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One would think that the few inches of slushy wet snow that made an appearance on the first revisit day would have affected not only the mood, but also the general feel of the day, but this was proven wrong in the comments of visitor Signe Alh, a student admitted to the class of 2014. “Everything about it was great,” she said, “from the sit-down lunch to the student panel to the welcoming students. I couldn’t tell you anything negative about my day!” Each spring, admitted students pour onto campus, eagerly awaiting a sneak peek of a day in the life of a Deerfield student. Many current students may forget how terrifying it was to leave their parents behind to follow a complete stranger around for four hours, recalling only the excitement that caused them to leave the fear, and home, behind. This year the academy hosted three successful revisit days early this April. Potential students could not stop talking about the student panel that featured current students and perfomances by the Mello-D’s, Rhapso-D’s, and the acting tutorial class. Margaret McGraw, younger sister of Maddie McGraw ’12, commented, “The whole day was very well-run and organized and made you feel like you were already a part of the Deerfield community.”

If you attended any recent dances or ever visit the DA-student-run blog soundabovetheseal.com , you are most likely familiar with dubstep. If not, dubstep is a combination of beats, occasional vocals, and heavy drums with a deep bass born from reggae and London garage rock. Slightly less known, triphop is a pattern of hip-hop beats sans vocals, founded in England around the same time as dubstep. This term marks one year since Deerfield seniors Aaron Cyr-Mutty ’11 and Justin Kwok ’11 started making music together. Last spring, they started mixing beats and song clippings to create dubstep and triphop. Kwok and Cyr-Mutty enjoy these two genres because they rely upon creativity and individuality. Cyr-Mutty enthusiastically described, “Dub and triphop are pretty minimalist and, therefore, require less engineering than more mainstream genres like pop.” So, how does one actually create electronic music? “It’s a little like DJing, sort of making a mash-up of songs but instead of just using a section of the song you can use all of the parts individually,” Cyr-Mutty explained. “And it’s all done live, like improv,” Kwok clarified. The pair divide up the different aspects of the music making. “Kwok is in charge of the instrumentation and the guitar, and I manage the production,” said Cyr-Mutty, who uses virtual synthesizers on a computer program. “Essentially, you repeat a beat or sound and then layer other beats or parts of songs on top. Some artists use sample tracks as bases, but we just use recordings of Kwok playing the guitar,” he said. “We change up our methods all the time. Whenever either of us comes up with an idea, we just go with it,” he continued. One year from their start, the duo, officially called “The Kochmen,” is getting more serious about their work. This spring they secured an athletic exemption to work on their music in the hopes of producing a CD by the end of the year. Cyr-Mutty confided plans of their future: “Once we have a CD done, we can send some of the songs to music blogs. If they like it, hopefully they’ll post it.” “Great free publicity,” Kwok interjected. Cyr-Mutty quickly concurred, “Hopefully, it’ll lead to a live gig sometime this summer!”

None of us will ever forget the shame of having a Second Visit Day soiled by the cowardly act of one or more protestors. We are all for freedom of speech and we understand that individuals in our community may at times strongly disagree with the actions or decisions of others. But defacing a building with rants and accusations right before one of our most public occasions is not an action worthy of Deerfield students. When we all gathered before Sunday sit-down dinner to face this situation, the room was absolutely silent as Dr. Curtis reminded us of the importance of character and respect. Mr. Emerson had never appeared so disappointed. And Mr. Flaska, who along with the other deans has to balance his roles as friendly mentor and ultimate rule enforcer, spoke about his abiding commitment to Deerfield and to all its students. This situation should make us all re-examine our commitment to respecting the beautiful campus and community in which we live. How many times have we walked by overflowing trash cans in a stairwell, ignored the pile of dirty plates in the Greer, or left our weights scattered on the floor of the new fitness center? If we pretended every day was a Second Visit Day, we might treat our Deerfield world a little better. As spring arrives and flowers bloom, let’s do our own spring cleaning in big and small ways, and demonstrate that we all are worthy of our heritage.

