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On November 13, I approached the Parker Room with my stomach growling for soup, only to be turned away at the door. I wasn’t alone. Students at regular sitdown tables were forbidden from entering the Parker Room at all. Mr. Kelly addressed the rationale for this ban with both an announcement and an email. The latter stated that “there is a limited amount of food allocated for staff and families in the Parker Room. Having the kitchen staff scramble to make-up for the volume of food consumed by students is becoming overwhelming.” I understand this concern when it comes to food in the Parker Room that is also served at the sit-down meal. However, this argument does not hold up when considering two specific categories of food: soup and leftovers. The Deerfield Dining Hall should either restore student access to soup and leftovers, or better yet, move a soup and leftover station to the main Dining Hall. Students taking soup and leftover food would not cause the kitchen staff to “scramble to make-up for the volume of food consumed by students.” During regular sit-down lunches before students were denied entry, the Parker Room rarely experienced a lack of soup. The kitchen was already preparing enough soup for the number of people who wanted it—including students who came in briefly before their sit-downs. After the Dining Hall started enforcing these stricter sit-down rules on November 13, I took a look at the soup station after lunch had been over. Two full containers of hot soup were still sitting there, untouched. As for leftover food, it would also be beneficial for students to consume them rather than leave them to waste. The Parker Room is not reliant on these leftovers to feed the staff and families that eat in it. If the concern is that staff and families might not get food, the solution should directly address the problem; the Dining Hall should prevent students from taking food that is also being served at their sit-down tables and allow them access to leftovers and soup. Right now, students assigned to the Parker Room have access to more food options compared to those at regular sit-down tables. The assignment process is random, which creates a sense of unfairness. No one should feel disappointed when they’re assigned to a sit-down table instead of the Parker Room. That runs against Deerfield’s emphasis on community as a signature part of our culture. Sit-down meals are meant to be more than food; they are about face-to-face conversations that build a strong community. But that's hard to prioritize when some people at the table are still hungry. I have experienced sitdown tables that were filled with hearty eaters who wished they had eaten more by the end of the meal, even though they were eating the entire time. Since your mouth can only do one thing at a time, it is not really possible to engage in meaningful conversation when you are hungry. At the same time, students are already heavily constrained in terms of what types of food are available to them. The salad and deli bars help, especially for students with dietary restrictions, but eating the same limited options day after day gets repetitive Allowing students to grab a quick bowl of warm soup or leftovers prior to a sit-down meal allows them to quench some of their hunger. So what should Deerfield do? One option would be to go back to the previous system but prevent students from consuming food that would be served at their sit-down meals. Tbis allows them to still take leftovers and soup. While this is better than what we have now, it would be diffcult to enforce and also create unnecessary traffic in the Parker Room. There is even a better, cleaner solution: open a soup bar and leftover station in the main Dining Hall, accessible to all students. This would reduce food waste, avoid crowding the Parker Room with extra student traffic and dishes, and make access to soup and extra options more equawl across the student body. We already do something similar during walkthrough lunches. Extending that system wouldn’t require reinventing the wheel. At the very least, we should be planning for a permanent solution in the new Brick Dining Hall: a soup station open to all Deerfield students.

What do you think is the most important life skill? Is it writing a good essay, knowing how to do algebra, or learning how to save a person’s life? Every student in Deerfield should leave knowing how to save a life, manage stress, and make informed choices about their well-being. Yet, despite this importance, health education is not a graduation requirement. Currently, only ninth and tenth graders taking five graded classes are required to take Health Seminar I and II. Others can graduate from Deerfield without ever taking a health class. It is a gap that feels inconsistent. When only some students receive basic health education and others don’t, it creates a skills and knowledge gap that everyone, regardless of academic background, will need one day. For some students, taking the Health class is simply a scheduling outcome. Because of conflicts or the number of graded classes a student takes, some students end up with Health in their schedules while others may never have the opportunity. This means that learning how to be a healthy person, something that is universal, becomes a matter of chance. The lessons covered in Health are foundational tools that relate to every student, no matter what they plan to do during and after Deerfield. During the Health Seminar classes, students discuss everything from CPR training and nutrition to addiction, relationships, and mental health. Deerfield’s CPR training is certified through the American Heart Association with instructors from the Institute of Wild Med. Students learn how to perform compressions, use an AED, and respond to emergencies. Those couple of hours could one day make the difference between life and death, something few other high school courses can guarantee. Other parts of the course have an equally enduring impact. One recent unit included watching Ten Dollar Death Trip: Inside the Fentanyl Crisis, a documentary that exposed how addiction ravages communities and individuals. It helped students see how a single, seemingly small decision could turn into a domino effect, reshaping the rest of people’s lives. These lessons teach empathy, responsibility, and an understanding of how health decisions mold both individual lives and society. Health also puts much emphasis on mental well-being, which is rarely discussed in academic life. Students are reminded about the resources at the D.S. Chen Health and Wellness Center, which has both professional medical and counseling support 24/7. While those resources exist, they often feel distant from daily student life; Health class bridges that gap, normalizing conversations about stress, balance, and seeking help. By reinforcing that mental health is a vital part of overall wellness and not an afterthought, Health class helps break the stigma around it. Students learn that asking for help isn’t a weakness but a representation of self-awareness and maturity. Some would argue that taking Health would interfere with taking other electives or a sixth course. But two one-term courses out of a total of twelve terms is not asking a lot. The benefits of universal health education, such as increased awareness, safety, and emotional resilience, far outweigh the minor scheduling inconvenience. Even from an institutional perspective, requiring Health ensures that every Deerfield graduate leaves with the same preparation for life beyond school, not just academic readiness. Deerfield students take pride in being prepared for college and life beyond. However, life rarely tests us on visual arts or photography; it tests us on how we react under pressure, how we care for ourselves, and how we support others. A well-rounded education should teach more than academic skills; it should teach us how to stay healthy, steady, and compassionate when it matters most. Perhaps it’s time Deerfield ensures that every student has the tools to do so.

