America has fought to avoid is becoming more and more popular among OWS protests. If protestors like Stephen Lerner reach their goals of collapsing the American system, we will all be hurt by its consequences. Sources: The Voice of Russia: Arab spring, or American fall? Michael Moore ‘Occupy Wall Street will only get Bigger’ • Keith Olbermann Occupy Wall Street Occupy Colleges: Student Supporters Of Occupy Wall Street Continue To Show Solidarity Cheering Economic Terrorism–SEIU Getting Ready To Terrify DC: Steven Lerner Creating a Crisis

Like other student-athletes looking to play the sport they love in college, I see the recruiting process as a just way to pursue and be admitted to any school I have the desire and ability to handle. Every college or university in the nation is an academic institution. However, enormous amounts of money come in to schools through their athletic departments. Athletic teams are valuable sources of publicity and revenue. It would be impossible to eliminate the system of athletic recruiting as it stands. Could schools like Alabama, Texas, or Ohio State conceivably be asked to cut their varsity programs, which each bring in separate incomes of over $115,000,000 a year? How about schools like Stanford and Notre Dame that each, through athletics alone, make over $75,000,000 annually? I cannot control the system that dictates college recruiting. I joined the NCAA this summer as a potential recruit for Division 1 rowing and, as the smallest possible pawn in the system, have absolutely no say in what goes on behind the scenes in terms of school television rights, scholarship budgets, coaching salaries, or travel expenses. I defend athletic recruiting on the personal level. Rowing has provided a stable source of personal excellence in my life, which is the most valuable thing that Deerfield has given me so far. Off the water, I stay up later and wake up earlier than anyone I know in order to produce the highest level of class work that I can. However, this grueling effort doesn’t necessarily get plugged into a machine that churns out straight A’s at the end of every grading period. Colleges want well-rounded, intelligent and involved students, but a perfect SAT score does not mean that students will pursue their academics, or any other extra-curricular options a college offers, to the fullest. What better way to determine the character of a person than through her dedication to athletics? Many say that as an athlete, I am given admission priority by colleges. I say that I am given priority simply because I will contribute more to a school in the next four years than many of my non-varsity athlete peers. I will attend all of my classes and practices while maintaining a high enough GPA to pass all of my courses. In college I will have to balance the expectations of my parents, academic advisors, coaches and teammates. On top of everything academic that is expected of all students, I will have an additional 20 hours of practice time a week. That’s 20 hours that won’t be spent drinking, Facebooking, sleeping, or eating cheap pizza. I will do all of this while also meeting expectations as the well-rounded student that the college was looking for in the first place.

“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires cooperation of its members of that system…that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by the economic power.” This quote is straight from the Occupy Wall Street manifesto written by the protestors, and defines the beat that has driven these protestors from day one on September 17, 2011. They are tired of and angry at the fact that large corporations have controlled the way countries are run, and how the government no longer works as a democracy, which is supposed to care for the majority of the people and not just the privileged 1%. It’s obvious why the Republicans receive 1% of the vote in America when elections roll around, but you will have to explain the vote of the other 99%. In the past decades, the United States has become a country for the rich, by the rich, where every single day our laws cater more and more to the rich and less to the real person, with tax breaks for the rich, deregulation, and much more. These laws and leaders which we vote for constantly coddle the mega-rich, while they cut programs such as Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Protection Agency, college education, Social Security and health care, yet people continue to vote against their common interest and for the interest of the mega rich. Recently though, it seems as if our leaders have failed to lead and are watching the moneyed elite of America kill the middle and lower classes, and what is worse they are getting away with it. It is about time that the 99% of America started to voice their opinion over the injustice and corruption of the system. From 1982 until today, 80% of the income generated went to the richest 1%, and their average income rose 271%, making the top 400 families in America have more money than the bottom 150 million combined. In the past decade, the lives of the moneyed elite have been too comfortable, while the lives of the average American have rapidly unraveled. While most Americans are struggling to pay their mortgage or basic bills, the top 1% are enjoying the lowest tax rates in the last 50 years. The leaders of the country ask for “shared sacrifice,” yet if you were to ask the top 400 households in America what exactly they have had to sacrifice, I doubt they would be able to come up with a single thing. But if you were to ask the average middle class American struggling just to get by, what they have had to sacrifice, they wouldn’t even know where to begin. The Americans who belong in the 99% and are on Wall Street right now, in the rain, cold, and even snow, know exactly what they are protesting and know exactly what they want. It is time for the richest 1% who control the government to stop being coddled, and it is time for the rights of the real Americans to be acknowledged and addressed. The people are real, as are their struggles, and it is time to revert to the way government used to be run, and should be run: of the people, by the people and for the people of the United States of America. SOURCES http://occupywallst.org/ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/ http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/news/economy/cbo_income/index