After 27 years, Theater Director John Reese will resign at the end of this school year. When he began teaching here, play rehearsals took place after classes and an afternoon of sports. That schedule proved too taxing for both him and his students, so Mr. Reese pushed for a co-curricular theater spot. The productions and students’ academic work improved dramatically. Mr. Reese came to the school in 1984 because former Headmaster Robert Kaufman wished to enhance Deerfield’s theater and music programs to offer a more fully rounded liberal arts education. Mr. Reese is now concerned that scheduling complications may edge out the value the school places on a liberal arts education. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for students to add performing arts to their schedules,” he said. During his first seven years, Mr. Reese taught five classes every term and directed extra-curricular productions while being an associate in a dorm. He also contributed ideas towards plans for the new theater wing—the Reid Black Box. Mr. Reese hopes that, in the future, it will become easier for students to enroll in a performing arts course. “These classes give students confidence, and enhance their presentation and communication skills,” Mr. Reese said. He believes that “the arts cut across all disciplines and viscerally enrich students’ lives. They provide new ways of learning about themselves and the world in which they live.”

Established in memory of J.J. Stokes ’92, who passed away while still a student at Deerfield, Stokes Foundation seeks to foster “innovative athletic, extracurricular, and residential life programs” in city schools. In accordance with its motto, the foundation, which was launched in September 2010, brings “the life-transforming elements of boarding school life directly to students in need.” The foundation, through various partnerships and programs, hopes to make accessible to children attending under-funded schools the “meaningful youth programming” available to boarding school students. According to Founder and Executive Director Ray Walker ’92, Stokes Foundation will “work until every kid has something to do after school, and every kid has to do something,” just as prep school students must participate in sports and extracurriculars. “Education in America can make a huge turn-around,” said Walker (who was one of Stokes’ best friends while at Deerfield), once help and encouragement are offered to the “sixteen million children currently not actively engaged in after-school programming.” Unlike other programs that seek out talented inner city youth to attend private high schools, Stokes Foundation “delivers elements of Deerfield directly to struggling urban schools,” in a progressive manner emphasizing the message of “service before self,” commented Walker. “It is my duty, pleasure, and honor to do this work,” said Walker, “to operate in service of individuals and communities in need.” Walker encouraged Deerfield students to “connect via Facebook, and look for possible future internships.”

Most of Deerfield’s students and faculty rejoice at the thought of being outdoors again in the spring. But for some, the spring brings another season of hard work in the pool. Such is the case for the varsity girls’ water polo team, a hardworking group with both the talent and the desire to have a remarkable season. “This year we have a very young team. We lost [with last year’s graduation] four of our seven starters. However, we have a lot of new girls who are great swimmers, so it will be really exciting to see them improve and in turn improve the team,” said Liza Bragg ’13, a starter and second-year member of the team. While many on the team are swimmers who converted to water polo, one new girl is a seasoned “wopo” veteran. “Water polo in California is the equivalent to lacrosse or field hockey at Deerfield: everyone plays it. At home, people use swimming as a conditioning season for water polo, whereas here, the majority of the team is made up of swimmers learning to play water polo,” explains Lizzie Jeffrey ’13. Jeffrey is new to the team, but not to the sport, and she demonstrates her skills as a starter and key contributor every game. Jeffrey explained her love for the sport and her role as a largely intuitive player: “What I like about water polo is that it’s a fast game which is all about improvisation. It’s not as much about plays, but more about knowing how to respond to certain guarding and thinking quickly. It is much harder to move around someone in the water than it is to run around them.” Because the team has such a solid foundation in swimming, they are able to focus primarily on water-polo-specific skill work in the water, which sets the bar higher for their season. “Last year our team lost nineteen to three against Choate in the New England finals. This year, however, if you compare our records, we have a chance at beating them, which is really exciting because Choate has such a good program,” added a hopeful Bragg. Although a successful record is an important part of the team, it isn’t everything. Accompanying the hard work displayed on the scoreboard and the many hours together in the pool, every Tuesday the team participates in community service events such as giving faculty children swim lessons. With guidance, experience, and team dedication, the girls have much to be excited for this season.