As the fall season came to a close, Deerfield athletes began preparing for their upcoming winter seasons. From squash courts to the hockey rink to the erg room, student athletes across campus have been training, building skill, strength, and camaraderie before the first whistle of the official season. Squash is among one of the winter sports offered at Deerfield. “When our program attracts college-bound athletes, it’s become increasingly common for the players to feel the pressure to perform and maintain a high level in preparation for their season,” Boys’ Varsity Squash Head Coach Ryan Tyree said. This fall, the Boys’ Varsity Squash team began their typical level of commitment in off-season training. The team held captain’s practice every Friday and, occasionally Saturdays. Furthermore, they facilitate optional fitness sessions. Captain Kyle Yang ’26 said, “Everyone has squash as their main sport and is motivated to improve. It makes our team practice time arrangement more flexible.” According to Yang, organizing off-season practices was not an easy effort. “The biggest challenge about leading off-season practice is that nobody has an obligation to come,” Yang noted. Nevertheless, much of the team still showed up. “The attendance has not been a problem. We are normally missing at most one or two players,” he added. Coach Tyree echoed these thoughts saying, “I noticed that although the off-season training is individualized and therefore does not always naturally transfer to team building.” He continued, “overlap for the players at the facility on a regular basis, the team does benefit from the camaraderie and spirit built early on during off-season.” Despite not being able to coach due to athletic conference leagues’ rules and guidelines, Coach Tyree took part as a resource for the team by offering tactical advice and helping with mental preparation. Most importantly, he emphasized, “maintaining an overall level or quality of play is particularly beneficial for injury prevention, so that once the season begins, our top athletes can lead the way, and feel good about the shape that they are in.” The Girls’ Varsity Hockey team, too, used the off-season window to prepare for the approaching regular season, which began with eight matches across the first three weeks. Discussing the team’s fall training focus, Hockey Off-Season Training Director Timothy McVaugh explained, “hockey is somewhat unique in that skating is crucial, and the only way to improve skating is by getting on the ice.” However, neither him nor Girls Varsity Hockey Head Coach Brooke Fernandez are allowed to coach the group on the ice until after Choate day, the end of the fall season. Despite this restriction, the team organized off-season training. "The sessions provided time for athletes to work on stride mechanics and strengths that are otherwise hard to focus on during the game-intensive winter. While off-season training seems to be more individualized, the fall development league provided an opportunity for the team to play together on weekends. “The ups and downs of that experience helped those players develop closer connections with one another,” noted Coach McVaugh. For the Deerfield rowing program, training is a year round process. "The team dedicated time to training in the fall and will continue their momentum in winter with hopes of building a foundation for their spring season. “Rowing is a sport that requires a great deal of strength and endurance, so the more time we spend training, the better off we will be because we’re fitter and stronger,” said Boys Varsity Rower Zander Auth ’26. Winter rowing is a smaller winter program at Deerfield composed of roughly twenty top upperclassmen rowers, who value the additional off-season time for concentrated training. Underclassmen rowers, too, occasionally participate. While the athletes are encouraged to explore other sports to become more well-rounded, they typically erg during their free time, after co-curriculars, or on weekends. Despite the off-season program operating with a small roster, the training intensity remains high. The team holds six scheduled practice sessions every week from Monday through Saturday. Rowers mainly use off-season training as an opportunity to focus on physical conditioning. Typically, rowers on the team do steady-state workouts to build a strong aerobic base which reserves more time for the team to work on on-the-water techniques in the spring. Auth explained, “If you think of it like a pyramid, the wider the base is, the higher the peak can be.” He added, “Winter training is about developing that base, building fitness and strength, so that in the spring, we can reach a higher peak in performance.” Across all winter sports, off-season training is used to build physical foundation and mental readiness for the season yet to come. The hours dedicated to training built the groundwork for the regular season. All winter varsity sport teams will offcially kick off the regular season this week, with schedules posted on the Student Bulletin. Deerfield teams and athletes step into competition not just fit, but focused and connected following months of unseen effort.