Sports carry far too much weight in a system supposedly meant to produce the most academically qualified students—people who will go on to be our society’s thinkers, revolutionaries, and problem solvers. Average Deerfield seniors probably meet with their college advisor once a week and discuss SAT scores, GPAs, and essays. And then there are those who talk erg times, race times, or batting averages. These two worlds represent a dichotomy in the college admissions process. The reality is that sports recruiting has become an integral part of the path to college for many American teenagers. But in all the hype surrounding student athletes, perhaps it is time to re-examine exactly what the goals of a college education are. Have you ever heard of a person graduating with a degree in water polo or crew? We certainly have not. When you graduate from college, you do so with a specialty in an academic subject. But instead of being just a hook, sports have become the sole factor for which some students are being admitted. Top academic institutions, choir directors, theater directors, or scientific researchers are not given the opportunity to shape their programs the way coaches are. Coaches have unparalleled leverage within the admissions office in order to build the best possible team. To those who say that sports recruiting promotes a well-rounded student body, we would say that this is a very narrow vision of “well-rounded.” Sure, athletes have to conform to certain academic standards and their other co-curricular interests are probably taken into account, but not nearly to the degree that they are for non-athletes. We believe that a well-rounded student body consists first and foremost of intellectually capable individuals, who also cultivate a breadth of interests outside of the classroom. Sports is just one of many possibilities, and yet it carries the most weight. That being said, student athletes are no less capable or deserving of an education from a top institution. We are simply saying that they should be held to the same academic and co-curricular standards as anyone else in the admissions process. At the end of the day, this is not a debate about who is working harder to get into college. We recognize that both athletes and academic students devote tremendous amounts of time and energy to college admissions. But athletic recruiting makes the current college admissions system an unbalanced scale.

The greenhouse behind Johnson-Doubleday has never been thought of as a hub of student life or activity, but that stereotype is about to change for the better. Any close friends of Elizabeth Eastman ’13 would be aware of a project she has been working on since spring of freshman year. But many students will be flabbergasted to hear that—thanks to Eastman—Deerfield Academy is home to a hive of honeybees. Eastman has kept beehives at her house since she was five years old, and when she decided to attend Deerfield, she brought them with her. “It’s how I’ve grown up,” she said. The bees have “always been in my backyard, and I wanted to continue what I have been doing.” The Eastmans bought a single hive, also known as a “super,” which Eastman visits at least once a week in the fall and spring, feeding the bees sugar water and covering the hive with a protective coating in the winter so they can survive. This fall, Eastman was able to collect twelve jars of honey from the hive. Since it was not enough to give to the dining hall, she gave some away to members of the faculty and administration, including Head of School Margarita Curtis herself. When asked about the honey, Ms. Curtis exclaimed, “I have been putting the honey in my Greek yogurt every morning, and enjoying it immensely.” Ms. Curtis even admitted to telling U.S. Poet Laureate and Academy Event speaker W. S. Merwin about the honey. Although when offered honey to take home to Hawaii, he said it would be “difficult to carry,” Mr. Merwin was very impressed. Eastman is not the only one who cares for the bees. Over the years she has brought friends with her not only for assistance, but also with the idea of showing them the ropes. Jinane Achi ’13 commented, “The first time I helped Elizabeth, I was intimidated by her suit, and a little afraid of the bees, but they are actually not hostile at all. I love going along with her and seeing what it’s like to produce your own honey, and the best part is definitely getting to eat it because it’s delicious.” Eastman expressed her wish to getting a bee-keeping group together as well as a few more hives, with the goal of having honey actually make an impact on the school. In a few years, students could potentially have homemade honey on their toast at breakfast, if some take advantage of this opportunity. “It’s a fun experience, and someone is going to need to entertain those bees next year,” exclaimed Achi. With just a little interest shown from the student body, morning meals could improve drastically.