On a campus filled with personalities both creative and individual, it is no wonder that, despite the dress code, one article of clothing shines through with colors, patterns, and designs equally as unique as the people sporting ties. Some welcome the notion of a tie with special vigor. “In a world of such precedent styles and predefined over-worn name brands, the depth of a man’s tie collection can provide a window through which the world may glance at one’s creative individualism…that’s basically what it boils down to,” commented Adam Coppola ’12. Coppola is known for his signature fish tie, a classic piece he discovered in his attic. Equally enthusiastic about ties, Sarah Sutphin ’13 stated, “Ties are terrific … I like funny ties. I always compliment someone with a funny tie.” One such tie can be found in the collection of Laddie Trees ’11. “My favorite tie is purple with zebras on it,” he stated. However, Trees is not the only one to appreciate a bold choice of color when it comes to ties. Tim O’Brien ’12 enjoys a tie given to him by his brother, not only for the iPods dotting its surface, but also for the electric blue background that, O’Brien said, “matches my pastels.” But the ties one generally sees around campus may not be exactly what they appear to be. Math teacher Nils Ahbel, known for his signature quirky bowties, replied when asked about his preference for bowties, “What I’m wearing, in fact, is a regular tie. What most people wear are called four-in-hand ties, so I would ask the question, ‘Why do people wear four-in-hand ties?’” Mr. Ahbel himself wears ties corresponding to events, such as his tie with a donkey and elephant on either side of a seesaw, which he wears “on days when there’s a really important political decision.” Some consider ties a much more serious art form. Chuck Jones ’12 spoke of his favorite tie, “a Dominico Vaca, seven fold, beautiful red with horizontal silver stripes, my most powerful power tie.” Then again, some choose to forgo ties altogether. Julian Gonzalez ’11 said, “I don’t like ties. A tie reminds me of a noose.” Sarah Woolf ’11 commented, “I’m glad I don’t have to wear a tie. My neck relishes its air.”

Is stress a problem here at Deerfield? Truth be told, stress is a fact of life. Some degree of stress is expected, living in a world with high expectations and multiple responsibilities. It can be neutral, positive, or negative. In many school environments, the ethic seems to be that if you aren’t stressed and overworked, you’re not working hard enough. The talk among students and adults is how much work they have, how little time they have to do it, and how low their reserves are (lack of sleep) when it comes to managing it. Stress is a timely topic, one that has received a heavy dose of attention with the release of the documentary film Race to Nowhere. The New York Times and other national publications recently paid their respects to the issue. Highly stressed secondary school and college students are a popular topic of conversation in the lay and professional press. Research for stressfocus.com reports that school work and parents top the stress list for 78% of teenagers. In our environment, anxiety about college admissions rises to the top of the list of stressors late in the junior year. Additionally, some students feel stressed about social concerns including friendships, dating, appearance, and family financial circumstances. While stress can be a positive motivator, too much stress can be physically and emotionally draining. Many Deerfield families choose this school because it is a competitive, action-packed environment with the potential to bring out the best in their sons and daughters. Parents and teachers talk about wanting students to thrive here, not merely survive. For many, that’s indeed what happens —the stress they experience is functional—and they thrive. For others it can feel like a survival ordeal. Knowing when stress is out of control, and then determining how to back it down, can be difficult to determine. The right amount of push-and-pull for one person may be too much for another. Students wonder whether their experience of overload is a personal problem or generated by an institutional or community norm. What else can we do as a community to make thriving everyone’s experience? In 2009, we delayed the start to the academic day. That was a significant move in the right direction, an appreciation of the importance of sleep for growing adolescents. We try to be sensitive to minimizing add-ons. We have rules about length of assignments, clustering of tests, and enforced quiet times in the dorms. Some of those rules are more respected than others. Winter massages and dress-down days are a modest nod toward shifting from a crazy pace. Deans, advisors, and teachers are available for extra help and support all day and into the night. Proctors and peer counselors work hard to support students experiencing social and emotional distress. The Health Center provides a safe retreat for the overwhelmed. Counselors are available to respond to students feeling pressed and stressed. The introduction of a Residential Life Curriculum may also prove to be a positive step toward addressing the complexities of dorm living. Some of these solutions are intended to be proactive (8:30 start) and some are reactive (recuperation at the Health Center). These efforts and limits are necessary —but not sufficient—as stress-reducers. Tackling this issue and its attending challenges in a meaningful way is well beyond what I can discuss here. How does the college admission process play in this quandary? Do Deerfield’s pace and demands appropriately prepare students for college and adult life? Are APs a culprit? Are we, parents and teachers, modeling healthy adult lifestyles? Might we choose to build into the daily schedule time for reflection and meditation? What is our collective experience of “community”? What happened to the “less-is-more” movement? How much of the stress is self-imposed as students push themselves to achieve at the highest levels (being “pretty good” at something doesn’t seem to cut it anymore)? Isn’t this a cultural phenomenon, a problem shared by, at the very least, all of our peer schools? We should be willing to look at and talk about how and why we do what we do. Focusing on the topic of stress will advance the conversation. Stuart Bicknell has been a psychologist since 1990.