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a group of my friends about our sophomore year experiences so far. We talked about our extracurriculars, our social experiences, and compared our sophomore and freshman schedules. However, as we began to talk about our classes, one thing became clear: all of us felt like we enjoyed the courses we were taking, but none of us felt like we’re getting enough sleep This experience is not unique. In 2021, a survey conducted on the junior class with 95 respondents found that 91.6% of juniors would sleep more if they had less work. Additionally, 90% of respondents reported that they were feeling “super stressed.” These statistics show widespread overworking. Specifically, they illustrate how large portions of the student body have to sacrifice sleep, which Deerfield emphasizes, in order to keep up with work. I believe that this overworking is a huge problem for two main reasons. First, it is unhealthy. Consistently missing sleep impairs physical recovery as well as cognitive function. This is especially detrimental for high school teenagers who are in the most crucial stage of their biological development. Second, it decreases students’ curiosity and passion for the subjects they learn about. I believe that no matter how much a student loves a subject, if they have to consistently miss sleep to keep up with the curriculum, they will begin to associate it with stress and fatigue. As a result, they will begin to love it less. These impacts go against what Deerfield stands for, against cultivating a healthy environment for young people to discover and pursue their passions. I believe that classes can become more rigorous in two main ways: by requiring an increased volume of work or by involving more diffcult and intellectually stimulating work. Increasing volume may look like requiring forty pages of reading instead of twenty, while increasing diffculty looks like taking a deeper dive into a subject or exploring more complex ideas; the two are not mutually exclusive. I agree that volume is important. There is great value in reading a variety of texts with different styles, doing practice problems on a certain mathematical concept, and investing time into learning. However, I also believe that at a certain point, when keeping up with the curriculum of a class requires significant sacrifices in other areas of students’ lives, this volume has a diminishing return. Deerfield has clearly reached this point. Before I proceed further, I would like to recognize a concern Deerfield might have about decreasing volume. Decreasing volume too much can have harmful effects on literacy skills; with literacy proficiency already declining in this current generation of students, I can see why Deerfield would be wary of lessening workloads. However, I also believe that there are ways Deerfield can ameliorate this issue of overworking without sacrificing their commitment towards producing well-read and proficient students. I don’t believe that teachers should remove challenging texts or important primary sources from class curricula—reading those texts is important to developing crucial literacy skills. However, I believe they can experiment with ways to more effciently teach background information that is important for contextualizing those texts but isn't the main focus. For example, if this type of tertiary knowledge can be conveyed in a ten minute video instead of a thirty minute reading, teachers should assign the video rather than the reading. I also believe that Academic Affairs needs to standardize expectations on the amount of time students should spend on homework. I understand that if a student wants to do exceptionally well and get an exceptional grade in a course, they must invest more time and effort than the course requires. However, if they spend allotted time—50 minutes for regular classes and 70 minutes for honors classes—on homework, what grade can they expect to receive? Should they expect to get the class average? Should they expect to receive a grade of 90%? I believe that Academic Affairs should decide on a standard, and make it clear to the student body so that they can make informed decisions on how to allocate their time. Teachers should also more consistently collect student input. Periodic surveys on the pace of a class, the method in which it is taught, and general feedback can illuminate issues with the curriculum and places where it can improve. For example, if the vast majority of students claim that they are consistently spending more than two hours a night on homework, this may indicate the need to find more effcient ways to teach the material. In addition to Deerfield’s model of rigor, I also believe that our chronic overworking is exacerbated by a hypercompetitive workaholic culture. In my experience, the student body places a huge emphasis on taking the hardest classes possible and finishing work regardless of circumstance; it has created a culture of “toughing it out,” even when doing so is not the most healthy nor the most productive path forward. I believe that the student body has glorified getting insuffcient sleep and pulling all-nighters. I frequently have conversations with friends that wear sleep deprivation like a badge of honor, and many of my older peers mention that having a healthy sleep schedule is impossible during junior year. I’ve been told that losing sleep is just “the way it’s going to be.” I recognize that Deerfield is a prep school meant to prepare students for college and that college admissions have a significant influence on many of the students here. However, I don’t believe that being a successful student should be synonymous with working oneself into the ground. I believe that students overwork themselves because of a misconception that in order to get accepted into a good college, they must take the hardest possible courses in every subject, receive fives on multiple AP exams, and prove that they are qualified and worthy of acceptance. In the process of doing so, the student body has twisted the meaning of being a successful student. I believe that Deerfield student body should work towards cultivating a healthier work atmosphere, one where students don’t feel the need to take honors or accelerated courses in subjects they lack passion, where students feel comfortable talking to their teachers if the homework is consistently taking longer than it’s supposed to, and where one without a harmful competition to be the least healthy Deerfield student. In addition to students driving this unhealthy phenomenon, I believe that teachers, largely unintentionally, are also taking advantage of this toxic work culture. In my own experience, I have found that the work I receive in my classes often exceeds the maximum allotted time. I believe that this behavior exploits Deerfield students’ destructive work culture, which emphasizes finishing the work regardless of circumstance, and effectively perpetuates it. Students only find themselves in a position where they have to choose between their health and finishing their homework because teachers assign extremely burdensome volumes of work to begin with. While I believe that students play a role in perpetuating workaholic culture, I also believe that the Academy, which is responsible for students during the most formative years of their lives, has a responsibility to make changes and encourage healthier lifestyles; both students and faculty need to spearhead this effort. No one actually enjoys being sleep deprived. Let’s not accept this as “the way it’s going to be.”

