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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.

Dean Cycon, founder and owner of Dean’s Beans Coffee Roasters, spoke to a group of around thirty students about his company in order to educate those in attendance on “how to use business for social good and to live one’s values through one’s work.” Mr. Cycon spoke courtesy of Amnesty International. In pursuit of its mission to be both morally and economically sound, Dean’s Beans employs coffee growers at the end of the supply chain whose roasters often shortchange their profits without the growers’ knowledge. Mr. Cycon’s company, on the other hand, is fair-trade: it gives its growers fair salaries, in addition to a profit-sharing program by which the indigenous farming communities receive six cents for every pound of coffee that Dean’s Beans buys and then sells to a consumer. Reilly Simmons ’14 said, “Dean Cycon had some great ideas; he was captivating and easy to listen to, and he showed Deerfield students part of an industry that has been manipulated by larger chains.” “Dean Cycon’s talk was inspirational,” said Nicky Rault ’13. “It really provoked me to think about how I could simultaneously accomplish what I want and still help the global community. Mr. Cycon’s speech made me ponder intensely about how I, as an individual can make a difference in my community.”

Kelsey Janik ’11 “is one of the smartest young women I have met on this campus,” declared French teacher and Mather resident Francoise Ellis, who has known her for almost four years. “It is so hard to put Kelsey into words. Kelsey is Kelsey,” Mrs. Ellis continued. This talented girl spends her afternoons in the art studios drawing and painting. Janik was awarded a Richmond Scholar Award this February after applying to the University of Richmond. “The award is a full-tuition scholarship with other benefits,” explained Janik. After making it into the semi-final round, applicants submitted supplementary materials under specific designations, including art, English, and community service. Soon after submitting the art portfolio that she created during her years here at Deerfield, Janik interviewed as a finalist on the Richmond campus over spring break. She subsequently became a Richmond Scholar with the designation ‘Artist Scholar.’ “She won it all,” summed up art teacher David Dickinson. Interested in art as a child, Janik recounted her fourth Christmas, when she received her first art set. “I was so happy, I slept with it that night! But it was a wooden box, so it was kind of uncomfortable.” Her love for art has grown since then. Janik uses a variety of materials–-from watercolor to acrylics to charcoal-–but she prefers drawing, especially still life. One of Deerfield’s finest artists, Janik always has pieces included in exhibits of advanced student work in school galleries and also appears in Albany Road. Her patience and gift for art is clear with every piece she completes. Mr. Dickinson explained, “There are three distinct areas that help Kelsey to raise the bar in her skills: Number one, she focuses very well on detail. Number two, she has a very solid sense of what makes a good composition. And number three, she is very independent in the studio.” Arriving at Deerfield with raw potential but little training, “Kelsey is a good example of someone who has achieved a high level in a discipline that requires a lot of time and effort. And she did it in spite of the demands of all of her core subjects,” said Mr. Dickinson.

When Dean of Students Toby Emerson announced that Swift Cleaners laundry service informed students that the company would no longer pick up and deliver laundry on campus, many were annoyed. Students learned that they had to come up with a way to transport their laundry to Swift’s location on Main Street in Greenfield due to a contractual issue. At the time, manager of Swift Cleaners Joe Williams said, “I really hope we can work something out with the school. We are just working hard to get it straightened out, and I’m trying to make it as convenient as possible.” But then a week after the announcement, the parties involved came up with a workable solution. Swift Cleaners will now pick up and drop off laundry in front of the Main School Building between 3:00 and 3:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. When asked why Swift Cleaners was no longer allowed to pickup and drop off in dorms while E&R still could, Head of School Margarita Curtis explained, “It’s both a contractual and a safety issue. Vendors can’t go into the dorms unless we have done a background check on them.” Dr. Curtis went on to say that Deerfield had signed a contract with E&R campus laundry, and, as part of the contract, agreed that E&R would be the only vendor on campus. “When the contact expires in 2012, it will be a very good time to put this out for a bid and see who can provide the best service. But as long as we are bound by a contract, we need to honor that,” said Dr. Curtis.