“Just imagine the audience in their underwear,” goes the age-old saying that many jokingly cite as the key to delivering a public speech. Many are simply troubled when deciding what to say, or, as is the case for sophomores, selecting an appropriate piece of literature to present to their English classes. Sophomore English students are allowed to select a declamation piece from “the world of literary merit”: novels, plays, speeches, poetry…their options are limitless. So how should students go about narrowing down their pieces? English teacher Michael Cary knows what makes a text suitable to declaim. “It needs to do two things: it needs to reflect who you are….It ought to be something that is good enough to engage or interest the people who are listening.” This is where imagining the audience in their underwear won’t help improve one’s declamation. One way to engage the audience, as Assistant Academic Dean, Study Skills Coordinator and English teacher Peter Nilsson suggested, is to select “a text that allows room for oral interpretation.” Popular and, some may say, somewhat overused selections in the past have been from The Lovely Bones , The Glass Castle , The Catcher in the Rye , and To Kill a Mockingbird , all very dramatic novels with a fair amount of tragedy involved. As English teacher Karinne Heise exclaimed, “There’s not enough humor!” Every student wants to recite a piece with a degree of drama present, but are all dramas tragic? English teacher Suzanne Hannay’s experience begged the more interesting question: are all tragedies dramatic? “In both instances where you have either something that’s really tragic, or something that’s really bright and witty, they can be very obvious and maybe overdone, and I always find them kind of cloying,” Ms. Hannay confessed. So how are sophomores navigating the rich world of literature? “I’m doing a section from The Things They Carried ,” said Marina Hansen ’13. Like many students as well as their audience, Hansen believes “that declamations that have more of a somber topic move people more than happy declamations.” Brave enough to take on the challenge of reciting a famous speech, Kyle Wellner ’13 decided to tackle Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Wellner chose it because “it speaks to the audience; its words are powerful.” Though students are held to the highest standards, it is important to keep in mind how difficult it is not only to speak in front of an audience, but to deliver a piece with just the right amount of drama. Mr. Cary would choose John Keats’s poem, “To Autumn.” He explained, “I think it is an interesting challenge to recite a poem. It’s different from reading a page of dialogue or a description from a short story because poetry is condensed language, compressed language, and every word counts.”

