Category Archives: Academics

Cortina ’09 wins Student Academy Award

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Production still courtesy of "Bottled Up"

When he first read the email last week, Rafael “Raffy” Cortina ’09 thought it was a prank. He had submitted his senior project, a short film entitled “Bottled Up,” to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but wasn’t expecting to hear back so quickly.

“The announcement came a week early and caught me off guard,” Mr. Cortina said.

What the email announced was that Mr. Cortina’s senior project for Occidental College, a short film called “Bottled Up,” had won a 2013 Student Academy Award—the first such prize for either an Occidental student or Williston Northampton alumnus.

Mr. Cortina was among 16 student winners in five different categories. The filmmakers will find out how they placed during a ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on June 8, when they will be awarded gold, silver, or bronze medals.

Created for his senior comprehensive project, Mr. Cortina’s film had a $3,000 budget, a 14-minute running time, and 15 shots that involved green screens. Despite his financial limitations and a tight, two-day shooting schedule, Mr. Cortina said the whole production went “relatively smoothly.”

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Williston Scholars: Examining the Student-Athlete

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Prep schools often are known for their competitive athletic programs. At the Williston Northampton School, students have the opportunity to go beyond their own play in a course taught by History and Global Studies teacher Diane Williams. Sports Studies, one of this year’s Williston Scholars courses, encourages students to evaluate how gender, race, economics, and politics interact with the world of sports.

“Teaching this class has been a really amazing opportunity to expose student-athletes to a variety of topics related to sport, sport culture, and dominant ideologies in society,” said Diane.

Williston Scholars
With Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in such close proximity, Williston works to take advantage of the diversity and opportunities to be found on those campuses. Over two trimesters, with the help of five college and university professors and staff, Williston Scholars classes introduce students to research and writing more commonly found in higher education.

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Photographers’ Lecture Series Returns with Bill Diodato

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Capturing lipstick as it drips, the gleam of broken eggs, or cockroaches swarming a sneaker-strewn table—and making them look beautiful—requires particular photography skills.

On February 19, as part of the ongoing Photographers’ Lecture Series, commercial and fine art photographer Bill Diodato named some of those skills: patience, preparation, and the ability to stay true to yourself.

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Williston’s We the People Heads to Nationals

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To say that the final scores in the We the People state competition on Saturday were close is putting things mildly. With final scores in the 900-point range, there was a just a 12-point difference between the top two teams.

“It’s like being one point behind in a 90-point basketball game,” said Peter Gunn, faculty advisor for the school’s We the People team. “That’s how close it was.”

On Saturday, January 26, The Williston Northampton School team placed second out of nine schools—just a dozen points behind the winning Academy of Notre Dame. The second place finish was good enough for the team to earn a wild card ticket to the national championships in Washington, DC in April.

“Our young people made wonderful presentations,” Gunn wrote in an email. “They eloquently defended and extended their ideas in the following discussions.”

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Bringing Outside Voices to Sports Studies

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“Are sports connected to what’s happening in the classroom?” It was their search for the answer to that question that lead Smith College professors Don Siegel and Sam Intrator to found an innovative, Springfield-based program called Project Coach.

In early December, the two professors, plus two others from their program, brought that question to students at The Williston Northampton School.

“There’s a notion that what’s going on in the playing fields connects to what’s going on in other parts of kids’ lives,” Siegel told the students. “The way to the boardroom leads through the locker room.”

The same question could be applied to the class—a new Williston Scholars program called Sports Studies. Created by Diane Williams, a history and global studies teacher, the course features a large slate of visiting speakers and is designed to give students local examples of “sports being used in a meaningful way to impact people’s lives.”

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