Basketball, hockey, field hockey, soccer, football and lacrosse are the common sports we all know and cherish as a part of Deerfield’s athletic tradition. While these conventional co-curriculars require great skill, strength, and athleticism, there is a new team in the mix, one which proves that, in order to play, all you need is a plastic disc and the will to compete. Jem Wilner ’11 worked for most of his junior year and most of his senior year, to date, to accomplish a relatively simple goal: create a recreational Ultimate Frisbee team. It was in fact quite difficult, as a team must have a certain number of players and permission to play Ultimate instead of an established Deerfield co-curricular. Unlike Taft, Hotchkiss, Frontier, NMH, Amherst High School, and Andover, prior to this spring, Deerfield did not have any pre-existing team. This is how Deerfield’s new Ultimate Frisbee team will be training. With practices that include running, sprinting and scrimmaging, all the team can do is move upwards. “Frisbee isn’t team versus team,” said Wilner, “it’s everybody having fun all the time.” At a collegiate level, Ultimate grows progressively more intense. Athletes can be recruited to top Frisbee schools such as Cornell, Brown, Texas, UC Santa Barbara, Colorado, Stanford, and Wisconsin. Commenting on his hopes for the season, Wilner said: “My goal [was] to bring this team from a competitive recreational team to an established varsity sport, like the team of almost every other school we play.” Although the athletic department has yet to recognize the Ultimate group with an official varsity title, the dream continues as the team grows; in a matter of days it went from 12 to 28 players. The members of the D.U.C., or the Deerfield Ultimate Coalition, look forward to an exciting season after soundly defeating the first opponent, Frontier Regional High School.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Almost every morning at Deerfield starts with the same loud alarm. Rarely, if ever, is there the opportunity to wake up when one feels like it. Then there is the rush to a seven -hour-day of classes, an hour or two of practice, a forty-five minute sit-down dinner, some free time and then two hours of study hall before a break for a feed, followed by some more work before bed. Assuming, of course, that you aren’t a president of a club, proctor, or someone who has hobbies. Your two AP classes, team, club, proctoring, hobbies, and limited free time for friends are all worth it, though, because the well-rounded student you strove to become for three years paved the way for your acceptance into an Ivy League college or its equivalent. Your late nights of staying up, sacrificing Greer-time for study-time, doing work for a class you possibly care little about, and going to the gym to train for your sport off-season were all worth it! Or were they? Recently a documentary came out that makes me question the value of those sacrifices I made at Deerfield to be the perfect college candidate. It is called Race to Nowhere (a play on “Race to the Top?”) and was made by a filmmaker/mom, Vicki Abeles, who asked herself that very question when she saw her children getting physically sick from the stress they accumulated in school. Especially shocking to her was a 13-year-old friend of her daughter who committed suicide after failing a math test. Abeles asks herself why this girl would commit suicide when kids have failed math tests since math tests came into existence. The answer is pretty simple. It is not the math tests that have changed; it is our attitudes toward them that have. Kids feel now that they must not only excel at every test, but complete them perfectly; as one girl interviewed in the documentary asks, “How do you expect us to do well when we can’t even make mistakes?” “The pressures come from the colleges, from the parents, from the government. It has to stop,” says a teacher from the documentary. I agree. College advisors say that “reach” schools won’t become “probable” until we take another AP, and add on another club. Parents are no better, repeating the same message at home, and often much more frequently then our advisors do. Ultimately we must ask ourselves, is this worth it? One official in the documentary clearly answered this question by apprehensively stating that she’s afraid “children are going to sue us for stealing their childhoods.” This might be a bit of an overstatement, because we can’t possibly hate all of our commitments; firing quick comebacks to Mr. D during my art exemption or sitting in Francoise’s apartment after a long night of proctor duty make up some of my best memories at Deerfield. But what about my failed attempts at Calculus and chemistry? Did I really need to put myself through those pains? Do you? Deerfield, I ask you to redefine “success!” Is it staying up until two in the morning for the class that makes your head hurt, or is it throwing around a Frisbee on the lower levels? Is it signing up for your third club or having time to read Twilight? Only you can answer the question for yourself, but perhaps it is time to open the discussion to the Deerfield community and not only redefine personal success but redefine the images of the ideal “Deerfield Boy” and “Deerfield Girl.” Emily Galindo ’09 is a sophomore at Middlebury College.

