All posts by Kate Snyder

Williston Students Vote in Mock Election

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Mr. Teller and Ellie Wolfe ’19 hand out ballots in Birch Dining Commons.

On November 3, the Williston community participated in a mock election called Voting Opportunities for Teens in Every State, or V.O.T.E.S. This student election has successfully predicted the outcome in the general election in six of the last seven presidential contests.

At Williston, the election went to Hillary Clinton, who received 70% of the vote to Donald Trump’s 23%. Mr. Teller, Mr. Syfu, and Mr. Gunn were the faculty advisors to the project, which is led by students Ellie Wolfe ’19 and Josh Calianos ’18. Members of the cast of the play The Comedy of Errors helped count ballots. “We really want to get people in the habit of voting, so when they turn 18 and their votes really matter, they’ll have experience,” said Wolfe, who has been involved with local Democratic politics during the campaign.

The results for the V.O.T.E.S. program overall—in which nearly 75,000 votes were cast in 135 public and private high schools across the country—were closer: 48% for Clinton and 34% for Trump, with Clinton amassing 332 electoral votes and Trump garnering 206. While this election correctly predicted the outcome of the popular vote, it did not foresee a future president-elect Donald Trump.

The bottom line? Students practiced their civic duty last Thursday—and some seniors and PGs actually did cast votes in Tuesday’s election.

Visiting Artist Tanja Hollander Links Art and Social Media

Tanja Hollander presents in an AP English class. Photo by Jo Chattman
Tanja Hollander presents in an AP English class. Photo by Jo Chattman

Photographer and artist Tanja Hollander spent three days on campus with students recently exploring the intersection between art and social media (see photos here). She kicks off a new 5-year visiting artist program, the Grum Project, funded by a generous alumna.

In her own work, Hollander asked the question, “Are you really my friend?” and set off to shoot formal portraits of her 626 Facebook friends. Some were close friends, many she barely knew or had never met. In all, she traveled for five years across the U.S. and around the world by car, boat, airplane, bike, and on foot, through the eye of a Texas hurricane and in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris, taking breathtaking photos all the while.

As she spoke at Williston’s assembly, she asked students to consider, “What is a real friend?” and had them write their answer on a Post-It note. The notes, which students stuck to the rear wall of the chapel, bore honest and heartwarming responses, such as, “Someone who listens to my rants and loves me for me” and, “A real friend wants you to be happy.” Hollander then collected the notes and placed them on letter-size paper, and will scan them. She inserts keywords from each response into a database.

At assembly, she shared a tag cloud that showed the most commonly cited words from Post-Its she’s collected (“love,” “trust,” and “listen” were a few that ranked highest). Hollander will show her Facebook friends’ portraits at an exhibit at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art early next year, and is working on a documentary and a book about her work. Students’ Post-It notes will appear in the exhibit, along with thousands she’s collected.

In English, journalism, and art classes on campus, she challenged students to think about social media in new ways. True, she said, selfies and photos of brunch may be deemed shallow, but they are also a natural extension of a human fascination that began with the first known modern self-portrait in Italy in 1435 by Leon Battista Alberti, and continued through the Dutch masters’ paintings of still-lifes of food.

Hollander also sought to connect social media to political forces—think of Twitter’s role in the Arab Spring, and, more recently, more than one million Facebook check-ins at Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

For her Williston project, Hollander asked the entire school community, and particularly the students in the three classes she visited, to collect a photo and a story from someone they didn’t know well, and to post them on Instagram, using the account @willistonpictureswords.

Post and photo by Natalie Romain ’18

Students went out with their smart phones and returned with photos and captions that told moving stories of people all around the school and neighborhood. There was a striking image of the owner of the local dry cleaner, framed by a window, whose two grown children live in his native Honduras.

There was a photo of the woman who cooks at Williston’s Stu-Bop, looking away from the camera with a slight smile, who is quoted as saying, “I have one sibling now. I had three, now I have one.”

There was an international student, a sophomore, who said, “I feel like in the first year I was not able to discover myself or be who I really am. It took me a long time to adjust to this new culture. The best part of it was when I finally became myself again…I overcame Mt. Tom [a reference to our local mountain].”

Back in class, students assigned hashtags to the collected photos/stories. For the international student, they added, #theclimb. Hollander then navigated to #theclimb, an Instagram page where all posts with that hashtag exist, and clicked on a video of a little boy in a park in Spain, climbing a half-submerged boulder. The students cooed over the boy, marveling at his bravery and steadiness as he got to the top and then slid down.

“We just went to Madrid to see a super-cute kid,” Hollander said, smiling, perhaps, at the unexpected places social media can take you.

Writers’ Workshop: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom
Steve Bloom

Screenwriter Steve Bloom will be on campus on Monday, Nov. 7, as our third presenter in the Writers’ Workshop Series. Bloom’s screen credits include James and the Giant Peach, Tall Tale, and The Sure Thing. His first book, the young adult novel The Stand-In, was published in October. The public is welcome to attend and there is no admission fee. The talk begins at 7 p.m. and takes place at Plimpton Hall, behind 19 Payson Ave.