In July 2024, McKinsey & Company, one of the most prestigious business consulting firms, released a survey that reported 71% of all companies which responded used generative AI in at least one business function. this number had been merely 33% in 2023. In 2025, the number could have only gone higher with breakthroughs in generative AI technologies and ever more funding allocated to the development of AI. We, the Scroll C Board, believe that gen. AI will become an integral part in professional settings as well as daily life. However, despite the rise in the significance of gen. AI, Deerfield Academy chooses to embrace an academic policy that allows for near zero tolerance of the technology. Although the Academy’s official policy is to leave AI use to the discretion of the teacher, the administration has still enforced a firewall ban of most gen. AI websites on Deerfield’s wireless networks, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. This means that students using Deerfield’s internet could not access most of the commonly used AI websites. We believe that this new policy against gen. AI is not justified. As an institution that aims to prepare students for a “rapidly changing world,” Deerfield should not shun away from what the Editorial Board of the Scroll collectively believes will be a crucial technology of the future. The Board believes that the current policies of the administration does not encourage AI literacy, a new and critical skill in today and tomorrow’s society. The Deerfield administration’s rejection of gen. AI is most evident in our course catalog. While most of our peer boarding schools are scrambling to develop programs that give students experience working with AI and machine learning (ML), Deerfield has not yet developed a single course that directly engages with the concepts or usages of ML. Choate, for example, has an honors level machine learning course that gives students contact with the leading innovations in the field. While our peers are at least trying to adapt to the new social and academic order under AI, Deerfield has not developed a STEM-based course centered around AI. In effect, Deerfield is trying to shut itself off from almost all the influences of AI, and these actions contribute to the phenomenon of the “Deerfield bubble” that already bothers many who worry Deerfield students are too isolated from the real world. Low AI exposure will also put us at a significant disadvantage to our peers. While our peers are learning to recognize the benefits and harms of gen. AI, we are kept in a greenhouse that secludes us from the technology throughout our high school careers. Although we acknowledge that gen. AI too often becomes an easy shortcut that avoids the process of struggling with diffcult concepts, a firewall for all major gen. AI websites is too drastic and ineffcient of a measure to combat the drawbacks posed by AI. However, we should give the students the opportunity to grapple with these challenges. This is not to say that we should allow students to cheat by using AI, but rather give the students the chance to make the right decisions amidst the myriad of temptations that are distractions from learning. Cheating with AI is no different than cheating on exams or using external help: we can’t stop any of these from occurring entirely, but it’s the students themselves who determine how much they want to learn or take advantage of the course curriculum offered here. That said, we should still maintain a rigorous academic review process that punishes students for misusing the technology and rewards them for using it correctly. Furthermore, we think that AI could be utilized as a technology that aids the teaching and learning process. Our traditional pedagogical practices rely on teachers as the sole resource to provide help to students. However, this system falls to inconvenience and inefficiency, as it becomes quite difficult to find a time outside of class that suits both the student and the teacher. As a result, teachers are often overbooked. A specially programmed AI assistant in teaching could drastically ease the process by offering explanations to students at the press of a button while also encouraging the struggle in learning as a real teacher would. Most of the Scroll C Board has had positive experiences in using AI to aid the process of learning. At the same time, the demand for teachers to be present during hours beyond classes are also reduced, giving more time to teachers who also need space for their personal and family lives. We acknowledge that there is the risk of AI hallucinating and generating fake information, which is exactly why we argue to expose students to AI during high school. By confronting misinformation, students are forced to learn to think more critically and cross validate their sources—skills necessary in today’s world dominated by AI-reinforced misinformation. AI-reinforced misinformation. At the same time, we believe that Deerfield’s AI policy is too extreme. The firewall not only prevents students from using AI in school, it also restricts students from using gen. AI in their academic pursuits outside of Deerfield. Such a policy hinders students with extracurricular pursuits. Based on the rise in popularity of AI in recent years, students increasingly need to use it for projects, competitions, and research opportunities they have outside of the offerings of Deerfield. If Deerfield chooses not to help students to adapt to AI, the least it could do is to not interfere with students’ pursuits of excellence outside of our limited curriculum. We believe that Deerfield’s firewall, which blocks access to most gen. AI, neglects the freedom students have outside of school. The solution is very simple: we believe that Deerfield should remove the firewall ban on generative AI and stop the demonization of AI. Deerfield should also strive to adapt and confront the changes in the world caused by AI, instead of simply ignoring them.

