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On my revisit day, while admiring the splendors of the historic school buildings, towering elm trees and excitement and fun of classroom experiences, I repeatedly asked myself the question: “Can I see myself here?” I closely observed the female students in their spring dresses and pastel cardigans, keeping in mind that to attend Deerfield these collectively beautiful young women must also be talented athletes or artists in addition to being incredibly smart. As I decided on my school, I couldn’t have been more excited to join the ranks of the Deerfield girls. Though I had seen the “prep” life through my brother’s school, I nonetheless felt Deerfield culture shock. Once I entered the system, I became aware of its pressures. During Dorm Olympics I learned of the importance of being bronze, and the many ways of emphasizing this (our dorm color was white, which was great, because it made us look more tan). I recognized the gap between the clothing I’d brought to Deerfield and what many girls were wearing. And I was genuinely mystified at the Friday night Greer scene, which to this day I still think must be a social experiment we’re not being told about. It wasn’t long before I saw the work it takes to be a put-together Deerfield girl. So much time and energy was necessary to appear effortlessly attractive, popular, talented and smart. In retrospect, I see these pressures most often affecting underclassman. After enough “obligatory” Greer nights of forced and incredibly awkward interaction, many girls learn how acceptable and enjoyable a night out in Greenfield or a movie and China Gourmet with friends can be. And after a lot of underclassman pettiness dissipated, I found myself able to discern who I wanted to be: I followed trends I liked and refused ones I didn’t. With every new Deerfield girl I met, I learned about the great diversity of pasts and presents. Contrary to popular belief, many female students here possess varying priorities and interests, just as male students do. Some Deerfield girls can never fit the strict stereotype because of factors completely out of their control, like race or socioeconomic status, while some who do have the means, monetary or otherwise, to fit the common mold choose to reject the stereotype, viewing Deerfield as a place to escape lifelong expectations they did not choose. I find it hilarious when I hear complaints about girls all looking the same. Aren’t boys, in their mandatory blazers, ties, collared shirts and pants the epitome of identical? However, if one simply tries to see beyond the exterior, he or she will find that two girls wearing similar boots and dresses can, and often do, have completely dissimilar backgrounds and interests. Through my own personal Deerfield experience, I’ve learned an incredibly valuable and useful lesson: it is infinitely more important to focus on the kind of person one is than to focus on one’s exterior. No amount of designer clothing, jewelry or keratin treatments will solely create success in the long run. Kindness, confidence and a genuine personality generate more friendships than anything superficial. After all, those who only care about hair and what one wears probably aren’t worth the time. Deerfield girls are found in the art studio, on the stage, in the squash courts, volunteering at the elementary school or hiking to the rock. We are a diverse crowd, each young woman an individual with her own talents, intellectual curiosities and aspirations. Though there are undeniable superficial trends, I hope that each Deerfield girl can be defined not by meager exterior similarities, but by the common thread of her well-rounded and unique talents and abilities.

Tradition to a certain extent is good, but I think that sometimes at Deerfield we have a tendency to emphasize tradition for the sake of preserving it rather than for its actual benefits. For instance, we are constantly being harassed about dress code. What is the message behind requiring students to wear expensive clothing to class? We’re here to learn. I do not really see the benefits of a dress code. I also disagree with the idea of the Deerfield Boy and Girl. I think the fact that we even have symbols of two “model” students gives the wrong message. Although this isn’t case, the Deerfield Boy and Girl appear to represent one type of person. They aren’t all encompassing. It is as though we are saying that we do not promote individuality. Part of the problem behind our portrayal of tradition is our interpretation of Deerfield’s motto, “Be worthy of your heritage.” Because it promotes the past, we as a community are always looking back. We should instead be worthy of our futures and those to come after us because they will be affected by what we do here. I also think that our interpretation of this motto can become easily confused and allow for a degree of apathy. Just because a tradition is a part of history does not make it good. Tradition can sometimes create an exclusive atmosphere. Because Deerfield used to be an all-boys’ school, a lot of that culture and tradition still runs deep in social life here. From a girl’s perspective,Deerfield can often feel male-dominated. I have noticed that there is a sense of entitlement, and even belonging, that does not fully extend to the girl population. If we really want to progress as a community and as a school, I believe that it is imperative that we become less obsessed with the Boyden era, because it makes it seem as though we are promoting the homogeneous culture of that time.

