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On February 10, 2024, Deerfield Academy’s ninth annual TEDxDeer-field event featured ten speakers who spoke on the theme of “Discovery.” Talks ranged from the art of sumo wrestling to the science behind color blindness to Black women’s mental health.  Compared to previous years, this year’s event had the greatest number of outside speakers, with presenters […]

To mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the past four years many colleges have switched to test-optional admissions. However, now that COVID poses a smaller threat, certain schools have decided to return to test-mandated policies. For example, Dartmouth College states in their updated standardized testing policy that the Class of 2029’s application process […]

A: On January 25th, 2024, Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith underwent the first execution by nitrogen hypoxia – suffocation facilitated by the inhalation of nitrogen gas. Long believed to be a more humane execution method than lethal injection, the nitrogen gas execution did not go as peacefully as expected. Smith convulsed, thrashed, and spasmed for minutes during the beginning of his execution. In total, it took him roughly 15 minutes to die. This tragic incident brought mass media attention to death-row inmates, especially those who might die via the controversial method. The real problem, however, is not how the state of Alabama executed Smith; it’s that they even executed him in the first place. The death sentence goes against every system of values society holds. It proudly violates the human right to life, opens the gate for gross abuse of government power, oversteps the role of a democratic government, and most importantly, goes against the sacred law of cost efficiency. E: I agree with your stance for Alabama. [Add more] Personally, I grew up in China, where I was taught that the death penalty is legal and justified. Since I came to the States, I found myself exposed to and agreeing with a lot of the arguments against it, just like many Americans according to recent polls published by the Pew Research Center. For example, I agree that the death penalty doesn’t serve as a stronger deterrent than the life sentence, so do 63% of Americans. I acknowledge that in some cases an innocent person might be put to death, so do 78% of Americans. I also agree that the ability to put somebody to death opens the door to an abuse of power by the government. Yet 65% of Americans still support the death penalty. Why would that be? Many of them might cite “an eye for an eye,” yet personally, I don’t believe in that statement. What I have a problem with is our delicate, almost hypocritical tiptoe around death. Since our laws are already depriving criminals of every other right, why do we carve a line around death? The question for me is not really why death, but why not death? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the death as a punishment itself that would differentiate it from all others? So I hope you could help me understand that distinction, Anna. A: I’m glad we agree on at least some points concerning the death penalty. I personally believe that life is far more sacred than you are making it out to be. Yes, everyone dies, but to deliberately take someone’s life is to remove them from our plane of existence. It is to silence their right to free speech, shackle their right to bodily autonomy, to condemn them to an eternity we have no knowledge of. Execution fundamentally differs from incarceration, as while imprisoned, criminals still enjoy (or should in an ideal world not plagued by the injustices of our current criminal justice system) all their human rights. They may speak freely, communicate with others, including those outside of prison (albeit on an extremely limited basis), practice religion, and live moderately fulfilling lives. E: But Anna, if we fully embrace the doctrine of forgiveness and rehabilitation instead of punishment suggested by the opponents of the death penalty, then why would we have other punishments in the first place? A popular opinion is that prison is purely a security measure rather than a punishment, to keep society safe from further harm from the inmates instead of to punish them per se. Yet if that were true, then it could be argued that a single parent who must and will shoplift every day to keep their children alive would have more “predictable potential to harm society as a whole” than somebody like the character Oliver Quick in the movie Saltburn, who is through and done with his goal of inheriting the property and would have caused no further harm to society dancing naked in his bloodstained estate to Murder on the Dancefloor. A: I would argue that the purpose of prisons is in equal parts to rehabilitate and to punish. If people have proven to be incapable of following the law to an extreme degree in the past, yes, they should be punished past the typical period of rehabilitation. They should bear the weight and the consequences of their actions, even if that consequence is a life sentence. Even if incarcerated individuals no longer pose a threat to society, they still broke the social contract they made with the government. Just as a debtor must be held accountable to her debts even after she has become wealthy, a criminal must be held accountable to her crimes even after she has been rehabilitated. If this criminal has committed a crime that warrants a life sentence with no parole, then she will serve her full sentence even if she poses no further threat to society. E: [WORK ON TRANSITION] It could be argued that a personality like Oliver Quick’s would have more potential for further