Deerfield Academy’s fall theater production Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale premieres on Tuesday, October 28 in the Black Box Theater and continues through November 1. Set in 1898 at Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in England to admit women, Blue Stockings explores the adversities that women faced during the suffrage movement. Visual & Performing Arts Department Chair and Director Catriona Hynds explained that many of the themes in the play remain “frustratingly relevant in terms of rights being rolled back.” She selected this “high drama” to “kick the year off with something bold” and to provide opportunities for actors with varying experience levels. This year’s production will feature “eight new actors who will be making their Deerfield debuts with this show,” she added. Blue Stockings extends beyond a historical drama, serving as a socially resonant piece. Henry Cron ’26, who plays Draco Llyod, expressed that “our fall production encourages audiences to reflect on contemporary social progress.” Cron played a character described as a wealthy, sexist male who opposes women’s educational efforts and portrays a person with deeply prejudiced views against women’s rights. Meanwhile, E.C. Tate ’29, who played the lead role of Tess Moffat, described her character as a “curious, audacious, and tenacious” middle-class female scholar who challenged the social expectations of her time. In the previous years, Ms. Hynds has chosen fall productions such as Dracula and The Crucible, both of which carried distinct thematic focuses. This year, however, Will Wichern ’27, who plays Will Bennett, describes that this fall’s production differs from previous ones due to “its large cast and intricate scene changes.” In comparison to The Crucible, which had four scenes, Blue Stockings includes 24 scenes, with each one spanning from five to ten minutes. As a result, “the scene changes occur quite swiftly,” Wichern said. The production’s technical side also involved logistical settings. “Moving furniture is one of the most difficult things to execute properly,” said Sophie Brennan ’27, who plays Carolyn Addison. Cron said, describing the play’s core theme, “I think it [Blue Stockings] is more so a thinking piece of how we can relate to the people of that time in some aspects.” He invites the audience to reflect on our current day and age and look towards how “we should continue fighting for societal problems.” Skylar Ricketts ’27, who plays The Lady in the Tea Shop, added, “I hope that the audience is able to understand the detrimental effects of misogyny on women as they are fighting for education.” Tate hoped audience members would walk away still thinking about the play’s main themes. Ms. Hynds said that Blue Stockings has “some haunting parallels to our modern world.” She encourages reflection on the question: “Is society regressing in terms of rights being rolled back?”

This year marks a new chapter for Deerfield Debate, which aims not only to win, but to grow. Following the team’s accomplishments in the recent years, it also celebrates the launch of its long-awaited debate co-curricular, which has transformed the program from a thrice-weekly club that convenes after sit-down into a full-fledged program. From October 16-20, Co-Managing Editor of the Scroll John Woo ’26, Casey Lee ’28, and Associate Editor of the Scroll Alice Chen ’28 competed in the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition (IISPSC), hosted this year by the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine. The event gathered around 120 top speakers from North America, India, Bermuda, and Hong Kong for four days of rounds in debate and public speaking events. Each competitor selected three events. Woo competed in parliamentary debate, extemporaneous speaking, and cross-examination, Lee in cross-examination, parliamentary debate, and persuasive speaking, and Chen in parliamentary debate, impromptu speaking, and persuasive speaking. “It was definitely a lot of stress and time spent in preparation—I probably rewrote my persuasive speech like 60 times,” Lee reflected. “It was definitely worth it when I got there and saw all this work come to fruition and had the opportunity to meet so many new friends.” Woo secured the title of Parliamentary Debate Champion, marking the third consecutive year a Deerfield debater has won the championship. Lee and Woo placed second as a pair in cross-examination, and Lee placed third overall in the U16 division and qualified for Team USA for the World Individual Public Speaking and Debating Championships in the UK this spring. Chen finaled in persuasive speaking, ranking as the seventh overall American speaker. As a team, Deerfield placed eighth overall in the competition. The debate members were chosen through an audition process that drew seven competitors, who each prepared material across their chosen categories for a panel of four judges: Debate Coach Dan Houston, Deerfield teachers John Leistler and Matt Kutalowski, and former Deerfield Debate Coach Geoffrey Buerger. Lee described, “it was a very difficult audition process because everyone was obviously super talented.” For Dr. Houston, who has led Deerfield Speech and Debate for many years, the international experience represented more than just competition. Speakers received feedback from a panel of judges that are “just members of the community” rather than actual coaches. Dr. Houston believes that there is value in “learning how to connect with an average person,” and through this competition, debaters were able to do so. Additionally, students from Deerfield were able to form friendships with people who are usually their rivals. “The other piece of it, though, is camaraderie. When we American schools go to an international event, the Americans all become besties because we have a new opponent,” Dr. Houston said. The Deerfield’s new debate co-curricular, which began this fall, gives debaters time to prepare for tournaments. The co-curricular, long requested by students and coaches, allows debaters to treat their passion as a full-time co-curricular rather than an extracurricular club layered on top of sports and the many other commitments Deerfield students dedicate themselves to. “We’ve been working on it for a couple of years trying to make it happen,” Dr. Houston explained. “People were concerned with adding an additional co-curric … and the thought that it would become a place for kids to just hang out to avoid doing other co-curric commitments.” Ultimately, the need to give serious debaters a “home” overruled these initial concerns. The new structure brings many opportunities for those passionate about the activity. Dr. Houston talked about the significance of simply having more time. “It allows us to explore other forms of debate. We’ve always done our little league, the Debating Association of New England Independent Schools (DANEIS) … it never conflicts with sports. But there’s a whole other world out there— geared toward public schools but they’re a huge nationwide organization and they do all of their stuff on Fridays and Saturdays,” he said. Students of the co-curricular echoed the same sentiment. “[Debate] should be treated like a sport because of how much time you have to put into it and dedicate yourself to in order to succeed,” Henry Fuller ’28 said. The co-curricular also includes a community engagement component. Every Tuesday, debaters visit The Bement School to run after-school debate pods for students. Fuller said, “We normally have them do some sort of activity, whether it’s impromptu speaking or sort of round, that’s like going against each other, and then we do a lesson.” Chelsea Shen ’27, who is an Associate Editor for the Scroll, also noted the positive effect on the students, saying, “It’s been a little over a month, but we’re trying to build it up to have them hit the ground running in high school.” Dr. Houston saw this partnership as a defining feature of the program. “As a club, we could never get out in the world. But as a co-curricular, we can get out there and talk to people about debate.” He added that although members of the co-curricular range from novice to very experienced, all of them need to be able to teach. No matter the skill of the debater, “you don’t really know something until you can teach it,” he said. Though the program is still developing, it marks a major shift in Deerfield’s academic and co-curricular landscape. Alumnus Justin Ahn ’24, a former captain of Deerfield Debate, shared, “We had so many years in a row of success, so they want to acknowledge and reward that and also make sure that level of success is sustained in the future.” From international podiums to Bement classrooms down Main Street, Deerfield’s debaters represent the Academy’s sense of community and values. As Houston said, “We went out with Choate to get gelato—they were all forming these amazing friendships and having so much fun with each other. That’s the stuff I’ll remember 10 years from now —not the debate rounds but these moments of awesome friendship.