This piece is a modified version of Post-Graduate Fitz Bowen’s statement at the student culture forum. Coming from a public high school that had a student body over seven times the size of Deerfield’s, it took me a long time to adjust to this lifestyle, but I really like it. I was asked to talk about a few things I would like to see improved in this school, so here they are: The consequences for making mistakes are far too extreme. In my opinion, it is in people’s teenage years when they are supposed to experiment to find what works for them and what doesn’t. Good kids sometimes make bad decisions. I feel like suspensions and expulsions happen regularly here, which is very different from what happened in my old school. Frank Boyden was quoted in John McPhee’s, The Headmaster: “For one foolish mistake, a boy should not have a stamp put on him that will be with him for the rest of his life…There is no flexibility in a system like that.” I know that all situations are different, but I think students would learn a lot more from being punished with community service hours than a suspension from school. The boy-girl relationships at Deerfield are also pretty different from what I’m used to. Some of my greatest memories from the past four years have been when I was hanging around watching TV with a few guys and girls. Here, I feel there are three options on a weekend night: Go to the Greer which is packed with over two hundred kids, get parietals with your significant other, or stay in the dorm and watch a movie with some guys. I wish it were more socially acceptable here to have group parietals, because from experience I’ve seen that some of the best conversations happen in those small group, co-ed situations. I have noticed on a few separate occasions that there have been articles published in the Deerfield Scroll that upset a good portion of the community. Just as an example: the socioeconomic class newspaper that came out last week. We all know that there are privileged kids at this school. However, no matter what kind of background people come from, they all have control over the way they act around others. What we should focus on is eliminating any feelings of entitlement in the community, because that is what creates divides. I think in the first week of school, there should be a time when every single student in the school introduces themselves and shakes hands with every other student, staff, and faculty member. This idea may be overboard, but the more familiar we are with people on campus, the easier it will be to eliminate divides. Now on to the things I love about Deerfield: I love that I get to do my own thing. It’s nice not being told to put on more layers by my mom every time I leave the dorm. Secondly, I love the sense of community here. From the feeds within the dorms to school meeting to Sunday night singing after dinner, I feel I am a part of something. Lastly, I like going to sports events. The school spirit here is unmatched. Every night when lying in bed, I ask myself a simple question: “Today was I the best person I could possibly be?” Some days I say yes and some days I say no. Since September, there have been various times when I’ve given up my values in order to fit in with a certain group of people and as a result, there have been nights when the answer to my question before bed was “no.” But I learn from those times and move on. I am sure that, with a little bit of self-evaluation, our community will come together more so than it ever has in the past.

The Deerfield Boy and the Deerfield Girl embody the traditions that Deerfield as a whole embraces, and they exemplify the students we wish to have represent us. However, Deerfield is a competitive place where one can easily surrender themselves to the crowd. This year, I live on a hall with 13 very diverse girls, and I am not just talking about international students and different ethnicities. They each have different likes and dislikes, but I would consider all of them to be Deerfield Girls. In Connect Four we talked about what we thought the Deerfield Girl and the Deerfield Boy meant, and we got a mix of responses. The stereotype of the Deerfield Girl wore Jack Rogers and a Barbour coat, and it was said that she had to be pretty, athletic, wealthy and socially adept. The stereotype of the Deerfield Boy also wore expensive brands and had to be handsome, muscular, funny and athletic. However, we concluded that it is not about what you wear, how much money you have or how you look, but rather the ideals and values you stand behind. The stereotype of the Deerfield Boy and Girl is not what Deerfield is all about. It is evident that people change when they come to Deerfield, and that is expected. However, some people have a tendency to follow the crowd. “When I came here, I was lost in a sea of similar people in the same brands. It was hard to find those few people that stood out,” Cindy Lopez ’16 said. I would prefer to call our symbols the Deerfield Boys and the Deerfield Girls, because our symbol doesn’t just represent one kind of person. I think one has to be able to stay true to himself or herself throughout his or her whole experience here to be considered a Deerfield Girl or Deerfield Boy. We live in a community where people tend to conform to what everyone else thinks and does. But if you are ambitious, fun, smart, humble, kind and loyal, I don’t see why you can’t be the epitome of the Deerfield Girl or Boy.