In The Stand-In, Bloom heads back to high school, where his main character, working-class Brooks Rattigan, ends up hiring himself out as a date for wealthy classmates to earn money for a tutor so he can get into the college of his choice. Brooks navigates relationships—and the ethics of what he’s doing.

Reviewers have praised the author’s unconventional choice of using a male lead in a YA romance novel, as well as Brooks’ realistic characterization, calling the book funny and endearing.

Bloom attended Brown University and the graduate film production program at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Jennifer, and their French bulldog Ricky.

Lots to Do at Williston’s Family Weekend

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Damp snow Thursday night didn’t keep parents and families away from Fall Family Weekend.

Despite a snowy start, Williston Northampton School’s Family Weekend was a big success, drawing nearly 300 family members from around the corner and across the country. (See photos here.)

During the two-day event, families met with their students’ teachers, listened to a cappella music and watched previews of dance and theater productions in a special all-school assembly, and heard a state-of-the-school update from Head of School Robert W. Hill III and Dean of Students Kathy Noble.

An international family reception was held on a snowy Thursday night at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hill. On Friday afternoon, around 100 parents and family members joined the Hills for a reception at their home. Families watched a rollicking production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors on Friday and Saturday nights (read more here).

Parents of international students gathered at the home of Head of School Robert Hill.
Parents of international students gathered at the home of Head of School Robert Hill.

Spectators witnessed Wildcat play in several sporting events on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon (see athletic results here and athletics photos in our Flickr albums). Williston’s Shaler Invitational cross-country race drew 17 teams—more than 550 runners—from around New England. Williston’s boys team came in fourth out of 14 and the girls team came in fifth of 13.

For many parents, attending a panel hosted by the Williston College Counseling Office helped start (or continue) the search for the higher education institution that will be the perfect fit for their child. The panel, introduced by Williston Director of College Counseling Catherine McGraw, included Matt Malatesta, vice president for admissions, financial aid, and enrollment at Union College; Gil J. Villanueva, associate vice president and dean of admission at the University of Richmond; and Michael Geller, the New England regional director of admissions/associate director for regional programs at the George Washington University.

Boys cross-country teams at the starting line up
Boys cross-country teams line up at the Shaler Invitational.

Malatesta taught high school social studies at independent schools in New York and Pennsylvania before taking a turn toward admissions. He was director of financial aid at Hamilton College before returning to work for his alma mater, Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

“There’s great success to be had out there,” Malatesta told the audience, and encouraged students and their parents to look for “programs, philosophy, and opportunities” that line up with their needs and values.

Before joining the University of Richmond, Villanueva served as dean of admission and chief admission officer at Brandeis University. He previously worked at Bucknell University and Harvey Mudd College.

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Matt Malatesta of Union College, Gil J. Villanueva from the University of Richmond and Michael Geller of the George Washington University talked college admissions.

Villanueva talked about the three Rs of the college search process: reflection, research, and resources. He added, when visiting schools, don’t pack too many visits in a single day. Seeing one college or university per day will allow a prospective student to really take in the atmosphere of an institution.

Before George Washington University, Geller worked in the Admissions Office for 16 years at Wheaton College. His message was that admissions officers look beyond grades to what those grades actually mean in context. How rigorous were the classes, how ambitious the schedule? “What we want to see is that students have taken a curriculum that appropriately challenges them,” he said. “Just hearing ‘3.5 GPA’ doesn’t tell the whole story.”

McGraw said she was delighted by the high turnout to the panel, which had to be moved to a larger venue to accommodate everyone who signed up to attend.

“We were so excited by the level of parent engagement in the college-search process,” she said, adding she appreciated both the honesty and the levity expressed by the panelists. “We definitely anticipate holding this event every year,” she said.

Fun Things to Do During Fall Family Weekend

screen-shot-2016-10-20-at-4-50-58-pmWhen you’re here for Fall Family Weekend, there’s a whole lot for you to do! We want your time in Easthampton to be the best it can be, whether you’re strolling on the Quad with your student, cheering on the Wildcats, or sitting down to dinner at a local eatery, perhaps one owned by a Williston alum. Here are some options for you to think about as you make your plans:

  1. Watch the Wildcats On the court, in the pool, or on the field, show your Willy pride! There’ll be treats and Williston gear for sale in the Wildcat FanZone on Sawyer Field. Click here for the athletic schedule.
  2. Take in a Show Shakespeare’s madcap play The Comedy of Errors debuts at the Williston Theatre. Williston families are admitted free on Friday night! Read more about the cross-disciplinary nature of the production and find tickets here.
  3. Hit the Town Easthampton and surrounding Hampshire County have a lot to offer! Plenty of entrepreneurial alumni have opened restaurants in the area. This link has regional tourism information for Williston families.
  4. Enjoy our Campus Take a walk around the pond, cross Parents’ Bridge, view beautiful Mount Tom in the background.

We hope you enjoy your weekend at Williston, and the time with your student. For full details on Fall Family Weekend, see our website.