In a menu that is equal parts delicious and devious, the Deerfield dining hall is roasting Choate’s very own mascot: the boar. As much as the Dining Hall loves to serve chicken as the primary protein for most meals, they have decided to take it upon themselves to incorporate different manifestations of pork to bulk up athletes before Choate Day. On Friday November 7, the Dining Hall will serve pork egg roll bowls for lunch and baked ziti with sausage, mu shu pork, and jerk pork loin for dinner. Students are ravenous to quite literally “devour their competition”. But, the culinary shade doesn’t stop there! On Choate Day, the Dining Hall will be serving barbecue pulled pork on the menu. For dessert, they will be offering blue and yellow frosted cupcakes to welcome Choate with their school colors. While the cupcakes may seem sweet, they are designed to leave a bitter aftertaste for any Choate visitors brave enough to indulge. As a rule of thumb, it is always safer to go for the green and white frosted cupcakes, especially when the very spirited and competitive dining hall crew is making your meals. Whether these blue and yellow frosted cupcakes are a tribute or a taunt is up for debate. Culinary masters from Deerfield’s very own Meat Club have also been roasting boars by setting up an outdoor barbecue session outside the Hess for the entirety of Tuesday November 4, as students pick up strips of bacon between their classes. For many, the mouth-watering smell of sizzling, greasy, delicious bacon awakens something inexplicably primeval within them; some say it is the desire to BEAT CHOATE. The Deerfield student body has also participated in the annual crafting of posters with clever slogans and artistic digs that tend to evoke many emotions from Choate students, as they are hung up in every corner of campus. From “Boar-ed of Losing” to “Pulled Pork > Pulled Hamstrings,” the posters are a visual feast of school pride and humor. Lucy Linnenbach ’27, an active participant in Shriv, made a poster with the tagline “Choate Has No River”. For those unfamiliar, the Shriv is a uniquely Deerfield tradition—each Friday morning, the bravest Deerfield students, whose veins flow with blood a slightly darker shade of green, rush into the oft-freezing Deerfield River in a celebration of camaraderie and bravery, while also dunking on Choate for not having a natural, considerable stream of water in close proximity to their campus. “I think the Deerfield River is one of the most defining features of our campus, as it brings everyone together to have a lot of fun. The bond Deerfield students have from their close access to the river is something that Choate can’t compete with,” Linnenbach said. As the games play out and the cupcakes disappear, one thing’s for sure: Deerfield knows how to cook on and off the field.

Imagine this: you’re a sophmore dorm resident, and you’ve just spent half of study hall baking an amazing batch of cookies for the feed after study hall. Excitedly, you bring out the steaming tray of cookies and set it on the common room table. As the clock strikes 9:45 pm and study hall ends, the sophomores on your floor filter into the common room…with their eyes locked on their phones. With the minimal exchange of formalities, they grab a cookie and return to their rooms, where they scroll away until their phones get collected at 10:30 pm. Unfortunately, this is a real picture of a typical night described by a dorm resident. Deerfield’s new phone policy this year collects all underclassmen's phones at night from 10:30 pm to 5:30 am. I believe the expansion of the phone policy is directly responsible for this sobering scene. However, I first want to acknowledge the spirit of goodwill the administration had in mind when they crafted this policy. Their commitment to community and face-to-face interactions is part of what makes the Deerfield experience great. Nevertheless, policies must be judged by their effects rather than their crafter’s intentions. I also want to make a distinction between the new daytime and nighttime policies. I believe that the daytime policy, which prohibits phone usage from 8 am to 6:30 pm, is a mostly reasonable extension of an existing, successful policy. I believe that almost all students already appreciate and buy into the notion of being present during the school day and keeping their phones away. Many coaches I spoke to also appreciate the new policy because it increases engagement during practices, which their teams previously struggled with. The main complaint I have centers around the rigidity of the policy. There are many scenarios where having a phone would be quite reasonable: a cross-country runner listening to music on a long run down Mill Village Road, a student on a two-hour bus ride to St. Paul’s using a hotspot to finish a project due the next day, or an athlete checking their training plans while moving about in the Athletic Complex. I believe that explicitly giving coaches and faculty the right to discretion would ultimately accommodate for the practical day-to-day. Respecting the spirit of the policy will also show that the administration cares more for the principle of face-toface interactions than rigid rules. On the other hand, I firmly believe the nighttime policy has been a substantial overreach. The administration intended the nighttime policy to promote better phone usage habits, but in reality, the policy has made screen time on phones rare and precious. Freshmen and sophomores, who now have very limited time with their phones, use them in a binge-like fashion during the small windows of time they have. As a result, I also believe that feed culture has disappeared. The spontaneous, spirited conversations I had over grilled cheese and dino nuggets last year have instead been replaced by underclassmen silently scrolling away. The policy didn’t eliminate distractions—it eliminated genuine social interactions. In addition, this new policy makes it even more difficult for underclassmen to stay in touch with their families. For both new students struggling to form deep connections and students thousands of miles from home, phones can give access to parental support at a convenient time each night. As an institution that takes mental health seriously, Deerfield