Category Archives: Williston Northampton News

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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Posted in: Academics, Upper School, Williston Northampton News

Bill Diodato Comes to Williston for Photographers’ Lecture Series

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Commercial and fine art photographer Bill Diodato will be the next speaker in the Photographers’ Lecture Series and will visit The Williston Northampton School on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 6:30 p.m.

Diodato will teach the Advanced Photography class and give a lecture, which is open to the public, at 6:30 p.m. in the Dodge Room of the Reed Campus Center.

According to his website, Bill Diodato, a native of New England, launched his career in New York in 1990 after completing the program at Hallmark School of Photography in Turners Falls. Since then, he has developed a career as an acclaimed commercial and fine-art photographer.He has photographed for magazines including Allure, Marie Claire, Glamour, Self, New York Times Magazine, Travel & Leisure, and Interview. His commercial clients include Hollister, Clinique, Clairol, John Frieda, Biore, Victoria’s Secret, Cole Haan, Niemann Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdales.

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Posted in: Arts, Events, Photographers' Lecture Series, Williston Northampton News

Williston Seniors Hear Early College News

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2012_Poggenpohl_008When it comes to admission decisions, seniors at The Williston Northampton School have faced stiff competition—and have done very well, said Tim Cheney, director of College Counseling. Cheney said that the admission landscape this year continued to be extremely competitive, but that many members of the class of 2013 had begun to hear good news from their top choices.

“The last few years have seen record increases in applications at scores of colleges nationwide,” Cheney wrote in an email. “Simply put, it’s all about supply and demand—there are often too many qualified candidates vying for admission from across the globe and not enough spaces to accommodate them all.”

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Posted in: Williston Northampton News

“Mountains Beyond Mountains” and a Meaningful Identity

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“No union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half slave, and half free.  We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together,” said President Obama in his second inaugural address on Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

On the same day, Smith College Professor of Afro-American studies, Daphne Lamothe P’15, ’16 spoke to the Williston community about a lesson she has learned over time, “a fundamental challenge in life is the construction of a meaningful identity.”

Lamothe introduced her talk entitled, “There are Mountains Beyond Mountains So Put on Your Travelling Shoes,” as a journey through identities she has studied, personal memories of her family’s immigration experience, her academic research on the Harlem Renaissance, and the lyrics of a Montreal-based indie rock band.

Rosedale, Queens, New York
The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Lamothe grew up surrounded by Haitian food, culture, and religion.  When family members and friends from her parent’s village immigrated they all bought houses in such proximity they recreated the community they had left.

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Posted in: Middle School, Upper School, Visiting Speakers, Williston Northampton News

Green Team Brings Composting to Campus

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Kevin Martin pushed back the lid on the giant blue dumpster and stepped aside, letting a handful of students peer at a small mound of lemon rinds, lettuce leaves, broken eggshells, and brown paper bags.

“All of this is generated from the dining hall. It doesn’t come from anywhere else on campus,” said Martin, The Williston Northampton School’s director of dining services.

“Wow! That’s great!” exclaimed one of the students.

The students, members of the school’s Sustainable Life Club, were touring the school’s new compost system, which included the dumpster—a large example of the reduce, reuse, recycle motto they try to embody.

Although school officials have considered composting the waste from the dining hall for several years, it took a final push from these students to make the effort a reality. The new compost bin was installed in early January; on a cold Monday, club members admired the squishy results of their hard work.

The idea of collecting compost on a larger scale first occurred to Nick Pattison ’14 while he was working with the school’s community garden last year. The garden has two compost bins, which garden club members fill with prep scraps from the dining hall.

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Posted in: Student Life, Williston Northampton News