Language teachers stress that the only way to become comfortable with a language is to “speak, speak, speak.” The challenge for many students is that they have neither the time nor the environment in which to do so. Is there a way we can supplement what is learned in the classroom, allowing those who don’t spend time abroad to become more confident speakers? Last month, Laura Quazzo ’13 came up with an answer when she announced she would be starting a Spanish sit-down table. With the help of Language Department Chair and Spanish teacher Virginia Invernizzi and science teacher Julie Cullen, Quazzo devised a plan allowing students to incorporate their language into their daily lives. “I remembered a Spanish dorm that I saw when I was visiting colleges, and I thought it would improve everyone’s conversation skills,” Quazzo recalled from when she and Mrs. Cullen, Quazzo’s advisor, brainstormed ways for her to improve her Spanish. Students expressed immediate interest in Quazzo’s idea. One of them, Zatio Kone ’12, explained, “I think the Spanish table will be a great way to work on my speech in an informal and fun way. I’ve heard of language tables before but they’re usually in the context of colleges, and I think it’s great that Laura brought something unique to Deerfield. We’ll meet often in a non-pressured environment and on top of that there will be food.” Senior Associate Director of Admissions and Assistant Director of Multicultural Programs Debra Dohrmann, the table head, agrees that a Spanish table is “an opportunity for students to engage in an intellectual interest, practice a skill, outside of the traditional academic venue—a classroom.” The Spanish table will meet as regularly as any other table and will call for a rotation. The table is a setting where students feel comfortable taking risks speaking, as everyone at the table is at approximately the same Spanish level, including Mrs. Dohrmann. Mrs. Dohrmann, known as “Dulce” to her fellow classmates, took Spanish at Deerfield for several years, and even accompanied students on the Uruguay trip this past summer. “Because I am also a student of Espanol, and not a teacher, I think that the students will be very comfortable, and comfort leads to risk-taking, and risk-taking leads to making mistakes and learning from them,” explained Mrs. Dohrmann. Quazzo recognized that students might feel pressured to speak perfectly while with their own teacher. “I thought that it would be a more friendly environment if our table head was at the same Spanish level that we were, so that it wouldn’t feel like a classroom,” said Quazzo. “An hour a day can really make a difference.”

Though tropical storm Irene inundated the lower levels, inflicting a multitude of bus rides on our sports teams, and last weekend’s freak Halloween snowstorm wreaked havoc in the northeast, it seems the one thing weeks of bad weather cannot dampen is the spirit of the green and white. Though the year began in puddles, our cheerleaders and Captain Deerfield intend to ramp up the energy and excitement of this year’s Choate Day. But what gives these chipper cheerers the inspiration to hop up and down, lose their voices, and slather themselves in green paint? For Head Cheerleader Madeline Melly ’12, the school spirit of Choate Week inspired her audition for cheerleader. “When I first got here, Choate week was something that really got my attention, and being a new sophomore, I saw school spirit first in that week. Everything came together. I realized Deerfield had a whole life that was hidden—this sense of school spirit. I was so ready to be a part of it and love it.” For Captain Deerfield William Hess ’12, a similar love for the communal spirit of DA not only won him the role of Captain Deerfield but was also the main factor that initially drew him to campus. “Second Visit Day, I remember coming to campus and feeling this incredible sense of community. And I think this community is fueled by school spirit,” he explained. However, a love of school spirit was not the only factor in his decision to cheer. “My two older brothers went to school here, and one of them had a computer background created of him and his friends painted green being driven around by former Headmaster Eric Widmer ’57 in his old Woodie. I wanted to be a part of that spirit. Deerfield does it bigger and better than everyone else,” Hess said. Alaina Belanger ’12 was also influenced by an older sibling in her decision to pursue cheerleading. “I saw my sister Erica Belanger ’09 on stage freshman year and it looked like a lot of fun. I love the tradition here. The moment you step on stage, you get chills,” she recalled. However, stepping on stage is not all fun and games. Head Cheerleader Leslie Francois ’12 joked, “No one ever tells you about the hair on the back of your legs being singed off at the bonfire.” Apart from designing Choate Day t-shirts and discovering elaborate techniques to paint their famous megaphones, the cheerleaders and Captain Deerfield may have a surprise for the student body. “We’re all pumped. Since the hurricane, there’s been a dearth of school spirit,” Hess commented, referring to this season’s lack of home games, before finishing, “Let’s get a little bit rowdy.”