should consider the impact the policy has on this essential connection. Fundamentally, I believe that the nighttime policy is flawed because it does not build the effective phone habits that the administration claims it will. Good habits cannot be imposed upon high school students as one would with young children; students must actively choose to build them. Strong habits are the product of a struggle to make the right decision when wrong ones are so easily available; this is the same principle that the administration applies to academic integrity. Thus, it is ironic when the administration takes this agency away from students at night. Students are no longer the ones making the choice to get sleep instead of scrolling through social media. When students think of the policy, they see an inconvenience rather than a chance for self-improvement; this fosters resentment rather than the buy-in mentality needed to build strong habits. Additionally, the new policy does not make social media less addictive. It kicks the proverbial can down a progressively rockier road. Instagram’s and TikTok’s algorithms are only going to get better at giving you exactly the reels you want to see. By stopping underclassmen from developing the agency and will to choose their health over the negatives of social media, the current policy creates a steep cliff that we should be fearful of. Junior year comes with a myriad of challenges, including a tougher course load, a lack of study hall, and unprecedented freedom with phones. It is not the year for students to be trial-and-erroring their way to habits that work for them. If the administration encourages students to grapple with unfamiliar concepts and arrive at their own understandings in classrooms, why are underclassmen denied the opportunity to grapple with their phone habits during years with lighter courseloads? I believe we should return to the old study hall phone system, which worked great because it transferred responsibility and trust to students gradually. Freshmen’s phones were collected and held in the common room, inaccessible for the duration of study hall; sophomores were required to leave their phones just outside their rooms—usable, if necessary; eventually, juniors were given full authority over their devices. When considering the cell phone policy, the administration should aim to create a similar, gradual program that aims to encourage the thoughtful development of strong, personalized habits for life, not just uniform, temporary compliance at Deerfield

Every year, the College Advising Office prepares a presentation about the college admission landscape for parents during Fall Family Weekend. This year, on October 17, Deerfield Academy’s College Advising Office invited Jeffrey Selingo as the keynote speaker. An American author and journalist, Selingo wrote USA Today Bestseller and 2020 New York Times (NYT) 100 Notable Book of the Year Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions and NYT Bestseller Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You. Selingo delivered recommended strategies to parents for a successful college search and offered research-backed guidance on finding the right college. Selingo first came to campus in 2023 when Head of School John Austin, aware of Selingo’s works, suggested Dean of College Advising Mark Spencer to invite him to the Deerfield community. In that visit, Selingo conducted a Zoom session for Deerfield parents, discussing the challenges students face in searching for their dream colleges and the need to rebuild how they prepare learners for the next step. “[Selingo] was very dynamic and extremely informative, so when I started thinking about what College Advising might do at this year’s Fall Family Weekend, he was an easy thought,” Mr. Spencer said. In previous years, the Office organized Q&As with the admissions deans at different colleges and held a presentation on the advising process. However, the Academy decided to invite Selingo instead when he reached out to Mr. Spencer and informed him about his new book, Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, nine months prior to this year’s Fall Family Weekend. “That book, Dream School, struck me as hitting the right tone of how to do the college search right,” Mr. Spencer stated. “So, I asked him if he’d be willing to speak at Fall Family Weekend, and he graciously said yes.” In this year’s keynote speech, Selingo specifically mentioned two aspects of the college admissions process that students often overlook. First, Selingo reminded students that they have more agency in the process than they often realize, encouraging them to ask thoughtful questions to find the schools that truly fit them. Chloe Hernandez ’27 said, “Before listening to Selingo’s speech, I found myself looking into higher-ranked schools and naturally thought those schools would ultimately be the ones I would be applying to.” However, as Selingo noted that college rankings should not be the sole deciding factor for identifying prospective universities, Hernandez realized that “the right college depends on individual priorities like academic goals, campus culture, and personal fit, which are not captured by rankings alone.” Selingo continued to share what really matters in college and how that translates to the college search. Mr. Spencer was especially appreciative of Selingo’s research that supported his argument about finding the right colleges. “Whether it was surveying 3,000 parents or collaborating with the Burning Glass Institute to analyze job data and skills, [Selingo’s] work gives students meaningful ways to think about their choices,” Mr. Spencer said. College Advisor and Philosophy & Religion Department Chair Jamie Brightman added, “I like that Mr. Selingo offers a metric for understanding college quality, based on his extensive research, that helps highlight exciting, high-quality schools that might otherwise be under-the-radar for students.” Through Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, Mr. Selingo urges families to deviate from the “Top 25 or bust” mindset and look beyond highly-ranked schools, revealing what actually matters in college: strong job opportunities after graduation, firsthand learning experiences, and a sense of identity.