Feeds: ranging from grinders to salads and pastas made from New York Times recipes. While the food is the main event, the community spirit is just as important. “I think it’s a huge part of Deerfield’s culture. It brings students and teachers together, and is a unifying tie throughout campus,” commented a Junior girl. For example, take the girls on John Louis 2 North; every Tuesday night, they anxiously await the end of study hall. At 9:45, or often a few minutes before, the hallway erupts into action as choruses of “feeeeeeeed” ring throughout the rooms. As the group gathers in Chinese Teacher Xiaofeng Feng’s apartment to enjoy dumplings, fried rice, sushi, or something simple like apples and cheese, the eleven girls are just happy to be together. “As much as I love the food, the best part about feeds is getting all of us together. Our hall has so much fun,” noted Caitlin Cleary ’12. “Sometimes Alice [Lu ’12] plays the piano and the rest of us sing along,” continued Cleary. The community aspect of feeds is a definite perk, for a group of girls that overwhelmingly answered, “Yes!” when asked if hall time was a big part of why feeds are so popular. In fact, Elyse Curtis ’12 feels that the bonding extends beyond just hall mates. “I think it’s a huge part of faculty-student bonding,” she said. “It’s kind of like story time… Mrs. Bonanno always sits with us during our feeds and it’s our time to catch up with her. It’s really relaxed.” But not everyone shares the community spirit; an anonymous Junior boy commented “Feeds force everyone into the same room, primarily because we’re all trying to get food but eventually we end up talking…” While the food is the main event, the timing is additionally important. As Will Fox ’12 noted, “I’m a big guy. I like to have something to eat at night after having hit the books for a while.” Chris Hamlin ’12 agreed, “It’s really good to have food at night because I get really hungry after study hall and so it’s great to get fed.”

Selected from thirty-seven applicants, Sidney Cech ’12, David Morales-Miranda ’12, Thomas Cowan ’13, Stefani Kuo ’13, and Holly Taylor ’13 will attend the 2011 Round Square conference at Wellington College in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. When asked about the October trip, the newly-selected delegates expressed clear enthusiasm and excitement. “I am really looking forward to bonding with the people going on the Round Square trip, learning more about other schools, meeting new people, and deepening my understanding of the pillars!” said Kuo. “Its such an amazing opportunity that I have been given. I have been given the vote of confidence that I am the right person to get to do this, and I really hope that I can live up to it!” added Cech. Round Square, an organization of over eighty schools on five continents, is based upon the theories of educational philosopher Kurt Hahn, who believed that schools had a greater purpose than just preparing their students for college. “I hope to learn about different leadership styles and issues concerning the world. I feel that people only hear about the biggest issues, but if people look closely enough, every community has smaller issues that could be resolved,” reflected Morales-Miranda. It was crucial, Round Square Founder Hahn believed, for young people to be prepared for life by having faced it directly in ways that would demand courage, generosity, imagination, principal and resolution. Round Square looks to instill its IDEALS in those who attend the conferences: Internationalism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Adventure, Leadership and Service. “From the experience, I hope that I gain a sense of what it means to be a leader, even as a teenager in a world run by adults. I hope that I contribute optimism and approachability, because I get the impression that most serious gatherings in the world these days lack basic friendliness; I’m going to be the kid who smiles back!” Taylor exclaimed, with a smile. Cowan commented, “I look forward to not only to getting to know the four other DA delegates, but also kids from the nineteen other countries which makes this conference so unique.” Cech finished, summing up her goals for the conference: “I hope that I can represent Deerfield well and bring not only my own stories and background, but a little bit of Deerfield’s culture to the conference as well.” SOURCES http://www.wellingtoncollege.org.uk/conferences http://www.roundsquare.org/index.php?id=585

The heads of the arts department look for experience and talent in students applying for admission. When recruiting for the arts department, the Admissions Office encourages prospective students to send in their portfolio and other previous work to be reviewed. John Reese, fine arts teacher and director of theater explained, “You look for genuine interest in the art. It is not hard to train a novice actor who is committed and determined to succeed.” Some of the current theater recruits are Aaron Cyr-Mutty ’11, Jem Wilner ’11, Sarah Woolf ’12, and Thomas Shuman ’13, who all demonstrated interest in theater in their applications. Mr. Reese directs theater productions with these four students, but he also casts students who have never before set foot on stage. “There should be an opportunity for anyone at Deerfield to improve their area of art, regardless of their experience,” added Music Director Dan Roihl. Depending on the department of the arts one is interested in and the year one applies to Deerfield, the process can also be extremely competitive. “Since 2004, the number of portfolios sent to the visual arts increased exponentially,” said art teacher David Dickinson. Over the past three years, Mr. Dickinson has reviewed anywhere from fifty to seventy portfolios of both international and domestic prospective candidates, and only about three to seven of those portfolios received noteworthy recognition, including those of Sonja Holmberg ’11, Grace Murphy ’11, and Laura Whitehill ’12. In addtion, the Deerfield arts requirements are particularly modest, so the popularity of the department stems mainly from current student interest, rather than from recruits. “There are many students admitted to Deerfield who are extremely enthusiastic about the arts, and the talent level is remarkably high,” commented art teacher Timothy Trelease. Academic Dean and music teacher Peter Warsaw explained, “The river must keep supplying fresh talent; the experienced must show the way for the less experienced.”