crimes, yet punishing people by determining how much “their personality” is fundamentally criminal opens so many doors that I won’t go into. A: I agree with your point that a just society should not punish people with “fundamentally criminal” personalities, but it does not have a place in this argument. The United States criminal justice system holds criminals accountable for the crimes they have already committed, even if they are completely reformed individuals. It has no place punishing individuals who may have a personality more “prone” to criminal activity (whatever that might mean), but with a clean criminal record. Otherwise, I would have horrible news for you, Eric. A: Additionally, all other punishments placed on criminals stem from practicality. Our government does not let convicts serving life sentences own guns because they have proven to be dangerous. Criminals live in a secured and isolated environment so they cannot inflict further harm on society and prison officers monitor them constantly to ensure they do not harm other inmates. So, Eric, do tell. What is the added benefit of executing a criminal, and how does that outweigh the objective moral evil of taking another human’s life? E: Ok, now to a different train of thought. How do we determine if a punishment is worse than death? That is entirely subjective. Some people might find that mere consciousness is still more preferable to oblivion. Similarly, to some people, an endless life sentence may be even more hopeless than a quick death. If an accused asks for the death penalty instead of the life sentence, shall we grant them the favor? A: While an interesting point, I believe this falls into to realm of state assisted suicide rather than a death sentence. E: Assuming the alternative to be life sentence without possibility of parole, we would be spending money providing a terrible person for the rest of their life. Their right to liberty and privacy might be confiscated, yet they have a place to sleep in and food on the table. How many people in extreme poverty or war around the world would beg for such a “punishment?” Why are we spending money to treat criminals better than we are treating innocent people whose only crime is an unlucky draw at birth? Wouldn’t a death penalty save those resources for uses that would actually improve the rest of society, or even better, the broken families from whom the murderer tore out the breadwinner? A: I completely agree that the United States should not spend unnecessary money on the criminal justice system, pumping money into the inherently corrupt Prison Industrial Complex. However, to answer your question, condemning a criminal to a death would not save money that could be better used elsewhere. A 2008 study conducted by the Urban Institute concerning the death penalty in the state of Maryland found that “an average capital-eligible case resulting in a death sentence will cost approximately $3 million, $1.9 million more than a case where the death penalty was not sought.” The study went on to estimate that the lifetime cost of capitally-prosecuted cases would total roughly 186 million dollars, coming directly from taxpayer dollars (The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, Roman). These costs come both from prison and execution costs as well as taxpayer funded legal costs, which can quickly add up as the 14th Amendment protects citizens’ rights to exhaust the appeals process before execution. Other studies examining the death penalty in Indiana (Fiscal Impact Statement; Subject: Muder Sentencing and Sentence Enhancement, Boots), North Carolina (The Cost of Processing Murder Cases in North Carolina, Cook), Florida (The High Price of Killing Killers, Palm Beach Post), and countless other states corroborate this conclusion. You earlier tried to reframe the question as “why not the death penalty?” Again, assuming that you do not see taking another person’s life as any different from taking away their right to living where they wish and how they want, how would you justify the added cost of an execution? E: That is really interesting. Seeing that that is true, congratulations Anna, you have convinced me! To modify my stance, I now believe that under the current criminal justice system of the United States, there is no reason for the death penalty. Yet I do wonder, how many arguments against the death penalty actually reflect flaws in the justice system itself? The government pours more resources into a death penalty case to achieve a more sound result. Does that imply that in life sentence cases, the accused is more likely to be wrongfully convicted? Does the drawing of the line around death also prevent the life sentence, which is arguably the next severe punishment, from getting the resources needed for a just trial? A: This is a fascinating point, although I am inclined not to believe it. A 2014 study conducted by Stanford University estimated that roughly 4.1% of people sentenced to death are innocent of the crimes they are convicted of (Rate of false conviction, Gross). Meanwhile, a 2018 study estimated that roughly 6% of imprisoned convicts are wrongfully convicted (Measuring Self-Reported Wrongful Convictions Among Prisoners, Loeffler). While this is a statistically significant difference considering the incarcerated population of the United States, it doesn’t lead me to believe that death sentence cases are more thoroughly tried. Even if death sentences were the most accurate criminal proceedings in the nation, even if 100% of death sentence criminals committed the atrocities they are being punished for, I can not see any moral, legal, utilitarian, or political reason to take another person’s life.

