Maranie Harris-Kuiper became involved with diversity at Williston her first day on campus.
“I always look for identity tags when I’m meeting new students, and hers were very clear,” said Bridget Choo, John Wright dorm head and director of diversity. “Kids have them either on their wrists, their sweatshirts, or posters, but hers was a frame of Dr. Martin Luther King sitting on her desk,” she said.
The picture was a gift from Harris-Kuiper’s mother who has admired Dr. King her whole life. His image and life’s work is a point of inspiration for both mother and daughter. Continue reading →
Beginning February 18 the Williston Theatre program presents Wondrous Tales of Old Japan. Written by David Furumoto, the play consists of four folktales told in the theatrically magical style of Japanese Kabuki theater.
The tales told in Wondrous Tales of Old Japan include the story of a boy born from a peach, a fisherman who goes on an undersea journey with a turtle, why cherry trees blossom so early, and the transformation of the Snow Woman.
“Our characters spring to life in front of your eyes and will be walking so close that you could reach out and touch them,” said Theatre Technical Director Charles Raffetto.
Wondrous Tales of Old Japan is produced by special arrangement with Plays For Young Audiences, a partnership of Seattle Children’s Theatre and Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis.
Wondrous Tales of Old Japan by David Furumoto February 18-23, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Tickets: $7 students/seniors, $10 adults and can be purchased here: https://wnsboxoffice.tixato.com/buy
Williston students, faculty, and staff are free.
The Williston Theatre
18 Payson Avenue, Easthampton
Illustration designed by Rob Kimmel, robkimmeldesign.com.
Thank you all for the feedback you’ve provided over the past several days. I am trying to respond by email to each person who has written a comment. Given the inclement weather today, I am afraid to say I’m falling a bit behind on my responses. As some of you may have seen, we are canceling Saturday classes and games and many of our day students are leaving campus this afternoon before the end of the academic day. We are working hard to stay on top of the updates as the weather changes and have been posting any new information on our Community Alerts page.
We are truly grateful for your input and for your willingness to take the time to write to us. The reason we posted this story was because we wanted feedback and we wanted to connect with you (no matter how painful that feedback can be for us to hear).
I wanted to clarify a couple of points, since the same questions seem to be appearing in the comments below. The first is that the seal is not going away. We will continue to use it on our official materials—including diplomas and legal documents. As you can see from the image in the article, the seal still has the tree, the full school name, the founding year, and an outline of Mount Tom—the same elements that it has had since it was first created. The only change we’ve made to the seal is to clarify some of the elements to make it easier to print and read (and to see when it’s reduced to a very small size). The new shield is just one more tool in our Williston Northampton toolbox.
As an alumnus noted in the comments, design by committee is never a good idea. That said, we collected as much input as we could from as many people as we could during this process. We posted the article because we wanted to share it. And, frankly, we’re proud of the work of the school and we’re excited about the future of Williston Northampton.
We feel fortunate that so many alumni care so deeply about the school and feel connected to the community online. We’re grateful you pay attention. And we’d like to hear from you more often about other aspects of the school and the broader Williston Northampton community. Please make sure we have your accurate contact information so we can get in touch with you about any future efforts that we undertake by taking a moment to update your information online (or send us an email at info@williston.com if you need your log in information).
Thank you again. Please stay safe and warm if you are in an area that’s being affected by Nemo today. We hope to be in touch with you again soon.
Each time Physical Plant wants to use a new decal with the Williston Northampton School seal—for a sign, a building, or on the side of a van—Barb Shepard, the administrative assistant, must first sit down and peel tiny pieces of sticker from around every tiny, wavy line.
For five years, the athletic department has worked hard to make uniforms, coaching wear, and travel suits consistent, but Mark Conroy, director of athletics, has noticed that teams still purchase shirts and other gear in odd colors, with designs entirely their own.
When Matt Spearing, director of student activities, ordered rally towels recently, he asked the supplier to come up with ideas for what a print of the school’s mascot might look like. He didn’t have any other image to base it on, he said.
“There was no consistency of font or format,” Spearing said. “It was just what we thought looked good.”
No matter where you looked on campus, one thing was clear, the Williston logo was in need of a makeover.
While the school has always had graphic identity—the visual way Williston is represented on everything from minibuses to business cards—there was little consensus around how that image was used. The seal, designed 25 years ago to imitate the wavy lines of a woodcut, was sometimes used together with the school name, but more often without. In digital form, the seal appeared blurry or too condensed.
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.”
“Our young people made wonderful presentations,” Gunn wrote in an email. “They eloquently defended and extended their ideas in the following discussions.”
Maranie Harris-Kuiper became involved with diversity at Williston her first day on campus.