Why go to boarding school? It is not because of "innovation": not Platinum LEED certifications, not a presidential alumnus, not pop-culture references, and not an overspending football program. Leave these superficial medallions of 'HR talk' to universities that can do it way better than anything a high school in Connecticut can muster up. The reason we go to boarding school is because of one thing, community, an idea seemingly alien to Choate Rosemary Hall. Sitdown dinner might seem antiquated. Assigned seats? A teacher at every table? Student waiters? What are we? Back home? Precisely! It is f.:un.ily-style dinners that we share with our classmates, not cliquey, awkward eating clubs. You get to meet students you would never in a lifetime cross paths with. Where else can a new student without any connections feel like they are part of a community than at a roundtable where the ice is broken by good food and conversation? Deerfields sitdown meals are where bonds are formed. The class dress of coat and tie means so much more to us than what outsiders might see as "Pinterest-worth( A uniform by definition equalizes the student-body. It cultivates community by upholding respect for a standard. When you see another student in coat and tie, no matter who they are, what classes they take, , where they are from, you can rest assured that they too have bought into Deerfield. But tradition does not dictate austerity, rather it kindles those flames of childhood down to us by generations past, not because the school forces us to, but because we want to. Getting students up early in the morning is no easy feat Yet every Friday we wake ourselves to march into the Deerfield River. We are our brother's and sister's keepers in this weekly trial, we are our own tradition's keepers. Sure "innovation" is all the buzz in our age of artificial intelligence, and we might seem old-fashioned with our phone rules. But how does it feel to say hello to everybody you see on the street and have them respond to you with their face not buried in their phones? How does it feel to go to a school where everybody knows your name? At Deerfield, students feel human. To be in a community is to feel human, and to attend a boarding school is to be in a community. Choate, I hope that you too will be worthy of your heritage, that you will one day, uphold your heritage as a boarding school. Patrick Zhang may be reached at pzhang26@deerfield.edu.

Dear Reader, My shoes were absolutely killing me. Having just walked what Google Maps predicted as a 24 minute walk from 45th down to 32nd in a time of just seven minutes, I caught the 6:04 p.m. train from Penn Station back to Princeton Junction on the infamous NJT. I was positive that I had just burned the soles of my feet Additionally, the fact that I wasn't able to snatch a seat on the hour or so ride back only made my feet hurt more. Exhausted and in pain, having already been up for twelve hours by now, I hope you can understand a little bit of my pis.sy mood. Scrolling Instagram reels to get a dopamine rush, I only got more annoyed when a notification suddenly popped up at the top of my screen. Exiting Instagrarn to check what the notification was about, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a text from Yoonsa, a former Managing Editor of the Deerfield Scroll. After catch-ing up on how our summers have been, mine dominated by work and college essays and hers filled with vacations with friends, she revealed the real reason she wanted to talk. Texting furiously; she explained that a close friend of hers was the Editor-in-Chief of The Choate News and wanted to collaborate with the Deerfield Scroll on an issue in the upcoming year. After I saw this text, my mood died down as quickly as it rose. My knee- jerk reaction was instantly no. Collaborate with Choate? Did the sky tum red? At the time, the idea seemed as utterly preposterous to me as Chloe's comment that there would be a day in Senior Fall when I would need to drink 400 mg in a day to finish my college essays arose. After all, I had always thought of Choate as a rivalworking together just never seemed a possibility. Not wanting to burst Yoonsas bubble however, I gave her an incondusive answer of"we'll see what we can do," and just put this idea in the back of my mind, which was soon replaced by the cash flow model I had to finish before work the next day. So why are you reading this issue? First, as Scroll Advisor Mr. Romick pointed out, "it's for the love of the game'.' But in all seriousness, it's because I think, as a community, it is precisely what we need right now: a renaissance of student journalism. After connecting with former Editor-in-Chiefs of the Scroll for their reflections on how their Scroll experience has later benefited them in their lives, including Anna, Kaitlyn, Sunshine, and Joshua, the common thread they all mentioned wasn't actually about journalism. Rather, the words community, curiosity, commitment, and collaboration were echoed by them all In an increasingly polarized society-especially on where journalists around the world are under attack- student journalism can be an answer to a lot of the problems we face. Freeing myself fium my narrowmindedness in August has also allowed me to see clearly what I couldn't see back then. The Scrolls collaboration with The Choate News transcends whatever emphasis we place on our elite, small school rivalry. Rather, it is a celebration of two long-standing institutions, one in its centennial and the other way past, devoted to fostering the next generation of journalists, writers, thinkers, and leaders. And now, more than ever, the Deerfield Scroll and The Choate News depend on you, students, to preserve and carry on the legacy of our publications through your writing and editing. So I encourage you to read, to write, to listen, and to learn. Deerfield students, take a moment to flip through these pages and appreciate what The Choate News has to offer. Choate students, I invite you to do the same. Through reading these pages, I hope you realize that in spite of our rivalry and our differences, we are a lot more of the same. Yours in Service, John Qi Liu