Deerfield Academy is filled with teachers and staff who have decided to dedicate their lives to the school together with their partners. And although it probably hasn’t crossed your mind, your science or English or math teachers might just be real romantics with exciting stories to tell. In the modern world, there are many ways to meet a future spouse. Daniel and Corinna Roihl met, out of all places, on Craig’s List. “I was new in town, freshly single, looking for some furniture on Craig’s List, and I figured, why not throw my profile up there as well,” Mr. Roihl said. A few days later, Mrs. Roihl contacted him and they decided to meet. “I had just come back from living in France for a year and decided, hey, I want to meet someone outside of my crazy, cooking-chef, monkey world,” Mrs. Roihl said. She then asked him if he would like to meet for dinner at a Los Angeles restaurant that has now become a favorite. Three years later, they got engaged. The couple said their most special time together was a trip to Spain. “We had planned this whole trip to Spain around this wonderful restaurant that she had finally gotten a reservation to eat at,” Mr. Roihl said. He added that getting a seat at this restaurant, which gets over a million requests per year and is open only six months per year, is almost impossible. “I tried to win them over by being funny, in Spanish and in English,” Mrs. Roihl said. The Roihls enjoyed a 26-course dinner, overlooking the Mediterranean on the top of a mountain. Three years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Roihl moved to Deerfield. Mrs. Roihl, who had been working as an executive chef at a very Hollywood-centric catering company called Catering by Field, decided to move with him. “Everyone needs to eat, no problem. He’s a lot more specific about what he does. It had to be a place where they value the arts,” Mrs. Roihl said. Mr. Roihl added, “We had just moved back East and I got a call from Peter Warsaw, who had been my music teacher at high school. He called and told me that there might be an opportunity for me at Deerfield.” Mr. Warsaw, Mr. Roihl’s high school teacher, is just as much of a romantic. Peter Warsaw and Ada Fan grew up in the same town and were in the same spelling bee in middle school. “He won when he was in eighth grade and I was in sixth grade. I didn’t really think it was fair that eighth graders compete against sixth graders,” said Ms. Fan. Mr. Warsaw’s response: “I didn’t make the rules.” A few years later, they almost met again when Mr. Warsaw went to Exeter. Mr. Warsaw’s sister would find him pen pals from her all-girls school, and he would do the same for her. Usually, he wasn’t too happy with her choices when he would meet the girls. Right when he told her that he would like to end this system, Mr. Warsaw said, “The next suggestion she had was Ada. She said, ‘I met this unbelievable girl.’” But Mr. Warsaw did not take up the offer. When Mr. Warsaw came to see his sister’s graduation, he saw Ms. Fan giving a speech. “She was the star of the show,” Mr. Warsaw said. He said when Ms. Fan went to Harvard, where he was studying, “As fate had it, we were living in adjacent dormitories.” At first they got to know each other as friends, but by the next term they started dating. After graduation, when Mr. Warsaw was offered a job at Brooks, he was told he wouldn’t be able to leave campus during the term–and no female visitors were allowed. “We got married because we figured we could always get a divorce,” Ms. Fan joked. After Brooks, they both went to Rochester for graduate school, then went to teach at Andover for 24 years, before coming to Deerfield in the beginning of 2007.