We’ve all been there: scratching our heads, scratching in annotations, and scratching the cover of a classical text like Othello or A Midsummer Night’s Dream in frustration as the teacher instructs us to close read to “gain a deeper understanding of the text.” I’ve heard that phrase for the past seven terms at Deerfield. Despite […]

For about three minutes on April 8, from 3:26 p.m. to 3:29 p.m., the sun will go completely dark in Burlington, Vermont. A total solar eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime celestial wonder. For reference, there has not been a total solar eclipse visible in New England since 1970, and there will not be another until 2079. […]

On one particularly dull evening, I decided to type “Deerfield Academy” into the search bar of Google. When I am not consumed with never ending project deadlines and Scroll assignments, I sometimes stop to think about what a person entirely removed from the Deerfield Bubble might think of me. In my search, I was able […]

On October 22, 2022, Historic Deerfield unveiled 19 Witness Stone memorials along the mile long Old Main Street. The historic organization had affiliated with the Witness Stones Project initiated by a middle school teacher in Connecticut who wished to restore history and memorialize the enslaved individuals that helped build our communities. The project was inspired by the Stolpersteine or ‘Stumbling Stones’ project that began in Berlin, Germany. Artist Gunter Demnig wanted to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. As a result, efforts were accumulated to install 4’’ by 4’’ bronze plaques in the front steps of the residences where the enslaved had lived. Historic Deerfield is the first Witness Stones installation in Massachusetts that has been built on over 20 years of research the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) and Historic Deerfield have been doing on slavery and the valley. Oftentimes, lives and labor of enslaved people have been obliterated from the landscape. The bronze plate only records a brief description of the slave, some even without a name. Brian Hamilton, Head of the Deerfield History Department, emphasizeds on how fast the history of slavery could disappear from record: “Enslaved people lived in labor in Deerfield at least from the 1690s and, even after emancipation, came to Massachusetts. Tthere were still records of people enslaved here until the 1880s. And that’s has been a very hard fact to get stuck in the collective conscience of Deerfield resident Massachusetts residents in general.” Mr. Hamilton praises the sStones as a way for theway the Deerfield town to reviveof reviving the records of their livelihood and acknowledges history. The organization relies on a range of sources for information: enslavers’ wills, churches’ baptizing files, shopkeepers’ accounts, and criminal records of fugitives. Researchers also examine , a book published in 1893 by George Sheldon, who lived in Deerfield and knew many enslaved people on Old Main personally. However, many accounts are not complete, and some stones, such as the one in front of Stebbins House, state the individual’s name is “no longer known.” The lack of information may invite viewers to dig deeper into this realm of history, which is often neglected. Dean of Academic Affairs Anne Bruder said, “The sparseness of those details is incredibly provocative for students, who may go on to ask a series of questions about what’s missing from the record and what they can do with just a few nuggets to go on.” History Department Chair Brian Hamilton noted that this opportunity could allow Deerfield students to explore the stories of slavery in the Valley. “Looking from the perspective of our history department, it’s a really wonderful project to investigate in terms of thinking about how people tell stories of the past,” said Mr. Hamilton. “Many of our US history classes have wandered across the street to investigate them.” Isaac Bakare ’24 visited the Witness Stones last spring with his Honors United States History class. “It was strange to see a part of Deerfield’s history that’s rarely spoken of put out for the world to see and learn from,” he said. “I was glad we got the opportunity to experience that piece of history so close to our campus.” The memorials may play a larger part in Deerfield’s campus in the future. Over the past year, the Academy has been communicating with the Board of Trustees and Historic Deerfield about creating a complete record of enslaved individuals along all of Old Main Street. “Right now, we know that we will participate in the program,” Dr. Bruder said. “Historic Deerfield is currently doing the research necessary for stones that will be placed on Academy property.” One of the stones they plan to install will be at the Manse, honoring a man named Prince, who was enslaved on the property in the 18th century. Historic Deerfield researchers discovered parts of Prince’s story from a 1749 newspaper advertisement his enslaver posted after he escaped, and a death record from 1752 indicating he had died enslaved. The researchers hope to place this, and up to 15 other stones, on Academy property and around the town in the fall of 2024. Mr. Hamilton expressed his excitement about the installation, saying, “I think we can do some sort of unveiling once they’re installed and it’s a great moment for history classes to engage with and see new stories being told in real time.”