A cloud of sickly green smoke filled the stage and a maniacal laugh pierced the sunny morning. Maleficent arrived to proclaim that Disney World was now “a place where nightmares come true.” Obviously, our valiant hero Mickey Mouse wasn’t going to let this happen. He pleaded with the audience to believe in their dreams; Maleficent could only be defeated if they believed in their dreams hard enough. “Let’s say it together now. Dreams come true, dreams come true, dreams come true.” The crowd, however, didn’t respond to the participation element. I heard more of the recording than anybody actually chanting. With a boom, fireworks shot out and Maleficent was vanquished. From the moment you walk onto Main St. in the Magic Kingdom, you enter a fantasy land where “if you can dream it, it can happen.” All Mickey asks is that you believe in your dreams and the magic will take care of the rest. Disney, through its influence on the lives of children growing up in America, lends its voice to the American dream. Rather than the “roads paved with gold” that immigrants heard about before they arrived at Ellis Island, the dream has morphed into a road of infinite possibilities, determined solely by your ambition. Yet behind all the fireworks, you must eventually arrive at a bold statement: the only reason why your dreams didn’t come true is because you didn’t believe in them hard enough. As I stood there listening to the applause, I looked over at my dad, who was taping the performance. I wondered what he thought of the whole thing. “Don’t make mistakes,” he would always tell me. My dad’s doctrine always focused on reducing mistakes. Being meticulous and preventing mistakes ahead of time was the only way to reach your goal. Anything worth doing is also worth checking. My parents learned this philosophy firsthand growing up in China. The school system they attended was completely performance based. Grades were based on mid-term and final exams; the college process hinged around a single, long, comprehensive standardized test. A mistake meant you wouldn’t get into the college that you dreamed of. Oddly enough, after all those stressful teenage years, my parents opted for the medical field, where their decisions carry serious consequences. My parents succeeded by practicing a lot of self-discipline, double checking work and minimizing any chance of error. My parents’ model offered a different answer from that of Disney. If I fall short of my goals, it would be because I wasn’t meticulous enough, simple as that. “Don’t make mistakes,” my dad would always tell me. How could my dad stand there, smiling as he taped this performance? Didn’t he see the apparent differences in philosophy? There was Mickey, smiling his unwavering smile and waving at the audience, offering his message of faith. Then there was my dad, urging self-discipline as the only way to success. No matter which way I rotated or flipped the two doctrines, they wouldn’t mesh. Yet there was my dad, fully able to reconcile what he saw with what he preached. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that they are actually responding to different questions. Disney is trying to distill what the American dream stands for. My parents actually subscribe to Disney’s philosophy; the reason why they left their families and ventured halfway around the world was because America represented opportunity. Belief plays an integral part in furthering the dream, because you must first recognize the opportunity is there. My parents are simply trying to teach me how to take advantage of the dream, what it requires, and what will aid me. The two philosophies didn’t represent two roads heading in different directions, but they are pieces of the same puzzle, which, if pieced together, gives us a way to fulfill our dreams. This is Kevin Tang’s Junior Declamation.

Deerfield hosted this year’s Eight Schools Theatre Festival, a daylong event which welcomed Hotchkiss, Andover, Exeter, and Northfield Mount Hermon to present a student-directed, one-act play. St. Paul’s and the Lawrenceville School were unable to attend. Christopher Burns ’86, Peter Cambor ’97, and Michael McCoy were guest artists. All three theatre professionals led workshops during the day, which included “Stage Combat,” “Audition Master Class,” and “Musical Theatre Audition.” “Students are encouraged to foster a spirit of creativity and sharing among a group of eighty to a hundred young artists from the eight different schools,” explained John Reese, head of the theater department. Filled with diverse activities ranging from mask work to dance combinations, the festival was the highlight of the weekend for the young thespians in attendance. Due to the limited interaction of students in the theatre department at Deerfield Academy have with theatre students from other schools, “one of the benefits of the festival was that the students saw how much they have in common as young artists, and [they] all learned a great deal about acting and direction from the experience,” Mr. Reese explained. At the end of the day, each school performed a ten-minute original piece. Deerfield students performed original elevator scenes written by students in the 2007 Acting Tutorial Class. Though exhausting, the festival was an all-around success. Mr. Reese commented, “It is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.”