When new sophomores and juniors arrived on Albany Road this past fall, many of them were immediately faced with a very different culture—Deerfield culture. Many of them felt that this culture was one unlike any other they’ve seen, and that it was the hardest obstacle they’ve had to cross in life thus far. “In the first couple of weeks, I immediately noticed that intergrade friendships weren’t as prevalent, and many friends were in defined, set groups,” Yuri Lee ’15 said. “However, the somewhat challenging social life allowed me to reach out to people.” New junior Keren Alfred ’14 found that the reality she found here clashed with her assumptions. “Life here is different than what was depicted in the brochures,” she said. “I thought that it would be less cliquey, and that it would be more comfortable to talk to people.” Many students felt that some of Deerfield’s social aspects lacked real connection. “I felt like nothing gets done face to face, and some aspects like the hook-up culture are very complicated and not personal,” Hugo Marsans ’14 said. “There was a huge culture difference for me, as it was hard even to transition to daily conversations,” Andrea Leng ’15 said. “A lot of times it was hard to find a common topic.” Some new students, however, quickly grew to love the Deerfield lifestyle. “I love the social life here, particularly because it helps relieve the tension I get from work all the time,” Tyreak Richardson ’15 said. “I think the success of Deerfield’s social events lie in the kids themselves,” Proctor Adam Philie ’13 said. “For a kid who’s rather shy, a dance can be intimidating, but with a little encouragement from the kids around him, it can be an awesome experience.” Some students have found other ways to make culture at student hangouts like the Greer easier. “If you know one person sitting at the table, it makes it much easier to start conversations,” Ian Kagame ’15 said. “I don’t think it’s hard to be a new sophomore,” Charlie Brahaney ’15 said. “No one really treats the new sophomores any differently than the returners.” Many said one of the problems leading to culture shock was that the Opening Days schedule provided little breathing room for new students. “It was busy with meetings from the start,” Matt Ching ’14 said. “I didn’t even have time to just go and try to assimilate at my own pace.” Some of the struggle could be credited to the apathy that new students such as Sicily Kiesel ’15 felt from some returning students. “The only way to make the transition easier is for the current students to take responsibility and help the new ones,” she said. “The administration can try all they want, but nothing significant will happen until the students themselves change.” At the same time, faculty such as Residential Head Kristin Loftus have put in persistent efforts to break down these walls. “We try to integrate these new students into the community through Connect4, feeds and more,” she said. “But at the same time, we don’t want to single the new sophomores and juniors out.” “We’ve heard loud and clear about the feedback from the bustling opening days schedule,” Dean of Students Amie Creagh said, “and we’re most definitely revamping it to be less hectic for next year.” In transitioning, proctor Hannah Insuik ’13 has offered a solution to adjusting to the Deerfield routine. “It’s easiest to enjoy Deerfield when you know what is going on, so skipping some of those learning steps [for the new students] and just diving in head first would ease them into life here,” she said. “However, the transition never ends,” Marsans said.

In a matter of weeks, the dance and video craze called the “Harlem Shake” has swept the nation. The Harlem Shake dance has been around for over 30 years. In 2003, a man named Al B. told InsideHoops.com that the origin of the dance move came from Egypt. “It was a drunken dance, you know, from the mummies, in the tombs,” he explained. “That’s what the mummies used to do. They was all wrapped up and taped up. So they couldn’t really move, all they could do was shake.” Harry Rodrigues, also known as Baauer, released the song called “Harlem Shake” heard in YouTube videos in 2012. The song did not become widely popular until Febuary 2, 2013 when a comic called Filthy Frank uploaded his video to YouTube. The video has over 12 million views, and the song is now number one on iTunes. Over 4,000 videos similar to the original have been uploaded per day to YouTube since. Typically, one masked person dances alone until the beat drops, then crowds of people dressed in outrageous costumes dance. A wide range of people, including firefighters, soldiers, office staff, and even residents in retirement homes, have made these 30-second imitations, as well as celebrities like Ryan Seacrest and Kendall and Kylie Jenner. However, Filthy Frank is tired of the craze. “I’m thinking of just deleting the Harlem Shake video,” he tweeted recently, “It’s just so pointless and attracts useless people.” Several “Harlem Shake” videos have been made in dorms on campus, including Louis Marx, John Williams and Poc, and the JV girls hockey team made their own rendition on the ice.