This fall, keen-eyed observers might have noticed a new addition on campus: a sundial outside the Simmons dorm. On October 13, 2023, Daniel Wareham ’24 and Deerfield carpenter John Downie P ‘15, ‘17, ‘20 engineered a tilted plane that could show the time and the month at any time the sun was shining. Wareham was first inspired to create this sundial when he learned about it in Multivariable Calculus duringin his junior year. During the spring term, he and his group learned about map projections. After spending the summer designing the stainless steel sundial, he had the opportunity in the fall to install it. “Make a quote” There is already a sundial outside the library, but Wareham had something new to offer with his sundial: aA mathematical explanation behind the timepiece. With this explanation, Daniel saidsays, “I want to inspire fellow students to explore mathematical concepts.” After coming up with the idea, Daniel had a spot in mind: off to the west side of the midpoint of the path between Albany Road and the west entrance to the Hess. This was ideal for him because it allowed the best view of the sun to the south as it uses the shadow from the sun to cast onto a flat plate, and the shadow aligns with different hour-lines marked on the dial. The flat plate has to be tilted up from the horizontal to what the latitude is and must be perfectly parallel to the axis of the Earth’s rotation. The sun also is not steady during the year, so it is not in the same position during the same time in different months. Wareham accommodates that using a separate graph that shows how off the sundial is throughout the year. He found the exact coordinates of the existing sundial in front of the library and calculated how to draw the lines and make the gnomon, which is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. Over the summer in China, Wareham sent his designs to a contractor to be laser cut and etched. He brought it to Deerfield with him as he arrived back from the summer. Wareham’s sundial required a permit from Physical Plant, but the department did not have permission to put the sundial where Wareham initially intended. They offered, instead, to put the sundial in front of the Simmons dormitory. To prevent lawn mowing interference, they put it in the tree bed facing the Chen Health Center. Mr. Downie helped Wareham with the sundial’s instillation. It sits upon two stones and is tilted 42 degrees to the south to capture the sunlight. During installation, instead of using a compass, Wareham lined up the direction of the plane to face north-south with the North Star at night. He also used two stones from a nearby construction yard that were the height he wanted. Math Teacher Forest Reid was excited to see this addition to campus. “It is a nice demonstration of the opportunities to help students explore interesting projects,” he said. Although this location was not ideal due to light blockage during the early morning and afternoon, Wareham was still really thankful to be given this opportunity. “The Physical Plant want things like this to exist on campus,” he said, “and they’re very helpful with making things like this happen.” Zohan Subhash ’26 was extremely impressed and excited about the sundial, which inspired him to think about how to apply what he learned in school. “This sundial was built by a Deerfield student, using the knowledge he learned in Deerfield classes,” he said. “Hearing his story inspired me to aspire higher in all my classes, but especially in math.” According to Wareham, the school will have to remove the installation by the end of the school year, but Wareham hopes for a permanent home in the JV Baseball field. “[The Physical Plant] doesn’t have permission to place student-made things at prominent places permanently. … This sundial has ‘Deerfield Academy’ engraved on it, so I hope the school can find a good home for it here even after I graduate.” If the sundial becomes permanent, it could serve as a source of inspiration for future community members. As Subhash reflected, “Students fifteen years from now will look at that sundial and be amazed. They will be proud to be a Deerfield student.”