Names like Kryzewski and Paterno are thrown around the college basketball and football worlds as symbols of success and evidence of great coaching. Imagine if, as a member of the basketball or football teams, you were informed that one of these all-time greats was coming to coach at Deerfield. That is how members of the crew team felt when Wayne Berger ’84 joined the school’s varsity rowing program. Mr. Berger began his coaching career at Groton School, founded the now enormously prestigious Boston Rowing Club for high school rowers and finally made the leap to coach at the collegiate level with Harvard University. He has coached boats to the most sought-after prizes in rowing, including the Eastern Sprint Championships, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships, US Club Nationals, the Royal Canadian Henley, the Cromwell Cup, and the Royal Henley Regatta. The Scroll caught up with Mr. Berger to ask him about his coaching history and his hopes for the future. Scroll : What’s the biggest difference between coaching collegiate men versus high school women? WB : Interestingly, there aren’t that many differences…Technically, it’s very similar…I would say that girls aren’t as strong in their upper bodies as men, but I do think that women are inherently more able to relax and are actually more coachable than men are. Scroll : What are you looking forward to this season? WB : I’m looking forward to getting better every week and the squad becoming a team and the boats becoming crews, and I’m looking forward to people trying to do something they haven’t done before, row harder, row better, row faster, and if that means winning some races, great, but I’m a lot more about the process than the product. Scroll : What is your vision for the future of the program? WB : My hope for the future of the program is to go to [a higher] level, and that [means] building a culture where people are willing to go outside of their comfort zone and make the necessary sacrifices to produce fast boats. I would love to see Deerfield be perennial contenders for NEIRAs and nationals, and I’d love to take [crews to the Henley]. Berger’s arrival at the boathouse has come with a wave of focus and productive intensity. Dance parties have turned into “movement prep” sessions, up-to-date video from each practice has made its way to the official team Facebook page. The hardworking team has caught on to Berger’s powerful enthusiasm, and they eagerly await a season of racing under such renowned coaching.

The newly-minted Culture Club wrote and submitted three proposals that tackle the problem of gender-imbalanced representation on Student Council. These plans range from establishing dual gender co-presidents with the elimination of the Chair position to a more moderate gender equality mandate that would maintain the current president/chair system while requiring that each class’ representatives be gender balanced. Science teacher and Culture Club founder Brian Fry lauded the club’s stance. “I believe gender issues on campus are manifested in leadership roles,” he said. “Statistics show over the last ten years the breakdown has been roughly 70% male, and we’ve only had one female president in that time,” Mr. Fry continued. At a Culture Club meeting earlier this month, club advisor and health teacher Kristin Loftus commented, “Student Council is a representative body; perhaps its membership should more accurately reflect the equal gender breakdown of the student body.” Currently, the fifteen-member council is composed of ten boys and five girls. That imbalance does not stretch into the highest level of leadership, however. “The President and Chair are on an equal plane, and are often gender balanced,” said Student Council Chair Ellie Parker ’11. “The two positions are differentiated by delegation of duties and not by prestige.” Parker continued, “I support the trickle-up proposal, in which all classes elect both a girl and boy rep, while ensuring the presidential and chair elections remain organic.” Another, more restrained counterproposal came in light of the discovery that female students are indeed elected despite representing only a small fraction of the candidate pool on election day. Council representatives are now working to encourage untapped yet qualified girls to consider running for election. “I would be really impressed if Council, leaders in the community, and adults could sustain an effort to encourage girls to run…but I realize it might be more effective to model a balanced council first,” said Parker. Some members of Culture Club and Student Council argued that socially engineering student government removes the democratic element, and thus reduces its symbolic weight. At the Culture Club meeting, various versions of the claim “we want the best council possible, regardless of gender breakdown,” were heard early and often. This cry for meritocracy will need to be weighed against the nearly unanimous agreement of the Student Council with student body President Charles Giannini ’11, who said, “Gender equality must be a top priority in leadership positions. The question that remains is how best to achieve it.”

Debates about federal budget cuts dominated the political realm recently. President Obama and congressional leaders narrowly avoided a complete government shutdown by finally agreeing to a plan that should reduce the federal deficit by nearly $40 billion from this year’s budget. But elected officials remain fundamentally divided over the direction of national priorities, with Republicans pushing for more cuts in social programs and Democrats petitioning for higher tax rates for the wealthy. Most Americans have experienced financial losses or uncertainties recently. Deerfield has not been immune, with our endowment lower and the need for financial aid higher. No one wants to face further pain through more taxes or cuts. But the reality is that we will all have to make further sacrifices so our nation can “live within its means.” As we become eligible to vote, it is imperative that we make an effort to stay intelligently informed, and then select leaders who will protect individual rights and those who truly need help, while holding all Americans accountable in building a sustainable future.