No one understands better than Director of Global Studies David Miller the effect that the Deerfield bubble has on students’ lives. Mr. Miller grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts on the campus of Leslie University, attended Concord Academy and earned his undergraduate degree from Bates College. However, he did not follow the usual progression from high school to college—instead, he chose to take a gap year. During that time, he traveled abroad to teach English in rural Costa Rica, lived on a coffee farm, became a certified scuba instructor and worked at a resort in the Cayman Islands. “Reverse culture shock is one of the most important parts about studying abroad because you come back being able to question things,” Mr. Miller said. “You have completely different understandings of stress and injustice.” Throughout college, Mr. Miller continued to run summer programs abroad and went to work at the Island School in the Bahamas for three years and eventually became Director of Summer Programs. However, “looking for new mentors and new challenges,” Mr. Miller turned to developing his passion for teaching. He attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education this past year. “I wanted to have more of a perspective on education before moving on and to have more of the skills to understand the bigger picture of schools,” he said. When Mr. Miller saw the job posted for Global Studies Director at Deerfield, he said he “could not have written a better description of what I wanted to do because it is a mix of working with students and organizing trips while still being able to teach.” Although Mr. Miller had a fever of 101 degrees when he visited, he left with a positive impression of Deerfield. “The students and teachers were very engaged,” he said. “The school really wants to be able to teach global literacy.” He also offered his take on steps Deerfield could take. “The first and most important thing is to celebrate experiences on campus and the stories of the people that are here,” he said. “More people need to realize that they could be getting a global education without even leaving the country.” Mr. Miller continued, “A good global education is just a good education. Every day in some way we can all find ways to have perspective on how we fit in the world and the impact we can have, because a lot of people are struggling.” “Deerfield was formed on the pretense of creating people who live worthy lives,” he said. “And it is a different world now than when Frank Boyden was here.” While he said the school is “still defining its strategy regarding global education,” Mr. Miller is on a mission to help the student body gain a better global perspective.

The Little Shop of Horrors, Deerfield’s first musical in the Large Auditorium in 20 years, opens tomorrow at 7 p.m. and goes until Saturday. Performing in one of the school’s costliest shows ever (the Broadway tour plant rentals cost around $10,000), 17 cast members will pay tribute to the Memorial Building before it undergoes renovation in June. Director Catriona Hynds said she chose the show in response to a “strong campus-wide desire” for a musical. “I chose Little Shop because I think the story is wonderful— dark, funny and creepy,” she said. “I love the characters and above all, I think the music is brilliant.” The show focuses on a demonic plant that grows throughout the musical. Connor Manson ’14 maneuvers the plant, which weighs 180 pounds by Act II. “All I have to do is stand up and lift the plant, which is attached to me like a back pack,” he said. “Then I bend my knees and push down on two bars inside the plant to make it speak. I feel most of the weight on my back and shoulders, so it gets difficult to maneuver after a while.” Manson said the biggest challenge was to time movements with Chris Lin, the voice of the plant. “I have to make the plant look like it’s really alive and talking,” Manson said.

Every week, posters around campus advertise the next movie that the Deerfield Motion Pictures Club will screen that weekend. In an attempt to introduce the Deerfield Community to classic movies, Alexzandria Chalmers ’13 and Andrew Bishop ’14 founded the Motion Pictures Club earlier this year. “We felt that a lot of Deerfield students weren’t exposed to classic movies or even modern classics,” Chalmers said. “We thought that if we started a club where people can watch movies we thought were great, we could maybe introduce another aspect of the American culture.” Chalmers believes that motion pictures hold a special place in our culture. “Film has been around for less than a century, but it has already redefined literature,” she said. “Learning to appreciate movies will do Deerfield students more good than they might initially think.” Some films that the group has screened so far include Pulp Fiction, Citizen Kane, Slumdog Millionaire, The Big Lebowski and Fight Club. “We take recommendations from parents and teachers that know movies better than we do. We try to stick to those that are widely considered great so that a larger audience can appreciate them,” Bishop explained. Other officers of the club include Cody Anderson-Salo ’14 and Tabata Viso ’14. “It would be nice to have a greater turnout in our future screenings,” Anderson-Salo ’14 said. Currently their screenings take place on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. in the Small Auditorium. The officers are still exploring possibilities to improve the Saturday night screenings. “We want to do a mix of modern classics and old classics. Maybe we also want to have more discussion after watching the films,” Bishop ’14 said.