One of the longest running traditions at Deerfield Academy is the dress code. Fall and spring terms all Deerfield students are required to wear academic dress: a blazer, button down shirts, dress pants, ties for boys, and dresses for girls. However dress culture at Deerfield goes a lot deeper than what is written in the handbook. Some have remarked that it lies in class, wealth, and gender identity, leaving unspoken divides among students at DA. Greta Steever ’24 explained, “We have the dress code that is in the rule book and have a dress code of what you’re ‘supposed to wear.’ As a sophomore I did not know that there was this secret dress code.” Steever claims that this dress code mostly applies to girls. One of her classmates explained to her how girls borrow dresses, and Steever said, “supposedly, you’re not supposed to wear the same dress more than a month apart.” Many of the dresses that these girls wear are worth hundreds of dollars, coming from luxury and designer brands. Steever was shocked at the amount of waste produced by Deerfield students alone. She said, “Even wealthy people buy fast fashion, and so, they are using their money inappropriately to support businesses that feed into climate change.” Even if they are buying from brands who claim to make clothes with higher quality materials, they are still feeding into overconsumption by buying more clothes than they need. Chrissy James ’24 opposes Deerfield’s official policy of class dress, claiming that it also perpetuates elitism. “It’s exercising conformity in a way, when you are all supposed to dress the same,” she said. “I just don’t think that it’s right for me to buy clothes to look a certain version of ‘smart’ when it’s not really me. It’s their version of what I should be, even though it is expensive and sometimes uncomfortable and really restrictive.” James rejects the expectation that students look the part of the ‘model Deerfield student.’ “I feel like I am able to show my intelligence more when I feel comfortable in my own skin,” she said. James does the best she can to circumvent the dress code, choosing to wear what makes her feel comfortable, confident, and intelligent in the classroom. “I wear flowy clothes and masculine clothes and all these sharp edges and silhouettes that I try to portray in my clothes,” she said. Steever, James, and Tutu, each have their own style that makes them stand out at Deerfield. Steever is inspired by vintage fashion and finds many of her clothes from thrift stores. James likes to express herself through her hair, and many of her outfits have punk fashion influences. Tutu said he dresses like the “typical Chicago young man.” He also has an extensive ring collection which he said serves as “a conversation piece” when he meets new people. This year, Steever is participating in the #NoNewClothesChallenge by re/make, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting the climate crisis in the fashion industry. The purpose of the challenge is to reflect on the pieces of clothing you already own as well as to reduce your own impact on overconsumption and climate change. She encourages everyone to try this challenge, whether for a month or for the whole year, reminding students to “keep in mind what we are purchasing and saying with our money,” she said. Deviating from the traditional Deerfield style, these students choose to wear what makes them feel good.

December 13: COP 28  The controversial COP 28 conference ended with an agreement urging nations to transition away from all fossil fuels in order to achieve global net-zero emissions by 2050. This is the first mention of “all fossil fuels” in the 28 years of the conference’s history. [The Daily Star]  December 15: Nigeria  Economic […]

On January 5, the Boyden Library staff extended their hours for student library use, now opening at 10 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday, as opposed to the previous opening time of 12 p.m. However, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., while the building itself will be open, books can only be checked out using […]

On January 14, the Deerfield Men of Color Alliance (DMOC) and the Entrepreneurship Club organized a three-hour-long introduction to entrepreneurship lecture with Professor Max Miller.  Professor Miller who is an associate Professor of Business and Entrepreneurship at Washington & Jefferson College and Director of Entrepreneurship Studies, is also best friends with Science Teacher Jim Perry […]