The Deerfield arts program, especially dance and theater, has been lacking male participation in its classes and projects in the last few years. “Interestingly, when I started teaching at DA in 2000, I consistently had a boy or two in a class, now that’s a rarity,” explained Director of Co-Curricular Dance Carrie Towle. “A significant body of the technique at an advanced level of ballet involves partnering, and that is an area we never teach at all, as we don’t have enough of a critical mass of male partners.” On the other hand, Director of Theater Catriona Hynds sees the theater program as an exception. “The boys outnumber the girls three to one in Acting 1…I believe that theater has always attracted a wide variety of individuals, regardless of gender, social status and sexuality.” “The pace of life keeps a lot of people from pursuing arts, especially drawing,” said Advanced Visual Arts student Wyatt Sharpe ’13. “It’s a really time-demanding activity and the pace of life at Deerfield makes it unrealistic for a lot of boys and girls on campus to spend time drawing and painting during their schedules.” Connor Manson ’14, who will be one of next year’s Varsity Football captains and is in his second DA play this winter, feels low male participation has to do with image. “Some guys think that being in the arts is end up trying out for a sport instead of signing up for an art, because they think that’s a more masculine way to go. It’s a shame more guys don’t try the arts.” In response, the directors in DA’s arts program have been brainstorming ways to entice more male participants and change the image of male actors and dancers in our community. “It’s as simple as changing the conversation,” Director of Dance Crystal Nilsson said. “There are many cases of male athletes who cross-train with dance to achieve optimal coordination, agility and stamina…Talking about the rigors of dance training and opens a new perspective of dance.” Ms. Towle echoed similar sentiments. “The larger DA community can have a significant impact on how the arts are regarded. Do advisors encourage boys to try dance and arts as co-curriculars?” “What I am more interested in than attracting more males is not stereotyping the arts…Theater has never been the domain of just one gender and there is plenty of opportunity for both,” Hynds said. The lack of male participants in the arts program is what initially convinced Manson to join the play as a sophomore in 2011. He hopes to compel other boys to give the arts a shot. “The arts is a chance to become more well-rounded and push yourself out of your comfort zone,” he said. “It’s definitely been a beneficial decision for me.”

Sam Skillings has been responsible for the smooth running of every Academy Event, Dance Showcase, KFC and School Meeting since 1985. Skillings has served as Deerfield Academy’s audiovisual technician for 28 years, and it is fair to say that without him, our shows would not, and could not, go on. Skillings grew up in Amherst and began his career in the audiovisual field during high school. “I was one of the geeky kids in high school,” Skillings admitted. “[Audiovisual] was a niche that I fell into. It started with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—everybody had to be in a band when they happened, and there were too many musicians but not enough techies.” Skillings was able to travel around the country as an audiovisual technician for a traveling entertainment troupe called the Ice Capades. “I didn’t get to go to Alaska, but I’ve hit 49 of the 50 states, and putting all the equipment in sea containers for Hawaii was an ugly affair,” Skillings recalled. Directly before coming to Deerfield, Skillings worked as an AV-tech at Amherst High School. Now at Deerfield he has witnessed a decline in the number of students interested in AV work. “There aren’t as many students interested in working on the tech crew as there used to be,” Skillings said. “My suspicion is that this is because technology is much more widespread. Nowadays when you say technology, people think of computers, but in the old days to get your hands on technology you had to be in the AV club.” One particularly fascinating, and occasionally aggravating, part of Skillings’ job is adapting to technological development and learning new techniques. “In the new Memorial Building they want to run all lighting and sound control systems over Ethernet,” Skillings said. “How many times have you seen Ethernet fail? It’s digital, and the way the system works right now is analog. For 28 years I have had a failure rate of zero using analog. Do you think I’ll have that rate using digital? I don’t expect that kind of durability from digital.” Although changes in technology can be challenging, Skillings still finds excitement and enjoyment in being an AV technician. “I like doing it. I like working with the students. I’m fascinated by it, and I’m still learning,” Skillings said. “The technology changes I’ve gotten to see are phenomenal, from lighting to sound to video.” Skillings remembers an Academy Event 15 years ago when 70 students helped set up. “Those kids walked away saying they would never look at a concert or performance the same way again, because they had seen the hidden side,” he said. For Skillings, the most rewarding aspect of being an AV technician is not the end result. “By the time you get the show ready to go, that’s the easy part,” he said. “But it’s nowhere near the energy or adrenaline drive that it takes to get there.”